Why She Left Us | Asian American Bookview

Why She Left Us
by Rahna Reiko Rizzuto
HarperCollins, New York, 1999, 295 pp, $24
A century of turmoil and pain as seen through the eyes of three generations of a Japanese American family.
EXCERPT:

ariko Stone was safe in her living room. She sank into her bottle green chair and watched the waves of rain splash out of the dense fog and into her three picture windows. There was a war on outside, but not even the kamakani -- the irresistable bonsai wind that hurled the rain and sculpted one-sided trees all over the island -- could shred through those spirits. By morning, Mari knew, her muddy driveway would reappear between her orchids and fire ginger, and with it, the waterfalls and necking places, the acres of pasture no one seemed to own. For now, though, only the fog existed. The world Mari lived in was gone.
She had just come up that driveway, of course, with the groceries she'd traveled more than twenty miles to buy, and the mail. After twenty years in the same house, it was easy enough for her to swing in and out of the horseshoe turns that marked the road to Ahualoa, and to find the log and hog wire gate that protected her home. She had shaken the rain from her hair and put the kettle on for tea: green Japanese tea, which she hardly ever drank. Now she was resting in her favorite armchair, considering the envelope she had just received from the War Relocation Authority as she waited for the water to boil.
The truth about her internment during World War II was in the envelope. Yet the first time she had applied for redress, Mari had been told there was no record of her ever entering the camps.

There could be other, more urgent letters, Mari decided, picking up the rest of the stack. She did a fast sort by name -- Roger, Tyler, Occupant, herself. Tyler's name, even misspelled and misgendered on the junk mail, pulled up a sharp parade of images. The red dance of sun in her daughter's soft hair before she left for college. Tyler home for Christmas: pale and shorn almost bald -- her declaration of independence, artistic identity, and probably sexual experience -- her oblong skull set like a jewel atop a black cat suit but still somehow completely recognizable from the moment she stepped onto the airplane's rolling stairway. Mari had grabbed her -- hugged her and held that face she loved in her hands as she searched it for the high cheekbones that were hers, and the tawny flesh in Tyler's eyes that came from Roger. Her daughter's face had always been such a mix of them, such a strong cement for her marriage. Now that she was away, though, the best of both of them were gone. If only the government had found Mari's name in its files the first time, she wouldn't be hesitating now. Instead, they had asked for the number that was assigned to her family, the one her mother had been so reluctant to give. Mari could still remember that confrontation. They had been at Emi's house just north of Hilo for their annual Christmas tree trimming party. It was Mari's sister, Kim, who brought up the internment. She specialized in pushing people past the point of comfort. That day, as always, Mari and her mother were her targets of choice.

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