by Carlos Eyles
Moses shook his head in mild disbelief. “Everyone in the village knows you are here. Sinaca came to see you.”
“Is it all right for her to do that? Is it proper?”
“Oh yes, anyone is welcome after the men have spoken their business.” He paused for a moment. “Be very careful with that girl. Things must be done the Fiji way. Already Lavenia knows about you two. Soon the village knows, eh. You must be patient. Keep your brain in front of your prick.”
“That’s easy to say, hard to do.”
“Don’t make it hard, brother.” Moses began to giggle and Compton caught the giggles as well. They stood with their peckers in hand, laughing hysterically. “Shit, I pissed on my foot,” cursed Moses, and their laughter reached new crescendos. They returned to the circle with tears on their cheeks and, as Compton crossed over the center of the circle where Sinaca had casually stretched a leg, he brushed against it with his foot, igniting a voltage that ran up his thigh and lay crackling in his stomach.
Compton feigned indifference poorly and eventually succumbed to his desires and could not refrain from showering long, steady glances at Sinaca. However, it was less obvious if her feet became his study and in that discretion so went his eyes. Her feet were almost as large as his own, which was not unusual. All Fijians had enormous feet but hers remained a fascination in their singular prodigiousness. There was a power in their size alone but beyond that, the symmetry of muscle and bone structure gave him twinges. Then there was the wide perfect toes, brown as macadamia nuts with that beige underbelly that spoke to him in colors of sex and play of the kind he had never known. Never had he studied a foot such as this nor seen one that so attracted him. She was born with a pair of swim fins, he mused. It’s no wonder she could out swim me. One leg was well hidden, tucked as it was under the sula. However, a muscular calf, as dark and sinewy as mahogany, stretched out across the circle, smooth and protracted. He could almost smell the beads of sweat that glistened on that sweet skin. She kept her eyes hidden and to look into them might have been more than he could bear but her laughter with Lavenia displayed her perfect white teeth and the sight of her pink tongue stirred his loins to distraction. He noted the ease with which her laughter came and it fed his hunger. Lost in his delicious distractions he became startled when she abruptly stood and bid everyone “Vinaka,” giving Compton a parting glance before exiting into the night. He wanted to follow her, believing that perhaps that was the signal she was sending but his kava-addled brain swirled in indecision and he sat in a stupor unable to make a move towards the door. Lavenia called something out to the darkness, which generated hoots of laughter from the men. She looked at Compton and raised her eyebrows in the way of a shared secret.
After a short eternity of internal discussion and further wavering, Compton rose to his feet and staggered for the door. Moses guided him and followed him out.
“How are you doing, brother?” asked Moses.
“Should I have followed her? I was afraid of making an impropriety.”
“On this night you did the proper thing,” affirmed Moses.
“The kava is ruining me. I can’t go much longer. I don’t want to offend but I can barely stand up.”
“There is no offence when a person has had enough. It is not a sign of weakness. Do not worry about it.”
They returned to the circle and after another couple of rounds Compton lifted his hands in surrender. “No, thank you, I’ve had enough.”
Lavenia motioned him outside and led him to the kitchen where she served up cabbage cooked in coconut milk. He ate with a dead palate and upon returning to the main bure only Vito, Isikeli and Moses were left in the circle, slumped immobile, enveloped in their narcotic cocoons. He walked by them unnoticed and crawled under the netting. Lavenia also retired and slept with the children in the bed. When Compton awoke in the night the lantern was still going, Moses was sleeping next to him under the netting and Vito was curled up on the floor snoring fitfully, wrapped in a blanket to protect from the mosquitoes.
The next morning, drunk and prostrate beneath the netting, Compton listened to voices in the kitchen for an hour before groggily rising and stumbling outside wearing the same clothes he had slept in. The kitchen fire was going and Lavenia offered a cup of lemon grass tea. In English, Vito said, “Low tide,” and gestured toward Compton. Moses giggled as Compton drank the tea and blearily watched women gather at the stream that ran along the far side of the kitchen, collecting water in plastic containers. Collectively they peeked into the open kitchen to view “the Man who saw the Sea God,” and smiled shyly when their curiosity had been satisfied.
Breakfast was pawpaw and rice cooked in coconut milk. Moses would be leaving on the tide and would be back in a few days. After breakfast everyone accompanied him down to the mangroves. Little Jack reached for Compton’s hand and walked proudly by his side. Viage children gathered from all corners of the hill and waved Moses off in a princely fashion. When he rounded the mangroves and had disappeared from sight, Lavenia grasped Compton’s hand and led him up the steep hill with the children parading behind. They stopped in front of an old bure where an elderly woman sat beside the door burnishing palm fronds over a stone. She and Lavenia exchanged words and out from the open doorway walked a short, rotund man with a high forehead and a wide, gum-filled smile, who introduced himself as David.
“You are Keli, the Man who saw the Sea God,” said David in crisp English.
“I expect that’s how I’ve come to be known,” replied Compton, embarrassed by the rather odd moniker that now seemed to have taken a life of its own.
“It is an honor. Only one other from this village has seen the Sea God from under the water. It is a frightful thing to see from a boat, eh. You spear the big wailu, also.”
“You know about that?”
“The village is like a person, eh, one thing with many eyes and ears. Come, I take and show you.”
Compton turned to say goodbye to Lavenia but she was already well down the hill with the children in tow. David led Compton down a narrow path into the jungle. They walked single file for a hundred yards then turned into a trail that had just recently been cut away. Coming to a small clearing, David stopped and gestured to a stone that was the size and height of a man and appeared to be growing out of the ground.
“This is the Rain Stone,” he said. “There is no other stone like it on the island. In times of no rain it was beaten with a special rod by our great grandfathers who blackened themselves with ash and dressed in leaves. They would attack it and beat it like a man until the rain came.”
“Did this ritual stop because it didn’t bring rain?” asked Compton.
“No, no. If you beat it, rain will come. But the missionaries have brought God and he decides to bring the rain if we are bad or good.”
“Cut me a stick with your cane knife.”
David smiled with the uncertainty of the freshly baptized. “This island needs much rain. The rivers are low and maybe this stone could use a good beating, eh.” He reluctantly cut away a green branch and handed it to Compton who gave the stone a good whack.
Smiling now with the certainty of the saved, a new and forgotten gleam in his eye, “No, you must beat it very hard,” enthused David.
Compton spit on his hands and began to flail away on the stone like a mad man, giving it the sort of lashing the priests of the Inquisition would look upon with favor. His display was a good deal more than David was prepared for, and his ever-present smile became tight-lipped and his eyes grew wide as he became uneasy in his movements. Compton tired eventually and his breaths came short and, having broken a good sweat, it was with everlasting relief to David that he finally tossed the rod into the jungle. “Well, that ought to do it. We don’t want to start a flood or anything.”
A nervous smile returned to David, convinced that the sighting of the Sea God had affected Keli in ways that would bear further discussion by the village elders. Remaining the good host, he replied, “It has been a long time
since anyone has come to the stone for rain. I can’t recall it ever getting such a fine beating. Soon the village might call you the Rain Man who saw the Sea God.”
They followed the cut path back to the beaten trail and continued east.
“The missionaries took away more than your Rain Stone,” said Compton. “They changed your whole way of life.”
“Yes, we were very bad people until they came. We ate our brothers.”
“You mean the cannibalism?”
“Yes, very bad. We are shamed for what our great grandfathers did and we try to live good lives now.”
They turned up a path that broke away from the main trail. Here the jungle was thick and crept in a darkness that discouraged transgression.
“So which god do you believe in?” asked Compton. “The missionaries’ God or the Sea God?”
“There must be a God to save evil people but we must eat and live, eh,’ replied David. “The sea and land are not evil so they don’t need a special God to forgive their sins.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” said Compton, smiling.
David returned the smile. “You could not hear it, eh.”
They came to a clearing that brought light from the caliginous vegetation and within its confines there grew a small settlement of a half-dozen bures. From out of the largest strode none other than Jokatama. Immediately Compton glanced about but only children were in evidence. They were greeted warmly by Jokatama and were ushered into his bure and there introduced to his wife, a massive woman with as large a head as Compton had ever seen who, in direct contrast to her size, moved ever-so-lightly on her feet. She left the room and returned with tea, serving the men who sat on the wooden floor that was without mat or cushion. Jokatama was considerably friendlier than the last time Compton had seen him on the beach. “Welcome to my home, Keli. You are the Man who saw the Sea God. You dive with us, eh. You dive again many times.”
“You’ve been most generous to allow me to dive with your family,” responded Compton. “Do they all live here in this settlement of yours?”
Jokatama answered proudly, “Yes, everyone, cousins, brothers, aunts, uncles, children. We make it from the timber that comes from the resort. Cut it with the chain saw, make it strong for when the hurricane comes.”
“You should be well protected here in the jungle. The hurricane would have trouble finding you.”
“The hurricane goes where it pleases. If it wants my small bure it will find it.”
A light tapping of rain could be heard on the thatched roof and within moments the drizzle erupted into a gushing downpour.
“Keli beat the Rain Stone,” proclaimed David. “Give it a good beating. Now we must call him the Rain Man who saw the Sea God.”
“It is true, you beat the Rain Stone? Have you come to bring back the old ways? Be careful the preacher doesn’t hear about this.”
Both he and David rocked with laughter. “He will get some strong boys to throw you off the island,” added David.
The rain abruptly ceased.
“That was hardly enough rain to give me credit for renewing the old ways. Surely the preacher can overlook a small shower.”
“He is already troubled by your presence,” said Jokatama. “He is afraid you might be the One.”
“Which one is that?” asked Compton, seeking the punch line to the joke.
None was forthcoming and David stood and handed his teacup to Jokatama’s wife who had reentered the room by way of some mysterious signal. “We must return to the village,” said David, the unease having crept back into his face. Jokatama led them outside and bid an affable farewell. Compton scanned the compound for Sinaca and, though he couldn’t find her, sensed that she knew he was here and was watching him.
They followed another trail deep into the jungle where the trees grew into one another and obscured the light altogether save for that which filtered through a canopy so thick one could probably walk easily on its surface. David pointed to a particular tree whose root structure, much like the mangroves, was well above the ground and supported a tree whose trunk began ten feet above their heads. Atop the maze of roots the tree towered far above all others in the jungle. Nearly obscured, on the other side of the dense rooting, was a darkened, withered old bure, which David said was the home of the healer, Dilolomo.
“Could we go and meet her?” inquired Compton.
“She has no visitors who are not with sickness. When the hurricane crushed my bure and threw a piece of bamboo into my daughters eye, Dilolomo fixed her up.”
“You have no bure now?”
“No, I live with my in-laws but we are going to build a new one soon.”
“Does it cost much to build a bure?”
“If you use nails and cement you need the money. Sometimes I am the diving guide for the resort. They treat me favorably because I sing on the weekends.”
“You are a singer of songs?”
“The genuine Fiji songs. There is five of us. We are paid three dollars and fifty cents to sing and play our music. We love to sing. We would sing every night for nothing.”
The two men passed a stream where several young girls bathed naked in calf-deep water. Pendants of river water clung to their wooly hair and their round black buttocks glistened in the morning sun. It was not unnatural for them to be bathing in a public place but it was improper to stop and stare. David reminded Compton of this when the girls became self-conscious in their movements.
The trail led back to the village. They went directly to Lavenia’s kitchen where David spoke briefly with her and then politely excused himself. Compton had the feeling he was more under guard than a guest and under no circumstances would he be let out of anyone’s sight. Beneath the friendliness ran a vein of conspiracy and he wondered if it had anything to do with Sinaca or simple concern for his welfare or something else, something more foreboding.
While Lavenia cooked taro root Compton sat at the table and drank lemon grass tea. They tried to converse in Fijian but the magic of last night was gone and communication was hopeless. He could not distinguish the subtle clucks and intonations of the language and, taking another tack, pointed to his nose, saying in English the world, “nose.” Lavenia repeated the word precisely. Encouraged, he began identifying parts of the body and Kenesi and Paul eagerly joined the lesson. Soon he was walking about the kitchen naming various articles of cookware. The girls were quick and Kenesi, eyes alight with intelligence, was particularly bright. Compton had an impulse to spirit her away from this choking poverty. In the western world her intellectual potential could be realized and her beauty would open doors to a comfortable life. But would she become another man’s object or worse? And how would that life distort and probably destroy her Fijian values and pure spirit? In the end, he concluded, it would probably do more harm than good. For all that western civilization could offer, she was better off here.
In the course of a few hours the family had built a vocabulary of over seventy-five words. Though he attempted to speak Fijian, the words sounded very much the same and unless spoken slowly, which the Fijians never did, one could spend a week and not have the vocabulary the family had acquired in two hours.
Vito returned from the bush in the late afternoon and inspected the kava root that had been drying out all day in the sun. Breaking the root into small pieces, he placed them in a tree stump that had been hollowed out at the top, creating an opening eight inches in diameter and two feet deep. With a baseball bat sized wooden club, similar perhaps to the war clubs his ancestors used to bludgeon their enemies before roasting them into “long pig,” Vito began to pound the root into powder. In rhythmic blows he worked up a sweat, the dull sounds echoing across the village calling to Lukey who, with two young men, arrived and began to take turns on the club, pounding the root with a vigor seldom seen in Fijians. What had begun as a ceremonial ritual was now an every night occurrence. Or in all probability, was a regular practice. In any case, Compton thought it strange that
here was a group within a community, in the heart of paradise, without any evidence of stress or moral deficiency or lack of love or communal caring, which regularly indulged in the use of a drug. They were, as far as he could ascertain, addicted to it. Yet no communal judgment was decreed against those wo participated nor any stigma conferred upon them. Perhaps they understood it was in man’s nature to alter his state of consciousness and such proclivities were accepted as a part of life and not judged harshly by a compassionate and benevolent society.
Compton was offered the club and he pounded for ten minutes before turning it back to Vito. Bathed in sweat, he felt remarkably clear of the narcotic cobwebs that had shrouded his brain throughout the better part of the day and wondered how many more kava nights he had left in him and if he, too, would become an addict given enough time.
In the early evening, unable to tolerate the kava on an empty stomach, Compton had dinner with the children. The circle of David, Lukey, Vito and Tom were waiting for him and had already been passing the cup when he joined them.
Apparently Moses had mentioned the sexual practices of those in the States, for in the second hour Vito asked through David, “How much do the men have sex in America?”
Compton enjoyed any opportunity to be included and if sex was to be the topic, all the better.
“Well, it’s hard for me to speak for the entire population but I would guess that would average three times a week, quite a bit more for the younger ones.”
Lukey let out a low whistle.
“Is it the woman who make the push?” asked Vito.
“More often it’s the men,” replied Compton.
“Why,” asked Vito perplexed, “would the man want to weaken himself this way?”
“The men believe they are in need of sex more than the woman.”
Everyone in the circle laughed, including Lavenia.
“The woman are cunning,” said Lukey. “They trick the man, eh.”
“If they are,” replied Compton, “then they’ve been tricking us since we were small boys.”