Ruth considered that. “Well, we do have to go back sometime. And Myer was right: the Japanese helped make Florin what it is today, and we have every right to go back. It’s as much our town as it is Joseph Dreesen’s.”
“I heard the old coot finally died,” Horace noted.
“Good riddance,” Etsuko said with indecorous contempt, prompting laughter all around the table.
* * *
A little after three P.M. on April 12, 1945—two days before the Watanabes were set to leave—Manzanar was rattled, as was the nation, by the shocking news that President Roosevelt had died in Warm Springs, Georgia. Flags across the camp were lowered to half staff; shortly after, all the block managers stood outside in silent prayer, paying tribute to the man who had guided America out of a Depression and through forty months of a war more brutal and global than any other in human history. Usually stoic Japanese wept openly—even Ruth, who still harbored conflicted feelings about the man who had given the order to send them here and who was, directly and indirectly, responsible for so many of the losses they had endured. But he was still the president, and she wept for him and for Mrs. Roosevelt, whose sympathy for the plight of the internees was well known (she had visited the Gila River Camp in Arizona in 1943).
The morning of April 14 was clear, bright, and mild; high clouds floated in a pale blue sky above the saw-toothed ridges of the Sierra Nevada. The Watanabes’ luggage was placed aboard a Greyhound bus bound for Northern California as Donnie and Peggy, thrilled to be going anywhere, raced up the steps just ahead of their father. Ruth was holding a small wooden crate from which Snowball was emitting a variety of unhappy sounds. The Arikawas had come to bid the Watanabes farewell and good luck; Ruth and Etsuko thanked them for the welcome they had extended on their first day in Manzanar: “‘One kind word can warm three winter months,’” Etsuko quoted, before she and her family boarded the bus.
Ruth felt an unaccustomed thrill, too, as the bus passed through the open gate, beyond the barbed wire, and onto Highway 6, heading north. There were no shades on the bus to shield the outside world from their Japanese faces, and Ruth felt a weight lifted from her soul, a buoyancy of spirit she hadn’t known in three long years. Even the speed of the bus—all of forty miles an hour—was exhilarating after the stasis of life in Manzanar.
She was free. Her children were free. That joy of release kept her weightless as a cloud for the next eight hours.
* * *
They arrived in Sacramento in late afternoon and took a cab to the city’s nihonmachi. Once a thriving community of Japanese-owned grocery stores, tailors, hotels, Japanese baths, lodging houses, and homes, it was now a multihued tapestry of varied races: whites, Hispanics, Chinese, and Negroes. Housing was scarce, but the local branch of the JACL had converted several houses into hostels for returning evacuees, and it was at one of these that the Watanabes and Haradas would spend a comfortable night (and possibly longer, if they couldn’t find accommodations closer to Florin).
The next morning they browsed several used car lots (technically, every car in the U.S. was a used car ever since the auto plants had converted to war production in 1942). The most practical choice was a nine-passenger Chrysler station wagon. According to the young Chinese salesman, it retailed four years ago for fourteen hundred dollars, had only eighty thousand miles on it, and he was selling it for the bargain price of nine hundred dollars. Etsuko astonished them all by negotiating him down to eight twenty-five, then reached into her purse and withdrew the exact amount in cash.
Painted olive green and with a huge wheelbase, the car could almost have passed for a military vehicle. The men, of course, each wanted to drive it first; they flipped a coin, Frank won, and soon the Chrysler was tooling off the lot, heading south down Stockton Boulevard.
Within half an hour they were turning left onto Florin Road. Etsuko gazed out the window with a wistful pleasure and Ruth spontaneously took her hand, gave it a squeeze, and smiled. They were coming home at last.
But as they entered Florin’s downtown clustered along the railroad tracks, Ruth’s smile faded. In 1942, Florin’s downtown had been busy and prospering; now many of the stores had yet to reopen, their windows soaped over or boarded up. But that wasn’t the worst of it.
“Oh my goodness,” Etsuko said, “look. Akiyama’s Market—is gone.”
It was true. There was only a soot-stained foundation and the charred stumps of a building frame where Akiyama’s Fish Market once stood.
“What happened to it, Daddy?” Horace’s son Will asked.
“Looks like … fire, Will. Must’ve burned to the ground,” Horace said.
“And Nishi Basket Factory,” Rose said, “it burned too.”
“Even Mr. Nakajima’s restaurant,” Ruth said quietly. So many fondly remembered pieces of their past, now just blackened slabs.
Frank pulled the car over to the curb and parked.
The family got out and found themselves standing at the center of not quite a ghost town, with only a handful of stores still open. Among these was Florin Feed & Supply—the late Joseph Dreesen’s company. Of course.
“I’d heard there was arson in Taishoku and Auburn,” Horace said, “but I hadn’t expected—”
“There’s one place that’s still doing business,” Frank said in a strangely flat voice. Ruth followed his gaze and recognized, with a sick feeling, a long, narrow building, with a red sign atop advertising itself as NICK’S DINER.
Without even thinking, Frank began walking toward it.
Ruth quickly handed the children over to Etsuko and hurried to keep pace with her husband.
“Honey,” she said, “is this a good idea?”
“Probably not.” He opened the door to the diner.
They entered and saw the familiar red vinyl booths, chrome countertop, and daily specials posted on the chalkboard. A jukebox was playing a Frank Sinatra song. Everything was almost exactly as it had been when they last saw it three years before. It was lunchtime and the diner was doing good business, most of the booths full, the customers mostly white, as was the man behind the cash register.
Frank went up to the cashier and said, “Hi. You the owner here?”
“Since last year,” the man replied proudly. “Nick Castellano. You folks back from the … camps?”
“Yes, we just got back.”
“I gotta say, I thought you people got a raw deal. Hey, you want a couple slices of pie, on the house?”
Frank smiled. He couldn’t help liking this guy, but … “No thanks, but it’s swell of you to offer. You seem to be doing well here.”
“Yeah, the train station pulls in a lot of customers—passengers grabbing a square meal before their train leaves.”
“You bought this place from Carl Clasen?”
“Yeah, how’d you know?”
“Do you mind my asking—how much did you pay for it?”
Nick looked puzzled by the question, but answered it. “Well, the building’s a lease, but I got a good deal on the inventory—thirty thousand bucks.”
Frank felt as if he had been sucker-punched in the gut. Thirty grand for inventory he and Ruth had been forced to sell for a thousand dollars.
Forcing a smile, he said, “Thank you. Good luck,” then turned on his heel and hurried for the door.
“Frank?” Ruth followed him out, concerned when he didn’t respond, just ran into the alley alongside the diner. Once out of sight of anyone on the street, Frank doubled over and vomited up his breakfast.
“Oh, honey…” Ruth placed a hand on his back. He remained bent over, waiting to see if the nausea would start again, but finally straightened. Ruth took out a handkerchief and wiped his mouth. As she did she saw that his eyes were glossy with tears.
“I’m so sorry, honey,” she said. “It’s not fair. None of it was fair.”
“I know. I thought I knew that. But this—this I wasn’t expecting.” He sighed. “You were right. I should never have stopped at this goddamn place.”