Those Days in Muramatsu: One Woman's Memoir of Occupied Japan

Chapter 17: Ohara-san and Makino-san

CHAPTER 17 OHARA-SAN OHARA-SAN AND AND MAKINO-SAN MAKINO-SAN It was one of those days when our business slackened—no freight cars came in, and there was nothing to ship out. I went home for lunch as usual. It took me only seven minutes to get to Mr. Kuno’s where I lived, and I usually took the 12:55 pm train to come back to Muramatsu. But sometimes I missed it. One day, I saw it come in. It stays at Gosen for five minutes. So I thought I didn’t have to make haste. But I was alarmed to hear the whistle when I was putting on my shoes. I dashed to the station to see the train already some hundred meters off. I had to get back to Muramatsu in time. Some sick soldiers were leaving for a Sendai hospital and Miss Kato did not show up that morning. In a flurry, I told it to the station master, who had his men yell, and the train came back. I felt like some important person. Today, however, I made it with ease and came back to the office to find Miss Kato, Johnson, and Grey waiting for me. They were going to see a show at the only theater in the town. Noriko Awaya and her band had come down from Tokyo. But I wasn’t much interested in jazz, so I declined the invitation. It was not dull at all staying in the office. They were not always busy and the girls were learning English with the army conversation book that someone had given them. I enjoyed talking with the girls. In the beginning I was surprised to hear them use the same pronouns men did. But I understood it was their dialect, and I was getting used to it. They were young girls about twenty years of age. Miss Shirai, Mr. Kuno’s secretary, and Miss Murata were the oldest—twentytwo —and they were pretty. I was shocked to hear the rumor that Miss Shirai was another mistress of Mr. Kuno’s. “Impossible,” I said to my husband, who reminded me that Niigata Prefecture is famous for its production of “snow-white beauties”—geisha girls—and becoming a geisha and living a luxurious life is not considered a disgrace. “I cannot believe it,” I said to one of the girls, who said, “I don’t know. But he takes her along with him when he goes on a trip sometimes.” At any rate, she and Miss Murata were beautiful girls, and I was rather surprised to know that Miss Nakamura and Miss Kaneko who were not considered beauties among Japanese were more popular with the soldiers. Miss Nakamura was a slim, dark-complexioned girl and looked like a Filipina except for her slant eyes. Miss Kaneko was cute. She was only fifteen or so and was always ready to smile or to laugh. She was the one who served tea to visitors . Lt. Grotious had much fun teasing her. “Shorty! Kaneko-san! Come here. You are my koibito (sweetheart ).” So saying, he chased her round the desks while she ran away laughing. As I was looking out of the window at the snow-clad mountains far away, Mr. Kuno, who had gone downstairs to see what Howard was doing alone, came up and asked me to come down with him to the room where the RTO boys stayed. There were three boys whom I had never met before. Howard introduced them as his friends. They were young boys—just as young as Howard—and they wanted to buy some ivory carvings and wished to know where they could get them. When I told this to Mr. Kuno, he promptly offered to take them to the shop he knew. It was in the town of Gosen. From the station we took a short cut by way of going through Mr. Kuno’s yard, 78 and we had hardly walked a minute or two when Kazuko-san, the eldest girl, came running after us. We turned back to see some soldiers in front of the Kuno house. Kazuko-san said that they were saying “knife” and katana (sword). “I was scared,” she said. We went back to find out what was up. The soldiers said they were going back home in a few days and that they wanted to buy swords as...