by Anne Ostby
“No, it’s not always easy to remember everything, is it, Maya? But at least tonight you remember where you live and who you’re with, and that’s nice, isn’t it? Shall we drink to that, ladies?” Armand raises his glass and looks around with a grin, winking at each of them.
Something pops inside Lisbeth’s head again, the same feeling of something collapsing. Maya sits frozen with her mouth open, a red blush slowly creeping across her face. Sina clutches the edge of the table; Ingrid jumps out of her chair and starts, “You know what—”
But it’s Kat who takes charge. Kat, who calmly sets down her spoon and fork and looks Armand squarely in the eyes. “There’s an old saying that guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days. It’s been three weeks now, Armand, and the stench is pretty strong. I don’t know how long you’re planning to stay in Fiji, but in any event, this is your last evening in my vale. You’ll have to see your mother somewhere else after this.”
As if his mother is the one he’s here to see, Lisbeth thinks, and her gaze travels reflexively over to the chair at the end of the table. Sina wears the same expression as always: locked jaw, deep frown lines, corners of her mouth pinched. And now she gets up, shoves the chair hard, and storms out of the room. Returns with her purse in hand, and Lisbeth briefly wonders if Sina has fetched her passport and wallet because she wants to leave the house too. But Sina walks over to Armand, pulls a light blue envelope out of her purse, and slams it on the table in front of him. And it’s Maya, not Armand, she’s looking at when she hisses through clenched teeth: “Here’s your ticket. You’re flying out of Nadi this Saturday.”
37
Ateca
Dear God
I know that children are the greatest gifts you give us, but they’re also the ones who bring us the greatest worry. You’ve created all mothers, Lord, so you understand both me and Madam Sina. Her boy is grown up, but she frets about him anyway. What I didn’t understand until tonight, Lord, is that she’s scared. Just as scared as I am when Vilivo’s been sitting up too late around the grog bowl and comes stumbling home in the middle of the night. It was the same fear I saw in Madam Sina’s face on her way to Mosese and Litia’s house. She said she wanted to thank them for letting Mister Armand stay there, but I could tell what she was actually afraid of was that he hadn’t behaved well. Even though he’s an old man with white in his hair.
It bothers me that we haven’t prepared itatau. Mister Armand is leaving in two days, so there won’t be time for a farewell party with a lovo. But I should have thought of the itatau! I tried to explain it to Madam Sina, that it’s one of our traditions, a thank-you for the time you’ve shared. The guest thanks the host for welcoming him with open arms, and apologizes if he has behaved badly. Mister Armand has lived comfortably at Mosese and Litia’s. Hot water to shower in and Australian biscuits with his tea in the morning. The custom is that the guest gives thanks and the host wishes him safe travels and welcomes his return. I told Madam Sina we didn’t have to make a big deal of it, just buy some yaqona so we could drink kava. But she got upset and thought it was because Mister Armand had done something wrong. “We’d be happy to pay more,” she said. Pay more! She’s a kaivalagi, she doesn’t know our ways. How could she understand that offering more money would be an insult?
Madam Sina is the one I know the least, Lord. But I can tell she has the same aching heart that I do. “Don’t worry,” I told her. “Vilivo can get the yaqona. We’ll arrange for the itatau, Madam Sina. Don’t worry.”
And you saw what happened, Lord. How her eyes twitched, like a bird blinking, and a drop ran from her nose down to her lips. “Thank you,” she said. I was looking for a handkerchief, so I didn’t see her face when she added: “But he’s not coming back.”
—
Calm Madam Sina’s worries for her child, dear Lord. And calm my worries for Vilivo. Let him find work, so he can support himself, become an adult, and start a family.
In Jesus’ holy name. Emeni.
38
Kat
The plan has always been to use the first beans that were ready. It would have been best, of course, for Johnny to have been here while we experimented with making chocolate, but he couldn’t get away. Jone’s daughters and daughters-in-law peel the shells off the dried beans; their conversation and laughter become a billowing background soundtrack of excitement as they sit in the shade, picking and plucking away.
We’ve harvested, we’ve fermented, and we’ve dried. The yellow, reddish gold, and brown pods have been cut off the trunks; beans and fruit pulp have been left to simmer in the sun, wrapped in banana leaves until fermented. Mosese knows exactly when the leaves should be opened; he digs out a deep purple cocoa bean and holds it between his hands, inspecting it closely before he shows me: “Look at this, Madam Kat. This is just the right color.”
We’ve dried the beans on mats in our courtyard, turned them carefully, not too fast, not too slow. Maya has assumed responsibility for the oven and the roasting. “None of us knows how to do it, obviously,” she rightly pointed out, “but at least I was once a good baker, and I intend to make friends with this oven!” The oven seems to agree, and we meticulously follow the recipe onward through grinding and heating, until we end up with a large steel bowl full of cocoa mass. Rich, liquid, strong, and bitter—our very own cocoa mass! We look at each other and smile; Ingrid throws her long arms out wide and hugs each one of us in turn.
We make mistake after mistake. We can’t figure out how to press out the cocoa butter correctly. We try and fail with different ratios of cocoa mass, fat, and sugar. After the tenth or twelfth result that’s far too bitter, we even add milk despite Lisbeth’s objections: “No, it has to be dark chocolate, nothing else! We can’t sell milk chocolate as ‘a little piece that’s good for you.’ ”
We grind and roll without getting the chocolate smooth enough. The cooling system breaks down and refuses to keep the temperature in the sweet house sufficiently low.
But no one is giving up. Ingrid is the first one there every morning, Sina and Maya find ways to work together as a team. Lisbeth spends time on the phone and online, but has just as much cocoa powder in her hair and just as many stains on her clothes as the rest of us. She’s bought us aprons, long green aprons with strings that go all the way around and tie in the front. Ateca has one too; the first time she puts it on, she laughs so hard she has to sit down.
The conching is the greatest challenge; I hold my breath and curse my fogged-up glasses when the hot chocolate mass is poured out over the chilled stone plates and the turning begins. Back and forth, back and forth, a never-ending process exuding dizzying sweet smells until the mass changes consistency, and a trained eye will be able to see that the temperature is under 93 degrees. Not our eyes. We push our glasses up our noses, squint and fiddle with thermometers, ladles, measures, and spill the mess everywhere.
But suddenly one day we’re there. The chocolate mass is perfectly silky and stays at the right temperature; it slides, soft and supple, into the molds. Smooth, shiny bars of chocolate, eight millimeters thick; they glisten up at us, dark and inviting: Bite us, taste us, swallow us! Let us melt in your mouth!
The promise-laden snap when I break off a piece of happiness is like music, Chocolate Symphony No. 1. I let it rest on my tongue and wait as long as I can to swallow. The taste of the gods in the brownish purple beans fills my mouth until it flows over and spills down my throat. I close my eyes and think of Niklas. He would have wanted this for me.
Sina has finally decided to follow the doctor’s recommendation. I’d thought she might want to go home to Norway for the surgery, but when I asked, her face fell and she shook her head.
“What would I go home for? Do you think Armand will come running to take care of me? Sit by my bedside and read aloud to his sick mother?”
I would have smiled had it not been so heartbreakingly unfunny.
“No, you’re right. That doesn’t sound like Armand.”
All I wanted was to console her and give her courage. Reassure Sina that we’d keep her safe. But before I could find the words, she’d launched into her worries about money again.
“I want to do this here. I’ve looked into what it would cost, and the insurance will cover most of it. And if there’s anything extra needed, I’m sure I’ll—”
“Don’t think about the money, Sina!”
How many times have I said that since she came to Fiji? The constant, tedious anxiety about money breaks my heart. It makes me embarrassed, but mostly just sad. I’m no millionaire either, but it helps to have a financially savvy brother. He has made my inheritance from our parents grow to a nice sum after selling the house in Norway, and even after the chocolate investment, there’s a good chunk of money left. And Sina, who’s worked hard her whole life, who’s never bought anything for herself and has put everything she owns into that perpetual money vacuum who’s about to turn fifty—she shouldn’t have to worry about whether she can afford to have her uterus removed.
As we sit on the wall outside the cemetery, she’s just told me the whole story again. About the pains and the tests, the doctor who recommends that she have it all removed.
“He says there may be something that’s not quite right.”
She looks at me; her eyes reveal nothing. But her words are steady: “May be. He says it’s probably not cancer. And Maya had it all removed many years ago; she says it’s not a big deal.”
I’m waiting; there’s more to come.
“It’s just…”
Sina’s eyes are red and puffy; the lashes are short and blond. Suddenly I realize I’ve never seen her cry.
“I thought that now…down here…”
I put my arm around her shoulder. Sina tenses up her neck, but I squeeze harder, and her head reluctantly falls on my shoulder. Here in Fiji, Sina was supposed to finally be able to breathe. It was supposed to be her turn to bury her toes in warm sand and fill her mouth with coconut milk. I had promised her that.
“I know.” I sigh and pull her closer, peering down at her scalp, which shines white through the grayish blond tufts.
Her shoulder tightens up under my arm; her head lifts. “I love my son,” Sina says, and looks me squarely in the eyes. Her gaze is hard and defiant. “It was my choice. I’m the one who decided he should grow up in a two-bedroom apartment in Rugdeveien, without a father and with secondhand skis bought at a garage sale. No one ever asked him, you have to remember that.”
I know that’s true. And I also know this is something I’ll never be able to touch.
“I know,” I say again.
—
I make calls. Make arrangements. Check the surgeon’s background and pay the fee to guarantee a private room. If all goes according to plan, Sina’s surgery will be on a Monday and she’ll be discharged a few days later if all the tests are clear. I’ll be the only one accompanying her to Suva, although Maya was obviously wounded by this decision. I think she knows why, but I haven’t had the energy to discuss it. I’m the one Sina needs most right now.
Maya’s journey away from us continues in uneven phases. The repeated questions, the words that disappear for her, the confusion in her eyes when she’s looking for her comb and can’t remember what it’s called: “I can’t find the hair thing!”
But it’s not always like that. In between, there are periods when no one can notice anything’s wrong. Maya sits with an old atlas, telling Maraia all about the world’s oceans. She remembers historical dates and book titles and which vaccinations her daughter had when she was a child. And then the next day she will lose track, mumbling slowly and struggling to complete a sentence. This is more than forgetfulness and absentmindedness; everyone has seen that and understood it. They’ve absorbed it and seem to accept that no good will come of bringing it out in the open. We don’t need to give it a name. We’ll take Maya’s days as they come. As long as we’re able.
I know what lies ahead. I’ve read about how patients like Maya eventually become unable to accomplish even simple tasks. Become apathetic and lose interest in all the things they used to enjoy. Act hostile for no reason, when fear and paranoia spread darkness in the mind and the heart.
But we’re not there yet. Maya still remembers more than she forgets. We don’t have to make any big decisions yet. It’s hard to know how to handle Evy—my emails to Norway are becoming more and more evasive. Maya’s daughter isn’t stupid; I’m sure she understands that things have gotten worse. But we can still manage it. We can still take care of each other. A game of musical chairs in which some days it’s Maya, some days it’s Sina who’s left with nowhere to sit.
—
Thank goodness for Ingrid. Ingrid holds down the fort at home in Korototoka; I don’t have to worry about that. The plastic chair in the waiting room at Suva Private Hospital cuts into my back; they said the surgery would take about an hour and a half, plus time for her to wake up afterward. But it’s been over five hours now since I said goodbye to Sina at registration, and a slender Indian doctor—she didn’t look a day over twenty-five; how can they all be so young?—with bright red lipstick assured me that this was a totally routine procedure: “You can visit your sister tonight; she’ll be awake enough to talk then.”
Could something have gone wrong? The evening receptionist is on the phone; a security guard sits slouched over in a chair by the door with his eyes half shut. I didn’t bring anything to read; I know the poster on the wall by heart now. The balance on your account must be settled on your discharge. If Ingrid were here, she would’ve laughed at the wording with me.
Should I ask for Sina one more time? “Your sister’s still sleeping, madam,” is the answer I’ve received three times now. “Someone will let you know as soon as she wakes up.”
I must have dozed off, but a nurse in mint-green scrubs wakes me, shaking my arm gently. “Madam, you can come in now.”
The room is dark; the curtains are drawn and only the light from the bathroom, its door ajar, filters into the room.
“How are you doing, Sina? Are you in pain?”
Her head on the pillow moves slowly from side to side. “Not much. I’m a little nauseous.” Her voice is hoarse.
“At least it’s over now. They said everything went according to plan.”
Sina gives a little nod. She lies there with eyes closed, and I’m not sure whether she’s fallen back asleep. I take her hand. The white palm is soft; it feels intimate, like stroking her across the stomach.
“Sleep well,” I say. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
—
I have many friends in Suva. Australians who’ve hammered down their tent stakes on the island for good, people from NGOs Niklas and I worked with over the years. Many of them diligent and dutiful, some idealistic and indolent. Some have nothing to go home to; others have far too much waiting for them back home.
I’m staying at Deb and Steve’s house tonight. Their passports say New Zealand, but they could have come from anywhere; they fall into the broad category “landed and stayed here.” They’ve sailed around the world, traveled and explored and scuba dived and lived, and ended up here on the outskirts of Fiji’s capital, where their Vale ni Cegu, Place of Rest, offers plenty of good food, soft beds, and calm nights. This is where I usually stay when I visit the city; Vale ni Cegu calls itself a “homestay” and offers precisely that: a feeling of home, a place where you can wander into the kitchen and peek in the fridge if your stomach begins to rumble before dinner. And I have finally stopped the friendly quarreling with my hosts about paying. “Your stories from the bush are more than enough payment,” Steve says as he walks out onto the tiles around the pool with a bottle and three glasses. The moon is small and new, and the sky above Suva shimmers, clear and deep.
“Well, I’m excited to hear the update,” he says as he takes a seat. “How are the chocolate plans going? Was it useful talking to Johnny?”
“Johnny was exactly who we needed,” I respond.
“Thanks for putting us in touch. He’s been more important to us than you can imagine.”
“Great!” Steve fills the glasses. “And can we now toast to Kat’s Chocolate?”
“I hope so,” I say, picturing Lisbeth’s smile, Ingrid’s face when she threw her arms around my neck: We did it! “We don’t have everything figured out yet, but at least we’ve found the right flavor. And it’s good!”
We drink to Kat’s Chocolate, and I tell them we’re targeting the health market: “That’s where the opportunities are, according to Lisbeth’s daughter.”
“Health food, yes, that’s right!” Deb laughs. “Kat’s deliciously irresistibly sinfully healthy chocolate!”
I agree. “And now we have to come up with some nice packaging. Something both snazzy and appetizing.”
They both nod. Snazzy and appetizing, that’s what it has to be.
“And the ladies from Norway are happy?” Steve asks. “Have they managed to cut ties and leave all the snow and doom and gloom behind?”
Doom and gloom? I look at him, surprised. “Why would you think they’re gloomy?”
Steve shrugs. “I assumed as much. Didn’t you say they’ve all lived their whole lives up in the cold next to the North Pole? From personal experience, I can tell you that the stretch between Northern Ireland and the Outer Hebrides isn’t somewhere I’d ever want to go back to. Gray seas, gray skies, gray outlook, and so damn cold!”
I smile at him and realize that this isn’t something I can explain to Deb and Steve. It’s not the dreary weather Sina and Ingrid and the others have traveled away from. That too, perhaps, but I prefer to think they’ve traveled to something: the sulu loosely wrapped around hips that are allowed to grow wide. A fragrant frangipani blossom tucked behind the ear. Laughter for no reason. The freedom that comes with distance.
“They’re doing fine,” I casually say, and take a sip of my wine. “Now we just have to get Sina back on her feet, and then we’ll head back out into the bush, as you call it.”