A Girl Like You (22 page)

“You shouldn’t have come if you can’t keep up,” he shouts, catching sight of her. “Why must you insist on acting like a man?”

“Why must you insist on acting like my father?” she screams back.

As they near the mess hall, a gang of youths wearing white headbands scrawled with
toukon
, the Japanese symbol for fighting spirit, come toward them, chanting.

“Long Live His Majesty the Emperor.”

They are wielding weapons, kendo fighting sticks, knives, some roughly made hatchets, anything they have been able to lay their hands on.

Satomi stops running, mesmerized by the sight of their brutal arsenal.

“Haru, Haru,” she calls breathlessly, but her voice is thin, lost in the air. Without intent, the chanting youths knock her about in their charge.

The searchlights are tracking the boys and a wide cone of light has them in its sights, catching her in its beam too, blinding her so that it’s impossible to see anything but the glaring white light.

The youths pass, leaving her in the dark as the quaking sound of the guards’ oncoming feet running to catch up with the troublemakers adds to her confusion. She stumbles down the nearest alley, pressing herself against the side of a barrack wall as they pass, kicking up a flurry of dust with their heavy boots.

Her hand goes to her heart as though to stop it from leaping from her chest, her lungs are burning from the effort of trying to keep up with Haru, she can feel her blood pulsing. Haru has disappeared, deserted her. She is alone and frightened in the moments before she hears his shout, hoarse and panicky.

“Sati, where the hell are you?”

“I’m here, over here,” she yells from the shadows, as a man reeking of sweat and potato vodka grabs her arm, ripping the sleeve of her jacket.

“I’ll save you,” he slurs. “Stay with me.”

As she struggles, Haru appears at her side, pulls the man off her, takes her hand roughly, and forces her to run with him.

In front of the jailhouse in the crammed square the searchlights dazzle. Ranks of soldiers have drawn a line three deep in the sand. The thought crosses her mind that next door to the jailhouse Dr. Harper is inside the hospital. He will be soothing his patients, who will be as scared as her, maybe. She would like to join him, but it would take a tank to make a path through the mob.

Corralled in front of the soldiers, who are attempting to hold their ground, the crowd moves like the sea, a huge tide of bodies surging forward. A truck is pushed through the soldiers’ ranks into the jailhouse. Glass shatters, there is a crunching sound, a cheer goes up.

Haru is mouthing something to her that she can’t hear—she thinks he is telling her to stay close, but in the throng’s pitching they are forced apart, so that her hand is torn from his just as a guard takes aim and shoots into the crowd.

In the alarm the gunfire causes she is knocked to the ground, where, among the feet and the dust, things seem to go into slow motion.

In case another round should come and split the air as horribly as the first, she covers her ears with her hands and curls her body tight, knees up, head down.

Through the tangle of legs she can see a boy crouched on the ground like her, but somehow not like her. His body is still, his head twisted unnaturally to the side, his hand open as though it has frozen in the act of waving. As she looks, a spurt of blood wells up through his pale T-shirt, spreading across his chest, a red flower opening its petals. He slumps forward, and drops of blood plop slowly to the ground and mix with the dirt. And suddenly she is screaming, struggling to move, scanning the forest of legs
for a space to crawl through. A booted foot treads on her ankle and the searing pain draws a yelp from her. She thinks she sees Ralph’s legs through the stirred-up dust, cotton trousers, the sneakers that have lost their laces. He is too far away to get to.

“I told you not to come,” Haru roars above her head, pulling her to her feet. “Did you really want to see that?”

“No. Did you?” Her body is shuddering, her legs weak, she is covered in dirt, bruises already blooming on her forehead, a dark graze on her ankle.

Acrid smoke fills the air as people begin to cough and splutter and hastily withdraw from the square. Something is happening to Haru, he can’t seem to speak, and just as she begins to choke herself she sees that the whites of his eyes have become bloodshot.

“It’s gas,” he croaks.

Satomi takes his hand and they stagger away from the crowd, hoping to find some good air to breathe.

Three hours later they emerge from under the barrack where they took shelter. Shaken and silent, with each other, they return home red-eyed with the news that things are finally quieting down.

“There was no order to fire,” Haru says angrily. “But they did anyway. There are two dead, and ten more wounded.” He absent-mindedly picks up the sleeping Naomi’s blanket, which has slipped to the floor, and covers her lap with it.

“Two boys dead,” he repeats, as though he can’t take it in himself.

“They used tear gas to calm things down,” Satomi adds in a rush. “It was horrible, it made our eyes burn, and Haru was sick.”

Haru looks embarrassed. “Nothing to make a fuss about,” he says irritably, as Eriko forces him to sit. He is ashamed that he was the one to be sick. Satomi could have kept quiet about it, but she has no sense about such things. She allows him no pride.

“People were dizzy and stumbling all over the place, but angry too, really angry.” She can’t seem to stop talking, the words
tumbling out of her as she moves restlessly about. Haru, sitting now, has gone quiet.

The bruises on Satomi’s face have deepened to a livid puce, her clothes are torn and filthy. Pictures of the fallen boy, of his bloody T-shirt, flash horribly at intervals in her mind.

At the sight of Satomi bruised but alive, Tamura suffers the flash of anger that comes after child-lost, child-found, is over.

“You shouldn’t have gone,” she says disapprovingly. “You should have listened to Haru.”

Yumi is picking at her skirt, hopping from one foot to the other. She needs to pee but is scared to go to the latrines on her own.

“You’re sure it’s all over?” she keeps asking Haru.

“Yes, go,” he says. “It’s all quiet now.”

It is past dawn already and none of them, apart from Naomi, has slept.

Tamura goes to their barrack for her toothbrush, for the sliver of soap she is making last.

“I’ll wash at the spigot this morning,” she calls to Eriko.

When she returns she is in a better mood. She never sleeps much anyway, and what can she do about Satomi? The truth is the girl is a copy of her father, another Aaron. She won’t be ruled.

“Should we go to work, do you think?” Eriko asks Haru.

“I think you should. We must help get things back to normal. I will walk my class to school. You come with me, Yumi. I’ll see you into yours.” He is finding relief in taking charge.

“I’ll walk with you and Eriko, Mother,” Satomi says. “Give me a moment to change. I guess they won’t be opening the mess halls for a while, so breakfast will be late.”

She holds Tamura’s hand as they walk. It feels thin, more bone than flesh, as though she is holding a tiny newborn mouse. Eriko
tsks
at the mess the camp is in, shaking her head at the madness in the world.

There’s a handwritten sign on their mess hall door: BREAKFAST IN ONE HOUR.

“We are fine, you know,” Eriko says to Satomi. “You don’t have to walk us like children. You’re the one who is limping.”

“I want to. I won’t settle until I see Mother through the door. Then I’ll backtrack and take the shortcut to the orphanage.”

“Eriko’s right, there’s no need,” Tamura agrees. “Who would want to hurt me? You go back, I know you want to check on Cora.”

“No point, we’re nearly there, Mama.”

Across the way from the factory two white fire officers from Lone Pine stand beside a fire engine, looking around as though on alert for a predator.

Tamura and Eriko’s supervisor is at the door ushering the workers in.

“It’s on loan from the Forest Service, just in case,” he says archly, nodding toward the fire engine. He has a cut above his lip repaired with four catgut stitches. Like a half mustache, Satomi thinks. It gives him a jaunty air, but no one mentions it. They have passed similar on their way here, closed eyes, cuts, swellings. Already it is bad form to ask what side you are on.

“Hey, little darlin’,” one of the officers calls, giving a long low whistle. “Are you looking for a fight too?”

Tamura lets go of Satomi’s hand and marches up to him. “Do you want to cause more trouble?” she asks as though talking to a child. “Is my daughter never to be left in peace?”

The soldier gives a nasty laugh and turns his back on her. A truck comes toward them slowly, two guards at its side gathering the wood from the smashed-up laundry tubs, throwing it into the back of the pickup as they go.

“Tricky customers, these Nips, go off like fireworks at the slightest thing. Better not to get too familiar,” they advise the Lone Pine officers.

“I was going to wash my mother’s clothes today,” Eriko says placidly to Tamura. “Now what will we do?”

“They can’t all be broken, Eriko. We will just have to share.”

The mess hall bells are ringing in memory of the two dead boys. A strangely playful sound, betraying the sadness in the air.

“One was seventeen, the other twenty-one,” the supervisor says. “Ten more wounded in the hospital.”

On hearing who the dead boys are, Eriko says that she had known one of them.

“I can’t believe it’s him,” she says, sighing. “He was a gentle boy, very polite to his elders. A good boy.”

On her way to the orphanage, Satomi comes across Lawson overseeing a gang of Japanese who are sweeping the debris of the battle into piles in readiness for the truck to pick up.

“There’ll be questions to answer,” he says sorrowfully. “You can’t just fire without an order, not in America anyway.”

“Then why did they, Lawson?”

“The military got nervous, I guess. Things got out of hand, but still we have laws, don’t we. You can’t go around shooting people.”

“Seems you have, though, doesn’t it?”

“Not me, Satomi, not me. In any case, you’ll get justice, you’ll see.”

“It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?”

“I guess, maybe. Anyway, I’m pleased to see that you are all right, at least. How are you doing for soap?”

“Nothing against you, Lawson, but I won’t be taking soap anymore.”

The dissent in the camp has been revealed. Bones have been broken, blood spilled, to say the least. She doesn’t know on which side to stand, but it would be wrong now to accept gifts from Lawson. Things will never go back to how they were. No doubt the dead will be buried, the wreckage of the battle cleared, but
the riot has already left something less tangible than bodies and debris in its wake, a postscript provoked by outrage. The Japanese inmates are no longer sheep to be herded.

By the time she reaches the alleyway that is the cut-through to the orphanage, the bells have stopped ringing. A short tolling for two short lives, she thinks, surprised that death comes so unexpectedly to some.

And then the picture flashes into her mind again, the twisted head, that pathetic hand, the black blood in the dust. She pauses for a moment, looking back, trembling a little. It is very cold, the air quite still, for once. Apart from two old men sitting around a tin-can fire at its far end, the alleyway is empty. People are at work or behind the safety of their closed doors. Better to keep your head down on such a day. They should have known that, since Pearl Harbor, December is a dangerous month.

How can she go to work as though nothing has happened, resume her routine as easily as Tamura and Eriko seem to have done? She is so tired that if it wasn’t for Cora she would return to Sewer Alley and sleep the day away. But Cora will be anxious, looking toward the door for her, and she wants to see the little girl, hold her close. Tears come streaming, she is suddenly filled with sympathy for the world, for the dead boys, for the look now in Yumi’s once-innocent eyes, for the hurt that is Cora.

The desire for a cigarette comes as it often does, but she has none. She pictures herself setting the match, drawing deep, the familiar catch in her throat as the smoke snakes through her. Why had she let Haru talk her into giving them up?

“You don’t have the money for them anyway, Sati.”

“I could share yours.”

“No, it’s horrible to see a girl smoking. I can’t bear the smell on you.”

Halfway down the alley, as she stops to knot her scarf against
the cold, her eyes are drawn to movement at an open doorway. Two boys of around Haru’s age are joined together kissing. She stands stock-still, staring, her mouth open, her bottom lip pendulous. In the middle of the kiss one begins to unbuckle the other’s belt, laughing as their lips part. They move in a secret primitive language, boy against boy, slim on slim, no curves, equal strengths.

It seems to her a nonsensical scene, like something out of those dreams that you feel shame for when you wake, as though you had conjured them out of the dark bit inside you that nobody knows about. The riot must have created a mad sort of electricity in the air, turned things on their head.

The one whose buckle has been undone catches sight of her staring, but she can’t look away, she might as well be rooted in the frozen mud beneath her feet. His body stills for a moment, but then he returns her stare, exaggerating the incline of his head, raising his eyebrows in a sort of challenge that she has no idea how to meet. With a half smile on his face, he shrugs and kicks the door shut.

She doesn’t mention what she has seen to Haru. Will never, she thinks, mention it to anyone. She feels sure that she wouldn’t be believed.

After that day, whenever she thinks about those boys, their lean embrace, it seems to her that she has witnessed a wonderfully rebellious, entirely independent act. It’s all wrong, of course, surely not what nature intended, but it pleases her to know that she isn’t the only outsider at Manzanar.