East Wind, Rain Page 14

  From the direction of his brother’s home, a large but plain ranch house fifty yards to the left, Aylmer thought he heard the hesitant plunk of a piano. He wondered if one of his nephews was at it again, and whether the abrupt sound, not unlike the barks of an embattled dog, had startled the finches that now sprang from the rim of the fountain and flew off. It was the same piano his great-grandmother, in that curious mix of irrational stubbornness and brilliant foresight so peculiar to his family, had brought over on the long sea voyage from New Zealand. Then Mr. Shanagan appeared at the gate. Aylmer watched him as he stopped to press down his shirt with his hands and began to lope toward the house.

  He entered the room in his dark socks, his boots removed in the tradition of the islands. He doffed his wide-brimmed hat and squinted at Aylmer.

  -Can I do fer ya, Mr. Robinson? He rubbed his sunburned chin. There was a low whirring sound as his hand wended back and forth on the uneven whiskers.

  -Tell the boatman we’ll be heading to Niihau soon.

  -They’re letting boats by, eh?

  -Soon enough, he said.

  -You know, when I came here from Ireland, Mr. Robinson—and here he lowered his voice to a whisper—I’d never seen so many Orientals. It was like they multiplied like fleas. Seemed like it wasn’t a good idea, so many of them here.

  -The mysterious ways in which God works, we can’t always understand, Robinson said, and he went back to staring out the window, so Shanagan thought he might be talking about the sunset, which was spraying the sky with pink and orange.

  -’Tis a godly sky, he offered hesitantly.

  Robinson frowned and waved his fork in his direction.

  -The issei work hard and know their place. They don’t talk back, they don’t argue. And they’re not greedy, they don’t need a large wage. See, the good Lord’s shut out of the places they come from. It’s His way of sending the unlucky to a good Christian land, to learn His ways. Everyone deserves a chance at a Christian life, Mr. Shanagan.

  -’Tis true, sir. He’s the way to heaven and everyone gets a chance, I’ll agree with you there. Even Pearl Harbor, which’s a living hell, if you’ll excuse me using the word, has a meaning somewhere, though I tell you, I can’t figure it out right now.

  -It all comes down to faith, Mr. Shanagan. Don’t ask for answers. Just have faith. He pushed back from the table and nodded at the sky, which was streaked with the last rays of the sun. Saddle me a horse. I’ll be riding to the point now.

  The signal continued for a long time. Sometimes it was just a steady light, sometimes it seemed to flicker on and off. Sometimes it appeared to wander slightly across the darkness, as if someone had hoisted up the lantern and rode it across Mount Paniau’s wide summit. On another day, to anyone else, this kind of signal would have been insignificant. But any light from Niihau, which had none of the modern conveniences, was a dire message in itself. Horse and rider stood still on the dark beach, watching. In front of them crisscrossed the hastily laid barbed-wire fence that, as Robinson approached, looked like a long, jagged bush of thorns. He hadn’t expected it to change the look of the once beautiful beach quite so much.

  Should he have warned the Niihauans about the war? Just two months ago he had asked the men to furrow the open, fallow fields, on orders from the government. But he had not explained that everyone on the islands was doing it in order to discourage enemy planes from landing in the event that American relations with Japan broke down beyond repair. He had told them it was a new method of windbreak, and they had, of course, believed him. Should he have instead come clean, explained to them that the island air bases had taken to lining up their planes wingtip to wingtip and out in the open, to discourage the Japanese-American saboteurs they were sure would attack first? This prejudice had ironically ensured the squadron’s almost complete and utter destruction when the Imperial Navy had attacked instead, from the air. Or should he have long ago explained to the Niihauans that people were anxiously following news from Europe, where the world was slowly falling to a rapacious German leader? That thousands were dying, and that there seemed to be no way to stop it?

  Robinson’s horse snorted restlessly and pawed at the ground. Robinson patted his flinching withers, keeping his eyes on the light, as if by staring hard enough he could divine what it meant. No, he said to himself. It was right that he had said nothing. Niihau was now the last place on earth that did not understand the turmoil the world was in, and that in itself was a blessing from God. Everyone needed a paradise, a respite from the terrors of the world. Niihau was his homage to a more perfect place, one where the good Lord Himself would find relief when He finally came down to earth again. There had been no need to tell the Niihauans about the outside world; he himself wished he did not have to know. This signal was just a panicky response to his tardiness. Or perhaps someone had fallen off a horse and needed a hospital. It was something that could wait, he reassured himself.

  He patted his horse again, and exhaled slowly. They were out past curfew, and though he doubted it mattered much, it wouldn’t do to alert a jumpy soldier. He listened. The wind crackled through the palm leaves. The surf, unreachable beyond the barbed wire, maintained a quiet, rhythmic mutter against the sand. He tried to read the hands of his pocket watch and, when he couldn’t, guessed by the movement of the stars that he had been watching those desperate lights for almost an hour. He used to ride at night often, just happy to be in the saddle and away from people, enveloped in the warm evening breezes and darkness, protected. But that was in his youth—these past few decades he was usually in bed by now, reading, or even asleep. How swiftly life passed. If he had looked forward from one of those nights on his horse, back when he was fresh out of Harvard and new to the world, he would never have imagined himself here, on the same Kauai beach, head of his family’s business. At the time he had actually believed that life opened like a flower, from a narrow stem outward, that he was bound for far-off places and exotic people. He had wanted to be a missionary in the strictest sense of the word, sent on a ship to spread His word to the most heathen of places, the bowels of Africa or the searing plains of Persia. Instead life was like a funnel, where moments thrown in the mouth converged into a tight, predictable trajectory. His father had let him think that upon his graduation, the world was his, but in effect had always known he would be back to run the business. Sons followed the word of their fathers, he’d said, knowing that the metaphor with God would hit home. And so Aylmer had returned. It was only the first years that were hard, when the imprint of the world (or more likely, since Aylmer had not traveled beyond Cambridge, Massachusetts, its promise) lingered like a sharp, metallic aftertaste. And then, like all after-tastes, it had gone and things had become easier.

  He sat for a while longer. His horse stamped nervously now and then but quieted under the pressure of his hand. The warm breeze and the rhythm of the incoming surf lulled him and he almost forgot, in the beauty of the night, that the world was at war. The flashes had become part of the night sky, a bright, undulating star on the horizon, beckoning, Robinson thought, much like the guiding light of Jesus’ birth.

  He dismounted as quietly as he knew how. His horse nuzzled the dune grass, disinterested. The sand was deep and Robinson broke into a sweat quickly, though it wasn’t a far walk. The Japs would have a time getting up this beach, he thought with satisfaction. At the barbed wire he stopped. It looked flimsy, thin ligaments stretching from post to post. He reached out to push on it carefully, twanging the wire like a ukulele. It had little flex. He felt a surge of pride; his men, and the others of course, had dug deep. Still, barbed wire was for cattle, not men with guns and savvy. He reached out and pressed down on one of the barbs, harder than he meant to, and pulled away as the edge punctured his skin. He thought with surprise how it hurt and put the finger in his mouth, the blood sharp on his tongue. Perhaps it’ll slow them down at least. Give us all a few minutes to grab a gun and defend ourselves.

  Finally he heard voices skitt
ering on the wind. He couldn’t see from whom or whence they came, so he crouched to be safe, and on his hands and knees, a little embarrassed by the indignity of crawling at his age, he scuttled back to where he had come. He led his horse to the trees. He stood there a long time before he made out two hunched figures and the small orange flare of their cigarettes along the shoreline. He heard the boastful staccato of young men but could not make out their words. Japanese? Finally he heard one speak.

  So then this horse’s ass of a guy stands on his bar stool, and takes off his shirt to show us. There was a snorting laugh. Says he got it from Italy, the Battle of fucking Ravioli or something. Another laugh, and the words faded again. Robinson mounted and rode back to Makeweli. It was Wednesday night, December 10. He was already three days overdue on Niihau.

  21

  Before dawn on Thursday, December 11, Ella rose from her bed and lit a lantern. She pushed her graying hair back and made a small fire. This morning she and Ben did not talk much; they prayed together and she made sure that food was on the table for him to eat. Then she left for the beach.

  Niihau had once been famous for its makaloa mats, woven from a unique sedge grass that was soft and colorful. But the sedge could not survive the grazing sheep that Robinson’s family brought in, and by the end of the 1800s, it was gone. Now Niihau was known for its beautiful shells, which winter surf scooped up in large amounts and threw unbroken and still brilliant with color on the Niihau shores. Some mornings the sand was brittle with its new gifts, other mornings there were fewer to choose from. Still, Niihau was blessed with a certain current and a particular seafloor, so that no other island in Hawaii experienced such a surfeit of intact and glowing pupus. They were collected before dawn by the women and children, who raced by lantern light to beat the rising sun. They scuttled like crabs along the sand, and when the bleaching rays finally reached over the horizon, wrapped their cache up and started for home. A few villagers stayed longer, greedy for as many shells as possible, knowing that when it came time to string them, more than half would not survive the process. But Ella never stayed. She only wanted to string those with the brightest of God’s colors.

  Ella ran into Irene just as the path met the beach. There was an awkward silence. The small storekeeper shifted the child on her back and looked down.

  -I don’t usually see you here, Mrs. Harada, Ella said. She was glad for a chance to prove that she didn’t really believe in spirits, as she’d said at the store. Plus, she liked Irene. Though she wasn’t a friendly woman, Ella sensed that she was good, like a piece of wood was good. Hard, practical, adaptable within reason.

  -I couldn’t really sleep. The heat, you know. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it.

  -Yes, well, said Ella. You’ve come at the right time anyway; I ran into Mrs. Niau and she says there’s a new crop of shells on the beach. Uliuli and kahakaha, lots of them.

  Irene nodded and smiled politely, but clearly she did not understand the significance. These were rare shells that never came in the winter months. Ella was excited, and wanted to say so, though she didn’t know whether this mysterious event was a good or a bad sign. Instead she put out her hand and touched Irene’s wrist.

  -Would you like to accompany me, Mrs. Harada?

  Irene nodded, and for a moment Ella thought her eyes widened with some sudden emotion and then blinked. But it was too dark to tell for sure, and the lantern tended to distort things. Ella stepped carefully down the path, with Irene behind her.

  Many women were already there and it was true, the beach was coated with a thick layer of brilliant new shells. Ella put her lantern close to the ground and leaned over and even she could not suppress a small cry. The sand was a kaleidoscope beneath them—full of momiokai and laiki, but also the blue and gold winking of the uliuli and kahakaha, usually found only in the beginning of the summer, and then even rarely, and now miraculously here, in the early winter months. Ella stooped and put a hand on the sand. She held a shell to the watery kerosene light and stared. Its blue was so bright that she was sure it lit her face the color of the sky. It would wake Irene’s child with its glare. After a moment more, she dropped the shell into her basket. She suddenly felt scared. This abundance under her feet felt as magical and impossible as the plane that had fallen from the sky. What else would arrive on this tiny island?

  Ella looked up to find Irene staring at her.

  -Very beautiful, she said gruffly. God’s with us these days, child.

  Then Ella lowered herself slowly to her stomach and began to sweep her hands across the nap of colors. Niihauan shell picking was done best like this, flat on the belly, chin to the sand, so nothing was missed and little was damaged. But next to her Irene tucked her knees under her, Japanese style, and darted at the ground with her fingers like a beak. Ella wanted to tell her how much easier it was the Niihauan way, but knew that Irene might take offense. Ella suspected the shopkeeper often went home with the tips of her fingers scratched and a cramp in her back.

  -You must come and string all these beauties with us, Mrs. Harada. Ella did not stop picking shells, but from her prone position glanced over at Irene, who seemed to have frozen.

  -When the time comes, I mean. There’s nothing that gets me in a worse mood than hours of all this necklace nonsense and no one but Mabel Kaleohano to talk with. You didn’t come at all last year. We thought maybe you’d forgotten how to drive the cart.

  -Oh, well, Irene said, and shifted on her haunches. With the store, it’s—there’s just so little time.

  -There’s always time for enjoying life. Our Creator wants us to. You’ll begin to understand, the longer you’re here.

  -Well, thank you. I’ll, yes, I’ll try to come.

  As both women knew, this morning’s shell picking was only the beginning of the lei process. The pupus had to be sorted into used bean cans and old honey jars by type, color, and size. When the time came to string them—usually in midsummer, when fewer and fewer shells were found on the beaches—each shell was held up for inspection. They were tiny, no more than two rice grains across, and Ella’s fingers always hurt with the effort of pinching them just right as she scanned for imperfections. Sand was then carefully removed with a needle and short, sharp exhalations of her own hot breath. Any irregular tips were shaved smooth. Finally, a stringing hole was made by poking the pupu just right with a sharp-pointed iron cowl—this was when the shell most often broke. It would disintegrate against the whorls of her fingers with a tiny clap of calciferous thunder. Her heart would jump with disappointment. But then she would flick the shards to one side and start again with another shell, her eyes folded into a squint, mouth sighing. After hundreds of shells had been peered at and poked, it was time to prepare for their stringing. She would put a tiny dab of beeswax on the tip of green fishing-net string and roll it under her fingers until it came to a fine, hard point. The readied shells were threaded—more squinting, more finger aches—so that they fell against each other in a particular pattern, depending on the necklace. Finally the lei was finished with a beetle-sized cowry shell at one end. Into this the other end of the green thread was pushed. It held because a warm, pliable wad of beeswax was remolded onto the tip and, once pushed into the cowry shell, it hardened into a permanent fastener. It was important not to disturb the lei as the beeswax dried, but sometimes Ella picked up one end, just to feel the silky swoop of all those small shells, and hear their distant companionable chatter.

  Now, pink tendrils floated across the sky. Hurry, hurry, before the sun comes up. The beach crackled under swift, probing hands. Ella heard Mabel Kaleohano chide her son. A few yards away, seagulls fought over a fish.

  -Do you feel something? In the air, I mean. Something…cold, Irene suddenly said. Ella could see her halved by the lantern, her features sharpened into shadows. Something like your spirits, she said. She stared intently at Ella.

  -There are no spirits here, dear. Ella lowered her voice conspiratorially. It’s just God.


  Irene nodded and sat back on her heels, staring at the ocean. Ella looked to see if something had risen from the waves, but there was nothing.

  -Mr. Robinson would insist that Mr. Jesus Christ himself get permission before coming here, Irene said slowly. We’re so shut off from the world, it’s like we’re floating up in the sky, like the moon. The end of the world would happen and we’d never know it.

  -Mr. Robinson would tell us, Ella said.

  Irene looked at her.

  -Where is he now, then?

  Ella hesitated. Where was he? People were getting worried. The weather was fine, yet even the boatman did not appear with news.

  -Mrs. Harada, she said, shaking off her own unease. It’s a beautiful morning for shells and Mr. Robinson will come when he can. God watches over us here on Niihau, there’s nothing to worry about.

  They were quiet for a while. Taeko snuffled now and then, and to keep her sleeping Ella began to sing “Onward Christian Soldiers.” When the song was over, she stopped picking up shells and turned her head to Irene.

  -Queen Liliuokalani came here once, she said. She came to this beach, to see the shells. I was young, only ten years old, but I remember that she found the most beautiful onikiniki. She wouldn’t keep it, though, saying that it belonged to Niihau. Only a few years later, the haole deposed her. I don’t know much about what goes on outside, but that’s something I’ll never forget. My father cried the day we heard. Even old Mr. Robinson was sad, though he never spoke much about it. And she was our last queen, Mrs. Harada. I don’t even know who rules the islands now.