Silversword

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  She managed to control herself, however, and opened the long lacquer box. Something secret was about to be revealed, and I found myself tensing. I spoke in an effort to relax.

  “Maybe you’d better close the door that leads out to the stairs,” I said. “That is, if we’re to be private.”

  “Why? There’s no one up there. Marla’s room is down the upstairs hall.”

  I could tell her without involving Marla. “Last night I stood at the top of those stairs and heard you and Tom talking. I didn’t come there to listen, but when I heard my name I did.”

  My grandmother sat very still, one hand resting on whatever lay in the box. “I see.” Her tone was ominously quiet—and that was more alarming than an explosion. “It hardly matters now, but I’m glad to know.” She went to the door and her closing it was just short of a slam.

  When she returned to her desk she lifted a tissue-wrapped object from the lacquer box and pulled off the paper. “Do you know what this is, Caro?”

  I stared at the long wooden tool she held toward me. “Yes, you showed me that when I was little. I remember your telling me about how tapa cloth was made—that they used an instrument like that to beat the fiber of the paper mulberry into tapa.”

  “This is the same one. Take it in your hand, Caroline.”

  She’d always used my full name for solemn moments. I felt reluctant to touch the wooden object she held toward me—reluctant because of something that was in her mind, in the air.

  I picked up the tool by its handle. The head was about fifteen inches long, with four flat sides. Those sides had been etched with small intricate marks that would later show up on the tapa as it was beaten with the heavy instruments. I’d read about the making of tapa cloth. These marks had been carved with shark’s teeth, and the individual design would indicate the sign of the chief who owned the cloth.

  “Turn it over,” Joanna said.

  I held the beater by its shorter handle, and at first when I turned it I saw nothing more than the marks etched into the wood. Then I noticed someing else—a brownish stain darker than koa. A stain that spread over the sharp edge that divided two of the sides. I looked at Joanna, questioning.

  “That’s a bloodstain,” she said. “The beater was found up there in the crater. We’re not sure whose blood it is, since all of them were wounded. Marla dismounted, or fell off, and was kicked by her mare’s hoof. Noelle was thrown against a rock. Keith was thrown too, and he received two severe wounds. Perhaps one came from this tapa beater, the other from the rock against which he fell. The police thought he must have struck one rock and bounced against another.”

  I set the tool down quickly. “Couldn’t they have tested this for his blood?”

  “They never saw it,” Joanna said quietly.

  “So what Grandmother Elizabeth told me is probably true! She said she suspected that my father was murdered.”

  Someone knocked at the closed door, and Joanna called to Tom to come in. He stood looking at my grandmother, questioning. His red hair was uncombed, his shirt stained with sweat, and there was a smell of horses about him.

  “Lihilihi’s fine,” he said. “The foal came a little while ago, and she’s a beauty.” As he spoke his eyes found the tapa beater on the desk and he knew he wasn’t here to talk about the foal.

  “I’m glad,” Joanna said. “I’ll be out to see her later. Sit down a minute, Tom. I’ve shown Caro what turned up in the crater that day, and I’d like you to tell her about finding it.”

  He stared at her, still questioning, and for a moment I thought he would refuse. Then he brushed off his jeans and sat down in a bamboo chair facing me. “Do you think this is a good idea?”

  “Where did you find it, Tom? And when?” she asked.

  He still hesitated, as if choosing his words. “I went up there a day later. I found that thing behind a lava-rock bubble half covered with cinders. The stain on it looked like recent blood, so I brought it here to Joanna.”

  “Why not to the police?” I asked.

  “That was up to your grandmother.”

  “There was no point in stirring anything up,” Joanna said firmly. “Both my daughters were badly hurt, and Keith was dead. It was all over by the time Tom and I rode back from setting up camp to see what had delayed the others. Marla’s injury wiped out her memory from the time when they rode into the crater. And Noelle had escaped safely into a place where she needn’t face whatever happened.”

  “So a possible murder was concealed?” I asked.

  Tom looked angry and Joanna made a despairing gesture.

  “I suppose you could say that—if it was true. But what good would an investigation have done? No one who was up there knew the answer, and it would have been a terrible and senseless ordeal for us all. Are you willing now, Caroline, to force your mother into remembering some terrible experience—if it’s even possible that she can? What good would it do anyone?”

  I closed my eyes as though I could shut out the horror of the wooden instrument on her desk. “Perhaps she could remember me, without all the rest.”

  “If she remembers you,” Tom spoke harshly, “then she’s certain to remember the rest. You’re smart enough to see what that could mean.”

  There were only two people who could have wielded the tapa beater—either Marla or Noelle herself. Suddenly I was afraid. Who had carried it up there in the first place? I’d held it in my hands, and the heavy tool could easily have been used as a weapon. Perhaps the frightened horses had done the rest. Yet someone could have struck my father with the intent to kill.

  Joanna, watching me, nodded to Tom. “Thanks for coming. You’ve given Caroline something new to think about.”

  Tom threw me a last hostile look, saluted my grandmother with forefinger to temple, and went off.

  Calmly, Joanna rewrapped the tapa beater and placed it in the red lacquer box. As evidence of a deed no one wanted to explain?

  “It’s nearly time for lunch,” she said. “Shall we go in?”

  As David had warned, Joanna had lived with this for years. It was easy for her to slip in and out of the past because she had more or less made her peace with it a long time ago. I hadn’t. For me the events in the crater were as sharply disturbing as though they had just happened.

  I followed Joanna down the hall, feeling more torn and uncertain than ever. Before we reached the dining room I stopped her.

  “Just tell me this one thing—who would want my father dead?”

  She answered me dryly. “Perhaps more than one person, Caroline. He wasn’t the most admired man around here. I never wanted Noelle to marry him, but she had those stars in her eyes, and she was always more determined than she looked.”

  “Do you mind if I tell David about this?”

  “I don’t suppose it matters. David is discreet and he has a lot of good sense. If you won’t listen to me, perhaps you’ll listen to him.”

  I followed her into the dining room knowing that what she hoped was that David would advise me to let everything be—to let Noelle stay as she was.

  I was just beginning to grasp the ramifications of what might happen if she ever came back to us completely. I could also see why they’d protected and even encouraged her amnesia—they were afraid to have her remember. So of course they would be antagonistic toward me.

  And yet—my Grandma Joanna had invited me to come.

  7

  I remembered the dining room. It had seemed huge to me—very dignified and grand in its enormous reaches. Now it had shrunk, since I was older and taller, but it was still an impressive room.

  A moss-green carpet bordered by dark wood stretched the length of the room. The long table, with its polished surface and woven place mats, could easily seat fourteen or more. A crystal bowl of roses graced the center of the table, flanked by candelabra, and their fragrance scented the room. A name returned to me out of a long time ago—Lokelani, Rose of Heaven. The Maui rose.

  A great window of square p
anes occupied most of one wall and lighted the room, bringing in the outdoors and a view of trees and the rear lawn. On one wall hung a framed map of Maui, its browns showing the mountain heights, its blues the circling sea, with yellow shading into orange for the lower slopes. The human figure of the island was one I’d loved to study as a child, even though I hadn’t fully understood what the map represented.

  Marla and Noelle joined us, and since there were only four for lunch, the long table offered an expanse of empty space. Joanna said it made Susy Ohara happier if we dined here “properly,” and kept out of her way in the kitchen. It was a simple enough meal—vegetable soup, a heavenly fresh salad, and Maui pineapple for dessert. I hardly knew what I was eating because I kept thinking about the things that had been said in my grandmother’s office, and of the weight of that tapa beater in my hand.

  For once, Noelle was talkative. The visit to Ahinahina had left her troubled.

  “All the furniture was gone from Linny’s room,” she told her mother. “There were easels around and sculptors’ stands. The pictures on the walls were different. What could have happened?”

  Marla said, “Don’t worry, dear. Everything will be all right.” She spoke soothingly, but again I wondered how genuine her feeling was for her sister.

  Joanna spoke to her daughter calmly. “I’m sure everything will be put back as it was, Noelle. The next time you go to that house it will all be as it should be.” She glanced at me as she spoke, and I knew she meant that Noelle must never return to Ahinahina.

  This continuation of the myth that no time had passed depressed me more than ever. Someone always closed the window that looked into those early years, leaving Noelle in her passive state. More than ever, I wanted to end this falsehood they all subscribed to—that everything was normal, and that Noelle was perfectly content. But at the moment I could only try to reach her before she slipped away again.

  “We spent a lovely morning at Ahinahina, Noelle,” I reminded her. “I loved what you told me about the stairway and the stained-glass bird in the window.”

  She looked straight at me, her uneasiness and uncertainty evident. Perhaps I was getting through just a little. But then Joanna distracted her by passing rolls down the table, and I had to restrain my quick feeling of anger. This game they played—how could I break through? I would certainly talk to David, and I didn’t think he would be altogether unsympathetic.

  When we’d finished lunch it was still too early for him to come for me, so I wandered outside into the sunny day. Mynah birds were chattering raucously in the camphor tree, and I wandered toward it idly. They flew off as I came near. These days the moment I was alone, my own unresolved problems engulfed me. My mother was only a part of my general unease, important as she was. Grief and loss were always waiting to snare me—as they did now.

  How many times as a small girl had I walked this same lawn with my hand in my father’s? It was he who had hung a swing for me from one of the great branches of the spreading tree. I’d loved to have him push me in my swing until I felt that I was flying high as the sky itself—high as the mountaintop. I’d been able to look into the upper boughs and I’d seen a bird’s nest hiding there.

  But now there were those who were trying to poison these memories—to spoil all that I’d believed my father had been; all that Grandmother Elizabeth had taught me to believe about him.

  I sat on the ground and leaned my back against the tree trunk and thought of other things. Last night someone had hidden behind this tree, perhaps listening to David and me. Or watching the house? When we became aware of the presence, the person had gone crashing away through the brush, leaving the puzzle unsolved.

  I rose and walked behind the tree, searching the ground for some evidence of whoever might have hidden here. Not until I discovered an overgrown path leading away into shrubbery and trees did an object on the ground catch my eye—something that looked like a doll lay half hidden under a hibiscus bush. I picked it up with a shock of recognition.

  Though it was dressed like a doll, it wasn’t one really, but a wooden copy of an ancient Hawaiian idol—an image of Pele, the goddess of volcanoes. The face was crudely carved and ugly in its anger—a dished-in face with a mouth that snarled and showed two rows of mother-of-pearl teeth. Not Pele in one of her better moods. I didn’t know why this chunk of wood had held such fascination for me as a child. Perhaps its eerie quality appealed to me and matched the rather scary legends that I’d loved.

  I remembered seeing it first in the living room at Manaolana. Grandma Joanna had let me play with it, since it wasn’t a real artifact, but only a copy. The original, made of ohia wood, had been found in the crater of Haleakala, and she had bought this in a shop in Lahaina. She had let me take it from its shelf whenever I liked, and my small hands had further polished, rubbed, and probably dirtied its surface. After weeks of visits, my devotion was so plain that my grandmother gave me the figure.

  I had taken it back to Ahinahina and showed it to my mother. She thought it ugly, but since I worried because Pele might be cold without any clothes, she said she would make something for her to wear. After all, when Pele appeared in one of her human guises, she wore clothes just like anyone else. What my mother sewed for her was a long cape, since the carved arms couldn’t come out through sleeves. She made it of bits of red and yellow cloth, so that it looked like a pretend feather cape for the king—which was mixing things up a bit, but suited me fine. I made a tiny circlet of flowers for my violent lady’s head, changing them often to keep them fresh.

  Now my wooden friend still wore her cape, though it had faded and grown shabby. Again a circlet of flowers crowned her brow, though these had begun to yellow and wilt.

  How long had she been lying here, lost in the shrubbery? Certainly not for days or weeks, since the flowers weren’t entirely dead. Had it been Noelle who had lingered here last night, listening to David and me—then running away?

  I hated to think of my mother clinging to the idol doll I’d so loved as a child, and perhaps playing with it herself in order to bring back her long-ago Linny. I wondered if she could even tell me whether she’d been out here last night if I asked. Anyway, I would try.

  I carried the wooden figure into the house and wandered through the downstairs rooms, looking for Noelle. Marla had said her sister’s room was near Joanna’s, and when I found a closed door, I tapped on it. She called to me to come in. I opened the door and stood looking around in dismay. This was a child’s room, not the room of a mother and wife. Noelle sat at a table painting in watercolors. She had made lovely pictures for me when I was little.

  She looked over her shoulder, smiling, for once remembering my name. “Hello, Caroline. Come in.”

  I carried the wooden figure to her table and set it beside her. “I found this just now outside in the yard.”

  She dropped her paintbrush into a glass of water and touched the cape. “I thought I had Pele with me when I went out yesterday, but then I couldn’t find her. Linny would never forgive me if I lost her. She likes this better than any of her real dolls.”

  “Then you were out near the camphor tree last night?” I asked. “Is that where you dropped it?”

  She regarded me vaguely, losing touch with memory again. “I’m not sure. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, so long as you found it. I’ll take it to Linny now.”

  “No, please wait,” I said. “First show me what you’re painting.”

  It was pitifully easy to distract her. She pushed the paper toward me. “Don’t pick it up. It’s still wet and it might run.”

  The watercolor was dramatic in its bright colors, and quite beautiful. A red bird perched among green leaves, its long, curved beak reaching for nectar in pompons of red flowers. I recognized it as a painting similar to one she had made for me when I was little.

  “That’s an iiwi bird, isn’t it?” I said. “And those must be lehua flowers.”

  She nodded, happy with my recognition. “Yes—it’s one of the bi
rds whose feathers were used for the kings’ capes. The birds are still here in the wild uplands of Haleakala’s slopes. And there are still forests of ohia trees with these red flowers.”

  “I remember,” I said, pulling up a stool near her chair. “You painted a picture like this for me when I was very small. Come back to me—know me. Please try.”

  With a quick movement that smeared the painting, she pushed herself up from the table, her eyes wide and frightened. “I don’t know who you are! I only paint my pictures for Linny. I don’t know why you’re here!”

  I couldn’t leave her in this agitated state, yet I didn’t know how to reassure her. All I could do was go along with the myth in order to quiet her. Perhaps the others were right and this was all anyone could ever do.

  “I’m visiting your mother,” I told her gently. “You remember that, don’t you? I came in just now to bring you the idol doll I found outside.”

  Her sudden movement startled me as she reached for the carved figure, ripped the cape from it, and snatched off the circlet of faded flowers.

  “There!” she cried. “That’s the way she really is. You’re a malihini, so you don’t know, but Pele is one of the dangerous gods. She can do a lot of harm if she chooses. I’m not supposed to let Linny play with her anymore. You had no business bringing her here. I won’t let you hurt my little girl!”

  Again she moved suddenly, angrily, picking up the carving as though it were a weapon she threatened me with. I moved toward the door in alarm, and she threw the wooden figure directly at me. I ducked just in time, and it sailed past my head and crashed into a framed picture on the wall, breaking the glass.

  Joanna was in her office next door and she heard the crash and came running in. Noelle’s face had flushed and she was trembling. Joanna held her tightly, calming and quieting. Her look accused me over her daughter’s shoulder.

  I was in a state of shock, totally unprepared for the violence of what had happened. It was as if the little iiwi bird she’d painted had attacked me.