Hotel Honolulu

59 The Private Party on Mauna Kea Street

"I could write one great story," Puamana said. "Except I went never learn write."

I got that all the time, because of Buddy's "He wrote a book!" But as my mother-in-law, Puamana commanded my attention. I listened politely. She said nothing more.

"Just tell me the story," I said.

"You won't believe."

"Those are the ones I usually believe."

This woman, she said — speaking quickly, nervously, as though she had thought about the woman in the story a great deal but had never uttered these things aloud — this woman was married to a man who was so lazy he hated owning shoes with shoelaces. The woman bought him all his best clothes, the silk shirts, white pants, a plantation hat with a feather band. He liked Oakley sunglasses. He had three pairs.

But he so seldom went out of the house, he hardly wore his beautiful clothes. Most of the day he stayed home watching television, a large- screen model his wife had also bought him. They lived on Nuuanu, near the corner of Beretania, in a new apartment block that had a wall around it

and a doorman. When he was bored with TV the man stared out the window at Chinatown, at nothing in particular. The wife paid the rent. She paid everything. It had never been necessary for the man to work.

Most women would have killed him, or left him for another man, or told him to get a job. But his wife loved him. She was grateful that he accepted her, delighted when her gifts pleased him. She was like a slave, like a child, like a possession. She adored him and became terrified when she thought that, should she ever lose him, she would be lost herself. He was her husband, her father, her boss, her master, her lover. Her own father had been abusive to her, and she had been rescued by her mother and raised in the hanai system by a foster family, a friendly couple. Her own daughter, conceived accidentally one night in Kahala with a stranger, was being raised in this way too.

These days she worked on Mauna Kea Street, returning with her salary and tips in cash. You would be amazed at what waitresses could earn in Waikiki. Hostesses made much more. She was a hostess.

The house rule was that relatives must not show up on the premises. There wasn't even a question of her husband's agreeing to this: he didn't care, didn't even ask about the job. The woman's support and generosity had made the man indifferent to her work and her odd hours — she set off in the middle of the afternoon and returned home well after midnight, sometimes at two A.M. She always found her husband at home, usually asleep after an evening of drinking beer, watching TV and the Honolulu habit of low-stakes gambling. They both slept late, then they had sex — his rolling on top of her, that fumbling, was her reward.

"He got real heavy," Puamana said, giving the words weight.

Most people would have said that this arrangement was doomed to fail, but the truth was that it worked very well. The woman did not complain. Far from it, she was grateful for her life and the passive fidelity of her husband. She worked even longer hours, so she had more money to give him. Eventually, pocketing the money, it was the man who complained, in this way: "You're out all night. You have no time for me."

Because she was working! Buying him clothes! And recently a PlayStation with lots of games! Anything he wanted!

In a meek voice, stroking his hand, she told him that. Still, he grumbled, but unconvincingly. He knew how dependent he was on her money. He had begun to gamble more recklessly. She barely remarked on that. She even encouraged him a bit, seeing his gambling as something that would make him more dependent on her. He stopped complaining, though she could tell from the way he ate — working through his heaped plate but with almost no appetite, just a habit of stuffing himself — he was discontented.

A video camera, a CD player a La-Z-Boy recliner, a waterbed — she bought him these and more, and more clothes. He seemed to cheer up. He must have liked the clothes, because he wore them and went out more, to the bookie's or to game rooms. Sometimes the woman returned home and found he wasn't there. She'd wait anxiously until he showed up, smiling.

"I worry that you'll leave me for another woman."

"Never. There's no one like you."

It was what she wanted him to say, so, naturally, she doubted him. But she also allowed herself to think that, by working very hard and giving him everything, she had managed to please him. Married life was strange and a struggle. Had she succeeded? Had her sacrifice been rewarded?

One night while she was working, she looked up and saw her husband among the guests.

The place on Mauna Kea Street was not a restaurant, nor even a bar. She worked in a large tenth-floor apartment, as a hostess at a private party that went on every day. "Hostess" was the only word she dared to use when thinking about her work. The party, to which there was an admission charge, collected by the Korean owner, catered mostly to male Japanese tourists. When they arrived, they were offered drinks by the hostesses, with whom they chatted a little. At a certain point the hostess would say, "Would you like to go inside?"

The important thing was to get the man to leave without his thinking he had been hurried.

"We do volume, no outcalls," the Korean owner, a woman who was all business, brisk and precise, had told the woman on the first day.

The sex must be perfunctory, clean, and safe. You had to be fast or you were let go. The pay was excellent. It was the reason the wife brought her husband all that money, but for the same reason, especially lately, she had sometimes been too tired to have sex with him.

Was this why he had come here? He stood in his beautiful clothes among all the shuffling, muttering Japanese men.

"What are you doing here?" the wife asked.

"Yah, me awready!" the husband said.

Instead of being angry, he laughed. Seeing this, the woman laughed too. It was a great moment, one of the best of their marriage. He bought an expensive drink, sat with her, and they went to one of the rooms and made love — passionately, as they had never done before. Back home the man shouted, "They make me for pay! Two hundred!"

He watched his wife leave the next afternoon and, now that he knew where she was going, he was amused and excited — this was better than any present she had given him. A vivid recollection of her in the place aroused him. He dressed and went to Mauna Kea Street that night, and found her, drank with her, insisted on her pleasing him in a way he had only fantasized about previously. This involved a mirror, a blindfold, her own lingerie, and her saying certain demanding words over and over. He was exhausted and gabbling like a drunk when she woke him.

She said, "Be careful. If they find out who you are, I'll get fired."

But he returned again. They made love. He paid, but he protested loudly, crudely, and he was overheard.

The Korean woman said, "That's the price. If you can't afford it, don't waste our time."

That woman is my wife! the man wanted to say.

He kept visiting the apartment on Mauna Kea Street — visiting his wife, for the other hostesses did not interest him. He was like a fanatic, a desperate addict, and he lost all inhibition. His former gambling now seemed to him childish. This was what true gambling was, and he was winning. In the smoky, seedy apartment his marriage was complete. Sex there left him in a gratified rapture that he savored in a way that he had never felt before. He loved his wife, could not imagine loving her more. He now went to the private party on Mauna Kea Street every day. He was the slave now.

This was a wonderful reversal of roles. But there was more, for time passed and one day he didn't pay, absolutely didn't have the money. So his wife paid. The next day the same thing happened. Denying her the money meant that she had to pay twice and had less to bring home. The man could not afford to pay, and yet he had never needed his wife more.

Put in this unusual position, the woman was accused of stealing, of conspiring with a client (it often happened with Japanese men in search of Honolulu mistresses), who she could not admit was her husband. She lost her job at the private party.

The Korean owner said, "You're lucky I'm just letting you go. I could pay someone to hurt you."

But the woman was already hurt, as much as if she had been physically injured. With a reputation for stealing, she could only work as a streetwalker, which was unsafe and poorly paid and despised by her husband.

She became a hostess in a restaurant and didn't earn enough to pay for the apartment. Her husband lost interest in her and they split up, though she said she still loved him. Eventually, she reclaimed her daughter and raised her in a hotel, working at odd jobs for friends, and sometimes it was hula lessons, and sometimes sex for money.