Weedflower

by Cynthia Kadohata

  “Hey,” said a boy, “I’ve got matches after all!”

  He started the fire while the rest of them tried to pluck the chicken. Joji looked at Sumiko. “Come on, Sumiko, help us. It’s a woman’s job. Weren’t you from a farm?”

  “It was a flower farm.”

  “A farm girl is a farm girl.”

  Sumiko had never plucked a chicken before. She and Sachi plucked it but didn’t do a very good job. It was hard to believe how many feathers the darn thing had. The little downiest feathers were nearly impossible to pull out. She seemed to vaguely remember something about boiling a chicken briefly before you plucked it. But that didn’t matter since they didn’t have a pot to boil it in. The boys tried to make a spit, but the chicken kept falling into the fire. Finally it started to rain, and they decided it was too late to eat the chicken. They dug a hole with their hands and buried it. Sumiko and Sachi started to cry over the poor chicken. Even one of the younger boys started to cry.

  Joji stamped on the dirt over the chicken, then said to Sumiko, “Say a few words.”

  “About the chicken?” she asked.

  “Yeah, you’re the one she liked the best.”

  Sumiko knelt near the burial site. “Urn. Dear … chicken. We’re sorry. We didn’t mean to kill you. Well, we did mean to kill you, actually. Um. We’re sorry we didn’t eat you because now your life was wasted.”

  “Her life wasn’t wasted, her death was,” the Boy Scout said.

  Then everybody started acting like Sumiko had a special line of communication to the chicken. “Tell it next time we steal a chicken, we’ll do it right.” “Tell it we’re sorry if we hurt it.” “Tell it we hope it goes to heaven.”

  After that the kids told a few ghost stories while Sumiko lay on her back and let rain fall on her face. It felt nice to be outside the camp. She tried to imagine her farm but couldn’t picture it for some reason. Those days seemed far, far away.

  Eventually, the kids trudged back to camp. As they got closer Sumiko could see that all but the essential lights were out—just a few dim lights illuminating the desert. It must have been late. Rain washed all over them. As they walked one of the boys started singing. He had a beautiful voice, as good as someone in the movies. When he sang “Silent Night,” the whole universe seemed silent, except for that amazing voice.

  25

  SUMIKO KEPT HER GARDEN UP OVER THE WINTER, MAKING sure there were always at least a few blooms. But the fence really did destroy the ambience. One late January day when Sumiko and Tak-Tak were playing hanafuda off camp behind some brush near some fields, Frank showed up. She hadn’t seen him for a while, and she immediately had two thoughts:

  She was glad to see him.

  She was mad because he was was Indian and the Indians had put up a fence.

  Even though it was cool out, Tak-Tak immediately cried out, “We forgot to bring you ice!”

  Frank smiled and sat down to look over the hanafuda cards. “You like cards a lot?”

  “Yes. I like marbles, too, but I’m not very good at it. And once I went fishing with my cousins. I liked that, too. I caught one fish.”

  Sumiko noticed that Frank often glanced at her even when talking to Tak-Tak. She pretended to ignore Frank and concentrate on her cards. Then he stopped glancing at her and started ignoring her, so she said, “I don’t like the fence the Indians put up.” She braced for an argument.

  “I don’t like it either,” he said, and there went her argument.

  She tried again. “Nobody has ever tried to escape.”

  Frank changed the subject. “Did you ask your cousin about meeting my brother?”

  Tak-Tak asked, “Bull or Ichiro?”

  “Bull,” said Sumiko. “No.”

  “How come?”

  “I don’t know. It didn’t come up.”

  Frank didn’t reply. He suddenly looked bored with the subject, or maybe he was bored with Sumiko. Then he asked with irritation, “Why didn’t it come up?

  ‘“Cause.”

  “Do you have electricity?” Tak-Tak blurted.

  “No,” said Frank. “No running water, either.”

  He pretended to reach behind Tak-Tak’s head and pull out a piece of gum. “That’s mine!” said Tak-Tak.

  Frank handed the gum to Tak-Tak but looked at Sumiko the whole time. “I had a dream about you last night. I hardly ever remember my dreams.”

  “What was it?”

  “You were introducing your cousin to my brother. Mohave value our dreams. Sometimes when my grandfather had an important dream, he used to say, ‘I see brightly’ That’s how I know you’re going to ask your cousin.”

  “Maybe. I had a dream about you. I dreamed we were floating down the river in a raft. I dreamed that twice.”

  She was surprised at how interested he seemed.

  “What else did you see?”

  “There were waves like in the ocean.” He nodded seriously. “What do you think it means?” she asked.

  “How would I know?” He squinted at her. “What’s that on your lips?”

  “It’s lipstick I borrowed from my friend Sachi.”

  “Is that the one who ran off the first time I saw you?”

  “Yes.” Sumiko laughed. “She was scared of you.”

  “She seems a little scary herself. But why are you wearing lipstick?”

  “That’s what I asked her,” Tak-Tak chimed in.

  She answered, “Because it’s red.”

  “Your lips are already red,” Frank said.

  “But they’re a different shade of red,” she said. “Obviously.”

  “Right, but—never mind.” He shook his head as if to rid himself of the illogical thoughts she was trying to put into his brain.

  Tak-Tak said, “She was even wearing lipstick when she was working in her garden.”

  Frank smiled at him. “That’s strange, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  To Sumiko, Frank said, “What kind of garden?”

  “Some vegetables, a pond, and some flowers called ‘stock.’ They have a beautiful scent.”

  “They stink funny,” said Tak-Tak, laughing.

  Frank laughed too.

  “It won third place in the camp competition,” Sumiko said defensively.

  “Can I see your garden?”

  “What for?”

  “So I can describe it to my brother. Maybe we’ll have a garden with a pond too.” He paused. “Maybe we’ll have one in front and one in back.”

  “I doubt if you’re allowed to walk around camp without a good reason,” Sumiko said.

  Tak-Tak said to Sumiko, “We could take him when everybody else is at dinner.” Then he asked Frank, “Want to play cards until then?” Frank raised his eyebrows at Sumiko before turning his attention to the cards. She didn’t say anything. Maybe it would be all right to bring him into the camp.

  While it grew darker, Tak-Tak taught Frank a hanafuda game he had made up. The way Tak-Tak explained it didn’t make any sense, but Frank listened patiently. They both ignored Sumiko. When the dinner gongs started sounding, Tak-Tak said, “Come on!” Sumiko didn’t argue.

  They slipped into camp, sticking to the shadows as Tak-Tak showed Frank some of the gardens: the rock gardens; the pond gardens; the gardens with carved Buddhas, vases, and warriors; the vegetable gardens; the waterfall gardens; and, finally, Sumiko and Mr. Moto’s garden. It stretched halfway across the length of the barrack. Some nights Mr. Moto took down the cheesecloth, but tonight the white cloth rippled above the plants.

  “Do you like it?” Sumiko felt kind of shy to be showing him her garden. “It’s hard to see how pretty the flowers are in the dark.”

  “I can see,” he said. “It looks like … you.”

  Sumiko suddenly felt pleasure from that remark, like a tingling warmth through her whole body. It looks like you.

  From somewhere outside the warmth, a boy called out, “An Indian! His father built the barbedwire fence!”

  Th
e warmth turned to a chill. Sumiko saw a swarm of boys running toward Frank, the dust swirling around their pounding feet as if they were creating smoke as they ran. Frank’s own feet also raised dust as he scrambled to the fence.

  Sumiko shouted, “No!” But her voice got lost in the cries of the boys. She saw Frank’s shirt rip as he struggled through a break in the barbed wire. Some boys had already cut a hole in the fence. She screamed “No!” again as loudly as she could. But the boys didn’t seem to hear her—it was like yelling to a wave in the ocean. The boys caught Frank just outside the fence and surrounded him, pummeling him with their fists.

  Sumiko found herself running before she was even fully aware that she was running. The fence dug into her arms as she pushed through to reach Frank. She felt the shock of wire ripping into her skin. The boys and Frank were like a big tumbleweed rolling over the desert. Sumiko screamed at them, “It wasn’t his father! His father is dead!”

  She grabbed one boy by the collar of his shirt and tried to pull him away, but he pushed her to the ground. “Leave him alone!” she grunted as they wrestled for a moment.

  She looked around wildly and spotted a mesquite branch on the ground. She picked it up and closed her eyes and prayed for one second. Then, keeping her eyes closed, she swung the stick and felt it strike something hard. Everything was still and quiet. She opened her eyes. Blood dripped down the face of one of the boys; it was a black trickle in the night. The hurt boy looked at her, stunned. She felt kind of stunned herself. “I’m sorry,” she said, but she didn’t put the stick down. The boy ran off crying.

  The other boys stared at Sumiko for a moment. One of them said, “You hit Kenjil” before they all ran off after their friend. They crawled through the wire and ran back into the camp.

  Frank stood up, and he and Sumiko looked at each other. He was dirty, and a lump like a plum was already swelling on one of his cheeks.

  “I tried to tell them,” she said.

  Frank didn’t answer. “I’d better go. Will you be in trouble?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He wasn’t hurt bad,” Frank said.

  “It was bloody.”

  “I don’t think it was bad,” he said.

  “But are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” He seemed annoyed with her. “You don’t have to protect me.” She just stared at his bruised face. He softened. “But thank you,” he said. “I mean it. So, come to the river with Bull on Saturday.”

  “Why all the way to the river?”

  “Because I don’t want to get beat up again. Eight o’clock Saturday morning. Just take the path straight to the river. Well find you.”

  She realized then that Tak-Tak was standing beside her, and he held a stick too. “Did you hit anyone?” she asked.

  “No, because nobody hit you.”

  He leaned against her as they watched Frank walk off into the night. She had a funny feeling then, one that didn’t make any sense: Because she had protected Frank, she felt like he was now officially and definitely her friend.

  26

  SUMIKO CLEANED HER SCRATCHED ARM WITH THE BUCKET of water they always kept in their room. She hid her torn clothes in her suitcase under her cot. She thought she knew where the boy Kenji lived. She picked some stock for Kenji, even though most boys didn’t like flowers. But it was all she had to give him.

  He lived four blocks away with his mother, father, and seven siblings. He was sitting out front with his older brothers and some friends when Sumiko walked up. The area right above his eye was cut, but not as badly as she would have thought.

  “Hi,” she said to him.

  “Hi,” he said reluctantly.

  “I brought you flowers to apologize for hitting you.”

  One of his brothers said, “I thought you said an Indian hit you.”

  An older boy said, “You mean a girl hit you?” It was the same boy who’d started the fight at the basketball game.

  Kenji didn’t answer. The older boys laughed. “A girl hit him!” they teased. They walked off laughing.

  Kenji glared at her. “What are you, an inu?”

  “The inu spy for the hakujin, not the Indians.”

  He looked at her as if he smelled vinegar. Still, he took the flowers she handed him.

  “Do you have any candy?” he asked. “If you do, we’ll call it even.”

  “Okay, I’ll owe you.”

  “All right. And don’t tell anyone I got hit by a girl,” he warned.

  Sumiko could still see the older boys walking off in the distance. “It seems like everyone already knows … now.”

  “Just don’t tell anyone else.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  She went home and collapsed on her cot, feeling exhausted. Auntie and Tak-Tak were already sleeping, but Bull and Ichiro weren’t home yet. Many nights Ichiro stayed away until late, sometimes with a favorite girl and sometimes with his friends in the boiler room, so they could talk man talk together. Bull said Ichiro liked to talk about politics and the war. Of course, nobody got reliable war news in camp.

  Once Sumiko had asked Frank for war news. At the time, he said Japan had expanded into Borneo, Java, and Sumatra. Russian forces were fighting to protect Stalingrad. The Allies were fighting Hitler’s forces in North Africa. War seemed incredibly complicated.

  But that all seemed far away as she lay in her cot, cold and exhausted. She fell asleep and woke in the middle of the night. Ichiro was still gone, but Bull lay in bed. Sumiko had no idea what time it was.

  “Bull?” Sumiko asked. “Are you awake?”

  Bull groaned a bit from his cot; obviously, he’d been asleep. “What is it?” She saw the mist from his mouth dissipate in the air.

  She should have let him sleep, but instead she asked, “You won’t join the army, will you, if they let you?”

  No one had closed the curtains. Sumiko saw the crescent moon hanging in the window. Several bats crossed the sky.

  “I don’t know.” He paused. “I know Ich won’t join.”

  “Do you and Ich still like each other?”

  He sighed. “Go to sleep, Sumiko.”

  But she felt wide awake now. She put on her shoes and—wrapped in a blanket—ventured outside. The stars were beautiful. Even the desert looked beautiful, but lonely, as she moved through the quiet camp.

  When she passed the basketball court, she saw a girl flitting in an amazing fashion across the ground. It was the girl who’d been talking to the Indian player, and she was dancing. The only light came from the moon and a dim bulb outside a latrine. The girl’s feet moved across the court like pebbles skipping across water. She leaped in the air and seemed to catch a breeze as she rose. She twirled, her straight hair swirling around her head. A lot of people thought she was strange. She wanted to be a dancer, but nobody had ever seen her dance, and she never entered any of the talent contests. Watching her, Sumiko knew that the girl had been struck with a type of lightning when she was born. There were people like that in the world.

  There was a movement from the shadows, and Sumiko saw an Indian boy looking right at her. He was from the basketball team. His face was happy. Sumiko smiled, and he smiled back. The girl was oblivious. Sumiko slipped away to leave them alone.

  27

  THE NEXT NIGHT WHILE BULL WAS OUTSIDE SMOKING, Sumiko decided to go talk to him. As she approached him she took smaller and smaller steps. She was taking tiny half steps when she noticed he was looking at her.

  Bull laughed. “I keep thinking you’re growing up, but …”

  It was a cool evening in early February, but Bull wore just a short-sleeved shirt. The temperature was scarcely warmer inside than out, and Sumiko’s fingers were already cold.

  “Bull?”

  “Unh.”

  “I have a friend.”

  “Good.”

  “It’s an Indian friend,” she said quickly, and braced for his reaction.

  Bull blew a couple of smoke rings into the air, but th
e rings quickly broke up in the breeze. Finally he said, “A friend is a friend.”

  “Would you like to meet him?”

  “Unh.”

  “He’s bringing his brother to meet you.”

  “They sneak into camp when you meet?”

  “No. They never do that. I mean, they were in camp once. I mean, one of them was. Last night, in fact. I don’t know if you’d say he sneaked in exactly. We just walked in, so personally, I wouldn’t use the word sneak.”

  Bull smiled slightly. “I’m glad that’s settled.”

  “And we don’t exactly meet. Sometimes he’s just there.”

  “Hmm.”

  “What do you mean by ‘hmm’?”

  “I mean ‘hmm.’” She studied his face and somehow saw that he was just teasing her. He wasn’t smiling, but she could tell.

  She laughed. “You’re distracting me! I want to know, will you come meet them?”

  “Me? If you want.”

  “Good! We’re going to do it tomorrow morning—they’re already expecting you.”

  “How can they be expecting me when you just asked me?”

  “Because I knew you’d come! We’re leaving at seven in the morning.”

  “All right.”

  Tak-Tak called her inside then. He lay bundled in bed. “I’m cold!” he said. Though the Chronicle had cautioned everyone to be careful with heating devices, Ichiro had made a couple of heaters out of sand placed in cans with charcoal on top. There had been a few household fires in camp already. Some were caused by homemade heaters, and some were caused by the lines people attached to the main electrical wire to get more power into their barracks. Sumiko brought one of their heaters closer and lay on Tak-Tak’s cot with her arms around her brother to keep him warm.

  “Sumiko?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “Are we orphans?”

  “You know we’re not.”

  “’Cause my friend said I’m an orphan.”

  “I used to think that too,” she said. “But the orphanage is in another camp, in Manzanar. If we were orphans, we’d be there.”