Sid parked the car in the car park at the end of the road. Even in February this was one of the most popular beaches on the island simply because it was at the end of the road. If one wanted to cross through the North side of the island and go around it was possible to go by boat or, with special permission from the park service, take a two-day hike through the steep hills and valleys of the Na Pali Coast. Sid walked around the little red car to give Momi a hand out. Momi swung her short legs out of the car and grasped Sid’s forearm and pulled until her bare brown feet where planted on the ground. The old woman took one of the plumeria lei’s, raising it just above her heart, and offered it to Sid. The heady fragrance of the plumeria always reminded Sid of her mother who had loved them and she took the lei with reverence, placing it around her own neck as they turned towards the path that led down to the beach.
The sand of Ke’e beach was golden green until it petered out into a plain of rounded boulders of black lava that looked like the shoulders of hundreds of wet seals resting in the surf. Sid and Momi began to cross them carefully the smooth surface of the stones warm on the soles of their bare feet. Momi moved slowly but with sure steps her head up looking down the coast at the majestic cliffs of the Na Pali coast now cloaked in fog. Sid never tired of this view, the tall knifelike ridges rising towards the sky, the fog rolling off the surface of the ocean and flowing between one ridge and the next so that they looked as if they had emerged into another world. It always amazed her that this side of the island could look so different from where she lived, just on the other side of where this rugged slice of coast ended. Sid felt her foot slipping on one of the wet black rocks as the wind blew hard enough to rattle the tops of the palms that lined the beach. She kept promising Momi that she would take up Hula again. In her youth, Momi had been one of the best and her training showed in that even now, at seventy-one, she could easily and gracefully cross this bed of slippery stones without once slipping or losing the rhythm of her stride. Above the surge of the wind and the wallowing of the surf over the rocks, Sid heard the sound of Momi’s calm voice chanting a ‘melo’; perhaps it was one to the winds or to Pele who could call the winds in hopes of keeping them from being blown off the rocks.
Soon they could see the indication of the path that rose through the heavy, green of the costal vegetation towards the smooth grassy terraces of the Keahualaka hula hālau. As they started up the hill Sid found herself wishing that she’d had a shave ice back at the shop. All the energy that she could derive from the five cups of coffee she drank that morning and the two packages of chocolate cupcakes that she’d hurriedly wolfed down in the car while Momi was buying lei from Mary Ke’hana was long gone. The dense, sweet scent of the plumeria blossoms was starting to make her a little nauseous and more than once Sid had to grasp the trunks of the young palms to steady herself. Meanwhile, Momi walked ahead, tranquilly, the soft sound of her melo floating back towards Sid, wrapping around her like a Maile vine and pulling her forward.
Finally, they reached the smooth green grassy terrace and Sid immediately sat down to catch her breath, hanging her head down between her bent knees to ease the nausea. When her stomach had settled she looked up and saw that Momi was standing right beside her looking down at the fringe of wind-blown palms that framed the transparent turquoise water below. Where they were was one of the most ancient temple sites in Kauai. Sid was sitting on rough stones that had once been the foundations of a huge complex of sacred buildings where the ancient chief’s and nobles would gather for celebrations. It was here that, according to legend, the fiery volcano goddess Pele had come, drawn by the sound of Kaua’i’s most famous chief, Lohiau, as he masterfully played the sharkskin drum. Here, both Pele and Lohiau had danced hula and below, in the sleeping house of the chief, they had become husband and wife, indulging their passion inside for three full days and nights until Pele left to return to her home in the crater of Kilauea on the big island before the volcano’s fire died. It was sacred to the hula goddess, Laka, and dancers still came here to pay their respects and test their skills; others came simply because the plateau was beautiful and had an uninterrupted view of the Pacific Ocean as it continued due north for more than two-thousand nautical miles until it lapped the shores of the Alaskan Peninsula. For the ancients it would have been a view of the forever unknown. Sid liked to think that someone was standing on the south shore of one of those Alaskan Islands and looking towards her.
Sid jumped a bit when she felt Momi’s hand on her shoulder.
“Here Malu, eat this.” she said, handing Sid a rubbermaid container full of cubed mango.
As Sid popped open the container and gratefully took the plastic fork that Momi offered the older woman settled in beside her on the warm grass and pulled a thermos out of her bright plastic tote bag. The perfume of jasmine tea whispered out of the bottle as Momi unscrewed the cap and poured out enough hot tea to fill half of the black plastic cup that served as a lid.
“Honey-girl, you should be kinder to your body and then your spirit will be happier in it. When you eat that sweet food that comes all wrapped in plastic it brings nothing good into you body; no wonder your spirit is always out wandering in the dream world.”
Sid was now feeling hungrier than when she started but less woozy. When she closed the lid of the container Momi reached to take it from her and stuff it back inside the green bag from which she now drew forth a plastic water bottle filled with a cloudy liquid saying, “coconut water, good for everything.” Sid sipped the liquid slowly and they both looked towards Alaska.
“Being up here makes me remember what it was like to be young, to be studying hula with friends, all of us thinking we could learn to dance like the goddess. It’s a nice way to make friends when you’re young. I wish you’d wanted to try it but then hula is a gift like the dreaming gift. I guess you don’t get both.”
It was a surprise to hear this concession from Momi; Sid thought she would be bugging her to learn hula until one of them died. Her auntie was always pressing her to study their cultural heritage more, not to spend so much time filling her body with junk food and her mind with those cheap paperback mystery novels that she read by the dozen. Looking at the woman beside her, Sid realized how much she relied on her for all of that: to know what kind of offering to bring to the Hieau in which seasons, to know the story behind the special places on the island, to translate for her the meaning of certain ‘melo’ or chants. Momi seemed eternal, seemed stronger than she, but what would Sid do once she was gone too?
It seemed as if one concession deserved another so Sid asked as she rose to her feet,
“Aunti, today will you teach me the melo o Laka?” she was rewarded with a rare smile from Momi that shown luminous both in her aunts face and then again in her own because it was contagious.
Momi stood side by side with Sid and took her hand; together they walked towards the cliff side that rose above the verdant grass. The cliff side was full of fissures within which were tucked offerings of various types: lei, individual flowers or leaves, bits of food carefully prepared and wrapped in ti leaves, and even in the off season, the casual, misshapen, but well-intentioned offerings of tourists, often a rock wrapped in a ti leaf torn from a nearby plant. Momi began to chant in a low voice, slow enough for Sid to follow so that their two voices entwined like two Maile vines as they held the plumeria lei at the level of their hearts,
Ela ke kuko, ka li’a;
I ka manawa he hiamoe ko’u,
Hoala ana oe,
Ooe o Halau-lani,
O Hoa-lani,
O Puoho-lani,
Me he manu e hea ana i ka maha lehua
Ku moho kiekie la i-uka.
I-uka ho’i au me Laka
A Lea, a Wahie-loa, i ka nahelehele;
He hoa kaana ia no’u,
No kela kuahiwi, kualono hoi.
E Laka, e Laka, e!
E maliu mai!
A maliu mai oe pono au,
A a’e mai oe pono au!*
They placed their lei at the same moment on the jagged black stone and stood in silence for a moment. Sid stepped closer to Momi and took her hand. In a low voice she asked, “What do we do now?”
“We wait,” replied Momi, squeezing Sid’s hand. Turning from the cliff face and walking back towards the path that led down to the beach she continued, “we have asked Laka for help, tomorrow wear your red scarf and we will see who comes in the shop. The two women were silent for the rest of the walk. Momi in front as always and Sid behind watching her aunt’s graceful feet traverse the field of black stone and then the sand until they arrived at the little red hatchback. Sid struggled with what she wanted to say and the inability to say it. She felt as if she had a grapefruit lodged in her throat. What she wanted was to plead with Momi, ‘don’t die, don’t leave me here in this place where I feel you are my only map’ but she could only imagine what kind of uncomfortable silence would follow. It might even renew one of their old arguments right at one of the rare moments when they were in accord with one another. Instead, Sid opened the door for Momi and whispered so quietly that she would never know if Momi had heard her,
“Thank you.”
* This my wish, my burning desire, / That in the season of slumber /Thy spirit my soul may inspire, / Altar-dweller, / Heaven-guest, / Soul-awakener, / Bird from covert calling, / Where forest champions stand. / There roamed I too with Laka, / Of Lea and Loa a wilderness-child;
/ On ridge, in forest boon companion she / To the heart that throbbed in me. / O Laka, O Laka,
/ Hark to my call! / You approach, it is well; / You possess me, I am blest!
