Moloka'i (41 page)

I

n the summer of 1929 Sister Catherine boarded the SS
Hawaii
to Honolulu for the first time since delivering Rachel’s daughter to Kapi'olani Home; and then onto a much grander steamship, the SS
President Jackson,
bound for New York City via the Panama Canal. The voyage was a pleasant one, perhaps too pleasant. After decades of spartan diet, the lavish meals in the ship’s dining room seemed excessive, even decadent; and her enforced leisure time was anything but relaxing, Catherine feeling guilty to think of all the work she could be doing back in Kalaupapa.

Manhattan looked strange indeed to her eyes after so many years in Hawai'i, but Catherine didn’t linger in the city; at Penn Station she boarded the
Black Diamond Express,
which was soon rattling through the New Jersey countryside and Pennsylvania coal fields. It was one of the few major trains to service the city of Ithaca, New York, whose hilly terrain actively discouraged the laying down of rail—hills carved millennia ago by glaciers, which then thawed to create deep clear lakes.

A familiar succession of towns flashed past: Towanda, Athens, Sayre, Owego, Wilseyville. The hills and valleys had the comforting contours of childhood. Catherine spied the inlet to Cayuga Lake and thought back to the big steamboats that used to come in from the Erie Canal, grand old ships like the
Frontenac
that would tie up at Renwick Pier, where Ruth and her brother would sneak aboard and pretend they were steaming down the Mississippi.

The brakes shrieked and sparked as the
Black Diamond
slowed into the station, where Jack was waiting for her. The last time she’d seen him he’d been a frail fourteen-year-old, toxic with grief over their father’s death. But the nearly fifty-year-old man who stood on the platform smiling at her was stocky if not stout, robust, and cheerful. “Sis!” he cried out. (He’d never called her “sis” until after she’d taken her vows.) He hurried to her faster than she could manage with her game leg, then took her in his arms and gave her a bear hug that squeezed the breath from her. “Ruth,” he said with surprising softness, considering the vise grip in which he held her. “Oh, Ruth.”

“I’ve missed you, too,” Catherine said, and wept.

Outside, driving down State Street in Jack’s big Plymouth, Catherine found it odd to think that when she’d left these streets had been filled with horses and buggies. Some familiar names greeted her: Rothschild’s Department Store was still here, albeit bigger, as were the Ithaca Hotel and Brooks Pharmacy. She was pleased to see Ithaca was still recognizably Ithaca. Soon Jack was turning onto East Court Street, and there it was: the house in which Catherine had grown up. A modest, two-story Italianate home, fronted by a porch whose supports were simple square posts rather than the Doric columns adorning its gaudier neighbors. Harold Voorhies had reviled the more rococo homes going up around town, with their cupolas and ornate arched windows. “Our home,” he told his wife, “will not look as if it floated in from the Piazza San Marco.”

They climbed the steps to the porch where the young Ruth had spent many happy hours playing jacks and reading books—and where a somewhat older Ruth had entertained the only young man she had ever fancied, John Van Splinter. They would sit here on the porch on warm summer nights, talking and laughing; and once, only once, they kissed.

They entered the house and were swept up in a tornado of shouted greetings and running children.

“Hi Pop!”

“Daddy, Daddy!”

“Is that her?”

“She
is
a nun!”

“Ssshh!”

The photographs Catherine had seen of this brood may have been the only moments they weren’t in constant motion. Jack’s sturdy blonde wife, Isabel, clapped her hands, imposing order on exuberant chaos: “Settle down, settle down,” and Catherine was introduced to her nieces and nephews: Becky, Lacy, Guy, Hal, Beverly. She was happy to meet them, and quietly ashamed that she never had before.

She had been apprehensive about returning to this house, had expected it to be a crucible of memories, of ghosts; but the laughter and shouts of these children seemed to drown out any whispering phantoms. Jack and Isabel’s presence here—the comfortable way they filled the space—discouraged Catherine from loitering in the past. After a pot roast dinner and a dessert of Jell-O and whipped cream, the family gathered around the big Majestic console radio to laugh at this new program called
Amos ’n’ Andy,
and then an exhausted Catherine was shown to her room: literally the room she had grown up in, now tenanted by sixteen-year-old Beverly, temporarily dispossessed.

As Catherine lay there in the dark she felt the comforting shape of the room around her—the familiar distance of wall from wall, of the ceiling above, an intimacy of space that brought her unexpected pleasure. The street lights outside were electric, not gas, but they cast much the same shadows on the wall as when she was a girl; and the crickets in the yard chirped as they always had. The air she took in, faintly musty and woody, could have been the same air she breathed on her last night here, thirty-six years before. She felt warm, protected, safe.

In the two weeks that followed, Catherine played endlessly with the children and attended Mass at her old church on Geneva Street. Steamboats no longer docked at Renwick Pier, but Cayuga Lake was still a fine place for a picnic; after which the family went for a swim at Enfield Falls. As the children peeled off their outer clothes, they were frankly astonished to see Catherine strip off her habit, revealing a borrowed swimsuit beneath. “Last one in,” she announced, “is a rotten egg!” She dove into the water, breaking surface a few moments later. “Seems like we have quite a lot of spoilt eggs out there!” They all jumped in at once, Catherine sputtering and laughing at the geysers suddenly spouting on every side of her.

“Do you think,” Beverly asked her hopefully, on the way home, “you might consider staying in New York?”

Catherine said, “I hadn’t really thought about that,” and hoped God would forgive her the lie.

Back home that evening, after yet another dinner far more sumptuous than any she had ever had on Moloka'i, as she laughed and played with her nieces and nephews, Catherine considered how much of God’s work could be done right here in Ithaca, or Syracuse. There were poor people to be fed here too, after all, and souls to be saved. She had spent thirty-six years away from home and family, had sacrificed all her adult life for the people of Kalaupapa; where was the harm in tending to a flock closer to home and being able to share moments like these with her family?

That night she lay in bed in her old room, feeling happy and at peace, the ghosts from whom she had fled to Hawai'i having somehow been put to rest, either by time or by the sheer exuberance of Jack’s family.

She loved it here. She loved her home.

She wanted desperately to stay, wanted it more than she had ever imagined she would; and despite that, because of that, she knew she had to go back.

She had never heard God more clearly in her life.

Chapter 18

1931–33

E

arly in the morning of Tuesday, June 17, 1931, the destroyer USS
Gamble
anchored off Kalaupapa, having left Honolulu just two hours earlier—a considerable improvement on the night-long, stomach-churning crossings of the Kaiwi Channel of decades past. If anyone parted company with his breakfast on the present voyage, it was not noted. The entire population of the settlement turned out to greet the
Gamble
’s passengers as they came ashore; the majority gathered in front of Kenji’s store as the manager and his wife watched from the doorway. As the visiting dignitaries, including the territorial governor of Hawai'i, climbed up the ladder and wobbled onto the dock, the Kalaupapa Band greeted them with appropriate fanfare.

After the welcoming airs, the landing party was whisked off for an inspection of recent construction at Kalaupapa. The visitors saw the new laundry pavilion with its electric washers and hot and cold running water. They toured the new hospital, the renovated and expanded McVeigh Home, and the (named without apparent irony) Bay View Home for the Blind and Helpless. At Bishop Home, when asked by the governor what she would do to improve conditions here, Sister Catherine looked up at the leaky roof and down at the ancient floorboards, then suggested with a smile that a lit match might be the most effective course of action.

And the dignitaries stopped at the Kalaupapa Store, squeezing inside as the governor stepped up to the counter behind which Rachel and Kenji stood expectantly.

Rachel said, “Welcome, Governor.”

The governor—an unassuming man in spectacles with the mien of an accountant, or bank manager—gave her a look of mock irritation. “Rachel, have you forgotten my name?”

Rachel smiled and amended herself:

“Welcome, Governor Missionary Boy.”

The governor of the Territory of Hawai'i, Lawrence McCully Judd, laughed heartily.
“That’s
better.” He turned to her husband. “Kenji, good to see you again. How have things been coming along here since my last visit?”

“Very well, sir. The new adding machine and typewriter are much appreciated.”

“And what about that new accounting system? Has the Auditors Office been making your life easier or harder?”

“Remarkably for something designed by a government agency, the new system is much simpler and more efficient.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure they’ll find a way to make it complicated and wasteful. You are both coming to the meeting this afternoon, aren’t you?”

Rachel asked, “Who’ll mind the store, Governor?”

“Perhaps I could declare this a territorial holiday,” Judd suggested, “and require you to shut down for the day.”

Rachel whipped out the CLOSED sign and handed it to Judd. “Put this in the window on your way out?” she said, and the governor laughingly did as he was told.

For most Kalaupapa residents it was already a holiday, and they crowded into the social hall for what turned out to be a stupefying number of speeches: politicians, sheriffs, military officers, everyone short of the ship’s bosun. Even the president of the much-despised Board of Health was here to reluctantly commemorate passing of control of Kalaupapa to a newly-formed Board of Leper Hospitals and Settlement. After an official study had concluded that Kalaupapa was “far below par with other territorial institutions,” the governor had wrested jurisdiction away from the Board of Health—not least because it was discovered that in the six years between 1923 and 1928 the Board had allowed to lapse $136,000 in funds allocated to the settlement by the Legislature. Money that might have bought so much, allowed to simply evaporate because the Board of Health lacked the foresight, vision, or will to use it.

“Today,” Judd addressed his audience, “for the first time since this settlement was established in 1866 the government is presenting a united front for improvements at Kalihi and Kalaupapa.

“Your problem is one of my main interests as governor. It was difficult to get the people to realize the need here. But now we are ready to stop blowing bubbles and to do definite things for your welfare.”

He enumerated the further improvements that would soon be made: a new water system, sewer lines, fire hydrants, a refrigeration plant, a gas station, and at long last, a real garbage truck (the old ox would be “pensioned”). The announcement that work would soon commence on an airfield at Kalaupapa brought cheers from the crowd. When Judd told his audience they would also be getting equipment to screen
talking
pictures, they cheered even louder.

But the biggest ovation came afterward, when the residents of Kalaupapa followed the governor down to the new power station where Judd threw the switch that electrified every home and building in the settlement.

The governor caught sight of a pleased and proud Rachel, winked at her and said, just audible over the cheers of the crowd, “Welcome to the twentieth century.”

T

he following day Rachel borrowed an old jalopy—a neighbor’s 1922 Model T of shabby gentility—and set off across the Damien Road. She was able to steer passably well even with her clawed right hand; the only thing that worried her was her inability to actually feel the clutch under her left foot, which required constant monitoring to make sure she wasn’t inadvertently stripping the gears.

The familiar remnants of Kalawao town soon ghosted into view: scattered piles of
pili
grass, heaps of kindling that once were houses. A pig sat on its haunches in the collapsed remains of an old store, eyes nervously tracking the loud machine that stuttered past. Rachel’s heart ached as always when she came to the remains of Haleola’s home, its termite-ridden posts and beams rotting away in the sun. After six months Haleola’s grave was again choked with weeds and Rachel had to hack away the undergrowth with a hoe; she did the same for Keo’s. In the stillness of dying Kalawao, disturbed only by the crashing metronome of the surf, she paid her respects to her aunt and then left to do likewise for Uncle Pono.

But as she drove up the road to Siloama Church, closed these past four years, she noticed someone sitting in the middle of the street ahead of her. Perched on a folding chair midway between St. Philomena’s Church and the Baldwin Home for Boys, a large man sat facing the church, a paintbrush in hand, dabbing at an easel. Out of curiosity Rachel drove past Siloama cemetery and up another hundred feet to St. Philomena’s; beyond it lay the razed ground of the United States Leprosy Investigation Station, in whose abandonment Rachel felt no satisfaction, only sadness.

At the sound of the car’s engine the painter looked up, surprised. He was Hawaiian, perhaps eighteen or nineteen years old, and his nose had begun to collapse in on itself as leprosy eroded the nasal cartilage; but his smile on seeing her was bright and whole.

“
Aloha
,” he said happily as Rachel parked the car a respectful distance from Damien’s church.

“
Aloha
.” She approached him, but his easel was angled so that she couldn’t quite make out what rested on it. “Lucky I didn’t run you down,” she said with a smile. “Sitting here in the middle of the street with all this traffic.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, maybe I get run over by a wild pig.” He gestured toward a drowsy-looking swine sunning itself under a pandanus tree.

She nodded to the canvas. “Mind if I take a look?”

“Sure. But it’s not finished yet.” He turned the easel around so she could get a good look at the half-completed painting. The outlines of St. Philomena’s had been lightly brushed in, its sea-green roof floating above half-formed white walls. Behind it the
pali
rose in vibrant green strokes, crowned by a white mist. Rachel was impressed. “It’s beautiful,” she said, “even unfinished.”

She noticed that the painter was gazing at her as intently as she’d been studying his work. He saw her discomfort and laughed sheepishly.

“Sorry for the stink-eye, but we don’t see many
wahines
over here, you know?” He nodded toward Baldwin Home across the street, its frame cottages squatting behind a low plastered stone wall. “Brother Dutton used to go through our magazines, and if there was a
wahine
with this much skin showing below the neck”—he pinched two fingers together—“out came the scissors, and out went the paper lady, into the trash!” He laughed with more fondness than resentment. “He was specially vexed by that
National Geographic
magazine—alla those bare bosoms. He’d cut ’em up into tiny pieces, and oh, what work to put ’em back together after you pick ’em outta the trash!”

Rachel laughed too, if a bit nervously. “This, uh, might be a good time to mention I’m a married woman.”

“Oh, sure, sure,” he said with a wave of his hand, “no worry. I always figure, what
wahine
’s gonna want to kiss a face like this, eh?” He held out a hand. “I’m Hokea.”

“Rachel.” He had a gentle grip, like ferns brushing against her hand.

“So what’s life like,” she asked, “without Brother Dutton?” After a lifetime of uncertain penance but undisputed service, the seemingly indestructible Ira Barnes Dutton had passed away just one month shy of his eighty-seventh birthday. And with the passing soon after of seventy-six-year-old Ambrose Hutchison, the last living ties to Damien’s time were finally severed.

“Oh, the other brothers ain’t nearly as strict. They let us have the
National Geographic
without big holes in it.” Hokea sighed. “No more thrill.”

Her gaze was drawn again to the half-finished painting of St. Philomena’s. “This really is beautiful.”

“Ah, not yet. Not as good as others I’ve done.”

“You’ve done others? Of the church?”

“Yeah, plenty. Like to see?”

She said she would and Hokea was immediately on his way to Baldwin Home. “I go get ’em,” he said. “Brother Maternus’d have a stroke if I brought you inside.”

Minutes later he returned with a stack of canvasses under one arm. “I only bring the best ones.” He spread them out on the surface of the road, unmindful of the dust.

Her neuritis objecting, Rachel bent down to take in the paintings. St. Philomena’s was their common subject, but there the similarities ended—each was unique. Some depicted the church’s east face, some the west; some showed backdrops of lush green
pali
, some a blue wedge of ocean. Most were rendered in watercolors, a few in oils, one in charcoal. Each captured the church in a different mood as well: radiant under bright skies; storm-tossed, the white cross over its door just visible through sheeting rain; somberly framed by the graveyard in the foreground or joyously reaching toward heaven, its steeple reminding Rachel of the tall spires of Kaumakapili Church.

Hokea said, “I never get tired of looking at it. There’s strength to it, but also
maluhia
.”

Serenity. Rachel nodded. “I have a friend who says the same about another of Damien’s churches, up topside. Our Lady of Sorrows.”

“I’d love to paint that,” Hokea said wistfully. “Next, though—” He turned around to face the aging facade of Baldwin Home. “I’m gonna do this. While it’s still here. Won’t be long ’till they ship all of us over to Kalaupapa.”

“You think so?”

“Only thing kept us here was the old man. Cheaper to have us all over in Kalaupapa. Soon as they figure out where to put us, you bet we’ll be gone. You bet.”

Hokea grew quiet, looking around at Baldwin Home, the church, the ocean, the twin talismans of '
kala and M
kapu in the distance. “Maybe that’s right,” he said quietly. “Maybe this place ought to be empty, so we remember better. So we hear better the voices of the dead.” He shrugged his massive shoulders. “But I’ll miss it.”

He stood there silently, and in the emptiness Rachel could hear those voices; some even called her name.

______

H

old still, now.”

A sound rasped in Rachel’s right ear, as if a dull knife were scraping the surface of some thick fabric. At the periphery of her vision there was a gleam of light on metal, and then the new resident physician, Dr. Luckie, drew back the scalpel which Rachel saw bore a thin shaving of her own flesh. He pronounced it “Excellent,” and smeared the scraping onto a glass slide. “One more ear—unless you have a third one you’re keeping from me,” and again the scrape of steel on skin, but no pain at all, not even a sensation of pressure against her ear.