The question did not appear to surprise him. “Mrs. Yokoyama,” he said, his voice just above a whisper, “I’ve seen life on the streets. I’ve been a military man and a seaman, a gambler and a drinker. I’m not like that anymore, but I’ve been around enough to know where the beauty in life is, and in Hiroko there is something beautiful.”
He was sincere, she could tell, and she was touched because she agreed with him and not many people thought that way. The test, however, came when Hiroko was due for major surgery. A roll of tissue was detached from her abdomen and implanted in her face, and she wrote Harry a letter and asked him not to visit her until the graft was completed. He telephoned Mrs. Yokoyama, upset that they might have had a falling out over a misunderstanding he knew nothing about.
“No,” she said. “It’s just that Hiroko is entering a difficult stage of surgery now and she doesn’t want you to see her like she is.”
“But that doesn’t matter,” he protested.
It meant a lot to hear him say that. “If you truly care about her, then you will respect her wishes.”
“Okay,” he sighed, and there was something in his voice that made her feel sure that he would stay away, but that as soon as Hiroko was willing to see him again she would find him waiting for her call.
Part of Hiroko’s pedicle tube was used on her arms, the rest went to her face, where a major portion of her keloid was excised and replaced with new skin. A total of thirteen operations were performed on her, the largest number of any of the Maidens, earning her the title “Champion Surgery Girl,” something she was proud of. When it was done she was still severely disfigured, and her mouth was little more than a slit in a smooth flap of skin with lips drawn in with lipstick; but her inability to straighten her arms would no longer interfere with her ability to work, and she felt presentable enough to appear in public without her mask.
A year and a half had passed since Hiroko had decided to trust the doctors one more time, and for the first time she did not regret the decision. As the project wound down to its final days, she was excited to be going home and seeing her family and finishing her training as a dressmaker; but she was also sad at parting from the people she had become attached to in America. She had spent most of her time with the elderly Peekskill couple and had grown extremely fond of them. It was hard saying goodbye to them, but saying sayonara to her admiring cab driver was even more difficult. He had stayed away, just as she asked, though his letters came frequently. When she was ready to see him again, she asked Helen Yokoyama to call him for her. On the phone he hemmed and hawed. Wondering if he had had a change of heart, Helen asked him, “What is it you want to say?” Well, what he had to say, he said, had come after many hours of mulling it over before finally reaching a decision. “Yes?” she said, beginning to lose patience because she fully expected him to apologize and say he would not be returning to the hospital. “I want to marry Hiroko. Will you ask her for me?”
When Hiroko learned he had asked for her hand in marriage, only the audacity of the suggestion impressed her. “What is he talking about?” she asked Helen Yokoyama. “He must be joking. And if he isn’t, he’s crazy.” She liked him very much, found him amusing, and enjoyed his company; but marriage was ridiculous. She had not come halfway around the world to find a suitor; and she had to get back to Japan to get on with her life.
She rejected the whole idea. “Absolutely not,” was her answer. But it was easier delivered to Helen Yokoyama than to Harry in person. Three times he proposed to her. The first time she said, “No, thank you,” with the emphasis on no, and looking down in confusion she changed the subject. The second time she tried, gently, to explain the impracticability of his suggestion. He looked serious as he listened, reflected on what she said, and spread his hands as if to say, We don’t have a great deal of time for you to change your mind. The third time she let herself think what being married to him would be like. She thought he was a good and sincere man, almost Oriental in his thoughtfulness (whenever he brought her a box of candy, he brought a second box for the other girls), but even more sensitive than a Japanese man (in Japan no man looked twice at her except to stare). She tried to guess what it was he felt toward her. He said it was love, but she thought it was more likely that something in her situation called to something in his nature. “I’m sorry,” she said finally. She would be forever grateful that he had put the romance of a proposal into her life, but the answer was no.
*
Over an eighteen-month period, 138 operations were performed on the twenty-five Hiroshima Maidens. From a strictly surgical point of view, the results were moderate. Compounding the difficulties presented by the tendency for Oriental skin to form keloids when burned and to darken when transplanted, and the unavailability of prime donor tissue, was the fact that most of the girls had been in their growing stage at the time of the bomb, and the contractions had impaired natural development. Bones were bent, muscles and tendons shortened, and joint capsules, nerves, and blood vessels shrunken. When ten years of unrelieved tension was suddenly released, fingers did not click straight, lips snap into place, eyes go back where they belonged.
Plastic surgery, too, has its limitations. If the injuries had been a matter of rearranging tissues — such as when protruding ears are brought back — dramatic results would have been possible. In major deformities such as these, however, where massive amounts of tissue had been lost or destroyed, substitutions could be made but not replacements. One could make it better, but it would never be as good as the original. What was gained was only good in comparison with what was started with.
In at least a dozen cases, there were spectacular successes in liberating hands and fingers from their clawlike contractions, making it possible for the girls to use their limbs normally for the first time in many years. As for their facial appearances, they were markedly improved, though far from perfect. The common reaction from people seeing the Maidens for the first time was, “Gee, I don’t think they look so great. They still have scars. The grafts stand out on their faces like a patch on a tire...” One rush hour, a neighbor of Dr. Kahn’s saw two Maidens on the New York subway, and his comment was, “You mean to tell me you operated on those girls?” It was less than Drs. Barsky, Kahn, and Simon would liked to have done, but they knew it was all that could be done.
Appropriately enough, a good turn from someone who had no previous involvement with the project took over where the surgery left off. Helen Yokoyama first became aware of Miss Lydia O’Leary through an article in Reader’s Digest In some ways her story paralleled that of the Maidens. Miss O’Leary had been born with “a hideous flaming birthmark from chin to forehead,” and because of this she spent an unhappy youth evading the cruel, piercing stares of her playmates. Her parents had poured out thousands of dollars on visits to eminent skin specialists, but there was nothing medical science could do for her. After college, when her facial blemish stood in the way of a job, she hid herself away in a back room, making a living by painting place cards. One day she was painting an iris and something spilled that washed over a purple petal, concealing it perfectly. From that she got the idea of “touching up” her birthmark. Experimenting until she found a formula that would not run when wet, rub off, or crack like a mask, she had finally produced a lotion that was waterproof and indistinguishable from skin when applied to most facial disfigurements. Patented under the name Covermark, it was presently being marketed out of Miss O’Leary’s office on Fifth Avenue in New York City.
As she read the article, Helen wondered if this simple method would work for the Maidens, as the general contour of their faces was close to normal, but the roughness of the surface skin remained a problem. She decided it was worth a try and made an appointment to visit the O’Leary office, taking along six of the Maidens. The waiting room was crowded with wary individuals who peered at them from behind upturned coat collars and down-turned hat brims. Miss O’Leary was out of town that day so her assistant welcomed them and led them i
nto a small room with a sink and mirror. She was a slim woman with pleasant features and a stylish air of sophistication about her that one would expect of an executive with a cosmetics company. While she related her employer’s story to the group, she started rubbing makeup off her face, and before their incredulous eyes a dark scarlet birthmark appeared on the woman’s cheek. No one could say anything. They had thought she was going to show them how to apply a base, never suspecting she was about to reveal a personal disfigurement.
“You see the possibilities?” she said with a smile.
As she reapplied Covermark to her face, she showed them how it worked and how to make it match the color of their skin. Adding rouge and powder, the stain was invisible in two minutes’ time.
When Miss O’Leary returned from her trip, Helen went back for more information. This time she met the inventor of Covermark and found her to be a lovely, auburn-haired woman whose sympathy for those suffering from facial faults was boundless. When she heard about the Hiroshima Maidens, she said she wanted to make a gift to the girls of a lifetime supply of her cream. More than that, she said she had been having trouble finding a Japanese company to handle her line of cosmetics and mentioned the possibility that one of the Maidens might be interested in acting as her Japanese distributor.
While the discovery of a miracle make-up that concealed superficial facial blemishes was a cause for celebration among those primarily concerned with the appearance of the Maidens, the timely offer of employment was in tune with the very thoughts of the Quakers, who were more concerned about the Maidens’ ability to provide a livelihood for themselves upon their return. As a matter of fact, the effort to develop or further a skill among the girls had led to an inspired idea of creating an opportunity for one that would, in turn, provide jobs for others. It was Ida Day’s personal vision: Since so many of the Maidens were accomplished seamstresses, but it was difficult to make a living sewing in Hiroshima where most women did their own sewing, why not select one girl to remain in New York and study fashion design? Then, after her graduation, she could return to Japan and set up a top-notch establishment which would employ the other Maidens.
When she presented the idea to the steering committee it was approved wholeheartedly, and there was little need for discussion about which girl should be awarded the opportunity to study in America. Hideko Hirata was the oldest Maiden, and in addition to her maturity and talent, she was terrifically compatible with all the girls. The decision to invite her to stay was an easy one. Surprising everyone, however, Hideko graciously declined the offer, saying she did not feel physically strong enough to fulfill what would be expected of her. The slot was unfilled when Ida Day recommended that the invitation be extended to Toyoko Morita.
For ten years Toyoko had clung to the hope that some monumental plan was working out that might be personally painful to her in the present, but would make sense at some future time; over the past year and a half it had all added up. There had been some uncomfortable moments in the hospital but her stay in American homes had been all lyric. (For some reason the doctors at first had trouble administering anesthesia to Toyoko. Most of the girls would count one, two, three, and by six they were unconscious. Each had a slightly different tolerance level, but Toyoko would count in a clear firm voice all the way to twenty, twenty-one before she began to be affected. The doctors were puzzled and after holding a brief conference, questioned her. It was not until she admitted that before coming to America she had been a heavy drinker that the mystery was solved. The same tolerance her system had built up to accommodate alcohol was resisting the anesthesia.) Odd as it sounded, there was something familiar about Toyoko’s new circumstances; since leaving Japan she had returned in many ways to the style and standard she had been accustomed to before the bomb. Once again, she was a member of a well-to-do household, enjoying material and intellectual advantages.
Of course, there were differences, too, some of which she came to accept as a matter of course for this part of the world, and some of which opened new lines of thought about her own country. She would always remember the morning her hostess invited the gardener to join them at the breakfast table for a cup of coffee. Her parents had commanded the presence of groundskeepers throughout her childhood and the class lines separating family members and common laborers had been strict. “Oh, my goodness!” Toyoko thought to herself, glancing anxiously about as the man stomped into the kitchen and dropped heavily into a chair at the table. She did not know what to make of such overt friendliness with servants at first, but as she sat in uncomfortable silence while her hostess and the gardener chatted, she found herself wondering about a custom she had previously taken for granted. The sharp lines and divisions that defined relationships in Japan had always seemed like connections to her; but for some reason in America making those distinctions meant separating people. By the time the man excused himself and went about his chores, Toyoko felt as though she were approaching an important new insight. Though it was impossible for her say what it meant yet, she could not help but see her hostess’s cordiality as part of a unique attitude toward human relations that included her own warm welcome. One thing was certain; she knew she would see Japan with fresh eyes when she returned.
In a very real sense, Toyoko was a community project. After the first period of hospitality she went to live with a different family for a little over a month, and after that her visits averaged around six weeks. Sometimes she thought it was too much moving around, but once she got to know her new family she always liked them and was glad to be there, and soon enough the advantages to multiple arrangements were revealed. Her contact with a wide circle of people provided her with a great range of experiences and, since everyone around her was eager to make her stay in the States as profitable as possible, it led to some significant opportunities. After her hopes for a music career were dashed, she had fixed on the idea of becoming a fashion designer; sewing came naturally to her, and she felt that helping other women make the most of their beauty offered her some recourse against her disfigurement. Toyoko had been midway through her first year in a Tokyo design school when she was offered the chance to come to America for free surgery, and when her hostesses realized she was already pointed toward a career, they took out subscriptions to fashion magazines for her, put a sewing machine at her disposal, and arranged for her to have a personal tour of the famous New York women’s clothing store Bergdorf Goodman, where she was taken behind the scenes and shown the many steps required to complete a custom-made dress. The work of designers, patternmakers, alteration experts, and others was explained in detail as she watched them on the job, and when it came time to leave Toyoko felt that if she saw nothing else, that visit was worth the trip to America.
It had been Toyoko’s understanding that the project would last approximately one year, and on that basis she had been given time off from school and her place in the class had been reserved. But the surgery was being done slowly, in stages, and when she learned she was not going to be part of the first group of girls going back, she wrote a letter explaining her circumstances and asking for an extension. It came as a shock to her to find she must either return immediately to Japan or lose her standing as a student.
Remembering how she had studied for a year in preparation for the difficult entrance examination; and worked in a dress shop in order to pay expenses, going without sleep every third night to get the orders done on time; and the ecstasy she had felt When she first learned she had been accepted for school; remembering it all she thought over her situation again and again, trying to make things come out her way. And when they didn’t, and everything she had put up with while trying to establish herself within the restricted sphere of her life now looked like an exercise in futility, she was devastated.
She happened to be in the hospital at the time the depressing news arrived from Japan, and she was so demoralized she thought of refusing any more operations. One of the girls who knew what she was going through must have said somet
hing to the project organizers, because a few days later Mrs. Ida Day called on her. Ida Day was known to have a sensitive appreciation of all the girls’ problems, and from the way she asked Toyoko if something was bothering her, it was apparent she already knew what was the matter. So Toyoko bared everything. Her head bowed, she said she did not know what she was going to do now, since all her plans revolved around her finishing design school.
Ida Day remained silent for a while, and then in an almost offhand way she said, “Well then, why don’t you stay?”
In her highly emotional state, Toyoko was not listening attentively and she muttered, “If I can’t return to school, I don’t want to go back.”
Ida Day continued. “Maybe we could work it out for you to attend design school in America.”
Now Toyoko was listening and she did not know what to say. She had never dreamed of the possibility, and even as she considered the idea she doubted it could happen because her knowledge of English was so limited. Slightly dazed, Toyoko waited for an explanation.
Several weeks later, Ida Day and Toyoko Morita met with the headmistress of the Parsons School of Design in New York City. There was no entrance examination to pass, but she had been told to bring along a sample of her work. Since she had made costumes for a community project at Christmas time, and a variety of clothes for her hostesses and herself, she had a number of garments to chose from. She decided to present a Chinese cocktail dress which must have been a good choice; by the time the meeting was over it was clear that if she wanted it there would be a place for her at Parsons.
Toyoko was a bit overwhelmed. Only one thing stood in her way, her mother, who had objected to her coming to America in the first place. In a long letter she described the wonderful opportunity she had been given, and entreated her mother to understand how much this meant to her. The response was predictable. Japanese mothers liked their daughters to stay close to home. “No,” her mother had written angrily, “you must come home with the others.”
Hiroshima Maidens Page 17