9 Tales Told in the Dark 7

by 9 Tales Told in the Dark

  I felt better than ever previous toward Mr. Lloyd as Benford and Jones exchanged quick glances, followed by a flurry of expressive, though most insincere, apologies.

  I doubt Mr. Lloyd was taken in by them. I know most certainly that I was not.

  But in honoring the white man's idea of politeness, inviting them to accompany me back to Tusitala's estate was now unavoidable. Mr. Lloyd had the courtesy to offer me an apologetic glance—his simple and honest expression worth far more than all the flowery words of the strangers.

  I responded with the slightest hint of a smile and nodded understanding. Then I addressed my new traveling companions for the first time. “If you gentlemen and your hired men have had breakfast, we shall depart immediately. I trust this is acceptable?”

  They seemed taken aback that I spoke their language at all—let alone with some fluency. More furtive glances were exchanged, followed by a pair of exaggerated nods.

  “You'll find Peter here a most congenial traveling companion,” Mr. Lloyd suggested in a deceptively off-hand manner. “If,” he added pointedly, “you permit him to be.”

  The two white men shrugged, thanked Mr. Lloyd for his assistance and summoned their porters with sharp-tongued impatience. The ignorance and unthinking attitude of superiority the pair displayed were, of course, quite typical of what most white newcomers had shown us, from the days of the first missionaries onward. It was more a matter of degree, rather than overall temperament, yet I knew instantly that Jones and Benford were worse than most. The distrust they stirred in me only grew more acute as we proceeded up the Road, a double squad of porters following in our wake.

  They complained of everything—our climate and geography, such of our foods they'd sampled and the “green hell” of the jungle itself. They sniffed, openly contemptuous of our people—unaware how many, like myself, now knew their language.

  Or perhaps in their arrogance they simply did not care who understood.

  One thing especially vexed me, I should note.

  They made sneered sport of the Road of Loving Hearts. They styled it no more than a “ruddy goat path” and joked how some invention of an old-time countryman of Tusitala—a man called Macadam—might “improve” our “ridiculously primitive trail.”

  I did not then fully understand this. Yet I took offense, as if by instinct.

  I recalled well how the people had come together, working long and hard to cut the Road through the jungle, to better keep our foreign friend and his family in contact with our capital of Apia and with the wider world beyond. It truly was a gift of love, and to hear it mocked alarmed and disgusted me.

  I dared express myself aloud concerning this, though I did so in as calm and polite a manner as I was capable of.

  And the young fools laughed. “Our brown boy,” Benford chuckled, though I was at least ten years his elder, “wants to impress us!”

  “Show how us proud and smart and learned he is,” Jones agreed. “But he does show more wit than all the pure-black bastards of those other islands. Maybe this is the place we could use, huh?”

  Benford started to agree, then took note of my face and pursed his lips. “Ah, Willie, now's not the time to talk of that—agreed?”

  He winked and Jones nodded.

  On we went, now mostly in silence.

  They claimed they'd simply come to visit Tusitala. This was not unusual, my son. Nor was the fact they were white—like us, many of the Teller of Tales' own people recognized him as a person of special distinction.

  But these two hardly seemed such discerning sorts and now I knew there was another, hidden motive behind their visit—one that could involve all of Samoa, my son!

  In the fullness of time, we reached Tusitala's estate.

  “This is Vailima,” I announced with a sweep of the arm. 'In English, the Place of Five Waters—after the several springs found here.”

  “Oh.” Benford rolled his eyes. “The brown boy thinks to impress us again!”

  Jones chuckled nastily, and I was sorely tempted to talk back.

  But Tusitala appeared just then.

  They seemed bemused by the sight of a white man in a lavalava.

  But once introduced, the newcomers filled the air with fawning compliments and paid wide-eyed attention to the famed Teller of Tales.

  This irritated me and I was glad when Tusitala sent me hence. “Peter,” he said, 'please inform Belle that we won't be working this afternoon? I shall be occupied playing host and showing these young gents the grounds. Also see to preparing for our guests to dine with us and stay the night.”

  “As you say, Tusitala. But your health—?”

  “Oh, Peter!” he scoffed cheerfully. “I haven't had a real attack in weeks. I say, you and Fanny—I don't know who's the bigger worrier! Now, run along?”

  “As you say,” I repeated and turned, headed for his great cottage.

  Ascending the porch, I encountered two of Vailima's important womanfolk emerging from the building. Tusitala's wife and his quite ancient yet still vigorous mother met my eyes and gestured questioningly.

  “Visitors?” his wife said.

  “Yes, Miss Fanny.” I explained the way of things and Tusitala's instructions to me. Then I added what little I knew of the newcomers—including the fact that one was American.

  “Really?” Miss Fanny lit up, as she always did when told of a countryman of hers in the vicinity. “Which one?”

  I pointed out Benford. “From a place called Salem, Oregon.”

  “I've heard of it,” she replied, smiling.

  The craggy old Scotswoman at Miss Fanny's side did not smile. “You don't like them,” Tusitala's mother said with her standard bluntness.

  I hesitated but an instant and knew better than to lie. “They—as Miss Fanny might say--'rub me the wrong way,' Miss Maggie. I cannot say quite why. But it is so. I sense a falseness about them and that they bring trouble.”

  “And you're seldom wrong about such things—huh, Nalietoa?”

  The elderly woman's wise grin caught me off-guard, as did the rare event of her using my true—as opposed to my 'Christian'—name.

  “Yes, Miss Maggie,” I managed shortly. “But now I must be off. . .”

  Both women thanked me and I entered the great cottage. I found Miss Belle—Mr. Lloyd's sister, to whom Tusitala dictated his stories—just where I expected her to be and informed her of the change in the daily routine.

  Encountering Miss Mary carter, the Australian woman who was the household's Head maid, I relayed the Teller of Tales' instructions to prepare for our unexpected guests.

  Next, I located my wife. I made certain she was well—and that all was well with you, my then soon-to-be-born son. My duties accomplished and personal concerns reassured, I was able to escape the oddly constricting embrace of that large white man’s building for the clean and open air.

  I saw the new supplies put properly away then paid and thanked the porters, sending them on their way before returning to Tusitala's side. I felt better, despite the disreputable company shambling alongside him.

  ><><

  After supper, I felt compelled to return and hover protectively in the background as Tusitala and his womenfolk entertained his visitors in the sitting room. The Teller of Tales—who knew well my discomfort with the walls his people take for granted—arched a questioning brow, but said nothing. His mother, wife and daughter-by-choice all offered me grateful nods in contrast, while Benford and Jones forgot my very existence with starkly practiced ease.

  I was just another “brown boy” to them, after all.

  The newcomers plied Tusitala with ever-more obsequious attentions as the evening wore on. They discussed his works at great length and in near-worshipful tones that I could appreciate—yet coming from them it all rang false and labored.

  One by one, the women tired of this and retired for the evening.

  Then—the subject of Tusitala's famous stories exhausted—Jones and Benford turned discussion to o
ur “quaint” native ways.

  This truly put the Teller of Tales in his element, though to his credit he tried to keep the talk intelligent and respectful. Yet at their encouragement, he soon began to offer up our most profound beliefs as if they were succulent slices of papaya for his adoring new friends to consume—one by one.

  I felt still more vexed at this.

  Couldn't he see the falseness of those two?

  But even when the Great Asylum Tree was mentioned and its properties expounded upon, I felt only a vague unease mixed with impatience. It was when the young fools expressed a desire to see that Scared Place for themselves and my employer seemed ready to play guide that the hand of dread first clawed up my back.

  “Tusitala!” I blurted, seeing without caring the displeasure and annoyance on the outsiders' faces. “The Ever-Coughing Sickness can return at any time. You know what the missionary doctor says—”

  His eyes narrowed and his mouth twitched. And I knew, before he spoke, that I had only aroused a proud man's anger. “I'm well-past that now, Peter. Better than I've been for at least a year. And I’m a better judge of what might be too great a strain on me than that damned Irishman—or you, boy!”

  I blinked, hurt by his scornful tone—among other things.

  I waited for his visitors to speak. To at least make some token expression of concern regarding their host's well-known health problem—thereby offering him graceful withdrawal. Which of course Tusitala would decline, probably while joking that I was a “good, well-meaning lad,” but over-cautious.

  It astounded me that those two failed to make even this minor gesture.

  Yes, my son—even then their selfishness caught me unawares!

  “At least consult with the ladies first?” I suggested weakly. “Or await the return of Mr. Lloyd of Miss Belle's husband from his errand, so they can accompany you?”

  “Lloyd and Joe are busy elsewhere. And I require neither to nursemaid me about.”

  'And,” Jones added with a smirk, “I'm sure of who wears the pants around here, symbolically at least.” He paused to enjoy his tiny joke before adding, “Such a great man hardly needs permission of his women to take such a decision—isn't that so, Mr. S.?”

  Tusitala snorted agreement and dismissed me.

  ><><

  I excused myself in something very like despair and quit that walled structure for the breeze-accepting comfort of my nearby fale. There I lay sleepless and troubled upon my pallet. Even your mother's well-meant and subtle attentions could not soothe me. I pushed hand aside.

  “These foreign men upset you so?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I answered simply, not swishing to trouble her with details. “It seems Tusitala will journey with them tomorrow.”

  “With you at his side?” Enough moonlight angled down upon us to show concern in her eyes.

  “As always,” I said, covering my apprehension with a laugh. “The foreign men merely wish to see something in the jungle. Don't worry.” I stroked her swollen belly. “I shall return to you by nightfall.”

  Ulani nodded trustingly. She closed her eyes and smiled. “All the foreign men are strange,” she murmured. “It is odd to know that the Teller of Tales is one of them.”

  “Yes,” I admitted, caressing her back. “It is quite odd, knowing that.”

  ><><

  I woke at dawn and made breakfast, then set about preparing for the hike into the mountains. I'd simply assumed as a matter of course that I should come along and once Tusitala finished arguing with his womenfolk, I was proven correct.

  He now wore a white man's shirt and pants in addition to hiking boots as we walked amid his vegetable garden.

  Elsewhere, the two outsiders rechecked their packs and weapons.

  “I know you don't approve,” Tusitala said in his still-oddly accented Samoan. “And that concern for my well-being is not the only issue.”

  I shrugged. “They have no respect for our—for my—people and ways. These two would laugh at any mention of it. But I do honestly fear for you as well.”

  “I know this, Nalietoa.” he patted my arm, genuinely father-like and I swelled with pride. “Ulani rests?”

  I nodded, glad to hear him mangle my native tongue again. 'She remains intent on joining the other women in cleaning your house while we're away. I've roasted an extra bit of meat for her later meals. Placed I in your magic cool-box to keep fresh, if that's all right?” I knew it would be and continued without awaiting his reply. “We'll be returning rather late, I expect. The far side of Mr. Vaea is a good long walk from here.”

  Assuming we return at all, I thought.

  Such a thing was too terrible to contemplate and logic told me there was little real cause for concern. Not when Tusitala and I would both be there to channel the young foreigners' foolishness away from trouble.

  Besides, I had to admit the Old Gods' power was on the decline.

  The missionary schools might have failed in my case, except to give me a second language and an extra name used solely for the comfort of any whites then about. Yet they succeeded elsewhere. Fully half of Upola Island and nearly that much of all Samoa now professed to be Christian.

  What God retains much strength, when starved of believers?

  I put aside my nagging doubts and soon enough, the four of us departed.

  ><><

  As we walked I reflected that the presence of the strangers had altered our relationship in more subtle and important ways than what language we used the more frequently. Just a sit had transformed me from a confidant and near-equal who simply happened to be in his employ into a diffident native man-servant who answered to a name he was not born to, so also Tusitala's behavior had changed.

  He is a whit man again, I thought. For the moment, anyway.

  As constrained by his society's expectations as I was by mine, he had temporarily put aside the easy friendship we normally shared. This I resented even more than the prospect of unbelievers gawking stupidly at something as meaningful as the Great Asylum Tree.

  “You protect me over-much,” Tusitala claimed once we stopped for food and water, and he had occasion to maneuver the two of us out of earshot of his guests. “Everybody does. I'm not such a feeble old man, you know? Only 42. Still some life in me, you see?”

  “Those who care protect you, “I observed with a glance toward the strangers.

  Tusitala snorted. Offered his hand. I clasped it in my palms and we tested one another's strength a bit. In that moment, I had to admit he seemed healthy, almost vigorous.

  But like a cowardly yet patient enemy, the Ever-Coughing Sickness awaited its chance to strike again, as from ambush. This I knew and it sobered me.

  His eyes softened and his voice with it. “I am truly sorry, Nalietoa. I know the dangers of flattery and those who employ it. If they hadn’t come so far, and just to meet me—and if common decency hadn't required putting them up for the night—”

  There his words sputtered to nothing—like the last ribbon-like waterfall to die with the rainy season's end.

  “And if they hadn't caressed your sensibilities so willingly?” I suggested.

  He snorted once more, yet did not deny the truth of it. “A writer likes to be appreciated, Nalietoa. Even a gruff old bugger like me.”

  “But—I mean no offense, Tusitala—I think more than you draws them here.” I proceeded to tell him about certain of the strangers' cryptic, if mostly offhand remarks.

  “Macadam, huh?” His mustache twitched with irritation. “damn them. I'll be buggered before I let them pave our Road! I came out here to get away from all that clanging madness. Next thing after, their newfangled motorized steam-carts and carriages will be wheezing up around us—shattered the quiet and belching smoke! It'd be the end of our clean air, Nalietoa. And of me, for certain! But don't worry, lad—I won't allow it. Not long as I'm standing, I won't!”

  ><><

  From there we pressed on more relentlessly, led by Tusitala's unspoken ire.r />
  In due course we emerged into an ancient clearing to behold the still-more-ancient Tree. I was deeply moved, of course. I shivered, even from a respectful distance—to be within sight of the chosen home of so powerful and capricious a God as Vale!

  Seemingly alone, we faced the Asylum Tree with its unseen Divine resident and arcane properties. The apparent solitude was not remarkable. All that mountain was still holy then, untouched by the white man's dirty hands and dotted liberally with lesser Sacred Places.

  But this was the most potent and potentially the most dangerous spot, my son. For that reason, only those with specific business were likely to approach it. Unless, of course, they were foreign unbelievers.

  Tusitala was such, despite everything—though he had the wit and decency to keep a respectful silence. Not so Benford and Jones, however.

  “That's it?” one asked with scorn. “That's the fabulous Asylum Tree?”

  The other chuckled, shook his head. “Nothin' but a bleeding moso'oi tree.”

  “Must be one shabby God, to live in that!” the first carped, stepping forward without noting the unnatural stillness and utter lack of animal sounds.

  “Bigger, probably older than any of the sort I've seen,” the other—Jones—admitted reluctantly.

  “But still an ordinary local tree,” Benford disagreed. “Like a thousand more on this damned island alone, I merit.”

  “Right you are, Matty. Once we get hold of these islands—”

  Jones' words faded dreamily, even as Tusitala's eyes widened and I gasped wordlessly.

  “This is a sovereign, neutral nation!” my white friend thundered. “All the Great Powers have guaranteed—”

  “The Great Powers?” Benford gloated. “They're all too busy deciding when and where to slaughter one another in the next war. And we're not bound by all their fine and fancy treaties—not of any one mere nation-state or country!” What we are, old man, is the future and—”

  And what else remained unspoken, for then a group of Samoan men jumped up hiding and swarmed forward, encircling us. They cried out the unmistakable Ritual Oaths of Those Pledged to Justice.