Under the Blood-Red Sun (14 page)

After that, Grampa and I washed our hands, side by
side. Then Grampa went out to his chickens, to be alone. But I stayed at the water tank and washed and washed and washed and washed.

I crawled under the house and sat cross-legged in the dirt with Lucky’s puppies tumbling in and out of my lap, nudging each other and taking turns gnawing on my fingers. I felt hollow and sick. I wanted to throw up. But I couldn’t.

•   •   •

It was Monday, and Mama should have been up at the Wilsons’ house, working. She was so confused she didn’t know what to do. She was scared to death to go there after what had happened. She finally decided to go anyway, but when she got there Mrs. Wilson wouldn’t let her in the house. Mama’s eyes were red and puffy when she came back home.

Later that afternoon Mama decided to go to the grocery store. And she wanted me to go with her, to help carry things. It took all my effort to drag myself along behind her.

There was a long line outside the store. A man was trying to close the door. “We’re running out of food,” he said, which only caused everyone to push forward. He gave up and left the door open.

While we were waiting, I found that morning’s newspaper on the ground. I read the headline to Mama. “R
AIDERS
R
ETURN IN
D
AWN
A
TTACK.
”

Mama stared ahead with a stony look on her face. I’d
heard gunfire during the night, but I hadn’t heard anything in the morning. When did they return? And where?

I read more.

Renewed Japanese bombing attacks on Oahu were reported as Honolulu woke to the sound of antiaircraft fire in a cold, drizzling dawn today. Citizens were warned to be on watch for parachutists reported in Kalihi.

Red antiaircraft bursts shot into the cloudy skies from the direction of Hickham Field, which was reported bombed again at about 6
A.M
.

Warning that a party of saboteurs had been landed on northern Oahu was given early Sunday afternoon by the army. The saboteurs were distinguished by red disks on their shoulders.

I went on reading silently, caught up in the story. It was
Honolulu
I was reading about, not someplace on the other side of the world.

“Read,” Mama said.

Certain enemy agents have been apprehended and detained, General Short announced.

He warned all citizens to “watch their actions carefully.” Any infractions of military rules will be “swiftly and harshly dealt with.”

I cringed as I remembered Grampa running out into the field with his flag. He could
still
be shot for doing that. I folded the paper to show to Papa when he came home.

Mama and I waited in silence. Everyone around us
was quiet too. But farther ahead I could hear people talking, and farther behind us. It felt strange, like people were sneaking glances at us.

I studied the dirty paint on the side of the store. Soon a gap appeared between Mama and me and the people behind us. In front of us there was also a gap. I looked behind me again, this time into the eyes of a lady glaring straight into mine. In my whole life, I’ll never forget that look. I realized that what that lady saw wasn’t just a boy and his mother.… What she saw was a
Japanese
boy, and his
Japanese
mother.

•   •   •

Later that day, after we’d managed to buy only one small bag of rice and six onions, Mama told me to hang the blackout blanket back up over the kitchen window. I poked one corner onto a nail and was about to hang the other when I saw something outside, a movement in the trees and bushes at the edge of the yard. I kept a small triangle of blanket open, peeking out. A hand parted some low branches. I saw part of a face. The bushes jiggled, and the shadowy figure slunk away, back into the trees. Dog tags. Tinkling.

Rumors

I tossed around in my bed
trying to sleep, but kept waking from dreams of blood … pumping from pigeons’ throats. Once I gasped and sat up, feeling the warm blood streaking down my arms from my hands, dripping off my elbows.

Grampa was a motionless lump on the floor. No sounds came from his mat, not even the usual whistle of his breathing.

“Ojii-chan,”
I whispered. “You awake?”

He didn’t answer, and I was afraid he’d died in his sleep. I got out of bed and looked closely at him. Still no sounds, no movement. I bent down and touched him.

“We have been
disgraced,”
he said in Japanese, making me jump back. I couldn’t tell if he was awake or if he was dreaming. He fell silent again, and I went back to bed.

•   •   •

The next morning—Tuesday—I went over to Billy’s with my schoolbooks. It felt crazy to do that. But I didn’t know what else to do.

No one answered when I knocked on the door. Billy’s house was as quiet as a church. I found Charlie squatting in the Davises’ garden, pulling weeds, as if nothing had changed.

“Where’s Billy?”

“Gone … They all gone … went to help out somewheres.”

“What about school?”

Charlie shook his head. “No more … Canceled.”

He stood up and brushed the dirt from his hands, then came over and put his arm around my shoulder. “Come, Tomi.… We go down your place.… I need to talk to Grampa … and Mama.” Charlie was silent the whole way over, thinking about something.

“Mama,” I called when we got there. “Charlie’s here.”

Mama came out of the kitchen wiping her hands on a towel. She greeted Charlie with a bow. “Come inside, Charlie-san.”

He slipped off his boots and stepped in. “How you, Mama-san?” Charlie asked. “You need anything?”

“We okay,” Mama said. “Thank you.”

The screen door out in the kitchen slapped shut, and Grampa came into the front room with two cans of eggs. “Twenty-three,” he said, lifting the cans.

Charlie smiled, but only for a moment. “You folks heard? The U.S. went declare war on Japan.”

Mama looked surprised, then sad. She looked down at the floor. Grampa put the eggs on the couch, and folded his arms. I hadn’t seen a newspaper since the one I’d found at the store.

“That’s not all,” Charlie added. “The army and the FBI arresting plenty Japanee men, and some Italian and German, but mostly Japanee.” Charlie shook his head. “They say they help plan for attack Pearl Harbor.… They say the fishermens been taking fuel out to submarines.…”

“Fishermen?” I said.

Charlie nodded. “They going arrest your daddy, Tomi.… They going arrest all the fishermens. And they going arrest language school teachers, Japanee businessmens, Buddhist priests, like that.”

Mama sat down on the couch. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, then opened them.

“More better you folks stay close to home for a couple of days,” Charlie said. “Everybody nervous about Japanee, and lots of people with guns and machete out there. They looking for revenge. And rumors going ’round now. Most of them crazy kind things, but you never know, I guess.… That’s what people saying about Japanee.… They say: you never know about them.”

“You never know what?” I asked.

“They saying you never know about how maybe was true they went help show the planes where to bomb. There was one story about somebody went cut big arrows
in the sugarcane fields that pointed to Pearl Harbor. And there was one about how they went check the Japanee pilots who was shot down and found McKinley High School rings on the finger … and they saying the water supply was poisoned … and that local Japanee peoples are hiding ammunition on their properties.”

That was so crazy.

Charlie frowned at the floor. He rubbed his hand over his mouth, then looked up at Grampa. “Taro-san got a radio on that boat? Or a U.S. flag?”

Grampa shook his head.

Charlie ran his fingers through his hair. Twice, like he was thinking hard. He looked at me … then Mama. “The paper said today, they going shoot any boat come toward the island if no got one U.S. flag on top.”

Silence.

Grampa turned away and looked out the screen door.

“Sorry,” Charlie said. “You folks need anything, you come get me. Don’t go
anywheres
. Very dangerous.”

Charlie slipped his boots back on. “Tomi … you gotta be the one to go outside for what you need. They going give Joji-san hard time because he’s old timer, yeah? But you just a kid. And you, Mama-san … no talk Japanee, no bow like one Japanee, and no wear any kind Japanee clothes, kimono, like that.… And got one curfew now, sundown to sunrise … nobody go out after dark … bombye they going shoot you.”

Charlie glanced around at all of us, then left. Grampa went over to the door and watched him walk back through the trees. Mama stayed on the couch, keeping to herself.

Finally, she said in a soft but firm voice, “We going through this house to find everything that could bring trouble … photograph, letter … everything.… We going bury ’um.”

•   •   •

By noon, everything we had that had anything to do with Japan was spread out over the kitchen table—Mama’s beautiful traditional kimono; a bundle of letters tied together with white ribbon; a photograph of me when I was younger, standing in the front row of my language school class with a Japanese flag in the background; Grandma’s altar; incense wrapped in thin paper; the family
katana
, and a few other things that Mama and Grampa had found.

We all stood around the table, silently touching this and that, picking things up and looking them over, then putting them down again.

“Bury it,” Mama finally said, her eyes glistening.

I reached toward the
butsudan
and Grampa stopped me with a touch on my arm. Gently, he picked up the altar himself, and taking only that and the
katana
, went outside to hide them in the jungle. My throat started to burn. I quickly wrapped what was left in a burlap bag, then took it under the house and buried it near Grampa’s flag.

•   •   •

Moments after I came back out from under the house, I caught Keet Wilson sneaking around the yard again, only this time he saw me. And this time Jake was with him. I went over to the water tank and washed the dirt off my hands.

At first I ignored them, hoping they’d go away. I worried that they’d seen me come out from under the house. I kept scrubbing my already clean hands with my back to them.

“Hey, fish boy,” Keet said. “How’s your messenger birds?”

Messenger
birds. He’d never called them that before.

I could see him out of the corner of my eye, a moving shape. He strolled over and stood next to me, fingering his dog tags.

Still I didn’t look at him. I wiped my hands on my pants, and tried to scowl like Grampa.

Keet snickered and said, “Well, anyway, tell your mother not to bother coming to work at our house anymore. In fact, my father is considering kicking you off our property.… We don’t want to support any Jap sympathizers.”

Don’t shame this family, Tomi.…

“You hear what I said?”

Shame yourself, and you shame us all.…

I bunched up my lips.

“Hey!
I’m talking to you.” Keet shoved me and I staggered backward.

“Keet!” Jake said, grabbing his shoulder. “Stop it.… He’s just a kid.…”

Keet whirled around and swung at Jake, landing a
blow that glanced off the side of Jake’s head. Jake bent over and grabbed his ear. You could see it hurt pretty bad. “You’re gonna be sorry you did that,” Jake said.

Keet charged into Jake. The two of them tumbled to the ground, grunting and spitting. Jake rolled away and scrambled to his feet. He stood over Keet, looking down with his fists clenched. “Get up and fight like a man.”

Keet wiped his mouth with his knuckle, smearing some blood. He pushed himself up and brushed the dirt from his clothes. Then, without looking at Jake or me, he strode away. Jake watched with fists still clenched and ready.

“Sorry about your pigeons,” Jake said, when Keet was out of sight. “And sorry about Keet. Sometimes he just gets crazy.”

Jake started to leave, but turned back. “It was him, you know.… He told the police about your birds.”

•   •   •

Just before the sun went down, Grampa rode off on his bicycle. He was halfway to the trees when I saw him.

“Grampa!” I yelled from the porch. “The curfew!”

But he just kept on going. I should have known that even Charlie’s warning couldn’t keep him from doing something if he wanted to. I watched him weave around the holes and bumps in the path, the rusted silver fenders rattling all the way down to the street.

I sat on the bottom step. Lucky came up to me. “Crazy old man,” I muttered, and Lucky licked my
cheek. She had a couple of new ticks in her coat, and I started picking them off.

Mama and Kimi came out on the porch and stood above me.

“Where’s Grampa going?” I asked.

“Kewalo … see if the boat came back.”

“But what about what Charlie said?”

“Ojii-chan
is
ojii-chan.”

Still nervous about being outside, Kimi inched down to sit next to me. “Ticks,” I said.

She watched with great concern as I picked one off and smashed it on the step with a stone. Blood spurted out and she pinched up her face in fascinated disgust.