An hour later Ichiro was at home with a promise from Kenji to pick him up early the next morning. As he walked into the store, his mother looked up from a sheaf of bills and receipts. If there was any indication of relief, he didn’t notice it.
“Where have you been?” she said accusingly.
“Out.” On the way home he had felt a twinge of guilt for having spent the night away without telling his folks, but whatever regrets he might have had were quickly dispelled by the tone of her voice.
“Where have you been?” she repeated harshly.
“With Kenji, Kanno-san’s boy.” He approached the counter and faced her. “You know him.”
“Ahh,” she said shrilly and distastefully, “that one who lost a leg. How can you be friends with such a one? He is no good.”
He gripped the counter for fear of having his hands free. “Why?” he rasped.
His discomfort seemed strangely to please her. She raised her chin perceptibly and answered: “He is not Japanese. He fought against us. He brought shame to his father and grief to himself. It is unfortunate he was not killed.”
“What’s so good about being Japanese?” He felt the pressure of the wood against his nails.
She seemed not to hear him. Quite calmly, she continued, talking in the tone of mother to son: “You can be a good boy, a fine son. For my sake and yours do not see him again. It is just as well.”
Pushing himself away from the counter, he let his arms drop to his sides. “I’m going to Portland with him tomorrow.”
Her face, which had dropped to regard a column of figures on an invoice from the wholesale grocer, jerked up. For a moment, it glared at him, the twisted mouth contorting the slender, austere face into a hard mass of dark hatred. “Do as you will,” she cried out. Then the tension drained just as quickly from her face and she was putting her mind to the figures once more.
Through his anger crept up a sudden feeling of remorse and pity. It was an uneasy, guilty sort of sensation which made him want almost to take her into his arms and comfort her, for he saw that the sickness of the soul that was Japanese once and forever was beginning to destroy her mind. Right or wrong, she, in her way, had tried harder than most mothers to be a good mother to him. Did it matter so much that events had ruined the plans which she cherished and turned the once very possible dreams into a madness which was madness only in view of the changed status of the Japanese in America? Was it she who was wrong and crazy not to have found in herself the capacity to accept a country which repeatedly refused to accept her or her sons unquestioningly, or was it the others who were being deluded, the ones, like Kenji, who believed and fought and even gave their lives to protect this country where they could still not rate as first-class citizens because of the unseen walls?
How is one to talk to a woman, a mother who is also a stranger because the son does not know who or what she is? Tell me, Mother, who are you? What is it to be a Japanese? There must have been a time when you were a little girl. You never told me about those things. Tell me now so that I can begin to understand. Tell me about the house in which you lived and of your father and mother, who were my grandparents, whom I have never seen or known because I do not remember your ever speaking of them except to say that they died a long time ago. Tell me everything and just a little bit and a little bit more until their lives and yours and mine are fitted together, for they surely must be. There is time now while there are no customers and you and I are all alone. Begin from the beginning when your hair was straight and black and everyone was Japanese because that was where you were born and America was not yet a country beyond the ocean where fortunes were to be made or an enemy to hate. Quick, now, quick, Mother, what was the name of your favorite school teacher?
While he wrestled with the words which cried to be spoken, the mother glanced up and looked surprised as if to say: Oh, I thought you had gone. She riffled through the papers and dug out an envelope arrayed with an assortment of expensive-looking stamps. It was similar to the other ones from Japan which he had seen in his father’s hands two nights previously.
“For Papa,” she sneered, flipping it across the counter at him.
He snatched it as it was about to slide over the edge. If he had been about to say something, the moment was gone. Wretchedly, he turned and stumbled into the kitchen.
The father turned from the cutting board, where he was chopping up a head of cabbage for pickling. Around his waist was a bright plastic apron and his wide, stubby, stockinged feet were crammed into a pair of shapeless reed slippers.
“Ichiro, my son,” he chuckled, “you are home.” He gazed fondly at him and added: “Had a nice time, yes?”
He looked up at his father, not immediately understanding what the old man meant. “Sure,” he said, interpreting the sly, friendly smile, “not enough to make up for two years, but I had a big time.”
“Ya,” the father said gleefully and brought his hands together as might a child in a brief moment of ecstasy, “I was young once too. I know. I know.” He picked up the broad, steel blade and sank it energetically into the cabbage.
Whatever the old man thought he knew was probably wilder and lewder and more reckless than the comparatively gentle night that he had spent with Emi. It bothered him to have his father thinking that he had spent the night carousing when such was not the case. He could imagine what it must have been like for the young Japanese new to America and slaving at a killing job on the railroad in Montana under the scorching sun and in the choking dust. Once a month, or even less, the gang of immigrants would manage to make it to town for a weekend. There would be gambling and brawling and hard drinking and sleeping with bought women, and then the money would be gone. Monday would find them swinging their sledge hammers and straining mercilessly against the bars to straighten the hot, gleaming strips of railing while the foul smell of cheap liquor oozed out of their listless bodies. Occasionally, one of them would groan aloud with guilty resolve that he would henceforth stay in camp and save his money and hoard and cherish it into a respectable sum, for was that not what he had come to America for? And there would be murmurs of approbation from those who harbored the same thoughts and were thinking what foolishness it is to work like an animal and have nothing but a sick faintness in the head to show for it. If it is not work and save and go back to Japan a rich man, which is why one comes to America, it is better never to have left Japan. The will is there and, in this moment when the shame and futility is greatest, the vow is renewed once and for always. No more gambling. No more drinking. No more whoring. And the ones who had long since stopped repeating the vow snickered and guffawed and rested their bodies by only seeming to heave when the gang boss commanded but by not really heaving at all so that the younger ones had to exert themselves just that much more and thereby became more fervent in their resolution to walk a straight path.
“I got pretty drunk,” he said vaguely.
“Ya, I drink pretty good too.” He bent over the cabbage, mumbling: “Pretty good—pretty good.”
Ichiro laid the letter on the table and pressed it flat with his hands. “Another letter, Pa. Just came.”
Laying down the knife and wiping his hands on a dish towel, the old man sat at the table and took the letter. Holding it at arm’s length, he examined the envelope curiously. “So much money to send such a tiny piece of paper. Still, they write. For Mama, this one. From her sister. They would die with happiness if they saw our little store so full of cans and bottles and boxes of things to eat.”
He inserted a pudgy finger under the flap and ran it through from end to end. The thin sheets of rice paper crackled softly as he removed them. He read the letter slowly and deliberately, his eyes barely moving and his mouth silently forming words. After he had finished, he sat staring at the last page for a long time without moving, looking extremely thoughtful. Slowly, he shook his head several times.
“Mama!” he shouted suddenly in a loud voice.
The mother stuck her head through the curtain, looking unhappy about being disturbed.
“Sit down, Mama.”
“Who will watch the store?”
“Please. I say sit down.”
She did so but not without making it obvious that she disapproved. “What is it?”
The old man shoved the letter before her. “It is from your sister for you. Read.”
“I do not have to read it,” she said flippantly. “Is this why you ask me to leave the store unattended and sit in the kitchen?” She started to rise.
“No,” he said and pushed her roughly back into the chair. “Then I will read.”
She glared stubbornly at him, but was momentarily too surprised to defy him.
Ichiro was watching his father, who continued to speak: “It is from your sister who calls you Kin-chan. She has not written before.”
“Kin-chan?” voiced the mother stupidly, hardly believing the sound of her own diminutive, which she had almost forgotten.
“‘Many, many pardons, dear Kin-chan,’” the father read, “‘for not having written to you long before this, but I have found it difficult to write of unpleasant things and all has been unpleasant since the disastrous outcome of the war which proved too vast an undertaking even for Japan. You were always such a proud one that I am sure you have suffered more than we who still live at home. I, too, have tried to be proud but it is not an easy thing to do when one’s children are always cold and hungry. Perhaps it is punishment for the war. How much better things might have been had there been no war. For myself, I ask nothing, but for the children, if it is possible, a little sugar, perhaps, or the meat which you have in cans or the white powder which can be made into milk with water. And, while I know that I am already asking too much, it would be such a comfort to me and a joy to the children if you could somehow manage to include a few pieces of candy. It has been so long since they have had any. I am begging and feel no shame, for that is the way things are. And I am writing after many long years and immediately asking you to give assistance, which is something that one should not do in a letter until all the niceties have been covered, but, again, that is the way things are. Forgive me, Kin-chan, but the suffering of my children is the reason I must write in this shameless manner. Please, if you can, and I know not that you can, for there have been no answers to the many letters which brother and uncle and cousin have written, but, if you can, just a little will be of such great comfort to us—’”
“Not true. I won’t listen.” She did not, however, move. Nervously, she rubbed her palms against her lap.
“One more place I will read,” said the father and, casting aside the first sheet, searched along the second until he found the place he wanted. “Here she writes: ‘Remember the river and the secret it holds? You almost drowned that day for the water was deeper and swifter than it looked because of the heavy rains. We were frightened, weren’t we? Still, they were wonderful, happy times and, children that we were, we vowed never to tell anyone how close to dying you came. Had it not been for the log on the bank, I could only have watched you being swallowed up by the river. It is still your secret and mine for I have never told anyone about it. It no longer seems important, but I do think about such things if only to tell myself that there were other and better times.’”
He laid the sheets on the table and looked firmly at his wife as he had not done for a long, long time. Then, as if sensing the enormity of the thing he had been trying to prove, his mouth trembled weakly and he retreated timidly to the cabbage, which he began industriously to stuff into a stone tub partly filled with salt water. On the cabbage he placed a board, and on the board, a large, heavy stone weight. Not until then did he fearfully cock his head and look askance at the woman who was his wife and the mother of his sons.
She sat stonily with hands in lap, her mouth slightly ajar in the dumb confusion that raged through her mind fighting off the truth which threatened no longer to be untrue. Taking the letter in her hands finally, she perused it with sad eyes which still occasionally sparked with suspicious contempt.
Ichiro watched wordlessly, having understood enough of the letter to realize what was taking place. The passive reaction of his mother surprised him, even caused him to worry uncomfortably.
“Oh, they are so clever,” she suddenly said very clearly in a voice slightly nasal, “even to the secret which I had long forgotten. How they must have tortured her to make her reveal it. Poor, poor sister.” With letter in hand, she rose and disappeared into the bedroom.
The father glanced nervously at Ichiro and shoved the cabbage-filled stone tub under the sink. “It is happening, ya? She is beginning to see how things are?”
“I don’t know, Pa. I think so.”
“What is it you think?”
“She didn’t look too happy. Maybe it means she’s not so sure any more about Japan winning the war.”
Muttering under his breath, the father hastened to get the bottle from the cupboard and tilted it hungrily to his mouth. Taking more than he had intended, he gagged noisily and stamped his foot on the floor until the agony passed. Tears streaming down his beet-red face, he stumbled to the table and flopped down hard on the chair. “Aagh,” he grunted hoarsely, “good stuff, good stuff.”
Ichiro fetched a glass of water, which the old man downed promptly. He nodded gratefully to his son. When his discomfort had passed, he uttered with obvious embarrassment: “I do not mean to hurt her, Ichiro. I do not mean to do any wrong. It is not right for her to go on hugging like a crazy woman to her dreams of madness when they are not so, is it? Is it, Ichiro?”
“No, it’s not right.”
“I am not wrong, no?”
“No, you’re not wrong. She should know.”
“Ya,” he said, greatly relieved, “I do only what is right. A woman does not have the strength of a man, so it is I who must make her see the truth. She will be all right.”
When Ichiro did not answer, the old man, looking concerned again, repeated: “She will be all right, ya, Ichiro?”
“Sure, Pa, sure. Give her time.”
“Ya, time. We have plenty time. She will be all right, but look anyway.”
“What?”
“Look. Look in the bedroom. See that she is all right now.”
His disgust mounting rapidly, Ichiro peeked into the bedroom doorway. In the semi-darkness of the room, the mother sat on the edge of the bed, staring blankly at the sheets of paper in her hand. Her expression was neither that of sadness nor anger. It was a look which meant nothing, for the meaning was gone.
“How is it?” asked the father anxiously. “What is she doing, Ichiro?”
“Sitting,” he replied.
“Only sitting?”
“Maybe thinking too. How should I know?”
“I make lunch. After she eat, she be fine. You watch the store, ya?”
“Sure.” Ichiro settled himself on a stool behind the cash register and lighted a cigarette. He thought of the trip to Portland the following day and wished that he were already on his way. Then it occurred to him that he might look for work down there without returning home.
I haven’t got a home, he said to himself, smiling ironically. Why should I come back? Too many people know me here. Best I can do around Seattle is knock my head against the wall. The sensible thing to do would be to find work in Portland, mind my own business, keep away from the Japs, and there’s no reason why things couldn’t work out. It’s the only chance I’ve got. I’ve got to start clean. I’ve got to get away from Pa and Ma and forget the past. To forget completely would be impossible, but I don’t have to stay here where I’ll be reminded of it every moment of the day. I don’t owe them a thing. They loused up my life for me and loused up their own in the process. Why can’t they be like other people, other Japs, and take things as they are? . . . They? Ma’s the one. Pa, he’s just around. Still, his weakness is just as bad as Ma’s strength. He might have prevented all this. He saw what was going on. He could have taken her in hand and straightened her out long ago. Or could he? No, I guess not. Pa’s okay, what there is of him, but he missed out someplace. He should have been a woman. He should have been Ma and Ma should have been Pa. Things would have worked out differently then. How, I don’t know. I just know they would have.
I won’t be running away. I’ll be getting away from them and here, but I won’t really be running away because the thing that’s inside of me is going along and always will be where it is. It’s just that I’ve got to do things right and, in order for things to be right, I’ve got to be in a new place with new people. I’ll talk to Pa about it. Somebody ought to know and I certainly can’t tell Ma. She wouldn’t understand. She never has and never will. Pa won’t really understand either, but he’ll agree. Maybe it’ll make him happy. He should have been a woman, dammit. Poor Ma. Wonder what kind of hell she’s going through now.
The door latch clicked, the bell tinkled, and a small boy walked in. He gaped at Ichiro with the doorknob still in his hand and said: “Who are you?”
“I work here,” he said.
“Oh.” The boy closed the door and proceeded to the bread rack, where he methodically squeezed each loaf of bread. “Day-old stuff,” he grimaced and reluctantly selected a small loaf. He placed it on the counter and examined the coins in his hand. “Gimme two black-whips too,” he said.
“Black-whips? What are they?”
“If you work here, how come you don’t know? I know more’n you.”
“Yeah, you’re smart. What are black-whips?”
“Lik-rish. Them over there.” He pointed behind Ichiro at the assortment of candy, indicating the long strips of red and black licorice. “I want the black ones.”
Without further comment, Ichiro took two strips from the box and handed them to the boy, who put his coins on the counter and departed after again eyeing him skeptically.
He was telling himself that he’d better pack his suitcase, when his father called to say that lunch was ready.
Somehow, he knew that his mother wouldn’t be in the kitchen, and she wasn’t. After they had been eating for a while, the father got up and looked into the bedroom. “Mama,” he said, trying to sound cheerful, “Mama, come and eat. I made fresh rice and it is good and hot. You must eat, Mama.”
Rocking hesitantly from one slippered foot to the other, he suddenly made as if to go in but quickly stepped back and continued to watch, the sad concern making the puffiness of his cheeks droop. “Mama,” he said more quietly and hopelessly, “one has to eat. It gives strength.”
And still he stood and watched, knowing that no amount of urging would move the beaten lump on the edge of the bed and vainly searching for the words to bring her alive. He brushed an arm to his eye and pressed his lips into a near pout. “The letter,” he continued, “the letter, Mama. It could be nothing.” Hope and encouragement caused his voice to rise in volume: “Your own sister would never write such a letter. You have said so yourself. It is not to be believed. Eat now and forget this foolishness.”
Enraged by his father’s retreat, Ichiro swore at him: “Goddammit, Pa, leave her alone. Feed your own stupid mouth.”
“Ya, ya,” he mumbled and returned to the table. He picked distractedly at the food, jabbing the faded chopsticks repeatedly into the plate only to pinch a tiny bit of food, which he placed unappetizingly on his tongue.
“I’m sorry, Pa.”
“Ya, but you are right. I do not know what I am doing.”
“She’ll work it out okay.”
“What is she thinking? She is like a baby dog who has lost its mother.”
“It’ll be all right, Pa,” he said impatiently. “It isn’t anything she won’t live through.”
The father weighed his words carefully before answering: “You can say that, but, when I see her sitting and not moving but only sitting like that, I am afraid.”
“Can it, Pa,” he lashed out angrily. “Nothing’s going to happen. Things like this take lots of time. Look at me. Two years, Pa, two years I’ve thought about it and I’m not through yet. Maybe I’ll spend the rest of my life thinking about it.”
The old man looked at him, not understanding how it was that his problem could be compared to the mother’s. “You are young,” he said. “Old minds are not so easily changed. Besides, if it was wrong that you went to prison, it is over, all done. With Mama, it is deeper, much harder.”
Hardly believing what his father had said, Ichiro reared back in his chair, then leaned far forward, at the same time bringing his fists down on the table so viciously that the dishes bounced crazily. “You really think that?”
“What is that?”
“About me. About what I’ve done. I’ve ruined my life for you, for Ma, for Japan. Can’t you see that?”
“You are young, Ichiro. It does not matter so much. I understand, but it is not the same.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Ya, I do. I was young once.”
“You’re a Jap. How can you understand? No. I’m wrong. You’re nothing. You don’t understand a damn thing. You don’t understand about me and about Ma and you’ll never know why it is that Taro had to go in the army. Goddamn fool, that’s what you are, Pa, a goddamn fool.”
The color crept into the father’s face. For a moment it looked as if he would fight back. Lips compressed and breathing hastened, he glared at his son who called him a fool.
Ichiro waited and, in the tense moment, almost found himself hoping that the father would strike back with fists or words or both.
The anger drained away with the color as quickly as it had appeared. “Poor Mama,” he mumbled, “poor Mama,” and he had to slap his hand to his mouth for he was that close to crying out.
At the tinkle of the doorbell, the father hastily dabbed his eyes with a dishcloth and rose heavily from his chair.
“I’ll go,” said Ichiro to the man who was neither husband nor father nor Japanese nor American but a diluted mixture of all, and he went to wait on the customer.