This Light Between Us: A Novel of World War II

The door swings open and a pair of uniforms steps off.

A moment later, an old Japanese man stumbles out. His disheveled hair white, his frame wiry and hunched.

Alex’s heart seems to miss a beat.

But it’s not Father. Just another Japanese man, of similar age. Actually, as Alex takes a closer look, it’s someone he recognizes. Mr. Muramoto from Bainbridge Island. A strawberry farmer from the other side of the island. A man who’d also been detained by the FBI. And who, if he remembers correctly, had also been sent to Crystal City, Texas.

His family steps into view now. A mother and a young girl. They’d been waiting for his arrival by the administration building, and now, as the shriveled old man stares bewildered about him, they walk toward him. Their surprise at his withered appearance—shock, more like it—is written all over their faces. This man, their husband and father, has aged into something ancient. Erica Muramoto, the six-year-old daughter, does not run up to him, despite her mother’s prodding. She pulls back, fingers in her mouth, blinking away tears. She’s afraid. Scared of this shell of a man who is her father but who is also not.

Mrs. Muramoto gives up. She leaves her daughter behind and walks over to her husband. A few feet from him, she stops and bows. He bows. They do not look at each other.

An MP walks up to them. Offers them a ride. Mr. Muramoto shakes his head vigorously. He picks up his suitcase, starts to walk, lopsided against the weight. The wife catches up to him, tries to take his luggage. But he waves her off.

He doesn’t last long. A minute later, only a few yards from Alex, he drops the suitcase. “Where the hell is Kenji?” he says in Japanese, wheezing. “That good-for-nothing son of mine.”

The mother doesn’t say anything.

“He signs up to go to war but can’t be bothered to wake up early to greet his old man.” He spits to the ground.

The wife takes the suitcase. He lets her now. They shuffle past him, the father bent over against the wind, rasping for air, the young girl clinging to her mother.

Alex is suddenly thinking of the white lieutenant from the recruitment meeting.

If you enlist I’ll personally see to it that your father gets brought here.

That must be what has happened here. Kenji Muramoto enlisted. And then his father was released. It cannot be a coincidence.

Alex watches the family stumble past a broken window, their reflection rippling across the cracked glass. Broken. But together.

They turn a corner and disappear behind a barrack. But after they are gone, Alex does not move. He is thinking of Mother, sickly and fading away. He is thinking of Father, probably wasting away, too, in Crystal City. He is thinking he must do whatever it takes to bring him home.

If you enlist I’ll personally see to it that your father gets brought here.

Yet he stands paralyzed with indecision. He cannot make up his mind. In one ear, he hears Frank telling him not to kowtow to a country that’s spat on them all. In his other ear, he hears his Mother wheezing, her health failing, needing Father. He cannot decide. He cannot move the needle, one way or the other.

Black dense clouds slide quickly across the sky, drawing darkness like a blanket over the camp. Rain begins to fall, and the first drops are big and heavy, and make dark splats on the dusty ground. Within a minute, the raindrops become a downpour, drumming loudly on the barracks’ rooftops and turning the ground to mush. Alex heads back, not bothering to run. He will be drenched regardless. He is already almost soaked through.

It is only as he is passing Rose Park that he stops. A voice is filling his head, and it is not the voice of the lieutenant. Or Frank, or Mother. It is the voice of another.

Find me, Alex.

He stands for a long time. Very, very still. Then he lifts his head to the sky. A small movement, but seemingly decisive. His clear eyes do not close or even blink at the raindrops falling down on him.

41

APRIL 5, 1943

He didn’t plan on telling Mother for another day or two. But that Monday afternoon he finds himself alone with her in the room. The unseasonably warm day has lured almost everyone outside, and this unexpected privacy is too good to waste. There will be no better moment.

“Mother.” He sits down at the table across from her. “I need to talk to you about something.”

Her shoulders pull together. She knows already. Or has at least suspected.

Still he fidgets. Still he tries to find the opening words.

She sees the misery etched on his face. “You’ve decided to enlist,” she says matter-of-factly.

He nods slowly. “I’m sorry.”

She sets down her knitting. Her chest rises and falls, rises and falls. She asks, without looking at him, “I thought you were against joining the war.”

He doesn’t say anything.

She looks at him. “Then why?”

“It’ll help Father,” he finally says in a soft voice. “If I enlist, he’ll be released from Crystal City. He’ll come here to Manzanar.”

“How do you know this?”

“A lieutenant promised me. Said if I enlist, Father can join us here.” He looks at her. “I know you want that.”

Her jaw trembles. “That’s not reason enough.”

“Of course it is.”

She blinks once—a slow blink that seems to take forever. When she looks up at him, her damp eyes seem to see right through him. “There’s another reason, isn’t there?”

He pauses. He thinks of what he could say: I want to see the world. I want to be a man. And of course, floating invisibly in the background, another reason he’d never admit, not to her. I want to find Charlie. Ridiculous, even to him. Even to Turtle Boy.

She’s quiet. Still waiting for his response.

He settles on something cryptic yet true. “If I don’t do this I’ll regret it my whole life.”

&nb

sp; Her lips tremble; she has a hundred things to say. But when she speaks, it is but a single word. “When?”

“I’ve already spoken to the enlistment officer. And signed the papers. The first bus for boot camp leaves Manzanar in five days.”

Her lips silently whisper five days. “You should have told me earlier.” She shakes her head, over and over. “Please don’t. Please—”

The front door swings open. Wind gusts into the apartment. Heavy thumps on the floorboard, moving toward them. The partition is roughly shoved aside as Frank strides in.

“Don’t mind me,” he says without a glance. “Just getting my cigs.” He goes to the dresser, riffles through a drawer. Grabs a pack, is heading out. Stops. Looks at their somber faces. “What’s going on?”

Alex speaks before Mother does. “I’m enlisting.”

Frank’s face blanches with shock.

“What?”

“I said—”

“I must be going deaf. Because I thought I just heard you say you’re enlisting. Which can’t be true because only idiots and stupids enlist. And we all know that Alex Maki ain’t no idiot and Alex Maki ain’t no stupid.”

“Frank—”

“And especially after I spoke to you about this.”

“I’m leaving in five days.”

His pack of cigarettes is crushed in his fist. “How could you, Alex? After everything they’ve done to us.”

“I’m not joining them, Frank—”

“Oh, then who exactly are you joining?” He sneers at Alex with raw contempt. “Captain America and Batman? The Justice Society of America? The Seven Soldiers of Victory?” He snorts. “They’re gonna throw you out to the most dangerous missions, guaranteed. And this ain’t the comics, you get that, Alex? You can actually die.”

Alex wills his voice not to shake. “Look. Frank. I’m not getting into this again. I’ve made up my mind.”

Frank points at Mother. “And you’re just leaving her to fend for herself.”

Alex bristles. “Last I checked, she’s got another son here. Or did you forget how to be a son—”

“You shut the hell up—”