by Bodie Thoene
“Beautiful.” Sandi sighed.
A wave of exhaustion swept over her. She had pressed the first rose John had ever given her in her Bible, but the memory of that joy did not give her comfort. Instead, a sort of melancholy longing crushed her.
Was John alive somewhere? she wondered. Did he think of her? Week by week more news was coming to light about American POWs. The possibility that he was still alive kept her going. Yet it also kept her from loving again; from starting her life over.
Closing her eyes, she slept on top of the quilt. A soft rapping awakened her.
“Aloha. Miss Sandi?” a woman’s voice called. “You have a phone call from the mainland. It is your mother. She says it’s urgent.”
Sandi rolled over and squinted at the alarm clock: 7:19 a.m. in Lahaina. It was 10:19 a.m. in California. “Coming! Please tell her, a minute… .”
Barefoot, Sandi padded down the stairway to the pay phone in the lobby. The receiver hung by the cord. There was no phone booth, no privacy. Sandi was aware of early rising hotel guests eating continental breakfast as they pretended not to notice her.
She picked up the telephone. “Mom? Mom? Is everything all right?”
“Sandi?”
“Yes, Mom. Are you and Dad okay? Everything—”
Her mother’s voice cracked with emotion. “Oh, darling.” A pause. “I’m so sorry.”
Something awful must have happened.
“What is it?”
“What time is it there?”
“Time?”
“Yes. Have you seen the morning news?”
“It’s seven thirty. There’s no TV.”
“I wanted to tell you before you heard the news.”
“Mom?” Sandi’s heart pounded. “Is it Dad?”
“No. The State Department…it was on the news. You didn’t see it? North Viet Nam. The negotiations. They have released a list of POWs.”
“Oh, Mom! John? Is he, was he…?” Every fear played out in her mind.
“Honey, Sandi? I am so sorry. John is not on the list.”
“Not-on-the-list.” The room spun around. Sandi leaned heavily against the wall. “Oh, Mom.”
“No news, darling. I know you were hoping. I am so sorry.”
She managed a whisper. “Not on the list of the living. But not dead. I can still hope. We can keep hoping he’s somewhere… .”
“Honey, I know how disappointed you are. We were all hoping.”
“Disappointed? Oh, no. No. I was so afraid he would be dead, Mom. I won’t give up. Not until I have to. Every night I go to bed with the feeling that he’s still alive…somewhere.”
Sandi’s mother was crying softly. Sandi’s eyes were dry. It had been such a long time. She had cried all her tears long ago. At least she could go on hoping for a miracle. Miracles did happen, didn’t they?
Sandi hung up the phone and stood for a long moment with her head bowed and her eyes closed. When she raised her face she was aware of curious stares suddenly turning away from her. Everyone in the hotel lobby had heard the conversation. There was no keeping the secret. Sandi Smith traveled to Lahaina alone for a reason. Her husband was not deployed, but MIA.
She managed a brave smile, squared her shoulders, then joined the breakfast buffet line among a dozen couples dressed for a romantic vacation in the tropical paradise.
Sandi carried her coffee, guava juice, pineapple, and sweet rolls up to her room on a tray. Placing her breakfast on the lanai table, she sank down on the deck chair as the terror of the phone call finally hit home.
Sun sparkled on the water beyond the harbor. A large catamaran was returning from a morning breakfast cruise. Laughing couples stood at the railing as the boat docked. Sandi’s Kona coffee grew cold. Her breakfast remained untouched. She retreated into her room. Lifting the precious documents from the bed, she lay on her back and gazed up. The woven fan blades spun above her. Kaiulani’s autograph book was beside her on the night table. The peacock feather stirred in the slight breeze of the ceiling fan. A memory of better times shimmered in Sandi’s mind. Another morning in the hotel in Monterey. She had lain in John’s arms, and they had ordered room service breakfast. And later, lunch. Then, dinner, without ever leaving the room. She had pressed the room service rose in her Bible.
So long ago.
Now, here was reality. John was not on the list of those who would be coming home.
“I will not cry. Will not.”
But a single tear rolled down her cheek.
* * * *
1889
The throbbing engines drove Umatilla into the waves with a relentless drumbeat. Because of a quartering sea a corkscrew motion accompanied every lunge forward. The rolling spiral that began with the boat’s left hip continued through its right shoulder. It was as if the steam ship were an immense horse, forging ahead on a right lead.
Less charitable patrons said she “wallowed.”
The ship’s salon, while not luxurious, was perfectly adequate to the needs of the passengers. The ship’s cook had produced a fine ragout of chicken stewed in coconut milk, which all the male diners praised.
The female voyagers remained in their cabins, subsisting on clear broth. For Kaiulani and Hannah, it was a point of honor to resist moaning audibly. Annie felt no such requirement, so the two younger girls spoon-fed her soup and sympathy.
So the wood-paneled salon was occupied exclusively by males. Three of them, Archie Cleghorn, William Adams, and Captain Samuels, enjoyed a dram and a cigar each.
Andrew, while allowed to stay with his elders, was not permitted drink, but was allowed tobacco. “Do you think the ladies are well, sir?” he inquired of Papa Cleghorn.
Cleghorn squinted into the cloud of blue smoke hovering in the cabin. “Well enough, young man. Better off where they are, I think, than here.”
The other smokers chuckled and nodded.
“Should we send for the ship’s doctor?”
Captain Samuels intercepted the question. “The ship’s doctor managed to smuggle a bottle of okolehao on board. He’ll be a decent enough physician by tomorrow night, but tonight he is worse than no use.” Then, redirecting the conversation away from the crew’s shortcomings, the skipper addressed Cleghorn: “Is it true your daughter is of Hawaiian royalty? I ask, you see, because while I’ve been master of this ship for more than a year, this is my first voyage to the Hawaiian kingdom. Umatilla has spent the past fifteen months servicing San Francisco, Seattle, and Vancouver.”
Cleghorn inspected the green, barely cured, native-leaf cigar. “Kaiulani is indeed in the direct line. My dear wife, departed, was sister to the king. Since King David Kalakaua is childless, his other sister, Princess Liliuokalani, is his heir. As she is also without child, my daughter is next in the line of succession.”
“Then how does it happen you are taking her abroad,” the captain inquired, “since she is so highly placed?”
Cleghorn and the senior Adams exchanged a glance. “I would not care to bore your other guests with familiar history,” Cleghorn said carefully.
William Adams shook away the objection.
Young Andrew said, “Please, sir, continue. I’m interested to hear it as well.”
Scratching his beard, Kaiulani’s father agreed. “There is a strong anti-monarchist sentiment in the Islands. By-and-large the men of the Reform Party are American in origin. They are men of business. Sugar, mainly. They want to take the kingdom under America’s wing, believing such a move will benefit them personally. If there were no royals, it would be much easier for these men to accomplish their purposes.”
“Is it true they are descended from the missionaries who came to Hawaii in the 1820s?” Adams queried.
Cleghorn’s brows furrowed. “Many are. I include Thurston, their leader. Some Hawaiians are bitter against the missionaries, but most are not. Native families hold in high regard the faith and the education and the medicine the missionary companies brought. Missionaries saved the Islands from the
onslaught of unscrupulous whalers and the like. But nobility of grandparent does not always arrive intact at grandchildren.”
“How so?” Andrew asked.
“Greed is a very corrupting influence.” Addressing the captain, Cleghorn said, “It is an old saw, but a true one: ‘The missionaries came to do good, and their grandchildren have done very well indeed.’ ”
There was an uncomfortable chuckle at this bitter witticism.
“To give them their due,” Cleghorn continued, “the king presented the reformers a perfect opening. He spent too freely, built too lavishly. He revived Hawaiian customs and music. This became an excuse for the whites to trumpet about offense to their morals. The reformers held enough seats in the legislature to withhold funds from the king. They forced him into a compromise, giving them even more control.”
Andrew spoke up: “You speak of The Bayonet Constitution? Or so I’ve heard it called.”
Cleghorn concurred. “Just a couple years ago the king was forced to accept a document increasing the legislative power at the expense of the king’s authority.”
“But isn’t a constitutional monarch more modern? More in keeping with the times than a savage despot?” Captain Samuels ventured.
“Savage?” Cleghorn ran a hand over his wavy brown hair, shot through with gray. “It is the hypocrisy, sir,” he replied sternly. “While prattling about ‘doing good for the people of Hawaii,’ they are stealing it from under their very noses. The new constitution requires that a citizen must be a landowner to vote.” He snorted. “Landowner! The old Hawaiians had no concept of land ownership! When someone gave them a piece of paper saying they now ‘owned’ the property under their feet, more often than not they traded it for ready cash. Or gambled it away in rigged games. Or drank it up in okolehao.” Cleghorn grimaced and stubbed out the cigar in a red clay jar filled with sand. “So you see, now only landowners can vote. Land is concentrated in the hands of the men of commerce and their supporters.”
“They are stealing the kingdom!” young Andrew asserted.
“But you, sir,” William Adams asked Cleghorn, “aren’t you the Collector of Customs? How does it happen you can be so near to the king and retain your position?”
Cleghorn gnawed his moustache. “I am a straight speaker, sir. All parties know this. I tell the king when I think he has done wrong. I do the same to Thurston when he oversteps his bounds. And I am father to Her Royal Highness, the Princess Victoria Kaiulani Cleghorn.”
“Are you afraid for her safety?” Andrew said.
Papa Cleghorn studied the young man before replying. “Other princes of the blood royal now study abroad. Kaiulani’s cousin is in England. It is time for my daughter to broaden her view of the world. She may be queen someday.”
* * * *
Six days and nights were ahead aboard the lumbering Umatilla. Kaiulani, Hannah, and Annie considered how they might fill the hours of the crossing between Honolulu and San Francisco. The ship was not as wide as an island. The attentions of Andrew Adams could be neither ignored nor avoided. He was already confused about the identity of the princess.
The morning of the second day dawned clear and calm. Seasickness passed as the trio of girls got their sea legs quickly. Kaiulani and Hannah, with the help of Annie, planned their entertainment for the journey. Deceiving Andrew Adams as to the true identity of the real princess was their plot.
Kaiulani and Hannah stood before the stateroom mirror and examined their oval Polynesian faces side by side.
Kaiulani said, “He mentioned that the princess—he meant you—is taller than I.”
Hannah drew herself up straight. “Almost imperceptible, I think.”
“But we wear the same size dress.”
From her bunk Annie leaned her face against her hand. “You do look somewhat alike, perhaps, to someone who does not know you. We can fool this young fellow and everyone on the ship forever if I call Hannah by Kaiulani’s name. But Papa is the issue. Papa will give it away in an instant. He will call Kaiulani, Kaiulani, and our game will be undone.”
Hannah grinned. “The trick is, we must never be around Papa Archie when he is with Andrew.”
Kaiulani laughed and snapped her fingers. “That’s it. Who will doubt when Annie, my own sister, calls for Hannah and I turn and answer?”
Hannah frowned. “It’s a bit dishonest.”
Kaiulani corrected her friend. “No. Think of it as if…no, this: it is like playing parts in a play. Like Shakespeare. Twelfth Night.”
“I don’t know.” Hannah shook her head. “How does it work?”
“I saw the play with Miss Gardinier. There are always characters pretending to be someone else. Servants playing the roles of their mistresses. That sort of thing. Very entertaining! And it all comes round right in the end, with everyone falling in love with exactly the right person.”
Hannah struck a regal pose. “So, in this play, I am the servant pretending to be royal. Is that it?”
“As if I am playing the role of Viola, and you are playing the role of Rosalind in As You Like It.”
“I like it.” Annie’s broad brown face beamed with delight.
“Andrew wishes to interview the princess.” Kaiulani laughed. “You will be me. And I will be you.”
“And if we are found out?”
“Then it was all a silly parlor game. He’ll have to take it like a good sport, or we will think him a cad.”
Annie sat up on her bunk. “If it seems that he begins to tumble to the truth, then Your Highness can pretend to be seasick and excuse herself.”
“Brilliant.” Kaiulani licked her lips as if the plot were some delicious dessert to be savored.
Hannah brushed and plaited her thick black hair. “We should have some sort of code word if Papa Archie approaches from behind while I am Princess Kaiulani conversing with Andrew.”
“Auwe.” Annie screwed up her face and stared out the round porthole. “What?”
Kaiulani gazed at the light fixture on the ceiling as if the answer was written there. “Something discreet. A Hawaiian word that this arrogant malihini will never understand.”
“Papa Archie will be Pappio.”
“A fish!” Hannah’s smile flashed as she paraded elegantly around the room. “Pappio.” It was too wonderful. “Wait. Wait! More than one code word. If I am a princess, then you commoners should address me in some special way.”
Kaiulani kissed her hand and bowed. As if on cue, Hannah sneezed. Both Kaiulani and Annie said in one voice, “Kihe, a Mauliola!”
Hannah interpreted the phrase in English. “Sneeze, and may you have a long life!” She raised her hands in triumph. “There. We have it! The perfect way to greet me. We must teach Andrew the Hawaiian way to address a royal princess in public.”
Kaiulani bowed deeply once more and took the hand of her friend. “Princess Kaiulani, Kihe, a Mauliola!”
The three girls howled with delight at the endless possibilities.
At last Kaiulani wiped tears of glee from her cheeks and inhaled deeply. “Brilliant.”
It was almost after the breakfast hour before Annie hurried from the cabin to fetch the morning meal back to her fellow conspirators. The trio shared scrambled eggs and bacon and biscuits smothered in gravy as they carefully drafted a master plan. The game was sure to leave handsome Mr. Andrew Adams humbled, confused, and gasping for air before they disembarked on the docks of San Francisco.
* * * *
The trio of young women planned their foray against Andrew Adams like the generals of an army plotting a battle plan. Annie, who played the part of herself, was in no danger of being discovered, and was, therefore, the advance scout. Wrapped in a shawl against the cold, she left the stateroom and strolled along the planked decks in search of the enemy.
Andrew Adams sat alone in a teak deck chair, protected from the breeze by the shelter of a ventilation funnel. He was reading a copy of Robert Louis Stevenson’s recently published novel, The Black Arrow. An
drew glanced up briefly and tipped his hat at Annie, who smiled and nodded graciously.
“Aloha,” she said, pausing. “I see you are reading Mr. Stevenson’s book.”
“A masterpiece.” Andrew studied the front cover of the tome where an image depicting its title was emblazoned. In a distracted tone he replied, “I am, I will confess, unable to put it aside. Every page leads to the next, until I am entirely caught up in it.”
“It is good you have so much in common with Princess Kaiulani. She is fond of Mister Stevenson’s novels as well.”
