Silent Honor

In August 1941 Hiroko leaves Japan for an education in America. It is a different world. But when Pearl Harbor is bombed by the Japanese, Hiroko suddenly becomes an enemy in a strange land. Hiroko and her Californian family end up at a detention centre, where they have to fight to stay alive.

Masao Takashimaya's family had searched for five years for a suitable bride for him, ever since his twenty-first birthday.  But in spite of all their efforts to find a young woman who suited him, he rejected each of the girls as soon as he met them.  He wanted a very special girl, a young woman who would not only serve and respect him, as the go-between promised each would, but he also wanted a woman he could talk to.  Someone who would not only listen to him, and obey, but a girl he could share his ideas with.  And none of the girls he had seen in the past five years had come even close to fulfilling his wishes.  Until Hidemi.  She was only nineteen when they met, and she lived in a buraku, a tiny farming village, near Ayabe.  She was a pretty girl, delicate, and small, and exquisitely gentle.  Her face looked as though it were carved of the finest ivory, her dark eyes were like shining onyx.  And she scarcely spoke to Masao the first time she met him.  

At first, Masao thought she was too shy, too afraid of him, she was just like the others that had been pressed on him before her.  They were all too old-fashioned, he complained, he didn't want a wife to follow him like a dog, and look at him in terror.  Yet, the women he met at the university didn't appeal to him either.  There were certainly very few of them.  In 1920, when he began teaching there, the women he met were either the professors' wives or daughters, or foreigners.  But most of them lacked the total purity and sweetness of a girl like Hidemi.  Masao wanted everything in a wife, ancient traditions mixed with dreams of the future.  He didn't expect her to know many things, but he wanted her to have the same hunger for learning that he did. And at twenty-six, after having taught at the university in Kyoto for two years, he had found her.  She was perfect.  She was delicate and shy, and yet she was fascinated by the things he said, and several times, through the go-between, she had asked him interesting questions, about his work, his family, and even about Kyoto.  She rarely raised her eyes to look at him.  And yet once, he had seen her glance at him, with excruciating shyness, and he thought her incredibly lovely.  

She stood beside him now, six months after the day they met, with her eyes cast down, wearing the heavy white kimono her grandmother had worn, with the same elaborate gold brocade obi.  A tiny dagger hung from it, so she could take her own life, should Masao decide that he did not want her.  And on her carefully groomed hair, she wore the tsunokakushi, which covered her head but not her face, and made her seem even tinier as he watched her.  And hanging just below the tsunokakushi were the kan zaslin, the delicate hair ornaments that had been her mother's.  Her mother had also given her a huge princess ball, made of silk threads and heavily embroidered over the course of Hidemi's lifetime.  Her mother had started it when Hidemi was born and added to it through the years, always praying that Hidemi would be gracious, noble, and wise.  The princess ball was the most treasured gift her mother could give her, an exquisite symbol of her love and prayers, and hopes for her future.  

Masao wore the traditional black kimono with a coat over it, bearing his family's crest, as he stood proudly beside her.  Carefully they each took three sips of sake from three cups, and the Shinto ceremony continued.  They had been to the Shinto shrine earlier that day for a private ceremony, and this one was the formal public marriage that would join them forever, in front of all their family and friends, as the master of the ceremony told stories about both families and their histories both of their families were present, and several of the professors Masao taught with in Kyoto.  Only his cousin Takeo was not there.  He was five years older than Masao, and was his closest friend, and he would have wanted to be there.  But Takeo had gone to the United States the year before, to teach at Stanford University, in California.  It was a great opportunity for him, and Masao wished he could have joined him.  

The ceremony was extremely solemn and very long, and never once did Hidemi raise her eyes to look at him, or even smile, as they became man and wife, according to the most venerable Shinto traditions.  And after the ceremony, at last she hesitantly looked up at him, and the smallest of smiles lit her eyes and then her face, as she bowed low to her new husband.  Masao bowed to her as well, and then she was led away by her mother and her sisters to exchange her white kimono for a red one for the reception.  In wealthy city families, the bride changed her kimono six or seven times in the course of her wedding, but in their buraku, two kimonos had seemed enough for Hidemi.  

It was a perfect day for them.  It was a beautiful summer day, and the fields of Ayabe were the color of emeralds.  They spent the entire afternoon greeting their friends, and accepting the many gifts offered them, and the gifts of money carefully wrapped, and handed to Masao.  

There was music, and many friends, and dozens of distant relatives and cousins. Hidemi's cousin from Fukuoka played the koto, and a pair of dancers performed a slow and graceful bugaku.  There was endless food as well. Especially the traditional tempura, rice balls, kuri shioyaki, chicken, sashimi, red rice with nasu, nishoga, and narazuke.  There were delicacies that had been prepared for days by Hidemi's aunts and mother. Her grandmother, "abaachan," had overseen all the preparations herself; she was pleased that her little granddaughter was getting married.  She was the right age, and she had learned her lessons well.  She would be a good wife for anyone, and the family was pleased with the alliance with Masao, in spite of his reputation for being fascinated by modern concepts.  Hidemi's father was amused by him; Masao liked to discuss world politics and speak of wordly things.  But he was also well versed in all the important traditions.  It was a good family, and he was an honorable young man, and they all felt certain that he would make her an excellent husband.  

Masao and Hidemi spent the first night of their marriage with her family, and then left for Kyoto the next day.  She was wearing a beautiful pink-and-red kimono her mother had given her, and she looked especially lovely as Masao drove her away in the brand-new 1922 Model T coupe he had borrowed for the occasion.  It belonged to an American professor at the university in Kyoto.

And when they returned to Kyoto they settled into his small, spare home, and Hidemi proved everything he had believed about her from the moment he met her. She kept his house immaculate for him, and observed all of the familiar traditions.  She went to the nearby shrine regularly, and was polite and hospitable to all of his colleagues whenever he brought them home for dinner. And she was always deeply respectful of Masao.  Sometimes, when she was feeling particularly bold, she giggled at him, particularly when he insisted on speaking to her in English.  He thought it was extremely important that she learn another language, and he spoke to her on many subjects: of the British running Palestine, of Gandhi in India, and even about Mussolini.  There were events happening in the world that he thought she should know about, and his insistence on it amused her.  He was very good to her in many ways.  He was gentle and kind and considerate, and he told her often that he hoped they would have many children.  She was deeply embarrassed when he spoke of such things, but when she dared, she whispered to him that she hoped she would bring him many sons, and great honor.  

"Daughters are honorable too, Hidemi-san," he said gently, and she looked at him in amazement.  She would have been deeply ashamed to give him only daughters.  She knew the importance of bearing sons, particularly coming from a farm community like Ayabe.  

She was a sweet girl, and in the ensuing months they became good friends, as they learned to love each other.  He was gentle and thoughtful with her, and always deeply touched by her myriad delicate gestures.  She always had wonderful meals waiting for him, and flowers, perfectly arranged--particularly in the tokonoma, the alcove where the painted scroll was kept, which was their home's most important and honored decoration.  

She learned what he liked, and what he didn't, and was careful to shield him from the most minor annoyance.  She was the perfect wife for him, and as the months wore on, he was ever more pleased that he had found her.  She was still as shy as she had been at first, but he sensed that she was growing more comfortable with him, and more at ease in his world.  She had even learned a handful of phrases in English to please him.  He still spoke to her only in English at night when they shared dinner.  And he spoke to her often of his cousin Takeo in California.  He was happy with his job at the university, and had just married a kibei, a girl who had been born in the States of a Japanese family, but had been sent to Japan to complete her education.  Takeo had said in his letters that she was a nurse, her name was Reiko, and her family was from Tokyo.  And more than o...