Israel said he thought he was suffering from a "great man" complex. Well, he is a great man, I suppose. Certainly he is highly regarded for the work he has done. Kit calls him a "celebrity scientist." Somehow I prefer great men with a touch of humility.
"I know, I know," May began when we sat down to lunch on the verandah after the doctor's departure, "the last time Peter Rensaeller came out, and saw what the situation was, he was pretty upset. He all but came out and told Obregon that he was taking advantage of me. What Peter said to me was, 'The old man's got what he wants—the lion's share of the credit for a project that is getting worldwide attention, without doing any of the work.' But that's not really fair, you know. Sure, he's resting on his laurels— but without those laurels we would never have gotten funding for this project. Never. And he has a body of magnificent work behind him, he deserves the credit."
"He did include your name on the reports, that was generous of him," I put in. Something in May's expression made me add, "How did that come about?"
"Peter insisted," May answered, reluctantly. "I think he is afraid I won't continue unless I get some credit."
"Did Peter have any problems convincing him?" Kit wanted to know.
May wrinkled her nose. "It was a long session, and Peter came out looking pretty grim, but somehow he managed to do it."
"Good for Peter!" I blurted.
"It is good for me," May came back, reaching for a cigarette, "I figure this project should be good for another year, possibly two. But good for Obregon, too," she said, defensively. Seeing the skeptical looks on our faces, she added, "Really, he isn't as bad as he seems. There are times when he is actually quite dear, but those times are getting rarer, I admit. And the work is adding some luster to his reputation. In many ways I'm really quite lucky, that I could take on all that I have. I'm pretty much running the whole thing, and it is turning out well—in fact, we're causing quite a stir in the field. Asking for my name on the reports could be seen, in some quarters, as quite arrogant. But Peter is backing me—you're right, because he knows the inside story, that Obregon can't perform. When the work here is established and I can go on, I figure I should be able to pick my next project."
"But you're working too hard, May," Kit said, her voice filled with concern. "You've lost weight, you look as if you have been ill."
"I caught some strange bug in the New Hebrides a couple of weeks back . . . nonstop dysentery and fever for a few days. I took to my bed for a while. Unfortunately, that bed was a sleeping bag thrown in a bamboo hut in the high-grass of Tanna Island. Not a great climate for recuperating. But now that you are here, I'm going to take time out—the next five days at least. Sans the good professor, I hope. There are times when he wears me down."
"Okay," Kit said, standing and taking a tough-guy stance that reminded me of Lauren Bacall, "now that Obregon is gone, I give the orders around here. You sit right where you are, Miss May. From this moment on, for the next five days at least, you are going to do absolutely nothing but eat and sleep and talk a little in between. We are going to wait on you, and you are going to let us. That includes running interference with the good Doctor. By the time I leave I want to see some meat on those bones and the glow back in your cheeks. Agreed?"
May took Kit's hand and pressed it to her cheek. "Agreed."
We plan our day around May. We take our breakfast under a spreading kiawe tree on the far side of the house, so she is not awakened by our voices. Israel puts me through my paces then, and tries to coax me into the water because he has a theory that the exercises will work better there. Abigail joins us then. She is teaching me how to plait pandana leaves into little baskets. We visit for a while, until May comes out and we watch her eat. She accuses us of counting the bites she takes, and of frowning when she reaches for a cigarette.
Late in the morning May and Kit go in for a swim, and sometimes others appear to go with them. Today Clarence came with a pretty little girl named Noelani who looks to be scarcely older than Thea. She brought me a lei of ginger she had made herself, placed it around my neck, kissed me on both cheeks, and smiled so prettily that I could feel my eyes filling with tears, I was so touched.
I watched them all walk into the water together, diving into the surf as it pounded in, looking for all the world like brown little seals cavorting in the blue sea. Oh, it is glorious here. I can see—no, I can feel—why May loves it. In the afternoons we stretch out on the chaises on the lanai and listen to May's stories from her travels.
Clarence has been much on her mind. It became obvious yesterday, when she told us about an adventure they had shared in Chile a few weeks ago. "I'm worried that I've misjudged Clarence," she began, carefully. "I thought he wanted to learn about volcanoes, to probe and discover and answer as many of the unanswered questions as he could. But I'm beginning to believe that isn't what Clarence really wants."
She shifted on her chair, put her hand under her hip as if to cushion it, and you could almost see her mind shift. "I don't know what would have happened if he hadn't been with me in Chile. We were in the field, heading into the mountains near Rio Bueno . . . it was right after Allende had been elected, and there is a lot of opposition to him there. We heard that some guerrilla units had been operating in the area we were going into, so we hired some bodyguards. A couple of people from the Red Cross needed to go into the area to check out some problems in a village that was on the way, so we went flying Red Cross flags, and up till that point everything was fine. It was when Clarence, the guards and I set off alone—and the terrain got steeper and the underbrush thicker— that things started getting dicey. It was fairly clear that the trail had been used. There was fresh dung from the animals and the guards began to get a little nervous, you could see by the way they were acting. You have to remember how macho Latin men are . . . if they begin to think that you might think they are cowardly, they have to show you they aren't. One tried to show me that night. He crawled into my tent and put his hands over my mouth, so I wouldn't yell out. He was trying to squirm around, to get on top of me, when somebody started pulling him from behind. It was Clarence, and he was furious . . . I guess the man had his pants undone, because Clarence pulled them down to his ankles and the guy went into a kind of crouch, and came up with a knife. By then, I'd scrambled in my sleeping bag and found my gun. I held it to that man's head and I heard myself say, 'Drop that knife or I'll blow your fucking head off.' My mouth was so dry with fear that I don't know how I got it out, but I did. He dropped the knife, but God! I'll never forget his eyes. He would have cut Clarence's heart out on the spot if I hadn't a gun to his head."
"Good lord, May," Kit exclaimed for all of us. "What happened?"
"The three of them were gone before we knew what was happening . . . they took one of the Land Rovers. We could hear them for miles. We just sat looking at each other for a while, then Clarence said, 'I didn't know you had a gun.'"
"'It isn't loaded,' I told him, reaching in my sleeping bag for the bullets. 'I was afraid it might go off accidentally.'
"He started laughing then, but he loaded the gun and then he took a Red Cross flag he had swiped and put it on a stick and we went on up the mountain, alone."
"And I take it you weren't bothered?"
"No, both of us had the feeling we were being watched, but nobody did anything. Maybe they saw what happened, I don't know. Luckily, we got what we needed and we won't have to go back for a long time. Maybe Allende will get things under control by then."
"He's a Marxist," I asked, "how long do you think Nixon is going to let him last?"
"I don't know," May said, thoughtfully. "He was elected, that should be worth something. And some of his social reforms are badly needed. But there is powerful opposition . . . South American governments are so volatile. I've never known who to trust . . . The bodyguards we hired were recommended by the American Embassy people—they said they were reliable. That should tell you something. Thank God for Clarence."
"But you re
ally need more help, don't you?" Kit asked.
"I've got Peter Rensaeller working on it. He is so pleased with how the program is going that he's hustled up funding for a new assistant. He'll be here in a couple of weeks, a young man from Berkeley, as a matter of fact. He's dropped out of the program there—it was pretty obvious to most of us who knew him that he really didn't have what it takes, and I guess he's finally faced up to it. He's a very mild fellow. I know I can work with him. If only he can get along with Obregon, things should be just peachy—all pressures will be off, and I'll be able to cut back to about a sixty-hour week."
Another day May told us about Marie-Claire Benoist. "Her name began cropping up in Hayes's letters about three months ago," she said. "Marie-Claire took him to the opening of a new film, or Marie-Claire is off to Brittany, on location. She seems to have something to do with filmmaking and she is the sister of someone in his office. That's all I know about her."
"But you wonder?" Kit said quietly.
May shrugged.
"Why can't you take time out, fly to Paris, say hello?"
"Why can't he take time out, fly to Hawaii, say hello?" she came back, an edge of very real anger in her voice.
"Have you tried to meet in the middle?" Kit wanted to know.
"Twice. He was in Bangkok last month, but I got held up in Japan. Before that, I missed him in Hong Kong."
"What was he doing there?" Kit suddenly asked.
"I'm not sure," May answered. "He is being rather evasive, but I think it probably has something to do with the girl his brother left behind . . . and their child." She paused then. "Maybe Marie-Claire will be able to tell me more. She's coming to the islands to scout locations for a documentary film on Vietnam. Hayes says he has given her my number."
Two days before the end of our idyll, Kit got an urgent call. Her presence was needed in Los Angeles for an important vote on one of the boards she served on. They had booked her a seat on the first plane out of Kona. She would have to leave at once.
"I'll be back for you whenever you're ready," she told me as she quickly threw some clothes into a suitcase, "But I have to be honest," she added, "I hope you will stay through the winter, at least. I think it will be good for you, I know it will be good for May, and I can't imagine that Israel will complain."
"Do you really think May needs another geriatric?" I asked.
"You heard Auntie Abigail—age is all in the head," Kit answered, tapping mine playfully.
TWENTY
THAT WINTER I kept a Hawaii journal; I sometimes thought it was the only way to distinguish one day from the next, such was the even rhythm as the waves washed the beaches, depositing a steady necklace of puka shells and cowries along the tide line.
Such an easy life it is: the sea and the sand and the soft clacking sound the palm fronds make as they are riffled by the trade winds. Israel, wearing nought but a pair of rather long, red and white flowered shorts, busies himself with projects. He is building a series of latticework trellises, and the bougainvillea is already clamoring up. The colors are luminescent—bright red and purple and a delicious peach color, all of which are incandescent against the lava rock.
Abigail and I spend part of each day together. She is a marvelous storyteller. This island is filled with legends, and I believe she knows them all. The other afternoon I got my camera out and began to photograph her. She is at ease with the camera, it does not bother her one bit, which is unusual in one of her age. (Her age—our age! We are often so vain.) For the first time in a long time, I can hardly wait to get my film developed to see what I got on her. If it is as good as I think it is, that is, if I did the job I should have done, I think I will attempt a whole series and call it "The Hawaiians."
They come in so many different colors, the island people who have been here for generations. The other day Abigail introduced me to a blond, blue-eyed woman who traces her Hawaiian ancestry back to the time of Kamehameha, the king who ruled at about the same time that George Washington was rowing around on the Delaware. This woman explained to me that her great-great grandmother was a "Molokai lady" who had married "the Frenchman." She explained her pale coloring this way: "My family always seemed to marry the light-skinned Europeans." Her husband, a delightful man who works for one of the sugar companies, is quite dark, even though his "great-grandfather was a sailing man out of Gloucester, Massachusetts." Somehow, when I talk to Abigail and her friends, the past in this place seems so much more a part of the present than it does in our part of the country. Perhaps that is because a great many Californians came west because they wanted to leave all that behind. Most Hawaiians, at least those I have met, seem happy with their islands and have no wish ever to leave. We have had such fun, May and I, talking about what Phinney's reaction to this place will be. We will have a chance to find out early this summer, when the family is to gather here to celebrate my 80th year on this planet.
It is three weeks now since Kit left. May has been over every weekend. Dr. Obregon came once, just after the new assistant arrived. I think he was worried that May and Tim might be ganging up on him, and he wasn't going to let them out of his sight. His worries must have been quickly quelled; Tim is the mildest young man I think I've ever met, terribly anxious to please. He is skinny and slope-shouldered and wears his head at a peculiar angle, as if he is always considering something ponderous. He treats Obregon with the kind of respect the doctor clearly expects and needs. May says Tim is the sort of young man who takes direction much better than he is able to give it. All of which is to the good. May is not only relaxing, but filling out a bit on a steady diet of coconut milkshakes.
Karin and Philip and Thea came for the long presidents' weekend, and Karin has stayed on for a few days. May and Karin are at the beach this very moment, I watch them from the lanai. They are sitting at the edge of the water, where the waves can wash up on them, their heads are bent together, the dark and the light, and they talk. Words pour out of them, spilling over and lapping about each other, like some soothing balm. You can almost see them take strength from it. May seems softer, the tension is gone, she is more supple. And Karin, with her old friend at the edge of the ocean, seems quite different from the stylish young woman who arrived in a white linen suit, blue silk shirt with her hair pulled back into a sleek bun.
They spend their days in the briefest of bikinis, May's body long and sleek, Karin's soft and voluptuous—each wrapping a pareau around when they come in for lunch or dinner. I have never been much interested in photographing the female body until now, watching these two, but could I do it? Could I show, would I be able to capture on film, the love that exists between them, between women, that is not sexual but is sensual . . . full of trust and understanding? I think of my life's great friendships, most of them with women, and wonder why it is so hard to define the kind of exquisite intimacy that does not require sex. And wonder why my Annie, and her generation, in the name of women's liberation feel it necessary to tell us that all touching is sexual, and that denying it only reinforces our inhibitions. I know it is not true. I watch Karin and May, their heads close together and their words pouring gently over each other, and I am reassured.
And I see too that they are no longer girls, but women. We celebrated May's twenty-ninth birthday while Philip and Thea were here, with a luau on the beach. Clarence's father, Kimo, came early in the morning to make the imu, or pit, for the kalua pig. This is man's work, I am told, fathers and uncles and nephews and sons dig the imu and line it with stones, all the while drinking quantities of beer. A fire of kiawe wood is set, and after several hours, red hot stones are pulled from the imu and placed inside the pig, which has been gutted, dressed, and salted. Ti leaves and banana stumps are piled on top of the fire and the pig, wrapped in chicken wire, is put on top of the moistened bed of greens and topped with more greens, wet burlap bags, and a canvas that covers the whole thing. Dirt is thrown on top of the canvas, and the pig is left to cook all day long. Israel loves the ritual of it. He cou
ld hardly wait to get in there and lay the ti leaves and help put the hot stones into the yawning empty pig's cavity. Kimo, clearly the man in charge, says he thinks Israel must have been Hawaiian in an earlier life.
Clarence and his brothers played music at the luau, and some of the little girls danced the hulas they learn at school, and then some of the older women got up and danced. It is such lovely, graceful dancing—there is nothing in the least torrid about the Hawaiian hula. It is, in fact, almost chaste, the hint of a body swaying inside the long muumuus, the arms and the hands telling the story so elegantly.
Abigail sat next to me at the luau, and I began to notice the younger women coming to her, one by one. Sometimes they would whisper a few words, more often they would only look at her expectantly. In her own good time she stood, and everyone seemed to be waiting for the moment.
She moved into the music slowly, beginning with a languid, swaying motion, her hands raised, fingers poised; and then her whole body seemed to merge with the music and the sea sounds and we sat, transfixed. If there is such a thing as timeless beauty, infinite grace, we were witnessing it. When she finished, the little girls gathered around her and she caressed them, and that too was part of the dance.
After a while, nothing would do but that May and Karin and Thea should dance. Thea needed coaxing, but in the end she did get up and her years of ballet lessons gave her a graceful presence. She is fifteen now, and not yet fully formed. There is still a long, lean child-look about her. Philip was sitting next to me through all of this, and enjoying it immensely. Thea has settled on the grass between her father and Karin, leaning, in turn, between them. And Karin and Philip exchange fond glances; I heard her say to him, "I knew you were going to love it."
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