“Mother!”
Totto was having a nightmare.
The woman with the apple cheeks tapped her shoulder to wake her. When Totto opened her eyes, she saw a magnificent sunrise pouring in through the window.
The kind woman got off the train at Morioka Station. Apart from the bathroom incident, she and Totto hadn’t exchanged many words throughout their ride. Even as a child, Totto could sense that everybody on the train was occupied with their own worries, so although she had all sorts of questions, she mostly kept them to herself.
Before the woman disembarked, she retrieved an object wrapped in crinkled newspaper from her bag and set it on Totto’s palm. It was a boiled potato. As the train crawled out of the station, Totto took a good long whiff of the potato. She nibbled off a bit of the end. It tasted so delicious and felt so lovely and soft that she completely lost herself in the snack. It was only after she’d finished it that she noticed the gaze of the man sitting in front of her. Suddenly shy, she apologized for her rudeness.
Outside the window stretched a vast expanse of brown fields. Though the snow on the ground had recently melted, it still lingered in the far-off forests and mountains, which were a much deeper shade of green than any in Tokyo.
The train made a stop at Suwanotaira Station, which was very small compared to the others they had passed along the way. Totto vaguely remembered that this was where Mr. Numahata, whom they had met on the return train ride from Mother’s hometown several years prior, had disembarked. She wondered why Mother was taking the family to Shiriuchi and not Suwanotaira when their goal was to reunite with him. The train let out a loud whistle and started off once more.
✦ ✦ ✦
A half hour later, they arrived at a bustling station with multiple platforms for making transfers.
“Shiriuchi! Shiriuchi!”
No sooner had Totto heard the announcement than she sprinted off the train, overjoyed at the prospect of seeing her mother, brother, and sister.
A chilly wind brushed against her cheeks. She took a deep breath and thought the air tasted cold, piercingly clear, and unlike anything she’d ever experienced before.
She followed the arrows on the station signs and crossed two railroad tracks. Just then, she heard a familiar voice call out, “Tetsuko!”
There were her mother and siblings, standing right outside the gates! Totto handed her ticket, which she’d put in her pocket for safekeeping, to the ticket collector and raced toward them with tremendous speed.
“Mother!”
Her mother was carrying Mari-chan on her back and holding Noriaki-chan’s hand. She opened her other arm and welcomed Totto in an embrace. An entire day had passed since they were separated at Ueno Station.
“We arrived in the morning, so we went to the market to buy some food,” Mother said, then showed Totto a few onigiri rice balls made with barley and brown rice wrapped in bamboo peel.
“Wow!”
Totto hadn’t seen onigiri made with real rice in some time. It wasn’t white rice, but she was delighted all the same.
“Let’s eat over there on that bench. This station has a bathroom, so go and wash your hands in the sink. And drink some water, too. Take Noriaki-chan with you.”
As the family savored the onigiri, which had large pickled plums in the center, Totto filled her mother in on the many things that had happened on her train ride. She told her about how the train had been packed wall-to-wall with passengers; how people had crawled in and out of the windows; how she hadn’t been able to use the bathroom; how the woman had taught her to do her business out the window—and how she’d seen many other pale round bottoms sticking out of the train, too; how beautiful the morning sunrise had been; how the woman had given her a boiled potato to eat.
“Lucky! I want a potato,” Noriaki-chan said enviously.
“Didn’t you see the market, Noriaki-chan? Unlike in Tokyo, it’s safe here and there is plenty of food. Once we find a place to live, I’ll work hard so you can eat until your belly is full,” Mother soothed him. “You just need to hang tight for a bit longer, dear.”
They were all exhausted after their nearly twenty-four-hour train ride.
“We’re staying at an inn tonight, so get lots of rest. Tomorrow, we’ll go and see Mr. Numahata.”
Mother had made arrangements for the family to stay in a nearby inn while waiting for Totto to arrive. Totto had felt so alone and afraid on the train, but now she had Mother by her side, and Noriaki-chan and Mari-chan were smiling happily. There were no air-raid sirens to be heard, either. Here she might be able to call her mother whatever she pleased without being shunned for using the “language of the enemy.” Totto thought that perhaps here, unlike in Tokyo, they might be able to lead ordinary lives again.
✦ ✦ ✦
The Legend of Christ
“There’s one place I’d like to go before we head to Mr. Numahata’s house,” Mother said when Totto awoke the next morning.
There was apparently a village called Herai, about a two-hour bus ride away, where the “Tomb of Jesus Christ” was located. Totto recalled her mother mentioning when they were in Tokyo that Mr. Numahata’s home was close to the site. According to local legend, the man crucified on the hill of Golgotha was not, in fact, Jesus, but his younger brother. The real Jesus had secretly fled to Japan and lived in Herai until the age of one hundred and six. Mother didn’t appear to believe the story, but she explained to Totto that she felt called to the spot none the less.
Mother was a Christian, and since they had traveled so far anyway, she wished to see the place that had given birth to the legend. Of course! That was why they had come to Shiriuchi instead of going directly to Suwanotaira. Another mystery, however, remained: Why would Jesus Christ choose to live in a town where everyone spoke in the thick Tohoku dialect?