The Magic Of Ordinary Days Part 4

But I had to look away.

"Trout are good eating. And this one's fair size." I could hear him working on getting the hook out of its mouth.

"I don't think I could eat anything I've seen breathing."

"Well," he said, still working. "Fish don't really breathe."

"I know. Gills instead of lungs."

"Look," Ray said.

I saw that he had removed the hook, that he was slowly sinking the trout back in the water. He held that fish so gently in his large drum of a hand that it surprised me. For a few seconds, he held on, letting the fish move within his hand. He explained, "Got to let it get used to the feel of water on its gills again." After a few more seconds he let it go. "See, it's okay. It's swimming off now."

I watched the silver shadow disappear into deeper water. "You didn't have to do that."

Ray took off his hat, wiped his brow with the back of his hand, then replaced the hat. Looking off into the willows, he said, "Being out here is the point. Fishing is just..." He searched for the right word. "An excuse, I suspect."

"Thanks for letting it go."

"You bet."

"I can't fillet a fish anyway."

"I can," he said, nodding. "But it's a heap of trouble."

The surface of the lake became flat and still and solid as marble. I stretched out in the boat like a cat on a windowsill. To my surprise, I enjoyed this day. Ray was enjoying it, too, and that worried me more than being miserable.

Seven.

The next day, in late afternoon, Rose and Lorelei showed up on my porch, smiling and looking as if they'd just come from the beauty shop, not from the fields. Their hair looked freshly curled and styled, their cotton shirts still held creases along the tops of the sleeves, and their denims showed no sign of dirt, no tears or faded patches, either. Only their dusty, sc.r.a.ped shoes gave away that these girls had just come from working in the dirt. How did they do it? Obviously they wore gloves to protect their hands, but how were they able to keep their clothing so untouched?

"We skipped off from our overseer," Rose explained.

"She's Issei, very strict," said Lorelei.

I welcomed them in as I recalled the meaning of the name, Issei. First-generation j.a.panese emigrated to the U.S. were called by this name; they retained much of their traditional values and mores. These two sisters were clearly Nisei or Sansei, second- or third-generation American citizens by birth. As we later sat on the steps sipping c.o.kes out of green bottles through paper straws, they told me they had both been enrolled at UCLA before the evacuation notices went up.

Rose said, "When I was only seven, I won first place in the spelling bee at my school. And ever since, I've wanted to teach English." She finished her c.o.ke and set the bottle down on the porch step without making a sound. "The language and the words," she said, "must be perfect."

"And perfectly spelled," Lorelei said, elbowing her sister.

Rose spoke back, but her quiet voice could barely manage to criticize. "At least I've set my plans."

Lorelei played with her hair, flipping it just under her ear. She explained to me, "Back at school, I hadn't settled on a major yet. Too many things interested me, so I was taking all the required courses first."

Rose snickered. "She studied the senior boys."

Lorelei laughed aloud, covered her mouth, and then blushed. "Only the clever ones. Or the dashing ones," she said. She hung her hands over her feet and sat so that their shadow covered her work shoes.

Later I told them about the history studies I, too, had abandoned. That once I had planned to go on expedition to Egypt, to help decipher the hieroglyphs, to aid in recording the excavation of tomb chambers buried in the sands.

"Ah, King Tut," Rose said.

At last, a conversation about another part of the world, off this farm. The discovery of King Tut-ankh-amen's tomb in 1922 had awakened much of the general population to the wonders of ancient Egypt, but I doubted that its reach had extended to many others in the onion fields. "And so many other tombs, so many other kings and princesses, as well," I said. "I was particularly interested in studying the pharaoh who ruled before King Tut, named Akh-en-aten."

They looked as if they wanted me to continue.

"Historians think he had a misshapen head and hips because portraits reveal this about him. And he believed in only one G.o.d, Aten, and he built a great holy city, Horizon-of-the-Aten, in his honor."

Rose looked at her hands, then she turned and asked me, "Do you miss it?"

I hadn't expected such a direct question. "Yes," I answered her. Then I hugged my knees to my chest. "But in many ways, just listening to the radio news is a study in history. Especially now."

Rose looked out over the open fields. "I miss all the lively conversations, the sharing of ideas. A cla.s.sroom of students may read the same piece of poetry or the same pa.s.sage in a novel, and each person will interpret it differently."

I turned to face her. "It's the same," I said. "Exactly the same way with history, too."

"Is it?"

"Think about it," I told her. "Even the facts of history are tainted by personal views. Depending on beliefs, every side in every conflict has been seen as both right and wrong."

Rose answered softly, "Of course."

Then it dawned on me. These girls would understand differences in views better than most. After all, they had been moved and confined by a country at war with the country of their ancestors. They were living among people who a.s.sumed our white brains superior to theirs. The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and the hardships of the war in the Pacific had come as a shock to those Americans who thought j.a.pan incapable of executing anything intelligent or difficult. Yet Rose and Lorelei were as American as I was. What internal struggles must torment them?

"In years to come, all of this present history may be viewed differently," I said.

"Just as books and poems are continually being reread and reevaluated," said Rose.

"Literature has had a profound effect on history."

"For example, Uncle Tom's Cabin."

"Exactly."

Later we walked about the farm, visited the pond, and tossed sticks for Franklin to lazily retrieve. I invited them to come over again, and when I explained I had a truck available to me, one with plentiful gasoline, their faces lit up like tinfoil left out in the sun.

"We could look for b.u.t.terflies in the thickets," said Lorelei.

"Or on the open prairie," added Rose.

I could hardly wait. "Come again and we'll go driving."

That night, I found myself moving without effort. I remembered running on younger legs, the wind whipping between campus buildings, and the feel of new book pages beneath my fingers. I remembered the cla.s.sroom discussions that had taken my thoughts down new paths, records played on the radio, and whispered thoughts only girlfriends have the courage to share.

As I was cooking dinner, Ray came up behind me. He looked over my shoulder at the tuna fish ca.s.serole I was stirring up in a bowl. Something surely did seem to please him, and I thought it was the food. "Does it look good?" I asked him.

"Sure enough," he said. "But that's not why I'm standing here. I wanted to listen better."

I stopped stirring. Then he told me, "You were singing to yourself."

Eight.

Ray and I began to attend church every Sunday. Despite a few sets of questioning eyes, I didn't object because it was my only chance to escape the farm, and I enjoyed the peaceful messages of Reverend Case's sermons. And, too, I enjoyed seeking out Martha and trying to piece together an early picture of life on the land where now I lived.

"Ray tore down the old shack," I told her on a Sunday in early October.

"Oh, dear," she said with a smile. "Hank would have done the same, I'm afraid. But you ought to be able to find the dugout."

I almost choked on my coffee. "They started with a dugout?"

Martha nodded. "It's along the creekbed just south of the bridge, but you shouldn't try to find it on your own."

"A dugout?" I still couldn't believe my luck. "How long did they live in it?"

"At least the first few years." Martha looked concerned. "You won't go down there by yourself, will you?"

I squeezed her arm. "Don't worry, and thank you."

"Promise me you won't go down there on your own."

But how could I wait? I planned to find it the next day, but before I had time to go outside, Lorelei and Rose showed up again on my doorstep. With almost all the onions and beans harvested out of Singleton soil, they had some break time, and they wanted to spend it with me.

They asked to travel south, so we slid in together on the truck seat and headed through La Junta in the direction of Trinidad. Along the way, we searched streambeds, patches of brush, and open sage prairie. Whenever we saw wildflowers that might attract b.u.t.terflies, we pulled over. In one meadow, we'd searched for only a few minutes before the girls spotted a swallowtail among the thistle flowers. The black and yellow b.u.t.terfly opened and closed its wings and turned about in the sunlight as if showing off for us. Rose said it was definitely swallowtail, probably a Western Tiger Swallowtail, but she wouldn't be certain of its exact ident.i.ty until she researched it later in one of their books. As Rose moved in closer, Lorelei held back and outlined a sketch in the notebook, shading the wing patterns with colored pencils.

I studied them at work, and I studied the swallowtail. On the b.u.t.terfly's hind wings, I saw two large circles of red and blue. "The large spots on the wings are quite beautiful, aren't they?" I said.

"False eyes," Lorelei said as she worked on her drawing.

At last, the swallowtail fled. I noticed that it didn't flutter away; instead, with just one flap, it caught a current of air and soared.

Rose brushed off her hands. "The false eyes confuse the b.u.t.terfly's enemies."

Lorelei had to explain, "They scare birds and lizards away. Those large spots appear like eyes of a much larger animal."

"So predators think the b.u.t.terfly must be something else."

Lorelei added, "It's a protection for the b.u.t.terfly, evolved over time."

"Many moths have them, too," said Rose.

I had learned something new, something I'd never noticed before-false eyes on b.u.t.terflies. But more importantly, I had uncovered the pattern of the sisters' speech. Perhaps they weren't aware of it themselves, that they finished thoughts and sentences for each other. Layer upon layer, they added on to each other's phrases until a more complete picture emerged, one more vivid than if it had come from a single voice.

"Amazing," I told them.

We stopped at a service station outside La Junta, where I treated us to bottles of Dad's root beer out of the drink machine. We leaned up against the side of the truck and sipped while we talked.

Rose flipped through the b.u.t.terfly notebook that Lorelei usually took in her charge. "Since we've been in Colorado, we've seen over twenty new varieties," Rose said. She stopped turning pages. "Now what's this?" she asked Lorelei.

I glanced over. In the midst of all the b.u.t.terfly sketches was a full-page drawing of an American soldier complete with uniform and butch haircut.

"Give it to me," Lorelei yelped as she reached for the notebook.

Rose jerked it away. "This was supposed to be for our records."

Lorelei covered her mouth and giggled. Then she looped a strand of hair around her finger. "I couldn't help myself. He was so handsome."

Rose looked defeated. "Now our book is ruined."

"No, it's not. Here, let me have it." She grabbed the book away from Rose, ripped out the paper drawing of the soldier, folded it, and stuffed it into her pocket. "You're no fun. Rules, rules, rules. Always Rose has to follow the rules."

"Things need to stay in their right places."

"Oh, yes," Lorelei said, nodding exaggeratedly. "Like we need to stay in the camp."

The camp. It was the first time either one of them had mentioned their confinement. I studied the bubbles in my root beer bottle and listened.

Rose shot back, "I never said that."

"But you go along all too well."

They stared at each other, then turned away. Obviously, this was a subject they hadn't meant to discuss, at least not in front of me. I watched the road and saw a cottontail scurry across it. I looked away until the moment had pa.s.sed, and soon Rose and Lorelei were talking about men and swigging down their drinks again.

We traveled farther south. Along the Purgatoire River, we found tiny Silvery Blues, Painted Ladies, and Viceroys-orange and black b.u.t.terflies I had always thought were Monarchs. We watched the Viceroys gather along the riverbank. Hundreds of them came together and overlapped their wings into one wave of color, a bright scarf flowing in the breeze.

"That's called mud puddling," pointed out Lorelei.

"They gather together to drink the shallow water out of the soil, water rich in mineral salts," added Rose.

After a few moments of silence, Lorelei turned to me. "How much farther to New Mexico?"

"The border is only a short drive away. Why do you ask?"

She shrugged. "We've never seen that state."

I checked my watch. "Maybe next time we can get an earlier start."