“And a grand home it is, Niisan,” Taizo complimented him.
“Taizo, this is America. We need not stand on tradition. I am not Niisan, just Jiro. We are equals in this farm and in my heart.”
Taizo was quite touched by this, nodding in response. “As you wish.”
As Jiro showed them about, Taizo’s astonishment only multiplied. The living room boasted both a wood console phonograph and a radio receiver. The kitchen was also a fount of technological wonders, equipped with a wall telephone and an electric washing machine with a steel tub—two marvels Taizo had only ever glimpsed in the pages of the Sears, Roebuck catalog.
Jiro escorted them to their bedrooms on the second floor. He and Nishi shared one, Akira and Tamiko another. The others—once occupied by Jiro’s three daughters—were quickly assigned to Ruth’s brothers, with one, as in Honolulu, to be occupied by Taizo, Etsuko, and Ruth. All the rooms were furnished not with futons but with beds, but Taizo made no complaint.
“Are we going to live here?” Ruth asked her mother wonderingly.
“Yes, it is quite a palace, is it not, butterfly?”
“Can we let Mayonaka out now?”
“Yes, I think so.”
Ruth eagerly opened the cage and swung the door open wide. But Mayonaka no longer seemed so eager to get out. “Come on, it’s all right,” Ruth cooed, finally giving her a little nudge. Mayonaka padded out very slowly indeed, hissed once, then darted under the bed.
Etsuko smiled. “Let her be, Dai. She just needs to adjust to this new place. We will bring her up some supper later.”
“There are days I feel like that myself,” Jiro said with a laugh. “Do not worry, Dai. She will emerge in her own time.” He turned to his brother. “While the women settle in, Taizo, may I show you some of my—our land?”
* * *
They walked at least a mile into the fields, Jiro proudly showing off the farm, Taizo enjoying the warmth of the sun and a cooling breeze. The hundred acres were covered with green, leafy strawberry plants—marching in rows east to west, to reduce shading—interspersed with trellises bearing flame-red Tokay grapes ripening on vines. It made their little vineyard in Hōfuna seem like a window garden.
“Grapes, as you know,” Jiro said in Japanese, “take five years to mature. So the strawberries produce a marketable crop in the meantime. We dig our irrigation ditches two feet deep, every other row, to conserve moisture, thus allowing the plants to yield two, sometimes three harvests a year.”
“Remarkable,” Taizo said.
“Florin’s soil is ideal for growing strawberries. It’s shallow and it rests on a bed of hardpan, which helps the soil retain water.”
“From the train I saw the windmills irrigating the fields. So water is easily obtainable?”
“Plentiful. Sink a well anywhere, you find water.”
“These grapes are ripe,” Taizo noted, puzzled. “Why isn’t anyone out here picking them? I saw other farms harvesting their vineyards.”
Jiro winced, as if he had hoped the question might never be raised.
“Ah, well,” Jiro sighed, “as they say, ‘God dwells in the details.’”
“You said in your letter that you needed my help because the farm was no longer producing as well as it once did, but from what I can see, the opposite is true. You underestimate your skill as a farmer, Jiro.”
But instead of the familiar gleam of pleasure in his eyes at a compliment, Jiro actually looked dejected.
“I am not worthy of such praise, Taizo.”
These were sentiments never before uttered by Jiro Watanabe, at least not in Taizo’s presence.
“There is no one harvesting the grapes,” Jiro admitted, “because I lack the funds to hire enough skilled laborers.”
Taizo did not know what to make of this. “Is this a joke?”
“I wish that it were. This, you see, is why I need your assistance.”
“To … harvest your crop?”
“Yes.”
The implications of this began to sink in. “My assistance,” Taizo asked sharply, “or my family’s assistance?”
Jiro sighed again.
“Both,” he admitted, eyes downcast.
Taizo said in disbelief, “You expect me and my sons to harvest a hundred acres by ourselves? That is why you called me here?”
“Not just you and your sons,” Jiro said quickly. “Of course Akira, Tamiko, and Nishi and I will all help.”
“And what of my sons’ schooling?”
“We have a few weeks before school begins in September. We won’t be able to harvest all the grapes, of course, since some mature late in the season, but we should be able to pick enough to make a profit.”
“Surely you have some money to pay laborers—” Taizo began, but Jiro interrupted:
“You do not understand how things work here, Taizo. At the start of the season, we owners receive an advance from the fruit distributors against the strawberry harvest. We live on that, use it to pay our expenses, until the crop is harvested, and the cycle is repeated with the next crop.”
“Then you must have received an advance against the grape harvest.”
“Similarly, we buy food from the grocer and provisions from the supply store against the harvest—”
Taizo abruptly cut him off: “What happened to the advance for the grape harvest?”
Jiro looked deflated, defeated. “Gone. All the money is all gone.”
“Where did it go?”
“To pay interest on debt, among other things.”
Taizo’s mind was reeling. “Debt?”
Jiro revealed, shame-faced, “I owe money to everyone—the distributors, the supply store, the grocer, and the Sumitomo Bank in Sacramento, where Akira took on a second mortgage against the property.”
Taizo’s incredulity was giving way to anger. “And you wish my eldest son to someday take on half that debt? How much is it?”
Jiro could not look him in the eye as he said, “Five thousand dollars.”
Taizo could not have been more stunned had five thousand gold bars just fallen on his head.
“Five thousand dollars?”
“Agriculture runs in cycles, Taizo, you know this. Before the war, times were hard; we eked out a living. Afterward, the economy improved, and—”
“You bought a six-hundred-dollar truck!” Taizo shouted, surprising even himself. “You own a phonograph, a radio, an electric dishwasher—”
“I only wished my family to be comfortable after years of struggle!”
“No, you wished to brag to your neighbors about how wealthy you were and have them envy your fine possessions,” Taizo shot back. “So you spend and spend, letting your debt grow and grow—and then—”
Truly, Taizo had never been angrier in his life. He took a step toward his brother, his hands clenched into fists. “Then you offer me half of your great estate, without mentioning its great debt as well—and believing in you, as always, I uproot my family and close my business! And for what? To be your chattel and to take on half your—”
His words ended in a cry of inchoate fury. Barely aware he was doing it, Taizo took a wild swing at his brother. His fist connected with Jiro’s mouth, splitting his lip, and Jiro toppled like a felled tree onto a row of strawberries.
Taizo stood above him, breathing hard, but Jiro made no move to get up. He wiped blood from his lip, his face filled not with anger but with shame.
“I believe I had that coming,” he said softly.
“That? That was for giving me pneumonia when I was twelve!” Taizo yelled. “I have not even begun to address this situation!”
“I apologize for deceiving you,” Jiro said. “But would you have come had I told you the truth?”
“No! I would have been a fool to come. I am a fool to have come!”
Taizo’s dreams came crashing down like a fallen star. He had no money left to return to Honolulu. He and his family were marooned here, shipwrecked on an island of debt and deceit. The sky, which minutes ago had appeared so infinite and welcoming, now seemed to press down on him. He felt caught in a vise of guilt and shame.
As he struggled to breathe, he heard sobs, and thought: My shame is complete, I am weeping.
But it was not Taizo weeping. It was Jiro.