He’d slept in a chair that first night, and Fujiko had stayed awake pondering ways to extricate herself from this situation. She did not have enough money to buy a return ticket, and at any rate, she knew in her bones, she could not return to her family in Japan – her parents had sold her and paid a percentage to the deceitful baishakunin who had assured them that Hisao had amassed great wealth during his years in America. She stayed awake growing angrier about this; by dawn she had begun to feel murderous.
In the morning Hisao stood at the foot of the bed and asked Fujiko if she’d slept well. ‘I’m not talking to you,’ she answered. ‘I’m going to write home for the money I need and go back as soon as I can.’
‘We’ll save together,’ pleaded Hisao. ‘We’ll go back together, if that’s what you want. We’ll – ’
‘What about your twelve acres of mountain land?’ Fujiko said to him angrily. ‘The baishakunin took me to see it – peach trees, persimmons, weeping willows, rock gardens. None of that turns out to be true.’
‘You’re right, it isn’t true,’ confessed Hisao. ‘I don’t have money – that’s correct. I’m a pauper and I work my fingers to the bone. The baishakunin lied to you, I’m sorry for that, but – ’
‘Don’t talk to me, please,’ said Fujiko. ‘I don’t want to be married to you.’
It had taken her three months to learn how to sleep with him. When she did she found that she had learned to love him, if love was the proper word to use, and it occurred to her then, sleeping in his arms, that love was nothing close to what she’d imagined as a girl growing up near Kure. It was less dramatic and far more practical than her girlhood had led her to believe. Fujiko had cried when her hymen broke, in part because sacrificing her virginity to Hisao’s need had not been what she had hoped for. But she was married now, and he was a steady sort of a man, and she grew, gradually, close to him. They’d been, already, through much hardship together, and he had never once complained.
Now she stood with this letter in her hand – a letter a hakujin boy had sent to her daughter about love inside a cedar tree, about his loneliness and misery and how horribly he missed her and how she should write to him with a false return address – ‘use Kenny Yamashita’s name,’ he’d written. She wondered if her daughter loved this boy or if she knew the first thing about love. It made sense to her now that Hatsue had been so silent and morose – more silent and morose than her other daughters – since the day they left San Piedro. Everybody had been unhappy and Hatsue had used this, the general unhappiness had been convenient, but still she had sulked more than anyone; she’d been listless and had gone about her chores with the sluggishness of someone grieving. She missed her father, she said when asked; she missed San Piedro Island. But she did not say to anyone that she missed the hakujin boyfriend who had been her secret lover. The depth of her deceit became vivid to Fujiko, and she felt in herself a mother’s rage at the weight of this betrayal. The rage mingled with the general melancholy that had been growing in her steadily since the bombing of Pearl Harbor, it was one of the rare times in Fujiko’s adult life when she felt inconsolable.
She reminded herself to behave with dignity no matter what the circumstances. It was a lesson she’d forgotten in her early days in America, but with time she had rediscovered it as something worthy passed down from her grandmother in Kure. Giri was her grandmother’s word for it – it could not be precisely translated into English – and it meant doing what one had to do quietly and with an entirely stoic demeanor. Fujiko sat back and cultivated in herself the spirit of quiet dignity that would be necessary in confronting Hatsue. She breathed deeply and shut her eyes.
Well, she told herself, she would have a talk with Hatsue when the girl came back from wandering aimlessly around the camp. She would put an end to this business.
Three hours before dinner a group of San Piedro boys knocked on the door of her room. They had with them tools and scraps of lumber, and they were prepared, they said, to build for the Imadas whatever was wanted: shelves, a chest of drawers, chairs. She recognized all of them as the sons of island families – the Tanakas, the Kados, the Matsuis, the Miyamotos – and she. told them yes, she could use all of those things, and the boys set about working in the lee of the barrack, measuring and cutting and sawing while the wind blew. Kabuo Miyamoto came inside and nailed up brackets while Fujiko sat on a cot with her arms crossed and the letter from the hakujin boy behind her back. ‘There are some scraps of tin at the side of the block kitchen,’ Kabuo Miyamoto said to her. ‘We can nail them over those knotholes in the floor – they’ll do a better job than tar paper.’
‘Tar paper tears like that,’ answered Fujiko in the English Kabuo used. ‘And it not help keep cold out.’
Kabuo nodded and went back to work, his hammer striking efficiently. ‘How is your family?’ Fujiko said. ‘Your mother? Your father? How everybody?’
‘My father is ill,’ Kabuo answered. ‘The camp food is bad for his stomach.’ He paused to slip another nail from his pocket. ‘And you?’ he said. ‘How are all of the Imada women?’
‘Dusty,’ said Fujiko. ‘We cat dust.’
At this moment Hatsue came through the door, her face reddened by the cold outside, and tugged the scarf from her head. Kabuo Miyamoto stopped his work for a moment to gaze at her while she shook her hair free. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘It’s good to see you.’
Hatsue tossed her hair once more, gathered it in her hands swiftly, and smoothed it down the back of her head. Then she stuffed her hands in her overcoat and sat down beside her mother. ‘Hello,’ she said, but nothing more.
They sat for a moment watching in silence while Kabuo Miyamoto went about his work. He sat on his shins with his back to them, tapping carefully with a hammer. Another of the carpenters came through the door with a stack of freshly sawed pine boards. Kabuo Miyamoto laid each on the brackets and tested each with a level. ‘They’re straight,’ he announced. ‘They should work out well. I’m sorry we couldn’t do better.’
‘They’re very nice,’ said Fujiko. ‘It’s kind of you. Our thanks.’
‘We’re going to build you six chairs,’ said Kabuo, looking at Hatsue now. ‘We’re going to build you two chests of drawers and a table you can eat on. We’ll have them to you in a few days’ time. As soon as we can get them built.’
‘Thank you,’ said Fujiko. ‘You’re very kind.’
‘We’re glad to do it for you,’ said Kabuo Miyamoto. ‘It isn’t any trouble at all’
Still holding his hammer, he smiled at Hatsue, and she dropped her eyes to her lap. He slipped the hammer into a cloth ring on his pants, then picked up his level and measuring tape. ‘Good-bye, Mrs. Imada,’ he said. ‘Good-bye, Hatsue. It’s good to see you.’
‘Our thanks again,’ said Fujiko. ‘Your help is greatly appreciated.’
When the door had shut she reached behind her and handed Hatsue the letter. ‘Here,’ she spat. ‘Your mail. I don’t know how you could have been so deceitful. I’ll never understand it, Hatsue.’
She had planned to discuss the matter right there and then, but she understood suddenly that the strength of her bitterness might prevent her from saying what she really meant. ‘You will not write again to this boy or accept his letters,’ she said sternly from the doorway.
The girl sat with the letter in her hand, tears gathering in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ Hatsue said. ‘Forgive me, Mother. I’ve deceived you and I’ve always known it.’
‘Deceiving me,’ said Fujiko in Japanese, ‘is only half of it, daughter. You have deceived yourself, too.’
Then Fujiko went out into the wind. She walked to the post office and told the clerk there to hold all mail for the Imada family. From now on, she herself would come for it. It should be handed to her only.
That afternoon she sat in the mess hall and wrote her own letter addressed to the parents of the boy Ishmael Chambers. She told them about the hollow tree in the woods and how Ishmael and Hatsue had deceived the
world for a number of years successfully. She revealed to them the contents of the letter their son had written to her daughter. Her daughter, she said, would not be writing back, now or at any time in the future. Whatever had been between them was over, and she apologized for her daughter’s role in it; she hoped that the boy would see his future in a new light and give no more thought to Hatsue. She understood, she wrote, that they were only children; she knew children were often foolish. Still, both of these young people were culpable and must look to themselves now, examine their souls, consider this a matter of conscience. It was no crime to find oneself attracted to another, she wrote, or to believe what one felt was love. The dishonor lay instead in concealing from one’s family the nature of one’s affections. She hoped that the parents of Ishmael Chambers would understand her position. She did not wish for any further communication to pass between her daughter and their son. She had expressed her feelings clearly to her daughter and asked her not to write to the boy or accept his letters in the future. She added that she admired the Chambers family and had great respect for the San Piedro Review. She wished them well, all of them.
She showed this letter to Hatsue when it was folded and ready to go in its envelope. The girl read it over twice, slowly, with her left check resting on her left hand. When she was done she held it tightly in her lap and looked blandly at her mother. Her face, strangely, was drained of emotion; she had the look of one exhausted from the inside, too tired to feel. Fujiko saw that she had gotten older in the three weeks since they’d left San Piedro. Her daughter was suddenly grown up, a woman, weary from the inside. Her daughter had suddenly grown hardened.
‘You don’t have to send this,’ she said now to Fujiko. ‘I wasn’t going to write him again anyway. I was on the train, coming down here, and all I could think about was Ishmael Chambers and whether I should write him a letter. Whether I loved him anymore.’
‘Love,’ spat Fujiko. ‘You not know about love. You – ’
‘I’m eighteen,’ replied Hatsue. ‘I’m old enough. Stop thinking of me as a little girl. You have to understand – I’ve grown up.’
Fujiko removed her glasses carefully and, as was her habit, rubbed her eyes. ‘On the train,’ she said. ‘What you decide?’
‘Nothing, at first,’ said Hatsue. ‘I couldn’t think very clearly. There were too many things to think about, Mother. I was too depressed to think.’
‘And now?’ said Fujiko. ‘What now?’
‘I’m done with him,’ said Hatsue. ‘We were children together, we played on the beach, and it turned out to be something bigger. But he isn’t the husband for me, Mother. I’ve known that all along. Anyway I wrote him, I said that whenever we were together it seemed like something was wrong. I always knew, deep inside, it was wrong, I felt it down inside somewhere – this feeling like I loved him and at the same time couldn’t love him – I was always confused, every day, ever since we met. He’s a good person. Mother, you know his family, he’s really a very good person. But none of that matters, does it? I wanted to tell him it was over, Mother, but I was leaving … it was all confused, I couldn’t get the words out, and, besides, I didn’t really know what I felt. I was confused. There was too much to think about. I needed to straighten it all out.’
‘And is it straighten out now, Hatsue? Is it straighten?’
The girl was silent for a moment. She ran a hand through her hair and let it fall, then the other hand, too. ‘It’s straight,’ she said. ‘I have to tell him. I have to put an end to it.’
Fujiko took her letter from her daughter’s lap and ripped it neatly down the middle. ‘Write your own letter,’ she said in Japanese. ‘Tell him the truth about things. Put all of this in your history. Tell him the truth so you can move forward. Put this hakujin boy away now.’
In the morning Sumiko was reminded of the importance of revealing nothing about this episode. She promised her mother she would keep silent. Fujiko took Hatsue’s letter to the post office and paid the postage on it. She licked the envelope shut herself and, because the notion took hold of her suddenly – a kind of caprice and nothing more – she pressed the stamp on upside down before putting the letter in the mailbox.
When Kabuo Miyamoto brought his chests of drawers, Fujiko asked him to stay for tea, and he sat with them for more than two hours, and again on the next night when he delivered the table, and on the following night when he delivered the chairs. Then on the fourth night he came to their door with his hat in his hand and asked Hatsue if she would go for a walk with him underneath the stars. She said no on that occasion and did not speak to him for another three weeks, and yet she saw that he was polite and handsome, the dear-eyed son of strawberry farmers, and anyway she couldn’t grieve over Ishmael Chambers until the end of her days.
When the time came, a few months later, that Ishmael was mostly a persistent ache buried beneath the surface of her daily life, she spoke to Kabuo Miyamoto in the mess hall and sat beside him to eat lunch. She admired his impeccable table manners and the graciousness of his smile. He spoke softly to her, asked her about her dreams, and when she said she wanted an island strawberry farm he said he wanted the same thing precisely and told her about how his family’s seven acres would soon be transferred to his name. When the war was over he planned to farm strawberries back home on San Piedro Island.
When she kissed him for the first time, she felt the grip of her sadness, how it seized more tightly around her, and how different his mouth was from Ishmael’s. He smelled of earth and his body’s strength was far greater than her own. She found she couldn’t move within the circle of his arms and struggled against him, breathless. ‘You’ll have to be more gentle,’ she’d whispered. ‘I’ll try,’ Kabuo had answered.
16
Ishmael Chambers trained as a marine rifleman with seven hundred and fifty other recruits at Fort Benning, Georgia, in the late summer of 1942. In October he fell ill with fever and dysentery and was hospitalized for eleven days, during which he lost considerable weight and passed his time reading Atlanta newspapers and playing chess with other boys. Sprawled in his bed with his knees up and his hands behind his head, he listened to radio news accounts of the war and studied the diagrams of troop movements in the papers with a lazy, unruffled fascination. He grew a mustache for six days, then shaved it, then let it grow again. Through almost every afternoon he slept, waking in time to feel dusk settle in and to watch the light die beyond the window three beds away to his right. Other boys came and went, but he stayed. The war wounded came to the hospital but convalesced on two other floors he had no access to. He lived in his T-shirt and underwear, and the smell from the open window was of dying leaves and of rain in the dirt and turned fields, and it began to seem to him strangely apt that he lay so many thousand miles from home and was so alone in his sickness. It was the kind of suffering, after all, he’d yearned for during the last five months, since receiving Hatsue’s letter. It was an easy, sleepy kind of languid fever, and so long as he did not try to move too much or exert himself unnecessarily he could live this way indefinitely. He surrounded himself with his illness thoroughly and embedded himself in it,
In October he trained a second time, as a radioman, and was sent to a staging area on the North Island of New Zealand as part of the Second Marine Division. They assigned him to B Company in the Second Marine Regiment, Third Battalion, and he soon met men who’d been at Guadalcanal, and he replaced a radio operator who’d been shot during the fighting in the Solomons. One night a lieutenant named Jim Kent recollected how the former radioman had taken an interest in a dead Japanese boy with his pants turned inside out around his muddy ankles. The radioman, a Private Gerald Willis, had propped the boy’s penis up by placing a stone under it, then had lain down carefully in the dirt and shot carbine rounds until he’d blown the head of it off. He’d been proud of himself afterward and had bragged about his aim for a half hour or more, describing for others how the boy’s penis had looked with the head of it severed and
how the head itself had looked lying on the ground. Private Willis had been killed two days later on patrol, by friendly mortar fire he’d called for at the direction of Lieutenant Kent himself, who’d given the correct coordinates. Seven men in the platoon had died on that occasion, and Kent had lowered himself into a foxhole and watched a Private Wiesner toss a grenade unsuccessfully toward a pillbox while at the same moment a stream of machine-gun fire caught Wiesner at the waist and forced his viscera out. A piece of it had landed on Kent’s forearm, blue, fresh, and glistening.
They trained incessantly and practiced landing maneuvers at Hawkes Bay, where the tides were bad. Men died during these exercises. Ishmael tried to take maneuvers seriously, but the veterans in his squad went through them hung over or bored or both simultaneously, and their attitude of indifference had its influence. On liberty he drank ale and at other times gin with boys who like him were new to the war, and they played pool in Wellington together. Even at those times, drunk at one o’clock in the morning, leaning against his pool cue in the smoky light while another boy lined up a shot and a Wellington band played dance tunes he didn’t recognize, Ishmael felt a peculiar detachment from everybody. He was numb to it all, uninterested in drinking and pool and other people, and the more drunk he became the more lucid his mind was and the colder he felt toward everyone. He did not understand the laughter of his compatriots or their ease or anything else about them. What were they doing here, drinking and shouting at one o’clock in the morning in a country so far from the homes they knew; what were they so feverishly happy about? One morning, in a heavy downpour, he wandered back to his Wellington hotel at four-thirty and lay down heavily with his writing tablet to compose a letter to his parents. After he’d written to them he wrote one to Hatsue, and then he took both letters and ripped them up and fell asleep with some of the pieces jammed into his coat pocket and the rest scattered across the floor. He slept with his shoes on and at six-fifteen awoke to vomit in the toilet closet down the hall.