Hawaii - James Michener [622]
"It's everything," Shig agreed, pressing his arm about his brother's shoulder. "The other things that Akemi-chan misses . , . they'll come later. It's our children who'll read books and listen to music. They won't be peasants."
Goro now changed from misery to belligerency and cried, "Hell, fifty years from now they'll put up statues to guys like you and me!" And he thought of many things he was going to tell his wife when she returned, but when he saw her come into the room, after carefully removing her geta at the door and walking pin-toed like a delicate Japanese gentlewoman, his courage collapsed and he pleaded, "Akemi-chan, please, please don't go."
She walked past him and into her room, where she completed her final packing and when she was ready to go to the boat she said softly, "I'm not running away from you, Goro-san. You were good to me and tender. But a girl has only one life and I will not spend mine in, Hawaii."
"It'll grow better!" he assured her.
In precise Japanese the determined girl replied, "I would perish here." And that afternoon she sailed for Japan.
Mr. Ishii, of course, wrote a long letter in Japanese script to the Sakagawas in Hiroshima-ken, and when the local letter reader had advised Mrs. Sakagawa of its contents, Goro began getting a series of delighted letters from his mother, which Ishii-san read to the boys, for although they could speak Japanese they could not read it: "I am so glad to hear that the superior-thinking young lady from Tokyo has gone back home. It's best for all concerned, Goro, and I have been asking through the village about suitable girls, and I have found several who would be willing to come to America, but you must send me a later picture of yourself, because the one I have makes you look too young, and the better girls are afraid that you are not well established in business. I am sending you in this letter pictures of three very fine girls. Fumiko-san is very strong and comes from a family I have known all my life. Chieko-san is from a very dependable family and when made-up looks rather sweet. Yuri-san is too short, but she has a heart which I know is considerate, for her mother, whom I knew as a girl, tells me that Yuri is the best girl in the village where taking care of a home is concerned. Also, since Shigeo now has a good job and ought to be looking for a wife, I am sending him two pictures of the schoolteacher in the village. She is well educated and would make a fine wife for a lawyer, because even though she went away to college, she is originally from this village. After the grave mistake Goro made with the girl from Tokyo, I am sure it would be better if you boys both found your wives at home."
The brothers spread the five photographs on the table and studied them gloomily. "It's too bad we're not raising sugar cane," Goro growled. "That quartet could hoe all the fields between here and Waipahu."
The next mail brought three more applicants, stalwart little girls with broad bottoms, gold teeth and backs of steel. Mr. Ishii, after reading the letters to the brothers, got great pleasure from studying the photographs and making therefrom his own recommendations. "Of all the things I have done in my life," he explained, "I am happiest that I married a Hiroshima girl. If you boys were wise, you would do the same thing."
Then came the letter that contained two better-than-average pictures, and as they fluttered out, Mr. Ishii studied the portraits with care and said, "I think these may be the ones," but his spirits were soon dampened by a passage from Mrs. Sakagawa which he could not find the courage to finish reading to the boys. It began, "Last week danna-san and I went to see Hiroshima City, a place we had not visited before, and I am ashamed to have to say that what the Americans reported is true. The city was bombed. It was mostly