Daughter of Moloka'i

by Alan Brennert

  The cat was relatively sedate up to the boarding of the train, but from the first blast of the steam whistle she had made her disapproval known with her aria of miaows. Even now Ruth was gently stroking the cat’s neck through the cage as she whispered consoling words to her. Taizo smiled with affection at his daughter’s compassion; she had indeed been a worthy choice.

  Outside the train window a landscape grander than he had expected was rolling past. The Southern Pacific Railroad cut through the plains south of Sacramento like stitches through a floral quilt; on either side of the train were fields embroidered with pink, yellow, blue, and violet wildflowers, fertile vineyards bursting with fruit, and acre upon acre of strawberry plants, their green bouquets extending in long rows to the horizon. Standing astride the fields were lofty towers crowned by windmills that spun like a child’s pinwheel, pumping water to the thirsty plants.

  So much sky, so much land—everything was on a much grander scale than in Hōfuna. But farmland was farmland, and it always made Taizo feel at home.

  The train slowed as it approached the tiny Florin depot. As soon as it stopped, the ice-packed freight cars began taking on hundreds of crates of strawberries for delivery to Sacramento. As Taizo’s family got off the train, Jiro’s only son—twenty-four, tanned, broad-shouldered—stood waiting for them, wearing a dark Western business suit for the occasion. He gave a deep, respectful bow.

  “Konnichiwa, Ojisan,” he greeted Taizo. “I am Akira. My father has asked me to bring you to our farm. We are honored by your presence.”

  Taizo returned the bow. “The honor is ours, nephew,” he replied in Japanese. He allowed the young man to pick up some of their luggage, while he signaled his own sons to carry the rest of the bags and steamer trunks.

  “It may be a bumpy ride in back for some of you. My apologies for the shortcomings of our vehicle,” Akira said with typical Japanese self-deprecation.

  But the “vehicle” turned out to be a handsome, nearly new Ford Model TT truck, its wooden stake bed painted a glossy green, the cab and chassis a shiny black. Taizo had seen rich haoles driving this kind of truck in Honolulu; he was amazed and impressed that Jiro owned one.

  “Nonsense,” Taizo said. “We shall be honored to ride in such fine style. Okāsan, you and Dai sit up front with Akira. The boys and I will ride in back.”

  With one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the hand throttle, Akira backed the truck—making its signature, deep-throated chugga-chugga—out of the train station. Florin’s business district in 1923 was a dusty collection of wooden storefronts that seemed plucked from a Tom Mix movie, but for one difference: the majority of the stores boasted Japanese names. Hayashi Fish Shop, Kawamura Tofu Company, T. Tanikawa General Merchandise … Taizo had not seen so many nihonjin, Japanese, names in one neighborhood since leaving Japan! He felt even more at home now.

  But as the truck passed the Florin Supply Company, Taizo caught a brief glimpse of a chipped and faded poster nailed to its wall, flapping defiantly in the breeze, reading:

  KEEP CALIFORNIA WHITE

  RE-ELECT

  JAMES D. PHELAN

  UNITED STATES SENATOR

  And then they were past it, Taizo not quite putting together the jumble of English words and quickly forgetting it amid the excitement.

  They drove up a dirt road, past flourishing fields of strawberries and grapes. Each plot of land seemed enormous to Taizo, as did the American-style homes: clapboard walls painted white, green, or blue, mostly one-story, with adjacent barns or laborers’ barracks. Farmhands—largely Japanese, men and women, adults and youngsters—were out picking grapes.

  Finally, Akira turned, heading for a two-story home in the distance. The land surrounding it was as expansive as Taizo had been told. The house, painted white with green trim, was much larger than its nearest neighbors; its front porch was decorated with bonsai trees in pots, their saucer-shaped branches meticulously trimmed. Akira parked the truck and helped Etsuko, Ruth, and the caged Mayonaka out of the cab. Taizo and his sons folded down the back of the stake bed and jumped out.

  Ruth took in the adjoining barn and pasture with delight. “Cow! You have a cow! And horses!” A lone dairy cow grazed in the pasture, while two horses—one tan, the other black—chewed hay in the barn.

  “Ah! You must be Dai!” came a deep, booming voice speaking excellent English.

  A tall, strapping man wearing the same kind of dark business suit as Akira, his broad face split by a big grin, strode over, bent down, and lifted Ruth as easily as he might a bowl of rice. She giggled to find her legs dangling in the air like the strings of a kite. “Such a pretty little girl! And you like animals? Well, we have plenty of them here for you. Get yourself unpacked and Akira will introduce you to our cow, Mamie. Have you ever milked a cow, Dai?”

  “Only by accident.”

  “You will have to tell me about that sometime.”

  He lowered her to the ground, as Taizo—intimidated, as usual, by his brother’s outsized personality—approached, bowed, and said in Japanese, “It is good to see you again, Niisan. You remember my wife, Etsuko?”

  Jiro bowed to her. “Of course. It has been too long since I have seen my beautiful sister-in-law.”

  “Indeed, too long,” Etsuko answered with apparent, if not sincere, warmth.

  Taizo introduced his sons to Jiro’s wife, Nishi—as shrinking a presence as her husband was gregarious—and Akira’s wife, Tamiko. After everyone removed their shoes, they were led by Jiro into the house. It was a traditional American structure, and in many ways it reflected that culture, notably a tall Western-style dining table made of oak, with matching chairs. A piano stood near the window, its pearl-white keys reminding Etsuko uneasily of Jiro’s broad smile. But there were Japanese accents as well, stylish ones: the polished wood floors were decorated by elegantly woven tatami mats, a Japanese scroll hung in a tokonoma alcove, and tables and cabinets were ornamented with blue and white ceramic vases, bowls, teacups, and plates, their faces adorned with delicate designs of mountains, sea, and sky.

  “Welcome, my family,” Jiro said expansively, “to your new home.”

  “And a grand home it is, Niisan,” Taizo complimented him.

  “Taizo, this is America. We need not stand on tradition. I am not Niisan, just Jiro. We are equals in this farm and in my heart.”

  Taizo was quite touched by this, nodding in response. “As you wish.”

  As Jiro showed them about, Taizo’s astonishment only multiplied. The living room boasted both a wood console phonograph and a radio receiver. The kitchen was also a fount of technological wonders, equipped with a wall telephone and an electric washing machine with a steel tub—two marvels Taizo had only ever glimpsed in the pages of the Sears, Roebuck catalog.

  Jiro escorted them to their bedrooms on the second floor. He and Nishi shared one, Akira and Tamiko another. The others—once occupied by Jiro’s three daughters—were quickly assigned to Ruth’s brothers, with one, as in Honolulu, to be occupied by Taizo, Etsuko, and Ruth. All the rooms were furnished not with futons but with beds, but Taizo made no complaint.

  “Are we going to live here?” Ruth asked her mother wonderingly.

  “Yes, it is quite a palace, is it not, butterfly?”

  “Can we let Mayonaka out now?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  Ruth eagerly opened the cage and swung the door open wide. But Mayonaka no longer seemed so eager to get out. “Come on, it’s all right,” Ruth cooed, finally giving her a little nudge. Mayonaka padded out very slowly indeed, hissed once, then darted under the bed.

  Etsuko smiled. “Let her be, Dai. She just needs to adjust to this new place. We will bring her up some supper later.”

  “There are days I feel like that myself,” Jiro said with a laugh. “Do not worry, Dai. She will emerge in her own time.” He turned to his brother. “While the women settle in, Taizo, may I show you some of my—our land?”

  * * *

&nb
sp; They walked at least a mile into the fields, Jiro proudly showing off the farm, Taizo enjoying the warmth of the sun and a cooling breeze. The hundred acres were covered with green, leafy strawberry plants—marching in rows east to west, to reduce shading—interspersed with trellises bearing flame-red Tokay grapes ripening on vines. It made their little vineyard in Hōfuna seem like a window garden.

  “Grapes, as you know,” Jiro said in Japanese, “take five years to mature. So the strawberries produce a marketable crop in the meantime. We dig our irrigation ditches two feet deep, every other row, to conserve moisture, thus allowing the plants to yield two, sometimes three harvests a year.”

  “Remarkable,” Taizo said.

  “Florin’s soil is ideal for growing strawberries. It’s shallow and it rests on a bed of hardpan, which helps the soil retain water.”

  “From the train I saw the windmills irrigating the fields. So water is easily obtainable?”

  “Plentiful. Sink a well anywhere, you find water.”

  “These grapes are ripe,” Taizo noted, puzzled. “Why isn’t anyone out here picking them? I saw other farms harvesting their vineyards.”

  Jiro winced, as if he had hoped the question might never be raised.

  “Ah, well,” Jiro sighed, “as they say, ‘God dwells in the details.’”

  “You said in your letter that you needed my help because the farm was no longer producing as well as it once did, but from what I can see, the opposite is true. You underestimate your skill as a farmer, Jiro.”

  But instead of the familiar gleam of pleasure in his eyes at a compliment, Jiro actually looked dejected.

  “I am not worthy of such praise, Taizo.”

  These were sentiments never before uttered by Jiro Watanabe, at least not in Taizo’s presence.

  “There is no one harvesting the grapes,” Jiro admitted, “because I lack the funds to hire enough skilled laborers.”

  Taizo did not know what to make of this. “Is this a joke?”

  “I wish that it were. This, you see, is why I need your assistance.”

  “To … harvest your crop?”

  “Yes.”

  The implications of this began to sink in. “My assistance,” Taizo asked sharply, “or my family’s assistance?”

  Jiro sighed again.

  “Both,” he admitted, eyes downcast.

  Taizo said in disbelief, “You expect me and my sons to harvest a hundred acres by ourselves? That is why you called me here?”

  “Not just you and your sons,” Jiro said quickly. “Of course Akira, Tamiko, and Nishi and I will all help.”

  “And what of my sons’ schooling?”

  “We have a few weeks before school begins in September. We won’t be able to harvest all the grapes, of course, since some mature late in the season, but we should be able to pick enough to make a profit.”

  “Surely you have some money to pay laborers—” Taizo began, but Jiro interrupted:

  “You do not understand how things work here, Taizo. At the start of the season, we owners receive an advance from the fruit distributors against the strawberry harvest. We live on that, use it to pay our expenses, until the crop is harvested, and the cycle is repeated with the next crop.”

  “Then you must have received an advance against the grape harvest.”

  “Similarly, we buy food from the grocer and provisions from the supply store against the harvest—”

  Taizo abruptly cut him off: “What happened to the advance for the grape harvest?”

  Jiro looked deflated, defeated. “Gone. All the money is all gone.”

  “Where did it go?”

  “To pay interest on debt, among other things.”

  Taizo’s mind was reeling. “Debt?”

  Jiro revealed, shame-faced, “I owe money to everyone—the distributors, the supply store, the grocer, and the Sumitomo Bank in Sacramento, where Akira took on a second mortgage against the property.”

  Taizo’s incredulity was giving way to anger. “And you wish my eldest son to someday take on half that debt? How much is it?”

  Jiro could not look him in the eye as he said, “Five thousand dollars.”

  Taizo could not have been more stunned had five thousand gold bars just fallen on his head.

  “Five thousand dollars?”

  “Agriculture runs in cycles, Taizo, you know this. Before the war, times were hard; we eked out a living. Afterward, the economy improved, and—”

  “You bought a six-hundred-dollar truck!” Taizo shouted, surprising even himself. “You own a phonograph, a radio, an electric dishwasher—”

  “I only wished my family to be comfortable after years of struggle!”

  “No, you wished to brag to your neighbors about how wealthy you were and have them envy your fine possessions,” Taizo shot back. “So you spend and spend, letting your debt grow and grow—and then—”

  Truly, Taizo had never been angrier in his life. He took a step toward his brother, his hands clenched into fists. “Then you offer me half of your great estate, without mentioning its great debt as well—and believing in you, as always, I uproot my family and close my business! And for what? To be your chattel and to take on half your—”

  His words ended in a cry of inchoate fury. Barely aware he was doing it, Taizo took a wild swing at his brother. His fist connected with Jiro’s mouth, splitting his lip, and Jiro toppled like a felled tree onto a row of strawberries.

  Taizo stood above him, breathing hard, but Jiro made no move to get up. He wiped blood from his lip, his face filled not with anger but with shame.

  “I believe I had that coming,” he said softly.

  “That? That was for giving me pneumonia when I was twelve!” Taizo yelled. “I have not even begun to address this situation!”

  “I apologize for deceiving you,” Jiro said. “But would you have come had I told you the truth?”

  “No! I would have been a fool to come. I am a fool to have come!”

  Taizo’s dreams came crashing down like a fallen star. He had no money left to return to Honolulu. He and his family were marooned here, shipwrecked on an island of debt and deceit. The sky, which minutes ago had appeared so infinite and welcoming, now seemed to press down on him. He felt caught in a vise of guilt and shame.

  As he struggled to breathe, he heard sobs, and thought: My shame is complete, I am weeping.

  But it was not Taizo weeping. It was Jiro.

  “I am sorry,” Jiro gasped out between sobs. “I have dishonored my family’s name. I have dishonored you, my brother. I am sorry.”

  Only once had Taizo seen a grown man cry—his father, on the day Taizo’s youngest brother, born prematurely, died within hours of birth.

  Seeing Jiro brought so low quelled the fury in Taizo’s heart and allowed him to think rationally again. He had no other prospects in California. What else could he do but to make the best of a bad situation? He drew a long breath to calm himself.

  Taizo stepped forward and extended a hand to Jiro.

  “Get up, Niisan,” he said, and the implied respect in that word so startled Jiro that he stopped weeping.

  Taizo helped him to his feet.

  “I would be dishonored if I allowed my own brother to lose face,” he told him. “My family and I will help you with the grape harvest. And I will look at your accounting and see if there is any way to reduce your financial burden. Once Haruo comes of age, we will see. I will not burden my eldest son with your debt, at least not unless I can find a way to expunge it.

  “And I insist on one thing: from this point on I will manage your business, since you are obviously incapable of doing so.”

  “Yes. Yes, whatever you say, Taizo. Thank you.”

  “And the first thing we are going to do is sell that damned Ford truck. Even if we only get thirty cents on the dollar, that will help pay for laborers to finish picking the grapes and perhaps the next strawberry crop too.”

  “What! But how will I transport my crop
to market?”

  “You have two horses. Do you still have a wagon?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Today we use your expensive telephone to look for a buyer for the truck. Tomorrow we hitch horses to the wagon and work begins in earnest.”

  * * *

  That evening, Taizo got up the nerve to tell Etsuko what their true circumstances were, bracing himself for a justifiably furious response. But after the initial shock, Etsuko could plainly see the shame in her husband’s eyes—and chose not to worsen it. She said only, “Well. We had best get to bed, then. It will be an early morning tomorrow.”

  They rose before dawn, Etsuko and Nishi putting large pots of coffee and tea on the stove and preparing a breakfast of rice, dried fish, natto—fermented soybeans—miso soup, and eggs.

  By six A.M. they were in the fields. Etsuko had worked long hours with Taizo at Waimānalo but had never picked grapes before; she and the boys had to be shown what to do. Jiro and Taizo handed out “picking knives” with sharp, scythelike blades, as Taizo demonstrated their proper use.

  Ruth was too young to be put to work, so she was free to play in the fields, running between rows of strawberry plants, chasing fleecy clouds propelled by swift winds, and digging holes to lovingly examine the insects, worms, and garden snakes that made their home in the earth. When she tired of this, Jiro took her to the pasture and showed her how to milk a cow.

  “Very good!” he said as Ruth’s small hands produced a dribble of milk from the cow’s udder. “From now on you are the official family cow milker!”

  “I like it here, Uncle Jiro,” Ruth said, beaming.

  “I am glad someone does,” he replied, his meaning lost on her.

  The rest of the Watanabe clan was having considerably less fun as, stooped over, they cut and picked the grapes, swatting away predatory wasps and occasionally nicking themselves with their knives. As the picking baskets filled up with fruit, Nishi and Etsuko took them to the cool interior of the barn, where they trimmed and cleaned them, then gently placed them into wooden boxes that were to be delivered daily to the Florin Fruit Growers Association—which then transferred them to train cars, packed with ice, to be shipped east.