Caged Eagles (3 page)

“Yeah … I'm sure we will,” he answered. There was a pause. “Maybe we'll send a patrol out by boat every week or two.”

“Not more often than that?” I blurted out without thinking.

“I don't think it could be more often than that, what with all the business we have right in town. With all those soldiers and sailors in town it's like the wild west, especially on Saturday nights. But don't worry, I'm sure everything will be okay.”

I wasn't so sure. I just wished I'd thought to mention to Jed to come by and check the house.

Jed was my best friend, and he lived in the next village up. We'd known each other since we were little.

Jed was half Native Canadian and half white — which meant he was no part Japanese, so nobody made him go anywhere. When the war started, his father, who was English, enlisted and was now over in Europe flying fighter planes and battling the Nazis. His mother was Tsimshian, and she and Jed had moved into his grandmother's house. Just like everybody in my village was of Japanese descent, everybody in that village was Tsimshian. I thought we were at least lucky that the nearest village was Native. Indians are like Japanese and show respect for people — and their property.

Nobody from that village would bother our houses, and anybody who wanted to come here from Rupert would have to go right through Jed's village to get here … unless, of course, they came by boat.

One of the first things I'd do once we got to where we were going was write to Jed — like I'd promised to do anyway — and ask him to come and look in on my house as often as he could. I knew he'd be busy, between school and continuing to work part-time at the base, but not too busy to do that for me. Best friends are like that.

“I'll say hello to Toby for you,” Constable Johnson said.

“Thanks, that would be good.”

“Is your family all packed?” he asked.

“Um … almost,” I said, pointing to our boat. “We just have to put a few more things on board — some more clothes.”

“Are most of the families ready to go?”

“I'm not sure,” I answered. “I guess.”

“Good,” he said, and let out a big sigh. “That'll make it easier.”

Easier? Easier for him, maybe, but not for any of us who had to move.

I watched as he started up the path away from the dock and toward the houses. In the distance I could see some of the other officers. They had already started, in pairs, to go from house to house, checking to see that people were gone or getting ready to leave.

“Wait!” I yelled.

Constable Johnson stopped and turned around.

But it wasn't just him who responded to my call. More than a dozen people, my neighbors, all turned for an instant and looked in my direction. I knew that while they wouldn't be staring at me, they'd be watching me out of the corners of their eyes, and listening. I started up the path and Officer Johnson waited.

“You're here to see that we all get out, right?”

He nodded his head ever so slightly.

“What if we didn't leave?” I asked, surprising even myself with my question.

Officer Johnson looked taken aback by my question. “Are there some people who aren't going to leave voluntarily?” he asked. There was a hint of worry in his voice.

“There are
no
people who are leaving voluntarily,”

I said.

Now he looked genuinely worried, and confused.

“We're being forced to leave. Nobody's going voluntarily,” I continued.

“I understand,” he said almost apologetically, his face suddenly relaxed. “What I meant was, are there some families that are refusing to follow the orders?”

“I don't think so …” I paused. “What would you do if somebody refused to go? If they refused to leave their home behind?”

He didn't answer for a minute, and I could see by the expression on his face that he was struggling to come up with any answer.

“That is a good question.”

I turned around. It was Mr. Yano. He was one of the most respected men in the village. His grandfather's family had been the first to settle the village, and he was born here — making him one of the first Japanese born in Canada. He had been standing silently behind me and must have heard my question. I looked around. There were others standing within earshot, waiting.

“You have your orders,” the constable said.

“And if we don't follow those orders?” Mr. Yano asked.

“Then … then, I have
my
orders, sir.” Constable Johnson took a deep breath. “And those orders are for this village to be cleared by noon — and we will arrest anyone who does not comply with that order. I certainly hope that will not be necessary, sir.”

“It will not,” Mr. Yano said quietly. “We are lawabiding Canadian citizens. How long have you been a police officer?”

“Um … nearly eight years.”

“And how long in Prince Rupert?” Mr. Yano continued.

“Just over a year.”

Mr. Yano nodded. “And in that time have you ever had to arrest a Canadian of Japanese descent?”

“No, never,” Constable Johnson answered.

“I didn't think so,” Mr. Yano replied. “And it will not start now. We are good citizens, good Canadians, and we will follow the order to evacuate.”

I could see the relief in the officer's face. “We were hoping for your cooperation. We are here to offer any assistance we can in helping with the evacuation. Thank you, and good day, sir,” he said as he turned and walked up the path. Silently I watched him walk away.

“He knows it isn't right,” I said softly.

“Everybody knows it isn't right,” Mr. Yano agreed.

“That makes it even worse. You be careful, Tadashi.

People don't like it when you point out their errors.

There is no gain in refusing to do what they ask.”

“I wasn't trying to resist,” I blurted, shocked that he thought I was going to offer resistance. “I just wanted to know.”

“Don't ask questions. Just do as your father orders you to, stay close to your family and we will survive all of this. Understand?”

“Yeah … I mean, yes, sir.”

“Good boy. Now go to your house and finish preparation.”

“Yes, sir,” I answered, and hurried away.

I moved quickly up the path. There were far fewer people on it now than there had been earlier in the morning, when everybody in the village was out and moving things down to the boats. Now, most of what was being taken was stowed, and many people were already on board, waiting. I slowed down as my house came into view, and then stopped, looking at our home … my home.

It was funny how I'd never really given it much thought before. It was just a place I lived with my family. My father, assisted by our neighbors, had built the house when they'd originally settled in the village twenty years ago. And then when I was born another bedroom was added, and then another when Midori was born two years later.

It sported a brand-new coat of blue paint, sky blue. My mother loved the color of the sky. The path leading up to the front door was made up of flat stones, some of them three feet wide, that my father had hauled up from the water. Spaced at intervals on both sides of the path were shrubs, delicately shaped by my grandmother's pruning shears. On one side of the path was a large garden, neatly furrowed, waiting for the spring planting. We'd always had a garden, vegetables in the center, ringed by two rows of beautiful flowers, but over the last month we had worked the soil so the garden would be more than double its size when we planted again.

That was just one of my father's projects — and the projects he's made me do. Since he wasn't able to fish, and there was no school for me, there was time. First we started with the boat. It was repainted, refitted, any questionable planks replaced, the nets fixed and rechecked. Then he turned his attention to the house. He repaired and repainted — even things that didn't need to be painted. I think he would have put an addition on the house if lumber hadn't been so scarce. That was when he decided that the garden had to be enlarged. As he explained it to me, it might even be something we needed to survive. If we weren't allowed out of our village by summer, we'd have to survive on what we could grow, catch in the forest or harvest from the sea. That thought made putting in the garden a more meaningful task than most of the others he'd had me do. How much satisfaction is there in painting something that doesn't need to be painted? With the garden, each row of planting might be the difference between eating and going hungry.

Of course, it wasn't just my father who was insisting on us doing all this work. About the most Japanese thing I could think of was working. Wasting time was something that wasn't even considered. There was always some job that needed to be done — even when there really wasn't.

As I stared up at my house, the front door opened and my sisters emerged, followed by my mother and grandmother. Each had a few items in their arms. I walked up and offered to take something from them to relieve their loads.

My mother shook her head. “Your father is waiting … inside.” They filed past me on the path. Yuri flashed me a smile and winked — or at least tried to wink — as she passed. I entered the house and closed the door behind me. I unbuttoned the top few buttons of my jacket and removed it, but left my hat on. The only fire started this morning was for cooking, and the house had already cooled down so much that I could see the faint outline of my breath.

I was startled at the sight of my father sitting unmoving in the faint light, at the head of the low table in the dining room. I slowly walked over, trying not to make a sound, trying not to even breathe, as I moved to his side. He didn't seem to notice my approach and continued to stare into the distance. I cleared my throat to signal my presence.

“Sit,” he said quietly, still not looking at me. I sat on the floor in my space, to his right-hand side, folding my legs under the table. I knew he had something he wanted to say to me. I also knew that he wouldn't speak right away, and that we'd sit in silence for a while. The longer we sat without talking, the more serious what he had to say.

Finally he spoke. “It is a good house.”

I nodded.

“It has kept us warm and dry and safe.” He paused.

“It has been a good place for our family.”

He was right, of course. It was a good place … although I'd never thought about it much before all of this. I didn't know what to say back, but realized there wasn't any reason for me to talk anyway. I was here to listen.

“This house … and everything in it … everything I own … is yours.”

As the oldest male, I knew that — but that wasn't what he'd sat me down to tell me.

“I do not know how long we will be gone.”

Of course, he didn't; nobody did.

“Or what will remain when we return.”

“What do you mean?”

He didn't answer right away, and with each passing second I became more alarmed. Did he know something that he wasn't saying?

“I never thought any of this would happen,” he said softly as he continued to stare into the distance. I realized that during this entire conversation he had never looked at me.

“Not the registration … not when they did not let us leave our village or work in town … not having my boat taken away … not leaving our home. Nothing.”

“But … but … how could you? Nobody could have known this was going to happen.”

He nodded his head ever so slightly in agreement. “You are right, Tadashi … nobody could have known. But that only makes the future even more uncertain. We cannot predict what will come next … we just must deal with whatever fate is before us.” His voice had faded to a whisper. “Whatever … family is all that matters … family.”

.3.

All around us were the other boats from our village. Traveling together like this reminded me of the times when we'd be heading to the mouth of the Skeena for the salmon run. We'd find a place by the mouth of the river and set down our nets and then wait for them to fill with fish. Every hour or so we'd pull them up, remove the fish and wash down the nets. They'd get covered with dirt flowing down the river, and that dirt would make them visible to the fish, and they'd move around them. Some of the local fisherman — people who weren't Japanese — thought we were crazy, hauling the nets up like that to clean them. They just left their nets in the water. I had to admit that it was a lot of work, but our catches always did seem bigger.

We crashed through a wave and spray was thrown up into the air. Thank goodness Constable Johnson had been right and the sea wasn't too rough.

The first boats up ahead in our procession disappeared as they followed the RCMP launch around the point that led to the entrance of the Prince Rupert harbor. We were almost there, and that made the last of that lump in my stomach disappear. I had been afraid that somewhere along the route the waves were going to kick up and really give us a ride to remember.

We rounded the curve, and the water was pinched into a narrowing gap leading into the harbor. The seas almost instantly flattened out. Up ahead I could see the first of the military installations protecting Prince Rupert. Two towers, one on each side of the inlet, housed men with artillery and field glasses. They scanned the surface of the water for any submarines that might try to prey on the boats in the harbor.

Just beyond those first two towers I could make out the stations that controlled the submarine net. Strung across the entire width of the inlet was a thick net, supported by steel cables. It extended from just below the surface right to the bottom. It was like a heavy curtain designed to stop any submarines from entering the harbor. When ships — friendly ships — were sighted, the net was lowered just enough to allow the ship to pass, but not enough to allow a sub to sneak in with it. I wondered what they thought about the sight of sixty-five little wooden fishing boats sailing up into the harbor — fishing boats that belonged to Enemy Aliens. That was what they were calling us: Enemy Aliens.