Song of the Exile

by Kiana Davenport

  He passed food stalls in Chinatown where he and Sunny had stroked silver pyramids of cabbages, limbs of dancing ginger-men. Shops where they had bought cherries from tiny women who tied knots in the stems with their tongues. But then he saw hanging pigeon and duck carcasses, and thought of skinned dogs in Shanghai, a human corpse in an alley, fervid flies teeming at its anus. Sweat runneled his face as he struggled home.

  Another night in pouring rain Keo knocked on the door of Sunny’s house. Her mother, Butterfly, answered, pointing a flashlight in his face. His skin was soaked, reflective like mahogany. He tried to smile, which made his face look cruel. She screamed and dropped the light, and in the glow he saw the beached seaweed of stockings puddled round her ankles. Retrieving the flashlight, he traveled up her shaking limbs, her ragged dress. She looked like a derelict; all her beauty had come apart. Did I do this? he wondered.

  “Sunny . . . I tried to find her in Shanghai. Is there any word?”

  Shuddering, she closed the door, leaving him in the rain.

  HE WASN’T READY FOR TRUMPET, HE DIDN’T HAVE THE STRENGTH. He started as relief man on ‘ukulele. That first night, when he mounted the small stage in Lau Yee Chai’s back garden, folks stood, applauding. A few remembered him as Hula Man, wild trumpet player from Honolulu’s prewar years. Others heard he had been liberated from a camp.

  Between sets he sat talking jazz with the horn men, and sometimes after curfew he sat outside in darkness “talking story” with chanters from the hula troupe. One night the old gourd player looked up at the stars, speaking eloquently of the ancient music of Hawai‘ians.

  “You been gone long time, Keo. Maybe you forget where knaka get this urge to cry, make song. Remember, ancient Hawai‘ians were poets and chanters. There was formal chanting, telling of religious life, genealogies, and battles. And there were joyful chants, passion poems of love. These were joined with dance, and sounds of skin drums, rattle gourds, clacking stones. This chanting form was mele hula. There was impromptu chanting, too, for laughter, entertainment. . . .

  “Then came missionaries, who forbade our ancient sounds. Khuna of old chant forms had to pass their knowledge on in secret! Chants faded, Hawai‘ians grew silent. In 1898, our kingdom stolen, we turned back to old songs to keep our hearts from breaking. . . .

  “Then came ragtime, and ugly mainland songs chop-sueyed with hula, that made our music silly. Then came jazz and blues, the big bands. . . .”

  The old man leaned back, sighing. “Sometimes I fear our music died, then I hear real haunting beauty of falsetto singing, slack-key guitar. I get a chilly feel, go all ‘chicken skin,’ sounds so Hawai‘ian, so aloha-full.

  “There’s going come a renaissance. Folks going rediscover pure hula, chant forms of our ancients. You know why coming back? Hawai‘ian music has real innocence, real purity and magic. Sounds that open up the human heart . . .”

  Now he turned to Keo in the dark.

  “Soon, boy, you going pick up your horn. I feel your lips grown thirsty. When you blow, always remember original wet rhythms in your blood. What you blowing come from chants you suckled from your mama and her mama’s mama, and back and back. Chants of poetry, and lineage, and war chants . . .”

  ONE NIGHT IT STARTED POURING DURING THE SHOW IN THE back gardens. Band, dancers, customers dashed crazily inside Lau Yee Chai’s. After a while the pouring slowed to gentle rain. Feeling claustrophobic, Keo stepped outside. At a table in the rain a soldier sat, oblivious, fresh from combat on Saipan. Keo crossed the lawn, picked up a trumpet left onstage, and wiped it dry. Almost absentmindedly he fingered the valves, wiped the mouthpiece, brought it to his lips. He would not remember doing this. He would remember only a young soldier in the rain, head hanging, eyes entirely blank and lost.

  He hadn’t played in two years. He was weak. Yet in that moment what Keo wanted, more than anything, was to play for that young soldier. Help him explore loss, inexplicable horror, whether anything was left in him to save. He wanted to help him recover, move on. He blew a few stuttering choruses of “Its Been a Long, Long Time,” feeling his lungs shudder, then slowly expand. Cautiously he segued into a chorus of “I Got a Right to Sing the Blues,” the Armstrong oldie from his New Orleans days. He blew another chorus, half a dozen more.

  Crowds moved out to the lnai. Sheltered from the rain, they stood like herds at feeding time, eyes moving from Keo to the soldier. As if an invisible wire connected them, one man’s brooding solitude inspiring the other. His lips hurt. He wasn’t playing excellently, the wind was taking it out of him. But he wasn’t playing too badly. He could almost feel wheels begin to turn, something melting, oiling up his joints.

  He paused, took a deep breath, played “Ain’t Misbehavin’ ” slowly, very slowly, like someone yawning, waking up. Then more forcefully, flexing his muscles and his lungs. Across the lawn the soldier nodded, rocking slightly, almost imperceptibly, enough of him alive to listen.

  Feet firmly planted, rain gentle on his cheeks, Keo felt a strange process begin. For the first time in a long time he felt a quiet, robust joy. He felt on a high wire of consciousness, as if for a moment he could peer from the heights without fear. In truth, he was still afraid, he was terrified. But at least he had finally opened his eyes.

  Rain stopped, the crowd surged toward him, the soldier disappeared. But other servicemen came up, begging him to play enlisted men’s clubs where they were starved for entertainment. On his next night off from Lau Yee Chai, he sat in on trumpet at the army’s Club Maluhia. The dance floor was huge, thousands of men, only thirty or forty women. He started playing regularly afternoons, sitting in with the army band, relieving the trumpet, sometimes sitting in with guest bands.

  He didn’t strain or push himself. These boys didn’t want brooding, searching jazz. With only two minutes to a girl before a whistle blew for cutting in, they wanted jitterbugs, love songs, anything that beat back death. Men about to ship out looked extra young, extra pale and big-eyed. He could pick them out of every crowd. Those just back from combat in Guam, the Philippines, brought violence and rage. From battered, weary bodies came a scorched smell like burning wires.

  Late spring 1944. Folks said the war was essentially over. But there was still Iwo Jima. Okinawa. Soldiers and sailors back on leave dived into fistfights, full-scale brawls, throwing each other from balconies and rooftops. Men were killed. MPs were forced to turn on fire hoses with eighty pounds of pressure. Keo watched as bodies swept past like surfers.

  Some nights in blackout, he walked down the beach to the Royal Hawai‘ian, now full of servicemen back from combat, sunburnt and haunted-looking. Keo stood there remembering his friends. The “golden men.” He remembered their dark, robust beauty, their innocence, strolling the sands like laughing bronzed gods. Tiger Punu, Turkey Love, Surf Hanohano. Krash Kapakahi, who had once saved his life, pulling him from a riptide. All fighting in Europe, the Pacific. Some already dead.

  LEINA A KA ‘UHANE

  Leaping Place of Ghosts

  NINETEEN FORTY-FOUR. HAWAI‘I NO LONGER DESIGNATED A COMBAT zone. Nights were balmy, folks sat on their steps gossiping, a little more relaxed. Even the manapua man returned, the tiny wizened Japanese who every day for years had shuffled up the lane selling minced-pork buns from empty lard cans balanced on a pole across his shoulders.

  “Mana . . . pua. . .! Mana . . . pua. . .!” His cry made the world seem safe again.

  Though the Allies were rumored to be winning, rationing grew worse, shortages of everything—meat, sugar, clothes. Demands for dresses and cheongsams increased. Prostitutes sent Malia black-market dress material, paying whatever she charged. She grew confident, began designing backless dresses, bolero jackets with matching belts.

  Pono came home late from double shifts and found her laboring at the Singer, cast-iron treadle rocking, flywheel humming as the needle danced. She paid Pono extra money for wear and tear on the machine, even tried to talk her into setting up two machines, so they would both get r
ich off prostitutes.

  One night Pono sat with folded arms, staring at Malia. She held up her hand; most of one finger was missing.

  “Yes, I once sewed cheongsams for those women. But shame sent me to the cannery. Then I lost this finger on the slicing line. On sick leave, desperate, I sewed cheongsams again. Then I saw my daughters growing. I wondered how I could tell them their food and clothes were paid for by women lying on their backs. I went back to the cannery.”

  She leaned toward Malia. “But you, you sewing up a storm. You coming like the middleman.”

  Malia sat up. “What do you mean?”

  “Your fancy dresses make haole whores look good. Men pay them more. Whores pay you more. Same as pimp work. You don’t feel hilahila, shame?”

  Malia stood up slowly. “I don’t see you refusing my money. Do you feel hilahila?”

  She was glad Pono was sitting. The woman was so tall, it was the only time Malia could look down at her. She continued:

  “Listen. I rip and shred my fingers every night. Half these dresses have my blood on them. What I make keeps my folks alive. You know the kind of money these prostitutes are making? Buying houses, real estate. When the war’s over, half of Honolulu will be owned by hookers.”

  Malia tapped the Singer for emphasis. “Do I feel shame? No. I admire them. Smart businesswomen.”

  Pono raised her eyes, almost lazily. “And your child? The one you call hnai. When she’s grown, will you tell her how you made a living off the backs of whores?”

  Malia reared back.

  “Will you tell this to her one-lunged father, wounded in the war?”

  “Krash, wounded? . . . Mother God, don’t let him die.”

  In slow motion, Malia dropped to her knees. She closed her eyes, praying fervently for the father of her child.

  “He will not die,” Pono said. “But you will wound him many times.”

  After a while Malia opened her eyes. “I know you are kahuna. So look into your herbs and leaves, and you will see I love this man. You will also see I have a future. I won’t whore-sew all my life. I practise even in my sleep, memorizing everything you teach me, so scissors and thread will cut and join in new and different ways. One day rich folks will wear my designs. I’m going to accomplish things. If that wounds Krash, then he does not deserve me.”

  Pono looked at her, amused. “Besides whore clothes . . . what is it you ‘design’?”

  “The tuxedo my brother wore his first night at Lau Yee Chai, the jacket with new formfitting torso rather than draped. He was too thin for that. I designed his pants straighter than old styles, which now look prewar and tired.” She paused. “And I have something new in mind for beachwear. Matching ‘cabana sets,’ for men and women. They will be the rage.”

  Malia unfolded a dress of rich, deep green brocade, a flowing, light-refracting skirt, made from one of Kiko’s fabrics. “I am designing this for you.”

  Pono stared. It was like a radiance waiting to surround her.

  “I thought of red,” Malia said. “The color of passion. But green is softer, and will complement your beauty.”

  Pono hung her head, astonished. “I am not used to kindness. Life has made me harsh.”

  Malia thought of the four girls sleeping in the next room. The unknown father. She thought of life waiting for this woman just outside the door. What it took to go through that door each day.

  “I hope,” she said, “there will be a witness to your beauty, someone special when you wear this dress.”

  Pono looked off dreamily. “Maybe. When the war ends.”

  “Will it ever end?”

  Pono closed her eyes, and when she opened them, their blackness—black as the red-black heart of aku—faded to brown, then white, so that her eyeballs seemed turned inward studying her brain.

  “In one more year. There will be swiftness. Spectacle. War as we know it will become extinct.”

  IN OCTOBER, AS MARTIAL LAW WAS LIFTED, DESOTO CAME HOME on a U.S. carrier, bringing his briny sea smell. Keo walked into the house and it was there. That old familiar form asleep, one arm hanging squidlike from his bunk. He sniffed the big bronze-colored hand, the callused palm. Staccato of brother-blood thrumming in those veins. His soul rose up, ecstatic.

  In bays safe from military patrols, they spent hours fishing in DeSoto’s canoe, baiting hooks with sweet potato, so loved by surgeonfish. They chewed kukui nut, spitting out the oil so it spread and quieted a place amongst the waves where they looked down, watching fish take the bait. They tried to catch up on the years, but it took time, each man a little shy. Patience was called for. Like watching seawater evaporate in salt canoes made out of ti leaves. Minutes dripping into crystals.

  “I never thanked you,” Keo said, “for sending her to me.”

  DeSoto nodded solemnly. “Sunny love you more dan anyt’ing. I t’ink she wen’ little crazy widdout you. You find out where she is, what happen. . . ?”

  He shook his head. “I check Red Cross manifests every week. Write letters to hospitals. Brother . . . Sunny and I, we had a child. Born in Shanghai. I never even held her.”

  DeSoto hung his head. “Dis fucking war!”

  Keo reached out, shyly touching his brother’s arm. They hugged each other fiercely.

  “Keo, listen me. Sunny stay alive. I know. I feel! Yo’ little girl. You going find again . . . somehow. You want search, I search fo’ you. You need talk, try come talk wit’ me.”

  “I’ve been afraid to.” He looked out at the sea. “So many things I did . . . was forced to do . . .”

  DeSoto nodded. “I did t’ings, too . . . I nevah going fo’get. Nevah going repeat, not even fo’ priest. Now I talk to mirror fo’ confession.”

  They fell silent for a while, then Keo asked, “ ’Ey. You think our hnai baby sister, really . . . hnai?”

  DeSoto grinned. “I t’ink she look exactly like Malia.”

  “And . . . little bit like Krash?”

  “Lot like Krash! Light skin like his mama. She got some haole on her side.”

  “Going be plenny interesting when Krash come home.”

  One day DeSoto took him fishing in waters off Ka‘ena Point, northwest tip of O‘ahu. A desolate place, a point of land where, in winter, forty-foot waves exploded on beaches. Reaching the waters off Ka‘ena, the brothers fell silent.

  Elders called the point Leina a ka ‘Uhane, “Leaping Place of Ghosts.” Hawai‘ians believed souls of the dead departed from here for the afterlife, sailing out from thousand-foot cliffs. Ka‘ena meant “red hot.” This jagged finger of land pointing boldly westward was worthy of its name. At sunset its waters boiled orange, coral beaches sizzled, shrubs burst into flame.

  Along its shoreline were lava caves, spouting-horns—huge volcanic rocks through which water shot skyward. Now, as the sea slammed into these formations, they heard moans, cries, chanting. The sea scraping across crushed-coral dunes was like the barking of a thousand dogs.

  Keo shivered. “I feel real sleepy.”

  DeSoto whispered, “Time fo’ moe moe. Close eyes. Relax.”

  Afterwards Keo knew he had slept, because he dreamed. In the dream someone sat between them in the canoe. And in that haunted place, three brothers fished, and laughed, “talking story” for rich hours. Much later, waves almost swamped them and they woke, working their paddles feverishly.

  When it was calm, Desoto asked, “You see him?”

  Tears streaked Keo’s cheeks. “Brother Jonah! He was here. Laughing. Joking. Like old times . . .” “I know dat boy. Know his soul been waiting fo’ us here, so we share aloha befo’ his long voyage to Kahiki, true Polynesian home.”

  As they gazed ashore, DeSoto suddenly stood and shouted. An ‘iwa bird with enormous wingspan had appeared from nowhere, perching on a great white rock above the cliffs. Now it flapped its wings and slowly lifted. Flying in concentric circles that lazily expanded, it headed straight for Keo and DeSoto, its cry heartrending, wingspan so wide it overshadowed them.<
br />
  Keo reached up, shouting Jonah’s name. The great bird hovered for so long, Keo swooned as if in its possession. It moved in close and hung suspended, so close, each man saw his reflection in its huge, forgiving eyes. The mirror of each brother’s mind trembled in its clarity. Then the ‘iwa dipped its wings, crying out again, a long soprano solo. It lifted, flew up and up following the call its body cast ahead.

  “Fly, Jonah-boy,” DeSoto cried. “Fly high! You going home.”

  They watched until he was a speck caught in each brother’s eye. They dropped their heads, engraved forever.

  IN SPRING 1945 A LETTER CAME FROM KRASH KAPAKAHI, WOUNDED in a “minor way,” recovering in Italy. Then, in the mail, strange souvenirs. Two long, curved, narrow bones, each inscribed with his name. Malia stared at them, then wrapped them up and carried them to Pono. The woman stroked them, pressing one against her ear.

  “You hear the thumping? Bones remembering a beating heart.”

  “I don’t understand,” Malia said.

  “They had to remove them, to cut out the lung shredded by a bullet. These are your lover’s ribs. He is courting you.”

  Malia pressed his ribs against her cheeks. “Let him heal! I will do anything. Don’t let him be an invalid.”

  “He will be well. One lung is enough. But he will sometimes make the sound of one digesting pearls.”

  She stroked the ribs, like totems. “Pono, I’m afraid. I don’t know what is coming.”

  “Yours will be a twisted love. You will both live forward, looking backwards.”

  GERMANY’S SURRENDER, DANCING IN THE LANE. IN JUNE, WHEN the Allies took Okinawa, Keo kicked off his shoes at Club Maluhia. He hadn’t played barefoot in years. Now he stepped up his stride. Boogying across the stage, he played seventeen choruses of “Birth of the Blues” while servicemen kept count. Afterwards they mobbed him.

  Even the young blond drummer gushed. “I gotta tell you, you got high-note ability that makes me damn near cry.”