“Good-bye,” Anne called up to her as the ship pulled away slowly, and Toyo watched all of it with fascination.
‘Thank you!” Hiroko mouthed again, and the two women waved at each other as the tugboats pulled them away from the dock.
They could not hear the words anymore. But she could still see her, standing there, waving, as the ship turned, and sailed slowly out through the harbor.
“Where are we going, Mama?” Toyo asked for the thousandth time that day as she set him down with a sad expression.
“Home,” was all she answered this time. It was all they had left now.
Chapter 18
THE U.S.S. General W. P. Richardson took two weeks and a day to sail across the Pacific Ocean. And right on schedule, it docked in Kobe in the morning. It had seemed like an endless trip to her, and just as they had when she came, they had bypassed Hawaii. And she didn't mind it. Toyo had loved the trip, and everyone had been wonderful to him. He was the only child on the ship, and he had become everyone's playmate and mascot.
But on the morning they arrived, Hiroko was oddly silent. It was a strange feeling for her, remembering what it had been like for her when she left, and the terrifying symphony of emotions. She had ached at leaving her parents, but she had gone so as not to disappoint her father …just for a year, she said …just one, he promised …and it had been almost four and a half, and so much had happened.
She watched the activity on the dock when they arrived, and listened silently to the dock workers, the birds, the people calling to each other and shouting. There was confusion in the port, and still the vestiges of wartime. But all over the pier she saw American soldiers, which even in her homeland she found oddly reassuring. She was no longer sure who were the enemies and who the friends. For four years, life had been too confusing.
She held Toyo's hand carefully as they got off, and she carried her own bags. There were taxis along the dock, and she asked one of them to take her to the train, and he asked her where she was going. When she said Kyoto, he offered to drive her there for fifty U.S. dollars. And given the state the country was in, the offer was appealing, and she accepted.
“How long have you been gone?” he asked as they drove along roads she had either never seen before, or no longer remembered. They were all in poor repair, and deeply rutted.
“More than four years,” Four years and three months exactly.
“You're lucky,” he said. “The war was hard here. It must have been good in the States.” She couldn't explain to him about the camps, but he was probably right. It was probably worse here.
“How bad is it now?” she asked bluntly, holding tightly to Toyo. He was listening to them speak Japanese. He had heard plenty of it in the camps, but he had forgotten most of it in the past year. And Hiroko always spoke to him in English, so he didn't understand what they were saying.
“It's rough in places, terrible in others. Some places it's not so bad. Kyoto is so-so. There was some damage there, but none of the temples.” It wasn't the temples she was worrying about, it was her parents. She had had no news of them at all, since the message about her brother's death, since Pearl Harbor. ‘The Americans are all over the place. You have to watch put for them. They think all Japanese women are geishas.” She laughed at what he said, but just as he said, she noticed them everywhere, and many of them seemed to be eyeing the women. “Be careful,” he said, warning her, and then they drove quietly through the countryside. It took him two hours to get to Kyoto. Normally, it should have been faster, but there were obstructions on the road, potholes, and a lot of traffic.
And her breath caught as she saw the familiar address. It looked as though nothing had changed. It was all so exactly the way she remembered that it felt like a dream, or a memory, to be there. She thanked the driver and paid him with money Charles Spencer had given her, and then holding Toyo's hand, she took her suitcase, and stood there.
“Do you want me to wait?” the driver asked kindly, but she shook her head, mesmerized by the house she had dreamed of a thousand times and longed for so often. The house she had grown up in.
“No, we're fine.” She waved bravely, and he drove off, back to Kobe. And for a long time, she just stood there as Toyo watched her.
And then, carefully, she opened the gate. It squeaked exactly as it had before, and the grass around it looked a little overgrown, but nothing seemed destroyed or damaged, and as she walked slowly to the house, she rang the wind chimes. But nothing moved and no one answered. She walked closer and tapped on the shoji screens, but no one came, and she wondered if they were out. She had wanted to warn them she was coming, but there was still no way to reach them.