“I’m going to say male. Based on rib-cage size and the pelvis. Give me that,” he said, taking the light from Kawika, who then backed away and tripped over a rock. “More important than that, there’s a hole dead center in the forehead. And maybe another in the sternum.”
His voice bounced off the cave roof and struck her with a physical force. Violet crumpled to the ground. Ella clutched her hand, remaining upright and rigid and ice-cold. A moment later, the smell of urine hit her nostrils and she heard dripping on the rocks beneath Ella’s feet.
“We’re going to get you out of here, okay?” she said.
A low moan came from her daughter’s throat and it was hard to tell if she was trying to say something or not.
“What, honey?”
The moan rose to a high-pitched whine. A frightened animal sound. Violet scooped Ella into her arms and squeezed. As sure as the ocean was deep, these remains belonged to Herman. Knowing rose in her body, along with the searing pain of loss. She wanted to swim out of here, to take the bones back to the top of the cliff and reassemble them, add on flesh and somehow breathe them back to life. How can this be my husband?
“I need to get Ella out of here,” she said.
“Go if you must, but I need a few more minutes here,” Souza said.
“We stick together,” Kawika said.
Souza leaned down closer, his face almost to the skeleton. The light beam shone through the rib cage and onto whatever lay below. “Find me a stick,” he commanded Kawika.
The way Ella’s teeth chattered had Violet concerned, but there was nothing to do but wait. She felt a tide of panic swelling, and movies played in her mind about how Herman ended up here. Falling from the cliffs, bouncing like a doll and missing any trees that could have stopped him. Or was he pushed? Nothing made sense.
Souza poked around for some time at the decayed cloth. “Shirt looks like red palaka,” he said, looking over at her.
On the day that Herman disappeared, he had left the house in a red long-sleeved palaka shirt. Her last image of him was standing in the kitchen with a piece of toast sticking out of his mouth. A glob of grape jelly stuck to his mustache. She swayed at the thought.
Souza continued his search. “Bingo!” he said, holding up a small shiny object.
A bullet.
Numbness came over her, same as the night he went missing. Then the numbness turned to rage at the unfairness of it all. Here Herman lay in a dark cave while she and Ella continued on with their lives. Someone out there was responsible. She wanted to scream. Or maybe she did scream.
Souza put an arm around her waist. “Violet. Someone is going to pay.”
“Promise me.”
Who could have done this?
Next, Souza held up a gold band he’d pulled from beneath the hand. Nothing fancy, just a small smooth ring.
“Recognize this?” he asked.
Violet took it from him. It was too dim to see the inscription, H & V 1934, but there was no mistaking the ring.
“Can I keep this?” she asked.
“For now, but I’ll need it as evidence,” he said.
“We need to go. I’m worried about my daughter,” Violet said.
Ella was shaking violently. She pulled her closer and rubbed her hands along her back.
“Leave the body?” Souza said.
Body. Husband. Bones.
“I would like a proper burial,” Violet said, “but I don’t see how we will get him out of here. And it almost seems irreverent.”
“You better get ’em now if you like. Or else the ocean will sooner or later,” Kawika said.
A loud sucking noise filled the cave. Pretty soon the tide would make it impossible to get out. Bernard had been clear about that. She had the ring. It would have to be enough.
“We’ll go without him. But give me a minute alone,” she said.
After Souza took a few measurements and gathered clothing fragments and the bullets, he and Kawika clambered down the rocks to the water’s edge and left her and Ella alone. Ella started panting.
Words spilled out. “Oh, Herman. We miss you more than you know.” Violet wiped her cheek. “Someone really awful did this to you and I’m sorry.”
She closed her eyes and hugged Ella into her soggy breast. The wedding band burned the skin of her palm. Had she been without Ella she would have wanted to stay for days. She felt she owed him more.
“Tide’s coming up,” Kawika called.
Then a high-pitched cry came out of Ella that cut through the darkness and paused her heart. Ella’s whole body rocked back and forth and she was choking on sobs. Without waiting any longer, Violet picked her up and carried her down to the water’s edge, wondering how they were going to get out. She set Ella down and faced her.
“We have to swim out of here. Do you understand?”
Ella’s eyes were glazed over. She seemed to be looking right through Violet. Souza and Kawika stood next to them. Neither said a word.
Violet tried again, at her wit’s end. “If we stay much longer, we won’t be able to get out. Do you think you can hold your breath again and swim?”
It was as though time had folded back on itself to the night of Herman’s disappearance. The blank look, the trembling, the sobbing. The terrible feeling she’d had earlier now quadrupled in size. Now more than ever, she was sure Ella knew something.
Violet grabbed Ella by both shoulders. “Look at me.”
Ella made eye contact.
“Can you do this?”
An imperceptible nod. It was enough.
“Goodbye, Herman” was the last thing Violet said before submerging her head beneath the water.
Chapter Forty
Violet
Violet and Jean sat on the porch in the late-afternoon sun. Little by little, her limbs were thawing. Souza had dropped them off earlier. They’d both had blue lips and white fingers and toes. Worse than that cold was the cold that penetrated the chambers of her heart, a place where no mug of hot cocoa or warm bath could reach. All the same, she loved Jean for bringing them blankets.
Ella had remained mute and curled up in Violet’s lap the whole way home. She now snored on the pune’e and Violet wondered how much more she could take. It was hard to be strong for Ella when she felt her own seams unraveling, her very soul emptying. No matter how many days had passed, dinners made, classes taught, pies sold, everything circled back to the day Herman went missing. Strange how one day could take up so much space in a life.
She leaned back in the chair and hugged her knees to her chest for warmth. Cool tendrils of wind rustled her matted hair. Tears started up again. Herman dead; Parker gone with a good chance of becoming dead; Ella catatonic, her spirit dead. She wanted to close her eyes and fall sleep and not wake up. But for Ella. Tomorrow, Violet would take her to see Henry Aulani since he had been the only one to help the last time around.
Jean kept talking and asking questions, and Violet heard only half of what she was saying.
“Why the dickens would someone want to kill Herman?” Jean said.
She was sick of that question. It haunted her day and night. “People have had their theories, but who knows?” Violet stared off at the gray horizon.
“But Souza got a bullet?” Jean asked.
She nodded. “American, he said. None of us felt like talking on the road home, but I could tell his mind was churning out theories. You think it’s possible Herman was a spy?”
“No way.”
“Then what? He didn’t gamble. No enemies,” Violet said.
“Maybe he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe he saw something.”
Jean was only trying to be helpful, but Violet didn’t want to think anymore. “Crazy people invent their own reasons for doing things,” she said.
They contemplated the
ories for a while—disgruntled students, war stuff—but as always, ended up with an empty plate. When Jean went to prepare dinner, Violet lay down with Ella, food the furthest thing from her mind. She looked at the row of sea-urchin spines and shells along the windowsill, and at a piece of driftwood that Herman once brought her because it reminded him of a whale. Now driftwood would forever remind her of the cave where they’d found him. Such a decent man.
The hens came around, scratching and chattering, and Violet got up and went out to throw scraps for them. She sat on the steps and watched them for a while. What a simple life they led. Eat, sleep, poop. Maybe bringing Brownie in to Ella would help. After a few failed attempts, she caught the chicken, who now had a thin layer of fluff growing in. She carried her in and set her on the table next to the pune’e. Brownie hunkered down and clucked. Ella’s eyes popped open.
“Someone wants to say hello,” Violet said, smoothing down Ella’s hair.
In the dim light, Ella watched Brownie from two feet away, but she made no move to pet her. If only there was a way to pry someone open and read their thoughts like a magazine, Violet would have given everything she owned and then some.
“Supper is ready,” Jean called from the kitchen.
“I don’t suppose you’re hungry?” Violet said to Ella.
Ella scrunched up her face.
“We need to get some nourishment into you.”
Ella closed her eyes. This couldn’t go on.
Violet went to the table since Jean had bothered to cook for them, but she pushed her rice and carrots around the plate. As much as she tried, she was able to take in only a few bites. Food was the last thing on her mind.
“I know what you went through was god-awful today and you’re still in shock, but at least you have certainty now,” Jean said.
She nodded. That was the singular positive outcome. From here forward, she could focus on uncovering the how and the why and moving forward with her life instead of being mired in quicksand. “I’m going to lie with Ella. Thank you for being our nursemaid.”
She reached over and held Jean’s hand.
Under the auspices of the new year, Violet fell asleep on the pune’e swaddled in blankets and draped in black. Her dreams came in bursts and fragments, each a different version of finding the skeleton. In one, there were crabs living in the skull. In another it was somehow still alive. Ella tossed and turned, too, whimpering and drenched in sweat.
One of the worst nights in history.
Just before morning, Ella woke and sat up and shook Violet. Her bony arms looked milk-pale against the green blanket. She was sobbing in short bursts. “Mama,” she stuttered.
“Honey, I’m here. What is it?”
Violet could barely make out her face, but she could see Ella’s eyes on her, wide and glistening.
“Mama.” This time louder.
The need to know flared up inside Violet. “Whatever you’re holding inside, whatever you’re afraid of is only going to get worse with time. Please, please talk to me.”
The nature of secrets. They burn a hole through you, no matter how thick your skin.
“Mama. I was there.”
Chapter Forty-One
Ella
It was dumb of me to think I could go through life with a secret this big. But I was only doing the best I knew how. I spent lots of time making plans to tell Mama. Once or twice I almost whispered the news when she tucked me in at night or while we picked sweet potatoes in the garden, just the two of us. And then I thought of her going to tell the sheriff. So that usually ended that. Plus, after the soldiers left, she seemed so sad and lost.
I look back and see that half of me didn’t believe we would find anything in that cave. The other half knew we would. The whole way into the valley and while we paddled, a terrible argument was going on inside me. Tell. Don’t tell. Tell. Don’t tell. When I saw the skull bone, and then the bullet hole and ring, it was like someone shut a curtain in front of my eyes and suddenly I was watching a movie called How My Papa Died. I don’t even remember leaving the cave.
Now I had to tell. I was terror-stricken, but it was going to come out sooner or later, and I had to warn Mama before she went digging around on her own.
On the day Papa died, us kids were playing hide-and-seek next door at the Codys’. The yard didn’t have many hiding places, so I sneaked around Papa’s car and climbed in, making sure to shut the door without a sound. I lay on the floor and pulled a blanket over me.
A few minutes later, someone opened the door. I held my breath. Then the car started up. Instead of saying hello to Papa, I stayed there and didn’t make a peep. Who knows why? Maybe I was bored and wanted to see where he was going. Sometimes he met with the rifle people for planning against Japanese invasion. We drove and we drove and we drove. The floor heated up, but by now I was stuck. Even though I couldn’t see him, I knew my papa was upset about something. Don’t ask me how. I just knew. Maybe it was the way he zoomed around corners and slammed on the brakes.
After ten minutes or so of a very uncomfortable ride, he pulled onto a bumpy road. My head bounced like a bowling ball, and an “ouch” slipped out, but he didn’t seem to notice. This was way more interesting than being stuck with the kids. From what I guessed, we were closer to Waipio Valley than to Honoka’a. The car headed downhill. I practiced my blind navigation skills, which would come in handy if the Japanese ever showed up.
When we finally stopped, salty air blew in the windows and Papa lit up a cigarette. Weird, because he hardly smoked. I remember thinking what a real adventure it felt like. And that I would surprise him and he would laugh and kiss the top of my head like he always did. Then he pounded the steering wheel and yelled, “Damn!”
Another engine approached. Louder and louder, until finally it turned off right next to us. A door slammed. I decided to stay put. Papa got out, too.
“Herman, what’s this all about?”
“Tell me it’s not true,” Papa said in a husky tone I’d never heard him use.
A pause and then, “What do you mean?”
I would know that voice anywhere.
“That you’re a goddamn informant for the military, which wouldn’t be so bad if you weren’t a liar on top of that,” Papa said.
“Who told you that?”
“Cut the crap, Luther. And it doesn’t matter who told me. You were the one who conveniently volunteered that the Shinto priests here were plotting something. That they were a threat to security. Which is a load of crap. They were nothing more than a group of old men who liked to pray,” Papa said.
Earlier that year we watched armed men line up those old priests and march them into a big army truck. To their credit, not a one looked scared or even remotely concerned. Mama said they trained themselves to be like mountains and that way nothing bothered them.
“So what if I did? You’re not my mother,” Luther said.
Papa’s laugh stuck in his throat. “How could you be so two-faced? And not even mention this to me. They also asked about Takeo and said you told them he’s sending coded messages to the Jap submarines, which we both know is a lie. I had to vouch for him again so they didn’t haul his ass away, too. What are you thinking?” he cried.
“Japs get what they deserve,” Luther said in a really calm voice that caused all of my hairs to stand on end.
“We live in Honoka’a. Everyone here is Japanese. You want them to arrest the whole town?”
I heard the crunch of rock and grass and they moved away from the car. “Why not?”
“I know you lost Neil, and I’m sorry for that. But the people here are not responsible for that any more than I am,” Papa said.
Luther hissed. “Are you saying you knew something? About Pearl Harbor?”
“No, I’m saying I know my friends.”
“You’re in with the Japs, a
ren’t you?”
I didn’t like the sound of Luther’s voice.
“Get ahold of yourself.”
Luther rambled on. “They’re sneaky fuckers and none of ’em can be trusted. I always knew it. They killed my son...”
Their voices moved farther and farther away, and I heard Papa say something about a nephew and not a son, about not tolerating liars, that maybe Luther should leave town if he didn’t like it here.
Luther was spitting out words and I strained to hear. “Some things I keep private...illegitimate.”
But I was still stuck on the son part. According to Mama, he’d lost a nephew at Pearl Harbor. This poor nephew was locked in a ship at the bottom of the ocean. I had felt sad for Luther back then, and sad for the men who died. A son was a different story.
They yelled some more and I only caught every other word. “Insane...” “Fuck...” “Vigilante...” “My ass...” “Too much okolehao.”
There was no way Papa could know I was listening to these dirty words. I prayed for them to hurry and finish the fight so I could get back to my game. Somebody might notice I was missing by now, or else think I had a really good hiding place. One day we forgot about Umi and she fell asleep in the laundry basket, so tired from working in the victory garden after school. Setsuko-san was frantic.
A gunshot jolted me into the bottom of the seat. And another.
My heart galloped but my body refused to move. I heard grunting and dragging and willed myself to sit up and look. Enough time had passed that Luther stood at the edge of the cliff dusting off his hands, alone. I ducked and knocked my head on my hand to see if I could wake myself up, but nothing changed. The sound of footsteps hurried toward the car. He jumped into the front seat and flung stuff around.
Please, God, don’t let him look back here.
God must have been busy or not paying attention, because Luther did look. I will never know what drove him to pull the blanket off me. Maybe my uncontrollable shivering or the pounding of my heart against the floorboard. With one giant hand, he yanked me out of Papa’s car and set me down in his.
Island of Sweet Pies and Soldiers Page 27
