A couple of weeks ago, my granddaughter Maddie, the four-year-old, wanted to try out her roller skates. This surprised her mom.
“You’ve only tried them once or twice since we gave them to you last Christmas,” Leslie remarked.
Maddie pointed out that actually, Santa Claus gave her those skates, not Mom and Dad.
“Oops, I stand corrected,” said Leslie.
That exchange reminded me of my own youthful Santa Claus drama. I remember precisely when and where I learned the truth.
It happened at Washington Heights, an American housing project in Tokyo, Japan, just before Christmas 1951. I was eight years old. That‘s the typical age when most kids figure it out. They usually ask an appropriate adult point blank — is Santa Claus real?
I didn’t quite make it to the point of asking. My appropriate adult coolly and calmly outed Santa and chastised me for buying the story in the first place. It was positively un-American.
In those days, all married American military officers were required to employ one maid and one “houseboy” to give jobs to the Japanese. The job required fluency in English, of course.
The maids were live-ins. Our family housing units had an extra bedroom and bathroom for that purpose. Maids were on the job Monday through Friday.
Our maid was Shizue, which means quiet. She wasn’t quiet. She was a vivacious, happy, friendly girl in her early 20s. We called her Suzie. She loved us, and we loved her.
The houseboys were dayworkers. They reported for duty in the morning and went home at night. Our houseboy was Arimichi, also in his early 20s.
Arimichi was the quiet one, dignified and very bright. He was a friendly guy, but wouldn’t give you a hug for the hell of it, like Susie would.
The amount of work assigned varied with the family. In the Smith household, Susie helped Mom with housekeeping chores, and Arimichi pitched in for the heavy lifting. Otherwise, he kept track of my brother Lee and me and took us places around the base. To us, it was a sweet deal.
Amazingly, even though the Americans were there as an army of occupation — an army that had dropped two atomic bombs on them — none of the maids or houseboys exhibited the slightest resentment of us.
Dad said all of the Japanese he met around Tokyo were that way. The Japanese, he told me, were a proud and honorable people, and they probably reckoned they had lost the war fair and square. Thus, nothing to do but look forward and start rebuilding. Which they did.
Sometime in early December, when Santa Claus fever was escalating, I made an interesting discovery in the back of my parents’ closet: a stash of unwrapped toys.
It wasn’t my habit to snoop in their closet. I didn‘t give a damn what was in their closet. But this time, curious evidence piqued my interest — a lumpy, bulging blanket that wasn’t there before.
So I investigated, and I found the stash. Clearly, the goodies were intended for me and Lee.
I wondered if the gifts might be there for safekeeping, to be accessed by Santa when he arrived. I also wondered if the Santa story might be an elaborate hoax perpetrated by my parents.
But I quickly stopped thinking about it. If I analyzed it too much, I might reach an unwanted conclusion.
A few days later, Arimichi and I were was out and about, and we stopped at one of our favorite spots on the base: a large marble monument near the Officer’s Club.
The monument was wedge-shaped, like a giant cheese slice on its side. The face, about 10’ wide and 12’ long, sloped up at a 30-degree angle. It was about six feet tall at the back. Carved into the polished marble was an emblem of some kind, probably a symbol of the 5th Air Force. I vaguely recall a majestic eagle.
Arimichi and I often scaled the slope of the monument and sat at the top to talk. On that particular day, I told him about the stash in Mom and dad’s closet.
He looked at me meaningfully and said, “Rocky-san, you are too old to believe in fairy tales.”
At first, I protested and tried to defend my already-weakening beliefs. But he was determined.
“Rocky-san, you should already figure this out by now,” he said. “Santa Claus is not real. American parents tell their kids this to make them happy.”
I shut up and got quiet. He was right. We moved on to other subjects.
Naturally, I related that conversation to Mom when we got home. She sat both of us down for a formal talk. Arimichi probably thought it was his last day on the job.
She told me I was in on the secret now, and thus I had a responsibility: to keep Lee from finding out. Part of the magic, she said, is watching the little ones who still believe. While addressing me, I’m sure she cast a telling glance or two at Arimichi.
But Mom wasn’t angry. She knew Arimichi was right. It was time I stopped believing in fairy tales.
That was a long time ago. I’ve been keeping the secret and watching a succession of little believers over many years.
Mom was right about the magic.
Arimichi, Suzie, me, and Mom on my seventh birthday.
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