Island Of Sweet Pies And Soldiers: A powerful story of loss and love

“Maybe she doesn’t know that hide-and-seek is over,” Mrs. Cody said.

A brief search found Ella two houses up at the Hamasus’. Violet had to steady herself when she saw her daughter. Ella lay on the living room pune’e with blankets piled up around her and a warm cloth on her forehead.

Setsuko sat with her. “She wandered in only ten minutes ago. Something’s not right.”

Ella’s skin was the color of cooked rice and her eyes were shut tightly. Right at that exact moment, a feeling of cold ran through Violet, turning her blood to stone.

“You should have told me you weren’t feeling well, honey,” she said.

Ella didn’t answer. It was only the beginning.

* * *

Back at the house, darkness set in and Herman still had not returned. She assumed he was on a patrol, though he hadn’t mentioned he would be out that night. Soon after the bombing, Herman and half the plantation workers formed a group they called the Hawaii Rifles. The members would ride around on horseback, keeping an eye on anything out of order. None of the men had any experience, but that didn’t stop them. People wanted to feel like they were doing something.

With the onset of the war, predictability had become a thing of the past, but his absence seemed wrong in a way she couldn’t explain. Call it a hunch. She fixed a pot of sweet potato soup up for Ella, who refused even one spoonful. Her forehead felt clammy and her little body shook in small fits.

“That settles it. I’m taking you to the doctor in the morning,” Violet said.

A few minutes after midnight, Sheriff Souza knocked on the door. Standing on the porch, he was a mere shadow with a hat, and Violet invited him into the kitchen, where she turned on the light. Instinctively, she hugged herself. His hands were plastered in his pockets. “Mrs. Iverson, I don’t want to alarm you, but do you have any knowledge of your husband’s whereabouts? His car is down at the lookout below Kukuihaile.”

The old Ford. Why on earth would he be down there at this hour? Her mind raced to imagine the possibilities. Submarine spotting. Airplane spotting. Aside from those, there was no reasonable explanation. Not for Herman.

“I don’t, Sheriff. Maybe he was on watch duty?”

Souza’s expression looked wooden and unreadable. “I yelled around. Did he mention he would be going anywhere?”

She shook her head. “I was at the sewing circle and he usually works at school until dark.”

“I’ll be honest with you—this seems fishy. With curfew and all.”

More than fishy. Herman was the kind of man who never missed an appointment, showed up on the dot. He was reliable to a fault. If he’d had duty tonight, he would have told her.

“Maybe he said something to Luther?” she said.

Souza seemed relieved to have somewhere else to go. “I’ll have a word with him. You stay here in case Herman shows up.”

As she waited, minutes expanded to hours and Violet was no longer sure if she was awake or dreaming. She closed her eyes and willed herself to wake up, only to understand that she already was. Rain began to bucket down, pelting the windows with tadpole-size drops.

Before long, Souza returned. “Ma’am, Luther didn’t know a thing. But he was pretty liquored up. I’ll talk to him more tomorrow.”

“If anyone, he would know.”

“Try to get some rest. I’ll put a call out, see if anyone knows anything. And send a car out first thing in the morning. Meantime, stay here. I’m sure there’s an explanation.”

They were the most feeble words she’d ever heard him speak.

* * *

In the kitchen, where Violet waited, the rickety icebox kick-started into high gear every once in a while, startling her with its hum. The wetness of the air caused her hair to stand on end. She felt torn in half.

Sheriff Souza called at eight o’clock with no real news. Mr. Fujimoto had been sweeping the sidewalk in front of his store when he thought he had seen Herman driving north toward Waipio, but that was all. Friday afternoons in town were usually crawling with people, now that the evenings were off-limits. No one would have been paying attention.

“I’m going to head back to the car right now with a few of my men, search the area for any signs. I’ll get back to you just as soon as I can,” he said.

She hated to think of what that implied. As of now, she was suffering from a trembling in her gut that would not stop. Scenarios played out in her head. Herman meeting up with Japanese soldiers who had crept ashore and scaled the cliffs. Or slipping and falling from those same cliffs. It was simply impossible that her husband would not be found alive and in one piece with a perfectly rational explanation.

Ella slept uneasily through most of the morning, thrashing about in her bed and tangling herself in the blankets. Violet felt her forehead, which had cooled but was still clammy against the back of her hand. Low clouds blocked the sun, allowing only gray light in through the windows. In despair, she called Setsuko, careful not to say much on the line.

Within minutes, her friend stood in the living room with her arms wrapped around Violet. “It will be all right, Violet, I promise you.”

“Did you see him after school?” Violet asked.

“No, I went straight to Japanese school. I didn’t get back until five, just before Ella showed up on my porch.”

Footsteps announced a visitor, and Luther appeared at the door. A veteran of the Great War, he’d arrived in Honoka’a eight years earlier to take over the position as shop teacher and unofficial handyman. Deaf in one ear, and the size of a bear, he and Herman became fast friends. Luther had lost a nephew at Pearl Harbor and had been drowning his sorrows in the bottle, which worried Violet since he had no wife and no other family around.

Overnight, Luther’s face had turned ashen and his clothes crumpled. “Any news?” he asked.

She repeated the sheriff’s update and added, “Herman drove out there without telling anyone, which concerns me. He didn’t mention anything to you?”

“Nope. I’ve been up most of the night thinking on it. Would it be possible he was meeting someone to fetch a new batch of okolehao?”

“He would have mentioned it. Plus, he still has a few bottles left,” she said.

“Yes, but you know how much it’s worth these days, now that everything’s being rationed. We both know he’s a shrewd businessman.”

True. Okolehao was a Hawaiian ti-root moonshine, but some of the locals also used pineapple, taro, sugarcane or rice. Just up the road, Waipio Valley had become a hotbed of illegal okolehao production during Prohibition. Violet hated the stuff.

“I feel like he would have told me. But I suppose it’s possible.”

She wanted to believe him, and wondered if Herman had gone down into the valley to meet someone. There was a Hawaiian man down there he had mentioned once or twice. And maybe the river had overflowed and he was stuck down there. It made sense and was about the only thing that could possibly, remotely, hopefully have been true. But truth, she was finding, didn’t always want to be known.

“I’m heading over now to talk to the sheriff,” he said.

Violet dropped down on the cracked red paint of the front step. She watched him walk away. Unable to do anything else, she lay back and let the tears come. Setsuko sat next to her and held her hand while she went numb from the inside out.

* * *

Just before lunchtime that day, Ella called out, “Mama?”

Violet rushed to the pune’e. “Good morning, love. How you feelin’?”

There was a new vacancy in Ella’s eyes, like someone had taken an eraser and removed all the brightness, leaving a dull brown. Ella didn’t answer, just closed her eyes and rolled to face the wall.

Setsuko had slipped on an apron and said from the kitchen, “Ella, I have your favorite. Rice cakes.”

Violet began to wonder if Ella’s condition might not be a sickness at all. The timing was peculiar. Disease is in the mind, her father used to say, never allowing anyone to skip chores because of a sniffle or miss school due to a burning throat. As though you could think yourself well. Was it possible that we could also think ourselves sick? Violet reminded herself that Ella had been playing at the Codys’, so what could she possibly know?