“I'm sorry,” he said as he helped her into it. “He's drunk, he doesn't know what he's saying.” But it was upsetting to both of them. They thanked their host, and hurried to the car, as the others watched them. No one had said a word to Madison, and Peter wondered if what he had voiced was silently echoed by the others. Did they all think him a fool? Was everyone willing to turn on the Japanese they knew? But with the exception of Hiroko, none of these people were real Japanese. Takeo was as American as any citizen after twenty years in the States, and Reiko and the children had been born there. What were they talking about? And even Hiroko was hardly responsible for Pearl Harbor. Why take it out on her? What were they thinking? But tempers were running high these days; it was exactly what Takeo had seen coming.
And as Peter drove her home, she began to cry and apologize for ruining his evening. “You should have taken someone else, Peter-san,” she said, slipping into her old ways without thinking. “An American girl. It was not wise to take me.”
“Maybe not,” he said, his jaw firm. “But I'm not in love with an American girl.” He glanced over at her, and pulled the car over so he could talk to her. He pulled her close to him, and held her as she trembled. “I'm in love with you, Hiroko. And you must be strong now. This could happen again. Takeo thinks it'll take a while for things to calm down, especially with all this ‘enemy alien’ nonsense going on, where they're collecting cameras from students, and the army telling us every five minutes that we're about to be attacked.” With all the air raids they had had in the past three and a half weeks, there had not been a single attack or a genuine sighting. But the papers were full of mystery ships that were supposedly just offshore, and the phantom planes that some people saw and others didn't, and spies being arrested daily. “You can't listen to peopie like that jerk at the party. You know who you are. Listen to your heart, Hiroko, and mine, not to people who call you names, or try to hold you responsible for something you had nothing to do with.”
“But Japan is my country. I am responsible for their actions.”
“That's quite a burden to put on yourself,” he said, suddenly looking tired. It had been a long night in the cellar, and they were both still dusty. “You're responsible for you, and no one else. You can't control what Japan does.” It pained her to feel ashamed of the actions of her own country. Just as it would have pained him, or her cousins, if America had done something disgraceful.
“I am sorry to you,” she said awkwardly, and his heart went out to her again. She looked so dignified, and so gentle. “I am sorry to you that my country has done something so terrible. It is very ugly,” she said, filled with shame, as he leaned down and kissed her.
“It is ugly, but it's not your fault. And you're not ugly. You're beautiful. Just be patient, Hiroko. It will get better.”
But when they got home, they found that they weren't the only ones who'd had a difficult evening. The parents of Sally's best friend had asked her not to come back again. They were well aware of her crush on their son, and they thought it unsuitable, and their oldest son had just joined the navy. Sally was in her room, drowning in tears when they found her. She had taken off her dress, and she was wearing her mother's bathrobe and when they urged her to come down, she told them all what had happened over cookies Reiko had made. Sally was sobbing as she told them.
“They were so mean to me. They said I couldn't come back to the house again. I've known Kathy all my life, she's like my sister. And she didn't say anything, she just looked embarrassed, and when I left she cried. Her brother wasn't even there tonight, they wouldn't let him see me. Their mother said I was an ‘alien,’ that the government says so. I'm not an ‘alien,’ Mom.” She cried even harder as she said the word. “I'm just a kid…. I'm American. I was born here.”
Ken came in from his evening then and heard what she'd said. His girlfriend was sansei, which meant that even her parents had been born in the States, but she'd had trouble at school right before Christmas vacation. And he'd gotten in several fights because of her. People were definitely going crazy.
“How can people be so dumb?” Ken said, looking at his sister angrily. They had known the Jordans all their lives. How could they do that to her? And she was right, she was just a kid. Why punish her for something she had nothing to do with?
Peter told them what had happened to Hiroko then, and they all agreed that they hoped the New Year would be better than the last one. But they also agreed that they had to be more careful. Public emotions were running high, and people were being whipped into a frenzy.
“What I don't like,” Peter said honestly, “is this ‘enemy alien’ stuff. Just because people look Japanese doesn't make them foreign. All of a sudden, it's like no one can tell the difference.”
“Maybe they don't want to,” Reiko said sadly. Things had been rough at the hospital for her too. Several people had made ugly comments about her or refused to work alongside her, some of those people she'd known for years. It was very painful.
Sally calmed down eventually, and Peter sat with the others for a long time, and then, finally, he left them. Hiroko walked him to the door, and he kissed her, and told her he was sorry it had been such a rotten evening.
“It wasn't rotten, Peter-san,” she said, forgetting herself again, but at least here it didn't matter. “It was very good. I was with you. That is all that is important,” she said softly.
“That's all that's important to me too,” Peter said, and kissed her one last time, and then he left. After Hiroko said good night to Tak and Reiko, they both worried more than ever about her seeing Peter in this atmosphere. But like an express train, surging ahead in the dark of night, it was too late to stop them.
The next day Sally moped around the house, and Ken tried to get her to come out with him and Peggy, but she wouldn't. She missed Kathy, even more than she missed her brother. They had been best friends forever and now she was forbidden even to call her.
Tak and Reiko went to the store and did some errands, and Peter took Hiroko and Tami for a drive, and they noticed with fascination the endless lines of boys lining up to join the navy in Palo Alto. Some looked hungover, some were still drunk, but most looked like they knew what they were doing. People had been signing up in droves for the past three weeks. And among the throng were a number of nisei.
Manila fell to the Japanese the next day, and even more young men signed up after that. But three days later, the Selective Service reclassified all the nisei and sansei. They were put in a class called IV-C, and they were told that they would either be discharged from the service or could hold only menial jobs, like those in the kitchen.
“Second-class citizens, if that,” Peter said through clenched teeth.
“It's going to make great teaching one day,” Tak said grimly. “I just wonder who'll be here to teach the class. Probably not me, or anyone like me. You'll have to do it, Peter.”
“Don't be stupid, Tak.” He didn't want to hear it.
“I'm not. Look around you. Read the papers.” The emotions against the Japanese were running higher than ever, even against American-born Japanese like Reiko. People seemed to be unable to differentiate between their enemies and their friends, their allies and “enemy aliens,” as they called them.
Hiroko went back to St. Andrew's in the midst of all the worries and bad news, and it was easier than she expected. Despite Peter's protests, she took the train to go there.
The Tanakas had all been too busy to take her, and the only surprise she had was that she couldn't get a cab at the station. So she walked the rest of the way, carrying her suitcase, all the way from the station. A few buses went by, but they wouldn't stop to pick her up either. But, warmer and more tired than she'd anticipated, she nevertheless reached St. Andrew's safely.
When she got to school, the head of the dorms told her that they had made a little change. They felt sure that under the circumstances these days, she would prefer a private room, and they had done every-thing they could to fin
d one for her. But in spite of the appeal of it, Hiroko felt guilty. She knew how vehemently Anne Spencer had wanted a private room, and it didn't seem fair to take this one from her. And she explained that to the dorm mistress, and explained that she would be willing to do without one.
“That's very kind of you, Hiroko,” the woman said nervously. “But Anne has agreed to room with some other girls this semester. And Sharon will have a new roommate. So we hope everyone will be happy.”
But the “private” room they had found for her was actually nothing more than a broom closet in the attic. She had to go up the back stairs to get to it, and there were no other girls nearby. She had to go down three flights of stairs to get to the bathroom. And when Hiroko stepped inside it, wide-eyed, it was freezing. There was no heating at all, and no view. It didn't even have a window.
“This is my room?” she asked, looking startled, as the woman nodded, hoping she wouldn't object or make any comment.
“Yes, it's small, of course. And we've given you some extra blankets.” There were two, and even standing there, Hiroko could feel the bitter chill. And in the warmer weather, right under the roof, with no ventilation at all, it would be stifling. It was lit by a single bulb hanging from a wire on the ceiling, and the only furniture was a bed, a chair, and a dresser. There wasn't even a desk where she could do her work, or a closet to hang her clothes. And everything she had left in her last room had been put in her new one in boxes.
“Thank you,” Hiroko said softly, fighting back tears, and praying that she could hold them back long enough for the dorm mistress to leave so she wouldn't see them.
“I'm glad you like it,” she said, grateful that the girl had agreed and not created a problem. There had been no choice. The Spencers and several other parents had demanded that they do this. They were incensed that she was coming back at all. But the school had refused to let her go. She was a sweet girl, and an excellent student, and other than the one smoking incident she'd been put on probation for, there had never been a single disciplinary problem. They had refused to expel her for political reasons. “Let us know if you need anything,” she said to Hiroko, and then gently closed the door, leaving Hiroko there alone to sit on the bed and cry. She was more than an enemy alien now, she was a pariah.
She went to the library to do her studies that afternoon, but she didn't even bother to go to dinner. She didn't want to see any of them. She had glimpsed Anne coming back from her golf lessons only that afternoon, and she had overheard Sharon bragging to someone about spending Christmas with Gary Cooper. It was probably all a lie anyway, and who cared? She was too hurt by where they had put her to listen to Sharon's stories anymore. She didn't even call her cousins to tell them about the room. It was just too painful.
She went to bed early instead, without eating anything, and the next day she went to class looking pale, and wearing a heavy sweater. It had been freezing in her room all night, and by Thursday she was sneezing. But she didn't say a word to anyone; she didn't speak to a soul all week. And whenever she entered a room, they all acted as though they didn't see her.
She was going to go home on Friday night, but she had a bad cold by then, and wasn't feeling up to it. And she still hadn't told her cousins about the “private room”; she just called and told them she wasn't coming.
And when she went to get a cup of tea in the dining room on Friday night, the nurse happened to see her, and saw instantly that she had a fever.
“Are you all right?” she asked kindly, and Hiroko tried to smile, but her eyes filled with tears. It had been a terrible week, and she was feeling really awful. She had a bad chest cold, and her eyes were red and she was sneezing. In the end, the nurse insisted that she come to the infirmary, and once she got her there and took her temperature, she discovered that she had a hundred and two fever. “You're not going anywhere, young lady,” she said firmly, “except to bed, right here. And in the morning, we're going to call the doctor.” Hiroko felt so rotten, she didn't even argue, and she let the nurse put her to bed, grateful for a warm room and an abundance of blankets.
In the morning, her fever was down a little bit, but the nurse still insisted on calling the doctor. He came late that afternoon and said that she had bronchitis and a mild case of influenza, but by Sunday she could go back to her own room. Which she did, still feeling ill, but at least a little better.
She walked slowly up the stairs, carrying her few things. She had a lot of studying to do, and she was going to go to the library as soon as she changed her clothes. But when she got to her room, she found that the door wouldn't open. It had been locked somehow, although there was no lock on it, and the door seemed to be jammed, but as Hiroko pushed it open as hard as she could, she was met with a stench that left her breathless, and as the door opened fully a bucket of red paint fell on her and splashed everywhere. She was gasping and crying and trying to catch her breath, as she saw that her few belongings had been strewn everywhere, and someone had used the rest of the red paint to write the word JAP all over her walls, and in smaller letters go home and get out of here. But the worst of all was the dead cat they had put on her bed. It looked as though it had been dead for weeks, and it actually had maggots.
Hiroko ran screaming out the door, hysterical, and down the stairs as fast as she could, smearing paint everywhere. It was on her clothes, on her shoes, in her eyes, on her hands as she flew down the stairs, touching the walls and the banisters. She didn't even know where she was going. A few girls looked surprised when she got downstairs and others seemed to disappear, as Hiroko screamed in terror. She didn't even know what to say or do, all she could remember was the stench of the cat, and the paint pouring through her hair, and the terror of what they had done to the only haven she had there.
“Hiroko!” The dorm mistress and her assistant came running immediately and were horrified at what they saw as she stood there. “Oh, my God …oh, my God!!” The younger of the two women began to cry as she looked at her, and so did Hiroko. She took Hiroko in her arms, oblivious to the paint that covered her, and held her. “Who did this?”
Hiroko was too incoherent to speak, but she had no idea anyway, and would never have told them even if she did know. But when the two women went upstairs after leaving her in the infirmary, they were appalled at what they saw in her room. It was vicious. And late that night, both nurses worked on getting the paint out of her hair, put drops in her eyes to soothe them, and put her to bed in the infirmary. The school administration was sick over what had happened to her, and it was possible that it was just an isolated incident, but for her sake, and her safety, they felt they had to make a decision.
They called her cousins that night, and both Reiko and Tak came in the station wagon to get her the next day. They were frightened when they got the call, they thought she'd been hurt. And she had been, but not in any of the ways they expected.
They were overwhelmed when they saw her room. The cat was gone by then, but they were told about it, and janitors were already trying to clean the walls, but the deans had wanted the Tanakas to see it. They wanted them to fully understand the situation for her there, and the basis for their ultimate decision.
“It grieves us to say this to you,” they admitted in their meeting with the Tanakas. “And it is a terrible condemnation of all of us here. We each share the shame of what has happened. But because of it, because of the political climate at the moment, and the way the girls apparently are reacting to it, Hiroko is not safe here. We cannot be responsible for her, if things like this can happen in our midst. For her own sake, we cannot let her stay here.” They were terribly sorry, and they said all the right things, but they did not want the responsibility of her getting injured the next time. As it was, she could have been blinded by the paint, or even killed if the can had hit her. It was just too dangerous, and they suggested that perhaps the wisest course was for her to take a semester off, and see how the public mood had altered. She would be welcome to return at the right time: s
he had been an excellent student.
The Tanakas sat and listened to them, looking grief stricken, wondering how long it would be before things like this started happening at Stanford.
“Have you said anything to Hiroko yet?” Takeo asked unhappily. He didn't disagree with them, and in a way, he wanted her to leave and come home with them. But he knew she would be disappointed.
“We wanted to speak to you first,” the dean said, and then called her in, and said all the same things to Hiroko. And in spite of all her efforts not to, she cried when they told her.
“I must leave?” she asked, looking deeply embarrassed as they nodded. She lowered her eyes, and looked very Japanese. In her view, she had failed dismally. It was all her fault. And then she looked at her cousin. “My father will be so ashamed of me,” she said in English. She longed to speak Japanese to him, but she knew she couldn't.
“Your father will understand,” the dean said kindly. “This situation is beyond anyone's control. And it does not speak well for our young ladies. They should be ashamed, Hiroko, not you. We are doing this for your safety.” First they had had to put her in a broom closet, and now they were dumping paint cans on her head, and putting a dead cat in her room. If that was the way the other girls felt about her, she definitely did not belong there. “Perhaps you will come back someday.”
“I would like that,” she said sadly. “I must go to college in America. I have promised my father,” she said, honoring her promise.
“Maybe you could transfer to the University of California, or Stanford, and live with your cousins.” It was a possibility, but as a Japanese national, it was unlikely that anyone would take her.
Silent Honor Page 14
