House of Many Gods Read Online Free PDF Page B

less alone, feel just a bit more capable of bearing things. And so she came to love the give-and-take, the miracle of cells jostling and combining, the slow adagio of minds proceeding in the same direction.
    When he saw how bright she was, how hungry for knowledge, he sent her back to college to finish her degree. Then he steered her to certain medical texts which introduced the interlocking brilliance of the human immune system, the difference between T-cells, antibodies, and antigens. The makeup of phagocytes and lymphocytes. The genius of the thymus, a tiny gland that produced tens of millions of killer-vigilantes of the human immune system—lymphocytes or T-cells—and then proceeded to kill off those cells, keeping only the most “intelligent,” with the sharpest powers of recognition.
    As her fascination with Max’s work grew, Anahola earned an advanced degree in biochemistry, became his lab intern, and eventually his assistant. It was extremely solitary work, perfect for a woman who had always proceeded at a tangent from the crowd. There was something urgent about sitting poised on a stool over a microscope, completely focused and alert; she lost all sense of artifice and vanity. The world outside melted away. Time itself seemed to dissolve, as a second world—the truer, minute world—made itself known to her.
    Such moments gave Ana a deep sense of fulfillment, as if she had finallyfound the answers to life, its riddles. When, in the future, she occasionally grew bored, suspecting she had not sufficiently challenged life, had not tested the limits of her daring and her drive, she would remember that first grueling year in Chinatown.
     … I T HAS BEEN FOUR YEARS SINCE A NAHOLA LEFT THE ISLANDS and one day Max asks her to accompany him to a conference on immunology. It will be held on the outer island of Kaua‘i, a forty-minute flight from Honolulu. At first she is terrified, fearing the island will take her hostage again. But he is a kind man, and has asked for very little. Her company would give him pleasure
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    When they arrive, she is extremely uncomfortable at the Coco Palms Hotel, hating the nightly blowing of the conch shell, the theatrical torch-lighting ceremony on the lagoon, entertainment geared for tourists. As she enters the dining room, men lift their heads like game dogs tracking spoor. Pale-shouldered women stare with anthropological interest. She sees herself through their eyes: rich, honey-colored skin, full lips, a languid sultry body. Except for the waiters, she is the only nonwhite in the room. She pulls herself in, her movements exaggeratedly chaste, and makes her way to the table
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    In one glance the staff of the hotel recognizes her as local, and that she is this older man’s kept woman. As Max becomes engaged in seminars, she is left more and more alone. Painfully self-conscious, she wears suits and high heels even to breakfast. She ignores the maids. But after a few days she begins to lose her bearings. The perfumed island air becomes a drug, making her eyelids heavy. Flowers drop in her lap, big and pale like the ears of priests waiting to hear her confession
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    An old bronzed man with aged-dove hair sits mending a fishing net, “talking story” like tūtū men from her childhood. She hears the blending of Pidgin and Hawaiian Mother Tongue that in the mouths of soft-voiced elders becomes intrinsically poetic. One night, hearing the wounded music of the sea, she runs barefoot to the beach and dives into moon-shot waves. She feels the harmony of things, the bliss of letting go. She thinks of the child and her ‘ohana
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    The next day she takes a forty-minute flight to Honolulu, then a cab out to the west coast. She stares at the stark Wai‘anae Mountains, at cattle thirsty for so-plenty rain. Alongside the highway are trash bags spilling chicken heads, used-up cans of Roach Motel. Skinny poi dogs run in packs. Kids in an abandoned truck seem to be sniffing glue rags
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    At a traffic