A Place to Belong Read online

  “Someday we will definitely see the three beautiful places.” He paused, then gave a slight smile. “I look forward to it. Let’s have something to look forward to. Why not?” He seemed like he paused a lot now. He must have become that way while he was locked up with the other prisoners of war. That’s what they all had actually been. President Roosevelt had decided to take Americans as prisoners of war as well as Germans, Italians, and Japanese.

  The wind was hitting her face hard. This was the thing about Japan: the water was gray, not blue or pretty. The sky was gray, not blue or pretty. She didn’t see the sun; it was as if there were no sun. Nearby a woman was weeping. Nobody wanted to be here—Hanako was sure of that. Because most of them had been born and raised in America. And yet they were not really Americans anymore.

  She could just make out the blob of land in the distance, beneath the plain sky. It was so depressing that she wondered if Matsushima, Miyajima, and Amanohashidate were famous because they were the only beautiful places in Japan. The way the boat moved across the water made it seem as if they were driving over a road, something solid. It wasn’t floating peacefully the way she would have thought.

  When they reached shore, they were herded into trucks. “Don’t worry,” Papa assured her. But she was worried.

  This truck wasn’t covered like the ones that had taken them to the first camp—called an “assembly center”—in America. An “assembly center” sounded like somewhere in a school where everybody went to sing songs or listen to the principal speak. Papa said naming things was a government specialty. He said government employees probably sat around a table and talked for an hour about what to call the camps.

  Hanako gazed around at her new country.

  Truthfully, Japan looked a little dismal. The road was rocky, and the buildings were made of cracked wood. Everything looked like it was a hundred years old and hardly ever repaired. She had a feeling that practically everyone in Japan was depressed. They were let off at some barracks that Mama said had been a center for Japanese soldiers who were being shipped out during the war. She had heard this somehow, like she heard so much. A Japanese man in uniform was telling them, in Japanese, to go inside the barrack for their ken. Ken were like states in America. Another man asked him a question, and after he answered, the two men bowed to each other. The one in the uniform seemed polite, yet Hanako wondered if he had killed people during the war. So many had—killed people, that is.

  “There’s a sign,” Mama said.

  There was a miserable-looking, old barrack with a sign reading “Hiroshima-ken.” The barracks here looked different from the ones she’d lived in for years in America. These seemed to be two stories. But they were plain, unpainted wood like the ones she’d resided in. She paused before going inside. She could not fathom it: living here before going off to war. On the wrong side of history. Then she went inside. She waited for her eyes to get used to the darkness. I’m in Japan, she thought. I’m here.

  CHAPTER

  SIX

  As her eyes adjusted, Hanako could see that the barrack was long and plain and empty. A soldier was already moving through the room throwing out bags of what he called katapan to eat, and everybody scrambled madly. Hanako pounced on some bags, grabbing them up greedily. She wasn’t even sure what katapan was! She felt like an animal! Then she calmly handed all the bags to Akira, except for one each that she gave to Papa and Mama. Then Akira handed her a bag. “Here,” he said. “I’ll trade you for a piece of gum.” So she traded.

  Katapan turned out to be crackers. The hardest crackers in history, maybe. Biting them was like a battle between her teeth and the crackers, but then Mama told her to suck on one until it softened.

  The crackers didn’t have much taste, but they settled nicely in Hanako’s stomach, taking away her hunger. After they finished eating, Mama told them to go to sleep since there was nothing else to do. There were hard platforms to sleep on. She and Akira lay down in their coats like their mother told them to, and they tried to sleep. Hanako was chilly and knew her brother would be too, so she wrapped her arms around him.

  She was wide awake. In the dark barrack she could vividly picture their restaurant, the way she liked to do when she couldn’t sleep. It was called the Weatherford Chinese & American Café. The restaurant had been their whole life, especially for Papa, but for Hanako as well once she got old enough to work, which was the day she turned six. During their last summer of freedom before the war, she would get up with Papa at four thirty a.m. to eat breakfast and go to work, even though she was only seven. In many Nikkei families, you began working as soon as you could, babysitting or cooking rice or cleaning floors. Or filling salt shakers. Wiping counters. When Hanako and her father arrived at the restaurant each morning, Hanako would heat up the grill and turn on the steam table in the kitchen while Papa made coffee. Then Papa would make the batter for the pancakes and waffles. Breakfast was purely American, though most of their customers were Nikkei. But first-generation Japanese Americans—called Nisei—had embraced America completely. They were more American than a lot of Americans. Hanako would take out ten flats of thirty eggs—one by one, so as not to break any—and place them near the grill. Then she would bring other foods—like hash brown potatoes, bacon, and sausage—out of the refrigerator and place it all near the grill as well, ready to be cooked when an order was placed. Throughout the breakfast rush, she would make sure whatever food was needed was in the kitchen for the cooks.

  After breakfast ended, Papa would start getting the food ready for lunch. He always had a daily lunch special and a daily soup. Around ten a.m. he would make six pies for the day. Dessert choices were the pie of the day, ice cream, or Jell-O. The pies for the week were apple, lemon meringue, pear, pineapple, cherry, and egg custard—for Tuesdays through Sundays. They were closed on Mondays. While Papa made the pies, Hanako would read a book in the office with Sadie.

  Then during the lunch rush, Hanako again made sure the right foods were always in the kitchen for the cooks. They would yell out at her what was needed from the refrigerator. When lunch ended, she would blanch whole almonds by boiling them just until their skins puffed up. Then she drained the almonds onto a large, flat cookie sheet. After that she would squeeze the almonds from the fat ends, so that the nuts would pop out of the skins. The difficult part was to split the almonds in half. Hanako had to use a knife to split each almond on the seam. She would make seventy cookies with the almonds three times a week, plus one large cookie for herself and Akira to share. Toward the end she would be tired of making the cookies and didn’t pay good attention to the baking. Sometimes the last batch was overcooked, and Papa would scold her. He used to say that being a perfectionist was one of life’s most important secrets.

  The restaurant closed at nine p.m., but Mama would come pick Hanako up at eight o’clock and take her home.

  At night Papa would continue working until everything was clean and ready for tomorrow. Hanako wasn’t sure what time he got home, because she would be asleep with Sadie next to her head on the pillow. Sometimes on top of her head, actually.

  Mama worked too, when Akira was sleeping. She would save old grease and mix it with lye and water to make dishwashing soap. So nothing was wasted. Even the ugliest pan of grease was special.

  It was all very hard work, but Hanako loved it because her father’s ambition rubbed off on her. He was born ambitious to be a great cook, way back in another time, way back in America, which was now across the ocean. It was all in his mind now, though, wanting to cook.

  Papa said all of that life—every single thing—was done and over with. Kaput. He especially blamed President Roosevelt for their whole situation, as well as the ACLU, who mostly didn’t stick up for them. Papa had explained it all to Hanako. The ACLU was a bunch of lawyers who’d formed an organization to defend people’s civil rights and stand up for the Constitution. Supposedly, they had a lot of integrity. But their leadership voted not to challenge Roosevelt’s order allowing th
e government to “exclude” people—namely, Nikkei—from “military areas”—namely, the West Coast, where most of the Nikkei lived. That had really surprised Papa, because he had always believed that there were special people—people born special, just like he was born to cook. He thought those people became president. He thought those people ran the ACLU. But in the end they weren’t so special. “They’re just like you and me,” he had told Hanako. “Except they’re lawyers.”

  And so here she was, in Japan, where her father could not see a future, but where he thought they could survive. If she were smarter, she would be able to understand time the way he did. There was a part of her that sometimes couldn’t quite comprehend how things could just be gone. She had to tell herself over and over that her old life would not return. A part of her did not believe it the way her father did.

  She felt a rush of love for Papa, and for her whole family, lying there near her, on these hard platforms in a new and strange land. She felt that anger that made her face hot and made her squeeze her hands into fists. She had no future! All she had was her trust in her parents. Then her anger started to subside. Even though Papa said he could not see the future yet, Hanako believed that he would see it again, and soon. Maybe more than wanting to cook, he was born wanting to see the future. He said that was why he and Mama got along. She took care of what was going on now, and he took care of the future. That way, Hanako and Akira were covered, in the present and hopefully forever.

  CHAPTER

  SEVEN

  Papa had lived in Japan from when he was nine until he was eighteen, and he was thirty-five now. So, lying in the barrack that night, she felt secure in the knowledge that Papa would know his way around Japan.

  In the morning Hanako woke to a huge commotion, people running out like there was a fire. She jumped up in a panic. Her whole family held hands and rushed for the doors. What now? Outside, people were excitedly saying that the Hiroshima baggage had arrived. “Hana! Aki! Stand back!” Mama shouted.

  Hanako was happy to do this, because the grown-ups were frenzied as they tore through the baggage. Hundreds of bags were strewn over the dirt ground! There were solid black trunks and flimsy tan suitcases bound with thin rope and more laundry bags than she could count. There were duffel bags and what looked like a yellow-and-blue-striped sheet wrapped and tied around some belongings. There were three suitcases that had the name SATO written on them that Hanako could spot just from where she was standing. She couldn’t see Papa, but Mama was feverishly digging, flinging big bags around like she was a strongman. Hanako felt her face grow hot with excitement. She understood everyone’s frenzy—those bags contained literally all they owned in the world. One by one, people found their belongings and left. But others kept searching, and some were crying. It took an hour to determine that somehow both Hanako’s and Akira’s small duffel bags were missing.

  The air felt suddenly heavy, like she was breathing mud. “Maybe they’re mixed up with baggage from other ken?” Hanako asked. “Shouldn’t we go look?”

  Nobody spoke. She didn’t know why. Papa ran a hand through his hair and said, “We don’t have time. We’ve all chartered a train to Hiroshima.” He indicated with his hand. “Those trucks out there are ready to take us.”

  Hanako felt the depression in the air pressing in on her head, squeezing tears from her eyes. She fought an urge to grab somebody else’s bag and run and run. “I’ll make you new clothes, don’t worry,” Mama assured her.

  “You didn’t have anything valuable, did you?” Papa asked.

  “Mama sewed twenty dollars into my pajama seam. Also in Akira’s.”

  For the quickest second, Papa’s eyes went wide.

  “Well . . . I hope someone finds it,” he said resignedly. “But it’s not ours anymore.”

  “But it’s still ours!” Hanako said.

  “But you see . . . ,” Papa said, gesturing at the remaining bags—bags someone else in another barrack was surely missing—then shrugging.

  “Hanako!” Mama spoke sharply. Hanako looked at her, surprised. She looked tense and unhappy. “If the bags are not here, they are not ours anymore. We must leave.”

  Then Hanako understood: That was the way war was—things just became gone. Your house, your country, your duffel bag with skirts and underwear. Anyway, at least Mama and Papa were able to find their own luggage.

  The family had been successful in that the restaurant had been busy and in that Papa had planned to have enough money to send Hanako and Akira to college one day. But they hadn’t really owned that much.

  They hadn’t owned their house, and they hadn’t owned the land the restaurant was on. Their most valuable possession had been the one thousand dollars in inventory and equipment at the restaurant. But they hadn’t had time to sell it before the government swept them away like dust from their homes. After paying debts, they’d had three hundred dollars in savings, which they’d brought to camp. They had spent much of that while Papa was in Bismarck, and Mama was working only part-time for a low salary.

  Three hundred dollars was a little more than the average person got paid in a month outside the camps in America. Inside the camps, however, workers had been paid less than twenty dollars a month, even if they were doctors!

  Papa now said, “Hanako!”

  She snapped to attention.

  “Don’t look so sad. Let me tell you: when I was in Bismarck, when I had nothing, not even a family, it taught me who I am. All right? You’re still Hanako. That twenty dollars in your seam doesn’t make you Hanako. All right?”

  “All right.”

  “Good. Now let’s go see what Japan is like.”

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  People were already climbing into the trucks waiting to take them to the train. It was warmer than yesterday. The boys in their ducktails were mostly wearing plaid shirts underneath their open jackets, still looking like they weren’t scared of anything in the world. The truck drivers gazed curiously at the teenagers. It was hard not to stare at them, the way they sauntered, the way they acted like nothing had bothered them—ever—even though they’d just been locked up for years. Heads high, backs straight. Hanako straightened her own back, lifted her head.

  In the truck, on the way to the train station, she saw a few makeshift homes built out of what looked like scraps—even worse scraps than the barracks were made out of. Not homes, exactly—more like small shacks, such as those a couple of goats might be sheltered in. She watched Akira stare and stare. Nikkei migrant farmworkers had not lived in much better, but . . . these were worse. The farmworkers she’d met all thought their families had been on the way up in the world, but she somehow didn’t think these people were on their way anywhere at all. She could not imagine a way that you could escape a goat house.

  Their truck stopped at an old wooden platform at what must have been the train station. They got off. The truck driver, a thin man with a goatee and a cap, yelled out, “Genki de ne!” He was looking right at Akira. “Genki de ne!” he said again. “Sayōnara!” That meant “Be well! Good-bye!” Then he nodded and drove off.

  “Everybody likes me,” Akira said with satisfaction.

  Mama leaned over, her face overcome with love. “Of course they do!” she said. “Of course they do!”

  Nearby was what looked like a ticket office, but it was closed. When the train arrived, they found seats—wooden benches, really—facing each other and settled in. Mama sat with Akira, and Papa with Hanako.

  A conductor came through collecting money. As the train started to move, Hanako let herself feel a moment of joy: They were free! Weren’t they? Could the government still control them? She didn’t think so. She smiled at Akira, who sat by the big window across from her, but he just asked suspiciously, “Why are you smiling?”

  “Because we’ve escaped,” she said. “From camp.”

  But he screwed up his little face into a frown and leaned his head against Mama, closing his eyes extra tightly. He w
as so small and thin that there was room for Hanako to sit next to him right now, but she didn’t want Papa to feel lonely.

  So she just said, “Life will be perfect now, I promise.”

  The train was coal-operated, so according to Papa, they wouldn’t be able to open the windows because the smoke got in if the wind was wrong. Hanako stared at the trucks driving away. They were not far from Tokyo, which she had heard had been totally destroyed by napalm. She had read somewhere that napalm was gooey stuff used in firebombs that burned everything. She imagined flames everywhere, reaching into the sky amid the zillions of buildings in Tokyo.

  The train lurched along. It was the noisiest train she had ever been on, and it shook like it was going over a track full of rocks.

  Akira was still frowning, so Hanako reached out and smoothed his forehead. He got up and sat on her lap, leaning his head against her neck. “I don’t like it in Japan.”

  “We’ve only just gotten here.”

  “I can tell.”

  Across the aisle a baby started screaming, and it didn’t stop. And then it still didn’t stop. It was rude, but Hanako turned around to look. Everybody nearby wore blank expressions except the baby and mother. Hanako tried playing peekaboo, but the child didn’t want to play. The mother bowed her head to Hanako, calling out, “Mōshiwake arimasen.” That was a formal and strong way of saying “I’m sorry.” Hanako had actually never spoken those words outside of a classroom before. And she herself was only a child, too young to be spoken to so politely! Then the mother leaned forward, almost squishing the baby, and repeated more passionately, “Mōshiwake arimasen.”