A Girl Like You by Maureen Lindley Page A

farmer. The food’s not bad although the tomatoes that have to be chopped by the sack full aren’t a patch on ours. They have no scent, nothing of the earth about them. The ship has the same problem with rats as we do, only they’re bigger here, less scared of humans. Two days in and we were all taken off board while they fumigated the holds and cabins with poisonous gas. They say two whiffs of the stuff can fell a man, so I’m not breathing deep for a while.
    He writes that Hawaii seems different to him, not the least bit like home anymore.
I don’t intend looking up family. No point in dredging up dirt, so you needn’t worry on that score. In any case guys get moved on all the time, I’m hoping not to be stationed here for long.
    Tamura had harbored a faint hope that Aaron, back in their old territory, might relent, try to make amends with their families.
    “I should have known,” she says to Satomi. “Your father wasn’t built for bending.”
    His letters begin to arrive two, sometimes three a week, his big scrawl filling page after page with what seems to them to be ramblings about nothing much, the weather, the ship’s menus, how it’s never quiet on board. Tamura wants to hear that he is missing her, missing home, wants him to tell her that she is doing well keeping things going on the farm. But Aaron’s feelings are nowhere to be read in his letters; something stops him from saying what he feels, from pouring his heart out to her. He can’t admit that he has made a mistake. He feels himself a fool for having volunteered in the first place. Good Lord, what had he been thinking? Life is harder for him in the Navy than he makes out to Tamura. He hates being in such close contact with other men, hearing them snore and sleep-talk at night, smelling the sweatyanimal scent of them. He thinks he sees in them the look of the migrant worker, the look of men who are rootless. But really what he sees, what he can’t make any sense of, are men who haven’t chosen the land, men so unlike himself that he will never feel at ease with them. He mimics their language, laughs at their jokes, attempts to be a regular kind of guy, it’s easier that way.
    “Hey, Aaron, you got a pass for tonight? Real pretty girls at the Pearl Bar.”
    “Another time, maybe. Things to do.”
    He has no use for the white-trash girls with their caked-on makeup and sprayed-stiff hair that you can buy for a buck or two at the Pearl.
    “Yeah, we know, another letter to write, eh? You’ll have to show us a photo sometime soon. She must be some looker, to keep you on the hop like that.”
    It’s only when the bunks around him lay empty that he can let go. He thinks then of Tamura, of the soft planes of her face, the pools of her eyes, and the feather-weight of her body on his. He takes his small comfort in the privacy of his narrow bunk, a moment’s relief, and only a faint echo of what he so badly craves.
    He has thought better about showing a photograph of Tamura around. Perhaps it’s not such a good idea to tell his so-called shipmates that his wife is Japanese. They wouldn’t understand, and he  can’t bear the thought of exposing Tamura to their crude comments.
    Some of the guys stick pictures of their wives on their lockers, and then have to take the jokes, the wolf whistles and the mockery that the good-looking ones will soon be sending “Dear John” letters. Let them think him secretive, he’ll sail through his time, let the wind take him, keep his family to himself.
    In the moments before sleep he closes his eyes and imagines himself working his fields. He summons up the cool fragrance ofgreen tomatoes as they ripen in the sun. It’s a source of pride for him that he can tell what stage his crop is at simply by the smell. First comes the sharp trace of green in the flower, the scent of cologne, then as the fruit buds a smell as close to pickle as you’ll get, and then the ready-for-picking, full-blown peachy perfume that