Silversword

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  The street was narrow and traffic moved slowly bumper to bumper. Marla watched for a parking place, and she was lucky. “This is Baldwin House,” she said as she pulled in to the curb. “Let’s go find Ailina.”

  I put my hand on her arm before she could get out. “Please answer my question first. I want to know about the tapa beater.”

  She drew away from my touch. “You’re a lot more than meddlesome and inquisitive. You can’t let anything alone, even though the status quo has been possible to live with for all these years. All right, then—I’ll tell you. Your mother is the one who carried that horrible thing up to the crater in her saddlebag. Now are you satisfied? It couldn’t have been for a harmless purpose, could it? She was in a rage that day.”

  After what Joanna had told me, this was what I’d been afraid to hear. Yet I still had to push it further. “What really happened, Marla?”

  She threw up her hands, and then slammed them down on the wheel. “Sometimes I wish I knew, and sometimes I’m glad I don’t I can’t even remember getting to the top. When I woke up in the hospital a piece of my life was gone. Just as so much of Noelle’s is gone. But I was luckier, because I lost only a short space of memory. Believe me, I’ve read a lot about amnesia since then, and it can come in all sorts of forms. It’s not something medical people can always pin down and explain. Or cure. Mine happened because of a blow to my head when poor old Pilikia kicked me. Tom had to shoot her, you know, but I was out of it by that time.”

  She started to leave the car, and then turned back to me. “Can’t we just let Noelle alone?”

  What had seemed so right to me when I’d stood on the rim of the crater, filled with courage and a feeling that I could rise above anything I’d ever been, no longer seemed clear and certain, and I couldn’t answer her.

  “Let’s go in,” Marla said. Out of the car’s air conditioning, the afternoon was warm and sunny—warmer than up on Haleakala’s slopes. The name Lahaina meant “cruel sun,” but this was October and not the hot time of year.

  Marla led the way along a walk to where the Baldwin Home (as a sign called it) sat well back from the street among tropical trees and shrubbery. Two long porches—lanais—fronted the structure above and below, and the house stood with its white-washed walls facing the street, simple, square-built, and dignified. Its fronts posts were painted green, as were the window blinds. A house well suited to the climate.

  “It’s been restored to the way it was in the 1850’s,” Marla said. “It was built earlier, but in that year an extra room and a second story were added because Dr. Baldwin’s family had grown, and he entertained visitors from all over the world. Though the Baldwins weren’t the first missionaries who came here. An earlier minister, the Reverend Richards, even left the ministry to take political office under Kamehameha the Third, and he really furthered education in an enlightened and forethinking way. Baldwin came a bit later. He made an impact both as a minister and as a doctor. In 1851 he probably saved most of the population of Maui, Molokai, and Lanai from a smallpox epidemic. Medicine and the teachings of the Bible! You know what the Hawaiians called the Bible? ‘God in a little black box.’”

  Marla was talking to distract me, and I knew she didn’t want me to think any more about the tapa beater.

  We climbed brick steps to the lower level, where a woman in a gray muumuu sat at a small table, providing brochures and information to visitors. Marla asked for Ailina and we were told she was inside.

  For a moment I felt uncertain about meeting this woman, but no one was in sight as we walked into a cool, airy room, from which other rooms opened on either hand along the width of the house. More windows overlooked a back garden, so air could blow through. The walls were painted white, and grass matting covered the floors.

  In the adjoining dining room a table had been set with blue willowware, and a high plate rack near the ceiling held decorative china. All the furniture was beautifully made and simple—in character for this missionary family.

  As I stood looking around, Ailina came in from another room, and I stiffened. I wasn’t ready to be open-minded about this woman whom my father had loved.

  “Hello, Ailina,” Marla said. “This is Caroline Kirby—Ailina Olivero.”

  While many Hawaiians were small in stature, this woman was tall—in fact, majestic in her build. Beneath a blue, flower-printed muumuu her body formed rounded contours, and her shoulders were wide, her carriage splendid—a beautiful woman with a face that had kept its softness of rounded cheek and chin. But there was warmth here too, and no animosity toward me. Her large brown eyes were long-lashed, and her hair, drawn into a mound high at the back of her head, was a glossy black. The creamy brown of her skin appeared flawless, and the movements of her hands had a dancer’s grace as she came toward me holding them out in greeting. She was glad to see me, and I began to relax in spite of myself.

  “Keith’s daughter,” she said. “Welcome to Maui. I remember you—a pretty little thing who resembled your mother, except for your coloring. Now you look much more like your father.”

  Here was an unexpected openness. No one had been willing to talk about my father, but perhaps this woman would.

  “Can we go somewhere to sit down and talk?” Marla asked.

  “Why not the Banyan Tree?” Ailina suggested. “Lahaina’s favorite meeting place. I’ve arranged to take some time off, so we can go now, if you like.”

  We walked the short distance to the park. The red-roofed structure of the old Pioneer Inn offered a shaded walk, and beyond the building lay the harbor. Down a side street we could see masts and moored boats.

  We crossed to the banyan tree that W. O. Smith, a sheriff of Lahaina had planted. I’d expected a large tree, but this tree was a forest in itself. From a single banyan, brought originally from India to be planted here, branches had extended and dropped down aerial roots that grew into thick trunks, which in turn threw out still more trunklike roots, until a third of an acre was occupied by what looked like a grove, but was really only one tree. Stone walks wound beneath large-leafed foliage, and benches offered places where one could rest. The Indian banyan, unlike the Chinese variety, never dropped unpleasant purple fruit as did those in Florida.

  We stopped for a moment to watch a white man who was weaving beautiful green hats from lau hala leaves. Maui was a wonderful place for artists of one kind or another who liked to be independent and work on their own. The green color would turn to straw, but the hats and the small birds that ornamented them would still be handsome and well crafted.

  Before we sat down, a road sign caught my eye and I wandered over to look at it. The legend read:

  LARGEST

  BANYAN TREE

  1873

  Above it a dark-skinned Kamehameha I was shown with folded arms, his red-and-yellow cape flowing from his shoulders, his helmet curving foward in its distinctive manner. The sign was appropriate and striking, as it was used for notable places.

  Marla stopped beside me. “You’ll see that helmet curve picked up everywhere. Watch for the roof of Pizza Hut here in Lahaina!”

  When I sat down on a bench, the two women took a place on either side of me, and now Marla wasted no time.

  “I have a favor to ask of you, Ailina. While Caroline is here, she really ought to see some real Hawaiian dancing, and hear some of the old authentic songs. Do you think your group could come to Manaolana in a few days and put on a performance? Say on Saturday? We’d ask some neighbors in so that you’d have an audience.”

  Ailina turned to me questioningly—a silent question that I didn’t understand.

  “I would enjoy it,” I said, reversing my earlier rejection of the idea. I knew now that I wanted to see this woman again—I needed to talk with her. Whether I would like her or not was another matter.

  “All right,” she agreed. “I’ll phone the others and we’ll set this up. I’ll let you know. I have to go to Honolulu tomorrow, but I’ll be home by late afternoon, and we don’t us
ually need much notice.”

  It had all been arranged so quickly, and since I knew that Ailina would leave us soon and we’d be on our way back upcountry before I could propose the plan that was growing in my mind, I had to speak out while I had the chance.

  “Is there any way I could talk with you, Ailina? I mean for more than a few minutes? You knew my father and mother when I was little, and there’s so much I want to ask about.”

  “We can tell you whatever you want to know,” Marla put in quickly.

  “But you don’t tell me. You put me off and stop my questions.”

  Ailina studied me with eyes that seemed to hold warm memories and no resentment. “Of course we can talk. In fact, I know exactly what we can do—if you’re willing. Perhaps you can stay with me in my apartment tonight. You could even come with me to Honolulu tomorrow, if you like, and we’d have a real chance to get acquainted.”

  I couldn’t help responding to her warmth, in spite of Marla’s obvious doubts. “I’d like that,” I told her. A respite from Manaolana might be just what I needed.

  “Then it’s settled,” Ailina said, and there was a certain calm authority in her manner that allowed for no disagreement.

  Marla was anything but pleased with this sudden turn, but there was nothing she could do about it. “All right—if this is what you want to do, Caroline. Shall I come back for you tomorrow?”

  “I need to make a trip up-country,” Ailina told her, “so I’ll drive Caroline back tomorrow afternoon.”

  After a bit more discussion concerning the Saturday entertainment, we all walked back to Baldwin Home, and Marla got into her car. We stood on the lanai and watched her drive away.

  Ailina’s voice carried the soft voweled sound of the islands, just as her son’s did at times—when he wasn’t angry about something. Now, however, a sadness crept in as she remembered.

  “I’ll never forget when we were all young together and I often visited your grandmother’s ranch. My family lived in the Kula area, though they’re all gone now. We went to school together—Noelle, Marla, and I, though we were in different grades.”

  “I hope you’ll tell me about that time,” I said. “There’s so much I know nothing about.”

  She gave me another of her direct looks. “I understand what you want to know. We’ll go to dinner when I leave here, and we’ll talk all you like. Now I must get back to work. I can leave in an hour or so, and if you’d like to wander around this house for a while, you may enjoy it.”

  A new group of visitors had strolled up the walk and were mounting the steps. Ailina turned to greet them, and I went again into the pleasant, well-shaded rooms. In an end bedroom I sat down by a window to wait. Over the double bed hung mosquito netting mounted on a hoop that hung from a hook in the ceiling. At one side an opening in the net would allow one to get into bed and close the netting. Window screens had come much later. Under the bed was the authentic white chamber pot.

  It was strange to sit in rooms that were empty except for occasional visitors who strolled through, and think of the families who had lived here. This would have been a house filled with children’s voices, with laughter and undoubtedly with tears—all gone now, yet somehow lingering with a gentle, intangible echo that I could almost sense.

  My mind wouldn’t stay with the Baldwins, however. The darker thoughts of my mother that both Marla and Joanna had planted were growing tendrils that curled about my will to act. I could remember Noelle’s sudden furies when I was a child—taken for granted, because she was the mother I knew. There was also the spell of rage I’d seen when she hurled the Pele carving at me. What had she intended when she’d placed the tapa beater in her saddlebag? There could have been no possible reason to take it with her that day unless she meant to use it as a weapon. Against my father?

  So where did this leave me in what was to be my purpose here? What if my grandmother and aunt were both right in believing it was better for Noelle to stay as she was, simple and childlike—and safe. Could I talk to Ailina about any of this? I wasn’t entirely sure of her yet, or even of my own feeling toward her.

  I sat for another hour or so, watching family groups wander through. Two or three women even paused to talk to me, asking questions I couldn’t answer.

  When the house closed for the day, I went with Ailina to where she had left her small Japanese car. We drove out of Lahaina onto a wide highway that led north around the curve of West Maui. The islands of Lanai and then Molokai were in view across the water now. If the road had circled on, we could have returned to Wailuku and East Maui by a northern route. The well-paved road didn’t go through, however, and there were still Hawaiian villages in the farther section, where people preferred to stay isolated and undisturbed by the tourists crowding the Gold Coast.

  Too often, visitors who came to Maui saw nothing but luxury hotels, condominiums, tennis courts, golf courses, and beaches. The main attractions that had caused developers to open this long stretch of coastline of Kaanapali and beyond were, of course, the six lovely bays of the area. Good restaurants abounded, most of them with views of beach and ocean, some lighted outdoors at night by Hawaiian torches—all panoply of “romance” that belonged to the islands. Yet there was so much more to Maui than this.

  By now the sun had dropped low in the sky, and here in West Maui the sunset would be especially beautiful when the sky was right.

  “Look ahead—mauka,” Ailina said.

  “I remembered the word for “toward the mountains.” Makai meant “toward the sea”—the two directions most often used on Maui.

  Following the direction she’d indicated, I saw a long hill rising steeply from the highway, topped with a double row of Norfolk Island pines.

  “That’s Pineapple Hill,” Ailina said. “Those pines mark the road along its crest. Papillon runs its helicopter trips from up there. Sometime you must take the flight around the island, and especially into the crater.”

  “David Reed drove me up to the summit,” I said. “I even saw my shadow on the clouds.”

  “How did you feel about that?”

  “Awed. Uplifted. For a little while all my indecisions began to clear. But now they’re coming back.” It was surprising how easily I could talk to this woman whom I’d expected to resent.

  “You’ll find your way. Seeing the Brocken Specter is a good omen. In a little while we’ll talk. We’re going to Kapalua Bay for dinner because it’s one of the most beautiful hotels on the island, and you should see it. It’s older than some of the glitzy ones, and it has the sort of dignity that often gets lost in all the eagerness to please tourists with the ultraspectacular. Your grandmother likes to go there when she comes to Lahaina.”

  Ailina had phoned ahead for reservations, and we left her car with parking attendants and entered an enchanting lobby. Straight ahead, a three-story-high open space cut through to the ocean—a space filled with hanging vines and greenery, through which birds flew as if they were outdoors. By this time they were twittering their night songs.

  We walked out upon a wide lanai on this upper level where we could sit in the open and watch the sun go down above Kapalua Bay. The name meant “arms embracing the sea,” Ailina said. Always, the Hawaiian language was filled with words of emotion—words that built charming pictures.

  Ailina ordered drinks, and my margarita came with a tiny orchid floating on its surface.

  I watched the sky, absorbed in the spectacle. Clouds mounded above the horizon, reflecting color that changed even as we watched. A splendid palette of gold and coral and aquamarine was splashed lavishly against the encroachment of a darkening sky. The scene was beautiful and romantic, and as sentimental as Hawaii was supposed to be. It needed only the presence of someone to hold my hand and share the magic.

  Ailina watched me instead of the sky. “I used to come here with Carlos sometimes. It gets to you, doesn’t it?”

  I nodded, watching the sun. Its brilliance had faded so that I could look at the glowing yello
w eye as it sank into the sea. Just as it disappeared, I caught the rare green flash that could occur at sunset. For an instant the sun itself turned green as it vanished.

  “We were lucky to see that,” Ailina said. “It doesn’t always happen. Shall we go downstairs for dinner now?”

  I turned my back on the beauty of a sky turned to flame—a beauty that made me feel lonely—and followed her. The dining room, set on the lowest level of the great open space, was dusky now, with candles on the tables and muted lights shining among the palm trees and hanging vines that formed part of the room. A tiled floor and wicker and bamboo tables and chairs added to the cool, tropical effect. Sliding glass doors stood open to the night air. Doors that could be closed when storms swept in from the sea.

  When we’d ordered, Ailina looked at me across the table, and I knew the time had come. She was waiting for my first question, and I began hesitantly.

  “Tell me about my father.”

  “Do you want happy memories, or do you want the truth?” she asked.

  I liked her directness, which was very different from the evasions that surrounded me at Manaolana.

  “I’m beginning to glimpse some of what may be the truth,” I told her. “Until now I’ve had only a little girl’s memories from a time when I adored my father. Plus, of course, all the superimposed inventions my Grandmother Elizabeth provided—and believed herself. That’s all I have. Did you ever meet Elizabeth Kirby?”

  “Just once,” Ailina said. “I could see the probable source of what Keith became when he grew up. Though maybe we offer too many excuses these days. Somewhere we all have to take the blame for what we do. Though it was a long while before I could accept this myself.”

  She was silent, remembering, and I waited quietly until she went on.

  “Not that there was anything really wicked about your father. Keith just needed more admiration, love, sympathy, approval—a constant nurturing—that no one woman could provide. He enjoyed playing a dashing adventurous character that was only partly a fiction he made up about himself. By the time I knew him, it had become so real that I think he’d lost sight of anything that lay underneath. Forever Don Juan—or Errol Flynn! Both pretty immature roles, I’m afraid. Of course I was pretty immature then myself.”