On the land, things seemed out of control too, because his father might only have a few days left to live. With the old man in a coma, and Kimo’s vow to shut down the Hawaiian beaches if he could, he did not have time for a relationship with Alicia, or anyone else. Even so, he did not regret asking her out. The brief moments they’d shared had been sweet, even the last ones earlier today, when he had hardly been able to tear himself away from her. She’d looked so sad when he left her at the table, mirroring the pain in his own heart.
Now Kimo stopped swimming forward, but remained underwater. Looking around, he saw spectacular striped moorish idols, green parrotfish, yellow-and-black butterflyfish, multi-hued reef triggerfish, and jaunty-looking bandit angelfish, along with various turtles and sharks, and swordfish and sawfish, as well as numerous other species. Motioning with his arms and sending mental impulses through the molecular connection he had with these creatures in the water, he tried to tell them to divide up into their own species. Seeing four orangespine unicornfish near him, black with orange and yellow markings, he herded them together and then did the same with three hawksbill turtles, trying to let them all know what he wanted. When the small groupings tried to split up, he quickly forced them back together by species, moving into their midst and drawing them around him.
This was something he had never attempted before, trying to communicate in such a manner with species other than jetfish and bubblefish, actually giving them instructions instead of just letting them follow him around. Gently, he kept regrouping them by their own kind, but they would only stay together for a few minutes at a time.
He sensed the collective indecision of the marine animals, saw their confusion as they swam about frenetically and kept breaking formation. Then an idea occurred to him, and he tried swimming closer to the various species, occasionally stroking the sides of the creatures gently as he regrouped them, and pressing his face against them while making soft, melodic humming sounds in the water—similar to the way he interacted with jetfish and bubblefish. Gradually, he noticed that the animals around him were swimming slower, and as they grew calmer they were better able to understand what he wanted.
The turtles and butterflyfish were the first to understand his commands, then the triggerfish, the unicornfish, and the sawfish—and then all of the other species. As he spent time with them, he began to feel a deeper connection and a strong sense of their collective assent, which surprised and delighted him. With his success, more fish and other marine creatures began to join them, and they fell quickly into the correct groups. Some of the species (including the dolphins) even made response tones to him, in apparent attempts to mimic the melodic sounds he was making.
After four hours, Kimo looked around and saw all of the animals gathered according to their species, great masses of spectacular color in all directions, so that each species was like a single organism. He counted thirty-seven different types of sea creatures around him, amounting to thousands of individuals.
From childhood, Kimo had always flowed with the fish and other living things of the sea, but he wanted it to be different now. With a deliberate motion, he swam forcefully into the midst of a school of bullethead parrotfish, and this time he went to the far perimeter and beyond, swimming as fast as he could. Looking back, he saw the parrotfish massing behind him, and as he led these fish in a wide, graceful arc he saw other schools of fish and groupings of creatures following as well, no longer grouping around him loosely as they had before, and this time remaining in their own pods and schools as they followed him—exactly as he wanted them to do.
Kimo swam out to sea with them and then back toward shore, directing the creatures instead of flowing with them—and with the exception of a few individuals who broke away, they all understood, and did as he wanted.
Time melted away as Kimo performed one experiment after another, determining what the aquatic animals would do for him, and how to get them to perform certain tasks. He came up with hand signals for specific tasks, and the creatures learned quickly. There seemed to be no limit to the possibilities….
After a tortuous half hour in which she waited for Kimo to resurface, Alicia had been unable to stand it any longer, and had run back to Wanaao Town to notify the police, demanding that they institute a search and rescue effort.
At the small police station, the dispatch officer had been hesitant. A narrow-faced sergeant, he’d grinned and said, “Don’t worry about Kimo. He swims better than the fish in the sea. You haven’t lived here long enough to know that.”
“I know when a man stays underwater too long!” she’d said, near hysteria. “I watched him swim away from shore and go under. He never came back up!”
The officer frowned, didn’t say anything.
“I spoke with Kimo before he went in the water,” she said, “and he was despondent about his father, who is terminally ill and in a coma. I’m very worried about his decision-making. Can’t you do something?”
“All right, lady, we’ll send somebody out.”
By late afternoon the rescue team had been mobilized, a volunteer squad of firefighters, fishermen, and lifeguards. For hours, Alicia stood on the end of the public dock with binoculars, looking anxiously back across the sea toward the mouth of Crimson Cove, watching power boats and a helicopter as they searched.
By the time the sun was beginning to set, there was still no sign of him, and Alicia despaired. A short while later, when darkness was falling, she received word that Kimo had been spotted swimming toward Wanaao Town, and he’d been taken aboard a trawler.
Through the binoculars, she saw a fishing boat heading toward her, with its running lights on. As the craft drew closer, in light cast from the dock she saw Kimo step out of the cabin, with a towel draped around him.
When he disembarked onto the weathered dock, she scolded him. “You shouldn’t have made everyone worry,” she said, feeling the tears of anger and relief welling in her eyes.
He looked at her closely, but kept his distance. “You shouldn’t have worried. I’m safer in the ocean than on the land.”
“I saw you go under and you didn’t come back up.”
His gaze narrowed. “Did you follow me?”
She nodded. “I was at the cove, and saw you swim out to deeper water, with sharks, turtles, and other creatures all around you.”
“You just lost sight of me beyond the waves,” he said.
“Maybe, but I’m not going to lose sight of you again.” She took his hand firmly and led him back to her car.
“I need to get over to the hospital and check on my father,” he said. “It’s not far. I can walk.”
“I’ll get you there faster,” she said, as she opened the driver’s door and stood there for a moment, looking at him intensely.
Kimo nodded, then slid into the passenger seat, saying, “I’m really sorry about what I said to you. I, I … you’re a wonderful person, and deserve better than what I–“
“Don’t try to come at it from a different direction and rationalize us being apart,” she said as she started the car. “I want to help you through your troubles. I want to be there for you.”
His eyes misted as he looked at her.
When the main hospital building came into view through the windshield, a single-story structure on a gentle, grassy slope, Kimo had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. During the two years of his father’s illness, he’d hated seeing the once-robust man’s flagging health, and the terrible coma he’d slipped into, as if he could no longer consciously face the painful ravages of his body, and wanted to just slip away.
As he walked into the hospital waiting room, Ealani Pohaku rose from one of the chairs, her expression dismal. The large woman’s eyes were red and moist, and her gaze lingered on Alicia before settling on Kimo. “Your father is gone,” she said, nodding toward the corridor, where he’d had a room.
Kimo slumped to his knees, sobbing. Everything became a fog around him—the consoling voices of women with his m
other, their gentle touches on his shoulders and face, their sadness and tears. Even Alicia was crying, though she’d never met Tiny.
Finally, his emotions raw, Kimo looked up and focused on Alicia’s oval face, her tender blue, tear-filled eyes. His mother stood behind her, and was letting the young woman position herself closest to him. Ealani sensed things about people; she must be sensing the goodness in Alicia, her compassion and deep concern for Kimo.
“This isn’t much of a second date, is it?” he said to her, and then he broke down again.
She met his gaze, gave him a gentle, reassuring smile, one that told him she would do everything possible to help him through this terrible time.
When Kimo finally composed himself he stood and said to his mother, “I want to see him now.”
“I’ll wait here,” Alicia said.
For a long time, Kimo and Ealani stood over the body, where it lay so peacefully on the bed, with the covers drawn neatly up to the chest, and the fisherman’s large, calloused hands clasped on his stomach. The pain that Kimo had previously noticed in his father’s features was gone, having left when the soul departed the body, and it gave the younger man some degree of comfort. At least Tiny Pohaku was no longer suffering.
“He was a good man,” Ealani said. “I knew that from the moment I met him, and I saw it in him every day of our lives together. I cherish every moment I spent with him.”
The mother and son spoke of wonderful experiences they’d had with Tiny, and sometimes the two of them just fell silent together, as if sharing private thoughts without speaking them.
When they emerged into the waiting room almost two hours later, Alicia was still waiting. She stood and said, her voice breaking, “I’m very sorry for your terrible loss. Many people in town have told me what a nice man he was. He was extremely well-liked.”
“Yes, he was,” Ealani said. “Thank you for being with us, with Kimo.”
“I’ve been thinking,” Alicia said. She looked first at Kimo, then at Ealani, and said, “I don’t know how to put this into words, so please forgive me if you feel I’m out of place, but I must say something, I must offer something.”
Ealani looked at her quizzically.
“I, uh, I know how hard your husband fought to get his family’s land back. I know what it meant to him, and what it must mean to you.” She paused, as if summoning more courage.
What is she going to say? Kimo wondered.
“This may not be something you want to decide on now,” Alicia said, “but if you’d like, I could arrange for a ceremony in honor of him, on the land that used to belong to the Pohaku family.”
“But what would your grandfather say about that?” Kimo asked.
“He will not know, at least not in time to do anything about it. The parcel is out of the way and up-slope, not visible from the hotel, and there is a separate dirt road accessing it, as well as trails through the jungle and the bamboo forest. I am very familiar with the area, so I know.”
“You would do that for us?” Ealani said. Tears streamed down her face. Kimo felt stunned.
“I would do more if I could. I would give the land back to you.”
Ealani wiped her eyes, and said, “Truly, child, this is a wonderful thing you are offering. Could we possibly spread his ashes there?”
“I was thinking the same thing,” she said, “but it was not my place to say it.”
Kimo and his mother put their arms around Alicia, and held her for a long time. Such generosity from an Ellsworth was not something his family had expected.
An hour later, in the privacy of the small Pohaku home, the three of them made plans over a meal of fish chowder, prepared with mahimahi, salt pork, potatoes, and onions, as Tiny used to like it.
The sea could be harvested for human consumption, Kimo knew, because he ate a range of things from the water. It was just a matter of doing it properly, of adding human beings to the food chain of creatures that preyed on one another—and not giving humans any unfair advantage over the other predators of the sea.
When Kimo went to bed that night, he fell asleep quickly. And similar to his last vivid dream, featuring a small girl at a barred window, he began to perceive new images that were startlingly real—showing face after face, men and women of all races in clear focus, talking to one another, going about their various jobs.
They were experts in various aspects of oceanography, out at sea on scientific research ships, or working in laboratories, or professors speaking to their classes about the ocean, as well as ichthyologists who knew a great deal about fish, and environmental activists putting their ships in the way of large commercial fishing factories and shouting at the crews with bullhorns to ward them off. In a kaleidoscope of specialized ocean professions, he saw snorkelers and deep sea divers in their gear, and whale rescue operations, and men and women working at aquatic parks and aquariums, where crowds of visitors came to see the animals.
For all of the workers, he learned something of their personal histories—and knew they were good people who cared about the sea and the creatures and plant organisms that lived in it. He learned their first names, but no last names or locations, nothing to help him find out if these were real human beings or mere figments of his dreaming imagination.
Finally, at the end of the spectrum of faces, he saw the elfin teenager at the barred window again—and this time he had a first name for her—Gwyneth. But nothing more, except he sensed again how very upset she was about the plight of the ocean, and how much she wanted to escape her confinement.
Kimo awoke, and even though he didn’t think the dream had any relationship with reality, he still felt compelled to write down ninety-four first names that remained clear in his recollection—along with whatever information he could remember about each person, including details from his first dream involving the girl at the window.
When he finally set down the pen and notepad and switched off the light, he marveled at the two dreams, and at the remarkable extent of his memory about them—name after name, and detail after detail had remained in his mind. The dreams had seemed so vivid and real. But were they inhabited by actual people who might help him in his pursuits, or were they nothing but the random, scattered thoughts of a sleeping man? He could not find out, one way or the other. There were no surnames, and not enough other details.
Gradually, Kimo fell back asleep, having convinced himself that this dream, and the one before it, were nothing more than the wild ramblings of a fatigued, deeply troubled mind.
***
Chapter 26
“I don’t want any more squabbling between you and Alicia,” the Ellsworth patriarch said, as he drove his Jeep too fast on the bumpy Wanaao Road. Beside him, his nervous grandson Jeff held onto the ceiling strap, not saying anything, but he seemed to be afraid, despite his experience as an Army pilot. It made the old man wonder if the military decorations Jeff had been awarded had been deserved.
“Do you understand what I’m saying?” Preston demanded.
“Sure. My sister and I need to get along better.”
“Why do you keep trying to undermine her?”
“I think she’s been doing that to me.”
“Then why doesn’t Alicia ever say anything bad about you to me, while you’re always trying to get your digs in against her?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Glancing over, he saw Jeff’s lips quiver, and his knees knocking together in nervousness. The stocky, younger man was not good at concealing his emotions.
“I may be old, but I’m still quite observant, and I want you to change your attitude toward her. I don’t have time to list everything you’ve said and done that’s detrimental, but this family has enough problems without having it come apart from the inside. Our hotel should be filled at this time of year, but we’re down more than seventeen percent. The word is getting out about what’s happening on the beaches, and I need you and Alicia working with me as a family unit to protect and adva
nce our resort operations.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll do better, I promise.”
The old man patted his grandson on the shoulder. “I know you will. I want you to think of Alicia as your ally against all the forces outside, not as your enemy, or even as your competitor. Have you heard the old Chinese proverb of a bundle of sticks? One stick can be broken easily, but not a bunch of them?”
“No,” Jeff admitted. “But I understand what you’re saying. We’re stronger as a family if we stick together.”
“Your lesson of the day.”
He stared at Jeff, noting one of the fancy designer shirts he often wore, along with the gold chain and gold watch, which made Preston wonder how he could afford such things. He’d asked, and Jeff had said a friend got them from over-extended tourists who sold them for travel expenses, and in turn he sold them to Jeff at cost. Maybe that was true, and if so it meant Jeff was making good use of his modest salary. But reportedly he led quite a night life too, on the other side of the island. Sometimes the old man wondered if his grandson was actually earning money on the side, and if he was, it had better be legal. He’d told Jeff exactly that in a forceful tone, and had been assured that he had nothing to worry about. Even so, sometimes he worried anyway.
For the rest of the afternoon, they inspected work that divers were completing at Olamai, Ha’ini, and other beaches on the Ellsworth Ranch, setting up state-of-the art underwater barricades and electronics to keep out sharks, barracudas, and stingrays, as well as jellyfish, stonefish and other smaller creatures that were potentially deadly to swimmers. Preston Ellsworth had also funded similar measures to protect other beaches around Wanaao Town—more than a dozen in all—in an effort to convince tourists that it was again safe to swim in the area.
But at the end of the day, as the old man drove back to the ranch, he had a sinking feeling that his efforts were like trying to hold back the tide, that the forces of the sea were too powerful to stop, and his countermeasures would have little or no effect against them.
Ocean: The Awakening Page 14