Moloka'i (34 page)

It was hard to contest her logic, and really, what was the point? Dr. Goodhue assured them this posed no threat to Leilani’s health, so Rachel saw no reason to dampen her friend’s newfound piety. She even agreed to accompany her to services that Sunday—at the Church of Latter Day Saints, chosen primarily because of their enthusiasm for dancing—and Rachel had to admit she had never seen Lani quite so happy. In all the rest of her days at Kalaupapa Lani would never miss a service, always singing loudly and joyfully along with the choir. And when one Sunday the pastor told the congregation, “Miracles are all around us, we have but to look,” Leilani smiled to herself, knowing even more surely than he that this was so.

N

ot long afterward, Rachel was returning from a day of surfing at Papaloa when, nearing the baseball diamond, she heard the sounds of a game in progress. Not a serious match-up hosting a large crowd, but a friendly practice game between two of the town’s rival teams. The grandstand was empty and Rachel, having nothing better to do, took a seat in the front row. She was relieved to see that Jake Puehu was not among the players, but at least one of them was familiar to her: the young
Nisei
from the infirmary sat in the dugout, awaiting his turn at bat. His injuries had healed nicely and Rachel idly noted that with his swellings gone he was rather handsome. Yet for someone engaged in what was supposed to be a relaxing activity he seemed extraordinarily serious: unsmiling, eyes downcast, almost brooding.

When it was his turn at bat he swung and missed the first pitch but connected solidly with the second. As the ball arced over left field, he ran and took first base. The next batter bunted and was tagged out on his way to first, but the
Nisei
made it safely to second. Then a big stocky Hawaiian hit a line drive and all bets were off. He lumbered to first, the
Nisei
made it to third—and unwisely decided to steal home. The ball was quickly thrown from an infielder to the catcher, who stepped onto home plate at pretty much the same moment the
Nisei
slid into it.

There followed a spirited disagreement over whether he was safe or out. The umpire called him out; the
Nisei
disagreed. Refusing to leave the field, he yelled an obscenity at the umpire, then gave him a rude shove. The imposing-looking catcher shoved the
Nisei.

This, Rachel decided, would have been a good time for him to storm off the field in a huff. Instead he dove at the catcher, knocking him to the ground; the umpire lunged at the
Nisei;
and something of a free-for-all erupted. Rachel was startled by this violent outburst from such an otherwise unassuming fellow; but then she reminded herself what had brought him to the infirmary in the first place.

Calmer heads converged on home plate and pulled the combatants apart. The umpire was bleeding from the head and the catcher, with a nasty cut on his leg, was helped to the bench. The game was called off and the players dispersed. Rachel watched the
Nisei,
sporting fresh bruises, as he limped off the field alone. She considered going down to see if he was all right, but she held back; it had been his belligerence, after all, that had started the whole donnybrook, and there was something in the way he kept himself apart from his fellows that suggested he wasn’t interested in anyone’s sympathy. She left, but found herself thinking about him despite herself.

A few weeks later, straddling her surfboard off Papaloa Beach as she waited for the next set of waves to roll in, she noticed a swimmer heading in her general direction. It was the
Nisei
again. He was a good swimmer, capable of powerful strokes, and he was experienced enough in the ocean to know to dive into the base of the larger waves as they approached. Rachel thought at first he was swimming out to meet the incoming waves for body-surfing . . . but then he passed her and kept right on going.

Rachel was curious enough to forego the next ride and let the wave pass under her. Bobbing on the swell she watched the young man swim well past the wavebreak . . . and a distressing thought occurred to her.

She bellied onto her board and paddled after him.

He was only a short distance ahead; it wouldn’t take her long to overtake him. She hoped he’d be turning around any moment now, but he kept on swimming. Rachel paddled like mad to close the gap between them.

“Hey,” she called, now only a few feet behind him. “You gotta watch yourself, there’s a bad undertow out here.”

Over his shoulder the
Nisei
called, “Thanks,” but didn’t pause in his stroke.

Rachel paddled up alongside him now; it took some effort to keep pace. “No, really, it’s dangerous. You get tired, get a cramp, doesn’t take a lot to suck you under.”

He didn’t reply at all this time, just continued swimming. But although his stroke was still strong, his breathing was becoming a bit more labored. She glanced behind them and saw the white, red, and green buildings of Kalaupapa growing ever more distant.

“Hey,” she called again. “C’mon. I know what you’re thinking, but it’s crazy.”

He didn’t answer. Rachel said, “O'ahu is twenty-two miles away! That’s a lot farther than it looks.”

For the first time the
Nisei
stopped swimming—turning round in the water to face her.

“Go away!” he told her, the exertion beginning to show in his face. “For your own sake!”

He turned and started swimming again.

Rachel continued to paddle.

He swam north/northwest for another ten minutes, the
pali
shrinking to the size of a sandbar, the surf growing heavier in stiff winds. Rachel stubbornly followed.

“Remember what the boat trip here was like?” she said, hoping to taunt him into turning back. “That nice smooth ride—how many times did
you
throw up? You think you’re gonna swim the Kaiwi Channel like it’s some-body’s bathtub?”

“I’m going to try!” he snapped back, but Rachel could hear the mounting exhaustion in his voice.

“And if you don’t drown, some hungry shark’s gonna bite off your leg—right there, right under the knee!”

“Let him! What the hell difference does it make!”

He was slowing, and now by paddling furiously Rachel was able to overtake him—she guided her board directly in front of him, forcing him to a stop. She sat up, straddling the board with her feet in the water, and shouted,
“Hey!
You’re a leper! Get used to it!”

Her words struck him like the slap of a wave. He floated there, momentarily at a loss, as Rachel’s tone softened. “You can swim to China,” she said sadly, “and it’s not going to change anything.”

Was that resignation in his eyes or just fatigue? He treaded water for long moments, looking away from Rachel and across the whitecapped waters to the distant shores of O'ahu on the horizon. When he looked back Rachel was startled to see tears welling in the corners of his eyes.

“All right,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “All right.”

He turned and started swimming back toward Moloka'i.

When he grew too tired to swim, Rachel convinced him to join her. Together they straddled her board—the
Nisei
sitting forward, Rachel behind, their legs brushing against one another—riding the swells toward shore and paddling between waves. Rachel found herself staring at his broad shoulders, the sharp ridge of his shoulder blades, the way his muscles tensed as he leaned forward to paddle.

“You’re good in the water,” she said, no small compliment for her.

He sensed that and thanked her. “So are you.”

“You surf?”

“Not really. Just a little body-surfing at Waikiki.”

“Honolulu boy, ’ey?”

He nodded.

His name was Charles Kenji Utagawa, the second son—literally,
kenji
—of a plantation worker who had emigrated to Hawai'i in 1885 aboard the steamship
City of Tokio
. As a contract field laborer Haru Utagawa earned all of nine dollars a month, and like many
Issei
wasted little time in fulfilling his obligations and leaving the plantation for higher paying work. Eventually he opened a shop in one of the Japanese neighborhoods, or “camps,” in Honolulu.

And he prospered, enough that Kenji could pursue an education beyond the reach of many immigrants’ children. “Although, in Japanese families,” he explained, “it’s also the responsibility of the first-born son to help finance the education for the latter-born sons.”

Rachel had not seen his face in five minutes, had heard only the sound of his voice, a pleasant baritone. His polite speech and quiet tone were quite at odds with the violence which she had seen him capable of. “So your brother helped pay for your schooling?”

“Yes. Jataro apprenticed with a Japanese boat builder. Between his job and my father’s shop they were able to send me to St. Louis College in Honolulu.”

“You’re Catholic?”

For the first time she heard amusement in his voice. He chuckled. “Actually my family’s Shint
and Buddhist. But thinking to improve my chances of getting accepted at St. Louis, my father converted. Down came our little Buddhist shrine, up went a picture of the Virgin Mary. At his first confession he asked the priest, ‘What do I confess?’ ‘Confess your sin,’ the priest told him. ‘It doesn’t have to be something you did, it can be something you just thought about.’ Well, my father wanted desperately to please him, so he thought a moment and said, ‘I kill a man, back in Japan. I feel very bad for it.’ ”

Kenji laughed warmly. “He concocted this tall tale about a man who’d made unwanted advances on my mother and challenged my father to a duel with ceremonial swords. Had the priest spellbound. After that we called my father ‘Saint
Samurai.
’ ”

Rachel was actually disappointed to see Papaloa Beach drawing nearer; she wanted to hear him laugh some more, wanted to see what his face looked like when he did.

“Well,” Kenji said as they skimmed over the shallows. “This looks like my stop.”

Was that disappointment in his voice, too? They got off the board and waded to shore. They were both a little wobbly and dehydrated; Rachel found a bottle of water she had half-buried in the sand and handed it to Kenji. He took a gulp, then another, then handed it back to her and thanked her. She took a swallow—was she imagining the taste of his lips on the bottle?

They stood there on the beach looking at each other as if for the first time. He was very handsome, even with his hair wet and knotted by salt; there was still an intensity in his face but now it was leavened by a certain diffidence. In fact he seemed downright embarrassed.

“I must apologize,” he said slowly, “for the trouble I’ve caused you.”

“Forget it. I’ve thought myself about what it would be like to ride a wave to Maui or L
na'i.”

He nodded once, a faint intimation of a smile on his lips . . . bowed slightly . . . then turned and walked away.

Rachel realized that she was sad to see him go.

H

e was waiting for her on the beach when she came out of the water the next day. There was a real, not merely hinted, smile on his face as he watched her carry her board from the surf, and Rachel found herself smiling back. He wore denim pants and a loose fitting cotton shirt, no shoes, and he looked both relaxed and friendly. Hard to believe this was the man who only yesterday had either tried to swim to Honolulu or to lose himself in the cold embrace of the ocean.

They bought doughnuts and coffee at Will Notley’s shop and walked down the coast to 'Awahua Bay, where their feet left the only marks of any kind on the black sand, and they talked for hours. Like her, he was a child of Old Honolulu. They each knew that a Tahiti lemonade tasted more of lime than lemon; knew the sound of Ah Leong cursing in Chinese at
keiki
pilfering candy from his store. More importantly, they were both readers. Rachel was humbled to find that Kenji had read books by writers of whom she hadn’t even heard: Lafcadio Hearn, August Strindberg, G. K. Chesterton, Herman Hesse. But they both enjoyed Conan Doyle’s stories, especially
The Hound of the Baskervilles;
both found Theodore Dreiser a crashing bore; both loved O. Henry and Jack London and H. G. Wells.