Dust of Eden Read online

  him what happened, he only says

  that he fell. I know he’s lying,

  I know he knows that I know,

  but we don’t talk about it.

  How other boys push him around,

  doesn’t matter he was voted the Most Popular,

  they call him Tojo, Jap, Rat, and he answers

  each and every curse with a punch.

  Mother tells me not to go out

  by myself. It’s hard to walk

  down the street, being different.

  I hope the new glasses Mother sent

  you are the kind you like.

  I miss you very much. I hope they are

  treating you well. Father, I hope

  you can come home soon so we can

  all be together. I miss you.

  Your daughter, Masako

  February 1942

  President Roosevelt

  signed Executive

  Order 9066 today. Nick says

  that Germans and Italians

  aren’t arrested like

  Japanese men have been all over

  the West Coast. Mina,

  he whispered in the back

  yard, they’ll put us

  all in prisons.

  I don’t want to believe him,

  but I see Grandpa

  and Mother worrying over our

  frozen bank accounts

  and curfews and blackouts

  and the five-mile radius, and I know

  we will probably be put in

  prison just like they did Father.

  March 1942

  Grandpa sits on his favorite chair right near the rose

  garden. His face, from where I stand, is as big as

  the roses all around him, roses of bright red, deep red,

  blood red, all kinds of red only he knows the names

  for. Masako, chotto kinasai, he calls me over as he hears

  the gate opening. He does not turn around. He does

  not look at me, but keeps looking ahead, at his roses,

  at the sky, at everything but me. Basho stretches

  on Grandpa’s lap, then jumps down, saunters over to me,

  and says hello by twirling his tail around my legs.

  Grandpa, without moving his mouth, says, We have

  been asked to leave. We need to pack up

  everything: the house, the nursery. We can only take two

  pieces of luggage per person. We need to leave soon. And

  I’m sorry, we can’t take Basho. I am not hearing him

  right, I tell myself. Why do we need to move?

  They say that they are doing this for our safety. They say

  that we will be taken care of. They say that it’s for our own

  good.

  Ware ware no tame da, Grandpa says quietly in Japanese.

  He reaches over, then taking a pair of scissors,

  snips off a bud.

  Ware ware no tame da, he repeats again. I know

  that’s a lie. I know they are doing this to hurt us. But I do

  not say anything at all. Ware ware no tame da,

  his words echo in my head.

  It’s for our own good, he says. Or so they say.

  April 1942

  We have one week

  to get ready.

  It’s only been one week

  since Mother and Grandpa

  went to the Japanese

  American Citizens League

  Office and registered us

  to be evacuated

  to a place called Camp

  Puyallup somewhere

  not far away.

  We are to leave

  on Thursday, April

  30th. Not a single Japanese

  is to stay in Seattle

  after May 1.

  Mother and Grandpa

  told us we are not

  selling the house

  like other families,

  but that we’ll board it up,

  and that we’ll be back.

  We have a week to say

  good-bye, a week

  to pack everything up.

  It’s a week that

  seems not long

  enough,

  but forever.

  April 1942

  What I can take:

  the Bible that Mother gave me for my 12th birthday

  my journals

  Jamie’s Christmas present

  homework assignments for the rest of the semester

  (in case I return to Garfield next September)

  clothes for autumn (maybe for winter, too)

  the things that the WRA has ordered us to take:

  blankets and linen; a toothbrush, soap,

  also knives, forks, spoons, plates, bowls and cups.

  What I cannot take:

  Basho

  our house

  Jamie

  the choir

  Grandpa’s rose garden

  Seattle and its sea-smell

  What my Grandfather packs:

  a potted rose

  April 1942

  Basho is old.

  The mangy

  orange kitten

  with a broken tail

  came to the front

  steps on a rainy

  day and no matter

  how much Grandpa shooed

  it away, the cat kept

  mewing until

  Grandpa got sick

  of it and pulled him

  from under the porch

  by the scuff

  of his neck

  and stuffed him

  into the bed

  next to him.

  Fleas got

  Grandpa, but Basho got

  Grandpa. Basho came

  when I was five.

  See that scar

  on his cheek?

  He got it fighting

  Kuro from four

  houses down; he won.

  See how his left

  ear is torn? He got

  it fighting

  crows that were in the roses.

  Basho brings gifts;

  don’t be surprised.

  Birds. Squirrels. Baby

  moles. Basho likes

  to have his ears

  pulled gently.

  He’ll show you

  his belly if you do

  that. He doesn’t understand

  English; he grew up

  around us, listening to

  Japanese. He doesn’t drink

  milk. He grew up drinking

  miso soup and eating bonito

  flakes and rice.

  He is a good cat.

  Please take care

  of him. He’ll love

  you, like he loves us,

  like we love

  him, like I love you. Jamie.

  April 1942

  Mother stands

  in the middle

  of the room,

  our sofas

  and table

  and chairs

  covered in

  white sheets

  looking like Halloween

  ghosts.

  She walks,

  the sound of

  her bare footsteps

  across

  the bare floor

  empty, up

  the bare steps

  to my room,

  where she puts me to sleep

  on a blanket

  on the floor.

  It is cold;

  I never knew

  our house could

  be so cold.

  April 1942

  The nursery is dismantled,

  each glass pane taken off

  from the frame. All the windows

  of our house are boarded up;

  the car’s inside the garage.

  Everything has been put into

  boxes and crates and stored

  in the garage or with the Gilmores.

  My roo
m is bare except

  for the naked bed and an empty

  dresser draped in white; it’s

  my very own ghost.

  Mr. Gilmore shakes his head

  as Mother gives him the keys,

  “I don’t know what the world

  is coming to, but don’t worry,

  we’ll take care of everything.

  They’ll realize how silly all this

  is, and you’ll be back here

  before you know it.” Mother bows

  deeply, her shoulders trembling

  like a feather, and Mrs. Gilmore

  puts her arm around Mother, she, too,

  shaking. Mr. Gilmore opens

  the door to his truck

  where the back is filled

  with our bags. Grandpa stands

  in front of our house, feeling

  the bark of the cherry blossom

  tree he planted when I was

  born, feeling it, stroking it,

  gently, as he looks at the house,

  at the space where the nursery

  used to be, then he raises his hat,

  tips it gently, saying goodbye

  to everything, to the house, to the wintering

  roses left behind that will probably die

  without his care, and to the tree

  that has begun to bud.

  April 1942

  Chinatown,

  where all the

  Japanese stores

  used to be, is

  boarded up.

  It’s a ghost town;

  no one’s about so early

  in the morning.

  It’s a ghost town

  now and maybe forever.

  A sign:

  Thank you for your patronage,

  it was a pleasure to serve you

  for the past twenty years.

  Then it gets smaller and smaller

  and finally disappears

  as we drive

  quickly

  toward the junction

  of Beacon Avenue

  and Alaska Street

  at the southern end

  of Jackson Park.

  April 1942

  We are all tagged like parcels,

  our bags, our suitcases,

  my mother, me, Nick, Grandpa.

  Tagged with numbers, we have become

  numbers, faceless, meaningless.

  We were told to come to Jackson Park,

  just two suitcases each,

  no more names, no memories, no Basho,

  only ourselves and what we can carry.

  Here we are, waiting for the buses

  to arrive, photographers flashing and clicking,

  other Japanese like us, so many,

  all quietly waiting, wordlessly smiling,

  without resistance.

  And we all shiver because it is cold,

  because we do not know where we are

  going, because we are leaving

  home as the enemy.

  Part II. “Camp Harmony,”

  Puyallup Assembly Center, Puyallup, Washington

  April 1942

  I fell asleep against a hard and unyielding

  Nick, rigid with his anger, as the bus trembled,

  shook like an old woman, like the rocking of a crib,

  and we all slept like children, lost, not

  sure where we were going. We were all

  brothers and sisters, cousins and more,

  our hair black, our skin yellow. No

  one ever told me that there are so many

  shades of yellow, that some of us aren’t

  even yellow and slant-eyed

  like the newspapers show.

  We got on the bus this morning.

  We packed our bags last night.

  Jamie came with her Mom, like she promised,

  and I smiled, though I wanted to cry,

  my smile hard on my face like

  a cracking plate. Soldiers yelled at us

  angrily, Get on the bus, quickly,

  pushing an old man into a bus with the butt

  of their rifles; Japs go home, a redneck yelled, his voice

  piercing the crowd.

  Outside the bus, the sea of heads,

  black, blond, brown, red, straight, wavy,

  curly, all waving, yelling, smiling, hiding tears.

  I leaned out the window and yelled, Jamie, take

  care of Basho, Basho likes to be

  rubbed on his belly, but be careful of his claws.

  Jamie nodded and held out the broken heart,

  I promise I will, I promise!

  Grandpa sat quietly next to Mother, looking ahead,

  his potted rose on his lap. Nick sat next to me,

  his eyes as hard as his fists. Americans don’t

  keep promises, you remember that, Mina, he hisses.

  I waved goodbye, and Jamie waved and didn’t stop,

  yelling promises that she’d write.

  I remember Jamie’s dad with his jolly made-up face,

  Jamie’s mom pressing a handkerchief to her eyes,

  Jamie next to them, waving her arm

  in a circle, mouthing something.

  Then the first bus started to move, and

  everyone became quiet. People outside.

  People inside. All of us quiet,

  so very quiet that it seemed we were watching an ancient

  movie from the 1920s, where people cried without sound.

  We were all sad, but put on smiling faces, like we did not

  care, like our hearts were not breaking, though if you

  listened hard, if you ignored the engines, you could hear

  thousands of hearts breaking, shattering, into pieces.

  April 1942

  They open

  our bags,

  one by one,

  those soldiers

  with rifles

  and hard eyes,

  taking out this

  and that,

  holding up

  Mother’s underwear

  and mine, too.

  Mother looks

  away, her face

  bright red;

  mine is so hot

  I think I’ll burst.

  They probe

  me from head

  to toe,

  searching my

  head for lice,

  listening

  to my lungs

  for whistling,

  for tuberculosis

  they say,

  examining

  my hands

  for dirt

  or warts.

  They pry open

  Grandpa’s mouth

  and ask him

  to remove

  his dentures,

  which Grandpa

  does without

  a word,

  his face collapsing

  like a withering rose

  as soon as

  his teeth lie

  on the palm

  of the soldier’s hand.

  Nick is next

  but he just

  stands there

  stubbornly,

  not taking off

  his shirt,

  not taking

  off his hat,

  just standing

  there stoically

  like a rock,

  like a stubborn

  stone that cannot

  be moved,

  no matter how hard

  they try.

  April 1942

  They have taken away Mother’s well-thumbed bible.

  They have taken away her diaries written in Japanese.

  They have taken away Grandpa’s scrapbooks of flowers.

  They have taken away his Japanese-English dictionary.

  They have taken away our books, Manyoshu, Tales of Genji,

  They have taken away Nick’s laughter and jokes.

  They have taken away
Father and black-lined his letters.

  They have taken away our homes, our words, my father.

  May 1942

  A stall that smells of a horse

  that isn’t here. Hay everywhere,

  scattered by long gone hooves.

  They call it Camp Harmony, a former

  fair site flattened down by horses’ hooves.

  They give us big sacks and tell us to gather

  as much hay as we can

  so we can stuff them and sleep on them.

  It’s only temporary, that’s what they say.

  We’ll be home before Christmas.

  Kids laugh and eat ice cream outside

  the store across the barbed wire fence.

  Guards look down on us with rifles

  pointing at us, yelling for us to “stay away

  or we’ll shoot.” Horses are gone.

  We’re the new cattle.

  May 1942

  Dear Jamie,

  Thank you, thank you, thank you

  for coming to see me last Sunday!

  When I got your letter saying that

  you and your parents would come to visit,

  I was so happy I couldn’t sleep

  the entire week. And the night before

  you came, I cleaned as much as I could

  (though our new home is so small,

  and Mother being the way she is,

  there wasn’t much to clean),

  made sure we had enough coffee

  and tea (we don’t have orange juice

  here at the camp). Oh, when I saw

  you and your family standing outside

  the fence, my heart jumped!

  Even Nick seemed to remember his Seattle

  self (he’s been angry, you know, with

  the move and all). We thought you’d all

  be allowed in, so it was awkward when

  we had to stand inside the fence

  and you all out; Mom was really embarrassed.

  Tell your dad how happy Grandpa was

  to hear that some of his roses are thriving

  under his care; please tell your mom

  how much we’re still enjoying all the cakes

  and cookies she baked for us. (Too bad

  that the guards broke most of the cookies

  when they ripped open the box. Did they think

  you were bringing us guns or something?) Anyway,

  I hope your dad’s not upset anymore; I’ve never

  seen him so angry. It’s not as bad as he thinks,

  once you get used to it. Even the smell, I’m beginning to like.

  I miss you already, I do.

  Your best friend, Mina

  May 1942

  Today, rumor has it,

  a Japanese man was shot

  to death as he tried