The Japanese Lover

by Isabel Allende

  Two years after Alma came to live at Sea Cliff, Isaac Belasco and Takao Fukuda formed a partnership to set up a nursery for flowers and decorative plants. Their dream was to make it the best in California. The first step was to purchase some parcels of land in Isaac’s name, as a way of getting around the 1913 law that prohibited issei from becoming American citizens, owning land, or buying property. For Fukuda this was a unique opportunity; for Belasco it was a wise investment similar to others he had made at the height of the Depression. He had never been interested in the vagaries of the stock exchange, always preferring to invest in creating jobs. The two men became partners on the understanding that when Charles, Takao’s eldest son, came of age, the Fukudas could buy out Isaac’s share at the then prevailing prices, the nursery would be put into Charles’s name, and their partnership would be dissolved. Because he was born in the United States, Charles was an American citizen. All this was a gentleman’s agreement, sealed with a simple handshake.

  The Belascos’ garden remained deaf to the defamatory propaganda campaign against the Japanese, who were accused of unfair competition against American farmers and fishermen, threatening white women’s virtue with their insatiable lust, and corrupting American society by their Oriental, anti-Christian ways. Alma only found out about these slurs two years after she had arrived in San Francisco, when from one day to the next the Fukuda family became the “yellow peril.” By that time she and Ichimei were inseparable friends.

  * * *

  Imperial Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 severely damaged twenty-one ships of the US fleet, leaving a tally of twenty-three hundred dead and more than a thousand wounded, and in less than twenty-four hours completely changed the Americans’ isolationist mentality. President Roosevelt declared war on Japan, and a few days later Hitler and Mussolini, Japan’s allies, declared war on the United States. The entire country was mobilized to fight the war that had been soaking Europe in blood for the past eighteen months. The reaction of widespread terror provoked by Japan’s attack was whipped up by a hysterical media campaign that warned of an imminent invasion on the Pacific Coast by the “yellows.” Hatred toward East Asians, which had already existed for a century, was exacerbated. Japanese who had lived in the country for years, as well as their children and grandchildren, suddenly became suspected of spying and collaborating with the enemy. The roundups and arrests began soon afterward. It was enough for a boat to have a shortwave radio—the only way for fishermen to communicate with the land—for the owner to be taken in. The dynamite used by small farmers to remove trunks and rocks from their crop fields was seen as proof of terrorism. Shotguns, and even kitchen knives and other tools, were impounded; so too were binoculars, cameras, small religious statues, ceremonial kimonos, and documents in another tongue. Two months later, Roosevelt signed the order to evacuate for reasons of military security all persons of Japanese origin from the Pacific coast states—California, Oregon, and Washington, where the “yellow” troops might carry out the feared invasion. Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and Utah were also declared military zones. The US Army was given three weeks to build the necessary shelters.

  In March of 1942, San Francisco awoke plastered with warnings that announced the evacuation of the Japanese population. Takao and Heideko did not understand them, but their son Charles explained. First of all, the Japanese could not go outside a radius of five miles from their homes without a special permit and had to obey a nighttime curfew from eight p.m. to six a.m. The authorities began to raid houses and confiscate possessions; they arrested influential men who might incite treason, community leaders, company directors, teachers, pastors, and took them away to undisclosed destinations; their terrified wives and children were left behind. The Japanese had to quickly sell off whatever they owned at knockdown prices, and to close their businesses. They soon discovered that their bank accounts had been frozen; they were ruined. The plant nursery Takao Fukuda and Isaac Belasco had planned together never saw the light of day.

  By August, more than a hundred and twenty thousand men, women, and children would be evacuated, old people snatched from hospitals, babies from orphanages, and mental patients from asylums. They would be interned in ten concentration camps in isolated areas of the interior, while cities would be left with phantom neighborhoods full of empty homes and desolate streets, where abandoned pets and the confused spirits of the ancestors who had arrived in America with the immigrants wandered aimlessly. The evacuation order was aimed at protecting not only the Pacific coast but also the Japanese themselves, as they could become the victims of misunderstanding by the rest of the population; it was a temporary solution and would be carried out in a humane fashion. This was the official line, but meanwhile the hate speech spread. “A snake is always a snake, wherever it lays its eggs. A Japanese-American born of Japanese parents, brought up in a Japanese tradition, living in an atmosphere transplanted from Japan, inevitably and with only rare exceptions grows up as Japanese and not American. They are all enemies.” It was enough to have a great-grandfather born in Japan to be seen as a snake.

  As soon as Isaac Belasco learned of the imminent evacuation, he went to see Takao to offer help and reassure him that his absence would be a short one because the evacuation was unconstitutional, violating the principles of American democracy. His Japanese partner replied with a deep bow. He was profoundly moved by this man’s friendship, because in recent weeks his family had suffered insults, snubs, and even aggression from other whites. Shikata ga nai, what can we do, Takao told him. That was his people’s slogan in times of adversity. When Isaac insisted, Takao asked a special favor of him: to allow him to bury the Fukuda sword in the garden at Sea Cliff. He had managed to hide it from the agents who raided his house, but it wasn’t safe. The sword represented the courage of his forebears and the blood shed for the emperor; it could not run the risk of being dishonored.

  That same night the entire Fukuda family, dressed in the white kimonos of the Oomoto religion, went to Sea Cliff, where Isaac and his son, Nathaniel, received them in dark suits and wearing the yarmulkes they used on the rare occasions they attended a synagogue. Ichimei brought his cat in a basket covered in a cloth and handed him to Alma to look after for a while.

  “What’s his name?” she asked him.

  “Neko. It’s Japanese for ‘cat.’ ”

  Accompanied by her daughters, Lillian served Heideko and Megumi tea in one of the first-floor living rooms, while Alma, who did not understand what was going on but was aware of the solemnity of the occasion, slipped through the shadows beneath the trees and followed the men, clutching the basket. They filed downhill through the terraces, lighting their way with oil lamps, until they reached the spot overlooking the sea where they had dug a small trench. In the lead was Takao, carrying the katana wrapped in white silk; after him came his eldest son, Charles, with the metal box they had had made to protect the sword; James and Ichimei followed him; and Isaac and Nathaniel Belasco brought up the rear. Not bothering to hide his tears, Takao prayed for several minutes, then placed the sword in the box his eldest son held out and fell to his knees, forehead pressed against the ground, while Charles and James lowered the katana into the hole and Ichimei scattered handfuls of soil onto it. Then they filled the hole in and flattened the earth with spades. “Tomorrow I will plant white chrysanthemums here to mark the spot,” said Isaac, his voice hoarse with emotion, as he helped Takao to his feet.

  Alma did not dare run over to Ichimei, because she guessed there must be an overriding reason why women were excluded from the ceremony. She waited until they had returned to the house to catch Ichimei and drag him off to a corner out of sight. The boy explained he would not be returning the following Saturday or any other day for the time being, possibly for several weeks or months, and that they would not be able to talk on the telephone either. “Why? Why?” shouted Alma, shaking him, but Ichimei could not explain. He himself had no idea why they had to leave or where they were g
oing.

  THE YELLOW PERIL

  The Fukudas covered their windows and put a padlock on the street door. It was March, and they had paid a year’s rent, as well as a deposit to buy the house just as soon as they could put it in Charles’s name. They gave away what they could not or would not sell, because the opportunist buyers were offering two or three dollars for things that were worth twenty times that. They had only a few days to dispose of their possessions, pack one suitcase each and what they could carry, and present themselves at the “buses of shame.” They were forced to accept internment, otherwise they would be arrested and face the consequences of spying and treason in wartime. Joining hundreds of other families shuffling along in their best clothes, the women wearing hats, the men with neckties, the children in patent leather bootees, they went to the Civil Control Center. The families gave themselves up because there was no alternative and because by so doing they thought they were demonstrating their loyalty toward the United States and their repudiation of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. This was their contribution to the war effort, the leaders of the Japanese community said, and very few voices were raised against them. The Fukudas were destined for the camp at Topaz, in a desert area of Utah, but were unaware of this until September; in the meantime they were housed six months at a racetrack.

  Accustomed as they were to being discreet, the issei obeyed without protest, but they could not prevent some young people, second-generation nisei, from openly rebelling. These youngsters were separated from their families and dispatched to Tule Lake, the strictest concentration camp, where they were treated like criminals for the duration of the war. In San Francisco, the local white population observed the harrowing procession along the streets of people they knew well: the owners of stores where they shopped every day; the fishermen, gardeners, and carpenters they often dealt with; their sons’ and daughters’ schoolmates; their neighbors. Most of them looked on in troubled silence, although there was no shortage of racist insults and malicious jeers. Two-thirds of those evacuated at that time had been born in the United States and were American citizens. Standing in long lines, the Japanese had to wait for hours in front of the desks of the officials, who took down their names and handed out labels for them to wear around their necks with their identity number, the same as for their luggage. A group of Quakers, who were opposed to this measure because they considered it racist and anti-Christian, offered them water, sandwiches, and fruit.

  Takao Fukuda was about to climb on board the bus with his family when Isaac Belasco appeared, dragging Alma along with him. He had used the weight of his authority to intimidate the officials and soldiers who tried to stop him. He was deeply disturbed, as he could not help but compare what was taking place only a few blocks from his home with what had probably happened to his in-laws in Warsaw. He pushed his way through to hug his friend and hand him an envelope stuffed with cash, which Takao tried in vain to refuse, while Alma bade farewell to Ichimei. Write to me, write to me, was the last thing both children could say to each other before the disconsolate line of buses pulled away.

  At the end of what seemed to them an interminable journey, although in reality it lasted little more than an hour, the Fukuda family reached the racetrack at Tanforan, in the city of San Bruno. The authorities had enclosed the stadium in a barbed-wire fence, hurriedly cleared out the stables, and constructed makeshift barracks to house eight thousand people. The evacuation order had been so rushed, there had been no time to finish the installations or to equip the camps with the essentials. The buses’ engines were switched off, and the prisoners began to disembark, carrying children and bundles, helping the old folk. They moved forward without a word in huddled, uncertain groups, unable to understand the squawking of the blaring loudspeakers. Rain had turned the ground into a quagmire, and was soaking them and their belongings.

  Armed guards separated men and women for an initial medical examination; later on they were to be inoculated against typhus and measles. Over the next few hours the Fukudas tried to recover their things from the jumbled mountains of luggage and then moved into the empty stable stall assigned to them. Cobwebs hung from the roof; there were cockroaches and mice, and several inches of dust and straw on the floor. The smell of horses still lingered in the air, as well as that of the creosote used to little effect as a disinfectant. They were given a cot, a sack, and two army blankets each. Takao was so weary and humiliated to the depths of his being that he sat down on the floor with his elbows on his knees and buried his head in his hands. Heideko took off her hat, put on her sandals, rolled her sleeves up, and prepared to make the best of their misfortune. She didn’t give the children time to feel sorry for themselves, but immediately got them to make up the beds and sweep the floor. Then she sent Charles and James to fetch bits of board and sticks, left over from the hasty construction work, that she had seen when they arrived, in order to make shelves where she could put the few kitchen utensils she had brought with her. She told Megumi and Ichimei to fill the sacks with straw to make mattresses, as they had been instructed to do, while she set out to explore the installations, say hello to the other women, and size up the camp guards and officials, who were as bewildered as the detainees they were in charge of, wondering how long they were going to have to stay there. The only obvious enemies Heideko could identify on her first tour of inspection were the Korean interpreters, whom she saw as odious toward the evacuees and fawning toward the American officials. She saw that there were not enough latrines or showers, and that they had no doors; the women had four baths between them, and insufficient hot water. The right to privacy had been abolished. But she thought they wouldn’t be short of food, because she saw the provision trucks and learned that they would be serving three meals a day in the mess halls, starting that evening.

  Supper consisted of potatoes, sausages, and bread, but the sausages ran out before it was the Fukuda family’s turn. “Come back later,” one of the Japanese servers whispered. Heideko and Megumi waited for the canteen to empty and were given a tin of minced meat and more potatoes, which they took back to the family room. That night, Heideko went through a mental list of the steps to be taken to make their stay at the racetrack more bearable. The first item was their diet, and the last, in parentheses because she seriously doubted she could achieve it, was to change the interpreters. She didn’t shut her eyes all that night, and as the first rays of sunlight filtered through the bars of the stable window, she shook her husband, who had not slept either and was lying there motionless.

  “There’s a lot to do here, Takao. We need representatives to negotiate with the authorities. Put your jacket on and go and gather the men together.”

  * * *

  Problems arose at once at Tanforan, but before the week was out the evacuees had organized themselves. After taking a democratic vote to elect their representatives, among whom Heideko Fukuda was the only woman, they registered the adults according to their professions and skills—teachers, farmers, carpenters, blacksmiths, accountants, doctors. Then they started a school without either pencils or notebooks, and put sports and other activities on the schedule to keep the young people busy so as to combat their frustration and boredom. The evacuees spent much of the day and night lining up, for the shower, hospital, religious services, mail, and three meals in the canteens; they had to show a great deal of patience to avoid disturbances and fights. There was a daily curfew, and a twice-daily roll call. Speaking in Japanese was prohibited, which made life impossible for the issei. To prevent the guards from intervening, the internees themselves took charge of keeping order and controlling any troublemakers, but no one could stop the rumors from swirling around, which frequently caused panic. People tried to stay polite, so that the hardship, the crowded living conditions, and the humiliation were more tolerable.

  Six months later, on the eleventh of September, the detainees began to be transferred by train. Nobody knew where they were headed. After a day and two nights of travel on dilapidated, suffocati
ng trains with few toilets and no lights in the dark hours, crossing desolate landscapes they did not recognize and that many confused with Mexico, they came to a halt at Delta station in Utah. From there they continued the journey in trucks and buses to Topaz, the Jewel of the Desert, as the concentration camp had been called, possibly without any ironic intent. The filthy evacuees were trembling and half-dead from exhaustion but had not been hungry or thirsty, because sandwiches had been handed out in each carriage, and there were baskets full of oranges.

  At an altitude of more than four thousand feet, Topaz was a ghastly makeshift city of identical low buildings like a military base. It was ringed by barbed wire, tall watchtowers, and armed soldiers, and was set in an arid, godforsaken landscape that was lashed by the wind and whirling dust storms. The other ­Japanese concentration camps in the West were similar, and placed in ­desert areas to discourage any attempt at escape. There was not a single tree or bush to be seen, nothing green in any direction, only rows of gloomy huts stretching to the horizon. Families huddled together, holding hands to avoid getting lost in the confusion. They all needed to use the latrines but had no idea where they were. It took the guards several hours to organize the new arrivals, because they did not understand the instructions either, but they finally assigned all the accommodations.