"You can get a bus downtown on that corner over there," he said, pointing.
"Thanks." The cab rolled away down the hill. It was quiet. The neighborhood trees and hedges were lush. A layer of cloud imparted a soft gray tone to the buildings and the streets stretched out below.
Oliver entered the park and strolled along paths that were nearly deserted. He walked up and down through trees, past tiny ponds, mossy rock faces, handmade bamboo fountains, patches of flowers, and unexpected views. The effect was both wild and intensely cultivated. The garden was an homage to nature, a carefully tended frame within which blossoms fell and birds flitted in their own time.
A light drizzle began to fall. Oliver sat on his heels, warm enough in his jacket and his canvas hat. The live silence of the garden gradually entered him, replacing an inner deafness. When he stood, his knees were stiff, but he had become otherwise more flexible. His plans were not so important—they mattered, but not to the exclusion of what was around him.
He caught a bus downtown and wandered through an area of mixed industry, galleries, and restaurants. He spent time in a leather shop that sold skins and hides. Oliver had never seen an elk hide. He bought a rattlesnake skin, five feet long, that had intricate brown and black diamond-shaped markings. The clerk rolled it in a tight coil and put a rubber band around it.
Oliver ate in a Japanese restaurant. A scroll hung in an illuminated recess at one end of the room. The characters were bold, the brush strokes fresh and immediate. Stringed music twanged of duty, consequence, and the inevitable flow of time. The waitress, middle-aged and respectful, brought him dinner with a minimum of talk. Oliver ate slowly, feeling no need for conversation. He was conversing, he realized, with each move of his chopsticks, each glance around the room.
The cab ride and the hotel seemed loud in comparison. He turned the TV on and turned it off. It was better to lie in bed and revisit the garden. Tomorrow was coming. Another long flight.
In the morning, Oliver's spirits rose as the jet cleared the coast, high above the ocean. "Here we go," he said to the slim woman seated next to him. She smiled and resumed reading what appeared to be a textbook. He had a glass of Chardonnay with lunch, but he was too wide awake to sleep afterwards. The plane passed above slabs of cloud and intermittent vistas of empty ocean. Once, a jet slid by below them, several miles away, flying in the opposite direction.
Hours later, as they descended toward the islands, a general excitement spread through the plane and the student became talkative. "There is tourist Hawaii," she said, "and military Hawaii, and everywhere else—the real Hawaii."
"I'm staying in Waikiki," Oliver said. "I guess that's tourist Hawaii."