Breaking the Code

by Karen Fisher-Alaniz

  I wadded the paper into a tight ball and threw it across the room. Then I sat puzzled by my own action, my own words. I was angry at myself for not knowing more about my father. But why was this affecting me so? Before he gave me the letters, I was satisfied with what I knew about my dad; I thought I knew everything there was to know. I shook my head and then picked up the paper and flattened it out. I read it aloud.

  “This can’t be all there is to you, Dad,” I said quietly. “There’s something more. I know there is.”

  We are all molded by our life experiences. Being sent off to war was one of those experiences for my father. But by all accounts he was one of the lucky ones who never saw any action. He’d been on ships and submarines but not in battle. In fact, after its bombing in 1941, Pearl Harbor was probably one of the safest places to be. And he’d spent the whole war there. It was just a two-year span of his life—nothing more. They were tumultuous times, yes, but he was protected, doing his work in an office. Over the last few years, I’d heard him say many times, “I wasn’t in the war. The guys who were in hand-to-hand combat, they are the ones who were in the war.”

  Turning off the light, I stood at the picture window. I looked past my birdfeeders, silhouetted in shadow, and stared at a dark place in the road. I gave my eyes time to adjust but I knew it wouldn’t matter. That one place, too far from the streetlights on either side, remained dark. I shook my head.

  “I wish something could be done about that,” I whispered. “It’s just too dark.”

  Feb 1, 1945

  Dear Folks,

  Well, I’m just about alone again now. All the rest of boys went out today except Jonesy (our ex section leader at Farragut). He was up to the Navy hospital getting a check-up on his back so guess he won’t go for a little while.

  Feel pretty lost today. Our school course just fizzled out. All the boys drafted out so guess it just ends. Was supposed to last until Saturday anyway. From now on guess I’ll just loaf around twenty-four hours a day until I get my glasses.

  I’m going to take a traffic management course thru the educational institute. That should help me later, when I go back to working for the railroad. It costs just two bucks at the start and you can take all the courses you want from then on for nothing as long as you keep your grades up, and hand in at least a lesson a month. Haven’t any books or anything yet. I’ll send my money order down to the office today and should get started in a few days. If I don’t go to school I think I’ll work out a school schedule of my own to pass the time away.

  The only other railroad man that was here left yesterday. The whole thing makes me feel rather low. Was next to being home having anyone around that went thru radio school with me. It’s a small world tho. I ran into one of the Farragut teachers this morning and had quite a gab session with him.

  Didn’t get any mail today on top of everything else. Mail at mail call always fixes up any boring long day. Maybe I’ll have some tonite tho.

  Be sure and rush along that foto album if you haven’t already done so.

  By the way, did you ever get those pictures of the Fiat and Cord developed? Rush them too. But above all—Write. Love, Murray

  Feb 2, 1945

  Dear Folks,

  The tone of these letters should be changing about now. Got another from you today. And dated the 27th too. They’re starting to come to my new address at last. That’s pretty good service I’d say. Let me know how long mine take in getting there. Sure makes a guy feel like licking the world when letters come regularly.

  Everyone is gone but Jonesy and myself now. We have a tent to ourselves now. We tell everyone that wants in that it leaks like a sieve when it rains (only it doesn’t rain).

  Keep all the letters coming this way you can, even if you have to resort to carbons. They mean absolutely everything. We watch the clock like on a monotonous job, waiting impatiently for time for mail call.

  Say Gerry, when you write you can spend the entire time telling me about the latest on the Fiat. I enjoy that as much as anything. If possible, let me have some other pictures of you guys and the Fiat. I would especially like to see those new seats when they are installed. Be sure they slope back rather than remain level. You said you were thinking about covering them with Indian design blankets. I’d think they would sail away awfully easy and be hard to clean. Why not get some good fiber seat covers, something like I had in the ’39 Buick and cut them down to fit? That way you could wash them at any time too. Of course I guess you could always cover any material you put on with these covers if you wanted to. Tell me all about it. I’ve heard from Iris [sister] just once so far but then that’s about all the time she’s had.

  Well Dad, as long as Gerry is busy working on junior, why don’t you limber his skis up for him. At least it would keep you off of street corners.

  Days are kind of long with no school, no work, no nothing—Jonesy and I just sit around and gab about our families and friends and home. Then we look over each other’s pictures again to see if we missed anything. Rush the album—we’re running out of something to do.

  Better go eat. Write. Love, Murray

  I closed the notebook as sadness washed over me. My dad was hurting. He was lonely. Although the events took place long ago, his letters made them feel more immediate. His words transcended decades.

  I thought back to the only time of true loneliness in my own life. It was a childhood memory. The summer after I turned nine, I went to Girl Scout camp with my best friend Kim. When she became sick with strep throat, her parents were called and quickly came to pick her up from our mountain cabin. I wandered around aimlessly, trying to fit in with the girls who’d already formed close friendships. I was miserable and I wanted to go home. In fact, I was so lonely that I faked strep throat, even gargling with Listerine for the nurse, several times a day. And it worked. My parents were called and I got to go back to the love and comfort of my family. And they never knew the truth about why I came home.

  But reading my father’s letters, I realized I’d never known loneliness, not really. On the base, two thousand miles from home, he wanted mail so badly that he would settle for carbon copies. He just wanted something from home. He wanted to look at the date at the top of the letter and know that someone had been thinking of him on that day. He imagined them sitting down at a place he could picture in his mind, perhaps the kitchen table or a desk by the bedroom window. His mother or father had taken a pen from the holder he’d touched just a few weeks before. And they’d taken the letter to the post office, just as he himself had done so many times.

  He wanted news from home. He wanted to know about his brother’s car and his mother’s garden. He and his comrade, a friend due to circumstances, even read each other’s letters after they’d memorized every line of their own. That sort of loneliness is profound.

  As I sat on my comfortable sofa, knees drawn up to my chest, I held the fragile letter in my hand. Then a solution came to mind, a way to help him. “I should go get some stationery and my purple pen. I’ll write him a quick letter and send him photographs of the kids. That will cheer him up.”

  I shook my head, unbelieving. How could I think such a crazy thought? More than fifty years had passed since he wrote those letters, and yet, for a fleeting moment I had a solution.

  The door opened wide, I let myself imagine what it would be like, if only I’d been his daughter then. Perhaps I’d start a letter-writing campaign. I would sit my sons and daughter down and explain to them how lonely Grandpa is.

  Danielle is sixteen. She’ll want to make her own card, writing encouraging words with colored markers. She’ll attach stickers and draw hearts and swirls around the edges. Then before sealing the envelope, she’ll sprinkle glitter inside.

  Micah is twelve. He’ll feel badly for Grandpa. He’ll want to do something, but won’t be sure how to go about it. He’ll go with me to pick out a card. After analyzing each one, he’ll choose the one that is the most meaningful. Then he’ll ask me to tel
l him what to write. I’ll give him several ideas and he’ll write carefully.

  Caleb is seven. I’ll have a hard time getting him to sit still long enough to listen. But once he does, he’ll begin by grabbing a piece of copy paper from the printer. He’ll tell Grandpa about his soccer game and the goal he scored. He’ll write quickly not worrying about spelling. Then he’ll draw a quick picture: he’s smiling and one leg is raised kicking the ball, scoring the goal. Then he’ll hand me the letter as he runs out the door.

  I smile imagining it all. And then I feel silly for entertaining such a thought.

  My father had been lonely and homesick during the war. But the war was long past.

  “If only I’d known him then,” I tell myself. “I would have been the kind of daughter who was there for him. I would have. I would. But now?”

  Now there is nothing to do. It was over, and I couldn’t be there for him.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Tell Me a Word

  I’m trying to get up nerve enough to try a surfboard. I’ll let you know how I make out.—February 9, 1945

  “You’re going to do what?” my husband asked.

  “Transcribe the letters,” I said.

  “You’re going to type them all?”

  “Well…yes,” I replied.

  “Why?” he asked. But he continued without letting me answer. “Karen, do you realize how much time that would take? We’re already too busy and now you want to add something like this?”

  “You’ve seen the letters,” I said. “Dad’s handwriting is hard to read. It’s tiny and runs together. And the paper used back then is so thin and fragile.”

  But I knew he was right. My life was full and I was already chronically tired. I worked part time teaching children with disabilities at the local elementary school. In the afternoons, cooking, cleaning, shopping, and other chores filled my time. After school and evenings were spent chauffeuring the kids from one activity to another: soccer practice, music lessons, and school events. Somewhere amidst our tight schedule, we managed to eat dinner and supervise homework. Then it was bath time, story time, and bedtime. And the next morning the organized chaos began all over again.

  Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that it needed to be done.

  “I just want the kids to each have their own copy of my dad’s letters,” I said, trying to come up with an answer for what even I didn’t understand.

  “Then go down to Staples and make copies,” he said.

  That certainly made sense. But, I thought, maybe this wasn’t about what makes sense. This was something that just felt right to me. There weren’t any words to explain it, especially to my practical husband. So I gave up trying and decided to find my own time to work on them.

  Each night after everyone was in bed, I sat alone with the letters, typing them into my word processor. When there was something I didn’t understand, I wrote myself a note on whatever was handy—a scrap of paper, the back of an envelope, a receipt from the grocery store. A few weeks passed before I came up with a better way to keep track of my questions: simply setting the font to bold and writing the questions right into the text.

  I stopped by my parents’ house after work one day. Walking up the brick steps, I used the secret knock my father taught me when I was still in pigtails: four knocks, then a pause, and then two knocks.

  It had always been our secret knock, but I’d only recently learned what it meant. My husband and I had just bought a fixer-upper near my parents’ house, so Dad began visiting more often. He enjoyed riding over on his Segway, a stand-up scooter, to visit with his grandchildren or help with our latest home-improvement project. Each visit started with the same knock. So one day I asked him about it.

  “Dad,” I said, “as long as I can remember, we’ve used the same knock.”

  “Well, you know what it means, don’t you?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “It’s Morse code,” he said.

  “One, two, three, four…one, two,” he said. “H…I.” His fingers quickly tapped the air as he spoke. “It means ‘hi’ in Morse.”

  “I didn’t know that,” I said. “All this time, I just thought it was our secret knock.”

  He laughed.

  With that fresh memory swirling in my mind, I let myself in my parents’ house with a small smile on my face. I found my father sitting in his favorite recliner, watching TV.

  “Hi, Dad,” I said.

  “Hi, yourself,” he answered.

  He searched the cluttered table next to him. Under magazines, books, and mail, he found the remote control and pressed mute. We talked for a few minutes about the weather and the book he was reading. I wanted to bring up the letters, but I didn’t know how. Phone calls and visits to my parents’ house usually consisted of a little small talk with Dad quickly followed by me asking for my mom. I was suddenly acutely aware that I really didn’t talk to my dad all that much. I wanted to say, “Dad, tell me about the war.” But the words hid.

  “I’ve been reading your letters,” I started.

  “You have?” he asked.

  “Yeah. They’re pretty interesting,” I said.

  “Well I didn’t think anyone would want to read those old things.”

  There was a barely noticeable lilt to his voice. Encouraged, I continued. “So when did Grandma give them to you?” I asked clumsily.

  “I don’t remember,” he said. “Maybe a few years after I got home. I don’t know.”

  “Did you know she had them before that? I mean did you know she saved them?” I asked.

  “No,” he replied. “I don’t know. I just don’t remember.” There was frustration in his voice. “I just can’t help you with this stuff. I don’t remember anything. It was too long ago.”

  For most people his age, maybe this would be true. Fifty years is a long time to remember such details. But not for my father, who’d always had a meticulous memory. I knew better than that. Still, he’d given me the letters and even seemed pleased I was reading them.

  He un-muted the television before I could ask another question. “This channel has some good old movies. This one is about…”

  He went on to tell me all about the movie. I watched the screen as if I were muted. I tried to concentrate on it, to come up with a question to ask just to show an interest. But all I could think was, “How am I ever going to get him to talk to me?”

  I’d come over hoping to have a conversation with him. I wanted to sit down and just talk, casually like I did with my girlfriends. I wanted to know what he thought and how he felt.

  When I was growing up and even into adulthood, I had always talked to my dad and he had talked to me, but we never really had a conversation. And now, after almost forty years, we didn’t know how to talk to each other. We only knew how to talk at each other. We knew how to wait politely for the other to finish talking. Eye contact was sparse and infrequent—we looked down, or around, or out the window.

  We’d communicated this way all of my life. And now, when it mattered, it seemed too late to learn a new way.

  I waited for a commercial. He always muted the sound on commercials. But this time he didn’t. I watched more of the movie and another set of commercials. My father had been hard of hearing all of my life, so when the television volume was on, it was impossible to hold a conversation. He kept the sound on through another set of commercials.

  He had no intention of talking to me.

  Feb 9, 1945

  Dear Folks,

  I didn’t have room in last letter to answer all your questions. No letters today so may get caught up.

  We just about bought a radio a little while ago. They are hard to get and easy to get rid of. Someone beat us to it tho. You can always get rid of them in 5 minutes by putting up a notice on the bulletin board. And you don’t need to take a loss either.

  We have all the main radio programs and have a lot of military band and Hawaiian music instead of the soap operas in the states.

>   I’m trying to get up nerve enough to try a surfboard. I’ll let you know how I make out. It looks easy but they say it’s tricky.

  Oh yes, Dad, they have Fiats and Cords here. I’ve seen two Cords and one Fiat. There are all makes and models of cars here. About the only difference is that the majority of them have all leather upholstery. Don’t know just why.

  When we went to see “The Mikado” last night, we went through the best part of town. I’d never been there before. Very nice houses and a Sears store is located way out on the edge of town. It’s a super-modern, one-story building as are most of the large stores in town. We saw the university campus too. It was really nice—lots of grass, which was something neat to see. Camp is all just dirt and tents.

  Well, guess you know by now what my deal is here. Waiting for glasses now. The doc seemed quite upset about my eyes so maybe something cooking. If so, I would probably get a restricted or limited service rating and be assigned to a shore base. Otherwise could be on ship or an advanced base. Will be a while yet before anything happens tho.

  The place is about deserted now. You’ll just have to guess why and read the papers.

  Days are sure long—you’d probably all like to trade with me. Get up around 715, eat breakfast 730 just across the street. Muster at 750. Then nothing until noon. Eat around noon or one and nothing until 530 p.m. Have supper then. Go to a show at seven and back at nine or so—lights out at ten. Mail call at noon and five p.m.

  A very invigorating existence. Spend rest of time browsing around ships service, drinking Nesbit orange pop, visiting tent library and reading and writing letters. I may have to resort to building model airplanes soon.