Free Moloka'i by Alan Brennert Page A

living kinship to their own past?
    Most people thought the whole thing would simply blow over. Henry’s own father reminded him of another coup—engineered by a rogue British consul, not unlike this man Stevens—which overthrew the king when Maka had been a small boy. (Assignment to Hawai'i seemed to bring out the worst kind of colonialist megalomania in foreign diplomats.) When word of that coup reached England, the British government wasted no time reversing the consul’s actions and restoring the Hawaiian monarchy. “The same will happen this time,” he assured Henry. Surely, he maintained, as great and freedom-loving a country as the United States could not allow such a fla-grant miscarriage of justice to long stand.

    R
    achel never stopped missing her Uncle Pono, but she made other friends at Kalihi, especially Francine, whose pixieish looks belied the heart of a true hellion. Once Rachel overcame her dread of her roommate’s clawed hand, the two became fast friends and partners in crime, principally frivolous escape. One evening at the height of summer, the air as thick with mosquitoes as with humidity, Rachel and Francine sneaked past the night watchmen, climbed the six-foot wire fence behind the hospital, and took a refreshing dip in Kalihi Bay. Their absence was discovered almost immediately (it wasn’t hard to follow the sounds of splashing and giggling) and they were confined to their room for a week. But this didn’t discourage them from other excursions over the fence, such as the occasional trip to buy ice cream; and they began to accumulate a disquieting number of black marks on their record.
    On a particularly hot, muggy day in July, as Rachel and other keiki kept cool by tossing handfuls of drinking water at each other, a group of adult inmates listened to a riveting newspaper account from the island of Kaua'i—where a leper named Ko'olau and his family had successfully evaded capture by hiding in the thickly wooded Kalalau Valley. When Deputy Sheriff Louis Stolz finally tracked them down, Ko'olau told him he would only go to Moloka'i if his wife and child could accompany him. Stolz flatly refused, despite the fact that there was a long custom of allowing healthy spouses (though not children) to go to Moloka'i as k kuas —helpers. The family fled again into the lush recesses of the valley. When police pursued them, Ko'olau shot Stolz dead with his rifle, wounded two other officers, and inadvertently caused the death of a fourth.
    When the man reading the paper finished, there was a long silence. Then an elderly man spoke up, saying, “Why didn’t I think of that?”—and everyone within hearing roared with laughter.
    The Goto treatments helped heal some patients’ sores, but Rachel showed no particular improvement; the sore on her thigh was still there, as was the one on her left foot, but at least she got no worse. In November, after a year at Kalihi, it was time to reevaluate her condition. Once again Rachel was told to take off her clothes and put on a gown, then brought into the white-tiled examination room, this time to face just one of the doctors who had conducted her initial exam. “Please remove the patient’s gown.” As it fell around her feet Rachel tried to give him the stink-eye, but his gaze never met hers—it just tracked across her body as a butcher might inspect a spoiled cut of meat. The nurse jotted down his comments as the doctor noted dispassionately, “Female, Hawaiian, age—seven, is it?—eyebrows intact, no sign of alopecia. Face not affected. Open your mouth, please.” He stuck in a tongue depressor and peered inside. “Slight thickening in roof of mouth, extending back to soft palate. No indication of tubercular-leprous vegetations. Hold out your hands?”
    He looked over her hands, still free of blemishes. “Hands, fingers, appear not to be affected.” He examined her feet, poking at her left foot with a sharp needle. “Small patch of scaly dry skin on