Silent One

by Cowley, Joy

  Luisa looked at the excited crowd and knew in her heart that nothing had changed. ‘Cowards!’ she screamed.

  They took no notice of her.

  She turned to the men who were hauling the canoe. ‘Treacherous, double-tongued snakes!’

  They, too, ignored her.

  Jonasi was standing by himself, rubbing his wrists. Samu saw the smears of blood on his foster brother’s arms and he felt in himself another pain because he, Samu, had been partly responsible. He walked away from the crowd and stood in front of Jonasi, waiting.

  Jonasi smiled and put his hand on Samu’s shoulder.

  Samu’s heart grew light. This was good. And now that both Jonasi and the turtle had the protection of Chief Vueti, it didn’t matter what the people said. Aesake was right. The turtle wasn’t a demon, and Jonasi didn’t have an evil spirit in his head. All that was crazy talk.

  Samu smiled back at Jonasi in front of everyone. Then Samu beckoned to the Silent One, and they walked down the beach together.

  The watching crowd broke up, and people returned in small groups to the village. Luisa hobbled slowly after them, pausing every now and then to rest and think.

  They wouldn’t dare touch the Silent One now. No one would be foolish enough to go against the will of Taruga Vueti.

  All the same, she thought, the chief had left a bad feeling behind him and, if anything, the fears about Jonasi had increased. From now on, no one would be seen to raise a hand against him. But what if he were to have an accident when none was looking?

  Luisa leaned against a palm and watched the people return to their work. A group of men sat together mending their nets. Some women stirred their cooking pots at the fire. Other women were pounding mulberry bark to make tapa cloth. It was as it always had been, except that today there was more talk than usual. Their mouths moved faster, their heads were close.

  Luisa watched, nodding to herself. Yes, she had changed her mind about the school for deaf boys in Sevu. She was sure now that it was right for Jonasi to go there. And the sooner he left, the more right it would be.

  Chapter 8

  The Fury of the Gods

  For over a month, there had been no rain.

  Day after day, the sun hung in a white hot sky, a terrible fire that burned grass brown and scorched the earth to ash. The terraces where the men had planted the dalo and yams had dried out. Instead of swelling to thick, fleshy tubers, the roots withered, and the large green leaves dropped towards the dust and turned yellow at the edges.

  The people of the village could do nothing but watch the failure of their crops. Without dalo, cooking pots would be as empty as bellies. Children would cry while their mothers became thin and their fathers grew tired with hunger.

  Every morning they saw the sun suck up the thin mist of evening and rise higher, hotter, to feed on the juices of leaves. Every afternoon they looked at the sky for rain clouds, but those that appeared moved away to some other island, to the crops of some other tribe.

  Throughout those searing days, a line of men and women moved like ants to the hills to get drinking water from a spring. Their own river had dried to a bed of cracked mud, not a drop of moisture in it. Even the sea seemed to have shrunk from its shore. It lay quiet and still, pressed flat by the heat.

  On those days when Tasiri had to go to the hills for water, Jonasi would spend as much time as he could with the turtle. No one attempted to follow. No one interrupted him. The fishermen out with their spears and nets avoided the bay of mangroves, and even Aesake and Samu left him alone.

  Jonasi didn’t know what Chief Vueti had said to the people, but he’d read enough from their faces and hands to realise that they would no longer try to capture the white turtle. But he still feared Tasiri, and he would never go to the mangroves when Tasiri was in the village.

  Sometimes the turtle waited for Jonasi under the mangroves, the top of its shell above the water, milk white and mottled with green shade. Or sometimes he’d look out in the middle of the bay and see arrow-shaped ripples as the turtle chased a school of small fish, and he’d plunge into the water after it.

  When he reached the turtle, he’d grip its shell and rest against it, letting it carry him out towards the reef. His weight seemed to make no difference to the creature’s speed. Its flippers turned on either side of him like the blades of powerful paddles, parting the water under his chin in two clean waves.

  Since the destruction of his raft, this was the way Jonasi rode the sea.

  Occasionally he’d let the turtle go, to swim on his own or dive or search the coral for hidden sea trout. And always the white turtle floated nearby, watching, waiting with the patience of a dog.

  Was that all the turtle was – a playmate, a pet of the sea? Somehow, Jonasi couldn’t believe it. The creature’s eyes looked so ancient, so knowing. At times he imagined it could share everything in his mind. Once he was so sure of it that he had cupped his hand over the turtle’s head, hoping to touch the pictures of its thinking. The head had flashed back and the turtle had bitten him on the finger, hard, drawing blood. He, too, had drawn back, hurt and angry. For the rest of the afternoon they had kept their distance, eyeing each other warily.

  Was it a reminder, he had wondered later, of the gulf between them – between man and animal, land and sea? Or was the white turtle, like some ancient tribal god, guarding its own mystery?

  As the drought progressed, the people of the village became increasingly dependent on the fish that Jonasi caught. They didn’t want to accept them, but their superstitious fears could not argue with hunger. They made good-luck signs over the fish to ward away evil spirits, cooked it and then, with full mouths, cursed the Silent One because their own nets had been empty.

  On the morning of the thirty-fifth day of drought, the sun rose red over a great bank of black cloud, and a wind blew in from the sea, smelling of rain. People staggered half-asleep from their bures and stood facing the wind, laughing like small children. Such clouds they’d never seen before. They were higher than mountains and as wide as the island, dark as the depths of night. At last the sun was returning all the water it had stolen.

  But as they watched, the wind grew stronger. Within minutes the sea was swept into white-peaked waves that burst into foam on the beach. Palms creaked, groaned, and bent their leaves. The village was shrouded in dust and flying leaves.

  The people hurried back into their bures. The wind had whipped the smiles from their faces, and their voices were shrill with alarm. This was the beginning of a hurricane.

  Even as they tried to close the thatched shutters, the wind hit with full force and tore the fastenings from their hands. The air screamed into their bures as though it were full of attacking demons, which choked and blinded them with dust.

  Families crouched in fear and held on to one another, heads bowed, while walls bent towards them and the thatch of roofs peeled away. Outside they could hear the death sounds of trees, shrieks of splintered wood, then thumps, as the green giants of their village were ripped from the ground.

  The rain came with the same murderous fury, not rain at all but a torrent of dark water, which burst against the village like a tidal wave, soaking the bures in seconds and pouring down the inside walls. It climbed cold around the ankles of terrified men and women who tried to hold their children beyond its reach. They screamed and prayed but couldn’t hear the sounds of their own voices. Their ears were full of the noise of wind and water and terrible thunder. White fire lit the fear on their faces, flash after flash of lightning. The forked tongue of the Snake God Degei brought punishment to his people. His voice called for their destruction.

  In the darkness of Luisa’s bure, three people huddled against the strongest wall, waiting for death. Samu was as speechless as Jonasi, and Luisa by now was so frightened she could neither cry nor pray. The black water rose around their legs and was flowing so fast that the bure would have been swept away had it not been built against a strong tree, which in turn was protected
by other trees.

  It was not the wind and rain that Luisa dreaded, but the water they stood in. It was salt. That could mean only one thing: the sea was rising to cover the land.

  Because of the turtle. She was sure of it now. Everything because of that turtle.

  But the sea rose no higher than their ankles. As time passed, so did the hurricane. Late in the afternoon the wind lessened and gradually died until the rain fell straight to earth. The sea retreated.

  It was nearly over.

  Tired, silent people waded through the water that flowed across their village and looked at the desolation. Everywhere there was wreckage. The torrent had swept banks of debris against uprooted trees, forming dams, and against one of these was the body of a pig. The other pigs, still tethered by their legs, were also dead. The goats and hens had disappeared.

  It would be a long time before they would have more copra. Those palms that hadn’t fallen were stripped of nuts and most of their leaves. One canoe lay on its side in the middle of the village where the cooking fire had been; the others had been swept away.

  Everything was choked with thick yellow mud.

  The people had been delivered from one fear to another. Now they had water, plenty of water, but hunger was much closer than it had been the day before.

  They splashed around their bures trying to rescue their few possessions, sleeping mats, a little food, a wooden bowl here, a cooking pot there – doing what they could to repair damage before nightfall. Some of the bures were still intact, some required more work than could be done in a day. But only one had been completely destroyed.

  The home of Bulai had been swept away.

  Bulai and his wife were safe. At the height of the storm the wind had lifted their roof, first a corner, then the whole thing. Bulai had dragged his wife out into the screaming darkness to the next bure, and only just in time. Another great gust and the walls twisted and collapsed. When the hurricane died, there wasn’t a trace of the house they’d lived in. It had all been swept out to sea.

  Chapter 9

  Sad Journeys

  Jonasi had been as afraid as anyone of the hurricane. Nor could he relax when it was over. The wind had died and the rain was no more than a steady shower, but his heart still beat fast with fear for the turtle. He knew that heavy rains swept mud into the sea, poisoning the water of the reef and the creatures in it. If the turtle had come to the shore to wait for him, then surely it would have been killed, caught by the currents or choked by the mud.

  The night after the hurricane, he slept very little. The bure was cold and wet, and he was hungry. His discomfort filled his head with bad pictures of the turtle. And so, at an early hour when everything was grey with rain, he left the village and headed towards the bay of mangroves.

  Most of the paths had gone, hidden under water, while others were blocked with trees and broken branches. Jonasi’s familiar track was now as hostile as untouched jungle. He had no machete to clear vines and branches, and as he forced his way through, they broke against his skin, making scratches that bled in the rain.

  The tide was very high. It flowed up through the mangroves and formed a line of foam where it met the flood waters running from the land. Out in the bay the waves were restless and coloured brown as far as the horizon.

  Jonasi was beyond his depth long before he reached open water. He held on to the mangrove branches and went hand over hand through the dark channels between trees, inspecting the rubbish that had been washed against them. At every turn he expected to see the white shell, battered and unmoving.

  He saw many dead fish. They floated belly upwards, stiff and already swollen. But although he searched the bay all morning, he could find no sign of the turtle.

  Cold and weak with hunger, he hooked his arms over a branch and rested his head against the trunk of a tree. Even if he did have the strength to swim out into the bay, he would see nothing in this thick brown water. Besides, the turtle could not live on a poisoned reef. Either it was dead, or else it had gone far away to the deep ocean beyond the reaches of the hurricane. One way or the other, he had lost it.

  At last Jonasi turned inland and waded through the mud in the direction of the village. Hunger filled his chest like a wound, and his eyes were so full of rain, that he seemed to be looking through a waterfall. He paused to push aside a nest of fallen branches. The muscles on his back quivered and stiffened. A sense of danger touched his spine. He quickly turned. There was no one behind him. But a short distance away, the leaves of one bush trembled, splashing heavy drops of water.

  Jonasi breathed slowly, his eyes and nose searching, but the rain dissolved any scent in the air and washed the ground that might have shown him tracks. He shrugged deliberately, then turned and went on. He came to a large clump of reeds where he knew he’d be out of sight to anyone following. He turned left. A few quick and careful steps, and he was crouching low behind a tree.

  The rain fell steadily. For a while there was no other movement, only water, the drops on his skin and hair, the swamp against his ankles, the distant pulse of the sea. He waited, knowing that someone else was also waiting. Minutes passed, then he felt new vibrations, footsteps softened by mud. The clump of reeds shook. A figure emerged. It was Tasiri.

  As Jonasi had suspected, Tasiri had been waiting for the right opportunity. The storm had given it to him. With everyone in the village too busy to notice his absence, he had followed Jonasi.

  Tasiri was walking cautiously, crouched over, spear in hand as though he were stalking a pig. But it was the turtle he was seeking. Jonasi shivered with cold when he realised that Tasiri had been watching him all morning, waiting for the turtle to appear.

  If the turtle had come …

  Jonasi pressed his fingers against his eyes to erase the picture in his head of the turtle dying on the end of Tasiri’s spear. There’d be no way of making Chief Vueti understand. Tasiri would probably hide the shell until he could sell it to a passing trader, and even if it were discovered, he could claim that the turtle had been killed by the storm.

  When he was sure the man had gone, Jonasi left his hiding place and hurried towards Luisa’s bure. He was covered with mud and scratches and stumbling with hunger when he came to the clearing at the edge of the village.

  There was no sign of Tasiri. Men and women were working in the rain, trying to repair their bures. Someone had put a shelter over the fire so they could cook a drowned pig before it spoiled. The smell of rich roasting meat was too much for Jonasi’s pinched stomach, and a cold sickness broke over him like a wave.

  Where the home of Bulai had been, a group of women poked in the mud with sticks. Bulai’s wife turned and saw Jonasi. She stepped away from him. Her mouth opened wide, showing tongue and broken teeth, and the whites of her eyes grew big. She pointed in his direction.

  Jonasi stopped and stared at her.

  The women who’d been helping Bulai’s wife crowded around her. They looked at Jonasi with the same kind of fear, and they took the shivering woman into the nearest bure.

  Jonasi thought the storm had made Bulai’s wife mad, but he couldn’t understand why she had pointed at him. He looked to the people behind him for some kind of explanation.

  They had gone too.

  The women who tended the fire, the men who’d been binding the roof poles, even the children, they’d all disappeared. But they still looked at him. He could feel their eyes behind the walls and windows.

  He continued on his way to Luisa’s bure. The rain fell on him straight and cold, and again he began to shiver. He glanced at the walls on either side. Nothing. No one. The whole village seemed deserted.

  It was as though the hurricane had plucked the people away, leaving only their eyes to watch every movement he made.

  Ten days after the hurricane, the flood waters had left the land, and the road to Ramatau was no longer part of an enormous swamp. Taruga Vueti sent for his son and ordered him on the journey to the neighbouring village.

 
; The chief was barely concerned with the weighing machine that was waiting to be picked up at the post office. The hurricane had stripped the palms. What now did they have to weigh? Nor was he worried about the letter from the special school in Sevu. His mind was occupied by thoughts far more important, more immediate. He asked Aesake to find out how the winds had affected Ramatau, what damage lay in that village.

  ‘Ask questions with your eyes and ears, Aesake,’ he said. ‘If you think there’s food to spare, go to their Ratu on my behalf. Say that I, Taruga Vueti, would speak with him.’

  ‘You wish him to come here, Father?’

  ‘No, no, I will go to Ramatau.’

  Aesake looked up quickly, then bowed his head again. ‘Father, you’re not strong yet. The road to Ramatau is difficult in the best of times – ’

  ‘I will go by sea,’ said the chief.

  ‘But your canoe – ’

  ‘It can be repaired.’ Vueti closed his eyes. These days even talk made him tired. ‘Something must be done,’ he whispered. ‘At nights I lie awake and hear the black birds of famine beating their wings over our village. It is a fearful sound, Aesake, and it makes me afraid of the days to come.’

  ‘We have some food, Father,’ said Aesake. ‘And there will be more now that we’ve got water. The crops will grow again, and the trees will bear fruit.’

  ‘When?’ said Vueti. ‘Many months, I tell you. The moon will come and go nine times before we have dalo, and the coconut takes longer. There is no meat. The sea has become barren. Floods have fouled the waters, and as I lie here my head is full of the smell of rotting fish. Is that not true?’

  Aesake was silent.

  ‘We must ask for help,’ said his father. ‘I can have no pride when my people are suffering from hunger.’

  And so it was that Aesake set out on the long journey for Ramatau, carrying his father’s spear as a symbol of authority.

  As he passed Luisa’s bure, the old woman called to him, ‘You there! Aesake! So you go to Ramatau for the letter, eh?’