Weedflower by Kadohata Cynthia
Author:Kadohata, Cynthia [Kadohata, Cynthia]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Published: 2008-06-30T00:00:00+00:00
But even that didn’t affect Sumiko. She just stuck the letter in her luggage and didn’t think about it again.
Her only pleasure, if it could be called a “pleasure,” was lying outside at night under the stars. She liked to listen as people from her barrack lay on their cots outside and talked. In the background the wind would agitate the mesquite and send dust into the night like ghosts rising from the ground.
One night Mr. Moto told about the rolling green hills of the Japanese countryside. He’d been born in Seattle but educated in Japan. He said that if America sent him back to Japan, he would buy a rice farm in the country. He’d owned a grocery store at the time of the evacuation, but his parents had been rice farmers. “Before the evacuation I sold the store and my house in a package deal for one thousand dollars, even though I paid four thousand for the house in 1940.”
Another man said, “Ah, shikata ga nai.”
Sumiko heard that phrase all the time lately.
For instance, the previous night Mr. Moto had told Sumiko that he’d fallen on a rake as a boy. That’s how he’d lost an eye. He’d said, “Shikata ga nai.” That meant “This cannot be helped.” Once when Sumiko had asked Jiichan how sad it had made him when her mother died, he’d said, “Shikata ga nai.” When your house burned down, when someone you loved died, when your heart was broken, when you suffered any tragedy, but also when you merely broke a toenail, that’s what the Japanese said.
This cannot be helped.
After telling everyone about his house, Mr. Moto got out of his cot and leaned into his doorway. “Son?”
“What?”
“Don’t you want to be outside? Everybody is talking.”
“I’m trying to sleep, Dad.”
So Mr. Moto returned to lie in his cot. Sumiko rarely saw Mr. Moto’s son. She guessed he was just in the mood to be alone.
Mr. Moto started talking about Poston. He said he’d once wanted to be a teacher, so he liked to give little lectures once in a while. “Poston is in the Sonoran Desert,” he said. “It’s one of the hottest areas in the country. There used to be just a few buildings around here, but now the camp is the third-largest town in Arizona.”
“How did you find that out?” Sumiko asked. “I thought there are no maps in camp.”
Mr. Moto pointed to his head. “They can keep the maps out of Poston but not out of my head. I know my geography.”
“You would have made a good teacher,’ Sumiko said. “You—”
A man suddenly snapped, “Quiet!”
And Sumiko shut her mouth instantly. She knew an inu had just walked into view at the end of the barrack. Inu meant “dog,” but people used it to mean “dirty dog” or “snitch” who worked for the white administration to spy on other Nikkei.
The man continued to stand there, and one by one people dragged their cots inside. Sumiko was disappointed—she liked lying outside. But she dragged her cot into her barrack.
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