The Purple Heart (19 page)

Hiroshi was flattered by
her gesture, but felt she didn’t need to rush back to the mess hall to look for
the ball. But Minami was determined. If someone else found it, it would be lost
forever. It was the home run ball that won the game, and it was irreplaceable.

Minami and Hiroshi finally
arrived at the mess hall. The ladder was still propped up against the wall.
Everything was how it had been the night before. There was noise coming from
inside the mess hall as the morning cooks had already arrived to prepare the
morning’s breakfast. Minami started to worry that someone who didn’t know any
better might have already picked up the ball.

Minami propped Hiroshi up
against the wall and then went looking for the ball. She brushed away her hair
and bit her lip as she scanned the area. Where could that ball be? She thought.
Thinking that it may have rolled underneath the mess hall, she crouched down
and crawled underneath the mess hall.

Hiroshi was quite amused to
watch Minami scurrying underneath the mess hall with such determination. Then
she cried out happily as she backed out from the crawl space. Minami
straightened up and with a beaming smile on her face, she held out the baseball
for him to see.

Hiroshi let out a chuckle,
but even that hurt his sides. Minami rushed up to him and massaged the side of
his torso gently. “Let’s go and get this taped up,” she said.

Despite his bravado
attempts to hide his discomfort, he agreed. She placed his arm over her
shoulders and walked back with him to his barrack.

Hiroshi’s parents had
already left for breakfast, so Hiroshi and Minami were alone in the barrack.
Hiroshi was the perfect patient. He allowed Minami to undress him, and held his
arms over his head as Minami firmly wrapped his torso in a roll of cotton
gauze. Hiroshi watched her quietly, appreciating every attentive moment she
gave to him. As she sat next to him, she would lean over him and reach around
for the other end of the gauze. He could feel her delicate fingertips every
time they touched him. The scent from her silky black hair, which he found
seductively intoxicating, drifted up into his nostrils. He selfishly thought to
himself that he almost didn’t mind being hurt if Minami would extend this kind
of care to him each time. When she finished, he let out a deep sigh and dropped
his hands lazily into his lap. Minami then straddled his legs and made sure the
wrap was to her satisfaction and looked at Hiroshi and asked, “Is that good?”

Hiroshi slowly looked up
and responded, “It feels great. How was it for you?”

Minami looked at him,
grinned and placed a kiss on his cheek. She pulled away, brushed back her hair,
and sat alongside Hiroshi. She then pulled the ball out from her jacket’s
pocket and held up the ball for Hiroshi to see. In a playful tone and with an
adoring smile, she pleaded, “Mr. Home Run, would you sign my ball?”

After Hiroshi proudly
autographed the home run ball for his Number One fan, they held each other’s
hands as they walked back to Minami’s barrack. As they walked back, they
realized that she had also forgotten the water pail back at the water pump and
took a detour to retrieve it.

They were approaching
Minami’s barrack, which was still in the next block, when a man appeared from
the right and turned into their path. He was trudging slowly ahead of Hiroshi
and Minami in a slow methodical fashion. He was carrying a suitcase and wearing
a trench coat, which seemed odd for that warm summer day. The hair on the back
of his head was grayish. It was almost as if he gotten dressed to leave the
prison camp. Hiroshi and Minami didn’t pay him much attention as they slowly caught
up to him. He turned every so often to look up at the barrack numbers until he
finally stopped at Minami’s barrack and stared upwardly at it.

Minami didn’t recognize him.
He didn’t seem to be one of the tenants from her barrack, and after several
months, she knew everyone. They were less than ten feet away when the man
slowly turned his head and looked at Hiroshi, then Minami.

His posture was slightly hunched
over and his clothes were a bit too big for him. The skin around his eyes
drooped and sagged. The stubble was uneven on his worn face. The charcoal gray
hair was cut short. His face then began to tremble at the sight of Minami, who
quickly squeezed Hiroshi’s hand and to her utter disbelief, blurted out, “Dad?”

Minami’s father had indeed
returned, but at the same time, he hadn’t. When he saw Minami that morning, he
saw the face of one of his four children whom he had not seen in months. He hadn’t
known when he would see them next, or if he would ever see them again. But when
he saw Minami’s face, he was so overwhelmed with emotion that he crumbled to
his knees onto the dry ground. Minami rushed to him with Hiroshi behind her,
and she pulled her father against her shoulders. As she held him, he sobbed and
choked uncontrollably onto her shoulders, mumbling her name over and over
again. Minami had never seen her father so emotional. She found that she
couldn’t hold back her emotions either, but her strength came through as she
consoled him, holding him, rubbing his back gently.

Hiroshi crouched beside
them quietly, watching a father being united with his daughter. He wasn’t even
sure if Minami’s father realized he was there. Hiroshi felt a little out of
place being there, but he knelt by Minami, providing quiet support. Minami’s
father’s sobbing subsided as he pulled back from his daughter and looked into
her face.

Minami gazed into his face.
He had aged considerably. His face looked weathered, and there were wrinkles
where before there were none. But her father’s eyes glistened back, and she
found swelling elation and relief in them. Minami had to wipe away her tears as
her father looked at her, admiring her, remembering her.

“Minami, I’ve missed you,”
mumbled her father through the remnants of his choked back emotions.

“I’ve missed you too, Dad,”
said Minami with a smile.

“Where’s your mother? Where
are the others?” asked her father with a sense of urgency.

“They’re probably at
breakfast, I’ll go…”

But then Hiroshi
interrupted, “No, I’ll go get them.”

Minami’s father turned to
the voice of the young man whom he was totally oblivious to. Minami then
realized that she had entirely forgotten about Hiroshi.

“Dad, this is Hiroshi…”

“Yoshi!” blurted out her father
in surprise as he started to stand up.

Both Hiroshi and Minami
stood up with him when Minami realized that her father had strangely mistaken
Hiroshi for Yoshi. She quickly interjected, “No Dad.
Hiroshi
. This is
Hiroshi. Yoshi is with Mom.”

Her father stared back at
Hiroshi for a moment and then blinked in awe at the young man. Then he smiled
in embarrassment. “For a moment there, I thought I was away for so long I
missed my son growing up!”

The three shared a laugh.
At Hiroshi’s urging, Minami took her father inside and settled him into their
unit while Hiroshi jaunted back to the mess hall to fetch Minami’s family. She
helped her father slip off his jacket as his eyes cast about the small unit,
from the wooden walls, to the exposed rafters and to the cobwebs hanging in the
farthest corners. He noticed the four cots paired up on opposite sides of the
space, the neatly stacked suitcases, the plastic-covered piles of clothing, and
other items stacked against the wall.

Minami noticed that her
father had lost so much weight that he was actually skinny, which contrasted
sharply from his familiar fisherman’s build. His hair had grown out and was no
longer the deep black that it once was, but a charcoal gray. But she noticed
with concern that her father seemed frail and a bit oblivious to his
surroundings.

It wasn’t long before
Minami and her father heard excited footsteps running toward them with Yoshi
bursting through the blanket partition. He stood there frozen and for a moment
didn’t recognize his own father. Minami’s father’s eyes suddenly lit up and he
yelled out “Yoshi!” Perhaps it was the sound of his voice that evoked the final
recognition that Yoshi needed. His face then lit up as he raced into his
father’s lap. Miho and Yuka then came in and rushed to throw their arms around
their seated father as well. Minami’s father hugged each one of his children,
pulling them into his embrace. For a moment his old strength was back. It was
then that Minami’s mother entered and she looked at her husband with some
trepidation. She stood there in her wrinkled clothing.

Minami’s father looked up
from his clinging children. He gently eased each one down as his eyes locked
onto his wonderful wife, the mother of his four children. He wobbled to a
standing position and straightened out his pants as if he was presenting
himself for the first time to his wife. Then in a tense moment he whispered her
name: “Mayumi.”

Minami’s mother’s face
crumbled into tears as emotion washed over her. She brought her trembling hand
to her mouth as she walked towards him and mouthed his name: “Tatsuo.”

Minami’s father stretched
out his arms and took a few steps forward to finally embrace his wife as the
rest of the family rushed to embrace both of their parents. Hiroshi looked on,
moved. He watched Minami’s father holding onto his wife, sobbing with happiness
into her shoulders and assumed she was doing the same. He saw Miho and Yuka
simply clinging to their parents and Yoshi along his father’s leg. He saw
Minami leaning into both of her parents, holding them, cherishing them. The
family was finally united and they needed their time together, to be a family
again. Hiroshi turned quietly away and walked past the blanket partition.

Later that night, the Ito
family was eating dinner together. Mr. Ito was flanked by his wife and Yoshi
and his three daughters were sitting in front of him. Everyone was in a joyful
mood. But Minami noticed that there was a subtle change in her father’s
demeanor, as if his smiles and chuckles hid something. His eyes would dart back
and forth and he seemed overly cautious, inspecting every piece of food. He did
things that Minami had never seen him do before–wiping down his dish, cup, and
silverware with his napkin. Minami’s mother also noticed his odd behavior too
and assumed he must have picked it up during his detention in North Dakota.

Hiroshi observed the family
reunion from about five rows away. He saw her smile and laugh with her sisters,
her brother, her mother and of course her father. On any other night, he and
his family would have sat with them as well, but he suggested to his parents
that perhaps for that night, they should let the Ito family eat together as one
family. His parents agreed. When he spied Minami looking around for him, he
casually ducked down and was comforted in the thought that he had not been
forgotten.

With their father home,
everyone thought that a sense of normalcy would settle in. But that night, the
troubles began. The family was awoken with agitated shouts from their father
who seemed to be having nightmares. Minami and her mother would together shake
their father awake from the mental grips of whatever demons tormented him.
Minami found her hands wet from her father’s sweat-drenched pajamas.

His behavior had also
changed. He showed a heightened sense of paranoia. His eyes would dart towards
every ordinary sound. He became quite particular about how he wanted his
belongings to be stored, and demanded that no one touch them. This caused
Minami’s mother to worry.

But on other days, he was
entirely fine. He was attentive, and he would lead the family and play games
with his children, like the Japanese pebble game
Go
. But he had become
exceptionally moody. His temper scared everyone. Something simple would set him
off, and he would suddenly yell at his children, telling them how they failed
to live up to his expectations. But the worst things he would say were to his
own wife, accusing her of cheating and collaborating with the U.S. Army to keep
him in prison. With tears streaming down her face, she would deny it profusely,
but he wouldn’t believe it.

Mrs. Ito tried to be
supportive. She knew that something terrible had happened to him. She blamed
the U.S. Army for somehow changing her husband, and she desperately wanted to
reach deep within his very bowels and pull out the husband whom she had grown
to love over the last two decades. She wanted the man that she remembered
before he was taken away.

Soon his outbursts and
temper tantrums started to subside, a calming effect from Japanese sake. Many
of the men in the camp had taken to the fine art of brewing their very own
Japanese sake. It wasn’t the best sake since it was concocted from U.S. Army
rice, but it was acceptable. Her father got wind of it and became quite
addicted to it. For Mr. Ito, the sake washed away the inner demons that haunted
him daily. Somehow, the sake kept them at bay. But they were hiding and lying
in wait until he had sobered up.

This turn of events
devastated Minami. It hurt her deeply to see her father taking out his anger on
her and her family. She felt such sorrow for her mother, who had to endure the
brunt of the false accusations and verbal punishment. What must the other
people in her barrack think of them? Minami wondered. She could barely show her
face to them when she passed through the barrack. But she admired her mother’s
steadfast devotion and credited her inner strength as a devoted wife. She was
also convinced that the man that wandered back into their lives wasn’t their
father, and that something terrible had happened to him while he was
imprisoned. She would always reluctantly forgive him.

Minami’s only source of
solace was Hiroshi, and when she could spend time with him, she would tell him
about her father. She talked about his changed behavior but avoided the worst
of the stories. She couldn’t bear to tell Hiroshi everything–she worried what
he might think. But she also felt a sense of duty to her family to hide the
most shameful moments. Her father had always taught her that protecting the
family honor was the first priority.

Meanwhile, Hiroshi was
deeply concerned about Minami’s situation, but he couldn’t see how he could
help her. He couldn’t pull her away from her family, nor could he take her off
the prison camp. Hiroshi felt helpless as he saw the beaten and tired look on
her face.

There were nights where
Minami and Hiroshi strolled along the inner perimeter of the prison camp. They
had not revisited the rooftop of the mess hall since the encounter with
Kiddache. They did, however, still found time for each other at the water pump.
One night, they simply sat along the wall together, admiring the night sky from
their limited vantage point. It was after one of those outings on a summer
night when Minami was walking back to her barrack with Hiroshi. They walked in
silence holding each other’s hands.

“How’s your dad?” asked
Hiroshi.

“Mmm… he’s doing better
this week. He wasn’t as bad as last week,” replied Minami.

Another long pause passed
between the two when Hiroshi asked, “I know it’s been tough, I just wish you
weren’t so distant.”

Minami looked up and stared
ahead of her, “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be distant. With my father coming
back, I feel I have to give my family more time. I hope you understand.”

Hiroshi let out a sigh, “I
do. I just miss you, that’s all.”

Minami squeezed his hand
and looked up at Hiroshi. It had been awhile since she heard those words and it
was nice to hear it. She smiled and replied, “I miss you too,” as she placed a
kiss on his cheek.

Hiroshi eked out a smile
and they continued the walk back to her barrack. They had just rounded the
corner to the steps when they heard a woman’s scream coming from the back of
the barrack. Minami’s eyes widened in terror and she cried out, “Mom!”

Minami raced up the steps
with Hiroshi right behind her. There were startled looks on the faces of the
people peering forth from their partitions toward the back, as another panicked
scream pierced the barrack. Minami frantically parted the partition and
entered, with Hiroshi close behind when he saw Minami’s father lunging at her
mid-section with a large knife.

Hiroshi instinctively grabbed
the frozen Minami by the waist and pushed her aside as he deflected the knife’s
plunge with the outside of his left hand. Minami fell beside the bed with Miho,
Yuka and Yoshi cowering together at the top of the bed. Minami’s mother was on
the other bed, crouched up in a ball against the wall.

Mr. Ito had a wild deranged
look on his face as he pulled back into a fighting stance, shaking his head
from side to side and then finally focusing on Hiroshi. Hiroshi immediately
assumed a non-threatening stance with his arms flared out to the side, but
readying for any additional moves from Mr. Ito.

“You won’t take me!”
screamed out Mr. Ito. “You can take my home away, my family, even my country,
but you will never take me!”

“Mr. Ito!” Hiroshi yelled
back in a firm tone. His eyes were steady and focused, his moves slow and
deliberate.

Hiroshi’s voice caught Mr.
Ito’s attention as his ears perked up and then his eyes centered on Hiroshi. “I
won’t lie to satisfy you! I’m not a traitor! You’ll have to kill me if you want
to take me!”

“Mr. Ito, no one is going
to take you anywhere. You’re here, with your family who care deeply about you.
You’re free…”

“You’re lying! How can a
man be free if you take everything away from him?”