Hawaii - James Michener [454]
But most often the flight of dollars was accounted for by some personal tragedy within the camp community, as on the evening when Ishii-san burst into their home with a plea for thirty dollars. "I've got to go to Honolulu, right away," he mumbled, trying to keep back his tears.
"Sumiko?" Mrs. Sakagawa asked.
"Yes. Hashimoto-san, the photographer at Kapaa, was in Honolulu to buy another camera and he discovered that the man who took Sumiko away left her in the city and she . . ." He could not finish.
"And she's working in one of the brothels?" Yoriko asked coldly.
"Mmmmmmm," Ishii-san nodded, his face buried in his hands from humiliation.
"That is her destiny, Ishii-san," the Hiroshima woman assured him. "Leave her there. You can do nothing."
"Leave her there?" Ishii-san screamed. "She's my wife!"
"Believe me, Ishii-san," Mrs. Sakagawa asserted, "that one will be no wife, never."
"Then you won't let me have thirty dollars?" the little scribe pleaded.
"Of course we will," Kamejiro said, and although his wife protested at the waste, for she knew the trip to be useless, the passage money was delivered.
Five days later little Mr. Ishii, his eyes ashamed to meet those of his friends, returned alone to Kauai. For a long time no one questioned him about his wife and he went about his work with his head down, until finally at breakfast one morning in the long room Kamejiro banged the table and asked in a loud voice, "Ishii-san, is your wife still working in the brothel?"
"Yes," Ishii-san replied, happy that someone had openly asked the question.
"Then in due time you will divorce the no-good whore?"
"Yes," the scribe replied.
"You're better off that way," Kamejiro said, "but remember that you owe me thirty dollars." The men laughed and that was the last Ishii Camp heard of beautiful Sumiko, but sometimes at the dock Kamejiro, fascinated by the peril he had so narrowly escaped, inquired of sailors from Honolulu, "Whatever happened to that girl Sumiko?" and finally he learned, "She went back to Japan."
That night when he started to tell his wife Yoriko the news, he was interrupted by her own startling intelligence: "We are going to have a baby!"
Kamejiro dropped his hands and all thoughts of Sumiko vanished. "A baby!" he cried with explosive joy. "We'll name him Goro."
"Why Goro?" Yoriko asked in her practical way. "That's no name for a first son."
"I know," Kamejiro admitted. "But years ago I decided that my first son should be Goro. The name sounds good." And it was agreed.
I HAVE SAID that the heroic encounter between Kamejiro Sakagawa and the German luna Von Schlemm was one with historic consequences, and that is true, but they did not become apparent until forty years later. What followed immediately was that as soon as word of the affair reached Honolulu, Kamejiro's revenge was inflated into an incipient riot, and plantation managers whispered apprehensively about "that Japanese who kicked the bejeezus out of the German luna." Fortunately, Wild Whip was absent at the time, on vacation in Spain, but as soon as he climbed down off the H & H liner he was told about it.
His neck muscles tensed and blood rushed to the ugly scars across his cheek. "Who was the Jap?" he asked.
"Man named Kamejiro Sakagawa," an H & H official replied, and for several moments Wild Whip remained stationary on the dock, repeating the name "Kamejiro!" and looking off toward the Koolau Range. His tension increased, and on what seemed like an impulse he grabbed the reporting official by the collar.
"How soon can I get a boat to Kauai?" he rasped, and as the little inter-island craft left for the Garden Island, the H & H official mumbled, "God help that poor Jap when Whip gets hold of him."
When the ferry reached Lihue, Wild Whip in great agitation leaped onto the dock, hired a taxi and went roaring out to Hanakai, where as soon as he reached his plantation he bellowed, "Bring me that goddamned