Then, for a while, they sat near the cliff and talked. Strange, but all the things Cable could not write to Bryn Mawr flooded out in half-French, half-English sentences. Liat followed his thoughts with ease, and soon she was telling him of Tonkin China. She lived eighty miles from Hanoi near the Chinese border. Her parents came to the islands when she was nine. They had been here eight years. They had re-enlisted, because life was better here, and a pretty girl could learn French, could learn to read and write, might even... marry... a planter.
"Who told you that?" Cable asked, terribly jealous.
"My mother."
"But it's not true!"
"But it is true," the girl replied in lilting French, in much the same way that Sister Marie Clement spoke. "Two white men in Efate have Tonkinese wives. And a trader wants to marry me, too. Jacques Benoit, who has a plantation, asked my mother." Artlessly... or perhaps with great artfulness... Liat told of Benoit's wooing. "But now he's going with a nurse. A white nurse! That's because I'm not on the island. Maybe he will marry her!"
Cable hushed her silly chatter with kisses and asked her to lead him to the hospital. "Why?" she cried.
"For dinner," he explained.
"But dinner! It is down there. In my hut. It's all ready!" she insisted with some show of fury. "It's waiting. I made it myself."
"When could you have made dinner?" Cable asked. "When did you have time?"
"Early this morning," she replied, simply. "I saw you coming. I watch here every morning for the boat. I knew you would come back."
Cable followed her small, brown arm as it pointed over the sea toward his island. Clouds covered it, as always, and to him the ocean looked barren and forbidding; but to Liat it was a glorious thing, a carpet way that would bring Cable back to her again and again.
"I can't eat with you," Cable explained. "I promised Sister Marie Clement."
"Sister Clement!" the beautiful girl cried. "No! Not with Sister Clement. With French girls. You wait! All the French people will be there. With their daughters, too! You wait!"
"I don't believe it, Liat!" Cable protested.
"Of course, it's true. You shall see," and she began to cry. The tears Were real. They were tears of deep sorrow and perplexity. She clutched his arm. "If I were a French girl, it would be all right, wouldn't it?"
"Liat! Don't say such things!"
"But what will happen? Look! You won't even have dinner with me! And I can't go with you."
"Why not?" Cable asked, snapping his fingers. "Why not? I'll take you with me! Come, we'll go together. You shall be my guest. I am proud of you! I am!"
"But I have no shoes!" Liat sobbed. She was very happy, but she had no shoes.
"You shall go barefoot then! I insist that you go with me!" And so, throwing discretion to hell, ignoring every precept his mother had carefully taught him in the rigorous school of Philadelphia and Main Line society, Cable half dragged, half carried the girl he loved down the jungle path, away from the gaunt cliffs, away from the pounding sea, and into the very maelstrom of the hospital.
Sister Marie Clement, with the austere grandeur that transcends provincial society, professed to see nothing awry in having the Tonkinese girl attend the soiree. After all, Liat was the finest pupil she had so far had in the islands. The girl was a true gem of the Orient. Would that more of the yellow girls were like her!
But to the French women-and their daughters-the Tonkinese girl was a frightful affront. The meal, an excellent one, was completely spoiled for them. Liat perceived this in a moment. As a woman, she reveled in her triumph; as a good mission Tonkinese who did not chew betelnut and who was a Christian instead of a Buddhist, she was shy, reserved, and deferential. She acted as if she "knew her place," and indeed, she did. Her place was beside Joe Cable, and that is where she was and where she stayed.
The dismal dinner over-only Atabrine Benny enjoyed it-a leisurely procession started for the pier. Liat, secure in her victory, left Cable abruptly at the hospital. He walked with the French ladies and conversed as charmingly as his command of the language would permit. "Perhaps we were wrong! Perhaps we misjudged the dear boy!" the women thought. Sister Marie Clement, walking behind them, mused on the ways of the world. "The Marine is a clever boy!" she thought. In her nun's garb she knew more of the human heart than the stiff French women who had presumably shared several: their husbands' and their children's.
On Vanicoro the watchers perceived all that had happened on the island that day. They saw the boat come-but not before Liat saw it -and now they heard the bells' fine music. One brave soul, of whom there appears to be one or more in every human group, grunted to his friends that now was the time. He would see if there was fine cloth for the asking. He would see!
So, amidst universal prophecy of destruction and failure, this tested warrior crept toward his hidden outrigger and prepared for the great adventure. He himself was dressed in war clothes: a tightly woven string from which leaves hung behind and to which a penis wrapper was attached in front. He had a hibiscus in his hair. In his canoe he had pineapples and one irreplaceable personal treasure. Cloth looked good to him and, the gods of the volcano willing, by nightfall he would himself be wearing cloth about his loins.
From low hanging trees he pushed his canoe clear and into the channel. The afternoon sun was in his eyes, but with steady stroke he pushed it toward the bells. It was a moment before anyone on Bali-ha'i saw him coming. Then Liat saw him from the coconut where she stood surveying the scene. She could not tell the others, but soon Sister Marie Clement, with her inquisitive French eye, saw him, too, and she called out the news.
Everyone stopped what he was doing and watched the man of Vanicoro draw closer. Native girls looked at him and wondered if they had looked so frightened once. Little boys started yelling at him in island tongues he could not understand, and Cable waited in the boat.
With steady stroke the man approached. The wonder in the eyes and minds of the people who watched him could not approach the alternate hopes and fears that assailed this savage as he brought his frail canoe alongside Benny's boat. Meticulously shipping his paddle, he quietly arranged his single strand of clothing, sought his biggest pineapples, and stood up, thrusting the fruit into Cable's hands.
"It's a gift," Benny whispered. "They always bring a gift!" Cable took the fruit and placed it reverently in the bottom of his boat. Benny nudged him roughly. "You must give him something. You must do so. You gotta give him something."
"What shall I offer him?"
"Here! Give him this knife." Benny produced a rusty but serviceable knife. Patiently, Cable explained the knife to the savage. At first the man was bewildered, but when Benny rudely grabbed the weapon and sliced a piece of juice-dripping pineapple, the black man understood and grinned. He had never seen a penknife before.
But it was cloth he wanted! Dimly he perceived that with cloth went a certain dignity. Men with penknives, for example. They wore cloth. Grabbing Cable's shirt he endeavored to explain, but the Marine, not understanding, pushed him away. The native was startled, and began to wonder if his mournful advisers on Vanicoro were not right. But having come this far, he was willing to see the thing through. He grabbed at the shirt again. Again Cable was about to rebuff him when Benny caught the significance of the act.
"He wants some cloth!" the druggist shouted. Then rummaging through the duffel bag he always carried on these trips, he produced three long lengths of bright red rayon-silk parachute cloth. Cloth, and red, too! The native stared in complete disbelief. He hoped... that is, he wished he dared to hope... that one piece of that cloth might be his. He was unprepared, therefore, when Cable caught up the armful and tossed all the pieces into the outrigger!
For a moment the native was unable to do anything but stare at the unbelievable treasure. He fingered it, gently. Then he held one piece out to its magnificent breadth. A tip trailed in the water, and he made a lunge for it. Cable grasped his arm, and at that the bewildered savage broke down comp
letely. From the bottom of his outrigger he dragged forth his greatest prize. Carefully, and with some regret, he handed it up to Cable. Then, without a sound, he grasped his paddle and was off across the bay, his heart pounding faster than when he had first ventured forth upon his expedition.
To Cable his departure went unnoticed, for in his hands he held a dried human head! The features were intact. It was presumably the head of a man, a warrior, no doubt. The eyelids were sewn shut with strands of palm leaf. Pine needles had been stuffed into the nose to preserve its shape. The hair was long, both on the head and face. The gashing wound of the neck was sewn together into a little knot. There were no scars to speak of death and no signs to speak of life. It was nothing but a human head, a small, insignificant round object from which living and thoughts had fled, or been banished.
Cable sat transfixed with his gift. He had seen a Jap's head roll off one morning in bright sunlight. But that was nothing like this. This was a human head, here in his hands. Bewildered, he could not decide what to do with it.
"Chuck it in the boat, lieutenant!" Benny advised. "Somebody always wants something like that." Cable gently laid the grisly object on a tarpaulin. French women on the pier looked away. Little boys laughed. In some of their homes, not so very long ago, such heads had been common gossip, the way gasoline drums, GI cots, and bayonets now were.
But on Vanicoro excitement went beyond all bounds. Of course, only men were allowed to handle the cloth, and only men heard the first telling of the story, but eventually it sifted down even to the women. And as Benny's boat sailed into the sacred sunset, men looked at the cloth, studied the brave fellow who had secured it, and wondered.
Cable, in the boat, wondered too. He wondered if his silly action in taking Liat to the dinner would be reported on his island. It could be embarrassing if it were. He started to ask Benny what he thought, but the druggist was not given to moralizing. He wasn't in Waco, Texas. He was having a damned fine time in the islands, and right now that head was grinning at him from the bottom of the boat. He chuckled and made up all sorts of surmises as to who had owned the head, and when.
A shock equal to the one Cable suffered when the savage gave him the head awaited him when he reached the dock. It was dusk, and as he crawled out of the boat, there was Bloody Mary. "You like?" she asked him, grinning. "You like?" The betel juice was black upon her lips. He could not answer her. Then she saw the head on the tarpaulin. Catlike she jumped into the boat. "How much?" she asked.
"Take it!" Cable cried in disgust.
"Me take?" the old woman asked, uncertain that he was actually giving her this prize.
"Take it and get out!" he cried impatiently. Mary grabbed the head, tucked it under her arm and ran through the crowd of loafers. In a moment she was back, struggling and protesting, in the arms of two Shore Patrol.
"Lieutenant," they demanded roughly. "Did you give her this?"
"Yes. I told her to take it and scram."
"Then get the hell out of here! And don't come back!" They gave the Tonk a shove. She stumbled along for a few steps, clutching madly at the head. Then she righted herself, tucked the head under her arm, turned and heaped profanity on the two Shore Patrol.
"Go on, get out of here!" they threatened.
"So-and-so you!" she screamed. "So-and-so Emma Pees."
The loafers laughed at anything which discomfited the Shore Patrol. The latter, seeking to justify themselves, reported to Lt. Cable. "That your jeep over there? Yeah. Well, we found that old biddy perched in it a while ago. Better see if anything's stolen. We tossed her out."
On the way back to his quarters Cable's dancing mind flitted between a vision of Bloody Mary with a head under one arm, screaming at the Emma Pees, and Liat, standing on the cliffs, waving at him. For she had gone there while the native was trading for cloth, and as long as Cable could see Bali-ha'i, he had been able to see the slow, rhythmic waving of the Tonkinese girl.
Cable thought that by now he had seen most of the island mysteries, but he was unprepared for a phenomenon that occurred one strange afternoon. There had been gusts of wind all day, like the beginning of a hurricane. And rain, too! Lots of it. Then clouds began to disperse, and for a moment you could see Vanicoro beneath them. But just at that moment, in the weirdest manner, a heavy rain cloud must have passed up the channel beside the volcanoes, for Vanicoro itself was blotted out. Free, wonderful in the dark light, a jewel unmatched, Bali-ha'i stood forth.
"I never knew there was an island there!" one of the Marine officers cried. "Look at that damned thing. Does it show on the charts?"
"Never even saw it before!" another answered. "Look at that damned cloud! Isn't that something to see?" Men called out their neighbors, for where there is so little to do as on a tropical island, every passing fancy of nature is commented on by men who keep their minds active in that way.
"Hey, Cable?" one cried. "Did you ever see this island before? Come here a minute?"
Cable, aroused from a light sleep by the voices, shuffled to the door. Through half-sleepy eyes he viewed the phenomenon. Against his will he cried out, "My God! It's Bali-ha'i!"
"What's that name?" an officer asked who was near him. Months later that officer recalled the scene very clearly. Minutely. He was wont to say, over a whiskey, "Damn it all! I should have known right then! I remarked the incident at the time, but forgot it. He came stumbling out of his hut, took a look at the new island, and cried, 'My God! It's Bali-ha'i!' And I would have suspected something then, but right at that moment another officer gave one hell of a shout down the line. It was Oferthal's roommate. Do you know what Oferthal, that dumb fool, had? You'd never guess!"
No, you'd never guess that a Marine officer would buy a human head, skin on it and all! Everyone left studying Bali-ha'i and surged around Oferthal, who was holding this head up by its long hair. "Ain't it a beauty?" he inquired.
"The son-of-a-bitch paid fifty dollars for it," an admiring friend proclaimed. It was sort of nice to think that your outfit had a guy stupid enough to pay fifty dollars for a human head, with skin on it and all! It gave you something to talk about.
"Yep," Oferthal announced blandly. "I bought it off'n an old Tonk woman. I gave her fifty bucks for it. And to me it's worth every cent."
"Why in hell do you throw your money away like that?"
"What better can I do with it? Shoot craps? Play poker with you sharks? Hell, no! Now I really got me something. Know what I'm going to do with it?"
"Bowl?" an irreverent Marine asked.
"No! I'm gonna take this home and hang it right up in my basement. Right in the rumpus room. Right where we have sandwiches and beer!"
"I hope you have a nurse in attendance, buddy, because one look at that grisly and you can serve my beer all over again to somebody else. It will be right on your floor!"
At that moment Cable, too, felt sick. He felt involved in a net of two colors. One was delicate brown, the other the color of dried betel juice. And no matter which way he twisted, he was not free. About this time he stopped writing to his mother.
The next time he saw Bali-ha'i was when Benny took him there on his regular visit. Four things happened. Six canoes set out from Vanicoro this time, and all the owners were dressed in red loin cloths. He slept with Liat again, more passionately than ever before. She gave him a charm she had carved from the strange ivory nut. And Sister Marie Clement stopped him as he went home past the hospital.
"That is an interesting charm," Sister Clement observed. "Is it from the ivory nut? That is a peculiar nut, is it not? Have you seen one? No? Well, stop by a moment." She disappeared into the hospital and produced a small object about the size of a man's fist. It resembled a small pineapple, brown and with a covering like a pine cone. "If you cut this covering off, there is an interior like the matting of a coconut. Inside that there is a fruit, and if you cut that off-it's like potato-you will find this very hard nut. When it dries, it's like ivory, as you can see. It's one of the strange t
hings of the islands." She paused a long time and then asked, "Did Liat give you the charm?"
"Yes, Sister, she did."
"My son," Sister Clement began. "You know what I have to say. I say it only to reinforce your own conscience, for you must already have said it to yourself. What you are doing is no good. It can only bring hurt to you and disgrace to the girl. If life is so urgent, so compelling now, marry one of the lovely French girls who live on this island. Some of them are beautiful. Some are fairly wealthy. Some are surprisingly well educated. And there are Protestants among them, too. If life is so urgent, it must also be important. Do not waste it, I pray you."
Cable could say nothing for a long time. He stood looking at the channel, this time a greenish blue, lovelier than before. Bali-ha'i was in his heart, and the island fought there against the wisdom of the little birdlike woman from Bordeaux. Finally he asked, "What of Liat?"
"I don't know what has passed between you, lieutenant. That is your affair, and God's. But I think I am doing no harm if I say that Liat can marry almost whom she wishes. Many Tonkinese want to marry her, for she is an industrious girl." Sister Clement bit her lip. She knew she should never have praised the girl. She knew Cable would grasp at those words and remember them long after the rest of her sermon had been dismissed. She continued, more carefully, "There is also a planter who wants to marry her. You have probably heard of him. Jacques Benoit. He could give her a good home. It would be a step up in the world for her. And although Jacques drinks a bit, I think he might make, with Liat's help, a good Christian home. Lieutenant, I beg you to think of this."
Cable studied the channel again. The six canoes from Vanicoro were returning to their own side of the greenish water. He hoped that Benny had accepted no more heads. Dry of mouth he turned his gaze to Sister Marie Clement, who was waiting.
Tales of the South Pacific Page 23