CHAPTER TEN
From Johanna to Peter
October 4, 1944
Dear Peter,
I’m so glad to hear you’re going to visit your family. I’d say tell me all about it, but by the time you get this letter, I imagine you’ll already have written me. How odd. For several weeks, at least, our letters will pass each other. I’ll have to adjust, I suppose.
Did you see any dolphins on the voyage? I’ve grown up around so many lakes that if you added them all up, the sum total might be an ocean, but I’ve wanted to see the real thing my whole life. Maybe that’s one reason why Oxford held so much appeal, though I’ll admit it seems like a distant dream now after so much has changed. I tried to get the old feelings back by rereading Beowulf, but it just wasn’t the same.
That frightens me. I can’t let this war steal my dream. It’s taken enough from me already.
Here’s a happier story for you. This evening, Evelyn Davies invited me to dinner (vegetable stew with tomatoes and carrots from Camp Ironside’s own garden), and I felt I couldn’t say no, even though I was about as much use to the “conversation” as one of her velvet throw pillows. Between her shrill rants, she kept trying to get information about you—I’d mentioned you joining the army—and I was looking for some way to escape.
It must have been half past eight, not so late that my parents would start to worry, when Major Davies burst in the room, shouting and gesturing wildly. My first thought was that there’d been some disaster: another fire, an escape attempt, or the death of a foolish athlete chasing after a soccer ball that strayed too close to the fence.
So it took me a few moments to register that Major Davies was shouting out of excitement, not fear. “I’ve got it, I’ve got it! Come and hear!”
As it turns out, Major Davies has been spending months trying to pick up the station that broadcasts the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, installing and turning the radio antenna and recording the weather until he found the perfect combination. Clear skies, no wind, no interference from the Des Moines station that shares the same frequency, and a number of technical factors that I didn’t entirely understand, like tuning by adjusting the wire’s length.
Major Davies’s chest must have expanded ten inches from pride as he ushered us up the guard tower ladder to the radio inside, which broadcasted a crisp concerto like the orchestra pit was only two rows away instead of a thousand miles.
Evelyn started to cry, clutching her throat like she was choking. “It’s perfect,” she kept saying.
Then Major Davies held out his hand, and while I watched, they slow danced to the music, a four-step pattern in the confines of the tower’s interior. By the third movement, I made my excuses to leave. I doubt they even heard me.
Even I thought it was sweet. The constant reminiscing that made me want to brain Evelyn with a curtain rod inspired Major Davies to spend late nights adjusting the tower, noting wind speeds in his notebook. Though I have to admit, it was disappointing to learn my wild theories about espionage and codes were all wrong.
This morning, Stefan came in for his usual visit with the major, having apparently been awakened by the noise—the radio tower is close to the officers’ quarters. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him act in a less-than-pleasant manner. After the major explained, instead of being mollified by the story, Stefan seemed even more irritated. I suppose it reminded him of his family at home. What a hard thing, to be so far from the ones you love and without a sense of purpose.
In any case, I hope you’re doing well. Are the K-rations as bad as they say, or haven’t you had to break those out yet? I hope you found some California USO canteen to stockpile an assortment of sweets. In my brief term as junior hostess at the USO in Minneapolis, we were warned not to let a GI go through the doughnut line three times to stuff his pockets. The senior hostess thought that all of you Japanese American soldiers looked identical, which is nonsense.
Is there anything you need that I can send? Besides more letters, of course.
Jo
From Johanna to Peter
Returned to Sender on November 20, 1944, enclosed with the message “Unable to Be Delivered”
October 14, 1944
Dear Peter,
Writing to you is comforting on difficult days. Have I told you that? No matter what emotional turmoil may be going on around me, you’re always as steady and reliable as Dad’s ancient Ford truck.
Mother says I ought to be using the V-mail forms to speed things along, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Partly because of the length restrictions, partly because thinking of someone scanning my letter onto microfilm and delivering it in an airplane to be printed out again feels so . . . mechanical. This, I realize, is ironic coming from the woman who writes her letters on a typewriter, but at least my hands touched and sometimes smeared this sheet of paper.
Because the camp is closing for the winter at the end of November, I’m concluding English classes next week. Major Davies has decided to give me paperwork tallying up the financial contribution of POW labor by adding the profits coming in from each farm as they sell their crops. Important documentation, I’m sure, but—and I never thought I’d say this—I prefer teaching the officers. I’ve even assigned them a composition, a short essay describing what they learned about America and its government. That, I felt, was as patriotic of a final examination as I could concoct.
Stefan Werner turned his in early—in the form of a Potato Brigade column, which was published last Saturday. He dropped out of classes a few weeks ago when the harvesting started in earnest, claiming it was better for the camp spokesman to go out among the men during the longest workdays. His fellow officers look down on him for it, I know—I hear them mutter, accusing him of communist leanings—but I think it’s admirable. More of the officers could benefit from rolling up their shirtsleeves and going into the fields with the privates.
I’ll admit, Captain Werner has been a bit of a puzzle lately. I’ve attached his original draft of his editorial here, because for the first time, I made an edit to a prisoner’s column, cutting out the paragraph near the end about me.
Before the past few weeks, I don’t recall him ever implying he was considering remaining in America. The change seemed to happen right around the time the letter from his sister arrived, the one I didn’t read, so I’m wondering if it was perhaps her idea. Major Davies has informed me that the POWs are responding in vastly different ways to the news that Germany will likely surrender soon, so I imagine more surprises and challenges will be in store as our men face a new reality that is difficult for them to accept.
He even left red flowers on my desk last week, along with a notecard bearing the Preamble to the Constitution in neat script—unsigned, but certainly from him. I suspect he intends to ask me or my father to be his American sponsor, something required in the naturalization process. I don’t know what I’ll say if he asks. I would hate to lose him again to the lies of Nazi propaganda, but neither am I convinced he’s fully dedicated to democracy. If I had to guess, his father has refused to welcome him home, and Stefan wants to remain here and avoid the conflict and bad memories. Always running. What do you think?
I don’t know what I’m allowed to ask you, other than to inquire after your health and your spirits. So . . . are you healthy? Are your spirits up? Write back soon.
Jo
Draft of the column for the October 7, 1944, issue of the Ironside Broadside
I knew very little about America before coming here, and what I did know was because of the 1936 Olympics. I was a runner with the German relay team and still remember how proud I felt, with my father, sister, and younger brother, Leon, in the stands, their voices joining the roar of the crowd.
For all their talk of trade restrictions and boycotts because they did not approve of our chancellor’s new government, America still sent their athletes to compete. In our facilities and food and competitors, it was our chance to show the world the best of our country.
I cannot fully describe to you the majesty of those few weeks, the sights that amazed travelers from all over the world. If you want to imagine it, watch the documentary Olympia, which shows a few of the wonders of the competition—the beauty of athleticism and grace and national pride.
During the event, Germany won 33 gold medals.
America, our nearest competition, won 24.
That is what I knew about America before the start of the war.
After learning more in our English class, taught by Miss Berglund, I can now understand the branches of government and balance of power that you have here. And for the time and place where they began in America, this system has worked. Allow me to say that it is a good country you have built, and you have prospered.
But when your country has been unjustly penalized after a war they did not seek, stripped of centuries of glory, crippled economically, it is not the time for leaders who would continue in passivity. America was ready for George Washington. Germany was ready for Adolf Hitler. Viewed through this lens, focused on at this angle, war was inevitable.
Can you understand? Or do you condemn us for trying to save ourselves from ruin and shame?
When I was young, I pretended to scoff at the dark tales of the Brothers Grimm that I read in storybooks, but deep down they taught me what I was already coming to know: The world is a cold and uncaring place, full of dangers, and I must be ready to face them. When I was told in Hitlerjugend that some of these monsters were called Jews, I believed them, and I grew up strong, first to beat them at races, then to fight them.
Here, I have met a clever woman with Prussian-blue eyes who tells me there is another way, and I find I want to believe her. That maybe, perhaps, there are loyalties that can go beyond the flags we salute and the anthems we sing.
It is the hope of a dreamer, of a boy who has heard too many fairy tales and dared believe that if the monsters were real, perhaps the promise of victory against all odds might be as well.
But in a time of war, all we have left are stories and hopes.
Someday, I hope to live in America and make this my home too. There is nothing left for me in the country that I once loved. It has been destroyed to rubble and ruin. I do not know if I will stay here or come back someday, but I want to know what America is like as someone who is truly free. It will not be long, that much I am sure of.
Soon, this terrible war will be over, and once again, our countries will fight only on the field of competition rather than the field of battle. I look forward to seeing that day arrive.
From Peter to Johanna
October 5, 1944
Dear Jo,
I’ve stolen a moment alone on the ship to write. It’s harder these days to find a space to myself, all of us crammed on the steamer like sardines in a tin, but I’m making do.
My visit home was wonderful, the whole family running out onto the sidewalk when they saw me coming in uniform, like something you’d draw on a war-bond poster (if they showed Japanese Americans on those). Father insists business at the store is “fine,” but instead of breaking out the books to talk finance like he usually did, he insisted we keep the focus on family time.
Our conversation stuck mainly to cheerful things: the cake the Ariyoshi family brought over when they heard I was visiting, a stray cat Marion has adopted and named Kitty Grable, Baba Yone’s newfound interest in growing herbs from her time tending the Gila River gardens. And best of all, Mother’s famous miso soup, smelling like seaweed and the fish market and home. Even thinking about it makes my mouth water.
For a few hours, it felt like everything had gone back to the way it was before the war. But then the next day, after I’d stayed up late talking with Marion and hadn’t gotten much sleep—no new intelligence on the boy from San Diego—Mother cried seeing me off and my father was so solemn he might as well have been humming “Taps” under his breath. I’ll admit I was feeling a little low boarding the ship bound for the Pacific.
The only one of my Camp Savage students on the ship with me is Terry. He’s decided to be a war correspondent via pencil sketch—if the New Yorker knew what they were doing, they’d hire him on the spot. His latest was a send-up of seasick troops hurling their rations into the ocean, captioned, “Ain’t no ocean in God’s country of Tennessee,” a direct quote from an especially green-around-the-gills sergeant who can’t wait to get back on dry land.
I was on a steamer before when I made the journey to and from Japan in my teenage years. I can’t help being a little smug that I can stroll along the deck with ease (although you can see my handwriting’s none the better for it).
All of the soldiers have started calling me “Tal” now after Joe passed it along. Nicknames stick like burrs around here.
We’ll be landing in another week in “the Pacific.” That’s as specific as I’m allowed to get, because [CENSORED].
Tell me what you’ve been up to lately. I can’t say when the letters will reach me, but until then, thinking of you.
Your friend,
Peter
From Johanna to Peter
Returned to Sender on November 26, 1944, enclosed with the message “Unable to be Delivered”
October 27, 1944
Dear Peter,
Finally, a letter from you! Never mind that it spoke of things that happened weeks ago. It was good to know you’re doing well and not even seasick.
If I’d been your mother, I would have made a deserter out of you by locking you in the closet so you’d miss your ship, so it seems your family took your leaving rather well. As for Marion’s boyfriend, maybe ask her about him again in a letter. Sometimes it’s easier for people to write things than to say them in person.
I’d love to see one of Terry’s drawings if he has time to sketch in the margins of your next letter. In exchange, Mother has completed your socks with great pride, as you can see. She’s anxious to hear how they fit and whether you like them—there was a moment of panic in which she realized she’d selected navy blue and you’re in the army, but I assured her it wouldn’t matter.
On my end, here’s the latest news: Annika Sorenson is organizing a costume ball in the very school gymnasium where I ran a dance hall for over a year . . . and she didn’t even ask me for help. I had to hear about it from Evelyn Davies, who is absolutely thrilled. She’s already been over to the administration building five times in the past two days to pepper me with ideas of “how I’ve seen things done in New York” while I’m supposed to be working. I was polite, I promise, but her shrill voice makes me feel like I’m trapped in an aspirin advertisement.
The purpose is to raise money to support the guards at the camp. Although I suspect, given Annika’s involvement, that the real purpose has something to do with wanting to dance with a certain stoic, khaki-clad guard.
Mother has already informed me that I must attend. Her refrain has been, “What sort of a message do you want to send? You can’t advocate for the camp and refuse to attend the first community event supporting it.” The trouble is, she’s probably right.
The only reason I’m looking forward to it at all is that the band will be—after much negotiation with Major Davies—the Camp Ironside Orchestra! Peter, you should have seen Otto von Neindorff’s beaming face when I told him. I thought the glow in his eyes would cause a power surge in the dim recreation-hall light bulbs. They’ve doubled practices to prepare, and I listen in whenever I can. Even though I have virtually no knowledge of music, I’ve been quite impressed.
Looking forward to the next time-capsule letter from you.
Jo
The POW Potato Brigade column in the Ironside Broadside on October 28, 1944
If you don’t know me from around town, I work in the Camp Ironside kitchen, one of a few civilians among all the uniforms. Every day we get a KP squad of 3–5 of the POWs to help out peeling potatoes and scrubbing plates and dishing out grub. There’s some that’re nasty to me, on account of my being colored, some who treat me same as anyone else. No different than any other men. That’s what I’ve learned more than anything, just how normal these Germans are.
One of them started collecting food scraps for a compost for his garden, laid out neat as you could imagine. Could’ve been one of the pictures in a farmer-supply catalog. Spent all his canteen scrip on seeds and tools, attacking those weeds like they were an enemy invasion.
Another one was a baker back in Germany, and soon as we got a barrel of bruised windfall leavings, he went and asked if he could make Apfelstrudel. That’s German for “sweetest thing you ever tasted.” Soon as I smelled that cinnamon-sugar goodness filling up my kitchen, I marched right up to the German mess sergeant and got that man assigned to KP duty for as long as we got donated apples. Never knew something other folks rejected could taste half so good. If you want the recipe, you just go to the gates and ask for Kurt Freisler. Tell ’em Ray Harrison sent you.
There might be a few outside the compound who still grumble and complain on the principle of the thing. But anyone who’s been inside the camp doesn’t have a bad thing to say about these men, and that’s the truth. Ask the farmer who delivers twenty dozen eggs every other day if the POWs are good for business or not. Ask the fellow who carts their laundry away in his truck twice a week if the men work up a sweat and dirty their clothes. Heck, ask the movie theater attendant if he heard so much as a single boo the whole run time of the movie we let the boys out to see.
The point of it is, I’m up close to these men every day, working alongside them, and I say they’re good for Ironside Lake.
And maybe we’re a little bit good for them too.
Man like me’s got a dog-eared copy of The Negro Motorist Green Book, with safe hotels, filling stations, and eateries marked for when my family goes traveling. Inside there’s a motto from Mark Twain, “Travel is fatal to prejudice.”
The men at the camp sure did travel all right, whether they wanted to or not. Now here they are, a long way from Germany and all those Nazi slogans. So long as we’ve got them here, we’ve got a chance to tell them something different.
I know as well as anybody else—better, maybe—that it pays to be careful. I felt a little dangerous myself, the first day coming through the barbed wire, thinking I knew what these Germans were going to be like from newsreels and such. Should’ve known they’d be men just like me.
You’ll be hearing soon about a chance to hear the POW orchestra come late November, before all the boys head back to Iowa. I’m joining in for a number or two. You should come on out and see for yourself. Take a good, long look at them. Talk to the conductor, Otto von Neindorff, a great musician and a great man besides. Listen a little.
You can tell ’em Ray Harrison sent you there too.
Raymond Harrison
From Peter to Johanna
October 11, 1944
Dear Jo,
I’ve arrived in the Pacific. Some of my fellow soldiers, the hams, made a show of kissing the ground. Spirits are high all around among the newcomers. To hear the men in my unit talk, they were worried the war would be over before we arrived.
I haven’t gotten a letter from you yet, which is why I’m not responding to any of your news or questions. They tell me that’s pretty common, especially if the sender isn’t writing on the V-mail forms that can be delivered via air. You are using those, aren’t you? Supposedly they can fit hundreds of thousands on one plane that way. I know it means you’ll have to write in your actual handwriting, but don’t worry, deciphering illegible characters on battle-smeared fragments is literally what I’ve trained for. Someone has to give me a challenge to practice on.
I’m getting along better with the other fellows now that they’ve gotten over the initial shock of having a Japanese American embedded in their unit. The only one who still dislikes me is a Pennsylvania man who heard me mocking the Phillies our first week on the ship (to be fair, they had a terrible season).
Speaking of which, tell your mother congratulations on her Cardinals winning the World Series. That’s the Big Baseball Game, in case you didn’t know. Everyone over here was waiting for that piece of news, like it was some kind of decisive battle. You could tell who the fans were by the scattered pockets of cheering.
Now that we’ve arrived, I’m starting to use the training I received. That’s all I can say about it, but it’s a real thrill, Jo, to get out of my books for once and do things. I never realized how different it would be on the front lines, like moving from paging through travel books to actually exploring a new country for the first time.
Have you ever thought, Jo, about using your skill with language for some humanitarian organization? I know your dream has always been Oxford and translating the classics, but once the war’s over, they’re going to need thousands of translators to help with aid and rebuilding. I’ve considered it myself, actually. I’m doing what I have to, fighting Japan, but when this is all over . . . well, I’m not a soldier at heart, and while I haven’t had the courage to tell my father, I’m not much of an accountant either. If I could help people whose lives were ruined by war and rebuild some of what we’ve torn down, that would be the best use of my skills I could think of.
How is old Ironside Lake? Has the major come around to trusting you again? What about Annika? Send a story of Cornelia Knutson’s quirks or your father’s campaigning, anything to give me a minute back in Minnesota.
Your friend,
Peter
Editorial in the Ironside Broadside on October 30, 1944
Dear Editor,
Last week, I was awakened rudely to the horribly off-key strains of some song—the lyrics I caught are unprintable here—belted out by a drunken man wobbling down the street. My husband went out to threaten to call the sheriff, only to find the man was employed by our own US Army, one of the guards at Camp Ironside.
I’ve since learned this has become a common occurrence: packs of guards frittering away their wages on liquor and disturbing the peace during their off hours. Worse, I’m told the army knew this would happen. Some soldiers with a known tendency toward alcoholism were assigned—yes, deliberately assigned—to POW camps, to avoid sending them to the front.
Well, I say anyone who acts like a common drunk ought to be treated like one and locked up in the county jail for the night.
That Berglund girl’s column, the one written by the camp guard, tricked us into thinking all of them are squeaky-clean, gee-whiz Willie Gillises, smiling at us from the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. All lies, I tell you!
This is why I have no confidence, none at all, in the major’s reassurances that Camp Ironside is secure. Secured by whom? A bunch of rowdies disqualified for overseas service who swig troughs of beer before stumbling to their barracks? I’d wager half the lot of them are hungover for guard duty. How secure is that, I ask you?
Drink is the way of the devil, and when we let the devil roam our streets, heaven knows what will follow.
An Advocate for Reason
From Johanna to Peter
Returned to Sender on December 8, 1944, enclosed with the message “Unable to Be Delivered”
November 1, 1944
Dear Peter,
You’re right: The Big Baseball Game was an event in our home. Mother was over the moon with the victory. Cornelia Knutson came over to listen to it on the radio, but she became restless by the fourth inning and ended up debating the city’s budget with my father. Mother got so annoyed that she shoved them onto the front porch until they rang the doorbell five times in a row, complaining about the cold.
I’m glad to hear that your unit is accepting you, though they should do far more than that, given the fact that you’re the most accomplished among them and could save all of their lives in a tight spot. I wish I could ask about the work you’re doing, but as I know you can’t respond to that, I’ll restrain myself.
As for Oxford . . . I don’t know, Peter. I’ve always felt since I was a little girl that I didn’t belong here in Ironside Lake, but at the same time I’ll admit to loving safety and quiet and a library within walking distance. Oxford has all of that. Foreign-aid work would not.
Erik always talked about a “calling” to be a minister. When I asked him if everyone got a calling, he thought about it for a long time, then said that he wasn’t sure, but that perhaps some were called to other people or a general goal, rather than to a specific place or occupation. That never sat well with me, so I haven’t dragged God into any discussions of my future. We’ll see what happens, I suppose.
All’s quiet on the Minnesota front, except for another sour anonymous letter in the newspaper. They’re starting to blur together, with slight variations in subject but essentially the same tone. One seems to appear every time things have calmed down at the camp.
Actually, that suddenly strikes me as interesting. I seem to get my best ideas while writing to you. I might have to speak to Brady McHenry after this.
Election day approaches, so Dad is out making speeches and canvassing for votes. Mother often goes with him, enlisting her endless charm for his campaign. I, you might guess, don’t have enough charm to spare and have to ration it for general interactions with humanity.
Also, I have—behind Annika’s back and I’m sure to her great displeasure—volunteered to help the LDR women at the dance, taking tickets and refreshing the punch bowl. I’ve always hated dancing, but maybe that’s because I never learned. Erik wanted to teach me and promised not to be upset if I tromped all over his toes. He really was a good friend, whatever our differences might have been.
I still haven’t chosen my costume, but Mother is making a Martha Washington ensemble, mobcap included, for herself. Dad going as old George seems slightly over-the-top to me, but I’ll enjoy watching him sneeze his way through the night from the talc powder he’s planning to sprinkle in his hair.
I’ve reached the maximum these V-mail letterforms will hold. See how you pressured me into using one? Finally, you’ll be spared from my epics!
Stay safe. Tell me as much as you can about what you’re up to.
Jo
From Johanna to Brady McHenry
November 2, 1944
Dear Mr. McHenry,
I realize this is an unusual request, and you’ll probably reply that a journalist has a responsibility to protect his sources, but I have to at least try.
I need to see the anonymous letters and envelopes submitted to your office in the past ten months. You see, I have a theory: I’m beginning to suspect all of them were written by the same person.
I came to this conclusion by means of textual analysis. In censoring letters from the POWs, I’ve realized that each has a distinct voice . . . and that the anonymous letters to your newspaper did not. Even though the persona of each of the letters varied, the basic linguistic features were exactly the same. Sentence structure and length, slang (particularly racial slurs), tendency for dramatic last lines, etc.
I have a detailed analysis, with footnotes, if you’d like me to come to the office to explain, but the short of it is that I think I know who’s been writing to the paper: Mrs. Evelyn Davies. She’s wanted her husband to move back to New York City since the day she arrived and has hardly spoken of anything else. She must have decided that if the sentiment in the community turned against the camp, it might be closed down.
If you can give any corroborating evidence to my theory, I plan to confront her tomorrow. I have no wish to press charges, if such a thing can even be done, but I do want these letters to stop because I, for one, am tired.
I was going to finish that statement with exactly what I’m tired of, but the list is so long that I became exhausted just thinking about it. I’ll leave it to your imagination.
As we’re colleagues, I’m confident I won’t have to resort to threats. I’m sure you didn’t have the slightest suspicion that the letters might have come from the same person until I suggested it.
Be a person instead of a newspaperman, Mr. McHenry, and do the right thing.
Johanna Berglund
From Brady McHenry to Johanna
November 3, 1944
Dear Miss Berglund,
Textual analysis, is it? My, my, I’m afraid university training has spoiled your otherwise quite functional brain with fancy techniques. I went back to my files—I keep all correspondence to the paper—and each letter was written in a different handwriting. I assure you, all is on the up-and-up, no matter what you thought you saw in your sentence diagrams. Almost like finding shapes in clouds or omens in tea leaves, isn’t it? You can believe almost anything is there if you want to badly enough.
Thank you for your concern, Miss Berglund, but you need to face the fact that public opinion in Ironside Lake is simply more dramatic than in more peaceful times. And as a newsman, I’m honor bound to report it straight, whatever inconvenience it might cause.
Please take your slander against poor Mrs. Davies and drop it directly where it belongs: the trash. I’ve spoken with the major’s wife many times, and while her gossip and complaints are a reporter’s dream, never once did she indicate being clever enough to plan the sort of conspiracy you’ve suggested.
As for being a consummate newspaperman, that shows what you know. I’m not a newspaper man, not really. Do you know what I really did at the ad agency in Duluth? Does anyone in this godforsaken town? Of course not. Once you leave Ironside Lake, you’re generically off in “the city,” as if there’s only one.
We understand each other, Johanna Berglund. We are more alike than anyone in this two-cow town, because while I’m sure there are others who don’t want to be here, we’re the ones with the guts to do something about it.
Once Freddy comes home from the war, hopefully with all his limbs and a desire to do right by old Dad by keeping up the family business, I’m out of here. No one to tie me down, no family legacy to keep up, no regrets. I suggest you do the same.
Might I make another suggestion? Stick to translation work. That column of yours is a hit every weekend. Why ruin a good thing?
Brady McHenry
Owner and Editor in Chief,
Ironside Broadside
From Johanna to Brady McHenry
November 6, 1944
Mr. McHenry,
I can’t be mistaken. Analysis doesn’t lie . . . but people do. Which is why your latest letter immediately made me suspicious rather than assuaging my fears. The more I thought about it, the more I looked over your past letters to me and the vocabulary you used, the more I began to wonder.
It was you, wasn’t it? Not Evelyn Davies. How could it be? She didn’t arrive until after the first anonymous letter was published. You, on the other hand, have a much more transparent motive: stirring up interest in your ridiculous newspaper. Anything for a sensation, anything for sales. I can’t believe I didn’t see it until now.
Remember what I said about the exposé. If we can’t come to some sort of agreement that these anonymous letters will cease—which I will want in writing—I’ll make sure your paper closes for good.
The Broadside isn’t some silly Hollywood rag that everyone expects to be filled with inane gossip. Your father intended it to be a respectable news publication. I’m giving you one chance to make it right, and only one.
Johanna Berglund
From Brady McHenry to Johanna
November 6, 1944
Dear Miss Berglund,
No need for anything rash. I’m sure I can explain to your satisfaction everything about transcribing public opinion in a concise, interesting form. Which I’m not saying I did, but if I had, it would make perfect sense. When I took over the paper, subscriptions were down by 20% and falling faster than a Spitfire gunned down by Jerries. The readership was bored. My old man had been too sick to do anything but maintain the status quo.
The way I see it, there’s nothing wrong with taking actual public opinion—the word on the street, if you like—and writing it down.
You see, back in Duluth, I was a graphic artist. I drew the ads—the perfectly staged kitchen, the delighted husband opening a tie box, the youngster with an Irish setter lolling at the heels of his Buster Brown shoes. It wasn’t high-class gallery art, but we’ve all got to grow out of our dreams and take a job that pays.
Done right, the newspaper business can be just like drawing ads. You paint a picture for people, make them feel things, stir them up.
You call it “gossip”? Well, I say Ironside Lake ought to take what it dishes out. You don’t think I know how people talked about me behind my back when I returned to take over the paper? Saying it was a shame Fred was off at war instead of me, predicting how long it would be before the paper went bankrupt, coming up with all kinds of reasons I might be a bachelor at nearly forty. Oh yes. I’m a careful listener, and I have my sources. I know what they said.
If I funnel even a little of this town’s spite back at them, it’s no more than they deserve. And if I make a wad of cash in the process, well, irony is a beautiful thing.
I’m sure you’re thinking, Why is he telling me all this? Why write it all down so I can expose him?
First of all, because I know you won’t do it. Anyone whose favorite book is Les Miserables isn’t the vengeful sort.
More importantly, as I said, when Evelyn Davies comes into town, I make sure to buy her lunch and listen to all of her news. Who else do you think told me about the fire, or the other times I quoted an anonymous source in an article about Camp Ironside? And wouldn’t you know that she just shared something very, very interesting about you: According to her husband, your long-distance sweetheart is a Japanese spy.
How would you like Peter Ito’s name all over the headlines? I could do it. I have the information. What a story that would be! And right before election day too.
Consider that a warning. If you don’t leak your information . . . I won’t leak mine.
And even if you do choose to speak out, martyr that you are, and take your politician father and Jap boyfriend down with you, people won’t believe you. They don’t even like you. It’ll all be for nothing.
You’ve yet to learn something very important, something I learned while sketching a hundred fantasy scenes to sell products: People believe the stories they want to believe, and they also hate accepting they were taken for a ride. It’s not worth the risk, trying to expose me for something that, in the end, doesn’t matter.
One last word. Be careful, Miss Berglund. Those who threaten the venerable institution of the press rarely find it works out in their favor.
Brady McHenry
From Johanna to her parents
Note left on the Berglund kitchen table
November 7, 1944
Mother and Dad,
I know I’m supposed to be at Dad’s rally at the old pole barn tonight, but I have an errand of urgency. I’m off to the Broadside office, and if it’s closed, I’ll batter down the door of the room McHenry’s renting in town. He will speak with me.
If I don’t come back, it’s either because I was murdered or I did the murdering and am now on the run.
For context, that rat McHenry called Peter a spy. A spy! And threatened to write that in the paper. Can you believe it? I’m sick to death of everyone assuming and judging and spreading vicious lies, so I’m going down to set the record straight . . . and to withdraw my support of the paper. No more Potato Brigade column. I won’t do a thing to support a paper run by a man like that.
I’m quite possibly the worst politician’s daughter of all time, abandoning you both on election day, but I know you’re fond of Peter and will understand. (But I did vote; I promise.)
To war!
Jo
Article in the Ironside Broadside on November 8, 1944
BERGLUND WINS REELECTION
Roosevelt wasn’t the only incumbent to achieve victory in this month’s election. Mayoral candidate Carl Berglund will commence his fifth term as mayor of Ironside Lake, winning by a slight majority over businessman Edward Bartholomew. Supporters cite his work ethic and “everyman” appeal, though others have vocally protested his support of Camp Ironside and the POWs interred there, an issue that has become the focal point of this year’s campaign.
In a post-election speech, when asked whether he envisions the POWs returning next year, Berglund said, “Coming from a family with a legacy of farming, I’ll do all I can to ensure that our agricultural workers have full support to bring in a harvest. That includes POW labor where needed. Their contribution to our local farming economy can’t be underestimated, in addition to the business the camp brought to grocers, launderers, carpenters, and other tradesmen in town.”
It should be noted that cheering from the gathered crowd of supporters, which at other times in the speech had been quite robust, died out at this part.
He then expressed his gratitude to the city for its vote of confidence, something he values and “will never take lightly.”
Berglund’s wife was present at the celebration, assisting the Women’s League in selling celebratory war bonds, pictured above. Notably missing was Berglund’s daughter, translator at the POW camp, which has been the source of much controversy in our town.
From Peter to Johanna
October 15, 1944
Dear Jo,
I’ve gotten your first letter! For a while there, I’d thought you’d abandoned me, even though I knew a few weeks’ delay is normal. I tore the envelope open like a starving man attacking a steak. Mugs Renfroe calls letters “five-minute furloughs home.” I like that . . . although with your letters, it’s usually a twenty-minute furlough, and that’s if I only read them through once.
When I have a hard time getting to sleep out here, I think of Ironside Lake, or at least how I imagine it to be. Probably smaller than it really is, like those quaint Christmas village displays in department store windows. I think about you, listening to the camp orchestra practices, putting pins on your map as you read the headlines, drinking tea with Cornelia Knutson and her ridiculous hats.
Now I know why the sentimental war songs are about gazebos and apple trees and streetlights back home. We all want the ones we love to be safe, to live normal lives, while we’re in the middle of chaos. It gives us something to hold on to.
And let me tell you, your story about the major building the radio tower for his wife might’ve topped it all. I read it to some of the boys, and I swear some of them were misty-eyed by the end. That’s what we all want, really, even the boasters who talk about women like they’re conquests on a battlefield: someone who really knows us, who we can care for and grow old with, even on the tough days.
It looks like a different kind of picture postcard out here. Palms swaying in the moonlight, that sort of thing. I wonder if it makes Terry and Makoto homesick for Hawaii. How’s your mother’s saving fund coming for that trip, by the way?
There was once a time I’d turn up my nose at the nickel White Castle hamburgers the boys would bring back from Minneapolis on weekend leave. I’d give anything for one of them now. Even a greasy slider beats canned bully beef, and the bun would be better than hardtack. But a nickel can’t buy me that now. Even a hundred bucks wouldn’t be enough. So goes the army, I guess. Add that to a list of things I miss: burgers and clean laundry and pillows and long, hot showers.
There are rumors we’re getting a full steak-and-eggs breakfast tomorrow, so I shouldn’t complain. And I guess I don’t need to tell you tomorrow will be a big day for other reasons. They always feed us better before [CENSORED]. A whirlwind basic training didn’t make me feel less of a fraud. A teacher with a gun. Who’d have guessed?
There’s so much I’m not allowed to talk about—where I am, what I’m doing, where I’ll be going. All I can tell you based on what I’ve been instructed about what happens next is it might be a while before I’m able to write again.
And pray for me. Please, Jo. Pray for all of us.
Your friend,
Peter
P.S. Almost forgot about the war stealing your dream of Oxford. I don’t have any profound advice except this: Don’t hold on so tightly to one idea of what you want that you don’t let God push you in another direction. A few years ago, I was studying to be an accountant, remember? And yet here I am, sure I’m where I’m supposed to be, even if I’m scared. I couldn’t ask for anything more for you than that.
From Johanna to Peter
Returned to Sender on December 8, 1944, enclosed with the message “Unable to Be Delivered”
November 8, 1944
Dear Peter,
Let me start by saying I’d send you a whole crate of hamburgers if I could. As it is, this letter will have to do. You’re right; you are imagining Ironside Lake as more ideal than it is, but I’m probably overglamorizing your adventures as well, so we’ll call it a tie.
Dad was reelected as mayor yesterday. I missed the rally because of some trouble with Brady McHenry that I don’t have space to detail on this silly V-mail stationery, but I’m very happy for Dad. There are some who disapprove of his politics, but the farmers love him and some of the townsfolk have reluctantly decided he isn’t a bumpkin trying out politics on a whim. This morning, I made him flapjacks to celebrate. The fact that half were burned and the other half were partially raw does not detract from the effort.
Meanwhile, the dance looms, and I have a ticket and a costume, which means I’ve surrendered to pressure and will attempt to be social. It’s likely to be sharply nostalgic, especially the smells of heady perfume and cologne with undertones (undersmells?) of lemon cleaner covering the sweat of basketball practices.
My “costume” will involve plunking a wreath of greenery on my head, borrowing Mother’s scarf to give my white dress the appearance of a chiton, and calling myself Athena. No mask—I haven’t had time to make one, and it’s not as if there’s a booming masquerade shop on Main Street. I suggested spattering myself with spaghetti sauce to represent Athena’s birth out of Zeus’s head, but my mother nearly fainted and positively forbade it, so it looks like I’m forced to excise the mythological details that would have given my costume authenticity.
I don’t think I would mind going so much if you were here. My suggestion for your costume would be Hermes, messenger of the gods. While the others in the Olympus pantheon have flashier domains—the sea, the underworld, war, love, and so on—Hermes has always been my favorite because of the sheer variety of those who pray to him for protection as the god of trade, shepherds, travel, sleep, and—of course—language. Fitting, don’t you think?
And for goodness’ sake, Peter, none of that nonsense about your uniform being a costume. If you’re a fraud, I’m Miss America. You are the most genuine person I’ve ever met. The only one, besides my family, whom I truly trust. What was it you said about emotions lying to us and shouting back truth? However you feel at the moment, you will make your country proud in all you attempt.
This part is difficult for me to say. I’ll admit to drafting it six or seven times before finally writing. Your last letter, asking for prayer for your first real mission, made me afraid for you. So much so that I stayed home from work, panicking Mother, who offered me a cocktail of home remedies before I convinced her I needed to be left alone. There was nothing wrong with me that she could fix. All I could do was kneel on the rag rug beside my bed, reading your letters again and trying to pray.
Which led me to conclude I care more about you than I realized. Maybe I haven’t been fully honest with you, or with myself. When you said those things to me by the Stone Arch Bridge about having deeper feelings for me than just friendship . . . it felt like Erik all over again, and I didn’t want that for us. Selfishly, I was afraid of losing you.
I still am.
But when you come back, and you promised you would, can we start over? The whole conversation, from the very beginning. I’ll take back every hasty thing I said . . . and we’ll see what replaces it. If you still feel the same way about me after going away to war, that is.
Even if you don’t, just come back soon, Peter. Please.
Jo
From Major Davies to Johanna, left on her desk
November 9, 1944
Miss Berglund,
When you’ve returned from your rounds, please come find me. I have an urgent and highly sensitive matter to speak with you about. It’s about your friend Peter.
Davies
EVIDENCE FOR THE PROSECUTION
FROM MAJOR DAVIES TO DR. SMYTHE
November 9, 1944
CONFIDENTIAL
Subject: Report on civilian personnel Johanna Berglund
Dear Dr. Smythe,
Your letter requesting an update on Miss Berglund came at exactly the wrong time for me to be objective. Today she has shown absolutely no sense of order or discipline!
What has prompted this, you ask? Given some bad news and a few honest questions regarding a US military serviceman, she actually physically assaulted me! I sent her home with a stern warning to compose herself, and now I’m considering whether I should even keep her on in her position!
I can’t go into detail—military secrets and all—but she might be covering for a turncoat among our very own army. And if there’s anything I can’t stand, I assure you, it’s a traitor! If one’s word can’t be trusted, well, what the devil can be?
Even my own German spokesman warned me to be wary of her, after she clearly lied about her involvement in the fire in the camp. He’s the one who pointed out she might have allowed the accident to happen in the first place. I let that infraction go, but clearly I should have listened to him and taken action.
Since it’s only three weeks before the men will go back to Iowa for the season, I shall keep Miss Berglund on staff for that long, at least. But you can rest assured that this winter I will be making calls from New York to find someone new.
If you have any recommendations from among your students, I would welcome them! Preferably a man. Everyone said it was foolish of me to choose a woman as a translator. Too emotional, they said. Nonsense, I said, she’ll do just fine! And see what’s come of that!
I don’t know if you ought to pass this along to that scholarship donor of hers, whoever he is, but I felt that someone at the university ought to know. Miss Berglund’s temperament does not suit the military, and I find it difficult to continue trusting her.
Respectfully,
Major J. E. Davies
US Army, Fort Snelling