Читать книгу Soldier for Christ - John Zeugner - Страница 8

Was Yasuko related to Mioko?

Yasuko laughed at the question as they waited for the limited express at Sanomiya station in Kobe. “No, indeed. There are 18 million Tanaka’s in Japan. No relation at all. Besides, as old as Mioko is, I’m still too old to be her daughter.”

“I should have remembered you said she had no family.”

“Only the church”

“The church she saved.”

“Yes,” Yasuko answered. “She always stood up to anyone—it was only natural she should stand up to the imperial government. But she didn’t have too many friends in the church, at that time.”

“Or since, if the rector is correct.”

“He is partially correct.”

“I can conceive it...”

“She was, is, hard to get along with—that’s true enough. She’s very different from most Japanese; she was a long time in California studying music. Maybe at Claremont—you should ask her.”

“And that made her lose friends?”

Yasuko smiled, “it made her strange to many Japanese, I suppose.”

“And being Christian couldn’t help much.”

“Perhaps not. Still, it gave her a place to retire to eventually.”

“The real function of the Christian community.” Owen said. “Old age retreats. In the U.S. a lot of retirement homes are denominational.”

“Denominational?” Yasuko asked.

“You know specific branches of the Christian church—Lutheran homes, Episcopal homes, Presbyterian homes, Baptist homes.”

“So many names.”

When they were on the train passing out from Suma along the Inland Sea, Owen watched the steel gray water so opaque, motionless, and thought it was the back of some infinitely placid and deep creature. The sky was grey too, hazy and stroked with darker tones toward the horizon.

“Tell me about the home.” Owen said.

“I’ve only been once before,” Yasuko answered. “It’s very modern and very clean.”

“And very depressing.” Owen volunteered.

“Yes, that too, I think. She seems to like it there. She has a group of friends, her team, I suppose. And they look after her.”

“Does she leave much?”

“I don’t think so. She plays the piano.”

“What kind of a room does she have?”

“Six mat with a very nice mahogany wardrobe—the rooms surround a courtyard. She has a view of that, and the dining room is close by. She likes visitors.”

“I would think.” Owen answered, still watching the Inland Sea.

He wondered if it ever got blue or blue/green. Just this endless solder color. “The authorities never punished her for intervening in the church’s future?”

“Did they know about it?” Yasuko answered, “I think they only dealt with Pastor Rielmann and Mr. Nielsen. Most likely they never connected her with it. She had no real power.”

“Still, you’d think they’d want a scapegoat.”

“Later they did arrest Mr. Nielsen.”

“And what happened to him?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think he ever contacted the church again.”

“Not a good sign.”

“I suppose so. But it was a difficult time—often you didn’t hear from someone for years and then they turned in okay at the end—is that the expression?”

“Maybe ‘turned up okay’ is slightly better.” Owen answered.

The home was further from the station than Yasuko remembered. Twice she paused to puzzle out signs Owen couldn’t read. The signs for the home usually were on brown backgrounds and that meant occasionally Owen saw directions before she did. Only when they came to a short steep hill did Yasuko acknowledge she was certain now of the way.

The sky had turned a solder color too, and Owen regretted not carrying an umbrella.

Mioko Tanaka wore a long grey skirt and brown sweater. Her hair was yanked back in a neat bun and she struggled standing with a cane, leaning forward a bit to watch them more intently as they came across the cement walk into the flagment portico.

“I’ve been standing here for forty minutes waiting for you and now at last you’ve come.” Mioko said rather too loudly, Owen thought, but the receptionist to the right and the nurse hovering nearby did not seem to understand what was being said.

Yasuko slipped out of her shoes and into slippers effortlessly but Owen struggled with the entry procedure, as always. Yasuko covered by handing Mioko her gift of a box of eight wrapped cakes.

“Good,” Mioko said, “we have a special visiting room and we can eat these there. I’ll make sure we get some tea. I’ve not had one of these in years. And I’m so glad you didn’t wrap the box up.”

Owen worried about his heavily wrapped gift of handkerchiefs.

“And is this the historian, you’ve promised me?”

Yasuko immediately turned and said, “Yes, I’m so sorry, this is Owen Mathias.”

“Owen what?” Mioko said, cutting her off. “I’m hard of hearing now and everything else.”

“Owen Mathias,” Owen said, extending his hand.

“Spell it.”

“M, A, T, H, I, A,S.” Owen said slowly.

“Oh math-eye-as,” Mioko said. “But you say it differently like math-ee-us.”

“Yes, that’s the way my family pronounces it.”

“Well, at least I can understand it now. Let’s go to the room. Although it looks like you’ve got something for me, too.”

“Yes, but it’s heavily wrapped.”

“I hate that—it’s my hands, I can’t work my hands so well anymore, and I hate asking for help.”

“You don’t have to ask,” Owen countered, “I’ll do it directly when we get to the room.”

“Good.” Mioko answered, “I suppose you want to lead there too.”

“Not a chance,” Owen laughed, “you, only, know the way.”

“Well, you’ve got that right. I know all there is to know about this place and how to get around here, even if I can’t walk very fast. I used to hate Japanese omiyage, little gifts for every occasion, and I never did it, except when I had to, but now and here I think it’s quite wonderful. And I quite like these cakes. You don’t often see something new here, isn’t that odd? Collecting new things all your life and then at the end you seldom see anything new.”

“I see new things everyday,” Owen said.

“Oh but that’s because everything is new to you here in Japan.”

“I’ve been here before,” Owen answered.

“Not here you haven’t , I’ll bet.”

“Right again.”

“Right as rain,” Mioko said. “That’s an expression I remember from my days in California. I was a musician once, in your country but a very long time ago. But I date my differentness from then. I never imagined I’d end up in such a room as this,” Mioko motioned to the green walls and the noisy fan unit mounted near the ceiling. “It’s like a little coffin isn’t it? The whole place is a slow rehearsal for a little coffin and then the flames.”

“Mioko,” Yasuko interrupted, “I’ve not heard you so sad.”

“It’s not sad or morbid. It’s what’s going on. I agree I didn’t know it until fairly recently, but that can’t change things. It’s what’s going on. The rector in good health?”

“Yes,” Yasuko answered.

“He doesn’t come out much anymore.”

“He’s very busy.”

“That’s not it. He doesn’t like me, and I can’t say much for him either.”

“Not like Pastor Rielmann?” Owen asked.

“Rather too much like him,” Mioko answered. “I’m not a typical Japanese, you know.”

Owen did not answer. There was a sudden silence.

“Let’s have a cake,”Mioko said. “And, Yasuko, make us a little tea from that machine.” She pointed to the tea unit on top of a file cabinet at the end of the room.

While Yasuko filled the tea cups, Mioko said, “Are you sure there isn’t a second T in your name?”

“Not the way my family spelled it. Maybe at some time. “

“At some time, I’m sure,” Mioko answered. “Now you’ve come about what?”

If there was a hostility, Owen chose not to hear it. “About the church during World War II.”

“What about the church?”

“How it survived.”

“Quite nicely thank you—no trouble at all.”

From the file cabinet Yasuko said, “He wants to hear how you saved the church.”

“Saved it? From what?” Mioko asked.

“You know, from the government, from the police, from a takeover.”

“There was never a takeover.”

“Yes, because you intervened and got Pastor Rielmann and Mr. Nielsen to speak with the German Ambassador.”

“I don’t think so,” Mioko said.

“Oh, you know you met Dr. Sugiera on the train ,and he warned you about a takeover.”

“No,” Mioko said.

Yasuko brought the cups over on a circular plastic tray. “You know what I’m talking about, Mioko. You know the police were going to join the church to a Japanese congregation down in Kobe, and you got wind of it, and you frustrated the security police. It’s all in the church history.”

“Whenever I saw the security police all they said to me was ‘thank you.’ For what I never knew.”

“But the church,” Owen interrupted, “was in grave danger—the pastor had been arrested. The Kempeitai were talking as if the place was a hothouse of sedition.”

“Whenever I saw the security policy, they’d say ‘thank you’—for what I don’t know. The church was never in any danger.”

Owen warmed up to the questioning—”There was no takeover attempt?”

“Of course not. Was the church ever taken over? Of course it wasn’t.”

“Pastor Rielmann didn’t have to serve double duty —one for the German congregation, and one for the English-speaking congregation?”

“He may have, but what does that show?”

“The church was in danger, doesn’t it?”

“No, of course not. The church is here now, was here then ,and no takeover occurred or was talked about.”

“And the church was never in danger?”

“Of course not”

“You didn’t get Pastor Rielmann and Mr. Nielsen to go to Tokyo to plead for the church before the German ambassador?”

“Of course not, it wasn’t necessary. The church was quite safe.”

“Was the church not bombed at the end of the war.”

“Of course not.”

“But the pictures of the previous church, surely you’ve seen those.”

“I’ve seen all the pictures, never one about a bombed out church.”

“That’s astonishing,” Owen said.

“Mioko, you surely remember the Kempeitai talking about the church as an enemy.”

“Japan never moved against the church—everything functioned right through the war. And the security police whenever they saw me would say, ‘thank you’—for what I don’t know.”

“Mioko, surely you remember Dr. Sugiera.”

“I do not.”

“Or Mr. Nielsen?”

“I remember Mogens,—he pronounced his name ‘moans’, isn’t that odd? As odd as ‘Ma-THEE us’. don’t you think?. He was always worried about his children. He missed his children. He loved his children so.”

“You were worried the police would pick him up.”

“I don’t think so. The police weren’t so awful. Whenever they saw me, whenever I ran into them, they’d say ‘thank you,’ for what I don’t know.”

“And Pastor Rielmann didn’t listen to you and Mr. Nielsen and decide to go to Tokyo that night?”

“Why should he go to Tokyo? The church was here. And it was safe, entirely safe.”

Owen came in, “Then the little yellow book’s account is entirely inaccurate.”

“Oh I don’t know about that, but I do know I never authorized it .”

“Mioko, you wrote most of it.”

“Well, I never wrote a single word about any threat to the church. The church was in no danger and whenever the security police saw me they said, ‘Thank you’. For What I don’t know. I never knew.”

“And even the bombing of the church.”

“The church was fine, is fine, will be fine.” Mioko said, then peeled the cellophane away from her small circular cake.

Owen looked at Yasuko who only smiled weakly and pushed his tea over toward him on the narrow table top.

“When you were in California, did you study music full time?” Owen asked.

“Of course. That’s why I went there.”

“How was that—studying full time?”

“It was wonderful, surrounded by music. I’m a very different sort of Japanese, you know. “

Owen wondered if different meant she wanted to be asked about the church in a certain way. Have the answer ready from a specific code given only to her.

“What do you remember of Pastor Rielmann?” Owen asked.

“I remember he gave very boring sermons and that his English, which was very clear, tended to go on for a very long time. But I could tell he was very convinced.”

“Convinced?” Owen pressed.

“Absolutely, he was ....” Mioko seemed, uncharacteristically to struggle for the right word in English. “Faithful, full of faith.”

“What happened to him?”

“I have no idea.”

“I mean was he arrested too?”

“No,of course not. No one was arrested. I attended every Sunday right through the war, and Pastor Rielmann gave the sermon in English every 3rd Sunday right through the war, in fact right through till some time in 1946, when a missionary came part-time.”

“And you can remember that very well?” Yasuko said.

“Yes, of course, I can.”

“But not warning Mogens Nielsen and Pastor Rielmann?”

“Warning them of what? The security police only said thank you to me, for what I don’t know.”

“How many children did Mr. Nielsen have?” Owen asked.

“Four,—one he had never seen, but three he could describe to you in great detail. He spent too much time doing that, describing his children to anyone who would listen. I had met them, and they weren’t so angelic as he described them.”

“He thought they were angels?” Yasuko asked.

“He thought they were the most special creatures on the planet. I remember that very well. Especially the oldest Johanna. and little Peder and the baby until the new baby came, Soren. He was always showing pictures of them.”

“Did he ever see them again?”

“How should I know?”

“I thought you might have stayed in touch somehow, or after the war.”

“We didn’t. I assume he got back to his family and had everything he had longed for.—Why write then?”

“But you don’t know for sure?”

“No, I don’t know what happened to him. I could imagine I suppose, but I don’t know.”

“What would you imagine?” Owen pressed.

There was a long silence. Mioko unwrapped another cake. She smiled first at Owen, then at Yasuko. “You are so kind to visit me, but I had better get back to my group; we are in some kind of competition today and maybe I am the fittest.” She quickly ate the cake, then got up putting the shards back in the plastic bag. “I will walk you to the entry and then I must get back to my group.”

On the train home Yasuko said, “I can’t imagine Mioko being told to join her group. I can’t imagine her wanting to live that way. She never lived that way, couldn’t live that way.”

“She was younger then. Maybe as you get older...”

“Only if you lose your faculties.”

“So what have we then? Was it because I was there, she wouldn’t talk. She didn’t want gaijin listening to her story, is that it?”

“No. She likes talking to gaijin. Probably no one speaks English to her there. No one. Her mind is going. She truly can’t remember anything as it actually was, only as she might want it to have been. That happens—my mother doesn’t remember fighting with my father; she remembers only golden times, wonderful moments. She delights in telling and retelling those. But it is not what I remember.”

“You’d think she’d recall her own heroics.”

“Yes, it is very sad.”

“Well, she’s not sad about it. “

“We can be sad for her.”

“I don’t think so.” Owen said, watching as the sea near Suma drifted out to absolute blackness. The train swayed almost soundlessly.