Fumi wasn’t scared of American soldiers anymore.
Before the war, her teacher had told them horrifying stories about how after catching you, the Americans would gouge out your eyes, slit open your belly, and butcher you like a goat—even if you were a child. Never let yourself be captured, they were told; better to commit suicide than be taken prisoner. One boy had asked how they should kill themselves, but the teacher avoided specifics and said that when the time came, the adults would tell them how to die.
Fumi couldn’t imagine herself dying, so being told to take her own life didn’t scare her. However, an intense fear of American soldiers had been planted in her heart. Some of the boys had enjoyed scaring the girls by describing how American soldiers ate children’s livers or kidnapped women and carried them off to America. As a result, when the war started and some American soldiers found Fumi and her family hiding in a cave in the woods, she felt weak in the knees and couldn’t move. A dozen other families from the same village were also in the cave. Fumi was with her grandparents, her mother, and her two younger brothers, aged seven and four. Her father and older brother weren’t with them because they’d been conscripted into the Defense Corps, the local militia.
As Fumi rode piggyback on her grandfather down the hill through the woods, she covered her face with her hands, so she wouldn’t see the American soldier walking beside them. When he tapped her on the shoulder and tried to hand her something, she flinched, turned away, and clung to her grandfather. The villagers were rounded up in the open space used for festivals. Fumi thought that that’s where they’d all be killed.
After her grandfather set her down, she and her terrified younger brothers clung to the hem of her mother’s kimono and watched what was happening. A soldier who could speak Japanese was going around and writing down the names of everyone in each family. The soldiers on the perimeter had rifles slung over their shoulders, but they didn’t point them at the villagers; they just stood around smoking and chatting in groups of twos or threes. Some of the soldiers offered cigarettes to the older villagers, but nobody accepted. Others tried to hand something that looked like candy to the children, but all of them refused—and hid behind their mothers.
When a truck arrived about an hour later, Fumi and her family were loaded on the back and taken to an internment camp set up in another village on the island. Over the several weeks they spent there, Fumi’s fear of American soldiers turned to familiarity.
Far from harming the camp residents, as her teacher had warned, the soldiers gave them food and cared for the sick and wounded. Residents from all six villages on the island were put in the same camp, and by the time Fumi and her family arrived, about four hundred people were already living there in large tents or the houses that hadn’t burned down. Some villagers were returned émigrés from Hawaii who could speak English; together with the American interpreter, they explained the rules and routines of the camp to the newcomers.
After Fumi and her family were given simple medical exams and dusted with a disinfectant powder, two American soldiers and a male returnee brought them to the tent where other families from their village were living. Here, for the first time in her life, Fumi tasted chocolate, which was handed to her by a Caucasian soldier about twice as big as her father. She never imagined anything could taste so delicious. Most of the American soldiers were fond of passing out sweets. Within a few days, Fumi was continually pestering them—just like all the other children.
A soldier named Tony often showed up at Fumi’s tent, perhaps as one of his duties. He was fond of Fumi and always brought chocolate and canned food. When Fumi sang for him, Tony sat on the ground and listened with great pleasure. One of the village men who could speak some English explained that Tony was twenty-one and had a sister about Fumi’s age.
Whenever the boys in the camp saw Tony, they would laugh and jeer:
—Tani, Tani! Magi Tani!
Tony, who couldn’t possibly have known that in Okinawan tani meant “penis” and magi meant “big,” always turned to the boys with a friendly smile. Fumi was furious, but too embarrassed to say anything.
The Japanese forces on the island had abandoned their positions along the coast even before the Americans had intensified their bombing. Retreating to higher ground, they entrenched themselves in the caves scattered throughout the woods of the island, only ten kilometers in circumference. Ten days after the American landing, they lost the will to fight and surrendered.
The islanders had diverse views of the Japanese soldiers, who were confined in a separate part of the camp. Some looked upon the emaciated, unshaven figures with sympathy; others scorned them for having spoken with such bravado, only to have been so easily defeated and taken prisoner. Fumi couldn’t have cared less; she was just happy to be alive.
The one thing that weighed on Fumi’s mind was the fate of her older brother. Her father was reunited with the family in the camp, but they had no idea what had become of her brother, who had moved to the main Okinawan island with the Japanese army. The war in the northern half was over, but in the south, a fierce battle raged on, day after day.
After about a month in the camp, Fumi and her family returned to their village. Forbidden to leave the island and relying on
