Hawaii - James Michener [227]
Noelani bore twins, and Dr. Whipple, after he left the grass palace, reported to his waiting wife, "We must prepare ourselves for an ugly moment, Amanda. The boy was a handsome child, but the girl was deformed. I suppose they will abandon her before morning." And when it was whispered through the town that Keoki Kanakoa, with his own hands, had taken his malformed daughter, and had placed her at the edge of the tide for the shark-god Mano, a wave of revulsion swept through the town.
On Sunday the Lahaina church was jammed with nearly three thousand people, as in the old days, but on the way to service Jerusha said quietly to her husband, "Remember, my beloved husband, God has spoken on this subject. You are not required to." And on the instant Abner threw away the text on which he was prepared to thunder, Luke 23, verse 34: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do," and spoke instead from those majestic words of Ecclesiastes which had been much in his mind of late: "One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down. . . . All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. . . . The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. . . . There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come."
He spoke of the permanence of Maui, of how the whales came back each year to play in the roads, and of how the sunset moved majestically through the months from the volcano of Lanai to the tip of Molokai. He referred to the whistling wind that could blow down churches and of the dead past when Kamehameha himself had trod these roads in mighty conquest. "The earth abideth forever," he cried in soft Hawaiian, and Jerusha, listening to the inspired flow of images, knew that the hatred he had recently held for Lahaina was now discharged, for he passed on from the physical world that endures to the human society which occupies the world. "With all its imperfections it endures," Abner confessed; but promptly he went on to his permanent vision of Geneva as it had been ruled by Calvin and Beza, and by suggesting many unspoken comparisons, he led his huge congregation to the truth he himself was seeking: some forms of human behavior are better than others; and at this point he returned to an idea which had, through the years, become a passion with him: that a society is good when it protects children. "Jesus Christ loves even children who are not perfect," he preached, and on this awful contrast he concluded.
"What did he say about the baby?" Keoki asked nervously, fingering his maile leaves in the old grass palace as his spies reported to him.
"Nothing," the men replied.
"Did he rave about our sin?" the agitated young man pressed.
"No. He spoke of how beautiful Maui is." There was a pause and the men explained, "He did not speak either of you or of Noelani. But at one point I thought he intended saying that if you ever want to return to the church, he will forgive you."
The effect of these words upon Keoki was startling, for he began to tremble as if someone were shaking him, and after a while he retired with his confusions to a corner of his room, placing himself formally upon a pile of tapa, as if he were already dead, and saying, "Go away." As his friends departed they whispered among themselves, "Do you think he has decided to die?"
The question was seriously discussed, for the Hawaiians knew that Keoki was tormented by doubts arising from two religions in conflict, and that whereas he had reverted with apparent willingness to Kelolo's native gods, he had not easily cleansed himself of Abner's God, and the incompatible deities warred in his heart. They also knew, as Hawaiians, that if Keoki ever decided to die, he would do so. They had watched