Silent One

by Cowley, Joy

  ‘You tell me.’ Samu split a coconut as though it were Jonasi’s skull. ‘Go on, you show me a boy like him, and I’ll eat the dust under my feet.’

  ‘I saw such people at Sevu,’ said Aesake. ‘There is a school in Sevu for the deaf.’

  There was no answer to that. Aesake had spent four years in Sevu and had seen things that the others of the village had never dreamed of. He could write, he could read English books, and in his bure he had a tin trunk full of wonders from the Sevu trading stores.

  Samu couldn’t argue. He couldn’t even call Aesake a liar because that would mean disrespect to Aesake’s father, and in the old days men had had their fingers cut off for being disrespectful to a chief.

  But Samu wasn’t finished by any means. ‘It’s my mother’s fault,’ he said. ‘She treats him as though he is still a baby. She won’t let him grow up to do a man’s work.’

  Aesake straightened up slowly. ‘Perhaps the men don’t want him working here,’ he said.

  Samu looked at his friend, then glanced at the men around them. Strong, all of them, tall and strong, with muscles like the roots of trees and grey hairs showing knowledge and wisdom. These were men who feared nothing. Yet when Jonasi walked near them they became silent and moved away lest his shadow touch them.

  ‘Why?’ whispered Samu. ‘Do they really think he can hurt them?’

  ‘They’re ignorant,’ said Aesake. ‘They have no understanding of such matters. I tell you, if they went to Sevu they’d see sights that would make their eyes drop right out.’

  ‘Oh, you and your Sevu,’ muttered Samu as he stopped to pick up another nut.

  Bulai, the man nearest him, saw the pain in the movement, and laughed. ‘Aha, little spider, so your arms and legs are too thin for hard work, eh? Watch out, or they’ll snap in half. There, that’s enough now. Go. Scuttle back to your web.’

  Samu was so pleased to leave the heap of coconuts that he ignored the insults.

  ‘You too, Aesake,’ Bulai said.

  The boys went over to the stream, drank, splashed water over themselves and each other, then went to Luisa’s bure.

  A breeze wandered through the village, raising small clouds of dust and rustling the palms, leaf against leaf, with a sound like the sharpening of knives. It was a hot wind, a colourless flame that brought no smell, only dryness that did nothing to cool the earth.

  ‘No rain today,’ Luisa said.

  ‘That’s good,’ said Aesake, thinking of the copra.

  ‘No rain for a long time,’ said Luisa.

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘I feel it in here,’ said Luisa, patting her head.

  ‘Never mind about the weather,’ said Samu. ‘I’m dying of hunger.’

  They sat in the shade of the bure while Luisa brought them raw fish sweet with coconut milk, and bananas. ‘Work, work, work, I do nothing but fill ungrateful mouths,’ she grumbled. ‘Why do women have sons? I’ll tell you. It is a punishment to a woman, a curse because she stole the fruit from the garden. The angel said, “Woman, this day and for ever it will be your task to fill the bottomless stomachs of men.” ’

  ‘What fruit?’ said Samu with his mouth full.

  ‘You see?’ Luisa turned to Aesake. ‘He doesn’t know. My own son doesn’t know because he hides when it’s time to go to church.’

  ‘The fruit of good and evil,’ Aesake said to Samu. ‘I learnt about it at the mission school.’

  But Samu had heard quite enough talk about Sevu and the mission school. He quickly changed the subject. ‘Where’s Jonasi?’ he asked.

  ‘He’s out on the reef,’ Luisa said.

  ‘I know that. But doing what? Fishing? Catching fish from morning to night for a whole week?’

  ‘Let him be,’ snapped Luisa. ‘Just you leave him alone.’

  ‘But he stays out there all day!’ Samu insisted.

  ‘What if he does?’ said Luisa. ‘Is there anything better here in the village where the children tease him and their parents shun him? You too. I’ve seen both of you laugh at him – you his brother, and you, his friend. You think I haven’t noticed? You sit there filling your belly with Jonasi’s fish and ask why he isn’t here? You tell me why he should be here. Eh? Give me one good reason.’

  It was no use talking to Luisa about Jonasi. She always flared up like an angry old hen. The two boys finished eating and left, the sound of her voice trailing behind them. They walked down the beach to look for the Silent One.

  ‘He’s out there all right,’ said Aesake, shading his eyes towards the edge of the reef. ‘I can see him.’

  ‘He comes in at night,’ said Samu, ‘and he is tired. He doesn’t play games like he used to. He eats and goes to sleep and in the morning he’s gone again. Do you think he’s gone crazy?’

  Aesake looked worried. ‘Perhaps he’s found a new fishing ground.’

  ‘He doesn’t bring home any more fish than usual.’

  ‘Well, there must be something – ’

  ‘You tell me.’

  Aesake was silent for a while, then he smiled. ‘It could be a wreck.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘An old ship wrecked on the reef. I’ve heard of such ships being found. They have treasures on board, gold and silver and Englishmen’s money. For years they lie in some deep pool, then along comes a fisherman – ’

  ‘Why has no one else found it?’ asked Samu.

  ‘I don’t know. But, Samu, Jonasi must have found something. Remember the night we came back from the mountain? At the feast he was trying to show me. He put a shell on the ground and scratched some lines around it with a stick. He got annoyed because I didn’t understand. That was seven days ago. He hasn’t come near me since.’

  ‘There’s only one way to find out,’ said Samu.

  They pushed Aesake’s canoe down the beach and into the water. It was not a big canoe, nothing like the great outrigger that belonged to Aesake’s father, but it rode the water without effort. They picked up the paddles and headed towards the dark speck on the sea, which was Jonasi.

  After a long silence, Samu said in a small voice, ‘Are you sure Jonasi doesn’t have a demon in his head?’

  ‘Of course he hasn’t!’ said Aesake. ‘Samu, I thought you had some sense.’

  ‘Oh, I know he’s all right,’ Samu said quickly. ‘And my mother says it’s just talk. But there are some who think he wasn’t born like an ordinary child. Bulai reckons he was found floating in the water. The captain of the boat felt sorry for him and took him aboard, but when he found that Jonasi brought bad luck, he threw him back into the sea. Jonasi wouldn’t drown. The boat went on from one island to the next, and every time the captain looked over the side, there was the baby following like a fish.’

  ‘That’s the most foolish tale I’ve ever heard!’ said Aesake.

  ‘I know. But Bulai doesn’t think so. He said that when the boat came here, the captain gave the baby to my mother so he’d be rid of it. That’s what Bulai said.’

  ‘Then Bulai is a liar,’ said Aesake. ‘He drinks too much kava.’

  ‘Well, Bulai’s not the only one!’ muttered Samu. ‘Everyone asks how a baby came to be in a canoe all by itself.’

  ‘You know that can happen in bad times,’ said Aesake. ‘The village might have been starving and the baby set adrift. My father says it’s even happened here when things were hard.’

  ‘But the canoe wasn’t adrift,’ Samu insisted. ‘The men on the boat said it came right at them, on a perfectly calm day. So quickly they thought at first a strong man was guiding it.’

  ‘I suppose it was a demon!’ said Aesake scornfully.

  ‘Well, one of the men swore he saw something, a spirit shape just beneath the water. When he looked again it was gone, and there was only the baby, lying in the canoe, all alone.’

  ‘I wouldn’t believe the copra crew,’ said Aesake, ‘any more than I’d believe Bulai. Their captain cheats our men every chance he gets. I believe noth
ing they say.’

  Samu sighed. He was still uneasy. He wished he had never listened to Bulai, or the talk of the men on the boat.

  The tide was going out and the breeze was behind them to lend them speed, but Samu’s arms were still stiff from the morning’s work. He wanted to go back to the bure to rest. He nearly said so to Aesake. But Aesake might think that he was afraid. He sighed and went on paddling.

  They were close enough to see Jonasi’s face before the Silent One caught sight of them. He was lying in the raft and leaning over the side, his hands in the water. As the canoe came up to him, he sat back so quickly he almost tipped his raft over. He grabbed his paddle and dug it into the water.

  The canoe was much faster. As the gap between them closed, Aesake held up his hand and waved to tell Jonasi to stop. The Silent One only paddled harder – as though he were trying to escape from them.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ said Aesake, and gave chase.

  Then a curious thing happened. As the canoe came level with the bamboo raft, Jonasi looked at them – a look of fear as though they were strangers bearing weapons – then he dived into the sea.

  ‘He’s trying to swim away!’ said Samu. ‘He is crazy! He is!’

  Aesake didn’t answer. He sat still, his paddle poised, waiting for Jonasi’s head to break the surface. He waited – and there was the Silent One on the surface some distance from his raft, swimming fast, hardly causing a ripple.

  But no, Jonasi wasn’t swimming. He was being pulled along by some large fish, by –

  ‘It’s a turtle!’ shouted Aesake. ‘He’s caught a turtle! Come on, let’s help him bring it in.’

  The boys leaned forward on their paddles and the canoe leaped over the water like a low-flying bird. They yelled at Jonasi, forgetting he couldn’t hear.

  ‘Turn it over! Quick! Before it dives!’

  ‘We’re coming! We’re coming!’

  Now they were near and could see Jonasi’s arms and shoulders, the shell beneath him. They stopped paddling. Words left them, and their mouths hung open without sound.

  At length Samu gave a small, shrill cry of fear and turned his head away so that he couldn’t see the thing.

  ‘It can’t be!’ said Aesake. ‘It – ’

  ‘It’s white!’ whimpered Samu.

  ‘And it is a turtle, isn’t it? You saw it too?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘White,’ Aesake repeated. ‘White, white, a white turtle.’

  ‘Let’s go back,’ pleaded Samu.

  But Aesake had recovered and was plunging his paddle into the water, shouting even louder than before. ‘Hurry up!’ he yelled at Samu. ‘Quick, you feeble old man, do you want it to get away?’

  Samu obeyed but his body felt as if he’d received a blow in the stomach. It was not work that made his muscles quiver with exhaustion; it was a cold and dreadful fear.

  Aesake had grown strong with excitement and he was paddling fast to catch up with Jonasi. A white turtle, eh? So this was Jonasi’s secret, why he spent his days on the reef, what he’d tried to explain on the night of the feast. A white shell with head and flippers scratched in the dust. Of course, he’d been hunting a great white turtle!

  The canoe was close now. Aesake shipped his paddle. ‘I’m going to give him a hand,’ he said, and he leaped into the sea.

  His timing was good. As he went down he brushed against Jonasi’s leg, reached out, caught his ankle and held on. But as he came up to grab the turtle, Jonasi’s hand closed over his face. The fingers were hard, wooden, and they forced Aesake’s head back into the water. Aesake struggled, he tried to twist away. The grip was as strong as that of a clam. He couldn’t breathe. Air, he needed air. He let go of the turtle shell and kicked backwards, coughing and gasping, numb with surprise. He saw the brilliance of the white shell and above it, Jonasi’s eyes full of hate and anger.

  So that was it! He wanted to keep the turtle all to himself, did he? Wasn’t going to share the catch with his friends.

  Aesake became angry. He swam in front of Jonasi and his turtle and reached out. Jonasi let the turtle go and held Aesake by the wrists, and then the two boys went down struggling.

  Samu watched them go under, and as the seconds passed he wondered if they had both drowned. But they came up again some distance from each other, unhurt, gasping, treading water while they fed their bodies with air. Then Samu saw the knife in Jonasi’s hand.

  The Silent One had truly gone crazy. He’d drawn his fish knife and was holding it above the surface, threatening Aesake.

  Aesake didn’t move, and in the moment of stillness, Samu saw that the turtle was still with Jonasi. It hadn’t swum away and was now so close it almost brushed Jonasi’s back.

  It was too much for Samu. He shuddered and cried like a young baby. The white turtle was a demon.

  ‘Aesake, Aesake!’ Samu wailed. ‘Come back.’

  Aesake and Jonasi were treading water, watching each other like a couple of cockerels. Aesake brought his legs up and kicked, widening the distance between them until he was beyond range of that knife. Then he swam back to the canoe.

  ‘Leave him,’ cried Samu. ‘Let’s go!’

  ‘Did you see that?’ gasped Aesake. ‘He’s tamed the thing. He’s made a pet of it.’

  ‘Let’s get out of here!’ begged Samu.

  Aesake held on to the edge of the canoe until his breath was again steady, then he heaved himself over the side. ‘How did he find it?’

  ‘I don’t know, I don’t care. Paddle, Aesake. Quick, before something happens.’

  Aesake picked up his paddle but seemed in no hurry to move. ‘Look at it, will you? Look at the way Jonasi rests his arm on it as though it were a dog.’

  ‘It doesn’t belong to this world,’ said Samu, turning the canoe and paddling towards the shore with as much strength as he could find.

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘It’s a spirit.’

  ‘It’s as real as you or me.’

  ‘No, it’s not. It’s white.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘No turtle is ever white.’

  ‘It can happen,’ said Aesake. ‘I’ve seen white dogs and white goats, white rats. I’ve seen a man like that.’

  ‘We’ve all seen white men,’ said Samu.

  ‘No, not English, but one of us, an Islander. He had white skin and pink eyes and his hair was paler than the sun. I did. I speak the truth.’

  Samu said nothing.

  ‘Sometimes creatures are born without colour. They’re called albinos. And that, Samu, is not a spirit. It’s an albino turtle.’

  Samu was paddling so hard that the canoe was turning in circles. ‘You can’t tell me you saw a white turtle in Sevu.’

  ‘No,’ admitted Aesake. ‘But then I didn’t see everything.’

  ‘No one’s seen a white turtle.’

  ‘We have. Just now.’

  Samu shook his head. ‘It’s a spirit. You are blind, Aesake. Look at the way it has Jonasi in its power. Did you see him draw a knife at you? At Aesake his friend, Aesake the son of our chief? Isn’t that madness?’

  ‘He was right to protect the turtle. It is his pet.’

  ‘But you are his friend.’

  Aesake shrugged. ‘Remember what happened when your dog died?’

  ‘That was different.’

  ‘You moaned and rubbed your eyes. You told everyone in the village your dog had been poisoned and you were going to kill the person who did it.’

  ‘That was a brown dog, not a white turtle.’

  ‘It was your pet,’ said Aesake.

  Now that they could clearly see the beach, the white sand, the children playing at the water’s edge, Samu felt safe. When he looked over his shoulder, he saw that Jonasi was back on his raft, as small as an insect on the wide ocean.

  ‘No one is going to believe us,’ Samu said.

  ‘We won’t tell anyone,’ said Aesake. ‘Only my father.’

  ‘You’ll say – y
ou’ll tell him – everything?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I think he’d want to know.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Samu. ‘So you do think it’s a spirit, after all. It’s important. You have to warn the chief.’

  Aesake looked at Samu, and his eyes were cold. ‘I’m concerned for Jonasi. I’ve been concerned for a long time, but now something must be done.’

  ‘I knew he was crazy,’ said Samu.

  ‘No, he isn’t! It is the foolish stories about him that are crazy. And one day soon, someone else will see him out there. Do you know what will happen? People will talk as you have been talking. The time will come when Jonasi will no longer be safe.’

  Aesake looked so fierce that Samu’s boldness left him. ‘I won’t tell anyone,’ he said. ‘I promise you.’

  ‘You’d better not,’ said Aesake. ‘One word and I’ll knock your teeth through the back of your neck. But my father must know, for Jonasi’s sake. I have a plan to suggest to him.’

  ‘What?’ said Samu. ‘What plan?’

  ‘It doesn’t concern you,’ said Aesake.

  ‘Please tell me. I can keep a secret. Aesake?’

  But Aesake would say no more about his plan, about Jonasi or about the turtle. They paddled the canoe over the shallows and, in silence, hauled it up the beach.

  Chapter 5

  Some Make Plans for Jonasi

  Taruga Vueti was in council with the elders of the tribe. Around him the men sat with shoulders bowed so that their heads should not be raised above that of their chief, and they kept their eyes down as they made their complaints or requests.

  Tasiri of the bold voice now spoke in a small whine. ‘We are being cheated, O Ratu,’ he said, making the title of respect sound like the whimper of a puppy. ‘The captain of the copra boat is stealing what is ours.’

  Vueti sighed. ‘Speak clearly, Tasiri. Tell me what happened.’

  ‘Ratu, it is like this. Our copra is dry, of the finest quality, but always when he comes back to pay us, he says it was heavy with moisture. It was poor grade, he says. It got a bad price, he says. We know this is false, O Ratu.’

  Vueti was saddened by the words, not so much because his tribe was being cheated by the white man, but because the Islanders, like the captain, had become greedy for money. Times had changed. Vueti’s people were no longer content with the goodness of the land and sea. At first they’d wanted the small things, metal pots, fishhooks and lines, kerosene lamps and rolls of bright material for the women. Now it was more. They dreamed of houses like those of the white men, of boats with engines and of bottles of burning water that made wise men crazy and turned strong men into helpless infants.