Yukika Soma can't see very well these days. Her eyesight is fine, she says; it's just she has trouble controlling her eyelids. She still comes into her Nagata-cho office three or four days a week at the Ozaki Yukio Memorial Foundation, named after her father, but nowadays a young assistant escorts her across the city. "It's really so very nice of him. Such a bother."
Her English is impeccable, she laughs a lot -- and readily lays her tiny hand on my arm to make a point. She shows no sign of fatigue, having already given one interview by 11 a.m. "He wanted to talk about about moral rearmament." There would be at least two more after lunch. "I've been especially busy since Shizue Kato (the political activist) died recently."
Asked to recall some of the turning points of her long and busy life, Yukika plunged back into her childhood. "I was learning catechism at Tokyo's Sacred Heart. Reading the first commandment, 'Thou shalt not kill,' I asked, 'Why don't people get blamed for killing in war?' The mother (nun) shouted, 'Get out!' Well, I got out."