Hawaii - James Michener [477]
When Reiko-chan was a long-legged, flashing-eyed girl of twelve she was ready to take her all-important verbal examination for admission into the privileges of Jefferson. Her parents washed her with unusual care, dressed her in a white smock with ruffles, and polished her shoes. Kamejiro wanted to accompany her, but she begged him not to do so, only to find when she got to Jefferson that he was required to be with her. She ran back to get him, and when her mother saw how heated up she had become in doing so, she was given another bath, and with her father's apprehensive hand in hers she returned to Jefferson, where a teacher picked up the report from Reiko's elementary school and read silently: "Reiko Sakagawa. Grades A. Behavior A. Knowledge of American customs A. English A." The investigating teacher smiled and passed the report approvingly along to the other two members of the board, but one of these had at her elbow an additional report on the Sakagawa girl, and this said simply, "Father, privy cleaner."
"How do you spend your days this summer?" the first teacher asked.
In a sweet, clear voice Reiko-chan replied, with careful attention to each syllable, "I help my mother with the washing. And on Sundays I go to church. And when we have a picnic I help my brothers get dressed."
The three teachers were impressed with the precision of the little girl's speech. Obviously she was a girl who belonged in whatever excellent schools a community could provide, and the first teacher was about to mark the official ballot "Passed," when the third teacher whispered, "Did you see this? Her father?"
The damning paper was passed from hand to hand and the teachers nodded. "Failed," wrote the first. Then, smiling sweetly at Reiko-chan, she explained: "We are not going to accept you at Jefferson, my dear. We feel that you speak a little too deliberately ... as if you had memorized."
There was no appeal. Kamejiro and his brilliant daughter were led away and in the summer sunlight the father asked in Japanese, "Did you get in?"
"No," she said, trying desperately not to cry.
"Why not?" her father asked in dumb pain.
"They said I spoke too slowly," she explained.
It was Kamejiro, and not Reiko-chan, who began to weep. He looked at the fine school, at the lovely grounds, and realized what a great boon his family had lost. "Why, why?" he pleaded. "At home you talk like a fire machine! Why do you talk slow today?"
"I wanted to be so careful," Reiko-chan explained.
Kamejiro felt that his daughter had failed the family through some conscious error, and his rage overcame him. Raising his arm, he was about to punish her when he saw that tears were hanging in her eyes, so instead of thrashing her as he intended, he dropped on one knee and embraced her. "Don't worry," he said. "Goro will get in. Maybe it's even better that way, because he's a boy."
Then he grabbed his daughter lovingly by the hand and said, "We must hurry," and the event toward which he hurried proved how deeply confused he was, for after having tried with all his prayers to get Reiko-chan into Jefferson so that she could be even more American, he now rushed her back home and into a kimono so that she could join her brothers in demonstrating that she was perpetually a Japanese. For this was the emperor's birthday, and the community was assembling at the Japanese school. As each family entered, the parents bowed almost to the floor before the portrait of the august emperor, then led their children to an allotted place on the tatami, where they sat on their ankles. At eleven the teacher appeared, ashen-faced, so grave was his responsibility that day. A former army officer rose and explained,