“Yes sir!” all us guys said at the same time. Just like in Rotsie at school. Only now nobody was laughing or joking around or whispering how stupid it was. At school, Rotsie was a joke. But not now.
“And make sure you don’t shoot each other.”
I peeked over at Butchie. His face was tight, looking like he just lost his girlfriend or somebody stole his putt-putt. He kept his eyes on the army guy.
Captain Smith broke us up and sent us toward the jungled ridge, groups of us jogging off in different directions. Luckily I got to stay with Butchie. Ten other guys were with us, twelve in our group, all of us Japanese, except for one haole guy.
We ran into the woods beyond Manoa Stream. The valley was dense, a jungle of green. Me and Butchie and our gang of friends played up in there plenty times as kids. We knew the place well, the jungle, the stream. I loved being there, back then.
But now my mouth was so dry my tongue felt like twice its size. It was hot, the sun blasting down through the trees. The guy in front of me was sweating. Had big dark splotches on the back of his shirt.
“What if we see them?” I whispered to Butchie.
“That’s when you take off that safety.”
“Then what?”
“What’choo think?”
We hiked single file, bushes and tall grass lying down as we crushed them. All around us vines like snakes crawled up into the trees. I didn’t see any paratroopers or even any abandoned parachutes. Maybe they buried them and crept down the other side of the ridge. Or maybe they were hiding in the jungle, waiting for us to come in the open so they could shoot us.
I hit the ground like a stone when someone fired a shot. It wasn’t one of us. Maybe someone in one of the other groups. I dug deeper into the grass, its smell warm and sweet. Ants crawled on the stems inches from my face. I clutched the Springfield close; its oil reminded me of school.
“Hey. Up front. You see anything?” someone called to the point man, who wasn’t really a man, but a boy like the rest of us.
“Nothing.”
Nobody moved.
When there were no more shots, we slowly got up and inched ahead. Butchie was in front of me, and I was the second to last guy, the haole behind me. Every few steps I turned around to check if anyone was behind us. The haole never said a word.
“Butchie,” I whispered. “What if I have to shoot this thing? I never did that. And how can I shoot somebody.”
Butchie said over his shoulder, “Listen to me, Tomio. You don’t shoot them, they going shoot you. You got to shoot, you hear me? You got to.”
My fingers were gripping the Springfield so tight somebody would have to pry them off with a screwdriver after this day was done. Every part of my body felt electric. Little jolts charging through me. Everything about me was wide awake. My eyes prob’ly looked as big as a cow’s. I could have spotted a centipede in the grass ten feet away.
The stream was close. I could hear the rushing water, but couldn’t see it. I could even smell it, tangy like mud and iron. In my mind it was flowing down over mossy round stones and half-submerged boulders, still and quiet in the deep pools and hissing in the shallow rapids. The sun through the trees crawled up my back. Sweat crept down my temples. The higher we went the thicker the jungle got, everything green and brown. Mosquitoes buzzed in my ears. Muddy muck bubbled up between my toes in the wet parts of the trail.
Nobody spoke.
We walked kind of hunched over, ready to drop again if we had to. Single file, like real army. I didn’t like taking up the rear, but it was better than being first.
I wondered if Leonard got the news yet. Prob’ly. And the guys on my team. I guess the game got canceled. Jeez. How can you think about that at a time like this?
“Down!” somebody shouted.
A shot rang out. Bam!
And again, and again and again.
Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!
We hit the ground, the mud. I clutched my rifle in one hand and covered my head with the other. Muddy wetness crept into my chest, seeping into my shirt.
Sounded like the whole world was shooting, and they were shooting at us. I could hear bullets thwacking into the trees right above my head.
Branches above me burst apart. Splinters rained down. Leaves shattered and evaporated.
Then it stopped, a momentary lull, a sweet smell of gunpowder in the air.
I slowly peeked up.
Our point man crawled to a tree and stood up on his knees, peeking around it. He saw something and fired, his rifle jerking. Four, five, six shots.
A couple of other guys in our group started shooting. At what, I don’t know. I couldn’t see anything but jungle.
Then the other side started blasting us again.
Our point man drew back his rifle. “Wait!” he yelled. “Stop!”
Still hiding behind the tree, he screamed to whoever was shooting at us. “Cease fire! Cease fire! We’re American!”
The shooting slowed, one, two shots more.
Then nothing.
Then silence.
“Identify yourself,” someone off in the trees shouted.
“ROTC group two! Who are you?”
There was the longest, eeriest silence.
Then they called back. “ROTC group one . . . did we hit anyone?”
Our point guy glanced back at us.
We all waved, okay.
“No, but if you do that again I’m going to tear your damn heart out with my bare hands!”
They went their way and we went ours.
We never even saw them.
My shirt was messed up, mud all over the front and on my arms and face. Butchie’s eyes were dark and deep as lava pits. He looked like he’d seen a ghost. I felt it too. Somebody could have been killed!
We hiked up the ridge and found nothing.
Not one thing. Not even a muddy footprint.
Nobody but pigs and wild dogs had been up there.
We hiked back down into the valley and stopped at a bend in the stream. Shady tree branches met in the middle out over the water. Sparkles of sunlight broke through in some places and glinted on the water, reminding me that there was a world out there.
Somewhere.
“What time is it?” I asked Butchie.
He shrugged.
“Twelve-thirty,” the haole guy said.
Me and Butchie both looked at him. It was the first thing he’d said all day.
I nodded, thanks.
Twelve-thirty. If we’d played the game it would still be going.
I stuck my mud-crusted feet in the water. So good, so cool and clean. I lay back in the grass and nearly fell asleep.
“Hey, Butchie,” I said.
“What?”
“I was going to play baseball today.”
Butchie said nothing for a long time.
I slapped at a mosquito in my ear.
“Kind of a bad day for baseball, Tomio,” Butchie finally said.
I laughed. But it wasn’t funny. Nothing about this day was funny.
“Okay guys, we gotta get moving,” our lead guy said.
Nobody complained. We just got up. I brushed off my pants.
“We’re going to break up into groups of two and head back down to campus. If there’s anyone in this jungle we’ll see them.”
He started counting off, one two, one two.
“No kidding,” I said. “They could have killed somebody.”
“Not them, Tomio . . . Japan.”
“Oh.”
“What if they land guys on the beaches?” Butchie went on. “Or come bomb us again?”
I nodded.
The lead guy told me to go with the haole.
“But—”
“Get moving. You two head that way.”
Me and the haole left. I glanced back at Butchie, but he was already gone. Everyone was gone.
Me and the haole pushed through the jungle, me in the front and him a couple of steps behind. It was getting drier, so I knew we were close to campus.
“If we find them, Jap,” the haole guy said. “Who are you going to shoot? Them or me?”
I stopped and turned around. I gave him a small laugh, thinking this is no time to be joking around like that. But he wasn’t joking. His face was like a rock.
We stared at each other.
He really did mean it.
I reached out and took the barrel of his Springfield and pointed it right at my chest. “If we find them, who you going shoot? Them or me?”
He kept his eyes on me.
Then he nodded once and motioned to move on.
When we got back to the university, Captain Smith said, “It was a mistake. A rumor. Someone saw a sheet blowing on a clothesline, is all. There were no parachutes.” He shook his head. “You all okay? I heard a lot of gunfire.”
“We thought we saw something, sir,” one guy said.
Captain Smith studied him. He looked like he wanted to say something, but didn’t.
“It was nothing,” the guy added. “False alarm.”
My jaw dropped. Nothing?
They could have killed us.
But we were all still here.
Still here.
For now.
Half a Heart
by Mariko Nagai
October 1941
The house is surrounded by roses
of all names: Bride’s Dream, Chicago
Peace, Mister Lincoln, Timeless, Touch
of Class. The house is surrounded by hues
of red and white: red like an azure sun,
red like the sunset over the Pacific Ocean,
red like Grandpa’s fingertips,
white so transparent they call it Tineke,
the kind of white that looks like Seattle on a rainy day.
The living room is a mixture of east
and west: Grandpa packed a little of Japan
when he came here across the sea—a sword,
a photograph of himself as a small boy,
dolls for future daughters he never had—
memories of his once-ago life.
Grandpa is a rose breeder.
He calls roses bara; he calls them his kodomo—children.
My father sometimes helps out Grandpa,
though most of the time, he works in an office
downtown writing articles for a newspaper.
Mother sits in the kitchen, always singing.
My room upstairs is All American: a bed,
an old desk, white lace curtains my mother sewed,
pictures of Jamie and me on the wall.
My brother Nick’s room next to mine is filled
with trophies he won in track races.
Grandpa calls me by my middle name, Masako,
and he calls Nick Toshio. He never speaks
English; says that he lived longer in Japan
than he has in America, and that there’s no more
space for another language or culture.
He speaks to us in Japanese, my parents speak
to him in Japanese, and Nick and I speak
some words in Japanese, but mostly in English.
Just like our breakfast, rice and pickled
plums with milk and potatoes, they all go together.
December 1941
I was singing with the Sunday School
choir, practicing our Christmas carols,
all our mouths opening and closing as one
to sing the next note.
We were singing “Silent Night, Holy
their lowest key, the door burst
open like a startled cat dashing.
The next note lay waiting
under Mrs. Gilbert’s finger; our mouths kept
the O shape, when a man yelled, the Japs bombed
Pearl Harbor. The world stopped.
The next words got lost. Oh, oh, oh,
someone wailed, until I realized that it was
coming out of my mouth,
my body shaking, trembling.
And the world started again
but we were no longer singing as one.
December 1941
Jap, Jap, Jap, the word bounces
around the walls of the hall.
Jamie, my best friend, yells out, “Shut your
mouth!” but the word keeps
bouncing like a ball in my head.
As soon as I get to my Language
Arts class, the entire class gets quiet.
Mrs. Smith looks down
like she’s been talking about me,
or maybe she doesn’t see me.
She clears her voice; she calls
out our names, one by one; she pauses
right after Marcus Springfield.
She clears her throat, calls out Mina Tagawa.
And instead of calling out Joshua
Thomas, she starts to talk
about what happened yesterday.
My face becomes hot and heavy; I look
at my hands, then at the swirling
pattern on the desk. I look at my hands again,
yellowish against the dark brown
desk, and Jamie’s hair, golden,
right near it. Jap-nese, Mrs. Smith
starts. Jap-nese have attacked Pearl
Harbor. Jap-nese have broken
the treaty. Jap-nese have started the war.
Even the newspaper that Father works for screams in
bold letter headlines: Japs. Japs. Japs.
I feel everyone’s eyes on me. I hear
Chris Adams snickering behind me, whispering
Jap Mina. I’m not Japanese, I want to yell.
I am an American, I scream
in my head, but my mouth is stuffed
with rocks; my body is a stone, like the statue
of a little Buddha Grandpa prays to
every morning, and every night. My body is heavy.
I don’t know how to speak anymore.
December 1941
We are not Americans, the eyes tell us.
We do not belong, the mouths curl up.
We are the enemy aliens, the Japs,
the ones who have bombed
Pearl Harbor, killing so many soldiers
who were enjoying their Sunday
morning in Hawaii, who were waking
up to their breakfasts of oatmeal and toast.
Death to Japs, they say. The voice
from the radio says Jap-nese,
a pause between Jap
and nese, just like Mrs. Smith.
Mother walks down Main Street with her head
up, her back straight, though
men spit at her and women hiss
at her. Masa-chan, onnanoko rashiku
sesuji o nobashinasai. (Masako,
keep your back straight like a
good girl), Mother says as she pulls
on the whitest kid gloves,
one by one, stretching her fingers
straight to sheathe each finger.
Masa-chan, tebukuro
hamenasai. Amerika-jin wa
saho ni kibishii kara (Masako,
put on your gloves. Americans
are strict with manners), Mother says
as she straightens her jacket.
We pass by stores that sell grains and bread
and instead go to Mr. Fukuyama’s shop:
Patriotic Americans, says a sign on the window.
She buys a bag of rice and umeboshi and bonito
flakes. If I could, I would keep
only my first name, Mina, my American name,
and tear off Masako Tagawa like the
pages of journals I tore out when I found
out that Nick Freeman liked Alice
Gorka. I would chang
e my hair color into a honey-
colored blond that changes into lighter
shades of white during the summer,
just like Jamie’s. If I could change
my name, if I could change my parents,
if I could change my life: I would be an American.
But I already am.
December 1941
We’re best friends, no matter what, Jamie
says as we sit under the Christmas
tree together. We’re best friends until
we die, I say.
She hands me a small packet wrapped
in a crinkled wrapping paper.
Open it, open it, she urges. Mr. Gilmore’s humming
drifts in from his workshop in the
backyard, and Mrs. Gilmore’s baking
smells of cinnamon and nutmeg.
We sit under a big Christmas tree lit by small twinkling
lights like lost fireflies late in summer.
A package the size of my palm, so light like a butterfly;
Jamie chanting, Open it, open it!
I undo the ribbon, gingerly, then unfold the red
paper, one corner at a time. In the middle,
a jagged half of a heart. She pulls her sweater
down, See, I have half a heart, too.
And whenever we are together, we have a whole heart.
Only then do the two halves become one.
December 1941
When I come home, the house is quiet.
Basho is outside, looking confused.
Mother is not home, where she always is,
waiting with a cup of green tea between
her hands and a glass of milk for me.
Everything is turned inside
out, rice scattered all over the kitchen
floor, all the drawers wide open
with cloth strewn all over the floors
like garbage the day after the circus
left town. A note, I will be back soon,
in Mother’s beautiful and careful handwriting
pinned to the door like a dead butterfly.
It is only later, too late for dinner,
too late for a glass of milk and cup of tea,
when Mother and Grandpa come home
looking like they are carrying the night
on their backs, their bodies heavy
from the weight they drag through
the door. “Men came this afternoon,
they said they are from the government;
your father had to go with them so he can
answer some questions,” Mother says quietly
as she sits down on the sofa, heavily
throwing her weight down. “When is he coming home?”