“It’s fine! Perfectly fine,” said Keiko, smiling, her voice still managing to sound bright. “We will be ready in an hour. Thank you very much,” she said as the man backed out of the room. “I’m sure Crystal City will be just lovely.”
Emi fell backward onto her bed but Keiko stopped her before she could say anything. “Do not talk. Just put your things in your bags and nod your head yes to everything I say. Maybe the new camp will be better. Maybe the people from that camp will leave for Japan quicker. You don’t know and I’m tired of you always speculating the worst. Ever since you got sick you’ve been impossible. I know you miss being in contact with Leo, and living in a civilized place with food that doesn’t taste like animal droppings, but I am fed up with your wretched attitude. So just, for once, don’t question everything, and step in line like the rest of us. Have some reverence for your mother.”
Emi raised her eyebrows but didn’t say another word until they were gathered with the other families about to be transferred. Every family but theirs had small children.
For the first week at Crystal City, Emi continued her habit of speaking to no one but her mother. But it was much harder at Crystal City since there were so many young people interned there, and at the start of Emi’s second week, she couldn’t outrun them anymore.
As she exited her house, heading for the showers, she heard a cheerful voice call after her. She stopped and turned to look at the teenager jogging her way in knee-length plaid shorts, smiling like she was running down a boardwalk instead of a fenced-in dirt path.
“I know you. You live on my row. You just arrived, right?” the girl asked, wiping her brow animatedly. “Were you at Heart Mountain before coming here? Manzanar?”
Emi just looked at her, surprised. She knew the girl appeared as she did, with dark hair and Japanese features, but she seemed so overwhelmingly American that Emi didn’t know quite how to respond.
“I’m June Miyamoto. I live right over there,” she said pointing. “Right by you.”
Emi noticed that her bluntly cut bangs were sitting a few centimeters too high on her face, like she’d been trimming them herself for the last few months.
“No, we were at Seagoville,” said Emi. “It’s only six hours away. We were two of the first women brought there when it opened in April.”
“Wow, where are you from?” June asked, peering at Emi’s mouth as if she was possessed.
“Japan,” said Emi. “Oh, you mean the accent. By way of England, I suppose.”
“That explains it,” June said smiling. “England. I’d like to go there one day, but not today. They probably hate us as much there as they do here.” She made a line in the ground with her shoe as she spoke. “Seagoville. Is that all women?”
“Almost,” Emi confirmed while watching the Japanese schoolboys play American football. It was shocking to Emi how, like June, they seemed so un-Japanese. She hadn’t known many Japanese-Americans in Washington, just a few of the diplomats’ children, but they led such different lives that they didn’t quite qualify. It shocked Emi to think that the American government considered these fenced-in children dangerous. Aliens. They seemed almost like caricatures of American teenagers to her. She was sad for them as they were in for an awakening when they got to Japan. The Japanese children were not at all as carefree.
“I am tired of being hated. California was a mess when we left. It was awful. No one wanted to sit near me at school, my father’s crops were stolen every night. I didn’t want to come here, but it didn’t feel safe there, either.”
“There had to be a better solution than this,” said Emi looking around them, wondering if all Nisei children were as perky as June. She was saying how upset she was, but delivering it with the cheer of a bandleader.
“Do you go to the Japanese school?” June asked Emi, who explained that she had graduated from high school. “I go to the Federal School here, thank goodness for that,” said June, showing off a perfect dimple and straight white teeth. “I wouldn’t survive a day in the Japanese school.”
“Probably a bit stricter than the American program.”
“You should spend a day at the Federal School. You’d get a kick out of it, and you look young enough,” said June. “You’ve just got to see it. Our teachers sound so weird. They have this drawl,” she said turning the word into three syllables. “And of course no one knows anyone else, so it’s a mess. It’s sad to start your senior year with strangers.”
“I moved all the time,” said Emi. “I sympathize.”
“All the classes are for idiots,” said June laughing. “I’m in my last year and I have to take an earth science class again. I should be taking chemistry but O’Rourke won’t let us have chemistry because he’s certain we’ll mix some noxious gases and firebomb the camp out of retaliation. Banzai Japan and all that. They’re incredibly paranoid and that paranoia is forcing me to be dumb.”
“I’m not at all surprised,” said Emi. “They’re all so blinded by hate. Afraid children are in cahoots to bomb this place. Why bother? There’s nothing of beauty or importance to ruin here.”
“I like the pool,” said June smiling.
“A swimming pool doesn’t quite make up for the rest of it,” said Emi, sadly.
“It will all go back to the way it was,” said June, hugging her, much to Emi’s shock. “Too bad I won’t be in America to see it.”
When Emi and June parted ways, Emi thought about how her circumstances could be even worse if she were a little younger. What a place to finish high school, she thought. Or to be five years old.
Despite June’s unexpected friendliness, Emi’s nerves were still shaken. She knew that her mother was frustrated with her behavior, but she didn’t know how else to be. Since being forced onto the train to Seagoville, she had a rage and a restlessness that she couldn’t seem to lose.
In bed that night, she screamed as a lizard crossed over her sunburned back.
“I can’t do this anymore,” she said, standing up. “I miss Father. I miss Leo’s letters.”
“Is that why you’re awake?” said Keiko, sitting back on her bed. “We’ve already spoken about this, many times. You can try again from Japan. The chances that you’ll be able to get a letter through from Tokyo are far better.”
“I’m not betting on it. We haven’t received letters from any of the friends we’ve written to in Japan. We’ve barely even received any letters from Father, and he’s sending them from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” said Emi, exasperated.
“Things are going to have to change with you,” said Keiko, making room for Emi on her bed. “At this camp, the women your age don’t just sit in the corner and mourn themselves. Everyone works here. You will, too. I have spoken with the director and you will be working at the hospital as a nurse’s aide starting this weekend. You just need to keep busy. Eventually you’ll see that things could be much, much worse. I know they’re not ideal now, but . . .”