Totto-Chan, the Little Girl at the Window (11 page)

That day, as the train leaned over, creaking as usual as it went around the curve, Totto-chan noticed something that looked like money lying near her feet. She had picked up something once before that she thought was money but it turned out to be a button, so she thought she had better have a good look this time. When the train straightened out, she put her head right down and looked at it carefully. It was definitely money--a five-sen coin. She thought somebody nearby must have dropped it and it had come rolling toward her when the train leaned over. But nobody was standing anywhere near Totto-chan.

What should she do, she wondered! Just then she remembered someone saying that when you found money, you should hand it to a policeman. But there wasn't a policeman on the train, was there?

Just then, the conductor's compartment opened and the conductor entered the car in which Totto-chan was. Totto-chan herself didn't know what made her do it, but she put her right foot over the five-sen piece. The conductor knew her and smiled. But Totto-chan couldn't smile back whole heartedly because she felt guilty about what was under her right foot. All she could manage was a weak grin. At that moment the train stopped at Ookayama, the station before hers, and the doors on the left side opened. An unusual number of people got on and Totto-chan was pushed and jostled. Totto-chan had no intention of moving her right foot and desperately stood her ground. While doing so, she thought our her plan. When she got off the train she would take the money and hand it to a policeman. Then another thought occurred to her. If any grown-ups saw her pick up the coin from under her foot, they might think she was a thief! In those days you could buy a small packet of caramels or a bar of chocolate for five sen. So while if wouldn't seem like much of a sum to a grown-up, it was a large amount of money as far as Totto-chan was concerned, and she became quite worried about it.

"That's it!" she said to herself "I’ll say quietly, “Oh, I've dropped some money. I must pick it up. Then everyone's bound to think it's mine!"

But immediately another problem occurred to her, "What if I say that and everyone looks at me and someone says, “That's mine!' What will I do?"

After turning over lots of ideas in her mind, she decided the best thing to do would be to crouch down as the train neared her station, pretending to tie her shoelace, and pick up the money secretly. It worked. When she stepped onto the platform, damp with perspiration and clutching the five-sen piece, she felt exhausted. The police station was a long way off and if she went and handed in the money she would get home late and Mother would be worried. She thought hard as she clumped down the stairs, and this is what she decided to do.

"I’ll put it in a secret place, and then tomorrow I'll take it to school and ask everyone's advice. I ought to show it to them anyway, because nobody else has ever found any money.

She wondered where to hide the money. If she took it home, Mother might ask about it, so it would have to be hidden somewhere else.

She climbed into a thicket near the station. Nobody could see her there, and no one was likely to climb in, so it seemed pretty safe. She dug a tiny hole with a stick, dropped the precious five-sen coin into it, and covered it with earth. She found an oddly shaped stone and put it on top as a marker. Then she ran home at tremendous speed.

Most nights Totto-chan would stay up talking about school until Mother announced, "Time to go to bed." But that night, she didn't talk much and went to bed early.

The following morning she awoke with the feeling there was something terribly important she had to do. Suddenly remembering her secret treasure, she was very happy.

Leaving home earlier than usual, she raced Rocky to the thicket and scrambled in. “It's here! It's here!"

The stone marker was just as she had left it.

"I'll show you something lovely," she said to Rocky, removing the stone and digging carefully. But strangely enough, the five-sen coin had disappeared! She had never been so surprised. Did someone see her hide it, she wondered, or had the stone moved! She dug all around, but the five-sen piece Was nowhere to be found. She was very disappointed not to be able to show it to her friends at Tomoe, but more than
that she couldn't get over the mysteriousness of it.

Thereafter, every time she passed by she would climb into the thicket and dig, but never again did she see that five-sen piece.

"Perhaps a mole took it?" she would think. Or, "Did I dream it?" Or, "Maybe God saw me hide it." But no matter how much she thought about it, it was very strange, indeed. A very mysterious happening that she would never forget.

One afternoon, near the ticket gate at Jiyugaoka Station, two boys and one girl slightly older than Totto-chan were standing together, looking as if they were playing "stone, paper, scissors." But she noticed they were making a lot more signs with their fingers than usual. What fun it looked! She went closer so she could get g better view. They seemed to be holding a conversation without making a sound. One would make a lot of signs with his hands, then another who was watching would immediately make a lot more different signs. Then the third would do a few, and they would all burst out laughing, without making much sound. They seemed to be enjoying themselves. After watching them for some time, Totto-chan came to the conclusion they were talking with their hands.

"I wish I could talk with my hands, too," she thought enviously. She considered going over and joining them, but she didn't know how to ask them with her hands. And besides, they weren't Tomoe students, so it might be rude, so she just went on watching them until they left for the Toyoko train platform.

"Someday I'm going to learn how to talk to people with my hands," she decided.

But Totto-chan didn't know yet about deaf people, or that those children went to the municipal deaf and dumb school in Oimachi, the last stop of the train she took to school each day.

Totto-chan just thought there was something rather beautiful about the way those children watched each other's fingers with shining eyes, and she wanted to make friends with them someday.

While Mr. Kobayashi's system of education was unique, he had been influenced a great deal by ideas from Europe and other foreign countries, as we can see from Tomoe's eurythmics, its mealtime customs, its school walks, and the lunchtime song that was sung to the tune of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat."

The headmaster's right-hand man--at an ordinary school he would be the vice- principal--Mr. Maruyama, was in many ways the exact opposite of Mr. Kobayashi. Like his name, meaning "round hill," his head was completely round, without a single hair on top, but with a fringe of white hair at the back at ear level. He wore round glasses, and his cheeks were bright red. He not only looked quite different from Mr. Kobayashi, but he used to recite classical Chinese-style poems in a solemn voice.

On the morning of December fourteenth, when the children were all assembled at school, Mr. Maruyama made the following announcement:

"This is the day, nearly two and a half centuries ago, that the Forty-seven Ronin executed their famous vendetta. So we are going to walk to the temple of Sengakuji and pay our respects at their graves. Your parents have already been told."

The headmaster did not oppose Mr. Maruyama's plan. What Mr. Kobayashi thought of it the parents didn't know, but they knew if he didn't oppose it, he must have approved of it, and the prospect of Tomoe children visiting the tombs of the Forty- seven Ronin was indeed an intriguing one.

Before they left, Mr. Maruyama told the children the story of the famous Forty- seven-how Lord Asano's brave and loyal men had plotted for almost two years to avenge the honor of their dead master, who had been so grievously wronged. Besides the Forty-seven there was a courageous merchant called Rihei Amanoya. It was he who supplied the weapons, and when he was arrested by the officials of the shogun he declared, "I, Rihei Amanoya, am a man" and refused to confess or give away a single secret. The children didn't understand much of the story, but they were excited about missing classes and going for a walk to a place much further away than Kuhonbutsu Temple--and a picnic lunch.

Taking their leave of the headmaster and the other teachers all fifty, students started off, led by Mr. Maruyama. Here and there in the line children's voices could be heard declaiming, "I, Rihei Amanoya, am a man." Girls declaimed it, too, causing passersby to nod their heads and laugh. It was about seven miles to Sengakuji, but motor vehicles were scarce, the December sky was blue, and, to the children strolling along firing a constant barrage of, "I, Rihei Amanoya, am a man," the way did not seem long at all.

When they got to Sengakuji, Mr. Maruyama gave each child a stick of incense and a few flowers. The temple was smaller than Kuhonbutsu, but there were lots of graves all in a row. The thought that this place was sacred to the memory of the Forty-seven Ronin made Totto-chan feel very solemn as she offered the incense and the flowers, and she bowed silently, imitating• Mr. Maruyama. A hush fell upon the children. It was unusual for Tomoe pupils to be so quiet. The smoke from the incense sticks placed before each tomb drifted up, drawing pictures in the sky for a long, long time.

After that, the smell of incense always made the children think of Mr. Maruyama and of Rihei Amanoya. It also became for them the aroma of silence.

The children may not have understood all about the Forty-seven Ronin, but for Mr. Maruyama, who spoke of these men with such fervor, the children felt almost as much respect and affection as for Mr. Kobayashi, although in a different way. Totto- chan loved his little eyes that peered from behind the thick lenses of his glasses, and his gentle voice that didn't seem to go with such a large body.

On her way to and from the station, Totto-chan used to pass a tenement where some Koreans lived. Totto-chan, of course, didn't know they were Koreans. The only thing she knew about them was that there was a woman there who wore her hair parted down the middle and drawn back into a bun, and who was rather plump and wore white rubber shoes that were pointed in front like little boats. She wore a dress with a long skirt and a ribbon tied in a big bow on the front of her short blouse, and always seemed to be looking for her son, calling out. "MaSOW-chaan!" She was always calling his name. And instead of pronouncing it "Ma-sa-o-chan," as people normally would, she stressed the second syllable and drew out the "chan" in a high-pitched voice that sounded sad to Totto-chan.

The tenement was right beside the Oimachi train necks on a small embankment. Totto-chan knew who Masao-chan was. He was a little bigger than she was and probably in second grade, although she didn't know which school he went to. He had untidy hair and always had a dog with him. One day, as Totto-chan was walking home post the embankment, Masao-chan was standing on top of it with his feet apart and his hands on his hips, in an arrogant posture.

"Korean!" he shouted at Totto-chan.

His voice was scathing and full of hatred. Totto-chan was scared. She had never done anything mean to him, or even spoken to him for that matter, so she was startled
when he yelled at her from above in such a spiteful way.

When she got home she told Mother about it. "Masao-chan called me a Korean," she said. Mother put her hand to her mouth and Totto-chan saw her eyes fill with mars. Totto-chan was perplexed, thinking it must be something very bad. Mother didn't stop to wipe away her tears, and the tip of her nose was red. "poor child!" she said. "People must call him 'Korean! Korean!' so ofmn that he thinks it's a nasty word. He probably doesn't understand what it means because he's still young. He thinks it's like baka, which people say when they mean 'you fool.' Masao-chan has probably had 'Korean' said to him so often he wanted to say something nasty to somebody else, so he called you a Korean. Why are people so cruel?”

Drying her eye, Mother said to Totto-chan very slowly, "You're Japanese and Masao- chan comes from a country called Korea. But he's a child, just like you. So, Totto- chan dear, don't ever think of people as different. Don't think, 'That person's a Japanese, or this person's a Korean.' Be nice to Masao-chan. It's so sad that some people think other people aren't nice just because they're Koreans."

It was all rather difficult for Totto-chan to understand, but what she did understand was that Masao-chan was a little boy whom people spoke ill of for no reason at all. That must be why his mother was always searching for him so anxiously, she thought. So next morning, as she passed the embankment and heard his mother calling out, "MaSOW-chaan" in her shrill voice, she wondered where he could be, and made up her mind that even though she herself wasn't a Korean, if Masao-chan called her that again, she would reply, "We're all children! We're all the same," and she'd try to make friends with him.

Masao-chan's mother's voice, with its combination of irritation and anxiety, had a special quality of its own that seemed to linger in the air for a long time, until it was drowned by the sound of a passing train.

"MaSOW-chaan!"

Once you heard the sad, tearful sound of that voice you could never forget it.

About that time, Totto-chan had two great ambitions. One was to wear athletic bloomers, and the other was to braid her hair. Watching older school-girls with long braids in the train, she decided she wanted to wear her hair that way, too. While the rest of the little girls in her class wore their hair short, with bangs, Totto-chan wore hers longer, parted at the side and tied with a ribbon. Mother liked it that way, and besides, Totto-chan wanted it to grow so she could wear pigtails.

Finally, one day she got Mother to braid her hair into two little pigtails. With the ends secured by rubber bands and tied with slender ribbons, she felt like an older student. When she looked at herself in the mirror, she realized that, unlike the girls in the train, her braids were thin and short and really looked like pigs' tails, but she ran to Rocky and held them up proudly for him to see. Rocky blinked once or twice.