The five of them shared one room, military-style cots crowding the tiny space. Sometimes his mother would have him stack those cots in a corner so that she could sweep the dust from the floor, although when the wind blew, and it blew nearly every day of the year, the dust swam through every crack and crevice despite the tar-paper siding, even blowing up through the gaps in the floor until each worn board was lined with a row of colorless soil. At first there had been no furniture at all except those cots—no shelves, no chests of drawers, no furniture upon and into which they might have unpacked their meager suitcases. But the War Relocation Authority would come by on occasion with scrap wood and he and the others would set to building what they needed. There were carpenters among them and someone set up a rudimentary shop, the tools mostly handmade, and from this and the labor of their own hands—Ray’s and his father’s—they built or acquired chairs and a kitchen table and shelves and a few cabinets from which his mother might produce a semblance of housekeeping. Later his father would procure a roll of used linoleum from a local farmer and they would move everything outside and his father kneel and push the roll across the boards until it was flat, a look of triumph in his eyes for which Ray was embarrassed, for what station had they reached that a roll of linoleum could serve as a triumph of the will?

Dear Helen & Jimmy, he wrote later that night. It is lonely in this place but I am doing my best to keep my chin up. The room we are in is leaky as an old boat so dust blows in all the time. My dad put down some linoleum and I hope that helps some. Jimmy—are you in the Army now? I guess I won’t be able to join. We could be storming Tokyo together. Maybe that sounds like a strange thing to say but that’s how I feel about it. I know you do too. Helen—I hope you’re well. We think of you guys here a lot. Nothing to do but think about things. Give my best to your mom and pop. —Ray