by Anna Tambour
"No, no, no," an urgent, panicked answer erupted from all mouths at once. The Sufisians had been warned about Christianity by their great-grandfathers, the press-ganged five.
But Flora needed to drive her point home. "They think we all believe that garbage. As long as they think it, they don't NEED to come. But give them an excuse, and they'll come, thick as (she struggled for a metaphor that she knew meant "thick", but also that would privately remind each person of its true distastefulness) ... sago pudding."
The handsome heads bowed in embarrassment. Flora had managed to keep those arrogant egotists out of the Sufisians' hair for years. She had thought of the lease and found Didiyae. Flora was smart, but the money from the lease couldn't keep them all forever. What was her plan?
"Now you listen here," she said patiently. "I told you good things would come from Misser Didiyae. And they have. There's more to come, too. I just know it. He's just got to get our island spirit. We got to help him. If you don't, you better make sure you make that money last forever, you hear? Nobody here getting any younger. You, Lily—you the youngest. You—what? Forty-five?"
Lily giggled
"And Jimmy—you oldest. What you think you are?"
A surprisingly meaty Jimmy mumbled, "Maybe eighty."
"And how many of your children send money home?"
A mass coughing fit took hold of the assembly. More than a few fingers toyed with the yard litter of dried palm fronds.
"I know they having trouble finding work," Flora almost whispered, "but ..." and she raised her voice to its full bass glory, "do you raise your lazy old bones? Huhf!"
Her red and white hibiscus-pattered backside wiggled in a paroxysm of disdain.
"Make the man welcome, I say. Make him forget his pigs. Then we see if he give us all a good old age."
With that, she huffed off, and without her, there was no meeting.
Tomasi shuffled home to his morose charge. Like all Sufisians, while he ignored simple complaining like he did the droning of mosquitoes at night, he hated being around true depression. It made him feel helpless. But he considered himself the island's ambassador. And maybe Flora could see him as its saviour someday. Flora was some woman. A widow, too.
~
Over the next week, Tomasi couldn't shake Didier out of his grand funk, even by mounding his hash in banana flower baskets. How could he know that banana flower baskets had been done already, and were practically Crate and Barrel by now?
Tomasi was frightened of losing Didier, so when Didier went snorkelling, Tomasi did too. Didier tolerated him because the sharks were a bit of a worry, even though he hadn't seen one yet. The two began to talk to each other, and a relationship began—if not of friendship, at least of companionship. But Didier was inconsolable about his pig loss.
The island's old mining days had left an unstable crust around the edge of the excavations. Most of the people were wary of the area, and kept away, but occasionally, the men would hack a trail through the reclaiming rainforest to visit their old working place. Detenamo Tuke did one day, thinking that if he could find some office equipment or windows or drill or something, maybe he could send it to his son on the Venture, and his son could sell it for him.
Cutting through the rainforest was not easy. The tough and barbed tangled pest, lawyer-vine, cut into Detenamo's legs, and caught and tore the rectangular piece of cloth that was his fulu, the name for this calf-length wrapped man's skirt. He stopped to tuck the cloth up between his legs into his waist, Indian-cane-cutter style. On his next step forward, his left foot caught on the buttress root of a strangler fig, his body twisted like soft licorice to the left, his right hand with its heavy two-foot-long machete was flung over by his 270-pound body's momentum, and, with a hard fall, left arm out—his right hand (still clutching the machete) thwacked hard against a basalt rock, and the neatly sheared left hand and forearm tumbled off the slickly hard volcanic block.
Detenamo's heart pounded with surprise. But he'd seen many mining accidents before. Quickly, he picked himself up, ripped his fulu off, wrapped it around his stump, dropped his machete, and ran the whole zigzagging mile through the bush back to Flora's house, clutching his left wrist in his right hand.
Flora had one answer. Cauterise and forget about it. Detenamo thought only of the great Didiyae. He must be able to do something. What's a rich European for?
They rushed to Didier's house, with Detenamo's body ready to go into full shock at any moment. Tomasi was there, pottering around in his garden. He ran to get Didier, who was daydreaming on the beach in too much sun, his body a deep crayfish.
Tomasi dragged Didier back without explaining. He knew Didier would be able to sew it on, so he ran to the kitchen for some fishing line and a needle. Meanwhile, Didier, Flora, and Detenamo talked together quietly. Flora knew, but Detenamo took some convincing, that Didier's skills did not extend to microsurgery, and that everything inside the arm had to be connected before it could work again.
"I'm sorry, Detenamo," Didier apologised. And Didier did look sorry.
"Detenamo, I got to burn your stump," Flora gently urged. "You want to bleed to death?"
Detenamo turned hooded eyes to Flora. He looked like an ancient turtle. "No, Flora. I want to live. I like dancing." He started to cry.
Flora took Detenamo's left hand and placed it on the floor. Then she took his good arm, meanwhile holding his left in the air to keep it from being a drip. As she guided him away to Didier's kitchen, she looked back at Tomasi and at the arm (now glistening red and fly-worried on the tiled floor), and mouthed silently, "Pilauwano bin." (Burn that thing.)
Tomasi mouthed back, "Shoa'fiing, pinti." (Yes, Princess.)
A minute later, from their still-static positions in the lounge, Tomasi and Didier heard an unholy shriek, and then some gibbering, followed by a croon like a mourning dove. Tomasi ran out of the room, leaving Didier in a land of tangled, jangling thoughts.
~
A few minutes later, Didier's back door slammed, and Tomasi's bare feet slapped the tiles back to the big room where Didier sat.
"I'm sorry for Detenamo," said Didier. Maybe his coming was a curse. He noticed people enough to know that he depressed them all. And oddly, because of their whining and laziness, their fatness and their crotchetiness, he liked them.
Didier slumped heavily in the riotously flowered pouf-cushioned bamboo sofa. He looked at the hand on the floor near Tomasi's feet. "Better get rid of that thing."
Tomasi, instead, padded over and sat on the floor at Didier's feet. He looked up at that big-nosed, close-cropped head, that now bristly, going-to-seed face.
Didier looked back, confused.
Tomasi's eyes were very bright. The skinny, elfish man looked at the greying appendage lying in its lagoon of blood, and then up at Didier again.
"Boss," (Didier couldn't stop this mining days' relic of Tomasi's) "Boss, you ever eat long-pig?"
~
That evening, Tomasi accidentally burnt a rubber inner tube on his trash heap near the paw-paw tree closest to the village. He had to use a huge palm-frond fan, and to fan hard, to get rid of the stench—it all, unfortunately, wafted off to the village houses, whose plated palm walls kept the stink away from villagers' nostrils as well as if they had been houses built of lace.
Tomasi ran to each house to apologize. Even though a pall of stench hung over the village, no one that night would want to stroll towards what they thought would be even worse, in smell and mood—Didier's area. The villagers all forgave Tomasi and sent him back to cheer up Didier. They were all still intimidated, only too happy to leave the strange man to Flora's urgings and hopefully, Tomasi's inspirations.
As soon as the fruit bats started their evening chatter high in the figs and mango trees, Tomasi set to work.
First, he dug a pit about three-foot deep in the beach, and lined the bottom with specially chosen rocks. He made a good fire in the pit, of coconut husks and thick chunks of vine. Then, when he had a hot
bed of coals, he covered it with sheets of bright-green banana leaves. Then he lay the long-pig on the bed. Washed hours ago, it had cooled in the electric fridge that lived in the lounge. Next, Tomasi surrounded the long-pig with taro, yams, and cassava. He covered the lot with more banana leaves, and then the beach itself.
He and Didier then sat on the beach, Didier slowly and shyly opening up to him a bit about New York and its business. Didier didn't want to spoil this peaceful moment and lie to Tomasi. So he only talked a bit about his life in America ... how crowded it was compared to Sufisi. How complicated everyone's life was. How Americans just lived, most of them, to work, work, work.
"That's not our problem here," Tomasi marvelled. "We all want to find a way not to work. We like singing. We like to dance. Why work if you don't have to?"
"That's why I'm here, Tomasi," Didier agreed—at least he thought he agreed. But somehow, he needed more than just not doing anything. His brain was turning to junket.
The moon rose full on an impossibly lovely sea, the horizon lost in a miasma of blues. Tomasi looked at Didier's face. The eyes were still the beautiful eyes of Randy—the same blues. And vulnerable.
"Time," said Tomasi.
Tomasi dug it all out, and carefully pulled away the top banana leaves. A cloud of steam rose, and the most divine smell. Tomasi remembered what his father had said about the taste, and his mouth tingled at the edges with hunger for it, but he didn't touch it. The long-pig was for the Boss and the Boss only.
They spoke little. Didier ate slowly, using his special mother-of-pearl handled knife and two-tined fork. He examined each piece of succulent, rosy flesh before unhurriedly, thoughtfully chewing it. The sweet, moist flavour, the rich pigletty taste, the texture of the forearm—like his mom's Thanksgiving turkey, when they still tasted good, before they became old-phonebook-fed.
This hand was like that first petit cochon he ate with the Achillis. But this one had wings—wings of heavenliness.
The salty, velvety umami aromas travelled up into the tunnels of his sinuses, tickling them with the most intense pleasure. Tonight this meat was pure—just a little sea salt, seasoned only with the taste of the coals and its own eventful life.
But Detenamo was getting on, and the sinews were too tough to tackle. In this climate, hanging the meat was out of the question. The whole, marinated in, say a bual madeira ... Didier's mind chewed over what he could do to main d—but when he sucked on the fingers, thickened by, first, work, and then, years of languor, Didier had to close his eyes. The pleasure was too great.
The thumb was the best. Chewy, almost goose-textured. "Aaah," he finally sighed, wiping his hands in the basin of rain water Tomasi had placed beside him on the sand.
The radius and ulna had been stripped bare by Didier's teeth, but the hand bones were left mostly connected. Tomasi threw the lot back in the pit with the remains of Didier's fresh coconut (his drink for the meal), and covered it all back up with the beach again, before they walked back to the bungalow to sleep, each to his own dreams.
~
The next morning, they paid a visit to Flora. Was Detenamo available? Yes, she said, but he was still in bed.
Didier and Tomasi knocked on the bedroom door. Flora had put him in her own bed—Tomasi peeked at Flora, and no—it was just her professional caring that made her do it.
"What you wan? Go way," slurred a voice from inside.
Flora threw open the door, and bright light from the window flooded their faces. Detenamo was curled like a grub under the white sheet, grizzling tears into his salt and pepper beard.
"Now Detenamo, grow up," Flora chided gently. "You didn't lose both hands, man."
"No more going out on boat."
"No more reef to blow up," Flora retorted. "About time you boys stopped anyway. It's not ecological, you know."
Flora had learnt many things in her times away from the island, Detenamo knew. The tedupor recipe, how to save her money, how to nurse, but if she started harping on "the environment" again, this was worse than losing his hand.
"I'm ugly now," Detenamo whined.
Flora laughed in surprise. "Oh, Detenamo, you ugly before."
"Mebbe," he admitted.
Didier coughed. He didn't know how to do this. He put out his hand on the sheet, and when the hand lifted, a pile of Pauro banknotes was left on the bed.
Detenamo picked up the pile with his right hand. "What this?"
"Your retirement, Detenamo. I hope you have a happy retirement," Didier smiled.
"Why you care?" Detenamo answered, his natural suspicion aroused.
Flora's was, too. She put her hands on her hips, waiting for an explanation.
Didier opened his mouth, but Tomasi stepped in front of him. He wanted to soak in Flora's admiration as soon as he could.
"Detenamo," Tomasi beamed, "I made fingi for Didiyae last night wif your hand."
He closed his eyes to savour the response, so wasn't ready for the massive clout to the back of his head that sent him sprawling over the iron foot of Flora's bed.
"You (here Flora used the filthiest word in the Sufisi dialect)! I tole you. Bury it. Whah you do that for? We only ate our enemies. And we haven't even done that for—whah ... eighty years? You got no respeck for Detenamo. I teach you!" and she got ready to launch an attack with both fists.
Didier was stricken. Suddenly, his guts felt like eggs scrambled with battery acid. He turned accusing, guilty eyes to Tomasi, who cowered over the bed with both arms over his head.
"Uhhh," Detenamo croaked softly.
Six eyes turned to him.
"Thank you," he said, and his face was broken open with an enormous smile. "I counted that money you gave me. Thank you for a happy, long life. I can even buy smokes."
Flora recovered first. "How you roll the smokes, Detenamo?"
"Flora," he answered, "This enough for Mahboro."
~
The next morning, Didier opened his front door to three applicants for retirement—all cronies of Detenamo.
Pilu, always impetuous, had wanted to jump any queue, and carried his offering in a neat banana-leaf basket made by his wife, who'd also sealed his stump. He was up to the gills in palm toddy, so didn't feel much of anything. Pilu never had been known to feel much pain anyway. The decorative cicatrices on his chest were an old hobby of his, like whittling. He expected the same amount of money Detenamo had gotten (Detenamo had lied, and doubled the amount in his retelling). But Pilu was delighted with what he walked away with—the same as Detenamo.
Tomasi put the hand in the fridge (this one cut half-way to the elbow, same as Detenamo), and then came back to the front door to hear Didier saying, "I will not pay for any more hands that you bring me. Do you understand? I will not pay."
Didier was polite, but firm. The other two men went away envious of Detenamo and Pilu, but not angry at Didier.
That afternoon, under the tamarind tree, the forty-eight Sufisians who were not sozzled under a palm, met, with Flora and Didier convening the event. An orderly list was made, with the two men from the morning tossing for first and second places. On a certain date, Flora would supervise and seal the wound, and Jimmo who'd been the cook for the Australian mining crew and butchered their beef so long ago, would do the actual amputating.
As for anaesthesia, everyone thought the homebrew was sufficient, and no one except Flora had ever known any fancy medical care to compare with.
To Didier's amazement, fifteen of the twenty-two men signed up.
Flora's first concern was money. In front of their wives, a system was set up so that retirees received monthly payouts instead of the lump sum that no Sufisian had the self-discipline to stretch out. Flora and Delmay (who'd been the mine's bookkeeper) would administer the fund, the money itself would be stored in Delmay's house in the big company safe she'd used for decoration till now. Anyone caught trying to steal from the fund would provide, with his or her whole body, a long-pig feast for the whole island.
&
nbsp; Krischin Pu'atoi, always a troublemaker, stood up. "How come we gotta give our money to you when Detenamo and Pilu got theirs?"
Flora grinned at the two women beside her, who laughed in reply. "Not any more, Krischin," Flora answered. "Not if you want to sleep at home, get fed, get somethin else ever again."
A birdlike titter tinkled out from the crowd, and one or two women clapped.
"Now there gonna be a few rules here," continued Flora. "One, no Mahboros. They too dear. You buy rollee tobacco, pay someone to roll for you. Maybe you buy your wife Iced VoVos with your pay each month ...quiet, please." She had to put up her hands, as a pandemonium of groans, hoots, and clapping broke out. "You be nice to her. She roll your smokes for you."
"It's my hand. I should get all the money for myself," Krischin Pu'atoi whined. He turned to his cowed wife. "Why doesn't Eva cut off her hand?"
"Because with two hands, you too lazy bastard and pain to live with. What you think you like with one?" Flora answered.
Eva smiled blissfully, as she got encouraging looks from all the women. "Iced VoVo, Krischin?" asked Eva, brave in front of this crowd.
"Hmm," he answered, but Eva could imagine herself licking the parrot-pink icing off the biscuits already.
"When you're ready," Flora sternly reminded the crowd, that quieted immediately.
"Two, no alcohol except what we make here. Sufisi not gonna be island of drunks like those Aussies on a night off. And besides ... drunks break bottles. Too dangerous. Not ecological—"
"There she goes again," everyone thought, and Krischin actually mumbled under his breath.
But mercifully, she didn't.
"Three. No all-the-time drunks. We have one village pissup every Sunday. That's it. Everybody happy. Everybody dancing. We pay Fred and Thuro (who hadn't put their hands on the list) to play ukelele and the spoons like old days. We all happy together, and sick together on Monday."
Flora turned to Didier. "You're invited, too. You're part of us now."
Didier bowed. He wanted to thank Flora, everyone, sincerely. Their faces were smiling at him as if he were, somehow, the answer to their dreams.