Hawaii

by James A. Michener

  In 1946, therefore, except for the death of his son, and the slow decline of his adored wife, Hoxworth Hale was truly as good a man as he would ever be, but those two bereavements oppressed him and prevented his enjoyment of the last powerful flowering of his talents. He therefore turned his whole attention to the government of the Hoxworth & Hale empire, and as the critical year started he relied more and more upon two stalwart resolves: “I will not give labor an inch, not another inch, especially when it’s led by Japanese who don’t really understand American ways. And we have got to keep Hawaii as it is. I will not have mainland firms like Gregory’s elbowing their way in here and disrupting our Hawaiian economy.” Behind him, to back up these two mighty resolves, he had the entire resources of H & H, totaling some $260,000,000 and all the managerial strength of J & W, now worth more than $185,000,000. Lesser outfits like Hewlett and Son had to string along, for all saw in Hoxworth Hale the cool and able man, one above the passions of the moment, who could be depended upon to preserve their way of life.

  Only in his understanding of what was happening should Hoxworth Hale be considered a Golden Man. Racially he was mostly haole. Emotionally he was all haole, and he thought of himself in that way. Actually, of course, he was one-sixteenth Hawaiian, inherited through the Alii Nui Noelani, who was his great-great-grandmother. He was also part-Arabian, for one of his European ancestors had married during the Crusades, part-African through an earlier Roman ancestor, part-Central Asian from an Austrian woman who had married a Hungarian in 1603, and part-American Indian through a cute trick that an early Hale’s wife had pulled on him in remote Massachusetts. But he was known as pure haole, whatever that means.

  In 1946 Hong Kong Kee was five years older than Hoxworth Hale, which made him exactly fifty-three, whereas his grandmother Nyuk Tsin was ninety-nine. This was not a particularly good year for Hong Kong, because in following his grandmother’s urgent advice—“Buy every piece of land that frightened haoles want to sell”—he had somewhat overextended himself and frankly did not know where he was going to find tax money to protect the large parcels of land on which he was sitting. Real estate had not been doing well; the anticipated boom in tourists had not yet materialized; and there was a prospect of long strikes in both sugar and pineapple. He had seven children in school, five in mainland colleges and two at Punahou, and for a while he considered abruptly cutting off their allowances and telling the boys to get to work and help pay taxes, but Nyuk Tsin would not hear of this. Her counsel was simple: “Every child must have the very best education possible. Every piece of land must be held as long as possible. If this means no automobiles and no expensive food, good! We won’t ride and we won’t eat!” The Kee hui was therefore on very short rations, and Hong Kong sent a form letter to all the Kees studying on the mainland—his own and others: “I will be able to pay only your tuition and books. If you are running an automobile, sell it and go to work. If you are faced by the prospect of spending two or even three more years in college under this plan, spend it, but for the time being there can be no more money from Hawaii!” The decision that hurt him most involved his youngest daughter, Judy. “You have to cut out private singing lessons,” he told her, and it was sad to see her obey.

  And then, when things were already difficult, Hong Kong surreptitiously heard that a well-known firm of mainland private detectives was investigating him. He picked up a rumor of this from one of the Ching clan who had been asked a good many questions about real-estate deals, and the interrogation had made no sense until a few days later when Lew Ching suddenly thought: “My God! Every one of those deals involved Hong Kong Kee!” And he felt obligated to lay this circumstantial evidence before his friend.

  Hong Kong’s first reaction was, “The income tax people are after me!” But reflection assured him that this was ridiculous, for certainly the government never used private detective agencies when they had such good ones of their own. This conclusion, however, left him more bewildered than ever, and gradually he came to suspect that The Fort had deduced that he might be overextended and was collecting evidence which would enable them to squeeze him out, once and for all. He judged that the mastermind was probably Hoxworth Hale.

  His first substantial bit of evidence came, curiously, not from the Chinese, who were adroit in piecing together fragments of puzzles, but from his friend Kamejiro Sakagawa, whom he had helped establish in the supermarket business. Squat little Kamejiro bustled in one afternoon to announce bluntly: “Hong Kong, you bettah watch out, I t’ink you in big trouble. Dick from da mainland come to dis rock, ast me about you, how I git my land. Bimeby latah he go into da building H & H.”

  “This detective, he has no reason to bother you, Kamejiro,” Hong Kong assured him. “Our deal is perfectly good.”

  “Whassamatta, dey ketch you from taxes?”

  “Mine are okay. How about yours?”

  “Mine okay too,” Kamejiro assured him.

  “Then don’t you worry, Kamejiro. Let me worry. This has to do only with me.”

  “You in special trouble?” the Japanese asked.

  “Everybody’s always in trouble,” Hong Kong assured him.

  But what precise trouble he himself was in, Hong Kong could not discover. In succeeding days he caught various reports of the detectives and their work; all aspects of his varied business life were under surveillance. He never spotted any of the detectives himself, and then suddenly they vanished, and he heard no more about them. All he knew was: “Somebody knows almost as much about my business as I do. And they’re reporting to Hoxworth Hale.” He did not sleep easily.

  In another sense, these were exciting times, for unless everything that Hong Kong and his grandmother had concluded from their studies was false, Hawaii had to be on the verge of startling expansion. Airplanes, no longer required for warfare, were going to ferry thousands of tourists to Hawaii, and many new hotels would be required. On the day that the boom started, the builders would have to come to Hong Kong, for he had the land, and he felt like a superb runner on the eve of an Olympics which would test him against athletes whom he had not previously encountered: he was a good runner, he was in tense condition, and he was willing to trust the morrow’s luck. Even so, he took the precaution of discussing the detective mystery with his grandmother, and she pointed out to Hong Kong: “These are the years when we must sit tight. Wait, wait. That’s always very difficult to do. Any fool can engage in action, but only the wise man can wait. It seems to me that if someone is spending so much money to investigate you, either he fears you very much, which is good, or he is weighing the prospects of joining you, which could be better. Therefore what you must do is wait, wait. Let him make the first move. If he is going to fight you, each day that passes makes you stronger. If he is going to join you, each day that you survive makes the cost to him a little greater. Wait.”

  So through most of 1946 Hong Kong waited, but without the confidence his grandmother commanded. Each day’s mail tortured him, for he would sit staring at the long envelopes, wondering what bad news they brought; and he dreaded cables. But as he waited, he gathered strength, and as the year ended and his mind grew clearer and his financial position stronger, he began to resemble the Golden Man of whom the sociologists had spoken.

  Hong Kong thought of himself as pure Chinese, for his branch of the family had married only Hakka girls, and whereas there were a good many Kees with Hawaiian and Portuguese and Filipino blood, he had none, a fact of which he was quietly proud. Of course, from past adventures of the Kee hui Hong Kong’s ancestors had picked up a good deal of Mongolian blood, and Manchurian, and Tartar, plus a little Japanese during the wars of the early 1600’s, plus some Korean via an ancestor who had traveled in that peninsula in 814, augmented by a good deal of nondescript inheritance from tribes who had wandered about southern China from the year 4000 B.C. on, but nevertheless he thought of himself as pure Chinese, whatever that means.

  In 1946 young Shigeo Sakagawa was twenty-three years old
, and now a full captain in the United States army. He was five feet six inches tall and weighed a lean 152 pounds. He did not wear glasses and was considerably better co-ordinated than his stocky and somewhat awkward peasant father. He had a handsome face with strong, clear complexion and very good teeth, but his most conspicuous characteristic was a quick intellect which had marked him in whatever military duties he had been required to perform. The three citations that accompanied his army medals spoke of courage beyond the call of duty, but they were really awards for extraordinary ability to anticipate what was about to happen.

  In the memorable victory parade down Kapiolani Boulevard, Captain Shigeo Sakagawa marched in the third file, behind the flag bearers and the colonel. His feet, hardened from military life, strode over the asphalt briskly, while his shoulders, accustomed to heavy burdens, were pulled back. This brought his chin up, so that his slanted Japanese eyes were forced to look out upon the community in which they had not previously been welcome. But when he heard the thundering applause, and saw from the corner of his eye his bent mother and his stocky, honest little father, accepted at last, he felt that the struggle had been a good one. Tadao was dead in Italy, and Minoru the stalwart tackle was buried in France. Goro was absent in Japan helping direct the occupation, and the family would never be together again. The Sakagawas had paid a terrible price to prove their loyalty, but it had been worth it. When the marchers were well past the spot where the elder Sakagawas and other Japanese were weeping with joy, the parade reached the old Iolani Palace, seat of Hawaii’s government, and for the first time it looked to Shig Sakagawa like a building which a Japanese might enter, just like anyone else. “This is my town,” he thought as he marched.

  But when he reached home after the parade and saw the photographs of dead Tad and Minoru on the wall, he covered his face with his hands and muttered, “If we Japanese are at last free, it was you fellows who did it. Jesus, what a price!”

  He was therefore embarrassed when his father, still fascinated by military life, fingered his medals and said in English, “Like I tell b’fore, dey got no soldiers mo bettah Japanese.”

  “I wasn’t brave, Pop. I just happened to see what was going to happen.”

  “S’pose you saw, how come you not run away?” Kamejiro asked.

  “I was Japanese, so I had to stay,” Shig explained. “Too much at stake. I swallowed my fear and for this they gave me medals.”

  “All Japan is proud of you,” Kamejiro said in Japanese.

  “I’m glad the emperor feels that way,” Shig laughed, “because I’m on my way to help him govern Japan.”

  Shigeo’s mother screamed in Japanese, “You’re not going away to war again, are you? Goro’s already in Japan, and I pray every night.”

  “There’s no war!” her son explained warmly, clutching her affectionately by the arm. “I’ll be in no danger. Neither will Goro.”

  “No war?” Mrs. Sakagawa asked, startled. “Oh, Shigeo! Haven’t you heard? Mr. Ishii says …”

  “Mother, don’t bother me with what that crazy Mr. Ishii dreams up.”

  Nevertheless, Mrs. Sakagawa summoned her daughter and Mr. Ishii, and after the wiry little labor leader had carefully inspected all the doors to be sure no haoles were spying, he pulled down the shades and whispered in Japanese, “What I told you last week is true, Kamejiro-san. Under no circumstances should you allow a second son to go to Japan. He will be killed, just like Goro. For everything we have heard is a lie. Japan is winning the war and may invade Hawaii at any moment.”

  Shigeo thought his brain had become unhinged, and he caught Reiko’s hand, asking, “Sister, do you believe your husband’s nonsense?”

  “Don’t call it nonsense!” Mr. Ishii stormed in Japanese. “You have been fed a great collection of lies. Japan is winning the war and is accumulating strength.”

  “Reiko!” her brother insisted. “Do you believe this nonsense?”

  “You’ll have to forgive my husband,” the dutiful wife explained. “He hears such strange reports at the meetings …”

  “What meetings?” Shigeo demanded.

  That night Mr. Ishii and his sister showed him. They took him to a small building west of Nuuanu where a meeting was in progress, attended by elderly Japanese. A fanatical religious leader, recently out of a concentration camp, was shouting in Japanese, “What they tell you about Hiroshima is all lies. The city was not touched. Tokyo was not burned. Our troops are in Singapore and Australia. Japan is more powerful than ever before!”

  The audience listened intently, and Shigeo saw his brother-in-law, Mr. Ishii, nodding profoundly. At this moment Shigeo unfortunately tugged at his sister’s sleeve, and the speaker saw him. “Ah!” he shouted. “I see we have a spy in our midst. A dirty dog of the enemy. You, Mrs. Ishii? Is he trying to tell you that Japan lost the war? Don’t you believe him! He has been bought by the Americans! I tell you, he is a liar and a spy. Japan won the war!”

  Against his own intelligence, Shigeo had to admit that many of the audience not only believed this crazy religious maniac, but they wanted to believe. When the meeting ended, many of the old people smiled sadly at Shigeo, who had criminally fought against Japan, and they hoped that when the emperor’s troops landed they would deal kindly with him, for he had probably been seduced into his traitorous action. Many boys in Hawaii had been so tricked.

  In a daze Shigeo started homeward. He wanted no more to do with Mr. Ishii and the pathetic old fools, but when he had walked some distance, he changed his mind and caught a bus that carried him down into the heart of Honolulu, and after some speculation as to what he should do, he marched into the police station and asked to see one of the detectives. The haole knew him and congratulated him on his medals, but Shig laughed and said, “What I’m going to tell you, you may take them away.”

  “What’s up?”

  “You ever hear of the Katta Gumi Society? The Ever-Victorious Group?”

  “You mean the Japan-Won screwballs? Yeah, we keep a fairly close watch on them.”

  “I just attended a meeting. Captain, I’m shook.”

  “The little but back of the old mission school?”

  “Yes.”

  “We check that regularly. Tony, did we have a man at the mission but tonight?”

  “We didn’t bother tonight,” the assistant replied.

  “These people are out of their minds,” Shig protested.

  “It’s pathetic,” the detective agreed. “Poor old bastards, they were so sure Japan couldn’t be licked that they believe whatever these agitators tell ’em. But they don’t do any harm.”

  “Aren’t you going to arrest them?” Shig asked.

  “Hell no,” the detective laughed. “We got six groups in Honolulu we check on regularly, and the Japan-Won’s give us the least trouble. One group wants to murder Syngman Rhee. One wants to murder Chiang Kai-shek. One dupes old women out of all their money by predicting the end of the world on the first of each month. Last year we had one couple that prepared for the second coming of Christ on the first day of eleven succeeding months. They finally came to us and said that maybe something was wrong. So your crazy Japanese are only part of a pattern.”

  “But how can they believe … All the newspaper stories and newsreels? The men who were there?”

  “Shig,” the detective said, plopping his hands upright on the desk. “How can you believe for eleven successive months that Jesus Christ is coming down the Nuuanu Pali? You can be fooled once, I grant, but not eleven times.”

  When the time came for Shigeo to sail to his new job with General MacArthur in Japan, his mother wept and said, “If there is fighting when you get to Tokyo, don’t get off the ship, Shigeo.” Then, recalling more important matters, she told him, “Don’t marry a northern girl, Shigeo. We don’t want any zu-zu-ben in our family. And I’d be careful of Tokyo girls, too. They’re expensive. Your father and I would be very unhappy if you married a Kyushu girl, because they don’t fit in with Hiroshima pe
ople. And under no circumstances marry an Okinawan, or anyone who might be an Eta. What would be best would be for you to marry a Hiroshima girl. Such girls you can trust. But don’t take one from Hiroshima City.”

  “I don’t think Americans will be welcomed in Hiroshima,” Shigeo said quietly.

  “Why not?” his mother protested.

  “After the bomb?” Shigeo asked.

  “Shigeo!” his mother replied in amazement. “Nothing happened to Hiroshima! Mr. Ishii assured me …”

  When Shig Sakagawa assembled with his Tokyo-bound outfit and marched through the streets of downtown Honolulu on his way to the transport that would take them to Yokohama, he was, without knowing it, a striking young man. He possessed a mind of steel, hardened in battle against both the Germans and the prejudices of his homeland. By personal will power he had triumphed against each adversary and had proved his courage as few men are required to do. No one recognized the fact that day, for then Shig was only twenty-three and had not yet acquired his lawyer’s degree from Harvard, but he was the forward cutting edge of a revolution that was about to break over Hawaii. He was stern, incorruptible, physically hard and fearless. More important, so far as revolutions go, he was well organized and alert.

  As he marched he passed, without either man’s knowing it, Hoxworth Hale, who was walking up Bishop Street on his way to The Fort, and if in that moment Hale had had the foresight to stop the parade and to enlist Shig Sakagawa on his side, The Fort would surely have been able to preserve its prerogatives. Furthermore, if Hale, as an official of the Republican Party, had conscripted Shig and half a hundred other young Japanese like him, Republicanism in Hawaii would have been perpetually insured, for by their traditional and conservative nature the Japanese would have made ideal Republicans, and a combination of haole business acumen and Japanese industry would have constituted a strength that no adversary could have broken. But it was then totally impossible for Hoxworth Hale even to imagine such a union, and as he walked past the parade he had the ungracious thought: “If I hear any more about the brave Japanese boys who won the war for us, I’ll vomit. Where’s my son Bromley? Where’s Harry Janders and Jimmy Whipple? They won the war, too, and they’re dead.” The crowd along Bishop Street cheered the Japanese boys, and the pregnant moment of history was lost. Hoxworth Hale went to The Fort and Shig Sakagawa went to Japan.