“When she grows up,” he said, pointing to Paratak’s daughter sleeping inside by the cooking fire, “if she wants, I can take her to him.”
“She will soon forget about him. I’ll see to that!”
“He will be well off. I gave him my Pohnpeian title.”
“Yes, he has been bragging about that, but a title in the hands of a fool is like a spear in the hand of a woman — quickly taken.”
Then, ever so slowly, Likōkkālọk began to separate herself from his body by bending her head back and shaking her bun loose, draping herself in the aroma of flower-scented coconut milk. She gazed piercingly into his eyes as though inquisitively searching for some sign there that he wanted her. She caressed his back and then his arms with her hands. She touched just one of her large, black nipples ever so slightly against his lower chest and ran her fingertips down the strong arms that held fast to the baskets. Then the grateful expression on her face flashed playfully and she began to sway her swollen belly provocatively and ever so gently against his manhood, causing it to writhe out like a fish sprung from the water. Embarrassed, he could hardly step back but instead held her gaze by gradually closing the distance between his face and her open, protruding lips.
“I will need your help,” he said, feeling like a fool, his manhood slowly retracting beneath his kilt. He wondered who among her workers might have witnessed his burst of lust for her. She, disappointed at no longer feeling the point of his spear against her belly, tried to revive his passion by jiggling her tummy against it as if it had a mind of its own. Then she cupped her hands around the nape of his neck, tempting him to lower his mouth to hers.
“Anything … you want,” she responded, rising on her tiptoes, pressing the enlarged nipples of both breasts against him, her lips beckoning his.
“I want you to tell them it was all your idea, that you asked me to make the proa and trick him into returning home.”
“Done, but take me this once,” she said, releasing him for an instant as she fumbled to untie her skirts. He dropped the baskets and, much to her dismay, stayed her hand with his as he stepped back.
“You know I am too true for that. I have already given you everything but the throat I owe to another.”
“You are a magnificent man who makes us women crazy with desire. You shame me with your loyalty to my niece despite that angry one’s ambition” Likōkkālọk lowered her eyes to his now-hidden manhood. “But I will keep your secret from her nonetheless. You are a loyal worker, and as your lerooj, I must respect that above all else. Here, I want to bring you a basket of breadfruit to take to Liṃanṃan,” she said, turning away to her cookhouse.
He gazed about, looking for signs of onlookers around her courtyard. He did not want to take the basket, but how could he refuse?
“Thank you, Ḷōpako! Never fear, I will keep our secret! Take this to Liṃanṃan. She will be worried by your prolonged absence, and you have much to explain.”
“Then that will be our trade,” he responded, as they smiled broadly at each other, and then he slowly turned and walked away. Soon, he was home, where he beached his canoe for a second time and carried the breadfruit basket and Paratak’s paddle with him to the house of the irooj. He abandoned the basket by the cookhouse. Ḷaluj was sitting under the house rolling twine, as he expected. Ḷainjin gave him back the paddle he had fashioned and knew well. He nodded in response and chuckled to show he had solved the riddle of the boat designs that Ḷainjin had insisted upon.
“So your friend is on his way home on your boat designed to return not?”
Ḷainjin nodded back, and nothing more needed saying between them.
He returned to his canoe, removed the last two baskets of still-gasping fish, and rinsed them in the water. Then he placed the baskets on the wet sand at the gently surging edge of the lagoon and began rinsing his hull. He poured several scoops of clear water into the hull with his lem and then bailed the fishy water back out into the lagoon. Joḷọk sauntered down the beach as he continued bailing and squatted, low and flat-footed, over the fish in the baskets, teasing one of the fish with a poke as it opened its large mouth wide and then partially closed it again, as though trying to pump water through its gills.
“Poor thing, so far from its home at the bottom of the sea. Kūro, you definitely win the contest for the ugliest fish in the lagoon, don’t you agree?” she asked, speaking as though to the fish and then to Ḷainjin, and giggling as she poked one and then another with her index finger. Some, which had been caught solo and yanked from the depths quickly, were motionless and silly looking, with their stomachs inverted and bubbling out through tiny, sharp teeth. Their lips were blubbery and sad, and their eyes were small and set far too close together on their blotchy, flat faces. None were battered. They had been dehooked easily by holding on to them beneath the flap over their extremely large gills.
Ḷōbōkrōk and his friends arrived and helped Ḷainjin spread the butt ends of previously cut palm fronds across the sand as rollers, to slide the canoe upshore toward the shelter of his boathouse. Joḷọk followed along, struggling as she towed a heavy basket in each hand. She stopped and rested, as did they, between the heaving chants that pierced the night breeze, only to be quickly absorbed by the broad and lonely expanse of sandy beach exposed by the still-receding tide stretching along the entire length of their watery home. The unsettling image of his friend alone out there, out of his usual environment like the poor kūro, his leg dragging through the sea, grasping for dear life onto his lunging canoe and racing toward an unknown future, loomed in his thoughts and contrasted sharply with the tranquil environs around him. Yet he chanted repeatedly and even more fiercely as they dragged and pushed the canoe through the sand and then, in three or four stints, carried it to its resting place beneath his open, thatched boathouse.
Joḷọk ordered her brother to take the fish to their grandmother’s cookhouse, and the two stood alone as Ḷainjin patiently gathered his fishing implements. She ran her hand over one of the two spots where Ḷainjin rested his rear as he steered. It was visibly worn from his many days at sea. Close by was the worn edge of the deck opposite the outrigger side where the shaft of his oar had worn into the planking. She ran her fingers across that as though searching for some connection to the man she perhaps admired but who kept himself distant despite her every effort to draw him near. She stood peering into his eyes, then lifted herself and sat where he had earlier, except that while he had placed his feet within the hull, she straddled it in unladylike fashion, exposing her knees and both thighs, which popped through the wrap of her skirts. She lifted his oar at the same time and pretended she was steering the boat through the waves.
“I drew the water for your bath, and I grated coconut and gathered flower petals to sweeten the smell of your skin. Still, I like your smell the way it is now — sunburned, sweaty, and fishy. To me, that is the true smell of a man! I would take a man before his bath rather than after. That is how I differ from my sister. I’d wrap my legs around you right now, as you stand there, but then perhaps you would rather pretend I’m my sister. After I bathe you, I’ll snuff the lamps and let you drill me upside down or right side up, or like your catch” — laughing, she contorted her face by crossing her eyes and poking her tongue at him — “inside out!”
Ḷainjin could not help but laugh at her antics. “Liṃanṃan has been sharing stories with her sister again,” he thought. He was beginning to swell again beneath his kilt. He had not released his seed for a long time. “Can women sense such things?” he wondered. However, he had faced enough temptation for one night. “Lijoḷọk,” he said, you are a very desirable girl. Any man would want to drill you many ways, but a man only gets one chance to cast his story, and mine is to be” — he paused — “as loyal as possible to the one who cast herself into the sea to save me. Now I’m going to take my bath, thank you, and please… You go help your grandmother cook some fish.”
“You’re full of it!” she ar
gued, still friendly. “Soon you’ll be so full of seed your nose will bleed,” she said, laughing at her poetic comeback.
He went straight to the bathhouse and found, as expected, that she had done as she said. His enclave was silent and lonely save for the two shell lamps Joḷọk had lit for him, the rustle of the palm leaves, and the occasional creaking of the thatched framing in the wind. Inexplicably, he could not bear to spend the night by himself and, after his bath, returned to the house of the irooj. There he found Ḷaluj sitting as before, his back against one of the sunken coconut trunks supporting the home above. Paratak’s paddle lay next to him on the broadly woven mat beneath him.
Without speaking, he climbed the ladder into the intimacy of the sleeping family. The irooj was snoring in the corner. Ḷainjin lay silently on his stomach next to Liṃanṃan and then carefully placed his hand gently upon hers without waking her. He listened again to the wind, which reminded him of his friend out there, cold and struggling, leaping down the moonlit, windblown crests and then plunging into the troughs of the dark sea all about him. He could hear voices outside as a fire was being prepared in Taknaṃ’s cookhouse and conversation erupted over the surprising basket of breadfruit. He fell asleep imagining the house was sailing through the wind as it indeed whistled in periodic gusts beneath the thatched roof and, now and then, jostled its frame. He saw himself growing old, lying there for a generation or more, safe upon the stable floor surrounded by his children to be — perhaps never again to challenge the lonely vastness of the surrounding ocean.
The image of his friend’s frightened face just as he turned away from him haunted his memory. “Hang on!” he called to him repeatedly amid his exhausted sleep. He wakened periodically and snuggled closer to her, rested his face on his free hand next to hers, and yet again dozed, entranced by her heavy breathing and permeated by her warmth and pregnant beauty.
Ḷainjin had primed himself to answer questions about Paratak but found himself unprepared for the unplanned turn of events that occurred the following day. Upon returning from jekaro, he was told by Taknaṃ that Likōkkālọk had arrived and requested the irooj convene the council of aḷaps. Before he could finish his morning shell of hot nen, he found himself parrying spears with Liṃanṃan. Why had he brought fish to Likōkkālọk? Why hadn’t he mentioned the breadfruit gift to Joḷọk or her grandmother? What happened to Paratak? Where was the new canoe Ḷainjin had paid Ḷaluj to make? And why did he have such a regretful look on his face?
His answer to her questions and those of others was the same. He had “earned a title in Pohnpei that he was unlikely to ever use and Paratak was on his way to claim it.” They had joked about the title. After encouraging him for so long, why was she surprised when she found out he had done Likōkkālọk’s bidding by nudging the Pohnpeian to sea in his new canoe? Why would she be surprised he delivered Paratak’s catch to Likōkkālọk? Why was she surprised Likōkkālọk would respond to the gift of fish with breadfruit?
Then Liṃanṃan asked, “What about the island Likōkkālọk has given you?”
Stunned, Ḷainjin found out that Likōkkālọk had followed him before the tide had turned that night and had told Pedpedin and their gathering of aḷaps that she needed to reward him for the great service he had provided her, by granting him her aḷap rights to the northernmost islet of the atoll under the credo of mọrojinkwōt. He and his offspring could live there if they chose, and her workers there would pay tribute to his lineage accordingly.
Under the custom of jab ālkwōj pein ak, Ḷainjin could not refuse without insulting her. Everyone including Liṃanṃan knew this. Why shouldn’t he accept Likōkkālọk’s gift? From his perspective, he had earned the title by equitably ridding her of a problem she herself had created and could not solve. The islanders, however, seemed to be poisoning Liṃanṃan with innuendo. Rumors circled like fisher birds at wūnaak. Had Ḷainjin perhaps killed his friend? Had Paratak attacked him and lost? In either case, where was the canoe the man shark had given to him? Had Ḷainjin, rather than returning his body, simply set it adrift?
Most suggested Likōkkālọk’s spell had captured him, and this was what he guessed troubled Liṃanṃan most. Her worry was easily explained to him by Taknaṃ: “All was likely to unfold as Likōkkālọk wanted, and it was obvious to all that she wanted the man shark! When you accept the island, she will have you exactly where she wants! She will have you bringing fish to her every night and bruising your butt on that tree of hers as she has every other man she enticed into her web and, like a spider, sucked his spirit dry!”
Ḷainjin had never seen Liṃanṃan upset before, and she seemed to grow more and more agitated as, in turn, each woman came to offer her unsolicited advice. One, he heard, suggested she leave her father’s island, take him to Ujae, and raise her child there on her mother’s land, where it belonged. Another suggested she stay and pluck out Likōkkālọk’s eyes to prevent her from seeing him. She appeared as though facing the vortex of a waterspout, hesitant to tack left or right to escape. Wanting to get away from it all, she pleaded he take her fishing.
“I have an idea,” he said. “Why don’t we go searching for tilaan on the bird islands of the northeastern fringing reef? The jekaro boys use it to sharpen the shell of their knives, and they are running out. You can troll for fish along the way there and back.”
She seemed relieved at the opportunity to leave the island for a day. They launched his proa in the bright of the afternoon, set sail in the same brisk wind that was rushing their friend on his journey home, and left the pretentious rumormongering behind them for the moment. Liṃanṃan’s spirit appeared revived, set free the moment she hoisted their sail and sheeted in. She unfurled Ḷainjin’s line, dropped the lure into the water, and let the line play through her fingers until she judged its distance from the boat adequate. The trip was reminiscent of the voyage they took to the bird islands with Paratak several moons prior, except that the season had changed. The tides were more extreme, the wind was much heavier, and the waves were now choppy as they crossed the fringing reef at high tide. And it was three days earlier in the cycle, so the slack between the tides would come earlier than it had that evening long ago. He related the story of what had happened the day before — told her how he had lured Paratak out through the passageway into the ocean, how he took his paddle to prevent his return and sent him on his difficult but passable journey back home. Paratak would be happy once he returned to his family. He would have a lot to boast about with his new title.
Liṃanṃan agreed that he might. “Likōkkālọk would have continued to play him for a fool until she convinced one of her playmates to kill him in his sleep. I wonder how many kūro he has eaten by now?” she joked, and they laughed as they each estimated.
Ḷainjin thought he convinced her that he had justly solved a problem that would have surely led to unhappiness for them all. Then he reminded her that Paratak had promised to kill whoever fathered Likōkkālọk’s child if it proved not to be his, and it was said to be Etre’s. He regretted his duplicity the moment he spoke.
Her face turned from bright to gray as though a cloud had passed overhead. “We both know she bewitched poor Etre and got him in trouble with Paratak, and we both know her child is not his!”
At this, he felt cut to the bone by his own hand and would not, could not, muster a response. “Did she know?”
They approached the first bird islet along the string to the northmost islet Likōkkālọk was offering him rights to, and he asked her to rewind her fishing line. It was apparently not a good day for fishing. Then he laid out his plan. He knew the tide was still incoming, so once they lowered their sail, instead of beaching their canoe and circling the islet together, he would disembark at the southern tip. Then she would paddle to the northern end and wait for him there while he scoured the windward beach of the islet for any pumice stone he found washed up along the line of flotsam that marked the point of high tide. This light sto
ne, borne of the ocean, was the magic that allowed him and his jekaro boys to sharpen the edges of their shell knives. In turn, it allowed them to cut the face of the utak with the clean, thin slices necessary to draw the nectar and cause it to drip so profusely for so long.
He disembarked into the waist-high water at the stony edge of the islet. The tide was high and cool as he felt it sweeping around the passageway from the ocean reef, and the sounds of birds squawking amid the high-tide sounds of water surging high upon the stony shore filled his ears. His lips could barely reach the skin above the back of her skirts to kiss her. Then he shoved his craft lagoonward for her mission and climbed the shore toward his. He cut through the brush at the edge of the islet and stopped to strip the leaflets from the frond of a sprouted coconut tree to weave a small basket for his finds. When he arrived at the ocean side, he found the tide perfect for his purposes. The waves had washed up a contorted, incurving line of flotsam made up of all manner of bird-nesting materials, feathers, and discarded coconut leaves and husks, and amid these scattered remains of days past, he found several pieces of pumice the size of the eye of his hand or smaller.
When he arrived at the north end of the islet, he found that, despite his orders to paddle about, she had managed — with the help of the coconut-frond skids he had cut and always carried in his hull — to beach the bow of the boat by herself. He found her there, sitting on the shore, watching the stern gently rising and falling with the remnant of the Kāliptak swell that crossed the submerged western barrier reef, swept across the lagoon, and gently sloshed upon the lagoon shores of these easternmost islets. She sat there, proud of her strength and ability to do such a thing despite her condition.
She was hungry. Unfortunately, he had given his log of jāānkun to Paratak the day before, so he plunged into the goo-caked interior of the islet carrying a stake from his boat. He kicked down a few fresh coconuts from one of the few palms planted on the islet and, with his stake, husked them along with several other sprouted nuts he found beneath the tree. She made do with these. He ate nothing as he watched her eat and continued to marvel that his child was growing inside her. Finally, together, they lifted the proa farther onto the shore, she rested her head on his breast, and they napped a bit upon a bed of kōņņat leaves. Frazzled from the events of the morning past, they spoke not but slept soundly, and by the time they awakened from their separate dreams, the tide seemed to be approaching its ebb. The current swept deeply and smoothly between the islets, and the colors of the back reef between them had changed from sharp to mysteriously blurry browns, and greens and grays. This was the tide where all manner of ocean and lagoon marine life could cross between ocean and lagoon with impunity.
Man Shark Page 32
