THE MESSAGE
In the years following Gloria’s death, Isabel had kept tabs on Dickie. He moved up in the ranks and by the time the war was over he had helped oversee the rebuilding of countless ships and submarines in the Navy Yard at Pearl. When the war ended, he left the islands and went home to Pennsylvania and married his high school sweetheart. All of this intel had been gathered through the coconut wireless.
Over time, busy with her own life, she lost track of his whereabouts, until the night she saw his face on the evening news. White teeth, tanned face, blonder hair and a different name. Yet Dickie beyond a slice of doubt. The shock had sent her into a funk for a few days, trying to arrange the pieces in place. She knew from Gloria that he’d lost his father young, and been adopted.
Isabel put the memory aside and slipped back onto her sunny porch with Matteo and Lu. They were both staring at her.
Matteo said, “He’s at the hotel. Right now. Fuchs is a guest of the Rockefellers.”
A cold wind blew through her mind.
One man.
Two women.
Both dead.
Matteo ran his hands through his hair. “I’ve met Fuchs a couple times, and never once did I ever recognize him from O‘ahu. How can that be?”
“You only really met him once, though, didn’t you? At the house party in Kailua. That night at the bar didn’t count, when you were with Alice,” Isabel said.
“You remember her name?”
She shrugged. “You aren’t the only one who remembers things.”
“I do know that the guy rubbed me the wrong way. He was so cocksure he was going to beat you at chess, and then you clobbered him. I wanted to hold up your hand and walk you around the place like the champ that you were. Give you a gold belt or something,” Matteo said, half smiling.
“He looks different now. His hair is longer and lighter, and he got a tan. Maybe even had his teeth fixed, whitened or something,” Isabel said.
“Never trust a man who dyes his hair. Journalism 101,” Matteo said.
“We need to tell Rapoza,” Lu said.
“Did Senator Fuchs know Joni Diaz? We know he had motive for Gloria,” Isabel asked.
Lu explained what she knew, how Joni had alluded to being in love with someone and not able to tell. “But there’s nothing concrete. Especially with no body. I’m afraid that it could end up being the same scenario as with Gloria. Girl missing, presumed drowned. No real questions asked.”
She thought of the folded piece of paper resting patiently in a koa box in her closet. “Not if I can help it,” Isabel said.
Matteo looked up. “You know something?”
“I should have brought this forward a long time ago. But I had already appealed to everyone I knew to investigate Thompson... Fuchs...whatever, and been shut down at every turn.”
She went into the bedroom and came out with the box. She set it on the table and they all crowded around. Yellowed with time, the middle fold cracked through in a few spots. Isabel smoothed out the paper.
It contained a coded message that had come through in late 1944. The Japanese had recently changed additives again, and much of the message was garbled, but Isabel had sat up when the name Kuehn appeared out of the mix. Otto Kuehn. Father of Dickie’s so-called friend. German spy.
Frustrated at the quality of the message, she nevertheless persisted at decoding it. Between the static, words emerged: Explosions at Pearl...ships being prepared for transport... LSTs sunk, many killed and missing, 10 buildings destroyed...ammunition believed...destination Marianas... Kuehn...payment delivered... Tomimura.
There had been a press blackout on the West Loch disaster, so how did the Japanese know about it?
The linguists believed that beyond the information about the explosion, the message referred to a town in Japan where Kuehn must have had ties, where payment would be made: Tomimura. But Kuehn was locked up, and Isabel felt strongly that there was something between the lines that they were missing. She had that tingle down her neck.
She looked at Matteo. “Does Lu know?”
“I just told her what I know, which isn’t much.”
Lu reached out and grabbed her hand, a reassuring gesture. “I always wondered what you were leaving out about the war years. And I’m not surprised, really.”
“You realize this is all still classified, don’t you? We can’t be having this conversation,” Isabel said.
“What conversation?” Matteo asked.
“I don’t know what kind of trouble I could get in for even having this message in my possession. I made a copy of this at three a.m. while working the night shift, and kept it hidden in the hem of my bathrobe,” she told them.
Matteo’s leg was bouncing again, in that way it always did when he got excited. Or nervous. “Are you going to tell us what it says?”
She told them about the message, and then added the kicker. “We had a few linguists that really knew their stuff, but none agreed with my theory that To-mi-mu-ra was not a town but a name.” Isabel pointed to the word, which she’d hashed up into syllables with a pencil. “Mura means town, but in some cases it can also be son. And when you combine the two together, you get Tomi-son, which is how the Japanese would pronounce Thompson.”
Reading it now, it was so clear.
A light rain started up outside, seemingly out of the blue. This was the first time Isabel had ever told anyone outside of FRUPAC, which was where the CIU unit had relocated after the Dungeon.
Matteo and Lu exchanged glances. “Are you sure about this?” he asked.
Isabel tucked her hair behind her ears. “For a long time, I wasn’t. We had a few top-notch linguists, but they weren’t well versed in some of the nuances of Japanese cursive and older forms of writing. Sometimes that made it hard for them to think outside the box. At one point, I took on the job of translating a recovered diary, and had to delve deeper. But I gave in and had to trust that they knew what they were talking about. But it nagged at me.”
“I’d believe you over them any day,” Matteo said.
It was still hard to believe that Matteo Russi was here on her coffee farm, brown eyes looking her way. She went on, feeling more than a little disarmed. “Then, about five or six years ago, I was over at Mr. Hamada’s getting some seedlings and something he said reminded me of the message. Old man Hamada was born in Japan, so I asked him what he thought. I didn’t give him any details, obviously, but asked if Tomimura could be a Japanese version of an American name. He said definitely.”
“So, let’s say we have an intercepted message from Tokyo, and it ties Thompson to Kuehn—”
“We already know that Thompson worked in Kuehn’s warehouse,” Isabel said.
“How did the FBI miss him on the first go-around?” Matteo asked.
“Because he’s smart. While Kuehn was living large on his Japanese salary, Dickie remained anonymous in the shadows. And then he joined the navy. You’ve seen him in a debate, haven’t you? Smooth as butter,” Isabel said.
“Can we take this message to Rapoza as evidence?” Lu asked.
“I need to make a call first. Lu, why don’t you show Mr. Russi around. Maybe check on Mele. She’s out back, ready to pop.”
Isabel watched them go. Seeing the two of them together was like watching an old movie and a new one side by side. Two worlds colliding. Maybe the compass on the watch had led him here, finally swinging to its true north. Just before they reached the edge of the wall, he slowed, turned back and caught her watching. He smiled.
Ever since her conversation with Mr. Hamada, Isabel had thought about tracking down Hudson and telling her story, asking for advice. They’d left on good terms. In fact, by the time the war ended, Isabel was often the one who got handed the “hard” messages first. Last she’d heard, Hudson was living in the mountains of New Mexico, retired and raising alpacas. It always fascinated her to hear where her coworkers had settled, and what kinds of peculiar professions or hobbies they’d taken up when the war ended. The war had been a great equalizer. It was sometimes easy to forget that just like everyone had a life before the war, everyone would have a life after. Everyone who survived. But also, that life would never ever go back to normal. Not for them.
His wife picked up on the second ring, and Isabel strummed her fingers on her address book while waiting.
“What a pleasant surprise,” he said, sounding genuinely happy to hear from her.
They made small talk for a few minutes, catching up on lives, and then Isabel told him the whole story. She’d been anxious about the part where she copied the message, but Hudson didn’t bat an eye.
“Why didn’t you come to me at the time with the message?” he asked.
“None of the guys agreed with me. I thought maybe I was losing my mind, or wasn’t being objective. It was a particularly active time and I’d been awake for what seemed like weeks.”
He chuckled. “You probably had been.”
“I should have pushed it, but I had no proof of anything, and by the time I spoke with Hamada, the war had been over for fifteen years. It didn’t seem like enough to come forward and point a finger at a US senator.”
Isabel looked at the photo of Walt on the wall, watching over her, as always. She was doing the right thing, at long last.
“Listen, this is an unusual situation. I’ll make some calls and get back to you.” There was silence on the line, and then he said, “Fucking A, as Denny would say. This could get ugly.”
“It already is ugly.”
After hanging up with Hudson, she walked back onto the porch, glancing around for Lu and Matteo. Drizzle had given way to steamy sunshine. She walked toward the garage to see if they were with Mele. A strange grunting arose from behind the structure. She started running, and made it in time to see a foal’s head slip out of Mele, who was lying on her side on the grass. Matteo and Lu were standing back, near the rock wall, watching. Lu had seen this before, but Matteo looked unsure.
When he saw Isabel, he said, “I hope you know something about how this works.”
“Mele knows what to do, she doesn’t need me. But I like to be here just in case.”
Mele kept turning around to see the foal, encased in a bag of amniotic fluid. Its tiny perfect profile was enough to fill even a bitter heart with love. Isabel came around and stood by Lu and Matteo, keeping a healthy distance.
“Easy there, mama. We’re here with you,” she said.
Mele pushed. Nothing happened. The donkey then stood up and started walking in circles, as if trying to see her foal.
“Is there a problem?” Matteo asked.
“I don’t think so, it just takes time.”
They moved back so they were sitting on a bench under a giant jacaranda tree, letting nature run its course. Mele lay down again on her side, eyes wide, nostrils flaring. They waited a short while longer, and still the foal didn’t come out. Isabel knew that the main danger was having it suck back into the birth canal and drowning. She glanced over at Matteo, and their eyes met. Even though he had no idea what he was doing, having him here felt good.
When twenty more minutes passed, Isabel began to worry. She pulled out her birthing box, with towels and antiseptic and gauze, then went over and bent down next to Mele, running her hand down the animal’s back. The foal was in the correct position, head resting on its two front legs, one slightly forward of the other for easy passage.
“Push, Mele, push,” Isabel said.
Mele let out a long moan. She appeared to be straining more than usual.
“I think she needs help. Lu, can you go call Dr. Greenwell and ask her to come as soon as she can? Her number is on the fridge. Matteo, I need you over here with me.”
A second later, he was kneeling beside her. “Just tell me what to do.”
“I’m going to break the bag, and I need you to grab the legs and gently but firmly pull.” She pointed toward Mele’s underbelly. “You have to pull in this direction or you could hurt the foal’s back.”
“Roger.”
Matteo was dressed in all white and looking very stylish, but it was the worst possible attire for the job he was about to do. “You may want to take your shirt off,” she said.
He looked down, then said, “Nah. I can always get a new one.”
They were kneeling next to each other, shoulder to shoulder. His sureness gave her confidence.
“So as soon as I break the bag, you pull, okay?”
He nodded. All signs of nervousness had left him. Isabel broke the bag and wiped away the clear film over the foal’s tiny, precious nose, and the foal took its first breath.
“Now,” she said.
Matteo gripped the foal’s ankles and pulled steadily in the direction she’d shown him. The foal seemed wedged in place for a moment, but once its front half was free, the rest of its little body slid out in one big whoosh. Small and wet and dark, the foal was all legs and ears.
“Now we step away,” Isabel told him.
Mele took over from there. Nudging and licking and mothering. The tiny foal made a few failed attempts to get its legs under itself.
“It’s a girl!” Isabel said.
Matteo’s clothes were no longer dry. Or white. “Would you look at that. Never thought I’d add donkey midwife to the résumé,” he said.
Again, the foal unfolded her legs and tried to push herself up. This time she succeeded in standing. Mele sat back and watched, head drooping in exhaustion.
“Probably not what you expected this morning,” Isabel said quietly.
“You can say that again,” he whispered. “But look at that little thing.”
She snuck a look at Matteo, who was watching the foal with such tenderness he may as well have been the father. The foal was now prancing around on wobbly new legs.
“Have you ever seen a birth before? Of any kind?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I’ve seen men die, but never, not once, watched anything being born.”
Isabel smiled. “It almost feels like each new birth helps cancel out more than its share of sadness in the world.”
He seemed to be studying her, his eyes boring deep. “Some things have that effect.”