The Little Exile

by Jeanette Arakawa

  “Nothing was wrong with the sake!” Papa insisted.

  “Are you sure you didn’t use the wrong pot?” Uncle Ray continued and laughed. I guess he thought he could tease Papa about it because his illness wasn’t serious. To him. But to Papa, it was dead serious. He became the laughing stock of the block. Papa had gotten sick drinking his questionable brew, everyone said. He had gotten the pots mixed up, they added, thinking that was funny. That’s the story that made the rounds.

  Papa was a sensitive man and was totally humiliated. He refused to leave the house. He gradually regained partial use of his facial muscles and was able to control his drooling, but he remained a recluse.

  Papa had always been fastidious about his appearance. He always kept his mustache well trimmed, and his face smooth. But now he stopped shaving, and his face went gradually from stubby to bristly and then to a flowing beard and long whiskers. He languished all day in his yukata, never getting dressed. When he gave up his yukata so Mama could wash it, he sat around in his one-piece sleeveless underwear with trapdoor. He didn’t even leave the apartment to go to the toilet. He had thrown out the sake, so we had two chamber pots to empty. Occasionally he slipped out of the apartment in the dead of night to shower. His crankiness made our apartment an unpleasant place to be. We never had visitors anymore, and I spent as little time as possible at home. I went to Tomoko’s as often as I could.

  Tomoko lived in Block 1 and had joined our class in sixth grade. She had enormous eyes that bulged slightly and a face that sloped inward toward her chin. With her thick French braids hanging down her back, she always looked like she was leaning forward. She was a towering giant of a girl who clearly outweighed everyone in the class, including the boys. Everyone was intimidated, and she took best advantage of it. She bossed us around mercilessly. Especially, me. Perhaps because I was the smallest in the class, she chose me to be her special servant. I sharpened pencils for her and gave up prized possessions when I was stupid enough to bring them to school. She would elbow me every now and then to let me know that she could really hurt me if she wanted.

  She told everyone that I was her best friend. I always thought of her as my best friend, too, because she was my only friend. Others avoided me because of my connection to her.

  Her mother had been a Girl Scout leader before camp and wanted to organize a troop. We turned out to be the only two-member troop in the camp. But Mrs. Otani, Tomoko’s mother, turned out to be one of the kindest, most gentle persons I had ever met. She looked older than my mother, with her gray hair and thin face streaked with deep lines, and she spoke English without an accent. She just generally seemed more in tune with everything than my parents. She reminded me a lot of the adults I knew in San Francisco. Because of her, I was able to tolerate Tomoko. I was able to talk to Mrs. Otani about anything and everything. I felt safe with her, because I knew that whatever I told her would go no further, since she lived seven block communities away. She was wise and sympathetic to all the little things that troubled me. Tomoko had the ideal mother. I couldn’t figure out why Tomoko was the way she was.

  I often talked to Mrs. Otani about my father.

  “I hate going home. He’s always so cranky. We have to walk around on tip toes, and I can’t say anything without his going into a rage.”

  “It’s a terrible thing when your face gets distorted,” Mrs. Otani said. “That happened to my sister. She was so embarrassed about it, she wouldn’t leave home for months. In your father’s case, no one seems to have any sympathy because of his ‘home brew.’ Everyone seems to think he brought it on himself. He’s going through a very difficult time, Marie. You just have to be patient. He’ll recover soon.”

  “I hope so.”

  One day, when I returned home from school, I found the floor covered with newspaper. Papa had begun practicing his Japanese calligraphy.

  “When I was a child in Japan, my father always praised me for my fine calligraphy,” Papa said. “He was the principal of our school and very strict. He rarely complimented me or any of my seven brothers and sisters. So I must have been very good to have impressed him enough to praise me.”

  He would make his own ink. He did this by pouring water into a specially made stone that had a well gouged out at one end. Then he took a charcoal stick, dipped it into the water, and rubbed it on the stone. Gradually, the water became inky black. He took his fat brush with flared gray bristles and placed it in his mouth. It emerged moist and pointed. This he dipped into the reservoir of black ink in the stone and alternately dipped, raised, and rotated the brush until it was completely black.

  He had always written large signs for the Japanese plays and movies he was in charge of. For that he would use a broom and poster paint. But now he wrote from images in his head, seemingly without purpose. He knelt before the paper first and just stared at it for a while. Then he leaned forward and began his strokes with his brush held straight up from the paper and pressed, pulled, and lifted in very studied, graceful movements. Once he started a piece he did not stop until he was finished. It was one continuous flow of writing. If it pleased him, he tacked it on the wall. If it didn’t, he folded it up neatly and placed it in the corner with others he planned to dispose of later. There were as many in that stack as were posted.

  There was beauty in the way he applied the ink to the paper and beauty in the product. I have no idea what he wrote, because I couldn’t read Japanese. It didn’t seem to matter. This continued for a while.

  When I told Mrs. Otani what my father was doing, she asked if I was interested in calligraphy.

  “Well, yes, but I don’t know how to read or write Japanese.”

  “How about English calligraphy?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Mrs. Otani rummaged in some boxes in her closet and returned with a pen, black ink, and a sheet of paper. The nib was flat and cut at an angle instead of being a rounded point. She dipped the tip of the pen in the ink and began writing my name in fancy letters.

  “That’s beautiful, Mrs. Otani. Is that English calligraphy?”

  “You could call it that,” she said as she reached for a small booklet from her bookshelf. “It’s called Old English Lettering.”

  “How would you like to do some lettering for a Brownie patch?”

  “Could I? That would be terrific! Thank you, Mrs. Otani!”

  “Take this book and study the strokes. You’ll find arrows around the letters to show you what direction the strokes should go.”

  “I’m so excited! Thank you so much!” I said and threw my arms around her neck.

  “Just take good care of the book,” she said as she unraveled my arms. “It’s the only one I have. I’ve had it most of my life.”

  I took her book home and copied the shapes and forms of all the letters, as best I could, before returning it to her. And I went to her house whenever I had time and practiced lettering in “Old English.” I never owned a pen of my own, so I found that tracing the outline of the letters and cutting them out with one of Papa’s razor blades was almost as satisfying as actually writing them. I worked with black construction paper and a tin-foil background using gum and cigarette wrappers scavenged from friends.

  * * *

  In the meantime, Papa discovered that the Gilfillan radio shortwave band to Japan worked, although we were almost half a world away. The early morning news broadcast from Japan could be heard late in the afternoon in Arkansas. When I returned home from school, all his writing material had been put away. Instead, I found Papa sitting with his ear pressed to the speaker, slowly turning the dial like a safe-cracker listening to tumblers. With patience, the crackling buzz would dissolve into a rising and falling voice of a man who sounded like he was under water. A slight slip of his hand, and the static would return.

  Listening to the Japanese newscasts became a daily routine. Word spread quickly that we were getting broadcasts from Japan. The apartment began to fill with a different set of people. They were men who we
re not working. Either elderly or lazy, I thought. They listened to reports of battles in Luzon and Mindanao in the Philippines, from which Papa drew elaborate maps and followed the course of the war. These replaced his calligraphy on the wall. I was uncomfortable and confused. America treated us like we weren’t really Americans, but Papa had pledged loyalty to the United States when he signed the questionnaire. He said he would fight for the United States, like Uncle Robert and Uncle Keith, if the government asked.

  “What are you doing, Papa! I thought you were rooting for America,” I blurted. “If you keep this up and you get caught, we could all be shipped to Japan!” I expected to be scolded for my rude outburst, but instead, he answered, almost in a whisper, “It’s been confusing for me, too. I’ve been thinking a lot about Grandfather and Grandmother in Japan, lately. I worry about what will become of them.”

  * * *

  I remember it was a Tuesday. I returned home from school to find the apartment empty. The maps and charts had been stripped from the wall and Papa was gone! They’ve taken him away! I thought. The authorities found out about his listening to Japanese broadcasts and have taken him away! I ran next door.

  “Papa’s gone!” I said. “Do you know anything about it? Did they take him away?”

  “Take him away? No, no, of course not. He returned to work,” Mrs. Sakai said. “Aren’t you glad?” She held me as I sobbed.

  CHAPTER 17

  “You’re a Grand Old Flag”

  GEORGE M. COHAN

  In the fall of 1944, I started junior high. That meant I had to travel to the farthest corner of camp for school. Occasionally I was able to hitch a ride on a transport truck that took office workers like Mama to the administration building located diagonally across camp. It was just beyond Block 31, where the junior high was located.

  There were no girls my age or even a year older than me from our block. The only other girl who was a junior high student was a ninth-grader. That was Bertha. Occasionally, she invited me to walk to school with her and her friends. I wasn’t really included in their social life and they often whispered to each other. But it gave me great comfort to be with them. They called me “Little Mitsui.” You might say that I was their mascot.

  Junior high presented a new set of problems. There were two blocks set aside for schools. Half of Block 35 was an elementary school and the other half, the camp high school. Half of Block 31 was elementary and the other half, the junior high school. All the children from Stockton Assembly Center went to the Block 35 elementary and most from Los Angeles to Block 31.

  Since there was only one junior high, suddenly we were all thrown together. The kids from Los Angeles seemed more mature and assertive. The boys, particularly, were constantly wrestling with each other or pushing each other around. And they were not timid about challenging the teachers. The girls seemed older and smarter. None of my friends from elementary school were in any of my classes, except for one. Tomoko.

  A very large boy, who was to be in most of my classes, immediately identified himself as the supreme bully of seventh grade. He intimidated everyone.

  On the first day of school, I was walking down the aisle between the chairs with my eyes fixed on an empty seat in the back of the room. Suddenly, I felt myself being catapulted through the air and my books flew down the aisle in front of me.

  “Why don’t you watch where you’re going, stupid! Couldn’t you see my leg in the aisle?” said a voice behind me.

  As I scrambled to pick up my things, a girl sitting close to where I had fallen whispered, “Don’t pay any attention to him. That’s Ken. He’s a bully. Just act like nothing happened.”

  I followed her advice, collected myself and quietly sat down. No sooner had I settled in than Tomoko entered the room. I almost didn’t recognize her. Her long, thick French braid had been replaced by sausage curls that cascaded part way down her face and back. She looked like a poor imitation of an overgrown black-haired Shirley Temple.

  “Marie!” she shouted as she started down the aisle. Just as she was about to pass Ken, the bully’s desk, his foot darted out like the tongue of a frog catching a fly. Tomoko went down with a crash.

  “Ken! You did that on purpose!” she screamed.

  “We meet again!” Ken chuckled. “Where’ve you been this past year? Almost didn’t recognize you with your new hairdo.”

  “You’re as mean as ever!” Tomoko shouted.

  “You want to make something of it?” he shouted back. Tomoko burst into tears. Then he rose out of his chair. He was enormous. He looked like Paul Bunyan. Only the ax and Babe, the blue ox, were missing. He was tall and round. But unlike the gentle lumberjack hero, Ken was brutish. He started to lean over Tomoko. I thought he was going to hit her. Fortunately, the teacher walked in.

  “I want everyone to take their seats,” she announced. Saved by the teacher. Whew. She saw Tomoko picking up her things and sniffling. Mrs. Wolf walked toward her and offered her hand to help her up.

  “Are you all right?” She asked.

  “He tripped me!” She screamed, pointing at Ken, the Bully.

  “Is that right?” Mrs. Wolf asked as she turned to Ken.

  “My foot was in the aisle. I guess she just didn’t see it,” he said softly.

  Then he gestured in Tomoko’s direction.

  “I was about to help her up when you came in.”

  “I’m terribly sorry you didn’t see my foot,” he said turning to Tomoko. “I hope you’re all right.” Not only was Big Bully Ken nasty, he was also quick and conniving. Scary combination.

  When we were dismissed, I ran to catch up with the girl who cautioned me about Ken. Tomoko stayed behind to talk to Mrs. Wolf.

  “Hi. Thanks for your great advice,” I said. “I think you saved my life. My name’s Marie. What’s yours?”

  “Rhonda.” She replied. She was about my size and wore bangs and hair that hung straight to her shoulders. There was a flatness to her face, but she was cute.

  “I’ve been in classes with Ken before, and you can’t challenge him,” said Rhonda. Once you get on his bad side . . . watch out! Everyone’s afraid of him, so they avoid him. Tomoko used to be in our class, but she transferred to the Block 35 elementary, because Ken was giving her such a bad time. I don’t know what she’ll do now.”

  The next day, Tomoko was gone. She had been transferred to another group of seventh-graders. I didn’t see much of her after that.

  I decided I would be nice to Ken, in hopes he wouldn’t make me his next target. The next time I saw him, I smiled and said, “hi.” It was as though no one had ever done that before.

  “Well, ‘hi’ yourself!” he said raising and lowering his voice as though he were singing. I thought I would be sick. For better or for worse, I had definitely put myself on his good side. He thought I liked him. I guess that was better than being beaten up. Since he was in all of my classes, I couldn’t avoid him.

  Mrs. Wolf had us begin the day with the Pledge to the flag. She also had us learn a song. We learned at least one song in each grade we passed through. In fifth grade, it was “Stars and Stripes Forever”; in sixth, it was “Monkeys in the Zoo”; and now, in seventh grade, she was going to teach us “You’re a Grand Old Flag.” I guessed she felt we needed to be reminded that we were Americans and needed to express our patriotism with the Pledge and the song.

  Mrs. Wolf was also our social studies teacher. As part of one of her lessons she asked, “If you could travel to another country, which country would it be?”

  “England,” I said, although I had no particular desire to go there.

  “Very good, Marie. That’s where I’d like to go, too,” she said.

  I wondered what she would have said if I had answered, “Japan.” No one else did, so I could only guess.

  It was a stupid question, though. Here we were in prison, not knowing what our future held. We couldn’t travel outside Arkansas, much less to foreign countries. Was this her way of testing our loyalty,
I wondered.

  * * *

  Whenever Ken was around me, his anger and need to bully others seemed to subside. At least that’s what others said. That silly look replaced his frown. And he seemed to be everywhere I went. I decided to try out for a part in a play. And there he was. He tried out, too and we both got parts. I think he would have followed me home for lunch, too, if he didn’t live on the other side of the camp.

  Then one day, Brian came home and said, “There you are, Marie. There’s a big oaf of a guy outside looking for you. I think it’s that Ken guy you’ve been talking about. Do you want to see him?”

  “Are you kidding? You didn’t tell where we lived, did you?”

  “Well, I thought I’d better check with you first.”

  “You’re such a great brother, Brian. Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

  “What do you want to do? I think he’s going to find out where you live, sooner or later.”

  “Next time you see him, tell him I go to Grandma’s everyday after school.”

  “Okay. That might work.”

  That visit from Ken kept me cooped up in the apartment for days. I dared not go outside, lest he not believe the Grandma story. Fortunately, he stopped coming.

  * * *

  By the end of 1944 many people in our block were finding work outside the camp and leaving, even though the war raged on. California would not let us return, but most of the other states were accepting Japanese Americans. Most of the folks who left were young, single people. One young woman who had moved to Michigan had been attacked and murdered. That slowed down the exodus from our block for a while.

  “It’s not safe out there,” Mr. Ashikaga said. “If the government can’t assure our safety, we’re not leaving.”

  Many others felt that way, too.

  * * *

  On May 2, 1945 the war in Italy ended. It was reported to have been the longest and most bitter of all the European campaigns. My two uncles were among those wounded in battle. VE Day, Victory in Europe, followed six days later on May 8, 1945. Victory in Asia could not be far behind. The exodus from camp began in earnest. Brian was fourteen and I was twelve.