House of Many Gods (33 page)

She thought of his dark, haunted eyes. Of all she did not know about him. The scars he never talked about. She thought of his laughter in unguarded moments. Deep belly laughs like a child, and how in sleep he enfolded her, like a fragile teacup in his big hands.

She tossed back and forth, remembering a day they had toured downtown Honolulu, and how they found themselves in front of the police station. Standing there, she had told him again of her young father dying in the line of duty. Then, abruptly, on a busy street, Ana broke down.

“My father. I don’t even know where he’s buried.”

She had cried so hard, protracted sobs shook her body. Niki surrounded her with his arms, holding her head against his chest, whispering in Russian.

“… 
fortushka … fortushka
 …” a word sounding soulful and extravagant.

Then, almost desperately, he had guided her to a small park, sat her on the grass, and rocked her back and forth.

“Cry, Ana. Cry. It is a way of honoring your father. We will find his grave. We will take flowers.”

He had whispered that word again in Russian and as she calmed down, he slipped back into English, trying to distract her, talking with his head, his hands. Unfolding a tissue, he carefully wiped her nose, then dug deep into her shoulder bag.

“Let us see. Let us see.”

Finally he had pulled out her hairbrush with a wide, blue, plastic handle. He held the handle to his eyes.

“Look, Ana. Such magic! All becomes Monet. Yellow street sign is melting green. Clouds now are violet. How beautiful it is.”

He put the plastic handle to her eyes and it was like seeing the world through a rainbow lens, everything washed in pastels. She looked at trees, a passing car, a little wild-haired man in slippers. Through the plastic handle, refracted light was broken so that palm trees looked like exploding blue cigars, the car a purple tuna floating by. The little man approached, a bouncing gingerroot of pinks and greens.

Niki had twisted the handle, further distorting things. The gingerroot man waved as he passed by; through the blue handle his hair became
green flames. Ana laughed out loud. They had sat like that for hours, holding the handle to each other’s eyes, exclaiming like children at a world eclipsed into a fabulous lunacy.

Walking home at dusk, Niki had kept his arm round her shoulder protectively. “Remember, Ana. Even when grief tears us apart so we want to die, there is always something left that soldiers on. Some human rag of hope, of heart, imagination. Look. Today a hairbrush made us happy!”

Her hand inside her bag held tight to the blue handle. “Tell me, what does that word … 
fortushka
mean?”

“It is pastry filled with chocolate. Very sweet.”

Then he stood still. “Forgive me. That is a lie. In Russia, farmers huddle in houses through long Arctic winters, very little air. No one dare open window or door. Outside, humans freeze to death in fifteen seconds. So, tiny, trap windows are built, only one inch square, through which people can breathe fresh air. The little window, that is
fortushka
.”

“But why did you say it to me?”

He glanced away, embarrassed. “You were suffering. I want to take away the pain. Make you breathe, feel life again. I want to be your … 
fortushka
.”

Now she lay sleepless, thinking of this man wandering the Pacific. Perhaps he had always been a wanderer because he had no notion of what it was to come to rest. Later, she got up in the dark and rummaged in her bag, and fell asleep holding the brush with the blue handle.

O
NE NIGHT SHE WATCHED
N
IKI’S TAPES ON THE FALL OF THE
S
O
viet Union. An old survivor of the
gulags
talked about Russia’s history, how for centuries they were serfs, then with Bolshevism they were freed, to be murdered in the tens of millions. Those not executed in the
lags
had rarely survived Siberian winters.

“How can outsiders know what we have suffered? How can they know what is mass famine in country this size? And so you call us backwards. Cynical and fatalistic. You laugh because we still eat with our hands …”

She watched soldiers on Soviet tanks moving into Moscow, prepared to shoot down Russians fighting for democracy. Then, as if in slow motion, the soldiers lowered their rifles, handing them over to the crowds. She watched as they helped old
babushki
climb up on the tanks and ride them down boulevards into Red Square. Standing beside the
young soldiers, while huge crowds cheered, the
babushki
did not cry or wave triumphantly. In their leathery faces there was only exhaustion, resolve, a final calm that surpassed all understanding.

Ana replayed that footage again and again, wondering how she could even begin to understand such a country, its history, what its people had endured. How could she compare her tiny islands to such vastness? If she could not comprehend the country, how could she ever understand the man?

H
E DID NOT CALL WHEN HE RETURNED FROM
P
APEETE
.

“He feels you need breathing space,” Lopaka said, then laughed. “Also, he needs to do his laundry. I said we have a washer, but Niki said,
‘A‘ole pilikia
. Not problem! Not problem!’ ”

He had no phone and so she went to Chinatown to his hotel. The deskman showed her the stairway to the laundry room. Down a long basement corridor of cement blocks she saw him, a slouched-over man wearing a sleeveless undershirt and rumpled pants, framed by a lavender-painted doorway. A naked bulb shone down on his shoulders, making his ears look translucent and vulnerable.

The iron was chained through its handle to the wall, the chain just long enough to allow its movements back and forth across the ironing board. As Ana watched, Niki took a mouthful of water from a glass, bent and spat the water out in a spray across a shirt, then pointed the iron carefully and slid it back and forth.

She didn’t move. She couldn’t. It was like a scene from a penal colony. Naked cement walls, a bare bulb hanging, a man’s movements restricted by a chain connected to a wall. And there was something heartbreaking in the caring way he ironed, inspecting each crease. Something touchingly maternal in the way he held the shirt up to the light, then carefully arranged it on a hanger.

She backed up slowly, afraid he would look up and see her watching him. She left a note at the desk, asking him to call her. Ana did not
know what she felt. She knew you could miss someone without loving them. You could miss their conversation and humor, or just the animal comfort of being with another human. You could feel affection for someone because they needed to be rescued, or needed to be healed. She did not think that constituted deep abiding love between a woman and a man.

They sat in a Japanese restaurant and he struggled with his chopsticks, poked at a slice of squid, then bent and wolfed it down. They drank sake, and as it slid down her throat and warmed her ribs, she felt herself relax. Niki’s trip had left him looking thinner. But he smelled fresh and clean and his shirt was meticulous, so starched it looked as if it could stand up by itself. He sat back and smiled, in that moment he was almost handsome.

“Ana. It is so good to see you. I have much to tell you. But, slowly. I will build it up in increments.”

She played with her napkin. “Look, before anything, I want to apologize. I was rude the day you left. I’m sorry.”

He waved his hand. “No, no. I was the rude one. Who am I to tell you how to live?”

“But you were right. I
am
afraid to travel, to expand. I hide behind my work and get so tense I almost choked a patient.”

He looked concerned. “But now? You are all right?”

“In a support group. For anger management.”

“Good. Good. A doctor’s life is stressful. You need to decompose.”

She thought he meant decompress.

“I watched some of your tapes, Niki. I was stunned. You have such an important film here. A real indictment. I think it should be shown in every country in the world.”

He looked down, touched. “Yes … I hope. Only, there is one more segment, very important. Then I start final editing. My God, it’s long. It will have to be shown in several segments.”

He coughed slightly and shook his head. “You have no idea what I have gathered … almost two thousand still photographs, one thousand pieces of archival footage, several hundred interviews … doctors, scientists, environmentalists. Even military personnel. Plus, there is narration, voice-overs to be read by professionals. God knows, we cannot use my voice. It will be exhausting work. Could take one year. Three years … depends on funding.”

“How can I help you? What can I do?”

“Just to talk with you is good. Soon I need to bear down, really focus. As long as health holds out …”

“Tell me, how are you feeling?”

He shrugged. “No appetite this trip. Now look, is huge! Soon I will lick my plate, then reach for yours.”

“Listen, I want you to come back in for tests. Have you had any colds?”

“First two weeks, I wheezed. Very damp in Tahiti. But those medications you gave me, very good. And now to see you again … I feel much better. I missed you, Ana. We have much in common.”

She played with her chopsticks, not knowing what to say.

“It’s okay. I don’t expect … I know you are meant for more than some crazy Russky with camera.”

“It’s not that. It’s just, we’re very different. I watched that tape on the week Communism fell. Those
babushki
riding on the tanks. I watched interviews with survivors of the
lags
. It was devastating. I wonder why you feel we have so much in common. My people have suffered yes, but our islands are so small. Our biggest struggle is to remain visible. Your Motherland is huge. Your suffering was massive. Tens of millions starved, and murdered. There’s no comparison.”

He clasped his hands on the table, straining for near-perfect English.

“Ana, Russia is made up of many languages and states, many different cultures. As your Pacific Ocean is made up of different island tongues and cultures. Each is important to the human race. So. Each culture that dies affects each of us.”

She started to respond but he put up his hand, explaining how such cultural deaths began with the breakdown of families when they were forced apart, leaving their fields, their homelands, to find work. Then, the taking away of their language. And then their land.

“Fourth, maybe most important,” Niki said, “is the taking of religion from the people. Missionaries took your ancient gods, and loaned
—not gave
—you their gods.”

He talked about how Stalin closed all churches, turned them into factories, garages. How thousands of Russia’s monks and priests were murdered, or starved to death in hiding.

“In late 1980s, priests and monks begin returning to their villages. Churches slowly opened. Icons brought out of hiding. Now people openly worshipping again. Yes, we still starve, but at last we know what
hope
is. Bell-ringing is now revived in churches and cathedrals. This signifies human freedom. They can never again stop bells across Russia. Never!
Even if they stop the bells, our people have heard them ringing. They will move forward, remembering the echo of those bells.”

He leaned across the table.

“Ana. Your people are struggling so they will not be wiped out of history. People have also struggled in Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, many Russian states. What does it matter whether is one small island, one region, or huge continent? Extermination of each unique culture is another death of human conscience.”

He took her hand with such force she felt pain.

“
This
is what you and I have in common. This struggle. Look. Who would have thought Communism could be shattered? As long as your people fight back, each step forward is small victory. Hawaiians, too, have heard the bells.”

In that moment, so much inside her responded to him she could not speak. She watched him sit back, his face flushed with emotion, and wondered what it would be like to utterly let go, let this big, tender, damaged beast take over and consume her. She thought she might be happy for a while. But what would come after?

O
NE DAY HE LEAPT FROM THE SEA LIKE A BOY, THEN DIVED BACK IN
and came up shouting, “Hit me! Hit me!”

Waves pounded his chest then dragged him under, and threw him back onto the beach where he lay laughing and exhausted.

“The undertow … so strong it pulled me out, but then I thought, ‘I cannot drown. Today we have a mission.’ We go to visit your father’s grave.”

On his own, he had researched in library archives, old newspapers, even police records. “You see, Ana, he was buried with great honor. There are even photographs.”

He showed her blurred copies of a parade of uniformed police, someone standing at a podium, women with their faces in their hands. One of them could have been her mother.

Later that day, they stood over her father’s headstone at Diamond Head Memorial Park.
John Ing Keahi
. She followed the letters with her fingers.