Hawaii - James Michener [518]
It arose from the fact that when he was a boy in Honolulu no Chinese would speak to him, for he was the son, of the man who had burned Chinatown at the instigation of the haole merchants. He could never bring himself to believe that his gentle, courageous father, Dr. Whipple, had done such a thing, but the Chinese were certain that he had. To them the name of Whipple was ugly, and they were not reluctant to demonstrate this fact to young Mark. Finally, when his own haole playmates began to tease him, he accosted his father and had asked him point-blank: "Dad, did you burn Chinatown?"
"Well, in a manner of speaking, I did."
"In order to put the Chinese merchants out of business?"
His father had stopped and bowed his head. "So now you've heard that? What did they say?"
"They say there was a little sickness, and the haole storekeepers talked you into burning Chinatown and putting all the Chinese out of business."
"Now exactly who said this, son?"
"The haoles. The Chinese didn't say it because they won't even speak to me. But I know they think it."
Dr. Hewlett Whipple was then a man of forty, and about as successful a medical practitioner as one could hope to be in Honolulu, but the weight of his son's charge was very heavy indeed upon his soul. He led his twelve-year-old son to a grassy spot under a tree on the lawn of his Punchbowl home and said, "Now you ask me all the questions that worry you, Mark. And never forget what I reply."
"Did you burn Chinatown?"
"Yes."
"And did the Chinese lose all their stores?"
"Yes."
Mark had no further questions, so he shrugged his shoulders. His father laughed and said, "You aren't going to stop there, are you?"
"You've told me what I wanted to know," the boy replied.
"But aren't you concerned about the real truth? What really happened?"
"Well, like the boys said, you admitted burning the place."
"Mark, this is what truth is. Going behind what you hear first. Asking a hundred questions until you can make up your own mind on the basis of real evidence. Now let me ask the questions that you should have. All right?"
"Okay."
"Dr. Whipple, why did you burn Chinatown? Because a dreadful plague threatened the city.
"Did burning Chinatown help save the city? It saved ten thousand lives.
"Did you intend to burn the Chinese stores? No, the fire got out of hand. It ran away from us.
"Did you do anything to help the Chinese? I ran into the middle of the fire myself and helped them to safety.
"Were you sorry that the fire got out of hand? When I got home and looked back upon the destruction I sat down and wept.
"Would you burn it again under the same circumstances? I would."
A silence fell over the Whipples and they looked down at their city. Young Mark, in those moments, caught a glimmer of what truth was, but what his father said next exploded truth from a shimmering substance playing upon the edges of the mind into a radiant reality, for he said, "There are two other questions which have to be asked, and these require longer answers. Are you ready?"
"Yes."
"Dr. Whipple, tell me honestly, were there not some haoles who were glad to see Chinatown burned? Of course there were. And some Chinese, too. Any good action in the world will be used by some to their own economic advantage. Any misfortune will be used the same way. Therefore, you would expect some to profit from the burning and to be glad that it happened. When the fire was over, these same men rebuilt Chinatown exactly as it was before, so as to keep on making a little money from the hovels. So if your Chinese friends say there were some who were glad to see the Chinese stores destroyed, they are correct. But I was not one of them.
"Dr. Whipple, can you not, even so, understand why the Chinese hate you? Of course I understand. They believe falsehood,