49
Yamada property * December 15, 1941
A group of four agents came unannounced, knocking very early, dressed in suits, their mouths drawn and their brows furrowed. There was no true sunrise that morning, only a dim glow in the gloomy December sky, flat and gray. For a little over an hour, the men rifled the house, emptying drawers and making a mess, while the entire Yamada family waited patiently in the sitting room. Shizue watched as the agents unplugged and carried away their family radio, along with a box of family photographs, decorative scrolls, and a large number of old letters from her family back in Japan. Enemy contraband. Shizue knew that was what they were looking to find; she couldn’t imagine why this might include her daughter Mai’s baby portrait or old photos of Shizue’s aunts back in Japan, dressed in full kimono. The world had gone mad overnight.
When their search was concluded, the agents insisted Kenichi and Haruto go with them to be interviewed. They declined to name the location, and the Yamadas knew better than to ask.
“Don’t worry. We will be back soon,” Kenichi said to Shizue in an incredibly calm voice, as though he were running into town for a bag of grain or some kerosene. He pulled on a weatherproof jacket that hung from a hook by the front door and smiled serenely, though he knew exactly where he was being taken.
Shizue nodded, but did not believe him. And sure enough, the hours ticked by with no sign of their return, and the long wait began.
“Where have Mr. Yamada and Harry gone?” Ava asked a little later, noticing their coats missing from the pegs by the front door.
She’d spent the morning with her mother, doing chores on the back property. Under ordinary circumstances, Ava didn’t set foot in the Yamada house very often; she and her mother were grateful to be staying on their property and wanted to give the family their privacy. But when Ava had returned from the far side of the acreage, making her way past the barn and the house, she had noticed an awful lot of fresh tire treads in the dirt. Ava thought perhaps she’d ask Harry about it.
Now, as Shizue tried to answer Ava’s question, she pressed her lips together and shook her head as though trying to shake the explanation loose. Her eyes turned glassy.
“He said not to worry . . . that they will be back soon . . .” was all she could muster, repeating the words her husband had spoken to her a few hours earlier.
Ava didn’t need to ask anything more. She comprehended exactly what had happened. They’d all been on edge, ever since all the newspapers exploded with news about Pearl Harbor a week or so ago. America was at war with Japan; everyone—even folks in town who’d known them for years—had begun looking at the Yamadas differently.
“Would you like me and my mother to sit with you . . . maybe keep you company while you wait?” Ava asked, hesitant, sympathetic. There was something else mixed into Ava’s concern—a shiver of wild panic, something to do with her feelings for Harry—but she pushed it aside. It was enough to focus on offering consolation to the woman standing before her.
“No,” Shizue replied. There was certainty in her voice. “I’m sure they will return soon. Thank you,” she said with an air of finality.
Ava nodded respectfully and quietly let herself out the kitchen door again. She went to find her mother, and together they began to wait and worry a small distance away from the house, in their little caravan.
“They can’t keep them,” Cleo reasoned. “They haven’t done anything wrong. They can’t keep them if they haven’t done anything wrong.”
Ava did not answer, wishing her mother was right for once.
Afternoon eased into evening, eventually the winter light faded from the sky, and Kenichi and Haruto were not back. Shizue stared out the kitchen window, which pointed to the road beyond, pretending to do dishes. Finally, when all the dishes were done and put away and Shizue could pretend no longer, she simply remained standing, staring out the window, gripping the edge of the empty sink with no guile or subterfuge. When her daughter prodded her, she refused to move to the sitting room, where she might be more comfortable, and which offered the same view.
“Why have those men taken Tōsan and Onīchan away?” Mai asked. “What do they want with them?”
“They want to determine where their loyalty lies,” Shizue answered, wearing a vacant expression, her lips seeming to move independent of the rest of her face.
Mai frowned. The way her mother said it, it sounded like loyalty was something you could misplace, like a bone their dog had buried in the garden and couldn’t find again.
“I don’t understand,” Mai said, shaking her head. “Their loyalty is here, in this home . . . with us . . . isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Shizue replied, her voice hollow and distant. “Their loyalty remains here, on this land. But those men will want to know if their loyalty lies with America.”
“Well? Isn’t this land America?” Mai demanded. She pointed out the window at the land that surrounded the farmhouse. “Isn’t this all America?”
Shizue’s head jerked. Her eyes suddenly flicked from the window to her daughter’s face. Mai was thirteen. A teenager now; a girl no longer.
“Yes,” Shizue answered. “But it is also our land, and we are Japanese.”
“I’ve never even been to Japan,” Mai said.
Her daughter was American, Shizue realized, and so only had access to that exclusively one-sided porthole that looked out onto the world and was peculiar to all Americans. Through such a porthole—and perhaps ironically—Mai could not glimpse herself as other Americans saw her. Shizue did not know how to explain the panicked fears that would dictate the circumstances of their future now, the belief that America’s Japanese population was not as horrified by Pearl Harbor as the rest of America was; that all Japanese, no matter how far from “home,” were secretly glad. It was an ugly belief, born of hatred and fear.
Still angry and confused, Mai gazed back into her mother’s delicately shaped face and large, lovely eyes. She had never seen her mother look so sad.
“I’ve never even been to Japan . . .” Mai repeated softly.
Shizue’s eyes lingered on Mai for a moment.
“It is not so simple,” she said. She turned back to look out the window as a solitary tear rolled down one cheek.
Finally, after nearly twenty-four hours had passed and it was once again early dawn, Shizue heard an automobile coming up the drive. She was trembling as her eyes searched beyond the windowpane for signs of what was imminent, part hopeful her husband and son were coming home, part terrified that the men in suits were coming to take her and her daughter away now, too.
But Shizue was in luck: Kenichi and Haruto had been questioned and released. Other Japanese-American men who had been rounded up for interrogation were not so lucky; many were accused of conspiring against the United States, of secretly radioing boats off the coast of California, of hoarding resources, or of outright plots of terrorism. If the accusation could be made to stick—no matter how flimsy the allegations—the men being questioned swiftly found themselves on a bus to a detainment center in Bismarck, North Dakota. It was nothing short of a miracle that Kenichi and Haruto had not joined these men, as owning an airplane in and of itself presented a threat. The wild argument could be made that Kenichi and Haruto were conducting some kind of aerial surveillance. But as it turned out, the Yamadas’ saving grace was that neither Kenichi nor Shizue remained in touch with any of their relatives back in Japan. Kenichi was an old man; his parents had long since passed away, and Shizue’s ties had faded letter by letter, until it became clear that she was never returning to Japan. This lack of traceable communication was enough for the F.B.I. to let them go . . . for now. There was a second consideration, too, Kenichi said—involving the ownership of the Stearman—but he would explain later.
When Kenichi walked through the front door, he looked tired, rumpled, and bleary-eyed. Shizue wept with a mixture of joy to see them again, and a fresh tinge of fear to see that—written on her husband’s face—something had permanently changed. The flame of bright optimism that perpetually flickered in Kenichi’s eyes had been dampened, and knowing her husband as well as she did, Shizue knew that was not easy to do. She only hoped it had not been snuffed out completely.
“America has changed for us,” Harry’s father said later that evening, after Harry’s mother had successfully forced them both to eat a bowl of hot sōmen, wheat-flour noodles. “They say it is always changing, and I have always known this to be true. But not all changes are good, and I fear this change is too big for us to survive.”
At his father’s use of the word “survive”—ikinokoru—Harry noticed his mother’s alarmed expression. Harry’s father immediately attempted to correct his phrasing.
“I don’t mean they intend to kill us,” he corrected himself. He sighed. “I don’t know what I mean.”
“Whatever else you mean, you mean we will lose our home and our land,” his mother concluded in a frank voice. “All the things you’ve worked so hard to earn.”
Harry’s father answered with a firm nod of his head. “It is not unreasonable to expect so, yes,” he said. “Already they announced their intention to confiscate the Stearman.”
“When do they plan to collect the Stearman and take it to their impound?” Harry’s mother asked.
Harry perked up, listening now. The first thing he’d done since returning home was to tell Ava he was back; he knew she had likely heard and was worried. But after a brief reunion with her to let her know he was okay—neither injured nor under arrest—Harry had retreated to the house to spend some time with his now-exhausted family. After walking in the door, he had sat slumped on the sofa, tired, dirty, and depressed. He had always known he would never look quite like what people expected the “all-American boy” to look like—his brush with Hollywood had certainly reminded him of that—but America was the only home he had ever known. He had always felt that, deep down in his bones, he was American. Now he wasn’t so sure. The confusion drained him, made him lethargic.
But at the mention of the Stearman, Harry sat up and wiped the sand from his eyes. He was all ears. His father glanced at him from out the corner of his eye.
“They have no plan to collect it,” he answered.
“What?”
“I told them I do not own it, so they cannot take away from me what is not legally in my possession in the first place.”
“Otōsan . . . why did you tell them that?” Harry demanded. His mind was swirling. Why had his father told the F.B.I. such a lie? It only ensured the Stearman’s confiscation, and now they would find themselves in deeper trouble for lying to the government.
“Because it is true,” his father replied.
“I don’t understand . . .”
“I signed the title to the Stearman over to Louis Thorn last week,” his father said. “It was the next morning, after . . .” His voice trailed off, but the words “Pearl Harbor” hung in the air nonetheless. “I didn’t want to wait too long. It seemed the wisest course of action. And now I am glad I did not wait,” he finished, curtly nodding.
Harry’s jaw dropped.
“You did . . . you did what? You gave the Stearman to Louis?”
“In legal title, yes. It was the only way,” his father replied. “If I hadn’t, it would belong to the government right now.”
This was true, but . . . but . . .
“But what about Ava? Or her mother? Why Louis?”
“Though she cannot locate him, Mrs. Shaw is still married to Earl Shaw, and that might present complications,” his father explained in a tired, patient voice. “Earl Shaw is not a man to be trusted. And Ava . . . Ava is seventeen . . . not yet eighteen. That might cause complications also. Louis was the best hope to keep the Stearman safe. The only hope.”
The head-splitting confusion Harry had experienced all day and all night grew even thicker. Why was he so upset to learn that his father had appointed Louis the legal owner of the Stearman?
“Louis Thorn is an honorable young man,” his father continued, as though reading his son’s thoughts. “He says he will keep the Stearman safe, and see that it comes back into our possession, if and when there is an appropriate time.”
“Yes, Otōsan,” Harry replied, rote, limp.
They were all exhausted—all four of them. They sat around the kitchen table now, eating hot soup and noodles, aching for a measure of comfort. But Harry’s father, sensing his son’s swirling feelings, sat up, focused.
“Listen to me, Haruto,” he commanded.
Harry was caught off guard, surprised to hear his father’s voice so forceful all of a sudden.
“I believe your friend Louis is a man of honor,” his father said. Then he paused, as though considering carefully. “Or, at the very least, he wants to be a man of honor and is on his way. None of our lives will be simple during these coming years. You must trust in me, as I trust in him.”
He reached for Harry’s hand where it lay on the kitchen table but wound up gripping Harry’s wrist—it was an extremely uncharacteristic gesture for Kenichi—and gave it a squeeze.
“Yes, Otōsan,” Harry said. “I understand.”
He bowed his head before his father. Kenichi gave one final, definitive squeeze and released Harry’s wrist. Then he turned his attention to the cup of hot tea Harry’s mother was pouring for him.