by Glenda Adams
“You could speak with the sisters on the hill,” said Lark. “Or with Mr. Weiss.”
The man hurried inside, saying he had to prepare for the service.
“Our two missions have been here for a hundred years,” his wife whispered as he disappeared inside the smaller tin house beside the church building. “It still upsets him to think of it. We Protestants were here first and settled here first, and because we were doing so well the Catholics came. We said they could go to the other end of the island, but they would not leave. They simply took that hill and built that arrogant church. At least we are simple down here, and among the people. It was not fair. Herr Weiss does nothing to stop it. The owners are concerned only with themselves, although they used to be missionaries themselves.” She pursed her lips. “And Protestant, too.” The lips disappeared. “Commerce controls all,” she hissed.
Then, from inside the house, Donna Bird emerged. She looked as if she lived there, although she could have been only five minutes ahead of them. “I have had such an interesting talk with your husband and his assistant,” she said. Behind her came a young man in a white cassock, almost skipping from the happiness of talking to Donna Bird.
“Ah, your friend is so interesting to talk to, is she not?” The minister’s wife smiled at Donna and held out her hand to her. “And you will all join us in the service? We love to have visitors, and my husband loves a new audience.”
Thirty or so islanders, on their way to the service, had gathered around the three visitors, peering at their faces, fingering Lark’s skirt, trying to touch Donna Bird’s spectacular earrings and the grape brooch on her visor. Paul and Lark looked at each other and Lark opened her mouth to tell the minister’s wife that they would not join the service. But Donna Bird said, “Oh, we would love to,” and the three of them were carried along by the cluster of worshipers and swept into the church.
“Why didn’t you say something?” said Lark to Paul.
“Why didn’t you?” he answered.
The men and women sat separately. Donna Bird took Lark’s arm and sat her on a bench among the women on the right. Paul was escorted to the left. The villagers kept their heads turned to look at these newcomers, unusual as they were, and even when the minister and his assistant came in and began the service, the heads did not turn to the front.
The young assistant preceded the minister, giving the signal to the congregation to settle down. But he, too, was searching through the congregation looking for his new acquaintance, and when he spied Donna Bird in the middle of the women’s section, he bowed toward her. Throughout the service his eyes scarcely left her.
“This is so interesting?” said Donna Bird into Lark’s ear, just as Lark realized that a collection plate was being passed and that she had no money with her. The plate was made of tin, deep enough to serve as a soup bowl as well as a dinner plate. It had a little metal ring attached so that it could be hung from a belt or a nail and must once have been part of a military kit. With all eyes on her Lark received the plate, trying not to rattle the few coins that had been cast in it, and she passed it quickly to Donna Bird, who took it and rested it on her lap. She took off her earrings and dropped them into the plate, allowing them to clatter. There was a murmur throughout the church. What a fine gesture.
In the men’s section, Paul, who had change in his pocket, let drop as many coins as he could into the plate, which, in Lark’s mind, seemed cowardly, showing that he preferred to emulate Donna Bird rather than align himself with Lark in her embarrassment. She felt betrayed.
The man who had received the rice from the nun at Stella Maris on the hill walked into the church, stooped, although he seemed to be trying to walk as upright as he could manage. Rather than taking a place on the men’s benches, he squatted right at Paul’s feet and gazed up at him the whole time.
After the service, as Lark and Paul shook hands with the minister and his wife, who thanked them for coming, as if they were parishioners in the suburbs of Sydney, the minister’s assistant drew Donna Bird aside. The two of them talked quietly and animatedly in German, with much waving of their arms and smiling and expressing of thanks.
The man who had sat at Paul’s feet in the church came and sat at the minister’s feet, his bowl once more in his hands, and he asked for food.
“Get up, my man. You need not kiss feet at this church.”
His wife took the bowl and ran off, then returned with the bowl filled with what Lark took to be the local root vegetable. The man bowed and went off, again delicately shoveling the food into his mouth with his fingers and thumb, the first two fingers of the right hand scooping up the mash and the thumb pushing it into his mouth like a little bulldozer.
The minister looked for his assistant and beckoned him into the house.
“Bis später,” said the assistant to Donna and followed the minister, catching the cassock as the minister let it drop from his shoulders.
“That was wonderful?’’ said Donna Bird. The service had lasted an hour and a half.
“It was terrible, perhaps the worst thing I have ever had to do,” said Lark. Donna Bird was smiling, as if she were pleased at Lark’s reaction. They were walking back along the main street toward the ship.
“We really wanted to walk a little in the jungle and explore,” said Lark.
“We did?” said Donna Bird.
“And you forced us into the church.”
Paul was slightly apart from the two women, behind them. Lark was aware that he was watching them walk, watching her waving her arms around at Donna. The islanders watched, too, from the doorways of their homes, from the little benches placed at the edge of the street.
“May day in,” cried the children. A little boy, holding a large heart-shaped leaf, offered it to them, fanned his face to show that the leaf was a fan, then offered it again. “May day in.”
Donna stopped and tried the fan, then handed it back to the boy. “I already have a fan,” she said. She patted him on the cheek. “I’m sorry.”
Toward them came running the man who had had his bowl filled twice. He had slipped ahead and was now coming to meet them, followed by several children skipping and leaping. He had in his hands a lamp, like the prize of Aladdin. “Alt,” he said. “Very old. Buy.”
Donna Bird looked at it for only a moment, nodded, then beckoned to the man to follow her, and she hurried ahead to the ship. Donna disappeared up the gangplank, leaving the man with the lamp standing on the dock.
“Let’s walk again,” said Lark, reluctant to follow Donna Bird and reluctant to exchange the firmness of the earth for the uncertainty of the ship. “It’s strange,” she said, as they walked back along the main street. The island children walked behind them, their numbers increasing as they went along. “So strange that those separate groups of German missionaries live on this island owned by a German, without talking, competing for converts, when they could easily meet and talk about The Magic Flute and joke about Wotan and Brünnehilde and recall the triumphs of the past.” Paul nodded, saying nothing. The soft sound of bare feet in the dust of the road made Lark glance back. “Oh, my God.” By now a throng of children was following them. They were jumping about, nudging one another, skidding in the dirt of the street. As Lark cried out one child picked up a pebble and threw it at this strange couple, hitting Paul on the back.
He wheeled around and yelled at them. “What the blazes do you think you’re doing?” He picked up a stone and made as if to throw it back at them, a gesture that reminded Lark of Henry Watter dealing with the Bakers’ excitable dog. To Lark he said, “Remember what that nun said. It’s not what they do here, walk along the street, just a man and a woman.”
“They can’t stop us from walking, can they? We’ll just go to that little beach under the cliff. You’re not scared, are you?”
Smatterings of children pursued them all the way through the village and along the path leading away from the Protestant church to the riverbank and the beach. Every now and the
n, when Paul stopped and looked back at the children, they also stopped, and if he took a step toward them, they took a step backward, like shadows, and then as soon as he started walking again, the children walked, too.
When they got to the beach and started walking on the sand, so yellow and perfect, the children stopped. They stood in the grass, where the path ended and the sand began. They stood, suddenly quiet, watching these two strangers.
“Why do you think they have done that? Why have they stopped?” Lark asked. “Is this a forbidden place?” She wanted Paul to be able to answer her questions. She wanted Paul to be strong. But he had deserted her again, depositing those coins, leaving her to fend for herself.
They walked on, leaving the children behind. The hill and the cliff were above them, the Catholic church out of sight over its rim. They rounded the base of the hill. The village and the children were now obscured.
“What’s wrong? What has happened?” Lark asked. She held onto Paul’s arm. “But what is that smell?” A stench like an open sewer or rotting rubbish assailed them.
“Oh, God,” said Paul. He stopped and drew Lark to a halt beside him.
The stretch of sand before them was covered with refuse in which sea gulls were ferreting for morsels. And then, farther on, they saw several villagers squatting on the sand, their backs to the river. This golden beach was the village rubbish dump and the village latrine. Paul and Lark fled back to the village. The children, who had waited at the edge of the sand, knowing, howled with laughter.
In the main street they met the man from whom Donna had bought the lamp. He was wearing Donna’s red plastic raincoat, snapped right up to the neck, and using her black umbrella as a walking stick. As they passed he nodded, smiled an appropriately refined smile. The children still followed them, all the way back to the ship, pushing each other and hooting and yelling, “May day in, may day in.”
After the feel of the land, the ship seemed tiny and stuffy. Lark went up to her deck, where she found Donna Bird and the Captain leaning against the rail, her rail. They were close together, Donna Bird’s head inclined toward the Captain’s shoulder. They must have watched Lark and Paul retreating to the ship, pursued by the mocking children. Donna, holding a bunch of brightly colored flowers and even wearing her visor, looked almost lovely.
“What do you expect?” said Donna Bird, when Lark told the story of the beach fiasco. “Do you think the whole world has your values? Why should these villagers not see a strip of sand and a tidal water as a utility, something to be used? You expect everyone in the world to think a strip of yellow sand is for romance?”
“We only wanted a place to sit in peace. And you?” said Lark, recalling Donna’s spectacular, misguided trading activities. “You persuaded that man he needed your plastic raincoat and your umbrella in this heat, on this island. You’re no better than a nineteenth-century European trader, getting rid of your surplus on the natives.”
“In addition to the lamp he gave me a woven fly whisk.” Donna simply ignored the point Lark was trying to make.
“So you got a bargain—a lamp and a fly whisk for a five-dollar plastic raincoat and umbrella. Don’t you understand the meaning of what you’re doing?” Lark was enraged.
“I told you, there’s no such thing as meaning. The truth is apparent. The man wants my umbrella and raincoat. I want his fly whisk and lamp.” She looked at the Captain. “Perhaps we can put kerosene in the lamp at dinner tomorrow.” Then, nodding at Lark, “Now that’s what I’d call romantic.”
Lark closed her eyes and leant against the rail for a moment. “There must be somewhere to walk to, somewhere we can go,” she said wearily.
“These people are just wonderful, aren’t they?” Donna said, raising her eyes toward Lark, out of breath with the pleasure of it all. She held up her flowers. “Aren’t these beautiful? I found them growing by the jungle paths.” She held them out to Lark, who backed away, refusing to take them. “And their customs? A group of children already took me along some back paths a little way and I visited their homes? There’s so much more to them than meets the eye of the jaded Westerner, don’t you think?” She touched her hair, flung it back over her shoulders and hooked it behind her ears. “They will show me their dancing. I have started to learn the language. I can say, ‘Did you catch the wild pig?’”
“And did you?” said Lark sourly.
Donna Bird laughed. She seemed delighted when Lark showed her irritation. “Very good, Lark. The mission school is rehearsing a production of Our Town, in the native language. Manfred, by the way, would love that, since he thinks people should stay at home. Thornton Wilder writing from New Hampshire has a timely message for these islanders. I’m going back to help them in the morning. They have trouble saying the words.”
“You’re the right person,” said Lark. “You have no trouble saying yours.”
Donna Bird laughed again. “Take the current when it serves,’” she said. “Oh, Captain, the minister’s assistant wants to give me a hat, woven by his grandparents. It’s decorated with hair and feathers and spiderwebs. It’s beautiful. But do you think I’ll have trouble with customs in the United States?”
“There are ways,” said the Captain.
“And what does the minister’s assistant want in return? A tissue?” asked Lark.
Then the noise of something that sounded like a tank or a tractor made them shield their eyes and look along the road to where it turned into a jungle path and was swallowed up in the trees. From the trees, hurtling along the path, burst forth a large cube of a vehicle, on Caterpillar tracks, painted in camouflage, a kind of open-topped tank that could ford rivers and practically scale cliffs. Tied onto it was a long, narrow box.
“Ah-ha,” said the Captain. He nodded and went down the ladder. The vehicle rumbled rapidly along the village road, the villagers finding it an unusual enough sight to run alongside it, trying to keep up. A young European man, blond and tan, was sitting on top in the driver’s seat, yelling and yelping as if he were at a rodeo. He kept up his swift approach to the ship, until it looked as if he would drive straight off the wharf into the water. He applied the brakes and halted the vehicle almost on the spot. The Captain was at the foot of the gangplank. He called half a dozen sailors, who brought a dolly and climbed up to unload the box. The men strained to wheel the load on board.
“Do you realize,” said Donna, leaning over the rail until she had lost sight of the dolly and its load, “that that box is absolutely identical to the long box we saw loaded on board in Sydney?”
“So?”
“Well, it contains either another coffin and corpse or,” Donna was now turned away from the dock, her elbows propped on the rail behind her as she gazed into the sky, “or else it’s the second half of the bomb. They’ll assemble it on board, you see. Uranium and stuff from Australia, the mechanisms smuggled here from...”
“From where, then?”
“Well, from the French bases in the Pacific.” Donna looked sideways at Lark. “You don’t believe me, do you? You still think I’m lying?”
Lark was uneasy. “You have no way of knowing that. You can’t possibly be sure that they’re coffins. Or bombs.” Lark mumbled the last words. She had not wanted to utter them, to go along with what Donna Bird said.
The Avis Maris was to leave after lunch the next afternoon, when the tide was high. Paul and Lark had their morning tea as usual on the top deck. Donna Bird remained out of sight, in her cabin, Lark guessed, having suffered from too much light the day before, or else she had slipped ashore before breakfast to coach the children with their play.
“I wonder why we stopped, then? What is in that box, rather those boxes, since there was one like it taken on board in Sydney?”
“Come on,” said Paul. “She’s crazy, you know that. You know not to believe her. She only likes to disconcert and trick.”
“Then let’s walk once more,” said Lark, again wanting to distance herself from the ship and feel the earth
before casting off into the Pacific. They climbed down the ladder to the bridge and then down to the main deck.
The Captain emerged, calling to Mr. Crouch that he had some chores for him to do before they set sail. He set him to polishing the brass fixtures in the dining room and the brass hinges on the doors and portholes, hardly the most urgent task. But it certainly prevented Paul from going ashore again with Lark.
He got out the rags and the polish. “You go. I’m not my own master, remember, just a follower of orders.” He picked up Donna’s visor, which she had left hooked over a brass handle of the bookcase, placed it on the table, and began polishing.
Lark stood for a moment, frowning. She had dreamt that she was wearing that visor and was out in the sun for several hours. When she took the visor off, her face was burnt dark pink, with a brilliant white line above the eyebrows where the visor had rested.
Lark went for her last walk alone, taking with her some salami and cheese from the galley. She had decided to skip lunch on board. She walked along the main street and up the hill to the Catholic church.
The good sister, having expected to see Paul Crouch beside her, nodded with some relief, gave a kind of curtsy and hurried past this Protestant intruder, resisting the urge to exhibit a few English sentences. Lark walked to the edge of the churchyard and peered down at the beach, where beyond the broken stone of the cliff she could now discern the villagers at their ablutions, seriously bobbing in the water, rinsing off. Then she walked down the hill, along the path past the Protestant church.
“Your friend was here, too, very early,” called the minister from his veranda. “Good morning, how are you? Very well, it is to be hoped? My assistant took her to spend time with some of our children, to learn to speak with them and ask questions about our island, the culture, the life, and to make film. We are not very interesting for outlandish cosmopolitans, I’m afraid, but she is charming, charming.”
How did Donna Bird do it? People were drawn in without fail, happily allowing her, a scavenger, to pick at them.