As the pattern of the weather became predictable, Ned was able to ride out to Vunatobung twice a week, first thing in the morning, back to base by three o’clock. Jutta soon came to greet him as a friend, an old friend, he was nearly twice her age, and would take him on a quick tour and show him the books, glad of company to talk to.
“I saw Mr Parkinson yesterday, Herr Ned. He rode across because he has cocoa seedlings which he offered to sell me, cheaply, to be helpful.”
“Good! You should take them, they make a very profitable shade crop, I hear.”
“How?”
“Under the mature coconuts, in lines at the halfway between each row.”
“Father only planted coconut, he vould, would, not plant any other, because it was not in its proper place. The Book says that there is a place for everything, father said.”
Ned took the opportunity to enquire of her father – he was faintly scandalised that she showed no grief for him, was, if anything, glad to be free of his burden. He had been told already that Kohler had become a member of an obscure sect of Calvinists, but, as he had not the slightest idea what a Calvinist was, this helped very little. Jutta told how her father had cleaved to righteousness and had forsworn the company of sinners – and there were no others of his sect in all of the Islands. He had a particular abhorrence for Catholics, yet had insisted that Jutta must attend school, which meant the classes at the mission at Vunapope; relations with her teachers had not been easy. He had never known how to behave correctly in company, had had no concept of good manners, of basic courtesy; he had become an unlovable man, one who had taught Jutta duty and given her nothing else.
Rain started to fall as they talked, grew into a downpour; thunder rolled in the distance.
“It’s too early – it’s not twelve yet!”
Ned realised just how silly a comment that was – thunderstorms did not carry alarm clocks.
Jutta smiled, pointed out that the clouds were coming in from the west.
“The Wet is coming in. These are the last few days of storm. Soon, just rain.”
They sat on the veranda, sharing a pot of tea and enjoying the ten degree drop in temperature that came with the rain, then there was a sudden blue-white flash as the copra drier was struck. They flinched, saw smoke trickle from under its eaves.
“Stay here, in the dry. I’ll check. It might be no more than a down draught.”
“What?”
“Don’t move!” He pressed her back in her chair and ran out into the storm. The lightning strikes were shifting away along the valley and the risk was not too great. He picked his way through the mud and streams of run-off scattering across the yard, soaked to the skin in seconds, cold and clammy, but no umbrella or mackintosh could avail against this rain’s force, it was not worth the bother of trying.
Two of the beams under the corrugated roof were well alight, the flames rapidly spreading through the tinder-dry ceiling, baked bone-dry over the years. He ran across to the biggest shed, grabbed a ladder and a pinch-bar, came back and started to rip roof sheets off from part-way along the ninety foot building. Half a dozen labourers followed him up the ladder and in two minutes they were at the edge of the blaze where the iron was buckling and banging, twisted by the fight between the flames below and the cold rain above. They stretched and hooked and prodded with poles and bars for five minutes, knocked the covering off and let the rain put the fire out, came down together, singed, scraped, sore and filthy. Ned spotted the two older men he had released directing the process of salvage, called his thanks, got a wave in return. He waddled gingerly, straddle-legged, onto the veranda, stopped uncertain, dripping in a pool of black, sooty, coconut-reeking slush.
“Jutta! I’m filthy – I can’t come in like this.”
She peered out, burst into laughter at the scarecrow sight of him, sent him round to the laundry, told him she was making a fresh pot of tea, would bring him a cup instantly.
“You must your clothes off, Herr Ned. I will find some of my father’s. There is soap and hot water always there and a cloth also, to dry with.”
Ten minutes later she knocked, told him the clothes and tea were outside the door. He joined her, resplendent in white duck, the trousers turned up six inches – her father had been a long-legged man. He glanced in the mirror, decided that a pith helmet was all he needed to look a complete bloody fool, burst out laughing in his turn, refused to explain the joke, uncertain whether she might not be offended by his mockery of her father’s clothing. She sent his shirt and breeches to the house girl to wash.
“In two hours they vill, will, be. The haus-meri can iron them flat. Wait.”
“Thank you.”
“For you it is my thanks. The drier is not burnt down.”
The rain continued even though the thunder had passed, steady, solid inch-an-hour, monsoonal in its density. The first few days of the Wet could easily drop fifty inches of rain, flooding the lowlands, bringing the dry creeks back to life, filling the tanks and storage dams.
Jutta fed him chicken and greens and her own bread, fidgeted under his praise, unused to the most basic of courtesies; Ned was genuine in his comments, she was a good cook, he had not eaten so well since leaving Micheldever.
“Look, Herr Ned!”
Jutta pointed to the streambed by the track leading in from the Toma Road. It had been dry when Ned had ridden in, five hours before, was now full from bank to bank, three or four feet deep and twenty wide, rushing and visibly swelling, dirty brown with silt, coconut fronds swirling on its surface.
“Down at the little bridge, half the vay to Herbertshohe, it will be already flooded. Dark when you go across. A man was drowned there only three years ago, not seeing the bridge was broken.”
“Bugger! I need to get back tonight.”
“Better you should not.”
“Where can I sleep? I’ll go down to the labour line – there’s a couple of empty huts there.”
“Nein!”
That was wholly unacceptable, would upset the whole universe: masters did not, could not, sleep in the same huts as labourers. There had to be another solution.
In the end they decided that he would sleep in her father’s bed, the house girl on a mattress in the corridor to maintain the proprieties. It was rather a pity that Father Joe came out on a visit early in the morning while they sat at breakfast together, the house girl having tidied all away and eating in her own quarters.
Taking him to one side, Ned explained to Father Joe that all was not as it seemed and nothing untoward had taken place. Father Joe wasn’t sure he believed his protestations of innocence. And even if he did, word would soon get out about Ned’s overnight stay, and the resulting scandal among the God-fearing German plantation owners might destabilise the uneasy peace that had endured since the colony was conquered. There were also other implications if news of the couple’s indiscretion became public.
With no other options, he arranged the wedding for the Saturday coming, listening to their explanations with the broad tolerance of a man of the world, implying silently that he had heard it all before, they were young and the flesh was frail and human beings liable to temptation. It was far from him to sit in judgement, yet Jutta must protect her name and Ned his honour, and it would distress him greatly to lay a complaint before the Occupying Authorities, but that might be where his duty lay. Fraternisation with the interned or paroled German civilians was strictly forbidden under martial law, and the Army might be very pleased to court-martial the interloping civilian policeman. As for the heretic Kohler’s girl – well, a young woman needed a husband, it was not natural for a maiden to behave like a master.
Victory gleamed in Father Joe’s eye as Ned capitulated and Jutta wept and obeyed, taught all her life that the woman was inferior, must accept guidance.
Ned rode into Rabaul where Colonel Holmes approved unhesitatingly his union with an enemy alien, saw it as a very wise and prudent action on the part of an impecunious young man.
“Do the same meself, if I didn’t have a wife already, Hawkins. Very sensible! Twelve hundred acres of good land! You’re doin’ a good job out there by all accounts, makes sense to make yourself a permanent fixture. I’m pretty busy, meself, won’t be able to get out of the office this month.” A masterly ploy to avoid an invitation to the wedding – the colonel was proud of his quick wits; no need to encourage the man to step out of his place, after all. “By the way, Hawkins, we’re changin’ the names, like that chap Murray suggested. Not like Africa, policy is that we keep all the local names, properly spelt, of course, English style. Your place is Kokopo, now, and the mission stays as Vunapope – with a ‘vee’, not a ‘woubleyou’, it ain’t German any more. Make sure the natives are told the right way to say it. Get the name boards and finger posts changed.”
It was fifty years before the authorities discovered there was no ‘vee’ phoneme in Kuanua and changed the written forms to allow for this, but it really did not matter, for the Tolais had ignored them anyway.
The wedding was simple, attended by a congregation of three sisters who had taught Jutta, and very quick. They had briefly discussed sending out invitations, but Kohler’s unpopularity combined with Ned’s enemy status to make it unlikely that any would have been accepted. Considerations of Faith – or more accurately Ned’s lack of any and Jutta’s anomalous nature – had been glossed over by Father Joe in the name of the greater morality, but it limited both ritual and enthusiasm. The service began at nine and by ten the happy couple were on their way home, contract signed, sealed and delivered, Father Joe gleeful behind them. Ned had been converted from alien administrator to local planter, his allegiances forced to change, whether he was aware of the fact or not.
Ned was aware of some of the implications of his marriage, and had decided in the light of Holmes’ comments that the advantages to him far outweighed any trivial problems of loyalty that might arise. He had fallen on his feet – he was nearly thirty, and moving into a rich plantation with a young wife who was a good cook as well as pretty. It seemed an ideal way to settle down. He found Jutta very attractive, and she would, no doubt, grow to accept him as a husband – she liked him as a friend already and a few weeks of horizontal exercise together would help, as long as he played his part and made sure she had a good time. So everybody said, anyway.
Jutta was trapped – she had nowhere to go and no allies. She could not stay indefinitely on her own, could not fight the church single-handed, and her father had made sure she would have no friends, he had alienated the plantation owners in his life and the authorities by his death – there was no one to help her. She knew none of her relatives in Germany, and could hardly expect to return to them in wartime, she had to make the best of things here. She had no desire to wed with Herr Ned, but there was no alternative, not even another man she could turn to as a husband. She remembered with fear her mother’s tears as each year had brought its stillbirth or miscarriage, had weakened her further, sapping her will to live as well as her physical strength, shuddered as she remembered her father’s repetition of ‘duty’ and ‘God’s will’. Women, he had said, were born to suffer, in expiation of Eve’s sin; she prayed that Herr Ned would not wish her to go the same way.
They reached the house and she stiffened rigid as Ned wordlessly picked her up, lifted her through the door.
“It is custom – the man carries his bride over the threshold of the house.”
He gave her a quick kiss, a peck on the cheek, before putting her down, the high colour ebbing in relief.
“Oh, ja! I did forget.”
“Look, you’ll want some time to get sorted out. I’ll drive back down to Kokopo – Herbertshohe, you’ll have to get used to the new name, make sure you use it with the locals. I’ll get my stuff from my quarters and bring it up here, get it into our room – I’ve always travelled light, two big bags is all I possess.”
She nodded, appreciating the chance of solitude but not liking the sound of ‘our room’ at all. She sat motionless, panic-stricken, for five minutes after he left, thought of saddling her horse, running away, then shook herself – it would not do! There was no place to run, she had made her bed and now she must lie in it – and that triggered another panic, sternly to be repressed. She called for the house-girl, gave her a thorough dressing-down over the state of the living-room, the neglect of the dusting and a long series of other, mostly imaginary, failings, felt much better for it as she knuckled down to cook; she hadn’t got a cat to kick. She had a man, like it or not, and she had better feed the brute: fresh bread, corned beef pastries, sweet potato, pumpkin tips, beans and a sugary tart to follow. Coffee! She would grind some of their small stock. No excuse for idleness.
The wood stove flared and the gardener was tongue-lashed into activity with his axe; he had been slack, the wood pile was low. The house girl was set to sifting the flour through a fine-meshed sieve, weevil catching. Ned returned to a rich-smelling house, was given twenty minutes to change and get rid of the smell of horse, sat to table to find himself being waited on, to dine in solitary state.
“Where is yours, my dear?”
“But I will eat in the kitchen, Herr Ned!”
“I would prefer you to eat with me, Frau Jutta.”
She was quick to take his point.
“But, father, Ned, always he said, ‘the woman, she is to serve’, so it says in the Book.”
“Sod the Book! Your husband says, ‘you are a wife, not a slave’.”
“Me savvy, boss! Masky bullshit, ja, boss?”
The Pidgin expression was apt to Ned’s feelings – ‘no more nonsense’ seemed a perfect way to express his revulsion at being waited on in his own house. He finished his meal in her company, thoroughly enjoying her cooking, saying so extravagantly.
“I’ll go and get my bags in.”
“The house-meri already has, I told her to.”
“Thank you. We are in the big bedroom?”
“Ja.”
Very quiet, very nervous, suddenly reminded, hours of terrified tension to build to bedtime. Ned glanced at her, taut and stiff, decided she would be rigid as a board by dark, cast iron and impregnable. Only one thing for it.
“Let’s have a look at the room, see if we want to shift the furniture at all, it may not be how we want it.”
Activity, something, anything, to do – she seized the opportunity, called for the washing-up to be done, led him through to the bedroom.
The room was high-ceilinged, louvered along the whole of the outside wall to the verandah, uptilted fixed wooden slats to five feet above the floor, glass above that to let light in; it was airy and the fly-wire outside kept it insect free. There were just the three pieces of bulky furniture in dully gleaming, red-ochre, bastard mahogany: wardrobe, chest of drawers and a huge bed. Ned sat down, bounced experimentally.
“Quite soft. Feel it.”
She had never so much as sat on the mattress, would not have dreamt of going near the master bed uninvited – it had not occurred to her that she was mistress now.
“You have slept in it before, once.”
“That was different. Come on!” He clamped an arm round her waist, pulled her squawking down by his side.
“Soft it is, but … ooh!”
Her dress caught at her shoulders; he fumbled behind, found a pair of buttons and forced them undone, tugged the cloth over her head and threw it on the floor.
“Now that we’re here, lass, why wait? Let’s have a look at you.”
She was left only in a fine lawn chemise, rucked up high under her breasts, an edging of lace showing against her protected skin, and a pair of long cotton drawers, extending decorously from navel to knee.
He eased the chemise upwards, instinctively realising that it was treasured, ‘best’, one of her few pieces of good clothing. He folded it and laid it neatly on the chest of drawers, the consideration doing a little to reduce her first panic. She sat mute, arms folded, knees tight together, feet cro
ssed, armoured. She looked totally vulnerable, forlorn, aroused compassion as well as lust. He stripped quickly and lounged beside her, untouching, gently amused by her averted eyes.
“If you can’t see it, it might go away, eh, lass?”
No answer.
He put an arm around her waist, slowly caressing her, at pains to be gentle and patient, affectionate.
“Turn round to me, little one, you’ve nothing to hide. Half the girls out there never wear anything on top, you know that.”
“They are black women!”
Fiercely hissed at him, indignation blatant – she had been told of the Sons of Ham all her life.
“Women, all the same, just like you in the way they are made, just a little different on the skin.”
Murray’s words on the topic of race came back to him – it existed, was not important, the great man had said; he decided that this was not the moment to try to persuade Jutta of that fact, stayed silent, quietly holding her.
“You will hurt me.”
“Yes, I will, just a little bit. First time always hurts, but only that once.”
Long Way Place (Cannibal Country Trilogy, Book 1) Page 19