Hawaii - James Michener [353]
"Probably is," Governor Kelolo's wife agreed easily. "I think my husband found him on a boat."
"The Pake would like to take the boy home with her," Apikela said softly.
The governor's wife looked down at her hands and began to cry. Finally she said gently, "We think of the boy as our own."
"See!" Apikela said, and she withdrew from the interview, for there was obviously nothing more to say.
But Nyuk Tsin was just beginning. "I appreciate what you did for the boy. He looks very clean and intelligent. But he is my son, and I would like to . . ."
"He is very happy here," the governor's wife explained.
"He is my son," Nyuk Tsin struggled. She felt as if she were engulfed in a mass of cloud or formless foam. She could push it back, but always it returned to smother her. The three big Hawaiians were falling upon her, strangling her with love.
Again the governor's wife was speaking: "But we think of him as our son, too."
"If I went to court, what would the judge say?" Nyuk Tsin threatened.
Now both the governor's wife and Apikela began to weep, and the former said, "There is no need to involve the judges. Apikela said that you had your four sons with you. Why not leave the fifth boy with us? We love him very much."
"He is my son," Nyuk Tsin stubbornly argued, but the phrase really had little meaning to the three Hawaiians. Obviously, the attractive boy was a son in many more ways than this thin Chinese woman could understand.
At this point the governor himself entered, a tall, handsome man in his late forties. He was generous in his attitude toward everyone and listened patiently, first to Apikela, then to his wife, and finally to Nyuk Tsin. When he spoke he said, "Then you are the Pake Kokua?"
"Yes," Nyuk Tsin replied.
"Every Hawaiian owes a debt to you, Kokua." He formally extended his hand. Then he remembered: "It was about eight years ago. I was at the docks on some kind of business. I wasn't governor then, had just come over from Maui. And this ship came in with a sailor who had a screaming baby, and he said, 'What shall I do with it?' And I said, Feed it.' And he said, I got no tits.' So I took the boy and brought him home." He paused significantly, then added, "And we made him one of our sons."
"Now I want him," Nyuk Tsin said forcefully.
"And it would seem to me," the governor said, ignoring her, "that it might be a very good thing if this Chinese boy continued to grow up in this house, among the Hawaiians. We two races need to understand each other better." Then he stopped and said bluntly, "I love the boy as my own son. I don't think I could let him go."
"The judge will give him to me," Nyuk Tsin said coldly.
Tears came into the big man's eyes and he asked, "Have you no other children of your own?"
"I have four," Nyuk Tsin replied.
"Then leave the boy with us. Please don't speak of judges."
The governor's wife brought in tea, and Nyuk Tsin was invited to sit in the best brocaded chair, and Kimo asked if they happened to have any poi. The meeting lasted for four patient hours, and the little Chinese woman was positively beat down by love. When her son was summoned she saw that he was big and bright and strong. He was not told that the strange Chinese woman in the smock and trousers was his mother, for he called the governor's wife that, and after he was dismissed, many proposals were made, and Nyuk Tsin consented to this: her fifth son would continue to live with the governor, but he must be told who his real mother was . . . And here Nyuk Tsin began to get mixed up, because she also insisted that the boy be given the Chinese name Oh Chow, the Continent of Australia, and that twice each year he accompany his brothers to the Punti store when the money was sent to his real mother in China.
"His real mother?" the governor asked.
"Yes," Nyuk Tsin explained. "His real mother is in China. I am merely his auntie."
"I thought