We Are Not Free

by Traci Chee

  * * *

  It’s the first night and no one’s getting any sleep, but at least they got us some replacements and some coffee, and me and Bill have got a cozy setup in our foxhole with a little fire and a tarp for light discipline when our new platoon leader, Lieutenant Parker, comes around to check on us.

  “Hey, Lieutenant, how’s it?” Bill offers him some coffee, which he waves off.

  “How’re you boys doing out here?” he asks.

  “We’re doing fine, sir,” Bill says.

  “Snug as a bug in a freezing pit of water, sir,” I add.

  Lieutenant Parker laughs like he hasn’t heard a joke in weeks, which maybe he hasn’t. I think I’m gonna like this guy.

  “Say,” he says, taking an envelope from his pocket, “I’ve got a letter for some guy called David Hashimoto. I’ve been asking around and no one seems to know who he is. You don’t think the mail guys made a mistake?”

  I’m taking a sip of coffee and I almost spit up all over our new lieutenant, but I hold it back. “I’m David Hashimoto,” I tell him.

  He cocks an eyebrow at me. “You?”

  “Me, sir.”

  “They told me your name is Twitchy.”

  I shrug. “Just a nickname, sir.”

  As he hands me the letter, he looks me up and down. “David, huh?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He laughs again and shakes his head. “You don’t look like a David.”

  I grin. “Thank you, sir.”

  He nods at us. “All right, well, I’m gonna check the line. You boys keep your heads down and don’t get hit, huh? We’ve got fighting to do tomorrow.”

  “Yes, sir,” I say as he lifts the tarp and crawls out into the darkness.

  “Shit.” Bill takes the cup from me, and his hand is shaking so bad with cold that the coffee sloshes onto his gloves. “I forgot your name was David.”

  * * *

  The letter’s from Keiko. She says Shig’s gotten a new job as a dishwasher at some place in Chicago. She says my folks are well. She says she’s been stealing fruit from the iceboxes in my honor. She says there’s talk of lifting the exclusion order that’s kept us from the West Coast, so they could be going home any day now. She says she misses me. I’m reading it for a second time when we find out that Lieutenant Parker was killed as he was checking the line. Another officer gone. Another guy dead. I sigh, fold up Keiko’s letter, and try to get some sleep.

  * * *

  The next day we run into a manned German roadblock, and these things are no joke. A whole company of infantry with a nice fat supply of automatic weapons, and we can’t keep moving forward unless we get rid of ’em, so it’s us and whatever we’re carrying against these well-armed, dug-in soldiers, and I’m not a gambling man, but those aren’t great odds, except us and whatever we’re carrying have taken every objective they’ve asked of us for five fucking months and we’re not about to stop now.

  Guys are advancing alone, killing snipers, knocking out machine guns. Guys are using bazookas and stolen pistols and their Thompsons. Me and Bill blow a machine-gun nest with a potato masher and go jumping in after to take out the gunners. I get one of ’em with my butterfly knife, click click slash, and then we’re moving on, we’re moving forward again, me and Bill.

  We’re on the far left flank with the rest of our squad when there’s a rustling in the underbrush. I don’t even have time to look before Bill yells, “David, get down!” and tackles me as the rattle of machine-gun fire breaks over us. I hit the dirt with him on top of me, and the guy’s heavy, so I’m balled up on the ground with that rat-a-tat-tat all around me and I can’t see anything but twigs and mulch, but then there’s the boom of a grenade and the MG stops.

  I kinda catch my breath for a second. “Bill?” I shake him a little.

  Doing fine. That’s what he’s supposed to say. I’m doing fine.

  “Bill!” I say again. I’m struggling out from under him, and he’s too heavy now, he shouldn’t be this heavy. “Bill!”

  But he doesn’t answer, and when I turn him over, he’s all shot through and there’s blood coming from his mouth and his glasses are gone and he’s staring at nothing. To our left is the smoking remains of a hidden machine-gun nest, and ahead of us the rest of our squad is moving forward, and Bill’s dead.

  “C’mon, soldier,” Sgt. Tamura says, hoisting me up. My legs are like rubber. Bill’s dead. “We can’t stay here.”

  The rain’s striking Bill’s upturned face as we leave him on the slope, as we keep moving forward, pushing forward, ’cause there’s a hill to be taken and it’s our job to take it.

  * * *

  We gain five hundred yards that day. Bill’s life for five hundred yards.

  That night, I’m sitting down, staring at the puddle forming at the bottom of my foxhole, the rain pattering its surface the way it pattered Bill’s dead face, small, never-ending drops, and I’m thinking about how he called me David. Funny, right? I don’t think he’s called me David once since we’ve known each other, it’s always been “Twitchy” or “stupid kotonk,” but almost the last thing he says to me is my given name. I can almost hear him now, saying how funny it was, how he didn’t even think about it, must’ve been that stuff with the lieutenant and the letter last night. Funny.

  There’s movement between the trees, and wouldn’t you know, it’s the commander of the whole division walking by with his aide-de-camp. I guess they want to see the front. I guess they want to walk those five hundred yards they bought with Bill’s life.

  They’re so clean. That’s the thing I notice, how clean they are. I wonder if they smell clean too, like shaving cream or cologne or whatever, or if they smell like mud and sweat and damp like the rest of us.

  I dunno how long I think about that, but sometime later, there’s the report of a rifle, and I’m crouching in my foxhole, searching the darkness for signs of movement, and someone’s calling for a medic, and soon the Division Commander’s walking back in a hurry. He’s missing his aide and he’s got blood on his hands and his uniform, which means he’s not so clean anymore, and he looks at me looking at him without his aide, those pouchy eyes beneath his helmet, and he doesn’t say anything.

  Maybe I drift off. Maybe I dream of Bill, of Kaz, of Keiko, of Shig, and when Sgt. Tamura slides into the foxhole with me, for a second I’m disappointed because for a second I thought for sure he’d be Bill.

  “The general’s aide okay?” I ask him.

  Sgt. Tamura looks tired. “He’ll live.”

  “Huh.”

  “They say one of our battalions from the 141st is out there.” Sgt. Tamura nods toward the front, toward the rest of the hill we’ve yet to take. “That’s why we’re doing this. There’s two hundred guys out there with Germans on all sides, and no one’s been able to get through to them for days. They’re going to die out there if we don’t get to them.”

  I look out into the woods, like I’ll be able to see the silhouettes of the lost soldiers out there, helmets and M1s, or peeking between the trees with their pale, rain-washed faces, like I’ll be able to see Bill out there.

  And even though I know we won’t find Bill, even though we might lose a lot more guys tomorrow, I somehow manage a grin. “Then I guess we’d better go get ’em, huh, Sarge?”

  * * *

  The ridge up to the Lost Battalion narrows until there’s only room for King Company and Item Company to advance, and we’re chipping away at the German defenses, gaining a yard here, a tree there, when we’re held up by mines and artillery fire. It’s death from above and death from below, and guys are falling all around me, dead, wounded, wounded, wounded, dead.

  So we try to flank ’em on the left side, but it’s so steep and they’re so dug in that we come out with half the guys we started with.

  Then we try to hit ’em with tanks and artillery and maybe we get a little farther this time, but we’re stopped again by machine guns and mortars, and, Jesus, we’re down to a third of ou
r fighting strength, and I know I said we’ve taken every goddamn objective they’ve asked us to, but this hill, this one hill, this fucking hill in France, this one hill and two hundred stranded guys from the 141st, two hundred guys to save and we’ve already lost more than that, double that, triple that by now, dead, dead, wounded, dead, dead and wounded Nisei boys, and this one hill might finally have us beat.

  So we’re driven back after two failed attempts and we know that if we’re gonna do this thing, if we’re gonna do what we always do and that’s take our objective, if we’re gonna break through to the Lost Battalion, we’re gonna have to go through the Germans, those Germans on their high ground, in their machine-gun nests and slit trenches, those Germans with their guns and mortars, who’ve been told to hold to the last man ’cause we’re on the edge of their border and they’re what stands between us and their homeland.

  And the orders come down.

  Take the hill.

  We look at one another. The rest of the platoon. The last of the platoon. No more officers. No more Kaz or Bill. Just us clutching our weapons and Sgt. Tamura to lead us, if he wants to lead us, if we wanna follow him, up that hill.

  All up and down the line, no one moves.

  There it is. No one wants to go. No one wants to move forward now because moving forward means throwing yourself into the paths of the MGs, means leaping toward the artillery fire, means launching yourself at death with your rifle in your hand and your heart in your throat.

  Sgt. Tamura looks around at us and he sighs and he takes up his pistol. “Well, boys?” he says. “Let’s go.”

  He’s first. First out of the foxholes. First into the line of fire. I dunno how they don’t get him right away, how the bullets don’t find him, how the shells miss him by what seem like miles on this narrow ridge, but they don’t. He keeps going, keeps moving forward.

  And as we watch him, charging up that slope, we, too, break from cover. We keep moving.

  I go pretty fast in life, but for some reason this part’s real slow. Trees are exploding all up and down the hillside. Dirt’s flying. Guys are lunging forward, shooting from the hip. The ground’s muddy. The earth’s torn. There’s fire all around us, and we know we don’t have a chance in hell of making it, but for a second it seems like we’re invincible, unstoppable, kings of this godforsaken hill.

  The guy next to me opens his mouth. He looks scared. I guess we all look scared. Scared and determined and fucking magnificent. And he shouts, “Banzai!”

  Banzai.

  The word rushes over me like a river. A memory of what we used to say on the streets of Japantown when we played at war. A memory we inherited from our fathers and their fathers, this word, this history, this giving of ourselves for the nation, for the emperor.

  Except now it’s not for the emperor.

  I don’t think, in this moment, that it’s even for our nation.

  It’s for us, for our brothers, here, who have died on this hill and in dozens of battles before, for our families back home, in that dreamworld of deserts and barbed wire, for our folks who had everything taken from them and still were asked for more: compliance, obedience, money, blood.

  And I look around here, and we’re not invincible, guys are dropping all around me, and I’m pulling that trigger over and over again, screaming, “Banzai!”

  We’re not invincible.

  But we are unstoppable.

  “Banzai!” The cry echoes around me. So Japanese and so American at once, this one cry in this one moment, this last cry, this last moment. “Banzai!”

  We move forward.

  Up the hill.

  We’re almost at the enemy line. We’re almost to the Germans, and we can see them running. What’s left of a hundred guys, running from these Nisei boys, these scattered, scared, determined, magnificent boys, who take every goddamn objective that’s asked of them.

  But not all the Germans run.

  One gets me. I don’t know from where. It’s so loud, it’s so quiet, I don’t even hear the shot.

  I feel it, though, wham, right through my thigh, and I crumple. I grab the earth.

  At first I think I’ll be all right, it’s just my leg, a couple stitches and I’ll be all right, maybe it got the bone, maybe I won’t be so fast anymore after this, but I’ll be all right.

  I try to crawl, I try to keep going, but for some reason I can hardly move, the blood’s going outta me so fast, rushing outta me onto this hill, onto this wet earth, and I’m collapsing, I’m sliding down that slope, back, back, until I’m stopped by something, another body, another buddy, I think, and I know it got something important, that bullet.

  I’m fumbling for my leg. I’m trying to stop the bleeding, but my blood goes so fast through my hands, fast like me, faster and faster, and I’m cold, and I’m scared, and I don’t wanna die.

  I can’t apply enough pressure. My hands are shaking too hard, my fingers are too weak, and I’m lying back now, lying back against my dead buddy on that bloodstained hill, and I turn my face to the sky like my pal Bill.

  It isn’t raining anymore. The rain has become soft and light and cold.

  It’s snowing.

  Snowing.

  I’m thinking of Topaz and the first snow I ever saw, flakes tumbling lazily out of the sky and settling on the barracks and the dusty roads, so quiet.

  And the guys throwing snowballs. That numbness in your fingers, that wet slap in your side, Shig and Tommy and Minnow and Stan Katsumoto . . .

  Everyone running and shrieking with laughter. Mas, Frankie, Bette, Yum-yum . . .

  Keiko laughing. Prettiest girl I ever saw, with snow like stars in her hair.

  I close my eyes, and I think I can hear us, all of us, running. The Topaz roads are turning into pavement, the barracks are turning into San Francisco apartment buildings, the desert air is turning wet and salty, and we’re running, running, running until we hit the ocean, that roaring blue expanse, and all of us, running into the waves.

  Laughing.

  XIV

  WE HOLD OUR BREATH

  ALL OF US

  NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 1944

  We hear the news, but we don’t believe it at first.

  Twitchy? Not Twitchy. Not that boy of light and speed and laughter. It can’t be. We were just reading his letters. We were just tracing his words:

  Hey, Keiko, you know what I like about the French language? How the words kinda drift off at the ends, like people are so lazy they can’t be bothered to finish them. It’s a Shig kinda language, ha ha . . .

  He was just alive. He was just telling us about the smell of bullets and chipped stone. He was just describing how much he’s looking forward to a hot shower. He was just wishing for some nabe. It’s so cold here, Stan. I sure could use some of your mom’s cooking . . . He was just signing his name. He was just licking the envelope. He was just sitting in his foxhole, scribbling down our address. He was just . . .

  He can’t be dead.

  On one of the Topaz baseball diamonds, Yuki laughs when we tell her. She says we’re joking. She says that’s a good trick. She says, “Very funny.”

  We say nothing. We don’t want to believe it either.

  We hold our breath, waiting for her to understand. Waiting for the news to strike like a lightning bolt. We watch the laughter drain out of her face. It leaves her eyes first, leaves them startled and black as moonless nights, then her cheeks, which go pale, and her lips, which go slack.

  We’re not joking. We wish we were.

  * * *

  We get a telegram.

  The Secretary of War desires me to express his deep regret . . .

  We forget how to breathe.

  The news hits Minnow like a truck. He collapses in the middle of the Topaz high school newspaper office, pens and papers flying up around him like disturbed gulls, only to come crashing back down again. The sound of things hitting the floor: knees, hands, pencils. The sound of sobbing, of loss, that wailing that’s dredged up fro
m the deepest parts of your soul.

  They send for his mother, who finds him curled in a pile of drawings like a soft blanket of snow, crying.

  * * *

  We send out letters. We share the news.

  In Tule Lake, Stan punches the outer wall of his barrack. Hard. His breath steams. His eyes burn. He hits the wall again and again—the wall, the wall—until the flesh peels from his knuckles and the wall bleeds.

  Tommy finds him in the shadow of the barrack, spread-eagled on the ground, like he’s willing himself to sink into the earth, through the crust and the mantle and the core, where the breath will be crushed out of him, and to the other side, where he’ll finally breathe again, face-up beneath the gray French clouds, beside Twitchy’s body.

  * * *

  We hear the news. We hold our breath.

  We make a wish—the way we wished when we drove through a tunnel, the roar of the black road swallowing every other sound in the universe as we fought for air.

  “He’s in a better place now,” Bette, back from New York for Thanksgiving, dabs her eyes with an embroidered handkerchief.

  Yuki crosses her arms. “You don’t know that.”

  “Of course I do.” Bette smiles. She even looks pretty in mourning, the tears on her lashes like jewels. Like snow. “He was one of the good ones.”

  Yuki hates how certain her sister is, how calm, how easy this is for her. Death shouldn’t be easy. She wants Bette to feel this loss like she feels it, right down to the bone. So she says, “He killed people, Bette. You go to hell for that.”