Gift of the Golden Mountain (14 page)

     Had May been charting the social rumblings deep within the country throughout the spring of 1968, she would have been alarmed at the stresses that were gathering, the pressures building. In March President Johnson, unable to end the war in Vietnam,
announced that he would not seek office again. In April, Martin Luther King, Jr., fell in another war, victim of an assassin's bullet. One great, terrible wail reverberated throughout the land, and then the frustration and anger spilled over and there was rioting in the cities. That same month, Columbia University students rampaged. Police became familiar on American college campuses.

     In the air that spring, masked by the heavy sweet perfume of wisteria, was the scent of dread: of patience lost, of chances missed, of things gone wrong. And we, not knowing what else to do, repeated our daily routines, lulled by the sameness, yet with the disquieting feeling that there was something we were forgetting, something important we had meant to do, but we could not quite think of what it was.

     I do not mean to suggest that we were at all times preoccupied with a sense of foreboding. For some of us—for Kit and May on an idyllic Pacific isle—this was a time of understanding and thanksgiving. Kit wrote from Hawaii:

READE letter file, box 3, folder 6:
Katherine Reade McCord to FMG, April 2, 1968
The Mauna Kea Beach Resort
,
Kohala Coast, Hawaii

     Dear Faith:

     We are spending our last few days of May's spring break at the Mauna Kea. She had planned it all along, thinking I would need a rest after all the hiking we did on the mountain. In fact, I am so exhilarated by this time with May that I think I could have hiked forever, but it is nice to bask on this lovely curve of beach, and look forward to a perfect mai tai on the flagstone terrace at sunset and a bed with proper sheets at night. Right now May is snorkeling with one of the young men who has been on
her trail since we arrived yesterday—a stockbroker from Connecticut, I believe. She has only to walk along the beach in bikini and flowing pareau and you can fairly feel the air crackle with the young men's sexual tension. She is so elegant to watch—those long, slender, limbs of hers and that tanned cocoa skin. (And yet, only a few days ago she looked almost plain in her khaki shorts and big dusty boots as we were trudging through the empty lava fields on the mountain.) It is quite strange and wonderful to be the companion to such a chameleon creature.

     I had all but forgotten what it was like, being young and beautiful on a tropical island. May feels the difference here. She said the most peculiar thing the other day. We were eating at a local restaurant that was filled with young Island people, and she said, "I fit in here, don't you think?" I didn't know quite what she meant so I asked her, and I was astonished to learn she meant her racial background. When I had time to think about it, I realized how stupid I had been. Of course it must trouble her, otherwise she would not have denied that part of her which is Chinese for so long. From what little she is willing to say on the subject, I gather Sam has pushed her to think about it. Perhaps that is good.

     My memories of these Islands are rather bittersweet. Porter and I were here as children—Aunt Lena and Sara brought us to Honolulu and we actually stayed, I remember, in a thatched house right on Waikiki Beach. That makes me feel ancient, somehow, when you see all the big hotels crowding out the dear, marvelous old Royal Hawaiian, where I spent my honeymoon with Connor. (Remember the party in our stateroom on the
Lurline
just before we sailed?) For a long time after his death I could not bear to return, but I did come once again before the war, with Aunt Lena and Porter. We came to meet May's mother, who was in medical school in Honolulu. Porter
was desperately trying to court her, and her family was not cooperating. Aunt Lena and I had to pose as friends of one of her professors, in order to get an invitation to tea. I remember that day vividly. Ch'ing-Ling was, I thought, the most exquisite human I had ever seen with those wonderful high cheek bones and the kind of natural grace you have to be born with. Remember how wonderfully she moved? Small wonder her daughter is so lovely. And yet, what a mixed legacy she left her child—and it seems to me the racial part is the least of it.

     On that same trip I danced with a young Naval officer until all hours and then we walked barefoot on the beach to watch the sunrise. May and I stopped over in Honolulu for a day to go to the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor. My dashing young officer went down with that ship and I have always meant to make a pilgrimage. When I mentioned it to May she insisted we go together; we found his name engraved on the wall and ran our fingers over it, and had to share my handkerchief to blot our tears.

     The scene was made even more poignant by the presence of two young men in uniform, on leave for a few days before shipping out to Vietnam. One was black and one was white with flushed pink patches on his cheeks. They were wearing highly polished boots which seemed too large, too clumsy, and all I could think was that they were playing soldier. They are so very young, Faith. And worst of all, they have no memory of the names that are etched in marble at the military cemetery at Punchbowl, names that still catch in my throat: Tarawa and Guadalcanal and Truk and New Guinea, all those battles where so many boys, just their age, died.

     It has been twenty-five years now, but it seems only yesterday. When we listen to the evening news I can only wonder if the names we are hearing now—Khesanh and
Quangtri and Dakto—will evoke the same chilling effect on May's generation.

     And now that LBJ has removed himself from the fray, I think we can assume Bobby Kennedy will step forward. In confidence, I can tell you that his people tracked me down here yesterday to see if I would, as they put it, 'come on board.' I said yes. I think Bobby may be the man we need at this critical juncture in our history.

     May has unlocked all manner of memories for me. I can't tell you how good it is to be with her, to be
accepted
by her. I know you always believed it to be possible, but I have to confess I was skeptical. For so many, many years she resented me because she was convinced I had sent her mother away. I was sure those feelings, so long harbored, would be corrosive. I expected, at best, a kind of civilized rapprochement.

     On the mountain one night, when we were tucked into our sleeping bags after a long trudge and were just about to float off to sleep, May asked: "Do you know about whipping boys, Kit? They were companions to little princes or noblemen's sons, and when the royal brat did something wrong, the whipping boy took his punishment for him. I think that's what you've been—a whipping boy." That was all she said, but perhaps it is enough to explain how she could become, with such seeming ease, so genuinely fond of me. To me, that is the miracle.

     The girl at the front desk greeted me in that lovely straightforward way the Hawaiians have by saying, "You look so happy." The manager, whom I have known for some years, also remarked on my glowing good health and I found myself telling him, "My niece and I have just had the most wonderful outing on the mountain."

     May has suggested she be introduced as my "niece," which of course delights me. More important, she trusts
me enough now to begin to ask questions. Yesterday she wanted to know what happened to the nurse her father had fallen in love with during the war. I explained that Porter had gone to Georgia to see her, and that when he came back all he would say was that it had all been a matter of "time and place." May shook her head and frowned, but later she said she could understand. I hope that she can. She is so mature in so many ways, she seems more thirty-five than twenty-five.

     I admit to being concerned that her memory of her father might be diminished by the letters. I don't think it is time, yet, for me to offer any opinions—to try to explain how her father, who was so wonderful in so many ways, could have been so naive about women and love. Porter had so many disappointments in his life, but May was his great joy. She must know that, must have it to hold on to. But as you say, she must also give up any schoolgirl idea that he was a saint, and infallible. She has not yet asked me about her mother, though we both know that painful subject is there, in the wings, waiting.

     I expect May will return to Hawaii this summer to do her required field work. She is mesmerized by this Big Island, as it is called, and the volcanoes which created it, especially the two which are still active: Mauna Loa and Kilauea. The scientists at the USGS (United States Geological Survey) have agreed to allow her to work out of their observatory which is perched on the rim of the great caldera of Kilauea. The truth is, she is fascinated by volcanoes. It is wonderful to see her so rapt, so totally immersed in the subject.

     May must leave tomorrow, but I am staying on for a few days, perhaps even a week. It has been such a long time since I have been able to relax this completely, and
I am going to hold on to it for a while. Think of me lying under a palm tree, the scent of frangipani in the air.

     I hope your gift from May is proving as enjoyable as is mine.

     My Love,
     Kit

     My gift from May had changed my life more than any of us could have dreamed. My "new mobility"—as we called the van and driver May had provided—combined with the gathering storm of events to bring my old and rather comfortable reclusive life to an end.

     There are times, I honestly believe, when the powers that be conspire in ways that are wonderful to behold. Surely that is the only explanation for my having had the great good luck to acquire as my driver one Israel Dobbs, a large, middle-aged, and wonderfully good-natured black man who was part preacher, part performer, and, when it came to moving me and my chair about, a veritable magician. Israel viewed his position with extreme professionalism. No doctor could have been more attentive to a patient, no lawyer more concerned that a client be accorded her full civil rights. Israel's mission in life was to take me wherever I could safely go, without creating so much as a stir. He would never simply ask anyone to let us through; rather he would boom out in his deep basso profundo: "All give way for Faith and Israel," followed by, "We thank you so very much and hope you have a simply glorious day." He was courteous and he was humorous; he caused people to be happy to have us in their midst. So it was Israel who made it possible for me to go out in the world again. Without him, I would not have been at the epicenter.

     You could feel the forces gathering, hear the rumble of the troop trains as they made their way across the country to the Oakland Army Depot where protesters tried to stop them. On
the evening news I watched the crowds swell in numbers, saw them march with flags flying, passing out pamphlets, burning and looting, and straining against the old order throughout the summer and into the fall of 1968. And nowhere were the seismographs more sensitive than at Sproul Plaza at the entrance to the University of California at Berkeley.

     I had lived through two world wars; I knew it had to stop and I had to do my part, I could not retire to the small world of my cottage, my garden. There are no small worlds, and no excuses given my new mobility. At first I volunteered one day a week for a group called "The Peace Coalition," which was attempting to act as a clearinghouse for the various peace groups in the community. Before long I found myself running the Berkeley office in a battered old apartment above a shoestore on Bancroft Avenue. From this vantage, I could look down on Sproul Plaza, which had become the epicenter of political activity.

     Karin and Sam dropped into the office to see me almost every day. May's visits were less frequent because most of her waking hours were spent in the Life Sciences Building on the far side of the campus, where she had immersed herself in such arcane subjects as stratigraphy and tectonics, sedimentary petrology, and the structural analysis of deformed rocks. Sam and Karin could sometimes be coaxed into an hour or two of typing or collating the lists of schedules of rallies, demonstrations, and teach-ins. Since so many of the leaders of the antiwar groups fed us information, we became a central clearinghouse of sorts. When the press made its way to our door, our status was confirmed.

     By late morning a crowd would begin to gather in Sproul Plaza. The rallies started about midday with the amplified sounds of voices raised in passionate challenge, backed by strumming guitars and sometimes the pure high quiver of a folksong. And the students came; they emptied out of classrooms and filled the plaza, bringing with them a sense of purpose, a belief that they were, here and now, going to change the way the world worked. Wars
were madness, they said; the military machine had to be dismantled, they said; the Third World must be addressed.

     Not everyone was convinced that the student movement would succeed. Sam was not. "As far as the Great American public is concerned," he liked to say, "the college kids who are demonstrating are just a bunch of ungrateful brats who ought to be kicked out of school."

     Hayes Diehl wasn't convinced that the movement could succeed, either. I met Hayes when he came into the Peace Coalition office. Sam introduced us, making a point to tell Hayes about my connection to May and Karin. Hayes explained that he would represent the Boalt Hall law students in the Peace Coalition. Later, Sam told me that Hayes had left the Gene McCarthy camp to become a West Coast campus coordinator for Bobby Kennedy's campaign.

     Whenever Hayes came by he would stop to say a few words to me, either sitting or kneeling beside my chair so that we were face to face and he wasn't towering over me. I liked him for that. Israel liked him, too. Everyone else in the room might be talking revolution, but Israel and Hayes would be in a corner talking basketball. Israel told me later, "That white boy knows whereof he speaks when he's discussing the NCAA, but he's definitely soft on the big boys, the pros, oh yes, quite definitely soft."