Ḷainjin turned his head a little to the left and the right until he heard the faint breeze equally in both ears and then set his course accordingly. He could feel the wind in the sail by its pressure on the tiller. It was an easy game to play. Her father, of course, was correct.
Once she was convinced he could steer just as easily with his eyes covered, she announced, “All right, my turn!”
She crawled back over him, stood in the hatch between his legs, and forced him back onto the stern deck, straddling the hull as she had. Taking control of the tiller, she said, “Okay, cover my eyes.”
Through all his seasons, Ḷainjin, as the serious navigator that he considered himself to be, had never done anything quite so silly. If he had, perhaps as a boy, it was too long ago to remember. After incessant pleading on her part and embarrassment on his, he complied, and she proved to be as good a steersman as he was. As soon as she would let him — and not until he repeatedly praised her ability at the helm — he dropped the silly game. Crossing his feet behind her, he lay back on the stern deck and turned his face to the sun, enjoying the opportunity to relax. He had slipped off to sleep several times when she shook him and insisted he go below to rest.
“It’s good, it’s good,” the elder repeated. “She knows how to sail. Her father taught her. And I taught him.” She laughed. “After you get your sleep, I’ll take over and you two can play ṃōṃaan ṃaj.” The old woman laughed, and laughed again.
“Be quiet, old turtle. You want to hide his eel in your stinky well!” her granddaughter bantered back.
As Ḷainjin ducked below, from the corner of his eye, he saw his bird rise off the outrigger booms where he was perched. He effortlessly soared skyward, no doubt wondering as he rose why his worker would be so foolish as to pass command of his perch to the pandanus-pelting pest, oblivious to who was actually in charge!
Ḷainjin lay down on the narrow bow floorboard that Taknoḷ had fashioned to fit perfectly to the contour of the concave hull at each end. The high, narrow hull kept a single sailor on his back dry and comfortable at each end, even when rain seeped into the triangular bilge beneath the floorboards on which they slept. From below, Ḷainjin could tell if the boat was on course by its rocking motion, the slapping of the waves against the hull, or any gradual or drastic change in either. Yes, he was apprehensive about turning his beloved craft over to such a willful spirit, but he needed to conserve his strength for what he assumed was coming, and having paddled the night through, the need to sleep had overwhelmed him. After all, how much harm could she do? He reflected on how she had cajoled him into the girlish game that ended up with her in complete control of his boat.
Ḷainjin was a little surprised by the constant banter between the young woman and her paternal grandmother. It demonstrated a degree of endearment that Ḷainjin had observed only rarely among women in this relationship in the past. It meant that the mentoring had become so informal it took on a sisterly nature. This was not surprising because, as her father’s mother, the elder could not pass her lands to the younger, who was outside the matrilineage. The elder could only give knowledge and love, so the younger woman had no need to pander. Among men, although humor was also an important element, the relationship between ri-katak and mentor was more differential and never brotherly, but he had noticed that women always had a way of turning things around to suit their fancy. He had long ago stopped trying to understand them, sensing it was easier just to accept their cunning, persuasive ways.
From where he was lying, he could study her legs as they dangled. Surely, she was purposefully exposing her knees and parts of her thighs to him, because it was uncustomary for Rālik women to expose these parts of their bodies to the view of men, and he had never experienced such familiarity from a woman he had just met. Her legs were unscarred and of a light, almost reddish color. That meant she did not toil in the pandanus patches with the other women. Yet she was smart and experienced on a boat, and she was brave. Typical of a strong Rālik woman. The men truckled in her presence. Even her older brother capitulated quickly under her gaze. Ḷainjin watched as she lowered the toes of her left leg down even farther, showing him even more of the still lighter skin of her inner thigh. Did she send him below to sleep or to lie there and observe the depths of her underside? He turned on his side. After a cloud of pleasant feelings that seemed to soothe the difficult memories of all he had endured passed over him, he fell into an unusually peaceful and contented sleep.
After what seemed a very long and restful period, she woke him as she slowly wedged herself next to him, holding a pandanus nodule. He suddenly felt cramped and claustrophobic. The hull was too small for two. The déjà vu image of the two of them lying against each other, struggling to swat the hordes of sucking mosquitoes torturing each other’s blood-smeared bodies, flashed before him. Finally, her smile a hand from his face disarmed the memory, calmed his struggle to breathe, and forced him back into the present — their bodies touching, the long braids of her thick hair smelling of flower-scented coconut oil, her bushy eyebrows raised with excitement, and beads of sweat forming on her forehead and among the fine hairs on her upper lip. Once situated, her head propped on her elbow, she teased him with one of her flirtatious glances and then smiled at him with wild, wide-open eyes. She put the fruit to her mouth, then crunched and chewed. Glancing at the fruit, she said, in a matter-of-fact manner, “I found the island!”
His first response might have been to peek through the forward hatch, but she had him pinned down in the narrow hull, and the exit was at their knees. They lay in such a way that it would not have been easy for either of them to get out. That was when she pulled back at the slit of her pandanus-mat skirts and placed her knee against his aroused manhood. He raised his leg slightly, and she slipped her bare leg between his. He felt strangely as though he had just disembarked onto the shores of her island. He could grow old like this, in complete happiness.
“Rest awhile. Let Grandma steer!” she said, laughing. “She told me not to tell you!”
“About the island?” he asked.
She began chewing and crunching the pandanus fruit until half-spent and then stuffed it into his mouth. He remembered that lovers chewed pandanus to freshen their breath so he complied, but neither hand was currently free. This amused her greatly, and she began twisting the nodule in his mouth by its core end as he attempted to crunch down. This she made into a game of timing that she purposefully altered from moment to moment to keep him frustrated.
With much effort, he freed one hand, clutched onto the nodule between his teeth, and chewed it until he extracted the remaining pulp. Then she followed her first game with a second, playful demand: “Pick the fibers from my teeth.” She opened her large mouth wide. The orange fibers of the fruit stuck between her teeth in little clumps, and she had pulled back her lips into such a silly face he could not help but laugh uncontrollably and loudly.
The old woman chimed in from the stern hatch, where she was at the helm and had only their feet in view. “Ṃōṃaan ṃaj.”
“Shush up, Grandma! Keep your eyes on the sail, please!” She opened her mouth again, but neither could control their laughter. Finally, he began picking at one clump and then another. Her teeth were complete, unbroken, and otherwise very clean from all the pandanus flossing. He was thankful his fingernails were clean from so many days at sea. They were too thick though, and he had trimmed them too short with his secret supply of greenstone to get the work done properly. He drew quickly to the intimacy of the task, glad that her knee was compressing his very firm manhood, beneath his fiber kilt, to keep it from popping out.
“Enough,” she announced, taking the spent core from between his teeth and sticking it into her mouth again. Then, after sucking the last of its juice, she dropped the core to the floorboard between them and ordered him to open his mouth — it was her turn. Her fingers were dainty and her fingernails longer than his, and she seemed to delight in things meticulous.
; “Grandma told me not to tell you, but I can’t help myself,” she whispered. “You are the most handsome man I have ever seen … also, the stinkiest.” She giggled.
“Well, out here … I didn’t expect to meet—”
“The woman you will choose?” she asked. Then, to cut off his stumbling response, she kissed him on the mouth, jabbing him with her tongue and then retreating, as if to say, “What did you think of that?”
He desired her but realized he was staring at her with a look of confusion on his face, like that of an inexperienced boy. She had maneuvered him back into his youth. For the first time in a long time, he realized he was uncertain how to proceed. If she were a fish or a cloud or an enemy about to attack, he would be better prepared. He hated not knowing what to do. He found her so … disarming. He needed fresh air. He started to sweat. He felt cramped. Then she broke into that face, as she had done earlier when she mimicked him scrunching his nose, and they both laughed and laughed again as she continued to tease with yet another rendition and then another.
Speaking in a whisper so only he could hear, she said, “I think you are afraid of me. Do not be. I am nothing special. My father is the irooj, but all his islands pass through his sisters to their daughters. My mother was from Ujae and my lands are there, but father is very powerful and fierce, so all the men are afraid of him. He taught me to choose for myself, and I do not want any of the men from Lae or Ujae. I choose you, Jebrọ! When we arrive on the beach, you must take my hand. When my father comes forward, you must keep holding on to me. No man on Lae or even Ujae would have the throat to do that! Can you do that, Jebrọ?” she asked, looking down and then flashing her eyes up at him to study the face of his response.
Surprisingly, he heard the boy of his past — without an instant of consideration — say, “Yes!”
“You must stare him down until he smiles, and I will be yours. He will bring me to you before the darkness falls, and all those little boys will wish they were you. I have never done it with anyone. My father told me none of the men on these islands were good enough for me and asked me to save myself for a truly great man that he promised would come along. I flirted with a couple of men on Ujae who were good dancers. Did they teach you to jebwa?”
She continued without waiting for him to answer. “We came from a keemem. The men performed and a few of them caught my eye, but when I prodded them, there was nothing inside. Oh, they had answers for everything. They boasted they had done this and they had done that and soon they would go here or there. Not like you! ‘Where did you come from Jebrọ?’ ‘That way…’”
He laughed, not at what she said but the way she said it — and mostly at the way she laughed with her eyebrows up and her eyes and mouth wide open.
She continued her parody softly. “Where are you going?
“That way.” She motioned with a flick of her head.
“Why are you going to Lae?”
He knew what was coming next as she scrunched her nose into that silly face again. “I don’t know,” she replied to herself.
“Well, why are you out all by yourself in the middle of the ocean?
“Well, why not?” she mocked. “It’s as good a place to paddle as any other! I can tell you are just like my father. You do not meet a woman and spill your story all over her like a shell of water. She must draw it out little by little from your deep well. You must be the man I have waited for. You could surprise me with a different story every night, and you are a great lover!” she joked.
“What makes you say that?”
“Don’t laugh! I can tell if a man is good at it by how many fish he catches. A good lover is very patient with his woman, just like a fisherman. Look at that line of yours. I bet you have caught hundreds of fish on that lure! You are very patient. It is in your eyes. I can read your eyes. Grandma taught me.”
“What else do you see in my eyes?” he asked.
“Sadness and wisdom … and you have to pee!” she kidded. “I can see that you want me more than anything else on the ocean,” she boasted.
“Your mast,” she teased, jiggling her leg between his, “is ready to break from your desire for me. You are in agony for me. A little bit more and you’ll drench me with a wave of passion.”
“Wōjjej! Did your grandma teach you to say those things?”
“Oh, shut up!” she whispered. “That old turtle has had a hundred men grind her into the sand! She surely knows how to talk to a man and she knows a lot more. She taught me everything about men — twice! I am ready to make you crazy with desire for me!” she joked.
“That will definitely make me stink even more.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll give you a bath every morning after your breakfast,” she said. “But you will have your revenge. See this?” She tugged on his little finger. “You will torture me with this during our first night. Then this one will torture me deep inside on our second night! Then this big boy” — she was holding onto his thumb — “will gently scratch me where I yearn for your touch the most and then plunge inside me until I scream with satisfaction. But nobody will come to save me because I will be all yours to torture until blood spurts from my eyes!”
“Wōjej! Maybe you have some of this confused,” he said, laughing. “I’m afraid Grandma has overcoached you!”
“On the fourth night, there will be no sleeping! I will wrap my legs around you and squeeze you like an inpel. We’ll do it ten times or maybe even more!”
“Girl, you’ve got a few more things to learn.”
“You’ll teach me! You will show me all the tricks you learned in all those stinky wells you fell into! How many? I bet you’ve been with over a hundred women.”
“No! Definitely not that many!”
“Tell me how many then?”
“I’m not saying!”
“Just like you!” She scrunched her nose into that silly face again and laughed affectionately.
“Kiss me, Jebrọ!”
He glanced into her eyes and wanted to laugh, but held back.
“Come on, your turn. You kiss me this time!”
He inched toward her. She opened her mouth. He forced air into it to make the sound of a fart.
“Oh, you are a funny man! I can see I must train you like a bird. When I wiggle my tongue like a fish, you will open wide, and I will stick it down your throat till you gag!
“Here, here’s the fish. Open your mouth wide!”
He turned his head, and she stuck her wiggling tongue into his ear instead, tickling him until he ached from laughter. They played that silly game again and again, and then she invented others that caused more laughter and giggles. They began listening to each other’s breathing and the beat of each other’s hearts, and then they fell into and out of sleep in each other’s arms for the rest of the afternoon.
Above, the elder sailed on. Ḷainjin had sensed her listening to them speak just as she had watched the powerful strokes of his oar as he had approached them that morning. He assumed she knew that any fool could sail on a day trip directly west from Lae to Ujae or back again. The young men who escorted them had made the trip so many times without incident that she probably feared they had become careless. Their stopping to fish and the overloading of their boat may have been the latest example. She was obviously grateful they had drifted upon him. He would, she no doubt hoped, safeguard their lives in the storm they expected, and she revered him because he knew what she knew, but unlike her, appeared unafraid.
He felt she had been helming a straight course to Lae Atoll. Its islets probably loomed across the eastern horizon now, and she had been making good progress toward its most southwestern islets. She would have had no trouble keeping up with her son’s larger proa due to its overburdened condition and the superior speed and maneuverability of his boat. Its balance, he thought, must have surprised her, and it required very little pressure on the helm. As she guided them toward their destination, the sun moved into the western sky behind them, and he imagined her se
arching the horizon in all directions for any sign of the storm they anticipated.
Above, the chief of all birds had probably hardly noticed the everchanging splendor beneath him as he glided back and forth over the ocean water above the two boats. He was searching for potential circles of flying fish, his usual prey away from his worker’s confines. Now and again, one of these sleek, winged fish, surprised by one of the rapidly cruising proas, would launch itself into the breeze and glide a hand’s length or so above the waves, unexpectedly exposing itself to the Chief’s swift flight and the hook of his long, agile beak.
When he soared, he could view the entirety of the tiny atoll they were approaching in all its magnificent, transparent hues of blue, which corresponded to the various depths of water outside the atoll, inside the lagoon, along the lagoon and ocean edges of its encircling reefs, and within the various passageways between them. There was one large islet with bright green foliage that hosted a village of humans spread along a white beach of coral sand on the southeast edge and another one that the boats were approaching to the west, at the opposite end of the atoll’s islet-strewn southern fringe. Along the wide, multicolored reef that skirted the lagoon’s western perimeter, there were no islets, but there were several passageways into the lagoon. And there was another substantial islet with a small village at the northern tip of the atoll, and then a string of islets of various sizes and shapes along the eastern, contiguous fringing reef that separated the brilliant deep-blue ocean water from the glistening lighter blues of the lagoon, bordered by sun-bleached coral sands. Several of these smaller islets appeared to be inhabited only by birds, and numerous scattered flocks of white terns were fishing here and there about the atoll. The tide was high, and swells methodically rolled over the reef’s edge of the islet they were approaching. These swells broke into white water and rushed in curvy lines across the reef flat, swamping the shoreline and then rhythmically reflecting, retreating backward across the reef and tossing up more glimmering froth as they slapped into the next series of waves.
Man Shark Page 6
