So Far from the Bamboo Grove (14 page)

Mr. Naido had been on my side ever since I came to this school and I did not know how to thank him, but I decided that at the end of the term I would show him report sheets that said straight A plus!

As I left the furnace room one day I noticed a cart full of cans and empty bottles. What was he doing with them? I asked.

“I sell them,” he said. “The girls are very wasteful. Most of their fathers are prestigious and the girls are badly spoiled.”

“If I bring some cans will you sell them for me?” I asked.

“Bring cans anytime,” he said, slowly but without stuttering.

So, my walking posture changed. I developed the habit of looking down when I walked, to search for cans and bottles. Whenever I found one I put it in Ko's rucksack and took it to Mr. Naido.

The price of everything had tripled. Ko and I continued to live poorly, for Ko would not touch Mother's hidden money.

She was doing well at Seian University, majoring in home economics. The professors liked Ko's sewing, and often they handed her kimonos to make for department stores. She did especially well designing women's western garments.

The department stores did not want leftover material, so Ko kept it. She made babies' and toddlers' clothes and children's play items. These she gave to me to sell from door to door on my way home from school.

“You can have that money,” she said. “Buy yourself a pair of shoes.”

For a pair of shoes I worked hard to sell the items Ko made. Whatever I earned I placed beneath Mother's urn. I felt secure with Mother watching my earnings.

Ko began asking her classmates to save all their scraps. From them she made beanbags for girls, the traditional New Year's toy. She showed me how to make them too and said I should make a couple of
them each night when I had finished my homework.

Because New Year's was coming many families with little girls wanted to buy beanbags, and I wanted a new pair of shoes badly. When I had enough bags I went to this house and that house one afternoon to sell. Then I walked home on the car tracks, jumping aside when a car approached. Whenever I came to a station and saw a newspaper flapping on a bench I picked it up for fuel.

Ko was already home and had waited supper for me. “What took you so long? I was worried.”

“I sold everything,” I said happily, and placed the money under Mother's urn.

“You must come home before dark,” said Ko. “I don't want you wandering around.”

I talked back. “I was not wandering. I want a pair of shoes!”

“Your safety is more important than shoes,” Ko said. “Let's eat.”

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 han
dling 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, nar
row 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.