The Color of Air

by Gail Tsukiyama

  “Razor, wait!” Koji yelled, quickly following him into the row of cane, but Razor was already gone.

  “Wait!” he said again into the darkness.

  Koji’s eyes snapped open in the breathless room. He was sweaty and his forehead itched. “Wait,” he whispered one more time, though he knew Razor was already gone.

  Ghost Voices

  RAZOR, 1918

  I’m early and peek out through the curtains from what was once the kitchen to see the workers filing into the old, abandoned cabin tucked away in the rain forest, mud-caked boots thumping in, bringing with them the stink of sweat and the sour smell of damp, dirty clothing that quickly fills the small space, yeah. The cabin is roughly a mile from the plantation. A loud splattering of rain slaps the roof, which I hope won’t leak too badly. Some arrive on foot, others in the backs of trucks whose watery headlights approach slowly down the muddy road. A crowded commotion fills the room. Benches scrape against the rough wooden planks as voices rise and fall in waves and every seat quickly fills. Behind me I hear a scratching sound and turn to see a rat scurrying along the wall and quickly out of sight. My mouth is as dry as sand, yeah, my heart racing just like it always does before one of our meetings. This looks to be one of the biggest turnouts yet.

  Growing up, it was all fun and games that kept me going through the long, hot days working in the fields. Koji was always the hard worker, the serious one. Not that I didn’t have dreams, eh. No one wanted to cut cane more than I did. I dreamed of the razor-sharp machete in my hand, slicing through the cane like silk. But it wasn’t a talent I had. It’s grueling, exhausting work, yeah, and I was a lousy cutter at best. Didn’t have the speed or the swing that came naturally to Koji, who thought nothing of helping me by throwing his cane stalks onto my pile when I fell behind.

  What I did learn in the fields was to listen. Me listening, eh, what a surprise, but the workers’ whispers don’t stop, they keep growing louder, angrier, yeah. It doesn’t take long for me to see my real talent is in recruiting for the unions, fighting for higher wages and better working hours for the workers. Who would have thought, eh? After I attended my first union meeting with a handful of other men, I found my inspiration. I began recruiting workers on the hush-hush to continue our fight against the owners. Over the years, I moved up in the ranks to being the right-hand man to Hideki Sato, our labor leader here at Puli. He’s a smart guy, yeah, who reads and reads and always carries a book in his hands. He’s from a family of scholars back in Japan and teaches at the plantation school. The owners have no idea he’s our labor leader and we plan to keep it that way, on the hush-hush.

  We’ve kept close track of earlier strikes on the other islands and why they’ve failed. I’ve begun to recruit from outside Kazoku village, hoping other plantations will do the same. “The only way we can make headway is to keep recruiting, yeah, and combining forces with our Chinese and Filipino brothers.” Most of the workers assembled tonight are Japanese, but I look around the room to see two or three Chinese and double the Filipino men from our last meeting. I’m overjoyed, knowing it’s a start, and I’m hopeful others will follow. We can only fight the owners as a collective. It seems so simple, yeah, but it’s anything but. It’s taken me a few months to recruit forty-eight new men, bringing us into the hundreds.

  The room is hot and crowded. Just thankful the cloud of cigarette smoke covers up the foul odors. Workers squeeze in, standing two-deep against the walls, while still others spill into a smaller room in back and out the front door by the time I step from behind the curtain. We’re all sweating, breathing the hot, smoky air. Up front are a wood table and three chairs. I sit down in the chair to the right of Hideki. To his left sits Aoki, our secretary and treasurer, who calls the meeting to order.

  Hideki speaks up. “Thank you all for coming.”

  His teacher’s voice is soft and calm, yet measured and forceful, and the room of rowdy men, like a schoolroom of children, immediately stops talking and fidgeting. It becomes so still I can hear the rat scurrying around in the kitchen. The cabin pulsates with a thick, raw energy. Looking among the faces, I don’t see Koji, but it’s still early. Everyone is in great spirits and it’s a good turnout, and then there’s the unanimous vote to strike right before the next harvest. We have five months to plan, to unite the workers from the Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino villages at Puli to strike together and eliminate the owners from using us against each other. For the first time, it doesn’t feel like the mountain we’re climbing is that steep.

  * * *

  It’s 9:00 in the evening by the time the meeting is adjourned, and the men rush back to the plantation. I tell Hideki to leave first, that I’ll make sure nothing is left behind and then walk back to the plantation. No worries, yeah. I know how to slip back in undetected through the northern fields. Right now I need some fresh air after being cooped up in the hot, sweaty room for the past few hours.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow then,” Hideki says.

  He stuffs his papers back into a folder and looks around the rough cabin. We’ve come so far together trying to unionize the workers. I never thought I’d get along with a book-smart guy like him, but we work well together. My teenage years with Koji and Franklin are far away now, but it’s the same kind of brotherhood. Even if I want to be angry at Koji for not showing up tonight, I’m feeling too good about how well the meeting went.

  “Was a good meeting, yeah,” I say.

  “We couldn’t have done it without you, brother,” Hideki says. “You’ve done a good job getting the men to the meetings. I can’t thank you enough.”

  I nod, a flush of embarrassment rising. It takes me a moment to grasp what he’s said. I can’t remember the last time someone as smart as Hideki thanked me for doing something right. If ever. He lifts the latch on the door and is gone before I can give a real response.

  * * *

  There’s a pale, silvery light from the moon when I leave the cabin, like someone has left a lamp on low. The trail ahead of me is otherwise dark. The air is warm and calm and my body’s still buzzing with excitement from the meeting. I usually cut through the forest, stay away from the main road just in case a luna or the plantation police are out and about catching the late stragglers. Makes the mile back to Puli even longer with each careful step. Tonight I’m itching to take a chance but decide to stay careful, sticking to the hidden dirt paths. No use looking for trouble, not with all the work we have to do in the months ahead. Calm, yeah, and just bright enough that I can easily see through the trees if there’s someone coming down the road but they can’t see me.

  The moonlight casts the main road in a whitish glow when I finally emerge from the dark forest path near the northern side of the plantation. There’s only the last long stretch of empty, open road to walk down before jumping the fence and cutting across the fields. In the distance I can see the dark shadows of the plantation buildings. Not far now. I can already taste the sweet burn of whiskey from the bottle I keep under my mattress.

  I walk quickly down the paved road when I hear the low rumble of a motor starting. I turn back to see nothing, darkness, the road empty until bright headlights flick on and a dark sedan roars out from behind some trees not far from the path I came out of. I start to run, thinking I’m fucked with this bum leg, thinking I can still make it back to the fence and into the fields before the car reaches me. There’s nowhere else to hide now, the forest behind me, the fields ahead.

  “Run! Run! Run!” I hear Franklin yelling at me again, like when we were young and caught stealing lychee from old man Pakua’s backyard tree. He’d been waiting for us, and had come out of the house with his shotgun in hand, but we were too fast jumping over the fence, running down the road before he got to the gate.

  “Run! Run! Run!” I see Laki running down the dirt road to greet me at the end of the day, good dog, best dog.

  No such luck tonight. In no time, the car is so close behind me that I can hear the gears shift and grind, the
engine roaring. No way I’ll get off the road in time. I run zigzag until my lungs are about to burst, knowing they’re just teasing me as they fall behind, only to speed up again. Run! Run! I think. The fence is just up ahead. I get cocky, believe I’m going to make it. A story to tell the grandkids, I think, when the car clips me the first time, a dull thud against my right hip, sending me hard to the ground. Hurts like hell, yeah. I try to get up but the pain shoots straight up my body to my teeth and I can hardly move. I reach down to my boot, the pain so bad I want to puke, relieved when I finally feel the solid weight of my father’s razor in the palm of my hand. I swing it open. The car backs up, idling in the middle of the road. I slowly drag myself toward the side of the road. Not going to make it easy for the bastard, yeah. At least put him into a ditch so deep he can’t get out of it. But the fucker knows what I’m thinking. I hear the car gun its engine and accelerate like a wild animal on the hunt coming straight for me.

  I turn back toward the field to see Laki waiting for me just like always, big and gray and howling in the moonlight. Twelve years since I’ve seen him and my heart races at the sight. My eyes burn at the thought. “Almost there, boy. Good boy,” I whisper.

  Shooting the Moon

  December 27–31, 1935

  41

  Blackbirds

  “The Alala!”

  “The Alala are coming!”

  Excited voices drifted into the market from the street. It didn’t take long for the army planes to be nicknamed Alala by the old-timers after the blackbirds they resembled in the sky. “Cawing crows up to no good,” someone added. Koji stopped when a young man paused to shout the news again through the screen door before he ran off down the street. He had just finished helping Samuel clean and filet a large ahi tuna the boys had brought back earlier that morning and was loading it into the icebox when all the commotion began outside.

  Word had finally come the day after Christmas that the bombing would take place the following morning, on December 27. Koji touched the tender tracks across his forehead after Daniel had removed his stitches just yesterday under Nori’s watchful eye. In a few more weeks the angry-looking marks would begin to fade, leaving a faint memory. Koji stopped a moment to listen. He finally heard a low drone in the far-off distance.

  More locals swept by the front windows. Haoles from the hills made their way down, children and servants in toll, hurrying toward Hilo Bay, where others had already gathered, waiting since dawn for the planes, watching for any sign in the clear, bright sky. According to the radio bulletin, six US Army Keystone B-3A bombers and four LB-6 light bombers were scheduled to leave Luke Field on Oahu and fly to Hilo, where the pilots would be dropping twenty six-hundred-pound bombs on the lava tubes and channels near the vents, hoping to divert or disconnect the flow near its source and stop the lava from flowing toward the watershed and Hilo town.

  It sounded simple enough. The older folks called it army talk, all show, like the starched creases of their uniforms. It would just be a pinprick against Pele, only enough to rile her up even more. Still, Koji heard whispers of curiosity within the entire community, wondering if the bombing could really stop the flow, fearful of what Pele would do in return.

  Koji stepped outside to the street, the air warm and clear, the distant hum growing louder. All the locals in the market followed, Nori and Samuel the last to make their way across the railroad tracks to the bay. Whether the Hilo community believed the bombs would stop Pele or not, Koji felt their collective excitement just as the planes were sighted. He quickly looked around the growing crowd, happy to see Wilson, Mano, and Daniel there among them. Then all eyes stared toward the wide-open sky as the droning noise increased. In the distance the flock of blackbirds appeared. The first group of three planes flew in a V formation, with two others trailing alongside.

  As the planes drew closer, the blackbirds grew in size as they flew low over Hilo, morphing into large winged biplanes, thundering and rumbling destruction overhead as windows rattled with the pass-over, shaking already anxious nerves as they headed toward Mauna Loa. And just as quickly, the planes flew off in the distance, whizzing away like insects. Koji still felt the vibrating hum through his body as they quickly faded from sight. Not long after came the second flock roaring above their heads, followed by the distant thud thud thud of the bombs exploding, smoke rising toward the sky, though no one could tell if it was the bombs, or Pele, responding in anger.

  And all they could do was wait again.

  * * *

  It was strangely quiet after all the commotion. Hilo Bay remained as still as glass, while Koji wondered if the lava had shifted direction or stopped flowing after the bombs were dropped. It would be at least a day or two before they’d hear anything from the geologists at the Volcano Observatory Center. The island was always unpredictable, but at that moment the sky was clear and the bay was nothing but calm. Koji lingered longer down by the water after most of the crowd had wandered back to their lives. He was tired. The past five weeks had him reeling, no longer able to hide in Puli. “It’s time.” He heard Mariko’s voice, only this time she was talking about him.

  When he heard footsteps approaching, he turned to see Maile.

  “Maile girl,” he said, smiling at the sight of her. She was dressed in shorts and a shirt, looking like a high school girl again.

  It was the first time since Maile returned weeks ago that they were alone together. She and Nori were often at the house during his recuperation at Daniel’s, bringing food and helping to prepare his meals while he slept. He was both grateful and embarrassed by all the attention he received.

  “Uncle Koji, I thought that was you. How are you feeling?” she asked.

  “Doing well,” he said, lightly touching the tender scar on his forehead out of habit. “I was hoping to catch you. Thank you for helping to take such good care of me,” he added. “Spoiled me for life, yeah.”

  “You had us worried,” she said and smiled, “but it did give me a chance to see Daniel as a doctor.”

  “My plan all along,” he teased. “He’s good, yeah?”

  She nodded. “He always knew what he wanted to do, lucky one.”

  A slight wind began to blow, the bay beginning to stir.

  “How are you?” Koji asked. “Seems you and Daniel stepped right back into the eye of a storm.”

  He watched her fidget, run her fingers through her hair. “Seems I left one storm for another,” she said.

  “Storms run their course, yeah.”

  She smiled. “Hope so,” she said. “I’m happy to be back.”

  “Not as happy as we are, eh, back with family now.”

  Maile stared out at the bay for a long time. “I never should have left,” she finally said.

  Koji rubbed the stubble on his cheek. His life had been one of acceptance and fear, of never looking beyond Puli. He knew that now.

  “You wouldn’t have known unless you did,” he said. Again, it was one of those times he didn’t know where the words came from, just like the day he stumbled upon Mariko picking mangoes.

  Maile paused for a moment in thought before she looked up at him, then reached out and took hold of his arm. “That’s something Auntie Mariko would have said.” She smiled again. “I miss her.”

  “Me too,” Koji said, and cleared his throat. “Everything will be all right, Maile girl, just trust yourself.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “I’m sure Daniel wouldn’t mind helping,” Koji said, and smiled.

  “He already has,” Maile said quietly. “We’re helping each other.”

  “The way it should be, yeah.”

  Koji paused to look out at the bay, the winds returning, rippling upon the surface. He could almost feel Mariko there with them, and the thought made him happy. Koji looked at Maile, and without saying a word they turned and began walking back to the market.

  42

  Mosquitoes

  Mama sat on the porch dozing, startled awake by a buzzing
sound overhead. She yawned, her neck stiff. The mosquitoes are back, she thought. They were always whirring around Nestor, taunting and waiting for the right moment to strike. “Like honey to them, yeah,” her husband used to say when he complained about the itching after being bitten. She would then send Leia or Noelani out to collect aloe vera leaves that would take care of the itching and keep the swelling away. She smiled. Her thoughts felt clearer again this morning. Mama leaned forward in her chair to listen. The buzzing intensified, too loud for mosquitoes. The sound was coming from outside, growing louder and more insistent. She peered through the dark screen, but after weeks of providing her an airy freedom from her bedroom, today the porch felt more like a cage.

  Mama pushed forward, again and again, trying to move the chair toward the screen door, but the wheels were locked and wouldn’t budge. She sat back, hot and frustrated. “Aya,” she said aloud, before gripping the armrests and pushing herself up, dangling above the chair for an instant before her arms shook and she dropped back down on the cushioned seat with a frustrated cry. Her heart raced from the exertion. She heard Leia moving around in the kitchen, most likely to return any minute with a bowl of mashed something or other. The thought was enough to encourage Mama to try again. She gripped each side of the chair and rocked forward one, two, three times, gaining the momentum to push herself up until she was almost standing. No time to waste; if she sat down again she’d never get back up. Instead, Mama inhaled deeply and pushed with all her strength until she was completely standing. She smiled, eyes shining with accomplishment as the droning sound outside grew louder.

  Mama moved one slow step at a time. Her legs felt like guava jelly as she teetered and grabbed onto the long, scuffed table to regain her balance. It was covered with flowers and leaves and shells. It all felt so familiar. She saw again all the colorful leis she and Leia had strung as they sat together for hours and hours to finish an order. How many times did she reach for another green ti leaf stacked in front of her, folding and twisting it with nimble fingers before she pushed the needle and thread through, pulling the rolled-up leaf tightly next to the others?