One Big Damn Puzzler

by John Harding

  ‘Yes, but she’s better now, thank you,’ said Lucy. ‘Your husband was so kind. He sat up all night with her.’

  He realized he’d missed what Gold had said. ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘I said, I knew it wouldn’t be long before you were back.’

  ‘You’re not surprised?’ asked William.

  ‘Why would I be? Why would you want to stay in America? Why hang around in a country full of fear and hate and littered with vulnerable tall buildings?’

  William would have liked to say more to the doctor, to tell him he wanted to help him, to do as much as he could to compensate for the effects of his first efforts to help the islanders, but the performance was about to start. Inside he found that Managua had contrived to seat him between himself and Lucy. Anyone could see from their faces that they were neither of them happy about it but there was nothing they could do; in spite of Die Hard being shown on one of the satellite channels that evening, there was a good turnout and the little theatre was crammed. Only the most committed Bruce Willis fans and Purnu had stayed away. ‘I is prefer action hero not inaction hero,’ the little sorcerer had told Managua, making him wonder if his rival had now read Hamlet as well, since he seemed to know so damn much about it. Lamua had stayed away too. She had suffered too much in the creative process of the translation to endure the performance. She preferred to babysit Perdita and Iago instead.

  ‘For die, for sleep;

  For sleep: mebbe for dream: yes, here is be big problem;

  For on that isle of Tuma what dreams you is go have

  When you is limp, mebbe one-legged, from this life,

  Is make we think . . . ’

  Although William’s concentration was keenly affected by the awkwardness of the seating arrangements one of the things that makes Shakespeare the greatest dramatist of all is his ability to lift your mind from the close proximity of a former lover with whom you have unresolved issues to higher – loftier, Managua would have said – thoughts. So it was now. Lintoa was speaking his lines beautifully and in the end William found himself transported by the words as he had never been before. Certainly not the last time he’d seen Hamlet, if he had seen it. Indeed, not being transported could be why he couldn’t remember if he had.

  ‘. . . who is go bear heavy load,

  For grunt and sweat on artificial limb,

  Unless is not be ready yet for Tuma,

  That undiscovered island from where

  All traveller is return in kassa house –

  Is be one more big damn puzzler’

  Of course, another reason the words were affecting him more than before, assuming there had been a before, was that they were not the same words. It wasn’t Shakespeare’s work that was making him think, but Managua’s transformation of Hamlet into something else. The original carried the bleak message that only the fear of unknown misery after death keeps us struggling through this life. But the old islander, with his kassa-house view of the afterlife, was asking, how can you give up on life until you’ve lived it? It might be hard, it might be heavy, you might have to get through it on one leg, but getting through it was what you did. Endurance was an essential part of being alive.

  William’s thoughts went back to the kassa house. Word back from Tuma, via his dad, was that a life, even an afterlife without struggle, lacked interest and that unalloyed pleasure eventually cloyed. Maybe that’s what the suicide bombers were finding now, that being pampered for all eternity was not worth the price they had paid.

  He thought how he’d spent his whole life being afraid and look where it had gotten him. He’d wasted huge chunks of his three and a half decades in meaningless rituals to ward off things that might never happen and one thing, death, that definitely would. His rituals hadn’t stopped that one getting any closer. Did it matter if Tuma was a myth and that the dead people who returned were no more than drug-induced hallucinations? You just had to let yourself believe and get on with your life. He pulled absent-mindedly at his trousers. He was starting to get comfortable in his thoughts, but not in what he was wearing.

  He heard a tinkle of laughter and realized it was Lucy. He couldn’t recall having heard her laugh much before; they hadn’t had a lot of time for fun. The sound was taken up by others around them and William got his focus back on the stage. It was the beginning of the last act and the audience was appreciating the topical jokes Managua had worked into the gravedigger scene. Instead of Shakespeare’s lampooning of lawyers and tanners, Managua poked fun at American soldiers; he was merciless on the subject of British hotel builders; he punned concerning the waterproof qualities of the hide of the black bantam pig. Then the laughter stopped as the first gravedigger lifted up a human skull.

  Lintoa obeyed the stage direction Takes the skull with such infinite tenderness that once more all snack foods were put on hold. A hush came over the audience. As Lintoa held up the skull, face to fleshless face, and stared into its empty sockets his voice sank almost to a whisper that you had to strain to hear.

  ‘Alas, poor Yorick! I is know she . . . ’

  The former she-boy’s voice cracked and died. There was a long pause. No-one dared breathe. William saw the footlights reflected in small jewels upon Lintoa’s cheeks. He was struggling to regain his voice after the slip. His expression took on a determined look.

  ‘I – I is know she . . . ’ he managed at last, the stress falling with heavy deliberation upon the final word. William’s flesh tingled as he understood what all the audience surely already knew, that Lintoa had not, after all, made a mistake but that he was holding the skull of his childhood friend, the little she-boy who had died for love of him. Tigua had always been meant to play Ophelia. Well, that was out of the question now, but Lintoa had contrived to find him this small part in the play. He swallowed and began again.

  ‘I is know she, Horatio: is be fellow who is always make joke, of most excellent fancy: I is bear she upon my back plenty many damn times; and now, I is not bear for imagine this thought!’

  His fingers caressed the skull’s gaping jaw.

  ‘Here is hang they lips that is always long for kiss me. Where is be you jokes now? you flashes of laughter that is make whole village roar? You is not have one now for make fun of you own grin? You is must go see white lady and tell she she is can paint she face as thick as she finger, still she is end in look like this; you is make she laugh at that, old friend . . . ’

  It was Lintoa’s finest hour. The moment when he became an actor. Of course he had been in training for it most of his life, playing unwillingly the part of a girl. But this was something else. This was the real thing. There was not a dry eye in the house. How Tigua would have loved this! William thought, to be, if only for a moment, the star of the show.

  William stole a sideways glance and saw a tear begin its slow progress down Lucy’s cheek and be hastily wiped away. Another followed. Before he could stop it, his hand reached out towards hers but she recoiled from its touch as though she’d been surprised by a green shoestring.

  He reached for it again.

  ‘No, leave me alone!’ she hissed.

  ‘If I’d wanted to do that, I wouldn’t have come back.’

  ‘Ssh!’ said Managua.

  Onstage the funeral of Ophelia was taking place. The audience became slightly restive. It wasn’t a burial service they could recognize. Ophelia’s relatives were all too upset. A woman in front of William turned round to see what was happening between him and Lucy.

  ‘Please, I know that you don’t know me and I don’t know you, not in one way—’

  ‘Not in any way!’ Her voice was louder this time.

  ‘Be quiet!’ snapped Managua, raising his voice too. Onstage they had moved on from the funeral to the final scene of the play, but the bit before the duel, Hamlet’s teasing of the hapless Osric, failed to grip the spectators. Two or three more people in front of William and Lucy turned around to see what was going on. One man stood up to look at them and a woman in front
of the man, behind him looking back at the two white people, told him to sit down because she couldn’t see them.

  William shifted uncomfortably in his seat again, pulling at his trousers. He tried to get his mind back on the play but it was no good; Shakespeare’s relentless wordplay was just too hard to follow, especially when filtered through Managua. It was a relief to see Claudius and Gertrude walk onto the stage. William tapped Lucy’s arm and when she looked at him, he smiled, and mimed, ‘Lucy, please—’

  Lucy shrugged. It was not the gesture of hostility William took it to be. His mime had been accompanied by alternate tooth grinding and it was impossible to decipher the words he was mouthing. That said, she felt annoyed. On the whole, she’d told herself, after he’d left this morning, she didn’t want him in her life, churning her feelings. She didn’t want him on the island where his American ways could not but make things even worse. In front of them more and more people were turning around, craning their necks, watching the dumbshow between them, which was looking to be more interesting than what was happening onstage, where the swordfight had begun. It was pretty tame, two people hitting one another with pieces of wood. If they’d wanted to see fighting they could have stayed home with Die Hard where they had proper guns.

  ‘I’m staying!’ said William.

  ‘You don’t belong here!’ snapped Lucy.

  ‘Is be hit, is be definite hit,’ said Osric.

  ‘Sssh!’ said Managua.

  ‘I don’t know what you want from me!’ said Lucy. It came out as an exasperated sob, louder than anything you could hear from the stage. Even Lintoa and the young man who was playing Laertes glanced up at them.

  ‘Gertrude, you is must not drink.’

  ‘A chance to try again. You must at least grant me that. To be the husband of my daughter’s mother.’

  A fat woman in the row behind them tapped William on the shoulder. He turned and she flashed him a wide, almost toothless smile. ‘You is think you is can say that again?’ she asked. ‘Is be plenty damn complicate for get in one go.’

  ‘Look out for queen there, ho!’

  ‘She doesn’t need her mother to have a husband,’ said Lucy. ‘This is one place on earth that can get by without men. Especially men like you. You’re just all wrong. We’ve had too much of America since you came here. You simply don’t belong.’

  ‘Treason! treason!’

  William didn’t answer. He rose from his seat.

  ‘Sit down!’ hissed Managua.

  A man behind him, who was sitting next to Dr Gold and his family, prodded Managua in the back and said, ‘You is be quiet. I is want for hear what he is go say.’

  A woman in front said, ‘You is be right. This is be too damn good for miss. Is be highlight of whole evening.’

  ‘Here, you taboo breaker, murderer, damn Dane,

  You is drink this red fungi stew,’ interrupted Lintoa.

  William didn’t need silence either from the audience around him or the people on the stage because he didn’t say anything. Instead he pulled off his T-shirt revealing his naked chest. He began to unbuckle his belt.

  ‘You that is look pale and is tremble at this chance,

  That is but dumb fellas or audience for this act,

  If I is only have time—’

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ cried Lucy.

  ‘Oh dear,’ shrieked the fat woman behind him, putting her hands to her face. ‘I is think he is go break taboo!’

  Onstage Hamlet dropped to the floor at the very moment William dropped his trousers. Every eye in the house was upon the American rather than the fake Dane. There was a huge collective gasp. He was naked except for a pubic leaf.

  There are some places in a story where you have to get on with the narrative, without pausing or digressing or figuring stuff out, where you have to keep the momentum going, to cut to the chase and run headlong to the end. And there are others where you just have to stop and explain why someone is wearing a pubic leaf. This is one of the latter.

  The first thing William did when the plane landed was to hail Tr’boa’s cab to take him and the Australian pilot to Purnu’s Mini Market where, after a brief explanation of his predicament, the little sorcerer counted two thousand dollars into the Australian’s outstretched palm.

  As they watched the man depart in the cab, Purnu said, ‘Is be plenty money for fly when you is only be in sky five minutes. If you is want for do again, I is take you plenty more cheap.’

  After not expressing his gratitude to Purnu, William sought out Lintoa who had just returned from the morning’s fishing.

  ‘Gwanga! I is think you is take plane.’

  ‘I did, but then I came back.’

  ‘How long you is stay this time?’

  ‘For ever. I’m not leaving again.’

  The big former she-boy looked at him hard. ‘What you is go do here?’

  ‘Fish, if you’ll still have me on your boat. Help Dr Gold if he’ll have me at the hospital. Grow yams, once I find out what they are. Get stoned on kassa. Grow older. See my daughter every day. Die. Go to Tuma. Come back and see you in the kassa house. Grow older. Slough. Grow older, become a floating baby, start all over again. What else is there?’

  ‘I is not know, gwanga. If is be anything else, I is not find.’

  He helped Lintoa carry his catch back to his hut where a surprised Perlua greeted him warmly and then began the task of gutting the fish and smoking them over the fire outside. The two men sat and watched her. Lintoa fired up a kassa pipe and passed it to William. Then he got up, went into the hut and came out again clutching a thick wad of typescript.

  ‘I is must go over my lines for tonight. You is please excuse me?’

  ‘Of course.’ William passed the pipe back. ‘There’s just one thing you can do for me.’

  ‘Yes?’ Lintoa took a hit of the kassa. ‘Anything, if I is can.’

  ‘Could you show me how to make a pubic leaf?’

  Lintoa put down the script and weighted it with a cooking pot. He went into the hut and emerged holding a length of liana with what looked an unfeasibly small leaf dangling from it. He thrust it at William. ‘Here, you is can have my spare.’

  William took it from him. He wondered if spare meant in case of accident to the one Lintoa was wearing or if he changed them to wash them. Could they even be washed or did you wear one until the autumnal moment when it fell apart and then just make a new one? He resisted the urge to sniff it.

  Lintoa was smiling. ‘You is not dress like American no more?’

  ‘You got it. Nor think like one, either. Do you mind if I change in your house?’

  William could hardly believe that he, who had been unable to use unfamiliar lavatories for fear of bacteria, had progressed through a slow process of shitting on a public beach to pulling on a thong that had in all probability recently encased the genitals of a primitive tribesman. He marvelled at the journey he had made since he first came to the island. He had never expected to reach this point, never dreamed he would share underwear – or was a pubic leaf technically outerwear since nothing was worn over it? – with another man. At least the leaf was not hard and scratchy as he’d expected but soft and smooth as silk. He wasn’t sure, though, that he’d ever feel comfortable with the liana string bisecting his butt.

  He emerged self-consciously from the hut. ‘Ha!’ said Lintoa. ‘Now you is not be American. You is be islander.’

  Perlua looked up from her fish-gutting and raised her eyebrows. ‘Is suit you, gwanga,’ she said, a smile playing on her lips, ‘but I is think you is go need longer string.’

  William fetched his trousers and pulled them on over the pubic leaf and put his T-shirt on again. Lintoa and Perlua looked puzzled.

  ‘It’s just for a while,’ he said. ‘I’d be grateful if you’d keep quiet about the pubic leaf for now.’

  Onstage Horatio had kneeled to cradle the dying Hamlet’s head in his arms. No-one was watching. There was too much of a hubbub
at the spectacle of an American in a pubic leaf. Well, it was a surprising sight. Most of the men in the audience had gone the other way, dresswise. They’d abandoned pubic leaves for Bermuda shorts.

  ‘Oh, I is die, Horatio,’ said Lintoa. Nobody heard. None of them believed Lintoa was really going to die, anyway. Bruce Willis never did.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ said Lucy for the second time.

  Before William could reply he was interrupted by a loud voice from the row behind. Mrs Gold said to her husband, ‘I hope you’re not going to start going around in one of those things.’

  ‘No, I want to stay here, but I won’t be going the whole hog like him,’ replied Gold with an amiable laugh. ‘I wouldn’t look good in something like that – and it doesn’t really go with wielding a scalpel.’

  ‘It kind of suits him though, doesn’t it?’ said Mrs Gold. She chuckled. ‘But I think he’s going to need a longer string.’

  Managua stood up and swung round. ‘BE QUIET!’ he bellowed. His voice was so commanding that if anyone had still been looking at the stage they would have seen Lintoa stop speaking mid-sentence. ‘We is be here for hear play,’ boomed the old man, ‘not you!’

  Lintoa took his cue from the play’s translator. ‘OH I IS DIE, HORATIO!’ he shouted. He didn’t sound like a dying man, but better that than not be heard at all. ‘THIS GREEN SHOESTRING VENOM PLUS RED FUNGI STEW IS DO ME IN!’

  The fat woman along the row from the Golds, who’d spoken earlier, raised an admonitory finger to Managua. ‘What for you is tell she for be quiet? She is be plenty damn right. He is go need longer string. Anyone is can see that.’

  ‘That is be plain truth,’ said another fat woman next to her, revealing a mouth as equally devoid of teeth as her companion’s. ‘I is not be surprise if string is break any minute now from strain.’

  ‘If we is be lucky!’ said the first woman, digging her in the ribs and giggling.

  Managua put his face in his hands.

  ‘What are you doing?’ cried Lucy. ‘Why are you dressed like that?’