As we ate Ko happened to cast her eyes on the front page of the newspaper. She stopped eating and picked up the paper to read. She said the government had just opened a new port, Maizuru, for refugees arriving from Korea and Manchuria. Also the government had been negotiating with Russia to let the remaining Japanese come home.
“The port of Fukuoka, where we landed, will be closed this week,” said Ko. “They’ll move the refugee center to Maizuru and that’s only an hour’s ride from here. Let’s go this weekend and make some investigations about Father and Hideyo.”
Another piece of good news she read to me was that the government would give refugees futons as a New Year’s gift.
Ko beamed. “Now Mr. Prime Minister Yoshida is really talking! All we have to do is take our refugee certificates to the city hall. Let’s do it Friday afternoon.”
Thinking of sleeping between futon and comforters excited me and I could hardly wait for Friday to come. Ko borrowed two long ropes from Mr. Masuda to tie the futons, and we took a streetcar.
She showed our refugee papers and Mother’s at the small window. “Three of you?” asked the man. “Where is the third?”
“Mother could not come,” answered Ko.
He stamped the certificates, and in a back room a lady handed us the futons. Ko tied a rope around one set, cotton-filled mattress and comforter, and put it on my back. They were so heavy that I staggered. Ko carried the other two sets.
While waiting for the streetcar I asked her why she had taken Mother’s certificate. She said she had not registered Mother’s death, so that as far as Kyoto City was concerned Mother was still alive. “We must have extra bedding for Honorable Father or Hideyo.”
The bedding was a load on my back and the rope dug in where I was wounded, but I did not complain, for the joy of sleeping in bed like everybody else made me all excited.
I couldn’t wait to make our beds and to lie down and feel what it was to sleep on a futon. Though this bedding was not nearly as fine as the bedding we had slept in in Korea, we were most appreciative, for we had really shivered at night with no heat in the warehouse.
Ko and I stayed up late that night, sewing. She made little clothes and I made small cloth dolls and beanbags. When they were done I turned to another important task—to write Hideyo’s name large on the pages of the newspaper in India ink and our address in the corner. Ko made a pot of paste with flour and water.
We had to break the ice in the stream next morning to wash. Ko put pieces of ice in the mess kits and built a fire to melt it. She poured hot water into a borrowed wash pan, and we took it upstairs and washed. What was left in the mess kits we drank, to warm ourselves.
Going to the toilet, in the outhouse, was a cold business too. I let Ko go first because she left a little body heat and warm footprints where I squatted.
Then we went to Maizuru, Ko carrying the little items we had made and I the paste and Hideyo’s name papers. Hideyo’s name was not on record at the refugee center as having landed, so we pasted the name papers on the bulletin board, the walls of the port, and just everywhere. Every inch of space was filled with other names and messages.
All that Saturday we stayed in the vicinity of the port to sell our items. Some housewives with small children were delighted to buy the toys and clothes. Others went through them, then changed their minds, and our hearts sank. At some houses well-dressed, well-made-up housewives looked us over and slammed the door. But we kept on trying houses all day.
Finally we had sold everything. Ko bought two hot sweet potatoes from a pushcart man and we sat on a concrete wall by the waterfront, swinging our legs, letting the December wind blow our inch-and-a-half-long hair, and ate the potatoes. The sun sank slowly, leaving a gorgeous crimson display on the water. As it tucked the earth to rest, we held hands and headed for home.
Finally New Year’s Eve day arrived. Ko was not feeling well and she overslept. She jumped from the bed mumbling that she would be late for class, and told me to come straight home from school and build the fire because she had something to do at the University.
“Why do you have to do it on New Year’s Eve day?” I complained. “I’m afraid to build the fire.”
“Do it! It’s about time you learned to do things.” She grabbed her books and blanket. “Don’t forget to lock the door.”
I had ill feeling toward Ko. Because of that idea of hers she had not been there when Mother died, and how Mother had wanted to see her. Since Mother died she had become bossier than ever, and now she was telling me to come home fast and build a fire for supper. We had nothing to eat in the apple box cabinet, nothing to make a meal of. Ko had been handling all the money so I had no money to buy groceries. I was not about to spend my little earnings beneath Mother’s urn. That was for my shoes. No, I would not come right home from school. I would sell some more items and earn some more money.
I had learned to take the girls’ abuse, but remembering the way Ko had left the warehouse and my talking back made me terribly lonely during the day, especially when a girl asked me, “How long are you coming to school with rags on?” I longed for Father and Mother, and wished Father would come home safely to embrace me in his wide arms.
As I gathered papers in the furnace room I was sniffing and wiping away tears and wondering when I could lead a normal life with Father and Hideyo. How I envied the girls who lived with their parents and sisters and brothers. I could almost see and hear their happy laughter at mealtime.
Mr. Naido came and emptied cans into a huge box. When he saw me he took out his billfold and handed me five yen, saying I had done well collecting cans and should keep it up. He would take my cans anytime.
Then he said, without much stuttering, “Why tears?”
“I was thinking of my father and brother,” I said slowly. “I hope they are not dead.” I sniffed some more.
“They will return. I know they will,” said Mr. Naido, and wished me Happy New Year.
Because it was New Year’s Eve day I had a feeling that many people would be going to a shrine or to the central part of the city. Instead of going from house to house I decided to stand on the street among the small pushcart shops. Perhaps people going home from work would stop and buy what I displayed.
I chose the Kitano shrine, popular for the pushcart shops and always busy at rush hours. Many people were buying things from the pushcarts, and I looked for a good busy spot to display my wares.
Suddenly I saw Ko. She sat on the cold ground polishing a man’s shoes. I froze. I realized then that with this idea she had been feeding me. And now I was sure she wanted to get some traditional foods, perhaps fluffy rice cakes, to welcome the brand-new year.
Oh, Honorable Sister! I swallowed lumps.
Ko finished polishing the man’s shoes. He handed her money and she put it in her pocket. The man, his shoes shiny as a new coin, passed by me. Ko put on her soldier’s hat, caped herself with her blanket, and called, “Shoe shine! Shoe shine!”
I turned and hurried homeward, Ko’s clear shoe shine call sounding in my good ear all the way. I spent my shoe money and the five yen I had earned from selling cans to Mr. Naido to buy something good to eat for my honorable sister and me, something for our New Year’s Eve feast.
Snow was falling when I got home from the general store. I had bought two cups of rice, a fish, narrow strips of seaweed, an orange, a tiny bag of green tea, and a small, cheaply made teapot. I wanted to pour green tea for Ko at our New Year’s Eve feast.
First I had to build a fire. Leaving my small rucksack with all the things I had bought by the stairway, I went to the back side of the warehouse, beneath the eaves, where Ko had made a small hibachi with stones. I crumpled some newspapers and added wood scraps that Ko had gathered the night before to dry out. When the pieces caught fire I added thick blocks and fanned with a piece of cardboard as Ko always did. But the fire died, leaving nothing but smoke. I repeated the procedure, using more paper and more scraps, and when it was good and
red I put on the blocks that had not burned. I fanned and kept on fanning until the blocks began to burn.
I set the mess kit on the fire. It had been filled with water before I left for school, but now the water was ice. While it melted I went to the outside tap for drinking water, but the tap was frozen. So I rushed to the stream, cracked the frozen water with my heels, and put all the ice chips into the bucket, to wash and cook the rice.
The water in the mess kit was boiling vigorously when Ko appeared, covered with snow. “It’s very cold and windy!” she said. She shook the snow from her blanket and soldier’s hat.
“Honorable Sister, welcome home,” I said. “Your hot water is ready.”
“I knew you could do it,” said Ko.
“I think we need another hibachi to cook our supper,” I said.
“Why?”
“One to cook rice, one to roast the fish.”
“Who said we were going to roast a fish?” asked Ko.
“I did. I bought a fish.”
“Where did you get the money?”
“Mr. Naido paid me for the cans and I used my shoe money.”
“Oh! You dummy!” exclaimed Ko, but she did not sound angry. “I had money. See?” She pulled out a few yen from an inside pocket, and on my mental screen I saw her shining shoes and calling to get more customers.
“It’s New Year’s Eve. I will be twelve! You will be seventeen!” I said. “We must celebrate.” In Japan everyone gains a year not on the date of his birth but at the New Year.
Ko set the bucket on the hot fire for the rice and drank some of the hot water in the bowl to warm herself, and while she did that I managed to take the tea bag and teapot from my rucksack and hide them in my overcoat pocket.
We did need another hibachi. We gathered stones, some frozen to the ground, and Ko built a fire. She washed the rice, saving the white rice water, and told me to wash the fish in it, but leave the head and insides as they were. Then she found a long stick, sharpened and smoothed it to make a skewer, and I roasted the fish, squatting next to Ko as she cooked the rice and made miso soup with seaweed.
It was a humble New Year’s Eve meal that we ate in our home, but both of us were overwhelmed by it. We wondered what Father and Hideyo were eating that night, and how they were keeping themselves warm. We knew the severe winter in Manchuria and northern Korea.
Ko saw the orange in front of Mother’s urn. I should not have bought that expensive fruit, she told me.
“I could not afford flowers for Mother on New Year’s,” I said. “We can eat the orange sometime.”
“Go out and get your mess kit,” said Ko. “The hot water will be ready for us to drink.”
So I went down. I rinsed the teapot, my heart bouncing at the thought of Ko’s surprised and joyful face when I made tea for her.
As I came back up Ko was setting aside the wooden rice bowls and chopsticks. And in the center of the apple-box table were fluffy red and white rice cakes, the New Year’s traditional food!
“Happy New Year, Little One,” said Ko, bowing slightly. “The rice cakes are for you.”
“Happy New Year, Honorable Sister.” I bowed to her deeply, for all her efforts and all her concern for me. I put the rice bowls back on the table. I brought out the still-wet teapot from one pocket and the tea bag from the other. “Green tea is for you,” I said, and poured the tea into her bowl.
Suddenly Ko was crying. “Don’t you dare spend any more of your shoe money!” she scolded, sniffing back the tears. “We can live without tea.”
But she received her wooden rice bowl of green tea reverently in both hands, sipped it slowly, and let the tears roll down her face. “Ah, fine tea. I never expected this. Thank you, Little One!”
TEN
DURING THE TEN-DAY NEW YEAR’S VACATION Ko finished my overcoat made from the soldiers’ uniforms. Its lining was nothing but patches, but to me it was the most gorgeous thing I had ever owned. I was very happy. I wore my red overcoat now as a jacket in the house.
Even when it snowed heavily on Saturday we went to Maizuru and stayed there all day, replacing Hideyo’s name papers and selling our items. Snow went into my slapping shoes and I lost feeling in my toes.
When school began again we learned that tuition would go up fifteen yen a month. Mother had paid up to April, so I owed the school forty-five yen. How could I earn all that? With snow on the ground I couldn’t see any cans lying about. Maybe if I worked hard helping Ko make some of the little things, and sold them, I could earn fifteen yen a month.
When I told Ko about the increase in tuition she said this was an absolute necessity and the time had come to use Mother’s wrapping cloth money. She took out a hundred yen, changed it into smaller bills at the bank, and gave me what I needed. I asked if her university tuition had gone up. It would go up in April, she said, and she would take a break from school and work somewhere until I left school. But until April she was going to enjoy every moment of her school days.
“Don’t your classmates abuse you at all?” I asked.
“They did at first,” Ko said, “but they learned that I can sew a white silk-lined kimono with colored thread and it doesn’t show. They were so amazed they stopped abusing me.”
“Why did you use colored thread on white silk?”
“Someone hid my white thread just before the testing began.” Even with the shoe shining her hands always remained smooth.
No matter how hard I tried to sell Ko’s little items, I did not do well in January. My left shoe, like an angry wild animal’s mouth, stayed open, and even though I tied it with rope it came apart as I walked. I knew Ko would get me a pair of shoes if I complained of being cold and numb, but I wanted to hang on to the little money left in the wrapping cloth.
Ko was always figuring out what she had earned by polishing shoes, what to buy for our meals, and how far the money could be stretched. I never told her I had seen her at the shrine.
“We may have to use some of Mother’s money for food this winter,” she said. “I hate to touch it.”
I suggested we look in the garbage bins behind the hotel.
“I won’t let you do that anymore,” she told me. “We’re fortunate. We have a place to live, free, and a place to cook what little we buy.”
Deep inside I wondered how we were going to manage until spring. Everyone was wearing boots now and surely Ko did not have many customers.
All I can do, I thought, is spend long hours after school selling Ko’s handcrafts on the street or from door to door.
One morning I decided to walk to school along the tracks, the shortest way. I passed five stations, each with a bench to sit on, and I was relieved that no schoolgirls sat waiting for the streetcar. At the sixth station, scattered newspapers flapped in the January wind. I picked some up. They would make fuel for Ko and me to warm our hands, even if there was nothing to eat.
I enjoyed discovering something we could use. Then, as I smoothed out the newspapers on the bench, I saw a headline—“Essay Contest.”
I sat on the bench to read it, and I checked how old the paper was. It was the Asahi, the morning paper, of that day! I became more interested, and read it as I walked toward the school.
Group 1 University
Group 2 Boys’ and Girls’ Schools
Group 3 Elementary Schools
TITLE: OPEN
LENGTH: NO MORE THAN 50 PAGES OF MANUSCRIPT PAPER
PRIZES:
FIRST PLACE ¥10,000
SECOND PLACE ¥5,000
THIRD PLACE ¥1,000
CLOSING DAY: END OF FEBRUARY
A streetcar was coming, and I stepped aside and kept on reading. My thoughts were filled with prize money. If I could win at least third prize Ko and I could buy food for a couple of weeks.
The streetcar passed with a roar, leaving sparkles between wheels and rails. A girl yelled from a broken window, “Rag Doll!” I bit my lip, feeling anger I could not control and wanting to smack that girl, whoever she
was. I stamped the ties and pretended I was stamping on her.
Going home I walked the tracks again, but instead of stamping I was thinking about what I could write to win the prize. Money! For food, hot food in our stomachs.
Day after day I walked the tracks and day after day I created sentences. They wanted fifty pages of manuscript paper, and each manuscript sheet had four hundred one-centimeter blocks. So I must fill out twenty thousand letters in those blocks.
I had no money to buy manuscript paper, so I made my own by drawing four hundred blocks lightly on the back of papers from the trash. I carefully filled each block. On the last day of the month I did not go to school but walked all the way to Sanjo Street, looking for the Asahi Newspaper Company, Kyoto Division. I tossed my manuscript into the large box at the entrance because I did not have money to mail it.
The paper had said the winners would be announced in two weeks; so when that time came I went to the school library. Could I, could I have won? But the librarian said the principal was reading the morning paper. I was deeply disappointed. Yet I could not go to the principal’s office to ask to see the paper, so I had to wait until the next day.
Next morning, walking to school, I was very nervous. I wanted so much to win.
Our classroom was noisier than usual. I took my seat and suddenly all was quiet. The entire class was looking at me. I did not understand it, but I took out my English reader. English was my favorite subject and our teacher, Mr. Yoshida, always asked me to read a whole chapter. I thought he would do so today and I did not want to stumble.
A girl came and tossed a newspaper on top of my English book. What manners, I thought. I gave one glance at the paper, then I looked again. Then I picked it up and read it.
“From Group 2, Sagano Girls’ School Student Sweeps Field,” said the headline. There was my name, printed large and clear, with the title of my essay, “Understanding.”
In my heart I laughed and laughed with joy. I made fists, for I could not shout there. Then I shed tears, thinking of how happy Ko would be and how we could both go to the grocery store for rice, miso, even tofu! We would have a feast! This was the second time I had won an essay contest. When I was in first grade in Korea I wrote a story, “Canary Bird,” that was published in a newspaper. I began reading my own essay.
So Far from the Bamboo Grove Page 11