Danielle R. Graham - All We Left Behind

A queue of folks who were keen to buy fresh sockeye formed near the Springwater Lodge. Another queue wound up the dock to be tendered out for the tour of the navy ship anchored in Miner’s Bay. The Issei Sun appeared in the distance and chugged in from Active Pass, riding low in the water from their bountiful catch. Once they were close enough to saddle up against the floats, my father tossed the bowline to me. As I was bent over tying the knot to the cleat, a plump, dark-haired woman asked me, ‘Is this your family’s boat?’

‘No ma’am.’

‘Who owns the vessel?’ Her nose wrinkled with disdain at Massey as he climbed down from the wheelhouse and tipped his straw hat.

It peeved me that she looked down her nose at him when she didn’t even know him, and I had to hold my tongue. Massey wasn’t bothered by rude people like that, and he usually found a way to have a little fun with them. He winked at me and replied to her, ‘The vessel is privately owned by a successful businessman from Vancouver, ma’am.’

Both my father and I chuckled at his quick wit.

‘What does Issei mean?’ she addressed my father. ‘It sounds foreign.’

‘It means “first generation”,’ he answered matter-of-factly, before he tied on a rubber apron and turned away from her to open the hatch to the cold storage.

‘In what language?’ she pressed.

She was obviously bigoted, so I hopped on deck and pretended not to hear her. Massey and my father also busied themselves to ignore her. She asked once more to no avail, huffed, but then got in line with everyone else, because – regardless of whether it was a Japanese-owned seiner or not – they all wanted the fresh salmon.

A group of four girls who had been a year younger than Chidori and me at school huddled around each other. They stole giddy glances in my direction and giggled. One of them waved at me, which made the other ones gossip.

Massey elbowed my shoulder. ‘Come on, buddy boy. Give them what they came to see.’

I shook my head to refuse.

‘They’ve been circling around here like turkey vultures all summer, hoping you’ll at least work in your undershirt.’

‘Unless I slip and fall overboard, they’re going to be waiting an awfully long time.’

‘Showing off some muscle could be good for business.’ With a chuckle he shoved me over the railing into the water.

When I surfaced and pushed my hair back from my face, both my father and Massey doubled over in laughter. The group of girls were also thoroughly amused. I pulled myself back onto the boat, but I wasn’t interested in showing off for anyone other than Chidori, so I left my soaking wet shirt on out of principle. And defiance. Massey’s big palm slapped my shoulder again to josh me. I ignored the goading and got to work.

The hull was filled and overflowing onto the deck with crushed ice and hundreds of salmon. I rolled my sleeves and hooked the thick and slick fish with a pike pole, then threw them to Massey one at a time. In a perfectly timed rhythm, he turned and chucked them at my father, who laid them out on a long, ice-covered wood sales plank on the dockside of the boat. Eventually the load in the hull lowered enough that I had to drop down the hatch into the marine cold storage to toss up the rest.

Even without seeing me working shirtless, customers enthusiastically scooped up the fish and passed over their fists-full of money until the hull was completely empty two hours later. About a dozen folks at the end of the line had to go home empty-handed and disappointed.

I reached up over my head and pulled myself out of the hull, smelling like salt and seaweed. And shivering from working on the ice in wet clothes. Massey removed his gloves and tossed my father a cola bottle as I stepped into the warm sunshine. He was about to toss me one too, but I waved him off. ‘I can’t stay.’

‘You got a date?’ Massey teased.

‘I’m working on it,’ I said.

The humour faded from his expression as he nodded and took a sip of the cola. Then he glanced at me with some sort of knowingness or cautionary tale.

‘What?’ I asked as my gaze shifted back and forth between him and my father.

Massey shrugged but didn’t say anything. He was like that – wise with both life experience and book smarts, but he never lectured or imposed his opinions. In fact, he was unintrusive to an annoying degree. One time, when I was about fourteen years old, I had loaded up a skiff with engine parts for his boat and the whole damn thing sank. Massey knew it was too much weight but didn’t stop me. He just sat there and watched the ordeal happen without saying a word. I was so hot under the collar. Partly because I’d have to buy him another engine pump. Partly because I didn’t know how I was going to get the skiff and the other parts off the bottom of the ocean. But mostly I was mad because – if he had just said something – he could have saved me all the trouble. He claimed that telling me the answers didn’t help me learn, making mistakes did. Then he chuckled at how fuming angry I was, which sent me into a rage. I had to walk away and didn’t go back to salvage the skiff for a week. They were both thoroughly entertained that day too, but at least they helped me winch everything out of the water.

Massey’s hands-off teaching philosophy didn’t sit well with me then, and I still didn’t agree with his methods. Probably because I was too hot-tempered for his learn-the-hard-way lessons. But admittedly I never overloaded a skiff again.

Despite obviously having an opinion about my dating endeavours with his niece, he wasn’t going to tell me what he thought. I studied his expression for another few seconds to see if it would reveal any clues about what lesson he thought I should be aware of. All he did was flick his eyebrows and hand me my cash earnings for the day, so I hopped over the railing to head over to Chidori’s house. ‘It’s been a blast. See you all later.’

In the morning, the kind German nurse brought a tray with a bun and a small piece of cheese to my cot. The name written on her badge was I. Gottschalk. I didn’t know what the I stood for, but I called her Inga and she responded. She smiled warmly, then took trays to the other fellows in the hospital dormitory. The Canadian pilot on the cot next to me was awake.

‘ Bonjour ,’ he said and bit into his bun.

‘Hi.’

‘ Est-ce que tu parles français? ’

‘No, sorry.’

‘Is okay. Is easier for me with the French. But I speak English. Un peu. You have a terror in the night I think.’

It was mildly embarrassing that everyone likely heard my nightmare startle me awake, but there was nothing I could do about that. ‘Sorry if I disturbed you.’

‘Is okay. We all have had the terrors.’ He pointed at my feet. ‘You are burned?’

‘Yes. How about you?’ I asked before I took a sip of water.

He pulled down the shoulder of his hospital gown and revealed a chest injury covered in dressing. ‘Impaled when …’ he whistled and used his hand to pantomime jumping out of an airplane.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Michel. From Montreal. And you?’ He leaned over to shake my hand.

‘Hayden. I’m from Mayne Island in British Columbia. How long have you been here?’

‘Three weeks.’ He glanced at the door where a guard stood, then lowered his voice, ‘I will be trying for staying a long time because is no good to be in the camp for prisoners I think.’

‘Have you heard what to expect?’

‘No, but the head nurse tries to be keeping us here for a long time. She has compassion. She must be knowing it is no good.’

I nodded and took an inventory of the other patients in the dormitory. Mostly British airmen, three American flyboys and at least fifteen other Canadians besides Michel and me. One fellow was in a coma and probably wasn’t going to make it. One fellow had a broken leg and one was burned like me. His burns were worse – his eyes and nose were melted into a disfigured blob. The dormitory reeked rancid like rotting flesh. The nurses had tried to cover up the putridness with bleach, but it lingered.