Dust of Eden by Mariko Nagai Read Free Book Online

roses
    like beggars, waiting for water,
    as men and women crouched on the ground,
    blinded by the sudden flash.
    The day the bomb fell on Hiroshima, I was sitting
    on the porch with Father, looking at the gravestone
    that sits lonely in the middle of the roses,
    wondering if Grandpa made it safely
    to the otherworld, like they said all Japanese spirits
    do when they die. They take 49 days to travel
    through the otherworld, and then they come back here.
    Where we are. Just to say that they are alright,
    that they have seen the otherworld, and that it is going
    to be their new home. Just to say, they care.
    And it has been more than 49 days, and Grandpa must be here
    amidst the roses, maybe even sitting
    next to me. On the day the bomb fell, a lark scooped
    down from the sky, landed on a rose,
    sang a keening note, just one, then flew away,
    breaking the sky into pieces.

September 1945
    We packed everything
    we have into the trunks
    and bags and crates
    and closed the door
    behind us. Father says
    that we do not need to lock
    the door. There is no
    one to see us off.
    The camp is deserted,
    it’s a ghost town,
    a place lonely after the carnival.
    There won’t be school in the fall.
    People have left already,
    packing their worries
    and their hopes that everything will
    be the same when they go
    home. Not go back home,
    but to go home. After
    three years, no one
    goes back , they go.
    Dad dug up Grandpa’s roses
    and transplanted them
    into pots, some cracked,
    some small, some big, and the rest have to
    survive on their own—
    though spring will never
    come and no one will
    dig them out.
    We have dug up Grandpa’s
    bones; like his roses,
    we have packed Grandpa.
    We are leaving our three
    years behind. We are leaving
    Minidoka, back to Seattle.
September 1945
    The streets throughout Seattle are the same
    with people busily going about
    their business as if nothing had ever changed.
    My mother sings to herself.
    The neighborhood is still the same,
    with trees lining the block both left and right,
    trees so bright red and yellow they hurt
    my eyes. Our driveway is the same,
    just as we left it, and my cherry blossom
    tree stands with its bark gnarled.
    Father honks the horn; Mr. Gilmore
    waves from his window, and comes
    out smiling, Welcome home, welcome
    home . The third step to the front
    door still creaks tiredly. The windows
    are boarded up. Mr. Gilmore hugs Father
    tight; Father hardens, then relaxes,
    and puts his arms around Mr. Gilmore’s
    small round body. Jamie comes out
    from the house, she runs down
    with her arms open,
    she rushes toward me, taller, blonder,
    crying, Mina, I missed you so much!
    And I start running, forgetting the hurt,
    the ache I carried. I open my arms
    and we hug each other, tight, never
    to let go, finally our broken halves
    becoming one, inseparable.

Epilogue
December 1945
    Dear Mina,
    I am now stationed
    in Tokyo to help with
    the Occupation. That
    came as a surprise,
    but they needed Americans
    who can speak
    Japanese, to translate.
    I had nothing else to do
    in Europe, anyway.
    Some boys told us that
    when they went home
    during their leave,
    some honkies harassed
    them. Even Lieutenant
    Kawahara, with his purple
    heart and all, was told
    to get his Jap
    ass out of the bus.
    I figured America isn’t
    ready for me yet, so maybe
    I’ll try Japan.
    Tokyo is exactly
    like Dresden or Nuremberg:
    completely bombed, destroyed.
    You can see Tokyo from
    one end to another,
    it’s so flattened out, so
    black and burned.
    Kids a little younger than
    you run after us, yelling
    chocolate, candy, please,
    while people wearing rags
    walk around, tired, exhausted,
    but they seem almost happy, too.
    It’s pretty bad:
    you see kids, three and four years old,
    sitting on the street alone.
    Some of them are dead,
    but people just ignore them.
    No one can help; everyone’s hungry.
    So I take these kids to orphanages.
    I give them as much money as I can to
    help them get through.
    For the first time