The Color of Air

by Gail Tsukiyama

  I look up and see Koji hesitate before he says, “It was Franklin.”

  It takes me a moment to register what he says, and when I do, just the sound of his name is like a punch that knocks the air from me. I stop in the middle of the walkway, my mouth suddenly dry, my stomach churning, and I feel like I want to throw up. Then I remember the voice I heard last week. It was Franklin’s. “Where is he now?” I ask.

  I look up to see a flicker of sadness in Koji’s eyes. I suddenly realize he must think I want to see Franklin, that I might want him back. “Why did he come back?” I quickly add. “I know he wants something.” I feel my anger rising, hard and complicated. He wasn’t even man enough to see me.

  “Found trouble in Honolulu, yeah. He needed money.”

  “You gave it to him?”

  Koji nods. “He didn’t get it easy.”

  “How badly did he hurt you?”

  “It’s nothing,” Koji says, “just a cut, yeah.” His hand still hovers over his stomach.

  “He’s gone?”

  Koji nods again, grimaces.

  What has Franklin done? The blood rushes to my head. How dare him, I think, even if a part of me does want to see him again. I bite my lip against the desire. At the same time, I’m relieved he’s gone. He has always been too selfish to see beyond himself. “I’ll pay you back,” I say, angry and embarrassed. “Did he remember he has a son?”

  Koji pauses, as if he’s deciding what to tell me.

  “Tell me!” I say, angrier than I mean to be. Koji has done everything for us.

  “He remembers, but he was more concerned about the money,” he finally says.

  We both turn when we hear the front door swing open. Daniel is standing there in his pajamas and smiles wide when he sees Koji. “I’m hungry,” he says. “Are we going to eat breakfast soon?”

  I take a breath, find a smile for Daniel. “Right now,” I say, “go pour a glass of milk. And be careful, yeah.”

  “Okay,” he says. And then, “Uncle Koji, you okay? You don’t look so good.”

  Koji smiles, lifts his hand in a wave, and grimaces. “Just a small accident,” he says.

  “Come on then!” Daniel says.

  “A minute, yeah,” Koji says, and glances over at me.

  “Not now,” I say softly. “Tell me later. You need to sit down and rest.” I gently take hold of his arm to help him up the steps.

  He won’t ruin our day, I tell myself. I watch Daniel disappear back into the house and wonder if Franklin has any idea just how much he has really lost.

  Waiting

  December 22–26, 1935

  38

  Revelations

  The day after Daniel and Uncle Koji had gone to Onekahakaha Beach, Daniel was still shaken by what Koji had told him about his father. For the first time, Daniel felt the father he’d conjured up in his head through the years was simply a figment of his imagination, a variation of the game they’d once played, Who Is He? Where Is He? He no longer cared.

  Daniel left his uncle at the house to rest, walking to the fish market to see Auntie Nori. According to Koji, other than Mama, Nori was the only other person who knew of his father’s return. Daniel intended to check on Mama Natua afterward, carrying his medical bag with him. As he rounded the corner toward the bay, the winds had risen and the ocean was rough, whitecaps rippling across the surface. Boats bobbed and creaked in their berths down at the wharf. It began to rain lightly. He looked up to see a plume of smoke hovering over Mauna Loa, still smoking and steaming as the lava continued to flow, Pele watching, ready to make Hilo all hers.

  It was just after the morning rush and the market was quiet. Daniel was greeted by Jelly clearing the trays from the counter. “Thought you were another one of those skinny geologists coming in again,” she said, happy to see him. She shook her ample hips.

  Daniel laughed. “Just came by to see Auntie Nori,” he said. “What did the geologist have to say?”

  Jelly’s voice turned serious. “Came to tell us the lava flow had picked up, flowing down the mountain at the rate of a mile a day now, yeah. If it keeps up, it’ll reach the Wailuku River in two weeks.”

  Daniel flinched at the news. It felt like a bad dream, like the old bedtime stories the aunties and uncles used to tell them as children about the awakening gods causing havoc.

  “There’s still time, anything can happen,” Daniel said reassuringly.

  “Last straw for some folks,” Jelly said quietly, stacking the last empty tray on top of the others. “I’ll wait until after Christmas. Things can change at any time, yeah.”

  Christmas was three days away. It was the first time Daniel heard Jelly mention leaving and felt her fear. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help,” he said.

  “Thank you,” Jelly said. “Nobu can be a handful, yeah.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  Ever since Jelly’s son, Nobu’s, accident nine years ago, she’d had her hands full caring for her middle-aged son, who had never been the same after nearly drowning at Ke’aloha Beach. He’d been caught in a rip current while swimming and wasn’t breathing when they pulled him from the ocean. When he was finally revived and brought back to life, the Nobu they knew had died. Once easygoing and athletic, he could hardly walk now without help, and was prone to angry outbursts when he couldn’t form a sentence or express himself.

  “Good as can be, yeah.”

  “Just let me know if I can help in any way,” Daniel repeated.

  “Thought I heard your voice,” Nori said, walking out from the kitchen carrying a tray of Inari sushi for the lunch crowd.

  Daniel smiled. “You’re just the person I was hoping to see,” he said.

  * * *

  They sat down at the back table where the Hilo Aunties still played Hearts every Saturday, close to where he and Mano shot marbles in the back corner of the market when they were boys. He could still hear the marbles rolling across the wooden planks, the click click of one hitting another, followed by their joyful shouts as the victor collected his marbles, remaining oblivious to their mothers and aunties talking and laughing nearby.

  Auntie Nori put a plate of Inari sushi and cups of green tea within reach. The sushi rice wrapped inside sweet soy-marinated tofu was always one of his favorites. Up front, Jelly had switched on the radio, and the market filled with the low hum of an orchestra playing.

  “Koji all right?” Nori asked, a look of concern darkening her gaze.

  “He’s fine,” Daniel said. “We went for a walk on Onekahakaha Beach yesterday. He should be completely back on his feet in a day or two.”

  Nori shook her head. “Just wait until he gets better. He’s going to hear an earful.”

  “It was an accident, just as much my fault,” Daniel said. “He’ll be fine,” he added, and then changed the subject. “We had a long talk at the beach. I asked him about my father’s return.”

  Nori looked up at him knowingly. “He told me you knew.”

  “It was Mama who first mentioned seeing him,” Daniel said. “She thought I was my father the day I gave her the checkup. She said Koji was there on the beach with him, kept asking why I didn’t return to my family.”

  “Mama,” she whispered, “always rescuing strays.” She sighed and began to talk. “Franklin always caused drama, yeah, even when he didn’t try. It was in his nature, eh, so different from Koji.”

  Daniel nodded; he couldn’t agree more. He wrapped his hands around the clay teacup. “I need to know,” he said. “What did my mother tell you about the night my father returned? How did she react? Uncle Koji said she never saw him. Did she want to?”

  All of a sudden it was as if Daniel couldn’t stop; he wanted to know everything. He must have been ten or eleven back then, and he’d been clueless. How had his mother dealt with the loss all over again?

  Nori picked up an old union meeting flyer on the table and folded the sheet in half. “You were young when he left, but you remember how diffic
ult it was for your mother after your father disappeared.”

  Daniel sighed. He saw his mother again; how thin she’d become and how she couldn’t stop moving. Sometimes he heard her in the middle of the night walking back and forth from one end of the house to the other.

  “The fool left her without a word, yeah, leaving nothing but an empty place in her heart, the terrible kind of missing that comes from not knowing. All the questions left unanswered. I don’t think she ever let go of that feeling. Who could blame her, eh?” Auntie Nori asked. “But you kept her going, and time, yeah. And later there was Koji, who’d been waiting for her since the first day they’d met. In the end he filled a good deal of the emptiness she felt.”

  Daniel leaned forward and sipped his tea. “Uncle Koji was devoted to her all those years?”

  “From the beginning,” Auntie Nori said. “Even after she married your father, he stayed loyal to her.”

  “I can’t imagine our life without him.”

  Nori smiled in thought. “When we were young, Koji was always the one we turned to when there was trouble.”

  “Trouble?” Daniel asked, and smiled. “What kind of trouble would you and the Hilo Aunties get into? You were always keeping the three of us out of trouble,” he said, thinking of Wilson and Mano.

  “We were young once too,” Nori said, pausing in thought. “But those are other stories for other times, yeah.” She poured more tea and continued, “I know that after your father returned, it was hard on your mother and Koji. It took time for Koji to get over the insecurities Franklin brought back in him. He was always afraid Franklin would return and take your mother away again. But something did change in your mother after your father returned. She realized how important Koji was to her. When she saw him hurt, the thought of losing him, yeah, hit home.” Auntie Nori paused to sip her tea. “Your mother never said much about your father afterward; she seemed relieved that she never saw him when he returned. “For the best” was all she told me, but I know he was still in her thoughts. Seeing him would only have been more difficult. She loved your father but she didn’t always like him. Takes the two to make a good marriage, yeah,” Auntie Nori said.

  Daniel watched her gaze move to the yellowed photo of the Hilo Aunties on the bulletin board, so young and happy together.

  “Franklin never should have married,” Auntie Nori continued, “not to say that he didn’t love your mother as much as he could love anyone, yeah. He was taken with her from the moment he saw her on Onekahakaha Beach. Trouble was, Koji felt the same—you could just see it in his eyes, a longing, yeah. Both of those boys loved her, but Franklin claimed her from the start.” Nori paused. “In the beginning, we were all taken by your father, such a good-looking boy, a real smooth talker, until he began disappearing, only to return with one excuse after another. ‘Got caught up, yeah,’ he’d always say.”

  Daniel ran his fingers through his hair. “How did he get caught up?”

  “Playing basketball, or in a card game, at the beach or upcountry, and later, your mother suspected other women when he worked on the other islands. He never kept time, always kept your mother waiting, or just never showed up. Shame, yeah, Franklin had everything, things always came easy to him. But in time you saw there was something, something always missing inside.” Nori cleared her throat. “Never knew how lucky he was to have your mother. For years Koji watched on the sidelines, helped her when Franklin was away and he wasn’t cutting cane. Right until that night your father returned, yeah, when he carelessly took so much away from Koji.”

  “What do you mean?” Daniel asked. “I know he was hurt in the fight.”

  Nori turned back to him. “Koji didn’t tell you everything then?”

  He looked at her confused. “What didn’t he tell me?”

  Nori fingered the rim of her teacup. “Razor died the same night Koji was knifed by your father. Koji was supposed to be at that union meeting; he had promised Razor. That night, Koji not only lost his best friend, he was never able to get his cane cutting swing back after being cut. Not long after, he quit cane cutting for good. That’s when the Puli manager asked him to run the sugar train.”

  Daniel sat back in the chair, stunned. His father’s return had irrevocably changed Koji’s life forever, and he never said anything. He’d never really known how Uncle Razor died. The last time he’d seen him, Razor, a strong, stocky man who always made his mother laugh, had come by the house to see Mariko. Daniel was in the yard, bat in hand, practicing his swing. It was windy that day, and on his way back out, Razor had stopped to watch his swing before changing Daniel’s grip on the bat. “You’ll hit farther now, guarantee, yeah,” Uncle Razor said, and winked. “Just don’t tell your Uncle Koji I showed you my secret; he’s wanted to know since we were kids, yeah.” Daniel never did tell, and never saw him again.

  “He never told me,” he said.

  Auntie Nori reached across the table and covered his hand with hers. He looked down at the small, round scar on the back of her hand, the dark brown of a kukui nut. He’d always meant to ask her how she’d gotten it.

  “The cane work would have ended given time, yeah, but Razor was a hard loss, the guilt runs through his blood,” she said. “You and your mother kept him going.”

  He’d known his uncle all his life, but he never knew the man. “So my father took everything away from Koji,” Daniel said.

  “Not everything,” Nori said. “Koji will never forgive himself for Razor’s death, but running the sugar train was the best thing that could have happened; he was given his own place to live, and the train brought him down to Hilo every day to see your mother. Ironic, yeah, Koji was always the family man, while for Franklin, it became an anchor around his neck. Best thing to come out of the marriage was you,” Nori said. “I once told your mother that your father was a no-good lazy ass all his life, but worth it, if only for you. The other good thing in her life was Koji.”

  Auntie Nori stopped talking, sipped her tea, and looked back at the photo on the bulletin board.

  Daniel closed his eyes for just a moment and thought of his father, but it was Koji’s face that he saw.

  * * *

  By the time Daniel left the market, the wind had died down, the sky gray and overcast. The heat remained trapped by the low clouds that wrapped around Daniel as he walked up the road to Mama’s house, a sweaty grip on his medical bag, the prickly dampness of his shirt pressed against his back. The faint buzz of mosquitoes circled around him. He should have borrowed Uncle Samuel’s truck. Instead he turned the corner and began walking up the hill to the Natua house.

  Daniel knocked several times on the screen door, and for the first time there was no answer. He stepped inside to find the house empty, fearful that something might have happened to Mama until he realized her wheelchair was also gone. They couldn’t have gone far with Auntie Leia pushing Mama’s wheelchair in the humid heat. Daniel sat down on the porch and waited. It wasn’t long before he saw them moving slowly up the road and hurried to meet them.

  “Let me help you,” he said.

  Auntie Leia quickly relinquished control of the wheelchair to him and wiped her neck with a handkerchief. Mama’s head lolled to the side, her eyes closed in sleep.

  “Sticky today, yeah, going down the road was easy, back up not so much, eh,” she said. “I took Mama to visit the neighbors down the road. They’re packing a few things just in case Pele switches direction. I told them all I need is right here,” she said, looking down at Mama. Auntie Leia wiped her own brow and took a breath.

  “I’ll get her back to the house,” Daniel said.

  Auntie Leia smiled. “Thank you, I’ll go ahead, yeah, have some papaya juice waiting,” she said, and quickly walked toward the house.

  Daniel watched her go and pushed Mama along the rutted dirt road, avoiding the rocks and potholes. He didn’t stop until they reached the shade of the monkey pod tree in front of the Natua house. When he looked down, Mama was awake and looking up at
him.

  “Did you have a nice visit with the neighbors?” Daniel asked.

  Mama looked at him as if he were a stranger at first before something clicked and she found recognition. “Mariko’s boy,” she said.

  Daniel stepped to the front of the chair and crouched before her. “That’s right, I’m Mariko’s boy,” he said, surprised. “You remembered—” he began when he heard a truck driving up the road and stood to see who it was. He looked down when Mama’s hand reached for his wrist, gripping it with surprising strength.

  “Good, you back home, yeah,” she said.

  Daniel smiled. “I’m happy to be home,” he said.

  Mama let go of his wrist.

  As the truck grew closer and slowed to a stop, Daniel saw Uncle Samuel driving. Uncle Koji sat next to him in the passenger seat.

  “Everything all right?” Daniel asked. He stepped closer to Uncle Koji’s open window.

  “Drove by the house to see you,” Uncle Samuel said. “Found him instead. After you left the market, news came from the volcano center.”

  Uncle Koji leaned out the window, touching the bandage across his forehead. “They’ve asked the US Army on Oahu for help to stop the lava flow, yeah, hoping to at least divert it from reaching the watershed and Hilo.”

  “How are they planning to do that?” Daniel asked.

  Uncle Samuel pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket. “They want to bring in the army flyboys, drop bombs to control the flow. Says here a Lieutenant Colonel George S. Patton is the one in charge, yeah.”

  “Think it’ll work?”

  “At least it’s something,” Uncle Koji said. “Folks getting anxious waiting around. Everyone’s ready to leave at a moment’s notice.”

  Before Uncle Samuel could say anything more, the screen door whined open and Auntie Leia called out to them. “Come in, yeah, before you all wilt out there.”

  39

  Safe Places

  Two days had passed since they received word of the bombing and then nothing. There was a strange hush in the air, a quiet restlessness that made Nori nervous. Talking to Daniel had brought Mariko and Razor back to the forefront of her thoughts. She missed them, and felt foolish wishing they were still with her to help cut through the dread of waiting. The uncertainty was taking its toll, making everyone anxious. Nori felt something shift within the community as their thin edge of hope turned into anxiety. Many of the older locals kept up with their daily routines, stopping in to listen to radio broadcasts, or checking the bulletin board for any news, everyone looking for ways to manage.