I ran my finger over the names printed on the laminated page of the yellowing book. Aha! There he was, the youngest in his division, not even able to grow a beard yet, standing tall in his stiff uniform.
Towards the end of the war, they were so desperate for a fighting force that he hadn’t needed to be 18 yet.
“This one,” I told the short Japanese woman who had pulled the album from the state archives for me. She scurried off to the copy machine.
I’d come here both to vacation, and to find out more about my family. I hated the crowds and traffic around Pearl Harbor, but I just had to know. I never really knew my maternal grandfather despite feeling extremely close to my grandmother, but after his death, I found out how history and his never ending wanderlust made him into something of a nonviolent James Bond. It was like one of the stories I would like to write one day, if I could just shift this damn block!
He had enlisted at age 17, going straight into the World War II meatgrinder that was the Pacific theatre. I always loved Hawaii anyway, and the VA was so backed up right now that I had no hope of getting a copy of his service record. So why not go to the museums and archives in person?
My grandfather had done amazing things, all without firing a single weapon. He wasn’t an official conscientious objector, but aimed at his first human in a fight…and froze. He just couldn’t do it. He never admitted this, and instead sought out military positions where he would never be in that situation again. Hehad an amazing aptitude for both navigation and mechanics. He repaired the aircraft carrier he was sent to, and later, during the Cold War, acted as the navigator for special reconnaissance planes that would fly over Soviet enemy territory, looking for nukes.
Probably the most dangerous job in the world, second to having to actually fly the thing. If his calculations were off even by a small amount, they would crash or run out of fuel and be at the mercy of their worst enemies. But, he did it, and did it perfectly.
I was completely fascinated. This wasn’t simply the taciturn, sun-bleached old man who always knew the way home through the Lake Superior islands that were my family’s summer playground, but a spy, a hero. I unconsciously raised my hand in front of me, holding it up at an angle, thumb pointing up from the fingers, in imitation of his familiar gesture towards the night sky. Annoyingly, the earworm of a song from the kids’ movie “Moana” surfaced again. Away, away, we keep our island in our mind, and when it’s time to go home, we know the way…
An hour later, I resurfaced into the soup-like salty air, feeling the weight, but with a stack of papers clutched in my arms. The archivist had been so helpful!
“Let’s go to the beach, it’s too hot to do anything else right now,” my wife groaned. “Then we can get dinner and you can look at what they found for you later tonight.” I nodded. Already, my focus was slipping as the mercury rose. Still, I slipped the photograph into my pocket when we left the car.
Several hours later, feeling sleepy and full, I nevertheless tried to get my tongue around the road signs with Hawaiian names. The sun was sinking towards the horizon. “Ku—alo—ha” I enunciated carefully. I had tried, really tried, to learn Hawaiian, but with Duolingo as my sole guide, I honestly had only gotten through the basics.
My wife sighed. “I’m tired. Enough with the Hawaiian. Let’s just stop off this road and enjoy the sunset.” She found a minor cattle track leading off the small arterial road we were on, and we walked a little ways back from the lights and road so as to have a better view.
The sun had almost disappeared when the drumming began. Faint but distinct. She couldn’t hear it, but I could. She also couldn’t see the torches in the near-darkness, growing steadily closer.
“Go to the car and wait for me. I just want a few minutes alone to meditate while we’re out here,” I whispered, forcing myself to speak calmly. I wouldn’t run. The elders said if you ran from them, they would chase you. I didn’t feel the real panic until after she had done as I asked. Now I faced them alone.
Or rather, didn’t dare face them alone. One of my coworkers who had moved to the island joked that she survived these things the same way she had survived her worst law professors; under no circumstances loom them in the eye. But the stakes were much higher here than having to answer a question you were unprepared for. I even closed my eyes to be extra sure I couldn’t possibly be looking at them.
The drums grew even louder. A conch shell blew in the distance. I smelled burning, body odor, and some half-remembered childhood scent, long buried.
Then the drums suddenly stopped. At least two male voices were having an argument in Hawaiian. I caught one of them, one I seemed to somehow recognize, saying “no,” and “child of the land.” Then, a tonal shift. Another voice.
“family…yes…” I picked out of his barrage of sounds. Not daring to move or open my eyes, I felt arms around me. But not to hurt me. Not to take me. Someone was hugging me.
But I didn’t smell my wife. Instead, the scent from my childhood was stronger than ever. I felt warm and at peace, even though all the touch around me was cold. I felt only love.
When the sounds, feelings, and smells had been gone for several minutes, I opened my eyes. The photo of my grandfather’s division lay face-up on the dark sand.
Rattled, but glad to be safe, I tried to enjoy the rest of my vacation. A while after coming back home, I visited my grandmother, and accidentally knocked over an old toiletry bottle while helping clean. And the smell from that night in Hawaii, from childhood, filled my lungs.
My grandmother was a bit upset about the spill. It was the last bottle of my grandfather’s favorite cologne.