Silent Honor (26 page)

At the end of the day, they slowly walked back to their stall, still wearing their caps and aprons. They didn't wear full uniforms, there were none available, but their caps helped to identify them as medical personnel, or nurses. But when they got to the stall, Takeo looked even worse than Hiroko had that morning.

“What's wrong? Are you all right?” Reiko asked him quickly, afraid it was his heart again. He was too young to have those problems, but they'd been through a lot in the past five months since April.

“We're leaving,” he said quietly with a look of despair. It was late September, it was almost exactly five months since they had been there.

“When?”

“Sometime in the next few days, maybe sooner.”

“How do you know?” she asked sharply. There were so many rumors, it was hard to know what was true anymore. And after five months there, she was almost afraid to leave. This was unpleasant and uncomfortable, but at least it was familiar.

He silently handed her a slip of paper. Her name was written on it, and the names of their three children.

“I don't understand,” she said. “You're not on this.” She looked up at him with frightened eyes, and he nodded, and held up another piece of paper. It bore his name, but showed a different day and time for his departure. He was leaving a day later. “What does this mean?” she asked. “Do you know?”

Takeo sighed. “The man who handed these to me said it must mean we're going to different destinations, otherwise we'd be on the same piece of paper.”

Reiko only looked at him, and began to cry silently as she reached out and held him. There were others who had had the same news who were crying nearby. Married children were being sent separately from their parents and younger siblings, uncles and aunts. The administration wasn't worried about who went where. And then she realized suddenly that there was no slip for Hiroko.

“I didn't get one for her at all,” Takeo explained, still puzzled. Hiroko spent the entire night terrified, sure that they would be leaving without her, and she would be completely alone at whatever camp they sent her to, without relative or friend or husband. Just thinking about it made her sick again the next morning. But shortly after that, as she prepared to leave for the infirmary, they came to find her. She was leaving even later than the others, obviously to yet another place, the day after Takeo. And there was no time even to think about it. Reiko and the children were leaving in the morning, without them.

Takeo went to the administration building that afternoon along with countless others, and nothing had changed as they explained it to him. He was still a Japanese national, and a greater security risk, and his wife and children weren't. They were non-aliens, the new word for
citizen.
And he was the enemy, as was Hiroko. In addition, his work as a professor of political science concerned them a great deal, and he was going to have to be interrogated with a number of other people who posed a similar, or equal, problem. He was going to a highly secured camp, they explained, where the highest-risk evacuees would be sent. His wife would be sent somewhere with less security. And when he asked if he could join her eventually, they said that it would depend on many things, and they had no idea as to the outcome. As for Hiroko, she clearly was an enemy alien, she had admitted to them that she had family in Japan, and a brother in the air force. Her category was the greatest risk of all, they said without sympathy. And they were also aware through the FBI that she was romantically involved with a highly political Caucasian.

“He's not highly political, for heaven's sake,” Takeo argued with them on her behalf. “He was my assistant at Stanford.”

“Well be happy to discuss that with you in the interrogation, sir,” they said bluntly, “and with her. Well have plenty of time to do it.”

But when he told Reiko about it that night, he was certain they were sending him to prison. And possibly Hiroko as well. They made her ties to Japan sound extremely ominous. She was a nineteen-year-old girl, and a student, and she was in love with an American. It hardly seemed enough to die for, but none of them were convinced they wouldn't be shot as spies. Not even Hiroko. As she listened to him, and others that night, she felt certain that she would go to prison as a spy, and probably be executed, and even terrified as she was, she tried to force herself to accept it.

When she and Takeo said good-bye to Reiko and the children the next day, it was with the certainty that they would never meet again. And despite all her years of hearing about samurai and their dignity, Hiroko could not contain her grief as she said good-bye to Tami.

“You
have
to come with us,” the child said, wearing her number tag on her coat again. “We can't leave you here, Hiroko.”

“I will go somewhere else, Tamisan, and perhaps later I'll join you.” But she looked pale and ill as she stood there and embraced their mother, thinking of her own, and sure that she would never see any of them again. They had been told that they were going to a camp for lesser security risks than Takeo and Hiroko, so perhaps they would be safe there. And friends came to wave at the bus before it left, and the shades would be drawn so they could not see where they were going. For a long time Tak and Reiko just stood holding each other as they cried and their children watched them. He kissed each of them, sure that he would never see them again, and told them to take good care of their mother. And then there was a grim moment when he said good-bye to his son. There were few words, but vast emotions. And there were other scenes around them just like it. It was Ken's second painful farewell that day. Peggy and her family had been sent to Manzanar earlier that morning.

And then finally, in a blinding flash of pain, Reiko and the children boarded. The shades were lowered, their frightened faces disappeared, and the bus lumbered off to a destination unknown, in the North, as Takeo and Hiroko watched them. And the next day was no better. She went alone to say good-bye to Tak this time. He looked gray and tired, and ancient for a man of fifty-one, who had looked youthful only months before. But the past months had taken an immeasurable toll on him. And like Reiko, Hiroko thought she was seeing him for the last time, and braced herself for it.

“Take care of yourself,” he said gently, feeling dead inside from having left his loved ones the day before, but he felt something for her as well. She had a life ahead of her, a future, if they didn't kill her here, which they might still. But he hoped for her sake that Peter would come back for her eventually. They deserved each other. “God bless you,” he said, and then got on the bus without looking back at her. But she stood for as long as she could, watching the bus disappear in a cloud of dust, and then she went back to their deserted stall to wait till morning.

And that night she walked over the fields where she had lain with Peter. She sat in the tall grass quietly, and wondered what would happen if she never came out again, if she just sat there till she died, or they found her. What if she didn't leave on the bus in the morning? But they had her name now. And her number. And they knew something about Peter. Apparently the FBI had a file on him, because of her, and his work at Stanford. And she had told them about her brother in the Japanese air force. They would come and look for her if she didn't show up at the bus. And they might do something to Peter, or the others, if she didn't cooperate, so she couldn't let that happen.

She sat for a long time, thinking of Peter, praying for him, longing for him, and then she walked slowly back, as they once had together. And like a vision from the past, she saw the old Buddhist priest on her way back and she smiled at him, wondering if he'd acknowledge her. He bowed to her, and then he stopped her.

“My prayers are very strong for you, and your husband,” he said softly. “Walk softly, and always with God beside you.” He bowed again, and then walked on, as though his thoughts had moved on to another subject. But seeing him that night had been like a blessing, and she felt stronger.

She had a shower early the next day, before she left, and packed the last of her things in her one small suitcase, and she found one of the origami birds she had made for Tami in the straw beside her mattress. It was like a sign from her, a memory of a friendly face, and someone she loved, as she held the little paper bird in her fingers, picked up her bag with her other hand, and walked to the bus in silence. She saw one of Sally's friends, but the girl didn't acknowledge her, and one of the doctors Reiko had worked with. She shuddered slightly as she boarded the bus, afraid of what they'd do to her wherever she was going. But there was no way to change it now, and the others were gone. Tak and Reiko, the children …Peter …There was nothing left to do except what the old priest had told her the night before. Walk with God beside her …and walk softly …and wait for Peter. And if she died now, at their hands, which she thought was possible, and accepted, at least he would know how much she loved him.

The bus filled quickly this time, and armed guards boarded it with them. There were only women on the bus with her, and terrifying thoughts entered her mind, but no one approached her. The curtains were let down so they wouldn't see where they were being taken, and the guards took their places, with the guns pointed at them. And then, grinding through the gears, the bus took off toward wherever destiny would take her.

Chapter 13

T
HE BUS
ride from Tanforan was surprisingly brief. Barely half an hour after they'd begun, the bus came to a halt and the guards shepherded them off. Hiroko couldn't imagine where they were, but she was told to take her valise, and to leave the bus with the other women.

And as soon as they stepped off, she saw that they were at the train station at San Bruno. A train Was waiting for them, and other busloads of people were being ushered off at gunpoint. This was serious now. There were no smiles, no kind words, no explanations, and none of the guards looked friendly. No one looked her in the eye as she was shoved onto the train, ahead of dozens of other women. But on the train there were men in other cars, segregated this time, and she noticed that there were more men than women. As she took her seat, on a hard wooden bench, clutching her suitcase with trembling hands, she felt certain that they were taking her back to San Francisco for deportation.

The trains were very old, and had few comforts, and the windows were all boarded up so they couldn't see where they were going. There were whispers and little cries, there were no children this time, and most of the women thought they were going to prison, or to a camp somewhere for execution. Hiroko only sat there with closed eyes, holding the thought of Peter in her mind, trying not to think of dying. She wasn't afraid to die, but she ached at the thought of never seeing him again, never being in his arms, never telling him again how much she loved him. Perhaps, she thought, as the train lurched to life and several women stumbled, perhaps if they could never be together again, it was better to die. And then she thought of something her grandmother had taught her as a little girl. It was
gin
, the obligation to the dignity of one's name. It was the honor that she now owed her father, to be dignified, and strong and wise, to go willingly to her death, with pride. She thought of
on
as well, the obligation she had to her country and to her parents. And no matter how frightened she was, or how sad, she vowed silently not to disgrace them.

It grew hot on the train after a while, just from all the people pressed in there. She learned later that there hadn't been enough passenger cars, so they used freight cars to transport the passengers. A few women were sick on the train, but Hiroko was too numb to feel anything. She felt only sorrow as she sat there.

And as night fell, it grew cool again, and still they rode on. Perhaps she would not sail from San Francisco, she realized, but from Washington State or from Los Angeles. She knew that before the war, ships had sailed to Japan from either place. Or perhaps the others were right, and they were simply going to die. Execution was simpler than deportation. The woman next to her cried all night, sobbing for her husband and children. She was a Japanese national, like Hiroko, and she had only been in the States for six months. She and her husband had come here to live with cousins while he worked on a building project. He was an engineer, and they had taken him the day before, just as they had Takeo. And her two small children had been sent earlier with her cousins and their children. Like Reiko, her cousins were nisei.

Hiroko hadn't gone to the bathroom all day, and she was aching to when they finally stopped at midnight. It was dark outside, there were no houses anywhere, and they were shepherded off the train at gunpoint again, and told they could go to the bathroom there. There were no toilets, no trees, no shelter, and there were men watching them. A month before, her own modesty would have caused her to die first, but now she didn't care. Like the others, she did what she had to do. And feeling deeply ashamed, she got back on the train again, and huddled in the corner, still clutching her suitcase. She almost wondered why she even kept it. If she were going to die, she wouldn't need the pair of slacks Reiko had packed for her, or the warm sweaters she had brought, or the photograph of her parents. She had a photograph of Peter too. Takeo had taken it of them just before they had to turn in their cameras as contraband. He was standing next to her, and she was still looking painfully shy in a kimono. It seemed a lifetime ago now, and it was hard to believe that it had been three months since she'd seen him. Harder still to realize that life had ever been normal, that they had lived in homes, and driven cars, gone anywhere, and had friends and jobs, and ideals and dreams. They had nothing now, except the infinitesimally tiny sliver of time that was the present.

She was dozing when the train stopped again. She had no idea what time it was, but the sky was gray when they slid open the freight doors, and the air was freezing when it hit her. She woke suddenly, and they all struggled to their feet. There was shouting outside, and there were more men waving guns at them, and telling them to get off the train, which they all did in a hurry. Hiroko stumbled as she jumped off the train, and another woman steadied her with a small smile. It was like a ray of sunshine in the dark night, a reminder that someone else was there with her.