‘And the store?’ I said to her. ‘What do you want there?’
‘Some tools,’ she said, ‘Some tools. They will come back.’
‘Which tools?’
‘Taubada,’ she said, ‘it is better that you do not know. They will come back, I promise.’
‘Good, then,’ I said, and I held out the bunch of keys to her. Her fingers, touching mine, were cool as if they had been in water. I looked a long time at her face, which had no kind of expression in it, and made me wonder what it was I was being shielded from.
‘I will go,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’
‘Old woman,’ I said, ‘you are still a stranger to me.’
‘And you are a stranger to me,’ she said. The lamp swung at the end of her skinny arm, and she looked down on my body, half-smiling. ‘The skin of a stranger,’ she said. ‘O, your skin. There was nothing so smooth, long ago. You were like a newborn pig.’
‘You say?’ I said. ‘E, I am a tough old pig now. And tired. So do not make fun of me.’
‘Sleep,’ she said. ‘I have gone already.’
After the lamplight had withdrawn and was moving down the grey wall of the passage, I called to her: ‘Naibus’,’ and saw the light pause and wait. ‘Give them some more things,’ I said. ‘Give them tobacco. Give them one bottle of rum. And the old rifle, the one that is no good, I am angry with Dipapa. And I did not wake all night, do you understand?’
SALIBA
They were gone for so long that I began to wonder if Dipapa knew and had sent some men after them, across the gardens and through the bush, so that I would not have seen them from where I waited at the fork of the path. But it was only that the time went more slowly while I was alone and so nervous, longing for him to come again and yet dreading what he would say and think, now that it was done. The clouds had grown thick and the night was very dark. I had no torch. But a little way down the path there was a glow, the last flames of Olumata burning. And I thought I would go there and wait, and keep watch from there on a high place that their lights would have to come over on their way back from Rotten Wood.
I had not got into the village, even. It was by the first house of the circle, among the chopped-down areca-palms and banana-trees, that I saw him lying, half-buried in smouldering thatch.
I had forgotten him. Everyone had forgotten him, so much had happened since the moment when he came stumbling away from the fighting boys, with a bad wound on his head, and fell in the grass, and said to me: ‘Ssss—women.’ Probably he had not seen the painted men, or any of the things that followed. Because when he had looked at me, half-frightened, as I took away the light, it must have been that he was fainting, even while he said: ‘Salib’, keep watch.’
He knew my name. He did not tell me his name. But once, at Rotten Wood, he crept into the cookhouse while I was washing the dishes and put out the lamp, and then for a while we were laughing and struggling together in the black room, until I broke away and ran, screaming for Naibusi.
So he woke alone, in the bush, in the middle of the night. Nobody was keeping watch. He came staggering along the path towards his village, holding the pain in his head. But his village was empty and burning. His village was finished. So he fell down, fainting, in the cool banana leaves. And the fire crept over the ridgepole of the house beside him, till his lungs were full of smoke, and the blazing thatch fell on him, and his hair burned, and a fine ash covered the lids of his eyes and stained the teeth in his open mouth. Even the blood on his face had turned black and dull. The fire smothered and charred him, and no one was mourning or searching, and he died not knowing.
And then I knew that what I had done was right. Because the root of his dying, that young man, it was Dipapa and Metusela.
BENONI
We went through the village hamlet by hamlet, hunting him. Hiding behind trees, in shadows. Peering over the walls into the church, where naked people lay tangled asleep, as if a wind had knocked them down. Scratching on the wall of his house, whispering: ‘Metusela!’, in fear of Dipapa, sealed inside his big house nearby. At the Government’s house, where whole families from Olumata and Obomatu slept huddled together on the grass, looking for a sight of his hair, perhaps his open eyes. But he was nowhere there.
When we met Saliba, her face frightened me, it was so quiet, like a dead woman’s. She would not speak at first.
‘We are too late?’ I said, asking gently, not to show her my disappointment.
‘No,’ she said. ‘He is still at the stones, himself alone.’
‘We have been there,’ I said. ‘He is gone.’
‘I shall show you,’ she said, very still, ‘where to find him.’
At the stones one would be alone truly, more alone than any man chooses to be. I wondered that he was not afraid. In the moon that came and went the stones that those people had moved to make a circle for the machine shone pale and had the look of waiting. And I thought: What if they should come, what if Metusela knows? But I did not believe that, that he knew; though I thought and I think now that some day they may come, and then I shall be ready.
Outside the circle they had built their house, their shed, for the cargo. It was still not finished. By daylight they would finish it, that is what they would be thinking; all of them, the women too, working at the shed, to have it ready for the next night. Only she and I, looking out from the bush at the bare slope and the half-thatched frame of the house that those men had put together in such excitement, knew that when they came again there would be nothing there but ashes.
‘Where?’ I asked her.
‘In the shadow of the house,’ she said. She was unmoved, she was stern, with thoughts that she had not spoken to me. ‘I will go now, I will sleep.’
‘No, wait,’ I said. ‘Come with me.’ And she followed, saying nothing, to the shadow of the madmen’s cargo-shed.
He was lying on his back in that darkness. I supposed that he was sleeping, and did not like to think of what had made him tired. But a reflection of moonlight from a stone shone on the whites of his eyes.
‘I could not,’ she said. ‘I could not do what you asked of me, what he wanted. I told him that if we came here, alone, I would make him happy. But I could not.’
She had driven the sword through his throat, and downwards into his chest and belly. The handle forced his head back. I could see on it the mark of the King of France, which Misa Kodo told me was a flower.
IV
TROPPO
DALWOOD
Because of the weather the Igau couldn’t anchor off the Government station, and we had to go by truck to the northern tip of Osiwa island, through the dark and the driving rain. I’d never seen a night so black, so threatening, but we took Sayam’s word for it that it was possible to get to Kailuana. After all the hullabaloo of canoes and dinghy and Tilley lamps and torches, and the loading of the ridiculous amount of stuff we have to cart with us, Misa Kodo wrapped himself up in the red trade-store blanket and went to bed, it looked like.
When the storm hit us, I was standing beside Sayam at the wheel. By the dim blue light I saw his old wooden face get grimmer and grimmer, and I felt the fear.
Not that there was panic. But a lot of rushing around, for a long time. For two hours, I think, and all that while there was not a thing to be seen but the black sky and the black sea and the bared teeth of foam.
I saw the big veins on Sayam’s hands, gripping the wheel. At least he had something to hang on to, till the end.
I don’t scare easily. Or maybe my brothers made me scared to admit it to myself. What I felt wasn’t the same thing as being afraid. I was excited, and, in a funny way, randy. Not that I was thinking of anyone on earth, least of all her, but it was like that. And I stood there by Sayam, gripping whatever handhold was near, and thought I could understand things I’d read about people in wars and plagues going wild.
Of course I was remembering, as everyone else was, the Munuwata, that disappeared off the face of the sea a few month
s ago. And it was just when I thought we were going that it seemed that the only thing that mattered was to live, to fuck.
But in a small corner of my mind I was thinking about my family, and about the people who had put us out there in a boat designed for calm rivers: a boat like the little ferry that used to take us, when we were kids, from Perth to South Perth, to the Zoo.
And in the same small corner I was mourning. Mourning the enormous waste, the waste of myself.
Then I thought of him, the waste of him. So I left Sayam and went to where he lay cocooned in his red blanket. It was because he spoke my language.
I said: ‘Are you fit?’
By the dregs of blue light from over Sayam’s head his face looked like something from a POW camp. But he sort of grinned, and said: ‘You can guess.’
I sat down by him, and on some stupid impulse lifted his head and slid my thigh under it, like a pillow. It wasn’t for his benefit, really, and it probably irritated him. It was because I wanted to tell Saint Peter: I was a good mate to someone.
‘Is that any better?’ I asked him.
‘No,’ he said.
His face, upside down, was like a sweating skull.
‘You ought to get that dog,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry, Alistair,’ I said. ‘About everything. About the rows. And my being so tactless.’
‘You don’t know what a row is,’ he said. ‘You’re sort of sweet. Or wet.’
Literally speaking, that was true. And he was soaked, too, and shivering inside the sodden blanket.
‘I just wanted to say that,’ I explained.
‘Save it for the next time,’ he said. ‘My gut is an infallible instrument. I know when we nearly went down, and just then that was what I wanted. But we’re coming out of this.’
I did feel that he might be right, because the pitching and wallowing seemed a little less, and I began to worry not so much about being seasick, for the first time in my life, in front of all those half-panicky people. And then suddenly the moon came out, and there was a tremendous shout.
‘Hey, look,’ I said, shaking his shoulder.
He sat up beside me and stared, down the black and white wake, towards the low full moon, with tattered clouds racing across it, and the low dark hump of an island in silhouette.
‘Kailuana, taubada,’ Osana called out at us. I didn’t need to look at him to know how scared he’d been.
‘Sayam was all at sea,’ I said to Alistair. ‘How far back would you say it was?’
‘I can’t judge,’ he said. ‘Funny, though. Our first landfall, if we’d ever made one, would have been my native heath.’
‘You’ll have to spell it out,’ I said. ‘Where is your native heath?’
‘Guadalcanal,’ he said. ‘I was born there.’
Sayam was beginning to put about. I thought how little I knew about anything, even geography, and of those stones which, some people say, young blokes used to study before setting out to visit islands all over the Solomon Sea that they’d never seen before.
MACDONNELL
When Naibusi woke me it was about eleven o’clock, and I came out in no very sweet temper to where the two of them were standing, soaked to the skin, by the Tilley lamp which Naibusi had put on the table, and at which Cawdor seemed to be trying to warm himself.
‘Funny time of night to turn up,’ I said. ‘And you didn’t hurry.’
‘Weather, Mak,’ Cawdor said. ‘Also bureaucracy. Some Health and Agriculture people from headquarters had the boat.’
He was very subdued, and shivering. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘before you turn in, a drop of rum and hot water wouldn’t do you any harm.’
‘No, thanks,’ he said. ‘We had a rough trip. If you don’t mind, I’ll just go and crash.’
‘Please yourself, old man,’ I said. ‘You know where your bed is.’ And he nodded at us and went, and we heard the door in the passage close.
I said to Dalwood, whose clothes were gummed to his skin: ‘You’d better do the same.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We’re both a bit shaken up.’
‘Cawdor certainly looks it,’ I said. ‘He’s very quiet.’
‘Mak,’ the boy said, ‘I might as well tell you. When we got back to Osiwa last time, there was a telegram to say his father had died. I think he felt that more than he expected.’
I said: ‘Very sorry to hear it. He can’t have been very old.’
‘He was fifty-two,’ Dalwood said, and I clicked my tongue. It hadn’t occurred to me that I was old enough to be Cawdor’s grandfather.
‘What sort of man was he?’ I asked.
‘He had been a missionary,’ Dalwood said, ‘in the Solomons. When he died he was holding down some sort of religious desk-job in Sydney. I don’t think there was ever much contact between them. Alistair was raised in boarding schools. Still, it would rock you a bit, I can imagine.’
‘And no mother?’ I asked.
‘Not that I ever heard of,’ the boy said. ‘But I don’t know much. He told me tonight, for the first time, that he was born on Guadalcanal. Why are you looking like that?’
‘Just thinking,’ I said. ‘When the Japs arrived in the Solomons, I’ve heard that some missionaries went missing. Perhaps some missionaries’ wives too.’
‘I don’t know,’ the young fellow said. ‘He’s never mentioned anything like that.’
He picked up a sponge-bag from the table, the only luggage he had with him. ‘I’ll take your advice about bed.’
‘Good idea,’ I said. ‘By the way, something you can pass on to Cawdor. If I’ve ever spoken my mind about Benoni in front of you two, I take it all back.’
‘He’s in control, then?’ the boy said.
‘I’m very impressed,’ I said, ‘very impressed indeed. If he lives long enough, he could be the first native District Commissioner, that young chap.’
‘That’s good news,’ Dalwood said, turning away. ‘It will be a load off his mind. Off Alistair’s, I mean. Mak, it can’t last much longer.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m very sorry for both of you, but it can’t. I saw that in his eyes.’
BENONI
I met Misa Kodo and Misa Dolu’udi at the end of the path from Rotten Wood, and I walked with them around the villages of Olumata and Obomatu, where all the men, and women too, were working on the new houses and yam-houses, and at planting new palms and fruit-trees. Now and again Misa Kodo would say: ‘Very good, Benoni,’ and nod to me, though he did not seem to notice as much as I thought he would notice.
He was very silent, but I did not pay much attention to that, as he was usually silent. And besides, Misa Dolu’udi was talking a great deal, and saying to me, through Osana, very kind things.
But when we went to the resthouse, and Misa Kodo had all the people in front of him on the grass, and started his questions, then I began to see the change.
At first the questions were about the fight on the path near Olumata, then about the damage at Olumata. He wanted to know and write down what damage every single man had done, so that if he had chopped down a tree or broken a cooking-pot he would replant it or buy a new one for the person who owned it.
In the beginning we thought that it was only our heads which were going round with all these questions. But we soon saw that Misa Kodo himself was more confused than anyone.
Then he began about the boy Teava, who was burned to death at Olumata while he was lying unconscious. Misa Koda wanted to know how Teava was wounded, and as soon as the people said that he was hurt with a shotgun, Misa Kodo became very excited. It was a long time before we could make him understand that Teava had not been shot, only hit on the head with the iron part of an old shotgun, and that there were three like that on the island.
Then from talking about Teava he went on, with no kind of sense that we could follow, to ask about Metusela, about where he had gone. And nobody could say, of course, because not even Saliba knows. The only people who know are I and Tobeba’i, who took the
pieces away in his canoe and threw them to the fish.
But I was frightened for a moment because Boulata, one of my uncle’s wives, said that Metusela had told her, when he left the church, that he was going to the stones. And I thought that he might have made some joke, as would have been natural in such a miserable little creature, about going to meet Saliba. But no, Boulata had heard nothing of that.
For a long while Misa Kodo wrote away in his book. Then he told all the people that he was arresting Boitoku, the VC, and taking him on the Igau to the calaboose at Osiwa for the time being. At that Boitoku’s old wife cried out, but Boitoku himself was quiet.
Then Misa Dolu’udi, who was always hungry, wanted to eat. But Misa Kodo said: ‘No, first let us talk with Dipapa.’
When we came to my uncle’s house, all the Government men and the prisoner, Boitoku, and some of the men who were with me, my uncle was alone on his covered platform. He was not asleep and did not even pretend to be, but raised himself and looked at Misa Kodo with his eyes that were bright and cloudy.
‘I am looking for Metusela,’ said Misa Kodo.
My uncle sat as if he were thinking, moving his mouth as he so often did, and said: ‘I know nothing about Metusela.’
‘Then he has vanished?’ said Misa Kodo.
‘I think so,’ said my uncle. ‘Yes, he has vanished.’
‘Dipapa,’ said Misa Kodo, ‘there is very great trouble. Trouble, I believe, for you.’
My uncle simply lay back again, with his neck on his head-rest, and said: ‘You say.’
‘You understand me?’ asked Misa Kodo.
‘I understand,’ said my uncle. ‘But Misa Kodo, who are you? A young man of no importance. And I command Kailuana, and have spoken with the Queen’s husband.’
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