Read Online The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Julie Otsuka
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number three boy not to slouch when he walks . And if things grew too noisy at the table, they clapped their hands and shouted out, “That’s enough!” Their children, in turn, preferred not to speak to their fathers at all. Whenever one of them had something to say it always went through us. Tell Papa I need a nickel. Tell Papa there’s something wrong with one of the horses. Tell Papa he missed a spot shaving. Ask Papa how come he’s so old .
AS SOON AS WE COULD we put them to work in the fields. They picked strawberries with us in San Martin. They picked peas with us in Los Osos. They crawled behind us through the vineyards of Hughson and Del Rey as we cut down the raisin grapes and laid them out to dry on wooden trays in the sun. They hauled water. They cleared brush. They shoveled weeds. They chopped wood. They hoed in the blazing summer heat of the Imperial Valley before their bones were fully formed. Some of them were slow-moving and dreamy and planted entire rows of cauliflower sprouts upside down by mistake. Others could sort tomatoes faster than the fastest of the hired help. Many complained. They had stomachaches. Headaches. Their eyes were itching like crazy from the dust. Some of them pulled on their boots every morning without having to be told. One of them had a favorite pair of clippers, which he sharpened every evening in the barn after supper and would not let anyone else touch. One could not stop thinking about bugs. They’re everywhere . One sat down one day in the middle of an onion patch and said she wished she’d never been born. And we wondered if we had done the right thing, bringing them into this world. Not once did we ever have the money to buy them a single toy .
AND YET they played for hours like calves in the fields. They made swords out of broken grape stakes and dueled to a draw beneath the trees. They made kites out of newspaper and balsa wood and tied knives to the strings and had dogfights on windy days in the sky. They made twist-up dolls out of wire and straw and did evil things to them with sharpened chopsticks in the woods. They played shadow catch shadow on moonlit nights in the orchards, just as we had back home in Japan. They played kick the can and mumblety-peg and jan ken po. They had contests to see who could nail together the most packing crates the night before we went to market and who could hang the longest from the walnut tree without letting go. They folded squares of paper into airplanes and birds and watched them fly away. They collected crows’ nests and snake skins, beetle shells, acorns, rusty iron stakes from down by the tracks. They learned the names of the planets. They read each other’s palms. Your life line is unusually short . They told each other’s fortunes. One day you will take a long journey on a train . They went out into the barn after supper with their kerosene lanterns and played mama and papa in the loft. Now slap your belly and make a sound like you’re dying . And on hot summer nights, when it was ninety-eight degrees, they spread their blankets out beneath the peach trees and dreamed of picnics down by the river, a new eraser, a book, a ball, a china doll with blinking violet eyes, leaving home, one day, for the great world beyond.
BEYOND THE FARM , they’d heard, there were strange pale children who grew up entirely indoors and knew nothing of the fields and streams. Some of these children, they’d heard, had never even seen a tree. Their mothers won’t let them go outside and play in the sun . Beyond the farm, they’d heard, there were fancy white houses with gold-framed mirrors and crystal doorknobs and porcelain toilets that flushed with the yank of a chain. And they don’t even make a smell . Beyond the farm, they’d heard, there were mattresses stuffed with hard metal springs that were somehow as soft as a cloud (Goro’s sister had gone away to work as a maid in the city and when she came back she said that the beds there
AS SOON AS WE COULD we put them to work in the fields. They picked strawberries with us in San Martin. They picked peas with us in Los Osos. They crawled behind us through the vineyards of Hughson and Del Rey as we cut down the raisin grapes and laid them out to dry on wooden trays in the sun. They hauled water. They cleared brush. They shoveled weeds. They chopped wood. They hoed in the blazing summer heat of the Imperial Valley before their bones were fully formed. Some of them were slow-moving and dreamy and planted entire rows of cauliflower sprouts upside down by mistake. Others could sort tomatoes faster than the fastest of the hired help. Many complained. They had stomachaches. Headaches. Their eyes were itching like crazy from the dust. Some of them pulled on their boots every morning without having to be told. One of them had a favorite pair of clippers, which he sharpened every evening in the barn after supper and would not let anyone else touch. One could not stop thinking about bugs. They’re everywhere . One sat down one day in the middle of an onion patch and said she wished she’d never been born. And we wondered if we had done the right thing, bringing them into this world. Not once did we ever have the money to buy them a single toy .
AND YET they played for hours like calves in the fields. They made swords out of broken grape stakes and dueled to a draw beneath the trees. They made kites out of newspaper and balsa wood and tied knives to the strings and had dogfights on windy days in the sky. They made twist-up dolls out of wire and straw and did evil things to them with sharpened chopsticks in the woods. They played shadow catch shadow on moonlit nights in the orchards, just as we had back home in Japan. They played kick the can and mumblety-peg and jan ken po. They had contests to see who could nail together the most packing crates the night before we went to market and who could hang the longest from the walnut tree without letting go. They folded squares of paper into airplanes and birds and watched them fly away. They collected crows’ nests and snake skins, beetle shells, acorns, rusty iron stakes from down by the tracks. They learned the names of the planets. They read each other’s palms. Your life line is unusually short . They told each other’s fortunes. One day you will take a long journey on a train . They went out into the barn after supper with their kerosene lanterns and played mama and papa in the loft. Now slap your belly and make a sound like you’re dying . And on hot summer nights, when it was ninety-eight degrees, they spread their blankets out beneath the peach trees and dreamed of picnics down by the river, a new eraser, a book, a ball, a china doll with blinking violet eyes, leaving home, one day, for the great world beyond.
BEYOND THE FARM , they’d heard, there were strange pale children who grew up entirely indoors and knew nothing of the fields and streams. Some of these children, they’d heard, had never even seen a tree. Their mothers won’t let them go outside and play in the sun . Beyond the farm, they’d heard, there were fancy white houses with gold-framed mirrors and crystal doorknobs and porcelain toilets that flushed with the yank of a chain. And they don’t even make a smell . Beyond the farm, they’d heard, there were mattresses stuffed with hard metal springs that were somehow as soft as a cloud (Goro’s sister had gone away to work as a maid in the city and when she came back she said that the beds there
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