by Albert Wendt
Master Manogipesemalie’s elaborate training
which as for the fishers concentrated first
on developing dexterity of the smellsense
Once the Master was satisfied with that
he introduced a music smellvocabulary
centuries long: all existence (even smell-
thought) is a unity of smellsounds
the gifted musicians’ genius could expand
That language was usually nostril made
using inhaling and exhaling techniques too
complicated for me and mouth throat
chest belly head and netherend as
extension or accompanying instruments
No other instruments were used and lyrics
were secondary to the smellsounds which
out of an accomplished smellsinger were at
least five parts ranging from deepest bass
to sopranos outside my smellhearing range
Olfact music was also accompanied by
all the smells smellcomposed into the song
You may think that a fantastic trip but
when you know the Olfact order of smellpreferences
you’d probably gag and flee
Apart from sulphur stench the depths of
evil to them the other stenches to us
they deem exquisite heights of goodness
and fertility so in one of their typical
love songs the beloved is described/smelled:
‘My love is like the malodorous scents
of red meat melting in the breeze’
Another: ‘Smell me darling wrap your
fertile BO around me’ Yet another:
‘Darling we are one in your delicious fish stench’
Here’s how I ‘notated’ in my memory
one of the Master’s simpler songs – the lyrics
first then the accompaniment as performed
by nostrils and other expert organs
including the extrovert arse:
1 Beloved I love your skin fragrances
2 The rancid fertility of your softhaired armpits
3 is heady drug for my hungry breath
4 Beloved I’m high so high on the aromas
5 of your seaweed nest and tunnelled stream
1 Sniff-SNIFFF lowgulletsigh exhalelongandburp
2 Dizzylovesickinhaling-sopranosoftlongdrawnoutfart
3 Spirallinginsuckingbreath-staccatobellygasps-onearseblast
4 Sniff-SNIFFF-trillingbreathcrescendoingtosopranoinsuckingbreath
5 Lowpanting one-two-three then loudwhoopingfartdribbling
Of his pupils the Master chose a girl to be
his heir The all-male Council of Masters
argued against it so the shrewd Master
set up a public competition for all
musicians who aspired to his post
In every category of musicianship she wiped
the floor with everyone and then
in the open category of improvisation
and original song she revolutionised
Olfact music by demonstrating
new possibilities in the aromatic and vocal
versatility of what only women possess
(True genius is to take one’s art
into realms undreamt of before) She be-
came Manogipesemalie the 41st
Their greeting was the sogi like ours
noses pressed together to inhale each other’s
breath but theirs assumed
a very odd form: When the two parties
meet and the male leaders sogi
they also feel each others testicles and sniff
their greeting hands in long drawn-out
breaths (Women however never do that)
When I sought explanation for this
they said It’s how it’s always been
But being as you know an insatiably
curious student of humanity’s quirks
I observed pondered and observed
concluding that testicles being our vital
procreating source should be greeted first
and as our most distinct scentprint needs
to be made known and trusted by guests
first It was also related to Olfactor courtship
and sexual love which was an elaborate
dance of exploring the loved one’s
aromatic print from hairtip to toenail
and erogenous sole of foot and if com-
patibility was found merging your essences
as one temporarily or ‘until smell-less
do us part’ as it were
Your partner(s) could be of any sex –
the crucial tie was aromatic compatibility
You could also love/marry more than one
To end a union all you had to say
was Our odours no longer agree
(6) Love and Courtship
With my sexual preferences Olfact suited me
and I learned through their smell techniques
to enjoy loving women too (though I was
shocked when I was first lovesmelled
–their term for making love – by one of them)
Like us Olfactors aren’t supposed to court
openly lovesmelling is a private activity –
only animals lovesmell publicly But again
like us the love dance if you know its
music and steps is ever going on around you
In our society as in many others on
our puritanical ship it is taboo to discuss
sex openly or in mixed company or within
the hearing of supposedly innocent kids
Every storyteller has to navigate
the delicate line between ‘the clean’
and what is branded corrupting pornography
Not that I’ve ever been scared of our ruling
hypocrites and censorship but too clean
a telling can strangle a tale and
too selfindulgent ‘the dirt’ can choke it too
So in recalling my initiation into Olfact’s
lovesmelling art I’ll try to balance the two
and not betray the honesty of my art or
lose the attention of puritans and lovers of porn
I didn’t see/smell it happening at first
but Manogilaumaile later detailed how
she’d accidentally sniffed my essences
and her scentbuds had throbbed and sung
She suppressed it though for weeks
because how could she desire the essences
of a primitive who was smellectually handicapped?
Shame however couldn’t keep at bay the fierce
hunger of smelllove she’d also been raised
like all Olfactors never to deny the nose’s truths
A humble weaver she’d seen three husbands depart
for younger essences leaving her five kids
old parents and other relatives to support
One of the ‘silent majority’ whose uncomplaining
slog kept Olfact smellaffluent and strong
she said she’d tried repeatedly to attract
my nose’s attention but couldn’t because my
smellpower was ‘innocent and weak’ and
being a proper Olfact woman she wasn’t
going to smellpressure me in public
So after weeks of agony she’d decided
to follow her nostrils’ natural instincts
secretly at night into my unresisting bed
What a night it was! I now recall
(And what love that followed)
One by one my pores were sniffed awake
to the inhaling fire and breath of
the intruder’s skin around but not
touching me and sighing nose
savouring my head hair scents
No! the whisper stopped my embracing it
so I held aquivering still while
the youth so I believed lovesmelled all
of me methodically from head to toes
and back without touching my singing stick
How I heaved groaned held in the fire
as the anonymous nostrils foraged in
and smelltuned my stick to a burst
of white liquid petals my lover smell-
licked to his coming as he fled
I couldn’t sleep after that: my body was a taut
drum skin being played endlessly by memories
of my unknown lover’s inhaling sighing
cooing heat Ardour had cooled with age
but now I was again a raunchy greed
For days I tried identifying him
For frustrated nights that ended in shameless
selfrelief he didn’t come to heal my need
which forced me to court other youths
who laughed me away as ‘primitive meat’
To be free of this I decided to leave Olfact
Word must’ve spread because that night
after I’d packed and was trying to sleep
my saving lover returned and kept returning
anonymously for a night lifetime of my rebirth
until I knew to my quick his every odour
breath sound heat but not touch or taste
for he never put flesh upon or in me
I became addicted to lovesmelling techniques
and we blew copiously nightly
Remember that French artist last year
who strangled his mistress put her in
his fridge and feasted on her bit by bit
And when questioned said ‘I loved
her so much I had to kill her’
Don’t forget also that Nafanua lost
Her beloved Tagatalua when She tried
to own her forever and acquired
from a reluctant Tagaloa exceptional
immortality for her in a riddle
So not satisfied with owning my lover
anonymously in only his fragrant beauty
of heat and breath I plotted to snare
his identity in the light (Reality
I then believed needed eyes’ proving)
We said little and after each lovesmelling
rested side by side in the darkness
Sometimes he slept but always left
before first light One time he almost
overslept and I promised to wake him on time
For days I resisted my desire
to see him but after each denial
the yearning grew ravenously and found
my groping hands trying to shape
his body as he lay beside me
Stop! he whispered That doesn’t add
to the quality of our lovesmelling: we’re
our smellessences – that’s what we must
trust and love for they last forever –
the feel and shape of body is temporary
Not raised on the values of their smellculture
I refused the truth of his statement
My hungry truthestablishing eyes had
to discover him add beauty of sight
and colour to his other loveliness
One night after I deliberately love-
smelled him into exhausted slumber
I pretended sleep and as daylight
eased like probing fingers through
the blinds onto his unresisting contours
I watched through slitted eyelids the birth
of his unexpected female geography
and was surprised not to feel my usual revulsion:
the Olfactor Way of choosing lovers
through fragrances was now mine too
Manogilaumaile woke thought I was asleep
and fled into the startled morning All day
I savoured her geography but that night
pretended I didn’t know it However
I started introducing her to our Way of Loving:
a finger touch here there everywhere
The following nights a lingering caress and fondle
then lick of hot tongue on lips nipples
navel belly and you can imagine the limits
(Novelty is the spice of sex they tell me)
As she learned (and she was a gifted pupil) she returned
the pleasure which I then heightened by
teaching her our erotic word vocabulary
whispering syllables/vowels groans/moans
phrases/sentences down her whirling earholes
When she was ready I finally taught her
the shape feel and hardness of penis
the hot flow of mouth and the taste
and promise of our style of sex
As lovers we combined lovesmelling and fucking
And what a combination! However
though she now knew I was no primitive idiot
she was still too ashamed to reveal our love
to others and I respected her decision
because I didn’t want to lose her
(7) Justice
I must now discuss justice in Olfact
because that’s where my love for
Manogilaumaile led eventually
As in other societies Olfact justice is
based on scales of punishment and reform
from capital punishment to banishment
exile fines and community work
Their re-education programmes try to save
those who confess deviant quirks and
genuinely want to reconform to society’s norms
Their capital punishment is not to exact
the murderer’s life but to erase totally
his olfactory sense and if he persists
in his evil deeds he’s exiled to
Motulemanogi Island-without-smell to survive alone
Capital punishment can also take the form
of exile to Manutevolo where he’d choke
to death on sulphur stench (which as
I’ve said is programmed into every Olfactor
at birth as fatal reward for evil performed)
Their Council of Justice comprises representatives of
the Priesthood Smellocrats Masters and
surprisingly five democratically elected commoners
(Evil democracy is not a new threat) And
presided over by Manogitupusili Smell-of-Supreme-King
Who incidentally is chosen by the Smellocracy
out of its ranks (in similar fashion to
the College of Cardinals choosing the Pope) and
Who rules until death or senility of
olfactory sense or severe smellsense malfunctioning
Manogitupusili is also Supreme Priest
Supreme Master and most feared of all
Fofosili’oagasala Supreme Healer of Crimes/Sins
He needed no formal network of police or spies
because Olfactors are raised to report all crimes/sins
and become ill (sometimes fatally) from guilt
if they don’t Individual crime is treated
by the Council as action of a family so
the family Head appears instead of the culprit
and if guilt is proven it’s on that family
who then implements the punishment on kin
I saw parents destroy olfactory senses of loved ones
exile others to Manutevolo to die and
eye for an eye cut off guilty limbs
or recite endless prayers of repentance
Sentences of re-education are administered by
the Supreme Healer of Sins and his expert cadre
of Olfactorologists Olfactoriasists Olfac-
torpractors and other specialists in
the intricate workings of the olfactory and society
From observing their work reforming sinners
I was scared enough not to want
to
study how they were trained by their Master
However they were certainly clinically and
thoroughly expert in their different specialities
deriving immense satisfaction out of what
one described as ‘saving the wayward
the spiritually lost and ideologically incorrect
for our great Atua ManogiPaiaoPaia Smell-
of-Holiness-of-Holies Who into the odourless Void
breathed all essences of Smell-Intelligence which
gave birth to colour energy time matter
and Olfact Nose of the Universe and Vanimonimo
ManogiPaiaoPaia Protector of Olfact from
the surrounding Abyss of Smellessness’
My tale is deviating into their Religion
I’d better return to Manogilaumaile
For a while I was willing to let our love
remain a secret – better a nightime Manogilaumaile
than not having her around at all
But as I’ve said we want utter possession of
our lovers and before I knew it I was
demanding tearfully that we live openly
as a happy couple loyal to Olfact’s morality
Not that there was a law against illicit sex
She resisted and resisted distracting me
with smellblowing bouts of loving and
promises of persuading her family into
accepting me a primitive alien as her
spouse and their loyal servant
The night was as still as the dawn before
Tagaloa whispered the first Word into Vanimonimo
Around me the dark was an orchestra
of noses waiting expectantly to savour
what was going to happen and I prayed
she wasn’t coming but into my waiting
pushed her hypnotic fragrances then
the shuffle of her footsteps and body
