Art, Literature

On Giving Fire by Sophia E. Terazawa

December 17, 2015

By Sophia E. Terazawa

ON GIVING FIRE:
a series of love letters among parents
by Sophia E. Terazawa

*This blog first appeared on the site, diacritics.org, on December 17, 2015. http://diacritics.org/2015/12/out-of-the-margins-on-giving-fire-by-sophia-e-terazawa/

How does a man prepare to meet his dead father-in-law for the first time? On the morning of December 2nd, 1996, my father intends to do his best. He tucks the bottom of his yellow polo shirt into the waistband of his khakis. He combs his hair and adjusts the wristwatch. Leaning toward a mirror above the small wash basin, he will notice that his face appears nervous. He adjusts that, too.

ON GIVING FIRE:
a series of love letters among parents
by Sophia E. Terazawa

*This blog first appeared on the site, diacritics.org, on December 17, 2015. http://diacritics.org/2015/12/out-of-the-margins-on-giving-fire-by-sophia-e-terazawa/

How does a man prepare to meet his dead father-in-law for the first time? On the morning of December 2nd, 1996, my father intends to do his best. He tucks the bottom of his yellow polo shirt into the waistband of his khakis. He combs his hair and adjusts the wristwatch. Leaning toward a mirror above the small wash basin, he will notice that his face appears nervous. He adjusts that, too.

Husband, you have the camera?

Husband, you ready?

Husband, you take the children?

        Yes, Wife.

I watch my father cough and clear his throat. He pats me on the shoulder and says it is time to go.

        Hai, ikimashou.

In the stone. Of the stone.

Husband does not know.

            Yes, Wife, I know.

NO!

No! Husband not know! NOT KNOW!

When they fight, if they fight, my parents fight, first, in English, always English and second, in code.

My father is the only son of a Japanese military family. Mami, the one with eyes, flees infinitely sometime between 111 BC and 1989. She finally returns with a Japanese man and a family of her own in 1996. I imagine my parents fight that December. I do not remember if this is a fact, as they always fight in English and in code. My father, he knows. Mami does not think this is a fact.

The fact is this:
Mami father die in Vietnam.
Mami take a Japanese man
and children in 1996.
Visit grave of Mami father.
Mami say,

Husband, you take the children?
Husband say, Wife, I know.

I see the stone. It is my grandfather. The stone is my grandfather.
Circular and always present, present-speak.
He catch fire.
Does Husband know? What it like to catch fire?

Yes, Mami, he knows. My father was born with a spark in his belly. He was born with two atom droplets in the blood. One year after birth, he bit his tongue in half and howled. Yes, Mami, my father knows what it is like to burn from the inside out. Seize. But Mami father hurt in a different way.

Yes, Wife, I know.

NO!

No! Husband not know! NOT KNOW!

I
WILL
SHOW
YOU.

Then in a concrete hall, I watch Mami proceed to dance. With every turn, she weaves a memory with the space. It is all grey, like this:
on the side of a dirt road, feces, palms blackened in diesel fuel, the bowels of an entire history in steel, leave Wife without a kneecap, the gold star in Mami’s sky.

My father knows this story already. He has to know. At least, that is what I remember to be fact.

What was it like for him to meet a golden ghost?

Incense laid to rest where ash was once bone?

“Greetings,” my father would have said. “I cannot speak to you, father of my Wife. In a normal situation, I would prove my status to be of great worth to impress you. For example, I am the only son of a strong man, who comes from a pure Japanese line. We have had the honor of killing many…”

The honor.

I should have looked up then to see if Mami winced. But I was too young. Instead, I watched my father turn to her in earnest. He would have been unsure about what to say next. In the jungle humidity. Mosquitoes. An ache buried so deeply, that even he once sobbed when no one was watching.

Yes, he would be staring at Mami that day. The smoking stick pressed between the palms of his hands. My aunties and uncles would have giggled to each other through their marbled lips. “What a strange culture. The Japanese Husband.”

But Mami… she would have been completely still. Her gaze and his gaze locked into each other. Her eyes pressed between the palms of his hands.

How does one define this kind of love, though this word has never passed through our lips? VOID, I AM a child, the BOY and girl of a new Demilitarized Zone, the middle ground of a killing field. Which is WHICH? Mami, I AM the HUNGER STRIKE and witness to the occupation of Husband and Wife.

My father twists the wristband. After careful thought, he decides what to say to the dead father-in-law for the first time.

“You were killed in a time of war. Your daughter survived. It is an honor to be with you, my father.”

An honor.

To have given war,
to have received war,
and receive war, and
receive it, and receive
it, and receive it, and receive it, and receive it, and birth it,
and live it, and bury it, and resurrect it
like song… Father, what is the price of our love?

This piece originally appeared on the website, www.diacritics.org

Comments:

Megha Srivatsa

December 6, 2023 • 11:26 PM

This reads like spoken word poetry. The repeated representation of militarism through words like violence, killing, and war, are powerful reminders of how militarism shapes migrant lives. In their attempt to survive and protect themselves against imperial violence, migrants are often initially forced to participate in militarism. The line of “and receive it, and receive it, and receive it, and birth it,” encompass the violence that refugees endure, and manufacture the conditions which they may at some point rise up against, only to perpetuate violence themselves. As migrant journeys are not isolated to the direct experiences of those who are displaced, this letter represents that the harms produced by militarism are often intergenerational.

One more thing this letter invoked for me is the idea that, in order to protect themselves from and compete against the imperial forces that induce displacement, the pride that the father feels in the many people he has killed is reflective of how military violence and occupation is not just physical, but also psychological. Survival under occupation often leads to many succumbing to the punitive systems, which is often characterized by people in colonized societies reproducing the conditions they have been subject to.

Thank you for sharing these intimate thoughts.

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