Bin’s father has already escorted Bin’s older sister and brother across the channel, and returns for his younger son.īecause I was small and he was big, he hoisted me onto his back and began to swim though the dark current, out and out to the island and the swiftest part of the river.īin’s state of mind boomerangs from terror to exhilaration and back as he rides the treacherous water clinging to his father’s back, terrified of slipping off, but at the same time, fascinated by the changing colours of the river’s current.

The role of the river as a metaphor for a life’s story is most clearly articulated in a key scene, which encapsulates the central conflict of the story, and holds within it a truth with which Bin must reconcile in order to come to terms with his own life. The scene unfolds in Bin’s memory as he recalls being ferried across a dangerous patch of the Fraser River on his father’s back, on a rare and fateful day the family spent relaxing, playing and picnicking together on the river’s banks. As Bin tells his young son, “I do hear the river,” (…) and “I listen because it has a story to tell.” With his wife’s persuasive voice in his head and the echo of their love in his heart, Bin embarks on an unforgettable journey into his past that will throw light on a dark time in history.Water and particularly rivers have been recurring elements in Itani’s writing (see for example, Leaning, Leaning Over Water) and the author herself has stated that she connects rivers to the idea of life,* the current a collective of individual stories, or narrative lines, the rapids equated with the rough and tumble of life’s trials, the still pools with moments of peace and grace. Both running from grief and driving straight toward it, Bin must ask himself whether he truly wants to find First Father, the man who made a fateful decision that almost destroyed his family all those years ago. Fifty years later, after his wife’s sudden death, Bin travels across the country to find the biological father who has been lost to him. One hundred miles from the “Protected Zone,” they formed makeshift communities without direct access to electricity, plumbing or food-for five years.

They were allowed to take only the possessions they could carry, and as a young boy Bin was forced to watch as neighbors raided their family home before the transport boats even undocked.

In 1942 the government removed Bin Okuma's family from their home on British Columbia’s west coast and forced them into internment camps.

Requiem by frances itani