Honolulu

by Alan Brennert

  When he had been single, my husband had not had to worry about purchasing food: he lived in the men's barracks and ate the meals they served there, the cost automatically deducted from his salary. But now he was feeding two people-soon to be three-and he watched his money evaporate like the afternoon rains here in Hawai'i. This began to weigh heavily on him. He withdrew into himself, becoming quieter, more irritable. The happy dream I had been living turned tense and anxious once more. He complained about the cost of food, about my cooking, about any and everything. Each payday, with its meager handful of coins, only seemed to worsen his mood.

  I tried to tell him that things would be better after the baby was born, when I was able to go back to laundry work, but he snapped at me, "What kind of man would I be, to be supported by my wife?" I wisely refrained from pointing out that I had been doing exactly that until just recently.

  More and more he referred to our unborn infant not as "our baby" but "this child," as in, This child will need a crib. This child will need clothes. This child changes everything.

  The tension grew along with the life inside me. Then one Friday night late in my fourth month, Mr. Noh came home from the fields two hours late-and very drunk. It was not payday; I knew he had no money to be gambled away. Perhaps he had just needed a drink or two to relieve his stress. Don't do anything to provoke him, I told myself. Act as if nothing is wrong.

  I said, "I've kept your dinner warm on the stove. Are you hungry?"

  He looked at me in disgust.

  "No, I'm drunk," he said combatively. "You goddamn blind?"

  "Then I'll make you some coffee," I said, and went to put on water.

  His hand shot out and grabbed me by the arm. "Did I say I wanted any damn coffee?"

  His fingers gripped my arm like an ever-tightening coil. I felt a wave of sickening fear and tried desperately to think of what to say next.

  "All right," I said finally, blandly. "No coffee."

  In the face of my refusal to confront him, his grip on me only hardened. I tried not to cry out, to say anything at all that might trigger his rage. But I should have realized, the trigger had already been pulled.

  He squeezed harder, and before I could stop myself, I cried out in pain.

  He smiled like a wolf that had scented its prey, and with a jerk of his arm he sent me spinning into space. I crashed into the pantry, the collision knocking the wind from me. I collapsed onto the floor and he was suddenly there, kicking me. The first kick was to my ribs, but as I yelled and reflexively rolled over, his next kick found my stomach. I screamed, begged him to stop, but of course that only encouraged him. I covered my belly with my hands to protect the baby, but he kicked me in my arm and the jolt of pain forced me to let go, exposing my stomach again. He kicked my belly again and again, sending lightning flashes of pain and grief through my body. I heard my child scream in the lightning, felt its helpless agony, until it was too much for me to bear and blackness swallowed both the lightning and the thunder of my husband's rage, and I lost consciousness.

  In the safe quiet darkness I wept, as my child-my daughter, I somehow knew-enfolded me in arms that were not arms and gazed at me with eyes that were not eyes, and told me sadly that it was not meant to be. And she left to go somewhere else, somewhere I could not reach.

  Then even the darkness went away.

  When I woke, not long after, I was still lying on the kitchen floor. I looked down at myself and saw my skirt sodden with blood-felt it trickling out of me along with my broken water-and at this I blacked out again, mercifully so.

  y husband passed out not long after he assaulted me and killed our child. When he awoke, he had no memory of what he had done, a gift that was to be denied me. He saw me lying bloodied on the floor and ran in a panic to the infirmary. I'm told I was taken there in an automobile, and one of the first things I recall was the plantation doctor, Dr. Jaarsma, telling me that I was lucky that the blows had not damaged any of my internal organs. I did not feel lucky.

  He also assured me I had not been hurt so severely that I would not be able to bear another child. The prospect terrified me.

  Then the doctor, sitting beside my bed, soberly asked me if I wished to file a charge of assault against my husband. I was lost in grief, and strangely empty of rage. "Would men in your country," I asked him, "really put another man behind bars merely for beating his wife?"

  "Well," the doctor allowed, "he might serve a few months, at least."

  "And what then?"

  He had no answer for that.

  I told him I would not file charges. He started to rise. I asked whether my baby had been male or female.

  "It was a girl," he said. I just nodded.

  Soon Mr. Noh came to my bedside, wallowing in guilt and repentance. He wept and promised that he would never strike me again, that he would never take another drink, so help him God. He begged my forgiveness, but if I could not bring myself to have him jailed, neither could I forgive him-or believe that his promises would stand the test of time and temptation. I said nothing and closed my eyes as if drifting to sleep, denying him the absolution he so ardently craved.

  Other wives in the Korean camp-including some of the very ones who had advised me to take my husband's beatings without complaint-brought me bowls of seaweed soup, a common Korean restorative for women who have just given birth. They also urged me to spend the traditional thirty days afterward in bed, a tradition I was happy to observe: for at least the first week I could not have gotten out of bed had I tried.

  While in the infirmary I received an envelope postmarked in Korea. Because it took so long for mail to cross the Pacific in those days, I was only just receiving my elder brother's response to my letter home:

  Honorable Little Sister,

  We are all happy to hear from you and to know that you have safely reached your destination. I read your letter aloud to Mother and Blossom; little sister-in-law had me read it to her twice, and says to tellyou that she misses you, as do we all.

  Congratulations to you on your wedding. From your descriptions, Hawaii truly seems like a paradise. How wonderful it must be to live there. It pleases us all to know that you are happy and fu filled in your new life ...

  I cried myself to sleep that night.

  After three weeks I had recovered sufficiently to be discharged from the hospital. I could still barely walk, and Mr. Noh had to make his own breakfast and pack his own lunch. Marisol helped me do laundry and prepare dinners. I forced myself to walk from one end of the tiny house to the other, slowly gathering stamina. Gradually, I came back to myself, and found the strength to do what I knew I must.

  It went against all I had been taught a good Korean wife should be: loyal, sacrificing, obedient. But I could not remain in this house and possibly deliver up another child for the slaughter. I told only Jade Moon of my plans, and she did not discourage me; she even offered to give me money, but I thanked her and declined. I had money, at least a little.

  And so it was that one morning after my husband had left for work, I dug up the jar of gold coins I had buried in the garden, packed my suitcase, and walked the mile to the train station at Waialua, where I purchased a ticket for the end of the line, the farthest point from Mokuleia Camp and Mr. Noh removing my silver wedding pin from my hair as I boarded the next train bound for Honolulu.

  Six

  his time the lush green landscape rolling by held no charms for me, and the exotically named stations we passed seemed merely signposts in a country of despair. The shriek of the brakes as we pulled into each station unnerved me, and the drumbeat of the train along the tracks took on a pounding, reproving tone. No escape on my part, it seemed to say, could bring back my daughter-and nothing else seemed important. I sat there wondering what her voice might have sounded like ... tried to imagine the shape of her smile, or how her eyes might have caught the morning light. I tortured myself with all the infinite lost possibilities until at last I felt the train slow and heard the conductor call ou
t, "Next stop, Honolulu!"-the end of the line, nowhere else to run. I got up and disembarked the train.

  Outside, clutching my suitcase, I stood blinking for a moment in the shade of the gabled railroad depot. Now that I was here, where was here? I found myself facing a commercial street crowded with storefronts, ordinary but for what loomed behind: the spent volcano crater known as Punchbowl. It looked a bit like one of the many hills surrounding Pojogae, but with its summit disturbingly lopped off, as if by some giant's blade. I was only a few steps from this wide avenue called King Street, busy with pedestrians and populated by a wide variety of shops. On this block alone I noted two Japanese apothecaries, a Chinese grocery, a Portuguese tattoo artist, even a Korean shoemaker. From more than one storefront I heard the sounds of commerce being conducted vigorously in pidgin. It felt almost as if I had never left the plantation.

  Nearby the depot was a lodging house, the Railroad Hotel, which reminded me of the last time I had been at this railway station: the day after my dockside wedding. Realizing I was not far from the Hai Dong Hotel, I began to retrace the route we had taken that day, instinctively seeking the familiar comfort of the little Korean inn. I walked down King Street to River Street and up River to Hotel Street; but when I finally reached the Hai Dong, I was seized by apprehension. What if the innkeeper, Mr. Chung, recognized me as the bride of Mr. Noh? What did I say if he asked where my husband was? If he realized I was running away, might he not try to contact Mr. Noh and tell him where to find his errant wife? The possibility froze me to the spot. I longed to go inside and be surrounded by at least the trappings of homebut I simply couldn't take the chance. I turned and hurried back the way I came, not daring to risk the fellowship of other Koreans.

  By the time I returned to the railway depot I was hungry and spent some of my meager savings on a bowl of rice at a Japanese restaurant on King Street. I daydreamed that it might have come from the Rice Mountains, which only made me all the more homesick. I yearned to jump aboard the next ship bound for Korea, but even if I could somehow scrape together the steamer fare, where did I go once I got there? Not back home to Pojogae or to Taegu-Aunt Obedience was gone; so was Evening Rose. No, better to be here in Hawai'i, as distant as it was, than to be in my homeland yet unable to truly go home.

  Out on the street again I had no more idea where to go next-or even where I was-than before. I went back to the railway station and asked a heavyset porter loading bags into a carriage, "Excuse me? What is this place called?"

  "This?" he said. "This is Iwilei."

  He pronounced it EE-vee-lay-as Evening Rose had when she spoke of the friend of hers who had gone to work there.

  I felt a jolt of recognition and excitement. "It is?"

  "Yeah, this side of the street, anyways." He grunted as he lifted a heavy bag. "Other side, that's Palama, but here"-he jerked a thumb toward a nearby road that intersected King Street at an angle-"this is Iwilei."

  I thanked him and instinctively headed toward the intersection.

  Without knowing her name, of course, I harbored no real hope of finding my teacher's friend. But Iwilei seemed worth a look, if only to be closer, for a moment, to the memory of Evening Rose. And I had, after all, no pressing engagements elsewhere.

  I followed a group of pedestrians, most of them male, flocking like pigeons down the intersecting street, along with an increasing number of passing motor cars that bounced along the scored and pitted roadway. The first building we came to was an imposing coral-block structure, surrounded by a high wall, which looked like a medieval fortress and turned out to be a prison. Hardly the most auspicious of sights, it stood silent and forbidding at the fork of two roads; across from it, equally uninviting, squatted a row of ramshackle houses. I followed the crowd down the more traveled of the two roads, and as we passed by the prison I heard a chorus of barks and yelps coming from a dog pound situated behind the jail. The poor animals seemed to be crying out for their freedom, in contrast to the stoic silence emanating from the prison.

  The barking of the dogs slowly gave way to the raucous cheers and catcalls of men, many arriving by car to join those traveling on foot. This road was even more heavily trafficked than King Street, and most of the pedestrians were men in some sort of military uniform. I recognized only the livery of the Japanese navy, but from their varied faces and the many languages they spoke, I could see that there were sailors here from all corners of the world, obviously on shore leave.

  The street seemed increasingly designed to cater to such men, as evident by the number of saloons out of which floated rude laughter and coarse dance-hall music. Here, too, was a barbershop, a billiards parlor, a tobacconist, and a penny arcade. Even the air seemed to take on a masculine aspect, pungent with the smell of shaving lotion, cigar smoke, and liquor. The mood in the street was festive, as if we had stumbled into the middle of a partyand indeed, the men around me were acting more and more like revelers.

  But not all of them were entering the saloons and arcades-not even the majority of them, who continued purposefully down the road. We passed several canneries and a few more boardinghouses, then found ourselves approaching a high wooden fence at least fifteen feet tall, beside which an affable-looking police officer was stationed. He let the men pass through the gate without a word, but when he saw me carrying my bag he asked, "You new to Iwilei, Miss?"

  "Yes," I told him, "I am."

  "Go on in, then"-he gave me a wink and a smile-"and make yourself at home."

  "Why, thank you," I said. Did the police here greet all visitors so warmly? Such a friendly place! I walked inside, feeling welcome.

  On the other side of the gate, and on both sides of the street, I now saw row after row of neat little wooden cottages-each painted green with white trim, and each with its own tiny lanai, or porch. They looked not unlike the tidy little bungalows we had lived in at Waialua, and for a moment I wondered if I had wandered onto some sort of plantation. In a way I had, but it was a much different kind of crop that was sown here at Iwilei.

  The honky-tonk dance music of the saloons had been replaced by an inharmonious medley of songs, each issuing from a gramophone in the individual cottages: one tapped out a sprightly Spanish flamenco; from another blared the German ballad "Auf Wiedersehen"; and more than one played a then-popular tune called "On the Beach at Waikiki":

  Honi kaua wikiwiki

  Sweet brown maiden said to me

  As she gave me language lessons

  On the beach at Waikiki

  The occupants of the bungalows were haole, Japanese, Chinese, and Hawaiian, and all appeared to be female-again, not unlike Waialua, where few but women were at home during the day. But though it was only late afternoon, these women were clearly wearing evening clothes: bright, gaudy dresses made of silk or satin, with plunging necklines and slitted skirts that shockingly revealed more flesh than I had ever seen displayed in public. They all wore bright lipstick, heavy makeup, and musky perfumes, and were either sitting on their porches-smoking cigarettes, fanning themselves in the heat-or visible through a window as they sat inside, chewing gum and reading movie magazines. The men around me slowed as they approached a house, eyeing the women inside like shoppers at one of those stores along King Street.

  Suddenly a woman standing on her lanai leaned forward over the wooden railing to grin at a passing man-and her breasts burst out of the scant restraints of her dress! She made no move to cover herself, nor did she display the slightest trace of embarrassment. But I was blushing enough for the two of us.

  She was surely teasing me So I caught that maid and kissed her On the beach at Waikiki

  As I finally began to "savvy" where I was, I turned and started to hurry back the way I came, away from these unassuming little "pleasure houses." But in my haste I must have called attention to myself, and now an obscenely obese haole in a white suit and Panama hat stepped in front of me. It was as if a wall of pale flesh and linen had descended from the sky, bringing me up short. "You are new," he sa
id in an accent that was unfamiliar to me.

  "No, I-I am not a-" I struggled to think of the English word for kisaeng, then realized that I didn't know it; this was a term my missionary teachers had somehow failed to acquaint me with.

  The man ogled me from beneath his sweaty brow and smiled. "I like new. Are you very new? Perhaps brand-new?"

  I tried to step around him, but again he blocked my path. "I am not what you think I am," I told him. I turned away, but his hand shot out and clammy fingers closed around my wrist.

  "Let go!" I cried out, struggling to break free of his grip.

  "How much?" he asked me.

  "I am not-"

  "Hey. Russkie," someone called out.

  I glanced up to see a pretty, curvaceous, blond-haired woman standing on her lanai, fanning herself with a folded newspaper, her expression one of mild boredom as she took in my plight. "Back off. Can't you see she ain't selling?"

  "We are negotiating," the obese man insisted.

  The blonde nonchalantly stepped down off her porch steps, ambled over to us, then calmly raised the newspaper and gave the fat man a mean swat across the back of his head. His hat flew off; his grip on me loosened.

  "Get your fat ass outta here!" the blonde bellowed impressively at him. "You want virgins, go jump in a volcano! G'wan, get lost!"

  The obese Russian bent to retrieve his hat, then quickly did as he was told.

  My rescuer turned to me. "Sorry about that, hon. We don't get many civilian gals in here. You okay?"

  "Yes," I said, but my voice was trembling. It had been too familiar, too much like the treatment I had become accustomed to in my own house. Without meaning to, I suddenly burst into tears.

  "Aw, hell," the blond woman muttered. I tried to stop crying, but found that I couldn't. She sighed. "Okay, c'mon, take a load off."

  Through tears I said, "Pardon me?"