The Japanese Lover(23)
By August, more than a hundred and twenty thousand men, women, and children would be evacuated, old people snatched from hospitals, babies from orphanages, and mental patients from asylums. They would be interned in ten concentration camps in isolated areas of the interior, while cities would be left with phantom neighborhoods full of empty homes and desolate streets, where abandoned pets and the confused spirits of the ancestors who had arrived in America with the immigrants wandered aimlessly. The evacuation order was aimed at protecting not only the Pacific coast but also the Japanese themselves, as they could become the victims of misunderstanding by the rest of the population; it was a temporary solution and would be carried out in a humane fashion. This was the official line, but meanwhile the hate speech spread. “A snake is always a snake, wherever it lays its eggs. A Japanese-American born of Japanese parents, brought up in a Japanese tradition, living in an atmosphere transplanted from Japan, inevitably and with only rare exceptions grows up as Japanese and not American. They are all enemies.” It was enough to have a great-grandfather born in Japan to be seen as a snake.
As soon as Isaac Belasco learned of the imminent evacuation, he went to see Takao to offer help and reassure him that his absence would be a short one because the evacuation was unconstitutional, violating the principles of American democracy. His Japanese partner replied with a deep bow. He was profoundly moved by this man’s friendship, because in recent weeks his family had suffered insults, snubs, and even aggression from other whites. Shikata ga nai, what can we do, Takao told him. That was his people’s slogan in times of adversity. When Isaac insisted, Takao asked a special favor of him: to allow him to bury the Fukuda sword in the garden at Sea Cliff. He had managed to hide it from the agents who raided his house, but it wasn’t safe. The sword represented the courage of his forebears and the blood shed for the emperor; it could not run the risk of being dishonored.
That same night the entire Fukuda family, dressed in the white kimonos of the Oomoto religion, went to Sea Cliff, where Isaac and his son, Nathaniel, received them in dark suits and wearing the yarmulkes they used on the rare occasions they attended a synagogue. Ichimei brought his cat in a basket covered in a cloth and handed him to Alma to look after for a while.
“What’s his name?” she asked him.
“Neko. It’s Japanese for ‘cat.’?”
Accompanied by her daughters, Lillian served Heideko and Megumi tea in one of the first-floor living rooms, while Alma, who did not understand what was going on but was aware of the solemnity of the occasion, slipped through the shadows beneath the trees and followed the men, clutching the basket. They filed downhill through the terraces, lighting their way with oil lamps, until they reached the spot overlooking the sea where they had dug a small trench. In the lead was Takao, carrying the katana wrapped in white silk; after him came his eldest son, Charles, with the metal box they had had made to protect the sword; James and Ichimei followed him; and Isaac and Nathaniel Belasco brought up the rear. Not bothering to hide his tears, Takao prayed for several minutes, then placed the sword in the box his eldest son held out and fell to his knees, forehead pressed against the ground, while Charles and James lowered the katana into the hole and Ichimei scattered handfuls of soil onto it. Then they filled the hole in and flattened the earth with spades. “Tomorrow I will plant white chrysanthemums here to mark the spot,” said Isaac, his voice hoarse with emotion, as he helped Takao to his feet.
Alma did not dare run over to Ichimei, because she guessed there must be an overriding reason why women were excluded from the ceremony. She waited until they had returned to the house to catch Ichimei and drag him off to a corner out of sight. The boy explained he would not be returning the following Saturday or any other day for the time being, possibly for several weeks or months, and that they would not be able to talk on the telephone either. “Why? Why?” shouted Alma, shaking him, but Ichimei could not explain. He himself had no idea why they had to leave or where they were going.
THE YELLOW PERIL
The Fukudas covered their windows and put a padlock on the street door. It was March, and they had paid a year’s rent, as well as a deposit to buy the house just as soon as they could put it in Charles’s name. They gave away what they could not or would not sell, because the opportunist buyers were offering two or three dollars for things that were worth twenty times that. They had only a few days to dispose of their possessions, pack one suitcase each and what they could carry, and present themselves at the “buses of shame.” They were forced to accept internment, otherwise they would be arrested and face the consequences of spying and treason in wartime. Joining hundreds of other families shuffling along in their best clothes, the women wearing hats, the men with neckties, the children in patent leather bootees, they went to the Civil Control Center. The families gave themselves up because there was no alternative and because by so doing they thought they were demonstrating their loyalty toward the United States and their repudiation of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. This was their contribution to the war effort, the leaders of the Japanese community said, and very few voices were raised against them. The Fukudas were destined for the camp at Topaz, in a desert area of Utah, but were unaware of this until September; in the meantime they were housed six months at a racetrack.
Accustomed as they were to being discreet, the issei obeyed without protest, but they could not prevent some young people, second-generation nisei, from openly rebelling. These youngsters were separated from their families and dispatched to Tule Lake, the strictest concentration camp, where they were treated like criminals for the duration of the war. In San Francisco, the local white population observed the harrowing procession along the streets of people they knew well: the owners of stores where they shopped every day; the fishermen, gardeners, and carpenters they often dealt with; their sons’ and daughters’ schoolmates; their neighbors. Most of them looked on in troubled silence, although there was no shortage of racist insults and malicious jeers. Two-thirds of those evacuated at that time had been born in the United States and were American citizens. Standing in long lines, the Japanese had to wait for hours in front of the desks of the officials, who took down their names and handed out labels for them to wear around their necks with their identity number, the same as for their luggage. A group of Quakers, who were opposed to this measure because they considered it racist and anti-Christian, offered them water, sandwiches, and fruit.