Page 92 of The Gods Will Sing Our Song

The thought is both livid and dull at the same time.

The next day, Ren and I stand beside the Wozumis’ fish pond. Spring is coming, and the ice, ribbed with frozen ripples, is melting. Our breath forms clouds, and mine comes heavier and hotter than Ren’s breath, my panic exhaling visibly into the cold air.

“I need to tell you something,” he says, and I stop breathing altogether.

“Don’t,” I say. He stares at me, eyes stricken. “Please. Please don’t.”

Ren embraces me. His arms settle around my shoulders, and his fingers curve around my neck. I close my eyes and press my face against the hard muscles of his chest. I will stay like this. I won’t move even an inch. There will be seconds, minutes, days. Months, years, probably, before he’s home again. But if I don’t move, if I don’t even breathe, I can freeze time.

“Will you let me?” he asks, and his tone is sober and sad. I can’t stop it. My longing only makes every moment faster, time sucking me forward like a riptide tunneling deep into its mother ocean.

“Yes.”

“I’m joining up. The aim of the questionnaire is pretty clear. They’re going to start drafting us, soon. I’m going to go on my own terms. Before I’m forced.”

I’m nodding. I know I am, but I don’t know why. Maybe my body has been schooled in tired acceptance of losses, big and small. My heart, though, has not.

An image rises in my mind. I’m home, at the print shop, and Otōsan is setting his suitcase by the register. He wanted to leave on his own terms. And he did. He left our home the same way he built it, with love and dignity, and those deputized men in their suits were made tiny by his bravery. Ren is doing the same thing. The United States government demands proof of something they never should’ve questioned in the first place. Ren is loyal and true, he always has been, and he always will be—and he won’t let them force his hand. I know all of this but even still, I don’t want it.

“Please,” I say, “just wait until they draft you.”

“I’m going for you.” His voice rings with conviction. I’m pressed against him, and his words mix with the beating of his heart. “And for my mother and Cosette and your mother and everyone else. The sooner the war ends, the sooner we’ll go home. I’m going to fight for us. I’m going to fight for our freedom, so we can get out of here.”

For me. For us. For our freedom. My heart warms, but it’s painful, like drinking too fast when you’re severely dehydrated or warming too quickly when you have hypothermia, leaving you hurt by its salvation. I hate saying goodbye to him every day when I go back to my barrack. How can I say goodbye to him knowing he’s going to war?

“You can’t.” My voice breaks. “Why give them the satisfaction when they’ve taken everything from us?”

“Because,” he says with a shrug, “it’s how we prove them wrong. Prove we believe in the exact same things they took from us. Kinda hard to argue with someone willing to bleed for you.”

“We shouldn’t have to prove anything,” I protest. “We didn’t do anything wrong. None of us did.”

“Yeah, that’s true.” Ren sighs and rests his head on my shoulder. “But maybe this will change things. They tried to make us the enemy. We won’t let them. And someday they will realize what they did.”

We don’t say anything else. We don’t need to. We stay in each other’s arms, and the time I wish to freeze rushes by in the shape of the sun traveling toward the mountains, plunging us into darkness.

The next day, I skip school. I cut through the camp, unsure where I’m going or why. I move on impulse. I’m no longer mind or heart. I’m just disembodied instinct, seeking escape.

Suddenly, the barbed wire fence appears before me, the hole waiting. I duck down, slipping beneath it. Brush scratches my legs and claws at my skirt, but I don’t stop. I run to the stream and sink down by the water. It runs fast, swollen with melting snow, flotillas of white foam racing by. I know it’s returning home, to the ocean from where it first came. I wish it would take me with it.

My heart aches. I take out my deer and hold it, tight. I think about how it guided me to Ren. I pause and lift the deer in my hands, closing my eyes. Then, almost not daring to hope, I whisper into its ear, “Otōsan?”

Fireworks burst across my vision. A symphony fills my ears, and even with my eyes closed I know where each note originates. The stream laughs. The patches of snow let out their low, sonorous snores. The brush tingles with the electrified senses of a cat’s whiskers. The mountains stretch and groan in pleasure. Everything is alive. Everything is magnificent. Everything is balanced in perfect harmony, as though held in the palms of divine hands and watched with delighted eyes. Nothing will fall through those fingers. They are sure and strong. Wonder rushes through me despite my grief as I’m confronted with beauty. It sings a song I’ll never forget, a song upon which the world turns, a song that is a sacrament. And it sings of us.

Within the song, there’s a tune.

A whistle.

Otōsan’s whistle.

I hear his voice.

“Violey-chan.”

“Where are you?” I cry.

“Here.” The breeze becomes material—it’s gold, as though created from the sun. It pours down and splashes against someone, immersing them in light. Slowly, band by band, the gold drains away.

Otōsan is there.