One Big Damn Puzzler

by John Harding

  Purnu rounded on him angrily. ‘Fool! He is give you two reasons that is contradict each other. Is not explain anything. If one is be true, other is not can be. If other is be true, first is not can be.’

  ‘OK,’ said N’roa, ‘so one of they is be wrong. Then other is be right. Is only need one correct explanation if I is not be mistake. You is only give we one explanation, this sperm thing. If is be wrong you is not have other one is be make right.’ He looked around at the crowd, many of whom were calling out such things as: ‘You is tell he N’roa’ and ‘You is speak sense for once’, although one or two muttered ‘What for big fool is not can hold tongue’ and ‘This is be what is happen when you is fill brain of idiot with kassa.’

  Purnu shifted his body round so he was facing the crowd. He raised a hand for silence. ‘This is not get we nowhere. Some of we is believe what Americans is say, is be sperm is make baby. Others is not. We is not be able for agree. So puzzler here is be, what we is go do now? We is allow woman Pilua for live in village with Managua? We is permit she is break taboo? If Managua is not accept sperm story, then surely he is must agree we is must keep all they old customs and taboo. Many years ago people is decide Pilua is break taboo when she is make fug-a-fug with white mans. She is therefore be unclean and is not can live in village.’

  ‘Wait up a minute there.’ They all turned to look at William. Some of their faces showed outrage at his interruption. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said nervously. ‘Perhaps it’s not my place to speak here.’

  ‘No, no, gwanga,’ said Purnu, ‘we is like for hear what you is say. We is can ignore if we is not agree.’

  ‘Well, the taboo is against making fug-a-fug with foreigners, as I understand it. But the point is that Pilua did not make fug-a-fug. You have only that term for when a man and woman make love. That is because in your society you don’t have a concept of forced fug-a-fug. The taboo doesn’t cover it because among yourselves it doesn’t exist. It was introduced here from outside. You cannot apply your taboo to what Americans and other foreigners do against someone’s will.’

  There were murmurs of assent and dissent to this. While some nodded in agreement with William’s speech others were arguing vehemently against him. One old man at the back called out, ‘Taboo is be taboo. You is break one you is break all.’

  Purnu raised a hand for silence again. ‘I is think we is not can decide this here. We is must hear story of this woman first. We is must know if is be true American is force she make fug-a-fug.’

  ‘I would like to hear her story too,’ said William. ‘If what I have been told is true then it will strengthen the argument for compensation. The American government will not want bad publicity about rape, which is our word for when a woman is forced against her will, and is counted among us a very bad thing. They are more likely to pay quietly for those who have been injured.’

  This was met with a huge chorus of approval coming mainly, William noticed, from those with one leg or foot. Managua shook his head, but didn’t say anything.

  Purnu stood. ‘This is be what we is do then, is all be agree? We is wait until we is hear Pilua story, then we is decide where she is go live. I is think we is finish for tonight. We is can now take more kassa.’

  The cheer that met this suggestion was interrupted by N’roa. ‘Wait for one moment, we is not be finish yet. Is be one more thing we is must discuss. If we is change one custom we is must change others, is not be so? What we is do ’bout she-boy Lintoa?’

  ‘Lintoa is be disgrace!’ snapped the old man at the back. ‘She is must be punish for make public show of pubic leaf.’

  ‘Is be all very well for say that, but we is must think more deep ’bout this,’ said Purnu. He resented Lintoa because of the she-boy’s effect upon his daughter, but on the other hand he had felt sorry for him in the past. He also guessed that if Lintoa became a boy and married Perlua it might finally convince Kiroa that she had no chance with the she-boy and encourage her to look elsewhere. And of course his crafty mind was always looking out for the main chance. If the she-boy custom were altered it would be another blow against Managua’s stern defence of the old order. Purnu wanted to make sure of getting compensation for his dead wife. He knew that change would favour him. It would bring Coca-Cola and American gadgets. ‘We is must remember this she-boy is not act like girl. She is have great courage for speak up before whole village. She is say what many is think but is not have guts for say. She is behave like man.’

  Managua shifted himself. This was a plenty tricky one for him. His daughter was in love with the she-boy. He didn’t want her to spend the next two years mooning about over someone in lipstick and a dress. He’d seen what a fool Kiroa had made of herself doing that. On the other hand Lintoa couldn’t be allowed to choose his sex now when he had so openly flouted tradition. ‘She is be young and we is must make allowance for this,’ he said. ‘But we is must not give way when young people is challenge ways of we ancestors. If we is do that, then everything is be one big damn mess. We is not give she-boy what she is want, but we is must show understanding and kindness too.’

  ‘Just how you is do both they things?’ asked Purnu.

  ‘She-boy is have two years until she is can choose. We is not let she choose now. But we is not make she wait whole two years. We is say she is can choose mebbe half a year before then.’

  There was general agreement to this. The kassa paste was being passed round and people were growing mellow enough to agree to anything. Two years, a year and a half, what did it really matter when you were out of your head and your dead folks were starting to appear? No-one objected to Managua’s proposal. N’roa was about to open his mouth but before he could do so, there was a commotion at the tunnel entrance. A teenage boy, too young to be permitted entry to the kassa house, popped his head through the opening. ‘You is come quick!’ he yelled. ‘She-boy Tigua is go die!’

  FIFTY-TWO

  THE FIRST THING you noticed about the village was that it was never silent. One reason William had been so keen to take the assignment on the island – apart from the enormity of the wrong done to the natives that needed to be righted – was the prospect of escaping the stresses and pressures of modern urban life, the promise of an outer peace he hoped would lead to an inner one. But in the village you swapped the background noise of planes and automobiles and late-night drunks abusing one another on the sidewalk outside your apartment and hip-hop music played at deafening volumes on car radios and police sirens and your neighbour’s too-loud TV, not for silence, but for the ever-present roar of the Pacific Ocean. It sounded to William exactly like the rush of his own blood inside his head when he put his hands over his ears to block out those city sounds and it always had the effect of making him contemplate his own mortality. But he didn’t hear the ocean now. Once they were outside the kassa hut, all anyone could hear were the screams of someone in the throes of agony.

  A small group of people were gathered around Tigua’s bed. His parents, on one side, the father’s arm around the mother’s shoulders. The sound of the woman’s sobbing was lost beneath the wail of Tigua’s cries; you could only tell the mother was weeping by the rhythmic heave of her shoulders. You also knew, from the way he was biting his lip, that it was only the effort it took to contain her grief that enabled her husband to hold in his own. On the other side of the straw mattress were Lucy and Sussua. The latter wrung his hands helplessly as Lucy wiped Tigua’s brow with a damp rag. As William entered Lucy looked up and shot him a glance that he knew was not one of welcome. There was a dreadful stench in the room, a mixture of vomit and excrement.

  The mother stood when she saw him. ‘Please, gwanga, you is help my girl. She is be my only daughter. I is not can live without she.’

  William opened his arms and the woman fell into them. He held her tight and patted her naked back, which was slick with sweat. ‘I’ll do my best,’ he murmured, releasing her to her husband.

  ‘Aaargh! I is be on fire! Someone is put out this b
urn!’ Tigua screamed. The cries cut right through you. It was like someone putting a knife into your skull.

  William kneeled beside the bed, opposite Lucy. ‘What can I do?’ he asked.

  She continued to dip the rag in a bowl of water and to wipe Tigua’s brow. Tigua was threshing about on the bed. Every so often his midriff would lift up, raise itself several inches from the mattress, and hold itself there for a few seconds before collapsing onto the bed again.

  ‘Nothing. You’ve already done it!’ snapped Lucy. Her unexpected fury took him aback. He recoiled as though with whiplash. ‘He’s dying,’ she said.

  ‘Dying, but how?’

  ‘He made himself a stew of orange fungi. It only takes a few to kill you. There isn’t any antidote. They’re always fatal.’

  William took Tigua’s hand and squeezed it. The she-boy stopped moving and peered up at him.

  ‘Hey gwanga,’ he said softly. ‘You is come for watch me die. I is be glad for have you here.’ He closed his eyes and winced as another spasm gripped him.

  William noticed the front of Tigua’s green dress was wet and covered in pieces of bright red vegetable matter. The red and the green together made him think incongruously of Christmas.

  ‘Are you sure they were orange? The stuff he’s thrown up looks red.’

  ‘There’s not much to choose between the colours, but if he’d only eaten red he wouldn’t be in this agony. Besides, Tigua would know the difference.’

  ‘What are you saying? It wasn’t a mistake? Tigua knew he was eating orange fungi? He meant to kill himself?’

  ‘Well, what did you think was going to happen when he found out about Lintoa and Perlua? It’s all your doing! It’s all because of your meddling. I warned you no good would come of it. If you hadn’t come here Lintoa would never have seen the other girl!’

  ‘He’d have seen her sooner or later, even if I’d never set foot on the island!’

  ‘I wish you hadn’t!’ Even as she said it Lucy knew that this was unfair. Everything hadn’t been all right on the island before William arrived. It had its bad bits like anywhere else. And it hadn’t proved immune to outside influence. But Lucy was upset and angry and looking for someone to blame. She had been on the island long enough to absorb its philosophy. Nothing that happened happened by chance. There was always bad magic. Someone was responsible. It was how she had thought as a child.

  Their argument was cut off by a commotion behind them and the crowd that had gathered at the entrance to the hut spilled into it as someone pushed them aside. Lintoa.

  Tigua didn’t see him as he made his way to the bed and kneeled beside it. The little she-boy had his eyes closed, fighting off another spasm. It was only when Lintoa took his hand between his two big paws that Tigua opened his eyes. At once the pain left his face and for the first time, he was able to smile.

  ‘Ah, so you is get here at last,’ he gasped. ‘I is wonder if you is manage in time. You is be late for own funeral. I is not hold out any hope you is be on time for mine.’

  Lintoa let go Tigua’s hand and knuckled a tear from his own eye. Then he smoothed his palm across the other boy’s brow. ‘Poor little fool. What for you is do this, my poor little fool?’

  ‘If you is not know that then I is do for nothing,’ said Tigua, smiling back. ‘But then, you is always be bit slow.’

  With a thumb Lintoa wiped a mascara smudge from Tigua’s eye socket. ‘You make-up is all run. You is cry too much.’

  ‘Aaaargh!’ Tigua’s body bounced up again. It was all Lucy and William could do to hold him down on the mattress. He lay there panting for several minutes until the griping had passed.

  He opened his eyes and smiled at Lintoa again. ‘I is look one big damn mess, huh?’

  Lintoa resumed stroking his friend. ‘You is look beautiful. You is always be beautiful.’

  ‘But not so beautiful as she, not so beautiful as she.’

  Lintoa didn’t answer. On the island you couldn’t tell someone who was dying a palliative lie. It would only come back to you later in the kassa house. So he simply hung his huge head. He let it drop onto Tigua’s chest. He didn’t mind the vomit. He let it lie there like a big sleepy dog’s.

  ‘Hey, listen,’ said Tigua. ‘I is want for you is have my green sling-backs. I is always love they shoes. I is know you is envy they.’ With a great effort that caused sweat and mascara to run down his cheeks he lifted his head from the bundle of rags it rested upon and stared, wild-eyed, across the room. Lintoa followed his gaze. The shoes stood on the floor against the far wall, neatly side by side as though someone had just stepped out of them. ‘I is want when you is wear you is think of me – oh!’ Again Tigua’s face contorted with pain.

  ‘You is must not talk like this,’ said Lintoa. ‘You is must not die.’

  ‘There must be something we can do,’ said William to Lucy. ‘Just because the natives don’t know of a cure, it doesn’t mean there isn’t one.’ He stood up. He was trying to think of movies he had seen where people had been poisoned or had taken drug overdoses. Would any of those things work on the fungi? The trouble was, he thought ruefully, from everything he’d been told, you couldn’t OD on orange fungi, there was no such thing as a dose, let alone an overdose. Even one was too many. Still, they would lose nothing by trying. ‘We must get the stuff out of his stomach,’ he said, ‘that’s the first thing to do. Lucy, do you have any salt at your place?’

  It was funny, Lucy thought afterwards, how she stopped herself from saying, ‘Why, you know I do,’ because that would have revealed that William had tasted salt at her house and implied that he had eaten there. Even at this moment the instinct for self-preservation kicked in. ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘A pot this big.’ She showed him with her hands. ‘It’s at least half full.’

  He turned to Lintoa. ‘Lintoa, I want you to go and fetch it. I want you to run like the wind.’

  ‘Let me go.’ Everyone looked towards the entrance. It was Purnu. ‘I is can fly. Is be much faster.’ No-one batted an eyelid and William didn’t have time to question the validity of the sorcerer’s offer.

  ‘OK, if you think so. Do you know what salt is?’

  ‘It’s in the cupboard on the kitchen wall,’ said Lucy. ‘It’s in a white plastic container.’

  ‘It will say salt on it,’ said William, enunciating the word slowly.

  ‘SUH-A-LUH-TUH,’ said Purnu. ‘I is can find.’

  Whether the little sorcerer did fly to fetch the salt, whether he himself had actually flown with Purnu, whether the man could fly at all, William would not afterwards be able to say. But one thing was certain. The time until he returned seemed, as any short period of waiting always does in such life-or-death circumstances, an age. Against the harrowing soundtrack of Tigua’s screams, William passed it by consulting Managua about orange fungi. The old man had limped in just after his arch-rival left – fortunately, William thought, thus avoiding a further proof, a practical example, no less, of Purnu’s new-found ability to read. It would have been too much for him to have SUH-A-LUH-TUH rubbed in the wound.

  ‘Is there no treatment?’

  ‘People is try all sort of things, but I is never know anything is work. Everyone who is eat orange fungi is die.’

  ‘That may be so,’ said William. ‘But if he’s going to die anyway, it must be worth trying anything. One thing’s for sure, it can’t make his pain any worse.’

  ‘You is waste you time, gwanga. Is be best for just comfort she until is be time for you is say you is see she in kassa house.’

  ‘I’m not giving in. Tell me some of the treatments.’

  Managua scratched his chin. ‘Well, is be one where you is take vomit from poison person and you is wrap in palm leaf and is bury in clearing where orange fungi is grow.’

  William tried not to show his dismay. ‘I, uh, I don’t think that’s going to work, somehow.’

  ‘You is be damn right. Is not be possibl
e for can work. You is must do in light of full moon. Moon is not be full tonight.’ He thought a moment longer. ‘Of course, is be useful if we is have green shoestring. That is be best thing. That is can help.’

  ‘That’s the very poisonous snake. You think that can save her?’

  ‘I is say help, I is not say nothing ’bout save. You is make shoestring angry and then you is let bite she-boy. She is die plenty damn fast instead of all this suffer. One blink of you eye and is all be over.’

  William stared at him in horror. ‘The blink of an eye?’

  ‘Well, maybe not blink of you eye. You is blink plenty damn fast.’

  Before William had time to do more than get his eyelid movements under control, Purnu was back with the salt. William took the plastic canister and poured half the contents into a coconut bowl of water. While Lucy cradled Tigua’s head in her arm, lifting it from his rag pillow, and Lintoa tenderly held open his blistered lips with his fingers, William tipped the contents down the little she-boy’s throat.

  Tigua spluttered and the salt water shot back out. He began coughing and they had to wait until the fit subsided. ‘OK, again,’ said William. He nodded to Lintoa. ‘This time, get his mouth closed so it doesn’t come back out.’

  ‘OK, gwanga.’

  Again Lucy lifted the head, Lintoa pried open the parched lips and William tipped the bowl. Tigua began gagging again as soon as the first drops hit his throat but his father held his body down and Lintoa kept his lips firmly apart until William had tipped the whole bowl into his throat and then clamped them tightly shut.

  This time there was no reflux. Tigua swallowed the whole lot. They repeated the exercise, then again and again until all the salt was gone.

  ‘Right,’ said William, remembering the movies he’d seen. ‘Now we have to make him sick and then we have to walk him, to get the poison through his system as fast as possible.’