Wednesday, April 29, 1942

I wonder if Mr. Hewitt is sorry he asked me to help him. We’ve exchanged notes three times and I have had nothing to report. (Mama, by the way, saw me go up to the top of the lighthouse before school and asked me why I did that. I said it was so beautiful out today that I just wanted to look at the ocean. I don’t think she believed me. She says I am running wild, because I am hardly ever home.) I’ve left my notes for Mr. Hewitt right where I said, where the coupling is a little loose at the bottom of the Fresnel lens, and our system is working perfectly. I only wish I had something to report to him.

Anyhow, in the note I got from Mr. Hewitt this morning, he asked me if I’d try to have a talk with Mr. Sato. Here’s what he wrote exactly. “Good morning, Bess. Since you know Moto Sato better than a lot of people around here, could you see if you can talk to him? Make it casual, of course. Just see if your intuition tells you something might be going on with him. There’s a rumor that he’s not really crippled. If you can get into his house, look for radio equipment. And check the exterior for antennas. See if you can catch him walking. Or speaking English. Or better yet, German.”

I can’t believe he asked me to do this! I don’t know Mr. Sato at all. I’ve only waved to him a couple of times when I’ve gone past his house on the sound, and I haven’t seen him in months, and I am sure he doesn’t speak English and he’s crippled as can be, so this assignment seems pretty impossible to me. Maybe Mr. Hewitt is giving up on me getting anything out of the boys at the Coast Guard, though.

I’ve spent a lot of time at the Coast Guard station. Someone donated them a pool table, and I’ve learned how to play pool. I go there after school. Mama and Daddy think I’m staying late at school to help Mrs. Cady organize some books, which I actually did do one day, but not every day. They would really think I’m running wild if they knew I was playing pool with a bunch of boys!

I wasn’t sure how to spend so much time at the Coast Guard station without making Sandy wonder what I was doing there, so I am being careful to act like the tomboy I used to be instead of the young lady I am. I don’t want him to think I’m flirting. He asked me why I’m there so much, and I told him I love playing pool. I hated lying to him!!!!!!!!! It’s the only thing I’ve ever lied to him about. I wish so much that I could tell him what I’m doing. He could help me. I’ve asked Sandy if he minds that I’m at the Coast Guard station so much, and he says he doesn’t. He trusts me. And that makes me feel even guiltier for lying to him.

I talk with the boys about the war, and Mr. Hewitt wrote in his first note to me that I am a great actress. No one would ever guess my real reason for being there, he wrote. The boys must think I am unbelievably curious about what is going on and their opinions about it. But Mr. Hewitt was right. They talk to me easily. I play dumb with them a lot, asking ignorant questions like why we’re at war with Germans in the first place? And I pay attention to who answers me and if he says anything that sounds even slightly pro-German. So far, nobody’s said anything to make me suspicious. When Sandy is around, though, I can’t act that dumb. He knows better and would wonder what I’m up to.

A month ago, I would have been thrilled by the fact that I have now played pool four times with Jimmy Brown! What did I ever see in him? He looks like such a little boy, and he acts so immature, too. Ralph Salmon is probably the nicest of the boys, after Sandy. He’s a softie. I can’t forget how he threw up when he saw that dead man on the beach. But I am actually trying to spend more time with the boys I don’t know well, Teddy Pearson, for example, and the other ones that keep more to themselves, because if anyone is guilty of treason, it would probably be one of them. Teddy is shy, though…or maybe he is keeping some secrets. I think he likes me, since he always asks to play pool with me, but it’s hard to get him to talk.

While I was there yesterday, a report came in that two more ships had been sunk by the U-boats off the coast of Hatteras. All the boys got real quiet, an angry kind of quiet, I think. I could see both fear and fury in their eyes, and Teddy and Ralph didn’t want to play any more pool. The note I left for Mr. Hewitt last night said that I thought his boys couldn’t be more patriotic and dedicated to their jobs. And that’s when he wrote back that I should talk to Mr. Sato. So, now I have to figure out how to see a man who never goes out of his house anymore. Good luck!

One person I have managed not to see lately is Dennis Kittering. I am still annoyed with him for lecturing me about Sandy, but also I am afraid that he might somehow figure out that I am working for Mr. Hewitt. I wouldn’t put it past Dennis to figure that out. That man has eyes in the back of his head.

Wednesday night at 10:00

Well, I talked with Mr. Sato, if you can call it that. Here is what I did: I went to his house over on the sound. His house is right above the water and although it’s like any other sound-front cottage, it has a Japanese sort of look to it. It’s hard to explain. There is a tall, skinny sculpture out front near the road that someone once told me is called a pagoda. It’s almost as tall as me, and I bet it’s the only one in all the Outer Banks. Probably all of North Carolina, for that matter. There are pots all around the deck of the house with these unusual plants in them. They look like bamboo, sort of. Anyhow, I felt right strange going up to that house. I was hoping his daughter-in-law would be there, because she could translate anything I said to Mr. Sato. She speaks Japanese. She studied it in college and that’s where she met her husband, Mr. Sato’s dead son.

I had a plan. First, I walked quietly around the front and sides of the house, looking for an antenna but not finding one. I couldn’t see the back of the house, though, because it’s on the water. Then I knocked on the door. There was no answer, but then I noticed Mr. Sato peeking out from behind the curtain in one of the front rooms. I realized that he was probably afraid someone might be coming to take him off to one of those internment camps. Even though I was there to see if he was a spy, I felt sorry for scaring him.

In a minute, he answered the door, probably feeling safe that it was just a local girl and not the sheriff.

He was in his wheelchair. He is a very cute old man. He smiled at me, nodding over and over again but saying nothing.

Well, I happen to know two phrases in German. My cousin Toria has a German grandma and I used to hear her say them. I don’t know how to spell them, though. The first is “Vee gates?”, which means something like “Hello, how are you?” The second is “Mock dee tore zu,” which means “Close the door.”

So, to test him, I said, “Vee gates?” when he opened the door.

He nodded at me like he might’ve understood me, but I don’t know.

“Hello,” he said back to me in English, but I figured that might just be the one word he knows.

“I was just wondering if I could use your telephone for a minute,” I asked him. That was my plan. I knew they had telephones along that part of the sound, even though we don’t have any less than a mile away.

His smile was an empty one, and I was pretty certain he didn’t understand me. I peeked behind him to see if his daughter-in-law might be home, but was sure by this time that she wasn’t. Her car wasn’t there either.

I held my hand up to my ear as if I was holding a phone, and I pointed inside his house.

“Ah!” he said, nodding, and I knew he understood what I wanted. He motioned with his hand for me to come in, and he wheeled backward to let me past him.

It was the strangest thing, being in that house. I felt like I was in another country. There were these Japanese screens everywhere, and Japanese paintings on the wall (which I really liked!) and more of those bamboo plants and chairs with bamboo arms and legs. He wheeled ahead of me into the kitchen—he is pretty fast in that chair!—where the phone was, and I cranked up the operator and told her to hook me up to Trager’s Store. I talked to Mr. Trager himself and asked him if he had Cheeri Oats in the store today, because sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn’t. He knows that’s my favorite cereal, so I thought it wouldn’t seem too strange that I was asking about it. But I’m sure he was still surprised and confused by the call, since I could have just walked to the store from my house on such a nice day, but he told me, sure, he just got some more in, and to come on over and get it.

Mr. Sato wheeled ahead of me back to the front door, giving me just a slight chance to peer into a bedroom and a parlor kind of room before I reached the door. I saw a regular radio, like the kind we have, but I didn’t see any radios that looked unusual. I didn’t have much of a chance to look, really. When we got near the door, I said, “Mock dee tore zu,” even though that means to close the door. I don’t know how to say to open it! He just smiled and nodded at me like he’d done anytime I said something. I don’t think he knew what I was saying. But then, my German is not very good.

I thanked him and said goodbye. Once I got outside, I looked back at his house, trying to see the rear of it so I could check for antennas, and I remembered how he had peeked out from behind the curtains. I should have paid better attention to how tall he’d seemed then. Was he in his wheelchair when he peeked out, or could he have been standing up? I think he’d been down pretty low, so he was probably in his chair.

Anyhow, I didn’t have much of a conversation with him, and I don’t really think much of Japs these days, but he seemed like a nice old man to me. I feel like I’ve failed in my assignment for Mr. Hewitt again. One more time, I have nothing helpful to report.