looked to Hiroshi and Keiko but they did not know what was happening any more than I did. Hiroshi sat down on the bench against the wall and waited. Keiko looked from Mother to Father and was about to speak. But before she could get a word out, we were told why the adults had been waiting silently for us to come down the hill.
My father, who had two sons, had made the decision to give me away. I was to be given to Okuma-san, the man from the end of the row, who lived alone and had never been fortunate enough to have a son of his own to carry on his family name. He had come to collect me, and it was then that I was told that my surname would no longer be Oda, and that I would be taking the Okuma name as my own.
Keiko burst into tears and was crying loudly. Hiroshi banged his bucket to the table, spilling the raspberries he’d picked, over its surface. I stared at the berries because they were rolling in slow motion to the edge of the table and dropping to the floor, one by one. Hiroshi, after this outburst, opened his mouth but seemed at a loss, because no words came out. He slammed the door and disappeared outside.
As for me, I knew now why I hadxd been given the extra dessert. My parents had known the entire day what was going to happen. And no matter how much I wept, no matter how much my mother and Keiko wept, I was sent out of the house of my family and moved to the home of my second father. The man I thought to be old, the man who owned an entire shelf of books that had pages of notes, and who was quietly known to everyone as Great Bear.
TOMORROW’S WIND
CHAPTER 18
Okuma-san did not raise his voice, nor did he threaten. He spoke softly, with an evenness of tone I was not accustomed to. He told me that I would be able to play with my brother and sister as before, and they could visit me whenever they wished. We would all be back in school when classes resumed the following week, and we would see one another every day.
I knew that Hiroshi and Keiko would be at school, but they would be with the older students in grades five to eight, on the other side of the divided classroom. I was in grade two, on the side of the room that held grades one to four. I would see my brother and sister only at recess and lunchtime. After school, they would be doing their chores—water-carrying for Hiroshi, while Keiko had to set the table and help with the cooking. We would all have homework; I would be doing mine at Okuma-san’s. I still did not know what was expected of me there.
There were fifty-two children in our school now, and three teachers. One of the teachers, who had a university degree, volunteered to work with the boys and girls of high school age. The students who would be graduating at the end of the school year were going to be permitted, for the first time, to write their final exams at the town high school across the river. Until now, they’d had to write exams by correspondence.
I liked my own teacher, Miss Mori. She had taught me the previous year, as well, and she knew that Keiko had helped me learn to read and print before I’d started school. Miss Mori sometimes asked me to draw pictures on the blackboard, and she let me use some of her precious supply of chalk. I wondered if Miss Mori would say something about my name changing from Oda to Okuma on the attendance sheet. I hoped that one of my fathers had let her know before classes were to begin.
I knew that Mother was spending time at Uncle Aki’s house in the afternoons because Auntie Aya was not able to look after the work by herself. Sometimes, she stayed in bed all day. On good days, she sat outside the doorway. Some days, she tried to cook; other days, she did not. She liked the catalogues that arrived in the mail, both Eaton’s and Simpson’s, and she kept them by her side and read them as if they were storybooks. She lingered over the pages that had pictures of babies and baby furniture and clothing, and there was always a sadness about her.
The first day I spent at Okuma-san’s, he prepared our meals and set two places. He asked me to sit opposite him at the table, on a bench that had been hammered together from pieces of pine. I sat, but I had no appetite. I ate no breakfast or lunch, nor did I want food ever again. He did not seem surprised.
In the evening, when it was time for our supper, he said, “Perhaps tomorrow your appetite will come back. Would you like to look at a book while I am having my meal? There is a book on the chair for you, over there. You might not have seen this one before. I know you have learned to read, and I can help you if there are big words that are difficult.”
I shook my head and did not look towards the book or the chair. I had seen few books since we’d arrived at the camp, except for the ones lined up on a shelf at the back of our classroom. I did not feel like looking at a book now. I wanted only to return home. I missed the cooking smells in my real home, and I missed the calming presence of Mother and the way she silently looked out for me. I wondered what my own father was doing at that moment.
“Some other evening, then,” said Okuma-san, still speaking softly. “There are many more books.” He gestured towards the shelves. “They will be waiting for you.”
I did not look at the place he was gesturing, but this did not seem to bother him either.
“I am going outside for a walk,” he said. “I will leave a snack on the table in case you become hungry later.”
When he had finished eating, he went outside, and I watched as he crossed the dirt road and began to walk slowly up and down the rows between garden plots. While he was gone, and with an eye to the door, I lifted the cover from a plate he had left on the table. It held a small trout, a slice of tomato and some cabbage. Beside it was a bowl of rice. I ate quickly and finished before he came back.
He looked at the bones on my plate.
I picked up my chopsticks and poked at the bones and found little pads of trout in the cheeks, like miniature hidden scallops.
The next morning, I ran to my own house and stood in the doorway. I knew that First Father would be out in the gardens with the other men, harvesting and packing, preparing tomatoes for pickup by trucks that would come from across the river to take the flats back over the bridge—some to the town cannery and some to the railway station, where they would be loaded onto a train. The communal gardens in our camp had become known in only two years, and there was a steady market for our produce. The people of Vancouver wanted good tomatoes that grew fat and red and abundantly.
Everyone in camp who was able to work had to put in extra hours during harvest time, picking tomatoes and filling the big red pails. I could read the print on the sides: BURNS’ SHAMROCK PURE LARD. After each pail was filled, it was carried to the end of a row and the tomatoes were dumped gingerly into the flats. Tomatoes had become the main source of income in our camp, and everyone had to take care that the ones that did not go to the cannery were not bruised during packing. At this time of year, people were extra busy because individual family plots had to be tended as well.
Mother was standing by the stove when I opened the door. She was wearing a loose summer dress patterned with overlapping ovals of a soft grey colour, and a red apron overtop. On her feet were open-heeled slippers that First Father had woven from straw. He had made a pair for each of us the first winter so we wouldn’t get slivers in our feet from the plank floor.
I could smell
