Naughty girls

Then suddenly I realized we weren't headed in the direction of Mr Hiroki'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 Ryoko, 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 me 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 Ryoko said something to him, and when he turned and peered at us, I decided at once that I was frightened of him.

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

Mr Hiroki said to him, "I've brought Yoshiro 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 Satoru, 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 Hiroki had been displeased by what Mrs Ryoko had told him about us, and that this curiously narrow man, Mr Satoru, planned to take us somewhere to have our fortunes told more completely. Afterwards, we would be returned to Mr Hiroki.

While I tried my best to soothe myself with these thoughts, Mrs Ryoko, wearing a pleasant smile, led Yukiko 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 Satoru 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 Ryoko'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 Hiroki 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 Ryoko said.

And it was true: I could see it curling around a turn not far in the distance.

Mr Hiroki 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 Satoru, in his stiff kimono, wedged himself between Yukiko and me and led us by our elbows into the train car. I heard Mr Hiroki say something, but I was too confused and upset to understand it. I couldn't trust what I heard. It might have been:

Mata yo! "We'll meet again!" Or this:

Matte yo! "Wait!" Or even this:

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

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

After a moment, my sister said, "Akemi-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 of 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 Satoru, but he paid me no attention. He was still staring at Yukiko 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 Yukiko'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 watch her whole face tremble.

Everything was my fault. An old peasant woman with her teeth bared like a dog came over with a carrot for Yukiko, and after giving it to her asked where she was going.

"Kawasaki," Mr Satoru answered.

I felt so sick with worry at hearing this, I couldn't bring myself to look Yukiko in the eye any longer. Even the town of Senzuru seemed a remote, faraway place.

As for Kawasaki, 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 Kawasaki and fed them to dogs.