Shigematsu Shizuma lives in the village of Kobatake in Japan. He and his wife Shigeko have become the guardians of their niece, Yasuko. They are responsible for finding her a “suitable husband” (10), but they encounter a vicious rumor every time they think that they have found a suitable match. According to the rumor, Yasuko had been working in a school kitchen near the city of Hiroshima when the United States Army dropped an atomic bomb on the city in 1945. People worry that Yasuko suffers from radiation sickness and that Shigematsu and his wife are hiding this fact from Yasuko’s potential husbands. The rumor is “pure fabrication” (10); rumors and gossip were banned in Japan during World War II, but they now run wild. The persistent rumor about Yasuko's radiation sickness will not go away.

The atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Most inhabitants in the city were killed, and the people who visited the ruins of the city in the aftermath died painfully due to radiation sickness. The new weapon used by the Americans “plunged hundreds of thousands of blameless residents of the city into a hell of unspeakable torments” (11).