I could have told him, as I had once tried to tell Sweetie about Stephen King, that it takes only a modest talent to write about misery — and misery is a more congenial subject than happiness. Most of us have known some suffering and can understand and respond by filling in the gaps. But great happiness is almost incomprehensible, and conveying it in print requires genius. The thankless result for such luminous prose is a character so happy he can seem undeserving, like those skillful boardroom portraits of smug company presidents that make you want to spew. Gloom finds kindred spirits, but write about pleasure and readers feel mocked and excluded. Happiness is almost repellent in black and white — even in life: apart from Buddy, Lionberg had few close friends. He was the happiest man I had ever met.
Craving anonymity, Lionberg gave his mansion a street number but no name. He lived alone, on the highest part of the bluff, facing west over Sharks Cove. A dense, blossomy hibiscus hedge around his property camouflaged a thick steel fence and security cameras. Visitors to the North Shore sometimes detoured to look at the high gates, but not because of Lionberg. He was a recluse, whose justified paranoia was summed up in his attributed question "What can he do for me?" A rumor that Elvis had lived briefly in Lionberg's mansion in 1968, when he was here making Blue Hawaii, brought out the gawkers.
"If I had known about that Elvis connection, I wouldn't have bought the place," Lionberg said.
Yet he was so happy that he hardly left the property. At first I had taken Lionberg to be one of those Hawaiian millionaires who was secretly snooty, always measuring himself against his competitors. His dismissiveness about Elvis seemed like the proof. A rich recluse is usually someone who craves the right company, an intensely social but fussy snob. But after I got to know him better I understood that when Lionberg said he wanted to be left alone, and not written about, he meant it.
Buddy Hamstra had introduced us with the usual "He wrote a book!"
Lionberg said he knew my work. I recognized him as a conventional American millionaire in being mean with his money and rather a know-it- all, a terrible listener, somewhat defensive in his manner, especially in his never discussing the source of his wealth. I took this to indicate that he was superstitious and self-conscious about it, but hearing that he had been a lawyer, I also had the impression he was a little ashamed of how he had made his money. Buddy, a gossip, mentioned that it was a huge settlement Lionberg had won — "The largest sum ever awarded in a personal injury suit in". . was it California? Lionberg had one of those California accents that always shows the speaker's fine California teeth.
"I'm a knucklehead," Buddy said. "He's real smart." Buddy believed Lionberg and I were kindred souls.
"I'm surprised I know your work," Lionberg said. "I don't read many books." He was unapologetic.
"Books upset me," he said. "They take hold of my mind. When I'm reading one I can't think of anything else."
I said that seemed to me a sign that he was perhaps a more dedicated reader than he realized.
"That I take books too seriously?" he said. "But it's such a commitment reading a novel. I'm not one of these people who read for enjoyment or to pass the time. Books tend to possess me. They get into my head. So I avoid them."
The act of writing was to him rather obscure — mingled with magic, touched with power. He was not used to associating with people who had more power than he. Anyway, few people did, and none of them was on the North Shore.
Lionberg never said to me, as others often did, "I wish I could write." He had everything, and he knew it. He even had me.
Instead of my tedious and unwelcome description of Lionberg's happiness, or my portrait of his beautiful house (whenever I hear, "They've got a lovely house," I think, Why should I care?), I would prefer to sort through some more telling incidents. They relate to Lionberg's being a do- it-yourselfer and a beekeeper. Though he had a handyman, Kekua,
Lionberg did most of the chores on his property. He was so wealthy he could afford the time to carry out these menial jobs. He did them well, though his staff, Kekua especially, tended to applaud a bit too strenuously
and nervously overpraised him. They knew he was dabbling and, worse, that he was trespassing on their turf. So Buddy said.
He was painting some beehives one day while I stood by; he was talking more than listening. He had a bucket of white paint — they were new hives, boxes that were put together by Kekua — and in the middle of a sentence, something about one of his visitors (someone with a "What can he do for me?" attitude), Lionberg spat into the bucket. He had been smoking a big cigar, and his spittle was dark brown, and it looped like caramel on the glossy white surface of the paint. He stirred this gob into the paint — three twists of the mixing stick — and there was no trace of it. He went on applying the pure white paint with his brush.
He smiled at me. This for him was like a whole signifying speech, and yet he had not said a word. If this was a reply to something I had said, I could not remember what had provoked it.
I knew what I had been thinking, though — that in the middle of my life I found myself alone, and so I latched on to people, thinking they were strong; but they were alone too, or else they wouldn't have let me. Whatever inconsequential thing I had said — for it was relaxing to be with Lionberg — that thought was going through my mind. I was drifting and clinging like everyone else, except him.
Being happy, he did not draw off my energy, and I always left his house feeling revitalized. His calmness calmed me. He had no envy, none of the needy attention-seeking that could be so tiring. And his happiness did not mean high spirits and hilarity. Quite the opposite. It made him
meditative and thoughtful. He was serene, fulfilled, the real thing, the person no one wants to hear about, a happy man.
Somewhere in his past there was a wife — wives, maybe — and children. He mentioned them as you might allude to old friends, without any rancor, always with generosity and affection.
"I was talking to Didi yesterday," he said. "She grows orchids. Doing very well with them."
"Was that the woman I saw in the garden?"
"No. Didi's in Mexico," he said. "My first wife. We were married thirty years ago. She was just a kid in her mid-twenties."
Working the paint into the grooves of the beehive, he went on talking.
"That woman in the garden is a psychic. She's a funny person. She was a truck driver somewhere on the mainland. She realized she had a gift and has been doing it full time. She's very colorful. For a while she was a prostitute. She predicted a change in my life."
"How do you feel about that?"
"Frankly, I'm happy with the way things are," he said. "Like a lot of prostitutes, she is also a lesbian. She came highly recommended by Buddy, who swears by her."
Lionberg might have been in his sixties, but he looked forty-five. He was a small man and had the appearance some small men have — perfectly proportioned, very fit but quietly so. You never saw him exercising; perhaps the chores kept him in shape. I believed him when he said that books upset him, yet he had an extensive library. He also had a collection of telescopes and chronometers, ships' compasses and clocks. He was a cultured soul. He saw films and listened to music. He was a patron of the Honolulu Symphony, the Hawaii Film Festival, and various charities. He was generous and undemanding; everything he attempted seemed to succeed. His flowers bloomed, his mango trees were heavy with fruit, his hives were full of honey. He experimented with coffee bushes on one slope — he had twenty acres altogether — and I knew they would flourish. I assumed that his whole life had been like that. It was how he had become wealthy — quietly, without fuss. He took no special credit. "Ram a broomstick in this soil and it will grow. Everything grows here."