Archipelago
Page 7
Hans had a friend named Sulem, a shore boy, and not a hill boy. Sulem had a block of heavy black wood. He was carving a statue from it. What he wanted was to use the power tools in the shop-truck, but he came to that gradually; one day just to sharpen his knives, then to use the wood-rasps and rat-tailed files for touch-ups.
“But Hans, what I really want is to put the thing on a lathe and cut it down. It will save me a month of work in five minutes, and if you let me use it all day — ”
“Dammit man, we don't want it primitive, we only want it to seem primitive. Look, Hans, we figure out ten patterns. Then I bring you the blocks and you do the rough work with the lathes and power-saws. You can do a hundred a day. Then my uncles will finish them and put on the marks. And I know some girls who can peddle the things to the outfits. We'll be rich.”
They didn't set it up, though. On one island something similar had been done and the statuettes were inferior. Hans was right to forbid it. They didn't go into production with Sulem, but they did let him use the wood-rasps and the files and the saws, and he made monsters for them all. The one he worked on most seriously was the Grandfather of Finnegan, a very small amulet.
Sulem explained this to Hans apart.
“That boy Finnegan, he has no tujuan, Hans. This is might strange not to have one. The crust of the world is thin enough even for those who have it. What is to prevent one who lacks it from stepping through and falling forever? When we want to see a person truly, we chew tai leaves which gives us second sight. Then we see him surrounded by his own light. I do not know the word in English.”
“Aura,” said Hans.
“By his aura. When we see the aura, we understand the direction of the tujuan. But your Finnegan has neither.”
“He once said that he did not have a shadow, only the shadow of a shadow.”
“That is true. He is without it. He is not a human man. You knew that?”
“I knew he was not quite. I do not understand your tujuan. Is it the soul?”
“No, Hans, that is the semangat. Everybody has a soul, a semangat, and nearly everyone has a tujuan. It is with you as when they send you somewhere, when they cut your orders. It is the orders themselves, the directions, the where you should go. It is the life you are here for all written fine on vellum made of the skin of the cuscus and rolled up fine as a pebble. Some say that this is placed in the brain under the lobe. Some say that it is placed in the liver which is the governor of the body. I myself believe it to be set in the diaphragm which is also the seat of the soul. But with your Finnegan it is nowhere. He has no direction. Why would he not be lost without a direction? He has not been given a tujuan.
“Almost always God remembers to give it to one. But sometimes he forgets. With Finnegan he has forgotten.”
So Sulem made a grandfather of Finnegan. “Hans,” he said, “that boy really needs a grandfather. He's split in two. I never saw a boy who needed a grandfather so bad. That boy's going to have trouble and this might be the only thing to save him. His way is down the road to ruin. He must somehow trick that ruin at the end.”
“But how do you know what my grandfather looks like?” Finnegan asked when he heard about it.
“This, Finnegan,” said Sulem, “I will have to dream what he looks like, and my uncles to help me to dream it too. After that, it won't be much of a trick.”
It wasn't much of a trick to make, but it didn't look like Finnegan's grandfather. It looked like part lizard and part toad. It wasn't pretty, but it had steady eyes and a lot of character, a sort of loathsome integrity.
“Sulem, that isn't my grandfather,” Finnegan insisted. “He was funny looking, yes, but that just isn't him.”
“No, Finn, it isn't a grandfather like that. But we use the word grandfather because we don't use the other word.”
Finnegan took a cup of water and baptized the thing Heliogabalus. He put it on a chain around his neck with the Miraculous Medal. He said that he had made a Christian out of the reptilian old Roman.
Heliogabalus was a canny monster, and he had a purpose in life and a place in the world. That was more than Finnegan had. He stayed with Finnegan to the very end: and, when found on him then, was believed to be of a different cultus. For the end of Finnegan was on another sort of island.
In those days Hans had exhilarating dreams of climbing. They were of several kinds: climbing up cliffs through a shower of arrows, climbing up the sides of buildings through pistol shot, climbing many thousands of feet on a great iron ladder hung in the sky. And climbing up ragged shafts in caves with the sunlight thousands of feet above.
This last had to do with climbing a giant spider's web. The threads of the web were cables eight inches thick; the climb was so high that the bottom of the shaft diminished to a point and then disappeared long before the center of the web was reached.
The red eyes of the giant spider shined like locomotive headlights; and when the spider moved the whole web shook with thunder. Still, the only thing was to go and get him. A lot of people who never tackled a giant spider don't know how much nerve it takes. The sword Hans had was a Roman sword; this seemed odd, for the spider belonged surely to an older myth, Greek or Hindu. The hairs on the spider's toes were thicker than most trees, and whether this was the right or wrong place to start to kill a giant spider, a start must be made.
The climb on the iron ladder was the finest of all, though here the only danger was from the great height. This went up through the clouds till the earth could no longer be seen, up past the highest birds which (according to Vincent) might have been created in full flight only a moment ago. The golden eagles wheeled around Hans and fell away, and neither the top nor the bottom of the ladder could be seen, but only the sky above and below. This was perfection. This was achievement.
Hans climbed the iron ladder towards the sun. Hans was Apollo.
12.
They were at another station now. They were on Luzon. On the way they passed some islands and Hans told a story about them: “That's where the Chinese get the nests for their birds’-nest soup,” he told them. “This is the only place in the world. The trade is very old.” “It doesn't look like there's even a tree on those islands,” said Finnegan.
“You, Giovanni, are the perfect straight man,” Hans told him. “I hoped you would say that. There is not a tree on those islands, or even a blade of grass. I am told by people who have been to both places that their surface most nearly resembles that of Mars. There is only vestigial vegetation. The islands are made of coral and limestone. Sea birds come here and build their nests. They build them up from their own effluvia and regurgitations. They gorge on fish, and then eat a little limestone to give it body. Then they bring it up again, and spread it, and let it harden. They make additional deposits. They build their nests that way, and the Chinese use them in soup.”
These were the Talaud Islands, and they were four degrees North.
The sun went down and the moon came up on the finest night they had ever known at sea. In everyone's mind there is always one night remembered above all others for the beauty of it. The Dirty Five (being all of one mind) would all remember this one night.
Their wake was phosphorescent and shook out behind them like a bright green tail; the ocean smelled of iodine. They all slept on top deck except Casey who was slaving in the galley. And after midnight, the galley slave came up to join them. “It is the ship named Argo,” Casey said, “for this night at least.” Casey was a poetic one among them.
The war had ended now and they could smoke on deck at night.
13.
On Luzon, everything was better than it had ever been with them: no duty, and a general let-down, and only a month or so to wait for a ship home. They all began to go out among them, and Finnegan a little too much. “You might as well not have any eyes as those two little red things,” Hans told him one morning. “Can you see through them?”
“Yes. A little bit.”
“From this side they're just a
glaze. Who brought you home?”
“Vincent.”
“We might as well bury you over here. I don't think you're going to make it. You wouldn't mind that, would you?”
“Not very much.”
A little later, Vincent and Finnegan went back into the jungle to find the snake that had bitten them. Sometimes this helps. Two little girls were building a shack.
“What is it going to be?” Vincent asked them.
“A cabaret, an American-style cabaret,” the smallest of the little girls said.
“When will it be finished?”
“An hour. All day maybe. Who can say when it's finished? You are our first customer so we are open for business. Go in and sit down.”
“How do we know where ‘in’ is?” Finnegan asked.
“Where the big box and the two little boxes are. They are the table and chairs. They are in. Who knows, we may later get other boxes.”
“What do you have to drink?”
“Oh, Four Feathers. Five Roses.” The whiskys really had such names. They were mild.
“What are your names?” Vincent wanted to know.
“Falo and Nauti,” said the little girl Falo. “And you are who?”
“Vincent and Finnegan. The nose is Finnegan.”
“This Finnegan is not a man,” said Nauti. “He is tao-bunduk, a mountain creature, an older creature. You laugh, the Vincent? No, really, your friend is not a man; he's another thing. You have not known it? They are in the stories.”
The young man Vincent and the young creature Finnegan sat on the boxes and watched the little girls work. It looked easy to put up a shack. Falo brought them a can of water to drink with the Five Roses. Vincent tried to take her by the waist, but she would not.
“Not touch, kid. Not do it once,” she said.
Finnegan tried to talk Tagalog. If Hans and Casey could talk it, why could he not?
“Magkaano ito?” he asked them.
“Not very much. You're our first customers. A peso a bottle,” Nauti told him.
“Ano ang ngalan no?” Finnegan asked.
“We told you already. My name is Nauti, Falo's name is Falo. Why to ask again?”
“That's the only other sentence I know.”
“We teach you to talk it right someday. All the words.”
“Are you going to have music in your cabaret?”
“Sure. My uncle in Batangas will bring us a piano Saturday if he can get a cart.
“Who will play?”
“I play, Nauti. Falo hasn't the talent. I have a harp at home, but it's hard to jazz a harp. The boys would want to handle it and might break it.”
“Do you have a pack of cards? Or is that allowed in your café?”
“I get them. Sure, everything allowed. The sky's the limit, as you say. What that mean anyhow? Here. Only the four of clubs and the six of diamonds are missing. And this yellow piece of paper is the four of clubs. It is written on it ‘This is the four of clubs.’ Here, I will write it in English also. And the white piece of paper is the six of diamonds.”
“Gad, bilingual cards!”
Vincent played solitaire for a while. Finnegan was feeling much better now. He nibbled on the whisky with new confidence. He had looked the snake that bit him in the eye and found it a much smaller and milder snake than he had remembered.
“If you don't die before nine o’clock in the morning, it means that you're not going to die at all,” he said. “A lot of time you can go on and live all day. Have you anything to eat, little F and N?”
“Bananas only.”
“Magkanno?”
“A peso a dozen. We have to charge a peso for everything because we don't have any change. This is too low for some things and too high for others. Many, like yourselves I am sure, will insist upon paying more. This make up for the deadbeats, and some of the boys will want to tip us. We will pass the kitty after we have played the music. The bananas don't cost us anything and we get a peso for them. This is known as merchandizing.”
The girls sat down with them on two chunks of wood and they played Robber Casino, the only game that they all knew. Falo always won. “I play with these cards since I was a little girl and I know them all,” she said. “I bet it would help in poker. I will learn to play poker and if they let me use these old cards I bet I beat all the boys.”
“I bet you could,” said Vincent. “But, on second thought, you should never play poker. Every card you hold is reflected in your eyes.”
“Is that possible? Optics I don't understand.”
“Optics I'm not talking about.”
Some time later the boys started to Tall Tree.
“Goodbye one time,” Falo and Nauti told them.
“Why do you say ‘Goodbye one time’?”
“If we say ‘Goodbye all the time’ that means you're not coming back.”
14.
That night the Dirty Fivers were all in the Buffalo Bar, and with them was Captain Gutierrez. The Captain was a Tagalog. He had the extremely youthful appearance of them all, and, though about twenty-three, he appeared thirteen. They called him Sammy and were good friends. “There's a lot of nonsense about this age business,” said Sammy, “not just personal age, but folk age also. And the most nonsense is about the ancient Orient. The Orient is very young; it is the West that is old. To be sure, the Chinese claim antiquity, but that is toy history, like you Irish use, Vincent, when you claim back to the Milesians. In the East we do not really remember out own past, nor our monuments, which means that they are not really our own past. They belong to others. But you people are old and you were born old; you are all hairy old men.
“I don't believe that you are smarter than we are. I don't believe that you can learn faster. But you were born knowing more, and you were born with a background. And you are all a bunch of Alkies, and so am I when I'm with you. I have some odd centavos. Can we scrape up two pesos among us?”
They could. They got another bottle of Black Label.
“Drinking is more common in the West,” said Sammy. “It is because you are not naturally gay that you drink so much. I have, by the way, made the acquaintance of a very close friend of yours. I have wondered why I never see him with you.”
“Who?” Henry asked.
“Absalom.”
“Oh Lord, not Stein,” Casey croaked.
“Yes, Stein, one of the finest gentlemen I ever met: serious, dedicated, very kind, somehow as I believe Socrates would have been. Did you know that he is teaching several social classes in the school? It's open again, you know. I also am teaching there.”
“Sammy, this is all wrong. Stein is no good.”
“He warned that you especially mistrusted him, Casey. A prophet is not without honor, he says, save in his own group.”
“Let us talk about something pleasant, like arson or mayhem.”
So they drank and talked.
“The bottle is empty and we're all broke,” said Hans.
“Don't worry, my little friends,” soothed Sammy. “I show you how to con.”
Captain Sammy left his cap on the table. Without it he was just a little Filipino boy in a suit of faded sun-tans. Sammy and Finnegan had a conference apart. Then Finn took out a mouth organ and walked behind a couple of shoeshine boys. He played, and they listened and watched him. He played ‘A-Rang-Dang-Doo’ and they watched him; and Sammy swiped one of their shoeshine boxes while they watched; he went away with it.
Finn played ‘Way Back in the Hills’, and ‘The Wreck of the Old Ninety-Seven’. He played the ‘Wabash Cannon Ball’. He played quite a while, maybe fifteen minutes. Sammy came back and set the shoeshine box behind the boys again. Then he came to the table.
“Four shines, four pesos. Why do Americans pay to have their shoes shined?”
Finnegan quit playing and came to the table too.
“Play some more, pal,” said the shine boys.
“Not now, pals. After while.” More whisky had been brought now.
“Cheers!” Sammy offered. “I give better shines than the kids do, and I hate to see my friends go thirsty.”
The boys hung a good one on that night and kept it up quite a while. Hans knew where there were two white horses in a field and he wanted to ride them. It was about a mile to the field. Sammy spent the last two pesos for another bottle to take along.
They sang as they went. The six of them walked arm in arm and took up the whole road, and it wasn't much of a road. There was a brief fight with another bunch of soldiers who didn't like to be crowded into the ditches, but Hans and Henry neutralized the opposition. Only Casey had a bloody nose.
“That is not bad, a bloody nose for Casey. If it had happened to Finnegan it would have been serious. Casey's nose isn't big enough to worry about,” Henry said.
They left the road and went swinging through the jungle and the fields. And there were white horses in a field. Hans ran down the largest of them and stopped it. He seemed to spin it around by grabbing two handsful of mane and digging in his heels. Hans was very powerful when the juice was in him. He mounted and rode the big horse till he was almost scraped to pieces by the low branches in the dark. He was happy. Everyone was happy, even Casey who still dripped blood.
(All these things, the shoeshine and whisky-con of Sammy, the battle in the roadway, the capturing and riding of the white stallion, were heroic labors appointed to the Argonauts and their company that they should do.)
They sat around in the tall grass and talked and sang. Then Hans would tear across the field to try to catch the horses again; but he was neither as steady nor as swift as he had been a little while before.
Sammy's eyes became dull and he hummed little songs. Finnegan played the mouth organ again, but this also was not too steady. Henry lay on his back with his hands under his head and smiled up at the stars. They drank the last bottle, happily passing it around in a circle as they sat in the grass, but nobody got up. Sammy went to sleep, and then Vincent. Casey went to sleep talking, and every few minutes he would say a few more words in his sleep.