Gift of the Golden Mountain

by Shirley Streshinsky

  "He's doing remarkably well," Kit said, regaining her composure. "The doctors can't believe the progress he is making. Everyone is working very hard, Philip hardest of all. He's right here—would you like to speak to him?"

  "No," Karin came back, too quickly, "I mean, please, just tell him we are thinking about him. I hope he enjoys the 'daily news' we've been sending. It's probably a little boring for the readers, listening to all the everyday details of our lives—it was Thea's idea to write something every day, and send it off each Monday."

  "It's a great idea. Philip says it makes him feel a part of your lives. He told me this morning to let you know that he thinks you are making the right decisions about Thea's school work. He doesn't want to influence her too much, but he would very much like to see her go to Stanford next year even if that means staying on at Punahou to go to summer school. He thought you might like to consider getting her a math tutor to help with the calculus. But he says the decision is yours, because you are right there and know all the variables."

  "Good grief, Kit!" Karin laughed, "He must be getting well—that sounds just like Philip!"

  Kit put the receiver back in its cradle carefully, letting her hands linger on it for a few moments before she turned and stepped into Philip's field of vision. She took his hand in both of hers and held it while she repeated Hayes's message.

  "I think my darling May found what she was looking for," Kit said, "I do believe she is free now."

  She felt the tears rolling down her face, felt them fall onto her hands, watched them merge and roll into the crevices between her hand and his. Then she stood motionless, holding her breath.

  "Philip?" she said. "My God, Philip. Was that you?" One blink. Yes. And again, his hand pressing hers, stronger now.

  "Oh, dear God," she cried out, "Philip, your hand. You moved your hand."

  She was laughing then, and crying, all of the morning's emotion came streaming out of her as she stood, holding his hand, feeling as if her world was expanding in great, glorious bursts, feeling as if she had been waiting all her life for this one exquisite moment.

  Karin sat at the kitchen table, brushing crumbs from a package of Pepperidge Farm peanut butter cookies into separate little mounds on the table cloth. She was thinking that the time had come to take stock. Now that May's odyssey was over. Now that Philip was progressing with Kit's help. Now that Thea had got her balance and soon would be able to walk on her own. Now that Dan had found his niche. Now that everybody she loved best in the world was in place, what about Karin? Where did she fit in the grand scheme of things?

  She walked out to the lanai and squinted in the morning light. The whole of Honolulu lay beneath her, high rises glinting in the distance, planes coasting across the sky toward the airport, a vast and silent panorama. Nowhere, she thought, I fit nowhere. She leaned far over the railing, looking down into the treetops on the steep hillside below. A "Be Still" tree, the woman who rented her the house had called them. They say it was because you had to be still while walking the horses through them. She wished she could be still; she wanted to feel calm again, peaceful. Useful. In place. What does it mean, "in place"? She wasn't sure. Kit had taken over, for now. Rising to the challenge, pure Kit. But decisions would have to be made for the long term. She did not like to think about the long term.

  The day lay before her, flaccid and empty. She would have to get out of the house, away from the telephone. The wait for Hayes's call had exhausted her, the wait and the dread. She had tried to prepare herself, had told herself, "Something is going to go wrong," so it wouldn't be such a shock. But nothing had gone wrong . . . best now not to tempt the gods, best to get out. Still, she did not move because she did not know where she would go. Yesterday she had spent the better part of the day roaming the Ala Moana shopping mall, losing herself in the maze of cheap shops and food stalls that smelled of caramel corn and rancid oil and teriyaki chicken. She had bought a toaster oven that she did not need and did not want because an overweight salesman had spent so much time describing how it worked. All because of the telephone, of the bad news she knew was coming.

  The phone rang. She turned to look at it, startled and afraid. What is happening to me, she thought, when the ringing of a telephone terrifies me?

  The woman's voice on the line was hesitant. "I'm calling from the carnival committee—you know about the Punahou school carnival next week?"

  Karin laughed with relief. "I've heard of nothing but the carnival for days . . . Thea's working in the ring-toss booth. Is there anything I can do to help?"

  "Oh, if only you would," the woman blurted, rushing into a complicated explanation of how the chairman of the fine arts booth had broken her hip and was in the hospital, how it was an especially important job because the banks and several businesses always make large art purchases at the carnival, to benefit the school. How she hoped Karin could see why they would need someone who knows something about art to take over, which wasn't going to be easy at the last minute. But then they heard that Karin had a degree in art history, and she would be absolutely saving their lives if she would agree to take over the job. Even if it means doing what they know is impossible—becoming familiar with the local artists and the works they were donating, all before the weekend.

  Within the hour Karin was on her way downtown with a list of artists and local galleries. At dinner that night, Thea said, "You did all that in one afternoon? You don't waste time, do you?"

  "It's awful, having time to waste . . . it's the worst thing that can happen to you," Karin answered. "I needed something to do, and this is perfect. Tomorrow I'm covering the museums and the Art Institute. I'll at least have a notion of what's going on in the local art scene."

  Thea concentrated on cutting her asparagus spears. "You should probably see the art collection at Alex's house. That was his mother's thing—art. She was a docent at the Art Academy, stuff like that. She bought from local artists when they were just starting out. Alex says her collection is worth a lot now."

  "I thought you weren't seeing Alex," Karin answered, working to keep her voice even.

  "I'm not seeing him," Thea shot back. "I do talk to him—or is that not allowed?"

  Karin looked at her. She did not want a struggle, not tonight. "Freedom of speech—a constitutional right, isn't it?" she tried to joke.

  She arrived at the school grounds early and made her way along the midway with its food and skill booths to the arts and crafts section. The art booth had been set up next to one that sold leis. She stopped to look at the exquisite, small circlets of fresh flowers. One of the ladies told her, "These are haku leis—that means 'head'—try this one on, the pink plumeria matches your dress perfectly."

  She was wearing a traditional Mexican festival dress of soft white cotton, the bodice lavishly embroidered in shades of pink and rose. She positioned the lei on her head, looked in the mirror, and thought: May's right, I've reverted to flower-childhood. She laughed; the woman in the booth joined her, saying, "You look like a Botticelli angel—it's perfect."

  She was organizing the canvases, and didn't notice him until he coughed and said, "I'm here to help."

  He was not tall, but he had the look of a large man, perhaps because of the way he stood—very erect, his feet firmly planted on the ground, or because his face and arms were bronzed by the sun and that made them seem, somehow, powerful.

  "I'm Karin Ward," she said, her hand out to him, "I'm pinchhitting for Mrs. Purvis."

  He lowered his head and rubbed the back of his neck in a gesture at once awkward and appealing. "That means you're Thea Ward's mother?" he said.

  "Her stepmother."

  "It was my son who behaved badly at your house. I'm Paul Hollowell. I should have called you . . ."

  A woman in a flowered muumuu sailed by, calling out, "Paul, you came! Exactly what I needed—a miracle! Introduce yourselves and I'll be back in a few minutes."

  "Who was that?" Karin asked.

  "Jeannie Bremer—
she's in charge of this thing. I'm sorry but I don't know the first thing about art—you're going to have to give me my orders."

  Karin thought about Philip and Dan, and now Paul Hollowell and Alex, and wondered again how fathers and sons could be such opposites.

  By the time Jeannie Bremer came back they had hung the best of the oils, and had organized the watercolors and sketches and lithos. "This is amazing," the woman burbled, "just absolutely amazing, what a team the two of you make . . . why have you avoided us all these years, Paul? If we had known what a dynamo you were . . ."

  "Whoa, Jeannie," he said, "slow down. I'm just doing what Karin tells me to do."

  "Well, keep telling him Karin," the woman said, "you're doing good, guys," waving her arms like a cheerleader before breezing away again, clipboard held high.

  "I guess it takes that kind of energy to fund-raise successfully," Karin said, trying to keep a straight face. "I gather you've never done it before?"

  He was working to pry a nail out of a casing, and didn't say anything for a while. She started to turn away when he spoke. "My wife died last year. She used to organize this booth. I thought I should try to help out. . ."

  She started to tell him that she was sorry about his wife, but a balding man in a fluorescent Hawaiian shirt was standing in front of the booth, hands on hips, surveying them. "I don't believe my eyes," he said in a high-pitched voice, "the great Paul Hollowell . . . can it be? Will wonders never cease?"

  "What say, Jimmy?" he answered laconically, his attention on the nail he was pounding.

  Jimmy wasn't deterred. "You always were a lucky son of a bitch," he said. "Who's this gorgeous blonde and why have you been hiding her?"

  When he left, Karin waited a bit before asking, "What makes you the 'great' Paul Hollowell?"

  "Jimmy's an ass," he answered, "one of those guys who graduated from Yale but never got out of high school." The conversation was interrupted by their first customer of the day, a man from the Bank of Hawaii who bought, in businesslike fashion, four large oils and several lithographs.

  For the next two hours the booth was crowded with buyers. She fielded questions and took their money while he packaged and carried. During one short lull, he went for Chinese food. They sat on packing crates to eat, but he was unable to take more than a few bites before some old school friend saw him and stopped to talk.

  Thea came by with Alex, his hand casually positioned on the small of her back in a carefully choreographed show of possession. "How nice to see you working with my father," Alex said, all polished politeness. "You've probably discovered that he's a connoisseur of boats, not art."

  Karin answered with what she hoped was a frosty smile. "As a matter of fact, I haven't." Seeing the father and son together, she was struck again by their differences: Alex, dark and lithe and, Karin couldn't help but think, deceptive, and the father, fair and solid, measured. Turning to Thea, she said, "You'd better get going if you're to make your lesson on time. I'll pick you up at the Y at four."

  Smiling, Alex grabbed Thea by the hand and pulled her away. Paul Hollowell said, "Do you want me to make him stay away from her?"

  She looked to see if he was serious.

  "No," she said, "I can't do that."

  "I didn't ask you to do it. I will."

  A woman who had been browsing gave them a dark look and, in a voice filled with exasperation said, "Do you suppose I could get somebody to help me?"

  "Let's talk later," Karin told him, "our relief was supposed to be here ten minutes ago."

  Twenty minutes later two women appeared, arms full of purchases, chattering and talking in concert: "Paul, we're late—how terrible to do this to you of all people. But we've been buying out the place . . . look." They dismissed Karin with easy smiles, and insisted Paul look at gifts they had bought their husbands and sons. Karin busied herself with customers, and watched from the periphery. They have him cornered, she thought, this man has eluded them, and now they are closing in.

  If she didn't mind walking a little, he said, he knew of a place where they could talk without being interrupted. She followed his lead, slowing when someone would call out to him in case he should want to stop and talk. He shrugged them off awkwardly—Philip would have done it with style, Karin thought, but Paul Hollowell didn't have that kind of easy grace. Words did not come easily to him. Still, she noticed, none of the people he brushed off seemed either surprised or offended.

  They settled on a bench hidden in a small grove of trees on the edge of the campus. "What is this?" she asked, opening the paper bag he had bought from one of the booths.

  "Hot malasadas—a kind of Portuguese donut. These aren't the best I've ever had—the best are made by an old guy who has a hole-in-the-wall down by my boatyard."

  She bit carefully into the deep-fried confection, chewed, and smiled.

  "Okay?" he asked, grinning when she nodded. They sipped coffee and ate the malasadas, concentrating on them until he brushed his hands together and said, "I think we should talk about the kids. Alex and Thea. When I said I'd tell Alex to stay away from her if you want me to, I meant it. He shouldn't have been at your house that night, and he shouldn't have given her pacalolo."

  "Pacalolo?"

  "It means 'crazy weed'—marijuana."

  She nodded. A flower petal brushed her face as it fell and she remembered she was wearing the head lei. Reaching to take it off, it became tangled in her hair. He lifted his hand as if to help her, but pulled it back without touching her. To cover his embarrassment, she asked: "Did you and your wife both go to school here?"

  "We graduated in the class of '51," he answered. "Ancient history."

  Her mind went blank. She knew there was something she had to say, but it wouldn't come to her. She took a sip of coffee to cover up, to give him time to fill the silence. He said nothing. He was, she guessed, the sort of man who lived easy in silence.

  "I'm sorry about your wife," she finally said. "It must be difficult."

  He looked at her. "For you, too. Alex told me you lost your husband."

  She stared at him. "Is that what Thea told Alex?"

  It was his turn to look perplexed. "Yes, I guess she must have. He said it was a stroke . . ."

  "Thea's father is not dead," she said, firmly, "he is paralyzed—but he is not dead." And then she blurted, "If you are wondering what the hell I'm doing here when my husband is lying paralyzed in a hospital in California, all I can tell you is I am wondering the same thing myself."

  He looked at the ground. "I'm sorry," she went on, sitting up straight to pull herself together. "You wanted to know if I want you to forbid your son to see Thea. The answer is no. The reason I'm here in the Islands is because of Thea . . . she was beginning to have very serious emotional problems. She wanted—and her psychiatrist felt she needed—some distance from her father, geographical as well as emotional. She is having a very shaky time of it . . . her mother died two years ago, of cancer, and now her father is badly hurt . . . It's about as much as one young girl can handle. She needed to get away, and there didn't seem to be much I could do but come with . . ." She stopped, pressed her lips together hard. "No," she said, "that's not true. Both of us needed to get away. It was getting to be too much for me, too, and my husband said we should go. There are people who are taking care of him, who know how to help him better than I can . . ."

  "Are there any other kids, besides Thea?" he asked.

  She swallowed, nodded. "Yes. A boy, Dan. He's just eighteen—in the Marine Corps. He'll be coming through next week on his way to Vietnam."

  "Good for him," he said. "And good for you, that he's missed the hot war."

  She looked at him steadily. "We didn't want him to go to Vietnam at all, and we didn't want him to join the marines at age eighteen."

  "Why not?"

  She put her hand on her head, attempted a grin. "You were a marine?"

  "When I was nineteen. Served in Korea. What is it you're worried about?"

  S
he straightened her back, tried to think. "Mostly, I'm just worried. He and his father don't get along. That makes Thea and me his main supports, and both of us are pretty wobbly right now. . ."

  He was clenching and unclenching his fist, as if his fingers were stiff. "The marines might be a good place for him, then. I know it sounds pretty corny, but there really is a sense of . . . a feeling of . . ."

  "Esprit?" she tried to help him. "Comradeship?"

  "I guess that's about it," he said. "That must sound pretty simpleminded, with all the antiwar feeling, the talk about Vietnam being a 'bad' war. The thing is, all wars are bad, but that doesn't make the men who fight them bad."

  It was a long speech for him, she knew that. "You're right about that, of course," she said, "I didn't think we should ever have been in Vietnam. I mourn all the men who died there, and I'm thankful that my Dan won't have to go into combat."

  "Your Dan?" he asked.

  "Yes. In a way he is mine . . ."

  Carefully: "You can't be old enough to be his mother."

  Simply: "No. I'm thirty-one, but I feel like his mother. I love him, and I worry about him, and I don't know what to do to help him or Thea . . ." She tried to think. "What scares me is that Thea would tell Alex that her father is dead. Her therapist said . . ." She looked up, saw him struggling to understand, looked down again, and went on, "You see, she is very, very fragile now, emotionally, and I have to be careful not to push her too hard. If you forbid him to see her, she will know it came from me, and that will make things worse. Your son is very appealing to the girls, you know—and Thea's never really had a boyfriend. She's overwhelmed by it all—I wish she weren't, because I'm not sure of him. I'm sorry to say that to you, I know he's your son."

  "I'm not sure of him either," he surprised her by answering, "that's why I'm here today. It's why I've taken his car away from him for a month, and I'm making him work regular hours at the boat shop. He doesn't like it, but he's doing it."