Caged Eagles (17 page)

Some of the people, especially the older ones, like my grandmother, were upset about the meals. For people who'd lived their lives eating nothing but traditional Japanese food, these meals were not just unrecognizable, but almost indigestible. They didn't need much.

Just some rice, maybe some fish, some green tea … nothing that unusual or hard to get.

But it was also the way the food was served. Somehow, standing in line, holding a tray with metal plates and having the food scooped out of a big vat, wouldn't have been the same even if they had been serving Japanese food. There was just something about the food hitting the plate with a loud “splat” that would have made almost any food less appealing.

I was becoming worried about my grandmother. She was never a big eater, but here it seemed like she was eating nothing. She just sat there looking at the food, pushing it around her plate with a spoon, but hardly any of it was making it into her mouth.

I was pleased to see that the lineup was shorter then usual. Things seemed to be moving quickly. We got our meals and headed for a table. There were more empty spots this morning, and we sat by ourselves at a table away from everybody.

“I guess with everybody at school this morning there's less of a crowd,” I commented.

“That's part of it,” Sam said. “But I think it has to do with people leaving.”

“People have left?”

He nodded his head and continued spooning in his oatmeal without looking up.

“Are you sure this isn't just a story? You know how stories go around.”

“They cleared out some people from my building this morning. They were loading their belongings into trucks.”

“Where have they gone to?”

“I heard the name New Denver.”

“Where is that?” I asked.

“Somebody said it's in the mountains. Sort of a ghost town. I also heard rumors that some of the men have been shipped out to work camps in the mountains.”

“What do you mean?”

“They're sending men out to places where they can do work on the roads or the railway. Haven't you heard your father talking about it?”

I shook my head. It wasn't like my father to ever talk about things that he didn't know for sure. And lately he'd been talking even less. He'd sit at the table with us in the mess hall and hardly utter a word. And when he did talk, it was almost like it wasn't even him talking. He seemed tired, or sad, or maybe just distracted. I knew he had a lot on his mind, but it was almost as if his body was sitting there but his mind and spirit were someplace else.

“My father's told me there's a lot of angry people.

There's talk about separating men from their families,”

Sam said.

“You mean like they did here, putting them in a different building?”

“No, putting them in separate places.”

“You're kidding,” I said, a chill running up my spine.

“Just stories. Maybe they mean nothing. Maybe they mean something.” Sam continued to shovel in his breakfast, but I suddenly didn't feel so hungry.

“I've heard them say that maybe they'll ship us all back to Japan,” Sam continued.

“How can they ship us
back
to someplace we've never been?” I asked incredulously.

Sam shrugged. “Also heard about families being sent right across the country … maybe have us staying at farms and working the fields.”

“Where do you get all these stories?” I asked.

“My father told me some. Others I've just heard the men talking about when they're playing cards … you know, during the evening when I go over to visit my father.”

“We're not allowed there, especially at night,” I said.

“I go anyway. What are they going to do if they catch me, lock me up? You should come with me sometime.”

“Maybe I should.” I did want to talk to my father. There was always somebody else around, my mother or grandmother or sisters, and there wasn't much of a chance to ask him about things. I needed to find out what he was thinking about … where we might be going to.

“Are you going to the barracks tonight?” I asked.

“I go every night. I can't ever get to sleep. How about I drop over and get you around eleven tonight?”

“How about I meet you someplace at the same time? That's late and I don't want to risk waking up my sisters.” What I really didn't want to risk was my mother telling me I couldn't go.

“Sure. We could meet on the foot path cutting toward the diamond.”

“Why there?”

“The sentries stay on the main paths around the buildings.”

“Are there a lot of sentries patrolling the grounds?” I asked. I hadn't counted on having to dodge soldiers to see my father.

“Don't worry, they don't seem too interested in seeing anything. Just think of it as being a little adventure.”

“The only adventure I want is to get on our boat and go home.”

“If we have homes to go back to.”

“What do you mean, of course we'll have our …” I looked at Sam and his expression was dead serious. He'd even stopped chomping on his gum. “What have you heard?”

“Some of the empty houses have been broken into, things stolen, things destroyed.”

“So a house or two has been broken into.”

“Not just a few — lots. Lots of houses,” Sam said.

“Yours?”

Sam shook his head. “Our neighbors are looking after our place, cutting the grass, even tending to the flowers. It's mainly happening in areas where most of the houses are owned by the Japanese and now nobody's around.”

“Like in my village,” I said under my breath.

Sam shrugged. “I don't know anything about up north.”

“What about around here?”

“There's no problem in Vancouver — yet. Most of the people are still being allowed to stay in their homes, thank goodness.”

“That is good for them.”

“And for us,” Sam said. “Where do you think they'd be putting us if they had to crowd in all those Japanese who live in Vancouver? That's the only reason the authorities are letting them stay in their homes until they move to the resettlement areas.”

“I hadn't thought of that. Maybe I should be more grateful we have the stalls.”

Sam shook his head. “How Japanese of you.”

I gave him a confused look.

“Being grateful for things you should be mad about.”

“That doesn't help me know about my place, but I know who would know … my friend Jed. I could write and ask him.”

“You won't find out anything if you mail a letter from here.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Don't you know about the censors?” Sam asked.

“What are censors?”

“People who read all the mail that goes in and out of here.”

“Somebody reads our mail?” I asked in disbelief.

“Everything, in or out. We're Enemy Aliens, remember?

They want to make sure we aren't passing on military secrets to the Japanese Imperial Army.”

“That's crazy. I'm just going to write about the park and ask him to check on my house.”

“I've seen some letters my father got. Big black lines blotting out almost everything. I doubt your friend would even understand to check your house.”

“But I promised him I'd write. Besides, how else can I found out about my house?”

“I'm not saying you shouldn't write him. I'm just saying that you shouldn't mail it from here.”

“You mean …?” Of course, I knew exactly what he had in mind — leaving the park.

He nodded his head. “And these might come in handy.”

Sam stood up and reached into the right front pocket of his pants. He pulled something out and placed it on the table in front of me. Two “I Am Chinese” buttons stared up at me.

.14.

I scrunched up another piece of paper. It wasn't that I didn't know what I wanted to say and ask, but that I couldn't seem to arrange the words on the paper the right way. I couldn't go on like this for much longer. Not only was I running short of paper, but I was running out of time. It was almost ten-thirty and Sam and I were to meet in a little more than thirty minutes.

My sisters had been in bed and asleep for over an hour. They were both tired after being in school today. From the time they had arrived home until they finally turned in for the night, all they did was blabber on excitedly about their teachers, and new friends, and what they'd learned in class, and the games they played at recess.

It would have been nice to be that excited about something. Maybe it was being so young, or it could have been because they didn't know enough to be worried. I hadn't even talked to my mother about the things I'd heard — what was the point? Either they weren't true and not worth repeating, or they were true and there wasn't anything she could do about it anyway, except worry. And she already had enough to worry about with my grandmother.

My grandmother wasn't feeling well. She'd gone to bed even earlier than the girls. She said she wasn't “in balance.” This was her polite way of saying that she hadn't been able to hold down any food for two days, and had made at least four trips to the washroom since she had first laid down tonight. There was some kind of flu going around the whole park and there were lots of sick people.

Each time my grandmother got up, my mother got up with her. She held her gently by the arm and walked her to the washroom. My grandmother looked so little, and frail. She had hardly been eating at all even before she got sick. She just hated the food … couldn't understand the whole thing … standing in line, big metal plates … eating with so many strangers all around. All she talked about was going home … home.

I glanced at my watch. I'd wasted more time. If I was going to write Jed it had to be done now. Sam and I had agreed we were headed out tomorrow to mail the letter. He'd showed me a letter his father had received from a neighbor. It was filled with thick, black stripes that blotted out more than half the letter. I didn't have any way of knowing what was underneath that ink, but the rest of the letter was just everyday stuff about the neighborhood activities and gardening. I couldn't imagine the hidden parts of the letter contained the location of allied shipping or some other military secret.

Maybe I couldn't find the right words, but I was now out of time. Whatever I wrote in this one was going in the envelope and to Jed instead of into the trash bin.

Dear Jed,

Sorry I didn't have a chance to write earlier but it's not so easy to send a letter. All mail, in and out, is read by the soldiers who guard us. I've seen what they do to letters. They use big markers and just black out anything they don't think anybody should know. They don't think anybody should know anything. I got away from the park for an hour and mailed this from a mailbox away from the park so they couldn't get their hands on it.

At least, that's what I was hoping to do — leave the park and mail this letter. It was a dangerous thing to do, but what choice did I have?

That's right, I'm living in a park: Hastings Park, in Vancouver. I always thought Vancouver would be pretty exciting. Mostly what we see are the fences surrounding the park. You can get out if you're sneaky, but we're supposed to stay inside. Besides, my parents don't think it's safe to be Japanese and out in the city. The newspapers are full of stories of the war and they're afraid we might be attacked on the streets.

Getting attacked. That last line echoed around in my head. I had to go out to mail this letter if I wanted to find out the truth. I needed to find out the truth. Besides, the attacks were probably nothing but rumors. I didn't believe half of what I heard. I thought about the “I Am Chinese” buttons and couldn't help but smile. Who was going to bother two Chinese kids? Back to the letter.

After the trip down here I don't fear getting attacked. Nothing could be worse than what we went through. It took us fifteen days. All the fishing boats were tied together behind two navy frigates. There were sixty boats. The seas were heavy and there was a lot of fog. Our boat became covered in ice from the spray. We had to chip it off. The only place to get away from the cold and spray was in the cabin. You know how small that is, but somehow we managed to find places to sleep. There were times I wasn't sure we'd make it. I heard afterwards they probably brought our boat up to the Annieville Dyke on the Fraser River. Somebody told me they have twelve hundred Japanese fishing boats all tied up there. I think it causes my father great distress to know how his boat is being cared for — or, really, uncared for. He said if he knew what was going to happen to it he would have sunk it himself.

My father had said it more than once. The first time I couldn't believe my ears. He cared for that boat almost as much as he cared for us, and he regretted not sinking it. It took a lot for that thought to sink in.

The boat ride prepared us for living in a small space. My family has been given a stall to live in. I don't mean a small place. I mean a stall. We're living in the place where they used to show livestock. All of us families have been given a separate stall, and we've hung blankets and things to act as curtains. So I guess if somebody asks me if I was raised in a barn, I can answer yes.

I stopped writing. I looked around. Even sitting here in the stall, knowing that of course everything I was writing was true, it still didn't seem real. I was living in a cattle stall. I wouldn't be surprised if Jed didn't believe what I had written. I was living it and only half believed it myself. I took another quick glance at my watch.

I can kid about it, but it really steams me to be treated like cattle. A lot of us, mostly Canadian born, are really angry. There's a lot of talk about a protest or petition or civil disobedience, or something. Nothing has come of it. My father tells me not to get involved. None of the Issei seem to want to get involved.