A Single Flower
Translated From The Japanese
By Taeko Kondo
Original Title: A
Single Flower
Writer:
Sukeyuki Imanisi
今西祐行
Picture:
Sho Nakao
中尾彰
あすなろ書房
Early spring, 2003
A Single Flower
It was in the
middle of World WarⅡthat a little baby girl, Yumiko learned one phrase “Give
me only one”. People in Japan were
suffering from hunger.
They had satisfied their appetite on a small amount of potatoes and pumpkins
rationed by the government.
Yumiko was always hungry and begged food of her mother. The mother soothed her baby, saying “Then, only one, my dear.” This was her mother’s way of speaking and Yumiko learned this phrase.
“Poor thing! This little girl believes that she can
get anything, if she says ‘Give me only one!’ ” Her mother sighed.
Her father also said with a deep sigh. “This poor girl will never
know the phrase: Give me a pile of goodies: but: Only one potato, only one
pumpkin and only one rice- ball ….Only one happiness: Oh, no!
Happiness may never come around for the rest of her life, I am afraid.” Then, her father lifted
Yumiko higher in his arms again and again.
It was not long before that
Yumiko’s father received a draft card and he had to go to the front.
Yumiko’s mother carried her baby on her back and went to the station to
see him off. Yumiko was wearing her mother’s hand-made hood. Her mother
was putting a cotton bag on her shoulder, inside there were
bandages, medicine, distributing tickets and some precious rice- balls.
Yumiko had noticed
that there were rice-balls in the bag.
She asked her mother for one.
“Only one rice-ball, please.” Before she knew it, her mother had given
Yumiko all the rice-balls. She did
not want Yumiko to cry at the station because of hunger.
The station was crowded with the people who were seeing the soldiers off.
Some were giving cheers, and others were singing war songs.
At the corner of
the station, Yumiko’s father raised Yumiko in his arms and sang in chorus. He had to depart for the front hiding
his sorrow.
Just before the
train arrived at the station, Yumiko began her habit of saying. “Give me only one.” Yumiko’s father said “Give her all the rice-balls, my dear.” “Well….
Yumiko ate them all up.” Her
mother answered.
Soothingly she
said toYumiko, “My dear daughter, cheer your father up by saying banzai . He
is going to the front.” The little baby did not understand what her mother said and began to cry. Yumiko
did not stop crying, “Only one!
Only one!”
While Yumiko’s
mother was comforting her daughter, her father left them and went along the
platform. He returned soon
grasping a single cosmos.
He found one at
the end of the platform. He said “
Well, my dear daughter, I will give you only one, a very lovely one.” Yumiko was excited by the single cosmos
and dangled her legs with joy.
Yumiko’s father smiled and left them on the platform without saying a
word. He stood by the train’s door and stared at a single
flower grasping by Yumiko.
Ten years had passed since Yumiko’s father went to the front. Yumiko did not know anything about her father. However, her small tin house was surrounded with pink and red cosmoses.
There was the
sound of a sawing machine coming from this small house. It kept changing a fast and a slow pace, as if it were a lively conversation.
Yumiko’s mother earned her living by sawing.
“Mom, which do you
like better, meat or fish?”
Yumiko’s cheerful voice came from the garden filled with cosmoses, when the sound of sawing stopped. The singing of the sawing machine began again. Yumiko went out of her cosmoses’ tunnel
skipping. With a lovely basket, she went shopping to the town near her house. That day was Sunday. Yumiko seemed likeａ lovely mother as she prepared their lunch.
.