The Little Exile

by Jeanette Arakawa

  “Stars and Stripes Forever”

  JOHN PHILIP SOUSA

  School started very soon after we arrived at Rohwer. Two of the blocks had been adapted for use as schools. The elementary school for our side of the camp was in Block 35. Half was for the high school and half for grades K–6.

  The classroom walls were bare except for the flag. The only furniture in the classrooms was benches without tables. But there weren’t any books, either, so it didn’t matter that much at the time. The rainy season had begun in earnest and running around outside was not an option, so our teacher had us march to “Stars and Stripes Forever.” It was a great way to keep thirty restless children under control. She taught us marching terms like “Atten . . . hut!” “Mark time, harch!” and “To the left, harch!” When books and other supplies finally arrived, we didn’t march as much. By then we had tables to match the benches, and our marching space was gone.

  A group of girls at school who had been taking baton lessons before the war organized a baton-twirling class after school. I had enjoyed marching, so I joined the group. Papa carved a baton for me out of wood with a knife from the kitchen and sandpaper he had brought along. The wooden baton was twenty-six inches long including the oblong ball at one end. It worked reasonably well except that the inside of my elbow was in constant pain from being battered by the wooden ball as it passed under my arm. I longed to have a baton like my fellow twirlers. Theirs were not only made of metal mottled to reflect and scatter light like crystal, but were topped with a soft rubber ball. The Sears Roebuck catalog listed them for $3.50, but Mama thought that an extravagance.

  “We need to be saving our money for a time if we are ever released from camp,” she said.

  But she was soft-hearted. Yet not so soft-hearted that she bought the one I wanted. There was a less expensive one in the catalog and she ordered it. It was $1.95, 32 inches long with a huge metal sphere at the business end. It was her surprise gift to me. Unfortunately, it was totally unusable. It was a drum major’s baton . . . too long to twirl under my arm and the metal ball on the end was a menace. Not only to me, but anyone who happened to be in range when the poorly balanced rod was thrown in the air. Intentionally, or unintentionally. But I pretended to use it. I would take it to baton practice and simply watch the others. I eventually stopped going. Besides, I also needed white majorette boots, which my parents would never have bought me. In any case, that was the end of my baton-twirling career.

  Sears Roebuck, Montgomery Ward, and Spiegel catalogs provided me with a window into a fantasy world. When I was feeling sad, I could get lost in their pages of furniture, stoves, and dishes. I pretended I lived in a house like Jean Ireland’s and “ordered” things for it from the catalog.

  * * *

  While thumbing through Mechanic’s Illustrated, my father came across an article about getting rich selling salve. That was a medicinal jelly that came in a tin. It was great for cuts, insect bites, burns, and any other minor wound.

  “Marie,” he said. “Take a look at this. If you want to make some money, sell some salve. Then, if you need a baton or anything else, you can use your own money.”

  “That sounds like a great idea, Papa,” I said. It cost five dollars for ten tins or fifty cents each. I was supposed to sell them for a dollar a piece. When those were sold, I could order more.

  “Where am I going to get five dollars?” I asked.

  “I’ll give it to you. It’s an investment, so it’s worth spending. I’m sure you’ll have no trouble selling it.”

  I could buy the baton I wanted and have money left over! After the first ten were sold, I could order more and even buy some boots! I could hardly wait for my tins of salve to arrive.

  When finally they did, I took them to all my adult friends. I told them what a great product it was and said all the things the company told me to say. No sale. I reduced the price, but even when I offered it for fifty cents, no one was interested. Actually, I couldn’t even give it away. I sold only one tin and that was to my aunt.

  What a waste of money! With the five dollars spent on the salve, I could have gotten the baton I wanted and maybe the boots, too, if I counted the money for the baton Mama bought me. Instead, all I had was nine cans of salve and a useless baton. What were my parents thinking?

  * * *

  The warmth of spring warned us of the hot days ahead. It became warmer and more humid with each passing day. Sudden showers sent everyone scurrying. It soon became a common practice to cut three-foot-by-three-foot openings in the walls of our homes at the level of the floor for better circulation. Openings were also cut in the walls of our classrooms.

  I learned very quickly that I had to choose between sweltering in the middle of the room or getting a bug up my dress by catching a breeze sitting next to an opening. There were no screens, and insects flew or crawled inside and willingly shared any kind of space. I chose to swelter. At night we slept under mosquito nets that protected us against the cool night air as well as mosquitoes. More sweltering. Chiggers were another menace. I never quite figured out how they managed to slip into my pores to suck my blood. The barely visible tiny red blood-sucking insects caused intense itching and were next to impossible to extract. I wasn’t sure which was worse, Rohwer’s summers or winters. Spring and fall were nice, though.

  * * *

  My grandparents lived in Block 33. That’s where Stockton people lived. May and Tom, my train friends, were in Block 33, too. Actually, they, from Lodi, should have been in Block 8, and we, from Stockton, in Block 33. That must have been the trade that was made in order to accommodate Papa’s and Uncle’s Ray’s request. It didn’t matter, though, because few of my Stockton friends came to Rohwer. Most were sent to Arizona.

  Grandma said that I needed to be a good homemaker. She felt that camp life deprived me of the necessary experiences, so she had me visit her whenever possible to “train” me. She taught me things like putting chopsticks in a chopstick holder with the points down, so people wouldn’t touch the working end of it when they removed a pair. She also taught me how to wash rice so the grains didn’t get broken. Her table was covered with a flower-print oilcloth. I learned to clean the part that hung loose down the sides as well as the top. Grandpa always grinned and snickered as Grandma instructed me. He thought Grandma took things too seriously. He seemed much more relaxed since the days at the hotel before we left Stockton. On the other hand, he looked older. His back was rounder and he could no longer walk without a cane. And even with his cane, his walking was labored.

  One day, I arrived at their apartment to find Grandpa in bed.

  “Are you sick?” I asked.

  “Not really. Grandma thinks I should stay in bed, though. Just because my toe is sore. My feet get cold, so I was using a hot water bottle. The cloth wrapped around it came off and my toe got burned,” Grandpa said.

  “I had a sore toe once,” I said. “But it went away. It hurt a lot at the time, but it mended.”

  “That’s what I keep telling Grandma. But she is so serious about every little thing.” Then he threw back the covers. “You want to see my toe?” I walked over to the foot of the bed and peered at his foot.

  “It’s all bandaged.”

  “Oh, yes. So it is. Let me take the bandage off.”

  “No, Grandpa, that’s all right.”

  Thankfully, just then, Grandma walked in. She was accompanied by a man in a white coat. I knew immediately who he was. A doctor. They’re probably going to take him away to the hospital, I thought.

  “Marie,” Grandma said. “You’d better get along home. And tell your mother to come over as soon as she can.”

  “Shizu, don’t listen to her. There’s nothing wrong with me, except that I have a sore toe,” Grandpa shouted to me as I went out the door.

  They took him to the hospital, like I thought they would and didn’t allow children to visit. Grandpa died after a while. He had gangrene. I missed him terribly. He was always so cheerful. Now t
here was no one to call me “Shizu.”

  A funeral was held at the Buddhist Church that was set up in one of the recreation halls. Mama had to wear a black dress and a black hat with a veil. She didn’t have a veil, so she took a piece of black lining material and pinned it to her hat. The “veil” totally covered her face so that no one could see it. She couldn’t see anyone else’s face either, unless she lifted the opaque material. I asked Mama what the funeral was going to be like.

  “Grandpa will be lying in a large wooden box,” she said.

  “How do we know Grandpa is in it?” I asked.

  “The lid will be open,” said Mama.

  “You mean, I have to look at dead Grandpa?” I asked. The only dead people I had ever seen were in the movies. Hold That Ghost with Abbott and Costello was one of the last movies I had seen before the war. People were murdered and hidden in closets or in secret panels. Every now and then, a dead body would suddenly appear and I would scream. For most of the movie I covered my eyes when someone approached a door, because I feared that a dead body might suddenly fall out. Their unnaturally white faces with startled looks and gaping mouths, along with their sudden appearance, frightened me. As much as I loved Grandpa, I didn’t want to look at his dead face. I didn’t want my last memory of him to be a ghastly one. The last time I saw him, he was laughing. I didn’t want anything to replace that.

  At the funeral we lined up to view his body. My legs felt weak and wobbly as I waited my turn. Then I had a brainstorm. I decided that I would close my eyes and not look at him when the time came. I stood behind Mama. She moved up, and I closed my eyes. I heard the rustle of Mama’s dress as she walked away. Brian was behind me.

  “What are you doing?” he whispered. “People are waiting.” He gave me a little shove. This made me stumble. My arms extended to break my fall caused my hands to land on Grandpa’s casket! My fingers gripped its open edge. I could feel soft, slippery fabric. I opened my eyes to see what it was. It was the casket’s beautiful white satin lining. Just inches away was the dead body. To my surprise, it wasn’t a “dead body.” It was Grandpa, who looked like he was sleeping! He looked so peaceful. I expected him to open his eyes and say, “Shizu, sing me a song.” The next thing I knew, Brian was taking me by the hand and leading me to my seat.

  * * *

  There were two Caucasian girls who passed through our camp. They both happened to be in my class. Not at the same time. They were children of people who had been recruited to work at Rohwer from outside the camp. Both became very good friends of mine.

  My friendships with them did not go unnoticed.

  “Why do you make friends with them?” a classmate asked.

  “Why shouldn’t I?” I told them. I remembered how difficult it was to be different from everyone else.

  Anette was a tall, slender girl with a Texas drawl. Blonde and bright. Her height and “Caucasianness” reminded me of Jean, whom I missed very much. But she had a manner that didn’t endear her to the others. She would say things like, “Don’t you know it isn’t polite to eavesdrop?” and “I beg your pardon?” where others in the same situation might say, “I wasn’t talking to you,” and “What’d you say?” They thought she was putting on airs. She wasn’t. That was just the way she talked. I visited her often at her “quarters.”

  Her home was white clapboard, not black tar paper like ours. It was a true apartment with a kitchen, bathroom, living room, dining room, and separate bedrooms. It was on the opposite corner of the camp, beyond the administration building. Whenever I visited, her mother was napping, although it was the middle of the day. Anette said that her mother didn’t like Rohwer. One day, Anette was gone.

  Frances arrived later and was shorter than Anette and wore her dark hair in French braids. She taught me to braid mine in the same way. Her hazel eyes were like an eagle’s. They fixed on something or someone, then quickly darted to something else. They continuously scanned the classroom or wherever we were, collecting observations. She would ask me about them later.

  “Why do so many girls wear the same dark blue dotted swiss dress? What does it mean? Do they belong to a club or something?”

  “The blue dotted swiss dresses are ‘government issue.’”

  “‘Government issue,’” Frances repeated. “That’s ‘G.I.,’ isn’t it? ‘G.I.’ means soldiers, doesn’t it? That’s confusing.”

  “That’s true, but it’s also anything the government gives us. We’re allowed about $3 a month for a clothing allowance. Some families take it in the form of clothing and others take the money, like we do. My mother works as a secretary for the administration and makes $16 a month. My father arranges community activities and also makes $16 a month. They’re trying to save money in case we ever get out of here. We’ve had to buy boots and rain gear and warm clothes and mosquito nets and stuff like that. Fortunately, my mother can sew. She orders fabrics from Sears and then stitches them by hand, because we don’t have a sewing machine.”

  “We have a sewing machine,” said Frances, “maybe she can use ours.”

  “Thanks, Frances,” I said. “That’s really nice of you to offer.”

  “I noticed you don’t have a bathroom in your apartment. What do you do, if you have to ‘go’ in the middle of the night?”

  “One of the first things we ever bought from the Sears Roebuck catalog was a chamber pot. It’s a small bucket with a rounded edge and lid. That’s what we use at night. Sometimes it’s used during the day, too, when it’s especially miserable outside. Then there’s the devil to pay, because somebody has to empty it. The bucket gets heavy and . . . You really don’t want to hear the rest.”

  “Eyew . . . That sounds disgusting, Marie. I’m glad we have a bathroom. I wish I could share ours with you.”

  Frances was not long at Rohwer, either. One day, she, too, was gone without a word.

  * * *

  The only other non-Japanese visitor we had was Miss Finch, my teacher. She dropped by one evening.

  “I make a point of visiting the families of all my students,” she said. “I was once a part of the Christian Mission in China and Japan.” It was the first time in my life that a teacher had ever visited our home.

  Miss Finch was about the same age as Mama and had a round, rather flat face with eyes that peered. That is, her gaze seemed to be fixed so that the upper part of her iris never showed. She accomplished this by pulling her chin in at all times. She had a rather large mouth, which she kept in motion most of the time. This gave others little chance to talk. She also spoke with my parents in the same manner she spoke to students in her classroom. During the course of the evening Papa told her that his first job in San Francisco was at a restaurant on Kearny Street. It seemed she didn’t hear much of what Papa had said except that he mispronounced “Kearny Street.” Miss Finch went into a long explanation about the early history of San Francisco and how “Kearny” is an Irish name and is pronounced “Carney” rather than “Kerny.” Papa and Mama didn’t say anything as she rattled on and on. Suddenly, Papa stood up and said, “Look at the time. I have an assignment tomorrow that starts at seven a.m.!” Miss Finch looked surprised. Then she stood up and said, “Oh. I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t realize how late it was. I really enjoyed meeting you all.” Then she quickly left.

  As soon as she stepped out the door, Papa exploded. “Who does she think she is? How dare she correct my pronounciation. Nobody in San Francisco says ‘Carney.’ And even if they did, she should have kept that to herself. I’m not a child. She thinks she can insult me just because I’m Japanese and a prisoner here!” It was not clear what Miss Finch’s purpose was in visiting us. But I’m sure it was not to upset my father.

  My uncle Robert, the former dental student, volunteered for the army as soon as the government permitted it. At the beginning of the war, all Japanese American soldiers were discharged from the U.S. Army. Then the government changed its mind. About a year after they put us in camp, they distributed a questionnai
re for everyone to fill out to determine the loyalty of potential recruits. My uncle must have filled it out correctly, because he was accepted into the army. My mother’s other brothers, Uncle Tom and Uncle Keith, also volunteered.

  Uncle Keith lived in Washington, D.C., with his family and was working for the Bureau of Indian Affairs when the war started. Although he was almost thirty years old, married, with a daughter and two sons, he left them to volunteer for the army.

  A square fabric banner bearing three blue stars hung in my grandmother’s window. That meant she had three sons fighting in the war. A neighbor had a banner with a gold star. The blue star turned to gold when her son was killed in action. I hoped that my grandmother’s stars never changed color.

  My uncles trained at Camp Shelby, a special camp across the river in Mississippi set aside for Japanese American soldiers. Even as soldiers, they were separated from other Americans. Their unit was called the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and they fought in Europe. Uncle Robert and Uncle Keith were both wounded in action and awarded Bronze Stars in addition to Purple Hearts.

  Everyone in camp was required to fill out the questionnaire intended to determine who might be suitable candidates for the service, regardless of their advanced age or sex. Even my grandmother. Mary Komura was a friend of the family. She lived in our block and worked for the administration. She was also responsible for finding the office job for my mother.

  “You must not answer the questions about loyalty in a negative way, unless you want the government to send you back to Japan,” Mary explained to Papa and Mama. “Some people are angry with the U.S. for putting us in camps and then asking that they sign a loyalty oath. But you must put your anger aside and think of the consequences.” And Mary was right. People who answered the questionnaire in such a way that meant they wouldn’t fight for the United States were all sent to one camp called Tule Lake in California. From there, many were to be sent to Japan.

  Papa and Uncle Ray had many conversations about pledging their loyalty to the United States. Renouncing their Japanese citizenship would leave them without citizenship in any country, since they had been denied citizenship in the U.S. even after living here over twenty-five years.