by CW Schutter
“Whatever you say.”
Kazuko grabbed Mariko by the shoulders and whispered so as not to wake the others, “Don’t look at me like that. Do you think I wanted it this way? I have no choice.”
Mariko shrugged off Kazuko’s hands.
“I need your help to keep this house because your father died and left me with lots of debts and too many children.”
Mariko looked at her mother, her eyes devoid of emotion. She picked up her meager belongings and walked through the open door, past her mother, and said, “I must go now.”
Mariko didn’t know why the mistress of the house hated her but she did. Sachi Nakagawa looked at her up and down before taking her to the small room she was to share with Nobuko, a plain, sturdy girl who spoke very little and resented sharing her room.
Mariko tried to be obedient, polite, and efficient. But Sachi gave her the most difficult and menial tasks. She worked from six in the morning until eight or nine at night. She did her work, went to bed, and caused no trouble.
A week after her arrival, Mariko and Nobuko scurried around the kitchen as the Nakagawa family sat and ate dinner. Sachi started in on Mariko almost immediately.
“You are a vain, silly girl who reads instead of works.” Sachi shook her chopsticks at Mariko.
“It’s not as if you were going to college, or even high school.” Sachi’s daughter, Junko curled her lip. “You’ll always be the help, so why waste your time reading?”
“Better you accept your lot like Nobuko,” Sachi put down her rice bowl and shook her finger at Mariko, “you never see her reading.”
“Leave her alone,” Sachi’s husband Shigeo said between mouthfuls.
Sachi turned to her husband. “Are you defending the lazy slut?”
Shigeo put down his chopsticks. “What did she do to deserve being called a slut?”
“Suddenly all the boys come into the store after school. Do you know why?”
“Boys are always interested in the new girl in town.”
“It’s because she flirts with them,” Junko jumped in.
“From now on Nobuko will clerk. Mariko will work in the warehouse and do housework.” Sachi glared. “She better get used to being a maid because that’s all she’ll ever be anyway.”
Junko shot Mariko a triumphant look.
Shigeo shook his head. “Nobuko doesn’t know her numbers very well. And she barely speaks. How do you expect her to sell anything?”
“Are you sticking up for Mariko?” Sachi put the fingertips of both her hands on the table and looked squarely at her husband.
Shigeo put down his chopsticks. “I’m just stating facts. Mariko brings in plenty of new customers. The store is our livelihood.” Shigeo stood up to leave. “You’re going to hurt sales just because you don’t like her.”
“Those boys are a nuisance. They don’t buy anything anyway,” Sachi shouted to Shigeo as he left the room. She turned back to Mariko. “You’re a troublemaker.”
Mariko bit her lip. She loved working in the store. It brightened her day when customers walked in and she could not only show them the merchandise but make suggestions. They always bought more than they came in for. And the boys did buy a little something every time they came in. She thought Sachi would be happy the store was so busy. The only people who encouraged her were her customers. She would miss being there. But Sachi was the boss.
Nobuko took her place at the counter. And while Mariko was sad, she gained some satisfaction in knowing the Nakagawa’s sales dropped dramatically.
Almost two years after Mariko left home, one of the high school boys invited her to a graduation party. She looked forward to it for weeks. A few days before the party, Mariko overheard Junko complaining no one had asked her to the party.
Sachi marched into the kitchen where Mariko was washing dishes. “You’re taking inventory Saturday night.”
“But you agreed to give me the night off weeks ago.” It was the first time since she arrived at the Nakagawas that she stood up for herself.
“I changed my mind.”
“But I just took inventory yesterday.”
“Do as I say,” Sachi snapped and left the room.
On Saturday night, Mariko fought back tears while counting canned food. Shigeo walked in and asked, “Why, Mariko, I thought this was your night off.”
Mariko looked up. Not quite sixteen, the unending stream of disappointments made her wonder why she didn’t have the courage to commit seppuku and put an end to her purposeless existence. If she could be sure death really was the end, she might have tried. But the prospect of another life, or a heaven or hell, scared her.
Shigeo put his hands on her shoulders. “Is anything wrong? Can I help?”
Despair overwhelmed her. She started to cry.
Shigeo took her in his arms and stroked her hair the way Papa once had. She missed her life with Papa. Her dreams seemed possible then. Feeling like a little girl again, she melted into his arms and buried her head in his chest the way she used to with Papa. It felt so good to pretend Papa was alive comforting her with his rough, dry hands the way he used to.
But Mariko found out that night nothing was as it seemed and the people you trusted sometimes betrayed you. An act of comfort turned into a nightmare she would never forget.
Mariko arrived back home to Kohala on a rainy day in early March. The house she grew up in looked like an umbrella with its frame collapsing beneath the weight of its sodden fabric. Mariko stood outside, her bare feet submerged in puddles of muddy water. One hand clutched everything she had accumulated during the past two years while the other held the ends of a cotton kerchief wrapped around her head. Clinging to the wet cloth, she tried to allay her fears over her unannounced arrival after two long years.
The door creaked opened and Kazuko stepped out. Mariko saw her slightly stooped figure through the dark screen wrapped around the length of the porch.
Kazuko opened her mouth to speak, but stopped as recognition flickered into her eyes. She opened the door wide. “Mariko, come in before you get sick.”
Without hesitation, Mariko obeyed.
Mariko was grateful Kazuko never questioned her about why she left the Nakagawas. She wished she could go back in time and erase what happened that night. After it happened, she went to the bathhouse and scrubbed herself until her skin was raw. But she could still feel and smell his odor. She feared his stink would never leave her.
She wondered if people could tell by looking at her she was no longer a virgin. She had heard her brothers and their friends talk about how women looked used and worried people would sneer at her. She stared at herself in the mirror, looking for telltale signs. Finding none, she simply stopped looking into mirrors.
Mariko lay on her futon and listened to the sound of rain splattering on the tin roof. Thunder drowned everything around her but her thoughts.
She wondered why this had happened to her. Her parents taught her to strive to be like Buddha and never intentionally harm anyone with her words or deeds. She was taught to act with kindness and charity at all times. She didn't understand why kami sama allowed the terrible, disgusting man to destroy her innocence and why he even allowed people like Shigeo to exist. If suffering inevitable in life, she didn’t want to live more than one life. She refused to accept the Buddhist philosophy of one incarnation after another until one finally reached the godhead.
After a month, Kazuko approached Mariko as she lay on her futon. “You must go to work. I can’t afford to let you do nothing.”
“Yes, Mama, I know.”
“You could work for a haole house. You speak good English. It shouldn’t be hard.”
Mariko wondered if her mother guessed something awful had happened to her, but Kazuko’s face was inscrutable.
She couldn't help but murmur, "Everything would be different if Papa were alive.” But like a proper Japanese girl, Mariko kept her face devoid of emotion.
She wondered if what had happened to her was
her bachi for having done something bad. She wondered what it may have been. But she could think of nothing.
Just after her mother told her she had to find work, Mariko decided to change her name to Mary. It was similar to her Japanese name but it was very American.
Perhaps by changing her name, she would change her life.
Chapter Thirteen
Honolulu, 1939
When Katherine Wilkes Ritchie swept into his office unannounced, Sean recognized her because of her red hair. Right away, he knew he was dealing with a kamaaina aristocrat of the worst kind. Her mother Marsha was a Wilkes, the crème de la crème of white society. Her father, Duncan Ritchie, was Marsha’s cousin and heir to a fortune in sugar cane fields. In both their veins ran Eastern seaboard missionary blood. Having gone to Oahu College, now known as Punahou, Sean understood how important it was to have that kind of lineage. In Hawaii, to be born one of the missionary alii was to be born the next best thing to royalty.
Katherine vibrated with her own sense of self-importance. Looking at her, Sean remembered all the kids at Punahou who made him feel his own unimportance. He hated the supercilious kids he went to school with, yet he wanted to be them.
Katherine stared. “I feel like I know you.”
He shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”
She put out her soft, pink hand. “Katherine Ritchie.”
“Sean Duffy.” Sean took her hand. “Glad to meet you.”
Katherine blushed. “I must have walked into the wrong office.”
“Miss Ritchie …” Sean held onto her hand.
“Call me Katherine.”
“Katherine, ahui hou, till we meet again.” Sean lifted her hand to his lips. Hers was the hand of the idle rich. He thought of his mother’s torn, short fingernails on coarse hands roughened by hard work.
Katherine dashed out of the office.
John Williams entered his office and whistled. “Was that the high and mighty Katherine Ritchie you just scared away?” When Sean nodded, he asked, “What was she doing here?”
“She walked into the wrong office.”
John elbowed him and snickered. “Did Ms. High and Mighty talk to you?”
Sean smiled. “Yes.”
“I just came to ask you if you want to join me for lunch.”
“No, go ahead. I have some work to do.” Sean returned to his desk and sat down.
“Want me to bring you something?”
“No. Thanks anyway.” Sean picked up a stack of papers.
“Don’t work overtime. Our bosses have enough money as it is.” John laughed as he left.
Sean nodded. After John closed the door behind him, Sean opened the middle drawer of his desk and removed a thin envelope. Opening it, he reread the single sheet enclosed within.
Dear Sean,
You may be surprised to hear from us. It’s been so long. I don’t know how to put this, so I guess I should just come right out and say it. Our mother is dead. On Sunday she was making the family dinner when she said she felt bad. Before we knew it, she was dead. Doctor says it was her heart.
Wish you could have come home to see her at least once before she died. She talked about how she wanted to see you once more. Couldn’t understand why you didn’t come home. Fifteen years is a long time, and all that.
I guess you won’t be hearing from me again, seeing as we’re not a writing family. I guess there’s nothing left here for you anyhow. You have your own grand life in Hawaii.
Tell Uncle Patrick about our mother.
Your brother
Seamus
P.S. You owe me $2 for flowers I sent in your name to our mother’s grave.
Sean took out five dollars from his wallet, placed it in the middle of a blank piece of paper, folded it, put it in an envelope, and addressed it to Seamus. Then he put his head in his hands and stared out the window towards the pier. He heard the whistle of a boat in the distance. If it weren’t for the palm trees, he could have been back in Boston. Instead, he was perspiring in a ridiculous suit in humid Hawaii while his mother lay dead and buried in Boston.
Sean’s stomach churned. His eyes turned back to the leather-top desk he was so proud of and the koa wood name plate with gold letters reading “Sean Duffy, Esquire.”
That wouldn’t have been possible in Boston.
Sean crumpled up his brother’s letter and threw it into the wastebasket. Sean of Boston was dead. Nothing would stop him from realizing his dreams.
If he hadn’t been looking for it, Sean would have missed the wooden sign nearly buried in lush vegetation with the name “BRANDON.” He stuck his head out of the car window and breathed in the mountain air mingled with the cloying fragrance of ginger lingering in the breeze. Thoughts of seeing Meg again made his heart race as he drove the car slowly, purposely dallying to imprint every detail into his mind before he saw her again.
He stopped at the wrought-iron gate and a Hawaiian man waved him through. He was surprised to find the grounds unkempt. Huge kiawe, monkey pod, and banyan trees erupted from the damp earth, its massive trunks thickly entwined with vines. Hapu ferns and banana trees abounded alongside fragile white ginger and flame-red torch ginger. Looking like an exotic bird in flight, orange birds of paradise grew in lush profusion throughout the hilly surface.
Beyond the primeval jungle, a lava-rock house loomed like an ogre’s sinister abode. Surely Meg couldn’t have had anything to do with building such a house. But then, of course, he had heard the rumblings on the coconut wireless.
Rumor had it she’d had a disastrous love affair with a handsome sailor off a merchant ship. The Ritchie family paid the unacceptable suitor to leave the Islands forever. It was the scandal of the year in Honolulu.
After that, he heard nothing for several years until her wedding picture appeared in the newspaper next to her rich, much older groom with impeccable bloodlines. She was Meg Brandon now. For years Sean combed the local newspapers looking for pictures and gossip about the couple in high society columns. But the couple had vanished from Honolulu society. Then one day, a few years ago, an obituary appeared about the death of her husband. Meg Brandon was now a reclusive widow, locked in the monstrous edifice before him.
He got out of the car and was about to lift the brass knocker when a Japanese housekeeper opened the door. “Mista Wilkes send you?”
“Yes.”
“Missus waiting for you. Follow me.”
He followed her through dark halls to a room lined with bookshelves around a massive lava-rock fireplace. Meg sat on a lounge chair reading, her silvery hair loose and flowing. She wore a dark blue dress that clung to the rounded curves of her body, showing her calves and thin arms. Her face was so still it looked as if it were carved from stone.
“Missus, bank man stay here,” the housekeeper announced, then left.
When Meg looked up, he fell into eyes he had dreamed of since he was a boy. “I’m sorry. I feel like I should know you, but I don’t.”
Sean swallowed, wondering how long he had been standing there like a tongue-tied schoolboy. “I met you once a long time ago. My uncle is the plantation manager on your father’s Kohala plantation. My name is Sean Duffy.”
“Of course.” Meg knitted her brow and tapped her book with her finger.
Obviously, she didn’t remember. “I have some papers for you to look over and sign.” He handed her a thick manila envelope.
Meg took the envelope and gestured to the chair across from her. “Please sit down. Would you like something to drink?”
He shook his head and sat. “No, thank you.”
“Where do I sign?” she asked as she removed the legal-sized sheaf of papers.
“Don’t you want to read it first?”
“Why?” Meg tossed her head and reached for a pen. “It was prepared by my uncle. I don’t have to read it.”
“It’s what everyone normally does, family or not.” Sean clasped and unclasped his hands.
“I don’t really care
about money.” Meg found a pen and rifled through the papers, looking for the signature pages.
“Is money of so little consequence to you?”
“Money's an impossible tyrant that dictates your life.” Meg paused and stared through him for a second. “Sometimes, I think it’s a curse.” She signed the documents. When she was done, she laid down her pen and peered at him. “Duffy, are you originally from the islands?”
Sean looked into her violet eyes. She almost shimmered in the dark room. “I moved to Kohala from Boston when I was a child.”
“I see.” She nodded and handed the papers to him. “You want to be one of us, don’t you? Hawaii's elite.”
“I want to succeed.” Sean looked through the papers to make sure they were all signed.
She shook her head. “Don’t let them corrupt you.”
“I won’t.” He put the papers into his briefcase.
She stood abruptly, and without a word, left the room.
Sean thought of what a colleague had said to him before he’d come. “Rumor has it she’s mad, you know. She’s a recluse, completely crazy.”
As he slipped in and out of consciousness, Patrick heard low whispers around his bed. “Call the nephew. It’s very bad. He probably won’t last long.”
He took to talking to himself. "Aye, and it’s an old man I am. I've lived enough for two lifetimes? How many men can say they’ve traveled the world? And lived in bonny Ireland, where life was hard but the land so beautiful, the memory of it still lives in my bones, calling to me even now."
He thought of Boston with its ugly tenement houses with rats and children running wild. The smell of piss and vomit in the streets didn’t stop people like him from dreaming. They were free to speak out. And there was always the hope of rising above if one had the luck, the spirit, and the mind to do it.
"Hawaii no ka oi," he murmured, "Sure and it be a raw, wild, and savage testing ground for the good Lord himself. So many different kinds of people, all testing one another. Aye, the world's changing faster than I like—especially Hawaii."