by Ferenc Máté
At the end of a sleepless night, as the darkness of the palms broke away from the darkness of the night, when the wet air sat heavy on his chest, he smiled to himself, full of the fatigue of disillusion, and was on the verge of rising from his bunk and adding to his letter, “The beauty. The beauty,” but fell asleep. He awoke to the solitary sound of Hapa’s adze thudding into the wood of the hau.
FROM BELOW THE EVES, Father Murphy unhooked a short fishnet, pulled a small basket from under his bed, and walked along the beach, sticking to the shade, toward the waterfall. During the downpours of October, the great cascade hollowed a pool that for months remained a pond where fish came in from the sea to feed. He didn’t like fishing there because it meant fishing alone. He preferred to work the open shoals with one of his native flock or the Finn or Testard on the other end of the net, wading in waist-deep, chest-deep, looping the net, circling slowly, chatting, laughing, herding the fish until they wound up in the net, then reaching in calmly and scooping the ones they wanted into a basket.
But there was no one to fish with in the shoals today. So halfway to the falls he stepped into the woods to gather leaves of kohuhu or kiki, to grind fine with a stone, then sprinkle the bits in the deep part of the pond. The bits would drift about and their poisonous juice would stun the fish. He would hold the net with both hands and scoop them in a pile. But this kind of fishing held no joy, no one’s company.
He often consoled himself by watching the fish: the glossy silver of matanunbi, the brilliant blue-tailed uhi, and the striped jacks for which the natives had a dozen names: pomata, ukikina, upoupo, and pahuru—that darted like lightning, the whole school moving as one. And sometimes big snappers—teape and fana, uku and tuhara—wandered in.
He had clambered over the thicket-covered knoll, gathered some leaves, ground them up and stepped out of the thicket, when beyond the falls, in the shade of the bluff, white against the black rock and the drooping greenery, he saw, as startling as a vision, the gleaming hull and masts of the majestic ketch.
TESTARD HURRIED through the fortress preparing for the siege. The fortress had three rooms: one against the bluff where the platoon slept; a smaller one where Baudichon lived, facing the sea; and the last, facing the courtyard, a mess hall with kitchen where the castiron stove with three good legs leaned in a corner, the other having been broken off while the stove was being dragged ashore through the surf. They had found a boulder to replace it, but the salt-caked driftwood and humid air corroded the stovepipe in a week, which didn’t really matter because it was much too hot to fire up a stove indoors anyway.
Testard shut and latched the heavy shutters on the windows, dropped the bar across the back door, pulled out the four rifles from the arsenal, dragged out the two wooden boxes of varied ammunition, and set it all under the window of Baudichon’s room, from which he could see the enemy no matter where they came ashore, from bluff to bluff in the crescent of the bay. There was no danger of them landing anywhere else; the bluffs were too steep, and at the place where a boulder made a pier, the surge ran so hard that their launch would be smashed to bits.
With two rifles loaded and leaning against the wall, he was ready. He aimed one out the window and with it scanned the shore. For a moment he held the site on old Hapa beside his pirogue, then he moved it along to the southern bluff, where the priest, now, vanished behind the rocks. He hurriedly loaded the other rifles, then went to get the Finn to help with the defense. He still has a thumb and the knuckle of his index finger so he can aim a rifle as well as anyone, Testard thought. And he is a damn good hunter; can shoot a goat off any bluff. Yes, the Finn. And the Zuo brothers, the two Chinamen. They can shoot too. And the priest can hold a gun. There. A little army. Let the pirates come. Let them come.
NELLO UNLASHED THE LINES that held the skiff upside down on the cabin, then they flipped the skiff, tied the main halyard to it bow and stern, and Nello hoisted it off the deck while Dugger held its gunwale to keep it from banging against the ketch.
“I’ll come with you,” Darina said anxiously. When no one answered her, she added, “My brother.”
Nello went below and they heard rum gurgling as it ran out of the keg. He came back with a small flask and slipped it into the skiff. “Tongue-loosener,” he said.
“What if they don’t drink?” asked Dugger.
Nello stuffed his revolver into his belt but covered it with his shirt. “It’s an island, Cappy. Everybody drinks.”
They had pushed off the skiff when Kate called after them, “I have to come too. I’m the only one who speaks French.”
“I can’t leave the ketch alone,” Dugger growled.
“You stay, Cappy. We’ll be all right,” Nello said. “Seems like a harmless place.”
He rowed with Kate sitting in the stern looking down at the anchor lying on the bottom, where the sun, having come up over
the bluff, caught the steel of the shaft against the dark sand. Darina sat in the bow, staring at the shore.
FROM THE ROCKS below the southern bluff, Testard saw the skiff emerge. Sweat poured down his sides. He laid down the last rifle and pulled out the small spyglass with the crack across the lens. “Mon Dieu,” he whispered, spying Kate. Quelle belle pirate. He could only see the back of Nello’s hat, but looking ahead to Darina with her short blond hair thought, And that boy is pretty too. Then he suddenly remembered the word that had echoed daily through the fortress—how could he have forgotten?—otages. Hostages.
That was the solution. Hostages. If he could take those three as prisoners, he could stay alive. He could keep the rest of the pirates from attacking until the frigate came.
Hostages had kept the French alive for years on these islands. Since the day of annexation by Dupetit-Thouars in 1842, every native Marquesan living on the coast was a hostage—undeclared. Whole villages were undeclared hostages. That’s what kept the garrisons safe: natives close at hand, easy to round up, easy to punish, imprison, kill. Safety assured through instant revenge. That’s why, once the villagers moved inland, the garrison was defenseless. With no hostages at hand, the marines were prisoners in their own fortress. No match for even a small group of rebels. That’s why, last week, the governor ordered them to leave: to prevent being overwhelmed like garrisons often had been over the years. To prevent what would incite the natives to rise and kill them all: a victory, as in 1880 when an admiral had to come from Tahiti with a flotilla and, with cannon fire, wiped whole villages off the map—the flimsy shacks, the frail canoes, and the people.
Testard hurriedly donned his official white tunic, slapped the visored cap onto his head, slung a loaded rifle across his back, grabbed two others, one in each hand, and, cutting a swath through the flock of chickens in the yard, ran with heavy footsteps under the cover of the jungle to the far end of the beach to get the Finn and the Chinamen.
THROUGH HIS BINOCULARS, Dugger watched the shore. He saw something white running behind the scrub, then lost sight. He went below, loaded the Winchester, clambered up the rope ladder again, and, with one arm around the mast, sat with the rifle in his lap. Maybe I can shoot a goat for lunch, he thought.
The ketch rolled gently on the long swells from the sea.
Chapter 28
Nello held the oars hard in the water to keep the skiff from catching a breaker and crashing onto the hard black sand. He waited for a lull, then told Darina to jump before they hit, grab the rail, and hold the skiff back until he could ship the oars and jump in to help her.
DUGGER SAT ON THE SPREADERS, and watched them pull the skiff up through the sand. He leveled his binoculars on the deserted village spread among the trees: the poles with a few mats still dangling, the odd thatched roof, a clearing with no one in it but an ambling dog, which, reaching the middle of the clearing, sat down in the sun as if lord and master of it all.
That was when Dugger noticed the flowers. They seemed to rain down from bushes and trees, and pop up low like carpets from the ground. Near the beach were dense
thickets of yellow hibiscus and pink morning glory; farther back, bushes of gardenia, red ginger, waves of bougainvillea, and clumps of flowers and fruits he had never seen.
An immense calm had settled over him and he didn’t know why. He watched Nello and the women with a strange detachment, as if they would get along just fine without him and everything would somehow turn out as it should. The only emotion he felt was a vague envy, for not having been born on this wild island, for not being native to the village and the mountains—for not being able to call this place home.
He saw Kate run on the hard sand, stomping with both feet, and the breeze brought her cries: “Land! Solid land!” Then she stood and beckoned with a wide swing toward the ketch, and Dugger could hear over the murmur of the surf, “Come on, Cappy! Come on!” He saw the three of them now running like children, the women awash knee-deep in the surf, and Nello at first cautious looking into the woods, but then freely wading in among the trees, holding out his shirt, filling it with fruit.
Dugger lowered the binoculars and with unwavering concentration began checking the blocks and tangs and the jackstay on the mast.
FATHER MURPHY SHAVED QUICKLY, then tried to clean his house. He had seen the skiff push off from the ketch, so he flung a few fish in his basket and, with his nightshirt still tied between his legs, ran for the trees and home. Now he hung the basket of fish from the beams, flung remnants of fruit out the back door, straightened his only chair, swept burned-down candlenuts from his windowsill and opened his Bible randomly on the table. His eye leapt over “Woe onto you . . . hypocrites!” One dreary wet blanket, that Matthew, he thought, and flipped the pages. “We also should walk in the newness of life,” he read from the Romans. My very thought. He smiled, and pressed the page down flat, then reached outside and plucked a handful of gardenias and sprinkled them, as if the wind had brought them, just inside the door.
He glanced into the mirror and pulled back, a little startled. His fleshy face seemed sallow and unhealthy. It’s the heat, he thought. No Irishman can ever get used to it and keep his sanity. He was not yet forty, but he felt suddenly old. Perplexed, he poured coconut oil onto his hands, then rubbed it furiously into his hair to darken the streaks of gray.
He put on his only cassock, worn out from use, faded by the sun, and much too heavy a weave for the tropics, and headed down the beach hoisting up its hem, when he suddenly and haltingly thought of the flowers. He swerved into the woods to gather a bouquet.
THE FINN SAT on the flat rock that jutted into the pond shrouded by the jungle. He had come down from his hut on the hillock because he thought he had seen the pink glimmer of crayfish in a corner of the pond under an enormous fern that formed an umbrella over it. He could either wade in with barely perceptible movements and reach down to fling the crayfish one by one ashore, or to go back to his hut for the small net he’d fashioned from old mosquito netting and the branch of a hibiscus he’d soaked and bent into a loop.
Testard’s unwelcome voice rose nearby, but the Finn made no reply. He heard Testard in his cabin, opening and shutting the plank door in a hurry, finally appearing, out of breath, on the hillock above.
“Pirates,” Testard gasped. “A shipload of pirates. Three of them just landed by the falls.” And he waved his two rifles, then rested their butts on the ground.
“Crayfish,” the Finn said. “If you bring down the net from behind the door, I’ll give you half.”
“Pirates,” Testard insisted. “We can take three hostage to keep ourselves alive.”
“Are you still drunk, Testard?”
“For God’s sake, man! A shipload of pirates!”
“Pirates.”
“Yes, pirates. They’re after the Pisco gold.”
“Well, they have the wrong island by five hundred miles.”
“I’ll get the Chinamen,” Testard blurted, tipping the rifles. “The four of us can surround them. Put them in the fortress. They’re our ticket to safety.”
“Like the villagers?”
“Come on, Finn.”
“What would pirates want from us?”
“Why don’t you ask them that while they cut your throat?”
The Finn smiled. “Maybe we can sell them crayfish.”
“I’m making you a temporary gendarme. Ten francs a day.”
“You don’t have ten francs.”
“I will when the frigate gets here.”
“And if it doesn’t come?”
The anger of helplessness flashed in Testard’s eyes. “Get up, Finn. That’s an order. Get up or I’ll shoot you.”
With little conviction and much effort, the Finn rose from the rock and started up the path. “You couldn’t swat a fly,” the Finn said, and took one of the rifles out of Testard’s hands.
Testard turned. His hand shook from excitement and he stepped quickly to his right and looked down at the clearing and the dog. He whistled softly. The dog raised its head, got up, and ambled toward the shade. Testard raised his rifle and, in mid-motion, shot. The dog spun as if doing a little dance, then collapsed in the sand.
Without looking up, Testard was off with firm strides toward the shoals to get the Chinamen.
The Finn watched him go. “Not a trace of sanity left,” he murmured. He ambled down into the clearing, sliced off a vine, tied the dead dog’s hind legs together, and hung it from a branch. He would skin and dress it later, then gather some banana leaves and roast it in a pit.
Chapter 29
A Fairy tern glided gracefully over them, its wings and fan-shaped tail glowing white against the sky. From the dense bush along shore, yellow reed warblers with long red beaks darted into the sun, then turned in jagged arcs back into the shadows. White-capped fruit doves with dark green wings, and flocks of noisy Lorikeets, as blue as the sea, flashed among the palms, and mynahs gurgled and whistled while pecking at rotting fruit along the ground.
“Paradise.” Kate laughed and plowed her toes through the soaked black sand. “I never knew the world could be so beautiful.”
Darina stood half in shadow, lowered her head, and said a quiet prayer of thanks, for their safe arrival, for all the beauty, for her brother, amen.
Nello had left them behind, crossed the shallow pool, and stood under the waterfall. He pulled off his shirt and washed and drank, and made himself promise never to set foot in salt water again.
Then he heard the shot. It was dull and muffled, and with the splashing of the water on his head and the breaking surf and the grating noise of the mynahs, he couldn’t be sure at all. He convinced himself that it had been the thud of a coconut hitting the ground, until he looked seaward and saw Dugger standing frozen on the foredeck, the binoculars fixed just beyond them in the palms. He waded out onto the sand, wrung out his shirt and wiped his face, and wished like hell Dugger would yell or signal. Then, deciding it had been but a coconut, he strode up the sand and sat down in the shade. He heard footfalls behind him, but before he could turn a voice called out, “Ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints in the house-hold of God.”
THE WOMEN HAD GONE UNDER THE FALLS and were standing close to each other, letting the water cascade over them. “How can people live anywhere else?” Kate said, the water running into her mouth.
“Turn. I’ll wash your hair,” Darina said. She gently teased out the tangles from Kate’s hair and rinsed out the salt.
FATHER MURPHY STEPPED INTO THE SUN and headed toward the laughing bathers, calling out, “Mave mai. Me mai a nuku mai. Welcome to Paradise.” Kate was first to emerge from the spray and walk toward him, wringing out her hair and pushing it from her face.
“You must be the beautiful lady pirate.” He smiled broadly and, seeing her breasts through her dripping shirt, tried to fix his gaze on just her eyes. “Silver and gold I have none, but such as I have I give to thee,” and handed her the bouquet of yellow and red flowers. To clarify his intentions, he added somewhat nervously, “Apostles, chapter three, verse six.
I’m Father Murphy. Welcome to Hiva Oa.” Then he raised his voice and called toward Darina, who had stepped from the falls and pushed back her short hair. “Welcome, young man, and may the Lord be with you.”
“What beautiful flowers,” Kate said, and turned to show them to Darina when she saw three armed men, with rifles leveled at them, step out of the bush.
Nello leaned back. “Some paradise,” he grumbled, sliding his hand closer to his gun.
LIKE SOME GIANT in a tattered straw hat, the big Finn stood over the two slight Zuo brothers beside him. They had been getting ready to row out to the reef and dive, wearing only faded printed cloth wrapped around their loins, but Testard had insisted that they get dressed, so one had put on a small black vest, the other a collarless wool shirt he saved for winter, and they now stood thin-legged, straining under the weight of the leveled rifles.
The Finn, even armed, had the air of a bystander. His pants, which ended vaguely at his calf, were torn and holed, his shirt cuffs had worn away long ago, and his shirt pockets sagged with what he’d beachcombed that day: a coin, the stem of a pipe, a spike, an empty rifle shell. He was tired. Tired of the heat, the bugs, the endless sun, the sea; tired of Testard and the Chinamen, and even of Father Murphy. All he wanted from life was to be cold again and see the countryside covered in deep snow, and hear words that he remembered from his childhood, words that stirred his heart even in his sleep.
Testard had stopped, shocked at the effect the beautiful white woman with her wet clothes had on him. He had seen the most lascivious native women in beastly naked debauch, but that was different, that somehow didn’t stir something deep inside. He stood pouring sweat, trying to think of the proper salutation. He put his pistol away, then took it out again. At last he decided it was best in his hand but held behind his back, so he seemed a petty official going for a stroll. “Madame, messieurs, bonjour. Je suis Émile Testard, sous gouverneur des Groupes Sud-Est.”