We Are Not Free

by Traci Chee

  His laughter, a swinging gate.

  My singing, an ocean breeze.

  We peel away from the sunrise,

  turning, on the final day of ’44,

  west toward San Francisco.

  Graffiti, Tule Lake Segregation Center, California

  XVI

  HOME

  MINNOW, 17

  FEBRUARY–MARCH 1945

  I wake to the murmur of voices, the sound of someone snoring, and the creak of army cots. For a moment, it sounds so much like Topaz that I think I’m back in camp.

  But when I open my eyes, it isn’t the low ceiling of our barrack looming over me but the high rafters of the Buddhist church gymnasium, and I remember.

  I’m back.

  It’s my first morning in San Francisco after almost three years.

  Nearby, someone snorts and rolls over as I sit up, rubbing my eyes. Since the camps are supposed to close before the end of the year, most of the men are here alone, looking for work or apartments to rent so that when their families come to join them, they’ll have somewhere to go. In the light filtering through the gym’s slatted windows, the men shuffle back and forth from the restroom at the far end of the gym, towels draped over their shoulders and toiletry kits in their hands.

  Sliding my suitcase from beneath my cot, I lift a stack of sketchbooks into my lap. I’ve filled four of them since 1942, and each one is overflowing with extra doodles I drew during class, comics I did for the Rambler, studies of the mess hall, the guard towers, my mom. Carefully, I open the topmost book, leafing through my old drawings.

  Light on the distant mountains.

  Kids playing in the coal piles.

  Twitchy and the fellas horsing around on the back of the commissary truck.

  It all seems so far away now: the war, the evacuation, Tanforan, Topaz, the loyalty questionnaire, the way everyone left, one after another, drifting away like ash on the wind until no one remained but me.

  In one of his letters, sent just after Twitchy died, Mas said that us being separated over the past few years was like having the best, most alive parts of him slowly stripped away. It feels like that now, like if I drew a self-portrait, I’d draw myself sanded down to the bones, my friends and family peeling from my skeleton.

  Mas, my head. Frankie, my fists. Twitchy, my arms and legs.

  Stan, my guts. Tommy, my lungs.

  Shig, my heart.

  I hope for a second that none of it happened, that I’ll walk out onto Post Street and nothing will have changed. Tommy will have a new record to play for us. Yum-yum will be practicing arpeggios, the notes wafting through her window onto the block. Twitchy will be doing tricks with his butterfly knife while he waits for Shig and me to emerge.

  We’ll be together.

  I’ll be whole.

  I tap my pencil twice on a blank page and do a quick sketch of the gymnasium: the men, the rows of military cots, the trunks and suitcases, the nightstands made out of produce crates, nothing permanent, everything able to be packed up and moved and abandoned, all of this, on and on, stretching into the distance, like if you looked closely enough, the beds and the men and the luggage would reach all the way back to Utah.

  At the bottom, I write, Miss you, brother, and seal the drawing into an envelope addressed to Shig.

  * * *

  In the bathroom, I lock the stall door and stare down at the toilet with its clear bowl of water. Out of everything here, this seems the most out of place.

  Or I seem the most out of place, here.

  To wake up. To walk to the bathroom without stepping outside. To stand before a flushing toilet instead of a latrine. It feels like a dream.

  Tentatively, I press the handle and almost jump back as the pipes roar. The water circles the bowl, around and around until it disappears down the drain in a single, violent gurgle.

  * * *

  We can’t stay in the Buddhist church hostel forever, so after breakfast, Mom and I set out in search of an apartment. Something small, for the two of us. No Mas, no Shig, who returned to Chicago after Twitchy’s funeral.

  Although we have some money for an apartment—Mom’s twenty-five dollars from the government and a little savings besides—it’s not enough to splurge on bus tickets, so Mom and I walk through the old neighborhood in our Sunday best, clutching a list of addresses and knocking on doors.

  I guess I should have known things would be different when we came in on the ferry last night. The fog-thick air had a surreal quality to it, the lights of the Bay Bridge like spirit lanterns, the streets like a labyrinth. I didn’t even know we’d reached Japantown until we got off the bus in front of the Buddhist church.

  But in daylight, I realize it wasn’t a dream. The neighborhood really has changed. Most of the old Japanese-owned businesses have been turned into nightclubs and saloons that cater to the sailors who stop in San Francisco on shore leave. “That used to be Mr. Fujita’s tailor shop,” Mom says as I help her over a splatter of vomit on the curb. “That used to be a laundry.”

  We pass the old Katsumoto Co., and at least it’s still a grocery, but the name Katsumoto has been scraped from the windows, and the only remains of the I AM AN AMERICAN sign are the painted-over nail holes above the doorway.

  We walk all morning, but no matter where we go, it seems there are no rooms available. Every place was rented last week, or yesterday, or an hour ago.

  At one apartment building, a hakujin man in a white undershirt says, “No rooms available,” and puts his hand on the doorframe like a skinny Japanese kid and his five-foot-tall mother are going to try to enter by force. His undershirt is stained at the armpits, the color of urine when you haven’t had enough to drink.

  For a second, I feel like I’m fourteen years old again, being hounded by ketos just because of the way I look. For a second, I want to crawl into the gutter. I want to run home to Mas and Shig.

  But Mas and Shig won’t be there.

  And I have nowhere to run.

  “There’s a ‘For Lease’ sign in your window,” I point out.

  “Yeah.” The man sucks his teeth. “I’ve been meaning to take that down.”

  I stare at him. Long enough to let him know I know the truth: that he won’t rent to us because of the slant of our eyes.

  But he stares back, daring me to say it.

  “So sorry,” Mom says in her accented English. She starts to bow, but seems to think better of it halfway, and she kind of bobs up again before turning away, stiff-backed like she’s trying to remain dignified, even though it’s hard to be dignified when you keep getting rejected.

  Gaman again.

  Sometimes I’m so sick of gaman.

  I’m sick of the distrust in these hakujin faces, the cowardice in how they won’t admit it, the way we have to swallow their lies with a polite nod, the way Mom has to say, “So sorry,” even though she has nothing to be sorry for. She’s allowed to be here. We all are, now.

  We’re supposed to be, anyway.

  When we reach the street corner, I turn back to see if the sign’s still there.

  It is.

  * * *

  For lunch, Mom and I stop at a diner where we used to go when Dad wanted to take us out for a treat. The five of us would cram into a vinyl booth—Mom and Dad on one side; Mas, Shig, and me on the other—and Dad would order us a milkshake, which he’d split evenly among five cups. We’d have to take turns picking the flavor, but Dad would always give Mom the cherry on top.

  Now we sit in a booth that feels uncomfortably large, waiting for one of the servers to notice us. A minute goes by, then two, then five, the waitresses passing our table without so much as a glance, the cooks glaring at us from the kitchen, the other diners watching us furtively as they tuck into their hamburgers and scoops of pie. For what seems like the tenth time, Mom straightens the silverware on her napkin.

  Reaching across the table, I take her hand. Her skin feels thin, like tracing paper. “Come on, Mom. Let’s just go.”


  As we leave, I look back at the other diners and wonder what they’re waiting for. Do they think we’re going to loose some mustard gas and shout “Banzai!” as we run out the door? Do they think we’re going to scream at them for not doing anything when we were forced from our homes, shipped to racetracks and fenced enclosures like animals? For not doing anything now?

  Most of all, I am struck by how almost none of their faces look like mine, how alien I feel in this diner I used to love. I guess I took it for granted, seeing people who look like me every day. When we were evacuated, we lost our homes, but we were still surrounded by our families, our friends, our traditions. We kept them, tried to hold on to them, even as we were sent across the country, across the world, our community dissolving, little by little, as pieces of it moved farther and farther from home.

  Now I am home, but without Mas and Frankie and Stan and Tommy and Twitchy, without Shig, my older brother who was always there to bail me out, to cheer me up, to wake me from my nightmares, this is just a building, these are just streets, this is just a city that doesn’t belong to me anymore.

  * * *

  Late that afternoon, someone finally tells us, “No Japs,” and to be honest, it’s almost a relief to know I wasn’t imagining things. I wasn’t getting worked up over nothing.

  At least now I know if I hate them for hating me, I’m not wrong.

  Defeated, Mom and I trudge back to the hostel. My feet are throbbing from walking all day in my dress shoes. Mom’s even worse off, leaning on me for support and wincing every time she puts her left foot down.

  Limping along together, we pass Mr. Hidekawa’s steps, where I sat with Mas and the fellas after they rescued me from the ketos. The turtle-shaped bell over the door is gone.

  “Do you know when Mr. Hidekawa’s coming back?” I ask.

  Mom squeezes my hand. “Mr. Hidekawa passed away in camp.”

  I stop so quickly, she almost stumbles. I catch her arm, steadying her. “What?”

  “He died in one of the prisoner-of-war camps in 1943.”

  Two years, Mr. Hidekawa’s been gone. I didn’t know. I wonder how many other people are just never coming back, and we’ll stare at their vacant steps or their old businesses and wonder what happened to them, never knowing if they died or just moved.

  “But he was so healthy,” I say.

  “The relocation was a blow to all of us. Some people didn’t recover.” Squeezing my hand, Mom tugs me onward. “Some people never will.”

  * * *

  That night, I sit with Mom in the common room of the hostel, rubbing her arches while she looks over a new list of possible apartments. Shig used to rub her feet for her. He’d do it for Mas, too, after a long day of work. I wish he were here now to rub mine.

  “Cheer up, Minnow,” she says. “We’ll find a place tomorrow.”

  “What if we don’t?”

  She frowns. “Of course we will. There are still good people in this city, and more nihonjin are arriving every day. Someone will rent to us.”

  “What if we didn’t stay, though?”

  She inhales sharply as I start kneading a particularly tough knot by her heel. “What do you mean?”

  I mean I never thought I’d miss being in camp, but after today, I wish I could crawl back into my cot, with my drawings pinned to the walls above me and Mas’s Silvertone radio piping quietly in the corner. I want to be welcomed into the Rambler offices by guys who have already left Topaz. I want to eat the thin, mess-hall miso soup because I’ve gotten so used to it, it’s the only kind of miso soup I like now. I’m homesick for a place that’s already being dismantled, the baseball leagues closing down, the recreation centers shuttering their doors, the schools emptying out like drainpipes, people departing for different parts of the country every day.

  I’m homesick for camp the way I used to be homesick for San Francisco, and that makes me want to leave here even more.

  “No one says we have to stay,” I say. “We could move to Chicago with Shig.”

  I picture us going to baseball games and walking along the river. Shig showing us the Japanese churches, and community centers, and markets where we can buy kamaboko and mochi rice. The three of us crammed into an apartment with the snow coming down outside in winter, and Mas back from the war, his medals displayed in a frame Mom proudly hangs over the mantel.

  A new home. One without so many ghosts.

  Mom’s lips flatten, and I tense up. She’s got that look she used to get when I’d ask for new clothes instead of hand-me-downs, turkey sandwiches instead of musubi, a milkshake of my own because Mas always picked strawberry and I hated strawberry.

  “Your father and I moved to this city when Masaru was two years old. You and Shigeo were born here. This is where we raised you. This is where your father died, and where I will die too one day,” she says. “I will not leave again.”

  * * *

  Two days later, we’re no closer to finding a place to live, and I’m hanging around the ferry building, waiting for Stan Katsumoto, who’s supposed to arrive today. He’s coming to find a job and an apartment for his family, who are at Tule Lake until they have a place to stay in the city.

  Leaning on one of the pylons, I watch the nihonjin milling around the dock. Some are hoisting duffle bags onto their shoulders. Others are juggling infants who are so young, they must have been born in camp. The whole scene reminds me of the evacuation: the luggage, the harried families, the way people keep snapping at one another in travel-strained voices.

  It’s like we’ve been kicked out of camp the same way we were kicked out of San Francisco three years ago.

  The only thing that’s missing are the ID tags.

  When Stan Katsumoto finally comes down the gangway, I almost don’t recognize him. I haven’t seen him in a year and a half, and he’s gotten so thin, you could turn him sideways and he’d disappear. His cheeks are bony, and his black eyes seem sort of sunken behind his taped glasses.

  But it’s Stan. A little piece of home.

  “Minnow!” Dropping his suitcase, he wraps me up in his long arms. “Boy, are you a sight for sore eyes!”

  I hug him. To my surprise, my chin fits right on his shoulder. I don’t even have to stand on tiptoe and I’m almost his size.

  “You’ve gotten tall!” He laughs, thrusting me back. “You been drinking your milk like a hakujin kid or something? I bet you’re taller than Mas now.”

  “Oh.” Taller than Mas? I can’t even imagine it. In my head, Mas is a towering figure, stronger and smarter than everyone around him, especially me. “I don’t think so.”

  “You heard from him lately?” Stan asks, picking up his suitcase again. Together, we head for the busy intersection outside the ferry building, the people rushing about, the cable cars clanging their bells.

  “He’s still on the French-Italian border, I think. I guess they’re not seeing a lot of action.”

  “That’ll be good for him.” Stan’s glasses flash in the light. “After what they went through.”

  I nod. Sometimes I wonder what Mas will be like when he comes back. If he comes back. Frankie said that after what happened to Twitchy, Mas was diagnosed with battle fatigue and sent back from the front.

  I can’t imagine that, either. Mas coming apart. I write to him often, even though I don’t know if it does any good, because my brother is made of stone, and if stone cracks, it can never really be made whole again.

  I wish he’d come back. I’d even take him yelling at me about my grades and not joining the football team, if it meant he was the same old Mas.

  Stan and I make our way through the trolleys and buses and crowds of sailors in their navy uniforms and crisp white caps. I tell him Mom and I are staying at the Buddhist church, that we haven’t had any luck finding an apartment.

  “They were afraid of us then. They’re still afraid of us now,” Stan says.

  “But we didn’t do anything.”

  “What d’you mean, Minnow
?” Stan smirks, but there’s a hard edge to his expression, like the blade of an axe. “We exist.”

  * * *

  That night, Stan takes me out to see Count Basie at the Golden Gate. We’re so far in the back of the theater that we can hardly see him up there at the piano, but the music’s loud enough for everybody: Black, white, nihonjin. The band plays hits like “Pennies from Heaven” and “One O’Clock Jump,” and the crowd goes wild over every solo, every bright note, every swinging beat.

  Boy, it feels good to let loose for a night. Those blazing trumpets. Those syrupy saxophones. They’re a riot of color in a world of graphite, like everything for years has been dull, dull, dull, rendered in grays, and all of a sudden I’m remembering rainbows, sunsets, forests, reds.

  I lean over to Stan. “Tommy would’ve loved this!”

  Stan’s got one of those smiles so relaxed, it’s almost one long laugh. “Let’s get him a new recording once we’ve got a little saved up! Give him a head start on his collection when he gets back!”

  After the show, we go traipsing back into the fog with the rest of the concertgoers, dizzy with music. People split off in different directions, skipping across the cable-car tracks on Market or heading up Taylor to the Tenderloin district. All these different kinds of people bound for a couple of hours, held by the spell of Count Basie’s music, and then . . . poof. We disperse again. Is that what life is like? People coming together and drifting apart, coming together and drifting apart, over and over until there’s no one left?

  Will we come together again, after all that’s happened to us? Can we, when we are so broken?

  As Stan and I turn toward Japantown, he starts singing, “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea,” swinging around streetlights like he’s in a Hollywood musical, even though he’s got a voice like a raven.