Once There Was Fire: A Novel of Old Hawaii

by Stephen Shender

  “Certainly, Kalanimoku has no more authority than Kamehameha himself allows,” Kekuaokalani said, “but I worry that Kalanimoku’s influence grows too much while our uncle devotes his days to fishing and surf riding. And does Kamehameha notice how much time Kalanimoku spends with Ka‘ahumanu? Does he know that Ka‘ahumanu is always present when Kalanimoku confers with Liholiho? I think not.”

  Though he could not prove it, Kekuaokalani was convinced that Kalanimoku never decided any important matter without first consulting Ka‘ahumanu. He also believed that when Liholiho was present at these deliberations, he was no more than a passive bystander. “Our cousin has ever been Ka‘ahumanu’s keiki,” he said. “And he always will be.”

  Was Kamehameha, now in his seventh decade, so distracted by his own pursuits that he was truly unaware of Kalanimoku’s and Ka‘ahumanu’s relationship and Liholiho’s feckless behavior? Or did he know and simply wish to avoid strife over the former while having abandoned hope of altering the latter? I have no answer to these questions.

  In any case, Kamehameha continued to fish, inspect his fish ponds, swim, ride the waves, and bargain with haole merchantmen, as all the while Ka‘ahumanu met daily with his prime minister, his royal son and heir abjured his princely responsibilities, and his favorite nephew, my brother, the high priest of Kūkā‘ilimoku, fumed in silence.

  Pauoa, O‘ahu 1858

  The king, queen, and most of the court have gone to Maui, where the king seeks relief from his terrible asthma. Esther, who is little Prince Albert’s nurse and governess, has gone with them. I would have gone as well, but not feeling well again, I chose to stay home.

  Are you sure you will be alright staying here without me? Esther asks before she departs for the harbor in Honolulu, where a ship awaits the royal party.

  Do not trouble yourself about me. I will manage tolerably well, I say. Perhaps I shall join you in Maui later.

  David is also going, Esther says. And his sister Lili is going as well. Esther adds this a bit too quickly; almost parenthetically. I already know this, of course. Kalākaua, I suspect, is more than just a good friend of Esther’s; Lili has become their companion and chaperon in public.

  Outwardly, Esther and Kalākaua are behaving as proper Victorians. But I believe Esther understands that I see past this façade and she wants reassuring that I have no objection. I smile. Of course, they are both going, I say. It will be nice for you to have them along. I leave it at that, in part from necessity and in part because I still appreciate the old ways in such matters.

  I am not entirely alone here. Our servants, Gideon and his wife, Sarah, live on the property with their son, Ezra. They have been with us since 1851. Gideon and Sarah are about forty, I think. They are uncertain of their birth dates because their parents, being commoners, knew nothing of the haole calendar. Their parents told them, however, that my uncle, the great Kamehameha, was yet living when they were born, hence my estimate of their ages. Their son Ezra is fifteen; a minister noted his birth date in a church baptismal record.

  Ezra is a handsome youth. His eyes reflect intelligence; his face is lean with even and well-defined features and yet he is only of middling height, in the way of our common people. Ezra is the youngest and the only one of Gideon’s and Sarah’s four children still living. Successive epidemics carried away two brothers and a sister.

  The family lives together in a three-room, thatched-roof dwelling at the rear of our property, opposite the main house among our guava, passion fruit, and banana trees. I can see their dwelling from our lanai.

  Gideon and Sarah are from Wai‘anae, on the coast northwest of Honolulu. For generations, their forebears farmed the land there as tenants of successive chieftains, who held the land at the pleasure of a succession of O‘ahu rulers, and later by leave of successive Kamehamehas and their ministers. Chieftains and rulers came and went, but Gideon’s and Sarah’s people stayed, true maka‘āinana, people of the land. They are people of the land no longer.

  Eight years ago, after generations of tenancy, Gideon and Sarah became landowners in their own right, thanks to an undertaking by the legislature known as the Great Mahele—the great division of the royal lands. The ali‘i were the first to receive titles to land, after the king, of course. The king then gave a portion of his lands to the government, for division among the maka‘āinana. Gideon and Sarah were among some ten thousand commoners throughout the islands who gained permanent titles to their own small parcels through this division. Unfortunately for them, haoles also gained the right to own land here at the same time. Previously permitted only to lease, they were eager to offer cash in exchange for the commoners’ new landholdings and thousands eagerly accepted, Gideon and Sarah among them.

  My father and mother thought they could sell their property, use the money to buy some haole goods they so much wanted, and continue to farm the land as tenants, as they had always done, Ezra says. They thought that the haole who bought their land would accept vegetables and hogs as rent payment, as the king and chiefs had done, he tells me. But Ezra’s parents had been evicted from their home by the new landowner, a scion of American missionaries who cared nothing for taro, sweet potatoes, or pigs, and was buying up and consolidating the commoners’ small parcels for sugar production. Forced off the land, Gideon and Sarah moved to Honolulu with their son in search of employment as wage laborers. That is how they came to work for us.

  My parents do not understand that the land does not mean the same thing to the haoles as it means to them, says Ezra, who does understand, with a wisdom perhaps beyond his years. For my parents, he says, the land is nourishment.

  When Ezra speaks of the land as “nourishment” he speaks of a deep attachment to the ‘āina that has always fed, clothed, and sheltered us. He speaks of how our people worked the land to grow enough produce and raise enough livestock to provide for themselves after paying their “taxes” at Makahiki time, with no further thought beyond their daily sustenance and happiness. The haoles think differently, Ezra says. For them the land is only good for one thing—money, and they never have enough of that.

  I have seen this for myself. Soon after I obtained title in the Mahele to a portion of my father’s ancestral lands in Kohala, and well before the haoles were permitted to buy land here, an American came to me, eager lease my property. He approached other ali‘i landholders as well. He had no thought of farming the land for his own family; he wanted to grow sugar cane for export and he has remained ever-avid for more land. Lately, this American has been pestering me to sell him my land outright. Unlike Ezra’s parents, I have refused. I would rather share in his profits through steady lease income than give up my land for a one-time windfall.

  We are sitting on my lanai as we speak. Ezra has come to bring me tea and I have invited him to stay and talk with me for a while before I turn in. The day’s light is fading; the evening’s first stars are coming out overhead, and across from where we sit, the wavering light of an oil lamp appears in the window of the servants’ quarters.

  Ezra gestures at the small cottage. They do not understand, he says again.

  Neither of us speaks for a time. Then I say to Ezra, Tell me, what do you want for yourself?

  I want more than that, he replies, gesturing at the small house he shares with Gideon and Sarah. I do not want to be just a kanaka.

  To become more than a kanaka, you must learn to speak with the haoles in their own language, I say. You must learn to speak English like a white man, to read it and write it as well as any white man.

  I already read and write Hawaiian, says Ezra, who has attended a free public school where the children of the maka‘āinana are taught in our own language. I can learn to speak, read, and write English too.

  Recalling how I learned to speak English with ‘Olohana’s help and how I later learned to speak, read, and write proper English from the early missionaries, I tell Ezra, I believe you can.

  In another time, I would not have condescended to associate so
easily with a commoner, a “kanaka” such as Ezra. It shames me to think of this, and I am all at once saddened for Sarah, Gideon, and Ezra, and all the Hawaiians who have been, or will soon be separated from the land and estranged from their heritage.

  It is for Ezra, as well as for Esther and her friends, that I write.

  Ka‘ahumanu

  E iho ana o luna

  E pi‘i ana o lalo

  E huiana nāmoku

  E kūana ka paia

  That which is above will come down

  That which is down will rise up

  The islands shall unite

  The walls shall stand firm

  -- The Hawaiian prophet Kapihe

  Kailua-Kona, May 1819

  K āne’s sun, touching the edge of the sea, had turned Lono’s clouds ominous blood red by the time the summons reached Kawaihae. I was watching the sunset from the courtyard of ‘Olohana’s compound above the great heiau when a large double-hulled canoe entered the bay. It was one of Kamehameha’s peleleu canoes, built for war but now reserved for coastal voyaging. It carried two haole-rigged sails on tall masts stepped on a wide central deck. The afternoon winds had diminished with the failing light and the canoe’s sails were by this time more decorative than functional. There were more than a dozen men on board—six paddlers in each hull and two others on the central platform, one steering and another who was chanting and beating a drum. I could see the deep orange glint of the setting sun through the water that spilled from twelve paddle blades as they rose and fell as one to the cadence of the chant and drum beat.

  Ia wa‘a nui

  That large canoe

  Ia wa‘a kioloa

  That long canoe

  Ia wa‘a peleleu

  That broad canoe

  A lele mamala

  Let chips fly

  A manu a uka

  The bird of the upland

  A manu a kai

  The bird of the lowland

  ’I’wi polena

  The red honeycreeper

  A kau ka hoku

  The stars hang above

  A kau ka malama

  The daylight arrives

  A pae i kula

  Bring the canoe ashore

  ’Amama ua noa

  The kapu is lifted

  The chanting and drumming were slow at first, but their tempo intensified as the canoe neared the beach. The singer’s urgency communicated to the broad backs, powerful shoulders, and strong arms of the paddlers, who drove the canoe forward with ever-increasing force. The chanting and drumming crescendoed and climaxed as the canoe, propelled by a final stroke of twelve paddle blades, came to rest half out of the water on the damp, sandy shore.

  “‘Olohana! Nāmākēha!” You must come to Kailua with us at once!” the helmsman cried. “Our lord, Kamehameha, has taken gravely ill!”

  ‘Olohana and I hurriedly made ready to go. Darkness had fallen by the time we set off, but the night was clear and the coastline was illuminated, albeit dimly, by a full moon. There was no more chanting or drumming and very little talking, and for some time there was no wind. We journeyed on in silence, save for the splashing of a dozen paddle blades and water slapping against the canoe hulls.

  ‘Olohana steered the canoe while the other two men and I relieved the paddlers at intervals as they tired, and we made good progress, even with empty sails. We continued to paddle when Lono’s wind filled our sails again, and we reached Kailua just as Kāne’s dawn was breaking behind the darkened uplands. We were exhausted, but there was no time for resting.

  When Kamehameha returned to the Big Island, he had taken up residence with Ka‘ahumanu and Keopuolani at Kamakahonu, just to the north of Kailua proper. There, he had directed his people to build a new royal compound for him and his wives, opposite the ‘Ahu‘ena Heiau, where Kameha had honored Ka‘ahumanu following the conquest of O‘ahu twenty-three years earlier. Fish were abundant in the small inlet at Kamakahonu, which also boasted excellent surf riding. Certainly, it was the prospect of big waves on windy days and plentiful fishing on still days that had drawn Kamehameha to the site.

  This morning, the waters of Kailua Bay were calm, ruffled only by a light breeze. Silence enveloped the village. We saw no one about, though this was at a time when the fishermen of the area, Kamehameha often among them, would usually be preparing for their day’s work. It was as if the place were holding its breath.

  A lone figure on the beach beckoned to us as we neared the shore. It was Kekuaokalani. “Hurry!” he called. “You are only just in time. I fear that Kamehameha is near death.”

  Kamehameha had taken ill several days previously. He had gone fishing by himself early in the morning in a small outrigger canoe, as he would do occasionally. He had only just returned when he was stricken.

  “Kamehameha was pulling his canoe onto the beach when all at once he clutched his head and sank to his knees,” my brother recounted. “I was just then coming to greet him and I ran to help, but he would not have it.”

  Instead, Kamehameha waved my brother away and struggled to his feet. Then he said to him, “Fishing has fatigued me this morning, Kekua. I must rest now.”

  “Our uncle was breathing poorly and he did not look well,” Kekuaokalani told me. “He was unsteady on his feet and unable to take more than two steps without my help.”

  There were other people about and Kamehameha did not want them to see that he was indisposed. “Come, walk with me, Kekuaokalani,” he said in a voice that was sure to be overheard. Then he laid an arm around my brother’s shoulders as if in a fatherly gesture, lowered his voice, and said, “And I will lean on you as we go.”

  Despite my brother’s forewarning, I was shaken by the sight of Kamehameha’s still form as I entered his hale. I had seen my uncle at rest before, but now he seemed inert. In that moment, I thought that his mana had already fled. I was on the verge of wailing my profound grief when Kamehameha weakly raised one hand and beckoned us to approach him. Kalanimoku, several priests and chieftains, Ka‘ahumanu, Kahekili Ke‘eaumoku, and Hoapili were gathered around Kamehameha. Keopuolani was conspicuous by her absence. Her kapu had kept her away. It was so strong that the others would have been required to partially or fully disrobe in her presence.

  “Kekuaokalani, Nāmākēha, ‘Olohana—is that you? Come closer so that I can see you better,” Kamehameha said. His voice was weak and I strained to hear him. “It has grown so dark in here.”

  Indeed, the interior of Kamehameha’s hale was deep in shadows, but I could see the entire tableau clearly: my uncle supine on a mat, covered to mid-chest with several kapa cloths; his prime minister and his chieftains to one side; Ka‘ahumanu, Kahekili Ke‘eaumoku, and Hoapili to the other; and the priests between them. I could make out their worried expressions and the tears in their eyes. And even in the weak light, I could see that my uncle’s color was poor, almost gray, and his face was drawn. But more disturbing to me than any of these sights was the sound of Kamehameha’s labored breathing.

  ‘Olohana, Kekuaokalani, and I bent over Kamehameha and gently rubbed noses with him. “Kekuaokalani, Nāmākēha, my beloved nephews, and ‘Olohana, my dear friend and brother, I am so glad you are here with me now,” Kamehameha said. He struggled to speak amid ragged breaths and the effort tired him. When he caught his breath he spoke to each of us in turn.

  To my brother, Kamehameha said, “Kekuaokalani, preserve the kapus after I am gone. Our people must continue to observe them, lest they become no better than the haoles.”

  “I will, Uncle,” Kekuaokalani replied, fighting back tears.

  “And one more thing, nephew,” Kamehameha continued. “The kāhuna must not sacrifice anyone to the gods for me. You will see to this?”

  “Yes, Uncle,” my brother replied. He was sobbing now.

  “‘Olohana,” Kamehameha said, “you have long been a loyal adviser and friend to me. My son, Liholiho, will likewise need your advice and steady friendship. Promise me that you will serve him as y
ou have always served me.”

  ’Olohana grasped my uncle’s hand firmly and said, “I could do no less, Lord.”

  To me, Kamehameha said, “Nāmākēha, tell me you will continue to be a good friend and companion to Liholiho as you have always been.”

  My voice close to breaking, I answered, “Uncle, I will ever be Liholiho’s aikāne.”

  “Good,” Kamehameha said. Then he motioned to Hoapili to come close. ‘Olohana, Kekuaokalani, and I stepped away so that Ka‘ahumanu’s cousin, Hoapili, could approach. Kamehameha spoke so softly to him that we could not hear what he said. Next, Kamehameha asked to speak to Kalanimoku and Ka‘ahumanu. Again, we could not make out his words to them. At length, Kamehameha asked, “Where is my son, Liholiho? Why is he not here yet? I would speak to him before I die.”

  “He has been at Keauhou, Lord,” Kalanimoku replied. “He is coming now.”

  “Good,” said Kamehameha. “I can wait.” Then he sighed, closed his eyes, and slept.

  Long hours passed as we kept a quiet vigil around Kamehameha’s still form. The sun was lowering toward the ocean when Kamehameha opened his eyes and spoke to us again. “Where is Liholiho?” he asked, his voice breathy and faint. “Has he not come yet?”

  “No, Lord,” Kalanimoku replied, “he has not yet arrived.”

  “But he is coming?”

  “Yes, Lord,” Kalanimoku said, adding, “I know he is coming.” Then, perhaps discomfited by his own uncertainty, Kalanimoku changed the subject. “You have not eaten all day, Lord,” he said. “Will you take something now?”

  “No, thank you, Kalanimoku,” Kamehameha replied after a long pause. “I am not hungry now; I will wait for the boy.”