Hawaii - James Michener [391]
"It had to be somebody," she said to the erect, austere missionary. "Of all the Hawaiians, you understood most clearly," he said. "But I suppose that's to be expected. Noelani's daughter and Malama's granddaughter." At the mention of these distinguished names he unexpectedly found tears in his eyes, and he wanted to hide his face in his hands, but Malama saw them, and if she had been sitting beside her husband, she would, Hawaiian-fashion, have comforted him, but on this important night they sat apart and only ideas sped between them, not love. Micah said, "It would have been so much better if you had been queen and not Liliuokalani. You would have understood, but she never could."
"No," Malama said slowly, "it was better that we had a headstrong, volatile Hawaiian. Let the world see us dying as we actually were."
"Dying?" Micah repeated in surprise.
"Yes, dying," Malama said with subtle firmness. "Soon our islands will be Oriental and there will be no place for Hawaiians."
His wife's comments were strange, and Micah pointed out: "But in the constitution we were careful to put up safeguards against the Japanese."
"That's only a paper, Micah," she pointed out. "We Hawaiians know that we're being pushed over in the canoe." "You'll be protected!" Micah cried.
"We had an earlier constitution that was supposed to protect us," Malama said, "but it didn't prevent the sugar robbers from stealing our lands . . . and then our country."
"Malama!" Micah gasped. "Are you contending that only cupidity directed this revolution? Do you refuse to see the forces of American democracy at work here?"
"All I can see is that when our fields were barren no one wanted us, but when they were rich with sugar, everyone wanted us. What else can I conclude?"
Micah was disturbed by the turn this conversation was taking and he went far back into memory: "Do you recall the first time I ever saw you? In San Francisco? And I said then, before I ever saw a sugar field, 'Hawaii must become a part of the United States'? I thought so for moral reasons, and my motivations have never changed."
"Not yours, Micah. But others' changed. And in the end you were pitifully used by a gang of robbers."
"Oh, no, Malama! As it worked out, it was I who used them. Hawaii's going to be annexed, on my terms."
"It was stolen by fraud," Malama said coldly. "We poor, generous Hawaiians were abused, lied about, debased in public and defrauded of our nation."
"No!" Micah protested, rising and walking around the table to be with his wife.
"I would rather you did not touch me now, Micah," she said without bitterness. "What do you think I have felt, when I met my Hawaiian friends, and they asked me, 'How could Micah Hale write the things he did about us?'"
"What things?" Micah cried, returning disconsolately to his chair. "I never wrote anything about you."
To his surprise, Malama took from her pocket, where in bitterness she had kept it until this moment should arise, a clipping from one of his major articles, and in sorrow she read it: " 'The indigenous citizens are for the most part illiterate, steeped in idolatry, committed to vain shows of monarchical display and totally unsuited to govern themselves.' What abominable words."
"But I wasn't writing about you," he protested. "I was writing to help make these islands a part of America."
"You were writing about Hawaiians," Malama said quietly.
Micah, in his white suit, sat staring at the tablecover brought years ago from China. He was astonished at his wife's position in this matter and he thought of several lines of explanation that might be helpful in describing the choices he had faced, but when he looked up at her grave, accusing face, he realized that none would be of use. Therefore he said, "I am sorry if I have offended you, Malama." And she replied, "I am sorry, Micah, if I have brought up unpleasant subjects on your night of triumph. But we must not fool