To this day, whenever I spot a German shepherd walking down the street, I find myself calling out softly, “Rocky!” I then laugh to myself, knowing it could never be him, as Rocky lived with us when I was just a little girl.
Rocky was my best friend. But then one day, he disappeared from our home. I learned only recently that healthy German shepherds were rounded up by the Japanese military during the war to be trained for service in combat. The very thought that Rocky might have been sent to a war zone still brings tears to my eyes.
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In Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window, I chronicled my elementary school days attending Tomoe Gakuen. My reason for writing it was that I believed the educational methods of headmaster Sosaku Kobayashi needed to be documented in some way. To my astonishment, the book became a bestseller and was read by many, many people—including children—around the world. Though it was published in 1981, some forty-two years ago, I am still on occasion called “Totto-chan,” which fills me with joy.
During a visit to Tanzania, I thought I heard the village chiefs saying “Totto” numerous times as they called for people to gather around. This mystified me as it happened in every village, but I was sure the chiefs could not possibly all know my name. Imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered that mtoto, which sounds similar to Totto, means “child” in Swahili. What a coincidence!
As a young girl, I had difficulty pronouncing my given name, Tetsuko. Whenever I was asked, “What’s your name?” I always replied, “Totto!” That was how I came to be called Totto-chan. As I grew older, I became known to most people as Tetsuko-chan, but my father continued to call me by the nickname Totsky (his boyish take on Totto) well into my young adulthood. If not for his reminder of my childhood nickname, I may have forgotten it altogether. It is thanks to him and “Totsky” that I can still recall my years as Totto-chan.
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Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window ends when my family and I evacuate to Aomori during World War II, a few days after the Great Tokyo Air Raid of 1945. Over the years, numerous people have expressed to me how they would love to read about what happened in the ever after of that book. In my mind, however, nothing I might write could be as interesting as what I’d already committed to paper, since no other period of my life has been as thrilling as the time I spent at Tomoe Gakuen. But gradually, I came around to the view that if there are this many people curious to hear about the next chapters in the life of someone such as myself, perhaps I might do well to tell that story.
It has taken me forty-two years to say, “Let’s give it a go.”