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
