Taichi
Wednesday, October 14, 1942
The secretary, who looks as dried up as the Manzanar ground in the middle of summer, speaks in firm, efficient sentences. “Mr. Campbell cares very much about the concerns of individual camp residents. That’s why you have block leaders. Just take your concerns to your block council, and he will bring them to Mr. Campbell.”
“Most of my block council is gone to harvest sugar beets, and they’ve already discussed the issues with Mr. Campbell—”
“There you have it, then.” Her smile is thin. “It’s practically resolved.”
“But that was weeks ago. And there’s still flags on the garbage trucks. There’s still rumors about camp sugar being stolen.”
Her thin smile presses into an even thinner line. “We have very little control over rumors. And even if someone were to steal something, where would they go? Even if they somehow managed to get through the fence, we’re in the middle of the desert.”
Does she think this is comforting to me, to be reminded of how trapped I am?
The angry words I flung at the Kitchen Workers meeting this morning, about being a U.S. citizen, suddenly seem naïve and foolish.
Harry Ueno had called the meeting to discuss the benefits of organizing a union of mess hall workers. “After all, whoever controls the kitchens”—I had been close enough to the front to see his wink—“controls Manzanar.”
Apparently, Mr. Ueno had found that many other block kitchens were short on sugar, and at the meeting publicly accused Ned Campbell and the mess hall Chief Steward of the theft. I didn’t particularly like Mr. Campbell when I met with him and Ted, but the evidence presented against him didn’t seem convincing enough.
Not everyone agreed with me, though. Many other kitchen workers spoke with frightening intensity about what they would do if they ever got their hands on Mr. Campbell.
About halfway through the meeting, James materialized in the seat beside me, already dressed for our baseball game.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “You don’t work in the kitchens.”
He shrugged. “You know me. I can’t resist a crowd.”
A few times, he joined the others with some boos and hissing, but then punctuated them with a wink at me.
“You should be careful,” I said in a low voice as the meeting broke up. “I think they’re really serious. And it can’t be good for your job in the dispatch office, right? If they find out you’re encouraging those who are pro-Japan?”
“I’m not pro-Japan. I’m pro-deep-fried rice rolled in sugar.” James’s gaze skimmed my blue jeans and collared shirt. “Why aren’t you in your uniform? Our game starts in forty-five minutes.”
“Go on without me. I just want to speak to Mr. Ueno real quick.”
I elbowed my way up front where Mr. Ueno spoke in a high, excited voice to another cook about the need for all the kitchens to stand together, that it didn’t matter if sugar had been stolen from each one or not. As I waited, the back of my neck prickled, and I turned to find Raymond Yamishi standing beside me, along with another boy I had seen playing baseball on their team. I didn’t know his name, but I often saw the two of them together.
“Hello, Taichi. I’m surprised to find you here.”
“Why? I work in one of the mess halls.”
Raymond Yamishi just smirked and turned to speak to his friend in low Japanese. I caught the phrase inu paired with Ted Kamei.
“Ted Kamei isn’t a traitor.”
Raymond’s eyebrows raised. “I’m pleased that your parents at least taught you the language of your home country. A sad number of Nisei know Japanese.”
“I know some Japanese, but we spoke English in our home. And Ted Kamei isn’t a traitor.”
“Ted is a stool pigeon with confused politics.” Raymond spoke this casually, as though he just told me the most obvious of facts. “You should be careful what you share with him. He does not care for the people of Manzanar the way Mr. Kurihara does. Those like Ted care only for themselves.”
“That’s not true.” I heard my voice rising, but couldn’t seem to stop it. “He’s trying to work with the administration for change. To benefit all of us.”
Raymond glanced at his friend and snorted. “Oh, he’s certainly working with the administration. No one disputes that.” His eyes shined as he turned his gaze back to me. “Do you believe you are American, Taichi?”
“I know I’m American.”
“Excellent.” Raymond crossed his arms over his narrow chest. “My friend and I will come with you to the entrance and watch you walk through the gate. If you are not shot on sight, then we will believe you are American.”
And now, standing in front of Mr. Campbell’s secretary, hearing her explain why it’s ridiculous to think anyone would bother stealing sugar when it would be impossible to leave the camp with it, it feels that Raymond is more right than I would like.
I take a deep breath. Appearing angry and unstable won’t win me any points with this woman. “Could I please leave a message for Mr. Campbell?”
She regards me a moment. “A short one.”
But she makes no movement toward pen or paper.
“May I have something to write with?”
She hands me a square of paper and a dull pencil. I consider my words for a few seconds before writing:
Dear Mr. Campbell,
Please address the concerns about missing sugar and the pro-Japanese flags on the garbage trucks. I am a loyal U.S. citizen. That feels like an increasingly dangerous thing to be inside Manzanar.
T
I write the first letter of my name and stop the pencil as my mind flits to Raymond’s garbage truck careening around the corner, to the way he’d threatened me on the baseball field. I put down the pencil without finishing my name, thank the secretary, and leave.
I shield my eyes to orient myself—the post office is to the left—and then I shuffle down the dusty path with my letter to Diego in my pocket. Hopefully I’ll have one waiting for me from Evalina too.
I pull the post office door open, and I’m about to let the door close when I realize there’s a girl right behind me. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t see you.”
It’s Rose. She looks like she’s in a bad mood.
I hold open the door for her. “I didn’t realize you were right behind me.”
“Yes, I know,” she mutters as she walks through the door.
Rose stands in the short line with crossed arms and rigid shoulders. She appears to have zero interest in talking to me.
I take my spot in line behind her. “Hot out there today.”
Nothing.
“Is something bothering you?”
She throws a glare over her shoulder. “I’m not interested in discussing anything with you.”
I stare at the back of her head. Evalina would just yell at me, and we’d be able to move on. Same with Aiko.
It’s Rose’s turn in line. She purchases a stamp for her letter, and then marches back out the door without another word.
I pay to mail Diego’s letter, collect a newly arrived letter from Evalina, and take off after Rose. She’s walking fast toward block nine, but I run her down. “Hey, Rose, wait.”
“I said I don’t want to talk to you.”
“I know. But I want to know why. What did I do?”
“Why don’t you talk to your uncle about it?”
“My uncle?” I search my memory for any possible time Uncle Fuji and Rose would’ve been in the same room, but I’m coming up blank. Fuji still rarely takes his meals in the mess hall. “What does he have to do with anything?”
She turns so I can see her roll her eyes. “My father is still in North Dakota, you know. He didn’t make up lies about the other men just so he could get released. He has honor.”
I blink rapidly in the face of Rose’s accusations. “My uncle didn’t do that.”
“Of course he did. That’s why he was released and others weren’t.”
A gust of wind kicks up with such force, it feels like a hand is trying to shove us backward.
“That’s just gossip, Rose,” I say. “You can’t believe everything that everybody says.”
“So you think I’m stupid.”
“Of course not. I think you’re rightfully sad and angry that your father is still—”
“I don’t care!” Rose stops so abruptly that I barely keep from crashing into her. “I don’t care what you think. You’re a rat just like your uncle, writing letters about what goes on at camp to your stupid white girlfriend. Or are you going to tell me that’s a rumor too?”
I stare at her, baffled about where to start.
“Just leave me alone, Taichi.” Rose marches away.
Don’t we have enough problems in Manzanar without us turning on each other? Without stirring up crazy rumors about those who get released and those who are still wrongfully imprisoned?
I trudge back toward the barrack, where my uncle is cutting squares of the linoleum the administration delivered. Instead of just laying them how they are, he’s gathered several different colors, cut them into squares, and is arranging them in a pattern.
“The floor looks good, Uncle Fuji.”
He bows his acknowledgment, but doesn’t look up from his scissors.
If my father had owned a fishing boat instead of being a farmer, he also would’ve been taken to North Dakota in the days after Pearl Harbor. After the horrors of being wrongfully imprisoned for ten months, only to be released to a place like Manzanar, it seems horrible to me that those who should understand better than anyone have also turned suspicious.
I sit beside him on the steps.
He sets down the scissors and rubs at his knuckles. We sit there for a minute, watching those who pass by, and then I eye the scissors and roll of black linoleum.
“Could I help?”
Uncle Fuji looks at me a moment and smiles. “Yes, Taichi.”
A few minutes later when I’ve started on my third square, my uncle exhales and says, “Thank you,” in a sad, soft voice.
“Rose is just upset that you don’t carry a torch for her,” Aiko says in a flippant voice as she rolls bandages, sitting beside me on the empty hospital bed. “Ignore her.”
I’m here to sit with Lillian, whose asthma has flared again, while Ted’s parents go eat dinner. Fortunately, she’s sleeping comfortably now.
Or maybe unfortunately, because I don’t know that Aiko is going to say anything that I want to hear.
“I don’t think that’s it—”
“That’s because you’re naïve. She’s hurt because she found out about Evalina—”
“How did she find out?”
“I assume James, but I don’t know. What I do know is that Rose was crying in the co-op yesterday because she’d just found out. When Margaret and Rose realized I was standing right there, I told them Evalina was the best kind of girl and that she would be my sister-in-law someday. So ignore her. It’s just bruised pride.” Aiko pushes a basket of clean linens my way. “Make yourself useful while you sit here. Fold these into thirds.”
I do what’s asked of me. Like Aiko knew I would. After I add three cloths to her stack, I grumble, “You could’ve been kinder about it, you know.”
Aiko gives me a wide-eyed look. “I was as kind as the situation deserved. Margaret was telling Rose that it surely wouldn’t last, and that she just needed to be patient. Those girls didn’t need false hope, Taichi. They needed to know the truth.”
I squirm in my chair, sweating, as I think of the girls talking about me like that. Back home, none of the girls ever seemed interested in me.
“I’ve never done anything to encourage Rose.”
“You really think you need to tell me that? Of course you haven’t. I only told you because I didn’t want you thinking this is a problem you need to solve. Just leave this one alone.”
Several beats of silence fall before Aiko asks quietly, “Have you heard from her recently?”
I swallow and meticulously fold a towel. “Of course.”
“But you’re still pretending she isn’t worth fighting for?”
If she’d said it with her usual tone of judgment and hostility, I might have come back swinging. Instead, her tone is soft. Inviting.
“I know it doesn’t seem like it to you, but I am fighting for her. I’m fighting for her to have the life she deserves. I don’t want her stuck here like Mrs. Yoneda.”
“Do you think that’s how Mrs. Yoneda sees it?” Aiko arches her eyebrows at me. “From what I’ve heard, she fought to be here with her family.”
“It’s different, because they’re married. I can still save Evalina from this.”
“No, you can’t. Because she is going through this, through the evacuation, even though she isn’t literally here in the fence. You can’t save her from that.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I snap. Then I remember where we are, glance at Lillian, and lower my voice, “And I can save her from it. Yes, she’s hurting now, but she’ll meet someone else. Someone who can eat at any restaurant. Someone who all her friends will accept.”
For a moment, Aiko just rolls bandages in silence. And then, very quietly, “But think about if it was reversed, Taichi. If she were Japanese and you were Caucasian. Would you want to eat at restaurants that refuse to serve her? Would you want friendships with people who looked down on her? Of course not.” She waits until I look her in the eyes before saying, “Evalina being with you doesn’t cost her anything more than what her own principles already demand.”
Lillian stirs, but doesn’t wake. I finish my assigned folding and immediately wish there was still more to do. Still more to occupy me.
Aiko gathers the last of the folded linens in a basket and stands. “I’m going to put these away, and then I’m done for the day.” She sets it against her hip. “Ichiro already left, but Peggy is here if you need anything.”
Aiko looks at me a moment longer, and then leaves. I’m certainly not sorry she is going, but her words continue to needle at me in her absence. Poking holes in all my good intentions.
“So thankful you would sit here while we eat.” A soft voice startles me out of my thoughts, and I look up to see Ted’s mother smiling at me. “Did she sleep the whole time?”
I stand, knees stiff even after less than an hour of sitting with Lillian. “She did.”
“It’s that good medicine they give her.” Mrs. Kamei covers a yawn with her hand. “I wish I could have some. Then maybe I sleep better at night.”
“You are not sleeping well, Mrs. Kamei?”
“Last two nights, I wake up thinking someone is trying to get into apartment. That I hear man voices outside.” She laughs at my concern and shakes her head. “No need to worry, Taichi. Just dreams. Once in August, some angry men came to talk to my Ted. But just talk. I am just jittery, as Lillian says.” She laughs again, as if to drive the point home to me.
“Mr. Kamei and Lillian haven’t heard anything, though?”
“No, no.” She straightens Lillian’s already-tidy bedding. “Just my wild imagination.”
There’s no real reason to doubt her. The three weeks that Ted and the others have been gone to Idaho, camp has been quiet. Residents have all been excited to have linoleum arrive for the apartment floors, and the temperatures and winds have been milder. The general attitude at camp feels upbeat.
“Well, you know where to find me, should you need anything, Mrs. Kamei.”
“Yes, yes.” Mrs. Kamei grips my hand between hers, squeezes, and smiles up at me. “Thank you for sitting with Lillian. Hurry now or you will miss your own supper.”
“I’m heading to the post office first. Do you need anything?”
“Oh!” She reaches into her bag. “I forget earlier. Lillian had a letter for Ted, and I forgot to mail it. Already stamped.”
“Any word yet on when he’ll be home?”
“Early November, he says. Weather depending.”
“I’m glad he’ll be home for Thanksgiving.”
“Us too.” From her bag, she pulls out her knitting needles, settling in for the evening. “Thank you, Taichi.”
Outside, the air is dry and growing chilly with the setting sun. Many Manzanar residents are enjoying the cooler temperatures out in their gardens or chatting outside their front doors.
When I cut through block twenty-two to get on course for the post office, my gaze catches on Raymond Yamishi. He sits on the front steps of a barrack with a few other Black Dragons who I know only by sight. They have a stack of papers on a table and appear to be discussing something as a group.
Raymond sees me passing by, and when his gaze lands on me, a shiver races up my spine. I smile, trying to seem casual, but hurry my footsteps.