Sachi
August 18, 1943
Obon! The Buddhist custom was one of Sachi’s favorite times of year. Strange that honoring the dead could be such fun. Three days of beautiful colors and yummy delights, when all the women would gather to prepare the Japanese food she had missed so much since being in camp. She giggled, listening to them whisper about secret stashes of special spices they’d carried from California. But her favorite part of the celebration was bon-odori, the dance.
Oh, the beautiful kimonos! The sight of silk pastels—yellow, pink, blue—floating and drifting with each dancer’s movement. It made the hot, sticky summer air feel a little cooler.
Best of all, now that she was eleven, she truly felt a part of the ceremony as she danced with the women. There had been no Obon celebration at the Santa Anita Assembly Center the year before. Too many disrupted lives and nobody to organize the event. All the years before that, Sachi was just a little girl. She’d looked silly then, following the women in kimonos as they danced around the large circle. How clumsy she was in her dance, though she tried to copy their graceful motions. For Rohwer’s bon-odori, she remembered all of her dance lessons and no longer felt awkward like before.
Nothing made her feel more grown up, more proud, than the look in her mother’s eyes as she watched Sachi dance. When she caught Mama smiling, a little teary-eyed, Sachi decided all of the boring practices she’d complained about had been worth it. It was good that she had changed her mind about asking Jubie to celebrate Obon at the camp. If Jubie had come, it might have ruined everything.
Still, wishing Jubie could be there to dance with her and the other women was a dark cloud over the celebration. She imagined seeing Jubie move in the circle with them, while chastising herself for her slipup.
Jubie had become so good at Japanese dancing in the last few months that Sachi had the brilliant idea to invite her to Obon, not even thinking about how she’d explain it to Mama when Jubie showed up for the dance. She’d been so excited she simply blurted out the invitation. Brilliant idea? No. Brilliantly stupid? Yes.
For several weeks, Sachi worried about how to get herself out of the mess without hurting Jubie’s feelings. Finally, she realized she didn’t have to withdraw the invitation. She could change it instead, and decided to do it on a hot afternoon the week before, when Jubie walked Sachi back to camp. All the while, Sachi’s stomach had tickled with nerves about Mama seeing them together.
“Hey, Jubie,” she’d said, picking up a round stone from the side of the road. “Instead of coming to the camp to celebrate, what do you think about having our own Obon celebration?” They could honor the dead in private. Two friends—two sisters—honoring their dead fathers.
Sachi turned the stone in her hand and felt its warmth. “We could have a picnic and dance in the shade by the creek. It’s going to be so crowded in camp, and all those people will make it feel even hotter.”
But sometimes Jubie was too smart for her own good. Sachi could tell when she’d been “figgered out,” as Jubie called it.
Her friend was silent as she walked next to Sachi, and that wasn’t good. She was hardly ever quiet, and it was a sign that something was wrong. So, Sachi talked for both of them, speaking faster, like she always did when she got nervous.
“I’ll bring some special Japanese food—it’s so funny how the ladies in camp compete to see who can make the best rice rolls. We can have a picnic.” She stopped for a second, only to breathe, then continued. “Then I’ll show you some new dances and we can practice in the shade and maybe even take a little swim in the creek if we get too hot.”
Jubie stopped walking and stared at her. She didn’t have to say a single word for Sachi to know what she was thinking.
You think you hiding something from me, but you ain’t.
Finally, Jubie spoke. “I ever tell you about Auntie Bess not allowing no phony faces around?”
“Phony face? No. What’s that?”
“Auntie Bess say you wearing a phony face anytime you ain’t being truthful about something. She catches me ever time. She say she got some secret way of knowing. I didn’t believe she knew what she was talking about, but I do now, ’cause I’s catching you with a phony face. What you hiding? Might as well spit it out, ’cause I’m gonna find out one way or the other.”
Sachi’s unease erupted in a giggle. “What makes you think I’m hiding something?”
“I just know it. It’s coming out loud and clear as them jar flies making them buzzing noises ever where. Come on, you can tell me. What’s wrong?”
Whatever Jubie thought Sachi was hiding, it couldn’t be as hurtful as what it really was. How was she supposed to tell her best friend that her mother didn’t like her, just because she was colored? But, she’d been “figgered out,” and there was no sense trying to hide behind her phony face any longer.
She took a deep breath. “Jubie, you know it doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks, you’re my best friend, my sister. Right?”
Jubie opened her eyes a little wider. “Yeah.”
“Well, my mother … she—” Sachi bit her lip.
“What is it? You can tell me. What’s wrong with your mama?”
The alarm in Jubie’s voice made Sachi’s heart ache, but she forced herself to spit the words out. “She doesn’t like us playing together.”
Confusion and hurt flashed in Jubie’s amber eyes. There were some things Jubie couldn’t hide, either.
“I’m sorry.” Sachi panicked and started talking fast all over again. “But she doesn’t know you. And, she doesn’t know I still see you, either. When I’m with you, she thinks I’m with my Japanese friends.” She couldn’t bear to see Jubie’s reaction, but couldn’t turn away, either.
“You been lying to your mama about us?”
She’d never looked at it as lying, but of course it was. Just because Mama was being unreasonable didn’t make what she was doing any less a lie. “I guess so,” she said softly.
“Why your mama don’t like me?”
Sachi pointed to the shade of a big tree at the side of the road. “Let’s get out of the sun and I’ll try to explain it to you.” She shook her head as they crossed the road. How in the world would she explain this to Jubie? It was a conversation she’d hoped she’d never have to have. But, how could she think she’d avoid it either?
They sat down and leaned against the trunk. Above, the tree buzzed with cicadas.
Sachi picked up a stick and scratched the dirt. “Remember when I told you three boys killed my papa because he was Japanese?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, what I never told you was … one of those boys was colored.”
Jubie looked up. It was quiet again, except for the whispering sound of the wind in the leaves and the noise of the awful, ugly cicadas. Sachi usually hated the constant buzzing, but as she waited for Jubie to say something, she was glad it filled the uncomfortable silence.
Zzzzzz. Zzzzzz. Zzzzzz.
Sachi had to try to explain, fill the big quiet. “My mother holds Papa’s murder against all colored people. That’s why she doesn’t want me to be friends with you.” She leaned toward her friend to watch for an expression. Jubie wasn’t saying anything to help Sachi figure her out.
Finally, Jubie spoke. “She hold it against white folks, too? After all, two of them boys was white.”
Sachi had never looked at it that way. Why did Mama only hold it against Terrence? “I don’t know. But I think she’s wrong, Jubie. That’s why I’ve been hiding our friendship. I know you no more had anything to do with my papa’s death than I had anything to do with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It doesn’t make sense that some people—my mama included—hold the act of some against those who had nothing to do with it.”
“No, but it do happen a lot. What we gonna do about it?” Jubie asked.
Sachi thought for a minute before realizing she had no real answer to Jubie’s question. She stood up and dusted herself off, then smiled at her friend. “There may be nothing we can do about all those other people, but you and I can do something on our own. You know what we’re going to do?”
At last the sparkle returned to Jubie’s eyes. “No, what?”
“We’re going to have our own celebration by the creek! That’s what we’re going to do. And no matter what all those other people think, we’ll have a great time, even if you are colored and I am Japanese.”