Red Berries, White Clouds, Blue Sky (15 page)

“Will Pop always be this way?” Tomi asked Mom several weeks later. Pop had criticized Tomi that morning for acting foolish.

“We can’t goof off anymore,” she’d told Hiro.

Mom shook her head at Tomi’s question. “I don’t know.” She had a worried look on her face. “
Shikata ga nai
.”

Mom was right. It couldn’t be helped. Tomi had tried. She had shown Pop around the camp. She’d taken him to the print shop where evacuees made posters about winning the war. They’d gone to Hiro’s baseball game. Tomi had introduced Pop to men who were building a Japanese garden out of sand and rocks and plants outside the barracks. But Pop hadn’t paid much attention. Now, he was outside with two other men, both complainers, talking about the government. They squatted down under the window, and Tomi could hear their voices grow louder as they talked about their treatment at Tallgrass.

Maybe they were right, Tomi thought. She’d complained to Ruth about the fence and the food the day before, and Ruth had told her she sounded just like Pop. “Maybe he knows what he’s talking about,” she had responded.

“Tomi!” Ruth replied. “That doesn’t sound like you. You always look at the good side of things.”

“Maybe there isn’t a good side anymore,” Tomi said.

The two girls were watching a high school baseball game that day. The Tallgrass team was playing against a
team from Ellis High School. People in the camp loved baseball, and they were crowded around the field watching the game. The Ellis farm boys were better at bat, but the Tallgrass players outshone them as fielders.

The game was a close one. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Ellis was leading by only one run. Roy was one of the best hitters, and Tomi clutched Ruth’s arm when he came up to bat. “Now we’ll win,” she said.

Roy swung at the first pitch and hit a foul ball. He let the next pitch go by, and the umpire called it a ball. Roy swung and missed on the third pitch. Then he hunkered down, and Tomi thought this time, Roy would hit the ball so hard it would go over the barbed-wire fence. As the pitch came, Roy moved back a little and didn’t swing. “Strike three, you’re out!” the umpire called. Roy dropped his head and walked away from home plate.

The umpire was wrong. It wasn’t fair, Tomi thought. And suddenly, she raised her fist and yelled, “The umpire’s a lunkhead!” Tomi had never said anything like that before, and Ruth stared at her with a surprised look on her face. Others turned to stare at Tomi, too. Japanese girls didn’t yell at umpires.

Tomi realized what she’d done. She glanced at a
woman who frowned at her. “Well, he is a lunkhead,” Tomi said in a loud voice. “He made that call because Roy’s Japanese. If Roy’d been a white boy, that pitch wouldn’t have been a strike.”

Ruth grabbed the sash of Tomi’s dress and pulled her back. “Be quiet. People are looking at you,” she said.

“So what? Maybe I’m tired of being a second-class citizen.”

1944 | CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

POP
and the
ROYALS

A FEW
weeks after Pop arrived in Tallgrass, Tomi persuaded him to attend a dance where Roy and the Royals were playing. Of course, Pop had listened to the band practice in the Itanos’ apartment, but he’d never heard them perform in public. So now, Pop sat with Mom, Hiro, and Tomi at a table in the big building where the dances were held, sipping a Coca-Cola that Roy had bought him.

Pop tapped his foot to the music. Then he said, “You want to dance, Sumiko?” He took Mom’s arm, and in a minute, they were dancing a slow dance called a fox trot.

“I didn’t know they could dance,” Hiro said, grinning at Tomi.

“Me neither.” She smiled, too, but the one who was
smiling the most was Roy. He was playing his best that night, and Tomi knew that was because Pop was there. Roy wanted Pop to be proud of him.

The Royals played another slow dance, and Mom and Pop stayed on the dance floor. When the band switched to a jitterbug, the two of them returned to the table. That new dance was too confusing for him, Pop said. It wasn’t confusing for Hiro and Tomi, however, and they rushed out onto the dance floor and began jerking around. They weren’t very good, Tomi knew, but that didn’t matter. Pop clapped in time to the music and grinned at them. Then the band played, “Whatcha Know, Joe?” and chanted the words: “Whatcha know, Joe? I don’t know nothin’.”

When that song was over, the Royals played another slow tune, and Pop stood up and bowed to Tomi, took her hand, and led her to the dance floor. Then Hiro stood and bowed to Mom in exactly the same way, and in a minute, they, too, were dancing.

It was the best time Tomi had had since she came to Tallgrass, certainly the best time since Pop had joined them. She hoped Pop was feeling better about the camp.

When the dance ended, the four sat down at the table again and listened to Helen sing. “She has a very pretty
voice,” Pop said. “But I wish she would sing a Japanese song.”

Tomi was afraid Pop would criticize America again, but he only sat, beating time to the music, his fingers tapping the table.

When the band took a break, Roy came over to them. “What do you think of the Royals, Pop?” he asked.

“Pretty good,” Pop said. “But why don’t you play some Japanese music?”

“Japanese?” Roy asked. “Heck, Pop, you can’t dance to Japanese music.”

“There is Japanese dancing.”

“Not on a dance floor in the good old U.S. of A.” Roy picked up Tomi’s Coca-Cola and took a sip. “Look at all these people. They’re here because they like American dancing.”

Helen came to the table, and nodded at Mom and Pop. When she’d first met Pop, she’d held out her hand, but Pop had stared at it instead of shaking it. Now she didn’t offer to shake hands. “You like it any better at Tallgrass?” she asked.

“I would like it better if we were home in California,” he replied.

“Me, too, but it won’t be long now. We’re winning this war. We’ll win it even faster if Roy joins up.”

Roy nudged her with his elbow to be quiet. “Right now, I’ve got to get back to work,” he said. He started for the bandstand, then stopped and turned around. “I’ve got a surprise for you, Pop.” He whispered something to Helen as they started across the dance floor. She nodded.

Roy picked up his clarinet and blew a few notes. People returned to the dance floor and waited for the music to begin. Instead of launching into a tune, however, Roy said in a loud voice, “Folks, may I have your attention?”

People stopped talking and turned to him. “We have a very special guest here tonight. My pop. He hasn’t been at Tallgrass very long, and this is his first dance. So I’m going to play his favorite song for him. He taught it to me when I was little. It’s not really a dance tune, but I think you know it.”

People clapped and turned to our table. Pop rose and bowed to them, very happy.

“Ready, Helen?” Roy asked. She nodded. “Okay, Pop, here it is.” He whispered something to the band. Then he played a few notes on his clarinet.

Pop beamed at him and said, “Now a real Japanese
song.” But it wasn’t a Japanese song. Instead, the Royals launched into “America.”

As the dancers recognized the music, they began to sing, “My country ’tis of thee …” Some of them turned to Pop and nodded their approval.

Pop recognized the song, too. The smile faded from his face. He turned his back to the band and scowled. “Bah! That’s not my favorite song anymore,” he said. Then he stood up and said, “Come on, Sumiko. We’re going home.”

“We can’t leave now. You’ll hurt Roy’s feelings,” Mom protested.

“I don’t care. Roy should know better and so should you.” Pop started toward the door, his cane banging on the floor. Mom gestured at Hiro and me to follow.

“What’s wrong with him?” a girl asked Tomi.

She started to explain that Pop had been in a prison camp where he was badly treated. But she didn’t. Pop had a right to be angry. So she said, “Nothing’s wrong with him. It’s what’s wrong with this country,” Tomi told her.

After that, Roy and the Royals didn’t practice in the
Itanos’ apartment anymore. In fact, Roy stayed away from Pop as much as he could. He even started eating meals with his friends again. “I honor Pop, but I don’t agree with him. I want to be a good son and don’t want to be disrespectful. So it’s better I keep out of his way,” Roy told Tomi.

“Well, I do agree with him. He’s gotten rotten treatment, and he has a right to dislike America,” Tomi said.

“I wish you didn’t feel that way, especially since I’m going to tell you a secret,” Roy said in a serious way.

Tomi looked up, waiting.

“As soon as I turn eighteen, I’m going to join the army,” Roy said.

Tomi’s mouth dropped open. “Do you have to?”

“If I don’t, I might get sent to a prison camp like Pop,” he explained.

Tomi knew that the young men in the camp were being asked to join the army—the all-Japanese 442nd, which was known as the “Go for Broke” unit. Everyone in camp was proud of the 442nd, because the soldiers were so brave. Still, some of the men refused to join. They asked why they should fight for America when the country put their families into the relocation camps. There had been arguments and even fistfights at Tallgrass over enlistment.
Tomi knew that sooner or later, Roy would have to make a decision about joining the army, so his secret shouldn’t have surprised her. Still, she hoped the war would be over by the time he turned eighteen that summer.

“Maybe you could just get a job in the camp to help the war effort so you won’t have to join up,” Tomi said.

“You don’t understand. I want to join. I want to fight for my country.”

“Why? Why, after the way America treated Pop? We hardly recognized him when he came here. He left California a strong man, and now he walks with a cane. He used to be so happy, but he never smiles anymore. Look what America did to him.”

“You’re right about Pop, but I still love this country. You do, too.”

“I’m not so sure anymore, not after the way Pop was treated,” Tomi told him.

“Don’t say that,” Roy said quickly.

“It’s true,” Tomi said. “I’m sorry I sold raffle tickets to help the war effort. And I think you’re dumb to join the army.”

“You shouldn’t say all that,” Roy told her.

“
Shikata ga nai
,” said Tomi. “It can’t be helped.”