Tomo

by Holly Thompson

  “But I rescued you,” said Tom.

  “I didn’t need to be rescued,” said Ken.

  Tom kicked a rock down the hill. His face was flushed with anger.

  “Look,” said Ken, “Ignore the whites. They have their side of the water and we have ours. Remember what father says—gaman. Endure and be patient.”

  Tom opened his mouth to protest, then changed his mind. “Sorry, Oniisan.”

  “Forget it,” said Ken. “Let’s go get some dinner.”

  They turned and began walking toward the little group of shacks huddled in the shadow of an endless wall of mountains.

  “I can’t believe you yelled banzai,” laughed Ken. “Our country’s fighting a war against Japan and you go hollering the Japanese battle cry at some white kids.”

  “Samurai yell it in films sometimes,” said Tom. “I thought it might scare them.”

  The streets of the camp were made of packed dirt that ran between rows of small wooden shacks. The one street that had a few shops was known as Ginza-dori, after the famous shopping street in Tokyo. It was full of men walking home, covered in dust from working the fields all day. Tom and Ken exchanged greetings with them.

  Thick smoke was flowing from the chimney pots atop the roofs of the shacks. Ken knew the women were all inside, finishing preparations for dinner. Rice would be bubbling away on stoves and grilled fish sizzling in skillets.

  But no smoke flowed from the chimney pot atop the shack where Tom and Ken lived.

  Ken spotted their father sitting on the woodpile out front, massaging his bad leg. He called to the boys as they approached and they waved back.

  “So what happened at the river today, Kentaro?” he asked.

  Ken heard Tom gulp a short nervous breath.

  “No fish?” said their father.

  Ken thought Tom might collapse with relief.

  “Not even one bite, Otosan,” Ken said.

  Their father grabbed his walking stick and levered himself up. He had used that stick for as long as Ken could remember.

  An old woman approached, carrying two steaming black metal pots.

  “Smells delicious, Kinoshita-san,” said Ken. He took the pots and set them down. “Thank you.”

  “Kinoshita-san—I’m terribly ashamed,” said Ken’s father, bowing, “but would it be possible to pay you on Monday? I am still waiting for news on the sale of my boat.”

  Kinoshita-san nodded, then ambled away.

  It was such a nice evening that they decided to eat outside. With Tom’s help, Ken rolled over three log-ends to sit on and a fourth to act as a table. Tom went into the house and returned with bowls, chopsticks, and a large wooden spoon.

  Kinoshita-san’s cooking was, as always, bland and overcooked. The slices of daikon radish atop the rice were so mushy that Ken’s chopsticks cut right through. The chicken was little more than bits of gristle and fat. But Ken was so hungry that he devoured two bowlfuls.

  Back when they’d lived in Vancouver, his mother had been known throughout Little Tokyo for her savory nabe stews and delicious ochazuke. Friends had come over to their house on Powell Street for dinner nearly every Sunday. Even in the early days at the camp, people had loved her food. But that was before she had started coughing during that first terrible winter. Ken didn’t want to think about that.

  “Takahashi-san—sumimasen!”

  It was a young man carrying a satchel. He handed a small envelope to Ken’s father. “Mail for you from the coast.”

  Ken’s father nodded to the man but his hands shook as he tore the envelope open. He read the letter once then slipped it back into the envelope. He stared down at the dirt.

  “What is it, Otosan?” Ken asked.

  His father grabbed his walking stick and rose to his feet.

  “It’s what I should have expected,” he said, and went inside the house.

  That night, Ken dreamed he was perched on the prow of his father’s fishing boat, gazing out over the water to the land across the sea. He looked back at his father, who was standing at the helm.

  “Those mountains are in Japan, Kentaro—where your mother and my parents were born, and where everyone looks like us,” his father said.

  In those dreams, Ken always found himself sailing and sailing over a calm but endless sea. But no matter how much he hoped to reach the land of the great mountains, he could still see the docks of Vancouver when he turned and looked back.

  He awoke to the morning light shining through an open window. He glanced over at Tom. Still asleep. From the next room came their father’s usual thunderous snores.

  Ken put on a pair of sandals and slipped out of the house. He walked the short distance down Ginza-dori to the communal toilet. It was occupied. As he waited, Ken stared off at the mountains that rose behind Lillooet and thought about his dream.

  Those mountains he’d seen as a child were not in Japan, of course. They were on Vancouver Island. In first grade he’d told everyone that he had seen Japan from a boat, and his teacher had scolded him for spreading lies. When Ken’s father had found out, he’d laughed so hard that he’d sprayed tea onto the kitchen table. Now, his father never laughed. He rarely even smiled.

  Once, Japan had sounded like a kind of heaven to Ken—a place where everyone looked like him and no one would call him rat or monkey or stinky little Jap.

  But now Japan was a place where no one from Canada could ever go. A place surrounded by walls. Enemy territory.

  Ken’s gaze shifted down from the mountains to the town of Lillooet. He couldn’t go there either. No one in the internment camp was allowed to cross the bridge. He wondered about the people in the town. Did they think of him as their enemy?

  On some days, Lillooet seemed as far away as that strange land across the sea.

  Because it was Saturday, there was no school, and Ken spent a long hot day working in the apple orchards with his brother.

  When they got home, Tom grabbed their baseball gloves down from a shelf and grinned.

  “I don’t know if I can,” said Ken, wiping his brow on his sleeve. He slumped down into a chair.

  “Come on, oyaji—old man,” Tom said.

  “I’ll show you who’s the oyaji,” said Ken, snatching his glove.

  There was an open stretch of ground next to the river where the boys met almost every night to play baseball. Some of the men played too. Others sat on the side and talked about how good they had been when they were younger.

  The field was full of holes and rocks. Ground balls took sudden sideways bounces and every now and then someone hit a foul ball into the river. But at least it was baseball, of a sort.

  Ken’s mother had been the biggest baseball fan in the family. Even when Ken’s father had been working on the boat all day, she would drag him and the boys over to Oppenheimer Park to watch the Asahi Tigers, champions of the Vancouver Terminal League.

  By the time Ken and Tom arrived at the field, a game was already in full swing.

  “Let Kentaro pitch,” called a small boy from the outfield.

  “Yeah, give him the ball,” said someone else.

  Ken tried to wave them away, but his friend Ichiro placed the ball in his hand.

  “Just one inning,” said Ichiro.

  “I’ll catch,” Tom said. He jogged off to crouch behind home plate.

  Ken set his feet, his right shoulder facing the plate.

  The batter, Kinoshita-san’s grandson Shogo, stared back wide-eyed. He didn’t even swing at the first pitch.

  Thump—the ball landed in Tom’s glove.

  Thump.

  Thump.

  “Out-o!” called Ichiro’s father, who was standing behind Tom.

  Ken noticed his own father sitting next to some other men on a log behind third base. He wondered if his father had seen the strikeout.

  The next batter went down on four pitches, and the third popped the ball up. Scrambling backward and tumbling to the ground, Tom snagged the ball in his glove.
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br />   Tom was a good catcher. Some of the older men had nicknamed him “vacuum cleaner” because of his ability to pull bad pitches out of the dirt. But he was a terrible hitter.

  “You’re up first, Tomonori,” Ichiro’s father called out.

  Ken watched as Tom swung at three bad pitches and then walked away, swearing under his breath.

  Ken was up next. As he walked toward the plate, he noticed someone walking toward the field from the direction of the bridge. It was a Mountie in full uniform.

  Sometimes Mounties on duty came to the end of the bridge to watch, but this was the first time one had walked into the middle of a game.

  “Good evening,” said the Mountie, stopping next to first base. “Who here speaks English?”

  At first no one volunteered. Ken wondered if anyone would. Most of the young people in the camp could understand English but many of the older men, including Ken’s father, knew very little.

  Tom jumped forward.

  “I do, sir,” he said.

  “Very good,” said the Mountie. “It’s straightforward, really. A group of us junior officers were talking recently about how life in this town can be rather dull. We’ve noticed you playing baseball and well—we want to challenge you to a game.”

  He waited for Tom to translate, but Tom just stood there. The Mountie continued. “It would be played tomorrow at the baseball ground—in Lillooet. Will you play?”

  A stunned silence hung over the field.

  “Yes,” agreed Tom, without translating a word.

  “Wonderful,” said the Mountie. “I’m Officer Dupont. Please be at the bridge tomorrow at one o’clock sharp.”

  And with that, he turned and walked away.

  Everyone seemed to converge on home plate at once. Loud and excited voices filled the air.

  “A real game, against the whites—”

  “Across the river—”

  “I never thought we’d—”

  Ken pushed his way out of the crowd. He saw his father hobbling away from the scene, red-faced, heading toward home.

  Pushing back through, he found his brother talking to three elderly gentlemen.

  “We’ve got to go,” he said. “Otosan’s not happy.”

  They caught up to their father as he reached the front door of their house. He glared at Tom as he wrenched the door open. It slammed hard behind him.

  “Come on,” said Ken, turning to his brother.

  Tom shook his head. “No way am I going in there—”

  Ken grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into the house.

  Inside, their father was sitting next to the potbellied stove in the center of the room. He held his hands over his face.

  “Tomonori,” he said. His voice was low but laced with anger. “You had no right to speak for everyone.”

  Ken looked over at Tom. He expected his brother to utter some sort of apology. But none came.

  “You should have let the older men speak to that Mountie,” said their father, looking over at Tom. “Did you ever stop to think that we might not agree? Now how do you think it will look if we change our minds?”

  Tom glared back at his father. “Why wouldn’t we play?”

  Slam—their father’s fist smashed down on the table. “Play a game—with them?” he roared, eyes blazing. “After everything they’ve done to us?”

  Crash—a bowl shattered on the floor.

  Ken stood in the middle of the room between his father and younger brother. He didn’t know what to do. Nothing like this had ever happened in his family before.

  “I fought for this country,” said their father, staring at the wall. “I lived in filthy trenches and had my kneecap shattered by a piece of iron when I was twenty years old. And what did I get for it—a few worthless war medals to wear while they spat on me in the streets and called me a dirty, stinking Jap.”

  “And then,” he continued, “this new war starts and they take my fishing license, the one I inherited from my father. They take our home and all our things. They take my fishing boat. Do you know what they sold that boat for? One hundred dollars.”

  Ken felt sick to his stomach. Long ago, he had overheard his parents talking. He knew the boat had cost his father close to five thousand dollars.

  “And you boys know as well as anyone what that first winter in this camp took away from us—”

  Ken noticed that Tom had tears in his eyes.

  “At least here in the camp,” said their father, “we are with our own kind and away from—those people.”

  Tom turned and ran out of the house.

  “You will not play in that game!” shouted their father.

  “I’ll go after him,” said Ken, unsure what else to say.

  He caught up to his brother at the hill overlooking the river. He was sitting on a boulder, chucking pebbles into the water.

  “Tom,” said Ken, sitting down. He put a hand on his brother’s shoulder.

  Tom gulped two quick breaths. He wiped his face on his sleeve. “I know I’m only thirteen,” he said, “and that I can’t understand everything our father has gone through, but he’s wrong about this, Ken. He is.”

  Ken took a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter. He’s our father. We must obey him.”

  Tom turned and looked at him. “What are we going to do when we leave this camp—go live in Japan? Japan’s not our country. It’s the enemy. This is our country.” He picked up another pebble and heaved it into the river. “We’ve been given the chance to cross that bridge. I think we should take it.”

  Just past noon the next day, Ken stood in the middle of the room he shared with his brother, staring into the tattered old suitcase lying open on his bed. Inside was a white baseball cap with thin black stripes and a red brim next to a jersey with “ASAHI” emblazoned across the front in bold red letters.

  He recalled the day three years ago when the Tigers coach had asked him to come and train with the team. Ken had thought the man was joking. He was only thirteen at the time and the men who played for the Tigers were his heroes. All at once, here was the chance to play alongside them.

  He’d been almost too nervous to attend the first practice but his mother had made him go.

  “Ganbare,” she’d told him. “Be brave. One brave person is worth more than a world of cowards.”

  Ken took the jersey out of the suitcase and slipped it on. He tugged the cap down over his forehead.

  Tom burst into the room. “Quick! He’s gone to the outhouse!”

  They grabbed their baseball gloves and hurried outside. The streets were full of men, women, and children—all walking in the direction of the bridge.

  “Come on!” said Tom.

  When they reached the bridge, they saw two Mounties standing amidst a sea of people. One of the Mounties was Officer Dupont.

  “Are you sure we’re allowed to let everyone across?” Ken heard the other Mountie say. “Boss said just ball players.”

  “They all look like ball players to me,” said Dupont. “And anyway, the boss is out of town.”

  “Okay,” said the other officer. “But it’s your head on the block when he finds out.”

  Lillooet was not a big town, but it was larger than the camp. The main street was lined with a great variety of shops, and the houses, while not grand like some Ken remembered in Vancouver, dwarfed the shacks on the opposite side of the river. Some of the houses had front porches, and from every porch and window, townspeople stood watching the spectacle flowing through their streets.

  A little girl broke away from her mother and ran over to Ken. She put her hand on his arm and stared up at his face with wide confused eyes. Then, screeching and giggling, she ran back to her mother.

  A young boy stepped in front of Tom. Ken recognized him as one of the kids he and Tom had met by the river. “Filthy Jap,” the boy said. “You know we’re bombing your brothers overseas?”

  Officer Dupont, who had followed the crowd, hurried over and cuffed the boy on the bac
k of the head. “You mind your tongue,” he snapped and the boy slunk away.

  The baseball field had dugouts and fences, and the ground was even and flat. Someone had even raked the dirt in the infield. The other team was already out there, warming up.

  “Wow—a real game,” said Tom.

  In the few minutes that it took the visitors to sort out their team, the fences became lined with spectators. Behind the third base line sat the townspeople of Lillooet and behind the first base line, the people from the camp.

  Lillooet batted first.

  “Oniisan, ganbare!” said Tom, tossing Ken a baseball.

  Ken walked to the pitcher’s mound. He knew that hundreds of eyes were focused on him. He tried not to think of his father.

  A burly man with a thick beard stepped up to the plate, the bat like a chopstick in his hands.

  Planting his right foot, Ken wound up and hurled the ball.

  The man carved the air with a mighty swing.

  “Steee-rike!” called the umpire. Loud cheers from behind the first base line.

  Another pitch. Strike.

  “Are you watchin’ this?” Ken heard a Lillooet fan say. “How can anyone hit a pitch like that?”

  Ken tossed a fiery fastball.

  The large man lumbered back to his team’s dugout, shaking his head.

  The next batter struck out on five pitches. Dupont followed. He managed to foul the first two pitches off, but the third zipped past him, right over the plate.

  “Not bad, oyaji,” said Tom, as they sat down in the dugout.

  The teams had agreed to play six innings. By the end of the fifth, it was 3-0 to the visitors from the camp and Ken had struck out twelve batters and only allowed two hits. As he took to the mound in the sixth, Tom walked over.

  “Some of the Lillooet kids asked me your name,” he said, pointing to the fence. Ken looked over and a group of little children waved back at him.

  Tom grinned. “I think they’re cheering for you, not their fathers.”

  Ken’s thoughts turned to his own father. The game was almost over. Soon they would have to go back and face reality.

  Would his father ever forgive him?