A Dolphins Dream

by Carlos Eyles

  5

  In the morning Compton ate pawpaw at the water’s edge and threw the rinds over to the next beach. He tried to husk a coconut with the big kitchen knife he had taken to bed. Twenty minutes of sweat and fury resulted in the removal of a thin strip of husk before he surrendered to the superior will of the nut, acknowledging that if it were the only source of food on the island, he would probably starve to death. In a final act of defeat he threw the coconut against the lava cliff and watched it bounce away unscathed. Turning to the beach he spied a yellow hull skiff at the edge of the coral and a single Fijian man who had lifted the outboard and was poling the boat across the coral. The man waved and Compton waved back. When the boat reached the sand, he walked to the beached boat and greeted him. The man said his name was Aprosa. He was not large in the standard of most Fijians he had met but was well muscled with powerful legs and a sinister tattoo of unknown totems crawled down his arms and rib cage. The tattoos, it seemed, were in direct contrast to his gentle face. Compton thought he looked like that guy who played for the Lakers, Fisher, Derek Fisher. Fish they call him. Is he the Silver Fish who…? Jesus, it’s catching, I’m starting to sound like Mariah and Moses.

  “My name is Michael,” he said extending his hand. “Moses told me you’d be coming.” They shook hands and Aprosa introduced himself and then stood gazing at Compton for a long moment before asking, “You dive with the breath?”

  Compton acknowledged that he had. “Yeah, I’ve done a bit of free diving. Though it has been awhile.”

  Aprosa nodded. “You know the sea?”

  “Sure”, replied Compton with a degree of confidence, beginning to conclude this whole thing could well be easier than first surmised. “I mean what are we talking about here, snorkeling. I know it as well as the next guy. Spent my share of time in the water.”

  Aprosa turned and walked to the beached skiff and withdrew a facemask. He came over to a white strip of sand that appeared to fall off into deeper water and when he was knee deep turned to Compton. “You put on the mask and fins and we go to the outside of the reef, eh.”

  Compton went to the tree stump where he kept his gear and returned to the beach to put it on. As he did, Aprosa picked up his facemask and began to examine it, particularly the glass.

  “Those are corrective lenses,” said Compton. “My eyes, I’m a bit nearsighted.”

  Aprosa nodded and handed the facemask over to him. He took it and asked, “You’re not wearing any fins?”

  Aprosa shook his head. “No need. There is a way out of the coral, a path, the sea knows. It takes you on its own strength. No need for the fins, I follow you.”

  “There’s no way out of here,” said Compton in weak explanation.

  “Come, I show you the way of the sea,” replied Aprosa who turned back on to the sand trail. Halfway to the beach he made a right turn into a seeming cul de sac of coral heads with Compton following. Aprosa then wove through another set of heads and reef and, without the benefit of fins, seemed to cruise through the maze without difficulty while Compton constantly used his fins to correct misdirection’s into the tight coral pathway. Suddenly the coral reefs fell away into deep water and more sand appeared and they paralleled a deep reef until they were out on the far edge where the water fell away into a bottom of sixty feet, then slid away to an abyss in excess of a hundred feet. Compton, suitably impressed, began to pull his snorkel to compliment Aprosa on his navigational skills but he had turned and was heading back to the beach through the same circuitous route.

  They reached the beach and were sitting on the sand when Compton finally spoke. “That was impressive, Aprosa. Obviously you have been here before.”

  “No, this is the first time.”

  Compton’s lips parted in the grin of disbelief. What is it with these people? “Then how did you know where to go?”

  “The sea told me, eh. You feel the way it moves. It comes in to the beach and comes out to the deep water without trouble. It has the knowledge and gives the instruction. You learn the knowledge of the sea before you hunt it, yes?”

  The grin remained on Compton’s face. Right, you follow the subtle movements of a near non-existent current, something only a fish might know.

  “I suppose so. What is the first lesson?”

  Aprosa began to pick up pieces of red colored shells off the beach and as he was gathering them he told Compton to keep his equipment on. When he had accumulated two large handfuls of red shells he threw them into waist deep water. “You find each ones, eh.

  “I thought I’d be diving in a bit deeper water than that.”

  “We start here, teach the body what is the water. The brain thinks it knows but it is the body that needs the intelligence to hunt.”

  Compton shrugged his shoulders in what could only be called a skeptical gesture and entered the water.

  The shallow water was crystal clear and marvelously pleasant and in the light surge of the shoreline he used his arms to maintain position and keep steady. He felt a tap on his back and lifted up.

  Aprosa stood above him. “Do not use the arms. Be relaxed in the body. Only the legs are used to move, eh. Take the long breath, not the short ones.”

  Compton put his face back into the water. Taking Aprosa’s instruction, he soon relaxed and began to fe the movement of the surge and in that anticipation was plucking the shells from the sand with ease that brought a curious satisfaction. Within a half-hour he had picked up all the shells and handed them to Aprosa, who smiled in thanks then threw them back into the sea. “Let the sea have your body.”

  The gesture appeared arrogant and didn’t make sense to Compton but he returned to the water without comment.

  Soon he forgot Aprosa and forgot the water and forgot his body, and like a child in the center of his universe, picked shells from the bottom of the sea. The mindless chore became the smallest of pleasures, one he could not recall in all his life. Later he would think about it and realize that his body and the water were somehow communicating and that he had become an afterthought to the communication.

  When he had completed the task he made his way to shore grinning like a twelve-year old boy. “That was fun, Aprosa. What else have you got for me today?"

  Aprosa smiled back. “You did well, eh. I leave now. You go back into the water many times today and find more shells. Do not go deep. Be still so the fish they will forget who you are. I will come back when you are ready for me.”

  With that he got into his boat and poled off into the sea.

  Compton was left on the beach to contemplate the morning. I’m not sure what he was talking about. I’m taking diving lessons from a cryptic Fijian native who comes and goes on whim. He looked out to sea following Aprosa’s frail boat to the horizon. This did feel right, he mused, I’ll give him that. What an interesting sensation, there’s this kind of magnetic pull that’s almost irresistible. He felt a certain focus he had when he was a boy wandering up the dry riverbed behind the house looking for tracks of raccoon and rabbit and the occasional deer. There was something gloriously perfect in those pursuits.

  Compton lay back in the warm sand and fell asleep to boyhood adventures. When he awoke he walked to the kitchen and sat in the folding chair that looked out across the Tasman Strait with a sense of wellbeing that was recognized in the vague way a dream is recalled. If he hadn’t just awoke from a nap and his mind not yet kicked into gear, it would have passed without acknowledgement. Instead it rested warmly in his gut and remained a knowable thing as he gazed out to sea.

  Eventually he arose from his seat and in that seemingly insignificant act thoughts flooded his consciousness and washed away the gossamer threads that connected him to the natural world. He went about the kitchen seeking chores. He shimmed the table leg, fixed the broken chair by wrapping a splint around its back with a thin vine he found at the edge of the jungle. He walked the perimeter of the campsite looking for any trails into or out of the jungle and found none. He worked for a time on huski
ng a coconut, but exhausted quickly from the effort, leaving the task all but begun. For dinner he ate the coconut Moses had brought and cooked a piece of fish in a pan. He was under the net before night fell in the throes of roof brain chatter and second thoughts regarding this whole affair.

  6

  Compton dove for shells as instructed for the better part of the morning, finding it to be a source of mindless pleasure as it was the day before. When he left the water his body felt rested and at ease with itself. This he was able to recognize by way of its unfamiliarity.

  Near noon Moses arrived with fruit and vegetables from the garden and Compton offered him tea.

  “Look at that kitchen,” said Moses, pointing to the fine lined drag marks across the sand that appeared to have been the work of a rake. “Those land crabs are your friends, clean the place up every night. After the hurricane we catch ‘em on the full moon. Put ‘em in a bag and boil ‘em up. Feeds everybody.”

  Compton nodded, making no mention of his paranoid episy he arose

  “Aprosa come yesterday, eh. Teach you the sea.”

  “It wasn’t much really, just picking up a bunch of shells. He says I should keep doing it until he comes back. It seems like a waste of time. I’m looking forward to getting into the deep water and learning how to spear fish.”

  Moses shook his head in amusement. “Yeah, everyone wants it quick. Aprosa teach you right. Let the sea come in and wash off the bad habits of the mind. The body needs to know what it’s up against, eh. It’s the one that takes care of you in the sea, not the mind. You do everything Aprosa say. He is the best diver on the island and the island has many good divers.” He had picked up the battered but unharmed coconut on the table while he spoke and was examining the thin strip that had been torn out. “You need a pointed stick to open the nut. Over there is one I made with the cane knife.”

  Compton followed him to the back of the bure near the cliff where a cluster of boulders had broken away. Coconut husks lay strewn about a pointed stick that had been wedged into a fissure of one of the boulders. Moses jammed the side of the coconut onto the wooden spike and rolled it as if it were made of foam instead of tough, fibrous bark, and tore off a large piece of husk down to the hard nut. In minutes the coconut was husked clean. “There is a certain spot to hit the nut, right here.” He drew his fingernail along a line an inch below the third eye of the top of the nut and hit it across a rock, splitting it open like a monkey’s skull, spilling the milky fluid over his hands. After taking a drink, he gave it to Compton who took a small sip and was about to hand it back. “No, you drink it all, it is the next best thing to the mother’s milk. Very healthy, you drink one nut a day. Fix you up.”

  Compton finished it off and then Moses cut chunks of meat out of the nut and served it on the blade of the knife. “Nature’s candy, eh.”

  A red-hulled boat passed the cove on its way to open sea. Three men on board waved and Moses returned their greeting. “Fijian are friendly people, eh. They wave and call your name. It is polite to wave back. A sign of friendship.”

  “That’s a little difficult for me. It seems hypocritical. I don’t even know these people.”

  “What is hypocritical?”

  “False. It would be false for me to be friendly and greet someone I don’t know.”

  “Is that how it is in America?”

  Compton gestured in acceptance with opened hands. “Yeah, maybe there’s just too many people. Everyone’s a stranger.”

  “It is better to be friendly than unfriendly. It is not false if you mean it in your heart, eh. In Fiji there is genuine friendship. You jes’ sit and wave and say Bula, and everyone is your friend.”

  “Did you know those men in the boat?”

  “I don’t know who is their name. They are Fiji fisherman.” Moses paused and looked out after the red hulled boat. “They fish with the net. Once a month they go to the reefs and get all the fish they need.”

  “Why don’t you use a net?” asked Compton. “Is it too expensive?”

  Moses’ eyes remained on the red-hulled boat, his cheerful countenance lost on its wake.

  “It is not the net. I am a pre-mix, part European and part Fiji. My father was a German and my mother was Fiji. I am a second class citizen, same as the Indian. They don’t allow me to fish the reefs.”

  Moses cut a chunk of meat out of the coconut and pensively bit off a piece.

  “That seems unfair,” Compton sympathized. “Besides, who’s there to stop you?”

  “It is watched over by the Fiji fisherman. I can fish the reefs for myself, spearing them and using the line is okay. But no commercial, no nets. The free swimmers are the only fish they let me catch.

  “That seems like a hard way to go. Can’t you get permission to fish the reefs? There are so many of them.”

  Moses looked out to sea again, jaw muscle flexing in his brown cheeks. “The village can give permission,” he answered finally. “I ask for it once but no one ever say yes or no.”

  “How far off the reefs must you fish?”

  “Jes’ the reefs that can be walked on. The deep water reefs and all the blue water is okay.” Moses bit off another piece of coconut. “Don’t worry about me, Michael. Soon they take all the fish from the reefs and have no skill in the deep water. I have the skill in the blue water, eh. It is what I live for.”

  Moses chewed the coconut with the intensity of a hungry animal, rocking ever so slightly on the bench. The affront by the village was obviously painful and Compton put his hand on his shoulder.

  “I think it’s wrong, Moses. The waters should be free for everyone to use.”

  “No, they are Fiji waters,” responded Moses with a passion. “They belong to Fijians! In my heart I am all Fijian but who can see my heart and ask it to understand rules and laws.”

  Moses blinked and searched for the red-hulled boat that had vanished into the sea. He spoke in a gentle voice so soft Compton could scarcely hear it.

  “I’m not angry at my father for being white. He was a good man until drink took him away. He was wise and knew the world. When he was dying he say to me, ‘Give twice what you get. People are good. Don’t be afraid of strangers.’” Moses paused as if seeing his father on his deathbed, listening to his voice. ”Also, he say, ‘Stay strong in your territory and help your friends when they are in need.’”

  “That’s the sort of advice a father should give to a son,” said Compton.

  “My father was very wise,“ continued Moses. “I think maybe that is why he was always drunk.”

  “Did that make your life hard?”

  “When I was very young my life was good. I lived with eight brothers and sisters. We lived apart from the other Fijians. I learned to speak English before Fijian. We had napkins and silverware. It was a proper life. But when I was nine my father became a drunk and after a time it broke the family. I was sent away to live with an uncle who was a Methodist minister. He mistreated me and made me into his slave. I cooked and cleaned and he beat me with a strap. Once he tied me to a tree for a night because I was late getting back from a chore.” Moses shook his head. “I was scared and screamed all night so he couldn’t sleep. I remember those nights I wished to be sleeping on my mother’s belly with my sisters and brother. The beatings made me crazy. When I was thirteen I run away and came back to live with my mother. I went to school but was far behind. In two years I passed ‘em. When my father sold our land at the beach I went to the city and my sisters left home and my brother went into the army. My father died after that. There was no one to take the farm. I was living in Suva when Esther came for me.”

  Moses cut a chunk of meat from the coconut and split it in two, giving half to Compton.

  “These days I don’t worry much. Jes’ enough to fish everyday without worry.”

  “That sounds like someone who’s retired.”

  “Yes, that’s it. I want to retire.” A laugh burst from Moses’ chest and he rose from the table, sprinted down t
he beach and jumped into his boat without another word, leaving Compton dumfounded at the table.

  Near dusk, Compton was preparing dinner when a dark-hulled skiff trudged by the edge of the coral. The lone occupant waved and Compton returned the greeting. The boat proceeded another ten yards then abruptly swung back into the beach. Compton instantly regretted his gesture and stood frozen at the stove until the fellow had dragged his heavy boat up onto the sand. Only then did he make his way down to the beach. The man was very dark and his chiseled features were all but obscured by a fearsome and wild countenance that had Compton take a backward step when he came upon him. “Bula,” he said, smiling through gaps of msing teeth and shook Compton’s hand with awkward formality. “I am Peter.” His black hair was long and unkempt and his clothes were ragged and scarcely covered him. Over them he wore a yellow, weather-beaten slicker that was so tattered it could not have possibly kept him even remotely dry. He was barefoot and both his feet and hands were so gnarled and scarred as to look of mutant cast. Compton offered him tea, which he accepted with childlike gratitude. In broken English, Peter explained that he was a fisherman from Taveuni. In the course of their crude exchange Compton asked where he fished and he carefully drew a chart on the sand indicating the best reef to fish at night when the moon and tide were right. Compton asked where the big mackerel could be found and the fisherman indicated a reef, far out to sea, on the other side of the island. “Veddy dangerous, beg sea brak da bot.”

  “Have you been there?”

  “One time. We catch mackal sebenty, abe kilo. Also, beg jack and tune.”

  “Where’s this reef at?”

  “Foteen mile, da wey,” and he pointed across the jungle to the southeast.

  “On the other side of the island? How come it’s so dangerous?”

  The fisherman shook his head. “Beg sea, beg curren. Tek men, neber see gen. Sea God der.”

  “Sea God?” asked Compton, glancing toward the sky.