This Light Between Us

by Andrew Fukuda

  Frank stares at the car disappearing into the distance. His shoulders taut, his fists still balled, his body trembling. Quaking, like a volcano about to erupt.

  8

  * * *

  January 19, 1942

  Dear Charlie,

  I just wrote a letter to my father. It was full of lies. I painted a too-rosy picture of home, told him Mother is doing great even though she’s not. She’s exhausted. At night she screams out in her sleep. It’s scary.

  And I told him I’m doing great. That I’m doing well at school (not a lie), and that yes, as he’d asked, I’ll happily consider dentistry as a career (A COMPLETE LIE!). Truth is, I don’t want to be a dentist, I’m not cut out to be one. Teeth, lips, gums, all that saliva, blood, bad breath. So gross. Last month in Biology we had to dissect a frog and I almost passed out. Over a stupid frog. How am I supposed to pry out black diseased human teeth from rotting gums that stink of halitosis?

  Of course, I didn’t tell Father what I really want to do with my life. That would crush him. Because he didn’t immigrate all the way from Japan to raise a … cartoonist.

  Maybe I’ll just, I don’t know. Force myself to love dentistry over comics? Is that even possible? I don’t know. What I do know is I can’t let him worry over us, not while he’s in prison.

  Wow. What a gloomy letter. Okay, enough with the self-pity. Let me tell you about some new comics I’ve been reading. These days, that’s the only way I can forget all the crazy stuff happening around me.

  So yesterday I was at the five-and-dime store and I came across this new comic called Sensation Comics. Splashed across the front cover was a brand new superhero who is—you’ll never guess—a woman! Yes, a woman! She’s wearing these cool red boots with high heels, and dressed in what looks like the American flag. Must’ve been a small flag because her outfit is a bit … revealing? Like a sexy bathing suit, to tell you the truth. The cover announces her name: The Sensational New Adventure Strip Character: Wonder Woman!

  Wonder Woman! What a name! I cracked open the magazine but that’s when Mr. Thompson threatened to kick me out unless I shelled out a dime. Best dime I ever spent. This Wonder Woman, she’s pretty cool. Way better than Namor the Sub-Mariner or Bozo the Iron Man. She’s got these awesome wrist cuffs that deflect bullets. She can’t fly like Superman but get this: she flies in an invisible plane.

  And best of all: she kills Nazis. Do I have your attention now?

  Wonder Woman reminds me of you. I mean, I don’t know what you look like (because, ahem, someone still hasn’t sent me a picture of herself!). But look at that strip where she’s knocking out the Nazi soldier with a righteous haymaker. With that feisty spirit, she could be you! Anyway, I ripped out a few pages and enclosed it (along with a few sketches I drew yesterday). Enjoy!

  Alex

  * * *

  14 February 1942

  Dear Alex,

  Thank you for Wonder Woman! What a wonderful gift! You will be happy to know I taped Wonder Woman on my bedroom wall right next to Charlotte Brontë.

  You seem quite fascinated by Wonder Woman. And by her clothes. Or the lack of it. Me, I am not so impressed. Because invisible plane? Pssh! Because even if the plane is invisible you can still see her sitting in it, no? Especially if she’s in a bathing suit—all the men’s eyes will snap up to her like helpless magnets.

  But this is what I do like about her: she has dark hair! And brown eyes! Like me! I like that her hair is not blond and her eyes are not blue. Nothing wrong with this, of course, I have lots of friends with blue eyes and blond hair. But all around me on posters, in movies, is the “pretty woman”—and she always has blond hair and blue eyes. So it is nice to see a superhero who looks like me.

  Oh, in case you are wondering, that is where our similarity ends! Because if you put me in a bathing suit, I look nothing like Wonder Woman! She has much longer legs (like a space alien!) and a chest that is much bigger … Oh! this is embarrassing! How did we end up talking about my body? I am laughing!

  Actually, I am more like Jane Eyre: “obscure, plain, and little.” Because no one looks at me. Not anymore. Or if they do, it is with scorn. As if I am ugly. Because now they only see a Jewish girl. And all Jews are ugly. That is what they are told. That is what they see in stupid films like Le Juif Süss, and in stupid exhibitions like Le Juif et la France at the Palais Berlitz. There were many images of le Juif at that horrible exhibition. We have dirty hair and big, bent noses. We are ugly. We are scary. We are big hairy spiders drinking the blood of France. We are sewage polluting this land.

  And now the French boys believe all these lies. I used to be Charlie the fiery girl, Charlie the funny girl, Charlie the girl full of joie de vivre, Charlie the girl with fire in her eyes. Now I am just Charlie, le Juif girl. Now I am just an ugly hairy spider.

  Of course I know these are all lies. But sometimes you hear a lie so often, you come to believe it. You get treated ugly for too long, and one day suddenly you are ugly.

  Oh, this is so depressing. Especially on la fête de Saint-Valentin (you Americans call it Valentine’s Day).

  Back to a brighter topic. Your sketches! They are so wonderful. Promise me one thing, okay, Alex? Promise you’ll never give up this special talent. Promise you’ll never become just another dentist. Because there’ll always be enough dentists in the world. But there’ll never be enough true artists. And it is Art that touches souls and moves hearts, that makes the world a deeper, warmer place. I wish I could say more but Maman is banging on my door, saying we must depart for synagogue. Bye!

  Your friend,

  Charlie

  P.S. Happy la fête de Saint-Valentin!!

  * * *

  15 February 1942

  Dear Alex,

  Synagogue yesterday was even emptier than last week. Papa and Maman argued all the way home. Maman says we must leave Paris. She says it is too dangerous here, and that we must flee like our friends. She says, we have money, we have Monsieur Schäfer, we have opportunity. But Papa does not want to leave. He says Maman and I should go to Nice, but he must stay behind to look after the factory and apartment. Maman says she will not leave without him. But he says he will never leave. Maman calls him a fool. Papa calls her stubborn. And then she says he’s the stubborn one.

  And back and forth they go.

  I agree with Papa. Because this is my city and I love it like it is my family. I love the obvious things like the Eiffel Tower, the Grands Travaux of Mitterrand, the beautiful walls of the Sacré-Coeur at sunset, eating foie gras at the Café de la Paix. But also smaller thing, too: reading books at Gibert Jeune, looking into a bakery in Marais at the macarons on display, haggling with the bouquinistes at the Seine bookstalls. Worship service at my synagogue, the smell of wet cobblestones after a hot summer rain. I do not ever want to leave Paris.

  But this afternoon as I walked around, I realized something. Paris feels different. Not only because of so many swastika flags flying everywhere, or the German bottes doing their stupid exercises on the Champ-de-Mars parade ground. But as I walked in the cold rain I realized that Paris has changed in a deeper way: she’s lost her vitalité. She’s somehow become a stranger to me. She was once the Ville des Lumières but now she’s only the Ville Éteinte.

  Last night I heard a song on the BBC radio (shh! don’t tell anyone). Oscar Hammerstein’s “The Last Time I Saw Paris.” This line, Alex: “Her streets are where they were, but there’s no sign of her.”

  I do not cry often. I think it is a weakness. In my Jane Eyre book I have underlined a sentence maybe a hundred times: “Even for me, life has its gleams of sunshine.”

  I like this sentence. It reminds me to always find beauty even in ugly places. To not cry sad tears but to smile with brave, happy lips. And the truth is there are many gleams of sunshine in my life: my big apartment, my records, Walter de la Mare’s poetry; soap and coal to avoid the chilblains; meat we can still buy in the black market at Aubergenville, milk, even if it is tinn
ed, lemonade and orangeade at the Luxembourg Gardens.

  But last night after the song my eyes became very wet. Paris is gone. Everything has changed, everything has gone dark.

  Maybe we should leave.

  Alone,

  Charlie

  * * *

  February 18, 1942

  Dear Charlie,

  Did you get the Wonder Woman cartoon I sent you yet? Isn’t she awesome?

  So this strange thing’s been happening. Bainbridge Island is the only home I’ve ever known but recently it’s changed. It doesn’t feel the same.

  When I walk into the town library or hardware store, it feels weird. It’s not that people stare at me. It’s more like I can feel them trying not to stare. The air becomes thick and tense. And if I stay too long, or take my time sipping my ice-cream float at the soda fountain, I can sense them all willing me to leave. So they can finally exhale.

  At school, everyone is just awkward around me. In Biology, we had to pair off to work on a frog experiment. There’s an odd number of students in my class, and I ended up the only one without a partner. Mr. Webb gave me a choice to either join a pair and make a team of three, or work alone. I chose alone.

  Honestly, I’m fine with that. Tomorrow I’ll go out alone to the rocky shores on the west side of the island and look for a frog. For the experiment. Did you know that if you drop a frog in boiling water, it will instantly leap out? But if you put it into room-temperature water, and then slowly heat the water to a boil, the frog will stupidly remain in there until it overheats and dies. Sounds pretty interesting—I’ll let you know what happens. If I can stomach killing a frog, that is.

  Alex

  * * *

  February 19, 1942

  Dear Charlie,

  It took me almost an hour to find a frog. Eventually I came upon an Oregon spotted frog squeezed between two rocks. It was so wet and slimy and squirmy in my palm.

  I tried. I really did. But when it came time to boil it, I couldn’t. I stood there in front of the stove for a good five minutes, trying to will myself to turn on the flame. But I froze.

  Anyway, there’s more to this story. At dinner Frank was ranting about some political cartoon in the newspaper, how it put Japanese Americans in a really unfair light. He tossed the newspaper away in disgust and went to the stove for seconds. “Why is there a frog in here?” he said, pointing to the other pot. So I had to tell him about the frog experiment.

  He sat back down. Chewed his food slowly. “We’re just like frogs then,” he said after a while. Mother and I stared at him quizzically. And then he snapped. Went off on us.

  “All this crap happens to us,” he railed, “and we do absolutely nothing. We just sit here like a stupid frog boiling to death. The government comes and takes away our belongings? We do nothing. Our bank account gets frozen? We just sit there! Father gets yanked away by the FBI when he’s done nothing wrong? We do nothing but suffer in silence like good model citizens. We’re nothing but stupid frogs.” He slammed his fists down on the table, rattling all the dishes. “We should do something. Protest. Make our voices heard.”

  He tossed the newspaper at me, jabbed his finger at the political cartoon: a crowd of bucktoothed Japanese Americans, cruelly caricatured, carrying TNT dynamite. Frank pointed at me with his fork. “Why don’t you put your drawing skills to use for once? Send in a cartoon in response to this nonsense about us being fifth columnists. Something that’ll put—” He turns the paper around, reads the signed cartoonist’s name. “—this idiot Dr. Seuss in his place.”

  Mother shushed him, saying, 出る釘は打たれる. It’s the nail sticking up that gets hammered down.

  Frank said, “Well, I don’t care. Maybe we should be that nail. At least we’d be sticking up for something.” His face turned really determined like I’ve seen in football games right before he throws a winning touchdown pass.

  “This is what I’m going to do,” he said. “I’m going to write a release petition on Father’s behalf. Tell them they’ve got the wrong man, that Father is completely innocent. I suck at writing, sure. But I’m tired of sitting on my hands doing nothing. I’m not going to be that frog.”

  Mother’s lips pinched together. “But that might just stir up trouble for Father.”

  Frank shoved a drumstick into his mouth, reenergized. “The FBI, the gov, whatever, they’re so obviously wrong. This petition will wake them up. Because America doesn’t do this kind of thing. You just watch and see.” He reached for another helping of mashed potatoes.

  Mother shook her head. “We must be patient. Don’t do anything rash.” She looked at me. “Don’t you think so, Koji-kun?”

  But I wasn’t interested in getting dragged into this. I got up, put my plate in the sink, then picked up the pot. I opened the door and tossed out the frog. It hopped away into the darkness.

  It’s hours later and I’m sitting here at my desk. My eyes are heavy but I can’t fall asleep. Outside my window the world is so empty and dark.

  In your letter, you wrote that it wasn’t good to be alone, that I should make more friends. Maybe you’re right. But there’s only one friend I want with me here, and that’s you, Charlie.

  Alex

  9

  FEBRUARY 20, 1942

  In the middle of the night Alex thinks Father has returned home.

  When he was young and often sick, it was Father who’d sit with him through the night. He remembers those endless hours: shivering under a mountain of blankets, the ladderback chair creaking by his bed, Father removing the damp warm washcloth from his feverish forehead. The wish-swish of the towel submerged into water, then the soft trickle of the cloth wrung out. A strangely melodic sound, soothing. Then Father would lay the cool washcloth back on his boiling forehead, and it would sizzle on his hot skin. A soft cloud against a scorching sun.

  When the fever would finally break hours later, the shiver-chills subsiding, Alex’s clothes would be soaked through. Father would gently lift Alex into a sitting position, his sweaty head flopping forward, and lean him against his wiry, tensile farmer’s body. Alex, slumped and exhausted, would barely be aware of Father lifting his soaked pajama top through uplifted arms, and sliding on a fresh, dry shirt.

  And even then, even after Alex had been changed, Father would stay with him. Not reading, not sleeping, not even, it seemed, thinking much about anything. He seemed content to simply sit all those hours. Not a single utterance. Strangely, it was the rare time when Father seemed untroubled. And when dawn arrived and Mother took over, Father, without having slept a wink, would go out to the fields and work a full day, none the worse for wear.

  Alex will never admit this but sometimes, terrible as they were, he misses those nights.

  And now, on this night, he thinks Father has come home. Already? he thinks drowsily. Frank’s release petition for Father was processed so quickly? He senses a warm hum of a presence beside him, believes he even hears the creak of the ladderback chair. He half expects to hear the trickle of water. When he opens his eyes, there is someone sitting in the chair by his bed.

  “Father?” he croaks.

  The person doesn’t answer. Then he sees her now, Mother. Her head is fallen to the side, her mouth opened. Softly snoring. He sits up.

  In her hands, held loosely, is a small picture frame. Alex pries it gently from her, turns it around. It’s his parents’ wedding photograph, the one Alex keeps on his bedroom bureau, the only photograph ever taken of just the two of them. A black-and-white, taken at a downtown Seattle studio. She’s dressed in a kimono rented just for the shot, and Father has put on a suit, similarly rented. Their faces are stern, reluctant.

  The photo was taken the day after they first met. She has described that first meeting to Alex and Frank many times. How she’d come walking down the gangplank onto the dock in Seattle, one of dozens of Japanese mail-order brides arriving in America that day. She was struggling with her suitcase when he came to her. He was wearing a threadbare
black coat and grunted her name. His breath was hideous. She’d stared in disbelief at this man old enough to be her father, who bore no resemblance to the young man in the photo. A photo she used to fawn over while lying on her tatami mat back home in Osaka, which made her smile shyly with schoolgirl fantasies.

  There on the dock, he’d reached for her suitcase and tried to tug it from her grip. But she wouldn’t let go, no matter how hard he yanked; so in that manner they had walked, both carrying the suitcase. On the outside, they had the appearance of togetherness; but it was, in fact, a stubborn tug-of-war. An apt image of their initial years of marriage. Together, but not really.

  She’d once told Alex—drunkenly one night when he was nine, and (or so she mistakenly thought) too young to remember, much less understand, anything—how over time she had come to, if not love, then at least respect Father. It was the way he threw himself into the work, season after season, year after year. His skin darkening, his body hardening. His chapped, tireless hands sifting through enough soil to fill Fuji-san; the way he gripped shovels and axes, dug trenches to handle excess rainfall, mixed fertilizer, planted strawberry seeds one by one, weeded grass, pulled out sickly strawberry plants, pruned fruit trees, cut leaves after harvest, removed large tree stumps, propagated rhododendron plants, fixed broken machinery and flat tires and plumbing in their home. Held her boys, cut their umbilical cords, their hair, soothed their colicky screams.

  And at night—she’d mumbled this while tossing down one last cup of sake before collapsing into a drunken stupor—when those same rough, sun-blackened hands reached for her in the dark, their hangnails and calluses grating across her skin, she would let them: because of everything they had touched and healed and nurtured into submission, because of how they had so ruthlessly, doggedly, miraculously fashioned into being in a harsh and alien land, this farm, this home, this family.