Weedflower

  “Sumiko?” he whispered.

  “What?” she whispered back.

  “Did you kill that boy yesterday?”

  “No,” she said, still whispering. “I saw him afterward. He didn’t even need stitches.”

  “Was he mad at you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he going to hurt you?”

  “No. I said I was sorry,” she said.

  “Are you?”

  She thought that over. “No.”

  “Good. Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  28

  IT FELT STRANGE TO WALK DOWN THE PATH TO THE RIVER with Bull. She felt as if she were kind of a tour guide, even though she’d been to the river just once, on Christmas. “I think that big tree is about the halfway mark to the river,” she told Bull.

  They arrived first. Sumiko laid out a blanket she’d brought, and she and Bull sat down. She saw Bull all the time, but now she felt sort of shy, but also excited. He looked so strong! She felt proud that he was her cousin.

  When Frank and his brother Joseph arrived, Joseph was smoking and Bull had just put a cigarette into his mouth and was looking for matches. Joseph handed him his cigarette to use for lighting up. Sumiko flashed a bright smile at Frank.

  Sumiko thought Frank looked flustered and excited that they were all meeting. She felt the same way. He and Sumiko started talking at the same time, and then they both stopped.

  Joseph extended an arm and shook hands with Bull. “Joseph,” he grunted.

  “Bull,” Bull grunted.

  Joseph gestured toward his brother. “Frank.”

  Bull indicated Sumiko. “Sumiko,” he said.

  Joseph glanced at Frank and said, “I thought her name was Weedflower.” Sumiko frowned at Frank, but he ignored her.

  Joseph was tall and slender, maybe a little younger than Ichiro. He seemed kind of arrogant and kind of nice—like Frank, except older. Or rather, Frank was like his brother. Sumiko noticed that Frank almost seemed to be studying Joseph.

  Frank said, “Joseph is leaving soon for the army.”

  “I heard,” said Bull.

  Sumiko hit Bull’s arm. “Don’t tell him everything I said!” She glanced at Joseph. “Not that I said anything.”

  Bull just shrugged at Joseph.

  Joseph studied Sumiko seriously, then suddenly seemed amused. “So you’re our little enemy girl,” he said. His eyes drifted down to her sweater. It was Bull’s and was about ten thousand sizes too big.

  “It’s Bull’s,” she said.

  Everybody looked blankly at her. “What’s Bull’s?” Frank finally said.

  “Oh. My sweater … I mean Bull’s sweater.”

  Frank turned to Joseph. “She means she’s wearing Bull’s sweater,‣ he said, as if she spoke a different language.

  Sumiko and Frank met eyes, and for some reason both broke out in giggles. Bull and Joseph shrugged at each other.

  “Let’s sit down!” Sumiko suggested brightly.

  They all sat down on the blanket. Frank seemed eager for everybody to get along. He looked attentively back and forth among all of them.

  Joseph spoke directly to Bull. “When I get back, I plan to farm. I heard you’re an expert farmer.”

  “Bull’s a great farmer!” Sumiko said. “He’s kind of a genius when it comes to farming.”

  Bull said only, “We had a small flower farm.”

  Joseph nodded. He started to say something, stopped to draw on his cigarette, and then said, “I don’t know if you realize it, but the tribal council voted against having the camp here.”

  “Is that so?” Bull said. Even when he didn’t make expressions, Sumiko usually knew what Bull was thinking. Now she had no idea.

  “The federal government put it here anyway,” Joseph said. “Why do they ask us for our opinion if they don’t care what we say?”

  Sumiko said tentatively “Because it’s a democracy?”

  Joseph laughed, but not in a friendly way. Bull wrinkled the area between his eyes.

  Sumiko felt her face grow hot. “It is a democracy,” she insisted. “Everybody gets a vote.”

  Joseph didn’t laugh this time. He met eyes with Frank.

  Then Frank told her, “It’s against the law for Indians to vote.”

  “Are you sure?” Sumiko said, and immediately felt stupid for asking. It was just that in school a long time ago the class had learned that all grown-ups born in the United States could vote.

  “How come you can’t vote?” Bull asked.

  Joseph nodded at Frank, apparently to indicate that Frank should answer. Sumiko thought Frank looked proud that his brother wanted him to explain. “Indians were declared citizens by the U.S. government in 1924, but the states decide individually who can vote or not. Arizona doesn’t allow it.” Frank turned to his brother as if for approval; Joseph nodded.

  “I don’t want to vote anyway,” Sumiko said.

  There was a silence. Bull said gently, “Still, they should have the right, Sumi-chan.” Sumiko lowered her head and felt her face heat up again.

  She was glad when Frank changed the subject by abruptly announcing, “She eats snakes!”

  Sumiko laughed. “It’s tasty with ginger! You can also put shoyu on it or dry it and salt it. My neighbor Mr. Moto says it’s very versatile. I ate it for the first time the day I arrived in camp.”

  Joseph made a gesture exactly like Sumiko had seen Frank make: He shook his head as if to clear out the illogic she was putting there. Now she knew where Frank had gotten the gesture. “She likes to talk,” Joseph said to Frank. But he smiled when he said it. Then he turned to Bull and said, “I have some questions about the irrigation and your farm if you don’t mind.”

  The men walked down to the river and disappeared in the reeds. Frank seemed delighted, childlike in a way Sumiko hadn’t seen him before. He kept looking starry-eyed toward the river where his brother had gone. “Joseph and my other brother, Henry, are the two smartest men I know. When they come back, they’re going to help make sure the whole reservation gets irrigated,” he told her.

  “Are you worried that they’re going to get hurt?”

  “Oh, no, they’ll kill about a hundred Germans or Japs.…” His voice trailed off. “I mean, I’m not worried. They’ll come back heroes.” Sumiko didn’t answer, and his face turned sincere and beautiful. “I’m sorry.”

  “I know what you meant. You meant, uh…”

  “I meant they’ll kill the enemy.… I mean, you’re not the enemy.…”

  They were silent for a moment. Everybody in America said “Japs”—everybody. Even some Japanese said it. But hearing it from Frank sounded awful.

  “Is he going to the Pacific?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Then Frank looked down, his face very sad, and Sumiko knew he was worried about his brothers.

  She tried to think of something to say. She wanted to change the subject so he wouldn’t be sad. “So where do you live, anyway? Is it, you know, a regular house?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. In the movies …” In the movies Indians had tepees. Now it was her turn to let her voice trail off.

  “It’s made of mud and thatch. My father built it. We just sleep in it. We cook outside.”

  “How do you do homework at night without electricity?”

  “We have an oil lamp. But I don’t have much time for homework. I cut wood for people for extra money. And I have to babysit my sister all the time. Anyway, we all go to sleep pretty early.”

  “How come all your names are … well, they’re not Indian.”

  “I guess the government didn’t want us to have Indian names.”

  There was a moment of silence before she said, “Well, what do you want to do someday?”

  “Work for my brothers.”

  “What will you grow on your farm?”

  He thought a moment. “Everything.”

  He watched her patien
tly, apparently waiting for the next question. When it didn’t come, he asked, “Are you going to be a farmer too?”

  “Before the war I wanted to own a flower shop someday, but now I don’t know. I may end up working in a factory.”

  He spoke really softly, and really coldly. “You don’t need white people to tell you it’s okay to own a flower shop.”

  “I do now.”

  “No,” he said. “No. You don’t.” The coldness left him then. “Do you miss your farm?”

  “I did, but now I have my garden. Later this year I want to take first place in the camp competition.” She paused. “A few people are leaving the camp for jobs outside. But most people aren’t leaving. The jobs are really crummy. You have to apply to the administration, and they decide if they should let you go. But we’re staying here.” She paused, then added quietly, “Everybody hates us out there.”

  “It’s bad for us if too many of you leave. We won’t get as much land cultivated without you,” Frank said offhandedly.

  She felt annoyed, because the government wanted them out because it was better for white people and their crops that needed picking, and the Office of Indian Affairs probably wanted them in because it was better for getting land cultivated.

  But she had to admit that it would be bad for the Japanese to leave. “It’s safer in here,” she said. “If we leave and try to rebuild our lives, they’ll just take everything away again if Japan starts to win the war or bombs the United States again. Next time they’ll be even meaner.” Frank didn’t answer, but she realized she actually had more to say on the subject. “Not one person on my block is leaving. We get free food, and we have our own camp government. I think we might have more freedom in camp than we would outside right now.”

  Frank glanced at the reeds. She heard the wind weave through the trees and imagined it rippling the water, more and more wind, an endless supply. They both felt something in the air at the same time and stood up together to check the sky. It was getting dark: a dust storm.

  They crashed through the brush by the river. Joseph and Bull were hunkered down, Bull drawing something in the dirt as Joseph watched intently. They barely glanced at Sumiko and Frank.

  “Dust storm’s coming,” Frank called.

  Joseph and Bull stood up and faced each other. They shook hands. “Thanks for meeting with me,” Joseph said.

  “Read that book,” Bull said. “Don’t forget the title: Basic Irrigation for Small Farms by Samuel Morrison. It was the best book I ever read.”

  Sumiko hadn’t even known Bull had ever read a book.

  Bull continued, “You can’t put it down. It’s better than a mystery. I read it three times.”

  “I’ll make sure to get it.”

  They all walked silently to the dirt path that led to camp. Joseph shook Sumiko’s hand. In all her life Sumiko had shaken hands with only two people who weren’t Japanese. One was Mrs. Melrose, and the other was Joseph. “It was nice to meet you.” Joseph said to Frank, “You’re right. She’s very pretty.” Sumiko wasn’t sure whether to feel pleased or embarrassed.

  “Nice to meet you, Joseph,” she said. “Good luck.”

  “See ya, Weedflower,” Frank said to Sumiko.

  “Bye, Woodcutter,” she said.

  Sumiko and Bull walked off together. The wind was getting stronger and stronger. The storm reached them when they were only halfway back. They curled on the ground next to each other, Bull with his arms around her holding the blanket down. The wind was especially harsh. But Bull’s muscles bulged around Sumiko; she knew she was safe.

  She kept her eyes and mouth shut tight, except for once when a gust of wind punched into her, and her mouth and eyes opened in surprise. All she could see was the blue from the blanket and the swirling dust. Bull pushed her head back down and pulled the blanket back around them. She had a crazy feeling that they were going to be lifted into the sky.

  When the wind began to die down, Bull relaxed his hold, but just a little. She could tell he was reluctant to get up yet. “Do you think Frank and Joseph are okay?” Sumiko shouted over the wind.

  “Yes,” Bull said confidently.

  “How do you know?”

  “I just know.”

  As usual after a dust storm, the camp was desolate when they got back. Everybody was still waiting inside. There was no human movement anywhere at all. There were some stray branches here and there, but otherwise, it didn’t look that different from the way it always did. It was dusty before a dust storm, and it was dusty after a dust storm.

  The first person they saw emerge from the barracks was Mr. Moto. He stepped out to uncover his snake cage. Some of Sumiko’s flowers were listing over, and dust and debris floated atop Mr. Moto’s pond. One of the handful of dogs that lived in camp ran around barking, glad to be free again to roam. When Mr. Moto saw Sumiko, he closed his eye and squeezed, then said, “Don’t worry, the garden is fine.”

  Everybody was at home when Bull and Sumiko walked in. Auntie was already trying to clean up the dust that now covered everything inside. In short, everything seemed perfectly normal.

  29

  THEN SOMETHING HAPPENED so BIG THAT SUMIKO COULD think of nothing else.

  One morning in February when Sumiko arrived at the schoolhouse; the other kids in her class were hovering around a bonfire, refusing to go inside at the start of school. It wasn’t terribly cold, but it was chilly, and Sumiko knew they were all utterly sick of school.

  “Come on now, let’s get inside,” Miss Kelly pleaded. Sumiko leaned over the fire and pretended she hadn’t heard.

  Miss Kelly didn’t try again. In fact, Miss Kelly herself seemed seduced by the fire. Several men walked by talking loudly. “It’s an outrage!” Sumiko heard one say angrily. Two women dashed by chattering in Japanese. A couple of men rushed right behind them. Sumiko could tell something big was happening, and she felt her insides twist up with worry about what this big thing was.

  One of the boys in her class called out to a man; “What’s going on?”

  “It doesn’t concern children!” the man barked at him before walking quickly past.

  That made them all even more curious. “Miss Kelly won’t you ask someone what’s going on?” Sumiko said.

  Her classmates echoed, “Yes, Miss Kelly, ask someone!”

  “I’ll ask someone if you children come inside so we can start class.”

  The fire was warm and felt nice. But Sumiko wanted to know what was going on. “I’ll come in,” she said.

  “Me too,” Sachi said. Soon everyone else agreed.

  Miss Kelly flagged down a couple of men and drew her coat tight before leaving the fire. As she talked to the men she pulled a pen and paper from her bag and wrote some things down. She took an awfully long time talking, listening, writing, and talking some more. Sumiko wondered what could be so complicated.

  When Miss Kelly returned, she told the class, “Inside, all of you! Come on, come inside and I’ll tell you what’s happening.”

  Inside, Miss Kelly stood in front of the room, still pulling her coat tightly around herself. She paused to look blankly at the class. Sumiko couldn’t help smiling whenever she saw Miss Kelly’s expression at the start of every day. She always looked surprised to find herself in a dirty desert classroom in front of a room full of unruly Japanese kids.

  “Okay then, here it is verbatim,” Miss Kelly said. She read from her notes. “‘Every man or woman in camp aged seventeen or older will be required to fill out a questionnaire in preparation for instituting a military draft of young Nisei men.’”

  “Why?” several kids shouted out.

  Miss Kelly took a big breath. “I’m trying to tell you. Just listen.” She looked back down at her paper.

  “They’ll be asked many questions, including two important ones. The first is, ‘Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty, wherever ordered?’ And the second is, ‘Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the Unit
ed States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any or all attack by foreign or domestic forces and forswear any form of allegiance to the Japanese emperor or to any other foreign government, power, or organization?’”

  One boy said, “It’s a trick! If my father says yes and forswears allegiance to Japan and they don’t give him rights here, we won’t have any country at all!” That made sense to Sumiko.

  Another boy said, “If your father doesn’t answer yes, they might send you to Japan!” That made sense too.

  Sumiko didn’t know whether all this was rumor or fact. There were always a lot of rumors. One week everybody had heard that Poston would be closed and that they’d all be sent to one of the camps in Arkansas. Another week everybody heard that a man everyone trusted was an inu. Sometimes there were rumors of impending beatings. Sometimes there were rumors that nobody would be getting paychecks that week. And so on; a constant supply of new rumors.

  Then everyone was shouting at once. Sumiko didn’t know what to think of this new information. A couple of kids ran out of the barrack.

  “Can we leave? It’s too cold for class!” one of the girls cried out.

  As an answer, Miss Kelly opened a book. She read a portion out loud and then passed it around to the students so they could read out loud. No one read with enthusiasm. Fortunately, that afternoon Miss Kelly let them out early, and Sumiko rushed away with her chair. She wanted to know what Bull and Ichiro thought of this new government information.

  On the way home Sumiko passed groups of men arguing in the streets and aisles of Poston. Sometimes she just walked right up and started listening until the men made her go away. Other times she walked slowly pretending to be struggling with her chair. In this way she learned that some people believed the questions were designed to trick them. If you agreed to forswear allegiance to Japan, wouldn’t the authorities assume that you’d held such an allegiance in the first place? And then punish you somehow?

  And some people wanted to know what exactly was a “foreign power or organization”? Did that mean you wouldn’t be allowed to join organizations with Issei as members?