Page 96 of The Gods Will Sing Our Song

The form attacks again. There’s still no blood, no visible wounds. I don’t see anything on the outside, only the terror in Boser’s face. He cries out as his grip is torn off me and his body is dragged across the dirt. The form releases him. They step back, chewing. The motion becomes slow and languid. They yawn. They stretch. Their red eyes blink, growing heavy and slow. Their eyes close for a final time and they disappear into the fabric between this reality and whichever one they dwell in.

Boser staggers to his feet and his hands are outstretched. He stands motionless for a moment and then an ear-piercing shriek tears from his throat. Voices beyond the latrine reach me, along with footsteps rushing toward us. Quickly, I merge into the shadows and make my way along the wall as guards and curious bystanders come around the corner to investigate Boser’s scream. I glance back only once, just in time to see Boser collapsing in their arms, sobbing as gibberish spills from his lips.

My head and shoulder throb, but I hardly feel the pain. I think about Akira. I don’t know if he can hear me or how any of it works, but I say quietly, “Thank you,” and steal away.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Violet

I stay up late, drawing with the weak light from the bulb. I listen to our barrack’s ballad, all of it accompanied by the wind. It’s familiar to me, now. I hear Mr. Kimura’s great, thundering snores and Mrs. Kimura’s interjections. She speaks in Japanese, but I’ve learned that she says, “Breathe!” “Wake up!” “Stop snoring, old bear!” Beyond them, the couple talks and the woman says, “If your mother gets transferred here from Poston, I’ll commit harakiri,” to which the man says, “Oh, come on, she’s not that bad. She’ll help with the baby when it comes.” The restless sleeper sighs and hums and counts to one hundred in English and then in Spanish.

Ren leaves in two days.

Mama sits up with me, reading her Bible. I tell her about seeing Otōsan, adding our own voices to the ballad. Mama says she’s not surprised.

“God let him come,” she says. “He knows you needed to say goodbye.”

“But what about you?” I ask.

“You needed it more,” she says, and I know her love is sacrifice. She would give me everything if she could and keep nothing for herself. Her love is made from the same thing as Otōsan’s light.

I set my pencil down. I think about Mama asking how my day was when we first arrived, trying to re-create my tradition with Otōsan. It’s hard to change, but she loves me enough to try. Maybe I need to try, too. I’m learning how to be my own woman, and part of it is being brave enough to decide how you want to live your life. If the time comes, I will pursue art. I won’t ignore the call of my own heart. Not in regard to this. And not in regard to Ren. I take a breath.

“Mama?”

“Hai?”

“We never talk about it, but we both know.” She lowers her Bible, waiting. “I love Ren. I want to marry him someday. I don’t want to keep it hidden from you, and I want you to get to know him, once he comes back from the war. I know you are worried that he won’t know how to love me well. But, Mama, he already does, every day.”

Mama closes her Bible. There’s no disapproval in her face, only a strange distance, as though she’s wrestling with something within herself.

“You never knew my parents,” she says. It’s true. Her parents died when she was a teenager, and she never speaks about them. “My father was a harsh man. Very harsh. I always feared love until I met your Otōsan. I thought that because I was hurt, I would hurt others. I would hurt him. And, sometimes, I did. I only want the very best for you, Violet.”

“But you were the very best for Otōsan,” I say quietly, and I know it’s true. He would have married her every day if he could, and she knows it, too. “You made your own choices to be different from your father, and so does Ren. Trust me, Mama, and trust Ren.”

Mama is quiet again. Then, slowly, she reaches out a hand and gently brushes my hair back from my face and says, “You are a gift, Violet. I don’t tell you often enough.”

The next day, as I walk across camp to meet Ren, there’s a commotion near the administration offices. An ambulance has been called. The siren is off but its red light flashes and the rear doors are ajar. Several men wheel someone out on a gurney. The man is strapped down and shrieking. I freeze, clutching my deer to my chest.

It’s Mr. Boser.

His eyes are huge and unblinking. He jerks wildly against the straps buckling him to the gurney. Suddenly, his crazed gaze catches mine, boring a hole into my chest where I hold my relic, and his slurring screams become words.

“You’ve had one all along, Miss Aratani? You’ve had one and you never told me?”

He lets loose a cackle that makes my skin go cold. I quickly slip my deer into my pocket. A man in a white jacket sticks Mr. Boser with a syringe and he goes limp against the gurney.

I hurry on my way. I don’t think I’ll ever see Mr. Boser again.

“Hey, slugger,” Ren says when I greet him outside his barrack. “You okay?”

“Of course,” I say, shaking the thought of Mr. Boser from my mind. I don’t know what drove that man mad, but at the moment, I cannot bring myself to care. All I can think about is the fact that Ren will be leaving in six hours.

The truth is, I already miss him, even though he’s right next to me. I’ve lived seventeen years without knowing him, yet I can’t imagine life without him. It’s like my composition has changed since we met. The tempo of my heartbeat, the rise and fall of my chest, the pulse in my neck—it’s all quicker, happier, attuned to life. He makes me move to music only he and I hear. He makes me dance steps only he and I know.

But the music is about to stop. I’ll be left standing there, stuck to the floor after flying across it.

“Here. Take this one.” He removes the sketch I did of him from his pocket and hands it to me. “We don’t have photos and all that, so I want you to have it.”