A Place to Belong Read online

  “But we only just got here,” Hanako said. Nobody responded.

  Actually, she could use something tasty as well; they’d eaten katapan for breakfast and drunk barley tea. Mama leaned over the table until her face was very close to Akira’s. “What do you think, should we go see Jiichan and Baachan?”

  His eyes were glassy, and he didn’t answer. But then he pushed himself up, and they all left for the fields, Hanako carrying the food basket. She had heard that Japanese houses were usually built north-south, but the houses in this little village faced every which way. They left the houses behind and stepped into a small woods.

  She looked around, shifting the basket to her other hand. “Do we know where we’re going?” Hanako asked.

  “Your jiichan explained it to me,” Papa said. “Keep your eyes open for a big pine tree, and then we’ll take the path on the right.”

  “But . . .” There were many big pine trees! Yet Papa seemed quite confident, so she followed silently.

  Here and there the bigger path forked into a smaller one. One time there was a kind of big pine tree at a fork, but Papa strode left as if he walked this path every day. Parts of the forest were quite heavy, but in other parts you could see the komorebi—the sunlight filtering through the trees. There were different types of komorebi; in this forest, at this moment, it was like beams from flashlights shining through the green. She had never been in a forest before, but she saw a picture once of komorebi that was misty like a cloud.

  Akira, who’d been trudging, came to life and almost screamed, “A giant pine tree!”

  And so it was. They turned right onto a narrow path and continued, sometimes needing to push branches out of the way. It took another thirty minutes before the forest opened up to fields below—it turned out they’d been on a hill. As they grew closer, she saw that Baachan wore a big straw hat, and Jiichan wore a white scarf wrapped around his head and tied under his chin and a red cap on top of that.

  Her grandparents didn’t seem to notice them. Mama had brought a blanket with holes in it, and they sat on that. Hanako watched her grandparents work, both bent over deeply, but sometimes Jiichan stood up and stretched his back. Not Baachan, of course; she was forever bent. Sometimes they both bent over so far that Hanako couldn’t see them behind the wheat stalks. She wondered: Was this the kind of work like in a factory, where you did the same thing over and over? Or was everything constantly changing—the insects and the weeds and the wheat? And so maybe you felt alive and happy doing it? Was that possible? Back in America the government had let some Nikkei out of the camps to go to work, usually in factories. Hanako had known two former college girls, previously rich, who’d gone to work in a canning factory just to get out of the camps. Not the Nikkei who were sent to Tule Lake, however. They had to stay incarcerated.

  It was not very cold out, maybe in the high forties—warmer than Tule Lake in January. The wheat was still mostly bright green, with touches of yellow at the top. The plants were not arranged in straight lines, but rather in slow, big curves, like a loose letter S. And of course in the background, at the horizon, rose mountains. Huge gray clouds hung heavily over everything.

  Hanako’s stomach was rumbling. She would like some toast with butter right now, and maybe some chicken. She could eat chicken because she had never befriended one. In camp she had to admit the pork was good until she befriended one of the pigs. She went to see him every day for two weeks, bringing him scraps she saved for him. Then one day he wasn’t there, and she knew he’d been eaten. So she didn’t eat pork ever again. She’d previously met a couple of pigs, but she never made friends with one. That made everything different.

  Her grandparents had spotted them. They were waving and making their way between the wheat stalks. Akira was lying on his side again with that glassy-eyed look. “I have something for you!” Hanako said to him enthusiastically.

  She saw a flash of curiosity in his eyes. From her pocket she pulled out a piece of butterscotch. “I was saving it.” She waited for his excitement.

  He started to smile, then replied, “No, it’s yours, fair and square.”

  “No, it’s for you.”

  He thought that over. “You can have it, Hana-chan.”

  So she put it back into her pocket. Maybe she would save it for a day when she was extremely, very, completely hungry. Then she would suck it for ten minutes.

  Baachan wore an expression of eagerness as she got closer. Hanako knew this was because her grandmother was happy to see them. When she sat down, Hanako asked, “Are you pulling weeds?”

  “Hai, weed drive me crazy, but it feel good to pull out. I feel very satisfy when pull weed.”

  “Very satisfy,” Jiichan said. “It my happiest moment until you get here.”

  “Can you eat the weeds?” Akira asked.

  “I don’t know why,” Jiichan said, “but in the world not so much plant you can eat. Most plant for to look beautiful. Make you happy. That important too.”

  Hanako felt that this was true. If she had looked out the train window at Hiroshima and seen even one green tree, that would have made her hopeful for the city’s future. As it was, she didn’t know if the city had any future at all. How could it?

  She took the food from the basket and handed out the wooden boxes. She had forgotten hashi! “You have to use your fingers,” she said sheepishly. “I’m sorry.”

  “Daijobu!” Jiichan and Baachan said together. (“It doesn’t matter, it’s all right.”)

  Hanako noticed that her grandparents ate seriously, not in the cheerful, social way people in the restaurant used to have their meals. No, her grandparents ate like people who needed to eat so they could have energy to work. Akira was taking a lot of the rice he was supposed to share with her, but she didn’t say anything. She wanted him to grow tall. But then he stopped and looked at her slyly. “I know, we’re sharing,” he said, grabbing two carrots before handing her the box.

  The rice was a little overcooked—her fault!—but it still tasted very good, and even the vegetables seemed delicious. She left two carrots for her brother, and he gobbled them up gratefully.

  And then she just felt happy, like she hadn’t felt in years. She was still hungry. One thing about camp was that they did get enough food. She realized she might not have food like that for a long time. And yet she felt happy, here where her grandparents were eating so seriously, where the clouds hung like heavy fruit, where the wheat curved into the distance. She felt like she could eat five more boxes of rice, and yet somehow it felt perfect, a perfect moment. She wished she could stay right here, forever.

  CHAPTER

  SEVENTEEN

  As much as Hanako could see that her grandparents enjoyed sitting with them, she noticed that soon they were gazing worriedly at the fields, and for the first time they didn’t seem to be very interested in Hanako and Akira. Then Jiichan pushed himself up. “We stay long time to eat.”

  “But it’s only been about half an hour!” Hanako said.

  “Usually we take half that,” Jiichan said, worriedly eyeing the field. “We must raise food. There is not enough food in Japan.”

  “What are you doing? Mostly picking weeds? We can do that,” Hanako replied. “Can we help?”

  Jiichan gazed at her thoughtfully. “Maybe someday we need you to help. Not every day, but maybe we will need you two or three time when we work on rice. But you are children, and you just arrive to Japan. You must enjoy to rest today.”

  As her grandparents trudged back through the wheat, Hanako gathered the boxes. There wasn’t even a single grain of rice in any of them.

  On the way home Akira ran ahead, sometimes leaping up to slap hard at low branches. The forest was a mix of evergreens and leafless trees. She’d never been through a forest in the winter before. It seemed empty and quiet, except for the noise of Aki’s movements. Then, when they were almost out of the forest, he leaned over as if out of breath. Hanako caught up with him and laid her hand on his back as he br
eathed hard. He stood straight and turned his palms upward—they were bloody from hitting the branches. “I wanted to forget how hungry I am,” he said simply. Just as he said this, they heard arguing in the distance.

  They looked toward the voices, and there was a gathering of children, some of them teenagers and some of them quite small.

  Akira elbowed Hanako. “It’s the boy!” he said, his voice low. “From the train station.”

  The boy with the pink face. He wore a jacket now, and so did the little one. Some of the older boys he was with looked tough and scary.

  Papa laid a hand on Hanako’s back to push her along, while Mama picked up Akira protectively and rushed off.

  “OI!”

  Papa and Hanako paused, but Mama moved away even faster. It was the pink-faced boy, and he was calling to Hanako!

  “OI!” he shouted again. He picked up the little girl and started running toward them.

  The little girl was screaming, “Neh, chotto! Chotto!” over and over. (“Wait!”)

  Hanako glanced to her left to see that Mama was already out of the woods with Aki. Papa looked from the boy to Hanako. “Do you want to leave?” he asked her urgently.

  But the boy didn’t scare her. “No. Maybe he just wants to say thank you for the cakes.”

  Papa rested his arm around her shoulders. The boy approached and set down the girl.

  “Oi!” That meant “hey.” The boy studied her for a second, then asked almost with disbelief, “America-gaeri?”

  “Hai.”

  The little girl reached out and touched the purple coat sleeve, first tentatively, then curiously.

  The boy said in casual Japanese that the cakes weren’t very good, but arigatō anyway. At least they’d filled their stomachs. The girl asked for more.

  The whole gang of kids was now moving toward them. Papa pulled Hanako away firmly, and they strode quickly out of the forest. She heard steps behind her but didn’t look back. Then, out of the trees, she turned around and found herself face-to-face with the pink-faced boy and the small girl.

  The boy seemed to be thinking hard, and finally he came up with, “Mochigashi?”

  “Papa, do we have more katapan?” Hanako asked Papa.

  “I have three more bags.” He paused. “But Akira is hungry and will be hungry again.” He looked torn, unsure what to do.

  “But just one bag?” Hanako begged.

  So Papa went ahead to get a bag. Hanako excitedly bowed to the boy and asked in Japanese, “Is that your sister?” Maybe he would be her first Japanese friend!

  The boy hugged the toddler with alarm, as if Hanako would steal her. She quickly reassured him. “I just meant . . . you’re both so young . . .”

  “Our parents . . . they were killed. We live at the train station . . . some days.”

  “Oh! How did they die?”

  “From the bomb, of course! My dad used to make geta and sold them in a little shop in front of our house in Hiroshima.”

  Geta were Japanese sandals.

  “My sister was here in the country—my dad gave a family many geta to take care of her because the cities weren’t safe. But I had to stay in the city because my whole class was mobilized by the government for labor. The lucky classes were mobilized to grow food in the country. I worked hard!” he spoke this last part proudly, then added defiantly, “I’m taking good care of my sister. She’s not starving!” He had sharp black eyes, like he was constantly thinking and evaluating. Maybe scheming. The scheming look actually made Hanako a little nervous.

  “But why doesn’t that other family take you in?” she asked.

  He laughed, not in a mean or bitter way, but just like he thought she was funny. “Because there are no more geta to pay them with. It’s nothing personal—they have their own troubles.” Then he said, “Sometimes we are at the station, and sometimes we are wanderers.”

  The word he used was watarimono. Hanako wasn’t sure, but she didn’t think that was a bad word. Maybe kind of like explorers? Nomads? She wasn’t positive.

  She reached into her pocket and shyly offered the piece of butterscotch. The boy looked at it, curious, but didn’t reach out. “What is it?”

  “It’s candy!”

  He let Hanako drop it into his hand.

  “You suck on it until it disappears,” Hanako explained. The little one reached out, but Hanako said, “Don’t let her swallow it, even though it’s very delicious.” She knelt and said, “Ochibi-chan.” (“Little one.”)

  The boy opened the wrapper eagerly. He chomped off a bit for his sister, then pushed the rest into his mouth. He chewed with interest but not the joy Hanako was expecting. But the little one’s eyes opened wide, and she let out a chortle. Then her eyes got a sly look, and she gulped.

  Hanako giggled. “Oh, bad girl, you swallowed—”

  But the boy took the candy out of his mouth and threw it far into the distance. “I don’t like it! It’s not food. It’s . . . it’s like it’s making fun of me.” His face twitched in anger and turned away. Now Hanako could see the side of his head and a red, raised scar in the place where his ear had been. A lump. She wondered how much it would hurt to have your ear ripped off. Probably it would hurt so much that it would be the center of your life right then. There would be nothing else at all in your mind, not even your family who you loved a lot.

  Hanako had to stop herself from reaching out to touch it. And then she did, resting her palm on it. The boy started but then didn’t move. It felt like a lump of clay. And she knew it was not ripped off; it was burned off, exploded off by heat. She knew this, just by laying her hand on it. And she knew he wasn’t specifically thinking about his ear at the time, because his whole body would have been in pain. Yes, you could learn a lot by laying your palm on someone’s scar. Finally, she lowered her hand.

  And for a moment the boy didn’t look tough, not at all. He looked like he might cry. Papa showed up with the crackers, and the boy was immediately back to being tough again. He threw the bag into the air, said “Arigatō” a little rudely, kind of like a smart aleck, then said, “Next time I’ll bring you something. Maybe a kimono? And then you’ll give me rice.” He stated it as fact.

  Her grandparents had a little rice left, but it was not for Hanako to give away. She tried to get things straight in her head: She had touched this boy’s scar and understood the pain he had felt. But her grandparents! Her family! So she simply said, “We don’t have any rice.”

  He just laughed like he saw right through her. “I’ll find a pretty kimono, you’ll see!” He sauntered off like those American teenage boys, his little sister chasing after him.

  Hanako turned agog to her father. For some reason, talking to this boy made her feel almost feverish. “His family had a geta shop,” she said. “Before the bomb dropped and killed his parents. . . . Did you see his ear?”

  Papa didn’t answer, so she looked at him. He took a big, loud breath and stared at the sky. He got quite involved in studying the clouds. Hanako searched to see what he was looking at, but the special quality of the sky from earlier had faded, and now it was just overcast and gray, such as you might see on any day. It was just the sky.

  But her father didn’t move. She looked up again but didn’t see anything. “But, Papa,” she finally said. “There’s nothing there!”

  He wasn’t even listening.

  She looked back at the boy. Her heart went out to him! And yet. As they disappeared behind a house, she felt a sudden stab of guilt, like maybe she shouldn’t have offered him crackers that Akira could eat when he was very hungry. She needed to take care of Akira, just like the boy took care of his sister. Guilt for giving away food swept over her, through her—her heart was filled with it. She felt almost sick to her stomach. There was not enough for everyone here. She had never seen anyone beg for food in America, but over there if she had given a beggar food, it would not have made a whit of difference. The restaurant had been awash in food! Every day more food arrived! Even in cam
p, all they had to do was show up at the cafeteria, and the food was there.

  She turned back to Papa and waited. After a few minutes more, he lowered his head and said seriously, “Some people, maybe they do many great things. But for other people, in a certain time and place, maybe you do one great thing. You save someone’s life somehow out of the blue—right place, right time—and . . . I think that restaurant I started out of nothing, that was a great thing. That was a great achievement. It was like building a ship as big as the USS Gordon because I built it out of nothing. . . . Or maybe you have a shop where you sell geta you make. Maybe you spend two hours painting beautiful dragons or trees or calligraphy on each pair. And then a bomb drops on your store.” He rubbed the top of her head. “So you see? Here we are. No chance for me to do something great in the world again. I just need to help my family survive.” He closed his eyes, and his head sort of shivered before he opened his eyes again. “Do you see? We have nothing else to give a boy like that. This is a fact.”

  She stood still, concentrating. She concentrated very, very hard. Then she hardened her heart. Even if the boy begged, even if his little sister cried next time, even if he brought her a gorgeous kimono, Hanako would not share food that Akira could eat. Even if Hanako herself cried, she would not share. There was not enough; this was a fact. The world was filled with facts that could not be changed. She had learned this during their camp days. There were many, many, many facts.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHTEEN

  When Jiichan and Baachan got home from the fields that night, Jiichan cleared his throat over and over, and also shook his head a lot without saying anything. Finally, he blurted out, “We will need to have more rice!” He stopped short, as if surprised by his own outburst. “I am mean to say . . .” He looked very sad. “I know you are just arriving here, but we will run out of rice because now we are very many. We have many vegetable. We have all the vegetable we will ever need! We thought we had many rice, but today we feel worry. . . .” He stuck his lower lip out as if he were four years old. “I wish I was better jiichan so I could give you many rice.”