To Sail Beyond the Sunset (39 page)

“Yes, sir.”

“Suppose we call you a senior now…and graduate you at the end of the first semester, January ’47, as a bachelor of arts, uh, major subject, modern languages, minor in—oh, what you will. Classical languages. History. But you can use the summer session and the first semester to support your real purpose, metaphysics. Um. I’m a grandfather myself, Mrs. Johnson, and an obsolete teacher of forgotten subjects. But would it suit you to have me as your faculty advisor?”

“Oh, would you?”

“I find an interest in your purpose…and I feel sure that we can assemble a committee sympathetic to that purpose. Mmm—

“‘Old age hath yet his honor and his toil;

“‘Death closes all; but something ere the end,

“‘Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

“‘Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.”

I picked it up:

“‘The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;

“‘The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep

“‘Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,

“‘’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.”

He smiled widely, and answered:

“‘Push off, and sitting well in order smite

“‘The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

“‘To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

“‘Of all the western stars, until I die.’”

He stood up. “Tennyson wears well, does he not? And if Odysseus can challenge age, so can we. Come in tomorrow and let’s start planning a course of study toward your doctorate. Most of it will have to be independent study but we will look over the catalog and see what courses could be useful to you.”

In June 1950 I was awarded the degree of doctor of philosophy in metaphysics, my dissertation being titled “A Comparison of the World Pictures of Aristocles, Arouet, and Dzhugashvili Considered Through Interaction of Epistemology, Teleology, and Eschatology.” The actual content was zero, as honest metaphysics must be, but I loaded it with Boolean algebra, which (if solved) proved that Dzhugashvili was a murdering scoundrel…as the kulaks of Ukraina knew too well.

I gave a copy of my dissertation to Father McCaw and invited him to my convocation. He accepted, then glanced at the dissertation and smiled. “I think Plato would be pleased to be in the company of Voltaire…but each of them would shun the company of Stalin.”

Over the course of many years the only person to translate correctly at first glance all three of those names was Father McCaw…except Dr. Bannister, who thought up the joke.

The dissertation was not important. But the rules required that I submit enough pounds of scholarly manuscript to justify the degree. And for four years I had a wonderfully good time, both there and across the boulevard.

The same week I got my Ph.D. I registered at KU Medical School and at Kansas City School of Law—little conflict as most lectures at the Law School were at night, whereas the courses I took at the Medical School were in the daytime. I was not a candidate for M.D. but for a master’s degree in biochemistry. I had to register for a couple of upper division courses, but was allowed to do so while being accepted as a candidate for M.S. (I think I would have been turned down had I not walked in with a still-damp doctorate.) I did not really care whether or not I received the master’s degree; I simply wanted to treat an excellent applied-science school as an intellectual smorgasbord. Father would have loved it.

I could have had that degree in one year; I stayed longer because there were still more courses I wanted to audit. In the meantime the KC School of Law was supposed to require four years…but I had been there before, having audited several of their courses while Brian was getting his law degree, 1934-38. The dean was willing to credit me with courses simply by examination as long as I paid full fees for each course—it was a proprietary school; fees were a prime consideration.

I took the bar examinations in the spring of 1952—and passed, to the surprise of my classmates and professors. It may have helped that my papers read: “M. J. Johnson” rather than “Maureen Johnson.” Once I was admitted to the bar there was no fuss about my law degree; the school boasted about the percentage of its students that made it all the way into the bar—a much tougher hurdle than the degree.

That is how I legitimately got four academic degrees in six years. But I honestly think that I learned the most at the tiny little Catholic college at which I was only an auditor, never a candidate for a degree.

Especially from a Japanese-American Jesuit priest, Father Tezuka.

For the first time in my life I had an opportunity to learn an Oriental language and I jumped at the chance. This class was for prospective missionaries to replace those liquidated in the war; it had both priests and seminarians. I was welcome for just one reason, I think: Japanese language structure and idiom and Japanese culture make even greater differences between male and female than does American culture and American language. I was an “instructional tool.”

In 1940, the summer we spent in Chicago, I took advantage of the opportunity to study semantics under Count Alfred Korzybski and Dr. S. I. Hayakawa, as the Institute for General Semantics was close to where we lived—across the Mall and east a couple of blocks at 1234 E. Fifty-sixth. One thing that stuck in my mind was the emphasis both scholars placed on the fact that a culture was reflected in its language, that indeed the two were so interblended that another language of a different structure (a “metalanguage”) was needed to discuss the matter adequately.

Now consider the dates. President Patton was elected in November 1948 and succeeded President Barkley in January 1949.

The Osaka Incident took place in December 1948, between President Patton’s election and his inauguration. So President Patton was faced with what amounted to open rebellion in the Far Eastern Possessions formerly known as the Japanese Empire. The secret society, the Divine Wind, seemed willing to exchange ten of their number for one of ours indefinitely.

In his inauguration address President Patton informed the Japanese and the world that this exchange was not acceptable. Starting at once, it was one American dead, one Shintoist shrine destroyed and defiled, with the price going up at each incident.

Bachelorhood

I am not an expert on how to rule a conquered country, so I will refrain from criticizing President Patton’s policies concerning our Far Eastern Possessions. My dear friend and husband, Dr. Jubal Harshaw, tells me (and the histories at Boondock confirm) that on his time line (code Neil Armstrong) the policies were utterly different—supportive rather than harsh to the conquered foe.

But both policies (both time lines) were disastrous for the United States.

In the years from 1952 to 1982 I never had any real occasion to use my study of Japanese language and writing. But twenty-four centuries later my knowledge of Japanese caused Jubal to ask me to accept an odd assignment, after I had shifted from rejuvenation apprentice to the Time Corps. The outcome of the long and bitter war between the United States and the Japanese Empire had been disastrous for both sides on all time lines supervised by the Circle of Ouroboros, both those in which the United States “won” and those in which the Japanese Empire “won”—such as time line seven (code Fairacres), in which the emperor and the
Reichsführer
split the continent down the middle along the Mississippi River.

The Time Corps mathematicians, headed by Libby Long, and their bank of computer simulators, supervised by Mycroft Holmes (the computer who led the Lunar Revolution on time line three) attempted to determine whether or not a revised history could be created in which the Japanese-American war of 1941-45 never took place. If so, would that avoid the steady deterioration of planet Earth that had occurred after that war on all explored time lines?

To this end the Corps needed agents before 1941 in Japan and in the United States. Agents for the United States were no problem, as there were lavish records in Boondock of American language, history, and culture in the twentieth century Gregorian as well as residents of Tertius who had actually experienced that culture at or near the target dates: Lazarus Long, Maureen Johnson, Jubal Harshaw, Richard Campbell, Hazel Stone, Zeb Carter, Hilda Mae Burroughs, Deety Carter, Jake Burroughs, and others—most especially Anne, a Fair Witness. I know that she was sent. And probably others.

But residents of Tellus Tertius familiar with Japanese language and culture of the twentieth century Gregorian were between zero and non-existent. There were two residents of Chinese ancestry, Dong Xia and Marcy Choy-Mu, who were physically similar to Japanese norms, but neither knew any Japanese or anything of Japanese culture.

I could not possibly pass for Japanese—red-haired Japanese are as common as fur on fish—but I could speak and write Japanese, not like a native but like a foreigner who has studied it. So a reasonable decision was made: I would go as a tourist—an exceptional tourist, one who had taken the trouble to learn something of the language, culture, and history of Nippon before going there.

A tourist who bothers to study these aspects of a country before visiting it will always be welcome, if he is polite by their rules of politeness. It is easy to say, glibly, that every tourist ought to do this, but in fact this is difficult, expensive in time and money. I have a knack for languages and enjoy studying them. So, by age seventy, I knew five modern languages including my own.

That left over a thousand languages I did not know and around three billion people with whom I had no common language. The job is too big—a labor of Tantalus.

But I was well equipped to be an inoffensive tourist in Japan for the decade preceding the great war of 1941-45. So I went, and was put down in Macao, a place where bribery is the norm and money will accomplish almost anything. I was armed with lavish amounts of money and three very sincere passports; one said that I was Canadian, another said that I was American, and the third said that I was British.

I went by ferry to Hong Kong, a place much more nearly honest but where nevertheless money is highly respected. By then I had learned that neither British nor Americans were well thought of in the Far East at that time but that Canadians had not yet inspired any special dislike, so I started using the passport that showed that I was born in British Columbia and lived in Vancouver. A Dutch ship, the MV
Ruys
, took me from Hong Kong to Yokohama.

I spent a lovely year, 1937-38, tramping around Japan, sleeping in native inns, feeding the tiny deer at Nara, being breathless at the sight of Fuji-San at dawn, cruising the Inland Sea in a dinky little steamer, relishing the beauties of one of the most beautiful countries and cultures in all histories—all the while gathering data that I recorded in an implanted, voice-operated recorder much like the one I am now using.

I was also wearing, internally, a finder such as I am wearing now, and the fact that I haven’t been found indicates to me that Time Corps HQ does not know what planet I am on, as the equipment is supposed to be delicate enough to track down an agent who has missed a rendezvous no matter where he is, as long as he is on the planet of drop.

That’s the bad news. Here is the good news. During that year in Japan I heard several times of another redheaded English (American)(Canadian) woman who was touring the empire, studying Japanese gardens. She speaks Japanese and she is said to look like me…although the latter means little; we round-eyes all look alike to them, except that red hair would always be noticed, and speaking Japanese is decidedly noticed.

Have I been (will I be) sent back on another visit to prewar Japan? Am I time-looped on myself? The paradox does not bother me; Time agents are used to loops—I am already looped for the year 1937-38; I spent that year the first time in Kansas City, except for two weeks in July after the birth of Priscilla and after Brian’s bar exams; we celebrated both events with a trip to the Utah Canyons—Bryce, Cedar Breaks, North Rim.

If I am also looped on myself (tripled) in Japan in the year 1937-38, then the tripling will happen on my personal time line after my present now…which means that Pixel will carry the message and I will be rescued. There are no paradoxes in time; all apparent paradoxes can be untangled.

But it is a thin thread on which to hang my hope.

▣

Tuesday, August 5, 1952, time line two, started as a sad day for Maureen…utterly alone for the first time in my life, alone with the tedious chore of cleaning out and closing up our old farmhouse and getting rid of it. But a glad day in one way. My married life had ended when Brian divorced me; my widowhood ended when Susan got married; this chore marked the start of my bachelorhood.

The difference between widowhood and bachelorhood? Please look at it historically. When I married, at the end of the nineteenth century, women were unmistakably second-class citizens and everyone took it for granted. In most states a woman could not vote, or sign contracts, or own real estate, or sit on juries, or do any number of other mundane acts without the consent of some man—her father, her husband, or her eldest son. Most professions, trades, and occupations were closed to her. A woman lawyer, a woman doctor, a woman engineer aroused the same surprise as a waltzing bear.

“The wonder is not how well the bear waltzes but that it waltzes at all.” That is from Dr. Samuel Johnson, I believe—a man who regarded women as no better than third-class citizens, lower than Scotsmen or Americans—two groups quite low in his esteem.

All through the twentieth century the legal status of women slowly improved. By 1982 almost all the laws discriminating against women had been repealed.

More subtle but at least as important and beyond repeal were the cultural biases against women. An example:

In the summer of 1940 when we were living on Woodlawn Avenue in Chicago, we were especially loaded with house guests during the two weeks bridging the Democratic National Convention. One Howard trustee, Rufus Briggs, said to me one morning at breakfast, “I left my laundry on that balcony couch where I slept. I need twenty-four-hour service on it and tell them to soft starch the collars—no other starch.”