by John Okada
“Why don’t you send them things?”
“Your mama is sick, Ichiro. She says these letters are not from Japan, that they were not written by my brothers or her sisters or our uncles and nephews and nieces and cousins. She does not read them any more. Propaganda, she says. She won’t let me send money or food or clothing because she says it’s all a trick of the Americans and that they will take them. I can send without her knowing, but I do not. It is not for me to say that she is wrong even if I know so.”
The father picked up the bottle and poured the liquor into his throat. His face screwed up and tears came to his eyes.
“I’m going to sleep, Pa.” Ichiro stood up and looked for a long time at his drunken father who could not get drunk enough to forget.
“Ichiro.”
“Yeah?”
His father mumbled to the table: “I am sorry that you went to prison for us.”
“Sure. Forget it.” He went to the bedroom, undressed in the dark, and climbed into bed wondering why his brother wasn’t sleeping.
2
There is a period between each night and day when one dies for a few hours, neither dreaming nor thinking nor tossing nor hating nor loving, but dying for a little while because life progresses in just such a way. From that sublime depth, a stranger awakens to strain his eyes into focus on the walls of a strange room. Where am I? he asks himself. There is a fleeting sound of lonely panic as he juggles into order the heavy, sleep-laden pieces of his mind’s puzzle. He is frightened because the bed is not his own. He is in momentary terror because the walls are clean and bare and because the sounds are not the sounds of home, and because the chill air of a hotel room fifteen stories above the street is not the same as the furry, stale warmth of a bedroom occupied by three and pierced by the life-giving fragrance of bacon and eggs sizzling in a pan down below. Then he remembers that he is away from home and smiles smugly as he tells himself that home is there waiting for him forever. He goes to the window, expands his chest, and stretches his arms to give vent to the magnitude of his joys upon being alive and happy and at home in a hotel room a hundred miles away, because home is as surely there as if he had never left it.
For Ichiro, there was no intervening span of death to still his great unrest through the darkness of night. It was nine o’clock when he woke up and the bitterness and profanity and hatred and fear did not have to be reawakened. He did not have to ask himself where he was or why because it did not matter. He was Ichiro who had said no to the judge and had thereby turned his back on the army and the country and the world and his own self. He thought only that he had felt no differently after spending his first night in prison. On that morning, when he woke up and saw the bars, it had not mattered at all that the bars were there. This morning, for the first time in two years, there were no bars, but the fact left him equally unimpressed. The prison which he had carved out of his own stupidity granted no paroles or pardons. It was a prison of forever.
“Ahhhhhh.” Out of the filth of his anguished soul, the madness welled forth in a sick and crazy scream, loud enough to be heard in the next room.
“What is it, Ichiro, what is it?” His father hovered hesitantly in the doorway, peering into the blind-drawn gloom of the bedroom with startled eyes.
“Nothing.” He felt like crying.
“You are not ill?”
“No.”
“Not sick someplace for sure?”
“No, goddammit, I’m fine, Pa, fine.”
“That is all right then. I thought something was wrong.”
Poor, miserable old fool, he thought. How in the world could he understand? “I’m okay, Pa,” he said kindly, “hungry, that’s all, hungry and . . . and glad to be home.”
“Ya, you get used to it. I cook right away.” He smiled, relief flowing to his face, and he turned back hastily into the kitchen.
When he dressed and went through the kitchen to the bathroom, it was his father who stood beside the stove with frying pan in hand. When he came back out and sat at the table, his mother was there.
“Good morning, Ichiro. You slept well?” She sounded cheerful.
The eggs were done the way he liked them, sunny side up with the edges slightly browned. He felt grateful to his father for remembering. “Yeah, I slept pretty good,” he answered as he broke the yolks.
“You are pleased to be at home and I am pleased that you are here.”
“Sure. I feel like singing.”
She sat rigidly with hands palms-down on her lap. “I did not tell you about Kumasaka-san’s boy because it was not important.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Then you understand. It is well.”
“No, I don’t understand, but it doesn’t matter.”
“Oh?” Her mouth pressed into a tight little frown. “What is it you do not understand?”
“A lot of things, a whole lot of things.”
“I will tell you. The Germans did not kill Kumasaka-san’s boy. It was not he who went to war with a gun and it was not he who was shot by the Germans—”
“Of course not. You heard last night when the fellow told about it. It was an accident.”
Patiently, she waited until he had spoken. “Germans, Americans, accident, those things are not important. It was not the boy but the mother who is also the son and it is she who is to blame and it is she who is dead because the son did not know.”
“I just know that Bob is dead.”
“No, the mother. It is she who is dead because she did not conduct herself as a Japanese and, no longer being Japanese, she is dead.”
“And the father? What about Mr. Kumasaka?”
“Yes, dead also.”
“And you, Ma? What about you and Pa?”
“We are Japanese as always.”
“And me?”
“You are my son who is also Japanese.”
“That makes everything all right, does it? That makes it all right that Bob is dead, that war was fought and hundreds of thousands killed and maimed, and that I was two years in prison and am still Japanese?”
“Yes.”
“What happens when I’m no longer Japanese?”
“How so?”
“Like Bob, I mean. What happens if I sign up and get shot up like him?”
“Then I will be dead too.”
“Dead like me?”
“Yes, I will be dead when you go into the army of the Americans. I will be dead when you decide to go into the army of the Americans. I will be dead when you begin to cease to be Japanese and entertain those ideas which will lead you to your decision which will make you go into the army of the Americans. I will be dead long before the bullet strikes you. But you will not go, for you are my son.”
“You’re crazy.” He said it softly and deliberately, for he wanted her to know that he meant it with all the hatred in his soul.
Underneath the table her hands stiffened and jerked a few inches above her lap. Her face revealed only the same little tight frown that he had seen many times before. He waited, hoping that she would scream and rant and cry and denounce him, tearing asunder with fury the slender bond that held them together still, and set him free.
“Ah, Ichiro. I thought for a moment that you meant it.”
“I do. I do.”
She shrugged without actually moving. “That is what they all say. They who claim to be Japanese. I see it in their faces and I feel it on their lips. They say I am crazy, but they do not mean it. They say it because they are frightened and because they envy my strength, which is truly the strength of Japan. They say it with the weakness which destroyed them and their sons in a traitorous cause and they say it because they see my strength which was vast enough to be your strength and they did not have enough for themselves and so not enough for their sons.”
“Balls!” He leaned acr
oss the table, letting the ugliness twist his lips and fill his voice with viciousness. “Balls! Balls!” he shrieked, his face advancing steadily upon hers.
A flicker of surprise, then fear. Yes, he saw it in her eyes in the fraction of an instant before her hands covered them. To the hands which had come forever between them he continued to shriek: “Not your strength, crazy woman, crazy mother of mine. Not your strength, but your madness which I have taken. Look at me!” He gripped her wrists and wrenched them away from her face. “I’m as crazy as you are. See in the mirror the madness of the mother which is the madness of the son. See. See!”
He was halfway to the bathroom door with her when the father rushed in to intervene. “Ichiro, Ichiro,” he gasped excitedly as he extended a feeble hand.
With his fury at a sickening peak, Ichiro released the skinny wrists and arced his arm in a wild swing at his father. The mother collapsed limply to the floor and the father, propelled by the painful blow, collided against the wall.
For long moments he stood between them as the anger drained out of his body. He watched his mother rise and go out to the store, her face once again calm and guileless.
“Pa. I’m sorry, Pa.” He put his arm around his father, wanting to hug him like a baby.
“Ya, Ichiro,” the old man uttered shakily, “I am sorry too.”
“Lost my head, Pa.”
“Ya, ya. I know.” He got a bottle from the cupboard and drank greedily. Then he sat down and offered the bottle to Ichiro.
The whisky was ugly tasting but it helped to relax him. He looked at his father, who seemed about to cry. “Ah, Pa, Pa. Forget it, won’t you? I’m sorry. It just happened.”
“Ya, sure.” He smiled.
Ichiro felt better. “I’ve got to do something, Pa. I’ll go nuts sitting around.”
“Whatever you wish, Ichiro. It will take time. I know.”
“Where’s Freddie?”
“Freddie?”
“Yeah, Akimoto-san’s boy. Where do they live?”
“Oh. Freddie. He was . . . yes. On Nineteenth. Small, yellow apartment house on the south side.”
“I’ll go see him. I can talk to him.”
“Here, Ichiro,” said his father, placing a twenty-dollar bill on the table.
“But that’s a lot of money, Pa. I won’t need all that.”
“Take. Take. Go to a movie with Freddie. Eat someplace nice. Have a good time.”
“Okay, Pa. Thanks.” He pocketed the money and went through the store and on out without looking at his mother.
* * *
—
The small apartment house on the south side was not far from the bus stop. He saw it the minute he got off the bus. He climbed up the shaky stairs and consulted the mailboxes, which told him that the Akimotos occupied 2-B. Although there were only two units on each floor, six in all, he had to light a match in the dark hallway to see the faded 2-B on the door to the right of the stairway. He knocked softly and waited. When no one answered, he pounded more heavily.
It was the door to 2-A that opened. A plump, young Japanese woman peered into the hall and asked not unkindly: “What you want?”
“I’m looking for Fred Akimoto. He lives here, doesn’t he?”
The woman opened the door wider, inspecting him in the added light. Her housecoat was baggy and dirty and unzipped down to her waist. A baby cried far inside. “Freddie’s sleeping. He always sleeps late. You can pound on the door until he hears you, or,” she grinned at him, “you’re really welcome to come sit in my place and wait. Freddie’s a good friend of mine.”
“Thanks just the same, but I’m kinda anxious to see him.”
“Tell Freddie I’ll have breakfast for him. You come with him, okay?”
“I’ll tell him.” He waited until she had closed the door before he started to pound on 2-B again.
Finally he heard noises deep inside the apartment. Footsteps padded reluctantly toward the door and the latch snapped.
“Who is it, for crissake, who is it?” Freddie’s lean, sleepy face peered up at him through the crack.
“Hello, Shorty. It’s Itchy.”
“Itchy boy! They let you out! About time, I say, about time, I say, about time.” The door swung wide open and revealed Freddie, small and wiry and tough. He wore a rumpled T-shirt and nothing else.
Ichiro took the other’s hand and they shook warmly.
“What time is it?” asked Freddie as they went through the living room and past the kitchen into a bedroom in the back.
“Ten o’clock or thereabouts, I guess.”
“No wonder I’m sleepy. How’ve you been, huh? Whatcha been doin’?”
“Just got home yesterday, Shorty. What have you been doing? Been out pretty near a month, haven’t you?”
“Five weeks tomorrow.” Freddie dressed hurriedly and sat on the bed beside his guest.
“How’s it been?” He was disturbed by Freddie’s nonchalance, his air of insuppressible gaiety.
“What’s what been?”
“Things. You know what I mean. I’ve been worried.”
Standing up, Freddie whisked through his pockets and found an empty cigarette pack. “Out. Nuts. Got some?”
Ichiro handed over cigarettes and matches and waited until Freddie had lighted up. “Tell me, Shorty. I’ve got to know.”
“Crap! That’s what I’ve been tellin’ ’em. I got my life to live and they got theirs. They try to tell me somethin’, I tell ’em shit. I’m doin’ fine.”
“No trouble?”
“Trouble? Why for? You and me, we picked the wrong side. So what? Doesn’t mean we gotta stop livin’.”
“What have you been doing?”
Freddie looked irritated. “You asked before.”
“Well?”
“Livin’. I been havin’ a good time. I didn’t rot two years without wantin’ to catch up.”
“What happens after you catch up?”
“Maybe I won’t.”
Ichiro walked over to the window and lit a cigarette. The alley was littered with rubbish and he saw a cat pawing through a trash can. Sitting on the sill, he turned again to Freddie. He wanted to talk to Freddie, who used to be a regular worrier. He wanted to get under the new protective shell of brave abandon and seek out the answers which he knew were never really to be buried. “Freddie.”
The small, muscular shoulders sagged a little. “Okay, Itchy. It’s eatin’ my guts out too. Is that whatcha wanta hear? Is that why you come to see me? You miserable son of a bitch. Better you shoulda got a Kraut bullet in your balls.”
“That bad, is it?”
Freddie looked at Ichiro and in the face of the little man were haggard creases attesting to his lonely struggle. “You know what I done the first week?”
“Tell me.”
“Just what I’m doin’ now. I sat here on my fanny for a whole week, thinkin’. And I come to a conclusion.”
“Yes?”
“I figgered my brains are in my fanny. Same place yours are.”
Looking out the window, he saw the cat still searching in the trash can. He chuckled, disappointed because Freddie offered no hope, but at the same time relieved to be assured that he was not the only one floundering in heavy seas.
“The second week,” continued Freddie, “I went next door to borrow some smokes. I stayed there all day until the old man came home.”
“2-A?”
“Huh?”
“She told me to tell you she’ll fix breakfast.”
Freddie blushed. “Funny, ain’t it? I’m the guy what used to be so damn particular about dames. She’s nothin’ but a fat pig. Can’t get enough of it. Bet she gave you the once over.”
“How long do you expect to get away with it? Same house, same floor. Don’t push your luck.”
“Aw, can it. I know what you’re thinkin’. Me, I don’t give a damn. In the meanwhile, I got somethin’ to hang on to.”
Ichiro pictured little Freddie in bed with the fat woman in 2-A and couldn’t resist a smile.
“Sure, funny as hell, but I’ll lay you two bits you’ll wish you had an anchor like her before the week’s out. She don’t care who I am or what I done or where I been. All she wants is me, the way I am, with no questions.”
“Sure, I see your point.”
“No, you don’t. Me, I been out and around. I seen Kaz one day. Used to shoot megs together. That’s how long I known him. He’s goin’ to school on the G.I. He was glad as hell to see me. Stuck his hand out, just like that, kinda nervous like. He said somethin’ about bein’ in a hurry and took off. That’s how it is. Either they’re in a big fat rush or they don’t know you no more. Great life, huh?”
“I saw Eto.”
“That jerk. What’d he do? Spit on you?”
“Yeah, how did you know?”
“We got troubles, but that crud’s got more and ain’t got sense enough to know it. Six months he was in the army. You know that? Six lousy months and he wangled himself a medical discharge. I been hearin’ about him. He ever try that on me, I’ll stick a knife in him.”
“Maybe he’s got a right to.”
“Nobody’s got a right to spit on you.”
Ichiro reached into his pocket and tossed the cigarettes to Freddie, who immediately lit another. “Keep them,” he said. “I’ll get some on the way home.”
“You ain’t goin’ yet, are you? You just come.”
“I’ll see you again, Shorty. I want to look around by myself. You know how it is. Maybe catch a bus and ride all over town. I feel like it.”
“Sure, sure. Buzz me on the phone. It’s in the book. We guys get together every Friday for poker. We can sure use a sixth hand.”