The Japanese Lover(31)
“People here say that the No-Nos are going to be shot as spies . . .”
“Don’t believe everything you hear, Megumi.”
Takao was completely changed by his son’s arrest. During the first few months at Topaz he had taken part in the community and filled the empty hours growing vegetables and making furniture from the wooden crates they got from the camp kitchen. When there was no more space in their cramped barrack room, Heideko encouraged him to make things for other families. He asked permission to teach the children judo, but this was denied; the camp commander was afraid he might give his pupils subversive ideas and put his soldiers’ security at risk. Takao continued practicing in secret with his own children. He lived in anticipation of their release: he counted the days, weeks, and months, crossing them off on the calendar. He thought constantly of his ill-fated dream of setting up a plant nursery with Isaac, of the money he had saved and lost, of the house he had been paying for over many years, which had now been repossessed. Decades of effort, hard work, and fulfilling his obligations, only to find himself imprisoned behind a barbed-wire fence like a criminal, he would say bitterly. He was not sociable. The crush of people, the inevitable lines, the noise, the lack of privacy all irritated him.
Heideko on the other hand blossomed at Topaz. Compared to other Japanese women, she was a disobedient wife who confronted her husband arms akimbo, and yet she had lived her life devoted to her family and to the laborious toil of agriculture, without the slightest suspicion that the spirit of activism lay dormant within her. In the concentration camp she had no time for despair or boredom; she spent her days resolving other people’s problems and struggling with the authorities to obtain the apparently impossible. Her children were captive and secure behind the fence; she had no need to watch over them since eight thousand pairs of eyes and a detachment of the armed forces were doing that for her. Her chief worry was making sure that Takao didn’t collapse completely; she was running out of ideas for what he could do to keep busy and not have time to think. Her husband had grown old: the ten years’ age difference between them was very noticeable now. The forced proximity of life in the barracks had put a stop to the passion that had previously rubbed the rough edges off living together: for him, affection had turned into exasperation, and for her, into impatience. Out of a sense of shame toward the children, who shared the same room, they tried to avoid contact in the narrow bed, which meant that the easy relationship they’d once enjoyed gradually withered. Takao took refuge in rancor, whereas Heideko discovered her vocation for service and leadership.
* * *
Megumi had received three marriage proposals in less than two years, and no one understood why she had rejected them, except for Ichimei, who was the intermediary between his sister and Boyd. Megumi wanted two things in life: to become a doctor and to marry Boyd, in that order. She finished secondary school effortlessly at Topaz and graduated with honors, but higher education was beyond her reach. A few universities back east did accept a small number of students of Japanese origin, chosen from among the most brilliant in the concentration camps, and these lucky ones could get financial help from the government, but James’s arrest was a black mark against the Fukudas, and so Megumi did not have that option. Nor could she leave her family; with Charles absent, she felt responsible for her younger brother and her parents. So she worked in the hospital alongside the doctors and nurses who had been recruited from among the prisoners. Her mentor was a white doctor by the name of Frank Delillo. He was in his fifties; stank of sweat, tobacco, and whisky; and was a complete failure in his private life but a competent and selfless doctor. He took Megumi under his wing from the very first day, when she appeared at the hospital in her pleated skirt and starched white blouse to offer her services as an apprentice. They were both recent arrivals at Topaz. Megumi began by emptying bedpans and cleaning up, but showed such willingness and ability that Delillo soon appointed her his assistant.
“Once this war is over, I’m going to study medicine,” she told him.
“That could take longer than you think, Megumi. It’s going to be hard for you to become a doctor: you are not only a woman, but a Japanese one.”
“I’m an American, the same as you,” she retorted.
“Have it your own way. Stick close to me and you’ll learn something at least.”
Megumi took him literally. She clung to Delillo and ended up sewing cuts, setting bones, treating burns, and helping at births—nothing more complicated than that, as the most serious cases were sent to the hospitals in Delta or Salt Lake City. Although her work kept her busy ten hours a day, some nights she managed to get together for a while with Boyd, thanks to the protection of Frank Delillo, who apart from Ichimei was the only one in on their secret. Despite the risks, the lovers enjoyed two years of clandestine meetings, with luck on their side. The desert was so barren there were no hiding places, but the young nisei found ingenious ways to avoid their parents’ supervision and prying eyes. Megumi however could not hope to do so, because Boyd’s helmet and rifle made it impossible for him to burrow like a rabbit among the sparse bushes available. The headquarters and living quarters of the whites, where they might have found a nest, were at some distance from the camp. She would never have gained access had it not been for Delillo’s divine intervention. Not only did he obtain a pass for her to get through the checkpoints, he also conveniently absented himself from his room. There, in the midst of the disorder and dirt in which Delillo lived, with ashtrays full of cigarette butts and empty bottles scattered around, Megumi lost her virginity and Boyd found heaven.