Question 2

In this excerpt from the short story Ka Ho’i ‘Ana (The Returning), by Alani Apio, Alan returns to Hawaii, his homeland, from California. This scene takes place shortly after Alan’s grandmother realizes he tried to shoot a shark.

Nothing was said all evening. Alan sat at the small table, finishing a bowl of chicken lūʻau¹. He hadn’t wanted dinner, but she had put it out for him anyway, and to reject it would have been even worse, so he ate the bowl of guilt quickly. Everything around him screamed with accusations. The bare bulb that hung above his head exposed him, yelling, “You did wrong!” From the collage on the wall his cousins mumbled about how stupid he was. Every move he made was an invasion of his grandmother’s world. Every mouthful he took felt like stealing.

She sat reading from her Bible in the light from the drift‑wood lamp his father had made for her years ago. After he finished eating he slipped quietly out the back door.

Alan sat on the steps, not wanting to go in until she had gone to sleep. His head still ached. Mosquitoes bit indiscriminately, and he took it as a form of self‑punishment. But for what? As the cold ocean wind added to his discomfort, he wondered why she was so upset. Somewhere between mosquito bites, the cold, and her anger, he fell asleep. A man of almost twenty‑one, he lay curled on the steps, hoping for pity.

Sometime in the night the cold drove him inside. When he awoke to the first crow of the cock, he found himself on the lau hala² mats, covered by a hāliʻi³ his grandmother had laid on him. His first thought was to steal out like a dog with his tail tucked under him. That idea was checked by the kitchen light being flipped on. Alan looked up to see his grandmother putting the kettle on to boil. He rubbed the maka piapia⁴ from his eyes.

“Get ready, I want you to come with me today.” She set the table without any more of an acknowledgment. Alan sat with his head lowered and his body tightly drawn in while she served poi⁵, eggs, Portuguese sausage, and silence.

Halfway through the meal the sun came in, laughing through the window, sitting down at the table like a familiar guest. But instead of warming him, it only served to make Alan more uneasy; the sun belonged here, he did not.

¹ lūʻau: traditional Polynesian stew
² lau hala: refers to the leaves of the hala tree
³ hāliʻi: a covering such as a sheet
⁴ maka piapia: watery eyes or eye discharge
⁵ poi: staple Hawaiian food made from cooked taro; a mild‑flavoured root vegetable

– Consider how, and to what effect, the relationship between the central character and his homeland is created in this extract.