The Ohana (5 page)

Patrick wondered if he could arrange it so the owners in Honolulu wouldn’t know. Or care. Hoffman, the German engineer who ran the mills, had defied the rules by marrying a Japanese girl so he wouldn’t go around telling stories Ryan, his assistant manager, was a loyal Irishman he had picked off the ships and promoted rapidly. Miles, the unmarried bookkeeper in his forties kept to himself. If discovered, he could point out he was paying Han less than a white man which profited the Ritchies. Patrick made up his mind and called out, “Han.”

Han walked over to him, eyes squinting in the sun. “You call, Boss Man?”

Patrick nodded. “I need a new boss
luna
. You interested? I’ll give you one month. You do good job, you be boss
luna
all the time.” Patrick spoke as one with Han.

“Me? Boss
luna
? No
Yobo
boss
luna
. Boss luna all the time
haoles
. Sometime Portugee.” Han rubbed his chin. “You make me boss
luna
, no joke?”

Patrick laughed. “What’s the matter, Han? Don’t you think you can be number one
luna
?”

“If me be boss luna, me be numbah one best boss
luna
. Han promise.”

“I don’t doubt that Han.” Patrick kicked his horse and trotted away, pleased at the way he handled his problem.

The night air cooled the embers left from the burning cane earlier in the day. Chaul Roong heard the rustling of the palm leaves as the trade winds whispered through them, gentle and soft like a child’s kiss. The moon slung low in the velvet blue-black sky with gray, gossamer clouds drifting through its silver crescent shape.

“
Yobo
.” Tae Ja’s whisper could barely be heard. If she  hadn’t touched him lightly at the same time, he might not have been aware of her presence.

Turning, he answered, calling her by name, “Tae Ja,” and offered his hands palms up. She took them in hers and knelt beside him, kissing his fingers. He felt warm tears sliding down her cheeks. “What’s the matter, Tae Ja?” he asked.

Tae Ja lowered her eyes and Han traced the delicate lines of her face with his forefinger. It was hard to believe almost three years had gone by since the first day he saw her standing in the waiting room of the pier. His desire for her had grown through the years. Tae Ja was his connection to the universe. He found his balance, his peace, his harmony, and his inner calmness with her.

“
Yobo
,” Tae Ja raised eyes glittering with tears, “I’m going to have a baby.”

His heart raced. A child by Tae Ja would be everything he hoped for. Then his heart constricted at the thought the child might not be his.

“The child is yours.” She lowered her eyes to her hands.

Chaul Roong caressed her cheek before stepping back. Clasping his hands behind him, he gazed at the stars. In loving her, he had given up everything he believed in. He had sacrificed honor, trust, friendship and loyalty—four of the tenets of the
Hwarang
warrior—in order to attain happiness. Yet he knew he would sacrifice it all again just to feel the joy he felt when he was with her. He looked back at Tae Ja. There was so much he wanted to say, but he found himself unable to speak.

She took his hand in her trembling one and smiled. “Now I will always have a part of you with me, this child of love. It doesn’t matter if there is no tomorrow for you and me. I will always have our child.”

Chaul Roong gathered her in his arms. Stroking her hair, he murmured, “I love you. Life is cruel, but I have been blessed above all men because you love me.”

Tae Ja gave birth to a son. Bok Nam named him Chong Bong Sik. But the birth certificate received a year later read “Charles Bong Sik Chong.”

Tae Ja insisted, “He is Korean, but he is American too. His name must reflect both.” She insisted his surname Chong should go last, American-style. Bok Nam went along, unaware the decision had been jointly made between Tae Ja and Chaul Roong.

Although the child was somewhat frail, Chaul Roong hoped he would grow stronger. Children were not always a miniature reflection of the adults they would eventually become.

When his son was a year old, Chaul Roong gave Tae Ja money to secretly put away. Holding his son in his arms, Chaul Roong kissed the top of Bong Sik’s curly black hair. “This is for our son. You must keep it for him so when he grows to be a man, he will have enough to go to school or start a business. I don’t want our son to suffer poverty as I have suffered and be forced to do what he despises.” Chaul Roong took her hand in his. “This money is his freedom. Every birthday, I will add to his freedom.”

Although he remained a delicate child physically, Bong Sik possessed qualities Chaul Roong admired, such as gentleness, obedience, caution, and consideration. He had a bright imagination and nestled contentedly in his natural father’s lap. To Chaul Roong’s relief, Bok Nam was grateful he spent many hours playing and teaching Bong Sik.

He was determined to teach him the secrets of
Tae Kyon
and the ways of a
Hwarang
warrior to make him strong.

It grieved Chaul Roong not to be able to tell his son, “I am your father; you are my son.” For the first time, he was aware of how great a void he had in his life. He barely knew his legitimate family, while the family he loved belonged to another man.

Chaul Roong lay silently in his bed with Tae Ja and listened to the trade winds rustling through the trees. From a distance dogs barked, a baby cried, and restless mynah birds squawked. Now he was boss
luna
, he had his own house that boasted luxuries no one else had like a telephone, a radio, and best of all, an icebox. He had a soft mattress on the floor so they no longer had to lie on the grass, fearful someone might discover them.

Spent from lovemaking, Chaul Roong enclosed Tae Ja in his strong, sinewy arms. He loved the feel of her soft, rounded, silky body. In some ways, the aftermath was even better than the lovemaking itself, and the contentment that followed generally soothed him into forgetting how wrong it was to be so happy with his best friend’s wife. Tonight, however, Chaul Roong was troubled by a letter he had received earlier in the day from his wife Dok Ja.

Tae Ja uncurled her body slowly and stretched like a cat. Shaking her long, black hair behind her, she rose. “I must go.”

He watched her in the dim moonlight. Having a baby hadn’t marred the lithe perfection of her body. He thought of never seeing her lovely body again, or feeling her silken skin against his, never hearing the soft moans in the night, and winced. He wouldn’t be able to stand it. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do to prevent that from happening.

“Tae Ja.”

She turned and smiled, her simple cotton shift halfway buttoned.

“I received a letter from my wife today.” The words stuck in his throat, and he looked away, momentarily unable to face her. “She will be here in three months, with my daughter.”

Tae Ja gasped. “After all these years, she's leaving Korea?”

“She stayed to take care of my mother, who died last month.” He hesitated and added quietly, "I owe her my life." He watched her as he told her the story of his abrupt departure from Korea. Compassion turned to horror and finally, as he spoke of Dok Ja's sacrifice, she wept aloud.Chaul Roong caressed her cheek while Tae Ja stared straight ahead. “A woman like that is worthy of your love.”

Chaul Roong dropped his hand. "I've tried to love her but a man cannot control who he falls in love with."

Tae Ja wiped her tears away and finished dressing. Buttoning her last button, Tae Ja leaned over to kiss him. “Everything will work out,
Yobo
. It always does.”

In 1920, the Japanese and Filipino plantation workers went on strike. Although he sympathized with them, Chaul Roong knew they would lose. They wanted equal pay for equal work. Why should they make less than the Portuguese or the Hawaiians? Funny, in Korea the Japanese were his sworn enemy. He despised the Japanese military’s imperialist ways and arrogance. But the Japanese in Hawaii seemed different. They were country peasants, not soldiers. They were polite, hardworking, and had good manners.

The plantation owners in Honolulu moved swiftly to evict twelve thousand strikers from their company houses. Chaul Roong heard many of them died of influenza in the tent cities they set up in the parks. Now a part of management, he didn't get involved but sympathized with the strikers poverty-line wages. The Japanese and Filipinos were joined by a handful of Portuguese, Hispanic, Chinese, and Koreans. Six months later the strikers were still living in tents and food became scarce.

As a result there were too many strike breakers. The planters spoke openly to the media of their determination to squash future rebellion by taking harsh measures. Authorizing the hiring of strikebreakers at twice the cost of the strikers, even native Hawaiians who hated field work signed up.

Mr. O’Malley was sympathetic to the strikers. He told Chaul Roong the
haole
owners felt the ungrateful strikers had to be taught a lesson. The newspapers howled the strikers needed to be put in their place. “In a way, ‘tis the same as it was in my country,” Mr. O’Malley said while chewing on his pipe.

Chaul Roong thought Mr. O’Malley’s sympathy was interesting. As boss
luna
, he was being paid far less than a
haole
would have been paid. As reasonable and fair as Mr. O’Malley was, he was a prisoner of custom and convention.

Although the strikers did get a pay raise and other benefits, most of them considered the strike a failure because the price was so great. The leaders were fired and blacklisted all over the islands. It was the way things happened in Hawaii.

Early one May evening, there was a knock on Chaul Roong’s door. Tetsuo Matsubara stood outside twisting his straw hat in his hand. His drawn face and thin body showed the ravages of the ill-planned strike. Since their grisly discovery, they had barely spoken to each other. Maybe the sight of one another was a painful reminder of the horrific secret they shared. Perhaps in time, the memory wouldn't savage their thoughts.

“Matsubara san, what brings you here?” Chaul Roong asked.

Tetsuo bowed, keeping his eyes politely on the ground. “Please to not disturb you, Han san. But my wife gave birth to our first child, a son, this morning.”

Chaul Roong began to offer his congratulations but was silenced by the despair in Tetsuo’s eyes. Koreans were an open book, but most Japanese didn't show their emotions.

“The doctor says she, and maybe my son, will die if they do not go to the hospital.” Tetsuo opened his hands. “I have no money.”

“How much does the doctor say it will cost?”

“Thirty dollars,” Tetsuo hung his head. “I have no money, not even for food.”

Chaul Roong nodded. Thirty dollars was a fortune for someone who made only twenty dollars per month. But it was an impossible amount for a striker. “Wait here.” He went into the next room and returned with money in his hands.

Tetsuo gasped. “It’s too much.”

Chaul Roong pressed the money into Tetuso’s hand. “You must eat and be strong, Matsubara san. The strike cannot last forever. You will pay me back when you can.”

“It means so much,” Tetsuo’s voice broke. “I know no one else with so much money. You’re a good man.”

Chaul Roong shook his head. “Any man who refuses to help is not a human being.”

Tetsuo looked down. “Another favor; Han san?”

“Of course.”

“My wife is samurai,” Tetsuo raised apologetic eyes. “If she were to know you lent me such a great sum, it would shame her greatly.”

“No one will know.”

Tetsuo bowed low. “I'll never forget this kindness.”

Chaul Roong watched Tetsuo walk away. He hoped the strike would end soon. Sighing, he shut the door.

One Monday, two weeks before Dok Ja was to arrive from Korea, Bok Nam didn’t show up for work. When Chaul Roong went to check the cottage where they lived, he found all their possessions were gone.

“Tae Ja!” Chaul Roong screamed. He flung a chair against the wall; it broke into pieces.

Later that evening he found a letter from Tae Ja in his house, written in her neat, precise hand. Rubbing the paper between his thumb and forefinger evoked memories of her. Trembling, he took control and read:

My mother once told me there is a time for everything and a pattern to the cloth of life. We cannot change it, only rip and tear it apart. This I cannot do to you and our son. We must live life according to plan. We have tried to tamper with fate long enough. Maybe this is our punishment. But one moment with you was worth a lifetime of agony. To never have had that moment was to have never lived.

It is better this way. We have our duty and the life we were born to live. Eventually you will agree with me this is the right thing to do. How can we not expect pain for the wrong we have done? We must pay back the universe.

I love you.

Tae Ja

Chaul Roong clenched the paper in his hands and cried.