Toxic Love

Mom and Robert Oppenheimer taught me that love is toxic.

Let me start at the beginning. Not long after my marriage began falling apart in 2016—I was desperate to find answers. Why was it so hard for me to find love? After all, my Japanese immigrant parents had been married for almost sixty years, their entire time in the United States. Dad, a quintessential physics professor, was a quiet man. Mom, nine years younger, was more social despite her limited English. True, they were not the lovey-dovey types like some of my friends’ parents. In fact, Mom bitterly complained about Dad during their last years together. But I still believed deep down that they loved each other. They stayed together till “death do us part”. I tried to follow their example - I did well in school but I failed in marriage. Multiple times.

I met and fell in love with my last husband in my fifties, old enough to know better, I thought. But only two years after we married, I saw the beginning of the end. Something inside me compelled me to uncover his secret - his arrest twenty-years earlier for a shameful, stupid act. Nothing could be hidden anymore on the transparent, all-knowing internet. My new husband’s loving demeanor disappeared overnight. He refused to go with me to a John Gottman-trained couples therapist. He didn’t believe in therapy. “No one is ever going to trust me if they know my secret,” he said and distanced himself from me.

During all the marital turmoil in my home, I visited Mom who lived ten minutes away. Like me, Mom kept her emotions in check. She wasn’t wallowing in grief after Dad died. She was moving on and cleaning out her house. I found her sitting on the floor of Dad’s office, surrounded by piles of letters from as far back as when he was a grad student at Tokyo University during the war. We were both surprised by all the stuff Dad had hidden. Maybe now I’ll finally learn how Mom and Dad started their life together in this country. I didn’t even know how they met or why they came to America. I felt somehow that knowing their story would give me some answers, if not save my marriage.

But instead, I was shocked to learn I had American relatives. I thought I was the first American-born Nisei in my family. As the eldest child of Japanese immigrants, I was keenly aware of how alone we were. I grew up in Boulder, Colorado where few people of color existed. It turned out Dad’s cousin, Robert Ishikawa was the first Nisei, the first American-born member of our family. He was born in Stockton in 1921, two years before Dad. Why did Dad keep these American relatives secret from me when I was so lonely growing up in Boulder?

Mom helped me track Robert down. But he and my Japanese American relatives were no longer in the States. He was still alive but living in Tokyo. What happened? I only found the answer when I met Robert in person. Then ninety-five years old, he was a retired doctor, living in Tokyo using his Japanese name, Eisei Ishikawa. Mom and I found Robert’s house in the maze of narrow streets near Meguro Station. His office was lined with awards of recognition for a long career as a pathologist. The stooped white-haired man greeted me warmly, as if we were old friends, not long lost relatives.

As we sat in his office, Robert switched from English to American-accented Japanese. “I used to be crazy about basketball,” he reminisced. It was clear Robert loved his idyllic California childhood as the son of a prominent doctor.

So how did Robert end up in Tokyo? On Thanksgiving Day of his sophomore year at Stockton High School, his parents and Grace were hit by a drunk driver. His parents were instantly killed and Grace was injured so she could never have children. Teenage Robert was sent to Japan to stay with relatives he had never met before. It was the Depression and times were hard. The Elders in Stockton thought that way young Robert would still have a chance to go to medical school and become a doctor like his father. “The plan was for me to come back to California after I got my medical degree.. But then Pearl Harbor happened,” he said.

I shuddered. I imagined Robert’s life turned into a nightmare. Not only was the young medical student separated from his friends and family in California, he was trapped in Tokyo.

His Japanese relatives, including my dad, did their best to support Robert in his effort to pick up where his own father left off. To live the American Dream. But shortly before Robert left his home in California, growing tensions in Japan between the conservatives and the liberals reached a breaking point. Right-wing militarists finally took over by attacking the Prime Minister’s residence and killing several top-level politicians. Then when the militarists made their insane surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, that only confirmed Robert and his Japanese relatives’ belief that the United States was a better country.

But when they heard about Robert’s sister Grace and her husband Henry getting arrested in San Francisco and then being sent to an American concentration camp, Robert must have thought, Wait, that can’t be. Americans can’t do that sort of thing. What about the Bill of Rights?

A few months later, an American B-25 got through Japan’s defenses and Robert thought, the Americans are going to win. This’ll be a short war. But then the fighting stretched on for years and on a single night in March 1945, hundreds of B-29 Superfortress aircraft, each carrying twenty thousand pounds of bombs, swarmed over Tokyo and woke Robert with the thunder of their engines. Their shower of incendiary napalm bomblets lit up the sky, as beautiful as fireworks. When the conflagration spread through Tokyo, Robert screamed at the pilots, “Stop. Stop. I’m down here.”

The next morning, he felt as if he were on a different planet. The familiar landmarks were all gone. He felt helpless as hundreds of injured women and children lined up outside their house because they heard of the American medical student living there. It was hard to feel proud of the devastation that surrounded him.

Five months later, two atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Although official reports denied serious damage, terrible rumors swirled about these new weapons. Japan surrendered and the American Occupation Forces quickly established themselves in Tokyo. General MacArthur’s staff put the young American doctor to work right away - interviewing survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Robert’s work was classified and only released decades later as “The Impact of the A-bomb, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

Oh my God. This is where all those horrible images came from. Grainy photos with captions like: “The charred body of a student lies on the road where he was walking.” Or “A fourteen-year-old girl with whole body burns.” Robert’s report was filled with gruesome images and heart-breaking testimony from medical staff, many of whom died from radiation poisoning.

Horrified, I thought, I don’t want to deal with this.

Robert added, “After I finished that report … I renounced my US citizenship.” That explained why he never came back to California.

Only later, after I got back to the States, did his decision sink in. With hindsight, I understood Robert’s situation. At that time, the Americans wanted Robert’s work kept secret because of the Cold War. American militarists believed that nuclear weapons would be used in future conflicts with the Communists. The North Koreans invaded South Korea. Vietnam and China were in turmoil. WWIII seemed to be on the horizon. The Americans needed information about their newest weapon and Japan provided the perfect testing ground. Robert could tell no one about his work.

He told me of his decision to renounce his American citizenship because he knew I would understand what that meant. Giving up all the ideals and hope we Americans hold dear. The belief that Americans are a decent people. A just people. At the time, I couldn’t imagine how disgusted Robert must have felt about his home country. I didn’t tell anyone about Robert. I just wanted to focus on my own little life and hold onto my marriage that was slipping through my fingers.

Eager to find a happier story, I went back to Dad’s office. There I found a folder with Mom’s name and the year 1955. My eighty-four-year-old mother was just as surprised as I was. The folder contained Dad’s essay titled Hashigaki (preface) explaining his courtship of Mom in Tokyo the summer of 1954. I liked the nerdy scientist’s attention to detail. He described the dress Mom wore, the movie they saw (Can Can at the Hibiya Theater) and even his growing desire for the beautiful young woman. This was what I wanted. A love story.

But as Mom helped me read Dad’s romantic reminisces, she grew increasingly irritated. “Ridiculous! I don’t remember any of this nonsense,” she said. At the time they married, Dad was thirty-two while Mom was only twenty-three. “Your father thought I was like a Ningyo, a pretty doll to play with.” Why was Mom so opposed to my efforts? Why did Mom dismiss my desire to hear how Dad fell in love with her?

Her gray brows furrowed as she resisted my efforts to write their love story. Suddenly her face lit up with a memory. She said, “Kikinasai. listen to me. Watashi ni hanashita. Robert Oppenheimer spoke to me. Right here in this house.”

Wait. What? I looked up from Dad’s papers splayed across her kitchen table.

Mom’s English had deteriorated over the last decade but my Japanese was good enough to understand her. Yet. I had my doubts.

“Nani? What?” I said. “What are you talking about?”

At the time, I could only think that my elderly mother might have dementia. But Mom’s mention of Robert Oppenheimer suddenly reminded me of another Robert, the ninety-five-year-old Nisei relative still haunted by the horror he witnessed so long ago in Hiroshima. No. This is not the story I want.

I gently tried to doubt Mom’s claim. “Are you sure it wasn’t Frank Oppenheimer, the younger brother?” Frank Oppenheimer was also a physicist Dad mentioned he knew.

My mother said, “Chigau. No. It was the older brother.” She was adamant but she wasn’t going to plead to have me believe her. She watched me try to process this information. Is that possible? Robert Oppenheimer, speaking to Mom? In this house? She said it was 1964. I was seven years old then. Then I suddenly remembered a big party at our house. The tall men at the party were absorbed in serious discussions and barely looked at me as I offered my tray of hors d'oeuvres. I remembered the fear I felt. Mom said Oppenheimer asked to speak to her in private.

“So what did Oppenheimer say to you?” I wondered if Mom even spoke enough English to understand him.

Mom said, “Kare watashi ni ayamatta. He apologized to me.”

Chills ran up my spine. How did my thirty-two year old mother react to this? Did she accept the apology from the creator of the atom bomb? Suddenly the love story I was trying to write shrank to insignificance. There was no point. Mom wanted to knock me off my feet. “Kudaranai. Stupid American daughter.”

Then it hit me. I fell in love and married my husband because he had that same aura of secrecy I grew up with. Dad’s silence drew me to a man with similarly dark secrets. My husband hid his secret with geniality and kindness. While my husband’s careless act eventually led to his daughter’s death, Dad’s secrets were about the atom bomb and the possibility humans might end their own existence.

As a child, I was attracted yet also repelled by the secrecy. No one told me about the atom bombs but I knew Dad and the other physicists were somehow connected to this awful creation. When I finally met Robert Ishikawa, my worst fears came true. I didn’t want to hear his tragic story. I tried to push it away. To compartmentalize the horror into one small box. Maybe if I put the box away, I would never have to open it and face the fact I was only one degree away from nuclear annihilation.

Mom’s Oppenheimer anecdote forced me to abandon the love story I craved and go back to my Nisei relative Robert’s story. This was too much of a coincidence for me to ignore. The creator of the atom bomb apologizing to my mother. The same atom bombs which determined the life trajectories of Robert, my parents and myself. At the time the sixty-year-old Oppenheimer spoke to Mom, he was nearing the end of his own life, the diagnosis of throat cancer a year away.

Was he also realizing the futility of our lives? What do all our ambition, striving, ideals mean? I felt stupid now thinking a love story would give me the answers I wanted.

After Mom passed away during the pandemic, I wondered how much she really knew about Dad. Perhaps she also didn’t know about Dad’s American relatives and Robert’s connection to the atom bombs. But Mom knew her anecdote about Oppenheimer would tear into me. While I had the naive curiosity of an immigrant’s daughter, she had the strength of a WWII survivor.

The story I wanted was one of romantic love, for my own selfish happiness. But the stories Mom and Dad gave me were of a much more multifarious love. The emotions I feel now are almost unbearable. Dad’s resolve to keep secrets to protect me. Robert’s sorrow documenting the atomic bomb victims, and his anguish at renouncing his American citizenship. Mom’s shock when Oppenheimer apologized to her. My horror at the confluence of the atomic bomb’s victims and creator in my life.

I imagine Oppenheimer at the party in my home in 1964. He notices the poised, yet solemn young wife of his Japanese host. Dad was an ambitious scientist who followed his successful uncle to America. He made a Faustian deal with his physics colleagues, many of whom were part of Oppenheimer’s Manhattan Project during the war almost twenty years earlier. But Mom was just a schoolgirl who barely survived the war. She only agreed to come to America and marry Dad when she realized she had no future in Japan. She had no say in Dad’s career or his decision to host this party in our home. Oppenheimer must have sensed Mom’s innocent suffering.

His private apology to Mom did nothing to relieve her pain. Perhaps it was only an acknowledgment of her sacrifice as a physicist’s wife. Oppenheimer, Mom, Dad and Robert taught me that to love - whether it be to love one’s country or one’s partner or even oneself - was to swallow the poison of our human failings. No, wait. Love is the poison of our success. Not failure. The ultimate prizes for human endeavors came about from our most vile work. Wasn’t the Nobel Prize established by Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, a deadly explosive that destroyed millions of lives?

The question now is, what do I make of these stories? Is this just a matter of Dad who tried to protect me from the horrors of war? Mom who wanted to disillusion me of romance? Oppenheimer who felt tremendous guilt about his greatest work? And why did Robert tell me about his renunciation of his American citizenship? No matter who or what I love, my heart is going to get broken.

I suppose I should just be grateful I learned this lesson and survived.