Dolls of Hope (11 page)

Before the ceremony began, they were all invited to walk past the tables where dolls slept in their crates. They were only a few of the thousands sent from America. The girls filed past, pausing to admire each doll, some with golden curls, others with brown.

Letters written in English accompanied each doll, with Japanese translations beside them. A photographer moved among the tables, pausing to set some of the dolls upright for better pictures.

Chiyo paused before a beautiful doll with golden curls and a friendly smile. When she took time to read the translated letter, the rest of her group pushed on past. She didn’t care. She would never have a chance like this again.

The doll’s passport said her name was Emily Grace. “You are the prettiest one,” Chiyo whispered to her. The letter was signed by a girl named Lexie and included a haiku.

My doll travels far.
Her arms open wide for hugs.
Will blossoms greet her?

“Yes, they will,” Chiyo promised. “We are celebrating Hinamatsuri. You will see peach orchards filled with blossoms.” A second haiku had been tucked beside the letter. Chiyo decided she liked it best.

Emily Grace glows.
Her warm smile carries friendship.
Sunlight after rain.

Someone shouted, “Look out!”

Bomb!
Chiyo thought, as Hoshi’s suggestion flashed through her head. In the same moment, the doll began to topple. Realizing that someone had bumped the display, Chiyo grabbed the falling doll while the box, suitcase, and passport flew to the floor.

As if waking from her long sea voyage, Emily Grace opened her dark-lashed blue eyes. They looked directly into Chiyo’s. In a sweet, clear voice, the doll said, “Mama.”

Okaasan.
That was what the word
Mama
meant. For Chiyo, everything else disappeared, even the white flashes from bulbs in dozens of cameras. In that moment, her heart melted. Love for Emily Grace flooded in, crowding out everything.

“You are the sweetest doll in the world,” Chiyo told her. “Oh, how I hope you will come to my school.”

As she shifted the doll in her arms, Emily Grace said again, “Mama.”

Chiyo held her close, gazing into the doll’s blue eyes with all the longing she felt inside. “Your journey is over,” she whispered. “You are home.”

A camera flashed. She was barely aware of it until Hoshi’s voice cut in. “Sensei, Chiyo is holding a doll! She has forgotten not to touch them!”

Oki-sensei exclaimed, “Miss Tamura! Replace that doll at once!”

Chiyo felt dazed, as if returning from somewhere far away. The teacher’s shock and Hoshi’s secret smile were sharp reminders. “She was falling, Sensei. Someone bumped her box.”

The box was back on the table. Chiyo placed Emily Grace carefully inside.

Oki-sensei made her way past several girls to pull Chiyo from the display. “You will sit in a chair along the side of the room and watch the ceremony. You will not sing with the others.”

Not sing? After all her practice? Chiyo wanted to sing a welcome especially for Emily Grace.

“She fell,” she repeated, bowing. “Someone called a warning. I caught her.” Oki-sensei would not yield. Chiyo realized that the teacher was embarrassed that one of her girls had been seen holding a doll.

Should I have let Emily Grace smash on the floor?
She bit back the words. Arguing with the teacher would not help, but she seethed with the unfairness as Hana appeared beside her.

“Who called a warning?” Hana asked.

“A girl. I didn’t know her voice.”

“Was Hoshi nearby?”

“Hoshi!” Chiyo laughed, though she wasn’t amused. “Hoshi never shouts. Besides, she hates the dolls. She wouldn’t have called a warning. She’d have let Emily Grace fall and hope to see her break.”

Hana shook her head. “Don’t you see what happened? Hoshi shouted the warning. She meant for you to catch the doll so she could blame you for touching it. She probably pushed the box herself, to get you in trouble. Let’s go tell Sensei what really happened.”

Chiyo shook her head. “I may be a girl from a hill farm, but even I have learned that Sensei will not confront General Miyamoto’s daughter.”

Trying to bury resentment, she walked past the rows of seated girls and sank onto a low bench at one side. But she wasn’t sorry to have held Emily Grace, even for a little while.

C
hiyo sat carefully, with her feet together and her hands clasped in her lap. She meant to do nothing more to upset her teachers. If a report reached Yamada-san that she had broken the rule and touched a doll, she hoped he would also hear that she sat dutifully quiet afterward.

Hundreds of girls filled the audience: Chiyo saw students of all ages. Bulbs flashed as photographers shot picture after picture. Men from newspapers and even from magazines moved through the crowd with notebooks and pencils.

After opening speeches, everyone but Chiyo sang first the Japanese and then the American anthems. The music soared through Chiyo, causing her pain as well as pleasure. Her voice could not be among the others, though she had done nothing wrong.

After more speeches, the audience stirred with fresh interest. An American girl wearing a white ruffled dress and bonnet walked onto the stage. She was Miss Betty Ballantine, the American ambassador’s seven-year-old daughter, who spoke in Japanese, bringing greetings from the children of America. Chiyo thought her words were sweet and presented without shyness in front of all these people.

Forty-eight American girls lined up on one side of the stage, holding forty-eight dolls to represent each American state. Across from them, forty-eight girls from Japanese schools stood in respectful ranks. Chiyo felt her heart beat faster, as if she were one of them, though no one from her school was onstage.

As the American girls’ voices rose in the “Doll Song,” Chiyo looked with longing toward Emily Grace, still on the long table with the others.

Then Miss Tokugawa Yukiko, who was descended from the last of the shoguns, walked to the center of the stage. Chiyo leaned forward as if a few inches could help her see better.

Chiyo liked Miss Tokugawa’s dark pleated skirt and matching jacket better than Miss Ballantine’s bright white ruffles. Yukiko’s black hair shining in the light looked far nicer than the ruffles covering Betty’s head. To Chiyo, the bright white seemed to shout,
Look at me! Here I am!
Yukiko knew that people would see her. She didn’t need to wear white.

Are girls from our two countries so different?
Chiyo wondered. Yet they all loved dolls and welcomed friendship.
Well, most of them,
she corrected herself, remembering Miyamoto Hoshi.

Betty Ballantine presented the doll representing all of America to Miss Tokugawa. How gracefully seven-year-old Yukiko received the doll.
I could learn better manners in five minutes with her,
Chiyo thought,
than in an hour spent watching Hoshi.

Pride glowed through her as each Japanese girl accepted a doll and cradled it carefully. Miss Tokugawa presented greetings from Japanese children. Then it was time to sing “The Welcome Song” to the dolls.

Chiyo ached with unfairness.
I sit here like part of the wall. Because of Miyamoto Hoshi.

I will not let Hoshi stop me!

Sensei wouldn’t interrupt the program, and Chiyo didn’t care what happened after that. She sprang to her feet and let her voice ring out with the others, putting into the song all that she was feeling, especially when she reached the last words,
“We will all love you and be nice to you.”

As the song faded, a young man leaned against the wall nearby. A large camera hung from a strap over one of his shoulders. “You have a pretty voice,” he said softly while the American ambassador prepared to speak. “You sing the words as if they come from your heart.”

“Arigatogozaimasu,”
she whispered. Mrs. Ogata’s rules flashed through her head.
No talking to men.

“I’d wager the dolls liked the song,” the man said. “They’ve come a long way.”

“Hai.”
She answered without meaning to, but she hoped the dolls had heard her singing.

“What did you whisper to that one doll?” he asked. “The one you were holding?”

Chiyo gazed at her hands, but he smiled when everyone else had frowned at her and he didn’t sound as if he blamed her.

In her silence, he said, “You were quick to catch her when she fell. Your teacher should be proud of you.”

She looked at him then, to see if he had a Hoshi expression, but he looked as if he meant his words. He might have been the only friendly person in this entire hall, and she didn’t want to be rude. What was the rest of that rule?
No talking to men outside of school and family.

This was school, in a way. She spoke to the fingers she twisted in her lap. “I told her, ‘You are home.’”

“You are home,” he repeated. “You have a kind heart. I am glad to know you, Miss . . . ?”

“Tamura Chiyo.” Her name was out before she thought twice. Now it was too late to call it back. But what harm could come of telling him her name? She hoped he wouldn’t ask why she was sitting here alone.

The American ambassador began his speech, saying, “This day will be remembered as one that helped forge friendship between the two countries, friendship that will never be broken.”

Chiyo hoped that Hoshi would take those words to her father, but he would probably have something unpleasant to say about them. What if others felt like General Miyamoto? Chiyo longed to hold Emily Grace one last time.

A band played while women from the American Association carried baskets of candy through the audience. Chiyo followed them with her eyes, wondering if any of the women would notice her sitting at the side.

“We can’t let you be overlooked,” the photographer said, startling her. She had almost forgotten he was there. “Wait here, Tamura Chiyo.” He walked swiftly to the nearest American woman.

When he returned with a packet for her, Chiyo thanked him shyly. Candy wouldn’t make up for the sorrow she felt in leaving without Emily Grace, but it was nice, and something she rarely tasted. She held the packet in her lap until the photographer moved away.

As she unwrapped a hard lemon ball, Oki-sensei hurried to her.

“You may rejoin the girls from Tsuchiura.” Oki-sensei looked over at the photographer with an even sterner frown than she had given Chiyo for catching the doll. With one hand on Chiyo’s arm, she hurried her toward her group.

On the way back to the hotel, Chiyo kept thinking of Emily Grace. She hadn’t expected to love the doll, but she missed her as if she had known her always. She sat twisting the candy packet in her hands while, to either side, her friends exclaimed over the flavors.

At dinner and all through the rest of the evening, the girls talked about the ceremony. “Did you see Miss Ballantine when she offered the doll representing America to Miss Tokugawa? What a pretty ruffled dress she wore.”

“Did you think it pretty?” That was Hoshi. “I thought it looked showy. A girl should not draw attention to herself.”

Kimiko said mildly, “As a representative of her country, she was there to be noticed.”

Chiyo did not join the conversation. She was glad to climb onto her futon and welcome sleep. Maybe by tomorrow, her disgrace for touching the doll would be forgotten.

She woke hours later, with early-morning sunlight streaming into the room and Hana leaping onto the futon beside her. “Chiyo! Chiyo! Wake up! Your picture! It’s in the newspaper! You’re famous!”

“W
hat?” Chiyo tried to sit up. “You’re squashing me. Move!”

“Come and see!” Hana scrambled to her feet. “Oki-sensei is not pleased, but she never is. Hurry, Chiyo!”

“Wait! What’s going on?”

Again urging, “Hurry,” Hana slipped past the
fusuma
screen.

Newspaper? Hana’s words flared into Chiyo’s mind. She was in a newspaper? How could that be true — it couldn’t be — but if it was, what would Yamada Nori think?

Whatever he thought, it wouldn’t be good. If she was really in the newspaper. Which she couldn’t be.

Her mind reeled with a memory of photographers and flashing bulbs. Had the paper published a picture of a disobedient girl forbidden to sing with her class? She pulled on her cotton kimono, her fingers fumbling.