The Sun Gods (15 page)

16

I am for immediate removal of every Japanese on the West

Coast to a point deep in the interior. Personally, I hate the

Japanese. And that goes for all of them. Let's quit worrying

about hurting the enemy's feelings and start doing it.

–
COLUMNIST HENRY MCLEMORE

The Japanese should be under guard to the last man

and woman and to hell with habeas corpus.

–
COLUMNIST WESTBROOK PEGLER

Every Japanese alien should be removed from this community.

I am also strongly of the conviction that Japanese who

are American citizens should be subjected to a more

detailed and all-encompassing investigation.

–
SAN FRANCISCO MAYOR ANGELO J. ROSSI

It seems to me that it is quite significant that in this great

state of ours we have had no fifth-column activities and no

sabotage reported. That was the history of Pearl Harbor. I think

we ought to urge the military command in this area to do the

things that are obviously essential to the security of this State.

–
CALIFORNIA ATTORNEY GENERAL EARL WARREN

Once a Jap, always a Jap. You can't anymore regenerate

a Jap than you can reverse the laws of nature.

–
MISSISSIPPI CONGRESSMAN JOHN RANKIN

It makes no difference whether the Japanese is

theoretically a citizen. He is still a Japanese. Giving

him a scrap of paper won't change him. A Jap is a Jap.

–
LIEUTENANT GENERAL JOHN L. DEWITT, WESTERN DEFENSE COMMANDER

I am determined that if they have one drop of

Japanese blood in them, they must go to camp.

–
COLONEL KARL R. BENDETSEN, WARTIME CIVIL CONTROL ADMINISTRATION CHIEF

The Japs live like rats, breed like rats and act like rats. We don't

want them buying or leasing land or becoming permanently

located in our state. I don't want them coming into Idaho and I

don't want them taking seats in our university vacated by our

young men who have gone to war against Japan.

–
IDAHO GOVERNOR CHASE CLARK

Japanese are in America through fraud, deception and collusion.

–
SEATTLE PUBLISHER MILLER FREEMAN

Being closest to the enemy and a possible point of first attack,

we have a responsibility to our own loyal citizens.

–
WASHINGTON GOVERNOR ARTHUR LANGLIE

Many of the Japanese who came here thirty or forty years ago are

among our most loyal citizens, but even among American-born

Japanese, some are thoroughly disloyal. The reason there hasn't been

sabotage here is because it has distinctly been withheld by Tokyo.

–
SEATTLE MAYOR EARL MILLIKIN

“TOM, I NEED TO
see you right away.”

“Out of money again?”

“Haven't you heard the news? Please come to Yoshiko's.”

“Can't it wait? I've been busy all week and I have only today and tomorrow to work on my sermon.”

“Tom, please. This is an emergency. I have done what you asked me to do. I have not told anyone of our troubles. I have gone to church with you every Sunday. But this Sunday is different. You must come.”

“Are you threatening me?” he asked.

“Threatening? What do you mean?”

“Are you saying you are going to make me look bad in the eyes of the congregation this Sunday by staying home?”

“No, how could you—”

“Because if you are, let me tell you I'm not the least bit worried.”

“Tom, please—”

Before she could say anything else, he cut the connection.

Mitsuko sat staring at the useless receiver. Then she hung it up and called out, “Yoshiko, I'm going to the church to see Tom.”

Yoshiko peeked in from the kitchen. “What's the matter?” she asked. “Can't he come over?”

“I have to see him there. Watch Billy for a while.”

Mitsuko put on a light raincoat and comfortable shoes. She was prepared to walk all the way if no buses stopped for her.

Walking down Madison, then Broadway, she felt a slight chill in the air, but the sun was shining, and before long she had to loosen the top buttons of her coat. She must have passed half a dozen shops with the same tagboard sign in the window: “JAP Hunting Licenses Sold Here.” The words “Sold Here” were crossed out by two printed lines, and underneath it said, “Free!” Americans had such a wonderful sense of humor.

She approached the dark brick church, her house of worship during the past three years, but the promise of serenity it always held out for her had been replaced by a sense of dread. She climbed the stairs to the second floor and walked swiftly down the gloomy corridor. The soft clicking of her heels on the marble floor was the only sign of life in the building. She paused for a moment at the door of Tom's office, listening, but there seemed to be no one inside. At last she knocked.

“Yes? Come in,” said Tom in his deep and gentle ministerial voice.

Without hesitation, Mitsuko turned the knob and pushed the door open. Tom sat behind his desk, his back to the window, his pen poised in mid-air above a tablet of lined paper. The light poured in around him, casting him in silhouette, but she could see his jaw set tightly.

“I told you I'm busy,” he said.

“There is no time for that,” she insisted. “Have you still not heard the news?”

“I don't have time for listening to the radio. I am trying to write, if you wouldn't keep interrupting me.”

She closed the door and sat down in a hard-backed chair, facing him. The light from the window was nearly blinding as it flowed in around Tom's shadowy figure.

“General DeWitt made another announcement today. It is even worse than the ones before. Now he says we have only until March 29th to evacuate voluntarily. That's two days, Tom. Sunday.”

He looked at her without speaking.

“Don't you realize what this means? If you do not take me away now, they are going to lock me up. We have to leave by Sunday.”

“Leave for where?” Tom asked at length.

“Anywhere,” she said. “East of the Cascades. As long as we are not in Military Area Number One.”

“We?” he asked.

“You and I, Tom. And Billy.”

“And Yoshiko?”

“Of course, Yoshiko.”

“And all of Yoshiko's friends and relations, and half the Japanese population of Seattle before we get through.”

“No,” she said. “We will take only Yoshiko.”

Warm from her walk, Mitsuko unbuttoned her coat and twisted in the chair to take it off.

Tom raised his hand and said, “Don't do that. I know what you're doing! Because I'm resisting your words, you want to lure me with your body.”

She stopped wrestling with her coat and stared at him, openmouthed. “And what if I did? Would that be so terrible? Tom, I am your wife. We have not been together for three months. I want us to be together again. It is our last chance. If we start packing now, we can be ready by Sunday. You and Billy and I can live together as we used to. It is all I want. As soon as Goro is released, Yoshiko will join him.”

The veins stood out on his jaw and forehead. When she had first seen him in church, this had seemed to give his preaching a special intensity, but now the bulging blood vessels looked more like worms crawling beneath the surface of the skin.

“What makes you think Goro is going to be released?”

“He has done nothing.”

“How do you know that? How do I know that you—”

The tears were running down her cheeks, but she made no move to wipe them away. “Tom, listen to what you are saying! I thought you loved me!”

“Funny,” he said with a wry smile, “I thought I did, too.”

She sank back in her chair. “And the vows we took in Christ's name? What about those?”

“Don't speak to me of Christ! You have no right to speak of Christ.”

She smiled at him sadly. “Are you not afraid for your son in the hands of this devil?”

Tom brought his fist crashing down upon the desk and then he stood, casting the full length of his shadow over her. He walked around to her side of the desk, and she saw his arm reach out. She shielded her face, but the blow did not come. Instead, Tom yanked his coat from the hanger and swung the door open, smashing it into the filing cabinets that stood nearby.

Mitsuko listened to his footsteps receding down the hall and then the stairway, and when the outer door closed behind him, there was only silence.

It was over. She sat there, listening to the emptiness of the building. Tom would need time to pack the boy's things. She was glad she would not be there when Billy was torn out of her life.

More minutes ticked by.

Rising to her feet, she walked slowly through the door and down the stairs. Instead of stepping outside, she turned down the corridor to the sanctuary. The creak of the opening door echoed in the empty chamber. She drifted down the aisle, looking up at the altar where Tom stood each Sunday.

She took a seat in the front row, studying the cross hanging over the pulpit. What kind of wood was it made of? Probably something hard, like cherry. As her gaze traversed the glowing satin planes and sharp edges, she imagined workmen cutting and shaping the wood, gluing together the members, applying the lacquer finish layer by layer, painstakingly rubbing and polishing until the hidden lines of the grain shone forth on the surface. In her mind, the workmen were Japanese, and they performed their tasks with skill and patience, dedicating their hands and hearts to the inner life of the wood.

This cross of wood hung before her, naked and beautiful. Her right hand moved slowly upward, closing around the cold metal cross against her breast. A sharp pull, and the chain on her neck parted. She looked from the wooden cross to the golden one on the living flesh of her hand, the ends of the chain hanging down against her skirt. Slowly, she turned her hand, and she watched the metal object slide inexorably toward the edge of her palm. It did not rise up to the heavens. The pull of gravity carried it over the edge, down to her lap, and as she stood, the cross clattered to the floor like a lost button or coin. Looking once again at the wooden cross, she saw the massive bolts that kept it fastened to the wall. Then she turned and walked from the sanctuary.

17

“PLEASE, MIT-CHAN,
I don't want to go alone.”

“I will never set foot in church again,” said Mitsuko, lying on the Nomuras' living room couch.

“You mustn't say that,” cautioned Yoshiko. “Now is when you need the Lord more than ever. We can go to the Baptist Church if you don't want to see Pastor Tom. Reverend Andrews is such a wonderful man.”

“The Bainbridge Island Japanese are being taken away tomorrow. What can I do to help them? I want to help.”

“There's nothing we can do, Mit-chan, except pray for them—and for ourselves.”

“
You
pray,” said Mitsuko. “Be quiet and let me think.”

Yoshiko went to her bedroom to finish dressing for church. Before leaving the house, she approached Mitsuko. “What good will it do for you just to lie there? It won't bring Billy back.”

“I am trying not to think of Billy.”

“Maybe I can help,” Yoshiko suggested.

“You? How can you help?”

“I will talk to Reverend Hanamori.”

“No!” Mitsuko sat up. “You must never mention this to anyone.”

“But …”

Mitsuko stood and laid a hand on her sister's shoulder. “Promise me before you leave the house.”

“He can bring you and Tom together again …”

“Never. If you go against what I have said, I swear to you I will leave this house and you will never see me again.”

“Please, Mit-chan, I would be so ashamed.”

“Then let me handle this my way.”

Yoshiko nodded, biting her lip. Finally, putting on one of her broad-brimmed hats, she left the house.

Mitsuko spent the rest of the morning on the couch. Against the blank ceiling, she could see Billy's clear, blue eyes looking at her with love. This must be what the mother of a kidnapped child must feel. If there were anything she might still be willing to pray for, it was that Billy should quickly become accustomed to living with his father again. A piece had been ripped out of her heart, and the only hope of healing the wound would be some word that Billy had learned to live without her. Once Tom refused to take her away east of the mountains, he had doomed them to separation.

By the time Yoshiko came back from church, Mitsuko had begun to formulate a plan. Pacing back and forth, she announced her determination to go to Bainbridge Island herself and offer her services to those who were being uprooted from their homes.

“But you can't go to Bainbridge,” protested Yoshiko. “It's at least eight or ten miles out into the Sound, and we're not allowed to travel more than five miles from home. Besides, once you got there, you'd have to come straight back to beat the eight o'clock curfew. And if they caught you, they would put you in jail.”

“Maybe that's where I belong,” Mitsuko said. But she resolved that, at the very least, she would be there when the Bainbridge Islanders were brought over on the ferry.

Mitsuko woke early the next day and tried to leave the house before Yoshiko was up. Fearing that she might not be able to find a restaurant that would serve her, she spooned cold rice from the pot on the stove and ate it with a sour plum. She was certain that she had accomplished this in absolute silence, but the moment her chopsticks clicked against the rice bowl, Yoshiko walked into the kitchen in a flannel nightgown.

Yoshiko cried aloud when she heard where Mitsuko was going. “You can't, you'll be risking your life. I heard that some Nisei are refusing to surrender their guns. There might be riots.”

Mitsuko found Yoshiko's warning strangely exciting, but nothing about the Seattle waterfront that morning proved her fears true. The big, gray warehouses loomed over Alaskan Way. The chilly air was heavy with the smell of the ocean, and an occasional breeze carried in the cough-medicine smell of creosote from the docks. Gulls circled overhead, their cries clear and shrill.

An almost uncanny quiet prevailed as Mitsuko joined the throng that gathered for the somber parade. Thousands of onlookers jostled each other for a better view surrounding the short route from the Colman Ferry Dock to the switch tracks across the street, where blue Pullman cars waited. The out-of-step, oddly casual marchers in their dark coats and hats crossed Alaskan Way in groups of twenty-five or thirty at a time, many of them smiling sadly and waving to the crowd. Above them arched the high footbridge from Marion Street, the narrow span crammed to overflowing with curious white faces. Only the uniformed soldiers at the head and tail of each docile group seemed out of place. Rifles at the ready, bayonets fixed, a few of these young men had tears in their eyes. From the crowd, Mitsuko heard some of the jeers she had expected, but they sounded strangely hollow amid the overwhelming mood of good will.

Standing on the bumpers and running boards of a car parked in front of the Palace Fish and Oyster Company, a half dozen white boys waved limply to youngsters in the procession, some of whom waved back, while others hung their heads, sniffling.

After the group with their friends in it had crossed the street and climbed aboard a Pullman car, the little gang of boys stepped down from their vantage point and squeezed their way through the mass of people toward the train. Mitsuko tried to follow their progress through the crowd, but she was distracted from them when a tall, blond girl of high school age suddenly broke through the cordon of soldiers and dashed out to the middle of the street. Sobbing uncontrollably, she threw her arms around a Japanese girl from behind, almost knocking her down. The Japanese girl pressed her face in her hands, never turning to look at her friend, and a soldier gently urged the blond girl back to the side of the street.

Still curious about the boys, Mitsuko edged her way through the crush of human bodies toward a point near the train where they should have come through. She found them on the street, looking up at the faces of the reluctant passengers.

The windows of the train were open, and some of the people inside were calling their goodbyes with bittersweet smiles. All eyes were moist but those of a tiny boy whose mother had placed an American flag in his fist and was helping him wave it. Behind them, Mitsuko could see the profiles of other passengers who had taken their seats on the far, shadowed side of the train. They made no attempt to look out, and most sat with heads bowed and shoulders stooped.

“You're still the best hitter on the Island, Tets!” yelled the dark-haired boy standing nearest Mitsuko.

The boy he called Tets knelt on a seat by a window, flexing his biceps and thrusting out his lower lip.

The mugging and the encouraging shouts continued for some time, but a piercing blast on the steam whistle sent a spasm of fright through the crowd, followed by nervous titters, and then, when the train gave a lurch and actually began to move out, a number of gasps and wails. The little gang of white boys began to trot next to the train, running faster and faster as it picked up speed, and finally coming to a halt when it had outpaced them.

The train had momentarily disturbed the waterfront's eerie calm. Now the gulls were crying again, and out on the bay sounded the blast of a tugboat horn.

Mitsuko stood her ground, waiting for the boys to retrace their steps as the murmuring crowd began to disperse. A freckle-faced redhead was talking excitedly about “some neat pinball machines” when he passed her by, but beneath his eyes she saw muddy smears, where he had wiped away his tears with dirty hands.

She had come down to the waterfront today half hoping to see a bloody resistance, and the docility of the Bainbridge prisoners had momentarily filled her with contempt. They had ignored the ugly taunts of certain members of the crowd, seeing only those observers who had come to share something positive with them, and the sight had moved her deeply. There was something of value here, something worth nourishing and keeping. She did not know what it was, but she was sure she wanted to be a part of it. Her place was with them. Until now, she had feared the prospect of being forced to live inside barbed wire under the threat of the gun, but suddenly something in her heart welcomed it. If she could not have her Billy, if the happiness she had found with him and with Tom were destined to come to an end, there was still something left for her.

When Mitsuko arrived home unscathed, Yoshiko clucked and fussed over her like a mother hen. Mitsuko tried to explain her strangely uplifting experience, but the only thing that seemed to make an impression on Yoshiko was the mention of the armed soldiers.

“What if a
Japanese
girl had run over to her blond friend on the edge of the crowd? Would they have shot her? Mitsuko, I'm so frightened. When is our turn coming?”

“Yes,” whispered Mitsuko, “when is our turn coming? We had better not be caught off guard like the Islanders.”

“Not caught off guard? Mitsuko, what do you mean?”

“Don't worry,” she said with a reassuring laugh. “All I'm saying is that we should begin looking for places to store your property while there is still time. What we can't store, we'd better sell.”

“Sell?” Yoshiko looked around in fear and confusion. “I wish Goro were here.”

“Goro is not here, so it's up to us. How much do you think this house is worth?”

“No, Mit-chan, not the house!”

“We'll see,” said Mitsuko calmly.

The next day, Yoshiko began calling white friends and business contacts who had been willing to sign for Goro's freedom, asking them for spare storage space in their attics and cellars. While she was busy on the telephone, Mitsuko visited neighbors with the same request. A few doors were slammed in her face, but old Mr. Harrison three houses down even offered to care for their garden while they were away.

Hurrying home with the good news, Mitsuko was shocked to see a tiny pair of shoes in the front hall.

“Mitsu!” came the familiar, high-pitched cry, and before she knew it, she was on her knees with Billy in her arms. She held him with all her strength, her eyes shut tight, almost afraid that if she looked, he would disappear again. At length, however, his little body began to squirm in her embrace. She held him out at arm's length, and her heart sank. He was pale and noticeably thinner, and there was a greenish-purple bruise on his left cheek.

She rose to her feet, incensed, looking for Tom.

Yoshiko was standing there, shaking her head. “He dumped him here and left,” she said. “He wants you to take him. He said that Billy only cries, and he refuses to eat. Pastor Tom said you put a curse on him. And maybe you did.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I almost hate to tell you this,” Yoshiko said with the hint of a smile on her lips. “He bit him.”

“What? Who?”

“Billy bit him. Hard. I saw the teeth marks on Tom's hand. I think he broke the skin.” Yoshiko was grinning now.

“You're kidding,” Mitsuko said. “No, you're not kidding, are you? He really did that?” Before she knew it, Mitsuko herself was smiling. The two sisters looked at each other and burst out laughing.