Dolls of Hope (25 page)

Yamada-san was looking at her with decision in his face. “I will arrange for a private tutor in your home.”

Private lessons! Without Hoshi to make trouble. “Could Yumi come, too?”

“Of course. You will enjoy learning together. Is it settled, then?”

She wanted so badly to say “
Hai,
it is settled. I will go back to the village and study with a private tutor.” How grand that sounded. And yet, it sounded lonely, too. For all her problems in Tsuchiura, she would miss everyone there, especially Hana, with her teasing eyes and quick humor.

It would be good to see Yumi again. But Yumi might not want to leave her friends at the village school for a private tutor. Worse, if she left Tsuchiura, Chiyo knew she would be turning away from
Okaasan’
s hopes.

And what about Emily Grace? She would have to leave the doll behind. Emily Grace belonged to the school. Hoshi would be gone, but someone else might feel as she did or want revenge for Hoshi.

If she stayed, Yamada-san might be angry.

“Tears?” he exclaimed. “Why is this?”

Words burst from Chiyo. “Masako wants to marry you. I’m afraid I will ruin her life.”

“How could you . . .” His voice trailed off. “Chiyo-chan, where you go to school has nothing to do with your sister. We will marry, if she is willing.”

“My family said I had to learn to be modest and not shame you.”

Yamada-san set down his cup. “Chiyo, listen to me. I was impressed by your adventurous spirit. I wanted to give you opportunities to grow that you would not find in the small village school. That is why I brought you to Tsuchiura. You should stay only if you wish it.”

Chiyo rubbed tears from her cheeks. Could it be true? Had he sent her to the expensive school because he thought it would be better for her, not because her behavior shamed Masako?

She felt his gaze on her face, though now she remembered to keep her eyes lowered as she murmured,
“Arigatogozaimasu.”

“Perhaps,” he mused, “school here was not the best choice. You are young yet, and missing your family.” After a long moment of silence, she risked a glance at him and saw decision come into his face.

“I will be in Tokyo on business for several days,” he said. “Prepare to return home when I return. I will provide a tutor to help with those classes where you are behind. You will help your sister prepare for her wedding.”

“I would like that.” Was he making the decision for her? He seemed certain she wanted to return home to stay, when she was not certain.

“The new term will begin in Tsuchiura after the wedding. By then, you will have had time enough to think everything through. You may decide whether to return here or stay with your family.”

She could choose to come back! She was to help with the wedding. Only afterward must she decide whether to try again to fit in with the others in Tsuchiura Girls’ School.

This time when she said
“Arigatogozaimasu,”
she meant her thanks with all her heart.

W
hen Chiyo came into the classroom the next morning, Hoshi was not present, but Shizuko was, looking pale and staring at her desk.

Kaito-sensei rang her bell for silence. “You are all aware of the recent unpleasantness. There is no need to go into details. Miyamoto Hoshi is no longer a student in this school. Perhaps you are wondering why Sakamoto Shizuko is in class. You are asking if failure to report a crime should also demand punishment.”

“It isn’t fair,” said a girl from across the room. “Chiyo was told to leave when Headmaster just
thought
she hurt the doll.”

Chiyo looked at the girl in surprise. What was it that Mori-san had said in Tokyo?
Someone always cares.

“Headmaster Hanarai believes — we all believe — it is best for Miss Sakamoto and for the school to allow her to remain with us.” Kaito-sensei had to ring her bell again to silence indignant whispers. “However . . .
However . . .
”

Everyone became silent, eager to hear what awful fate awaited Shizuko.

Kaito-sensei looked sternly at Shizuko. “Miss Sakamoto will apologize publicly to Miss Tamura.”

That was all? Chiyo’s head roared with protest. She thought of the station agent who insisted on more yen than she had and of reaching Toride too late to ask for a ride with a farmer. She thought of standing in the rain outside the doll maker’s home when his housekeeper refused to admit her. She thought of running for the streetcar when she didn’t know if one sen was enough to ride and of daring to speak to a strange man.

She would not have had to make that scary trip alone to Tokyo if Shizuko had simply told the teachers that it was Hoshi who had cut the doll apart. Most of all, she would not have been the one accused, shamed, and told to leave the school.

Everyone was looking at her, waiting for her to protest, to say that an apology wasn’t enough.

“It’s not fair,” the girl near the far wall said again. All around the room, other girls murmured agreement.

Who was the girl who spoke first? Chiyo wondered, then remembered her name, Michi. She was the one who had missed the trip to Tokyo.
If I stay in Tsuchiura Girls’ School, I want to know Michi better.

The nurse had said that the world was Chiyo’s oyster and that she had the nerve to swallow it whole. Even the pearl.
She should have said even the hard, rough shell,
Chiyo told herself while Kaito-sensei called the whispering students to order.

On her way into class, she had glimpsed Emily Grace inside Headmaster’s office on a stand near his desk. The doll still wore her kimono. She looked beautiful, with her bright blue eyes and eager smile.
Emily Grace would want me to say I forgive Shizuko.

Chiyo could not say something she didn’t feel.

“Miss Sakamoto?” Kaito-sensei prompted.

Shizuko rose slowly from her desk. She walked to the front of the room and placed her hands at her waist, bowing over them. “I have wronged you, Miss Tamura. I have wronged Emily Grace. I have wronged my school.”

Her voice wavered, and she slipped to her knees, bowing forward until her forehead pressed the floor. “I let fear stop me from telling the truth.
Sumimasen,
Miss Tamura,” she said, as if Chiyo were her superior. “I am very, very sorry.”

Chiyo felt Shizuko’s shame in her own heart. She came to her feet and went to her. Dropping to her knees, she put her hands on the girl’s arms and urged her to stand. “I was afraid of Hoshi, too. Many of us were.”

As she rose with Shizuko, Chiyo felt everyone looking at her, waiting for her to say more. Maybe they wondered if she would say that Shizuko was forgiven.

She imagined Emily Grace looking at her, too, waiting for an answer. What she said next could make a difference if she came back after Masako’s wedding.

If not for Shizuko’s silence, I would have missed so much.
The trip to Tokyo alone had started out scary, but it had become exciting. She thought of the nurse who had driven her from Toride. How was Yaeko different from Masako? It wasn’t her short skirt or breezy talk. It was her education. A doctor wanted to marry Yaeko, but she was resisting. She would make up her mind when she was ready, not when anyone else told her she was ready.

Maybe I will marry when I reach my sister’s age, but only if I wish to,
Chiyo told herself. Everything else vanished in a rush of excitement.

Masako may choose me to hold up the long white kimono she will wear for the ceremony. I will be there when she changes into a colorful one for the reception to show she is ready for everyday life, and then into the party dress she will wear to celebrate with family and friends.

I will tease her about the nine sips of sake from three different cups she and her new husband must exchange to enjoy triple happiness in their marriage.
When the celebrating was over, Chiyo knew she would return to Tsuchiura Girls’ School.
With an education, I will have choices. I will choose my own future.

For the few days remaining in the school term, she would work hard to learn all she could. There was no time to cling to hard feelings. “Kaito-sensei, may I speak to the class?”

“Of course, Miss Tamura. What is it?”

As everyone’s eyes turned toward her, Chiyo stood a little straighter. “I wish to share the haiku a girl in America sent with our doll. I mean to remember these words and their hope for peace. I hope all of us will.” She drew a steadying breath, then repeated the haiku in a clear voice.

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

As everyone murmured approval, Chiyo turned to Shizuko, letting her smile accept the girl’s apology and invite her friendship.

A few years ago, pictures of my little granddaughter dressed in a beautiful kimono led me to research the Japanese Girls’ Day festival called Hinamatsuri, where treasured dolls are put on display. That research led to the all-but-forgotten Friendship Dolls project of 1926 and eventually to my novel
Ship of Dolls
and to telling more of the story through the eyes of a Japanese girl in
Dolls of Hope.

In 1926, Dr. Sidney Gulick, a teacher missionary who retired after working in Japan for thirty years, worried about approaching war between the two countries he loved. He began the Friendship Doll project, urging children across America to send thousands of dolls to children in Japan in hope of creating friendship between the two countries. Children in nearly every state responded. The “Blue-Eyed Dolls” received an enthusiastic welcome in Japan, with parties and ceremonies held throughout the country. Children there donated money to have fifty-eight large dolls created by their country’s finest doll makers and dressed in rich kimonos. These, with many accessories, were sent in gratitude to children in America in time for Christmas of 1927.

Sadly, the beautiful hope for friendship expressed by the children of both countries could not prevent war. With the Japanese bombing of American ships in Pearl Harbor in 1941, America was drawn into World War II. In both countries, the dolls became symbols of the enemy. The Japanese government ordered the American dolls to be destroyed. In America, the Japanese dolls were put into storage and forgotten.

Now, long after WWII, the two countries have healed and become friends. The friendship project lives on as well, with dolls again sharing the culture of each country.

Bill Gordon’s website on the Friendship Dolls,
www.bill-gordon.net/dolls
, provided a major source of information for the novels, with photos and facts from 1926 to today.

Doll maker Hirata Gouyou really lived and created some of the Dolls of Return Gratitude, including one I have visited in a museum at the University of Nevada in Reno. Hirata Gouyou, who eventually became one of Japan’s revered Living Treasures, was a young man of twenty-four and already a master doll maker in 1927. If Chiyo had been real instead of a fictional character, I believe she would have enjoyed knowing Hirata-san, just as I have enjoyed giving him an important part in the story.

The value of the Japanese yen has fallen dramatically since WWII. In Chiyo’s time, one yen was worth about fifty cents in U.S. money. Chiyo’s two 10-yen coins from the mayor of Tokyo were together worth about $10.00 in U.S. money. Of course, prices in 1927 were much lower than today, and to Chiyo that amount was a fortune. She rarely had even a sen, worth about 1/100th the value of one yen, as a penny is worth 1/100th of a U.S. dollar.

For research on life in rural Japan in 1927, I relied on a fascinating collection of interviews in the book
Memories of Silk and Straw: A Self-Portrait of Small-Town Japan
by Dr. Junichi Saga. And I am indebted to my daughter-in-law, Miwa, for researching Japanese-language Internet sites for information needed for the story and for help with cultural descriptions and occasional words in the Japanese language. Writing Chiyo’s story has been a challenge, an adventure, and a joy. Any mistakes that may have slipped through are entirely my own.