Dolls of Hope (8 page)

Chiyo wiped her fingers on her skirt before daring to open the beautiful box. When she parted the tissue inside, rose silk glowed beneath. She lifted folds of rippling fabric, marveling over vibrant flowers hand-painted onto the cloth. “How beautiful!” Words were not enough. She could only look at him and hope that the glow in her face told him more than words could say.

Until this minute, she had expected to wear the borrowed school uniform to Tokyo. She folded the beautiful kimono back into its box. She had never owned anything so elegant.

“Your vocal teacher is greatly satisfied with your progress,” Yamada-san said. “It pleases me to hear that.”

Chiyo felt his words land on the good side of her mental scale. Excitement rushed through her. “I am to be one of six from the vocal group who will go to Tokyo to welcome the Friendship Dolls!”

“I am sorry, but you will not be going with them.”

“What?” The word came out as a squeak.

“It is too soon for you to make such a trip.” He looked regretful but firm. “The other girls are more sophisticated. You would be made unhappy. It is better you stay here and pay attention to your lessons.”

She spoke as wistfully as she could manage, and the words sounded true because they were true. “I am sorry. The granddaughter of a shogun is to accept the first doll. I might have learned from her beautiful manners.”

Yamada-san looked thoughtful. “I might permit you to go, if Miss Miyamoto requests your company.”

That would never happen. Hopes that had barely risen scattered like leaves on the wind. Hoshi had insulted her when they met, humiliated her over the chair cushion, and deliberately confused her in dance. She had burned Momo!

Trying to keep despair from her voice, Chiyo said, “The general’s daughter will never request the company of the daughter of a farmer. To do so would be to lose her father’s respect.”

Her chest felt squeezed and she drew a swift breath. “I do not have to be in Hoshi’s small circle of friends to learn by observing the shogun’s granddaughter.”

He nodded. “An excellent argument.” A flicker in his eyes reminded her that he, too, was a farmer. Again, she dared to hope and even to hide a smile.

What will Miyamoto Hoshi say if she learns that she is the reason I am to join the trip to Tokyo?

A
s Chiyo stroked the box holding the kimono, Yamada-san asked, “Will there be time to shop in Tokyo?”

Chiyo’s hands stilled. “Hoshi and Kimiko plan to shop.”

In the same considering tone, Yamada-san said, “You will wish to buy a keepsake. Have you spent all the coins I gave you earlier?”

“No, Yamada-san.” Relief rose through her. She had spent only a single sen, the one donated for the large dolls meant for the children in America. “I have most of them in my purse.”

“Excellent. I could wish such frugality of my own two daughters. But do not be afraid to spend the coins, little sister. They are meant to be enjoyed.”

In her home, money was not for pleasure, but for food and to help the family survive from one year to the next. Feeling as if she took rice from her mother’s plate, she said, “I would like to surprise my mother with a small gift.”

He nodded approval before warning, “Tokyo shops can be expensive. Do you have your purse with you?”

This time, she could give him the answer he wanted. “
Hai,
Yamada-san, I never leave it behind.”

“You are wise. Open it, please.”

She thought he meant to check her honesty, to see if the coins were really unspent. Why would he do that? She was always truthful.

When she opened the small purse, he poured a handful of coins onto those already there.
A treasure,
she thought, looking from the purse to Yamada-san in shock. She found her voice quickly.
“Arigatogozaimasu.”

“Spend it with pleasure.” He rose to his feet. She sprang to her own, rejoicing inside. She was going to Tokyo. She had coins to spend and a beautiful new kimono. Yamada Nori might be a good husband for her sister after all.

When Chiyo lifted the kimono from its wrappings later, sitting on her futon in the sleeping area, Hana clapped her hands. “It’s perfect for your sister’s wedding!”

“And for Tokyo!” Chiyo exclaimed. “Yamada-san almost said I couldn’t go, but I told him I will learn from seeing the beautiful manners of a shogun’s granddaughter.”

She slid the silk through her fingers. Had anything in the whole entire world ever felt so soft? “I thought Yamada Nori was too old for Masako. Now I think she’s lucky.” She grinned at the other boarding girls in the room. “I think I’m lucky, too.”

She realized that the girls were exchanging worried glances. They had all become silent. “Your kimonos are just as pretty,” she said, sorry that she had seemed to boast and glad she hadn’t told them about the money in the red silk purse.

“It’s not that,” Hana said. “None of us can wear kimonos. Sensei told us after you’d gone. Miss Tokugawa, the granddaughter of the shogun, is going to wear her school uniform. So we will, too, even Hoshi.”

Chiyo tried to hide her disappointment as she folded the beautiful kimono into its wrappings. Hana touched her arm gently. “Think how nice it will be to have the kimono saved especially for your sister’s wedding.”

Hana’s encouragement helped Chiyo smile. Yamada-san was wrong about Nakata Hana. She was a good friend.

As if to take her mind from disappointment, Shizuko said, “Did you know Mrs. Ogata once trained to be a geisha?”

Hana glanced cautiously toward the door. “I heard that she chose our rules from the ones she learned.”

The girls all giggled. “‘No talking with men outside of school or family,’” Shizuko said, adding, “Where would we find men to talk to?”

“‘Speak softly and respectfully,’” Hana said, repeating another of the rules. “I admit to having trouble with that one at times.”

Chiyo remembered another. “‘Never show anger, jealousy, or visible emotion.’ Hoshi learned that one well, but she inspires plenty of emotion in me!”

Hana laughed and tugged her blanket to her chin. Chiyo snuggled onto her own futon. She was beginning to fit in here. Maybe she would not disappoint her parents or Yamada Nori after all.

On the day they were to leave for Tokyo, excitement sparked through the classrooms. “A rickshaw is waiting outside!” Everyone crowded to peer through windows while teachers urged them to behave like young ladies.

“See! The driver waits beyond the gate.”

“There’s another!”

“And a third!”

The girls who weren’t going were almost as excited as those who were. At last, the six with their two teachers settled into the wheeled carts and the drivers set off at a steady pace for the Tsuchiura train station.

“I have seen rickshaws before, but never ridden in one,” Chiyo confided to Hana and Shizuko on either side of her.

“Next, a train!” Hana exclaimed.

Chiyo couldn’t imagine such a thing. Her heart beat faster and she couldn’t stop smiling. The six girls were a group now, she thought, sharing this special experience. She and Hoshi might even put their private wars behind them.

When they climbed from the rickshaws at the station, Chiyo felt as if she had left her familiar world behind. While most of the group waited inside, she stood on the platform with Hana, peering eagerly down the tracks.

It seemed to take forever, but at last the great round nose of the train appeared far down the track, growing rapidly larger as it roared toward the station. Black smoke poured from the stack. The whistle blasted.
Come with me,
it urged in a breath-catching promise of adventure.

Chiyo bounced from one foot to the other. “There it is! Oh, Hana, there it is!”

The train chugged into the station, becoming a giant machine, huge and black and shuddering with power. They couldn’t talk above the loud chuffing of the engine. The whistle, which sounded so filled with promise from a distance, made them cover their ears when it blasted nearby. Huge black wheels squealed to a stop. Metal bars banged and crashed.

The early-March wind caught steam from the stacks and flung it across the platform to billow around them. The engineer leaned from the window of his cab, waving as the engine moved past, bringing the passenger cars in line with the platform. The smell of hot metal washed from the wheels.

The teachers hurried from the station with the rest of the group and led them all down the line of windowed cars to the last. Metal steps rose from each side of a small platform with a waist-high railing across the end. From there, a door opened into the back of the car.

Hoshi and Kimiko were first to board, looking as if they rode a train every day. Tomi and Shizuko were next, their expressions solemn. Chiyo hung back, trying to take everything in, to remember it all for Yumi and her little sister, Kimi, before following Hana up the metal steps onto the train platform.

She paused, feeling the metal vibrate beneath her feet. When she looked down, she saw the tracks through cracks between the plates. The entire train was restless, like Yamada Nori’s horse eager to be on its way. She turned to go inside the car.

Hoshi blocked the way. “Be careful, hill country girl. These platforms can be dangerous. I have heard of people falling onto the rails.”

As Chiyo sucked in her breath, Hoshi looked hard into her eyes. “You would not be safe if caught back here while the wheels are turning.” She stepped into the car. “It is so sad, Miss Tamura, that you do not fit in with the rest of us.”

“Hana doesn’t agree with you,” Chiyo exclaimed.

Hoshi’s perfect eyebrows lifted slightly. “Dear Hana. Like her father, she loves to take up lost causes.” She turned away, adding, “Sometimes it’s best to leave the lost cause where it belongs.”

The warning against falling under the wheels was meant to scare me,
Chiyo told herself as Hoshi’s graceful steps carried her deeper into the car. But she followed quickly, glad to leave the platform.

Hana called, “I saved you a seat by the window.”

As Chiyo slid gratefully into the far seat, Hana leaned close to ask, “What did Hoshi want?”

Chiyo smiled with her teeth together. “Hoshi is worried about my safety. She warned me that the train platform can be dangerous.”

“She is thoughtful,” Hana said, her tone as sarcastic as Chiyo’s. But her eyes grew serious. “Be careful, Chiyo. Do not be alone out there.”

The train whistle blasted again. Heavy connectors banged together. The wheels began to turn. Hana leaned across Chiyo to peer through the window while the entire train throbbed with energy.

To Chiyo, it was a great pulsing creature of steel and steam meant to carry them all the way to Tokyo, wheels clattering and cars swaying. Beyond the window, fields and houses swept by. Yamada Nori’s horse and carriage had not traveled so fast.

Chiyo laughed aloud with joy.
Okaasan
had been right. Life was changing. Who in her village had ever traveled by train? Probably no one.

As time passed, Hana sank back in her seat, but Chiyo leaned into the window, eager for her first sight of Tokyo.

Another small village came into view. The train chugged to a stop for three people waiting on the platform. The door at the back of Chiyo’s car swung open to admit a woman carrying a basket of oranges. She held one out. “Only one sen!”

Hana was sleeping. It would be fun to surprise her with an orange to share. Hadn’t Yamada-san said the coins were for pleasure? Chiyo brought her purse from a skirt pocket and picked through for a sen.

The woman moved quickly through the car. People slept or talked, paying no attention. As the vendor returned to the back platform, Chiyo called, “Wait, please. I would like to buy an orange.”

The train whistle swallowed her voice, and the door closed after the woman. Chiyo stepped over a small basket blocking the aisle and hurried to the train platform.

She was too late. The woman was off the train. The whistle blasted again and the huge iron wheels began to turn, picking up speed, faster and faster.

Chiyo clung to the back rail. Trees and homes pulled away at dizzying speed. Out here, the rumble and clatter and whistle blasts were even louder. Smoke and ashes swept around the sides of the train and into her face and hair, making her cough while her skirt and blouse whipped against her body.

The short distance from the platform rail to the safety of the car looked huge with the ground flying by at either side. She gathered her courage, then lunged from her grip on the rail to wrench the door handle. It didn’t move. The door was locked.