Snow Falling on Cedars (24 page)

‘Yes,’ said Hatsue’s father. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘Not wrong exactly,’ said the FBI man. ‘It’s just that we’ve been asked to search this place. You understand, we’re going to search. Now if you’ll just step inside, please, we’ll all sit down.’

‘Yes, come in,’ said Hatsue’s father.

Hatsue dropped her apron full of kindling back onto the pile of cedar sticks. The two men turned to look at her, the larger one came halfway down the porch steps. Hatsue walked out of the
shadow of the woodshed and into the glow of the porch light. ‘You come in, too,’ said the smaller man.

They crowded into the living room. While Hatsue and her sisters sat on the couch, Hisao brought chairs from the kitchen for the FBI men – the larger one followed him everywhere. ‘Please, sit down,’ offered Hisao.

‘You’re real polite,’ replied the smaller man. Then he took an envelope from his coat pocket; he handed it over to Hisao. ‘It’s a warrant from the U. S. district attorney. We’re going to search the premises – it’s an order, see, an order.’

Hisao held the envelope between his fingers but made no move to open it. ‘We are loyal,’ he said. That was all.

‘I know, I know,’ said the FBI man. ‘Still, we’ve got to look around.’

While he spoke the larger man stood and shot his cuffs, then calmly opened Fujiko’s glass case and picked up the stack of
shakuhachi
sheet music she kept on the bottom shelf. He picked up Fujiko’s bamboo flute, turned it over twice in his hands – small hands for such a thick, cloddish man – then set it on the dining room table. There was a magazine stand beside the wood stove, and he pawed through the magazines there. He picked up Hisao’s newspaper.

‘We’ve had some complaints from local citizens that certain enemy aliens on San Piedro Island have in their possession items declared illegal contraband,’ said the smaller man. ‘It’s our job to search the premises for these. We ask for your cooperation.’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Hisao.

The larger man went into the kitchen. They could see him through the doorway peering beneath the sink and opening the oven door. ‘We’re going to have to search through your private effects,’ the small FBI man explained. He stood and took the envelope from Hisao; he put it back in his coat pocket. ‘I hope you won’t mind,’ he added.

He opened the
tansu –
a chest of drawers in one corner of the living room. He took out Fujiko’s silk kimono with its gold
brocaded sash. ‘That’s very nice,’ he said, holding it to the light. ‘From the old country, it appears. High class.’

The larger man came through the living room from the pantry with Hisao’s shotgun seized in one hand and four boxes of shells against his chest. ‘The guy’s all armed,’ he said to his partner. ‘There’s a big old sword back there, too.’

‘Put it all on the table,’ said the small man. ‘And tag everything, Wilson – did you bring the tags in?’

‘They’re in my pocket,’ Wilson answered.

The youngest of the Imada girls began to whimper, covering her face with her hands. ‘Hey, little girl,’ said the FBI man. ‘I know this is kind of scary – but guess what? There’s nothing to cry about, you hear me? We’ll be done and out of your way soon.’

The large man, Wilson, went back for Hisao’s sword. Then he turned his attention to the bedrooms.

‘Tell you what,’ said the first man to Hisao. ‘Let’s just sit tight until Wilson is finished. Then you and me, we’ll take a walk outside. We’ll tag these things up and load them in the car. Then you can show me around your outbuildings. We have to check everything – that’s the way it is.’

‘I understand,’ said Hisao. He and Fujiko were holding hands now.

‘Don’t be nervous,’ said the FBI man. ‘We’ll be out of your hair in a few minutes.’

He stood at the table putting tags on things. For a while he waited in silence. He tapped his foot and put his mouth to the flute. ‘Wilson!’ he said finally. ‘Get your paws off the underwear!’ Then he chuckled and picked up Hisao’s shotgun.

‘We gotta take this,’ he said apologetically. ‘All this stuff, you understand. They’ll hold it for a while – who knows why? – then they’ll ship it all back to you. They’ll ship it back when they’re done with it. It’s complicated, but that’s the way it is. There’s a war on and that’s the way it is.’

‘The flute is precious,’ said Hisao. ‘The kimono, the sheet music – you must take those things?’

‘Anything like that, yeah,’ said the FBI man. ‘Any old-country stuff we have to take.’

Hisao was silent, his brow furrowed. Wilson came back from the bedrooms looking solemn; he carried Hatsue’s scrapbook. ‘Pervert,’ said his partner. ‘Come on.’

‘Crap,’ said Wilson. ‘I was going through the drawers. You do it next time if you don’t like it.’

‘He-say-o and I are going out,’ the small man said firmly. ‘You can sit here with the ladies and finish up with these tags. And be polite,’ he added.

‘I’m always polite,’ said Wilson.

Hisao and the small man went outside; Wilson worked on the tags. When he was done he browsed through Hatsue’s scrapbook, chewing on his bottom lip. ‘Strawberry Princess,’ he said, looking up. ‘You must a been flattered by that.’

Hatsue didn’t answer. ‘It’s a good picture,’ added Wilson. ‘It looks like you. Looks just like you, in fact.’

Hatsue said nothing. She wished Wilson would get his hands off her scrapbook. She was thinking of asking him, politely, to put it down, when Hisao and the other man came through the door, the FBI man carrying a crate. ‘Dynamite,’ he said. ‘Look at this, Wilson.’ He set the crate lightly on the table. The two men stood pawing through the dynamite – twenty-four sticks of it. Wilson chewed on his cheek and stared.

‘You must believe me,’ insisted Hisao. ‘This is for tree stumps, for clearing land.’

The smaller FBI man shook his head gravely. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But this is still bad. This stuff’ – he pointed a finger at the crate – ‘this is illegal contraband. You were supposed to have turned this stuff in.’

They took the gun, the shells, the sword, and the dynamite and put it all in the car trunk. Wilson came back with a duffel bag and stuffed in the scrapbook, the kimono, the sheet music, and finally the bamboo flute.

When everything was loaded in the trunk of their car the FBI
men sat down again. ‘Well,’ said the smaller one. ‘This is it. Guess what?’ he said to Hisao.

Hisao didn’t answer. He sat in his sandals and sweater, blinking, holding his glasses in his hand. He waited for the FBI man to speak.

‘We gotta arrest you,’ said Wilson. ‘You’re going on a trip to Seattle.’ He unhooked a pair of handcuffs from his belt; they were clipped on next to his gun.

‘You don’t need those,’ urged the smaller man. ‘This guy here is a class act, a gentleman. There’s no need for any handcuffs.’ He turned his attention to Hisao. ‘They’re just going to ask you some questions, okay? We go down to Seattle, a few questions, a few answers, the whole thing is over.’

The two younger girls were both crying. The youngest buried her face in her hands, and Hatsue put an arm around her. She pulled her sister’s head in close and stroked her hair gently. Hisao rose from his chair.

‘Please not take him,’ said Fujiko. ‘He has done no bad things. He – ’

‘Nobody knows about that,’ said Wilson. ‘There’s nobody who can say.’

‘Probably in just a few days,’ said the other man. ‘These things take a little time, you see. We have to take him on down to Seattle. He’s gotta be scheduled in and all. Maybe a few days, maybe a week.’

‘A week?’ said Fujiko. ‘But what we do? What do you – ’

‘Think of it as a war sacrifice,’ the FBI man interrupted. ‘Figure to yourself there’s a war on, you see, and everybody’s making some sacrifices. Maybe you could look at it that way.’

Hisao asked if he could change out of his sandals and get his coat from the pantry. He wanted to pack a small bag, he added, if that would be acceptable. ‘Both,’ said Wilson. ‘Go ahead. We’re perfectly willing to accommodate.’

They allowed him to kiss his wife and daughters and to say good-bye to each. ‘Call Robert Nishi,’ Hisao told them. Tell him I am arrested.’ But when Fujiko called it turned out that
Robert Nishi had been arrested as well. Ronald Kobayashi, Richard Sumida, Saburo Oda, Taro Kato, Junkoh Kitano, Kenzi Yamamoto, John Masui, Robert Nishi – they were all in a Seattle jail now. They had all been arrested on the same night.

The arrested men rode on a train with boarded windows – prisoners had been shot at from railroad sidings – from Seattle to a work camp in Montana. Hisao wrote a letter to his family each day; the food, he said, was not very good, but they were not really being mistreated. They were digging trenches for a water system that would double the size of the camp. Hisao had gotten a job in the laundry ironing and folding clothes. Robert Nishi worked in the camp kitchen.

Hatsue’s mother gathered her five daughters together, Hisao’s letter in her hand. She told her daughters, once again, the story of her odyssey from Japan on board the
Korea Maru.
She told them about the Seattle rooms she had cleaned, the sheets on which white men had vomited blood, the toilets full of their excrement, the stench of their alcohol and sweat. She told them about the waterfront cookhouse where she’d worked chopping onions and frying potatoes for
hakujin
stevedores who looked, right through her as if she weren’t even there. She knew, already, about hardship, she said – her life had long been difficult. She knew what it was to be alive without being alive; she knew what it was to be invisible. She wanted her daughters to know how to face this in a manner that would allow them their dignity. Hatsue sat motionless while her mother spoke, trying to guess at her meaning. She was eighteen now, and her mother’s story held more weight than it had when she’d heard it earlier. She leaned forward and listened carefully. Her mother predicted that the war with Japan would force all her daughters to decide who they were and then to become more Japanese. Wasn’t it true that the
hakujin
didn’t really want them in their country? There were rumors that all the Japanese on the coast were going to be forced to leave. There was no point in trying to conceal anything or in trying to pretend they were not Japanese – the
hakujin
could see it in their faces; they were going to have to accept this. They
were Japanese girls in America during a time when America was fighting a war with Japan – did any of them want to deny it? The trick was to live here without hating yourself because all around you was hatred. The trick was to refuse to allow your pain to prevent you from living honorably. In Japan, she said, a person learned not to complain or be distracted by suffering. To persevere was always a reflection of the state of one’s inner life, one’s philosophy, and one’s perspective. It was best to accept old age, death, injustice, hardship – all of these were part of living. Only a foolish girl would deny this was so, thus revealing to the world her immaturity and the degree to which she lived in the world of the
hakujin
instead of in the world of her own people. And her people, insisted Fujiko, were Japanese – the events of the past months had proved it so; why else had their father been arrested? The events of the last two months should teach them something about the darkness in the hearts of the
hakujin
and the more general darkness that was part of living. To deny that there was this dark side to life would be like pretending that the cold of winter was somehow only a temporary illusion, a way station on the way to the higher ‘reality’ of long, warm, pleasant summers. But summer, it turned out, was no more real than the snow that melted in wintertime. Well, said Fujiko, now your father is gone, folding laundry in a camp in Montana, and we all must get by, endure. ‘Do you understand?’ she said in Japanese. There is no choice in the matter. We will all have to endure.’

‘They don’t all hate us,’ Hatsue replied. ‘You’re exaggerating, mother – you know you are. They’re not so different from us, you know. Some hate, others don’t. It isn’t all of them.’

‘I know what you’re saying,’ said Fujiko. ‘Not all of them hate – you’re correct. But on this other matter’ – she still spoke in Japanese – ‘you don’t think they are very much different? In some big way, Hatsue? Different from us?’

‘No,’ said Hatsue. ‘I don’t.’

‘They are,’ said Fujiko, ‘and I can tell you how. The whites, you see, are tempted by their egos and have no means to resist.
We Japanese, on the other hand,
know
our egos are nothing. We bend our egos, all of the time, and that is where we differ. That is the fundamental difference, Hatsue. We bend our heads, we bow and are silent, because we understand that by ourselves, alone, we are nothing at all, dust in a strong wind, while the
hakujin
believes his aloneness is everything, his separateness is the foundation of his existence. He seeks and grasps, seeks and grasps for his separateness, while we seek union with the Greater Life – you must see that these are distinct paths we are traveling, Hatsue, the
hakujin
and we Japanese.’

‘These people seeking union with the Greater Life,’ argued Hatsue, ‘are the ones who bombed Pearl Harbor. If they’re so ready to bend and bow, then what are they doing attacking all over the world and taking over other countries? I don’t feel I’m a part of them,’ said Hatsue. ‘I’m a part of
here
,’ she added. ‘I’m from this place.’

‘Yes, you were born here, that’s so,’ said Fujiko. ‘But your blood – you are still Japanese.’

‘I don’t want to be!’ said Hatsue. ‘I don’t want anything to do with them! Do you hear me? I don’t want to be Japanese!’

Fujiko nodded at her eldest daughter. ‘These are difficult times,’ she replied. ‘Nobody knows who they arc now. Everything is cloudy and unclear. Still, you should learn to say nothing that will cause you regret. You should not say what is not in your heart – or what is only in your heart for a moment. But you know this – silence is better.’

Hatsue knew immediately that her mother was right. Her mother, clearly, was serene and unruffled, and her voice carried the strength of truth. Hatsue fell silent, ashamed of herself. Who was she to say how she felt? What she felt remained a mystery, she felt a thousand things at once, she could not unravel the thread of her feelings with enough certainty to speak with any accuracy. Her mother was right, silence was better. It was something – one thing – she knew with clarity.