Heart Mountain by Ehrlich Gretel;

Author:Ehrlich, Gretel;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2016-11-10T05:00:00+00:00

23

The mud in April is the worst I’ve ever seen. I sink to my shins going from the latrine to the mess hall. The night I picked up Mariko—straight out of the arms of McKay—I realized I was tired of being the big brother, tired of being her chauffeur and covering up for her in front of Will. Spring is a cruel season. I try to understand what Abe-san has told me but some days it’s one riddle on top of another and I find I don’t much care. But I do, or at least I’ve begun to. Last night I dreamed of escape. Someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Come now,” and I went with him. There was a plane waiting for me on the baseball diamond. The propellers were still turning. A rope ladder was let down but my feet were caked with mud and they kept getting tangled. Finally someone yanked me into the plane by my arm because we were taking off. I stood in the open doorway and watched the Camp recede.

Later, when I woke up, I remembered that when I first arrived here I couldn’t stop the sensation of movement after so many hours on the train, as if the physical fact of exile had made me sick. Waking up from the dream, I realized I’m still sick today.

Even though it’s only April we built a campfire out away from the barracks facing Heart Mountain. Drifts of snow were still hugging the north sides of buildings and the moon looked cold when it set. I can’t remember who ran over to us with the news. Was it Ben or Shig? But when he told us about the old man at another Camp—Topaz—who had wandered over to the wire fence and was shot down dead by an MP, nobody could talk for what seemed like a long time. Then Will kicked dirt into the fire. I noticed the moon disappeared behind the tip of the mountain just at that moment, and if the floodlights had been turned out, it would have been a dark night.

We went back to Ben’s place: There’s always something to eat or drink there. But we didn’t feel like drinking. Someone came in and said that the name of the old man killed was James Hatsuki Wakasa and that two thousand people went to his funeral. If we can’t have a “happy camp,” at least we could have a peaceful one. “But we’re at war,” Shig reminded us, meaning even though we’re not at the front, war is everywhere.

Emi came by and I threw my arms around her. We sat curled up together on the floor against Ben’s bed. I think we all felt a little lonely after the news. We tried to figure out when this new tide of hatred had turned against us and I said I thought it was when the announcement about the Doolittle Fliers was made: eight American fliers had been shot down over Japan, captured, held prisoner, then brought to trial, after which three of them were executed.

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