Paratak would ask, “Where do the kājokwā come from again?”
“No one knows,” Ḷainjin would answer, “but what we do know is that, during the call of the north, the wind whips up gigantic mountains of waves that must crash upon a shore somewhere and must suck all manner of flotsam back into the sea with them.
“Much about the countercurrent can be observed,” he explained, “by watching water trapped at the bottom of the canoe. The water that splashes into one end as the boat dips into a trough must soon return to the other. The water from those gigantic swells that roll westward in añōneañ must stream back eastward sometime, somewhere. That is the secret of the kāleptak current. It is like the water sloshing back inside your canoe regardless of the direction of the wind. Kāleptak runs from west to east regardless of the deluge of wind and the waves that course over it. The bigger the kājokwā, the deeper it sinks into the countercurrent and the more difficult it is to retrieve from its stream.
“Your nature, and that of your Pohnpeian people,” he continued, “is to be content with the vast resources of your high island. We of the coral atolls have a nature that compels us to venture out after such things. Your children will ask you, ‘Father, how did they ever move such great stones to build this village?’ and only we of the small isolated islands will remember the answer.”
Ḷainjin was amused at the enormous quantities of water Paratak carried with him and the way he hugged the shore or the edge of the lagoon’s back reef as he sailed. This, no doubt, was due to his unhappy prior experience, adrift for so many days in the vast expanse outside the safety of their islet-encircled lagoon. But the root of his caution must have been respect and not fear. As he gradually gained confidence in his sailing master’s ability to foretell approaching weather, he learned to follow him farther and farther lagoonward, from the edges of the atoll’s eastern and southern fringing reefs to the more productive fishing grounds along the submerged western barrier reef, where fewer fishermen ventured. There, they could compete for larger catch, though there, they were always at risk of being swept out to sea should they get caught off guard by storm or mishap. And there, their comradery grew as, day by day, they returned home with ever-larger fish to feed their always-hungry, pregnant women.
Ḷainjin usually caught more fish, and as always, he was generous with them. At the end of each day, before they left their fishing grounds, Ḷainjin would maneuver his vessel to pass Paratak a few extra fish. It was a somewhat complicated movement, depending on the tide and wind, but from Paratak’s perspective, better at sea than close to shore, where others could see he had not caught them himself. The hulls — with their retracted sails and booms hanging to leeward, and with their outriggers to starboard — were not designed to attach and transfer loads one to the other, especially craft that were singly manned. The only approach possible was bow to bow on opposite tack or bow to stern pointing in the same direction. He taught Paratak to drop his oar, always tied at the stern, into the water, and grab fast to Ḷainjin’s bow where his forestay secured the rojak of his retracted sail. Once he grabbed hold of Ḷainjin’s rojak, Paratak would have to work with all his might to keep the boats separated and safe from crashing into one another in whatever wave action they faced. Ḷainjin, on his part, then crawled forward, dragging his large basket of fish upon the foredeck and tossing them, one by one, into Paratak’s hull.
That was how their friendship grew. Day by day, one who had developed the utmost respect for the sea followed another who had seemingly mastered it. Ḷainjin, whose true home was the sea and who knew its secrets, proved willing not only to share them with his friend but to share his catch as well. Each man invariably returned to his island home to distribute his catch and watch his pregnant woman cook and slowly devour the fish he brought to her. Ḷainjin had received word that the Chief’s egg had hatched and imagined him regurgitating his daily catch into his mate’s craw as she snuggled their chick beneath her. Likewise, he took much pleasure in watching Liṃanṃan suck the water from a fish’s eyes, crunch into the white, chewy eyeballs, and then abruptly invade the empty sockets with the same pointy tongue that, in prior days, had darted in and out of his mouth and teased him into elation. On her part, she must have thought of herself as puffy and undesirable, and she constantly implored him to take Joḷọk to mat with him.
“Here, look at this!” she said one evening, eating in Taknaṃ’s cookhouse and pulling back her sister’s skirts to expose her knee to him. “Look how dark from sunlight! She has already shown these knees to every boy on the island. Soon she’ll choose someone, and you’ll have some … jekaro boy standing in your way!”
Joḷọk giggled and covered herself, and Taknaṃ laughed approvingly. “Jab ālkwōj pein ak,” the old lady professed.
Yes, of course, Ḷainjin stirred beneath his kilt at such a provocative sight, combined with the coquettish glance Joḷọk directed his way. Yet he was a man who had searched his whole life for a mother he never knew. He had watched one moon cycle after another and yet another as he had crossed the ocean searching for her. Liṃanṃan, too, had waited her whole life for him. Why was it so surprising to her that he wanted to prove himself true to her too, especially now that she was about to get fat with his baby? Of course, she knew not that he had sailed beyond the farthest horizons beneath the faintest stars in search of her. How could she know in such a short time that he was not as fickle as the landlubbers who inhabited the men’s house? Truly, his destiny was to be less than understood. That saddened him. Yet he accepted it — crammed it into his throat along with how many other unfulfilled desires and secrets he stubbornly promised himself never to disgorge?
So instead of distracting himself with Joḷọk’s beguiling ways, he kept true to his plan and companioned with Jebrọ as he led his brothers across the early morning sky, each night appearing earlier, each morning appearing higher in the sky before dawn. Ḷainjin observed, in turn, each brother’s rising affect the weather in its own subtle way. Then Jebrọ began to appear at sunset and cross the sky during the whole of the night. When he finally disappeared before sunrise, Ḷainjin knew the call of the south was at its end, that his eldest brother Tūṃur was about to reign the skies again, and that Paratak’s kūro had migrated from around the atoll and congregated at the bottom of the passageway to the ocean. There was a door — of less than a cycle’s length — between the two seasons that allowed a man to sail pleasantly enough before the full wrath of Tūṃur’s enormous seas turned the ocean to uproar. This was a period before the invariable wind of the call of the north began, before the countercurrent began returning the mountains of water piled high against the great islands to the west from whence their ancestors came. It was just as the fledgling winds began to huff the ocean swells of buñtokrear but before the contrary swell kāleptak brought the reverse current that would sweep the ocean beneath its surface converse to these forces and churn the sea to furor, tumult, and turmoil. It was the last opportunity before the torrent of sunstorms would thicken the air with salt spray and cake the leaves of the highest of coconut trees, turning them from southern green to northern brown.
It was the morning of jetkāān, the first day that the door of añōneañ opened, so he knew the tides would reach their extremes. And because this was the time between the seasons, these extremes would reach their ultimate. The day would be short, the sky clear, and the wind brisk and steady from the northeast. It was not to be a day like any other. He had announced to Paratak that it was time to show him how to fish for kūro when there would truly be “kūro wōt laḷ!” They met on the sandy shore of Likōkkālọk’s island. Paratak’s daughter was there, attended by one of her workers, and Ḷainjin was joyless as he watched her wave good-bye to her proud father as they hoisted their sails and headed out across the lagoon toward the passageway.
They arrived well before noon, as the incoming tide began to pour from the rapidly bulging ocean through the passageway into the lagoon. Though the
wind blew hard, the waves from the east had but a short distance to build as they crossed the lagoon, so the ocean current pouring into the passageway counteracted the push of the waves, giving their lines a straight course to the bottom, where the kūro spawned. Ḷainjin showed his friend how to use three hooks to pull in three of the sad-mouthed, brown-and-black spotted groupers at once. The struggling movements of the fish cancelled each other. Paratak claimed he had never heard of such a thing, but he found himself succeeding at it repeatedly. His enthusiasm grew as the afternoon passed. They hoisted their sails again and again and sailed back out into the ocean, where they would lower them again and drift slowly back against the wind, fishing through the passageway with the incoming current. Their boats drifted close to one another, and the men held chanting contests.
One of them would chant, “Jab kōrkōr ioon kūro. Bwe?” and the other would respond, “Kūro wōt laḷ!” as they simultaneously pulled in their catch from below and competed to see which had three occupied hooks and which had only one or two. Then, at slack tide, when the water in the lagoon and ocean had leveled, Ḷainjin suggested they stop and eat. With zero tide, they began drifting, with the wind slowly pushing them out to sea as they rested. Ḷainjin took the opportunity to show his ri-katak the still-gentle kāleptak counterswell rolling beneath them as it lifted and lowered their boats even as the east wind, and now the current, swept them against it.
The tide had turned. The vast ocean bulge had begun to contract, and the water was now beginning to spurt out of the comparatively tiny atoll as it would through a crack at the edge of a shell cup. Ḷainjin pointed at kāleptak and explained to Paratak that the broad swell was particularly evident because the breadth of the atoll cut off its counterswell buñtokrear and that, as they drifted westward, buñtokrear would reform and overcome the counterswell to such an extent as to make it less detectable. Then he challenged Paratak to name the other two swells of the wapepe symbol. He showed Ḷainjin he had memorized them well. Then Ḷainjin pointed out that their situation was deceptive because the wind and the tide were now moving in the same direction, so the sea appeared calmer and less threatening. Earlier in the day, the two forces were fighting each other, causing the wave from the east to crest with more intimidation. Now the wind appeared to have lessened, but it had not. He asked Paratak to drop his line in the water. When he did so, the line immediately slanted off in the direction of the passageway. This caused him to realize how quickly they were drifting seaward.
“We can no longer fish. The wind and current are doubled against us now,” Ḷainjin explained.
“Then we return.”
“Let me give you something first!”
After some hard paddling, Ḷainjin maneuvered his bow to the other’s stern. Paratak immediately grabbed onto Ḷainjin’s proa where the two rojak met and held fast. But as Ḷainjin crawled forward, straddled his bow, and grabbed onto Paratak’s backstay, instead of the fish he usually swung his way, he handed him his heavy log of jāānkun and then several additional shells of water. Paratak grabbed onto them with a questioning look on his face just as Ḷainjin let loose of his backstay, cut loose Paratak’s oar where it floated between them, and used it to more quickly separate the two boats. The eyes of his Pohnpeian friend widened to such an extent they made Ḷainjin chuckle.
“I’m going to teach you to sail without your paddle,” he shouted at Paratak, continuing to backpaddle and further separate the two boats. “I’m going to teach you how you can use your leg as a tiller to steer. Go ahead and hoist your sail.”
Paratak sat staring at him in disbelief. He turned his head back to Tokjān’s gradually receding island near the passageway and then back to him several times, as though gauging the pace of their rapid drift. Ḷainjin could see that he had shaken Paratak’s tree of trust in him to its root. This would not be easy, but it was the best course for the Pohnpeian whom he had grown to accept as a friend.
“Paratak, you must trust me. Hoist your sail.”
Ḷainjin began hoisting his sail, and immediately, Paratak scrambled to hoist his. Ḷainjin secured both oars below, sat in his stern, and lowered one leg into the water. He sheeted in and, using his leg as an oar, began steering his craft toward Tokjān’s island next to the passageway. Paratak did the same, and Ḷainjin instructed him to follow from behind and set his course on a southeast tack for the passageway. After a while, it became obvious that, although the comparably fatter leg worked as a crude tiller, their cut into the wind proved hampered by lack of a sharp blade deep in the water. The combination of current and wind, it seemed, would take them to sea south of their mark. They could not return like this, not against this current, not against this wind, but Ḷainjin waited for Paratak’s judgment to solidify.
“No good!” shouted Paratak. “No can go!”
Then Ḷainjin told him to diak, and the men changed tacks and tried to sail northeast this time, using their legs as tillers. Paratak took the lead this time, but again, it gradually became obvious, more so and more quickly than before, that their course was short of target. Again, they were swept off course by the combination of wave, current, and an improper tiller. They would make neither the passageway nor the western barrier reef of the atoll, nor even the atoll’s northernmost islet, but again, Ḷainjin’s objective was for Paratak to come to this conclusion himself.
“We can no go!” he shouted at last. “We must use paddle!”
“Okay, now sail next to me!” With that, Ḷainjin released his sheet and turned his craft downwind on a course a little south of west. Paratak, who was behind him, rushed to do the same, and the boats began sailing beside each other. He turned to Ḷainjin with an approving smile on his face. Now the current, the wind, and the waves were all working with them, and the boats were easy to steer, even with their trailing legs angled only slightly down into the water. So this was the last lesson to be learned — that a man who lost his oar could passably steer his boat downwind. But upwind, not so well.
After a while, as expected, Paratak, sailing next to him, shouted, “We go in wrong direction!”
“No, Paratak, this is the right direction for you!” Ḷainjin shouted back to him. “This is your course to return home.”
The boats were speeding along, magically skipping over the waves, sails full of wind. In that moment, in those conditions, truly it appeared they were, in fact, pointed in the proper direction given the current conditions.
“No go home yet! Not time yet!”
“Paratak, this is the right time!” Ḷainjin shouted back, and then in short sentences amid Paratak’s various protests and in between plunging into the depths of the following swells and rising on the crests of the next ones following, he continued with the monologue he had prepared. “This is the right direction for you. If Raipuinlang dies, your Jau Areu title will die with him! You must return now to your father, before he dies. Look at you! Remember your story! You left as a boy swept away in a fishing canoe. You were dead to them. Now you will return a hero with a title. A man traveled with knowledge of sea and sail. This is your course! Memorize your angle to this buñtokrear swell pushing us! When you get tired, take down your sail, go below, and sleep. When morning comes, put up your sail and fly just south of west at this same angle until you see the mountains of your island rise from the sea. Then you will thank me! When you see your family, you will thank me again! When you claim the Jau Areu title from Raipuinlang, you will forever remember me as your truest friend!”
“How many days?” Paratak asked, furtively glancing back at the islets diminishing amid the growing swells and darkening sky.
“Four days without rest, but you must take care to rest! You must drift and sleep when you tire! Have faith in these swells. They will continue to push you home even as you rest. It should take you no more than eight days — more likely six or even five! Think of each wave as one step closer to home. And do me one favor. If Raipuinlang asks you about my mother, tell him I did find her!”
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With that, Ḷainjin lifted his leg from the water, watched his boat arc back around into the wind, and leveraged his oar down into the sea. He set an opposite course before glancing back to see his reluctant friend skipping rapidly upon the westward-rolling waves like a flat stone he had cast to a separate destiny before turning away to another.
Darkness had long fallen and the moon had climbed above the trees by the time he tacked eastward across the lagoon to Likōkkālọk’s island and beached his canoe amid the peaceful leeward waters sloshing restfully upon its shores. The tide was still receding. The sheltered lagoon glistened peacefully there in the moonlight — all in contrast to the imagined ongoing struggle of his friend at sea. “Calm yourself,” he whispered into the breeze, as the palms on either side of the narrow passageway rustled in the very wind he hoped would carry his message away to the panic-stricken Pohnpeian. With much effort, he lifted two of four woven-coconut-leaf baskets of large fish by their long, braided handles and placed them on his outrigger deck. The shiny, black eyes of the unhappy groupers that still lived gleamed back at him in the brilliant moonlight as they lay nearly motionless and quietly defeated. He carried the heavy baskets to Likōkkālọk’s cookhouse, where he met her standing in the doorway, startled by his unexpected appearance.
She immediately sensed that all had changed for her. He held fast to the baskets as she wrapped her arms around him, pressed her belly against his manhood, and looked up pleadingly. “Is he dead?”
“No, I set him off on his journey home. I doubt you will ever see him again.”
“He will die at sea?”
“I don’t think so. I think he will make it home!”
“Ḷōpako, that is wonderful. You are truly a good man. Destiny sent you to us. I feel so … free!”
Man Shark Page 31
