Under the Silk Hibiscus

by Alice J. Wisler

“You must be so happy.”

  “Feed her some ginger root.” Mrs. Busybody was adamant about her advice.

  Yet Mama, even when awake, barely acknowledged their congratulatory remarks. I could tell she was tired. I knew that she should rest and, with people entering our billet, she was not getting the sleep her body needed. So I placed Emi in a wooden crib that Mr. Kubo had made for us out of scrap wood. I set the crib to the left of my cot and, while at first I responded to the visitors, after a day I chose not to answer the door.

  As Mama slept, I sat on my cot and watched Emi. I watched her eyelids flutter and her mouth open and close as she slumbered by my side. When she woke and inevitably cried, I gently picked her up, the way I’d watched both Mama and my aunt do. Emi was so tiny; she couldn’t have weighed more than a mackerel. I felt huge. Yet her lungs had this tendency to expand and let out cries that made me wince. When she didn’t stop crying, I carried her to Mama.

  One afternoon, as Mama nursed Emi and Aunt Kazuko went to the washroom area to launder cotton diapers, I lay on my cot and prayed one of my begging prayers. These always started with, “Please, please, God.” I thought of all the things I wanted, all the things that were not right, all the things I missed from home in San Jose. When my muttered prayers stopped, I silently prayed for better food and for Lucy to like me, for Papa to return to us, and for the war to end.

  The only man who came to visit besides a brief stop from Dr. Yamagata, who brought two glass baby bottles, was Mr. Kubo. Mr. Kubo asked us what we needed.

  Aunt Kazuko said, “Cookies are always good.”

  Mr. Kubo said, “I meant for the baby.”

  “Oh. Oh. Diapers and pins. Always more diapers and pins.” And with that remark, she went over to my sister to change her diaper.

  As Mr. Kubo got ready to leave, I asked how his wife was doing.

  He didn’t mince words. Taking his hand off the doorknob, he said, “Let’s see . . . Her recent grievance is that she doesn’t want to be around anybody who uses Jesus or God in every other sentence.”

  “Why not?” I’d seen her in church with him, both in San Jose and here at the camp. I didn’t think that she was opposed to Christianity, but perhaps I’d been wrong.

  “She’s just bothered by all of this, Nathan. She doesn’t want anybody telling her that all things work together for good. She’s basically very tired.”

  I looked around our quarters and knew we were all tired of being confined to these surroundings and to this wasteland. My aunt tried to console Emiko, who was not too pleased at the moment. As Emi wailed, it seemed that, even as new as she was, she was already tired of this life.

  “Yoshi, yoshi, Emi-chan.” Aunt Kazuko drew my sister close to her breast and patted the small of her back.

  Over Emi’s cries, Mr. Kubo said, “My wife worries about everything. She misses her boy. When we were told to move out of our house, she wanted to go to Chicago to live with him.”

  “Why didn’t she?”

  “That’s never going to happen. She loves our son, but his wife . . . she’s hard to please.”

  More so than my own aunt, I wondered. I didn’t need to ask, Mr. Kubo volunteered, “John’s wife only eats egg whites—whipped. No pork fat. Wants her milk steamed for her coffee.”

  “Where is she from?”

  “Kansas.”

  I tried to picture where the state was located. I was pretty sure it was either near Colorado or Oklahoma.

  “She’s a farm girl, but very sophisticated. She went to Wellesley College and wants us to believe that she’s highly educated, too.”

  “Is she Nissei?” I asked, wondering if she, like me, had been born in the United States.

  “No, she’s French. Her grandparents emigrated from Lyons. They are down-to-earth types. She thinks they are regular hicks.”

  “Well, please tell Mrs. Kubo that she can come visit us here. Aunt Kazuko doesn’t say God or Jesus in every other sentence, and she eats all parts of the egg.” I supposed that wasn’t really true, so immediately added, “Except for the shell.”

  He rested his hand on my shoulder. “Keep your sense of humor, Nathan. And your faith. Both will serve you well here.”

  Later that afternoon, the one light bulb we had fizzled and popped, leaving us without any light in our barracks. I was assigned baby and Mama duty while Tom and my aunt went in search of a bulb. I said I’d go, but I think that my aunt wanted to get out of our quarters and have some time to chat with others.

  As I sat on my bed, keeping one eye on a sleeping Emi, there was a knock on the door. I peeked out the window to see Lucy. Hallelujah, my heart cried; one of my prayers had been answered.

  Lucy, dressed in a grey skirt and blue blouse, stepped inside our barracks.

  I breathed in the sweet floral scent that entered with her. Her long hair hung over her back and the urge to reach out and touch it to see if it felt as smooth as it looked overcame me. It was like being caught up in a ride at the circus, both fun and intoxicating at the same time. I fought for words to say. I wished I were like my older brother, never at a loss for the perfect sentence. At last I stuttered, “H-hh how are you?”

  “I’m all right.”

  She handed me a blanket, saying that her mother had knitted it. As I held the soft yellow gift, I waited. Something told me that this was going to be my moment; this was when she was going to tell me that she liked me, that she thought I was a great person. Glancing up from the blanket, I let myself look into her eyes.

  But all she said was, “Can I see your sister?”

  After she stroked Emi’s cheek and commented on how sweet she was, she said that tonight’s song would be dedicated to Emi. “So when you hear me sing, know that it’s for her.”

  “Thanks,” I said and then wondered if that was the right thing to say. Perhaps if we both sat down, I could think more clearly and come up with some topics to talk about. I looked over at the one chair that was behind the table. I’d offer it to her, and I could sit on the end of Tom’s cot.

  As I devised my plan, Mama sat up and adjusted a pillow behind her back.

  “Hello, Mrs. Mori,” Lucy said. “You have a beautiful daughter.”

  “Thank you.” Mama pulled the covers across her abdomen, and as she did, one of the pillows fell to the floor.

  Lucy picked it up and handed it to Mama.

  “Thank you.” This time Mama’s gratitude sounded weak. I wondered if she should sleep instead of staying seated.

  “Mama?”

  “I’m fine, Nathan.” She looked at me; I knew she was trying to reassure me. In a moment, she’d tell me to go outside and get some fresh air, have some fun. But she merely closed her eyes and mumbled, “Thank you for the blanket, Lucy. Please thank your mother.”

  “I will.” Lucy flashed a smile that made my heart spin. Turning to me, she asked, “Do you know where Ken is?”

  Snow whirled from the thick clouds over Heart Mountain and covered the ground. We had never seen snow, and the elders commented that it was only September. A few of the Issei men (those born in Japan) said that where they were from in northern Japan, sometimes the first snow fell in early October, but never in September.

  The cold whistled through the cracks in each of the barracks. Mr. Kubo said that the barracks had been built too quickly and without any insulation. He was a carpenter by trade, and from the moment he’d stepped into his new living quarters last month, he had studied the structure and had shaken his head.

  When Lucy sang the night of the first snow, we were all inside our unit because my aunt had put us to work. Under the single light bulb, with the stove hissing as it burned coal, we worked to string fabric against the windows. Next, we used wads of paper, and pieces of cotton and flannel, to stuff into the cracks of the walls. Mama smiled from her cot and called us wonderful interior decorators. Emi seemed attentive to Lucy’s voice as it swayed across the crisp camp air.

  But even though 24-F, our camp house, as Tom called it, wa
s now insulated, the wind still found its way inside. Mama still coughed. Emi and the others slept in spite of Mama’s labored breathing. I lay awake and thought of summer back home when the days and nights were so warm that we kept the windows opened and still needed an electric fan to draw away the heavy air.

  I must have dozed off. When I woke, Ken was kicking off his shoes. Still fully dressed, he slid into bed. Once I asked where he went at night, but he told me not to worry. I knew he was forming some sort of a gang with other boys from San Jose. They called themselves The Samurai. There was another gang, a rival group of boys from Los Angeles. They called themselves The Warriors and wore grey headbands made from burlap bags.

  Aunt Kazuko said that they looked ridiculous.

  Tom thought the Heart Mountain Aliens was a much better name for Ken’s gang, but then again, my younger brother thought anything extraterrestrial was impressive. His teacher read his stories with interest and said he certainly had “the active mind of a young boy.” Tom took his teacher’s words as encouragement, and continued to create.

  As I walked home from school, I hoped to run into Lucy. The roads were pools of melted snow. The sky held thick bulky clouds, and more snow was predicted.

  When I entered our barracks, an eerie feeling came over me. Silence. There was no chatter from the radio my aunt often listened to. There was no talking, no cries. Quickly, it became obvious; no one was there. Mama’s cot, which always held Mama because she had been too weak to go anywhere, was vacant.

  “Mama?! Aunt Kazuko?” My words echoed in our billet. No one responded. Emi’s crib was empty except for the yellow blanket Lucy’s mother had made for her. I pulled back the dark piece of material my aunt had strung up to provide privacy for undressing.

  Rushing outside, I hoped to see someone who could help me. A few classmates trailed to their barracks, but they wouldn’t know anything. Where was Tom? Ken? I scanned the road, and suddenly I saw Mrs. Busybody strolling along the side of the road.

  Running toward her, I cried, “Have you seen my mom?”

  She pointed behind her. “Hospital. They took her this morning.”

  Panic gripped my throat and burned like hot oil throughout my veins. I ran.

  At the hospital, I asked a nurse where my mother was. “Mrs. Mori?” I repeated until at last I was ushered down a corridor and into a room where metal beds, all occupied, lined the walls. At the end of the room, Aunt Kazuko and Tom sat beside a bed that held my mother.

  “What happened?” I looked at my mama—in between the sheets she appeared frail, tiny. Her eyes were shut, and the lids looked as pale as the Wyoming sky before snowfall. I wanted to rush over to hug her, but I was afraid she might break like glass. So I compromised by standing near her feet. “What’s wrong?” My voice was hoarse, as though I had been shouting at a baseball game.

  “I overheard the doctor say that she has pneumonia,” said Aunt Kazuko.

  “Pneumonia? What does that mean?”

  Tom supplied the answer. “That means she has fluid in her lungs.”

  And all I thought was wrong with her was that she had a cough.

  “Go to the pharmacy and ask for milk,” said my aunt.

  “Milk?”

  “Formula for Emi,” whispered Mama.

  “Who has her?”

  “Mrs. Kubo,” said Tom.

  Mama reached out for me, and as I edged closer to her, her fingers rested against my hand. “You will . . . be sure to . . .” Her strained words were hard to hear over the conversations of other patients around us. I bent closer to her face. “Take good care of Emi . . . won’t you, Nobu?”

  “Of course,” I said. “I’ll take care of everything. I’ll get the milk now and then I’ll get Emi from the Kubo’s.”

  In Japan, the chonan, the eldest son, is supposed to be the one to carry on the family affairs. Since our family’s eldest was most likely flirting with the girls or scheming up some gang prank against The Warriors, it was up to me. I, Nathan Mori, would be the hero.

  Later, as I stood in line at the store and waited my turn for the powdered milk, I knew that Papa would be proud of me. I was the good son, the honest one, the noble Nobu. Just like the man who had saved the drowning girl and received the prestigious gold watch with the bamboo and crane etchings as a token of appreciation.

  But I was only fooling myself. There would be no heroes. There would be no saving lives.

  The next day, Aunt Kazuko told me that the angels came in the night to take Mama away.

  Chapter Four

  Accompanied by a bamboo flute and a shamisen, Lucy sang “Amazing Grace” at Mama’s funeral. Her voice rang effortlessly over the camp, and at one point when she started the last verse, I could have sworn that she was an angel sent by God, straight from Heaven.

  At first, Mama’s service was to be held in the church, but then one of the block leaders, Mr. Higashi, felt it was best to have the service out in the open on a makeshift wooden platform that seemed to be hauled out from nowhere.

  Minutes before the service started, the area around the platform filled. From each of the barracks, people in coats, gloves, scarves, and hats, trickled out and down the wet roads, dodging potholes.

  “See?” said Mr. Higashi to me and my brothers. “If we had the funeral in the building we use for church, it would have been standing room only.” He nodded as if to say that he had made the best decision.

  I bet the church wouldn’t have been this cold, I thought as the October wind whipped over the camp faster than a horse swinging his tail to swat a fly. Also, at least inside, some of us would have been able to sit. Here, we huddled together, our hands in our pockets, with nowhere to sit. I couldn’t help but look up to see that the guards were at their towers, guns visible. Even at a funeral we were reminded that we were confined. But not Mama anymore. Mama was free. No more cold or dampness for her. No more visions of guards, army trucks, and guns.

  After Lucy sang “Rock of Ages,” there was a prayer. I couldn’t concentrate on any of the words and had no idea who was praying. I held Tom’s hand, looked straight ahead, and focused on nothing.

  When the service ended, people greeted me with soft voices and solemn faces. Some approached me so that they were close enough to pat my hand. Others stood at a slight distance, as though I was diseased. Perhaps, they thought, that if they got too close to me, they might die like Mama.

  “She will be missed.”

  “She was the best.”

  “She was so young and beautiful.”

  “God take care of you.”

  “My prayers are with you.”

  “You will see her again soon.”

  “She is in Heaven where there is perfect beauty.”

  When I let myself look out at the crowd, it was a sea of sadness. Each face, every person, acknowledging Mama’s death—it was too much to take in. I felt my knees grow numb; I gasped for air. Rocking on my feet, I released Tom’s hand and thought, I am going to fall. Teetering back, I felt arms catch me.

  “Hey, little bro. Lean against me.” Ken’s embrace was tight as I crumbled into his grasp. “It’s all right, it’s all right,” he repeated.

  But it wasn’t. Mama was dead, and none of the Mori boys were crying. Others were crying into handkerchiefs and here we were her children—stoic—no different from Heart Mountain. Later, much later, I would learn that sadness is not measured in tears. There are many tears that never reach the eyes, but take harbor in the heart until they feel safe enough to let loose.

  After a few moments, I let go of Ken, stood on my own, and reassured Ken, Tom, and my aunt that I was not going to fall again.

  Before the mess halls opened for lunch, we returned to our barracks where Mrs. Kubo was taking care of Emi. “Too cold to take a newborn out,” she’d told us that morning as we prepared for the funeral. “I’ll care for her here.”

  As the four of us entered our billet, we greeted Mrs. Kubo, who was seated at the table with Emi in the crook of her
arm. Shivering, we went toward the coal stove to warm our hands.

  Emi let out a gurgle and then sneezed.

  “Oh, my,” said Mrs. Kubo. “You are so sweet.” She drew my sister tightly against her bosom.

  “Is her diaper all right?” asked my aunt. “It might need changing.”

  Mrs. Kubo turned from Emi to glance up at us. “I heard the Yokota girl sing. Just now. She has a beautiful voice.”

  “Yes,” said my aunt, “she has nice voice.”

  Mrs. Kubo stroked Emi’s head, smoothing down my sister’s soft hair. “They always talk about funerals being lovely. How can it be lovely knowing that beloved people are gone from us?”

  None of us knew how to respond, so we said nothing.

  “I always wanted a girl.” A faraway look filled Mrs. Kubo’s eyes.

  “I don’t have any children.” My aunt rubbed her hands together and blew on her fingertips. “I think my sister wanted me to come to America so I could help her with hers.” She chuckled as though that was a funny joke. “I tell God that I am too old to do this. He could have made me beautiful, given me a husband, and my own children, but instead I am who I am.”

  But it seemed that Mrs. Kubo had no interest in what my aunt was saying. She still had that expression on her face, and when I studied it more closely, it felt to me that it was a mixture of sadness, regret, and something else that I could not decipher.

  Chapter Five

  Although I wanted to pretend that she was still in the hospital, I knew that Mama wasn’t in any of those beds there. She wasn’t coming back to us. Her breathless body had been placed inside a pine coffin and would be buried in the ground once the soil softened in the spring. Gone. Dead. I hated the sound of those words as they slammed inside my head.

  Why didn’t I sit with her every night? Why did I fight with Ken? What kind of son was I? What would Father say? Where was he? If only he’d been here, he could have stopped this madness; Mother wouldn’t have died.

  When Lucy sang that evening, I could not listen. Her words about God’s love and mercy sounded out of place, void of any ability to soothe. I turned onto my stomach and covered my head with my pillow.