Life inside the Immigration Building soon was a battle against fatigue and then boredom. Two days later, the luggage finally arrived, intact, but there was little comfort in the contents. At least, there were clean garments to wear. She carefully folded her soiled and torn clothes and put them away, almost as mementoes of her beginning in Canada. To her delight, there were books to read and old letters to pore over again and again. And the precious bag of Hiroshima soil given to her by her sister.
I am always home…
Chisato sat in the presence of Sachiko and Terumi.
“When are they going to release us?” Sachiko cried.
Terumi just sat with a scowl and said nothing.
“Don’t worry, Sachiko-chan, they can’t keep us forever,” Chisato assured. “Think of the future!”
Chisato held onto the promise of life ahead, a life of happiness, prosperity, and adventure with a handsome husband. She encouraged her friends to feel the same way, though Sachiko sat with a wide-eyed stare into darkness.
At some point, Kawasaki told them in a moment of remarkable candour the officials and guards considered everyone in detention to be Chinese. Chisato knew about the Chinese Exclusion Act, but that did not affect the Japanese. And the Gentleman’s Agreement between Japan and the West was no more. She sat on her cot confused. What happened next shocked her and Sachiko.
About three weeks into the detention, two stout white men and Kawasaki-san came into the Dormitory and called for Terumi Takimoto to come with them out of the room and down the stairwell.
Chisato and Sachiko had no idea what was transpiring. No explanation was given; Kawasaki said nothing.
“Another delousing?” Sachiko said in fear.
They waited about an hour before Terumi returned; she was in tears. So much so, it upset Sachiko. It was another delousing. Chisato immediately rushed to comfort Terumi. They had never seen her so emotional; quite unusual for their stalwart friend. She was inconsolable as she sat in a metal chair before them.
“What happened?”
Terumi kept blubbering and couldn’t get any words out of her mouth. She hiccupped and gulped for air. Finally, she was able to gain a measure of composure. Her no-nonsense self soon returned.
“Deported. I am to be deported,” she sighed and confessed.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” She breathed in heavily. “Kawasaki just said I was unsuitable to enter Canada as an immigrant.”
“That’s stupid!” proclaimed Sachiko.
“There has to be a better reason than that,” Chisato echoed.
“Don’t you understand?” Terumi said. “They can do anything they want. I suppose I am to be an example to others. Or they think I’m Chinese.” The words burned with bitterness as she said them.
Chisato offered, “Maybe it’s because we’re not Chinese.”
“What do you mean?” Sachiko asked.
“Canadians don’t like what our soldiers are doing in China.” She had remembered what Hideki’s magazine, the Shuho, had said back in 1937. Japan’s reputation in the world had suffered because of its incursion. Not that the citizenship should care. A useless war, Chisato had thought at the time.
Terumi dismissed such speculation and revealed, “My husband can reapply after I return to my home village.” She grew quiet.
Chisato shivered dread for she knew her family would feel the shame of their daughter’s rejection by Canada. She wasn’t even sure they would accept her since, once married, she was no longer a family member. She could live with the Takimoto family, if they accepted her.
What was going to happen to Terumi? What would happen to her if she herself were deported? She was sure her father would take her back into the family. Her mother-in-law would simply reject her, probably with a smile. So, Haikara-san is not good enough for a white man’s country.
The next day, Takimoto Terumi and several others were escorted out of the facility with their suitcases in tow. Someone said they were headed for CPR Pier 21, the one where they had disembarked about a month prior, to meet the ship, the Hie Maru, sister ship of the Heian Maru.
“All of them are deported?” Sachiko asked.
“I suppose so.” Chisato did not feel out of danger. She closed her eyes and waited for the sword to fall upon her. Fortunately, it never happened.
***
When Chisato finally got out, well into autumn, she breathed in the free air of Canada. Outside the large doors of the Immigration Building, a crowd of Japanese men had gathered, every one of them waiting for their new brides.
It took some time, but eventually a man dressed in a three-piece black suit and a fedora stood in front of her. His shoes were tan and polished. It was her husband, Kiyoshi Kimura. He was not what she expected—his photograph paled in comparison. He was tall (certainly taller than Chisato) with a developed upper body and a kind face with bushy eyebrows, dancing eyes, and sharply defined cheek muscles. He appeared friendly with a smile that was as wide and bright as the horizon at daybreak.
He laughed a hearty laugh at her reaction to him and motioned to move away from the crowd. Just at that moment an argument exploded nearby.
Chisato looked around to see Sachiko flailing and whining in front of someone. Her voice rose to shouting and even screaming at him. It was an anonymous man much shorter than she. His face was grotesque, scarred and pockmarked as far as she could see.
“Would you have come if you knew I looked like this?” he shouted as he waved a hand over his deformed cheek and his balding head with a high forehead.
“You lied! You lied!” she shrieked loudly.
“Damare!” he shouted and tried to slap her. He missed in a comic fashion.
She guffawed at the effort.
He jumped from his standing position and let his hand fly. He caught her square on the cheek. She reeled as she covered her face with her hand. As she bent over from the shock and pain, he turned her around and pushed her to some unknown fate.
“You couldn’t see,” he growled as they walked, “that the photograph was of Sessue Hayakawa? A movie star?”
As Chisato was led away by her husband, she thought of a lesson taught to her by a Buddhist priest during her childhood. The main phrase Sensei Kiyahara uttered stood out in her mind: the curse of impermanence.