Requiem

Taro died and we searched the ashes for his teardrop shape. No sign of the funeral pyre, or of graves in the woods. No sign that elders died, that children played and shouted, that Ba waited for letters from Manzanar, or that Ying drove his truck to camp every week and laughing women gave orders for chimpo sausage. No sign that Mother wept, that First Father raged, that Hiroshi and Keiko and I and all of the others, young and old, had to set aside our dreams and our hopes.

I look up now, to the flat Bench where we picked berries on summer evenings. The camp was hemmed tightly between road and Bench here, the mountain rising up behind. But I’m astonished to see, beyond that, a second mountain behind the first. Another mountain was there all this time and I didn’t know, because I was too small to see. All those years and the mountain behind the mountain could not be seen.

I tug my shoulder pack from the car, lock the door, cross the road and search for the trail that leads to the river below. Basil, sometimes in front, sometimes behind, has no difficulty following the steep path. He is remarkably stable with his low centre of gravity and his large feet and claws.

There is the gravel bar. There are the jagged rocks, the muddy green water. I don’t need to look, not really. The river, the mind’s companion—fast and hard and unrelenting—is where it has always been.

There is no mist hovering, no rope of cloud stretched along its length. The small island, in the middle of the channel, has eroded along the edge but otherwise is much the same. I sit on the flat rock on the riverbank and open my pack. I should have brought Lena here a long time ago. I should have shared this place with her. I’ll bring Greg. We’ll manage a trip before long. And when he’s with me, we’ll keep going, all the way to the Pacific, to the coastal village on Vancouver Island where I was born, even though the house is gone. Or maybe we’ll start at the sea and work our way back. For now, this has to be enough.

From my pack, I pull out the manila folder that has Lena’s signature written across the cover. I begin to leaf through papers, copies of documents she was never able to persuade me to read. The ones from the archives. The ones with whole paragraphs censored and blacked out.

But Lena has highlighted lines of her own in faded blue, and these I can read.

—The file reveals that no crosscut saw was inventoried.

—The file reveals that no sewing machine was located.

—The file reveals no mention of a grandfather clock.

—When the area was visited by officials sent to appraise the property, no property could be identified at the location described.

—As you did not reply to our letter, it was understood that you agreed to the $8 value of the skiff, which was sold.

—The fishing vessel previously owned by you was sold through the Japanese Fishing Vessels Disposal Committee, the vessel having been requisitioned by Naval Service.

—Supervision costs of $41.50 have been charged to you. An additional $68.90 has also been withheld to cover possible repairs, and has been deducted from the sale price.

And the ultimate, repetitive replies to persistent requests after the war, also highlighted by Lena: The items found on the property were declared to be of no value.

I cram the papers back into the folder. Basil is joyously splashing, running from water to riverbank, from riverbank to water. I step down to the edge and raise my arms and I hear Lena’s voice.

You’re drowning your history, Bin. Think about it. This is your own history.

And I reply, “But maybe this is the way I can, finally, for all time, get rid of the ghosts.”

I pause for a moment, and then I let the folder fly. Papers scatter on the waves and bob and swirl as they rush downriver. The same direction as the body of the small boy who drowned and disappeared during the last year of the war.

Back up the bank now, I sprawl out on the rock shelf where Mother once sat in the sun. I take out the wooden box given to me by my own beloved son. I take out a charcoal pencil and the pad that has the thickest paper and I begin to draw. It is like naming, I think. And Lena’s voice says, Yes, but which name? You, for instance, have had so many.

I look around at the mountains and at the turbulent river rushing past on its long journey to the coast. I inhale the air, cool and clear. I think of the people I love and have loved, living and dead, and I think of the camp that once existed here but is nothing but shadows now, and I decide: REQUIEM. That will be the name of my exhibition. I’ll phone Nathan and Otto later this afternoon, and I’ll let them know so that they can get things moving at their end.

I focus on my drawing now. And listen to the soft, scratchy, satisfying sound of charcoal against paper. I look up, and then down again. This is what I have always known. This is what river is.

There is a familiar sound behind me, the crunch of footsteps on the trail. At first, I don’t look back, and then, as the noise becomes louder, I stand and face the path. Basil, alert, is at my side. First Father is wearing old fishing clothes and rubber boots; Uncle Kenji, his brother, is right behind him. They lumber down the path like two bears who have had no guidance in subtlety. Uncle Kenji’s face is unreadable. First Father speaks my name.

“Bin,” he says, and he moves towards me.

Do I take a step back? First Father’s voice an echo, a warp through time.

“We’re staying across the river,” he says. “We’re on our way home, and there’s only one hotel in town. Keiko called to say you might be here today or tomorrow, so we drove this far and watched for a car at the camp. We booked a room at the hotel for you, just one night. We’ll leave for Kamloops in the morning. Is that your hound?”

His hand grips my shoulder. I feel the warmth of his fingers pressing down.

“We caught fish,” says Uncle Kenji, determined to fill the spaces. “We were out on the boat. At sea again. You’ll have to come with us next time. And bring your boy. We haven’t met your boy.”

First Father is still a large man. Stooped, but not frail. Never frail. He doesn’t bother to wipe the tears that are streaming down his face.

I move towards him. Both of his arms pulling me in. A son, after all. Again. A father, a son.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

On the subject of the expulsion and internment of approximately 21,000 Japanese Canadians and 114,000 Japanese Americans (total numbers on the West Coast at the time of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, December 1941, being approximately 22,000 and 120,000, respectively), I would like to acknowledge some books in particular, though my entire library on this subject contributed to background knowledge. Justice In Our Time by Roy Miki and Cassandra Kobayashi; Democracy Betrayed by the National Association of Japanese Canadians; The Politics of Racism by Ann Gomer Sunahara; Nikkei Legacy: The Story of Japanese Canadians from Settlement to Today by Toyo Takata; the very moving Teaching in Canadian Exile by Frank Moritsugu and The Ghost Town Teachers Historical Society; Manzanar by John Armor and Peter Wright, photographs by Ansel Adams and commentary by John Hersey; Spirit of the Nikkei Fleet: BC’s Japanese Canadian Fishermen by Masako Fukawa, Stanley Fukawa and the Nikkei Fishermen’s History Book Committee; Japanese Proverbs by Otoo Huzii, Board of Tourist Industry 1940, Japanese Government Railways; Sleeping Tigers, a National Film Board of Canada documentary; various issues of Nikkei Voice. I thank members of the second and third generations, Nisei and Sansei— including family members—who agreed to be interviewed and told their stories to help me understand the impact of the experiences endured between 1941 and 1950. I’m especially grateful to my late mother-in-law, Sumako (Oye) Itani, who, in interview, many years ago, unflinchingly recounted her experiences as a young woman uprooted from her home on Canada’s West Coast.