EFM telegrams were designed to streamline standardized
messages for Armed Forces use. They used numeric stand-ins for words and
phrases describing news common to separated families: packages mailed, birthdays,
anniversaries, and babies. Rosa sent one to Murray to let him know of the
arrival of their friends Phyllis and Otto's first child. It didn't occur to her
that he wouldn't immediately know who had given birth to little Johanna, but Murray wasn't much
interested in babies and had forgotten the birth was imminent. He thought the
telegram was a not-funny prank.
 |
| EFM example: http://atlantic-cable.com/CableCos/Services/index.htm |
My wonderful wapiti...
Your EFM caused considerable excitement and not a little
confusion here at the office. I was putting in a shift in the Inner Sanctum
[Murray was a censor and a code specialist for the ACS, and took turns on those
jobs. Coders were locked in to a special room while on duty] which is really
another way of saying that I was working on the Aleutian opus, when Bill Ross,
the saxonish censor on duty, stuck his head in the door and asked, "How
long have you been up here now?" I told him a year and a day and he backed
out looking puzzled. A little while later he came in and handed me the
telegram, neatly translated and typed out with the EFM figures down at the
bottom so I could confirm them personally. He then asked for cigars.
I was pretty deep in the Aleutian opus. A little while
before our OIC, Hoban, had been talking with a couple of friends about sending
an EFM and I rather thought that Ross had overheard them and decided to play a
joke. It seemed a little corny to me and I said so. Bill said the telegram had
really come in and I said "Oh hell yeah, I don't doubt you a bit." He
left. I could hear the boys talking in the other room, but I couldn't figure
out what they were saying. Whenever I put my head out later in the evening,
they kidded me but not much.
Gene came over round eleven. I told him about the bum gag,
and he grinned and said they were trying to rope him in on it. It seems that
Ross had phoned him at the other building and told him about the telegram and
asked if it could possibly be true. Gene had assured him no. But Gene, too,
thought the whole thing was something that had been cooked up in the office.
Ross said that I seemed upset and that he had been afraid maybe he shouldn't
have said anything. Gene told him that I was probably upset at being
interrupted in my writing.
Ronnlund, who is in our hut and is a pretty good friend,
told me that the message really came in. Since all such gags are ridden pretty
hard, I thought he was kidding too. I'm afraid I was a bit impolite. That
evening Gene and I were playing chess on my bed and talking about the gag. Gene
said it was just possible that someone in the states had sent the telegram as a
gag. I said no, we didn't have any friends who would be doing something like
that; none of our friends thought having kids a joking matter. And then, of
course, came the dawn. I don’t know how I happened to forget about P and O,
except that I've been thinking only of you and the book.
 |
| Phyllis and Johanna, after the war |
...
For the last few days I've been getting ready so I can get
out of here as soon as my orders arrive. Niel Atkinson, who is at another station
but as you will remember came up with me, got his orders the other day, and so
did another of the men who came up. So mine should be along at any moment. I
can't really expect them to arrive until this weekend, but I keep hopefully
watching the teletypes. When they come in I have to pass a routine physical
examination, an examination in military courtesy, and turn in my equipment to
supply. That usually takes two days ... After that I turn in my request for
transportation, and from then on it is just a question of whether the weather
is good enough for the planes to get in and out. I'll phone from Anchorage on
my way down. ...
You've mentioned in your last couple of letters that I
shouldn't change, Nunny, and I've been trying to figure out if I have changed
much in the past year. I really don't think so. I think I'm a little less
exuberant in conversation, and I know that I am a little more anti-social. I've
developed a passionate hatred for radio and a pretty strong hatred for most
popular music except Latin-American and, upon occasion, real swing. I know
better than ever before that I have no use for popular opinion, of me or of
anything else, and that most important thing in the world to me is you. But all
of these things are just intensifications of old attitudes. I can concentrate a
bit better than before, and I believe I take more pleasure in writing. I think
you will recognize me. Somewhere between now and Seattle I must take the
precaution of removing my camouflage. It is really quite luxuriant now, and
Jimmy Maceda, a new man in our hut, refers to me as Uncle Joe, because of the
full-lipped foliage. [With his wavy dark hair, brown eyes and olive skin,
Murray did slightly resemble Stalin.]
I'll write to Bill [Fett], explaining that I did not mean to
be facetious in my reply to his Fourth Dimension letter. But I can't say a lot
more than that because, re-reading it, I still can't figure it out at all. ...
A letter came from Carmen [Fett] a couple of days ago, but there
was a mistake. She enclosed one she had written to Alfredo. I'm sending it back
down to here and, since it has to go through military censorship and the base
censor's (it's in Spanish) I read it. I was surprised at how little trouble I
had with the Spanish. It was pretty much like a letter to me anyway, for it
dealt mainly with the American attitude toward Spanish and Latin-American
writers, and with Steinbeck and Hemingway. The line I liked best was that the
Mexicans shouldn't feel superior to American literature because Americans know
only machines and money. That is not true, said Carmen: their business is one
thing and their literature another.
That reminds me that I haven't told you about the wonderful,
drunken bullsession that Dave and Gene and I had a few nights ago. Dave was
doing a diabolic word portrait of a kid who was up her for a while who had
pretensions of culture with the C upper-case. Dave defined his attitude as
being, "If it isn't art, fuggat." A little later Dave was asking
about the cost and time of a Mexican divorce. He wanted to know how long after
a Mexican divorce one could marry again. I said I didn't know but I believed
immediately. Dave said "Oh, gloryosky! A double ceremony."
And now I must write a couple of other letters that I have
delayed for months, my love. Oh so soon, so soon. Hasta prontissimo.
Your
adoring,
M
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