Under the Blood-Red Sun

by Graham Salisbury

  Mama made a small gasping sound, then covered her mouth with her hand. Grampa scowled at the man.

  “They’re not messenger birds,” I said. “They’re racing pigeons, and some other kinds.”

  “Shhh, Tomi,” Mama said. “No talk like that to this man.”

  The army man glared at me, like he was trying to keep what I looked like in his mind. I thought he was going to slug me. I looked at the floor.

  The local guy came over and put his hand on my shoulder. “Listen, son. We’re just doing what we have to do. If there are enemy agents around here, we have to find them.… Do you understand that?”

  “Yes … I do.”

  “Good. So can you show us the pigeons?”

  I nodded, still looking at the floor.

  Grampa and I led them out into the yard. A fine light rain was falling. Lucky barked at the men and Grampa shushed her. Mama and Kimi watched from the porch.

  The army man stopped at the wire clothesline and nodded to one of the policemen. Mama watched him cut the wire and loop it around his hand.

  What was going on?

  “Let’s go,” the army man said, waiting for me and Grampa.

  We headed into the trees. The cold, muddy path pressed up between my toes. The air smelled clean again. No gunpowder. And the jackhammers from last night had stopped. When we got to the edge of the field, I pointed with my chin to the lofts. The army man glanced around the field, then strode over to the pigeons with the rest of us following silently.

  He studied the birds, his face blank. His eyes never even blinked. Spooky. A sudden gust of wind and rain rushed into the field. Little rivers ran down the guy’s slicker. Me and Grampa were getting soaked.

  “Destroy them,” the man said to Grampa.

  It took a couple of seconds to hit me.

  “What!” I said.

  The local guy grabbed my arm. “Hold on, son. They have to go.”

  “But why? They’re just racers.… No one sends any messages on them.” The policeman’s grip was rock tight, now holding both of my arms.

  “I’m sorry,” the army man said. “We’re at war.”

  Silence.

  “Go on,” he ordered Grampa. “Kill them.”

  The policeman let me go and I ran over to Grampa. “No, ojii-chan … no …” Grampa put his hand on my neck. He pulled me close to him. He’d never done that before. In that moment I knew the birds would die.

  “Grampa …?”

  “Go back house,” he said. “Get knife.… Get two … sharp ones. Go!” He shoved me away.

  I ran back through the trees. Destroy … Kill … Why? What did the pigeons have to do with anything?

  I leaped up the steps to the porch and burst into the front room. “Mama! Mama!”

  She was in the kitchen with Kimi, cutting an apple.

  “I need … I need two sharp knives.” I tried to slow down, remembering too late not to scare Kimi. I took deep breaths, gulped, and swallowed air.

  “Fish knife,” Mama said softly. Did she know this would happen?

  Kimi’s dark eyes were as round as plums.

  I took Papa’s two fish-cleaning knives, then ran back outside. The screen door slapped against the house. Kill the birds. Why? Who even knew how to put any kind of message on them? And where would they fly to? Japan? Stupid!

  The two policemen watched me run toward them, their arms crossed, frowning from under their plastic-covered flat-topped hats. Grampa stood next to them, looking small, but strong in his stubborn way. My eyes pleaded with him to say something, to tell me they’d changed their minds.

  I slowed down and walked up to the army man. I offered him the two knives, handles forward, the oiled blades razor-sharp and dark with age.

  “Not me, son. You and the old man.”

  “Me?” I said.

  Grampa reached over and took one of the knives. He ran his thumb over the cutting edge, then, without looking at me, pointed the knife to the loft the racers were in. “You get those,” he said. “I get these ones.”

  I turned to the policeman, the nice one. He shook his head.

  Without a word, Grampa and I reached in and removed the pigeons one by one and silently bled them to death with quick, clean slits across the throat. Blood spurt out over my arms, my shirt, dripped from my hands, landed on my feet. We dropped the fluttering bodies to the grass, one by one. When we were done, we laid them all in a long line on the ground. The blood turned the wet grass a glistening red-brown. A sourness rose from my stomach, swelled at the back of my throat, like gasoline. I could barely see through my flooding eyes.

  The memory of the gentle cooing of thirty-five silky-feathered pigeons slowly died away, faded away, bled away … and, finally, in silence, flowed down into the earth forever.

  I stood looking down at the silent line of bodies. They never had a chance. They just had to take it.

  Grampa reached over and took my knife, then put both knives on top of one of the lofts. He wiped his hands on his pants and faced the army man. “We are ’merican,” he said, glaring into the man’s eyes. “We talk Inglish.… We no make trouble.”

  I looked at Grampa like it was for the first time in my life. Grampa? Did you say that? You who gets your flag out and says We are Japanese?

  His words … exactly like Papa’s. Had they been in him all along? I suddenly felt so proud of that old man.

  The army man nodded, then stared down at the bloody grass. After a moment he looked up. “I’m sorry, son …”

  He paused, then said, “When your father gets home we will want to talk to him. But then, we’ll probably catch him at the harbor.”

  The men left, bending a trail of wet grass toward the trees. Why Papa? What did he do?

  “Kuso,” Grampa whispered, kneeling down by the birds. His hands were red, sticky with blood. I rubbed mine on my bloody shirt. I rubbed and rubbed, but the blood stuck to me. I ripped the shirt off and threw it into the bushes. I never wanted to see it again.

  Grampa put his hand on my shoulder. “Come, boy. We take home, put on ice … at least can eat, nah?”

  Careful to keep the pigeons out of Kimi’s sight, Grampa and I plucked and washed the birds out behind the water tank. We wrapped them in old rice bags and hid them in the back of Mama’s ice box until Mama and Grampa could spread them among their friends.

  After that, Grampa and I washed our hands, side by side. Then Grampa went out to his chickens, to be alone. But I stayed at the water tank and washed and washed and washed and washed.

  I crawled under the house and sat cross-legged in the dirt with Lucky’s puppies tumbling in and out of my lap, nudging each other and taking turns gnawing on my fingers. I felt hollow and sick. I wanted to throw up. But I couldn’t.

  • • •

  It was Monday, and Mama should have been up at the Wilsons’ house, working. She was so confused she didn’t know what to do. She was scared to death to go there after what had happened. She finally decided to go anyway, but when she got there Mrs. Wilson wouldn’t let her in the house. Mama’s eyes were red and puffy when she came back home.

  Later that afternoon Mama decided to go to the grocery store. And she wanted me to go with her, to help carry things. It took all my effort to drag myself along behind her.

  There was a long line outside the store. A man was trying to close the door. “We’re running out of food,” he said, which only caused everyone to push forward. He gave up and left the door open.

  While we were waiting, I found that morning’s newspaper on the ground. I read the headline to Mama. “RAIDERS RETURN IN DAWN ATTACK.”

  Mama stared ahead with a stony look on her face. I’d heard gunfire during the night, but I hadn’t heard anything in the morning. When did they return? And where?

  I read more.

  Renewed Japanese bombing attacks on Oahu were reported as Honolulu woke to the sound of antiaircraft fire in a cold, drizzling dawn today. Citizens were warned to be on watch for parachutis
ts reported in Kalihi.

  Red antiaircraft bursts shot into the cloudy skies from the direction of Hickham Field, which was reported bombed again at about 6 A.M.

  Warning that a party of saboteurs had been landed on northern Oahu was given early Sunday afternoon by the army. The saboteurs were distinguished by red disks on their shoulders.

  I went on reading silently, caught up in the story. It was Honolulu I was reading about, not someplace on the other side of the world.

  “Read,” Mama said.

  Certain enemy agents have been apprehended and detained, General Short announced.

  He warned all citizens to “watch their actions carefully.” Any infractions of military rules will be “swiftly and harshly dealt with.”

  I cringed as I remembered Grampa running out into the field with his flag. He could still be shot for doing that. I folded the paper to show to Papa when he came home.

  Mama and I waited in silence. Everyone around us was quiet too. But farther ahead I could hear people talking, and farther behind us. It felt strange, like people were sneaking glances at us.

  I studied the dirty paint on the side of the store. Soon a gap appeared between Mama and me and the people behind us. In front of us there was also a gap. I looked behind me again, this time into the eyes of a lady glaring straight into mine. In my whole life, I’ll never forget that look. I realized that what that lady saw wasn’t just a boy and his mother.… What she saw was a Japanese boy, and his Japanese mother.

  • • •

  Later that day, after we’d managed to buy only one small bag of rice and six onions, Mama told me to hang the blackout blanket back up over the kitchen window. I poked one corner onto a nail and was about to hang the other when I saw something outside, a movement in the trees and bushes at the edge of the yard. I kept a small triangle of blanket open, peeking out. A hand parted some low branches. I saw part of a face. The bushes jiggled, and the shadowy figure slunk away, back into the trees. Dog tags. Tinkling.

  Rumors

  I tossed around in my bed trying to sleep, but kept waking from dreams of blood … pumping from pigeons’ throats. Once I gasped and sat up, feeling the warm blood streaking down my arms from my hands, dripping off my elbows.

  Grampa was a motionless lump on the floor. No sounds came from his mat, not even the usual whistle of his breathing.

  “Ojii-chan,” I whispered. “You awake?”

  He didn’t answer, and I was afraid he’d died in his sleep. I got out of bed and looked closely at him. Still no sounds, no movement. I bent down and touched him.

  “We have been disgraced,” he said in Japanese, making me jump back. I couldn’t tell if he was awake or if he was dreaming. He fell silent again, and I went back to bed.

  • • •

  The next morning—Tuesday—I went over to Billy’s with my schoolbooks. It felt crazy to do that. But I didn’t know what else to do.

  No one answered when I knocked on the door. Billy’s house was as quiet as a church. I found Charlie squatting in the Davises’ garden, pulling weeds, as if nothing had changed.

  “Where’s Billy?”

  “Gone … They all gone … went to help out somewheres.”

  “What about school?”

  Charlie shook his head. “No more … Canceled.”

  He stood up and brushed the dirt from his hands, then came over and put his arm around my shoulder. “Come, Tomi.… We go down your place.… I need to talk to Grampa … and Mama.” Charlie was silent the whole way over, thinking about something.

  “Mama,” I called when we got there. “Charlie’s here.”

  Mama came out of the kitchen wiping her hands on a towel. She greeted Charlie with a bow. “Come inside, Charlie-san.”

  He slipped off his boots and stepped in. “How you, Mama-san?” Charlie asked. “You need anything?”

  “We okay,” Mama said. “Thank you.”

  The screen door out in the kitchen slapped shut, and Grampa came into the front room with two cans of eggs. “Twenty-three,” he said, lifting the cans.

  Charlie smiled, but only for a moment. “You folks heard? The U.S. went declare war on Japan.”

  Mama looked surprised, then sad. She looked down at the floor. Grampa put the eggs on the couch, and folded his arms. I hadn’t seen a newspaper since the one I’d found at the store.

  “That’s not all,” Charlie added. “The army and the FBI arresting plenty Japanee men, and some Italian and German, but mostly Japanee.” Charlie shook his head. “They say they help plan for attack Pearl Harbor.… They say the fishermens been taking fuel out to submarines.…”

  “Fishermen?” I said.

  Charlie nodded. “They going arrest your daddy, Tomi.… They going arrest all the fishermens. And they going arrest language school teachers, Japanee businessmens, Buddhist priests, like that.”

  Mama sat down on the couch. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, then opened them.

  “More better you folks stay close to home for a couple of days,” Charlie said. “Everybody nervous about Japanee, and lots of people with guns and machete out there. They looking for revenge. And rumors going ’round now. Most of them crazy kind things, but you never know, I guess.… That’s what people saying about Japanee.… They say: you never know about them.”

  “You never know what?” I asked.

  “They saying you never know about how maybe was true they went help show the planes where to bomb. There was one story about somebody went cut big arrows in the sugarcane fields that pointed to Pearl Harbor. And there was one about how they went check the Japanee pilots who was shot down and found McKinley High School rings on the finger … and they saying the water supply was poisoned … and that local Japanee peoples are hiding ammunition on their properties.”

  That was so crazy.

  Charlie frowned at the floor. He rubbed his hand over his mouth, then looked up at Grampa. “Taro-san got a radio on that boat? Or a U.S. flag?”

  Grampa shook his head.

  Charlie ran his fingers through his hair. Twice, like he was thinking hard. He looked at me … then Mama. “The paper said today, they going shoot any boat come toward the island if no got one U.S. flag on top.”

  Silence.

  Grampa turned away and looked out the screen door.

  “Sorry,” Charlie said. “You folks need anything, you come get me. Don’t go anywheres. Very dangerous.”

  Charlie slipped his boots back on. “Tomi … you gotta be the one to go outside for what you need. They going give Joji-san hard time because he’s old timer, yeah? But you just a kid. And you, Mama-san … no talk Japanee, no bow like one Japanee, and no wear any kind Japanee clothes, kimono, like that.… And got one curfew now, sundown to sunrise … nobody go out after dark … bombye they going shoot you.”

  Charlie glanced around at all of us, then left. Grampa went over to the door and watched him walk back through the trees. Mama stayed on the couch, keeping to herself.

  Finally, she said in a soft but firm voice, “We going through this house to find everything that could bring trouble … photograph, letter … everything.… We going bury ’um.”

  • • •

  By noon, everything we had that had anything to do with Japan was spread out over the kitchen table—Mama’s beautiful traditional kimono; a bundle of letters tied together with white ribbon; a photograph of me when I was younger, standing in the front row of my language school class with a Japanese flag in the background; Grandma’s altar; incense wrapped in thin paper; the family katana, and a few other things that Mama and Grampa had found.

  We all stood around the table, silently touching this and that, picking things up and looking them over, then putting them down again.

  “Bury it,” Mama finally said, her eyes glistening.

  I reached toward the butsudan and Grampa stopped me with a touch on my arm. Gently, he picked up the altar himself, and taking only that and the katana, went outside to hide them in the
jungle. My throat started to burn. I quickly wrapped what was left in a burlap bag, then took it under the house and buried it near Grampa’s flag.

  • • •

  Moments after I came back out from under the house, I caught Keet Wilson sneaking around the yard again, only this time he saw me. And this time Jake was with him. I went over to the water tank and washed the dirt off my hands.

  At first I ignored them, hoping they’d go away. I worried that they’d seen me come out from under the house. I kept scrubbing my already clean hands with my back to them.

  “Hey, fish boy,” Keet said. “How’s your messenger birds?”

  Messenger birds. He’d never called them that before.

  I could see him out of the corner of my eye, a moving shape. He strolled over and stood next to me, fingering his dog tags.

  Still I didn’t look at him. I wiped my hands on my pants, and tried to scowl like Grampa.

  Keet snickered and said, “Well, anyway, tell your mother not to bother coming to work at our house anymore. In fact, my father is considering kicking you off our property.… We don’t want to support any Jap sympathizers.”

  Don’t shame this family, Tomi.…

  “You hear what I said?”

  Shame yourself, and you shame us all.…

  I bunched up my lips.

  “Hey! I’m talking to you.” Keet shoved me and I staggered backward.

  “Keet!” Jake said, grabbing his shoulder. “Stop it.… He’s just a kid.…”

  Keet whirled around and swung at Jake, landing a blow that glanced off the side of Jake’s head. Jake bent over and grabbed his ear. You could see it hurt pretty bad. “You’re gonna be sorry you did that,” Jake said.

  Keet charged into Jake. The two of them tumbled to the ground, grunting and spitting. Jake rolled away and scrambled to his feet. He stood over Keet, looking down with his fists clenched. “Get up and fight like a man.”