Diamond Head (8 page)

We left for Oahu six days later, aboard one of Frank’s enormous freighters, all of our belongings piled on top of one another. There was no time for order or method. Items were placed in whatever container could hold them and transported immediately to the ship. We sailed for eighteen days across the Pacific Ocean, Frank’s fleet of
ships following behind us, along the same route that my husband had traced with his finger the week before.

We reached the shoreline in the early morning, when just half the sun sat on the horizon. The light was soft and reassuring, as if it had been waiting for us to arrive before extending its mighty beams across the ocean. A gentle glow spread along the water’s surface, popping in cobalt and deep shades of silver, glinting like the facets of a sapphire. But more than the light, it was the skyline that captured my breath. Looming above the island was a mammoth silhouette, dark and magnificent, that rose in a circle around a crater. Its base sprawled in every direction, delicate ridges filled in with light, extending into the ocean, peaking in unequal heights like the crests of a crown, sparkling, studded with jewels.

From behind me, the sound of Frank’s voice, the touch of his hand on the small of my back.

“It really looks like diamonds, doesn’t it? The British, when they stumbled upon this crater they thought they’d struck it rich. Even when they realized their mistake, they still named it Diamond Head because of the headlands. It’s magnificent, isn’t it? The way it juts into the sea?”

Frank’s arm extended across the volcano’s silhouette, his eyes squinting in the low sunlight. His voice was hot on my neck, warming his words with an intimacy, an energy that felt brand new. How long had it been since my husband spoke to me this way? Early in our marriage, I remembered the enormity of his patience, his gentle focus, his ability to stir desire within me with the most ordinary words, from a single touch. His breath, just warmer than the breeze, just damper than the mist, reached across my skin, suddenly alight.

Clouds, thick and milky, the density of smoke, took flight above the volcano. They spread in the shape of a V, giving way to the apricot sun, blazing, dreamlike.

“There are few things in life as beautiful as a fresh start,” Frank whispered, wrapping his arm around my waist and pulling me into
his chest, sheltering me from the wind off the ocean, pressing me into his eager heartbeat. “This will be ours.”

Looking at Diamond Head as the glow rose behind it, breaking through its crests, I felt the same distant, foreign heat swelling in my own body. We wanted the same thing, Frank and I. Without ever discussing our failures, our fears, or our hopes—Frank knew. He found us an island; he found us a way out. It was clear to me he remembered what we had once shared and was fighting to get it back. He hadn’t given up, not yet. And on those crystal slopes, in the safety of its sacred shadow, I saw our chance. I closed my eyes and opened them again, my damp vision confirming my mind’s enchantment, its reality.

Our ship docked in Honolulu Harbor and I stepped off the wooden planks of the gangway, entirely overcome. The breeze—the warm, sweet winds that came off the water—could not be captured in a photograph. Neither could the smell; a powerful blend of flowers and fruit, sand and salt water. Every part of the island seemed to sway in harmony; the thick leaves of the palm trees waved to one side and then bent to another. And the sand, like freshly milled flour, was even whiter than it was soft. I couldn’t believe a place like this existed, and neither could Hong, who stepped onto the dock and smiled wider than I’d seen in a long time, her teeth exposed, her surprise unmistakable.

It took Frank just three days to find what he sought. He came to the hotel to get me, riding a lean black horse, a cowboy’s hat on his head, a roll of paper tucked in the saddle. Taking my hand, he lifted me behind him, handing me my own hat, wide brimmed with a blue satin ribbon.
You’re going to love this
, he said, kicking the horse as he called out, a sound I had never heard from my husband’s mouth. My smile grew so large as we galloped across the flatlands, I was certain Frank could feel it behind him.

My hat flopped with the gait of Frank’s horse, my heels gripping
the leather stirrup, wishing I could throw my right leg over the saddle and ride like a man. I envied the control it gave, the ability to turn and gape at everything we passed, without the fear of losing balance. Everything was new, wild, and unexpected. I felt like the heroine from one of Bohai’s books, a woman on horseback in a new frontier: a white dress, a handsome man, a mission to find land. I never imagined the sun could feel so clean against my skin, so dry and hospitable, nothing like the damp heat of southern China that soaked through clothes and hair and sent people indoors. The salt from the ocean lifted into the air and sailed through the breeze, and when I licked my lips, it was all I could taste. Clutching Frank, I closed my eyes—just for a moment, just to breathe without the distraction of sight. To smell the scenery change as we moved through the countryside; my words, my mind, failing my senses.

As we reached Diamond Head, we rode past a handful of homes already built in the area, mostly by white families, Frank explained, on large lots that faced the ocean. We slowed through them, Frank pointing, telling me about George Macfarlane, a businessman and member of the king’s staff, who owned the enormous estate at the base of the western slope, and James Campbell, a man rich from sugar, who had the two-story house that Frank called a Victorian, with a porch on the ocean, lifted by stilts. They looked so foreign, so white and symmetrical, so different from the homes in Guangdong. There was no gold, no red, no statues or ponds or protective gates. Western homes were left unguarded. Their front doors open to the street.

We rode south through a park—Kapiolani Park—the land changing from wet to dry. Our horse stopped to drink from the wide, winding streams near Waikiki before heading to the eastern end of the park, dry with shrubs and trees, where Frank said a racetrack once stood. He fell in love with the open space, the tall hanging trees and the flat expanse. It reminded him of the great parks of Europe—he described them to me as we rode, landscaped with brilliant flowers and orchards and fountains with marble statues. The Hawaiian park had none of
these things, but give it time, Frank told me. They were building a zoo and an aquarium; the open fields would be used for baseball and polo and public music. Before Bohai turned ten, we would be strolling the promenades with parasols, resting among the gardens.

The afternoon sun began to break and I’d nearly forgotten the day’s purpose, so absorbed was I by my enjoyment of being on horseback. We rode through a large parcel of land that cut through the base of Diamond Head in the shape of a U, its mouth facing outward. Removed from the ocean, it was protected on three sides, cradled by the walls of the volcano. The land rose slightly toward the rear, with the curve of the incline. Frank slowed the horse. For the first time, he brought it to a halt.

He dismounted first, before lifting me by the waist, lowering me to the patchy ground. Without a word, he pulled the rolled papers from the saddle and flattened them against the flank of his horse.

A sketch of an enormous house, taller than it was wide, spread across the beige paper. Arrows and tiny numbers were etched in pencil, drawn along the edges of the building. The walls of the house appeared to be made almost entirely of glass, rising along the cliff of the crater, positioned in the exact spot where we stood.
Three floors
, Frank said, his finger tracing its height. More than any other home on the island. A gate would close us into Diamond Head, blocking the entrance of the U, shielding our pond and our garden of lotus, fully formed in my husband’s mind. We would have no neighbors, Frank said, so earnestly I laughed at him, looking around me, not a single home in sight. He looked up at me, his eyes narrowed, somehow serious.

“And for you?” he asked.

“What about me?”

“You must have something of your own. Anything you want, I’ll build it.”

“Will this house not be large enough for both of us?” I joked, forever amused by the extravagance of my husband.

“Really, Lin,” he insisted. “Something frivolous. A closet with a dozen mirrors. A bathtub the size of the moon. A queen’s throne. A waterfall.”

“A waterfall,” I said suddenly, mimicking his ridiculousness. “I would like a waterfall.”

We looked at each other, trying to hold our faces straight, waiting for the other to call a bluff. But neither of us did.

“Say no more.” Frank smiled, tipping his hat. “I’ll get you the bathtub, too.”

Construction began the next afternoon. Frank gathered the crew from his ships, men he’d brought especially for this task, unloading materials and tools from the cargo we carried. They laid the foundation as Bohai, Hong, and I spent our days across the inlet in Waikiki, at the Moana Hotel, relaxing in the shade of the striped cabanas and taking our meals in the white-glove dining room. The hotel was filled with couples and families from California, brought to Hawaii on the Matson cruise ships, their pale skin exposed in bathing suits and flowered shirts, fully unbuttoned, unashamed. Those first few weeks were simple and luxurious. Hong and I enrolled Bohai at Oahu College—the old Punahou, the best school on the island—practicing our English with the other mothers, going shopping for clothes like theirs, with prints of plump flowers and checkers and dots.

With Frank gone most of the day and no household to run, my unburdened thoughts turned quickly to Bohai. It occurred to me that if anything could change my son, it would be the tranquility of this island. He could be tempted outdoors, encouraged to explore his new home without the prying eyes of our old neighbors. He could learn to swim in the warm, peaceful waves right outside our door. He could ride his bike along the empty country roads, would grow strong and wild like the island that surrounded him. Since that night in the library with Frank, since our moment on the deck of his ship, I felt a renewed sense of determination about Bohai. Everything was not broken; there was still time, still hope, and I refused to give up
yet. Some of my fondest moments with Frank were spent with Bohai, watching him grow, and I wanted to give Frank that feeling again—that first bubbling of pride and excitement over a life that would develop and follow in his mighty footsteps.

I began to take Bohai to the beach every morning. I woke him early before school and dressed him as the sun rose. I coaxed him onto the sand, allowing him careful steps into the gentle waves, his tiny body silvery and frail. Within seconds, the water would knock Bohai from his feet.
Get up
, I would yell, so determined to right my son,
you can do it
; but even weeks into our exercise, my son could not find his balance. I held his hand, day after day, as he panicked in the water and fell to the sand, his difficult breath expanding beneath exposed ribs. As much as we practiced, he made no progress, but still I forced him. I didn’t know what else to do. I would make him try again and again until he was red-faced, panting and exhausted. On our way back to the hotel, I would talk to him about how to improve the next time, his timid head nodding silently as I spoke.

When Frank returned in the evenings, sitting after a long day of work, he would ask about his son, and without hesitation, I would lie. I would tell my husband that Bohai was a natural—that in the water, he was fearless just like his father. It became second nature for me, lying about my son, boasting of his progress with stories entirely made up. I began to recite the opposite of what had actually occurred. If Bohai ran from a starfish, I would say he picked it up; he threw it into the ocean. The morning he swallowed too much water and stayed home from school, I said we’d lost track of time, that he was so happy in the waves that I couldn’t bring myself to leave.

We had so little time together, Frank and I, with the construction consuming so many of his hours, that I didn’t want to spoil his mood with our old grievances. The house was almost finished. Frank said it was a matter of weeks, and I reasoned that in our new home, our new life, I would double my efforts, triple them. Whatever it took, Frank would have his son.

The announcement came on a Wednesday. Frank arrived at the hotel and loaded us into a carriage, and without explanation, we knew that the house had been finished. Hong and I, we’d spent three months speculating on what it would be like, drawing pictures of the rooms on the hotel’s stationery, begging Frank for clues. For three months, he kept much of the house a surprise, not allowing us to visit until the final reveal. Even in the carriage and as we stepped out onto the unfamiliar land, he had us blindfolded until the last minute.

“Take them off,” he instructed, and I’m told our reactions were identical. An open mouth, an open palm rising to cover our amazement. Our necks bent backward to take in the structure’s height, squinting from the sun’s reflection off the massive windows, each of them taller than two lengths of our bodies. It was everything I hoped it would be and nothing I’d ever seen before, nothing like what I’d understood from Frank’s drawing, both alarming and dazzling in its grandness, its strange shape and delicate formation. I took three steps backward and almost fell, suddenly aware of what I was hearing, the crashing of liquid, my waterfall.

“Do you like it?” Frank asked, his smile threatening to consume his face, and both palms returned to my open mouth, trembling; I nodded like a lunatic, warm tears falling in disbelief.

We moved into the house on Diamond Head and almost immediately, as if the proximity to water had worked its magic, Hong blossomed.

By the spring she had made friends with all the Chinese vendors at market, cooking all the food she was accustomed to back home but with a touch of the island’s offerings. In her new kitchen she made her chicken as she always did. She boiled the bird in soy sauce and ginger, garlic and sugar, but now Hong used only cane sugar from a nearby plantation. Now she called it
shoyu
chicken, the Japanese term the island preferred. Her soup broths, her prized recipes, suddenly had seaweed floating along their surface, sticking to the egg
noodles she rolled out on the lanai table, sitting down, facing the ocean. Instead of pomfret, Hong steamed mahimahi. Instead of fried shallots, Hong garnished with spring onions. She picked up new recipes at market, from the Japanese and Filipinos and Portuguese, making strange dishes like green curry with shrimp and pork adobo with potatoes and peas. On Sundays Hong made haupia custard from fresh coconuts, grating the meat and squeezing the milk from the shreds, toasting them and saving the brown flakes in tall glass jars. The soft, creamy dessert was our family’s favorite, gone before Monday.