“Oh, yes,” Anne lied cheerfully. “Johnny’s helpless as a babe, especially when he’s working.” She sent me a finger signal which said, “For heaven’s sake, keep your mouth shut,” and descended on Mavis, who recoiled.
“Don’t be startled, Mrs. Purcell. Giving lets is an Island custom. Welcome to Hawaii.”
I draped ropes of plumeria around Troy’s neck and he sniffed deeply. “My God, I didn’t know flowers could smell like this!” He turned to his wife. “Aren’t they wonderful?”
She was lifting gardenias to see whether they had stained her silk dress. “They’re so lovely I almost hate to — Where are you going, Troy?”
The muscle in Troy’s cheek twitched. “Let’s go up — it’s hot as hell in here.”
From the promenade deck there was a good view. Honolulu starts with one of the world’s cleanest harbors. Ships dock there almost in the heart of the city, which spreads back over a plateau to the Koolau Range. That day the mountains were veiled in mist, which parted occasionally to reveal jungled slopes of variegated greens gashed with purple and indigo valleys through which ran the coppery lines of roads. It was raining in the distance. As we watched, the trades swept clouds away and a rainbow tilted from Manoa Valley into the sea.
“Just look at that!” Troy burst out. “Did you ever see anything more beautiful?”
“Islanders consider the rainbow a good omen,” Anne told him. “You’re getting a special welcome.”
Mavis laid her hand on her husband’s arm. “Darling,” she said. “I’m so thrilled. You’ll do the best work of your life here.”
“You say that about every job,” he growled. “Nobody can paint those colors.” He leaned on the rail, shading his eyes with one hand, and began identifying them in a sort of incredulous mutter: Ultramarine, scarlet, cobalt, magenta, vermilion, emerald...
He seemed dazed as he went down the gangplank.
We took them to the Queen’s Surf that night, and were a party of six, Peggy and Bill Garrison making the third couple. Bill was an agreeable fellow, an insurance-broker acquaintance of Troy’s from New York. Casual remarks between the two men, and intimate chatter of their wives, indicated that friendship had developed during the crossing.
Troy asked when we sat down, “What’ll we have to drink? Got any specialties here in the Islands?”
Mavis said, “I’ll stick to my usual, Troy.”
I noticed that Mavis began to watch apprehensively when Troy finished his fifth highball; she must have said something to him on the dance floor, because he looked subdued when they returned. While the Garrisons were dancing, Mavis and Anne went to the powder room and Troy said, “Let’s go have a look at the Pacific.”
He and I walked through the tropical garden to the sea wall. A torch fisherman moved slowly in the distance; outside the periphery of his flare the water looked like ink. We lit cigarettes and stood silent. There was a quarter moon; we watched it slip over Diamond Head until the sea was enameled silver.
Troy said, like a man in a dream: “It was snowing when we left New York. I thought I’d never be warm again.” Then he faced me suddenly. “They gave me some galleys and I read your story on the way over. Is it a true story?”
I hesitated, feeling that something important depended on my answer. “The haole — white — characters are fiction. The Hawaiians — and the background — are authentic.”
“You mean there really is a valley, a place like that?”
“Yes. Not exactly like it, of course. But I had a certain place in mind when I was writing. It’s on Kauai — that’s another island.”
He sighed, “We’d better go back. The women...”
We reached our table in time to see an impromptu celebration. A stately Hawaiian woman in a flowered holoku rose and bowed from her seat at a floorside table. “What is it?” Troy asked, and Anne said, “She is having a birthday party.”
Someone called, “Liliu E!” and the woman smiled, looked at the orchestra, and finally began to dance the story of Queen Liliuokalani.
She wasn’t as supple as a young woman, but her hula was very good: her hips swayed gracefully, arms and fingers wove interpretive patterns in the air as she told the story of the beloved queen whose mouth was curved with laughter, whose shoulders waved like a fan, whose little feet danced round the world...
When she finished Troy rose abruptly and left us. He came back with his arms filled with leis. He dumped them on our table, shook loose a wreath of red carnations, and went over to the gray-haired woman who had been dancing. He bowed and said something, hung the flowers around her neck, and then kissed her.
I looked at Mavis. She was watching him indulgently. When he sat beside her again she said, smiling, “Troy! Whatever possessed you to do such a thing?”
Troy’s cheek twitched. He picked up his glass. “Because she was so beautiful.”
“Beautiful?” Mavis looked at the Hawaiian woman and then at Troy. “Darling, you really must be drunk!”
A few nights later the four of them came to our house for dinner. Troy had a sunburn. He squirmed in his chair, tried to pretend interest while Mavis and the Garrisons asked questions about our island life, and gulped four martinis before we went to the table. After dinner some friends arrived, including David Kimu, the Hawaiian. David was Anne’s childhood playmate, who became my best friend at Columbia. He was now doing graduate work in sociology at the University of Hawaii.
David was dressed casually in a red aloha shirt and blue cotton pants. He took off his shoes, as most of us do, when he came into the house. Seeing our guests in more formal clothes didn’t faze him; he said, “Malihinis?” and added, with his brilliant smile, “Aloha nui loa!”
I mentioned Troy’s commission and said I hoped David would be able to help him. David sat on the floor, accepted a drink, and asked what Troy was most interested in. A few minutes after that Troy was beside him, looking comfortable for the first time that evening. They were talking about the Islands.
Peggy Garrison was fascinated with David. “What a gorgeous man!” she said under her breath to Anne. “Did you say he was a childhood playmate?”
“We grew up together,” Anne told her. “David was the one who taught me to swim, and to hula — among other things—”
I made a note to tell her to go easy on the next drink. But the slight mockery in Anne’s voice went unnoticed. The look Peggy turned on her held speculation — and the faintest trace of envy.
Mavis’s mind didn’t run in those channels. She commented, studying David with narrowed violet eyes, “He’d make a wonderful model. A perfect native specimen.”
My hackles rose. I forbore mentioning that David was a sociologist. I said instead that most Hawaiians are exceptionally handsome people and few can match them for natural grace and dignity. I was going on in this vein when I perceived that Mavis’s face had gone blank with boredom, and I changed the subject.
From then on our group was divided; Troy and David on the floor gradually joined by Bill and our other friends; Anne and I sitting on the punee with the two visiting women discussing the smartest places to dine, addresses of good local shops, and the type of entertainment given by Honolulu’s upper-echelon socialites. When those subjects were exhausted Anne mentioned the Dillinghams’ famous Japanese garden, and from there we went to descriptions of other Honolulu show places, a topic which proved inexhaustible. Anne can manage that sort of thing gracefully. For me it was heavy going; I finally broke away with the excuse that I’d better mix some drinks. Out in the kitchen I offered myself a dividend.