Honolulu by Alan Brennert Page A

be right. I was told field workers were paid seventy cents a day.”
    “Men make seventy. Women make forty-six.”
    “But we do the same work!”
    “Do you want your money or not?” he barked. Grudgingly I nodded. He counted up the appropriate number of coins, placed them in my hand. “Next!”
    My annoyance at making only two-thirds of a man’s wages was outweighed by the pride I felt as I hefted the money in my hand, money that I had earned from my own effort. I put the coins in my skirt pocket and happily listened to them jingle all the way to the plantation store, where I purchased enough food to last us at least two weeks. And I even had a dollar left over, one I could perhaps send to my mother or save for schooling. I felt great joy and satisfaction-almost as much as I had felt upon learning to read-as I carried the groceries home and proceeded to restock our bare pantry.
    I was surprised and pleased when only a few minutes later my husband came home. I had prepared myself for the possibility that he might again stay out late gambling and drinking, but here he was, sober and on time.
    I went into the living room and greeted him, utterly unprepared for the fist that struck me in the nose like a hammer. My face seemed to explode, I saw flashing lights as my head jerked backwards, and I fell to the floor.
    I lay there, blood gushing from my nose, gazing up with a total lack of comprehension at my husband, who towered above me, quivering with rage.
    “You shame me!” he shouted, and I heard again my father’s voice. “My wife, working in the fields like a man-as if I am not man enough to provide for you! They were all laughing at me behind my back, did you hear them?”
    Oh Heaven, I thought. I put a hand to my nose, trying to staunch the flow of blood, but even the slightest pressure on it hurt beyond imagining.
    “I … I am sorry, honored husband,” I said, trying to find the words that might dampen his rage. “I was only trying to help.”
    He took a step toward me, and for a moment I thought it was to give me a hand up. Instead he kicked me in the side, the tip of his boot stabbing like a dagger in my ribs, and I screamed in pain.
    “Where is the money?” he asked. I couldn’t even catch my breath. He reached down, grabbed me by my shirt, and shook me hard. “Where is it?”
    Through a red fog of pain I reached into my pocket and brought out the few coins left over from my wages.
    “Where’s the rest of it?” he demanded.
    “I-bought food.” I braced myself for another blow of the hammer, but he just took a step backward and dropped the coins into his pocket.
    “You are not to work the fields anymore,” he ordered.
    “I … won’t,” I said between gasps. “I promise.”
    “I’ll be home late. I will spare you the trouble of preparing dinner.”
    He turned and stalked out of the house, the slam of the door behind him making me flinch.
    I lay there unable to move for at least ten minutes, finally gathering the strength to stand. My ribs burned when I took a breath. I quickly found a rag and pressed it against the bridge of my nose. I felt lancing pain, but I kept up the pressure and eventually the bleeding stopped. I looked into a mirror and saw a face ruddy with dust and blood-but beneath the rust was a shocked and terrified pallor.
    From somewhere I found the fortitude to walk to the plantation dispensary, where I told the doctor that I had fallen coming home from the fields. I couldn’t tell him the truth; I was too ashamed. Whether he believed me or not he adjudged my nose fractured and gave me an icepack to reduce the swelling, which was by now prodigious. Then he examined my ribs, which were luckily only bruised, not broken. The swelling on my face gradually decreased and the pain subsided, but it left me with a black-and-blue swath across my nose. I went home with instructions not to touch it or sleep on it, as well as a bottle of aspirin for the pain and the doctor’s insistence