How to Be an American Housewife - Margaret Dilloway [15]
I got up from where Mike and I were playing blocks, already thinking about how I could stretch two chops into more and planning to tell him off later for bringing guests without telling me.
Then I saw who was following him inside. A Japanese woman about my age, maybe younger, and a black sailor. Her hair was cut short and permed into soft curls all over her head.
She bowed, taking off her shoes. In her hands was a casserole dish tied up in a purple scarf. “Forgive intrusion,” she said, her voice high and polite and in English far better than my own. “I brought macaroni and cheese.”
Toyoko and her husband, Jim, had just moved on base. They’d met as Charlie and I had, on the Iwakuni Air Base. Toyoko’s eyes met mine and we smiled big as children.
“Welcome!” I said, wondering if we should switch to Japanese. No. It would be impolite not to include the men.
Charlie read my mind. “Go ahead and speak Japanese. We want to learn, right, Jim? Besides, the language sounds like music.”
Toyoko and I did everything together for the next year. We tried to learn English better. There were no classes offered, at least none that we could easily get to, so Charlie got us a couple of textbooks, and we tried to study those. Most of the time, it was gibberish.
Our plan was to become citizens in five years. “That way, they can’t get rid of us,” Toyoko said with a sly grin, revealing a big gap between her front teeth. Most people thought that was unattractive, but on her it was good. Like a beauty mark.
The citizenship test promised to be difficult. You had to learn the Constitution and know all kinds of history, more than the average school-kid. If I could pass that, I would be a true American.
But the next year, Charlie got transferred to Hawaii. I embraced Toyoko and promised to write. “We can do a citizenship correspondence course,” I said.
In Hawaii, it was much easier to blend in. There were so many darker-skinned people that no one gave me a second glance. I made many friends there. More Navy men had Japanese wives in Hawaii. Pidgin English was quicker to learn than standard, especially because Charlie was gone too much to teach me proper English.
Toyoko and I wrote regularly for years. Jim got transferred to Yokosuka, Japan, and I thought she must be thrilled. She was not. The other Japanese wives won’t talk to me because Jim is black, she wrote. I miss you, Shoko.
Don’t let them get the better of you! You’re too good for them anyway, I responded. It had not occurred to me that these wives would treat each other like this, but I saw it more often in Hawaii, where there were more Japanese wives. Cliques formed based on what your husband’s race was. Neither group would accept the other.
Then I didn’t hear from Toyoko for a year. She sent me a postcard from Japan. It was too hard, she wrote. Jim left me. She was one of the lucky ones, able to return home, still childless. I wondered what had happened to those who weren’t so lucky. They probably had to find another serviceman. That’s what I would do if Charlie left me. It always nagged at the back of my mind. I tried to be the best wife I knew how.
WE DROVE DOWN THE STEEP HILL on Florida Street, to the dip that flooded with every light rain. We went over a pothole and I clutched the door. “Careful, Charlie!”
Charlie spoke. “Operation sounds good, doesn’t it? Wonder if it’ll help all the other things going wrong with your body.”
“Maybe I run all over town again, huh? Then what you gonna do?” I poked at his belly. “Get you going again.”
Charlie shifted away from me and turned up the radio. KPOP, hits from the 1940s and ’50s. One thing we had in common, we hated newer music. “I’m too old to get going again.”
“You not too old until dead.” I chewed my lower lip