by Jay Rubin
This was more than Tom could bear. He tramped out of the theater and sped all the way home.
11
“MITSUKO, LISTEN TO THIS,” Tom called from the living room. “Mitsuko! Shut off the water a second.”
The noise of the washing of dinner dishes subsided, and Mitsuko came to the door of the living room, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Look,” Tom said, showing her the paper. “I’m on the front page of the Star.”
A wooden crash echoed from the kitchen, complete with Billy’s vocal sound effects. He had been playing on the floor with the toy cars Mitsuko made for him. He had a large collection now, and he enjoyed knocking down piles of them.
Tom ignored the noise and read from the paper slowly, enunciating so that Mitsuko could catch every word.
“The headline is ‘CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR CONCLAVE,’ and here’s what it says: ‘The Christian Endeavorers of Seattle are planning for their district convention to be held next week-end, March 1 and 2, at the Covenant Presbyterian Church on Queen Anne Hill, Rev. B.A. Hotchkiss, pastor.’
“I met Reverend Hotchkiss last month when I spoke at Seattle Methodist,” Tom told her. “A very nice man—very soft-spoken, but a preacher of great authority.”
He continued reading: “‘Over 500 young people are expected for this convention, the theme of which is “Trust in the Lord.” The convention will open Friday evening with a talk by William F. Wilson, for forty years a missionary to Africa in the British Kenyan colony. Dr. Wilson, stopping in Seattle en route to his home in Boise, will also speak Saturday afternoon. Following the banquet a play will be presented entitled The Challenge of the Cross, under the direction of Albert Culverwell.’
“Now, here’s the important part. ‘Another speaker for the convention will be the Rev. Thomas A. Morton, English Language Pastor of the Japanese Christian Church on Terrace Street.’”
“Very nice,” said Mitsuko, smiling and raising her eyebrows in anticipation of more.
“Well, that’s all there is about me,” Tom said, with a wry smile. “They didn’t give the title of my talk. I suppose half the audience will think I’m there to explain the latest diplomatic initiative of the Imperial Japanese Government.”
“It will go well,” she said.
“Yes,” he replied. “I always have them eating out of the palm of my hand.”
“I wish I could come and hear you,” said Mitsuko.
“Maybe sometime,” he muttered. “When the war in China is over.”
Tom knew that talk of her country’s military activities made Mitsuko uneasy. It was the one thing that always seemed to come between them. They could go for weeks at a time without a harsh word, but then Chiang Kaishek or Madame Chiang would visit Washington to ask for help against the Japanese, the newspapers would proclaim the deep friendship uniting the American and Chinese peoples, and Tom would become short-tempered and sullen. He resented having to defend his flock from the welling tide of anti-Japanese sentiment.
“Oh, Lord,” Tom exclaimed. “I spoke too soon. Look at this, right next to the article on the conclave.”
“What is that?” she asked, still in the doorway.
“‘JAPAN CLAIMS SOUTH PACIFIC.’”
“Never mind,” she said, turning back into the kitchen.
“You’d better listen to this, Mitsuko. It’s what’s happening in the world.”
She stopped short. “All they do is make war,” she said.
He read on: “‘Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka today called upon “the white race” to cede Oceania—the more than 1,000-mile square region of the South Pacific—to the Asiatics.’ The fool! Talk like that only makes matters worse. ‘Speaking to a committee of the lower house of parliament, Matsuoka said the Western powers should realize that Japan and other Asiatic nations must have some place to send their excess population and that the islands of Oceania are logical places, since they now are largely undeveloped and underpopulated.’”
“I don’t want to listen anymore,” said Mitsuko, her face flushed.
“It’s maddening, isn’t it? ‘The white race.’ What arrogance!”
Lost in his thoughts, Tom realized someone had spoken to him. He looked around the banquet table. “Excuse me, Dr. Wilson, it’s so noisy in here.”
“I was just saying what wonderful biscuits these are. Don’t you agree?”
“Oh, yes, yes indeed, very nice biscuits.”
William Wilson, a powerful-looking man with stark white hair, a ruddy complexion, and a generous midsection struggling to pop out of his checkered vest, sat to Tom’s right at the head table of the Christian Endeavorers’ banquet in the Covenant Presbyterian Church. Holding up a biscuit, he said, “This is what I missed most of all in Africa.”
“Biscuits?”
“Biscuits. Dinner rolls. Any decent baked goods. They just don’t know how to make anything light and fluffy like this. White bread is out of the question. You know, you can only teach them so much.”
He raised one eyebrow and peered at Tom through rimless spectacles.
Tom chuckled uneasily.
“Now I know how to get your attention,” said Wilson. “Talk about food.”
“I’m sorry. Have I been a poor dinner companion?”
“Anyone who can speak with the fire you have at your command ought to be a scintillating conversationalist.”
“That sounds a little bit like a compliment.”
“It is, my boy, it is! There aren’t many speakers like you in Kenya, either. Lord, I’m glad to be back!”
“After forty years …”
“Incredible, isn’t it?”
“You won many souls for Christ.”
“I suppose so. But never enough. Never enough.”
“You’re being modest.”
Wilson leaned toward Tom and lowered his voice, using the general hubbub of the banquet to camouflage his words.
“You of all people know that I’m not being the least bit modest,” he said, looking Tom in the eye. “You never know what’s in their minds.”
“I see,” Tom answered vaguely.
“I know you see. Do you think I’d say this to anyone else?” He looked around warily. “We’re in this together, my boy. The Lord has sent us to work among the colored peoples of the world. He’s given us a heavy cross to bear.”
Just then Dr. Wilson’s wife, a tall, gray-haired woman in a blackish dress said from Tom’s left in a high-pitched voice, “William, do stop these little tête-à-têtes!”
Wilson looked startled, then bit into his biscuit. Tom found it amusing that such a large, forceful man could be brought to heel so easily by a woman, but she did speak with a commanding tone.
“That was a marvelous speech you gave, Reverend Morton,” she said, smiling grandly. “I was deeply moved.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Wilson,” said Tom. “It’s very kind of you to say so.”
“Are you here alone tonight?” she asked.
“Pardon?”
“Are you married? Did you bring your wife?”
Now it was Tom’s turn to be unnerved by this overbearing woman. “My wife couldn’t attend this evening. She sends her regrets.”
“What a pity,” she clucked. “I would have liked to meet her.”
“Yes indeed!” piped up Lucy Hotchkiss, wife of the church pastor. She was a petite, pretty redhead sitting on the other side of Mrs. Wilson. By the way, what is her name?”
Tom’s forehead was moist and he wanted to dab it with his napkin. “Her name?” he asked lamely, which brought giggles from the people nearby.
“Surely you remember your wife’s name, Reverend Morton,” said Mrs. Wilson, which provoked more laughter.
Perhaps Mrs. Hotchkiss really didn’t know the truth. Her question seemed innocent. And even if she did know that his wife was Japanese, she probably didn’t know her name.
“Sarah,” he said at last, grinning foolishly. “Charmed by Mrs. Hotchkiss here, I momentarily forgot.�
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“Oh-ho!” bellowed Wilson. “There’s a man who knows his way around the ladies!”
Mrs. Hotchkiss looked demurely at her plate, and conversation shifted to the fate of the Moral Re-Armament movement, which had failed so utterly to prevent war in Europe.
Mrs. Hotchkiss observed, “The idea of the four principles was a good one: honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love. The problem was putting them into action—how did they used to say it?—’in the home, in business, the village, city, state and nation in order to banish war.’”
“Frightfully idealistic, Lucy,” interjected Reverend Hotchkiss, who was seated on the other side of Dr. Wilson from Tom. “And at the same time, strangely lacking in religious values.”
A lot of sober nodding followed this remark, and the conversation once again broke up into little constellations. With his previous conspiratorial air, Dr. Wilson glanced in his wife’s direction, then bent toward Tom.
“I might not have another chance to talk to you,” he said, speaking rapidly, “so let me give you a little advice. You can take it or leave it as you wish, but let me assure you it comes from the heart and is based on forty years’ experience. If you’re anything like I was at your age, you’re convinced of your calling and proud as punch of your abilities to win souls for Christ. Forty years from now, you’ll see it differently. Oh, there will be those little victories along the way, and your faith will keep you going. But when you get right down to it, you’ll never know for certain if any of those souls truly belong to God or to some black devil they keep hidden in a closet. Now, don’t get me wrong. I haven’t wasted my life. But I could have done a lot better. And so can you. Find yourself a nice, white congregation and stick with it. Hotchkiss here has the right idea.”
Tom was stunned at the forthrightness of the man and at the precision with which he had brought out doubts that had been lurking in the back of his own mind. But surely, he thought, the situations that he and Wilson faced must be totally different. Forty years of struggling against a surrounding black horde could not hope to yield the results that a representative of the dominant white race could expect ministering to a small, vulnerable minority.
Tom’s inner debate continued through dessert and was still going strong even after the evening’s play began. Less than a half hour into “1941: The Challenge of the Cross,” Tom quietly left the auditorium to drive home through a chilling rain.
Things would have to change. Something would have to change. In the ten months since their wedding, he had been telling himself to take charge of his life, to be the master of his fate and of his household. But Mitsuko was always there, increasingly the immovable axis on which the world was spinning: silent, alluring, and drawing him, it seemed, ever farther from his god, ever deeper into darkness.
Find a nice, white congregation, Dr. Wilson had told him. Finding any congregation had seemed like such a victory before. From dirt farmer’s son to pastor of his own church, what more could he have asked for? After his initial disappointment, it had not seemed to matter that the Lord had called him to minister to “colored” people as Wilson put it. This was to be his life, and he had been satisfied. But now he saw that there was an opulence in this city of a kind he had never known—and certainly never thought to share in.
The night was piercingly cold, but when he put his key in the lock and opened his apartment door, he was met by a soft, warm blanket of moisture that clouded his glasses.
“I’m back,” he called, removing his glasses to wipe them, but there was no answer. He stood there in his overcoat, listening, until he heard splashing in the bathroom tub. Smiling, he hung his coat up and changed into his slippers.
“I’m back,” he called again, scuffling over to the bathroom. “Daddy!” called Billy, his voice reverberating off the hard tile walls.
“Taking a bath?” Tom asked, twisting the knob and walking into the billowing steam clouds, but he was not prepared for the sight that greeted him. Mitsuko was not kneeling outside the tub, washing Billy, as Tom had imagined. She was in the water with him, a towel wrapped around her hair. Billy was straddling her naked thighs and excitedly holding up a homemade sailboat to Tom with one hand, while the other hand was pressed against Mitsuko’s breast for support. Both of them were bright red from head to foot, and Mitsuko’s forehead was beaded with sweat.
“How long has this been going on?!” Tom’s voice boomed in the little bathroom. Billy blinked and dropped his boat onto the floor, snapping its mast. “Get out of there now!”
Billy clung to Mitsuko, wailing and pressing his head between her breasts. “Mommy! Mommy!” he cried. “No spanking! Mommy!”
Tom grabbed Billy by the arm and yanked him away from Mitsuko. “She’s not your Mommy. Never call her that again!” He looked at Mitsuko. “Never let him call you that! I won’t have it! Do you hear me? You’re not his mother.”
Billy’s piercing scream echoed off the hard bathroom walls. Tom dropped the boy onto the rug and stalked out, slamming the door behind him. After a while, Billy’s crying subsided, and Tom heard Mitsuko lead him from the bathroom and put him to bed. Tom himself prepared for bed while the soft tones of the lullaby insinuated themselves through the dark apartment, and he had been under the covers for a few minutes when Mitsuko came in.
She looked grave and slightly comical with her hair still wrapped in the towel, but the glow of the hot bath could still be discerned on her cheeks, and the V at the neck of her robe was a deep, warm pink.
Standing by the bed, she bowed slightly and said, “I am sorry.”
Tom did not speak.
“I know I am not his mother—”
“No, you’re not, are you?”
“But I love him like a mother.”
“I won’t have it,” he said.
“Please, Tom—”
“He used to call you Mitsu, and he can learn to call you Mitsu again. His mother’s name is Sarah, and she is dead.”
“I will not hide that from him. When he is older—”
“Older? How old will he have to be? When he’s too old to take baths with? How old is that? Five? Ten? Twenty-one? You are a Christian wife, and you must learn to behave like one! It has been almost a year now, and I see no change.”
“Why should I change? I have done nothing to offend God.”
“My Lord, listen to the woman! I am a Christian minister, a Christian American, and I must have a wife who understands that. For one thing, you must not flaunt your naked flesh, not to me, and not to Billy.”
“But—”
“Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“It is not Christian. It is not American.”
“I am not American.”
He glared at her. “Are you proud of that? Are you boasting that you are not American? Do you want to bow down to that emperor of yours and sing the praises of his ‘sacred’ troops?”
“No,” she said firmly. “I hate the Army.”
“And the emperor?”
She paused. “I do not hate the emperor. But I no longer bow to him.”
Tom gave a sour smile. “We have to work on making you more American,” he said, his voice softening. “You can’t apply for citizenship yet. Maybe we can start with your name.”
“What do you mean?”
“We can change your name,” he said, “or give you a new one.”
“I do not want to change my name.”
“Why not? What’s so special about it? You’re always complaining that Americans never pronounce it correctly. Does it mean something?”
“Not exactly. Mitsu is hikaru—to shine.”
“What do you mean, ‘Mitsu is hikaru’? Mitsu is Mitsu.”
“It is very difficult to explain. But I do not want to change my name. It is the one I was born with.”
“Far more important is that you must take Our Lord wholly into your heart and admit no other.”
“But I do admit no other.”
“Not the
sun? Not the Japanese sun god? I’ve seen you praying to it in the morning.”
“That is different,” she said. “I do not pray to the sun as I pray to Lord Jesus.”
“Then you admit you do pray to it?”
“No. I only ask it to shine on us and make the day good.”
“What is that if not praying?”
“It is different,” she insisted. “It is very difficult to explain.”
“Everything is ‘very difficult to explain.’ Mitsuko, do you understand what I am trying to say?”
“You want me to be a better Christian wife.”
“Yes, it’s as simple as that. Shall we work at it?”
She nodded, smiling weakly.
Slipping out of bed, he opened a bureau drawer and handed her a pair of his pajamas. “Wear these until we can get you some of your own.”
She took them, not entirely able to suppress a smile, and went to the bathroom to change. By the time she walked back into the bedroom, she was giggling. She had the sleeves rolled up to wrist length, and the pant legs rolled to keep them from dragging on the floor, but the excess cloth could have held another two or three Mitsukos without strain.
“All right,” Tom said with a sardonic smile. “You do look funny, but I’m absolutely serious about this.”
Determined to resist temptation, he kissed her on the forehead and wished her a good night. Her “good night” to him could not disguise the tenderness of her feelings for her husband, but she pronounced the words solemnly and lay down with her hands close by her sides.
Tom was very pleased with the civility, and his mind filled with the image of those five hundred young people in the audience today, the reds, yellows, and browns of their hair color promising to decorate his dreams like a Christmas tree.