Bridge across the sky, p.8
Bridge Across the Sky, page 8
Boocher’s, though.)
When they are done,
they don’t so much as smile
in satisfaction
at our open-mouthed
amazement.
Footfalls sound
on the stairs from the barracks.
Why don’t you join
the others now? (Law Yen Yi,
will you remain
a moment?) They will soon
be here for lunch.
Please remember
to give them the news.
We thank you
for your assistance.
a salute
They stole
our thunder! We
took the risk, and they
stepped in
like heroes.
They did
the right thing. What more
could we ask?
They could have
done more.
They could
have sold us out.
We don’t know what to make
of the Association’s turn.
We’d look to Yen Yi
for the correct
interpretation, but he’s still
at the Association table,
shaking shaking shaking
his head.
The others
are entering the hall,
and I need to find Father
and Grandfather, and need
to stay with the group
and work out
what just happened,
and need to hear from Yen Yi
what he’s so adamantly refusing
or denying
to the Association.
Father and Grandfather
appear at the door. My decision
is made. I tell a Resistance man,
I’m going to tell my father
the news, and run to meet them.
Father
hugs me! (If he ever
did before, I must have been
so young, I can no longer
remember it.) I tell him,
I’m all right. I tell him, We’re
all right. I tell him
our action succeeded,
that the powers agreed
to remove the worst
of the staff and promised
to improve conditions.
I have to help him
into a chair. Grandfather
resumes his look
of befuddled admiration.
We sit and eat, surrounded
by a heightened buzz.
I see members of the Resistance
going from table to table,
spreading the news
and perhaps our debates
over the news. The food,
though it’s the same
awful stuff, somehow
tastes better, the way
it soon will. Yen Yi is still
at the Association table,
sitting. They’re all
sitting now, around
the table, diners
once more.
Boocher
is trying to catch
my attention. He’s smiling
and waving me over
like a kid. I shrug
and gesture: I’m stuck
with family. He starts
walking toward us but retreats
at my father’s
upturned glare.
Lunch ends.
We head for the stairs.
Yen Yi is still
at the Association table.
Boocher, clearing some dishes,
sees me looking his way,
sets down his load,
and pulls himself, beaming,
to attention. Raises
a closed
but outward-facing fist.
I take it
as a salute
and return it.
the moment
The third month
of our detention
is a golden age. The food
gets better. Not close
to what can be brought in
if you have
the right connections—that mark
of privilege undisturbed
by any upheaval—but the meats
find a middle ground
between soggy and incinerated,
the vegetables are baked or sautéed
instead of being uniformly boiled,
and individual grains of rice
can sometimes
be discerned.
The guards and staffers
the pale powers agreed to remove
disappear
within a week.
No punishment—
or praise—comes down
from the Association
for any Resistance member,
though Yen Yi
is frequently called to their office
for discussions he declines
to share the content of.
The others
call out our names
and slap our backs
whenever we pass, to the point
that I wonder
if Sow Fong regrets
his abandonment
of the cause. I bump
into him constantly, weirdly
way more often than when
we hung out together, but
we never say a word
in passing. I had to leave
my friends already, once,
when I left my village, but that
was not my fault.
I would have stayed
but was forced to go.
Same now, I tell myself. He
forced the parting. He’s
the one who chickened out,
aligning himself
with the complacent,
cowardly crowd
of the occupied dining hall.
A reporter
from one of the game room
Chinese newspapers
shows up and spends
an entire afternoon
in the Association office,
hearing from them
and Yen Yi
about our action
and the conditions
of our imprisonment.
Father
goes silent, even ceasing
our daily paper story drills.
Grandfather sits
or walks with him, talking,
I assume,
about the problem
of me: radical,
victorious
me.
Boocher
seeks me out
continually, Father
no longer blocking
his approaches, the Resistance
happy to let me continue
my interrogation
of the suspected spy.
You did it, man! You
did it! You made
change happen.
Not realizing
that one change
we failed to effect
was his removal.
How did you plan it? What
were the factors, the options,
the goals?
Is he
indeed
a spy?
I have
no secrets
to spill. We didn’t
plan anything.
We talked a lot, but it
just happened.
He nods
as if at some
great wisdom.
Maybe that’s how
it works. You talk,
you plan, you
yearn, you endure.
Then the moment—all
on its own, it will seem—
arrives.
from rubble
I lie in my bunk,
unable to sleep
yet again. I’ve gotten
so little
since the day of the action
in the dining hall, awake
through that night and far
into subsequent nights,
from worry at first
and then
in celebration, unwilling
for the waking hours
of these triumphant days
to end.
I imagine
San Francisco ablaze
with the fire that followed
the earthquake, that made
our entry possible
by destroying the records
of businesses and births,
by wiping clean
the slates on which
we’re writing
our new stories.
I imagine
the fire burning on
from city to city
across this land,
the world, consuming
all of the past,
the ancient hatreds,
fears.
A world
broken
and then burned.
I lie in my bunk, unable
not to dream
of the new world rising
from rubble and ash, in the light
of bright days to come
and the moonlight
faint
through the windows.
blank
I’m checking in
on all the rooms on my way
to the far left corner
of the reopened rec yard.
Father and Grandfather
sit on Grandfather’s bunk.
Father turns away
when he sees me. Grandfather turns
to look in my direction. A man
calls out, Thank you!
and toasts me
with his purchased sandwich.
I enter the game room, bask
in the restored din
of mah-jongg tiles and cursing, the snap
of Go stones, the song
of the Ping-Pong ball
as Yen Yi rallies—
with Sow Fong! He’s playing
Sow Fong. They’re laughing
and exchanging insults.
Members of the Resistance
dot the crowd that cheers
them both.
Good shot!
cries Yen Yi at what
must have been
a good shot. Sow Fong
beaming and strutting until
he sees me watching,
and his face
goes blank.
always
When I get
to the far left corner
of the rec yard,
the half-Chinese girl
is on her bench, looking
right at me. She sits
beside her guard
but twisted around to gaze
quite frankly
toward this spot. Has she
been waiting, all this time,
for my return?
She smiles.
A smile
just as big
takes hold of my face,
as if the corners of my mouth
were pulled
by invisible strings
connecting them
to hers.
Then I know it:
I will find a way
to speak with her.
Because action
can change the world, luck
is bestowed on the bold,
and the moment
always arrives.
III. BETRAYAL
Living at home, there were no prospects for advancement.
The situation forced one to go to another country.
Separated from the clan, a thousand miles away,
Apart from the ancestors, we are no longer close to one another.
—Recovered from the walls of the men’s barracks,
Angel Island Immigration Station
to face
She turns
to face away again, seated
beside her guard. I turn—
to face
Sow Fong.
So you’re into her
after all! he cackles.
I can’t blame you.
He stands there
grinning. It’s hard
not to smile back.
I manage it.
Because, he presses,
I’m a coward. Right?
I couldn’t do
a brave thing if my life
depended on it. Or EVEN
a girl.
I face him,
silent. His grin subsides
into a grimace.
Anyway,
he says, a new,
wan smile
on his face. You’re
the one with the guts.
You’re the one
who did his duty, the spying,
and the recruiting,
and everything else.
You joined the riot
when they could have
bashed your skull.
And in the end,
you won. You all did.
I bet you’ll win
the girl, too.
He turns
to go.
It’s funny
how the happiness
of hope can light
a whole house
of darkened rooms.
Hey! I call.
I gesture toward
the half-Chinese girl.
Wanna hear
about it?
that smirk
I tell Sow Fong
about my encounters
with the half-Chinese girl.
The glances. The glances. The
glances. It doesn’t
amount to much.
It’s awesome!
he counters. You broke through
the walls. You slipped
through the bars, if only
with your eyes
and your heart.
It’s practically
a miracle!
I tell him
I want more
than a miracle.
What about
Boocher? he continues
brightly. Couldn’t he
pass her a note?
Boocher.
Who serves
both meal shifts.
Who knows who
the girl is.
I’m already composing the note
I’ll ask him to pass her
as I ask Sow Fong
about Yen Yi.
He’s cool. We’re
cool. Whether
it’s Ping-Pong
or politics,
he’s basically
a fanatic. As long
as I keep up
my Ping-Pong improvement,
he’ll be
okay with me.
I tell him
he can improve in Yen Yi’s eyes
politically
as well, that there are sure
to be further actions, that he’ll have
more chances to prove
his worth.
He takes
a step back, hands
on his hips, that smirk
back on his face.
Not likely,
my friend. Not
likely.
hope
To Nakasone Yukiko Lan,
I don’t know how to write
the Japanese parts of her name except
to spell out their sounds
in English. The rest
I write in Chinese, as my English
isn’t good enough to express
all that I might someday
want to say, and anyway,
Chinese is the language
she’ll most likely find help
to read.
I hope
this letter
reaches you.
I’m the guy
who waves to you
from the Chinese rec yard.
I’m here
with my father
and grandfather.
We come
from Kai Gok village.
I hope
I pause
in the writing, unsure
of what I hope for.
I wish, I might once
have written, that I
had never been dragged
from my home. Is that
still true?
I hope
you have been comfortable
in your confinement.
Our present conditions
are difficult, but I believe
there are better days ahead
for all of us.
I imagine Boocher
handing her the letter. Will she
be apprehensive
at being approached
by the dark-skinned
kitchen worker?
You can trust the person
who will deliver this to you. We’re friends,
and he’s happy to help and to carry
your reply, if you care
to make one, back
to me.
Yours
in detention,
Lee Yip Jing
the notes
I wait for Boocher
at the next meal. My letter
is sealed in an envelope with only
my paper name on it so that in case
it miscarries, there’s a chance
it will be returned to me
without its contents
being read. I feel conspicuous
just sitting there with it
folded in a back pocket, as if
everyone—the prisoners, the staff,
the guards—can see the mark
of its rumpled outline
on my ass.
Boocher passes close
a couple of times
but veers away, the kitchen boss
driving him to table after table
before he can retreat
to this corner, where
he takes his breaks.
And then he’s here.
Hey, Boocher. You serve
the women’s meal too,
right? He nods, his eyes
focused on what he’s writing
in his notebook. You know
the girl? You know—Yukiko?
The girl who’s half-Japanese?
He puts away the notebook, turns
his full attention to me.
I wrote a note. To her.
Can you deliver it?
His eyes widen,
narrow, dart
across my person
like he’s trying to discover
where I have it. I suppress an urge
to cover my pocket
with a hand. I want to tell him,
Look away! Don’t
draw attention!
If it’s too much trouble…,
I begin. Even as I scream
to myself, Just shut up
and let him answer!
He answers no.
It probably would
be a little too much.
Trouble, you know?
Still yelling at myself
When they are done,
they don’t so much as smile
in satisfaction
at our open-mouthed
amazement.
Footfalls sound
on the stairs from the barracks.
Why don’t you join
the others now? (Law Yen Yi,
will you remain
a moment?) They will soon
be here for lunch.
Please remember
to give them the news.
We thank you
for your assistance.
a salute
They stole
our thunder! We
took the risk, and they
stepped in
like heroes.
They did
the right thing. What more
could we ask?
They could have
done more.
They could
have sold us out.
We don’t know what to make
of the Association’s turn.
We’d look to Yen Yi
for the correct
interpretation, but he’s still
at the Association table,
shaking shaking shaking
his head.
The others
are entering the hall,
and I need to find Father
and Grandfather, and need
to stay with the group
and work out
what just happened,
and need to hear from Yen Yi
what he’s so adamantly refusing
or denying
to the Association.
Father and Grandfather
appear at the door. My decision
is made. I tell a Resistance man,
I’m going to tell my father
the news, and run to meet them.
Father
hugs me! (If he ever
did before, I must have been
so young, I can no longer
remember it.) I tell him,
I’m all right. I tell him, We’re
all right. I tell him
our action succeeded,
that the powers agreed
to remove the worst
of the staff and promised
to improve conditions.
I have to help him
into a chair. Grandfather
resumes his look
of befuddled admiration.
We sit and eat, surrounded
by a heightened buzz.
I see members of the Resistance
going from table to table,
spreading the news
and perhaps our debates
over the news. The food,
though it’s the same
awful stuff, somehow
tastes better, the way
it soon will. Yen Yi is still
at the Association table,
sitting. They’re all
sitting now, around
the table, diners
once more.
Boocher
is trying to catch
my attention. He’s smiling
and waving me over
like a kid. I shrug
and gesture: I’m stuck
with family. He starts
walking toward us but retreats
at my father’s
upturned glare.
Lunch ends.
We head for the stairs.
Yen Yi is still
at the Association table.
Boocher, clearing some dishes,
sees me looking his way,
sets down his load,
and pulls himself, beaming,
to attention. Raises
a closed
but outward-facing fist.
I take it
as a salute
and return it.
the moment
The third month
of our detention
is a golden age. The food
gets better. Not close
to what can be brought in
if you have
the right connections—that mark
of privilege undisturbed
by any upheaval—but the meats
find a middle ground
between soggy and incinerated,
the vegetables are baked or sautéed
instead of being uniformly boiled,
and individual grains of rice
can sometimes
be discerned.
The guards and staffers
the pale powers agreed to remove
disappear
within a week.
No punishment—
or praise—comes down
from the Association
for any Resistance member,
though Yen Yi
is frequently called to their office
for discussions he declines
to share the content of.
The others
call out our names
and slap our backs
whenever we pass, to the point
that I wonder
if Sow Fong regrets
his abandonment
of the cause. I bump
into him constantly, weirdly
way more often than when
we hung out together, but
we never say a word
in passing. I had to leave
my friends already, once,
when I left my village, but that
was not my fault.
I would have stayed
but was forced to go.
Same now, I tell myself. He
forced the parting. He’s
the one who chickened out,
aligning himself
with the complacent,
cowardly crowd
of the occupied dining hall.
A reporter
from one of the game room
Chinese newspapers
shows up and spends
an entire afternoon
in the Association office,
hearing from them
and Yen Yi
about our action
and the conditions
of our imprisonment.
Father
goes silent, even ceasing
our daily paper story drills.
Grandfather sits
or walks with him, talking,
I assume,
about the problem
of me: radical,
victorious
me.
Boocher
seeks me out
continually, Father
no longer blocking
his approaches, the Resistance
happy to let me continue
my interrogation
of the suspected spy.
You did it, man! You
did it! You made
change happen.
Not realizing
that one change
we failed to effect
was his removal.
How did you plan it? What
were the factors, the options,
the goals?
Is he
indeed
a spy?
I have
no secrets
to spill. We didn’t
plan anything.
We talked a lot, but it
just happened.
He nods
as if at some
great wisdom.
Maybe that’s how
it works. You talk,
you plan, you
yearn, you endure.
Then the moment—all
on its own, it will seem—
arrives.
from rubble
I lie in my bunk,
unable to sleep
yet again. I’ve gotten
so little
since the day of the action
in the dining hall, awake
through that night and far
into subsequent nights,
from worry at first
and then
in celebration, unwilling
for the waking hours
of these triumphant days
to end.
I imagine
San Francisco ablaze
with the fire that followed
the earthquake, that made
our entry possible
by destroying the records
of businesses and births,
by wiping clean
the slates on which
we’re writing
our new stories.
I imagine
the fire burning on
from city to city
across this land,
the world, consuming
all of the past,
the ancient hatreds,
fears.
A world
broken
and then burned.
I lie in my bunk, unable
not to dream
of the new world rising
from rubble and ash, in the light
of bright days to come
and the moonlight
faint
through the windows.
blank
I’m checking in
on all the rooms on my way
to the far left corner
of the reopened rec yard.
Father and Grandfather
sit on Grandfather’s bunk.
Father turns away
when he sees me. Grandfather turns
to look in my direction. A man
calls out, Thank you!
and toasts me
with his purchased sandwich.
I enter the game room, bask
in the restored din
of mah-jongg tiles and cursing, the snap
of Go stones, the song
of the Ping-Pong ball
as Yen Yi rallies—
with Sow Fong! He’s playing
Sow Fong. They’re laughing
and exchanging insults.
Members of the Resistance
dot the crowd that cheers
them both.
Good shot!
cries Yen Yi at what
must have been
a good shot. Sow Fong
beaming and strutting until
he sees me watching,
and his face
goes blank.
always
When I get
to the far left corner
of the rec yard,
the half-Chinese girl
is on her bench, looking
right at me. She sits
beside her guard
but twisted around to gaze
quite frankly
toward this spot. Has she
been waiting, all this time,
for my return?
She smiles.
A smile
just as big
takes hold of my face,
as if the corners of my mouth
were pulled
by invisible strings
connecting them
to hers.
Then I know it:
I will find a way
to speak with her.
Because action
can change the world, luck
is bestowed on the bold,
and the moment
always arrives.
III. BETRAYAL
Living at home, there were no prospects for advancement.
The situation forced one to go to another country.
Separated from the clan, a thousand miles away,
Apart from the ancestors, we are no longer close to one another.
—Recovered from the walls of the men’s barracks,
Angel Island Immigration Station
to face
She turns
to face away again, seated
beside her guard. I turn—
to face
Sow Fong.
So you’re into her
after all! he cackles.
I can’t blame you.
He stands there
grinning. It’s hard
not to smile back.
I manage it.
Because, he presses,
I’m a coward. Right?
I couldn’t do
a brave thing if my life
depended on it. Or EVEN
a girl.
I face him,
silent. His grin subsides
into a grimace.
Anyway,
he says, a new,
wan smile
on his face. You’re
the one with the guts.
You’re the one
who did his duty, the spying,
and the recruiting,
and everything else.
You joined the riot
when they could have
bashed your skull.
And in the end,
you won. You all did.
I bet you’ll win
the girl, too.
He turns
to go.
It’s funny
how the happiness
of hope can light
a whole house
of darkened rooms.
Hey! I call.
I gesture toward
the half-Chinese girl.
Wanna hear
about it?
that smirk
I tell Sow Fong
about my encounters
with the half-Chinese girl.
The glances. The glances. The
glances. It doesn’t
amount to much.
It’s awesome!
he counters. You broke through
the walls. You slipped
through the bars, if only
with your eyes
and your heart.
It’s practically
a miracle!
I tell him
I want more
than a miracle.
What about
Boocher? he continues
brightly. Couldn’t he
pass her a note?
Boocher.
Who serves
both meal shifts.
Who knows who
the girl is.
I’m already composing the note
I’ll ask him to pass her
as I ask Sow Fong
about Yen Yi.
He’s cool. We’re
cool. Whether
it’s Ping-Pong
or politics,
he’s basically
a fanatic. As long
as I keep up
my Ping-Pong improvement,
he’ll be
okay with me.
I tell him
he can improve in Yen Yi’s eyes
politically
as well, that there are sure
to be further actions, that he’ll have
more chances to prove
his worth.
He takes
a step back, hands
on his hips, that smirk
back on his face.
Not likely,
my friend. Not
likely.
hope
To Nakasone Yukiko Lan,
I don’t know how to write
the Japanese parts of her name except
to spell out their sounds
in English. The rest
I write in Chinese, as my English
isn’t good enough to express
all that I might someday
want to say, and anyway,
Chinese is the language
she’ll most likely find help
to read.
I hope
this letter
reaches you.
I’m the guy
who waves to you
from the Chinese rec yard.
I’m here
with my father
and grandfather.
We come
from Kai Gok village.
I hope
I pause
in the writing, unsure
of what I hope for.
I wish, I might once
have written, that I
had never been dragged
from my home. Is that
still true?
I hope
you have been comfortable
in your confinement.
Our present conditions
are difficult, but I believe
there are better days ahead
for all of us.
I imagine Boocher
handing her the letter. Will she
be apprehensive
at being approached
by the dark-skinned
kitchen worker?
You can trust the person
who will deliver this to you. We’re friends,
and he’s happy to help and to carry
your reply, if you care
to make one, back
to me.
Yours
in detention,
Lee Yip Jing
the notes
I wait for Boocher
at the next meal. My letter
is sealed in an envelope with only
my paper name on it so that in case
it miscarries, there’s a chance
it will be returned to me
without its contents
being read. I feel conspicuous
just sitting there with it
folded in a back pocket, as if
everyone—the prisoners, the staff,
the guards—can see the mark
of its rumpled outline
on my ass.
Boocher passes close
a couple of times
but veers away, the kitchen boss
driving him to table after table
before he can retreat
to this corner, where
he takes his breaks.
And then he’s here.
Hey, Boocher. You serve
the women’s meal too,
right? He nods, his eyes
focused on what he’s writing
in his notebook. You know
the girl? You know—Yukiko?
The girl who’s half-Japanese?
He puts away the notebook, turns
his full attention to me.
I wrote a note. To her.
Can you deliver it?
His eyes widen,
narrow, dart
across my person
like he’s trying to discover
where I have it. I suppress an urge
to cover my pocket
with a hand. I want to tell him,
Look away! Don’t
draw attention!
If it’s too much trouble…,
I begin. Even as I scream
to myself, Just shut up
and let him answer!
He answers no.
It probably would
be a little too much.
Trouble, you know?
Still yelling at myself
