My Kind of Town
>> North shore of Molokai Mission: revised
Ho'ola the goddess of life lay down at the ocean's edge with Shinjo Eiki, who had lived in her valley since June 1944, and they loved as an act of worship. Afterward, lying entwined on the sand, she whispered, "Do you know what year it is?"
Shinjo was shocked to learn that it was 1967. Twenty-three years had passed since he arrived here. And neither of them had aged.
Ho'ola read his thoughts. "That is life here, eternally. But you must know that while you are free to leave, once you do there is no coming back. I will not be here. This place will not be here."
And for the next 34 years, Shinjo was content to stay, losing track of the years, living in Ho'ola's nirvana, making love with a goddess and never growing old.
But then one day in August of this year a steamer trunk floated ashore. Shinjo pulled it up from the beach, opened it. It was filled with a set of Encyclopedia Grammaticas. In Volume J, Shinjo read about prosperity in modern Japan, based on the manufacture of cars and electronics. He read how America, after it kicked the living snot out of Japan in the war, had led the way for Japan to rise from the ashes. In Volume H, he read about the heroic role of Japanese-Americans in WWII in Europe, and how they had come home to Hawaii, joined the Democratic Party and taken over state politics. In Volume T, he read about his brother. And with that his mission was revived, although it also had to change.
It was too late to save Japan from defeat, but he could still honor his family name and his half-brother Tojo Hideki, Japan's military dictator. What terrible irony that after the American victory at Saipan --a battle from which a Japanese submarine had been diverted to deposit Shinjo's one-man sub off Pearl Harbor -- Tojo resigned in July 1944. Nine days after the surrender on Sept. 2, 1945, Tojo attempted suicide but failed. The ultimate dishonor. Shinjo read through bitter tears that Tojo was ingloriously hanged two days before Christmas 1948.
Tojo's soul could find peace only if Shinjo could atone by fulfilling his mission. But to do so, Shinjo must leave his nirvana on Earth in the valley of Ho'ola.
As always when he needed her, Ho'ola was suddenly there. "How was your reading?"
Shinjo wondered if Ho'ola had caused the books to wash up on her shore. "My mission, I must fulfill it now. For my brother."
"Yes, but It has changed."
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin
with weekly summaries on Sunday.
He can be emailed at dchapman@midweek.com