“Do you have a broken ankle?” I asked.
“What?”
“I smell a broken ankle. My friend had a broken ankle once and this is the smell.”
“What you smell is the paint. They’re oil paints!” Mr. Nakano said as he laughed. “Smell of a broken ankle . . . that’s a good one!”
He carefully placed the fan in a can, then found an empty spot on a paint-stained rag and wiped his brush. He rested his hands on his knees and looked up at me with full attention.
“How are you, Shizu? Are you going to sing a song for me, today?”
I was beginning to tire of that. He doesn’t really want me to sing. I guess that’s all he can think of to say to me. But I mustn’t be rude.
“If you want to hear me sing, you’ll have to go to the ‘singspiration’ they have at the grandstand.”
“Then that’s what I’ll have to do,” he said with a laugh. “I’d like to go listen. Let me know when you’re singing.”
“Actually, you can join us at the ‘singspiration.’ You can sing, too. We do that every Friday evening at the grandstand. Just follow your ears! But that’s enough about singing. I want to know what you’re doing!” I said, pointing to the fan he had just placed in the can. He picked it up and held it up for me to see.
“Oji-san!” I said (Oji-san was the equivalent of “mister” in English), “that is really beautiful!” It looked complete, but he said that he was in the process of putting the finishing touches on the flaming red poppies in a field at the base of a mountain.
“Where’d you learn to do that?” I asked.
“I was a painter in Japan,” he said as he took a tube of reddish paint and squeezed a tiny blob on his paint-smeared board. A smaller amount of yellow was added to that. He picked up a tool that looked like a knife with dull edges and pressed the colors together until it resembled one of Brian’s red marbles with yellow streaks. Then he took one of the many brushes he had sitting in a can and wiped it with a rag. This brush was small and had bristles that came to a point. He poked his brush into the pigment, then dabbed at the center of each flower.
“You painted pictures in Japan? So, why did you leave?” I asked.
“I couldn’t sell enough paintings to support my family. I have a wife and a little girl who was about your age when I left. I came here to get rich and then return to my family and my painting . . . but I just can’t seem to save enough.”
“Oh,” I wasn’t sure what to say to that. So I continued to ask about his family in Japan. “So they must all be in Japan. I’m really sorry that you aren’t all together. Who’s taking care of them, if you aren’t there?”
“I left Japan twenty years ago,” he said. Then he stood up suddenly and said, “Would you like a fan? I’ve made lots of them. You could choose one you like.” He motioned for me to follow as he walked across the way to his apartment. “Come on and I’ll show you what I have.” He led me into the room he shared with three other men. Dense burlap covered the windows, so little light penetrated the room. I stood for a moment looking at them.
“They keep the room cool,” he said.
“It doesn’t feel very cool to me,” I said. “Wouldn’t it be cooler if you just opened the windows?”
“We open all the windows at night. In the morning, we close up the room and cover the windows. It would be a lot hotter if we opened the windows and let the hot air in during the middle of the day.”
Beds were lined up against the walls with boxes and suitcases between. The beds were covered with army blankets without bedspreads or blanket covers. One man was sitting on his in the semi-darkness, writing something, using his lap as a table. The other beds were empty. Oji-san’s bed was in the far corner and next to it was a box filled with decorated fans, like a vase filled with flowers. He lifted a corner of the burlap curtain so that a hot stream of light shone on them. Oji-san laid the fans out on his bed. They were all about the same size, made entirely of wood, including the handles. But each was painted with a different picture. There were blooms of flowers, majestic mountains, portraits . . . everything you could imagine.
“This is incredible! Is there nothing you don’t paint?” I asked.
Oji-san smiled and said, “Take any one you like.”
“Are you sure? Don’t you want to sell them?”
“I want you to have one. Choose whatever you like.”
I examined each one carefully. It was a difficult choice. So many and so beautiful. Finally, I picked one with cherry blossoms. I turned it over to discover red peonies and two small yellow butterflies on the other side! The colors were vivid and the subjects very clearly drawn, stunning in their simplicity. They were exact copies of pictures found on hana cards.
“I like this one!” I said.
“Ah. You like the hana-card picture,” he said as he laughed. “Take it. It’s yours.”
“Are you sure? It’s so beautiful. Maybe you’d like to paint the entire deck. You might want this, if you do.”
“It’s yours, Shizu. Take it,” he said. He looked pleased that I had found one I liked. Then he stood silent for a moment and just looked at me.
“Shizu, if you’re interested, I could teach you how to paint with oil. Is that something you’d want to do?”
“That would be so great! I’d love it! I’d have to ask my parents first, of course. But I’m sure they won’t mind. Thank you so much!”
I ran home to tell Mama.
“Look what the man from the hotel gave me!”
“What man from the hotel? Where’ve you been?” When I told her what had happened, she became very upset.
“You shouldn’t be taking gifts from strangers, and you certainly shouldn’t be going into a man’s room!” She snatched the fan from me.
“Where’s he live? This fan has to be returned!”
“He lives just beyond the mess hall on the way to Uncle William’s to visit Cousin Jean. He sits outside his apartment painting. But I don’t understand! He’s not a stranger. It’s Mr. Nakano. He used to live at Grandpa’s hotel. What did I do wrong?”
“You are never to go into a man’s room again! Do you understand? He could have hurt you!”
He didn’t hurt me. He was a very generous man. He offered to teach me to paint. But Mama just didn’t understand. She wouldn’t listen to me. And I didn’t dare disobey Mama. Particularly since she was so upset about it. I would have to find another route to my cousin’s. I hoped I would never see him again. I was so embarrassed. Thankfully, I never did. But Mr. Nakano did go on to teach other children to draw without hurting them.
* * *
Since it was summer, there was no formal school, but there were some organized activities for children, aside from Mr. Nakano’s art class. About a week after we arrived we reported to the stables, which were nestled under the trees. We were divided by grade level and sang or played games. These sessions were held in the morning in the stables or in the grandstand. They were over by noon, because the afternoons were so hot. So we were on our own during the heat of the day.
One hot afterneen, I bumped into Haruko, who had been in my class at Franklin School. She was a very pretty girl with long, thick lashes that shaded her round eyes like the black bill on my brother Brian’s baseball cap. The sausage curls, tied in bunches on either side of her head with bows, cascaded down past her shoulders and bounced when she walked. The bows always matched her pinafores. The freshly starched ruffles arched over her shoulders like the wings on a delicate butterfly. Her mother must have spent hours on her pretty daughter, I thought. I guessed that if I were as pretty as she was, Mama might have spent as much time on me.
We spent many afternoons on the race track jumping partitions. They were used to separate horses at the starting gate when our camp was a fairground. The partitions were high so we had to pull ourselves up. They were wide enough to stand on and far enough apart from each other that it was a challenge to leap from one to the other.
The goal was
to develop a rhythm, so we could leap them one after another without stopping. I would place my hands on a partition, jump up so I could straighten my arms and support myself, then kick my legs up. Then I would help Haruko. It was more difficult for her because of her dress. It would get caught under her legs as she tried to hike up. All we could do is jump one partition at a time. After a day of play at the starting gate, Haruko’s pinafore would wilt like an abused flower. But she was always back the following day, freshly starched and vibrant.
One day one of the more agile kids who had been leaping partitions somehow fell backward and injured her back. We stayed with her until an olive green ambulance with a large red cross on it arrived to take her to the hospital.
“I don’t think we should play here anymore,” I told Haruko. “It’s too dangerous. We’ve got to find somewhere else to play.”
“I know another great place,” said Haruko. “It’s cool and grassy. It’s very close to the fence and almost looks like it’s ‘outside.’”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to be anywhere near the fence since my experience with Brian, but decided to go along with Haruko anyway.
“Why haven’t you said anything about it before?”
“Well, that’s because it’s so different from anything else in the camp. Not many people go there. I want to keep it that way. I don’t want too many people to know about it,” she said, “It’s my secret place, so you have to promise not to tell.”
“I won’t tell anyone else about it, if you don’t want me to. But what about my brother? Is it all right to tell him?”
“Especially your brother! We don’t want a lot of boys invading the area. Boys will be wanting to play baseball and wrestle and be rowdy. We want to be able to play croquet there in peace. It’ll make my mother happy, too. She’s been after me for messing up my dresses.”
“Okay. I get it.”
“It’s so much safer than jumping partitions,” Haruko said.
“Anything is safer than jumping partitions. Why don’t we go to this place now?”
We left the race track and headed toward a wooded area near the edge of the camp. Her secret spot was different, just as she had said. It had towering trees and green grass with a large white house set back against the fence. It was a two-story building with green trim around the shuttered windows. Stock and pansies blanketed the roots of enormous drooping willow trees. It looked like someone’s home. But there wasn’t anything that said it was off-limits to us. No signs, no fences. As we drew near, coolness and dampness radiated like an ocean breeze. It was surely the most comfortable spot in the camp. On the wide expansive lawn, a croquet course was set up with wickets, balls, and mallets placed at one end. There was no one else around. We would have the whole area to ourselves.
“Are you sure it’s all right for us to be here?” I asked Haruko.
Just then a loud voice bellowed, “Hey!”
The last time that happened, it was an armed guard.
“Let’s get out of here, Haruko.” I grabbed Haruko’s hand and pulled her along. “We shouldn’t be here.”
“Hey. Wait! Don’t go! Look up here. In the guard tower!”
“Come on, Haruko. Let’s go!” Haruko tried to remove my hand from her arm.
“Come ON! Haruko! We’re not supposed to be here. He’ll probably shoot us!” I shouted at her.
“I’m not going to shoot you,” said the voice from the tower. “It’s all right.”
“He says it’s all right,” said Haruko. “Just calm down.”
I was frightened, but curious. The last time I had encountered a guard in a tower was still very fresh in my mind. I thought then that I was going to die. But this guard did seem a little different.
“What’s your name?” he shouted from above.
“Haruko.”
“Marie.”
“My name’s Arky.”
“Archie?” I asked.
“No, Arky. A-r-k-y. I’m from Arkansas, so all my friends call me Arky . . . short for Arkansas.”
“Where’s Arkansas?” asked Haruko.
“It’s a long way from here. In the middle of the United States.”
“Oh. Well, I think we’d better get going,” Haruko said. And started to walk away. I followed.
“Come back again, girls.”
We walked out of sight of the tower and sat on the grass for a while before we headed back to the barracks.
“That was strange,” I said. “talking to someone who’s supposed to be guarding us. The last time Brian and I met one of those people, I thought he was going to shoot us!”
“I think he’s just lonely,” said Haruko. “There isn’t anyone around to talk to.”
“Do you think we should come back tomorrow?”
“Sure. Why not. It’s cool here and we could always play croquet, if we want.”
“Oh, yeah. Croquet.”
Haruko was waiting for me outside my mess hall after lunch the following day. We walked the hot stretch across the race track into the cool green area.
“I’ve been thinking about an idea I have,” said Haruko. “What? What’s your idea?”
“Let’s try to get the guard to come down out of his tower!”
“What? That’s crazy. Why would we want to do that? . . . Besides, he would never come down.”
“It could be a kind of game.”
“What do you mean, a ‘game’?”
“A game. You know. It’ll be a game to see if we can get him to come down.”
“So you mean, if he comes down, we win, if he doesn’t, he wins? I don’t know, Haruko.”
“Actually, I want to see what a guard looks like up close. Wouldn’t you like to see what he looks like up close?”
“I’ve seen a lot of guards up close, and frankly, I don’t like what I see. They’re mean and scary.”
“But this one’s friendly. Don’t you want to see what a friendly guard looks like up close? Come on, Marie, it’ll be fun.”
“I don’t know . . .”
“Let’s just try!”
“ . . . Okay.” What’s the harm, I thought. Anyway, he’s not going to come down.
The following day we went directly to the guard tower. Arky was looking our way as we approached.
“Hi, girls,” he shouted. “Good to see you.” When we were close enough so he didn’t have to shout so much, he told us about his family and why he was in the army.
“Arky, I’d like to talk to you some more,” said Haruko after a short while, “but you’re so far away. Why don’t you come down here and talk to us?”
“I can’t do that. My job is to stay up here. In case someone tries to escape.”
“No one’s going to try to escape. And besides, how many people have you seen around the fence besides us?” I asked. “Anyway, we have to go now. Goodbye.” I turned and grabbed Haruko’s hand. “We have to go now,” I said as I led Haruko away.
“I don’t think he’s coming down. He isn’t stupid. He could get into trouble,” I said as we walked away. “Let’s play croquet.”
“Oh, he won’t get into trouble. You worry too much,” she said. “Let’s come back tomorrow.”
We returned the following day and the day after that, each time trying a different way to get him to come down. We complained that our necks hurt, that it was hard to hear what he was saying, and that we had never talked to a friendly soldier before. All the others we’ve seen have been mean and unfriendly, we told him. But he never came down.
On the fifth day, Haruko said,
“I would really like to see what you look like up close, Arky. You’re a special soldier and I want to be able to remember your face and shake your hand. . . .”
Then, to my surprise and horror, he moved from his spot in the tower next to the window and headed toward the door! I could see him slipping his arm through the strap on his rifle and across his chest, so it hung down his back. Then he started to back down the tower ladder. The bayonet caught the sun
on its slick surface and bounced it in my eyes. It seemed to take forever for him to reach the ground.
As I stood there watching his slow descent, I began to feel an indescribable uneasiness. Much like when I took the “long cut” through Mrs. Jensen’s apartment in San Francisco. We had been trying to get him down from the tower for days. And now that we had succeeded, it didn’t feel very good. What had been just a game for us was losing its appeal. Since I didn’t really believe he would do it, I hadn’t thought through what it would be like to actually have the soldier down on the ground with us. I stood frozen, filled with a mixture of fear and overwhelming stupidity.
“What have we done!” I whispered to Haruko. “What are we going to do now?”
“Don’t’ worry,” said Haruko. “It’ll be all right.”
I thought about what Mama had said about Mr. Nakano. If gentle Mr. Nakano could hurt me with paint brushes and a few tubes of paint, imagine what a soldier with a rifle could do!
When he finally reached the ground, he turned and stopped for a moment and just looked at us. Then he stepped slowly toward us placing each foot deliberately on the ground as if testing its firmness. He wobbled slightly as he walked. My fear melted. He’s more terrified of us, than we of him! I thought. As he drew closer, I was surprised at how old he looked. He must be Papa’s age, I thought, but not as outgoing and confident. He had a gentle face, round and covered with little holes. Scars left by pimples, just like Uncle Robert, I thought. Mama had explained that to me. It was the result of popping pimples as a teenager. The soldier removed his army cap, revealing a forehead that extended to the top of his freckled head. What little hair he had was reddish brown.
His pale face turned beet red as he extended his hand to Haruko. “How do you do, Miss. My name is Arky.” Then he turned to shake hands with me.
“We’re so happy to be able to shake your hand!” Haruko said, bobbing up and down and making her curls bounce.
The Little Exile Page 10