The Language Inside (5 page)

later as we waited

in our classrooms

aftershocks jolting

power came on

network was up

but cell phones

were down

from a school computer

I blast-emailed Mom, Dad, Toby, Madoka

YiaYia, Gram, Gramps, cousins—

big quake, I’m at school, everyone here okay

not knowing who would see my message

or when

trains were stopped

people were stuck

I couldn’t get back to Kamakura

and finally was dismissed

to walk with Juulia to her house

where I translated Japanese TV news

for them while her mother followed

Finnish and English news online

and where we watched in disbelief

as tsunami waves engulfed

the Pacific coast of Tohoku

I tried calling Madoka in Kamakura

whose grandparents, cousins

aunts and uncles

all live up north in Miyagi

near the sea

I sat on Juulia’s sofa

stone still

holding my head

hoping those relatives had all

                                        run

                                                  fast

near midnight I reached

Mom and Toby in Kamakura

               their power and heat finally on

               Dad staying the night in Tokyo

and right away I asked

but Mom said no

Madoka’s family

hadn’t heard any news

seeing those waves blast away

seaside towns that looked like ours

towns that could have been ours

towns I’ve visited

with Madoka . . . 

I hardly slept

all night

I rose

when I finally heard

someone else up at dawn

and joined Juulia’s father

in stunned silence

in front of the TV

midday on the day after

Mom came by car to get me

and back in Kamakura

I went straight to Madoka’s house

to help them try to make contact

to help them wait for news

Dad got home that second night

by train, bus, walking

and on the third day we learned

that Madoka’s grandparents

survived

her cousins were safe

but later we learned

the first floor of her grandparents’ house

was ruined

one cousin’s school

was gone

one uncle’s fishing boat

was gone

one uncle’s factory

was gone

one aunt’s sister

was gone

one uncle’s wife

was gone

and the list

of gone

went on

and on

in late April, Dad and I

Madoka and her father

packed a van full of supplies

cleanup gear and two used bicycles

and drove north to Miyagi

at her grandparents’ house

the waterline

was above my head

a car stood on its nose

between the kitchen wall

and a neighbor’s wall

another had bashed down a shed

and four were crumpled

against a broken utility pole

the garden was littered

with splintered chairs, a drum

shredded mats, plastic crates, clothes

a urinal and dresser drawers

trees crusted with mud

were hung with trash

tangled in string

and weighted with dead fish

Madoka’s Jiichan, her grandfather

pried open the door to his house

and we peered inside to furniture

heaped, overturned

reeking and stuck

in oily salty sludge

but at least they still had a house—

a couple streets away

the waterline hit two stories

and beyond that

all the way to the sea . . . 

               there was only rubble