Hawaii (89 page)

"To you young men who aren't married, I've only one bit of advice. Hang around the shore till you see a beautiful Hawaiian girl surfing in, completely naked. Marry that one, and you'll never regret it."

He took the sick woman home that night, and she never appeared on the streets of Honolulu again. Her death was a strange passing, a mysterious disappearance. No doctor could explain why she was dying, but it was obvious that she intended to do so. Like the poetic race of

which she was the noblest part, she drifted casually away, and in late December she announced: "I will die in early January." The sad news spread through the Hawaiian community, so that all during the festivities of that season big women appeared at the Hoxworth door, barefooted and with flowers, explaining: "We have come to grieve with our sister." For hours fiey would sit about her bed, saying nothing, and at dusk, like ponderous, doomed creatures, they would slip away, leaving their flowers behind. Before Noelani died she summoned her son-in-law, dark-bearded Micah Hale of the Privy Council, and she directed him: "Look after Hawaii, Micah. Give the king good advice."

"Each time, before I counsel with him, I pray that God will direct me in the right way," he assured her.

"I don't want you merely to be pious," she said. "I want you to be right."

"It is only through prayer that I can discern the right," he countered.

"Are you as determined as ever to take Hawaii into the Union?" she asked.

"I will see it happen," he insisted.

Noelani began to weep and said, "It will be a sad day for the Hawaiians. On your day of triumph, Micah, be gentle and understanding with your wife. Malama will support you, of course, but on the day you exterminate the Hawaiian kingdom, she will also hate you."

Austere Micah Hale wanted to be lenient at this moment, the last during which he would see his powerful mother-in-law, but like a prophet from the Old Testament he was forced to add, "In the affairs of nations there is a destiny, Noelani, and it cannot be avoided."

She replied, "In the affairs of races there is a destiny, too, and ours has not been a happy one." He bowed and started to leave, but she called him to her bedside and said, "I should like to pray with you, Micah." He kneeled and she intoned: "God, survey the actions of this headstrong young man with the beard. Inspire him with gentleness as well as rectitude."

At her funeral in the old Makiki burial grounds Captain Hoxworth caused excitement by refusing to leave her grave. He remained there for several hours, not weeping or carrying on, but standing beside the grave and looking down across Honolulu toward the ships and out to Diamond Head. At Waikiki the surf was rolling in, and he could see the little figures of men riding upon the waves, and the skies were blue with cloud racks piled upon the horizon, and below lay the sea, the restless, turbulent sea upon which his life had been led.

"How wonderful it's been," he thought. "I wouldn't change a day of it. Even now, somewhere out there, the sperm whales are breeding, and I'm part of them. Go to it, whales! Soon enough

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somebody like me'll come along and stick a harpoon in you. Have fun while you can!"

Captain Hoxworth had never taken great pleasure in his children, allowing them to develop as they would, but now with Noelani gone he suddenly transformed himself into the benevolent old head of the family, and it became his habit to convene his son and his three daughters with their families and to sit benignly at the head of his table, dispensing charm and affection. He spoke of the old days in the South Pacific and of his adventures in China. It was his opinion that a man had to wait until he was dead to know the meaning of God, unless he happened to have known the sea in his youth.

"To sail before the mast when you're thirteen, to know the abuse of wind and foul captains, to find the spiritual solace that arises from the fo'c's'l, arid then to drive yourself inch by inch to the captaincy and then the ownership of the vessel, these are the ultimate tests of a man. It's in such contests with fate that a man comes to know exactly how he stands with God. And don't you forget it, you young men who came to your positions the easy way," and he looked sharply at his son Bromley and his sons-in-law: Janders, Whipple, Hale.

He had already spotted Micah as by far the ablest of the group, and at his family dinners, to which the younger men willingly came, he talked more and more to Micah. "Any enterprise of moment is like commanding a ship, Micah. There are plots against the captain, and he's got to put them down ruthlessly. You may not like to kick a man in the face, I never did, but it may be the only way you can maintain control of your ship. And that"s what's important. Control."

It was his opinion that the next decade would produce a series of fundamental crises which would determine the future of Hawaii, and, more important, the future of the powerful firms that sought to control the business enterprise of Hawaii. "Disregard the dear, fat, old kings. They are of no consequence whatever and should be kept around to amuse the people. The important thing is Hoxworth & Hale and Janders & Whipple and Hewlett's. Keep them on the right track, and the kings'll have to follow suit."

When he talked thus he was disturbed to find that Micah Hale did not agree with him. "We must settle this problem of the foolish kings," Hale insisted. "It is infuriating to see them wasting the substance of this kingdom, and I am more determined than ever to do something about it."

"Micah!" Captain Hoxworth reproved. "You be content with making H & H the most powerful company in the Pacific, and the kings'll take care of themselves. Remember what I say. Hell, son, you'll be the real king, the one that matters."

"It is not the destiny of Americans that they should live under kings," Micah repeated stubbornly.

"I'll tell you what the destiny of America is," Hoxworth boomed,

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thrusting his handsome, white-haired head forward among his children. "If Hawaii prospers and makes money, America will suddenly discover that we're part of its destiny. But if you allow the firms to fool around and squander our inheritance, America won't give a damn for us."

In these discussions with Micah the wiry old captain tended to ignore his ineffective son, Bromley, and when Micah argued against him on the matter of Hawaii's civil government, falsely holding it to be of more importance than the profitable governance of H & H and the other big companies, Hoxworth noticed that among his listeners one quick intelligence matched his own, and without ever directing himself purposely and obviously at this attentive listener, he began tailoring his comments so that Bromley's thirteen-year-old boy, Whip, could understand, and he was gratified to see how soon this wiry, quick boy with the sharp eyes caught on.

"I have always held," he said, speaking ostensibly to the boy's uncle, Ed Janders, who had married Iliki�it was curious the way in which Captain Hoxwprth named his own children after women he had loved: Jerusha, Bromley, Iliki; but his wife had understood� "I've held that a man's life should begin at thirteen. He should go to sea, or engage in great enterprises. His mind should already have grappled with the idea of God, and he should have read half the fine books he will read in his entire lifetime. Any single minute lost after you're thirteen is an hour irretrievably gone." It was interesting to the old captain that Iliki's husband didn't understand a word he was saying, but his grandson Whip Hoxworth understood it all.

The captain therefore formed the habit of taking the high-spirited boy with him as he rode about Honolulu, and that year the community became accustomed to seeing handsome Captain Hoxworth parading the streets with his alert grandson, introducing him formally to his business associates and explaining shipping customs to the boy. One day the minister asked, "Captain, isn't the boy attending school any more?" And Hoxworth replied, "What I'm teaching him he can't get in school."

He took his grandson down to the wharves to see the H & H ships come in from Java and China, and he made the boy stay down in the fo'c's'l for entire days while he went about other work, saying, "If you've got a good imagination, and I think you have, you can construct what it must have been like to sail before the mast." He also said, "There is one thrill of the sea that every man must discover for himself, the arrival at some strange port after a long voyage. Whip, remember this. Travel about the world. See the forbidden cities and dive into them."

He said this while standing 'tween decks in a converted whaler, and in the half-darkness he added, "Whip, the two greatest things in life are sailing into a strange port and thinking, 'I can make this city mine,' and sailing into the harbor of a strange woman

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and saying, 'I can make this woman mine.' Whip, when I'm dead I don't want you to remember me as I was in church or as I looked sitting at the big table at night. I want you to remember me as I was."

He left his gig at the wharves and walked westward from the bustling docks until he and his grandson came to a section of evil-smelling little houses strung along a network of alleys. "This is Iwilei," Captain Hoxworth explained. "Rat Alley, Iwilei, and down here I'm king." But if his words were true, he was a king incognito, for no one in the alleys of Iwilei spoke to him. A few Chinese who had made money that week gambling, a few sailors, a few minor men from the smaller businesses of Honolulu ambled past, intent upon their business, and the first thing young Whip Hoxworth noticed was that in Iwilei even men who knew each other did not speak; as if by magic a man was invisible because he wished to be so.

"This is where I often come," the old captain expkined, and he led his grandson into a dark and inconspicuous shack, the inside of which was well lighted and tastefully decorated. A Chinese who imported his girls from Macao, ran the place; he nodded deferentially to Hoxworth, who said, "I want to see all the girls."

A truly motley crew lined up in bathrobes and slips: a Spaniard from Valparaiso with no high combs in her hair; an Italian girl from Naples who had shipped into Honolulu on a whaler; an Irish girl from Dublin who knew Captain Hoxworth and who gave him a kiss�young Whip liked her and she smiled at him; two Chinese girls and one Javanese, who seemed forbidding and aloof. "Who's the youngest girl here?" Captain Hoxworth asked.

"This China girl," the curator of masterpieces replied.

"Can she speak English?"

"No. She don't have to."

"Today she have to," Hoxworth replied. "You go out and find me the youngest girl you can, but she's got to speak English. I want her to explain things to my boy here." When the proprietor left to scurry about among the sinks of Iwilei, the Chinese and Javanese girls retired, but the others who could speak English gathered about the captain and his charge, admiring the young man.

"How old is he?" the pleasant Irish girl asked.

"Thirteen," Hoxworth replied, putting his virile arm about the questioner. "And at thirteen it's high time a man gets to know what delicious things women are. How old were you, Noreen, when you discovered the fun in men?"

"I was thirteen," the happy Irish girl replied.

"And you, Constanza?"

"I was twelve, in back of the cathedral in Naples."

"I was fourteen myself," Hoxworth apologized. "And it happened in your home city, Raquella, and that's why I've always treasured Valparaiso. I had shipped on a whaler . . . well, you

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wouldn't be interested, but I spied on the sailors to see where they

were going with such determination, and I marched in after them

and said, "Me, too!" And everybody roared with laughter as I plunked

down my shillings, but thereafter they treated me with more respect.

And, Whip, they'll treat you with more respect, too. Not because

they'll know you were here. That's got to be kept a secret. But

because you'll know something the others don't know. And this

knowledge is what makes some men men, while the lack of it keeps

other men boys ... all their lives. I'm afraid that your uncles

and your father are boys. Goddamnit, I want you to be a man."

The brothel keeper returned with a Chinese girl of uncertain age,

but she seemed younger than the rest. She wore a black silk smock

covering white pajama pants. She was barefooted and had her hair

in a long braid, so that she looked completely alien to the boy

who was intended to be her guest. He looked at her with frank

curiosity, and when she saw this confused yet eager face, she smiled

and took a step toward him. "I like to show him things," she said.

Young Whip was momentarily afraid, and although he did not

draw back, neither did he step valiantly forward, so his grandfather

benignly put his left arm about the little Chinese girl and his right

about his grandson. "Remember what I said about ships sailing into

strange ports? Anybody can be brave enough to love a girl of his

o\vn color, but to be a man, Whip, you've got to stare right into the

eyes of the brown girls and yellow and whatever you meet up with,

and say, 'You're a woman and you're mine.' Because what a man's

got to discover is that there's no gain in loving a particular woman.

It's the idea of woman that you're after. Now you be real sweet

with this pretty little Chinese girl. Because she can teach you the

first steps in this grand discovery."

Giving the curious pair his benediction, he pushed them gently toward the darkened hallway that led to the private rooms, and as they disappeared, hand in hand, he grabbed the Irish girl and cried, "Goddamn, Noreen, it's exciting! Imagine! The first time!" The Chinese girl led Whip to a stall and showed him the furnishings. "Pretty, you think?"

"It's real nice," he stammered, holding tighter to her warm hand.

She pushed him away from her, turned to face him and said, "It's possible have much fun with a woman. You see?" And slowly she pulled her smock over her head, and when she had tossed the rustling silk onto a chair she smiled at Whip, placed her small brown hands under her breasts and moved her shoulders sideways in a slow rotary motion. "These made for men," she expkined, and without further instruction young Whip moved forward, pulled her hands away and replaced them with his own. Instinctively he lifted the small breasts to his lips, and as he was doing so the girl slipped off her trousers. It would have pleased Captain Hoxworih could he have witnessed how little instruction his grandson really required.