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Chapter Ten

Violet

Back in Badger, Minnesota, Violet’s family had always gone to church, even in the bitter freeze of winter, when it was risky to breathe outside. They would bundle in worn-out blankets and extra layers of wool socks, and trudge to the church in the middle of town. “Acceptance, deliverance, repentance,” the minister had drilled into them. But understanding those words was another matter altogether. As a girl, Violet had thought acceptance meant standing on the stage and getting your award for having the biggest goat or the fattest pig, not making the best of a situation gone wrong. Later she learned it was not an easy thing to master.

Despite the new routine of Japanese school, which seemed to be going well, and the night with the soldiers, Ella still ate less than a squirrel and picked her freckles until they formed angry red mounds. Sometimes Violet wanted to tear her own hair out, unable to protect her daughter from invisible grief, but that pesky word acceptance kept rearing up in her head. Maybe now was the time to revisit what acceptance really meant.

Maybe acceptance meant moving forward with what you had.

Violet first met Herman in a church. He was sitting in the front row, shoulders tight with shudders, trying to hold it together, which was hard to do when your sixteen-year-old brother was lying dead from pneumonia, a by-product of the dust storms, people said. Herman was the older one who had come back from Hawaii for the funeral. She wasn’t even sure where Hawaii was, but she liked the sound of the word. It sounded sweet and warm and green.

Her mother insisted she come, knowing there would be men there. The sooner Violet found a man, the sooner she could get out of the house. Violet ended up in the kitchen helping clean up, when Herman walked in. Without a word, he rolled up his sleeves and picked up a towel. They stood side by side at the sink, she washing, he drying. After the tenth plate, she broke the silence.

“Is that where the pineapples come from?”

For the first time, she saw the hint of a smile. “Hawaii is a lot more than pineapples. But don’t tell anyone.”

“Like what?”

“Well, for one thing, it only snows on the very top of the mountains, which are tall. You could wear a dress all year there.”

She thought she had misheard. “Be serious.”

“Scout’s honor. The place is paradise. They weren’t lying.”

“Who’s they?”

“The education corps that brought me out there. I’m a teacher, but soon to be principal.”

Herman didn’t say it in a boastful way, but she was impressed nonetheless. He could be only four or five years older than she was, at the most. His manner was sparse, and she wasn’t sure if it was his nature, or because he was sad about his brother. If she wasn’t mistaken, his arm had gotten so close to hers that soon they would be touching. They talked until her mother came in to tell her their time was up.

It was the first funeral that Violet hadn’t wanted to leave.

Herman took her to dinner the following night, and the night after. But he was returning to Hawaii the next week. What was the point? Still, Violet enjoyed his company, and the distraction he provided from going home in the evenings to her mother and Mr. Smudge and her stepbrothers, who fought constantly. Herman got her considering that there might be life outside Minnesota. They spent the week together, walking in the fields behind town, holding hands and stealing kisses. He told her stories of natives riding canoes down the face of waves and of the white-sand beaches with palm trees and fresh coconuts. It sounded magical.

Two weeks after his departure, an envelope arrived in the mail holding something stiff and colorful. Violet’s heart tap-danced on her ribs. A ticket on the SS Lurline. To Honolulu.

Herman had written a note:

Dearest Violet,

Should you wish to see for yourself, I would be most honored.

Yours, Herman.

PS: Remember that winter is on its way and what I said about wearing dresses all year round.

She smiled at his reference. There were so many reasons not to go. Another two years of college. The town newspaper job, even if it only involved sitting in meetings, taking shorthand and not getting paid. Of greater concern would be leaving Lady, her faithful collie-dog, and her lovely hens.

Her mother was another matter. Every so often, Violet would see glimpses of the way she used to be. Bright-eyed and full of song. She sang to the cows, to the family of sparrows that flew in and out of the barn, to the wheat crops when harvest time arrived. That was before Violet’s dad up and left them under the guise of finding work, before they moved in with Mr. Smudge, the town butcher, who had lost his own wife and had two sons of his own. For the first time, Violet had siblings—ones she didn’t much like. Mr. Smudge smelled like blood and sweat, drank enough vodka to turn his face purple, and had a case of the shakes. But he provided for Violet and her mother and he taught her how to shoot a gun well enough to pop a can from across the field. He put food on the table. On one level, she knew her mother had chosen survival, but all joy had squeezed out of her and she’d never found it again.

Violet had been fourteen the day her father hopped on the train and headed for the city.

They stood at the station, her face in his hands and his ice-blue eyes searching into her. Sometimes at night, she could still feel the sandpaper of his skin and the sunken pit that came from saying goodbye. “Darling, I promise I will be back before you know it. Or else I’ll send for you when I have enough money.”

“Take me with you!” she cried.

“Your mama needs you.”

Violet’s lip quivered and she willed herself not to cry. But her face was wet for weeks after. Letters came, but no money. “I have hope,” her father would say.

I have another interview tomorrow to sell vacuum cleaners. The city is full of men looking for work. They say I need to have experience.

The letters came less often. The letters stopped coming.

She hadn’t blamed him like her mother had, at least not at first. Between drought, grasshoppers, insufferable heat and orifice-filling dust storms, their farm had been doomed from the start. What happened to the land happened to him, turning him into a hard, cracked and hopeless man. Several years later, a letter came saying he was still out of work and to move on with their lives and he was sorry. So sorry.

Herman seemed like a far cry from her own father. Dependable, employed, ambitious. Anyway, there was no law that required her to stay in Hawaii if she didn’t like it. She held the ticket up to her nose, and swore she smelled flowers and sea salt.

She went by boat train to San Francisco. At her first sight of the ship, she nearly fainted. It was massive, with smokestacks like small buildings and decks layered up to the sky. How could such an enormous object stay afloat? Flags were flying, and once they cast off the python-sized ropes, Violet joined the passengers in confetti-tossing and cheering. She was alone with nearly seven hundred people on a voyage to Honolulu. What in God’s name was she doing?

For Violet, the ocean was a new and wondrous body of water, and its blue was unfathomable. Salt layered everything, and she was constantly tasting the breeze. On the first two days of the voyage, she gained her sea legs, for despite the size of the ship, the seas were rolling. Plates and glasses slid back and forth during dinner, and many people took to their bunks, ill from the motion. When she saw all the green faces, she felt lucky not to be seasick herself.

All Violet wanted to do was be on deck, where she caught sight of whales and watched the albatrosses glide overhead. Much of her time was spent wondering and guessing. She had seen pictures of Hawaii, people riding waves, pineapple fields with migrant workers and women dancing in colorful dresses or grass skirts. Herman had also made it sound larger than life. But a part of her thought that there must be more to the story, more than coconuts and rainbows. In her short nineteen years of life, Violet had seen enough to know that not everything was as it seemed. People were starving and dying of cold, half the country was out of work, and her own father had abandoned them on account of losing his farm.

Many of the passengers were stopping in Hawaii, but many were also headed to Pago Pago, Suva and onward to Australia. After the second day, the ocean smoothed out and people began emerging from the depths. The deck chairs filled up and drinks began to flow. There were hula dancers and steel-guitar players, card games and even wooden horse races. Rumor also had it that there were movie stars in first class, and even Amelia Earhart. For a time, Violet imagined herself working on the ship, traveling the South Seas and seeing another side of the world.

When the SS Lurline pulled into Honolulu Harbor, the docks teemed with people. But Violet was more interested in the green of the mountains, which to her seemed impossible. There was also something strange going on with her sweat glands, which wouldn’t seem to turn off. Herman was right where he said he would be. Standing in the front row off to the left, wearing a white suit. As she got closer, she could tell that she wasn’t the only one sweating in the melting Hawaiian heat.

Herman waved at her and smiled. He wore his goodness like a badge. His giant hands held a yellow plumeria lei, which he placed around her neck. His neck smelled like sardines and sweet flowers. His touch was tentative, and even after a week together and weeks of almost daily letter writing, she realized they hardly knew each other.

After the initial hug, Herman pulled out a small box.

He knelt down.

The people around them disappeared and she could see only his mouth forming words.

“Violet, will you marry me?”

In her mind, she began to frantically recall the letters and if she had possibly missed one. In all of their correspondence, marriage had not been mentioned. But then why else would a man buy a woman a ticket halfway around the world?

“We have your mother’s blessing.”

His eyes were so open and expectant. Was there any other answer than yes?

* * *

A loud pounding rattled Violet from her daydream. “Hello?” a voice called.

It was Luther. “Thank you for coming.”

“Anytime, you know that. What can I do for ya?” he said.

“Jean and I are going to sell pies in Waimea on Saturday mornings. Give the soldiers a feeling of home and make some pocket change,” she said.

Luther had to bend his neck straight down when talking to her. “I’m afraid I’m not much good at pie making, so if you’ve invited me here for that, you’re fresh out of luck.”

The thought of Luther with an apron on, baking a pie, caused her to laugh. He only cooked meat. She knew this because they shared an occasional dinner together, along with Jean and a few other faculty members. Being around Luther was a link to Herman, and she was glad for his company, even if he seemed preoccupied these days and kept more to himself.

“Now there’s a sight. But we do need a pie stand, something that we can fold up and is easy to assemble. I know you would be good at that,” Violet said.

“Now you’re in business. I can have something ready by the weekend if you’d like. How many pies you looking to sell?”

“I think we’ll start with twenty and go from there. But I have a little extra time now that Ella’s in Japanese school in the afternoons,” she said.

His voice boomed. “That such a good idea?”

Violet was fed up with paranoia. “It was her idea. And why the hell not?”

Luther tucked his hands in under his belt, lowered his voice, looked around as though someone might be hiding between the walls and leaned close enough that she thought she smelled liquor on his breath. “Just between you and me, I’ve been hearing rumors that they might close the school.”

Violet about fell over. “What? Where did you hear that?”

“Oh, in and about town. People talk. You know that.”

Closing the school would ripple through their small community, ruining her friends’ livelihood and cutting off her daughter’s newfound independence. Somewhere between the September heat and a rising feeling of dread, her palms broke out in sweat.

“Is there anything you can do about it? Herman talked to someone not long after Pearl Harbor, when there was mention of closing it then. Do you know who?” She had to take a breath to steady herself.

He shrugged it off. “No idea.”

“You must have connections. Please, Luther, we need this. Ella needs it,” she said.

He held up his hands. “I’m not privy to the government’s agenda. There’s a lot going on we don’t know about. Hard to trust anyone these days.”

She would have to warn Takeo.

* * *

October 2 turned out to be a good day for the Allies. According to the radio, they’d breached the Siegfried Line and would now be able to penetrate Germany along the northwestern border. The Germans had just crushed the Polish resistance in Warsaw and needed to be stopped. Maybe someone would finally do something about that mustached pig.

Violet was boiling coconut and listening to the news when Ella burst through the door, arms flailing. She was home far too early for Japanese school to be over.

“Mama, there are armed men at the school. You have to come!” Ella said.

Violet almost fell over. “What?”

Ella could barely get the words out between gasps. “They came while we were singing and stood outside. Sensei told us that school would be ending early today and to go home. The men didn’t look nice.”

“Honey, you stay here with Jean.”

Jean had heard Ella and hovered nearby. Shaking, Violet slipped her shoes on and ran up to the school. Branches tore at her dress and the dense air pressed in on her lungs. By the time she arrived on the small porch, she had to fold over to catch a breath. Two army jeeps were parked in front. Too late to warn Takeo.

When she opened the door, the chirping of the birds halted and the entire room froze. Papers were strewn across the room and drawers piled haphazardly on the floor. Without the singing children, the place felt stingingly cold.

“What the devil is going on?” she cried.

Three men stood around the desk, and an older one with a scar carved deep into his cheekbone stepped forward. “Ma’am, this is a government matter. I’m going to have to ask you to return to wherever you came from.”

Violet couldn’t restrain herself. “How dare you come in here when the kids are in class. Have you no common decency?”

The soldiers all began fidgeting. “We were prepared to wait but Mr. Hamasu requested for the children to leave,” the scarred one said.

Takeo stood off to the side with a blank face and unreadable eyes. He nodded toward the door.

Still, she wasn’t leaving. “I want to know what you’re doing here. Takeo already went through this after Pearl Harbor. They’re not even teaching Japanese, for heaven’s sake.”

The man spoke as though she was just a small annoyance. “That may be the case, but we’re doing what we see fit to keep the country safe. This is a matter of national security. What concern do you have in the matter, anyway, Mrs....?”

“Mrs. Iverson, sir. My daughter is a student here.”

The men exchanged glances and a look of confusion spread across their faces. “At Japanese school?” the spokesman said.

“Yes, and she loves it. She comes home with folded paper animals and is learning how to create a miniature tree. Terribly dangerous stuff.”

It seemed odd that they would be coming now. The threat of direct attack had lessened and the Japanese were being forced back toward their homeland. Violet knew Takeo like a brother. He had stepped in after Herman disappeared and been a second father to Ella. If she was sure of one thing, it was that Takeo was no spy.

The spokesman leaned against the desk and folded his puffy arms. “As of now, the school is officially closed and we are taking over the building. Sorry for your daughter but she doesn’t really belong here anyway.” The look he gave her said he wasn’t sorry at all.

Violet shivered from the understanding that these men had poisoned minds and were unable to think for themselves. The war had created some kind of mass hysteria. “My husband was the principal of Honoka’a School and the head of Hawaii Rifles. He vouched for Takeo. Shouldn’t that count for something?”

“Leonard, please escort Mrs. Iverson home so we can wrap things up here and get a move on,” the spokesman said to one of the younger men. And to her, “We are done here.”

Violet stepped back toward the door. “I don’t need escorting.” Her eyes met with Takeo’s, and behind his calm exterior, his eyes gave her the impression of a murky pond, one without answers. He failed miserably in his attempt at a smile.

Takeo spoke. “Violet. Thank you.”

Her name sounded lonely without the san at the end.

* * *

Rather than returning to her house, she went straight for Setsuko, who she knew would be at home with the kids. She didn’t bother knocking and let the screen door slam shut behind her. Glancing across the room, she saw Umi and Hiro on the floor listening to the radio. Setsuko stood by the window, her face drawn down and her eyes bloodshot.

They were about the same height, and when Violet hugged her, Setsuko trembled and wouldn’t let go. “I’m scared. They said they were searching for something of vital importance,” Setsuko said.

She had never seen Setsuko like this. “They probably always say that. If they close the school, we can do crafts with the kids here. And they have our little garden here and Ahualoa.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about. I think they’re taking him.”

Violet pulled away, still holding both her hands, and looked her in the eye. “Taking him?”

“To the relocation camp at Kilauea. The captain said something about the Ni’ihau incident,” Setsuko whispered, then put her finger to her lips.

They were practically nose to nose and Violet could see the salt from the dried tears on Setsuko’s cheeks. “That was years ago. And what would it have to do with Takeo?”

Everyone knew about the Ni’ihau incident. In 1941, a Japanese pilot had crashed on the small island after raiding Pearl Harbor. Initially, the Hawaiian people of the island didn’t even know about the bombing, but when they got wind of the attack, they apprehended him. The pilot sought aid from three local Japanese, who assisted him in breaking loose, finding weapons and taking hostages. In the mind of the Americans, it proved that anyone of Japanese descent could not be trusted.

“Nothing at all, but they already have their minds made up,” Setsuko said.

Violet gripped her wrists. “We won’t let it happen.”