Baptism of Fire (12 page)

Chest heaving, hair all over the place, Hannah dashed along the jungle path and down to the beach, a thunderstorm on two legs. Oblivious of the puzzled stares of the villagers, she ran until she was exhausted.

Gradually she slowed to a walk. Her face radiated heat, perspiration soaked her dress, and she could feel her heart thumping against her ribcage.

As her anger subsided, Hannah wondered what she was going to do now. She couldn't go back to the mission house—not after what had happened. There was nowhere to go. This was an island and if she walked far enough, she would only find herself back where she began. There was no escape.

Moodily, she stared out across the sea. A line of white water over the reef was a painful reminder of her nervous arrival. Already it seemed a lifetime ago. How could it all have gone so wrong?

Defiantly, with scorn for the proprieties that Uncle Henry held so dear, she rolled down her stockings and tucked up her dress. The sea was cool as it splashed onto her shins, and she sighed. Fortunately, on this beach, there was no Kurt Oslo to annoy her.

A sea urchin lay high and dry, above the waterline. Prodding it gently with a toe, she watched as its miniature mouth pursed in response. Sympathetic to its lonely plight, she gently picked it up and placed it back under water.

The sea breeze blew on her face; welcome, soothing. Hannah released what was left of her braid and let her hair swing free. Far away, across that tantalising expanse of water, was Australia, but she couldn't bear to think about that now.

Voices drifted through the palm trees: excited, argumentative, jocular. Frustrated with the endless, depressing cycle of her own thoughts, Hannah decided to investigate.

She met a group of men from the village: Beni and some others. It was the first time that she had seen him side on. Hannah almost winced at his stick-like girth. The shark story of Merelita's
looked to be true. There didn't seem to be any padding for him to sit on. The men carried clubs but the friendly atmosphere amongst them put to rest any fears that they were on a sinister mission.

She put her smattering of Fijian to the test. ‘O
sã lako ki vei?
'

Beni pointed in the direction the group was headed. Open-mouthed with astonishment, Hannah spied a nightmarish creature scuttling across the path. No wonder the men stood at a safe distance. The giant crab flicked up stones and twigs in its wake, making close pursuit impossible. If Hannah held her arms out in a circle, they might just equal the circumference of the crab's armoured body. The legs were extra.

In an odd mixture of Fijian and English, Beni explained they were going to catch this ferocious crab. Hannah couldn't see how they could possibly manage it. All Beni would say was ‘Wait.' Having nowhere else to go, an alternative offer was attractive.

Step by silent step, they followed the crab until it climbed a coconut palm. If someone had told her, she would not have believed it, but the crab
inched its way right to the top. Shading her eyes against the glare, Hannah stared upwards. The crab nestled between the palm leaves. Soon a loud cracking like that of a metal pickaxe on a rock rang in their ears. Several coconuts plopped to the ground. One splitting open as it hit the earth.

‘He open coconut. Eat,' said Beni.

Taking a step backwards, Hannah's teeth were set on edge as the cracking continued and she pondered the strength of those claws.

After some whispering and a good deal of pointing at each other, a recruit was nominated: Ligani. The men pulled up grass that grew at the base of the tree and packed it into a coconut fibre bag which Ligani slung over his shoulder. Then he nimbly climbed the palm, but only halfway, tying the grass in a band around the trunk. He retreated and joined the group of spectators at ground level.

As Hannah watched, the crab also began to descend. The men raised their clubs. Beni whispered, ‘He no can turn round.'

The crab backed down until it felt the grass tickle its rear, assumed it was again on solid
ground and released its grip on the trunk, falling many feet to the earth.

Instantly, the group were upon the giant crustacean, reducing it to the menial status of lunch.

Leaving the men to arrange their feast of crabmeat, Hannah wandered aimlessly along sidepaths, avoiding the village and the track to the mission house. She had no wish to meet with her uncle. Hannah could not blame her father for running away. Uncle Henry was inhuman, and no doubt his father had been just as bad, if not worse.

Without thinking, she found her feet taking her to the
bure
where the sick woman lay. Startled, Hannah realised that it was already two days since she had first discovered her. A shiver ran down her spine, from neck to base.

As she approached the
bure
she heard the murmur of voices.
Someone
was alive in there. Drawing closer, she recognised one of the voices: deep and masculine. It belonged to the very person that she desired most heartily to avoid. What was he doing here? Her instant response was to retrace her steps. But instead, she hesitated and crept close to the back wall, wincing when her
foot clumsily snapped a twig. She froze, but no one came out to investigate. Squatting, she put her ear to the thatch and listened.

‘… and the people gasped in amazement as they watched the figures of the three men walk about in the fire, unharmed. And when they came out, there was not even the smell of smoke upon them …' Hannah recognised the story from Sunday school days. It was about Shadrach, Meshach and the other one, whose name she could never remember. She had heard about people from a special tribe in another part of Fiji who walked on hot coals, so perhaps this account was not so strange to a Fijian.

Uncle Henry then spoke in the woman's native language. Hannah's understanding of Fijian was slowly growing, but her uncle spoke fast and used words that were complicated. But every so often, he would break into English, whether for his benefit or that of the woman, Hannah didn't know. She had rarely heard her uncle speak with such timbre in his voice. Was this the man who, only a few hours ago, had raised not only his voice, but also his hand in anger? At first, she
thought him a hypocrite, but there was no mistaking his present sincerity. Fiji was full of surprises, and so was Uncle Henry.

A woman's voice was speaking now. The words were muffled, so it was impossible to pick up what she said. There was the sound of movement inside the
bure
and then the earnest tones of Uncle Henry at prayer, no mistaking it. Having heard him beseech the Almighty several times a day, and a few extra on Sundays, Hannah was an expert in the ‘prayer' voice.

‘
Vinaka
.' The woman thanked him.

Keeping absolutely still, Hannah waited as she heard the sounds of Uncle Henry's departure. When his footsteps faded into the distance, she still delayed, wanting to be sure he had definitely gone, and that it was safe. As she stood, the blood surged painfully through her cramped legs. Her skirt was sandy from the beach. She flicked the hem, then approached the front of the
bure
, calling a soft greeting.

She paused, then entered. The woman lay on her back, a light cotton covering over her, and a container of water at her side. Suddenly reluctant,
Hannah tiptoed towards her, then knelt down. The feverish flush had gone, the lines of anxiety smoothed, and her eyes were half-open.

Hannah waved a hand in front of her face. No response. She stared at her chest. It, too, was not moving. Slowly, irresistibly, she reached out and touched the woman's hand. The fingers were already cooling. The tide had turned.

Hannah had not expected to cry, but hot tears filled her eyes. She wept for the young woman, and for herself. How long she sat there in the
bure
beside the motionless body, she had no idea. Finally, eyes puffy and red, Hannah blew her nose fiercely on her handkerchief.

Not long ago, Uncle Henry had sat here and prayed for this woman. Now she was dead. When Hannah's parents died, people told her it was ‘God's will' as if that was some kind of comfort. What comfort was it to believe there was someone who
could
have saved them, but didn't? Why pray for the ill, the insane, the destitute, if God had already made up his mind?

Sighing, Hannah rose and left the
bure
. Should she tell someone there was a dead body here? It seemed indecent to simply leave her for someone else to discover. Largely neglected in her illness, it would be the final insult to neglect her in death.

For the first time all day, something went right.
At the village, Hannah found Merelita straight away. She showed no surprise. ‘You wait. I come back.'

Hannah didn't know who she'd gone to confide in, and she didn't ask. Suddenly more tired than she had ever felt in her life, she sat on the ground, her back against a breadfruit tree. Between two branches, a spider had cast a magnificent web and he hung there, his arched, black legs hideous against the silken threads.

She rubbed at her wrist, a reddened lump still visible where the mosquito had bitten her. A sore had formed and refused to heal.

‘
Kura
leaf good for this. Pass over flame, squeeze juice on here.'

‘Oh. You're back.'

Merelita knelt and took Hannah's hand, inspected the swollen insect bite, then led her into a
bure
to sit on the mats. It was clean, spacious, and surprisingly cool. Without the calico linings like those at the mission house, the breeze was free to flow through the thatch. Hannah had been curious about the inside of a village home. On her arrival she had sworn never to go inside,
but it was all a little different now.

Woven mats covered the floor and there were shelves containing earthenware utensils for storage and cooking. The fire for cooking was in a hollow and because there was no chimney, the smoke rose through the thatch, fumigating any vermin that might hide there. Sleeping mats, Merelita explained, were rolled up until the evening and stretched out over clean grass. It sounded a good deal more comfortable than the lumpy mattress Hannah slept on at the mission house.

‘Merelita
carpenter of death
.'

Startled, Hannah considered a quick exit until Merelita explained she meant ‘doctor'. Hannah laughed, then faltered as she realised that she seldom did so any more. When she was small, she had laughed so often that her father's nickname for her was ‘gigglepot'.

Merelita carefully squeezed the juice from the heated leaf over Hannah's wrist, her dexterity unaffected by the mere stump of her forefinger.

‘Is this your family's
bure
?' asked Hannah.

‘This
bure ni sa
, strangers'
bure
. For visitors. Man, woman, not sleep same house. Woman
house and man house.'

That seemed a good idea to Hannah, having endured Uncle Henry's snoring and his clumping about early in the morning; not to mention her suspicions about Joshua's nocturnal antics with insects.

‘We have war now.'

‘A war? What do you mean?' Merelita jumped subjects like a flea: up and down, here and there. Often it took Hannah a little while to follow her meaning.

‘Woman in hut. She cursed by man from other island. He want make her wife. She not want him; run away. She want man her heart fly to. Other man big angry.
Vakadraunikau
. He make her die. Man she want marry in village is Ratu Rabete's nephew. Chief must do what nephew say. Nephew say, she die, I go kill him. Chief say, we come with you.'

Hannah was astonished. ‘But you can't have a war just like that—can you?'

Carefully laying the
kura
leaf over the ulcer on Hannah's wrist, Merelita shrugged.

‘Some day, maybe soon, me be wife.'

‘Oh?'

‘For Enoke.'

Mouth flapping like a stranded fish, Hannah stared … and stared. ‘You—you're not going to marry
that
man.'

‘I not?'

‘I mean—Merelita, he's years older than you for a start.'

‘He be good husband. All his wives say he good husband.'

A hot flush swamped Hannah's face. ‘
All
his wives?' Her voice squeaked as she emphasised ‘all'. ‘How many does he have?'

‘Enoke not many wives. Only ten.'

She was jesting! Ten wives—Merelita to be number eleven? She would have to make an appointment to wish him good day. But having seen the man in question, perhaps that would not be such a bad thing.

Now that Merelita had finished tending to her sore, Hannah flopped both wrists onto her knees, struggling for words. She could not let Merelita go through with this marriage. It was dreadful.

‘Ratu Rabete have much wife. A hundred,
maybe.' There was a sparkle in Merelita's eyes which suggested that she enjoyed her friend's shock.

Running a hand through her tangled hair, Hannah shook her head. ‘But Enoke has not
lotu'd
. You are Christian. How can you marry someone who doesn't believe in the same things as you? This is not good, Merelita.' Hannah scarcely believed those words came from her own lips, but in this situation, any argument would do—even a religious one.

Merelita appeared to consider that comment, then she shrugged. ‘Enoke not
lotu
but man who
lotu
have only one wife. Other wives he say, “You go now, find another house.” Wives much cry. Children have no father. He father for long time then not father.' Merelita leant forward and whispered even though the
bure ni sa
was empty apart from themselves. ‘You know Timothy?'

‘With the big feet?'

Merelita nodded. ‘He
lotu
, say to wives, “you go”. His chief wife cry, “Please, not send me away and keep new, young wife!” But big Lord say only one wife for man. Big Lord not change mind. Is in
book. Timothy show wife, but she no can read, no speak English good like Merelita. She no want book. She want husband.'

Hannah whispered in return. ‘What happened?'

Drawing the corners of her lips down in sympathy, Merelita said, ‘Wife angry. Wife sad. She run to cliff and …' She waved an arm, miming a fall. A long silence followed.

‘Me think.' She tapped her head. ‘Me be wife for man not
lotu
.'

‘But Merelita, if you marry a Christian man, you would be his
only
wife!'

A sneer of disapproval appeared on Merelita's swarthy face. ‘Good mans already many wife. Other men …?' She covered her teeth with her lips to suggest no teeth, then held her hand two feet from the ground to indicate children.

‘Do you like Enoke?'

After a long pause, Merelita said, ‘He strong. He not beat wife.'

‘
But do you like him?
'

‘He be husband,' was all she would say. That was it,
fait accompli
. Merelita seemed neither distressed nor joyful: just accepting. Hannah
could not fathom such calmness. Her father used to tell her, affectionately, that she was born with the word
why
already forming on her lips.

Hannah wondered how much of a choice, if any, Merelita had truly been given. The women in the English class had made it clear that there was often no consideration given to the feelings of the woman in these arrangements. Luata had told her that one man in the village wanted to barter for a musket from the captain of a visiting ship. The captain had asked for two pigs in exchange for one musket. As the man didn't have two pigs, he sent one pig and one wife. And the captain sent back a musket. The woman who sailed away on the ship, never to return, was Luata's sister.

Hannah sighed and tried one last time. ‘Must it be Enoke?'

‘He give me whale's tooth. Me be wife, some time. Not his wife until he payback man who kill his nephew. When Enoke speak, Merelita be wife.'

Hannah wished for silence.