The grandmother brings
over heated water and torn
cloth and beckons us
to wash ourselves
by moving her hands
in front of her face.
Soon enough,
we feel warm from our stomachs
for the first time in a while,
and soon enough,
we feel less sweaty,
and soon enough,
Asa and the kids are laughing
and chattering like hens in spring
and I feel safe for the first time in days.
WHEN THE WORDS AREN’T ENOUGH
The sky bursts into explosions of red
turning everything bloody,
and as soon as the sky darkens,
the call to gather and leave comes
all too soon. Auntie sighs, gets up,
puts on her coat, and opens
her backpack. She rummages
around and pulls out a wooden statue
of Kannon and hands it to the father.
“Thank you, thank you,”
she says in Chinese and Japanese,
bowing deeply, and Asa and I repeat
after her, but the father pushes
the statue back at Auntie.
She tries to give him the statue again,
and the father pushes it back again,
and he says, “It was the least
we can do for people who needed help.”
We all bow deeply. “Thank you. Thank you,”
because that’s the only thing we can say,
because we mean it more than we can say.
THE TRACK AT THE END OF THE WORLD
The railroad track that would take us south
to Harbin lies lonely amid the golden plain,
and we sigh in relief. All is quiet as if it doesn’t care
about us, those of us who have just walked
those miles and miles from the other side
of the horizon to get here.
UNDER THE BROKEN SKY
The sun slowly dries my wet clothes,
as I lie on my back. The sky is so high
that even when I reach up, I can’t touch
it; I can’t feel it. The blue is so deep
indigo with not a cloud in the sky, but it is
broken, just like us. It is indifferent.
It doesn’t care whether we move
or we die on the ground so far down
from where it is. The sky is empty.
No clouds. No birds.
Just a blue sheet of sky that doesn’t care
what happens on the ground.
I want to take a sword, or a spear,
or the gun in my pack and shatter its
indifference into smithereens.
THE RUMBLING SKY
The ground rumbles.
The ground moans.
I jerk up
from the sleep
I didn’t know I had fallen
into. I sit up,
and all around,
I see heads popping
up like rabbits’.
Auntie’s head,
Asa’s, the principal’s,
our neighbors’.
The earth rumbles.
The sky seems to tremble.
I look around,
and there, a locomotive
chugging slowly
toward us.
We all jump up.
We all get on the track,
waving our arms
to flag it down.
The engine car passes
us, one cattle car
after another,
until the train comes
to a halt,
and we all limp
toward the door.
The door slides open,
and inside, it’s filled with
Japanese settlers—
women and children—
just like us,
huddling so tightly
there is no space
for us to join them.
Someone from the car yells,
“Jump in. We can’t stop here too long.
Jump in quickly,”
and the principal pushes
people in, one by one,
as someone pulls people
in, one by one.
Asa gets pushed up
and she disappears
into the dark car.
A hand pulls me up
and I stumble next
to Asa, and after me
Then someone slams
the door shut.
The horn hoots once,
then again,
and the car trembles,
and the train chugs
forward and I collapse
against the wall.
We are safe.
THE END OF THE WORLD
I don’t know who said it first.
I don’t know who started it first.
But someone in the car said
that Japan has surrendered.
That Japan has lost the war.
That the Emperor himself
made the announcement
three days ago or sometime ago, they don’t know.
That Manchuria is overrun
with the Soviets or the Nationalists
or the Communists; they aren’t sure.
That the tracks all over Manchuria
have been bombed and destroyed,
and this is the only line
that hasn’t been blown up,
or so they think.
That the Americans dropped this new
bomb and completely destroyed
the motherland, and the only person still
alive is the Emperor.
That Japan has surrendered.
That nothing is left of Japan.
That the Japanese Army by the border
made their last charge and all died honorably.
It’s a lie, I know.
Japan would never surrender.
The Emperor would never surrender.
Japan has never lost a war,
never in its 2,605-year history.
It’s a lie, I know.
No one can kill Tochan, not him, never.
The Wind of Gods will blow,
bringing victory to us as it has done
so many times in the past.
People lie.
They are lying. These are all lies.
Japan didn’t lose.
These people are lying.
The Emperor would never surrender.
These people are lying.
The Wind of Gods would
have come to bring victory
like it has so many times before.
These people are lying.
It must be a lie.
It must be a lie.
I keep telling myself,
but somehow, somewhere I know
it must be true.
We are here, aren’t we?
Away from home.
Running away from home.
THE EMPTY HEART
I sit against
the slotted wall,
holding my knees
close to me.
Auntie is asleep
and so is Asa,
sleeping with her
mouth open.
The car is filled
with women and children
like Auntie and Asa.
Dirty, tired, and no one
says a word
as the car rumbles
in the rhythm
of the train chug.
Someone says that
this is the last train
going south,
that this is the evacuation
train driven by men
who went against
the Japanese Army
to rescue stranded civilians.
That this i
s one
of the very few rail lines
not destroyed by
the army on their retreat.
The landscape passes
by slowly with the speed
of the crawling train,
a never-ending
field of gold,
empty as the sky,
and emptier
than my heart.
HOME IS NO LONGER HERE
I watch the golden prairie
glide past the slow-moving train.
I look over, and Auntie is looking
at me like a cat staring at a mouse.
“So Japan lost the war,” she says
under her breath. My eyes sting,
and I look away. “Well, we won’t be going
home anytime soon,” she says.
My mind becomes fuller with questions
than anger. “What do you mean,
we can’t go home?” I ask.
“Exactly that. We can’t go back
to the settlement, not ever,
now that Manchuria’s gone.”
Isn’t this Manchuria?
Or did it disappear when the war ended?
ANGRY HEART
The Chinese villagers
who chased after us
with pitchforks,
their anger so loud
you could hear it cracking.
The Chinese watermelon
thief who said that
Japan was going to lose
the war. Every morning
we bowed to the east,
where His Majesty the Emperor
lives. Every morning, we recited
our allegiance to the Emperor.
The special forces pilots
who dived into the enemy
ships, sacrificing their lives
to save us. All the soldiers
who made their last charges,
in Saipan, in Iwo Jima,
in the Aleutian Islands.
All the letters I had written to
soldiers telling them to die
honorably. And we worked
all day on the farm,
being told that it was
for Japan, and we worked
so hard. And most of all,
Tochan, taking his old rifle
and riding Horse.
And all these men
we sent off that day
with us waving Japanese flags
made by Toshio’s mom
like it was a festival day.
What was all of this for?
Why did it all happen?
RABBITS ON THE PLAIN
The train slows down then stops.
The door slides open
letting the blinding light
in, blinding me, and after a pause,
shadows get up
here and there,
and people jump out of the train
to go into the field
to relieve themselves.
Before anyone is back,
the engineer pulls
the horn, and the train begins
to move, and people come
popping up from the field like rabbits
and run toward the moving
train, some with their pants
around their legs,
and the train moves faster and faster
and they reach out their hands
but no one can grab
their hands and we leave
them behind as the train keeps
moving
south toward Harbin.
HARBIN
The landscape changes from empty plain
to a house, then a cluster of houses,
as the roads become paved and trees thin.
The houses flash by. Houses made out
of red bricks, getting taller and taller
until we slide into a platform
covered with people and the train comes
to a halt. The door slides open,
and the voices sing out, Harbin.
Harbin. Harbin. Someone will
tell me that Japan has won the war.
Someone will tell me that we can go home.
And Tochan will be there.
When we get home.
THE END OF THE FOREVER REIGN
We walk like obedient sheep, dragging
our feet without saying a word.
The Chinese walk the streets with tattered
flags of Manchuria, tearing down
Japanese signs and coming out
of stores with arms full of goods.
They jeer at us. They spit as we walk
by, and Principal Ohara tells us, “Run, run.”
Auntie grabs my hand and I grab
Asa’s hand and we run, run, like scared sheep,
following the group. We run, run
through the streets and across the streets
to a former Japanese girls’ school
where the hallways are packed
with scared people like us, dirty
and tired-looking like us, until we go into a room
already filled with people from a different settlement.
They look up in fear when we enter,
and relax as soon as they see we are Japanese,
tired and scared like them.
We drop our bags
and collapse onto the coldest
hardest floor and fall asleep like eternal rocks.
The ten-thousand-year reign
of the Emperor ended some days ago,
and we didn’t even know it.
We are no longer the Emperor’s children.
We are orphaned.
PART FOUR
BEGINNING OF AUTUMN
THIS IS NOT A DREAM
I stand outside our house and it is still
the same wall made out of mud and straw,
the roof is thatched. There are the chickens,
white, black, and white-pebbled, pecking on seeds.
I hear Goat in the barn jumping her joyful
jumps, and Horse eating hay. Then the door opens
and Tochan walks out with a handgun.
I ask him why he’s holding the gun. Is there trouble?
But it comes out in Chinese, and he looks at me
like he’s never seen me, and raises the gun
and tells me to stop where I am.
And I tell him, “It’s me. It’s Natsu. I’m your daughter,”
but it comes out in Chinese and he looks scared
and tells someone inside to stay there.
I see myself peeking out from behind him,
and I tell him, “I’m Natsu. That’s not me. Who is that?”
and he raises the gun and I shield my face, and the gun goes off
and I feel hot pain in my shoulder. I wake up screaming.
I am in a dark room. Auntie lies snoring, holding on
to her backpack, and Asa asleep between us,
curled up, her thumb in her mouth, and I still have
my arms around the tired backpack.
AUGUST 1945
“When can we go home?” I ask Auntie.
The sorghum gruel feels like barbed wire
going down my throat.
Auntie shakes her head.
She swallows the gruel from the bowl,
and crinkles her face.
“Natsu, we can’t,” she says between each chew,
as if she’s choosing her words
carefully. “If the war is over,
then we can go home, Tochan
and Taro are probably already home,” I say.
Auntie puts down the metal bowl
on the uneven wooden floor.
My stomach growls like a frog in summer.
Asa looks at her own half-eaten bowl.
“Natsu-chan, you can have my gruel.
I’m full,” and when I reach out,
Auntie slaps my hand,
“Asa, eat your food.
Natsu, don’t be greedy.” Then she says
slowly, her mouth moving to one side,
“I don’t think our homes are waiting for us
anymore from all that I’ve heard,”
as she licks the last of the gruel
still in the bowl. “We might be
here for a long time, until we can get
home to Japan.” But what about our home
up north? Our wheat, chickens, and all
that Tochan worked toward for so many years?
What about your plum trees
and your home, Auntie?
But I keep my mouth shut.
My stomach growls in protest.
SHADOWS IN THE ROOM
The Emperor did not stop
Tochan from being drafted
to leave us and go fight up north.
No one came to save us
while we were running
away from home.
No one reached out
to help Toshio’s mom
from being swallowed by the river.
The divine wind did not blow
to push away the enemy airplane
when it started gunning us down.
No one sees us sitting here in the dark
classroom where the cold air enters
through the slots of the hard floor
and we sleep chilled to the bone,
where babies cry at all hours,
and adults sit in shadows hiding.
No one is going to rescue us.
No one is going to help us.
I now know. No one is going to help.
We are alone.
THE ARRIVAL OF RUSSIANS
The ground shakes and trembles.
Window frames rattle.
Russian soldiers in their tanks,
their jeeps and trucks,
their black boots shiny
like their machine guns
and medals and red emblems
of gold hammer and sickle,
they are here,
bringing with them
a hint of winter.
They enter, one regiment
at a time, proud,
thousands and millions of boot
heels slamming down
on the pavement as one.
The Chinese wave the red flags
with the hammer and sickle,
tearing down the Rising Sun flags
from the poles and trampling on them,
happy that the city is no longer
under Japanese rule,
while we watch
from the schoolroom,
holding our breath.
My arm around Asa tightens,