Hawaii - James Michener [459]
"Listen to this!” he whispered to a group of workmen with whom he met secretly. "We are asking for one dollar and twenty-five cents a day for men, ninety-five cents for wahines. Can you imagine how that will improve your living? The workday will be cut back to eight hours, and there will be bonuses in December if the year has been a good one. If you have to work on Sundays, overtime. And for the wahines, they'll be allowed to quit work two weeks before the baby is born."
The men listened in awe as this vision of a new life dawned in the little hut, but before they had a chance to ascertain when all this was going to take place, a sentinel outside whistled, then ran up with frightening news: "Lunas! Lunas!”
Four big Germans burst into the meeting place, grabbed little Mr. Ishii before he could escape, and hauled him out into the dusty yard. They manhandled him no more than necessary, being content to give him a scare with three or four good knocks, then kicked him onto the road leading back toward Honolulu. "Don't you come onto Malama Sugar with your radical ideas," they warned him. "Next time, plenty pilikia!"
While two of the lunas made sure that the little agitator left the plantation, the other two returned to the room where the clandestine meeting had been held. "Nishimura, Sakagawa, Ito, Sakai, Suzuki," one of the lunas recited while the other wrote. "A fine way to treat Mr. Janders and Mr. Whipple. Whose house is this? Yours, Inoguchi?" The biggest luna grabbed Inoguchi by the shirt and held him up. "I'll remember who the traitor was," the luna said, staring at the workmen. With a snort of disgust he threw the man back among his fellows, and the two Germans stamped out. But at the gate they stopped and said ominously, "You men go to your homes. No more meetings, understand?"
As Kamejiro left he whispered to Inoguchi, "Maybe a long time before we get what Ishii-san promised?"
"I think so, too," Inoguchi agreed.
From that night on, conditions at Malama Sugar grew increasingly tense. To everyone's surprise, little Mr. Ishii exhibited unforeseen reservoirs of heroism, for against really considerable odds, and in direct opposition to seven lunas, he managed time and again to slip back into the plantation to advise the men of how the negotiations were going. When he was caught, he was beat up, as he expected to be, and he lost one of his front teeth; but after twenty-two years of relative ineffectiveness in everything he attempted, he had at last stumbled upon an activity for which he was pre-eminently suited. He loved intrigue and rumor; he cherished the portrait of himself as a worker for the common good; so he came back again and again, until at last the lunas assembled all the field hands and said, "Anyone caught talking with the Bolshevik Ishii is going to be thrown out of his house and off the plantation. Is that clear?"
But the Japanese had caught a vision of what Mr. Ishii was trying to do, and at great danger to themselves they continued to meet with him, and one day in January he told them gravely, and with the sadness that comes from seeing fine plans destroyed, "The managers will not listen to our demands. We shall have to strike."
The next day Honolulu was marked by many pamphlets bearing the unmistakable touch of Mr. Ishii, his florid manner of expression and his hope: "Good men and ladies of Hawaii. We, the laborers who grow the sugar upon which you live, address you with humility and hope. Did you know, as you drive past our waving fields of cane, that the men who grow it receive only seventy-seven cents a day? On this money we raise our children and teach them good manners and teach them to be decent citizens. But on this money we also starve.
"We love Hawaii and consider it a great privilege and pride to live under the Stars and Stripes, which stands for freedom and justice. We are happy to be part of the great sugar industry and to keep the plantations running profitably.
"We love work. Thirty-five years ago when