Gift of the Golden Mountain (44 page)

     The good doctor is happy to sit in Honolulu with his old dog at his feet and a stack of reports to ignore. Not long ago he happened to mention he had never played backgammon, so I gave him a set. The directions say that you can learn the game in half an hour but it takes a lifetime to learn the strategy. Well, I'm content to stick to the fundamentals but Obregon, of course, immediately became enthralled with strategy. No matter the time of day or the urgency of the work, I must play a game with him before he will do anything. And the funny thing, of course, is that I just plop along, moving the stones with cheerful abandon while you can almost hear his mind grinding away. It doesn't seem to matter to him that I am not really
playing
—at least not the way he is playing. He says that my unpredictability adds a certain piquant challenge to the game. It is amazing to me that he is able to play so well, because he is faltering in other areas.

     You remember I told you I was puzzled about why a man of his age would want to leave his country and start all over in Hawaii, alone? I think now that when his wife died a year ago, the rest of the family gathered around and became suffocating. They harass him. Every now and then he will ask me to call one or the other and say he's out of town, but wanted them to know he got one letter or the other and to do whatever they think best.

     I'm rattling on, I know. No rhyme or reason to this letter, I suppose what's on top of my mind is just sort of oozing out. I do have some news.

     Sam showed up in Honolulu last week. I'd had messages from him a couple of times when he was passing through, on his way to or from Vietnam, but always before I'd been away. This time he caught me in town, and we had dinner together before his plane left, back to the front again.

     The whole thing was a little surreal. Not a word was said about the way we parted last time, there was no hint that anything at all had gone wrong. He introduced me as May Reade, not Wing Mei-jin as I had asked, and said I was his 'Berkeley roommate,' purposely, I thought, not bothering to explain what our relationship had been. I did not contradict him, I think because I am still so disturbed about the defacement of the bathroom.

     Those slick press corps boys in their standard-issue bush jackets play a wonderful game of "men-at-war." I had a terrible urge to deflate them, but I didn't. Sam is full of himself, but at the same time, I think I have never seen him happier. He even looks different—he is more relaxed and that has given him a kind of style he didn't have before. I've always thought he was terrifically good looking, but the anger seemed to keep him from being genuinely handsome. Now the anger is gone, and he cuts a very glamorous, even dashing figure.
Sam Nakamura, combat photographer.
The girls stop and stare, and one even asked, "Are you somebody important?" I thought it was funny, Sam didn't. Took me awhile to figure out that what he wanted to answer was yes.

     You will be pleased to know that he paid me back much of what he owed me. I tell you this only because I know it bothered you. I told him it wasn't necessary, but he insisted—so I guess it was necessary for him, as
of course it always has been for you. Money. What a nuisance. But of course without it I could never afford to be doing the work I am doing. I don't even like to think about that. I do love this job, even with all the headaches. The other day someone in the office asked me how I liked being the "pulse-taker of the Ring of Fire?" Sometimes when I'm roaming around one of the volcanoes, I actually feel that way!

     At mention of headaches Karin glanced at Philip. His eyes were closed and he was breathing regularly.
Good
, she thought,
he needs the sleep.
She turned back to the letter.

     Sam told me quite a few harrowing war stories. He has been at the front, and has won a press photographers' award for his picture of a young marine, holding his dead friend in his arms and sobbing.

     This last trip home, Sam said, he went to see Hayes's parents and was surprised that Mrs. Diehl was drinking less, not more, which is what he clearly expected after the awful jolt of Andy's death. She has, Sam said, thrown her considerable energies into refugee work. I think Sam wanted to question me about Hayes, but he didn't—and I was glad.

     He would know from the Diehls that Hayes is in Paris working on some esoteric research project for the OECD—the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. I told you that, didn't I? The idea for the organization, according to Hayes, is to stimulate the economies of developing nations, mainly by collecting information. He says he's not sure he's going to help anybody, but he's pretty certain he won't hurt anyone either.

     I've had several long letters from him. In his last he told me he isn't reading anything written after 1900, and to get him in the proper frame of mind he doesn't listen to
any music written after that time, either. He said he lives in a damp little room on the third floor of a gray building, he and Proust and Beethoven, and that he always feels slightly mildewed. I've suggested he come to Hawaii to dry out, and he says that he thinks after all that sunshine I may need a little damp chill in my life. I could never, ever think of Hayes as a damp chill. I wish I could take time to fly to Paris. I would if I could!

     Still no luck on my China visa front, as Kit will have told you. She is doing everything in her power, and with Kit that's a prodigious lot. I know she thought Kissinger's secret trip to China to set up a meeting with Nixon might help, but so far no. Then again, Kit is so firmly viewed as in the Kennedy camp it is no wonder she has made little headway with the Nixon people. She abhors the man, actually. I figure if she can't manage it, no one can, but I can't get her to accept that. She's scared I will do something "rash" and she's made me promise to give her a year. In the meantime, I am taking lessons in Mandarin so I can speak without accent, and learning Cantonese at the same time. I hope that by the time I can get into China, I will be fluent in both dialects. Sam thinks it might be better to go in through Thailand. He knows of some who have done it, he says. There's supposed to be a network of people who can help you get in, for a price. I don't mind the price, but I do mind trusting somebody with my life in return for money.

     I had a good chat with Kit last month. She thinks she has finally convinced Faith to come over for a long visit. Kit thinks Faith will give in just to give Israel a chance to get to Hawaii. He stopped over at Hickam once, at the end of World War II, and remembers it being "paradise on earth." Of course he barely got off the base, so he hasn't seen anything.

     My house on the Big Island is all ready for guests. I've had it decorated with rattan furniture and bright island colors. You can practically walk off the lanai and into the ocean, and I know you are going to love it. I'm enclosing a mimeographed sheet which shows my travel schedule for the next four months. Talk to Philip and arrange a trip for one of the times when I'm in. You can stay on as long as you like, of course. But I do want at least to see you for a couple of days. There's too much you can't say in a letter or on the telephone at four in the morning.

     Love to Philip and Thea and Dan. I hope all goes well on your home front. Don't know when I'll be California way again. You're going to have to come to me—but I promise, you'll love Hawaii. Tell Philip I know exactly what he's thinking: no culture in the Islands. Tell him he can do without for a week or so, and if he can't I'll introduce him to Auntie Abigail Penwell who can provide him with background for several books.

     All my love,
     Mei

     Karin folded the letter, put it back into its envelope, and sat for a time, studying her sleeping husband. In repose, the age lines around his eyes were evident, and the skin under his chin sagged. She did not want to wake him, did not want to go into the house, did not want to go to the symphony. She did not, even, want to tell him about May's letter. It wasn't that she had anything to hide, in other circumstances she would have read it aloud, stopping to fill in details for him, adding her own comments.
In other circumstances:
that was it. Dan would be arriving in a few hours, and they would be gone and that is what hurt. She wanted to be there when he arrived, to wish him a happy birthday, to sit down and talk to him . . . Most of all, she wanted Philip to be able to sit down and talk to him. When she
was alone she tried to imagine how the conversation would go.

     Philip would say, "Okay, son, it's time we talked." Or maybe, "It's time you talked and I listened."

     And Dan would answer, "Okay, Dad. If you really will listen . . ."

     And Philip would say, "I really will."

     It seemed so easy, when she thought about it. So easy and so obvious, and it was only when Philip and Dan were in the same room that she could see how impossible it was. What was worse was her own position. It would have been tolerable if she could agree with Philip, if she could take his side, if they could have presented a united front. That was Philip's phrase—"united front."

     "Wake up, sleepy head," she whispered. He opened his eyes and for a moment she saw in them a kind of panic and she knew he didn't know where he was.

     "What?" he said, then "Oh," as he lay back to catch his breath.

     "I was having the damndest dream . . . Professor Offenbach was sitting next to me at the symphony, they were playing the Schubert and he was lecturing me on one of his crackpot theories . . . mad as a hatter, but nobody else seemed to notice. They all thought he was brilliant."

     "I thought you were sleeping sweetly."

     "Thanks to old Offenbach, no."

     "Actually," she teased, "I think he sounds charming. Especially the aloha shirt. I think I'll get you one. May's insisting we come to Hawaii."

     "I would not," he said, pinching her nose playfully, "be caught dead in an aloha shirt. But I'll happily entertain the idea of a Hawaii vacation. I'm beginning to think I need one."

     "The headaches?"

     "Yes. Including the one named Daniel. We'd better get moving or we'll be late."

It was almost midnight when they returned from the symphony, but all the lights were on and hard rock was pounding out of the house and spilling over into the streets.

     "Daniel's home," Philip said angrily.

     "Let me handle it," Karin pleaded. "You're so tired, why don't you just go on to bed and I'll talk to Dan."

     "You mean let you run interference?"

     "I guess so. Why not, if that's what you both need?"

     "That's not what I need from you," he said tersely, moving quickly into the house, his face tight with anger.

Thea had strung balloons over the dining table and made a carrot cake with "17" spelled out in orange buttercream icing. It was a small party, only Marge and Hank Fromberg and one of their boys, Grover, a schoolmate of Thea's.

     The argument started much the way they always did, innocuously. The Fromberg boy happened to say, "Seventeen—only one more year until the big one."

     And someone else said, "What can you do at eighteen that you couldn't at seventeen except vote?"

     And Dan responded, "Join the marines."

     What Philip said next didn't matter, it was the slightly raised pitch of his voice that was meant to warn, loud and clear,
don't push it.

     Dan countered with an under-the-breath mutter, some unintelligible provoking comment.

     And then Philip: "Could I speak to you in my study, Daniel? Will you excuse us please?"

     And then: Voices raised, muffled shouting.

     And then: Philip returning to the table to apologize, his face dangerously dark.