“I didn’t ask you to read the funny pages, boy. Get on with it,” Bud thundered.
I folded the paper, setting it aside until I could tuck it into my back pocket on the way out the door.
The fire was stoked to a moderate roar in no time. “You be sure and take the rest of those pintos with you to your Lishie tonight. I get awful tired of hearing her complain I don’t feed you enough while you’re here,” my uncle gargled.
“Yes, sir. You remember that I’m leaving in the morning for Asheville, right?”
“Ehh, shit. That tomorrow? Just make sure you get everything done here you need to before you take off again.” Bud stood from his ladder-back rocking chair and walked over to the table. “I been reading about this place you say you’re working at.”
“Reading about it? Where?”
“Hell, son. I ain’t illiterate. The goddamn newspaper that every other folk in the country reads.”
I wanted to know more, but knew it was best to try to ignore him when he appeared to be keen on a topic.
“The Grove Park Inn. That’s the place, sure nuff?”
“Yes, sir.” I hurriedly spooned the remaining beans from the castiron pot into a small blue bowl to take with me.
“Paper says they’ve got Krauts holed up there already. Gonna move in Japs soon, too. Best watch your step or they’re liable to lock you up with ’em. You probably look more like a foreigner than a soldier.”
“I’ll be careful, but I think they keep everyone pretty well separated. I’ll be doing outside work anyway. Doubt they let them outside much.”
“Ain’t no resort with sightseers now. Says they’re diplomats and foreign nationals. Shit, that means they’re high-class prisoners. ‘Fore the summer’s over, you’ll be serving them tea and rubbing their Nazi-lovin’ feet.”
“I think they pay other people for that,” I offered, grabbing the folded newspaper I had set aside, tucking it in my pants, and hurrying out the front door. “Night!” I called back.
Lishie was waiting at the kitchen table when I came in. “I thought you would’ve beat me home.” She smiled.
“I brought you home some beans.”
“Sgi, sweetheart. There’s a pan of cornbread on the stove if you’re hungry.”
“No, thanks, I still need to start packing for the week.”
“Well, okay. If you’re sure. I’ll make you some sandwiches to take with you. I put your momma’s old suitcase on your bed, too. You should use it. The lining still smells like her.” Lishie was tearing up, whether over Momma or me I couldn’t tell. Sometimes I think Lishie may have missed her daughter-in-law more than her own son. I would not have been surprised by either motivation for the tears. Lishie had two emotions: sternness and complete, utter compassion. There was no moderation.
I wouldn’t know if the suitcase smelled like my mother or not. I wish I knew. I only even knew what she looked like based on what features folks said I had of hers, what some of her cousins looked like, and one faded black-and-white photograph, taken by one of the ever-present ethnographers or anthropologists or archeologists passing through, of her holding me, my hair still wet and face still swollen from birth.
“You spoil me, Lishie. You know I won’t starve between here and Asheville.”
“Well, you need to be ready to work when you get there. Show them you’re good help.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I kissed the top of her silver head. “I’ll make you proud.”
“You always do.”
I walked to the back room Lishie had divided with a flannel sheet curtain on my tenth birthday so I could have my “privacy.” Though I’d built a doorframe and hung a door two years later, we left the curtain out of sentimentality. I took the newspaper from my back pocket and laid it on my pillow. I could hear Lishie slide her chair away from the table, change into her nightgown on the other side of the curtain, and pad into the living room as I folded my clothes into my mother’s woven sweetgrass suitcase. This was Lishie’s nightly routine. I knew she was opening her Bible to read in her rocking chair until she fell asleep. I pulled the quilt, one of many Lishie has stitched over the years, from the foot of my bed and took it in to her.
“Thank you, dear.”
“Thought you might get cold. Bud said it’s blackberry winter.”
She looked up from the scripture and smiled. “Shhhiii …” She shook her head and we both laughed softly.
Returning to my packing, I was unsure of what I would need but knew that I would return in a few days to get anything left behind. I didn’t have a heck of a lot of choices of what to take anyway. I closed the suitcase just before 9:00, went to my dresser, and pulled the folded yellow sheet of paper from the drawer with the Preacherman’s handwriting scribbled across it.
Essie Stamper
Pick up 5 a.m. on Monday, May 18th
Soco Road—2nd left past trading post
I folded the paper again and put it in the pocket of the shirt I planned to wear the day we left. Something about the girl’s name written on the paper made me want to keep it close. I sat the suitcase by my door and tidied the room as best I could. Hearing Lishie begin her soft snoring, I padded out to the living room again and helped her to her bedroom.
“You mind if I read a little bit before bed?” I asked as I pulled the top quilt over her. Lishie was a sound sleeper, so she never really minded my reading at night by the lantern.
“Of course not, darlin’. I’m sure you’re a little anxious. Just make sure you don’t stay up too late. I don’t want you noddin’ off on the road tomorrow. It’s a long trip.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I changed into my nightclothes, dug out the newspaper article, and slid into my bed. The bedframe creaked its nightly distress signal. Out of courtesy, I kept the oil lamp turned so low I could barely make out the words on the paper.
I wasn’t sure this was the same article where Bud had gotten his information, but it did tell of the foreign diplomats, foreign nationals, and US citizens who had been moved to “remote locations” in the United States to be held under surveillance. It was odd to think of these mountains as prime surveillance real estate. The newspaper identified Indian reservations out west as sites to hold Japanese Americans. I shook my head. You see, not much has changed. Axis in the country’s finest resorts. American citizens scratching around on land only fit for America’s forgotten stepchildren. I wondered how close I’d get to the prisoners. Should I be afraid? Are they afraid?
Our local paper had taken to picking up trailers from other publications across the country. Apparently, San Francisco had woes I’d never understand.
The women might have something to say about this, however, as the departure of the Japanese has sent them into a spin which looks, Mr. Roosevelt, like a cost-of-living spiral. Anyhow, they’re going round and round in a battle to get household help, never before equaled in intensity. It looks like total war on the distaff side.
According to the article, the real tragedy of Japanese internment was not a loss of freedom or a pseudo-criminalization of innocent human beings on the grounds of name, language, color, or great-grandmother’s country of origin. It was that white women of upper-class San Francisco might not have someone to fold their skivvies. They may have to sweep their own floors. And, most horrifically, they had turned to stealing servants from their nearest and dearest friends.