Daughter of the Reef

by Clare Coleman

  “Yes, very close. Here is my answer. If the evil god had been inside that beast, we would both be lying there in the mud.”

  At last the beaters and the rest of the company arrived. They danced with joy at the sight of the dead boar, but Matopahu had a more urgent task for one of them. “Bind my friend’s wounds,” he ordered the healer he had brought with him. Then, holding his pearl-shell knife, Matopahu bent over the carcass, intending to gut it on the spot.

  “Wait,” said Eye-to-heaven, hobbling over to him, the new cloth about his thigh already stained with red. "Let me.”

  “But you are wounded and in pain,” Matopahu protested.

  “The pain is a small thing. This animal was a powerful opponent. Surely he carries a message of the future within his belly. I would be failing in my duty if I lost this chance for a divination. And the message will be for you, my friend, for the gods gave you the honor of the killing blow.”

  Matopahu put his knife away, watching while the priest prayed over the dead boar, rolled it onto its back, and slit its underside with his own blade. The pig’s belly fell open, revealing the entrails nestled in the gut cavity. Eye-to-heaven studied them, frowning and murmuring to himself.

  Matopahu left the priest to his exercise. The sight of pig innards did not bother him, but the method used to extract meaning from lobes of liver or loops of intestine was a mystery reserved for priests. Only rarely did a diviner hint at his techniques.

  While Eye-to-heaven poked and pondered, and the beaters watched in awe, Matopahu stood up to let a freshening breeze dry the sweat on his face. He stretched and shook out the stiffness in his muscles. He had decided what to do with the pig’s carcass. It had been a valiant animal, even if it had not proved to be the beast of legend. Such a pig would make a worthy gift for the high chief’s dinner.

  Relations between Matopahu and his brother had grown cool of late. Perhaps this gift would help prove Matopahu’s good intentions.

  “My taio, come and see what lies ahead for you,” Eye-to-heaven called suddenly.

  When Matopahu knelt down beside the priest, Eye-to-heaven swept his palm above the entrails. “See how knotted and tangled they are? This can only mean that complications will enter your life.”

  “That will be nothing new,” Matopahu answered.

  “And the pattern of vessels in the gut membrane tells me there will be problems involving a woman.”

  Matopahu laughed. His only problems with women were how to get rid of them. “But what of my disagreement with Ihetoa?” he asked the priest impatiently. “That is a real problem. The high priest continues to reject my prophecy. The longer he delays, the more everyone will suffer.”

  Eye-to-heaven peered and squinted at the entrails. The meaty smell was beginning to attract flies. “I, too, wish to know how that will end,” he said. “But here I see no answer.”

  The priest finished his divination with a short prayer of praise to the gods. Reverently he buried the viscera, for it could not be cooked and eaten if it had first been used for prophesy. Then Matopahu ordered his men to finish cleaning the carcass and tie it to a pole.

  When the party was ready to leave, the beaters crowded forward, all begging for the honor of carrying the prize. Matopahu had intended to share the load between himself and Eye-to-heaven, for he enjoyed the thought of marching home in triumph with the prize on his shoulders, watching the amazed faces of the people in the settlements.

  But Eye-to-heaven was too badly wounded to help now. And to ask someone else to share the victory with himself, Matopahu felt, would be an insult to his taio. So he chose the two strongest men among the beaters to carry the pig while he and Eye-to-heaven walked modestly behind them. With his arm about the limping priest, he followed the jubilant procession along the riverbank path that would finally emerge at the coast.

  My brother will be pleased with this outcome, Matopahu thought. He is easily flattered. But the high priest will not celebrate our return.

  3

  AS evening approached, a Tahitian fisherman sailed home in his small outrigger canoe. Ahead he saw a line of foaming surf, waves breaking over the barrier reef. He steered toward a narrow stretch of smoother water, a pass into the calm, blue lagoon that lay between the outer reef and the shore.

  The fisherman was called Rimapoa—“the one who fearlessly handles the unpleasant.” His darkly tanned skin and wiry build marked him as a man who worked hard and received little for his efforts. Today not a single albacore lay in the bottom of his boat.

  Rimapoa glanced for a moment at Front-tooth, the boy who assisted him. “I know why the gods did not send fish today,” said the youngster. “It is because you argued with your sister this morning.” Angrily Front-tooth hit the splashboard with his fist.

  The fisherman gave the boy a weary look. “I am always quarreling with my sister,” he answered with a growl. “By now the spirits have lost interest in our arguments.” It was useless, he knew, to tell Front-tooth to keep his thoughts to himself. He had little control over the boy, who was bound to him only through a friendship between families. If Front-tooth didn’t like the arrangement, he would quit and join up with some other fisherman. Then Rimapoa would have no help at all.

  “Then tell me why no fish took the bait,” said the boy. “It was good mullet and I hooked it on well.” Front-tooth leaned over the splashboard and stared moodily across the lagoon.

  Rimapoa did not reply, and he wondered whether Front-tooth was right after all. Rimapoa was a solitary deep-line fisherman. The parties of men who trolled for albacore from large double canoes constantly warned him to keep away from their fishing grounds. Today he had gone as close as he dared, but not close enough to lure the elusive albacore. Yet on other days, the fish had found his hooks...

  The fisherman sighed, and turned his attention to the churning water that lay just ahead. Shooting the pass was always risky. He leaned on the long steering oar, turning his bow to the channel’s entrance. Water boiled in whitecaps to either side of the canoe as waves struck the submerged coral.

  Slackening the line to the boom of his curved claw sail, he let the fore part luff in the wind, waiting for the right moment. As his gaze crossed the frothing boundary between sea and lagoon, he saw a wreck—a battered half hull, its sternpost canting up. The reef had taken its toll once again.

  Rimapoa was in no hurry. He had no fish lying in the bottom to spoil. Ignoring Front-tooth’s impatient grimaces, he let several rollers sweep by before choosing the strongest. He felt the surge as the wave gathered behind him and he pulled hard on the sail, catching the wind. The outrigger lifted on the wave’s crest and rode through.

  Leaving the breakers crashing behind him, Rimapoa tacked into quiet waters. The sail bellied and the outrigger surfed, making his spirit lift. He knew that even if there were no fish and he had to make his living ashore, he would still sail his canoe. There was nothing like the feeling of a well-built craft leaping like a flying fish across the sea.

  The love of it was in his bones, for one of his ancestors had been a canoe master on an island far to the west. This heritage showed in the fisherman’s long legs, his wiry frame, and the tight curl of his hair. It showed also in his daring, in his willingness to face the sea in all its moods.

  The canoe was gliding toward the narrow, sandy beach when Front-tooth shouted, “Look over there!” The boy flung out his arm toward shore.

  Rimapoa scowled and squinted. With the sun so low, every rock and piece of driftwood on the beach cast a shadow. Yet he saw something at the water’s edge that did not roll like driftwood when the waves lifted it. It moved loosely, like a half-filled sack ... or a human body.

  “Who is it? Who is it?” asked Front-tooth excitedly. Then, without warning, he leaped over the splashboard and swam toward the beach.

  Rimapoa shouted after him, but to no avail. He wanted Front-tooth’s help when he reached shore, and now he would have to manage alone. Angrily, he lowered the sail and brought the canoe i
n, struggling to pull the dugout hull to dry ground. Front-tooth was calling him, but he ignored the boy while he secured the boat.

  He found Front-tooth crouched beside a lifeless young woman who lay sprawled in the sand. The boy had dragged her up from the waterline and was now poking her ribs and peering into her face.

  “She is dead!” announced Front-tooth. “Drowned!”

  Her black hair spilled down in salt-and-sand-encrusted tangles. Her closed eyes were sunken. Her jaw was so slack, her skin so ashen and colorless, and her limbs so still that Rimapoa thought she had been dead for some time. “Careful,” he warned, pushing the boy aside. “Do you want to anger her spirit?” Her soul might still be nearby, able to wreak harm.

  But Rimapoa suddenly noticed a faint flush under the skin of the woman’s cheek. He dropped to his knees and touched two fingers to her throat just beneath the angle of her jaw. At first he found nothing, and then he was not sure of the small flutter beneath his fingers. He brought his cheek to her open mouth, hoping to feel the gentle pressure of her breath.

  “Why do you bother?” asked the boy scornfully. “She looks like she’s been dead for days. She smells like it, too.”

  Rimapoa glared back at him. “Go get help, you useless son of an eel! Fetch Hoihoi!”

  “Your sister won’t listen to me,” Front-tooth said with a whine. His feet did a nervous dance on the wet sand.

  The fisherman grunted his agreement. Hoihoi was not easily roused into action. He focused again on the unfortunate woman, tipping her head back, using two fingers beneath her chin and his palm against her forehead. By custom, one did not touch another person’s head, but he knew no other way to help her.

  For a moment he studied her face. The sculpted cheekbones and the strong chin that drew to a point were unlike those of Tahitian women. Not long ago, he imagined, she had been beautiful.

  He ran his fingertips down her arm and shuddered at how cold she felt. He pinched her nose shut, took a deep breath, placed his mouth on hers, and breathed out from deep in his chest, the way a healer had taught him long ago.

  The first breath would not go in.

  “You have to empty the water from her chest,” said Front-tooth with a superior air.

  Rimapoa did not answer the boy. He rolled the woman on her side, swept the inside of her mouth with a finger, and hooked out a plug of mucus and seaweed blocking her throat. He breathed into her again, holding her tongue with his thumb so it could not slip back and choke her. This time, when he blew, he saw her chest rise. He gave her several strong breaths and then felt her throat again. The pulse was there, weak but persistent.

  Front-tooth repeated his suggestion with an air of arrogance that irritated Rimapoa. “Boy, you know nothing,” the fisherman answered. “What you say comes from old tales. I have pulled people from the sea and I have never had to empty them like pouring out a bucket. There is only a little water in her throat.” He stopped his tirade to blow more breaths into the woman.

  He continued breathing for her until he met some resistance as he blew in. He turned his head to one side and felt the tickle of breath on his cheek. He felt hope flood over him. She was starting to breathe on her own at last.

  “The sun is dropping fast,” said the boy, edging closer. “And she is dead, anyway.”

  “Be quiet,” ordered the fisherman, wiping the sweat of tension from his forehead. He hadn’t realized until now how much he wanted this woman to live.

  Rimapoa began massaging her feet and hands, trying to bring some warmth back into them. He paid no attention to the boy and was surprised to hear Front-tooth calling him again.

  “Look, Rimapoa. Part of a canoe washed up here.”

  “Maybe it was hers,” he answered, recalling the wreck he had seen on the reef. He frowned, wondering if there were men who had come with her. Surely she could not have been sailing in the open ocean by herself.

  Front-tooth dragged a piece of the wreck closer to show him. “See. Patchwork pieces, all sewn together.”

  Rimapoa glanced quickly at the dripping lengths of board. He knew at once that the boat had been made by motu people, who lacked trees large enough for building dugout hulls. “Then maybe she is an atoll woman,” he answered testily. “What does it matter?”

  “Atoll woman?” The boy’s eyes widened. “Then she is a savage!” He backed away. “Why save her? If she lives, she will probably eat you!”

  Rimapoa wanted to laugh aloud at Front-tooth’s ignorance. Instead he focused his attention on the young woman. Though she shivered, her breathing was stronger, enough to sustain her awhile. Now she needed a warm, dry place.

  He slipped his callused hands beneath her shoulders and rump. She was heavier than she looked, telling him that much of her weight was muscle. He began the lift with care, hoping she had no injuries that might be made worse. Grunting with effort, he got to his feet, rolling her up against his chest.

  “Go on home,” he told the boy. “Your father will be looking for you.” Carrying the woman in his arms, he strode past Front-tooth, crossing the beach into a stand of coconut. The fronds were rattling in the brisk wind as the slender palms bowed high above his head.

  The fisherman walked quickly, scowling to himself at Front-tooth’s foolishness. It was said that atoll dwellers killed and ate their enemies, but how could he fear this poor woman? Perhaps, he thought, feeling a twinge of sympathy, she had fled her homeland to escape just such a fate.

  His concern for her grew, and he quickened his pace, eager to reach home. At last, just as darkness fell, he saw a glimmer of light at the doorway of his small, thatched hut. “Hoihoi, we have a visitor,” he called as he carried his burden, still dripping, inside.

  His plump sister stood waiting for him, her meaty fists on her hips. Looking at her now, he could scarcely see how she had once been known as a beauty of the district. Nor could he recall that she had ever been sweet-tempered or even agreeable. As he approached, her eyes widened with surprise and then her expression darkened.

  “Is this what your fishhooks dragged up?” Hoihoi asked scornfully, shaking her double chins. “What sort of bait have you been using?”

  Rimapoa did not reply in kind. “Have you forgotten what our ancestors taught us? Begrudge nothing to the stranger who passes your door.” He knelt to let the woman down on a sleeping mat. He tried to arrange her limbs to make her comfortable.

  “Ha. This one has not passed anyone’s door. Not on her own feet.”

  “Even so, sister, I have made her my guest.” He gave Hoihoi a challenging stare. “And now it is your duty to help me.”

  He glanced back at his charge, studying her pale, haggard face. He doubted that his sister could see the promise of beauty that lay within. He gently brushed one strand of brine-soaked hair from the woman’s face. Suddenly he felt clumsy and awkward.

  He looked up again, studying Hoihoi’s plump figure and stout, muscular arms. She had tied her hair back tonight, in a way that did nothing to flatter her face or her body. Yet her expression seemed to be softening now as she saw the firmness of his resolve. “Help her and I will bring you the next albacore I catch,” he promised quietly. “Even if it means I am late with my gift to the headman.”

  “Make it a white-belly,” she muttered, marking the length of fish she wanted on her extended arm. “Nothing smaller.” Then she sighed and took a few steps closer. “Well, brother. What are you doing sitting there when we have a guest who needs attention? Go to the stream and get me some fresh water!”

  When Tepua opened her eyes, she saw a strange woman crouching beside her. A bluish, flickering light covered everything, and for a moment Tepua thought that she had entered the realm of undersea spirits. Painfully she turned her head and saw an unfamiliar kind of torch, a stick strung with oily kernels that sputtered as they burned. Above her, far higher than she was used to, hung a thatched roof, while beneath lay a coarsely woven sleeping mat on a grass-strewn dirt floor. Her lips felt swollen and stiff, her tongue
clumsy. “I—I am alive.”

  The woman beside her merely grunted in response, her fleshy face showing no sign of friendliness. She wore a wrapper of thin and frayed bark-cloth, unlike the well-made material that Tepua’s father obtained from traders. Tepua tried raising her head, then shut her eyes against a wave of dizziness. Surf seemed still to be roaring in her ears; her hands and feet throbbed from coral cuts. She saw again the anguished faces of the people from her wedding party.

  “Where—where is this?” Tepua asked weakly. The night air felt heavy and moist. Strange, intoxicating scents drifted in through the open-weave walls.

  The woman muttered something, then picked up an open coconut and held it out to Tepua. The young woman struggled to sit up. She found her hands bandaged with moist leaves tied on with sennit cord. Now she remembered every scrape and bruise, the damage that wind and sun had done to her skin, the blisters on her palms. She cried out with pain as she took the coconut between her bandaged hands and began to drink. The milk was sweet and rich. She gulped it eagerly.

  “Slow,” said the woman, taking it away from her.

  Tepua had never tasted anything so delicious. She reached out and pulled the coconut back to her lips.

  “Stubborn,” said the woman. “You must be. Otherwise, you would be in some fish’s belly by now.” She spoke with a lilt that left out parts of words and made other parts run together. Tepua had to strain to understand her.

  The large woman let her finish the half coconut, but afterward would give her only water to quench her thirst. Tepua had to struggle against the weakness and vertigo that made her head swim, but she stayed propped up on her elbows. “What—what island is this?” She had to repeat herself before the woman understood.

  “Tahiti, of course,” she answered with pride. “Not one of your heaps of coral. This is a real island.”

  Tepua narrowed her eyes. She did not like the scornful tone in the woman’s voice, a tone she was unaccustomed to hearing. But at least now she had some hope of speaking and being understood. She had listened often to her father’s visitors—men from high islands, from Tahiti and its neighbors. These high islanders spoke a language similar to hers, but did not voice the hard “k” and “g” sounds of atoll speech, making only a breathy sound deep within their throats. She had to listen carefully to understand them.