Because under all of the agony, a small flicker of rage had grown, a feeling so foreign to him that he didn’t even recognize it.
His mouth opened almost involuntarily: “I... am... an... American.” He spoke the words carefully, as if he were afraid they would shatter. “I was born in this country, and I am loyal to it.”
The strength of his voice surprised her, the words coming distinct and round, like cannonballs. So that she thought: Who is this man? This man who has taken tea right at my very own table?
“I am an American,” he said again, only this time his voice was softer and strangely calm, and still those dark, earnest eyes seemed to bore into her very soul.
For long, agonizing moments, they stood in the terrible silence, looking into each other’s eyes. Then finally, finally, Miss Anne spoke. “Yes,” she said simply. “Yes. You’re an American.”
Her own words seemed to soothe her, and she took a deep breath. “I was just afraid, God forgive me. I was thinking that someone would come and take it all out on you—maybe a mob even, come and... hang... you, thinking that you were one of them! I tell you, people will be infuriated by this horrible and cowardly thing!’’
“Thank you, Miss Anne, for worrying about me. But I am safe. I am an American.’’
“But will you promise me that you’ll be careful?” she asked. “Some people may not understand that as well as I do.’’
“I will be careful,” Mr. Oto assured her, bowing.
“And that’s exactly what I mean,” she said in a voice so soft that he could hardly hear it.
“What?”
“The bowing you do. You shouldn’t do that anymore.’’
“Excuse me?” he almost bowed again, but stopped himself.
“We’ve all seen those newsreels at the movie over in Brunswick, and that’s the way those Japs do all the time. Bow and bow at each other.” Her voice began to crack. “Bow even to our ambassadors and then turn around and attack us!’’
Mr. Oto had never seen her so angry before.
“Pigs!” she spat out the word and then turned and went silently back across the garden.
He stood at the gate for a long time, until his heart slowed its pounding and he could breathe once again. His one thought was that he should go to Sophie right away. But then... supposed this terrible news would cause her to end her friendship with him? That, he simply could not bear. But the mere thought of it taught him, once again, the true meaning of a broken heart.
In the end, he did not go to Sophie, could not bear the possibility that she would now hate him. If that happened, it could wait until the next Sunday, when he would go to the riverbank to paint, as always.
And maybe she would come.
And maybe she wouldn’t.
Around that same time, Sophie was sitting in a wicker armchair on her sun porch, reading a little, but more often, simply looking out across the backyard and thinking of the beautiful Sunday morning she’d had in Mr. Oto’s company.
From the radio in Sophie’s kitchen came soft strains of music. But then some static and an excited voice saying something—almost yelling something that she couldn’t quite make out. A strident sound that seemed all out of place on such a beautiful afternoon. She waited for the music to resume, but the voice just kept going on and on.
Finally, she got up and went into the kitchen, and in that first moment when she fully comprehended the news about the attack on Pearl Harbor, she felt her world change forever.
War! This will mean war once again. All the fine young men going off to die in distant battlefields. Like Henry.
But then, right away, another thought leaped into her mind:
Grover!
A sudden, loud knocking on her front door and her feet moving mindlessly into the living room. Grover?
But when Sophie opened the door, Miss Ruth was standing on her porch, her mouth in an impatient pout and her shoulders huffy and offended-looking.
“Miss Ruth?”
“Yes,” Miss Ruth answered. “Who did you think it would be?” she asked suspiciously.
“Uh... come in, please.”
The polite words came out, despite the turmoil in her heart, and somehow, her mama’s voice showed up in her ears: “You must always have good manners, Sophie!”
Miss Ruth entered the living room, glancing around as if seeking something to criticize. Sophie still stood at the door, unable to move her feet.
“Sophie? I’ve come to ask why you aren’t coming to church anymore.”
“I...” Somehow, Sophie couldn’t make her mouth work just right.
“Sophie?”
Silence. Only silence.
“What’s wrong with you, Sophie? Are you ill?”
“I... can’t talk right now.” The words sounded weak and tired, but inside, Sophie’s heart and mind were a jumble of mindless, flapping wings, darting this way and that, flying into each other and then darting off in another direction.
“Sophie? I’m speaking to you! Are you ill?” Miss Ruth’s shrill, relentless voice.
“Pearl Harbor!” Sophie finally managed to say.
“What? What are you talking about? Have you lost your mind?”
A terrible sob erupting from Sophie’s chest, and her hating herself for it. “The base at Pearl Harbor. In Hawaii. It’s been bombed!”
“What? Bombed, you say? Bombed?” Miss Ruth put a shaking hand over her heart. “But who? Who would do such a thing? And how do you know this?”
“Radio,” Sophie whispered. “On the radio.”
“But who?” Miss Ruth insisted. “Who bombed the base?” Miss Ruth’s beady eyes were filled with both alarm and tears.
“Japan.” Sophie breathed out the word.
“Oh! My dear Lord!” Miss Ruth’s voice caught in her throat.
“Miss Ruth, I’m sorry. I just can’t talk right now. Please ma’am, just you go on home and listen to the radio yourself. Please,” Sophie added again.
And Sophie was ever so grateful when Miss Ruth started moving toward the door.
“Japan,” Miss Ruth muttered, and then she stopped right in her tracks.
“You better stop spending time with that Chinaman of Anne’s, right away, Sophie. He’s a stranger—a foreigner—maybe even a spy!”
Sophie couldn’t speak a word.
“You better stop!” Miss Ruth warned again in a terrible whisper. And then she was gone.
On her way back through the kitchen, Sophie turned the radio off. But the words and their terrible images still remained in the room:
Sneak attack!
Bombs falling!
Ships burning!
Sophie went back to the sun porch, where she had been sitting so peacefully. She stared silently at the chair she had been sitting in, the book she had been reading, the cup of tea on the table—all things from what felt like a different world, with everything now divided into before and after.
And Grover. What about her dear friend Grover?
“No,” she whispered. “Not Grover, but just Grove—a peaceful, green place.”
A stranger? No.
A foreigner? No—an American.
A spy?
Never!
Of Japanese ancestry? Yes, “But only Grove and I know about that.”
A good, gentle man? Yes.
And the Sunday mornings of painting together and talking? What would happen to that?
His face seemed to appear before her: the deep, kind eyes—the color of the finest garden soil; the gentle smile; the clean-sunshine aroma of him.
And then Miss Ruth’s mean face appeared and her bitter words sounded in Sophie’s ears. “You better stop spending time with that Chinaman of Anne’s, right away!”
“No, Miss Ruth. No,” Sophie said aloud. “You sound like maybe we have something to hide, but we don’t. You make it sound dirty, but it isn’t! We’re simply friends, and I will not give up my friend!”
It isn’t like that, Mama. He’s a very nice
man.
In the cottage at the back of Miss Anne’s garden, Mr. Oto poured himself a cup of tea with hands that shook so badly, he almost spilled it.
What insanity! he was thinking. A sneak attack? How dishonorable! How enraged the Americans will be—we will be! We are!
And he wondered if Miss Anne was right about people in the town taking out their rage on him. Even if they all thought he was Chinese, not Japanese, wouldn’t the sight of his oriental features be enough to send them into a rage?
The people of the town—how to tell what they would think or do. Because in the two years he had lived there, even though no one said anything unkind to him—except for Matilda, who was always somehow resentful toward him—he felt the chill behind their polite manners and their half-frozen smiles. And he also knew that even though he and Sophie could quietly meet to paint and talk on Sunday mornings, if they had been brazen enough to walk down the street together, even the half-frozen, smallest of smiles would stop, and the eyes would be hostile and accusing. That is, unless he walked behind her and carried her packages, as if he were a servant.
My dear Sophie! What is to become of our friendship now?
And the full grief came upon him at that moment. The loss would be unbearable!
But what am I thinking? Here will be war, and all I can think about is losing the Sunday mornings with my beloved. What kind of a man does that?
Chapter Twelve
Miss Anne said:
Oh, it was a terrible thing, I tell you! The whole world turned upside down, it seemed like, so that the little things I had been worried about—like making sure Mr. Oto planted the pink dogwoods in a straight row—suddenly seemed completely unimportant.
And another thing: The weather had turned unseasonably warm—made me feel like the whole world was getting ready to explode!
Our town was in such a state of shock—the whole country as well, I guess. But we didn’t know about all of that yet.
Because back then, we didn’t have television or anything like that, so all we had was the radio, mostly.
A couple of days after that terrible attack on Pearl Harbor, Mr. Johnson—he owned the drug store—started getting his clerk to drive all the way to Brunswick early every morning, to bring big-city newspapers back to Salty Creek. Because all we had was a weekly paper.
Every single day, folks were all lined up to buy those newspapers so they could read about the war.
And a war it certainly became—the very next day! President Roosevelt talked on the radio about the day that would “live in infamy,” and later that same day, Congress declared that a state of war existed between the United States and Japan.
But the night of December seventh was one I would remember for the rest of my life—me making it through the late afternoon doing things that felt normal, but in such a complete silence.
I wound all the clocks in the house—the Seth Thomas mantel clock in the living room and the Regulator school clock in what had been the study—and yes, I still kept the study exactly as it had been the very day my husband passed on. And I took all the kitchen towels out of the deep drawer beside the sink and refolded all of them. At the last, I polished every single piece of silver in my whole house. Like maybe just wearing myself completely out would make me stop thinking about Pearl Harbor—and maybe about folks getting to hate that dear Mr. Oto for something he didn’t have a blessed thing to do with—and get myself so tired out, I’d be able to sleep.
But no matter how hard I worked, worried little feelings kept landing on me—like big buzzards that were so fat, they could hardly fly at all.
Did I really know Mr. Oto?
Wasn’t he, indeed, a foreigner?
Well, he certainly looked like one!
And all that bowing!
But in the next instant, all I could see was that freshly scrubbed gentleman taking tea at my very own table—his courteous manners, the clean-soap aroma of him, and those strong, brown hands holding one of my mama’s teacups ever so carefully!
My Mr. Oto! An American man!
Well, I even drank a glass of warm milk before I went to bed—and how I do hate that! Still, I had to try everything I knew so I would be able to get some sleep.
But none of it worked. Because everything had changed—no denying that. So I went to bed but not to sleep. Instead, I decided that Mr. Oto would work only in the back of the house from now on, and whenever I had the chance, I would remind folks that he was Chinese, not Japanese! But then, I heard his gentle voice reminding me—and I sure did need reminding!—that he was an American.
A long, sleepless, terrible night it was.
The faucet in the bathroom dripped—plunk... plunk... plunk.
And a creaking sound in the hallway, like maybe a whole bunch of the enemy was coming to get me. And then the squawking of a strange-sounding and completely unfamiliar bird in my back garden.
Why, the beginnings of daylight were coming around the sides of my curtains before I finally fell asleep. But even then, it was a fitful sleep, full of blazing torches and white sheets and fear!
Chapter Thirteen
True to her word, Miss Anne forbade Mr. Oto to work in front of the house or to go anyplace where the people of the town would see him. Whenever they needed anything from town, Miss Anne sent Matilda or went herself. Mr. Oto remained out of sight.
The shock of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the war still seemed heavy on the town. Few people were out on the streets, but anyone walking along could hear the radios in almost every house—unseen voices droning out the terrible casualties America had endured—the USS Arizona, in particular, going down with over a thousand American souls lost.
Mr. Oto worked in the back garden with slow, leisurely movements that belied the turmoil he was feeling. And when the work was done, he spent many hours sitting in his hut, going deep inside himself to determine what he should do, if anything. For he knew that something was coming, that the people would eventually recover from their shock. And what they would feel would be a terrible, terrible outrage. What would they do with the outrage? That was the question. Oh, yes, that was certainly the question!
Would they form up a mob and come for him? And if they did, would they also come for Miss Anne, for harboring the enemy?
And what about Sophie?
At the thought of her name, an involuntary sob burst from his chest.
So that slowly, slowly, he began to understand what he must do. But first, he had to see his beloved Sophie—one last time.
So he endured the longest week of his entire life, and the next Sunday—exactly one week after Pearl Harbor—he went to the river, just as usual. But this time, he awakened very early, dressed in the dark before first light, and left for the river while night would still conceal him.
He had long hours to wait—if indeed, she came at all—but he was somehow strangely grateful for those hours. He sat by the river as quietly as the stump of a tree and breathed the day in and out, as light began untangling itself from the darkness. So that everything there was to see and to be with arose bit by bit out of the obscurity of night.
First the gray Spanish moss hanging from the branches of the live oak took on the wiry texture that separated it from the smooth, dark sky. And the line of sawgrass across the river grew slowly distinct from the dark surface of the water. The sky itself slowly turned first a deep, rain-soaked gray and then pearl and finally, a soft and delicate rose. All of it so profound that Mr. Oto felt as if he were being reborn with the birth of the new day. And he was sure that Sophie would come to him there.
Finally, he began to sense her presence, almost as if he were willing her into being. He felt her walking toward him, even though he heard not a single footstep. So that when he turned his head slowly and she drifted into the edge of his vision, he was not surprised in the least.
He stood up and took a deep breath before he looked into her eyes—to see whatever was in them. And when he did look full into her face, all of hi
s concerns that she would think of him as the enemy vanished into the brilliant air. Because when she looked at him, there was no scorn, no anger, no bitterness—just a slightly bruised look about her, as if something deeply sad had entered her heart. So that he longed to take her into his arms, cradle her fine head on his shoulder, encase her with his body, so that nothing hurtful should ever come near her.
“I am so glad you have come,” he finally managed to say.
Sophie took a sudden step toward him and then stopped. “I’ve been worried about you,” she said in a clear, strong voice that rose above the bruised look of her eyes.
Mr. Oto touched the center of his chest. “You have been worried about me?”
“Why, yes!” She seemed surprised.
“Oh, but it is I who have been worried about you!” he stammered.
For a moment, they seemed close to laughing, but what was passing between them was far too serious for laughter.
“It’s just that I haven’t seen you since...”
“I know. Miss Anne thinks it’s better for me not to be seen at all, right now.”
“Oh.”
Mr. Oto stared at the ground, thinking of what he knew was coming, and when he looked up again, Sophie was studying his face.
“What is it?” he whispered.
“I’m afraid for you, now that all this has happened. I’m afraid for you.”
“Yes,” he said simply. And then he added, “You shouldn’t be seen with me.”
“I know.”
And the tone of her voice told him that there was already talk about Sophie and her friendship with a foreigner, a Chinaman, a lowly gardener.
“Has someone criticized you... because of me?” His concern for her was deep and most painful.
“Warned me,” Sophie confessed, and then her cheeks flamed and a look of high resolve flashed in her eyes. “But the person who warned me is the same one who cost me my best friend when I was a little girl. I won’t let her do that to me again!”
Sophie and the Rising Sun Page 7
