The Aloha Quilt (29 page)

“I guess this snowbird is a penguin,” she said weakly, and Hinano threw back his head
and laughed. His hand lingered on hers for a moment, surely just to reassure her.
She felt the warmth of his touch long after he let go.

Less than an hour later, they touched down at the Honolulu airport and parked at another
private hangar not much larger than the one they had departed from on Maui. Hinano
had arranged to borrow a car from a friend who worked at the airport, so they hitched
a ride on the businessmen’s shuttle to the terminal, walked to the parking garage,
and searched the right floor, section, and row until they located the car, a brown
Honda in slightly better condition than Hinano’s. Hinano found the keys hidden exactly
where his friend had promised, within the fold of a newspaper lying on the back seat.

“Everyone checks the floor mats and the sun visor,” Hinano explained as he started
the engine. “Car thieves aren’t usually big readers.”

As they left the airport, Bonnie was surprised by how much more urban everything seemed
in comparison to Maui. “Welcome to Honolulu,” said Hinano as they pulled onto a busy
freeway. “Biggest city in Hawaii both in size and population.”

“And in the number of tourists,” Bonnie guessed. “Weren’t you stationed on Oahu?”

“Near Pearl Harbor. That’s worth showing your quilters, but they’ll need a day for
it. Maybe you should think about adding day trips to their schedule. There’s too much
of Hawaii to see to try to squeeze it into a few evenings. They won’t want to quilt
all day long.”

“
You’d be surprised. How long will it take us to get to Pearl Harbor?” Bonnie inquired
casually, but Hinano recognized her attempt to trick him into revealing their destination
and merely smiled.

They left the freeway and drove through a part of the city that to Bonnie seemed more
like an office district than a tourist hotspot. Puzzled, Bonnie wondered why they
seemed to be circling the same few blocks until she realized Hinano was searching
for a parking place. Whatever their destination was, they were close.

Eventually he found an unoccupied meter on a side street and quickly pulled into the
spot before someone else could beat him to it. “We have a bit of a walk,” he said
as they climbed out of the car.

Bonnie nodded and opened her purse. “I think I have change.”

“Put that away. This day is on me.” He fed coins into the meter. “All right. If we
aren’t done in two hours, I’ll run back and put more in. Or I guess I could stick
my friend with a parking ticket.”

“He won’t stay your friend long that way.”

“She. And you’re right, she probably wouldn’t ever speak to me again.”

The news that Hinano’s friend was a woman left Bonnie feeling oddly unsettled. “Why
didn’t you invite her to join us?” she asked.

“It didn’t occur to me.”

A strange obstinacy compelled her to say, “You could call her.”

Hinano gave her an inscrutable look. “I guess I could, but she’s seen it before, and
she’s at work, remember?”

“Of course,” Bonnie murmured. She fell in step beside him as he headed down the sidewalk.

They walked down the block, crossed a broad intersection, and suddenly came upon an
oasis of green lawns and sprawling banyan trees in the middle of the skyscrapers and
busy streets. Surrounding the green expanse was a coral block wall topped with an
iron fence, and through the branches of the banyan trees, Bonnie glimpsed a tall,
white building. Mystified, she followed Hinano along the outer wall until they came
to an elaborate gate.

“The Hawaiian coat of arms,” Hinano noted, indicating a plaque on the gateway. Two
men in red robes, one holding a tall feathered staff and the other a spear, flanked
a heraldic badge displaying motifs reminiscent of the Union Jack and topped by a red-and-gold
crown. Along the bottom was a curved blue banner bearing Hawaiian words in gold letters.

“ ‘
Ua mau ke ea o ka‘aina i ka pono
,’ ” read Hinano. “ ‘The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.’ The motto
of the Kingdom of Hawaii, and now the state motto.”

Bonnie’s gaze traveled from the open gates down the driveway to the stately white
building, Italianate in design, with verandas on the first and second stories boasting
arches supported by columns. A broad tower in the center flanked by two smaller towers
on either end extended the building to the third story. A grand stone staircase climbed
to the lower veranda, and although it appeared to be cordoned off to forbid access
to the tourists milling about at the foot, Bonnie could imagine elegant men and women
in traditional Hawaiian and Victorian attire ascending the stairs to enter the building
through the double doors.

“What is this place?” she asked, but as she spoke, she guessed.

“This is ‘Iolani Palace,” Hinano said.

“This is where your wife—”

“Yes.” A shadow fell over his face and his gaze involuntarily darted somewhere beyond
the gate, a patch of grass in the shade of the banyan trees. Then, somehow, Hinano
managed a small, rueful, heartbreaking smile. “But that’s not why I brought you here.”

He beckoned her forward and reached for her hand. Too overcome and saddened to think
twice, she gave it to him.

While making halting conversation about the history of the palace—built in 1882, it
had been the official residence of the last two monarchs of the Kingdom of Hawaii—Hinano
led Bonnie down the driveway past an elaborate domed pavilion. As they drew closer
to the palace, Bonnie spotted another structure behind it and off to the side; considerably
smaller than the palace, it was built of coral block and resembled a fortress.

“This was the
halekoa
, the barracks of the Royal Guard,” Hinano explained, leading her toward it. “It’s
served many different purposes through the years, but now, among other things, it
holds the gift shop and ticket booth.”

Hinano purchased tickets for them both, pointedly ignoring her offer to pay her own
way. Then they reported to the back entrance of the palace, where they received instructions
about proper behavior within the historic building—no photography, no cell phones,
no touching the priceless antiques—and how to operate the mp3 players that would provide
the audio tour.

When a docent dressed in Victorian attire opened the door and allowed them and a handful
of tourists to enter, Bonnie found herself in a grand hall facing the back of an elegant
koa wood staircase that split into two flanking staircases on the second floor. Portraits
of dignitaries lined the walls above arched niches displaying exquisite vases and
other art. The
black marble floor gleamed beneath natural light that filtered through the crystal
doors of the main entrance on the opposite side of the hall. The streaming sunlight
illuminated images of women dancing with flower garlands etched into the glass.

And there the tour began. As they had been instructed, Bonnie, Hinano, and the others
in their group put on their headphones and slipped the straps of their mp3 players
around their necks. Bonnie and Hinano synchronized the start of their tours by counting
to three and pressing play simultaneously so that one of them wouldn’t be sent on
to the next room without the other.

The narrator guided the listeners through all the first floor state rooms—the Blue
Room for smaller receptions and the state dining room on one side of the Grand Hall,
the resplendent Throne Room on the other. In each room Bonnie admired art and furnishings
from the era of Hawaii’s last monarchs and discovered more about the members of the
royal family who had called the ‘Iolani Palace home. She learned how King David Kalakaua,
elected in 1874 and known as the “Merrie Monarch” for his patronage of arts, music,
and culture, had received dignitaries from around the world at the palace, which had
been not only the official residence of the royal family but also the center of political
and social life for the Kingdom of Hawaii. Beautiful and luxurious, it had been furnished
with the most modern conveniences of the era, including indoor plumbing; gas chandeliers,
which were soon replaced with early electric lights; and a remarkable new invention
to improve communications, the telephone. But King Kalakaua was as diligent in preserving
Hawaii’s traditional culture as he was eager to embrace modern marvels, for he had
supported the revival of the hula, long forbidden by the missionaries, and
had promoted the transcription of Hawaiian language and oral traditions.

After Kalakaua’s death in 1891, his sister Lili‘uokalani, who had served as Princess
Regent during her brother’s voyages abroad, succeeded him as Queen of Hawaii. Resolving
to strengthen the political stature of the monarchy, she proposed a new constitution,
earning her the enmity of an opposition group comprised primarily of businessmen,
foreign nationals, and sugar plantation owners. Over the objections of an ailing President
Cleveland but with the assistance of the United States Marines, Queen Lili‘uokalani’s
political enemies staged a coup and instituted a provisional government that granted
them positions of power and influence.

In the Blue Room, Bonnie read the carefully preserved letter of protest the betrayed
queen had written when faced with the threat of invasion by armed forces. “I, Lili‘uokalani,
by the Grace of God and under the Constitution of the Hawaiian Kingdom, Queen,” she
had begun the protest of the actions against her and her nation. With poignant eloquence,
she had acknowledged that she could not confront a superior military force without
risking her people’s lives, and therefore she yielded her authority to the government
of the United States, trusting that when the situation was reviewed, the United States
would recognize the wrongdoing and reinstate her.

Her words were proud, strong, and just, but Bonnie could read the pain and loss between
the lines.

She felt a touch on her arm. Hinano waited until she removed one of her earpieces
before saying in a low voice, “Note that she yielded her authority to the United States,
not to the provisional government, not to the men who overthrew her.”

Bonnie nodded, understanding that this was significant,
but unsure how or if it truly mattered. Queen Lili‘uokalani had lost a kingdom. Did
it really matter to whom she had yielded her power? Or was her choice a courageous
act of defiance, as well as a sign of the greater trust she placed in the United States
government?

As she replaced her earpiece, Bonnie wondered how much of the tour Hinano already
knew by heart. Probably every word. She almost wished that she could hear him tell
the history of the palace rather than listen to the anonymous narrator on the audio
tour.

After marveling at the impressive beauty of the Throne Room—and feeling her heart
sink a little lower when she learned that Lili‘uokalani had been tried for knowledge
of treason there two years after her abdication—Bonnie followed Hinano to a discreet
elevator and up to the second floor. The koa wood staircase was not used, to better
preserve it.

Upstairs, Bonnie and Hinano visited King Kalakaua’s bedroom, his impressive library
full of priceless volumes and works of art, and the music room, which must have been
a favorite gathering place for the family of composers and performers. As they returned
to the upper hall, Hinano again gestured for Bonnie to pause the recording. “You know
the tune, ‘Aloha ‘Oe?’ ”

“I don’t think so.”

“I bet you do. If you’ve never heard any other Hawaiian music, you’ve heard this song.
It’s part of the show at the Old Lahaina Lu‘au.” Quietly, so not to disturb the other
visitors, Hinano sang a few bars in Hawaiian, his rich baritone a soft rumble. Just
as he had said, she immediately recognized the melody. “That was Queen Lili‘uokalani’s
most famous composition.”

“Such a remarkable woman,” Bonnie mused, following Hinano
across the upper hall. “Educated, musically gifted, and a stateswoman.”

“She had other talents you’ll appreciate too,” said Hinano cryptically, putting his
headphones back on and gesturing for her to do the same.

Hinano and Bonnie synchronized their mp3 players as they had done before and moved
on to the next room, identified on the map as Queen Lili‘uokalani’s Imprisonment Room.
Bonnie was preparing herself to hear the heartbreaking story of the queen’s downfall
when she caught sight of a large glass display table and stopped short. Then she drew
in a sharp breath and hurried forward to confirm what her first glance had suspected.

Within the glass case lay an elaborate crazy quilt about eight feet square, a mosaic
of multicolored fabrics stitched together apparently at random, undisciplined and
heedless of symmetry. A closer look revealed that the quilt possessed a subtle, appealing
order, for it was actually composed of nine distinct sections arranged three by three.
Dark maroon satin sashing strips separated the ostensibly haphazard patchwork blocks,
with pairs of crossed flags embroidered at each junction. The irregular scraps of
silk, velvet, and satin had been lavishly framed and embellished with a variety of
stitches worked in silk thread, ranging in difficulty from simple to painstakingly
intricate. Bonnie’s gaze flew over the quilt, taking in fanciful embroidered pictures,
names, dates, silk-screened ribbons, inked images—as well as sections where only a
few threads of shattered silk remained, hinting at other beloved names, other precious
details that had been lost to time.

So transfixed was Bonnie by the unexpected treasure before her that she had not heard
a word of the narration. She skipped to the beginning of the track and listened as
the narrator
told of the events leading to the creation of the Queen’s Quilt, for it was indeed
Lili‘uokalani’s own.

Two years after Lili‘uokalani was forced to give up her rule of the Hawaiian Kingdom,
a group of loyal supporters tried to restore her to power. When the attempt failed,
Lili‘uokalani was arrested and forced to sign a document relinquishing her claim to
the throne forever. Soon thereafter, she was tried before a military tribunal in her
own former throne room and convicted of knowing about the royalist plot. A heavy fine
was levied against her, but a sentence of five years of hard labor was commuted to
imprisonment in an upstairs room of the palace—the very room in which Bonnie stood.