Island Of Sweet Pies And Soldiers: A powerful story of loss and love

Mama shrugged. “I don’t know, but we’ll find out.”

In Honoka’a, if you really wanted to know something, all you had to do was ask Miss Irene Ferreira, the telephone operator. Why was it that some people had names that had to be said together? Mama was always Violet, and Jean was Jean. But Irene was never just Irene. She swore she never listened in, and still, somehow, secrets leaked and stories spread. Even though the military took over the phones after Pearl Harbor, for some reason they let her stay on.

Once the endless line of trucks passed, we walked across the street to the small red house where she worked. Irene Ferreira sat amid wires and plugs. She wore a headset that made her look very official.

“Any idea what this convoy is about?” Mama said.

Irene pinched her plump lips together and shook her head. “Mum’s the word. You know how the military is.”

“Come on. You must have heard something.”

Irene Ferreira looked behind Mama and me, and then stood to peer outside the dusty windows. “I hear they’re building a base in Waimea town. Marines.”

Technically, Waimea wasn’t a town. It was more a ranch with a handful of wooden houses and stores sprung up around it. A cold and windy place full of Hawaiian cowboys and more grass than you’d know what to do with.

“Why our school?” Mama said.

Irene didn’t answer.

“Is there something we don’t know?”

That got my attention. If the island was filling up with soldiers, did that mean we were going to be attacked? I have my own bunny suit, which is a dumb name for a gas-mask contraption, but I never thought I would really need it. My breath caught halfway up my throat and my chest started squeezing in. This happens a lot. Vexation, Mama says. Besides not knowing how to breathe, I gnaw my fingernails to the point where they bleed and I pick at freckles and turn them into scabs. The worst of all is the stomachache that never goes away. It all started happening when Papa disappeared.

Irene said, “That’s all I know. I promise.”

As tempting as it was to stay and pry the information out of her, we decided to follow the trucks up to the school. The soldiers drove straight onto the newly clipped field in front of the gym, their heavy trucks sinking into the mud. Mr. Nakata, the principal, must have been mad, watching from the side of the gym. A man in a green uniform spotted us approaching and marched right over.

“Excuse me, ma’am. This area is off-limits,” he said.

“We live here,” Mama said, pointing toward our house.

“You don’t live in the gym, do you? Please step away.”

There was nothing Mama hated worse than being ordered around, especially by a newcomer. I sometimes point out that she was once a newcomer—here they call them malihini—but she believes it’s more about how you behave and what’s in your heart than where you come from.

Still curious, she dragged me over to the administration building, where the men unrolled strands of barbed wire and posts. Another group unloaded cots and stacks of green metal boxes. With no spare movements, they went about their business of taking over a part of our school. The war had finally arrived in our own backyard.

But for Mama and me, the war was not the worst thing that had happened lately. The worst had already come.

Chapter Two (#ulink_2697edc7-3527-5009-ba4a-baeba036f20d)

Violet

The kitchen was where most of their living took place. Violet pulled a cold towel from the icebox and pressed it to her forehead. The radio played Bing Crosby, a welcome diversion from updates on the battles taking place in Europe. It was hard to keep the names and the places in order, but Jean had hung a giant map on the living room wall so they had something to refer to when they heard that British troops had landed at Reggio Calabria or that the Italian fleet had surrendered at Malta.

“These Chinese names are impossible to pronounce. Jiang Zhongzheng? My mouth wasn’t designed for them,” Jean said.

Violet laughed. “The Russian ones are worse. Five consonants strung together?”

“Either way, I’m glad the Russians are on our side.”

“Me, too. I just wish the Japanese were.”

Jean stood next to Violet, husking corn and humming along with the music. Her hips couldn’t help but sway, and her lips mouthed the words to every song. When Violet had first seen Jean in the classroom next door, she wondered why a movie star had come to town, but Jean turned out to be the newest teacher at Honoka’a High. Fresh off the boat from Seattle, where it had been too damp and too cold. Jean had been living with Violet and Ella for over a year. Ever since Herman disappeared and Violet’s life had begun to unravel.

Campus housing was scarce and Violet had been happy for the company. Their cottage was the largest on campus, with three bedrooms and a living room big enough for a sofa, two chairs and a pune’e. Set back from the others, the cottage bordered a dense tangle of woods behind the school. Violet and Jean had painted the walls white and filled it with ferns and crawling plants and enough books to help them forget the outside world. The exterior of the house was another story. Sunflower yellow. For Ella.

One of the disadvantages to having the largest cottage was the abundance of windows. Windows that needed to be boarded up and blacked out at night. Houses in Hawaii were designed for the steady trade winds, with more screened windows than walls. When the school was built, no one had planned on a war. Soon after Pearl Harbor, and martial law, the shop teacher fashioned thin wooden slats that easily slipped into place. But the sliding screen doors that led from the living room onto the porch made blacking out that section of the house nearly impossible. So at night, Violet, Jean and Ella stuck to the kitchen, reading Dr. Seuss and listening to the radio. And once Ella went to sleep, Violet and Jean would discuss the war. And Jean’s flame, Bud. He was one of the marines who showed up last December straight from the battle at Tarawa. The people in Hawaii had taken them in and made them their own. Jean fell in love with Bud, but now he’d been shipped out.

They also talked about Herman. And what might have happened to him.

“Ella asked me today if she could go to Japanese school,” Violet said in a hushed tone so Ella, who was drawing in the living room, wouldn’t hear.

Jean turned off the faucet and faced her, eyes big. “Our Ella?”

“I wasn’t sure I heard correctly at first.”

That morning, when Ella had asked, Violet fought to keep her face in order. “Japanese school is for Japanese. And you, my dear, are not Japanese,” she’d said, brushing a lock of Ella’s hair back.

“Why does it matter?” Ella had said.

“It’s just how it is right now. With the war.”

“Umi says all they do is make origami animals and sing.” Ella was still too young to know the meaning of skin color, and how it mattered more than it should. “Please?”

It took Violet a few seconds to realize that Ella had made up her mind. “No promises, but I can ask.”

These were the moments in childrearing that she longed to have Herman around. He was good at handling difficult matters. Violet tended to let emotions cloud her thinking. Anyway, it was the first time in the past year that Ella had shown interest in doing anything apart from Violet. She would spend a whole afternoon drawing pictures of dragonflies or petting the cats on the porch rather than venturing out on her own. Aside from when she was at school, which she hated, Ella could always be found within a thirty-foot radius of her mother.

Jean wiped her hands on a dish towel. “What did you say to her?”

“I pointed out the obvious. But now I’m wondering. Japanese learn English. Why couldn’t she learn Japanese?”

Jean shook her head. “I know you hate to say no, but this might not be the best time. People are on eggshells about whether or not the school should even be open.”

“If they were going to shut it down, they would have already.”

“Nothing’s for certain.”

Before she could respond, Ella appeared in the doorway, bare feet white against the green linoleum. “Mama, there’s a tall man at the front door.”

She and Jean exchanged glances. There were few tall strangers in the area. Jean smoothed her skirt and they walked out to the living room together. Ella hung back. It was September and the remaining light sent streaks of gold through the hau trees. A figure in a green uniform stood in front of the screen door, backlit. Another stood on the steps below, looking out toward the ocean.

As she approached the door, Jean squealed. “Zach? Is that you?” She flung open the door and flew outside, wrapping herself around one of the men before he could get a word out. “What are you doing here? Oh, Lordy Lord, I can’t believe this!” She turned to Violet. “This is my little brother, Zach.”

When he managed to detach himself from Jean, he shook Violet’s hand, nearly pulling her arm out of its socket. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”

Zach motioned to the other man. “This is Sergeant Parker Stone, Fifth Division.”