“What brought your parents to California?”
“Well, Papa always wanted his own farm. And in Hawai'i, I guess, there weren’t many opportunities of that kind for an Issei. You know what that is?”
Rachel smiled, nodded. “My husband was Japanese.”
Mortified, Ruth shaded her eyes with her hands. “Yes, of course he was. You had no idea you’d given birth to such an idiot, did you?”
But Rachel only laughed. “No, you’ve just either had too much to drink or not enough.” She sliced off a piece of pastry with her fork. “You were talking about your father?”
Ruth understood that Rachel was only trying to show an interest in her life, but her Japanese reserve made her hold back anything she feared would embarrass her family. So she omitted mention of the subterfuge on Uncle Jiro’s part that brought them to California and merely said that her father had gotten a lease on land in Florin. “I lived on our farm till I was eighteen, when I met Frank.”
She opened her purse and spread a fan of photographs on the table. She pointed to one of her husband. “That’s Frank.”
Rachel smiled. “He’s very handsome.”
“And this is Donald, and Peggy.” She pointed out photographs of Donnie in cowboy garb and Peggy posing shyly in a candy-striped blouse.
“As you can see,” Ruth said, “Donald wants to be Roy Rogers when he grows up. Peggy wants to grow up, period.”
Rachel asked, “May I…?” At Ruth’s nod she picked up the photos and, gazing at them, her smile blossomed with wonder and elation.
“They’re beautiful,” Rachel said softly.
“Thank you. I think so too, when they’re not driving me to drink.” Surprising herself, she asked, “Your husband. What was his name?”
Pleased, Rachel answered, “Kenji. Charles Kenji Utagawa.”
“Do you have a picture?”
Rachel took a snapshot from her purse, handed it to her, and Ruth saw her “natural” father for the first time: a handsome, smiling Nisei in his mid-thirties. In his face Ruth saw traces of her own—the same cheekbones; an echo of a smile—and in his eyes she unexpectedly saw something of Frank.
“He loved you so much, Ruth. He called you his baby, his akachan. The day you left Moloka'i he told you, ‘Papa loves you. He’ll always love you, and he’ll always be your papa.’” Her voice broke like glass on the last word.
Ruth’s tone was tender. “He looks … very kind.”
“He was. A very kind, sweet man.”
Ruth glanced up. “So he’s not—”
Rachel shook her head. “No. He was killed five years ago, in a fight with another resident named Crossen. A bigoted haole—white man—who hated Kenji because he was Japanese. Hated everyone and everything, really. Kenji tried to intervene when Crossen was beating his girlfriend, and died in the attempt.”
“I—I’m so sorry,” Ruth said. “That makes two fathers I lost to the war.”
“What do you mean?”
“My papa died at Tule Lake.” When she saw the blank look on Rachel’s face, Ruth elaborated, “The relocation camp.”
“Relocation?” Rachel repeated, as if not comprehending.
Ruth stared at her incredulously. “You don’t know? Where have you—” She stopped short, realizing too well where Rachel had been. “But—you had them too, didn’t you?”
Rachel, looking truly abashed, meekly shook her head.
“I don’t think so. Not in Hawai'i,” she said. “I … believe the Japanese made up too large a part of the workforce.”
Ruth said bitterly, “That sure didn’t stop them here! All those farms, no one to work them—”
“You went too?”
Ruth’s temper flared at what seemed an annoyingly dense question.
“Of course I went!” It was louder than she intended. At adjacent tables heads turned, diners glared. Ruth flushed in embarrassment or anger or both.
“We all went,” she said, lowering her voice. “The signs went up on May 23, and we were evacuated by May 30.”
“One week? They gave you one week?”
This was the last thing Ruth wanted to talk about, but she clearly couldn’t avoid it. She told Rachel about her family’s dispossession, about their months at Tanforan and years at Manzanar. She tried to keep a calm tone, but as she recounted the details, the fury in her heart reignited and the wound of her father’s death bled as if freshly cut. Rachel stared in disbelief, then horror. Ruth looked down to avoid meeting Rachel’s eyes.
As if reliving it all again, she explained about the loyalty questionnaire, her father’s transfer to Tule Lake, and his death there from pneumonia. Finally Ruth looked up—and was shocked to see that Rachel was weeping.
Ruth instantly regretted discussing this. Instinctively she took Rachel’s hand—her right hand, folded in on itself—and tried to stem her tears.
“I’m sorry,” Ruth said, “I shouldn’t have told you all this—it’s okay, we’re okay, really—”
“It’s not right. It’s not fair.”
“It wasn’t right. But it’s over.”
Rachel shook her head. “No. No.” There was torment in her eyes.
“You were supposed to be free,” Rachel said in a whisper. “You were never supposed to know what it was like to be taken from your home—separated from your family—to be shunned and feared.” Then, so softly Ruth could barely hear: “That was all I had to give you.”
The desolation in her voice felt like the sere emptiness of the high desert, where the keening wind echoed human despair.
Ruth got up without hesitation and folded her arms around Rachel, tenderly holding her as she would a frightened child and, in soft, consoling tones, told her, “It’s all right. Everything’s all right. It’s all over. I’m free. You’re free. It’s all”—and she said the word she knew she had to say, even if she didn’t feel it, not yet—“It’s all right, Mother. Everything’s all right…”
* * *
As Ruth escorted Rachel back to her room, her mind was a jumble of conflicting emotions: she felt profound pity for this woman’s tragic life, reluctant pleasure at the mystery of her hapa half at last revealed—and guilt that any emotional bond she might be forming with Rachel was a betrayal of the parents who had raised her. Unable to reconcile her love for them with her growing, traitorous affection for this woman, Ruth panicked. After returning Rachel to her room and making sure she would be all right, she invented somewhere she had to be, started to say her goodbyes …
“Wait,” Rachel interrupted, a bit desperately, “just a minute. Please. I … have something for you.”
With her left hand she removed a large suitcase from the closet, hefted it one-handed onto the bed, and asked Ruth to open it.
With some trepidation—as if she were opening an inverted Pandora’s box that might suck her love for her parents forever inside—Ruth opened it.
Whatever she was expecting to see, this wasn’t it.
The suitcase was packed with gift boxes—dozens of them, in every shape and color. There was one the size of a pillbox, wrapped in pink and crowned by a bright red bow almost bigger than the box itself; another wrapped in lavender, ornamented with a yellow ribbon teased and curled into something resembling a flower; and a large box covered by light blue foil that shimmered like the sky on a hot August day. Too many to take in all at once. Christmas had never been celebrated in her parents’ home, but Ruth imagined this is what it would have felt like—sneaking downstairs on Christmas morning, overwhelmed by a glittering pile of gifts under the tree.
Rachel seemed to take great pleasure in saying, “Happy birthday,” and when Ruth stammered a reply, Rachel prompted, “Open them, if you like.”
One by one Ruth opened them. Each gift was modest yet chosen with impeccable taste: a baby’s rattle that might have captivated her attention as an infant; a Raggedy Ann doll she would surely have loved when she was three; an elegant fashion doll that six-year-old Ruth might have proudly show
n off to her friends; a set of combs and hair brushes for a thirteen-year-old’s vanity table; and many more. Thirty-two years, thirty-two presents.
Ruth unwrapped the last one—a copy of Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener—and held it in hands that were suddenly trembling.
Her family had always celebrated birthdays on New Year’s Day, but on her actual birthday Ruth sometimes found herself wondering whether there was someone, somewhere, thinking of her. Now she was presented with proof that there had been, and she was speechless with emotion.
“My God,” she said. “You did this every year? For me?”
“We did,” Rachel said. “Kenji and I.”
Ruth cleared a spot on the now-crowded bed and sat.
“Tell me about him,” Ruth said. “Kenji. My … father.”
Ruth did not leave for home. She listened to a life’s story that was, she discovered, richer than it was sad. She learned about Kenji, who on his first day of work at a Honolulu bank was arrested for being a leper, his career gone in an instant; her grandfather, Henry, a merchant seaman who brought Rachel dolls he found on his travels and inspired her own thirst to see the world; her brother Kimo, who also contracted leprosy; and her grandmother, Dorothy, who hid her son in Kula, in the wilds of upcountry Maui, and tenderly cared for him for the rest of his short life. She learned of Rachel’s hānai auntie, Haleola, a Native Hawaiian healer who opened up for Rachel a world of magic and myth out of Hawai'i’s past; her friends Leilani and Sister Catherine and Francine, Rachel’s cherished 'ohana at Kalaupapa, all but Catherine now gone. She learned what 'ohana truly meant, and that she was a part of it. She began to understand that none of this could replace or usurp the family she had always known, but only enriched what she already possessed. With wonder and a growing absence of fear she realized: I am more than I was an hour ago.
* * *
She returned home late that evening and in her excitement repeated almost all of what Rachel told her to Frank, and of how longingly she had looked at the photographs of Donnie and Peggy. “I’d—like to bring her home to meet them,” she said nervously. “If that’s all right with you.”
Frank was cautious but not dismissive. “Dr. Higuchi said the sulfa drugs reduced the bacteria in a patient’s body to noncontagious levels?”
“Yes. Rachel says she’s shown no sign of the disease for almost two years. The risk to us—to the kids—is basically nonexistent.” She added earnestly, “Oh, Frank, she’s lost so much in her life. She deserves to meet her grandchildren. They deserve to meet her.”
Frank let out a breath. “Okay. What about Etsuko?”
“I’ll ask her first thing tomorrow.”
Etsuko readily agreed and Ruth explained to the kids that they had a third grandmother—a Hawaiian grandmother—who was coming for a visit. Donnie said enthusiastically, “She’s from Hawai'i?”—though he pronounced it “How ah ya,” the way Arthur Godfrey did on his radio show. “Oh boy! Does she live in a grass shack?”
“Uh, no,” Ruth said. “She lives in an apartment building. One thing, though. She hurt her hand, years ago, so it looks a little scary at first. You two be good and don’t say anything to make her feel bad about it, okay?”
They nodded soberly and promised that they would not.
She called Rachel at her hotel and told her only that she would be picking her up for lunch in Japantown. Rachel seemed happy just to be seeing Ruth again—but when they pulled up in front of the house on Fifth Street, Rachel seemed confused: “I thought we were going to lunch?”
“We are,” Ruth said with a smile. “Frank is a great cook.”
The astonishment and joy in Rachel’s face was lovely to see.
Frank and the kids came out to greet Rachel. But preceding them was Max, who eagerly raced down the flagstone path to the sidewalk, barking a welcome. At first Ruth feared he would bowl Rachel over, but she just squatted down to his level as he approached, allowed him to sniff her left hand, and said, “Well now, I hadn’t heard about you, what’s your name?”
“This is Max. He’s still a puppy.”
“He certainly is.” Rachel scratched under his chin and allowed Max to lick her face, which both impressed and delighted Ruth.
“Did you have a dog at Kalaupapa?”
“Two. Hōku and Setsu. Pets were the only children we were allowed.”
Frank pulled Max away as Donnie and Peggy ran up to Rachel.
“Are you really our grandma from Hawai'i?” Donnie asked breathlessly.
“I am,” Rachel said, her eyes bright with the wonder of this boy. “Are you really my grandson from California?”
“Sure I am!”
She looked at Peggy. “And you’re my granddaughter? Peggy, isn’t it?”
“Yeah!”
There was such happiness in Rachel’s face that Ruth wanted to cry.
“You’re both so beautiful,” Rachel said softly. “More beautiful than I could ever have dreamed.”
She stood up just as Etsuko, moving a little more slowly these days at sixty-three, came down the flagstone path and, to Rachel’s surprise, draped a homemade lei of pink azalea blossoms around her neck.
“Aloha,” Etsuko said warmly.
Rachel, moved, made a small bow to her and said, “Konnichiwa.”
“My name is Etsuko. May I call you Rachel?”
“Of course. I’m honored to meet Ruth’s mother.”
“As am I,” Etsuko replied graciously.
The words brought tears to Rachel’s eyes.
“And I’m Frank.” He smiled and extended a hand. Rachel took it in her left hand as she gazed into his face.
“You have very kind eyes,” she told him.
* * *
The minute they were inside Peggy ran upstairs and came back holding up a recalcitrant Snowball to meet Rachel. “This is Snowball, she’s my best friend in the whole world,” Peggy said. “She even sleeps with me at night.”
Frank had prepared a delicious meal of sautéed sea bass, rice, and green beans. Over lunch, Etsuko peppered Rachel with questions about what Hawai'i was like these days and reminisced fondly about her days in Waimānalo and Honolulu’s Chinatown.
“If there was only one place I could revisit in this life,” Etsuko said wistfully, “it would be Honolulu. Some of the happiest years of my life were spent there.” Etsuko also solved a nagging problem of nomenclature for Ruth by inquiring of Rachel, “What is Hawaiian for ‘Mother’?”—and henceforth as Etsuko was Okāsan, Rachel was Makuahine. The kids called her “Grandma Rachel,” which seemed to please her greatly.
“What’s Hawai'i like?” Donnie wanted to know. “Are there cannibals and headhunters?”
“Donnie!” Ruth admonished.
Rachel just laughed. “Wrong hemisphere, I’m afraid. Though it’s said Hawai'i did have human sacrifice at one time, many centuries ago.”
“Neat!” Donnie declared. Peggy agreed enthusiastically.
Ruth sagged in her seat. “And you thought they were such angels.”
“Oh, you should’ve met me when I was their age,” Rachel said with a chuckle. She told her grandson, “Hawai'i is a place of gentle trade winds and crashing surf. Of sweet ukulele music and erupting volcanoes. Of peace and serenity and restless ghosts that march across the night.”
“Ghosts?” Peggy gasped.
“Volcanoes?” Donnie marveled. “Do they shoot lava into the air?”
“Sometimes.” Rachel told them a little of her childhood, the trolleys she used to ride, of body-surfing at Waikīkī and of her father Henry, the sailor. “He visited some of the most spectacular and beautiful places on earth,” she said, “but he always came back to Hawai'i because he loved Hawai'i best.”
When she mentioned the dolls he brought her from exotic ports, Peggy announced, “I have dolls!”—and immediately took her new grandma by the hand, up the steps, and into her bedroom, where she introduced her to her dolls. “This is Elsa, this one is Reiko, this is Maggie
.”
“Oh, they’re very pretty,” Rachel told her. “It’s good to have friends, isn’t it? Ones who love you and stay with you no matter what?”
“Yeah. ’Specially at night, when it’s dark.”
“Yes,” Rachel agreed, “especially then.”
Before the day was out Ruth and Frank invited Rachel to check out of her hotel and stay with them. There was a futon that Ralph slept on when he came over for the weekend, and Etsuko slept on that—rather happily; she had never quite taken to Western mattresses—while Rachel slept in her bed.
That first night, when Rachel took off her shoes and stockings, Etsuko couldn’t help but see that her feet were fleshy stumps—the toes having been resorbed back into the body. She looked away before Rachel noticed, but she thought: This woman has endured. She knows what it means to gaman.
Rachel stayed in California for two weeks, playing dolls and go and even cowboys and Indians with Donnie and Peggy. Ruth, watching them play, saw glimpses of the mother she might have had, even as Rachel delighted in the chance to be a grandmother as well as a mother for the first time.
One day Ruth drove everyone to San Francisco, one of the distant ports Rachel’s father had visited. They corkscrewed down Lombard Street, strolled along the Embarcadero, and rode cable cars. Ralph came over from Berkeley to join them for lunch at Fisherman’s Wharf, and after being introduced to Rachel he said with feigned puzzlement, “Okay, so you’re Ruth’s Hawaiian mother. But what does that make you to me? ‘Half mother’? No, that’s not right. ‘Mother once removed’? No, that’s not it either. There’s only one thing to do, Rachel: I’m going to hānai you.”
Other than Ralph, the only ones present who understood that were Rachel and Etsuko, and they both laughed.
“What does ha-nigh mean?” Peggy asked.
Etsuko said, “It is Hawaiian for ‘adopted by family’—and I think it is a fine idea, Ralph.”
“Then it’s official,” Ralph declared. “Rachel, you are now my hānai mother. This entitles you to worry about whether I’m eating right, do I have enough money, and ask me twice a week when my girlfriend Carol and I are going to get married. Welcome to the 'ohana.”
Daughter of Moloka'i Page 25
