Sophie and the Rising Sun (9 page)

“Thank you,” he said. And he did not add,
Lovely—but only because you are lovely.

Throughout the golden days
of November, they met in that quiet and gentle way every Sunday, and in those few weeks, Sophie and Mr. Oto accepted the new routine their friendship had brought. Sophie passed by Miss Anne’s house nearly every day, she and Mr. Oto spoke their quiet greetings, and on Sunday mornings, they painted together by the deep and slow-moving river.

At first, they had spoken very few words to each other. But the silence between them was sweet—filled with the distant cries of gulls and the whisperings of the gentle wind in the live oak tree. And little by little, they began to talk, hesitantly and somewhat timidly at first, merely offering small comments about the angle of the sun and occasionally identifying migrating flocks of birds to each other—which reminded Mr. Oto that he had not yet seen the great crane again, that creature he had sought to find at the river and which, now, he had nearly forgotten. Except for the painting.

But as Sunday followed Sunday, Mr. Oto and Sophie began giving bits of old stories of their youth to each other—exquisite, glimmering images of worlds they lived in before their acquaintance. So that Sophie could see him as a small boy, trying to catch the goldfish in the pond in the center of his father’s garden. And Mr. Oto knew Sophie as the little girl who loved to run back and forth under the crisp, white sheets hanging on the clothesline.

On the first Sunday in December, Sophie studied him quite openly and frankly, so much so that he felt the tips of his ears burning.

“Is everything all right?” he asked, anxious that she was not ill or perhaps angry with him about something.

“Oh, yes,” she fluttered. “It’s just...”

“Please go on,” he urged, wondering if something he’d said or done had disappointed or alarmed her.

But she smiled and shrugged her shoulders a bit. “Well, it’s just that I don’t know your name. Your full name,” she added. “I know something about what you were like as a little boy—because you’ve told me—but I don’t even know your first name.”

The burning tips of Mr. Oto’s ears began pulsating, and he felt ribbons of blushing heat running up his neck on either side.

“I am so sorry,” he mumbled.

“No, please don’t be embarrassed,” Sophie urged, and before she knew what happened, she reached over and put her hand on his arm. They both just sat and stared at that, and then she slowly removed her hand.

“My name...” he began, “is Grover. Grover Cleveland Oto.”

“Grover Cleveland?”

If she laughed, he knew that he would die. But she didn’t, even though she lifted her eyebrows a little quizzically.

“Like
President
Grover Cleveland?”

“Yes. Because of my father’s pride that his youngest son... me... that I was born in this country. That I am an American.”

“Oh, that’s lovely,” she murmured. Then she added, “If you’re the youngest son, they you must have older brothers. Were they born in China?”

“No. Not China,” he said, realizing that Sophie simply believed what everyone else in town believed about him. Even Miss Anne.

“Not China?”

“Japan.” How strange the word sounded to him.

“But everybody thinks —”

“I know,” he interrupted her gently.

“Why don’t you correct them?” Sophie asked.

“Because I do not want them asking questions about me,” he confessed. “I am a very private man.”

“Oh! I’m so sorry!” Sophie breathed. “Why, I’ve been as rude as can be, asking you all kinds of personal questions!”

“No!” He hastened to halt such an abject apology. “You are not like them. For you to ask is perfectly fine.”

Suddenly, he realized how relaxed and smooth the English words were rolling off his tongue. Exactly as in his daydream.

“Then may I please ask just one more?” Her voice had a playful lilt he had never heard in it before.

“Of course.”

“May I call you by your given name?”

“Given name?” He had never heard of such a thing.

“Your first name.”

“Yes. Please.” But he almost stopped breathing at the thought of the lovely Miss Sophie actually saying his name aloud.

“Grover.” Her voice was soft and melodic, like the faint lapping of ripples at the edge of a beautiful marsh deep inside him.

So that all the next week, he heard her voice over and over again, saying his name. And it was enough.

The next Sunday—December 7
—Sophie sighed deeply only halfway through the morning and put down her brush. Mr. Oto looked at her where she sat gazing at the sky.

“I have never been able to paint the sky exactly as I see it,’’ she confessed.

“May I look?’’

“Of course,” she laughed. “
I’m
not timid!” She didn’t add,
As you are
. But he could sense her unspoken teasing. So that he smiled as he leaned just enough to be able to see her painting.

“It is good,” he pronounced genuinely, nodding his head. “What you have painted is very good.’’

“But it’s not the way I really see it,” she explained. “Because the sky that’s over where the river and the ocean come together is very beautiful—very different—in a special way. And I just can’t seem to get it right, on the paper.’’

Mr. Oto wiped his brush and put it away before he responded. “Perhaps,” he ventured, “that’s why it is so beautiful—because it is beyond capturing.’’

Sophie looked at him in surprise. “Maybe you’re right about that.” She laughed. “Maybe that’s what it is.’’ And to herself, she thought,
How perceptive! And poetic!

Mr. Oto laughed with her, but a rusty kind of laugh, as if it were something that he had forgotten how to do—if, indeed, he had ever known.

“Some Sunday, perhaps we may walk over to the place where the river comes into the ocean and look most carefully at the sky,’’ he suggested.

Sophie hesitated. “Then would I be able to paint it?” she asked, very seriously.

“Perhaps not. But it would be a fine thing anyway.’’

“Yes,” she finally agreed. “It would be a fine thing. I’d like to do that.’’

Then, inexplicably, she looked full into his dark eyes. Mr. Oto, caught by surprise, could only gaze back at her. And neither of them looked away.

Once again, when Sophie walked
home from the riverfront, she felt his presence go along with her, and she smiled, both at that and at the absolute beauty of the sunny, clear morning. The breeze off the river, with its satisfying aromas of earth and sky and water. Her footsteps in time with the cries of a white gull high overhead and all the world breathing with her.

W
hat a dear, dear man!

“Bombed?” He parroted the word, but even on his own tongue it made no sense.

“Bombed our base in Hawaii. It’s terrible— a sneak attack! We’ll surely have war now!’’

Mr. Oto began to gain the full measure of the words.
The Japanese... bombed Hawaii? But why?

“And,” Miss Anne was calmer now, but nonetheless serious, and she spoke slowly and with her hand on her chest. “One of the first things I thought about was that people will think you’re one of them!” She spat the word in disgust. “One of those nasty Japs! They won’t understand that you’re Chinese. I’m
afraid,
Mr. Oto!’’

I must tell her,
he thought—because he knew full well that she thought of him as being Chinese. Everyone in town thought of him that way—
except Sophie!
Sophie knew about his ancestry!

That thought was a new and perhaps even more terrible shock than hearing about the bombing in the first place. Sophie! What would she think? Would she ever speak to him again? Would Sophie think of him now as nothing but a “nasty Jap”?

Miss Anne was still speaking, but he couldn’t hear a single word she was saying. He could only study her face and watch her tight, angry mouth moving amidst a roaring in his ears that blotted out everything else.

Sophie! I must find you and tell you that I am not one of those people who would do such a thing!

But how? Would she even speak to him? Would she hate him? Would she turn her face away from him?

Through his agonizing questions, Miss Anne’s voice slowly became audible again, but her words were like little feathers that simply floated down toward the horrible ache that filled the pit of his stomach and never quite reached it.

“I’m afraid for you,” she repeated. “People will be infuriated about this! No telling what they will do... Oh, I have to get back to the radio. I have to find out what’s going on.”

But still they stood, separated by the iron gate and with Miss Anne searching Mr. Oto’s face in a way he had never seen before. And he, for the first time, looked directly back at her with full, dark eyes that did not blink or turn away from her gaze.

Because under all of the agony, a small flicker of rage had grown, a feeling so foreign to him that he didn’t even recognize it.

His mouth opened almost involuntarily: “I... am... an... American.” He spoke the words carefully, as if he were afraid they would shatter. “I was born in this country, and I am loyal to it.”