Things Bright and Beautiful

by Anbara Salam

  ‘In what sense?’

  ‘These circumstances.’ Max’s chest was fluttery. ‘Is there even a midwife on the island?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Marietta. ‘There’s Naumu, in the North. And Chief Liki had two midwives.’

  ‘But here. Here where we need them.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Marietta said. ‘Filip, what do you say?’ She raised her voice to Aru.

  ‘No, Pastor,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Well, we should. There should be someone. A girl, with an aptitude for nursing. We can send her to Vila, for training.’

  Marietta and Aru were silent.

  ‘I could write to Jonson. Get him to contact the DA, send us some medical assistance.’

  Marietta gave a short laugh. ‘That man? He’s nothing more than a colonial hangover, Max. Decorative at best.’

  ‘Well, then I can write to the LMS. They might be willing to provide the funding. How much do you think it would cost? With lodging, and food?’

  Aru looked down at his sandals.

  ‘I don’t know, Max,’ said Marietta.

  ‘Maybe not even board, she could be hosted by one of the representatives. A living stipend, then.’

  Marietta said something to Aru in Language. He replied, smiling and showing his little white teeth.

  ‘Excuse me?’ Max said.

  ‘Oh, nothing.’ Marietta flapped her hand. She cleared her throat. ‘Look, Max, that’s sweet. But it would never work,’ she said.

  ‘Whyever not?’ Max stopped in his tracks. ‘How often must this happen? It’s lunacy not to be prepared.’

  ‘There are kastom ways,’ said Aru.

  Max looked at him in astonishment. Of all the people in the village, surely he would know best the cost they were paying. ‘With all respect, Mr Aru,’ Max said, ‘the kastom ways do not appear to be working.’

  ‘Nobody would want to be trained,’ Marietta said. ‘No girl’s family would allow them. She’d be shunned.’

  ‘Not a girl, then –’ Max pressed on ‘– a woman. A widow.’

  Marietta scoffed, ‘Even worse!’

  ‘Pastor,’ Aru said, after a moment of silence, ‘for these matters, the new religion cannot help us. We have kastom. Any other way – it is tabu.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Marietta said. ‘Tabu.’

  12

  A storm blew in from the east. Lumpy purple clouds curdled in the atmosphere, and water poured from the sky, churning the soil into a grainy orange slurry. It was impossible to leave Mission House. Max, Marietta and Bea were stuck indoors looking out on to white steamy mist crawling the hollows in the hills. Even inside the house, it was damp and chilly. The wood was too wet to catch properly, and the fire sputtered thin grey smoke back into the building. The moisture in their clothes and hair merely leached vapour into the atmosphere so the house smelt like musty fabric and spent matches.

  Marietta had caught a cold. She was keeping to her bedroom, but her hoarse tuneless droning was still audible through the walls, now complemented by zealous bouts of coughing and sniffing.

  Bea sat on Marietta’s stool, and watched the rain pummelling the soft earth in the garden. She was worrying about her vegetables. It had never rained quite so emphatically before. Bea imagined the roots might come loose, and start slithering down the hill and into the ocean. She longed for a hot bath. Her feet were cold.

  Max and Marietta had intended to go on a walkabout to Kalu-kalu. It was apparently an arduous, week-long hike up into the hills, and they had planned their route carefully for days. But the village was high up in Central, round woozy hairpin turns over sharp drops. It was an impossibly dangerous voyage in the rain, so they were stuck in Bambayot until it cleared. Bea wasn’t especially sad they couldn’t go. Let them both feel what it was like to be trapped in the village for days on end. It would be nice, she thought, to spend some time with Max. It might be like it was when the two of them were starting out together, their early days of nervous camaraderie as a newly-wed couple, riding the tram into Boston arm in arm, playing backgammon after supper. But since the rain had started, Max seemed so dejected she couldn’t gain much pleasure from having him around the house. He was glum and listless, and was barely speaking.

  They had packed one deck of cards in their crates from Boston, but by now it had become distinctively worn from use. Max could identify most of the cards even from their patterned backs – how the ace of diamonds had a smudge-print of mud, how the jack of hearts was ripped in one corner, and the bend in the centre of all the queens from when he offered them to Lorianne to play with. They had spent two hours on the first day of rain playing rounds of Whist, keeping score on the back of an old envelope. But he had this awful feeling he was cheating, when he could more or less already tell what Bea and Marietta held in their hands.

  Max was half slumped over the table. He had set the green mug in front of him, and was dolefully flicking playing cards one by one, trying to land them inside the rim of the cup. Bea was staring out of the window and twirling a piece of hair at the end of her plait, over and over, in her fingers.

  The fire took a long time to catch, and dinner on the first night was barely-cooked rice, and wet, raw hedge. They ate it round the table in silence, punctuated only by Marietta’s sniffs, and the ineffectual dabbing she made at her face with her pink handkerchief.

  More rain rained. First one, then two, then three days. On the third day, there was a break in the weather. Marietta declared it the appropriate time to do her washing, and sat on the front porch with the bucket, scrubbing, singing and sniffing. Bea fled into the garden to inspect her crops. It wasn’t as bad as she had expected. Several of her kindling fences had been knocked down, but there were no apparent victims of the flood. She lopped off the head of two cabbages and cut down a struggling snake bean.

  Max announced he had to rescue some books and tobacco from his desk in the church, and trampled quickly through the squelchy grass down the hill. Alone at last, he stretched out his arms and breathed deeply. Only a few minutes later it began to rain again.

  Marietta had barely fished her washing out of the bucket before the rain started. She had hung blouses, brassieres and underwear throughout the living room on a string tacked to a piece of wood inside the front door. Bea gave Max a murderous look when he entered. She made a great pantomime of stepping underneath the clothes, and over the fresh puddles they were making on the floor.

  ‘I’m going out,’ Bea said, meeting his eyes in what she hoped was a deliberate manner.

  Max brushed the water drops from his hair, standing aside as she passed. ‘Bea –’ he started.

  ‘I feel sorry for New Dog,’ she said over one shoulder, pushing the door open so a shower of drops scattered across the stoop.

  ‘You’re not bringing it in here, are you?’ Max asked. The only thing Max could imagine that could possibly add to their misery would be bringing the stinking, whinnying dog in there as well.

  The door slammed behind Bea. ‘No,’ she called as she walked into the rain.

  Max watched her disappear into the drizzle. Maybe he should have offered to help? He could go after her, but it might look like he was avoiding Marietta. Instead, he retrieved the tobacco from inside his shirt, pulled his stool over to the wall, and began to pack his pipe.

  Marietta cleared her throat, sniffed, and started to read out loud from the Bible.

  How he wished he could tell her that he didn’t want to hear anything from the Bible. He merely wanted to sit in silence, and smoke. Maybe drink a hot cup of coffee. If only he could lie down in bed, with coffee, listening to the wireless. They had brought a transistor radio with them, but the island was too far out to catch any frequencies. Soon after they first arrived, he had enlisted Lorianne to climb up into a tree with the radio, to see if they could find any signal up there. But it still hadn’t worked. Secretly, he thought Lorianne might have meddled with the dials. It was not like she had ever seen a radio before.

  W
hen Bea returned later, sopping wet, Marietta was sitting at the table alone, reading the Bible out loud to herself.

  ‘Who are you talking to? Is Max still here?’ Bea wrung water from the bottom of her plait.

  ‘Yes, dear, he had a headache, so he went to lay down. We don’t want him to catch my cold now.’ She held her handkerchief in the air, as evidence of her suffering.

  Bea raised her eyebrows. No doubt the source of his headache was obvious.

  ‘Did you find the dog?’ Marietta asked.

  ‘Yes, I found her. I wanted to make her a shelter. From the rain.’

  ‘That’s kind of you. It’s not common for animals to survive long round here. Most of the time they end up being supper.’

  Bea wasn’t listening, she had noticed an empty tin of Spam lying next to Marietta’s Bible.

  ‘Oh, you don’t mind, do you?’ Marietta said, following Bea’s eyes. ‘Meat is good fortification for the health.’

  Bea shook her head, swallowing hard to disperse the ridiculous ache of grief in her throat.

  The next day, the rain was still raining. Max tried to stay in bed for as long as possible. He felt like if he even had to hear so much as Marietta’s breathing, he might lose his temper. It was quite peaceful, lying in bed late into the morning. The sky was dark, and it was gloomy inside his bedroom. Bea had left hours ago, to do goodness knows what – more animal rescue missions, he supposed. When his stomach twinged with hunger, he held his breath deliberately to see if he could hear Marietta in the house. But there was no Bible reading, and no coughing. He decided to risk it.

  Max crept out into the living room, to find Bea sitting on his stool. She was grating plantain into a bowl between her legs. The ‘grater’ was a dangerously sharp piece of equipment, one of Willie’s inventions. After Max had explained what a grater was, Willie had cut open a tin can with an axe then, using a hammer and a nail, punched through the can, so sharp shards stood up along one side of the tin.

  Bea looked up at him. ‘Good morning,’ she said, continuing to grate.

  Max shushed her. ‘Is she here?’ he asked.

  Bea nodded, gesturing her eyebrows towards Marietta’s room. Max crept past Bea into the kitchen on exaggerated tiptoes, and Bea couldn’t help but laugh. Max sat at the table while Bea grated, and looked out at the rain. He sipped from his mug of tepid rainwater, and crunched on another dry cracker. The wood was so wet he couldn’t face even trying to light the fire.

  ‘Fresh milk,’ Max said, still staring out of the window. There was a quiet pause, as Bea looked at the blank expression on his face. Max could see it clearly, a small blue pitcher of milk, with a thin coating of cream on the top. He would pour it over cereal, and the skin would lift as the milk poured.

  After a pause, Bea said, ‘Cocoa.’ She continued to grate. Bitter, hot cocoa. There were cocoa pods on the island. She had seen some on top, near the big, six-pronged waterfall. But it had to be ground, and roasted. Or was it roasted first? Bea caught the corner of her nail on the grater and quickly sucked at her thumb. Santra might know, she thought.

  ‘Omelette, with ham,’ Max continued.

  ‘And okra,’ Bea added, examining her thumb carefully. She heard him laugh.

  ‘OK,’ he conceded, ‘with okra.’

  Bea wondered, could she grow okra on the island? Maybe it already grew somewhere in the forest, but it was called by an island name. She could draw Santra a picture. Bea tried to remember where she had left her coloured pencils.

  ‘Steak, with French fries. And tomato ketchup.’ Max was in a sort of daydream. ‘A hamburger, with cheese. Milkshakes. Malted milkshakes.’

  Bea felt weak. She didn’t have the heart to continue. Something small was breaking inside her. ‘Oh, Max, please stop. It’s too awful,’ she said.

  But Max was barely in the room. The half-eaten cracker in his hand sprinkled crumbs on to the tablecloth. ‘Coleslaw. Walnut cookies. And devilled eggs. Bacon, with biscuits,’ he said.

  Bea wrapped her arms around her stomach. There was an unidentifiable pain pulsing there.

  ‘Fresh orange juice. Meatloaf with mashed potatoes. Liquorice drops,’ he continued.

  Bea didn’t know what liquorice drops were, but they sounded impossibly refined.

  And then Marietta was standing in the doorway, shaking her head. ‘I don’t know what you two are talking about,’ she said loudly.

  Max turned to her. He had almost forgotten where he was. He could virtually taste the hot meatloaf. Hot meatloaf and cold orange juice. His stomach was throbbing. He put the half-eaten cracker down on to the pink tablecloth.

  ‘All that junk is no good for you,’ Marietta continued. ‘Junk. That’s what it is. Spiritual junk.’

  Bea stood up from the stool, and carried the bowl of grated plantain into the kitchen, without looking at Marietta. Max felt his eyelid trill. He placed his fourth finger on the tic to see if he could slow it.

  ‘The Lord should have washed all that nonsense off you by now. Honestly, Max, I’m surprised at you,’ Marietta continued, blowing her nose on her handkerchief.

  Max looked at Marietta without really seeing her. He felt a little sick. Why was she still here? In their house. What was she still doing here? Who was she to judge the importance to the Lord of Max eating damned rice and hedge for the rest of his life? The first thing, the very first thing he would do when he left this place, would be to eat a meal of meatloaf and mashed potatoes. With ice-cold orange juice.

  13

  Max and Marietta walked from Kalawoki in the dark. They had spent a long afternoon talking to the chief there, and witnessing in a muddy clearing at the centre of the village. Marietta gave a brief sermon, and a small crowd of about seven villagers had gathered to hear her speak. No one had chosen to come forward to accept the Lord, but Max was certain some seeds were sown. The next time they came to Kalawoki, there would undoubtedly be more questions, more curious parties. The next village on their itinerary was high in the mountains of Central. Max had never been there, but Marietta claimed to know the route. After a quick meal of boiled taro in the nakamal, they had set off again. Marietta had insisted the village they were heading to, Kalu-kalu, was a long, difficult hike, so it would be best to spend the night at the nakamal in Salabot, then continue on climbing uphill to Kalu-kalu at daybreak.

  Max saw the sense in this, but he hated walking through the bush at night. It was hard-going with only the light of the moon as a guide. And the darkness played tricks on the mind. Sounds that were commonplace during the day became agitating at night. A low growl circled in the trees as a howler monkey defended its territory. Unplaceable suckling and snuffling noises whimpered in the undergrowth. The limbs of trees creaked and cracked and shifted, even though there was no wind to speak of, and the soil bustled with stirring insects. No one on the island walked at night. Admittedly, this was more to do with superstitions about dwarves and vampires in the forest. Still, it made his hackles rise.

  The path to Salabot nakamal was narrow, and they were forced to walk uphill in single file. Leaving Kalawoki as the light dropped, Marietta had pushed straight in front of him. For the past two hours, he had followed her slow pace doggedly as she paused to huff and cough. He stared at her back through the dim moonlight, seething. It was so like her, to assume the front position. Without even asking him. Now he was forced to look at her bulk while they hiked. He couldn’t even enjoy a few moments of his time without having her in the way. He was convinced she manoeuvred in front of him deliberately, so she could enjoy the unencumbered view.

  At the first clearing in the path, Max picked up his pace to stride in front of Marietta. He was only doing it out of spite. Truthfully, walking first in the bush was miserable work. The trail leader was the one to put their foot down on a loose stone, or to step into a track of soft, knee-deep mud. It was often impossible to see where the path wound. The person in front was the one to walk straight through spiderwebs, with the inevitable ensuing moment of panic t
o locate the resident of the web as it tried to flee inside a collar. Marietta hummed atonally as she walked. Somehow, this was even more infuriating while she was behind him, like a bee just within his peripheral vision.

  At one point, Max saw a huge creature creeping out on to the path in front of them. It was hard to make out through the darkness, but its long legs were moving sideways, one after another. It was crawling slowly, probing its way along with tentatively raised legs. It was a spider. A colossal spider, perhaps two metres across, with the body the size of a dog. Its joints made a smart clicking sound as it skittered across the path. Revulsion flooded through him, his chest grew tight. He couldn’t move. It was as if he had stepped directly into a nightmare.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ Marietta said, stopping short behind him.

  Max snapped out of his hysteria. Of course it wasn’t a spider. It was a coconut crab. He and Marietta watched as the enormous beast crept across into the bushes on the other side of the path. What had he been thinking? He rebuked himself as they continued their journey. Whatever creature he had imagined seeing didn’t even exist. But, he caught himself thinking, if it were to exist anywhere, it would probably be here – in some unexplored corner of jungle.

  They slept in Salabot nakamal up in Central, Marietta on one bench, Max on the other. He fell asleep almost immediately, although the bench was narrow, and barely accommodated the whole of his back. In the night, he woke with the distinct sensation that someone else had entered the hut. It was as if the room had suddenly grown a fraction of a degree warmer. A few moments later, he heard the rustling of a rat, before the animal scrambled over his shins.

  These bush rats were not like the chubby little things from the tramway in Boston. They were foot-long, flea-infested monstrosities. There were several families of rats living in Mission House. He could hear them on the roof most nights, and they made the most colossal racket, scampering from one end to the other. It sounded distinctly as if they were rolling a large ball between them. They sauntered through his room at night to source materials for their nest. It was a couple of months before Max realized that the large grey rat he had named ‘Monster’ had developed a particular penchant for his underpants. He had come across it one night in the process of dragging a pair back into its nest under the pandan screen by the shower. Max stabbed his bushknife into the underwear with a yowl of annoyance, and the rat had held on to it with its teeth, tugging in the opposite direction, like a dog playing Tug of War. Disgusted, he had released his knife and resigned himself to losing yet another pair. The rats chewed on everything. They seemed to have developed a particular taste for anything white – candle wax, paper, and even their precious supply of penicillin. Max had taken to hanging his penicillin tablets in a burlap sack nailed to the rafters of his bedroom. One evening, coming back to his room after dark, he had seen an acrobatic little s.o.b. leaping from his bedside table on to the bag to get at the pills, making it swing pendulously from side to side.