Within These Lines
Page 18
I have been in shock over your letter for days. Every response I have attempted has been long and wretched.
What I’ve decided is this isn’t a decision you get to make for me. I think you’re trying to protect me, same as when you lied to me in your letters about what life is like for you. I don’t need to be protected, Taichi.
You said before you left that we could get through this if you knew that when you got on the bus to come home, I would be waiting on the other end for you. I told you then that I would be, and that’s not a vow I’m going to break.
I refuse to choose something else simply because it could be easier for now. I will continue to write to you, and I will continue to be faithful to our commitment, and you cannot force me to do otherwise.
I love you,
Evalina
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Taichi
Friday, September 5, 1942
There’s clearly something wrong with me, because every other person in my generation is smiling and having a great time here at the dance. But the pulsing of the music and the rising temperature of the mess hall only make my head hurt.
I move over to a window, hoping for a bit of fresh air. How can people stand to dance when it’s so hot? I shouldn’t have let Aiko’s words bother me so much. When I said I wasn’t coming tonight, she’d scoffed, “What are you going to do? Sit on your cot and stare at Evalina’s picture? Read her letters again and think about how stupid you’ve been?”
Back home, when she was sullen and reclusive, I had left her alone. Why couldn’t she return the favor?
“Hey, there you are.” James materializes at the window. He holds hands with Margaret, and Rose trails behind them. Like always, the girls took special care with their appearance for tonight, curling their hair and wearing their nicest skirts.
I tug at my collar. “It’s warm in here.”
Margaret fans herself with her free hand. “It’s warm everywhere. But the band is swell tonight, don’t you think? Last Friday the guitar was out of tune, and it ruined Rose’s entire night.”
Rose plays with one of her curls, just like Evalina does when she’s nervous. “How can I be expected to keep rhythm if Tetsuno can’t manage to hit the right notes?”
“You should be able to dance with no problems tonight, Rose.” James punctuates his statement by drilling me with eye contact.
I try not to notice. I never should’ve told him that I broke up with Evalina, but at the time it had felt easier than pretending everything was okay. He had assumed that whoever my girlfriend was, she was Japanese and had been sent to another camp. I hadn’t corrected him.
“Well, Margaret and I are off to dance.” James cuts a not-so-subtle look at Rose before returning an unblinking stare to me.
My breath hitches in my chest, and my gaze flies to the exit. How did I let it get so far away from me?
Rose directs her focus on her saddle shoes, and it’s clear she appreciates James’s hint about as much as I do. My conscience nags at me to not let her wallow in a pit of embarrassment when I have the power to reach down my hand and help.
But I detest dancing.
I unclench my teeth. “Rose, would you like to dance?”
Her gaze meets mine before diving back to the safety of her shoes. “Okay.”
Despite how sweaty I am, I feel cold as I survey the dance floor. Why couldn’t a slower song be playing? “Okay . . .”
Rose looks up and giggles shyly. “It doesn’t look like you want to, Taichi.”
“It’s not that.” It’s totally that. “I just . . . I’ve never been very good at this.”
Or I assume I’m not. The only place I’ve ever danced is in the privacy of my room, when I practiced because I thought there might be a chance to take Evalina to dances at college.
“It’s easier than it looks.” Rose takes a tentative step toward the dance floor.
I’m not sure I believe her, but I also don’t know how to back out now.
On the edge of the floor, Rose pivots toward me. I glance at the other boys, and then with a hard swallow, I mimic their stance. Regret stirs inside me as I entwine my fingers through Rose’s, and let my left hand fall as lightly as possible on her waist. My hands remember touching Evalina when she was bold enough to hug me goodbye in the visiting room, and how I responded by breaking things off.
“I think you’re supposed to move when you dance,” Rose says in a teasing whisper.
Around us, couples whirl and laugh; I’m just standing here like an idiot. My face grows hotter every second, and I want to punch James for manipulating me into this situation.
“I’m sorry, I told you I’m not a good dancer.”
I pull my hand off Rose’s waist and open my fingers to release her hand, but her fingers crush mine, and her arm clamps, smashing the careful space I had left between us.
“You are not leaving me here on the floor.” Her words are steel and her expression so fierce, she reminds me of Evalina. “That would be humiliating.”
“Okay.” I swallow. “I won’t.”
We’re still up against each other. The other couples are foxtrotting. I can do that. Not in the fluid style that James is, leading Margaret around the floor with ease, but I can make do for a couple minutes until the song is over.
I move my left foot forward as she moves her right back, and I breathe a bit easier now that we aren’t mashed up against each other. How do people carry on conversations while they dance? My brain is absorbed with counting off steps and not crushing Evalina’s toes. I mean, Rose’s toes.
It’s September fifth. Evalina will move into her dorm room this weekend, per the letter I received yesterday. Her letters have continued with the same frequency and devotion as when I first left, with only a bit of detectable frostiness since June. Every day I think about writing her back, but for what purpose outside of my own selfish desire? Nothing has changed in our circumstances.
“When your face looks like that, where is it you go?”
I blink and find Rose staring up at me inquisitively. I step on her foot, and she winces. “Sorry. What do you mean?”
“I often see you looking sad and far away like that. What are you thinking about?”
How unforgivably rude is it to talk about another girl while you’re dancing?
“Home,” I say. “What would’ve been.”
“That’s what I guessed.” Rose’s eyelashes flutter against her cheeks as she looks down again. “Margaret has also mentioned you used to have a sweetheart at another camp. I thought you might be thinking of her.”
Again, I feel her foot beneath mine. “Good grief, I’m sorry. I can’t seem to think about the steps when I talk.”
“If you stop focusing on getting the steps just right, you might enjoy dancing more.”
My face burns. “I told you I’m a bad dancer.”
Rose’s fingers are stiff inside mine. “I know you didn’t even want to ask me, but James made you.”
“James didn’t make me.”
“He did. He knew you would be too polite to not ask. This whole thing was a mistake.”
We turn about the floor in mutual silence for another minute. I’m still reciting the steps in my head, and I’m sure I look like I’m dancing with a coat hanger in my collared shirt, but at least I’m not stepping on her toes. And at least the song must be close to over.
“Why were you and your girlfriend sent to different places?”
I hesitate. “We lived in different communities.”
“Where is she now? Ouch!”
I’ve landed on her foot again, just as the song has come to a close. “Sorry,” I mutter. “I’ll see you later.”
I flee the dance floor that I never should have stepped foot on, and I leave behind the suffocating heat of the room for the waning heat of outdoors.
That was mortifying. It’ll be so uncomfortable when I see Rose tomorrow at breakfast. I know James is just trying to help me move on, but I don’t w
ant to. If anything, I want to move backward. I want to go back to the time before the evacuation. Before Pearl Harbor. I want it to be Thanksgiving 1941, when Evalina and I stole our first kiss at Golden Gate Park.
This will only lead to heartbreak. That’s what I’d said just before my lips touched hers. I’d so wanted to be wrong.
My tangle of thoughts is interrupted by the clatter of applause and rumble of feet stomping. I look about. What block am I even on?
The clapping and stomping dies down, and from a nearby mess hall, Japanese rings out. This must be an Issei or Kibei meeting, because all the Nisei prefer to speak English.
I draw close enough to peek in the door. Hundreds are packed into the mess hall to hear the speaker, who yells in high-pitched, agitated Japanese. I wedge myself into the back. At 5-foot-seven, I’m one of the tallest in the room, but there’s still such a mass of people, mostly men, that I can’t see who the speaker is.
My brain was once slow at translating Japanese, but it’s improved with practice over the last few months. Even still, everyone is already applauding when I’ve translated his shouts:
“August’s food was even worse! I lost many pounds, and I know many of you did too. We must demand more meat! More eggs and butter!”
Well, I’ll applaud to that. Despite the meeting Ted and I had with the assistant camp director, the amount of meat the kitchens have been allotted to serve per day was reduced even more due to “budget cuts.”
“The administration has no sympathy for anyone who is Japanese! Nash is a dictator like Stalin.”
Everyone around me bursts into applause, but the mention of Roy Nash, the camp director, in the same sentence as the Russian dictator leaves me feeling as though all the blood has drained from my face. Can you truly say a thing like that with no consequences?
“Heil Hitler!” The call goes up from a man toward the back. I can’t make out who it is.
That’s some kind of joke, right? But several more call out, “Heil Hitler!”
I take a step back, only to discover I’m already flat against the rough pine of the mess hall wall.
The person in front of me shifts, and I finally see the man who’s yelling. From his balding head, I would guess he’s in his forties, maybe fifties. His face is round, pudgy even, and that might make him look younger if it wasn’t for his unshaven face.
With both hands, he holds a piece of paper over his head. “I am circulating a petition to oust Nash! To oust the Stalin of Manzanar!”
There’s more feet stomping and applause.
“Signing the petition shows you have Japanese national spirit! It says, ‘I am 100-percent Japanese!’”
“I am, Joe!” yells an exuberant audience member. “I am 100-percent Japanese!’”
Joe. This must be the Joe Kurihara whom Ted has spoken of. I angle for a view of those around the stage, searching for Raymond Yamishi and the Black Dragons, but I’m so far back, I can’t see well enough.
“We are Japanese!” many in the audience chant. “We are Japanese!”
A fear like I’ve never known before crawls across my skin. What if somebody sees me here and believes I’m betraying my country? I look toward the door, but find even the bits of space that had been available when I came in are now gone.
“Those Nisei who claim they are Americans are fools!” yells Joe from the stage, his voice rising high. “They think they’re American citizens? Let me see them walk out that front gate without getting a bullet to the back! Then maybe I will believe that they are citizens!”
I’m surrounded by more applause and more chants of “We are Japanese! We are Japanese!”
Joe allows the crowd’s energy to bubble for a few seconds, and then he raises his hands in a bid for their silence. “I have heard—his voice is solemn—there are Nisei spies among us.”
Boos rise up among the crowd, and my face goes hot at the accusation. At the memory of Raymond Yamishi accusing me of just that. I sense several heads turning my way—I appear to be the only Nisei here in the back—and I let out a loud, “Boo” with the rest of the crowd.
“And they are sending reports outside!” Joe’s voice rises loud above the booing. “They’re sending them to the JACL! They’re sending them to the FBI!”
“Down with those rats!” many yell, along with, “Strike them down!”
Somewhere around me, a man yells, “Cut their heads off!”
Those who had been by the door must have decided this wasn’t the place for them, because my escape route is again clear. I want to sprint away from the room and leave Joe and his angry mob behind, but as a Nisei, what would happen if the crowd took notice of me fleeing? Would they chase me down and beat me? Or worse?
“Even if the army or the FBI take me into custody, I will remain Japanese! I will continue to fight for the rights of our people in this country that claims belief in democracy!” Joe yells from the stage as I inch toward the exit. “Don’t get scared! Look to our brothers in Japan who are making a great sacrifice in their fight of the enemy. Let us follow suit!”
Chants of “We are Japanese!” follow me out the door.
My breath comes in bursts as I run for my barrack. With every footfall, their patriotic chants seem to echo in my head. I swear I can still hear them hours later as I lie in bed, watching the crisscross of searchlights out the window while sleep eludes me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Evalina
Tuesday, September 8, 1942
It isn’t a very mature thought to have on my first day of college, but I desperately miss mornings at home. I miss coming downstairs to the sound of Mama stirring oatmeal on the stove, of Daddy getting coffee prepared. I miss the cheerful, “Good morning, sweetheart,” greeting, and the creak of the wooden chair I’ve always sat in.
But Grace Bishop is practically glowing on the other side of the table. She smiles so big, she can hardly manage to take a drink of her milk.
I pierce the peel of my orange with my thumbnail. An orange for good luck. “Aren’t you nervous?”
“Maybe a little, but mostly I’m excited. Aren’t you excited?”
My stomach flutters. “I’m too nervous to know.”
“You should be even more excited than I am. This is the first day of the life that you are choosing. Have you thought about it that way? Don’t you think that’s exciting?”
“I guess so.” I peel off a wedge of orange. My stomach feels too tight to accept food.
Grace digs into her oatmeal with gusto. “Who picked the classes you’re taking? You did! It’s not like high school where you had to take everything that everybody else took.”
“Comparative Politics is the only political science class I get to take this semester. The rest are all general education requirements.”
Grace raises her eyebrows at me. “Why are you determined to not be excited?”
“I’m excited, I’m just . . .”
Homesick. Achingly homesick for my life a year ago. When I was at the same school with the same kids I had known all my life. When Taichi and I were still untainted by Pearl Harbor and the evacuation. When my off-beat plans to major in political science and go to law school felt exciting because it was still so far away. When I knew I belonged.
The clock ticks ever closer to my first college class, which happens to be the one I’m most nervous about. “What if I’m the only girl in Comparative Politics?”
Grace shrugs. “What if you are?”
“I’ll feel uncomfortable.”
“But you’ll survive.” Grace’s no-nonsense tone makes me think of her mother.
“I know I will, I just wish I was headed to Crocheting Potholders 101 or something.”
Grace hoots so loudly with laughter, others turn and look at us. “That’s because it’s easier to not care. You don’t care about potholders, but you do care about politics. To care means to be brave.” Grace points her spoon at my plate. “Eat your food, or you’ll wish you had in about an hour.”
“Have you heard from Taichi recently?” Grace asks as we walk along the bustling pathway from our dormitory cafeteria toward our first classes.
I hesitate. “Not since coming to school.”
“We don’t hear from our friends as much now that they’re at their final place in Utah.” Grace’s mouth is set in a grim line, like it always is when we discuss the camps. “I don’t know if they’re busier, or if there just isn’t much to say. The last letter we got talked about how much monotony there is in their days. They have some family in Baltimore, and they’re trying to get released to go there.”
My heart stutters in my chest. “That can happen?”
“Daddy says the camps are costing the government a fortune.” Grace’s voice takes on a superior tone of being in-the-know, but I don’t mind one bit. Mr. Bishop is a Lieutenant Colonel in Navy Intelligence, which has nothing to do with the camps, but his perspective is still very interesting to me. “He says he doesn’t know how the government can continue to pay for both a war and the camps. We’ve already seen the WRA releasing some Japanese Americans to help out with the labor shortage on farms. It doesn’t seem outrageous to think they would let them resettle away from the west coast.”
Taichi’s family has a lifetime of farming experience. Surely it would be easy to get them released to a farm. I’ll have to mention the idea in today’s letter. Maybe Mr. Bishop could help somehow?
“Evalina.” Grace points to the sidewalk veering off our path. “You’re that way.”
“Oh, right. See you this afternoon.”
“See you. Good luck!” she calls after me, and my stomach swirls with the reminder of my anxiety.
Nobody else around me looks like they’re going to throw up, which is completely unfair. I’ve walked the campus several times since moving in on Saturday, so I know exactly where my class is, but that’s not as comforting as I hoped it would be. Especially when I open the door and see a room that looks like it could seat my entire high school.