Strong Medicine (61 page)

Suddenly, beside her, Andrew exclaimed, "There!"

"There, what?"

He handed over the binoculars and pointed. "Focus on that second big

window-above the dock and left of the clock tower."

Puzzled, she did as instructed. "What am I looking for?"

"You'll see."

The group around them had thinned out. In addition to Andrew and Celia,

only two or three passengers remained, the rest having returned to their

cabins to prepare for going ashore.

Celia adjusted the binoculars and moved them, exploring. Almost at once she

cried, "I do see! And I don't believe it

"You can believe it," Andrew said. "They're real."

"Lisa and Bruce!" Joyously, Celia shouted her children's names. Then,

holding the binoculars with one hand, she began waving frantically with the

other. Andrew joined in. Behind the plate glass, in the spot where Andrew

had observed them, Lisa and Bruce, laughing and excited, waved back.

Celia was incredulous. "I don't understand. We weren't expecting the

children. How did they get here?"

"I was expecting them," Andrew told her calmly. "In fact, 1

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arranged it. It took several phone calls from Singapore when you weren't

around, but - . ."

Celia, still overwhelmed, seemed hardly to hear. "Of course, I'm happy to

see them. But Lisa and Bruce have summer jobs. How could they get away?"

"That was easy too--when I explained why it was I wanted them here." He

retrieved the binoculars and put them in a case.

"I still don't understand," Celia said. "You wanted the children?"

"That's right," Andrew assured her. "It was so that I could keep a promise.

One made many years ago."

:'A promise to whom?"

'To you."

She looked at him, perplexed.

Andrew said gently, prompting, "It was on our honeymoon. We were talking,

and you told me why you'd preferred a honeymoon in the Bahamas, rather than

Hawaii. You said Hawaii would have made you sad. Then you explained about

your father, and his dying at Pearl Harbor, going down with the Arizona. "

"Wait!" Celia's voice was barely a whisper. Yes, now she did remember . .

. remembered after all these years.

On that honeymoon day on a Bahamas beach, she had described herfather to

Andrew, described the little she remembered of Chief Petty Officer Willis

de Grey . . . "When he was home the house was always noisy, full offun. He

was big, and with a booming voice, and he made people laugh, and loved

children, and was strong . . . "

And Andrew, who had been understanding then and ever since, had asked,

"Have you been to Pearl Harbor?"

She had answered, "Though I'm not sure why, I'm not ready yet. You'll think

this strange, but one day Id Uke to go to where my father died, though not

alone. Id like to take my children. "

It was then that Andrew promised, "One day, when we have our chddren and

they can understand, then I'll arrange it.

A promise . . . twenty years ago.

As the Santa Isabella eased alongside Pier 10 and mooring lines snaked out,

Andrew informed Celia quietly, "We're going tomorrow; it's all arranged.

Going to the Arizona Memorial, to your father's ship and where he died. And

just as you wanted, your children will be with you."

Celia's lips trembled. Speech seemed beyond her as she reached out and

grasped both Andrew's hands, Her eyes rose to his, and in

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them was a look of adoration such as few men in their lifetimes ever see.

When she could manage it, her voice heavy with emotion, she declared,

"Oh, you beautiful, beautiful man!"

2

At 10 A.m. a driver and a rented limousine ordered by Andrew were waiting

for the family outside the Kahala Hilton Hotel. The late August day was

warm, though not oppressive, with a light breeze from the south-Kona

weather, Hawaiians called it. A few scattered tufts of cumulus dotted an

otherwise clear sky.

Earlier, Lisa and Bruce had joined their parents for breakfast in a

pleasant suite that overlooked Waialae golf course and the Pacific Ocean to

the south. Today and yesterday there had been a steady, happy stream of

talk as the four of them filled in, with descriptions, experiences, and

animated questioning, the six-month gap during which they had been apart.

Lisa had completed, with happy enthusiasm, her freshman year at Stanford.

Bruce, soon to enter his final year at the Hill, had applied for entry to

Williams College in Massachusetts-itself historic, in keeping with what

continued to be his main academic interest.

As part of that interest, and in anticipation of today, Bruce announced he

had recently completed a study of the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

He informed the others matter-of-factly, "If you have any questions, I

think I can answer them."

"You're insufferable!" Lisa had told him. "But since your service is free,

I may condescend to use it."

Celia, while managing to keep up with family banter over the breakfast

table, felt within herself an unusual sense of detachment. It was a feeling

difficult to define but somehow, on this day, it seemed as if a part of her

past had returned-or shortly would-to join the present. On waking this

morning she had been conscious of a sense of occasion that had persisted,

and she had dressed accordingly, carefully selecting a crisp white pleated

skirt and a tailored blouse of navy blue and white. She wore white sandals

and would

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carry a white straw handbag. The effect, which she intended, was neither

casual nor unduly formal, but smart and . . . the words came to her:

caring and respectful. Inspecting herself before joining the others, a

thought about her father sprang to mind, a thought she tried to resist at

first, then allowed to take shape: If only he had lived to see me now-his

daughter, with my familyl

As if sensing something of Celia's feelings in advance, the others had

dressed less casually than usual. Lisa, who the day before had worn

jeans, today had on a simple but attractive flowered voile dress; it

brought out her young and glowing beauty, and for a moment Celia saw

herself at Lisa's age-nineteen-twenty-seven years ago.

Andrew had chosen a lightweight suit and, for the first time in many

days, was wearing a tie. Her husband, Celia thought, who would be fifty

soon and whose hair was now entirely gray, looked increasingly

distinguished as years went by. Bruce, still boyish though with serious

ways, was handsome in a Hill School blazer with an open shirt.

As the Jordan family approached the limousine, the driver touched his

uniform cap politely and held a rear door open. He addressed Andrew. "Dr.

Jordan? You're going to the Arizona, I believe."

"That's right." Andrew consulted a paper. "But I was told to tell you not

to go to the Visitor Center first, but to the private dock of

CINCPACFLT."

The driver raised his eyebrows. "You must be a V.I.P."

"Not me." Andrew smiled and looked toward Celia. "My wife."

Inside the limousine, as they moved away, Lisa asked, "What's

CINC-whatever you said?"

It was Bruce who answered. "Commander-in-Chief Pacific Fleet. Hey, Dad,

you pufled wires!"

Celia gazed at Andrew curiously. "How did you arrange all this?"

"I used your name," he told her. "In case you don't know, my dear, it

still cuts ice, and you have a lot of people who admire you."

When the others pressed him, he admitted, "If you must know, I telephoned

the Felding-Roth regional manager in Hawaii."

Celia injected, "Tano Akamura?"

"That's right. And he asked me to tell you that you're greatly missed.

Anyway, it happens that Akamura's wife has a sister mar-

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ried to an admiral. The rest was easy. So we're going to the Arizona in

an admiral's barge."

"Dad," Bruce said, "that's great staff work!"

His father smiled. "Thank you."

"Thank you, " Celia said. Then she asked, "When you were talking to Tano,

did you by any chance ask him how things were?"

Andrew hesitated. "You mean at Felding-Roth . . . and about Montayne?"

"Yes-,,

He had hoped she wouldn't ask, but answered, "Apparently very well."

"That's not all you found out," Celia insisted. "Tell me the rest."

Reluctantly Andrew added, "He said Montayne is a big success and, in his

words, 'selling like crazy.' "

Celia nodded. It was really no more than everyone expected, and confirmed

the earlier news given out after Montayne's launching. But it did

reinforce the recent question in her mind: had her resignation been hasty

and foolish? Then, determinedly for today-this special day-she pushed

such thoughts aside.

The limousine moved swiftly, using the Lunalilo and Moanalua freeways and

passing downtown Honolulu with its modern highrise buildings. In about

twenty minutes they left the freeway near Aloha Stadium, entering, soon

after, the U.S. Navy Reservation at Aiea Bay. The smallish CINCPACFLT

private dock was in a pleasant landscaped area used by military families.

A fifty-foot navy utility boat-the so-called admiral's barge~-was waiting

at the dock, its diesel motors running. The boat was operated by two

naval ratings in dress whites. A half-dozen other passengers were already

seated under a main-deck canopy.

One of the ratings, a young woman with "bowhook" duty, cast off the

moorings after the Jordans were aboard. The coxswain, on a control bridge

midships, eased the boat from the dock and into the busy stream of Pearl

Harbor traffic.

The breeze felt earlier on land was stronger on the water, and wavelets

slapped the utility boat's hull, sending occasional light spray inboard.

The harbor water was a dull gray-green, with little or nothing visible

beneath the surface.

The woman sailor provided a commentary as they circled Ford Island

counterclockwise. Andrew, Lisa and Bruce listened attentively, but Celia,

preoccupied with private memories, found her thoughts wandering and

caught only snatches.

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"Sunday morning, December 7, 1941 . . . Japanese dive bombers, with torpedo

and fighter planes, and midget submarines, attacked without warning . . .

first wave at 7:55 A.M. . . . at 8:05 explosions rocked Battleship Row . .

. 8:10, Arizona, hit in the forward magazine, exploded and sank . . . by

8:12 Utah had rolled over . . . California and West Virginia settled to the

bottom . . . Oklahoma capsized . . . casualties, 2,403 killed, 1,178

wounded . . ."

It was all so long ago, she thought-thirty-six years; better than half a

lifetime. Yet never, until this moment, had it seemed so close.

The navy boat, rolling in a slight chop near the Pearl Harbor entrance

channel, altered course as it rounded the southern tip of Ford Island.

Suddenly, directly ahead, was the Arizona Memorial, white in bright

sunshine.

Here is where it happened, and I have come at last. Lines from a poem

sprang to Celia's mind. "Give me my scallop-shell of quiet . . . And thus