“It’s an American tank, honey. Probably training. We’re safe.”
I tore my face away and looked down at the tank. A man stood atop, next to the gun turret. Jean jumped up and down, waving, and he waved back. Probably wondering what a bunch of women and kids were doing in the bushes. The hatch opened and four more soldiers spilled out.
One of the men climbed over to our side of the road. He took off his helmet and smiled. “Sorry to inconvenience you ladies,” he yelled. “We were on a drill to block the road. We’ll have it moved out in no time.”
“Inconvenience us all you want. We’re just glad to see you,” Mama said.
When I settled into bed that night, I practiced my thank-yous. Uncle Henry, the kahuna healer man, told me this was an ancient Hawaiian remedy. Instead of wasting thoughts on what bad things happened, or might happen, I am supposed to concentrate on what I am lucky for. Depending on my mood, I come up with a short list or a long list. Tonight, I noticed my list was growing longer. Soldiers protecting us, chicken sweaters, butterflies, sugarcane lemonade, Hiro, Umi, Roscoe, Coca-Cola, an endless supply of coconuts and honey, Mama still alive, Spam, American tanks.
One thing led to another, and before I knew it, I was lulled to sleep with the unspooling of good thoughts.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Violet
Fall continued to deepen around them, with its thin air and windless nights. When she passed the soldiers marching roadside, their faces were no longer flaming red. For Violet, it meant getting through the school day without her dress plastered to her back.
“Mama, what’s an intern?” Ella asked as they washed rice one afternoon.
“Well, that depends. Why do you want to know?”
“Because Umi says her dad is being transferred to an intern camp in California.”
Explaining war things to children took a special kind of measuring. She always wavered between telling too much or not enough. Maybe it was a woman thing, wanting to shelter them from all the fear. But one thing she had figured out early on was that the kids usually found out on their own. “In the case you’re thinking of, to intern means to lock someone up. To make them a prisoner.”
“But I don’t understand. Takeo never did anything,” Ella said.
Violet sat her daughter down, leaving the rice to soak. “You and I know that without a doubt. But there are people that want proof. And until they find that proof, he will stay in the camp.”
“If they go, I won’t have any friends. Except for the soldiers.”
They’re leaving, too, Violet thought, but didn’t have the heart to say it out loud. Funny how the soldiers were both a blessing and a curse. But when you broke it down into individual beings, there were the good and the not so good, just like in any situation.
Since the night of the downed jalopy, Ella had taken a few steps backward in progress. For several days afterward, she refused to eat, her scabs looked raw and picked, and her mood turned sulky. Violet had been trying to sleep in her own bed more often lately, but gave in. She always gave in.
“You know what?” Violet said. “When I was your age, I had fewer friends than you do. Our farm was out in the sticks and there was no time to play. When I wasn’t in school, I had to help Daddy plant seeds, cut corn and can anything that grew. Wilma Newman was the only girl close to our house, and I always secretly thought she was a boy.”
Ella asked, “Was she?”
“No, it was just that they had three boys and not enough money to buy new clothes for their only daughter. It wasn’t until high school that I actually had real friends. But looking back, having all that time to myself was a good thing. You know why?”
Ella thought hard, her face pinched in concentration. “Why?”
“Because I got to be friends with myself. I played chase with the wild turkeys, I discovered an old Indian campsite full of arrow tips, and I taught myself to read Winnie-the-Pooh and The Velveteen Rabbit. Those books were two of my sweetest friends, and after I mastered those, I read whatever I could get my hands on. By the time I was ten, I got through Mrs Dalloway, even though I had no idea what it was about.”
“Who’s Mrs. Dalloway?”
“Never mind. The point is, we have to learn to make do with what we have, sweetie, even if it’s different from everyone else. If we learn to love our own lives, a magic doorway opens and our dreams become real.”
Ella was frowning. “How come you never told me about this?”
She had to think an answer. “Of course, it’s not an actual physical doorway. It’s more like a door in your mind, or your heart, that when you’re paying attention, leads you to places you want to go in life. But you have to tune in.”
“How do you tune in?” Ella hung on every word and this new development involving magic.
“That’s where it gets tricky. When you’re happy where you are, not wishing you were somewhere else or someone else, the door begins to crack. Like when you’re drawing, or with Brownie or Roscoe. In a way, you have to stop thinking.”
Slanted sunlight fell in on the table between them and it dawned on Violet that she should listen to her own advice. In truth, the ideas had been from her grandmother, and as they tumbled from her mouth, she almost heard her grandmother’s voice, scratchy but always ripe with an inner smile.
“How do you stop thinking?”
She squeezed Ella’s bony hand. “Little Miss Curiosity wants to know everything, doesn’t she? If I knew exactly how to stop thinking, I’d be one of those Shinto priests. But from what I gather, the best way is to become friends with this moment, and to live it with all your might.”
Snowflake entered the kitchen then, arching up her back and making figure eights between their legs. Her purr sounded like a small motor, and it revved each time Ella bent down to pet her.
“I’m going to practice,” Ella said.
“It’s not always easy.”
But the practice of emptying your mind of all thought was what mattered most.
* * *
One thing that nagged at Violet was that she and Jean had neglected the neighbors in favor of the soldiers. They’d spent their evenings gathering and preparing pie ingredients, and their weekends selling pies and socializing. To remedy that, they decided to invite the Codys, Luther Hodges, Ethyl Grimm, Bella Matthison and the Hamasus over for chili and rice one evening. As the sun dropped below the treetops, everyone stood around the radio munching on salted peanuts and listening to the account of the first B-29 Superfortress flying a raid over Tokyo.
“Brigadier General Emmett O’Donnell, in Dauntless Dotty, leads one hundred and eleven B-29 bombers from the tiny island of Tinian fifteen hundred miles away to Tokyo, where they unleashed their loads over the Musashima Engine Factory thirty thousand feet below. Folks, we have arrived in Tokyo! I repeat, Tokyo has been bombed by American forces!”
There was a small measure of comfort in knowing that all the marines who’d lost their lives on Tinian had done so for a cause. Violet had learned that Tinian was critical in the island-hopping tactic, allowing American forces to set up bases for their massive bombers so much closer to Japan.
Jean stood next to her, stone-faced. Any mention of Tinian, and Bud was immediately on her mind, even though she claimed he was a knucklehead. On tough days, she still set up bottles in the backyard as target practice using rotten tomatoes. “Our Second Division did well, didn’t they?” Jean said.
The room filled up with hopeful feelings of victory—so strong, you could have scooped out helpings and served them up on a plate.
Luther showed up late, and when he walked through the front door, he carried with him the scent of liquor and tobacco. He’d been drunk last time he came over, too. Maybe the war was getting to him. He wouldn’t be the only one.
His voice boomed. “What’s all the hoopla?”
“Di
d you hear about Tokyo?” she asked.
“What about it?”
“That our bombers made it there,” she said.
He walked over to the radio and bent down, holding his ear up to the speaker, even though it was plenty loud. He smeared his hands over his beard and said, “’Bout time. Teach those Japs a lesson.” When he spoke, spit came out of his mouth.
Regardless that America was at war with the Japanese, she still grew rigid when people used the word Jap. At least when some people referred to her as haole, they didn’t mean it in a bad way. Not the case here. She glanced at Setsuko, who had been quiet from her morning visit to Kilauea Camp and seeing Takeo.
“He’s suffering from a bad case of hopelessness,” she had said upon returning. “He’s putting up a good front but his eyes are empty and he’s lost a lot of weight.”
She could have said the same for Setsuko, who looked downright miserable.
“Is there a date?” Violet had asked.
They had been told that as soon as the military could spare room on a boat, he and the other prisoners would be shipped off to a tent city in California. Setsuko would pack up the kids and follow him if it came to that. “No date. It could be tomorrow, for all we know.”
Now Violet nodded toward Setsuko. “Please have some respect in our household, Luther.”
He motioned as though he was zipping his lips, with no apologies. Perspiration matted his thin hair to his temples. This was a new Luther, not the jovial shop teacher whom all the kids loved and her reliable handyman. She decided that this would be the last time she invited him over. Manners mattered, even in war.
Over dinner, all Luther wanted to talk about was how the damn kamikazes blasted up the USS Lexington and how to handle them. “We need to just sink their whole island. And from what I hear, it’s in the works.”
“How can we sink a whole island?” Jean said, looking bothered by his ranting.
“Ever hear of an atomic bomb?” he asked.
No one had.
“My goons tell me the government has a top secret project in New Mexico, building bombs as we speak. Not the kind that destroys a building—the kind that will flatten a whole city, even sink an island like Japan.”
Jean crossed her arms. “Japan is more than one island.”
“Well, all the islands, then,” Luther said.
Violet glanced over at the kids, who were eating at the card table off to the side. All of them stared at Luther with their forks down, mouths hanging open. “Please, Luther, the kids don’t need to hear this.”
A bomb like that sounded like bad news.
“Just giving you the dope.”
Luther seemed to be so full of hatred. He scared her a little. And that made her not trust him. She couldn’t say why, just that nagging feeling in the back of your mind saying, Watch out.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Violet
For weeks now, all anyone could talk about was the upcoming rodeo. Local paniolo from Parker Ranch and leathernecks from places like Iowa and Wyoming would be putting on a show—bronco riding, steer roping, bulldogging. According to the posters hung around town, they’d even be holding a greased pig contest.
People placed bets on who would come out ahead, but Violet kept her ideas to herself. Most of the cocksure mainlanders had no idea what they were up against. She’d seen the paniolo in action. And having grown up on a farm, she knew her way around horses.
The first time Herman drove her through Waimea town, she had marveled at the high-stepping horses and the Hawaiians who rode them. These cowboys were three generations deep. Herman explained that it all began when George Vancouver presented King Kamehameha with five cows. Cows had a way of multiplying, and in the 1830s, when the wild cattle ranged out of control, the king sent a high chief to California to find cowboys who could teach the Hawaiians. He returned with three Mexicans, who taught them how to break horses and round up the cattle. The Hawaiians didn’t have the letter S in their alphabet, and no one could pronounce espaniola, so they made do with paniolo. It was the start of the Hawaii cattle industry, long before any of the Western territories had ranching traditions.
Ella had never been to a rodeo and pestered Violet every two minutes about wanting her very own cowboy hat. “We’ll have to see about that. A cowboy hat is something you have to earn.”
The morning of the rodeo, they rose early. When Jean traipsed out of the bedroom in a long denim skirt and a checkered ruffly affair on top, Violet couldn’t hold back a whistle. Jean’s hair was braided to one side and her lips looked to be on fire.
“No woman in their right mind would want to be standing next to you today,” Violet said.
Jean smiled. “I want to do some bulldogging of my own. But not with a steer.”
“Oh, stop. Haven’t you learned yet?”
“No, ma’am. Tie me to a tree and whip me—I’m still a sucker for a man in uniform.”
“I guess sometimes you need a couple of doses of medicine before it works. So my father would have said.”
Jean held the back of her hand to her forehead and moaned. “Give me another dose, please, Doctor.”
* * *
Only Irene Ferreira could pronounce the name of the corral, Pu’uhihale. And Ella, who sounded like a native in her own right. Irene had them all practicing on the way to town. “Come on—how long have you girls lived in Hawaii? You need to be able to say it right. Think Winnie-the-Pooh. Pooh-ooh-hee-hollay.”
Jean slumped back after several unsatisfactory attempts. “My tongue will always rebel against these vowel-happy words.”
Violet kept trying.
As they approached the vicinity of the stone corral, which was just across the main road from Camp Tarawa, cars lined up in all directions. Violet looked over at Ella, who rested her chin on the car door. If only Umi and Hiro had come, but Setsuko insisted on taking them to church. From the looks of it, they might be the only people on the island in church today. Setsuko believed the more face-to-face time with God these days, the better. Who could blame her?
The edges of the corral were thick with people, who spilled over the rock walls and into the dusty field.
“Zach said to sit where we have a view of the chutes, over here. Look, there he is!” Jean said.
At the mention of Zach’s name, Irene’s hands immediately went to her hair and she fussed with stray strands blown from the wind. She stood up straighter and sucked in her stomach. Violet knew the signs.
He must have come early, because he had secured prime seating, even if it was just on the wall. Tommy and a few boys Violet recognized sat around him, lower lips full of tobacco.
Zach made room for their group. “Glad you guys made it in time for the pig scramble. Apparently, it’s a crowd favorite.” He grinned like a fool. “Guess who they put in charge of greasing the pig?”
“Let me guess. Sergeant Stone?” Jean said, winking at Violet, who had been wondering where Parker was and feeling guilty about it.
“None other. Want to go back and watch?”
“I’ll keep your spots,” Tommy offered.
They wound through the jeeps and trucks that formed the outer boundary of the arena to a smaller holding pen out back. The sun was out in full force, magnifying the scent of manure and wet morning grass.
Zach reached down for Ella’s hand, and she skipped along next to him in her overalls. “Did you bring Roscoe?” she asked.
“Nope. He stayed back on account of some trouble he caused last night. Got loose and chased a herd of puppies through camp. Some hunters in Hawaii got the bright idea that our men would be suckers for an unwanted litter, and, boy, were they on the nose.”
Ella looked worried, and Zach quickly continued.
“I know Roscoe just wanted to play. He wants friends. Imagine being the only lion in town. But not everyo
ne saw it that way. With all the livestock here today, we thought it best to leave him.”
Violet knew that as Roscoe matured, things might grow more troublesome, but she held her tongue.
At the back corral, Parker leaned against a kiawe-wood fence post talking with a paniolo whose copper face was crossed with fault lines. Like all the marines, Parker wore khakis, a cotton button-up and a piss-cutter hat. If you were judging on attire, the leathernecks had already lost. Every Hawaiian she’d seen was decked out in colorful plaid or palaka shirts, bandannas and hats ringed with flower or feather lei. Even some of their horses wore lei around their necks.
When he spotted Violet, he waved them over. There was that funny feeling in between her ribs again. Like a flopping fish, whacking her insides with its tail. Parker was causing feelings she’d never quite felt before. She hoped it was just a light-headed infatuation, but worried there might be more to it.
“Morning, ladies. Meet Sonny Huehue, legendary in these parts.”
Sonny removed his hat and kissed each of their hands, lingering at Ella. Normally, she flinched in situations like this, but her eyes remained fixed on the old man’s. “How old are you?”
“Ten.”
“I have a granddaughter your age. Her roping skills are going to surpass mine pretty soon. Maybe she can teach you one of these days. Would you like that?”
“I’ve only been on a horse a couple of times,” Ella said.
Why not add another animal to the list?
“You come down here on a Saturday or Sunday. I’m not here, tell ’em Sonny sent you.”
Ella glanced up at Violet, who gave her a thumbs-up.
Parker seemed antsy. “What’s the holdup on the pig?” he said to Sonny.
“You’ll see.”
A couple of horses grazed nearby, a sleek black gelding and a painted mare. The sound of ripping and crunching grass reminded her of Minnesota and little-girl days. The only difference was that there was no grass left back on the farm, only dust. Here, the moss-green grass grew knee-high. All the animals were fat from it, their coats shiny.
Island of Sweet Pies and Soldiers Page 17
