Chapter Fifteen

We didn’t have any idea of what we’d find when we got back to Makana Valley. Auntie twisted the car radio dial back and forth without coming across a station while I pulled up to an Army patrol that flagged me down outside Pearl Harbor’s main gate.

A guard in dark green fatigues shouldered his rifle as he approached the Ford. “Halt,” his voice erupted in a nervous burst. “No one’s allowed on the streets after dark.”

I lifted my hand to massage my forehead and saw him jerk, then relax his grip on the rifle. The sun hadn’t gone down yet, but was setting through a dusty haze that turned it into a glowing orange ball. It reminded me of the time I’d watched an eclipse with my mother through a pane of smoked glass. My eyes prickled with the first sign of tears before I batted them away.

“Red Cross?” the guard asked.

Auntie had lost her cap sometime during the day, but my armband had miraculously survived. “Yes. We’ve been at the Naval Hospital all day.”

“Go ahead then, ma’am,” he said with a wave. “Drive safely and you’ll need to keep your lights off.”

“Tell me, officer,” I tried, not being familiar with the insignia that the military wear, “What’s been happening during the day—to people in Honolulu?”

A second guard approached the car. “What’s the problem?”

“It’s all right, Hank. Two nurses leaving the base are catching up on what’s been going on.”

“Well, you see, the military is in charge of everything now,” the guard named Hank told us. He stepped closer, shoulders back, chest out. “There’s a blackout to keep the Japs from beaming in on the city. Radio silence too.”

“What about schools?” Auntie asked.

“Shut up tighter than a…well, closed, I should say. Liquor stores, too, though I don’t think that’d worry you much. Grocery stores will be ordered closed, too, so the brass can figure out how to keep everyone on this rock fed.”

“You’d better get moving along now, ladies,” the first guard said. He gave us another, more agitated wave. “There’ve been reports of parachutists landing in the pineapple fields. We might have a whole battalion of Jap saboteurs in our lap any minute. It wouldn’t be safe for you out alone.”

My worries about Jamison had been crowded out by the need to care for an endless stream of wounded men arriving at the naval hospital. Now, I wanted to ask what the army was doing with the local Japanese, but I was afraid the guards would take it the wrong way. They’d seen their buddies killed and mutilated right in front of their eyes.

There had been one sailor who’d carried in an unconscious man all the way from the deck of the Arizona after the first bombs hit. The sailor shouted into the ward where I was passing out cigarettes, “I’m going to kill those Japs. I’m going to mow every one of them down.” Then he buried his face in the dying man’s neck and sobbed. They were great wracking heaves that didn’t let up until I came over and began reciting, “Though I walk through…”

He picked up the verse where I left off, and at the end, he wiped his eyes on the back of his hand and said to me, “Do what you can for him, Red Cross. He was a good man.”

****

The carriage house didn’t light up a welcome when I pulled into the portico and turned off the engine. Twilight and cricket songs swirled around Auntie and me as we sat slumped in our seats without moving. Then Auntie sighed. It was a long audible lament that mixed the emotions of a tiring day with the need to carry on.

I reached for the door handle just as a dark figure stepped out from the trees, and my hand flew to cover my mouth instead. More shadowy shapes were advancing.

Before I could stop her, Auntie May threw open the door and ran toward them. “Johnny!” she cried. They ran to each other, and she threw her arms around him. There’s nothing like a mother’s love to recognize her own, I thought as I got out of the car.

Other shadows came forward until I made out Rose Yamamoto and her sister, then their mother. The three young Hideto boys carried sharpened sticks. Mrs. Hideto had sewn ragged red, white and blue stripes on the front of their shirts, and one of the boys blurted out when he saw me, “I am American. I am born in this country.” His mouth turned down, all puckered and quivering, then he rubbed his eyes and repeated in a shaky whimper, “I am American.” Mrs. Hideto carried a hoe and her husband had a pitchfork.

The Suzukis also had hoes, and I could now see that Mrs. Yamamoto was dragging her husband’s machete.

Mr. Ching limped forward. “We will fight to protect Makana Valley.” His shrill voice was electric with emotion. “We fight for our country.”

My heart cried out in bittersweet joy. Here was my little army from Makana Valley, with their pitchforks and hoes. They were ready to march into battle against machineguns and bomber planes. Auntie May was older, more experienced, but I was their landlord. Generations of feudal allegiance was ingrained in the farmers. They looked to me as their leader. I sensed in that moment that they were ready to give their lives for me and the land they had adopted and loved.

“The farmers were frightened and didn’t know what to do.” Johnny raised his eyes to mine. “I thought the best thing was to get everyone prepared instead of just quitting and giving up. We could be like a team on the offensive, you know, taking control of the ball and running with it.”

“We will protect your house, Missy Wentworth,” Mr. Ching pledged. “The big house, too.” He pushed a boy of about thirteen in front of him. “My grandson Henry…you tell her now,” he said. “Tell Missy Wentworth.”

The boy was tall and skinny, in short pants that hung to his knees, and had the kind of hair cut where someone stuck a bowl on his head and sniped around the edges.

“I’m sorry I broke your windows.” He grimaced and hung his head. “It was to keep your hotel—or whatever you’re building over there—from getting my grandpa kicked off his farm.”

Mr. Ching cuffed his grandson on the back of the head. Henry shook off the prodding gesture with a raised shoulder and mumbled, “And I’m sorry about that day in the forest. I only wanted to scare you so you’d move away.”

“You mean when I got hit by a rock?”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, honest.”

The world flipped over in a crazy cartwheel. I could barely focus on the vandalism that had been plaguing Makani Kai or my tumble from a wall. Those days seemed far behind me, when it was possible to plan for the future and spend a sunny afternoon enjoying the tint of watercolors fanning across blank paper. In one terrifying day everyone’s lives had been tossed up in the air like so many shreds of confetti and let fly in a hurricane of dust and confusion.

“People don’t always do the right thing when they’re afraid, Henry.”

Hadn’t I been afraid of losing all I’d worked for by loving Jamison? It was dawning on me that independence had been a way of life for me, forged out of loneliness and necessity. I’d become accustomed to it—and what we are accustomed to, we are afraid to change.

“Now we need to get ready for tonight.” The practical side of me took over. “The army has declared a blackout. We all need to cover our windows so no light gets out, not even candlelight.” Johnny moved over to where Rose was standing and whispered in her ear.

“Does everyone have enough food for a few days?” We couldn’t live on lettuce and chutney. “Grocery stores are going to be closed, and there’s no telling when they’ll open again.”

“I’ll bring over some bags of rice and flour,” Henry piped up. “We’ve got plenty at my dad’s house, because of the store.”

“No one’s allowed on the streets after dark. The army’s issued a curfew.”

He smiled with the devious assurance of teenage confidence, when all things are possible. “I’ll go over the ridge when the moon comes up, and bring everything back on horseback before morning.”

I must have been looking doubtful.

“I’ll take the trail by the big tree,” he said. “Where you saw me riding one night.” He had a devilish grin. “I use it all the time to check on Grandpa.”

So I hadn’t been imaging things when I saw a horse and rider. I had scouted around the tree in daylight and found a dirt trail. It wasn’t a section of the old road, so I didn’t give it another thought.

A drop of rain splattered on the roof of the portico with a plop, followed by another. The farmers turned to walk back through the tall grass to get their houses ready for the long unpredictable night.

“I’m going to help Mrs. Yamamoto cover her windows.” Johnny exchanged a look between Auntie May and Rose. “Then I’ll come right home to do ours.”

“Where’s Mr. Yamamoto?” It occurred to me that all the other farmers had been here.

Mrs. Yamamoto wrapped both her hands around the hilt of the machete, and pulled herself taller with great dignity. “My honorable husband,” she started in Japanese then switched to English. “My husband did not come home this morning with his vegetable truck. We must endure his absence and always remember the truth of who he is.”

“Was he parked in front of Fort Shafter when…” there wasn’t any diplomatic way to say it, “when the attack began?”

Mrs. Yamamoto composed her face and blinked calmly at her daughters. Her skin had the cool pallor of sculpted marble. “My husband went to sell our lettuce in front of the army base as he always did.”

Fort Shafter was far enough away from the battleship row bombings to have escaped random strafing. Still, Mr. Yamamoto hadn’t returned. I struggled to fathom the emotional reserve of Mrs. Yamamoto’s Issei world, where great burdens are carried in silence. Her black hair was bound into a tight knot at the back of her head that perfectly expressed an inner restraint. She faced us now unsmiling with bowed head, when there was a good possibility that her husband had been killed. Everything in her composure suggested that it was best to endure all the hardships of life with humble acceptance.

“Johnny will help you,” I said, motioning toward the Yamamoto’s house. “Auntie, you can take the first bath.” She was listing on her feet like a rudderless boat. “I’ll make you a cup of tea afterwards.”

“You’ve been on your feet as long as I have,” she protested, leaning against the front door.

“Go on up,” I insisted. “I’m going to check on Makani Kai and be back soon.”

“Don’t stay long. Remember what the guards at the base told us.” She opened the screen door and let it bang behind her, as if shutting out our unspoken fears of a Japanese invasion. I followed her into the living room to try the phone, but the line was dead. I looked away and hurried to the path.

The clearing around the house was lit by the last streaks of daylight as I came through the trees.

A flood of mixed emotions washed over me when I reached the front steps and remembered Jamison and me on the veranda. I clutched at the railing with the staggering jolt of disbelief that less than twenty-four hours had passed since he told me he loved me.

The grandfather clock was chiming, but no. It was the wind skittering in a whistle across the roof, leaping into the rain. I tried to calculate when I’d last wound the clock, but for the life of me, I couldn’t focus on what day of the week it was.

Get a hold of yourself.

Sunday. Today was Sunday. A week had gone by. The clock was an eight-day wind so I needed to lift the weights today or risk it stopping again. A little shiver crawled up the base of my neck. I’d been punctual about keeping it wound because of an absurd, but unshakable notion that the clock connected me to Jamison in some way. It was downright silly, but knowing the clock would be wound for another week offered comfort that Jamison was safe.

I opened the glass front, and inserted the key in the first slot. After each of the three weights was raised in turn, I closed the case and tucked the key in the side. Over the next eight days the weights would descend, one by one, providing the mechanical power to move the hands. The pendulum danced to and fro while the rhythm of passing time gathered in each breath I took. I slowly exhaled.

The business card Jamison had given me was still in the library. I grabbed one of the furniture covers and slid one hand against the wall to keep my bearing as I made my way down the hall, letting my eyes adjust bit by bit. Once inside the room, I hung the cover over the stained-glass window, and turned on the desk light.

Something wasn’t right. In the relief of hearing Henry confess to breaking the windows, my reasoning had gotten clouded. A skinny kid like Henry couldn’t rip out panels of oak. The library had been kept under lock and key. It was the hall and front room that had gotten all the damage. Why hadn’t Henry mentioned getting inside the house? I was too tired to figure out if the vandalism had begun before I told the farmers about the guesthouse, or afterwards. And what did any of this have to do with my grandmother’s portrait?

My mind spun in dizzy circles of exhaustion. Coincidences again? I’ll think about it in the morning when my arms and legs no longer feel like lead weights dragging me into the ground.

Jamison’s card was beside the ink blotter where he’d put it so many days earlier. The corners of my mouth twitched as I thought of how I’d dismissed the idea of phoning him, at the time. I put the card in my skirt pocket and was about to turn off the light when the library door creaked open.

“Johnny?” I caught my breath. The specter of invading saboteurs faded as he poked his head into the room. “Have you finished at the Yamamotos’?”

“I thought I’d find you here. They have only a couple of windows, and Mom is taking a bath.” He tucked the cover more tightly against the window. “What can I do to help?”

Johnny looked taller since this morning, casting a long shadow across the wall. He had shown the instincts of a born leader who could think on his feet and inspire trust. I knew Auntie May was proud of him.

I made a quick decision. “Let’s bring the rifles over to the carriage house.”

“Geez, Lei-Lei you don’t think the Japanese are really landing?”

“I don’t know what to think, but I’d feel better if we can get our hands on these in a hurry if we need to.” At Makani Kai we were as cut off from everything as being dropped on a mountaintop. I handed him down the first of the three rifles from the gun rack. “We need to find ammunition, too.”

I groped around the cabinet beneath the rack for a drawer handle. I could feel a small latch under the lip of the woodwork with the tip of my fingers and pushed the lever. A hidden panel about the size of a breadbox swung open.

“Look at this.”

“Did you find the bullets?”

“No, but maybe your jokes about a treasure weren’t so far-fetched after all.”

“You mean there really is a treasure?” he cried.

I stuck my hand into the space and felt all five sides. “It’s empty.”

“Can I try?”

I stepped aside to check out the drawer. It could only be opened when the secret panel above it was unlocked. Two boxes of .22 caliber shells were inside.

“You’re right,” he said. “There’s nothing here. Boy, it sure is a good hiding place.”

“Close it up and we’ll carry over everything before your mother gets worried.”

“Are you going to tell her about, you know, the guns?”

“Let’s sneak them into my room. I’ll break it to her later.”

Johnny raised his eyebrows then shrugged.

At the carriage house, we tiptoed upstairs and stood the rifles up behind my long dresses, then closed the closet door.

Auntie wandered in wearing her fluffy bedroom slippers and pink bathrobe. Her naturally curly hair was tousled in damp ringlets. “You should take your bath now, Lei. It’ll be an early day for us tomorrow.”

“I’ll get hot water started for tea,” Johnny offered.

When we could hear pots banging in the kitchen I said, “He’s grown up a lot today.”

Auntie May looked down the stairs and smiled faintly, then turned to me with heavy-lidded eyes. “A lot of boys had to become men today.”

We stood together in the hallway between our rooms, not saying a word. At that moment I wished I could stitch back together all the men I had bandaged today, stand them up in the hall between us the way they’d been before they lost limbs and eyes. Hear them laugh and tell us their dreams for the future. It occurred to me that they were already in the hall with us. They were phantoms Auntie and I shared without talking about it.

Instead I asked, “Will we volunteer at Queen’s tomorrow?”

“That’s where I think we can do the most good, and Edward’s expecting us. Most of the critically injured at Pearl Harbor have been transferred to Tripler Hospital.” She ran her fingers through her hair to sweep it off her forehead. “If they’re going to survive, they’ll need plasma.” She stole a quick look at me, “How are you holding up?”

“I’m going to take a bath and pick out a clean skirt and blouse for tomorrow.” I had a strange urge to put my arm around her shoulder, to smooth the curls that had bounced back on her face. “I’ll be ready.”

I groped along the unlighted hall following a glimmer of moonlight that was too faint to cast shadows. The bathroom door clicked behind me, leaving me alone with phantoms of my own.