CHAPTER TWO
Editorial in the Ironside Broadside on February 18, 1944
Dear Editor,
With all the tomfoolery going on in the world these days, nothing should surprise me. But I can’t guess what those stooges in Fort Snelling were thinking, coming up with this scheme of hiring the mayor’s daughter. I asked ten different men at Nelson’s Bar and Grill what they thought of some doll sauntering into a POW camp to “translate,” and each of them said the same thing: “It’ll be nothing but trouble.”
They’ve got guards for the towers, sure, but who’s going to guard her? She oughtn’t trouble her pretty head about it, just resign and let the men do the work with the blasted prisoners.
They’re tossing us something they think we want, but they don’t know us. City slickers, the lot of them. Looks to me like we’re being bribed to let this dirty scheme through.
That’s right, dirty. That’s what I think of foreigners being hauled in to do our work.
And another thing: What happens when our boys come back and they’ve got migrants and Krauts doing their work? What’ll they think of us when they can’t even get a working wage in their own hometown and have to go off to the city? I bet then you’ll be ashamed you stood by and let it happen.
Well, not me. If you’re smart, you’ll start asking the same questions I’ve been asking and realize we haven’t gotten a single answer.
A Concerned Citizen
From Major Davies to Johanna, left at her home
February 20, 1944
Dear Miss Berglund,
I’ve taken the liberty to write so this letter of instructions will await you upon arrival, as I will not be coming from Fort Snelling until tomorrow. First of all, deepest congratulations on your new position! I hope your travel was pleasant.
I’m sure you’ll want to take a day or two to unpack and greet hometown friends. Please report to Camp Ironside (that’s our new facility; we’re not very creative at naming in the army!) on Thursday at 0700 hours to begin your training and some initial translations for camp signage. You are then welcome to join my wife and me for lunch in our new quarters—Evelyn will be delighted to meet you!
Welcome home, and to the place I’ll soon consider my temporary home as well. I’m sure we will find it as utterly charming as it appears!
With Great Respect and
Deep Gratitude,
Major J. E. Davies
Note in Johanna’s top drawer, with her handkerchiefs
February 21, 1944
Jo,
Your mother spent an hour pressing these yesterday, fretting that it was cold and flu season and you might not have a decent handkerchief with you. I wanted you to know that.
I know these aren’t the circumstances you’d have chosen. But we’re happy to have you home anyway.
Dad
From the Lutheran Daughters of the Reformation to Johanna, left at her home upon her arrival
February 21, 1944
To Miss Johanna Berglund,
The Lutheran Daughters of the Reformation would like to extend our welcome back to Ironside Lake, as well as to invite you to attend our next meeting, next Thursday evening at 7:00 p.m. in the church basement. Should you, at that time, decide to join as a full-time member, we would be happy to have you without the recommended trial period, since we all know your family. Your interest in languages would be very helpful for our support of and correspondence with foreign missionaries, and we could always use another hand at our monthly potlucks.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out after church on Sunday to any one of us.
Mrs. Roberta Wyatt, president
Miss Hattie Knutson, vice president
Mrs. Dorothy Lewis, treasurer
Miss Annika Sorenson, secretary
From Annika Sorenson to Johanna
February 22, 1944
Dear Johanna,
I wanted to say that you should feel no obligation to join the Lutheran Daughters of the Reformation. Mrs. Wyatt and the rest of the ladies believed we ought to invite you as a way of welcoming you back to town, but I remember the jokes you made about the LDR when we were girls. (They really were awful, especially the one about the Communion wine.)
I’m sure you think I’m silly for joining, but once I came of age, I was drafted into Mother’s former role as official minute taker. It’s nearly Scripture that someone from the pastor’s family has to be involved, and if you want to survive in Ironside Lake, you have to find a social group to join. Not all of us can just leave like you did.
But what matters is that you’d hate our monthly meetings. At our last one, after praying for the unreached in Burma, we spent a full half hour debating whether we would include all recipes submitted to our annual cookbook fundraiser or only those selected by a committee. Someone indirectly referenced Mrs. Wyatt’s tomato and olive aspic rings, and it quickly went downhill from there.
I’m sure the other ladies will understand that you’ll be quite busy with your new job at the camp, and I’ve heard you aren’t sure how long you’ll be staying, which would make membership difficult. I expect you’ll want to get back to your program at the university as soon as possible.
I’m sure I’ll see you at church for the Ash Wednesday service. Until then, I hope the adjustment back is an easy one.
Annika Sorenson
P.S. Please enjoy the shortbread cookies, although they’re not even close to the same when made with margarine. Don’t even ask me about the pathetic excuse for a pound cake I attempted without butter. I suppose we all have to make sacrifices these days.
A draft of a letter from Johanna to the Lutheran Daughters of the Reformation, never sent
February 22, 1944
Dear Mrs. Wyatt et al.,
I was surprised to find your letter greeting me the moment I collapsed on my bed from a tedious train ride so promptly. Of course I remember your ridiculous active group from growing up at Immanuel Lutheran. I regret that I loathe committees with a fierce passion, exceeded only by my hatred for making small talk at potlucks must decline your kind invitation.
Annika has informed me that you’d understand if I’m too busy to accept, which I’m sure was influenced in no way by the fact that she only wants to see me when absolutely necessary very thoughtful of her.
Mission work is noble, though I admit, prayer for the unreached has always confused me. Hasn’t God known since the beginning of time who will come to faith? If so, what good do our prayers do? and I will be first in line to purchase one of your cookbooks Mrs. Wyatt’s suspect aspics included or no, as a token of my support.
From Johanna to the Lutheran Daughters of the Reformation
February 22, 1944
Dear Mrs. Wyatt, Miss Knutson, Mrs. Lewis, and Miss Sorenson,
Thank you for your gracious welcome in inviting me to join the Lutheran Daughters of the Reformation. I’m grateful for the way you serve missionaries and local charities, but I’m afraid that my irregular hours at the camp make it impossible for me to accept your kind offer.
I hope you will consider the prisoners of war in our own backyard as among “the least of these” whom Christ asked us to serve: “I was a stranger, and ye took me in; I was in prison, and ye came unto me.” I’ve heard there has been some resistance to the camp among the people of the town, but I’m sure the LDR women, as Christlike pillars of the community, are fully in support.
Again, I appreciate the honor of the invitation.
Yours truly,
Johanna Berglund
Left on the Berglund kitchen table
February 23, 1944
Went for a walk down by the lake. I know you wanted me to go to the Ash Wednesday service, but I thought it would be better to give the congregation time to adjust to my being here.
As I walk, I’ll smudge some dirt on my forehead in the shape of a cross and think of some sins to confess. “Remember you are dust, and to dust you will return.” There. I’ve covered the important parts of the service.
And don’t worry, Mother. I’m wearing my wool coat, boots, and two layers of socks. I won’t catch a cold or my death or anything else.
Jo
Left on the Berglund kitchen table
February 23, 1944
Jo,
Your father refused to let me go out after you, even when I found your scarf draped over your bedpost. You don’t have to catch your death; it’s chasing after you, and the point is to prevent, not encourage it. As for your wilderness Lenten service . . . I can’t imagine confessing to the squirrels contains any actual spiritual benefit.
Yes, people will talk about your return, but only because they’re glad to see you again—and perhaps they’re honestly curious about the POW camp. Don’t let one silly anonymous writer in that McHenry boy’s poor excuse for a newspaper let you think otherwise. (Your father told me you saw it. If I find out who sent in that letter, I will have words for him.)
When you finally come back, I’ve left some chicken broth on the stove. It’s good for what I’m sure will soon be ailing you.
Much love,
Mother
Editorial in the Ironside Broadside on February 24, 1944
Dear Editor,
Imagine my surprise to find an antipatriotic screed in our very own newspaper about Miss Berglund coming to the camp as a translator.
For shame. Shame on “Concerned Citizen,” whoever you are, and shame on each and every one of you who agreed with him. That editorial was a personal attack, not to mention an insult to women everywhere. I didn’t campaign for twenty straight Novembers for the right to vote just to keep hearing lines about women being “delicate” and “pretty.” We aren’t china dolls.
The letter writer wants us to think he cares about propriety, though I doubt he even knows the word. Well, I say the army has had a good deal of practice at that, so we needn’t concern ourselves. There are Women’s Army Corps members at Fort Snelling just like any other base in the nation, and a pool of female secretaries serving their country with the artillery clatter of their typewriters besides. Were I a few decades younger, you can bet your bloomers I’d be there with them. How is this any different?
Besides, I served as a chaperone at those dances Miss Berglund organized at the high-school gymnasium to gather money for her studies—what was it, two years ago now? She asked me personally to do so, and let me tell you, I have never seen a more thoughtful and respectable young woman in all my days. And I’ve had a lot of days. Never even took to the dance floor, she was so busy keeping everyone on task and everything to standard. Johanna Berglund isn’t some loose, rouged Liberty Girl. She’s one of us, city education or no. And if the army has decided she’s the best-qualified translator for the job, we ought to be proud of her.
As a politician’s daughter, she knows the whole town is watching her; I’d put my last dollar into shares of stock on that. What’s more, she’s probably reading this right now. So, Miss Berglund, I’ll write this directly to you: You won’t let us down. You can’t. The stakes are too high. Thank you in advance for keeping your chin up and proving everyone wrong.
Mrs. Cornelia Knutson,
an Unconcerned Citizen
From Johanna to Peter
February 27, 1944
Dear Peter,
Well, here I am. Nothing has changed in Ironside Lake in two years except me, although no one seems to realize that yet. In their minds, I’m frozen as my nineteen-year-old self, like a piece of olive quivering in aspic. And who can blame them? I’m sleeping in my childhood bedroom, buying stamps at the same old post office, and occupying the same pew while hearing the same sorts of sermons from Pastor Sorenson, consistent and bland as Meatless Monday’s mushroom gravy.
Sorry for the barrage of food analogies. I pretended I was feeling unwell to avoid going over for Sunday lunch at the Sorensons’, and now I’m regretting that choice. But I could tell that Annika was only offering because she felt obligated. It would have been excruciatingly awkward.
Several of the Lutheran Daughters of the Reformation have asked Mother if she and Dad think it’s “suitable” for a woman to work in “a man’s role,” and whispers follow me down the streets wherever I go. The only thing that’s saved me from a torch-and-pitchfork protest is Cornelia Knutson’s vociferous defense in the local paper.
(What can I say to give you a picture of our town matriarch? Last year she planned a Crosby Medley Event to lure young people into the church—but they soon found the Crosby in question was Fanny, not Bing, and the greatest hits were “Blessed Assurance” and “Take the World, But Give Me Jesus” rather than “Pistol Packin’ Mama.”)
Thursday was my first glimpse of the camp. Picture a Gene Autry–movie ghost town with rows of faded wooden buildings, their windows clouded with cobwebs and a decade’s worth of accumulated dirt. As I arrived, carpenters hammered away despite the cold and snow, reshingling the roofs to prepare for the arrival of the POWs.
The guard towers and wire-tipped fences surprised me. I knew they would be there, of course, but seeing the stark platforms mounted with searchlights and the twisting steel barbs . . . well, it wasn’t my first choice of a workplace aesthetic. The least they could do is add a reinforced steel welcome mat to give the place a homey feel.
Major Davies was “delighted” to see me, and according to him, we are already “old friends.” I thought he’d shake my arm clean off. After he introduced me to his executive officer, Lieutenant Charles Bates—a man so stiff he reminds me a of a department-store mannequin—it was time for a grand tour. The major narrated the purpose of the rough structures as if I were a debutante strolling the streets of Rome and admiring various Michelangelo sculptures.
While he rattled off statistics about the mess hall and how the guards’ quarters are, per the Geneva Convention, exactly the same quality as the prisoners’, I counted spiders. Twenty-nine distinct sightings! I subsequently declared war on them. Even though I’ve inflicted heavy casualties, they are winning; I am in frantic retreat. Reinforcements may be needed. I will keep you apprised of further developments.
After this, I was finally left to my office, an alcove in the post headquarters. Lined up on my desk in proper regimented order were a Royal typewriter, miscellaneous office supplies, an ashtray, and an Acme Tires matchbook (even though I explained to Major Davies that I don’t smoke). A German-English dictionary was placed prominently in the center. Which made me wonder if it’s true: They don’t really trust me to do this job; they hired me only to placate the town and buy my father’s support.
Since there wasn’t anything to be gained by accusing anyone of this, I started by translating a booklet of prisoner regulations and several signs—short ones like First Aid—and more involved placards like one insisting that all flyers posted to the camp bulletin board must be approved by the camp commander. All very simple and dull, though I’ll admit to looking up the German for two military terms.
Around noon, the major’s wife, Evelyn, fretted around her half-unpacked dining room and served us chicken and dumplings (which she apologized for twice because their housekeeper only started yesterday and “good help is simply impossible to find around here”). The meal’s side dishes were so many stories about her life in New York that I feel no need now to visit the city myself. I already know almost everything about it: the best department stores and concert halls, as well as the superiority of its roads, fresh fruit, electrical output, and selection of perfumes.
Mrs. Davies also gave me instructions about my clothing, something the major apparently found too delicate to discuss. Since I’m a civilian, I won’t have a uniform, but I’m expected to wear practical, modest clothing in neutral tones. Except for the pale blue dress Mother made me for Easter several years ago, this is a fair description of my entire wardrobe. I’m not exactly Jantzen-bathing-suit-ad material with my limp blond hair and flat figure, so I assured her it wouldn’t be a problem.
Still, Mrs. Davies felt the need to illustrate her instructions with cut-out catalog pictures with bright red slashes through them to indicate their inappropriateness for work. They can’t have anyone looking too pretty at the prison camp, you understand—very dangerous around all those men. “Of course. Loose slips sink ships,” I said very gravely, and Major Davies looked like he’d explode for trying to bottle in his laughter.
I dreamt that night of army trucks filled with swastikas that turned into a swarm of thick-legged spiders. That’s a fair picture of how well I’ve been sleeping lately. The best nights are the ones where I dream I’m back at the university, with its familiar bookshelves and clear expectations and beautiful dead languages to translate.
I’m sorry. I set out to write an update the length of a postcard, and it’s turned into a novel. That’s the occupational hazard of making a friend whose favorite books are The Iliad and Beowulf. Everything becomes an epic. At least fewer people died in the making of this letter; that’s something.
I hope things in Camp Savage are better than here and that you aren’t facing people who question both your integrity and your ability to do your job. Are you beginning to thaw yet? Any news from your family these days?
Jo
From Johanna to Brady McHenry, editor in chief of the Ironside Broadside
February 28, 1944
Dear Mr. McHenry,
Everyone knows that “letters to the editor” are very rarely meant for the editor personally. However, this one is and is thus not intended for print.
Your father had a policy of never publishing anonymous letters, and I would suggest reinstating that policy before things get out of hand. As I see it, no one should be able to sling mud from a dark and shadowed corner, and I’m not only saying that because I was the one criticized.
I’d hate to see any trouble when the men arrive at Camp Ironside in seven days, and I’m sure you feel the same based on your sense of civic duty, no matter how smashing a headline about riots and violence would be for you.
Thank you for your time.
Cordially,
Miss Johanna Berglund
From Brady McHenry to Johanna
February 29, 1944
Dear Miss Berglund,
I thought it wouldn’t be long before I heard from Camp Ironside’s translator, though I didn’t think it would be a typewritten query about policy. I’d have imagined you’d be over the moon with my paper after I printed old Cornelia’s rebuttal this week. Jiminy, that letter of hers! I posted half of it, the bottom torn off, in Nelson’s Bar and Grill, and didn’t I get a dozen men without subscriptions storming into the office later, demanding a copy to read the rest. Signed them all right up.
I don’t suppose you’d ever want to submit something? A dramatic exclusive from the woman behind the barbed wire, that sort of thing. My mailbox is always open if you ever do. The POW camp is the best thing to happen to this newspaper since my father’s passing.
As for anonymous letters, far be it from me to deny freedom of expression to some poor pseudonymous fellow who hasn’t got the guts to jot down his name. It’s my journalistic duty to include everyone . . . and to keep up circulation. I’m trying to bring this paper out of its dusty legacy and into the future using all the tricks I learned as an ad man in Duluth.
Best of luck with those Krauts. You’re going to need it.
Brady McHenry
Owner and Editor in Chief,
Ironside Broadside
From Peter to Johanna
March 2, 1944
Dear Johanna,
It was good to hear from you. I’m sorry for the delay in writing. My excuse is a pathetic one. Two days ago, we had a three-hour training hike in full gear. It’s supposed to be for just the enlisted men, not the civilian teachers, but John Aiso made up some line about instructors setting an example, so away I went, pack and all.
How hard could it be? I asked myself, strapping on my pack.
Answer: miserably hard. We trooped through all kinds of terrain covered in spring slush, carrying supplies for a battle we’ll never face here in small-town Minnesota. In between trying to breathe, I kept thinking: I wanted to be an accountant. Lots of numbers, absolutely no sweat involved. How did I get here?
When I woke yesterday, I was so sore I’d have sworn someone ran me over with a Jeep. Now at least I’ve recovered enough range of motion in my shoulders to lift a pen.
As long as I’m focusing on the positive, have you ever considered the possibility you might be imagining that everyone has a grudge against you? Maybe your friend Annika invited you to lunch because she’s actually your friend. Anyway, even if the company was awkward, you’d have gotten a free meal out of it.
Your camp sounds like it’s in the same state Camp Savage was when we arrived. The buildings could have been knocked down with a hearty sneeze, the walls so full of cracks that if you slept too far away from the potbelly stove in the center of each barracks, you’d freeze, but too close and you’d roast. They’ve made improvements, but of course no one joined the language school for the posh luxuries.
Then again, given the stuffy tar-paper accommodations back at the relocation centers most of them came from, maybe it was an upgrade.
Speaking of which, I know all about having my ability and integrity questioned. Did you forget how long it took for the American government to allow Nisei to serve in the military? Add that to the fact my family and hundreds of other Japanese Americans from the West Coast are still stuck in internment camp lean-tos, waiting for someone to let them go home, and I guess you could say I relate to your frustration. It’s bad enough Roosevelt sent them there in the first place, but even now that he’s overturned his own order, the bureaucrats are still dragging their feet about shutting down the camps.
My parents write pretty often from Gila River, which is about the same as here in terms of being overcrowded and flimsy but with warmer weather. Marion is enrolled in an after-school calligraphy class taught by one of the older women. She’s taken to embellishing the flaps of envelopes with little butterflies and flourishes and is getting quite good, unless it’s just my brotherly pride speaking. Between her letters and yours, I get ribbed pretty often during our daily mail call. I’ve recently gotten rumors that she’s mooning over a young man by the name of Harvey Seki, so she’s just fine with staying in Arizona a while longer. (I distrust him with the suspicion of a thousand hard-boiled gumshoes, if you’re wondering.)
Everyone else, cramped and dusty and idle, would like to be home yesterday, if possible. Thanks for asking after them. I’m sure they’d like to meet you if they could, though Baba would be merciless about your Japanese pronunciation, same as she was with mine.
It’s none of my business, but are you lonely there? Baba tells me that’s how she feels in the relocation center, partly, I think, because the younger generation all speaks English, even at home. It’s a strange kind of isolation, feeling alone even when surrounded by people.
One last thing before I start working on tomorrow’s lesson: Keep a rolled-up newspaper around to kill the spiders. You can sometimes dispatch two or more that way. Besides, think of the satisfaction you’ll get whacking around those anonymous editorials.
Your friend,
Peter
From Johanna to Peter
March 5, 1944
Dear Peter,
You, Peter Ito, are exactly right. As always.1 You’ve gone through precisely the same prejudice I’m experiencing, only much worse, and I’m sorry I was so wrapped up in my own troubles that I couldn’t see it.
So tell me: What do you do? How do you prove yourself successful when you’re not even sure you want to? As I see it, I have two possible paths before me: I can do my work with excellence, receiving very little but my town’s scorn and an (admittedly generous) paycheck. Or I can prove myself so incompetent or disruptive that Major Davies will be forced to admit this was a terrible idea and hire someone from New Weimer to take my place, leaving me free to escape to my classical tomes.
It wouldn’t be so hard, would it, to fake ineptitude? People do it all the time accidentally.
Here are a few of my best ideas on the subject.
Ways I Could Be Semi-Honorably Discharged:
Did you ever want to do that when you were asked to teach Japanese to your peers who would go back to spy on your family’s homeland? Find some plausible reason to get out of it? I’m sure it would have been simple for you to fail a language test and disqualify yourself.
Tomorrow is a momentous day: The POWs will be arriving in Ironside Lake by guarded motorcade. It will be a reverse parade, with everyone gathering to gawk and glare and mutter slurs involving sauerkraut and sabotage as the defeated soldiers march past. Who knows? There might be a protest, even a riot.
I hope the POWs will look so human and harmless that everyone realizes German boys aren’t so very different from our own. That, at least, makes sense to me; I don’t understand why everyone is so upset.
And as for that last question: lonely, ha! Peter, you should know me better than that. I’m a true Northwoods pioneer, capable of spending long winters with nothing but the howling of the wind and a stack of books to keep me company. Ironside Lake is good for that much at least.
Jo
1 One day you will be wrong about something, and on that day, I will shamelessly rejoice at your confirmed humanity.
2 Cornelia Knutson asked me to translate that song for her last week. Apparently she was convinced it was German propaganda until I assured her it meant, “To Me, You’re Beautiful,” and also that the Andrews Sisters are probably not high up on the list of suspected American traitors.
EVIDENCE FOR THE PROSECUTION
LEFT IN THE OFFICERS’ BARRACKS IN THE REGIONAL DETAINEE CAMP IN ALGONA, IOWA, AND TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL GERMAN
March 5, 1944
Tomorrow, more than two hundred of us, including myself, will be transferred to a town called Ironside Lake (46.7° N, 93.7° W), near the northern boundary of the Mississippi River. They haven’t announced this location to the men, so take care not to reveal this information. It is a rural farming community of little interest. With one notable exception: The camp commander has a background I would like to learn more about.
If I discover any information that might be of use, I will return it to you to deliver to our mutual friends, as previously discussed.
They plan for us to return to Algona at the end of November. If I’m unable to contact you before then, we will meet again in eight months.
Heil Hitler.