Things Bright and Beautiful

by Anbara Salam

  Eventually Bea came to the stream. The sides had burst the banks and flooded the grass either side. She looked up and down for coconuts that might have rolled into the water. The sound of her name began again. But now it was louder, and coming from the right. Bea waded through the sludge until she could see the caller. On the other side of the water, there was Santra. Bea was never so happy to see anyone in her whole entire life.

  Santra shouted to her. ‘Come –’ she beckoned Bea across.

  Bea looked at the stream, which was running with frothy torrents from the mountains. There was no way she could walk through that. Santra pointed further uphill, and Bea walked back up the slope, where a papaya tree and a frangipani tree had fallen into the water and become lodged against the rocks, forming an impromptu bridge across. A thatch of mushy twigs and leaves had collected against the tree trunks. Santra gestured for her to cross, and Bea felt compelled to be on the other side of the stream – to be anywhere away from the village.

  She steadied herself on a bush, and stepped cautiously on to a tree trunk with one foot. It was squishy, but not in any danger of disintegrating. She squatted, and brought up the other foot. Santra watched her from the other bank. Bea took a couple of steps forward, and in the middle of the stream the trunk sank by two inches, its soft crunchy centre imploding. Bea hovered, then rushed across as fast as she could, not looking ahead, but down at each individual step. She leapt from the last root, trying to appear as graceful as possible.

  Santra looked her up and down, ‘You look really, really bad,’ she said.

  Bea couldn’t help but smile. ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ she said.

  Santra’s village had also been affected by the relentless rain, and she was running out of food. ‘I heard there was a market in Ranvoki,’ Santra said. ‘No one else wants to go.’

  Bea’s stomach contracted. A market! She felt into her trousers for the coin in the pocket, and patted it. At least she would eat well tonight. Santra and Bea walked the three hours up to Ranvoki. It was tough walking, the mud was so wet that every so often one of them slid sideways and had to clutch the other. The day was overcast and almost cold. Charles apparently had a bad headache. He’d been in the hut moaning and vomiting for days, and Bea suspected the market rumour was merely an excuse for Santra to leave the house.

  When they arrived at Ranvoki, there was no one in sight. No one in the centre of the village, certainly no market, and judging by the lack of smoke, most of the houses were empty.

  ‘Let’s go back.’ Bea heard herself whining, pausing at the edge of the village hill. She didn’t want to waste energy hanging around if there was no food to be found. If they stopped, if she sat down, she would feel a lot worse getting back up again. The only thing to do was to turn around straight away and walk back to Bambayot. Without saying anything, Santra disappeared into one of the huts. Bea lurked outside, unsure whether she should join her. She had just made up her mind to go inside as well, when Santra reappeared, holding a single onion, the size of a ping-pong ball.

  ‘That’s it?’ Bea’s mouth opened.

  Santra nodded.

  Together they walked back to Bambayot. Half an hour away from the village, the dim groan of thunder rose from over the ocean. Long tails of lightning cracked through the clouds and dipped into the water. It began to rain again. Heavy pellets of rain dropped so vigorously they bounced off their skin in silver plumes. Bea tucked the onion into her brassiere. It began to rain even harder. It was like being pummelled. Drops of water hung from the tip of Bea’s nose. They walked in silence, not looking at each other. The last big hill before Bambayot had turned into a slow-moving sheet of mud. Bea and Santra had to climb up on all fours and ease themselves down the slope sitting on their behinds, slathering their clothes in red slime.

  The tree trunks at Bambayot stream were still there, now fortified by more detritus from upriver. Bea selfishly went first, figuring it was more likely to break for the second person across. And anyway, Santra was better at swimming.

  At Mission House, she lit the fire while Santra squatted underneath the window, smearing mud on the wall and dripping puddles on to the floor. It took half an hour for the wood to catch, but after a few minutes, it stopped burning completely. The water in the pot was warm and it had barely cooked the rice. They ate bowlfuls of hard rice with palm oil and half a raw onion each. Bea put her spoon down. She didn’t feel hungry any more. She gave the rest of her food to Santra.

  The following day, Bea experimented with crime. Max had locked the door to the church, but Bea broke in by climbing up one of the lime trees and squeezing through an open window. She hoped she might find some leftover breakfast crackers that were used for Communion. On the table in the vestry, she found a plastic wrapper punctured by small holes where it had been gnawed by a creature. There were two soft, droopy crackers left in there. She put them in her island basket anyway. Nearby, on the wooden table, Bea spotted an upside-down cookie tin. She touched the corner of the tin. There was no way it could still contain cookies. If there had ever been cookies in it in the first place – more likely it had contained Marietta’s sermons at some point. But she couldn’t help herself. She turned the tin over.

  Immediately, a rat leapt out and jumped straight at her. It was frantic, skinny, its mouth snapped. Bea shrieked, and hit out wildly with the bushknife. She swatted at it, and somehow managed to slice partway through its head. The rat squealed. Bea backed away, and it lurched on to the floor, dripping blood and squeaking before it crawled to a stop. Bea squatted on to her haunches and inspected the rat. A pink sliver of brain glinted through the gash. She examined the scrawny body lying on the floor. Could she eat this? She looked carefully at the rat. It would have to be skinned, and gutted. Bea rubbed the back of her hands over her face. She let out a groan of frustration. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t. She picked it up by the tail, which was a horribly ropey texture under her fingers. She swung it out of the window into the long grass. Standing up, she looked back at the cookie tin. There were deep grooves in the wood under the tin where the rat had tried to claw its way out. God knows how long it had been trapped in there. It had been starving, too.

  The next day, when Max arrived back at Mission House, he found Bea in his bed. She was fully clothed, wrapped up in the sheets, whistling a tuneless rendition of ‘In The Garden’ to herself.

  She sat up from the covers with a start. ‘Maxis!’ Her face was a picture of joy. ‘Did you get back just now? Oh, Maxis – I’m so hungry, do you have any food?’ She stretched one hand out of the mosquito net towards him. ‘And where is she?’ she added in a whisper.

  ‘Marietta?’ he asked, taking the island basket from around his shoulders and setting it on the floor.

  ‘Of course!’ Bea beckoned him closer with her fingers.

  He lingered in the doorway, ‘She’s – gone. She went back East.’ He said it quickly, all in one breath.

  ‘No?’ Bea sat up on her knees in the bed. ‘For how long?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Max picked up the island basket again and walked out the doorway.

  Bea called his name, but he kept walking.

  15

  Beatriz was sitting outside Mission House on the sawn-off palm stump. The washing bucket was on the ground next to her, a foamy slab of wood resting inside the rim. Bea had twisted up her skirt, and tucked the knot underneath her thighs. Even from the bottom of the hill, Max could see the slope of her leg muscles, and their gradient from dark to light brown over the tops of her knees.

  He felt suddenly irritable. She knew how much he hated it when she lounged around like that, with her legs exposed. What must the men of the village think? It was hardly any wonder her only friend was the heathen girl with the tattooed face, dear Lord!

  As he came closer to Bea, he noticed something and stopped. Bea was leaning back against the wall of the house, looking off at nothing. She was aimlessly worrying a muddy piece of pink fabric between her fingers. It had crum
bled little bits of earth on to her calves and her left ankle.

  Bea watched Max. He looked like he was drunk. His lips had gone almost completely white, and his forehead was shiny. He groped uneasily around him for something to hold, and landed on one of the dwarf banana palms. As he leant his weight on it, the shrub shifted in the earth and started to tilt away from him. He was looking at the ground, muttering, one hand on his chest. Bea suddenly thought he might be having a heart attack.

  ‘Maxis? Are you having a heart attack?’

  His expression wasn’t reassuring. He released the banana tree and stumbled towards her, finally kneeling awkwardly in the wet grass. He shook his head in response to her question, but said nothing. He leant his head forward, so it almost rested on his knees, exposing pink sunburnt skin at the back of his neck. When he spoke, his voice quavered like a scratched record.

  ‘Beatriz –’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I …’ He trailed off.

  He was squinting his eyes to see her against the sun, but it made him look ugly, she thought. His face was all sweaty and white and scrunched up.

  She held up the small square of pink, and rubbed her thumb over its embroidery. ‘This is Marietta’s. It had blood on it.’

  When he was a child, Max’s parents had once taken him to Coney Island to visit the amusements there. He had insisted on getting on one of the rides alone. It was shaped like an orange and golden bird, with large iron wings which flapped ponderously as it swooped up and down. As soon as the sharp little door swung shut, he had regretted it. His parents smiled at him encouragingly, his mother popping her cigarette in her mouth to wave more enthusiastically with both hands, her bracelets clacking back and forth. And since they were watching, and smiling, he had to pretend not to be scared. But as the ride started to move upwards and away, Max had a horrible feeling. He was all alone, and it was all his fault.

  ‘Maybe it’s from when Matambe …?’ He couldn’t finish the sentence.

  ‘No.’ Bea swapped the handkerchief between her hands, and the excess material flopped over the tops of her fingers. ‘I boiled everything after that. Remember – I had to cut a piece out of my nightdress?’ She was looking at him carefully.

  Max felt an odd shiver pass through all the usually anonymous parts of his skeleton – it rang in his kneecaps and his toe joints and his eardrums.

  ‘It’s –’ He felt as if his mouth were filled with sludge.

  ‘Maxis,’ she said in a quiet whistle, throwing the handkerchief into the bucket of soapy water, ‘I know there is something you are keeping from me. You’ve been so strange since your trip. Tell me now.’

  ‘I –’ Max felt his face burning. His eyes watered. He felt dizzy. ‘I – she fell. I pushed her. I pushed her. I could have helped. I didn’t help. I don’t know. She’s dead. It was all my fault.’ He put his face in his hands.

  Bea watched him in silence. His shoulders were moving heavily. For a horrible moment, she thought he might be crying. Bea drew a deep breath. ‘Maxis, you’re overreacting. So, she fell? Up top?’

  Max’s head nodded.

  ‘Well then, that’s not your fault. It was an accident. She fell over – she died?’

  Max’s head nodded again.

  ‘So are you supposed to carry her up the mountain? Why didn’t you tell me?’

  He looked up at her, and his eyes were swollen and bloodshot. ‘No – you don’t understand. I could have helped her. I didn’t. I didn’t help her – she’s dead because of me.’ His voice was hoarse. He twisted his arms up around his side.

  ‘Maxis, stop this!’ she almost shouted.

  He was being ridiculous. It at least explained why he had been acting so oddly recently. Since he came back from the trip to Kalu-kalu, he’d hardly been at home. He was always in church, praying, or walking around by the shore in circles. He had barely spoken to her. It was almost a relief. She had thought maybe he was tiring of her, that he was feeling disappointed by the practicalities of married life.

  Max was rocking from side to side. ‘Are you – what are you going to do now?’

  Bea didn’t answer, but motioned towards the bucket. She was going to wash off the blood, obviously.

  ‘Are you going to – will you leave me?’ His voice wavered.

  Bea let out a high laugh. ‘Why would I do that?’ She shuffled the bucket in between her legs, and began to scrub at the little square. Dark water sloshed over the lip of the bucket and dripped on to her foot. Max watched as the little drop of water gathered the crumb of earth there, and softened it into a tiny puddle in the hollow of her ankle bone.

  ‘What I’ve done – what I did.’ He said the words as if he were moving a handful of boiled candies around in his mouth.

  Bea blew a strand of hair off her face, and continued scrubbing. ‘So what?’

  Max looked up at her and his mouth opened with a half-formed question mark on his lips.

  She met his eyes. ‘She fell. It was an accident. You aren’t going to push me off the mountain –’

  ‘How can you even –’ Max stuttered, the whites of his eyes showing. A frail web of spittle formed between his lips.

  ‘Well, then –’ Bea said, thinking it a bit unnecessary for him to act so terribly offended ‘– I don’t care.’ She shrugged again.

  Max was speechless. Was she making a joke?

  She raised her eyebrows at him.

  ‘I –’ he began, not knowing even how to finish his own sentence.

  Bea shushed him impatiently, scrubbing harder at the strip of fabric. ‘It is done,’ she said.

  Max sat back in the grass. He felt quite unwell; the sky was shimmering unsteadily. He didn’t know this woman at all. His wife. That she could be so capable of accepting and forgiving him. He felt a rush of confusion and joy all at once. She understood! She didn’t care! She still loved him, she would not leave! She didn’t think he was a monster. Acid caught in his throat.

  ‘You were careless, do you know that?’ Bea wrung out the cloth over the bucket. ‘Why did you say she went back East? Someone could have seen you with her. She’s dead. People die all the time.’ She gestured around them to the hills with the wet rag. ‘If anyone else found this –’ she shook the handkerchief in her hand ‘– they would think you did leaf magic or something on her.’

  Max felt the sick, reeling feeling again. How had she found it?

  Bea read the panic on his face. ‘New Dog,’ she said. ‘She left this outside the house.’

  ‘But how?’ Max stuttered, realizing it was a stupid question.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Bea said. ‘It must smell of her – or you.’

  Max felt the blood bubble back up into his cheeks. He should shoot that dog.

  Bea traced his wandering eyes, the rise and fall of colour from his face, as he mouthed silent words to himself. She stood up off the stool and knelt on the grass in front of him, looking at his face until he met her stare. The hand with the wet handkerchief mopped damply at his shirt. ‘Don’t worry. We will be fine,’ she said.

  And they would. She was sure of it. Nobody would miss Marietta. She certainly wouldn’t miss her. People slipped, and fell, and died all the time. Or maybe worse – people slipped, and fell, and survived. And then spent weeks sweating to death with pus dripping from their eyes like Santra’s friend Lorifer.

  Max nodded dumbly, mechanically reaching to clutch her to him. She smelt like onions and ginger. The handkerchief bled a wet patch over the back of his shirt. Bea’s use of ‘we’ rang in his ears. She would not leave him.

  That night, Max lay awake. Bea had crawled next to him in the bed, her left leg tangled awkwardly in the mosquito net, one arm sprawled across his stomach. She’d fallen asleep almost immediately, and he listened to the faint snoring catching in the back of her throat. A cicada in the room was humming in a high buzz. He eased his arm out from underneath Bea’s neck. How could she drop off to sleep as easily as that? It was almost disturbing how she wasn’t wor
ried about him at all, he thought. Then he corrected himself, she wasn’t worried about them at all.

  And Bea’s faith in him was reassuring. He had not married an idiot, he thought. Max turned to look at Bea’s face in the shadows next to him, feeling a strange vertigo, as if he were looking at her from a great height. It was odd, he thought, how easy it was to assume the person you love is the same person as you. But she was someone else entirely. He said her name clearly in his mind. Beatriz, he thought, is a different person to me.

  16

  Jonson took a deep breath and dived under the surface of the water. It hadn’t rained in days, and the ocean was clear and still. Jonson bobbed in place and tried to keep his movements as small as possible, so as not to scare the fish. Grey with orange stripes and dappled faces, they flickered through the ruin of the plane. Its rusty frame was painted with darts of light, and through the busted door of the cockpit Jonson watched the fish nibbling on the algae-coated walls. He swam closer to the skeleton of the machine, keeping a wary distance from the tangles of pink coral. Coral cuts took months to heal, and his ankles were already lumpen with scarred tissue. He kicked to the surface and caught his breath, wiping the saltwater from his eyes.

  ‘Mr Jonson!’ A village man was waving at him from the beach.

  Jonson recognized him as Titus Garae and waved back. ‘Go away,’ he muttered through gritted teeth. ‘Go away, go away.’

  ‘Mr Jonson, come please!’

  ‘Why?’ Jonson yelled.

  ‘Come to see!’

  Jonson sighed. He had been watching the grey-and-orange fish for days, in an effort to work out what kind of vegetation they lived on. His previous experiments with exotic goldfish had failed miserably, and after the sixth black-and-orange fish died, he had decided to switch species, and try a different sort of stripe. The next trial relied on careful reconnaissance missions to observe their feeding habits. Jonson paddled to shore, conscious of Titus’s eyes on him. Although he swam every day, his stroke was still poor, and he loathed spectators of his sloppy form. He scrambled to stand as soon as the beach grew shallow, plucking his shirt and shorts away from his body.