Hiroshima Maidens

by Rodney Barker

  This was the third time around for the Reverend, and while the lecture circuit had been good to him before, it had never been this good. The congregations that gathered to hear him speak averaged more than twice the size he had commanded on his previous visits. He was applauded in churches throughout New England; in Los Angeles and Chicago, leaders in the Japanese-American communities announced benefits held in his behalf. The only discordant note was struck on August 6, 1955, the tenth anniversary of the atomic bombing, when he placed a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in a ceremony conducted before the eyes and ears of television and radio coverage. Even though the prayer he offered was for all victims of war, it was unprecedented for a citizen from a former enemy nation to make such a tribute, and the veterans’ organizations screamed.

  The first indication that an unpleasant parting of the ways was in the offing occurred after Tanimoto had organized a prayer session with several girls who had been members of his church, only to receive a letter of caution from Norman Cousins reminding him it would be inappropriate “to exert undue influence in trying to make Christians out of Buddhist girls.” His disappointment was profound. He had initiated the effort to help the Maidens as a minister, working out of his church, and he had high spiritual ambitions for its outcome. He hoped that a strong dose of Christian friendship in America would provide the Maidens with a thoughtful religious experience, above and beyond everything else. It was his secret desire that upon their return more would want to be baptized. But as things were currently being carried out, the church orientation had been nullified, and he blamed Norman Cousins for secularizing the project and giving it a distinctly medical tilt.

  The matter came to a head at the end of the year, when the Reverend wound up his tour and prepared to return to Hiroshima. It had been his understanding that if the funds collected through the television program were sufficient to see the Hiroshima Maidens Project through to a successful conclusion, then the money he personally raised on his speaking tour would go toward his work in Hiroshima. Like any business, the Hiroshima Peace Center operated on a budget and needed a steady infusion of funds if it was to stay on top of the movement to bring comfort and aid to the victims of the atomic bombing. Since the fifty thousand produced by the solicitation on This Is Your Life was more than enough to cover the Maidens Project expenses, Tanimoto requested that the tour money be sent to his bank in Hiroshima.

  But Norman Cousins did not see things that way. He was of the opinion that all the money the Reverend raised should go into one fund out of which the Maidens Project was operated and that no money should be released for anything else until the project was over, at which time it should be spent according to the wishes of the Maidens themselves.

  Tanimoto felt double-crossed. Not only had his position of leadership been usurped and the entire focus of the project altered, but he was being cheated out of money that he felt rightfully belonged to his organization. In a passionate appeal before the project steering committee he said that the Hiroshima Maidens Project was just one part of the total program of rehabilitation he had had in mind from the beginning; he reminded the group that for them this was just a project, while it was his lifework.

  It was left to the Reverend’s former schoolmate, the Reverend Marvin Green, to communicate the decision of the committee. “As I see it,” he wrote Tanimoto, “Mr. Cousins feels the moment you agreed to come to America you agreed to play on a bigger team than the team you played on in your work with the Hiroshima Peace Center...” Though the Reverend’s definition of which team he was playing on was quite different, he was not in a position to argue. The money in question amounted to more than ten thousand dollars, of which one thousand was forwarded to his church in Hiroshima as remittance for “borrowing your services.” He felt it was a paltry sum to show for having been away from his duties as full-time minister for so long, and did nothing to quell the rumor that he had a private fortune stashed in a secret bank account somewhere in the States. Maybe everyone else was calling the Hiroshima Maidens Project a triumph, but according to the indices by which the Reverend Tanimoto measured its success, it was a profound disappointment. To close friends he confided, “Norman sold me out.”

  *

  The real drama, meanwhile, was being acted out under the operating lights at Mount Sinai Hospital where, far from finding themselves the subjects of medical experiments, the Maidens were being treated to the best modern medicine had to offer. To those girls who in Japan had been forced to walk to the operating rooms and return to their hospital beds under their own power and lie for weeks in a frail postoperative state, weak from the combined loss of blood and appetite, the experience of being wheeled to and from surgery on a gurney and having their recovery period expedited by such things as plasma, blood transfusions, and intravenous feedings, all of which were new to them, was comforting as well as confidence-inspiring. They were also finding American doctors less authoritarian than their Japanese counterparts, and, most reassuringly, more objective when it came to evaluating injuries relating to the atomic bomb. When the mysterious skin infection returned to Hiroko Tasaka’s feet, Dr. Barsky simply treated it with a topical lotion, unlike the specialist who had declared it to be a disturbing new symptom of the A-bomb. When it cleared up immediately, Hiroko asked him what the problem had been and was told that in America the condition was called athlete’s foot.

  As for the surgery, it was not something one got better at or learned to like with experience, but in time it became less dreaded, and on occasion something the girls could even joke about. They would talk about the roll of skin taken off their abdomen as a being in its own right, and like a baby gave it a name. Though it was sometimes difficult for them to imagine pretty results by looking at the gruesome stages, they never once questioned or doubted that the doctors knew best.

  So trusting had they become that even when there was an occasional mishap, it never occurred to them to fault those in charge. Once, on the operating table, the anesthesia mask was not properly fitted over a girl’s face, allowing air to slip in, and rather than counting her way into unconsciousness she felt as if she were drowning. Panic seized her. In her mind she was clawing reflexively for the surface while in reality she was thrashing in the grip of a nurse who was trying to hold her down. After a terrifying struggle she was allowed to sit up. Over her gasping sobs she heard Dr. Barsky’s voice, “She’ll be all right now. Let her rest. We’ll try again tomorrow.” Afterward, back on the ward, she was ashamed of herself. All she could think was she had let everybody down. She was determined to be brave the next day and was even looking forward to the chance to submit to the ether calmly just to show the doctors she had not lost faith in their procedures; the second time, however, they stuck a needle in her ankle and seconds later she was asleep.

  It was still too early to tell the extent to which the surgery would succeed, but the good news was that the special difficulty in treating keloids was being effectively dealt with through the use of radiotherapy. Although administering radiation for a benign condition was rare in view of the cumulative and unpredictable delayed reaction, the dose was small, consisting of “soft” beta rays which were absorbed in the first few millimeters of the skin, and the treatment succeeded in suppressing the formation of keloids in the donor area and along the borders of the grafts. The bad news was they were finding the pigmentation factor difficult to control. Something in the general architecture of Oriental skin caused grafts to become darker upon healing than the surrounding area. As a result, they would take skin from another area that was perfectly adequate for the functional purpose, even the contour, but it would end up standing out on the face as a bright yellow patch.

  Dr. Barsky also felt severely constrained by the fact that he had only one year to work on these patients. Plastic surgery involved a series of operations and you could not simply operate week after week. It took time for tissues to heal, relax, soften; if a patient was going to need three operations, then a year or
so should pass between them. But he did not have that kind of time with the Maidens, and working under a deadline he sometimes had to bunch operations more closely than he would have otherwise.

  By the same token, it had become increasingly apparent that the medical success, was all but secondary to what was happening outside the hospital. When the girls came in, there was already a lift to their expressions that had nothing to do with plastic surgery. There was none of the defensiveness or circumspection commonly exhibited by patients about to undergo major surgery; they arrived in high spirits and were capable of kidding the doctors and being teased in return. Shortly before one of the girls was wheeled into the operating room she asked Helen Yokoyama to give this message to Dr. Barsky: ‘Tell him not to be worried because he cannot give me a new face,” she said. “I know my scars are very, very bad and I know he is worried because he thinks I may expect that I will be as I once was. I know this is impossible; but it does not matter because something has already healed here inside.”

  *

  The way the Maidens spent their free time between operations was largely left up to the energy and interests of the individual; but where at first they had shown a desire to go everywhere and do everything, once the operations got underway many of them found their schedules tiring and welcomed the days when no activity was planned for them. In general, they required very little home care during their convalescent periods other than occasional assistance when bathing and dressing; even when a girl was in the more awkward stages of surgery — such as when her arm was attached to her abdomen or face — she usually found a way to perform most normal tasks with her free hand so the only care required from her hostess was a massage to relieve an aching shoulder.

  Around the house they could do as they pleased, but often they tried to make themselves useful. There were certain similarities in the maintenance of American and Japanese homes, and the girls enjoyed the opportunity to help with the housekeeping and marketing. In homes with children they gladly played the role of babysitter. Some hosts had feared that the girls’ disfigurement might shock the children or arouse excessive curiosity, but such fears proved groundless. The girls adored children, taught them finger-games and new things to do with blocks and toys, and were adored in return.

  All was very different from home life in Japan, and not just for cultural reasons. Many of these girls were estranged from their own parents, for whom they had become financial burdens. Some had been kept out of sight by parents who subscribed to the belief that malformation or any gross irregularity was due to some unknown wrong committed by an ancestor and that this child had been chosen to bear the punishment for the family sins. Consequently, the world had been a vast unfriendly place for them, and they had lived with a sense of loneliness and insecurity that seemed to grow cumulatively with the years. Now, however, they were accepted with affection as an integral part of the homestead. Family relations were normal and wholesome once again. And not only were their foster parents making them feel as wanted as natural daughters of the house, but they were determined to give them all the tangible benefits of American living. When they realized the girls had come to this country with only the clothes they could cram into a single small suitcase and had no winter-wear, they took them shopping and bought them new outfits. Appointments with optometrists were made for those who needed glasses, and those whose teeth were bad were taken to the dentist. One hostess who was particularly fashion-conscious taught her girls to walk like models and wear flattering clothing — and she took them to a salon where they were coiffed in the latest hairstyle.

  Of course there were different opinions among the host families about the manner in which parents can assist their children to achieve a sound foundation for an enjoyable life. While some were content to make the Maidens’ stay a thrilling social occasion, others felt a more constructive program of activity than sightseeing and entertainment was in order, and undertook to make it an educational event. Within the group there were a variety of talents, abilities, temperaments, and aspirations to be found, and after consulting with individual girls to determine their level of formal schooling and their area of interest, special educational agendas were designed. Some had little training or talent on which to build and were satisfied pursuing personal hobbies such as handcrafts, music, and art; but others were eager to take advantage of the opportunity to further a skill or trade in the hope that the education they received in America would help them earn a living when they went home. With that in mind, several girls who had studied English conscientiously on their own, keeping notebooks in which they recorded all new words and phrases, were enrolled in language classes at a local high school; one girl who had been told before she left for the United States that if she learned to type in English she would be given a responsible job in an import firm, was placed in a secretarial class; two girls who had expressed an interest in social work were introduced to various welfare organizations and instructed in the use of a braille typewriter so they would be qualified to work with the blind In Hiroshima; a few studied design, one took a training class to become a beaytipian, and all were given a course in home nursing by the Red Cross.

  All of the host families were impressed by how courteous, tactful, and accommodating the Maidens were, without quite knowing the secret of their charts. Some likened it to a highly developed aesthetic sense: Just as the girls would arrange a bouquet in a vase and somehow make everything fall into a perfect order, they fit themselves into their living space with a delicate aesthetic sensitivity. Actually, their ability to “fit” was directly attributable to an attitude that was characteristically Japanese. There is no precise translation of the Japanese word kigane, which refers to feelings of reserve and constraint out of respect for another person’s feelings. If a girl were tired and wanted to go to bed but her hosts were still up and doing things, kigane would keep her from excusing herself and retiring. If she wanted a cup of tea, even though she knew her hosts would be happy if she would help herself, kigane would keep her seated. The reluctance to express a personal desire for fear of appearing selfish or putting someone out or causing friction was kigane, and it was an attitude that had been ingrained in them since childhood.

  However, while kigane made for good family relationships and accounted for the graciousness and adaptability that made the Maidens such welcome houseguests, it also happened to be a quality which, given their circumstances, made them all the more vulnerable. Coupled with their inferiority complexes, it was one more restraint on their will, keeping them subdued and acquiescent. And when their sharply aware hosts realized that there was another side to this sublime quality, and that what they had previously perceived as a positive was in some respects a negative, they took it upon themselves to provide the dynamic for change. They sat and talked with their girls and encouraged them in the plainest possible manner to be more open and assertive in the expression of their feelings and forthright in their dealings with people, to say yes only when they meant it and no if that was what they felt. By their example they showed them how misunderstandings could be avoided through honesty; and when invitations and situations came up, they insisted the girls make decisions and choices on their own.

  The Maidens were unaccustomed to thinking for themselves and speaking their own minds, but in the generally less restrained atmosphere of American society, under the benign influence of their American hosts, they gradually became more outgoing and began to project their personalities more comfortably. In large part they had not felt good about themselves because it was in the sight and judgment of other people that they evaluated themselves, and in Japan the visibly disfigured were looked down upon, as though their handicaps were the consequence of personal failings rather than outside circumstances. Time spent with people who valued them none the less for the way they looked, who saw them as individual people just like everyone else, who genuinely cared about them and were actively adding new experiences that helped them develop healthier attitudes toward their c
ircumstances, was more than liberating or supportive, it was therapeutic.

  Each had lived through a time when she welcomed death more than life; but now the whole other side of the girls’ emotions — their capacity for joy and laughter, the feelings that made life worth living in the first place — was coming back. And as their early timidity was replaced by a surging confidence they began to want to meet new people. They willingly spoke to community groups about the customs of their native land, and demonstrated the tea ceremony. They became daringly independent about traveling in public. At first their hostesses had felt it necessary to accompany them every time they left the house, but now they were commuting in and out of New York on their own. And in dramatic contrast to Hiroshima, in New York they found their disfigurement opened rather than closed them to human contacts. Strangers took a kindly interest in them, approaching them on the subway or at bus stops and asking if they were a Hiroshima Maiden. The frankness was a welcome change and sometimes led to a rewarding exchange. One girl found herself talking to a woman who had lost a son fighting the Japanese Forces in the Pacific, and the mutual understanding of the pain and sorrow caused by war that came about through their conversation brought her face to face with the fact that people everywhere were basically alike in their humanity.

  All of the Maidens had a deep awareness of the extraordinary generosity, untiring efforts, and many sacrifices that were being made on their behalf, but they also expressed a certain bewilderment about its source. After all, they were receiving better treatment all around in America than they had in their very own homeland. Perfect strangers were showing them more magnanimity than their own countrymen. “What I still don’t understand,” one of the Maidens said to Helen Yokoyama during a home visit, “is why these people are doing all this. Back in Japan I was told they have a guilty feeling about dropping the atomic bomb. Is this the reason?”