The Ten Thousand Things

by Maria Dermout

  She wasn’t really young any more. And slowly, in her indifferent way, she began to bait the sailor:

  “What did you think, coming like this in broad daylight—you thought to embarrass me, I guess! You sailor, you haven’t been sober for a week. And with a knife—thought I’d be afraid, eh? Ha! Afraid of you? What kind of a man are you, anyway? You are no man at all!” Pauline was standing beside her holding the knife.

  The sailor stood motionless, only his eyes moved from one to the other, from one to the other.

  Then he made a loud clicking sound with his tongue and cried almost gaily, “Sluts, that’s what you are, both of you!” And without another word he turned around and began to walk leisurely down the sunny lane, not looking back once.

  Constance made as to run after him, but Pauline took hold of her wrists, “Constance, watch out, he’ll kill you!”

  Constance tried to pull herself loose but Pauline did not let go, and so she shrugged and let herself be dragged back into the garden.

  When they saw the official’s wife, Pauline immediately burst out, “Madam has seen it herself, Constance can’t go home, as long as that sailor is in town she has to live here—she can sleep in my room, I’ll sleep somewhere else—she can’t go on the street, it’s much too dangerous: the sailor will kill her—surely Madam understands that!”

  Constance looked as if they were talking about someone else.

  When the young wife said, hesitantly, that it was all right, that she could stay for the time being, Constance did not even listen.

  “Show me the knife,” she said to Pauline.

  She took it in her hand, looked it over carefully, showed it to the official’s wife too. It was a beautiful instrument, of good steel, thin and ground very sharp, ending in a point. The handle seemed a bit too heavy for the blade; a black rattan fiber was wound around it very neatly, one loop tight against the other, so as to make it lie firmly in the hand.

  Constance moved her finger along the blade and drew in her breath, “ai—how sharp,” she said and closed her eyes for a moment.

  When Pauline wanted to take back the knife Constance gave her a surprised look, “but it’s my knife,” she said, and when Pauline muttered something, “did the sailor come to murder you or me?”

  Pauline replied at once, “no, Constance, not me—you.”

  Constance kept the knife.

  And then everyone went back to rest.

  Later that afternoon, at tea time, Matthew returned. He had been to the barber and he had had a glass of palm wine (it was on his breath). When he put down the tea tray for the official he said without any introduction that Constance couldn’t stay. He would find another cook.

  The young man immediately agreed, “Matthew is right,” he said. “This time it all came out well, next time we might have a murder on our hands—no thanks!”

  His wife thought that was exaggerated.

  “I promised that Constance could stay here as long as that sailor is in town.”

  “Why was that necessary?” the official asked angrily.

  But Matthew thought it was all right, “that will be only a short time,” he said. “In ten days his ship is going on an inspection cruise to New Guinea. That’s far, and it will take a long time. Let her stay here for those days, and I’ll look around for another cook in the meantime.”

  And so Constance stayed with them for ten days.

  She didn’t have to do a thing: Pauline took everything off her hands, cooked, scoured pots and pans, swept the kitchen, ran to the market as early as possible in the morning.

  In her large basket she had a small one in which she brought a daily treat for Constance, paid for with her own money if the market money wasn’t sufficient: fresh fruit or candied (and that’s very expensive), nuts, cookies, or a bunch of flowers knotted in a banana leaf. Material for a new jacket which she sewed hastily, hastily, on the machine, with a long row of tiny buttons and buttonholes on both sleeves, to make them fit tight around the forearms.

  She went to Constance’s house and got her clothes, washed and ironed and pleated them.

  Every free moment she was sitting with her on a mat in the shadow of a tree or in the gallery in front of her room. She “rubbed” Constance while she lay full length on the mat, especially the joints of the wrists and ankles because it’s there that tiredness nestles, and also the back of the head at the hairline—that is where man’s sorrows and worries hide themselves. Pauline could rub well, and she did it while singing in her deep voice all the songs, all the psalms she knew.

  She stealthily picked the rare lemons with the bobbly spotted skins from the one little tree, let them simmer for hours on a small fire until they burst open; after a night’s cooling in the dew the heavy jellylike liquid which smelled so heavenly was strained, and Pauline used it to wash Constance’s hair. She rubbed it in, then rinsed the hair with cold rain water, dried it, combed it, combed it, sang for her.

  Constance didn’t object.

  The sailor wasn’t mentioned any more, and no one had seen him again.

  Ten days’ vacation for Constance, for Pauline ten days of heaven on earth. Ten days is not very long.

  There were three blasts of a ship’s whistle over the outer bay, echoed by the hills. Matthew raised his hand.

  “There he goes,” he said, “to the wilderness.”

  And so Constance left too. She didn’t mind, she had her own house and furniture, she had some money too. She’d look around a bit, when she felt like it she’d take another job, but not quite yet. The moon was almost full—time for the rattan tug-of-war.

  She looked well and rested, her clothes all laundered and neatly ironed—she wore her new jacket with the sleeves tight around her wrists, her hair glossy and smelling of lemon, a flower behind her ear. So she left, stepping through the garden, straight, stately, moving her arms from the supple shoulders—slowly, as if her hands tired her.

  A few days later she would be singing at the rattan tug, dripping with perspiration, unrecognizable, half fainting under the rhythm of the drums—Constance!

  Pauline came along to help her move, she said; there wasn’t much, Constance’s old market basket, her clothes, and the knife of the sailor. Pauline wanted to carry everything for her.

  Then there were three weeks of silence.

  At times it was so still that the murmur of the outer bay could be heard in the garden. Everything was as before, Matthew respectable and wise and Number One and nothing else.

  Mama Lea did all the work and still found time to go look at the children in the garden, wet Miss Sophy’s light-brown forelock and brush it upward, and comb out Lisbeth’s curly black hair and pull it back so tight that it made the child blink.

  The children played for hours and hours in the garden with the red doll, and the tame bird sat next to them.

  Pauline was sewing and mending again. Often she would be gone for a little while—always to Constance. Matthew didn’t object, he had only forbidden her to go at night when the rattan tugs were on. When Matthew said “forbid,” there was nothing to be done about it.

  In the kitchen there was a new cook, a man, his name was Jacob; he was even older than Matthew, a sour, unsocial fellow with untidy gray hair; no one cared for him. He insisted on cooking over wood instead of charcoal, and the clouds of smoke rising from the kitchen were the only way of knowing whether he was there or not. He didn’t cook very well and he couldn’t be made to understand that some people don’t like turtle eggs. The official’s wife hated turtle eggs and she began to think of trying to get Constance back—first she would have to convince her husband and Matthew.

  But after those three silent weeks Constance could no longer come back.

  Matthew told them early in the morning when he brought them their coffee in the garden. Pauline was with him, her face swollen and wet with tears.

  “Be quiet, Pauline! I have to tell the master and mistress. There’s been an accident, sir,” Matthew said slowly and e
mphatically, “Constance is dead—be quiet, Pauline! Last night she was at the rattan tug-of-war. It was late when she went home, and there was a man with her. The neighbors saw him, but they couldn’t see who he was. At dawn when they went to the well they saw that her door was open, they thought there had been thieves and wanted to warn her so they knocked, but received no answer. Then they went in and found her—dead—and there was blood everywhere.”

  “Was she murdered?” asked the official.

  “Pauline! Yes, sir, stabbed to death.”

  Then Pauline no longer let herself be silenced and she repeated almost the same words she had said before, “the sailor, the sailor from Macassar, with his knife!” But she said them in a different way, like a child that is almost choking in a vast sadness, her mouth drawn, her face flooded with tears. She was standing still, her hands clutched together.

  The others regarded one another—the sailor, what about that sailor, oh yes, he was gone, he was gone to New Guinea, the sailor wasn’t there at all.

  Matthew said softly, as if he were addressing a child, “Pauline, listen, I’ve told you already, Constance was killed—yes!—but not by the sailor, no, that would be impossible. Figure it out for yourself, his ship left three weeks ago, it is there, in New Guinea”—with a gesture toward the distance—“the sailor is on his ship, not here! How could he have murdered Constance?”

  Pauline had stopped crying, sniffed loudly, “yes!” she said, “with his knife!”

  Was she losing her mind?

  “Give her some bromide,” the official told his wife, “let Mama Lea stay with her today, and tonight a sleeping pill—isn’t that the best thing, Matthew?”

  “Yes,” said Matthew, that would be best, she had a sharp pain in her heart now, it would grow less after a while but she herself did not know that yet.

  They were all sorry for Pauline and so Constance was not mentioned any more. But in town it was told how the police were searching everywhere for the man who had gone home with her that night. He had been a spectator at the rattan tug, he had been seen by many people who would be able to identify him.

  And after a few days he was caught; he confessed quickly. He was a man of the island, of the town at the outer bay, and he was Constance’s husband! Years ago he had left her, gone all the way to Java, because even then she had been unfaithful—but then he had had such a longing for his country that he had come back. He had seen her at the rattan tug, and afterward he had gone home with her.

  Nothing would have happened if she had not baited him, if she hadn’t “humiliated” him; in the end she had told him that he’d better leave, why had he come anyway? She was sleepy after the rattan tug. And she had pointed at the knife which was lying on a bench, gleaming, “do you see that sharp knife, that belongs to my lover, a sailor—they are always ready with a knife, sailors; you’d better watch out, he’s coming later tonight,” and she had laughed and yawned loudly.

  Suddenly everything had been black before his eyes, and when he had come to his senses she was lying on the floor in her own blood—the knife was covered with blood—he hadn’t understood what had happened, he had been afraid, wiped off the knife and run away, had even forgotten to close the door; the knife he had hidden in a ditch, he’d show the police—that was all he could remember. But when they went to the place he had pointed out, they couldn’t find the knife—the knife wasn’t there.

  The story ran all over the town at the outer bay and people wondered whether he would be hanged or not, since he had made a full confession so quickly. But why would he have lied about the knife? or had someone else taken it away?

  One day when the young official happened to be sitting alone in his room reading, Pauline entered; she sat down on the floor in front of him—she never did that—and tried to put her arms around his knees like a supplicant.

  “For heaven’s sake, Pauline!” the young man said impatiently. “Get up, please, what’s the matter with you?”

  She scrambled to her feet, stood bent over with folded hands, “I ask you, sir! I ask you, won’t you go to the police, to the judge, to—to everybody and tell them not to believe that man, he’s wicked, he’s lying on purpose, he didn’t kill her! The sailor, you know, the sailor from Macassar, he’s the one who killed her, with his knife. Won’t you tell them that I—that Pauline—” she beat herself on the breast with a fist— “that Pauline can bear witness, she’ll take an oath on it, an oath on the Book, and also on the Box!”

  The Box is the alms box in the church for the poorest of the island.

  “And also on the—” she hesitated, but then she said it all the same—“also on the . . . the Water.”

  It was terrible that she had said those words aloud.

  The Water, that is the water of leprosy, and to say that to a European who is not allowed to know—she looked around, afraid that Matthew might be near and have heard, and then folded her hands again, “I ask you sir, I ask you—” as if she were begging.

  At first the young man asked, “were you there, Pauline, that you’re so sure? How dare you make such a statement? Do you think that man has confessed and is risking his neck just for fun?”

  But when she repeated, the sailor—the knife—with that same dull certainty in her voice, he tried to quiet her: “Perhaps you think that the sailor didn’t go with his ship and is hiding somewhere? I’ll tell you what I’ll do, when the ship returns I’ll talk to the captain and ask him about it.

  “If he says no, the sailor was not on board, then I’ll go to the police immediately and tell them!

  “If he says yes, the sailor did come, then he’s been in New Guinea and not here, then the sailor has not murdered Constance. Do you hear me, Pauline? Or don’t you?”

  “Yes,” Pauline said slowly and hesitantly, yes, she heard him.

  And still later, eight weeks after sailing from the town, the white government steamer came back from its inspection cruise.

  There were many ships in the outer bay: two from the Royal Navy, a freighter, a black collier—the town was suddenly full of life, with sailors everywhere.

  That same day the official accosted the captain of the government steamer on the steps of the Club and asked him about the sailor; he felt foolish and regretted his promise to Pauline.

  The captain knew at once whom he meant; he had only a small crew. That sailor, the Macassar—a fine sailor, by the way—yes of course he had been aboard, why wouldn’t he have been?

  The young official muttered something about one of his servants being a relative of the sailor, didn’t try to explain further.

  When he was home he called his wife and Matthew, and the three of them tried once more to make Pauline understand that the sailor could not have murdered Constance because he had been in New Guinea, and the captain of his ship had said so himself! The knife she had taken away from the sailor and given to Constance was no longer his knife, she knew that quite well.

  “And that’s the end of it,” Matthew said severely, “remember that, Pauline.”

  Pauline had listened calmly and when they had finished she asked, “and the sailor is now back again, here?” and she pointed with her hand to the floor right in front of her.

  When they said yes, she nodded with a smile and went back to her work without another word.

  The following day she was restless, wandered through the house and the garden and the outbuildings, sat down at times on one of the many stone steps, stared ahead, got up again.

  She went out to the children but did not play with them, did not sing for them as she used to do; she sat on the edge of their mat with her back toward them and smoothed the fine yellow sand with the edge of her hand—a small area—and made a drawing on it with one finger, looking around to see whether anyone was watching her, then she erased the drawing again, stood up, sat down somewhere else.

  It became late, the sun lost its strength and the garden was still, waiting for the night.

  The young wife drank her tea alon
e on the front gallery, for the official had gone to play tennis; Mama Lea was tucking in the mosquito curtains around the beds, Jacob the cook had gone home, and Lisbeth was already carrying the toys in. Only Miss Sophy was left in the garden on her mat with the red doll and the tame bird, waiting for Lisbeth to take them in too, and a bit farther off Matthew was leaning against a tree and smoking a self-rolled cigarette.

  Pauline had not seen Matthew.

  She sat down again on the edge of the mat and started drawing in the sand with a branch. She did not look around, there was no one, only that silly little child; she was drawing with short quick strokes, then she put the branch down and studied her work with a weird intensity.

  She had drawn the knife of the sailor, the thin pointed blade, the overheavy handle with the rattan fiber around it—after a while she began to mutter softly, her lips moving incessantly.

  She was so engrossed that she did not see Miss Sophy stand up behind her and walk toward her, dragging the doll along—walk with her little bare feet through the drawing, erasing what was left of it with the long dress of the doll which dragged across the ground.

  With a cry Pauline rose to her knees.

  “Watch out, watch out, watch what you’re doing!” she cried at first, and then wailed, “see what you’ve done! my knife, my beautiful knife—oh, oh!”

  Sophy had stopped to see what was the matter with Pauline, why she screamed so.

  Flushed with anger, Pauline grabbed the child by the shoulders and shook her with all her might. “See, see what you’ve done!” She shook her so hard that the head with the brown forelock tottered as if it were too big and heavy for the small neck, like the head of a baby, and the red doll which Sophy held fast flew from left to right with violent jerks.

  “See what you’ve done!” She gave the child such a push that Sophy fell backward on the ground with a thud, her legs up in the air. The cockatoo screamed and fluttered its wings— and Pauline at once turned around on her knees, grabbed for the bird which scrambled backward, screeching and pecking at her hands—she crept over the mat to get hold of it.