Moloka'i

by Alan Brennert

  Kenji held her as he had on so many other nights like this, thought a moment, then said, “She’s exactly five feet tall but still growing. Her hair is shoulder-length, but sometimes she wears it pulled back with a hair clasp. She’ll love those combs you got her. She lives in a small house near Punchbowl with brothers and sisters and parents who love her very much. And she’s happy.”

  Rachel nestled her body against his and chose to believe him.

  A

  week later, Kenji was home sick with a cold and Rachel was minding the store, doing her best to ignore an ongoing debate between Mack and Ehu over the relative merits of Herbert Hoover and Alf Landon. In the midst of their heated discussion the front door opened to admit Diedrichson, who noticed the two men and apparently, wisely, sought to avoid them by roaming the aisles.

  Rachel shook off a shudder of anxiety at the clerk’s presence, and was actually disappointed when Ehu suddenly lost his temper, called Mack a Fascist bastard, and stalked out, bringing their colloquy to an abrupt end.

  As Mack paid for a carton of Chesterfields, Rachel attempted to draw him out. “So you’re a Hoover man?” she said, but Mack just snapped, “I’m a Fascist, to hear some tell!” and hurried out with his purchases, leaving Rachel alone in the store with Diedrichson—who, she now noticed, was carrying a small paper bag.

  The kkua came up to Rachel and smiled. “Saw your husband at the infirmary,” he mentioned off-handedly. “Guess you’re holding down the fort today, eh?”

  “Yes. Can I help you?”

  “Actually, maybe I can help you.” He reached into the bag, pulled out a box of imported Belgian chocolates, a tin of crabmeat that boasted of coming all the way from Maine, and a wedge of something called Edam cheese. “You were looking for a little variety in your diet, weren’t you?”

  Rachel didn’t know which repulsed her more, the smug little smile on his face or the inference that she could be had so cheaply.

  “I’m afraid you misunderstood me,” she replied evenly. “I was speaking about the diet of the community as a whole.” She started to turn away. “But thank you anyway.”

  Unexpectedly, Diedrichson came round the counter to face her. As he did he pulled from his bag an odd, square-sided bottle, labeled GLENLIVET. “Maybe you’re on a . . . liquid diet?” He opened the bottle and Rachel caught a strong whiff of alcohol from its contents. “Single-malt scotch whisky. Best in the world. Costs an arm and a leg to smuggle into this dry, enlightened country of ours.”

  “Please leave,” Rachel said flatly.

  He put down the bottle.

  “Surely I must have something you might want?”

  Suddenly he lunged forward, backing Rachel up against a wall, pressing his body against her. To her horror she could feel his erection against her pelvis, and then his mouth was on hers, his tongue breaching her lips.

  Rachel planted her hands on his chest and shoved with all her strength, which was still considerable. The clerk went toppling back into the counter, and Rachel ran out of the store as quickly as her crippled feet allowed.

  She raced up Beretania, heads turning at her frantic flight up the street. It was four blocks to the superintendent’s office and by the time she got there her heart was pounding so hard she thought it might burst. She rushed up the porch steps and, unthinkingly, to the nearest door—the one marked DO NOT ENTER HERE–KAPU! She yanked it open and charged into the offices, where her presence caused immediate consternation among the staff.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing!” one man snapped at her. “That’s the kkua entrance!”

  “I came to see Superintendent Cooke—” Rachel began.

  He wouldn’t let her finish: “Then you can use the sick door like every other patient! You don’t just—”

  “A man just tried to assault me! A kkua.”

  He seemed more offended by her use of the “clean” entrance than by the charges she leveled, but at last she was taken to a waiting area for patients before being ushered into the office of Superintendent R. L. Cooke. Rachel took a seat on a wooden bench against the wall; a low railing surrounded the superintendent’s desk like a brass halo. Rachel told him about Diedrichson, about his proposition on Steamer Day, about his unwanted advances today. Cooke took it in soberly, and by the time she had finished Diedrichson was back at work and Cooke called him into his office. Diedrichson didn’t deny coming to the Kalaupapa Store, but he vehemently denied assaulting her. He admitted bringing some food to her, but claimed that Mrs. Utagawa misinterpreted the feelings of pity that inspired his generosity.

  Rachel called him a damned liar.

  Cooke didn’t know who was telling the truth, but in the end, a man who countenanced a metal railing between himself and a patient simply could not bring himself to believe that any healthy man would take the risk of kissing a leprous woman, much less having sexual relations with her. He called the incident regrettable, and “doubtless the result of an unfortunate misunderstanding.”

  Rachel stormed out. Through the “sick door.”

  When he heard about it, Kenji had to be restrained from seeking out Diedrichson and cold-cocking him. Rachel convinced him it wouldn’t solve anything, and the problem wasn’t likely to recur. Even so, Kenji would never again leave his wife alone at the store—not even if he was sick and running a 105-degree fever.

  Six months later, Diedrichson was caught en flagrante in the back of the Provision Issues Room with a sixteen-year-old girl from Bishop Home. He was promptly terminated and sent packing up the pali, and the Superintendent learned something of the limits of man’s fear when at odds with his lust. But Rachel never did receive an apology.

  A

  round this time there was talk in Honolulu of closing Kalaupapa and transferring its residents to a new facility to be built on O'ahu. Science was slowly recognizing that the disease which today was called leprosy was not the same as the Biblical scourge of that name, but the Biblical stigma was hard to overcome. It would ultimately prevent the construction of any O'ahu facility—and while bureaucrats argued over Kalaupapa’s future, they allowed its present to sharply deteriorate.

  In striking contrast to the old one, the new clerk in charge of provisions for the settlement was never less than professional to Rachel as they worked side by side at the landing. Mostly he went about his business with just a smile and a nod, but sometimes he made small talk, as on one Steamer Day in September when he nodded toward a haole visitor climbing out of a rowboat and up the ladder at the landing. “Big shot,” he announced, “from Honolulu.”

  Rachel noted the man wearing a white shirt, dark trousers, and patent leather shoes who walked off the landing carrying a small suitcase. He seemed unassuming, about forty years old, with spectacles and thinning hair; he had the face and mien of an accountant, or a bank manager.

  “Who is he?” Rachel asked, but the new clerk didn’t know anything more, just that he was a “big shot.” And indeed, there was someone from the superintendent’s office greeting him at the dock. Cooke’s envoy tried to take the man’s bag, but the unassuming fellow wouldn’t hear of it, and together they made their way toward the guest quarters.

  The next morning, on her way to the poi shop, Rachel saw the man again, this time as he strolled ahead of her down Baldwin Street. He slowed, staring at an ox-cart taking on a load of trash from somebody’s house . . . and on a whim, Rachel walked up to him and said, “Excuse me?”

  The man turned, looked at her. “I hear you’re somebody important,” she declared.

  He laughed at that. “What makes you think so?”

  “Well for one thing, they wouldn’t let you wander around here by yourself if you weren’t.”

  “Ah. True enough, I suppose. Well, I wouldn’t take any bets on how important I am, but I am in the territorial senate. My name’s Judd—Lawrence McCully Judd.” He started to extend his hand, then drew back, no doubt remembering it was against settlement regulations.

  Like everyone in Ha
wai'i, Rachel knew the Judd name. “Ah—missionary boy,” she said with a smile.

  “Yes, my grandfather. And you are—?”

  “Rachel Aouli Kalama Utagawa.”

  He laughed again. “Well, that trumps me! A veritable League of Nations of names. May I call you Rachel?”

  “Sure.”

  “Rachel, may I ask you something?” He jerked a thumb at the ox-cart trudging to the next house. “I was looking at our four-footed friend over there. Don’t you have a truck for that?”

  Rachel laughed. “You’re looking at it. We call it the Model P, for pipi kau”—Hawaiian for “dragging beef,” oxen. “At least it doesn’t have to carry it very far.”

  “Where does it take the garbage, do you know?”

  “Sure. Hard to miss. You want to see?”

  “Yes, I would, thank you.”

  As they walked together down Baldwin Street, Rachel said, “Getting an early start on campaigning, Senator?”

  “Actually, I’m not running this year. But is that the only time you’re accustomed to seeing politicians? Election time?”

  “No offense, Senator, but . . . candidates come here promising the moon, then they get elected and we never hear another word, nothing changes.” Casually she added, “Do you know the basic food provisions here haven’t changed in twenty years?”

  He expressed disbelief at that, and Rachel repeated the shortcomings of diet she had cited to Diedrichson. But Judd seemed sincerely interested; when she’d finished he eyed the houses they were passing and noted, with some dismay, “It’s been a few years since my last visit. Many of these buildings are in considerable disrepair.”

  “Yeah, half of them need new roofs. The other half need new floors. It averages out to about half a town.” She was intrigued. “You’ve been here before?”

  He nodded. “I’ve been interested in Kalaupapa ever since I was a boy. I was down at the waterfront one day, riding my bike, when I saw a group of people being herded onto on an old cattle boat. Men, women, children just like me.” His tone still held a hint of the young boy’s puzzlement. “I didn’t understand. I asked someone what was going on, who the people were, and he said, ‘Dey go to Molokai. Dere dey stay. Dere dey die.’ ”

  He lapsed into an awkward silence. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  Rachel stopped suddenly and announced, “We’re here.”

  Judd looked up.

  The street they’d been walking on had dead-ended. Close by—uncomfortably close—a garbage dump squatted on the grassy plain outside town. Horseflies buzzed the rotting food and stinking sewage. Old automobile tires, abandoned furniture, the rusting hulks of jalopies and wagons—these were the ugly detritus of forty years’ habitation at Kalaupapa. The wind shifted and Judd and Rachel got a good whiff off the refuse heap.

  Judd looked aghast. “But this is appalling! It’s not sanitary, having this so close!”

  “How far can you take garbage when you’re using broken-down old oxen?” Seizing what she realized was a rare opportunity: “We have running water but no sewer lines, so the waste just dumps onto the ground behind our houses. No indoor toilets, except in the dormitories, and no electricity in private homes. We’re still living in the nineteenth century here, Senator.”

  “But the legislature allocates ample funds for Kalaupapa every year! Where on earth is the money going?”

  Rachel let that question hang in the foul air. Judd stared at the trash heap a moment longer, then turned to Rachel. “Thank you,” he said, “for showing me this. I’m nearing the end of my term, but in the time I have left I’ll try to do something about what you’ve told me today.”

  As they started back into town he asked, “How long have you been here, Rachel?”

  “Since I was eight. Thirty-four years.”

  “We’re roughly the same age, then. You’re from Honolulu?” Rachel nodded. “Did you ever go to the Elite Ice Cream Parlor?”

  “Oh, sure. All the time.”

  “We might’ve waited in line together for a chocolate cone. Or passed each other, playing at the beach.”

  “I might’ve been one of those people,” she said matter-of-factly, “you saw getting on that boat.”

  He didn’t say anything to that, keeping his own counsel until they came to the intersection of Beretania and McKinley Streets, where he stopped. “Well,” he said, “I’m going in to see Superintendent Cooke, and I’ll be sure to bring up that festering sore outside town. Thank you, Rachel. It’s been a pleasure meeting you.”

  And then he did extend his hand to her. Rachel stared at it, shook her head. “We’d both get in a hell of a lot of trouble. But thank you.” He dropped the hand, smiled again, and headed for the superintendent’s office.

  “Good luck, missionary boy,” she called after him. He laughed at that, then disappeared into the building.

  Of course nothing came of it. Months passed; the roof at Bishop Home still leaked and its floorboards still creaked; the air remained rank on the outskirts of town. In November a fire broke out in McVeigh Home; everyone escaped unharmed, but as the population of Kalaupapa looked on helplessly the building was consumed in a spectacular blaze. In no time at all it had burned straight down to the ground—the settlement lacked the fire-fighting equipment to extinguish much more than a birthday cake. Rachel watched a cloud of embers fall to the ground like dying fireworks, only luck and a lack of wind preventing the sparks from igniting the physician’s residence next door. She wondered with a shudder what would happen, some night, if fire did spread to the next building—and the next, and the next? If all of Kalaupapa were set ablaze, and then the grasslands surrounding it, where would they go, where could they run? And did anyone even care?

  I

  n the summer of 1929 Sister Catherine boarded the SS Hawaii to Honolulu for the first time since delivering Rachel’s daughter to Kapi'olani Home; and then onto a much grander steamship, the SS President Jackson, bound for New York City via the Panama Canal. The voyage was a pleasant one, perhaps too pleasant. After decades of spartan diet, the lavish meals in the ship’s dining room seemed excessive, even decadent; and her enforced leisure time was anything but relaxing, Catherine feeling guilty to think of all the work she could be doing back in Kalaupapa.

  Manhattan looked strange indeed to her eyes after so many years in Hawai'i, but Catherine didn’t linger in the city; at Penn Station she boarded the Black Diamond Express, which was soon rattling through the New Jersey countryside and Pennsylvania coal fields. It was one of the few major trains to service the city of Ithaca, New York, whose hilly terrain actively discouraged the laying down of rail—hills carved millennia ago by glaciers, which then thawed to create deep clear lakes.

  A familiar succession of towns flashed past: Towanda, Athens, Sayre, Owego, Wilseyville. The hills and valleys had the comforting contours of childhood. Catherine spied the inlet to Cayuga Lake and thought back to the big steamboats that used to come in from the Erie Canal, grand old ships like the Frontenac that would tie up at Renwick Pier, where Ruth and her brother would sneak aboard and pretend they were steaming down the Mississippi.

  The brakes shrieked and sparked as the Black Diamond slowed into the station, where Jack was waiting for her. The last time she’d seen him he’d been a frail fourteen-year-old, toxic with grief over their father’s death. But the nearly fifty-year-old man who stood on the platform smiling at her was stocky if not stout, robust, and cheerful. “Sis!” he cried out. (He’d never called her “sis” until after she’d taken her vows.) He hurried to her faster than she could manage with her game leg, then took her in his arms and gave her a bear hug that squeezed the breath from her. “Ruth,” he said with surprising softness, considering the vise grip in which he held her. “Oh, Ruth.”

  “I’ve missed you, too,” Catherine said, and wept.

  Outside, driving down State Street in Jack’s big Plymouth, Catherine found it odd to think that when she’d left these streets had been fil
led with horses and buggies. Some familiar names greeted her: Rothschild’s Department Store was still here, albeit bigger, as were the Ithaca Hotel and Brooks Pharmacy. She was pleased to see Ithaca was still recognizably Ithaca. Soon Jack was turning onto East Court Street, and there it was: the house in which Catherine had grown up. A modest, two-story Italianate home, fronted by a porch whose supports were simple square posts rather than the Doric columns adorning its gaudier neighbors. Harold Voorhies had reviled the more rococo homes going up around town, with their cupolas and ornate arched windows. “Our home,” he told his wife, “will not look as if it floated in from the Piazza San Marco.”

  They climbed the steps to the porch where the young Ruth had spent many happy hours playing jacks and reading books—and where a somewhat older Ruth had entertained the only young man she had ever fancied, John Van Splinter. They would sit here on the porch on warm summer nights, talking and laughing; and once, only once, they kissed.

  They entered the house and were swept up in a tornado of shouted greetings and running children.

  “Hi Pop!”

  “Daddy, Daddy!”

  “Is that her?”

  “She is a nun!”

  “Ssshh!”

  The photographs Catherine had seen of this brood may have been the only moments they weren’t in constant motion. Jack’s sturdy blonde wife, Isabel, clapped her hands, imposing order on exuberant chaos: “Settle down, settle down,” and Catherine was introduced to her nieces and nephews: Becky, Lacy, Guy, Hal, Beverly. She was happy to meet them, and quietly ashamed that she never had before.

  She had been apprehensive about returning to this house, had expected it to be a crucible of memories, of ghosts; but the laughter and shouts of these children seemed to drown out any whispering phantoms. Jack and Isabel’s presence here—the comfortable way they filled the space—discouraged Catherine from loitering in the past. After a pot roast dinner and a dessert of Jell-O and whipped cream, the family gathered around the big Majestic console radio to laugh at this new program called Amos ’n’ Andy, and then an exhausted Catherine was shown to her room: literally the room she had grown up in, now tenanted by sixteen-year-old Beverly, temporarily dispossessed.