T. Boyle - San Miguel

She was sitting in the rocking chair out on the porch, knitting and listening to the Philharmonic broadcast, Sunday afternoon, a weak sun running to milk in the sky and the temperature tolerable because the wind was down. The girls were out in the meadow throwing a ball and playing keep-away with the dog, whose high joyous yips had been punctuating Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony—“The Pastoral”—for the past ten minutes, and Herbie was at the far end of the porch, dismantling the clock that had suddenly stopped working that morning. What was wrong with this scenario? Nothing. Nothing at all. It was a picture of domestic tranquility and the deepest indwelling peace, one more day in a succession of them, husband, family, home, the sky above and the familiar boards of the porch beneath her feet. And then the announcer came over the air and interrupted the broadcast and nothing was ever the same again.

They listened to the president’s speech the next day, trying to make sense of what had happened. It had been a sneak attack, premeditated, the Japanese ambassador in Washington as false as a three-dollar bill and the emperor’s fleet simultaneously attacking Malaya, Hong Kong, Guam, the Philippines and Wake and Midway Islands, spreading east across the Pacific. She couldn’t believe it. It seemed fantastic, like the Mercury Theatre broadcast that had caused such panic three years back, only the invaders were the Japanese this time, not the Martians.

Herbie couldn’t sit still. He twisted the dial. Paced the room. Muttered under his breath. All the while, the president’s voice came at them, humming, buzzing, fractured with static: Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger. She tried to focus on the words, but it was as if the president were speaking from the bottom of a very deep jar, every syllable ringing and resonating till all she could hear was the phrase “a state of war,” but that was enough. More than enough. She got up out of her chair and went to Herbie, to her support, her pillar, and took his hand. “What does it mean?” she asked.

“What does it mean?” The look he gave her was savage. He’d fought in the war to end all wars, given his blood, his flesh, a full year and a half of his life, and here was the next war sweeping them up whether they liked it or not. “It means they’re going to try to evacuate us, that’s what — this is just the excuse they’ve been looking for.”

“But why? Certainly we’re not in any danger, not way out here, are we?”

“The Pacific Fleet’s gone, Elise, don’t you understand? There’s nothing between the Japs and us. And you can bet they’re going to hopscotch island to island till they take Hawaii and then they’ll come for us, for the whole west coast, and we’re defenseless without warships.” He squeezed her hand — too hard, much too hard, almost as if he didn’t know what he was doing — then abruptly dropped it. “But I tell you, I’m not going anywhere.”

“Can’t they force us?”

He gave a wild look round the room, the radio going still, more static, another announcer, more failure, more hate, more fear, then strode over to it and flicked it off. In the next moment he was across the room lifting one of his rifles down from the wall and raising it to his shoulder to sight down the barrel. “I don’t know what they can or can’t do,” he said. “I don’t know anything anymore.” He leaned the gun against the wall, then lifted another down and hefted it in both hands. “But I tell you, anybody comes here to threaten us, whether it’s the U.S. Navy or the Japs themselves, I’m going to be ready for them.”

* * *

Christmas was dismal that year. All aircraft had been grounded, which meant that George wasn’t able to bring out the tree or supplies or the gifts they’d ordered for the girls (one headline, which she wouldn’t wind up seeing till well into January, read, “War Grounds Santa: Christmas a Bust on San Miguel Island”). The authorities were putting restrictions on boat traffic as well, imposing a blockade on all ships in the Western Combat Zone, extending out one hundred fifty miles from the coast, Mexico to Canada. No one stopped by, not even the Vails, who were under the same proscription as they. There was no mail, incoming or outgoing — no letters from friends and relatives, no magazines or newspapers, no Christmas cards. Even the Weather Service froze up communications. Herbie managed to fashion a wreath of ice plant, but the shade of green was all wrong and within a day the whole thing had turned yellow and begun to drip a colorless viscous fluid that ran down the front door in riverine streaks to puddle on the doorstep.

She did her best to craft presents for the girls — rag dolls, paper animals, necklaces of seashells — but supplies were limited, and Christmas dinner, while it did feature fresh-caught halibut in a sauce of flour and evaporated milk made piquant with a sprinkle of dried red pepper left over from the shearers’ last visit, was short on potatoes and fresh vegetables, and the Christmas pudding wound up being represented by an eggless, butterless and very flat vanilla cake sprinkled with raisins. Even worse, from Herbie’s perspective, was that there was no whiskey, the old trove long gone and the two bottles of Grand Sire that George had brought them at Thanksgiving drained to the last drop. About the only thing that made it seem like Christmas was a program of faint scratchy carols they were able to get on the radio, but even the radio signal was sketchy in those days and weeks after Pearl Harbor.

The two Navy boys — and they were boys, eighteen and twenty respectively — showed up on New Year’s Day. They came slouching up the road from the harbor carrying knapsacks and with a single rifle between them. A Navy gunboat had apparently dropped them off, but neither she nor Herbie had seen or heard it — the first indication she had that anyone was there came from Marianne. “Mommy, Mommy!” Marianne cried, dancing into the kitchen, “there’s somebody coming up the road!”

She and Herbie dropped what they were doing and went out to the gate to meet them, Herbie flicking imaginary dust from his epaulettes and she pushing the hair out of her face. For their part, the Navy boys seemed to be in no hurry, dawdling even, swiveling their heads right and left, looking pained and wary. City boys, she said to herself. The thought was automatic: she’d earned her bona fides, she was the pioneer here and they were the mainlanders, the neophytes — she wouldn’t be surprised if they’d never been farther than a block from a streetcar in their lives. Just look at them, creeping along as if they expected the sky to fall on them.

When they reached the gate, the taller one — an ectomorph with an Adam’s apple as big as a goiter — set down his bag and saluted Herbie. “Seaman First Class Reg Bauer,” he said, “at your service. And this here’s my shipmate, Seaman Apprentice Frederick Fredrickson.”

The other man — boy — had an amiable face and small soft girlish hands. His feet, in their now-dusty standard-issue shoes, couldn’t have been much bigger than Marianne’s. He doffed his cap and gave a brisk nod of his head. “Call me Freddie,” he said.

There was an awkward interval. Herbie was no help — he was bristling again, his hair mussed, the book he’d been reading dangling from the fingers of one hand. The girls, same as with Frank Furlong, just stared as if they’d never seen another human being before in all their lives, and that was something they needed to get over, this island shyness. It wasn’t right. They had to learn how to manage in society. Finally she said, “I’m Mrs. Lester — Elise — and this is my husband, Herbert. How can we help you?”