by Jay Rubin
He could still hear the song as he sat trembling on his bed.
How could this be happening? Was it really happening? Or was it an apparition sent by the Devil himself?
Yes. Let it be that. Let it be a vision of sin with no more substance than a nightmare.
But no, he knew that it was real, and it was evil. Un-Christian. He should rush back in there now. He should cast her out, send her back to the land of darkness.
But he was paralyzed. All he could do was listen to the sound of corruption and know that, even more than to rid his home of this abomination, what he longed to do was to see more.
The shame of it was overwhelming. He clamped his eyes shut and felt his heart pounding. He groped for the lamp on the night table and pulled the chain. A comforting blindness enveloped him. He stretched out on the bed and fought to calm his breathing. Taking deep, regular breaths, he brought at least this much of himself under control. The heart was less obedient, but before long the pounding in his ears diminished. And, finally, like a gift from God, blessed sleep came to rescue him.
A sharp sound brought Pastor Tom into the daylight.
He heard it again. A kind of slapping sound.
He sat up and looked at the empty white walls, the somber face of Jesus over the bed. After a moment’s hesitation, he stood and walked quickly to Billy’s room.
Another slap resounded as he turned into the doorway, and the summer morning sunlight flooding through the open curtains almost hurt his eyes. Silhouetted against the window stood Mitsuko, in a dress now. She was facing the light with head bowed and, it seemed, her hands clasped in prayer.
She heard him enter and turned with a radiant smile. “The fever has broken!” she proclaimed joyfully.
Sure enough, Billy lay there awake, slowly turning the taketombo in his fingers. As Tom approached the crib, he could see weariness in Billy’s little face, but the boy’s eyes were clear.
“Thank the Lord,” he muttered, trying not to look at Mitsuko. He knelt by Billy’s crib and put his hand on the boy’s cheek. It was cool. Billy smiled at him. Still holding the toy in his right hand, Billy stretched his left toward Mitsuko, who sat down on the other side of the crib and took his hand.
Tom could feel the warmth of her body across the narrow crib. He finally looked up at her, afraid of what he would see, but discovering in her eyes only joy, the joy of love and thanksgiving. Her gold cross hung outside the collar of her dress. He sensed that she had been touching it as she stood at the window in prayer. But what could that slapping sound have been? He bowed his head and intoned, “We offer our thanks to thee, o Lord, who hast seen fit to look down on us, His humble servants, and to shower upon us His redeeming love and grace through Jesus Christ.”
“Amen,” responded Mitsuko, her voice trembling.
When she raised her head and looked at him, so openly expressing the joy she felt at the recovery of his son, he could not find blame in his heart. “Thank you,” he said humbly, “for helping him pull through.”
She bowed her head slightly in acknowledgement, but her face told him that something was troubling her.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “What is ‘pull through?’”
Tom could not help smiling. “‘Pull through’ means ‘to get better,’ ‘to recover from an illness.’”
Her face brightened. “I see. Thank you.” She paused. “I wish I could speak English better.”
“Your English is excellent,” he said. Indeed, it was, what she knew of it. The mission school had taught her grammar very well, and even now her pronunciation was far better than that of her brother-in-law, who had been living here for twenty years or more.
“Please teach me,” she said.
Her simple words touched his heart. “Yes,” he said, “I will teach you.” And, speaking only in his heart, he added, I will teach you the true Way to Christ. I will bring you out of the shadows that remain upon your soul and I will purify you. I will show you the glory of God as you have never seen it before.
8
TOM FOLDED HIS NEWSPAPER when he heard Mitsuko leaving Billy’s room. Without a word, he followed her to the kitchen and closed the door. The hiss of sleet against the window pane seemed worse on this side of the apartment, and the bare walls and white enameled cabinets only increased the winter chill. They knew from seven months’ experience that this was the one room from which their voices would not keep Billy awake.
Two Bibles now stood on the shelf by the kitchen table. Tom took his and sat on one of the hard kitchen chairs. He placed his Bible on the lace table cloth that Mitsuko had bought and opened it. “Exodus, chapter 31.”
Taking her seat at the opposite end of the small, rectangular table, Mitsuko reached for her Bible, but instead of opening it, she placed it in front of her and folded her hands atop it.
“Pastor Tom,” she said, looking at him, “tonight could you please help me with pronunciation?”
He smiled and closed his Bible. Her hair seemed more tightly pulled back than usual tonight, the normally serene brow slightly tense, a touch of color in the cheeks. “Did you have trouble again?”
“Only a little trouble,” she replied. “If I am not very careful, I say ‘z’ or ‘s’ instead of ‘th.’ Today when I asked for moth crystals, the drugstore man thought I was asking for something to kill moss. He told me to go to a garden shop. And when I asked at the garden shop, they told me to go to a drugstore. It was very confusing.”
“Listen to you now. You’re doing just fine.”
“That is because I am being careful. I need practice.”
“All right. Say ‘mother.’”
“Mother.”
“Father.”
“Father.”
“Now, that did sound a little like Fah-zer.”
She blushed and looked at her hands.
He thought for a moment. “Say ‘Our Father.’”
“Our Father,” she responded, looking up again.
“Good. ‘Our Father.’”
“Our Father.”
“Which art in Heaven.”
“Which art in Heaven.”
“Hallowed be thy name. Oh, there are lots of tee-aitches in this!”
“Hallowed be zye—”
“Thy—”
“Thy name.”
“Thy kingdom come.”
“Thy kingdom come.”
“Thy will be done.”
“Thy will be done.”
As Mitsuko worked with fierce concentration to produce the dreaded “th,” Pastor Tom watched her mouth with equal intensity. Each time the pink tip of her tongue found its proper place between her straight, white teeth, he felt a little thrill. But when he intoned, “And lead us not into temptation,” the words nearly stuck in his throat.
As Mitsuko’s full lips formed the word “temptation,” it seemed to take on a whole new, physical meaning.
“But deliver us from evil,” he implored, wondering what the words could mean to her as she spoke them. Did she know, in her heart, that the kingdom, and the power, and the glory were indeed God’s for ever? Or were these only sounds to her in a pronunciation practice?
“Amen,” concluded Mitsuko, looking at him expectantly.
But instead of giving her an assessment of her language skills, he asked, “Do you understand the Lord’s Prayer, Mitsuko?”
She hesitated before answering. “I have known it all my life.”
“But do you really understand it? Do you understand what it means by asking the Lord to lead us away from temptation?”
“I do not understand your question, Pastor Tom.”
“Of course you do,” he insisted. “Tell me, Mitsuko, why do we pray to the Lord to lead us from temptation?”
“Why are you asking me this?” she pleaded.
“You tell me,” he demanded. “You must know why I am asking you this.” He wanted her to see it herself. He wanted her to recognize her sin and
confess it openly before God. Surely she could come to know the true Christ only when she had abandoned the twisted ways of her benighted country.
She heaved a long, long sigh, and bowed her head before him. But when she raised her eyes again, they were shining with conviction.
“Then I will say it,” she declared, her voice barely rising above a whisper. “The Lord is tempting me now,” she said, looking at him hard. “You are my temptation, Pastor Tom.”
Her answer struck him like a blow to the forehead. He had been preparing to lecture an innocent, childlike creature on the profoundest meaning of prayer and redemption, but she had proven herself to have a woman’s understanding, and now he did not know what to say.
“I have seen you look at me,” she said. “I was a married woman. I know. And I have been looking at you.”
He felt his face growing hot, his heart pounding.
“I love to be here with you,” she said. “I love Billy. I pray to God every day that we can stay like this forever. I was never going to tell you what I feel. If you are strong enough to fight temptation, I am also strong enough. I can be your sister until I die.”
Her hands, still folded on the Bible, were trembling slightly. Her eyes were moist, but they were looking straight at him.
He had to turn away. Pushing his chair back noisily, he nearly stumbled as he rose. Mitsuko’s eyes dropped to her hands, their smooth skin now streaked with tears. Tom lurched out of the kitchen and into the living room, where he slumped onto the couch.
He stared out into the night with empty eyes, his mind as chaotic as the sleet that swept past the window pane in heaving gusts: Sarah, in a long yellow dress, running to him through the shallows of a rock-filled river. A room full of flowers—masses of red and white and pink and yellow—and Sarah in her coffin, in the hearse, in the grave. Billy, bruised and hairless, cradled in his arms and sucking greedily on a bottle. The curve of Mitsuko’s bare shoulders sculpted in a maternal embrace, and eyes looking down in adoration.
A thin thread was running through these scenes, stretching from the distance and weaving its way closer. It was a thread of sound, a cry he seemed to recognize. Tom looked at his watch: the hands pointed to 10:15. Billy always woke at 10:15, as if he had a tiny alarm clock set inside his head. Tom heard Mitsuko padding from the kitchen, through the hallway, to Billy’s room. She was going to pick him up and walk with him, as she always did at this time, despite Tom’s protests that she was coddling the boy.
And then she began to sing the lullaby whose melody he would never grasp. Tom listened for some hint that it was different tonight, some indication that Mitsuko’s declaration had shaken her as deeply as it had shaken him, but on and on it droned, unchanged from yesterday, or the day before that, or the weeks before that. Eventually, as always, Billy fell asleep again and Mitsuko tiptoed from his room. Tom heard her go to her room, then the bathroom, as she always did after this little ritual, and the bath water started running exactly on schedule.
He wondered if she would emerge in her Japanese robe, bow to him in the door of the living room, and withdraw to her own room after wishing him a good night as always. Rather than waiting to find out, he shut himself in his bedroom, changed into pajamas, and made sure that he was in bed with the lights out before she had finished her bath. He heard her walk toward the living room, and his heart began to pound again when it sounded as if her footsteps were coming this way. But no, they continued past his room, and after her door closed, there was only silence.
He slept fitfully. At one point during the night, he sensed that Mitsuko was in Billy’s room. Staring at the dim light seeping under his door, he considered looking into his son’s bedroom, but he was afraid of what he might see.
Pastor Tom had to drag himself out of bed in the morning. As always, he dressed to the accompaniment of Billy’s laughter and the sounds of cooking in the kitchen.
“Good morning,” he said as he stepped onto the linoleum floor. Mitsuko responded with her usual “Good morning” and little bow and smile. Had it all been a dream? Had she not spoken words that could alter their lives forever?
Over the next five days, he made a point of continuing with their Bible reading as though nothing had happened, questioning her to check her understanding of difficult passages, answering her inquiries on doctrinal interpretation, even correcting her pronunciation. He found in her only flawless self-control. Perhaps they could go on living this way, as mutually supportive brother and sister. Perhaps nothing had to change.
Tom was impressed with the eloquence of the sermon he composed on Saturday, and the passion with which he delivered it brought numerous compliments from the departing worshippers the following morning. His heart still seemed to echo with the strains of the choir as he watched the last of his congregation file out into the soft February sunlight.
It was one of those glorious, cool, spring-like days, the kind that occurred with increasing frequency once the gray pall of the Seattle winter had broken. Taking advantage of the weather, the three of them had walked to church this morning, bundled up, cheeks glowing, breath white in the chilly air, he and Mitsuko taking turns carrying Billy whenever his little legs became tired.
Now, bundled less tightly under the noonday sun, Pastor Tom and Mitsuko and Billy retraced their steps up Broadway, pausing to admire the crocus shoots in one front yard, stopping to examine the buds of a plum tree and trade guesses on when it would burst into bloom, praising the dome of blue that arched over the city and the delicate wisps of white cloud floating within it. The street was quiet today without the long lines of chugging automobiles.
As they neared the corner of Cherry Street, Tom noticed a man lurking in the shadowy entrance of a furniture store. He moved away from the curb side of the sidewalk to place himself between the man and Mitsuko and Billy. He pointed to the fresh spring green of a willow tree on the other side of the street to distract their attention.
Surrounded on three sides by store windows, the black and white tile floor of the entrance was littered with newspapers. The man wore a tattered brown overcoat and black felt hat that had long since lost its shape, as had his gray, grimy face. He clutched a bottle to his chest and stood glaring out at the world through bloodshot eyes. He seemed ancient, but the closer Tom studied him, the more he realized the man could not be much older than himself, certainly no more than forty. Then it struck him who this was: Manfredo, the farmer who used to park his horse wagon on Summit Avenue each week to sell vegetables and fruit until two summers ago, when he had been replaced by Noboru Shimozato from Tom’s own congregation.
Tom felt moved to speak to the poor fellow, but just as they approached the entrance, the man fixed his wild eyes on them and released a foaming, white gob of spit that grazed Tom’s pant leg and dribbled onto his shoe.
“Jap bitch!” he yelled hoarsely. “Go back to Japan, bitch! And take your white Jap husband with you!”
Suddenly Tom was a seventeen-year-old Kansas farm boy again, and he whirled around to confront his attacker.
“What are you gonna do?” the man sneered, “hit me with your Bible? Goddam white Jap, I’ll kill ya!”
“Pastor Tom! No!” cried Mitsuko, and Billy started to shriek. Mitsuko pulled on his arm, and he backed away from the man, who laughed with flaring nostrils and spit on the ground again.
Mitsuko grabbed Billy and hurried on ahead. The man’s derisive laughter echoed from his glass cage as Tom followed after her, feeling angry but also disappointed in himself for having forgotten the lessons of the Gospel so easily, if only for a moment.
“Mitsuko, wait,” he called to her. They had put a block or more between themselves and the drunkard. Holding Billy, she whirled around to face him, and when he came up to her, their clouds of steamy breath mingled in the chill air.
“We shouldn’t let a poor soul like that ruin everything,” Tom said. “It’s still a lovely day.”
She glanced back down the street, and Billy began to struggle in
her grasp. He wanted to walk again.
They resumed their leisurely pace, but Mitsuko was no longer smiling. “On this day of all days,” Tom said, “we must try to understand the suffering of a poor man like that. The evil words he speaks are not directed at us; they echo from the pain he feels in his own heart. These are the times when we are called upon to turn the other cheek.”
She nodded to him, but her jaw was still firmly set.
Even Billy seemed subdued. Tom pointed out more signs of spring growth, but his heart was no longer in it. Soon his attention was shifting from the flowers and trees to the people on the street. Thank goodness, there were no more angry drunks, but now Tom became aware, as if for the first time, of the glances sent his way by other well-dressed folk. And many of them were more than glances. One middle-aged couple holding Bibles glared openly at them as they passed within inches of each other.
White Jap.
The words began to echo in his heart.
He gazed at Mitsuko, whose eyes were fixed on Billy. She watched nervously as the boy wandered too close to the curb, and her relief was obvious when, after examining the contents of the gutter, he came running over to her again.
What a loving child of God she was! Couldn’t these bitter people see that? Couldn’t they, for once, open their eyes and hearts and see the love that she poured out endlessly upon his own blond, blue-eyed little son, a child who was not even hers, who was born of another woman’s flesh? Did this young woman want to hurt them? Kill them? To take from them what was theirs? No, all she wanted was to love and be loved.
To be loved.
Suddenly Tom’s face was burning.
To love and be loved.
His whole life seemed to fall into place. God had sent poor Manfredo to give him a message: he, Thomas Morton, was to be the White Jap. Until now, he had stood upon the heights, surveying his flock from afar, concerned only that, as shepherd, he not lose any of his valuable sheep. But now the time had come for him to descend into the valley, to be among them himself, not merely to guide them but to shower them with love as a sign to the world. Now, for the first time in his life, he knew for certain what it was that God had called on him to do. He knew now why the Lord had taken Sarah from him, why Billy had been left alone in the world. Oh, the wonder of God’s mighty deeds!