“Tastes like dog food, too!” Her son, Johnny, stared at his plate, lumpy grey sauce congealed on the ball of rice.
“It’s not so bad with a bit of soy sauce,” Lily said.
Johnny stared back, hormones raging through his pimply cheeks. “Nothing disguises the taste of this slop!”
Why did she bother being nice to anyone? People liked you better if you were just as surly as everyone else.
The boy’s eyes, full of aggression, darted back to Lily. “I can’t eat this slop!” He pushed his plate across the table with such force it landed right in her lap. Horror and laughter poured from his beady eyes. She cringed as the hot muck seeped onto her thighs.
By now people were looking over. There was Kaoru one table over, her lips puckered. A few other girls, who used to go to Lily’s school, appeared barely able to contain themselves, too.
Mrs. Okada leaned across the table and cuffed her son’s ear. “Now look what you’ve done — apologize!”
“Why should I?” Johnny stood up. “I want to talk to the cook!”
They were sitting close enough to the kitchen for the staff to hear. Out swaggered Kenny Honda, a stout kibei guy in his mid-thirties, with biceps like ham hocks.
“Who says I can’t cook?”
Years ago, Kenny used to be a boxing champion. He was so quick on his feet that he might have had a shot at the big league if he hadn’t suffered one bad fight and lost sight in his left eye. Nasty luck. It left him bitter. Now his fighter instincts came out in his temper. He was the ringleader of the group that Kaz had been hanging around far too much.
“You wanna see what’s in my pantry? You wanna try cookin’ for hundreds from a few bags of rice and some old cans of beans?” His good eye glinted like a dagger while his other eye wandered left of centre, an eerie grey pool.
Johnny refused to sit down. “I’ve seen you guys unload food from the trucks. There’s more in there than just this slop!”
“Come in and look for yourself! Bare shelves. And if that ain’t bad enough, stuff’s been disappearin’ again. Two more bags of sugar vanished last night without a trace.”
A kitchen guy appeared behind him. “It’s true. We’re living among thieves!”
By this point everyone was listening. Kenny was a popular guy; people throughout camp respected him. Tense glances darted across the tables. It wasn’t the first time he and his crew had called attention to missing food.
The rumours all started a few months ago when Kenny noticed that a sack of sugar had disappeared. He told his friends, and that got everyone talking. Then cooks in mess halls on other blocks also noticed sugar unaccounted for. And the more people talked, the more the list of vanished items grew: chunks of meat, carrots, potatoes. A vat of chicken casserole must have grown legs and walked off on its own.
Mrs. Okada scanned the room. “But who among us would steal?”
“Let me tell you,” Kenny said, more kitchen workers gathering behind him. “You know how the Jackrabbits are always pointing fingers at me, sayin’ I’m a bad apple? They’re the bad apples. They don’t give a rat’s ass that the camp supervisors are selling our food on the black market!”
A stunned silence settled over the crowd.
“Why should they?” someone shouted.
“You’re damn right.” Kenny raised a finger in the air. There was something theatrical about all his gestures, as if he were enjoying being back in the ring after all these years, putting on a show for the crowd.
“They’re in the pay,” Tony Shibuya shouted out. “All the JACC guys are in the pay — they’re just a bunch of traitors and lapdogs of this stinking camp administration.”
“They’re in cahoots with the camp guards, who’re selling our food on the black market!”
“Now you’ve gone too far, Kenny,” boomed a voice from across the room. Burt Kondo, a prominent member of the JACC, had stood up, his tall, lean body like a flagpole. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, so why don’t you just shut your trap?”
“And who’s gonna make me?” Kenny strolled over.
A hush came over the crowd, and Burt froze. The indignation in his eyes rapidly faded, his skin waxy pale.
“Think you’re so kashikoi now?”
“Sure has been a long time since we had anything sweet,” another voice piped up.
With a thud in her gut, Lily realized it was Kaz. She couldn’t believe it. He’d gotten up behind Kenny, as though they were a pair of hooligans.
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous!” said Mrs. Okada. “Our people wouldn’t have anything to do with the black market.”
“Our people?” Kenny chuckled. “Lady, there ain’t no ‘our people’ in here. There’s just you and me and a bunch of Jackalopes who’re getting a helluva lot better treatment than you and me. All because they’re doing favours.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” Burt shook his head, like he was talking to a couple of feeble-minded children. “You don’t know the first thing about how much Frank Isaka’s done for our community.”
“Oh, Frank Isaka.” Kaz made a sour face.
“Where is he?” Kenny said. “He ain’t even here — he’s off at some fancy conference giving speeches about the grand history of the JACC, full of pretty words about cheerful co-operation, offerin’ our boys up for the draft. Can you believe it? He thinks our boys should fight for Uncle Sam while we’re all cooped up here!”
A ripple of anger passed through the crowd.
“So what’ve you got to say to that?” Kenny leaned in at Burt.
“Bakatare is what I say!” Kaz hissed.
Burt continued defending the JACC, but he didn’t get very far before Kenny lunged forward and knocked him to the ground. A blur of fists pummelling like rocks down a hill, gaining momentum with every rotation. All the rage that had been pent up in him for years — humiliation layered upon humiliation — was now being taken out on Burt’s poor face.
A scream pierced the air. It took several seconds for Lily to realize that it was coming from her own throat, and by then her voice was drowned out by the hooting and hollering of everyone around her.
Six
She pulled the curtain around her bed and curled up, curled into herself. Her thoughts had recoiled to that little cave at the back of her brain. She didn’t want to let any images in. That body on the floor — moaning, mewling. So many shining, riveted faces. But Kenny’d had the right idea: he calmly straightened up and began clearing away dishes, as though he were just minding his own business. A bored sigh, heaving shoulders, roll of the eyes. Show’s over. The crowd scattered as the guards came hollering in. No one dared to point a finger his way. Not even the table of JACCers, not even Burt. At last Dr. Takemitsu arrived to take Burt to the hospital.
Lily edged closer to the wall, sand whipping against its other side. Through the cascade she could hear Aunt Tetsuko’s muffled chatter, followed by the tearful whimpering of one of the younger children. Audrey climbed onto the bunk above, softly passing gas. Hard for Lily to believe that these people were her family. They felt more like prison mates in this wasteland, this desert purgatory.
Now more than ever, she knew she had to go to the aqueduct. Kaz had fallen under Kenny’s spell so utterly that he wasn’t even himself anymore. She needed to protect him, to restore him to his true self. This was what the doctor had asked of her.
At last everyone was snoring. Rising stealthily, she pulled a shawl over her shoulders, tiptoed across the squeaking floorboards, and slipped outside.
The night air was cold and cutting — she’d never been out this late in the desert. Sand was spraying all over her, like a shower of glass shards across the skin. Her eyes adjusted, narrowed to slits, her lashes providing something of a filter. The pain faded to a tingle. At least the haze provided camouflage.
Just as she was about to start run
ning, she sensed movement up ahead. Her heart lurched, pattered madly. It was that loutish, red-haired guard. He’d been watching her since the very first day of her arrival. Herding everyone along toward the registration desk, his arm had jostled against her breast — nothing accidental about it, his stare made clear.
Now he was strolling past the barracks, toes turned outward to accommodate his pork barrel of a belly. Why wasn’t he off playing poker, drunk out of his skull?
Pressed flat against the wall, she waited several seconds, sweat trickling down her rib cage. At last, he turned the corner. Still her heart wouldn’t stop hammering. Should she turn back? Of course she should. What on earth had she been thinking?
To her surprise, she found herself running ahead. Drawing the shawl over her head, she ran blindly, sticking close to the barrack walls — one dark building after another. The sky stretched open to swallow her up in its infinite blackness. Seconds felt like minutes, minutes like hours. A cramp cut across her abdomen and her legs turned rubbery as they sped across the ground with some force that seemed to come from beyond her own body. Sand blew back in her face and filled her mouth as she gasped for air.
The aqueduct passed along the edge of camp, a thin grey line that wound like a river into the distance. Never had she seen it up close. She paused to examine it in the moonlight: nothing but a dried-up trough. Probably hadn’t worked in decades — centuries, maybe. Relic of another time, when the land was moist and abloom.
She searched for Kaz but couldn’t see anyone. Where was she supposed to meet him? The aqueduct faded up ahead, obliterated by darkness. Her heart plummeted as she stood at the edge shivering, colder with every passing second.
A flicker in the shadows down the way. Down below. The ember of a cigarette illuminated Kaz’s face for a beautiful moment, and relief spread warmly across her chest.
Yet he wasn’t alone.
Whispers and muted laughter as she approached.
“My, my, if it isn’t our little beauty queen,” Kaz said. “I didn’t think you’d have the guts to come out here.”
As she jumped down, the force of the floor shot up through her ankles. “I was worried about you.”
“Aw, ya needn’t worry your pretty little head.”
A new cockiness came over him as he swung his arm around her shoulder, showing off in front of the guys. One of them was Kenny Honda. What on earth had she walked into?
There was something familiar about the other two faces. She recognized them from the old neighbourhood. Shig Nakane’s father used to own an auto repair around the corner from their dry-cleaning shop. Shig’s fingernails were black as the inside of a chimney despite having spent the past several months soaping dishes. The other guy was Akira Ogura, the older cousin of one of Lily’s old classmates. Well into his thirties, Akira had been working as a bookkeeper while studying to become an accountant, the last she’d heard. He’d always struck her as a pretty straitlaced fellow. She would have thought he’d become a JACC leader. Instead, a subtle defiance glinted in his eyes.
What had become of her romantic rendezvous?
Kaz’s demeanour wasn’t romantic at all. Welcoming her to their headquarters, he lit a match to reveal tiny words etched with a penknife on the wall: Black Dragon Society of Matanzas.
“Black Dragon?”
“They’re only the greatest secret society in Japan. High-ranking army officers, cabinet ministers, secret agents, hired killers.”
“It’s famous for sabotage missions and secret collecting,” Akira added.
Kenny smiled. “That’s why we’re starting a branch here.”
“But why? Why would we want to sabotage anything?”
“Look around you, Lily.”
“Don’t you think the government’s made it clear?” Kaz said. “We’re the enemy. Time to start acting like it.”
“But shouldn’t we just co-operate with the authorities, and soon the war’ll be over, and we’ll all be able to go home?”
“Oh, spare me all that JACC claptrap.”
Now Kenny looked irritated. “Why do we need a girl in on it, anyway?”
“A girl can be useful,” Kaz said.
Useful. Her lips curled into a smile as she cast her eyes downward. She thought of the doctor’s soft touch and the coolness of his stethoscope. His steady, compassionate gaze. She couldn’t let him down. Not now. Not ever.
“You can trust me,” she whispered.
“Good,” Kenny said. “’Cause your boyfriend’s been taking some pretty interesting pictures.”
“Pictures?”
“Not just pin-up girls, like the kind he takes of you. Real pictures. The kind that’ll help our cause.”
Kaz reached into his satchel. The circle tightened around him as Akira cupped his lighter to create a glow. An array of photographs fanned out in Kaz’s palms.
Wizened faces of old people: cracked, smiling bowls of clay. Their gnarled, claw-like hands digging through the soil.
Bean fields the old issei farmers had planted. Mammoth mountains looming above, laughing down on their meagre human efforts.
Massive camouflage nets hanging across the sky, all too familiar, yet also new in their strangeness, their rebirth as images. The shadowy faces of the weavers were barely visible on the other side. Could one of those dim, sad faces be her own?
While these pictures brought tears to Lily’s eyes, others filled her with a cold, stark terror. She couldn’t believe Kaz had managed to capture all this. Fights breaking out, pale faces strained to the point they looked like moonlit carvings, fists swinging in an arced blur. Men dropping to their knees, punched in the gut, photographed from weird angles. The camera must have been hidden under Kaz’s jacket.
These pictures at once beckoned and revolted her, exerting an extraordinary, eerie power. Why did Kaz insist on taking them? They were nothing like the pictures he’d given to her; there was nothing beautiful about these images. It upset her just knowing that they existed, proof of how far they’d all fallen. Her ghostly, nameless self — performing menial labour. Fingers so cramped from all the weaving and tying that she’d soon be an arthritic crone.
“Why, Kaz?” A sob caught in her throat. “What’s the point of it all? If anyone ever found them —”
“You don’t understand. They’re important. After the war’s over, after some time’s gone by, people’ll want to know what happened here. And that’s the story my pictures will tell.”
“A true record of the internment,” Kenny added. “Not just the pretty pictures of us smiling internees that the WRA photographers are sent to take.”
“The WRA?”
“The War Relocation Authority. The government. The geniuses responsible for running this place. They’ve got their propaganda folks cooking up pamphlets. Haven’t you noticed?”
So that was who they were. A few weeks back Lily had glimpsed a hakujin woman in a mannish white shirt. Gingery hair, pale, fragile skin, the kind easily prone to redness. She was with a paunchy, bearded guy, his face shaded by a stetson. One of those old-fashioned, workhorse cameras stood on a tripod. They were taking pictures of two little boys playing catch under the dazzling, white-hot sun.
Later that evening, in the barracks, Lily had overheard some girls talking about how the man had told them to smile and let their gratitude shine from their cheeks. They should be grateful for how the United States of America had brought them here to shelter and protect them, he said.
A couple of days later, the guy approached Lily. She could feel his eyes grazing her body as he lingered at some distance, taking in the scene: Lily, Aunt Tetsuko, and Audrey outside the barrack. It was after dinner. They were sitting in a circle on upside-down crates in the umbrella of mauve-grey shadows. Not much in the way of conversation, just the click-click of their knitting needles — faster and faster, like high heels on pavement, run
ning away. No one looked up. He didn’t seem to get that this was his cue to leave. The man plunked down his camera on a stand.
The nerve of him. He wasn’t even going to ask permission? Jumping up, Lily shot him a disdainful glance and tethered in the skein of yarn so quickly she didn’t realize her handiwork had fallen to the ground. His hat slanted back to reveal an amused expression. As she stormed inside, the scrap of sweater got caught around the crate and unravelled in so many rapid orange zigzags.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Kaz said. “Not all the WRA photographers are government lackeys. You’d be surprised — some of their politics swing pretty far left. They were New Dealers, back in the day, when they toured the countryside taking pictures of migrant farmers, documenting their crap living conditions. They sympathize with the oppressed. Some of these guys are against the whole internment. It goes against their politics, their humanity.”
“You’ve been getting to know them real well.”
Kaz shrugged, as if there were more he could say if he wanted to. “Can’t hurt to have friends on all sides.”
The female photographer was the one Kaz had befriended. Lily had caught sight of them chatting one afternoon. They were leaned against a barrack, heads close together. The woman was talking animatedly, gesturing in a loose-wristed kind of way. A burst of rich laughter that had a moody undertone. She laughed right from the stomach, like a man. Strange to see on such a birdlike woman.
“That girl — the redhead — is she the one who’s been slipping you film?”
“Emily’s been helping us out in a number of ways.”
“Oh, Kaz. What makes you think she can be trusted?” Lily felt sickened.
“Em can be trusted. One hundred percent.”
“The question,” Kenny said, “is can you be trusted?”
“She can be trusted,” Kaz said. “I have faith in her.”
The next two nights, Lily hardly slept at all. Her mind was abuzz with images of the aqueduct — the obscene etchings on the wall magnified, looming like billboards of her duplicity, her guilt. What if someone had followed her out there? Her stomach clenched in a horrible inertia, as though she’d eaten something bad but couldn’t bring herself to vomit.
After the Bloom Page 7
