Jewel of the Pacific

by Linda Lee Chaikin

  These individuals were not badly deformed yet. Because they weren’t, they retained some strength and ability to work.

  “I’m sorry,” she called above a wind that sighed morosely among the cracks and crevices of the cliff. “You mistook the private ship for the government steamer.”

  “No poi?”

  “No, I’m so sorry,” she repeated, folding her arms tightly about her. She was shivering, perhaps from more than the chilling wind. “The steamer will arrive in a few days. Have you enough to eat? Is anyone going hungry? If so I can come up with something from our supplies.”

  “We survive,” another man answered. “Don’t worry about us; no one ever has.”

  “That isn’t so—” She stopped. It was pointless to get into a discourse here and now. From the gruffness of the man’s speech she guessed he’d already made up his mind about life and was bitter.

  “We’re from the Board of Health,” she called. “You may have heard of my father, Dr. Jerome Derrington? That’s him by the boat—the tall, slim man in white. I’m his daughter, a nurse from Kalihi.”

  One of the more friendly asked, “Why you come here, to this evil prison?”

  “Dr. Derrington and Dr. Bolton will explain. They’ll hold a meeting as soon as we’re settled into bungalows.”

  Some made sounds of approval, and two or three tried to smile.

  “Did he bring any whiskey or opium?” asked the gruff one with a raspy chortle. “That’s the only thing to help the likes of me.”

  Some of the others joined in the gurgling sounds of laughter from decaying throats.

  Even though Eden had experienced some symptoms of leprosy at the Kalihi hospital, she’d never met people in the later stages, when decay and deformity had taken over.

  Keno walked forward with the authority of a ship’s captain. He stopped beside Eden and, in a stance very much like Rafe Easton, stood with hands on hips looking at them. It was a silent reminder that they were to treat her with respect. They quickly quieted.

  As his cousins began to unload the cargo, stashing it upon the rocks out of way of the waves, the lepers began to leave their shelter. They came, some hobbling, over loose stones toward the goods.

  Keno raised a palm toward them. “Say, pals, I’m real sorry, but these belong to the medical team. Cheer up, though! Pastor Ambrose, my uncle, has brought you some goods from his mission church. If you line up, he’ll see that each of you gets a bag to take back with you.”

  His words brought smiles and cheers. The cynic called: “Any whiskey from the church pantry?”

  “Watch your tongue, pal,” Keno warned.

  Evidently the quiet tone was convincing, for the leper’s mood changed and he hobbled into line with the rest of them.

  Ambrose was uncasing his goods with friendly talk, and Keno went to help in the distribution.

  Dr. Jerome walked up, wet, with sand stuck to his soggy trousers that flapped around his ankles in the wind.

  “I’m Dr. Jerome Derrington from Kalihi hospital. I’m here to open a research clinic. These goods are for my work, and those who will assist me.”

  “Oe!” One of the native Hawaiian men pointed at Dr. Bolton.

  “You remember my good colleague, Dr. Bolton?”

  Dr. Bolton walked up, looking at ease around the lepers.

  “Sure they remember me,” Dr. Bolton said with a tired smile.

  “We remember,” one of them grumbled. “You send us here.”

  “To protect others. Even your families. And now I’m one of you. Like Dr. Derrington, I want to help others who are not yet lepers from ever coming to this place.” He pulled up his trouser and a low murmuring sounded as the men saw the signs of leprosy on his leg.

  “So sorry,” some said, shaking their heads. “You caught it from us, eh?”

  Two or three murmured as they hobbled away, “You get what you deserve for sending us here.”

  “I remember you,” another man said to Jerome. “You try to help us at Kakaako.” Kakaako was the holding station center near the entrance to Honolulu’s harbor.

  Dr. Jerome smiled. “Yes. We, here, are all your friends. We want to help all of you. But first my clinic must be built by these men.” He gestured toward Keno, Ambrose, and six of Keno’s cousins, all from Ambrose’s mission church. “I’m asking you to cooperate with anything they may ask of you.”

  “We all help, kauka, no worry.”

  “Aloha!” a male voice called from behind them.

  Eden turned to see a sturdy man in a plain monk’s robe seated in a worn, one-seat buggy pulled by a swaybacked horse. He climbed down and strode toward them with a smile.

  “Aloha!” Dr. Jerome and the others echoed, smiling in return. “You must be Ira B. Dutton,” Dr. Jerome greeted him warmly. “I believe we may have met once in the past.”

  “It was several years ago I believe, Dr. Derrington. You called at Kalaupapa with several others. I believe a Mr. Hartley was with you also.”

  Eden, surprised, looked at her father’s face. When had her father been here on Molokai? And why had he not told her? Surely he’d seen Rebecca then.

  Dr. Jerome showed no concern over the revelation, however. Although Brother Dutton was not an official priest, he had taken the place of the beloved Priest Damien who’d died of leprosy a few years earlier.

  Dutton said, “The settlement superintendent told me you were coming. To set up a—what did he call it—a research clinic.”

  “You assisted Priest Damien in his work, did you not?” Dr. Jerome asked.

  “He died a leper, you know,” Dutton said of Damien. “In fact, he died not too long before you arrived … a true saint, he was. I’ve taken his place as representative of the Church of Rome, though I haven’t been able to fill his saintly sandals.”

  “Well I’m sure you do well,” Eden’s father said warmly. “Come to think of it, I did arrive very soon after Damien’s death. I remember, now. I’d hoped to meet with him but I arrived too late. Even back then I was trying to gain the Board’s approval for my research clinic. I’d hoped Damien might use his favorable reputation to aid the project.”

  “Most interesting, Dr. Derrington. I look forward to hearing about your plans when you’ve settled in.”

  At the sound of horse hooves, they all turned and peered toward what passed for an open road off the curve of the shore. Eden saw a man riding up on a horse, with several others behind him.

  “It’s Hutchinson,” Dutton announced cheerfully. “He’s the appointed superintendent—as you would know, Dr. Bolton. You and the Board appointed him.”

  Eden recognized the government’s superintendent of the leper colony. Mr. Hutchinson, too, had leprosy.

  “I knew Hutchinson before he was an unfortunate victim of leprosy,” Dr. Bolton said. “The settlement is fortunate to have such a man in charge here.”

  The superintendent was under orders from the Board of Health to meet all new arrivals and escort them to the official place of registry. He would meet the new lepers onshore where he handed over the items the Board of Health had purchased for the exiles. Men received a shovel or an ax, and a single gray wool blanket. Women got only the blanket. Unless the person’s family had some money—then all the things needed to make the unfortunate family member comfortable were provided, along with a kokua, such as had been provided for her own mother, Rebecca, these many years.

  Dr. Bolton and her father walked forward to meet the superintendent who had climbed down from his horse.

  “Clifford! Good to see you again, old friend—though not under these conditions. And you, Dr. Jerome! Welcome, friend.”

  A half-mile from the rocky shore the Minoa rested at anchor. Her boats were still ferrying to and from the ship to offload building supplies. On the beach, Keno, his cousins, and several church workers were busy loading the packhorses and a few donkeys. Eden thought it would take many such trips to complete the haul.

  Once the animals were loaded, the cousins wo
uld remain on the beach with the boats while Keno and two others would lead the animals to the Settlement. Mr. Hutchinson’s job was to lead the parade with the rest of the group following on foot.

  “Look, why don’t you, Dr. Jerome, and Uncle Ambrose use two of the horses,” Keno suggested. “We’ll need to make a dozen trips anyway. What’s two horses less now?”

  Eden declined. She drew her cape about her, but still shivered.

  “Rafe will be in a mighty temper with me about not taking care of you.”

  “Rafe has relinquished any right to judge anything I do,” she snapped. Then seeing the hurt look in his eyes, she quickly laid a hand on his arm. “Oh Keno, I’m sorry. It’s not you. You’ve been so helpful and I appreciate it. I’m out of sorts. And I’m tired.”

  “You don’t need to explain. I understand. That’s why I suggested the horse. I’ll see if I can get your father a mule at least. And Ambrose, too.” He left her and went to talk to Dr. Jerome.

  Eden loathed her cranky attitude. I need to watch my tongue.

  But she knew why she felt this way. Rafe, Rafe, Rafe! He’s to blame for this!

  She overheard her father telling Keno—“If we take two mules it will make more work for you and the young men.”

  Keno’s cousins all shook their heads. “No, no,” they said, smiling in good humor as always.

  “It’s far more important to get the supplies to the settlement as quickly and efficiently as possible,” Jerome said reluctantly. “I don’t know. What do you think, Ambrose? Should we take two mules?”

  “We’ll take three,” Dr. Bolton said wryly, coming up with Lana, who was laughing. “We’re not used to long hikes,” she confessed.

  Ambrose clapped a hand on Jerome’s shoulder. “The clinic won’t do much good if you’re not around to use it.” He winked at his nephew, Keno. “Work is good for you, lads. Come along, Jerome, we’re commandeering three hopefully cooperative mules. You, too, Eden,” he called over to her.

  Eden folded her arms and smiled but shook her head. “I’m disobedient today, Ambrose. I’m trekking—just the way my patients have to. But you and Father go ahead. I want both of you around when the clinic is in operation. And poor Aunt Lana mustn’t get sore feet, or she won’t be able to make our tea and coffee tonight,” she teased.

  “For a ride on a mule? I’ll also make dinner,” Lana called, smiling.

  So Eden walked ahead, not far behind Keno, while the superintendent led the way forward.

  At least she was dressed for the walk, Eden thought, with highbutton shoes—now sandy and squishy-wet. The hem of her nurse’s uniform was sandy and waterlogged. She tried to wring it out but the cloth was uncooperative.

  Eden looked about with interest at this desolate section of the island. How heartbreaking it must be for the lepers when first arriving, especially for those whose leprosy had not yet disfigured them! They would be depressed with the change in their lives, and many would have no hope. Heartbreaking! And to think of young girls, women, and even children!

  What must Rebecca have gone through so many years ago before the settlement improved with laws and conditions? She could not bear to think about it.

  At the foot of the cliff the group encountered a narrow roadway that scaled upward from the shore. The ground here was grassless, brown, dry, and in places, even dusty, which seemed unusual to her, since she’d expected everything to be tropical.

  When working at Kalihi hospital she’d always been confused about whether this area was Kalaupapa or Kalawao. Later, when her father had unexpectedly arrived from his travels to work at Kalihi she’d learned that there were two villages, both tiny and insignificant.

  Kalawao sat on the eastern shore with some weatherworn thatched huts cloistered against the side of the dark cliff. The cliff’s massive shadow shifted with the sun, removing most of the sunlight for the day. Eden had grimaced when Dr. Jerome explained that dusk fell at 3 o’clock in the fall and winter months. “A terrible condition for the weakening lepers, and those sick with consumption. There’s even times when the wet, eastern winds blow across the village year-round. As for Kalaupapa, the village occupies the plain’s opposite edge, farther out from the looming cliff and so it enjoys more of the sun’s benefits.”

  Eden noticed the border of the village produced some patches of periwinkle, blue morning glory, and nightshade.

  “Look,” she called out, “not all is bleak and dead.”

  “So like God’s mercy,” Ambrose spoke. “Roses contain thorns, but the rose rewards with fragrance and color.”

  Eden looked up toward the misty sky of gray. Yes, there was hope. It was never so dark that God could not deliver one’s soul from the muck and mire of discouragement, depression, and loss.

  Chapter Ten

  Isle of Exiles

  The serpentine path was hard and stony beneath Eden’s feet.

  It climbed and circled before coming upon the tiny village of Kalaupapa. Then the path looped past the village and continued eastward to the leper settlement of Kalawao. Soon after passing the village, she noted how the huts or bungalows became intermittent.

  They had not traversed far when the roadway began to narrow with rough and prickly shrubs, like foes pressing them into a single file. She looked at the horses and mules but they appeared to be at peace with the route and went forward obediently. If I were as obedient to my God as these animals are to their master, she thought.

  Soon the little huts became scarce. There were ditches, or what Keno told her were “watercourses,” lined with stones. All of them dry now, though some grass sparsely grew in places on the dry plain.

  Eventually the plain of Kalaupapa surfaced. From the narrow roadway, she could gaze upon the waves rolling toward the rocky shoreline. She drank in the lovely view.

  “If I were an artist I’d draw that for Candace,” Keno said.

  A short while later Mr. Hutchinson stopped his horse and looked behind him. He called for Ambrose to join him in front of the small procession.

  Now what? Eden wondered.

  Hutchinson pointed toward the mouth of a dead volcano. “They named it the Given Grave.”

  The eerie wind whispered across the mouth of the empty volcano, in a low, almost perpetual moan.

  “Without hope, many individuals with this incurable disease have hurled themselves down into its blackness rather than continue to leprosy’s gruesome end. One person set himself afire instead. They found him some time later, a charred bundle. His remains were hurled below.”

  A sober silence wrapped about the group.

  “If only these had known the One who is victorious over death and the grave,” Ambrose said soberly.

  “There were Christian leaders here even back then,” Dr. Jerome said. “I know, because Rebecca mentioned them. They never received the public attention of the Priest Damien.”

  “Nor did they receive the help of several nuns brought here by Walter Murray Gibson,” Ambrose stated.

  One of the nuns was Sister Marianne, now called Mother Marianne, a nurse. Eden remembered reading about her and several others who’d come from the mainland to the Kalihi hospital grounds where Mr. Gibson had a house built for them. After a time they had come to Molokai, where they lived in a cloister.

  “In the days of King Kalakaua, Gibson dipped into government funds to build a nuns’ home and hospital here on Molokai, but it’s up on a nicer slope, overlooking the leper camp,” Ambrose said.

  When they reached the top of a low bluff, she gazed for the first time on the small, drab collection of huts, small bungalows, and a few houses, all set against a backdrop of gray-blue sea.

  “So, this, is Kalawao,” she murmured.

  While she looked at the little center of heartbreak and helplessness for so many, she wondered how she could work up the courage to meet her mother. Now that she was here confronting the brutal reality, her courage seemed to flee.

  Now what? These words kept coming to her mind.

&n
bsp; She refocused on what Keno told them was a wall twenty feet high and made out of black lava. The cliff wall stood between the settlement and the rolling Pacific Ocean. As she contemplated their isolation, suddenly a huge wave of seawater hurtled against the rock with breathtaking force. Startled, she almost fell.

  Keno steadied her. “It’s all right, Eden. The waves come in like that every minute or so.” Even as he spoke a new swell broke with a glitter of white foam.

  “Yes, I just wasn’t expecting it.”

  Aunt Lana, who was no longer riding her donkey, took hold of Eden’s arm and pointed. “Look, it’s not even midday, and the sunlight is receding.”

  Keno turned to Dr. Jerome and Ambrose. “Say, if twilight is early, I’ll need to have my cousins hold off on another trip from the Minoa until dawn.”

  Jerome reluctantly nodded. “Yes. And fortunately you got us here in one load.”

  “Then we’d best move along and become settled before we’re in darkness,” Ambrose said.

  “You’re right,” the superintendent called from the front. He led them forward.

  As they moved ahead again Eden overheard Ambrose say quietly to Keno, “I won’t join you in the morning. I need to do a few things here.”

  “Understood,” Keno replied.

  Did Ambrose expect to look into the arrangements for Eden’s meeting with Rebecca? A kokua was caring for her now, and Ambrose knew who the person was, but Eden did not. Dr. Jerome may not even know the woman. The first kokua her father hired to help his wife had died, Ambrose had told her. Ambrose had arranged to hire the second kokua with financial aid from Grandfather Ainsworth.

  Until recently Eden had no idea of either her grandfather’s or Ambrose’s involvement.

  Had Rafe known about all this? Perhaps, since he’d been the one to first tell her that her mother was alive, and a leper. Eden couldn’t forget how her own family had hushed it up out of embarrassment.

  Eden, walking with Aunt Lana, was not prepared for what awaited them. As their small group emerged from the head of the trail to enter Kalawao, they were met by a group of severely deformed lepers.