Savages

by Shirley Conran

  He was quickly and expertly searched. One of the guards grunted, “Cigarettes?”

  More as a tip than a bribe, Harry handed over four packs. He explained that in his vehicle he also had gifts for the General. One of the guards collected the folded silks, then one by one they were unfolded to check that they concealed nothing.

  Escorted by two guards, and followed by a soldier carrying the silk, Harry went along the gravel path that led to the palace. On either side of him were immaculately tended green lawns with clumps of orange lilies and fifteen-foot-high scarlet poinsettias.

  The low, square, pale-mauve stucco palace had no windows at the lower level, and was surrounded at six-foot intervals by armed soldiers. Some of them squatted, some sat on the grass, leaning back against the wall with legs outstretched, some stood holding their rifles by the barrel, as if intending to use them as clubs. Although relaxed, they were obviously tough and alert.

  The small party passed beneath a heavily guarded arch to an interior courtyard, about sixty feet square; this was surrounded by a covered walk. Standing in the shade of the veranda were wooden benches like traditional church pews, which looked out on a central lily pond, surrounded by trees, flowering shrubs and wild orchids.

  Harry’s entourage marched across the courtyard, mounted a white marble staircase and entered the palace at the second-floor level through an elaborate marble arch.

  The little party turned to the right, their footsteps silenced by thick, bright-purple carpet, which lined the eight-foot-wide corridor. To Harry’s right were high, shuttered windows, hung with gold brocade curtains. One window had been shattered; broken glass still littered the carpet beneath it. Funeral parlor décor, thought Harry, as they passed a niche which contained a small altar.

  An order was snapped. Harry’s escort stopped abruptly in front of a pair of high sandalwood doors guarded by two Filipinos. One of Harry’s escort soldiers spoke softly to them, and was allowed to slip inside the doors.

  Almost immediately, the sandalwood slabs opened again and the escorting soldier beckoned Harry inside. He stepped forward, felt an icy blast of air conditioning and then stopped in surprise.

  Just inside the door, to Harry’s right, was a wide table upon which was spread a large rectangular square of bright orange cloth with a crimson stripe running down the middle. Beside the cloth lay a peaked military cap, a revolver in a holster, a native machete and a submachine gun. This was what Harry expected. He had also vaguely imagined that General Raki, on the day after a successful military coup, would be closeted with his colonels, poring over maps, or surrounded by his new ministers, discussing overoptimistic five-year agricultural plans.

  What Harry had not expected was to hear giggles, squeals, yelps and high-pitched laughter.

  At first, because of the noise, Harry thought he had interrupted a children’s party. In the room before him, the elaborately carved sandalwood furniture had been pushed back against the wall, leaving only an intricate Persian carpet in the center of the room. On the carpet a man in a khaki uniform, a black scarf tied around his eyes, was staggering, arms outstretched, amid a group of laughing young women. Small, coffee-colored women of Melanesian blood darted among darker Polynesians and jet-black outer-islanders. Most were naked to the waist, with bright cloths tied around their hips. One woman wore an elaborate, gold strapless Western evening gown, and another a grubby, once white, satin wedding dress. A very beautiful, very young, very black girl wore what appeared to be a white lace nightgown and scarlet Carmen Miranda platform sandals.

  As the man in uniform staggered toward one or another of them, the women frisked out of his reach. They jumped like kittens to avoid his touch, then sneaked up behind him to tug his tunic, after which they ran away again with shrill cries of excited delight.

  More daring than the rest, the black girl in the white lace nightgown ran up behind the blindfolded man and tugged his left ear. As he clawed the empty air, she dashed away, but stumbled on her clumsy, high sandals and almost fell. Harry saw her hands flail in the air as she struggled to regain her balance; the nails of her dark, childish fingers were varnished bright pink and sharpened to a point; ornate rings glinted on every finger and her thumbs.

  Laughing, the girl scrambled to her feet and turned back to the game; as she did so, Harry glimpsed two high, round buttocks beneath the nearly transparent white lace. With a happy giggle, the girl again ran up to the left of the blindfolded man and her bejeweled hand shot up to cover his eyes.

  The blindfolded man whirled around very fast and caught her by the wrist. Amid shrieks and giggles he fondled the young girl’s breasts, squeezed the nipples, then shouted “Noma!”

  As a relaxation from the weariness, the wariness and the responsibility of office, the victor of the Battle of Queenstown was playing blindman’s buff.

  Harry guessed that the other women—including an older one who squatted, sulking, in the corner and took no part in the game—were wives and bedmates not blessed by ecclesiastical wedlock, as well as their sisters, mothers, friends and servants.

  One of the exotic girls suddenly noticed Harry and pointed to the glowing folds of jewellike silk that were carried by the soldier at his side. The girl called out sharply.

  The women immediately stopped playing their game and surged toward Harry with much excited chatter.

  General Raki whipped off his black blindfold, not a bit embarrassed at being found cavorting in this manner. As he walked forward, his diamond-studded shoelaces caught the light and sent a thousand refracted rays of rainbow-colored light toward the ceiling. Those diamonds were not there just in case the General had to flee for his life, Harry realized, nor merely as an unusually blatant example of conspicuous consumption. On Paui, the land of the light-fingered, they were a grim reminder. No one dared to steal even the shoelaces of General Raki, was the message they conveyed.

  “Greetings, Mr. Scott.” Yellowing eyeballs opened wider and yellowing teeth flashed briefly. He moved with the swift, neat movements of an agile man. His handshake was dry, quick and nervous.

  “How do you like our new Paui flag, eh?” General Raki gestured to the bright orange rectangle with the central crimson stripe. He picked up the machete, seemed to drop it, caught it again, let it drop, then caught it again; this casual mannerism was as jocularly aggressive, as vain and dangerous, as the action of a man who twirls a loaded revolver by the trigger.

  Harry said, “It’s most distinguished, sir.”

  Raki looked at Harry. He didn’t like Australians. In 1938, when Raki was born, Paui was still under tough Australian supervision. The officers of the Paui police force were white, although the men in the ranks were black. Raki’s father had been a mission-trained schoolmaster, who admired the tough Australian administrators and had left his schoolroom job to join the Constabulary, where he quickly rose to the rank of sergeant. He ran his home and treated his children with the same strict discipline that was applied to his daily work, for he was determined that his elder son was going to succeed. This discipline (unusual on the free-and-easy island) bore fruit. At that time, education on Paui was still largely in the hands of missionaries, who could do little except teach the bare rudiments to the children of the island.

  Harshly disciplined at home, confused and undereducated, it had nevertheless been clear that young Raki was too intelligent for village life, but would not be sufficiently trained for a skilled job unless he had more schooling. In 1949, when Raki was eleven years old, his father’s adjutant had managed to get the boy accepted at the missionary-run Jesuit College at Port Moresby, on the understanding that when he finished his schooling he would follow in his father’s footsteps and join the Constabulary. Coached by his father, Raki won one of the fifteen annual scholarships, which provided him with the equivalent of a U.S. high school education.

  Even as a schoolboy, Raki had no intention of ass-licking the Australians, as his father did. He was a restless teenager. In 1954, when he was sixteen years old, h
e became involved in a brawl in a Queenstown Harbor grog shop in which he throttled a white beachcomber. His father managed to cover up for him, and bribed a place on a freighter bound for Manila. There, Raki lived with the family of his maternal grandmother, who had been a Filipino.

  By 1965, when Marcos assumed power in the Philippines, Raki was nearly twenty-seven years old, and a captain in the secret Q7 Army Corps. In 1968, when the President of Paui died, he had been replaced by President Kanta, who came from the tribe to which Raki’s family belonged. Urged by his father, Raki instantly saw his opportunity. He returned to Paui and joined the Constabulary at a high level, intending to make a grab for power within the force as soon as those white kanaka had left his country.

  In 1975, when the Australians finally retired, every man on the island was drunk for a week, after which, promotion in the Constabulary was given to those who were strong enough to grab it. By the age of thirty-seven, Raki was in charge of the Constabulary. His only regret was that his father, who had raised him to be an achiever, wasn’t alive to see his son’s career soar far beyond his own.

  Two months later, when the ten-year contract with Nexus was signed, President Kanta got his first powerboat and Raki received his first, discreet, special payment.

  In 1983, Raki was flown to Darwin with peritonitis, which kept him in the hospital for two months. During his absence the left-wing coup took place on Paui. When discharged from the hospital, Raki joined his four official wives, his mistresses and his swarms of children in Port Moresby, where he brooded and plotted. Now, triumphantly, he had returned.

  The pretty girl called Noma tugged Harry’s sleeve. “You have nightgowns from Sydney?”

  Sharply, Raki rapped an order to his women and they faded away to the far side of the room, where they reassembled in smaller groups, clearly speculating who would get the silks that Harry had brought with him.

  General Raki looked at Harry. “You want to talk to me, Mr. Scott?”

  “I do, sir. A group of my associates, who were staying at the Paradise Bay Hotel, have disappeared.”

  General Raki held his hands up, palms outward; he lifted his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders. “I heard this sad story. They were aboard a fishing vessel that caught fire, or blew up, or something. It is thought that one of the tourists was at the wheel. Someone may have done something foolish. Who knows? Very sad.”

  Harry said, “Someone must know exactly what happened. I would like to locate the hotel manager and his staff.”

  “I was told that a lot of débris was found, but sadly no survivors,” General Raki said. “Of course, there are sharks beyond the reef. This is a very sad start to our infant tourist industry. I shall make it my business to see that it doesn’t happen again.”

  Harry said, “I ask your permission to find out exactly what happened.”

  Idly the General played his drop-and-catch game with the machete. “Who would know? When all are dead, it is a matter for conjecture. A trip at sunset might have been pleasant, after a day of business discussion. I have no idea what happened.” He shook his head sadly. “Of course, we shall offer our condolences through the usual channels. However, this unfortunate accident is definitely not my responsibility.” He shrugged again. “I heard that it happened just after sunset on Tuesday, before I returned to this island. How lucky that you were not with them, Mr. Scott!”

  There was something about the way he spat out the last words that made Harry remember that he should have been with the Nexus party. He said, “Sir, I am concerned about the complete lack of news about our people. The military at the hotel were not helpful. I am sure you understand that American citizens cannot just vanish without a trace.”

  “Nevertheless, it looks as if they have done so, Mr. Scott.”

  “Sir, if you are not responsible for their disappearance, then who is responsible?”

  “The previous government, I’m afraid. I expect you saw them outside the main gate.”

  “The U.S. government will expect a full explanation, General Raki.”

  “Of course they will, Mr. Scott. And I shall see that they get it. I’m sorry you seem to feel that you are not getting the cooperation that you would like. What do you want me to do?”

  “I would like your assurance that an official inquiry will be undertaken within twenty-four hours, and that an air search starts immediately.”

  General Raki looked thoughtful. “Of course I shall do these things, but I cannot do everything at once. Life is still a little unsettled here, and I have many other concerns.”

  “Is there any proof that they are no longer alive, sir?” Harry persisted.

  General Raki lifted his chin and raised his voice. “This is enough! It is not my responsibility that Nexus people are on this island. Your company does not currently have my protection. It is not my responsibility that your people met with an accident on the day before I came to power, when I was still at sea.”

  “Sir, I would remind you of the international convention whereby the country in which an accident or crash has occurred always searches for the victims and the wreckage for a period of ten days after the accident.”

  “Naturally, we shall conduct an air-and-sea search.” General Raki looked coldly into Harry’s eyes. “And in the meantime, Mr. Scott, I hope that you will immediately return to Sydney, until, as you say, the dust has settled here. From Sydney, Mr. Scott, you will no doubt be able to arrange immediate payment of the money that is owed to me. Shall we say, at two hundred percent interest for late payment and the resultant inconvenience?”

  Harry said, “As I’m sure you know, sir, that decision does not rest with me alone.”

  “Whoever makes your decisions is responsible for the fact that the past President of Paui was unable to come to any definite agreement with Nexus, after eighteen months of negotiation.”

  Harry said nothing.

  General Raki said, “You know what an easy chap I am.” Again, he playfully dropped the machete and swiftly caught it before the weapon hit the ground.

  Harry said, “I feel that Nexus will prefer to discuss such arrangements when we know the whereabouts of our missing executives, their wives and their possessions.”

  “Ah, the possessions!” Raki said. “Commandos, you understand, are not ladies’ maids, but we shall do our best to return the suitcases and so forth. Your concern about possessions is entirely understandable. In Paui, we are also concerned about possessions—anything from coffee beans to uranium, from coconuts to cobalt.”

  Harry hadn’t expected to have this whacked at him in the first five minutes—but at least you knew where you were with Raki, and that was a change, after eighteen months of exasperating inaction. The position was clear. Raki refused to take responsibility for the Nexus party, but he had agreed to an air-and-sea search, and he would do it immediately and properly, provided Harry got off the island and Raki got paid fast. Jerry Pearce could sort that out.

  “You have no comment, Mr. Scott?”

  “As soon as I can communicate with Pittsburgh, I’m hopeful that your conditions will be met. I appreciate your concern for my safety, but I prefer to stay here until the financial arrangements are to your liking. I would appreciate your permission to search myself, by air. The more planes that are out looking, the more chance there is of finding something.”

  “Certainly, Mr. Scott. I must say it is easier to do business with someone who understands conditions on the spot, rather than executives in faraway glass towers.”

  What followed happened so fast that later Harry was unable to say exactly what had happened. The ebullient little black girl in the white see-through nightgown had kicked off her noisy, high-heeled sandals. Mischievously, she crept up behind General Raki’s left shoulder, her bejeweled left paw impudently upstretched to cover his eyes again.

  Raki heard a slight sound from behind. In one fluid movement, he had shifted his grip on the machete and whirled around to the left.

  Then the girl was
screaming and the dark, chubby left hand, rings on every finger, was dripping blood on the Persian carpet.

  Nobody in the room moved. The girl clutched the red spouting stump of her left arm, fainted in midscream and slumped to the floor.

  Raki said sharply, “That was her fault. She did it. She should not have surprised me.” He looked at the bleeding figure on the floor. “It was only her left hand.” He turned to the guard at the door. “Wrap that hand in a cloth and take her to the hospital. Make sure you use a clean cloth. Tell them to sew it back on. But first take off her rings and give them to me.”

  He turned to glare at the silent women who huddled at the end of the room. He raised his voice. “She will have the best doctor. Absolutely. No expense spared.”

  He beckoned his number-one wife from the corner. “This is a valuable carpet. Get it cleaned immediately.”

  He turned to look at Harry. “We shall now go to my study for peace and quiet, my friend.”

  13

  Harry was certain he had been followed back from the palace, but that was only to be expected. On principle, Raki would put a tail on him until he left the island, to see what other contacts Harry might be making—and paying.

  Wearily, Harry climbed the wooden steps from the dark street to the hotel veranda.

  “Could you maybe get me a waterproof watch, Mrs. Chang?” Harry asked. “I can’t get one from the shops because they’ve either been looted or they’re shuttered. I’m not going to risk buying a watch from a street merchant.”

  “No problem.” Mrs. Chang beamed at him. “Did everything go according to plan, Mr. Scott? Did you see the General?”

  “Yes.” As if she didn’t know.

  As Harry entered the hotel, he was vaguely aware of something insistently disturbing his subconscious, like a bit of grit in a tennis shoe. It had started with that same phrase, used by the army captain in Paradise Bay. He had said, “Everything went according to plan. The General can’t complain.”