His eyelids dropped in a longer than normal blink as he prepared to deliver the next round of rotten news. ‘The Setoguchis didn’t come back.’
I climbed the porch steps. ‘I know. That’s why I need to contact her. She’ll come home once she knows I’m here. Where did you store the letters she wrote?’
‘I’m sorry, son.’ He paused and rubbed the tension out of the back of his neck. He squinted at me through the sun and then reluctantly delivered the blow. ‘Chidori never wrote.’
And that struck like the butt of a rifle to the temple. ‘That’s impossible. She promised she would send a letter here to let me know where she ended up.’
He shook his head apologetically. ‘While your sister was sick, and we were staying in Vancouver, Mr Hogarth held our mail for us. Your mother picked it all up when we returned. There wasn’t anything from Chidori or the Setoguchis.’
‘Their letters must have been intercepted by the government. She’ll be able to write now,’ I theorized the most logical possibility to reassure myself.
Pop rested his hand on my shoulder, maybe because he could tell I would literally need the support when he burst my bubble. ‘The government censored parts of the letters but didn’t block correspondence. People here on Mayne received letters from other Japanese-Canadian families over the years.’
‘Well, there must be some other reason,’ I said, clinging desperately to the unravelling threads of hope. ‘I’ll write to Massey. He’ll know where they are. You have his address at the work camp, right?’
‘I did, but I don’t know where he is any more. In his last letter, he said he had been released from the work camp in Jasper and hoped to reunite with the family if he could find them. But he wasn’t sure yet where he was going to settle. We haven’t received another letter with his new address yet.’
Not willing to wait that long, I said, ‘I’ll write letters to every Japanese-Canadian family I can contact. One of them must know where the Setoguchis ended up.’
‘Years have passed, son. Have you prepared yourself for the possibility that Chidori has a new life?’
If he’d stabbed me with the pitchfork, it would have hurt less than the puncture of those words. It took every thread of will I had to suck in enough air to speak. ‘I’m going to find her. I have to find her as soon as I can.’ I stumbled back across the porch and down the steps to the yard.
‘You can’t find her right now. Where are you going?’
Not enough pressure was left in my lungs to respond, so I staggered down the driveway towards the road. It genuinely felt as if I’d been impaled and my insides were leaking out. My fingers searched my chest, and I fully expected to find the bloody, gaping holes. There was no physical wound, but I would be begging for a real pitchfork to the heart if I found out she had moved on with her life without me.
Chapter 38
It took much longer than it should have to hike the trail to the peak where Chidori and I had carved our initials in the arbutus tree. The carving was faded, but still faintly scarred the flesh. Thinking about that last day we had spent together filled me with joy, until I noticed the pebbles on the ground and remembered where mine was – lost forever. I sat down and rested my back against the trunk. The view over the other Gulf Islands was exactly the same as it had always been. To look at it, no one would have known how much time had passed or how much had changed in the world.
‘Chidori, if you can hear me,’ I said to the air. ‘I’m home. I’m going to try to find out where you are, but if I can’t, please know that I’m here waiting for you.’ I picked up a new stone and dropped it in my pocket. The wind swept up in a gust and the birds simultaneously fell silent. ‘Chi, I really hope you didn’t break your promise. I fought and then surrendered with a strength I didn’t know I possessed, all to get here. And I won’t have any reason to live if we aren’t reunited.’
A million different questions about what I could have done differently – which all started with what if and ended with unsatisfying answers – rambled through my mind. Whether my choices were mistakes or failures or necessary evils, I would maybe never know, but undeniably my life would never be the same again. Change, I could handle. What terrified me was the uncertainty of whether my life after the change would ever be good again. The wind died down and at least one thousand birds began chirping in the distance. I hoped it was a sign.
I hiked back down the trail and followed the road to the Setoguchis’ old farm. When I reached the entrance to their driveway, I paused. The yard was overgrown. The house desperately needed painting and the porch steps sagged to one side. Massey’s cabin had been converted into a chicken coop. The greenhouses were gone and only a stone foundation remained where the structures once stood. One of the windows in the barn was cracked and the roof must have taken a beating in a storm. Mr Setoguchi would have never let that type of disrepair linger.
I inched closer and peered through the bushes at Chidori’s bedroom window, half-hoping to see her waving at me. With my eyes closed I tried to imagine her there. It worked until I opened my eyes again and she wasn’t. Two boys and a girl appeared from behind the house, chasing a ball around in the grass. One boy was about fifteen, one was about thirteen, and the girl was about ten years old. She spotted me and headed my way, so I turned and carried on.
A minute later, the bushes rustled and she popped out in front of me. She had curly brown hair, large dark eyes and she wore a white dress more suited for Sunday school than playing in the yard. ‘Hey, mister. Why were you poking around my house?’
‘No reason. Pardon me.’ I walked faster.
‘Where are you off to in such a hurry?’
‘Nowhere.’
‘Your legs are moving. You’re going somewhere.’
I glanced over sideways at her, wondering why she wasn’t at all cautious of a peeper who had been hiding in the bushes. ‘Didn’t your ma ever teach you not to talk to strangers?’
‘You don’t look like a stranger. Besides, I don’t have a mother any more.’
I was taken back, surprised she had said it so matter-of-factly.
‘I don’t have a father any more either,’ she added, and skipped to catch up to me.
‘Who do you live with in that house then?’
She clutched the needle tips of a low-hanging cedar branch, as if she were holding hands with it, then released it after she passed by to let it spring back behind her. ‘The Maiers. Our foster parents. Our real parents were killed in the war.’
She had an accent I had heard before but couldn’t quite place. ‘Which country?’
‘I was born in Hungary but my family fled to London when I was young because Jews from our town were being forced to go to camps.’
I studied her expression for a few strides to determine whether she was aware of what had truly occurred in the camps. If she did know the truth, it didn’t show. It was best if she didn’t. ‘Your parents were killed in London?’
‘Yes. The night before we were supposed to leave on the ship my uncle’s flat was bombed in an air raid. He and my parents died.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
We both walked in silence towards Bennett Bay as the gravity of our combined grief lingered in the air between us.
Eventually I asked, ‘How did you end up on Mayne Island?’
‘My brothers and I came to Canada on an ocean liner with other war orphans. We boarded a train in Halifax and another ship in Vancouver to finally arrive here. It took a lifetime. The Maiers clambered to pick us up as if we were free puppies.’ She looked over her shoulder back in the direction of the house. ‘I didn’t think I was going to enjoy living here, but I have the most enchanting room. On the wall are lovely pictures of ballerinas and birds. I even have my own dressing table that makes me feel like a princess.’
The memory of Chidori’s room panged in my heart. ‘I know the girl who used to live in that room. Those are her old belongings.’
‘Oh. She had fine taste
. I reckon it’s the best room I’ve ever had the pleasure of resting my head in.’
‘You make sure you keep good care of those things.’
‘Yes, sir. I will.’ She stretched the length of her stride to match my pace as if she wanted to appear to be on a stroll together.
‘I don’t suppose you know where that family is now.’
‘No, sir.’ She hopped fallen logs to keep up with me. ‘May I tag along with you?’
‘No. You should head on home now.’ I cut through the bushes where the short-cut trail to the beach used to be. The girl followed me. I had to push aside prickle bushes and stomp down some fern leaves, but the old path was still partially visible.
‘What’s your name?’ she asked.
I didn’t answer.
‘My name is Marguerite. Call me Margie. Everyone does.’
‘Why don’t you go play with your brothers, Marguerite? I want to be alone.’
She tugged at leaves as she half-walked and half-skipped down the trail. ‘All I ever do is play with my brothers. Why do you want to be left to yourself? Is it because you’re sad?’
I glanced at her briefly, then cut through the bushes.
‘Did you fancy the girl who lived in my room before me?’
‘Yes.’
She nodded as if she had already figured as much. ‘Do you still fancy her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why aren’t you together?’
‘We were separated by the war.’
‘The war’s over now. You should go search for her.’
‘I don’t know where she is. She’s supposed to meet me here.’ When we stepped out onto the sand of Bennett Bay, the sight of Chidori’s rowboat, weathered from being left abandoned out for three winters, made me stop in my tracks. After a moment to recover, I crouched next to it and pushed the grass aside. The lettering was faded and chipped off in spots, but Chi Chi was still visible. I closed my eyes and remembered all the times we’d gone fishing, the night she went missing, and how I had asked her to marry me on the log next to that boat. My heart jumped around inside my chest thinking about all that, but when I opened my eyes, all I saw was a beat-up old rowboat.
Staggered by grief, I sat on the log and stared out over the water.
Marguerite sat next to me. ‘Is her name Chidori? I believe that’s the name of the girl who used to live in my room.’
‘Yes, how do you know that?’
‘Some of her personal belongings were left in the room.’
I nodded, but didn’t say anything because it upset me to know that all of the possessions they couldn’t carry with them had been sold to strangers.
She looked at my uniform. ‘You just returned from fighting in the war?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you kill anyone?’
‘Yes.’
She pointed her fingers and made sound effects to pretend to shoot. ‘I wish I could have killed those dirty Nazis who locked up all the Jews and bombed my parents.’
‘No. You don’t want to kill anyone.’ I placed my hands on hers to lower her finger guns. ‘If you’re going to wish for anything, you should wish there is never another war and that no other children will lose their parents. You understand?’
She nodded, not entirely in agreement.
I stood. ‘I need to get going. Ask your foster parents if they have an address for the family who used to live in the house, will ya?’
As I walked away she shouted, ‘Are you Hayden?’
I turned to face her. ‘How do you know that?’
‘Chidori’s journals.’
‘Those things in her room don’t belong to you. You shouldn’t be snooping through them, you understand?’
‘Yes, sir. But why did she leave them behind?’
I swallowed hard because the reality stung. ‘They thought they were coming back.’ I picked up my pace and ducked into the forest. I honestly wanted to hop a ship that instant and search the province for Chidori, but I didn’t even know where to start.
Chapter 39
The sky outside my childhood bedroom window lightened with the dawn and created geometric shapes of sunlight on the ceiling that were the same as when I was a child. It felt both familiar and odd to wake up in my own star-quilt-covered bed. On the Origin of Species was still on the bookshelf, my saxophone was still in the corner, and my baseball glove was still hanging from the bedpost. The room smelled like leather and linseed oil, exactly as I remembered, but something intangible felt different. Smaller.
I dressed, then without glancing in the direction of my sister’s old bedroom, I headed downstairs for breakfast. My parents weren’t around, but there was an unopened envelope from Rosalyn on the kitchen table in front of my old chair. I sat, took several deep breaths, and opened it. When I unfolded the sheet of paper, a charm fell out onto the table. A tiny gold rose.
Dear Haydie,
If I could give you one piece of advice, it would be to cut yourself free from the past before it drags you down. I know you’ll understand. Don’t ever give up. I’m sorry I wasn’t as strong as you are.
Forever in your heart,
Rose
My first instinct was to take the charm over to the Setoguchis’ farm to give it to Chidori for her bracelet, but then remembered I couldn’t. Choked up by both reminders of my sister and Chidori, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my hankie. The charms of the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, and a snowflake that I had bought in London rolled to the centre of the fabric. I dropped the rose onto the handkerchief next to the others and carefully folded the corners in before putting it back in my pocket. The tremor in my hands returned.
‘Good morning.’ Mother stepped in from outside with a basket of fresh eggs from the coop and leaned over to kiss my cheek. ‘Oh.’ She paused and took Rose’s letter from me. ‘Your father must have absentmindedly left this out. There’s no need to bring up those memories.’ She stuffed the letter away into the pocket of her apron. ‘Did you sleep well?’
I didn’t bother telling her about the nightmare of drowning in an ocean of blood that left me dripping in sweat and gasping for air in the middle of the night. Instead, I said, ‘I need to use the outhouse.’
Her face angled into a frown of motherly concern, but she had no choice but to let me go.
Marguerite was perched on the woodpile when I walked back through the yard from the outhouse. A stack of journals was piled on her lap. Without acknowledging her, I leaned over the edge of the well and dropped the bucket down to scoop some water to wash my face.
‘Morning,’ she said as she scrambled down from the woodpile and joined me at the well. She was wearing overalls that were two sizes too big and needed to be rolled several times at the cuff so she wouldn’t trip. ‘I brought some of Chidori’s journals over. I thought you might want them but I couldn’t carry all of them.’
I glanced at her, then splashed my face. The water straight from the bucket tasted so pure. My body yearned to drink up enough to replace every drop of tainted water that resided in me. Marguerite kneeled on the grass and opened one of the journals to show me. I had to look away because the sight of Chidori’s handwriting scrolled across the pages made my heart ache.
‘This is you, isn’t it?’ She held up a yellowed photo of Chidori and me when we were twelve.
‘You shouldn’t have read those. They don’t belong to you.’
‘I apologize. How was I to know I was ever going to meet the people in the stories?’ She tucked the photo back into the journal. ‘Chidori loves you more than anything in the whole wide world. You should hear all the nice things she has written about you. Hayden walked me home from school today and carried my books for me. He has the bluest eyes I have ever seen, and he gets the most adorable dimple when he smiles. My heart spins cartwheels whenever he is near. I wonder if he thinks about me when we are not together. I hope he asks me to marry him one—’
‘Those are someone else’s private thoughts. You shouldn’t be re
ading them.’
‘I already read all of them. I can’t unread them.’ She leaned on the edge of the well next to me. ‘I’ll help you search for her.’
‘She’s somewhere far away. You won’t be able to help.’
‘I could pray for you. God owes us.’
‘God doesn’t owe us anything. We’re alive. That’s more than thousands of other innocent people got.’
‘He owes me.’
I pointed to scold her. ‘He spared you and brought you to a place where you would be safe. You need to be thankful for what you have, not resentful for the things you’ve lost.’
She shook her head to disagree. ‘You aren’t at liberty to tell me how to feel. It’s not like I’m whining about losing my favourite doll or my brand-new flute.’ She pointed to scold me right back. ‘He took my flesh and blood. My parents. That wasn’t fair and I am permitted to feel resentful over that. He owes me.’
I ran my hand through my hair and gazed out over the wheat field where Pop was just coming in on the tractor with the golden retriever plodding placidly behind. ‘God doesn’t owe me nothing. If God owes you something, you should save his indebtedness for yourself. My ma’s waiting on me for breakfast. You should go on home.’ I walked four strides and she caught up to me.
‘I know your kind of sad. The one that haunts you.’
I stopped near the steps to the porch and looked down at her.
‘I was there too.’ She bent over to stack the journals on the porch. ‘I’m going to help you find Chidori because once you’re together again, your nightmares will go away.’
‘How do you know about the nightmares?’
‘I told you. I know your sad.’ She reached over and touched my hand. ‘I’ll see you later, Hayden.’ She waved as she skipped through the grass to the road.
After spending the morning with my family, I visited a couple of neighbours’ houses to ask if they’d heard anything about where the Setoguchis were. Two of them hadn’t kept in contact with any of the Japanese families, and the one who had only knew where the Nagatas were. She gave me the Nagatas’ address so I could contact them. Before heading to the next house, I decided instead of going door-to-door all over the entire island, it would probably be easier to hang out in front of the general store to catch everyone while they were in town.
All We Left Behind Page 21