Children of the Paper Crane: The Story of Sadako Sasaki and Her Struggle with the A-Bomb Disease

The Story of Sadako Sasaki and Her Struggle with the A-Bomb Disease

Masamoto Nasu

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781315489872
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Public Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The proper role of government in the US economy has long been the subject of ideological dispute. This study of industrial policy as practised by administration after administration, explores the variations from a "hands-off" approach to protectionist policies and aggressive support for businesses.

Part I

1
Field Day

I

Dawn in Hiroshima breaks to the clacking of streetcars. The city is drawn from night's slumber by the sound of steel wheels on rails set in cobblestones, running down the center of the street.

That morning the sound of a streetcar woke Sadako Sasaki too. Her house stood along the Hakushima Line, a hundred meters north of Hatchobori, the city's main shopping district. The three-story structure of wood and mortar trembled slightly in response to the passing streetcars. Sadako's house was near the Kyobashi stop. The trams slowed as they approached. From her third-floor window Sadako could easily see the shuddering car-top poles reaching to the wires above. Now and then small showers of sparks burst from where the poles met the wires, lighting up the tops of the cars in blue-white electric flashes. With the flashes came a crackling sound.

Sadako's mother Fujiko hated those flashes. The sudden brightness reminded her of the pika. But they did not bother Sadako at all. On summer nights she thought she could watch the flashing streetcars forever. She even loved the rumbling.

After the bombing, the Hakushima Line remained closed long after the other city lines were restored to service. In June 1952, the line was moved one block east to Teppocho Avenue, and the streetcars started running. Sadako had been living with the clickety-clack, clickety-clack ever since. In fact, the grinding of the wheels and the trembling of her house were so much a part of daily life that they did not usually wake her up. This particular morning she woke at the sound of the very first car, probably because she was nervous.

She rose quietly and drew back the curtain. Though the sky was still covered by thick clouds, the rain had stopped. When she opened the window slightly, a damp wind blew into the room.

"Is it morning already?" It was the groggy voice of her little sister Mitsue who had been sleeping next to her.

"The rain's stopped, Mxt-chan. We'll have Field Day today for sure."

"Really? Good. What time is it?"

"It's only five. Let's get some more sleep."

Sadako quickly closed the window and crawled back into bed. The long-awaited Field Day should have been yesterday. Now she was sure it would not be called off again. She squirmed in her bed, practicing the movements of a baton pass.

"Let's see ... stretch my right arm behind to receive, then hand it over with my left like this... ." Sadako was on the relay team for the sixth-grade Bamboo class. She was the girls' anchor. Mitsue, a second-grader, was already breathing the soft sounds of sleep.

"I have to get some sleep, too." Sadako closed her eyes. It was Monday, October 4, 1954.

II

The weather cleared as the sun rose. Here and there puddles on the field sparkled as bright rays of sunlight broke through the clouds. Teachers and children were going from puddle to puddle, filling them with sand.

9:00 A.M. The Grand Field Day at Noboricho Municipal Elementary School began as scheduled. The rain on Sunday had pushed the meet to a weekday, reducing the number of parents on hand. Perhaps because there were so few spectators, the afternoon's events began without much excitement, even among the children. For the past few years at Noboricho, individual classes were randomly split and assigned to the Red and White teams. As a result, the children were only mildly interested in winning points for the Red or White. Their true competitive spirit was focused on the interclass relays held at the end of the program.

The sixth-graders of the Bamboo class were almost obsessed with this relay. Half a year earlier, during the spring meet in May, the Bamboos had placed a spectacular last. Since then, everyone in the class had been practicing. And not just the fast runners—even the boy with polio had been working out. Now it was almost time to show what their daily training had done.

As the afternoon program proceeded, the Bamboos became more and more fidgety, and Sadako was as nervous as any. When the fifth-grade boys had finished their kibasen (mock battle), children wearing official caller ribbons ran in front of the tents, shouting through a megaphone, "Calling all runners for the interclass relay!"

"Let's go, Sada-chan." Tomiko Yokota, who had been sitting next to her, jumped up and brushed off the seat of her bloomers. Sadako got up without speaking.

The rest of the class called out their encouragement as the runners rose.

"Go get 'em!"

"Just don't lose to Wisteria!"

Suddenly feeling embarrassed, Sadako ran behind the spectators' seats as if to escape. The adults were standing and watching from behind where the children sat.

"Hey ... you're gonna run, aren't you?"

Turning around, Sadako saw her little brother Eiji holding their mother's hand. Fujiko must have come straight from the barbershop; she was still in her white workclothes, looking plump and jovial. Eiji, six years younger than Sadako, was looking up at her.

"Yeah, you cheer for me, OK?"

Fujiko's shining eyes beamed even brighter as she gave her daughter a nod. Sadako nodded back and ran after Tomiko. There were already quite a few contestants at the main gate. From first grade to sixth, every class in each grade sent ten runners to the relays. The lower grades had already begun their races.

"I have to go to the bathroom," Sadako whispered.

Tomiko, sitting nearby, rolled her eyes.

"Again? Didn't you just go?"

"But Mr. Nomura said we should go before we run, didn't he?"

"Yeah, that's right. I guess I'll go with you." They stood up together.

Tomiko and Sadako had been in the same class since second grade. Their families both ran shops, so they came from similar homes. In sports they were great rivals. They were the only two girls in the Bamboo class who could vault to the seventh level of the box horse.

The fifth-grade relay was over. It was time for the sixth-graders. Each team had five boys and five girls. The boys and girls would run alternate laps. The first runner for the Bamboo team was a tall girl, Hiroko Nejime. Her classic, oval face was slightly flushed as she approached the starting line. Six runners, one each from the Pine, Bamboo, Plum, Cherry, Paulownia, and Wisteria classes, placed their hands carefully on the track as they took their positions.

"...Get set..."

They raised their hips at the sound of the teacher's voice. When the pistol cracked, six runners lunged forward as one. Cheering and applause from the spectators rose like a wave, following the runners around the track. At around fifty meters, the pack began to break up. By the time a straining Hiroko passed her baton, she was in second place.

Waiting for her turn, Sadako watched every movement of the runners. She was by far the fastest of the girls. Even among the boys, her only equal was Masatoshi Tasaka, the boys' anchor. Tadaaki Ishimi, who had received the baton from Hiroko, was moving up on the lead runner, a Wisteria. The Wisterias were definitely the ones to beat. They had won easily at the Little Field Day last spring; but by the time Tadaaki came charging down the straight stretch in front of the guest seats to pass the baton to Harumi Yamagata, he had pulled out in front. Long-legged Harumi's smooth pace widened the gap between the Bamboos and the Wisterias. Hideaki Mito, Kikue Itadani, Takashi Kajikawa, and Sadako's best friend Tomiko, all ran with total abandon, burning to make their half-year of hard training pay off. The baton pass they had botched so often during the spring meet was perfect every time today.

Then it was Sadako's turn to wait at the line. She watched as Nobuhiko Jigo came around the wide bend and bounded toward her. Thick eyebrows raised over wide eyes, he ran with his unmistakeable bouncing gait. Sadako ran two or three steps to warm up. She waited. Nobuhiko slammed the red baton into her right hand just as she grabbed for it. She pulled it in close and took off down the white line at full tilt.

The damp earth felt smooth and cool under her bare feet. Her nickname "Monkey" seemed perfect for this girl who ran as if she were leaping through space. The runners behind her, her mother and brother watching from somewhere—everything seemed to vanish. There was only the white line drawing her along, faster and faster.

At the far end of the long curve she could see anchor Masatoshi Tasaka lined up with the other boys. His face danced at the edge of her vision. Her left hand lowered the baton to his in a wide arc. Watching him take off out of the corner of her eye, she veered off the track onto the field. Her heart still pounding at full speed, she gasped deeply as sweat oozed from every pore.

"Sada-chan, I can't believe it. Look! Look, we won!" Tomiko came over to hug her just as Masatoshi broke the tape half a lap ahead of the runner-up.

"We did it! Bamboo's number one!" Nobuhiko and Tadaaki were jumping for joy while the shrieking girl runners joined hands. Two pistol shots signaled the end of the race. The order at the finish was Bamboo, Paulownia, Wisteria, Cherry, Pine, Plum.

The runners returned to their seats to find their waiting classmates even more excited.

"I still say you run weird," said Nobuhiko's twin brother Naohiko. They were almost identical in face and build, but little brother Nobuhiko was more athletic, and Naohiko coached him like a big brother.

"Yeah? Was I bouncing again? I was trying not to. Anyway, so what? It's not like anyone passed me up!"

"Nobu's right. The main thing is, we won! Look at those Wisterias. They been goin' around braggin' all over the place. We won't hear a peep out of 'em now. Even Paulownia wiped 'em out." Toshio Yasui, the Bamboo's comedian, aimed this barb loudly at the Wisteria runners who were just walking off. The Grand Field Day was over.

The sky was now completely clear, and a cold wind blew against the children's bare legs. After each student was given a pencil for participating, the younger children were cleared off the field while the upper grades started to clean up.

"Everyone over here for pictures of the relay team." Mr. Nomura, the Bamboos' teacher, was herding students as he readied the bellows camera that hung constantly from his shoulder. He had found it in a secondhand store when he moved to Hiroshima that spring, and he was always ready to snap photos of his students. "What's the trouble? Line up. Girls in front, boys in back!" Mr. Nomura was shouting, but the children were so used to his raised voice that it never really frightened them.

"He said, 'Girls in front.' Come on. Hurry up and sit down," Takashi said lightly. In choosing who would sit in the middle, the girls were busy backing out in favor of each other.

"Well, if you're gonna argue about it, put Monkey in the middle. She's the fastest," chuckled Nobuhiko.

Hearing her nickname "Monkey," Sadako turned and threw a slight scowl at Nobuhiko.

"Okay, hold it."

Though the children were squinting directly into the late afternoon sun, they still stared intently into the camera. At the light click of the shutter, they relaxed and continued to talk. Mr. Nomura's voice quieted the chatter. "Ladies and gentlemen, you were great today," he said. He looked at them each in turn. "Now you know there's nothing you can't do when you're united. The last team in the spring has suddenly turned up number one. That comes from unity."

The faces turned toward him were unusually meek. That word, "unity"—since April he had preached it at them enough to put calluses on their ears. Today it resonated with fresh meaning.

"Yeah, it's like a dream," Sadako whispered to herself. There they were, the same class that had finished last in the spring meet. She had anchored that team too, but had been unable to pass a single person. And today she had run far in front, she had been virtually running alone.

"Okay, back to clean-up." This time Mr. Nomura's voice scattered the group around the field. Broom-wielding children raised clouds of dust that hung over the track.

III

Tsuyoshi Nomura, teacher of the sixth-grade Bamboo class, was born in Taiwan, which was a Japanese colony at the time of his birth. His birthday was January 1, 1926, which made him twenty-eight on the day of the race. When the Second World War ended, he came back to Japan and started teaching in Miyoshi, Hiroshima Prefecture, his father's hometown. He had been transferred to Noboricho Elementary School in Hiroshima City the previous April. The Bamboos were his first class there.

Coming from a tiny school in the mountains where he and his students had felt like a family, Mr. Nomura found everything about this city school strange. The Bamboo class had a total of sixty-two pupils—thirty-four boys and twenty-eight girls. Besides their sheer numbers, Mr. Nomura was amazed by their cliquishness. The kids from each neighborhood stuck together in groups that had "bosses" who fought each other. And, of course, there were times when the fights did not stop at words. After the fights had run their course, it was no easy matter to get back to school work.

"It's like the dark ages in there," he would say, and sometimes there was nothing he could do about it. The rumor that their fifth-grade teacher had thrown up his hands and resigned may have been more than mere talk. Even the other children in the school considered the Bamboos a wild bunch.

Mr. Nomura had come to his new post fresh from his wedding. A newlywed in a new job, he was having a rough time of it. Still, his natural optimism, coupled with his harsh experience in the country school, gave him the resolve to cope with his new roomful of warriors. Compared to his previous assignment, where he had to climb over a mountain just to buy a piece of paper or a pencil, conditions were wonderful in this new place, he kept telling himself. And it was not as though he could not understand why this gang was so wild.

Mr. Nomura was well aware of the atomic bomb, the pika. It had exploded in the air over the city nine years earlier on August 6, 1945, killing countless people and wreaking havoc on the lives of the rest. On that day these inner-city children had seen their whole world, including the Noboricho Elementary School District, burned to the ground. In the nine years after Japan's surrender, their town had gradually regained a bustling, prosperous look, but the wounds of war were still obvious. Half of the Bamboos had lost a parent. One boy had lost al...