Naomi's Road

by Joy Kogawa

  Naomi’s Road

  Joy Kogawa

  Drawings by Matt Gould

  This book is for my new sister

  Michiko Asami

  First published by Oxford University Press in 1986. presently out of print. Expanded version published by Fitzhenry and Whiteside in 2005, ISBN 1-55005-115-6.

  electronic book published by Hunter Publishing, ISBN: 978-0-9917641-0-5, 2012

  Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  Kogawa, Joy / Naomi's Road

  An adaptation for children of the author's novel Obasan. ISBN 0-19-540547-1

  1. Japanese Canadians — Evacuation and relocation, 1942-1945 —Juvenile fiction.* I. Gould, Matt. H. Title.

  PS8521.044N36 1986, jC813'.54. C86-093856-5 PZ7.K63Na 1986

  Cover and Illustrations by Matt Gloud

  Layout by Baye Hunter

  Published by Hunter Publishing

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing by the publisher.

  Copyright © 2012 Joy Kogawa

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 978-0-9917641-0-5

  A letter from the author

  Dear Children,

  0 Canada! What a vast, beautiful country.

  This little story is told by a Canadian child called Naomi Nakane. She has black hair and lovely Japanese eyes and a face like a valentine. Naomi's story happened in the days before you were born, in the 1940s. In her childhood there was a war going on. Canada and Japan were enemies. How sad that was. Suddenly she had to be ashamed to be Japanese. She did not learn to read or write Japanese and she tried to forget how to speak Japanese. She never used chopsticks with strangers.

  It is hard to understand, but Japanese Canadians were treated as enemies at home, even though we were good Canadians. Not one Japanese Canadian was ever found to be a traitor to our country. Yet our cameras and cars, radios and fishing boats were taken away. After that our homes and businesses and farms were also taken and we were sent to live in camps in the mountains. Fathers and older brothers and uncles were made to work building roads in the Rocky Mountains. If you ever drive through these beautiful mountains, you may ride over some roads made by Japanese Canadians.

  Naomi's road is a different kind of road. It is the path of her life. If you walk with her a while, you will find the name of a very important road.

  1

  "Bong, bong, bong. . ." Six, seven, eight. The grandfather clock in the hall says it's almost time to go to bed. Night's shadowy light is soft and quiet.

  We're all here in the music room, Daddy and Mama and me and my big eight-year-old brother, Stephen. He's sitting on the piano stool beside Mama, his heels bumping against the piano stool's skinny legs. Mama's long skirt touches the floor. Sometimes her buckled shoes tap against the metal bird claws at the bottom of the piano stool legs. Each claw clutches a green glass ball. Behind Stephen, Daddy is bobbing up and down in time to the music.

  "And one, and two, up'n one, and two ..."

  Daddy's long fingers hold a pencil and he makes squiggly marks on Stephen's music books.

  I'm wearing my nemaki—a nightie—and sitting in the high-backed wicker chair by the windows. Mama gave me a tea biscuit after my bath tonight. The goldfish in the bowl by the window ledge look like they want a piece.

  Mama waves to me to sit beside her. "Come," she says, but I'm going to stay with the goldfish. We listen as Mama sings one of my kindergarten songs. Her voice is yasashi—soft and tender. Mama is always yasashi.

  "How did you, Miss Daffodilly,

  Get your pretty dress?

  Is it made of gold and sunshine?

  Yes, child, yes."

  The wicker chair is big enough for me to curl up in. I make myself round as a peach while Mama sings. Daddy comes and nibbles my biscuit. He pretends he’s a monkey at the zoo. He makes such silly faces as he nibbles.

  "Sleepy?" Mama asks me when she finishes singing. "Have you had the biscuit?"

  I nod my head. I'm not really sleepy, but I want to be in bed to hear the story.

  “Goodnight," we say to Daddy and Stephen and the goldfish and off we go.

  First we walk through the dark living room where Stephen and l sometimes play with his red-coated lead soldiers. Then into the dining room and across to my bedroom with its long, white lacy curtains.

  Past the curtains are the branches of the peach tree right outside my window. Once when my window was open a robin came and stood on the ledge and didn't fly away. It looked right at me. Above my bed I have a picture of a little green bird in a green tree. The sky is green too.

  Mama pulls back the blue patchwork quilt and I climb into bed. I can smell the powder that she pats on her face and neck with her powder puff.

  "What story shall I tell tonight?" she asks.

  "Momotaro. Tell me Momotaro," I say to Mama almost every night. I love the story of Momotaro. It's my favorite ever since I was a baby.

  Sometimes Mama lies down on the bed beside me and her sweet perfume smell is close against my face.

  "Once upon a time, a long time ago," she begins, "there was an old old man and an old old woman who lived in a little cottage in a forest." They're very very dear but so lonely, Mama says, because they have no children. Little children are more special and dear than anything you can think of. One day, when the old woman is washing clothes, she finds a huge golden peach rumbling and tumbling down the stream.

  "Ah, and what do you suppose is in the peach?" Mama asks.

  When I was little I used to clap my hands and hide my face in the pillow every time Mama asked this.

  "Momotaro!" I'd cry out. "Momotaro!"

  Even now though I'm bigger, I feel happy just thinking of the beautiful baby peach boy hidden in the middle of a giant peach.

  I hug Mama and she sings the peach boy song. "Momotaro, Momotaro, Momotaro-san."

  I'd love to find a peach baby. I'd love to have a dear old grandfather and a dear old grandmother. Most of all though, I want to be a child forever and forever.

  But children grow up.

  "That's the way it goes," Stephen says.

  2

  The small green peaches on the peach tree outside my window are the size of Stephen's marbles at first. Daddy says we'll eat them when they're as big as my bouncing ball.

  One afternoon, when some of the peaches are almost ready to pick, I'm playing with my dolls by the window. I have a teddy and a mouse, a nurse doll and my favorite Japanese baby doll. The doll has tiny red lips with two little teeth. Her hair is just like mine—short with straight bangs. I have a blue and white tea set with little spoons as thin as toothpicks and a tin stove with a tin kettle full of water. The mouse is singing its mouse song with me when Ralph, the big boy who lives down the alley, comes to play. He's looking for Stephen.

  "What're you doing?" he asks. He sits down on the floor and picks up my stove. "Want your kettle to boil?" Ralph takes a box of matches from his pocket.

  I've never made a fire before. Ralph takes out a match and shows me how to swish it against the side of the box. The fire is so sudden and so hot that I drop the match. Then—surprise! A swift curl of fire runs along the edge of the lace curtain. The fire leaps and flies upwards. It's fast as a bird flying out of a bush.

  "Oh oh!" Ralph shouts. He sounds afraid. "Look what you did, Naomi!" He runs out of the room. "You'll get a spanking."

  I stand for a moment watching the curtain burning. My mother and father never spank me or Stephen. The fire catches the other curtain and the flames rush to the window top.

  Mama is downstairs. She'll know what to do. I run
down and call her.

  "Mama!"

  She comes quickly. Bits of burning curtains are dropping through the air. She doesn't shout like Ralph did but runs back and forth with water from the kitchen. And there, on the floor, the dots of fire turn into soggy puddles.

  When it's over, we sit on my bed and look at the round black spot on the ceiling.

  "What happened?" Mama asks quietly.

  The burnt match on the floor is shrivelled and black. It crumbles as I pick it up.

  "Dangerous, isn't it?" Mama says softly. Her voice is yasashi. I'm glad she's not afraid like Ralph was. Because Mama isn't afraid, I'm not afraid either.

  "A match is safe if you know how to blow it out," Mama says. Everything's safe where Mama is. I sit close to her, the safest place in the world.

  But one day, Mama's packing to go away. My great-grandmother in Japan is sick.

  "Come," Mama says when she sees me standing in the doorway watching.

  "Can I go with you?" I ask as I help her pack.

  Mama takes her crystal necklace off and puts it around my neck. "Another time," she says, straightening the necklace.

  "Will you be back for my birthday?" I ask. I'm going to be six soon.

  Mama nods. "Obasan will take care of you. And you'll take care of Obasan, won't you?" she says. "Obasan will make lots of onigiri." Obasan is my aunt. When she visits she brings sticky onigiri rice balls with the salty red plum in the middle.

  The day Mama goes away, it's bright and sunshiny. We're down by the sea where the big boats are—Daddy and Stephen and Uncle and Obasan and me. Streamers and streamers and streamers are everywhere. The pink and yellow and blue and green ribbons of paper twirl and sway through the noisy air. It's like a giant maypole dance. Once, when I was very little, I ran into a maypole dance to find Mama but I got caught in the streamers. Today Mama is nowhere. Daddy lifts me in his arms and points to the boat. "See?" he asks. "Can you see?"

  Stephen is running around picking up some unused rolls of streamers. He stuffs them into Daddy's pockets.

  I can't see Mama. All the streamers are in the way. All the people are in the way.

  "Mama," I call out. I want to shout louder but shouting isn't polite.

  In all the noise I can't hear her answering me. Instead, the boat blasts its giant whistle and suddenly all the people's hands are as windy and wild as my peach tree branches in a storm.

  "Goodbye, Mama," Stephen shouts. "Goodbye!"

  I wish I could hide inside Mama's coat, like I did when I was little. I look down at the white woolly flowers she sewed on the bottom of my blue wool dress. One of them is coming undone. I pull the flower off for Mama to fix. She even put some perfume on the flowers so they would smell real.

  When we get home, I put the woolly flower under my pillow so I can still smell Mama when I go to bed. Stephen comes to say goodnight.

  "Here," he says and gives me three of his streamer rolls.

  Daddy says Obasan is going to sleep on a cot in my room until Mama comes home.

  In the morning, I'm surprised to see Obasan's long black braid hanging down her back. I've only seen her hair in a bun at the back of her head. Stephen and I watch as she puts hairpins in her bun. Hairpins, hairpins, she has a hundred hairpins.

  "What has long legs and crooked thighs, no head and no eyes?" Stephen asks. It's a hairpin riddle.

  But Obasan doesn't understand riddles. She doesn't understand English very well. She smiles at Stephen anyway.

  Obasan is soft and gentle like Mama. Her velvet dressing gown and her quilt are soft too. Sometimes I curl up in her cot because her quilt is so fluffy.

  3

  I don't understand why Mama is taking so long to come home.

  "She'll come back when she can, Little One," Daddy says.

  Stephen is getting grumpier and grumpier. "But when is that, Daddy?" Stephen asks.

  "I don't know exactly," Daddy says.

  "You don't know. I don't know. We don't know. They don't know." Stephen says. "Nobody knows anything." Stephen stomps into the music room and plays loud angry music on the piano.

  The questions make everyone unhappy. After a while I stop asking.

  At night, I sleep with my Japanese doll and whisper secrets to her. I wish and wish my doll could talk. One of my picture books that Mama used to read is about a doll that came to life.

  "How can I make you talk?" I ask my doll. But she never says anything.

  I pretend that she has a teeny tiny voice that only I can hear. When I hold her mouth up to Daddy's ear, he smiles. But he says he can't hear her.

  "What's she saying, Button Face?" Daddy asks.

  "She's asking you when Mama's coming home."

  "Oh," Daddy says. Then he stares and stares at the sky. "She can't come home till the war is over," he says quietly.

  "What's war?" I ask.

  Daddy tells me that war is a terrible terrible thing. It is the worst and saddest thing in the world. People get hurt and learn to be afraid. It's like the time the burning match made the fire in my room. War is more dangerous even than that.

  One afternoon Stephen comes running home from his music lessons. His glasses and his violin are broken. There are black wet crying marks on his face. Obasan is hanging clothes on the line when she sees him.

  "What happened?" she asks softly. Her voice is yasashi, like Mama's.

  Stephen doesn't answer. Obasan takes his broken violin and they go into the kitchen. She wipes his face. Stephen is cross because I'm watching. So I take my doll and go downstairs. We hide under Daddy's cot in his study. My doll cries because Stephen was crying.

  “There's a war. That's why Stephen got hurt," I tell the doll.

  My doll jumps up and down angrily on the floor. "War is stupid!" she shouts. Now my doll can talk. But she can't say words very well. "Toop it! Toop it! Toop it!" she says. The doll is so angry she breaks her hand. Then she cries and cries because she is hurt and wants Mama to come home and fix her.

  After a while the doll lies down on her back and stares up at the bottom of the bed. All over the mattress, there are white cotton tufts like bunny tails.

  "I wish Mama was here," the doll says. "Then we would be safe as bunnies.

  "Go to sleep, Dolly," I tell her. "I'll take care of you.”

  Later at night, she wakes me up because she's frightened. I'm frightened too. The night light in the hall is out. The street lights are out. Such darkness! This is what Stephen calls a "black-out." The whole city is hiding. If an enemy in an airplane sees us he might drop a bomb. The bomb would make a huge fire and burn the house. Then what would we do?

  I’m so afraid I can hardly move. I want to find Daddy. He's playing the piano softly in the music room. I feel my way in the darkness till I find him.

  "Couldn't you sleep, my Little One?" he asks.

  I climb into his lap and hug him tight.

  He sings the daffodilly song. And then he sings “the mountain and the squirrel had a quarrel," a funny song Stephen learned at school. Daddy is trying to make me laugh. But I don't feel like laughing now when the whole world is dark.

  4

  "You're a big boy, Stephen," Daddy says one day. "Take good care good care of your sister and practise piano."

  We're playing with Stephen’s cars and trucks and soldiers on the deep blue Indian rug in the living room. The lead soldiers are marching on the zigzag border. We pretend it's a winding road. Soldiers aren't as much fun as dolls. All they can do is fight and fall down dead.

  Daddy kneels beside us. He has to go away, he says. And Uncle has already gone. “Be good, children. Listen to Obasan,” he says. "Say your prayers every day.”

  That's the last thing Daddy tells us before he goes away. And then one day soon, Obasan says we're going away too.

  “Where are we going?'' Stephen asks. "On a holiday," she says, "Imagine! Mountains! And a train!"

  "Will we be gone for a long time?”

  "Perhaps," Obasan says.


  “We’re going on holiday! We’re going on a holiday!” I tell my doll.

  "Oh," says the doll and does a tap dance on the floor.

  But on the day we leave, my doll feels afraid. She doesn't like the noise of all the people at the train station. The small children are holding their mothers' hands and legs and skirts. Some of them are holding their dolls like I am. Many of the children look scared. They don't answer me when I say hello to them.

  None of the white children from our street are here. None of the white children from Stephen's school are here either.

  The train is full of strangers. It smells of oil and soot and orange peels. If you stand up you almost fall over, as if you were on a rocking chair. The soot on the window ledge jiggles and jumps like little black flies.

  A few seats in front, there's a tiny red-faced baby. The baby's eyes are closed and the mouth is squinched shut small as a button. If I lean out farther, I can see the tiny pink fist. It's squashed like a marshmallow against the baby's cheek.

  "Go and see the new baby," Obasan says. She gives me an orange to take. But I feel shy. There are too many strangers. And Mama and Daddy aren't here.

  Obasan finds a towel and some apples and oranges and takes them to the baby's mother. She bumps from side to side as she goes. The baby's mother bows deeply. She almost folds herself in half over the baby.

  Close to our seats there's a humpbacked little old woman. Her back is round as a church bell. She bounces off the seat as Obasan comes back. The old woman is so short. When she stands she's shorter than when she was sitting. She holds the train seat and bends forward.

  "Something for the baby," she says. She begins to take off her white flannel underskirt.

  "Ah, ah, Grandmother," Obasan says gently.