Only halfway up the short street between the dock and the town proper, the smell of fish and coal was overpowered by the scent of “spirituous liquors,” both new and used. Nu’uanu Avenue, or FID STREET, as some sailor had scratched into a wooden signpost, was aptly lined with grog shops. There were puddles in the street, although it hadn’t rained yesterday, and the rats barely bothered to get out of my way. I made a face as I stepped over a pile of manure. Paradise indeed.
Still, I kept my eyes wide open, waiting, hoping to find . . . something. Anything. Although I’d never walked this path, the memory of the map was clear in my mind’s eye, and the story my father had told me echoed between my temples. These were the streets where my parents had walked, arm in arm; perhaps even now I was passing by the front door of their flat. When I reached King Street, the wide avenue running past the palace along the curve of the harbor, I took a left into Chinatown without even making the decision.
A mere block from the stately stone and stucco of downtown Honolulu, it was as though I’d wandered into another city. Here, a multitude of shops and shanties lined the street, mostly wooden and roughly built, each one squeezed against the next, with additional stories and extensions built out from the original structures, as tightly packed as a colony of oysters. It was very clear why the fire coming in 1886 would destroy it so completely.
The streets weren’t empty here. On a corner, a woman sat on blanket along with her wares: a dozen coconut half shells filled with fresh butter. A skinny boy walked by, carrying an impossibly large basket of greens down an alley, right past a pile of rotting wood from under which a mother cat glared at me, nursing her kittens. I stepped carefully over a foul gutter, already red with blood; halfway up the block I heard the shocked mutter of chickens as the butchers did their work. Farther down the street, two men in battered straw caps were unloading bags of flour from a mule cart and in through a doorway. The hand-painted sign above the wide street-front counter featured beautiful Chinese calligraphy, and, unsteadily, in English, MR. YOUNG’S BAKERY.
I dodged around the delivery men and pressed against the counter, breathing deep the smell of sugar glaze and butter. Steamed buns marked with lucky red dye sat warm and plump in baskets next to rows of moon cakes stamped with the symbol for fortune. The baker was old and his eyes were kind; had he ever smiled at my mother as she stood in his shop, inhaling? I opened the purse and was careful not to gasp in front of Mr. Young; Kashmir had given me much more than I’d expected.
Wandering north with two pork buns in my hands, I saw a sleepy little beagle who raised her head from the dirt as I approached. “I bet you’d like a bun.” The dog answered by giving the street a lazy thump with her tail, and I tossed her a pinch of dough that disappeared in a single sniff. I crouched down briefly beside the creature and patted the brown-and-white flank, raising a puff of dust into the air. When I stood, the beagle did too. “Rooooo!” she said. “Roooooooo!”
I threw down the rest of the bun and hurried away, and the beagle, mollified, declined to follow.
The watery sunlight crept along the tops of the buildings as I nibbled the second bun. It was delicious . . . but no more or less than any other. What had I been expecting to find, or to feel? As I walked the streets of my birth, there was no sense of terroir, of groundedness. I didn’t belong here more than I belonged anywhere else.
Was that a relief or a disappointment? Perhaps it was still too early to tell.
Sweat began to prickle on the back of my neck; I lifted the shawl to get some air. Thank all the gods I hadn’t worn the wool.
“Excuse me?”
The voice came along with a soft touch on my shoulder; I whirled around, wrapping the shawl tight.
It was the young man I’d seen scribbling away yesterday, blond hair and straw hat with the black ribbon around the side band. His wide blue eyes gave him a startled appearance, or perhaps he really was startled; he stepped back abruptly, nearly treading on the hooves of the chocolate-brown mare he held by the reins. I’d never seen such fair skin in a tropical climate; it was pale as cream.
“Beg pardon,” he said. “I didn’t mean to alarm you, but you dropped this. Back by Billie. The dog.” He held out his hand; in it was the heavy purse of coins Kashmir had given me.
I slipped the half-eaten bun into my pocket and swallowed hard, the dough like glue in my mouth. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“A pleasure, miss.” He gave me a little bow, looking modestly down at his very shiny boots. “She’s a good dog, though she’s quite a beggar.”
“More of an extortionist.” My voice sounded odd in my ears as I tried to duplicate the rhythm of his speech; there was a hint of an unfamiliar accent, something musical in the cadence. “Is she yours?”
“Oh, no. Best I can tell, she spends most of her time near the harbor, watching the ships.”
“You two have that in common.”
“Well!” One corner of his mouth quirked up shyly. “I couldn’t very well miss the arrival of a pirate ship in Hawaii.”
I laughed. “We aren’t pirates.”
“Thank goodness,” he said with mock relief. “Though I suppose that’s why you’re lost in Chinatown rather than looting the palace.”