“So which of the three families around that private dump is he connected to?”
“All three of them, unfortunately.”
Han began to laugh. Sa’ili smiled. Han laughed harder, laughed until his eyes watered. When he finally caught his breath, he said, “So having an ignorant Korean tough to.barge around among the pigeons isn’t such a bad deal. By the time the high chief’s finished calming down all the ruffled feathers, with any luck a couple of his pet jerks’ll be locked up. And he’ll still smell like roses.”
“That’s about right.”
Han wiped tears and papaya juice off of his face and swung over the edge of the veranda to stand on the ground looking up at his friend. “Thank you. You’ve made my day.”
CHAPTER 25
Ann woke to the heat of the day on her face and the sound of the telephone ringing. She snatched the receiver, and Neil Hutchinson’s voice said, without preamble, “You going to Tula today?” Tula was the last village at the eastern end of the island, another half-hour’s drive beyond the Eastern District clinic, one of Ann’s regular venues. She lay on her back on her futon and stared up at the concrete arches that supported the roof.
“Neil. It’s Saturday. At least the last time I checked. Why would I be going to Tula?” She was conscious of having to pee and of being slightly lightheaded. Beer didn’t usually make her lightheaded, but, then, she had drunk a deal more beer last night than she was accustomed to. Finally, something in her brain hooked up. “Is this your lady with the leukemia?”
“She didn’t come in to clinic yesterday. She was supposed to get her second week of pills and more blood work.”
Cancer anywhere in the Territory broke the bank, emotionally and logisti-cally. But in this case, unlike most of the time, Neil had been able to make the diagnosis with a simple microscope and also had something reasonable he could do about it. All they had was pills, but the pills happened to be the right thing for this particular leukemia. Which was perhaps why Neil was so invested in what otherwise seemed like a hopeless situation. Beating a dead horse were the words that came to Ann’s mind. Though it would be hard, just now, to know whether that meant the patient or herself.
“What do you want me to do? Take her the pills or bring her in?”
“You don’t have to bring her in. I mean, if she looks too bad, of course bring her in.”
If she’ll let me, Ann thought. Neil was still talking. “Otherwise, just, you know, check her eyes, listen to her chest, thump on her belly. Long as there’re no big changes for the worse, just give her the stuff and get me a couple of tubes of blood.” Like descriptions of near-death experiences, Ann had the sense of rising into the air above the futon and looking down at herself, noting the functional bits of her brain kicking in. She’d want the small bag: stethoscope, blood tubes, alcohol wipes, tourniquet, meds. Multivits. Down side: you do still have to get out of bed. Up side: you have an excuse to talk Sarge out of a jeep, get the hell out of town for a day. Try being the person you wish you were for a day.
“I’m going to need to use one of the Public Health jeeps.”
“Fine. Whatever. When you get out there, find that kid, the young police officer, that’s always hanging out with Han. He can help you. He lives out there.”
“Ioane Ioane. He may officially live in Tula, but he can’t be there much, keeping the hours he does.” She didn’t add: not to mention hanging out with Fagatogo’s do-girl crowd.
“Whatever. But he can provide muscle if you need to load her up.”
Since Ann’s memory of Neil’s patient was of a bony spider of a women crouched over her ever-swelling spleen, she wasn’t sure muscle was the issue.
“I’ve got to check on the Birdman.”
“He’s fine. I just took a look at him. We can switch him to p.o. this afternoon and if his temp stays down and he doesn’t freak out again, we can bounce him out tomorrow if you and Welly are okay with the wound care.”
“Okay,” she said again, a little lamely, and sat up.
Samoans were always astounded and vaguely troubled, as if some important social negotiation must have been neglected, at how fast Ann could move when left to herself. Ten minutes later, dressed in her last clean clothes, she trotted across the residential compound carrying her laundry bag and trying not to spill her tea. Neil met her in the front lobby of the hospital with the medications and the lab supplies. Over behind the security shed, Sarge pulled himself out from under the hood of the ambulance and considered her carefully.
“Take that one. You must get gas, but the tires are better.” She took the keys, loaded her gear and then herself. Sarge stood looking at her, his forehead creased. “You know Nu’ufou?” he said. “That is my village.”
“Yes.”
Sarge was looking away now, down the road. “People are very foolish there. They talk of ghosts driving cars.”
“Well, um, I’ll be careful.” The answer hardly seemed adequate, but she didn’t know what else to say. “I’m going in the other direction anyway.” Sarge nodded and stepped back so that she could pull away.
Having to stop for gas was a bummer, but the gauge was definitely on empty and, in a car cared-for by Sarge, was probably still working. She was on autopilot, something missing, some investment, like watching the fall of dice in someone else’s game. An attempt to abandon self, she supposed, if that self was someone whose behavior disgusted her. She drove through Utulei, quiet on a Saturday morning. Then around by the hotel and the governor’s house and down the slope past the old Navy docks to the gas station just this side of the post office and the Fagotogo green and the police station. She turned her back toward the station as she filled the jeep’s tank. Neil’s suggestion about Ioane was probably a good one, but she couldn’t see herself marching into the station and telling Han she needed to borrow one of his men as make-shift ambulance crew. For one thing, she couldn’t imagine herself talking to Han about anything just now.
“Doctor Ann, you go to the clinic today?” Ioane Ioane stood behind her, tall, graceful as a warrior on a Grecian urn.
“Um,” she said. “Sort of. In fact, I need to drive to Tula.” She shifted to Samoan. “Avery sick lady of Tula needs her medication. She did not come to the hospital Tuesday or yesterday.”
Ioane nodded and said the old lady’s name. Which part of that, Ann thought, is village boy and which part is astute small-town cop? And why should they be different? “I go home now,” he said. “But I have no car.”
“Hop in.” Good enough: she and Ioane were even now, in the endless Samoan games of quid pro quo, give and receive, bill, payment, overhead and obligation. For Samoans, unlike Western accountants, recognize all those intangibles that make a myth of the for-profit system. Ann and Ioane needed something from each other, and it all pretty much balanced out in terms of cheekiness and actual effort. “I need to make two stops,” she went on, in English. “Gotta leave my laundry at Nozaki’s.” She switched to Samoan and slowed to turn left at the far side of the green. “And I must speak to Nofonofo Sa’ili. I won’t be long.”
She hadn’t consciously planned this. But it had become inevitable the moment she knew she had the car. She circled back around the green, turned right by the Gooney Bird, and drove up the short, steep street to Sa’ili’s. She got out, waiting for one of the women she could see on the far side of the long, deep veranda to come out to them. But Sa’ili himself emerged from the main house.
“No cane?” she said, smiling at him.
“No,” he said, smiling in return. “A free man. Please come in.” He nodded, too, to Ioane. The young man got out but hung back. Someone would bring him something to drink from the house, but he would probably be there, leaning against the front of the jeep, when she returned. Sa’ili led her out to the chairs at the far edge of the veranda. His sister and two of her adult daughters were sitting on m
ats on the other side of the space, spearing plumeria blossoms onto palm frond ribs. Decorations for something: church, perhaps, or a special occasion.
“So, you’re breathing’s all right?” Ann said, lapsing into doctor because she couldn’t think of anything else to say. Sa’ili nodded. “How about the arm?”
“Not bad. Still can’t lift it above here.” He demonstrated. “But Welly says I may never be able to.” Ann nodded. “How is our Birdman doing? Grayson. My cousin tells me you had to operate on his hand. Again.”
Ann grinned, as much in relief at having Sa’ili bring up the Birdman himself as anything else. “So much for patient confidentiality.”
“Nothing is confidential from a high chief.”
“Yeah, well,” Ann said, her grin fading. “That’s probably why I’m here.” She glanced over at the women working at the mats, but they seemed oblivious to Ann and Sa’ili. That was, of course, not true, but the women were talking and laughing with each other, which would limit their actually hearing anything. She still couldn’t quite ask Sa’ili if his sister might have set the young men of the village onto to Thorvald Pedersen. Or if Sa’ili himself might have, now that he was so much more active. By comparison, when the next question popped into her head, it was irresistible, like picking a scab.
“Yesterday was not good. He had a bad reaction to one of his medications. But Neil says he’s much better today. Um. Sakiko, Han’s wife, came to visit him. They work together now, don’t they?”
“Yes. She does beautiful paintings of birds. They will sell in our shop.” Ann nodded: made sense. It takes so little: just someone who seems to care about who you are, what you do. Probably went both ways. Sa’ili went on: “You know Han well?”
Ann shrugged, tempering the admission. “Some. He’s not an easy person to know.”
“I believe that he is unhappy that his wife works for us. I confess that I think of him as a palagi, and so this surprises me. Perhaps in this he is more Korean. Or perhaps something I don’t understand.”
“Um. Is it possible that he’s just jealous? I mean, in an ordinary kind of way. Like…of the Birdman or something?” What are you doing? Who are you setting up?
Sa’ili’s smile broadened. “Perhaps,” he said, laughing. “It will do him good. An ordinary man’s emotion.”
Ann shuddered involuntarily, the proverbial pedestrian over the grave. After that, she couldn’t quite see herself asking Sa’ili about his sister and Pedersen.
The long drive to Tula was relatively peaceful. Other than the traffic gridlock on the far side of Pago village that turned out to be a downed mango tree across the road. Ann discovered that there’s a lot to be said for having a police escort. Ioane sorted out the two villages and four chiefs involved with the downed tree.and the two smashed sheds and the dead pig and about fifty young men in two village young men’s groups and a couple of passing jitneys…with awesome skill and diplomacy. Including using Ann as his high chiefwhen he needed a deft application of superior status. Suddenly, the cough and roar of a chainsaw sounded on the other side of the downed tree, and the traffic, led by Ann’s jeep, began an elaborate detour through the backs of the villages.
The passenger door of the jeep popped open; Ioane swung himself in. “We go now,” he said, grinning.
“You don’t have to stay and direct traffic?”
“Oh, no,” he said. “I am off duty. And they will fight before the tree is cleared. I am the only police officer, and I will be injured if I stay here alone. If you will stop at the cannery office, I will call the station.” His grin, if possible, got a little wider. “And let them know.”
Beyond the canneries and the bay shore villages, the road swung sharply to the left, leaving the sweep of Pago Bay behind and heading out east along the southern coast. A few more yards and Ann could see Han’s house on the left, shaded by a huge avocado tree, his own jeep parked beside it. She couldn’t help scanning the little beach, to the right, across the road, to see if Sakiko and Jenny were there. They weren’t.
They drove through the tiny seaside villages. The road had been rammed through the most sacred area of the village, adjacent to the beach, at the edge of the sea. Ann glanced at Ioane who rode beside her, cheerful and good-looking, as if he didn’t have a problem in the world. That’s what palagis always thought of the bland face Samoans chose to turn to them, the obverse of the tropical island paradise. And even what Samoans told themselves they should be feeling and doing. No wonder the mountainsides are peopled with ghosts.
For something to say, Ann said, “Tula is a very traditional village.” Hardly a place, she did not add, that she would have expected Ioane to prosper. “But…you are from Western Samoa originally, yes?”
“My mother’s family is from Savai’i.” He named a large village on the far side of the biggest of the islands of Western Samoa, not too far from her Peace Corps village, very full of itself, very full of the importance of its chiefs. “My father…drove…a taxi in Apia. Then, he went to New Zealand. To play guitar in a rock band.”
How the daughter of an important family from the far side of Savai’i had a kid by a singing taxi driver from Apia who’s only legacy was his own first name had several possible explanations. Summed up by this young man’s living here in exile with an auntie in Tula. But this was American Samoa, not Western Samoa. A clever young man could catch the eye of the man who was clearly remaking the Department of Public Safety and didn’t care a shit about traditional Samoa except as it got in his way. Trouble was, that man did care about traditional police work. And how much of traditional police culture was going to tolerate do-girl? She wished she could get Ioane to talk, but she couldn’t imagine how.
Then she remembered Pua. “You’re a friend of Pua’s, aren’t you? The ICU nurse at the hospital. We’re lucky to have him. He’s a wonderful nurse.” Most humans like praise, however praise is viewed in their culture. Though Samoans are clear enough about human motivation to say Praising is asking
As much as she could watch both the road and Ioane, she saw his face go tense and blank. Then the muscles around his eyes relaxed, and he looked pleased and sheepish. The smile grew more slowly but seemed somehow more real that the toothy blaze of enamel he could flash at times. “My aunt says I must take great care.”
Or at least that’s what she thought he said. She spent the next five miles of shore road working carefully through the Samoan to be sure. Finally, she said, “I expect she’s right.”
The traditional name of the village of Tula was the eye of Manu ‘a, for it was the one place on the main island where, on a clear day, you could see the three little islands of the Manu’a group, Ofu, Olosega, and Ta’u, sixty miles to the east. But it was actually the ass-end of the island. The terrain was relatively open, flat and dry, between the descending crests of the central mountain ridge with one last little bump at the tip end, like the spine at the end of a dragon’s tail. Ann pulled up where the road ended. She set the parking brake, coming up out of her thoughts with a sensation like coming up out of deep water: the release of pressure and the ability suddenly to breathe. They sat for a moment, gazing around the quiet village. The sun was directly overhead, and the shade under the tall old traditional houses was dense. Ioane pointed to one that framed the view to the sea.
“That is my aunt’s house,” he said. Old Samoan houses always made Ann think of ships, something about the loft of thatched roof against the sky, the weather-polished pillars, like the spars of old clippers, the foundations built up of coral and lava rock so that they met the eye like a ship’s hull, the whole so often seen, like this, against the sea and sky. “You will come to meet her?”
In the States, Ann would have attended her patient first. Here, and guessing from the status suggested by that beautiful old house, there were other priorities.
Ann followed Ioane across the stretch of white sand that
formed the village center, stumbling, blinded by the light. Ioane spoke softly to someone sitting up in the house. Ann heard the greeting in return, saw the young man sit on the edge of the foundation and swing himself, still seated, up into the shadow under the tall roof, so that he would remain with his head lower than the old woman who sat there. A peculiar rhythmic metallic clicking came to Ann’s ears, but with her vision still cramped by the glare, she couldn’t make out the source. The same old woman’s voice said, talofa, love, like the Hawaiian cognate, aloha.
Ann answered in the same fashion but upped a couple of notches in politeness: much love, your honor.
Ann heard a soft snort and the rhythmic clicking again and then, still in Samoan, was bidden enter. Ann swung up onto the foundation as Ioane had and sat, like the young man, cross-legged on one of the mats, waiting for her eyes to adjust. The old woman’s form was a dark bulk against the brilliance outside. The clicking sounded again, right in front of her.
“You are very polite, for apalagi.” Click-click-click-click-click-click. The sound was a sewing machine. An old Singer, unmistakable shape, black body, gold lettering, but with a hand crank let into the wheel. The machine sat on an overturned crate, and the old woman was running bits of cloth through it with her left hand while her right hand ran the crank.
“I lived on Savai’i for two years.”
“Ah. Peace Corps or Mormons?”
“Peace Corps. Mormons don’t do girls. At least they didn’t then.”
“Ah. Well. Peace Corps or Mormons, they both cause trouble. But at least they learn to talk properly.”
“Yes,” Ann said, using the word that is the reply to a senior chief. The old woman nodded and ran another scrap of cloth through the machine, her fingers moving deftly. Ann’s eyes had finally sorted through the demands of light and dark and she could see color again. The old woman was dressed in a simple tunic-like shirt and a lavalava in the same faded print of white hibiscus on a blue background. The style and colors made Ann think of the public health nurses’ uniforms of blue seersucker, somehow liberated and become their own expression of something innately Samoan.
A Bird in the Hand Page 19