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  wo weeks later, the truce between Sarah and Rachel came to an abrupt end, and over nothing in particular; it was a conflict born of no true anger, ending only in grief.

  Rachel’s classmates continued to taunt her about her fancy shoes. “Going to the opera house?” they’d say, giving limp-wristed “society” waves. Or, “Every day Sunday for you, eh Rachel?” And then they’d curtsey and dissolve into gales of laughter. Each day another barb, a different quip, until Rachel was tempted to cast off one of the hated shoes and toss it at the next person who crossed her.

  One day at recess, Rachel was running across the schoolyard when Sarah, passing by, said mildly, “Hey. Your laces untied, Miss Shoe.”

  Rachel came to a skidding halt, glaring at her sister. “Don’t you call me that, too!”

  With sudden inspiration Sarah said, “If the shoe fits . . .” And she giggled mightily at her joke.

  “Stop it!” Rachel cried out. “Don’t call me that!”

  “Call you what, Miss Shoe?”

  Rachel, furious, made a headlong dash at her sister and gave her a push. “Stop it!”

  “Hey!” Sarah nearly lost her balance. “You stop it!” And she pushed Rachel back. Their classmates gathered round: this looked promising.

  “Then you stop calling me that!” Rachel warned, and gave her sister another shove.

  “I’ll call you whatever I want!” Sarah yelled, and reciprocated.

  “I hate these shoes! I hate you!” With one furious lunge, Rachel sent Sarah hurtling backwards into the trunk of a tall monkeypod tree. Sarah yelped in pain, then angrily leaped forward and gave Rachel an equally rough shove, yelling, “Leave me alone, you dirty leper!”

  The words had barely escaped her when Sarah knew she’d made a horrible mistake. No one had ever spoken the word at home, but by its very absence Sarah had known what must be wrong with Rachel. And as she stood there looking at her sister, she felt as someone might after they’d accidentally cut themselves with a knife, or worse, cut someone else: that certain knowledge that they’d done something terribly wrong, and could not take it back.

  Rachel was also hearing the word, in connection with herself, for the first time; and all the silences, all the sad looks, all the tension and whispered prayers were suddenly encapsulated in that one dreadful word: leper. Tears sprang to her eyes. “I’m not,” she said softly. “I’m not.”

  Now Sarah began to cry as well. Unable to look her sister in the eye, she bolted away—out of the schoolyard, down Fort Street, out of Rachel’s sight.

  With everyone in the yard staring at her, Rachel ran to the nearest refuge, an outhouse—ran in and stayed there, sobbing, until recess was over. She forced herself to march back into the classroom and sit calmly down at her desk. For the next three hours she sat staring straight ahead at the chalkboard, her skin crawling as she felt the eyes of her classmates upon her, seeing her in a different way than they had just an hour before, and when the school day was over she ran outside and threw off her accursed shoes and ran, and in the running felt a kind of release. She didn’t go home at first but used her only nickel to ride the trolley from one end of King Street to the other and back again, as if she might never see this street, these horses, these wonderful cars again; and when at last she did go home, she found Health Inspector Wyckoff waiting for her.

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  ama was with him, and Sarah, both weeping. Sarah kept saying, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it,” seeking an absolution she knew she could never accept. Papa was there too, and the minute Rachel rushed in he scooped her up in his arms and held her tight, kissed her and said, “It’s all right, baby. Everything’s gonna be okay.”

  Inspector Wyckoff had the decency not to say anything as first Henry, then Dorothy, embraced their little girl; and when they were finished Wyckoff looked at Rachel and said with a sigh, “Come along, child.”

  Rachel fought back tears. “Where?”

  “To take some tests. To see how sick you are. And if you’re not, why you’ll come right back here, I promise.”

  “I’ll go with her,” Henry said. Wyckoff started to object, then thought better of it and just nodded.

  Mama and Sarah followed them outside, Papa lifting Rachel up onto the seat of Mr. Wyckoff’s carriage before sliding in beside her. Neighbors drifted out of their houses to watch in nervous silence. Dorothy gave her daughter a last kiss: “We’ll come visit soon as we can, okay, baby?” Rachel nodded, trying to be brave; Papa put his arm around her as Wyckoff snapped the reins.

  Dorothy and Sarah, still weeping, watched the carriage go; when it was lost from view Dorothy glanced up and for the first time noticed her neighbors gathered in knots on their doorsteps. Their eyes looked away as they quickly retreated into the safety of their homes; and Dorothy, hot with shame, knew that nothing would ever be the same again.

  It seemed a long carriage ride down past the harbor to Kalihi, a marshy triangle of land jutting into the sea west of the harbor. A thick grove of algaroba trees obscured the Receiving Station from the sight of both tourists and residents who didn’t wish to be reminded of its presence. But even without the trees it would scarcely have attracted much attention: it was nothing more sinister than a neatly landscaped complex of dormitories, cottages, schoolhouse, hospital, and an infirmary, encircled by a tall wire fence.

  The iron gates swung open to admit them and Henry struggled to maintain his composure as the carriage, coming to a halt, was quickly surrounded by curious patients. Most appeared normal, a few merely tattooed with florid spots on faces or arms, but some . . . some of the faces were pocked with ugly sores, some were as bulbous and knobby as a coral bed, while others were mercifully bandaged like mummies.

  “Papa,” Rachel cried, clinging to his shirt, “don’t leave me here, don’t make me stay!”

  “It’s okay, baby, Papa’s here.” He lifted her up, cradled her in his arms and carried her through the crowd. Rachel buried her face in her father’s chest to blot out the monstrous faces all around her.

  Wyckoff led them to the infirmary, where he was presented with the ten dollar fee the government paid him for each leprosy suspect he apprehended—and where Henry was required to leave his daughter in the care of a smiling nurse. “You come with me now, Rachel, all right?” the nurse said soothingly. “Your daddy can see you after you’ve taken your test.”

  “Papa, don’t go.” She wouldn’t let loose of his hand.

  “It’s all right, baby. You go with the lady, okay? I’ll be right here, I’m not going anywhere.”

  Reluctantly Rachel let go of her father and followed the nurse down a long corridor and into a small room. “I need you to take off your clothes now, Rachel.” Rachel did as she was told and the woman helped her into a white hospital smock, a bit large for the six-year-old. Rachel hardly noticed as the nurse dumped the old clothes into a waste basket.

  The door to the room opened and a haole doctor entered, barely acknowledging Rachel’s presence before he took a scalpel to the red-ringed sore on her thigh. He punctured the insensate skin and scooped out a bit of fluid, which he placed on a glass slide, then scraped a shaving from the rose-colored patch on Rachel’s foot.

  “Can I go home now?” Rachel asked the nurse hopefully.

  “Now some other doctors want to see you.” Rachel’s gown nearly slipped off as the nurse prodded her out of the room; the woman laced it up tighter in back, then led Rachel down another corridor to a windowless room bright with white tile and the harsh glare of electric lights. The nurse led Rachel to a small platform in the center of the room where a triumvirate of doctors stood before her, making barely a glimmer of eye contact.

  One of the doctors nodded to the nurse, who undid the back of Rachel’s gown and allowed it to drop to the floor. Rachel stood naked as the doctors made a slow circuit around her, pointing out the ridged sore on her thigh, the beginnings of another on her foot. They poked at her body with metal instruments, seeming t
o see her not as a six-year-old girl but as a teeming culture of bacillus laprae in the shape of a six-year-old girl. Rachel stood there for twenty long minutes, burning with embarrassment, until at last the examining doctors were satisfied and left, and the nurse slipped Rachel’s gown back on. “There. That wasn’t so bad,” she declared.

  She smiled, opened the door, and Rachel shot like a bullet down the hall.

  She heard the nurse behind her calling her name, which only spurred Rachel on. Tears obscured her vision; she barely saw where she was going but didn’t care. She knocked over a cart, saw glass bottles go smashing to the floor, but kept on running. Around a corner, down another hall, weaving between two doctors staring at her in confusion, then another corner and straight into the path of a woman in a hospital gown. Through her tears Rachel saw the woman’s face, cratered and oozing pus, and Rachel screamed. In her frantic rush away from the woman she collided with a young girl no older than herself, and she too had a face like a raw wound, and Rachel’s shrieks now seemed to fill the building.

  Then the nurse was suddenly grabbing her and Rachel was fighting with all her strength, pummeling at the woman with her tiny fists, when she heard a cry. “Rachel!”

  Papa came running up. The nurse released Rachel and Henry gathered her up in his arms. “Papa’s here, Papa’s here,” he said, holding her tight, and Rachel’s screams turned to sobs; it broke Henry’s heart to feel her body quake and tremble with such fear. He glared at the nurse. “What the hell’d you do to her?”

  “Nothing! The doctors examined her, that’s all—”

  “I want to go home,” Rachel begged, “please Papa, take me home—”

  “Rachel,” he said softly. “Rachel, listen to me, listen to Papa.” He took her by the shoulders, made her look into his eyes, and Rachel quieted. “You’re a sick girl, baby. We want you to get better. And the only way you’re gonna get better is to stay here.”

  “I want to go home!”

  “I know you do. And—” He told himself that it was possible, that it might happen. “You will. When you’re better. But right now, you gotta be brave and stay here a while, you understand? Your Mama and me, we come visit you every day, I promise. Okay?”

  Rachel, calmed as always by his presence, slowly nodded. Henry smiled. “Good girl! Now you go with this lady, and Papa’ll see you tomorrow, all right?”

  He gave her a hug, and Rachel was taken to a room in the isolation ward where, she was told, she would be spending the night. She was relieved that she had the room to herself, no monsters anywhere in sight. She gratefully donned pajamas and crawled into bed, trying to find the most comfortable spot on the lumpy straw mattress. The nurse left and Rachel was alone—the first time she had ever been truly alone in her life. She didn’t much like it.

  Later another nurse brought her dinner: some dry fish, rice with gravy, and poi, with chocolate cake for dessert. Rachel ate the cake first, then the poi, the rice, and the fish; and as the sun set outside her room she took refuge in sleep, transported in her dreams not to China or India or far Ceylon, but to her own room in her own house in a time before all of this.

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  he next morning, after breakfast, another nurse appeared in the doorway and announced, “Time for your first treatment.” She gave Rachel a pill to take, then off came the pajamas, on went the hospital gown, and Rachel was again taken down a long hallway to another tiled room. But instead of a panel of prying doctors inside there was what looked like an enormous bathtub. The water was hot and had a nice smell, which the nurse said came from “mineral salts and herbs.” It was called “the Goto treatment,” she explained, named after a Japanese doctor who was trying to find a cure for leprosy, and Rachel would have to soak in this tub twice a day for half an hour. She splashed around happily for the first ten minutes; after that the novelty wore off and she was sweaty, wrinkly, and bored.

  After the Goto bath she was given more medicine. They called this one a “beverage,” but it had a foul bitter taste befitting its origins, a kind of Japanese tree bark. She got dressed in a brand-new blouse and skirt and was moved out of isolation and into the girls’ dormitories, clean institutional rooms smelling of strong medicinal soap and—something else. Something the soap couldn’t quite mask, a heavy, sickly odor Rachel didn’t recognize.

  She was distressed to learn that she would have to share a room with another girl, but before she had time to think about this she was told she had some visitors and was taken by a guard to a long narrow visiting room. On one side of the room was a bench, on the other a table and chairs, between them a wire mesh screen rising from floor to ceiling. And waiting on the bench were Mama and Papa! Ecstatic, Rachel ran toward them, her fingers poking through the holes in the wire screen—only to find herself pulled back by the guard, who warned, “No touching allowed!” The words were like a knife in the heart for both parents and child. From now on all their visits would take place at a small remove, only words allowed to pass between them, and Rachel would come to ache for her mother’s kisses, for the comforting warmth of Papa’s chest against her.

  The guard stood outside as Papa haltingly explained to Rachel that the tests she took the day before had come back positive. “That means the leprosy germ is inside you. But they’re gonna try and force it out, with those baths and the pills they give you. You take ’em after every meal, just like the nurses tell you, okay?”

  Mama was pretty quiet, for Mama, letting Papa do most of the talking; Rachel asked if she could have one of her dolls to sleep with, and Papa promised to ask about it. Then Mama finally spoke, telling her that Sarah wanted to come but the doctors here wouldn’t let her. “She’s so sorry, baby,” Mama said, “she didn’t mean to do it.”

  Rachel wasn’t so sure of that. All she said was, “How long do I have to stay here?”

  “Two, three months, maybe,” Papa said, repeating what the doctors had told him, but not believing it himself. “Long enough for the treatment to work.”

  By the end of the visit Mama looked sadder than Rachel had ever seen her, and said in a small voice, “I love you, baby.”

  “I love you, too, Mama,” Rachel said, and then the nurse took her back into the dormitory and Dorothy began to cry.

  Meals were no longer a private catered affair; Rachel had to eat in the cafeteria with the other keiki and the moment she entered she wanted to dash out again. At the tables and in line to get food were dozens of boys and girls, and many of them, like Rachel, showed few outward signs of their disease; but many more did, and Rachel shrank from them as she would a ghost. Smiles appeared on tumorous faces as the children tried to chat with her, but Rachel just looked away, scooped her noodles and poi from the steaming vats of food, then sat by herself in a corner, wondering fearfully if she would look like this someday.

  It was like that everywhere: Kalihi’s tiny school boasted a curriculum of horrors, boys with earlobes drooping like taffy, girls with deep scores in their young skin like wizened gnomes with bright shiny hair. After school she met her roommate Francine, a young Hawaiian girl with short pixieish hair, who asked Rachel if she wanted to go play in the recreation yard; but though Francine had smooth unblemished skin, her left hand was starting to contract into a lobster’s claw and Rachel looked away, shaking her head. “I don’t feel like it.”

  “Come on,” Francine said, reaching out to nudge her on the arm, “they got volleyball, and badminton, and—”

  When Francine’s clawed hand touched her, Rachel screamed and flung herself onto the bed. Francine looked at her sadly—seeing, perhaps, her own first day here—and let her be. Rachel lay on the lumpy mattress and wept, ignoring dinner, refusing her Goto bath, crying herself asleep before the light had even faded outside the window.

  When she woke it was evening. She was still alone in the room, a faint electric light spilling in from the hall. She was hungry and lonely and afraid. She longed for Mama and Papa; it hurt so much to think she couldn’t call out for them in the middl
e of the night. She started to cry again, then jumped as she heard a male voice.

  “ ’Ey, you!”

  She looked up and saw a man standing in the doorway. His face was pitted with sores, his ears were strangely misshapen, and he leaned on a cane. Rachel shrank back onto the headboard of her bed.

  “You hear ’bout the clumsy little girl who broke the wind?” he said, and took a step inside. “On account of she had Portagee bean soup for dinner!”

  As he laughed at his own rude joke Rachel saw past the sores on his face, and she beamed with delight.

  “Uncle Pono!”

  She jumped out of bed and raced across the room toward him. “ ’Ey, there’s my little favorite,” he said, squatting down to embrace her. “My special girl.” Rachel wrapped her arms around him, cried with joy and relief, and scarcely noticed that there were tears in her uncle’s eyes as well. It didn’t matter that his face was pocked and his ears looked strange; it was her Uncle Pono, he was holding her, and nothing else mattered. And would matter less and less, from that moment on.

  Chapter 4

  1892–93

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  he day after Rachel’s arrest, Dorothy and Henry came home from visiting their daughter at Kalihi to find a bright yellow sign nailed to the fence surrounding their house.

  QUARANTINE NOTICE

  This house has a communicable disease,

  LEPROSY,

  and is subject to Fumigation.

  The following Sunday in church it was as though the family were surrounded by a bubble of air that pushed away anyone who strayed too close: friends and neighbors of long standing greeted them at a comfortable distance, smiling hello but always somehow on their way elsewhere. Parishioners beside whom Dorothy had sung for twenty years now sat two pews behind her, or three ahead. Children stared at her with a mixture of confusion and fear, and once Dorothy overheard a mother whisper to her little boy, “That family’s dirty.” As though their home were a filthy breeding ground for leprosy germs.