Visitants

by Randolph Stow

  Behind me, something moved. My heart jumped, and seemed to have all my blood in it.

  Metusela was standing in the middle of the church, clutching a dagger.

  Just standing there, nothing more. With his shell-eyes seeing me, nothing more.

  ‘What?’ I said. It came out with too much breath.

  He walked nearer, holding out his hand with the dagger in it, the handle towards me. ‘Kuto,’ he said, watching my face. ‘Present,’ he said.

  Then it was me who must have seemed the freak, gaping at the ebony knife. At last I reached out and took it, still warm and marked with sweat from his fingers.

  ‘Present,’ he said again. Coming from that pint-sized frame the voice was so deep it was shocking, and I seemed to feel all the strings of the revolving planes vibrate a little over our heads. ‘My friend,’ he said, gazing up.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘It is very good.’

  He smiled at me. He had a mouth of that shape they call a Cupid’s bow, and it didn’t go with anything else he had. ‘Good ebony,’ he said. ‘Taubada, Misa Kodo say. You come.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Okay. I was coming.’ And I started to go past him. But just then he moved into my path, though not meaning to, probably, and suddenly my hands were on his shoulders. I shoved him aside, and he staggered.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, when I had had time to think about it. ‘Sorry, Metusela.’

  ‘All right, taubada,’ he said, still smiling. ‘My friend. Okay. See you later.’ And he waved, as if I was a passing ship, as I went by.

  But when I was at the open front of the church, he shouted after me again. ‘My friend,’ he called, and I looked back and he was up where the altar should have been, beside the dangling crucifix. He had his arm around it, as though around somebody’s shoulders, and white eyes were watching me out of two black faces.

  ‘You see?’ he called. ‘You see this fellow?’

  ‘Yes.’ I said. ‘Very good.’

  ‘This Jesus,’ he said. ‘Black man Jesus. No white man Jesus. Jesus black.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I see.’ And I turned to go again. But he had one more thing to tell me, and he yelled after me, not my friend this time, no, more rough with his voice than I had been with my hands when I pushed him half across the church.

  ‘You hear,’ he shouted. He looked cute as a golliwog in his khaki shorts and curls, but he was furious and the finger he pointed at me would have been loaded. In the shadow of the church the two pairs of white eyes caught all the light, like foam on the sea at night.

  ‘You hear,’ he said more quietly. ‘One time you kill black man Jesus. Another time, no. Another time, no more.’

  BENONI

  All the afternoon they sat on chairs at a table under a big tree, and on the grass in front of them the people of the village talked and smoked and chewed. Between them they had the old census book. When Misa Dolu’udi called out the names from the old book, people got up and came and talked with Misa Kodo. Then Misa Kodo wrote their names in the new book.

  Towards the end of the afternoon Misa Dolu’udi called the names of a family of eight people. But only one old woman came forward, in a rough grass skirt and with soot on her body and her head shaved. She squatted in front of the table, hiding her face.

  ‘What’s this?’ Misa Dolu’udi said, not understanding. And he called out all the names again, more loudly, and with each name the old woman’s head sank lower, till her face was on the ground and she was crying into the grass.

  Then Misa Kodo, who had been writing in the new book, looked up and understood. He called me to him, and whispered: ‘What has happened, Benoni? Two years ago there were eight people in this family. Where are they now?’

  ‘Her husband has died, taubada,’ I said, ‘one month ago. Her first son was killed falling from a palm. His wife went to a new husband in Obomatu and took the child. Her second and third sons were drowned in their canoe. The second son’s wife went back to her mother. Now there is only the old woman.’

  Misa Kodo went on looking and looking at the old woman hiding her face. At last he said: ‘Old woman, go now. Our shame, we two.’

  The old woman tried to say something kind to him, because she was a good-natured old woman, but she could not speak for crying, and stumbled away.

  ‘Just the mother, is it?’ Misa Dolu’udi said, and he crossed out the other names.

  ‘Just the mother,’ Misa Kodo said, and he wrote the old woman’s name all alone in the new book as a family.

  When the census was finished, Misa Kodo sat back in his chair and looked at me. ‘Who cares for that old woman?’ he said. ‘Who gardens for her? Who mends her roof?’

  ‘I do not know, taubada,’ I said.

  ‘No?’ he said. ‘And yet you will command all the villages, you say.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said.

  ‘Is she hungry?’ he said. ‘Does her roof leak? Do you know?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I do not know.’

  ‘I am tired,’ Misa Kodo said, rubbing his forehead. ‘Ah, Benoni, there are many people in the world whose minds are heavy. Many, many. What shall we do? Shall we cry? Shall we go mad? What will you do when you are commander?’

  ‘I do not know, taubada,’ I said. ‘But I will not cry or go mad. I will be hard, like a Dimdim.’

  ‘E, be hard,’ he said. ‘Have a hard mind, like a bush pig. Be like me. Benoni, do you know the story of Jesus?’

  ‘A little,’ I said. ‘Not much. Why do you ask?’

  ‘When Jesus was born,’ he said, ‘there was a census and a new tax, just like this. I think patrol officers were called publicans then. I think they wrote JOSEPH–MARY–JESUS in their book and never thought of it again. Do you suppose they looked at their faces, Mary and Jesus? Well, perhaps. And made jokes. That Joseph was not the father. Because we all make jokes sometimes, we publicans, it is our custom.’

  ‘Taubada,’ I said, ‘there was a star. Taubada, is that true? There was a star.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ he said, ‘but they would not see it. They would be in the resthouse, drinking rum and writing letters.’

  Then I wanted to tell Misa Kodo something, but he got up and took the books from the table. He said to me: ‘Come with me, let us walk,’ and in English to Misa Dolu’udi he said the same thing. He said: ‘But first we will go to the resthouse bwaima and take three baskets of Dipapa’s yams for that old woman. Then I will believe that I am a benevolent man and be better-tempered.’

  When we had come to the old woman’s house, the three of us with baskets, two Dimdims and the nephew of Dipapa, she could not speak, she could only crouch at our feet and smile.

  ‘Old woman,’ Misa Kodo said, ‘your yams.’

  ‘O taubad’,’ cried the old woman, and laughed like a hen.

  ‘How is your house?’ asked Misa Kodo. ‘Is it strong?’

  ‘E, strong,’ she cried.

  ‘And you are content?’ he said.

  ‘I am an old woman, taubad’,’ she said. ‘Only an old woman. E. Today I am content.’

  ‘Good, then,’ said Misa Kodo. ‘Well, we are going. Goodbye, my mother.’

  The old woman laughed again, out of shyness, and Misa Kodo and I began to walk away. But Misa Dolu’udi hung back, digging in the pocket of his shorts, and found a two-shillings and gave it to the old woman, who did not know what it was. ‘Here, buy yourself a drink,’ said Misa Dolu’udi, and ran after us down the path, smiling like a clam.

  ‘We are three good men,’ said Misa Kodo to us all. ‘If we did not exist, Dipapa’s yams would be at home with Dipapa.’

  ‘I want to talk to Benoni,’ Misa Dolu’udi said to Misa Kodo. ‘How about you be Osana for a while?’

  ‘Benoni speaks English,’ Misa Kodo said.

  ‘No, taubada,’ I said, ‘not English. I talk Pidgin, a little, that is all.’

  ‘But you understand us?’ Misa Kodo said.

  ‘Sometimes,’ I said, ‘a little bit.’

 
; ‘Tell him this,’ said Misa Dolu’udi. And then Misa Kodo began to play a game that was very strange. It was as if there was no longer anyone in Misa Kodo’s body. He was not like a person any more, he was like a machine, that walked between Misa Dolu’udi and me and changed our words into another language.

  Misa Dolu’udi said to me, through the machine: ‘I think that man Two-bob, Metusela, I think he is mad.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said.

  ‘But clever,’ Misa Dolu’udi said. ‘He understands some English. He talked to me. Sometimes it sounds like English that they learn at the Osiwa mission, sometimes like Pidgin.’

  ‘He has travelled everywhere, taubada,’ I said.

  ‘Then, what was his work?’ asked Misa Dolu’udi.

  ‘I don’t know, taubada,’ I said. ‘I think plantation work, boat-boy, houseboy, everything. But truly I do not know. He does not talk to me.’

  ‘But he talks to your uncle?’ Misa Dolu’udi said.

  ‘E, truly,’ I said. And then I began to speak to Misa Kodo, not Misa Dolu’udi, about what had been in my mind since he first came. ‘Taubada,’ I said, ‘I think my uncle wants to shame me. He pretends that we are friends. He tells the people so. But in his mind it is different. That day when you came, I thought I knew what was in his mind. I thought, when he knows that he is going to die, he will burn all the things of the chief, all the valuables, perhaps the house, perhaps Darkness-of-Evening itself. I thought, he will tell the people that he is the last chief. And he will tell them that he has taught his sorcery to other people, so that if they disobey him after he is dead his sorcery will still reach them in the middle of the night. So I wanted to tell you. Taubada, I wanted to tell the Government, because sorcery is bad, it is forbidden by the Government. Taubada, I want you to put my uncle in the calaboose.’

  Misa Kodo was still walking on with a quiet face, not seeming to notice my words. So I looked at him in surprise, and suddenly he jerked his head and was awake again. ‘O,’ he said. ‘I was thinking like an interpreter. It is different from thinking like a kiap. Well, Benoni, I am sorry for you, but I am not going to calaboose your uncle, because he is eighty yam-seasons old. But I will speak with him, and some other people.’

  ‘There is more, taubada,’ I said. ‘Since the day you came, it is different.’

  ‘E?’ he said.

  ‘There is Metusela,’ I said. ‘My uncle says that Metusela is his nephew too. It is a lie, but my uncle says it. Why does he say it?’

  ‘You say,’ said Misa Kodo. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because Metusela is a sorcerer like himself, and would be a chief like himself.’

  ‘Good, then,’ Misa Kodo said. ‘So you wish me to calaboose Metusela?’

  ‘E,’ I said.

  ‘Our talk is finished,’ Misa Kodo said. ‘It is finished this time. But say to your uncle that I said this to you: A man does not need big eyes to see.’

  ‘No, taubada,’ I said. ‘Then he would know that I talked with you. I would be afraid.’

  ‘Of his sorcery?’ Misa Kodo said. ‘Why? You slept with his wife, and live.’

  ‘Not of sorcery only,’ I said. ‘There are other things. There is poison, and clubs, and the sword. I was not afraid before, but now there is Metusela. It is different because of Metusela. And Metusela is not eighty years old.’

  ‘I cannot do anything today or tomorrow,’ Misa Kodo said. ‘Because—what has Metusela done? Nothing. No, Benoni. Come back to Osiwa with us. You could work, you could be a boat-boy on the Igau for a while, until we understand these doings better.’

  ‘I will not leave Wayouyo,’ I said. ‘If I go, I will never return. I know it, taubada.’

  He looked at me seriously, believing what I told him, and at last said: ‘Guard yourself, my friend.’

  ‘I am a strong man,’ I said.

  And then Misa Kodo changed himself into a machine again, and said to Misa Dolu’udi in English: ‘I am a strong man.’

  ‘You are a strong man,’ said Misa Dolu’udi to me, through the machine. ‘You are strong like a bandicoot.’ Suddenly he started dancing at me, and slapped me on the face, and then over the belly-button with the back of his hand. So I hit him too, and we danced all up and down the path, but he never reached me again, though I hit him often, not hard.

  At last Misa Dolu’udi was tired, and his face was red and shining. He said to me, through Misa Kodo: ‘I am only half a man now, because of New Guinea.’

  ‘Then,’ I said, ‘I would be two men in Dimdim.’

  Misa Dolu’udi waved his hand at me and spoke, and Misa Kodo said: ‘You talk gammon.’ But I had heard Misa Dolu’udi’s English words, and waved my hand like him and said them back to him. ‘Up yours,’ I said, and we all laughed, even Misa Kodo.

  All that time we had been walking along the path that leads to the coral ridge and the jungle and the sea, and I thought that we were going to swim, and that Misa Dolu’udi would teach me more Dimdim games on the beach. But on the slope that leads down to where the jungle begins Misa Kodo turned off the path. And then we were on the dead land, all rock and burnt grass, that belongs to nobody and that nobody has ever gardened, where the stones are, the biggest ones, called Ukula’osi.

  We stood in the middle of the widest circle, which is about four strides across for a tall man, and the wind blew on us over the jungle, out of a sky full of rain. At any time of day that place is ugly and lonely and children are afraid of it, and then it was growing dark. I did not want to be there, in the ring of lumps of rock. Misa Dolu’udi was gazing around him at the circle, and at the four tall pointed rocks that stand like men.

  ‘What is this?’ said Misa Dolu’udi, through the mouth of Misa Kodo.

  ‘It is the stones called Ukula’osi,’ I said. ‘And the four standing stones have their own names, which I forget.’

  ‘It is a forbidden place?’ asked Misa Dolu’udi.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘No one may touch these stones. Our ancestors placed them here. If anyone moved them, a great wind would come up and destroy the villages, and there would be a famine, and all the people would go mad. One time a man’s dog began to dig beside a stone, and the man killed his dog. Another time a woman called Olivilesi tried to move a stone. She went mad. It would be like that for all of us if the stones fell.’

  ‘I am afraid,’ said Misa Dolu’udi, but he laughed. ‘It is a place of spirits.’

  ‘Misa Kodo,’ I said, ‘Masta Interpreter, what do the Dimdims say about these stones?’

  ‘O, many things,’ said Misa Kodo. ‘Some people say they were like a church, where people sang. Other people say chiefs were buried here.’

  ‘E?’ I said. ‘And what else do they say?’

  ‘Others say that the stones point to places in the sky where some stars first appear, that tell the people it is time to plant or harvest.’

  ‘If that is true,’ I said, ‘no old man remembers. What more do the Dimdims say?’

  ‘Some think the stones are meant for reefs and islands, to teach young men how to sail between here and Muyuwa and Kinana.’

  ‘No, taubada,’ I said, ‘I do not believe that young men would learn like that. They learn by sailing with older men. Is that all that the Dimdims say?’

  ‘Yes, that is all,’ Misa Kodo said. ‘Except—we have some crazy people in Dimdim.’

  ‘Then what do they say, the crazy ones?’

  ‘They say,’ Misa Kodo said, smiling, ‘that there are people who come from the stars, flying in machines like the big tobacco-tins, and that these rings were like their air-strips, and that they will come again.’

  When he said that I felt a great fear, and cried out: ‘Taubad’—’ staring at him.

  ‘O, why do you look like that?’ he said, surprised.

  ‘Taubada, will they stop? Will they get out and walk in the villages?’

  ‘E, you, mind-of-a-child,’ Misa Kodo said, and he was laughing at me. ‘It is a story, that is all. A Dimdim story, do you understand? Ther
e are no people in the stars.’

  I did not know how to tell it to him, to make him feel the fear, which had come back and in that place was worst of all. I said: ‘Taubada, I want to speak,’ but when he looked at me and waited I could not begin. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Not now. Now you would not believe. But tonight, I will come to the resthouse with some other men, to talk, to ask questions.’

  ‘I know what you will say,’ he said. ‘I will show you a picture in a book, and you will not be afraid any more.’

  Then suddenly, over my shoulder, he saw what Misa Dolu’udi was doing, and began to shout, and I turned and saw and shouted even louder. ‘Forbidden, forbidden!’ we screamed at Misa Dolu’udi. ‘Forbidden to piss on the stones!’ And Misa Dolu’udi did not know at all what to do just then.

  DALWOOD

  When we were walking back to the resthouse, in the dusk, terrible screams broke out somewhere in the village, and I looked back at Alistair and Benoni, dawdling behind me, to know what was going on.

  ‘Pig, taubada,’ Benoni said, in English. ‘You kaikai.’

  I saw that Alistair was trying to take no notice, but he was wearing his bad sailor’s face.

  ‘What are they doing to the thing?’ I said to him. The screams were coming faster and louder. They didn’t sound all that much like an animal.

  ‘What?’ he said. ‘The bulukwa? They’re singeing the hair off it.’

  ‘Alive?’ I said.

  ‘It’ll die as it cooks,’ he said. ‘They’ll have speared it in the side.’

  Then I felt as queasy as he looked, and thought of going on strike. ‘I’m not eating any.’

  ‘You’ll be given some,’ he said. ‘Better be polite. It’s a big day for them, having meat.’

  Benoni was beaming at us, in the blue light, a blue tinge to his skin. I thought of the two of us fooling about on the path, pretending to box, and how he’d seemed such a nice ordinary young bloke, just like me, ordinary like me. And every scream of that animal was doing his heart good. Listen to what a good host I am, his face was saying; and he smiled at us, modestly, letting us know he had no doubt we’d have done the same for him.