Hawaii - James Michener [359]
At first the gay little wife could not imagine what she ought to do; she wondered whether she was supposed to break into the hotel room and confront the guilty pair or whether custom required her to weep silently, but her problems were resolved when on a day which took her shopping she returned unexpectedly to find that bold Nancy had trailed Whip to his own home, had undressed in Iliki's room, and had pulled Whip into bed with her. When Iliki arrived, they stared up at her from her own sheets. Nobody made a scene. Nancy pouted: "I had him first. He's decided to stay with me."
"Put some clothes on," Iliki said, amazed at her restraint. When they were dressed Nancy announced defiantly, "Whip and I are going to live together."
Iliki did not bother to argue with her husband, for she knew that no matter what he promised, it was of no consequence. He was not like other men, and with deep sorrow--for she loved him very much --she saw that he was destined to bounce from one woman to another without ever resting with one, and she thought: "He'll have a very lonely life."
She left San Francisco with her son Janders and returned on an H & H liner to Honolulu, where she lived a long, full life as a divorcee, doing much good in the community. The natural history museum flourished largely because of her energies.
Her husband Whip and her sister Nancy enjoyed a wild time in San Francisco. Whip got a formal divorce but did not bother to marry Nancy, because, as he pointed out, "I'll never make a good husband." Nancy, finding in sex a complete gratification, was content to tag along on whatever terms he proposed, nor was she distressed when she uncovered suspicious circumstances that seemed to prove that her companion was also the consort of several well-known waterfront girls. What she liked best, however, apart from the passionate moments when he came home after a long absence, were the intense days when he took her with him to talk with men who had built tunnels. They were an odd, dedicated group of experts, willing to tackle nature on any terms, and they convinced Whip that if he could scrape together enough money, they could penetrate the Koolau Mountains and bring water to his dusty lands. Surreptitiously, he sent one of the engineer geologists to Hawaii, and in the guise of bird-collecting this keen fellow tramped the Koolaus and satisfied himself that tunneling them would present no unusual problems. "As a matter of fact," he reported, "it looks to me as if the mountains were built in layers tilted on end. If that's true, when you drill your tunnel you'll not only collect all the water you trap in outside ditches to lead into your tunnel, but the porous rock above the tunnel will probably deliver an equal amount of its own. This could be a profitable undertaking, so far as water's concerned."
"How long would the tunnel have to be?"
"Eight, ten miles," the engineer replied.
"Can you build a tunnel that long?" Whip asked.
"Any tunnel is simply a function of money," the engineer replied. "If you've got the money, I can get the dynamite."
"In this case, how much?"
"Four million."
"Don't forget my name," Whip said.
This report seemed to be the final answer to Whip's land problem. He didn't have the four million dollars then, but there was always a chance he might one day have it. He therefore decided to return to Hawaii, but Nancy Janders said, "I wouldn't, Whip."
"Why not?"
"Well, Iliki's there. That'll be embarrassing for you. And I certainly can't go back