Soldier for Christ. John Zeugner
know that,” Owen answered.
“Dons in robes, walking around the top of the mountain, looking at the harbor and wondering why no students come, but they’re here for life since Fuji steel has committed to offering Oxford. I tried to get one of them interested in the church’s history during World War II, but that looked like work to the ‘historians’ there. Would’ve disturbed their posturing—their slow strolls around the empty campus—their musings about the absent students. So nobody bit, but now I see I should have looked closer to home. Why don’t you do it? It’s an interesting story—this church was saved by Nazis from a takeover in ‘42.”
“By Nazis?”
“Well, by the local German community and Pastor Rielmann.”
“And by Mioko, “Yasuko said.
“Oh yes, she’ll have to give you her side of the story. That should be your first interview—how she saved the church from her people. Single-handedly.”
“She and Mogens Nielsen.”
“Ah yes, the Danish saint. Mioko and Mogens saved the church from the dread Thought Police. Or so she’ll tell you, and tell you and tell you. Very strong willed woman, Mioko. Now I must speak to the trustees at the coffee line.” And the rector was gone.
Yasuko sipped her tea, “Have you read the yellow book?”
“Only parts of it,” Owen answered. The sun off Kobe bay seemed a chrome brilliance; he squinted at it, determined to find the cranes that had suddenly blurred into sun spots on the water.
“I will get you a copy,” Yasuko said, “from the office.”
“I suppose I should read it—charged to do so from the pastor himself.”
“I think the Mission is not so demanding. If you would like to read it I will put one on the table upstairs. You can pick it up before you get on the bus.”
“How much you know about my comings and goings,” Owen said smiling, but it seemed she saw no edge in the remark.
“If you want to interview Mioko, I can take you there. I’ve been meaning to visit her for a long time anyway. She’s in a home outside of Akashi; she has no family—only the church, and I should be paying her a visit.”
“Did she save the church?”
“She found out the government was going to takeover the church and she and Mogens went to see Pastor Rielmann and then Pastor Rielmann and Mogens went to Tokyo to the German Ambassador, pleading for the church to remain under its own control.
“And it was?”
“Yes, Pastor Rielmann jointly held the rectorship for the German church and for this one—he gave sermons in English all through the war. Then in the last month of the war the church was bombed, almost totally destroyed. If she had not heard the threat of takeover; if she hadn’t told Mogens and involved Pastor Rielmann, then perhaps the church would have been absorbed by a Japanese church or the government directly. The German Ambassador really saved the church, however, not Mioko. It’s all in the yellow book.”
Yasuko put out more than just the Little Yellow book for him. The brown envelope on the table upstairs contained several documents, including three prior histories of the church—pamphlets only about 12 pages long, but the ones in 1952 celebrating the re-enclosure of the church, and in 1969 at the opening of the second class room building, and 1978 commemorating the move out of Kobe to property near Ikuta shrine and in 1990 at the opening of the new church on the mountain top, all contained the same story of Mioko Tanaka, meeting a Dr. Sugiera on the train back to Kobe from Osaka on the night of March 23rd 1942 and hearing from him that the government planned to takeover the church, the only English speaking foreign church in the area and close it down—since it was mostly Brits and Danes and Dutch who came to services, all enemies of the Rome/Tokyo/Berlin axis. And that Mioko had gone home and immediately phoned Mogens Nielsen, who immediately called a meeting with Pastor Rielmann. Together they went to Tokyo for a direct appeal to the German Ambassador; allegedly the Ambassador intervened at the foreign ministry and the takeover stopped; instead, Pastor Rielmann assumed pastoral duties—the church’s regular rector had been arrested the day after Pearl Harbor, and Rielmann kept up English services, monthly communion, and even Sunday school classes right through until the church was bombed.
In each post war history, then, Mioko Tanaka was the first fighter for the church, the Paul Revere of Christian salvation during the long night of fascist pagan attempts.
3
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