◆◆◆◆◆
Moser sent the kids away before coming in. Brenda could hear him using the dipper. When he stepped through the door his upper body was wet, his short hair crowned with drops.
“Everything all right?”
“For now.” He crossed to the shelf where he kept his towels.
“How often does it happen?”
“Often enough.” Moser wiped his face.
“What if the shots don’t work?”
Moser kept using the towel.
“What about Vince?”
He stopped and looked at her.
“You have a problem here,” Brenda said, approaching him. “I don’t know what, but you need help. You’ve become some kind of keeper for these people. Correct me if I’m wrong.”
They studied each other. While waiting, she had stripped down to her bra. Half the island women dressed this way, but Moser saw she hadn’t gone native.
He dropped the towel and placed a wide, gentle hand flat below her throat. She could feel her blood there, and wished the lotion had something in it to make him less attractive. But it didn’t. She put her hand in the waistband of his shorts, drew him to her and kissed his chest.
“Maybe a little less room with a view would be good,” Brenda said, nodding toward the window. In silence he dropped the roller blind on the door while she undid the windows’ curtain ties.
The next fifteen minutes were full of lust and sweat, but not passion. If any word applied, Moser was thorough. She didn’t care. On the bed, Brenda forgot about her bruised ribs until he asked if they hurt. She was crazy to have him, wanted to take and give, wanted to believe in him and take him out of his complicated self. In those minutes, under him, over him, she was thorough herself.
But she felt detached. He’s going for the gold, she thought, moaning. Working at it. He thinks if he gives you the orgasm at the end of the rainbow everything will work out. He wants you to be his friend. An ally. So his research will mean something. Make him a model for black youth. Complete his father’s dream, redeem a friend’s death….
It was not yet morning when Brenda woke facing Moser’s broad back. She closed her eyes and dozed, waking again as the curtains grew bright. Birds chirruped. For several minutes she watched his steady breathing, remembered their lovemaking. Not lovemaking—escaping. For both of them.
She rose, found his coffee and got his kerosene hotplate going. When he woke she sat next to him on the bed and served him, still nude. Moser forgot about going for the gold this time.
The morning sun poured over them through the tie-dyed sheets Moser used as curtains. It was like making love in a kaleidoscope, a dizzy, splashed spectrum that washed the whole room. In that light, with their own smells and coffee and the raw wood of the house heating up, Brenda felt new to herself.
◆◆◆◆◆
“When are you going to tell me what you haven’t told me?”
They lay facing each other, sweating, drinking more coffee, admiring each other in the clown colors. The wild sheets hardly moved in the windows; voices had started outside as they made love. Someone was sawing or grating something.
“Tell you what?” Moser asked.
“Whatever it is.”
He got his coffee mug. “This isn’t the time.”
“Then I’m right,” she said. “There’s more.”
The church bell rang, so loud she spilled her coffee. Moser got up and looked out. “High tide in a couple hours,” he said. “Time to see what we can do with that trawler.”
They rinsed off in his shower. He was all business now, soaping her back, washing her hair as though she were an oversized preschooler. “There’s ship biscuits in the cupboard,” he told her, toweling off. “I want to check with Karl.” He smiled at her and left.
Vince Soublik’s white shirt still looked clean. Brenda put it on, found the biscuits, ate a few and drank more coffee. It was nine, but already hot. The bell stopped ringing, and she heard people passing along the main path in numbers.
Sunburn and wasps, she decided, were better than being miserable in pants. She put on a clean pair of shorts and worked into her still-wet boat shoes. After applying more of the lotion, she stepped outside and off the porch, walking now with more confidence. As she neared the main path, passing islanders looked up and called “Kasalehlia!” She returned their greetings and followed them toward the beach.
A dozen or more outriggers with motors had crossed beyond the reef. The reef itself was almost concealed, the ocean calm. Seabirds lazed above the flotilla, the air full of calls and whining engines.
The islanders had tied ropes to the trawler fore and aft, and Brenda saw the plan was to move the lines as wave direction changed. Ideally, wave motion would catch the Nauro Maru broadside as it swung away from the reef. At that point, the flotilla would pull as one.
She spotted Erhlich in one of the canoes, looking clumsy but diligent. Where was Moser? He had left as though making another escape. As though grateful for a reason to leave before she asked more questions.
Most of Pirim’s population was on the beach, the holiday mood still in place from last night’s feast. The colors of their clothes, their singing, kids in the shallows, sky and water—nothing seemed urgent. But Moser was a busy man, with a lot on his mind.
She wandered back to the village to where Moser had pointed out Vince Soublik’s small place near the meeting house. It was where Ehrlich had spent the night. The generator had been shut off, and on entering the clearing she heard voices—one of them was Moser’s, speaking Pirimese. She hadn’t realized he could speak the language.
“I don’t care…no, you fix, you promise. I say okay, but now you fix for me.”
Nauko’s voice. She and Moser were inside Vince’s house, and Nauko sounded angry. “You tell her or I tell. I do everything, you know this is true. You tell her for me.”
There was no question who her was. Two hours after leaving her naked in his shower, Moser was fighting with another woman. Brenda walked to the open entry.
They were sitting on the floor. Emptied between them were the contents of a tin box—Soublik’s things. A watch, nail clippers, barber scissors, some pens and typewriter ribbons, a roll of stamps. They both heard her and looked out.
“Tell me what?”
Without hesitation Nauko stood. She jumped down the step and ran up the village’s row of empty houses, leaving the sweet scent of coconut oil behind. A black dog came from under the house and ran after her. When Brenda turned back, Moser was on his feet, staring at something in his hand.
“Am I the ‘her’ Cal?”
“That you are.” Several times he tossed and grabbed whatever it was, then flipped it to her. She caught it and opened her hand. A month’s worth of birth control pills.
“No thanks, I’m a coil person myself.” It angered her, his casual attitude. Fooling around right under her nose. It was sexist, racist. Brenda flipped the pill disk back at him.
He caught it. “These are hers,” he said. “A coil would’ve been a better way to go.”
“Why not condoms? Or would that cramp your style?”
He looked up from the pills. “You have it wrong,” he said. “My style isn’t the issue. Soublik and Nauko lived together. He put her on the pill, but this is Micronesia, right? You take pills like you do everything else, when you feel like it.”
She felt stupid, jealous. “She’s carrying his baby?”
“So she says.”
“Is there any reason to doubt her?”
He shrugged. “She wants you to know they were married, so you can tell his parents. She wants off the island.”
“To go to the States?”
“Believe me, she has no idea what she wants. She’s never been anywhere but Pohnpei. She probably thinks his family is like her own, and they’ll just take her in. She’ll have electricity and a washing machine.”
“Maybe she does know,” Brenda said. “Will they accept Soublik’s child here
?”
“Sure. Especially if it’s light-skinned. Light skin is a big deal out here. Her family knew all about it.”
“So they were married.”
“In Micronesian terms. Not in church, but that would have happened. He wasn’t just collecting trophies, that doesn’t work here.”
Brenda stepped up into the cool little house. Ehrlich’s suitcase stood next to a sleeping mat. “Does it make sense for her to go to the States?” she asked. “Help me out, I need advice. Is that in her best interest?”
“Hard to say.” Moser dropped the disk of pills. “She’s twenty-two. If that’s what she wants, why not? This isn’t exactly the land of opportunity. Plus there’s better obstetrics stateside. Even if she gets homesick and comes back, she’ll have lots to talk about.”
He knelt and put Vince’s things back in the box. “That’s if they get the ship free,” he added. “Otherwise, no one’s going anywhere soon.”
It was after eleven. The islanders were coming back to the village, talking fast as they streamed from the beach. A red-faced Ehrlich was with them. His blue eyes looked deep-set and glazed, as though in retreat from the water’s heat and light.
“It’s off,” he told them. “We got it lashed to the reef. If they don’t get the rudder cable fixed today, it won’t make any difference.”
Brenda and Moser waited while he went over to Soublik’s holding tanks and poured water over his head.
“They brought the ship’s radio back last night.” He used his shirt to wipe off his face before stepping back to them. “I listened to the weather report. There’s a low-grade storm moving south from Guam. If it doesn’t blow itself out, it’ll probably reach us by late evening.” He looked at Moser. “How are you doing?”
Moser stared back a moment, then turned and started across the coral clearing, toward the trees. Ehrlich waited until he was out of hearing. “What’s wrong with him?”
“I’d say being the only pusher-man on Pirim is getting to him.”
Ehrlich nodded. “We’ll get him off here soon. He can’t get any work done this way.”
“You know about it?”
“I told you, these people have problems. Every time we get his supply order, he needs more downer stuff.”
“What’s doing it?”
Ehrlich wiped water off his face. “He says someone has one of those attacks almost every week. Less than two percent, just the adults. They had no problem before Soublik came. After he died, the Pirimese started thinking maybe he brought it with him.”
“Could that be true?”
Ehrlich watched the passing islanders. “Cal’s on top of it,” he said. “If we can do them some good, they won’t need outside help.” He turned away and stepped up into the house, then flopped down with a sigh.
Moser and Ehrlich worked together, and both men had high hopes. Look at all the good they were doing, better crop yields leading to profits for Ehrlich, prestige for Moser. Just pump the Pirimese full of drugs, so “outsiders” wouldn’t have to interfere.
Brenda’s sympathy for Calvin Moser’s wish to be a role model and make his father proud floated up and danced off with the smoke from cooking fires.
◆◆◆◆◆
Men carrying outriggers inland from the beach greeted her. With hands and broken English, one of them explained they were taking the canoes to hoist into the rafters of their houses. If the storm reached Pirim, that was the way to protect them.
Back on the beach, Brenda saw the Nauro Maru was off the reef, tethered by perhaps thirty feet of rope. Good, let’s blow this pop stand, she thought bitterly. Crew members in the water shouted to those on the stern platform. One wore scuba gear. Watching, she heard the palms rattle behind her, just as the water between shore and reef lost its sheen. Soon, the Nauro Maru would be pitching too much to work on the rudder cables.
“You come.”
She turned. Nauko stood before the shoreline’s dense foliage, her faded cotton dress looking very pale against her remarkable skin. The black dog sat next to her.
Seeing her for the first time alone, Brenda felt a strong wish to know her. Beyond first impressions, beyond sound bites. The moment was not like any other.
“Where do you want to take me?”
“Lab.”
Nauko started along the beach. Brenda caught up, watching her still-wet boat shoes and the woman’s wide feet marching together through pink sand. The dog ran ahead.
“Calvin told me about the baby,” Brenda said. “If you want me to tell Vince’s family, I will. I’ll do what you want.”
“Vince give me pills, I forget to take. We have wini, I tell him. Island medicine, so baby won’t happen. He say don’t take, baby okay. He say ‘our baby.’”
“When’s it due?”
Nauko shook her head, not understanding.
“How long before the baby comes?”
“Seven months. I know for sure I’m having this baby after he die. But not good here. I don’t want baby to get sick in me and die.”
She walked very fast; it was hard to keep up. They skirted driftwood and mounded seaweed, followed the curving shoreline. The breeze came and went; snatches of radio music floated from the interior. Walking on the protected side, they reached the thin isthmus in five minutes. Seeming to know their destination, the dog sat waiting for them.
It splashed ahead as Nauko moved into the shallows. Her dress ballooned about her and Brenda followed. Minnows flew in schools. They waded ashore and entered the palms. The way was littered with rotting leaves and vines, coconuts, fallen breadfruit. They passed the Japanese bunker, then neared the abandoned leprosarium. It was swaybacked and fallen.
Brenda stopped, watching the dog lope toward the buildings. It disappeared in the undergrowth. “Bad place,” Nauko said. “Pirimese don’t like.”
Emerging at the ruin, the dog turned and looked at her. She remembered seeing the buildings yesterday, but Moser had been anxious to show her the garden.
She left Nauko and followed where the dog had gone, working her way toward the structures. There were three: two fully collapsed, the third roofless but still erect. She reached it and looked in, hearing the dog panting. Rats scuttled. Bars of light fell on rotting walls, empty packing crates. Wooden pilings jutted from the dirt floor. It had been some kind of dormitory. Half concealed under a platform, one of the packing crates looked new.
She stepped in. Hearing insects, Brenda went to the crate and knelt. Gallon jugs, with Very Cherry stenciled on the crate. Vince Soublik’s soda fountain—why out here? She remembered the crewman giving her something like Kool-Aid on the ship.
She looked around and spotted wasps flying out from the slats of another crate, wedged beneath a second rotting platform. She moved to it, batting the air as she pulled it out. Two of the eight jugs were empty, a third just opened. Brenda heard movement and turned. Nauko was now standing outside, looking at her.
“Did Vince bring this here?”
“Maybe someone steal from the house,” she said. “Islanders like to drink. Sweet.”
Sugar. Standing and backing away, Brenda felt a sharp prick on her neck and slapped. Since morning, she had not applied more lotion. Blinking with pain, she followed Nauko through the dense trees and thought of Pretro, the screaming man having a seizure—was this his private stash?
They emerged on the edge of the sunny taro bog. Without words Nauko stepped down, and Brenda followed. They slipped between rows of elephant ears and headed for the lab. Halfway there, the pain on her neck made her stop. She knelt and scooped mud from under a taro plant. Feeling scared, she smeared it on her neck, and stood. Buzzing filled the air.
Nauko had stopped ahead. and was listening.
“The television?” Brenda asked.
“Too loud. Someone shooting.”
“You have guns on the island?”
“From the ship.”
The rifles used to hunt sharks. There was a second shot, and after some seconds two more
sharp reports. Nauko started again for the lab.
Brenda followed. On the far side, they climbed up the soggy incline and walked to the shed. Nauko used her key, they entered, and she closed the door firmly.
The air-conditioned room was very cold. Nauko went into Moser’s darkroom and came out with a file box. “Vince and me come here,” she said, looking fearful. “Calvin let us, to be private. I come last week, Calvin send me for supplies. In dark room.” She carried the file box to the counter and snapped on a gooseneck lamp.
“What is it?”
“You look,” she said. “Pictures. Not like on paper.”
“Slides?”
“Yes, then pictures. Of Vince.”
“Moser showed me—”
Nauko shook her head. Brenda pulled the lid off the box and lifted out a manila envelope. Inside were glossy enlargements of Vince Soublik’s severed head.
She shoved aside trays of paraffin and laid the glossies on the counter. Other photos looked like blowups of the tissue slides Moser had showed her. Nauko pointed to a picture, then to a slide enlargement.
“Slides of his brain?”
The woman turned away, to the instrument Moser used for slicing paraffin, the microtome thing with a crank handle.
Brenda looked back down at the glossies. In advancing stages, they showed the process—the scalp peeled back from above the eye socket to behind the ear, the bone removed, brain exposed. Notes written in longhand were scribbled on the back—“Inflammation, vascular congestion.” She shuffled through the slide blowups, reading more notes—“hind brain, autolyzed tissue.” Underlined several times on one was “encephalitis” with a large question mark.
The door opened and Moser entered, glanced at the counter and closed the door. “We have serious trouble,” he said. “Pretro took the ship’s rifles. He’s lost it. He thinks outsiders made him sick.”
“Did they?” Brenda asked.
The Anything Goes Girl (A Brenda Contay Novel Of Suspense Book 1) Page 12