The Purple Heart by Vincent Yee

which he restored himself. Mrs. Ito still had
no idea how her husband had learned to fix navigational instruments. But that’s
what she admired about him: his ingenuity and resourcefulness. Toward the end
of its restoration, he sanded down everything and gave it a gleaming new coat
of paint. Where he could afford to, he placed brass fixtures, his favorite
being the boat’s bell.
    When the boat was finally
ready, Mr. Ito led his wife to the boat while covering her eyes. When he uncapped
his hands from her eyes, she saw before her not the sickly derelict of a boat
that he brought home a few weeks before, but a gleaming white boat. Its windows
were shiny and clear, the rails brightly stained, and its brass fixtures shone
in the afternoon sun. It looked ready to ride through anything the ocean could
throw at it.
    As Mrs. Ito brought her
hands up to her mouth in surprise, Mr. Ito saw the genuine astonishment in his
wife’s eyes. He spun around to face her, gave her a smile and indicated with
his index finger, “Hold onto that look for one more second.”
    Mrs. Ito was sharing a very
proud moment in her husband’s life and she knew that he wanted her to be a part
of it. He hopped into his newly reincarnated boat, went into the captain’s
quarter and brought out a bottle of the cheapest champagne that he could find.
He jumped back onto the dock and brought Mrs. Ito over to the back of the boat.
Painted on the backside of the boat was her name: Mayumi .
    Again, Mrs. Ito brought her
hands to her face in astonishment and looked into her husband’s eyes as he
said, “I want you to christen her with me.”
    As her eyes glistened she
humbly said, “I’d love to.”
    With Mr. Ito standing
behind her, and on the count of three, they swung the bottle against the side
of the boat, shattering the bottle as foamy champagne splattered along it.
Mayumi was then fully commissioned and seaworthy. For a moment Mr. Ito held the
beautiful woman he had so madly fell in love with, and she leaned into his warm
embrace during that celebratory moment. Things were looking up for the young
couple, in a new land full of adversity. They would make it, he thought. He
looked down at her and beckoned her to look up. With a sly smile he simply
said, “You can call me captain now.”
    That night, the young
family had dinner on their newly christened boat. Mr. Ito detailed in a
glorious manner using his hands to illustrate into the air, how much fish he
would catch. Being Japanese, by law he could not own land, but on the open sea,
no one could tell him what he couldn’t do. He was finally master and commander
of his family’s fate. His sense of independence was restored.
    A big thud brought Mr. Ito
out of his reverie as his eyes suddenly focused on the large pelican that had
landed on the wooden rail on the starboard side. He looked at the pelican and
the pelican looked back at him with its beady eyes for a few seconds before it
clumsily took flight and flew away.
    Without further hesitation,
Mr. Ito reluctantly began to paint over the name Mayumi .
    Over the next few days, as
a thick sense of uneasiness fell onto the Japanese American community, they
noticed the strange visitors. At first, it was a few black cars here and there
with unknown men in dark trench coats, with only the knots of their ties
peeking through that gave the only hint of a suit underneath. The sunglasses
and fedora hats could not hide their presence. It magnified it instead.
    Mr. Ito had instructed his
family to gather anything that could be thought of as Japanese so that it could
be burned. Soon that idea spread like brushfire across other Japanese American
homes and after the first few days, a wispy ashy smoke could be seen from each Japanese
American home. As much as each home was burning away anything that connected
them to their former homeland, the one thing that they couldn’t get rid of was
themselves.
    Mr. Ito was out back
managing the burning. He had set up an electric