Song of the Exile

by Kiana Davenport

  In this house his parents referred to “the bowl that holds the poi,” “the pot for stew,” “the chair for playing cards.” There was one of everything, and only what they needed. It was only out in the world that Keo had learned objects had proper names. A T’ang vase, a Hiroshige print. Bavarian china. Here, he had grown up in the midst of, not poverty, but modesty bare as a knuckle. Nothing to see here, little to comment on, which left much space for feeling. A house many-peopled, deeply loved.

  And in this house were his parents, almost childishly vague on what history and geography might be. They knew only that they inhabited an island in the ocean, that Japan and China were on one side, the U.S. on the other. An ocean they had never traveled, one they could not imagine the vastness of. They talked about Hawai‘i becoming one of the United States, but did not know what that meant. They were not sure what a state was.

  “How can be one state?” Leilani asked. “We not connected to da mainland.”

  Timoteo peeled a mango in a long, moist coil. “No mattah. Politics all mental.”

  She stared at a map, stunned by the isolated dots that were their islands.

  “If we going be one state, U.S. going swallow us. Like pp! Like whatchoo call it—tidbits.”

  Keo smiled. He had once needed to escape this “ignorance,” this place so narrow and provincial. Then life had grabbed hold of him and thrust on him more haunted beauty and evil than he would ever understand. Yet nothing but this lane was ever real to him. All else was spectacle.

  Some nights he stepped out of the lane and hiked up to the heights, then deep into rain forests. The smell of swamp, sizzling ginger, the piss of barking deer. The sweetness of kiawe blossoms. He climbed past cane-moist, pasture-dry smells, past piny cypress, up into the fog zone where eucalpytus enveloped him.

  Up here, great trees thrashed and howled as if containing all the tremors of the island, which had absorbed for eons all the tremors of the sea. The bark of each tree kept track of the robust logic of each wave of the ocean as it struck upon the sands. Keo fell asleep watching these giants bend in spasms, eclipsing great sierras of a plankton sky. We are all touched, he thought. The sea has watermarked each island thing. He felt life vibrate through his lungs, the sea vibrating through the lungs of land. He pressed his face against wet earth.

  Days later, he would come down from the heights into the 1950s gleam of boomtown Honolulu. Bleached hulls of buildings blocked the skyline, bringing perpetual shade, northern gloom. Construction crews gouged out entire valleys. Beaches slowly disappeared.

  Leilani wrung her hands and wept, watching crews demolish a store in Chinatown’s Tin-Can Alley. It was her favorite shop for char siu duck, freshest ginger, and bok choy. Old women stood beside her wailing. Keo held his mother’s hand, remembering the shop’s rusty ceiling lights, fly-corpsed fans, exposed and oxidizing plumbing. Mr. Chock slaughtering pop-eyed carp while simultaneously reading the Chinese news. His apron calligraphed with guts and scales.

  Keo remembered a ball of string on a spindle suspended from the ceiling over the counter, the mottled wrapping paper Mr. Chock used for purchases of fish and meat. He could still see the spindle jerk! jerk! jerking! with each pull of the string, still hear a rhythm in the constant motion—chop! pull! wrap!—of Mr. Chock’s big hands.

  He tried to comfort her. “The place was a firetrap. It’s progress, Mama.”

  “I hate dis—whatchoo call it—prah-gress!”

  That year he noticed how she who had been so beautiful, so awe-inspiring, was shrinking, growing frail. As if his mother had entered some frictionless medium and sped, without pausing, from youth to age. He hugged her more often, made her laugh, her laughter like fountains of colored glass that had lit his infant blindness. Each week he took her walking on King Street through Kalihi, Palama, cruising her old haunts—a favorite bakery, the crackseed store—barely one step ahead of the wreckers.

  ONE DAY WHEN THEY REACHED HOME, DESOTO WAS SITTING with his father, both men looking stupefied.

  “What is?” Leilani asked.

  Timoteo shook his head. “His boy Teodoro.”

  She sank to her knees, terrified.

  DeSoto finally spoke. “Dis t’ing called . . . polio. Can die from it?”

  Keo put his arm round his shoulder, holding tight.

  They gazed down at the boy, his eyes looking gnawed-at, the virus scrawling his skin a deadly yellow. His parents round the bright white bed, the bright white room, dabbing at him, brokenhearted attempts to push life back inside him. DeSoto humming, holding his wife and older boy close, the boy pressed against his armpit, smelling his briny father smell.

  Sun shone on fizzy liquid in a tube snaking into Teodoro. He twitched, blinked rapidly in seizures, as if all of his will, his heart, were trying to defeat what stood between him and living. When he opened his eyes again, they were turned inward. He was already studying another life.

  In the corridor, Malia sat with Baby Jonah.

  “Da ditch,” Baby Jo whispered. “We went swimming dere. Granny told us not to.”

  Near ‘A‘ala Park was Kapalama Canal, a thin ribbon of oily algae and metal that began somewhere in the rain forests of the Ko‘olaus. It tapered down through Palama, collecting garbage from rain gutters, puddles, and ground wells until it was a swollen stream meeting the ocean out past the canneries near Honolulu Harbor. Kids from the projects fished and swam half-naked in the waters.

  “You took him there?” Malia asked.

  She nodded. “If Teodoro die . . . my fault! Granny warned ditch waters get plenny polio.”

  Malia had a fleeting moment of what life would be without this girl. The gaping hole. She held her tight and rocked her.

  “Not your fault. Teodoro swam every ditch in Honolulu. Even that slimy Ala Wai Canal. Little ditch rat. He was warned a hundred times. Forty kids on Maui down with polio this year.”

  The girl sobbed. “He only ten. Cannot die. Cannot!”

  In the bright white room, his limbs knotted and froze before their eyes, as if he were going through all the stages of the disease at an accelerated pace. Contracture. Thrombosis. Myocarditis. Respiratory failure. Then each of them held out their hands, feeling him pass through them.

  They stood at his grave, a priest offering some version of a young boy’s death they could live with. No one saw in the distance the old woman weeping softly, grieving for DeSoto. He had once rescued her, delivered her to Keo. Malia looked up, noticing the aged face, and something struck her. Days later, she would remember the fine antique kimono from her shop, which she had given Pono. The one embroidered with an old woman whose gaze was eerily familiar.

  NOW CAME UNCEREMONIOUS GRIEF, AND NIGHTMARES. LEILANI climbed into each morning like a woman climbing from a coffin.

  “Sixteen my babies die. Now my curse take Jonah. Teodoro. Next? Who next?”

  She started sleeping with her eyes open, alert for what was coming.

  “Seem my life only good fo’ bring make.” Death. “Mo’ bettah I go hiamoe loa.” Eternal sleep.

  At night she wheezed. Her mouth became a laboring O. She sucked in air, sucking the house dry. She wheezed so hard, folks felt her inhalations pulling at their skin. Moisture disappeared. No one in Kalihi Lane could sweat or cry. Her wheezes grew louder. Overnight the lane turned parched, a morbid brown. Branches snapped, flowers died, sucked inward.

  One night Leilani turned to Timoteo. “Air da bed each day. I be right here.”

  Grief walked up to her and pinched her heart. She went down like a petal.

  ‘OHANA

  Family, Kin Group

  ANOTHER BRIGHT WHITE ROOM. AT FIRST SHE THOUGHT SHE was already dead. Then she heard the sssss! of someone opening a beer. DeSoto, froggy-eyed from double mourning.

  How long since he buried Teodoro? How long I been here?

  Leilani’s eyes were closed. Her body slept, her spirit wandered. It slipped out through her lua ‘uhane, spirit pit, the tear duct at the corner of her e
ye, gazing round the room.

  Muddah God, look da crowd. So many here. Ooh, da smell. Machinery. Pineapple. Cooking grease. Folks coming straight from work. Fo’ real I must be dying. Strange my body, nutting move. Maybe dis what folks call coma-kine.

  She waved her arms, telling everyone go home, get on with their lives. She did this in her mind, her body paralyzed, her senses dripping at her side. People sat in little knots, whispering, nodding in and out. Doctors said the end was near. It had been arriving for three days.

  Father Gerard stood in the doorway, florid skinned, just slightly cross-eyed. He smiled, handshook his way round the room, eyeing the beer cooler, paper plates of manapua, sushi, Coke bottles on the floor.

  “ ’Ey. Some party, dis!”

  The old priest had always admired the Meahunas. Their physical beauty, their robust fearlessness. Oldest son DeSoto circumnavigating the world year after year. And that curvaceous Malia, the one who drew men’s gazes. Look how she’d slimmed down so lazily no one even noticed. How smart a dresser, her own shop. That pale chubby daughter by her side, always seething a little. The one she passed off as hnai. One day, he must hear her confession.

  There was the husband, Timoteo, grief-stricken but still handsome. Father Gerard studied him, thinking how that Shirashi widow always had her eye on him. Strange, how elegant women migrated toward the untutored and untamed.

  Lastly, he gazed at Keo. The mystery. Some trouble in the war . . . his sweetheart disappeared. Still searching for her.

  He signed the cross, performing extreme unction, then kissed his rosary to Leilani’s lips.

  Night fell, folks bent whispering last things to Leilani, then drifted up and down the halls. Slurp and drag of slippers. Someone in high heels clip-clopping like a horse. Again Leilani’s spirit slipped out through her tear duct, looking round the room.

  My beautiful Malia, nodding in sleep. How good you turn out. But listen me, one day what you do, not do, come round fo’ haunt you. Time you tell Baby Jonah what and what. Give dat girl her birthright. Faddah waiting fo’ his daughter. But proud like you. Nevah come fo’ her until you say. I t’ink you both vain buggahs! We going talk plenny when I haunt you in da nights. . . .

  O Muddah God. Here come my Keo. Favorite son, so talented, so smart. But quiet. Somet’ing in him make me shy. One day be lonely old man with puka-puka socks. Even if famous jazz man, so what? Jazz cook yo’ breakfast? Warm yo’ feet? Jazz give you plenny kids? ‘Auw! I t’ink dis son da one most meant fo’ love. Look how he hold Baby Jonah. Look how he hug his papa. Hug DeSoto’s boy. Dat Sunny Sung, she mess Keo up real bad. I like see dat girl, shake her good befo’ I die.

  Keo sat beside her bed for hours, whispering, falling silent, whispering again. Crowds thinned, people headed home. DeSoto woke his father, dozing in a corner.

  “Papa. Time fo’ go. Come back early in da morning.” Timoteo bent, kissed and kissed Leilani’s face. In her mind, she kissed him back.

  Most precious Timoteo. Of all da men who stare at me, you drew my gaze. I knew dose big hands good fo’ shield me from hot sunlight. Dose strong l‘au feet good fo’ clear da path. I knew dat big strong chest plenny wide enough to weep on. I knew you give me plenny kids. I only nevah know we birth and bury on da run. I nevah know life break us down child by child, year by year. Even tear down pride . . . war years when no work, not even mortuary sweeping, no one but daughter fo’ look aftah us. Daughter wit’ daughter of Krash Kapakahi. Yeah, my Timoteo, all dese years I know you knew!

  She smelled his hair against her face, wanting to feel it with her hands. And in her mind she did. In her mind they danced and dipped and were forever young, never running, or starving, never burying a child.

  THEN IT WAS THE HOUR OF HI‘IAKA THE HEALER, YOUNGEST sister of Pele, fire and volcano goddess. Women of Leilani’s family, keeping all-night vigil, summoned her. Khau Aho stepped forward, statuesque kumu hula, teacher of the dance and chanter of mele. Her voice, her face so lovely when she sang, folks felt rinsed clean of sin.

  “Now we do l‘au lapa‘au, herbal healing, but first we chant khea, the summons prayer.” Her voice rang out:

  “‘O Hi‘iaka ke kula nui, nna i hana, nna i pala‘au i n ma‘i apau.” Hi‘iaka the great priest, she acts, she treats all ailments.

  Chanting softly, they rubbed Leilani’s hands with oil of kukui, rubbed it gently on her cheeks. Her eyes were closed. Her spirit watched and listened.

  Khau Aho whispered, “This is good for ho‘oponopono, restoring balance in heart and mind.”

  Kauwealoha Ing carefully poured seawater into Leilani’s mouth, and then each ear. Kauwealoha, handsome mother of five, rodeo champ, once addicted gambler. One night in Las Vegas she’d looked down at a deck of cards, seen the face of Mother God, and taken the first plane home to Honolulu.

  “Seawater, original Mother juices running in our veins. Ninety-seven elements to clean the blood.” She dabbed seawater on the lips. “Purifies of all bad words ever thought or spoken.”

  Pulling back the sheets, Lauwa‘e Desanto gently rubbed red dust of chili pepper on Leilani’s chest.

  “Shock the heart,” she whispered. “Keep it beating on her voyage home.”

  Lauwa‘e Desanto, once Miss Hawai‘i, runner-up Miss Universe. Eyes like green leaves, face Gauguin. Even in her forties, she was so beautiful, strangers followed her, entranced. She took up each of Leilani’s small, cold feet and rubbed them with the chili pepper dust.

  “Will swim in bloodstream,” Lauwa‘e Desanto pronounced. “Keep feet warm while she follows footsteps of the ancients.”

  They were women joined by blood and legend, who found communion in the ancient ways. This gave them double mana, made their stride electric. When they walked the streets together, crowds stepped back. As if fearing some utterance, a fierce, implacable Hawai‘ian truth that would snap the modern world in two.

  Malia hung maile vines, turning the air fragrant and heady. Round the bed she assembled branches of eucalyptus, Leilani’s favorite, from the highest heights of Tantalus. Finally, she wreathed her mother’s head in ti leaves for safe journey to the next life.

  Her clanswomen strummed ‘ukulele, singing “ ‘Ekolu Mea Nui”—“Three Greatest Things”—their voices blending in falsetto. Khau Aho, so great of height, stood lifting her voice so that even down the hall, patients turned, smiling in their sleep. Malia raised her arms in a graceful solemn hula of the ancients as they harmonized in communion to “Ke Akua Mana E”—“How Great Thou Art.”

  For hours they sang sacred songs, voices so deep and lingering that nurses stopped and listened. Throughout the building, elevators slowed, doors shuddering half-closed. Water fountains froze in mid-splash. Even the dying paused.

  Khau Aho finally intoned: “E mlama ia Kou makemake.” Thy will be done.

  Exhausted, they sat down and slept.

  IN THE DEEPEST HOUR OF THE NIGHT, AN OLD WOMAN WITH A cane stood trembling in the doorway. She watched the women snoring in chorus, then moved past them and laid her cane beside Leilani. Gently, more gently than anything she had ever done, she dipped a tissue in water, dabbed Leilani’s feverish and blistered lips. She bent and kissed the fallen cheek. She pulled up a chair.

  Coming awake, Leilani felt gentle pressure, someone stroking her as if she were a child.

  . . . oooh, plenny tired. Soon, time fo’ hiamoe loa, eternal sleep. Timoteo, precious, here beside me. Come to say goodbye.

  Her spirit hesitated, then peeked out from her tear duct.

  Muddah God!

  Sunny was holding her hand, talking softly. As if they had centuries. As if, in time, all would be explained.

  _______

  “. . . BELOVED LEILANI, YOUR BODY IS VERY TIRED. SOON YOU will give in, and rest. My precious mama Butterfly taught me that our ‘uhane, our soul, takes nine days to leave this earth. So you have time to listen. And I have much to say.”

  IN HER MIND, LEILANI SCREAMED. SUNNY SUNG, KEO’S BEAUTIFUL and spoiled lov
e, had come back masquerading as a hag. Leilani’s skin, her organs—every nerve end—recoiled.

  “I KNOW YOU CURSE ME. YOU THINK I STOLE YOUR SON FROM you, stole him from his islands. All I did was open doors, let him see what he could be. . . . I loved him more than life, but I was not enough. He was on the brink of things. He needed breath and I took up his oxygen. And so, I found my own breath. Saving my sister’s life gave me importance. . . .”

  SUNNY TALKED THROUGH MINUTES INTO HOURS, WHILE BEHIND her the women slept. She talked of Paris, and sliding down the coast of Africa, learning she was carrying Keo’s child. She talked of reaching Shanghai, finding her sister who helped midwife the child. She talked of trying to get Lili and the baby home to Honolulu. And how dismally she failed.

  “KEO WAITED FOR ME TO COME BACK WITH OUR CHILD TO HOTEL Jo-Jo. I never returned. Afraid I would leave with him, leaving Lili to die. Because of my cowardice, I sacrificed both. My sister and little Anahola.”

  FALTERING AGAIN AND AGAIN, SHE TOLD HOW JAP SOLDIERS swept through Shanghai, herding women into trucks. How they took infants from their mothers’ arms and threw them in the air, pointing their bayonets.

  “I SAW MY BABY FLUNG INTO THE SKY. I SCREAMED, AND CLOSED MY eyes so I would never know what happened. So I would always see her soaring upward like an angel . . .”

  _______

  AS SUNNY TALKED, A TEAR ROLLED DOWN LEILANI’S CHEEK. IT sat there, solid as a crystal. Quietly, Sunny spoke of her first “comfort station,” in Shanghai. Men’s bodies pummeling them, day after day, night after night. She told how she and Lili were kept in separate rooms. And how, one night, Lili was shot. Soldiers could not bear her clubfoot.