In a Flash

by Donna Jo Napoli

  At dinner people talk about the smell of jasmine, the taste of grapes. About walking along the shore, standing on a dock, holding a warm stone. Italy memories. Papà sometimes did that. I pretend it’s him talking.

  “Is there almond between my teeth?” asks Bernardo.

  “The last time you had almonds was Christmas 1941,” says Valeria.

  “I had them for dinner!”

  “You’re confusing dreams with life.”

  A look passes among some of us. Valeria sees it. “Don’t you dare think that.” She faces each of us in turn. “He’s just hungry.”

  “A man was sick today,” says Patrizia.

  “Priulli. His name is Antonio Priulli,” says Xeno. “We’ll all be sick if we don’t get something more to eat than rice.”

  After dinner, the others go upstairs. Carolina and I go into the back room to see the old couple. We sit on our heels against the wall. The woman, Nishino-san, sits near us. The old man whittles on bamboo while Nishino-san tells us what she did today—work with the silk farmers—and we tell her what we did. I don’t know why Nishino-san permits us these conversations, but I love them. When we first started, I did it as strategy, so that the old man and the old woman would think of us as Japanese children, at least partially. In case that became useful. Now I love these conversations because it’s a chance for us to be the girls we used to be for a little while—the girls who spoke Japanese with their friends all day long. And I love the conversations because the old couple is kind. Kindness is rare.

  Tonight, as Carolina tells about her day, Nishino-san shuts her eyes. When Carolina stops, Nishino-san says, “With my eyes closed, I can believe you are my daughter when she was little. You sound like Yuki did. Simona sounds like she’s from Tokyo. But you have changed your talk since you came here. Now you sound like a child from here.”

  This is good. Carolina is like a chameleon.

  Now I tell Nishino-san about the man Antonio, who can’t feel his fingers.

  Nishino-san’s face snaps to attention. She reaches out and yanks my hair.

  “Aiii!” I yelp.

  Nishino-san looks surprised. I should have said itai, like a Japanese child. But the Italian popped out. I want to bite my tongue. After a second, though, Nishino-san nods with satisfaction. She yanks Carolina’s hair. Carolina doesn’t say a word, though I know how much it hurts. Nishino-san opens her palm and blanches in dismay; strands of hair lie there.

  Oh, Lord. No. Please, please, no.

  Nishino-san walks to a basket in the corner. Her toes point inward, because from the time she was little, she has spent the better part of the day sitting on her upturned feet. She told me that country women her age are all like this. She leans over the basket, and a moment later stands in front of us holding out a boiled white radish with both hands. “Do not speak, girls.” Her eyes dart toward the sliding partition that separates this room from the kitchen. “Let me talk awhile.”

  I bow and take the radish, and open my mouth to thank her.

  “Do not speak!” She puts her finger to her lips.

  The radish smells like old water, not quite rotten. Still, I salivate. I take a bite and pass it to Carolina. We pass it back and forth. Meanwhile Nishino-san talks about silkworms. About picking mulberry leaves to feed those worms, and gathering their droppings for fertilizer. When we swallow the last bite of radish, she says, “Go to bed. Don’t talk tonight. Go to bed, and tomorrow”—she mimics eating—“I will tell you more about silk.”

  It’s rude not to allow us to thank her, and Nishino-san would never be rude, so I’m sure now that she knows someone was listening through the rice-paper partitions. The others must wonder what Carolina and I do with the old couple in the evenings. When we first started this habit, they asked, and I told them the truth. But they said we could practice Japanese with Mariella. She speaks as well as we do. Mariella doesn’t want to speak to us, though. Like everyone else, she doesn’t trust us. We aren’t part of her original group.

  The others might be spying on us. They’d be outraged to know we’ve shared a radish without saving any for them. That would make them feel justified in how they treat us. They talk as much about loyalty as our teachers did. They would call us disloyal. And we are. But the portions at dinner make me think again. From now on, we’ll get smaller portions, I just know it. So it isn’t evil of us not to share the radish. We bow our thanks and climb the stairs.

  People sit on futons and talk softly in the dark. Carolina walks ahead of me to our futon. We hide under it and take off our clothes, turn them inside out, and put them back on. That way one side airs out overnight and we don’t feel so grimy. Then we crawl out and sit on the futon. Carolina opens her suitcase and takes out the deck of cards. She fingers it. I take out Nonna’s photograph. I can’t see it in the dark, but I know every detail of it, and I recite those details to Carolina now. Then I tuck the photograph into the side of my underwear. I tell Carolina that it helps me sleep safely. But really I do it just in case anyone might try to steal it in the night. All sorts of things have disappeared out of people’s suitcases in the night.

  Carolina stacks the cards into a neat deck and kisses the top. “Goodbye, Botan, my friend,” she whispers in Japanese. She hands me the deck.

  I won’t feel sorry for her. I won’t feel sorry for myself. We need a kimono. To keep us warm. Alive.

  I touch Carolina’s cheek. It’s rice dry. Like mine.

  25 FEBRUARY 1944, NAGOYA, JAPAN

  My belly cramps so bad that I curl into a ball under the futon. This shouldn’t be happening. Not to me.

  Almost everyone else has gotten sick in the last few weeks. They can’t see well. They’re faint and weak. Hair falls out. Gums bleed. They’re dizzy.

  And they have cramps.

  Carolina and I are skinny, but Nishino-san has kept us from getting sick. She feeds us sweet potatoes and taro, both harvested back in November but still good. As we eat, Nishino-san describes the boxes she and her husband set up for silkworms to form their cocoons in, and how long it takes the cocoons to be ready for harvesting. She talks about spinning thread off the cocoon. She talks and talks, and we eat. Twice she’s given us each an egg—a whole egg! And sometimes onions and bitter mandarins and dried wild greens. Once, even a fish skin.

  The rations the guards supply go up and down. Rice is scarce, and a guard grumbled about it being a travesty that we get any at all when the people of Japan have so little. Sometimes they give us bread. It’s so good that if someone looks at you while you’re eating, you turn your back and curl over the bread like a dog with a bone. And if you happen to get a little extra, you bury it in a hole you dug somewhere between your sleeping quarters and the central building, to save for later.

  Usually they give us fish at dinner. But so little that people are slowly starving. Some sit listless in a heap all day.

  Not long ago, International Red Cross representatives inspected our conditions. I listened to every snatch of conversation I could. The American government claimed that the Japanese were cruel to prisoners of war. The International Red Cross came to make sure we were treated fairly. They noted that we had futons. Many toilet pits. That we got fish almost daily. They didn’t talk to us; they questioned the guards. When the ambassador protested in his nearly unintelligible Japanese at the small amount of food, the lack of jackets, and the chores all day long, the head guard said that Europeans were lazy pigs. The International Red Cross left. Everyone is getting sicker.

  Except Carolina and me—until now. Our portions at dinner have been cut, but not as much as I feared they would be. And that one extra shared sweet potato a day from the hands of Nishino-san makes all the difference. Carolina’s hair isn’t falling out anymore. Her eyes are clear. So why am I cramping now? No!

  “Get up.” Mariella reaches under the futon and yanks on my foot. “Every
one else is already downstairs.”

  “I can’t.” I clutch the futon to my chin. “I have cramps. Really bad.”

  “You’re sick like the rest of us.” Mariella’s face softens. “We all thought you…” She shakes her head. “You have to come get breakfast anyway. No one will make you work. It’s better than being alone.”

  I shake my head. “I’ll throw up if I move.”

  “All right; stay here. If they ask about you, I’ll explain that you’re sick.”

  Carolina sits up and peeks out from under the futon. “Don’t be sick, Simona.”

  “You know she can’t help it,” says Mariella. “Come with me and see if they’ll let you bring back rice gruel for Simona.”

  Carolina shakes her head. “I won’t leave her.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” says Mariella. “If they don’t let you bring Simona food, at least this way you’ll eat something.”

  “We stay together.”

  Mariella presses her hand against her mouth. But then she drops her shoulders and nods. “Breakfast is hardly anything anyway. You won’t die if you skip it, and your sister needs you.” She goes to the top of the stairs and looks back. “If they’ll let me, I’ll bring you food.”

  “They won’t let you,” I say. “But thank you. Truly.”

  Mariella gives me a smile and disappears down the stairs.

  Carolina pokes my shoulder. “You’re not supposed to get sick.”

  “I know.”

  “I have to use the toilet,” Carolina says. “Don’t you? Come down with me.” Carolina climbs out from under the futon. She has the kimono on—the one that cost us her deck of cards. We alternate days wearing it.

  I manage to follow her downstairs without retching. Since no one’s around to stop me, we both use the chamber pot.

  Maybe Nishino-san knows a remedy for cramps. We go into the old couple’s family room. They aren’t there; their day starts even earlier than ours.

  The urge to get clean overwhelms me. I take the communal cooking pot and slide open the rear door. No one’s about. It snowed two days ago, and the snow hasn’t melted yet. I pile snow into the pot, high above the top rim. Then I go back to the kitchen and light the fire. Every move hurts. I want to double over this pain in my belly, but I have to keep moving. As the snow melts, I fill a bucket with snow and add more. When the water in the pot finally reaches halfway to the top, I add the last bucket of snow. Then I take the pot off the fire, and we strip. We’re naked without having to rush, for the first time in almost half a year. It feels strange to look at our pale ribby bodies. I laugh. Carolina puts her hand to her mouth and peers around. Then she laughs, too.

  “Someone is going to see the smoke from the fire soon,” I say. “We have to hurry.”

  We dip our shirts into the water and use them to scrub ourselves. It would be so lovely to actually bathe, but this is the best we can do, and this is wonderful. The water still holds ice crystals; it’s bracing. It cuts the cramp pain. We dunk our heads and scrub more. Why isn’t anyone coming to yell at us?

  I open a cupboard. A bit of lye and some seed pods that I recognize for cleaning. If I use them, Nishino-san will go without. Ashes alone are enough: I rub our clothes with ashes on the worst stains while Carolina scrubs Lella. Then I boil the clothes. We fish them out onto the floor. As soon as they’re cool enough, we wring them hard.

  It’s midmorning by now, so this fantastically peaceful time with just the two of us together can’t last. Someone will burst in soon. I pull on my wet underwear and school pants and shirt. Then I stand in front of the fire, holding out the kimono with both hands and flapping it. I turn slowly as I do that, so that I toast myself. Carolina does the same. Now she swings Lella near the flames. It takes a long time to dry out. Really long. It feels like forever. It’s surely well into the afternoon by now.

  The cramping in my belly has totally gone. We’re ravenous now. Daily breakfast is a tiny puddle in a bowl, but we rely on it. I won’t steal food from Nishino-san and her husband, though. They already sacrifice to give us food at night. I look out the back window. There’s a kingfisher perched on a dry stick of a near-dead bush. Flashes of orange and white, sharp against the vivid blue. I think of Aiko, and our signal of her saying she’d seen a bird outside her window when she had an issue of Chikakiyori to pass to me.

  Beyond the bird, I spy a horse-drawn wagon standing by the house down the hill. The back of it is filled with branches and dried leaves. And there’s a sign attached to the side: KATAKURA INDUSTRIES COMPANY.

  Katakura. I know that name. The interpreter said it to the ambassador. When he talked about the groups that wanted revolution, he mentioned the Katakura silk workers. Maybe that wagon will go to a factory where the workers are against this war. I check every direction. No one is about even now. But people might be looking from windows, just like we’re doing.

  “See that wagon?” I ask Carolina.

  “The one with the horse?”

  “Who knows where it’s going,” I say slowly.

  Carolina comes close, and her arm presses against mine. “Maybe,” she whispers, “maybe somewhere near Papà.”

  My words rush out, “Do you think you could make it to the wagon fast?”

  “I can run in wooden clogs.”

  “It’s through snow. Our feet will freeze.”

  “Not if we run fast.”

  “If they see us…”

  “Then we have to run even faster, so they don’t.” Carolina tucks Lella inside her shirt. “Let’s get our shoes and I’m ready.”

  “You wear the kimono.”

  “It’s your turn, Simona.”

  “You’ll get cold faster than me.”

  “You have cramps.”

  “They stopped. Today you wear the kimono. No arguments.”

  Carolina puts on the kimono. We get our shoes and run.

  We leave prints in the soft snow. But I can’t take the time to sweep them away. Besides, my hands will freeze. We run and run and run. We climb into the wagon and burrow deep under sticks and leaves. I can’t hear or feel or think anything till my heart slows enough for my breath to catch up with it. Now I feel the dried stems poking us everywhere. A smell comes, all wheaty, like cut grass, like Nishino-san’s hands. Mulberry leaves! Of course. For the silkworms. We’re really in this wagon. No one shouted. No one saw.

  Unless they’re coming silently.

  Moments later, the horse whinnies and someone clumps around at the front of the wagon, and then we’re moving. Away from here. Go. Go, go, go, go, go. Fast, before anyone sees our prints in the snow.

  Wagons don’t go fast, though. This wagon bumps and sways. It’s so slow that my whole body stiffens with tension. The cramps come back. But that’s good—they keep me from screaming in fright. Because we’ll be stopped any second. What have I done to Carolina? And I don’t even know why I did it. I saw that sign on the wagon, and everything tumbled apart inside me. This wagon can’t be going to the Katakura factory. The interpreter said the factory was in Tokyo. No one would take a horse and wagon all the way to Tokyo. The local mulberry producers must dump their loads into a rail car that carries the mulberry to Tokyo. When the driver of the wagon dumps this load, he’ll find us—there, in front of everyone at the train station…not in some factory where the workers want revolution, but in front of people who hate us.

  I’d give anything to undo this—to be back in the internment camp. This is as bad as when I insisted we stay with Papà on the train.

  Papà talks inside my head now. What’s done is done. Calm down.

  But I can’t calm down. The guards will catch us now.

  Or now.

  Or now.

  We roll slow, slow, slow over that bumpy road.

  I’m practically crazed by the time the wagon stops. I peek out. We
’re in a town, but not at a train station. Across the street is a flatbed truck with sides. I can’t see into the back of it. I can’t tell if we’ll be able to hide there. But we can’t stay in this wagon; someone has to be on their way after us right now.

  “Carolina?”

  “My feet are cold.”

  I touch them. “Like fish on ice. Do you think you can run?”

  Carolina pops up. We crawl out, race across the street, and climb into the back of the truck. It’s half-full of bamboo poles. I try to dig grooves for us, but each time I roll a pole aside, others shift to take its place. So I lie on top of the poles, in the open. Carolina lies beside me. “Stay close, so you don’t get too cold,” I whisper.

  “I’m a fish. Fish don’t get cold.”

  Come, someone. Please come. Soon.

  And someone somewhere must be looking out for us, because the truck starts up and goes fast. But a moment later it slows, and I peek over the side. We’re going through a city now. Not like Tokyo, but big. We pass the train station. The sign says NAGOYA. We haven’t gone very far at all yet.

  I lie back as the truck goes faster. The wind rushes over us, blowing away the snow as fast as it falls. But the wind is colder than the snow. We’ll freeze if this keeps up. I tuck my arms inside my shirt and roll to lie on Carolina, face to face, to give her more protection. The truck keeps going for what feels like hours. Finally I peek again. We’re in the countryside. The sun is setting on our left, so we’re headed north. In the not-too-far distance a snow-covered mountain rises high. Mount Fuji! We’re only a hundred kilometers from Tokyo. And much closer to the prisoner-of-war camp at Ofuna. It’s the end of February. In three days, I turn twelve. Maybe I can spend my birthday with Papà!

  The truck turns up a road through a forest. The engine stops and the driver gets out. Footsteps clump away. I sit up. “Come on, Carolina.”

  She doesn’t stir.