For the millionth time, Yumiko thanked God for her dark eyes and straight, if too light, hair. Her mother had taught her to count her blessings on her rosary, and that was always a certain one. But it was probably good she did not have a second rosary for her gripes. Why had God made her, first of all, so shy? And given her such an unfortunate family circumstance? "God is mysterious, Maria-sama," she thought,
"Maria-sama, I don't want much," she whispered. With a lifetime of quietness behind it, it would never be heard by another living soul. "I just want to be a human being." Really, that was enough. It was time for her first lesson, her French class. Her first lesson ever at a school where she already knew she was doomed.
Every girl at Saint-Lillian's was very lucky to be there, of course. The orphans and the girls without fathers paying small fees that didn't cover their board, that went without saying. But even the ojou-samas were, after all, lucky generally, and that was what enabled them to be educated at Lillian's in the first place.
There was enough food, and not so much time was dedicated to work and Mass and so on that they couldn't study. Just as Yumiko had heard was the case in Russia, Japan was going to need more than wives to pull itself out of the chaos it was still in. Educated girls like Yumiko would be white-collar workers, even administrators and managers. Yumiko's mother would be proud of her, though as a Christian she would have been happy to have her daughter at Saint-Lillian's in any event.
The first day of school in the fall was a full day, and she'd risen early to make herself and her mother breakfast and wash up. Then she'd gone to Mass and hurried away, but had to stop to pray. Just greeting the older girls back distressed her so much she almost couldn't find her way to her classroom, but she scurried in like a mouse and was, luckily, the first student there. The teacher was seated at her desk and the lesson for the day was on the blackboard. Lillian's could not afford books, though their benefactors in Quebec and France did send them sundry donated books to practice reading in. Those books were passed from student to student for readings.
This first day, the students could seat themselves, and barring some good reason, could stay there for the term. Yumiko seated herself in the back near the window. Another blessing to count, and a real one.
There were two other girls in the class that were so quiet the teacher could not have heard them from her desk, so the teacher set an example of effort by following the French reading book back. It would have been too much to expect the first years to speak out loudly in French while reading - in the case of Yumiko, impossible. The book was a children's book and Yumiko had been drilled in elementary French by her mother so as to keep up with the orphans (and with some of the ojou-samas, the ones who could afford small group tutors). She was able to read without mistakes in her mouse's voice. She stuttered a great deal, but it was obvious that she was the same way in Japanese if one could get her to talk at all.
With some girls, their body language tells you that they prefer to remain silent all day. At a convent school, that was actually a bonus.
At lunch, everyone ate together, and one of the orphan girls waved at her and said "Hello." Yumiko looked away and turned red. At this point in her life, If more than one person talked to her, she always got so nervous she pulled her shoulders in to her body and looked sad. If people persisted in talking to her, she felt sick.
