Soldier for Christ. John Zeugner
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?”