“Do not people still get sick?” he countered. “Do they not die?”
“But Papa,” Ruth said, “nowadays there are antiseptic procedures—”
“No!” Her father remained adamant. “This discussion is over.”
Baffled and angered by his old-fashioned obstinacy, Ruth stormed out of the house. Etsuko gently put a hand on Taizo’s arm. “Otōsan, I understand your fear, but she does not. Perhaps it is time that we tell her the truth.”
Taizo sighed, annoyed at himself for losing patience and control.
“No,” he said, “it is better that she does not know. Anger passes, but knowledge can be a curse.”
* * *
Ruth ran outside and into the barn. She was so sick of Papa’s fussy old ideas about everything! She wanted to live in twentieth-century America, not nineteenth-century Japan. She saddled up Bucky and rode him out of the corral, down the bridle path between farms. She let him gallop full bore, his hooves kicking up whorls of dust that reminded Ruth of the tornado that plucked Dorothy out of Kansas. If only she too could be carried away to Oz!
But the path ended not at the Emerald City but at the endless emerald expanse of strawberry plants nearly ripe for harvest. She reined in Bucky and looked back. The parallel ribbons of green strawberry plants receded into the distance toward her family’s farm, like arrows pointing the way to her future.
As if in confirmation of this, in mid-May came the customary week off from school for Florin’s Nisei to help their families harvest the crops. Donning sun bonnets and gloves, Ruth and her family—with the aid of dozens of hired migrant Filipino laborers—toiled in the fields from dawn to dusk. It was grueling work—Ruth spent most of her time bent over the plants at a ninety-degree angle and by day’s end her back ached like a sore tooth. Even her young knees were sore from so much stooping and squatting; she couldn’t imagine how hard this must be for her parents, Uncle Jiro, and Aunt Nishi.
She did her duty without complaint, but by the end of the week she was determined that there had to be more to her life than this. Her father lived and breathed farming. But she would never be more than a workhand here. At night she pored over the classified advertisements in the Sacramento Bee and the Japanese New World-Sun, looking for work, any kind of work. But their pages were bleak with heartbreaking pictures of long breadlines and places like “Pipe City” in Oakland, where the homeless lived inside six-foot-wide construction pipes—men, women, and children sleeping on cold concrete, eating only a thin mulligan stew made with water and whatever castoff or half-eaten vegetables could be salvaged from garbage cans.
The day after high school graduation she put on a pretty dress and began pounding the pavement—though in Florin the “pavement” was still largely wood and dirt. The town’s business district was small, but she doggedly went from store to store, inquiring about work at Akiyama’s Fish Market, Kato’s Grocery, Tanikawa’s General Store, Nishi Basket Factory, Noda’s Ice Cream Parlor, Sasaki Tofu Shop, Ogata’s General Store, and finally Nakajima Restaurant, where lunch patrons were eating dishes of steaming noodles, teriyaki, rice, and vegetables.
She noted a tall, lanky Nisei man in his early twenties, wearing a newly starched white shirt and black trousers, standing behind the cash register; she worked up her resolve, approached him, and asked to see Mr. Nakajima.
The young man said, “I’m sorry, he’s not in just now. Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for a job.”
“Ah,” the Nisei said sympathetically, “I thought I recognized the look.”
“What look?”
“No offense, I just meant that I’ve been in your situation myself. But I’m sorry to say we have all the staff we need.”
Ruth sighed. “Are you sure? Do you need anyone to wash the dishes? Mop the floor?”
“No. Sorry,” he said gently. Then: “Been doing this all morning?”
She nodded.
“Why don’t you take a load off your feet. Would you like a cup of coffee? On the house.”
She hadn’t expected that. “Yes, thank you, that’s very kind.”
“Have a seat at that table for two by the wall and I’ll get it for you.”
Dispirited, Ruth went over to the table and slumped into the chair. The morning had been a total waste, and by the time she got home, word would probably have traveled back to her parents that she was out shaming them by looking for work. She was weighing whether to get a cab to Elk Grove’s business district when the young man came over and put down a cup of hot black coffee in front of her along with a slice of strawberry pie.
“Thought you might like something to eat after your travels,” he said.
She looked up at him. “That’s really very nice of you, but—I’m not destitute, I can pay. I’m just looking for a job, that’s all.” That pie did look awfully good, though. “Thank you, Mister—”
“Harada. Frank Harada.” He smiled. There was a kindness in his eyes, and a pleasing symmetry to his features.
“I’m Ruth Watanabe. You’re not from around here, are you?”
“No, I hail from Fresno.”
“Wow, you’re a long way from home.” She took up a forkful of pie. “What are you doing marooned in Florin?”
He laughed, then gestured to the chair opposite her. “May I?”
“Yes. Sure,” she said, surprised but a little pleased.
He sat down and said matter-of-factly, “My parents had a farm outside Fresno—fifteen acres. We raised peaches, almonds, grapes. We lost it in the stock market crash. Bank foreclosure.”
“Oh,” she said softly, “I’m so sorry.”
He shrugged. “It’s worked out okay. Better than for most folks these days. My otōsan and my oldest brother got work at a vineyard in Visalia. My sisters were already married. The rest of us scattered like birds, finding work where we could. I’ve worked on farms in Salinas, Stockton … got jobs in hotels and restaurants in Walnut Grove, Loomis, and now here.”
His voice was a mellow baritone, and it softened the hard edges and lonely spaces of the story he was telling.
“But you’re so far from your family.” Suddenly the notion of getting away from her father’s old-fashioned ideas didn’t seem quite so important.
“That was the hardest thing to get used to. I miss them every day. But you’ve got to go where the work is, not where you’d like it to be.” He lowered his voice. “And I’ve managed to save some money. When the economy’s a little better, I’d like to open my own restaurant.”
“Maybe Mr. Nakajima will sell you this one,” Ruth suggested. “He’s about a hundred years old, isn’t he?”
Frank laughed. “And he’ll probably still be here in another hundred. But I don’t want a restaurant like this. Look around this town, at how many Nisei there are—do they only want to eat Japanese food? No, they like hamburgers and hot dogs and milkshakes, just like their hakujin friends.”
“Yes,” she agreed, “I was just thinking how I feel sometimes like I’m living in nineteenth-century Japan.”
“So what about you? What do you want to do?”
Ruth started to say one thing, then decided on another:
“I’d like to … work at a restaurant like yours,” she said with a smile.
“You’re hired!” he declared with a smile and a snap of his fingers.
She laughed. It was the first time she’d laughed all day.
“Well. Thank you for the coffee and the pie, it was delicious. Are you sure I can’t pay you?”
“Like I said, on the house.”
She thanked him again and stood. He got to his feet as well.
She thrilled to realize that she was looking directly into his eyes.
* * *