Hawaii - James Michener [225]
"What's really so abhorrent about it?" Whipple pressed.
"Every civilized society . . ." Abner began, but his companion grew impatient and snapped: "Damn it, Abner, every time you start an answer that way I know it's going to be irrelevant. Two of the most completely civilized societies we've ever had were the Egyptians and the Incas. Now, no Egyptian king was ever allowed to marry anybody but his sister, and if I can believe what I've heard, the same was true of the Incas. They prospered. As a matter of fact," Whipple continued, "it's not a bad system, scientifically. That is, if you're willing to kill off ruthlessly any children with marked defects, and apparently the Egyptians, the Incas and the Hawaiians were willing to do so. Have you ever seen a handsomer group of people than the alii?"
Abner felt that he was going to be sick, but before he could react to Whipple's astonishing reflections, the doctor said, "Noelani has asked me to attend her at the birth of the baby."
"Of course you rebuked her," Abner said with assurance.
"Oh, No! A doctor could practice an entire lifetime and not meet such an opportunity," Whipple explained.
"You would be partner to such a crime?" Abner asked, stunned by the prospect.
"Naturally," Whipple said, and the two men walked back from the pier in silence, but when Abner reached home and sent the children out into the walled yard he confided in whispers to his wife the nauseating news that John Whipple was preparing to attend Noelani, but to his surprise Jerusha replied, "Of course. The girl deserves all consideration. This must be doubly frightening for her."
"But John Whipple, a consecrated Christian!"
"The important thing is that he's a doctor. Do you suppose I ever rested easily, knowing that a totally untrained man would be my attendant when the children were born?"
"Were you so afraid?" Abner asked in surprise.
"I began by being," Jerusha said, "but my love for you made it possible to control my fears. Even so, I'm glad that Brother John is going to tend the girl."
Abner started to rant, but Jerusha had in these months of his defeat heard enough, and now she said firmly, "My dearest husband, I am afraid you are making a fool of yourself."
"What do you mean?" he gasped, rising and walking with agitation to the door.
"You are fighting the kahunas, and Kelolo, and Keoki and Noelani, and even Dr. Whipple. In church you speak without benevolence. You act as if you hated Lahaina and all that was in it. You've even withdrawn from your children, so that Micah told me, 'Father hasn't taught me Hebrew for two months.' "
"I have been sorely tried," Abner confessed.
"I appreciate the shocks you've suffered," Jerusha said tenderly, pulling her tense little husband into one of the whaling chairs. "But if, as I think, we are here engaged in a tremendous battle between the old gods and the new . . ." She saw that this phraseology hurt Abner, so she quickly modified it. "What I mean is, between heathenish ways and the way of the Lord, then we ought to fight with our subtlest resources. When the old seems about to reconquer the islands, we ought to combat it with . . ."
"I've warned them all!" Abner shouted, rising from his chair and striding about the earthen floor. "I told Kelolo . . ."
"What I meant was," Jerusha said gently, rising to be with her agitated husband, "that in these crucial times you ought to be calmer than usual, quieter, and more forceful. You've told me how you pointed at the evil three, Keoki, Noelani and Kelolo, and told them in turn. 'God will destroy you!' But you haven't told me or shown me how with Christ's gentle love you have tried to guide the people in these confusing times. I've watched you become increasingly bitter, and, Abner, it must stop. It is you who are destroying the good you have accomplished."
"I feel as if I had achieved nothing," he said from the depths of his spiritual humiliation.
Jerusha caught her husband's passing hand and imprisoned him, turning his pinched