Breaking the Code

by Karen Fisher-Alaniz

  Really got a letter this time—from all three of you, and just to show how welcome even newspaper clippings are from home—I even read all that’s readable on the back side of them in hopes of picking up a little more stray information. Any time you’re in the mood I’d enjoy a Walla Walla or Spokane paper.

  A dark cloud about an inch square just drifted over so of course it’s pouring rain now with the sun shining on all sides. This is a country I’d defy anyone to guess the weather in. About all you can predict safely is that there will be no snow. Suppose you folks must be having a little snow now and then. Sure would like to get my hands in some—although I’ve probably gone as long before this without seeing any.

  And is the Fiat seat as soft as the Chev? That’s all I’m worried about. If so then you can just finish the old Chev I guess. Sure hope they send the parts a bit quicker this time from New York but then after all it really hasn’t been too long since you actually got the car to Dayton so I guess it’s not too bad. Sure seems like a lot longer than just a bit over three months ago that I was wandering around the living room trying to find something to do.

  I’ll probably wire you guys & gals for a couple thousand when I hit the states for a new car to drive home in. You know how hard it is to get personal checks cashed in a strange town.

  I think you should raise the roof about having to do any janitor work mom. That’s definitely agents work only—at least that’s what I was told. The section crew only works when some of the officials are there in person.

  I’ll see what I can find in the way of t-shirts with Hula girls. Think it can be arranged. I don’t know the population of Honolulu but think about double Spokane.

  Boy—the war news is sure coming in thick and fast this morning. Of course the Atlantic side doesn’t interest us much except to get the men over here to help end it quicker on this front. Sure good news on every side tho.

  By the way, all I see out of my tent is another tent and miles of them beyond. If I raise my eyes a little I can take in the mountains but no ocean. Look right across the bay.

  Write. Love, Murray

  Once he was in the Pacific, my father wondered and worried about how the railroad station, and in particular his office, would look when he got back. But looking back now, he admits that his biggest fear was that Ruth would do such a great job that he wouldn’t have a job to come home to after the war.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Church

  Caught a station wagon out to the Methodist church and arrived a little late…Enjoyed it all tho, especially the choir (with civilians). I’m enclosing the program.—March 12, 1945

  Church was the center of our lives when I was growing up. So you wouldn’t think it would come as a surprise that my father often referenced church in his letters and even sent home church bulletins. But it did surprise me. It just seemed that things like going to church wouldn’t have a place for someone in the middle of a war. But then again, church wasn’t just a religious experience in my family. It was so much more.

  As a child, church was about waking up on any given Sunday and knowing the day was set apart. We girls were dressed in our Sunday best: dresses that tied into a big bow in the back, with matching socks or thick leotards depending on the weather. We wore black or white patent leather shoes depending on the season, and ribbons and bows in our blonde hair. Dad wore a suit, mom a dress. We sat in the fifth pew from the front, all lined up like dolls in a doll house.

  I took comfort in the directions: stand up here, speak in unison there, and sing hymn 545 there. My favorite part of the ritual was reading along in the bulletin. I guess one could say I was bored and figured out something to do with my time. But I think that perhaps I am like my father that way. I like order. I like things lined up and making sense. I like to know what is coming next.

  During wartime, the routine of dressing the part, singing the hymns, and hearing the word of God spoken by a man of God must have brought comfort to my father. There was comfort in predictability. But for him, it was even more than that. Our family is, in fact, linked to the founder of the Methodist church, John Wesley.

  My great-great-great grandfather, Richard Bunt, was a dear friend to John Wesley in the late 1700s in England. Wesley even stayed in his home a number of times. After my Uncle Raymond traced the family tree and learned this, my father took over, and through a lot of correspondence, finally got a copy of a letter sent from Wesley to my great-great-great grandfather. A framed copy hung on the wall of my parents’ living room for years. So the linkage went way back, which was something of pride particularly for my father.

  My parents were married in the Methodist church. They made their home in Walla Walla, Washington, just a few highway miles from Dayton. My father built our family home, one he still lives in today. He likes to say he built it “a board a paycheck.” The church, like our home, was the framework to which much more was added.

  Church was not just a place to go on Sundays from eleven to noon; it was where our friends were. It was where longtime members had children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren who were raised together. The Klickers and Clizers were just a few of the family names that spanned generations in Pioneer United Methodist church. We went to Sunday school together. We enjoyed potlucks together after church. The Klickers were farmers and donated strawberries for shortcake in the summer and Christmas trees in December to adorn the stage around the pulpit. When we got to junior high, there was an active youth group. When the annual youth-group snow retreat moved up on the calendar, the friends that I’d begged, bribed, and even guilt-tripped into going to church with me were suddenly very interested in it.

  Our family never missed a Sunday. Even on our five-week vacations to the Oregon Coast, my parents found a church to attend on Sundays.

  April 3, 1945

  Dear Folks,

  Went to Honolulu as usual Sunday—arrived early and got some breakfast and a haircut. Then went out to church and it was jammed with a crowd out on the side walks. I was pretty early too. So of all days—I never got to church at all on Easter Sunday. Got the usual steak later and wandered all over the library of Hawaii for a few hours.

  A couple of new guys around, in and back out again (my tent) all of them left today but then draft was canceled so they came back for the night.

  I’m behind fourteen letters now. To fourteen separate people—that’s what I get for taking a three day vacation. Got ’em from everyone in the country.

  Love, Murray

  Though the Methodist genes are on my father’s side, it is my mother who can often be found with a Bible in her lap. She joins Bible studies. She studies and applies ancient words written two thousand years ago to her everyday life. But my father is different. In fact, I don’t remember ever seeing my dad read the Bible.

  “Have you ever read the whole Bible?” I asked one day.

  “Well, of course,” he answered.

  “Really?”

  “Sure,” he said. “I’ve read the whole thing.”

  “Wow,” I said. I was truly impressed. “The whole thing, huh? That’s impressive. I can’t even say that. I get hung up on the Old Testament—all those thees and thous and begots. So what’s your favorite book of the Bible?” I asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know. That was a long time ago,” he said. “I read it when I was in the service.”

  “The whole thing?” I asked.

  “Yep,” he said. “Cover to cover. So now I can say I’ve read the whole Bible.” He laughed.

  Leave it to my methodical father, I thought, to read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation while in the midst of a war.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Breakdown

  But it’s just like another dream—off that darned ship and on this plane. We have everything around us here you ever read or heard about the islands.—January 9, 1945

  It was another hectic night at our house, but we’d managed to get the dinner dishes loaded into the dishwasher and the older kids h
ad finished their homework. Caleb, who had never been interested in television, was playing not so quietly with his matchbox cars on the floor. We’d just settled in to watch America’s Funniest Home Videos when the phone rang.

  “It’s your mom,” Ric said handing me the phone.

  “Hi, Mom,” I said.

  “Your dad has had some kind of a breakdown,” she blurted out. My heart sank. I put my hand over my stomach as nerves invaded. I had a sick feeling as I took the phone to my bedroom, not even bothering to turn the lights on. I stood next to the bed unable to move any further.

  “Is he OK?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer my question.

  “We had just parked at the grocery store. We were sitting in the car,” she continued. “I had been talking about my concern for a dear friend. I was just worried about her and I started telling him about her problem. But then I realized that she had trusted me and I shouldn’t have told him.”

  “Now, Murray,” my mother had said, “you understand you can’t talk to anyone else about this. You can’t tell anyone. This is a secret.”

  “Secret!” he shouted, startling her. “You don’t think I can keep a secret? I’ve been keeping a secret for fifty-seven years.”

  My mother was stunned. Somehow, what had started as a typical trip to the grocery store had turned into something else. In their fifty years of marriage, she’d never seen him like this before. My father didn’t yell, ever. But this day one moment he was fine, the next he was screaming at her. She simply couldn’t fathom how fast and furious he had changed.

  And then he did something else he never did—he cried. My father, who wasn’t a crier, began to sob like a baby. And as his anger dissolved to tears, he told her about the day that changed him forever.

  In the waters off of Okinawa, on the deck of a ship, my father and his friend Mal sat across from each other on rolling chairs. Kamikazes littered the sky as my dad and Mal went about their work, copying the Japanese code. Every ten minutes or so they rolled their chairs across the deck of the ship to exchange places. After one of these exchanges, Dad had just buckled back in place when a kamikaze hit the water close by and shrapnel flew. In the chaos that followed, he turned to his friend.

  Mal had been wounded by shrapnel. My father went to him. He cradled him like a baby. He held his dying friend in his arms. “Oh, Murray” were Mal’s last words. In the mind-numbing scene that followed, he couldn’t let go of his friend. He couldn’t leave him. His hands clenched tight to him until a comrade pried them open. The next thing he knew he was waking up in a military hospital some time later. This was the secret he kept.

  I was stunned. I felt a wave of indescribable emotions. I was sad that he’d bore this secret all by himself. He’d kept it inside until it hurt so bad that it had to get out. I’d been talking to him about the war for such a long time now. My feeling that there was something more to his story turned out to be right. But before my mind traveled down that path, I was hit with an overwhelming sense of guilt.

  Did I cause this? I wondered. Did all my prying and questioning cause him to have a breakdown? Did I bring to the surface something so painful that it had remained untold for more than fifty years? Maybe it should have remained untold. Maybe it was never meant to be brought to the surface. My father was in unimaginable pain. Was it my fault?

  Before getting off the phone, Mom and I agreed that I would wait for him to tell me about it. It was too important to simply treat it like any other message to pass on. Hopefully, in time, my father would feel safe enough to tell me his secrets too.

  Later that night, I lay in bed going over what my mother had shared. I ran it through my mind several times before I realized what she had said. She’d said Okinawa, not Iwo Jima. How could that be? My father had told me about Iwo Jima. But he’d never even mentioned Okinawa. I didn’t know much about Okinawa, but what I did know was that it was a big deal during the war. Since Dad didn’t know that I knew, I couldn’t ask him about it. And even if he did know, what would I say? What could I possibly say to make it better?

  The following day, after work, I went to the shelf where I kept the original notebooks. I ran a finger along the spine of the blue and gray notebooks. But I didn’t take them down. I couldn’t. Not anymore. I left the notebooks where they belonged. I left them where this whole journey had started: on a bookshelf, hidden from everything, hidden from life. Then I slowly lowered myself to my knees. Kneeling beside my bed, my face buried in a blanket, I sobbed. Not even realizing that I was in a prayer position, I cried out.

  “Why?” I whispered at first. “Why?” I said louder. “Why did he have to remember this? Why? Why couldn’t he live out his last years in peace? Why couldn’t it have stayed buried?”

  It wasn’t a prayer. I was too angry, too disillusioned, to pray. My hands weren’t folded and my heart was not petitioning. God allowed this to happen. He allowed it all. He made my father have this terrible experience and then he brought the memory crashing down on him when he was so frail. It wasn’t fair and I was mad at God for letting it happen.

  My father and I continued to go to breakfast on Wednesdays, and I still stopped by occasionally, but I didn’t bring anything with me. We didn’t talk about the war. He had changed. Every now and then I could see it in his eyes. He’d bow his head or stare out the window a little too long. And I knew. He remembered. He sat in quiet grief and all I could do was watch.

  My mother too saw the quiet grief. Her concern prompted her to ask the impossible of him. She asked him to talk about what had happened to someone other than family. Ed Hamshar was their minister, and Nila his wife. Much to my mother’s surprise, he agreed. They met at the minister’s home.

  My father told his whole WWII story, from beginning to end. My father, a man of few words, talked nonstop for two hours. During that time, the Hamshars didn’t interrupt or even ask questions. They simply let him talk. My mother prayed, and she knew the Hamshars were praying too.

  As they got ready to leave, Nila said she had a word for my father.

  “I feel like I’m supposed to tell you that you are not crazy,” she said.

  When they got in the car to go home, my father said that those words meant a lot to him. He said he often felt like he was crazy. But her words brought a measure of peace to him.

  Talking to someone about his experience and his grief was a first step on a path that I hoped would lead him back to me. I had started this and I wanted to help make it better, if that was even possible. But for now, all I could do was wait and hope.

  A few weeks later, I went to my parents’ house when I knew my father wouldn’t be home. Mom greeted me with a cup of tea and a tin of shortbread cookies.

  “I was going to call you today,” she said. “Your dad said to tell you girls about his friend, about his breakdown in the parking lot.”

  “Mom,” I said after a few nibbles of cookie. “Do you think this happened because of me, I mean because of the letters and me asking all those questions? Is it my fault?” I choked back tears and tried to keep my voice from shaking.

  “Probably,” she said gently.

  My heart sank.

  We sat in quiet for a moment too long. She seemed deep in thought. Finally, she broke the silence.

  “But Karen,” she added, “this has been coming for a long time. There has always been something about your father. It was like he’d built a wall up around himself. Nobody could get in and he couldn’t get out.”

  She looked out the window.

  “I think this is the answer. This is what he’s been holding in for all these years.” She looked back at me. “This is a new beginning for him. You know I’ve prayed for your dad for so many years, and I didn’t even know what I was praying for. I believe this is an answer to those prayers.”

  I couldn’t speak. I knew my voice would crack and tears would spill.

  “Ever since you and your dad started having breakfast together, I’ve prayed about your time together.
I hoped that somehow your time with him would finally bring peace to him. It just seems like he’s never had peace.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I finished a few cookies and left before he got back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Secrets

  By the way, all I see out of my tent is another tent and miles of them beyond. If I raise my eyes a little I can take in the mountains but no ocean.—March 20, 1945

  I guess your mom told you about my little incident in the parking lot,” my father said the next Wednesday. I nodded.

  I didn’t know what to say. I’m sorry? But sorry for what? Sorry his friend died or sorry he’d remembered? So I didn’t say anything.

  “I can’t believe that after all these years it all came back to me like that,” he said. “Like it was happening all over again. Can you believe that?”

  I shook my head.

  “Mal and I were friends,” he said. “We both knew how to copy the Japanese code and we did it side by side at Iwo Jima. Then a few weeks later, we were ordered to write another set of letters. We were sent right back out and did the same thing but this time at Okinawa. But when they went to transfer us to the sub there, the communications room was flooded. So they transferred us to the deck of a ship. The sky was black with kamikazes.

  “We were actually kind of goofing off when it happened. We were on the deck of this huge ship. When we were at Iwo Jima we made up a game. Seems strange now, to be fooling around literally in the middle of a war. But that’s what we did. There were places all around the perimeter of the deck where we could work. All we needed was a place to clip our rolling chair so we could stay in one place when the ship moved, which was constantly. And there were these metal rings at regular intervals where we could do that. But we didn’t work next to each other. We were all the way across the deck from each other.