On nights when flowers bloom and nights when they scatter, Beneath the willows of Ginza
Ginza was where Daddy used to take Totto on their once-a-year outings. Listening to the man sing to the tune of his accordion, the memories of enjoying ice cream at Shiseido Parlor, shopping for toys at Kintaro, and watching films on the basement floor of Nihon Gekijo came flooding back.
“I know Ginza!” Totto thought as she did her utmost to keep the tears welling up in her eyes from spilling over. She considered telling the friend at her side how she missed that familiar corner of Tokyo, but the girl was always so nice to Totto and she felt as though unburdening herself would amount to a kind of betrayal. She kept her mouth shut.
As the train track repairs dragged on, the man with the funny shoes continued to sing, “On nights when flowers bloom and nights when they scatter,” and Totto sat enraptured in the front row each time, applauding him with her friend.
One day, Totto returned from school to find two visitors in her home. She recognized the man as the accordion player in the colorful shoes, but she couldn’t place the slender woman at his side. As it happened, she was the troupe leader and the star of An Actor’s Revenge. Totto had never seen her without her wig or her white face paint.
Mother had been chatting with the guests. She turned to Totto with an indescribable look on her face and said, “These two have come to see if you have any interest in joining their troupe. They say that you have what it takes to succeed as an actor, and that if I allow you to join them, they will make you the troupe leader someday. What do you think?”
Though Totto could not fathom why, these people had evidently come to scout her. “That sounds like great fun!” was her first thought. But she quickly remembered that she was only in junior high school and that she didn’t have a way to confer with Daddy since he was in Siberia. Regrettably, she had little choice but to decline their offer.
Once the Tohoku Line finally got up and running again, the troupe departed for the big city, the playhouse was torn down, and Totto soon forgot all about it.
It wasn’t until twenty years later, when invited to appear on a morning television program called the Hiroshi Ogawa Show, that she remembered the troupe leader. The show featured a segment titled “Someone from My Past” where guests could name a person they wished to be reunited with, so Totto asked the staff to track down this woman from her childhood. She wanted to meet the person who had seen something special in that grubby little girl in ratty clothes.
Totto’s heart fluttered with anticipation on the day of filming. Sadly, she learned that Misayo Minatogawa had already passed away, but she was connected to Misayo-san’s husband via telephone from the studio. Back when Misayo-san was still well, he shared, she’d caught a glimpse of Totto on television and exclaimed with delight, “That’s her! That’s the girl! I knew I was right about her!”
Totto had wanted to express her gratitude to the woman who had spotted her in the crowd when she had nothing but the clothes on her back. And though she was disappointed not to be able to say thank you in person, the thought that Misayo-san had seen her on television gave Totto some comfort.
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Mother continued to work at the cooperative while also doing farm labor, sewing clothes, and caring for her relatives. Her job was never done and she hardly had any time to sleep. And yet, at some point, she began to put on her best clothing and leave the house in the evenings, too. People had somehow discovered Mother’s wonderful singing voice and began asking her to sing at wedding receptions and other social gatherings.
Given her background as a vocal student in music school, Mother’s true wish was to perform arias from different operas, but instead she delighted audiences with her vocal range while singing “Hanayome ningyo“ (Bridal Doll), “Hamabe no uta“ (Song of the Seashore), Yoimachigusa (Evening Primrose), and other folk hits. “Thank you! Thank you!” people would exclaim as they showered her with gifts on her way home.
These gifts were Mother’s main target. At a time when no sweets were otherwise available, the wedding gifts often included pink-colored treats called mijinko gashi, made with sweet glutinous rice flour and shaped like celebratory sea bream. The desserts delighted Totto and her siblings, and they all waited eagerly for Mother to come home so they could dig in.
Every time the sweet fish appeared before them, they squealed with joy.
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Totto Dangles from the Train Tracks
To travel to and from school, Totto rode the train for one stop between Suwanotaira and Sannohe stations using a monthly student commuter pass that she hung from her neck in a case.
“Keep this around your neck. You mustn’t ever take it off,” her mother warned her time and again.
One afternoon after classes let out, Totto and a friend waited and waited at Sannohe for the train home, but saw no sign of it. It was not unusual for the trains to be delayed, so the two decided to play cat’s cradle to pass the time. Totto noticed that the string attached to her pass case was the perfect length and took it off to use for their game. With it, she wove various complicated shapes between her fingers, including frogs and railroad bridges. When the train finally came, she and her friend wanted to keep up their game during the short ride to the next station, so Totto continued to hold the pass case between her lips as they played in the swaying railroad car.
The two deboarded at Suwanotaira, flashed their passes at the exit gate, then started walking home, happily chatting away. By this point, Totto was holding her pass in her hand. They came to the path where they usually said goodbye, but Totto wasn’t quite ready to part ways just yet, so she walked to the foot of the bridge closest to her friend’s house, then waved and said, “That was fun. See you tomorrow!”
Two large, looming pine trees stood at the foot of the bridge. Totto’s friend crossed the bridge, then turned and waved. Not one to be outdone, Totto waved back even bigger. Just then, something fell out of her hand and fluttered into the river.
“What was that?” No sooner had the question crossed her mind than Totto realized it was her train pass—the same precious pass she had promised Mother she would never let off her neck! It soared through the sky, then landed on the surface of the river, where it momentarily floated like a buoy before being swallowed up by the current and sinking to the bottom. The river flowed fast, and it was starting to get dark, so Totto could do little but give it up for lost.
Once home, she came clean to her mother about the pass. “Didn’t I tell you to be careful?” Mother reproached her. “We can’t buy you a replacement until next month! From tomorrow until then, you’ll simply have to walk to school.”
Things were still in a state of chaos following the war, and monthly passes were only sold at the beginning of every month. Mother tried to negotiate with the station attendant regardless, but they were unable to bend the rules. Totto would have to start walking the three miles from Suwanotaira to Sannohe each day to get to and from school.
Totto had an idea. The path to school was long and winding, and she feared she might lose her way if she took it. But there was no chance of her getting lost if she walked along the train tracks. She’d once heard adults saying it only took about an hour to walk the line between the stations, so that was what she decided to do. This meant that she would have to share the path with trains, of course, but Totto had the inbound and outbound schedules memorized. Whenever a train came, she could simply move to one side and wait for it to pass before starting on her way again.
At the time, there were not enough clothes or shoes to go around, and Totto had only wooden geta sandals to wear to school. She woke up an hour earlier than usual and click-clacked with them over the railroad ties from Suwanotaira to Sannohe. Once at Sannohe Station, she met up with her friends who had come by train and they walked the rest of the way to school together. The three miles home were more tiring than the three miles to school, but she mustered the energy every afternoon to clack, hop, and skip her way along the tracks.