Silversword

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  David obliged by blinking his eyes, and my heart began to beat again. He pulled his hand from mine and shoved Koma away. “Stop that, you crazy kanaka! I’m all right. What happened?”

  “You almost got struck by lightning,” I told him. “You’re the crazy one!”

  David winced as he turned his head and stared at me. “What’re you crying for?”

  “Is that so strange?”

  He sat up and put an arm around me. “I’ll be around for a while—don’t worry.”

  Joanna said, “Lie down, David. Tom’s gone for Dr. Murdock.”

  David paid no attention, but when he tried to stand up his rubbery legs betrayed him, and he sat down again. “Okay, I’ll wait till Doc Murdock comes. But there’s nothing wrong with me.”

  “Only your wits,” I said. He was going to be a difficult man to live with but never dull. For once I had no doubt about what I wanted from life.

  For the first time I became aware of the others standing around in the dim room. Grandmother Elizabeth sat in an armchair, with Scott standing beside her. She watched with a realization about David in her look, and no forgiveness for me. She was still a woman with only one concern—my father, her son.

  Marla had fallen into her accustomed role, trying to reassure Noelle, whose attention was on me, and I hoped my mother was still holding on to reality.

  “Susy’s making fresh coffee,” Joanna said. “Koma, you’re as cold and wet as David. Will you start a fire, Scott, please?”

  Scott seemed eager to do something useful. Perhaps even he had recognized in those moments how I felt about David. So the storm had accomplished something.

  Elizabeth nodded toward Koma. “You might introduce me to this young man, Joanna.”

  For the first time I thought of the dynamics that existed in this situation. I’m sure Joanna thought of them too, but she made the introduction casually.

  “Elizabeth, this is Koma Olivero. Koma, this is Caro’s San Francisco grandmother who’s here to visit for a few days—Mrs. Kirby. And this is Scott Sherman, who has come with her.”

  Koma took Scott’s offered hand, and then turned his full attention to Grandmother Elizabeth. Almost anything could happen now.

  “Oh, sure,” he said. “I heard you were here.” He spoke carelessly, but he was still giving her that baleful stare. “I’m Ailina’s son,” he added. “Maybe you remember Ailina?”

  This was skating dangerously close to explosives, and I was relieved when Joanna put a stop to it before Koma carried everything too far. She didn’t give Elizabeth time to admit that she remembered Ailina.

  “Koma, will you see if you can hurry up that coffee? Tell Susy the instant will do, and she can hold the brewed for later.”

  Koma gave her a mocking look that told her he knew exactly what she was up to, but he went off meekly enough to the kitchen. However, it wasn’t Koma’s way to leave things alone, so there might still be confrontation ahead.

  David had begun to shiver and I picked up a knitted throw to put over him. When Koma brought the coffee I held the cup so David could sip the hot liquid.

  Dr. Murdock arrived shortly and patched up the cut on David’s forehead. Mostly David was suffering from shock, he said, but he’d be fine. He was a lucky man to have come through a close call like that. He’d better keep quiet for a day or so.

  Koma’s concern was for David now. “I’ll get him back to the cabin. Do you think you can walk, David?”

  This time David’s legs behaved a little better, and with Koma to lean on he started for the door. I wanted to go with them, I wanted to do all those instinctive nurturing things that I’d never known were in me before. But David gave me a look of affection, of promise. I was almost glad Lono had intervened.

  Koma had one last word—for Joanna. “We’ll all be here tomorrow night. Count on it.”

  Somehow, I didn’t like the emphatic sound of that, and I felt a little sorry for Elizabeth. Joanna caught my eye and nodded slightly. She was the one who might be able to keep Koma in hand.

  Elizabeth watched them go. “What a strange young man. I don’t think he likes me.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t like haoles from the mainland, Mrs. Kirby,” Marla said.

  I would be glad when tomorrow night was over, and Grandmother Elizabeth was on the way home with Scott.

  Noelle slipped away from her sister and came close to me. “Show me your room, Caroline. I don’t think I’ve been in it since you came.”

  So she was still in the present—or at least I hoped so. I went upstairs with my mother, eager for any moments when she wanted to be with me. We carried candles, and when we reached my room, Noelle looked around, remembering.

  “You used to stay here when you visited Manaolana, didn’t you, Caroline? My mother always said you loved this room.”

  “It’s wonderful to be here again,” I said, watching her. She was beginning to move back and forth quite easily between the young Linny and me, and that was reassuring.

  She sat on the window seat and looked out into a wet world that shone in lights that had come on around the house. I touched a switch and blew out the candles.

  “When you were a little girl”—she spoke dreamily—“David was the one you loved most, next to your family. I was watching you downstairs, and I think you still love him, don’t you, Carolinny? Do you mind if I call you that?”

  I sat beside her on the window cushions. “I’d like that. But not Linny anymore. Yes, I love David very much.”

  “Then it will be all right,” she said calmly, and I felt strangely comforted. It was as though she had come back to me possessed of more sensitivity than I could ever have hoped for. Yet I knew there was still a delicate balance that nothing must disturb until she was really safe. It was Marla I didn’t trust.

  When I left my mother I went downstairs to find Joanna alone in her study. She looked up from a letter she was writing, read my face, and put down her pen.

  “We have to get Noelle away from here before tomorrow night,” I told her. “I think Marla’s up to something.”

  “I’m sure she is. The change in your mother at dinner seems encouraging, but I’m not sure it can survive the emotion of listening to Ailina sing. Yet this is what Marla wants.”

  “But that’s wicked, unfeeling!”

  “Marla’s afraid of change.”

  “Why? Why can’t she accept Noelle as she ought to be?”

  Joanna turned away from my look. “There are other reasons mixed up in the way she feels. It’s not in her to accept. Poor Marla. Poor all of us!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Only that Marla will rationalize everything she does in her own way, and no one can ever convince her that she’s mistaken.”

  “How can we stop her?”

  My grandmother pushed a hand absently through her short hair and the gesture was one of defeat. “I’ve never found a way to do that.”

  “You’re giving up!” I cried. “And you never used to. Help me to rescue Noelle from what might happen tomorrow night.”

  For a moment I thought she would oppose me, and then she nodded. “You’re right, Caro. Perhaps there’s a way—something that might work. Run along now while I make a phone call. It’s better if you don’t know anything until it’s too late for Marla to interfere.”

  I leaned over to kiss her cheek and she patted me as she used to do when I was small. It was a good moment in this strange day.

  When I went to bed that night I felt more hopeful—not only for Noelle, but because my feelings for David were out in the open.

  On the mountain Lono rolled distant thunder like a warning—a warning I didn’t mean to heed. It was up to me to make happiness happen, and I wouldn’t let anything defeat me.

  So much for Lono’s drums!

  18

  Nothing disturbing happened in the early part of the next day. Noelle made a lei for me to wear that evening, and I watched her pluck the outer petals from tiny vanda or
chids, leaving only the brightly colored centers to be threaded. She worked with skill and delicacy, arranging the flowers so they faced in opposite directions, making the lei round and full.

  When it was finished she slipped it over my head and kissed me on each cheek in the customary way. It was a moment that brought us very close. Afterward she sprinkled the flowers lightly and put the lei in the refrigerator to keep for tonight. It mustn’t be bagged, she warned, or watered too much, or the orchids would turn white.

  Everything was geared toward preparation for the evening. Guests had been invited, the lanai cleared for use as a stage, and folding chairs brought in to set up around the lawn. Not that there would be any large audience—just a few neighbors and relatives.

  When I had a moment I phoned David and was pleased when he answered, sounding more like himself.

  “I’m doing fine,” he said. “Doc thinks I’d better be quiet today, but I’ll look in on the party tonight for a little while at least. I want to see you, Caroline.”

  “I want to see you too,” I told him.

  Just a few words on the telephone—and I knew everything was right between us.

  That afternoon I spent a few hours with Grandmother Elizabeth and found her apprehensive, as though she too dreaded the evening ahead. For her, the memories of my father would be of the wrong sort. Scott was merely marking time, anxious to be aboard that plane tomorrow.

  Late in the day, Joanna took me aside to reassure me about Noelle. “Everything has worked out well. A cousin who lives nearby is coming to take your mother to stay with her tonight. Marla won’t know where she is until it’s too late. So this is one strain we can avoid for Noelle.”

  Now I could relax a little.

  We had a light early supper, and afterwards Noelle simply disappeared. Marla was busy with preparations and seemed not to notice.

  When we’d eaten, Joanna climbed the stairs to my room in spite of her knee, and placed a dress box on my bed. “This if for you to wear tonight, Caro honey.”

  I unwrapped the box and lifted out a pale lavender muumuu, its yoke embroidered in white eyelet. The vanda lei would look beautiful against it—a slightly darker lavender. I was pleased and touched, but before I could thank her, Joanna went on.

  “Everything’s arranged. Noelle has gone with Cousin Melly.”

  “How did she take leaving?”

  “She’s easily distracted, you know, and she loves Melly’s dogs. I’m sure she’ll be all right.”

  The old Noelle might be, but if there was really a change in my mother, would being spirited away upset her? Anyway, it would be worse to have her here. This was what I had wanted.

  “Don’t count on too much,” Joanna warned. “You’ll only break your heart and do no good.”

  There was no answer to that I had to believe in something that no one else easily accepted.

  When Joanna left, I dressed in her beautiful gift, and when I put on the vanda lei the combination was perfect.

  After yesterday’s rain, this had been a lovely Maui day, filled with sunshine and light breezes. By evening a full moon had risen to add its gentle radiance to the Japanese lanterns that Tom and some of the other men had hung around the lawn. The lanterns reminded me of that other time when I’d watched as a child from a balcony at Ahinahina—an occasion I didn’t want to recall. Haleakala hid her head beneath clouds, and I tried to forget what else lay hidden up there.

  Women in light dresses, a few in elegant muumuu, began to arrive. They wore shoulder shawls and scarves against the cool, while the men were dressed in informal jackets or sweaters over well-cut slacks. It was definitely a haole gathering.

  Ailina appeared with her troupe, a steel guitar over her shoulder. Koma carried another guitar, and an ukulele tucked under one arm. Eliki, Koma’s girl, who would do most of the rhythmic dancing, wore a long wraparound skirt sprinkled with colorful blossoms, her shoulders bare above a matching bandeau, and several white leis about her neck.

  The last member of the group was a young Hawaiian man with a knee drum of the sort that had been used historically only in the Hawaiian chain, out of all the Polynesian islands—as Joanna explained to me. A coconut was cut in half at the widest part, the meat scooped out, and sharkskin stretched tautly over the opening. The drum was tied above the young man’s knee, and he played it with a braided fiber switch that produced its own special tone.

  Now the guests were taking their place around the lawn, and Joanna saw to it that Grandmother Elizabeth and Scott were seated near the front. I slipped away to the back where I could get a wider view of what was happening on the lanai stage. David arrived at the last minute and came to sit beside me. To my relief he looked fully recovered from his experience in the storm. There was time for only a quick, reassuring squeeze of my hand, but that was enough for now.

  Ailina began by explaining that these were songs she and her friends had grown up with—songs not always written down, though there was an effort being made to preserve them. They were songs of mountain and beach, of waves and sky—and always of love.

  Koma had a good voice, and at one point he accompanied himself with the ukulele and sang a funny song about a young Hawaiian boy courting his sweetheart. He translated for us ahead of time so we could follow the story as he strutted and sang. I could glimpse the eager young man who had caught a fine fish to give his girl—only to learn that fish wasn’t what she wanted.

  Eliki’s dancing was beautiful. The gentle swaying of hips, the fluid motion of graceful, storytelling hands, was what such movements must always have been, though not the more exaggerated hula that tourists expected.

  Leis of gardenias and carnations mingled their scent with night-blooming blossoms in the garden around us. Koma had dressed in light trousers and a white shirt open at the throat, and he’d hung a lei of sweet-scented green maile vine around his neck—a lei that was always left open at the bottom.

  Underlying the strings of the steel guitars a note of melancholy sounded. These guitars weren’t electrified, and there were no microphones, so the music was softer and more natural than I’d heard at the hotels. Yet it could be spirited and lively too. As I listened with David beside me, sharing this, the minor chords seemed beautiful in their sadness, because joy would come later, as the music seemed to promise.

  I noticed that Tom and some of his men stood over in the direction of the stables, watching. Joanna had invited them all to come, but they’d remained in their own little groups, apart form the guests.

  Applause during the intervals was warm, so that affection and appreciation flowed between performers and audience. As the evening went on, however, I began to experience a sense of something being not quite right. When I looked around intently, I saw the reason for my uneasiness.

  Over near the deep shadow of the camphor tree a white dress glimmered. Noelle sat with her back against the tree, white ginger blossoms in her hair and a ginger lei around her neck.

  “I must go,” I told David. He saw her too and nodded. “She isn’t supposed to be here,” I whispered. “Joanna sent her away.”

  The performers were taking a break and guests had stirred to talk among themselves. Before I could escape, Marla dropped into the chair next to me, her expression triumphant.

  “I brought Noelle back,” she told me. “My sister belongs here tonight.”

  “Why?” I demanded. “Why must you submit her to this?”

  “Don’t you see? It’s a test. If she can get through Ailina’s singing, then she really has improved. Did you and my mother think you could put something over on me?”

  What I saw was Marla’s cruel determination to keep Noelle as she had been for all these years.

  “You’re afraid to let her remember!” I challenged. I knew how disturbingly true this was.

  “You’re so foolish,” Marla said, as she had said to me before. “You don’t understand how dangerous it would be for Noelle to remember. But I do.”

  I stood up, but when M
arla would have come with me, David reached across to stop her, his hand strong on her arm, so that she sat down, angry but helpless.

  I ran across the lawn as Ailina struck a chord on her guitar and the knee drum rustled.

  Noelle smiled at me calmly as I reached her and dropped down on the grass at her side.

  “I didn’t want to miss this,” she said, “even though Mother doesn’t want me here. So I phoned Marla and asked her to come and get me.”

  So that was how it had happened. Not by Marla’s choice but by Noelle’s own decision. She sounded perfectly normal, undisturbed, and I began to hope that everything would be all right.

  Her next words reassured me further. “Ailina’s older than I remember, but she’s even more beautiful. I think she must be a fine woman.”

  “She is,” I said in relief. Marla’s test would have an outcome she didn’t expect. I slipped an arm through my mother’s as we listened together.

  Before each number Ailina told a story about the song they were going to present, and now she was talking about one that her son had composed and written the words for.

  Koma put aside ukulele and took up his own steel guitar. I watched him, wondering how I really felt, knowing that my emotions toward him were partly resentment against my father, partly antagonism toward Koma himself. And perhaps also curiously because this young Hawaiian was my half brother.

  “I’ve called this ‘Song of the Volcano,’” he said, and struck his opening chords. Then he began to sing in his strong, melodic voice, the words clear and the tune stirring.

  Kahuna drums are beating

  Where the fires roared;

  The sun’s first rays are striking