Camp Nine: A Novel

Chapter 6

Chapter 6 Mother was a wildly popular teacher among her students at Camp Nine, and their parents and grandparents, beguiled by her charm and her desire to reconnect with her California past, clamored for classes of their own. Mother said the Japanese were naturally curious, and that learning new skills was an important part of their culture. But she was getting as much as she was giving, and she eagerly took on Saturday classes for adults, allowing her even more time to spend at the camp. Although I had resisted accompanying her, once she began going on Saturdays, I lost my natural excuse. I didn’t have school to hide behind, and she was so anxious that I experience what she considered a unique and historic opportunity to expand my horizons that I felt obligated to honor her enthusiasm. She started my immersion slowly, at first bringing me along for the morning, where my duties included enduring the acrid smell of turpentine as I washed brushes out in the sink, and steadying the edges of large sheets of brown butcher paper while she halved them with sharp scissors. As weeks passed, we began staying after art class for lunch, and by April, I was spending entire days at Camp Nine. As I became accustomed to the place, it began to seem more real to me than the world outside. I was volunteering to go without Mother asking , and on Saturday mornings, I awoke actually looking forward to it 65 because, like so many other things about which she was right, I found that, although it was tucked into the Delta, it was my chance to view the outside world, as surreal as the lens may have been. The grounds of Camp Nine hummed with activity. Never willing to sit idly by, the Japanese taught classes in sewing and flower arranging , woodworking and metal shop, and, for some of the older people, the English language. The more I was there, the less apart I felt, and over time, I began to feel accepted. But I observed the unusual ways of the Japanese with wide-eyed wonder, for the education was also mine. I had never been exposed to adults who wanted to continue to learn things. Most of the adults in my orbit had never even finished high school. Mother had a special fondness for the Matsuis. As a young bride newly arrived from Japan, Mrs. Matsui had lived only four blocks from Mother’s old San Francisco neighborhood, though their districts were separated by custom. Although she was warm and friendly with Mother, Mrs. Matsui was shy with me and seemed unapproachable, so I kept a respectable distance and watched her refined manners without being obvious. Mr. Matsui, usually stiff and formal, became loud and agitated when he spoke with Mother of his friend from San Francisco, a man named Korematsu, who’d been arrested for refusing to evacuate when ordered. He was imprisoned somewhere, and Mr. Matsui was hungry for information on what was happening to him. Sometimes, their conversations worked them both up into a froth, and their desire to challenge the status quo led to some fierce talk that worried me. For two young men who could have been doing other things with their time, Henry and David tolerated my company admirably, and as the weather turned balmy, I spent many hours outdoors with them. Through our conversations, I learned their life histories, of Henry’s plan to study engineering at the University of California, an offer rescinded because of the war and the relocation to Arkansas. I absorbed David’s progress in the tenth grade and his accomplishments with the school’s string ensemble. 66 — Vivienne Schiffer Henry, the gentle overachiever, was his parents’ favorite. He was quiet, studious and well-mannered, and as I thought of him often over the years, I came to realize that he represented their safe bridge to the new world. It took no more than a quick glance from Mr. Matsui to signal to Henry that some particular action was required to maintain the honor of the family. Whether it was his status as the younger son, or just his natural personality, David did not measure up to Henry in those ways, and through his actions, he declared that he was not going to bother trying . Wild and unpredictable, David spoke loudly, often behaved inappropriately, and divided his...