Postscript
From Johanna to Peter, never sent
February 22, 1945
Dear Peter,
I seem to start every letter to you since your deployment reminding you that I miss you, so I’ll skip all that and say I’m still worried about the upcoming grand jury . . . but I don’t feel quite as alone as I used to. I know you’d want me to focus on that and not on the hate mail or headlines.
To begin with, Mother and Dad support me unconditionally. Sometimes I forget to be grateful for that. Even after today’s announcement that he would resign as mayor (thanks in large part to pressure from the spineless city council), Dad resolutely spent most of last night popping corn over the stove and challenging me to a jigsaw puzzle, while Mother insisted she wouldn’t want to represent the people of Ironside Lake if they would believe something so terrible about her daughter.
Last Sunday, I rallied enough courage to go to church. I’ll confess, it was more to make a public statement than to receive spiritual encouragement. The looks on people’s faces when I entered, flanked by my parents, and sat in our usual pew almost made me turn and flee, but I sat down and kept my gaze straight ahead.
Halfway through the opening hymn, I heard an unusual sound. Cornelia Knutson might as well have been wearing Norwegian clogs, the way she clumped down the aisle with the shiny new walking stick she doesn’t really need. She stopped right in front of our pew. “Is there room for me?” she whispered—or she probably meant to, it came out much louder.
“There is always room,” Mother replied, tugging me deeper into the pew, and Cornelia settled in beside me, smelling like rose water and mothballs.
The collection of a dozen half-decent singers we assemble into a choir almost missed a beat of “Crown Him with Many Crowns” at the disturbance, including Annika in the second row. I could feel her staring, and for the first time in months, I stared back . . . and caught the old, familiar look in her eyes. If we had been little girls again, she’d be mouthing, “I’m sorry,” across the space between us, and after considering it for a while, I’d accept.
That was always how it used to be. We’d quarrel over something or other, and Annika typically apologized first. Sometimes last too, if I felt I wasn’t really to blame.
This time, we apologized to each other at the same time, and that felt better somehow, even though we didn’t actually speak the words.
After the choir filed out of their neat rows, instead of taking her traditional place in the first pew, to her father’s direct right, Annika smoothed her skirt to sit next to Cornelia. They stayed there for Pastor Sorenson’s entire sermon—on the perils of gossip, delivered without a single knowing look in my direction—and when we stood for the closing hymn, I realized how foolish I’ve been, complaining about being alone.
I thought of the stack of other families’ dishes beside our sink the first few weeks after I came home from the county jail. I hadn’t had much appetite, but I’d noticed furtive knocks on the door as visitors who “couldn’t stay” nevertheless came bearing hot dishes and baked corn and even a tomato and olive aspic ring.
I remembered how Pastor Sorenson still came over to play dominoes with Dad, and how, the Monday evening I sat at the top of the stairs just to listen to their familiar voices below, he said, “Hold on, Carl. It’s winter now, but Thawing Day is coming.”
And I thought back on all those letters, from you, from my parents, from friends and enemies alike. Even Erik’s last letter.
That’s when I thought maybe I was starting to hear something in the silence.
It wasn’t deus ex machina, god from the machine, scripted and rigged and ready to enter on my cue. It was deus ex potluck, deus ex encouraging smile, deus ex newspaper column, and especially deus ex letter. God was in all the ways I’ve seen others care and challenge and stand by me this past year.
But even when all of that was gone, and I was confined to my room while death threats came in the mail . . . it was just God himself. He’s there, Peter, and I think you were right: He’s been listening in the silence all along.
A thousand promises, all of them true. I wonder if you’re still adding to your collection, wherever you are. You can add psalms 42 and 43 to them, if you haven’t already.
Tomorrow, the grand jury hearing takes place in Duluth behind locked doors. Donohue and I won’t be there as the prosecution holds up sensational documents and swears in witnesses who will lie about me. Even Captain Stefan Werner will be there, under heavy guard. There’s nothing I can do or say. I can’t even watch.
But I’ve finally realized I’m not alone, and that’s what matters most.
Jo
Telegram from Charles Donohue Jr. to Johanna on February 27, 1945
GRAND JURY DID NOT RETURN INDICTMENT. EARLY REPORTS SAY ONE OF THE POWS CHANGED HIS TESTIMONY. CASE WILL NOT GO TO TRIAL.
Telegram from Johanna to Charles Donohue Jr. on February 27, 1945
SHOCKED. NEVER DREAMT WERNER WOULD ADMIT TO LYING. IS THIS DECISION FINAL?
Telegram from Charles Donohue Jr. to Johanna on February 27, 1945
IT WASN’T WERNER.
SPOKEN TO PROSECUTION. THEY DO NOT PLAN TO APPEAL. NO CASE AGAINST YOU ANYMORE.
WE’VE WON.
A WRITTEN STATEMENT BY DIETER BORMANN
PROVIDED WILLINGLY BY THE WITNESS, WITHOUT ANY COMPULSION AND FULLY AWARE OF HIS RIGHTS UNDER THE PROTECTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TRANSLATED FROM GERMAN
February 26, 1944
I, Dieter Bormann, being duly sworn, state as follows:
That I make this statement of my own free will and accord, having been informed of my rights under the Geneva Convention and the laws of the United States of America.
I am writing this because of several reasons, but one is what happened the night after your invasion of France. Some of your boys drove around the camp, taunting us, and fire rushed up into my bones. I lunged forward, wanting to tear through the fence and defend the honor of my country.
She stopped me, Johanna Berglund, grabbing my legs like I did as a boy when wrestling pigs in the pen to haul to slaughter. I kicked like those sows did, but because of her, I stumbled and fell, and then others restrained me.
Afterward, Uncle Otto (that is what we call von Neindorff) told me he thought Miss Berglund had saved my life. The guards, he said, would have shot me if I had bolted for the fence. It has happened before, at other camps.
I always wondered why she did it. She barely knew me. Captain Werner said it was because she wanted to suppress my patriotism and unman me, but it never fully made sense.
Uncle Otto also warned me never to do anything so foolish again. He told me not to throw my life away for a foolish cause, and I pretended to agree.
But when Captain Werner spoke to me of escape, I thought of what it would be to return to Germany a hero. If we could arrive before the new year, I would see my love and she would know I would do anything to be at her side.
He promised we would succeed, and I believed him. For weeks, we planned in secret, after others had gone to sleep. Captain Werner’s plans were so detailed you felt they could never fail. He is the sort of leader you might follow anywhere, into any difficulty.
Before leaving, we memorized a careful story about how Johanna Berglund helped us escape. He made me repeat it a dozen times, not trusting, I think, that I would get the details right. But it was just that: a story.
Johanna Berglund did not help us escape. Everything I said about this was untrue. We found the maps inside one of the army trucks, we stole the clothing from a storage room, and we made the plans alone. Miss Berglund had nothing to do with the fire this summer. Captain Werner set it in order to see if the camp might be evacuated, making for an easy escape later on. He also had me hide rotten potatoes in Major Davies’s office so he could search the documents there and pass on information to Germany. I was the one who wrote the love letters we left in the woodshed.
Miss Berglund was aware of none of these plans.
The only thing that was true was that she saw Captain Werner at the ball and did not turn him in, just as he said she wouldn’t. He was very sure of that, and when I asked him why, he said, “Because she has forgotten I am the enemy.”
I didn’t understand why we spent so much time planting evidence against Miss Berglund when we would be safe in Germany. When I asked him, Captain Werner talked about the power of propaganda and creating suspicions to turn the Americans against each other, and I believed that too.
I remember the night we were recaptured. We were exhausted from traveling at night, sleeping in small snatches in burrows in the woods like wild things, eating what food we had stored from our rations. We moved so slowly. Captain Werner said it was out of caution, but then on the seventh night, he said we should rest and cook a fish he’d caught. He lit our first fire. I wondered if it was wise, but I sat close to the flames and soaked up the heat greedily as I tore meat from the fish bones, burning my tongue.
Soon I heard rustling in the forest, but Captain Werner said it was only rabbits burrowing for the winter.
If rabbits had guns and uniforms and shouted loudly in English, he might have been right.
I stood, ready to run, but froze when I saw Captain Werner. He was so calm, standing and slowly raising his hands in the air. What came of all his speeches about not going quietly, of taking a few enemy lives with him and dying with honor for Germany? Watching him walk toward the American Gestapo like a sheep to shearing, all the fight left me as well. We surrendered quietly.
Maybe that was always the plan. Why else force me to memorize that false story? I repeated it to all the interrogators they brought to us, but now I think Captain Werner didn’t ever mean for us to get to Germany. He only meant to use me to convict Miss Berglund of treason. Perhaps he even lit the fire that night so we would get caught.
Yesterday, on the train to Duluth, when the guards were asleep, Captain Werner showed me a note from Miss Berglund that he was supposed to deliver to me on the day we escaped. He has probably destroyed it by now, but I remember exactly what it said. I have been thinking about it ever since.
Captain Werner meant for it to make me angry, saying it was one more proof that Miss Berglund meddled in my life, that she was taunting me. He was worried that I would grow nervous during the trial and change my statement, so he said Miss Berglund was encouraging me to forget Rose, my true love, and turn my back on my country.
He was lying about that too.
I do not feel that I am betraying my country by telling all of this. If I can’t fight for Germany, I want to be able to return to her and say that I have acted honorably, to tell those I love that I have nothing to be ashamed of.
That is the truth, and it is all I have to say.
From Johanna to Dieter, recalled from memory by Dieter Bormann
November 18, 1944
Private Bormann,
I have heard from Captain Werner that you are ill and being treated in the infirmary. I can’t help but wonder if it isn’t physical sickness but sickness of the heart.
Hear me out. I know you resent me for reading your letters to Rose in Germany, so I hesitate to write this, but I wanted to say that I understand, in part, what you’re going through. It’s easy to regret the words you didn’t have time to say or actions you thought could wait until later, especially when it comes to someone you love and you run out of time.
However, I can also speak from experience when saying, Don’t let bitterness and resentment ruin your life. It is time for you to live the life in front of you, instead of wondering what might have been.
Many of us, myself and Otto von Neindorff included, would be glad of the chance to hear you perform at the costume ball tonight if you change your mind.
Johanna Berglund
Translator, Camp Ironside
Article in the Ironside Broadside on March 1, 1945
TREASON CASE DISMISSED
Eager news media from across the country were disappointed with today’s announcement that the long-awaited treason trial for Johanna Berglund has been dismissed on a technicality.
The key piece of information was the changed testimony by Dieter Bormann, one of the prisoners of war, in which he confessed to fabricating charges against Miss Berglund. According to the US Constitution, the testimony of two witnesses is required to prove overt acts of treason. Since only one testimony remained, and with its authenticity called into question, the grand jury refused to allow the case to proceed to trial.
The district attorney stated, “The public can be confident that the grand jury, made up of citizens like themselves, gave a most diligent investigation of the evidence from the prosecution, which they found insufficient to show that any crime was committed, much less that the prosecution displayed the high burden of proof needed to demonstrate an act of treason.”
Some have already begun protesting the court’s move, stating that Miss Berglund’s collusion with the prisoners might have motivated a change in testimony.
The two escaped prisoners cannot have further charges brought against them under the Geneva Convention, but Captain Stefan Werner has been transferred to the high-security camp in Oklahoma for high-ranking Nazi officers and radicals. Dieter Bormann remains in Iowa with the other POWs who worked in Ironside Lake. No announcement has been made about whether they will return to Camp Ironside next month.
From Cornelia Knutson to Johanna
March 1, 1945
Dear Johanna,
I can’t remember any news, outside of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment securing us ladies the vote, that has excited me more than hearing about your case. How are you feeling?
While I’m sure there are other pressing matters on your mind after your triumphant acquittal (“refusal to return an indictment” is much less dramatic, so I’ll stick with this), I’m sure eventually you’ll get around to thinking about what to do in regard to your continued education. You might wonder if, with all the fuss and the false accusations and your prison time, your anonymous scholarship donor has decided to revoke the funds.
I’m happy to report that she has not.
You see, I am the anonymous scholarship donor.
I hope you spewed tea all over your desk in surprise, because it pained me to keep that secret for so long. No one here thinks of me as a finance maven, but before I came to Ironside Lake, I worked for a prominent brokerage across the Brooklyn Bridge from the small apartment where Henry and I started our married life. Just an entry-level position, but I tell you, I was prepared to become the most influential woman on Wall Street. But when Henry’s mother became ill and could no longer live alone, we came here to care for her together. Then, as the years went by and our children were born, I just . . . stayed. That was the better dream I told you about. I traded the Financial District for family, and when I said I have no regrets, I mean it.
Now I’ve got a tidy sum to my name at First National and in two discreet hiding places around the house, since the fool banks could barely weather the ’30s. After the Crash, I decided it would be more worthwhile to invest in young lives than in stock. Greater return on investment, you know.
Oh, what fun the reading of my will is going to be! I almost wish I could be there, in the style of Tom Sawyer. Do you think you could help me manage it? We should speak further about this.
If you will allow me the honor, I would be delighted to continue to fund your education—in full, wherever you should choose to take it. Ever since I saw your ambition as a young girl, I thought, “I must watch this one.” And I have, and you have proven far more entertaining than I’d ever dreamed. Who needs one of those newfangled home television sets when they have a neighbor such as yourself?
But first, I should apologize. You must have thought it quite a coincidence, my changing the requirements for the scholarship at the very time you were offered the translator position. I’m afraid that was deliberate. Your mother told me you had turned down the initial job offer, and I couldn’t think of a single person better qualified.
And wasn’t I right? We’ve all had our old ways of thinking challenged, myself included. You were just what Ironside Lake needed, Johanna, treason charges and all.
I’m sure you’ve got a good deal of resting to do, along with hiding from Brady and his jackals at the Broadside seeking out an interview, but when you have a moment, do join me for a luncheon. I’m most curious to hear your future plans.
I’m not trying to bias you in any way, but it seems you might never escape suspicion from some of our worst elements if you remain here. So I want you to remember, the good Lord never told us to stay in one place—he was always telling the saints in the Old Testament just the opposite, to pick up and move. The difference between Abraham and Jonah is one was running toward something; the other was just running.
I look forward to hearing from you, my dear girl. Hearty congratulations once again.
Cornelia Knutson
From Johanna to Cornelia Knutson
March 4, 1945
Dear Mrs. Knutson,
Given your absolute fleecing of us poor financial neophytes at Monopoly, I shouldn’t have been surprised to read your last letter, but I admit that I hadn’t the slightest idea you were my mysterious donor. I can’t express how much I appreciate your support—both these past few months and during my studies at the university.
I still can hardly believe the trial is off. My lawyer, Charles Donohue Jr., said it’s the most baffling case he’s seen in all his years of practicing, which I have tentatively decided to take as a compliment.
All this time I was so focused on Captain Werner—his motivation, the flaws in his story, what others might have made of our conversations—that I almost forgot Dieter was involved. Thank God he didn’t forget about me.
It’s liberating, knowing the truth has come out at last, whether anyone chooses to believe it or not. I’m innocent in the eyes of the law, and in the eyes of those I care most about. That should be enough.
And yet, a selfish, needy part of me would like to be able to go to the post office without fearing a lynch mob—an activity that, I must say, I haven’t attempted since the news came out.
As for my next plans . . . I honestly don’t know yet.
Peter once suggested I consider serving as an aid worker after the war. At the time, I dismissed the idea, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized: I’m fluent in German, Italian, French, and . . . well, not quite Japanese, but I hope to get to that point. And there is a great need. Does that matter more than my comfort, do you think? Lately, I’ve been asking myself that, and especially if Peter . . . if he never comes back, I want to do something that would make him proud.
That would mean moving away from Ironside Lake again. After all that’s happened, I’d be grateful to leave the whispers and mistrust that follow me around, but I find that I’m not as bitter as I once was. I’ve seen the best and the worst of this little town, and I’ve realized it’s made up of people with their own prejudices and priorities and hopes and fears—just like me. We’re all just fallible people trying desperately to make sense of an incomprehensibly complex world. I don’t want to forget that.
Still, nothing is as clear as I would like it to be. My (many) lists of pros and cons, which I began making shortly after the news of the case’s dismissal, haven’t yet led me to a plan of action.
Might I come over for tea tomorrow? I’ll bring Mother’s gingerbread. I could use some advice if you’re willing to give it.
Johanna
Notice in the Ironside Broadside on March 5, 1945
A MESSAGE TO OUR READERS
This is to inform our valued reading public that we will no longer be printing anonymous editorials in the Broadside. The reputation of a paper is only as good as the reputation of the writers, and as editor, I admit full blame in allowing such infractions of journalistic standards to slip by in the past. I humbly request your forgiveness.
We hope this change will bring back some of our subscribers and the local advertisers who have withdrawn their support in the past several weeks. Remember, free and unbiased journalism can’t survive without your dollars!
Yours in the freedom of the press,
Brady McHenry
Owner and Editor in Chief,
Ironside Broadside
From Annika to Johanna
March 5, 1945
Dear Johanna,
I stopped by this afternoon, but your mother told me you were at Mrs. Knutson’s, so I’m leaving this for you. At first, I didn’t want to tell you at all, since things have been more or less resolved between us, but Chris told me I should. He’s a thousand times braver than I am, and when I’m with him, I seem to borrow some of his courage.
It was because of you that I met him, you know. That verse you put in your letter to the Lutheran Daughters of the Reformation when you first arrived home—“I was a stranger, and ye took me in; I was in prison, and ye came unto me”—nagged at me for weeks. I couldn’t bring myself to do anything kind for the Germans, knowing they fought the same battles where Erik was killed, but after reading Christopher’s column in the newspaper I thought maybe I could at least do something for our own men. It shook me out of my grief for a moment, just long enough to meet Chris. So I want to thank you for that.
Here is the last secret of all: I never told you that Erik got your final letter. They found it in his pocket when he died, along with part of a reply. Erik always was like that, considering and redrafting every word, as if even a simple greeting was as weighty as a sermon.
For a long time, I didn’t want you to see it, because I wanted you to feel guilty, forever unforgiven. That’s the ugly truth.
Daddy’s favorite passage to quote in sermons, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, is “Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” “It’s a small town,” he always said when I asked him why he left a bookmark in that text. “We can easily hurt others, and once we do, there’s no escaping each other. Forgiveness is all that keeps us together, and withholding it keeps us apart.” At the time, I thought that was very nice and spiritual-sounding and harmless.
Sometime this winter, I realized he was talking to me. Or maybe to both of us.
So here are the letters. I’m sorry I kept them from you for so long.
Annika
P.S. I’ve been spreading the word about how the Broadside unjustly turned public opinion against you with their biased news coverage. It’s the least I could do, and you’d be surprised at how many agreed it was shameful. You have more supporters in Ironside Lake than you might think.
From Johanna to Erik
November 16, 1942
Dear Erik,
I got your address from Mother. I hope you don’t mind my writing. I’m fully aware of how awkward this might be for you, though I don’t mean for it to be.
I should have known you’d end up an army chaplain. Do you remember the games we used to play in the woods? You’d always let me be Robin Hood and Perseus and Amelia Earhart while you were Friar Tuck, the Minotaur, and—well, you did accept Charles Lindbergh, so I guess sometimes you got the starring role. Annika was too shy, always cast as the damsel in distress so she didn’t have to say much, and I thought of the best lines a few beats too late, but you always had the right words at the right time, which is why you were always assigned the prebattle motivational speeches. I hope you still use that skill, although perhaps with a little more Scripture and a little less Ivanhoe.
But I’ve written too much again without coming to my real point. I’m sorry for letting you go with the way things were between us. In the months before you left, I told myself you were hurrying to finish up your correspondence-course seminary work for ordination and I had to prepare for university and there just wasn’t time. When really, it was easier to ignore you and try to forget how terrible I’d been to you.
I can’t say I regret turning down your proposal, but I am very sorry for how I did it and for not giving you a proper good-bye.
I don’t know what else to say. But I have been praying for you, though I’m still not sure of the theology of how that affects a sovereign God. That’s always been your area to sort out.
Someday, when you come back, maybe you can explain how it works. I’d be happy to listen.
Your friend,
Johanna
A draft of a letter from Erik to Johanna, never sent
January 12, 1943
Dear Jo,
It was good to hear from you. I really mean that.
I find my work rewarding, though the sermons I deliver are shorter than my father’s and sometimes cut off by a burst of distant gunfire. Still, it’s discouraging when most of the solemn faces praying before a campaign come back afterward to drink and swear and carouse like all the others. It makes a fellow wonder how many of the fervent prayers he witnesses are nothing more than foxhole insurance policies, a bargain with God to live, but with no serious interest in faith. I try to remember that some of them must be sincere, but it’s easy to fall into cynicism.
Besides that, I’m well enough, traveling to places I never thought I’d see outside of the pages of National Geographic. Funny, isn’t it? You were always the one who wanted to see the world and who knew all the exotic languages on top of it. All I ever wanted to do was stay home, and yet here I am. Sometimes I feel guilty to be living your dream.
But you’ll get there someday, I’m sure of it. I’ll admit that I’d thought Oxford was just a little girl’s fancy, something you’d give up once you grew older. But it was silly to think that way. Ironside Lake was blessed to have you, and I was blessed to know you, but you weren’t ever meant to stay there. I always knew that, deep down, even playacting those grand adventures with you as kids.
So yes, I’ll forgive you . . . if you’ll forgive me.
But when I come home, save me at least one dance, will you? For old times’ sake.
From Johanna to Annika
March 7, 1945
Dear Annika,
I’ll come over again when you’re home, but I wanted to say thank you for delivering Erik’s letter. Maybe you were just keeping them aside until just the right moment. Or at least, it worked out that way.
And for goodness’ sake, don’t waste your time on the Broadside. Brady McHenry will go bankrupt in his own good time without me around to cause scandals.
Not that I’m leaving right now . . . but I am thinking about it. Another reason we need to talk.
Oh, and Dad’s got Thawing Day on the calendar for the first week of April. If the weather holds, would you like to join Mother and me in the washing and drying this year? We could always use the extra help.
Your friend,
Jo
From Peter to Johanna
Delivered via the Red Cross on March 12, 1945
Following the inspection, all hands are directed to write a letter to be placed on file for if inquiries are made through the Red Cross concerning you. If such inquiries are made, this letter will be cabled through the Red Cross that you were of ( . . . ) health, etc., on the date listed. Please address to anyone who might make an inquiry and include:
Prison No.
Name and Rank
Date
Past and Present Health
Impression of Daily Life and Work (if desired)
Signature
Limit: 400 words
Insert everything of importance placed in your previous letters, as they may not have been delivered.
Prison Center 23
Second Lieutenant Peter Ito
March 1, 1945
Dear Jo,
I am alive and in tolerable health, after narrowly living through a bout of malaria with the help of my two hardier buddies, Mugs Renfroe and Joe Batterson. They paid back the debt they owed me, saving my life like I saved theirs. That’s how I got captured—trying to pull them out of a cave-in after a shelling near Leyte, until a rock thumped into my skull (insert jokes about my hard head here. Ha.). When I woke, I was in Japanese custody with a pounding headache.
I’ve been assigned to labor at a railway depot, more demanding than desk work. I use my language skills to negotiate with our captors, and I’m probably the one most content with our diet, mostly okayu, a rice gruel. Whenever I’ve got a free moment, I’m participating in the endlessly fun activities of sleeping or doing laundry.
I know I promised not to get wounded, captured, or killed. One out of three is a solid 33%, nearly halfway to failure on my own grading scale. Points for trying?
Please write if you can. They may let us receive mail now that they’re under the Red Cross’s magnifying glass. I wrote to you and my family dozens of times, but they burned the letters in front of me. One of many ways they’ve shown they don’t much care for a Japanese American soldier fighting for the Allies.
Almost to my limit, and I can’t start over because we only get one letterform each, but I still have so much left to say. At the top of the list, even though I swore I wouldn’t bring it up again: I still meant everything I said that day in Minneapolis, Jo. I love you. I always have and probably always will, even if I’ve tried my best to let go.
Not an idealized version of who I think you are, not who I hope you’ll be once you change your dreams for my sake. I love you as you are, honest and brave and Grand Canyon beautiful . . . and very far away right now.
I don’t know when I’ll get out, probably not until the war’s end, like your Germans at Camp Ironside. And even now, what worries me most is wondering whether you’ll be glad to see me. I hope and pray so.
Peter
From Johanna to Peter
March 12, 1945
Dear Peter,
I won’t bore you with the tedious details of how I reacted when I got your letter. Here is the summary so you can picture it: a shocked stare at the envelope, then tears, followed by running down to Mother and dancing around the living room with her like I was a little girl, racing out to the barn to tell Dad, practically shouting the news in the street, etc. It was quite a scene.
I want to ask you a thousand questions about your living quarters and the number of prisoners captured with you, to tell you to stay hydrated and to contact the Red Cross directly with a list of concerns, but who can tell what you’ll be allowed to write in your replies? It makes me want to smuggle myself onto the next east-bound steamer and wander around Japan with your name and photograph, demanding that someone take me to you.
That is probably a terrible idea. Still, I feel like I have to do something, anything, other than just write another letter.
But you’re alive. Thank God for that. And I have thanked him. Repeatedly. He’s probably tired of hearing the same sentiments from me on a loop, like one of those catchy cereal jingles.
Really, this letter is a disgrace already. I should have asked Annika (who is still starry-eyed over PFC Christopher Wright, now stationed in Iowa) for some appropriately impractical lines to write to you after you’ve nearly been brought back from the dead.
So much has happened here since the last letter you’ve received from me, but all of that can wait. Given my reading habits, I’m usually a proponent of long stories, but there are more important things for me to say first. Or at least one.
Of course I love you. If you’d stayed around long enough to give me time to think it all over after I rebuffed you, you’d have known that. And even if you didn’t pick up on it, I’d have told you directly if you hadn’t been captured on your very first mission.
Yes, I’m joking. I’m fully aware that your uncertainty is justified, and that it took a string of separations and disasters to make me realize what I should have known from the start. I changed my mind about you so long ago that it feels like another person gently cut you off by the Stone Arch Bridge when you first tried to tell me I’d become more than just a friend. Who was she, other than a jumble of fears and failures? What was she thinking?
I can’t say, but I’m not that woman anymore. And if you really do want me, flaws and all—here I am. I’ve done a lot of running over the past few years, but given the chance, I will run toward you, wherever in the world we choose to go next. And that, I think, is the right dream to follow.
Come home soon, Peter. Until then, I’ll be waiting.
Love always,
Jo