Michael laughed, and I swore and reached into my dress pocket to haul out my small Nokia with my father’s telephone number staring up at me from the window.
“Hi, Otoosan,” I said, but in fact it was Uncle Hiroshi. “You?” I answered, so startled that I spoke in English. “Did something happen to Otoosan?”
“No, he’s fine, and watching the news. Tell me, are you driving home now?”
“Not just yet,” I said, feeling Michael lift himself away from me. He went to the duffel bag with clean clothes and began sorting through it.
“The fire that started yesterday has spread across the mountains,” Uncle Hiroshi continued. Edwin and his family came to us early because they heard the Farrington Highway is going to be closed in one hour. You must return home now.”
“I’m in Waikiki, but of course I’ll start driving. See you soon.” I glanced at my watch. It was four-fifteen, which meant rush hour had already started, plus there would be even more cars traveling, because of the imminent road closure.
I clicked the phone off, and looked at Michael, who had gotten his jeans on, somehow, without my seeing anything.
“You have a pressing appointment, it seems.”
“My uncle called to tell me there’s a big fire on the Leeward Side, and the highway I’ll take home will shut down in an hour.”
“What? You mean you’re going to try to race a fire in rush hour?” Michael shook his head. “Just stay with me till it’s over. I’ll make it worth your while, I promise.”
“No, you don’t understand,” I said. “I’m supposed to serve dinner to nine people tonight. I promised them I could manage dinner, even if I came out to meet you.”
Michael shook his head. “That’s a crazy thing to worry about, in the current situation. Aren’t they concerned for your safety?”
“Michael, I think the road’s still OK.”
Michael gave me a long look, then said, “Let’s see if we stand a chance.” He flipped channels on the television until we reached a local news channel covering the fire live. A map flashed on the screen, showing exactly where the road closure was scheduled.
“A few miles past our resort,” I said, tracing the screen with my finger. “If we leave now—I mean, if I leave now—I’ll definitely make it.”
“Of course we’ll go together,” Michael said.
“But we should go now—like, within two minutes.”
Now I remembered, when I’d swum with my father in the morning, there had been a column of smoke in the mountain range behind the pool. It had been so far away, and there had been no visible flames, so that I hadn’t thought much about it, except that it was another one of the small mountain fires I’d be reading about in the newspaper. And now that fire had spread.
Michael offered to drive, but I refused; he wasn’t on the car-rental policy, and he was sleep-deprived. He acquiesced, staying awake only to help me find the Piikoi Street entrance to H-1 West. Because of my companion, I could use the HOV lane, where I pushed the van to seventy-five. There were solo drivers in the HOV lane tonight and, luckily for them, no motorcycle police to catch them. The expressions on the faces of the drivers of the battered trucks and vans surging westward were tense, as if everyone was thinking the same thing: get me home, before the road closes.
The miles ticked by, and in about thirty minutes I’d reached the place where the lychee truck usually stood. The sky had turned from blue to a brownish-gray, and it smelled as if I was on the verge on a bonfire. The fire was finally visible to me, a long jagged line twisting through the mountains, and down to the Pierce fields. Firefighters with tense, dirty faces trudged the land lugging hoses; their trucks were parked every fifty yards or so along the H-1 shoulder.
Michael coughed himself awake. “Why did you let me fall asleep?”
“You needed it,” I said. “And your being awake won’t help anything. I know the way, and we’re really close now.”
“The air in here is…”Michael coughed.
“A lot like a mesquite barbecue. I already took care of that,” I said as he reached for the dashboard’s air-recycle button.
He drew back his hand, then placed it over my right, which had the steering wheel in a sweaty death grip. “Hey, I recognize his place. I once swam at a beach around the bend— Oh, Christ.”
“What do you see?” I asked anxiously.
“It’s nothing, just that there’s a high-voltage power plant just across the street.”
“They wouldn’t let us through if the fire was too close,” I said. I slowed, because the traffic ahead of me had slowed mightily, and eventually we were side by side with the power plant, though I could barely make it out because of the smoke and many fire engines surrounding it. The old plantation village and Kainoa’s coffee shop were pretty close. I wondered if they had survived.
A mile past the plant, it became very difficult to see anything except for the crisp line of flames on my right. Smoke billowed across the road, traffic slowed to five miles an hour, and a line of smoke rose from the earth to my left. I looked again, and saw what I’d feared—there was fire on both sides of the road. We and the other cars were traveling on the firebreak itself. It was hard to feel calm and collected, driving a few feet from a fire in a minivan containing almost twenty gallons of gas. And even if the worst happened, and we had a chance to jump out of the van, there would be nowhere we could breathe. You could run from fire, but not from the smoke.
“Flames on both side of the road now,” I said to Michael in a low voice.
“I guess the fire must have traveled through tree root systems to the other side.” Michael powered down his window and called out to the firemen, ‘How far ahead is the closing?”
Someone shouted something back, and Michael rolled up the window again. “I could barely understand him, but I think he just said try to go through.”
“Try? What kind of advice is that, to drive through a fire?”
“They wouldn’t leave it open if we couldn’t make it,” Michael said.
“This is a hell of a first date.”
“Let’s not count tonight. We’ll start fresh tomorrow—that is, if we live until tomorrow,” Michael added grimly.
During the time we’d been talking, the smoke had become lighter. I could see clearly again, and while there was fire on the right side of the road, it seemed to be spreading right back up the mountain. Had the wind changed?
“You did it!” Michael said as Kainani’s hibiscus hedge appeared. As I took the Kainani exit, a short bridge over the highway into the resort, my heart rate slowed to normal. There was no fire here on the emerald green lawns, where the in-ground sprinklers were going full-blast. The guard booths had been abandoned, and the gate was up, so we went straight through.
“Look!” Michael pointed at the golf course, where five lean golden animals streaked swiftly across the green. They looked like wild dogs, and I guessed they were a family because there was a range of sizes.
I slowed at the turn so the dogs could get across the street bisecting the golf course. I imagined they’d left their mountain home in desperation, but what would there be for them here? I kept my foot on the brake until the dogs had passed, then drove the remaining block to the Pineapple Plantation gate, where I stopped again. We’d made it.
After a half-minute, Michael asked, ‘Do you need to call the house to get someone to buzz you through?
I shook my head. “My keychain has a microchip that activates the gate, but I’d rather not hurry through.”
“Why?”
I turned to him, and took both of his hands in mine. “Michael, I’m not sure I should have brought you. I didn’t prep you about what might happen. I don’t know if you can endure it.”
“Come off it!” Michael laughed lightly. “What could be so terrible after all we’ve just passed through?”
I took a deep breath and said simply, ‘My family.”
TOM WAS IN the garden with his back to us, busy filming the fire
ravaging the mountains. At the sound of our approach, he spun around. “You returned safely. We were so worried.”
“It was quite a drive,” I said, preparing to introduce Michael.
“You must tell me about what you saw, along the road. And have you brought with you the Four Guys on the Edge?”
“Just the one,” Michael said, smiling and stepping forward to shake hands with Tom. “My name is Michael Hendricks. Are you the infamous Tsutomu?”
“Tom. I always prefer Americans to call me Tom.”
“Michael drove back with me because of the fire,” I said. “And he’ll join us for dinner.”
Tom took his hand back from Michael and nodded at me. “Everyone’s waiting for you to prepare the meal, but the television was exciting enough to distract them. Come in, both of you.”
“The gauntlet’s not as bad as you led me to believe,” Michael whispered to me as we followed Tom into the house. When he saw the interior, his voice rose a few octaves. “Wow, this place certainly beats my hotel room, doesn’t it?”
“I wasn’t in your hotel room—and remember, shoes!” I hissed at him because he seemed ready to stride with his weathered Topsiders into the living room. Everyone had turned from the television to inspect the two of us: Edwin, Margaret, Courtney and Yoshitsune on one side, my father, Hiroshi, and Calvin Morita on the other.
“This is my friend Michael Hendricks—he helped me drive here, because of the fire.” I went on to introduce everyone to Michael.
“How kind of you to accompany Rei,” my father said stiffly, when it was his turn. “I’m Rei’s father, Toshiro Shimura. I have to ask, though, how will you return to your hotel, now that the road is closing?”
“If the road hasn’t re-opened in a few hours, I’ll stay in the hotel we passed on the way in,” Michael said. “And I apologize for intruding on your family. I now understand my arrival this afternoon placed Rei in a dangerous place at the wrong time. I’m sorry for that as well.
“Eh, these fires, we must drive in and out of them—no other way to survive!” Uncle Edwin said. “Our way of life. When was the last time we had a really big fire, Margaret? Six years past?”
“It was three years ago,” Calvin corrected him. “I know, because I’d just started in my position. Michael, let me introduce myself. I’m Dr Calvin Morita, a neighbor here in Pineapple Plantation.”
“Yah, the fire was 2005,” Uncle Yoshitsune chimed in. “I remember that some neighbors dredged the water out of my pond to wet down the firebreak. Three of my fish died.”
“That’s terrible about your fish, Uncle Yosh. Hopefully the fire won’t get close enough to Honokai Hale for that to happen tonight,” I said, trying to be jocular in order to drag attention away from Michael.
“Nobody there to throw water; the police made everybody leave,” Yosh said.
“Hey, will you join me in a drink? So I won’t be the only one?” Calvin invited Michael.
“No thanks, I think it would just put me to sleep,” Michael said. “What about you, Rei? Since you’re not driving any more tonight?”
“No, thank you. Where’s Braden?” I finally realized who was missing.
“He’s gone upstairs to watch the FX channel,” said Tom.
“I’ll call him down. Braden, you get your behind down here!” Margaret stood at the foot of the stairs and hollered up.
“So, you a sailor, huh?” Edwin said to Michael, as Braden eventually dragged himself down the stairs. “Been stationed at Pearl Harbor for long?”
“Well, I’m actually based in Washington, DC, although I did live at Pearl when I was a boy; my father worked there. I was actually sailing with friends in the Transpac race.”
“For a guy your age, it’s a long time to be enlisted,” said Edwin, who clearly still misunderstood the situation. You going try for promotion or get out?”
“Both are possibilities.” A twitch at the side of Michael’s mouth told me he was trying not to laugh. And I suddenly understood why he was letting Edwin believe he was a Navy sailor—he was creating a cover close enough to a semi-truth without actually lying. My father’s expression was closed, but Uncle Hiroshi was frowning, and Tom was looking at Michael with a considerably less friendly expression than before. Braden, who’d trailed downstairs, gave Michael a sarcastic salute before flopping down next to his sister and staring with a bored expression at the television news.
The situation seemed to worsen after Margaret asked Michael where in Hawaii he had attended high school. Michael mentioned a place called Punahou; I’d never heard of it, but it obviously meant something of significance because Braden hooted, and Courtney looked up from her book with an expression on her face that almost looked like envy.
“You were a Punahou graduate, and then you enlisted in the Navy?” Edwin sounded incredulous.
“I didn’t graduate from Punahou; I was actually there less than a year.”
Braden whistled, then said, “You flunk out or something?”
“Actually, they asked me to leave.” Michael’s voice was short.
I heard a collective intake of breath around the room.
“Most people try so hard to get into Punahou, they want to stay.” Edwin said.
Everyone, including me, was waiting for an explanation, but none came. I put my head down and went back to cooking. Oddly enough, Braden seemed interested in conversation, and he began peppering Michael with questions about wave heights and nautical miles. Michael answered him easily, and I saw my father appraising Michael as if was trying to reconcile all the discordant elements: the crisp New England accent, the private school expulsion, and all the sailing knowledge.
“Why don’t you sit down with the others?” I said to Michael when he left Braden for a minute and came over to watch me chop ginger and garlic to go into the spinach sauté.
“But nobody’s helping you,” Michael said sotto voce. “Surely I can do something.”
That would have made me even more nervous, so I shook my head and said, “Michael should tell you all about the fire we drove through. We saw some incredible animals fleeing.”
“What kind of animals?” Courtney looked up from her book.
“We spotted dozens and dozens of large, fluffy white birds with their heads tucked under their wings. There was a whole flock of them gathered on the bushes that border the resort. I guess they’d given themselves an evacuation notice, from wherever they normally live.”
“How cute,” Courtney said. “I bet they were waiting there for their friends to join them!”
“Maybe so,” Michael answered. “We also saw a beautiful family of wild dogs running across the golf course when we drove in.”
“You couldn’t have—there are no wild dogs in Hawaii,” Edwin said.
“True,” Calvin added. “There’s such a fear of rabies here that the numbers of dogs are kept really low and there’s a ridiculous quarantine for dogs coming in from the outside—six months! The Kikuchis have a Maltese they wanted to bring over for Jiro, but gave up because of the difficulty.”
“You’re both wrong,” Braden interjected. “Wild dogs live in the mountains. Scary yellow buggahs, make good watch dogs if only they could be trained.”
“Well, if these supposed wild creatures keep running makai, they might wind up on our little bit of seaside property and take shelter,” Edwin said with a false smile. “Which reminds me, we need to talk about our land.”
Edwin has no idea of timing, I thought while exchanging glances with my father and Uncle Hiroshi and Tom. Calvin raised an eyebrow, but the hell if I was going to enlighten him.
“Please don’t worry,” Uncle Hiroshi said. “We will definitely help. We’re just not sure how we can best do it.”
“Yes,” my father chimed in, ‘that’s the problem. We must help, but how?”
Edwin smiled as if to reassure him. “It’s not you that’s gonna do any work, it’s the lawyer. A trained expert. That’s what I mentioned before. If it’s a matter o
f you wanting to make sure you get your share of the house price, I’ll put it in writing.”
“No, no, it’s not about the money,” my father said. “We don’t want to take any portion of what belongs to you. But the question is whether anything could be proven. Preparing a good case takes considerable time.”
“Before you know it, his time will run out.” Edwin pointed dramatically at Uncle Yoshitsune.
“Enough,” Yosh said, leaning forward with his eyes blazing at his son. “I don’t want this again. All we get this time is family embarrassment, all over again.”
As if to punctuate his comment, the oven buzzer rang. I opened the door, and looked at my trio of beautifully sizzling whole weke ulua.
What was the word for dinnertime? I struggled for a few seconds, and then remembered.
“Kau kau!”
DINNER BRIEFLY INTERRUPTED the conversation. Everyone ate heartily; the hiyashi chuka noodles were properly creamy, tangy and nutty, the warm spinach was terrific with its ginger, soy and mirin dressing, the long beans were marveled at, and the fish were quickly reduced to skeletons. The fruit trifle was such a success that Braden, who had a thing against fruit, actually ate it: Margaret asked me for the trifle recipe, which I gladly gave her. Michael ate steadily, from time to time looking at me with the same mix of awe and pleasure that had been on his face the first time he’d realized that I could whip him at chess.
I offered to make both decaffeinated and real Kona coffee, but nobody wanted any except for Michael and Braden, who was forbidden by his parents to taste it because of his age. The others and I all took green tea. We moved outside to sit on the lanai for a better view of the fire. The winds had changed, blowing so much smoke that we were driven back inside after about five minutes.
By midnight, the newscasters seemed as weary as Michael, who had lost the battle to keep his eyes open and was asleep, upright, at a dining table chair. I watched the television, hating it for the monotony—how many times could the news people say that the fire was still burning and Farrington Highway was closed?
Michael awoke and asked me for a telephone directory. I gave it to him, and from the phone in the kitchen he called the Kainani Cove Inn to make a reservation. I waited in vain for someone in my family to offer him a chance to lie down upstairs, but the offer never came.
Shimura Trouble Page 10