Free Dust of Eden by Mariko Nagai

February 1942
    Dear Father, I hope
    everything is okay
    and that you are
    doing well.
    From the letters
    you sent us,
    the parts we can read
    that haven’t been
    blacked out, it seems
    that they are treating
    you well. Here, at home,
    Grandpa’s been
    pulling us together,
    saying now that you are
    in Montana (or North
    Dakota, or wherever
    they took you), we have
    to listen to him.
    Don’t tell Nick I told
    you this, but a week ago,
    Grandpa found out Nick’s been
    breaking the curfew,
    and without saying a word,
    as soon as Nick came home,
    Grandpa raised his cane
    and hit him hard, once,
    twice, over the head.
    Nick just stood there,
    angry, with his fists raised,
    but he didn’t say or do anything
    as Grandpa kept hitting him
    again and again with his cane.
    Mom was crying, and shouting,
    Oto-san, yamete, yamete
    —Father, stop it, stop it –, and
    I was frozen, right there.
    I’ve never seen this
    Grandpa, who was like a stranger, angry
    and spiteful. But as soon
    as Nick apologized (for what?),
    Grandpa stopped.
    Okami o okoraseruna – Don’t anger the government –,
    Grandpa said slowly.
    But we didn’t do anything wrong, Nick shouted.
    We’re American, just like everyone else .
    Grandpa shook his head,
    ware ware wa Nipponjin demo naishi,
    Americajin demo nai —we are neither
    Japanese nor American. His words stung me,
    stronger than bee stings, even stronger
    than the news of Pearl Harbor.
    I went up the dark stairs
    holding Basho in my arms
    and shut my door and shut my eyes.
    Most of the time, we are
    doing okay, but Seattle’s changed.
    Chinese kids walk around with buttons
    that say, “I am Chinese.”
    Then there are all these signs:
    We don’t serve Japs. Japs go home.
    The entire country hates
    Japan. And they hate us.
    No one seems to like us
    anymore, except for Jamie
    and her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Gilmore.
    Nick doesn’t say
    it, but he’s having a really
    hard time, I can tell.
    He comes home with bruises
    and cuts, and when Mother asks
    him what happened, he only says
    that he fell. I know he’s lying,
    I know he knows that I know,
    but we don’t talk about it.
    How other boys push him around,
    doesn’t matter he was voted the Most Popular,
    they call him Tojo, Jap, Rat, and he answers
    each and every curse with a punch.
    Mother tells me not to go out
    by myself. It’s hard to walk
    down the street, being different.
    I hope the new glasses Mother sent
    you are the kind you like.
    I miss you very much. I hope they are
    treating you well. Father, I hope
    you can come home soon so we can
    all be together. I miss you.
    Your daughter, Masako
February 1942
    President Roosevelt
    signed Executive
    Order 9066 today. Nick says
    that Germans and Italians
    aren’t arrested like
    Japanese men have been all over
    the West Coast. Mina,
    he whispered in the back
    yard, they’ll put us
    all in prisons.
    I don’t want to believe him,
    but I see Grandpa
    and Mother worrying over our
    frozen bank accounts
    and curfews and blackouts
    and the five-mile radius, and I know
    we will probably be put in
    prison just like they did Father.

March 1942
    Grandpa sits on his favorite chair right near the rose
    garden. His face, from where I stand, is as big as
    the roses all around him, roses of bright red, deep red,
    blood red, all kinds of red only he knows the names
    for. Masako, chotto kinasai , he calls me over as he hears
    the gate opening. He does not turn around. He does
    not look at me, but keeps looking ahead, at his roses,
    at the sky, at everything but me. Basho stretches
    on Grandpa’s lap, then jumps down, saunters over to me,
    and says hello by twirling his tail around my legs.
    Grandpa, without moving his mouth, says, We have
    been asked to leave. We need to pack up
    everything: the house, the nursery. We can only take two
    pieces of luggage per person. We need to leave soon. And
    I’m sorry, we can’t take Basho. I am not hearing him
    right, I tell myself. Why do we need to move?
    They say