A Dolphins Dream

by Carlos Eyles

  “No, no, I bring the vegetables but no more fish. You don’t spear the fish, you don’t eat fish.“

  “Sometimes I feel like I’ve wandered into this, I don’t know, conspiracy.”

  “What is conspiracy?”

  “It’s a plan to… you know, trick me. What are you and Abraham up to anyway and how does Aprosa fit into all this?”

  Moses grew serious and in the way of his thoughts began to lick his lips. “We are not trying to trick you. You can go back to Taveuni when you wish, eh. Where is the trick in that?”

  Compton held his hands up in feigned protest. “I know, I know, but it’s too late now. I have to play this out, whatever it is. I’m learning some remarkable things and having too much fun to give it up.”

  “You are learning about the sea, eh.”

  “No, about myself.”

  “Maybe that is the same thing, eh.”

  Compton was continually amazed at the depth of Moses’ observations. While he was becoming quite fond of him, there also grew a fear in the way of someone who possessed a knowledge one could never acquire. Not wishing to address those fears, he changed the suect. “I had a visitor a couple of weeks ago. I forgot to tell you when we stopped talking. He was an old fisherman. His name was Peter. Do you know who he is?”

  “What is the color of his boat?”

  “Dark green, old and beat up looking.”

  “That’s no help. All the boats are old and beat up. Did he come from Taveuni?”

  “Yeah, he was telling me about a reef fourteen miles southeast of the island that had big fish. He said it was dangerous and said something about a Sea God. What’s that all about?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know about that reef. Big seas brother, my boat is too small. The Qamea reef has the big mackerel. There is no need to go to a dangerous reef when you have all the fish you need right here, eh.”

  “What about the Sea God, what’s that all about?” pressed Compton.

  Moses dismissed the question with a wave of his hand.

  “It is jes’ the idea of a fisherman.”

  “He was talking about fishing when the wind and tide were right. A real old timer.”

  “The wind and tide is everything. So is the moon. It amazes me how that is so. How do the fish know when to bite and when not to bite? There are many secrets to fishing. When I was a boy, instead of going to school I listened to the old men talk about the fish. The sea and the fishermen was my school. I desired the sea with my heart but other things came first and they had to be done before I could fish.”

  “What other things?”

  “The foolish things we do before we stop and listen to our hearts.”

  “That’s what Peter the fisherman said, that fishing was in his heart.”

  “For every fisherman that is true, eh. What does your heart say to you?”

  Compton looked down to his hands as if he was unaware they were closed. “I don’t know. Once I thought…” His voice trailed off.

  Moses’ voice softened and his eyes rested evenly on Compton. “When did you last listen to your heart?”

  The question caught Compton off guard, and he was at a loss for a response. In truth, such a question had never been asked of him. “I don’t know what to say. I’m not even sure what you mean.”

  “You have a heart. It speaks to you, eh. When you hear it, do you follow the voice?”

  Compton watched himself clench and unclench his hands as though they were somehow disconnected and separate from him. “I’m still not sure what you mean.”

  “You have not had the love of something?”

  “Well, sure I have but not for a long time. I had a wife, actually several wives. And my boy. I love my boy.”

  “Everyone loves their children, eh. But there is not something you have passion for?”

  “You mean a woman?”

  “That is not your heart speaking, that is your cock, brother.”

  “Well then, a good looking woman,” responded Compton, making a feeble attempt to move the conversation elsewhere.

  Moses wordlessly sipped his tea and attempted to hold Compton’s eyes with his own. In avoiding such contact, Compton bent to his tea but when finally he looked again, Moses was still there patiently awaiting a response.

  The obligation to answer had now become imperative and he was unsure how that had occurred. Reluctantly he replied, “I guess it has been awhile since my heart has spoken. When I was a kid I loved my dog but my grandfather didn’t like it and gave it away… Just gave it away.”

  “And what does your heart say these days, now that you are a man?” asked Moses in an even, unthreatening voice.

  “Well, I guess I really loved my second wife. Maybe she was the only woman I really loved, really opened up to and trusted.”

  “What happened to her?’

  Compton fingered his cup. “I loaned her a lot of money. She really needed it and I trusted her to pay it back. But she had no intention of paying it back. The whole thing ended badly. That was ten years ago. I guess my heart hasn’t spoken in a lon time.”

  “The heart is always speaking but its voice gets lost, eh. What do you desire for your life?”

  “I’m on my way to Australia to teach software programs to architects. I’d like to start my own business. Right now it’s all freelance.” The simple act of declaring the truth without embellishment brought a comfort and a satisfaction that he was making some internal progress.

  “What about the boy, your son. You grieve for him?”

  The truth felt good, very good, and Compton looked at his hands and found they were open.

  “I came apart when my last wife took my boy back to Chicago and remarried. She dumped me because I wasn’t going anywhere. What she meant was I wasn’t making enough money. I lost everything in the last spec house. I went by the book, did everything right but the market fell out.” He paused for a long moment. “My boy calls her new husband, ‘Dad’.“ He paused again. “I don’t know what I want. Just to start a new life, I guess.”

  “That is not the heart. That is your mind seeking peace.”

  Compton pulled himself away from his hands and looked out to sea. “There was a time in high school when I would sit down and write poems. I fantasized that one day I might be a writer.”

  “Fantasized? What is that?”

  “A fantasy is like a wish.”

  “Ahh, a wish,” beamed Moses. “Wishes come from the heart. That’s good. A writer?”

  “That was a long time ago,” said Compton dismissively.

  “Writing books?”

  “Yeah, some poetry. I don’t know.”

  “Then you should write a book, eh. A man can only do what his heart speaks. Anything else is foolishness and a waste of himself. I bring you paper and pencil from the Indian store.”

  “No, Moses, that’s all right. I’ve nothing to write about, nothing to say.”

  “That is your mind talking, not your heart. Write about now. Write about me. The voice of the heart is soft, you must listen with care. Stop listening to your mind. It only make you sick.”

  Compton shrugged. “Okay, bring the paper, we’ll see what the heart has to say.”

  Moses grinned. “Right, right, see what the heart has to say.” He then stood up from the table. “Thank you for the tea. I must go. Do some fishing before the rain comes.”

  Compton gestured to a cloudless sky. “What makes you think it’ll rain, Moses? There’s not a cloud in the sky.”

  Moses rubbed his nose with his finger. “It’s not what I think. It’s what I know, eh. But don’t ask me how I know.”

  Late afternoon rain clouds gathered over Taveuni and swept over Qamea dumping their loads in iron sheets. The storm pounded and shrieked and dominated the senses with ineffable power. Though Compton was not hungry he prepared dinner, for it was the only diversion available. He boiled the cassava root that Moses had brought. It turned out badly and he had to throw it away but he steamed the belle
and pan fried the fish with a little lime. It was a delicacy worthy of the finest meal he could ever remember eating.

  Night fell like a load of coal in a dark basement and the unrelenting rain extinguished the mosquitoes and drowned out the jungle of its insect noises. He sat at the kitchen table well into evening enjoying the deluge while drinking tea and wording a poem that was forgotten in sleep.

  10

  The sea, weighted by thick air that steamed from the jungle, struggled to produce a ripple from its porcelain surface. The green foliage glistened like freshly varnished spars and there came the sweet smell of rot.

  Compton had finished eating the pawpaw down at the shoreline when, not twenty yards from where he stood, bait leaped from the shallows like silver coins issued from another sky. Directly behind them a great fish broke the platinum lining of the surface and arched a silver body that was as long as a mans leg. It appeared to be a barracuda. Though the sighting lasted for less than a moment it held him spellbound in anticipation of… what? Another display? A profound miracle? He didn’t know. He waited in the way he waited for the dolphin to reappear, scarcely breathing. Perhaps he was looking too hard, he thought. The fish never come when you’re looking too hard, so said Aprosa. He turned his attention to the sand and lightly touched its grainy sharpness, as if stroking skin. When he looked back again Moses had just rounded the East Point, standing in the boat as he liked to do, steering the outboard with his foot.

  He brought breadfruit, pawpaw and a Time magazine. “This I get from my sister who works for a hotel in Suva. The travelers from overseas bring them and she sends them to me to practice my English reading.” He handed the magazine to Compton and asked, “Do you understand the work they call business? Why do the Americans make a magazine about work?”

  “It used to make sense to me, when I was young and eager, interested in making a lot of money.”

  “Why was that? How much do you need?

  “I don’t know the answer to that. You try to make a lot of money so you don’t worry about not having enough.”

  Moses shook his head in disbelief. “Either way it is a worry, eh.”

  “Well, yeah, I never looked at it that way. Maybe Americans just like to worry a lot.”

  “Maybe this is it. I see the people in the Half Done Village worry about such things. They do it all the time, as if it were a joy.” Moses paused. “Did the worry of business bring you money?”

  “No, of course not. We Americans like to make money through investments. Which is, when you really get down to it, nothing more than guesswork based on some limited information. Sometimes we guess right, most of the time we guess wrong.”

  “I have some information,” interrupted Moses. “There has been another coup by Colonel Sambuka. Two days ago.”

  “A military coup?”

  ”Yes, like the one in May. There is curfew in Suva, everyone must be off the streets by dark.”

  “That’s martial law. Must be pretty serious. What do the radio reports say?”

  “An Indian store has been burned. There is fear the Indians might start shooting.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “Because Sambuka has taken their power.”

  “I don’t get it. What’s this whole thing really all about, Moses?”

  “We are afraid the Indians will sell away our land. It is in the constitution that every Fijian has his own property. But the Indians could change that. They could steal our land and sell it to the Europeans to make money. The Fiji people don’t care about money, they are not like the Indians. It would be easy to steal our property. Like my father’s property was stolen.”

  “I thought you said he sold it.”

  “Yes, but he sold it so cheaply that it was the same as stealing.”

  “That wasn’t the Indian’s fault.”

  Moses ignored Compton and continued, “We don’t want to become like the Maori and the Hawaiians and other islanders who had their land and traditions taken. We want to keep our land and our customs. We have to protect them now because in five years it might be too late.”

  “That could be difficult to do.”

  “We must become a republic and have Fiji rule.”

  “But under what system of government will it rule?”

  Moses eyes flashed about the kitchen and came to rest on Compton, who for the first time since he had met Moses, felt he had the advantage and was thoroughly enjoying himself. “I don’t know. All I know is that Sambuka is right to do this.”

  “Has the radio been taken over by the government?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, in that case you’re just getting Sambuka’s side of it, aren’t you?”

  “This is true. The radio say that the Indians are fearful and many are leaving the countryTh

  “You can’t blame them for that.” Compton had not seen this side of Moses, so embroiled in the dramas of mankind’s capricious machinations. It was the only time he had seen him disconnected from the natural world and removed from his imperious sense of things. It made him appear weak and became disheartening to witness. Compton suddenly found no joy in feeding the fire that burned so feverishly in Moses’ eyes and thus relented. “I can’t blame the Fijians for wanting to protect their interests. What you say about losing your land and customs to another culture is an old story. The American Indian in my own country lost everything to the white man, their land, their customs, worst of all their dignity. Eventually the values that had kept their culture strong for thousands of years were undermined by the greater influence. The American Indians didn’t care about money. They revered the land and they lost the very thing they cherished most. I don’t know what the answer is.”

  Moses was staring out to sea as Compton spoke and it occurred to him that there might be something else on his mind, something he hadn’t mentioned. “What else is there, Moses? Anything I should know?”

  “There is no planes.”

  “What do you mean, no planes?”

  “They’re not flying planes to the islands. You can’t leave here.”

  Compton chuckled as if a joke had been played and he hit the table with his fist. “Well, shit. If I’m going to be stuck somewhere, it might as well be in paradise, right?”

  Moses grinned, his missing front tooth radiating in its darkness. “I thought you might be angry.”

  “Why should I be angry? I’m learning to spear fish, life is good right now. I have no desire to leave.”

  “Stuck in paradise, this is it, eh. You stay here on Orchid Beach for as long as you wish, my friend.”

  A boatload of brown skinned Fijians were making their way west. Compton stood for a better look.

  Moses teased, “It is not Jokatama’s boat. No Sinaca for you, brother.”

  “I don’t know how they can dive without fins”, said Compton absently. “The current’s so strong sometimes, it’s unbelievable, and those plastic goggles must hurt like hell at depth.”

  “Do not be fooled by the Fiji divers. They know how to use the current and make it push them down. They never fight the ocean, eh, always at ease. They can dive that way all day long.”

  “I don’t understand how they can hold position for any length of time in the current.”

  “The current is like the wind, eh. It moves around. In a storm you can find a place to stand where there is no wind. They know where those places are in the sea, where the current can’t touch them.”

  “Even if that’s possible, and I find it hard to believe, you can’t stay in one place all day. The current has tremendous force.”

  “Oh, yes, the current is very powerful. Sometimes you can’t row a boat against it. There have been boats sucked right out to sea and never come back. My mother and sister were taken away in the afternoon. They drifted all night and finished up on Rabi Island twenty miles to the north. Picked up by a fisherman the next morning. They ate the fish they caught and drank coconut milk.”

  The boat passed the beach and
all on board waved.

  Moses waved and shouted, “Bula, Io, vinaka.”

  The greeting was returned.

  “What are you saying to those people?” asked Compton. “What does eeoo vinaca mean?”

  “Io means yes. Io vinaka means, yes please, but we use it as a greeting. When you shout from far away, it is understood."

  “Would you teach me some simple words? Just so I could greet people and have an exchange.”

  “Vinaka also means good and thank you. Sega vinaka means no thank you. Bula means life, but it is the same as hello. You are the vulage, the visitor. Kai vulage is a European visitor. So when you see a boat you shout, Bula, Io vinaka. Ahey shout it back. Soon all the villages will know you. Meikeli, they will say. That is your Fiji name for Michael. Keli, for your friends. When we visit the village they will say Keli.”

  “When are we going to visit the village?”

  “Ha! You want Sinaca! You must get a villager to speak for you. Then Chief Isikeli gives permission. It takes time. It is not a fast thing. They are cautious.”

  “Why?”

  “They remember the missionaries who caused big trouble when they brought religion. They stopped the old Fijians from eating each other and then make us fearful of God and scare hell out of us. They say the devil is in us and make us ashamed.”

  “Is that why Christianity is so strong here? Guilt for the cannibal sins of their ancestors?”

  “Maybe this is it. From one end to the other, we don’t get it right.” Moses shook his head and laughed at the spiritual plight of his people, then in the length of a blink he became serious. “Do you believe in God, Keli?”

  “I don’t know, Moses. I think the concept of God might be a simple answer to some very complicated questions. Maybe there are no answers, or the answer is different for each one of us. Plato, a great thinker, said that man invented God as the perfect ideal of himself. Something to shoot for in our quest for moral perfection.”

  Moses shook his head at the idea. “Who would want to be perfect?”

  “I don’t know. From what I’ve seen, Moses, you are about as perfect as any man I’ve met. You shall be my God.” Compton stood up and genuflected to him, bearing upon his face a wide grin.