“Where did you get these?”
“Those are from a place far away, a place too ugly for your innocent face to imagine!”
“Ḷaluj says you are like a giant clam deep below the reef with your mouth open just enough to allow fish to clean your mantle — but not enough to allow any man to reach inside and cut your secrets loose.”
Then Liṃanṃan helped Ḷainjin put his pieces of treasure back into the alele and sneak them back into their hiding place, and that evening, he presented the valuable knife blades to each of his jekaro boys, one by one. Each must fashion his own handle, promise to use the blade only for jekaro, sharpen it only with tilaan, and wear it around his neck when climbing or slid into the thatch of his house when not. And each — above all — must be very, very careful not to let the fragile blade break.
That night and every night after jekaro, as the waxing moon traveled westward, he would sit on a mat with Liṃanṃan at his side and watch Pedpedin’s men cross spears to the rhythm of the women’s aje in preparation for the battle. He also watched the old man watching him, wondering why he had not cut his spear and why he was not participating in the practice. Ḷainjin knew, however, that jekaro dripped from twenty trees and netted, hollowed-out coconut shells slowly collected their prize. Alliances had formed, and the impatient chief would value him even more once all the elements of his plan fell into place.
As days passed, the moon swelled by day and appeared higher in the sky at dusk. The tides were no longer right for pole fishing, so Liṃanṃan had his canoe launched and they went on nocturnal adventures. Nightly, after watching the men practice, the two of them crossed the lagoon and fished as they sailed along the submerged portions of the western reef, where there were no islets. They trolled for sharp-toothed predator fish that loved to attack his moon-illuminated lure from the darkness below as it streamed overhead, above coral caverns teeming with competitors darting in and out of them. The lure was enticingly easy for them to intercept because of its predictably straight course. There was something spiritual about the glistening lagoon waters and the fluttering of her catch as it broke the surface and landed in her grasp. It was the competition, he supposed, which culminated in the transfer of energy from prey to fisher, that compelled the woman — and called her back again. He also loved seeing the spirit — which granted strength to the victor and swift death to her prey — well up from the depths below and shine at him through her glittering eyes. Her hands had healed and proved stronger and wiser for the scarring, and they competed to see which of them could name the fish by its method of attacking the lure, and its feel on the line as she hauled it in.
The winner of their competition — usually Liṃanṃan — would get to schedule the event and manner of their next coupling, which on some occasions occurred even before they returned to shore. She would cushion her rear with the thick mat taken from the outrigger platform and folded beneath her, resting it upon the yoke where the outrigger booms lay lashed to the hull. She, her legs spread and straddling the hull, tempting him. Her torso propped against the forward-slanted mast, feet dangling — now and then dipping into the waves, now and then desperately braced against the sides of the hull to leverage her slight body. Elbows straight bracing her torso, hands clasped to the bulwarks on either side, and her face uplifted — naked and abandoned of all modesty amid the flux about them. He, after so many seasons of standing alone at the helm, now before her, struggling to maintain his penetration, lifting his craft into the wind with his oar in one hand and determinedly clutching onto her rear to anchor himself to her with the other. Their billowing craft rising and falling with the uniformly rolling swells entering from the ocean passageway. These swells merging with the choppy, wind-swept waves that crisscrossed the shimmering lagoon and becoming one with the rhythm of their efforts. The thick, curling strands of her windblown hair flying free into their matted sail. They skipped across the water this way, he struggling to hold onto his seed until the very last moment of surrender and she maneuvering relentlessly to capture it from him and plant it deep into the damp, fertile darkness of her writhing belly.
***
As the days passed, one to the next, the jekaro began dripping in earnest. Ḷainjin taught the boys how to carefully guide the drip from the wet face of the utak down into the mouth of the netted coconut shell with a freshly cut coconut leaflet. Before allowing each boy to retreat from his yellow-and-green spiraled roost, he first had him drink his fill. Then he taught the boys as a group how to thoroughly wash the empty shells at the sandy shore and hang them out in the sunlight to dry. As each day passed, the boys grew stronger and all the villagers chattered about this phenomenon. Finally, Liṃanṃan visited Kōkkālọk on her island, intrigued her with a taste, and gained her acceptance of Ḷainjin’s offer to bring tribute to her during the morning of jetkāān. All the elements of his plan were set in motion and ready in good time to be fulfilled.
On the morning of the appointed day, all talk was about the struggle that would ensue once Ḷainjin crossed the passage and set foot on Kōkkālọk’s island. The boys all chattered about Ḷainjin’s ṃaanpā skills and how they expected to see Paratak’s head, slapped violently, drop into the sand as though hit by a falling coconut. Others predicted Paratak would not dare to appear. Still others repeated Ḷainjin’s assessment that Paratak would not be easily surprised a second time and would have prepared a better defense. Everyone was nervous as they left the shady coconut groves and walked along the sun-drenched path between the shiny-leafed kōņņat trees at the island strand. They descended the canted rocky shoreline into the breeze that rushed between the islets and waded into the cool water separating them. Each, as instructed, carried a netted shell full to the brim with fresh amber jekaro in one hand and an adze for cutting mangrove in the other. They waded in single file behind Pedpedin, Ḷainjin, and Liṃanṃan. The sea level had been dropping quickly in the spring tide all morning, but the lagoon water, which recedes more slowly, was still higher than the ocean and streamed through the passageway — where it was swift and nearly waist deep — on its way to the sea.
Paratak was waiting for them, and when he stepped out onto the strand above the opposite shore, a collective gasp sounded from the jekaro boys, who now expected the worst from the furious face raging down at them. His eyes were concentrated on one individual alone — as though there was no irooj present and no tribute for his mistress. There was nothing but the hated person who had the effrontery to challenge him yet again and, this time, at the very shore of his domain. He twirled a thick spear in his hand recklessly as though he would hurl it at his opponent at any moment, but at the same time, Kōkkālọk was hustling down the sandy shore from her house, entreating him fruitlessly to step aside and let her uncle pass.
The irooj, their titular leader, appeared outraged but remained stationary and resolute. Only Ḷainjin, in his shark-like manner, continued his progress through the water, unaffected by the bluster at the shoreline. He wore a confident smile on his face as he fearlessly closed the distance between them and then, just as everyone expected an eminent clash, extended his arm as only a Pohnpeian would and politely addressed Paratak fluently in his own language, in the manner of a long-separated brother. In this way, to everyone’s amazement, he managed to nonchalantly disarm the surprised foreigner, cool his taciturn scowl, and transform it into a broad, childish grin. To the amazement of all, they stood with forearms embraced, in fluent, animated conversation in a language none of the others understood. Kōkkālọk’s face turned from terror to relief even as she glanced at Liṃanṃan, whose anxious face turned likewise to surprise, as did those of the others, many of whom were too flabbergasted to feel disappointed at not seeing the spectacle lead to the blood in the sand they expected. Only the sage look on Pedpedin’s face seemed to summarize the simple collective response that, no matter how this story henceforth might be told and whatever its end, Ḷainjin appeared that day to be a man like no other.
&nbs
p; Liṃanṃan rushed to embrace Kōkkālọk, who embraced her back, whispering, “There seems no end to this silent man’s magic! We are so lucky you caught him out there!” Then she bowed as, one by one, the jekaro boys — some more intimately than others — hung their jekaro shells about her neck in ceremonial fashion. Finally, the strong woman was so weighted down that she struggled in the bright morning sun to cross the warm sand back to the food her workers had prepared for them beneath the shade of her house. One by one, she hung the shells at the corner post of her stilted, thatched home and, putting the final one to her lips, tasted the jekaro.
“Oh, it’s so sweet. It’s delicious,” she remarked. Then she poured a shell for Paratak and another for the irooj and passed other shells around to her workers, and all agreed the drink was good to the taste. Paratak, who spoke in very broken Rālik and was used to acting out his intentions, became a bit of a buffoon, patting his tummy repeatedly after drinking and slapping his breast where Ḷainjin had carved the wapepe symbol as if to suggest it was but a scratch between friends. With obvious self-depreciation, he then slapped his own face on either side while nodding to Ḷainjin, causing laughter to explode, first among the jekaro boys and, with hesitancy, among the others. Finally, he grabbed Ḷainjin by the arm again to demonstrate their new friendship. He filled a basket of food for him, sat down next to him, and engaged in frantic questioning, seeming to be a young boy at the feet of an uncle — or as one of the jekaro boys put it, “a sucker fish attaching himself to the side of a shark!”
Once everyone had eaten their fill, all eyes turned to the discussion between Liṃanṃan and Kōkkālọk. Everyone knew the purpose of the visit, and all were waiting for Liṃanṃan to request permission to cut the spears. Instead, Liṃanṃan suggested Kōkkālọk sponsor the group herself. The boys, under Ḷainjin’s direction, would practice nightly here on her island and represent her in the battle. Kōkkālọk, it seemed, was about to dismiss the idea. After all, they were only boys, but then — as everyone but Paratak knew — she had lain with several of them and could hardly dismiss them as such. Was she perhaps weighing the workforce and resources necessary to support such a group? How, under the circumstances, could she refuse? For a brief instant, she looked perturbed, almost angry. She peered at Ḷainjin. He did not feign distraction — which would have been easy, as Paratak was blabbering at him full wind in sail — but rather had attentively focused his eyes upon hers and wore his normal curious, self-confident expression. With a lusty grin, she looked at the boys and declared, “Yes, I will sponsor these men in the battle! Go cut the spears! Let the practice begin!”
Although practice could not begin for several days, selection of the spears took the rest of the afternoon. Paratak led the way. He visited the place often as it reminded him of his native island and he had a taste for the crabs that lived there. The tide had now receded to its lowest ebb, making navigation easy. What was not easy was finding perfectly straight joñ trunks. Most of the easy cuts around the edge of the little swamp had disappeared over the seasons, and the hard wood was slow to grow back, but eventually each boy — under Ḷainjin’s direction and despite Paratak’s histrionics — succeeded in finding an appropriate trunk to sever at its base. The cuttings would stay on the island. Although they were immediately useful for practice, they needed skinning, sharpening, hardening by fire, and drying in the wind — not under the harsh sun, which could cause splitting — until the sound of their clacks, one against the other, reached the appropriate tenor. According to legend, the arrhythmic clack of the spears at practice drew the women to the battle, and their frantic beating of their aje and their ululating cries transported their men into a detachment so fierce as to cause their opponents to cringe at the sight of them.
Late that afternoon, they returned to Lae. High in the palms above the village, each boy seemed to have his own version of what had transpired, but all boasted that, if Likōkkālọk allowed the daughters of her workers to participate, many babies would come of it! Customarily, women participating in battle often felt the need to reward one or another of the men immediately thereafter. In short, the boys were ecstatic and ready to follow Ḷainjin to death in this new adventure. Word spread that their parents marveled among one another about how this man, who had drifted up but a few days ago, had affected such change and provided such direction for their sons so quickly. Ḷainjin warned them to a man not to stay up discussing girls but to sleep well because there was much practice ahead. Few of them had practiced before, the spears would get sharper and harder by the day, and they would have to be ready to enter a state of absolute alertness so as not to become injured and embarrass themselves before the very women they desired.
No doubt, the days began to pass quickly for these young men, especially those who attended several trees. They got up at dawn to wash their netted coconut-shell containers, and then they climbed their trees, cut their jekaro, waded or swam through the surf to Kōkkālọk’s island, practiced hard under Ḷainjin’s fierce direction, and returned to their homes just before having to climb again and then sleep in preparation for the following day. On occasion, one of the boys would assign his jekaro task to another, spend the night on Kōkkālọk’s island, and surprisingly pop up in line with a grin the next morning. As each day passed, they found more trees, cut more utak, collected more jekaro, and offered more to the villagers. Not surprisingly, more boys begged Ḷainjin to join the group. Each day, the spears grew drier and harder, and the sounds of their clacks when crossed grew sharper. The young men grew stronger and more alert, and the daughters of Kōkkālọk’s workers got trained by their grandmothers to beat the drums and ululate with more and more passion. Soon, the perusing and trysting began in earnest, and the young women who wrapped their thighs with such politeness while participating in the battle dropped their long, intricately woven skirts with abandon deep in the pandanus patch and laid them down as a cushion upon which to couple with whichever warrior they chose to entice away from the group. Thus, the young warriors would replace themselves with a new generation. Everything seemed to occur as it should, and when Pedpedin heard reports of all this, he was no doubt happy and embarrassed that he had ever doubted the newcomer’s leadership.
***
Over time, Ḷainjin began to wonder if he would ever see the Chief again. Curiously, his companion had glided his way into Ḷainjin’s very identity, and he missed wondering what it must be like to soar among the clouds. He missed him more than he did his old friends and had been remiss in not searching for him on the bird islets. The Chief might be hungry, hurt, or worse.
In his conversations with Paratak, Ḷainjin learned he had a passion for eating lobster. This creature was a delicacy on his home island. Although abundant in the maze of coral reefs dispersed about the island’s periphery, they were difficult to pluck from their natural homes deep among the corals. They could only be gathered in abundance by sailing or paddling out to certain of the outer barrier reefs that encircled the island, and by custom, such catch would go only to the high Pohnpeian chiefs. Before iieḷap passed, Ḷainjin planned a fishing trip to seal their friendship and teach him how to catch lobster on the reef flat. Ḷainjin assumed the foreigner, for good reason, was rarely if ever invited to participate in fishing activities by the other islanders. Competition for environmental secrets was keen among men who used such knowledge and the success it fostered like birds that preened themselves before prospective mates. He decided that, with Liṃanṃan’s help, they would sail down the reef during the darkness of meloktok, wait on one of the farthest bird islets for the tide to ebb, and search for his missing companion in the moonlight. Then he and Paratak would walk back to Kōkkālọk’s islet gathering lobsters as the reef’s edge flooded and as Liṃanṃan returned the boat to Kōkkālọk’s islet to wait for their arrival by foot.
That evening the three set out as the sun was setting. As they glided between the first two islets along the atoll’s eastern fringing reef, Ḷa
injin had a lucky strike on his trolling line almost as soon as their craft picked up wind. It was an ikaidik longer than his forearm. He pulled in the bright rainbow-striped fish just as the glow of the sun sank into the cloud-mottled horizon beyond the western passageway that they had triumphantly entered what seemed like but a few days before. Then, as the sun dropped between the line of clouds and the sea, its final glow burst, casting the happy scene in an aura of amber light. He grabbed the energetic fish from the water and killed it with a tap of his club as they glided under Liṃanṃan’s tiller along the lagoon side of the northern fringing reef, which was studded with islets.
Many of the small islets passed were populated by only three or four families, and the scent from their cooking fires wafted out on the firm breeze into the lagoon. As they passed to leeward, they took turns guessing, by smell, what food was cooking.
“Ah” said Paratak softly, “That is — how to say — green breadfruit you roast until black and scrape with broken shell?”
“Kwanjin!” answered Liṃanṃan, smiling from her place at the helm. She was naked above the skirts, as was her like, and the setting sun burnished her flawless auburn skin in its fading glow. She wore a tight white necklace of sun-bleached puka shells about her neck, and her hair was twisted into a haphazard bun to prevent its strands from tangling in the backstay.
“Yes, good one to dip in guts of coconut crab. I like that one.”
However, there were things Paratak did not like, and he had an annoying way of comparing everything on the low islands he found himself trapped on to things he preferred on the much larger, mountainous island where he grew up. He never seemed to stop talking about the abundance of delicious crabs that lived among the vast mangrove forests surrounding the island’s irregular, swampy shores. Spoiled by the abundant rainfall and freshwater streams of his home island, he hated to bathe in the somewhat brackish water he pulled up from Kōkkālọk’s well, and he was constantly describing the concept of a waterfall in broken Kajin Rālik to dumbfounded islanders who had never heard of a stream or seen a mountain.
Man Shark Page 18
