Bridge for Passing Read Free Page B

man?”
    They were joking, of course, and we had no publicity man, but it was true that we came riding in upon the publicity of the huge tidal wave. I was grieved that my return to Asia must be upon a storm. I was helpless except to express sympathy for those who had suffered.
    I had expected a quiet arrival in Tokyo in other ways. The hour was between two and three after midnight and I could not imagine anyone at the airport to meet me. I thought of one or two business associates, a few friends, perhaps, then a quick ride through dark streets to the old Imperial Hotel, and a bath and bed. It had been a long flight, after all. Sometime in the night we had come down on Wake Island for refueling but it had not seemed important. Outside the window I saw only a cluster of flat buildings and men scurrying here and there, about their business. It might have been anywhere in the middle of the night. Tokyo was another matter.
    “I’m glad we are arriving at such a ghastly hour,” I had said. “There can’t be anyone to meet us.”
    “Don’t be too sure,” my companion had retorted.
    The great aircraft had trembled as it descended and the lights of Tokyo glittered out of the darkness.
    “I am right,” I had said. “There is no one here.”
    A man in a white uniform had stepped forward, “Are you—”
    “Yes, we are,” I said.
    “Then welcome to Japan,” he said. “I am with Japan Airlines. This way, please. … Just a moment, please … photographers and reporters.”
    We paused. Lights focused us in the darkness and cameras snapped. Reporters crowded around us with questions and exclamations about the tidal wave.
    “Thank you,” the man said when we showed signs of exhaustion. “Your friends are waiting for you.”
    Waiting for us? We were speeded through customs, and our friends overwhelmed us indeed with greetings and flowers.
    How did I feel? In a way as though I had come home after a long absence and in a way as though I had come to a new and foreign country. The smiling faces, the warm voices, sometimes the eyes brimming with tears, these claimed me for their own. Men and women I had known as young in my own youth were there looking as changed as I do, and with them were children and grandchildren like mine at home, the boys in western clothes, the girls in their formal kimono.
    “My daughters rose at one o’clock so that they could wear kimono to welcome you,” a friend said proudly.
    I know how long it takes to put on kimono properly and make the suitable coiffeur. The girls were beautiful and I was glad they and others wore kimono to make me feel at home when I arrived, at least. When I lived in Japan before the war, all my women friends wore kimono. The most modern and liberal had perhaps one western suit or dress, but this was unusual and not much approved. Now Japanese women wear western dress every day and always except for the few formal occasions of life when they put on their kimono, and many of them own only one kimono and some none at all. There are exceptions, of course. Old women wear kimono and certain distinguished women, even in business, wear kimono always. My special friend wears kimono because it is becoming to her. She has reached the position and the age when she can wear what she likes.
    Behind the friendly crowd that night with its flowers and photographers, I was aware of Tokyo itself. I knew how severely it had been bombed in the war, and that now it was rebuilt, new and prosperous, a symbol perhaps of the Japan that was strange to me. Yet even the people who came to greet me seemed changed for the better, I thought. The old stiff formality was somehow gone. I heard ready laughter, not the old polite laughter, but spontaneous and real. Everyone talked freely and without fear. That was new. The sweet courtesy remained, but life and good spirits bubbled through, as though an ancient restraint had been removed. This was my first impression that night, and I shall speak of it again