by Morris West
‘Great! Just great! There’s so much love in that girl; it just bubbles out like spring water…I’ll tell you a truth: I don’t ever want to go home. Neither does Jenny…So, put me on record Chief. I’ll train with you. I’ll help train the others. But I’m not leaving this island.’
‘That’s a big decision, Adam.’
‘You think so?’ He was suddenly urgent and eloquent. ‘What’s back there that we need so much? We eat well and we sleep safe and we wake to smiling faces – and everywhere we turn there’s something beautiful: the fish, the birds, the sunset. Man, we’re liberated! Why should we put chains on ourselves again? I keep saying this to Franz and Castillo as we work. The only good thing about the boat is that it opens the big sea to us, gives us choice. But for Jenny and me the choice is made…What about you Chief?’
‘I want to stay too; but…’
‘But what?’
‘I have to wait and see. I’m responsible for a lot of people.’
‘You’re a glutton for grief aren’t you? Have you ever really thought how far you are – or can be – responsible?’
‘I have. And the answer’s plain. I’m responsible right down the line. And I’ve got to say this Adam – even though it may never happen – if I send you, you go!’
‘I admire you Chief,’ said Adam Briggs softly. ‘Jenny loves you. I…I love you too I guess. You’re close to me as a jungle buddy…but don’t make me fight you!’
‘Ever play poker Adam?’
‘Often.’
‘High stakes?’
‘In the Army, sometimes.’
‘So you know, after you’ve bought, you bet the cards in your hand; because there’s no more to come.’
‘Or you fold and don’t bet at all.’
‘Would you like to bet now?’
‘On what?’
‘A blood-match. Winner takes all. Briggs versus Thorkild.’
‘Hell Chief! You know I didn’t mean that!’
‘Neither did I,’ said Gunnar Thorkild. ‘So let’s not even dream about it. Let’s live one day at a time.’
It was easy to say; much, much harder to accomplish than subsistence itself. It raised the perennial problem of the discontinuity of experience within the tribe itself. There was no common faith, no common past. There was no single frame that could contain their diverse hopes and fears. No matter how closely they were confined by geography, how stringently bound by the monotony of their daily round, there was still no tribal dream to make them one. Even the patent of the chief could be withdrawn at will, by vote or by cabal. As they fished, drifting slowly along the inner fringe of the reef, he tried to explain it to Adam Briggs, who listened patiently and then made his own point:
‘… No way you can make it different Chief. Maybe if we live here, two, three generations, our grandchildren or our great-grandchildren will have that dream you talk about: all the legends and the stories and the attitudes linked together and joining past and present. But we’re stuck with the luggage we’ve got, and we’ll hang on to it until the last label peels off and we don’t really remember why we kept it…Hey! Look at that big crayfish! There, in the crevice!’
‘Can you reach him?’
‘No. I’ll go overside. It’s shallow here. I can walk up to him.’
‘Watch your feet. That coral’s sharp.’
‘I’ll watch it. Hang out now. I’m going over.’
While Thorkild balanced the canoe, Briggs rolled himself over the side, swam a few strokes to bring himself into the shallows at the base of the reef, then stood up and began a slow cautious approach to the big cray. He was within a hand’s reach when he screamed and fell back, thrashing helplessly. There was no way to haul him inboard again. Thorkild capsized himself into the water and tried to take hold of him. He was obviously in agony and out of control and Thorkild had to hit him and half drown him before he could roll him on his back and swim with him to the shallows. Then he laid him on the sand and examined his footsoles. On the left foot there was a line of punctures, extending from the ball to the heel. Briggs began to scream again, writhing and twitching on the sand. Thorkild heaved him on to his shoulders and hurried, stumbling, to the camp. When the others crowded about him, he shouted them away:
‘Call Sally! Franz, Tioto get the canoe!…otherwise we’ll lose it! One of you get some whisky from Carl.’
He laid Briggs down on his own bed, and poured liquor down his throat until he gagged and thrust it away. Then he showed the sting-marks to Sally and to Jenny.
‘See those! Stone-fish! The poison induces high pain, spasm and fever.’
‘What’s the antidote?’
‘None. Treat him for shock if you can. Dose him for pain if you’ve got anything. Then wait.’
‘For what?’
‘He’ll die quickly. If he lives he could be sick for weeks.’
Jenny screamed. Thorkild slapped her hard and thrust her out of the hut into the arms of Molly Kaapu.
‘Get her away from here! Get everyone away! I’ll be out to talk to you later!’
He turned back to Sally, who was listening to Briggs’ heart-beat and taking his pulse. He was groaning and shivering, and when the pain took him, he gave a high wailing scream – ee-ee-ee! and his face contorted into a rictus of agony. Sally turned away and began rummaging through the medicine chest. When she straightened up there was despair in her eyes.
‘Nothing worth a damn. Burn salve, Carl’s prescriptions, tinea ointment, iodine, aspirin and purgatives!’
‘Try praying,’ said Thorkild bleakly. ‘I’d better go talk to the others. I’ll be back in a minute.’
He assembled them round the fire-pit and told them what had happened. He continued with a brief, harsh lecture.
‘… We talked before about the danger of going barefoot round the reef. We’ve all got careless, me included. Now this happens. So for Christ’s sake let’s learn! At least you can make matting soles and tie them on your feet. Let me tell you about the stone-fish…He’s an ugly bastard, brown and grey, so he’s hard to see against the sand. He’s covered with warts and slime. He’s got a round mouth, green inside, and thirteen spikes on his back, all poisonous. If you see him, don’t touch him – and tread warily wherever you are. Adam’s very sick, but he’s strong. We hope for the best…Oh, and we’ll take turns to watch him at night. That’s all!’ He put his arm around Jenny and drew her away from the group. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.’
‘I needed it Chief. Can I go to him now?’
‘Hold tight kid! It’s going to be a rough ride.’
It was rough and it was long. The first night the men had literally to wrestle, to hold him on the bed. Then the fever took him, so high at times, that they rolled him in blankets and kept dousing him with water from the cascade. His foot swelled like a melon and the poison crept up the shank and he wept helplessly at the throbbing of it. At Ellen Ching’s suggestion they churned up pepper root and made kava and used it for an opiate to give him a brief tranquillity. One long, grim day, Sally debated whether or not to amputate, and decided finally that the shock of surgery without anaesthetic would certainly kill him. That same night, distraught and desperate, she asked Thorkild and Jenny whether, if gangrene set in, she would be justified in putting Adam out of his misery. It was Jenny who decided the issue. She took them both by the hand and led them to the sombre little group assembled round the fire-pit and said:
‘We’ve been wondering whether it’s right to kill Adam. He’s my man and I don’t want to see him suffer any more. So I’m going to ask you all to do one thing for me. It may mean nothing – but it may be the most important thing of all, and we’ve neglected it. I want you to pray with me. Even if you don’t believe, please, just say the words with me. In case you don’t know the words, I’ll say them and you repeat them…Please, oh please…!’
Her voice cracked and she stood there weeping helplessly until Thorkild rose and held her and began: ‘Our Father which art in
heaven …’
‘Our Father, which art in heaven …’ The chorus was ragged at first, then it grew stronger, rising on the wind, rolling out over the surf-beat…‘And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory for ever and ever. Amen.’
‘Thank you,’ said Jenny, brokenly. ‘Thank you from both of us.’
‘I think we all needed it,’ said Franz Harsanyi softly.
They were so absorbed in the emotion of the moment, that no one missed Mark Gilman. He had slipped away, down to the beach. He was tossing coral pebbles into the lagoon and chanting, over and over, a burial shout from the Low Islands, which Simon Cohen had taught him.
‘Swing the King high,
Close to the sun,
Swing the King low,
Close to the ground,
Then toss him into the grave!’
‘I kept remembering the Bible.’ Adam Briggs lay, weak and placid, in the deep shadows of the hut. ‘When I was burning up I thought any moment I’d be hauled away, like Elijah, in a chariot of fire. When I was cold I thought I was Jonah, floundering in the deep sea, waiting for the whale to swallow me. You know what I feel like now, Chief?’
‘No idea, Adam.’
‘Like Lazarus, when he heard the big voice telling him to come out into the sun, and he couldn’t walk because he was tied up in the grave clothes, and he couldn’t get out because there was this great stone in front of the cave…Then, all of a sudden, he’s out; and there’s the world, new and shining, as though he’s never seen it before and he has to start learning it from the beginning …’
‘You were very lucky!’
‘I know it; and I’m so grateful I’d like to sing myself out of this hut with psalms and canticles …! How long before I can get out, Chief?’
‘A couple of days, Sally says. And then you take it very easy. That foot won’t heal for weeks yet. You’re so thin you’re a candidate for the bone-yard.’
‘I know. I can touch the bones with my fingers. Chief…?’
‘What?’
‘Jenny said you prayed for me; you all prayed.’
‘We did.’
‘Now that’s a wonderful thing, straight from the heart! People don’t show their hearts very often. When I get well again, I’m going to make a new can of mash, and gather me fruits and catch me fish and call everyone to a luau where Adam and Jenny Briggs say thank you. And I’m going to find me a tree and fell it and haul it down and make a little boat and give it to everyone, and say this is a boat made by the man you brought back from the dead.’
‘Adam, you don’t have to do those things.’
‘I want to do them, Chief.’
‘Fine! But not yet awhile, eh?’
‘One day, soon. Something else I learned Chief…’
‘What?’
‘You were right when you said to live one day at a time. Sometimes it’s one hour, one minute. You’re a wise man!’
‘You talk too much. Get some sleep!’
‘Yes sir! No argument from Adam Lazarus Briggs!’
Outside, in the lowering light of a stormy afternoon, Ellen Ching was waiting for him. She took his arm and walked him over to the cascade and made him sit down and talked to him in her crisp direct style.
‘Chief, I don’t bother you much.’
‘No, you don’t Ellen.’
‘I run my house and mind my own business, right?’
‘You do.’
‘I don’t panic. I don’t rock the boat.’
‘Check!’
‘I’m mixed up, but not screwed up.’
‘Check again!’
‘So, when I talk to you, I want you to take me very seriously.’
‘I do. I will.’
‘Chief, you’ve got big trouble in a small package – Mark Gilman. No! Don’t say anything. Just listen. This is one frightening child. He’s got brains for three people. He’s – what? – rising twelve, but he looks fifteen and already he’s loaded for bear and looking for it. That’s one part of the problem, and, if you’ll pardon the expression, it’s the part that can be handled by me or Yoko, or even Jenny. It’s the other part that worries me. Now, you know, one way and another, he gets a lot of care, and, from Jenny and Molly and Sally a lot of loving. Yet, he’s so full of hate, the loving doesn’t even touch him. He could kill somebody one day. You’d better believe that!’
‘Whom does he hate, Ellen?’
‘Well, let me tell you what’s happened; then you try to sort it out…. Now this isn’t hearsay. It’s what I’ve seen and heard myself. You know how we all swim naked, alone or together – It’s a normal thing. No surprises. It’s like a drink of water. Now, several times, when I’ve been alone, he’s stood off and watched me, not curious, not lecherous, just cold and contemptuous. Each time he’s said the same thing: “You’ll make a beautiful corpse, Miss Ching!”…I know, it’s a lousy line, straight out of a B-movie; but he’s said it – said it and walked away.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Oh yes. I didn’t notice this for a while; but then I caught the pattern and watched it. Every night, while Adam Briggs was very sick – remember we had someone with him all the time – Mark would walk down to the sun-clock, stand against the pole – what do you call it…?’
‘The gnomon.’
‘That’s right. He’d stand against it, face Adam’s hut, and spread out his arms, the way you’ve taught him to measure star angles. Then he’d recite something in Polynesian dialect…It sounded like: Kai yoki yoki io. I asked Franz Harsanyi what it meant and he said it was a death chant for a King. It says …’
‘I know what it says. Go on.’
‘Well, after that he’d wait around for Jenny, and either go down to the beach with her, or sit in her hut, talking till all hours. I listened one night, and I heard him say:
‘Jenny, you’re mine really. The Chief gave you to me. I’m just lending you out until I’m ready.’
‘And what did Jenny say?’
‘Oh hell!…All the sweet things a big girl says to a little boy who thinks he’s in love. She’s milk and honey, Chief. You know that. She wouldn’t know a psychopath from a hole in the ground. While he was carving her up, she’d want to believe he was writing his autograph round her navel!’
‘Strong words, Ellen!’
‘Too strong; but I’m still anxious.’
‘How do the others feel?’
‘They agree he’s cooky…They put it down to puberty, loneliness, mixed-up family, lack of peer companionship, this, that and the kitchen sink! But if the boy’s sick or unhappy, something has to be done about it.’ She gave him that cool, placid Kwan Yin smile. ‘And that means you, Chief, I’m afraid.’
‘I’ll watch him for a while.’
‘By the way, Chief, people should say it; but they rarely do. We prize what you and Sally do.’
‘Thanks Ellen.’
‘Old Chinese saying, Chief: any fool can boil rice; for moon-cakes you need a sober cook.’
It was a pretty compliment but it helped not at all to interpret the problems of a highly intelligent child, isolated in an adult world. He could not say it; but he had also to be wary of the testimony of a woman who feared children, and was admittedly ambivalent in her attitude to the male gender. Her concern was genuine. He had to be very reserved about her observations and her diagnosis. So, he sought out Carl Magnusson and told him of the conversation. The old man was troubled.
‘… The odder they think he is, the odder he’ll get. The kid’s got antennae like a butterfly. He reads your thoughts before you’ve even found the words for them; then he tells you what he thinks will raise him in your esteem. Cooky? That’s a bastard word that means anything and nothing…Let me tell you what I know. All his props have been knocked away. He knows how his father died; his mother’s married Lorillard, whom he despises; she’s carrying a child whom he sees, even now, as a usurper. You gave him Jenny, whom he loves. Adam
Briggs took her away. Which leaves you – his Uncle Gunsmoke, who, he hoped, would marry his mother and become a father to him. You rejected that role and assumed another – teacher and chief. So now, he can’t seduce you and he can’t dominate you. What’s the poor little coot got left? Just the knowledge you’re pumping into him; which he sees as an ultimate source of power, authority, identity – call it what you will…Dammit Thorkild, he hasn’t even got a pet to spend love on! He’s being hauled by his ears into adulthood. His feet are off the ground and he’s dangling in mid-air. The hell is that he understands it – or says he does! – but he doesn’t know what to do about it…I’m afraid we don’t either. If we joke, we insult him. If we’re tender, we demean him. He’s excluded from our crises, and from our celebrations. No wonder he’s got fantasies of hate and killing…Oh yes, I do believe he’s got them! I wish I knew how to purge them out.’
‘I don’t know either, Carl…You see, the structure of the tribe is still defective. We’ve got the old, the mature, the young – but he’s the only child, and before the babies are grown he’ll be a man. That’s why I’m training him; so that he can be among the first to leave the island. Meantime, the wounds become deeper, the alienation more complete.’
‘We’re great doctors, Thorkild. We know all the diseases – and have no cure for any! I wonder …’
‘What Carl?’
‘I was just thinking. Years ago, when I was cruising the Greek Isles, I went to Cos, the island which was sacred to Aesculapius, the Healer. In antique times there was a great hospital there which was famous for its treatment of mental disorders. Patients came from all over the Mediterranean. They were lodged in the hospital, which was, in fact, a temple, and treated by the priests. The treatment always interested me, because in a sense, it is still valid today…There’s a point to this, Thorkild, so be patient with me, eh?’
‘Go on Carl!’
‘Where was I? Oh yes, the treatment. The patients were housed in rooms overlooking the sea, open to the cooling winds. They were cosseted by slaves, charmed with music, sedated with opiates. They drank, daily, from the sacred spring. All this was prelude, preparation. The cure was accomplished by what was called “the experience of the God!” So far as we can gather, the patient was taken, blind-folded, to the inner shrine, deafened by loud noises, terrified by long silence, shocked by some voice which proclaimed a divine presence. That was the essence of it apparently: shock treatment, after which the patient was led back to his quarters, exhausted but serene, to convalesce in comfort and pleasure in sight of the sea …’
