THE STORY
In the morning, Joni’s disappearance was headline news. The world’s most famous songstress, Rockefeller’s swanky new hotel, a possible homicide. Speculation would be rampant. There was so much sadness tugging on Lu’s heart. Only a small few could probably call Joni friend, and yet she was known by millions. Lu felt blessed to be among the few, a brief but deep connection.
Also on her mind was the matter of Russi and Auntie H. How would Izzy react when seeing him after all these years? Lu hoped to God she wasn’t making a mistake by springing him on her unannounced after all she’d been through. There were usually two sides to a story, and Lu knew nothing of Auntie H’s side. She had never once mentioned Russi.
They wrangled a truck from one of the security guards and got approval from Rapoza to leave the property for a visit home. She’d lied and said her father had come down with pneumonia and she needed to see him before flying back to the mainland.
“Why do you both need to go?” Rapoza asked.
“Moral support,” Russi said.
That they both had their cameras around their necks might have tipped him off, but he was so wrapped up with the case that the whereabouts of two journalists were minor details. As they passed the front gate, several cars were parked outside, men in suits leaning on their hoods, smoking. Mr. Buttonwood was talking to them, hands flying this way and that.
“The press,” she said wistfully.
“Glad that’s not us right now,” Russi said.
Lu teased. “We have bigger and better things to do.”
She could tell he was nervous. When they’d met in the lobby, his leg was bopping around and the first thing he said was, “Am I too dressed up?”
Wearing white linen pants, a long-sleeved white button-up and a black belt, he looked stylish and swoony. And ready for a game of cricket.
“Do you have an aloha shirt?” she asked.
“I live in New York, for chrissakes, what do you think?”
“Then I think you look perfect,” she’d said.
Russi had insisted on driving, and as they rode up Kawaihae Road to Waimea, the air cooled considerably. Dry parched earth gave way to chartreuse hills peppered with cattle. It seemed impossible that the land could change so dramatically, and the chilled air was heaven on her skin. But that was the Big Island for you—it had every climate under the sun.
From Waimea, they turned toward Kona at the junction. On their left, Mauna Kea took up a big swath of sky. The car had no radio, so to ease his mind along the way, Lu picked his brain about the job and how he honed his famed photography skills. A master with the nuances of light and timing, his pictures were bold and daring. Life-altering even.
When asked his secret, he took a few moments before answering. “‘Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography.’ Who said that?”
“George Eastman,” Lu said, not missing a beat.
“Good. That’s the best advice I’ve ever heard. Other than that, you have to be a keen observer. How you see things matters more than what you see, and that just comes with practice. Trusting your eye is everything. Once it’s in you, you can’t get rid of it. Even when I had to bail out of my plane in enemy territory, and I’d jammed my ankle and cracked my shoulder on the tail, I remember seeing this brown river snaking through the green jungle. Late-afternoon light poured out from the clouds and here I was floating down, probably gonna be captured, but it was so stinkin’ beautiful. Woulda made the best photo of my life, hands down. I still see it, clear as day.”
Lu sensed a window. “What happened when you landed?”
Russi took a deep breath, kept his eyes on the road. “I landed in the fricking river. Me and the parachute all tangled up. The water was mud and slime. One arm and one foot out of commission and I was drowning. I’d already swallowed gallons of water. And I thought to myself, maybe it was for the best, because if I was caught, it wouldn’t be pretty. Especially if they found out what I’d done in Rabaul.”
His fear of the water now locked into place.
He stopped. Lu turned toward him. “What did you do in Rabaul?”
“That’s a story for another time,” he said, then continued as though he needed to get this out. “Suddenly I was being yanked back up like a fish. Someone had my chute lines and I felt around for my knife so I could cut myself loose. It wasn’t there, of course. When I came up, I was face-to-face with two scrawny Chinese kids who dragged me to the side of the river. One gathered up my parachute and the other shoved me into a small ravine. I was too weak to resist. Besides, I had seen the Japanese soldiers on the other side getting ready to come after me. The kids covered me with bushes, smoothed everything off and left me. I felt like I’d been buried alive.
“I heard the motor of a small boat pull up close. They were laughing as they searched for me, calling out to each other as if this was some rabbit hunt. One guy came so close he dropped his cigarette on the bush above me. And I know it sounds impossible, but I could smell them—sweat-soaked boots, body odor, fishy breath. My ankle was on fire and I was in and out of consciousness. I remember thinking that if I survived this, I could survive anything. But you know what? There’s another kind of fear, manufactured by your own head, but that feels just as real. I don’t know why it comes up, but it does. And every time, it flattens me. You saw me in that boat.”
Lu nodded. She could feel his fear now, pulsing through the car, as the story spun out of him. She was on the rim of her seat. “What happened next?”
“Sometime later, Chinese rebel fighters came and loaded me up on a door and took me to a dilapidated house. They made me drink some bitter tea. They were using sign language to communicate, but a little while later, twins from Shanghai showed up who spoke perfect English. They told me where we were—deep in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere—and said a doctor would be coming soon. I remember crying at my good fortune. But when the doctor came in and said he wanted to put a long needle in my mangled arm to ‘let the air out,’ I had second thoughts. In the end, I let him because I was too weak to resist. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he made me soak it in scalding water over and over and over. Then the twins told me he was going to stitch my arm and my face up using tiny needles to numb me. At that point, I was starting to wish they’d left me in the river. But it worked, and I hardly felt a thing,” Russi said.
“What about your foot?”
“After a bunch of poking and prodding, he said it wasn’t broken and bound it tight. Looking back, I think the man was a genius. He left me with this sack of stones to carry around until the pain got so bad I had to put it down. Each day, I was to put another stone in the sack. I did what he told me, and a couple weeks later, I could at least get around a little. Those people took such good care of me—I think about them all the time. They were putting themselves in danger by helping me.”
“Most people in the world are good,” Lu said.
He nodded. “Most. Not all.”
“And then?”
His eyes watered, and she could tell he was trying to hold it together. “They fashioned a bamboo seat on two poles and a couple of the rebels carried me from village to camp to makeshift shelter, if you can believe it. The countryside was spectacular and covered in these delicate white flowers—when it wasn’t bombed out—and the Chinese villagers welcomed me like I was some big whoop-de-do. Sometimes even setting off fireworks. Again, risky stuff back then.”
He wiped his face with his sleeve, tears rolling down his face, and kept talking. “Did you know it’s customary there to sing to your hosts after dinner?”
Lu resisted the urge to lean over and hug him. “No.”
“Yeah, well, neither did I. But it was expected so I did it. Word must have traveled that I could sing a good tune, because in one town, as soon as we got there, they put me up on a plywood stage, along with posters of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin. A pile of troops gathered around and their leader insisted I sing for them. I guess I did well, because they cheered and clapped like I was the Second Coming. But then, in one town, I lost all my money to the mayor’s wife in a rigged game of what she called pokie pokie. Didn’t bother me one speck. I owed them a helluva lot more than money.”
He went quiet, and Lu didn’t say anything. They were passing through Pu‘uanahulu, a blip of a town with her favorite little red painted church. Lava rock walls divided the area, and the cattle of Pu‘uwa‘awa‘a Ranch roamed through silver oak and jacaranda trees that turned flaming yellow and purple in May. The land fell halfway between mountains and sea.
“How did you get out of China?” she asked.
“Eventually, we reached the coast, and after a two-day boat ride from hell, they got me to a US base—exactly six weeks after my plane went down. What became clear pretty quick was that after almost drowning in that river, I’d developed some weird aversion to water. A visceral thing—you saw it. And wouldn’t you know it, but my family had been notified that I was dead not long after my crash. To say they were overjoyed was an understatement. But I came back a different man. At first I was just elated to be back on American soil, but the nightmares came on with a vengeance. I would wake up screaming and crying and I was having trouble remembering things. My arm was still jacked, so I saw an orthopedist and he told me that Chinese doc had saved my life. They operated and I got most of the use back. On one hand I seemed okay, but on the other I was a mess.”
“What did they do for the nightmares?” Lu asked.
“Gave me some kind of intravenous bullshit that was like having a lobotomy. I tore out the needles and called my colonel to get me the hell outta there. Luckily he did,” Russi said.
All at once, Lu felt the crushing weight of his memories. He had carried these for twenty years, tucked away in some dark and lonely part of his mind. The fact that he was sharing them with her now spoke volumes.
“Your story can help people,” she said.
“How do you figure?”
“Because you’re a well-known, well-respected journalist. If others hear your story and see that you’re talking about your experience, it could inspire them to do the same. And now, we have all these guys going off to Vietnam. I think it’s important for people to know the long-term effects of war and what people have to live with in the aftermath.”
“How do you know some things aren’t better left unsaid?”
“It’s not like you’ll be forcing anyone. But sharing your pain can help diffuse it. I believe that.”
He chewed on that for a while, and his chest moved in and out more easily. “I have to say, it feels a little freeing. I’ve never told anyone that whole story—not even my ma and pa. Every time I came close, my heart would start racing and I’d get this jumpy feeling right here.” He put his hand on his solar plexus. “There are a lot of other things to tell, other horrors, but I think I’m done for the day.”
“I don’t blame you.”
Russi let out a big sigh. “Good, because I don’t want to be a basket case before we even arrive.”
Driving through Holulaloa, which had once been a coffee town, and later a sugar town, felt like stepping back in time. It was tiny and now seemed empty, since sugar had been on the decline. The light scent of ginger and dew came in the car windows.
Russi stuck a piece of gum in his mouth and began chewing furiously. They had switched places, Lu now driving, and she kept up the conversation, pointing out the Inaba’s pink hotel, then farther on down, where the old Kona Bottling Works used to be, and the Japanese language school that had closed down during the war.
As was usually the case in the morning here, the sky was painted blue and cloudless. That would change later, when clouds formed on the slopes of Hualālai, bringing moisture and tadpole-size rain. A perfect climate for coffee. Russi was staring out over the ocean, which from this elevation looked blue and benign. His leg started bouncing up and down.
“Are you okay? Do you want to pull over and stretch your legs?” she asked.
“Nah.”
“Do you need to pee?”
“I’m fine.”
He didn’t look fine. He’d had at least a couple cups of coffee this morning. Looking back, she should have stopped him. The coffee at Mauna Kea was like a jolt of adrenaline.
When she turned the car off Mamalahoa Highway and up the gravel road to the farm, Russi put his hand on the dashboard, as if bracing himself. “Maybe we should just turn around. I should have called first. Showing up unannounced on her doorstep is a rookie move.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I did call her. I told her I was coming by for a quick visit. So, it’s not totally out of the blue.”
“You didn’t mention anything about me, did you?”
“Of course not.”
They bumped around for about five minutes on the rutted road, then came to a fork and carved wooden sign that said Cooper Coffee Co.
“Did she tell you that before we even landed in Honolulu, Walt had decided he’d move to the Big Island and get a coffee farm? No idea where he got the notion, but he was fixated. Wanted me to partner up with him,” Russi said.
“Cooper and Russi,” Lu said, trying to imagine Russi living this far out in the sticks and growing coffee. She could almost see it.
“All these coulda-beens. It’s tough, you know? You plan on your life going one way, and then it careens off on some other route altogether,” he said.
“You ended up being a photojournalist like you wanted.”
She slowed the truck.
“And Izzy ended up living her brother’s dream. Good for her. She could have done anything, and she chose this.” Russi lowered his sunglasses and eyed a donkey standing in the road up ahead. “You see that animal?”
“I’m not blind.”
“Is that a mule?”
Lu laughed. “It’s a Kona nightingale—a donkey. They’re all over the place up here. Izzy has her own little herd.”
They drew close and Lu rolled to a stop. The donkey didn’t budge, just stood there munching on flowers growing in the middle of the road. Its tall ears twitched, but that was it.
“Not a lot of traffic up here, I take it,” he said.
“More four-legged than two.”
Russi opened his door.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I need to get out for a minute, get some fresh air, say hi to the donkey—shit, I don’t know,” he said. As soon as he stood, he leaned down and looked in at her. “Wait, we don’t have a lot of donkeys in New York City. Do they bite?”
Prolonging the inevitable. Lu could hardly blame him.
“They can. But these are pretty docile.”
She humored him and got out, too. The donkey started nosing around Russi’s pant pockets, sniffing, then nibbling. Russi jumped back. “Hey, fella, that’s off-limits to you.”
They rubbed the donkey for a little while, behind the ears and on the side of his neck. Then Russi found a sweet spot on his rump that caused him to grin like a happy chimpanzee. Soon, Russi was laughing and his body loosened visibly. All that pent-up energy released into the atmosphere.
A little farther up the road, he had Lu stop to pick a few stalks of ginger. She felt nostalgic with all the coffee mountain smells—damp soil, burnt husks and clouds that hadn’t formed yet. When they finally pulled up in front of the house five minutes later and turned off the car, it felt like she’d done a cross-country road trip. The house hadn’t changed a bit. Red roof, green paint, giant wraparound porch. A neat row of hydrangeas skirted the front, flanked by a lawn of freshly mowed grass. Russi sat quietly, hands folded in his lap.
“Want me to go say hi and break the news?” she said.
“I think it’s too late for that,” he said, nodding toward a shack off to the left.
Izzy was walking toward them, taking off her gloves, waving and smiling. Completely unsuspecting. A lanky dog barked from the porch. Lu climbed out and met her in front of the steps, giving her a kiss and a big hug.
“What a treat, Luana! I wasn’t expecting you until this weekend.”
“I just couldn’t wait,” Lu said.
Izzy looked her up and down. “So grown-up and gorgeous, but still the same. I’m so proud of you.”
“You look happy,” Lu said.
It was true. Izzy’s black hair was loose and layered and accented with a few leaf fragments. She looked hip in a pair of faded blue jeans, a man’s button-up tied at the waist and rubber boots. The woman never stopped working.
Izzy held her open palms out. “Life is good. We’ve had a great crop this year, and I figured out a new way to roast the beans. I’ll show you later if you have time.”
“Yes!”
Izzy looked past her, toward the car. “You brought someone with you?”
“I was going to tell you on the phone—”
Lu turned. Russi was standing with one arm on the roof of the car, clutching the flowers in his hand.
“Hello, Izzy. It’s good to see you.”