Naomi's Road

by Joy Kogawa

"It is clean," the old woman says. "Last night it was washed."

  Obasan holds her in the rock-rock of the train. They sway together back and forth. The old woman is careful not to let the underskirt touch the floor.

  "For a diaper," the old woman says. She folds the underskirt into a neat square. Her fingers are stiff and curled. They look like the driftwood you find on the beach.

  Obasan bows and takes the present. She puts it on the young mother's lap. Their heads bob like birds as they talk. I hold my doll up so she can watch them.

  Outside the train window, the trees are zipping past. What would it be like, I wonder, to be lost in the woods. I would have to walk and walk and walk. But I might never find the way home. At night there'd be wolves and bears. Maybe there would even be snakes.

  What if I climbed up a tree and couldn't get down again?

  I stop looking at the trees and bring out my toys to play with. I have a red, white, and blue ball, and a Mickey Mouse that can walk by itself down a slope. I ask Stephen if he wants to play, but he stares out the window. He's doing piano exercises with his fingers on his knees.

  After a while my doll feels sleepy. I put her to bed on a blanket on Obasan's lap. There's enough room for my head beside the doll. Obasan's face is quiet and calm. Her hand taps my back as I fall asleep. "Nen, nen," Obasan sings. It's a lullaby Mama used to sing to me when I was a baby. "Nen, nen."

  5

  The train coughs and shudders as it stops. What place is this? There are mountains and mountains everywhere. People are crowding out of the train.

  I hold onto Obasan's skirt. If I let go, I'll be lost. She's carrying two suitcases. Such jumping and bumping and boxes and bags. It's even noisier than the train station in Vancouver. But there are no streetcars or street lights here.

  "Look, it's Slocan," Stephen says. He points to a sign on the train station. Behind the station, the tops of the mountains are white and purple. "Bears are up there," Stephen says, "and eagles and lynxes.”

  "I'm busy following Obasan. She's found a man with a wheelbarrow and she's looking for some boxes in a huge pile of luggage. A boy in a gray suit has a kitten. The kitten seems to be mewing but there's so much noise I can't hear it.

  And then we're walking along a road following a minister and the man with the wheelbarrow. I met the minister before in Vancouver. He has a round face and round glasses. He used to visit us in our house.

  After we've walked awhile, we come to a rickety wooden bridge. Below us the water jumps and skips along, bouncing over the rocks. On the bank of the stream, a crow is hop-hopping on skinny legs as stiff as lead soldiers' legs. I want my doll to talk to the crow.

  "Where's my doll?" I ask, calling ahead to Obasan.

  Obasan stops and turns around. She looks at the luggage on the wheelbarrow. Her voice sounds worried. "Ara!" she says.

  She lifts pieces of luggage one by one from the wheelbarrow. My doll is lost!

  The man pushing the wheelbarrow comes and squats down in front of me. "We'll find the doll," he says. He slaps his knees as if he's already found her. His round face is full of crinkly laugh lines.

  "Did we leave her on the train?" I ask.

  "We'll find her," the man says.

  I want to cry because my doll is lost. But Obasan says not to worry. She takes my hand.

  Stephen is ahead of us. The woods are so thick I can't see him.

  "Wait! Stephen!" I call, running to catch up.

  He's staring and staring. "See that?" he says, pointing. I can't see anything except trees and trees and more trees. Beneath us, the ground is soft and bumpy. There are fat pine cones and little acorn hats. Ferns are spread open like green fans.

  "Can't you see it?" Stephen says. He's impatient with me.

  We walk a few more steps and there, hidden in the woods, is a small gray hut.

  "That's where we're going to live," Stephen says.

  It looks like a giant toadstool. It's surrounded by tall weeds. Is it a real house, I wonder.

  Stephen clumps up the porch steps and pushes open the front door. It scrapes along the floor. How gray everything is. There's a dead dried bumble-bee on the window sill. Dusty newspapers cover the walls instead of wallpaper. Everything looks gray. I've never seen such a dusty little house. Maybe it's the home of the three bears. But there's no porridge waiting in a great big bowl or a middle-sized bowl or a wee little bowl. There's only the dead bee by the gray window, and the weeds outside that look as if they want to come in.

  6

  Every morning I wake up in a narrow bunk bed near the stove. I wish and wish we could go home. I don't want to be in this house of the bears with newspaper walls. I want to be with Mama and Daddy and my doll in our real house. I want to be in my own room where the picture bird sings above my bed. And the real bird sings in the peach tree outside my bedroom window. But no matter how hard I wish, we don't go home.

  The house is so crowded we can barely move around. In one small room there are two beds. One is for Obasan. The other is for a long-faced woman called Nomura-obasan. She's not well, Obasan says, and we must take care of her.

  Daddy's sick too, Stephen says. His letters are from a hospital somewhere in the woods.

  "When is he coming here?" I ask Obasan one night. We're sitting at the table after supper. The coal-oil lamp is on. "When will he get better?"

  Nobody answers me. Nobody knows.

  Stephen is practising his pieces on a folding cardboard piano Daddy made. "The world is beautiful as long as there is music," Daddy wrote. "Keep the world beautiful, Stephen. If you listen hard you can hear all the notes."

  Sometimes Stephen and I pretend we're at home again in our music room and the cardboard piano is real. We play guessing games and I have to guess which songs he's playing. Even if I'm older now, I like singing the kindergarten songs the best.

  Obasan is washing the supper dishes. She fills the basin from the water bucket by the stove. "Plip" says the dipper and "szt szt" goes the water as it spills on the hot stove. The box beside the stove is full of logs and kindling wood. Obasan and Stephen chop the logs outside on a stump.

  Behind the house there's a path that goes up the mountain. If we climbed all the way we'd reach the sky. On our way up Stephen and I find tart red strawberries the size of shirt buttons. And there are goose-berries, shiny and round as marbles. We find floppy dark mushrooms too, growing on dead trees. Obasan will know if they're safe to eat. In early spring curly fiddleheads poke out of the ground. They look like green question marks. We fill our jam pails and bring them all home to Obasan.

  From a high rocky ledge past a waterfall, we can see the world. Far below is the silvery river. And further away, rows and rows of little houses are tiny as toy blocks. Pencil-thin lines of smoke curl out of chimneys. Hundreds and hundreds of boys and girls like Stephen and me live in the toy block houses. Two families share each house and each family has one room. If you wanted to walk around you'd have to be as small as a doll.

  In the spring and summer we all play outside. But then winter comes.

  One cold day Stephen and I are playing outside. The minister and another man are carrying a cot through the fluffy falling snow.

  "For Uncle," the minister says when Stephen points to the cot.

  "What?" Stephen interrupts excitedly. "Is Uncle coming here?"

  When we get home, Obasan nods solemnly. "Yes, Uncle is coming tonight."

  "Really?" I ask. "Is Daddy coming too? Can we go home?"

  Nomura-obasan shakes her head sadly. "Not yet," she says.

  "Come," Obasan says brightly. She wipes her hands on her apron. "There's so much to do. Just think! Uncle is on his way."

  We're like elves hopping about all afternoon. Obasan cooks the dried mushrooms and fiddleheads. I make paper decorations and paper baskets for jelly beans.

  Even Nomura-obasan tries to help, but her hands are too shaky.

  As we work, the snow keeps falling. The fence post looks like it's wearing a tall hat
. Stephen puts his hand on the window to melt the frost so he can see. But after a while it gets dark.

  At last we hear a stomp stomp outside. Stephen throws the door open and in comes Uncle in a whoosh of snow.

  "Uncle!" Stephen cries.

  Uncle puts down his wooden box and sack and shakes the snow off his coat. His arms are wide as Papa Bear's. "Hello hello hello," he says as he lifts Stephen up.

  Obasan takes off her apron. She folds her hands in front of her. "Welcome home," she says. "You are just in time."

  Uncle looks at all the food and the decorations on the table. "Ah," he says, "it must be Christmas."

  "You have come such a long way," Nomura-obasan says. She is sitting up in bed and bows forward. Uncle bows as well and they both say, "It is such a long time."

  Then he squats in front of me and scratches his head.

  "And this big girl. Who can she be?" he asks. He's joking, of course, but I wonder if I've changed. He still looks the same.

  He turns to his sack and takes out two wooden flutes. With a whoop, Stephen leaps to Uncle. And then Stephen's fingers are dancing lightly over the smooth wood. At once the room fills with a bright dancing sound. Uncle slaps his knees as Stephen hops around and round the wooden box chairs. Stephen is like a rooster, crowing with his head up high. He plays and plays.

  "Oh there will be dancing," Nomura-obasan says, clapping her hands.

  "You're just like your father," Uncle says, patting Stephen on the back. "Music all the time."

  7

  With Uncle here now, the little house changes. Shelves and benches and wallpaper appear.

  One calm summer day, Obasan and Uncle are tending the garden. Stephen is drumming on a tub drum and I'm at the lake with Kenji, a boy my age who lives in one of the small block houses. His wobbly glasses bounce up and down his nose when he jumps.

  He's paddling around on a log raft. I'd like to go with him but Uncle says I mustn't go on rafts. The water is cool and tickly against my toes.

  I'm wearing my green and white bathing suit. Close by is our sand-castle village. We make sand houses with grass-top trees and white-pebble sidewalks. There are twig chimneys, twig bridges, twig people, and one fat twig dog with three legs.

  Kenji and I are playing when Rough Lock Bill comes to watch us. Rough Lock Bill is a tall skinny man with hair like seaweed. He sits on the sand and talks to us as we play. I can see his big toe sticking out of his sock.

  "What's your name?" he asks me.

  "Her name's Naomi," Kenji replies.

  "Can't talk?" he asks me again. He hands me a stick. "Here," he says. "Can you print? Print your name."

  I brush the wet sand off my hands and take the stick. NAOMI, I print in large letters.

  "Aha," Rough Lock Bill says. "Naomi."

  He picks up one of the stick people. "Is this you?" he asks me.

  I shake my head. After a while he picks up all our stick people and tells us stories. When he gets tired he goes back to his house beside the beach. We can see him rocking in his chair.

  Kenji gets tired of our sand village. "Let's go in the water," he says. He jumps up and runs to his raft. The raft wobbles as he gets on.

  "Come on, Naomi," he calls. A long pole is in his hand. He pushes the raft closer to the shore. "Climb on," he says. "I won't go far."

  The water makes my toes curl up tight. I've never gone into deep water. But I kneel on the wobbly raft.

  "Okay," Kenji says. He leans on the pole. The raft scoots out over the water. I lie down on the wet logs. My toes dangle over the edge. There are small gray fish swimming beside us. After a while the water feels colder. When I look up, I can't see the sand village at all.

  "It's too far here, Kenji," I say. I feel afraid now. "Let's go back."

  "Just one more shove," Kenji says. He leans back, lifting one leg and the pole high in the air. Down goes the pole straight into the water. Then—splash! Kenji tumbles sideways and falls overboard. Whoosh! The cold water sprays over my back, and the raft bounces on the waves. I feel like a cat on a see-saw. There's nowhere to hold. I'm on my hands and knees trying to balance.

  Kenji is paddling around and shaking the water out of his hair. He has his glasses in his teeth, like a dog. I can see the pole behind us further out in the lake. Kenji's trying to say something to me through his teeth as he swims to shore. But I can't hear him.

  When he gets to the beach he stands up and waves.

  "Jump!" he shouts.

  "I can't," I shout back. "I can't swim."

  He holds his hands up to the sides of his head. He can't see me without his glasses. Then slowly, he steps backwards till he's out of the water.

  I know he can't help me. He doesn't know how to help. His hands are stiff beside him. I know he's afraid. He turns and runs down the beach. He won't come back.

  The raft drifts in the still lake. Last month a boy drowned in this lake. I must decide quickly what to do. If I wait, the raft will go further and further and I'll be lost.

  I feel sick and afraid. Then I jump.

  Down I go. Down, down, down. Water is in my ears. Water is in my nose. Water is in my head. Water is everywhere. I can't breathe. I can't see. I can't tell where the air is or where the shore is. I splash and gasp and swallow air and water. Again and again I'm whirled around in the choking dizziness. I try to cry out but the sound I make is like an animal growling.

  After a horrible time something is pulling me along through the water. I feel as limp as laundry on a line. Suddenly my ears clear. There's a whack whack on my back.

  "Okay, okay, I gotcha," a man's voice says.

  Between gasps, I'm breathing. I'm breathing and I know I'm safe. Water gushes from my nose and mouth.

  Rough Lock Bill places me on my stomach on the sand. He turns my head sideways on his red and blue plaid shirt. I can feel the sand against my cheek. When I move my knees up, more water comes out of my stomach and throat and nose. I wipe my nose on the sleeve and close my eyes.

  "That's it," Rough Lock says. He peers at me.

  More than anything in the world, I wish Mama was here.

  After a while, Rough Lock Bill carries me piggy-back to our hut. He tells Stephen what happened and Stephen tells Obasan and Uncle.

  "Thank you. Thank you," Uncle says to Rough Lock Bill. "Thank you for saving Naomi."

  8

  When I'm well again, Obasan tells me I must learn to swim.

  "Water is dangerous," she says, "if you cannot swim."

  We're in the women's bathhouse in Slocan with mothers and girls and little children. Uncle and Stephen are on the other side of the wall in the men's bathhouse.

  Our bathhouse has a long bench by the door where we put our clothes. I'm squatting on the wood-slatted floor, scrubbing Obasan's back. Nomura-obasan is here today. She's so well now that she can come to the bath. She's going to move back to her daughter's family.

  "When you learn to walk, you can climb mountains," Obasan says. "And when you learn to swim, you can ride on rafts. Life is for learning many things."

  I dip the basin into the big square bath full of hot water. So many girls and women are soaking and chatting in the steamy room. When I rinse all the soap off Obasan, we climb back into the hot water. I feel so drowsy I almost fall asleep. Obasan tells me that there are many things to learn. I must learn to read and print and write. I must learn to add and subtract. I must learn about animals and insects and people and trees. School is a place to learn all these things.

  A year has passed since we came to Slocan, and a school has been built. It's half a mile away, where everyone lives in the rows and rows of huts.

  The path to school is through the forest. Every school day, Stephen and I carry our lunches and schoolbags. For lunch I have a boiled egg and dandelion greens and Obasan's onigiri rice balls with a salty red plum in the middle. Stephen takes sandwiches and an apple or an orange.

  On the way home from school, Stephen and I walk by a big white house. There's a swing
in the back yard. A pretty girl about my age lives there. She has light golden hair like Goldilocks. Sometimes, before we reach her yard, we can see her swinging on her swing. Higher and higher she goes, her toes pointing up to the sky.

  One day we stand at the fence and watch her.

  "Boy," Stephen says. "I bet she'll go right around."

  Toys are all over her backyard, like a toy store. There's a doll carriage and a doll house and a doll's tea set on a doll's table. And there are two real live white bunnies hopping in a pen. I wish I could hold the bunnies. They look as fluffy and soft as cotton wool.

  The golden-haired girl sees us standing at the fence. She scrapes her feet on the ground to stop her swinging. Then she jumps off.

  "What are you staring at?" she asks. She sounds angry. I want to run away into the trees. She makes a face at us and stomps her feet.

  "Go away," she shouts.

  What a mean girl. "Come on," I say to Stephen. I start to walk down the path.

  But Stephen is angry. He whacks at the grass with his lunch pail.

  "Go 'way," the girl shouts again.

  "Why should I?" Stephen says. "This is a free country."

  "It's not your country," the girl says.

  "It is so," Stephen says.

  "It is not," she shouts.

  A red and white checked curtain in the window behind her moves. There's a woman who also has golden hair, looking out at us. She raps on the window with her knuckles. The girl looks back. The woman is shaking her head.

  "I can't play with you," the girl says in a sing-song voice. She points her chin to the sky and turns her head.

  I run through the trees, taking a short cut away from the path. The thick pine-needle floor crackles as I go. I can hear Stephen behind me hitting the trees with his lunch pail.

  9

  I don't like the horrid girl. I don't like walking by her house. I don't like school either. In the morning I don't like having my hair combed. My hair is getting long and Obasan braids it in pigtails. I don't like my pigtails.