Nora repeatedly dials the phone. No one answers at the Japanese apartments. Had her friends not agreed to meet her early for a Saturday breakfast at the Hotel Clovis coffee shop, Nora would have slept as late as her parents allowed. Nora relishes the time their Indomitable Trio can spend together after school and on weekends. After the declaration of war with Japan only six weeks earlier, Amy, Ben, and other students from the Japanese colony were suspended from school. Time became precious. “Okay, Mom. I’m going over there. Because I’m already dressed.” She dons her coat and gloves. “No. Dad isn’t here. Taking my bike!”
Along the route to the railyards where the Japanese colony lives, Nora sees that early traffic is negligeable. Within a few hours, people from Clovis and surrounding farms will swarm Main Street with exuberance on this Saturday morning. Businesses thrive again after a bleak holiday season following the surprise attack on Hawaii. What has changed is that people crave more company, demand news updates, and consume new patriotic films and music. People have money for bargains and war bonds. The mood shifted recently. Although sons, brothers, and husbands enlist to fight on foreign soils, their families who remain behind believe that the war will end quickly and decisively. These Great Plains residents endured the Great Depression and Dustbowl Days. No one feels more prepared and entitled to win a war against foreign Evil than these hardy Christians. They are ready to take on the world.
Nora crosses the 1st Street highway to the railyard complex.
Avoiding the main depot, she turns at the icehouse and stops short of the Japanese apartments. A couple stands near her; they watch as two Japanese men load luggage and crates into a large, covered truck. The truck’s driver and an immigration agent stand by, urging the Japanese to hurry. After the last crate is loaded and the tarp tied in place, the four men climb into the truck’s cab. Its railyard exit is slowed by its size and weight. Once the truck shifts into higher gear on Route 60, a palpable silence, like the cold just after a January’s dawn, chills the onlookers.
The silence slips. “Hold on there, missy. No one is inside there.” The old man holds Nora’s arm when she steps nearer the apartments.
“How do you know, Mr. Bailey? Maybe they need us to check on them. Amy and her brother are supposed to meet me for breakfast.” Nora’s eyes are fixed on the apartment building. Nearby, two trains pass speedily, and a third train pulls slowly into the depot.
“We already looked. Mrs. Bailey and I came this morning with gifts, mostly food from our church. Everyone is gone. The immigration officer said to stand back while they pack the truck. So here we are.”
Silence returns. Though the sound of traffic on Route 60 increases, the hush where their Japanese friends and neighbors once thrived envelops them. Like a boulder’s thunderous plunge from mesa top to canyon below, crushing everything in its path, echoes across desolate miles of scrub brush and cacti, the crush and echo of life at this home is profound.
Another voice startles Nora. “How long we stay put? I been waitin’ on them Japs to accept my offer for the oriental goods. Nippon Shop locked up?” She looks toward a man who stands beside Mr. Bailey.
Mr. Bailey says, “Good morning, Mr. Rogers. We’re waiting before entering the empty buildings. Seems like the respectable thing to do.” Mr. Rogers nods his head in agreement. Perhaps the funereal silence is contagious.
“So, what’s happened here?” Another couple arrives. They step between the Baileys and Nora, talking in unison. “Wondered what’d happen to the Jap colony. Didn’t expect anything yet. West coast Japs are still in their homes and businesses. Confiscating their radios and cameras not enough?”
“Immigration officers just left with the last of their stuff. That’s all we know. Thirty folks plus the two who stayed behind to pack up are gone. Must have come in the night to take them away. Why them? Why now?”
“Most of them were born right here in Clovis.”
“Don’t matter. They had parents born in Japan. The ones who weren’t born here will naturally be loyal to Japan.”
“No tellin’ what they’d be willin’ to do fer the emp’or Hirohito.” Nora looks to her right and left. They’ve been joined by several others who saw the commotion from their upper-floor windows in Hotel Clovis. She holds her silence and continues to listen.
“That is an assumption, not a fact. They chose to live here. This was their home. When was the last time you had a conversation with our Japanese neighbors?”
“Not my neighbors. Don’t live down here on the Mex and Negra side of town.”
“I talked. They’re better listeners than talkers.”
“I worked alongside them as machinists for the Santa Fe Railroad. No better or more honest workers you’ll ever meet.”
“Now you say that. Did you meet any of them off the job site? Meet up for coffee or golf?”
“Well now. I never seen any them Japs at the bowlin’ alley or a Legion Hall dance.”
“Hey, there. Don’t push in front. We’re waiting.”
“For what? For a Greyhound bus to arrive and unload all thirty odd Japanese back here? I think they’re gone for good.”
“But why are they? There’s been no threat of Japanese sabotage. In eastern New Mexico of all places.”
“It’s Little Texas. That’s the problem. Threats to their safety might have been the reason that law enforcement took them away. Maybe they’re safer somewhere else.”
“Safe from us? What’d we do but let them non-Christians live here near downtown, have an oriental shop to sell stuff nobody wants…even let their children go to school with our children. Why, even the colored kids have their own school!”
“Take it easy. There’s no contest. We let others be. Live and let live.”
The crowd has grown toward one hundred attendees. When a bulge in the line appears, the other attendees move forward or backward, trying to maintain a perfect arc in front of the Japanese apartment building. The arc adjusts its size with every person that steps in, thickening, growing, undulating in response to raised voices or hands.
“Hold back! We ain’t lettin’ no one approach the buildin’. Yeah, you.”
“Stay back here ‘til officers arrive…or someone who can provide information and discipline.”
“This is horrible. Aren’t we gonna state the obvious? They’re gone because we didn’t protect them.”
“That’s the truth. Whether trouble would come from the outside or from among us, we should’ve been their protectors. Immigration officials didn’t have to do this. We’re a thousand miles from the nearest coast.”
“It’s the railroads, stupid.”
“I’m not one to speak out. But…we let folks whisper in our church meetings and in the shops. Heard someone the other day at the country club say we’d be better off if all Italians, Jews, Germans, and Japanese were rounded up like prisoners.”
“So, did you speak out when you heard that? We let the crazies talk but we don’t respond. There’s no debate. Can’t even have decent conversations when we worry about offending someone.”
“I’d include the elitists, socialists, and humanists in that roundup.”
“Amen to that! Take our country back!”
“Would you? We can talk about that later. Anyway…let’s get back to what’s right in front of us. Our coworkers and neighbors are gone. They were secretly rushed out of here overnight. None of us were forewarned. We might’ve helped them.”
“But would we?”
“Words. However, I agree that our community should have made arrangements that ensured their safety while complying with national policies concerning enemy aliens.”
“Wordy cuss. Could we have done both at the same time?”
“We’ll never know!”
“We’re good people. We don’t harm others except in self-defense.”
“We should have taken them into our homes. Or sheltered them on ranches and farms…there’s so many ways we could have helped.”
“Pipe dream. Look at how we still treat the coloreds and poor folks.”
“Is that a fair comparison?”
“But this is good. We’re talking now. We can make our town better for everyone in it!”
Two hundred people pack the area. Nora feels panic fall on her; the swelling numbers and tensions worry her. Football games, rodeos, and downtown parades have been her only mob experiences. Though she feels crushed on all sides, a pickle of which her parents would be horrified, she refuses to leave. She takes deep breaths.
“Yes! We’re smart and resourceful. We help our neighbors. We…”
“Shut the fuck up! We’re at war! If you’re on the wrong side, you get what’s comin’ to you!”
Nora is jostled and shoved. She hits the ground.
Wait young lady! Your dad’s on the phone. The courthouse receptionist talks to me like I’m five years old. So, I walk around her to his office. She returns to her tasks with a huff. Then I smell Old Spice. My dad speaks to the phone, …and you’re right to a point. We’ve got the army contract. It’s a go. A real win for Clovis. But we don’t have to kidnap good people. They’ve babies and grandparents among them. And it is winter…yes, they’re in the way…couldn’t we house them elsewhere…okay…this weekend…what if…
She wakes to a gentle voice. “Are you all right? Let me help you up.” A soldier takes Nora by the elbow and helps her rise. “Looks like the bicycle is good. But you shouldn’t get on it yet.”
She shakes her head and stretches. Minor scratches. Major unease. Nora looks both ways down Main Street and 1st Street. She hears the silence. Realizing that she’d fallen from the bike, she steadies herself but climbs back on. “Thank you. Hope I’m not too late.”
Nora arrives at the Japanese colony in the railyards to find a dozen people swarming the complex, running in with empty hands and out with household objects, furniture, and the remaining inventory of the Nippon Gift Shop. They shove the leftovers of three decades into their vehicles and drive away. She recognizes people from her church and school, from Main Street businesses, from the homes in her neighborhood. With no one around to talk to, Nora yells towards the exiting cars, “Looters! Scavengers!”
Observing that she is alone, she walks upstairs to Amy’s bedroom where they had shared stories and laughter since meeting in elementary school. Looking around for something to keep, she finds only the pillow on which Amy slept. A long black strand of hair lays across the embroidery. Nora holds it close. “I guess you were in the way. Goodbye for now, Amy. Goodbye for now, Ben. We’ll meet again.”