he climbed into the back of the 
wagon and sat down among the empty fish baskets, putting one of her hands flat onto the 
slimy planks. And then with that same hand, she wiped a fly from her face, leaving a shiny 
patch on her cheek. I didn't feel as indifferently about the slime as Satsu did. I couldn't think 
about anything but the smell, and about how satisfied I would feel to wash my hands and 
perhaps even my clothes when we reached Mr. Tanaka's house. 

During the trip, Satsu and I didn't speak a word, until we topped the hill overlooking Senzuru, 
when all of a sudden she said: 


"A train." 

I looked out to see a train in the distance, making its way toward the town. The smoke rolled 
downwind in a way that made me think of the skin being shed from a snake. I thought this 
was clever and tried explaining it to Satsu, but she didn't seem to care. Mr. Tanaka would 
have appreciated it, I thought, and so would Kuniko. I decided to explain it to both of them 
when we reached the Tanakas' home. 

Then suddenly I realized we weren't headed in the direction of Mr. Tanaka's home at all. 

The wagon came to a stop a few minutes later on a patch of dirt beside the train tracks, just 
outside the town. A crowd of people stood with sacks and crates piled around them. And 
there, to one side of them, was Mrs. Fidget, standing beside a peculiarly narrow man wearing 
a stiff kimono. He had soft black hair, like a cat's, and held in one of his hands a cloth bag 
suspended from a string. He struck rne as out of place in Senzuru, particularly there beside 
the farmers and the fishermen with their crates, and an old hunched woman wearing a 
rucksack of yams. Mrs. Fidget said something to him, and when he turned and peered at us, 
I decided at once that I was frightened of him. 

Mr. Tanaka introduced us to this man, whose name was Bekku. Mr. Bekku said nothing at 
all, but only looked closely at me and seemed puzzled by Satsu. 

Mr. Tanaka said to him, "I've brought Sugi with me from Yoroido. Would you like him to 
accompany you? He knows the girls, and I can spare him for a day or so." 

"No, no," said Mr. Bekku, waving his hand. 

I certainly hadn't expected any of this. I asked where we were going, but no one seemed to 
hear me, so I came up with an answer for myself. I decided Mr. Tanaka had been displeased 
by what Mrs. Fidget had told him about us, and that this curiously narrow man, Mr. Bekku, 
planned to take us somewhere to have our fortunes told more completely. Afterward we 
would be returned to Mr. Tanaka. 

While I tried my best to soothe myself with these thoughts, Mrs. Fidget, wearing a pleasant 
smile, led Satsu and me some distance down the dirt platform. When we were too far away 
for the others to hear us, her smile vanished and she said: 

"Now listen to me. You're both naughty girls!" She looked around to be sure no one was 
watching and then hit us on the tops of our heads. She didn't hurt me, but I cried out in 
surprise. "If you do something to embarrass me," she went on, "I'll make you pay for it! Mr. 
Bekku is a stern man; you must pay attention to what he says! If he tells you to crawl under 
the seat of the train, you'll do it. Understand?" From the expression on Mrs. Fidget's face, I 
knew I should answer her or she might hurt me. But I was in such shock I couldn't speak. 
And then just as I'd feared, she reached out and began pinching me so hard on the side of 
my neck that I couldn't even tell which part of me hurt. I felt as if I'd fallen into a tub of 
creatures that were biting me everywhere, and I heard myself whimper. The next thing I 
knew, Mr. Tanaka was standing beside us. 

"What's going on here?" he said. "If you have something more to say to these girls, say it 
while I'm standing here. There's no cause for you to treat them this way." 

"I'm sure we have a great many more things to talk about. But the train is coming," Mrs. 
Fidget said. And it was true: I could see it curling around a turn not far in the distance. 


Mr. Tanaka led us back up the platform to where the farmers and old women were gathering 
up their things. Soon the train came to a stop before us. Mr. Bekku, in his stiff kimono, 
wedged himself between Satsu and me and led us by our elbows into the train car. I heard 
Mr. Tanaka say something, but I was too confused and upset to understand it. I couldn't trust 
what I heard. It might have been: 

Mata yol "Well meet again!" 

Or this: 

Matte yol "Wait!" 

Or even this: 

Ma . . . deyol "Well, let's go!" 

When I peered out the window, I saw Mr. Tanaka walking back toward his cart and Mrs. 
Fidget wiping her hands all over her kimono. 

After a moment, my sister said, "Chiyo-chan!" 

I buried my face in my hands; and honestly I would have plunged in anguish through the floor 
of the train if I could have. Because the way my sister said my name, she hardly needed to 
say anything more. 

"Do you know where we're going?" she said to me. 

I think all she wanted was a yes or no answer. Probably it didn't matter to her what our 
destination was-so long as someone knew what was happening. But, of course, I didn't. I 
asked the narrow man, Mr. Bekku, but he paid me no attention. He was still staring at Satsu 
as if he had never seen anything like her before. Finally he squeezed his face into a look of 
disgust and said: 

"Fish! What a stench, the both of you!" 

He took a comb from his drawstring bag and began tearing it through her hair. I'm certain he 
must have hurt her, but I could see that watching the countryside pass by outside the window 
hurt her even more. In a moment Satsu's lips turned down like a baby's, and she began to 
cry. Even if she'd hit me and yelled at me, I wouldn't have ached as much as I did watching 
her whole face tremble. Everything was my fault. An old peasant woman with her teeth bared 
like a dog's came over with a carrot for Satsu, and after giving it to her asked where she was 
going. 

"Kyoto," Mr. Bekku answered. 

I felt so sick with worry at hearing this, I couldn't bring myself to look Satsu in the eye any 
longer. Even the town of Senzuru seemed a remote, faraway place. As for Kyoto, it sounded 
as foreign to me as Hong Kong, or even New York, which I'd once heard Dr. Miura talk 
about. For all I knew, they ground up children in Kyoto and fed them to dogs. 

We were on that train for many hours, without food to eat. The sight of Mr. Bekku taking a 
wrapped-up lotus leaf from his bag, and unwrapping it to reveal a rice ball sprinkled with 
sesame seeds, certainly got my attention. But when he took it in his bony fingers and 
pressed it into his mean little mouth without so much as looking at me, I felt as if I couldn't 
take another moment of torment. We got off the train at last in a large town, which I took to 


be Kyoto; but after a time another train pulled into the station, and we boarded it. This one 
did take us to Kyoto. It was much more crowded than the first train had been, so that we had 
to stand. By the time we arrived, as evening was approaching, I felt as sore as a rock must 
feel when the waterfall has pounded on it all day long. 

I could see little of the city as we neared Kyoto Station. But then to my astonishment, I 
caught a glimpse of rooftops reaching as far as the base of hills in the distance. I could never 
have imagined a city so huge. Even to this day, the sight of streets and buildings from a train 
often makes me remember the terrible emptiness and fear I felt on that curious day when I 
first left my home. 

Back then, around 1930, a fair number of rickshaws still operated in Kyoto. In fact, so many 
were lined up before the station that I imagined no one went anywhere in this big city unless 
it was in a rickshaw-which couldn't have been further from the truth. Perhaps fifteen or twenty 
of them sat pitched forward onto their poles, with their drivers squatting nearby, smoking or 
eating; some of the drivers even lay curled up asleep right there in the filth of the street. 

Mr. Bekku led us by our elbows again, as if we were a couple of buckets he was bringing 
back from the well. He probably thought I'd have run away if he'd let go of me a moment; but 
I wouldn't have. Wherever he was taking us, I preferred it to being cast out alone into that 
great expanse of streets and buildings, as foreign to me as the bottom of the sea. 

We climbed into a rickshaw, with Mr. Bekku squeezed tightly on the bench between us. He 
was a good deal bonier under that kimono even than I suspected. We pitched back as the 
driver raised the poles, and then Mr. Bekku said, "Tominaga-cho, in Gion." 

The driver said nothing in reply, but gave the rickshaw a tug to get it moving and then set off 
at a trot. After a block or two I worked up my courage and said to Mr. Bekku, "Won't you 
please tell us where we're going?" 

He didn't look as if he would reply, but after a moment he said, "To your new home." 

At this, my eyes filled with tears. I heard Satsu weeping on the other side of Mr. Bekku and 
was just about to let out a sob of my own when Mr. Bekku suddenly struck her, and she let 
out a loud gasp. I bit my lip and stopped myself so quickly from crying any further that I think 
the tears themselves may have come to a halt as they slid down my cheeks. 

Soon we turned onto an avenue that seemed as broad as the whole village of Yoroido. I 
could hardly see the other side for all the people, bicycles, cars, and trucks. I'd never seen a 
car before. I'd seen photographs, but I remember being surprised at how . . . well, cruel, is 
the way they looked to me in my frightened state, as though they were designed more to hurt 
people than to help them. All my senses were assaulted. Trucks rumbled past so close I 
could smell the scorched rubber odor of thei