Frances Itani - Requiem

In the evenings, after working on the shacks, the men met and made a plan to set aside a large field area across the dirt road, on the river side, so that by late spring the snagged tumbleweed could be burned off and communal gardens could be started, as well as an allotment strip for each family. Beyond the wide portion designated for growing vegetables, a steep cliff hung over the river below. Rules were made. Young children were not permitted past the garden plots because of the danger of falling from this great height into the river. Older children were assigned to watch over the young.

There was much discussion about how the vital garden space would be irrigated, because it had become apparent that we were stuck in a place that had arid, sandy soil. A number of experienced farmers who were interned in the camp were certain that tomatoes would grow well here. The men had been warned by the man who was leasing the land where we now lived—and who came by from time to time—that the growing season was not a long one, but the summers were extremely hot. Again, plans were made, this time to repair a damaged flume that was already on the site. Never short of ideas, the men were eventually able to divert water through a system of long wooden pipes with homemade filters. Cold, clear water rushed down from small mountain currents and from dammed streams into holding tanks and out the pipes again. This water was used for garden plots, and any extra for laundry and bathing. Every once in a while, someone hauled out a fat rainbow trout, caught in the pipes, caught between filters. A shout would be heard, and someone would pull out a trout and take it home for his dinner.

In the midst of all the planning and building, there was visiting back and forth, tent to tent, tent to shack. If the sun was strong, neighbours gathered outside. I sat on a low three-legged stool Father had nailed together, and tried to stay out of his way because he always seemed to be in a temper. Sometimes I created pictures in the dirt with a stick; sometimes I drew with a finger against my knee and traced images. All the while, I was paying attention to what people had to say because everyone had a different story to tell. The community—for that’s what we were becoming—was trying to piece together details of what had happened. To ourselves and to every other person of Japanese ancestry who lived on the West Coast. A mail system was now in place. Letters addressed to the camp, already heavily censored, arrived by train in town and were driven across the bridge and dropped off in a mailbag. Camp mail was sorted on our side of the river. Letters came in from the stalls at Hastings Park in Vancouver, where friends had been left behind, from separated family members in other camps in the interior of the province, and from as far south as California. Letters also arrived from Angler, a prisoner-of-war camp in Ontario. Surprising as it seemed, and despite the number of internment camps that had sprung up in the United States and Canada, some people believed that we were in the camp under a temporary arrangement. They were certain we’d be sent back to the homes we’d been forced to leave. Others said that the worst was yet to come.

“This is the story of the two-dresser set,” said Ba, and we settled around the stove to listen—as many of us as could squeeze in.

Most sat on the floor. The woodcarver whittled away at a stick of wood, and dropped the shavings into a carpenter’s apron spread over his lap.

Ba and Ji were our neighbours now. They were an elderly couple whose shack had been completed before ours, just a few feet away. Elders and people with babies moved into their places first, followed by families with young children. Uncle Aki and Auntie Aya’s place was also finished, and they lived directly behind us, in the second row. Auntie Aya was seldom seen outside, and Uncle Aki told us she was resting in bed because she was always tired. She was vulnerable to cold and infection, Mother said, and she did not have the energy to be outside in the mountain air for hours at a time.

Everyone was welcome in Ba and Ji’s shack. Ba and Ji had owned a store in Vancouver before being detained, and they were used to having people drop by. And people wanted to hear their stories. The old couple knew more than almost everyone else about recent events in the outside world. Unlike most of us after Pearl Harbor, they had not been forced into the cattle stalls of Hastings Park. Because they were already living in the city, they had not been on the early list for removal. Not like those of us from the fishing villages along the coast. Ba and Ji were registered and fingerprinted in Vancouver and were forced to obey curfew and carry IDs, but they had been allowed to stay in their home a bit longer. Eventually, they were sent to the camp along with everyone else.

As a measure of respect, our parents told us that we must address them as Ba and Ji, even though they were not our grandparents and we were not related. They had raised a daughter, Sachi, who had married a Japanese American and was living in California. But Ba was worried. She had heard about the curfew and removal of Japanese Americans from the coast of Washington, Oregon and California. So far, Sachi had not sent any news.

Ba was the natural storyteller of the two. The skin on her face was tissue-paper thin and moved in crinkles as she talked.

“This is the story of our two-dresser set,” she said again. She had told it over and over, to anyone who would listen.

“We had our store for thirty-two years.” And she nodded because that was the truth. “We raised our child in the upstairs rooms and she helped out after school while she was growing up. The store paid for her education. Sachi went to university,” she added, proudly. “And then, she left home and wanted to travel, so she moved to California. While she was there, she met a man who was studying engineering. They were married in Vancouver, and we were happy that our family was getting bigger. It was the way things should be. We knew when she brought Tom home to meet us that he was very smart. And because there were three sons in his family and none in ours, he took our name when he married Sachi so that our family name would be carried on. A good man,” she said.

“But after Sachi had left home, we no longer needed the upstairs rooms, so we rented them to a young couple. I don’t know which camp that young couple was sent to. After they moved in upstairs, Ji and I lived in two rooms at the back of the store, at ground level. Inside the store, we had a wood stove in one corner, and three benches near the stove. The old men came by in the morning to sit around and gossip with Ji. And argue,” she said. “They gossiped and argued and played cards and had a lot to say about the world. They never ran out of things to say.

“And then, after Pearl Harbor”—there was a pause here—”they still came, but this time they were cautious. Some were confused. I was always listening because I was behind the counter, wiping shelves, cleaning up, serving people who came in. Who had disappeared since the day before? Was there any news? What was happening? Everyone knew that the younger men had been rounded up. Anyone between eighteen and forty-five. That’s what we heard, and we became worried about the sons of our friends, all the young men we knew. Some of them were angry about the discrimination and they escaped, and police called them delinquents, and they were rounded up again and placed in custody or sent to prison camps in Ontario. We were also worried about our son-in-law in California, because everything was happening quickly and we knew that American camps were being set up.

“And then one day, we realized that the police had begun to watch our store. They treated us as if we were running a meeting place for spies. Every day, the police strolled by in pairs. They walked past the front door, pretending to be casual, and then they turned around suddenly and charged in as if they expected to uncover a secret operation. We laughed about this every time. Ji and his friends just blinked and became silent while the police snooped around. The old men got up off the benches and went back to their homes. But one by one, even the old men were taken away. And then it was Ji’s turn, and the police came for him and put him in detention. I didn’t see him again until it was time to board the train.