Dreaming water Read online

  A rush of wind moved through the pine trees. I swallowed, then asked, "Did ojī-san sign?"

  "Your grandfather was too old for the draft anyway. He only wanted his American-born kids to be free, so he would have marked yes and yes to the two questions, along with most of the people at Heart Mountain. I honestly don't know what I would have marked if I were Danny's age. That day, I was ready to fight those guards, my fellow Americans. I felt the anger and injustice of it, just the way Danny did."

  "What happened to Danny afterwards?" I asked.

  "Danny and the other men, who were called no no boys, were sent to the camp at Tule Lake, where they were registered as re-sisters and sent to prison. Bobby and his family went along with him and were also seen as resisters, though they stayed at Tule Lake. Danny and the others were freed and finally pardoned in nineteen forty-seven. I never saw Bobby again until we were young men and he looked me up on his way through California from Seattle. I remember we were shy and uncomfortable with each other at first.

  "'How was Tule Lake?' I asked him.

  "'No better than Heart Mountain,' he answered.

  "But it changed Bobby, somehow. He was nothing like the young, happy-go-lucky boy swinging the bat that day after the game. He looked old and defeated. It wasn't until we began to talk about baseball that the young Bobby I knew returned. You see. Heart Mountain, Manzanar, Tule Lake, and the rest of the camps were nothing more than prisons. They stole years of our lives away from us, leaving an entire generation of Japanese Americans voiceless."

  Then all we could hear was the rippling water just below us, creating a sleepy, lulling effect. I thought of how the creek flowed down to the river that ran through town, and eventually found its way to the ocean. We both remained quiet as my father's words echoed through the soft evening air and I leaned over and hugged him tightly.

  JOSEPHINE

  A Wish

  Today, I walked home from school rather than taking the bus to ballet lessons. "Mom's going to be mad," Camille warned as she hesitated, then finally boarded the bus by herself. I watched it pull away, leaving the dizzying fumes of exhaust behind. Then I turned down busy, bustling Broadway, passed the clothing shops and the small cafés, the video stores and newsstands. It made me feel calmer, like all the turbulence of life — the crowds and noise and confusion filling the air — was on the outside and I was just watching it all. People moved quickly, scattering like bugs down the crowded street. I took in everything — the square-jawed construction workers who drilled and hammered, a harried mother who pushed her sweet-faced baby by in a stroller, the homeless man who sang and danced then spread open his palm for handouts. I knew Camille would never understand if I tried to explain what I was feeling to her. I didn't quite understand myself. I watched it all from a distance, feeling strangely separate, yet excited by the intricacies of life.

  I started feeling like this a few months ago, when my father came over for my thirteenth birthday dinner and we were all together again. A family. I watched how each one of us hardly noticed the others. It was as if we were all as invisible as the people I saw walking down Broadway were. My parents never once looked at each other across the table. And Camille hardly paused long enough between her eating and talking to realize that no one was even listening to her.

  "What's wrong?" I asked, at first under my breath and then louder. "What's wrong with everyone?" It was as if I couldn't hold the words in.

  My mother looked at me, her fork in midair. "There's nothing wrong," she said, trying to sound convincing.

  My father and Camille just stared at me as if they were watching a movie.

  "We might as well be eating alone the way we all sit here avoiding each other!" I let my fork drop with a loud clink against my plate.

  "What's the problem, Josie?" my father asked, trying to keep his voice even. After all, it was my birthday.

  You are! I wanted to scream. I felt the blood rush to my head, and then it was as if time slowed down again and, when I looked into each of their concerned faces, I realized that I was the one who didn't belong, not them. I stood up, excused myself, and went to my room, even as their voices called after me.

  Later, when my mother came in carrying a tray, I pretended to be studying.

  "I brought you a piece of birthday cake and some milk," she said, setting the tray down on my desk. "Are you okay, Josie?"

  I nodded but didn't say anything. A single yellow candle was pressed into the chocolate frosting.

  "You know you can always talk to me," she continued. "I know it's hard right now with your dad living somewhere else, but it'll get easier, I promise." Her voice sounded small and uncertain.

  For a moment I wanted to throw my arms around her, tell her that I didn't know what was wrong, that I felt strangely out of place no matter where I was or who I was with. But when I looked up into her clear, blue eyes, it was as if I didn't know what to say.

  Mom reached into her pocket and pulled out a pack of matches. With a quick snap of a match, she lit the candle. "Make a wish," she said.

  "It's not my birthday yet," I said, watching the orange flame flicker then continue to burn.

  "You're going to be thirteen, you're entitled to more than one wish." She laughed.

  In one quick motion I blew out the candle, wishing that my life would miraculously change for the better, as the wisp of smoke curled upward and disappeared.

  "Good." She smiled, then she leaned over close to me and I could feel her warm breath against my cheek. "It's going to be okay," she whispered into my ear, kissing my cheek before she pulled away. "Maybe we can go visit Hana sometime soon," she added.

  Then I felt the hot tears pushing against my eyes and I nodded again, because I knew if I said something, the words wouldn't stop. I'd have to tell her that I felt like the loneliest person in the world, and that everyone at school, even Annie, sometimes, thought I was strange. I might even have slipped and told her how angry I was at both Dad and her, making us believe we'd always be a family. But I didn't say anything; I just stopped talking, secretly hoping my wish would come true before I disappeared into myself again.

  CATE

  Dreaming Water

  This morning when I overslept, I was dreaming of Max, but I forgot all about the dream in my rush to see if Hana was all right. Now, in the quiet of the garden, it returns to me like some tender memory. We were a young couple again walking on the white sands of Falcon Beach, six-year-old Hana in a red T-shirt running ahead. Max was tanned and broad-shouldered, so relaxed and confident that I felt shy and tongue-tied. There was so much I wanted to tell him about the three years since he'd been gone, but he leaned over, put his finger to my lips, and then pointed toward Hana.

  "She's doing well," Max said. "I knew she would love being back here at Falcon Beach."

  "As well as can be expected," I said, forever the pessimist, even while dreaming, but the roar of the waves drowned my words out.

  Max leaned closer to me, the warmth of his breath grazing my ear. "She's happy," he added.

  This time I simply agreed. "Yes."

  "Are you happy?"

  "As well as can be expected," I said again, remembering the long nights after his death that I found myself sleepless, compulsively turning on and off the bathroom faucet just to hear the sound of running water. Max had the habit of leaving the faucet running, whether he was brushing his teeth or doing the dishes. "It soothes me," he said, whenever I reminded him to turn it off.

  After Max died, Miles worried about me. "You couldn't help it," he said. "The aneurysm was a time bomb waiting to explode. It could have happened anywhere, at any time."

  Still I kept thinking, if only I hadn't been downstairs cooking when Max had his stroke, if I'd just gone upstairs and checked sooner, I might have called an ambulance in time.

  "Miles is right." In my dream, Max stopped and looked at me. He had read my thoughts, and for a split second I felt violated. But when I looked into his eyes, I saw myself as a sixty-t
wo-year-old woman again, being gazed at with love and longing by a twenty-eight-year-old Max. "I want you always to be happy," he said. "You deserve happiness."

  "I've had happiness." I wanted him to put his arms around me and press his body against mine. And he did.

  Max smiled and pulled gently away to look at me. "You'll have more. Life surprises you when you least expect it to." He pointed to our young Hana again, running in and out of the waves. She was deliriously happy and waved for us to join her.

  Seagulls circled above us. The roar of the ocean grew, drowning out Max's words, though I knew he was speaking to me. I could see his lips moving, the calm, knowing smile I've always loved.

  "What?" I called. "I can't hear what you're saying." I grabbed his arm tighter, anxious now, somehow knowing he was about to leave me.

  Then Max put one arm around my shoulders, pointed again, and it was a grown-up Hana, beautiful and vibrant, running toward us. This was how I had always imagined Hana would look at thirty-eight, free from Werner's syndrome, tall and fresh-faced with her large, clear eyes and lovely dark hair. I wasn't a bit surprised. Without hesitation, I left Max behind and ran toward her.

  * * *

  Max was sixty-three-years old when he died. Toward the end of his life he began to talk more of his days at Heart Mountain, almost fifty-five years before. The memories seemed to flow back into his consciousness with a strange vividness. The camp stories came, sporadic and unexpected, during dinner conversations or on our walks with Hana in the park. It was as if the smallest thing — the smell of rice vinegar or a hot, dry summer day — would spark a memory, a feeling that brought back those three desolate years of heat and cold, the long days of life within the confines of a barbed-wire fence.

  "You know what I dreamed of during all those years I spent at Heart Mountain?" Max asked me suddenly one evening when he and I went for a walk. "I dreamed of water." The fog had rolled in, and there was a fine mist falling. I lifted my collar against the sharp wind. "Even though they pumped water in from the Shoshone River, it never seemed enough to me. Our skin cracked and flaked from the lack of moisture. I couldn't get enough water, drinking it, swimming in it, showering in it, listening to the way the last of it sucked down the drains of the makeshift shower stalls. They even dug a big pit in the ground for a swimming hole. But in the Wyoming desert, those endless summers were so arid and dry. When the wind blew it was like a hot blast from a furnace. Dust was everywhere." He looked at me as if he could feel that heat again. "It's something you can't forget. It burns inside of you."

  "And the winters?" I asked.

  It had begun to rain lightly. Max stopped walking and looked up at the darkening sky. "Bitterly cold. There wasn't any insulation in those tar-paper barracks. We packed newspaper in the cracks, trying to keep out the freezing wind. The five of us slept together on the floor rather than in our separate army issue cots, trying to keep warm with the heat from our bodies."

  I mumbled, "Terrible," under my breath.

  "It was terrible," Max repeated. "Some people died of the cold. Mostly the elderly or the young. They'd close their eyes and never wake, their hearts just stopped. But the summer heat and having that thirst with you day and night was unbearable. You couldn't quench it. I saw it drive one old man mad. One afternoon, he just began running through the compound screaming, 'mizu, mizu.' 'Water, water' rang through the camp. Then he tried to climb over one of the barbed-wire fences near our barracks. I heard two clear shots from one of the guard towers, and the old man dropped. His blood soaked into the dust and stained the ground."

  There was nothing I could say that wouldn't sound frivolous. It began to rain harder and I pulled my coat close, holding tightly to Max's arm as we walked on. It stung me to think that it hadn't been so long ago that I was afraid to walk down the street arm in arm with my own husband.

  There are things you never notice until too late. Or maybe I did notice but simply dismissed it as an idiosyncrasy, a habit accepted along with the vow of "till death do us part." Not until Max had been gone a full year did I recall that he never drank down a glass of water without first licking his lips — an unconscious ritual of appreciation.

  Like Max, Hana loves water. When she was barely three years old he taught her to swim by jumping with her into a neighbor's pool and letting her go. I rushed toward the edge of the pool, but Max held his hand up to stop me from grabbing her. As Hana's head dipped below the surface and she began to sink, I screamed. Then her tiny body suddenly buoyed upward, and her head emerged from the water. Water has never frightened her the way it does me when my feet no longer touch a solid surface. I panic and the struggle sinks me but, even at three, Hana trusted the water to make her float, dog-paddling back up to the glassy surface, where Max was waiting.

  Summer days were spent swimming at the pool or at Falcon Beach until the year she turned twelve and a sudden and powerful fatigue began to plague her. All that early summer Hana was listless, wanting nothing more than to lie on the living room sofa and read or nap. This wasn't the child who usually had enough energy for two people.

  "I thought you wanted me to read more," she retorted when I said she should be playing outside in such gorgeous weather.

  "I want you to do so many things in life," I answered.

  "There's plenty of time," she said, and closed her eyes again.

  Without saying anything, I called Miles to set up an appointment for her. I remember that summer as the real beginning of the end of Hana's childhood.

  I place a dahlia bulb into the hole I've dug, shovel dirt in after it. Buried treasure. Another morning is over and I should be happy with all I've planted, but lately I've begun to wonder if each day will be Hana's last and it sets a dark cloud over everything. I can see Miles shaking his head at me, clicking his tongue and saying, "If you worry about tomorrow, you'll miss today." I smile to think of his unconscious bits and pieces of wisdom. But I know he's right, each day from now on means so much more.

  When the final dahlia bulb is planted, I stand up slowly, feeling an ache in my knees and a kink in the small of my back. It takes a minute before I can stand straight. Another reminder that I'm not getting any younger. A few more years of this and I'll have to buy my flowers at a stand. For now, working in the garden is a part of each day that gives me such pleasure. I pick up the trowel, grab the rake and watering can, and stand there surveying what I've just planted. This bare and skeletal garden will be blooming in a few months' time, and I relish the thought.

  I stretch, arch my back, then glance down at my watch to see it's just about lunchtime. A pot of soup waits on the stove, along with some fresh bread I picked up earlier. I wonder what Hana has been doing with herself. Even if she's unsettled this morning, I know it's important for her to have some time to herself. With our lives so intertwined, we have found our own moments of silence.

  * * *

  I open the back door, stamp my feet three times on the top of the back steps, loosening dirt and pine needles. There's something pressing in the back of my mind, a longing that this not be just another day of waiting. I've lost too many days to the fear of what might happen, what will happen. Hana is going to die. It's a hard and bitter taste to swallow. Oh dear Hana, I think to myself, how do I let you go? When I open the back door, the savory fragrance of vegetable and barley soup wafts from the kitchen. My stomach suddenly growls with hunger. I put down my tools, hang my jacket on the hook, change my shoes, and hurry in to be with her.

  HANA

  Everything Counts

  I'm in the kitchen slicing bread when the back door opens and I can hear my mother stamp her feet three times on the top step before entering and closing the door. Every day when she comes in from gardening, there's a smile of contentment on her face. I can see her in the back porch, where there's the dull clank of her gardening tools as she returns them to the storage closet. She hangs her jacket, tucks her gardening gloves into the left pocket, slips out of her mud-splattered boots into a pair of ol
d brown loafers.

  I decide to make myself useful, since I haven't read or written a word all morning. The soft chants of the monks still hum in my ear, and I stop a moment in front of the refrigerator door to stare at the smiling faces of Josephine and Camille. A spark of regret moves through me, about having turned down Laura's offer to visit. Then I push myself over to the stove and heat the pot of barley and vegetable soup Cate has waiting before slicing some cheese to go with the bread.

  I can't help but think of Mrs. Gravis and how she would sometime become restless in her wheelchair all day. During my first year at Evergreen. I read to Mrs. Gravis for an hour every Tuesday and Thursday. At first she simply sat in her wheelchair and stared at me. The nurse told me to talk to her as if everything were normal. "Mrs. Gravis had a stroke. Her body is paralyzed but her mind isn't. She can't speak to you. but she can hear and understand every word you say to her." I could only imagine then what Mrs. Gravis was going through, isolated within her body.

  "Hello. Mrs. Gravis," was my usual greeting. I felt awkward talking and receiving no response, my voice echoing through her tiny, sterile room and landing flat on the gray linoleum floor. I felt the blood rush to my head, a warm flush coloring my face. I wondered if Mrs. Gravis could feel my fear and embarrassment. The left side of her face drooped slightly from the stroke, but she was still a handsome woman, always immaculately dressed in rose-colored sweater sets and skirts, or a flowered robe with matching slippers. I could see, even when she was ravaged by age and a stroke, that she must have been stunning when she was young. Another thing that set Mrs. Gravis apart from the others at Evergreen was that her room always smelled of lavender, so that if you closed your eyes for one precious moment, you might believe you were sitting in a garden.