When the Emperor Was Divine

by Julie Otsuka

We had not smelled the sea in years.

In the place we had come from there was sun but no shade and the only time we ever saw trees was at night, in our dreams.

And why had our mother been so quick to open the door to a stranger? Because strangers had knocked on our door before. And what had happened? Nothing good. Nothing good. They had taken our father away.

(But it was true, she had said it, we would know.)

“We will paint them over,” said our mother, and several months later, when we had money to buy paint, we did, but for years we could not get those words out of our heads.

Their house was trashed, possibly by the people they trusted with it - 1

Without thinking, we had chosen to sleep, together, in a room, with our mother, even though for more than three years we had been dreaming of the day when we could finally sleep, alone, in our own rooms, in our old house, our old white stucco house on the broad tree-lined street not far from the sea.

Their terror has become familiarity - 2

We would dress just like they did. We would change our names to sound more like theirs. And if our mother called out to us on the street by our real names we would turn away and pretend not to know her. We would never be mistaken for the enemy again!

This is how the internment damaged not just individual people, but an entire culture. - 4/5 Also maybe why they don't have names? - 3

None of them waved. They’re afraid, our mother had said.

And was it true, what we’d heard? (Disloyal . . . a traitor . . . a great fan of the Emperor’s.)

Shirley Temple had just gotten married? “Impossible!” No nylon stockings in the stores until spring?

Normality

Twenty-five dollars, we later learned, was the same amount given to criminals on the day they were released from prison.

We were just numbers to them, mere slaves to the Emperor. We didn’t even have names.

If we go easy on the Japs we’re crazy. Best day of my life? The day Harry dropped that beautiful bomb.

All represents the personal affects of a national conflict - 2

We looked at ourselves in the mirror and did not like what we saw: black hair, yellow skin, slanted eyes. The cruel face of the enemy.

We were guilty. Just put it behind you. No good. Let it go. A dangerous people. You’re free now. Who could never be trusted again. All you have to do is behave.

Or maybe they were afraid. (Later, we would learn that the postman, Mr. DeNardo, had told them that anyone who wrote to us was guilty of helping the enemy. “Those people bombed Pearl Harbor! They deserved what they got.”)

Always, we were polite. We said yes and no and no problem. We said thank you. Go ahead. After you. Don’t mention it. Don’t worry about it. Don’t even think about it.

(excuse me for looking at you, excuse me for sitting here, excuse me for coming back). If we did something terribly wrong we immediately said we were sorry (I’m sorry I touched your arm, I didn’t mean to, it was an accident, I didn’t see it resting there so quietly, so beautifully, so perfectly, so irresistibly, on the edge of the desk, I lost my balance and brushed against it by mistake, I was standing too close, I wasn’t watching where I was going, somebody pushed me from behind, I never wanted to touch you, I have always wanted to touch you, I will never touch you again, I promise, I swear . . . ).

In the evening, as darkness fell and casseroles rose and men did or did not come home from the office,

6 pm trope

Yes, the world would be ours once again:

She made up new rules.

They still don't have an income source - 2

“I was afraid I might accidentally remember who I was and . . . offend myself.”

Being alone with internalized toxicity can be worse than it coming from the outside - 2/5

If you’re too friendly they’ll think you think you’re better than they are.

bought new lace curtains for the windows that faced out onto the street.

Protection

Although we had been waiting for this moment, the moment of our father’s return, for more than four years now, when we finally saw him standing there before us on the platform we did not know what to think, what to do. We did not run up to him. We did not wave our hands wildly back and forth and shout out Over here! to him. And when our mother pushed us gently, but firmly, from behind, and whispered, Go to him, all we could do was stare down at our shoes, unable to move. Because the man who stood there before us was not our father. He was somebody else, a stranger who had been sent back in our father’s place. That’s not him, we said to our mother, That’s not him, but our mother no longer seemed to hear us.

An illusion of how he used to be is fixed in their minds - 2/3

Of course, our mother was quick to point out, we were too old now for stilts, too old to be read to, too old for shadow plays from behind hanging white sheets. Yes, yes, yes, we replied, and too old to laugh!

The camps made all of them older than they should be - 3

(Was he even there at all?)

They just don’t like us. That’s just the way it is. Never tell them more than you have to. And don’t think, for a minute, that they’re your friend.

Always, it seemed, he had something else on his mind.

It was a relief, she told us years later, to wake up every morning and have someplace to go.

“There’s already enough noise in my head,” he explained.

There, up above us, but not too high. Strength was slowly returning. Speech was beginning to come back. In the school yard. At the park. On the street. They were calling out to us now. Not many of them. Just a few.

But we never stopped believing that somewhere out there, in some stranger’s backyard, our mother’s rosebush was blossoming madly, wildly, pressing one perfect red flower after another out into the late afternoon light.

I’m your nightmare— we’re bivouacking tonight on your newly mowed front lawn. I’m your worst fear—you saw what we did in Manchuria, you remember Nanking, you can’t get Pearl Harbor out of your mind.

I’m sorry. There. That’s it. I’ve said it. Now can I go?