Totto-Chan, the Little Girl at the Window (18 page)

"When I'm a teacher ... ," she mused. And these were the things that Totto-chan imagined: not too much study; lots of Sports Days, field kitchens, camping, and walks!

The headmaster was delighted. It was hard to imagine Totto-chan grown-up, but he was sure she could be a Tomoe teacher. He thought the Tomoe children would all make good teachers since they were likely to remember what it was like being a child.

There at Tomoe, the headmaster and one of his pupils were making a solemn promise about something that lay ten years or more in the future, when everyone was saying it was only a matter of time before American airplanes loaded with bombs appeared in the skies over Japan.

Lots of soldiers had died, food had become scarce, everyone was living in fear--but summer came as usual. And the sun shone on the nations that were winning as well as on the nations that weren't.

Totto-chan had just returned to Tokyo from her uncle's house in Kamakura.

There was no camping now at Tomoe and no more lovely visits to hot spring resorts. It seemed as if the children would never be able to enjoy a summer vacation as happy as that one. Totto-chan always spent the summer with her cousins at their house in Kamakura, but this year it had been different. An older boy, a relative who used to tell them scary ghost stories, had been called up and had gone to the war. So there were no more ghost stories. And her uncle who used to tell them such interesting tales about his life in America--they never knew whether they were true or not--was at the front. His name was Shuji Taguchi, and he was a top-ranking cameraman.

After serving as bureau chief of Nihon News in New York and as Far East representative of American Metro-News, he was better known as Shu Taguchi. He was Daddy's elder brother, though Daddy had taken his mother's family name in order to perpetuate it. Otherwise Daddy's surname would have been Taguchi, too. Films Uncle Shuji had shot, such as "The Battle of Rabaul," were being shown at movie theaters, but all he sent from the front were his films, so Totto-chan's aunt and cousins were worried about him. War photographers always showed the troops in dangerous positions, so they had to be ahead of the troops to show them advancing. That was whet Totto-chan's grown-up relatives had been saying.

Even the beach at Kamakura somehow seemed forlorn that summer. Yat-chan was funny, though, in spite of it all. He was Uncle Shuji's eldest son. Yat-chan was about a year younger than Totto-chan. The children all slept together under one large mosquito net, and before he went to sleep, Yat-chan used to shout "Long Live the Emperor!" then fall like a soldier who had been shot and pretend to be dead. He would do it over and over again. The funny thing was that whenever he did this, he invariably walked in his sleep and fell off the porch causing a great fuss.

Totto-chan's mother had stayed in Tokyo with Daddy, who had work to do. Now that summer vacation was over, Totto-chan had been brought back to Tokyo by the sister of the boy who used to tell ghost stories.

As usual on arriving at home, the first thing Totto-chan did was look for Rocky. But he was nowhere to be found. He wasn't in the house and he wasn't in the garden. Nor was he in the greenhouse where Daddy grew orchids. Totto-chan was worried, since Rocky normally came out to meet her long before she even reached the house. Totto- chan went out of the house and down the road, calling his name, but there was no sign of those beloved eyes, ears, or tail. Totto-chan thought he might have gone back while she was out looking for him, so she hurriedly ran home to see. But he wasn't there.

"Where's Rocky?" she asked Mother.

Mother must have known Totto-chan was running everywhere looking for Rocky, but she didn't say a word.

"Where's Rocky?" Totto-chan asked again, pulling Mother's skirt. Mother seemed to find it difficult to reply. "He disappeared," she said.
Totto-chan refused to believe it. How could he have disappeared? "When?" she asked, looking Mother in the face.
Mother seemed at a loss for words. "just after you left for Kamakura," she began, sadly. Then she hurriedly continued, "We looked for him. We went everywhere. And we asked everybody. But we couldn't find him. I've been wondering how to tell you. I'm terribly sorry. Then the truth dawned on Totto-chan. Rocky must have died. "Mother doesn't want me to be sad," she thought, "but Rocky's dead."

It was quite clear to Totto-chan. Up till now, no matter how long Totto-chan was gone, Rocky never went far from the house. He always knew she would come back. "Rocky would never go off like that without telling me," she thought to herself. It was a strong conviction.

But Totto-chan did not discuss it with Mother. She knew how Mother must feel. "I wonder where he went," was all she said, keeping her eyes lowered.

It was all she could do to say that much, and then she ran upstairs to her room. Without Rocky, the house didn't seem like their house at all. When she got to her room, she tried hard not to cry and thought about it once more. She wondered whether she had done anything mean to Rocky—anything that would make him want to leave.

"Never tease animals," Mr. Kobayashi always told the children at Tomoe. "it's cruel to betray animals when they trust you. Don't make a dog beg and then not give it anything. The dog won't trust you any more and might develop a bad nature."

Totto-chan always obeyed these rules. She had never deceived Rocky. She had done nothing wrong that she could think of.

Just then Totto-chan noticed something clinging to the leg of her teddy bear on the floor. She had managed not to cry until then, but when she saw it she burst into tears. It was a little tuft of Rocky's light brown hair. It must have come off when the two of them had rolled about on the floor, playing, the morning she left for Kamakura. With those few little German shepherd hairs clutched in her hand, she cried and cried. Her tears and her sobbing just wouldn't stop.

First Yasuaki-chan and now Rocky. Totto-chan had lost another friend.

Ryo-chan, the janitor at Tomoe, whom all the children liked so much, was finally called up. He was a grown-up, but they all called him by his childish nickname. Ryo- chan was a sort of guardian angel who always came to the rescue and helped when anyone was in trouble. Ryo-chan could do anything. He never said much, and only smiled, but he always knew just what to do. When Totto-chan fell into the cesspool,
it was Ryo-chan who came to her rescue straight away, and washed her off without so much as a grumble.

"Let's give Ryo-chan a rousing, send-off tea party," said the headmaster. "A tea party?
"
Green tea is drunk many times during the day in Japan, but it is not associated with entertaining--except ceremonial powdered tea, a different beverage altogether. A "tea party" would be something new at Tomoe. But the children liked the idea. They loved doing things they'd never done before. The children didn't know it, but the headmaster had invented a new weld, sawakai (tea party), instead of the usual sobetsukai (farewell party), on purpose. A farewell party sounded too sad, and the older children would understand that it might really be farewell if Ryo-chan got killed and didn't come back. But nobody had ever been to a tea parry before, so they were all excited.

After school, Mr. Kobayashi had the children arrange the desks in a circle in the Assembly Hall just as at lunchtime. When they were all sitting in a circle, he gave each one a single thin strip of roasted dried squid to have with their green tea. Even that was a great luxury in those wartime days. Then he sat down next to Ryo-chan and placed a glass before him with a little sake in it. It was a ration obtainable only for those leaving for the front.

"This is the first tea party at Tomoe," said the headmaster. "Let’s all have a good time. If there's anything you'd like to say to Ryo-chan, do so. You can say things to each other, too, not just to Ryo-chan. One by one, standing in the middle."

It was not only the first time they had ever eaten dried squid at Tomoe, but the first time Ryo-chan had sat down with them, and the first time they had seen Ryo-chan sipping sake.

One after the other the children stood up, facing Ryo-chan, and spoke to him. The first children just told him to take care of himself and not get sick. Then Migita, who was in Totto-chan's class, said, "Next time I go home to the country I'll bring you all back some funeral dumplings."

Everyone laughed. It was well over a year since Migita first told them about the dumplings he had once had at a funeral and how good they were. Whenever the opportunity arose, he promised to bring them some, but he never did it.

When the headmaster heard Migita mention funeral dumplings, it gave him quite a start. Normally it would have been considered bad luck to mention funeral dumplings at such a time. But Migita said it so innocently, just wanting to share with his friends something that tasted so good, that the head-master laughed with the others. Ryo- chan laughed heartily, too. After all, Migita had been telling him for ages that he would bring him some.

Then Oe got up and promised Ryo-chan that he was going to become the best horticulturist in Japan.

Oe was the son of the proprietor of an enormous nursery garden in Todoroki. Keiko Aoki got up next and said nothing. She just giggled shyly, as usual, and bowed, and went back to her seat. Whereupon Totto-chan rushed forward and said for her, "The chickens at Keiko-chan's can fly! I saw them the other day!"

Then Amadera spoke. "If you find any injured cats or dogs," he said, "bring them to me and I’ll fix them up.

Takahashi was so small he crawled under his desk to get to the center of the circle and was there as quick as a wink. He said in a cheerful voice, "Thank you Ryo-chan. Thank you forever thing. For all sorts of things."

Aiko Saisho stood up next. She said, "Ryo-chan, thank you for bandaging me up that time I fell down. I’ll never forget." Aiko Saisho's great-uncle was the famous Admiral Togo of the Russo-Japanes War, and Atsuko Saisho, another relative of
hers, was a celebrated poetess at Emperor Meiji's court. But Aiko never mentioned them.

Miyo-chan, the headmaster's daughter, knew Ryo-chan the best. Her eyes were full of tears. "Take care of yourself, won't you, Ryo-chan. Let's write to each other.

Totto-chan had so many things she wanted to say she didn't know where to begin. So she just said, "Even though you're gone, Ryo-chan, we'll have a tea party every day.”

The headmaster laughed, and so did Ryo-chan. All the children laughed, too, even Totto-chan herself.

But Totto-chan's words came true the very next day. Whenever there was time the children would form a group and play "tea party." Instead of dried squid, they would suck things like tree bark, and they sipped glasses of water instead of tea, sometimes pretending it was sake. Someone would say, “I’ll bring you some funeral dumplings," and they'd all laugh. Then they'd talk and tell each other their thoughts. Even though there wasn't anything to eat, the "tea parties" were fun.

The "tea party" was a wonderful farewell gift that Ryo-chan left the children. And although none of them had the faintest idea then, it was in fact the last game they were to play at Tomoe before the children parted and went their separate ways.

Ryo-chan went off on the Toyoko train. His departure coincided with the arrival of the American airplanes. They finally appeared in the skies above Tokyo and began dropping bombs every day.

Tomoe burned down. It happened at night. Miyo-chan, her sister Misa-chan, and their mother—who all lived in the house adjoining the school--fled to the Tomoe farm by the pond at Kuhonbutsu Temple and were safe.

Lots of incendiary bombs dropped by the B29 bombers fell on the railroad cars that served as schoolrooms.

The school that had been the headmaster's dream was enveloped in flames. Instead of the sounds he loved so much of children laughing and children singing, the school was collapsing with a fearful noise. The fire, impossible to quench, burned it down to the ground. Fires blared up all over Jiyugaoka.

In the midst of it all, the headmaster stood in the road and watched Tomoe burn. He was dressed, as usual, in his rather shabby black three-piece suit. He stood with both hands in his jacket pockets.
"What kind of school shall we build next?" he asked his university-student son Tomoe, who stood beside him. Tomoe listened to him dumbfounded.

Mr. Kobayashi's love for children and his passion for teaching were stronger than the flames now enveloping the school. The headmaster was cheerful.

Totto-chan was lying down in a crowded evacuation train, squeezed in amongst adults. The train was headed northeast. As she looked out of the window at the darkness outside, she thought of the headmaster's parting words, "We'll meet again!" and the words he used to say to her time and time again, "You're really a good girl, you know." She didn't want to forget those words. Safe in the thought that soon she would see Mr. Kobayashi again, she fell asleep.

The train rumbled along in the darkness with its load of anxious passengers.

To write about the school called Tomoe and Sosaku Kobayashi, the man who founded and ran it are the things I have most wanted to do for a long time.

I have invented none of the episodes. They are all events that really happened and, thankfully, I have been able to remember quite a few of them. Besides wanting to write them down, I have been anxious to make amends for a broken pledge. As I have described in one of the chapters, as a child I made a solemn promise to Mr.
Kobayashi that I would teach at Tomoe when I grew up. However, it was a promise I was not able to fulfill. Instead I have tried to reveal, to as many people as possible, what sort of man Mr. Kobayashi was, his great love for children, and how he set about educating them.

Mr. Kobayashi died in 1963. If he were alive today there would be much more he could have told me. Even as I write I realize how many episodes that just seem happy childhood memories to me were, in fact, activities carefully thought out by him to achieve certain results. "So that's what Mr. Kobayashi must have had in mind," I find myself thinking. Or, "Fancy him even thinking about that." With each discovery I make, I am amazed-and deeply moved and grateful.