A Girl Like You: A Novel Part 4

She fights her way through it. "As if I give a d.a.m.n," she says to Artie. "Sure, it's tough, but not as tough as it is for the j.a.panese kids. They're getting it bad."

"We're gonna whip you good," the boys threaten them. "Don't you j.a.ps know you can't beat Americans?"

"We are Americans." But their words are drowned in waves of jeering laughter.

"Looking like the enemy doesn't make them the enemy," Satomi insists to Lily. "Don't let me see you joining in the baiting."

To her own surprise, coming across the school bully Mike Loder, who is twisting the arm of a j.a.panese girl who hasn't made way for him in the hall, she finds herself ready, wanting to act.

Mike's voice is high, pumped up with a venomous hatred. He is so full of himself that he might as well be thumping his chest with his fists. Look at how important I am compared to you.

"Stand aside next time, j.a.p. Get it?" He is leering into the girl's face, his own fat one shining with sweat and excitement.

"Why should she, Mike? You stand aside." Satomi grabs at his shirt, pulling him away from the girl. "What's so special about you?"

"Keep out of this. Keep your half-caste nose out of it." He shoves her hard so that she stumbles, hitting the side of a locker, grazing her arm, and banging her cheekbone on its metal edge.

After, she can't remember how it happened, what had propelled her fist into Mike's face, or the pain she felt when he returned the blow. She remembers, though, feeling good, not caring that she is in for it with Mr. Beck. Something about her action, her getting involved, has made her feel that she is safe in her own hands.

Aaron, checking the bruises on her cheek, the raw graze on her arm, says it's no big deal.

"You've had worse," he says. "Still, that kid needs a lesson."

Next day she is embarra.s.sed to see him at the school gates.

"Start walking home, girl. I'll catch you up in the truck."

Outside the gate she waits and sees him b.u.t.tonhole Mike Loder, hears his voice steady and menacing.

"See this fist, boy?"

"Yes, Mr. Baker." Mike's pigeon eyes look wary, his voice little more than a squeak.

"You touch my girl again, any girl, you're gonna see it close up."

Mike hangs his head, studying the ground, shucking his foot against a broken bit of asphalt. He thinks he might just kick out, get a good hit at Old Man Baker's shin before running off. He's not sure he can pull that off, though, and he has had enough of mixing it with the Bakers.

"Tell your father to come and see me if he's got a problem with that," Aaron calls to Mike's retreating back.

Hanging a left at the gate, Mike glares at her but he doesn't say anything. He doesn't say anything at home either. His brothers would only sneer at him for letting a girl get a punch in.

Even Mr. Beck has caught the fear. "I'm pretty sure there's going to be a war," he tells the cla.s.s. "But you don't need to worry none. It won't take long to see them off. We've got right on our side and no j.a.ps are going to set foot on American soil."

He attempts to keep his voice from shaking and fails. He is a patriot, after all, and loves his country. "We all love America," he says, not looking at Satomi's bruised face, or at the j.a.panese students who sit in his cla.s.s with blank expressions and lowered eyes.

"Guess Mr. Beck doesn't like you so much anymore," Lily whispers, hoping that soon it will be the same with Artie.

After his little speech, Mr. Beck keeps Satomi in with the pretense of talking to her about her grades.

"You have to understand," he says, warily looking around before offering her a cigarette, staring at her in that squirm-making way. "You're gonna have to choose where you stand. I'd cut any ties you have with the j.a.panese if I were you."

She takes the cigarette and he lights it for her with a proprietary air. He'd like to be the one to always light her cigarettes.

"You want me to cut ties with my mother, Mr. Beck?"

"Well, no, of course I didn't mean that. I just meant you should choose your friends carefully."

"Are you my friend, Mr. Beck?" Her heartbeat amps up a notch, it seems too bold a thing to ask.

"I'd like to be." He touches her cheek lightly, leaning in so that she can smell his sweat, see the moisture beading above his top lip.

"Well, if you are, then I reckon you shouldn't make out like we're the enemy."

"We?"

"Us j.a.ps."

She's judging him, ticking him off. He's a little amused, stirred by her. It's been a long time since a woman got pert with him. But he can't favor her anymore, the time is coming when he will have to kill his desire for the girl, stop keeping her in his sights. She isn't the only one who must choose who to play with.

As things worsen between the United States and j.a.pan, Angelina closes ranks. What few friendships some of the locals have enjoyed with their j.a.panese neighbors go stone cold, as though they had never been.

Tamura, painfully sensitive to people's att.i.tudes, refuses to go into town. She misses her outings with Satomi but she feels safer at home.

"I'll go when things simmer down," she promises. "No point in asking for trouble."

While they wait for things to simmer down, Satomi picks up the provisions after school, not pausing for the grocery clerk to say thank you, which he rarely does, and then only when from habit it slips out. She stares down those who are rude to her, never the first to look away. She holds her head up at the overt name-calling, wanting to smash them all, to put her fists into their smug faces as she had into Mike Loder's. She minds for herself, but cares more for her mother.

"Who in their right mind could think of my mother as the enemy?" she asks Lily. "I mean, Tamura Baker, j.a.panese spy, can you see it?"

"Well, I guess some might, not me, of course, but some," Lily answers half heartedly. "I guess it'll pa.s.s soon enough," she adds without conviction.

"Can't say it surprises me," Aaron says. "It comes on the back of a century of hate for Orientals. They're just plain scared, and now that j.a.pan is playing up, they're telling themselves that they were right all along."

The Stars and Stripes begin to flutter on every porch. The talk is all of patriotism and keeping America safe for Americans.

"They can wrap themselves in the flag as much as they like," Aaron says. "It don't make them more American than us."

For Tamura, the thought that Aaron might be taken from her fills her with fear. She can't imagine her life without him. She has forgotten what it is to be herself in the world. So it comes as a shock when at breakfast one morning he appears in a clean shirt and his kept-for best pants, and, as though it has just occurred to him out of the blue, tells them casually that he is going to volunteer that very day.

"I'm not waiting on some guy I've never met to crook his finger and tell me to up sticks."

"But Aaron, it may never happen. Even if there is a war, they are going to need farmers to keep the land going. Please don't go, wait a bit. Wait for a couple of months at least."

"Look, Tamura, it will be best for us all if I'm one of the first to volunteer. They can hardly feel bad about you and Satomi if I'm out there doing my duty, now, can they? Wherever they send me, it will likely only be for a few months."

It's the only time that Satomi has heard her parents arguing, although it is more like pleading on Tamura's part. Aaron, though, is not to be swayed, not even by her mother's tears. For herself she can't help feeling a run of excitement at the idea of life without Aaron on her case.

It upsets Aaron seeing Tamura so anxious, but he just can't bear the idea of being summoned by a higher authority to do their bidding. The way things are moving they are going to get him one way or the other anyway. He might as well make sure that it's his way.

He volunteers for the Navy, a strange choice, Satomi thinks, for a farmer, but then you can never second-guess Aaron.

Tamura isn't surprised. "Your father has always loved boats, loved being near the water," she says. "Hawaii does that to you."

In the week before he leaves, he stacks the woodshed to the roof with logs, cleans out the well, and adds Tamura's name to the bank account.

"You two will manage fine," he says. "The best part of the harvest is in, after all. And Satomi, I expect you to pull your weight, help your mother."

Tamura watches Aaron walk down the path, not slowing, not looking back, as he swings onto the road. While he's still in her sights she feels lonely. She stays at the window long after the dust from his heels has settled back to earth, as though he might think better of it and turn for home.

Satomi watches him too, thinking how Aaron being one of the first to volunteer will shut the kids up at school.

"See your father's still at home," she will say. "Guess he's not ready to fight for America, huh?"

"Don't cry, Mama," she soothes, putting her arm around Tamura. He'll be back before you know it. And I'm still here."

Aaron had talked himself into the idea that he was doing something grand, something that would involve muscle and guns, but before he knows it, he finds himself back in Hawaii as a battleship cook. He can't work out how that happened. He had written Hawaii as his birthplace on the Navy forms, adding beneath it that for personal reasons it was the only posting he didn't want.

Tamura laughs through her tears. As far as she is aware, Aaron has never cooked a thing in his life.

"How can he be a cook? Your father has never made himself a meal, never even brewed his own coffee."

"Guess the crew will find that out soon enough," Satomi says, doubled up with laughter. The thought of her father peeling vegetables and making omelets is just ridiculous.

In his first letter home, although it wasn't to be read on the page, both wife and daughter sensed Aaron's regret at his decision to enlist.

Life in the ship's galley is a sight easier than that of a farmer. The food's not bad although the tomatoes that have to be chopped by the sack full aren't a patch on ours. They have no scent, nothing of the earth about them. The ship has the same problem with rats as we do, only they're bigger here, less scared of humans. Two days in and we were all taken off board while they fumigated the holds and cabins with poisonous gas. They say two whiffs of the stuff can fell a man, so I'm not breathing deep for a while.

He writes that Hawaii seems different to him, not the least bit like home anymore.

I don't intend looking up family. No point in dredging up dirt, so you needn't worry on that score. In any case guys get moved on all the time, I'm hoping not to be stationed here for long.

Tamura had harbored a faint hope that Aaron, back in their old territory, might relent, try to make amends with their families.

"I should have known," she says to Satomi. "Your father wasn't built for bending."

His letters begin to arrive two, sometimes three a week, his big scrawl filling page after page with what seems to them to be ramblings about nothing much, the weather, the ship's menus, how it's never quiet on board. Tamura wants to hear that he is missing her, missing home, wants him to tell her that she is doing well keeping things going on the farm. But Aaron's feelings are nowhere to be read in his letters; something stops him from saying what he feels, from pouring his heart out to her. He can't admit that he has made a mistake. He feels himself a fool for having volunteered in the first place. Good Lord, what had he been thinking? Life is harder for him in the Navy than he makes out to Tamura. He hates being in such close contact with other men, hearing them snore and sleep-talk at night, smelling the sweaty animal scent of them. He thinks he sees in them the look of the migrant worker, the look of men who are rootless. But really what he sees, what he can't make any sense of, are men who haven't chosen the land, men so unlike himself that he will never feel at ease with them. He mimics their language, laughs at their jokes, attempts to be a regular kind of guy, it's easier that way.

"Hey, Aaron, you got a pa.s.s for tonight? Real pretty girls at the Pearl Bar."

"Another time, maybe. Things to do."

He has no use for the white-trash girls with their caked-on makeup and sprayed-stiff hair that you can buy for a buck or two at the Pearl.

"Yeah, we know, another letter to write, eh? You'll have to show us a photo sometime soon. She must be some looker, to keep you on the hop like that."

It's only when the bunks around him lay empty that he can let go. He thinks then of Tamura, of the soft planes of her face, the pools of her eyes, and the feather-weight of her body on his. He takes his small comfort in the privacy of his narrow bunk, a moment's relief, and only a faint echo of what he so badly craves.

He has thought better about showing a photograph of Tamura around. Perhaps it's not such a good idea to tell his so-called shipmates that his wife is j.a.panese. They wouldn't understand, and he can't bear the thought of exposing Tamura to their crude comments.

Some of the guys stick pictures of their wives on their lockers, and then have to take the jokes, the wolf whistles and the mockery that the good-looking ones will soon be sending "Dear John" letters. Let them think him secretive, he'll sail through his time, let the wind take him, keep his family to himself.

In the moments before sleep he closes his eyes and imagines himself working his fields. He summons up the cool fragrance of green tomatoes as they ripen in the sun. It's a source of pride for him that he can tell what stage his crop is at simply by the smell. First comes the sharp trace of green in the flower, the scent of cologne, then as the fruit buds a smell as close to pickle as you'll get, and then the ready-for-picking, full-blown peachy perfume that fills the packing shed for days.

Finding it hard to take orders, to have his days dictated by time sheets, he begins sending his own orders home, long lists of instructions for Tamura and Satomi, lists that comfort him and irritate them.

Make sure you clean out the rain barrels right down to the bottom. The water will turn brackish if you don't. And Tamura, I know you don't like it but the traps must be set in the packing sheds. We'll be overrun if you don't. Get Satomi to do it and tell her to be sure to get rid of the dead ones. And don't forget to order the fertilizer in good time, and ...

Once a letter is stamped and posted, his mind empties for a bit, and he feels at ease. But a day or so later he has thought up a whole new list of things for them to do. He dreads the idea of returning to the farm and finding it neglected. You can't blame them, but women aren't up to the job, they won't see what's needed, and Tamura has never been strong.

Encouraged by the tone of the headlines in the Los Angeles Times, the folks in Angelina figure that war with j.a.pan is a surefire thing. The men are already being called up, and those who haven't received their papers are rushing to volunteer before they are summoned. No one wants to be thought unwilling, unpatriotic.

The town seems half empty without them. Old men see their sons off with fear in their eyes, young fathers leave their families with trepidation. The land is left to the ministrations of grandfathers, schoolboys, and the women.

The old men gather together in the farmers' cooperative, feeling themselves in charge, half alive again. War is the main topic of conversation. The threat from j.a.pan is changing things, taking away the routine of their lives, their ease of mind. Angelina's j.a.panese take the brunt of their anger.

"The whole d.a.m.n lot of them got a secret allegiance to j.a.pan."

"When push comes to shove they can't be trusted."

Lily, on the lookout for an excuse to ditch Satomi, is half sick with having to make-believe that Satomi is her best friend. She doesn't share her home-packed lunches with her anymore, refusing Tamura's fish and rice b.a.l.l.s that she is usually greedy for.

"Can't stomach fish anymore. Guess I'm allergic or something."

Lily's mother has warned that j.a.ps can't be trusted not to put something in the food. It's better to be safe than sorry.

"That's a shame, you loved them so much," Satomi says without sympathy. She knows what's going on with Lily, all right.

"Yeah, well, things change, I guess."

"I'm the same person, Lily."

"I know that, Sati." Lily stares her down. "I'm only talking about fish b.a.l.l.s."

Despite that Lily is being weird, despite that she's getting a rougher ride at school, Satomi is enjoying life without Aaron around. It's easy now to get her own way, tempting to take advantage of her mother's gentle nature. She likes home better without her father in it, that's for sure. She can hardly remember his rules now, smoking as she does without a thought to being caught, leaving her hair down, getting behind with her ch.o.r.es. Every now and then, though, she hears Tamura sigh in her bed, and she suffers the loss of Aaron herself, the fear that life is shifting too quickly.

Things with Artie are still on, although she never knows where she stands with him these days. He is off hand with her at school, making out that things have changed between them, but full-on with her when it is just the two of them.

"No point in us riling people up, they're doing enough of that themselves."

"They are morons, Artie, all of them."

"Yeah, well, f.u.c.k 'em, eh?"

Artie likes it better with Aaron away too. He calls at the farm with the excuse that he has come to help Satomi and Tamura with the ch.o.r.es.

"Now that you don't have a man around," he preens.

He sits around the place, watching Satomi pile the wood up in the lean-to, clean out the sheds, and stack the tomato boxes, talking to her all the while. He doesn't mind releasing the dead rats from the traps, though.