When Paul woke up, the first thing he did was go to the restroom to find it occupied with the sound of running water. His mother came out in her bathrobe and before he could get in, his sister beat him to the punch, starting the shower. He didn't need a shower. He had taken one the previous night, but he did need to go! He went into the kitchen to see his mother putting a ham in the oven. He could see three pies that his mother had made the previous day for their guests.
There was some oatmeal on the stove. While Paul sat down to breakfast, his mother went to dress. Finally his sister got out of the restroom just as his brother rushed in. Paul banged his hand on the table in frustration.
Forty-five minutes later, the Bells left for church. Everyone was wearing long coats as much to protect their clothes as much as themselves. Paul's mother and sister were wearing dark colored winter dresses, with galoshes over their shoes. Paul, his father and brother were all wearing suits. Paul loved God and loved going to church, but he hated wearing a suit every week! His dad insisted, though, so he wore a suit.
Not everyone at church wore suits though, After all, America was coming out of the Depression. Pastor Deng went to great lengths, on a repeated basis, to remind people that God didn't expect a poor man to dress as a rich man.
Though there were cars in the parking lot, about thirty people were walking up to the church from a nearby bus stop. As Paul got out of the car, two boys Paul's age came up. Nick Wong and Andy Akers were old friends. He had known Nick since the Wongs had moved to Metropolis from Mississippi just before the fifth grade.
Andy, like Paul was Anglo-Burmese. Mr. Pang had hired Andy's father when Andy was three. They had gone to first grade together. In early elementary school they had been best friends and if they both stayed in Chinatown and kept going to the same church, they would on some level stay friends, but at seventeen, they were too young to realize that they had already started drifting apart.
That didn't mean that they weren't still able to have fun with each other.
"Well, well, well. Here comes Chinatown's newest celebrity," Nick teased.
"How's the rarefied air, visiting with both Mr. Pang and getting to talk to Superman after he saves you from getting brained in the same week," Andy added. "Hey Connor, how fat has his head gotten oven the last few days?"
"He can barely get it through the front door," Connor joined in the teasing.
"Hey Andy, we have a duty of love and charity to perform for our dear brother here," Nick said as he moved behind Paul.
"Oh, really?" Andy said as he approached Paul from the front.
"We need to squeeze some of the hot air out of his head so he can get in the door!" With that Nick grabbed him from behind as Andy did likewise from the front to the sound of Mr Bell saying sternly not to take him to the ground because he didn't want the slacks ruined.
After a couple of seconds Nick got Paul in a headlock and started to squeeze. "Is that enough?" he called out.
"A little more," Conner called out, laughing. Mr. Bell was shaking his head. Mrs. Bell was wondering how long Mr. Bell would allow this to continue. Several, of the children who had walked from the bus stop were laughing. Most of the adults were smiling, because everyone knew that this was in fun. A few had some strange looks on their faces, though.
A couple of seconds later, Andy said. "I think that his head has shrunk enough."
Nick said, "Yeah, I suppose." He let Paul go.
Paul slugged each of the boys in the arm, with, "You jerks!" then he laughed. The three boys headed towards the door together. As everyone entered the building, most people went downstairs. Connor and Beth saw friends and went off to talk with them, while Paul, Andy and Nick got in line for coffee. Adults and kids both starting calling out compliments and congratulating Paul for his work on the Chinatown article and on the Lazenby pictures over the last week.
The idea of getting this kind of praise had never entered Paul's mind. He didn't realize that pretty much everyone had read the weekend edition's articles on Chinatown.
Paul glanced into the window of a closed door. The church offered a free English class to any foreigners who wanted to come on Sunday morning before church. Today, the class looked full. There were even some Whites there, which no one from the church minded . Some people who attended that class were regulars and some dropped in once in a while. There was no requirement that attendees stay for worship service. Some did. Some didn't. One of the few elders that did speak one of the Chinese dialects, taught the class.
Paul went into his own classroom and his heart skipped a beat. There she was. Donna Lake, the girl that he had a case for. Donna was originally from Boston. She was one of the mixed race foundlings who didn't know her ethnic background that he had mentioned to Lois Lane. When the Chinatown orphanage had been opened, she had been transferred. Now, twenty, she worked as a receptionist in an office somewhere.
She was sitting next to a Chinese American woman in her early thirties that Paul barely knew, a Mrs. Huang whose family had just come from Mississippi last summer. They were in an animated conversation, so Paul went and sat a couple of rows behind her where he could watch her unobtrusively.
Nick sat next to him and Andy sat next to Nick and leaned over him to ask Paul quietly, "When are you going to tell her that you like her?"
"As soon as I get a car," Paul answered quietly.
His friends nodded, knowing that this wasn't something to joke about. Paul looked around, after all, he didn't want to stare at her.
Changing the subject, Andy asked him. "You think that you will get to play baseball with us, next season?"
"I don't know yet. I hope so," he answered.
After the class ended and before the worship service began, he got a lot more praise for his work that week. There was only one piece of praise that stood out though: Donna came up and said that she really liked his pictures of the racketeer being caught. He didn't hear too much of the sermon that day because he was thinking about the fact that Donna liked his work!
After church, the Bells went home. Paul quickly changed inot more comfortable clothing. A few minutes later, Paul and his father went to collect the Olsens. It took almost forty minutes to get to the Olsen's and an equal time to get home. By the time they arrived, Lois was already there.
After dinner, Paul brought out his new camera. He and Jimmy worked out the proper lighting and set the camera up. complete with tripod. to break in the new equipment. After taking two rolls of photos of various group shots, Paul put the camera away when the phone rang. Mrs. Bell answered it.
"Paul, Lois, Jimmy, it's a call for all three of you. It is your boss, Mr. White," she said.
Lois got very serious. "Mr. White wouldn't call on Sunday unless it were an emergency," she said. Like Wednesday night, she held the phone away from her ear, only this time there were three people listening, with Paul's and Jimmy's parents as close as possible.
"Talk loudly, Chief! We are all listening!" Lois said.
"Lois I want you and Bell to stay in Chinatown tonight and report what is happening there! I have Kent and other reporters covering everything else! Call in at least twice tonight and let us know that you are okay. I'm glad that I overheard that you and Olsen would be at Bell's for dinner! And Bell?" White said.
"Yes, sir!" Bell said.
"I want you to stay in Chinatown for the next few days. I don't think that it is safe for you to come in to the office right now! For the next few days, you are my reporter and photographer assigned to Chinatown. Call in at least once a day with something. Got it?" White thundered.
"I understand the instructions, but what happened?" Paul said.
"The Japs bombed our fleet at a place in Hawaii called Pearl Harbor." White said.
Mrs. Bell gasped as Mr. Bell indicated that he wanted the phone. Lois handed it to him, "Mr. White I am Paul's father. We have family there. Has Honolulu been bombed? Are the islands being invaded as we speak?" He listened for a moment. "All right. Thank you for your honesty. Do you need to speak with anyone?" He listened for another few seconds. "I will pass it on." He hung up the phone.
"In addition to what he already said, he wants Jimmy to come in at the regular time tomorrow. He said the evening shift has been called in to handle the extra edition for tomorrow. It is getting dark, I should probably start taking you folks home," Mr. Bell said
"Maybe that might not be such a good idea. Forgive me for saying it his way, but even though you look more White than not, it might be a lot safer for you if we just took the subway. Anyone with Asian features will be a target," Mrs Olsen said.
"How about dropping them off at Peterson Station? They just finished the link there to Burke Station," Connor suggested. Burke Station was a central connection point in the part of town that the Olsens lived in.
"That would be fine," Mrs Olsen said. "We have monthly passes. We can get home. You have been wonderful hosts, but it is probably getting to be that time."
Paul knew that he was about to have a fight but,"Miss Lane and I will drive you."
"You are not leaving this house, young man!" he mother shouted.
"You will be a lot more secure if Dad's here than me and you didn't raise me to cower in my bedroom while women that I am concerned about are out in the streets alone when it is not a good idea to be alone!" Paul answered with his voice getting louder with each word. "I'm not leaving Chinatown. If there is something bad coming, I can call you and give some warning!"
"No!" she said.
"Yes," his father said softly.
His wife spun on him. "What?" she shouted.
"He's right." his father said
"They could spend the night!" she countered.
Mr. Bell went into the bedroom that he shared with his wife. A few seconds later, he emerged with a very large knife in a sheath. He handed it to Paul and told him to keep it in his galoshes, out of sight. "You call home if you see any sign of trouble. Be at church no later than seven. If we are separated, we will contact you at the Planet."
Seeing that her husband had made up his mind, Mrs. Bell turned on Lois. "Don't you DARE get my boy killed," she said menacingly. "It is bad enough that my parents and sisters and their families could be dead right now and now you are taking my boy into harm's way."
Lois was about to say something when Connor spoke up, "Mom, you always said, blessed are the meek, not blessed are the cowards. You know it's the right thing to do. Miss Lane's got to do the job. Paul knows his way round Chinatown. He can help her lose anyone that would come to Chinatown to cause trouble. Besides, he's almost as smart as me,"
"Thanks, I think," Paul said.
Nothing was said for maybe thirty seconds. Mrs. Bell walked up to Paul and hugged him tightly. "You be careful," she said into his ear.
"I will be," he said.
"You know," she said as she stepped away from him. "I know that eventually, you two boys will be in this war. I had better get used to he fact that danger is really going to be part of your lives in the near future and quit acting the coward myself."
Mrs. Olsen went up to Mrs. Bell and said, "Everyone has a panic moment. Cowardice is when you won't let go of that panic moment. Jimmy is in the same boat as your boys. We will just have to get through this together." The two women embraced.
Mrs. Bell went to Lois. "I apologize for hissing at you. I know that you would never deliberately get Paul hurt."
"It's like Jimmy's mother said, we will have to get through this together," Lois answered. The two women embraced.
"It's time to go to work," Paul said. He went into his bedroom and got his old camera and made sure there was film and fresh flashes. He'd prefer to use the new camera, but he knew that this was too big to trust to equipment that he still wasn't used to.
As they drove to the subway station, the streets were quiet. Too quiet. There was some traffic, but nowhere near the normal amount on a December Sunday afternoon. He took a couple of shots of the quiet streets while there was some daylight left. Would there be riots in the darkness? After they dropped off the Olsens, Lois asked," So where do you think we should start?"
"Well," Paul said, slowly. "Mr. Kent and the other reporters will be interviewing the Governor and the Mayor and all of the relevant government people. We are here for a local angle. We should go to the local precinct house at some point, for a local police statement. I know a few of the officers from my Gazette days. Maybe that might help."
"Now you are starting to think like a reporter. Good. Where else should we go," she asked.
At that point Bell realized that Lane was trying to teach him something. She was giving him a lesson on how to be an investigative reporter. He had an idea. "You know, one of the things in our Chinatown article was about the orphanage. We should go there and check on the Jap um Japanese American kids."
"Good idea. Let's start there. Why did you shift from Jap to Japanese?" she asked.
He explained about his meeting with the Yamamotos on Friday night.
"Hmm. Not a bad thing to keep in mind when we are dealing with the orphans. Not that I'm going to stop using the word, but it is good to know when not to use it," she said.
"Use it as a noun, not as a club," Paul added.
"That is an interesting way to put it," Lois said.
"Yeah, I just thought of it," Paul said.
"You really have the makings of a decent reporter, Paul. Mr. Pang was right. You do have potential," she said as she pulled out onto the street.
As the made their way towards the orphanage, they passed a church. "Let's stop there," Bell said.
"Why," Lois turned to circle the block.
"It is the Roman Catholic Church in Chinatown. Ever since I can remember, it has always had a lot of refugees in its congregation. I bet the priest would have some insights," Paul answered.
"What is the name of the priest?" she asked.
"I think that it is Father Kessler," he answered.
"That explains the car," she said as she was about half way around the block.
"What car?" he asked as they found a parking spot three quarters around the block.
"The car that is occupied by the two White men in business suits that are watching the church." Lane said.
"Who do you think that they are?" he asked.
"Law enforcement of some sort, probably FBI," she answered.
"What should we do?" Paul asked.
"We go interview the priest without mentioning the FBI. Remember, we don't know this man. He could be a good man or not. A good journalist should try to balance the public's right to know with the police's need to be able to do their jobs. Besides, knowing how to keep quiet can engender goodwill with the FBI," she said, getting out of the car.
The church was about half full. Paul realized that he should have looked on the marquee outside to see whether or not this was a normal service time. They stood at the back for a couple of minutes before a middle aged White man in a priest's uniform approached them. "Something tells me that you are not here to attend Mass. Can I help you?"
"My name is Lois Lane and this is Paul Bell. We are from The Daily Planet and we trying to get local reaction concerning the attack. Since a lot of your parishioners are from the war torn areas, we thought that this would be a good place to come to for a refugee opinion."
The priest shook his head. "Most of them are too scared to be interviewed right now. This has not been told in confession, so I can give you a general overview of what they are saying. Most are afraid of the war. They are afraid of what will happen to them if we lose. Most barely escaped the Japanese the first time. A few are looking forward to signing up because they want some payback. That pretty much sums it up," the priest answered.
"You're Father Kessler?" Lois asked.
"Father Juergen Kessler," he replied.
"How do you like working in Chinatown?" Lois asked.
"I love it. My parents emigrated from Germany when I was four. When I started school, I think that I knew ten English words. I naturalized as an adult. In a way, working here is just as much getting back to my roots as anywhere else that I work. I split most of my time between here and a German speaking parish across town." he said.
"At some point in the near future, I'd like to sit down and talk about the German American community with you," Lois said. A little girl came up to them and smiled at Father Kessler and the little girl went and sat in a pew.
"Certainly," he said and gave Lois his contact information.
As the left the church, they could see the car with the White men in the same place. "I wonder if they really are watching Father Kessler," Bell said.
"I'm going to follow up on that tomorrow," she replied as they went around the corner to the car.
"Let me know what you find out," Bell said.
As they continued on to the orphanage, the streets continued to be quiet. Paul had Lois stop at a gas station to call the folks to tell them that all was really quiet on the street. That should help his mom's peace of mind. Lois called the Planet with an update, while they were there.
As they entered the orphanage, they heard the sounds of food preparation from the right. Obviously, someone was preparing supper for the kids. There were children sitting in a day room that could be seen from the front door. On the other side of the day room they could see part of a dining room. In the day room, there were about twenty kids aged from about six to ten. They were playing dominoes, cards, or checkers. One of the older girls was looking through a magazine. A few of the younger children were coloring. There were a few who were brooding. It didn't take much imagination to guess what was on their minds.
They found the office to the left. An administrator was there, a tall, woman in her late fifties named Mrs. Choi. Mrs. Choi did not have a Southern accent which Lois asked about.
"My husband and I are from Hawaii. We couldn't have children so we have been working with orphanages for some time. When this job came open it was really a good fit of both of us." the woman said. "What can I do for you?"
Lois explained why they were there. "How are the Japanese American kids doing?"
Mrs. Choi smiled. "At least you knew not to call them Japs. We are serving the kids dinner in a few minutes, so I don't have much time. The FBI was here and talk to the oldest three of the kids for two or three minutes each."
"Really?" Lois asked.
"The agents had enough sense to know that a fifteen year old girl, a thirteen year old girl and a twelve year old boy aren't security threats. The rest of the Japanese kids are ten and under. There is a lot of uncertainty and fear. I imagine that we will have a lot of bed wetting tonight. I have had to break up two fights so far. I haven't had the chance to talk to the kids yet," Mrs. Choi answered.
They were interrupted by the sound of a boy yelling, "Rotten Jap!" and the sound of a tussle.
"Make that, three," Mrs Choi said as the three of them hurried into the hall to the sound of "FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!" chanted by children. One boy of about nine or ten was on a smaller boy. who was trying to fight back.
Before the adults could get there, a third boy blindsided the attacker and they fell into a pile of fists until Bell and Mrs. Choi pulled them apart. The boy who had been wailing on the smaller boy wasn't done. turning towards the third boy, he said, "Jump me from behind like the rest of your Jap buddies, will ya?"
"You rat! You jumped Mitch and he's two years younger than you and lots smaller. He didn't cry either!" the other boy said.
Paul was holding the one who started it against the wall while Mrs. Choi was keeping the other one under control. The smallest boy was getting up. He was going to have a black eye by morning.
Paul looked at the boy. "Do you think that beating up that little kid is going to help at Pearl Harbor?" he asked rather forcefully.
The other boy muttered something under his breath.
"Did you have something to say?" Paul said.
The boy remained silent.
"Answer the man, Dean," Mrs. Choi demanded.
Dean said something in Chinese. The children who understood him either snickered or gasped.
"I don't speak that dialect, young man," Mrs. Choi said sternly.
After a second Dean said, "You're probably just a half breed Jap grownup looking out for your own people."
As Paul started to chuckle at that, Mrs. Choi demanded an apology. Paul raised his hand, to silence her. "Let me," he said.
"Your name is Dean? Well Dean, I've had bigger people than you say far worse things to me than that. I'm not Japanese. I'm not Chinese, either. It doesn't matter what I am. What matters is what you are. You think that it is patriotic to beat up kids who didn't do anything wrong. That's what Nazi kids do."
"But he's a Jap!"
"So what? The FBI came here and they didn't arrest him! You know why? Because, they knew he didn't do anything wrong! Do you think you know more than the FBI?" Paul asked. When the boy didn't answer, he turned to the children who were watching. "Do you kids think that he knows more than the FBI?"
Everyone shouted NO!
"If the FBI didn't arrest any of the kids, that means that they are all innocent right?" The NO was less enthusiastic so Paul took another approach. "Think about it; when the Jap generals and admirals were planning the attack, do you honestly think that one of them said, 'lets ask our spy at the orphanage what he thinks.' Their spies work at the Consulate. In fact," he thought of something. "I helped Superman arrest a Jap spy just yesterday! My pictures of it were in the paper!"
When he mentioned Superman, he knew that he had them. "I'm 100% positive, that there are no Jap spies here! If you are beating up the kids with Jap names, you are only hurting people that you now know are innocent. So is everybody going to be nice to everybody now?" The YES was far more enthusiastic.
Paul looked over to Mrs. Choi, "That should cut down your fights for a while."
"We probably should be going. Mr. Bell will check in and see how you are doing in a couple of days," Lois said. As they walked towards the door, Lois asked, "I noticed that some of the kids understood that boy. Do a lot of the children speak Chinese?"
"Quite a few do, but you have to remember that there is more than one dialect. Dean speaks a different dialect than I do. There are a couple of kids who speak the same dialect that I do that will talk with me in Chinese. They like me to speak with them in Chinese because that was the language that their mothers spoke to them in. As long as they know how to speak English I certainly don't mind accommodating them." Mrs. Choi said.
She continued, "Mr. Pang hired other staff that will do the same. Most of our staff are from the west coast or Hawaii. The kid that started the fight, Dean, there are a couple of staff members who speak that dialect of Chinese and those kids who speak that dialect speak with them. There are a couple of other Chinese dialects spoken here as well. The sad case was that we had a nice older Japanese American couple who didn't have children that worked here and they were killed in an automobile accident last October. That really hit all of the kids hard, not just the Japanese Americans. For a lot of them, it was like losing their parents all over again. Now we are at war with Japan. Mr. Bell, you bought me some time and I thank you for that, but we are in for a long haul."
QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ
As they drove towards the police station the streets were pretty empty and the sky was totally dark, but they were seeing more patrol cars on the street. The went to the precinct house. In the lobby, there was quite a bit of activity. Several desks were occupied by policemen who were typing or interviewing witnesses or suspects. Bell recognized one of the young men being interviewed. He had graduated high school, a year before Bell. The young man had also been in and out of trouble when he had been in school. It looked as though that had not changed.
At the Sergeant's desk, there were several reporters present. Bell and Lane went up and asked what was going on. One of the reporters said that his editor sent him down to Chinatown just in case there was a riot. The man sounded like he hoped there would be one so he could have a big story.
Another reporter, his press badge indicated that he was from a Yiddish language newspaper in Metropolis, looked at the first reporter with disgust and said, "You act like a riot would be a good thing! Your job is reporter, not ghoul!" he said.
"You have to admit, though, that's why we were all sent here," another reporter said.
"Perry White did not send us down here for that reason. We just happened to be in Chinatown when we heard about Pearl Harbor. Mr. Bell here and I came in here for local reaction," Lois said.
"You're Paul Bell, that reporter who scooped those clowns at Harbor?" a Negro reporter asked. When Bell nodded, the reporter stuck out his hand. "Name's Jones, Saul Jones. Kensington Times. When Sloane told me about it, that made my day."
Bell shook the man's hand. "I can just imagine what he would say. I'm kind of surprised that he said anything at all."
"Nah." The Daily Star reporter butted in. "Sloane is a no-holds-barred type of reporter. He'll stab you in the back for a scoop but if you beat him, he will admit it. I scooped him, once. Thought he'd be sore about it, but he said if he couldn't admit he had been scooped, it would hurt his credibility."
The other reporters introduced themselves. It was different here than it had been on Wednesday. On Wednesday, he was the new Asian guy, fresh meat fit only to be fed on by the sharks. Now that he had proven that he had some teeth, he was tacitly acknowledged as a member of the press. A few of the reporters didn't like him because of his race and it wasn't hard to tell which ones, but the others were, if not too friendly, they were respectful.
Lane talked shop with the other reporters. Bell could tell that she knew quite a few of them. Now that he knew what to look for, he could see how she questioned men, how she could get even experienced reporters to open up. One of the Italian American reporters from the largest Italian language newspaper in Metropolis had told Lane that he had heard that the FBI was arresting Italians, Germans and Americans from those ethnicities within the city. He didn't know if the rumor was true. A German language reporter had heard the same rumor.
The police sent out a spokesman to give a statement. He was a man that Paul had met on occasion who told them that the authorities had stepped up patrols in Chinatown just in case somebody wanted to start trouble. He told them that the industrial areas that were related to defense were getting the greatest coverage, even Mr. Pang's property. Most of the reporters headed to the phone booths to call in the story. Bell asked if they should do the same and Lane told him that it could wait until they checked in with Bell's parents.
Since it was after six. they started towards the Bell's church. Not surprisingly, the parking lot was full when they arrived. When the entered the church. they could see that most of the pews were full. Though they saw the Bell's car in the parking lot, it took a couple of minutes to find Paul's parents.
Mrs. Bell quickly got up from the pew and hurried to the aisle and embraced them both. She tried to pull them into the pew, but Lois told her that they needed to check in before they could join the service. They wanted to ease Mrs. Bell's mind first. The office door was locked so Paul suggested using the phone in the kitchen. The phone was being used by someone. Lois asked what was down the hall.
"Classrooms, wanna see them?" he asked.
"Sure. Paul the trick about being an investigative reporter is that you should investigate everything from the mundane to the exciting. You never know where a lead will come from," Lois said. They quietly looked in a couple of rooms. As they approached a final room, the could hear voices. The door was slightly ajar.
They could hear a young man say,"Why won't you marry us! You know that I'll be drafted soon and we want to spend as much time together as we can before then!"
Lois indicated that they should be quiet. They listened.
"Because it is a lot harder being separated from a wife than a sweetheart," Pastor Deng answered. "Look, you are not the first couple that I have had this conversation with, today. I doubt you will be the last. Delton, I know that you love her. I think that you will make a good husband for her. but what if you two get married and she gets pregnant? Contraceptives aren't that good. It can happen. You will spend almost every day of that pregnancy away from her. She won't be alone. Your mother wouldn't allow that, but you won't be there.
This is not going to be a quick war like the Spanish American War. This is going to be like the Great War. That was four years! Do you want to come home to a little kid that you don't know? You know that two of my daughters are married. They aren't going to have a choice about this. My granddaughter is likely to spend quite a while without her daddy. I'm trying to protect your future children from that."
A woman's voice answered," What if he dies?" she sobbed. When he heard that voice, Paul's heart went into his throat in denial.
"Donna, I know that you grew up an orphan. I know that you want a family. If you wait and he dies, then that family wasn't meant to be with him. Delton, do you want her raising your child alone? Do you want your child to maybe be raised by a stepfather?" Deng pressed.
After a moment, Delton said, "No."
Softer, Deng said, "I know that this is hard. I wish that I could say it will get easier, but it won't, not for a long time. We just have to trust God here."
After a minute, Lois quietly pulled Paul into a darkened classroom but she didn't close the door. They stood in the dark, out of sight, as Deng and the young couple exited their room. Deng asked, "Are you two going to behave?"
The young man said in a rather dejected voice, " Yeah, we will."
The started to walk away when Donna looked at Deng and asked. "Was that couple Gary and Peg?"
"No, but I expect that I will hear from them soon," Deng answered. The three walked away. After they had gone out of earshot, Lois looked at Paul's face and in the dim light from the hall saw tears in his eyes.
"You're sweet on her," she deduced.
He nodded, wiping away tears. "Yeah, The guy..the guy. Delton...he's Sonny's older brother. You remember Sonny from the dinner?" She nodded.
They waited a minute until Paul had composed himself, then they went into the hall to find Paster Deng waiting at the end of it with his arms crossed. Before Lois or Paul could say anything, Deng said, "Normally, I don't allow people to listen in to a counseling session, but I had heard Paul's voice in the hall and I knew that he needed to hear that. Paul, I am sorry, but she has always had eyes for Delton. As for you," he pointed his finger at Lois. "Don't you ever do that again!" He turned and walked away.
After he had left, Lois said,"Oops."
"Yeah. Oops," Paul responded.
The phone was available so they checked in. White told them that here would be blackout restrictions starting soon. An order had been put out that all Ham Radio activity was to cease at midnight in every time zone. There was little news out of Hawaii, yet.
"You know, I was going to use the bonus to learn to drive and maybe get a used car, or at least have a lot of money saved up for one and then I was going to ask her out as soon as I got it." Paul said.
"If I were you, I'd still learn to drive. It would be a good career move. You want to take a minute, before you come back up?" Lois asked gently.
"Yeah," he answered.
Lois nodded and went upstairs. About five minutes later, he did likewise. As he came to the top of the stairs the front door to the church opened and Mrs. Yamamoto entered with her children. They all looked scared. When she saw Paul she tried to smile, but it was obviously forced
"Hello, Paul. Umm, could we talk somewhere?" she asked tentatively.
"Uh, sure," he answered. Nick had just come out of the restroom and had stopped to hear the exchange. Paul asked him to have Pastor Deng and his wife to come to the classrooms. Nick nodded and went to get them as Paul showed the Yamamotos downstairs.
"Would you care for some coffee?" Paul asked. She gratefully accepted it. Pastor Deng and his wife came down as he was getting the kids something to drink.
"Mrs. Yamamoto, this is my pastor, Clifford Deng and his wife, Ethel. This is Laura Yamamoto and the kids are.." he stopped for a second to remember, 'Lucy, Liz, one of you is Archie and one of you is Ray, but I don't remember which is which."
One of the boys piped up, "I'm Archie!" Ray was very subdued as were the girls.
"We do have a play room for the kids if you would like to speak in private," Mrs. Deng offered.
"Girls would you keep an eye on your little brothers while I talk with these nice people," she said. The children were shown into the preschool classroom. The adults, including Paul, went into the classroom across the hall from it. and closed the door. All of the classrooms had windows so Mrs. Yamamoto could look at the the other room if she wanted to.
"Where is Mr. Yamamoto?" Paul asked gently. This woman's obvious distress forced him to compartmentalize his own grief.
Mrs. Yamamoto pulled her purse onto her lap and pulled out a cigarette. Mr. Deng pulled out his lighter and lit her up. After a couple of drags, she began to sob. "They arrested him! The..the FBI came to our home and said they needed to ask him some questions! I tried to call my family in Los Angeles but the lines were all busy. Then.. then somebody threw a rock through our front window! He screamed vile things and ran off! I grabbed a metal fire poker for defense if he came back. Why would somebody do that! How could someone know that my husband was arrested? I don't even know what he was arrested for!
I tried to call my family. Did I say that already? We don't have any friends here in Metropolis. Paul invited us here and he's the closest thing to a friend that I have and I didn't know where else to go and I couldn't stay there with the children and uh I.." at this point she lost it.
The other three looked at each other for a couple of seconds before Pastor Deng said, "Mrs. Yamamoto, we are not going to turn you away."
"We're glad that you came here," Mrs. Deng said
"It's not your fault for what happened," Paul said.
"What happened?" she cried.
"You haven't heard about Pearl Harbor?" Paul asked.
"What's that?" she asked.
"It is a major Pacific naval base in Hawaii. The Japanese bombed it this morning," Paul said.
Mrs. Yamamoto gasped and put her hands to her mouth. "Are they invading Hawaii?" she asked.
"Not that I have heard and I have been listening to news all afternoon." Pastor Deng answered.
"You don't think that the FBI thinks that Richard was in on it? Of course they think so, We're Japanese Americans! But he is innocent!" she wailed.
"The FBI isn't just arresting Japanese Americans. They are investigating German Americans, too. Earlier tonight, we saw, that is my coworker and I saw, two men that she is sure were FBI outside the Roman Catholic Church. The priest is a German American. I bet they talked with him right after Mass. Maybe they arrested him, too," Paul said.
"What am I going to do? How long will they keep him? When he gets out, will he be fired?" she started crying.
Paul felt weird. He wanted to fix this for her, bad. There wasn't much he could do. He reached over and patted her hand, to which she grabbed onto it with both of her hands, with a vice-like grip. He looked over to the Dengs who were indicating that he shouldn't worry about it and go along.
"After a couple of minutes her grip released. She said, "I'm sorry to dump this onto you. You barely know me and you certainly don't owe me."
"Mrs. Yamamoto, Laura, we want to help you," Mrs Deng said.
"Tonight, you are welcome to spend the night at our home. We will help you fix your window, tomorrow and we'll see what tomorrow brings." Pastor Deng said.
"Thank you," she said. The relief as palpable. Paul could tell that she was truly afraid that she and her kids would be turned away.
The sermon that night was on how to love your enemies when you are at war with them. When Paul went to sit with his family, his father had asked him what took so long. He glanced at Lois as he sat next to her. She hadn't said anything about Donna. Paul said that something came up and he'd explain later. The Yamamotos sat with Mrs. Deng.
After the service, Paul told Lois what happened and sent the roll of film that he had shot back with the girl reporter for development and he went home with his family. In the car, he described how the evening had gone, (deleting the details about Donna). When they got into the house, he told them about the Yamamotos.
"You're sure that her husband isn't a Fifth Columnist?" Connor asked as everyone sat down to finish off the leftover pie from earlier.
"Jap spies would be at the Consulate. I guess it's possible that Mr. Yamamoto could be involved, but I don't know what a foreign language teacher could do. It's not like he works at a plant that he could sabotage. Even if he is, do we throw his wife and children to the wolves?" Paul asked.
"Clifford is right. We have to take it one day at a time," Mr. Bell said. "Since you're not leaving Chinatown, what do you plan to do tomorrow, Paul?"
"Well, I suppose that I should go get a statement from the local precinct house. Stop by the hospital and the fire department and get some man on the street opinions, both from Americans, Asian and Negro and from refugees. Maybe I can play the article as one of the two American communities in the Foreign Section of Metropolis,"
"Just stay in Chinatown and stay out of trouble," Mr Bell said.
"Are you going to go in tomorrow?" Paul asked.
"No. there isn't anything that I really need to do until Tuesday. Not that I couldn't do a lot of work, but Mr. Pang will understand my caution." his father answered. Mrs. Bell was obviously relieved at the answer. "I'll give you kids a ride to school tomorrow," Mr. Bell said to Connor and Beth.
"If they don't cancel classes, tomorrow," Beth replied.
"We'll check the news in the morning, but don't count on a free day. Everybody start for bed. Paul, help me wash these dishes. It's been a long day and tomorrow doesn't look like it will be any shorter," Mr. Bell said.
Author's Note: This website allows an author to see what countries the readership of their stories come from. I have a fair percentage of non American readers. Some of my historical notes are for them as much as for anyone else.
I like listening to the old Adventures of Superman radio shows from the forties. In one of the stories there is a reference to The Foreign Section of Metropolis. Lois Lane was often times referred to as a girl reporter.
I will probably come back and flesh it out some more, so if you have enjoyed this, reread it from time to time. I wish to formally thank Donna Halpern for her invaluable assistance with this story. Google her name. she is a gold mine when it comes to media history of this era.
If anyone reading this, knows how to get in touch with the daughter of Joan Alexander, the original actress who played Lois Lane, please give her my regards because I was thinking about her mother as I wrote this story.
Historical note;
On December 7th 1941 the FBI began to arrest for interrogation and internment purposes people of German, Japanese and Italian descent. Some were American citizens and some were citizens of Axis countries who had immigrated. The initial Master List of those to be immediately arrested was determined as early as 1939. Some of those people, and their children American born and not, spent the entire war incarcerated. This is IN ADDITION to the events tied to Executive order 9066. which lead to the incarceration of about 111,000 of the 270,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans living in the United States. This number does not include the numbers of Germans, German Americans, Italians, and Italian Americans who were interned. The United States during this time, got South American countries, especially Peru, Equador, Colombia and Panama to deport many of their own citizens of German, Italian and Japanese ancestry to the United States and they were promptly interned at Crystal City Texas and Seagoville Texas Internment Camps, among other places, ostensibly as illegal aliens. The U.S. Government under FDR wanted these innocent people interned, pure and simple. From what I have read, Crystal City had an American population as well as those from South America. Please google Crystal City Internment Camp and Seagoville Internment Camp for more details of this part of American History that most Americans don't even know. The foitimes.com is a website developed by a German American who was interned as a child.
Don't get me wrong. I don't begrudge Japanese Americans wanting to ensure what happened isn't forgotten. I just believe that the whole story of the internment should be told, not just the Japanese American part. All of the statues and history books concerning this need to be adjusted to tell the whole story