by Graeme Kent
She walked across the compound from the classroom in which she had been teaching, a brisk, tiny, urgent figure in a white habit reaching to her ankles, consulting the fob watch she carried attached to the belt around her waist, next to a string of rosary beads. At the vigorous tolling of the noon bell, children and teachers emerged hungrily from the other thatched bamboo classrooms of the boarding school on the bluff above the river, shortly before it emptied into the lagoon. They headed eagerly for lunch in the long dining hut. A hundred yards away, close to the ever-encroaching tangle of bush, lay the sprawling mission house and the neat, red-roofed stone church. Scattered haphazardly about the station were the huts of those Christian families who had abandoned their villages over the years and come to live closer to the source of their faith.
Sister Conchita walked over and checked that the young blue-robed local nuns were feeding the milling newcomers from the sacks of rice she had earlier carried over from the mission store. One of the nuns looked at the unhappy islanders.
‘They are frightened,’ she said sadly. She lapsed into pidgin for emphasis as she hurried away to fetch another sack of rice. ‘Frit too much!’
Sister Conchita nodded sympathetically. It had been a busy morning. She had risen at dawn and spent a period at silent prayer and meditation, trying to look deeply into herself, as she had promised the mother superior in Honiara. ‘Concentrate on your devotions,’ the old woman had warned. ‘Do not have too much contact with the outside world.’
Chance would be a fine thing, thought Sister Conchita. Already it had been her limited experience that the outside world had a habit of crowding in on her, despite all her good intentions to lead a withdrawn, contemplative and hopefully placid life. This morning alone her time had been fully occupied with teaching the children and looking after the refugees, without even starting to attend to any of her administrative duties.
She checked that the food for the visitors was being cooked in large simmering tureens on stone-clustered fires all over the grass. Earlier she had held an impromptu sick call in the hospital, attending to cuts and abrasions sustained by some of the islanders in their hasty flight from their villages. Later she would have to find shelter for them all and any later arrivals who might turn up. She decided that it was also time that she looked in on Father Pierre.
The old priest was lying on the iron bedstead beneath rough blankets in his tiny simple room when the nun took him in a glass of lemonade. There was a basketwork chair on the old woven carpet. A wooden cross was suspended on bush twine from a wall. An oil lamp with a trimmed wick stood on a small table. Termite-infested books were piled everywhere on the floor.
‘How are you feeling?’ asked Conchita, handing her patient the glass.
‘Better,’ whispered the old priest unconvincingly. He was a thin, wizened man in his eighties. A few wisps of white hair were drawn across his scalp. A pair of spectacles with bottle lenses balanced precariously on his nose. For such an aged man his face was curiously smooth and untroubled, like a river pebble worn smooth by the rushing water of time. He was wearing an old-fashioned white nightgown, buttoned at the neck despite the heat. He had arrived in the Solomons from Alsace-Lorraine more than fifty years before. Over the ensuing decades he had carved Ruvabi Mission almost single-handedly from the bush.
‘I wish you would let me take you to the hospital in Honiara,’ said Sister Conchita as she smoothed the old priest’s pillow.
‘Don’t fuss, girl,’ said Father Pierre calmly. ‘You’re merely witnessing the incipient ravages of old age. My end isn’t near yet. Have you heard anything more about the death of the so-called Papa Noah?’
Conchita shook her head and took the proffered half-empty glass from the old man. The best part of a week had passed since she had returned from the lethal feast at the Lau Church of the Blessed Ark. She had sent a radio message to the mission’s headquarters in Honiara recounting the events she had witnessed, but so far had heard nothing in return.
‘It’s a strange business,’ said Father Pierre, his voice growing weaker. ‘These breakaway churches are usually a bit of a joke, but when someone gets murdered, that’s a different matter.’
‘I suppose Shem, the Tikopian, will take over the sect now,’ said Sister Conchita idly.
‘Who?’ asked the old priest.
‘You remember I told you that there was a Tikopian claiming to be Papa Noah’s son? He even called himself Shem, like Noah’s son in the Bible.’
‘You never mentioned that he was a Tikopian,’ said Father Pierre, trying to sit up. ‘What did he look like?’
Sister Conchita tried to recall the features of the broad-shouldered, shambling Polynesian. She did her best to describe him to the old priest. Father Pierre listened in silence until she had finished.
‘I wish you had told me this earlier,’ was all he said.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t think it was important,’ said Sister Conchita, gently easing the distracted man back on to his pillow. She was pretty sure that she had mentioned it, but Father Pierre tended to forget things
‘Of course it’s important,’ said Father Pierre weakly. ‘It’s probably the most important thing about this whole business. You must tell Ben Kella about it at once, if you haven’t already done so. And while you’re about it, tell that big Anglican Guadalcanal man, Brother John, too.’
‘Brother John already knows,’ said Sister Conchita soothingly. ‘He was asking Papa Noah all sorts of questions at the feast about the future of the sect.’
‘That makes it worse,’ breathed Father Pierre. ‘He’s a shrewd fellow. So is Sergeant Kella, fortunately. You’d better send for him. That’s it! Send for Ben. Tell him there’s a Tikopian connection. There’s trouble on Tikopia. The Anglicans thought that they’d converted the island to Christianity, but if you ask me, it didn’t quite take. That’s why there’s going to be trouble.’
His head fell to one side and soon he was asleep. Sister Conchita smoothed his pillows once more, and looked down at the sleeping man. She admired Father Pierre more than any other man she had ever known. She had first been sent to Ruvabi at the beginning of the year as a young novice, after four years’ postulant training in the USA, unsure of herself and her new vocation and already the subject of several inadvertent brushes with the church authorities. The wise and compassionate old priest had taken the impulsive new sister under his wing, treated her as an adult, allayed her fears and calmed her doubts. He had also worked her harder than she had ever been used in her life before.
Conchita had enjoyed almost every moment of her time at the mission, and knew that she would never find a better or wiser mentor than Father Pierre. She was not sure whether it was she or the mission who needed him the most. With the news of the imminent arrival of Father Kuyper on a much-heralded tour of inspection, the trick was going to lie somehow in keeping the veteran missionary, and now her close friend, in charge of Ruvabi, despite his age and lack of strength.
Sister Conchita tiptoed out of the bedroom and walked back along the corridor to the large room that served as both a lounge and a makeshift office for the mission. She sat at her desk and tried to organize her thoughts. She had a great deal on her mind. There was the mission to run during the continued incapacity of Father Pierre, and now the sudden influx of frightened islanders looking for protection from some undefined menace. There was also the death of Papa Noah to be considered.
Forget it, girl, she told herself sternly. That’s none of your business. The most you can be expected to do is to act as a witness when Sergeant Kella gets back from Honiara to resume his investigations.
All the same, she thought, going through the pile of paperwork before her, it was an intriguing affair. Who could possibly want to murder such an apparently harmless old man as Papa Noah, and why select such an incongruous method of death as drowning the sect leader in a pool of water close to his ark? And who was the large Polynesian she had twice seen running out of the ark? Sister Conchita shook her
head. Father Pierre had been right. This was going to be a task for Sergeant Kella to pursue with his usual mixture of logic and spurts of custom-based intuition. She must resist all temptation to become involved.
It would be nice to see the local policeman again, though, she thought. Lately Kella seemed to have spent more time globetrotting on his courses than supervising the investigation of crime on Malaita. Sister Conchita would never have admitted the fact, but she had missed the tough and shrewd but hard to fathom aofia.
There was a commotion in the entrance hall of the mission. Sister Conchita rose and hurried to the front door. Two harassed local nuns were supporting a screaming pregnant girl into the house.
‘Put her in my room,’ said Sister Conchita decisively, following them along the corridor.
She helped the young nuns place clean sheets on the floor and situate the frightened girl on her side. When the contractions started coming rapidly, she slipped a pillow under the girl’s back, then watched as the young, local novices washed their hands in water from a large ewer and went to work. They were probably younger than the mother-to-be, but already had introduced many more children into the world than Conchita had.
The delivery went smoothly, and soon the lungs of a healthy baby boy were being employed at a piercing full throttle inside the mission house. A dozen female wantoks of the new mother who had been straining eagerly at the door now broke into the room like a cattle stampede and noisily surrounded the newest addition to the family.
Sister Conchita considered trying to maintain some form of order but decided against it. There was no point in spoiling the moment of exhausted delight on the part of the new young mother. Already the nun’s clinically tidy bedroom looked as if a tidal wave bearing all manner of detritus had broken over it. The two sisters, holding the baby proudly, carried it out to the hospital building to be checked, while the vociferous relatives admiringly supported the mother up on to Sister Conchita’s narrow bed.
The nun walked back along the corridor. She noticed that the whitewashed walls and scrubbed floor, which she had spent the best part of a day cleaning, were already stained and grubby. The father of the baby had obviously been informed of his new status, because, ignoring custom edicts, he came running bellowing with delight into the mission, at the head of a dozen other galloping men. Prudently Sister Conchita stood to one side to allow them to pass. She noticed with resignation that a sudden squall of rain had driven a group of mothers with their young children haphazardly into the mission lounge.
Outside, most of the other refugees were sheltering from the shower as best they could. Some had moved in to share the huts of the resident Christians, while others were clustered together for warmth under the trees at the edge of the compound. With a sinking heart, Sister Conchita realized that the mission station she had worked so hard to clean over the past few days now resembled nothing more than a rapidly deteriorating garbage dump.
She ignored the thudding rain soaking her clothing as she surveyed the shambles around her. Ever since her arrival at Ruvabi almost a year ago, she had taken a pride in rescuing the house and grounds from their previous neglected condition. Father Pierre had always been oblivious to his surroundings. Earlier in the current week she had been spurred on to even greater efforts of domesticity when she had received a bush-telegraph message informing her that the awe-inspiring Father Kuyper, he of the formidable intellect, waspish tongue and impossibly high standards, had landed at Auki and was now on his probing way to visit the mission station.
Ostensibly the bishop’s right-hand man was merely dropping in to the mission on a general tour of north Malaita, but Sister Conchita already knew enough of church politics not to be fooled. She and Father Pierre had been keeping the underfunded mission going somehow or other for the best part of a year, improvising wildly and assisted only by a few willing but young and inexperienced local sisters. If word had reached Honiara that Father Pierre was unwell, the church authorities could seize the opportunity to replace the idiosyncratic old priest with a younger and more orthodox administrator of their own choosing.
That meant that Conchita could eventually be recalled to Honiara or, even worse, asked to stay on at Ruvabi as a mere biddable housekeeper for a more cautious senior church organizer who would gather the reins of command closely to his chest. She seriously questioned if she could ever do biddable. One of the reasons why she had loved her time at Ruvabi so much was because of the autonomy and freedom that the old man had given her once she had earned his trust.
She did not see the familiar burly form of Brother John walking across the grass until the big man was almost upon her. As usual the Anglican missionary was wearing a lap-lap and a tattered shirt and carrying his worldly possessions in a small pack perched on his broad back.
‘This is an unexpected pleasure,’ said the nun approvingly, always glad to see the down-to-earth Guadalcanal man. ‘Are you here because you’ve experienced a Damascene conversion to our cause?’
‘That will be the day,’ said the islander, easing his pack to the ground and wiping the sweat from his eyes as he surveyed the frenetic activity all around. ‘It looks to me as if you’ve got your hands full with your existing members, without starting a recruiting drive.’
‘Come inside and let me get you a glass of lemonade,’ invited the sister.
Brother John shook his head. His glance took in the overcrowded compound and the shabby mission house, missing little. ‘I can’t stay at this papist temple too long,’ he said. ‘I might pick up something contagious.’ He grew serious for a moment. ‘I only came to see if you were all right after the Blessed Ark business, and to ask you a favour.’
‘Why shouldn’t I be all right?’
Brother John shrugged. ‘Just rumours,’ he said. ‘There are stories that the Catholics in the Lau area are in a bit of trouble. Dissension among your village people: rifts and schisms, that sort of thing.’
‘Really?’ said Sister Conchita non-committally.
‘Also,’ went on Brother John, ‘there’s word about that old Father Pierre is dying.’
‘Absolute nonsense!’ said Sister Conchita, this time stung into a response. ‘He’s got a slight fever and probably a minor recurrence of his malaria, that’s all. He’ll soon be up and about again.’
‘Good,’ said the big Anglican. ‘If anything happened to him, your mission would be in a right state. It’s only his reputation that holds the place together. No disrespect intended.’
‘I’m mortally offended,’ said Sister Conchita. ‘Actually, everything’s fine. In fact at the moment I’ve got two priests for the price of one. I’ve heard that Father Kuyper is on his way here for a few weeks as well.’
‘Now I know it’s time to go,’ said the Guadalcanal man, picking up his pack. ‘Kuyper’s a bright guy, but at heart he’s an administrator. I don’t think he appreciates quite how closely the various missions have to work together in the bush. He probably wouldn’t even approve of us talking like this.’
‘I truly believe you underestimate him,’ said Sister Conchita. She changed the subject. ‘Anyway, I really wanted to talk to you about Papa Noah’s death.’
‘You’re not investigating that, are you?’ asked Brother John, alarmed. ‘I know what you’re like when you get your teeth into a mystery.’
‘No, of course not,’ said the nun. She paused. ‘Not really, anyway. It’s just that the whole thing was so confusing. I’d like to get things straight in my own mind before I talk to Sergeant Kella. Did you see anything suspicious during or after the feast?’
‘Not a thing,’ said Brother John, shaking his massive head. ‘The rain was coming down so hard that I could hardly see my own hand in front of me on the plateau. I helped get some of the women down the track to the safety of the village. By the time I returned to the ark, you had found Papa Noah’s body, Shem had turned up from somewhere or other, and you were trying to bring the old man round.’
‘What about Dr Maddy?’ as
ked Sister Conchita. ‘Did you come across her at any stage?’
Brother John screwed up his brow in concentration until the lines converged to form one deep corrugation. ‘Yes, I did, as a matter of fact,’ he said. ‘At one point Shem was hustling the white woman across the plateau, away from the ark.’
‘Away from the ark?’ asked Sister Conchita. ‘When I saw her last, she was eating at the feast with the rest of us.’
‘She must have got lost in the general confusion,’ said Brother John. ‘You remember what it was like. It was so dark in that storm that people were wandering about all over the place. Dr Maddy must have staggered in the wrong direction until Shem found her and helped her down the path to the village.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Sister Conchita doubtfully. Or Shem and the American musicologist could have hurried over to the ark together in the general confusion for some reason, and were on the way back when the Anglican missionary saw them.
‘There was one other thing,’ she said. ‘Several times Papa Noah said that he was expecting another visitor. I remember his exact words. He said that he was waiting for someone from far away to come and help. You seemed interested in that as well. In fact you tried to get him to elaborate on the remark, but he wouldn’t.’
‘It seemed a little odd, that was all,’ said Brother John. ‘As far as I knew, the Blessed Ark church was pretty much a one-man band, but old Papa Noah seemed convinced that someone was coming in to give him a hand. He was playing his cards pretty close to his chest, though. He wouldn’t tell me anything.’
