Alex looks down on her now. Asleep, cradling that photograph of her husband. Her body racked with pain, her bones heavy with fatigue. Yet in the middle of the night she had awakened and come here to gaze at her husband.
Alex pulls out the velvet kickstand of the frame and places it back on the bureau. Stares for a long time at the image of Father. Then he takes his blanket and, as gently as he can, lays it over Mother’s sleeping form.
10
* * *
22 February 1942
Dear Alex,
I woke up this morning to the sound of Maman and Papa arguing again. I dressed quickly and left the apartment.
I walked to the Maison des Lettres on rue Soufflot, and listened to some records. Schumann’s concerto and then Mozart’s requiem mass. Afterward, I walked along boulevard Saint-Michel, hoping to maybe see someone. But there was no one. All my friends have left Paris.
Under dark clouds, I walked to Sorbonne. It’s my favorite place in all of Paris. I walked past their magnificent buildings, the library, the observatory, the English Literature department. Soon, I told myself, after the war is over and the Nazis have left, after all my friends have returned and everything is back to normal, I will be a student here walking this courtyard, my arms full with Kipling and Wordsworth, chatting with friends. The words of John Keats came to me: “the excellence of every Art is its intensity.”
At noon, my feet were aching from the shoe’s wooden soles (rubber soles are hard to find now). So I stopped for lunch at one of my usual cafés. The maître d’ recognized me—Hélène, Nicole, Ruth, and I ate there often—but if he was surprised to see me alone, he said nothing. All my Jewish friends have fled Paris, I thought to explain to him, but didn’t. He showed me to our favorite glass table in the shady part of the outside terrace even though I’m not allowed to sit there anymore. Later, a group of Nazi soldiers arrived and sat at the table next to me. They were loud and drunk and kept ordering more beer and Camembert. One of them started leering at me, blowing cigarette smoke in my direction, suspicion entering his glassy eyes. The skies darkened again. When I felt a few drops, I used that as an excuse to end my lunch and quickly leave.
Paris hasn’t just lost her joie de vivre. She’s become scary. Even the familiar places—the cul-de-sacs, boulevards, buildings—they somehow feel threatening.
Charlie
* * *
24 February 1942
Dear Alex,
Yesterday, I went to Aubergenville to buy some meat. On the way back, the Métro was crowded and stuffy and smelly. An inspector was staring at me, his small eyes sharp. I turned away but a moment later felt two hard taps on my shoulder.
The inspector told me les Juifs are not permitted to ride in that carriage. He informed me that I had to step out at the next station and walk down to the carriage for les Juifs. His eyes were going all over me. He stood so close to me I could smell his cologne. I could feel his breath on my forehead.
I turned red with shame and anger. I kept waiting for my fellow Parisians to yell back at the inspector. But no one did. Everyone was looking away. Some at books, some behind closed eyelids, some to the far side of the carriage.
I remember back in 1941 a man on the BBC radio said Parisians must fight back against the German invaders. We must resist. He told people to paint resistance graffiti on the streets of Paris. To paint a red V.
And soon, there were Vs everywhere. On city walls, under bridges, on schools, all over Paris. I remember how proud I was of my fellow Parisians. They stood up to evil, to all the stuck-up Hauptsturmführers and Sturmhauptführers. But no more.
My Parisians are not evil. Or even cowards. They are only people—good people—who are now too busy and tired and distracted, trying to survive in these difficult times. But this is how evil grows, no? When good people are too tired.
At the next station when the train came to a stop, I stepped out. No one said a word.
Charlie
* * *
March 17, 1942
Dear Charlie,
I wish I could’ve been there. I wish I could’ve grabbed that racist sonofabitch conductor’s neck and squeezed, my fingers sinking like talons into his flesh. I wish I could have thrown a haymaker right into his pudgy nose and boxed in his jug ears. I wish I could’ve delivered a vicious kick at his head, snapping it back, breaking it off.
So much anger in me, Charlie. If you could see me now writing this letter, hunched over my desk, you’d see how hard I’m clenching this pen, how white my fingertips are gripping it, the splotches of angry red on my hand. Do you see how the words on this page carve into the paper, like a rake into soil, a blade into flesh?
Alex
11
MARCH 24, 1942
For the first time in months, Alex wakes up to the sound of laughter. Coming from the kitchen.
He throws on his clothes, rushes downstairs.
“You overslept,” Mother chides, but she’s smiling about something. “Hurry up and eat or you’ll miss the bus.”
“What’s going on?”
Frank is grinning at the breakfast table. “I should get extra credit for this. Mrs. Pope in English class will be impressed with my writing chops.”
“Will someone please tell me what’s happening?”
Frank scarfs down his eggs and bacon, washes it down with milk, enjoying the moment.
“Frank! Just tell me.”
“Fine. You remember that release petition I wrote on Father’s behalf?”
“Yeah,” Alex says cautiously. “Wait. No way.”
Frank grins.
Mother comes around and scoops a boiled egg onto Alex’s plate, and a generous serving of bacon before Frank. She’s still smiling. “I wasn’t sure what Father was saying in his letter,” she says. “It’s so complicated. But Frank just explained it to me.”
Alex glances at her, then back to Frank. “And?”
“Father said the release petition might be working. He heard back from some committee at the prison. Said they were going to make a decision soon.”
Alex sits down. “That’s it?”
“What do you mean, that’s it?”
Alex shrugs. “I guess … I was hoping for more. I mean, you were so upbeat just now. I thought Father was already released.”
“Oh, who invited this killjoy to breakfast?” Frank says. He rams bacon into his mouth, chews with his mouth open. “Things are looking up, Alex. No need to be such a sourpuss.”
Alex stares down at his food. “Sorry, I just … I don’t know.”
Frank waves it off. He stuffs more food into his mouth. His eyes suddenly light up. “Okay, this one you can’t be phooey about.” He gets up, grabs a newspaper from the counter. “Check it out,” he says, grinning as he taps the Bainbridge Review newspaper.
“What is it?”
Frank starts reading aloud from the front page. “‘This Friday’s special charity football game against West Seattle High … okay, blah blah blah … blah blah blah.” His eyes scan down. “Here it is. ‘Led by the All-American quarterback and charismatic leader, Captain Frank Maki, our boys are poised to deliver a resounding victory!’”
Grinning, Frank points to a picture beside the article. “No one told me I was this photogenic!”
“They called you a ‘charismatic leader’?” Alex says, taking the newspaper.
“They called me ‘Captain Maki.’ That’s how you should address me from now on.”
Mother pours milk into their glasses. “You boys finish up now. Or you’re going to miss your bus.”
“You too, Mother. ‘Captain Maki,’ okay?” He rams toast into his mouth, washing it down with milk.
She playfully smacks him on his shoulder. “You’re too chatty this morning.”
“Hey, did you read this editorial?” Alex asks a moment later, pointing to the next page.
Frank snorts. “And here I thought you were staring at my picture, admiring my handsome mug.”
“No,
seriously. Did you read it?”
“The editorial? Nah. You know me, sports and comics only.”
“Well, check it out. It says here that people on Bainbridge Island should be treating its Japanese friends and neighbors better. That Bainbridge Island needs to stand up for us, and make sure that our Bill of Rights don’t get violated any more.”
“Yeah?” Frank says. “No kidding. Who wrote that?”
“Walter Woodward. The owner of the paper. Says everyone should be appalled by what’s happening to us.”
Frank leans back in his chair, beaming. “See? What I’ve been saying all along. America will come to her senses. America will do right by us. Soon Father will be back home and everything will be back the way it was. You watch and see. And then all your fears about roundups will seem stupid. Never doubt the good U.S. of A.”
“Go now!” Mother chides. “The bus will be here in a minute.”
The boys hurry out, Frank grabbing Alex’s uneaten boiled egg. “Remember I’ll be home late tonight, Mother,” he says, pushing through the screen door. “It’s Dan’s birthday so a bunch of us are grabbing floats after practice.”
Frank’s cheerful mood continues as they wait for the bus at the end of the long driveway. He makes Alex run routes on the dirt road, throwing the football to him.
“You keep dropping them, kid!” he shouts, grinning good-naturedly at Alex.
“Then stop whipping them so hard!” Alex jogs back, tosses the football back to Frank.
“I’m baby-throwing them. Soft as marshmallows.” He spins the football, puts seams to fingertips. “Okay, let’s do a slant route at fifteen.”
“Frank, I’m pooped.”
“You only ran three, four times!”
“Frank!”
“Never mind,” he says, picking up his bag. “Bus is here.”
They get on. Alex takes his usual seat near the front, and Frank moves past to the very back row, greeting his friends boisterously. Morning sunlight pours into the interior, flaring through the windows into a soft, rainbow-hued haze. The banter about him is light and cheerful. Alex brings out his comics and for the next twenty minutes gets lost in them. It feels like the best morning he’s had in months.
He’s so focused on the latest issue of Captain America that he doesn’t notice the posters in town until the bus stops at a traffic light.
Someone two rows ahead says, “Look at that.”
And before Alex can look up and see for himself, he hears words he will never forget. “They’re kicking out the Japs!”
Alex’s head snaps up. Looks out the window. Sees the poster nailed to a telephone pole right outside:
INSTRUCTIONS TO ALL JAPANESE LIVING ON BAINBRIDGE ISLAND
All Japanese persons, both alien and nonalien, will be evacuated from this area by twelve noon, Monday, March 30, 1942.
From where he sits, Alex can’t read the smaller print that follows. But he doesn’t need to. He shifts his eyes away, stung, his breath snatched away. The comic book is somehow on the floor now. He does not remember dropping it.
He fights the urge to turn around and look at Frank. Instead he closes his eyes, presses his forehead against the cold sting of the window.
It’s happening. After holding out hope, yet fearing the worst, after all the weeks and months of anxiety and uncertainty, it’s finally happening. They’re being kicked out. In only six days. Evacuated from this area. Like a pest. A nonalien.
The traffic light turns green. The bus pushes forward with a loud groan. In the row behind him, Sarah Dunston wonders aloud if Doug Chesterfield will ask her out to the game on Friday night. The idle chatter in the bus resumes.
Alex finally turns around to look at Frank. He’s sitting in the middle of the back row, the empty center aisle directly in front of him. He’s stunned, his face pale, oblivious to the banter and laughter around him. He has the look of someone who’s been set up, then horribly betrayed. Slapped in the face, then kicked in the gut for good measure. For one awful raw moment their eyes meet. Then Frank flicks his eyes away, stares out the window.
Alex turns back around, looks down the street. The poster is everywhere. Dozens, stapled onto every telephone pole, in storefront windows of obliging owners, barbershops, pharmacies. Along the pillars of the town hall, the sides of mailboxes. Like skin lesions suddenly, inevitably breaking out, the cancer that never did go away. He sees two men next to the library in military garb wearing MP armbands and green berets, hammering more notices into a billboard.
The bus gusts past. The posters come suddenly to life, like the wings of pinned moths and butterflies resurrecting, flapping and fluttering, maniacally, as if desperate to take flight.
* * *
When Alex returns home after school, he finds Mother packing boxes in the kitchen. She stands up when he comes in, her hands on her waist. She looks like she’s been crying.
“You heard, then,” he says.
“Mrs. Tanazawa dropped by and told me.” She puts a hand to her cheek. “Six days. Six.”
Alex hangs his head. The thought alone of what they need to do exhausts him. Put their farm in order, hand it over to someone responsible and honest. Store their things away. Find a place for Hero. Buy suitcases because they’ve never been on a trip before. All in only six days—
“Do you know where they’re taking us?” Mother asks.
“No idea.”
“Or for how long?”
“I haven’t heard a thing. No one knows anything.”
She moves over to the glass-door cabinet, touches lightly the glass that she cleans every day. “What about Father? He’s getting released soon. What if we’re not here when he returns?”
A long pause. Then, reluctantly, he whispers, “I don’t think he’s coming back, Mother.”
In the cabinet glass he sees her reflection. Her face falling, her body concaving onto itself. She can withstand whatever lies ahead. Just not without Father.
“What are we going to do?” she asks.
“We should wait for Frank. He’ll know what to do.”
“But he won’t be back until late. He’s out with friends tonight, remember?”
But as it turns out, he returns home hours early. He stomps in, his face dark and tense.
“I thought you were going to be late—”
“They’ve imposed curfew,” he says.
“What?”
“Curfew. Just for the Japanese community on Bainbridge.”
“How do you know this?”
Frank smirks caustically. “Only because everyone’s talking about it in town. Public Proclamation Number Three, or something. No Jap”—he spits this word out loathsomely—“may be out after eight P.M.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Yeah? Well because of that ridiculous law, the soda fountain wouldn’t serve me. The law was just announced, but they still booted me out. Like they couldn’t wait to get started.”
Mother goes to the stove. “I can heat up the leftovers.”
“Don’t bother,” he says, heading for the bedroom. “I’m not hungry.”
Alex sits down at the table. The whole room is tilting and swaying, everything is spinning out of control.
* * *
The next morning, another poster is put up. This one, with its bright colors and cheerful design, seems even crueler.
Alex sees it as soon as he steps into the school foyer. A crowd of students have gathered before it, huddling and squealing with excitement. It’s an announcement for the tenth-grade dance.
Lindy Hop through the Night! the poster declares. The date: Sunday, March 29th, 1942. The hours: 7:30 P.M.–10:00 P.M.
The news is not unexpected. Everyone has known for months there’ll be a dance this Sunday. But the exact time of the dance has taken weeks to finalize, on account of the war and last-minute security protocols. Alex just assumed the dance would be in the afternoon, especially since the new curfew law would prevent the Nisei students from attendi
ng.
But there it is in black-and-white (actually pink and lavender): The hours: 7:30 P.M.–10:00 P.M.
Alex peels away from the crowd. At his homeroom desk, he slumps down, all energy vaporized from his legs. He can barely keep from sliding off his chair.
They could have moved the dance to the afternoon. It’d have been so easy to do that on a Sunday. But they didn’t.
He knows why. Because he doesn’t matter. Not anymore. None of the Nisei students matter. It’s as if they’re already gone. Already discarded, flushed out, purged. All these nonaliens, as the poster had put it, evacuated from this area.
Students enter the classroom, talking excitedly. Already, everyone is chatting about what they’ll wear, who they might ask to dance. No one looks at him. Jessica Tanner is speaking breathlessly to Shirley Deckham. The two girls are whispering intently, excitement sparking off their shoulders like static electricity, their giggles bubbly. When the class rises for the Pledge of Allegiance, he finds, for the first time in his life, he can barely utter the words. The phrase liberty and justice for all caught in his throat.
The whole day he sits in classrooms and walks the hallways with eyes averted to the floor. He is afraid of meeting the inadvertent gaze of another Nisei, and finding in their eyes the same burning shame. He finds himself licking his lips a lot. Cutting short the swings of his arms as he walks off to the side of the hallway, his sleeve catching on the metal grill of lockers. When he almost bumps into someone rushing out of a classroom, the apology leaps out like a reflex. Sorry, sorry. The apology of an intruder. Of a coward. Of a nonalien. Alex bites down on his lip. He had no idea how much he loathed himself.
12
MARCH 27, 1942
Every day that passes is another day closer to evacuation.
This Light Between Us Page 6