The Fences Between Us

by Kirby Larson

  I’d take Margie’s meat loaf over this any day.

  Sunday, October 4, 1942

  DeeDee —

  Today was Pop’s first church service in camp. You’d have to use your imagination to see that barracks room as a church, but the people who came didn’t seem to mind. One of the moms even had a sort of Sunday school class in the back for the little kids who couldn’t sit through church.

  Until Miss McCullough arrives in a few weeks, I am Pop’s assistant. Which means I help set up the chairs, pass out the hymnals, and make sure he has a glass of water on his makeshift pulpit. It’s a good thing I don’t know how to play the piano, or I’d be the accompanist, too.

  Betty took that temporary job. I wouldn’t tell Miss McCullough, of course, but Betty’s better at playing the piano than she is. I can actually tell which hymn we’re supposed to be singing when Betty plays!

  Monday, October 5, 1942

  DeeDee —

  Hot dogs for lunch. Bologna for dinner.

  Pop and I had Alka-Seltzer for “dessert.”

  Wednesday, October 7, 1942

  DeeDee —

  This is our last night in the camp! Pop found a house and we’re moving in tomorrow. My bedroom is done all in yellow and is tucked in a dormer under the roof. Mrs. Harada says that as soon as her sewing machine comes, she’ll make me some gingham curtains for the windows. I broke my vow of silence to tell Pop how much I loved it. Honestly, it’s even nicer than my room at home. I took lots of photos to send to Hank, along with our new address: 339 Second Avenue North, Twin Falls, Idaho.

  Betty was happy for us, but I felt bad telling her. She has to share one room with three brothers, her mother, a dresser, and five beds. Well, beds is an optimistic word. They’re canvas cots with lumpy mattresses. I didn’t tell her about the rosebud wallpaper or the window seat where I can curl up and read.

  Friday, October 9, 1942

  DeeDee —

  Pop told me to ignore him, but it’s pretty hard to ignore a grown man standing on the sidewalk, staring at the house.

  Mr. Crofton owns the café downtown. It all started when we went in for lunch today. Pop heard they served good patty melts. The waitress showed us to a booth and handed us menus but before she could take our order, Mr. Crofton was there, grabbing the menus out of our hands. “I don’t serve your kind in here,” he said.

  “What kind is that?” Pop asked. “The hungry kind?”

  “Don’t give me any lip. I know what you do. And I ain’t gonna have you in here stinking up the place.”

  I don’t know how Pop can stay so calm. I was shaking like a wet cat. Somehow, I was able to stand up and follow Pop out of the café. “There’s egg salad at home,” he said. “That’ll be tasty, won’t it?”

  All I could do was nod and wobble home behind him. We’d gone about a block when I realized Mr. Crofton was tailing us. When we got to our house, he stopped on the sidewalk across the street, just staring.

  We made lunch and ate it. He is still out there.

  Pop said not to pay him any mind. To go about my business. I went upstairs to write some letters to Hank and Trixie, but couldn’t help peeking out my curtains.

  I saw Mr. Crofton bend down and pick up a rock. He stood there, tossing it up and down, up and down in his hand.

  I want to go home.

  Saturday, October 10, 1942

  DeeDee —

  The first thing I did when I woke up was look out my window.

  No Mr. Crofton standing on the sidewalk.

  For now.

  Sunday, October 11, 1942

  DeeDee —

  Another rainy day. We brought two boxes of oranges to camp to give to people after services. Between the dust and the change in the weather, nearly everyone in camp has caught cold. Pop thought the oranges might help. It was freezing on the ride over because the heater’s quit working in the Blue Box. I went with Pop to visit the Satos—it was even colder than being in the Blue Box. Their apartment still doesn’t have a stove. It wouldn’t do them that much good if they had one. There’s not enough coal to go around.

  On the way home in the car, Pop talked to me about school. He’s actually giving me a choice. The school in Twin Falls or the one at the camp, which won’t open until next month.

  Getting an extra vacation or starting school right away?

  That was easy as pie to decide.

  Monday, October 12, 1942

  DeeDee —

  A bunch of the high school kids signed up to help with the sugar beet harvest. I watched a truck come get them this morning. Jim and his buddy Yosh Nakata went. So did Betty. She said they used to help on their grandparents’ farm every summer. She didn’t mind the work.

  Then she looked wistfully across the barbed wire fencing and said at least helping with the harvest would get her out of camp for a bit.

  A little taste of freedom.

  Wednesday, October 14, 1942

  DeeDee —

  We heard from John that he likes two things about college: his history class and the girl who sits in front of him in his history class. “I haven’t got up the gumption to ask her name,” he wrote, “but I will.”

  Friday, October 16, 1942

  DeeDee —

  Mr. Crofton’s back. Pop says it’s only whiskey talking but he’s out there yelling stuff at us. Some of the words I’ve never even heard before.

  Part of me thinks he’s acting like a little kid who can’t get his own way and is throwing a temper tantrum. But that’s only a small part. The rest of me is terrified of what might happen next. Maybe the whiskey will make him do more than cuss at us. I try not to think about what had happened to Mr. Tokita but I can’t help it. No matter how cheerful my yellow room is, it isn’t a comfort anymore.

  I want Pop to call the police but he says we need to turn the other cheek.

  Saturday, October 17, 1942

  DeeDee —

  We took the Satos some extra blankets this afternoon so we were there when Betty and Jim came back from helping with the harvest. Jim was wearing a shiner. His face was banged up pretty good.

  Pop asked him what happened. He didn’t answer but grabbed a towel and said he was going to wash up. Betty burst into tears the minute he left the room. It turns out that the farmer had told his sons to move their sorry rear ends. He pointed out that they outweighed Jim by about 50 pounds but he was lifting 100-pound sugar beet sacks on his own. The farmer said it in front of the whole crew. So the boys waited until Jim was in the far field, all by himself, and jumped him. To teach him a lesson. Betty said she wasn’t going back. And she didn’t want Jim to, either.

  Mrs. Sato’s hands shook as she served us all some tea. When Jim came back in the room, he drank two cups, real fast. He must’ve known that Betty told us what happened because he set his cup down and said, “I’m not quitting. Then they’ll think they’ve won.”

  Nobody said anything. Because we all knew it was true.

  Monday, October 19, 1942

  DeeDee —

  Just like he said he would be, Jim was on the farm truck. Betty and Yosh, too. They said they weren’t going to let him go alone, no matter what. Betty told me later that those two farm boys tried to pull their tricks on Jim again. But this big guy from Eden managed to be Jim’s shadow all day. So the farmer’s sons left him alone.

  Tuesday, October 20, 1942

  DeeDee —

  On my way to visit the Matsuis today, I stopped to help Mrs. Harada plant tumbleweed by her doorway. All around camp, people are making cactus and sagebrush gardens, ringing them with lava rocks. As scrubby as they are, the gardens look hopeful somehow.

  I took a picture of Mr. Matsui with the water-colors and paper I brought him from town. It felt really good to see his wife smile, too. She even sat up in bed so he could show her all the colors. He said he was going to paint a garden for his wife. Something cheerful to look at while she was getting better.

  Then he said something to me
in Japanese that I didn’t understand. But I could tell it was something nice from the way they were both looking at me.

  Wednesday, October 21, 1942

  DeeDee —

  Nothing but wind and dust. I helped Mrs. Harada clean her floor. First, we tore old newspapers into thin strips, then we sprinkled the strips with water from a small watering can. We scattered the papers over the floor and let them sit for a bit. They were like dust magnets, loaded with dust instead of metal shavings, when we swept them up. The thing is, once we swept up one batch of paper, more dust would settle.

  “It’s hopeless,” I told her. “The dust comes right back!”

  Mrs. Harada shrugged. “Shikata ga nai. It cannot be helped. If I want a clean floor, I must sweep.”

  I looked around her room. It was neat as a pin. A handmade quilt lay across her Army cot bed. One of the neighbors in Block 8 built her a desk and bench out of scrap wood. It was pushed against the wall, in the corner, opposite the bed. The tea set Mr. Harada gave her last Christmas sat on top of the desk. Last time I’d been over, she’d made us tea. But not in that set. She said she wasn’t going to use it until she could make tea for Mr. Harada.

  A few letters leaned against the teapot. I could make out the Fort Missoula postmark and a black stamp that said, “Detained Alien Enemy Mail.” Mrs. Harada saw me looking at them. “I haven’t heard from him in a while. He has been writing everyone he can think of — the state attorney general, the U.S. attorney general — to request another hearing. He can only write so many letters each week so maybe he’s used up his limit on that business.” She leaned the broom in the corner. “I can miss a few letters if it means he will be able to come here sooner. So we can be together sooner.” She opened her arms and I stepped into her hug. “Thank you for helping,” she said. When I was little, she would hug me when I was sad, pretending to squeeze me so hard, she’d squeeze the sad out.

  “I wish I could squeeze your sad out,” I said.

  She patted my cheek. “You are a good girl, Piper.” As I was leaving, she grabbed the broom and started sweeping again.

  Every day, when I get home from the camp, I rinse out my mouth but can’t ever get all the grit out. I’ll be chewing on sand until I’m a hundred.

  Thursday, October 22, 1942

  DeeDee —

  A new group of “colonists” arrived today. That’s what the camp manager calls the Japanese. It’s always the same. They show up dressed in their very best clothes, like they were going to church or to a party. After a day or so, they’re wearing old clothes, like everyone else. The dust ruins everything, even what we wear on our backs.

  Friday, October 23, 1942

  DeeDee —

  Mr. Crofton’s outside again tonight. So far, he’s standing there, staring at the house. But there’s a brown paper bag in his hand. I know that means that pretty soon he’ll start up with the yelling.

  I don’t even really hear him anymore.

  Saturday, October 24, 1942

  DeeDee —

  Today was the last day of the sugar beet harvest. I ate supper in the dining hall with Jim, Yosh, and Betty and heard all about it.

  Jim said that big guy who’d stood up with him was named Dean. “He always managed to be on my crew. Worked next to me every day. He didn’t say anything, didn’t really talk. And at lunch, he’d take his sandwich and sit off by himself. But he was always in range.” Jim stopped to take a sip of tea.

  “If Dean was in a movie, he would definitely play one of the bad guys,” Yosh added.

  “The bad guy with a good heart,” Jim said. “So all of harvest Dean doesn’t say boo to me. Then today, as we’re all getting cleaned up to head back to camp, he comes over. He says he used to be as thickheaded as anybody about the Japanese but that working with me had changed his mind.”

  Betty jumped in. “He said that anybody who worked as hard as Jim was his kind of people. He shook Jim’s hand, right in front of everyone.”

  I sat there for a minute, trying to picture the scene. “I wish I could’ve been there,” I said.

  “Let me tell you,” Jim said. “It made that shiner worth it.”

  I said I was sure it did.

  Sunday, October 25, 1942

  DeeDee —

  One of the chefs from the dining hall in 17 was fired for stealing some chickens to cook for himself and his friends instead of for the “colonists.” They need to fire the rest of them, too, not because they’re stealing but because not one of them can cook.

  After church, I stopped to see Mr. and Mrs. Matsui. She looked better, I thought. Maybe it was because of the brand-new watercolor painting of the sunflower fields hanging on the wall across from the bed, where she could see it.

  Monday, October 26, 1942

  DeeDee —

  Glory and hallelujah! They’ve promised real bathrooms by November 1st.

  Watchtowers are going up at the edge of the camp. Some people say they’re fire lookouts but others say they’re going to be for soldiers with machine guns. So no one can escape. As if there was anywhere to go in this place of never-ending desert.

  Wednesday, October 28, 1942

  DeeDee —

  The “colonists” can now apply for passes to go to town. Betty got one, and Pop brought her into Twin Falls so the two of us could shop for prizes for the Halloween carnival coming up. It was a lot of fun—as long as we avoided the stores and cafés like Mr. Crofton’s that said NO JAPS. There weren’t many of them; most of the people were nice to us. The lady at the five-and-ten-cent store had as much fun as we did picking out prizes the little kids would like.

  “Oh, you’ve got to have marbles,” she’d say. Or, “What’s a party without noisemakers?” Or, “That’s not near enough penny candy.” When we showed her how much we had to spend, she said, “That’ll cover it. No problem.”

  We walked out of there with sacks of prizes in our hands and big smiles on our faces. It was nice to be reminded there are lots more people like her in the world than there are Mr. Croftons.

  Friday, October 30, 1942

  DeeDee —

  Cold and windy and the Satos still don’t have a stove. This morning, I helped Betty, Jim, and Yosh drag over a bunch of sagebrush and we started a fire out by their road. It was smelly and smoky but better than being an ice cube.

  School still hasn’t started. It’s set to open in a few weeks. I thought I’d have a bit of vacation, but Pop had other ideas. He’s kept me busy typing up his sermons and the letters of recommendation he gets asked to write. He says typing is a valuable skill and I’ll be thankful for all this practice someday. I doubt it! What I would be thankful for is a typewriter that corrected mistakes. I wish someone would hurry up and invent one.

  Saturday, October 31, 1942 — Halloween

  DeeDee —

  The Halloween carnival was a huge hit with the little kids. Jim and Yosh found a big cardboard box somewhere and painted it to look like a cave. They put it at the entrance to the social hall so the kids had to crawl through it to get into the party. There were three different sections: the haunted house — complete with peeled grape “eyeballs” and spaghetti-in-ketchup “innards” — a carnival, and refreshments.

  Betty and I ran the goldfish booth in the carnival section. Mikey came over, munching a doughnut.

  “I want a harmonica,” he said.

  “Well, you’ll have to be a good fisherman, then,” said Betty. She helped him up on a chair and handed him the toy fishing pole. She and I went behind a blanket and guided the hook to “catch” a toy. She hooked a bag of marbles.

  “Fish on!” she called. “Reel it in.”

  Mikey reeled but when he saw the marbles, he looked so sad, I told him to cast his line again.

  This time, I grabbed his line before Betty could and hooked a harmonica. “Fish on!” I called again. You could’ve lit a darkened room with his big smile. He immediately began blowing into it. The “music” sounded like a cross between nails
on a chalkboard and a whistling radiator.

  He ran off, pleased as punch with his catch. “Thanks a lot,” Betty said. But she was smiling.

  I wondered what Trixie was doing for Halloween. She and I used to love dressing up, trying to outdo each other every year. I’ve written her a couple of times but haven’t heard back yet. Some people aren’t meant to be pen pals, I guess.

  Sunday, November 1, 1942

  DeeDee —

  Cold, cold, cold. Rattlesnakes are crawling in from the desert to get warm. Jim killed one with an old golf club when it crawled out from under their building. At least it didn’t get into their room! I saw the rattles when I stopped there this morning. Betty and I walked over to Block 17 to warn Mr. Matsui, so he’ll be extra careful when he goes out in the desert. He’s been collecting bitterwood for carving. He made Mrs. Matsui a cat, holding up a paw. It’s so real, you expect it to meow.