Moloka'i

by Alan Brennert

  “Well, that makes two of us.”

  “Are you calling from—California?”

  “Yes. San José. Your letter went to my parents’ old farm,” the voice explained, as if eager to fill any anxious lull with words, “and the current tenants sent it back. But a girl at the local post office went to high school with me, and—”

  “I named you Ruth,” Rachel suddenly exclaimed—to her own surprise, and a startled pause on the other end of the line.

  “Did you?” Ruth said at last.

  Rachel couldn’t tell whether she sounded intrigued or alarmed. “Did you speak with your . . . parents before you called me today?”

  “My father passed away several years ago. My mother’s very frail, I didn’t want to possibly upset her.” A small note of annoyance crept into her tone. “Anyway, it was me you wanted to talk to, wasn’t it? Though isn’t it a little late to decide you want to get to know me?”

  Rachel sighed.

  “Ruth . . .” Despite what she had to say, she thrilled to speak the name. “I gave you up for adoption because I had to. Because I was forced to . . . by the government.”

  Ruth seemed completely nonplussed by that. “What?”

  “Have you ever heard of—Kalaupapa?”

  “Kala . . . no.”

  “It’s on Moloka'i. Where Father Damien died.”

  There was a stunned silence on the line; all Rachel could hear was the static of Ruth’s breath as it traveled across the transpacific cable.

  Finally, in a small, shocked voice: “You’re a leper?”

  Rachel flinched.

  “They call it Hansen’s disease now. And I’ve been paroled.” She instantly regretted the choice of words; it made her sound like an exconvict. “They found a cure. A treatment. I’ve been released, I’m no danger to anybody.”

  This was followed by another silence, almost as long as the last. “Hansen’s disease?”

  “It’s not hereditary. It doesn’t pass from mother to child unless the baby remains with the parents for an extended time. That’s why we had to give you up.”

  Rachel hung on the silence that followed; then in a strained voice her daughter said, “I . . . think I’d better have a talk with my mother.”

  Of course that’s not what you’re having now, is it, Rachel thought with a trace of bitterness. “Yes. That’s a good idea.”

  “I’ll call back tomorrow. Or the next day.”

  Rachel’s stomach knotted. She said, “Ruth—”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t talk right now. I’ll call back, I promise.”

  The connection was severed, and Rachel couldn’t help wondering if this would be the closest she would ever come to her daughter—a disembodied voice without face or form, a phantom child she would never see nor hold.

  There had been so many days in her life when she had told herself, Nothing could ever be worse than this. The day she was sent to Moloka'i; the day Ruth was taken from her; the day Kenji died. And now this. The waiting, and wondering, and hearing again and again the horror in her daughter’s voice. You’re a leper? She prayed that from this day forward no more parents would live to hear that word spoken by their own children.

  She called Sarah, who reassured her and counseled patience. That night she saw David and Helen, who were sure Ruth would call back. “She just needs time to digest it all,” Helen said. For days Rachel never left her room for fear of missing Ruth’s call; but it didn’t come on Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday. By Thursday she was going stir-crazy and took herself out to dinner at Tomo’s, a little neighborhood eatery—then regretted it, staying home all of Friday in case Ruth had tried to reach her the night before. But by Saturday she could no longer keep her hopes up, and consoled herself with the memory of that one brief conversation with the girl whose name was still Ruth.

  On Sunday morning, as it had the previous Sunday, the phone rang early.

  Rachel snapped it up before the first ring had faded, hearing again the hiss and pop of long distance.

  “Hi. It’s me again.”

  Rachel’s heart pounded in her chest like the sea heard in a conch shell. She shut her eyes and thanked whatever God, god, or 'aumakua had granted her this.

  Simultaneously they said, “I’m sorry—”

  Simultaneously they laughed.

  “You first,” Ruth said.

  “I’m sorry if I alarmed you. I’m sure it was enough of a shock, hearing from me, much less the rest of it.”

  “I’m sorry it took me so long to call back,” Ruth apologized. “I guess I panicked a little. My first thought was for my children; what it might mean to them.”

  Rachel thrilled to know she was a grandmother. “How many children do you have?”

  “Two. Peggy’s eight and Donald is ten.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Rachel said, tears coming to her.

  “My doctor says you’re right, leprosy isn’t hereditary. But that children are more susceptible to it.”

  Rachel asked, “Did he also tell you that you don’t get it from casual contact? From touching someone, or breathing the same air they do?”

  Her daughter hesitated. “Yes. But he did say that children are more susceptible.”

  Rachel weighed her words carefully: “Ruth, it’s you I want to see. I’m willing to do it under any conditions you name. If you don’t want me near your children, I won’t go near them.”

  After a moment: “How . . . bad . . . is your leprosy?”

  “You mean, am I disfigured?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “My right hand is deformed. And my feet. Other than that, my main complaint is neuritis.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound—tactless—”

  “It’s all right. Not many people know much about leprosy. Even in Hawai'i it’s something most people would prefer not to think about.”

  There was a long silence, and then Ruth said, “I used to wonder about you. Who you were. Why you . . .” She paused. “I think it’s only fair to tell you. I love my oksan, my mother. I loved my father.”

  Rachel felt a pang of loss at the words, but said, “Of course you do. They raised you. Raised you well, to judge by what I’ve heard. I’m not trying to replace anyone in your affections, Ruth.”

  “Then what do you want from me?”

  “Just what I said in the letter. To see you.” Her voice broke. “You were the only baby I ever had, and you were taken from me after less than a day. If someone had taken Peggy or Donald from you right after they were born—if you hadn’t seen them in thirty years—what would you want?”

  The distance between them crackled in Rachel’s ear, then Ruth said, “This is so strange. Listening to you, it’s almost like listening to my own voice.” There was a hint of pleasure in her tone. “I never looked or sounded like anybody in my family.”

  She hesitated a moment, then said, “We’re not rich. I can’t afford to come to Honolulu.”

  And at that, Rachel smiled.

  “I don’t expect you to,” she said.

  S

  he was going through her savings at an alarming pace, but couldn’t think of anything she would rather spend it on than this. Round-trip airfare from Honolulu to San Francisco was a bracing $270 plus tax, but a cabin-class steamer ticket ran about the same price. And in the end she couldn’t resist the lure of the majestic Lurline—the prospect of finally being one of those boarding a ship bound for distant ports, and not just one of the crowd seeing them off. Now, as she and some seven hundred other passengers crowded onto the bow of the luxury liner, stewards handed out gaudy streamers which the passengers let fall in a blizzard of color, to be caught by friends or family on the pier. Rachel threw hers to strangers, even waved at them, and laughed when they waved back. The Royal Hawaiian Band bid them sweet farewell with “Aloha 'Oe,” the ship’s horn returning the sentiment in a deep basso—three long blasts as the ship pulled anchor. The Lurline slipped its berth and was soon heading for open sea,
the band’s music becoming faint as a fading radio signal. As O'ahu receded from view, Rachel felt a rush of excitement headier even than her flight out of Kalaupapa. San Francisco! The name resonated with memories of her father, the rag doll he’d bought for her back when California had been a place in another country, an exotic land called America. And as the last of the Hawaiian archipelago disappeared from sight Rachel realized that she had gone over the horizon, just as Papa had. The salt air tasted strangely sweet.

  She had booked the cheapest cabin available—a tiny room with a couch that converted into a bed—but spent most of the next five days outside anyway, lounging in a deck chair while reading a book, strolling the promenade deck, sunning herself at the pool. She didn’t go into the water for fear of revealing her deformed feet, but perhaps no one would have cared if she had; the other passengers seemed far too intent on their own recreation.

  After dinner she liked to linger in the aft lounge on “A” deck, listening to music and watching couples swing dancing. She would have given all the rest of her life to be on that dance floor with Kenji, feeling his arms around her as he held her close, followed by a long walk in the moonlight with nothing but ocean and freedom in every direction. As the orchestra played “Autumn Serenade” Rachel shut her eyes and could almost imagine Kenji was here, and for a moment she could feel his strong fingers entwined with those of her good hand.

  On the fifth day the California coastline crept up from below the horizon, the red towers of the Golden Gate Bridge appearing like devil’s horns on the forehead of the sea. It was the largest man-made creation Rachel had ever seen: a flaming necklace strung between brown hills and a city of towering concrete pali. She couldn’t have been more excited if she’d been transported by whirlwind to the outskirts of Oz.

  She would have loved to take in the sights, but instead caught a train that carried her south to San José, which was closer to her conception of a mainland American city—modern and a bit nondescript. From the Cahill Street Station she took a taxi to the Hotel Sainte Claire, a six-story brick colossus that occupied the better part of an entire block. She had considered getting a room at the YWCA, or at a less pricy hotel like the unfortunately named Letcher House, but chose the Saint Claire because she didn’t want her daughter to think her indigent; that Rachel had any financial motives in contacting her.

  Her comfortable room looked out on Plaza Park across the street. Shaped somewhat like a lopsided arrowhead, the park was an island of California redwoods, date palms, and oak trees surrounding the Victorian spires of City Hall. She freshened up, then lay down on the bed, noting the time: a little after three in the afternoon. Ruth would be here in less than an hour and Rachel found herself growing anxious, restive. The person dearest to her in the world was also, she knew, a total stranger; Rachel reminded herself that the need here was hers, not Ruth’s.

  As she seemed to do whenever she checked into a hotel she promptly fell into a doze, only to be startled awake by a knock on the door. She sat up, disoriented to see the hands of the clock now poised just after four. My God, she thought, she’s here, Ruth’s here! “Coming!” she called, terrified the knocking would stop and her daughter somehow vanish like smoke; she smoothed the wrinkles in her skirt, took the brass doorknob in her left hand, twisted and pulled.

  A tall, pretty young woman with amber skin and almond eyes stood in the doorway. Her face was as round as Rachel’s, but her features were finer, like Kenji’s. She wore a yellow dress and her hair fell to her shoulders.

  “Hello,” she said, smiling nervously. “I’m Ruth.”

  Something sang inside Rachel, and everything she had endured paled in the bright light of this moment.

  “Ruth,” she said, less a greeting than a confirmation. She felt tears in her eyes, didn’t try to check them. “Oh my baby, you’re so beautiful.” Ruth blushed, as her mother once had at similar words.

  Rachel embraced her, unable to do anything else. For the first time in thirty years she felt her daughter’s skin against hers; rejoiced to feel her heartbeat, and each nervous breath she took.

  But she also became aware of the tension in Ruth’s body, the unease she was probably feeling, and reluctantly Rachel let go of her. She took a step back, wiped at her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” she said with a smile. “I’m a blubbering old woman. Take me out and shoot me.”

  But this did not elicit the expected laugh. Rachel realized that Ruth was staring at her right hand—the wrist that ended so suddenly, the harrowed flesh pulled tight over a stump of bone. The young woman appeared shocked and queasy, suddenly unsteady on her feet.

  “May I—sit down?” she asked. Rachel stepped aside to admit her. Ruth teetered a bit on her high heels as she hurried to the bed and sat.

  “Can I get you some water?” Rachel asked. Ruth shook her head. She sat there a long moment, taking deep breaths, then finally looked up at Rachel. When she did her face showed less fear than amazement.

  “You—really do have leprosy,” she said softly.

  Rachel was puzzled, to say the least. “Well, yes.”

  Strangely, Ruth started to laugh.

  “I know how weird this sounds,” she said, “but . . . part of me didn’t quite believe you.” Her laughter was so much like Kenji’s that Rachel found she almost didn’t care what had prompted it, she just enjoyed hearing it.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t laugh, but . . .” Sobering, Ruth explained, “When my parents first told me I was adopted, I asked them why you’d given me up. All my mother said was, ‘Don’t judge her, Ruth. She had no choice.’ Later I took that to mean you were . . . unmarried, underage. But I couldn’t help it, I’d still wonder . . . how you could have given me up. Why you didn’t . . . love me enough . . . to keep me.”

  “Oh, Ruth,” Rachel said, sitting down beside her.

  “Please don’t be offended by this,” Ruth said, “but in a strange way . . . it’s almost a relief to learn that you have leprosy. To know that you gave me away because you had to, because you really didn’t have any other choice.”

  Rachel assured her, “Nothing else in this world could have made me give you up.”

  Ruth looked pleased, but also a little embarrassed at having shared this much, this soon. She stood up, smiling self-consciously. “Why don’t we go downstairs to the restaurant and get some coffee,” she suggested. “Or maybe something stronger.”

  Within the hotel was an atrium restaurant roofed by palm trees that made Rachel feel more at home. She and Ruth took a table beneath a large umbrella where Rachel ordered coffee and a Danish pastry and Ruth—she wasn’t kidding—a vodka tonic. A stray shaft of California sunlight fell across the tawny skin of Ruth’s arm and Rachel couldn’t help touching her, her fingers grazing her daughter’s wrist, affirming that she was real.

  “So your parents”—Rachel wanted to show she wasn’t afraid of the word—“adopted you when you were five?”

  Ruth nodded. “Mama always wanted a daughter, but after my brother Ralph was born she learned she couldn’t have any more children. So they decided to adopt a girl.”

  “Do you recall anything of Hawai'i?”

  Ruth shook her head. “I’m afraid not. My earliest memories are of Florin, our farm there.”

  “What brought your parents to California?” Rachel was quite proud of herself, calmly asking questions like a quizmaster on a radio show.

  “Well, Papa always wanted his own farm. And in Hawai'i, I guess, there weren’t many opportunities of that kind for an Issei. You know what that is?”

  Rachel smiled and nodded. “My husband was Japanese.”

  Mortified, Ruth shaded her eyes with her hands. “Yes, of course he was. You had no idea you’d given birth to such an idiot, did you?”

  Rachel laughed. “No, you’ve just either had too much to drink or not enough.” She sliced off a piece of pastry with her fork. “You were talking about your father?”

  Still chagrined, Ruth said, “Yes, well . .
. I’m told we left Hawai'i in ’23. Papa got a three-year lease on a thousand acres in Florin, which was predominantly Japanese. Lots of towns had nihonmachi—Japantowns—but all of Florin was one big nihonmachi! I lived on our farm ’till I was eighteen, when I met Frank.”

  She opened her purse and in moments had spread a fan of photographs on the table. Pointing to a smiling young Nisei she said, “That’s Frank.”

  “He’s very handsome.”

  “And this is Donald, and Peggy.” A ten-year-old boy in a cowboy hat straddled a sawhorse and twirled a lariat, and an eight-year-old girl posed shyly in a candy-striped blouse. Their complexions were fairer than Ruth’s, closer to their father’s. “As you can see, Donald wants to be Roy Rogers when he grows up. Peggy wants to grow up, period.”

  Rachel asked, “May I—?” At Ruth’s nod she picked up the photos and smiled as she examined them. Even if this was the closest she would ever come to her grandchildren, it was worth the trip to see these faces . . . to be sitting here like any grandmother listening to any daughter go on about her children. “They’re beautiful,” she told Ruth.

  “Thank you. I think so too, when they’re not driving me to drink.” And then Ruth surprised Rachel by asking, “Your husband. What was his name?”

  Rachel looked up. “Kenji. Charles Kenji Utagawa.”

  “Do you have a picture?”

  Pleased, Rachel took a snapshot from her purse and handed it to Ruth, who studied it with some fascination. “He loved you so much, Ruth. He called you his akachan. The day you left Moloka'i he told you, ‘Papa loves you. He’ll always love you, and he’ll always be your papa.’ ”

  Her voice broke a little as she said it. All at once she was afraid that her use of the word “papa” could have offended Ruth; but Ruth’s gaze as she stared at Kenji’s seemed almost tender. “He looks . . . very kind.”

  “He was. A very kind, sweet man.”

  Ruth glanced up. “So he’s not—”

  Rachel shook her head and reluctantly told her the circumstances of Kenji’s death. Ruth winced a little and said softly, “That makes two fathers I lost to the war.”