Hiroshima Maidens

by Rodney Barker

  Marveling at their appetites, their hosts reported that the anticipated dissatisfaction with Western food was failing to materialize, and the Maidens had adapted wonderfully to their new culinary situation. What they did not know, because the Maidens went to great lengths to keep their feelings hidden, was that one reason the Japanese consumed such large amounts of rice every day was because they had so little else in the way of foods, and rice gave them a sense of fullness that no other food would. So while their nutritional needs were being served by their American diet, they were rising from the table neither satisfied nor full, and craving more to eat.

  It was happening in home after home, and although the Maidens tried to ignore the pangs of hunger, it got to the point where many girls were unable to think of anything but food. Since it was impossible for them to imagine a scene where they approached their hostesses and requested larger portions, and equally as painful to think of going shopping with the $15-a-month allowance they were given and returning with a bag full of groceries, when it reached the point they had to do something, several of them, on the pretense of going window shopping, strolled to the nearest grocery store, made a purchase of sliced lunch meat and cookies, and returned to their rooms where they feasted in private.

  That was not to say that an extensive effort was not made to determine their desires. Virtually every morning in every home the phone would ring and it would be another hostess calling to exchange information about what “her” girls had eaten the day before. It was just that no one wanted to insult her hostess, so no one said anything. In one household a Maiden did express a preference but was apparently ignored; the incident so upset her that she was convinced her hostess must still think of her as the enemy. “Why do you feel that way?” Helen Yokoyama asked when the girl called her on the phone to complain. “Because every morning she serves me eggs, and I can’t stand the sight of eggs on an empty stomach. They look like two big yellow eyes staring up at me out of a slimy white face. And I keep telling her I don’t like them, but she serves them anyway.” Later that day Helen telephoned the hostess to hear her side of the story and learned that the root of the misunderstanding was the Oriental custom of using the affirmative case as a polite way of saying no. The woman said of course she noticed that the girl was not finishing her breakfast, but every time she asked her, “Don’t you like eggs?” the answer was always “Yes.”

  But those kinds of problems were, individually, more than offset by private acts of extreme generosity; collectively they were lost in the background of what was rapidly becoming the Time of Their Lives.

  In an effort to make things interesting for them, their hosts kept them busy with a whole range of varied and rich experiences. Sightseeing tours were arranged — to the top of the Empire State Building, through the United Nations, up to Niagara Falls. Curiously, West Point was a hit with some of them; they liked to see young men in uniform marching. When they indicated a willingness to go almost anyplace and do almost anything, their hosts took them along on family outings and shared the activities that gave them pleasure. A Connecticut couple who loved the sea took their girls along on weekend boating excursions, dropping anchor at a small island in Long Island Sound where the girls swam and collected seaweed which they brought home, hung on a clothesline to dry, and later cooked into a Japanese meal.

  Silencing those who had worried that they might have to make a special effort to keep things from becoming too grim or restrained in the presence of disfigured persons, the Maidens enthusiastically took advantage of every opportunity and invitation to enjoy a thoroughly active social life. They went to outdoor movies, Broadway plays, Radio City Music Hall. Partying was not a word in their vocabulary at the time, but it soon became a fact of their lives. One day Yoshie Harada was pushed out of the house with no explanation and taken for a long drive by a neighbor. She did not understand what was happening, wondered if she was being moved to another family, and was hurt that her hostess had not even said good-bye until they arrived back home. Now she was even more confused because the street out front was lined on both sides with cars. It was not until she opened the front door on a scene bursting with balloons and bunting and beaming faces shouting, “Surprise! Happy Birthday!” that she understood. In a daze, she just stood there shaking. Not only was it a surprise party, it was the first time her birthday had ever been celebrated.

  As though exuberating in their newfound freedom, as though making up for the lost years, the girls traveled to places they had never thought to see in their lifetimes, found themselves in a hundred new and exciting situations, and at the end of each day looked forward to what tomorrow would bring. There was so much happening they did not have time to be homesick, and they barely made time to write letters home rhapsodizing about life in America.

  The initial plan for out-of-hospital care mapped out by a special committee of Quakers called for the Maidens to be rotated to different families for stays of at least one month, but no more than two. The idea was not to burden any one family and to expose the Maidens to different ways of living. Everyone recognized the reasonableness of the rotation plan, but when the first period of hospitality ended it was not as simple as that. Some of the girls were so comfortable that they did not want to move and their hostesses did not want them to go. In several homes there was friction between girls: An assertive girl was ignoring her subdued partner and competing for the attention of their hostess; a girl was glad to do housework and assisted her hostess at every turn and was accused by her lazy roommate of trying to make her look bad. The decision as to how best to handle each situation was made within the respective Meetings, and as a result some pairs moved on, some girls went individually to different homes, and some stayed put.

  In all the Friends Meetings, when there was to be a change of homes the new hosts became acquainted with the girls by visiting them, entertaining them, and driving them to the hospital so the change would be easier. Of the American families who played host to the Maidens, most were elderly couples who resided in large houses with rooms their children had left empty, but there were also a fair share of young couples starting families and a few who did not fit into either category. In two consecutive moves, one Maiden went from a luxurious mansion to a log cabin. First she found herself occupying a room in a house that had service like a hotel. Maids did all the housework, and a black cook prepared meals that were served by a butler when a tiny bell was rung by the host. A month later she was living in the country home of a couple who operated a lumbermill, so everything in the house involved wood. The house was constructed out of logs, the furniture was fashioned out of rough planks, and the place was heated by a wood stove.

  But both families had provided her with a home, not merely housing; and it was that way down the line. The American hosts were showing the Hiroshima Maidens the same interest and concern as they would their own daughters. The result was a reasonably complete family experience, and family life in America was more than just miles and an ocean away from what it was in Japan. There, expressions of affection and emotion were controlled even among family members, whereas here there was a natural openness to family relations that the girls were totally unfamiliar with. It was evident in the casual exchanges of tenderness between husband and wife: Once two Maidens entered a room and surprised their host and hostess in a kissing embrace. Blushing and giggling with embarrassment, the girls tried to sneak out but were called back. “Is it true that in Japan there is no kissing, even between husband and wife?” they were asked. They had to admit, they had never seen their parents kiss. “Oh,” the couple said, “well, we do it like this,” and they proceeded to put on an exuberant display of smooching American-style. And it was there to be seen in the way parents related to their children: It would be rare in Japan for a father to come home from a day at the office and play ball with his son until dark, then spend the evening reading to his daughter. It was new, it was different, and ultimately the girls discovered its particular charm. The turning point i
n the evolution of a relationship is sometimes the result of a dramatic event; other times it can stem from something that at the time seems inconsequential. The experience of finding themselves kissed good night at bedtime was one of those small events that took on an extraordinary significance for the Maidens.

  Chapter Five

  After the initial burst of publicity, Norman Cousins thought surely the media interest in the Maidens would settle down, but it was soon apparent that the American imagination had been captured by the girls. Cousins was besieged by requests for additional information from the major wire services in both America and Japan. The television networks wanted to interview one or two girls in their homes. National magazines wanted material for feature stories. Inquiries were received about adaptations for stage and screen. The producers for the Ted and Jinx Show called. So did Ed Sullivan.

  In the beginning Cousins tried to enforce a news blackout, explaining to reporters that, understandably, the girls were sensitive about pictures of themselves, that there came a time when it was too much of a burden to go through the same story over and over again, and that they believed that publicity had the effect of dramatizing their own good fortune in contrast to that of the girls who were left behind. But once he realized it was impossible to shield them from any contact with the press whatsoever, he permitted controlled encounters on the condition that all interviews were cleared in advance (with the girls, the families, and himself) to assure that they remained tasteful, supportive, and cognizant of Japanese sensitivities. Other than that, the primary public source of information and the most extensive coverage of the project was a series of “Reports on the Maidens” that appeared on the editorial page of the Saturday Review.

  In these reports, Cousins never mentioned the controversy over the atomic bombing implicit in the very presence of the Hiroshima Maidens in this country; he kept the focus of the project on the present rather than the past. And far from giving the impression that everything concerned with this endeavor was being carried out solemnly and with a self-conscious realization of the symbolic value it might have, his accounts stressed that “there has been both the time and occasion for sheer joy and fun.” Indeed, at times his articles sounded like dispatches from a summer camp as he recounted how the girls went as a group on a picnic at a farm in Woodstock, New York; took a boat trip around Manhattan Island as guests of the New York City Police Department; proved themselves to be ardent Brooklyn Dodger fans at a night baseball game against the New York Giants at Ebbets Field (“When Sandy Amoros broke a tie in the fourth inning by blasting a triple against the right field screen, the girls leaped to their feet in unrestrained joy. And as the Dodgers continued to pile up runs it almost seemed as though the universe were fulfilling itself”).

  As Cousins reported it, a heartwarming story was being written that went in many directions, crossed many barriers, and touched many lives. The extent to which his glowing descriptions of the way the appreciation, courage, and cheerfulness of the Hiroshima Maidens was winning the hearts of all who met them succeeded in creating a favorable public impression among those who only read and heard about them, was manifested in the donations that poured in from all over the country: money from schoolkids and pensioners and people on social security; presents of cosmetics, clothes, shoes; tickets for plays, movies, fashion shows; flowers, cards, dinner invitations. Gifts from individuals were usually accepted gratefully (except in a few crackpot cases, as with the alleged inventor of a facial cream that magically made scars disappear who was willing to let the Maidens use it in exchange for bus fare to New York City), whereas gifts from companies were selectively screened. When a leading American surgical supply house presented them with sutures and antibiotics the goods were welcomed; but when General Electric offered to give each girl a new steam iron on the condition that the manager of the regional office be photographed with them, the gesture was respectfully declined.

  The popularity of the Maidens accounted most notably for a change in attitude within the Japanese-American community. At first they had been reluctant to get involved. There were hundreds of ways they could have helped, but most had put up with hardships and prejudices during the war and were afraid that if something went wrong with the project it would mean trouble for them. Gradually, however, as it became evident that a success story was in the making, their outlook changed. In response to the desire expressed by several Maidens to observe a program of modern Western dancing, the 442nd Veterans Association, composed of Japanese-American ex-soldiers who had fought in the European theater during the Second World War, sponsored a benefit dance in their honor, and there were no wallflowers that night.

  So inspirational was the project that a group of ministers and community leaders from Mobile, Alabama, were moved to take up a similar effort, except that they wanted to bring “maidens” from the city of Nagasaki. In a letter to the State Department, Dr. Carl Adkins, a Mobile minister, explained why Mobile would be a suitable host city: “We believe this program would be particularly significant [because] Mobile is in the center of a section of our nation which no doubt in the minds of the Japanese is synonymous with race prejudice, and for us to bring these girls into the homes of the citizens of this community would be a tremendous gesture of goodwill.”

  Alarms went off when the proposal reached the State Department. Agency memorandums reveal a strong concern that “there might be a rush of ‘Hiroshima Girls’ projects in major American cities.” Taking immediate steps to ensure “that another incident may not be allowed just to grow like ‘Topsy,’” Assistant Secretary Walter S. Robertson responded with a letter stressing “the undesirable character of the ‘Mobile Plan’” and asking Dr. Adkins that his group “defer action...until the results of Mr. Cousins’s project at Mount Sinai and its attendant political implications can be more accurately evaluated.” As a result, the Mobile Plan never materialized.

  Insofar as public impressions of the Hiroshima Maidens Project were shaped by selective media coverage, most Americans remained ignorant of the perpetual problems and backstage intrigues that plagued the project organizers. Some were trivial in the overall scheme of things, such as the inexplicable refusal of the producers of This Is Your Life to reimburse the Hiroshima Peace Center Associates for expenses the Reverend Tanimoto and his family had incurred in connection with his appearance on the program, seven months earlier, which they had promised to do. Nor had their contribution of $500 been received so far. Other problems — such as what to do when it became evident that the continued activities of the Reverend Tanimoto in connection with the project were turning into a liability — were not so easily dealt with.

  Officially the Reverend Tanimoto was referred to as the “spiritual counselor” of the Hiroshima Maidens, but in fact the Reverend spent most of his time fund-raising, for which he displayed a natural talent. Even though measures had been taken to make sure he did not personally handle any of the money (the Reuben Donnely Corporation, the firm that kept the accounting books for the March of Dimes campaign, had been hired to handle all finances relating to the Hiroshima Maidens Project), rumors continued to circulate that the Reverend was skimming profits and amassing thousands in unrecorded contributions. And as if that were not enough, the matter of religious freedom became a most sensitive issue for the project organizers; reports abounded that the Buddhist Maidens were being subjected to Christian proselytism by the Reverend.

  When the controversy surrounding the Reverend was brought to Norman Cousins’s attention, he felt bad because he knew better than anybody how important the man’s role in this project had been. Tanimoto had been the first person to befriend the Maidens and champion their cause, and he had done it at considerable personal sacrifice. But Cousins also knew that for the project to have come this far it had been necessary to branch out and enlist the blessings and cooperation of many people in both Japan and the United States, and in the best interests of the project, the time had come for the Reverend to take a seat in the gallery
. The only question was how to effectively separate him from the matter at hand without causing a rupture.

  Naturally the Reverend Tanimoto’s perspective on the progress of events had a slightly different slant. To begin with, when he had introduced Norman Cousins to the Maidens in his church and asked for help, he had assumed that if help was forthcoming, Cousins would treat him as the representative in Hiroshima. But it had been the mayor’s office that had received the official invitation, the Hiroshima Medical Association had been brought into the picture (and he thought it was bitterly ironic that the same medical association that had snubbed him when he approached them was so quick to take an interest once a trip to America was in the offing), and the internal organization of the project had been taken over by Americans. Even the composition of the group was not what he had intended for it to be; rather than draw from the pool of girls he had assembled in his church, Cousins had opened the project to any Hiroshima girls scarred by the bomb, so of the twenty-five selected to go, the “Tanimoto girls” made up less than half.

  The Reverend had, however, gone along with Norman Cousins’s wishes, and even felt that his willingness to compromise had been rewarded when he found himself playing a starring role on national television. The surge of interest that followed his personal introduction of the Hiroshima Maidens to the American public seemed to further vindicate his cooperative spirit. Hundreds of requests for speaking engagements came his way, and each day’s mail brought in five or ten more. This was before there was any indication of how successful the appeal for funds on the This Is Your Life program would be, and since at that time the project had no visible means of support, he departed on a national speaking tour to raise money.