The Girl at the Center of the World

by Austin Aslan

  We descend the bluff like a pack of wild teenagers, leaving poor Tami in the dust as she gingerly hobbles down the steps along the rusty railing. Keali`i tears into the water. Mom is right behind him, her short board tucked under her arm like a football. Kai hollers as he tackles the waves along the shore with his bodyboard. Aukina and I stop and sit down on one of the park’s grassy knolls, clearing away a few washed-up planks of wood and other tsunami rubbish.

  A church group is in the shallows, performing baptisms.

  “Come on,” Aukina says.

  “Wait.”

  Aukina and I watch the ritual unfold. Grandpa and Tami join us. Everyone wading in the water is wearing a white gown. They’re singing in Hawaiian as one man strums a ukulele and another pounds ipu drums. The pastor recites his words, dunks each person in turn. Men, women, keikis, Hawaiians, Asians, haoles. I find the ceremony calming. The unity of so many different people. It feels like a normal moment from the past.

  And the music…I don’t hear music anymore. It’s beautiful! A gospel tune with Hawaiian flair. My old islands touch my ears. I almost cry—which isn’t saying much these days—but still, I feel as if each of the chambers of my heart aches to a different part of the rhythm.

  E na lima hana, e malama `aina, meke kino, meka pu`u wai.

  With our hands we press onward to the plow,

  Never turning back, we face the mystery far beyond.

  With our hands, we will shape each other’s stories.

  We will write the vision down, never tire until it’s done.

  E na lima hana, e malama `aina, meke kino, meka pu`u wai.

  “You miss the old world?” Aukina asks.

  “Yeah. Mostly.”

  “I wish I had it better before Arrival,” he says. “I should have lived like a king. At least I could have had the good life for a while, eh?”

  I shrug, my eyes on Mom. She’s already up on her first wave, a gentle four-footer along which she glides weightlessly. The younger surfers bobbing in the swell respectfully duck out of the way as she moves toward shore, as if she were an acolyte of Kana Huna herself, the Hawaiian goddess of surfing. Catching the same wave as an ali`i—a chief—was once a kapu punishable by death. The mere mortals surrounding Mom seem to remember this as they clear her a path. “I dunno,” I answer Aukina. “I do like growing our own food. Using everything, wasting nothing. It’s hard work, but I like the connection between what we do and what we have. It feels more ‘right’ somehow. If we had lived a more sustainable life all along, the transition would have been easier.”

  “Maybe. I had some savings, you know. G.I. Bill, blah, blah. I should have loaned it to myself when I could.”

  “Yeah, I guess. What’s the difference, though?”

  “The difference is: I met you.” He darts in, kisses me on the cheek, and stampedes out into the surf with my board before I can react.

  Tami skewers me with eyes that might as well be screaming. I beam, blushing. When Grandpa nods his approval, I feel my face grow even warmer.

  Grandpa rises, drifts away, leaving Tami and me alone. “Oh, my God,” she says.

  “Calm down,” I tell her, but I’m mostly reminding myself.

  “Still!”

  “He’s so sweet. We were so close to kissing when the attack happened at the house. He hasn’t made a single move since then.”

  “Just be patient.” Tami winks, echoing my own advice to her. “He’s shy. Let him take his time.”

  Then she says, “Keali`i—we made out. Last night. It’s official. He wants to keep it on the DL, but I had to tell you.”

  We grip each other. “I told you he’d come around,” I say.

  We gossip for a few minutes, and then her tone grows somber. “What is it?” I ask.

  She shakes her head, struggles for words. “He’s got…”

  Something about her eyes gives me a flash of understanding. “Ghosts?”

  “I can’t say.” Tami sighs dramatically. “It’s private.”

  “He say how he got those meds?”

  She laughs dryly. “You really don’t want to know.”

  “Yes. I really do. I deserve to know.”

  “Well, drop it. You don’t want me to break his trust.”

  “Fine, I get it.” She’s right, but I’m still annoyed that there’s a secret separating us. “I’m going to get in the water.” Tami’s leg is still healing, so I know she won’t follow me. I rise and try not to storm away into the waves.

  I guide Kai out past the swell. Our group takes turns getting him up on the longboard while Grandpa and Tami watch us from shore. Kai’s making great progress, but my eyes keep drifting to Aukina. He watches me watching him, smiling.

  Mom winks at me as we both give Kai a good shove to catch his next wave. “You caught one big fish,” she says.

  I crack a smile. “He’s not a fish, Mom.”

  “He’s no shark. Are you dating yet?”

  Stunned, I gawk at her.

  “What are you waiting for?” she asks.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Global power failure to be over, maybe. Whatever happened to finishing college and all that?”

  “Hon. No one’s asking you to marry the poor boy.” She laughs and is up and off on the next wave, steady and graceful as the Duke.

  Aukina’s paddling back out, curving around the swell. I watch him.

  Keali`i goes ashore and sits with Tami and Grandpa. After a few minutes he helps Tami rise and walk toward the Honoli`i River. Aukina and Mom are farther out behind me now, waiting for longer waves. I sigh, ride a lazy wave, dodge a foam cooler floating to my right, and turn left all the way to the tumbling black rocks. I hop off, carry my board over to Grandpa, and peel off my wet rash guard, quickly covering my bikini with a dry shirt.

  We sit together in silence as a yellow gibbous moon rises. Buzz and his vocabulary words. The sky is still a profound blue; full dark won’t fall for at least an hour. I look forward to my safaris above the atmosphere tonight. I’ll see the Appalachians. Buzz believes there are at least forty nuclear power plants just in the Bible Belt alone. I’ve seen evidence of only a handful of meltdowns in the South, so tonight I’ll hover and blink above that region.

  “An den?” Grandpa asks me. The gentle breeze sends a chill through me. I wrap my arms around my knees and smile at him. He’s not satisfied with my silence. “You look tired, Mo`opuna. Is your body getting enough sleep while you perform?”

  “I do feel tired…and…” I trail off.

  “Heavy?” Grandpa asks.

  “Yeah, heavy.” I squeeze more salt water out of my hair, turn to him. “Tūtū, I don’t want this anymore. What if I do the wrong thing?”

  “Right and wrong aren’t ‘things,’ Mo`opuna. You can’t see them before they come. And they like to be shifty, anyway, after the fact.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  He nods. “I do. I’ve been there myself, eh? Lord knows. But you’re not alone, Mo`opuna. We’ve all got your back. The right or wrong of it will work itself out.”

  Mom drops off of a decent wave into the shallows with Kai. They paddle together back out past the swell. I look at Grandpa. I sense a rare chance to get answers out of him while we’re alone. “Grandpa. I want you to tell me about you and the sheriff.”

  His gentle smile is slowly replaced with a shocking gravity. “I don’t know, Mo`opuna—”

  I look down, shaken. “I’ve earned it, Tūtū. I’ve earned it. I want to understand.”

  He takes a deep breath, holds it. He lets it go and leans in close. “You keep this between us. I don’t know that I’ll ever get around to sharing this with your parents.”

  “Okay,” I say softly.

  His voice changes. He speaks like he’s reporting to a commanding officer. Somber. Serious. He’s transported back to Maui, many years ago.

  “Kana`ina was my second partner when I was on the beat in Kahului. I was a year on the job. Kana`ina transferred from O`ahu with seven
years under his belt. I never warmed to him, but I never disliked him, either. At least, not until later. He was just—my partner. We had each other’s back out there. And that counted for something.

  “We were paired up nearly a year when I first saw him plant evidence. It took me a while longer to notice that he did it a lot, always on the haoles.

  “His wife was murdered in Honolulu two years before his transfer. Killed by a white guy. She was just as crooked as him, in on a deal that went bad. I can’t prove it, but I’m pretty sure.

  “He liked my family. Always joined us when invited. Dinner. Picnics. Fishing. He trusted me with his views on sovereignty. I listened. When he talked of a free Hawai`i Nei—of his longing for native Hawaiians to rule themselves, railing against the American occupation and the unjust overthrow of the royal family—I was mostly all ears. I’ve always agreed that a great evil was perpetrated by the takeover of our lands; the loss of our nation sent us Hawaiians into a cycle of poverty and struggle amid a paradise for tourists. But the more he ranted, the more I disagreed with his brand of action, even when I was sympathetic. I should have challenged him. But I was too insecure.

  “I saw him slip drugs onto a haole we had cuffed on the street. That suspect was clearly bad news. We got him behind bars because of what Kana`ina did. I never really questioned it, Leilani. Just a little bending of the rules to nab a guy who had had it coming. Kana`ina didn’t know I saw him do it.

  “He did it again a couple months later. Another haole. Just drunk. Didn’t make any sense to me. The whole incident stank. He knew I saw him that time. But I never brought it up. The next time he did it—routine traffic stop with some punk teenagers—I realized he was singling out white folks. I confronted him. Not about the haole thing but his habit in general. I told him, ‘I can’t ignore it anymore. I don’t want to see it again, or I’ll have to report you.’ He seemed more ashamed than pissed. But he was playing me.

  “Next time he did it, I wasn’t the only witness. We were at a club in Wailuku. Hot tip about a big deal going down. We were backup for a DEA gig. Patting folks down in the club. Lights had just come on. I’ll never forget it; it was so obvious. He had this bag of snow palmed in his hand. He reached around into this white guy’s aloha shirt and dropped the bag right into his breast pocket. The club owner saw it happen. And the haole protested, of course.

  “Accusations started flying. The DEA guys got involved. Took down the witnesses’ stories. Kana`ina denied everything. Put on a great act. They came to me, asked me what I saw. They knew I was right next to him. The haole was begging me to be honest. Kana`ina’s eyes were on me like a snake’s.

  “He had just bought a house, Lei. Had a mortgage. An unpaid suspension would have ruined him. I knew the club owner was rotten. The haole had dirty written all over him, too. I know that’s beside the point, Mo`opuna. But at the time it all came together in my mind the wrong way. I vouched for my moke partner.

  “ ‘These hot-rod junkies’ll make anything up,’ I told the DEA guy.”

  Grandpa pauses. I don’t dare move. Finally he continues. “Later Kana`ina said, ‘I owe you one big.’ I nodded, but I was sick to death. I quit the force that year. Moved back to Big Island.”

  He grows silent, looking at the giant moon. He finally meets my eyes. I almost gasp. They’re filled with such shame. My tūtū isn’t capable of that look—because he’s incapable of doing anything to be ashamed of. But there it is. I look away.

  “I’m sorry, Mo`opuna,” he says.

  I startle. “Why are you apologizing to me?”

  “I’ve never apologized to anyone for that. You’re the first person I’ve ever told.”

  I don’t know what to say. I should reassure him that his story doesn’t change the way I think about him. Tell him I love him and always will. Hug him. But I’m silent and still. I’m shocked, not by his admission of guilt but that he would confide such a burden to me. Finally I try: “What you did meant he didn’t kill Dad. You saved his life. It was all meant to be.”

  He shakes his head. “Yeah. No. Not true. If I had stood my ground, done the right thing, Kana`ina would have been kicked off the force. Instead he moved up the ranks, got himself a sweet little throne in Hana just in time for the world to end. He never would have been there to hunt you two down in the first place if I had done the right thing that night. And that haole—he did time for possession. That’s on me, too.”

  “You made a mistake, Tūtū. A big one, even. But you atoned for it, didn’t you? Like a cat! You landed on your feet. Nine lives. Yeah? You’ve been a spiritual counselor for so many people. For me. You changed your life. You know the path. You’ve found pono.”

  “I thought so,” he says. “I hoped so. But here we are. Kana`ina is looking for me. My ghosts have finally caught up. This whole family’s at risk.”

  “But what does any of that have to do with now? Why is he looking for you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I study Grandpa. The way he said that—his inflection, the thoughtful look in his eyes—I begin to wonder if he does know. “Tūtū?” I ask carefully. “Is there something else you’re not—?”

  Tami and Keali`i plop down beside us, all smiles. “There’s a group by the river with kālua pig!” Keali`i says. He cups his hands around his mouth and shouts, “Kau kau!” out to Mom and Aukina. Tami laughs.

  I look to Grandpa. Our little secret? his eyes ask.

  Our little secret, I nod back. What trust he has in me. I feel so sorry for him, my heart does a flip. He’s been haunted by this since long before I was born. It has shaped him profoundly. And no one knows about it but me, him, and…the sheriff of Hana. I want to shout, Grandpa, let it go! Instead I squeeze his shoulder as I pass him. “Love you.” It’s not enough, but it’s all I can do.

  The others race ashore and dry off. We rumble as a herd to the bank of the river, where the church congregation from earlier are hoisting an entire cooked pig out of an imu, a pit oven, and are happily sharing what they have. We’re served moist, tender shredded pork in bowls of plaited coconut fronds. Other surfers wander over, and the church musicians strum their ukuleles, and we’re suddenly in the middle of an impromptu beach luau. My stomach screams for more with each bite of greasy pork. In the imu our cooks have also steamed sweet potatoes, bananas, breadfruit, and some fish. Turns out they’ve been here preparing the imu and the roast all day long. They have no way to keep their leftovers, so they offer the feast around without any conditions. We’re so pleased with our luck and the generosity of our hosts that we completely lose track of time.

  Finally Aukina turns to me. “I better go. Roofing at five a.m. See you next week.” I apologize that we can’t offer to help with the project, but he understands. “You guys get your feet back under you. Focus on your big job. There will always be plenny projects at our place needing help.” He gives me a quick kiss good-bye. I sizzle with pins and needles, but Tami, Keali`i, Grandpa, Mom, and even Kai are watching. Aukina takes off on his bike in the dark.

  We return to our truck on the bluff, a healthy portion of pork and vegetables wrapped in a large banana leaf “to-go box” for Dad, our bellies full and our spirits recharged.

  * * *

  Late Tuesday night I witness a live nuclear power plant meltdown. Britain. Along the southeastern coast. A great gray cloud spreads to the west, over London, reaching for Ireland. It’s the third plant I’ve seen go belly-up in the UK this week. A good sign.

  I’m over the North Pole, dazzling ribbons of aurora borealis swirling above northern Russia and the Koreas, but the Orchid centers above the bland radioactive cloud creeping over England. I feel her draw up the radiation, like a leaf summoning water from the roots of a tree, and her wispy petals and her gelatinous core quake with pleasure. She absorbs radiation from anywhere on the globe no matter her position—her aura and her folds go far beyond the visible spectrum, enveloping all the Earth just as the flames of a fireplace warm a whole room. But she can pu
ll—as if through a syringe—at a specific source of radiation, too.

  I feel that this plan is working; so many plants have released their venom in the past week—it cannot be coincidence. But so many more are left. I have to wait for them all. If just one facility goes supernova after the Star Flowers depart, so much lasting damage could be done. After all the suffering I’ve caused to keep the greater evil at bay, I would hate to miss a few dozen plants at the very end. After all, the world won’t magically return to normal the day the Star Flowers leave; it’ll take months yet, maybe even years, for society to reassemble. And then there’s the question of nuclear weapons. Dad once likened the Orchid’s ability to clean up radiation to a sponge absorbing water. Ice would have to melt before the sponge could act. I don’t think I can do anything about nuclear weapons—until after they explode. But thousands are out there. Someone controls each one of them, right? When the Orchid drifts away and power is restored, do I lose the ability to render warheads dead on arrival?

  So many reasons to keep the Orchid here.

  Stop, I tell myself. I can’t be a guardian angel for everyone, forever.

  Leave. Go. Now.

  The other voice! I draw back, cringe, as if I’ve been relaxing in a dark bath and then realize someone else is in the room with me. In the sudden stillness I listen, desperate to learn something. Man? Woman? Child? What part of the world? All of these traits are filtered out by the time I receive the thoughts. But there’s no doubt: someone is here with me. I’m not having a grand mal, either.

  This voice is getting stronger.

  Who are you?

  It retreats.

  Don’t go. I need to talk to you.

  Then it’s true. A person is doing the Morse code.

  Who are you?

  Who are you?

  I bristle. I’m the Flower of Heaven. She’s mine. I will ask the questions.