Hawaii - James Michener [145]
When his question was interpreted, Malama laughed vigorously and said, "Those are the people's houses!"
"They don't look big enough to live in," Abner argued.
"The common people don't live in them . . . not like the alii in their big house," Malama explained. "They keep their tapa in them . . . sleep in them if it rains."
"Where do they live the rest of the time?" Abner asked.
Spreading her huge arms grandiloquently to embrace the entire countryside, Malama replied, "They live under the trees, beside the rivers, in the valleys." And before Abner could reflect on this, the canoe came to a spacious and beautiful park, set off by a wall of coral blocks three feet high, inside of which stretched an extensive garden of flowers and fruit trees, interspersed with a dozen grass houses and one large pavilion looking out over the sea. It was to this building that Malama and the Hales were carried, and as the huge woman climbed out of the canoe, she announced: "This is my palace. You will always be welcome here."
She led the way into a cool spacious room outlined by woven grass walls, handsome wooden pillars and a narrow doorway which permitted a view of the sea. The floor was made of fine white pebbles covered by pandanus matting, upon which Malama with a gasp of relief threw herself, propping her big chin on her hands and stating firmly, "Now teach me to write!"
Jerusha, who could not even recall how she herself had been taught, sixteen remote years ago, stammered, "I am sorry, Malama, but we need pens and papers . . ."
Her protests were silenced by a voice as soft as polished bronze, "You will teach me to write," Malama commanded with terrifying majesty.
"Yes, Malama." Jerusha trembled. Looking about the room, she happened to see some long sticks with which Malama's women had been beating intricate designs onto tapa and beside them several small calabashes of dark dye. Taking one of the sticks and a length of tapa, she smeared out the word MALAMA. As the giant woman studied Jerusha explained, "That is your name."
When Keoki translated this, Malama rose and inspected the word from varying angles, repeating it proudly to herself. Grabbing the stick rudely, she splashed it in the dye and started to trace the cryptic symbols, sensing fully the magic they contained. With remarkable skill she reproduced the word exactly. "Malama!” she repeated a dozen times. Then she drew the word again and again. Suddenly she stopped and asked Keoki, "If I sent this word to Boston, would people there know that it was my word, Malama?"
"You could send it anywhere in the world and people would know that it was your word," her son assured her.
“I am learning to write!" the huge woman exulted. "Soon I shall send letters to all the world. The only difference between white men who rule everything and us Hawaiians is that white men can write. Now I shall write, too, and I will understand everything."
This error was too profound for Abner to tolerate, and he interjected, "I warned you once, Malama, that a woman can learn to write words, but they are nothing. Malama, I warn you again! Unless you learn the Commandments of the Lord, you have learned nothing."
The walls of the grass house were thick, and not much light entered the area where Malama stood with her length of stick, and in the shadows she seemed like the gigantic summary of all Hawaiians: powerful, resolute, courageous. Once on Hawaii in the days of her husband Kamehameha's war she had strangled a man much larger than the puny, sallow-faced individual who stood before her, and she was constrained now to brush him aside as her servant brushed away the flies, but she was impressed by his dogged insistence and by the power of his voice. More important, she suspected that he was right; the mere trick of writing was too easy; there must be additional hidden magic that enforced it; and she was about to listen to the little man with the limp, when he pointed his finger at her and shouted, "Malama, do not learn merely the outlines of the words.