I’ll put it in writing.”
“No, no, it’s not about the money,” my father said. “We don’t want to take any portion of what belongs to you. But the question is whether anything could be proven. Preparing a good case takes considerable time.”
“Before you know it, his time will run out.” Edwin pointed dramatically at Uncle Yoshitsune.
“Enough,” Yosh said, leaning forward with his eyes blazing at his son. “I don’t want this again. All we get this time is family embarrassment, all over again.”
As if to punctuate his comment, the oven buzzer rang. I opened the door, and looked at my trio of beautifully sizzling whole weke ulua.
What was the word for dinnertime? I struggled for a few seconds, and then remembered.
“Kau kau!”
DINNER BRIEFLY INTERRUPTED the conversation. Everyone ate heartily; the hiyashi chuka noodles were properly creamy, tangy and nutty, the warm spinach was terrific with its ginger, soy and mirin dressing, the long beans were marveled at, and the fish were quickly reduced to skeletons. The fruit trifle was such a success that Braden, who had a thing against fruit, actually ate it: Margaret asked me for the trifle recipe, which I gladly gave her. Michael ate steadily, from time to time looking at me with the same mix of awe and pleasure that had been on his face the first time he’d realized that I could whip him at chess.
I offered to make both decaffeinated and real Kona coffee, but nobody wanted any except for Michael and Braden, who was forbidden by his parents to taste it because of his age. The others and I all took green tea. We moved outside to sit on the lanai for a better view of the fire. The winds had changed, blowing so much smoke that we were driven back inside after about five minutes.
By midnight, the newscasters seemed as weary as Michael, who had lost the battle to keep his eyes open and was asleep, upright, at a dining table chair. I watched the television, hating it for the monotony-how many times could the news people say that the fire was still burning and Farrington Highway was closed?
Michael awoke and asked me for a telephone directory. I gave it to him, and from the phone in the kitchen he called the Kainani Cove Inn to make a reservation. I waited in vain for someone in my family to offer him a chance to lie down upstairs, but the offer never came.
Around one o’clock the winds shifted and the fire was no longer spreading along Farrington Highway. The Honolulu fire chief came onscreen and declared that the danger had passed, and all evacuated neighborhoods were clear. However, the fire had burned over ninety thousand acres of Pierce lands. Ten firefighters had gone to the hospital because of smoke inhalation, and an unknown amount of cattle and horses had been lost.
“Thank God,” Margaret said. “I’m truly grateful. And sorry we were here so long-you all must be very tired. Michael, you go to your hotel now. There’s no more need for anyone to watch the news.”
To my dismay, Michael canceled his hotel reservation and ordered a taxi back to Waikiki. I walked outside with him to wait, while the Hawaiian Shimuras loaded up in Edwin’s Nissan to head back to Honokai Hale.
“Why go back now when you really should go straight to bed?” I put my arm around Michael, after they’d driven off. “You heard how expensive a taxi to Waikiki is. You should sleep in the hotel here, and I’ll drive you home tomorrow.”
“A night at the resort hotel costs about three times what a cab would,” Michael said dryly. “Besides, the guys are expecting me. We have early-morning surfing plans, and then I want to find a car rental place.”
Calvin walked past us, calling a loud goodbye just as Michael’s taxi arrived. I waved off both of them and went right into the kitchen to wash the wineglasses; Michael had loaded everything else in the dishwasher hours ago.
Tom followed me into the kitchen and picked up a dishtowel.
“Thank you!” I said, realizing that perhaps Michael had set a good example.
“I noticed your friend Michael is quite happy in the kitchen. Maybe that was his duty on the ship?” Tom asked.
“Oh, he doesn’t talk much about his past.”
“So, did you meet him at a bar-or was it on the street?”
“Actually, it was at a museum,” I said, as if I didn’t understand Tom’s insinuation.
“A museum! That’s good, he’s broadening his horizons. But as for Washington, is he attached to a ship there? I wasn’t aware Washington DC was a seaport.”
Now he was insinuating that Michael was lying. Swiftly I said, “He’s not working on ships anymore, and I don’t care for all these nosy questions. Please, Tom!”
“This Michael seems to be pleasant and friendly, but when I think about his way of life, I worry for you. He probably earns even less money than Edwin. Calvin Morita, on the other hand, has a very good situation and seems so interested in you-yet you unkindly ignore him.”
“Calvin’s a nanny with muscles,” I shot back. “You know the kind of men I’ve gone out with. Calvin’s nowhere in the ball park.”
“I disagree. He is a good-looking fellow, and he’s also in the same specialty as your father. In Japan, we think it’s a good thing to marry someone like your own family-not the Hawaiian Shimuras, of course, but your own family.”
I paused to digest this. “Have you ever thought, Tom, what would have happened if Harue Shimura hadn’t been the one sent off to Hawaii?”
“No. What do you mean by that?”
“Since we’ve been here, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we’re stamped by who our ancestors were. Here in Hawaii, most Japanese, Chinese and Filipinos descend from ancestors who worked terrible, back-breaking jobs on the plantation.”
“Ah, there you exaggerate. I doubt many backs were broken, though I’m sure there were some strained muscles and herniated discs!”
“Just think, after all these sugar workers did to survive in Hawaii, they would never return to their homelands, although some would live long enough to be looked down on by wealthy tourists from Japan who’d never shucked anything tougher than an ear of corn.”
“How can you say that about me and my father?” Tom interrupted. “You’re forgetting all that we suffered. The war! Starvation! Bombing!”
“Tom, your father was born in MacArthur Japan, and you didn’t come along till the seventies. All you know is life in the richest country on earth.”
Tom gaped at me. “What is happening to you? Since you arrived here, you’re not the same.”
I nodded, because he was right. I couldn’t put myself on one side or the other anymore; maybe I never would. I was mixed up somewhere in the middle of the Pacific, like the islands of Hawaii itself.
16
I PRIED MY eyes open, then shut them fast. The sun told me I’d slept past my usual five-thirty wake-up time. It was almost eight, I discovered when I could finally adjust my eyes to the light and read my watch.
When I trailed out of my room, I found that I was the last to rise. Dirty dishes in the sink told me that everyone had eaten, and the quiet told me they’d left the house. I saw the minivan was gone; perhaps it was a pre-emptive strike to keep me from seeing Michael. Perhaps they were out shopping, or on a fire-damage sightseeing tour.
I drank a glass of mixed passion and orange juices while I unloaded the dishwasher, then refilled it with what was left in the sink and finally stepped outside. The flames were gone, leaving behind a blackened mountain range. The sky was as bright and beautiful as that in the beach scene posters sold at Kainoa’s coffee shop.
The fate of the coffee shop and old plantation village had been in my mind ever since I’d woken up. I stretched on the lanai, drank some water, and set out on my usual route through the resort, and into the fields. The dry, slightly scorched fields near Kainani gave way to a flat landscape as black as the mountains, punctuated only by small, smoldering piles of brush. Ironically, without any vegetation I ran faster, though the dust I kicked up made the experience more like running in a city than the countryside.
As I’d feared, the plantation village had been burned to the ground. Only some tin mailboxes had survived, and
