The Japanese Lover(24)

Takao Fukuda was about to climb on board the bus with his family when Isaac Belasco appeared, dragging Alma along with him. He had used the weight of his authority to intimidate the officials and soldiers who tried to stop him. He was deeply disturbed, as he could not help but compare what was taking place only a few blocks from his home with what had probably happened to his in-laws in Warsaw. He pushed his way through to hug his friend and hand him an envelope stuffed with cash, which Takao tried in vain to refuse, while Alma bade farewell to Ichimei. Write to me, write to me, was the last thing both children could say to each other before the disconsolate line of buses pulled away.

At the end of what seemed to them an interminable journey, although in reality it lasted little more than an hour, the Fukuda family reached the racetrack at Tanforan, in the city of San Bruno. The authorities had enclosed the stadium in a barbed-wire fence, hurriedly cleared out the stables, and constructed makeshift barracks to house eight thousand people. The evacuation order had been so rushed, there had been no time to finish the installations or to equip the camps with the essentials. The buses’ engines were switched off, and the prisoners began to disembark, carrying children and bundles, helping the old folk. They moved forward without a word in huddled, uncertain groups, unable to understand the squawking of the blaring loudspeakers. Rain had turned the ground into a quagmire, and was soaking them and their belongings.

Armed guards separated men and women for an initial medical examination; later on they were to be inoculated against typhus and measles. Over the next few hours the Fukudas tried to recover their things from the jumbled mountains of luggage and then moved into the empty stable stall assigned to them. Cobwebs hung from the roof; there were cockroaches and mice, and several inches of dust and straw on the floor. The smell of horses still lingered in the air, as well as that of the creosote used to little effect as a disinfectant. They were given a cot, a sack, and two army blankets each. Takao was so weary and humiliated to the depths of his being that he sat down on the floor with his elbows on his knees and buried his head in his hands. Heideko took off her hat, put on her sandals, rolled her sleeves up, and prepared to make the best of their misfortune. She didn’t give the children time to feel sorry for themselves, but immediately got them to make up the beds and sweep the floor. Then she sent Charles and James to fetch bits of board and sticks, left over from the hasty construction work, that she had seen when they arrived, in order to make shelves where she could put the few kitchen utensils she had brought with her. She told Megumi and Ichimei to fill the sacks with straw to make mattresses, as they had been instructed to do, while she set out to explore the installations, say hello to the other women, and size up the camp guards and officials, who were as bewildered as the detainees they were in charge of, wondering how long they were going to have to stay there. The only obvious enemies Heideko could identify on her first tour of inspection were the Korean interpreters, whom she saw as odious toward the evacuees and fawning toward the American officials. She saw that there were not enough latrines or showers, and that they had no doors; the women had four baths between them, and insufficient hot water. The right to privacy had been abolished. But she thought they wouldn’t be short of food, because she saw the provision trucks and learned that they would be serving three meals a day in the mess halls, starting that evening.

Supper consisted of potatoes, sausages, and bread, but the sausages ran out before it was the Fukuda family’s turn. “Come back later,” one of the Japanese servers whispered. Heideko and Megumi waited for the canteen to empty and were given a tin of minced meat and more potatoes, which they took back to the family room. That night, Heideko went through a mental list of the steps to be taken to make their stay at the racetrack more bearable. The first item was their diet, and the last, in parentheses because she seriously doubted she could achieve it, was to change the interpreters. She didn’t shut her eyes all that night, and as the first rays of sunlight filtered through the bars of the stable window, she shook her husband, who had not slept either and was lying there motionless.

“There’s a lot to do here, Takao. We need representatives to negotiate with the authorities. Put your jacket on and go and gather the men together.”



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Problems arose at once at Tanforan, but before the week was out the evacuees had organized themselves. After taking a democratic vote to elect their representatives, among whom Heideko Fukuda was the only woman, they registered the adults according to their professions and skills—teachers, farmers, carpenters, blacksmiths, accountants, doctors. Then they started a school without either pencils or notebooks, and put sports and other activities on the schedule to keep the young people busy so as to combat their frustration and boredom. The evacuees spent much of the day and night lining up, for the shower, hospital, religious services, mail, and three meals in the canteens; they had to show a great deal of patience to avoid disturbances and fights. There was a daily curfew, and a twice-daily roll call. Speaking in Japanese was prohibited, which made life impossible for the issei. To prevent the guards from intervening, the internees themselves took charge of keeping order and controlling any troublemakers, but no one could stop the rumors from swirling around, which frequently caused panic. People tried to stay polite, so that the hardship, the crowded living conditions, and the humiliation were more tolerable.

Six months later, on the eleventh of September, the detainees began to be transferred by train. Nobody knew where they were headed. After a day and two nights of travel on dilapidated, suffocating trains with few toilets and no lights in the dark hours, crossing desolate landscapes they did not recognize and that many confused with Mexico, they came to a halt at Delta station in Utah. From there they continued the journey in trucks and buses to Topaz, the Jewel of the Desert, as the concentration camp had been called, possibly without any ironic intent. The filthy evacuees were trembling and half-dead from exhaustion but had not been hungry or thirsty, because sandwiches had been handed out in each carriage, and there were baskets full of oranges.