When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka Page A

withered arm, or even General Douglas MacArthur. “I have returned,” he’d say. Then his eyes would light up and he’d reach down into his pocket and pull out a single white pearl. “I found this by the side of the road,” he’d say. “Any idea whose it might be?”
    It could happen like that.
    OR MAYBE the boy would be lying in bed one night and he’d hear a knock, a soft tap. “Who is it?” he’d say. “It’s me.” He’d open the door and see his father standing there in his white flannel bathrobe all covered with dust. “It’s a long walk from Lordsburg,” his father would say. Then they would shake hands, or maybe they’d even hug.
    â€œDid you get my letters?” he’d ask his father.
    â€œYou bet I did. I read every single one of them. I got that leaf, too. I thought of you all the time.”
    â€œI thought of you too,” the boy would say.
    He’d bring his father a glass of water and they would sit down side by side on the cot. Outside the window the moon would be bright and round. The wind would be blowing. He’d rest his head on his father’s shoulder and smell the dust and the sweat and the faint smell of Burma Shave and everything would be very nice. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he’d notice his father’s big toe sticking out through a hole in his slipper. “Papa,” he’d say.
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œYou forgot to put on your shoes.”
    His father would look down at his feet and he’d shake his head with surprise. “Son of a gun,” he’d say. “Would you look at that.” Then he’d just shrug. He’d lean back on the cot and make himself comfortable. He’d pull out his pipe. A box of matches. He’d smile. “Now tell me what I missed,” he’d say. “Tell me everything.”

IN A STRANGER’S BACKYARD
    When we came back after the war it was fall and the house was still ours. The trees on the streets were taller than we remembered, and the cars more run down, and the rosebush our mother had once planted alongside the narrow gravel path that led up to the front steps of our house was no longer there. We had left in the spring, when the magnolia trees were still in bloom, but now it was fall and the leaves on the trees were beginning to turn and where our mother’s rosebush had once stood there was only a clump of dead weeds. Broken bottles were scattered across the yard, and the juniper hedge by the side of the porch looked as though it had not been watered, even once, during the years we had been away.
    We carried our dusty suitcases up the narrow gravel path. It was late in the day and a cool breeze was blowing in off the bay and in the yard of the house next door a man in his shirt sleeves was slowly raking leaves. We did not know him. He was not the same man who had lived in that house before the war. He leaned on his rake and nodded once in our direction but our mother did not wave to him or nod her head, even slightly, in return. There were many people, she had warned us, who would not be happy to learn we had come back into town. Perhaps this man was one of these people—a member of the American Legion, or the Homefront Commandos, or one of the Native Sons of the Golden West—or perhaps he was simply a man with a rake our mother had chosen not to see, we did not know.
    At the top of the porch steps she reached into her blouse and pulled out the key to the front door, which she had worn, on a long silver chain, the entire time we had been away. Every morning, in the place where we had lived during the war, she had reached for the key as soon as she woke, just to make sure it was still there. And every evening, before she closed her eyes, she had touched the key one last time. Sometimes, in the middle of the day, she had stroked its jagged ridges with her thumb as she stared out the barrack window.