I shake her shoulder. No response. I pull on her hands, on her feet. I listen to her chest; I put my hand under her nostrils. Nothing. But that’s because it’s too cold to feel anything. That’s the reason. That has to be the reason. I pound on her chest, and I hear Lella crack, the doll has frozen so hard. This can’t be happening. No! “Carolina!” I scream. “Get up!” I scream and scream.
Hands pull me out of the truck. I can’t stop screaming. A hand slaps over my mouth.
“Who is she?” says an old man.
“I have no idea,” says the man who holds me from behind and nearly suffocates me. “But she’s foreign. And there’s another girl in the truck—maybe dead.”
“What did you do, you idiot!”
“Nothing! It’s not my fault. Look at you, blaming me. I could as easily blame you.”
“This is horrible. If we call the police, then they’ll blame us both. We’ll get in trouble, and we’ve done nothing bad. No!” He shakes his head. “We have to get rid of them.”
“I have an idea. Those women up the road. We’ll dump them out front of their place.”
“Right! I’ve always suspected they’re up to no good. If they get in trouble, they’ll deserve it.”
The man throws me back into the truck and runs to get into the front. The truck bounces wildly. I’m screaming, “Carolina,” holding her, rubbing her.
Moments later, we’re tossed onto the ground.
The truck honks and drives away.
25 FEBRUARY 1944, MOUNT FUJI, JAPAN
A woman undresses Carolina and lays her blue body on a futon by the fire. She strips off her own clothes and lies beside Carolina, rolls my sister gently onto her own belly and chest, tucks Carolina’s hands into her armpits, folds Carolina’s feet between her legs, and closes her arms around Carolina’s back. My sister is enclosed in that woman’s body.
A second woman spreads a blanket over them, then a second blanket.
“This one’s shivering hard,” says the woman who’s holding me from behind. I am no longer screaming or struggling. We stand by the fire, near Carolina’s head. The woman strokes my hair and hugs me tighter.
Carolina has not moved. I know. My eyes never stray from her.
“She’ll get frightened if you try to take her clothes off,” says the blanket woman. “And fear is a strain on an already weakened heart.” She brings another blanket from a corner stack and wraps it around me, looking into my face. “It’ll get better,” she says quietly.
I fix on her a moment and take a deep breath. My eyes turn again to Carolina.
The blanket woman runs out the door. A while later, she comes back with a flurry of white. She slides the door shut and brushes the snow from her shoulders and shakes it from her hair. “It was just the two of them. I walked all the way out to the main road. I’m sure.”
“That’s good,” murmurs the woman hugging me. I feel her words on the back of my neck, warm and puffy.
“I’ll make broth. You keep her snug, Fujiko.” The blanket woman scurries around.
Carolina still does not move. Please, oh, please, please.
The room is quiet except for the cracks and pops of the fire. A wave of confusion makes my eyes blur. I know where I am—a little house in the woods—with three women—but it seems I am nowhere, in no time. Where is Carolina? Is she still inside that body? She’d better be! She’d better not leave me! The pressure in my ears hurts. I can’t tell if it comes from outside or inside my head. My hands and feet and arms and legs and all parts of me ache.
The woman who was hugging me—Fujiko—lets go and takes my hands to her face. She exhales on them. “Let’s move closer to the fire.” She hugs me again, and we sidle closer.
And Carolina moves! I gasp.
Fujiko follows my eyes. She shakes her head. “That was just Sanae’s hand, moving up and down the girl’s back.” She lets go of me and walks over to Carolina. She lifts the blankets a little so I can see. Carolina lies still as a rock. “I’m sorry,” Fujiko says, quiet as snow.
My throat is raw from screaming; my eardrums threaten to explode.
The blanket woman hands Fujiko a bowl. She holds it to my lips and tilts it. I don’t want to drink. I don’t want to be so hungry and love the smell of that miso so much. I don’t want to be here, to be alive, if Carolina isn’t. But I can’t stop myself. The soup is warm on my lips, on my tongue. It flows down my throat, sending warmth everywhere. It burns all the way to my stomach.
“Slow,” says Fujiko. “It’s all yours. No one’s going to steal it.”
I didn’t even realize I’d taken the bowl from her hands. I press it to my lips. I drink again. And again.
“You’re half-starved.” Fujiko shakes her head. “Just like a Japanese child.”
“Where do you think they came from?” The blanket woman tugs on my legs to make me sit. “Look how stained the little one’s kimono is. We’ll have to replace it.”
“Who knows what these children have been through.” Fujiko gets a pot. “I’ll fill the tub. She can bathe.”
“What if she doesn’t understand?” says the blanket woman. “She could panic.”
“She’s not a panicky sort,” says the woman wrapped around Carolina—the woman called Sanae. “She’s watching everything we do. She’ll figure it out.”
Fujiko sings. She starts quietly, like a whisper. “In the morning as I wandered on the seashore…” I know this song. It’s one of the most beautiful songs we sing at school. Her voice gains strength, and the others join in. If my throat didn’t hurt so much, I would, too. Carolina needs a song.
Fujiko pulls a tub over to the fire, and she and the blanket woman heat water from buckets, to fill the tub with water. They make a bath that’s deep and warm and smells like heaven. I dip my hand into the camphor water and twist inside with guilt. I’m alive. I can eat. I can bathe. It shouldn’t be true. Not without Carolina. I shouldn’t want to get into that water.
Fujiko helps me undress and looks over my body. “Good!” she calls out in relief. “She has no bruises.” She puts a small basin of water on the floor beside the tub and magically produces a bar of soap. Real soap. “Wash yourself.” She hands it to me and mimics scrubbing.
I clean off in the basin, then climb into the tub. The ache in my body eases. I slide underwater.
Fujiko pulls me up. “Sit tall. You will be all right. Understand?” She leans her head forward. “I am Fujiko.” She taps her chest. “Fujiko. What’s your name?”
“Ah, little one, I saw that eyelid move. Can you hear me?” It’s Sanae who’s speaking—the woman cradling Carolina.
I stand up in the tub.
“Bring the soup, Kotsuru,” says Fujiko.
The blanket woman quickly brings over a bowl.
The blanket woman is Kotsuru.
Sanae sits up slowly and moves Carolina ever so carefully so that my sister is sitting on her lap. Carolina hangs limp, but her skin has turned pinkish gray.
“You feed her, Fujiko. You did good with the big girl.” Kotsuru hands the bowl to Fujiko.
Fujiko holds the bowl under Carolina’s nose. “Breathe it in, little one. It tastes good. The big girl liked it. She ate all of hers. You can eat, too. Please, little one. A sip.”
And Carolina lifts her head. She opens her eyes.
“Carolina,” I call, my voice raspy.
Fujiko touches the bowl to Carolina’s mouth and tips it. Soup dribbles down Carolina’s chin.
“Maybe that’s her name: Carolina. I think they’re sisters,” says Sanae. “The curls on the big girl make them seem different. But their faces are similar.”
Kotsuru comes over to me. “Sit down. Stay in the water. Carolina’s getting better. Let us take care of you both.”
I squeeze my hands together. I’m chilled again. I lower m
yself back into the tub, but I keep my eyes on Carolina.
Kotsuru looks around. “Who would like a bowl of noodles with eel?”
“You have the best ideas,” says Fujiko.
Kotsuru goes to work cooking noodles with eel. I watch Carolina. Did she hear? Noodles. Noodles disappeared from the embassy meals way before rice; we haven’t had them in months and months. Carolina loves them. The vagueness in her eyes gives way now to a fierce intensity. She looks at me as though to send a message; then, anxious, her eyes search the room. Panicked. She’s right. We have to watch for clues, stay ready. Who are these women here in the middle of nowhere?
I look around the room, too. A large low table stands against one wall. Ink jars are lined up at the rear of it. Pencils and paintbrushes are arranged neatly beside a stack of paper. A packed bookshelf goes clear to the ceiling. Stacks of books rise from the floor here and there. A couple of sets of drawers, a basket of pots and pans and cooking utensils, bowls, cups, folded futons, and blankets. The ordinary things of life. A good home, even if strange, with so many books and art materials.
Now I think, these women call each other by their first names. I’ve never heard adults do that except to a servant. These women aren’t servants. They act like sisters, but they look nothing alike. Fujiko wanted even me, a child, to address her by her first name. It’s odd, but friendly. Intimate.
I look back at Carolina. Her face now shows open fear.
Kotsuru said that fear could make us worse. Oh no! What’s scaring her? Nothing here seems threatening; nothing seems awful.
Carolina’s face crumples. She whimpers. I twist my neck this way and that, searching for the answer. And then I know! I reach for the towel hanging by the fire.
“Don’t you want to enjoy the bath longer?” says Fujiko.
I wrap the towel around myself and go to the heap of Carolina’s clothes, hidden from her sight by Sanae’s body. I pick up Lella and bring the doll to Carolina. She snatches it and holds it to her face. Then she hugs Lella and rocks her like a baby. “I want noodles,” she says in a husky whisper of Japanese. She clears her throat. “And eel.”
The women laugh.
I cry. My sister is all right. I sob.
Fujiko touches me on the cheek. “So you speak Japanese. That will make it all much easier. Come back into the tub now. Your sister can join you.”
Carolina cleans off; then the two of us soak while we smell the eel cooking and listen to the noodle water bubbling. Lella sits by the fire. I watch Carolina’s face pinch in pain, and I know that her body hurts much worse than mine did as I thawed, yet she doesn’t cry. Not one tear. I love her fiercely.
“The little one is Carolina,” says Sanae, who has dressed and is now smoothing the front of her kimono. “If you tell us your name”—she looks at me—“we will tell you ours.”
“You are Sanae. And you”—I wave my hand—“are Fujiko. And you”—I wave again—“are Kotsuru.”
“A clever one,” says Kotsuru. “I could tell from your eyes right away.”
“You could be a spy with those skills,” says Sanae. “I bet you’ve figured out a lot about us.”
“At least one of you is an artist,” I say. “At least one, a scholar.” My face grows hot, but I won’t back away from the challenge. “Someone is rich, to be able to buy noodles and eel on the black market.”
“A spy indeed,” says Fujiko. “But we didn’t buy the noodles. We bought wheat, and Kotsuru made noodles. It was the last wheat available.”
“We know something about you, too.” Kotsuru lifts the rice pot from the fire and sets it on a flat stone. “You have not eaten enough in a long time. You have not enjoyed a bath in a long time. Is that all you want us to know about you? Really?”
“I am Simona.”
Kotsuru smiles and bows. “It is a pleasure to meet you. Our time in this cabin has been good until this moment. But things have changed.” She hesitates. I hold my breath. “We were missing children. You have filled that gap. Now our time in this cabin feels just right.”
I breathe out with a smile.
“Your arrival is auspicious,” says Sanae. “We were three before; now we are five. Five is a good number. A handful.”
“Where are your parents?” asks Sanae.
I can feel Carolina’s eyes. I don’t look at her. We never mention Papà except in our prayers. It’s a silent pact. But I have to answer the question. “Our father is a cook at the prisoner-of-war camp at Ofuna.”
“Is there a prisoner-of-war camp there?” says Sanae. “I never heard of one. So you came here from there?”
I shake my head. “We left Ofuna. They took us to another place—an internment camp near Nagoya—where there are other…Italians.” Does she hate Italians?
Sanae nods. “I know about it.” She fills bowls with noodles. Kotsuru adds strips of eel. They hand out the bowls and chopsticks. “Do you want to come out of the tub to eat properly?” asks Sanae.
I want to shovel that food down my throat as fast as I can. But I want us to be polite. So I put my hands on the side of the tub to stand. Carolina kicks me under the water. “I want to eat now,” she says. “In the tub.”
Kotsuru smiles.
The women sit on their heels on the floor beside our tub and murmur thanks. I do, too. I pull on Carolina’s toe. She murmurs thanks. We eat, slurping loudly. The eel is a miracle. These noodles are a dream.
“So,” says Kotsuru. “You were at the Tempaku internment camp in Nagoya. And you ran away.” She tilts her head toward me in question. I nod. “How did you get here?”
“We climbed into the back of a truck—and when the drivers stopped and saw us, they got scared and dumped us here.”
“What about your mother? Where is she?”
“She died. In Ostia, near Rome. Four years ago.”
Kotsuru nods. “I’m sorry to hear that.” She takes Carolina’s and my empty bowls. “Do you think you’d get a stomachache if you had seconds?”
“No!” says Carolina.
So we have a second bowl of noodles and eel.
Five is the best number in the world.
17 MARCH 1944, MOUNT FUJI, JAPAN
“Blue,” says Carolina. She smooths the paper with both hands, then reaches for the ink.
I wrinkle my nose. Carolina has been working hard drawing the decorative border, so she deserves the right to choose how to paint it now. But…“Blue onions?”
“They’re in the shade. Look outside.”
I slide the door open a tiny bit. The chill of the mid-March morning makes my face tingle. We planted the onion sets right after my birthday. I can’t tell if they’ve grown any yet. But they’re in partial shade now, and they do not look blue.
Fujiko comes up behind me and puts her mouth to my ear. “Often the edges of the paper are cut off by the printing press anyway.” She goes back to her “thinking chair,” where she thinks up new manga—comics.
I go back to the art table, ready to humor Carolina, but she didn’t wait; half the onions are blue. I laugh and bury my face in her hair. Nonna always told us to count our blessings. The smell of Carolina’s sun-warmed, clean hair feels like a blessing.
I reach for the red ink and color in the pilot in the first of three airplanes. This pilot is a pig. The other two airplanes are piloted by a goose and a hound dog. We’re helping Fujiko and Kotsuru and Sanae to make anti-war manga.
Kotsuru pulls the last of the laundry from the line over our heads and folds carefully. She pats the top of the pile and comes to lean over the table between Carolina and me. “Good work.”
Fujiko comes near and peeks, too. “Maybe one of you girls will become a professional cartoonist.”
“Like you,” says Carolina.
“I’m not professional,” says Fujiko. “Not anymore. I was. Before
the war. But when the government demanded that all cartoonists join the New Cartoonists Association of Japan, I refused. So I lost my job.”
“Why did you refuse?” asks Carolina.
“They wanted me to make jokes about things that weren’t funny. Like mothers sewing colorful patches on their husband’s clothes because there are no new clothes to buy. They want everyone to think the sacrifices of war are trivial, nothing to complain about.”
“Papà calls that propaganda,” says Carolina.
A chill shoots up my back. Ever since I told these women that Papà is in the prisoner-of-war camp, Carolina has managed to bring him up several times a day. It’s as though she’s been holding all her memories inside, and now she feels she’s allowed to let them out. But what chills me is the nature of what she says. I didn’t know she listened so closely to the secret things Papà said to me. I didn’t know how much she understood.
“I’m sorry you lost your job,” I say to Fujiko. My voice trembles.
“If you’re thinking she went hungry, you’re wrong,” says Kotsuru. “Fujiko’s family is rich. They own this cabin. Fujiko was born here—under the shadow of Mount Fuji. That’s where her name comes from. No, no, it’s Sanae who went hungry. She’s from a poor family. She was a teacher at the best school for girls in the Surugadai district of Tokyo. When she got fired, she had nothing.”
I know about that! Last fall a girls’ school in Surugadai was closed because the teachers spoke out against the war. Their students reported them. That’s why Sanae said I had spy skills the first day we met them! She knows about child spies.
“Papà didn’t get fired,” says Carolina. “He got stolen.”
Kotsuru tilts her head. “Yes. That’s the right word. Many men and boys get stolen by this war.”
“Did you lose your job, too?” I ask Kotsuru.
“Not exactly.” Kotsuru looks hard at me, then at Carolina. “It’s a long story. Ugly. But you told us your story, so if you want to know mine, I’ll tell you.”
Maybe I don’t want to know.
“Please tell us,” says Carolina.
In a Flash Page 15