As the present became the past and he felt suspended in time and space Michael reflected on his friendships. Semese would surface somewhere he hoped, when they would be on an even footing professionally. Polly and Jim could go anywhere now that they had cracked the cultural shell and found another world. Robert and Dinah might both wind up in the tropical north of Australia but he had his doubts about Robert permanently committed to hedonism. Then there was Min - his soul mate, tortured on the same rack and trying to hide the congealed scars. As if to balance his confidences she had finally told him about the accident which had killed her husband and her bitterness in relation to her mother who construed the event as God’s will. Their relationship still had a cerebral course to run but one day they might be ready to consummate it once they learned to practise the art of “joie de vivre”. He smiled and closed his eyes. The drone of the engines pulsed on and off in his ears until there was silence.
Min heard the plane overhead just as she was walking around the desks looking at the children’s neat work. Their handwriting and presentation were remarkable. However the substance left much to be desired and she felt the weight of responsibility for widening their horizons before the shallow gee-wizardry of American television moved in to capture hearts and minds.
‘You can’t make the world according to your vision,’ she said to herself and she let her mind turn to her friendship with Michael who was now high over the Pacific. She would miss him and their shared experiences. She wished him well and that they would resume the relationship when his problem had been solved.
Her small study at some distance from the classrooms was cluttered with students’ assignments and a colony of tiny geckoes. Their knowing little eyes darted about while their splayed hands carried them with lightning speed to total immobility in seconds. Min found them endearingly comical in spite of their indiscriminate depositing of faecal matter on her notes and folders.
Outside the louvres was a silent stillness peculiar to a school vacated by its human population. The loud colours of the plants always made her think about confidence in her function as a teacher. There had been times when she suffered from the imposter syndrome which she identified as knowing what you don’t know. But in this environment she was less inclined to bouts of self doubt because she was surrounded by what appeared to her to be people convinced of their role and the blowsy confidence of nature.
The heat paralysed her to the point where she wanted to sit at her desk and cogitate or lie on the floor mat and sleep. She thought about the astringent quality of winter and craved the infusion of energy she was afforded by a crisp clear winter day in her home town. There were those at home who dreamed of tropical beaches and bright shimmering water, forgetting that for most of the population in such places work must be done and the lazy indulgence of the tourist was not a reality.
‘I saw your car and thought you must be still here. Your husband will want his meal I think.’ Min started slightly at the sudden appearance of the headmaster.
‘Yes - I’ve been dreaming. That’s what the heat does to me.’
‘How old is your husband?’
‘As old as his tongue and a little older than his teeth.’
The headmaster who was a large man with particularly strong teeth himself, looked mystified. He stared at Min and waited for an explanation which she withheld, thinking furiously how to deflect his curiosity.
‘Where does your husband work?’
In this small society there was nowhere to hide or scope for untruths. Min felt trapped.
‘I’m glad you called in because there is something I need to ask you about.’ She joined her hands under her chin and looked thoughtful.
‘Do you believe in corporal punishment in the classroom?’
‘Why do you ask?’
Min, feeling rescued from her private revelations, went on to discuss the new policy of no corporal punishment by the students currently in training. To her relief the headmaster became voluble in defence of the stick and told her that he was not interested in “these American ideas”. As he got up to go he asked Min for a ride to town. The subject was closed.
Chapter 53
Yushi and Fanua’s wedding day started like any Sunday in the village. The young men got up at first light to prepare the earth ovens and scrape the coconuts. The women were up early to prepare vegetables and salads for the fifty or so guests who were expected.
Fanua’s sisters were the handmaidens in the traditional sense. They would supervise her dressing and do her hair which she wanted in thick loops. Then they would do each other’s.
The church had been swept the day before and huge bowls of flowers and garlands of colourful foliage had been placed in every available space. Some regular spraying would maintain their crisp beauty.
Yushi had slept very little in spite of a generous tot of whisky before bedtime. Early in the evening he had gone with Min in her car to meet his sister at the airport after her two-day journey. Min had offered him the use of her car so he could greet Noriko on his own but he was too excited to go alone, he said. He kept telling Min that he was so pleased that his sister was coming and that she was staying at Min’s house, conferring on her a semi-maternal role, she thought to herself.
When he woke in the house he had rented in the township the sun was already so hot that he was glad that his sister had brought him a light grey suit which she had hired from the same place as he would have hired the heavy black formal gear for a wedding at home. He got up and took his usual cold shower before spraying himself with some perfume which Noriko had brought. When he looked in the mirror and saw his thick black hair he wondered if he should have had it cut. It hadn’t occurred to him until now and it wasn’t Fanua’s way to try and organise his personal agenda. That pleased him. He peered at himself and bared his teeth, feeling satisfied with what he saw.
Before making a phone call to Noriko he went to the tiny shrine which he had put up in his room to establish a personal space in his new quarters. This was a very significant day in his life and such gestures reassured him that the auguries would be good so far from home.
Min and Noriko drove to the house and they all had a short whisky to fortify themselves. Min had a feeling of outsider solidarity with her companions but she urged them to speak their own language when they, out of politeness, began to speak English. She was interested to observe a different Yushi, comfortable in communication with his sister after a prolonged deprivation of the familiar. Noriko was slight and delicate with proportioned features and a soft lisp in her speech. She was three years older than her brother and Min thought she detected a hint of protectiveness towards him. Yushi sensitive, looked at Min apologetically from time to time and she reassured him that it was a pleasure to listen to their euphonious though unintelligible language. (She remembered how a friend had once told her that her first desire to learn English came from listening to its sounds without understanding.)
It was eventually time to drive to Yushi’s old flat to pick up his friends who were to be his attendants. Then their arrival in the village was greeted by young family members announcing gleefully that Fanua was hiding. Her parents Naomi and Filipe came towards the car to welcome them. Filipe led Yushi and his party to the church where they were overwhelmed by the fragrance and colour of the decorations. Noriko smiled at Min to show her pleasure while Min worried that she Noriko, might fall asleep from sensory overload and lack of rest. She decided to keep a close eye on her.
The church slowly filled up and Dinah and Robert came to sit beside Min and Noriko. Min introduced them and to Min’s surprise Dinah spoke Japanese. A woman for all seasons, thought Min. There was no sign of Polly and Jim before the harmonium burst into the bridal march and the congregation looked around to see Fanua in her white finery. From that brief glance Min was reminded of the Lady Diana about to sail voluminously down the aisle of Westminster Abbey.
‘So theatrical,’ she thought to herself, ‘and not for me.’
The vows were exchanged and Min strained her ears to hear Yushi’s carefully rehearsed words. Dinah nudged her for no apparent reason but told her later that it sounded as if he were taking Fanua for his woeful wife. The congregation soon raised their voices in enthusiastic hymn- singing and the harmonium went into percussion mode which caused Dinah to nudge Min again. Min didn’t know the words to the hymns but a kindly soul behind her passed over a book which she shared with Dinah to forestall further nudges.
The bride and groom knelt in the altar space and the pastor prayed at length first in the local language and then in English. Min went into her head space and reflected how human beings appoint another being like themselves to take on the shamanic role of intermediary between man and god. It was an easy solution to the natural desire for solemnity and ritual and there seemed to be no shortage of candidates for the role. Having been reared on ritual, Min now found it all faintly ludicrous. She longed for the next bout of singing whose lusty sincerity never failed to make her spine tingle.
Outside the church were people taking photographs and after the family groups had been assembled and then dispersed, Yushi summoned his expatriate friends along with the group of white-clad children who had managed to star in every picture so far.
Finally the party began to walk back along the road to a large fale where food was laid out and being fanned by some smiling young boys. A pig strode in front of the wedding party and Min wondered if it was a sign of good luck.
‘It would be if it flew,’ said Robert.
‘I think it’s a sign of a good meal sooner or later,’ said Dinah who turned to Noriko to translate.
‘Pig is important in village?’ asked Noriko and Min said,
‘Very. That’s why it’s walking in front.’
Robert thought it had got a whiff of a relative being burnt at the stake for the delectation of the wedding guests.
Chapter 54
‘I wonder where Polly and Jim have got to.’
‘Maybe they got the day wrong.’
Dinah said she had spoken to Polly at the market the previous week and they had talked about the coming event and what they would wear.
‘I hope nothing’s wrong.’
‘If so, it must have been a last minute thing.’ Min felt concern for them both and recalled Jim’s conversation with her when he showed little enthusiasm for the occasion.
Yushi had come over to get Noriko to meet his parents-in-law and Min watched the interaction with fascination. Noriko looked so tiny alongside the large figures of Fanua’s parents who were elders in their village and whose stature matched their status. Noriko bowed several times and Yushi looked proud to have his sister beside him. Her delicacy enchanted Min who always felt ungainly beside Asian women. Whenever Min looked at Noriko to check her stamina she was smiling, as if she had stepped into another dimension and was captivated by everything she saw. Even the scrawny hens pecking around the guests’ feet and occasionally on a table, had made her laugh without understanding Robert’s comment about their position in the pecking order. When Dinah tried to translate his witticism, she asked Dinah where she had learned Japanese and was told that she had spent half a year as an exchange student in Kyoto and had had a wonderful time.
‘I want to go back one day,’ she said dreamily.
Noriko was asked to take a seat near Yushi and Fanua while the speeches were made and toasts were drunk. Yushi was handed a knife to cut the cake but before doing so he brandished it like a samurai sword causing amusement among the guests and a small mock frown from his sister. Naomi went to a nearby fale where several fine mats were waiting to be presented to the couple and Yushi after several appreciative bows, explained the significance of these objects to his sister. They would be part of their family’s inheritance and were to be prized as such and used as gifts in similar special circumstances.
When darkness fell with its sudden swiftness, the area was transformed into a fairy-lit dancing space while a number of guitars and traditional log drums appeared, encouraging everybody to dance. Min walked over to chat to the bridal pair while Noriko turned her attention to some little girls who had been gazing at her with great interest. One piped up the classic salutation for foreigners -bye bye- and Noriko waved her hand saying “sayonara” which they mimicked. Min told her that they might be saying it in several years’ time because words uttered by foreigners often became part of a village vocabulary with its origin forgotten. She omitted to add that some of those words were regrettable.
Before Yushi and Fanua left to go back to town, they discussed the next day’s programme with Noriko including the arrangements for flying to New Zealand. Dinah was to pick them in the afternoon and take them to the airport.
The next morning Min had an early class so she was careful not to disturb Noriko hoping that she would wake in time to pack. She wrote a bon voyage note and left it on the table and told her to help herself to food in the refrigerator.
After class Min went to Polly and Jim’s place to find out what had happened to make them miss the wedding. There was no answer to her knock, but as she was getting back into her car one of the neighbours came over to speak to her and to tell her that they had gone to the hospital. That was all she knew as they had not come back. Min wondered if she should go to the hospital to enquire about them but she decided to go home and wait till the evening when she would phone the house or the hospital. Her over active mind suggested all sorts of reasons for the situation, most of which she knew were unlikely. She chose a miscarriage as the most likely explanation even though neither had mentioned a pregnancy.
When at last she got a reply to her phone call Jim confirmed that Polly had had a miscarriage and had to stay for another night in the hospital for close observation.
‘We missed you at the wedding and I was worried about you. You seemed so down when we last spoke.’
‘Yeah - well - we had too much on our minds as it happened and Polly is very upset about everything. Things haven’t been going too well since I got back from the States.’
‘Can I help?’
‘Could you pick Polly up from the hospital tomorrow?’
Min was glad to be able to do that as she had only morning classes and Jim would let her know what time and he would come with her.
When Min arrived at the college the next day the other staff were discussing an article which had appeared in the weekly newspaper the day before. As soon as she came into the staff room there was a hush and some meaningful glances exchanged. The paper was lying on the table and she saw the headline and guessed what they had been talking about.
She was in no mood to be the butt of a generalisation so she found herself speaking on behalf of her friends with some passion.
“Volunteer Labour in Developing Countries - a Doubtful Blessing”, opined the headline under the pseudonym “Patriot”.
Her colleagues looked embarrassed and one of them folded the paper and said that the article did not reflect a general opinion. Min however to their surprise, said she was glad the notion was out in the open because she had heard hints of resentment about the quality of volunteer labour and it needed to be discussed. The principal said that the writer was obviously not in the field of education and trying to fill staff vacancies and Min smiled at her saying that it was to be hoped she wasn’t forced as the article implied, to take people who were rejected by their own society.
‘We volunteers all have our own reasons for offering our services but I can honestly say that none of my friends would be unemployable at home. That’s not to say that unsuitable people don’t slip through the net.’
Min realised that she had been standing while the others were sitting and that was very bad form. So she sat down suddenly and took a very deep breath. A moment of silence was broken by a hand clap by one of the male teachers and she said, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to preach.’ There was a general relaxation and some laughter while the principal said ‘It’s time to man t
he barricades everybody,’ and the tension was completely dissipated.
‘This is the last thing Polly and Jim will want to hear,’ thought Min as she gathered up her books.
Chapter 55
After her last class the principal handed Min a letter in her mother’s handwriting and she felt her heart bound. Letters from her mother were rare and Min suspected that she wanted to write things which she couldn’t say on the telephone.
She waited until she got home before she opened it and as if to forestall her foreboding, there on the dining table was an exquisitely wrapped gift. Her mood changed suddenly and she felt like a kid on a birthday. First a letter and now a present. She sat down and held them both, unsure which one to open first. She always hesitated before opening a beautifully wrapped gift and when she did she deconstructed it in a gingerly way to prolong the pleasure. She would read her mother’s letter and let the gift console her if necessary.
‘Dear Winefride,’ it began, with a chilling note of formality.
‘It is difficult for me to write this letter because my conscience dictates that I explain myself to you whom I love deeply but do not pretend to understand. There are things which I want you toknow in case something happens to me and such matters have been left unsaid. You will probably never know (if you are not blessed with a child of your own) how I thanked God when I knew He had blessed me with a child and I dedicated you to Him from that moment. Thus I hoped and prayed that you would become a nun and by offering yourself as a virgin in God’s service would fulfill one of our dearest wishes. Yes - your father has always shared my ambition even if his intentions have been less clear.
‘But our hopes were dashed when we discovered that you were living IN SIN with a man. Worse still - he did not share our faith and it seemed as if you were prepared to squander that priceless gift - that Pearl of Great Price - for earthly pleasures.
While you have been away and I am sure doing good work, I have agonised about your immortal soul (I feel partly responsible for its existence) and I have prayed for you and your return to the Church. The death of your friend (I would normally say RIP and ‘husband’ - but that would be hypocritical of me) has given you another chance to be reconciled with God and His Church…’
Another Throw of The Dice Page 18
