Cherry Blossom Winter

by Jennifer Maruno

  “What’s a bazaar?” Michiko asked. For some reason tents and elephants came to mind.

  “It’s like a fair,” Edna said. “The town hasn’t had one in some time,” she told them.

  “Why do people have them?” Michiko wanted to know.

  “To raise money,” Mrs. Morrison replied. “I’m sure the children in your school could do with some more books.”

  “The children need electricity first,” Michiko’s mother said. She picked up the teapot and filled her guest’s cup. “Even if they had books, they would have to read them by oil lamp. Their eyes will be ruined if the electricity isn’t installed.”

  “Perhaps I’ll write the Red Cross,” Edna suggested, sipping her tea.

  Michiko thought about Kiko’s news. How would they build a bathhouse if there wasn’t any electricity? How would they heat the giant tub?

  “Excuse me,” she said. “I’ll see if Geechan wants some tea.”

  “Tell him there is a cookie,” Mrs. Morrison called out behind her.

  Geechan squatted in the garden wearing a white handkerchief headband, pulling weeds. Dirt caked his big black rubber boots.

  “Geechan,” Michiko said to him, “Mrs. Morrison has a treat for you.”

  Her grandfather stood up and brushed the dirt from his hands. A huge grin crept across her grandfather’s chestnut face.

  “I have a question,” Michiko said. She kicked a clump of earth with the toe of her shoe. The upturned earth smelled fresh. “How much water does it take to fill up an ofuro?”

  Her grandfather scratched his head. Not always ready with an English reply, he made a large circular motion with his arms to explain.

  “It’s a lot, isn’t it?” she said.

  He nodded again and again.

  “I have another question,” she said.

  He undid the bandana from the back of his head and used it to wipe his brow. Then he put it in his back pocket and waited for her to speak.

  “Why would they build an ofuro where there’s no electricity?”

  He shrugged his shoulders and went into the house.

  Michiko followed him inside. She went into the drugstore to see if her father had time for tea, but stopped when she saw him reach for the bottle of chocolate syrup. He’s making a milkshake, she thought as he poured it into the metal container. He added three large spoonfuls of malt powder, and a glub of milk. As he fixed the container to the mixer, a boy stepped out from behind the magazine rack.

  Michiko caught her breath at the sight of the familiar fringed cowboy vest and slingshot sticking out of the back pocket. George King was the first person she met when she walked to town. He almost ran her down with his bicycle. George King called her a dirty Jap.

  Michiko turned to leave just as he looked up and spotted her.

  “Hello,” he said with a fake cowboy drawl, “fancy meeting you here.”

  Michiko faced his cold hard gaze with a smile. “Hello, George,” she said politely. George had a loud voice and used it anytime someone did not agree with him. The moment he raised his voice, most people gave in, except Michiko. She always spoke to him in a pleasant tone, which infuriated him.

  George took a dollar from his pocket and slapped it on the counter. Her father put out his hand to take it, but George pressed his finger to the edge of the bill. “Don’t even think of trying to rob me,” he said. There was no mistaking the scorn flashing from his cold blue eyes.

  Michiko’s father didn’t answer. He returned with the change, and placed it coin by coin in front of the boy. “Have a good day,” he said and went to the other side of the store.

  The pasty-faced boy finished his shake in long noisy slurps and belched. Then he left his stool and walked to the door. He squinted at the little hand-printed sign hanging from the doorknob and yanked it off. “Nobody wants this stupid English in their face,” he told Michiko. “Your kind doesn’t belong here, you know,” he said, tossing the small square of cardboard onto the floor. He yanked the door open. “My dad’s going to see to that.”

  Chapter Six

  THE BATHHOUSE

  The Nelson farm lay three miles off the main road, just outside town. This was where Michiko and her family had lived when they first arrived. Since there was an indoor pump and electricity, the Japanese community built their ofuro there.

  Saturday afternoon, as the heat bugs zinged, Michiko waited at end of the road that led to the houses in the orchard. Her mother and Aunt Sadie had gone ahead carrying a small enamel basin, washcloth, and towels.

  Michiko watched Kiko stop to say hello to the group of girls getting off a truck. They all wore khaki overalls with floppy straw hats tied under their chins. Some of them covered their arms with old nylon stockings. They giggled and talked, glad to finish their morning of berry picking.

  Michiko was glad she didn’t have to do that again. Once she went with Clarence. The dense stubby bushes were high in the mountains. The twigs and thorns scratched their legs. Because huckleberries ripened at different times, they had to pick them one-by-one. Michiko remembered scratched fingers, harsh sun, and mosquitoes.

  That was before her father came home and got a job making thirty-five cents an hour. The apartment above the drugstore was free. According to Kiko’s neighbour, Mr. Yama, Michiko’s family was kanemochi, upper class.

  Kiko finally broke away from the group and ran across the road. Swiping her hair from her face, she asked, “Is this your first time for ofuro?”

  Michiko nodded. “We had nothing like it in our old neighbourhood.” She didn’t mention they were the only Japanese family on the street where she used to live.

  They took the pine-scented path beneath the gigantic Douglas firs. Along the creek they watched dragonflies dart about the surface of the water. The ribbon of sunlight gleaming through the brush showed them the way out. Smoke wisped from the great black stovepipe sticking out of the roof of the slanted shed. Every time she saw the farmhouse she was grateful she no longer had to fetch a load of firewood or use the outhouse, especially in the winter.

  Inside, Sadie was already soaking in the big square tub of sweet-smelling pine. The blue towel wrapped around her wet hair gave her skin the look of porcelain.

  Her mother waited for them on the slatted wood floor. “All your clothes go on the bench,” she instructed them. “Fold them neatly.”

  Michiko, embarrassed, exploded into a fit of giggles. “You first,” she said to Kiko.

  Kiko ripped off her clothes and threw them on the bench. She plopped onto a little four-legged stool. Michiko’s mother dipped the bowl into the tub and drew out some hot water. She poured it over Kiko’s naked body.

  “Ahh,” Kiko exclaimed. She turned to Michiko and smiled.

  Michiko removed her socks and balled them up.

  Eiko soaped the damp, steaming facecloth and then rolled it into a tight ball. Kiko squirmed and squealed as Michiko’s mother scrubbed her vigorously from top to bottom.

  “I cannot believe how dirty you are,” Eiko said. She drew more water, rinsed, and washed again. Then Eiko handed the cloth to Kiko. “Each finger and each toe,” Eiko told her. “You must learn to clean yourself thoroughly.”

  She took the cloth from Kiko and dropped it into the enamel basin at her side. “The cloth, once soaped, must never enter the bath,” she instructed them both. Then she dipped the small wooden bucket into the big bath and dumped it over Kiko’s back.

  “Ahh,” Kiko murmured with a sigh.

  “Now you can climb into the tub,” Eiko told her. She waved Michiko to the stool and bent to pick up the slushy, soapy cloth.

  As soon as Michiko entered the hot water she felt like drifting into sleep. Opening one eye, she watched her mother cock her head to one side and squeeze out the water from her long dark hair. She used long pulling strokes like she was milking a cow. The water ran down her arm and dripped off her elbow.

  “Is this only for Japanese people?” Michiko asked her.

  “Why do
you ask that?”

  “I think Clarence should come,” Michiko said. “I don’t know how he uses a tiny tub.”

  “As long as he comes on men’s day,” Sadie said, “I’m sure it would be fine.

  Michiko and Kiko exploded into a fit of giggles for the second time.

  Kiko floated quietly. “Do you think my mother will ever get to come here?” Kiko asked. She sighed so deeply it made Michiko’s heart ache.

  Michiko’s mother and her aunt exchanged an anxious glance.

  “Where did your mother go?” Sadie asked. Michiko had always wondered what happened to Kiko’s mother but was afraid to ask.

  “She went to Japan, just before we had to move,” Kiko said. “My father and my aunt sent letters to tell her where we are. But Mr. Yama says she will never come back.”

  Sadie gazed at the little girl across from her in a kindly way. “I don’t think anyone has the power to tell the future,” she said.

  Michiko waited for her mother to say something, but all she said was “Gangara.” That meant Kiko was to be patient.

  “Mr. Yama says he has no desire to be part of this country,” Kiko continued. “He says he wants to return to Japan because there is no future for any of us.”

  “I can see why he would say that,” Sadie commented, flicking water at Michiko.

  “I think that depends on what you want for a future,” Eiko said.

  “If you planned on travelling into the wild and being a prospector,” Sadie said, splashing Michiko, “then this life would be fine for you.”

  Michiko giggled, returning her aunt’s splash.

  The wooden door of the shed opened abruptly as several girls arrived. “I have to go,” they overheard one of them say. “There’s a speaker coming from Toronto. I need to explain it all to my parents.”

  “Are you going to the meeting?” Kiko asked Michiko’s mother as they dressed.

  “My husband and father will be attending,” Eiko responded. “I will be home with Hiro.”

  “Are you going to the meeting, Auntie Sadie?” Michiko asked, pulling up her socks.

  Sadie held a small black oval-shaped mirror up to her face as she applied her lipstick. “Of course, all of the teachers want to hear what it is about.”

  “Why don’t you come back to the orchard with me?” asked Kiko. “You can go home with your father.”

  They both looked at Michiko’s mother in anticipation. She nodded in agreement.

  Michiko and Kiko ran down the rutted dirt road, hand in hand.

  “Ara!” Kiko yelled as she danced into the field. “Watch out for cow pies.”

  “What’s a cow pie?” Michiko asked.

  “You know, it’s what cows leave behind in the field.” She pointed to the numerous cow droppings that dotted the field like large brown pancakes.

  Several cows stood in the shade of the apple trees. Their dark tails swished back and forth, disturbing the flies trying to settle. The two girls skipped their way across the field. Kiko made Michiko laugh, telling her how the orchard ladies scared the cows away by opening and closing umbrellas in their big black and white faces.

  Stooping to pick buttercups and Queen Anne’s lace, they heard the crack of a baseball bat and saw a ball soar skyward.

  “Someone’s playing baseball,” Kiko yelled as they ran the rest of the way.

  The girls watched the man in a red-and-white baseball cap jammed low across his forehead. He kept two, sometimes three, balls in the air at a time. He drove them easily to right field, then centre, then left. Racing after the balls, the boys from the orchard skidded and slipped in the dirt.

  “It looks like Mr. Katsumoto,” Michiko exclaimed. “I didn’t know he lived in the orchard. I thought he lived up at the Bachelor House.”

  “He just moved in,” Kiko replied. “Mr. Yama asked him to join his family so they could get a bigger house.”

  “That’s good thinking,” Michiko said.

  “That’s great thinking,” Kiko replied. “Mr. Yama and his family will live at the other end of the orchard. I won’t have to listen to him talk about my mother.”

  Michiko looked at her friend’s face. She knew how much she missed her father when he was away. She couldn’t imagine not having her mother with her. “You know what?” she said. “I think you are the bravest girl in the world.”

  Kiko studied Michiko’s face before she replied. “I think you are brave too,” she said. “I don’t have hakujin friends.”

  Chapter Seven

  THE MEETING

  Everyone crowded into the long tarpaper building used as the meeting hall. Some people stood with their arms folded, spitting out Japanese fast and loud. Others talked in English about what had once been theirs, bristling with suspicion and anger.

  Kiko and Michiko darted in and around them, listening to bits of conversation. The plank walkway was wide enough for two, but if you didn’t watch where you were going your foot could slip off into the mud.

  Kaz Katsumoto was also big news.

  “I was only nine when I lived near Athletic Park,” Kaz told the crowd of men that surrounded him. “I started off as a bat boy. I guess the rest is history.”

  “You were the youngest to join the Asahi,” one of the men said. “I saw you play for the first time.” He turned to tell the rest of the crowd, “As soon as the baseball left the pitcher’s hand, Katsumoto was running from third to home plate.”

  None of the kids in Michiko’s class planned to listen to what the visiting reverend had to say. They all wanted to investigate the fort one of the boys had built in an apple tree. Kiko couldn’t; she had to stay close by just in case her father needed something from the house. Michiko remained at her side. She hadn’t yet located her father or grandfather.

  The security truck rumbled down the rutted road and stopped. Michiko recognized Sadie among the group of teachers that got out. She put her two beautiful manicured hands to her chest and breathed in deeply. “I miss the smell of all that grass,” she said to Michiko.

  “I don’t miss the wolves,” Michiko said in response. She would never forget the night the hungry animals left the mountains and came right up to the farmhouse porch.

  As Sadie and Michiko walked through the crowd they heard a long low whistle. “Looks like there still are a few wolves around,” Sadie whispered in her ear. Then she put her hand up to pat the twist of hair at the nape of her neck. She was dressed in a wide-banded pink-and-white-striped cotton skirt and a sleeveless white blouse. Her perfume filled Michiko’s nose, reminding her of the wild pink roses that grew along the roadside.

  “Come and look at this,” Kiko said, grabbing her elbow. She pulled Michiko in the direction of a group of men and boys standing beside a long yellow car with white-rimmed tires. Michiko’s father was among them. She wondered if he was thinking about his black Ford with the long square snout.

  Mr. Hayashi took the elbow of a man in the navy raincoat and fedora. He led him toward the building. The rest followed. Her father winked at them as he passed.

  Kiko and Michiko walked around the car. It had a long narrow step under each door. The top half of the car’s headlights were painted black, just like her father’s had been. But the most amazing thing about it was the car had no roof.

  “It’s called a convertible,” Kiko said. “I’ve heard about them but I’ve never seen one.”

  “Where is the roof?” Michiko wanted to know.

  “It folds up,” Kiko said, “like a baby carriage. When I grow up, I’m having one like it.”

  “We used to have a car,” Michiko murmured. “We used to go for all kinds of rides.”

  But Kiko wasn’t listening. She opened the door and jumped in behind the wheel. Kiko patted the seat beside her. “Get in, Michiko,” she said. “We can go on holiday now.”

  Michiko put her hand on the chrome door handle, but hesitated. The reverend hadn’t invited them to sit in his car. She turned to Mr. Katsumoto to see if he approved, but he was busy sta
ring at someone in the crowd. Michiko followed his gaze to Sadie, in her white sleeveless blouse and crisp skirt, standing in the sunset.

  “Get in, Michiko,” Kiko repeated.

  Michiko looked around. She pressed the large square button on the handle and pulled. The heavy yellow door swung open and Michiko climbed inside.

  “You and I are going to drive to Toronto,” Kiko announced turning the wheel.

  “Why Toronto?” Michiko asked. “Let’s go to Vancouver.”

  Kiko stopped moving the wheel and placed her hands down flat at her sides. “No one is ever going to Ban City,” she said.

  “Ban City,” Michiko repeated. “Where’s that?”

  “You don’t know anything, do you?” Kiko said with a great sigh. “I guess it’s because you don’t live in the orchard.” She put her hands on her hips. “Ban City is Vancouver.”

  “Why?”

  “Are you stupid?” Kiko asked with a smirk.

  Michiko’s mouth dropped open. No one had ever called her that. She put her hand on the door handle. “It’s not nice to say that,” she said.

  Kiko grabbed her other hand in apology. “All Japanese people have been banned from Vancouver,” she explained. “That’s why it’s called Ban City.”

  “But it’s only for a while,” Michiko murmured. “We will all be going back soon.”

  “Are you …” Kiko began, but stopped when Michiko glared at her. “Don’t you know what the meeting is about?”

  “No,” replied Michiko in anger. She hated the way her parents kept things from her. Kiko knew about everything because her father ran the newspaper.

  “The reverend,” Kiko said, getting out of the car, “came from a church in Toronto.”

  Michiko wanted desperately to pretend she didn’t care, but she couldn’t. She opened the door and got out. “Why is he here?” she asked. “Does their church want to have a bazaar?”

  “No,” Kiko said. She pulled Michiko down on to the edge of the wooden walkway that joined the buildings. “The reverend wants the Japanese people to join his church.”