Late for an Interview

I hold the sheet of paper in my hand, printed weeks ago in my small apartment, and stare at the empty words. I live alone, twenty minutes from my parents’ home, fifteen from my grandparents’. Fifteen minutes—an easy hop on the freeway—hardly any trouble at all. And the whole thing might have taken two hours, at most.

I would have called first, of course, and driven over shortly after. My grandmother, a quiet old Japanese woman, soft to look at, soft to touch, with a soft voice and a soft smile, would answer the door. Her pug would be barking at me from behind the plastic baby gate they had been using for eight years to keep the rolly ball of dander off of the nice furniture. I would step over this—the dog and the gate—my long legs pulling me into the kitchen that was almost exactly the same as it had been since I was a toddler.

A new coat of paint had been put up maybe a year ago. A new microwave sat in the place of the old “castrator,” as my father called it. Nothing else was different. The mosaic of magnets from places like Tahoe and Mammoth and Vegas still decorated the side of the refrigerator. The one with a cook and the name “Sally” stood in the same place by the handle, the guardian angel that had stood at the gates for longer than I had been alive.

“Do you want a soda?” she would always ask first, as invariably as the arrangement of magnets. “You know where they are.”

Next she would ask me if I had eaten. There would be food prepared somewhere in the kitchen, on the table, on the stove, waiting to be eaten in the oven. I usually accept, because usually I have not eaten, and if I have, it was poorly made and unsatisfying.

This is the same exchange we have been having for the last twenty five years, since I was old enough to make my way out through the backyard to the garage where she keeps a ready supply of Diet Coke and orange soda in her extra refrigerator. I love orange soda.

I would always come back to the house, holding my prize, to find a glass with ice in it, waiting for me on the counter. I stopped asking if the glass was for me many years ago, and instead took to giving her a hug while she did dishes.

I would make my way to the living room, and greet my grandfather. He would be lying on the sofa with the remote control on his watermelon belly, a pink blanket which my grandmother had crocheted and the dog had imbedded with thousands of fawn bristles pulled over his legs.

“hey, hey” he would answer.

I would have asked him then if I could interview him. I would have informed him that he is a living legend, that very few Japanese Americans had fought in World War II, and that only a handful were still alive. I would have pointed out that I know nearly nothing about his family or his past, and that it is important to know these things.

I would have asked my questions, which I had been compiling sporadically for months before. I would have recorded the entire thing with a digital recorder.

You’re nissei, second generation, right?

Mom says you went back to japan at a young age, and returned. How old were you when you left and returned?

Did you do any martial arts or sports? What were your hobbies?
What did you spend your time doing as a kid, teenager, young man?

Which camp were you in?

When did you join the army?

Were you drafted, or did you volunteer?

America was treating you un-American. Why did you decide to fight for a country that alienated you?

You drove a jeep in WW2? Where were you stationed?

Did you see anything noteworthy on your tour? Is it true you were in Germany during the Nuremberg trials?

The list was sad; a poor tribute to this man’s life. When I printed it, I had been counting on more questions to come to me as we spoke. They came to me then, as I read the clumsy interview-- of flood of curiosity over the trivial details. It was too late. The questions were all I had. Two hours, at the most, is all it would have taken. The meeting would have ended with hugs and well wishes and an invitation to come back any time.

“Visit soon,” she would have said.

“Bye bye,” he would call after.

I crumple the list of unanswered questions and throw it across the room. It is too late. I sighe and dress in clean clothes and prepare myself for the grim faces of my family, gathered in the kitchen, in the living room that would never be the same again.