by Ana Johns
With the sun setting, I worried I made a huge mistake. That the monastery had closed for the day.
“Okay, babies.” Ahead, the monk had stopped. The sun shone bright before him, rolling long shadows off his back.
A branch snagged my arm; I stopped to release my sleeve.
“Come.” The monk beckoned me forward like the lucky blessings cat.
Pushing through the thicket, I took one final wide step to stand beside him, then squinted in the light and gasped. Wild red blooms decorated the unkempt grasses as far as I could see.
“See?” The monk offered the field. “Babies.”
I covered my lips with a hand.
Naoko’s words whispered from memory, From the clearing’s mouth, the earth bleeds red, and I peer into death’s pregnant, bloated belly.
It was beautiful and disturbing. The concrete sculptures with fabric bibs and caps of red stood every which way, without any set order. Some sat in neat rows, some climbed the embankment, others faced one another in silent conversation.
The monk turned to leave, but I tapped his arm. He’d misunderstood. “No, I’m wanting info on Brother Daigan. Brother Daigan who helped the babies.”
“Yes. There.”
“There?” I blinked.
He indicated to a statue. “There.”
“That’s a Jizō statue. I’m wanting info on Brother Daigan.”
“Yes, Ojizō-sama, Daigan. There.” He pointed to another one. “And there.”
I pushed past the monk to encroach the clearing below, needing to understand his meaning. A Jizō smiled up at me, its bib of red faded pink from the sun. I spun to the monk at my heels, then pointed. “This? This is Brother Daigan?”
“Yes. Ojizō-sama, Daigan.” His thick brows pushed down.
“And this one?” I asked, almost yelling while pointing to another.
“Yes.” The monk again presented the field of red. The one we now stood in. “All Ojizō-sama, Daigan.”
Prickly fingers crawled the length of my spine. Fingers that pinched little noses and covered their cries.
“Ojizō-sama...” I said it slower, breaking the syllables apart. “O-jizo.” My jaw dropped.
Jizō statues.
All.
Naoko said, “Mizuko, water children—the stillborn, miscarried and aborted—cannot cross over alone. Jizō wears the baby’s clothing, a bright red bib and cap, to show their connection.”
Tears welled up. Brother Daigan wasn’t a monk who helped babies find a new home, at least not a living one. He was the spirit that helped the babies cross over. Naoko had told me as much.
My heart jumped.
Oh, my God, the pact.
“If we could not keep our babies or keep them safe, we would seek out Brother Daigan and allow him to take them with honor and respect to a better home.
“After, I couldn’t bear it.”
Oh, Naoko.
I spun around, breathing hard, and searched the landscape for the monk. “Wait!” I yelled, then chased after him. “Wait! Please.”
He turned. The white robe shifting a beat behind.
“Where are the other babies?” My heart bulged with chaotic beats. Fear strangled it. “Um, half, Hafu.” I pointed to the field. “Where are the Hafus?”
“Ah...” His furrowed brows lifted and then the monk took the lead.
I followed, taking deep breaths, fearful for what I might find. Jizōs with little stone faces watched us as we passed. One had chubby cheeks and smiled. Another scowled. Some prayed in silence.
“There.” The monk pointed.
A grove of nonnative trees just like Naoko described it. Dark gray bark and leaves like spindly fingers. Some climbed the sky and towered above. Most were just over my head. This is where the mixed-blood babies lie, Hatsu had told Naoko.
I turned to take in the landscape, expecting small mounds of unmarked dirt. Instead, there were dozens and dozens of Jizō statues scattered every which way, except under one prominent tree. There, Jizō statues stood huddled in a perfect circle, their bonnets and bibs of red contrasted by blooms of white—I gasped.
Chrysanthemums.
Every week I pick the best flowers for my daughter, so she knows her importance to me. And I gather enough for her friends. The remembered words of Naoko and Shiori punctured my lungs.
Blood rushed my ears. Tears fell one after the other. I took a step, then another and another. Until I was face-to-face with Naoko’s truth. My father’s.
My own.
I dropped to my knees, folded into myself and cried.
I found her, Pops. I found my sister.
She was surrounded by friends.
One, two... I counted six. Hatsu escaped as did Sora, so one for Jin’s baby—the one with the homemade scarf? Aiko’s, maybe Chiyo’s and Yoko’s—the girl Naoko never met but heard the baby’s cries. I couldn’t think of more.
Each had its own face—two smiled, two cried, one slept—and my sister’s, with the most flowers around its base, and the only one with a wooden marker, looked right up at me.
We shared a private conversation just then. One long overdue.
It said, I’ve been looking for you and Here I am, here I am. I blinked back tears, fixed on the kanji-styled symbols etched in the wooden grave marker and painted red. What did they say?
I turned to ask the monk, but he had gone. I fumbled for my phone, snapped a picture of the writing and ran back through the nonnative trees, yelling for him to wait.
“Hello? Sir?” I wove through and around one burial plot after another. I spotted him in the distance, approaching the embankment on his way back to the trail. “Sir?”
He turned.
I ran faster, my heart pounded, and when I reached him, I couldn’t catch my breath.
Phone in hand, I clicked the image and held it out. His eyes darted from the image to mine.
“What does that say?” I pointed to the image. “That.” I motioned, trying to coax his words. Desperate to hear them.
He reached into the deep pocket of his robe and pulled out reading glasses. The wire frames balanced on the tip of his nose. He squinted. “Oh, Chīsai tori.”
My heart jumped. “I’m sorry?”
“Chīsai tori.” He smiled.
I didn’t understand.
“Ahhh...” Using his finger and thumb, he showed a small space between them. “Chīsai.” Then he looked up to the sky, looked left, then right. “There, tori.” A brown bird flew overhead with a tan underbelly. He flapped his arms and pointed again.
“Bird? Tori is ‘bird’?” Tori is “bird” in Japanese? “Chīsai tori, Little Bird.”
I looked to the picture on my phone again.
To the grave marker.
To my sister’s name.
My name.
The name we shared.
* * *
Pops didn’t forget Little Bird. He named me after her. And maybe I never would know his full story of wants or dreams, or what had happened to keep him from them. It didn’t matter because I knew Pops’s heart. And just as he said in his letter to Naoko—he carried her there.
Through tears I thanked the monk and wandered back to my sister, my mind swimming.
Letters. Naoko said there were more letters and she “buried them with her sorrow.” Did she mean she buried them here? Did my sister have Pops’s other letters all along? If so, Little Bird knew for certain the how and the why, even if I never would. But knowing the man my father was and, through Naoko, meeting the boy that got him there, I believe with all my heart he tried to return.
There was only one thing left to do.
Keep my promise.
I unfastened my mother’s silk scarf—Naoko’s scarf—from around my neck and carefully wrapped it around my sister’s Jizō stat
ue. Surrounded by blooms of white, it not only wore a cap and bib of red, but now a scarf that had traveled the great ocean twice and passed between fathers and daughters and husbands and wives. I told my sister how we shared the same name and, in passing this scarf to her, how it carried all our love.
Her mother’s, her father’s and mine.
In parting ways, Naoko had said, “What I want, what I hope, is for you to finally make peace with your father’s past. Know that by meeting you, learning your name, you have allowed peace in mine.”
In learning my sister’s name, I have, too.
Like Okaasan had done with Naoko, and Naoko with her Little Bird, after a night of long conversation, telling stories and shedding tears with my sister, of sharing everything I could about Pops, our father, the man I still adored and knew, I set the past free.
I set it free for both of us.
For all of us.
The bird no longer in my hands.
EPILOGUE
Japan, Present Day
Time, I have said before, does not discriminate. It does not care if we are happy or sad. It does not wait, slow or hurry. It is a linear creature, traveling in one direction, and it is constant.
But is it forgiving?
I often wonder this.
For years darkness had weakened my bones, so I could not walk away from the past. It haunted me, whispering if only and what if. Satoshi said it was just my sorrow working itself free, and only by allowing the process could I face my ghosts.
I’d been clipping flowers when I saw Hajime’s.
I placed a stem in my basket, then shooed away an irate bee. I motioned again as it buzzed near my face. When I looked up, I caught sight of a man walking down the road toward the house. A man wearing tan pants and a white button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up. I squinted into the afternoon glare but saw only dancing sun spots of yellow and blue.
I shielded my eyes and narrowed them to focus. There was something familiar to the man’s long, stretched-out steps and natural, easy stride. I tilted my head as he neared, disoriented. He had the same dark hair, but longer. The angular jaw with indented chin just like Little Bird’s. My basket of flowers dropped as did my heart, and I stared in disbelief.
“Hajime?” It was not quite a whisper.
My legs wobbled. My hands covered my mouth. There was not enough air for my lungs and my chest ached for trying.
The sun spots followed him as he moved around me, orbs with tails of light like the hitodama soul fires that accompany living spirits. Was Hajime visiting from a dream? Or was I dreaming of Hajime? What was real? The memory of our match meeting played out in my mind. The words I said that quieted Grandmother. Instead of which is real, maybe it is both. True happiness existing in the in-between. Had I somehow found my place between them, once again?
We stared at one another and shared a silent conversation.
Cricket, I love you, I tried to return.
I know, I cried. I know.
I reached out to touch him, but my fingertips grazed only light.
When Satoshi called from the house, I turned. He asked what was wrong, but I was unable to speak. When I looked back, the vision of Hajime had vanished.
A figment or a gift? Maybe it was both. For after, I was able to love again with an open heart. I hoped it had allowed Hajime the same.
After meeting Tori Kovač and learning her story, I knew it had.
And in sharing my story with Hajime’s daughter, I realized it wasn’t mine alone. It also belonged to Jin, Hatsu and Sora, to every young woman and serviceman who fell in love and faced unimaginable choices and hardships. To every baby born between them, to the hundreds of children who were adopted and to the thousands that didn’t survive.
My story also belonged to Tori, and I hope as a writer she shares it. Because like the starfish story, it might matter to that one, and that one. Maybe Hatsu’s daughter will recognize the wedding story of twinkling lights and find her way home. Maybe others will know that their parents tried. That despite the world’s prejudice, they loved.
I hold Hajime’s letter close to my heart, shut my eyes and picture the distant flicker of a thousand lights, knowing Grandmother’s wisdom was wrong.
Sorrow and happiness do not pass. They burrow in deep and become our bones. We stand on their uneven legs, trying to keep balance when there is none.
There is only love. Only truth.
And this is mine.
* * *
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Although The Woman in the White Kimono is a work of fiction, I crafted it from real events and stories, including my own—or rather, my father’s. His story of the beautiful Japanese girl he loved while enlisted in the US Navy. Her family had invited him to a traditional tea, but upon meeting him, an American sailor, he was refused. From there, research and my imagination took over.
I worked backward from what I knew—locations of ports, service dates and my father’s story. Then forward with research, digging through international marriage and birth registry laws for the United States, Japan and the military. From all three, I found only bureaucratic red tape designed to thwart interracial marriage. The small percentage of servicemen permitted to marry confronted strict immigration quotas and, when they returned home, America’s anti-miscegenation laws. And while Japanese brides faced serious discrimination in the US, it was nothing compared to those left behind in Japan. Exiles in their own country, these women had no means of support.
Over ten thousand babies were born to American servicemen and Japanese women before, during and after the Occupation. Ten thousand. Out of those, just over seven hundred children were surrendered to the Elizabeth Saunders Home—an orphanage in Oiso, Japan, created in 1948 by Miki Sawada, the Mitsubishi heiress, specifically for abandoned mixed-race children.
But how and why did this happen?
By answering those questions, I was able to create a probable narrative, but it was in finding the real-life survivors—the children of the Elizabeth Saunders Home—and in learning their stories that The Woman in the White Kimono took on a story of its own.
The Orphanage in Oiso
I based the orphanage for mixed-race babies in Oiso that Naoko learns about on the real-life Elizabeth Saunders Home created in 1948 by Miki Sawada, the Mitsubishi heiress. In her autobiography, Miki states that in 1947, while riding on a train, the dead body of a mixed-race baby wrapped in layers of newspaper and cloth fell from an overhead compartment onto her lap. This horrific incident inspired her to start the orphanage.
The home took on the name Elizabeth Saunders in honor of the orphanage’s first donor, a Christian Englishwoman who spent forty years in Japan as a governess in the service of the Mitsui family.
Naoko, Jin, Hatsu, Sora, Chiyo, Aiko and Yoko
Naoko and the girls in the maternity home are inspired from real-life stories of the many adoptees from the Elizabeth Saunders Home I met and interviewed while attending the first US reunion held on Shelter Island in San Diego. I continue to be a part of this wonderful community through the Elizabeth Saunders Home Reunion Group on Facebook, which is run by the great-niece of Elizabeth Saunders.
The Bamboo Maternity Home
The Bamboo Maternity Home is fictional, but I based it on the Kotobuki Maternity Hospital in Shinjukuin, Japan. In 1948, Waseda police officers, working from a tip, found the remains of five babies. When the autopsies revealed they had not died of natural causes, they searched the property and discovered seventy more. However, due to the expansive grounds, the exact death toll remains unknown.
Housemother Sato
Miyuki Ishikawa, the real-life “Demon Midwife” who ran the Kotobuki Maternity Hospital in the 1940s, inspired the character of Housemother Sato. Tried in the Tokyo District Court, and based on testimonies, they charged Miyuki Ishikawa with over one hundred and sixty infants’ a
nd children’s deaths. Found guilty, they sentenced her to eight years in prison.
Because of this publicized incident, on June 24, 1949, abortion for “economic reasons only” was legalized under the Eugenic Protection Law in Japan, and a national examination system for midwives was established.
In 1952, Miyuki Ishikawa appealed the eight-year sentence, citing she had inadequate economic means to support the influx of unwanted babies born in her maternity home, and won. The Tokyo High Court reduced her original sentence to just four years.
The Girl with Red Shoes
The song and the stories that inspired the statues are all true. The little girl’s name was Iwasaki Kimi, and the original statue in her honor stands in Yokohama, where the orphanage once stood. On June 27, 2010, to commemorate the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Port of Yokohama, Japan, delegates from Japan presented a matching “Girl with Red Shoes” statue as a gift to their sister city, the Port of San Diego. The statue stands on the shore of Shelter Island near the US naval base.
The Village in Taura where Hajime rents a house
The village in the real town of Taura is fictional, but I based the community on the real-life Eta hamlets that once existed in Japan. Burakumin were a socioeconomic minority within the larger Japanese ethnic group. They were members of outcast communities in the Japanese feudal era, composed of those working in occupations considered impure or tainted by death, such as executioners, undertakers, butchers or tanners. Historically, they suffered severe discrimination and ostracism. Although the Burakumin class was officially abolished in 1871, their descendants still face discrimination.
Jizō statues and Ojizō-sama
In traditional Japanese Buddhist teachings, Ojizō-sama is the monk known for helping babies cross over to the afterlife. It is said mizuko, water children—the stillborn, miscarried and aborted—cannot cross over alone. A Jizō statue wears the baby’s clothing, a bright red bib and cap, to alert Ojizō-sama they are waiting for him to smuggle them into the afterlife in the sleeves of his robe. Jizō statues are common in cemeteries throughout Japan.