Honolulu

by Alan Brennert

  Mr. Ha looked up at a dun-brown bungalow with white trim and cheerfully announced, "Here we are."

  I was dismayed, but jade Moon's expression was one of undisguised horror. "What do you mean?" she asked her husband. "Why have we come to this place?"

  "Why, this is our new home," Mr. Ha replied proudly. "You can smell the paint, it is so new! I lived in that horrible old barracks for years, but you and I have our very own house."

  Jade Moon stared at her husband in disbelief. "But you ... sent me a firstclass ticket-"

  "Yes, nothing but the best for my new wife! Like this house. Come, come inside." Head held high, Mr. Ha entered the bungalow, expecting Jade Moon to follow. I alone saw the terrible disappointment and betrayal in her eyes: her "uncommon" man was, in fact, a common laborer.

  Shamefaced, she followed him inside. What other choice did she have? What did I?

  My husband now led me to our own house, a few hundred feet farther on. It was nearly identical to jade Moon's, a wood frame cottage painted brown with white trim, its small front yard enclosed by a brown picket fence. It stood on a raised and slatted foundation a few feet off the ground; to enter it we had to ascend half a dozen porch steps.

  In Korea, living spaces did not necessarily have inherent functions: a room became a bedroom when you unrolled a sleeping mat, and it turned into a dining room when you brought in a low floor table on which to eat. Here, I learned, things were different. Our home consisted of three small rooms: a bedroom, defined by a mattress surrounded by mosquito netting; a so-called living room furnished only by a straw mat and kerosene lamp; and a kitchen that looked out pleasantly on a leafy banana tree in the backyard. Nowhere was the difference between the two cultures more apparent than in the kitchen, in which stood a wooden table at least three feet high-more than twice the height of a Korean floor table. "Husband, what is this for?" I asked, puzzled.

  "It's a dining table. It's where we will eat."

  "But we're not eating now. Shall I take it away?" In Korea, dining tables were set out before meals, then taken away afterward.

  "No, it is the custom here to have the table out at all times."

  "But it's so high. What do you sit on, these things?" Tentatively I lowered myself into one of the straight-backed chairs. "Why does one need such an uncomfortable perch when there's a perfectly good mat to sit on?"

  He shrugged. "I never claimed it made sense."

  He showed me the backyard with its still-unpopulated, tin-roofed chicken coop. Between our home and our neighbors there was a communal toilet with two stalls reserved for our household by a stenciled sign reading NOH. All told, the house was barely a step above the kind of dwelling a peasant family in Korea might occupy, but with none of the warmth or charm of a typical Korean home.

  Mr. Noh wasted no time in putting me to work. It was nearly midday and he had to go to work, belatedly, in the fields. He said, "Wife, pack me a bento," then went into the bedroom to change out of his frayed business suit and into a pair of dungarees and a shirt. I stood there in a panic. What on earth was a bento? The word sounded Japanese but I had never heard it spoken by any Japanese in Korea. Since it was something to be "packed," I thought it might be some article of clothing, so I began rooting about in the bedroom closet, hoping something would present itself as being particularly bento-like. But my husband just looked at me quizzically and said, "What are you doing over there? I told you to pack me a benro." I swallowed, apologized for my ignorance, and told him I did not know what that was. He blinked at me, then conceded, "No, I suppose you don't. Back home we call it a do-sirak"-a box lunch. "There's a denim bag in the kitchen. Pack me a water bottle and something to eat."

  Relieved, I thanked him for his explanation and went into the kitchen, which was another problem altogether. The pantry was poorly stockedsome uncooked rice, tinned salmon, another tin of sardines, a jar of fermenting kimchi, a bottle of rice wine. I found a loaf of bread that had not yet gone stale and sliced off a few pieces. The kimchi seemed ripe enough and I poured some into a smaller jar. I filled the water bottle, threw in the tinned salmon and a pair of chopsticks, and hoped it would suffice. Mr. Noh took his lunch, said offhandedly, "You can wash my work clothes while I'm gone," and left for work.

  The minute he was gone, my legs buckled under me and I sank into a sitting position in the middle of the kitchen floor. Where was I? What world was this? What had I done? I cursed myself for a fool and wept, trying desperately to think of a way out. But the reality was, I was now married to this man-and even if there were some escape from that, how would I get back to Korea? And what would I do once I got there? There was no returning to my father's house. Surely this one could be no worse-could it?

  After long and careful consideration, I decided that the only thing to be done was the laundry. And so I got up off the floor.

  I found Mr. Noh's clothes easily enough-they were piled high as a burial mound in the bedroom-and could just as easily see that they were encrusted with the blood-red dirt that seemed to permeate everything on the plantation, even the air itself. Korean soil did not stick to the shoe even when dry, like this did. Each pair of trousers was so stiff with dried mud that I was tempted to see if it could stand up on its own legs. I took the clothes behind the house, where I washed a pair of pants in a cement sink, then wrung them out. But no matter how many times I rinsed and wrung, the pants continued to bleed into the sink.

  After half an hour of this, my plight was noticed by a woman in the adjoining yard, a young Spanish housewife with flowing black hair named Marisol, who hurried over to set me straight. "No good, no good," she told me in a kind of English that was not quite English, "too duro-hard. Mo' bettah this way." From under the sink she produced something I'd never seen before: a steel scrub board. She draped the dungarees over the board, then pounded them with a wooden paddle not unlike our laundry bats back home. She alternated the pounding with a hard brush, and now when she rinsed out the pants I could make out the blue of the denim for the first time.

  "You see difference?" she asked.

  "I see," I told her. "Thank you."

  "No mention," she said with a smile. "You like flan?"

  "What is that?"

  "It's ono, you like. I bring." Minutes later she carried over a bowl of delicious custard unlike any I had tasted in Korea. I thanked her again, then spent the next several hours scrubbing, pounding, and wringing my husband's work clothes until the last drops of red were squeezed from them and I was able to string them out on the clothesline to dry.

  In the midst of this I heard the piercing blast of a steam whistle, but thought nothing of it; I merely assumed a train was passing by and continued with my washing. Not long afterward, my husband returned from the fields. I quickly learned that the workday ended at four-thirty in the afternoon and, rather than complimenting me on the fine job I'd done on his clothes, Mr. Noh glared at me and demanded to know why dinner wasn't ready. I scrambled to throw something together from what little I found in the kitchen, cooking a pot of rice on the kerosene stove and throwing in some wine to flavor it. When the rice was ready, I served it along with some of the kimchi and the sardines. Mr. Noh looked at his plate as if at some abomination of nature, but he did eat it, in much the same way I once ate a bug on a dare from my brothers.

  At eight o'clock the steam whistle sounded again, this time signaling it was time for "lights out" in half an hour. In bed I lay beside my husband, only to have him grope me tiredly, then doze off. I turned over on my side and closed my eyes. I did not cry myself to sleep this night; I was too numb with exhaustion.

  he whistle blew again at four-thirty the next morning, waking me from a deep sleep into a recurring nightmare. Mr. Noh was furious that I was not already up and preparing his breakfast: "How is a man sup posed to work in the fields all day without a proper meal to begin it!" he raged. He snapped up the hand-wound alarm clock beside our bed-again, something I had never seen before, much less known what to do with-and threw it in
my direction. I jumped as the clock flew past me and into a wall, where it expired with a jangled ring. I rushed to fix a hurried breakfast of leftover rice and kimchi. My husband ate it silently, then on his way out barked, "For God's sake get some decent grub in here!"

  I watched him leave camp with the other men, marching to the fields like a ragtag army uniformed in denim pants, checkered shirts, and boots. Most wore a variety of straw hats; a few were bare-headed. To my surprise, I saw several women-bundled up in long-sleeved blouses and gathered skirts, heads covered by bonnets or wide-brimmed hats-heading into the fields as well.

  Even a foolish girl from a far land could intuit the meaning of "grub," so I wasted no time in getting to the plantation store. I was disappointed to find that they didn't carry much in the way of fresh produce, but I used a large portion of my remaining money to purchase more rice, soy sauce, some tinned beef, honey and sesame oil to make rice cakes, and a fresh loin of pork that I decided to make for dinner that night. The store owner, Mr. Fujioka, asked me if I wanted to "charge" them on my "bango, "but since I hadn't the faintest idea what either word meant I just shook my head and handed him the cash.

  On my way back I was heartened to see children running and playing through the camps, which made them seem more like a place where people lived and not merely labored. Passing through the Japanese camp, I encountered a peddler selling fresh vegetables and I eagerly bought a head of cabbage, green onion, garlic, ginger, and red peppers to make fresh kimchi. This left me with less than a dollar in cash, but at least we would have food on the table.

  After I stocked our pantry, I was feeling lonely and sought out jade Moon-as inappropriate as she may have been as a potential source of comfort. But when I knocked on the door of her bungalow there was no answer, and I saw no sign of her in her yard. Had she run away, as I wished I could?

  I went home, pressed Mr. Noh's clothes, and washed my own laundry after nine days at sea. After that I began preparing dinner, determined to make up for the pathetic meal I had served last night. I made bulgogi"fire beef," though pork worked just as well. I cut the pork loin into thin slices and steeped them in soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic, chili pepper, and red pepper paste. As the meat marinated I cooked a pot of rice, another pot of bean-curd soup, and prepared kimchi for fermenting. The minute the four-thirty whistle blew I began grilling the marinated pork slices.

  When my husband came home to a house filled with the smells of cooking pork and rice, his after-work sullenness evaporated like water on a skillet. He sat down to dinner and, as was customary, I humbly belittled the meal I had spent so much time preparing: "Please forgive me, as I am not a very good cook. I hope you will not be too disappointed." I doubted he would be, but just to be safe, I poured him a bowl of rice wine, which he quickly drained.

  After a few bites of meat he looked up and declared, "This is excellent." He took another bite and actually smiled. "I have not had bulgogi this good since I left Pyongyang." I stood basking in his praise, then he noticed that I had not set a place for myself. "Come. Sit. Eat."

  I must have betrayed my surprise at the invitation. My husband sighed and said, a bit reprovingly, "We are not in Korea any longer. In America, men and women sit at the same table and eat together. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing-it just is. Please. Sit down."

  I got myself a plate, spoon, and chopsticks, and sat down at the same table as my husband. Tentatively I helped myself to some rice and a slice of pork-but this all felt so strange. What were men and women supposed to do under these circumstances? Nervously I broke the customary silence by asking, "You are from Pyongyang?" This was in the north, a world away from Pojogae.

  He poured himself another bowl of rice wine and nodded. "I left there in the Year of the Snake-1905. I was a soldier, but those were bad times for the army. We never had enough to eat and were reduced to foraging off the land. One day I saw a notice that said workers were needed at sugar plantations in a place called Hawai'i. I deserted the army as it had deserted me, made my way to the nearest port, and shipped out on the next boat to Honolulu."

  I didn't know whether it was the food or wine or both that was making him so suddenly voluble, but I found that the more he talked the more I liked him. "So you have been at Waialua for ten years?"

  "No, no. I started at 'Ewa Plantation, near Honolulu. It was a terrible place. The head Luna was a despot of a Frenchman. He would curse at us, and if we weren't working fast enough for him, he would sit smugly on his horse and snap a whip at us. As if we were slaves, or bridled horses."

  `Aigo, "I said.

  "When my contract at 'Ewa expired, I went to the island of Kaua'i and worked at Makaweli Plantation. It was even worse. At least at 'Ewa if you worked, you got paid. At Makaweli they had thepoho system."

  "The what?"

  "If the Luna didn't like the way you were cutting the cane, or if you left a small piece on the ground, he'd say, `You poho'-Hawaiian for `out of luck.' He'd take money out of your wages. Fifty cents, five dollars, as much as he liked. And that money went straight into his back pocket. Here we were, making eighteen dollars a month, and he had to steal from us?" He shook his head in disgust.

  "After that I worked for a while at Pu'unene Plantation on Maui. At Pu'unene I heard that Waialua was a good place to work, so I came back to O'ahu. They do treat you well here, and the housing is better than most. But the pay is still a joke. Ten years later and I still only make twenty dollars a month, including bonuses. Nobody gets rich here except the bosses." He downed the rest of the wine, then smiled unhappily. "Guess I'm just poho, eh?"

  Twenty dollars a month sounded like a lot to me, but clearly he didn't agree. Still, after ten years, I assumed he must have saved up a fair amount ... perhaps even enough for me to go to school, though I was not about to broach that subject yet.

  He yawned and pushed away from the table. "A fine meal," he said, "but I'm very tired." He went straight to bed and was dead asleep in minutes. With two hours until lights out, I opened my luggage and took out my copy of Diary of a Sightseeing Tour of Kwanbuk. As Mr. Noh snored away in the bedroom, I sat in the living room and, by the sallow light of the kerosene lamp, reread portions of LadyUiyudang's travels. It cheered me; in a way I felt as though I were following in her adventurous footsteps. I thought of Evening Rose, wondering where my friend was this night, praying she was safe. I wondered what Blossom and Mother were doing. I took out my writing paper and pen and began composing a letter to Joyful Day, careful to paint as rosy a picture of my circumstances as possible:

  Honorable Elder Brother,

  It is with great pleasure that I can inform you I am arrived safely in Hawaii. The journey here was a pleasant one. My husband and I were married in a ceremony beside the ocean and have moved into our lovely new home, which is situated amid much natural splendor. Hawaii is truly as beautiful a place as I had been told, and my life here is [here I paused in thought, at last continuing:] like nothing I could have imagined in Korea ...

  As I wrote I saw my family's faces so clearly, and missed them all the more keenly. I felt somewhat guilty for the flagrant exaggerations, if not outright lies, I was telling them; but at the end I was able to append at least one honest line:

  Tell little sister-in-law that there is no tropical bud here more beautiful than my Blossom.

  Smiling, I folded the letter and slipped it into an envelope, which I then addressed. For the first time since coming to Hawai'i, I began to hope that perhaps things were going to work out after all.

  ife on the plantation was hard, but once I settled into a routine it became tolerable. I accustomed myself to rising at three in the morning, ironing my husband's clothes, then preparing his breakfast in time for the 4:30 A.M. whistle, as well as his lunch to take with him into the fields. I would then clean the house, attack the laundry (a pair of trousers could be worn no more than twice before it mummified), or tend the vegetable garden I started in our yard-I planted seeds for red peppers, carrots, lett
uce, cabbage, and garlic.

  But there were things I could get only at the plantation store, and all I had left was fifty cents. I told my husband I needed to buy more groceries, but instead of giving me cash he said, "Just charge it to my bango." Again this mystifying phrase. "I am woefully ignorant of this word," I admitted. He reached inside his shirt and pulled out a small brass medallion that hung like a necklace around his neck. "My worker number," he said, showing me where the medallion was stamped with the numerals 2989. "You can buy food and the cost will be deducted from my wages." I thanked him and committed the number to memory.

  That day I went to the store and gathered an armful of canned goods and raw beef, but when I gave Mr. Fujioka my husband's number, he frowned: "Is that Noh's bango?"

  "Yes."

  "You are Mrs. Noh?"

  This brought me up short for a moment. Korean women retain their family names even after marriage, though one cannot call them "maiden" names as they are called in America: in Korea I would be known as "Mrs. Pak," wife of Mr. Noh.

  So I simply replied, "I am Mr. Noh's wife."

  "He owes me ten dollars he hasn't made good on. When he pays up, then you can buy more. Not until then." He snapped up the items I had set aside and began reshelving them.

  Embarrassed, I didn't know what to say, so I just left.