“Your fingers must be sore.” Carolina comes up beside me. “From sewing on Naoki’s horo every night.”
I smile. I gave the finished horo to Naoki yesterday, and he pretended to gallop around the side yard while Carolina shot imaginary arrows at him, all of which sailed right through the billowing cloth, missing Naoki. Each time he triumphantly laughed. I pretended to be the servant who kept repairing his horo when an arrow pierced it.
Carolina puts a rice candy on my palm. “For being so good to Naoki.”
The candy is misshapen, and bits of rush grass are embedded in the outer layer of rice paper, the part that dissolves in your mouth immediately. But these candies are delicious. I haven’t seen any in the market for weeks. Many things are rationed now. “It’s dirty,” I say, wrinkling my nose.
“I hid it under my futon. It got pressed into the tatami mat. If you don’t want it, give it back.”
I close my fist around the treasure. “Where did you get it?”
“Pessa.”
We call the ambassador’s wife Pessa now—short for principessa—princess. She hardly ever leaves the top floor of the embassy except for the evening meal. And then she talks only to the ambassador, though it’s clear she loves Papà’s cooking. She uses bread to wipe every last drop of sauce off her plate.
Why would Pessa give Carolina candy? “You don’t bother her, do you?”
Botan and Hatsu come through the door with a burst of cold air. They bow a greeting and plant their shoes on the shelf by the table.
Carolina sets a small furoshiki beside my bigger lunch one. “From Papà,” she says, shifting to Japanese. She and Botan walk off holding hands.
I wonder how Carolina’s doll Lella feels about Botan. The rag doll has been sitting in our room alone lately. But I guess that’s good. Carolina is growing up.
I tie on my school shoes, then pick up both furoshiki and step outside. It’s earlier than I normally walk to school. I check my jacket buttons because of the cutting cold. This is as warm as I’m going to get.
The gray wall of the embassy yard has an iron fence on top. Sharp points at the top stab the dull air. It might rain today. I wish it would snow. Then the bitter cold would be worth it. Papà says snow in Tokyo is as rare as snow back home.
I walk around to the front and out the gate, and smile big at the guard without showing my teeth. Aiko taught me that girls my age don’t show their teeth when they smile. The guard never smiles back.
After a couple of blocks, I open the smaller furoshiki. It holds leftovers from the ambassador and his wife’s breakfast: the crusty end of a loaf of bread, buttered. I can’t remember when I last had butter. I nibble slowly.
“Breakfast?”
I turn my head.
“Don’t look back. Walk as though I’m not here.”
It’s Aiko. How lucky. I’ve never come across Aiko walking alone. Maybe I should always walk to school earlier.
“I can smell it from here. Something odd.”
“Butter.” I take another bite.
“Last week you came to school smelling of plum.”
“Plum jam.” It was delicious. I nod.
“Don’t nod,” she snaps.
My heart beats hard. Why are we walking like this, her behind me?
“And before that it was something else. You shouldn’t eat fancy food.”
I swallow the last bite of bread and butter.
“People say the Italian embassy is full of gluttons. With expensive food. Eggs all the time. Meat. Foreign food. They have a nickname for you: ishuu.”
I know that word. It means different religion, and it sounds like the word that means stink. Someone’s being mean and clever. I feel sick.
“I’m going to pass you now. Don’t look at me.” Aiko walks around me swiftly. Why is she taking this risk for me?
I stop in the middle of the sidewalk. My eyes burn. I miss Nonna more than ever.
Aiko meets up with a group of girls on the corner. They walk together toward Mita Elementary School. All the other kids walk in groups. Except me.
Last week Naoki said we’re spoiled because we live at the embassy.
We’re servants. We don’t live like the ambassador and Pessa, but people here don’t know that.
What matters now is that Aiko has done me a favor. She’s trying to help me.
I walk back half a block to the closest pine tree. I rip off a handful of needles, stiff with winter. I stuff them into my mouth and chew. They poke the insides of my cheeks. I chew harder and swipe at my eyes. Pine scent finally. I gnash my teeth, grinding out every last bit of pine juice.
I march to school, eyes on the sidewalk. If anyone gets close enough, I’ll breathe on them. They’ll think they’re in a forest.
I don’t meet anyone’s eyes all morning.
When it’s time to clean the classroom, the teacher tells us to put on our shoes instead. We’re going on a bus ride with women from the Adult Assistance Group. Everyone else seems to know about it. Our teacher must have announced it last week. Or maybe she wrote it on the board and I couldn’t read it.
On the bus, I sit by a window. People file in to sit in twos. I look out the window. Finally someone plops down beside me. I dare to peek. It’s Aiko. She stares straight ahead.
A girl named Mutsuko gets on. There are no more free seats.
“Sit with those two.” A woman points at Aiko and me. It makes sense; we’re the smallest, so there’s room.
Mutsuko perches on the edge of the seat and talks softly with Aiko.
We drive through so many streets. I see women of all ages, but the men are old. The young ones are off at war. I lean my forehead against the cold glass as we bump along.
We get off at a huge park, and I look around in awe.
“The Komazawa green,” whispers Aiko. “People play golf here.”
No one is playing golf now; instead, soldiers train everywhere I look. They are boys, with skinny necks. They wear floppy pants and bands around their heads, and their shirts are dark with sweat, despite the cold.
Three women lead us out onto the field. “Clean it up!”
Girls form pairs. I expect to work alone, but Aiko stays with me. She glances around, and when she sees that no one is looking, she gives me a small smile. We pick up cigarette butts and scraps of paper and throw the rubbish into a trash cart.
The women herd us through the streets now, and we collect metals. The military needs iron and copper and brass for war tools. We take the metal strips off the bottoms of doors and from the edges of roofs. We gather old metal teapots and broken hibachis. We go into a Buddhist temple with a huge tree out front. The leaves shine green, even though it’s December. An old woman stands at the base and hugs the main trunk. I wish someone would hug me.