We Are Not Free

by Traci Chee

  When the Katsumotos and the Haranos were packed off to Tule Lake, you walked Aiko back to her barrack while she tried not to cry.

  You’re sick of goodbyes.

  “Hey, Shig,” Yuki calls, “what’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get to Chicago?”

  He grins. “Probably pee.”

  Yum-yum smacks him with a pair of pants.

  “Ow.” He makes a big show of rubbing his shoulder. “D’you hit your students like that, Miss Oishi?”

  She sticks out her tongue at him. She’s taken over teaching second grade at one of the elementary schools. You haven’t seen her in action, but you bet she’s perfect for the job. She got enough practice having to deal with her younger brother, Fred, all these years.

  “My students know how to behave,” she replies tartly.

  9 HOURS

  MUSIC

  Shig isn’t done packing yet, but you’re all done watching him, so Yuki cranks up Mas’s Silvertone radio, filling the barrack with sound. It floods over Mas’s unused dresser, spilling across the floor, pooling in Shig’s open suitcases. You wonder if Mas knew, if that’s why he lugged that damn radio all the way to camp, if he turned up the volume when there were no words left to say, if that’s how he kept everyone together all these years.

  Music is a connection, binding you all, everyone who hears it: you, Yuki, Yum-yum, Shig, Minnow, Twitchy, the neighbors in their beds, grimacing at the noise as they press their pillows over their ears.

  You perch on the edge of the table next to Twitchy and you listen to Shig go on and on about Chicago. There’s a good amount of Nisei out there, he says, and almost all of them are from the camps. They’ve got hostels, Japanese groceries, churches, youth groups, everything you need to set you up. Dances every Saturday. Movies every night.

  “Boy, I’ve missed the city,” Shig says.

  “Eh.” Twitchy shrugs. “Chicago’s no San Fran.”

  He’s not talking to you. He’s not even looking at you. But somehow he’s everything to you. You’re not touching but you can feel him, his hand resting next to yours, and that distance is less than an inch and it’s hundreds of miles. It’s gravity. It’s catastrophic. If you extended your pinky, you’d bring him crashing into you.

  The song on the radio changes. Jimmy Dorsey croons “Bésame Mucho” from the speakers, and you wonder if, whenever you all hear it again, wherever you are, when Twitchy’s in some little French hamlet or Shig pops open his suitcases in a dank Chicago hostel, you’ll still be bound together.

  This song, this memory, this night.

  The last night.

  8 HOURS

  DANCING

  Sometimes with Twitchy. Sometimes with Shig, with Yum-yum, with Yuki, with Minnow, who steps on your toes. Now the jitterbug. Now the Lindy Hop. Now the West Coast Swing.

  Sometimes you all dance together, no one really knowing the steps and no one caring, legs kicking, arms pumping, skin slick and throats exposed with laughter.

  Sometimes you dance alone, because hell if you need a partner. You dance under the bare bulb, hips swaying, limbs like liquid. You feel undulant. You feel powerful.

  You feel Twitchy watching you.

  This is a moment. This is your moment. You don’t have to share. Especially not when sharing means you have to split yourself the way you’ve split yourself so many times before.

  Mom.

  Dad.

  Mas.

  Frankie.

  Stan.

  Mary.

  Tommy.

  Aiko.

  Bette.

  Now Shig.

  Now Twitchy.

  You’ve lost too much to give more of yourself away.

  7 HOURS

  GOODBYES

  It’s midnight, and the carriages are turning into pumpkins.

  Now is the time. Now is the last time.

  Twitchy takes a folded square of paper out of his pocket. The creases are deep as canyons, like he’s folded and unfolded it so many times, it’s going to rip apart.

  He hands it to Minnow. “Sign it for me, will you?”

  You catch a glimpse of a drawing: a stoop like the ones in Japantown, a boy.

  Then Minnow bends to scribble something along the bottom, and you can’t see anything more. When he folds the paper back up and returns it to Twitchy, there are tears in his eyes.

  Twitchy tucks it into his shirt pocket and pats it once as if to make sure it’s still there. “Hey, kid,” he says gently, “don’t cry.”

  Nodding, Minnow wipes his eyes.

  Twitchy ruffles his hair. He says goodbye to Yuki and Yum-yum.

  Now Shig.

  Picture this: They stare at each other. From this angle, you can almost see how they fit together, these boys, like puzzle pieces, their elbows and shoulders molded to one another by the years, the adventures, the skinned knees and afterschool detentions.

  Then Twitchy tackles him. They’re half hugging, half wrestling around the room, knocking into chairs and bed frames.

  Until they’re not.

  Until they’re just hugging, standing still in the middle of the barrack, while the world spins on around them, time slipping away from them, faster and faster, out of their control.

  Two boys who love each other, and one going off to war.

  6 HOURS

  WALKING

  Twitchy offers to walk you back to your barrack, and you’re not going to say no.

  This is the way you hold on. This is the way you dig your fingernails in.

  If you’d known to do this before, you would’ve helped your mom wash the dishes. You would’ve put down the book. You would’ve told your dad the papers could wait.

  You would’ve held Aiko as she cried.

  Four blocks left. Three blocks. Two.

  “Are you scared, Twitch?” you ask. “Of what’s going to happen?”

  You don’t say: Because I am.

  “Eh, I try not to think about it.”

  “Why not?”

  He kicks at the dust and doesn’t look at you when he speaks. “ ’Cause it’s outta my control. My future isn’t mine anymore. It’s the property of the U.S. government, and so am I.”

  You know it’s stupid, but for a second, you feel a flash of jealousy for your own government.

  “I’m gonna go where they want. I’m gonna fight who they want, kill who they want, die . . . if they want. So there’s no point in thinking about the future, see? There’s only right now. That’s the only time that’s really mine.”

  You want to take right now like a bull by the horns, but the bull is charging forward into the future and now is already slipping through your fingers.

  You’re almost there.

  Now the latrines.

  Now the showers.

  Now the laundry.

  Now your door.

  You clench your hands. You dig your fingernails in.

  This is your moment, and you’re not letting it go.

  You keep walking, past your barrack.

  You pause when you notice Twitchy’s not with you. You glance over your shoulder, and he’s standing by your steps, watching you. You know he’ll be etched into your memory like this: him and the barrack and the stars behind. But this is not a memory.

  Not yet.

  You tilt your head at him. You don’t say: Well? Are you coming?

  He smiles. He trots up to you.

  You extend your hand, and he takes it. His fingers are smooth as they weave into yours, and you didn’t know holding someone’s hand could feel like this, like you’re plugged into a socket, like you’re bright and alive and tethered and home.

  You don’t go back. You don’t go anywhere, really. You just keep going. You keep holding on.

  5 HOURS

  STRAWBERRIES

  Twitchy emerges from the commissary icebox with a carton of strawberries and the bottle of Jack Daniel’s he hid under the floorboards after he got it smuggled into camp. He shakes the bottle, fr
owning, and a couple of inches of gleaming bronze liquid slosh inside.

  “Damn Shig. This was half-full when I left.”

  You take the bottle from him. “How d’you know it was Shig who drank it?”

  “I’ve been blaming Shig for everything since I was four. Shigeo’s the one who pulled Bette’s hair! Shigeo’s the one who cheated off my test! Shigeo’s the one who didn’t clean my rifle! Works every time.” With a laugh, he plucks a strawberry from the carton and sinks his teeth into it.

  You don’t know why, but all of a sudden, you’re sure you’ve never wanted anything as bad as you want to be that strawberry. To be tasted. To be on his tongue, between his teeth.

  Twitchy grins at you, like he can read your thoughts, like he knows all your dirty secrets. Dimples again. “C’mon.” He offers you his arm like he’s a goddamn prince. “We’ve got plenty of time.”

  4 HOURS

  STARGAZERS

  You’re tipsy with liquor and lack of sleep when you clamber over the barbed wire and stumble to one of the abandoned guard towers. You climb. You leave the earth. You feel free. You feel interplanetary.

  The wind, blowing from some distant mountaintop, smells of snow.

  You’re not that high off the ground, but you’re high enough, and when you sit with your backs against the guardhouse, you can’t see anything but sky.

  Now this: the desert silver with moonlight, the stars tumbling out of the darkness.

  Now you drink.

  Now you talk. About songs you like and books you’ve read or, in Twitchy’s case, haven’t read, letters you’ve gotten from Bette or Stan or Tommy, plans you made and never went through with, what you think about angels and the universe.

  Now: “You were right, Keiko.”

  “I know.” You laugh. “About what?”

  “How I feel about you.”

  Your laugh twists into something desperate. “We’re just friends.”

  “Yeah, like Katharine Hepburn and—”

  “Stop.” You cut him off. You tumble out of the darkness. You hate him for this. You were free of time. You were free of the future, and now all you can think about is a future without him.

  “Look,” you say. You try to set things straight. “I’m not going to spend the next six months pining after you.”

  You’re lying to yourself, and you won’t admit it.

  He raises an eyebrow. “You think this war is going to be over in six months?” As if in afterthought, he smiles sadly.

  You don’t want to think about what could happen in six months, or a year, or two, or whatever, so you seize the empty bottle of Jack and fling it over the railing. It goes sailing into the air, spinning end over end, until it drops out of sight. In the distance, there’s the sound of splintering.

  “Keiko?”

  “Shut up.”

  He gulps, his Adam’s apple bobbing, a shadow on his throat. “Okay.”

  “I mean it.”

  He’s watching you. His gaze flits to your face, your lips. “Okay.”

  You lean in.

  For a moment, the world is a kiss that tastes of whiskey.

  Then you part. There’s a gasp like the air is being sucked out of the atmosphere. The world is a vacuum. The world is lacking. The world is empty, and you are wanting.

  You allow yourself to want. You want him with you. You want him to stay. You want the earth to stop turning. You want tomorrow to never come. You want and you want and you want, and no amount of wanting will return the moments you have lost and the people you have loved, but you have not lost so many pieces of yourself that you don’t want to give away one more.

  So you kiss him again.

  3 HOURS

  TIME IS NOTHING

  You kiss. You touch. You’re looking out at the desert. You kiss. His fingers are in your hair. You’re looking up at the sky, and his lips are at your throat. You kiss. He’s lying beside you. You kiss. You kiss.

  You slip out of time. You exist right now, and right now exists forever, so you exist forever.

  This is the infinite moment.

  Now a kiss.

  Now a wanting, deep in your core.

  Now you tell him you’re not going to do more than kiss tonight, and he chuckles. “What, you don’t want a nice, fat nihonjin baby?”

  “No.” You laugh. You’re lightheaded. You’re lightness itself. “Especially not your nice, fat nihonjin baby.”

  He touches your face, above your right eye, like every beautiful thing in this world is there in the arc of your brow. “Okay.”

  Grinning, you pull his mouth to yours.

  2 HOURS

  PROMISE

  You’re curled in the darkness. You drift in and out of sleep. You are together, and this moment is fleeting, and this moment is endless. You’re up there forever, and you live on air. You come down from the tower, and the gravel crunches under your shoes.

  You have all the time in the world and no time at all.

  You don’t say: I love you.

  Neither does he.

  Now this predawn lightness.

  Now this quiet.

  Now this shared stillness.

  The seconds pass. The seconds linger.

  Now this: the smell of greasewood, a kiss by the fence, in the street, in front of your door. Lights are appearing in windows all up and down the block. Eyes opening. Dreams fading. The glass slippers are turning to sand.

  It’s almost time. It was never enough time.

  Twitchy cups your face. He’s not smiling now, but somehow he looks happier than you’ve ever seen him.

  And he’s Twitchy Hashimoto, so that’s saying something.

  “Don’t go,” you say.

  He puts his forehead to yours. “Okay.”

  “Don’t,” you warn him.

  “I won’t,” he says.

  But he does.

  1 HOUR

  CORN FLAKES

  This is the memory: a muddle of paper flowers, cake crumbs, the music of Jimmy Dorsey, the smell of whiskey, a climb, a bottle breaking, a kiss, a thousand kisses, the taste of a strawberry.

  Dry-eyed, you stir your cereal, watching it grow soggy, watching the milk turn gray.

  You wish you could remember everything, but that’s the nature of forever, isn’t it?

  That you forget.

  You’ve forgotten what your parents were wearing when they were taken by the FBI. You’ve forgotten your final words to Mas and Frankie before they boarded the bus last May. You’ve forgotten the way it felt to hug Stan and Mary and Tommy and Aiko goodbye. You forget. You forget.

  Picture this: Twitchy eating breakfast with his family. Twitchy packing the last of his things. Try to imagine. Try to remember. He’s shouldering his duffle bag. His footsteps are echoing on the barrack steps. His neighbors are turning out to wave goodbye.

  You’re not ready. You were never ready. You’ll never be ready.

  0 HOURS

  NOW AND FUTURE

  At the gates, Twitchy says, “Write me.”

  Maybe it’s the lack of sleep, maybe it’s that you’re having to do this again and you knew it was coming and didn’t want to face it, but you’re feeling slow and stupid and stubborn. Things are moving too fast. Things are slipping away from you. Things are ugly and bright, and one second is always followed by the next.

  Now boarding.

  Now the engine sputtering to life.

  Now the driver on the horn.

  “You write me,” you tell him.

  This isn’t your cleverest moment, but it’s one he’ll remember.

  He chuckles and kisses you one more time, in front of all his family and friends. Shig whistles. Mr. Hashimoto scolds him in Japanese.

  “I will,” he says.

  They’re unremarkable last words, except they’re Twitchy Hashimoto’s last words, in Twitchy Hashimoto’s voice, and they’re about the future and they’re about you.

  He winks and grins and lets you go.

  T
his is what you have. This is all you have.

  His words, his wink, his grin.

  Those dimples you want to dig your fingers into.

  He’s going to board the bus. He’s going to open the window. He’s going to lean out as far as he can. Stupidly far, because he wouldn’t be Twitchy Hashimoto if he weren’t doing something stupid. He’s going to wave as the bus drives off. It’s going to be charging forward into the future, and he’s going to be looking back at you, waving, waving, waving, waving—

  442nd Regimental Combat Team, Italy

  442nd Regimental Combat Team, France

  XIII

  COMPANY OF KINGS

  TWITCHY, 19

  JUNE–OCTOBER 1944

  ITALY

  NAPLES

  JUNE 2

  It’s the first time I’ve set foot in another country, and don’t get me wrong, I know what I’m here for—I saw those sunken destroyers in the harbor, the burned-out hulls pitted by shrapnel, I see the buildings collapsed by artillery fire—but goddamn, I’m excited. Everything’s different in Italy—the smells are different, that stink of sea and sewage and sweat, the sounds, the way the language kinda sashays like every conversation is a dance or a knife fight, even the weeds growing out of the rubble are different—and I want to see everything, hear everything, know everything.

  My buddy Bill Hayami—he’s the only Hawaiian guy in our squad—says he’s gonna try to get a pass to see the ruins of Pompeii.

  And I say, “What the hell is Pompeii?” because it sounds like some dried flowers and shit white people would put in their bathrooms.

  He laughs and calls me a stupid kotonk, you know, the sound a coconut makes when it hits the ground, but he also tells me all about how this real old Roman city got buried under a ton of ash when this old volcano erupted, and all that ash protected it from erosion or whatever until archaeologists dug it up thousands of years later.

  Bill may be a buddhahead, but he’s a real nice fella ’cause he always takes the time to explain shit to a dumb kid like me.

  Funny how a place can be so old and so new at the same time, huh? New to me, but some of these buildings are older than the country I’m fighting for. All those cathedrals and palaces and stuff brought to their knees, piazzas jammed up with jeeps and GIs and bullet casings and trash.