Under the Blood-Red Sun (12 page)

“Japanese
planes, Mama … We’re being bombed! We’ve got to get rid of the flag.… Grampa took it out to the field and waved it. Someone might have
seen.”

Mama squinted up, raised a hand to her eyes. “That’s just army planes … like always.…”

“No
, Mama … They’re bombing … down by Pearl Harbor! We saw from the trees.”

Two planes banked overhead, the red suns striking down like hot stones. Mama stared at them. It suddenly all made sense to her.
“Bury
it,” she said, her eyes wide with fear. “Bury that flag.” She ran inside the house and brought back Grampa’s photograph of the emperor. “Bury this too.… Go! Now!”

Grampa ran to get a shovel. Billy and I dove under the house and managed to dig a hole with our hands. Lucky’s puppies surrounded us. Billy shoved them out of the way. They came back, and Billy put them in the pen.

When we came out from under the house, Grampa was standing in the yard with the shovel. He gave us a sorrowful look, then walked away, slowly, out to the jungle.

More planes circled overhead. They leveled out and sped away. The ships in the harbor had to be nothing but melting steel by now.

Down by the grocery store you could still see a blur of smoke from the explosion, an ugly smudge in the sky.

“I gotta get home,” Billy said, squinting up at it. “Quick! Maybe Charlie’s picking this up on his radio.”

We started to run off, but Mama called to me. “Tomi, you find out, then you come home.…”

Kimi peeked up at the sky and started clawing at Mama’s arms.

“Tomi!”
Mama yelled. “Run!” She covered Kimi’s head with her hand and ran back into the house. Another fighter thundered in from behind me and Billy, coming right at us.

Kimi was screaming inside the house.

I fell to the dirt and covered my head. So did Billy. Machine guns started spitting, the
bop-bop-bop-bop-bop
jabbing down. I cringed. Squeezed into a ball.

But the plane flew past.

I peeked up and saw it drop lower as it headed up the valley, shooting at something near the cemetery. Billy and I leaped up and ran after it, trying to catch a last glimpse. The fighter dropped even lower, then disappeared below the treetops, guns still wailing. Seconds later, it shot back up into the sky.

The air smelled like gunpowder. So much was happening, it made me dizzy. Little stars exploded in my eyes. I shook them away and took a deep breath. My arms started stinging, and I looked at them. Long, thin red lines of dried blood. I must have scratched them coming down the tree.

“Come on,” Billy said. “Charlie’s radio!”

I got up and ran toward the jungle, following Billy. Behind us, Kimi’s terrified screams filled the air. I stumbled through the bushes, the trees. I kept running, but not thinking. All I asked was to stay on my feet, to follow Billy and be stronger than my rubbery bones. “Papa,” I heard myself call. “Papa …”

Jackhammers

Billy’s shirt floated
ahead of me like a ghost. Planes kept droning on, out of sight above the trees. We were all going to
die!
They were going to bomb the whole island, bomb everything!

Thoomp, thoomp, thoomp …

“Billy!” I called. But he didn’t stop running. Green and yellow colors shot through the spaces in the trees, coming down like diamonds from the sun, everything spinning, spinning, spinning.…

“Tomi,” Charlie said, his hand suddenly on my shoulder. “Tomi, you okay?” He shook me. Billy was there too. He stared at me with his mouth slightly open.

“Tomi.” Charlie squeezed my shoulder.

“I’m okay,” I said. “I’m … I’m …”

“Come inside.” Charlie pulled me into the house. My
legs were trembling. Billy put his hand on my back and followed me.

“This is no maneuver.…”

The voice on Charlie’s radio was tinny. Lots of static.

“This is the real McCoy!”

Charlie leaned forward, sitting on the edge of a chair. He kept his fingers on the dial, like he was guarding it from drifting off the station. I noticed that the thumping explosions and rattle of antiaircraft fire had stopped. All I could hear was an occasional pop, like a firecracker.

“The United States Army Intelligence has ordered that all civilians stay off the streets. Do not use your telephone. Stay off the streets. Keep calm. Keep your radio turned on for further news. Get your car off the street. Fill water buckets and tubs with water, to be ready for a possible fire. Attach garden hoses …”

Another wave of excitement and fear ran through me, like when you’re sick with a fever. I glanced over at Charlie’s clock. Eight-forty. Only an hour ago I’d been catching pop flies with Billy.

Thoomp … thoomp
.

The bombing started up again.

The planes came back, droning high overhead. Billy and I ran out into the yard. Charlie followed us, but more cautiously, peeking out the door first. Now the air smelled like burning rubber.

“Japanee plane,” Charlie said, shaking a fist at the sky. “Damn Japanee plane.”

“We better get some hoses up to the house,” Billy said.

Charlie nodded, and the three of us hurried over to the toolshed. Together we dragged six heavy garden
hoses up the driveway. Billy’s brother was nowhere in sight.

The rumbling grew in the distance. More planes dotted the sky, like a swirl of flies, some circling out over the ocean, some heading toward the mountains and banking back toward Pearl Harbor. “We’d be better off hiding in the jungle,” “Billy said.” “They’re not going to bomb trees.”

Ka-booom!

The earth rocked. A shudder rumbled through the dirt under my feet.

“There!” Billy said, pointing to a cloud of black smoke rolling skyward. It looked like it was over the ridge near our school. You couldn’t tell for sure.

Another plane burst past and shot up the valley. A wide path of earth and trees shivered beneath it. It was so close you could see the rivets on the wings, and the red sun.

We got the hoses hooked up and ran back to Charlie’s radio. The announcer said they needed doctors and nurses and shipyard workers and ROTC boys, even Boy Scouts.

“… a warning to all people throughout the territory of Hawaii and especially on the island of Oahu.… In the event of an air raid, stay under cover. Many of the wounded have been hurt by falling shrapnel from antiaircraft guns.… If an air raid should begin, do not go out-of-doors. Stay under cover.… You may be seriously injured or instantly killed by shrapnel from falling antiaircraft shells.”

“I gotta go,” I said, suddenly remembering Mama and Kimi. I started out the door.

“Tomi,” Charlie said. “You folks need anything, you come see me.… Okay?”

“Okay …”

I turned to Billy. So much had happened. “Watch yourself,” he said, trying to smile.

“Yeah … you too.”

•   •   •

The planes vanished again, sometime after nine-thirty, leaving behind mile-high stacks of black and gray smoke that spread out over the island like a dirty fishnet.

An hour passed.

No planes. No explosions.

I stood on the porch, watching the sky, and filled buckets of water that I put by the front and back doors. In case there was a bomb. In case there was a fire.

Another hour … into the afternoon … the island calming, calming. The muffled crackling of ack-ack still popped, but only every once in a while.

The waiting was worse than anything. What would come next? Would they come back? Would they start bombing houses? Would they land on the beaches? And Papa … where was he? Did he even know what had happened?

For the first time I could ever remember, I saw Mama crying. She stayed in the kitchen, cutting green onions and seaweed for miso soup, and washing dishes, then drying them on a towel—did all kinds of normal things—but all the time crying silently. Tears rolled down her cheeks
in thin wet lines. I hated seeing that.
It’s okay, Mama
, I wanted to say. The planes were gone.

But it wasn’t okay.

Mama noticed me watching her and wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “Go find Kimi,” she said in a calm voice. “She hiding somewhere.… See if she all right, Tomi.”

And where was Grampa?

I found Kimi in Mama’s closet. I tried to get her to come out, but she wouldn’t. Wouldn’t even say a word.

“Come on, Kimi,” I pleaded. “It’s quiet now.… It’s all over.”

She shook her head.

I squatted down and opened the door a little farther. “Pretty dark in here, isn’t it?”

She nodded, clutching her old Raggedy Ann doll.

“Come,” I said. “Let’s go outside. It’s okay now.… I’ll show you.”

She shook her head again.

“How about if I get Azuki Bean from under the house for you?”

Kimi nodded.

“Yeah. Good. Let’s go get her.”

She pushed at me to get out of the way. When we got to the front door, Kimi stiffened up, and wouldn’t move.

“Okay, wait here,” I said. “I’ll go get Azuki Bean.”

Lucky was lying with her puppies, trembling. I stroked her head. “I know how you feel, girl.” She licked the back of my hand when I cupped it around Azuki Bean, who was snuggled up against Lucky’s warm belly. Azuki
Bean was small and fat and soft and sweet-smelling. “Okay, girl. I got a job for you.”

Sitting just inside the screen door, Kimi snuggled Azuki Bean in her lap next to Raggedy Ann. Azuki Bean was a girl, Grampa had finally figured out. Red was a boy. Azuki Bean rubbed her wet nose against Kimi’s hand, and Kimi smiled up at me.

“Good dog,” I whispered.

A flock of birds raced by, their shadows streaking over the grass. The pigeons! “Kimi, look,” I said, pointing to the birds. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

Kimi nodded, and looked down at Azuki Bean.

Fourteen pigeons had returned. Three were still missing. I fed them and latched the door. If a pigeon didn’t come back in three days, you’d have to wait a week or more before it returned. If it did.

•   •   •

Billy came over a couple of hours later. His father had called and said he’d be home as soon as he could get there, but it might be a while. They were okay, but the city was in a mess. Billy said his mother went straight to work at the hospital right after the bombing started. His father was at the harbor.

“Those fires are still burning down by the school,” Billy said, pointing from the porch. “You can see the smoke.”

Just then Grampa came walking around the house from the back, carrying a bucket of eggs. Eggs? Spooky … eggs at a time like that.

“Good, nah?” Grampa said, looking over at me and Billy. He smiled and held up the bucket.

“What?” I asked. “The
eggs?”

Grampa nodded, a quick dip of his head.
“Tamago.”
He put the bucket down, and one by one took the eggs out and arranged them in a neat line on the top step.

“Grampa …?”

“For soldiers.”

“What
soldiers?”

“From plane.”

I frowned at him. “What are you
talking
about?”

“Soldiers come, I give egg …”

“I think he means Japanese soldiers,” Billy said.

I stared at Grampa. Was he
joking?
Had he lost his mind? Oh, Papa, where are you? Come home.… Come home
now
.

“Where that flag?” Grampa asked.

Before I could say anything, I heard the tramping sound of boots pounding on dry dirt. Billy’s mouth dropped open. I turned around. Eight U.S. Army guys charged toward us with rifles and bayonets pointing at our stomachs. They spread out around the front of the house, dust settling at their feet, sweat pouring down from under their helmets.

“You live here?” one of the men asked Grampa.

Grampa looked a little surprised. I think he really was expecting Japanese soldiers. But he caught himself and bowed. “Good afternoon, officers,” he said in his best English, then pointed toward the eggs.

“Yes,” I said, quickly stepping in front of him. “We live here.”

“We got a report that someone around this area was signaling the Jap fighters.… You know anything about that?”

“N-no,” I said.

He looked at Billy, and Billy shook his head.

“Think hard, boys. This is
extremely
serious. This is war.… Tell me anything you might have seen. We were told the Japs dropped parachuters up the valley, and that someone around here was signaling them with a flag.”

“We didn’t see any parachuters,” I said.

If I told him about Grampa’s flag they’d shoot him. Shoot
us
.

The man turned to Billy. “Who are you?”

“Billy Davis, sir. I live next door.”

“You see anything?”

Billy stared at the man. He didn’t answer.

Mama opened the door, then stepped back inside. The door hinges squeaked as the door sprang back.

“Come on out here, ma’am,” the man said, then turned back to Billy.

“Did you
see
anything?” he asked again.

“No, sir.”

“Think!
This is very, very serious.”

“I didn’t see anyone signaling any parachuters.”

The man studied Billy’s face. He turned to Grampa. Glared at him, glared at Mama. Then, with a quick wave of his hand, he left. The men jogged off behind him, heading through the trees toward diamond grass.