O+F Part 18

"The other Portland--in Maine."

"Back east. I'm from Worcester, Ma.s.s, myself. Long time ago."

"You like it out here?"

"It's all right. Beats shoveling snow."

"It feels a lot milder," Oliver said. "We could get snow anytime in Maine."

"Friggin snow," the driver said. "Here you go."

"You want to wait a couple of minutes--off the meter? I'll need another ride."

"Where to?"

"There's supposed to be a big j.a.panese garden up on a hill. . ."

"I'll wait."

"Be right out." Oliver checked in, left his bag in his room, and came out feeling light-footed. He had a map in one pocket of his bush jacket. He unfolded it in the cab. "So--where is it?"

"Washington Park, Kingston Avenue."

"I see it. Great. Let's go." They drove into the city and climbed through a residential district. The driver stopped at the entrance to the garden.

"You can get a bus downtown on that corner over there," he said, pointing.

"Thanks." The cab rolled away down the hill. It was quiet. The neighborhood trees and hedges were lush. A layer of cloud imparted a soft gray tone to the buildings and the streets stretched out below.

Oliver entered the park and strolled along paths that were nearly deserted. He walked up and down through trees, past tiny ponds, mossy rock faces, handmade bamboo fountains, patches of flowers, and unexpected views. The effect was both wild and intensely cultivated.

The garden was an homage to nature, a carefully tended frame within which blossoms fell and birds flitted in their own time.

A light drizzle began to fall. Oliver sat on his heels, warm enough in his jacket and his canvas hat. The live silence of the garden gradually entered him, replacing an inner deafness. When he stood, his knees were stiff, but he had become otherwise more flexible. His plans were not so important--they mattered, but not to the exclusion of what was around him.

He caught a bus downtown and wandered through an area of mixed industry, galleries, and restaurants. He spent time in a leather shop that sold skins and hides. Oliver had never seen an elk hide. He bought a rattlesnake skin, five feet long, that had intricate brown and black diamond-shaped markings. The clerk rolled it in a tight coil and put a rubber band around it.

Oliver ate in a j.a.panese restaurant. A scroll hung in an illuminated recess at one end of the room. The characters were bold, the brush strokes fresh and immediate. Stringed music tw.a.n.ged of duty, consequence, and the inevitable flow of time. The waitress, middle-aged and respectful, brought him dinner with a minimum of talk. Oliver ate slowly, feeling no need for conversation. He _was_ conversing, he realized, with each move of his chopsticks, each glance around the room.

The cab ride and the hotel seemed loud in comparison. He turned the TV on and turned it off. It was better to lie in bed and revisit the garden. Tomorrow was coming. Another long flight.

In the morning, Oliver's spirits rose as the jet cleared the coast, high above the ocean. "Here we go," he said to the slim woman seated next to him. She smiled and resumed reading what appeared to be a textbook. He had a gla.s.s of Chardonnay with lunch, but he was too wide awake to sleep afterwards. The plane pa.s.sed above slabs of cloud and intermittent vistas of empty ocean. Once, a jet slid by below them, several miles away, flying in the opposite direction.

Hours later, as they descended toward the islands, a general excitement spread through the plane and the student became talkative. "There is tourist Hawaii," she said, "and military Hawaii, and everywhere else--the real Hawaii."

"I'm staying in Waikiki," Oliver said. "I guess that's tourist Hawaii."

"Yes," she said. "But the buses are good. You can get out, go around the island."

"I will. I'm going to try and look up family I've never met."

"Where do they live?" Oliver had found a listing for Kenso Nakano in a phone book at the airport.

"Alewa Heights," he said.

She laughed. "Ah--LEV--Ah . . . That's the real Hawaii."

"Look at that!" The plane was banking over a large crater with a gra.s.sy center and steep green sides.

"Diamond Head," she said. She wiped away a tear.

"Diamond Head? I didn't know it was a crater. I never saw a crater before."

"It nice and green, this time year," she said in a different voice, intense and musical. The tires jerked and the plane slowed with a rush of engines. They taxied to the terminal. Pa.s.sengers unlatched overhead bins and waited in the aisle for the door to open.

"Goodbye," Oliver said to the woman.

"Aloha," she said, "good luck, huh."

"Aloha," Oliver said, for the first time without irony. The word felt good in his mouth.

He stepped through the door into a perfume of flowers and burnt jet fuel. White clouds ballooned over green mountain ridges. Heat waves eddied on the tarmac. The pa.s.sengers moved quickly into the terminal and dispersed.

A young woman with brown skin and black hair, dressed in shorts and halter top, held a sign that read: Polynesian Paradise Adventures. She put a lei around Oliver's neck and directed him to a bus where he waited half an hour while other vacationers collected their luggage and boarded in small groups. The flowers in his lei were white with yellow centers. They had the same sweet smell that had greeted him at the airplane door. "Plumeria," the hostess told him.

The bus pa.s.sed through an industrial area and then along the sh.o.r.e by several blocks of downtown business buildings, a marina, a park, and a large shopping mall. They entered an avenue congested with high-rise hotels and condominiums. "Waikiki," the hostess announced. The bus stopped in front of a nondescript hotel, and the hostess wished them a good vacation. "You have your discount coupons," she said.

"Where's the beach?" someone called.

"Over there." She pointed across an avenue choked with cars, taxis, and buses. "Two blocks."

Oliver's room was spare. The walls were made of concrete blocks painted a light aqua color. Sliding gla.s.s doors opened on a tiny porch. He went out and sat in a white plastic lawn chair for a moment. He was on the tenth floor, overlooking a side street. There was a building directly in front of him and more buildings in the direction of the beach. In the other direction, he could see a strip of mountain and what appeared to be a ca.n.a.l a few blocks away. It wasn't Paradise, and it wasn't particularly Polynesian, though there were palm trees by the ca.n.a.l.

The map that he had been given showed tourist attractions and how to get to them. He bought a decent map in the lobby and walked over to Kalakaua Avenue and down to the beach. It was a pretty beach, a gentle crescent that curved along a green park. In the other direction, back the way he had come, the sand fronted a strip of hotels. The waves were quiet, though larger than they had been in Atlantic City. Diamond Head guarded the far end of the beach. He felt differently about the postcard view now that he knew its secret. There's a crater in there.

He took off his shoes and socks and walked to the Diamond Head end of the beach, turning back at a small cl.u.s.ter of expensive houses and condominiums. The sand underfoot made him feel like a little kid. He retraced his steps and stopped by the first hotel that he reached on the beach side of Kalakaua. It was older than the others. A huge tree shaded a polygonal bar and a courtyard paved with stone. He ordered a Glenlivet.

"Some tree! What kind is it?"

"Banyan," the bartender said.

"Oh." Hanging roots, dense green leaves, and thick nearly horizontal branches created an inviting world. Oliver imagined a tree house. He took a table in the shade and looked out over the ocean. Maybe he should just be a tourist and forget the whole thing. He'd gotten along without his father this long; what difference would it make to meet him now? He didn't know. That was the problem. That was why he had to look up Kenso Nakano--Ken--on Alewa Heights. Chances were good that Ken was his uncle.

Oliver rolled the whiskey around in his gla.s.s. A very tall man in shorts trudged past on the sand. He was a foot taller than a tall man.

Long legs held his upper body high in the air. Like a heron, Oliver thought. Holy s.h.i.t! Wilt Chamberlain! Wilt looked patient, proud, and tired. A sports king, still holding his head up. He scored a hundred points once. No one could take _that_ away from him. A familiar pang squeezed Oliver. The nothing pang. What have you done? Nothing.

Scotch trickled down Oliver's throat. Wilt kept a steady pace down the beach. Oliver thought of getting a ticket to another world--the Philippines, say--and disappearing. He could go to a village on a remote island and live until he ran out of money. It would be perfect for a while, and then, to h.e.l.l with it, he would get kidnapped or lost in the jungle; it wouldn't matter.

No use. A force inside him would not let go. His spirit a.s.sumed a stone face. Forward.