One Big Damn Puzzler

by John Harding

  ‘Well?’ he said, in his most thunderous tones.

  ‘I is need you is stop spell,’ said Lintoa. He walked over to Managua who gave a stage sigh and gestured to him to sit. Lintoa squatted beside the milk crate.

  ‘Stop spell? I is not understand. What you is mean?’

  ‘How hard is be for understand? I is ask you is make spell, now I is ask you is stop spell. I is not want for Kiroa is fall in love with me.’

  ‘But I is think “she is be like when is come big storm and is be black clouds and sky is be dark as night and sun is make holes in clouds—”’

  ‘OK, OK, you is stop now.’ Lintoa blushed. ‘I is change mind.’

  ‘You is change mind in space of few days? What kind of lover is you be? How she is can be “so bright you is be dazzle” one day and couple more days you is not want she?’

  ‘I is change my mind, is be all.’

  ‘Typical woman!’ Managua rolled his eyes skywards.

  Lintoa flinched at the cruelty of the remark. But he knew that Managua was justifiably annoyed at being messed around so he let it pass. ‘Anyway, I is not want for argue. You is just forget spell, OK?’

  ‘No, is not be OK. I is already make spell.’

  ‘Well, then, how is be this? You is make small alteration of spell. You is take spell off Kiroa and is put on someone else.’

  ‘Is not be possible. Spell is already be on Kiroa. Is be plenty difficult spell for make. Is be so many other spells on she for other boys is must be plenty strong magic for defeat all they.’

  ‘OK, OK, so you is can not change spell. Just take spell off altogether then. Stop spell.’

  ‘This is be what I is tell you, is not be possible. Spell is work right now, even as we is speak. If you is go change you mind, is best not ask for spell in first place.’

  They sat in silence for a couple of minutes. Lintoa rested his chin on his fist, his elbow on his knee.

  ‘All right then, is be nothing I is can do ’bout Kiroa. So now I is need you is make me new spell for other girl.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Managua, ‘and how many days is you be crazy for this girl? When you is come back and ask for spell for third girl?’

  ‘You is be plenty funny,’ said Lintoa. ‘But I is not have time for listen you is make joke. I is need spell fast.’

  ‘I is can see that,’ boomed Managua with theatrical disbelief in his tone. ‘You is need spell plenty damn quick before you is go off this poor girl too!’

  ‘Managua, please, just say you is do magic.’

  ‘OK, OK, but you is go need find turtle eggs day and night for next year for get all yams for this. Now who is be this fortunate girl?’

  ‘I is not can tell you.’

  Managua exploded. ‘You is not can tell me! How in name of fug-a-fug is you expect I is make spell for girl if I is not know who she is be? What is I suppose for do? Send spell out there and hope is find right girl?’

  ‘Maybe you is make spell for make girl who is see me tonight fall in love with me?’

  Managua considered. ‘Is be plenty damn difficult spell. I is be pretty sure no-one is pull that one off before.’

  ‘But you is be such great sorcerer, Managua. I is know you is can do.’

  ‘Yes and cloud in sky outside is be very like whale. Flattery is not work on me.’

  But a challenge would. Managua liked the intellectual difficulty of the task and therefore he agreed to do it. He sure as hell had no other reason to. He didn’t ever expect to see any yams from Lintoa.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THE FIRST PROBLEM Lintoa had that evening, as he’d always known it would be, was how to get rid of Tigua. Sussua was not a problem, he would just go along with anything he said, but Tigua was such a damn nosy sow he wouldn’t be happy until he knew just what Lintoa was up to. Which of course he couldn’t tell him.

  He met them as soon as he left his hut. Tigua came tripping over to him, eyes already narrowed in inquisition. ‘Where you is be all day? We is look high and low for you after we is finish find eggs. Where you is go?’

  ‘I is not feel so good. I is sleep.’

  ‘Where you is sleep? Your mamu is say she is not see you all day.’

  Lintoa made a vague gesture with one hand. It took in most of the island beyond the village. ‘Oh, nowhere special. In jungle.’

  ‘In jungle? You is damn lucky terrada is not get you. Managua is tell me story he is read ’bout this fella is go sleep in jungle and other fella is put terrada venom in he ear. Fella who is sleep is die. Only crazy fool is sleep in jungle.’

  ‘I is sleep in tree.’

  ‘Ah, so is be another funny thing is can be find in tree.’

  ‘What you is talk about?’

  ‘They.’ Tigua lifted his right hand which Lintoa now realized had been hidden behind his back and held up Lintoa’s red sling-backs. ‘Shoes is grow on trees now.’

  Lintoa made to snatch them back but Tigua was too fast for him and danced away with them. ‘Keep they, is be too damn pinchy for me. Is why I is take they off!’ Lintoa yelled after him.

  ‘But you is need they tonight,’ said Tigua. ‘For go poto.’

  Poto was the village boys’ favourite sport, after making fug-a-fug, of course, a game similar to hockey, played with sticks and a dead rat. The way a poto evening worked was all the teenagers in the village would go to the poto ground, a jungle clearing near the village. The older boys would play the game, the younger ones keep up a supply of replacement dead rats as they tended to be got through pretty fast and the girls of all ages would sit and admire the finer points of play and the even finer points of the players. Afterwards there was noise in the jungle and in the bukumatula houses until dawn.

  ‘Only way I is go poto is if I is play. When I is boy. I is not go in silly shoes like you.’ Lintoa put on his best scowl to make it look as if he was genuinely annoyed about the shoes.

  ‘Oh, is she be upset then?’ mocked Tigua, who usually put up with Lintoa because he was in thrall to him, but occasionally rebelled against his querulousness. He flung the shoes at him, rather than to him.

  ‘You is can keep they!’ yelled Lintoa. He turned and stormed off into the jungle. Once he’d gone in deep enough to be sure he was out of sight, he doubled back to the edge of the village clearing. He hid himself behind a bush – he seemed to be doing a lot of this lately – and parted the leaves to see how Tigua had taken his exit. He was relieved to see that he and Sussua had met up with some other teenagers and were chatting away like excited monkeys as they moved off towards the poto ground.

  Lintoa ducked into the jungle on the other side of the village and made his way through it down to the shitting beach which had been washed clean by the tide by this time of day. It was past twilight but there was a fat old moon over the ocean and it laid a silver trail across the water that gave him plenty of light to see by. And be seen by, too, so he hugged the edge of the jungle, although it was unlikely anyone would be about tonight, not with the poto game going on at the village, except for the gwanga that was, and Lintoa was confident he would always be able to spot a white man before the white man spotted him.

  In no time at all Lintoa was at the Captain Cook. He had no fear of spirits now that he knew a girl his own age lived there and that Managua had played a trick on them all. He walked along the back of the hotel and stuck his head through one of the window holes. The room with the big table, where Tigua had told him the gwanga slept, was empty. The gwanga must either be in the kassa house or at Miss Lucy’s. Satisfied there was no-one to catch him, Lintoa took a couple of steps into the jungle. He slipped off his dress and bra and tied up his hair in the way Miss Lucy had shown him with the elastic band she’d given him. Then he concealed himself behind a bush from where he could observe the balcony. Now, having successfully evaded Tigua, he had to face his other potential problem. Suppose the girl did not show? But then he looked at the moon, at the great silver blanket it had stretched out across the sea and the beach,
at the way it transmuted the trees into dark animal shapes that seemed to be waiting too for something to happen and he knew she could not fail to appear. On such a night, well, on such a night, no girl with a balcony overlooking the ocean could resist the temptation to step out onto it and worship the view. Lintoa was starting to appreciate why the British might have wanted to do it.

  He waited a plenty long time. The poto game would be half over by now, he thought, but even though he loved poto he had no regrets. Besides, he had no choice about it. Even if he waited all night for nothing, it was all he was able to do.

  Then, just as his legs were growing stiff from sitting still for so long he heard the murmur of voices. Two people were talking, both female, he judged. Laughter, light and joyful, like the babbling of a stream between two rocks. Then the sound of feet upon concrete and there she was, no longer white now, but silver, her skin reflecting back the light of the moon just as the moon itself gave back the sun’s.

  She turned her head and spoke to someone inside the hotel. He couldn’t hear what she was saying, but he loved the way her face came alive. He decided to risk going closer. In front of the hotel the ground was clear except for a solitary bush, which he judged was just big enough to hide him. He had a new-found confidence in his ability to conceal himself behind shrubs. Of course he could stand under the balcony but then he wouldn’t be able to see her. There was no choice and Lintoa made a bolt for the bush. He got there just in time, a second before she turned her head back. He peeped through the fronds of the shrub, not daring to part them lest he be seen, and found she was staring straight at him, or rather, at his bush! He thought she must have seen him but then guessed that her attention had been drawn, on so still a night, by the bush’s movement. It was swaying back and forth where he’d jumped into it, in contrast to the lack of motion all around. He held his breath and the main stem of the bush with his hand to try to stop it moving. Eventually it did and her attention wandered once more to the moon and the ocean.

  ‘Is be so beautiful,’ she murmured. There it was again, the voice like a clear stream. How he could have loved her for that voice alone! ‘Is sure be one special night, Mamu.’ The voice from indoors replied but Lintoa couldn’t catch what it said. He settled himself down in the bush to watch. It was enough just to do that. To watch and listen.

  And it was because he was listening so hard, with all his attention, that Lintoa heard the rustle of something close to him. He ignored it, too besotted with the silver girl to pay it any attention. But then it came again. And again. At first it annoyed him. It was an unnecessary distraction. He felt that if he was perfectly quiet he might be able to hear the girl breathe. But not over this damn rustling. He looked down and saw something move just by his foot. It was small, barely as long as his pointing finger and so narrow that at first he didn’t recognize it. This was entirely understandable. He’d never seen a baby green shoestring before. But then it moved out of the shadow of a leaf and the moonlight caught it. Lintoa sat as still as he would be for ever in half a minute if he moved. If he moved it would have to be fast. He wouldn’t have time for concealment; the girl would see him.

  He considered the irony of his situation. It was funny, a moment or so ago he’d been sitting there looking at the girl and thinking that if he died then it wouldn’t matter, because he would die the happiest he had ever been. But now, faced with the possibility of it actually happening, he was not so sure. He was even more not so sure when he felt something slither quickly across his right – or was it his left? – hand, which was resting on the ground beside him. He looked down. Another baby shoestring. He turned his head and almost passed out from shock. One, two three, four . . . shit! how many babies did these things have? He gave up counting at twenty-four. The point wasn’t the number, the point was what just one of them could do to you. But then, perhaps the baby ones couldn’t kill you? Maybe they were like humans and hadn’t got their teeth yet. How old did they have to be to administer a fatal bite? He didn’t want to find out. He felt unusually exposed and vulnerable in just his pubic leaf. He realized its disadvantage compared to a dress: there was a lot more skin for a snake to go at. A bead of sweat dribbled down his face and hung on his chin for the longest moment. Then it dripped, landing beside one of the baby snakes. The snake turned and looked up at him, opened its mouth and hissed. Well, that was one question taken care of. It had teeth, all right, including the two at the front that did all the damage. He didn’t have time to dwell upon the thought. At the same moment as the baby snake hissed a similar but louder noise came from in front of him. Something was rustling through the fallen, dry leaves under the bush. Quick as lightning, a two-foot-long green shoestring shot out from under them, stopped, lifted its head and stared straight at Lintoa.

  Lintoa’s other hand, the one that didn’t have any baby snakes near it, moved silent as a snake itself, scrabbling over the dusty earth. It was searching desperately for a weapon. Nothing. Lintoa inwardly muttered the universal prayer for such times, the one we all make when we’re up against it. ‘Please, if I is get out of this, I is promise for be good girl.’

  And perhaps one of his ancestors heard, because something certainly steered his hand to the only stone within his reach. His fingers curled around it in the same instant as the snake lowered itself to the ground and began to slither towards him. With a speed a koku-koku would have been proud of Lintoa lifted the rock and smashed it down upon the snake’s head. In a fraction of the next moment he was on his feet and jumping out of the bush. And another fraction of a moment after that the girl on the balcony gasped and said, ‘Who is be there? Who you is be?’

  Lintoa’s response was one he would not have predicted ten minutes earlier: he ignored her. He was too busy looking at the ground, trying to make sure that no newly orphaned baby green shoestrings had pursued their mamu’s murderer. In the end he was satisfied it was safe to look up and get his eyes back on the girl.

  When she saw his face full-on for the first time she gasped again. ‘What magic place this world is be for have boy like this!’

  ‘Is be OK. Is be only me. Only Lintoa.’

  She smiled. ‘Only? You is be one big boy far as I is see. I is not know. I is never see boy close up before.’

  Lintoa’s chest swelled even more. It was lucky he wasn’t wearing his bra because the straps would never have taken the strain. Not that there’d have been any strain if he had had it on. The girl wouldn’t have said that to a boy in a bra.

  ‘And you is be one plenty pretty girl,’ he said.

  ‘You is think so? No-one is ever tell me before.’

  ‘You is be most pretty girl on island. You is light up whole night.’

  She laughed. ‘You is make joke of me. Is be moon is light up everything.’

  ‘Moon is be nothing beside you. Is be like flame beside sun; you is not even see.’

  The voice came from inside the hotel again. ‘I is speak with self, Mamu,’ the girl called back. She widened her eyes to Lintoa. ‘I is pretend have conversation with boy.’ Gentle laughter from within. This girl is be plenty smart, thought Lintoa. Is not just be pretty face.

  The girl talked in loud whispers now. ‘Is be my mamu. If she is find you here is be big trouble. No-one is must know of we. How you is come for be here? No-one is ever come here, especially in dark.’

  ‘I is follow Managua here when he is bring you food. I is see you for little moment. I is must come back.’

  ‘What for you is must come back?’

  ‘I is must see you again. I is think you is be ghost but then I is think, What for Managua is feed ghost? so I is must return.’

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Now you is see me again you is can go.’

  ‘No, no, I is cannot. I is not come for just see you. I is come for tell you I is love you.’

  It was hard to tell in the silver light but he could have sworn she blushed. ‘No-one is ever tell me this before tonight.’

  He smiled. ‘Is be first time for
many things tonight.’

  The voice from indoors again. He couldn’t catch what it was saying but he recognized its suspicious tone. The girl looked anxiously towards it, then back at him. ‘You is must go now. Is be one big trouble if you is be find here.’

  Lintoa’s answer was to take a run towards the balcony. He grabbed the branch of a tree that grew against it and swung himself up. He vaulted the balustrade and landed beside her. Over the startled girl’s shoulder he could see into the hotel. A brown-skinned woman in a grass skirt. He grasped the girl by the shoulders, pulled her to him and kissed her. He released her and before she could say a word, he sprang back over the balustrade, grabbed the tree branch and swung himself down. As his feet touched the ground the silly thought leaped into his mind that life without a dress was so much easier, although, it had to be admitted, not so safe around snakes.

  He looked up and waved at the girl then turned to go.

  ‘Wait, you is must come back!’ she called.

  He turned and walked back to stand beneath her. ‘What you is want?’

  She blushed and dissimulated. ‘I – I is forget.’

  ‘Then I is hope you is never remember, then I is must stay here until you is do.’

  ‘I – I is only want for say, you is come again?’

  ‘Is be one damn stupid question,’ he said in a kindly way Tigua would never have recognized. ‘If nest of terradas is not stop me then nothing is go do.’

  It was late. Lintoa wanted to get back to his parents’ house before they started wondering where he was. If they saw Tigua and Sussua without him, they might begin to ask questions. Worse, Tigua might.

  He found the tree where he’d left his dress and bra. There was the bra, hanging on the branch, just as he’d left it. But the dress, which had been beside it had gone. He looked in the neighbouring trees. Perhaps it had been blown into one of them? But no, that was impossible, the night was so still. He searched the ground all around. Nothing.