Cherry Blossom Winter

by Jennifer Maruno

  For Erin Jane Travis

  Chapter One

  APRIL 1943

  “Michiko,” her mother called up the back staircase, “please come down.”

  Michiko put down the piece of paper she was trying to fold and glanced at her little brother’s body curled on the sofa. Looking at his bowl-shaped hair she wondered how much longer he would sleep. Should she leave her origami or take it with her?

  “Michiko,” Mrs. Minagawa called out louder with hint of impatience.

  It must be important, Michiko thought. Her mother was not the type to raise her voice.

  “Coming,” she replied. She lifted the pillow of the chair and placed the half-folded paper beneath it, hoping Hiro wouldn’t wake and find it. She raced down the steep back stairs of the drugstore. As she skipped across the black-and-white squares of linoleum, she gave each one of the red stools in front of the soda bar a spin. Three rows of sparkling ice-cream glasses waited in front of the mirrored wall.

  Two women stood with her mother beside the cash register. The younger was pretty in a pale, bony way. The bobbing bunch of brown curls on top of her head fascinated Michiko. Even if she twisted a lock of her hair around her finger as hard as she could, it would always slip right back into straightness.

  “Michiko,” her mother said, “these ladies would like to see what you are wearing.”

  “What?” Michiko asked.

  Her mother frowned.

  “I mean, pardon me?” she said in a softer voice.

  The women smiled. Their faces told Michiko they were probably mother and daughter.

  The younger woman waved her hand about in a circular motion. “Turn around, Michiko,” she said. “Show us your dress.”

  Michiko twirled in the candy-striped cotton dress with large, deep pockets that her mother had made for her tenth birthday. The skirt spun like a top.

  The older women caught the hem. She wore light grey, skin-tight kid gloves that closed with a tiny pearl button.

  Michiko noticed there were little holes along the seams and the button on the other glove was missing.

  The woman examined her mother’s tiny perfect stitches. “Your work is so fine,” she said. “The stitches are difficult to see.” She let it drop.

  Her mother smoothed Hiro’s car coat out on the counter. The younger woman examined the small hood and felt her way down the sleeves.

  “That’s my brother’s coat,” Michiko informed them. “My mother made it from my father’s old one.” Looking at it, she realized how much her brother had grown since leaving Vancouver.

  Both women nodded.

  “We make do with what we have,” Michiko’s mother said.

  Eiko Minigawa was the master of making do. She recycled, remodelled, and repaired everything. When they moved into the apartment she washed the empty rice bags in bleach and hung them in the sun to make rice-bag curtains. She then took down the apartment curtains and made each of them a blouse. The blackout material from Vancouver became her father’s shirt.

  “That’s exactly why we are here,” said the older woman. “Edna Morrison told us your mother is the finest seamstress she has ever known.”

  Eiko put her fingertips to her lips. With her other hand she waved away the compliment.

  “Mrs. Morrison is right,” Michiko said. “Did she tell you about the quilt?” Michiko turned to her mother. But her mother flashed her eyes and shook her head.

  Michiko had forgotten — she wasn’t to suppose to discuss the quilt with anyone outside of the family. But she wanted to brag how clever her mother had been to fill the squares with paper money. All of their savings came with them before the government closed the Japanese banks.

  A bang at the back of the store made them all turn. Michiko’s father, Sam Minigawa, staggered in under the weight of several cardboard boxes. Michiko ran to hold the door.

  “Can I offer you a cup of tea upstairs?” Eiko said to the two women, moving out from behind the counter. “It is black,” she added, knowing that they probably wouldn’t appreciate the tiny green sticks and leaves of cha, as her family did.

  “That would be lovely,” the older woman said in a whispery voice. “I could do with a nice cup of tea.” She turned to Michiko and gave a smile that crinkled the fine skin around her pale watery eyes. “Thank you very much, young lady.”

  Michiko watched them pass. There was no clothing store in town and if you bought from the Eaton’s catalogue you looked like everyone else. The women would talk about dressmaking and look at patterns. Best of all, they would be upstairs when her little brother awoke. Now that Hiro was walking, he was yancha: very naughty.

  Her father dropped the boxes at one end of the counter. He removed a small folding knife from his back pocket and cut the string. Michiko knew he would add it to the ever-growing spool that he kept under the counter. Right now it was the size of a baseball.

  “Ready to help?” he asked with a smile.

  This was Michiko’s favourite part about living above the drugstore. Not only did she sleep above a soda fountain, she got to help stock the shelves.

  Geechan, her grandfather, came in next from his morning walk. He rested his hand-carved stick against the wall. With it he poked under hedges and pushed aside branches and grass. Her grandfather never returned empty-handed. Michiko loved the fleshy fan-shaped mushrooms, the tight green, hairy coils everyone called fiddleheads, and the wild strawberries he collected from the woods. Today his brown weathered hands carried several small wooden pegs.

  Geechan removed his large black rubber boots and slipped into well-worn woven slippers. He shuffled toward them, rubbing his hands and grinning. “Comics come?” he asked. They were the only things he read these days, since Japanese newspapers were forbidden.

  “No comics today,” Sam replied. He turned to Michiko. “Looks like Geechan will have to wait a little longer for Popeye the Sailor Man.” He carried one of the boxes over to the magazine rack. “Personally, I like Joe Palooka.”

  Michiko smiled. It was wonderful to have her father back with them. Just before her ninth birthday, the government sent him away. All men born in Japan had to go far from the coast. He didn’t talk a lot about working in the mountains of Alberta, building roads, but she knew he didn’t get a lot to eat and was always cold.

  Their whole life changed because of the stupid war. It made her burn with indignation when she thought about it. Her mother, baby brother, aunt, and grandfather had to leave Vancouver just because they were Japanese. They were lucky to rent a farmhouse. Most people slept in tents waiting for the government to build them a tiny wooden house. So many Japanese families came into this small town that Japanese children had to attend school in three places.

  A small fist rapped at the drugstore window. “Here is our Kairanban girl,” Michiko called out, unlocking the front door. “Right on time.”

  The small brass bell over the door jingled. Mr. Hayashi stood behind Kiko.

  Kiko, a short, pudgy girl, placed a small stack of Kairanban on the counter. Her flat nose sat on her face like a button. Kiko once told Michiko she pinched it every day to make it point.

  Michiko had met Kiko Sagara at the Hardware Store School. She sat next to her with her arms crossed, hands tucked under her armpits, glaring at the teacher. Kiko didn’t want to be back in class after a whole year of freedom. It was Kiko who taught Michiko new ways to fold paper. She helped Michiko find the right paper for her tulips.

  “Put them behind the counter,” Mr. Hayashi directed. “A newspaper written in Kanji makes some people in town nervous.” This short man, full of energy, respected and admired by all, knew the rules. As camp security officer he translated for those who didn’t understand.

  �
�They probably think it’s something subversive,” Sam said.

  “The only thing subversive is Mrs. Takata’s recipe for meatless meatloaf,” he replied, and gave a great hearty laugh.

  “Can you stay?” Michiko asked.

  “Of course,” Kiko replied. “My father knows there’s no point in asking me to rush back from your house.” She smiled through the curtain of straight dark hair that covered her eyes. Kiko didn’t have a mother to show her how to use a bobby pin or barrette.

  “I have a secret,” Kiko whispered in Michiko’s ear.

  “Tell me at the pond,” Michiko told her. “I’m going to look for frogs.”

  “You mean tadpoles,” Kiko corrected her. “They won’t be frogs until summer.” Having a newspaper editor for a father, Kiko was always sure of her facts.

  Together they filled the magazine rack. The specialness of the day filled Michiko with joy. What could be better than having a friend like Kiko ready to share a secret?

  Chapter Two

  THE SECRET

  Michiko waited at the top of the landing while Kiko removed her shoes. It took time to loosen the laces in the thick piece of brown leather that rode their shoes like a saddle. Both of them desperately wanted a pair of black patent Mary Janes from the catalogue.

  Kiko slipped her feet into a pair of woven-grass slippers on the landing.

  “Can Kiko stay for lunch?” Michiko asked. Her mother stood with her back to them, stirring a pot at the stove.

  “Hello, Mrs. Minagawa,” Kiko said in a quiet voice. “If there’s not enough, I understand.”

  “We have enough,” Michiko’s mother said as she added slivers of mushroom to the tiny bits of chopped meat cooking in shoyu. “You are welcome to stay.” Steam rose from the rice pot simmering on the stove. Its butter-like smell filled the kitchen.

  “Can we help?” Kiko asked.

  Michiko groaned. Kiko was always trying to please her mother.

  “You can help me by taking Hiro outside for some fresh air,” Eiko told them. “I can work faster if I don’t have to keep an eye on him.”

  Geechan sat at the kitchen table, wrapping twine around the pegs. Soon Michiko’s Uncle Ted would come to help them dig a garden. Ted was the first member of the Minagawa family to arrive in this town. He used to build boats, but the government sent him there to build little wooden houses instead. When they moved to the apartment, Ted filled the farmhouse with bunks. All the single men lived there now and they called it the Bachelor House.

  Even though the town still wore a bleak winter look, the trees along the main street had a haze of new growth. Michiko hoped they could plant flowers. Fresh flowers would bring a smile to her mother’s face. She loved to watch her mother use her short sharp scissors. After clipping a bloom, she would wind it with wire and stick it into a cluster of pins at the bottom of a vase.

  Michiko, Kiko, and Hiro stepped off the wooden walkway in front of the drugstore onto Main Street, which ran from the mountains to the lake.

  Two streets divided Main Street into three parts. Church Street crossed at the top, where houses surrounded the little white steeple church. These small frame houses with narrow windows were different from the ones in Vancouver. There weren’t any shingled sides or verandahs with pillars.

  Maple Street crossed Main in the middle. This block held the butcher shop and the drugstore where Michiko lived. Across the street was the Hardware Store School.

  The Mounted Police office, the General Store, the Hall, and a few empty stores were at the lower end of town. Boards covered many of the upper windows and piles of dirty snow and dead leaves hung about the doorways. The post office was inside the General Store. Across from the General Store, huge wooden steps led to the Grand Hotel’s waterfront.

  The national flag stirred lightly in the breeze above the hotel, the only three-storey building in town. On the street level, beneath the wide wooden verandah, were dim hotel offices. The entrance hall off the verandah led into a long hall with rooms on either side. These were the classrooms for high school students. The top floor bedrooms housed the women teachers. Michiko’s Aunt Sadie was one of the teachers at the Hotel High School.

  Michiko and Kiko walked Hiro down the street to the baseball field. It was really just the vacant lot beside the hotel, but the kids used it as a playground. A large pond sat in the middle.

  Halfway across the field, Kiko turned to the Mounted Police station and stuck out her tongue. Michiko raised her eyebrows. “Why did you do that?”

  “Because,” Kiko answered, “those Mounties are going to make us move again.”

  “When?” Michiko asked. She tried not to think about what had happened to her father because whenever she did she got scared.

  “Who knows?” Kiko responded. “All I know is my father is calling a meeting.”

  “Is that your secret?” Michiko asked as Hiro broke away from their hands and ran across the field. “That there will be a meeting?”

  “No.” Kiko giggled. “This is something fun, not something pol-it-i-cal.”

  Michiko had to smile at the way Kiko dragged out every one of the syllables. It was an imitation of her father’s way of speaking.

  Hiro picked up a stick and gave one of the small puddles a poke. The ice made the stick bend and snap. Hiro discarded the stick and picked up a small rock. He threw the rock into the middle of the puddle, making a spiderweb crack. The girls joined him, breaking the ice with their heels. The strong stench of mud made them plug their noses.

  Hiro investigated another slab of ice. He picked up a rock and threw it down. Michiko saw him frown when it bounced and skidded away. This gave her an idea.

  “Hiro,” she called out, “we can slide the rocks.”

  With the inside of her foot, Michiko shot the rock at him. Then she moved her legs apart.

  “Shoot it in between my legs,” she said.

  “He shoots, he scores!” a tall boy called out as he walked toward them. He had a nose full of freckles and bright blue-green eyes with lashes that were almost invisible. Tufts of golden hair stuck out from his green toque.

  Kiko clutched Michiko’s arm as he approached. Her eyes filled with anxiety.

  “Hi, Clarence,” Michiko said to the tall lanky boy. She wasn’t surprised to see him. He often walked into town along the railroad tracks. Michiko gave him a big smile.

  Hiro grinned and put his arms up in the air when the boy approached. Clarence picked him up and swung him around. “You should be playing baseball,” he said putting him down.

  Clarence searched the ground for a thick stick. He showed Hiro how to toss a rock in the air and hit it. Hiro gave it a swipe but missed.

  Michiko turned to Kiko. “This is Clarence,” she said. Clarence was the only kid in town who made friends with her when she arrived. “Clarence, this is Kiko Sagara.”

  “Where are you going?” Kiko asked.

  “Your place,” Clarence responded. “Ma sent me out for soap.” His face puckered, making all his freckles mash together. “She’s dragged out the tin tub and is making everyone take a bath, now that the weather is nice.”

  “My father will be happy to sell you soap,” Michiko told him. “You’ll be the one person who doesn’t want soya sauce.”

  “Doesn’t your house have a bathtub?” Kiko asked as she looked him up and down. “I thought everyone in town had a bathtub.”

  Michiko knew that Clarence lived in a small wooden house with a corrugated iron roof and a little grey shed out back for a toilet, like the houses in the orchard. She was grateful she no longer had to follow the hard-packed path to the outhouse they had to use on the farm. She remembered what it was like sitting on the cold porcelain seat, fighting off spiders.

  Clarence shook his head. “I don’t live in town.”

  “Me neither,” said Kiko. “Our tub is so small you can only put one foot in at a time.”

  Michiko changed the subject. She couldn’t help feeling guilty that she had a toilet with
a pull handle, bathtub, and plenty of hot water. “What we need,” she said, “is a swim. Then we can all get clean at the same time.”

  “That’s so funny you said that,” Kiko said, clapping her hands together. “That’s my secret. The men in the orchard are going to build an ofuro!”

  Chapter Three

  THE GARDEN

  “There won’t be any work done on a bathhouse until everyone has put in their garden,” Sam told the family when Michiko shared the news at dinner.

  He was right. Everyone in the orchard hoped to harvest a few vegetables before the next winter. They spent April slashing away the crabgrass and thistles in order to plant their small patch of land. From dawn to dusk they bent over the hard soil hoeing. Then they carted water from the ground tap at the end of each street.

  Geechan spent the mild spring days wandering the lakeshore, creek bed, and forest paths collecting rocks. He especially liked the ones with rainbow colours.

  “Ashi o kiosukete kudasai,” he muttered every time a rock thudded to the ground at the back of the drugstore. Michiko heard him say it often as she took the sheets from the line.

  “Why does Geechan tell the rocks to take care of their feet?” she asked her mother when she took a basket of dry linen inside. “Doesn’t he mean watch out for his toes?”

  Her mother lifted a sheet from the basket. “He’s speaking to his invisible plant,” Eiko said with a smile. “Once he has a large circle of stones he will fill it with soil and make a garden.” She folded the sheet. “He knows if you plant by rocks, vegetables will grow faster. The rocks catch the sun and keep plant roots warm.”

  A sound like a giant knife scraping across toast made Michiko hop out of bed and look out her bedroom window. The early morning sun spilled across the yard. As usual, Geechan was up and working before anyone else. Michiko watched him drag his hoe across the ground. Then he lifted it in the air and brought it down hard. The ground broke. He scraped, lifted, and broke the ground a second time. In this rhythmic pattern, Geechan worked his way from the back of the garden to the front. Then he paused, removed a handkerchief from his back pocket, leaned on the hoe, and mopped his brow.