by Carlos Eyles
Compton appraised Moses with eyes of enviousness. “I covet your experiences,” he said. “They have given you a wisdom that has escaped me.”
“If I have wisdom it is because I always listen to the old ones. They have the wisdom. They have the experience. The young ones are full of ideas and the old ones are full of experience. They have so much wisdom they don’t even know it. They mumble it out and you must get it the first time. They say, ‘You don’t sharpen a knife, you make it thin.’ See, a thin blade stays sharp longer, you have to sharpen it low otherwise you blunt the knife after one cutting. I listened to the old ones and learned how to bait the hook and the proper trolling speed and the trick of getting the mackerel by using the extra lead. I stopped going to school because I had no ambition. I went and listened to the old ones and began to fish because it was what I loved to do. Then I went to Suva and forgot everything. I had to come back to remember it again, eh.”
“My ambition was my undoing,” conceded Compton.
Moses, not missing a beat, finished off his thought. “A man must follow the thing he loves or he is lost in this life. The living becomes a waste.”
The sun was setting behind breaking cloud cover. Moses found a miracle in the silver/gray clouds that muted the sky to a pale orange over Taveuni. “Will you look at that! See how the colors change from one moment to the next. Sunsets change faster than the eye can catch. We never see the changes right away but see how different it already is!”
As tropical sunsets go, thought Compton, it was not particularly impressive.
“You know, Keli, a man changes as sure as the sunset. Very soft sometimes, you can barely see it. But he is changing all the time. See how different you are already. It is an amazing thing, eh.”
16
As promised, Moses arrived before daybreak and picked up Compton to hunt the deep reef. While Compton loaded his gear in determined focus, Moses caught his arm and nodded to the sunrise as if he were committing a sacrilege by way of ignoring the event. They both quietly watched it break free of its aquatic bonds and slide like a golden yolk across the water towards them. When blinded by its first light Compton turned and finished his task, then boarded the boat.
A light breeze stirred the water and a swell rose out of the east as if rippled by the sun’s emergence. Compton was geared up and ready to jump when Moses dropped him on the north edge of the reef. The water had the same breathless clarity as before and Compton cocked the spear gun and made a dive to thirty feet where he suspended in the still water. From out of the blue edge slid a sliver torpedo. It glistened from afar in the low light and he waited as the mackerel moved directly towards him. Even at that distance there was something strange about the fish but nothing he could immediately discern. The fish was magnificent and the ever-moving sea life on the reef seemed stilled in its presence. Forty feet away it turned broadside so that it might better observe Compton. Above the pectoral fin, mid-way to the dorsal fin, hung a large chuck of alabaster flesh. And there, just above it, a hole two inches in diameter where the spear had struck. The mackerel suddenly veered off its line of flight and descended back into the blue infinity to be quickly absorbed by the depths. Compton felt certain it had recognized him. Suspended in the water, he watched the fish go, strangely detached from it as if seeing it really for the first time. He now guessed its weight to be well over a hundred pounds. A world’s record if ever there was one. There’s no hurry, Compton reassured himself with uncharacteristic patience. This reef is its territory. Spearing it will just be a matter of time.
He worked the north end of the reef for an hour without a sighting and was of a mind to return to the boat when a pair of glowing shards of light came coasting across the reef. Two mackerel, which he judged to be twenty-five pounds apiece, came towards him steady as time He waited until they appeared to be an arm’s length away and he no longer saw them at all, only the solitary spot that rested on the lateral line behind the gill plate. When the spear was aligned, the body pulled the trigger. It struck the fish near the gill plate but missed the lateral line by half an inch and the fish hurtled down toward the pearly bottom. He attempted to turn it by pulling on the gun as the fish towed him down and managed through enormous effort to raise the fish’s head ever so slightly. Once this was accomplished, the fish actually began swimming towards the ceiling, enabling Compton to gain the surface and a much-needed breath. Kicking hard with air blasting from his snorkel, using his buoyancy, he slowly pulled the wild fish up toward him. When it was nearly in his hand, crystallizing like blue/gray thunderbolts hurled by Zeus, three white tip sharks converged on the frantic fish with every intention of relieving Compton of his prize. Seeing the sharks, he hesitated for a moment and the fish, feeling the slack, bolted, and he lost all that he had gained on the twelve foot shooting line thus bringing the sharks closer to a state of frenzy than they all ready were. He hauled up on the line again, inch by inch, and the sharks followed, rushing in and out, working up a feed on the blood spoor. Ten feet from the surface they were crossing in front of him in lightning snaps with fearful surges of speed that completely unnerved him. Ready to give up on the fish and let the sharks have it, he was suddenly struck in the back. Thrashing at the water, he wheeled wildly striking the hull of Moses’ boat, which bobbed gently at his shoulder. He lifted his head out of the water and tore the snorkel loose from his mouth. “Sharks.”
“What kind?” asked Moses. “White tips?”
Compton had already put his head back in the water and nodded yes. Moses picked up the floating gun and began to haul in the line. Compton felt the tension and let him have it, quickly ducking under the boat and coming up on the opposite side, where he cleared the freeboard in a single lunge over the top.
Moses brought the fish up and into the boat as Compton leaned over the side for a glimpse of the sharks, seeing nothing but blue water and the indistinct distortion of the reef. When he looked up again Moses was holding the fish that appeared to weigh close to forty pounds, nearly twice as large as he had estimated. The power of the Silver Fish was suddenly understood.
“Don’t worry about the white tips,” said Moses, putting the fish in the bow. “The white tips are our friends. They don’t harm the Fiji divers.”
“They followed the fish right up,” replied Compton, a bit chagrined now. “They got awfully close. I was ready to give it to them.”
“No, no. When they see whose fish it is they go back. They don’t see you yet.”
“That’s exactly the way I wanted it.”
“They must see you, then they let you have it. It is very bad to give ’em a fish.”
“Yeah, Aprosa said the same thing.”
“The Fiji divers be very mad at that. If you give the shark a fish then it will want one every time, eh. You must show who is boss. Jes’ like a woman, or they take your fish, walk all over you.” He burst into laughter. “Jes’ like a woman.”
“Easy for you to say.” Compton spoke with a tinge of annoyance, “Sitting here nice and dry in the boat.”
Moses stopped laughing, though he maintained a curious smile. “I was a diver once. I see sharks, like every Fiji boy. They jes’ doin’ their job. All Fiji divers treat sharks the same. Next time you pull up a fish they give it to you, no problem.”
“Good fish, brother,” proclaimed Moses nodding to the fish lying in the bottom of the boat. “See the big ones?”
“Yeah, I saw the same fish I lost the other day. Alive and strong with my wound on it but it took off when it saw me. Based on the size of this fish, I would say it was denitely well over a hundred pounds.”
Moses nodded but said nothing. Then smiled, “I have another spot, a good one. I get the big hookups there.” He hauled up the brake drum and they sped off to the west.
“This is jes’ the same reef that go on for miles. I’ve never been to the end of it.”
Compton examined the fish that lay at his feet. He put his finger in the spear hole and felt around. “There it
is,” he muttered, feeling the backbone. “I just nicked it. Missed the spot. The shot went low by half an inch.“
“Next time you won’t be so lucky, eh. Another bus ride to Somosomo.”
“Incentive enough. I wonder if the gun shoots a tad low?”
“It shoots where you point it but you must be very close, eh.”
“Yeah,” said Compton, still feeling the backbone. “I probably wasn’t close enough.”
They traveled at top speed for twenty minutes before slowing to a drift. “This is it, right off the edge.”
As Compton prepared to enter the water Moses added, “These sharks take my fish off the hook. Big sharks here.”
Compton slid off the boat in an awkward, almost unwilling motion and his first sighting directly below, swimming atop the reef like a dog gone berserk, was the largest white tip shark he had seen since arriving in Fiji. It was doing figure eight patterns over and over in the same spot. Compton kept one hand on the gunwales until he was confident that the shark was orbiting a galaxy of its own creation, then tentatively moved off down the reef.
The reef was deep and dark and had an ominous feel to it as if the shark were Cerberus guarding the gates of hell. There were areas of fish activity and then stretches of reef barren of all life. Movement came from deep off the far edge and he dropped down to investigate. Swimming in the bouncing pattern common to tuna was a single dogtooth. Too deep to intercept, he pushed back to the surface for a breath. There was something foreboding in the water. If it had been air, he could have smelled it and he began to repeatedly look over his shoulder, expecting a shark to be cruising up behind him. Fear oozed from him like a lanced boil and he recognized this as something, once started, could not easily be stopped. He headed back for the boat, questioning the validity of his feelings, suspecting his fear had jump-started his imagination. In this state of confusion he arrived at the boat where the same shark still swam maniacally in the same spot as though it were looking for its mind. The symbolism resonated far too closely and Compton quickly jumped into the boat and shook off the water with an involuntary shiver.
“See anything?” asked Moses.
“A small tuna and about the biggest white tip in the world was waiting for me when I got into the water.”
Moses laughed, shaking his head in mild disbelief at the seemingly endless array of erroneous perceptions that Compton churned out. “It wasn’t waiting for you. Sharks are stupid. Their brains are in their stomachs. Jes’ like a man’s brain is in his cock.”
“That shark was awfully strange. You never know when a shark can turn on you. Get you from behind.”
“Fiji diver always know when that time come.”
“Hey,” said Compton, annoyed at the confidence with which Moses spoke. “Nobody knows.”
“Sharks are not dangerous to Fiji diver because he has no fear of them. That’s why he knows when is that time. It is the fear that clouds the mind.”
Compton ended the conversation curtly. “Let’s head back to the beach. I’ve had enough for one day.”
Moses dropped him off at the beach and headed for Taveuni to sell the fish and refuel at the Indian store. In the late afternoon he returned.
“It was a good day, Keli. I caught three jacks on the way to Taveuni and sold ‘em with the mackerel. Here, I brought you a present.” Compton opened up the carrying sack and drew out paper and pen. “For your writing,eh. Begin your book from the heart.”
Compton was visibly moved by the gesture.
“Moses, I don’t know what to say. I’d forgotten all about it.”
“Vinaka. You say vinaka. We turn you into a genuine Fiji man.”
“I can’t think of anything to write,” confessed Compton, placing the pen and paper on the table.
“Listen to your heart, it knows.”
“In the meantime, how about some tea?”
“That would be good, hot tea.”
Moses sat at the table and watched the sea while Compton made tea, marveling at Moses’ capacity to enjoy the company of another without the need for continual conversation. Compton, however, could not sustain the silence. “Why is it you don’t dive? It seems to be the birthright of all Fijians.”
Moses accepted the cup of tea. “I never dive with the spear but I worked for the resort and went diving everyday with the tank for eight months. The job never called to me. The owners liked me, they wanted to make a manager of me. Ha, I have already been that in Suva, not for me. ’No’ I say, ’I’m going back to the farm and my fishing.’ Fishing calls to me. The money is hard, not as much as the resort, but I have faith in the sea, it gives me enough.”
“It’s hard to believe that there’s a resort way out here on this island.”
“This is a big island that has many secrets. The resort is around the west corner, twenty minutes by boat.”
“Then why don’t you sell your fish to the resort? You’d get more money and you wouldn’t have to travel to Taveuni. Are you on good terms with the owner?”
“Yes, Nigel, he likes me very much. I could sell him the fish. I think he buy it from the Indian store.”
Moses bent to his tea, his almond eyes in distant thought. “Yes, that is what I shall do. The Indian fellow has been cheating me for a long time.”
“Really, how does he do that?”
“When I go to weigh the fish for payment he takes off half a kilo. I once ask him about this and he say it was for the weight of the plastic bag. The bag weighs nothing. He believes I’m stupid so he takes advantage. I never say anything after that. Now he will lose my business and the business of the resort. He loses what is so precious to him, his money.”
“You knew he was cheating and you said nothing? I couldn’t have done that. I would have called him on it. No one gets away with that in the States.”
“If I say something then he would have cheated me elsewhere because I make him look foolish. You cannot change people by pointing out their weakness, eh.”
“I couldn’t have kept my mouth shut.”
“You would have been less for it.”
“Not necessarily. I would have been alert to his cheating and watched him closely.”
“But if your interest in money was less than his, you would have tired of it and he would have waited. You would have made him more cunning. He is not so cunning with me because I let him believe I’m stupid.”
Compton nodded more in admiration of Moses understanding of human nature than in agreement.
“Let people be what they are,” continued Moses. “Let everything be what it is. If you try and change a man or the world, it is you who changes, not them. I don’t worry about those things. I give people what they need and I receive what I need. It’s amazing how that works.”
“Well, that’s a beautiful way to think and believe. But you could never do it outside this small island. In the States everyone is like the Indian and every business is an Indian store. Except they are far more sophisticated and we’re cheated in a million different ways.”
“That is not life. Living like the Indian, watching every penny, not trusting, not giving to those who need. They have forgotten what is precious, eh.”
“Yes, and I guess I should include myself among them,” confessed Compton.
“Living is short, which is what makes life precious. Have you forgotten what is life?”
Compton turned his eyes away from Moses and gazed out to sea. To the sea he said, “So it seems, Moses, so it seems.”
Compton’s history rolled before his eyes and fell across his face. Moses reached across the table and placed his hand on Compton’s shoulder. “Do not worry my friend, Keli. You have come to Orchid Beach to remember what is life, eh.”
Moses rose slowly from the table. “I have to go now. Mariah waits for me.”
Compton watched him go from the table, then sat looking at the dregs of tea at the bottom of his cup. He tried to piece them back into a single, whole leaf, as if in the doing he could reshape
his life and recapture the preciousness that had sifted away and was forever lost. He put his hand on the paper that Moses had brought and reached for the pen.
The ocean plays its rhythm on the sand and the low sun shatters the mountain peaks of Taveuni in the west. It catches the edges of the water, briefly illuminating the tiny waves that break on the high coral. The scattered pieces of my life, like waves of light, fall and break and turn into air-filled foam that insulates and blinds me to a life unlived.
17
As if in dream they came, drifting on a turquoise sea, filled to the green gunwales of their dilapidated boats. The Fijian crew of several weeks ago appeared before the edge of the coral, all smiling and waving, “Io, vinaka, vulage.”
“Io vinaka,” called out Compton who came down to the beach and, without giving a thought, waved them ashore. Jokatama maintained his presence at the tiller and gave a wide toothy grin, saying, “Hello, hello,” and directed one of the men to drop a sack of sand tied to a line that served as an anchor. Everyone waded ashore, men, women, and a single boy. Compton looked for Sinaca among the women who filtered up the beach. When he found her she was peering into the window of his sleeping bure. Other women were in the kitchen poring over the food supplies and cooking utensils. The big spear gun was discovered leaning against the hut and had gathered a crowd of men. Compton picked up the gun and invited one of the men to pull back one of the bands of rubber. He knew it would be difficult if not impossible because they knew nothing of the technique involved that would induce a near solid 9/16ths band of dense rubber with a hundred-and-twenty-five-pounds of thrust back to the notches on the spear shaft. The Fijian accepted the gun, hefted it for weight and stroked the varnished mahogany stock with respect. Putting the butt of the stock to his naked belly he reached up, grabbed the first band by the metal wishbone and pulled, bringing it back to the first notch with ease. He released it back to its original position and passed the gun to the man next to him who did the same. He in turn preformed the feat and passed it to the next man. When they had all taken a turn, they smiled and acknowledged the sharing with a slight head bow. Sinaca, who had been watching the demonstration, stood beside the tree and gave Compton a smile, which he returned self-consciously. She appeared more beautiful than he had remembered and were it not for Jokatama’s broad voice, he might have stared her into butter.