Paul Theroux - Hotel Honolulu

Peewee believed that Keola had a sixth sense. It was true, as Buddy had said, that Keola cockroached articles from the hotel — soap, shampoo, once a broom, now and then an ashtray or glasses. But these were incidentals. The important thing was that Keola was truthful: if you asked him about cockroaching, he would say, "Okay, I busted."

"You can watch a thief," Pewee said. "You can't watch a liar."

How often had my father said those words? It seemed to me that Peewee was there to remind me that my father was not dead. Seeing my father in him, I grieved less, and I saw that even here in Hawaii — older and far from home — I was still part of some great cycle and my father was nearby. It helped me to see my father in him; it calmed me; it eased my pain.

Only if you were happy, Peewee said, could you see that what was best in Hawaii were Hawaiians — their lives and their history as warriors, navigators, fishermen, music makers, lovers. Their legends were as dazzling and grand as any from the classical world — they too had giants and demons and magicians and fabulous beasts.

Nowadays, Hawaii was like one of those beautiful broken bowls of koa wood: you could admire the beauty in the separate pieces, and you could also see how some people were trying with little success, to reassemble it. The effort was worthwhile, yet it was impossible to make it whole again — too many pieces had been splintered or lost. Even if it were possible, it would still be no more than a patched wooden bowl, a fragile antique.

Some nights after the dining room closed, I saw Peewee in the kitchen, bent over the butcher-block table, reading a book obliquely, looking sideways with his one good eye, and the book might be James Michener or Robert Louis Stevenson. One day it was one of mine.

"What are you doing with that thing?"

"It's pwitty good!"

I did not know what to say. My father also read my books obliquely, as though with one eye, not knowing what to think, not seeming to connect the author of that scabrous book with the young man he knew as his son. A similar confusion seemed to exist in Peewee's mind, yet after he finished the book he treated me the same, as fairly as always. He was kind to people. I had known he was considerate by the way he treated Hawaiians, always as friends, because in the same way I knew what a person was like when, seeing me as a stranger, they dealt fairly with me. I liked being a stranger for that reason.

Some time later, Peewee said to me, "If you can write like that, why are you working at this hotel?"

"I wrote that book long before I came here."

"So what?"

"I haven't written anything here. I don't know whether I can." He would not be brushed off. He said, "You already proved you can write it."

Awweddy pwooved, he said, and wite. His speech impediment from his deafness made him sound wise.

"What would I write?"

"There's so much. Nobody writes about Hawaii really." Weally. "They don't see it. Buddy stopped seeing it — he's too worried about his health. It's not just the beach. It's the whole place, even the prostitutes." Pwostitutes.

I said, "You're so kind toward the local people."

"I'm local myself. I was married to that Tahitian girl with the tattoos. We were so happy. I was a chef at a restaurant in Kona. She introduced me to Whyans, and later I married one of them. We were all friends. They're good people. If you stay on the outside, you don't know them. If you get to know them, you understand."

"Everyone has something different to say about Hawaiians."

"Because they're anything you want them to be. If you see them as rascals, they'll hate you. If you like them, they will be your friend."

"So they're a reflection of your mood?"

"So to speak." He thought a moment. He went on, "I don't sentimentalize the Whyans. But I hate hearing Buddy badmouth them, because I know he doesn't really mean it. And it's somehow more cruel when you don't mean it."

"Maybe I should write about Buddy."

"People always say they're going to write about him, but they never do. They used to do interviews with him in the Advertiser, but they never sounded right."

"Buddy in paradise."

"This was paradise once. That was lovely — I remember it. Before Pearl Harbor. Before the war. I was just a kid. Of course, it's not paradise anymore. That's why I like the name you gave the bar — Paradise Lost — because the only place that can truly be hell is the one that was once paradise." He was silent and then said, "That's what makes Whyans so sad."

I was alone and at first glad of it, because I had secretly started to make notes for stories in these late-night hours: tentative, feeling foolish, even a bit shy, like a man reacquainting himself with an old love, fearing he might be rebuffed. The hotel was still, the bar shut at last, the music turned off, the pool closed, its greeny-blue blades of light sliding over the nearby walls. As soon as the last drunks had left the bar, I had sent Tran home. But afterward, I was sorry I was alone and had no witness to the persecution that then ensued.

The first voices I heard issued from the empty elevator. They were indistinct, probably mutterings of guests, but I heard my full name and mirthless, monotonous laughter like goose honks — nothing is less infectious. What was most irritating was that the remark preceding the laughter was inaudible.

Then, clearly, Supposed to be a writer!

Had I said something to a hotel guest? Had someone recognized my name?

Making a complete fool of himself, I heard in a different voice, though it was smothered by more laughter, a whole roomful of people. And he thinks no one's looking!

Perhaps it was not me at all. But then I heard a more particular accusation.

If it weren't for Buddy, he would never have gotten the job. And if he left, he'd never be missed.

Not only did this almost certainly refer to me, it was something I felt myself.

Another middle-aged howlie married to a local girl. The kid looks like his granddaughter.

At that I heard high-spirited giggling in the frantically hiccupping and unstoppable way of children. This mockery hurt most, because it was my worst fear.

I got into the elevator and pressed the button for the eighth floor, but when I was nearing six I heard the laughter, louder, so I stabbed at that button and got off there. It was impossible to find the precise source of the sound. It seemed to carry from one room, but when I went near, it echoed from another room. Finally I traced the laughter to an alcove, the end of a hallway where there was a cluster of three rooms, three differently numbered doors.

I heard the shouted remark, It's easy to call yourself a writer when you're among people who don't read. Causing the greatest giggling was the fragment of a remark: That ridiculous bald spot he hides with a baseball cap!

How could I intrude? What if it happened to be the wrong room? It might have been any of the three. I went into the emergency stairwell and climbed two floors, furious and ashamed, hearing muffled laughter from the concrete walls all the way back to my suite, where Sweetie and Rose lay sleeping.

The next day I tapped into the computer to get the names of the people in those three rooms: no one. The rooms were empty. What gave?

My complaint with the Hotel Honolulu had been that it was predictable and tedious, that the guests were intrusive and demanding. Paradise Lost was now dominated by Buddy and his boys' club. I had wanted security, a place to live, an easy job, sunshine, solitude. The price I paid was boredom of a kind I had never known before, something akin to being buried alive. Now I found the hotel so rich in piercing nighttime voices that I feared being alone, for it was only when I was alone that I heard them.