“The daddy looked mean,” says Carolina. “I’m glad Lella is safe in our room. Will they come back?”
I wait for Aiko or Naoki to answer. They know about monkeys. Finally I say, “Why should they?”
“Tell me they won’t come back, Simona.”
“They won’t come back, Carolina.”
Carolina relaxes against me, even though she told me what to say.
“There’s a box under this platform,” says Aiko.
I turn around, staying in a squat, because the platform isn’t high enough to stand under. “Where?”
“Behind me.”
We’re all feeling the sides of the box now.
“A pirate chest,” says Naoki.
“Push it out into the open,” says Carolina.
We push. It doesn’t budge, but the top lifts easily. I force away images of spiders, and Aiko and I feel around in the hazy dark. “Wooden shoes,” she says. “But not the ordinary kind.”
We skitter out the opening one by one. I straighten my legs and arms stiffly.
Aiko holds up a fancy pair of wooden shoes. They are flat wood on very tall bottom supports underneath the heel and toe.
Carolina grabs them. “Whose are they?”
“The pirate wife’s,” says Naoki. “She’s going to come back and snatch you away for stealing them.”
Carolina stares at him. He grins, and she laughs.
We go up onto the platform and take turns wearing the fancy shoes. Even Naoki.
“Kata-kata, kata-kata,” we sing, mimicking the clickity-clack.
It’s hard to balance in them, so we fall, and laugh.
“Let’s go swimming,” says Carolina.
Naoki bumps into me. “I can’t swim,” he whispers to me.
I nod, and say to the others, “When Naoki goes to help his mother, we can have a girl swim without him.” How will Naoki ever manage in the navy if he can’t swim? Maybe I can teach him.
But I’m so glad he’s here. I look behind us at the sides of the villa, where the dark and light pattern of the wood is like a checkerboard. It’s just right, among these trees. We four fit together just right. I wish we could stay here forever.
7 DECEMBER 1941, TOKYO, JAPAN
Carolina’s stomach growls. She giggles, even though we’re in church. We haven’t had breakfast yet, because the adults and I are going to take Communion, and our insides must be clean and empty, ready for the wafer. Carolina should have nibbled on something before church, but she likes to fast because I do it.
Papà doesn’t scold her for giggling, and neither does the ambassador, sitting beside Papà, nor Pessa. In Italy children giggling in church isn’t bad behavior. But Japan is different.
I look around. DenenchÅfu Church is packed with a mix of foreigners and Japanese. It’s tiny in comparison to our huge church in Italy. And it’s made of wood, not bricks. The brass altar bells that were here when we first came are gone. So is the altar candelabra. But the incense smells the same, and the Latin words are the same. I love this church. Everyone does. People stand in the side aisles and at the back. The church couldn’t hold one more body.
It’s the seventh of December, and Carolina turns seven today; we’re having a party. We’re not calling it a party, though, since no one in Japan has birthday parties.
After Mass everyone spills out the front doors. We wait our turn to bow to Friar Inayou. He’s the only Japanese priest at this church; the others are from Europe. He likes Carolina and me. Last autumn Carolina gave him an origami boat. Since then, after Mass he gives each of us an origami animal. This is a Franciscan church, and Saint Francis loved animals. Today the priest’s animals are birds in flight. A yellow one for Carolina and a blue one for me. We bow again.
We pile into the official embassy car to ride home. Papà sits up front beside the driver. The ambassador and his wife sit in the back, with Carolina and me between them. I take Mamma’s church scarf off and tie it onto Carolina. I get to wear it during Mass, and she gets to wear it on the way home. Most girls her age don’t cover their heads in church. We fly our origami birds in wonderful swoops.
I think of Nonna. We’ve been waiting and waiting for a letter from her. It has to come soon; she’d never fail to wish Carolina a happy birthday. Zio Piero’s card isn’t here yet, either. Papà promises they will appear any day; the Italian mail can be late, but it always shows up in the end.
The ambassador leans forward and taps Papà on the shoulder. “Foreign Minister Matsuoka will be coming on Wednesday. We need to serve him a Japanese banquet.”
“Of course,” says Papà.
“A celebration.” The ambassador sounds annoyed. “He hinted something about the Soviet Union.”
“I can buy herring roe, and with the perfect light soy sauce, I can—”
“Do whatever you think is best.” The ambassador reaches past Carolina and me and pats his wife’s knee. “Just make sure that for the rest of the week you make my wife’s favorite dishes. Your cooking is such a relief.”
Pessa sighs. “Oh, Mario.” She looks out the window, her hands twisting and twisting.
It feels strange to hear the ambassador’s first name. Carolina laughs.
Pessa turns and gives Carolina a small smile. Pessa takes Mamma’s church scarf off Carolina and drops it onto my lap. Then she smooths her lace mantilla and puts it on Carolina’s head. “It’s your birthday, I heard. From now on, you can look like the big girls in church.”
Carolina’s mouth falls open, and her eyes say it all: she wants to be wearing Mamma’s church scarf.
“Thank you, Ambasciatrice,” I say. “But your gift is far too fine and expensive.”
Pessa smiles. “I need a new one anyway.”
Carolina sits like a stone.
I pinch her thigh lightly.
“Thank you, Pessa,” she manages.
“Pessa?”
“Carolina thinks of you as a principessa,” I say. “Because you’re as beautiful as a princess.” I look at the ambassador, with his slicked-back hair, parted in the middle. He isn’t a prince; he’s more of a frog. The princess and the frog.
Pessa touches Carolina’s cheek. She says to the ambassador, “The bay, please.”
The ambassador says to Papà, “Tell the driver to take the route along the bay.”