When Oriwia arrived at the bakery on the day Harry was arrested, she found Dulcie and her mother in tears and the bakery in disarray. Oriwia, who had come to discuss an order for a wedding cake, didn’t know what to do except to say that there must be some mistake, that the authorities would find out what kind of man Harry was and he’d soon be home. She made tea for them and said she would go and see Gary Couper, who should be able to help.

‘Nothing to do with me,’ Gary Couper said. ‘They’re grabbing all these enemies.’

‘He’s not an enemy. He’s Harry.’

‘It’s the military. Grabbing the German and Itie spies.’

‘He’s not a spy, he’s –’

‘Sticking them all on the island.’

In Harry’s absence, Oriwia went in at night to help Dulcie set the loaves, but the bakery business was in sharp decline, as was the workshop. A year later, because of agitation within the town, Dulcie’s brothers were also taken and imprisoned.

Chapter 11

Aki

I was in Pearl Harbor the morning of the bombing, looking forward to a Sunday with Ela and the family. Though the world was at war, life at that time was good, I thought. Ela had day work in a military canteen, and I had joined the US Navy.

When we first married, I rented a small house near to the port so that Ela would be close to her new place of work and I could be home within five minutes of leaving my ship. But the house was a mistake. It was too lonely for Ela, and the bad boys wouldn’t live there. When they were persuaded to stay for a while, they refused to attend a new school.

I couldn’t live there either. Besides, we were needed in Ela’s village to tend the kalo and yams, to gather food and catch fish. As in my own home area, family health was tied to the land and sea. Though times were changing and a certain amount of money had become a necessity in these times, the old ways were important for keeping families together and the culture alive.

We cancelled the lease. I bought a car so that Ela could get to and from her village where we had taken over one of the little unoccupied houses. It was a much better place for us to live. The boys returned to school, which, I was told, they attended most of the time. While I was in port they stayed home with me, or they went to catch a fish for me. That’s what they told me, evil boys.