The steamer out of Vancouver was smaller than the Heian Maru and certainly not as luxurious, but it wasn’t going across the Pacific. Chisato grumbled but remained silent to those around her as she boarded, her swollen stomach making it difficult to climb the gangplank. The Marigold slowly chugged up the coast towards an unknown destination. At least the landscape was beautiful, the sky cloudy, but the day pleasant enough despite the rain and the cold. The sea was calm.
Before they landed, Rev. James gave Chisato a pair of black rubber boots. Ugly things.
“You’ll need these. Wear them always,” he told her as Michiko nodded.
She had seen her father and brother wear such things when working the fields, but she and her sister never had to. What kind of place was she headed? She linked arms with Michiko.
Britannia Beach, only reached by boat, was a small, rough settlement located about thirty-five miles north of Vancouver. It sat on the shores of Howe Sound. The surrounding mountains, frosted with snow, held up the cloud-heavy sky effectively. Chisato was somewhat comforted by what she encountered when the trio arrived in the early fall of 1941. The place reminded her of Hiroshima with its verdant and rugged terrain.
The town itself featured a line of ramshackle wooden structures along both sides of a muddy road with wooden planks as walkways to avoid caking good shoes with muck while climbing up the mountainside. She saw the wisdom of wearing boots even if she avoided the lumps of mud with every step.
The main industry was copper, located in Britannia Mine, a going business that produced enough ore to warrant a smelter in town. The smell was intense, inducing tears in Chisato and Michiko; oddly, Rev. James seemed to be immune.
“You can get used to anything,” he explained.
The settlement itself was not her final destination. Instead, they climbed a winding pathway surrounded by lush forest high up above Britannia Beach to a settlement called Mount Sheer. The buildings there were the same as below, perhaps more dilapidated with cracked single-panelled walls and rough hewn roofs. Alarming most of all, they were perched on the side of the steep valley, the land just seemed to fall away. What she found in a corner of the tiny community of mining families was a community of Japanese.
She started to warm to the idea of living there, but then she stopped in her tracks.
“What is that?” she exclaimed as she plugged her nose.
“Oh, that’s the abattoir,” Rev. James explained. “Like I said, you’ll get used to it.”
Used to it? It’s worse than the copper mines and smelter.
Turns out, the Japanese were the sole workers in the abattoir. Maybe Buraku were the only ones willing to do the job.
A fear grew within her. Eta, buraku, the untouchables. She placed a hand on her expanding belly to protect her baby.
The mud she slogged through added to her suspicion. The lumps she tried to avoid, as the minister revealed (as tactfully as he could), were piles of pig excrement. Eta was right.
***
A harried woman soon came down the road to greet the trio. She was scrawny, frail with a drawn face. Her neck skin looked like crepe. Chisato didn’t recognize her at first, but then it dawned on her.
“Sachiko-san!” she said eagerly, bowing before her friend. “It’s you!”
She didn’t look well, but at least, the bruises had well faded from her face, neck, and arms. Skinny with arms like wooden sticks, but she seemed fed well enough.
“I’m happy to see you, Chisato-san.” Her voice was weak, but she looked her straight in the eye. “Come, let’s go to your new home. Sensei explained everything to me. When is your baby due? Must be soon by the looks of you!”
On the way, Chisato introduced Michiko and marvelled how well Sachiko looked. A bit of a lie, but there was no need to bring up her past.
About ten cabins away, they came to a stop in front of a makeshift structure with hanging laundry in front and piles of wooden debris from carts, barrels, and the like lying all around as far as she could tell. There were mud splatters on some of the sheets; Sachiko stood in front of them. Chisato didn’t care; she would help her friend with the laundry, perhaps asking Sensei to move the clothesline. But then, from inside, she heard a sound Chisato had not expected, a crying child.
Sachiko scurried inside soon to return with a baby in her arms. She introduced her child as Mary Jikemura, the name said in a flat Canadian accented tone.
“So cute, so precious!” Chisato enthused. “Mariko-chan, you’re so beautiful.”
“Mary, her name is Mary,” Sachiko insisted.
Mary was born in the winter of 1940. Sachiko must’ve been early in the pregnancy when she was rescued. Chisato did shiver at the thought of Sachiko’s husband forcing himself upon her. The pregnancy, however, was a blessing in her friend’s mind. By the way Sachiko held and coddled the baby, it was obvious the mother treasured her child. It was lucky Sachiko hadn’t lost it because of the beatings. Chisato did feel relieved that Sachiko had had her baby despite such dire circumstances.
The entrance to the one-room shack glowed, illuminated by an unknown source. Chisato again was stopped in her tracks. From the doorway, she could see candles burning everywhere. She could also make-out a crucifix or two displayed on the rough-hewn furniture. There were various pictures of The Jesus on the walls. No statue, thank God, she quipped to herself.
Sachiko had become a Christian. The obligation to Rev. James fulfilled for his help. But she seemed to have gone too far in her devotion.
“God is great,” she declared in English as they stood amongst the adorations.
Rev. James uttered “Amen”. Michiko bowed her head and mouthed some prayer. The two then left.
Chisato and Sachiko sat in the flickering lights of the candles as they communed over a simple meal of rice, tea, and denbatsuke (pickled radish)—ochasuke. She spied more than a few crucifixes around the room, more than the one or two she had seen initially from the doorway. Do all Christians live like this?
“God is looking over me,” Sachiko started. “I am blessed to be taken care of by Him. He delivered me from my husband and for that I am grateful.”
Who delivered her? she questioned silently. Wasn’t it me, Sensei, and Michiko? Chisato was confused but she knew better not to speak. She turned her mind instead to her circumstances. How had she come to this: living in a broken-down shack in the middle of the wilderness with a baby on the way? She longed for the open space of the Akamatsu Compound in Hiroshima. She thought of her Hiroshima cloth bag in one of her suitcases. Her sister, her brother, her parents, only happy memories of them. She remembered her “isolation room” in Vancouver. Now only the constant foul odour was her companion. The air stung her eyes, and she surreptitiously dabbed them with a handy handkerchief, hoping that Sachiko wouldn’t notice. Good thing her companion was lost in Jesus.
Chisato resided in a corner of the shack, uncomfortable with the cramped space and her pregnancy. But she felt safe, she reasoned, sharing the security with her friend and child. Kiyoshi and Sachiko’s husband would never find them. At least, she learned what child rearing entailed. She even took her turn to bathe “Mary”, wash her handmade cloth diapers, and even change them. Sensei had kindly moved the clothesline out of the way of mud-splatters.
And when the time came to deliver her child, Sachiko was a great help. There wasn’t a doctor, of course, not even in the Britannia Beach settlement (an itinerant served the townsfolk’s needs), but Sachiko acted like an efficient midwife. Some women in Mount Sheer also tended to her needs. They may have been eta, Chisato thought, but she drew close to them.
In late October 1941, with winter winds flowing down the mountainside to chill the bones and the occasional snowfall decorating the trees, baby Hideko Kimura greeted the world. Chisato held her child and her eyes beamed. Hideko seemed small but the air in her lungs blew out a deafening noise for the entire village to hear. The sound of happy laughter greeted the newborn.
Chisato snuggled her baby with great joy.
***
Life settled into a routine. Both women did not worry about finances since the church sponsored them. The babies were well cared for; the villagers pitched in. The Reverend James was right, she could get used to anything. The only thing Chisato hated was her aromatic clothes. No amount of washing in lye soap could ever get rid of the smell.
The situation created an obligation, however, and Chisato could not let that stand.
The slaughterhouse town was filled with men rough-hewn and hard tempered to the work. They bathed once a week, but the choking, cloying smell always lingered. The women were hardy, the kind you might expect in the backwoods of a wild country. They may not have liked the unpleasant life, with all the trials, but they never complained.
There was no socializing during the week, but Saturdays, after the men bathed themselves in a jerry-rigged bathhouse yet again, and spruced up in their best clothes, stained and smelly as they were, everyone gathered in the Cookhouse, situated just far enough away from the slaughterhouse to make things tolerable, for a pie, coffee, and conversation party.
The ingredients were plentiful in the Cookhouse kitchen. Chisato volunteered to help Sachiko bake the pies, especially raisin, lemon, and apple, as many as were needed. The raisin was not too sweet, the lemon not too tart, the apple just right. Sachiko as it turned out was an excellent baker.
Chisato dreamed of opening a bakery on Powell Street after all of this was settled. Just like Furuya Store in Hiroshima’s Hondori, a half-kilometre shopping mall. She would be Sachiko’s partner. She liked the idea of being the “public face”.
The first Saturday, the room bustled with workers and their wives. Chisato was nervous, until she saw everyone dig into the desserts with relish. She won many accolades that night even if Sachiko had done most of the work, still, Sachiko retreated to the cooking area.
But then Chisato committed a cardinal sin: she hadn’t saved anyone a piece of pie to take home. Whatever was left she put away for meals during the coming week. This was not done; Sachiko was not there to tell her. Chisato subsequently suffered vicious gossip.
“I bet she sells them on the side... She has a rich husband, you know. Probably used to the fineries in life. No, look how fat she is...she keeps ‘em for herself... she’s so tight a coin squeaks in her hand.”
Though Sachiko helped Chisato to correct the practice in the weeks to come, the villagers never let her forget it. So intense was the gossip that she couldn’t even eat pie. In her mind, it always tasted bitter.
“I hate it here,” she confessed to Sachiko. “I can’t stand the looks from everyone, the loud whispers from those...those...dirty mouths. And you know they make sure I can hear them.”
She needn’t have fretted for long. On December 7th, life changed irrevocably.