Honolulu

by Alan Brennert

  It was jade Moon.

  A Chinese woman tried to calm her, but was rebuffed with an angry shove. "Eh, you papule!" the woman snapped at her. The other women now backed away, but I pushed through them, even as jade Moon started to unbutton her denim blouse. I squatted down and put a hand on hers.

  "It's all right," I told her, "we'll get you some water-"

  She was looking directly at me, yet despite this I believe she didn't recognize me. Her face, like all of ours, was dusted red from the soil, and her tears had traced dark red rivulets down her cheeks, as if she were weeping blood.

  "I can't," she cried. "I can't do it anymore-"

  She wrenched her hand free from mine and tore at her shirt buttons, snapping the threads with a pop. She sighed as the air touched the exposed skin of her neck.

  "What in hell's going on here?"

  I looked behind me. One of the Tunas was glowering down at us.

  "This woman suffers," I told him in English. "She must get out of the sun.

  "She's just lazy," he said with a sneer, "like all of-"

  Jade Moon's fingers fumbled at her buttons, exposing the upper crescents of her breasts for all to see. The Tuna's eyes widened: "What the hell is she..."

  I grabbed her hands in mine, looked her in the eye and, seeking to shock, hissed at her: "Stop this! Are you a fool?"

  She stopped, brought up short by her own words of a week ago. I believe she dimly began to recognize me.

  "Go on, get her out of here," the tuna said, finally realizing that jade Moon wasn't faking. "I'll only dock you each half a day." I helped my friend up onto wobbly feet and supported her as we trod out of the cane field. It took twenty minutes to get back to our camp, with frequent drinks from my water bottle, but at last we reached my bungalow, where I had her lie down on our bed. I dabbed her face with water, both to cool her and to wipe away the crust of red dirt, and gave her as much to drink as she could swallow.

  All this time she had not spoken a word. Now, as she drained a glass of water, she looked at me with embarrassment and said quietly, `Vianham- nida. " There is no precise English equivalent of this word-it can express both gratitude and apology, as in "Thank you, I am sorry for the trouble I have caused you."

  "You have nothing to apologize for. It's a hot day, it might have happened to any of us."

  "You probably think me a silly city girl unacquainted with hard work," she said with a frown, "and you would be right. I know nothing of manual labor. My first day in the fields, I thought I was going to die. At the end of the day, I wanted to die. My body had never hurt so much in my life." She added with chagrin, "That is what I tried to tell you, badly, when you came to work in the fields."

  I now recognized her characteristic frown for what it was: not a scowl of disdain for me, but a reflection of her own self-loathing.

  "Then why do it?" I asked. "Does your husband make you?"

  She shook her head. "My father is yangban, " she said, "and spends his days in scholarly pursuits. His family inheritance was exhausted years ago. He applied for the civil service, but was turned down; and to take another kind of job would be beneath his dignity. So while he sits in his den and studies the Chinese classics, my mother works herself to the bone-raising vegetables to sell at market, taking in laundry, anything she can think of to support a family of five. I thought that if I married a rich man in Hawai'i . . ." Here her voice faltered. ". . . I could send back enough money that my mother would not have to work herself to death. She's so small, so frail ... and she works so very hard. I thought I could help, but-" She laughed ruefully. "The joke is on me. I came all the way to Hawai'i just to marry a pauper who spent every cent he had to bring me here! Hilarious, isn't it?"

  "So you work in the fields," I said, "to send money to your family?"

  "Yes, but I'm not strong enough, God help me. I am weak and spoiled, a terrible daughter! I wish I were dead!" She broke down again into sobs; I took her in my arms and held her as she let loose her shame and exhaustion. When she had cried herself out, I spoke up:

  "Listen to me," I told her. "You are no weaker than I am. You hate yourself no less than I have hated myself. You are not alone.

  "You have endured much. You have suffered much. You will suffer more, and you will endure that as well. Is this not what it means to be Korean?"

  I saw a shadow of her dignity return to her. She nodded slowly.

  "Yes," she said. "This is so."

  Then a small smile even tugged at her mouth. She reached up and playfully straightened my neckerchief.

  "And are we not," she added dryly, "so very fashionable?"

  We both laughed, and I went to the kitchen to prepare her something to eat.

  aturday, twice a month, was payday, and no one was awaiting their wages more excitedly than I was. I stood in line at the manager's office, and when it was my turn I proudly showed the paymaster my bango. "Number 3327," he read from his ledger. "Worked eleven and one-half days at forty-six cents a day, for a total of five dollars and twenty-seven-"

  "Wait-that cannot be right. I was told field workers were paid seventy cents a day."

  "Men make seventy. Women make forty-six."

  "But we do the same work!"

  "Do you want your money or not?" he barked. Grudgingly I nodded. He counted up the appropriate number of coins, placed them in my hand. "Next!"

  My annoyance at making only two-thirds of a man's wages was outweighed by the pride I felt as I hefted the money in my hand, money that I had earned from my own effort. I put the coins in my skirt pocket and happily listened to them jingle all the way to the plantation store, where I purchased enough food to last us at least two weeks. And I even had a dollar left over, one I could perhaps send to my mother or save for schooling. I felt great joy and satisfaction-almost as much as I had felt upon learning to read-as I carried the groceries home and proceeded to restock our bare pantry.

  I was surprised and pleased when only a few minutes later my husband came home. I had prepared myself for the possibility that he might again stay out late gambling and drinking, but here he was, sober and on time.

  I went into the living room and greeted him, utterly unprepared for the fist that struck me in the nose like a hammer. My face seemed to explode, I saw flashing lights as my head jerked backwards, and I fell to the floor.

  I lay there, blood gushing from my nose, gazing up with a total lack of comprehension at my husband, who towered above me, quivering with rage.

  "You shame me!" he shouted, and I heard again my father's voice. "My wife, working in the fields like a man-as if I am not man enough to provide for you! They were all laughing at me behind my back, did you hear them?"

  Oh Heaven, I thought. I put a hand to my nose, trying to staunch the flow of blood, but even the slightest pressure on it hurt beyond imagining.

  "I ... I am sorry, honored husband," I said, trying to find the words that might dampen his rage. "I was only trying to help."

  He took a step toward me, and for a moment I thought it was to give me a hand up. Instead he kicked me in the side, the tip of his boot stabbing like a dagger in my ribs, and I screamed in pain.

  "Where is the money?" he asked. I couldn't even catch my breath. He reached down, grabbed me by my shirt, and shook me hard. "Where is it?"

  Through a red fog of pain I reached into my pocket and brought out the few coins left over from my wages.

  "Where's the rest of it?" he demanded.

  "I-bought food." I braced myself for another blow of the hammer, but he just took a step backward and dropped the coins into his pocket.

  "You are not to work the fields anymore," he ordered.

  "I ... won't," I said between gasps. "I promise."

  "I'll be home late. I will spare you the trouble of preparing dinner."

  He turned and stalked out of the house, the slam of the door behind him making me flinch.

  I lay there unable to move for at least ten minutes, finally gathering the strength to s
tand. My ribs burned when I took a breath. I quickly found a rag and pressed it against the bridge of my nose. I felt lancing pain, but I kept up the pressure and eventually the bleeding stopped. I looked into a mirror and saw a face ruddy with dust and blood-but beneath the rust was a shocked and terrified pallor.

  From somewhere I found the fortitude to walk to the plantation dispensary, where I told the doctor that I had fallen coming home from the fields. I couldn't tell him the truth; I was too ashamed. Whether he believed me or not he adjudged my nose fractured and gave me an icepack to reduce the swelling, which was by now prodigious. Then he examined my ribs, which were luckily only bruised, not broken. The swelling on my face gradually decreased and the pain subsided, but it left me with a black-and-blue swath across my nose. I went home with instructions not to touch it or sleep on it, as well as a bottle of aspirin for the pain and the doctor's insistence that should the bleeding start again, or should pus appear, I was to return to the infirmary.

  As I walked home I wondered-in an oddly detached manner I would recognize only in hindsight as shock-what to do next. My husband had forbidden me from working in the fields, but I knew he would come home tonight having once more gambled away his wages. Fortunately I had purchased enough food to last several weeks-but what then?

  Worrying about food when I should have been worrying for my life, I arrived home and fell exhausted into bed. My nose still throbbed and I took two aspirin as instructed. Tomorrow was Sunday and I did not, blessedly, have to rise at four in the morning to prepare breakfast. I slept in till nearly six. When I woke my husband was in bed beside me and he made no mention of my bruised and swollen face. He even seemed rather chipper. I did my best to stay out of his way for the rest of the day, preparing his favorite meals and saying not a whisper to antagonize him. When he left in the afternoon to play something called "softball" with his friends, I went to the management office and turned in my bango.

  By Monday the shock had worn off and I was again gripped by fear. The first time Mr. Noh struck me he had been drinking, but this time he had been cold sober. That meant that an attack could happen at any time, for any reason. The thought paralyzed me: What did I do, what did I say around him? How did I live with this explosive presence? I was anxious to talk with jade Moon but she was in the fields, as I should have been. In desperation I sought the counsel of other Korean housewives in the camp, but found that they held a very Confucian view of marriage. "It is a husband's right to treat his wife as he sees fit," one told me, while another quoted the old Korean adage, "Women and dried pollack should be beaten every three days," and admitted that her own husband occasionally had to "discipline" her.

  Only one of the women I spoke with thought that what my husband had done was wrong: "This is America, not Korea. Women are not chattel. Take the train and speak to the pastor at the Korean Methodist Church; perhaps he can help you." When I protested that I had no money for train fare, she thrust some coins into my hand and said, "Go. "

  My family was Confucian, not Christian, and Namsanhyun Methodist Church was fifteen miles away in Kahuku-the last stop on the Oahu Railway main line. But with no better alternative, after my husband left for work the next morning, I stole away to the railway station and purchased a ticket for the 11:45 train. It took half an hour to reach Kahuku Station and from there I was able to walk to the church, where I asked to speak to the pastor.

  But though the reverend was sympathetic to my plight, and made clear he did not countenance violence, he advised me, "We are far from the lands we knew, and Koreans are a small minority here in Hawai'i. If we are to preserve Korean culture and tradition, we must preserve family unity. Look into your heart, child, and forgive your husband his transgressions."

  "As he forgives me?" I asked. "With his closed fist?"

  "What other choice do you have?" he asked, adding gently, "This is the life you chose, child. You must learn to make the best of it."

  I took the 2:20 P.M. train back to Waialua. As the station neared I was sorely tempted to remain sitting-to let the train take me as far from Waialua and Mokuleia Camp as I could travel. For a few moments I thought I might actually do it. But after the locomotive shrieked to a stop in Waialua Station, I lost my nerve, got up, and got off the train.

  Perhaps everyone was right. Perhaps I had needlessly provoked my husband into violence by taking a job in the fields without his permission. But even if I accepted the blame for that, the problem still remained: how to survive on the few coins remaining after my husband's gambling?

  Marisol generously introduced me to her friend Luisa, who ran a thriving business washing, ironing, and mending clothes for the single men living in the barracks. She charged them five cents a shirt, and needed another hand to help her: for every shirt I washed, pressed, or stitched, I would receive two cents. But I was not brave enough to accept her offer then and there; I could not risk my husband's wrath again by going behind his back. Instead I brought the matter up one evening after dinner, choosing my words carefully:

  "Honorable husband," I said, "you were right to be angry that I took the field work without asking your permission. You are the Outside Master"-a Korean term for head of the household-"and I should have come to you first."

  He looked at me impassively.

  "But I see how hard you work," I went on meekly, "and how the Tunas cheat you, and I wish to help in some way. A woman here in the camp takes in laundry for the men in the barracks. She has asked me to assist her, for which I would receive a few pennies in payment. I respectfully ask the Outside master to consider allowing me to go to work for her, and thereby contribute some small sum to the household."

  I steeled myself for a possible eruption, but he didn't look angry, merely contemplative.

  "Laundry," he said after a moment.

  "Yes. Washing shirts, ironing, mending."

  "Would anyone else know you are doing this?"

  "No. We would do all the work at Luisa's home, and she would deliver the laundry to the barracks."

  Whether it was the deference I displayed or the fact that laundry was more traditionally women's work, I don't know; but at last he nodded and said, "You have my permission."

  I bowed my head in gratitude. "Thank you, my husband."

  I went to work for Luisa the next day. There I would spend eight hours beating the mud out of trousers and shirts, soaking them in a steel wash drum, and stirring the mixture like some kind of foul, bloody stew. I was so proficient at stitching and patching that Luisa eventually entrusted me with all the sewing that needed doing. I found that I was able to work on perhaps twenty shirts a day, earning a daily wage of forty cents-nearly as much as I would have been paid for working in the fields. Then, before the four-thirty whistle blew, I would hurry home and begin preparing Mr. Noh's dinner.

  I was soon earning almost ten dollars a month, though I decided not to share that exact figure with the "Outside Master." I would use most of the money for groceries, then give my husband some (but not all) of what was left, which he could gamble away with his own wages if he was so inclined. But I was always careful to set aside a dollar or two each month for unforeseen emergencies, hiding the coins in a jar that I buried in our vegetable garden.

  The tensions between Mr. Noh and myself lessened; the household was at peace again. I would never feel completely safe around him, but neither did I live every day in constant terror. His better nature surfaced now and thenhe would make a joke or do something thoughtful for me-and it was during one of these harmonious interludes that we had marital relations again. I found myself completely disconnected from the act, almost as though I were sitting in the corner of the room, watching my husband straddle me and thrust himself into my body. I was not afraid, I was not pleasured, I simply was. I did not dare be anything else.

  A few weeks later I woke feeling nauseous, but forced myself to go to work. The queasiness lessened as the day wore on, but then I began to feel more and more fatigued as well. I had to relieve myself ever
y hour or so, then would suddenly find myself crying about it, as though it were the most terrible thing in the world-and forget about it just as quickly. That month I missed my menstrual period. In those days there were no blood tests to determine pregnancy, but the plantation doctor knew the signs and congratulated me.

  I sat in the infirmary and said wonderingly, "I'm going to have a child?"

  He smiled and allowed as how that was the usual sequence of events.

  I walked home, elated, though part of me worried how my husband would react. But when I told him that evening, to my relief he broke into a wide grin; he seemed delighted by the news. And for the first time since the night he had spoken so kindly to me over dinner, I too was happy.

  he months that followed were good ones. With a child on the way, Mr. Noh exhibited a newfound sense of responsibility: he stopped drinking, no longer went out on payday, and abstained from gambling. I asked him to do none of these things; he embraced them on his own, and seemed genuinely eager to save money to raise a family. We talked about baby names, though he never considered the thought that it might be anything but a boy. "We won't stay on the plantation forever," he promised. "I'll get a job in town. As a carpenter, or a yard man to a rich haole. Our son won't grow up with red dirt between his teeth."

  When I told jade Moon, she admitted that she, too, had missed a period and feared she might be pregnant; she didn't relish the prospect of doing field work with a baby strapped on her back. The possibility of having to give up work altogether had not occurred to me, but in my third month my fatigue became so chronic and acute that I was unable to continue working for Luisa-it was all I could manage to do our own laundry, cooking, and housekeeping. Mr. Noh was understanding and supportive.

  But whereas in the past it was my salary that went to pay for food and other necessities, now it was Mr. Noh's. I had paid off his debt with the plantation store and once again we could charge our purchases, but when next he received his wages-less the cost of groceries I had already purchased-he was shocked to walk away with fewer than two dollars. The next payday he netted even less, as we had purchased baby blankets, diapers, and other nursery items.