Moloka'i (33 page)

Plumbing new depths of mortification, an assistant then opened the window shutters, bright sunlight streaming over Rachel’s naked body, and used a camera to photographically document each leprous symptom on Rachel’s body.

Later she compared notes with the other patients, all of whom were as offended by their examinations as she was. “Just like bloody Kalihi,” one man summed it up nicely.

Christmas dawned the next morning but there was little to distinguish it from any other day. A Christmas tree, yes, but no presents under it as the nuns had provided for their charges. Of course they were all adults here, not children to be gifted with toys; but even Christmas spirit was in short supply, with the assistants on duty seeming none too happy about it. The only nod to the holiday came with dinner: a Christmas ham, potatoes, applesauce, and freshly baked bread. Even so it was a gloomier Christmas dinner than most, until halfway through the meal when they suddenly heard, from somewhere outside:

“Hark! the herald angels sing

Glory to the newborn King—”

To the dismay of the kitchen staff everyone jumped to their feet and poured out of the dining hall, onto the grounds of the hospital compound. When they reached the first of the double fences surrounding the station they saw—just beyond the second, outermost fence—a choir made up of boys from Baldwin Home and familiar faces from Kalaupapa, friends and neighbors come all the way across the peninsula, Francine and Luis among them. Like all the volunteers Rachel was overjoyed; she listened happily to the carolers as they sang, their voices somewhat off-key but no less sweet for that.

Doctors Currie and Hollmann appeared out of their residences as the carol ended. The patients and visitors began calling to each other, laughing, waving, exchanging season’s greetings. One of the patients asked Hollmann, “Can we invite them inside for some Christmas supper?”

The doctor shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”

“Why not?” Rachel asked.

Currie said brusquely, “As you were told when you agreed to come here, we have to keep the station under strict quarantine. No contact with other lepers.”

“Why don’t we go out, then, and bring some supper to them?” Rachel suggested.

“That’s not permitted either,” Currie said with some impatience. “If we’re to properly study the course of your disease, we
must
keep you isolated or the results simply won’t be reliable.”

The crushed looks on the patients’ faces prompted Gibson to add gently to the visitors, “But perhaps you’d do us the pleasure of singing another carol?”

After some brief consultation among themselves the carolers began singing “Silent Night.” Their friends on the other side of the double fence listened with tears in their eyes; and when the carol was over, the visit was too. Francine blew a kiss to Rachel, wished her a merry Christmas, and joined the other disappointed carolers starting back to Kalaupapa, as the nine men and women standing behind the double fence were left alone to celebrate this least festive of yuletides.

O

ccasionally in the weeks that followed Rachel would see an experimental animal—a rabbit or a dog or a guinea pig—being taken from one laboratory building to another, and she almost came to envy them. The animals were merely injected with contaminated fluids, then watched to see if they contracted leprosy. (They didn’t.) Human guinea pigs had to contend with more disconcerting procedures. Blood was drawn from their veins; tissue scrapings taken from every part of their bodies; the full weight of modern medical science brought to bear on them. One old man whose crippled feet were to be fluoroscoped was scared out of his wits by the metal bulk of the X-ray machine; when they tried to allay his fears by showing him a developed plate of another patient’s hand he pronounced it sorcery and declared he would have nothing to do with it. Those who didn’t believe in sorcery still found the instruments of
haole
medicine forbidding, to say the least.

Dr. Goodhue’s soothing eucalyptus baths were tried here as well, but the principal treatment was chaulmoogra oil, injected into the skin and muscles a little at a time; the idea, Rachel was told, was that the oil would force the leprosy bacilli from the infected tissues, bit by bit, injection by injection. The treatment was painful and measured in months, and since the injections were methodically administered in a grid pattern the skin of Rachel’s leg and back began to resemble a checkerboard. Some patients’ faces, Rachel noted, looked as though they had fallen asleep on a waffle iron.

None of the patients could say that the experiments didn’t yield some benefits. It was the way the experiments were conducted that grated: with cold, clinical detachment. Masks, gloves, and carbolic acid were the order of the day for all staff, and while this may have been prudent it only made isolated people feel even more isolated. As though the double fences and strict quarantine weren’t sufficient reminder that they were pariahs. Few staff attempted to make any personal contact at all. It slowly dawned on the volunteers that they were not patients but subjects; separated from their friends and community in Kalaupapa, they felt like outcasts among outcasts. In the settlement they could swim, fish, hunt, visit with friends, make love, enjoy life as best they could. Here they could go no farther than the fence separating the hospital compound from the administrative buildings; and all they could do was sit, sleep, eat, and be reminded day after day, night after night, of their disease and eventual death.

One by one the subjects tired of the boredom, loneliness, and dehumanization of life at the station. One by one they left, returning to their lives, and their dignity, in Kalaupapa.

Rachel was the last to go, the last to give up the dream of a cure and a normal life; the impetus being, quite literally, a sign from the heavens. On a cool evening in April she joined the hospital staff as they stood on the second-floor
l
nai
admiring the bright streak of Halley’s Comet, which had just fully appeared above the distant horizon like a luminous bullet fired out of the depths of the sea. It hung in the sky, a brilliant tail flaring out behind it, motionless and yet somehow imbued with motion—like a blurry photograph of something too fast to be captured clearly on film. In the weeks to come it would arc up and over the
pali
like one of the sorcerous fireballs said to originate from the black heart of Moloka'i, but for now it merely rode the horizon. Rachel shared the staff’s wonder at its brilliance and its beauty. “Take a good look,” Mr. Gibson advised; “none of us will see this again in our lifetimes.”

When Rachel looked at him in puzzlement he explained that though the comet circled the sun as the planets did, its long orbit carried it far from the earth and it would not be close enough to be seen here for another seventy-six years. By the time it returned they would all be long dead.

The thought sobered her: her eyes sought out the bright bullet with its burning tail. It was eternal, ageless; while she and those around her were ephemeral. For a moment she saw her life from the comet’s perspective: a blink and it was over.

That night she had a dream, what Haleola would have called a revelation of the night. She dreamt that she and Jake Puehu were observing Halley’s Comet from the top of the lighthouse, standing close as they watched it hovering above the horizon. Jake slipped an arm around her waist; she looked up at him expectantly; and this time he did not turn away but kissed her, her heart taking flight. And then he was making love to her, Rachel feeling him inside her—and somehow with every thrust of his flesh into hers, one of her sores disappeared as if by magic. As the last of them healed and vanished Rachel climaxed, waking to find herself wet. And she felt ashamed, not for the dream but for what it told her about her passion for Jake. She wasn’t just aroused by his strength and his health, she wanted them for herself; as if by making this clean man love her she could make herself clean as well, and deny what she was.

Enough, she thought. Enough.

She left the next morning—packing her books into a suitcase, signing out and going home. Though she’d given up her house in Kalaupapa, she knew she could always move in with Leilani. As she left the bright sterile rooms of the station she felt an immense relief; and as she rode into Kalaupapa on a wagon borrowed from Brother Dutton, she felt a surge of joy. Friends called out to her; the surf beckoned to her; her horse, on seeing her, happily nuzzled her neck. This was life, and if some things were
kapu,
others weren’t; she had to stop regretting the ones that were and start enjoying the ones that were not.

Chapter 15

1911–12

Baby girl,

It was so good to get your last letter, reading them is almost like having you here. I’m so sorry about your friend Emily. I know you cared for her very much. It’s hard to lose things and hardest of all to lose people. But she is with God now.

A few months ago I started having some pain in my joints, it started in my big toe but went away so I never mentioned it to you. Then I started getting the pain in my knees and elbows, and my skin got red and hot and tender to touch, and I was so happy, I thought—maybe I’m getting leprosy! Maybe they’ll send me to Kalaupapa to be with my little girl! So right away I turned myself in to the doctors at Kalihi and stayed overnight while they did some tests, but the next morning Dr. Wayson came in with a big smile on his face and tells me, real loud—he’s kind of deaf—Good news, Mr. Kalama, you don’t have leprosy, you only have the gout! And I broke into tears right then and there—he thought I was pupule—crazy! I wanted so bad to be a leper and hold my little girl in my arms again!

So now they’re giving me medicine and the gout is getting better but hasn’t gone away. Sometimes my ankles and knees hurt so bad I can hardly walk. No more sailing for papa—I’m living in the Seamens Home and I work a little at the docks when my arms and legs don’t hurt. When the medicine works better maybe I can get back to Kalaupapa. Meantime write soon, O.K.? I love you little girl,

Papa

P

apa was not alone in his medical problems. Emily’s health worsened throughout most of 1911, and as her face became more deformed her boyfriend grew disgusted, leaving her for a prettier girl in an earlier stage of the
ma'i p
k
. Rachel had never thought much of the boyfriend but was sad to have her opinion so vividly confirmed. Emily stubbornly refused to check herself into the infirmary. “Dying stinks enough without doing it in a strange bed.” But since she was hardly able to take care of herself, Rachel temporarily moved in with her. She cooked for her, dressed her sores, took her out to sit in the sun or to the movies that now played regularly at the settlement. Emily was never too sick not to laugh at comedies like
Happy Jack,
or to shudder at Edison’s horrific
Frankenstein
. She particularly liked the films featuring the lovely “Biograph Girl” and the dimpled “Girl With the Golden Hair,” beautiful young women with faces but no names, who lived lives filled with glamour and adventure. She spoke often of the Bishop girls’ daring journey topside. “Remember when I slipped and almost went
splat
?” She grasped Rachel’s hand, her weak grip turning firm: “You saved me, Rachel. You been the best friend I’ve ever had.” A few weeks later she contracted what the doctors here called “swollen-head fever,” an adenitis of the lymph nodes, and died soon after. She was laid to rest in the Catholic cemetery with Father Maxime officiating and Sister Catherine attending alongside Rachel, Leilani, and Francine. Emily had lived seventeen years in the settlement—a relatively long life by Kalaupapa standards, but Rachel still wept for the years she might have had.

When, after six weeks, Rachel returned to the cottage she shared with Leilani, her housemate seemed a bit jittery to have her back. For half a day Lani fluttered nervously around the house, prattling on at great length about nothing in particular. And though they’d seen each other often enough while Rachel had cared for Emily, only now, at close and sustained proximity, did Rachel notice that Lani seemed somehow . . . different. She’d gained weight, that much Rachel could tell, but . . . had her voice always been that high-pitched? Something was different, and Rachel’s suspicions were confirmed at dinner when Leilani put down her fork, leaned forward and announced breathlessly, “Rachel, I have something to show you. Something wonderful!”

She stood, grinning as she contemplated whatever delicious secret she was bursting to reveal. “Wait here,” she instructed, “until I tell you to come in.” She hurried into her bedroom, shut the door. Rachel heard the faint strike of a match as a kerosene lamp was lit; then after a minute, Leilani’s muffled voice: “You can come in now!”

Rachel went to the door and opened it.

Leilani stood by her bed, her body bronzed by the lamplight. On first glance the only thing Rachel noticed was her state of complete undress, but there was nothing unusual in that; Lani could be quite casual about nudity.

But on second glance Rachel could hardly believe what she was seeing. Leilani’s body bore the familiar marks of her disease, her skin mottled with sores—but it had changed dramatically in other ways as well.

Leilani had breasts.

Not male pectorals. Not the muscled contours of a man’s chest. Breasts! Tapered and firm, each the size and shape of a large papaya, hanging ripely from her chest. Rachel was dumbfounded. The more she stared the more Leilani laughed, the odd protuberances jiggling as she did.

“Aren’t they
wonderful?”
Leilani giggled.

Rachel said, “Where in hell did you
get
them?”

“And look!” Lani hurried over, and reflexively Rachel recoiled a bit, as though caught in the headlights of an oncoming train. Lani cupped a hand beneath her left breast, holding it out for Rachel to inspect. “Areolae!” she said in a tone of hushed wonder. It was true: each nipple was ringed by a pink halo of flesh, distinctly female flesh.

“I know it sounds incredible,” Lani said, “but a few weeks ago I noticed that my chest seemed a little swollen. I thought, well, it’s the disease, that’s what leprosy does, isn’t it? But the swelling kept getting bigger and bigger, rounder and rounder, until—” She thrust her chest forward and raised her hands, as if to say,
Ta-da!

“Your voice is different, too,” Rachel said, trying to make some sense of all this.

“Yes, I’ve gone from a tenor to a soprano! But oh, Rachel, that’s not all! As my breasts got larger, these”—Leilani pointed south—“got smaller.” Rachel looked down and saw that her friend still had an
ule,
but her testicles had shrunk to the size of marbles.

“Now, I’d be worried about that,” Rachel said.

“Why? Good riddance!”

“But can you still get a—uh—”

Leilani glanced down at her flaccid
ule
and admitted she could not. “I don’t care! I’m more than happy to trade it for the feel of a bouncing bosom.” She admired her new curves in the dressing mirror, but Rachel viewed them with a bit more concern:

“Did you . . . see Dr. Goodhue about this?”

“No. Why should I?”

Rachel said, exasperated, “Because you up and sprouted a pair of titties! If I suddenly grew an
ule
you can bet I’d be down at the infirmary before I had time to pee!”

But Leilani just laughed, happily taking Rachel’s hands in hers. “Rachel, don’t you understand what’s happened? Don’t you see? God finally answered my prayers! He’s made me a woman!” She laughed again, a joyous laugh. “I go to church now every Sunday and I thank God for His gift and His goodness, and I beg His forgiveness for ever doubting Him!”

Rachel harbored enough doubts for both of them. “Lani—what if it’s not God, but like you said, the disease? What if they aren’t breasts but—tumors?” Leilani pursed her lips in a sulk. “It can’t hurt to let Dr. Goodhue take a look.”

“No! He’ll try to cure me!”

Rachel sighed. “Lani . . . when have
haole
doctors ever been able to cure anybody of anything?”

Try as she might Leilani couldn’t rebut that, so she reluctantly accompanied Rachel to the new infirmary with its green gabled roof and wide verandah. Dr. Goodhue was in surgery and Rachel and Lani had to wait to see him; as they did a young Japanese man entered pressing a cold compress against his mouth, and took a seat across from them. At least Rachel thought he was Japanese; it was hard to tell. A gash on his forehead trickled blood into his swollen right eye, his cheeks looked as if they’d been sandpapered, and his lip had been split open like an overripe guava.

When he noticed her staring at him, Rachel quickly asked, “Are you all right?”

“Relatively,” the man said in perfect, unaccented English: probably a
Nisei,
a second-generation Japanese.

“What on earth happened to you?” Lani asked.

The man shrugged lightly. “Got into a scrape.”

“Looks more like the scrape got into you,” Rachel said. He smiled, but his split lip seemed to protest the movement; wincing, he pressed the ice pack harder against his mouth. “I hope you won, at least,” she added.

He sighed. “Only in the most figurative sense.”

“Can I ask you a question?” Lani said. Even before the young man could answer: “Do I look healthy to you?”

Rachel rolled her eyes. Puzzled, the
Nisei
looked her over. “As healthy as any of us in this place,” he allowed.

Leilani turned to Rachel and said, “See? See?” She turned back to the young man, proudly puffed up her chest and blurted out, “Do you like my breasts?”

His cheeks reddening, the
Nisei
seemed too flustered to vocalize an answer. Luckily a nurse entered just then to escort him to an exam room; he smiled nervously at Leilani, nodded to Rachel, then fled.

“I hope you’re satisfied,” Rachel said. “You scared that poor man half to death.”

When Dr. Goodhue came to examine Leilani he was, to say the least, bemused. “Well,” he said as she slipped out of her dress, “what have we here, hm?” He proceeded to study the recent additions to Lani’s chassis, clinically hefting one breast and then the other in his hand; palpating the tissues of the breasts; peering over his glasses as he examined the areolae. He looked down her throat, palpated the larynx, had her sing the musical scale:
“Do, re, me, fa, sol, la, ti, do.”
He told her she had a lovely voice, then moved his attentions lower, frowning as he examined her shriveled testicles. When he was finished, he took a step back as if contemplating the entirety of the problem and nodded soberly.

“Well,” he said finally, “this is quite remarkable. I’ve read about such things in the case literature, but never seen one myself, till now.”

“Are they tumors, Doctor?” Rachel asked, fearful.

“Oh, no,” Goodhue said cheerfully. “They’re breasts.”

Leilani glared triumphantly at Rachel.

Rachel said, “But how is that possible?”

“Ah, that’s what’s so remarkable. Leprosy bacilli, you see, have a preference for cooler parts of the body. The larynx, for instance, is a cooler organ, relative to others, and when an aggressive colony of
M. Leprae
invade it, it can cause the sort of change in vocal quality you’ve noticed in your friend.

“The testicles are cooler as well, and in this case they’ve been pretty well infiltrated and, I’m sorry to say, destroyed.” To Leilani he explained, “Your body is in the throes of a hormonal imbalance; it’s producing more estrogen than testosterone. The result is gynocomastia—enlargement of the breasts—and gynocotilia, development of female nipples. You understand?”

“Yes.” Leilani was beaming. “I’m a woman.”

“Well,” Goodhue said lightly, “let’s just say you’re more of a woman than I am. Now, I’m afraid we can’t reverse the damage to your testicles; you won’t ever, I regret to say, be able to . . . function as a man again. But I might be able to surgically remove your breasts.”

Leilani stared daggers at him. “Don’t you dare!”

Unsurprised, Goodhue nodded. “They are,” he admitted, “rather well-formed.”

Tears were welling again in Leilani’s eyes. “I was right,” she said softly. “God answered my prayers.”

“Lani,” Rachel said, “it’s the leprosy that did this.”

“I know that.” Lani was unfazed. Her eyes shone, her smile was almost beatific. “It all makes sense now. I prayed to God to make me a woman and He gave me leprosy—so it could make a woman of me! Don’t they say He works in mysterious ways?” She closed her eyes and recited, “Be thankful unto Him, and bless His name. For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.”