Chapter Sixteen Violet #2
“You’ve been bound to an old man’s body, but Ren and I see you as a young and beautiful god,” I say. “How so?”
“Because it is how I appear within the heavenly court and in the mind’s eye of my celestial parents.
You and the boy are the only mortals to see my true essence.
It’s most harmonious, with perfect division between features…
well, when I’m not being afflicted thus.
” Akira sighs heavily. “This mortal body frightens me. It is weak. It needs food. It needs water.” He holds out his hand to me.
I’m alarmed and then realize he’s seeking comfort.
Cautiously, I take his hand and pat it. It’s light as a whisper, as though his skin is butterfly wings woven to membrane, no weight to it at all.
“Now that I’m bound here, I’ve begun…cracking. ”
“We’ve noticed,” Ren says.
“Well, you should do more than notice, mortal boy,” Akira says, lashing out. “You should help me get out. That would be very hunky-dory indeed. Find a way to free me. Trouble shall befall this place otherwise.”
“What trouble?” Ren asks. His voice is quiet but sharp. “I’ve noticed your…shadow. It was on the ceiling at the council meeting, and then yesterday it hung over the entire camp.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Akira says. “I do nothing but roam, seeking my freedom.” His fingers tighten around my hand, and I almost pull away.
He draws close to my face, so close that I can stare straight into his eyes.
My breath is gone but my heart throbs, my body responding instinctively to this divine creature.
When Akira speaks again, his voice is dreamy.
It comes from above, even though he’s right in front of me, like he’s speaking from the heavens.
“It isn’t natural or right for me to be here.
You, mortal girl, know that. You, mortal girl, must find a way to set me free. ”
For someone who doesn’t enjoy reading, Mama reads me like a book.
It’s the next day, and I’m getting ready for school, thinking about Akira, while she prepares for work.
The weather has gone from mild to chilly.
The days are shortening and the mountains’ shadows contract around us earlier rather than later every night.
Since Otōsan is unwell, Mama inquired about us traveling to him so we can be together.
Other families have managed to be reunited in such ways.
But because he fell ill in the prison hospital far from any camps and isn’t strong enough to move, there’s no place for us.
The only option is to wait and pray he gets better quickly.
It makes us snappish with each other, irritability growing.
To add insult to injury, some of the latrines have backed up beyond repair. New ones were constructed in horrible locations, oriented with the wind. When it gets particularly gusty, everything reeks to high heaven.
It’s also the second day of Akira’s shadow hanging above the camp.
“Violet, I want you to be honest with me,” Mama says, and I immediately know she’s onto me and my illicit nighttime actions.
“Your dress is dusty. Did you go somewhere last night? Somewhere with him?” She’s never asked Ren’s name, as though he can remain an existential concept out in the ether rather than a flesh-and-blood human.
“No, Mama, I didn’t,” I say with a heavy sigh. My mind is distracted by Akira and when I can see Ren again. I remember how his scent filled my nose as his shirt pressed against my face. I can smell it—him—now. “Now, we need to hurry, or we’ll be late.”
“Listen to me.” Mama stares hard at me. “You are to stay away from him. I saw the way he looked at you at Tanabata.” There’s a full pause, like a dark storm cloud rolling in over a gray ocean. “He loves you, Violet.”
I think I gasp.
Or maybe I say, “What?”
I’m not certain.
My thoughts scatter. I don’t know what they are, only that my head is light and my face is hot.
The thought of loving Ren is like the negative space around my sketches—surrounding every line drawn onto it by my hand.
It’s everywhere within me, unthought and unsaid, because I know the cost of love.
I know it is the easiest and hardest thing in the world.
I see it with Mama and Otōsan, how their souls share one set of wings, how they can only fly because they have each other.
It’s passion so deep that it’s crippling, desire so strong it’s transmutative of every other desire you’ve had.
It’s seeing flecks of blood on a letter and reading an envelope that says North Dakota and saying “He’s cold” and going to your knees to beg God to bring him back to you.
Mama and Otōsan love each other, and their love is pain and anguish because the world is dark, and its waves drive you apart, but it’s also an unalloyed center of pure gold split between two.
I know, deep inside, I want this with Ren.
And I know, if I get it, I’ll never be the same again.
“If you continue to see him, you’ll get his hopes up.
It’s unkind to him.” Mama puts on her own jacket made from the military surplus, her actions methodical as though she hasn’t just stricken me to my soul.
“Stay away from him. I’m not asking you.
I’m telling you.” She waits, but I don’t respond.
She shakes her head. “I’ll meet you here before lunch, and we’ll go to the mess hall together. ”
With that, she leaves while I stand there, winded even though I haven’t taken a step.
I realize, vaguely, that Mama said Ren loves me.
But she didn’t say I love Ren. She thinks I’m having fun with Ren while knowing and accepting my duty.
That I’ll go to college, if possible, after we get released, to become a teacher, eventually marry a local Japanese boy from a good family, and have children so I might give back to the community that has built me.
But she’s gotten it wrong.
Not entirely.
I want the outline of the life she expects from me. I do want to go to college, get married, and have a family of my own. Except I want it with Ren.
Because I think I might love him, too.
Mrs. Hata tells me that Mr. Nicholson found a book about mythology for me. She put it in the library, so I can get it when I have my first shift there today.
I nod. I say thank you.
All I think about is Ren.
The library has moved from Mrs. Hata’s barrack to an empty room off the rec center.
It’s small, but shelves run along the walls.
They’re freshly made by carpenters in the camp, and they smell sweetly of new wood.
The book collection has grown, bit by bit, and is already categorized by the Dewey decimal system.
A box of new books from Mr. Nicholson sits by a makeshift desk.
It’s remarkable he still comes. Last time, angry locals in Independence shot at his truck, and Mrs. Hata said he might not return.
But the gentle Quaker has not been deterred.
Mrs. Hata tells me to write down the titles and authors of the new books in a thick ledger and organize them on the shelves.
My book from Mr. Nicholson is on the top—The Definitive Encyclopedia of Yōkai.
Eagerly, I snatch it up and set it aside.
Emi’s book is there, too. Anna Karenina.
It’s even thicker and more formidable than I remember.
Soon, Mrs. Hata begins setting up folding chairs for a community council meeting.
Most council meetings are held in mess halls, but since the library is now open, it’s a better venue.
It doesn’t smell like the remnants of Weenie Royale, there’s no clatter of dishes as chefs cook, and there’s less need to finish before the dinner rush.
I keep working on the list, mind deliriously lost as I dwell on Ren, so much so that I accidentally start writing his name.
Members enter and take their seats, along with WRA officials and one of the guards.
Then I’m pulled from my reverie when Mr. Boser appears. He carries a notepad.
“I haven’t seen you for a bit, Miss Aratani,” he says, coming over.
He squints down at the encyclopedia. I ignore him and reach for a book to put on the shelf.
He takes it from me under the guise of putting it on the shelf for me.
“Do you know about such things? Japanese folklore?” His voice is demanding.
I remember his interest in Ren’s pendant and combat the urge to touch the deer in my pocket.
“No,” I say. “It’s for a school essay.”
“Is that so? You don’t happen to know about…” He hesitates and then leans forward to speak directly into my ear. I cringe and lean back, but I’m met with the bookshelf. “Relics? Your boyfriend had one. Do you know where it went?”
“He lost it,” I say, trying to protect Ren. “And he never told me anything about it.”
“Mr. Boser.” We both turn to see Mr. Nomura, Ren’s neighbor, stepping inside. He gestures to the circle of chairs. “The meeting is starting.”
Relief courses through me as Mr. Boser goes to take his seat. I catch Mr. Nomura’s eye, and he nods to me.
I listen to the meeting as I sort the books. Discussions about wages, rations, censorship of our community newspaper, and a pending JACL trip to Salt Lake City unfold. But my mind keeps turning over a single phrase: your boyfriend.
Seeking distraction, I thumb through the entries of my encyclopedia. Extensive passages expound on the most prominent deities, like Amaterasu, Susanoo-no-Mikoto, Izanagi and Izanami, Inari, and the Seven Lucky Gods. More passages recount Raijin, the kami of lightning, and Fūjin, the kami of wind.
Finally, I find it. A tiny passage under The Nameless Faceless God, a minor deity. My heart stops as I read.