How to Be an American Housewife (7 page)

“You want us to get you anything?” Charlene asked. “We could stop at the grocery, too.”

“I get myself. You girls have fun.” I left, remembering what it was like to have girlfriends to giggle with.

 

 

CHARLIE AND I ARRIVED HOME on Jacaranda Street. In the next driveway, Lorraine was getting out of her Mercedes. She was bigger than ever and moved slowly. Her hair was gray now. She waved. “How you doing, Miss Shoko?” she called. “Not working too hard, are you? Your roses look beautiful!”

“Thank you.” I simply shut the car door and turned away. In the old days, I would have stayed out and chatted with her. Finally I had realized it wasn’t worth it. She was only a neighbor, not a friend. I no longer had the energy.

“I was going to get you out.” Charlie tried to run around the car.

“I fine.” I smiled.

He paused and looked at me. “I’m sorry about Japan, Shoko.”

I glanced at his eyes. He really was. “Maybe next life, huh, Charlie?”

“There is no next life.” Charlie turned and went into the house.

I followed, formulating a plan. I would have to call on my daughter.

The only question was whether she would ignore the request.

W
hen the Americans first took over Japan, my father said to me, “Shoko. You must learn English. Now we all have to be like Americans.”

“No,” I said. “I will never be an American.”

But he was right. He always was. Japan was going nowhere.

Our village was tiny, with only fishermen and farmers. There was nothing for young people to do but get married and work in low-paying jobs. Most girls sat around at home, waiting to get married. I dreamed about going to college, though there was no money for it.

I wanted to be a diplomat. I loved reading about different cultures, especially the European ones. I went to the library and found every book I could about France, England, Germany. I wanted to learn their languages, but my all-girls high school didn’t have such courses. They had grammar and math, of course, but they also had flower arranging and dance as requirements.

Somehow, I thought I was smart enough to go to college and learn about the world there. My brother, Taro, told me that was nonsense.

“I make all A’s. Do you think you’re smarter than me?” I asked him.

“That’s not the point. You could be the smartest woman in the world, but you’re still a woman. A poor Japanese woman from a country that has lost a war. There is no way you could ever be a diplomat.” He was right, and I knew it but didn’t want to believe it. Taro, like me, spoke the truth, no matter how distasteful it sounded. “The best you could hope for is to go to college, pretend you’re high-class, and marry a diplomat.”

This was not how things worked out. I told my mother I wanted to go to college, and she said no, that there was no point in it for girls. My mother wanted me to marry one of the boys from our
shuku
—our community. People of a
shuku
worked together, and usually married each other.

Father disagreed with Mother. “She’s too good for those
bakamonoshuku
,” he said, lifting his proud nose. “Too clever. She can do better.”

Japan wasn’t democratic like America. Who you were descended from counted for more than what you made of yourself. Our father was descended from the bearers of the imperial seal. We might live among the commoners, we might have no more money or property than they did, but father always reminded us we were better than them. Father, while he thought the people of the
shuku
were honest and nice enough, didn’t want us to marry into them.

I was secretly very happy when I heard Father’s decree. I had no desire to marry one of the village boys. A few of them were nice, but they had no prospects, nor did any of them seem concerned about this. They thought that they would keep on farming their little patches of land and that the government, like a samurai landlord, would take care of them. That was how the
shuku
system originated, in fact—from samurai. “If any of them were smart,” Father said, “they’d take advantage of the Americans being here and make money off them.”

For months, my parents debated about what I should do. Then finally it was my mother who sat me down one day when I was eighteen, a few months after I finished high school. With honors. “Shoko. You’re a very smart girl. Too smart for your own good, I’ve thought.”

I bowed my head.

Mother ran her hand over the lacquered black table. “We have decided it’s time for you to work.”

My mind raced. “Where am I going to work? With the fishermen?”

Mother’s voice was flat. “We’ve heard there are plenty of jobs with the Americans. Good jobs.”

“But what if I don’t want to work for Americans?” My brother hated Americans. He wasn’t a realist, like my parents were. But I was conflicted. I resented the Americans, but I thought about what it would mean to get away from my little village. To meet people who had seen more of the world than this little corner, to see what other places were like, through their eyes. I got excited, despite myself.

“It’s best for the family. For you. We cannot keep you anymore.” Mother folded her hands in front of her and looked at them. Mother looked at least two decades older than her forty-one years. Though she wore a hat every day, her face was still deeply tanned and lined, with darker freckles marring her hands. Her eyelids were beginning to wrinkle and droop. I wondered if she ever regretted that my father had given up his law job for the priesthood. I would never ask her; she would only tell me no. Besides, he could have lost his law practice during the war anyway, as so many had.

Mother continued. “You work and send money home. That way, we can pay for Taro to finish school. He is the son.”

I understood. With a college degree, a boy like Taro could do so much more than I could ever hope. He would raise us all up. “I’ll go right away.”

It didn’t occur to me to be frightened. Other girls were in my situation, too. Girls who saw opportunity where there had been nothing before. There was no reason to be afraid, only reason to hope. America was here, and like my father said, we had to get used to it.

I rented a room in a Kumamoto City house with my childhood friend, Shigemi. The owners were Japanese and made a living renting rooms to girls like us. I thought I’d be a secretary at the naval base, or get a job at a nightclub, something where I could meet powerful people. But I had to take the first job I could get.

Shigemi got me a job as a maid at an American officer’s house in Kumamoto City, where she worked as his cook. It didn’t pay much, but it was enough. More than I was used to. Enough to get my hair done at a beauty parlor and buy a few nice things for the first time in my life. I would rather have had a pretty new dress than a fancy meal any day.

The officer’s home was the first American-style house I’d ever been in. It had wooden plank floors, big windows, no
shoji
screens, lots of heavy upholstered Western furniture. The officer, Captain Leonard, was married. His wife visited every six months or so, and her next visit was coming up soon. He wanted it to look very neat.

Luckily, Captain Leonard wasn’t a messy man. He did keep his shoes on, though, which tracked in extra dirt. The first day I was there, I put on my starched white maid’s uniform and tied a scarf in my hair. It would be another week before I went to the beauty parlor to have it set, so I wanted to keep it pristine. Then I put on the sensible black nurse’s shoes. I went into the den with a dust cloth, singing in English,
“Let me go, let me go, let me go, lover.”
I stopped short. I’d never seen so many books! Thick, leather-bound, gold-printed books lining dusty mahogany shelves. I picked one out, flipping through its pages, but I couldn’t read English. A cloud of dust wafted up and I sneezed.

“Bless you,” said a voice from behind me. I turned to look. A man in a casual brown naval dress uniform stood there. It was the first time I’d seen an American close-up. He looked a bit younger than forty, his hair just graying at the temples. He had soft brown eyes and a dimple in his chin, and was much taller than Japanese men. “How do you do?” he said, extending his hand to me and shaking it firmly. I smiled at him. He switched into Japanese. “I’m Captain Leonard. But you can call me Kyle.”

The boss! I bowed my head, saying in Japanese, “My apologies, I’m sorry to disturb you.”

He wouldn’t let go of my hand. With his free one, he lifted my face. “You’re very beautiful, with a wonderful voice,” he said, and touched my cheek with the side of his hand. My heart beat fast. I blushed. “You know, you look like Machiko Kyo, the actress from
Rashomon
. You shouldn’t be a maid.” He gestured to a chair. “Sit down, won’t you?”

People had told me I looked like her. I took it as a compliment, though my father said I was far more beautiful than she. I sat. The chair was wood and soft leather tacked on with brass studs. I crossed my ankles and folded my hands around the dust cloth. My hands were cracked and work-worn; I supposed Machiko Kyo didn’t have hands like mine. But maybe Captain Leonard hadn’t seen them.

He sat on the edge of his desk, directly in front of me. “What’s your name?”

“Shoko.”

“Well, Shoko,” he said, “I think I might have other plans for you.”

I perked up. Maybe he needed a translator. Or a secretary. My brain flew. “Like what?” Then I caught myself. “Forgive me.”

He laughed in his smooth baritone. “Maybe you can be my personal maid.
Wakarimasu ka?
” Understand?

I was confused for a second. I thought men had butlers, not ladies’ maids. Then I saw how he was looking at me, his pupils so big they obscured the color of his eyes, and comprehended. I stood. “I should get back to work.”

He grabbed my arm and pressed me against him. “You really are lovely,” he said.

I nudged him away. My father was always warning me against wearing clingy sweaters with those bullet bras. But I was wearing a maid’s uniform, the most unflattering thing anyone could wear. This attention wasn’t my fault.

“Shoko-san,” he said, bowing his head. “Forgive me. I only want to be your friend. Surely you don’t want to ruin your hands with this work. You’re not meant for it.” He put his arm around my waist, running his other hand over my back up to my dress’s zipper.

“Stop,” I said in English, shoving him against his bookcase, leather books clattering down. I bent my knees and got ready to punch him in the throat, like Taro had taught me.

He made a step toward me again, arms out to grab, but there was a sound of branches scraping the window. We both looked.

Outside was the dirt-streaked face of the gardener, my countryman come to save me, face shaded by a big straw hat. He raised one hand in greeting. “Sir!” he called out in perfect, unaccented English. “Where do you want these roses you ordered for your wife?”

“In the flower garden, of course.” The captain went to the window and closed the curtains over the gardener’s face. I ran to the kitchen.

“Shigemi! You’ll never guess what happened!”

Shigemi turned from the sink, where she was peeling potatoes. “Ah, I know.” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “You’re the fourth maid this year.”

“Why didn’t you warn me?” I could have kicked her. “I’m calling the police.”

“They won’t do a thing.” She shrugged, tucking back a stray tendril of black hair. Her plump cheeks were flushed. “It’s not so bad. I’d do it if he wanted me. He buys nice clothes, gives you a bigger allowance than the whole maid staff put together.” She grinned, showing her missing front molar. “You wanted out of Ueki.”

I shook my head. “He’s married, Shigemi. I want to get out of Japan, not only Ueki.”

“An officer will never marry you,” Shigemi scoffed. “Take what you can get, when you can get it.”

She was probably right. I should be using my looks to get me somewhere, not working as a housecleaner. I leaned against the sink. “I would have been lost if that gardener hadn’t interrupted.”

Shigemi recoiled like I’d slapped her. “That gardener spoke to you? He’s Eta!”

Eta, or
burakumin,
were the untouchable in Japan. As leatherworkers, who touched dead animal hides, Eta were the lowest of the low, set apart this way by the vegetarian Buddhists. A simple explanation for something very complicated.

Japan had had an official caste system for many years, but it was outlawed in 1871. However, like other caste systems, it persisted. After the system had been thrown out, people privately made lists of Eta families. When you got married, your parents checked to see that your fiancé wasn’t an Eta.