by Rishi Reddi
Masa closed her eyes.
Mr. Moriyama was waving his hand. “No no, Amarjeet. No no no no no.”
THE NEXT AFTERNOON, Masa arrived at the Eggenberger farm, driving the Moriyamas’ team and wagon. Amarjeet was in the barn, mucking out the mare’s stall.
“Mother wants to see you,” Masa said. “If you will accept to visit.” She spoke in clipped, clear English.
He followed her on horseback. When they got to the house, he saw that Mrs. Moriyama had been waiting. “Come, come,” she said, indicating the formal dining table. She spoke in Japanese, looking steadily at Masa and glancing at Amarjeet. Amarjeet wondered why. Several years ago, her husband had arranged for an English tutor to visit this home as part of the county Americanization classes, and she and Kishen had sat with that woman, in this same room, every week for six months.
“Please sit and speak with her,” Masa said. “She has questions that she wishes you will answer. She would be grateful if you would do this service.”
Mrs. Moriyama had tea ready, and she poured it into the porcelain cups. Mr. Moriyama did not appear to be home. She moved quickly, as if she wanted to complete the conversation before her husband would interrupt. She sat across the table from Amarjeet, facing him, and Masa placed herself at the head, between them. Mother and daughter spoke to each other in rapid Japanese while Amarjeet looked from one to the other, palms on his knees, patient.
“Mother says—”
But Mrs. Moriyama waved her daughter aside. She leaned forward in her chair, hands clasped in her lap, and spoke herself.
“First I come here. I work fields,” she said, her eyes fixed on the table’s edge, her hand indicating the outdoors.
Amarjeet nodded.
“When husband come to Japan. Marry. Father not poor. But I come here, I work in fields. We must live?” She paused, making sure he understood. He nodded back.
“Her family in Kagoshima Prefecture was not poor. She never had to labor in the fields,” Masa said. “My father told her he owned a home here and had much money, but after they arrived she saw it was not so. They picked fruit in the Central Valley orchards for three years.”
“My hand bleed.” Mrs. Moriyama held up her palm, as if to show him. “Husband say we come to Imperial Valley. Make our own farm.”
“My father was always ambitious,” Masa said. Mrs. Moriyama flashed her a look that Amarjeet did not know how to read. There was another exchange in Japanese. “She says that together they planted strawberries, peas. My sister and I were small. We were put to work too. But my father always gets the credit.”
Amarjeet kept his face expressionless.
“I never want come here,” Mrs. Moriyama said, suddenly fierce. Her daughter interrupted, but Mrs. Moriyama again waved her away.
“I come here. I wear western clothing. I want women know I smart. I come here. I go Christian church on Sunday and wear a hat. Hat.” Her hand knocked the teacup, but the tea didn’t spill. “Christian church, but I no understand English. Because—we must live? Other women must know I smart. For Masa. For Yuki.” Her eyes were glistening now, bright. “But, when I need peace, I go to Buddhist temple.” She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and smothered her eyes. “Cannot change. Cannot change the truth. But, we must live?”
Masa’s and Amarjeet’s eyes met. Mrs. Moriyama did not seem to notice. When she spoke again, she had collected herself.
“Haruo was smart boy. That was why other mothers accept me.” She seemed to gather herself together, sit taller. “Tell me truth, Amarjeet-san,” she said quietly. “Did he have girl in town?”
Amarjeet glanced again at Masa. Her eyes darted away. “Don’t answer,” she said sharply. “My mother won’t accept—”
“Yes,” he said. Even after all Harry’s hiding, all the ways he had protected his parents, he would have wanted his mother to know.
He heard Masa release a breath.
“Who was she?” Mrs. Moriyama asked.
He hesitated for only a moment. “Anna Halliday. The daughter of the school superintendent. We were in school together.”
The silence was heavy.
The expression on Mrs. Moriyama’s face shifted. She would know too that Anna’s father had run for mayor the year before. “Tell me, Anna-san care for Haruo?”
“He wrote to her, Mrs. Moriyama,” Amarjeet said gently. “She wrote back. Her letters came every week. Sometimes two or three. He was frantic for them. After the war, they wanted to marry and move to Los Angeles.” Amarjeet looked at Mrs. Moriyama. “He gave me letters for her too.”
Masa stared intently at her mother, as if she was worried.
“White girl,” Mrs. Moriyama said. “And pretty girl.” She wiped her eyes. “He always have good taste.”
Amarjeet said nothing.
“You see Anna-san, yes? When you give letter?”
“Yes. Don’t worry. Her father won’t know.”
She handed him a box, neatly wrapped in a swatch of cream silk patterned with green leaves. Amarjeet untied it carefully. It was the same necklace that Amarjeet had handed to Mr. Moriyama the day before. Harry’s necklace. “Please give Anna-san this. You tell Anna-san it from Haruo family. You tell Anna-san. We know Haruo want it.” She wiped her eyes. “Please remember Haruo. You tell Anna-san.”
“I will, Mrs. Moriyama,” Amarjeet said. “I will.”
26
AMARJEET TOOK UP HIS OLD CHORES AT THE FARM. HE WORKED QUIETLY. Other than his moods, he was dependable; he did not say much and he was not too curious about what had happened while he was away. He enjoyed the children the most: Leela, who was now eight; Federico, who was a year and a half. Sometimes he would put Federico in the baby carriage and wheel him around the farm. Rosa gave birth to twins, Grace and José, and Amarjeet loved them too. He found comfort in the children’s openness, in their sadness and anger and happiness, which they showed without cover or restraint.
Once he overheard his aunt and uncle talking about him—Kishen pointing out to Jivan that his nephew had grown moody. That she found him staring out into the fields, seeing something that wasn’t there. That he had grown angry with her when she had asked if he would be home for dinner. “Be patient, Kishen-ji,” his uncle had said. “The boy has just returned from battle.”
Ram wanted to spend time with him now, in a way he had not wanted before.
“What was it like over there?” Ram asked him once, and Amarjeet did not know what to say.
“What shall I tell you?”
“How did Harry win his medal?”
Amarjeet told him. Then he spoke about the weather.
Amarjeet thought he might, eventually, perhaps when he had rested enough, go back to India and bring back a bride. Ram had failed in bringing Padma, but there was a difference. Ram was not a citizen, and Amarjeet was. He would do this just as soon as he recovered a bit from the war, when he stopped hearing that pounding in his ears, when he could sleep again. He noticed sometimes that Karak and Rosa would argue; he could hear their voices across the expanse between the houses. He met Adela; he noticed Ram and she would share an occasional glance when they thought others weren’t looking. It did not bother him.
What interested him was France and the war. He realized that people at home knew more about it than he had known over there: strategy and battle plans, General Pershing’s refusal to split American forces under British or French command. How that meant more Americans might die than the alternative. How the U.S. Army planned full frontal assault: simply throwing more young bodies at the battle line until Germany ran out of young men to counter them. Was this patriotism? Had it made the world safe for democracy?
Between harvesting and planting he went to the library in El Centro to learn more. The general had issued the order for expedited citizenship just before the first all-American offensive at Saint-Mihiel. So that all the immigrant soldiers would not desert. When Amarjeet read this, his throat went dry. He thought the ploys of strategy were used only again
st the enemy.
He read about the German in Brawley who had been tarred and feathered for refusing to buy Liberty bonds. He read about the German who had been lynched in Illinois. This too made him sick. He had not hated the Germans during the war. Harry had not hated them either. The Germans, the French, the British, the Americans—they had been a bunch of farm boys, wishing for their mothers, dreaming of their sweethearts, shooting at each other across a no-man’s-land. The morning the armistice was announced, some men on the line had run forward to embrace the German soldiers they had shot at just hours earlier. The farm boys had not wanted the war. They had never wanted the war. If he—Amarjeet Singh of Tarkpur village, Ludhiana district, son of Gurinder Singh—had shot and killed people, he did not want to think about that now.
To him, the war had been about carrying supplies to the front line on his cart and coming back to the rear with that same cart loaded down with bodies. There had been so many, many, bodies. There had been no difference between them, save the tint of skin or hair: Irish and Chinese, Sicilian and Jew, Mexican and Arab and Japanese. If he had served alongside Negroes, he knew there would have been no difference there either.
He told himself he had made a good decision; he had his citizenship. Why, he was capable of anything! When he walked among the locals in town—how many had seen what he had seen? How many could have done what he had done? To witness carnage, to come close to the essence of life because one had been close to death, to see humanity’s depravation—it was not the same as wisdom, but it was close. He knew why the army did not want Negroes on the front lines. It was not because other soldiers would not accept them, or that was not the only reason. It was not because they could not exercise valor—of course they could. It was because the U.S. government did not want them to be admired, lionized, when they returned.
IN JULY, Amarjeet passed Everett Pike, one of the boys from the war, on Main Street in front of the post office. Everett waved first.
“Hey, Jeet! Where ya been all this while?” he said, his smile big, his voice bigger. “What’re you up to?”
Amarjeet was glad to see him too. “Farming again.” He felt a whiff of embarrassment.
“Me too. You know, my old man’ll never let me off that damn farm.” They laughed.
Shortly after they had returned, Everett had organized a ball game in the field outside of town for the boys from the military. He had been a great batsman in high school. Sam was there, so was Herb, a few others Amarjeet did not know as well. After the game, they had stayed in the park, drinking hooch under starlight, talking about men they had known in the war. It had been good to do that.
“Big things in the works for the veterans,” Everett said now, kicking the dirt road with the toe of his shoe. “They’re callin’ a meeting. No one who’s been over there should miss it.”
“Oh?”
“Hotel Barbara Worth.” Everett raised his eyebrows and dropped them. “Classy.”
“When?” Amarjeet asked.
At that ball game, the other vets had mentioned other times they had met, times that Amarjeet had not known about. Once at Everett’s parents’ home. Once at Mount Signal, for a picnic with some girls from their old high school. Once at the Hotel Dunlack for a dinner hosted by Sam Pinkerton’s father. Sam was civil to Amarjeet now, even warm, ever since recovering from his injuries and coming home. It was good to know that saving his life may have changed his views. Somehow, wherever he was, Amarjeet felt Harry knew that. It had been Harry who had gone over the top of the trench to get Sam out of the line of fire, but Amarjeet had pulled him down inside, to the deep safety of the dugout. But still, Amarjeet had not been invited to the dinner.
“You didn’t get an invite?”
“Naw—” Amarjeet said.
“Here.” Everett plucked a card from his pocket and shoved it into Amarjeet’s hand.
If you are a veteran, honorably discharged, soldier or sailor, regardless of rank or political convictions, regardless of whether you served overseas or on the home front, please add your number to our group, at 2:00 P.M. at the Hotel Barbara Worth.
“See? You’re a Doughboy, ain’t ya? Tomorrow, all right?”
Perhaps it was too much to ask that he be invited to the west side of El Centro, whether to a home or hotel. But ball games that the vets organized themselves, picnics with no women present—these he was asked to attend, along with Mohamid Nawaz, along with Ho Look, Wong Yan, William Anjai and Py Okaymoto, Manuel Pedro, and Haygash Pampeyan. It did not matter that he was not invited, Amarjeet told himself. How could the families of these boys understand the bond their sons shared over there? He could not expect their women to feel safe with people not their kind.
“Sounds swell,” Amarjeet said. He would be there.
THE NEXT MORNING, he dressed in his good shirt and dress slacks and asked to borrow Karak’s car.
“Meeting up with a girl, are you?” Karak said, looking him up and down.
If he had told Karak that he was going to the Hotel Barbara Worth, Karak would not have believed it. “A veterans’ meeting.” Amarjeet could not keep the pride out of his voice, but Karak did not seem to care.
Amarjeet parked on Main Street. Some of the boys were out front, gathered around Sam Pinkerton. He was telling the others a joke and they were leaning in to hear. As Amarjeet approached, the men erupted in laughter.
“Hey, Jeet,” Sam Pinkerton called, “long time no see!” Amarjeet recognized other boys in the gathering, all of them dressed well, shaved and trimmed with crisp shirts and gleaming shoes. They clapped him warmly on the back, struck his arm, fellas he hadn’t seen in four months, since leaving Camp Lewis. He knew he carried some of the aura of Harry’s heroism, just because they had been so close. They moved inside as a group—ten or twelve young men of the Valley.
The lobby opened up like a cavern before them. The air inside was unbelievably cool, fresh, and inviting; he had heard about the indoor plumbing that kept it so, pipes through which cold water flowed and chilled the air. In the corner, a string quartet played and the sound floated toward them across the space and emptiness. Their shoes tip-tapped on the marble floor. He wanted to loll on the orange velvet sofas, straight-backed and majestic.
They were being directed into a dining room by two hosts, middle-aged men dressed in suits and vests despite the weather. The boys formed a short line behind others who had come before. The hosts were jovial, bantering with the young men. It was clear that they knew some well and did not know others. Through the doorway Amarjeet could see tables set with white cloth, paneled walls, and regal chandeliers hanging from a distant ceiling. A group of Anglo men mingled and talked, hands in pockets, backs straight, at ease and confident. A cloth sign hung near the entrance: VETERANS! WELCOME TO THE AMERICAN LEGION: IMPERIAL VALLEY POST NO. 16.
Before Amarjeet reached the head of the line, one of the hosts called to Sam, and he left his place to speak with him. The host glanced at Amarjeet and talked in a low voice. Sam turned in Amarjeet’s direction for a second, a mercurial instant, but did not meet his eye.
Something was rising in Amarjeet, something that had been born in boot camp and grown in the artillery line, strengthened in that moment he had sworn an oath to a new country in Camp Lewis. Sam did not come back to join them, but stayed, hovering, beside the host. When Amarjeet reached the head of the line, he questioned the host directly: “Is there a problem, sir?” He felt the weight of Sam’s gaze.
The man leaned toward him. A bit too close, smiling. “It’s just that—I’ve got to make sure that everyone who’s at the meeting appears on this list.” He had heavy cheeks, jowls that twitched when he moved.
“Come on, Mr. Sanders,” Sam said. “He’s a buddy.”
“I’m sure your friend understands my difficulty, Sam. I can’t help it. House rules are house rules. You can only appear at the meeting if you’re on the list.” His tone was exasperated, as if Sam were the unreasonable one.
“Mr. Sanders—”
The man shrugged. Shook his head.
Sam Pinkerton looked at Amarjeet then. The look held knowledge of all that had happened. The fact of the trench. The fact of Harry, going over the top to save him. The fact of gunfire. The fact of the blood. The fact of Sam’s tears as he was pulled into the safety of the dugout, Amarjeet waiting in the trench, holding the weight of Sam’s legs, both the broken and the good one.
Behind them, the young vets were unknowing. Their laughter rose to the ceiling as they listened to another joke. Amarjeet remembered the words of President Wilson, captured in a newspaper article he had read: the American Legion would see no distinction in race or class or status.
“I reckon I’m not on that list,” Amarjeet said, “no matter what my name is.”
“Mr. Sanders—” Sam said again to the host.
But Amarjeet had already turned to go.
Sam grabbed his arm. “We’ll meet you. We’ll meet you after”—Sam seemed to struggle to remember the words—“at the Palm of the Hand of God.” His face brightened at finding the name. It was the only decent restaurant close to the railroad tracks, on the east side, where the whites hardly went. Shame enveloped Amarjeet.
“Sure, Sam. I’ll meet you fellas right after the meeting at the Palm. Maybe we can have dinner.” Amarjeet got back into Karak’s car. He wondered if Sam had considered, for even a moment, turning his back on that host and coming with him now.
ONCE, IN THE FIELD HOSPITAL IN FRANCE, Harry had said to Amarjeet, “Can’t believe I survived that shell but this damn flu’s got me laid up in here.” Harry almost never talked about the shell; from that topic, it was a small step to thinking about the buddies they’d lost. Harry’s voice was raspy and low. Amarjeet could tell it hurt him to talk. “I still think about your mare, Jeet. She was a good horse, weren’t she? A damn good horse.”
