Chapter Six Violet
Chapter Six
Violet
I’m most definitely going through the fence with Ren.
I lie in my cot, annoyance gripping me as I recall his words from this morning.
Granted, he was being frustratingly reasonable.
Going outside camp can get you shot. If Otōsan and Mama knew I’d even looked at the gap, they would be apoplectic.
A lecture would ensue. Otōsan would be concerned yet measured, while Mama’s distress would run away with her.
Together, the two would work to successfully bring me into obedience.
I can’t bear disappointing them and I don’t usually do anything risky, aside from putting on lipstick at school.
But everything is upside down here.
Illusions of safety and civility have been peeled back, leaving me on a ridge of weak sand, layers crumbling away beneath my weight.
I’m afraid all the time, and there doesn’t seem to be space for anything other than fear and pain.
So perhaps that’s why I’m thinking about leaving the barrack while Mama slumbers, to find the boy with the sling and escape under the fence with him.
To try to find room inside me once again for more…
even though I’m worried it might not exist any longer.
At midnight, he said. Time is yet another torture device here.
We’re forced to do nothing but endure it, yet we have few ways to categorize it.
In Los Angeles, there were clocks everywhere, from pharmacies to diners to most rooms in our homes.
There are no clocks outside the administration offices, so we tell time by the mess hall bells.
Luckily, Mama brought her wristwatch from home, and she leaves it atop her suitcase when she’s in the barrack.
Once she’s fast asleep, I hold it by the narrow leather band and squint at its face.
At last, the time comes.
I’ve never sneaked out before, and, good Lord in heaven, I’m terrible at it.
As I get off my cot, I suddenly become as clumsy as a newborn foal.
I knock over a bucket Mama brought into the barrack to scrub the place.
It clatters and I freeze, certain Mama will wake up.
But she’s always been a wondrously heavy sleeper and is so exhausted from the day that she only rolls over on her mattress, the stiff ticking fabric and straw crinkling.
I put her wristwatch back and dress quickly, donning a pair of high-waisted pants.
They are chicer than one might think of for crawling under a fence, but I also happen to be meeting a very attractive boy, one I’ve thoroughly failed to impress.
I cringe inwardly as I think about his amused, sardonic expression when he realized my crime was truancy.
Honestly, though, what did he expect? That I’d robbed a bank?
A girl can only do so much on her first foray into rebellion.
Like last night, the barrack is noisy. Strangely, at night it’s louder than during the day and my ears fill with the perverse lullaby.
Mr. Kimura snorts and snores, chokes and coughs.
The couple who fought last night have made up, and I hear the woman whisper, “Faster.” My face blazes in the darkness at their intimacy, shock riddling me.
Mercifully, there’s more noise to distract me because someone keeps tossing and turning, their agitated shadow filtering through two rows of sheets as they sigh.
The sounds seem to chase me right to the door.
I push my way out into the camp.
I’m thrown into a sea of agitation, as though the camp’s ferality has awakened with the moon.
A man staggers along the firebreak, loudly singing “Kimigayo,” Japan’s national anthem.
I wait in the shadows until he passes me.
He hiccups and starts chanting in a whisper, “Hirohito, Hirohito, Hirohito.” We aren’t supposed to say the emperor’s name, but he repeats it, over and over, like a child saying a curse word in their room.
I’m scared to hear it, even as my mind rails against the thought of a grown man being so censored that he’s forced to whisper a name he used to be able to say.
I keep going, driven to find Ren. The searchlight sweeps the camp with a beam of probing white light.
Bleary-eyed mothers with babies stumble toward the washing rooms to change them because there is no running water in our barracks.
Other people line up outside the latrines with towels and bars of Ivory soap to shower.
Some wear bathing suits, which is smart.
Mama and I didn’t bring any—aquatic activities were the last thing on our minds when we packed, wonder of wonders—but thankfully, Mama says she will order us some once the canteen opens.
It feels like I’ve been thrust into a dystopic world, primitive and despotic.
As horrid as it is, I might prefer Aldous Huxley’s dystopian vision to this one.
I can’t imagine Lenina Crowne had to worry about bathing suits.
The lines for the toilets are even longer than for the showers.
Everyone has had the same idea—come to the bathrooms at midnight for privacy.
The general advice among the women is “wear a skirt or bring a magazine” and most have both.
One lady holds a large piece of cardboard to create a temporary partition.
I keep walking. An elderly, confused woman is herded along by her daughters, and they apologize as she keeps stopping strangers to ask when the Alameda bus schedule will be posted.
A group of men stand together, pass around a flask, and cry, “Kanpai! Banzai! Salud! Opa! Santé!” Inside a barrack somewhere, a woman wails loudly.
I try to hurry. Cold, arriving with the night, nips at my legs like a thousand mosquitoes.
Otōsan’s deer bobs about in my pocket, and I slip my hand around it to find my courage.
Thoughts of Ren return, making everything around me dim.
I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like him.
I’m not used to finding boys mysterious.
To me, boys are as readable as books—and often juvenile-level books at that.
Ren isn’t like that.
It’s as though every thought is sealed away behind his inscrutable eyes, where they dwell for him alone.
He seems to expect nothing from me, and I’m not used to it.
When he’s not regarding me with thinly veiled amusement at my lack of worldliness, he’s wary and cautious, like he doesn’t trust me—or anyone else. It only makes me want to know him more.
I’m relieved when I spot him up ahead. My deer warms, as though to point him out.
He’s standing against one of the barracks, one foot lifted and anchored against it, his good hand deep in his pocket.
Despite the chill, he’s only wearing a fitted white undershirt with the same pants from earlier, making me wonder if he slept in them.
His arm, in its sling, folds against his body.
I think he’s examining something in the dirt because his head tilts forward, but as I draw closer I realize that’s not it.
His eyes are closed, like he’s tired and trying to find rest, even now.
Everything about him is drawn down, as though Earth’s gravitational pull exerts more force on him than on anyone else.
At my approach, he seems to sense me. He straightens up and pulls his hand out of his pocket. It’s dark yet I can see his face, as inscrutable as ever. Or perhaps I can’t really, and it’s simply been so imprinted on my mind from earlier that I can re-create it out of shadows and starlight.
“Why are you here?” he asks without any preamble.
“Good evening to you, too,” I retort, crossing my arms. I wait, thinking he’ll try to amend his rudeness, but he doesn’t. Not at all. “I’m here to go with you, clearly.”
The force of my attention has a visible effect on him. He shifts against the wall, and his brows draw together tightly, a line appearing between them. Perhaps he’s trying to push me away, but it isn’t working.
“No” is all he says. The searchlight passes over us.
It flashes across his face, shining like water.
When I first saw him in his barrack, I wanted to draw him sitting on the shore, a solitary figure.
But just now, encapsulated in shimmering light, he reminds me of my monsters rising from the ocean.
It’s a tantalizing image, one so alluring that I almost blush.
The searchlight moves on and he’s plunged into darkness again.
Thank goodness, because my heart can now return to a more reasonable tempo. “It isn’t smart.”
I forgot how annoying he is. But frankly, if I’m being honest, as I stand there knowing a man with a rifle is in the watchtower, I’m more hesitant than I’d like to admit.
I realize, with a start, that I’ve never lived in a world where rules and laws didn’t exist to keep me safe.
But that’s changed now, so fast that I wouldn’t believe it if I wasn’t here, so far from the home that’s no longer mine.
It’s a terrible revelation, one so painful that my chest tightens. I take a shallow breath.
“Others have gone, right?” I ask, rubbing my fingers against the deer in my pocket. Its warm, smooth sides soothe me. “It can’t be that dangerous.”
“It is,” Ren says flatly. “Lots of things have consequences, especially in places like this.” He pauses. One side of his mouth tugs up in a small, wry smile, making the shadow around his lips curve. “You can always say you did and tell the others at school tomorrow.”
The suggestion makes me sputter. How dare he think I’m some ridiculous girl, only trying to impress others?
It isn’t up to him what I do or don’t do.
In fact, it’s preposterous that he even has an opinion about my actions, especially when it’s clear that he doesn’t apply the same concerns to himself.
There’s only one way to prove I don’t need to listen to him or have his permission for anything.