One Big Damn Puzzler

by John Harding

William shrugged. ‘There’s no point. There’s nothing more I can teach you. You’re a reader now. You’ll pick up everything else just from reading.’

  ‘I is be reader.’ Purnu said the words as if he were announcing the fact to himself. ‘I is be reader.’

  William patted him on the shoulder and smiled. And to think Lucy thought you couldn’t improve these people’s lot by taking them out of the dark ages. She should see the delight on Purnu’s face! ‘Well done. My first and last pupil.’ He turned and walked away.

  ‘Wait, gwanga!’ William paused. Purnu scampered over to him. ‘Gwanga, I is not find anything ’bout Pilua yet. I is be sorry. I is still try plenty hard.’

  ‘That’s OK, I know it’s not easy.’

  ‘But even if I is not can keep deal I is pay you back different way.’

  ‘Yes?’ said William.

  ‘I is take you fly with me.’

  ‘Yes, right. Look forward to it,’ said William and walked off towards the Captain Cook.

  Sometimes, thought Purnu, watching him out of sight, disappointed by William’s lack of enthusiasm, white people could be so rude. Ah well, at least the American hadn’t tried to thank him for his offer. At least he’d spared him that!

  FORTY-THREE

  THE JOE HARDT who came to William in the kassa house on this occasion was not the stooped and balding figure of his first visit. He was his father as William remembered him from childhood. A man in his late thirties with a halo of blond hair. He was wearing the same plaid shirt and chinos, but they looked a better fit now. His body wasn’t all shrunk the way it was last time they’d met here and during the final few years of his life.

  ‘You’ve changed,’ said William. ‘You look younger.’

  ‘I am younger. It just took me some time to figure out how they do things on Tuma. I didn’t know I could slough off that old body. I thought I was stuck with it from here to eternity.’

  ‘You can stay young for ever?’

  ‘It doesn’t work quite like that. You start off young and then you get older. When you decide you’re getting on a bit too much you just slough and you’re young again.’

  William was comforted by the idea. It might be hallucinogenically induced, of course, but here was his father telling him he could live for ever and not even have wrinkles, let alone a degenerative disease like Alzheimer’s. ‘You look just great, Dad,’ he said.

  ‘Well, thanks, my boy. And my mind’s working properly again, I’ve stopped forgetting all my – my—’

  ‘Words,’ said William.

  ‘I knew. I was just joshing with you son.’

  ‘You had me going there. Dad – I – I can’t, well, you’ll appreciate I can’t quite take all this in. I want to believe that you’re really here and—’

  ‘I’m really here son, take my word for it.’

  William thought, yes, but a hallucination would say that, wouldn’t it? ‘Dad, I was going to say I want to believe that you still exist somewhere, other than my own consciousness, I really do, and that you’re perfectly happy—’

  He stopped. Joe Hardt didn’t look perfectly happy. He looked troubled.

  ‘Dad? What is it?’

  ‘Son, can I ask you something? Something, well, kind of delicate?’

  ‘Of course, Dad. If something’s bothering you, I’d like to help. What is it?’

  ‘Son, do you think you can commit adultery when you’re dead?’

  ‘I – I don’t understand.’

  ‘Well, on Tuma there’s not a great deal to do. There’s no work, everything’s provided, and you can only lie around on beaches for a limited time without getting bored. And, well, there are these young ladies. Lots of young ladies . . .’

  ‘I see.’ William was trying not to sound like a Victorian father. He’d had enough role reversal when his father was alive and needed constant care.

  Joe held out his hands in a gesture of appeal. ‘What’s a guy going to do? Especially when he’s just sloughed and he can feel the blood beating through his veins again. It’s what everyone does here. It’s part of being in paradise.’

  William smiled at his father’s discomfiture. His own generation wouldn’t have such a problem with this. ‘Well then, surely it’s OK. Why don’t you just accept that and enjoy yourself?’

  ‘Oh, I have, son, I have.’ Joe Hardt had what could only be called a salacious grin on his face. But as quickly as it had appeared it vanished again and the troubled look returned. ‘It’s just that I keep thinking about your mom, back home, missing me, and I hate the idea of cheating on her. I never did it when I was alive and it doesn’t seem right to when I’m dead.’

  William nodded. He could see the difficulty with this one. A major contribution to his childhood lack of belief in an afterlife had been the various conundrums about how old you would be when you got there and which spouse would you team up with if you’d been married and widowed and married again. How could everyone be happy ever after in that situation?

  ‘Listen, Dad,’ he said finally. ‘You can’t be with Mom while she’s alive, that’s one thing. And I’m sure she’d want you to get the most out of your new existence. Besides, now you’re dead, all bets are off. I mean, legally, Mom could get married again, which must mean that she’s no longer married to you. It therefore follows you can’t be cheating on her.’

  Joe Hardt smiled. ‘Son, you have a fine legal brain. Phew!’ He wiped his brow with the back of his hand. ‘That’s sure a load off my mind.’ Even as he said it, his body was beginning to thin.

  ‘Dad, wait, I wanted to ask you something. Besides coming to the kassa hut, have you been walking around the island? Only in the hotel, where I’m staying, I heard this noise . . .’

  His father interrupted him. ‘Son, I don’t have time for this right now. I have sort of a date back on Tuma.’

  ‘But Dad, the other day . . .’ William’s voice trailed away. His father was scarcely more than mist and obviously beyond hearing. A moment or two more, and even the mist had gone.

  William must have drifted off to sleep, that is if he’d ever really been awake after swallowing the kassa, because he was woken by a tugging at his sleeve.

  It was Purnu. ‘Psst!’ The little sorcerer looked this way and that, making sure the other occupants of the hut were asleep. William glanced around. Several hours had slipped by while he slept. Half the night was gone. Someone had rolled away the stone that blocked the doorway. All the spirits had departed, and some of the men too. ‘Come!’ Purnu whispered.

  Outside, he thrust his face into William’s. William saw the full moon reflected back at him from the little man’s pupils, as though the centres of his eyes had been lasered blank. ‘Is you is want for come fly with me?’

  Sinatra burst into song in William’s drug-addled brain. He wanted to laugh out loud and he almost did but then he saw the earnest expression the little man wore. He tried to focus. He had partaken of a hallucinogenic substance. It was likely that none of this was happening. What was he talking about, likely? Of course it wasn’t happening! How could it be? On the other hand, Purnu did seem to be standing in front of him, eager for an answer, tongue practically hanging out, like a little dog begging for a treat. Then again, assuming this was happening, which was by no means certain, but assuming it for the time being, then was it not likely that the sorcerer was expecting him to say no? To not check in for this flight? This was surely some kind of bravado on the magician’s part, challenging William to in turn challenge his supernatural powers if he dared. William was presumably meant to act out the charade, to acknowledge Purnu’s sorcery, by making some excuse as to why he couldn’t go right now. Result, Purnu’s power would be proved without being tested. Well, William was happy to go along with that. The trouble was, his brain was so disabled by kassa he couldn’t think of any good reason not to say yes.

  ‘Fly? I, er, I don’t know . . .’

  ‘You is not worry ’bout yams. Is all be part of bargain. I is take you fly,
look for Pilua, you is teach me long word, senti . . . senti . . .’

  ‘Sentimental,’ said William.

  ‘Sentimental! Yes! That is be one big word. Is make Managua look plenty damn silly when I is read that one. Now, you is want for fly?’ He looked William straight in the eye. They stared at one another for ages. And the longer William looked, the more he began to imagine how it would be to find oneself soaring over the island.

  It was an age before William could tear his eyes away. They felt strange, kind of achy. He had to blink hard a couple of times – not alternately – to get them back in operation. ‘OK, how’s it work?’

  ‘I is put arm round you waist, like so.’ Purnu’s hand snaked around William and he felt the sorcerer’s hand grip his belt.

  ‘Hey, you won’t drop me, will you?’ He was only half joking now. While part of him was waiting for Purnu’s bluff to be called, for the sorcerer to invent an excuse – adverse weather conditions, perhaps – for why it was not possible to get airborne just at this moment, another part of him was concerned that the little man was so, well, earnest.

  ‘I is never drop anyone so far. Now, you is be ready?’ Purnu leaned forward, one leg out behind him, coiled like a cat about to spring.

  William stretched his arms out above his head the way Superman did when he was flying.

  Purnu relaxed his position and let go of William. ‘What for you is hold arms out? Put they away! Is not be necessary. Is only be necessary you is keep arms still. For not get in my way so I is can see.’

  William dropped his arms. Purnu put his arm around his waist again and coiled himself once more.

  ‘OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  There was a long pause. Purnu was muttering to himself. He gave a little kick with his back leg. Nothing happened.

  ‘Shit!’ said Purnu. He lifted a hand and wiped the sweat from his brow. ‘OK?’

  ‘OK,’ repeated William.

  Again Purnu gave the little kick. Again nothing happened.

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘Is something wrong?’ asked William. An involuntary, kassa-induced giggle escaped his lips but the little man didn’t notice.

  ‘Is be too much damn kassa is be what is be wrong. Is make I is forget spell.’ He started muttering again. William assumed a mock-serious expression and hoped Purnu wouldn’t notice he was hamming. Purnu himself was a good actor, you had to hand it to him. But William had called his bluff and now he was getting himself into a lather because he was about to be exposed as a fake. The muttering stopped. ‘OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  Purnu kicked off with his back leg and William felt himself lift off the ground. God, this little guy must be stronger than he looks, he thought, to lift me. Then he looked down and saw that Purnu’s feet were off the ground too. It had happened! They were in the air! They were flying!

  Well, almost. It wasn’t exactly what you’d call flying. More lurching. They rose up about ten feet and then lurched down five. William thought they were going to hit the ground but then they lurched up again and peaked at around twenty feet up. ‘Wooooooooooo!’ William heard himself scream. ‘Woooooooooooooo!’ It was the noise people made on roller-coasters, he told himself and then thought irrelevantly, Why do they do that?

  When they got up to fifty feet they started to descend again. Perhaps descend doesn’t quite do it. Plummet would be more the word. They were plummeting towards the roof of the kassa house. ‘Heeeelp!’ William screamed and closed his eyes but then his stomach started to go back down to where it should be and he opened his eyes to find they were pulling upwards again, their feet just skimming the top of the roof, sending up a cloud of leaf fragments.

  ‘Whoa!’ shouted William. He was amazed at the range of involuntary noises he was producing.

  Purnu turned his head and gave William a fierce stare. The sorcerer’s pupils were alarmingly dilated. ‘You is please not make noise. I is need think for fly.’

  They flew straight for a hundred yards or so. Rather, they flew in a straight line since ‘flying straight’ conveys an idea of a smooth controlled movement. It wasn’t. They were wobbling and tipping from side to side. It was like bad turbulence. William didn’t dare look down and he soon discovered that keeping his eyes shut made him feel sick. So he opened them and looked straight ahead. What he saw coming towards them at what seemed like several hundred miles an hour made him scream again.

  ‘Tree!’

  ‘Please, I is ask you is be quiet.’

  ‘Tree!’

  ‘Three? Three what?’

  ‘TREE!’

  Just in time Purnu swerved. Ahead William saw a couple more trees with a gap of about ten feet between them. A straight line would take them right through the middle. Except they weren’t taking a straight line. They were weaving from side to side and Purnu himself was rolling laterally so that one moment William was being held beneath him and the next above.

  ‘Fly straight!’ William screamed. He shut his eyes as they were about to hit the tree. Well, he thought in the fraction of a second he had left to him, at least I’ll soon be with Dad. But there was no impact, nothing happened. When he opened his eyes there was nothing before them except the red glow of the sun coming up over the horizon and nothing below them but the black expanse of the ocean. They were heading straight out over the waves. It looked like there was nothing in front of them for at least a thousand miles. William had been grinding his molars in his old right-left-left-right rhythm. He had been grinding them so hard there soon wouldn’t be any enamel left on them. Like Rhoda’s, he thought. But at this moment he felt he was able to stop. They were moving slower now so they were no longer buffeted by a jet stream. It was perfectly silent up here. It was a rare experience for him of calm and grace. His childhood dream had almost come true. After half a lifetime of yearning, he was Superboy. And in a place where he didn’t need X-ray vision to look at women’s breasts! He felt like a bird. He could fly like this for ever. But then he looked at the distant horizon and the thought hit him, That could happen! We don’t appear to be flying anywhere.

  ‘Purnu, where exactly are we going?’ There was no reply. He turned and looked at the sorcerer. Purnu’s eyelids were drooping. He was on autopilot.

  ‘Purnu!’ William shouted. ‘Wake up!’

  Purnu shook his head and opened his eyes. ‘Shit!’ he muttered. He leaned towards William and they banked sharply so that for a moment William thought they were going to drop into the ocean. He screamed again.

  ‘I is be sorry,’ said Purnu. ‘Too much damn kassa. Is be hard for fly with kassa head.’

  Oh, great, thought William. I’m being flown by a drunk. Then he thought, It’s not just the pilot who’s drunk, it’s the whole aircraft! He began to laugh hysterically.

  They were wobbling and swaying from side to side. They dipped up and down. Purnu kept widening his eyes the way drunks do when they’re trying to stay awake.

  ‘I is show you all island,’ he said. William couldn’t tell whether his words were blurred or if it was the slipstream whipping them out of the sorcerer’s mouth so fast that they ran into one another.

  The island was below them now. They zoomed in low over the breakers and the beach and were headed straight into the wall of the jungle when Purnu banked sharply and they rose steeply to just crest the top of the tree canopy.

  ‘You’re flying too low again!’ William shouted.

  ‘I is be sorry. Is not all be my fault. You is be one heavy gwanga. I is not allow for that.’

  Terrific, thought William. He’s accusing me of being excess baggage.

  A moment later though they were out over the ocean again. Fingers of light from the east were clutching at the sky now, but below all was dark save for the moonlight. William could hardly make out where the ocean ended and the land began. And then, as they moved along the coast, something caught his eye, something so surprising it was almost more extraordinary than the fact that he was flying.

  FORTY-F
OUR

  IN THE MORNING, not for the first time, William was suffering badly from the effects of kassa and Lucy said she would make him a huge fried breakfast because that was the best cure for a hangover. William replied, Maybe for an alcohol hangover, yes, but he wasn’t sure it would work for kassa. But he didn’t protest too strongly. For one thing his head hurt too much to argue and for another he could see that Lucy was one of those thoroughly undomesticated women who every so often get it into their heads to demonstrate what a good hausfrau they could be if only they wanted. He didn’t know that making him breakfast was Lucy’s compensation to him for working against him, her apology for putting what she believed before what she felt.

  She set about frying a couple of huge turtle eggs, slices of minoa bread and some red fungi.

  ‘I hope they are red,’ William remarked, standing watching her, clad only in his underpants. ‘I feel bad enough already.’

  ‘Trust me,’ Lucy replied with such an air of botanical certitude about her, thrusting out her little breasts beneath a silk dressing gown, whose blue matched that both of her eyes and this morning’s clear sky, in such a pointy challenging way that William decided it would be better to suffer the fabled death throes from orange fungi than to take her on. It was still early, long before shitting time, so Lucy said it would be safe to eat together on the veranda overlooking the beach, because no-one would be around to catch them at it.

  She produced a small folding card table and erected it outside, and added two cane dining chairs. From a drawer of the old sideboard she took a white damask tablecloth. William wondered how she had managed to get it so clean here on the island but then realized she had almost certainly never used it since she’d been here. What occasion had she been saving it for? he wondered. From another drawer she extracted some silverware, weighty-looking knives and forks, and laid the table. William helped by adjusting the cutlery to make sure it was symmetrically correct. He did his best to smooth out the creases in the tablecloth which were recalcitrant on account of it having been folded so long. Lucy invited him to sit down.