‘Yes, sir.’
Chidori heaved her own luggage off the truck without waiting for my help and avoided looking at me as she dutifully fell into place in line. Torn between wanting to stay by her side and respecting her wishes to let her go without making a scene, I wandered over to stand next to Joey, Donna Mae and my father. They had arrived with nearly every other resident of Mayne Island to say goodbye to their friends, classmates, employers and neighbours.
The Setoguchis reached the front of the line, faster than I’m sure any of them wanted to. When Chidori’s grandmother tried to board the ship ramp, she stumbled slightly. Kenji stepped out of line to steady her arm. The naval officer who had checked their names off on his list shouted at Kenji to step back in line. He didn’t because their grandmother was very unstable. He assisted her all the way onto the ship, then walked back down the plank to return to his place in line. The officer shoved Kenji’s shoulder, which made him trip over a piece of luggage and fall to the ground. I lunged forward to help, but my father grabbed my arm and held me back.
Kenji stood up with a scowl for the officer, but he didn’t retaliate. Tosh did. Tosh stepped out of line with a defiant stare-down for the officer, and ignored both the command to return to line and the threat of arrest. The crowd released a collective gasp as two other officers pounced on Tosh and handcuffed him. I struggled to free myself from my father’s grip.
Joey jumped in front of me and clamped his hands on my shoulders. ‘No point in all of us getting arrested.’
I squirmed, but neither Joey nor my father was going to let me get involved. Chidori’s frightened gaze met mine. She dropped her satchel and rushed towards me. I broke loose and lunged forward to embrace her. She pressed her lips to mine then whispered, ‘Please don’t lose your temper. There’s no point. Promise?’
After a deep breath to settle myself I said, ‘I promise. I love you.’
‘I love you too, Hayden. So much.’ She burst into tears as they escorted her away and ushered her up the ramp.
I didn’t want to upset her further, so I stuffed down my anger and dismay to keep my vow and maintain my composure.
Once the Princess Mary was completely loaded, it left the dock. All of the passengers stood on the deck to wave goodbye. Chidori blew me a kiss and we maintained eye contact with each other until she was too far away to see. Just like that. It was all over. They were gone.
My father asked, ‘Are you ready to head home, son?’
I wiped the cuff of my sleeve across my cheeks and sat on the edge of the dock. ‘No, sir.’
He nodded, patted my back and then left. I pulled the photo of Chidori out of my front shirt pocket and let my feet dangle over the edge. Before I had left her bedroom in the morning, she had written on the back: Hayden, they will never break us. Love, Chi.
I desperately hoped it was true that they couldn’t break us, but in that moment I felt so beaten. Every muscle in my body ached with grief over the injustice, I couldn’t see straight, and bile rose to my throat. It made me sick that once the crowd dispersed they went about the rest of the daily business in town normally, as if nothing had changed.
I was alone on the dock, except for the company of one haggard-looking seagull. He stared at me and bobbed his beak up and down as if nodding and saying, ‘I know how you feel, pal.’
Footsteps approached up the dock behind me, but I wasn’t in the mood to socialize, so I didn’t turn. ‘A letter came for you.’ It was the postmaster Mr Hogarth. ‘I saw you sitting down here looking glum and thought it might be something to cheer you up a little.’ He held the envelope out.
His footsteps were long faded before I finally worked up the energy to look at the letter. It was from Rosalyn. Since she had promised to notify me of the conditions at the Hastings Park facility, I tore it open.
Dearest Hayden,
Please be seated to read this. I regret that what I have to share with you is not pleasant. I hope you receive this in time to warn Chidori and her family before they leave Mayne Island. If it doesn’t arrive in time, please accept my apology and my condolences.
The Hastings Park facility is very unsuitable. The women and children are being held in a building where the livestock is normally stored, with barbed fencing around the yard. There are no toilets, just a trough of sorts with only recently installed makeshift modesty partitions. The stench is dreadful and illness has been spreading through the facility. There are no bathing facilities and very few showers, which are to be shared amongst thousands of people. The families are issued army blankets, but there are no sheets unless they brought their own from home with them. The families have hung clothes across the openings of the cattle stalls in an attempt to create privacy, but it is crude.
I try not to feel pity for them because I’m sure they already feel such shame to be forced to live in these conditions. Mrs Setoguchi is so dignified and I fear she will be terribly offended to be subjected to living conditions that are so beneath her.
The men are separated from the family and their bunks are simply straw mattresses thrown on frames crammed together in rows. From Hastings Park, the younger men are sent to labour camps while the women and children are interned with the older men in tent cities somewhere in the interior of the province. I don’t know all of the details of how they plan to move twenty-three thousand people. I wish I could be of more assistance, but the guards will not allow me to talk to anyone. I have only been able to ask quick questions here and there, and many of them don’t answer – perhaps because they are afraid of the guards overhearing us, or perhaps they don’t trust me. Either way, I understand their reluctance.
Some families have self-financed their own voluntary evacuation by train east of the Rocky Mountains. Please advise all of our dear friends from Mayne Island that if they can find a town outside the protected coastal zone willing to welcome them in, they might be able to avoid the camps by financing the train tickets themselves and renting property in Alberta or farther east – if it is not too late to make such arrangements.
Unfortunately, I have more ghastly news that I cannot bring myself to tell Mother and Father. I haven’t told anyone yet because if I say it aloud, it will make it true. It makes me cry to even think about it. I received word that Earl was shot down and is now missing. Oh, dear Hayden, I am beside myself with worry. His commanding officer wrote to tell me that his airplane was hit. He was forced to parachute out. The rest of his squadron saw him land safely and watched as he ran through a field towards the protection of a grove of trees. They said he was shot and fell, then got back up and disappeared into the trees. They hope he was taken in and is being hidden by a sympathetic family in the French countryside, but he may have also been captured by the Germans. If he is alive, they will go back in for him, so please hold him in your prayers.
Also, please show this to Father. I cannot bring myself to write it again. All of our greatest fears may be coming true. Please hug Mother for me.
Love,
Rosalyn
I read the letter over again, leaned back flat on the dock, and stared up at the sky. When I was a kid, I wondered why I couldn’t see God up in the clouds. I asked my Sunday school teacher once and she told me, ‘God is actually in each and every one of us at all times. We can’t see Him, but we can feel His presence.’ She placed her palm on my chest over my heart and asked, ‘Do you feel Him, Haydie?’ I thought I did when I was a kid, but as I lay on the dock, I wasn’t so sure.
When it turned to dusk, I drove the Setoguchi truck back to their empty property and then – in complete disillusionment – dragged myself home. My parents were in the family room on the couch, hugging.
‘How are you holding up, Hayden?’ my father asked.
‘Not well.’ I dropped Rosalyn’s letter on the table in front of them and headed up the stairs to my room.
Chapter 29
Jack passed behind me in the yard and whispered with urgency, ‘Hayden, what the hell are you doing?’
‘Looking.’
‘Goon up,’ he said to warn me of an approaching guard. ‘Get away from the fence. They’re going to shoot you.’ He stopped a distance away to give the appearance he had nothing to do with me.
‘How far do you think it is to the border?’ I asked with my face upturned to the one sliver of sunlight.
‘Too far. Have you completely lost your senses?’ He paced around, torn between wanting to rip me from the fence and wanting to walk away to save himself. ‘Step back before you take one in the back.’
My fingers clenched the wire, touching the freedom on the other side. ‘Would that be so terrible?’
‘Hayden, your girl is waiting on you at home. She’s dreaming about living with you in that house I drew for you. You just need to be patient. We’ll be going home before you know it. You’ll see her in no time.’
‘She’s not there.’
He paused, attempting to sort out what I was talking about. He must have realized that he was running out of time to change my mind and that what he said next was crucial, so chose his words wisely. ‘You’ll be reunited with her as soon as the war is over. Don’t do anything foolish to ruin that.’
Jack was a good chap, but I wasn’t sure I believed him. I closed my eyes and inhaled the air on the other side of the fence as I contemplated. A breeze picked up through the trees and Chidori’s voice whispered in my ear, ‘Don’t let them break you. Come home to me, Hayden.’
My fingers released the fence.
F/O Pierce Duration as POW: Don’t care.
I hate it here. I hate it here. I hate it here. I hate it here.
How does everyone else carry on as if it’s not insufferable? I made a grave error. Why did I come here? What was I thinking? I should have found Chidori and stayed with her. I didn’t make anything better by fighting in the war. Everything is worse.
I need to get out of here, or die.
Chidori and I walked in the grass next to a creek, holding hands and making each other laugh. We didn’t know we had a worry in the world. But then thunder cracked and two trench-coated Gestapo agents jumped out from the trees and pointed pistols at us. They forced us to march in the rain to an internment camp filled with piles of dead bodies layered on top of each other in grotesque mounds of flesh.
At the gate, Chidori grasped for my hand frantically, but an officer separated us and ripped her away by the waist. She kicked and screamed, trying to free herself from his hold but he threw her to the ground and climbed on top, pawing at her blouse. Enraged, I launched my body and knocked him off her. We rolled in the dirt, struggling. I grabbed his neck with one hand and covered his evil mouth with my other hand. The full force of my weight pressed down to suffocate him.
‘Get off,’ the Gestapo garbage cried out from under the pressure. I dug my fingers tighter into his throat to cut off his breathing. He coughed and clawed at my face. ‘Stop!’ he choked out.
‘You should have kept your filthy mitts off her,’ I growled.
I was tackled from behind and woke up fully when I hit the ground. Matt straddled across my waist. He’d had enough of the nightly assaults and grabbed me roughly by the shoulders, then slammed me repeatedly against the floorboards until I stopped flailing. His knees braced my arms down and his forearm angled across my throat. His face was inches from mine and he was breathing heavily. He stared me down ‘Are you awake now?’
I nodded. Billy, whom I’d mistaken for the Nazi police officer, was still gasping to recover from being strangled. ‘Sorry.’
They had all grown justifiably intolerant of my mental deterioration. Patience with me had worn thin.
Chapter 30
After Chidori was taken away from Mayne Island I didn’t leave my bedroom for five days, except to use the outhouse. I had no reason to. I wasn’t hungry. And there was no work at the mill. Patch alternated between sleeping on my floor and snuggled right up on my mattress next to me, but my mother eventually banished him as a disincentive to my despondence. After Patch was not allowed to comfort me, my mood became very dark. Then after a few nights of not sleeping, my thoughts became strange. Since Ma had witnessed the impact of the disease of insanity in other relatives, she grew rightly concerned and sent for Joey to come over in an attempt to cheer me up.
‘Hey, pal,’ Joey said as he entered my bedroom. ‘Want to go outside and toss the baseball around?’
‘No thanks. I don’t feel up to it.’ I rolled over on my mattress so my back faced him.
‘Come on. Some fresh air and,’ he chuckled, ‘a bath would definitely do you some good.’
‘I just want to be alone. Thanks anyway, Joe.’
The casters on my desk chair squeaked as Joey sat down. ‘Snap out of it, Hayden. What good does moping around and acting as if you’re dying do? You might as well get back to living your life. Lying around in bed for weeks or months ain’t going to stop a war or bring Chidori home.’
Holy smokes. That was it. He was right. I abruptly sat up and shot out of bed to slap him on the shoulder. ‘Thanks for the idea.’
‘What?’ Joey’s face angled with perplexed amusement.
Wholly inspired, I left my room and rushed downstairs with him following behind. My mother was pleased to see me awake and full of energy, and she thanked Joey profusely for changing my mood so quickly. But my father’s expression fell stern, as if he knew that my overly sudden change in disposition was not a good sign.
‘I’ve decided to volunteer to go overseas.’
‘Pardon me?’ Ma scowled at Joey as if he’d advised me to come up with the impulsive idea. ‘No. You absolutely will not do such a foolish thing.’
‘I have to volunteer. What they’re doing to the Japanese Canadians is wrong. I need to do something to fix it.’
Ma moved to stand in front of me. ‘Getting yourself killed overseas is not going to change anything. It certainly won’t bring Chidori home. Have you lost your ever-loving mind?’
‘Chidori will be allowed to come home once the war is over. It’s my duty to make sure the war gets over sooner rather than later.’
‘Don’t be reckless. You can’t win a war all by yourself. You’ll be killed.’ Her hands flew to her mouth to muffle her sobs. ‘John, talk some sense into him. He’s thinking rashly.’
My decision was made. I hadn’t put much thought into it, but I didn’t need to. It was the right thing to do. ‘Someone has to fight for what’s just. Besides, overseas conscription is probably going to start soon and I’ll be sent anyway.’
Patch whimpered as if to protest. I crouched and pressed my forehead to his. ‘Sorry, pal. But this is something I need to do. You be a good boy while I’m gone.’
My farewell to the dog made my mother bawl and she rushed out of the room.
Pop nodded at me as if he understood but wished he didn’t.
Chapter 31
F/O Pierce Duration as POW: Springtime, maybe. Each day is an eternity, so you’ll have to do the math.
My tremor is getting worse and sometimes my entire body shudders in time with my hands. Everything is brown and dull – the buildings, the ground, our clothes, our food, the dust that blows in through the cracks, the rodents and bugs. Even things that should have colour, like the sky or a fellow’s eyes, are all hazy brown. I wonder if there are still colours where Chidori is. I miss pink the most. I want to see the colour pink that her lips turn after she kisses me. I love that colour.
I know what happened to Rosalyn. Everything must have turned brown in her life.
F/O Pierce Duration as POW: Definitely spring. There’s no snow, just mud.
My mother makes the most delicious zucchini loaf, and sometimes I think I can taste it on my tongue, but then I swallow and my mouth tastes rancid again. The white-haired, nasty-nosed goon smirked in a smug way today when I saw him out in the yard. I laughed because if he knew what I was planning he wouldn’t be smug.
‘What are you thinking about, pal?’ Arnold asked me.
‘I wa
s thinking about how badly I crave an apple. I would kill for an apple from my farm back home. Bright red-green on the outside. Sweet juicy white on the inside. I would literally snap someone’s Goddamn neck for a McIntosh apple.’
Arnold gaped wide-eyed at me for a second, then glanced cautiously at a couple of the other fellows.
I was unravelling. I knew that.
F/O Pierce Duration as POW: Does it matter?
Forcing myself to stay awake prevents nightmares, but the lack of sleep is driving me insane – more insane. In the last twenty-four hours, I’ve thought about suffocating Malcolm because he snores, hitting Barney over the back of the head with a frying pan because he slurps his soup, and stabbing Edward with a shard of glass because he is always in such a damn jolly mood. Truly, how can someone be that happy in these conditions? It’s unnatural. Instead of killing every one of my bunkmates, it would be easier to kill myself. I have decided how I would kill myself. I would stand on a brown chair and wrap my brown belt around the brown rafter to make a brown noose. All I would have to do is kick the chair out from beneath me.
F/O Pierce Duration as POW: Long enough to detest the colour brown for the rest of my life, which might not be much longer now.
I heard Chidori’s voice again while I was in the yard. She reminded me that I was strong enough to survive this. She might be wrong, but in the event that she is right I decided to keep suffering for a little longer. If the sun ever came out, I think I would be cheerier. The weather alternates between heavy greyish-brown clouds and pouring rain. That’s it. No other weather. Even the rain seems brown because it makes rivers of brown mud run through the camp and splashes the mud up to coat the outside of the buildings. If I ever return home, I’m never going to wear brown again. I’m never going to eat soup again either.
F/O Pierce Duration as POW: Days turn to weeks turn to months turn to years.
All We Left Behind Page 17