Ka Puana: Lost Twain – A Novel of Hawai’i
Following is an excerpt from Kailua-Kona resident Kate Winter’s book, Lost Twain. Used with permission.
From outside the window of the Islander Inn early that second Maui morning, the smell of plumeria blossoms had slipped through the jalousies inviting her to reveries and pleasures she literally could not imagine. She had decided against staying at the historic turn of the century Pioneer Inn with its creaking floors and antique accessories, even though she knew it was precisely the sort of place that a nineteenth century scholar ought to want to stay.
Instead she chose the kind of accommodations that residents on an interisland jaunt would pick—clean, efficient, quiet, with rooms looking like any mainland motel except for the basket of plumeria soap and coconut shampoo by the bathroom sink.
After almost a day of naps and cautious self-care, her jet lag abated, Emily felt eager to begin the work rather than feel the languid pulse of the morning. Inside her white car, the scent of its newness assaulted her senses that had only just been awakened by the beauties of Maui. The afternoon of arrival, she had sat at the airport rental car parking lot as long as it took for her to learn where every switch and button was and how it worked before pulling out onto the highway.
Now, coasting along the road between Lāhainā and Kahului, she passed green expanses of spiked pineapple and tasseled sugarcane fields. She pressed the automatic window control and lowered the green-tinted glass a tentative two inches. The air was softer than she had imagined. It blew her short dark hair to one side slightly and moved like fingers along her neck. Keeping her eyes on the unfamiliar highway, she reached confidently for the air conditioning controls and flipped them off.
The turn-off to Kahului came sooner than she’d anticipated, and she missed it, taking the road to Wailuku instead. It was a surprise to her when she passed a K-Mart and the new mall and found herself in front of the Bailey House Museum. Having spent an unfruitful hour in the Baldwin House in the whaling port of Lāhainā the previous afternoon, she did not intend to waste any more time listening to the defensive pseudo-history of well-meaning, white-skinned docents who wanted to tell the Christian missionary side of Hawai‘i’s past. It was more than unlikely that there was anything of worth to her there, certainly nothing connected to her Melville research.
Across the street, the white and green facade of Queen Ka‘ahumanu’s church rose trimly above the slope of lawn. It reminded her of every other Congregational church she had seen including the one in Lenox, Massachusetts that she had discovered while searching for the house that Melville had lived in. The building felt familiar, and she could ask directions to get her back on her way. She stepped out of the car and like a reflex gathered her gear bag before closing and locking the door. She walked lightly across the crisp grass, ticking off the facts she had picked up about Maui’s oldest stone church—1830s—Queen Ka‘ahumanu, Kamehameha’s favorite wife, who became a Christian and burned the old idols.
One of the heavy double doors of the church opened and a man in a faded blue shirt stepped out, turning back to twist a large old-fashioned key in the clanking lock. As he did so, he saw her and reversed the process, pushing the door wide open instead. He turned to face her as she hesitated near the foot of the church steps.
“Aloha,” he called out softly. “I have been expecting you.”
She barely took in what he had said. “Were you closing up? I see it’s nearly noon. I only wanted to ask….”
“I know. E komo mai. Welcome.” He gestured to the open door.
“But I don’t want to keep you if it’s time for you to close for lunch or….”
“I was expecting you.”
“You were?”
“Yes. You are looking for something here.”
“Well, not particularly here—well, perhaps.” She followed his gesturing hand and slipped past him into the cool interior of the old church. She felt his warmth and took in a faint scent of sandalwood as she edged around him. He stepped inside with her, closing the door behind him.
“Go ahead, look all you like. I will be right here.” He sat easily on a hard chair just inside the door, and leaned on the table beside it. With his elbow he pushed aside the small pile of hymnals and Bibles that rested on the starched white cloth and cradled his chin with his palm.
. . .
“Is there anything you would like to ask?”
“Oh no—I just wanted to see—it’s a superb example of the style.”
“Maybe you would like to come for worship. They have service in Hawaiian.”
“I don’t speak the language.”
“Perhaps it does not matter.”
The habit of contention rose in her then, and she looked at him closely, taking in the cinnamon color of his face with its wide Polynesian nose and full, sensuous mouth. But his eyes caught hers. Hazel eyes. Not the dark brown depths of the few local people she had actually taken the time to look at, and not the brooding black eyes that seemed to glare at her at the car rental place. Kamuela’s eyes were pale, with glints of green like the light inside a forest and there were streaks of blue like that of his shirt. Definitely hazel.
“I’m here to work, looking for material about Herman Melville. He may have stopped here.”
“Melville. I see. Are you not looking for something else as well?”
She shook her head in denial.
“Ah, then maybe you are not the one.”
“The one?”
“The one I was expecting.”
Contact author Kate Winter: khwinter@hawaii.rr.com
Lost Twain is available at: The author, Kona Stories in Keauhou, Basically Books in Hilo.
