Free So Far from the Bamboo Grove by Yoko Kawashima Watkins Page A

worn. I was relieved that they did not notice the short sword against her skin. Then Mother put on her own clothes. How much more comfortable she looked.
    Ko was next, then my turn came. The men said something and laughed and I stood, hesitant about removing my uniform. “They say they never saw such a tiny soldier!” said one. “Now take off your uniform.”
    My chemise was stained with blood. The men were shocked. “You were wounded,” the stout policeman said. “How?” Ko told him.
    I was sprayed and the powder stung. I screamed. Then Mother handed me my own clothes. They were not clean but, oh, how much more comfortable I felt in them. I hoped I would never have to wear that uniform again. But Ko and Mother were folding the uniforms neatly and putting them into the clothes bundle.
    â€œWe have no winter clothes,” Mother explained.
    They told us we could go, and we were leaving when the stout policeman stopped us. “Have your little daughter’s wound treated,” he said.
    We followed his directions to a group of large tents with red crosses painted on their roofs. Was this the Japanese hospital? Ko asked a medic who sat at a desk outside.
    â€œRight,” he told her. He saw my blouse stained with blood. “Come,” he said. He took my sack, and Mother and Ko followed to a cot where he told me to lie down. He took off my blouse.
    A young doctor came. “I am Doctor Takeda,” he said. Mother and Ko bowed. He pulled up a small stool and asked my name.
    â€œKawashima Yoko.”
    â€œHow old?”
    â€œAlmost twelve.”
    He was filling in a form. “Tell me what happened.”
    I told him, and about my ear aching and being deaf. He asked how long ago and I told him six days.
    When he pulled my chemise carefully from the wound and examined my injury, he shook his head. “I don’t see how she could have stood it all this time. It is badly infected.”
    â€œMy little sister did very well,” Ko told him.
    He sterilized the place beneath my right breast that was burned and infected, applied medicine, and the medic put on antiseptic gauze and wrapped my chest. “Now let me see your ear.” The doctor put a round mirror with a hole in the center on his head.
    He pulled my earlobe down and inserted a long thin wire. Tears streaming, I gritted my teeth and saw Mother’s agonized face. He showed me a piece of metal. “This was in your ear. Your eardrum has been punctured and it is infected.” He drained the infection, dropped in some medicine, and stuffed cotton in my ear.
    As he added information to his form he asked, “By chance, is your father’s name Yoshio?”
    â€œYes,” Mother said.
    â€œI know him,” said the doctor. “My father and your husband were classmates at the University. My father is Kazuzo Takeda—he’s a member of the House of Peers. They get together at our house every year after their alumni association meeting.”
    â€œI know him!” Mother cried.
    Doctor Takeda told her that he had been assignedto the Japanese Army Hospital here six months ago, before the war ended. He asked Mother her plans and she told him about waiting for Hideyo.
    â€œYour little daughter should stay in the hospital,” he told her. “She is badly infected and needs treatment every day.”
    I was given a mat in the crowded patients’ tent and Mother stayed with me that night while Ko took her blanket, canteen, and two ears of corn back to the station. Mother fell asleep guarding what little we possessed, but, throbbing and burning and disturbed by the cries of other patients, I could not sleep. In the night the medic brought me powdered medicine in transparent paper and at last I drifted off.
    The sun was bright when I woke, and Mother was combing her hair. It was more gray than black now, and her face, once so beautiful, was deeply lined. She smiled at me, tying her hair