Within These Lines

by Stephanie Morrill

  The other women back away from us, their eyes on the ground, and I know what I’ll see even before I confirm it with my eyes.

  Aiko and I are now standing in a watery puddle of diarrhea.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Evalina

  Thursday, April 9, 1942

  As I lock my bike outside of Alessandro’s after school, I’m trying to ignore that it’s Thursday—a day I would normally be racing here for the chance to see Taichi. I’m not going to fixate on this, though. I’m going to—

  “Evalina!”

  I look up to find a pickup truck idling alongside the curb. Diego Medina leans across the passenger seat to call my name out the window.

  I drop my lock and run to the open window. I should probably start with a hello or how are you doing. Instead what comes out is, “Have you heard from him?”

  Diego blinks several times. “I was going to ask you the same thing. Is he still in the city?”

  I thought I had cried all I could, but as I shake my head no, tears bubble up inside me.

  Diego’s smile slips off his face. “When did he leave? Where did he go?”

  “Tuesday. And I don’t know. Some people at the center were saying Manzanar, but others said the camps aren’t ready, and they would be going to temporary housing at Santa Anita. I guess that’s a horse racing track by L.A.”

  Diego shuts off the engine, pulls the parking brake, and gets out of the truck to stand on the sidewalk with me. “What do you mean ‘the center’? Who was saying that?”

  “The War Relocation Authority Center. That’s where the buses picked them up. But they weren’t being told where they were going. I asked everybody I could.”

  “You were there?”

  I can’t read his expression. Is he mad about that? “Of course I was.”

  Diego’s arms are like strong tree branches around me, and my shock has me as unyielding as a tree trunk in his embrace.

  “I’m so glad you were with him.” Diego breathes the words into my ear. “You have no idea.”

  “It was selfish. I wanted to be there.”

  He releases me, only to clasp his hands on my shoulders and make searing eye contact. Our comparative sizes leave me feeling like a little kid, even though I know I’m only a few months younger than him. I make myself stare back.

  “You really love him,” Diego finally says.

  My laugh is a surprised bark. “You didn’t know that already?”

  He releases my shoulders and looks away, breaking the tension of the moment. “I hoped you did, but . . . You’ve gotta understand that I’ve known Tai my whole life. He had never broken a rule, and then you came along. And he was risking so much, and I just . . . I mean, he’s my best friend, I . . .”

  Diego seems incapable of articulating the rest, but what he’s said is sufficient.

  “My best friend, Gia, says, ‘You barely get any time together. How can you possibly be sure about him?’” I shrug. “And I ask her the same kinds of things about her boyfriend. That’s a best friend’s job, right?”

  Diego flashes a smile at me. “Must be. Tai never really likes my girls either.” His smile turns serious. “Whether he said it or not, I’m sure Tai was glad to have you there on Tuesday. And I’m glad to know you were there.”

  “If you read any details about the evacuation in the paper, you should know that journalist was dead wrong about what he wrote in the piece.”

  “We don’t get the city newspaper, and ours didn’t say a thing about it.”

  “If you’re going to be at the market on Saturday, I’ll bring the article.” Already I can feel my blood thrumming faster through my veins. “He made it sound like the government was throwing a big party for the Japanese Americans and sending them all away on a paid vacation. He didn’t say a single thing about how the guards were all armed and glaring at us like we were guilty of some heinous crime. I wrote a letter to the editor that I’m sure they won’t print because it was practically on fire, I was so angry.”

  Diego shakes his head. “I’ve heard that kind of stuff is happening in Germany. But I wouldn’t have expected it to happen here. Oh, I need to go, but . . .” He reaches through the open window of the truck and pulls out a small box of blackberries. They’re rather puny, but a beautiful inky purple color. “I brought these in case I saw you today. They’re not our best, not yet. But Tai asked me to bring you some when they were ready.”

  I long for a letter from Taichi just as much as I did ten minutes ago, but as I reach for the box, my heart feels more tethered to Taichi than ever before.

  Gia plops a large scoop of linguine in white clam sauce onto her plate. “You seem like you’re in a bad mood tonight.”

  I glance down the length of our usual Friday night table to be sure our parents are engaged in their own conversations. “Is that unusual these days?”

  Gia flashes me a smile that has a mischievous edge to it. “You seem particularly blue tonight.” She arches her dark, freshly-plucked eyebrows. “Does it have something to do with Tony being out on a date instead of being here with us?”

  Annoyance flares within me. Considering Taichi boarded a bus three days ago, how can she even imagine that bothers me?

  “I’m quite happy about that, actually. Tony moving on makes me feel less guilty.”

  “That’s good. You could do with feeling less these days rather than more.”

  I push an olive into my mouth before I snap a retort.

  The adults laugh about something, and Daddy pours more wine into Mama’s glass. Even their good cheer rubs at something raw inside me, like when you get burrs in your socks.

  Maybe I need to limit how many complaint letters I write each day to government officials, because I’ve been in a sour mood since finishing those. My last one was to General DeWitt, or General Halfwit as I wish I could address him. He’s leading the charge against the Japanese Americans, and I had to write my letter three times because I kept ripping a hole in the paper from pressing down so hard with my pen.

  I had also written several letters to the editors both in San Francisco and in Los Angeles, because the San Francisco papers had reprinted a few propaganda-like articles from the Los Angeles Times. I imagine, like the San Francisco News, my letters won’t be printed. Briefly, I wondered if signing my name would increase the chances, but I had noticed several other Letters to The Editor had been signed in a similar anonymous fashion.

  I snap back into the moment and find Mrs. Esposito smiling expectantly at me. I realize she asked me a question.

  “Your trip to Yosemite?” Mrs. Esposito glances across the table at my mother. “You’re still planning to go in June, right?”

  “Yes.” Mama smiles at me, but her eyes scan my face. “We’re all really looking forward to it. Right?”

  I nod. “Right.”

  Mrs. Esposito slices her asparagus into dainty bites. Did Taichi pick that stalk? “I’ve always wanted to go. I hear that nothing is quite as breathtaking as being in the valley with El Capitan and Half Dome. But Frank says, ‘Mountains are mountains. We don’t need to drive four hours to see specific ones.’”

  I shake my head. “No disrespect intended to Mr. Esposito, but I wholeheartedly disagree. That’s like saying, ‘People are people. No need to meet any others.’”

  “I’m with you, Evalina. Perhaps I can ride along with you.” Mrs. Esposito gives me a teasing nudge with her elbow. “You won’t mind me joining in on your graduation trip, will you?”

  “The more the merrier.”

  Gia raises her fork. “Then count me in. I’ve always longed to go on a good, honest vacation.”

  “Agreed. The last trip Alessandro and I took that was more than a few nights long was our honeymoon.” Mama won’t say it at the table with our guests, but she was already pregnant with me at the time and could barely keep any food down. “I’m excited about Yosemite Valley, but I’m actually most excited about seeing Mono Lake. Evalina brought home a travel brochure that
had the most interesting pictures of it. Do you have it with you, honey?”

  “I think it’s in my schoolbag in the kitchen.”

  “Run and get it, won’t you?” To Mrs. Esposito, she says, “The lake is on the other side of the national park, practically in Nevada. But it looks like another planet. There are all these salts in the water, and over hundreds of thousands of years, they’ve built up these deposits . . .”

  Mama’s voice fades as I duck back into the kitchen of Alessandro’s for my schoolbag. With all the stress of the evacuation this last week, I haven’t thought about my graduation at all. The brochures and maps are buried under newspapers and the list of addresses for congressmen and representatives that I gathered at the library before coming to our Friday night dinner.

  I smooth the crumpled pamphlet on Mono Lake and take a moment to stare at the strange pictures. I hadn’t been sure Mama and Daddy would be open to venturing to the east side of the Sierras, but fortunately the strange rocks in the pictures had incited their curiosity and sense of adventure as well.

  When I hand the brochure to Mrs. Esposito, her gaze catches on my hand. “Thank you, dear. Perhaps by the time you go, you will have had time to finish painting your nails.”

  Heat rushes to my cheeks, and I make myself laugh airily. “Maybe.”

  “I hadn’t even noticed.” Mama blinks at my red thumbnail, and then up at me. “Is this a new style?”

  “Evalina is making a political statement,” Gia chimes in.

  I don’t bother to hide my annoyed look at her.

  “Ah.” Mama smiles. “Yes, she’s very upset about what is happening to the Japanese.”

  I almost don’t say it, almost let it go. “They’re Americans, actually.”

  “Of course they are. I only meant to specify what heritage of people we’re speaking about.”

  Gia gives a careless shrug. “Aren’t both equally true, though? Same as we’re Italian and American?”

  “No. Because you’re not a citizen of Italy. You can’t vote there. You’ve never even been there. And it’s the same for the majority of the Japanese Americans who are being evacuated. They’ve done nothing except be born to parents who have Japanese heritage. And most of their parents would have become citizens long ago, except that our government has denied them that option since the 1920s.”

  I take a deep breath and lower my gaze when I realize all conversation has stopped. That all eyes are on me.

  “Evalina, I love and admire your passion.” Mrs. Esposito beams at me. “How wonderful that you care about what’s going on in our country, even when it doesn’t directly impact you.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Taichi

  Tuesday, April 14, 1942

  As I cut across the block toward the shower room, footsteps pound closer to me. I glance over my shoulder to see James Kanito looking as filthy as I do but wearing a huge smile.

  “You know what I heard?” As usual, James doesn’t wait for me to answer. “We have a baseball field.”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “I was in the trenches with Woody today, and he heard they put one in by block nineteen. There are already a few teams playing regularly.”

  I have no idea who Woody is, but I really hope he knows what he’s talking about.

  Most of our block is lined up for dinner already, but a shower isn’t exactly optional considering where we’ve spent our day. The good thing about it being dinnertime is that no one else is in the shower when we arrive. And I can tell, because the shower room is just one big room with shower heads fixed to the walls. There’s no hiding in here.

  Our conversation pauses while we shower—an unspoken rule at Manzanar—and we manage to get dressed without the door ever opening. Once we’ve dropped off our dirty clothes at our barracks and picked up the mess kits we were issued, we join the chow line and resume our talking.

  The whole time, my mind is on the baseball field. Even though I tell myself it’s unwise to feel too hopeful, just having the chance to think about doing something I love, something that isn’t standing in line or working down in a trench, has my heart feeling as though it sprouted tiny wings.

  “Playing baseball again would be swell,” I let myself say to James.

  “Did you play on a team back home?”

  “I played for the school team. I was supposed to be captain this spring, but some of the parents complained.” I shift my weight from foot to foot. “Coach kept me on, but not as captain.”

  “And he expected you to be grateful for that, did he?”

  I turn to the man behind us in line, who interjected himself into our conversation. He appears to be in his early twenties, with a long face and a dusting of a mustache.

  “Probably.” I feel an uneasiness in agreeing with him. Doing so feels like a betrayal to my coach, who I always really liked. “He was nice about it, though.”

  The man grunts in response as the line shuffles forward.

  James rocks back on his heels, then forward, then back again. “You a ballplayer? They put in a field on block nineteen.”

  In my few days of knowing James, I’ve learned he can make conversation with just about anybody. Even Aiko.

  The fellow just shakes his head. “And they expect us to write thank-you cards to General DeWitt himself, yes?”

  James just shrugs. “I know I’ll be happy to have a ball field. What’s your name? Where you from?”

  The look he gives James is cold and criticizing. “Raymond. Los Angeles.”

  Raymond from Los Angeles looks away, as if making a point. An I-don’t-want-to-continue-talking-to-you point.

  James goes on undeterred. “Me too. What’s your last name? You live in four?”

  “Yamishi. And, no, but your cook is better. Our cook used to be a gardener.”

  “I tip my hat to the man for trying. Even if you’re a professional, it can’t be easy trying to cook three meals a day for three hundred people. Plus those who jump over from another block, no offense. I don’t even know how to make dinner for myself.”

  James chuckles at his own expense, but Raymond Yamishi from Los Angeles just gives him a bland look.

  James is unfazed by the lack of response. “What neighborhood are you from? Where’d you go to school?”

  Again, Raymond casts a cold look at James. “You ask a lot of questions. You should be careful about that or people will think you work for the FBI.”

  Raymond Yamishi’s combative nature makes me want to drop out of the chow line and go find another.

  “I’m pretty sure the FBI already knows where you lived and went to school,” James says flippantly. He angles his shoulder away from Raymond and back toward the front of the line. “Think we’re having Vienna sausages again for dinner? I could eat those every meal.”

  Raymond turns to the timid-looking woman standing behind him and speaks to her in Japanese, too low for me to understand. He seems content to ignore us, and that suits me fine.

  My stomach groans at the thought of more sausages. I hope it’s something bland that Aiko will eat. She’s hardly touched food these last few days, nor has she gotten out of bed.

  The first few days here in Manzanar, Caucasian staff prepared the food. They didn’t seem to know what to feed us and we wound up with strange combinations of American style and Japanese style food. Like bologna sandwiches and a side of rice with canned peaches poured on top. As if the rice was supposed to be some kind of dessert. The last few days, as more Japanese Americans have arrived and jumped in to help with cooking, meals haven’t been quite so strange.

  Dinner is chicken, thankfully, with some kind of brown sauce. I get an extra helping of rice to take to Aiko after I finish. James and I spot Margaret, a girl who lives in barrack eight, eating with a friend. As we draw closer, I realize it’s Rose, the girl whose tag had fallen off the day we arrived.

  James plops his mess kit across from Margaret’s. “Did you know we have a baseball field on block nineteen
?”

  Margaret smiles at us. “Hi, boys. Have you met Rose? She’s from Terminal Island.”

  Rose’s smile is shy, but her eyes light with recognition when she sees me. “Taichi. I wondered when I would see you.”

  “If you haven’t been in the drainage trenches, you wouldn’t have seen him,” James says, and a discomfort stirs in me. The trenches don’t seem like something we should be discussing at dinner with two girls. “I’m James.”

  Rose smiles into her plate. “Nice to meet you.”

  James attacks his chicken with his fork and knife. “So, do either of you play baseball? Softball?”

  Rose shakes her head, and Margaret says, “I’m better at basketball. Think we’ll get a court anytime?”

  “Maybe around the time they build us a school?” James laughs, but it has a bite to it.

  My heart feels as though it’s beating right in my ears as I ask, “When do you think we’ll get a post office?”

  “We have one already.” Rose is just pushing her chicken around rather than eating it. “You can send mail, but it’s hard to receive anything yet. They aren’t very organized.”

  James snorts. “What a surprise.”

  Rose’s lips flicker with a smile. “Our names confuse them. They’re having trouble sorting.”

  But at least I could send Evalina a letter. I know she must be frantic about where I am and what it’s like. Only, what am I going to tell her? That we had to stuff our own mattresses once we arrived? How I wake up every morning in a house that was built in an hour, shivering and covered in dust? How sick Aiko has been since day one? How my time has been spent mucking about in drainage ditches just trying to get toilets working so my poor sister doesn’t have to humiliate herself in line?

  I can’t tell her any of that, can I? She’ll only be more worried and angrier than she already is.

  “Taichi, is something wrong?”

  I blink and find Rose looking at me, head tilted slightly in concern.

  I’ve been sitting here rubbing at the spot over my heart. The pocket where I keep Evalina’s photograph.