Kamiano

Alan Brennert is the author of many books including Moloka’i, a national bestseller about the Father Damien and the leper colony Kalaupapa, which has more than 800,000 copies in print, and its sequel-in-spirit, Daughter of Moloka‘i. His books have received many awards, including First Prize in Elle Magazine’s Literary Grand Prix for Fiction for his novel Honolulu, which was also named one of the best books of 2009 by The Washington Post.

Brennert is a master of several genres, ranging from science fiction to comics to television, where his work as a writer-producer for the series L.A. Law earned him an Emmy Award and a People’s Choice Award. His story here, Kamiano, has a magic realism quality that perhaps draws from Brennert’s time writing for the reboot of The Twilight Zone. Like most of his work, it reveals a deep respect for the moral and spiritual currents that flow behind the everyday. 

Kamiano is the second in an ongoing series of Hawai‘i Historic Fictions that will be running in The Hawai‘i Review of Books with the hope that they will stimulate local and Hawai‘i-centric writers to take back their history from the slapdash appropriations of authors to whom the Islands are merely “material.” (The first was Eulogy for a Waterman by Patrick Moser.)

If you’re inspired to rewrite a little history of your own—no matter how great or small a subject or personage (in fact, the smaller the better)—and can apply a greater sensitivity to the culture and, especially, the facts, we’d love to hear from you. —D.W.

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In his sixteen years at Kalawao, Damien had seen thousands of souls die of leprosy; he did not regard his soul as being in any way different from these and did not expect a different ending for himself.

But because his body had always been graced with such extravagantly good health and strength, he had never pictured himself as he was now: weak, bedridden, robbed of his mobility. Up until two weeks ago he had still been able to slowly descend the staircase of his modest two-story rectory, then walk—though with his useless left leg dragging the ground like a rusty anchor scraping sea bottom—the short distance from his rectory to St. Philomena Chapel, where he made his daily prayers and meditation. 

As he neared the church, native children from the Boys Home called out, “Kamiano! Kamiano!”—as the Hawaiians in the settlement had long ago named him. He waved or called back to the keiki. It was always a highlight of his day, their youth and energy a welcome curative for the gloom of the landscape: the bleak majesty of the towering pali that stole away the sun’s light at two in the afternoon, the surf violently pounding at the rocky coast, the brooding offshore islands of ʻŌkala and Mōkapu.

But on Thursday, March 28, 1889, despite his best efforts he had been unable to marshal his strength to rise from the thin straw mat that had been his bed all these years. Brother James Sinnett, who was caring for Damien in these last days, took advantage of the priest’s diminished force of will and had a hospital bed brought in—with a mattress, clean linens, and pillows, all things Damien had denied himself long before he even came to Kalawao. Now Damien’s head rested on what felt like a cloud, and he could not bring himself to object.  

He did not feel worthy of such luxury, but then, he did not feel worthy of … other things, as well. As he lay there an old fear came to worry and vex him: the fear that he might be unworthy of heaven.

When he had voiced this fear last year to Arthur Mouritz, the settlement’s former doctor, Mouritz expressed disbelief: “My God—beg pardon, Father—you’re not serious? Who could even think you might be unworthy of heaven?”

“Oh, Bishop Koeckemann and Fathers Fouesnel and Montiton probably do,” Damien replied with familiar melancholy. “My superiors in Honolulu have made it clear that they see me as haughty, egotistic, too independent of their control, lacking in humility and charity.”

“Lacking in charity?” Mouritz said in disbelief.

“They disapprove of how I distribute gifts, medicine, and medical care to all equally, without regard to whether they are Catholic, Protestant, or even heathen. Doctor, you know I save souls where I can—and sometimes, by doing good to the body of the sick, one arrives little by little at the soul. But there are so many people of different faiths here—I’ve broken bread with Buddhists and Hindus, discussed religion with them—am I supposed to let them suffer if I can reduce their pain, no matter whether they believe as I do or not? The God I love, the God that I know, would not want me to do that.”

“To me,” Mouritz had said, “that is the essence of true charity.”  He urged Damien to dismiss such fears: “If anyone deserves to be welcomed by Saint Peter, my friend, it’s you.”

Damien had thanked him, though his doubts persisted. But now as he lay abed—his sight failing, pneumonia making every breath a struggle—he was happy in the knowledge that he would not be leaving the people of Kalawao abandoned. Mother Marianne Cope, her Sisters of Charity, and Father Wendelin Moellers were already ensconced in their Bishop Home for Girls at Kalaupapa; Brother Dutton would go on caring for the orphan boys at the Baldwin Home here in Kalawao; and God had also seen fit to bring Damien other helpers in the form of Brother James and Father Louis-Lambert Conrardy, good souls who wanted only to dedicate their lives to the people of Kalawao.

Those people—most of them Hawaiians—had always been welcome in Damien’s house, but now there was a steady stream of them passing through to touch him, to kiss his hand, to pay their respects any way they could to the man who had literally given his life for the betterment of theirs. Hawaiians were not afraid to show their love for him, and more than anything else in this earthly life, he cherished that. Now that Sister Death was so near, Damien was content to know that his body would be buried in the church graveyard among the hundreds of parishioners he had served all these years.

The next few days passed in a state of dream and delirium, with occasional flashes of lucidity. Sometimes he dreamed that he was abed in his family’s little brick house in Tremelo, Belgium, listening to the sweet toll of the nearby church bells.

He woke in time to see Mother Marianne and Sister Victor, who had stopped by to receive Damien’s final blessing; Mother was warm and compassionate, as ever, but Sister Victor stared at Damien, eyes glazed with fear and repulsion, and Damien could not fault her for that. It had taken some time before he had felt comfortable with the disfigurements of leprosy.

“Thank you, Mother,” Damien said. “For many years I have been begging our dear Lord to send someone to fill my place, and now see how He has answered my prayer.”

Mother Marianne nodded and smiled. “Godspeed, Father. We will look after the garden you have tilled these long years.”

Sometime after this, the current resident physician, Dr. Swift, came by to examine Damien. Swift heard with his stethoscope the priest’s ragged breathing, but he could do nothing for it; all he could do was provide Damien with a quinine tablet to reduce his fever. He also told Brother James that Damien might be more comfortable in a sitting position, then left—only to return with his bulky camera, tripod, and box of glass plates to take a deathbed photograph of Damien for “science.”

Swift did his best to prop Damien up against his pillow, making sure the priest’s leprous hands were visible, resting on his blanket. The picture was finally taken and Damien, exhausted from the effort and embarrassed by the loss of dignity, sought refuge again in sleep.

When he woke again, Father Conrardy was there and reading from the Liturgy of the Hours: “From the realm of death deliver my soul, O Lord. Once I was dead but now I live—forever and ever…”

Brother James sat attentively nearby. But now Damien became aware of two more visitors standing at the foot and the head of his bed. Through a feverish haze, Damien recognized them as his mother Anne-Catherine and his sister Pauline, both dead these many years. “Look. Look,” he said, pointing; James and Conrardy looked, but did not see. And then the two women he had loved most in his life departed like whispered prayers.

Just after midnight Father Wendelin arrived from Kalaupapa and gave Damien his last Holy Communion; Damien thanked him, and they said their goodbyes before sleep claimed him again.

When his eyes opened…

Damien found himself sitting up, on the edge of his bed. He had no idea how he had gotten into this position, much less how he had the strength to sustain it; and then he realized that all of the pains of his flesh were gone. He looked down at his hands, and they were free of sores, as uncorrupted by leprosy as the day he arrived at Kalawao.

Father Wendelin had left but Brother James, bless him, was still sitting nearby, reading from his bible. “James,” Damien cried out, “look!”

James did not look up from his Bible. Damien stood up—amazed by that simple act—and called again, “James! I can stand on my feet again! It’s a miracle!”

But James refused for some reason to look up. Damien took a step and laughed, giddy with excitement. He took another step. He could walk again! God be praised!

Unmindful that he was in his dressing gown, he walked through the open door leading to the exterior staircase and hurried down it, taking a deep breath of air scented with the honeysuckle that grew on the balcony next to his workroom. It was still dark out, and when he reached the bottom he saw not a single soul anywhere around the rectory—not surprising since it was early morning—except for his horse, William, asleep in his pen.

Damien walked to the pen, reached in, and stroked the horse’s black mane.

“Look, William, look—I’ve been made whole!” Damien chuckled. “Though perhaps you might not welcome that news. I rode you pretty hard over the years, didn’t I? Worry not, old friend, I’ll get a new horse from Rudolph Meyer. You’ve earned your rest.”

He was startled to hear a man’s voice behind him: “E like me ‘oe, Kamiano.”

Like you, Kamiano.

Damien turned around—and was astonished to see that the speaker was a tall man dressed improbably in the garb of an old Hawaiian warrior chief, in a feathered cloak and helmet, a Hawaiian malo or loincloth, and holding a wooden spear a dozen feet long.

And behind him—where there had been no one just a minute before—two columns of kanaka warriors bearing torches, drums, and spears stretched all the way to the shore.

But—this wasn’t possible! The huaka‘i pō—the so-called Marchers of the Night—were just native superstition, nothing more!

“No!” Damien said in Hawaiian. “You’re not real!”

“We are as real as you are,” the chief replied. “Can you feel your heart beating, Kamiano?”

Damien was confused at first, then listened for his heartbeat.

He heard nothing.

He felt for his pulse, but he had none.

At last he realized the truth. He wasn’t cured—he was dead.

But this—this was his worst nightmare. “No!” he cried, shrinking back. “I won’t go with you to some—heathen hell!”

“You misunderstand, Kamiano,” the chief said gently. “You are not going anywhere with us. We are your honor guard.”

Damien was stunned speechless.

Someone blew a conch shell, and each column of warriors took a step back, opening up a pathway. Damien hesitantly took a step onto the path.

Two by two, the warriors bowed in respect as he passed, like a stand of palm trees bowing in the wind.

He had no idea how long he walked this path, but he soon recognized the destination: Kai‘aka Rock, on the far west side of Moloka‘i.

But how did they get there so quickly?

He heard the chief tell his warriors to stop, they had reached the Leina ka ‘Uhane. Damien understood the words. The kanaka believed it to be the “leaping point” for souls into the next life.

At the end of the path, where the rocky cliffs met the ocean, a small circle of white light now appeared out of nothingness, then expanded into a fiery bright ball. The light was brilliant, but oddly, it did not illuminate either the warriors or the surrounding landscape, which remained cloaked by night.

The chief said, “Take a step forward so that you may see better.”

Damien took a step forward. Then another.

The closer he drew to the circle of light, he realized it was more than that. It was like a prism, in the facets of which he could make out—and he had no idea how he knew this, but he did—his cherished Christian Heaven; the Hawaiian pō, pathway to the spirit world; the Hindu moksha, where souls went to eternal rest after the birth and death cycle of samsara; the Buddhists’ nirvana; Judaism’s Gan Eden; and the Muslim Jannah.

But—how could all this be? How could his faith’s Heaven and all these others be equally true?

A somehow familiar voice answered his thoughts:

“In My Father’s house are many mansions.”

It was his Savior’s voice. He knew that beyond certainty.

Tears in his eyes, his heart filled with joy and growing wonder, Damien stepped into the light.

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Image by Anthony Lim.