Shimura Trouble

19

A DARK STONE path overgrown with moss led up to the teak front door, which opened before we reached the threshold. Standing at attention was a very old man with silver hair and a chestnut-brown complexion as weathered as that of the resort gardeners. But this man wore a crisply ironed white shirt tucked into cream linen trousers, and his thick head of silver hair was uncovered.

I was confused. Was this a butler? He seemed very well dressed. My unspoken question was answered when the man nodded at us and spoke in the same well-bred voice I’d heard on the telephone.

“So glad you didn’t have trouble finding me. The road up the mountain can be confusing, and there’s constant construction.”

Josiah Pierce was hapa-just like me. As I drew closer, I examined his face carefully; there was nothing Asian about his eyelids, or his nose. No, I decided, he looked more Hawaiian, with an echo of Caucasian ancestry.

“Mr. Pierce,” I said, smiling. “I’m Rei Shimura. And I enjoyed every minute of the drive.”

“You may call me JP, if you like. And who is your companion?”

“Yes, Michael came in yesterday with the Transpac race.” I didn’t have the gall to lie and call him my husband. “I’m sorry I didn’t mention him yesterday. He asked to come along, because he has fond memories of this part of Honolulu.”

“So you know Tantalus? Please come in.”

“I’ve never been up this high, sir, but I did know people farther down. I went to Punahou around the same time your nephew was there,” Michael said, holding out his hand. “My name is Michael Hendricks.”

“Hendricks, Hendricks.” JP was still for a moment, and then his eyes sharpened. “The Army brat!”

“Navy juniors, or so the parents like to call us,” Michael said wryly.

“There was bad blood between you and William, wasn’t there? I can remember my brother Lindsay wanted to sic the Chinese mafia on you after you broke his boy’s nose.”

I gasped, and Michael’s face flushed.

“He needed it, frankly; the boy actually stopped beating up his sister once he knew what it felt like to be beaten to a pulp. Anyway, William’s fine and healthy in Los Angeles, though he’s regrettably on his third divorce.”

“I’m sorry to hear about that, and I assure you my behavior’s improved since then. Mostly,” Michael added with a glance at me.

JP laughed. “If you two aren’t newlyweds, I’m not eighty-five years old. Come inside. Midori is just preparing our lunch, and I’ll have her set another place on the lanai.”

I was being charmed, I realized with a sinking feeling, as the old gentleman ushered us through a grand hall with a Carrera marble floor. Aged stucco walls were decorated with many dour portraits of old white men, groups of stiff-looking children, and a lovely young Hawaiian woman looking stifled by her high-necked Edwardian blouse. The woman looked familiar, and I suddenly wondered if I’d seen another picture of her in the Bishop Museum. Princess Something-with-an-E. I would have liked to linger to figure it out, but we were being steered out of the darkness to a sunny outdoor lanai overlooking the spectacular rose gardens and a view of Honolulu’s skyscrapers.

An Asian maid in a powder-blue uniform was adding a third place setting to an old teak table. It was already laid for lunch, with antique rose-patterned china and scrolled silver. Sliced mango and papaya were fanned across ice-packed silver bowls; there was also a salad of tomatoes and herbs, a basket of fragrant bread rolls, and a platter of sliced pork tenderloin. Pretty fancy, I thought, when I’d just called yesterday afternoon, and there had been no mention of any food.

Actually, I reflected, the genteel setting reminded me of the east coast. There hadn’t even been an indication that we should take off our shoes-in fact, JP wore soft beige leather loafers. Everything was different here, in Josiah Pierce Junior’s home; I half-expected to see the New York Times or the Post on the side table, but the papers that were there were local, and folded over to show he’d been reading the stories about the fire.

The maid was sweeping the floor as we sat down, and I realized she was after some errant hibiscus blooms that had fallen off the trellises.

“This is really much more than I expected,” I said. “This lunch-it’s lovely, but we didn’t imagine you’d do so much for us.”

“I live by my own rules-or, I should say, the old Hawaiian rules of hospitality. When someone visits, you enjoy food together.” JP looked over the table at us. “And frankly, with the bad news about the fire, I’d rather put off my misery for a while and enjoy some unexpected company.”

“It’s nice for us, too,” Michael said.

“Well, when I heard your wife’s dulcet tones on the telephone, I was intrigued. Mainland accent, but a Japanese name, even after marriage. Tell me, what are your plans for the children’s surnames?”

I tried hard not to look at Michael, because this was a bit of back story we hadn’t dreamed would come up. I said, “No children yet, so I guess we haven’t had to deal with that challenge.”

“Don’t wait too long.”

“No, sir, I won’t,” Michael said, taking my hand.

“It likely isn’t a matter of you, but rather a matter of her. That’s usually how these things work.” JP’s eyes twinkled. “Though you can’t have scored any points in the fertility game wasting two weeks at sea for Transpac.”

“Do you sail yourself, Mr. Pierce?” Michael asked, after we had all finished laughing.

“Goodness, no. When I was young, I was too busy working on the plantation to have time to play at sea with a bunch of prep school boys. I was my father’s firstborn, you see. After Punahou I went straight to work, and there was no mother to spoil me or interfere.”

“You mother-may I ask what happened to her?”

“She died when I was six. That was her portrait you passed in the hallway; her name was Evelyn. Here, this is passion-fruit jelly that Midori makes from our own harvest. You must try it with the bread roll.”

“Delicious,” said Michael, smearing it across his roll.

“Do you mean the Princess Evelyn?” I asked and, after a pause, he nodded. I put together the genealogy: Josiah Pierce the First had had married a princess, and she’d borne JP Junior, the man we were having lunch with. After his wife's death, Josiah Senior had remarried, to a Caucasian woman who had fathered Lindsay Pierce. This was how Lindsay Pierce could be WASP blond, while his older half-brother was as brown as many pure Hawaiians.

“The blond woman in the other hallway portrait is my stepmother, Natalie Talbot Pierce,” JP said, as if following my train of thought. “She was originally from California, and immediately after my father’s death, she relocated to Los Angeles. She’s happier there, and now Will’s there with his children, her life is perfect.”

“Did you grow up in this house?” I asked.

“No. It dates from the 1910s, and my father did build it, but I didn’t move in until ten years after the war ended because I was involved in round-the-clock management of the plantation. Before H-1, a drive from Honolulu to the Leeward Side took half a day.”

“It still does, practically, when it’s rush hour,” Michael said.

“How do you know that? Aren’t you staying in Waikiki?”

“Actually we’re at the Kainani resort,” I said.

“Ah yes, Kainani was built on land we sold to Mitsuo Kikuchi. The fire was quite close to you yesterday, then.”

“Yes.” Michael took up the conversation easily. “We had to drive through it just before the road closed, and there was a stretch of road with fire on both sides of us.”

“We have damage on over ninety thousand acres, and the ranchers using our lands lost almost a hundred head of horses. Still, it could have been worse.” Josiah said.

“I was out jogging through the fire-damaged areas this morning, and I saw Mr. Kikuchi and your land manager, Mr. Rivera. I told them I was sad to see that old plantation village was gone, and the coffee shop as well.”

“Actually, the coffee shop’s not my loss; the half-acre it stands on we sold about thirty years ago. But the old plantation village that’s gone was part of Pierce Holdings.”

“I feel fortunate to have seen it before it burned,” I said. “The village was like a perfect, lost little world.”

“You liked the cottages?” He smiled wistfully. “They’re almost universally deplored by people now, but they were better than most housing in Hawaii at that time. A commission in the thirties established rules for the construction of plantation cottages. Depending on family size, our workers had multiple bedrooms, kitchens, and the crowing glory: indoor plumbing.”

“Well, I suppose that now that the land is cleared of brush, it will be easier for Mr. Kikuchi’s development plans, although I imagine he’ll try and drop the price he’s willing to pay you, citing the unfortunate damage to historic structures.”

JP’s expression seemed to have changed from open to guarded in an instant. “You said you had a question about land, but I didn’t realize you were one of the anti-Kikuchi agitators. Who pays your salary, Honolulu Heritage? Or do you do it as a volunteer?”

“Honey,” Michael said softly.

“We’re not preservationists, I swear, although I really do like old places, and old things.” JP didn’t look any more relaxed, so I added, ‘I work out of the home so I’m afraid I don’t have a business card. Michael, why don’t you give JP your card?”

Michael’s State Department card was impressive-looking, and only slightly fake. Josiah Pierce looked it over carefully then said, “Last fellow I know with a job like this wound up with a bad case of blowfish poisoning.”

“I’m glad we’re not having sushi for lunch, then,” Michael said, smiling rather faintly.

“What are you really here for?” JP’s voice was cold.

“As I said over the phone, I’m trying to put family history in order. Some of my relatives worked at the plantation from the twenties through the forties.”

“Shimura,” said Josiah Pierce, his sharp eyes fixing on me. “You’re not using Hendricks as your last name, but Shimura. Are you one of the family with the failed lawsuit?”

“Sort of,” I began. “I didn’t know about the lawsuit until recently, and the Hawaiian Shimuras are technically my third cousins.”

“The Circuit Court dismissed Edwin Shimura’s case for lack of evidence. How could he have thought he could claim land without a deed?”

“I understand your point. It’s just that, when I hear my great-uncle’s account-I’m talking about Yoshitsune Shimura, who was a child on the plantation-I believe he’s being as honest as he can be.”

“Can be?” Mr. Pierce sounded markedly sarcastic.

“He’s eighty-nine years old. There are things he remembers, and things he has no idea about, because his mother, Harue Shimura, didn’t tell him everything and she died while he was away in a Japanese-American internment camp on the mainland. What my great-uncle told me was that he saw a letter signed by your father in his mother’s chest of drawers. The letter described the gift of a seaside cottage to her. I should probably mention that he found this at the time he was living within the seaside cottage, so he assumed all was well and normal.”

“What else did he tell you?”

“Yoshitsune lived there with his widowed mother until he was sent to an internment camp on suspicion of espionage. He wound up leaving the camp to serve as a translator with the OSS, and when the war was over, he returned to Hawaii and found the house had been taken over by a family called Liang. Your father had passed away, so he asked your mother about it, and she said she didn’t know anything about the matter.”

“Natalie Talbot Pierce was my stepmother, remember that, and she really didn’t know anything, because to her, the plantation was a hot, dirty place she didn’t like to visit. It’s a shame he didn’t come to me, because I have an idea what might have happened.”

“You do? Well, why didn’t you say anything at the trial?” I asked.

“Maybe because there was no trial,” Michael suggested.

“That’s right, and I think if things had been handled personally between us, with more aloha, I would have said something. But I’m not sure I should tell you, because my guess is you’ll get the lawyers revved up again, causing me legal and PR trouble at a time when I have my hands full just dealing with my ranchers who are going to want all kinds of compensation and favors because their horses burnt to death in my fields.”

I bit my lip, thinking how I’d misjudged the man, and the situation. Things were deteriorating as fast as I was shredding my bread roll. I put my hands on my lap, to control them.

“Mr. Pierce, I’m very sorry we disturbed you,” Michael said to fill the awkward silence.

“You think I’m just like the Big Five, don’t you? Big, bad landowners, abusers of the masses?”

“I don’t think it’s as simple as that,” I said.

“Drive farther along the coast, and you’ll come to Maile Beach and see hundreds of tents on the grass. It’s an impromptu housing development for the homeless, who come from all over the island because they can’t afford a roof over their head. Hawaii wasn’t like that in sugar plantation days.”

“I have to agree,” Michael said. “When I was here in school, and there were still a few sugar plantations going, there weren’t any homeless, unless you count drunks in Chinatown.”

“We had flophouses then,” JP said, seeming to relax slightly. “Now they’re fancy boutiques and restaurants.”

“I think we’re getting away from the topic,” I said. “Look, I know my relatives in Hawaii will not get that acre and a half they’re dreaming of. All I really hope for is a better idea of why your father might have visited Harue Shimura in her house one evening, when Yoshitsune was a boy.”

Josiah Pierce looked at me for a long moment, and then said, “Do you know what year that was?”

“Uncle Yoshitsune was in his mid-teens. He’d finished high school and had started at the post office.”

“There was a fire on the plantation in 1938, a regular burn that we’d scheduled for a field that needed rest. Unfortunately, the wind changed. A spark jumped to the mill, and it was ablaze before anyone noticed. Not everyone escaped.”

Michael and I sat in silence, waiting for more.

“Some people said it was the luna’s mistake for going ahead with a scheduled burn on a day with wind. Others said it was my father’s fault for wanting to have every field perfect when the demand for Hawaiian sugar was dropping. Who knows? It was a bad fire, an unlucky wind, and nine men died.” He looked from the distance back at us. “All of the men who died had wives and children. These are the women my father visited personally to give condolences, and offered help with housing outside the village, if they chose to leave.”

“Kind of like death compensation?” Michael said.

“We didn’t have fancy union terminology in those days. We just called it doing the right thing.”

“That couldn’t have been the reason Harue was given a house,” I said. “You see, her husband, Ken Shimura, wasn’t working at the mill in 1938. He’d left for the Big Island by 1926. He worked on another Pierce plantation there, and I guess passed away there, because Yoshitsune never saw him again.”

“You don’t say.” JP’s words came slowly, and he seemed to be studying me as sternly as when I’d casually said the words about Mitsuo Kikuchi that had sent him into a fury.

“What can you tell me about the Liangs, the family to whom the house is still leased?”

Michael cleared his throat. “Honey, this has all gotten a bit awkward, especially after Mr. Pierce-JP-has been so generous as to give us lunch.”

“I have no problem telling you what I know, but it’s not much. Winston Liang was the son of a good Chinese worker who’d already retired and moved into Waipahu, running a laundry. Winston asked my father if he could lease the cottage and land around it. It was as simple as that, and you know, all things considered, it was a good move; from the fishing business he started there, he made enough money to buy a house in town, and then another-and lo and behold, today he’s gone, had a heart attack over-eating at Zippy’s, but his surviving heir is one of the biggest Chinese property owners on Oahu.”

“Do you think it’s possible that Winston Liang assumed control of the property with all Harue Shimura’s possessions still inside?”

“Sure. You have to understand, she died in her garden-dropped from a stroke, the doctor told us. No relatives or friends came to clean up anything. In situations like this, the new tenant’s wife keeps what she wants and throws out the rest.”

I was about to say that it certainly would have been in the Liang family’s interest to throw out any deeds of ownership they found, but the maid returned, a cordless telephone in hand. In her soft voice she said, “Your brother wants to speak to you. Shall I tell him later?”

“No, I’d better take it.” He looked at us. “Sorry for cutting things short. Lindsay’s going to want to know the extent of the fire damage.”

“Oh, we understand, and we didn’t mention it before, but we’re very sorry about the fire,” Michael said, getting to his feet. “Thank you so much for your time, and your patience with our questions.”

“Nothing to thank me for. I don’t think I particularly helped anything,” Josiah Pierce answered.

But as Michael and I said goodbye, I thought that he had helped, and perhaps it was better that he didn’t know it.