Euphoria

by Lily King

  ‘Quite sure.’

  The massage became erotic. Yepe’s hands slid under her and cupped her breasts and rubbed her nipples with her thumb and moved to the buttocks and pushed the flesh hard up and down and pressed her fingers against the anus. The women on the mats were making a good deal of noise now, their bodies no longer passive but pushing up against the hands. Some of the women on the mats tried to reach between their legs or turn over but they were not allowed. Bo nun, someone said. Not yet. Yepe returned to her hearth and with a forked stick lifted steaming stones from the pans and placed them on a strip of bark cloth and brought them back. The women on the mats flipped over all at once. They cried out as the stones were rubbed with oil.

  ‘Well, you can probably imagine the rest,’ she said.

  ‘No, I can’t. I have an awful imagination.’

  ‘Yepe placed a stone here.’ She undid a few of the white front buttons of her blue dress and put my hand flat on her stomach. ‘And moved it in slow circles.’ Her skin was still oiled, still warm. I kept my circles small and slow on her taut belly, though I wanted to touch every bone, every patch of her. I wanted every part of her pressed against me.

  ‘Slowly, she pushed it up, up and along the collarbone.’ I did what she said and my hand, passing through, grazed her breasts (no brassiere today), which were fuller than I’d guessed, and traveled the ridge of her collarbone several times. ‘And down again, back and forth across the nipples.’ She watched me. I watched her. Our eyes had not lowered or shut. So often a woman’s pleasure felt to me a mystery, the slightest wisp of a thing you were meant to find, and she having no better idea of where to look than you did.

  ‘Then she turned the stone on its side and brought it down—’

  I kissed her. Or, as Nell later claimed, I leapt at her. I could not touch enough of her at once. I don’t remember removing clothes, hers or mine, but we were naked and laughing at our groping and when she reached down and felt me she smiled and said it wasn’t quite a stone, but it would do.

  ‘Well, that’s a relief,’ she said as we lay stuck together, mottled in bugs and dirt.

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Remember elephants in large boots?’

  ‘The ink blot?’

  ‘That was the sex card. You’re supposed to see something sexual. And you said elephants in large boots. It had me worried. Listen to that.’

  Sounds came from every direction—the beach, the gardens, the fields behind the women’s road.

  If I hadn’t understood, I might not have said it was human.

  ‘Lots of sex tonight,’ she said. ‘The men are a bit threatened by the stones, apparently. The night of the minyana they need to be reassured that their women still want them.’

  ‘Reassure away.’

  We did not sleep that night. We moved to my mat and talked and pressed our bodies together. She told me the Tam believed that love grows in the stomach and that they went around clutching their bellies when their hearts were broken. ‘You are in my stomach’ was their most intimate expression of love.

  We knew that Fen could return at any moment, but we did not mention it.

  ‘The Mumbanyo kill their twins,’ she told me close to morning, ‘because two babies meant two different lovers.’ It was the only time she alluded to him or her pregnancy.

  We did not hear Bani come up. He must have been standing there awhile, trying at first to give our spirits time to return to our bodies, for when he did rouse us his voice was loud and fed up. ‘Nell-Nell!’ His lips were touching the thin ghostly netting. ‘Fen di lam,’ he said. ‘Mirba tun.’

  She leapt up as if a snake had bitten her. Bani went back down the ladder. ‘He’s halfway across the lake.’

  ‘Bugger.’

  ‘Yes, bugga,’ she mimicked. I touched her back as she groped around for her dress, and she stopped and kissed me, and I felt, stupidly, that it would all be okay.

  We needn’t have hurried. When we reached the shore the boat was still far off. We could have stayed in bed, made love one more time.

  ‘He’s cut the engine too soon.’ I knew I’d now find any fault with him I could. ‘It wouldn’t disturb anyone from all the way out there.’ He’d tried to sneak up on us, I suspected.

  Nell was shielding her eyes with her hand, though it was not a bright morning. There seemed to be no sun at all in the low metal-colored sky. It wasn’t raining, but it felt like we were breathing water. I wanted her to reach for me, claim me, but she stood rigid as a meerkat, focused on the boat, still a blemish, coming slowly toward shore. I touched the back of her neck, the short hairs that had come loose from her plait. I felt as wide open and undefended as a man can be.

  ‘Please dear God don’t let him have that flute,’ Nell said.

  The outlines of the figures in the boat sharpened: one seated in the stern, one standing amidships. But they were still so far away. I wanted to go back to bed with her and resented this standing and waiting I had to do before he took her back. And I resented Bani for stealing these last minutes from me, even though Fen might have found her lying in my arms.

  Bani and a few other boys were farther down the beach, talking boisterously and laughing, reliving, I was sure, the night before, rehearsing their stories for Xambun.

  Nell was squinting. She’d left her glasses behind. ‘What do you see?’ she asked. ‘They’re saying it was a good hunt. They’re saying they’ve got something big, a boar or a buck.’

  For a few moments that’s what it looked like: a good hunt, an animal slumped over the bow of my thin canoe.

  And then one of Bani’s friends let out a scream. And I saw what he saw.

  The standing figure in the middle was not a man but a long thick pole, the paddling figure in the stern was Fen, and what had looked like an animal carcass was Xambun draped diagonally in the bow.

  ‘What is it, Andrew?’ Nell wailed. I think it was the only time she ever said my first name.

  I wrapped her in my arms and told her quietly in her ear. Behind us the screaming began and never stopped. The sides of my canoe were streaked with blood. When the boat came close enough, Bani and the other boys waded out up to their necks to reach Xambun. They lifted his body up off the boat and carried it high in their arms toward land.

  Fen was saying the same thing over and over: Fua nengaina fil. I didn’t know what it meant. There was splashing and wailing and Xambun was handed over to Malun, who had come running and shrieking onto the beach. She sank to the wet sand with her son, his blood no longer running and his skin the color of driftwood. Nell pulled away from me and went to her. She wrapped her arms around Malun, but Malun threw her off. She hollered and shook Xambun, tears, spit, and sweat coming off her as she moved, as if she believed that with enough force she could bend back the universe.

  Fen squatted in the shallows beside Nell. His face was narrower than I remembered, a blade slicing the air, his forehead white but the rest stained with blood. His shirtfront was caked with it as well.

  ‘Fua nengaina fil,’ he cried out to them, as if he were still in the boat and they were hundreds of yards away. He spoke directly to Malun and tears cut pale lines through the dried blood on his face. Malun, when she registered him, screeched like an animal that had been bitten. With her two arms she shoved him away from her son’s body.

  ‘It wasn’t my fault, Nell. They ambushed us. Kolekamban ambushed us.’

  I could see the arrow wounds: one in the temple, one in the chest. Clean, precise shots.

  More and more people were coming onto the beach, encircling us, pressing in to see Xambun. I could barely breathe. From somewhere behind us a slit drum started up, awful, powerful, drawn-out knells loud enough for every person and spirit on the lake to hear. The sound shook through me.

  I crouched next to Fen. ‘Did they see it was you?’ I said.

  He lifted his mess of a face to me and seemed to break into a smile. ‘No! No one saw me. I was invisible.’ He turned to Nell. ‘I used the spell and I
was invisible.’

  But Nell was still trying to hold Malun, trying to reach her and comfort her in her hysteria.

  ‘Did they see you leave with the flute?’ I asked Fen.

  ‘They couldn’t see me. Only Xambun.’

  ‘If they saw you, they’ll come after you.’

  ‘They didn’t see me, Bankson. Nellie.’ He grabbed Nell’s face and turned it to his. ‘Nellie, I’m sorry.’ His head lurched and fell against her chest and he heaved up sobs that no one could hear in the chaos.

  I broke out of the circle and fetched my boat, which had drifted downshore. I pulled it back toward the path that led to their house. The flute was wrapped in towels and tied up with the twine from Helen’s manuscript. It was as thick as a man’s thigh. I took it out then flipped the boat. Blood and water funneled out into the sand. I set it to rights, and as I straightened up I felt light-headed and sat down. All around me people had given over to grief, weeping and keening and singing in groups in the sand, the women’s skin still glistening with oil from the day before.

  Several men I didn’t recognize, older men who had already covered themselves with funereal mud, approached the canoe. One examined the engine without touching it, keeping his distance in case it roared to life, but the other two went straight for the flute and began plucking at the twine.

  Fen called out something and came running.

  ‘Jesus, Bankson, don’t let them touch it.’ He reached out for the tall bundle but the two men pulled it away. Fen lunged for it, seized it with one arm and shoved off the men with the other.

  ‘Be careful, Fen. Be very careful right now,’ I said quietly.

  The largest man began asking questions, one after the other, urgent but precise. Fen answered solemnly. At one point he broke down, and seemed to be offering a long apology. The large man had no patience for this. He held up his hand then pointed to the flute. Fen told him no. He asked again and Fen said no more sharply, which put an end to the conversation.

  After they walked away Fen said, ‘They want to bury the flute with Xambun.’

  ‘Seems the least you could do for them, given—’

  ‘Stick it in the ground to rot? After everything I went through?’

  ‘Now is not the time to upset them.’

  ‘Oh, is now not the time?’ he mimicked bitterly. ‘Are you an expert on my tribe, too?’

  ‘A man has been murdered, Fen.’

  ‘Just stay out of it, Bankson, all right? Will you do that for once?’ He lifted the flute and carried it awkwardly away.

  The three men had moved down the beach to where a larger group of men gathered around the slit drum. But the drumming had stopped as the players listened to what the mud-painted men had to say.

  I knew what was happening. They were all realizing that it had not been a hunt but a raid Fen had taken Xambun on, and that now Fen was unwilling to share the spoils with Xambun’s spirit. Without the flute, Xambun would be restless, would make trouble for them all. They had to get it. I could see it in their eyes. It was perhaps just the beginning of what they would need to avenge Xambun’s death.

  I pushed my way back in to Nell.

  Her eyes were shut. Malun was calmer and letting Nell stroke her back.

  ‘We need to go. We need to leave here now.’ I pressed my cheek to her temple, her hair against my lips. ‘We do. We need to go.’

  Without opening her eyes, she said, ‘We can’t. Not now. Not like this.’

  ‘Listen to me.’ I took both her arms. ‘We need to get in my boat and go.’

  She yanked herself out of my grip. ‘I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving her.’

  ‘It’s not safe, Nell. No one is safe.’

  ‘I know them. They won’t hurt us. They’re not like your Kiona.’

  ‘They want the flute.’

  ‘Let them have the flute.’

  ‘He’ll never give it to them, Nell. He’ll die before he does.’

  ‘We can’t go. These are my people.’ Her voice broke. She understood. She understood about their gods and amends—and Fen’s brutal possessiveness.

  Her small face was smeared with blood and sand and she looked as if she’d never resented someone more than she resented me and my good sense. She resisted a little while longer then I guided her out and up the beach.

  People were still streaming onto the sand from the road. I saw Chanta and Kanup and little Luquo, who was screaming for his brother. But no one stopped us. The men by the drums watched us move away but they did not come after us.

  Fen was in a chair, the flute leaning up beside him. Nell went straight to her bedroom. He jumped up and followed her.

  ‘Don’t come in here.’

  ‘Nell, I need to tell you something.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I talked to Abapenamo. They did give it to me. The flute was a gift. It’s rightfully mine.’

  ‘You think I care who owns it now? You got a man killed for it, Fen. Xambun is dead.’

  ‘I know, Nellie. I know.’ He slid to the ground and wrapped his arms around her legs.

  A raw loathing coursed through me. ‘Get up, Fen,’ I said through the netting. ‘Pack your bags. We’re leaving.’

  I got the canoe and brought it around to a smaller beach where they met me. We loaded it up with my suitcases, their duffels, and the small trunk. I’d found her specs by my mat and handed them to her when Fen wasn’t looking. She put them on without acknowledgment of anything else and turned back to the other beach, the entire village gathered there now.

  ‘Don’t call attention to anything,’ I said quietly. ‘Just get in the boat.’

  Fen and his flute got in. ‘It’s out of petrol, you know,’ he said, as if that were my fault. ‘I had to paddle most of the way back.’

  Good, I thought. Gave me more time with your wife.

  ‘I’ve another jug right here,’ I said. ‘You left it when you stole my boat.’

  I affixed the petrol line to the new jug and gave it a pump. The motor turned over on the first try. A few small heads lifted and turned. Only the children playing in the water heard the sound of the engine.

  ‘Baya ban!’ little Amini hollered from the shallows.

  Nell raised herself up and in a low cracked voice called out, ‘Baya ban!’

  ‘Baya ban!’

  ‘Baya ban!’ Nell called. I wanted to tell her to stop, but the men by the drums on the far side of the beach seemed not to hear her in the tumult.

  Nell warbled out every long name of each child waving to her, complete with clan and maternal and paternal ancestor names, until her words gave out and her wailing became incoherent. The children waded deeper into the water as we pulled away and splashed madly at our boat, screaming out things I couldn’t understand.

  Go. Go to your beautiful dances, your beautiful ceremonies. And we will bury our dead.

  The sky seemed so low, so bleak. For a moment I lost my bearings entirely, and I wasn’t even sure where to point the boat, how to get back to the river. Then I remembered the canal between the hills and I pushed up the throttle and the motor drowned out all their voices. The canoe lifted, lurched, then skimmed fast across the black lake.

  We flagged down a pinnace almost as soon as we reached the Sepik proper. It was a boat full of missionaries from Glasgow who planned to sprinkle themselves and their faith all over the region. I could see their hearty confidence falter as soon as they saw us.

  ‘Been through the wars, have ye?’ one of them managed, but they shrunk from us as soon as we climbed on board. Nor did we give them much opportunity for conversation, though one of them bought my canoe and engine for far more than they were worth. Nell tried to persuade me not to sell, to go directly back to the Kiona. But I was determined to go with them to Sydney, and I needed the money. While Fen was up talking to the driver about getting the rest of their stuff picked up, I told her I’d go as far as New York with her if she’d let me. She shut her eyes and Fen came back to his seat beside
her before she had answered.

  26

  We took rooms in Sydney at the Black Opal in George Street. Nell insisted on having her own. The clerk wrote down in his ledger Nell Stone, Andrew Bankson, Schuyler Fenwick, and it pleased me to see their names separated and to see Nell receive her own key, 319, a flight above the rooms Fen and I were given.

  Without bathing, we walked to the Commonwealth Bank then down to the White Star booking office where Nell and Fen secured two passages to New York. I’d hoped they’d have to wait weeks for space on a ship, but because of the crook economy, the man in the office said, most liners were half empty. The SS Calgaric would sail in four days. The paper money they slid across the counter looked fake. An electric fan spun bland air at us, though the day was cool and Nell wore a sweater over her blouse that made her look like a girl at university. Everything felt wrong: the fan, the hard floor, the man’s combed hair and bow tie, the smells of cured leather and mint candy. I wanted my own ticket on that liner. I wanted to tear up hers and take her back to the Kiona with me.

  Unable to return to the heavy walls of the Black Opal, unable to sit at a restaurant, we walked. I tried to inure myself to the noise, the foot and road traffic, the hundreds of bloated pink faces barking in Australian English, which had become a loathsome sound. Even the shop signs and billboards overwhelmed me. YOUR GAS REFRIGERATOR, MADAM, IS HERE. THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE COME IN CELLOPHANE. Nevertheless, I was compelled to read every one.

  This sensation of the familiar feeling new and jarring was something I had relished when I’d returned from my first field trip. This time it felt wretched. I had never seen more clearly how streets like these were made for and by amoral cowards, men who made money in rubber or sugar or copper or steel in remote places then returned here where no one questioned their practices, their treatment of others, their greed. Like them, the three of us would face no recriminations. No one would ever ask us here how we had got a man killed.

  Before Fen had seen the numbers, I had chosen Room 219, the one directly below Nell’s. Next morning, when I heard her door open and shut, I dressed quickly and went down to the breakfast room. They hadn’t started serving yet and the room was empty save Nell in the corner holding a teacup with two hands as if it were a coconut gourd. I took the seat across from her. Neither of us had slept.