Moloka'i

by Alan Brennert

  (And when, after the repeal of Prohibition, Governor Judd quietly rescinded the settlement’s long-standing ban on beer, Steamer Day also meant Schlitz and Pabst and Anheuser and Blatz.)

  For Rachel and Kenji, this particular Steamer Day meant the arrival of a brand-new short-wave radio, which promised contact with the far corners of the earth: station XEWW from Mexico City, ZRL of Capetown, South Africa, PLP from Bandoeng in Java, XGOY all the way from Chungking, China—they would even receive a signal from the distant shores of Ankara, Turkey!

  There was human cargo aboard the SS Hawaii as well, and these new arrivals to Kalaupapa were welcomed with a l'au of splendid proportions. Like everyone who had ever come from Kalihi these exiles arrived believing that banishment to Moloka'i was tantamount to a death sentence, only to find themselves feasting on roast pork and fresh poi and haupia pudding, surrounded by music and laughter, looking confused but relieved.

  One of the newcomers, a young man in his twenties named David Kamakau, soon found a fast friend in Kenji. Both had attended St. Louis College, though twenty years apart. David had gone on to the sort of career which for Kenji had been stillborn, as a loan officer at the Bishop Bank. The first time Kenji and Rachel had him over for dinner he and Kenji talked long into the night, principally about economics and the current downturn:

  “It’s a normal cyclic decline,” David maintained. “Stocks bottom out but open up possibilities for investments and profits; unsound companies are weeded out.”

  Kenji, who followed world events via several newspaper subscriptions, didn’t agree. “Even before the stock market crashed the banking system was a house of cards, it’s a wonder it didn’t collapse before this . . .”

  “There are rumors this man Roosevelt plans to take us off the gold standard—”

  “We’re already off it, it’s just not official!”

  Rachel was able to follow, if not contribute much, to the discussion so far, but as terms like multilateralism and hyperinflation began flying over her head she felt herself taking on more and more the aspect of a floor lamp. Sensing her unease Kenji shifted the subject; but it wasn’t just economics that intimidated Rachel. The more they saw of David, the more Rachel realized she didn’t know: the philosophy of Santayana, the theories of Spengler, the writings of Jung and Freud. . . . For the first time she realized how inadequate her education at Kalaupapa had been; true, she was a voracious reader, but there was only so much one could teach oneself. Every time Kenji paused to explain something to her, the more ashamed she felt. Her genuine pleasure that her husband had found someone he could talk to on a certain level was quickly joined by jealousy that she was not that person.

  She was careful to keep her feelings of frustration and inferiority from him; she couldn’t allow them to ruin his friendship with David. And Kenji certainly wasn’t remiss in his attentions to her—they still discussed books they’d just read, the poetry of Frost and Yeats, the novels of Somerset Maugham. But now she had knowledge of her lack of knowledge, and as the date of her next snip approached, a furtive, ugly thought began festering in her: what if she and Kenji did get temporary release? And what if, upon reentering the world at large, Kenji discovered that what bound them together had been exile, not love? That here in the smaller world of Kalaupapa they had more in common with each other than they did with anyone else, but once outside it, he would quickly see how little they truly shared?

  She would wake in the middle of the night unable to think of anything else, telling herself that maybe she shouldn’t get the last test; maybe that way she could stay here, she could keep him. By the time the sun rose on a sleepless night she had talked herself into it, made her decision: she wouldn’t go for the sixth test.

  Then in the light of dawn she would watch Kenji as he slept, his half-open eye stirring some depth of emotion in her; he would wake, smiling sleepily as he saw her, grazing a finger gently against her cheek as he wished her good morning; and Rachel’s plans vanished in a word and a smile. She couldn’t do that to him; he had lost so much. She would get tested, and if the result was negative—if Kenji’s next two tests were also negative—they would apply for temporary release. And if she found herself released from her marriage as well, then she would bear it as she had borne so much else in her life.

  But oh, how much worse it would be than everything else!

  I

  t was a slow, rainy day at the store—Mack and Ehu didn’t even show up to argue over FDR’s latest accomplishments or transgressions—and Kenji was sitting in a wicker chair reading The New York Times when Dr. Luckie entered, shaking water from his coat.

  “Quite the monsoon out there, eh Kenji?” he said.

  Kenji looked up, nodded, but didn’t quite smile. It was not lost on him that he and Rachel had had their snips taken just the day before. “I like rainy days. They’re quiet. How are you, Doctor?”

  “Wet, cold, and embarrassed.” Luckie peeled off his coat, sighed. “It probably won’t come as a surprise to you to learn that until recently, the medical department kept little in the way of case files on individual patients.”

  Kenji stood up. “No, that doesn’t surprise me.”

  “Before the new Board took over each physician was pretty much his own secretary—and most of them, frankly, were better physicians than they were secretaries. Anyway, the upshot is, things got lost. Excluding yesterday’s test, I’ve performed four ‘snips’ on you in the last year—all negative—but now I find that your last ‘snip’ under Dr. McArthur was also negative. That makes five.”

  “Four plus one is five? Are you sure?”

  Luckie laughed sheepishly. “Well you might ask. Clearly mathematics is not my strong suit. Well, the long and the short of it is, you and Rachel both had five negative snips going in to yesterday’s test.”

  “And?”

  “And,” Luckie said, “I’m afraid that Rachel has tested positive again.” He paused. “You, on the other hand, tested negative.”

  Kenji just stared at him.

  “What?” he said, uncertain of what he’d heard.

  “Your snip was negative, Kenji. Your leprosy is biologically inactive. You’re eligible for T.R.”

  Kenji could not, for the life of him, formulate a response. He was completely unprepared for this. Finally he said, “Temporary release?”—the words seeming to ring in his ears.

  “Now, understand,” Luckie explained, “you’ll be free to leave Kalaupapa, but every two months you’ll have to report in for another snip, either here or in Honolulu. If you test positive again at any time you will be considered to have relapsed and will be readmitted to Kalaupapa.”

  The reality of it was starting to sink in. Kenji asked, “What about Rachel?”

  “She’ll continue to be tested here. And when she tests negative six times in a row, she’ll be eligible for T.R. and can join you.”

  Kenji’s mouth was dry. “What if she doesn’t?”

  Luckie didn’t answer.

  Kenji had dreamed of this, had often tried to imagine how he might feel if this moment ever came; but never had he expected to feel merely numb.

  “I can’t leave my wife,” he said.

  Luckie spread his hands. “It’s not necessarily a permanent separation.”

  “You don’t know that,” Kenji said sharply. “She’s my family, my 'ohana. I’m her 'ohana, the only one she has.”

  “You can come back anytime, Kenji. See her whenever you want, as often and as long as you want.”

  “A part-time marriage, you mean?”

  “Surely,” Luckie said, “you have family back on O'ahu you’d like to see again?”

  Kenji declared flatly, “Rachel is my only family.”

  Luckie nodded. He may even have expected this.

  “Well, we do have several parolees who’ve chosen to stay here at Kalaupapa,” he said. “Apply for T.R., stay here with your wife, and if you ever change your mind—”

  “I won’t change my mind. I do
n’t need T.R. status. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention any of this to Rachel.” He picked up his paper again and sat down in his chair, signaling that the discussion was over.

  “Yes, of course. Whatever you wish.” Luckie shrugged on his wet coat, gave Kenji a little nod of farewell, and hurried out into the rain again.

  Kenji returned his attention to The New York Times.

  At five o’clock he closed up, walked home, and saw Rachel, back from a day at Bishop Home, playing tug-of-war with Hku and Setsu. He joined in for a while, then suggested they go inside. “I have bad news,” he told her as they entered the house. “Dr. Luckie stopped by the store. We tested positive.”

  He couldn’t quite read the emotion in her face. “Oh,” she said. Then, quickly, “I told you. The damn bug’s laughing at us.”

  To her surprise, Kenji reached out, touched her cheek, and said, “I love you.” A tear welled in his good eye. “I love you so much, Rachel.”

  He cupped a hand around her neck, drew her to him, and showed her how much.

  Chapter 19

  1941–43

  F

  rom the beginning there were relatively few haoles sent to Kalaupapa: the first, an Englishman named William Williamson, arrived in 1867, having apparently contracted leprosy while working at the Honolulu receiving station. There was no counting the number of Caucasians who became infected but had the wherewithal to buy quick passage out of the islands before, or even after, their condition was discovered; but dozens of Americans and other people of Northern European stock did find their way to Moloka'i, and one of these arrived shortly after New Year’s Day, 1941.

  Former Seaman First Class Gabriel Tyler Crossen came ashore in a boat with six other bedraggled newcomers: four Hawaiians, one Portuguese, and an elderly Chinese. In his Navy whites—white cap and jumper, black neck-erchief, white starched trousers—he was a peacock among sparrows. Waiting at the dock for a produce shipment, Rachel couldn’t help but notice the sailor in bright cotton twill, though at first she took him for a visitor mistakenly placed in a launch with patients. It wasn’t until he stepped onto the landing that she noticed the angry red welt on his neck only partially hidden by his crisp white collar, and realized that he was, however improbably, one of them.

  As he gave his name to settlement officials Rachel detected a slight drawl to his speech, but had no clue what state he hailed from: her familiarity with mainland accents came primarily from movies, and Southern accents from Gone With the Wind. Now as the newcomers followed the officials into town, the young sailor looked around for the first time—taking in the maimed faces of those he would be living among for the rest of his life—and Rachel clearly read the dismay and horror in his face. She could hardly begrudge him that—they’d all felt it at first. But there was something else, noticeable in the way his shoulders began to sag and his proud bearing seemed to wilt. She remembered seeing some of it in Kenji when he first came to Kalaupapa: the shame not merely of having leprosy but of having lost one’s station in life.

  Then the first cargo boat landed, and Rachel thought nothing more about the sailor until she and Kenji—and aging Hku, sisterless since the death of Setsu—came home that evening to discover that Seaman First Class Crossen had been settled, alone, in the cottage next door. It was unusual as ever for a single person to be assigned their own home; but given that he was haole she supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised. The administration of the settlement was quick to make allowances for the lifestyle of what used to be called “white foreigners.”

  Crossen, no longer in uniform but wearing denim pants and a short-sleeved shirt, stood on his lnai, his back to Rachel and Kenji as he gazed down Kaiulani Street. As they approached Rachel called out, “Aloha.”

  The man jumped as if someone had cried “Boo!” He pivoted around, seeing his neighbors for the first time; gave them a tight smile and a perfunctory nod; then quickly turned away and hurried into his house.

  “Good meeting you, too,” Kenji said to empty air.

  “It’s his first day. You remember what it was like.”

  “As I recall,” Kenji said dryly, “I was friendly, gregarious, and generally of sunny disposition.”

  Rachel poked him in the ribs.

  “Give him a couple days to get settled,” she said.

  But though they would eventually exchange brief pleasantries with their new neighbor, that was as far as it went. He came into the store often enough, to buy Wrigley’s gum or Lucky Strikes, but was always coolly unapproachable: he paid promptly for his purchases and departed quickly, never engaging in small talk with Kenji or his regular customers. Only once did he contribute even a single sentence: during a heated discussion about the settlement authorities’ recent attempts to convince patients to be voluntarily sterilized. Some patients, told they couldn’t go to Honolulu on T.R. unless they underwent the procedure, acquiesced under pressure; others flatly refused. Crossen listened in disbelief, then disgust, then snapped out, “Anyone tries that on me, I’ll return the favor. Without surgery.” The regulars laughed, but Crossen just turned on his heel and left the store.

  He declined invitations to parties and dances, never going near the social hall but for the occasional movie. When the shades of his house were raised Rachel and Kenji could see him downing one bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon after another, only to pass out afterward, sitting stewed in his chair like a hermit crab tucked in the cleft of a rock. Sometimes they heard those bottles shatter and caught glimpses of amber shards lying in acrid pools on the floor.

  Crossen’s sole apparent friend was the only other mainland American patient, an affable Californian named Brady; and on one of Brady’s visits to the store Rachel asked him pointblank whether or not their new neighbor was pupule.

  “Oh, he ain’t batty,” Brady told her, “just angry. He drinks to forget where the hell he is—or not care.”

  “I was angry too at first,” Kenji admitted. “Maybe if I talked to him . . .”

  Brady shook his head. “I wouldn’t. Gabe’s got no use for Orientals—thinks he got the ma'i pk from a Chinese whore in Honolulu. He was stationed on the USS Nevada, and when the ship’s medico told him he had leprosy, he went on a bender—went AWOL, beat the crap out of that poor whore. The brass had him march up and down the deck carrying a full pack for six hours.”

  “But I’m not Chinese,” Kenji pointed out.

  “You’re close enough for him.”

  “I’m surprised he’s even here,” Rachel said. “Isn’t there a leprosarium on the mainland?”

  Brady nodded. “Carville, Louisiana. But it’s kinda close to his family in Baton Rouge. Didn’t want to go back and shame them. Sounds silly, I know, but there it is.”

  Kenji just nodded.

  It wasn’t until the annual Fourth of July celebration that Crossen allowed himself to be coaxed from his house by the gregarious Brady. The Fourth was traditionally festive at Kalaupapa, memories of those tiny flags ground into the dust in ’98 having been long forgotten. Food was abundant; there were canoe races, a baseball game, pony races, and most colorfully, p'u riders—a Hawaiian princess and her six attendants astride horses, ginger wreaths around their necks, their long sweeping skirts grazing the ground as they rode. Crossen didn’t participate in any events, but he did watch them, particularly the baseball game between patients and staff physicians (the doctors lost nine-four). After this there was a motion picture in the social hall, followed by ice cream, cakes, and other desserts. For the first time since the young seaman arrived here he seemed to enjoy himself—seemed to realize that it was possible to enjoy himself here—and by the end of the evening he was even dancing with a pretty young Portuguese girl named Felicia. Kenji and Rachel joined them on the dance floor, as a blind eighteen-year-old named Sammy Kuahine—something of a musical prodigy, despite his handicap—strummed his ukulele and sang a song of his own composition.

  “The Sunset of Kalaupapa

  Smiles through the eve
ning rain;

  The tradewinds of Kalaupapa

  Sing like an old refrain

  There’s music of romancing,

  Moonlight and stars above;

  Your magic charms, your dancing

  Fill every night with love . . .”

  Rachel’s cheek brushed against Kenji’s as they danced, as out of the corner of her eye she saw Gabe Crossen cradling Felicia in his arms, swaying to the music with a smile that somehow changed his whole face; and for these moments at least, Moloka'i truly seemed the place of romance and beauty of which Sammy sang so sweetly.

  T

  hat first Sunday morning in December was as drowsy and quiet in Kalaupapa, but for the crowing of settlement roosters, as it was on O'ahu. As Kenji slept in, Rachel took Hku to Papaloa Beach. The swells were moderately high and well-shaped, perfect for surfing. There was only one other person on the beach, a man in his thirties whose face and legs were riddled with sores, his right foot amputated at the ankle; he sat on the sand, gazing out at the big waves rolling in. He turned at her approach, and Rachel nodded a hello to the surfer she’d first met here thirteen years before, the one with the hollow surfboard. The eyes in his ulcerated face reflected the same longing and frustration he must have seen in hers back in ’28. She gave him a consoling smile and walked on, playing catch with Hku a while before heading back to town.