by Morris West
The rest of the camp was still asleep, when Thorkild hauled him to his feet, fed him fruit and coconut milk and bustled him down to the beach. They pushed out the small canvas canoe, and, with Thorkild paddling, made straight for the channel. All the time Thorkild uttered not a word, and the boy complied in passive silence, as if he were engaged in a silent struggle with a gaoler. It was only when they reached the channel, turbulent with the incoming tide, that his decision began to weaken.
Thorkild was still silent. He drove the canoe through the churn of the current and out, relentlessly into the big swells of the deep. The boy was pale now and uneasy, clutching the bamboo strakes, and staring over Thorkild’s shoulder at the island receding behind them. Finally, his control snapped and he said:
‘Where are you taking me, Uncle Gunsmoke?’
‘Out…How far are we off the reef?’
‘I – I don’t know.’
‘It’s your business to know.’ Thorkild was brusque and wintry. ‘Tell me when you’ve made a reasonable estimate.’
He paddled on, steadily, until the boy said:
‘I’d say we’re about half a mile off.’
‘More or less?’
‘More.’
‘Good. We’ll go out further.’
‘But Uncle Gunsmoke …’
‘I’m not your uncle. You’re not a child. I’m your chief and your teacher. Now, begin again!’
‘But, Chief, you said this canoe was unsafe.’
‘It is.’
‘And we weren’t to take it outside the reef.’
‘I did say that, yes. But I’m the chief. I give the orders. You obey.’
‘Why are you staring at me like that?’
‘Why are you afraid Mark?’
‘This thing leaks. We’re making water.’
‘What do you do when a boat is making water?’
‘Bale it.’
‘Well…?’
The boy began to bale furiously, splashing the water overside with his palms. Thorkild swung the canoe round and faced inshore, rising and falling with the swell. The boy stopped baling for a moment and looked at him.
‘What are we waiting for?’
‘What do the birds tell you?’
‘I haven’t seen any birds.’
‘To your left, far out.’
‘Oh…yes. They’re fishing.’
‘Which way is the shoal running?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘We’ll wait here until you can tell me.’
‘I can’t watch and bale at the same time.’
‘Then we stay here and sink, and the sharks which are following that shoal will eat us instead…Unless of course it’s running the other way, which is what I asked you.’
‘I can’t tell. The light on the water dazzles me.’
‘Then tell me where to move the boat.’
‘I don’t know. I can’t judge.’
‘This canoe is made of white canvas. From below it looks like the belly of a fish or a man. A hungry shark or a mean one would attack it. Because it’s only canvas and bamboo, it would sink instantly…Which way is the shoal running?’
‘This way, I think. Yes, this way!’
‘Which way do we go?’
‘Away from it.’
‘Frightened fish and hungry sharks swim faster than I can paddle. Which way?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You can see the shark now, look! There he is! Which way do we go?’
‘You’re the chief! It’s your job!’
‘You’re the navigator. You’re the big one who thinks it’s all shit! I’m waiting for you to tell me what to do.’
‘Just…get us in, back to the channel. Go straight across the track of the shoal!’
‘Thank you. Now, start baling again!’
Half-way back to the channel, he stopped again and handed the paddle to the boy.
‘You take us in from here.’
‘I’m not strong – enough. I can just manage it in the lagoon with Tioto.’
‘I’ve had a long night. I’m tired. I could be sick…And if you don’t get her head round, we’re going to sink.’
He folded his arms and sat stony-faced while the boy laboured desperately to pull the tiny craft out of a broach and drive it, bow heavy, towards the opening in the reef. Then he goaded him again.
‘We’re not going to make it, I’m afraid. We’re drifting down along the reef. Once we’re in those breakers, we’ve had it. What are you going to do?’
‘I can’t do any more! I can’t…! Please Uncle Gunsmoke, please!’
‘I’m not your uncle. I’m your chief.’
‘Please Chief.’
‘Don’t interrupt me. I’m praying. That’s all we have left now. Why don’t you pray, Mark?’
‘I can’t. I don’t believe it …’
‘I know. God’s a shit. I’m a shit too, aren’t I? So’s your mother and Peter Lorillard…all of us! We look ridiculous and are ridiculous, and you can spit insults at us just because we find a small happy moment in our lives. Fine! You’re on your own now. How does it feel?’
‘I’m sorry!’
‘It isn’t enough.’
‘I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!’
Thorkild took the paddle from his hand, and, with swift strong strokes, turned them out of the current and homeward towards the channel. When they beached the canoe, he hauled the cowering boy out of the water and planted him on the dry sand.
‘Look at me, Mark!’
‘Yes?’
‘Yes, what?’
‘Yes, Chief!’
‘What happened out there is between you and me. What happened here is between you and the whole tribe. What are you going to do about it?’
‘What do you want me to do Chief?’
‘No, Mark. What do you want to do?’
‘Run away and hide.’
‘That’s what Charlie Kamakau did.’
‘I’m not like Charlie.’
‘Aren’t you? You wanted to kill us all last night.’
‘I didn’t mean it, truly!’
‘So what will you do?’
‘I guess…I’ll have to apologize.’
‘Put things together again. Think of it that way. You’ll find it easier. One more word!’
‘Yes Chief?’
‘It was dangerous today. A man never knows enough to cock a snook at the sea, or at God, or the lowest of his creatures. Run along now and find your mother.’
They were all awake, dousing their headaches in the lagoon or grumbling through the small tasks of straightening the campsite after the night’s festivity. Thorkild drew Lorillard aside and walked him down to the sun-clock.
‘… As you see, we’ve started remote preparations for the voyage. It’ll be a long time yet before the boat is ready, and a while after that before we’ve trained people to handle her. Still, it’s visible progress, and that’s good for us all.’
‘Have you thought about who’s going?’
‘No. It’s much too far ahead; and we don’t want people unsettled. How are you faring up there on the mountain?’
‘Fine, so far.’
‘Martha?’
‘She keeps well. She gets tired sometimes; but she says the work is good for her. I think she misses the company down here.’
‘What about Simon Cohen?’
‘Fine. He works hard. He makes music for us at night. Sometimes he gets restless and edgy. But that’s natural enough, I guess, without a woman.’
‘He’s had two already. Neither wants anything more to do with him.’
‘So he told me. Your – ah – intervention didn’t help, of course.’
‘I’m – ah – intervening less now.’
‘I heard that too. That was a good party last night…in spite of young Mark’s outburst.’
‘I think you’ll find he’s apologized by now.’
‘He has. I heard him. I’m not sure it means ve
ry much. He resents me…And Martha worries because he simply doesn’t want to know about the baby.’
‘Give him time. He’s just starting to grow up!’
‘Martha asked him to come back with us. He refused.’
‘He’s better down here. I’m keeping him busy.’
‘Martha doesn’t see it that way.’
‘How does she see it?’
‘I guess she’s jealous – of you and Sally, and your hold on the boy…She’s jealous of me too, this morning.’
‘Oh, why?’
‘I was pretty drunk last night.’
‘Weren’t we all?’
‘Martha says I was making time with Yoko.’
‘Were you?’
‘I guess – a little. Martha and I haven’t…well, she’s pregnant, she gets tired and…You know how it is.’
‘Seems to me old buddy,’ Thorkild laughed, ‘it’s orchids and candy night for you.’
‘We’ve got orchids growing out of our ears up there.’ Lorillard was deep in depression. ‘And who makes candy in this neck of the woods?’
‘Like to make a trade?’ Thorkild asked innocently.
‘What sort of trade?’
‘You talk sense into Cohen. Tell him I want to kiss and be friends and it’s a good thing for everyone if we do …’
‘And?’
‘And I’ll find you a candy bar for Martha.’
‘Well, it’s worth a try.’
‘Wait here.’ He came back a few minutes later with the gift, a necklace of tiny shells threaded on sail-maker’s twine. ‘Take these! Hernan Castillo made them. I was going to give them to Martha before she left. They’d come better from you…And by the way, this is my last – ah – intervention!’
‘You’re a clever bastard.’ Lorillard looked at him with wry admiration. ‘So clever I could spit. But thanks anyway!’
As Lorillard walked away, Tioto came over to the sun-clock. He was smiling, but sidelong and wary. He spoke in the old language.
‘Kaloni…’
‘Yes Tioto?’
‘Between us, no lies, eh? You know me, I know you. This is a big matter.’
‘Tell me then and let me judge.’
‘Last night, before the luau, the boy said dirty things.’
‘He did.’
‘He sat all night, watching us, like a dog in a bad temper.’
‘Yes.’
‘I watched him too. Later I tried to make him go to bed and rest. He would not do it.’
‘You tried.’
‘But that is not the big matter. During the eating and the drinking there was much talk: big talk, small talk, love talk. I made some talk myself; but I listened too. I heard Hernan Castillo say about the boy… “The poor little devil, he’s lonely.” Then the other one, Harsanyi, said “He’s just going into the dark tunnel. He’ll come out of it in time.” Then Yoko, she laughed and said, “He won’t if he hangs around Tioto!”’
‘And that’s the big matter Tioto?’
‘That’s it Kaloni. I say it now, once only. You hear it and believe it. I see what you do with this boy. I see why you do it. You’re a chief and a navigator. You prepare him for the mana. So, to me, the boy is kapu. No way can I love him or touch him. It would be as if I lay with my own mother. You know that.’
‘I know it Tioto.’
‘Then you make others know it eh? It is hard enough to be alone. It is too much to be insulted, when there is no other house that will receive me.’
‘You will not be insulted. The words of last night you will forget. They were like spray tossed up on the cliff. But today’s words and tomorrow’s – for those they will answer to me.’
‘I am a lonely man Kaloni. Last night I went in to Barbara Kamakau. Not to do anything. Just to talk. She was gentle to me. Afterwards I went down to the beach and slept by Malo’s grave. It was he who told me to talk to you.’
‘You’re a good man Tioto.’
‘Ai-ee! The man plants banana for his family; the fruit rat eats it; the man kills the fruit rat and roasts it…Good, bad, who knows! The old ones understood better than we do; but they have been dead a long time.’
The upland party had decided to remain another twenty-four hours in the camp, to sleep off the effects of the party and fish in the cool of the evening. It was a drowsy, desultory day and Thorkild spent most of it by the cascade with Sally, bathing, dozing, chatting in disconnected fashion about the night’s events. Thorkild was inclined to be casual and dismissive about the whole affair. Sally took a more clinical view.
‘… That liquor was very potent. Our tolerance for alcohol was lowered; and of course there were lots of pent-up emotions waiting to be released. Apart from minor damage to our livers, it probably did us all good – like the old Saturnalia, when everyone was let off the leash and even the slaves were manumitted for the festival. We’ve got three newly married couples, which stabilizes the community. Good words were said – and a few bad ones which were better out anyway. All in all, a useful experience. It might pay us to repeat it at discreet intervals…How does it feel to be married Mr. Gunnar Thorkild?’
‘No different. I’ve always felt married to you.’
‘That’s nice to hear.’
‘Did you talk to Martha?’
‘At length, dear husband – at great length! She misses the life down here. She doesn’t like sex any more – at least not with Peter Lorillard. She blames you for her exile; I’m afraid I was rather terse about that. And what she didn’t say, but I could hear plain as a police-whistle, was that she feels she’s made a bad bargain with a dull man!’
‘I’m afraid she always makes ’em! She wants what we don’t have – a perfect world.’
‘Mine’s as near perfect as I want.’
He was just bending to kiss her when Simon Cohen, glum-faced and faintly truculent, marched into the clearing. He made a mumbled apology to Sally and then, the flat announcement:
‘I hear you wanted to talk to me, Thorkild.’
Sally scrambled to her feet.
‘I’ll leave you.’
‘There’s no need,’ said Simon Cohen. ‘It might help if you stayed.’ ‘Very well.’
She sat down again. Cohen settled himself on the bank beside them. Thorkild said quietly:
‘Simon, we were good friends once.’
‘I know.’ Cohen was bitter. ‘That’s why we’re here!’
‘Can we start again?’
‘You mess me up with a woman. You damn near break my jaw. You rig the social situation so that there’s no place left for me…You tell me where we start, Professor!’
‘Please!’ Sally Anderton laid a restraining hand on his arm. ‘Before we go any further, can I say something?’
‘Go ahead.’
‘In the situation we have now, where we’re stuck away at the far end of nowhere, what are you prepared to settle for? I’m not talking about you and Gunnar here. That’s men’s pidgin and I’ve no part in it. I’m talking about sex, companionship, love – or even celibacy if that’s what you want.’
‘That’s what I’ve got,’ said Cohen grimly. ‘And I don’t like it, one little bit.’
‘But you fouled up your own situation with Barbara.’
‘I didn’t. Your husband did. If he’d just kept his beak out of it, we’d have made sense in the end. But no! He wanted everything neat, tidy and tied with pink ribbon. All right! So I was dumb too! I insulted the girl. I said all the wrong things. No, not all; because I was trying to say honestly and clearly that if we ever got off this onion-patch, I’d be back to square one, a good little Jewish boy who wanted to marry a good little Jewish girl, in synagogue, with all the trimmings. You may laugh; but that’s what I do want!’
‘We’re not laughing, Simon.’ Sally was very subdued. ‘We’re bleeding. For you and ourselves. And for Yoko, who’s carrying your child.’
‘So I fouled that up too! I know it! But Yoko’s finished with me. She told me so herself, l
ast night.’
‘Which leaves Barbara, doesn’t it? She’s alone too, remember, and hurt, inside and out. I’m not saying you should get together. It may be the last thing either of you wants – or the cruellest thing you could do to each other. But at least you should restore the decencies between you. She can’t make the first moves. She doesn’t even know the words. If it’ll help, I’ll talk to her first.’
‘No thanks! A match-maker I need like another smack on the jaw!’
‘If it helps,’ said Gunnar Thorkild, ‘you can take a smack at mine.’
‘I’d probably break my hand; and I need that to make music. See you later!’
‘That,’ said Sally Anderton judicially, ‘is one very screwed-up young man.’
‘I knew his mother,’ mused Thorkild. ‘A most formidable lady who once invited me to bed. His father was a concert violinist who made off with his manager’s daughter. Not the best luggage for this kind of travel.’
‘Time to dump it then.’ Sally was sick of the whole argument. ‘Because no one else is going to carry it. Come on my sweet, let’s go join the world!’
By night-fall they were all agreed on one proposition: they were dead and ready to be buried. They moved off like homing animals to their earths. Before the moon rose, the camp was silent. Only Thorkild was wakeful on a stool at the entrance to the hut fixing an intricate contraption of string and bamboo tubes. Sally asked sleepily:
‘Gunnar, what are you doing?’
He tapped the bamboo and it gave out a thin sweet carillon. ‘Japanese wind-bells. I made them for your wedding present. There’s a poem about them.
‘So long as the wind blows
There will be a love-song
In my house.’