by Carlos Eyles
“Who is your name?”
“Moses calls me Meikeli, Keli for short.”
“You are from America, Keli?”
“Yes.”
“You like Fiji?”
“I like it very much.”
“You be on this beach a long time?”
“It’s day to day. I want to dive the deep reefs for the mackerel.”
“You come with us today, Keli, dive and spear fish. We show you Fiji way.”
Compton looked for Sinaca before he answered but she had vanished. “Yes, that would be… Give me a moment to get my gear together.”
Jokatama barked out an order and everyone returned to the boat. Compton came aboard and a seat was made for him the center of the overcrowded boat. Jokatama was at the tiller and instructed the boy, Matthew, to sit next to Compton and translate. On the other side of him sat a large woman wearing a green dress with white flowers and a yellow bandana tied around her wide head. She was knotting a small hook to the end of a fishing line that ran off a large spool resting in her broad lap. The men were dressed in ragged, blood-smeared shorts and some wore threadbare tee-shirts. Each carried a rusty spear shaft with the familiar ease of an appendage. Nearly everyone on the boat, men and women alike, had a mass of scar tissue around their ankles and shins from coral cuts. Many of the wounds were open, puss filled and angry enough to cause a decided limp but Compton saw no evidence of the slightest discomfort. Sinaca was standing somewhere behind him and though he would have liked to turn around he resisted the temptation.
The boat rounded the point and at once began to let women off at the edge of jutting reefs. Each older women was accompanied by a younger woman and carried a woven pouch on her hip. Compton asked Matthew what the pouch was for and he said it was where they kept the shells and clams gathered by the younger women and the fish caught by the older women. He added that the girls also helped dislodge the fishhooks that get caught in the coral.
“What do you do with the shells?”
“Eat’ em and sell the shell. Very good, you have, yes?”
“Sure, maybe.”
As each member left the boat everyone expertly shifted to balance the unstable craft. Sinaca left with the woman who had been sitting next to Compton and the spear fishermen filtered out after the women. Within a hundred yards, Jokatama turned the boat around as the last diver fastened his goggles to his face and secured them with a rag tied behind his head. At the end of his spear was a single band of rubber to which an odd leather piece about an inch wide and two inches long was attached. This obviously propelled the spear but Compton was baffled as to how it was done.
Jokatama invited Compton to dive where he pleased and with whomever he chose. He pointed out that the blue-shirted diver was the best of the lot and would be the one to watch. Compton entered the water on the edge of a forty-foot drop off, the liquid as clear as fresh ice. It was in the back of his mind to find Sinaca but he didn’t want to appear obvious in that pursuit. He drifted down on the current and almost immediately the blue-shirted diver beckoned him inside the current to a finger reef. Without a snorkel, the blue-shirted diver repeatedly lifted his head from the water for breaths, yet despite the handicap and with no swim fins, he had little trouble in making dives to forty-feet. He inserted the dull end of the spear into the small leather strap that was attached to the rubber sling and into which he fitted the thumb of his left hand. Pulling the spear back, guided between the left thumb and forefinger like a pool cue, he released it with the right hand in the manner of a bow and arrow. The thin shaft was free and was used on small fish, lest a larger fish swim off with it once speared unless it was killed instantly by the perfect shot to the brain or backbone, which Moses declared was the skill level all Fijian hunters attained.
The blue-shirted diver frog kicked down to ten feet and pulled back the sling, held it still as a statue and glided down without equalizing his ears, to thirty-five feet, aimed, and let the spear fly, hitting a hand-sized fish mid-body. Retrieving the spear, he kicked to the surface with the fish still quivering at its end.
Compton was impressed.
The Fijian had considerable strength and superb stalking skills. By keeping his body perfectly still during the descent he created the illusion of not moving but simply getting larger as he closed on the fish. With spear drawn and ready and body poised, the shot was taken when just a few feet away. It was a fierce display of discipline that was made to appear effortless. Caught up in the heat of the hunt, Compton had forgotten Sinaca and, anxious to impress the blue-shirted diver, began to hunt himself, moving to the outside away from the small fish and their pursuers where he probed the caves and holes for larger fish. When no large fish could be found he pressed harder and moved ever deeper and quickly fatigued himself from the effort. He was finally able to spear a snapper in a deep cave that, while not large, was bigger than anything the Fijians were bringing up. He deposited it in a growing pile in the center of Jokatama’s boat and climbed aboard for a quick rest. Taking off his mask and attached snorkel, he exhaled a long breath, indicating his fatigue to Jokatama. The old man nodded in recognition and said something to the blue-shirted diver who had returned to the boat with another fish.
“Walter know the tube you wear,” he said to Compton. “Could he use it while you sit?”
“Yes, of course.” Compton undid the snorkel and gave it to a grateful Walter.
“He say it make the job easy,” said Jokatama affably. “Such a simple thing, eh.”
After a ten-minute rest Compton prepared to reenter the water. “I have Walter give back the tube,“ assured Jokatama.
“No, that’s okay, let him use it for awhile,” replied Compton shrugging it off. “I’ll dive without it.”
Compton slid into the water and cocked the gun. He lifted his head for a breath, held it and put his face back into the water to search the depths. In thirty seconds he lifted again, hyperventilated a few breaths and returned his face to the water. After a half a dozen such maneuvers and always out of breath, he made a dive that ended in mid-descent desperate for another breath. Slowing his pace considerably, he continually struggled for a full breath as his admiration for the Fijian divers grew. He idly wondered what it must be like to dive without fins, as the Fijians appeared effortless in their dives. Following his curiosity he deposited the fins in the boat and hooked up with a Fijian diver and tried to keep pace. He managed to do so for the first ten minutes then tired badly and, unable to maintain a dive, retired to the surface. There his untimely breathing kept him in perpetual discomfort both on the water and in the knowledge that the Fijians were the superior divers in all regards. Compton could sustain only so much self-inflicted humiliation and ended the experiment, returning to the boat to find it filling up with Fijians.
Said Jokatama, “Keli, we go make a fire and eat our lunch. Take a rest from the sea, eh.”
The boat drifted down the current while Jokatama collected the others, who climbed into the boat appearing not the least fatigued from their efforts. Sinaca sat high in the stern and Compton caught her eye and smiled. She returned it, then dropped her head. Jokatama, who stood next to her, caught the brief exchange and gave her a quick look of reproach.
The boat drew into a small cove without a coral shelf and was beached among ebony boulders that protruded up through blankets of starched-white sand. A large, black pot was brought out and filled with seawater and a fire was started. The women shucked clams at the water’s edge, working the knife inside and cutting deftly at the muscle, springing it open. The exquisitely patterned shells where thrown into the hot water and cooked and the meat pulled out and placed in the clam shell bowls. Matthew came and sat beside Compton and told him that the seashells would be kept and sold to the Indians who bought them for ten cents a pound. Compton was appalled at the profit margin, for he had seen similar shells selling at the airport for several dollars apiece. The reefs were being irreparably stripped of their beauty in exchange for a few pennies.
Gutted fish were placed on sticks and cooked over the open flame. Matthew brought Compton a fish stick and watched him pick away at the skin to get to the flesh. “Why youat part? All is good, eh.”
“Even the eyes?” asked Compton in jest.
“Eyes very good,“ replied Matthew, who grabbed his crotch in gesture.
Sinaca was busy and could not catch Compton’s repeated gaze. Near the end of the meal, after eating the boiled shell meat that went down in chewy balls, he managed to exchange a look with her that sucked his breath away. She was becoming more beautiful by the hour, equally unobtainable, and thus more desirable.
Jokatama approached Compton as the men finished their meal and the women were cleaning up. “We dive more, I take you back to the beach.”
Compton would have liked to have stayed and wondered what had caused Jokatama to alter plans that he believed included him. Something had happened but he couldn’t detect what it was. They filled the boat and dispatched the divers as they had in the morning. When Sinaca left, she avoided meeting Compton’s ill-disguised perusal, which continued as the boat drifted away.
When the last diver had left the boat, Jokatama motored back up the coast and Compton jumped out in knee-deep water. “Io vinaka,” he said. “Your divers are excellent. It was an honor for me to dive with them.”
This pleased Jokatama and he smiled broadly while turning the boat. “You come fish with us sometime again, Keli. Io vinaka.” He waved as the boat drifted down current and away from the beach. In the evening Moses arrived by way of boat in good spirits with a large bag slung over his shoulder. “Nigel at the resort bought the fish and paid two dollars a kilo. Sixty cents more than the Indian pays. The Sea God has been good to us, tonight we celebrate, eh. He produced from the bag three bowls, one larger than the other two, all made from the polished nut of the coconut, along with a three gallon plastic container filled with water.
“What have you got there?” asked Compton.
Moses grinned wickedly. “Tonight we honor the Sea God who feeds us. Tonight we drink kava. You have kava before?”
“Never had the pleasure,” said Compton grinning conspiratorially.
“Then you have a surprise tonight brother. Kava put you there good.”
“Isn’t it illegal, a narcotic?”
Moses shook his head, laughed and regained himself. “Yagon, the roots of the pepper tree. We pound ‘em up and mix with water. Drink ‘em up. Fijian custom to drink first and eat later.”
“Let’s do it!”
“Okay brother, have a seat.” Moses ceremoniously withdrew from the bag several handfuls of what appeared to be powered red clay. He carefully placed the kava in a threadbare dishtowel and closed it into a tight ball. Pouring water from the plastic container into the large wooden bowl, he dipped the cloth with the kava into the water and repeatedly squeezed the cloth, slowly turning the water a reddish brown color that became darker as he continued. Occasionally he would stop and, with a smaller bowl, dip into the liquid and pour from an exaggerated height, inspecting the color and usually adding more water. After twenty minutes of dipping, squeezing, and pouring, with nearly a gallon in the large bowl, he dipped the small cup again and handed it to Compton.
“You are the vulagi. The first drink is yours. Don’t sip, drink it all down in one swallow.”
Compton tilted the cup and gulped it down. It tasted unlike anything he had drunk before, slightly sweet, a bit like tea with a touch of earth. He lowered the cup and Moses softly clapped his hands twice saying what sounded like “mothay”. Compton handed him back the cup and Moses dipped and drank, downing it in a single gulp. He set the cup down and clapped again. “Good stuff, eh. This is the Fiji drink.”
Compton shrugged in non-commitment, his tongue and lips slightly tingling. “I had some visitors today. Jokatama came by in his boat and I went diving with the clan.”
“The Fiji divers are very good, eh.”
“They are incredible huntersomedon’t know how the hell they perform as well as they do without fins or a snorkel.”
“They are amazing, eh. They have nothing and they live in the water like a fish.”
“Maybe I’ll take one back with me to the States and teach him to dive with all the equipment,” teased Compton.
“Then what would become of him?”
“Fame and fortune. He’d be the best free dive spear fisherman in the world.”
“He already is,“ shrugged Moses. “Such a thing would make him forget that there are many divers in Fiji as good. It is better he stays humbled by the sea and doesn’t chase great deeds. The best diver in the village, Aprosa, is better because he has the tube and the fins. Everyone knows that.”
“Everyone except me.”
“You still finding out some things, eh. Did you spear fish and tease the sharks?”
“Yeah, but I was awful. It was difficult getting close to the fish. I had too much spear gun for the smaller fish.”
“There is big fish down there too, eh.”
“It’s not that easy. It takes time to understand the water. You have to know where the fish like to hole up, the position of the sun, the movement of the tide, current changes. There are many elements to consider and factor in.”
Moses laughed. “You already the expert, eh. I don’t think the Fiji diver knows about all these things. We better tell him. Fill his mind with the facts.” Moses shook with spasms of laughter but Compton was not amused and when Moses saw this he politely changed the subject. “Did you see the girl, Sinaca?”
“Yeah,” brightened Compton, “I did, but we could only look at each other once in awhile. We didn’t talk.”
“And what would you have talked about if you could?”
“I don’t know. It’s going to be difficult getting past her father. He keeps a close eye on her.”
“Be his friend, eh.”
“It’s her brothers I worry about and I don’t even know who they are.”
“Show no fear. Once I was drinking in a bar in Suva talking to this pretty girl, jes’ having fun, when this glass come flying across the room and hit me right in the chest. A very big man, one that people knew as tough fighter, was standing there wanting to punch me up. I wasn’t afraid. I walked over to the barman and slammed my hand down and said the bartender, ‘See that man over there?’ and I pointed right at him. ‘You see him, I want to buy that man two beers.’ Later he came over and apologized. He thought I was trying to steal his girlfriend. When he knew I wasn’t afraid, he liked me. I became his friend, not his enemy.”
Moses filled Compton’s cup again and then his own.
“I wouldn’t have done that,“ said Compton. “Hell, I probably wouldn’t have been talking to the girl in the first place. In the States if somebody throws something, a fight starts. Or worse, a shooting. It’s becoming incredibly brutal over there.”
“It’s a brutal world. Full of thugs. I lost this tooth to three fellows who wanted my money. I didn’t have any and they punched me up anyway. Lost the goddamn tooth. I got a false tooth and when I fell down last year from the kava it came out in the dark. I think Vito’s dog ate it.”
Compton began to giggle.
“I can’t pay for another tooth.”
The giggles became belly laughs and Moses joined in with gut-wrenching howls.
“You know, Keli, that is the first time you have genuinely laughed. It’s important in such a brutal world to laugh, eh. The Fijian knows how to laugh, how to have a good time. They can forget their poorness and laugh at themselves and their relatives and their weakness. You know the Fiji jokes, the kerekere? We can do anything to our relations, play jokes, take anything that belongs to them. Mostly our first cousins and their children and our brothers and sisters in-law. They do the same, take anything that belongs without asking, no complaints. I have to give my watchto Mariah when I go to my brothers house so nobody take it.”
Moses poured fresh water, dipped and squeezed the kava cl
oth, filled a bowl for Compton, who drank it down.
“Do they just keep it? Your best shirt and shoes? Your boat? Your wife?”
“No woman, no boats, but everything else.”
“That doesn’t make sense. I don’t think it’s funny at all. It’s cruel. Why bother working hard and having nice things if someone can come along and claim it anytime they choose?”
“Why bother, eh,” said Moses, smiling at Compton’s bewilderment.
“Are you bullshitting me or is this really a Fijian custom?”
Moses appeared perplexed. “Do you think what I say is false?”
“Well, it is hard to believe. What’s it called, kerekere?”
“That’s it. You ask for any favor and it must be given.”
“What sort of favor? There are all kinds of favors.”
“You know my cousin, James. He works for the airplanes on Taveuni. He checks the people in and out. My mother had to fly to Vana Levu for the doctor. She was very sick and the healer at the village say she needs something in the hospital. So I ask him to put her on the plane. It was filled all the way up with tourists. He say no, it’s impossible, so I kerekere him and even if it means he loses his job, he goes on the plane and take off a tourist and puts Mariah on. That is the way of kerekere.”