Diamond Head (12 page)

“Smell it good while you’re there because at home you’re
pilau
like the rest of us” was Camilla’s response.

It had been two years since my mom graduated high school in 1939, from a Catholic school in Kaneohe. Naturally, she was the first to finish, walking across the high school gymnasium with leis piled up to her ears, but she was also the last. She was the only Chan child to receive a diploma. Most of my mom’s sisters, my Alphabetical Aunties, dropped out of high school when it began to get difficult. It started with my Auntie Camilla in the ninth grade. She was hired as a waitress the summer before her freshman year and she never went back. The money was too good, she told my Grandma Chan. Then there was Auntie Denise, who dropped out early when she failed algebra two years in a row and was told that she’d have to take summer school. The rest of my mom’s sisters were too young to consider
quitting yet, except for Beverly, who was almost as diligent as my mom, and made it halfway through her senior year. It’s my opinion that she would have made it the whole way too, right to graduation, had the war not broken out first.

It happened on a Sunday. It was quiet and still and entirely unexpected, that’s what anyone will tell you about that day. My mom was on the earliest bus into Diamond Head, yawning freely, alone in the very last seat. The sun was beginning to rise, lazily extending its beams from behind the Koolau Range so that the very highest ridge seemed to be illuminated. There was another person on the bus, an old Chinese woman with cropped hair wearing men’s corduroy pants, sitting with half a dozen chickens fluttering in a metal cage. She was already seated when my mom got on, in a middle seat, her short legs dangling off the plastic bench. She said hello in English, with a bit of irritation, knowing that my mother did not speak Chinese. The lady had asked her many times before,

“You speak Chinese?”

“No. Only English.”

“You look Chinese.”

“I am Chi—”

“But you no speak.” And with that, she would turn back to her chickens. My mom never forgot these encounters. She’s told me at least a dozen times about this woman in the corduroy pants. It bothered her, it really did.
Am I to be blamed for not speaking Chinese?

For my mom, it was the same routine every Sunday. Occasionally, my Grandpa Chan would ride with her, getting off by his photography studio in Waikiki. She loved it when he came along. He would point out different buildings along the route, telling my mom what used to be there, what had changed. He always had some fact or theory to share with her, which made waiting for the sun to rise a little less tedious.

But that day, my mom was alone—just her and the chicken lady
heading toward the southern coast of the island. The woman would get off with her chickens on South King Street, in Chinatown, where she would peddle her birds at the Oahu Market. By this time, the bus would be more crowded, the seats sprinkled with passengers on their way to early mass or a weekend job, so the chicken lady would have to squeeze into the aisle, her cage brushing up against the sleeves of strangers, a haole woman shrieking as the birds toppled from one side of the cage to the other.

“Is that allowed?” the haole lady yelled to the bus driver, looking around for support from the other passengers. “An entire farm on the bus!”

When the bus erupted in support, my mom cheered too.

Her first appointment was at the Darling estate, east of Diamond Head in the district of Kahala. The Darlings were a military family, Mr. Darling a commissioned officer with the United States Navy, Mrs. Darling spending her days and her military allowance at the Waialae Country Club, and both children—a boy and a girl—attending Punahou. They came from California, stationed on Oahu for just a year but by the way they were living, my mom told me, it seemed that they would be staying much longer.

The Darling home sat high on two acres of land, overlooking the soft waves of Kahala Beach. From the street, the house was hidden, guarded by a solid iron gate with gold Hawaiian etchings of fish and flowers and stick figures with spears. The first time my mom saw this gate, she thought that the Darlings might be local—perhaps a Japanese family with a strange last name. But they were haole, Mrs. Darling a platinum blonde in a silk
mu’u mu’u
with a turquoise hibiscus trim. The day they met, she greeted my mom with a perky
Aloha!
, lingering on the first
A
for far too long. She was ridiculous, my mom decided immediately—but she was kind, treating my mom as a guest who happened to dust their bookshelves and iron their shirts.

Behind the entry gate was what my mom described as a hotel
entrance. A circular driveway was cut into a perfectly even, pea-colored lawn, its edges sharper than you could draw with a compass and protractor. The palm trees, lingering formally around the perimeter of the yard, blocked the views both in and out, and a fountain, made of white marble, was planted in the middle of the circular driveway. A four-foot koi spouted water from its mouth. High above the front yard sat the main house, positioned atop a wide set of stairs with gleaming bronze banisters.

My mom rang the doorbell at the gate, checking her watch: 7:50. Ten minutes early. Akio, the Darlings’ groundskeeper, came immediately to unlock the gate.

“Good morning, Amy-san,” he said with a quick bow, ushering her through the gates and locking them again. “I’m happy to see you well.” He was flustered, which was unusual, his familiar fingers fumbling through the brass keys. Instead of walking her to the front door as he usually did, he led her up the steep side steps of the property that wrapped around to the backyard. He took them two at a time, his small legs straining with each upward lunge, and when they reached the top, he was short of breath.

“Oh, Akio!” my mom exclaimed, seeing a newly blossomed bed of birds of paradise, her favorite flower. “They’re incredible.”

But instead of looking at the flowers, Akio looked to the sky, scanning the morning clouds for something—perhaps rain, my mom thought. He looked to the north. My mom looked too.

“Akio, it shouldn’t rain today. The clouds are going north. I watched them the whole way here.”

She squinted, shading her eyes with a cupped hand. She strained to see what was in the distance. There seemed to be birds, faint black dots emerging from between clouds and disappearing again, flying in a loose V shape as they migrated closer. They flew between the mountain ridges, dipping lower and lower, heading in their direction at a steady pace. When they became the size of fat mosquitoes, swarming in the distance, my mom asked, “What are they?”

Akio was silent, his usually expressive face washed of all emotion. He was white, almost transparent, the skin of his cheeks as thin as parchment. He was watching the birds, studying them, the dark pupils of his eyes tracing them steadily in the sky. Suddenly, he dropped to his knees, the top of his head hitting the dewy grass, and he began to pray.

Ten ni orareru watashitachi no Chichi yo,

mi-Na ga sei to saremasu yo ni.

mi-Kuni ga kimasu yo ni.

mi-Kokoro ga ten ni okonawareru tori

chi ni mo okonawaremasu yo ni

My mom stared at Akio, startled by his strange reaction. What had changed in the last thirty seconds? An ordinary greeting, a clear sky, a flock of birds—a routine that had played out most every Sunday morning for the past two years. But now Akio’s body was doubled on the grass. His shoulder blades heaved with the force of his panicked voice, with sounds my mom realized she knew. They were so familiar. She searched her mind. She closed her eyes and isolated the rhythm of his words.

The sound of a hundred voices filling a small chapel, a steady hymn—the weekly mass from her years of Catholic school came to her suddenly. It was the Lord’s Prayer. Her mouth began to move, forming the English words against Akio’s momentum, stammering over the prayer called out so often in despair.

My mom dropped to her knees, putting her hands on Akio’s back and shaking him, gently at first.
Akio, what is it? Are you all right?
And then, when he would not respond, more firmly:
Akio!
But he continued.

Watashitachi no hi goto no kate o kyo mo oatae kudasai

Watashitachi no tsumi o yurushi kudasai

Again, my mom looked to the sky, to the place from which Akio seemed to be withdrawing, squinting, one hand blocking the morning sun, the other pressed against Akio’s shoulder when she realized that they weren’t birds. She stood, breath still in her lungs. They were planes, still in the distance but expanding, growing larger and more defined as they headed west. She could hear them, faintly, the low gargling of propellers. The army was doing maneuvers, she told him. It was normal; it happened all the time. But my mom could not deny the dread that seized her, looking again to the kneeling man. Akio chanted as if possessed, thick lines of sweat racing from his temples, his compressed body rocking like an anguished child.

Watashitachi mo hito o yurushimasu

Watashitachi o yuwaku ni ochi irasezu, aku kara o sukui kudasai

She yelled.
Akio! What’s happening? Tell me what’s happening!
But as the last syllable exited her lips, her question was answered. The deep reverberation of explosions punctuated the morning air, sending the sound of thunder pulsing through the island—to the top of the Darlings’ home, throwing my mom backward, legs fumbling below her as she gaped into the distance.

Dark, heavy clouds of smoke arose from the ocean, billowing high above the ridgeline, rapidly swelling and expanding from the rippling flames below. What sounded like machine guns, with rapid fire, blasted from beneath the smoke and sharp metallic cracks popped like fireworks in the air. The sound of bombs falling, which my mom never thought she’d recognize, was undeniable—a high-pitched whistle dropping from the planes, audible only between the slam of explosions. She covered her mouth to keep from screaming. Her breath returned in short, violent gusts.

The curve of the island blocked her view of what was exploding. She thought of her family, their faces appearing swiftly in her mind as she looked north to Kaneohe. None of them were beyond that ridge.
And then she remembered Akio, still huddled beside her, his voice juddering now, enormous.

Watashitachi o yuwaku ni ochi irasezu,

aku kara o sukui kudasai.

My mother crumpled to the ground, fear overwhelming her panic—her disbelief—and did the first thing that came to her. Her forehead met the grass, the smell of the earth swarming her senses as the Lord’s Prayer came tumbling from her mouth, her words matching Akio’s in rhythm but not sound. She held herself firmly, arms wrapped across her chest, clutching her shoulders, heart beating in her throat. Akio wept and so did she, his tears falling decisively, as if dedicated to someone. My mom cried silently, instinctually, she tells it, the moment painted with an unsettling intimacy. Together, they prayed, high above Kahala, as the Second World War began.

I understood very little of what would come
, my mom told me.
I understood very little of what it meant.

At last, the bombs subsided. Akio raised himself to his feet quietly, heavily, his forehead damp from the dewy grass. He removed the keys from his belt and placed them on the patio table. With his eyes lowered beneath him, Akio turned to my mother and he bowed.

“Forgive,” he said, his voice barely a whisper, before walking to the stairs and descending slowly, taking them one by one until she could see him no longer.

My mom was dismissed that day as well. In the end, the Darlings saw little difference between Chinese and Japanese. But she left willingly, my mom told me. She was forever changed by what she had witnessed in their backyard, grateful to never return.

After the bombs fell and President Roosevelt declared war on Japan, my Grandpa Chan found himself with a problem he’d never had before. All around town, the government was seizing the assets of
businessmen. Storefronts and trucks and desirable supplies were taken overnight and donated to the war effort but my Grandpa Chan went unnoticed; for once in his life his insignificance served him well. The government, the army, they had little need for a single room with a single skylight, so my Grandpa Chan went about his regular business, reopening his photography studio the very next week, met with a sight that in all his years, he’d never once encountered.

A group of a dozen men was gathered outside his door, smoking cigarettes and checking their watches. Soon, my grandpa had too much business, far more customers than he could handle alone. The sudden outbreak of war sent a tidal wave of young men through his studio doors. They were willing to wait in line, willing to come back, willing to pay twice what he normally charged for a sitting. A clock had begun; there was limited time before departure, and every soldier, desperate to be remembered, wanted his portrait taken before being shipped abroad.

It was my Grandma Chan’s idea that he hire my mom. Grandma Chan saw it as an opportunity, a way to get them together again. My mom had been looking for a job since the Darlings, but no family wanted her, not yet. The island was still fragile, doors locked, people suspicious. They jumped at the sound of a dog barking, ducked to the starting of a car’s engine. Houses near the harbor were abandoned, families fleeing to the safety of relatives in the north and east of the island, hunkering down three and four to a room. Rumors flew of a second attack, a follow-up, the Japanese angry that they had not damaged enough.

My grandpa knew this, and even so, he resisted.

“Amy will find something else,” he told my grandma. “She always does.”

“So that’s your solution?”

“Amy doesn’t want to work for me.”

“And how do you know that?” my grandma asked. “Did you ever ask her?”

“I know.”

“It must be nice,” she snapped, “knowing everything, always being so right.”

“Iris, please. I’m tired.”

“You’re tired,” she repeated, her voice flat, incredulous. “You’ve been letting your daughter pay your bills for two years and you’re tired. I suppose you’re too tired to care about your daughter? You’re her
father
, Joe. Do you understand that? You’re the adult, not her.”