Mana

by John A. Broussard

  “‘Come, Tupala, he said. My warriors are coming to get me. If you wish to return to my country with me, you must come now. Bewildered by this sudden turn of events, torn between her love of her own people and her love for this stranger who promised so much and promised it so sweetly, Tupala took a last look back at the village of her childhood, then followed the beckoning form into the waves.

  “Both were powerful swimmers, and the racing canoe, with its crew throwing their weight behind the paddles and the sail catching the first feeble breezes of the morning, moved swiftly toward them. Behind at the beach, however, Tongan warriors were racing even more swiftly to man their own sea craft. The couple reached their goal when it was but a long spear throw away from the war canoes.

  “As the two clambered aboard, the giant Tongan who had challenged Luelu in the game of uma stood in the prow of his canoe and hurled his spear with enormous force. It arced through the air toward the fugitives, turned full circle before reaching its target and returned, burying itself in his chest. Tupala’s eyes went from the toppling figure in the war canoe to the handsome form of Luelu taunting his pursuers, who now had stopped paddling as they sought to retrieve the body of their fallen comrade.

  “The wind rose. The racing canoe tacked against it, rounding the high point of the land. The passengers turned to look at a small figure standing at the edge above them. Shading his eyes, Luelu recognized the form of O’onane. For a moment it hesitated, then it plunged down the face of the cliff into the rocks and breakers.”

  * * *

  Toa drew a breath, closed the folder and stared out of the screen. Lehua sat back in her chair. Watching Tessa, Lehua was certain the professor had been just as captivated as she was by the story.

  Tessa broke the ensuing silence. “My impression has always been that mana existed concurrently among various peoples in the Pacific. The legends you read imply it was an indivisible force.”

  “If you think about it,” Toa replied, “you’ll realize what benefits a chief would derive from having his enemies—and his own people—believe he possessed mana, whether he did or not. It’s certainly possible that many of the chiefs claimed to have mana while not actually having it.”

  “Is there any hint of mana in the rest of the documents?” Tessa asked when she had fully recovered from the power of the narration.

  “Fragments only.” Now that the tales were over, Toa seemed to be returning to his earlier taciturnity.

  “Was there anything significant in the fragments?”

  Toa shrugged. “There was some additional mention in the Spaniard’s notebooks. Substantially, it said one day the mana will go back to a woman.”

  “And?”

  “After her, it will return to its primordial self and will no longer be dependent on a human intermediary.”

  Chapter 12

  It seemed almost dark in the studio after the cameraman turned off the bright spotlight. Lehua was the first to speak following the break in the connection. “Did we learn anything?” Her face bore a wan smile as she asked the question.

  Tessa shrugged. “I’m not really sure. I’ll have to go over the tape. There’s a lot there, but I’m not sure it’s relevant to your problem. There is one thing though. I think Cy was right. Toa does seem to believe in mana.”

  Lehua’s smile deepened and broadened. “I’m sure he does. The funny part is it made me think he was some kind of a kook for giving any credence to that sort of thing. Can you believe my thinking apparatus could be so skewed?”

  “I know it isn’t easy to accept what’s happened. We’re raised in a world where science explains everything, and here we’re faced with something we can’t explain that way.” Tessa paused. “Maybe we have to look closer at the legends Toa read to us.”

  “Do you think there’s any truth to them?”

  “I think Toa thinks there is, and we know he’s right about the existence of mana.”

  The cameraman had rolled up the last cable, moved the camera back to the wall, given a tape of the conference to Tessa, and was waiting expectantly at the studio door. Tessa and Lehua left, still engrossed in conversation.

  “There’s a limit to what I’m going to believe,” Lehua said, “even in my present condition.”

  “I’m not saying you have to accept the legends, whole cloth. It’s just that we know there are grains of truth in them, even though those grains are buried under a lot of standard mythological characteristics. If we can extract some of the wheat from the chaff, it might help.”

  “There’s too much missing. For example, did the old Tongan chief lose his mana when he passed it on to that Samoan con artist? Did the mother figure in the first legend lose it when she passed it along to her son? Is passing it on the only way to lose it? Did mana prevent her from even friendly contact with others? And what about sex? Those are the important questions, as far as I’m concerned, and I see no answers in the legends. I most certainly didn’t see anything there that would help me to get rid of mana.”

  By the time they had reached their cars in the University parking lot, little of Lehua’s gloom had lifted, but Tessa promised to keep working on the problem.

  * * *

  Under other circumstances, the message waiting for her on her recording machine would have been a welcome one. Now, it merely added to her problems. Bill’s voice announced he was on his way home. Looking up at the clock, Lehua saw she had just over twenty-four hours to decide how to deal with a new crisis. After checking to make sure there were no other messages, she dialed police headquarters and finally managed to get through to Millie.

  “Hi, Lehua. What’s up?”

  “Bill’s on his way home.”

  “Oh, oh! When’s he getting in?”

  “Tomorrow, on the twelve-twenty from Honolulu.”

  “OK. I’ll be there for sure. Any idea how we should handle it?”

  “All I know is I’m desperate.”

  “Have you tried to explain any of this to him?”

  “I’ve told him virtually nothing about what’s happened. He prides himself on being a hard-nosed scientist. He’s going to dismiss all this as rank superstition and, if I insist, he’ll want me to go to a psychiatrist.”

  “I can sympathize with him. I wouldn’t have believed in mana either, if I hadn’t seen it in action.”

  The final decision Lehua and Millie arrived at was a deferral of decisions until the plane’s arrival time.

  * * *

  Lehua waited impatiently outside the entrance leading to the gates. Millie had gone in as soon as Bill’s plane taxied up, while Lehua had moved well out of the traffic flow. The mix of emotions as she watched Bill and Millie emerge through the arrival gate was almost more than she could handle, wanting terribly to have him hold her, terrified he would, happy to once more see that familiar face, horrified at the dark suspicion shrouding its features as Millie gesticulated and pleaded. Lehua shrank back against the stone wall separating the passenger approach walk from the landing area.

  “What in hell’s going on?” Bill was making no attempt to hide his frustration and anger.

  Millie tried to intervene, but he brushed her off. Lehua said, “Please, Bill. I know this is all really confusing. Millie will take us to my apartment, and I’ll tell you the whole story there.

  Dropping his luggage into the trunk of Millie’s car, his face still a thundercloud, Bill sat up front with the sergeant. An uncomfortable silence marked the short ride to the apartment. When they had settled down in the small living room, Bill in a chair beside a coffee table strewn with books and papers, Lehua on a floor cushion, he finally managed a sarcastic, “Well?”

  Lehua took a deep breath, while Millie went off to the kitchen to put on coffee.

  The story unfolded. Hesitant at first, watching closely for a glimmer of belief in Bill’s eyes, Lehua thought it best at the outset of her story to avoid mention of the recorder and its message. Instead she began with the first evening at the newspaper. Bill�
�s face reflected his horror as Lehua told about the rape attempt. Turning to Millie for confirmation as she came in with the cups and coffee, Bill looked more baffled than dubious at her energetic nods of agreement with Lehua’s narrative.

  Lehua swiftly described Tessa’s skepticism and her quick change of mind brought about by the pen tossing incident, then told him about the acid thrower and his fate. Bill kept shaking his head in disbelief as Lehua detailed Millie’s even deeper skepticism and the dramatic circumstances leading to her conversion. But it wasn’t until he heard the tragic news about Carlo that Bill broke his silence.

  “Carlo! Who in hell did that?” Disbelief, anger and shock mingled in his voice.

  The name of Phil Cheng brought even greater disbelief than before. “Am I going crazy, Millie?” Bill asked, turning to the police sergeant.

  “It’s all true, Bill. There’s witness after witness to describe what happened. Everyone has their own explanation, but the facts are pretty clear, and I’ve been there to see some of it myself. Phil Cheng was Number One. Now he’s dead, along with four of his mobsters.”

  “You two are just talking black magic.”

  “Would it help if we called Tessa and had her give you her version?” Lehua asked in desperation.

  “Mass hysteria,” Bill muttered. Then, looking fiercely at Lehua, he asked, “Are you trying to tell me if I so much as touch you I’m going to be knocked across the room?”

  “I wish I knew for sure what would happen if you did,” Lehua answered. “The force seems to be getting more and more irritable and more and more unpredictable. Since you left, no one has even brushed against me.” Suddenly she broke into a weak laugh. “Except for a mosquito, early on.”

  “What does Sam Silva say?”

  Millie was the one who answered. “We haven’t told him what we told you, so he’s completely baffled. He has firsthand knowledge of what’s been happening. He’s seen the shape of the bodies…

  “So why haven’t you told him?” Bill interrupted.

  “We’ve never told him the truth because he’d probably try to have us locked up. But, believe me, he’s having a tough time coming up with an explanation of his own. That reminds me.” Millie started off to the kitchen with her empty cup. “I’d better get back to work.”

  After Millie left, Bill kept throwing question after question at Lehua. “Who have you convinced besides Tessa and Millie?”

  “Bill! Please don’t use that tone! I haven’t convinced anyone. It’s the mana that has. You heard what happened on Campus. Millie knows no bullet could have stopped that car. Certainly no bullet could have wrecked it the way it got wrecked.”

  “What convinced Tessa?”

  “I told you. I asked her to throw me a pen. That was before I realized how dangerous this force could be even to something as innocuous as that.”

  “Tell me again what happened?”

  “It never reached me. It just got batted aside.”

  Before Lehua could stop him, before she had even become fully aware of what he intended to do, Bill had crumpled up a sheet of paper he had picked up from the coffee table and tossed it toward her. The wad stopped abruptly in mid air and slammed back against Bill’s forehead, the blow upending him and his chair. Lehua stifled a scream, jumped up and then stood helplessly by as Bill, his nose bloodied, and a lump already rising on his forehead, rolled out of the upset chair and struggled to his feet.

  Relief at seeing he was relatively unhurt was almost instantly replaced by an all-consuming anger at what he had done. “Damn you, Bill Wu! You could have been killed.” Dashing into the kitchen, Lehua returned with some paper towels. Gingerly, Bill took them from her and used them to replace the bloody handkerchief he had used in an unsuccessful attempt to staunch the flow.

  The words she heaped on him helped her to control her own trembling. “You and that damn science of yours. Well, do something with that!” She nodded at his streaming nose and battered forehead.

  Ruefully, holding the towels to his nose and rubbing the bruise on his forehead, Bill said, “Science isn’t a thing. It’s a method. It’s a way of dealing even with this.” He waved the mass of reddened paper towels and a sudden gush of blood made him quickly return it to his nose.

  For the first time in almost a week, Lehua broke into a wholehearted laugh. “OK,” she said, “Let’s see you and science deal with this.”

  Bill gave an answering laugh, saying, “I will. Just give me a chance to clean up, then we’ll bring the best efforts of science to bear on this problem.”

  * * *

  The sizable welt on Bill’s forehead was turning various shades of purple, but his nose had stopped bleeding, and he had found one of his old shirts in Lehua’s closet to replace the splattered one he had taken off. Lehua eyed him across the dining room table where they had settled down. She decided he was once more looking quite presentable, and perhaps more than that. Thinking back to the first legend Toa had read, she remembered Tamai had had many children after acquiring mana. Apparently, adjustments could be made. Speculating about the possibilities made Bill that much more attractive.

  In the meantime, Bill was far too entranced with a problem needing solution to read Lehua’s thoughts. With a paper and pen in front of him he said. “Let’s start at the beginning. How do you think you got this …this mana.”

  “I played the tape after you left. I sat and listened to it, rewound it and listened again. Then I ran it through a third time. I’m convinced it was the repetition that did it.”

  “Fits. Annie said it once and there was no effect. If I remember right, she even refused to repeat it.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You say you played it three times?” Bill started to scratch out some notes.

  Lehua nodded.

  “Did you have the board here when you played it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Whatever it is, I think it’s the sounds that make the difference. I doubt there’s anything special about the board, or the recorder. Annie not wanting to repeat the words is significant.” Bill pondered for a moment, then added, “I agree with you. It’s the repetition that makes the difference.”

  Lehua nodded. “Yeah. Annie not wanting to repeat what she said is what convinces me the repetition is what did it.” Lehua smiled at Bill’s intensity as he scowled at his notes. “Don’t you wish you could chip something off with a hammer and put it into a test tube?” she asked. “How does this incantation fit in with your science?”

  Bill looked up and smiled back at her. “Poor Lehua. You’re still living back in the Dark Ages. Words and other symbols are as much a part of scientific inquiry as atoms and molecules. We’ve got computers right now that will do incredible things in response to voice commands. Look at the wild stuff we’re doing now—things like virtual reality, for instance. What we have to do is to examine all this, one step at a time. First, we know that somehow this—whatever it is—got transferred to you.”

  “So far, we agree. And it is called mana.”

  Bill continued, as though merely speaking his thoughts aloud. “On the other hand, maybe it wasn’t a simple transfer. It could have been a nondestructive readout.”

  Exasperation showed in Lehua’s question. “Just what does that mean?”

  “You know. It just reduplicated itself, like DNA.”

  “No, I don’t know. But if you mean it’s in me and also out there somewhere, then maybe I can’t get rid of it. Maybe I’ll be a Typhoid Mary. I’ll just carry it around and spread it.”

  Bill picked up the note of desperation behind Lehua’s show of humor. He started to reach for her, and she shrank back, saying, “Say what you will, this still comes a lot closer to Merlin than to Einstein. In fact, about the only leads Tessa and I have gotten so far have come from legends.”

  “Legends?”

  Lehua proceeded to give Bill a quick summary of the conference with Toa.

  “OK. I’ll go along with that. Legends get badly
garbled as they’re passed down from generation to generation, but there can be grains of truth in them, and at least these got written down along the way. You say Tessa has a tape of the telecast?”

  “Yes.”

  “Great.” Bill made a note. “We’ll borrow a copy and go over it. Scientists never ignore anything that might possibly be relevant.”

  The phone interrupted their discussion. Lehua depressed the speaker button the moment she recognized Tessa’s voice. “Bill’s here,” Lehua said.

  Bill looked up and shouted a “Hi” across the room.

  “Hi, Bill. How much has Lehua told you…and how much do you believe?”

  Bill broke into a grin and passed his hand across his bruised forehead. “She’s told me a lot, and I’m now a believer.”

  There was an audible sigh of relief at the other end. “I’m surprised. I told Chuck the whole story, and he just thinks I’m bonkers. And he’s someone who reads the daily horoscope and believes it, so I didn’t hold out much hope for you.”

  Lehua cut in. “Bill’s already busy applying the scientific method to my problem. Can we get a copy of that tape? He thinks there may be something there.”

  “Better yet, why don’t you come over this evening. We’ll brainstorm the thing. Maybe with enough heads together, we’ll be able to figure it out. If our ancestors could, we should be able to.”

  Chapter 13

  Lehua had always liked the Kaholakula home, both inside and out. Sitting high up on the western slope of Hualalai above the city, it had an unobstructed view of the Bay. In the evening, the planes at Keahole, too distant to provide more than a soft buzz to indicate their true nature, flickered in like fireflies or vanished in the distance, finally merging with the background of stars. From the living room window, one could see the yellow sodium lamps marking off the various roads winding down to Kona Village. White headlight beams, like lamps on coalminer’s hats, faithfully followed the unblinking highway reflectors. These, along with the running lights of boats out in the bay gave the Kona Coast a fairyland quality.