Weedflower

by Cynthia Kadohata

  “I don’t have any flower seeds,” he said.

  “I have some. They’re the most beautiful flowers in the world!” she blurted out. Of course, she hadn’t actually seen Uncle’s Sumiko Strain, but she figured his hard work must be beautiful.

  Mr. Moto nodded thoughtfully. “I was thinking of only vegetables. But I’ll tell you what. Let me sleep on it.”

  Sumiko was surprised at how disappointed she felt that he needed to sleep on it. “Okay,” she said. He went back to digging. On the farm she had never done work that required a lot of physical strength, like digging in hard ground. So now she felt she needed Mr. Moto’s help. Otherwise, she could have simply planted her own garden—that is, if she ever found the energy.

  Sumiko felt the ultimate boredom closing in on her. The ultimate boredom wasn’t dread of the next year or of what the government might do next; it was dread of your own mind, dread of the next day, the next hour, the next minute. You could lose your mind at any time. Like one morning, for no good reason, Sumiko actually stomped on a butterfly that landed in the dust. After she moved her foot, she saw the squished butterfly and wondered what had come over her. She hadn’t thought about it beforehand, but had just suddenly stomped on the poor butterfly. She figured maybe she’d had a sudden attack of the ultimate boredom, and then when she’d seen the dead butterfly she snapped out of it.

  One day Sumiko took the shuttle bus to Camp One to visit her father’s brother, Uncle Kenzo, on his birthday. Auntie made her do that; he was a grouch, and she’d never been close to him. So that kept her busy for a little while. She just sat in his room with his glum family for a few hours, then returned to Camp Three. On the bus to Camp One she’d been surprised to see how many gardens were already springing up all over Poston.

  Later that day Sumiko was so bored, she just flopped to the ground right outside her barrack and didn’t move. A butterfly fluttered over her. She wondered if the butterfly were actually the ultimate boredom in disguise. She wondered whether it planned to flutter and flutter and then strike! She wondered if maybe she had already lost her mind. It was possible.

  Sumiko felt so lazy that a few days ago instead of writing Juchan and Uncle an actual letter, she just sent them some lists she scribbled around the edges of old copies of the Poston Chronicle—the camp newspaper run by camp residents. In return, she received a letter from Jiichan that was written in a circle around the margin of a sheet of paper.

  Dear Sumiko,

  We don’t deserve real letter?

  You so busy you can’t wnte in good penmanship?

  You must be very busy.

  Jiichan and Uncle

  But even that didn’t affect Sumiko. She just stuck the letter in her luggage and didn’t think about it again.

  Her only pleasure, if it could be called a “pleasure,” was lying outside at night under the stars. She liked to listen as people from her barrack lay on their cots outside and talked. In the background the wind would agitate the mesquite and send dust into the night like ghosts rising from the ground.

  One night Mr. Moto told about the rolling green hills of the Japanese countryside. He’d been born in Seattle but educated in Japan. He said that if America sent him back to Japan, he would buy a rice farm in the country. He’d owned a grocery store at the time of the evacuation, but his parents had been rice farmers. “Before the evacuation I sold the store and my house in a package deal for one thousand dollars, even though I paid four thousand for the house in 1940.”

  Another man said, “Ah, shikata ga nai.”

  Sumiko heard that phrase all the time lately.

  For instance, the previous night Mr. Moto had told Sumiko that he’d fallen on a rake as a boy. That’s how he’d lost an eye. He’d said, “Shikata ga nai.” That meant “This cannot be helped.” Once when Sumiko had asked Jiichan how sad it had made him when her mother died, he’d said, “Shikata ga nai.” When your house burned down, when someone you loved died, when your heart was broken, when you suffered any tragedy, but also when you merely broke a toenail, that’s what the Japanese said.

  This cannot be helped.

  After telling everyone about his house, Mr. Moto got out of his cot and leaned into his doorway. “Son?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t you want to be outside? Everybody is talking.”

  “I’m trying to sleep, Dad.”

  So Mr. Moto returned to lie in his cot. Sumiko rarely saw Mr. Moto’s son. She guessed he was just in the mood to be alone.

  Mr. Moto started talking about Poston. He said he’d once wanted to be a teacher, so he liked to give little lectures once in a while. “Poston is in the Sonoran Desert,” he said. “It’s one of the hottest areas in the country. There used to be just a few buildings around here, but now the camp is the third-largest town in Arizona.”

  “How did you find that out?” Sumiko asked. “I thought there are no maps in camp.”

  Mr. Moto pointed to his head. “They can keep the maps out of Poston but not out of my head. I know my geography.”

  “You would have made a good teacher,’ Sumiko said. “You—”

  A man suddenly snapped, “Quiet!”

  And Sumiko shut her mouth instantly. She knew an inu had just walked into view at the end of the barrack. Inu meant “dog,” but people used it to mean “dirty dog” or “snitch” who worked for the white administration to spy on other Nikkei.

  The man continued to stand there, and one by one people dragged their cots inside. Sumiko was disappointed—she liked lying outside. But she dragged her cot into her barrack.

  She couldn’t sleep because of the heat. After a while she heard a dust storm rising, and then she heard grunting and pounding from outside. For a second she wasn’t sure she heard the grunting, but the noises grew louder and louder. She was torn between jumping out of bed and staying as still as she could. Sweat poured from her forehead. Somehow she knew exactly what was happening, even though she had never before heard the sick sound of a man getting beaten. She knew it was the inu.

  Finally she got up. “Stay there!” Ichiro and Bull ordered at the same time. They ran outside. Sumiko jumped up anyway and looked out the door with Auntie and Tak-Tak. About forty feet away she could make out several men kicking another man. The dust made it seem like she was watching through a veil.

  The man getting beaten was named Yamada. Everybody believed he was an inu. He probably was an inu. A woman had told Yamada that she secretly owned a camera, and the next day her barrack had been searched and the camera confiscated.

  Ichiro and Bull returned to the room.

  “Should we help him?” said Sumiko.

  Ichiro shook his head. “Absolutely not.” Sumiko turned to Bull, but he just got back in bed and lay there. Sumiko wondered whether his eyes were wide open like her own.

  Yamada groaned so loudly, Sumiko could hear him clearly. She heard talking, crying, shouting, pleading. She couldn’t stand it!

  “Bull, I can’t stand it!” she said.

  “I know,” he said.

  Guilt filled her soul. Sumiko knew in her heart that Yamada was an inu. Some of the inu were very friendly and smiled when they saw you. Sumiko didn’t mind the people who were unhappy at their treatment, and she didn’t mind the people who thought they should try to make the best of things. But like everybody else, she didn’t like the inu. Still, the sound of Yamada’s groans made her feel like groaning herself.

  It seemed they beat him forever. Sumiko felt an ache grow in her stomach. She just stood in the center of the room willing herself not to be there. I’m not here. I’m out there. I’m not here. And for a moment it came true, and she was at the farm again, watching the white cheesecloth billow over the flowers they had worked so hard to grow, watching birds fly above the cloth, and watching her family—all of them—work peacefully in the weedflowers.

  Then the beating ended. And there was silence. The groaning stopped, and even the wind stopped.

  Silence, finall
y, silence.

  17

  SUMIKO READ IN THE CHRONICLE THAT POSTON was the only Nikkei relocation center administered by the Office of Indian Affairs. Maybe that was why security seemed rather lax here. Supposedly the other relocation centers were run by the War Relocation Authority. The camps for Issei like Jiichan and Uncle were run by the Department of Justice and were more like prisons.

  Before long you could do many things in the town of Poston that you could do in any town. You could sit at the movies (if you’d made your own chair), get a job cooking food (at a mess hall), drive a truck (but not too far), build buildings (only in the camp), dig irrigation ditches, build basketball courts or baseball diamonds, play on a baseball or basketball team, farm, deliver mail, work at a store, fight fires, join the government, join a gang, and join clubs. Working at least kept you busy, even though you got paid much less than you would make outside for the same work. Some camp residents kept busy running for office and fighting over political control of the camps. Ultimately, the white administration made the major decisions, but the residents also got a say.

  Every day the Chronicle told of dances in the block recreation halls; new clubs or classes for gardening, sewing, learning English, and many other subjects; tournaments for marbles, basketball, baseball, and other sports; job offers; elections and meetings; items for sale; and so on.

  One thing the newspaper didn’t cover was the war. Nobody had the least idea who was winning. Some people thought Japan was winning, and others thought the United States was winning. One man whom nobody listened to much said that the war in Europe was just as important as the war in the Pacific. But nobody talked much about Germany. It was always Japan this and Japan that. Ichiro said the government didn’t want them knowing anything about what was going on in the war.

  The grown-ups in camp complained all the time about how wild the kids were getting. Sachi and some other girls sometimes stole candy bars from the canteen. And some of the boys had stolen a pig and put it in an inu’s barrack. Sumiko had seen them giggling maniacally as they ran through camp carrying the squealing animal.

  The camp was hot and awful and ugly and boring, but because it was “permanent,” Sumiko started to get used to it. And she found she kind of liked being bad. She wasn’t bad bad, but when she didn’t feel like it, she didn’t sit with Auntie and Tak-Tak during meals. And she stayed out late a few times, just sitting around with Sachi and the other kids. Some of them smoked, but the one time she tried it, she got so sick, two boys needed to carry her home.

  One day as Sumiko walked with Sachi, her friend suddenly cried out, “Now!” She fell upon the vegetable garden they had been walking by and began pulling up carrots.

  “What are we doing?” Sumiko cried out.

  Sachi ran off calling back, “Goody Two-shoes!”

  Sumiko knew how good fresh carrots tasted, but still, it was wrong to steal them like that.

  Sumiko walked alone back to her barrack. Nobody was around. Even Mr. Moto had gone somewhere. But she noticed a letter for herself from Uncle on the tablecloth.

  Sumiko,

  I am writing this for Jiichan. He said to tell you he can’t write himself because he is very busy, as he says you must be. (He says not to tell you that he is being sarcastic.) He says he knows you are not becoming namakemono. He says he hopes you are behaving well and doing whatever your aunt tells you. He hopes you have started a garden that would make him proud.

  We are well enough here in North Dakota. It’s already [this part was censored]. By the way, please thank your aunt for the socks she managed to send. I hate to ask for more, since I know conditions cannot [censored]. But can you please tell Auntie that if she finds money to spare, we will need better boots and Jiichan would like a better coat. Tell her not to worry if she cannot find the money.

  Please take care. We may be moved to [censored].

  Oh, and Jiichan says to send you the enclosed blank sheet of paper. He says there must be a paper shortage in Poston, since you are using old newspapers to write on. He says he wonders where your aunt is getting the blank paper she writes to us on.

  Much love,

  Uncle Hatsumi

  Sumiko tucked the letter in her luggage. Namakemono meant “lazybones.” She didn’t think she was a lazybones. It was just that there was nothing to do. The letter didn’t make her feel like working. It made her feel tired. She lay down on her cot. Her uncle and grandfather would die of cold, and she would die of heat. And then, she believed, the rest of America would be satisfied.

  Sumiko tried to lie there and feel lazy but finally she got up and drew all of her six dollars from under the mattress and left it on the table with Uncle’s letter and a note to Auntie, telling her to use the money for the coat and boots. The heat that day was astounding. She fell asleep, and when she woke up, the money, the letter, and the note were gone. But TakTak was waiting for her to wake up.

  “I’m bored,” he said. “Why can’t we go to summer school?”

  Sumiko had always felt school took her away from the farm. But now she wished they would start a school in camp soon. There were rumors that schools would be built and that schoolbooks and teachers would arrive eventually, but nothing ever happened.

  “Where are your new friends who play marbles?” Sumiko asked.

  “They say I’m not good enough to play with them.”

  “Oh.” Tak-Tak seemed awfully pathetic when he was bored. “All right, let’s go see what Sachi is doing.”

  But Sachi wasn’t home. So Sumiko decided to take her brother to the bean fields. A cook gave them two precious cups of ice; and they walked down to the fields. Sumiko brought a pencil and her receipt book.

  When they got to the bean tunnels, Sumiko checked for snakes before they slipped under the vines. Tak-Tak sucked on his ice while she made out a couple of receipts. One dollar for roses. Two dollars for arrangement. Someday when she ran out of pages in the book, she planned to erase everything and start over again. But writing out receipts wasn’t as much fun as it once had been, when she’d really believed she might own a flower shop one day. So she set the book aside and lay on her back chewing ice. She could see bits of the blue sky through the vines.

  Suddenly she became aware of someone else in the tunnel. She shot up. Tak-Tak was staring at the Indian boy, Frank. He was chewing gum again, and he still wore a scarf around his head. Sumiko knew Sachi had lied about the finger boiling, but she still felt scared of this boy.

  He peered into Tak-Tak’s cup.

  “What is that?”

  Tak-Tak just stared at him. “It’s ice,” said Sumiko.

  Frank blew a bubble and popped it. “They give you ice?” he said.

  “Why shouldn’t they?”

  “I’m not the one who bombed Pearl Harbor.”

  “You killed Custer,” she shot back. She’d learned that in school.

  He blew another bubble and popped it. “Don’t think you can insult me, ’cause you can’t.” He glanced with interest at Sumiko’s cup but then pulled aside some vines to peer outside. “Who’s in charge of the irrigation?”

  “An engineer.”

  “Jap?”

  She frowned. “We don’t use that word.” Then she didn’t feel scared of Frank any longer but, rather, annoyed. She answered his question anyway. “The man in charge is white.”

  He looked at her coldly. Then he seemed to soften, but just a bit. Sumiko saw him glance again at her cup.

  “Haven’t you seen ice before?” she asked.

  “Of course I have.” He laughed at the stupidity of her question.

  Sumiko sipped at some of the melting ice. He watched intently. “Well, why are you staring, then?” she said.

  “I’m not.”

  Tak-Tak said, “He can have mine.”

  Frank turned to Tak-Tak and said, surprisingly gently, “No.” He pulled a piece of gum from his pocket and threw it to Tak-Tak. Tak-Tak smiled.

  To Sumiko, Frank said, “You know anythi
ng about the irrigation?”

  “My cousin’s pouring concrete for the main ditch. They’re extending it.”

  “Really? You from a farm family?”

  “Yes, we grew flowers.”

  “Flowers?” he said. He seemed surprised, even disdainful.

  “Uh-huh. You know, like they sell at the store.”

  “You can make a living from that?” he asked dubiously.

  “Of course. What do you mean?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I never thought of flowers growing on a farm. Why didn’t you grow food?”

  She hesitated. “Do you really want to know?” Before her camp experiences nobody had asked her many questions about her family.

  He seemed confused. “Of course I want to know. That’s why I asked.”

  Weil! Sumiko scarcely knew where to start. From when Uncle was a boy? From Uncle’s wedding day? She had heard the story many times.

  “Before my uncle got married,” she said, “he was living in a boardinghouse for bachelors from Fukushima Prefecture in Japan. Prefectures are like states. Anyway, another bachelor who had decided to return to Fukushima asked whether my uncle wanted to marry his sister, who was born in the United States.” Sumiko took a breath. Frank looked like he was still listening, so she continued. “The bachelor had been using hired help to run a flower farm, which my uncle could take over if he married this man’s sister. So Uncle said yes, and then he married Auntie and took over the flower farm.”

  Tak-Tak pulled on Frank’s shirt. Frank looked at him. “My sister talks a lot sometimes,” he said.

  Frank smiled. “Yes, she does.” He turned to Sumiko. “I wouldn’t mind meeting your cousin who’s working on the irrigation. My brothers want to farm someday. Some of the reservation is irrigated, but our land isn’t yet.”

  Sumiko didn’t reply. She didn’t know if she was allowed to talk to an Indian. Maybe her cousins would be mad at her. Ichiro had such a bad temper, maybe he would throw something against the wall if he found out.

  “You’re not supposed to be on camp, are you?” she asked.