Moloka'i

by Alan Brennert

  “What do you mean?”

  “My papa died at Tule Lake.” When she saw the blank look on Rachel’s face, she added, “The relocation camp.”

  Rachel felt a chill, cutting as a winter wind at Kalawao.

  “Relocation?” she repeated, only dimly comprehending.

  Ruth stared at her incredulously. “You don’t know? Where have you—” She stopped, realizing too well where Rachel had been. “But—you had them, too, didn’t you?”

  You’re an old fool, Rachel told herself. You’re a blithering idiot, not to have realized! She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Not in Hawai'i.” She thought back to newspaper accounts of relocation she had read during the war, which had seemed to scarcely concern her at the time. “I . . . believe the Japanese made up too large a part of the workforce.”

  Now Ruth was flabbergasted. “That sure didn’t stop them here! All those farms, no one to work them—”

  Dreading the reply, Rachel said, “You went, too?”

  Ruth’s black eyes flared at what to her must have been an annoyingly dense question.

  “Of course I went!” It was perhaps louder than she intended. At adjacent tables heads turned, diners glared. Ruth flushed in embarrassment or anger or both.

  “We all went,” she said, lowering her voice. “The signs went up on May 2, and we were evacuated on May 9.”

  Her anger still seemed freshly minted. Rachel said, “One week? They gave you one week?”

  Ruth nodded. “Seven days to sell everything you owned or put it in storage. We owned a restaurant—ten thousand dollars in inventory. We had to sell it all for a tenth of that. My parents,” and her voice still trembled to speak of it, “were evicted from the farm they’d spent twenty years building. Ownership was ‘transferred’ to a Caucasian—one of the local farmers who’d lobbied for internment, because the Japanese were giving them too much competition. Worked out nicely for him.” She sighed heavily. “You don’t really want to hear all this, do you?”

  Rachel didn’t, not really, but had to. “Where did they take you?” she asked.

  Ruth took a swallow of her vodka tonic. “Tanforan Racetrack outside San Francisco had been turned into a temporary Assembly Center. Our ‘apartment’ was an old horse stall, ten feet by twenty feet. The dirt floor was covered with linoleum but it still stank of horse manure, no matter how much you cleaned it. We were given old Army cots and told to stuff burlap bags with hay for mattresses. We had to use communal latrines, with commodes side by side, no stalls—you’d sit there trying to relieve yourself with someone right next to you straining to do the same. The horses had had more privacy!

  “We were there a year before we were transferred to a permanent relocation camp. In Oakland they put us on a train, the windows blacked out, I guess to spare the populace from seeing so many Japanese. Two soldiers in each car, armed with rifles and bayonets. We got off at a train station in Lone Pine, in Inyo County.

  “The first thing I remember seeing was the mountains—the eastern wall of the Sierra Nevadas. Mount Whitney rising almost two miles from the desert floor. We were put on buses and taken to our new home. Manzanar.”

  She stared into space and frowned, as if seeing it again in a mirage. “Barbed wire fence, guard towers along the perimeter. Machine-gun nests pointed inside, not out. Seeing those guns pointed at us as we entered the camp was when even the Nisei—who thought of ourselves as Americans, not Japanese—realized we weren’t ‘evacuees,’ we were prisoners. Criminals who’d committed no crime.

  “The Sierras were like bulwarks between Manzanar and the rest of California,” Ruth remembered. “Every day you’d look up at them and be reminded of how the world needed to be shielded from the likes of us.”

  Rachel asked numbly, “What happened to your father?”

  Ruth sighed.

  “Question 28 happened to him.” She looked as if she’d rather not elaborate, but did. “At Tanforan the authorities circulated a questionnaire to determine whether you were a loyal American who might be eligible for ‘parole’—to work farms in the Midwest or go to school back East. Question 27 asked, ‘Are you willing to serve in the Armed Forces of the United States?’ Question 28 asked, ‘Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America, and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, or any other foreign government?’

  “Now, my father was a foreign national—legally prohibited from ever becoming a naturalized American! This question seemed to ask him to renounce his Japanese citizenship, but without becoming an American, either. Papa feared he’d be a man without a country. And he was almost sixty years old; he couldn’t possibly have served in the Army. So he answered ‘no’ to both questions.

  “But to the War Relocation Authority, anyone who answered ‘no-no’ to those two questions was disloyal, a potential threat. So they were segregated—sent to a high-security camp at Tule Lake, California.”

  Ruth glanced down, as if the sunlight were too bright or too hot and she couldn’t bear to look into it. “My father was sent there in ’43. Conditions were bad—overcrowding, poor food, virtually no health care. No antibiotics. Papa caught pneumonia. He died without ever seeing any of us again.”

  When after a moment Ruth looked up again, Rachel was in tears.

  She could no longer stop them, the emotions that had been building up inside her finally venting: pain, horror, despair, anger, all fused into one terrible alloy. She tried to hold it in but found she was little more than a broken vessel, ruptured by sorrow, released of grief.

  Ruth instinctively reached out and took Rachel’s hand, her right hand, trying to stem her tears:

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “I shouldn’t have told you all this—it’s okay, we’re okay, really—”

  “It’s not right,” her mother said, the words almost lost in between sobs. “It’s not fair.”

  “It wasn’t right. But it’s over.”

  Rachel shook her head. “No. No.” She reached deep inside and found the words:

  “You were supposed to be free,” she said in a whisper. “You were never supposed to know what it was like to be taken from your home—separated from your family—to be shunned and feared.” Then, so softly Ruth could barely hear, “That was all I had to give you.”

  She wept even more fiercely. Ruth went to her without hesitation. She folded her arms around her, holding her as she would a frightened child, rocking her like the baby Rachel had not been able to cradle. And in cooing, consoling tones she told her, It’s all right. Everything’s all right. It’s all over, she said. I’m free. You’re free. It’s all right, Mother. Everything’s all right.

  R

  uth called her Mother, but didn’t mean it; not yet. As she took the shaken Rachel back to her room, her mind was a jumble of emotions: pity for this woman’s tragic life; pleasure at seeing herself in Rachel’s face and voice and complexion; and guilt that by taking any pleasure at all in Rachel’s presence she was somehow betraying her real parents, the ones who’d raised her. Unable to reconcile her love for them with her growing, traitorous affection for this woman, Ruth invented somewhere she had to be. After reassuring herself that Rachel was all right she made her apologies, started to say her goodbyes . . .

  “Wait,” Rachel interrupted her, a bit desperately, “just a minute. Please. I . . . have something for you.”

  She took a suitcase from the closet, lifted it up onto the bed, and asked Ruth to open it.

  With some trepidation—as if she were opening an inverted Pandora’s Box that might suck her and her love for her parents forever inside—Ruth opened the suitcase.

  Whatever it was she expected to see, it wasn’t this. The suitcase was filled with gift boxes—dozens of them, in a diversity of shapes and colors. There was one the size of a pillbox, wrapped in pink and crowned by a bright red bow almost bigger than the box itself; a rectangular package, in lavender wrap, ornamented with a yellow ribbon teased and curled into som
ething resembling a flower; and a large box wrapped in light blue foil that shimmered like the sky on a hot August day. Too many to take in all at once. Christmas had never been celebrated in her parents’ home, but Ruth imagined this must be what it would have felt like, sneaking downstairs on Christmas morning to be overwhelmed by a glittering pile of gifts under the tree.

  Rachel seemed to take great pleasure in saying, “Happy birthday,” and when Ruth could manage no coherent reply she prompted, “Open them, if you like.”

  One by one Ruth opened them. How could she not? Each gift, she discovered, was modest yet chosen with impeccable taste: a baby’s rattle that might have captivated her attention as an infant; a Raggedy Ann doll she would surely have loved when she was three; an elegant fashion doll that a six-year-old Ruth would have proudly shown off to her friends; a set of combs and hair brushes for a thirteen-year-old’s vanity table; and more. Thirty-two years, thirty-two presents.

  Ruth unwrapped the last one—a copy of Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener—and held it in hands that were suddenly trembling.

  On every birthday since she had learned, at the age of eight, that she was adopted, Ruth would find herself wondering whether there was someone, somewhere, thinking of her. Now she was presented with proof that there had been, and she was speechless with emotion. She told herself not to cry, and her eyes filled with tears.

  She did not leave for home. She stayed with Rachel in her room, listening to a life’s story that was, she discovered, richer than it was sad. She heard of her birth father, Kenji; her grandfather, Henry, and grandmother, Dorothy; learned of Rachel’s hnai aunt, Haleola; Uncle Pono and Catherine and Sarah and Leilani and the rest of Rachel’s cherished 'ohana. She learned what 'ohana meant, and that she was part of it. She began to understand that none of this could replace or usurp the family she had always known, but enriched what she already possessed. With wonder and a growing absence of fear she realized, I am more than I was an hour ago.

  T

  he next day, after consultation with Frank and an explanation to Donald and Peggy, Ruth brought Rachel home to their two-story house on Fifth Street, where Rachel met two bright, lively youngsters delighted at the notion of having a third grandmother—and one from faroff Hawai'i, no less. Frank Harada was affable and easy-going, but most gracious of all was Ruth’s oksan, Etsuko, a woman of great charm who put Rachel immediately at ease with her questions about Hawai'i and what it was like these days. She reminisced about her days in Waimnalo and Honolulu in the early years of the century, and turned what could have been an awkward afternoon into a delightful one. It was Etsuko who solved a nagging problem of nomenclature by inquiring of Rachel, “What is Hawaiian for Mother?”—and henceforth as Etsuko was Oksan, Rachel was Makuahine. This pleased Rachel for many reasons.

  She stayed in California for two weeks, playing Go and other games with her grandchildren; Ruth, watching them play, caught hints of the mother she might have had, even as Rachel glimpsed, not without some pain, the mother she might have been. One day Ruth packed everyone up and drove to San Francisco for some sightseeing: they corkscrewed down Lombard Street, strolled along the Embarcadero, ate fish and chips on the Wharf, and rode cable cars not so different than the trolleys of Old Honolulu. It was a grand day, one of the grandest in Rachel’s long life.

  Soon Donald and Peggy were asking their parents when they could go to Hawai'i to visit their new grandma. Frank smiled and said, “Several thousand dollars from now,” and as quickly as Rachel’s hopes fell they were kindled again by Ruth, who told the children, “If we can’t get to Hawai'i, maybe Grandma Rachel can come visit us again.” Rachel happily assured her grandchildren that she would.

  At the end of the two weeks Ruth helped her makuahine aboard the Lurline, tipping the porters and making sure she was properly settled in her tiny cabin. They walked the length of the ship together until fifteen minutes before the scheduled departure time of four o’clock, when the ship’s horn sounded two blasts—final call for all visitors. Ruth hugged Rachel, kissed her, and said, “Thank you. For giving me life, and health, and freedom.”

  Rachel cried and held onto her for as long as she could. She watched as Ruth walked down the gangway and onto the dock, waved to her as the Lurline backed away from the pier and into the bay, and kept on watching until long after the pier had disappeared from sight and the Golden Gate was only a red gleam on the horizon.

  On the return voyage Rachel had ample time to consider her future, and what shape it might take; and as she neared Hawai'i she now discovered something else that her father must have felt on his many voyages. As the green palisades with their white skirts of sand appeared in the distance, Rachel could not imagine there was any place on earth more beautiful, any sight more welcoming, than these magnificent islands. And like Henry she knew that no matter how far she might roam, she would always come back to them.

  In Honolulu she gave notice to her landlord and began boxing up the belongings she had only just unpacked; and within the week was setting to sea again, this time aboard the interisland steamer Huallai. She watched O'ahu recede again into the distance, saw the angry waters of the Kaiwi Channel off the port side . . . and watched with satisfaction as they too receded from her view. The western flank of Moloka'i was visible but never close, and soon it was joined on the horizon by the tall Norfolk pines of Lna'i, and then by the terraced slopes of the West Maui Mountains.

  At Lahaina Harbor, Sarah happily embraced her sister and arranged for a stevedore to load her belongings into Sarah’s old Ford. Together they wrestled the bags and boxes out of the car and into Sarah’s driveway, from which they would be unloaded, piecemeal, over several days. In celebration they dined that evening at the Midnite Inn; and then, exhausted, Rachel fell into bed by nine o’clock, her books already neatly shelved around her in the bedroom once shared by Sarah’s daughters, including Rachel’s namesake.

  Sometime after midnight she woke to the touch of a gentle breeze billowing the curtains and knew at once that it was the Ulola. And blown in on the wind was a sweet floral scent unlike any she had ever known. On an impulse she pulled on a robe, slipped into a pair of shoes and out of the house—making her way makai down Dickensen Street, the sweet fragrance growing still stronger. Front Street was empty at this hour and now she stood alone at the sea wall, looking out at dark waters stippled by starlight. In the harbor boats slept rocking on gentle swells, waves lapping at the wharves with a rhythm like drumbeats.

  Some bold, reckless voice impelled her to climb over the sea wall and down the rocky slope to the water’s edge. Maybe this was kapu, but she no longer cared what was kapu. She kicked off her shoes, cast off her robe, and as she’d done so long ago in Kapi'olani Park, waded into the water. She had not been swimming in the ocean for many years but it felt as if she had never left. Her feet were fairly useless so she relied on her hands to backstroke out some ten or twenty feet from shore. Here she bobbed and floated and laughed with delight as the swells rolled gently under her, a tender reminder from Namakaokaha'i of the way Rachel once exuberantly rode the waves. It all came back in a rush, a floodtide of exhilaration.

  As she floated like a leaf on the water she looked down the coast toward Mala Wharf, and saw lights which seemed to hover along the shore before moving out to sea. Fishermen? Torch-fishing, did they still do that? Or perhaps they were the marchers of the night, even as the sweet fragrance might have been the rare bloom of the silversword her makuahine, Haleola, had often spoken of. She smiled: if Ruth had two mothers, so did Rachel, and they were both here with her on Maui. She drew in a breath, holding the sweet scent of the silversword in her chest as she held Haleola in her heart; weightless with joy, home at last.

  Endnote

  1970

  T

  he twin-engine Cessna was gliding low over the grassy meadows of what was still the Meyer Ranch in Kala'e when the ground abruptly fell away and the plane dove into two thousand feet of air—leaving Ruth’s s
tomach, she was quite certain, behind. The aircraft then banked as if its specific purpose was to exacerbate her vertigo, the view outside the windows rotating a good forty degrees; she had the sickening and unwanted epiphany that this must be what it felt like to be on the inside of a kaleidoscope.

  “Mom,” came a voice next to her, “are you okay?”

  Ruth glanced at Peggy and said, “I may have to throw up on you. I hope that’s all right.”

  Peggy, now a willowy thirty-year-old, smiled indulgently. “Sure. Better me than a stranger.”

  “That was my thought as well.”

  Peggy said suddenly, “Oh my God, look!”

  Ruth reluctantly followed her gaze. Despite her queasiness she couldn’t help but be impressed by the sight of the lofty green pali thrusting up from the peninsula below—like an enormous headstone, she thought, on a tiny grave. But a headstone thriving, oddly, with life and movement: the scudding shadows of clouds across the pali, waterfalls storming down clefts in its green face, even the switchback trail zigzagging down with a kind of motionless motion. It was all quite lovely, Ruth thought, but it was also making her quite nauseous.

  Then the plane banked away from the cliffs and toward a tiny airport on the western shore. Now the broad plain of the peninsula loomed large in the windows, sudden blustery crosswinds adding to the thrill quotient of the ride, and when the little puddle-jumper finally touched down on the short runway Ruth exhaled in relief.

  “Wow,” Peggy said, “was that a trip.”

  “Yes. Stimulating,” her mother agreed. In moments the plane had taxied to a stop beside another light aircraft. The pilot opened up the cabin and the four passengers—Ruth, Peggy, and a young Caucasian couple here for a tour of the settlement—wobbled out onto the tarmac.

  Inside the open-air terminal pilots chatted with one another as stray cats preened or dozed on plastic seats. A Hansen’s patient—one of two here, Ruth would learn, who operated tours of the settlement—collected the tourists, as Ruth and Peggy were approached by a smiling, fiftyish gentleman in a bright aloha shirt.