THE SURF
On the codebreaking front, over a month in, and Isabel had little to show for being in Hawai‘i. Working with the crew in the Dungeon was not much different than working by herself. She was coming to badly miss the girls back at Main Navy. There, at least, she was part of a team. Even though much of the time she had been in her own head, people had been rooting for her. Nora, Ellen Mary, even Anna. Not so here.
Her nerves had subsided slightly, but only because she had discovered that by going outside every hour or so, it was like letting the lid off a steaming kettle.
Jones, at his desk by the door, had asked, “Is everything okay, Miss Cooper?”
“Just female issues,” she answered, effectively preventing any further questioning. In her experience, it was the quickest way to get a man off your back.
JN-25 was a beast of a code, and she plugged away at nonurgent messages as best she could. Which was not saying much. There were still so few code groups recovered that it felt like sifting sand through a colander—most of it got through except for a few particles in between the holes.
Denny and the boys rarely gave her anything of importance. There had been mention of her having to prove herself, and yet how could she prove herself with weeks’ old messages about a small fishing vessel near the Kuriles or a missing minesweeper in the Solomons? Hadn’t she proved herself with Magenta? It made no sense.
For the most part, Denny flat out ignored her. He was too wrapped up in solving Ultra messages—Ultra was the code name for top-secret decrypted messages, either German or Japanese—and meeting with Hudson and the brass. Ziegler spoke to her in small bursts, just like he did everything else. Out of nowhere, he might say, “Try the previous additive book” or “that code group has two meanings.” Every little bit helped.
On Sunday morning, Russi picked her up just after sunrise, with a long wooden plank of a surfboard sticking out of the trunk of his car. Isabel had invited her roommate, but Gloria had plans with Dickie, so it was just the two of them. They rode with the sun in their eyes, talking about everything but the other night. He didn’t mention Alice and she didn’t ask.
“I consider wave riding a form of Mass, but don’t tell my pops that,” Russi informed her as they drove down Kalakaua Avenue.
“Were you raised Catholic?”
“My dad was Catholic, my mom Protestant. So I was raised confused,” he said with a laugh. “But seriously, they loved each other so much none of that mattered. My mother could have been from Timbuktu and he would have moved there to be with her. Warms the heart to see the two of them.”
Isabel wondered how he’d turned out so apparently different. “What about you? Don’t you want that for yourself?”
His thumb started tapping on the steering wheel. “Just haven’t found the right one yet. And anyway, there’s a good chance I’m not coming out of this alive, so why put someone through that, you know?”
She did know. Had lived through it, in fact. On Christmas Eve 1941, a telegram arrived in a letter postmarked December 12. Isabel was home for Christmas, just her and Pa and the dog. Pa was sipping on his fifth Budweiser in his recliner, listening to the radio for any scrap of news, while Isabel mashed potatoes in the kitchen. Neither was in any mood to celebrate, but Isabel was doing her best to put on a good front for her father’s sake.
As soon as the mail came, she hurried out the back door to fetch it before her father did. A part of her had an ominous feeling this was coming, the way animals know a storm. Even though communication had gone down around the country, Walt would have found a way to let them know he was okay. Losing their mother had nearly ruined Pa, and losing Walt would finish off the job. Bile rose in her throat as she tore open the letter.
The US Army deeply regrets to inform you that your son, Walter Cooper, was killed in action. Isabel stopped reading. Fell to her knees on the hard wooden floor, trying to catch a breath. She felt the need to climb out of her own skin, if that were somehow possible. In her fist, the crumpled letter scorched. No matter how much she’d dreaded the possibility of this moment, and tried to fight it off by hoping and praying and carrying on as normal, the truth was: nothing could ever prepare you for the death of a loved one.
“Your folks must worry about you, out here,” she said, shaking off the memory.
“It’s killing them. Especially my dad, knowing Italy is on the other side. This is one fucked-up war, you know that? Families on both sides of the ocean, pitted against each other. Everyone just praying for it to end,” he said.
“I pray all day long.”
“You and me both.”
They rode in silence for a while after that.
They passed the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, pink and pretty, surrounded by manicured grounds, coconut trees and barbed wire. Every time she forgot for a few seconds there was a war going on, something like that woke her back up. From what she’d heard, the navy had taken it over at the start of the war as a place for sailors to rest and recuperate. It was strange to think that amid such beauty, there could be such heartbreak.
Farther on, they drove by the Waikiki Theater, where the marquee read Tyrone Power & Maureen O’Hara, The Black Swan and The March of Time. People milled about on the streets wearing less clothing than was legal in Indiana.
“Consider yourself lucky because I’m taking you to a secret spot. Waikiki is great and all, but there can be a lotta people on the waves,” he said, drawing out the o in lot.
Beyond the hotels and beach clubs they came to a giant park lined with tall long-needled trees. It looked to Isabel as though they were going to drive right up Diamond Head, but he slowed as they went past a long wall-like arched structure. The War Memorial.
“Walt and a few of us came down here one day for a little friendly swim competition with some navy boys, and while we were here we spotted a nice break out front,” he said. “Now the navy uses the natatorium for training, took it over like a lot of places here.”
“Who won?” she asked.
He looked offended. “Who do you think won?”
“Something tells me you flyboys had it in the bag.”
One side of his mouth went up. “Damn straight we did.”
A minute on down the road, they pulled over near a tree with a trunk as wide as a house. Nothing moved. There wasn’t a stitch of wind on the water and the air smelled of salt and sunshine. It felt like a moment in a postcard, surreal as it was beautiful.
“Here we are,” he said, turning to her and suddenly looking serious. “Now, I need to warn you about something before we go out.”
“Sharks?” she asked.
The thought had crossed her mind on more than one occasion.
He laughed. “Not sharks, but you oughta know that surfing can be addicting, and you might fall in love.”
“That’s a bold claim,” she said.
He shrugged. “You’ll see.”
It took the two of them to hoist the board out and walk it down a bushy pathway to the beach. The wood was smooth as a coffee bean. To the right was a small cottage, dwarfed by trees and fronted by a long pier.
“My friend Tony’s mom owns the place. He said he’d leave a board out for me,” Russi said, scanning the area.
But there were no boards around, and aside from a couple young kids on the pier fishing, not a soul in sight.
“Maybe it’s too early?” she said.
“Coulda been a late one for him. He plays Hawaiian music around town, and is even more in demand since this war started, if you could believe it. Hang tight, I’ll have a look around.”
Isabel dipped her feet in the water, expecting an early-morning chill. But the water was pleasant as it swirled around her ankles. Russi came back a few minutes later, empty-handed.
“Looks like we might have to go tandem. You game?”
“The both of us on that one board?”
He held up his hands. “I won’t bite.”
She’d seen photos of men riding waves, women on their shoulders, or holding them up like dolls in fantastic positions.
“No, thank you. I doubt you could lift me, anyway.”
“I don’t need to lift you. We both just stand up on the board. You’re thinking of the surfing competitions—the newspapers love those. Way above my pay grade,” he said. “And for the record, I could lift you with my left pinky.”
“I weigh more than you think.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Out beyond the reef, neat lines of white water lined up one after another.
“You don’t think the waves are too big?” she asked.
“Nah. The waves on this side only get big in the summertime. Think about Walt. Would he have gone out?”
That did it. Somewhat self-consciously, she slid out of her dress and stood pale as an ivory statue under the warm Hawaiian sun. Russi bent down to grab something out of his backpack and came back up holding his camera. When he caught sight of her, his eyes moved down her body, causing a rush of heat across her skin. She could have sworn he whistled.
“Damn, that suit sure suits you. We need to get a shot of you standing with the board, ocean in the back, just like Walt. The light is perfect now,” he said.
The blue-and-white floral one-piece crossed in the back and came down low in the front, but not too low. Despite feeling seminude, she liked how it fit, and how it accentuated her long legs. He set her up in front of the ocean, arranged her with the board, which probably weighed fifty pounds or more, and moved back to get the picture. For some reason, she found it hard to look at him.
“You’re gonna have to try a little harder than that, Miss Cooper. Gimme some teeth,” he said, kneeling in the sand.
She gave him her best smile, just so they could get on with it.
He whistled. Camera clicked. “Whoa. Okay. Beautiful.”
“Can we go out now?” she said, mainly because she felt so exposed, as though he could see right through her.
“A minute ago, you were hemming and hawing. What gives?”
“Says the man who refuses to have his picture taken.”
“From purely a photographer’s standpoint, you’ve got this quality about you. The blue eyes...” he said, shaking his head and standing up. “Hard to explain.”
After tucking their belongings under a hedge near a coconut tree, Russi took off his shirt and gave her a brief demonstration of where to lie on the board, how to paddle, what to do when the white water hit them, how to catch a wave. His shorts came up midwaist and fit tight against his hard stomach. He swung the board around as if it weighed nothing, and set it on the water.
“Go on. You’re in front,” he said.
That meant he would be behind her—almost on top of her. For some reason the paddling part of tandem surfing had not occurred to her. “I’m happy to go in the back.”
“That’s not how it works. The person in control is in the back.”
There was nothing to do but climb on. A second later, his hands were on her waist, sliding her forward just a hair. Strong and sure. And then he hopped on, sliding his way up so his chest was up against her rear. Her legs parted slightly to make room. Suddenly, they were gliding ahead and the inside of his arms rubbed against her thighs.
“Just paddle and I’ll keep time with you,” he said, as if this were the most natural thing in the world, his chin hovering over her low back, her rear literally a pillow for him.
Isabel did as instructed, trying to block out the unfavorable positioning. Pay attention to the water, she ordered herself. Indeed, the water was a dazzling blue, and made a soft splash each time her hands disappeared into it. They sailed along, Russi keeping good time and providing most of the muscle. In no time, they had passed through a coral-lined channel and reached a deeper blue. They paddled out beyond the surf, which had now vanished, and waited. The quiet was something Isabel could get used to. Surfing, she thought, could be the perfect companion for codebreaking.
Russi held a finger to his lips and said, “You hear that?”
She listened. Soon, a distant low rumble filled the air.
“Pursuits coming in from patrol on the east side,” he said.
A moment later, the calm was shattered by a line of warplanes rounding Diamond Head, flying low over the water. When they approached, nearly overhead, Russi stood up on the board and started waving madly. One of the planes dipped a wing. Then the board wobbled and he dove off into the water, nearly knocking her off in the process.
The planes passed by directly overhead, so close she could feel the vibration in her teeth. She swallowed hard. Something about seeing those planes and their painted-on stars, all in formation, caused a welling-up of emotion.
“Those are the new guys. Sunday morning patrols always go to them,” he said.
“Seems more like a reward than a punishment, being up there on a day like this,” she said, coming back to the moment.
“Good point,” he said, swimming up to the board and draping his arms over it. “You know what really gets me? The fact that, on that Sunday morning, we were still on Number 1 Alert. Only the navy had a few planes on patrol that day, out looking for subs. We had zilch. In my book there shoulda been a sky full of planes out on patrol. We shoulda been at Number 3 Alert.”
“What’s your take on it?”
“The brass was worried about alarming the civilian population. Of all the messed-up things. They knew the Japanese were up to something, but underestimated them by a long shot,” he said.
The what-ifs haunted her, too, especially in the early-morning hours, in that quiet time when her darkest thoughts took on a life of their own. “I’ve lost months of sleep imagining how things could have turned out differently.”
“I have this dream where I’m flying along in the clouds, almost blind. Then they part and there’s a whole line of carriers as far as the eye can see. It’s just me up there, and I dive down and shoot and shoot but nothing happens. My guns are full of blanks,” he said.
“I expect that’s normal.”
He bit his lip. “I want that shot. I want to take down something big.”
“A carrier would be nice.”
Everyone knew the carriers were the top prize.
“And I’m more than happy to sacrifice myself. If those Japanese pilots can do it, so can I,” he said.
“I’m not sure your folks would feel the same way. But I know how you feel. Some of the girls back at Main Navy thought I was crazy to want to come out here. But being out here meant being closer—” She stopped, realizing that for the first time ever, she had almost alluded to being other than a secretary.
He tilted his head up at her. “Go on.”
“Closer to the front lines...the action... Walt.”
“One of these days, you’ll tell me what you’re really doing down there. Why not now?”
“Russi, enough with that.”
“Just wait and see, I have my ways,” he said with a dangerous smile.
Before she could respond, he dove under and disappeared. A minute lapsed. And then another. When at least two had passed, and he still hadn’t surfaced, she spun around, scanning the water. There was no sign of him. Concern coursed through her. Had he somehow gotten wedged in between two coral heads? Carried off by a shark? Then, without warning, Russi erupted out of the water with a gasp and set a large brown squishy thing on the board in front of her.
She recoiled. “What is this thing?”
“Lunch.”
She tried to discern if he was serious, but his expression was unreadable. “Tell me you’re kidding. Please?”
“When Walt and I came out here with old man Makua, one of the beach boys in Waikiki, he brought one in after our session and cut it up, poured a little salt on and laid it out on his surfboard for us all neat like in a restaurant, I kid you not. Not wanting to be rude, Walt took a bite. I watched his eyes water and he gagged a few times before swallowing.”
Isabel almost gagged just thinking about it.
Russi went on, “I could hardly believe my eyes when he reached for a second piece. ‘This is great, thanks, mate,’ he said with that goofy smile of his. That right there earned us respect from the old man. He said Walt was the first haole he knew who had ever gone for a second one.”
Isabel had recently learned that haole was what Caucasians were called here in Hawai‘i.
“What about you?” she asked.
“I forced one down. Nearly died in the process. I’m not as brave as Walt,” he said, looking out to sea. “Hey, here comes a wave!” He jumped on behind her and swung the board around so they were facing the shore. “Paddle hard. I’ll tell you when to stand up.”
It all happened so fast. The feeling of him half on top of her paddling like mad, the back of the board lifting up and shooting down the face of the wave. Water sprayed up in her face.
“Slide back a little,” he yelled.
She did as instructed, and the spray died down.
“Okay, stand up!”
Now that they were moving, the board was no longer wobbly and she kneeled and then stood with both her arms out. They raced along the face of the water. Isabel imagined she was a low-flying seagull. Then the board wavered for a moment and Russi was up. He grabbed her waist from behind and pressed his whole body close against hers.
“Hang on,” he said, mouth an inch from her ear.
There was nothing to hang on to but air, so she leaned into him. Right away, the board turned and they shot along sideways, away from the breaking white water. They passed over coral formations and patches of sand and she felt like a kid again, wild and free. A small squeal escaped from her mouth. Russi held her firmly. A few seconds later, the nose of the board went under and Isabel flew headfirst into the water. After an underwater drag and tumble, she came up slightly disoriented with all body parts intact. Russi was nearby, but the board was nowhere to be seen.
“You all right?” he asked.
“I think so?”
“Atta girl,” he said, swimming over to her with an ear-to-ear smile.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“You seem so serious a lot of the time. It was nice to hear you let loose a little. But was that an I’m having fun scream or a get me outta here scream?”
People had always accused her of being serious. Her father even went as far as saying she should lighten up, men want to see a lady smile once in a while. But early on, she realized that you can’t change who you are, no matter how badly others may want you to.
“A little of both, I think. And for the record, I’m not always serious.”
Russi’s eyes suddenly widened. “Uh-oh, here comes another one. Just before it hits, take a big breath and dive down with me,” he said, grabbing hold of her hand.
Isabel turned to see a wave double the size as the one they’d caught coming their way. This was certainly no lake and she was wondering if coming out here had been wise. Russi might know what he was doing, but she sure didn’t. They dove down as swirls of moving water rushed along her back. Russi’s hand pulled her down, and then up once the wave had passed. They broke the surface together, Isabel on the verge of panic.
“You okay?” he asked again, hand still holding tight to hers.
She nodded, trying to maintain her cool. Their eyes met and for a few seconds neither spoke, neither looked away. A charge passed between them, sending tingles up and down her spine, along her skin and out through her toes. This was not part of the plan. She closed her eyes, pulled her hand away.
Walt’s best friend.
Off-limits.
Trouble.
Heartache.
“Fine. Just a bit shaken up. I wasn’t expecting that,” she said, risking another look.
He was still staring at her. “Me neither. Not one bit.” He shook his head slightly, the way you shake off a scare, then glanced in toward the reef. “Listen, I need to go get the board. Do you want to wait here or come with me?”
“Go with you.”
They swam in, fortunately not too far, since the board got stopped up by a coral head. She stayed close on his heels. When they climbed back on, she was acutely aware of his chest rubbing against her and his hot breath on her skin, warmer than the rays of the sun. They paddled back out, caught a few more waves, wiping out on every single one and crashing into the water with limbs tangled.
“The wipeouts are part of the fun,” he said, coming up and spitting water in her face.
She laughed, splashed him right back. As long as they kept moving, Isabel was fine. The intimate feeling from earlier began to fade. There was nothing unusual about what they were doing. Surf lessons happened all the time in these parts. And Russi was a patient teacher. He told her where to stand, when to bend her knees, exactly when to start paddling for the wave.
Finally, he said, “I think you’re ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“To catch one on your own.” He slid off and swam a few feet away, then held his hands up, framing her. “Wow. This is the money shot, right here. You, Diamond Head. Eyes blue as the sea.”
Isabel was lying on the board, hands on her chin. Something about being in the ocean covered in salt water made her feel appealing in a clean-scrubbed way. Nature’s beauty school. “You’re just drunk on ocean,” she said.
“The best kind of drunk to be. Look, here comes your wave,” he said, nodding behind her.
The wave looked big, but Isabel turned and started paddling, anyway. Without Russi, the board moved at half the speed.
“Harder!” he yelled.
She paddled harder, then felt the wave lift her up, up and up.
“Move back!”
Suddenly, she found herself at the top of a steep face, staring down a blue wall. She slid back on the board but it was too late, even she could tell. The board skipped along the surface, gaining speed, then plowed into the water. Isabel was catapulted off as the board shot back up into the air somewhere nearby. Instinctively, she covered her head and ducked underwater. When she came up, Russi was by her side, looking like a concerned mother.
“Can I try that again?” she said.
He broke into a huge smile. “You betcha.”
It took three more tries, but she finally rode a wave on her own for fifty yards or so. When the swell petered out, Russi was hooting and hollering from a coral head nearby. And for the first time in a long time, she had completely forgotten about the war and why she was here.