At dinner that evening, Hannah tried to catch my attention from the table in front of us. I couldn’t understand her gestures and exaggerated lip enunciation. Finally her sister turned around, poked Bobby in the back to relay to Kay and me the message: “Save your cake for a ‘party’ at the Rowdy meeting place right after dinner.” Mariko dropped by to show Kay and me the piece of cake she had surreptitiously hidden in her hand under her shirt. Our party was materializing.
Kay and I sneaked our cake out of the dining room under our shirts, too. We made a beeline for our Rowdy meeting place. Mariko was already there, nibbling a few crumbs of loosened cake. “Hannah had to go home first,” she related. Kay and I stood talking with her, waiting for the others. Ruth came soon, her cake intact. As she boosted herself up to sit on the bench, the cake flipped out of her hand, rolling on the ground. Disgusted for thus being deprived of her dessert, she ran home, crying. Hannah arrived with no cake. She had, instead, a cup.
“I had to give my cake to my brother. He missed dinner because he was so interested in his studies. But I brought a cup so we can have a drink. I’ll go fill it up.” She tried it off to the latrine, swinging the cup by its handle.
Mitzi arrived. She had no cake. “My mother said taking cake out of the dining home was stealing, so I had to eat it before I could leave the table,” Mitzi said sadly.
A man walked by, his geta clopping in the gravel and dirt. “Tsk, tsk,” he murmured loud enough for us to hear. “Taking food from the dining hall!”
Hannah arrived with the water. A small amount of water was left in the cup. Even though she walked carefully, the water had slapped out, drop by drop, leaving a trail behind her. Our party began. My cake had crumbled in my hand; Kay’s had dropped off piece by piece onto the ground. Mariko’s was almost gone. Those of us who had cake offered it to those without. They took a bit with their fingers. Hannah offered the cup of water to everyone, one at a time. Each one tried to drink from a different place, so that we didn’t touch where someone had already drunk. I sipped next to the handle.
“Oh, that’s where the monkey drinks,” chortled Hannah. “Huh?” “Oh, you know! The organ grinder man has a monkey. When the monkey drinks from a cup, he puts his mouth next to the handle. You drank where the monkey drinks!” Everyone laughed.
A lady walked by. “Such noisy children! Don’t you have any good manners? And look at the mess there! That will surely attract ants! Do your mothers know what you are up to?”
The party was getting to be less fun. Everyone helped wipe the crumbs off the bench. Already the ants were scurrying over Ruth’s dessert and carrying off the yellow crumbs that had fallen to the ground. Was the lady right about our being too noisy, too? Parents set bedtime, so the Rowdies had no projects left. We never really disbanded, but we never really met again, either.
About the contributor: Helen Tayeko Harano was born in 1933 to George and Chieko (Katayama) Harano in Berkeley, CA. She was the third of nine children. From 1942 to 1945, their family was interned in Topaz, near Delta, Utah. After leaving Topaz, the family moved to North Platte, Nebraska, where they owned a flower shop. Helen received degrees in Sociology from Hastings College, NE and a Master’s in Christian Education from McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, where she met her husband, Frank Christ. Frank became a Presbyterian minister. They married and had three children, Mary Kay, Steve and Alan. Helen was a teacher and an active volunteer in the Presbyterian Church and her communities. They lived in North Dakota, Illinois, Indiana and Iowa before retiring to St Joseph, MO and then to Seattle, WA. She died in January 2023.
Excerpted with edits from Legacy, by Helen Harano Christ. © 1979, Helen Harano Christ. All rights reserved.