East Wind, Rain

by Caroline Paul

  -Here. Howard extended his hands and leaned the board toward Nishikaichi, who put out his fingers to grip the edges. It was heavier than Nishikaichi expected and he staggered as he took it from Howard.

  -No papa he‘e nalu in Japan? Howard said. He reached out and steadied it.

  Nishikaichi regained his balance sheepishly. He glanced at the surf. What had only moments before looked like a gentle roll of seawater had, to Nishikaichi, turned into a surly line of bared, gnashing teeth.

  -Lucky for you, it’s tiny, said Howard. He brought the nose down deftly and the board looked light again, as if it really could fly. He swiftly tucked the thick flank under his arm and, dragging the tail in the sand, walked into the water. Nishikaichi, empty-handed, followed slowly, lifting his knees high. He was secretly glad that he had shed his flight suit—the shirt and pants, though much too big, would be a little lighter in the water. He glanced back at Yoshio, whose arms were crossed and who was rocking back on his heels as if about to belly-laugh, which he might have, so relieved did he suddenly feel. Instead he said,

  -Howard won the surf contest this year.

  He wanted to reassure the nervous young man, and besides that, Yoshio felt unaccountably magnanimous today, a fondness for his neighbors, a camaraderie with the pilot, an eye for the languid beauty of this dusty island, a general feeling of being right with the world. His jaw was relaxed, his throat no longer felt as if it was being strangled by some unseen hand. He took two long, deep breaths. His fingers, which had fretted all week, felt wide and powerful, as if he could shake the hand of every Niihauan and squeeze just as hard each time. That’s a man, people would think as they dropped their arms reluctantly to their sides. This was what a decision could do, he decided. It settled the silt to the bottom and everything became clear. He felt light and relaxed right now and he wished suddenly that he could join the two in the waves, but he had never bothered to learn to surf, never thought about it really, just had always assumed that it was a sport of the natives and that he would look as foolish as the white man did if he tried. But now the young pilot wanted to do it and Yoshio didn’t think it would be so silly after all.

  Howard stood thigh deep in the water, waiting. He motioned for Nishikaichi to lie on the board and begin to paddle. Nishikaichi scooted himself warily onto the plank; for all its mass it felt suddenly tippy and delicate. The denim pants were like a million small shellfish that clung suddenly to his legs, making them heavy and stiff. With more ado than he wanted, a panicked splash or two and small strangled noises that escaped unaccountably from his throat, he was flat, and then his chin rested on the wood, his legs flayed in a wide V to stay balanced. He raked at the water in short, nervous strokes so that the board rocked from side to side and his hands sent up a large spray of water. Then the breaker rolled in, and as Howard turned in warning, it swamped him, throwing him underwater, from which he shot up sputtering, his hands pressed against his eyes to clear them. His first thought was of oxygen, and his second, in quick succession, was of the magnificent length of polished wood, which he had now lost.

  But, no, Howard had it and was lying prone, one foot slightly in the air, pulling at the water in long, certain strokes. Once past the surf break he drifted, and the large black board poked slightly skyward, shimmering. Nishikaichi had retreated to knee-deep water, his feet wide apart to stay his balance as the next breaker hit, more gently now. Nishikaichi calculated the distance between himself and the board, trying more to gain an accurate measurement of his faltering courage. He thought of how many short, water-splashed breaths it would take to reach Howard’s outstretched arm, assuming he outstretched it and didn’t look at him with that bemused, friendly, unhelpful expression.

  -Swim out, Nishikaichi-san. You’ll be fine.

  Yoshio had come up behind and now put a hand on Nishikaichi’s moon-white wrist. Soon it would be burned by the sun if he wasn’t careful, but Yoshio decided against worrying him about one more thing. Nishikaichi looked at him bitterly.

  -The sea is angry.

  Yoshio tried to think of something encouraging to tell the soldier, something about honor perhaps, but Nishikaichi had turned his head to Howard again, and pursed his lips in nervous concentration, swatting at his face to clear the dripping seawater. Howard himself now looked seaward and had begun, inexplicably, to paddle sideways. The ocean behind him lifted and darkened. Howard paddled harder now, and then straightened and began to windmill his arms rapidly and in cadence toward shore, and what had only seconds before been relaxed and certain began to look frantic. For a suspended moment Nishikaichi wondered if some terrible sea creature, or perhaps the submarine itself, was about to surface and Howard had seen its menacing shadow in the heave of the water as its bulk lumbered upward. The edge of the water behind him began to whiten and then to fray. Suddenly Howard was pitched forward on his board so that it looked as if he would somersault right off, and then, before Nishikaichi had a chance to exhale the breath he had pulled in sharply, Howard was standing. Standing. His arms had rocketed outward for balance and the white shirt he wore waggled in the wind like a sail. His legs, in bunched and dripping denim, were splayed as if to run, then canted drastically forward, a man tilted toward gravity and then past it, defying it. And he was skimming too, and this Nishikaichi couldn’t believe, as if he had suddenly gone from man to god in the blink of an eye and had summoned the great forces of the water and the wind to lay down at his feet and obey. His face was stiff with concentration as he came swiftly toward the shore-bound men like some kind of wind-driven tree limb.

  Sugoi, said Nishikaichi, his mouth agape and his eyes blinking rapidly. He had seen surfing pictures during his briefings, but nothing could’ve prepared him for the beauty and mystery of the real thing. Yoshio smiled. He had always liked to see his Hawaiian neighbors surf, and now, as he felt the newcomer’s fascination, Howard’s ride, still not over, looked especially enchanted. Part of it was the sheer illogic: how two massive components—a large man and a large tree-hewn plank—came together in a graceful synergy. Part was simply how man at once looked puny and powerful on the ocean, as if a delicate agreement had momentarily been struck with the forces of nature. And part, of course, was the balletic majesty as the surfer hydroplaned across the waves—Howard still held the glassy open chute and was zipping toward them, looking to Nishikaichi as if the white water at his tail was the churning smoke of some invisible engine and the crashing sound of the breaking wave the spit and whirl of unseen pistons. Yoshio understood suddenly why so many heiaus, religious temples, were built in which to pray for surf.

  -I can do that? said Nishikaichi. He looked at once afraid and excited. The surfboard and Howard were close now, almost to the place where Nishikaichi had been unceremoniously dumped, and suddenly Howard dropped to his belly and slowed. The power and speed went out of his board as if a wind had suddenly died. Howard paddled again, and neared the two men. He waved to Nishikaichi and then slipped into the water entirely and stood, holding the floating board with his fingertips, checking behind him for sudden waves.

  -Howard will help, Yoshio assured him. He was surprised by how it was the pilot who now lurched between confidence and fear. In turn, Yoshio seemed to have taken on his soldierly confidence. Last night he had made love to Irene with an energy he had not had in years. It had been over quickly, but still he had lain exhausted, half covering her. One hand was on her opposite elbow, where it was often carelessly slung during the rare times they slept in the same small bed, but now something new happened. His skin felt electric and he was suddenly aware of the veins, tentacular and full, running up her arms. They swung through thin slats that even in the dark he could see now—the white, porous coral of bones he had no name for. He could feel, under his own elbow, the knurls of her breast tissue, like the bark of some young, soft tree, and then the knot of her nipple, thistled with the smallest of bumps, each one precise and minute under his skin. The pleats and seams of her. The world itself a candid, geometric place
, not a whirl of fog and dust in his mind, leaving him disembodied, unmoored. He had obtained suddenly what Nishikaichi clearly already had—a certainty that his life was linear and with a meaning that he could not name but still felt solid, of mass. That was what a mission did: where Nishikaichi and the rest of youth got their blundering certainty and fearlessness. Now he had it too. Narrowing his world to destroying a plane and military papers had somehow grounded him. Niihau and his family would be saved. The incoming Japanese would spare the island, and treat him as their own.

  There was a chirping, twittering sound.

  -Mr. Kaleohano, said one of the young children at the shoreline. Let me.

  -You’re too old, Lily, Howard called back.

  -No! she cried, slapping the water angrily. Not too old yet.

  Hawaiian women used to surf, until Christianity came along and disapproved. Those that defied Christian mores could not defy their holokus and mu‘umu‘us, which became stiff and binding when immersed in water, and so the women stopped surfing, and swimming too. But all the children took rides on the heavy boards. They dropped their clothes at the shoreline and begged an adult to help push them into the water. But even Howard could see that Lily was becoming a woman, and it wouldn’t do for her to shed her clothes, especially not in front of the young male guest.

  -Lily, move aside.

  She crossed her small arms and set her mouth in the thinnest of lines. How boring it was to be a girl! And how much more boring it would be as a woman.

  -You’d let your son, she said.

  -That’s different.

  -Why? Lily had an inkling why, but she had no real words for it yet. It didn’t seem right that she couldn’t surf in front of the strange youth and that the young Kaleohano, who was far less coordinated than she, could.

  Howard ignored her and called to Nishikaichi, who waved back and began to walk slowly into the surf. Wishing he had his flight suit back on, swallowing rapidly to tamp down the fear deep into his belly, where his chi was, he fixed his eyes on the bobbing board.

  Suddenly he felt a pressure on his leg. Just as his body began to jerk back, all the fear in his throat coalescing to the muscles of his thigh in a tearing, screaming reflex, he saw the upturned face of the serious little girl. He recognized her from yesterday morning, when he had embarrassed himself with the strange fruit, spitting it on the ground and coughing. She’d waded waist deep in the water with the hem of her dress pulled up as far as was modest but which now swum around her like a cloud. Unperturbed by her now soaking holoku, she slipped her small hand into his. She said something, quick, earnest, businesslike, and began to match his hesitant step into the surf. He smiled stiffly. He couldn’t show a little girl his fear. He stared at the top of her head, and saw, in the way that unimportant details jump out at inopportune moments, that her hair fanned out and swirled in reddish rays. She looked up at him again and pulled on his hand. He was walking too slowly and there were waves to be caught.

  Howard held the board for him this time while the girl easily stayed afloat nearby, and when he was once again prone, the girl grabbed the front end of the wood and began to pull him strongly seaward. He may have been comforted to know that Lily’s aunt had once jumped into stormy seas to save a ship captain who clung to the mast of his sinking ship, back when ships sailed near Niihau. The Niihauan woman had grabbed the panicked man by the scruff of his shirt and dragged him through the waves to safety, even as his tobacco-stained teeth were clamped together in a vain effort to keep out the water and his nostrils flared like wings and he fought his savior with his remaining strength, the reflexive flailing of a newborn baby. But Lily and Howard, who both knew this story well, and who now mostly saw those large schooners as small, glinting flecks on their way to somewhere else, did not tell him, so Nishikaichi was left to wonder at how he had only days before been a brave pilot in the best airplane ever made, and now was lying as if stricken by illness on a piece of wood being dragged into the sea by a small, fearless girl.

  Howard surfaced nearby. He chatted with the serious girl and the two looked out at the horizon, treading water so easily they could have been touching the ocean floor except for the soft pillowing of their hands. Large flowers of water rose to the surface; Lily’s dress puffed out and floated, as if it was a separate ocean being altogether. The board bobbed and Nishikaichi hit his chin once, twice, as he peered to see what the two looked at, and then Howard swiftly turned him around so that he was suddenly facing shore.

  Paddle! Howard yelled, slapping at the water with one cupped hand to show him. Nishikaichi put his head down and began to swing his arms wildly while his heart ratcheted in his chest. He could see in his periphery that Howard squinted at something coming up behind, about to sink its teeth in his legs or break his plank in half. He badly wanted to turn his head and face the obvious danger, as his soldier’s training had taught him, but instead, with eyes squeezed shut from the splash and the effort, he kept up his swift, panicked arm movements. And then he heard a grunt and felt a sudden push shoreward, and his legs lifted slightly and the board suddenly became at once a thing of speed and drag. His body felt pinned to the thick surface and yet he was rocketing forward with the power of a Zero at takeoff, and suddenly a long, loud howl came from somewhere near him, a sound of pure, hysterical joy, and he realized it was coming from his own mouth.

  He heard the crackle of the breaking surf and remembered that at some point he was supposed to stand. He tried to push himself upward. He was awkwardly, unsteadily on his knees and grinning now, filled suddenly with the inchoate memory of his first ride on a bicycle, a large rusty thing snatched from his neighbors that his father had pushed for him and then let go of, so that he sailed smoothly right into a tree. For a moment Nishikaichi found that lightness, that thin reed of balance, once again, and then, arms wide in what Yoshio thought, as he watched from shore, was both triumph and resignation, he lost it and fell into the ocean.

  For a moment there was no sign of Nishikaichi. Yoshio stiffened on the shoreline. Lily and Howard disappeared behind another small breaker that rose and obscured them, and still there was no sign of Nishikaichi. The board stayed on its lazy trajectory toward the beach—the waves really were small and harmless, Yoshio could see that. He was wondering if he should wade in or signal to Howard when a head popped up near the board, and arms flailed at its slippery edge. There was the glint of white teeth that Yoshio assumed were bared in fear and then, just as he expected a long, exhausted groan to come from the struggling pilot, he heard the sound of exuberant, gulping laughter. He began to laugh himself. Then he heard something else across the water, the squeals of young Lily, and then the roosterlike guffaws of Howard. And there it was, another perfect moment that Yoshio thought he could reach out and feel the bones of, a moment almost phosphorescent, as jeweled as the water itself, lighting the way down the path that Yoshio and Irene had now chosen (but really, had chosen that first day, though they hadn’t seen it yet), a moment of pure synergy that proved, he thought foolishly, that helping the pilot was the best thing for all of Niihau.

  23

  That night Yoshio stood on his porch and stared at the sky. He had come out to check that the young Keo twins had settled out by the stable and not near the house, because Irene had not wanted them to be within easy hearing range; she insisted that though they would not grasp what was being discussed, they would easily understand a companionable, conspiratorial tone. No point in raising suspicions, she’d said. She was right, he thought. Still, a part of him felt banished from the room, and even after he had confirmed for himself that the dark hillocks by the barn door were indeed the sleeping young men, he did not reenter his house. He wanted to wait for the yaw of his stomach to subside, for his hands to stop squirming against each other. Only a few hours ago, he’d felt as if he owned the world. Now he was back to his old, unconfident self. Almost. Taking a deep breath, he willed his hands to fall by his side. There. That was better. He wasn’t going to let go of that
feeling so easily, since it had taken him so long to get to it. Years, it seemed.

  He leaned against the banister and scuffed the wooden stairs with one toe. The stars were splashed against the sky like the spray of some huge, rolling wave. Something about this calmed him and he tilted his head from one horizon to the other to take it all in. If that Zero were his, he thought, he’d fly to those stars. He wouldn’t bother with the petty arguments of men—he’d never touch the machine guns or engage in a dogfight. Instead, he’d aim the nose straight up, like some breaching whale. It could do that, Nishikaichi had said so. The fastest flying machine ever, he’d said. It didn’t even matter if it could reach a star or not, Yoshio thought. Just as long as it took him as high as possible, so he could look back down to where he’d come from. He wanted to see how small this all was.

  Soon he had to stop looking at the stars. It made him dizzy. It was like repeating the same word over and over. Suddenly you were hit by its meaninglessness, its utter abstraction.

  When Yoshio reentered the house, Nishikaichi was still eating. Irene was at the counter, fiddling with some wooden bowls that did not seem to need fiddling with. She turned when Yoshio sat at the table and folded his arms across each other.

  -Everything okay? she asked.

  -It’s a beautiful night, he said.

  Nishikaichi pushed his plate away with care. He bowed his head slightly and thanked Irene for the meal.

  Irene blushed. Yoshio felt something tighten in his chest. It was not jealousy of Nishikaichi—the young pilot was not interested in an older woman like Irene, after all—so he could only guess that his reaction signaled a kind of sadness. And a resolve. Soon, Irene would blush when he talked.