The Navigator

by Morris West

  ‘By the oldest trick in the book – procedure! He knew that by following the formality he could force us to disclose our opinions and withhold his own.’

  ‘And the disclosure of our opinions lessens our esteem for one another?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I fail to see that. I have great respect for anyone who can confront a harsh decision with courage. I’ve seen more combat than you. I’ve had to weigh one man’s death against the safety of others – and decide to kill him or let him die…Even our abstainers helped us – and here I disagree with Sally Anderton – because they preserved a necessary attitude of caution…Also, to submit to this open encounter over an issue of life and death was – as the Chief stated it to be – vital to us all.’

  ‘I still believe it was divisive and damaging.’

  ‘Two more points then. You called this a simple solution. I don’t see it as simple, either for the man who proposed it or for Charlie Kamakau. It involves a deprivation of one of our big assets, a seaworthy craft. It commits a sick man to an enormous risk – even while it appears to offer him a hope of cure and of safety. It takes one burden off our backs – but leaves us with another one: the knowledge that we cannot, as yet, cope with aberrants and misfits – which any of us could still become.’

  ‘You’re on my side now Briggs!’ Lorillard seized on the thought. ‘The solution was made to look simple. In truth it isn’t. Its only virtue is that it makes the Chief look humane and compassionate, and the rest of us either cowards or cold-hearted executioners. Now, what’s your last point?’

  ‘Procedure again,’ said Adam Briggs calmly. ‘The solution was not imposed, it was proposed for a vote.’

  ‘Then let’s stick to procedure, eh? We’ve got three different proposals before us – death, community therapy, or this…this buccaneering gesture of sending a ship’s Jonah off in an open boat! I insist all three be put to the vote.’

  ‘Before we do that,’ said Carl Magnusson heavily, ‘some others of us might like to speak. Me for instance. I reserved a position. Now I’d like to state it. There’s one point on which we all agree. We confess that we cannot guarantee safe custody or adequate therapy for Charlie Kamakau. Some of us want to try it, without guarantees. The rest want Charlie eliminated from the community…I say it’s time we stopped talking about him as an absent cipher. I’d like us to see him, sick or well, in this assembly.’

  ‘We’d frighten him to death,’ said Tioto.

  ‘I think we’re all scared,’ Martha Gilman cut in quickly. ‘We’ve never really looked at ourselves before.’

  Thorkild thrust himself to his feet and faced them.

  ‘I’m going to end the discussion. My integrity has been called in question. I cannot serve you without your full confidence. So, I resign, here and now. I’m no longer your Chief, just Gunnar Thorkild. I’m going to rig the canoe, which I remind you, belonged to my grandfather. I’m going to load it and put Charlie in it and let him go. If any of you want to stop me, you’re welcome to try …’

  He left them, and walked over to the store-hut. A few moments later he came out, with Charlie Kamakau, stooped and shambling beside him. They looked neither to right nor left, but headed straight for the beach where they began stepping the mast on the canoe. Then Molly Kaapu got up, and with Jenny at her heels gathered up a half-dozen water-gourds, and set off for the cascade. A moment later Adam Briggs and Tioto set off into the bush with knives and hatchets. Peter Andre Lorillard said with wintry malice:

  ‘Well! So much for sweet reason and democracy.’

  ‘I’ve got a patient,’ said Sally Anderton. ‘Lend me a hand please Ellen.’

  ‘I guess we start thinking about a new election,’ said Yoko Nagamuna amiably.

  ‘You think about it, sweetheart!’ Carl Magnusson climbed wearily to his feet. ‘I’m going to say goodbye to a friend.’

  Charlie Kamakau had not uttered a word from the moment Thorkild had entered the hut and explained his situation. Thorkild made no effort to engage him in talk, but as they worked he kept up a simple, toneless monologue.

  ‘… From here Charlie, you head north making as much easting as you can. You’ll end up either in the lower Cooks or the Austral Islands…You’ve got fishing tackle. You’ll need to conserve water, but you’ll make it if you’re careful…Now keep in mind, no one, no one in the world, can touch you for what’s happened here. But you don’t even have to mention it…When you make your landfall, explain that you were bosun on the Frigate Bird and you volunteered to make a single-handed journey to bring help…I’ll confirm that, so will your other friends…The only thing is you must never, never come back here…You keep going, north by east, and at night you steer on the dog-star, between the rising and the zenith…You forget everything, except that you’re going home. There are no voices, no kapu… nothing but the new landfall…’

  There was no sign that he heard or understood; except that all his movements were seaman-like and purposive. Watched by the little group of helpers, he tested the rigging for strain; he raised and lowered the sail; he stowed the food and the water-gourds and the tackle neatly to his hand. Tioto went to him and embraced him. He stood rigid as a tree and made no response to the gesture. Carl Magnusson held out his hand and said:

  ‘Goodbye old shipmate.’

  Charlie Kamakau ignored him. He squatted in the shallows, voided his bowels and his bladder, then pushed the canoe into the water, hauled himself inboard and without a backward glance, paddled towards the channel.

  ‘Why?’ Tioto begged dolefully of no one in particular. ‘Why did he go like that? We were his friends. He knew that much.’

  ‘We failed him,’ said Gunnar Thorkild. ‘Lorillard and the others were right. He wanted us to kill him.’

  Now that it was done, he felt empty and aimless, craving like an alcoholic for strong liquor and solitude. The others sensed his mood and huddled away from him, talking in low tones among themselves. For want of anything better to do he went in to see Barbara Kamakau. Sally had just changed her dressings and was bathing her face with cool water. She was feverish and in much pain, but she held out a limp hand in greeting.

  ‘Has Charlie gone?’

  ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘And he’ll never come back?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Don’t let them hate me, please!’

  ‘Nobody hates you, girl. We want you well and smiling. We’ve ordered flowers and chocolates by the next flight!’

  ‘You’re crazy Chief.’

  ‘Crazy like a fox!’ Sally was tart and unsmiling. ‘Now get out of here and let the girl rest.’

  He walked over to the store-hut, picked up a hatchet, a seaman’s knife, an auger and a bundle of lashings and headed out of the camp towards the uplands. Half a mile from the camp he found what he was looking for: a fresh stand of bamboo growing near a large, flat rock. With more simple satisfaction than he had felt for a long time, he settled down to work, choosing the canes, testing them for strength and flexibility, cutting and grading them. It was nearly nightfall when he completed his project – a simple canoe frame, large enough to carry two men. When the frame was lined with palm-matting and covered with sail-canvas, it would make a craft serviceable enough for fishing the lagoon and the reef.

  He gathered up his tools, hoisted the frame on to his shoulders and walked back to the camp. He set the frame down near the fire-pit, brought out a length of sail-cloth and a few pieces of matting, and, by the light of the fire and the torches, demonstrated how the covering should be done. It was a day’s work at most. They would not be too long deprived. As he walked back to his hut, Sally fell into step beside him and announced acidly:

  ‘Before you start playing lone ranger, my love, give a thought to the little woman back at the ranch.’

  Thorkild was unusually contrite.

  ‘I didn’t think. I’m sorry. I wanted them to have that damn boat today…It’s rather neat, don’t you think?’

  �
�Very. But they won’t turn out the band for you.’

  ‘Have I asked for it?’

  ‘No. But that’s the problem. No one knows what you’re asking for.’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Then why did you resign? There were good things happening at that meeting. Hard things were said, sure! Lorillard was certainly insulting – but no one else. And you had eloquent and faithful defenders. I have to say this my love, you disappointed me. You put yourself and everyone else in a false position …’

  ‘I’m sorry; but I don’t see it like that. I’m an old-fashioned man. I was taught to give respect. I expect to get it.’

  ‘You didn’t give it today. You breached the bargain you made at the beginning – open talk, decisions in common. And do you know why? Because you weren’t prepared to trust us to make a decent, human decision. You robbed us all – yes, me too! – of a fundamental right…It’s a terrible thing to say to the man I love. But I mean it Gunnar. I mean every word of it.’

  ‘What should I do? Call my lawyer?’

  ‘Don’t be flippant. It doesn’t become you…See you later. I’m going over to help with the supper.’

  She was right and he knew it. He had breached a contract. He had invaded the rights of those who had made it with sole faith in Gunnar Thorkild, scholar, gentleman, respected inheritor of an older tradition than their own. Why had he done it? Wounded pride was no answer. He had already dealt out his own insult to Peter Lorillard. Fear of the votes? That was too flimsy a pretext, with so many and so eloquent voices in favour of compassion. The real reason lay much deeper, and was much more shameful. The history of the alii, the high ones, was a seductive legend. The mana which they transmitted to him was a gift as dangerous as the Midas touch or the god-like empery of the Caesars. It tempted, if not to tyranny, at least to a taste for homage and the smell of incense. He had repeated the same mistake as he had made in his academic career. He had demanded too much credence for too little evidence; too much tolerance for too arrogant a presumption.

  Almost immediately, reaction began, and he swung violently from guilt to resentment. Why the devil should he make kow-tows to a small group of professional grumblers – Simon Cohen and Yoko, and Peter Lorillard? Why should they have the right, denied to him, of perpetual carping and negation? Well, let Lorillard or Castillo or Cohen try their backsides in the chief’s chair. He himself was glad to be out of it! The first smell of cooking wafted across from the fire-pit; but tonight he had no appetite either for food or company. He strolled down to the beach, built himself a backrest in the sand and sat staring out across the lagoon, trying, as his grandfather had taught him, to plait himself together again.

  This time it was not so easy. Behind him he could hear, muted by distance, the talk and laughter around the fire. Before him was the big ocean, tossing now with the turbulence of a distant storm, which would make Charlie Kamakau’s first passage a nightmare. Had he himself been asked to lay the odds on his own survival in such circumstances, he would have put them at three to one in his favour. He was skilled, sane, never seasick, and mere distance held no terrors for him. Charlie Kamakau too, was a good sailor; but his experience was on large vessels, not in small island craft; and even for a man, sane and healthy, the solitude of the great sea was a constant threat.

  Which brought him by a round turn, to the vessel which they now must build for themselves. The big craft, like the Ndrua of the Fijians, and the old Hawaiin Wa’a Kaulua, took, sometimes, years to build. They were capable of very long journeys; but to sail them required more skill and endurance than his own people could command. The old migrants lived on them for long periods; but they were wet, uncomfortable, and in big seas, they rode like roller-coasters. Besides, with Charlie Kamakau gone, and Tioto maimed in one hand, their manpower was seriously depleted. Carl Magnusson was a diminishing force and the casualties among the women – Jenny, Barbara, and Martha now pregnant – were a further handicap. With a small start of surprise, he realized that he was thinking as if he were still chief and arbiter of their destiny…He heard a footfall in the sand behind him. When he turned he saw that it was Yoko Nagamuna. She asked in her little-girl voice:

  ‘Mind if I join you?’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  She slid down on to the sand beside him.

  ‘They’re all talking their heads off round the fire. Everybody’s so serious…blah-blah-blah! I got bored.’

  ‘It hasn’t been a very cheerful day.’

  ‘What’s happened to your sense of humour, Prof? You always used to be good for a laugh or two.’

  ‘I’m out of practice. Say something funny!’

  ‘Do you know the story of the woman who was snatched by the gorilla at the zoo? He pulled her inside the cage, slammed the door and started to undress her. She screamed to her husband: “What do I do Harry? What do I do?” Her husband shrugged and said, “Tell him you’ve got a headache!”’

  In spite of himself, Thorkild laughed.

  ‘There’s another version,’ said Yoko, straight-faced. ‘Where the woman steps into the cage. A few minutes later she’s back, shaking her head: “No use!” she says. “Just like my husband. Psychic impotence!” ’

  ‘That’s very sad,’ Thorkild chuckled. ‘I could cry for her.’

  ‘Save your tears,’ said Yoko. ‘Next week she turned lesbian and lived happily ever after with a beauty editor.’

  ‘The moral being …?’

  ‘I’m in love with Hernan Castillo – and he couldn’t care less because he’s in love with Ellen Ching and she couldn’t care less either, because she’s got Franz Harsanyi but she’d rather have me, and I’m not interested.’

  ‘That’s quite a tangle.’

  ‘It’s a mess of worms, Professor! Which explains why I am one very bitchy lady.’

  ‘It’s sad Yoko; but I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do about it.’

  ‘You’ve got your hands full already, haven’t you? What with Sally and Jenny and Martha Gilman…Don’t you yearn for that nice little bachelor apartment in Honolulu?’

  ‘I haven’t had much time to think about it.’

  ‘But now you will have. How does it feel to be a private citizen again?’

  ‘You are bitchy!’

  ‘Do you blame me?’

  ‘Yes I do. You make mischief. When it snaps back and bites you, you make more mischief. That’ll scare anyone off – man or gorilla!’

  ‘Thanks for nothing, Professor!’

  ‘Listen woman! We’re all lonely. All scared…Even when you’re in love you wake up in the dark and see hobgoblins on the ceiling. Look at that sea! It’s boiling! Charlie Kamakau’s out there, alone; and I sent him.’

  ‘And your Sally’s back there at the fire talking some mish-mash about “putting things together again”! Why isn’t she here with you?’

  ‘Lay off, Yoko!’ Thorkild heaved himself to his feet. ‘Sally’s had a rougher time than any of us; and she’s worried as hell because she’s almost out of drugs.’

  ‘I’m worried about that as well,’ said Yoko Nagamuna. ‘Which makes another little item for your log-book. I’m pregnant too. One night on the beach with Simon Cohen…and not a very good one at that! So how does that grab you, oh wise one!’

  ‘Oh God – I’m sorry!’

  ‘Don’t be! I bought it; just don’t spit in my eye. I never thought I’d say it to you; but I could use a kind word…Will you walk me down to the end of the beach?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I won’t keep you away too long.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing else to do.’

  ‘Oh yes, there is. I have a message for you. Because I belong to the opposition, they sent me as a kind of ambassador. They want you to be chief again.’

  They had kept a place for him at the fire-pit. They had baked a small fish and a sweet of fei and coconut for the meal he had missed. They had appointed Lorillard to speak for them, but before he did so, Thorkild made hi
s peace:

  ‘I have an apology to make. I behaved badly. I broke the contract we made together. I hope you’ll all forgive me.’

  It was as if he had not spoken. Peter Lorillard said, formally:

  ‘It’s clear that most of our problems arise out of personality conflicts. We all agree that we need to separate the conflicting elements. We also agree that we still need a chief as the focus of our unity. So we hope you’ll consent to resume, Thorkild.’

  ‘I’d like to hear your other proposal first.’

  ‘Martha and I, Willy Kuhio and Eva, will colonize the terraces and cultivate them. If our health holds good – and Sally will give us a regular check-up – we’ll stay there. That leaves yourself, Franz, Hernan Castillo, Briggs and Simon Cohen, five able-bodied men for the boat-building, with Carl, Tioto and the women for all the rest of the jobs. Young Mark says he would like to stay down here. If we need a rest or a change of scenery we swop jobs…Does that make sense?’

  ‘It seems to, so far.’

  ‘Until we learn to hunt or domesticate the pigs, you’ll have to supply us with fish…We’ll send you down fruit and vegetables…There’s one other thing…Subject to the general authority of the chief and the tribe, we’d like to – well – do things our own way on the terrace. No offence, but…’

  Thorkild grinned amiably:

  ‘I know! It saves personality problems. When do you want to leave?’

  ‘In the morning. After we’ve drawn stores and tools.’

  ‘Good. It’s settled then!’

  ‘So let’s drink to a quiet life.’ Carl Magnusson held up a bottle of liquor. ‘We’ve got six quarts left after this. We’ll give two to the mountain folk and save the rest for births and funerals!’

  One thing was now abundantly clear to Thorkild. The beach-side community had the advantage in manpower; but it was now much less stable than before. It was idle to expect that either the men or the women would adjust themselves easily to a situation fraught with so much stress. So, without consulting anyone, he made a risky decision. First he called Simon Cohen and told him bluntly: