Forged In Fire: Stories of wartime Japan

Fairy Tale Witch

Raising three small children as a single woman must have been a difficult and bitter experience for Auntie. She was young herself and probably wished that she could be free to live her own life but she was stuck with us, bound by her mother's insistence that she help out.

In children's fairy tales, there is often a cruel character in the form of an evil stepmother or witch. In the case of our family, it was Auntie. She had been a karate champion in Kyushu where she was originally from and was both spirited and physically strong. As her frustration with us grew, we began to see the harder side of personality more often. Auntie set many rules for us and did not hesitate to enforce them. She would order my brothers to dust the house and afterward, would go around with white gloves on to inspect their work. If she felt that they did not do a good enough job, punishment was sure to follow.

I was close to my two brothers, Sadakazu and Tadashi. Tadashi was older than me by a year or two and Sadakzau was about five years older than Tadashi. Sadakazu was skinny and tall and resembled the actor, Gregory Peck. Tadashi was shorter than Sadakazu with broad features and a more muscular build. While I had referred to Sadakazu as oniisan - big brother - I had invented a clever nickname for Tadashi: "chiinisan." The name was a combination of chiisai, the Japanese word for "little" and oniisan. I was their imouto, the little sister with the bowl haircut. Both brothers were a handful, always playing and getting into trouble with Auntie.

We had a Victrola phonograph player that was operated with a hand crank. The Victrola had a picture of a white dog on it, its head tilted as it appeared to listen to its own phonograph player. The Victrola belonged to Auntie who also owned a collection of American Big Band and Swing jazz records. There was one song in particular that I loved and enjoyed listening to over and over again. When I asked my brothers to play my favorite song, Sadakazu and Tadashi had fun ignoring me while they played anything but what I had requested. Frustrated, I stamped my feet on the ground and yelled: I hate you guys! Wait until I grow up to be a man, I'll beat you both up! Tadashi and Sadakazu howled with laughter at my ridiculous claim and mocked me. I stormed off, not realizing that when I grew older, I wasn't going to magically turn into one of them.

One day, as I was goofing around with Sadakazu and Tadashi instead of doing my homework, Auntie came up behind me and hit me hard on the head with a heavy pencil case. No one had ever hit me before and it took me by surprise. Another time, Auntie made me and my brothers line up in a row and slapped us each across the face. I learned my lessons quickly and was rarely punished thereafter. My brothers on the other hand were punished over and over because they did not understand the consequences of not following Auntie's rules.

When she was really angry, Auntie would not speak to us for days. Once, after about five days of silence, I could not stand it anymore and took the risk of getting slapped by confronting her: Why won't you talk to us? This isn't fair. You have to tell us what we did! Auntie ignored my plea. I hated the silent treatment probably even more than I hated getting hit.

Grandmother would leave the house during the day to visit her father's grave at nearby Sengakuji Temple. Sengakuji happens to be the sacred burial site of the famous 47 ronin. Each year, it is tradition for thousands of people to visit Sengakuji and pay respect to the loyal samurai. Looking back, I can see how the temple would have appealed to Grandmother's dedication to the long-gone ways of the samurai.

Tadashi and I were still too young for school and were often home alone with Auntie. Sometimes I would leave the house to explore the surrounding neighborhood. It was safe enough for me to go out on my own and no one in my family ever questioned where I was going. I enjoyed watching shop workers go about their tasks. They didn't seem to mind me standing in their doorways and staring because I was quiet. I watched them work the same way that I would watch grandmother and Auntie while they were cooking.

I spent a great deal of my free time exploring the neighborhood and observing everything with interest: men sitting outside and playing mahjong; sweet potatoes being steamed in a large iron pot with a cloth wrapped around the lid so the steam would not escape; a man in a restaurant placing an eel on a cutting board and holding down its head just before slicing it off; women straining tofu or making ice pops;craftsmen making fancy zori and geta out of wood and cloth; a woman deep frying sweet potatoes and rolling them in honey and sesame seeds; a man roasting chestnuts; a woman scooping steamed sweet peas into a paper cone and sprinkling them with sugar; a man pounding rice, forming it into smooth mounds of mochi, placing sweet azuki bean paste inside each mound, shaping them into balls and steaming them into manju.

A few times upon returning home from one of my wanderings, I had discovered that Auntie had taken Tadashi to the hospital because he had somehow hurt himself: broken some bones or punctured his eardrum with a pencil. While I tried to imagine how Tadashi must have fallen down the stairs or done something silly to injure himself, what I could not have known was that something much worse had been going on - a nightmare.

One day I came home and witnessed Auntie kicking Tadashi. He was rolled up in a ball on the floor, crying, his arms covering his head as she kicked him repeatedly. I was too young and too shocked to understand what was happening. Auntie later took Tadashi to the hospital. She lied to Grandmother and Sadakazu, telling them Tadashi had fallen and hurt himself. I remember the sheepish smile Auntie wore that both revealed and concealed her guilt in the matter.

Whenever Tadashi returned from the hospital he was silent and kept to himself. The image of Auntie kicking Tadashi was soon blocked from my mind for many years but the helplessness of what I had felt stayed with me. From then on, I instinctively knew that I could not trust her.

On more than one occasion, Auntie had brought home beautiful, exquisitely decorated manju or small cakes. These treats were special - designed to attract the eye. When I would excitedly ask Auntie whom the cake or manju was for, she would always reply that it was for the landlord. She would then place a cake or manju into the miniature shrine, leaving it on display. I would stare suspiciously at the treat as it sat there in the shrine - a cake covered in frosting with tiny silver balls or a soft manju decorated with delicate, colorful candy flowers.

I could not understand why Auntie tempted us this way instead of just taking them over to the landlord. I wanted to touch or taste the treats but being a good girl, I left them alone. I later found out that Tadashi had made the unfortunate mistake of falling for Auntie's trick, sticking his finger into one of the manju and leaving behind a telltale imprint. For this reason, Auntie had punished Tadashi with her karate kicks.

In a fit of rage, Auntie once scooped my brothers up, one in each arm, and hauled them to the front door where she threw them outside into the pouring rain. She ordered them to keep their eyes open while looking upward at the sky. I could not bear to see my brothers suffer this way. I had to beg and plead with Auntie before she would let them back inside. Some of our neighbors witnessed the incident and complained to Grandmother, accusing Auntie of being harsh and militant.

One of Auntie's rules was that we had to be back home before sundown. As soon as one store would switch on its lights, I would immediately run home.

My brothers, who were out playing together, were not as observant of the time change and would return home late, angering Auntie. As punishment, she once threatened to burn the backs of their hands by means of an ancient Chinese remedy that my grandmother sometimes used; it involved having tiny bunches of gray, cotton-like material placed on one's back while an incense-like stick is used to heat the material, leaving burn-like marks on the skin. As Auntie ordered my brothers to extend their hands to her, I confronted her and demanded that she stop. I then held out my own hand and told her to burn me instead. Miraculously, Auntie started crying and hugged me, promising that she would never threaten to burn us again.