Hawaii

by James Michener

  When he talked thus he was disturbed to find that Micah Hale did not agree with him. "We must settle this problem of the foolish kings," Hale insisted. "It is infuriating to see them wasting the substance of this kingdom, and I am more determined than ever to do something about it."

  "Micah!" Captain Hoxworth reproved. "You be content with making H & H the most powerful company in the Pacific, and the kings'll take care of themselves. Remember what I say. Hell, son, you'll be the real king, the one that matters."

  "It is not the destiny of Americans that they should live under kings," Micah repeated stubbornly.

  "I'll tell you what the destiny of America is," Hoxworth boomed, thrusting his handsome, white-haired head forward among his children. "If Hawaii prospers and makes money, America will suddenly discover that we're part of its destiny. But if you allow the firms to fool around and squander our inheritance, America won't give a damn for us."

  In these discussions with Micah the wiry old captain tended to ignore his ineffective son, Bromley, and when Micah argued against him on the matter of Hawaii's civil government, falsely holding it to be of more importance than the profitable governance of H & H and the other big companies, Hoxworth noticed that among his listeners one quick intelligence matched his own, and without ever directing himself purposely and obviously at this attentive listener, he began tailoring his comments so that Bromley's thirteen-year-old boy, Whip, could understand, and he was gratified to see how soon this wiry, quick boy with the sharp eyes caught on.

  "I have always held," he said, speaking ostensibly to the boy's uncle, Ed Janders, who had married Iliki--it was curious the way in which Captain Hoxworth named his own children after women he had loved: Jerusha, Bromley, Iliki; but his wife had understood-- "I've held that a man's life should begin at thirteen. He should go to sea, or engage in great enterprises. His mind should already have grappled with the idea of God, and he should have read half the fine books he will read in his entire lifetime. Any single minute lost after you're thirteen is an hour irretrievably gone." It was interesting to the old captain that Iliki's husband didn't understand a word he was saying, but his grandson Whip Hoxworth understood it all.

  The captain therefore formed the habit of taking the high-spirited boy with him as he rode about Honolulu, and that year the community became accustomed to seeing handsome Captain Hoxworth parading the streets with his alert grandson, introducing him formally to his business associates and explaining shipping customs to the boy. One day the minister asked, "Captain, isn't the boy attending school any more?" And Hoxworth replied, "What I'm teaching him he can't get in school."

  He took his grandson down to the wharves to see the H & H ships come in from Java and China, and he made the boy stay down in the fo'c's'l for entire days while he went about other work, saying, "If you've got a good imagination, and I think you have, you can construct what it must have been like to sail before the mast." He also said, "There is one thrill of the sea that every man must discover for himself, the arrival at some strange port after a long voyage. Whip, remember this. Travel about the world. See the forbidden cities and dive into them."

  He said this while standing 'tween decks in a converted whaler, and in the half-darkness he added, "Whip, the two greatest things in life are sailing into a strange port and thinking, 'I can make this city mine,' and sailing into the harbor of a strange woman and saying, 'I can make this woman mine.' Whip, when I'm dead I don't want you to remember me as I was in church or as I looked sitting at the big table at night. I want you to remember me as I was."

  He left his gig at the wharves and walked westward from the bustling docks until he and his grandson came to a section of evil-smelling little houses strung along a network of alleys. "This is Iwilei," Captain Hoxworth explained. "Rat Alley, Iwilei, and down here I'm king." But if his words were true, he was a king incognito, for no one in the alleys of Iwilei spoke to him. A few Chinese who had made money that week gambling, a few sailors, a few minor men from the smaller businesses of Honolulu ambled past, intent upon their business, and the first thing young Whip Hoxworth noticed was that in Iwilei even men who knew each other did not speak; as if by magic a man was invisible because he wished to be so.

  "This is where I often come," the old captain explained, and he led his grandson into a dark and inconspicuous shack, the inside of which was well lighted and tastefully decorated. A Chinese who imported his girls from Macao, ran the place; he nodded deferentially to Hoxworth, who said, "I want to see all the girls."

  A truly motley crew lined up in bathrobes and slips: a Spaniard from Valparaiso with no high combs in her hair; an Italian girl from Naples who had shipped into Honolulu on a whaler; an Irish girl from Dublin who knew Captain Hoxworth and who gave him a kiss--young Whip liked her and she smiled at him; two Chinese girls and one Javanese, who seemed forbidding and aloof. "Who's the youngest girl here?" Captain Hoxworth asked.

  "This China girl," the curator of masterpieces replied.

  "Can she speak English?"

  "No. She don't have to."

  "Today she have to," Hoxworth replied. "You go out and find me the youngest girl you can, but she's got to speak English. I want her to explain things to my boy here." When the proprietor left to scurry about among the sinks of Iwilei, the Chinese and Javanese girls retired, but the others who could speak English gathered about the captain and his charge, admiring the young man.

  "How old is he?" the pleasant Irish girl asked.

  "Thirteen," Hoxworth replied, putting his virile arm about the questioner. "And at thirteen it's high time a man gets to know what delicious things women are. How old were you, Noreen, when you discovered the fun in men?"

  "I was thirteen," the happy Irish girl replied.

  "And you, Constanza?"

  "I was twelve, in back of the cathedral in Naples."

  "I was fourteen myself," Hoxworth apologized. "And it happened in your home city, Raquella, and that's why I've always treasured Valparaiso. I had shipped on a whaler . . . well, you wouldn't be interested, but I spied on the sailors to see where they were going with such determination, and I marched in after them and said, "Me, too!" And everybody roared with laughter as I plunked down my shillings, but thereafter they treated me with more respect. And, Whip, they'll treat you with more respect, too. Not because they'll know you were here. That's got to be kept a secret. But because you'll know something the others don't know. And this knowledge is what makes some men men, while the lack of it keeps other men boys ... all their lives. I'm afraid that your uncles and your father are boys. Goddamnit, I want you to be a man."

  The brothel keeper returned with a Chinese girl of uncertain age, but she seemed younger than the rest. She wore a black silk smock covering white pajama pants. She was barefooted and had her hair in a long braid, so that she looked completely alien to the boy who was intended to be her guest. He looked at her with frank curiosity, and when she saw this confused yet eager face, she smiled

  and took a step toward him. "I like to show him things," she said.

  Young Whip was momentarily afraid, and although he did not draw back, neither did he step valiantly forward, so his grandfather benignly put his left arm about the little Chinese girl and his right about his grandson. "Remember what I said about ships sailing into strange ports? Anybody can be brave enough to love a girl of his own color, but to be a man, Whip, you've got to stare right into the eyes of the brown girls and yellow and whatever you meet up with, and say, 'You're a woman and you're mine.' Because what a man's got to discover is that there's no gain in loving a particular woman. It's the idea of woman that you're after. Now you be real sweet with this pretty little Chinese girl. Because she can teach you the first steps in this grand discovery."

  Giving the curious pair his benediction, he pushed them gently toward the darkened hallway that led to the private rooms, and as they disappeared, hand in hand, he grabbed the Irish girl and cried, "Goddamn, Noreen, it's exciting! Imagine! The first time!" The
Chinese girl led Whip to a stall and showed him the furnishings. "Pretty, you think?"

  "It's real nice," he stammered, holding tighter to her warm hand.

  She pushed him away from her, turned to face him and said, "It's possible have much fun with a woman. You see?" And slowly she pulled her smock over her head, and when she had tossed the rustling silk onto a chair she smiled at Whip, placed her small brown hands under her breasts and moved her shoulders sideways in a slow rotary motion. "These made for men," she explained, and without further instruction young Whip moved forward, pulled her hands away and replaced them with his own. Instinctively he lifted the small breasts to his lips, and as he was doing so the girl slipped off her trousers. It would have pleased Captain Hoxworth could he have witnessed how little instruction his grandson really required.

  But in other matters the boy needed substantial guidance. He was a wild-willed lad with only an average record at school, and his grandfather surprised him by insisting that he read long and difficult books like Pendennis and Jane Eyre, while the students at Punahou were struggling with Oliver Twist and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Captain Hoxworth also drilled his grandson on the necessity for showing a profit on anything one went into in the line of business, and his business principles were simple: "If you sell something, never give samples away. Make the bastards pay. And keep an eye on the help or they'll steal the company right out from under you."

  There was one lesson, however, which the ramrod-straight old captain impressed upon his tough-minded grandson above all others: "Living seventy years is a tremendous adventure. You're thirteen now. You've probably only got fifty-seven Christmases left. Enjoy each as if you would never see another, for by God the day soon comes when you won't. You've only got about two and a half thousand more Saturday nights remaining. Get yourself a girl and enjoy her. Never take a girl lightly. You may never sleep with another. Or she may be the one you'll always remember as the best of the lot. But goddamnit, Whip, don't be a weak old man before your time. Don't be like your father and your uncles. God, Whip, you can't even imagine what Hawaii's going to be like in twenty years, or fifty. Maybe nobody'll be growing sugar. Maybe they won't need ships any more. Maybe this whole city and the hills behind will be part of China. But be courageous about guessing. Be on top of the wheel as it turns, not dragging along at the bottom."

  At this moment in his grandfather's harangue young Whip made the old man extremely happy. The idea that Hawaii might one day be part of China did not entirely impress young Whip, but the mention of that country reminded him of Iwilei and he said, boldly, "I'd like to see that Chinese girl again."

  "So would I!" the old man roared, and he hitched his horse and led his grandson down into Rat Alley, but when they got to the Macao man's place, the Chinese girl could not be found, so Whip smiled as before at the Irish lass, who was heavier than he was, but his grandfather roared, "No, by God! Noreen's' mine." And he rustled up Raquella from Valparaiso, and the Spanish girl was so pleased with the idea of being with a bright-eyed young boy that when she had him alone she tore at him like a tigress, and he fought with her, tearing a red welt across her back until with a tempestuous sigh of joy she pulled him onto the floor and taught him things no boy in Honolulu and few men knew.

  And it was strange, but when he left Iwilei that day he was not thinking of women, but of strange ports, and the insatiable fighting of the world, and of ships--his ships--traveling to all parts of the globe to bring home strange people and stranger produce. "I don't want to go back to Punahou," he announced that evening at his grandfather's big table.

  "What do you want to do?" asked his proper father, whose main job in life was hiding the fact that he was half-Hawaiian.

  "I want to go to sea," young Whip replied.

  "That you shall!" his grandfather promised, but this was a promise that was most difficult to keep, and for a while it seemed as if the stuffy uncles, who did not know the wild, free girls of Iwilei, would triumph.

  "The boy has got to finish Punahou and go to Yale," Bromley Hoxworth insisted.

  "To hell with Yale," Captain Hoxworth shouted. "Yale never did good for any man who wasn't already formed by his own experiences. Your son is a different breed, Bromley. He's for the sea."

  "He's got to get an education to prepare him for his later responsibilities with H & H," Bromley insisted.

  "Listen to me, you blind, blind men!" Hoxworth stormed. "That is exactly my purpose in sending him to sea. So that he can obtain the education in the world that he will require if he is going to run your companies well. It is for your sakes that I want him to sail before the mast. Because there has got to be somebody in this timorous outfit who has developed courage and a free new way of looking at things." He slumped back in his chair and said, "I'm growing tired of arguments."

  The uncles supported Bromley, bearded Micah proving especially effective with his contention that a new day had arisen in Hawaii, one that required the exercise of prudence and conservative management. "It is our job to hold onto our position and consolidate our good fortune while we ponder what can be done about bringing these islands into the American orbit. Caution, hard work and intellectual capacity are what we require. Bromley's right. The place to acquire those virtues is at Yale."

  "Colossal horse manure!" Captain Hoxworth responded from his slumped position at the head of the table. "The abilities you're referring to, Micah, can always be bought for fifteen hundred Mexican dollars a year, and do you know why they can be bought as cheaply as that? Because your goddamned Yale College can always be depended upon to turn out exactly that kind of man in bigger supply than the market can possibly absorb. But a man of daring, schooled at sea and in commerce and in knockdown fights . . ." He rose from the table and left in disgust. "Such men don't come cheap. Nobody turns them out in large quantities."

  The uncles kept young Whip sequestered from his grandfather, lest the stubborn old man ship the boy on one of the many H & H cargo carriers about to sail from Honolulu. To balk what they suspected was the old captain's plan, they prepared to ship Whipple back to New England, where in rather quieter quarters he could prepare himself for Yale; but one March morning in 1870 Captain Hoxworth ferreted out where his grandson was being kept, and he drove there hurriedly in his gig and told the boy: "Hurry, Whip, we've got only a few minutes."

  "For what?"

  "You're shipping to Suez."

  The stalwart young fellow, now almost fourteen and tall for his age, smiled at his erect old grandfather and said, "I have no clothes here."

  "Come as you are. You'll appreciate clothes more if you have to work for them."

  They drove rapidly to the docks, where Whip automatically headed for a large H & H ship which seemed ready to put out to sea, whereupon his grandfather caught his arm, wheeled him about in the sunlight, and asked scornfully, "Good God, Whip! Do you think I'd ship you on one of my own boats? There's what you ride in, son!" 'And he pointed to a three-masted weather-beaten old whaler from Salem, Massachusetts. The years had not been good to this ship, for she had entered the whaling trade after its peak had been reached, and without ever finding her logical place among the wandering ships of the world, she had stumbled from one occupation to another. Three times she had changed her rigging and now sailed as a barkentine, bound for a speculative run to Manila for an overload of mahogany which the Khedive of Egypt required for a palace he was building. She had already waited at the pier half an hour beyond her announced time of departure, but since she had consistently missed the master schedule by which the oceans of the world operate, this was no new experience. Nevertheless, her captain chafed and he was not in a good humor when Rafer Hoxworth hurried up with his grandson.

  "This is the boy I told you of," Hoxworth said.

  "Looks strong," the surly captain snarled. "Get below."

  "I'd like a minute with him," Hoxworth said.

  "You can have six," the captain agreed.

  Quickly Rafer Hoxworth swung himself down i
nto the fo'c's'l, grabbed his grandson by the arms and said hurriedly, "Once you leave this harbor, Whipple, that evil-tempered man topside has the absolute power of life and death over you. His word is law, and he's no puny Yale professor. He's a tough, cruel man, and you'll get no sympathy from either him or me if you play the coward.

  "Now, Whip, if you get into a fight, and you will, remember one thing. Fight to kill. There's no other rule. And when you've got a man fairly licked and on the deck, always kick him in the face so that when he gets up he can't contend that he almost had you down. Bruise him, scar him, mutilate him so that he can never forget who's boss. And when you've done this, help him up and be generous.

  "Whip, you've tasted Chinese girls and Spaniards. There are a thousand more to sample. Try 'em all. That's the one thing you'll do in life that you'll never regret. Whip, I want you to come home a man."

  As the fleeting seconds passed, the youth wished vainly that he could prolong this moment endlessly, for he felt deeply attached to this wild old grandfather of his, but the last question he asked was so surprising both to himself and to his grandfather that Rafer Hoxworth fell back a few steps: "Grandfather, if you liked the girls at Iwilei so much, how did you feel about Noelani? I can't get this straight."

  There was a moment of silence, and then Rafer said, "When Noelani's mother died she weighed close to four hundred pounds. Your great-grandmother. And every day her husband crawled into her presence on his hands and knees, bringing her maile chains. That's a good thing for a man to do."

  "But how can you love a lot of girls and one woman, too? At the same time?"

  "You ever study the skies at night, Whip? All the lovely little stars? You could reach up and pinch each one on the points. And then in the east the moon rises, enormous and perfect. And that's something else, entirely different."