“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.
4
“So old Mioko’s gone round the bend,” the rector said just after Owen’s second Sunday school class on Judas.
“Apparently—I wonder. If I hadn’t been there, maybe she would have talked to Yasuko.”
“Ahenh, no. Not a chance. I’ve seen it so many times before. Past a certain age, everything starts to dissolve. The Church wasn’t bombed. The church wasn’t bombed. The simplest,