Dolls of Hope (3 page)

“Y
amada-san has business in Tsuchiura,”
Otousan
explained during the long ride home from the
omiai.
“In three days, he will take you to the new school in his buggy.”

Chiyo watched the lantern sway with the steps of the ox. Beyond, a full moon rose over the mountains. How could she admire the moon? In three days, she must leave her family and travel many miles down the mountain, a full day’s ride in a horse-drawn buggy. She was to leave her family.

Probably forever!

On the third morning, well before the sun was up, Chiyo stood silently while her mother fastened bundled belongings to her back, along with a cushion for the floor of the new classroom.

“
Otousan
cannot spare more time from the fields,” her mother had warned the night before. “You must walk, as your sister did each day when she worked in Yamada-san’s rice paddies.”

Okaasan’
s dark eyes had filled with concern. “We know you will make us proud of you, Chiyo-chan. Observe well the girl who is so respected by her teachers.”

Miyamoto Hoshi.
The name was burned across Chiyo’s mind. That girl was apparently the most perfectly behaved in all of Japan. What could she say to someone like that?

Yesterday, her last day in the village school, her friend Yumi had hugged her good-bye. “Come back and tell us all about it!”

Chiyo’s fears leaped to her tongue. “What can I say to the daughters of important men? Do you think they are interested in how the rice grows on our small farm or where to find wild herbs?”

“They should be,” Yumi answered loyally. “You have something better than their fathers’ importance. You have a loving family. And true friends. That’s worth talking about.”

Chiyo knew that her family and friends loved her. Since the disaster of the
omiai,
everyone had treated her so gently, she felt even worse. Now, as her family prepared to send her away,
Okaasan
spoke more intensely than was usual for her. “Japan is changing, Chiyo-chan. You must be brave and fierce while learning to change with it. The new school offers you that. Put fear behind and seize this opportunity.”

Her sister clasped both her hands. “Do your very best, little sister, so Yamada-san will bring you from the school for my wedding in May.”

A hollow feeling had been building inside Chiyo since she learned of the school in Tsuchiura. Now that hollow began to fill with tears. “I promise to watch Miss Miyamoto,” she said. “I will be like her . . . and I will come home. . . .”

She couldn’t say more. The next sound would be a sob.

“It is time to leave,” their mother warned. “Yamada-san will start for Tsuchiura at dawn, and his home is a long walk from our door.”

Chiyo clung to her mother and then her sister, their hugs made awkward by the bundle on her back. When she left her warmly lit doorway and made her way to the dark mountain path, she longed to rush back to her family.

Miyamoto Hoshi, the daughter of a high-ranking military man, would not show fear. Neither would Chiyo, the daughter of an ordinary farmer. Keeping her spine straight and her fears hidden, she began the five-mile foot journey down the mountain.

She pulled Masako’s
kokeshi
from a fold of her kimono and held Momo tightly, drawing comfort from her sister’s love.

Boulders and small waterfalls and leaning trees made splashes of white or darker shadows. Though the distance was long, the path led downhill and vanished more quickly beneath her steps than she had thought possible. The need to restore her honor to her family kept her hurrying forward.

She shivered despite her heavy cotton kimono. Walking would soon warm her, although fallen snow still lay along the roadsides. She was used to being out before dawn, but always in the bustle of a busy family. Now, as tree branches threw darker shadows wriggling across the road, she tried to step over them, half-fearing they would grab her ankles.

“It’s good I am almost grown,” she told the shadows. “I’m not easily scared like Yumi’s little sister.” And as the day began to lighten, there was Yamada Nori’s gate standing open for her. She rushed across gleaming stepping-stones to knock on the door.

A maid directed her to a room where she might refresh herself. When she returned, another maid pointed the way through a side door where Yamada Nori watched a servant harness his beautiful horse to a light buggy with a bench seat.

When he nodded to her, she bowed swiftly and hurried to join him. The servant placed her bundle and cushion in the back as Yamada-san lifted her onto the seat. Chiyo clutched the side. This was not like the oxcart. This was much farther from the ground. The horse didn’t stand still like the patient ox, but shifted its feet, making the buggy tremble.

Yamada-san clicked his tongue. The carriage jolted ahead, feeling even more fragile when it moved forward at a fast trot. What if they overturned on the uneven road?

Again, she held tightly to Momo. Somehow, the buggy stayed upright and they continued down the mountain.

Time became measured by the changing scene. The sun rose higher over the fast narrow stream that churned past her village. The stream gained strength from small waterfalls and side streams as they traveled lower, until finally it became a river. As the sun moved toward the west, the river spread into the long lake called Kasumigaura, its blue waters gleaming in the late-winter light. The very long ride was finally over.

They traveled through streets that seemed to exist in a different world than the one Chiyo knew, one even larger and busier than she had expected. Yamada-san halted the horse beside a roofed gate with a plant-lined bamboo fence to either side. Freshly washed stepping-stones led across a landscaped yard to a long building where doorways opened onto an outside walkway. A series of tiled roofs rose one over another. She could see the roof of a taller building beyond and thought there must be a courtyard in the center.

The fresh green scent of plants she didn’t recognize made her feel even farther from home. She swallowed hard, feeling as if the koi from ponds beyond the gate swam within her, nervously fluttering their fins.

For the first time since a brief stop for a box lunch provided by his housekeeper, Yamada-san turned and spoke. “The day grows late. I must go on. Introduce yourself to Hanarai-sensei. He is in charge of the school and is expecting you.”

The koi Chiyo imagined inside her stomach swam even faster. She was to enter this strange place without even Yamada-san to help her find her way.

S
he tried to think. What would Miyamoto Hoshi do? That perfect girl would keep her face serene, Chiyo decided. Then she would ask someone where to find the headmaster.

Yamada-san had not finished talking. “If you receive a good report from the school’s staff at the end of April, you may return home for your sister’s wedding in May. If not, you will stay here and work harder to improve.”

“
I must go home for Masako’s wedding,” Chiyo exclaimed. “I promised.”

Yamada-san’s eyes narrowed. “I would not expect to hear such an outburst from a student at this school.”

Chiyo followed his glance toward a group of girls in a doorway, some in kimonos, others wearing dark skirts and blouses. All of them hurried along the walkway to another door. Her clothes were nothing like theirs, and despite Yamada-san’s warning, Chiyo said, “They may not like me.”

“Liking is not important.” He climbed from the carriage and came around to lift her to the street. “You are here to learn. That is important. That is all that is important. Do you understand?”

He was right. Bowing, she answered softly, “
Hai,
Yamada-san. I will work hard.”

He indicated three girls in kimonos talking outside one of the rooms. “The taller girl on the right is Miyamoto Hoshi. Honor her with close attention. Shape your behavior after hers.”

Chiyo studied the fashionable girl who even from this distance looked frighteningly different. Forcing doubts aside, she told herself she could not miss her sister’s wedding. Bowing, she murmured, “
Hai,
Yamada-san.”

“Good.” He removed her bundle and floor cushion from the back, then handed her a small purse of red silk weighted with coins. “Go now.”

“Arigatogozaimasu,”
she said, thanking him in surprise for his generosity. In her family, every sen had to be spent carefully. She had never before had even one of her own.

Yamada Nori had scarcely spoken to her. He was leaving her alone outside this strange school. His buggy wheels rolled smoothly away, sounding as different from the squeaking wheels of her father’s oxcart as he was from her father.

But Yamada-san and his horse were her last ties to home, and he had given her money so she would have some independence. For one painful moment as the carriage rolled away, she struggled not to run after him.

Her destiny was set. She could not change it. Holding her belongings as if cradling part of home to her heart, she walked slowly over the gleaming stepping-stones.

The nearer she came to the girls in heavy silk kimonos, the more country dressed she felt, but Chiyo studied their expressions and arranged her own face into as near a copy as she could manage without a mirror. The three girls looked as if nothing had ever disturbed the calm of their lives and nothing ever would.

Was it true? Did they live charmed lives? Or was an expression as smooth as a flowing stream part of the new way she must learn?

None of them wore their hair hanging loose, as the girls her age did at home. Two wore paper ribbons to tie up the long shining lengths. Miyamoto Hoshi wore hers in a braid. They could not be ready to graduate from elementary school for at least another year. Yet to Chiyo, they all looked ready to wear their hair in the round buns meant to represent buds about to bloom into young women.

They’re girls,
Chiyo reassured herself,
just girls like me.
She would start by saying good afternoon, and she would remember to say please.

Still trying to mirror their expressions, she walked to Miyamoto Hoshi and bowed politely. “
Konnichiwa,
I am Tamura Chiyo, a new student. Would you please direct me to the headmaster?”

The other two girls looked at Hoshi. Hoshi’s perfect expression changed very little, yet the shape of her eyebrows, the turn of her lips, however subtle, suggested a lady regarding a peasant.

“Another foreign
ningyo,
” she said to her friends, who giggled. To Chiyo, she said, “You have confused our school with your own. I suggest you consult a member of the staff for directions.” The three of them hurried away with the quick small steps required by their kimonos.

Chiyo looked after them, puzzled. Had Yamada Nori made a mistake? Of course not. He was a friend of the headmaster here. And he had recognized Miyamoto Hoshi. Why did the girl call her a foreign doll?

We have not been introduced,
she reminded herself, pushing back a stir of resistance.
Girls here live by different rules. The difference is what I have come here to learn. That I feel snubbed is a lesson, not an insult.

Another girl came onto the walkway, one who looked a great deal friendlier.

“I am Nakata Hana,” the girl said. “Welcome to Tsuchiura, Tamura Chiyo. Now that you’ve met the worst of us, you must meet the best. That’s me!”

Chiyo liked Hana’s smile and the sparkle in her eyes, but she couldn’t get past Hoshi’s odd comment. “She called me
ningyo.
Why would she call me a doll?”

“I’ll carry your bundle to the sleeping room,” Hana said, taking it from Chiyo. “Go through that door and along the inner courtyard to Headmaster Hanarai’s office.” She paused before adding, “Don’t let Hoshi bother you.”

“But
ningyo
?”

Hana lowered her voice. “She was referring to thousands of American Friendship Dolls that have arrived in Yokohama. Her father is a general who says the dolls are an attempt to buy our goodwill, so she calls them unwanted foreign dolls.”

Chiyo was startled to hear that anyone disapproved of the dolls Yamada Nori had described with enthusiasm during the
omiai.
Hoshi’s comment troubled her even more. “I am not foreign.”

Hana laughed. “To Hoshi, anyone who is not from Tokyo or Tsuchiura is foreign and therefore unwelcome.”

Chiyo could not return the smile. A single thought burned through her.
I’m to model myself after Miyamoto Hoshi and I am not sure I can like her.

“I have changed my mind,” Hana said. “I will walk with you to the headmaster. You should not have to go there alone.” She looked curiously at Chiyo. “Why are you alone? Did you fall from the sky?”

Chiyo heard the joke but still could not smile. “Yamada Nori-san, the man my sister will marry, brought me in his carriage. But he had business in town and couldn’t wait.”

Did that sound as if she had been dumped at the gate? “He is wealthy,” she said, trying to explain. “Very busy.”

“Is your father in the military?” Hana asked, making Chiyo wonder if the girl’s offer to walk to the office was based on curiosity. “Or is he in politics, like mine?”