Beside me, Noelle was growing restless. She opened the shoulder bag on her knees and began to search inside it. What she drew out shocked me. She had brought along the ugly Pele carving that I had played with as a child. It was no longer dressed as a doll and the drooping breasts and protruding belly were on display. The crude copy of the original carving, with its dished-in profile and glaring mother-of-pearl eyes, made me thoroughly uncomfortable. There seemed menace in the figure now, and I wondered how I could have been so attached to it as a child.
“Why did you bring that along?” I asked.
She held it lovingly, touching the smooth wood with something like affection. “I brought it for Linny. Marla said she has probably gone ahead to Hana and is with your parents now, David.”
I would have liked to shake Marla. However, Noelle never seemed to realize that with all her hunting and hoping, she never really found Linny, and she always forgot her search before she had to face the truth she hid from herself.
David glanced at the figure. “You may have a use for Pele later on, Noelle, so perhaps it’s a good thing you brought it along. My father and mother are looking forward to seeing you, so we’re going to drop you off at the house. Then Caroline and I are going to drive on along the road to a special place I want her to see. Mother will hold lunch for us until we get back. Afterwards, we’ll take you on a helicopter ride. Perhaps to visit Pele herself.”
“I’d like that,” she said, not really understanding, and stroked the carving on her lap.
We hadn’t much farther to go to reach “heavenly Hana,” as the tourist brochures advertised it. David said there had been no road for cars through here until 1927. The little fishing village had eventually evolved into a thriving sugar town, and all the hills around were once covered with plantations. This had lasted until the end of World War II, when the demand for sugar fell, and Hana was too remote for hauling. Then one man’s creative foresight saved the area from disaster.
“There’s a huge cross of lava rock that’s been erected to Paul Fagan’s memory,” David said. “He realized that the fields which had been planted for sugar that was no longer in great demand could be turned into grazing for cattle. So Hana Ranch was born and the paniolos moved in.”
David had stopped the car in a place where we could look out over the town and Hana Bay.
“It must have been pretty exciting—the way they shipped cattle to market. They drove the herds down the road through town to the wharf, and everybody got out of the way. Some of the animals would run right into the sea and start swimming, so the cowboys had to learn water herding. On swimming horses, they drove the Herefords out to the ships, where cranes and slings got them on board amid a lot of noisy bawling.”
“Didn’t Captain Cook sail into this little bay on his voyages?” I said.
“Yes, it’s been written about. But that bay isn’t always as calm as it looks today. The Hana coast is exposed to storms that can blow in and pound the land. Then all the beautiful waterfalls turn into torrents and there can be flooding from both sea and mountain. An undersea earthquake off Kodiak Island, three thousand miles away, sent a tidal wave to hurl some pretty bad destruction on this coast. That’s the tsunami that can strike all of the islands, so that we’ve had our share of death and devastation from the sea. The dark underside of paradise.”
Now the bay looked beautiful and blue and peaceful, with a rim of white sand around the water.
“They have canoe races out there,” Noelle said suddenly. “Keith and I came here to watch them one time. I wanted to bring Linny, but she was too little.”
“Tell me about that time,” I urged.
She had put the carving back in her bag and only shook her head as she lost the thread of memory.
“They still hold races,’” David said, “but these days the racing canoes are built of fiberglass. Not as romantic as hollowed trees, but more practical. Do you see that dark hill out there that puts an arm around the far end of the bay to the right? It’s a cinder cone, really, under all those ironwood trees—one of the volcanic vents from Haleakala. Once that cone was used as a fortress, since it could be defended. Fierce battles were fought there between Maui and the island of Hawaii Let’s go on into town now.”
Hana was a town of pretty little houses and abundant flowers. We took the higher road into the small business section, and parked near the Hasegawa General Store, about which a famous song had been written. This was one of the “sights” of Hana, and we went into the well-ordered chaos of the store. Harry Hasegawa sat behind his desk near the door, where he could summon help for anyone who needed it. Prominently on display were shirts that bore the legend: I SURVIVED THE HANA ROAD, and visitors were buying happily.
We drove on to the Reeds’ home, a low brown house built with natural woods, with an overhang that shielded windows from the sun, and a generous screened lanai across the front. It was set well back from the street in a typical Hawaiian garden. No English formality here—one stuck things in the ground and stepped back to let them grow in any way they chose, resulting in a riot of color and fragrance.
“Peter’s in school now,” David said as we left the car. “I hope you’ll meet him later.”
Helena and Larry Reed came out to meet us, and Helena gave each of us in turn a warm hug of greeting. The pale green muumuu she wore became her and she looked as well groomed and elegant as when she’d dressed more formally in Honolulu. Her straight carriage gave her something of the same presence that Ailina seemed to have, and I felt again the energy she seemed to exude. An energy that was part of her ability to savor whatever experiences came her way. Her embrace for me was genuine and warm.
Dr. Reed was as tall as David, with a tanned face and brown eyes that held laugh creases at the corners. His handclasp welcomed me, and both of them gave a special loving greeting to Noelle. She seemed at home with them at once, and didn’t mind when David said he and I had better get started for Kipahulu.
“Don’t hurry,” Helena said. “I’ve planned a cold lunch and we’ll have it whenever you get back.”
“Have you heard from Frank?” David asked.
“Yes, he phoned a little while ago. Everything’s set.” She glanced at Noelle, who was paying no attention. “You’re to call him when you’re ready to meet him. He’s kept the afternoon free. He remembers”—again the glance for Noelle—“everything very well.”
“Fine. We’ll see you later,” David said, and we returned to the car.
“Frank is the man who’ll take us to the crater?” I asked.
“Yes, Frank Wilkie. In his younger days he flew a number of trips for the Park Rescue service. He was the one who brought Noelle and the others out of the crater that day.”
The road beyond Hana hadn’t been repaved recently. It was narrow and bone-jarring. Not quite the whiplash road we’d just followed, but bad enough, even though it had been cut inland away from the sea.
“There’s been a battle going on,” David said, “between those who want the road paved and those who want to keep it as it is in the hope that tourists won’t want to make this pilgrimage. Of course they do anyway.”
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Wait and see. I don’t want you to see this place as a curious tourist. I want you to feel it. There’s a lot about Hawaii that’s mystical, and this is one of those places with special vibrations.”
When we reached the Seven Sacred Pools, we found a parked bus, its passengers swarming on every side with their cameras. We crossed a bridge where there was a lovely view of the waterfalls, but we didn’t stop. A side road farther on, with no particular marking, led us toward the water. From this a dirt road turned off and we drove to where we could park near a small green-and-white Hawaiian church. On a tongue of land that reached into the ocean lay a small cemetery with old stones set in the ground. A grove of trees offered a hushed retreat, and we stepped with care between the graves. Only the wind that blew across this headland, and the sou
nd of the sea washing its shore, stirred the quiet.
When we reached the grave David was seeking, he stopped. “Hawaiians say this place has mana, like the crater. The word’s meanings are mystical. Sometimes it stands for prestige and authority. It can also mean worship and spiritual power, and this is what I sense when I come here. What do you feel, Caroline? Before you look at the stone, what do you feel?”
I stood very still and allowed the quiet of this shaded grove to flow through me. Mana was not something you put into words—here it was a spiritual presence that somehow filled the air.
The grave was a flat, rectangular space, filled with the traditional smooth stones used to cover Hawaiian graves—hundreds and hundreds of stones. Larger stones rimmed the whole and supported the small ones within. In their center lay a slab of granite with carved lettering kept clear by the wind. I bent to read the simple markings.
CHARLES A. LINDBERGH
BORN MICHIGAN 1902DIED MAUI 1974
Following was a line from Psalm 139 that Lindbergh himself had chosen: … if I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uppermost parts of the sea …
I could sense the spirit of this place—the mysterious mana that graced and protected a spot which would face ocean and sky far longer than the man had lived.
David spoke softly beside me. “It’s a moving story. Lindbergh knew he was close to death, and he had himself flown back from a mainland hospital to his home here in Kipahulu—where he could plan for his dying as he had planned the way he lived. In the week left to him he had time to be with his family as he wished. He chose to be buried in a plain eucalyptus coffin, refusing any hero’s funeral. There is room here for his wife when her time comes—so their spirits can soar together as they did in life.”
David was making it vivid and real—what had all been remote before.
“Some of what happened after his death is disturbing,” he went on. “This place became a shrine almost at once. Which would have been fine, if it had been treated with reverence and respect. During the first year a few hundred came, and then the number doubled, tripled—until now there are busloads every day, besides those who brave the road in their own cars. Every stone that covered the grave disappeared in the first year—carried away as souvenirs by the insensitive. Lindbergh knew about ‘hero hunters’ and the Vermont granite slab was chosen well—large enough and strong enough to defeat desecrators.”
A ginger lei rested on the stones before the plaque, and I wished I had something to leave. In the pocket of my jeans was a narrow yellow ribbon I’d brought to tie back my hair. I weighted it down with a stone, and left it to show bright and brave amidst the gray stones. My own small tribute to a man who had never wanted tributes, but whose spirit could still be felt in this quiet grove.
We walked around the far edge of the cemetery and came upon a row of small graves where pets had been buried. The headstones were marked with words like “Loved by …” with the young owner’s name following.
No one was inside the small church, and we sat down for a few moments to let the silence fill us, and to speak our own quiet words in our minds. I felt very close to David and grateful to him for giving me this experience which couldn’t be put into ordinary words.
Before we left, David showed me a sign with words Mrs. Lindbergh had written.
May we remind you that this church is a place of worship and the graveyard is consecrated ground. You are welcome to enter the church in a spirit of reverence and to walk quietly in the surrounding paths. We ask you not to step on the graves or disturb the stones or flowers out of respect for the dead and consideration for the feelings of their relatives.
Outside we wandered for a little while longer, listening to the sea and the wind.
“Hawaiians have always understood about heart and spirit,” David said. “I hope the young ones never lose that. It’s good that the language is coming back because it’s a language of emotion. I hope we modern Hawaiians never forget all that exists in the air and space around us.”
“Thank you for bringing me here,” I said. “Mahalo”—a warmer word.
He put his arm about me for a moment. A close moment in more than the physical nearness. Then he said, “We’d better get back. Now we come to Noelle.”
I found that I could think of my mother more quietly, and with less pulling and tearing inside me. Just as something had touched me when I stood on the rim of Haleakala’s crater, I had been touched here in this place as well. With David’s help, I would be able to deal with whatever was to come.
15
We were on our way, with Noelle in the seat between us, and she was looking forward happily to an adventure she hadn’t as yet understood.
Lunch had been a pleasant time, and we’d enjoyed Helena’s chicken salad, hot bran muffins, and iced papaya. I’d never seen Noelle so animated. Helena and Larry Reed had known how to make her welcome and set her at ease. When I saw her like this, I wondered how healthy Manaolana could ever be for my mother, with its atmosphere of hidden guilt, and that cotton-wool protection always intended to keep her as she was.
On the way to the small flying field outside of Hana, David told me more about Frank Wilkie, and the mission he’d flown to bring out my father’s body and Joanna’s two injured daughters.
Noelle was searching her big bag again, paying no attention. His words might just as well have been in a foreign language, the way she shut them out. When she found what she was looking for, she brought it out triumphantly—a man’s gold ring, set with a stone of apple-green jade.
“There!” she cried. “I knew I had my good-luck ring with me.”
I’d recognized the ring instantly.
It was too big for her slim fingers, and as she started to slip it over her right thumb, I held out my hand. “May I see it, please?”
She gave it to me readily, and as I balanced it on my palm the old feeling of sadness and loss filled me again. How many times my father had let me play with this ring when I was little—though only when I stayed close to him so I wouldn’t lose it.
Carved cunningly into the hard jade was the tiny face of a Chinese demon—a face that had always fascinated me. Suggested eyebrows slanted down, scowling, the eyes were crossed, the nostrils merely suggested, and the wide mouth had been carved into ferocious grimace. My father had purchased the ring in a shop in Hong Kong, and he’d liked to wear it on the little finger of his right hand.
“Tell me about this,” I said to Noelle as I returned it to her.
As she slipped the ring absently over her thumb, some disturbing memory touched her. “Keith was wearing this when—when something awful happened.” She brushed a hand across her eyes, puzzling. “Afterwards my mother took it off his finger and gave it to me. She thought I should keep it—not Keith’s mother. I never liked Keith’s mother, and she didn’t like me. So this ring has always been with me, and sometimes I take it out and wear it for—for luck.”
I touched the ring lightly. “What luck, Noelle? What is it you want most?”
For once she didn’t mention Linny, or tell me that Keith would be back any minute. Instead she wondered aloud. “Sometimes I—I really don’t know who I am. Or what has happened to me. Sometimes, more than anything else, I want to find me.”
“I can tell you some of those things you want to remember,” I said softly.
But she was already shaking her head. “No! People are always telling me things. I don’t know what I can believe. I have to feel it inside myself.”
Perhaps Noelle was wiser than any of those around her.
“We’ll try to help you to do that today,” I said, and glanced at David, who nodded gravely.
“That’s right, Noelle. That’s exactly what we want to accomplish.”
She began to slip away once more, and I called her back. “Tell me about the ring. How can such an ugly little face bring you luck?”
She answered easily. “That’s because Orientals use horrid faces to frighten away d
emons. But this little face wasn’t as strong as Pele. She can be vengeful and destructive, you know. Though I think she tried to help me. I really saw her that day.”
“Where did you see her?” I asked, holding my breath.
“Up there.” She looked out the car window toward the mountain floating high above us on a bank of clouds that cut off the lower slopes. “I was lying where I’d fallen when my horse went down. Pele came and picked me up and set me down beside a silversword plant. She told me the plant would help me to escape from everything wicked and unhappy. I wasn’t sure I wanted that … but I suppose it’s what happened. I can still remember the smell of those leaves as I plucked them. Not very pleasant—a little like an aster.”
She raised her fingers to her nose and sniffed them. “It’s gone now. But I still can’t remember.”
“What did she look like, Noelle? Pele, I mean.”
“She was beautiful—a young maiden. That’s one of her guises, when she comes back to visit her old home on Halaekala. But when I stared at her too long, she disappeared into the mist and floated away. That’s all I can recall.”
“I understand,” I said. “Perhaps we can help to find you today. At least we can try.”
“Oh, look!” She waved a hand. “There are planes out there, and a helicopter!”
I’d lost her again, but the mists had parted a little, and I had the new reassurance of what she wanted in her more thoughtful moments.
When David parked his car near the field, he didn’t get out right away. Instead, he spoke quietly to Noelle.
“What we’re going to do—where we’re going to take you—may be upsetting, Noelle. It may hurt. Someone you loved has died. Another person you loved has gone away and grown up, and returned. Years have passed, and I hope you can be brave enough to face these things that are real, Noelle. Things that you’ve perhaps been concealing from yourself.”
She seemed suddenly on the verge of tears. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Never mind,” I said quickly. “We’re going up in that helicopter now. Have you ever flown in one before, Noelle?”
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