he still liked about Japan was these vehicles for hire. A person could rent one of them for an entire day for the equivalent of two or three American dollars.
He really shouldn’t treat Helma so cavalierly. She deserved better than he could bring himself to provide. After all, her only sin, if it was one, was to have set her cap for him.
The driver dozed at the wheel of the black made-in-Japan Ford. Macneil touched the man’s shoulder to rouse him, then climbed in back. “Return to the dock,” Bill said, ignoring the driver’s surly glare.
He let his mind review Helma’s good qualities, of which she surely had a share. She was mentally acute, shy, pensive, and modest. Modest to a fault, in fact, befitting a daughter of Quaker missionaries from the German-speaking region of Switzerland. She had a trim figure, kept well-concealed in chaste outfits. Despite her education at Bryn Mawr College in the United States, so far she had avoided some of the independent, willful ways that were making American women the envy and despair of other women. Only in support of the tenets of her religion—peace, nonviolence, brotherly love—did Helma’s alpine blue eyes flash and her gentle, normally subdued voice take on dangerous undertones.
Bill Macneil had no way to judge the quality of her spoken French or her German, but he knew her English was nearly perfect, as it should be, he thought, since Helma had received much of her earlier education in the United States as well as college. Her fluency in Japanese, however, was another matter. Since joining her parents in Japan, Helma had expended massive efforts to learn Japanese. But it was not a language to be learned in one or two years. Having grown up speaking Japanese, Bill Macneil had little concept of what was actually involved in learning the language in school, but he had known more than a few Americans who had lived in this country for ten years or longer who had finally thrown up their hands in frustrated despair at ever coming to grips with the language. One early missionary had reported to Rome in despair that Japanese must have been devised by Satan to thwart the dissemination of God’s holy word.
In fact, Bill had met the then, twenty-year-old Helma Graf for the first time early that summer in the town of Manazuru on the Izu Peninsula. On a side street, she had been trying to tell a group of some two dozen casually interested Japanese about her religious beliefs. Preaching in rural towns like Manazuru was part of her training to follow in her parents’ footsteps as missionaries.
The problem, Bill Macneil quickly realized, was that her audience did not comprehend what she was trying to get across to them. Helma had the vocabulary, but her grammatical structures were shaky and her pronunciation execrable.
At first he was amused, but then pity for the charming and determined young woman began to take over. She was trying valiantly, but her Japanese listeners were beginning to giggle as Japanese often do when confronted with foreigners who mangle their language.
Pushing through the small crowd to Helma’s side, Bill smiled at the puzzled, tittering audience and began speaking to them in calm, persuasive Japanese, the native fluency of which fetched gasps from some. Probably none had ever heard an American speak Japanese that was little different, though possibly better, than their own.
“Please forgive my sister. She has only recently come to your beautiful country and needs a few more months of language study.
“What she wants to say to you is that all the world’s people should love one another. They should open their hearts and be understanding and sympathetic.” Macneil was interpreting Helma’s words pretty much as she had tried to express them. “Brotherly love and nonviolence are the keys of our religion. We call ourselves the ‘Friends’ because that is what we truly want to be: your friends.” Macneil went on with his understanding of Helma’s message. Later, she would expound those principles to him often.
The small audience accepted readily enough Bill’s claim to be Helma’s brother. There was, in fact, a strong resemblance between the two. Bill knew the saying: Opposites attract. Maybe that was their trouble. They were too much alike. The same blond hair and light blue eyes. Mobile lips. Oval faces. Where they differed most was inside: in philosophy, beliefs, attitudes. And in how they viewed the Japanese. Helma loved them, as she professed to love all people. However, despite the affection Bill felt for his Japanese relatives and friends, he despised the people of Japan en bloc, especially the arrogant, cruel men. This was not a casual difference of opinion between him and Helma. It was a chasm deep as the Grand Canyon, into which Bill had actually parachuted in March 1941.
After their reasonably successful, albeit impromptu, revival meeting, Bill Macneil had taken Helma Graf aside and introduced himself. She thanked him courteously and agreed to have tea with him in a shop near Manazuru Station. In her quiet, insistent way, she overwhelmed him with questions about himself: his ability in Japanese, his inspiration to come to her aid, why he was in Manazuru. Bill wondered if she considered him a possible convert to the peaceable persuasions of the Friends.
After her torrent of questions, Helma retreated into the stillness Bill was to find so characteristic of her. Quiet, watchful, contemplative, always peering into the souls of others. That contagious serenity made the most lasting impression on him.
Helma’s waters ran deep indeed, and he was only beginning to discover their depths.
Yet her passions were surprising for a daughter of missionaries. Her favorite song was “I’m in the Mood for Love,” which she hummed and whistled to his distraction. She was addicted to the tango and had twice prevailed on Bill to take her to a Tokyo nightclub called the Florida, known in Japan as the ‘home of the tango’. Her dance steps had been so smooth and skillful that Bill soon quit the floor to let one of the instructors employed by the club dance three tangos with her. One, Helma’s favorite, was “Ein Spanischer Tango.” Bill led the applause after her performance.
The taxicab stopped on the Bund and was dismissed by Macneil.
On this miserably hot afternoon, Bill Macneil did not relish what he would have to say to Helma.
Chapter 4
Yokohama, Japan
August 1941
Bill Macneil stopped on the main deck to cool off in the shade of the number four lifeboat. Here, at least, he could feel a breeze off Tokyo Bay. His cabin, even with the benefit of fans and ice, might, at best, be considered tolerable.
Besides, he wanted to collect his thoughts before what would most likely be an emotional scene with Helma Graf.
Glancing toward the end of the dock where it joined the Bund, Bill spotted a tall, erect, slow-moving Caucasian. For a moment, he thought the man was his father come to bid him goodbye, but then knew it was not. Bill had not really expected Neil Macneil, Jr. to travel the 33 miles to Yokohama in this summer heat. They had said their farewells at the Azabu residence, and they were on the chilly side because of their recent harsh words of disagreement. The two men had stopped just short of shouting at each other, the first time in Bill’s memory he and his father had engaged in a near-violent argument. In time they would apologize and forget, but the words of the dispute smoldered in Bill’s mind.
Their conflict came down to opposing views about Japan. His father was a loyal American, but he was born in Japan and had lived here most of his life. He was married to a Japanese woman and had two children by her. The wellspring of Neil’s fortune was in Japan, with tributaries flowing in from other Asian countries. He opposed Japan’s rampant imperialism, but his roots penetrated too deeply into Japanese soil to be pulled up like a stray weed and discarded.
“We may have to get out of Japan, Bill, but we’ll be back. Maybe not me; I’m too old. But the family will.”
With some heat, Bill had replied, “Not me. Maybe I’ll look after Macneil interests in the United States. Or, who knows, I might become an airline pilot. Let Ship or Chankoro take care of things in Japan, if the damned Japanese don’t confiscate everything we own.”
“Ship’s too young to think about a career. I can’t tell yet what he might become. All he seems to think about now is his mother. And Chankoro? God only knows. If she marries that pianist, no telling where she’ll end up. No, it’s you, Bill, whom I count on