House of Many Gods (17 page)

“
I mea a ho ‘oko aku I na makemake o na kūpuna
. So that we might live as our ancestors would expect us to. This is what they wanted. Silence is how we preserve that which is most sacred.”

One night she circled the floor in front of him. “Now I will show you the ancient, authentic dance we call
Hula Kahiko
.”

“…  This sacred hula was called
ha‘a.
In the back-and-back days, it was performed only by men, and had deep religious significance for Hawaiians … Then certain kapu were lifted and women began to dance outside the temples, using the movements of the hula to express the life force itself … This dance and its accompanying chants tied us to the universe, made us one with the powers and currents of nature and the gods. And always, what was so important was the posture in the dance …”

She bent forward slightly, right foot extended and pointed, right hand pointed up with fingers closed, her eyes following her hand.

“There were hundreds of hulas, each performed to celebrate fertility, a marriage, a birth. Hulas to celebrate our gods, our fields, the sea. And Laka, patron of Hula. Watch now …”

Ana began a haunting, penetrating chant, her voice eerily low, almost sepulchral, part prayer, part proclamation. Then her voice grew louder as she glided, swayed, and pirouetted in a trance. Moving her hands in all the classic ways of
hula kahiko
she metamorphosed as a bird, a fish, a wave, as Pele—fire and volcano goddess. And as calm trade winds after a storm.

Even as she moved, she felt a deep disturbance. Something calling to her. Something in her responding. She did not know how long she danced. It could have been for days, or only hours. Finally, she sank down to a mat, exhausted.

“You must understand. The hula was our oral history, how we remembered our genealogies. But, for over a hundred years, it was forbidden, along with our traditional art, Mother Tongue, our chants and prayers. In this way the missionaries cut out our tongues, cut off our arms. They wanted laborers, stoop workers for their sugar plantations, not intelligent natives. Our ways were ‘pagan’ so they outlawed them—on pain of imprisonment, even death—while their children grew land-rich and sugar-rich. Without culture, Hawaiians began to die out. This was how they colonialized our islands.”

Max shook his head in silence.

“An old Hawaiian scholar, Samuel Kamakau, said Hawai‘i had been ‘cut up, salted down, hung out to dry.’ White man’s diseases did the rest.”

“I never knew you gave such thought to your history,” he said. “How do you remember all this, the words, the dance … ?”

She explained how it was not “remembered,” it was just there like breathing, how this knowledge had been passed down for centuries. Each mother “gave” her child this gift of voice, of dance, of
life
.

“I learned the hula in my mother’s womb. While she was dancing, I was formed in the rhythm of her fluids. And, in turn, I danced, until a child quickened in my womb. Then my feet stopped moving, my heart turned hard. But, as you taught me … genes remember. This knowledge never leaves Hawaiians. No matter where we go, how far we run. And, you know, Max, we did not die out. We survived! In the past ten years there has been a rebirth of our culture. They’re chanting the old chants again, reviving the old dances.”

He sat back and smiled. “Ana. My ‘talking-story’ woman. Don’t you ever want to come home, to your islands?”

She sat up, looking very young. “I do. When we’re here, my body changes. I feel my blood thicken. There’s this sense of merging with the land, the sea, I don’t feel separate anymore. But, at some point I start to feel strangled. I can’t breathe. I’m afraid I’ll always be going
makai and makai and makai
, as they say. In the direction of the sea. I don’t even blame it on my childhood anymore.”

“Ontological security,” Max said. “You find it in running, in motion. No one can touch you then.”

“You touched me, Max. I no longer need to run with you.”

“And what about your daughter? I know you think of her.”

She shook her head. “She’s a woman now. We’re virtual strangers.”

Max studied her before he spoke. “Perhaps one day you should try to know her. What good are life’s experiences if we don’t pass them on to our children?”

That night Ana sat up in the dark, imagining her daughter as a child.
I never “gave” her the gift. I never saw her dance the hula
 …

S
OME NIGHTS HIS SLEEP WAS SOUND, AND SOME NIGHTS HE WOKE
in a kind of delirium. One morning he came awake to find what looked like a huge man-woman standing over him. Eyes like green leaves, a wide
‘upepe
nose, silver hair billowing to his waist. Under long, yellow robes, he had a massive chest and big copper-colored arms, but the rest of him—his cheeks and lips and chin—were delicate and shaped like a woman’s. Max found him beautiful, in a scary way.

Ana spoke softly. “This is
‘Iolani
. Royal Hawk. I have brought him here for you. He says he cannot heal you because soon it is your time. But he can take your pain, and keep your spirit from wandering.”

The priest held a small wooden
ki‘i
, a sacred image that resembled a howling man. He slipped it inside his robes, then slowly bent and listened to Max’s breathing. When he straightened up he took Max’s hand in his own leathery hands, examining Max’s palm. Agitated by what he saw, he furiously rubbed the palm with his finger as if trying to erase it. All the while he whispered.

“What is he saying?”

Ana hesitated. “He says your lifeline is growing short even as he watches. He’s telling it slow down.”

The priest pulled him into a sitting position, so that Max was facing the sea. Then he turned to the open windows, raised his heavy arms, and chanted in a high, eerie voice.

“Aloha e ka lā, e ka lā! E ola mai e ka lā, I ka honua nei!”
Greetings to the sun, to life, to the earth.

As he continued chanting, she explained. “To greet the sun as it rises, this was the tradition of the ancients. Like people the world over, we believe that the coming of the sun brings
mana
, life force, to the earth each day. With
mana
comes healing, growth, life itself.”

Now ‘Iolani turned, took Max by the shoulders, and silently studied him. He dug into a large
lauhala
bag and brought forth a gourd full of saltwater he had carried up from the sea, and a leaf cone full of sea salt. He flung the salt around to purify the room.

“He’s casting out
‘uhane ‘ino
. Your demons of delirium.”

Then he sat and mixed
olena
, tumeric, in the saltwater. All the while he chanted.

“He’s praying to the healing gods. And to his
‘aumakua
, the Hawaiian hawk.”

The priest seemed to be reading the salt water, staring at images therein. He opened Max’s pajama top and rubbed the mixture on his chest. He stopped and prayed, then rubbed again. He did that several times, then finally turned to Ana.

“Child, what I tell you now is so important. He has been a warrior. Now he is frail, an empty vessel. Whatever you put in this vessel must be pure. Of the
‘āina
and the
kai
. Nothing else.
Pau la‘au haole!
Please, tell him this.”

She leaned toward Max. “He says no more food that does not come directly from the land or the sea. And no more ‘white man’s medicine.’ That means your morphine.”

Max looked up. “Is this a test? To see how much I can bear?”

‘Iolani patted his shoulder. “Be patient, boy. I will come for two more dawns. Healing must be done in threes. And then … 
pau
pain. Breath will come easy. You’ll see.”

By the second dawn when he returned, Max was in good spirits. “I feel great. I want to get up and run.”

‘Iolani pushed him down. “Not so frisky, boy. Be patient. How is your chest?”

Max shook his head in wonder. “No more congestion. I can breathe. I don’t have that awful rattle.”

He bent and rubbed Max’s chest again with the saltwater solution and prayed as he had before. Then he laid his head against Max’s chest and listened to his lung. The gesture, the warmth, and weight of the man’s massive gray head upon his chest brought tears.

Max wept like a child. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand why this is happening.”

‘Iolani sat up, gathered the tears on his fingertips, and examined them closely. “These come
mai pu‘uwai
 … from the heart. They come when you let your body and your soul relax. When you allow them to believe. You have not believed in much. Did no one teach you? Believing is the final balm.”

Ana stood in a corner trembling. When he was finished, the priest took her outside.

“Tomorrow will be third-dawn healing. He will be a boy again, wanting to swim, and run. He will be well, but only for a while. After that I will not come again. I have done what I can do.”

She walked to the top of a footpath and took his hand. “How can I thank you, Tūtū man. I would give my life …”

He raised his hand. “You offer your life, for what purpose? To atone? I see the past hovering behind you. Things you did, and undid. Not all of it was wrong. Selfish, but not wrong. Only, just now don’t think on yourself. Your happiness, regrets. Give all your thoughts to this man who has loved you.”

He bent forward and they
honi’ed
, rubbing nose to nose in the old way, then he turned and started down the path. Suddenly he stopped, climbed back, and stood before her.

“Child, you are looking for forgiveness. First, you must learn to forgive yourself. It does not come all at once. Forgiveness comes as opportunities. Things you do or not do. It comes as subtle light in ether. I see tomorrow, third-dawn, as a subtle light. Think how happy you could make this man. One step in self-forgiveness. If you say yes, tomorrow I will join you together in
ho‘omale
.”

She nodded solemnly. She said yes.

She watched him turn and melt into the rain forest, wild hair floating out like silver moss catching on the barks of trees. His yellow robes astonishing against a hundred greens. She sat down on the ground in shock.
Ho ‘omale
. To perform the marriage ceremony in the ancient way, with the ancient beliefs. Which meant they were bound forever in life, in death. She would not feel love again for any man.

At the third-dawn, as the sun rose and slid barefoot across the sea, ‘Iolani chanted while she and Max stood draped in maile leaves and ginger. And when the sun shone full upon the cliffs, ‘Iolani took their hands in his and joined them in the old, old vows.

“Ho‘oheno Pau‘ole. Mālama Pau‘ole. Ho‘omalu Pau‘ole.”
To cherish. To honor. To protect. In this life and the next.

“There is only this moment,” he said. “There is only ever this moment.

All you can fit in the palm of your hand. Go now.
I Ho‘okahi Kahi Ke Aloha
.” Be one in love.

For all of that day they held each other, giving each other pleasure in slow and quiet ways.

“Thank you,” Max said. “My love. My wife.”

Finally, they lay gazing at the ceiling where, high up on rafters, pale cones of wood powder had been left by termites. A breeze lifted the blond dust and it drifted down. As the sun’s rays leaned into the room, the dust became a yellow brilliance showering their faces and their bodies. They blinked, and everything was gold.

T
WO DAYS LATER HE STOOD UP FROM THE BED.
“G
OD!
I
FEEL
brand-new. I feel like raising hell.”

And so they squandered everything. Disregarding ‘Iolani’s warnings, they made noonday runs into the little town of Kapa‘a to “Sharon’s Famous Saimin,” a tiny, two-booth luncheonette where they ate delicate
char siu
and tofu soup from giant bowls, while the owner tossed tangles of noodles into boiling pots. They drove to Hanapepe for “Green Garden’s” lilikoi chiffon pie, the lightest texture in the world. They sat like youngsters, eating giant cones of blue-and-purple shave-ice, and one day they drove to a famous cattle farm and bought thick beefsteaks from a woman who still roped steer at eighty-two.

They swam for hours in seas so calm it was like being led to prayer. They passed a group of octopi volleying a glass ball back and forth between them. A shark lifted its snout and eyed them, weaving in and out in that old shark way. Lazily, they strolled on long promenades of beaches, their footsteps agitating grains of sand so they left prints of flashing phosphorescence. They lived without discretion, holding nothing back. Only at night did they slow down.

Some nights she placed the oxygen tube in Max’s nose and read to him from old tattered books left behind.

“A
ND SO IT WAS GREED THAT KILLED THE FORESTS, AND THE COMMON
people. China wanted more and more of the highly prized sandalwood, and Hawaii’s chiefs wanted more and more worldly goods, all the things white traders had. Ships, and nails. Rum, silk, and chinaware
 …