by Karin Tanabe
“They’re going to exchange them for Americans in Japan,” said Keiko. “They all will be sailing to Japan, too. Probably with us.”
“But that’s quite odd, isn’t it?” said Emi. “They don’t even live in America. Why should they be punished because the United States and Japan are at war?”
Keiko motioned for her daughter to move over in her little bed and sat down next to her, straightening her thin pillows.
“I don’t know,” said Keiko. “I really don’t understand a thing of all this. But we are here now and what’s important is that you’re healthier. We just have to endure, Emi. We will be home very soon.”
“Endure,” spat Emi. “We have to endure because the Americans are afraid we’ll turn into spies. Dangerous dragon women.”
“Enough, Emi!” said her mother sternly, standing up and leaving her daughter alone in the room.
Emi spent the next few months at Seagoville trying to get her strength back: forcing herself to go on long walks around the camp, eating all the meals—as unappetizing as they were—and adapting to the Texas heat.
She had started to resign herself to the fact that they might be stuck in Seagoville for more than a few months, and though she remained guarded and sullen, she fell into the routine of the camp—the constant roll calls, the hours spent with her eyes closed, the ability to tolerate boredom.
“Your daughter has fence sickness,” she had heard her mother’s neighbor, and now friend, Setsuko say one morning. “Outside of camp, we would call it depression. Have you noticed how she barely eats? She’s even thinner than when she arrived. She doesn’t participate in any of the activities or sports; she just stays here and sleeps or wanders around the periphery of the camp alone. You should be more concerned, Keiko,” Setsuko advised.
“I’ve tried to encourage different behavior,” her mother had said, “but she refuses. In here, she wants to be a ghost. I’m just happy that she’s healthy again, so I let her. Maybe I’m being too tolerant.”
“You are,” said Setsuko, slowly closing the door. “The depression could stay with her longer than she’s in here.”
Emi grumbled and turned around in bed, her eyes still shut. She wouldn’t be depressed when she left the hell she’d been placed in. She would be herself again. But until then, living as a ghost suited her just fine.
In March 1943, when the heat of Texas was starting to fire up again, Emi and her mother were woken up by an INS patrol guard. He came into their room, which they were sure was forbidden for male guards. The very young agent was wearing his beige uniform with pride and holding a clipboard against his thin chest in a commanding way.
“Is this the room of . . . I mean are you . . . ?”
“Yes?” said Keiko, coming toward the door of their small room, a blanket held over her nightgown.
“Are you Keiko Kato?” he asked, pronouncing both her first and last name incorrectly.
“Yes, I am,” she replied politely. “I’m Keiko Kato and this is my daughter, Emiko Kato,” she said smiling at Emi, still in bed. “Is there something wrong?”
“Nothing wrong,” he said, moving back to the door frame when he saw that the floor near Emi’s bed was covered in her clothes, including a slip. “Just here to report that you’re both being transferred,” he said looking down at his sheet.
“To Japan?” asked Emi excitedly. “Finally!” She sat up in bed, not caring if the guard saw her in her nightgown.
“No. To Crystal City,” he clarified. “New camp just built ’bout six hours southwest. Right on the Mexican border. Bet you can even see the line from there.”
“I don’t think it’s an actual li—”
“But why on earth?” said Keiko, silencing her insolent daughter and walking over to the man, dropping the blanket on the floor. “We’ve been here for seven months already. Why move us now? Surely we will be heading to Japan soon.”
“All the families with children are being transferred to that camp. Built specially as a family camp and it just opened up to the Japanese. There’ve been Germans there a few months now.” He looked down at his clipboard and pointed. “Says here that you, Keiko Kato, have a child named Emiko Kato, age one. That you?” he asked looking at Emi.
“Do I look like I’m one?” she said angrily. “I’m twenty-one.”
“Right,” he said reading his paperwork again, rearranging the pages. “Still looks like you’re going. This comes from Washington so there’s no reason to argue. When it comes from up high, it’s like the word of God.”
“But when are we going to Japan?” Emi asked her mother, ignoring the man she had deemed a buffoon the moment he started to speak. “We’ve been here for so long. I don’t want to go to yet another camp. I want to go home!”
“You might like it better there,” the guard said, his voice high and friendly. “Crystal City. I heard they built a swimming pool. For everyone,” he added.
“She loves to swim,” Keiko said quickly, looking at Emi to make sure she wasn’t going to reply. “And when will we be transferred?”
“Today,” said the guard, looking confused. “That’s why I’m here. You weren’t gathered in the mess hall where you’re supposed to be, so I was sent here to see why. You and the other families leave on the buses in an hour.” He looked at the Katos’ confused faces and said, “Am I the first one to tell you?”
“It’s fine! Perfectly fine,” said Keiko, smiling, her voice still managing to sound bright. “We will be ready in an hour. Thank you very much,” she said as the man backed out of the room. “I’m sure Crystal City will be just lovely.”
Emi fell backward onto her bed but Keiko stopped her before she could say anything. “Do not talk. Just put your things in your bags and nod your head yes to everything I say. Maybe the new camp will be better. Maybe the people from that camp will leave for Japan quicker. You don’t know and I’m tired of you always speculating the worst. Ever since you got sick you’ve been impossible. I know you miss being in contact with Leo, and living in a civilized place with food that doesn’t taste like animal droppings, but I am fed up with your wretched attitude. So just, for once, don’t question everything, and step in line like the rest of us. Have some reverence for your mother.”
Emi raised her eyebrows but didn’t say another word until they were gathered with the other families about to be transferred. Every family but theirs had small children.
For the first week at Crystal City, Emi continued her habit of speaking to no one but her mother. But it was much harder at Crystal City since there were so many young people interned there, and at the start of Emi’s second week, she couldn’t outrun them anymore.
As she exited her house, heading for the showers, she heard a cheerful voice call after her. She stopped and turned to look at the teenager jogging her way in knee-length plaid shorts, smiling like she was running down a boardwalk instead of a fenced-in dirt path.
“I know you. You live on my row. You just arrived, right?” the girl asked, wiping her brow animatedly. “Were you at Heart Mountain before coming here? Manzanar?”
Emi just looked at her, surprised. She knew the girl appeared as she did, with dark hair and Japanese features, but she seemed so overwhelmingly American that Emi didn’t know quite how to respond.
“I’m June Miyamoto. I live right over there,” she said pointing. “Right by you.”
Emi noticed that her bluntly cut bangs were sitting a few centimeters too high on her face, like she’d been trimming them herself for the last few months.
“No, we were at Seagoville,” said Emi. “It’s only six hours away. We were two of the first women brought there when it opened in April.”
“Wow, where are you from?” June asked, peering at Emi’s mouth as if she was possessed.
“Japan,” said Emi. “Oh, you mean the accent. By way of England, I suppose.”
“That explains it,” June said smiling. “England. I’d like to go there one day, but not today. They probably hate us
as much there as they do here.” She made a line in the ground with her shoe as she spoke. “Seagoville. Is that all women?”
“Almost,” Emi confirmed while watching the Japanese schoolboys play American football. It was shocking to Emi how, like June, they seemed so un-Japanese. She hadn’t known many Japanese-Americans in Washington, just a few of the diplomats’ children, but they led such different lives that they didn’t quite qualify. It shocked Emi to think that the American government considered these fenced-in children dangerous. Aliens. They seemed almost like caricatures of American teenagers to her. She was sad for them as they were in for an awakening when they got to Japan. The Japanese children were not at all as carefree.
“I am tired of being hated. California was a mess when we left. It was awful. No one wanted to sit near me at school, my father’s crops were stolen every night. I didn’t want to come here, but it didn’t feel safe there, either.”
“There had to be a better solution than this,” said Emi looking around them, wondering if all Nisei children were as perky as June. She was saying how upset she was, but delivering it with the cheer of a bandleader.
“Do you go to the Japanese school?” June asked Emi, who explained that she had graduated from high school. “I go to the Federal School here, thank goodness for that,” said June, showing off a perfect dimple and straight white teeth. “I wouldn’t survive a day in the Japanese school.”
“Probably a bit stricter than the American program.”
“You should spend a day at the Federal School. You’d get a kick out of it, and you look young enough,” said June. “You’ve just got to see it. Our teachers sound so weird. They have this drawl,” she said turning the word into three syllables. “And of course no one knows anyone else, so it’s a mess. It’s sad to start your senior year with strangers.”
“I moved all the time,” said Emi. “I sympathize.”
“All the classes are for idiots,” said June laughing. “I’m in my last year and I have to take an earth science class again. I should be taking chemistry but O’Rourke won’t let us have chemistry because he’s certain we’ll mix some noxious gases and firebomb the camp out of retaliation. Banzai Japan and all that. They’re incredibly paranoid and that paranoia is forcing me to be dumb.”
“I’m not at all surprised,” said Emi. “They’re all so blinded by hate. Afraid children are in cahoots to bomb this place. Why bother? There’s nothing of beauty or importance to ruin here.”
“I like the pool,” said June smiling.
“A swimming pool doesn’t quite make up for the rest of it,” said Emi, sadly.
“It will all go back to the way it was,” said June, hugging her, much to Emi’s shock. “Too bad I won’t be in America to see it.”
When Emi and June parted ways, Emi thought about how her circumstances could be even worse if she were a little younger. What a place to finish high school, she thought. Or to be five years old.
Despite June’s unexpected friendliness, Emi’s nerves were still shaken. She knew that her mother was frustrated with her behavior, but she didn’t know how else to be. Since being forced onto the train to Seagoville, she had a rage and a restlessness that she couldn’t seem to lose.
In bed that night, she screamed as a lizard crossed over her sunburned back.
“I can’t do this anymore,” she said, standing up. “I miss Father. I miss Leo’s letters.”
“Is that why you’re awake?” said Keiko, sitting back on her bed. “We’ve already spoken about this, many times. You can try again from Japan. The chances that you’ll be able to get a letter through from Tokyo are far better.”
“I’m not betting on it. We haven’t received letters from any of the friends we’ve written to in Japan. We’ve barely even received any letters from Father, and he’s sending them from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” said Emi, exasperated.
“Things are going to have to change with you,” said Keiko, making room for Emi on her bed. “At this camp, the women your age don’t just sit in the corner and mourn themselves. Everyone works here. You will, too. I have spoken with the director and you will be working at the hospital as a nurse’s aide starting this weekend. You just need to keep busy. Eventually you’ll see that things could be much, much worse. I know they’re not ideal now, but . . .”
“I just hope he doesn’t think I’m dead,” said Emi. “Leo. Or that I don’t care anymore.”
“He’s far too intelligent for that,” said Keiko. “I’m sure he can guess why his letters are no longer reaching you. And you’re far too intelligent to be spending all your time thinking about a boy. You’re on your own for a few more years, Emiko. Unmarried. Free . . . relatively free,” she corrected herself. “You don’t want to be like this, do you?” she asked, pushing up against the wall so her tall daughter could fit.
Emi didn’t answer, letting herself drift off to sleep, the faint rattle in her chest the only noise they could hear.
CHAPTER 6
CHRISTIAN LANGE
MARCH 1943
For a few miles they rode through the outskirts of San Antonio, full of buildings with stepped massing and flat roofs. The architecture was the opposite of the Midwest, everything brown and beige, sucked dry of moisture.
When the bus finally pulled up to the Crystal City camp and Christian saw the barbed wire and the watchtowers, the men patrolling on horseback and the signs warning internees that escape attempts were punishable by death, he knew that even little Inge would realize it was nothing like summer camp.
“It’s enormous,” Christian said as the dense rows of buildings came into view. They were composed of squat houses that looked too depressed to grow any taller, like malnourished children.
“There’s the swimming pool,” said Inge’s mother, pointing to a large circular area in the distance.
“And there is a hospital and schools, even a German school where both of you can study.”
“Is there an American school?” Christian asked.
“There is, but you can’t go,” said his mother, her tone indicating that he shouldn’t ask why.
“Where’s Dad?” he asked instead, as the bus drove past the two watchtowers near the entrance. They looked like very tall lifeguard stands, with flat roofs and small terraces where the guards patrolled. One was out, with a gun slung over his shoulder, its barrel reflecting the sun.
“Your father wanted to come, but they said there wasn’t room enough on the bus, plus he had to work. You’ll see him at home,” said Helene. “Temporary home,” she added. “Because all of this is temporary, Christian. I promise you.”
“If you say so,” said Christian, looking at the sprawl of buildings. In the distance he could see the houses, all small and identical. “One of those,” he realized, “is where I live now.” The thought made him shiver even though early spring in Crystal City brought temperatures in the high 80s.
When they all stepped off the bus, Inge looked from Christian to her mother, not sure whose hand to hold. She settled on both and dragged them toward an official who was set up at a small wooden table with a registry book in front of the camp’s triple-winged main building. Behind the fence in front of them, Christian could see a smattering of people. None came to the fence to observe the new arrivals.
“There are also Japanese and Italians here,” his mother explained. “And many South Americans. They barely speak English at all.”
Out of nowhere, a strong gust of wind blew the official’s pages, and with it, a thin layer of orange dirt seemed to settle on everything. Coming from the Midwest, Christian had never experienced the dust of the Southwest. And this version, produced from the grainy golden dirt of Texas, felt like powder in your hands and, he could already tell, fire in your lungs.
When Christian was registered in the book, Inge had to let go of his hand, as she still had to wait her turn, and Christian and his mother passed into the camp through the barbed-wire fence.
He was craning his neck
to look at the buildings— a quickly fabricated sprawl in the desert—when he heard his name. His father was hurrying toward them in a pair of stained pants. Gone was the pressed and starched Franz Lange of River Hills.
“Christian, you’re here,” he said, giving him a sideways hug and hitting him affectionately on the shoulder. “Thank God you made it safely. Your mother has been so worried.”
“Fine place you’ve gotten us into,” said Christian, letting his father give him his version of a hug.
“It’s not ideal,” said Franz. “And a very strange combination of people. Communists and Nazis living on the same block. Whoever thought that was a good idea should be put out to pasture. But we won’t be here long. Let’s walk this way, to the German side,” he said, heading toward the group of people who had been watching the bus arrive.
As they got closer, Christian suddenly realized they were all Japanese. He looked at them, stopping in mid-stride. He had never seen Japanese people in such numbers, and he couldn’t hide his surprise.
“Why are you staring like that?” asked his mother, catching him.
“I don’t know,” he said, turning away, embarrassed. “I guess I’ve never seen them all together.”
Christian diverted his gaze to the ground, but not before he had eyed a group of Japanese teenagers with interest and felt his mother’s hands on his back again.
“Stare at the barbed wire. At the men with guns who are trained to shoot us if we try to escape. Stare at the cardboard-box houses we are living in or the scorpions in the shower. But don’t gape at them. They are in the same situation as we are. Probably worse.”
“I’m sorry,” said Christian, trying to comply. He took one last glance at the crowd and noticed a pair of feet going by—a girl’s feet, in pink shoes. He looked up, thinking they would be attached to a young girl, one close to Inge’s age, but instead they belonged to a stylish teenager, only a bit younger than himself.
