Moloka'I by Brennert Alan

Author:Brennert, Alan [Brennert, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-07-17T14:21:12+00:00

W

hen her cast came off eight weeks later Sister Catherine’s right leg was, as Dr. Goodhue had feared, slightly shorter than the left; she would have some small difficulty walking for the rest of her life. She didn’t mind. It was a minor disability compared to that which most residents of Kalaupapa had to bear, and if anything it helped her feel their pain more acutely; she no longer felt at such a great remove from them, as in her own small way she came to understand the tyrannies of weakened flesh.

“And perhaps,” Father Maxime said, “it comforts you that your body now reflects the damage you feel in your soul.” She allowed as he might be right.

Rachel’s injuries healed more quickly, and even the pain of going home to an empty house subsided after a while, though a day did not go by that she did not feel her aunt’s absence. Word that her third skin snip was negative buoyed her spirits, as did the news, relayed by Goodhue, that the Board of Health had asked the legislature to pass a statute legally recognizing the parole of patients whose leprosy had gone inactive. Rachel’s hopes would now have the weight of law behind them.

Then, on a Thursday evening in March, something nearly as remarkable happened for the people of Kalaupapa.

That night, virtually the entire population of the settlement—a thousand residents from both Kalaupapa and Kalawao—gathered out under the stars for a purpose none of them knew. When they arrived at the grandstand overlooking the baseball diamond, they saw two visitors setting up what looked like a large sheet of white canvas near home base. Rachel took a seat in the second row and thought she had an idea of what it might be: the canvas, the odd mechanical contraption some distance away, reminded her of the magic lantern shows she had seen as a child in Honolulu. Was that what this was?

Once the grandstand was filled, Superintendent McVeigh settled the crowd and handed the proceedings over to a dapper haole in his forties, who stood in front of the canvas sheet.

“Good evening. Aloha.” He smiled without self-consciousness at the maimed, misshapen audience gazing at him with such curiosity. “My name is R. K. Bonine. I’ve been asked by the Board of Health to introduce something new to Kalaupapa—something many of you have probably never seen, but which we hope will soon become commonplace here.

“I’m a photographer, from a family of photographers. My father documented the tragedy of the Johnstown Flood, while my brother Elias has recorded, in stereographic photographs, the scenic glory of the American West. But my work differs a little from theirs: I take moving pictures.” He smiled at the blank looks he saw in the crowd. “Some of you, the more recent arrivals, may know what I mean by that. As for the rest—well, why don’t I just show you?”

He activated the apparatus and two large metal wheels began to revolve, reminding Rachel of a gramophone cylinder.

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