An hour after the coastline of the United States of America dropped away beneath them, an engine conked out; it was a testament to the Maidens’ newfound confidence in the future that even when they noticed that one of the propellers had stopped spinning, and when the plane appeared to be hanging motionless in the air and about to drop, no one panicked. Even when the wing dipped as the pilot made a wide, smooth turn and took them back to San Francisco for another plane, it was more a diversion than a scare.
There was a flurry of excitement as the girls approached Japan and the stewardess handed out Japanese immigration forms, which required the girls to consult their passports. Although passport photos had been waived prior to their coming to the United States, upon their return, photos had been taken and this was the first time they had seen pictures of themselves. The squeals of delight reminded Norman Cousins of the exclamations generally reserved for excursions to the attic and the discovery of old photographs, ‘it is someone else,’ one girl cried. “They will never let me in again.”
The girls were elated by their improvement, but Cousins couldn’t help remembering an incident at the Honolulu airport the previous evening when a passerby, seeing the girls for the first time, inquired whether something could be done surgically to help them. The question had made him wonder how the Japanese people in general and the Japanese parents in particular would react to the change in the girls. The response to the first group had been favorable, but, as everyone knew, the Japanese were extremely polite. He had warned everyone not to expect miracles, but was there a true understanding of the limitations of plastic surgery? Or had they expected the girls to be completely restored to their former normal appearances? What were the thoughts of the medical community in Hiroshima with respect to his promise not to forget the eighteen girls who had not been selected? And what would they say when he expressed his determination to see that all those survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki who could benefit from the kind of surgical treatment given the Maidens in the United States were given their chance? A good deal of the opposition to the Maidens Project had focused on its selective nature. Why were only scarred single females taken? Why were no men included in the group? The answer, of course, had been they had to start somewhere, and it seemed the young women had experienced the worst of the disaster. But he had come to think of the Hiroshima Maidens Project as the “pilot project” in a grand effort — assuming, of course, that the Japanese reaction to the results of the surgery on the twenty-five was approving.
Cousins knew that for the project to have a satisfying resolution there were numerous questions that needed to be answered. But any worries he might have had about the Maidens’ ability to stand up for themselves were dispelled during their one-night stopover in Tokyo, when they were the honored guests at a luncheon meeting of the Japan-America Society, one of the most influential and cosmopolitan groups in Japan. Several hundred people attended, among them foreign correspondents and leaders in government, education, industry, and labor. Instead of huddling together as a group, as they would have done a year earlier, the girls circulated among the various tables, putting the guests at ease by taking part in table discussions. Following the lunch came formal speeches, and after Norman Cousins complimented them on their “dignity, courage, patience, and tact,” and Dr. Barsky expressed the hope “that our project, like the proverbial pebble falling into the stream, may steer the course of the stream of international relations for the better just a little bit,” one of the Hiroshima Maidens spoke.
Michiyo Zomen had been designated to make the appropriate acknowledgments, and when she was called up to the head table, she carefully threaded her way through the crowded tables and jutting chairs. Behind her, two huge flags covered the wall — the stars and stripes, and a red sun in the center of a white field — and in front of her a bouquet of microphones were arranged. Helen, who was standing beside her, could see the girl was trembling and she whispered, “You don’t have to make a speech. You can just say thank you.”
Michiyo’s voice was nervous and halting when she started to speak. Then she stopped, and after a painful hesitation, in spectacular fashion her left arm suddenly shot high into the air. “I hold out my arm to you,” she said in an entirely different tone of voice. “This is not a simple thing. It means much to me to be able to do this. For years my arm was bent tight like this.” She folded it at the elbow. “But in America they gave my arm back to me.” Again she thrust her arm open to the group. “What you do not see is the heart that is so full. If the heart could speak, it would tell about this feeling that we girls all now know.”
Four hours later they were flying over Hiroshima in a military staff plane that had been placed at their disposal by the commander of the Far East Forces. It was dark by the time they began their descent to the Iwakuni Airport, and the girls gazed through the windows at the blinking lights of the city below. There was no way of knowing what they were thinking, or if any of them compared in their minds the missions of the two U.S. Air Force planes of 1945 and 1956; but when the plane taxied to a stop and the hatch door swung open, their moment of truth arrived. Enormous search lights illuminated the runway. Reporters, photographers, and newsreel cameramen were perched on a scaffolding at the foot of the stairs of the plane. Beyond them was a cheering throng. Some of the girls spotted their relatives and were eager to get off. And yet they hesitated when the time came to actually brave the onslaught of their homecoming reception. No one wanted to go first. The Maidens searched each other’s faces, paralyzed by the reawakened fear of public attention.
And then, from way at the back, Shigeko’s voice sang out: “Inu ga wan-wan hoeyoru wai — The dogs are barking, woof, woof.” In a chain reaction of mirth, the girls began to laugh, and turning to the crowd, they tripped merrily down the ramp.
The pictures that filled the front pages of the next day’s newspapers and blazed across theater screens throughout Japan were a testament to how much the Hiroshima Maidens had changed. They had come home laughing.
Part Three – Home
Chapter Eight
There was no end to the favorable reviews given the Hiroshima Maidens Project in the press. It was touted as a victory for people-to-people diplomacy. Hands of friendship had stretched across the ocean and former enemies had established and expressed their love for one another, making the public aware of a relationship between human beings that could only further the cause of peace and goodwill on an international level. Interracial and intercultural understanding between East and West could only continue to grow stronger with the Hiroshima Maidens serving in the capacity of beneficent ambassadors for both sides of the world.
As for the radiant return of the Maidens, it had all the elements of a storybook ending. Their ordeal as A-bomb survivors had become a saga of uplift, their trip to America the vehicle of physical rehabilitation and personal growth. They were on their way, predicted Norman Cousins, “to becoming great ladies.” Time magazine even provided an appropriate fade-out image: Under graphic before-and-after photographs of a Maiden, the caption read “From Horror to Triumph.”
But it did not end there. When the Maidens stepped down from the plane, they not only were public figures; they were heavily vested symbols, and interest in their experiences and reactions ran high in the Japanese media. Radio interviews were broadcast and television appearances staged. No newspaper or magazine was complete, it seemed, without a number of column inches devoted to the Hiroshima Maidens. Reflecting the feeling that their city possessed a special distinction, and this imposed on its citizens the need to act on behalf of world peace, virtually every “peace event” sponsored by city officials required their presence.
When publicity became a fact of their homecoming life, they accepted it at first as a responsibility that flowed from the privilege of going to America. All had been moved to feelings of peace and humanity, and each retained a sense of obligation to somehow convey to others the new sense of the world that was opened to them. Speakin
g through the media seemed like the perfect outlet because it enabled them to feel they were giving to many others, after having received so much from so many themselves. So they talked about how they had been deeply impressed by the genuinely humane way of life and thought in America; how they had been encouraged to believe in themselves; and how they had come to feel that, in spite of their tragedies, life could emerge with a new vitality. Their knowledge of world affairs may not have been sophisticated. They did not understand the intricacies of international politics or the exigencies of the Cold War. But their experience had been a person-to-person kind of international consciousness-raising, and inherently they were making a case for the power of harmonious relations among the people of the world.
In time, a relatively short period of time, the satisfactions gained from communicating through the media turned sour. The Maidens tired of going over the same ground again and again, and began to feel overexposed. Moreover, they were rarely pleased with the outcome. All too often they found their stories changed for dramatic effect, and riddled with inaccuracies. Frequently the nature of the questioning during an interview was disturbing. Reporters did not ask only about America, but about the bomb — the memory of that terrible day, and the horror that lay behind the relentless years of grief — assuming they would want their most troubling, agonizing moments redeemed in public awareness. Some of the questions were absurd: Was there a boost in Saturday Review sales while you were there? Weren’t you, in a sense, guinea pigs for American surgeons? The presumptions underlying these questions were so far from what they had in fact experienced it seemed impossible to put things right. No, they replied, not at all, they were treated like daughters; but for some reason the heartwarming extension of the human spirit they hoped to communicate rarely came through in the articles that were printed. Disappointed, frustrated, they began to decline interviews, only to find that reporters refused to take no for an answer and would show up outside their doors, uninvited, sometimes as early as six in the morning.
The enormity of what was thrust on them was complicated further by the great expectations of the Reverend Tanimoto. He had high-minded hopes that when they came back they would continue to meet regularly at his church and participate in various “peace activities.” Feeling as he did that since they had had the benefit of getting to know people concerned with international relations they would want to do their share in making an appeal for world peace from Hiroshima, he tried to arrange for them to make public appearances at demonstrations and rallies, summoned them to press conferences, and announced plans for the publication of a magazine featuring articles, stories, and poems written by the Maidens. He thought there were any number of things they could and should do, and he was prepared to promote them all.
This put them in a most difficult position. All acknowledged that the Reverend was the one who had started the project, for which they would always be appreciative. And they knew what atomic bombs did and that a way must be found to prevent their future use. But they were no longer comfortable with the role the Reverend wanted them to play. Standing on a platform before a crowd to display their scars and describe their suffering was not their idea of a suitable expression of their desire for a peaceful world; it was his, and they had begun to feel a little like an advertisement for his programs.
Besides, in their present states of mind they were not thinking of themselves as messengers of peace; they had begun for the first time in all those years to think of themselves as ordinary Japanese women, entitled to a normal life, for whom transcending the past meant not letting the bomb get the best of them. They were anxious to make up for lost time by getting on with their lives. The most pressing and consuming concern was finding the right place for themselves in Japanese society.
While a number came back to congenial family circumstances and comfortable homes that showed little evidence of the destitution that had been everyone’s common plight ten years earlier, the majority returned to far more humble settings with a minimum of worldly goods. One girl returned to a dingy, windowless shack built of rough planks and insulated with straw.
Parental responses to their experience were extreme in their range. Their mothers expressed dismay upon observing that they had picked up mannerisms and expressions which were unmistakably American — sitting cross-legged instead of the Japanese kneel, calling other girls in the group by their first names, and dropping the polite — san. A dramatic conversion took place in Michiko Yamaoka’s mother. After the war she had been so bitter she would throw stones at passing American soldiers and run out of the house when American planes flew overhead, shaking her fists at the sky and crying, “Give me back my daughter.” Now, each morning upon rising, she would bow in the direction of America and voice a prayer of thanks. Keiko Kawasaki’s father was less gracious in his appreciation. When his daughter came home with a sizable monetary gift from her hostess on top of her own allowance savings, she suddenly became the hen who could lay golden eggs and was hammered at to take advantage of her American connections and ask for more. But it was Takako Harada’s father who displayed the least amount of gratitude for what was done for his daughter. A hard, overbearing man who seemed to take pleasure in crushing Takako’s sweet, gentle spirit, permitting her to go to America had been his way of saying, “Here, see what you did.” While in the States this retiring, self-effacing girl had developed a precious degree of self-confidence, only to lose it in the first few days she was home, as her father went to contemptible lengths to make his feelings known that the A-bomb Maidens ought to be sacrificed to the cause of peace by being put on exhibit.
Then there was the unpublicized consequence of all the publicity. It created a charged and distorted kind of celebrity status that none of them felt good about: They were known for their faces but not their beauty; they were heralded as victims. Not only did the publicity cause them a certain mental strain, it generated an inadvertent and unfortunate set of negative side effects in the community. Rather than serving as examples that might encourage other bomb victims to take a more positive approach to life, the girls found themselves the objects of envy. It was not the changed attitude and brightened expressions that caught the public eye so much as the new clothes, stylish haircuts, and make-up the Maidens wore. When they made presents of some of the souvenirs they brought back, such as ballpoint pens and stockings, they were said to be showing off, as though they were trying to give the impression they had so much they could afford to give some of it away. Some had felt a singing inside that made them want to let all their friends and neighbors know about what they had seen and learned, but they encountered what seemed like the feigned indifference of those who resent anyone who has enjoyed himself while they have struggled. Put on the defensive by sarcastic comments about how lucky they were to receive an all-expense-paid trip to America, they found themselves flashing back with the rejoinder that they did not go as tourists.
But their total experiences in America had given them an increased awareness of their capacity to conquer great difficulties. It was reassuring to know that there were friends in America who cared deeply about what happened to them. What’s more, the Friends Meetings which had sponsored them had let it be known that they considered their job only half-done if the girls simply returned home to lead the same sort of lives their injuries had committed them to before, and they would not rest content until all were well on their way to making good.
In most cases they were now able to mix openly, they had the full use of their arms and hands, and they felt capable of managing challenging positions. Nevertheless, their prospects on the whole were still limited. Some needed to finish their interrupted schooling before they could qualify for the job of their choice, others required additional study in an area of special training, and a few who wanted to start businesses of their own lacked the start-up funds. When it became apparent that the only thing holding them back was money, the American families who had hosted the Maidens, working through Helen Yokoyama, put up
the funds necessary to finance these efforts; and this continued concern for their welfare provided the solid base from which many of the Maidens, step by step, pursued their individual lines of interest.
A look at how they were faring a year after their return showed that, all in all, they were doing quite well. Save for a few girls who had been unable to take advantage of the opportunities offered them because it had been necessary for them to help their families and so had become tied down at home by nursing and housekeeping responsibilities, the rest were either gainfully employed or attending classes. Less the five of them, that is, who had married.
For ten years the Maidens had been led to believe that they were sentenced to spinsterhood by the ugliness of their scars, and that even if their looks were improved by surgery, they carried the curse of the atomic bomb in a more insidious way, for they were doomed to bear deformed children. But prior to their return they had been disabused of the “common knowledge” that hibakusha necessarily carried within their bodies hidden mutants caused by exposure to radiation. Helen Yokoyama, reminding them she had worked at the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, told them that the research facility had so far been unable to establish a higher incidence of genetic mutations in the offspring of survivors. Support had come from the Japanese doctors, who had said the odds of their giving birth to normal, healthy children were as good as any woman’s. Unenlightened attitudes persisted (matrimonial bureaus, which arranged marriages throughout Japan, had informed applicants from Hiroshima and Nagasaki that survivors were not acceptable as brides and grooms), but the girls’ fears were enough allayed that many had returned with marriage on their minds.
Of the five weddings announced within the first year back, not one was arranged in the formal sense. Some began with an introduction by a matchmaking friend or a meeting set up by a family member, others came about as a result of a chance encounter; but all evolved out of a satisfying personal relationship with a man who gave every indication that he and his wife-to-be had come together on the closer level of feeling that two people in love have for each other.
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