Beauty
and "edge"on Kauai
Nature plays a big part
in Fatal
Paradise.
Its
beauty is celebrated in descriptions of mountain, ocean, 
beach,
tropical forest, and the flight of a pair of of white-tailed tropic birds.
Its sometimes scary forces are awesomely presented: the danger of a blowhole
on a jagged lava shelf, the tsunami-like power of a storm surge, a hurricane
with winds so powerful they spawn tornadoes at the storm's periphery.
The heat, the unpredictability of nature, the insistent trade winds, the
inexorable ocean all create an environment in which a feeling of vulnerability
contends with feelings of peace and relaxation. An island like Kauai
is, most of the time and for most people, an idyllic place to visit and
to live, but every once in a while, bad stuff happens to nice people.
Here are some passages from Fatal
Paradise that
illustrate the contrasts.
Earthly
paradise:
Along
the little-used valley trail, the Limahuli Stream flowed past them in spiritless
summer languor toward Ha'ena and the sea. The overgrown trace shadowed
the creek, sometimes close to the bank, sometimes at a distance.
Rain forest loomed above them on either side. Clouds soon moved in
overhead, bringing welcome relief from the heat. Birds twittered
and chirped through the leafy valley, their high-pitched happiness floating
above the steady, mellow gurgling of the watercourse.
Small cumulus clouds, the last tatters of the departing storm, were racing
silently past the moon. They eclipsed it briefly one after another,
and as they did so, their penumbral boundaries shone silver, then faded.
To either side, the streams of clouds drifting near the moon but not in
front of it formed a celestial hallway in shades of gray, along which the
sainted ones passed for their instant of glory.
As she watched, a pair of white-tailed tropic birds, snowy radiances in
the sunlight, swooped down from the precipice, the feathers of their long,
forked tails flowing like streamers behind them. They began an aerial
pas-de-deux in the updrafts along the cliff. Spiraling upward, diving,
their wings outstretched, their direction changing with the slightest adjustment
of their feather-tips, the two parted as if moved by a common inspiration,
then came together, close enough to kiss for an instant, then parted again
and met again.
It was a waterfall almost four hundred feet high dropping over a gleaming
face of wetted black lava. To either side, the forest hung like curtains.
Sunlight caught the view full on, bringing the white water chute into luminous
relief against the inky cliff side. The falls began as a pencil-thin
beam high above them, gradually widening in its plunge, then dividing at
a protruding ledge, creating two subsidiary chutes and a mist that drifted
off on an amiable breeze. One leg of the falls split again against
an upward-jutting crag, throwing into the air a fine spray that also floated
gracefully away. The three watery strands continued earthward in
free fall until they crashed against the base of the cliff in energetic
splendor, exploding into clouds of flashing droplets that spattered like
rain into a clear, dark pool.
splendor:
The north shore road ends at Ke'e Beach. On sunny days, Ke'e is a
lovely crescent of tawny sand crouched below an upsweeping ridge line.
A reef creates a safe swimming area in summer, providing a haven for sea
creatures and a place of constant diversion for snorkelers. The sea
within the arms of the reef captures the color of the sky and warps it
toward pale green.
Andrew Chase and his daughters had just rounded a turn on a steeply ascending
trail, and were greeted with an expansive view of the cliffs that form
the Na Pali coast. Ranks of razor-ridged mountains, carpeted in greenery,
marched in receding perspective down to the sea. In its enthusiastic,
endless caressing of these volcanic formations, the sea had chewed the
ends of plunging ridge lines into sheer-faced precipices. Standing
one behind the other, the dragon-toothed mountains seemed painted from
a cool palette, changing from vermilion to pale violet until the farthest
of them faded from view in the salt haze that whitened the horizon.
The sun, sinking into the horizon, found a gap in the deeply grayed magenta
and cobalt blue clouds that were lying there, edges aflame, and shot a
lava-red beam toward them through the hole. Higher up, patches of
cirrus clouds caught the sunlight through thinner air; they shone like
enough golden fleece to tempt a flotilla of heroic Greeks. Around
the cirrus puffs, the sky was the color of blood, and beneath it all, the
sea was an ultramarine wash against which the fronts of the waves danced
royal purple.
The view from the overlook was transcendent... a vertical drop from which
the valley emerged between two long, craggy ridges; a broad, fertile, emerald-cloaked,
two-mile wide scoop in the earth, it fell in an ever more gentle incline
some three miles to the see. The ridges to either side were rippled,
folded and sharp-edged. They framed the view with geological finality.
At the far end of the valley, waves dashing themselves against the cliffs
and sliding onto the long beach that could just be seen as a shifting white
line, beyond which the ocean merged with the sky where off-shore clouds
occluded the horizon.
edge:
When she reached the end of the road, she sat
in the rented convertible on the road outside the parking lot, listening
to raindrops pop frenetically against the vinyl roof of the convertible
and staring through the windshield at the yellow sign that marked the start
of the Kalalau Trail. As water streamed down the windshield, the
sign seemed to contort, split and reassemble itself. The forested
hill behind it danced grotesquely, as did the patrol car tucked into the
recesses of the parking lot. Though the storm had cooled the air
a little, the temperature remained close to eighty, and with the humidity,
the atmosphere in the car was oppressive.
"Should those kids be out there?" she asked, pointing out two teenaged
boys who were making their way across the water-slicked lava projection
toward the blowhole.
"Definitely not!" Freeman cried, and cupping his hands to his mouth
he yelled at the teenagers, to no avail. "Two people have slipped
into that blowhole since I've been here," the publisher told his guests.
"One was pulled out pretty quickly, badly cut up from just a few seconds
of being smashed by the water surging against the jagged edges of the hole.
The other was sucked into the lava tube, shredded up and taken out to see
by the rip current. Madame Pele's torture chamber," he added, inclining
his head toward Spouting Horn. As the three watched, one of the teenagers
slipped and fell, cutting his arm on a sharp irregularity. His cohort
picked him up, and the pair retreated.
Janet shivered. She was in no mood for grisly tales or grisly sights.
The land bordering the cove rose sharply. Where it met the water
at the far side of the cove, steep cliffs faced the incoming tide.
Behind the sandy crescent itself was a dome-shaped hill, and between the
cove and the upper beach, a stream -- or perhaps an irrigation ditch --
flowed into the sea. They splashed through the stream, and Race led
the way through a thicket of brush onto a narrow path that followed the
curve of the dome. In a few moments, they were behind the hill.
"Here we are," Race said, pointing to an opening at its base.
"What is it? A cave?"
"No, a tunnel. Come on, and watch your head."
Liz hung back. "Race--"
"Oh, come on. This is in all the guidebooks. Trust me, will
you?"
He marched toward the opening, ducked a bit and disappeared into it.
Liz, suddenly alone in the middle of nowhere, took a deep breath and followed.
"I'll
take the umbrella into the house. You toss the chairs into the pool."
"What? Toss these--?"
"It'll keep Iniki from blowing them through the neighbors' windows."
Stella picked up one of the chairs. Its lightness surprised her.
She held it over her head, looking at her underwater shadow on the bottom
of the pool. It was a baleful image, like the silhouette of a pinheaded
murderess about to smash her victim's skull, and it frightened her.
Nothing happened by accident, she knew, even the casting of a shadow.
She flung the weightless bit of furniture, breaking her evil doppelganger
into a million pieces that flew out from the point at which the chair
entered the water. Repeating the act three times, Stella felt as
though she were part of an ominously surreal stage play.
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