Ipso linked to Facto in attempts to ward off Absurdum.
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essai · Feb 18, 09:33 AM · early morning
My parents, like two needles, knit the families carefully into one blanket. Every event was a warm-water wash, drawing us all closer till the fiber of our lives became an impenetrable mesh. Every tiny problem was discussed endlessly. We were the original “togetherness” people. There were all the picnics at Kitsilano, and the concerts at Stanley Park. And the Christmas concert in the church at Third Avenue when tiny Stephen sang a solo. And I was born. And after that?
After that—there was the worrying letter from Grandma Kato’s mother in Japan—and there were all the things that happened around that time. All the things…
If we were knit into a blanket once, it’s become badly moth-eaten with time. We are now no more than a few tangled skeins—the remains of what might once have been a fisherman’s net. Passing shadows.
Some families grow on and on through the centuries, hardy and visible and procreative. Others disappear from the earth without a whimper.
“The rain falls, the sun shines,” Uncle used to say.
Aunt Emily, after graduating at the top of her class in Normal School, was unable to get a teaching position and stayed home to help Grandpa Kato with his medical practice. Father, at the time this picture was taken, was a university student. Later he helped Uncle, designing and building boats.
One snapshot I remember showed Uncle and Father as young men standing full front beside each other, their toes pointing outward like Charlie Chaplin’s. In the background were pine trees and the side view of Uncle’s beautiful house. One of Uncle’s hands rested on the hull of an exquisitely detailed craft. It wasn’t a fishing vessel or an ordinary yacht, but a sleek boat designed by Father, made over many years and many winter evenings. A work of art.
“What a beauty,” the RCMP officer said in 1941 when he saw it. He shouted as he sliced back through the wake, “What a beauty! What a beauty!”
That was the last Uncle saw of the boat. And shortly thereafter, Uncle too was taken away, wearing shirt, jacket, and dungarees. He had no provisions, nor did the have any idea where the gunboats were herding him and the other Japanese fishermen in the impounded fishing fleet.
The memories were drowned in a whirlpool of protective silence. Everywhere I could hear the adults whispering, “Kodomo no tame. For the sake of the children…” Calmness was maintained.
Once, years later on the Barker farm, Uncle was wearily wiping his forehead with the palm of his hand and I heard him saying quietly, “Itsuka, mata itsuka. Someday, someday again.” He was waiting for that “someday” when he could go back to the boats. But he never did.
And now? Tonight?
Nen nen, rest, my dear uncle. The sea is severed from your veins. You have been cut loose.
—Joy Kogawa, Obasan
image: san joaquin valley digitization project
