CHAPTER 4
.4.
Dinner with my parents went like it always did: my mother chatting profusely, always about uncontroversial subjects, overcompensating for my father’s silence. Afterward, Ah Fong, the old houseboy, accompanied me to the gate. He bid me goodnight, but then paused, his dark eyes steady. “You brave man, Mr. Ray.” I thanked him, and we shared a brief, honest smile before I ambled down the lane, my bones crying for a bed.
Sleeping was all I had in mind, but it seemed Nāmaka or Pele, maybe both, had decided otherwise. Someone was waiting outside my lanai. I knew who he was even before he said, “Aloha, Ray.”
“Mr. Kahanamoku?” My question mark wasn’t about his name but his motive for being here at this hour.
“Is it true?” he asked.
I remembered my father’s identical question and almost scoffed. But Mr. Kahanamoku didn’t care if I wrote pulp fiction or not. I invited him onto the lanai and turned on the yellowed light. We sat on the rattan chairs and, before I could ask my old mentor if I could get him anything, which in my kitchen meant coffee or soda, he asked his question again, making sure I understood the frequency he was on.
“Is it true that you gave your Hā to that Karlsen boy?”
This time, I did scoff. “What! No!”
“Someone saw you give him your breath, Ray.”
I felt the sudden urge to go full-European on him, to retreat into the dry, clinical world of my university degree. “Right. But that was different. I tried everything else first. Schäfer. Silvester. Nothing worked. So, yes, I performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. I know doctors call it primitive, but I’m not a waterman anymore; they can’t hold what I did against you. Besides, the fellow is alive, so it clearly worked.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Kahanamoku, his voice like the deep roll of the tide. “The young man was dead, and you brought him back to life with your Hā. You transferred your Mana into him. When you did that, you chose to be his Kahu – his protector. You know that, Ray. You haven’t forgotten about Kuleana, have you?”
“I haven’t. But it doesn’t matter. According to the newspaper, the Karlsen fellow is going back to California on the next boat. I’ll never see him again.”
Mr. Kahanamoku rose from the chair with an effortless grace I’d never been able to match. I did the same, but jaggedly. “You look tired, Ray,” he said. “I’ll let you sleep now.”
As he stepped off the porch, he turned back, shadows dancing across his face. He spoke almost as if musing to himself: “What is that phrase? I’m trying to remember it right. Don’t believe everything you read in the newspapers? Yes, I think that’s it.” He smiled and said, “Goodnight, Ray.”
I watched him go until his shadow merged with the landscape, then entered the bungalow, bypassed the "little monster" on my desk without a glance, and collapsed on the bed. I felt too tired to dream, but his words hung in the humid air like a storm that hadn't broken yet.
Comments
Post a Comment