One Big Damn Puzzler

by John Harding

  But then, Hamlet was such a wonderful play that Managua longed to see it performed. The only trouble was that his version might so bowdlerize the ideas it contained as to render it, if not meaningless, then ordinary. It was possible that in converting it to an island version it might be unavoidable that he destroyed what had made it great in the first place.

  Then there were some parts of it even he didn’t understand, in spite of all his reading. He would have to ask the gwanga about them; after all, the gwanga had actually seen Hamlet. There must be many things that were puzzling when you just read them in the Complete Shakespeare that would become clear when you saw the play performed.

  Managua tossed his pencil angrily across the room. That damned gwanga! It was his fault that Managua had got so little done all morning, his fault that he could not concentrate, he realized that now when the image of the white man swam to the surface of his mind. He’d been there all day, lurking beneath his thoughts, tugging at him like the undertow at the landing beach, pulling him down from the nobler – the loftier – thoughts of Shakespeare.

  Managua bent and picked up his leg and strapped it on. It was no good, he couldn’t work with all this on his mind. It was no use ignoring this Pilua business. If he didn’t do something about it, the gwanga would start asking around. Questions whose answers could lead to something that would destroy the island for ever. But what could he, Managua, do?

  Perhaps he should consult Miss Lucy. After all, she understood how the islanders’ beliefs underpinned their whole way of life and had always gone out of her way to respect them, apart of course from the silly mistake she’d made over the business of the dresses, and then, of course, she had meant well.

  Then again, if he asked her advice, would he not have to lay the whole damn thing out before her? What if she betrayed him to the gwanga? He did not think that she would, but who knew if she would feel obliged to side with another white person?

  He would take a walk, maybe talk it over with Cordelia, if his wife wasn’t watching him too closely. Of course the pig couldn’t understand him, but he often found expressing his thoughts aloud to her helped him find out what they were.

  Just as Managua was getting to his feet, or rather foot, Lamua came in. She had a guilty air about her and he knew at once that she had been looking for the pig. But she didn’t look guilty enough to make him think she’d found Cordelia and harmed her, so he didn’t bother to get into a big row about that. The important thing was that he not act suspiciously. It was bad enough this business with the pig, without adding Pilua to the problems between him and his wife.

  Lamua began tidying his desk which Managua interpreted as a declaration of hostility because she was angry at not finding the pig. He declined the gauntlet and limped out.

  He crossed the central space in front of the kassa hut and saw Tigua and her two she-boy pals larking about. They were playing some kind of game, trying to walk along an old log wearing those damn high heels Miss Lucy had given them. Tigua could do it easily, but the big girl, Lintoa, had a real problem. She was sowing and complaining about her feet hurting, which was not surprising when you thought she was wearing an old pair of Miss Lucy’s shoes. Even with new bigger straps they were still far too small.

  Their silliness annoyed Managua. There were two old women in the village who had lost a foot and one who had lost both. The she-boys ought to be helping them, doing the things girls were supposed to do, cooking, cleaning, making clothes. But these young people today thought only of having fun. It used not to be this way.

  He caught himself thinking this and told himself he was getting old and intolerant. He liked young people. He didn’t want to be one of those old folk who went on about how things were better when they were young. Besides, it probably wasn’t true. Nothing ever really changed on the island. It had always remained the same – despite the meddling of the British and the murderous impact of the Americans, both of which it had survived intact, well, almost, apart from his own leg and a few other missing limbs – and always would. Provided, of course, that he could stop this gwanga from interfering.

  Tigua’s high-pitched giggle broke into his thoughts. She was one silly girl! He regretted having offered her the part of Ophelia, if and when his Hamlet was performed. He worried that she lacked the seriousness for the part. He didn’t see Ophelia as much of a giggler. Sussua was the prettiest of the three, but she was so shy you couldn’t give her a major role. And Lintoa would never impress anyone as a female lead. Lintoa was just too big. As it was she would have to play Gertrude, which in itself might stretch the audience’s credulity. It would be difficult to believe that Lintoa had got one man to marry her, let alone two – and one of them to murder the other for her into the bargain.

  Looking at them now, Managua wondered, not for the first time, if he should have done Macbeth instead. They would have been perfect for the three weird sisters. Seeing them now in their Westerners’ dresses, with their susus strapped up in the devices underneath, tottering around on their high heels, he thought they were certainly weird all right.

  Ah well! He would just have to work with what he’d got. It was no different from the way Shakespeare had done it. They didn’t have women actors in his day. All his female characters had been she-boys too.

  He remembered he hadn’t asked Tigua to take the food for the gwanga to the Captain Cook and limped towards the she-boys. ‘Tigua!’ he shouted. It came out rather more angrily than he’d intended, but then the way the three of them were behaving was beyond tolerance and he knew it was Tigua who was the ringleader. She was the most imaginative and resourceful of the three.

  Tigua twisted to see who had called and fell over because of the high heels. At the sight of Managua she removed them, pulled herself to her feet and hurried over, one hand behind her back, obviously holding and concealing the shoes.

  Managua didn’t mention them. This was not the time to be getting into that; the three of them knew what he thought about the dresses.

  ‘I is want you is go take food for gwanga at Captain Cook,’ he said.

  Tigua’s face brightened. A little with relief at the shoes being ignored by Managua for once, but mainly at her good fortune in being the one selected to go see the gwanga. Just wait till Lintoa found out.

  ELEVEN

  ‘WHAT FOR BRITISH is want for come here?’ Tigua paused for a moment to straighten the heavy basket which seemed in danger of slipping off her head.

  ‘Here, let me,’ said William gallantly reaching for it, but Tigua neatly sidestepped him and continued along the beach. William shrugged and followed the girl. It didn’t seem right allowing a woman to carry all his stuff, but somehow Tigua’s insistence on doing it made him feel rude and ungrateful for even offering to shoulder the load himself.

  The basket was full of minoa root bread, cakes, fruit, rice, vegetables and turtle eggs. After he’d taken a look around the village, observing the various tasks the natives were engaged in and trying to assess the increased difficulty caused by having only one hand, or arm or leg, William had met up with Tigua on the way back to the hotel and the girl had explained she was bringing food to him.

  ‘What for they is want for build this?’ insisted Tigua, indicating the concrete shell of the hotel which now hove into view as they rounded the headland into the next bay.

  ‘To come on vacation,’ said William. ‘For holidays.’

  ‘What this is be, holiday?’

  ‘It means taking a break from work.’ William saw Tigua’s brow pleat with puzzlement and remembered that the islanders had at best a hazy concept of work. ‘It’s a change from your normal life, a rest, do something different.’

  ‘Man, that is be crazy. What for anyone is want for change life? What for is want for anything is be different?’

  William took in the horseshoe bay they were entering as they rounded the headland. The sea shimmered in the afternoon sun, the white horses of the breakers galloped in to collapse upon the golden shore, th
e wind tickled the leaves of the palm trees. Why would you, if you were Tigua, want more? What was there better than this?

  ‘Don’t you ever want anything different?’ he asked. ‘Don’t you sometimes wish for something else?’

  Tigua screwed up her eyes in concentration. ‘No. Yes. Mebbe new dress, is all. Is not want for be anywhere different. Is not want for go another island.’

  ‘And you think that’s the same for everyone here? Your friends feel the same way?’

  ‘Yes. Except mebbe Lintoa, she is mebbe like for be boy.’

  William remembered the one they called Lintoa from the walk back from the landing beach yesterday. He could understand the poor girl having some gender confusion. She was halfway to being a guy already. Mind you, Tigua, for all her girlishness, was not exactly feminine. He decided to avoid the subject. ‘You see, not everywhere is like this. In Britain it’s often cold and raining. It would be very pleasant for British people to leave all that behind and come here and sit on the beach.’

  ‘Huh! Come all way across sea just for shit on beach! What is be so great ’bout that? What is be so bad ’bout shit on own beach, even if is make rain there?’

  William sighed. He couldn’t be bothered pointing out that Tigua had misheard ‘shit’ for ‘sit’. The concept of anyone just wanting to sit on a beach and do nothing was too alien, he suspected, for Tigua to ever encompass it and would seem more eccentric to her, probably, than the idea of travelling halfway round the world to defecate in a different place.

  They walked up the broken wooden steps separating the beach from the hotel terrace which opened into the lobby that led into the bar and dining room which William had decided to keep as his bedroom.

  Tigua put the basket down. ‘Well, thank you,’ said William, turning to face the young woman, intending this as a signal that they should part here and Tigua go home. Tigua ignored him and brushed past him into the building, looking around all the time.

  ‘Man, this is be one big place. I is not come here before. People is say bad spirit is live here.’ She gave him a simpering look. ‘But I is not be frighten with you.’

  William felt himself blush with embarrassment. He was used to girls flinging themselves at him because they wanted to protect him, not the other way round. He wished Tigua would go. But you couldn’t be annoyed with her. She had a vivaciousness and interest in things that he might have found attractive had she just not been so damned butch-looking.

  Together they explored the building. Behind the bar was a room obviously intended as some kind of library or reading room. The walls were lined with bookshelves from floor to ceiling, but there were no books.

  ‘Managua is take books,’ explained Tigua. ‘No-one else is want; no-one else is can read. Managua is not can read when he is take, but is keep till he is learn.’

  Behind the library was a long corridor with doors on the other side of it. There were some ten doors but when they opened them they found they only gave on to the jungle. The front of the hotel had never been built. At one end there was what William at first thought was another bar, but then realized was a reception desk, with a couple of dozen pigeon-holes behind it, optimistically numbered for the guest rooms. Beside the reception desk was the wooden staircase, its treads rotten and holed in places. He started up it but Tigua grabbed his arm.

  ‘No, gwanga, Managua is say I is tell you you is must not go up steps. He is say steps is be dangerous. Termites is eat they all. Managua is not want for you is have accident.’

  William was going to challenge this because he thought the steps looked solid enough on the side flanked by the wall, but seeing the anxiety in Tigua’s face decided he ought not to get the girl into trouble with Managua. Besides, the old guy probably knew what he was talking about and what was the point of risking it? There would be nothing to see up there anyway.

  He returned to the dining room and began unpacking his case, taking out the books and positioning them on the opposite end of the dining table from the one he used as a bed. He took out his cell phone too, although he already knew it to be useless. Once his battery ran down he had no means of recharging it. Anyway, there was no mast on or near the island so even if he’d been able to power it up, it wouldn’t have worked. He wished he’d done his homework better and prepared for all this.

  ‘Is be plenty books,’ said Tigua. ‘Is be more than Managua is have. You is read all they books?’

  ‘Well, not exactly. I mean, maybe, over the years a bit here and a bit there, but they’re not the kind of books you sit down and read right through. More books to refer to, check things in.’

  ‘All I is say is you is not let Managua is see they books. That man is go crazy for books.’

  William pulled up a chair, sat down and opened one of the books. He took out his notebook and began writing in it. He didn’t look up. Eventually Tigua cleared her throat.

  ‘Well, gwanga, if you is not want anything more, I is go now.’

  William looked up and smiled. ‘OK Tigua. And thank you for your assistance, my dear.’

  Tigua dismissed this with a wave of her hand. ‘Is be nothing. You is want anything you is just ask me. You is not go Lintoa, is understand? Lintoa is be one big sow, is throw she weight around all time.’

  ‘I understand. If I need anything, and I’m sure I will, you’ll be the first person I come to.’

  He was surprised when Tigua gave him a thumbs-up sign. Where had she got that from? ‘Sure thing, gwanga. I is see you next day at shitting!’

  ‘Yes,’ said William. Although to himself he added, not if I see you first. He still couldn’t get his head round the idea of a woman watching him take a dump. He didn’t know that the she-boys used a separate part of the beach and that Tigua had merely meant he’d see him before or after they visited their respective areas.

  TWELVE

  ALTHOUGH OCD MADE his life difficult in lots of ways, it also – as is the case for many sufferers – helped William to be successful in his chosen profession. It made him a good lawyer. The rituals he engaged in required him to pay great attention to minute details, to learn extreme patience and to be painstaking in matters of accuracy. Like many obsessive-compulsives, he exhibited a creative streak. This didn’t surprise him. How could anyone come up with the idea of standing astride a linoleum join and rocking from side to side to view different aspects of bathroom fittings as a way to ward off ill fortune and not be creative?

  OCD people view the world as a place where magic exists, where evil events occur randomly but can – illogically – be prevented by seemingly unconnected practices. In this respect William had more in common with the people of the island than their more obvious cultural differences might have suggested.

  These are some of the ways in which William’s OCD affected him: he could not sit comfortably in a room in which there was a door open, not even a cupboard door. Nor could he sit with his back to the main entrance of a room. When people noticed this, for instance when he lunched in a restaurant with someone and was forced to jockey in an unavoidably noticeable way for a position facing the door, he would always joke it was on account of what happened to Wild Bill Hickock, that he didn’t want to be shot in the back.

  He could not bear to have an inappropriate object on the ground within his peripheral vision. For example, if he was sitting with a book at a table at a pavement café and another patron’s paper napkin blew onto the ground beside him, his anticipated pleasure of an hour’s quiet reading would be ruined.

  In such an event a number of courses of action were open to him. First, he could attempt to continue with his book and hope another gust of wind might carry the napkin further away, completely outside his line of vision.

  If this did not then happen he’d have to consider his other options. One was to move his chair so that he could no longer see the offending piece of paper, but this didn’t really work. He would remain too agitated to enjoy his book. He might not be able to see the napkin, but he would still kn
ow it was there.

  He could get up and pick up the napkin, and that was always tempting, but he almost never did it because it would undoubtedly make him appear an oddball in front of the rest of the café’s clientele and its waiters. And then there was the problem of where to put the napkin. He had a horror – another aspect of OCD, in which fear of germs and compulsive hand-washing often feature – of other people’s litter and would not want it in his pocket or briefcase. Besides, if he did pick up the napkin, what would he do if another one blew from another table and replaced it? Pick that up too? What was he supposed to do, pick up litter all afternoon? His quiet time would still be ruined.

  Another possibility was to point out the napkin to one of the waiters, but this seemed not only bossy but also presumptuous. After all, it was their café, their pavement area, who was he to tell them to keep it tidy? If it didn’t bother the rest of their customers, why should it bother him? Why should the waiters run around after one freak?

  The final option, of course, was simply to put away his book, gulp down the remainder of his coffee and leave, to abort his period of quiet relaxation entirely. And that was what he almost always did. Having a cup of coffee out of doors on a breezy day was not really an option for William, unless it was so windy that any errant napkins got themselves blown right away.

  On sidewalks William either had to tread on the cracks between paving stones or avoid them altogether. It didn’t particularly matter which, except that having started on a course of action he had to carry on the same way. He couldn’t step on a crack and then avoid one with his next step.

  He was a tall man whose stride was longer than one paving stone but not as long as two. This meant he had to foreshorten his stride, walking in little steps, like Madame Butterfly, or alternatively, lengthen it to the extent that he looked like a goose-stepping Nazi storm trooper.