The Turtle-Girl from East Pukapuka

by Cole Alpaugh

  “A ship comes every full moon with rice and flour.” Butter carefully inserted the buttons through their narrow holes. She could weave a fancy waist sash or even an intricate basket, but buttons were odd, clumsy things. They’d make wonderful jewelry—maybe hung from fine reeds—but when used to cinch cloth, they left gaps, making them a silly choice for this purpose.

  “What island does the ship come from?”

  “The big island.” Butter’s fingers lingered over the smooth round buttons and soft fabric of her dress. She was struck by how the dress kept the breeze away from her skin. It wasn’t like being buried in sand, or swimming under water. And it wasn’t like being held, either.

  “Christ, girl, the only real place called Big Island is three thousand miles north of here and has hula dancers and high rise hotels. That don’t sound familiar, does it?”

  “I don’t know what a high rise is.” Butter felt exposed and vulnerable wrapped in so much material. Like when some of the boys used berry juice to draw a big bull’s-eye on Adolph Hitler’s back after he’d fallen asleep from too much wapa juice. For the next week, Adolph would suffer surprise attacks of hurled rice balls and chunks of coconut meat from behind, until one of the mothers tipped him off and ended the game. Having a dress covering her body made Butter feel like she was wearing a target.

  “It doesn’t matter. Does your island have any tall mountains, maybe a volcano sending up smoke signals?”

  “No, but there’s a flock of diving birds that feed every suppertime out where the sun goes down,” she said hopefully.

  “Any of them able to work a radio?”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind.” The captain flopped into an aluminum beach chair that sagged under his weight, one French fry away from collapsing. At his feet was the morning’s haul, spread out as though on display in a soggy yard sale. There was an acoustic guitar with no strings, a deflated soccer ball, a pretty nice set of Rock’em Sock’em Robots, and a globe of the world that showed how much blue was really out there.

  “Here.” The captain tossed Butter a Purple Pizzazz Crayola Crayon from a waterlogged box of sixty-four, pointing to the least grease-stained spot on the crowded deck. “Draw a picture of what you know, the shape of the shoreline, any big rocks, whatever you can think of. If there’s any of them tiny outer islands, even if they’re just boulders in the water, draw them too.”

  Butter kneeled, her new, mostly yellow and white dress spread out around her, the crayon poised in her right hand. The afternoon sun cast long shadows of the captain and the little girl off to one side.

  Dobby fell asleep while Butter wore the first purple crayon down to a nub. She eyed the big box of sixty four and the snoring captain, then crawled around her first outline and quietly slid the yellow and green container from underneath the straining chair. She carefully emptied the crayons into a pile at her knees, picked up the shocking pink, sniffed and nibbled the flat end. She did this more from curiosity rather than any expectation that it might taste as good as it looked. Most of the beautifully colored flowers on her island were also bitter and inedible.

  Butter chose more colors and went to work depicting the the sunset diving birds of her island home. She drew the birds in plain old black, silhouetted, wings tight to their long bodies. Some had just begun their descent, while others had broken the surface, sending up compact splashes of water that would have impressed the most finicky cliff-diving judge.

  Butter chose silver to draw the shark that had bitten her father in half. She struggled with the white crayon to get the teeth big and sharp, but the raw umber she selected for her father’s two halves worked great. The swirls of hot magenta blood left no doubt as to what was going on in her picture.

  Above the simple island, frenetic shark attack, and the beautiful sunset, Butter traced the face of her mother. She drew her long, curly black hair as it swept down over her shoulders, and the chestnut eyes that were narrower than Butter’s. They had been narrowed by the constant smile she wore to combat the sadness of losing her husband too soon. The Keeper of the Books believed in the power of a person’s expression, and the impact it had on other living things.

  “You scrunch up your face while tending to your hurt animals,” her mother told her. “Give them softer eyes to look into. Give them a smile to know the hurting will stop soon. I promise it will work for the both of you.”

  And it had worked. When the little girl needed to pick shards of broken shell from the forehead of a diving bird, she did her best to smile reassuringly. The injured bird seemed to calm, its speeding heart and shallow, rapid breathing slowing down. The operation was a success and she devoted an entire chapter to the healing power of smiles in her Diary book.

  Butter looked up at the strange god who was emitting thunderous snores and tried to smile at him. Were all gods just as imperfect? She had blamed this god for everything but knew deep down that a much more powerful god had killed her family and most of her animals. This god was weak and clumsy, and stank of wapa and rotten fish. Back home, she had listened raptly to the stories of what this god had endured. Having to build a big cross and then allowing himself to be nailed to it, the way the village fishermen spiked eel heads into a tree to peel back their skins.

  Jesus had no bad scars on his hands or feet, but gods must heal differently. Plus, it had happened in early times, long, long ago. People honored the terrible suffering of Jesus by wearing little crosses around their necks. Butter thought the crosses must be a reminder of what Jesus had suffered. Or maybe it was some sort of warning. A symbol of what would happen to anyone doing something bad, like the heads the cannibals mounted on tall stakes to discourage trespassers.

  For her last drawing Butter chose a crayon labeled Atomic Tangerine. The picture featured the sea turtle who had so bravely saved her, had used every bit of his might to keep swimming toward the surface of the violent, churning wave as Butter clung for dear life. She drew the picture as if looking down from Happa Now; it was from her mother’s perspective. The great turtle was frozen in thick swipes of crayon, making valiant strokes away from all the sadness and death, while Butter hung on.

  In the remaining daylight, as Dobby continued to snore, Butter abandoned her mural and crawled toward the pile of salvaged clothes. She ripped a decorative length of silk cord from the front of the bustier, then she located every item of clothing with buttons and bit them off, one by one, spitting them into a tin cup until it was nearly full of various sizes and shapes. Some were wood, but most were shiny plastic. She carefully threaded the silk cord through the buttons, making an effort to smile instead of scrunching her face.

  Butter tore a long piece of material from the hem of a dress, measured it out, and then knotted it into a loop after attaching the cord and button crucifix she’d created.

  As the sun began to dip into the sea to the west, Butter tiptoed back to where Dobby lay slumped in the metal beach chair, his snores replaced by incoherent murmurs. Butter gently took hold of a handful of hair and pulled his head forward. The captain grumbled in his sleep as Butter managed to get the gift over his head and ears. The cross of buttons nested in a mat of kinky gray chest hair

  Jesus Dobby must have been dreaming that it was safe for everyone to go home, wherever that might be. “Olly, olly, oxen free,” he whispered in his sleep.

  Chapter 33

  “Do you have a bigger boat?” Dante watched the long-legged Ophelia step down from the dock onto her twenty-six-foot Sea Ray. Her thick, honey-blond hair would often fall into her face as she worked her way around the small boat. The image that came to mind was an industrious Praying Mantis—graceful, delicate and possibly menacing.

  “This was your idea, racer boy. It’s a mighty long swim.”

  “Well, that’s why I was asking about a bigger boat.” Dante was shuffling his feet, reluctant to step on board the tidy white recreational craft that was not constructed for long, deep sea voyages. Just as well, Ophelia thought, since getting the boa
t ready for the trip was quicker without someone trying to help. Her mom, not wanting the neighbors to catch them out in the bay with streaked windows and mirrors, would bring cotton rags and a bottle of glass cleaner. She would even polish the throttle knobs.

  “This is my only boat.” Ophelia stowed a bag in a front hold, then scrambled back to open and close latches, checking tow ropes, the medical kit, and life-preservers. “And I intend on getting it there and back in one piece.”

  The Avatiu Harbour was filled with small wooden fishing boats painted the bright colors of exotic birds at one end, while enormous cargo ships were slowly unloaded at the other. Cranes plucked railroad-car-size containers from the spines of ships the length of football fields. Ophelia occasionally glanced up from her work, watching for friends who might be headed out fishing, but remembered this was a Tuesday morning and they were all at work, which was exactly where she should be. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

  “We have enough life preservers, right?” Dante stood on the dock, holding his two stuffed backpacks as if they might serve that purpose.

  “We have eight,” she said over her shoulder.

  “Maybe the boat just seems small from this angle.” Dante was still not ready to commit to coming on board.

  “Do you need help getting down?”

  “And maybe because it’s smaller than all these other boats.” Dante looked out across the marina where dozens of bigger boats rocked in their slips.

  “If the weather holds, we’ll be fine.”

  “What’s the forecast?” Dante took a half-step backward, away from the boat.

  “We don’t get a localized forecast for down in that region.”

  “There could be storms? We’d have heard if there was a hurricane coming, right?”

  “I’m more worried about running out of gas.”

  “Wait, we could run out of gas? Can’t we take more gas? Look, we could borrow the gas cans from this boat right here.” Dante used his chin to indicate a much larger boat nearby with two red fuel containers lashed to its stern.

  “I have extra cans. We’ll be heavy from all the gas we’re hauling. You don’t smoke, do you?”

  “No, absolutely not. What if we caught fire halfway there?”

  “Are you seriously asking what would happen if we caught fire three hundred kilometers from land?”

  “I think so.”

  “We radio a distress call with our coordinates and hope there’s a fishing boat nearby.”

  “Are there a lot of fishermen in that part of the ocean?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. She was done checking fuel and water levels and done with the rest of her pre-trip rituals. She was also done with this former ski racing superstar acting like a total pansy after he’d used her mother to pressure her into making this pointless trip. “None of us ever go fishing that far out. It’s much too dangerous out there.”

  Ophelia steered them away from the Avarua marina, heading east and then southeast, keeping the Rarotonga shoreline off to the right as they traveled halfway around the island before heading out into the deep, open water. She wore long tan cargo shorts that came to the tops of her shins, pockets bulging here and there with energy bars, packages of fish hooks, and chewing gum. You could imagine her bulky fisherman sweater keeping Hemingway warm on a chilly night in Havana.

  * * * *

  Dante tossed the thin hardcover copy of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea onto the cushion next to him. He scanned the horizon for any sign of land or giant marlin. In the book, it had taken the old man eighty-five days to finally head out into the deepest waters to try breaking his streak of bad luck. But it had been worth it when the giant fish took the bait. For three days, the old man battled the great fish, ending the epic struggle with a thrust from his harpoon. Dante had stopped reading at that point, wanting to keep it a win for the old guy. He didn’t trust where the story would head, fearing that the big fish might mysteriously reanimate and eat the sad old Santiago.

  The back of this little boat—or stern, as Ophelia called it—reminded him of the hot tub at the care center. Add a few hundred gallons of hot bubbling water to the soft semicircle of waterproof benches and he could almost imagine he was back in rehab. He recalled dozing off and almost drowning in the hot tub and wished he’d never had the thought.

  “Are we there, yet?” Dante called to Ophelia, whose honey hair was whipping seductively behind her.

  Ophelia turned away from the windscreen to actually flash him a smile. “Maybe ten more hours and you can start asking. You wanna drive for a while?”

  Dante glanced down at his book, which lay on the seat vibrating from the powerful engine behind them. “Really?”

  “You haven’t spent much time on boats, have you?” Ophelia crouched over his right shoulder as he climbed into the helm seat.

  “I don’t know.” Dante gripped the faux wood steering wheel in both hands. Despite the wind, he found himself basking in the clean, soapy smell of the woman over his shoulder. It was making him a little dizzy. Despite the innumerable sponge baths and hand jobs he’d received while comatose, this was the closest he could remember being to a woman. “I didn’t see any boats in the photos they showed me. I’m not sure if I can swim, except in dreams.”

  “So what’s it like to wake up and find that your entire life has been erased?”

  “Not as great as it sounds.”

  “But think of all the things you get to try again for the first time. Every food and movie is new again.”

  “Yeah, well, one good jolt and I could die instantly.”

  Ophelia stood up to reach over his shoulder and pull back on the throttle. As the boat slowed, the noise of the engine dropped a pitch and the bow dipped slightly.

  “Let’s try to keep you alive a little longer, racer boy,” Ophelia whispered. “At least until we get you back to this island you’ve never been to.”

  Dante wished she’d keep speaking in his ear.

  Chapter 34

  Ratu and Jope slept peacefully on the beach, tangled in a lovers’ embrace. They were only occasionally disturbed by hermit crabs checking out various small crevasses in search of bigger and better homes to lug around on their backs. Shortly after sunrise, a hermit crab scurried into a pair of denim shorts and found a new home in Jope’s butt crack. It was a high-pitched scream that began the day for the newly cocaine-addicted pirates on East Pukapuka.

  “Look, Ratu.” Jope groggily pointed toward the ocean with his right hand, his left hand digging at the back of his shorts. “Our new boat don’t look so good.”

  Ratu’s mouth was as dry as sand and he could feel just how bloodshot his eyes were. A red haze tinted what at first seemed like a picture-postcard world. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about the boat. He knew their heisted ride was done the minute they’d slammed into the damn reef. He scoffed at those fancy-pants white people running around the movie screen ’cause they bumped into a chunk of ice. Icebergs? Try running into a coral reef at twenty knots and see if you have time to gather your jewelry. They bitched about the water being cold, but warm it up and just see what kind of teeth are waiting for you.

  Ratu had woken in a sour mood. It was morning on a tropical island and his brain was hollering something about it being coke time. As he scanned the shore line for brown packages of cocaine, he noticed for the first time that some heavy shit had gone down on this place. But, as with the ruined boat, his mind also didn’t want to waste time worrying about how screwed up the island looked.

  “Move your fucking leg.” Ratu had spotted one of the bricks in a mass of seaweed on the beach. He rose on his skinny black legs, jogged along the water’s edge and retrieved an armload of wet packages that must have come in on the tide.

  “We’re saved!” Ratu shouted to Jope, kneeling down to stack the carefully packaged bricks of cocaine in the warm sun.

  “But the boat is in a whole bunch of pieces.” Jope was rubbing his sore belly, which ached from al
l the salt water he’d swallowed. The constant beating of small waves on the stuck hull had broken the Julius Caesar into several thousand smaller pieces. Half submerged, the second-story pilot house had broken free and drifted a few hundred meters south. The motor was charred black, having caught fire before being doused by a wave. “Can you fix it?”

  Ratu, his back to the shipwreck, carefully ripped a seam in the plastic inner wrapping and tapped a huge line of nearly pure cocaine into a bleached clam shell. He fumbled with the brown paper, tearing off small bits and then rolling the driest piece into a four-inch snorting tube.

  A thousand dollars’ worth of cocaine completely changed Ratu’s foul mood. He sat back in the sand and smiled. “Jope!” he called, pinching at his right nostril while flexing his twitching muscles. The red haze had gone electric green and shocking blue. “Come have breakfast!”

  “I’m not hungry.” Jope was worried about the boat, and the shark-god had warned that the cannibals were on their way.

  “Not food, you dumbass!” Ratu poured a clam shell portion for his friend. “Come do some of the finest mojo this side of Mata-utu.”

  Jope looked glumly out at the wreck. Before grabbing the straw and bending over to inhale the thick line, he took a moment to observe all the havoc that had recently visited the island. “Look, Ratu, something really bad happened here. Maybe the cannibals did all this.”

  To Ratu, East Pukapuka appeared to have been run over by a gigantic truck. Then the truck had backed over the island and crushed things some more. The primitive buildings were all smashed up, and every single tree and bush was bent over. Some trees had sprung back up, minus most of their leaves and fronds, but some had snapped in the middle. All that was left of lush tropical foliage was dead brown leaves and a twisted mass of branches and undergrowth. On most of these lightly inhabited places you couldn’t see more than twenty meters in from the beach; here you could catch peeks of the sky and ocean on the far side of the island, several hundred meters away.