Tales of the South Pacific

by James A. Michener

  A BOAR'S TOOTH

  LUTHER BILLIS and Tony Fry were a pair! Luther was what we call in the Navy a "big dealer." Ten minutes after he arrived at a station he knew where to buy illicit beer, how to finagle extra desserts, what would be playing at the movies three weeks hence, and how to avoid night duty.

  Luther was one of the best. When his unit was staging in the Hebrides before they built the airstrip at Konora he took one fleeting glance at the officers near by and selected Tony Fry. "That's my man!" he said. Big dealers knew that the best way for an enlisted man to get ahead was to leech on to an officer. Do things for him. Butter him up. Kid him along. Because then you had a friend at court. Maybe you could even borrow his jeep!

  Tony was aware of what was happening. The trick had been pulled on him before. But he liked Billis. The fat SeaBee was energetic and imaginative. He looked like something out of Treasure Island. He had a sagging belly that ran over his belt by three flabby inches. He rarely wore a shirt and was tanned a dark brown. His hair was long, and in his left ear he wore a thin golden ring. The custom was prevalent in the South Pacific and was a throwback to pirate days.

  He was liberally tattooed. On each breast was a fine dove, flying toward his heart. His left arm contained a python curled around his muscles and biting savagely at his thumb. His right arm had two designs: Death Rather Than Dishonor and Thinking of Home and Mother. Like the natives, Luther wore a sprig of frangipani in his hair.

  It was Luther's jewelry, however, that surprised Tony. On his left arm Billis wore an aluminum watch band, a heavy silver slave bracelet with his name engraved, and a superb wire circlet made of woven airplane wire welded and hammered flat. On his right wrist he had a shining copper bracelet on which his social security and service numbers were engraved. And he wore a fine boar's tusk.

  "What's that?" Tony asked him one day.

  "A boar's tusk," Billis replied.

  "What in the world is a boar's tusk?" Fry asked.

  "You got a jeep, Mr. Fry?"

  "Yes."

  "Then why don't we go see the old chief?" Billis leaned his fat belly forward and sort of hunched up the two doves on his breast.

  "Put a shirt on," Tony said. "We'll take a spin."

  In the jeep Billis sat back, his right foot on the dash, and gave directions. "Out past the farm, down the hill, past 105 Hospital-say, Mr. Fry, have you seen them new nurses out there-down to Tonk village, and I'll take over from there."

  Tony followed the instructions. When he reached the two séchoirs where copra and cacao were drying, Billis said, "Drive down that grass road." Tony did so, and soon he was at the seaside. Before him, around the edges of a little bay, a host of native canoes and small trading vessels lay beached. Beside the prows of the ships colored men from all the Hebridean islands had pitched their tents. This was the native market of Espiritu Santo.

  Most of the natives knew Billis. "'Allo, Billis!" they cried.

  "Got any cigarettes, Mr. Fry?"

  "No, I don't."

  "Shouldn't ever come down here without cigarettes." Billis spoke to the men in Beche-le-Mer. Explained to them that this time he had no smokes.

  "That's OK, Billis!" an old man said.

  "Got any boar's tusks?" Billis inquired.

  "We got some," the old trader replied.

  "Let's see."

  "In ship."

  "Well, go get from ship!" Billis cried, slapping the old man on the back. The natives laughed. The old fellow went to the shore, waded in and started swimming toward a ship anchored in the bay. Tony surveyed the market. Chickens were selling at two dollars each. Eggs were a dollar a dozen, and plentiful. Grass skirts were two dollars, shells were a dollar a handful. Watermelons, grown from American seed, were abundant. Eight kinds of bananas were on sale, war clubs, lava-lavas, toy canoes, papayas, and the fragrant pineapples which grew on Vanicoro.

  Soldiers and sailors moved about among the native tents. From time to time thin native men and boys would stagger into camp under mammoth loads of junk. By an island order natives were permitted to strip any junk pile before it was set afire. So they came to Santo from miles around in every kind of canoe. They took home with them old tables, rusty knives, bits of tin, ends of copper wire, and all the refuse of a modern army.

  "Looks like he's got a pretty good one, Mr. Fry," Billis said as the old man swam back to shore, holding in his teeth a boar's tusk. The trader came ashore, shook himself like a dog and sat on his haunches before a small fire on the beach.

  "All same too good!" he said, offering Billis the tusk.

  Luther handed it to Fry, who twirled the ugly thing in his hands. "Grim looking thing, isn't it?" he asked. The tusk was rude, ugly, just as it had been ripped from the under-jaw of a sacrificial wild pig It was dirty white in color and formed an almost perfect circle about five inches across. At its widest the tusk itself was about a quarter of an inch thick, so that it formed a natural bracelet. Tony slipped it over his right hand. It hung dull and heavy from his wrist.

  "You got one cleaned up?" Billis asked the old man.

  "He got," the trader replied, pointing to a native friend.

  "Let's see," Billis suggested.

  "You buy? You look? You look?" the doubtful Melanesian asked.

  "I look, I look, I knock your block off," Billis shouted.

  This delighted the Negro, who produced a tusk slightly smaller than the first and beautifully polished. Whereas the first was dirty and crude, this one was a pale golden ivory, soft to the eye and lustrous. It curled in a circle and seemed one of the finest bracelets Tony had ever seen. It was solid ivory.

  "This comes from this?" Tony asked, indicating the two tusks, "That's right. The dirty one has the enamel on yet. The ivory is all hidden on that one. Them natives has a secret way of getting the enamel off. I figured out a way of knocking it off with an emery wheel. I do it for them at a buck a tusk. They finish up the polishing."

  Tony surveyed the tusks. They were like something from Greek legend. The shimmering, golden jewel and the rude barbaric thing from which it sprang. "What's a tusk like this one worth?" Tony asked, indicating the polished bracelet.

  Billis spoke in Beche-le-Mer to the natives. "He says fifteen dollars."

  "Whew! Is that a good buy, Billis?" Luther took the tusk and studied it. Like the tusks of all pigs, it was composed of three triangular pieces of ivory welded together by nature. Light played delicately upon the irregular faces. Fry was entranced at the jungle jewel as Billis twirled it around his thumb.

  "It's worth fifteen dollars, Mr. Fry," he said. But then a happy thought struck him. "Of course, I know where you can get a better one."

  "Where?"

  "On Vanicoro."

  "Where's that?"

  "That island over there."

  "Way over there?"

  "It's not so far."

  "No, Billis. You just want the ride. I know you big dealers. Besides, I get seasick."

  "You don't have to go, Mr. Fry. You send me. I'll go."

  "What do you have cooking over there, Billis? You have a big deal on?"

  "The sacred ceremonial, sir. I've been invited. You know the damned Navy. Can't see its way clear to letting me go."

  "What's all this about, Billis? A sacred ceremonial?"

  "He'll tell you," Billis said, indicating a young native.

  By this time Fry knew he was hooked. When an officer gets in the clutches of a big dealer it's one thing after another. Tony knew he ought to stop right where he was. "I'll take this one," he said. He gave the second trader fifteen dollars and put the tusk in his pocket.

  But the young native, dressed in brief shorts, was beside him. "Fine ceremonial," he said in good English. "My uncle kill all his pigs. He got more pigs than any other man on Vanicoro. You like to come, my uncle be very proud. He maybe kill one pig for you. He gonna kill one pig for Billis."

  "What's this killing pigs, Billis?" Fry asked.

  "Well, they're holy pigs, sir."
>
  "Holy?"

  "Yes," Billis replied. The young native shook his head in agreement. "But you see, sir, they aren't really holy till they're dead."

  "Wait a minute, Billis! You're getting me all mixed up."

  Luther smiled. That's what he was trying to do. He'd been wanting to go to Vanicoro for a long time. This looked like his chance. If he could get his officer sufficiently mixed up and interested, well...

  "It's simple, sir," he said with mock honesty. "Pigs is their religion. They keep pigs the way we keep churches. The rounder the pig's tusks is, the better the church. Sort of the way it is back home. The Baptists got to have a higher steeple than the Methodists."

  "Are you kidding me, Billis?"

  "Oh, no! Lenato here will tell you, won't you, Lenato?"

  The young native smiled and nodded his head. "Billis, he see pigs. He go back jungle one day 'long me."

  "So that's where you were? Don't you ever work, Billis?"

  "Well, when you're just sitting around waiting..."

  "What's this about a chief killing a pig for you?"

  "Billis one fine man," Lenato said. "He give many presents."

  "Oh!" Fry said knowingly. He looked at Billis, who glared at Lenato "I suppose you'd be happy if I didn't ask what presents."

  "That would be very good of you," Billis replied.

  "Much stuff!" Lenato said eagerly. "Sheets. Calico. One hammer. Some wire. One carbine." Billis blew air up his fat nostrils and looked out to sea.

  "Much stuff?" Fry repeated. "For that you get a pig." Tony looked at the fat SeaBee. "Billis," he said, "I think we ought to go over to Vanicoro. I'd like to see that chief's hut. I'll bet it's wired with Mazda lamps and has an electric ice box!"

  On the way back to camp Billis explained more about the tusks to Tony. "When them pigs is young," he said, "they're staked out to a tree on a short length of jungle rope. All their lives they live in that little circle, tied to the tree. The old Maries of the village feed the pigs. Chew the food up first and spit it out. So the pig won't hurt his tusks muzzlin' hard food."

  "That's a lot of trouble for a pig," Tony observed.

  "But the pigs is sacred. I'm tellin' you, the whole religion is pigs. Nothin' more."

  "Billis? Where do you find these things out?"

  "Oh," the SeaBee replied, "I'm sort of like you. I like to know things."

  Fry looked at him sideways. He wondered if the fat fellow were pulling his leg. Billis continued, "For example, if you was to look under my shirt now you'd see a little extra tattoo. They done that up in the jungle. I joined the tribe. They like me pretty much up there. I helped them to kill the last ceremonial pigs."

  "Why did you join the tribe?" Fry asked.

  "Oh, some fellows out here read and some carve boats, and some go nuts. Me? I sort of like to fool around with people."

  "What did you do in civilian life?"

  "Sold cars."

  "Pretty successful, I guess."

  "Made a very good livin'. Say, Mr. Fry, would you like to see the two tusks I got when I joined the tribe?"

  "Yes, I would," Tony said. "Let's pull in up the road a bit."

  Billis led Tony to a small shack which had been fitted up by the Sea-Bees as a recreation hut. It had every known kind of machine or gadget that could be stolen, borrowed, or ripped off a crashed plane. "Where'd you get all this junk?" Tony asked.

  "One place and another," Billis replied truthfully. Fry laughed. The room was a monument to the spirit that made America great. "I wouldn't change a splinter of it," Tony said to himself.

  From a corner Billis produced a grisly object. It was the lower jawbone of a wild boar. Jungle ants had eaten away the flesh, leaving only the whitened bones, teeth, and the two curving, circular tusks. They protruded upward from where the lower eyeteeth would naturally have been. But they were not teeth. No, cased in enamel they were pure ivory, like the tusks of elephants.

  Fry looked at the jawbone for several minutes. Then he asked a cautious question. "Billis? If this is the lower jawbone, as you say. Look at those tusks. They grow right back into the jawbone. That one over there makes a complete circle and grows back through its own root."

  "That's the most valuable kind. Of the one-circle tusks, that is."

  "But how does it do that?"

  "Grows back through the pig's face," Billis said nonchalantly. "That's barbarous!"

  "Very difficult to do. Most pigs die when the tusk starts growing back into their face. Most of those that live die when it starts to grow back into the jawbone. The natives have eight or nine different prayers to a pig to beg him to keep living until the tusk makes a perfect circle. Would you like to hear one?"

  Billis grabbed the jawbone and started a weird incantation to the dead pig. "Put it down," Fry said. "The damned pig must live in agony."

  "Oh, the pig!" Billis said. "I was thinkin' of the Maries. You see, men don't raise the pig. The Mary raises the pig. If she lets it die, she gets a beating. Yes, the pig. It must hurt him pretty bad. The last four years must be real painful."

  "Four years?"

  "Yeah, it takes about seven years to grow a good tusk. It begins to enter the face about the fourth year. This here pig lived about five years after the tusks started through the bone."

  "How horrible!" Fry said.

  "Seems funny to me," Billis said. "But everyone I show this to always thinks about the pig. What about the people? They was mighty proud of this porker. It was the best pig in the area. It was sacred. Men came from all the villages around to see it and worship it. Two tusks right through the face. One of them right through the root of the tusk itself. That's mighty sacred as pigs go!"

  "You have an interesting time out here, don't you?" Fry asked, somewhat sick at his stomach.

  "Yeah, I do. Uncle Sam says I got to stay out here. But he don't say I got to be bored!"

  "I'll tell you, Billis. You see about that trip to Vanicoro. I'd like to check into this."

  "Maybe we can get a boat somewhere."

  "If you can't, nobody can."

  "I may have to use your name. That OK?"

  "Get the boat. You know how it's done." Fry smiled at his fat friend.

  "Mind if I ride down to the mess hall with you, sir?"

  "Come ahead, big dealer." Tony was unprepared for what happened that night at dinner. He showed the polished tusk to his fellow officers at mess and Dr. Benoway gasped. "Oh! I'd like to buy that from you, Fry!" he cried.

  "It cost fifteen bucks," Tony replied.

  "I don't care. Will you sell it?"

  "What do you want it for?"

  "I'd like to send it to my wife," Benoway replied.

  "Good idea. Sold!"

  "What would a woman want with a thing like that?" an acidulous, sallow-faced officer asked.

  "I don't know," Benoway replied. "She might like to see it. See what things are like out here."

  "What are you doing? Dressing her up like a savage?" the officer persisted.

  "I'm not doing anything. I'm sending her a present."

  "It's a hell of a present, if you ask me."

  "Nobody asked you," Fry broke in. "These tusks are strange things," he continued. "Have you heard how they grow them?" He repeated what Billis had told him.

  "That's absolutely grotesque!" the same officer persisted. He was an unhappy, indifferent fellow.

  "Perhaps so," Fry agreed. "A friend tells me they're the center of all native religion."

  "They would be!" the sallow officer said grudgingly. "This godforsaken place."

  "If it's their religion, it's their religion," Fry said, not wanting to be drawn into an argument, yet not wanting to miss a good fight if one were available. "Sort of like Episcopalians and Buddhists. You can't throw out the whole religion because it's not logical."

  "But this filthy stuff! The pain! The misery!"

  "Now look, friend. I'm not defending the damned pigs," Fry said. "But for heaven's sake, be consistent. I suppose you
're a religious man. You probably believe in something. No, don't tell me what it is. But if it's Christianity, the central fact of your religion is that a living man endured hours of untold agony so that you might be saved." The argumentative officer gasped. "So that you might be ennobled."

  "Fry," the officer said, "I always thought there was something wrong with you!"

  "Wait a minute! I'm not in this. Leave me out. But you made some statements that needed challenging!"

  "All that misery. Yes, even torture!"

  "I know," Fry said patiently. "Pain is at the center of all religions. Almost all beauty, too. Fine things, like human beings, for example, are born of pain. Of great suffering. Of intense, in-driving horror. Fine things never come cheaply. Suppose the hog had run wild, ground down his tusks? Done what he had damned pleased? Who would have been richer, or wiser, or better? Only the hog and the guy that finally ate him. But as it was! Well, that boar ennobled the life of an entire village."

  "And the boar himself?" the sallow officer asked.

  "Friend," Tony said. "I'm going to say a pretty harsh thing. Now please don't get mad at me. But here goes. You seem like a funny man to ask such a question. Really you do. No one in this room ought to ask a question like that. Because you are the wild boar. You are staked out unwillingly to your own little troubles. Your tusks are growing in upon you. From the way you look I think you are feeling the misery. Tony looked at the officer and grinned that silly grin of his.

  "Just what do you mean?" the officer asked, leaning forward.

  "Oh, damn it all," Tony said. "Who started this anyway?"

  "You did," the officer replied.

  "Well, what I mean is this. I'm arguing from analogy. Here you are, staked out on a jungle island. God knows you didn't elect to come here. Most of you fellows are naval officers because the draft was hot on your necks, and you know it. Each month you are here you grow older and most of you grow poorer. Take Doc Benoway. If he was back home he could be making a thousand dollars a month, or twice that. Yet he's out here. His wife is growing older. He begins to worry about things. The next push. He may be the one that doesn't make it. What holds you fellows here? A three-foot chain to the stake of custom? An idea of patriotism? I don't know why I act the way I do. But if you're interested..."