Call Me Sorrow, Call Me Joy

He read it.

“My father hated

My mother loved sadly well

Face of kindness gaze on me

Place my name on high

Call me Sorrow, call me Joy”

It wasn’t perfect. Not graceful or natural and there was nothing transient about the emotions, but it had the right scheme and syllabication. It would have to do.

As he put down the pen and picked up the knife, he thought, soon the pain and humiliation will cease.

He wanted to see their faces and hear their astonishment.

‘How did he do it?’ they will ask.

‘Why’d he do it?’ another question.

The machine shop at the camp was a perfect place to make it. He only had to hide it from everyone.

It didn’t take long to hone the blade. Soon it was ready.

“My wife will understand. She must,” he thought

His good friend Sam had agreed to assist if necessary.

He intended to sink the blade into his belly, pull it across to the right, then a sharp upward cut, and like a samurai stab into his groin and cut up to the sternum and sideways at the rib cage base.

If there were any sign of hesitation or pain, Sam would complete the task and save his honor. He felt warm as he thought how wonderful it was to have such a friend.

He worried about the authenticity of the act, but he knew it was too dangerous to go outside. There wasn’t any sake, so they had to make do with Kentucky bourbon. It wasn’t easy to get either.

He silently thanked Mrs. Sakagawa for making his kamishimo out of white sheets, that at least will be true to our tradition, he thought. Our tradition? It’s funny to think of it as our tradition. What is our tradition?

He was Japanese, but an American citizen. He was what is referred to as hapa – half Japanese and half American. His father was a naval officer and his mother…He didn’t know much about her. His father’s wife, Kate, was Mama since he was three years old.

Vague memories of his Japanese mother floated in and out of his memory; a beautiful house on a hill surrounded by flowers overlooking a port. Later, he learned this was Nagasaki.

He could see his mother telling him not to forget her. Pulling out a long ribbon of cloth, she tied it over his eyes. He felt her pushing him through the fusama (light papered sliding doors) and heard it close behind him.

Suzuki, the house servant, brought him outside and took off the blindfold. A strange woman was waiting. Earlier, he had seen her talking with his mother. He had never seen such a woman. The top of his mother’s head came up to her shoulder. A flat, straw hat with a wide brim shielded her eyes from the sunlight. Covered from head to toe the only skin visible was her face and neck. Her features were sharp and straight with a nose like a spearhead jutting out between soft brown eyes. She had a small heart-shaped mouth. Her skin was white like the snow on the mountain, almost see-through like the ice on the pond in winter. She had on a white shirt like the ones he had seen another white man wear. He recalled this when this man came it always upset his mother. A stiff piece of cloth with curved edges and a black ribbon went around her neck falling down her front. A tight, striped coat and matching skirt covered the lower part of her body to the ground.

He felt fear and grief gathering as Suzuki handed him to the strange woman, pointed and told him, “Hahaoya.”(mother).

“How could that be,” He thought?

He just left his mother. He was certain of that. This woman was a stranger. A mother is not a stranger. Mother was in the house. He would run back into the house and embrace her, but this strange, tall woman gathered him up like the bedding on his floor and began to walk down the mountain.

He screamed and tried to get out of her grasp, but she held him fast. He wanted to climb over her so he could see his home go away, but she kept his head close to her. It was warm and a new feeling came over him.

He thought, “I should not feel this way.”

Her warm body calmed him and made him feel all was well.

Once he stopped crying she loosened her grasp. At the bottom of the hill, a horse-drawn coach was waiting. The woman put him gently on the soft black seat. He felt the pull of the horse as they moved down the bumpy road away from home. They rode for a while. He had never been to town nor had he ever ridden in such a contraption. He was confused. He wondered where his mother was? Who was this woman? Why did Suzuki tell him she was mother? Where were they going?

It was day, but he could not see outside because the curtains were drawn; nothing to look at but the inside of the carriage and the woman. She spoke to him, but he knew nothing of what she said. The sounds were not like the sounds his mother, the house servants and everyone else made. These sounds were soft and clear with a short quiet between them not like the hard sounds he was used to.

He had been on the mountain for all of his three years. The words he knew were names of flowers, plants and trees surrounding his house, the fish in the pond, the names of the foods they ate, the things his mother pointed out from the mountain and words to take care of his needs.

The woman said to him, “Benjamin, you are Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, III.” From that point until he repeated it, she always started speaking to him by saying, “Benjamin.”

Then they stopped. The sweet smell of flowers he was used to, was replaced by salt air blended with smoke and the clean smell of fresh fish. The woman opened the door, touched him and spoke, but he did not know what she said. She closed the door and left him there.

After what seemed like a very long time she came back. They played some games. She held up her hands straight in front of her. She showed him how to do the same. Then she slapped his hand with one of hers and then the other crossing them each time as she did then she hit her own hands together. She wanted him to do the same. By and by they were laughing. Then she started singing to him and tickling him. It made him laugh and feel good. She sang and sang. Her voice was soft and sweet. Some songs were fast, others were slow. Soon he felt his eyes closing and was asleep.

A knock woke him. It was the carriage driver. Behind him was a man in a white suit with a funny round hat on. The woman said some words and got out.

He heard her talking. Her voice was loud and high, not like when she was singing. She sounded sad. When she finally came to get him her eyes were red and tears rained down her cheeks.

“Why was she so sad,” he thought?

She put her arms around him holding him close and tight to her for a very long time, then she lifted him out of the coach.

It was very noisy. Both his mother’s tongue and the strange woman’s were being spoken. A line of his people flowed across a plank into a boat that was so filled it was nearly under water. They did not go with them, another boat awaited.

It was raised in the front and rear like a melon. They were lifted on board and a man showed them the way to a small house in the middle of the boat. He sat down on the mat just like home, but the woman just stood there looking around. Soon one of the men made a big pile of mats and then she sat.

Everything was new. His heart was beating like branches banging against his house in a storm. His fears left through the kindness of the strange woman. As they came to the other side of an island between the city and the harbor, he saw many ships. Most had tall poles like trees reaching high into the sky with rope and cloth hanging from them. A few had pipes on them smoking like a stove.

These ships looked so small from his home. His mother and he used to go to a special place in the garden each day, where she had a spyglass, and watch the ships come in. They looked tiny from up there, but now they were huge.

As they came closer, the ship grew so large he couldn’t see the top or the end. It was as if his whole world had become the ship and for the next days that was to be the case. Some men greeted the woman. One looked at her and then at him. She said something to him and to a man with hair on his face and gold strings on his shoulders, who said in a loud voice with a big grin something he did not know except “Benjamin.” He said some words to another man who had even more hair on his face, and he put his hand to his head and the gold string man did the same. Then he led them down the way.

Coming to the wall, the man pulled down and the wall opened, swinging inward not sliding like a fusuma, the door he was used to. The ship’s walls were filled with these unknown covered openings. They stood in front of a shiny wall and it slid sideways like at home. There was a man inside of the small space. It was lit by glowing glass bulbs, but there was no fire. This light was like magic. They stepped into the little space and the doors slid closed. The man turned a wheel and he felt most strange.

His belly went towards his feet and his feet felt like they would go through the floor. Then the man turned the wheel and the feeling stopped. The wall slid open and they stepped into another way.

The floor was covered with a thick purple cloth that felt like moss under a tree. It made their footsteps silent. They came to a wall with a huge, carved, wooden, covered opening. The strange woman lifted him up as the man twisted a small dark stick and turned a shiny circle and the wooden wall opened into a huge dark space. The man touched something on the wall and everything in the space became visible.

No one took their foot coverings off before they came into this space. These people were not like his mother’s people at all.

He had never seen such a space. He felt excited and afraid at the same time.

The space was filled with cloth-covered things and wooden platforms with sticks supporting them. An array of glowing glass bulbs hung from the ceiling and some of the platforms had glowing glass bulbs at the end of short poles with long umbrellas over them.

Another space had a great platform covered with a cloth. On either end of the platform was a series of shiny bars surrounded by curved pipes. The end against the wall was larger and had big cushions across the back.

Something caught his eye.

There was a new person in the space with them. He turned and saw a boy with sandy hair dressed in his people’s clothes. He looked down at him and then up at him. He was looking right at him. He was dressed the same. He took a step and the boy did too. Another, he did the same.

The boy greeted him, “Gashi.” His mouth moved at the same time, but no sound came out.

He walked straight toward the boy. He matched every step. Then they bumped, but he could not feel him. They were nose to nose, but it was as if he were behind some see through wall. Their hands touched, but there was no warmth; it was hard and cold. They looked at each other for a long time until he saw the lady coming behind him. Then she picked them both up and turned to take him.

He looked over her shoulder as she brought him into the place to see where the other boy would go, but as they walked through the wall opening, he disappeared.

She put him down, and made some sounds. He recognized only “Benjamin” from the strange noises. Then she started to take his clothing off. As she did, she opened the amulet where most children carried a Buddha Jizo, but she was surprised to find an image of Jesus Christ.

His mother always told him, “Jesus tentei.” Jesus was God.

When the tall lady saw his amulet she looked pleased as if she knew him too.

She said, “Jesus.”

He pointed to the amulet and said, “Jesus.”

She smiled as bright as the sun.

Now he knew two sounds, “Benjamin” and “Jesus.” Jesus was the same in her tongue and his mother’s.

She picked him up and brought him into another space. This space was very bright and there was an odd tub in there. At home, his was dark, made from trees and was taller than wide. This one was white, long, low and narrow and was made of a cold hard material, but it had steaming water in it. Also in the space was a strange looking white seat with a wooden cover and a box high on the wall with a rope hanging from it.

The lady put him in the tub and began to scrub. The water turned dark and full of soap. At home, after his mother soaked, she would scrub him then pour water from pots over him as he sat on a small stool. Then, she put him on a stool to soak, but this lady was doing it all at once. Next she pulled him out of the water before he could soak. It was very confusing.

She dried him with a big, soft white cloth and brought him into the other space where the other boy was and started to dress him, but she didn’t put clothes back on. She had him put his arms into a white cloth that buttoned tightly from his neck to his waist and fell loosely from there to his ankles. She tied a red ribbon around his neck and put some tight cloth over his feet and instead of his sandals she put on bright red foot covers with straps on them.

She looked at him and smiled as if she liked what she saw. She put him in the other space. There were two women there. One went into the space with the tall woman and the other stayed with him. The hole in the wall swung shut and the tall woman disappeared.

He went and squatted and waited. The woman was on one of the cloth covered things. She was dressed in a dark outfit that looked much like the clothing he was wearing. She had dark hair and eyes, a soft rounded nose and a full face like the moon.

Soon he needed to empty himself. He got up to look for where to let himself go.

He said to the woman, ’Benjo?”

She stared at him with an unknowing look. He was walking around and around because the nightsoil needed to come out.

“Where was the benjo,” he thought?

Moonface woman hit her hand against the wall and soon it swung open. She said something to the tall woman and she came and picked him up and brought him into the space where the tub was. She raised the lid of the strange white seat. It was like a bowl with water in it. She lifted his clothing and put him on it and held him.

He didn’t know what to do. His feet were in the air. This woman was holding onto him. This was not the way he was used to it. At home his feet were on the ground. He was supposed to be squatting. This was all wrong. She looked at him as if to say, “What is keeping you?

He let himself go and the nightsoil soon came out. When he was done, she wiped him, straightened his clothing and pulled the rope hanging from the box. She said to him, “Benjamin, benjo,” and pointed to the thing she held him on. It was his first understanding of his new world.