Children of the Promise

by Dean Hughes

  When they arrived at Sunday School, they were greeted with hugs and alohas as usual. The girls were getting to know some of the members’ names now, but even people they didn’t know very well were good about greeting them. In opening exercises, a large Maori brother with a British accent got a little carried away with his two-and-a-half-minute talk—and went on and on—but no one ever seemed to worry about that sort of thing. Schedules were never so rigid here as they had been at home.

  In class, Bobbi had eight little children in attendance that day. They were not always easy to handle, since some of them were too eager to tell all that was on their minds, but Bobbi was patient, and the kids all wanted to lean against her and get a pat or a hug. After class, a little girl named Lily Aoki took hold of Bobbi’s hand and walked out with her. She was a quiet child and usually said almost nothing in class, but she liked to be close to Bobbi.

  Out in the foyer, Bobbi spotted Lily’s mother, Ishi, and walked over to her. “Oh, there you are,” Sister Aoki said. She was holding a little boy in her arms, but she knelt in front of Lily. “What did you learn today?” she asked.

  “About Jesus,” Lily said.

  Sister Aoki patted Lily on the head and then stood again. She smiled at Bobbi. “That’s what she always says.” Sister Aoki was a young woman in her late twenties. She was always friendly but more formal than the Polynesian members. Bobbi knew that Sister Aoki’s husband was in the army, and that he had been shipped out with other Japanese-American soldiers recently, but Bobbi wasn’t clear how that had happened. Why were some Japanese Americans being interned and others being asked to serve in the military? But the subject seemed sensitive to Bobbi, and she hadn’t asked. Bobbi didn’t think much about little Lily being Japanese, but she was very conscious of it with Sister Aoki.

  Sister Aoki was certainly not a first-generation immigrant. She was “AJA”—American of Japanese Ancestry—as most islanders called them these days. Her speech had a certain accent—more precise than the pidgin English of the Polynesians and yet a little hard to understand at first. Or at least it was for mainlanders—usually called haoles in the islands.

  “Well . . . Lily’s right,” Bobbi said. “We always talk about Jesus.”

  “She loves you, you know,” Sister Aoki said, and she patted Bobbi on the arm. “She talks about ‘my teacher’ all the time.”

  Bobbi looked down at Lily and gave her hand a little squeeze. “I love you, too, Lily,” she said. Lily leaned against Bobbi’s leg. Afton had walked over to them by then, but she stayed back a little.

  “What’s your little boy’s name?” Bobbi asked. She really did want to be friendly.

  “David,” Sister Aoki said. “We named him after David O. McKay. He came here to dedicate the tabernacle last year, just before our little David was born. He was such a nice man—so good. We want our David to be like that.”

  Bobbi thought of President McKay, so tall and elegant. It seemed strange, although she didn’t know why, that Sister Aoki would name her son after him.

  “I know you two stay in town during the day—until sacrament meeting,” Sister Aoki said. “Would you like to come over to my house for dinner?”

  Bobbi hesitated, but Afton was quick to say, “Oh . . . actually, we brought a lunch with us. We were going to eat in the park.”

  “I see. Well, perhaps next week.”

  “Gee . . . uh . . . maybe,” Afton said, sounding tentative.

  Bobbi wanted to be kind to Sister Aoki, but she was uncomfortable with the idea of going to her home. She noticed, however, that Sister Aoki was forcing a smile, trying to mask her disappointment, and suddenly Bobbi was ashamed. “I’m sure we could come next week,” she said. “Why don’t we plan on it?”

  Bobbi saw Sister Aoki brighten, and she was glad, but she couldn’t get rid of her reluctance. “That will be wonderful,” Sister Aoki said. “Lily will like that so much.”

  Lily smiled and then looked away, too shy to admit her own pleasure. Bobbi glanced at Afton, whose smile seemed less than natural.

  “Have you been in the Church a long time, Sister Aoki?” Bobbi asked.

  “My husband was baptized when he was fourteen,” Sister Aoki said. “I joined when I was nineteen—after I met him.” She smiled. “We went to the Japanese-American branch for a long time. But the missionaries are going home, and no one is coming to replace them. It’s not easy to run a small branch without missionaries, so I think everyone is going to move into the other wards. It’s closer, too, so it’s easier for me to get here with the children. I started coming last month, and everyone has been quite nice to me.”

  Bobbi knew exactly what that meant, and she was embarrassed. “Of course they would be nice to you. They’re great people, and so are you.”

  “Thank you.” Sister Aoki gave a little nod that was almost like a bow. And then she said, “Well, let’s plan on next week.”

  “All right.”

  Afton finally did say, “Okay.”

  But after, as the girls left the church, Bobbi said, “Afton, I didn’t know what else to say. We really should go.”

  “I know. It’s all right.”

  They walked out to Beretania Street and turned right. At the corner, they had learned, they could catch a bus to the Iolani Palace.

  When Bobbi could get away from the hospital and see this island—the palm trees and flowers—she was always amazed to think where she was. If only her life weren’t hemmed in by the walls of hospital wards, or by her box of a room in the nurses’ quarters, she could love being here.

  “I think some things are still hard for me to get used to,” Afton volunteered. “I know Sister Aoki isn’t the same as a Jap soldier, but golly, it’s hard for me not to think about her that way. I just feel funny around those people.”

  “I know,” Bobbi said again. “But we couldn’t turn her down. Did you see how she was looking at us?”

  “I know. It’ll be okay. It’s probably good for me to get to know her—so I won’t feel the way I do so much.” Afton walked by a hibiscus plant, picked a flower, and tucked it in her hair, over her ear. The girls often wore their Class A uniforms to church simply because they didn’t have a lot of civilian clothes, but today Afton was wearing a pale lavender dress she had bought the week before. With her dark hair and the red flower, she looked very pretty.

  “In Arizona we had lots of Mexicans and Indians, but I didn’t really know them—except for men who worked for my dad sometimes. I’m not used to different races being together. My mom and dad used to say that it wasn’t good—that people ought to stick to their own kind.”

  “We had a Japanese family in our ward when I was growing up,” Bobbi said, “but they were born and raised in Utah. They didn’t seem foreign or anything. Sometimes, in Salt Lake, I would see a few colored people. My dad said they worked on the railroad. But other than that, I’ve always lived where everyone was white.”

  “Don’t you like it better that way?”

  Bobbi had to think. The two had come to the corner, and they glanced up the street to watch for their bus. There were almost no cars moving about. It was noon now, but Sundays were lazy days here, and gasoline was hard to get. Even people who owned cars tended to use the bus system now, or walk. Most of the people in town were sailors or marines. The bars did a booming business on Sundays, and the red-light district, from what Bobbi and Afton had heard, was always packed.

  “I don’t know, Afton. I like all those Hawaiian ladies. It’s my fault if I don’t want them to throw their arms around me. I can’t think why races have to stay apart—especially in the Church. If we feel funny, I guess it’s our problem, not theirs.”

  “Well . . . my family wouldn’t believe it if I told them I was eating with a Jap woman.”

  “I think—here—it’s better to say ‘Japanese,’ or ‘AJA.’”

  “Yeah. I guess so.” And for a time neither said anything more. But finally Afton said, “Bobbi, I still think about all the boys in the h
ospital—and what they say about Japanese soldiers. One little sailor told me he went overboard when his ship was going down, and Jap pilots were diving down and shooting the boys who were in the water. Why would anybody do something like that?”

  Bobbi admitted something to herself. She liked Sister Aoki and little Lily. She even wanted to love them. But she was harboring anger that she wasn’t ready to let go. Still, she told Afton, “Maybe some of our boys do things like that too. War makes people do all kinds of things they normally wouldn’t.”

  “I don’t think we kill when we don’t have to. We’re not like that.”

  Bobbi wanted to believe that, but she had heard the bitterness of some of the sailors in the hospital, and she knew the war was changing the hearts of lots of young boys.

  Bobbi and Afton had a nice afternoon. They even napped a little in the warm sun, after lunch, and then they took a bus to Waikiki and strolled along the beach. The sand was pretty and white, and the water was so blue it hardly seemed real. In the distance, the green of Diamond Head, with its blunt top, stood out against the blue sky and water. It was all quite breathtaking, and the only bad thing was that tomorrow was Monday and Bobbi was scheduled for five twelve-hour shifts that would probably change to six as the week went along.

  Sacrament meeting was the same as always, with familiar hymns taking on a new life when sung with such spirit. But the speaker was a haole today, a Honolulu businessman who was on the stake high council. So the sermon had the ring of home, with little passion but solid doctrine.

  There was, however, a new little excitement. Maybe five minutes into the meeting, Afton turned and looked to the back of the chapel. She kept looking for quite some time before she turned around and nudged Bobbi. “I think I’m in love,” she said. “There’s a navy officer back there. Take a glance over your left shoulder, at the back, but don’t be too obvious about it—the way I was.” She giggled.

  Bobbi waited a minute or so, and then she glanced back. She saw exactly what Afton was talking about. The officer was tall and handsome, bronze in his white uniform, with dark hair.

  When the meeting was over and Afton moved quickly in the officer’s direction, Bobbi found herself rather glad to have someone around who was forward enough to approach the officer. What she didn’t expect was such a direct assault. “Say, sailor,” Afton said, “welcome aboard. We’re navy officers, too.”

  He smiled a little and nodded. He had been moving away, apparently planning to leave the building without meeting anyone, but now he stopped. Bobbi could see he was a lieutenant—equivalent to captain in the army, and two ranks above Bobbi and Afton. “Nurses?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s nice to meet you.” He nodded politely, and then he turned to walk away.

  “Gee whiz, wait a sec. Are you sure you’re in the navy?”

  Bobbi still hadn’t said a word, and she hated to see the man leave so quickly, but she hardly knew what Afton was up to.

  “Yes. I’m certain.” This time his smile seemed subtle more than slight, as if he suspected some sort of gamesmanship from Afton. He tucked his hat under his arm, and stood tall. The man really was something to look at. Bobbi liked the way his dark hair drooped a little on his forehead, liked the strong bones in his cheeks and jaw, and she loved his pale blue eyes, set off by his tanned skin.

  “When you meet a couple of pretty nurses, you’re supposed to ask their names—and probably their phone numbers—and not just walk away,” Afton said. “We ought to know. We’re around navy men all day, every day.”

  “And do you give your phone number to all of them?” This was a well-placed jab, but he was smiling more now, and a soft hint of rakishness had appeared in his eyes.

  Afton was up to the challenge. “I give my number to none of them. But I’m at church now. That’s different. I’m assuming you’re a nice Mormon boy.”

  Bobbi could feel herself blushing—mostly for Afton—and at the same time she was wishing she had worn her best dress and taken more time with her hair that morning.

  The officer held out his hand. “My name is Richard Hammond,” he said. “I’m from Springville, Utah. May I ask your names? I won’t be so bold as to request your phone numbers just yet.”

  This was all done with exaggerated politeness. In response, Afton made a little curtsy, and then, as she shook his hand, she said, “Afton Story. How nice to make your acquaintance. I’m from Mesa, Arizona.”

  Bobbi stepped just a little closer. “I’m Bobbi Thomas,” she said. “From Salt Lake.” She shook his hand too.

  “Where did you take your nurse’s training?” he asked her.

  “LDS hospital. But I went to the University of Utah for two years before that.”

  “Really? I went to the U. Graduated two years ago.”

  “And you’re not married—right?” Afton asked. She giggled.

  “No,” he said. “I’m not.”

  “But you have a girl in every port?”

  “Dozens.” He finally laughed a little.

  “So where are you going now, in such a hurry?” Afton asked.

  “Back to my ship. On Ford Island.”

  “Golly, don’t go yet. We’re going down to the beach to watch the sun go down. Why don’t you go with us? I won’t embarrass you anymore. I was just kidding about the phone numbers.”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t. I made special arrangements to get away from my ship. I have to be back right away.”

  “Then would you like our phone number after all? We have the same one.”

  “Actually, I would.” He even seemed to mean it. “I may not be able to come to church all the time. But while I’m in port, it would be nice to have some friends from home.”

  “Does that mean Bobbi—because, as I mentioned, I’m from Arizona.”

  “That’s still home to me.”

  “Oh, good.” Afton found a slip of paper in her purse, and then she searched for a pencil.

  “How do you like the navy?” Richard asked Bobbi.

  “I don’t,” she said. “I don’t understand all this military discipline and privilege of rank. I just want to be treated like a human being.”

  He nodded. “I know what you mean,” he said. “But I think I understand why it’s necessary. In battle, it can save lives.”

  This seemed just a little too by-the-book to Bobbi. On impulse, she suddenly straightened, gave him a brisk salute, and said, “Aye, aye, sir. I certainly didn’t mean to insult the navy.”

  “I’m sorry. I just meant . . .”

  But he didn’t finish, and Bobbi rather liked what she had done to him. He was smiling now—really smiling—and his fine white teeth, against that tanned skin, made him very easy to forgive. “I was just teasing,” she said.

  “Well . . . I had it coming.” For the first time he seemed to focus on Bobbi, really see her. Bobbi felt almost breathless as she felt his eyes taking her in, assessing her.

  When Afton handed him the slip of paper with the phone number, he thanked her, but he still kept looking at Bobbi, and when he said, “I do hope I’ll see you,” he said it to her.

  As soon as he walked out the door, Afton said, “Oh, wow, he is so cute. And I blew it. He doesn’t like pushy women. I could see that. You were the one he was looking at.”

  “He took one look at me—there at the end. The rest of the time he was looking at you.”

  “Oh, good. Maybe he’s nuts about me.”

  Bobbi laughed. “Probably so,” she said. “He’s probably not my type anyway. I’ll bet he majored in engineering.”

  “Hey, that’s fine with me. I wasn’t planning to read textbooks with him.”

  “Good. He’s all yours.” But Bobbi had seen something in the way he had looked at her. And she couldn’t stop thinking about his smile.

  Chapter 10

  The Japanese guards had finally provided four large tents for the men on the Tayabas work detail. It was September now, and only about sixty of the origin
al three hundred were still alive, but at least these men could stay dry at night. It was a small consolation. Wally was in trouble, and he knew it. His body ached fiercely, and when he got up each morning, his joints would barely allow him to move. He had developed a deep, raspy cough that sometimes shook his body until he nearly passed out. He was sure he had hepatitis, among other things. He could see the yellow color of his skin. He also had pellagra, which had caused open sores on the back of his hands and behind his knees. He tried to keep the sores clean, but they filled with dirt every day, and he had nothing but river water to wash in.

  Wally’s boots had rotted away, and so he went about barefoot like most of the other men. He wouldn’t have been able to wear shoes anyway; his feet were swollen with beriberi. His coveralls were falling apart, and he knew his half-naked body resembled a skeleton. He watched the other men moving about like specters—a faraway look in their eyes, their steps deliberate and clumsy—and he knew he was catching a glimpse of himself.

  The road detail was pointless now, with only a couple of dozen men still able to work and the road not progressing. Sooner or later the Japanese had to give it up, and then maybe those alive could get to a healthier place. It was the only hope.

  Almost everyone was also suffering from malaria. Wally had avoided that so far, but one morning as he trudged off to work, he felt the chills and fever that he knew came first. He told himself that it wasn’t malaria, just the effects of all the other diseases he was dealing with. He had been feverish many times before—just not quite so severely. By the time the sun was high in the sky, however, he was sure he had something new.

  He was working next to Alan, the two of them digging to expose a root. “Alan,” he finally said, “I’m getting sick. I’m okay in my stomach. It’s not dysentery. But I’ve got a fever.”

  “Malaria?” Alan asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “How bad are you?”