characters were bold, the brush
strokes fresh and immediate. Stringed music twanged of duty,
consequence, and the inevitable flow of time. The waitress, middle-aged
and respectful, brought him dinner with a minimum of talk. Oliver ate
slowly, feeling no need for conversation. He _was_ conversing, he
realized, with each move of his chopsticks, each glance around the room.

The cab ride and the hotel seemed loud in comparison. He turned the TV
on and turned it off. It was better to lie in bed and revisit the
garden. Tomorrow was coming. Another long flight.

In the morning, Oliver's spirits rose as the jet cleared the coast,
high above the ocean. "Here we go," he said to the slim woman seated
next to him. She smiled and resumed reading what appeared to be a
textbook. He had a glass of Chardonnay with lunch, but he was too wide
awake to sleep afterwards. The plane passed above slabs of cloud and
intermittent vistas of empty ocean. Once, a jet slid by below them,
several miles away, flying in the opposite direction.

Hours later, as they descended toward the islands, a general excitement
spread through the plane and the student became talkative. "There is
tourist Hawaii," she said, "and military Hawaii, and everywhere
else--the real Hawaii."

"I'm staying in Waikiki," Oliver said. "I guess that's tourist Hawaii."

"Yes," she said. "But the buses are good. You can get out, go around
the island."

"I will. I'm going to try and look up family I've never met."

"Where do they live?" Oliver had found a listing for Kenso Nakano in a
phone book at the airport.

"Alewa Heights," he said.

She laughed. "Ah--LEV--Ah . . . That's the real Hawaii."

"Look at that!" The plane was banking over a large crater with a grassy
center and steep green sides.

"Diamond Head," she said. She wiped away a tear.

"Diamond Head? I didn't know it was a crater. I never saw a crater
before."

"It nice and green, this time year," she said in a different voice,
intense and musical. The tires jerked and the plane slowed with a rush
of engines. They taxied to the terminal. Passengers unlatched overhead
bins and waited in the aisle for the door to open.

"Goodbye," Oliver said to the woman.

"Aloha," she said, "good luck, huh."

"Aloha," Oliver said, for the first time without irony. The word felt
good in his mouth.

He stepped through the door into a perfume of flowers and burnt jet
fuel. White clouds ballooned over green mountain r