Beat Not the Bones (8 page)

Stella, looking over her shoulder, spoke sullenly. ‘What happened?'

The man shrugged his shoulders. It was a gesture she was beginning to expect from him. It contributed to his air of listlessness. ‘I'm not sure, probably just what Hitolo says. Warwick had to say something to the carriers. Sereva's death terrified them. He probably died of food poisoning; one of the tins was bad perhaps. It had nothing to do with the vada men. But the carriers thought it was purri purri, and Warwick had to tell them something they would believe and understand. They're only primitive people, right on the border of the patrolled area. He told them that the vada men had made magic on the food and as long as they didn't touch it they were safe. That's the only defence against sorcery, to know you are safe. Once they get it into their heads that they aren't, they're quite likely to lie down and die.' He stopped and his eyes fell on Hitolo. ‘But you ought to know better,' he said. ‘I thought you'd got over this idea about your brother. You're trained and educated. You're meant to lead these primitive people, not rush about like a bird or a wild pig at the very mention of a vada man.'

‘I don't believe in purri purri, taubada,' said Hitolo. ‘I work for the government. Purri purri isn't true.'

Stella turned to the door. She had nothing more to ask, had every reason to leave, but she was reluctant. Hitolo was again squatting on the floor, and the white man, still watching her, had lit a cigarette. Outside in the bright afternoon sunlight, she knew, were all the waiting demons – fear, loneliness, and the knowledge of being unloved and unwanted by any human being in the world. Here in this room she had at least been alive. She looked back. ‘Thank you, Hitolo, for what you've told me.'

Hitolo stood up again and flashed her a dazzling smile. ‘I am very glad to help you, sinabada. Mr Warwick was my boss. He gave me a cigarette case for my wedding.'

‘I'm sorry about your brother, Hitolo. I didn't say it before, but I'm very sorry.'

‘One day,' Hitolo said ‘I shall go back to Eola and find those vada men who killed my brother. One day I shall make payback for my brother.'

She went out through the door into the sunlight. Her anger had gone, and she felt drained. Even the weight of grief had lifted. From that hour she would never again believe so confidently in her own despair. Her faith was shaken not only by the words still echoing in her ears, but also by Hitolo's averted cheek. She knew there was something here that she did not understand. She fanned the dying ashes with the desperation of one pursuing a lost cause. I shall find Jobe, I shall go to Eola myself and see what happened. With her eyes bent to the ground she did not see the tall, slim man who walked down the path towards her.

CHAPTER 8

And Washington, his eyes on the open doorway of Cultural Development, did not notice Stella. He walked into the outer office where Hitolo was still kneeling before the bookcase. ‘Hello, Hitolo. Anyone in?'

Hitolo grinned broadly. Washington was popular with the boys, or had been until lately. He had an easy, friendly manner that was only occasionally condescending, and he was rarely as rude to the Papuans as he was to white men. But he was inconsistent and this bewildered them.

‘Mr Nyall. He's in the office, Mr Washington.'

Washington nodded and walked on down the passage. He found Anthony Nyall sitting on his desk, staring out of the window and tossing up and catching a small carved coconut.

‘Hello, there,' said Washington, in a manner which had once won him the reputation of being charming. ‘Busy or anything? Am I interrupting?'

This he saw immediately was an unfortunate remark and hoped it would not be taken as irony. It was common knowledge that Anthony Nyall was never busy, and that you could not possibly interrupt him. This was rather common in Marapai, but Nyall was inclined to be touchy about it. He did not smile, but put down the coconut, slid off the desk, walked around it and sat in his chair.

Washington, who wanted something, tried to restore any possible damage to his cause by comments on the weather, which had over the past few days been particularly pleasant, with a fesh, cool wind and no mosquitoes.

Anthony Nyall did not respond but stared at him over the top of his glasses. Washington found his intense, serious gaze oddly disturbing. He had never liked him much. Like all men who talk too much, Washington was suspicious of reticence, and Nyall was altogether too quiet.

Nyall interrupted Washington's chatter about the weather. ‘Can I do anything?'

‘Well, yes,' said Washington, trying to sound casual. ‘I more or less did come begging. I want to borrow a book.'

‘What book?' said Nyall, folding his hands. Washington did not meet his eye. He lit a cigarette, blew out the match, and said. ‘Williams,
Drama of Orokola
.'

‘Sorry, can't be done.'

‘Why on earth not?' He was not surprised but put up a fine show of indignation.

‘You know quite well,' said Nyall tersely, ‘that this book,' and he nodded at the case behind him, ‘is the only copy in the Territory.'

Washington did know it. Most of the anthropological library, supreme court records and district officers' reports had been destroyed during the war. Officers in charge of what remained guarded their few treasures jealously. The books in Nyall's bookcase were precious because they were irreplaceable.

‘Good God, I won't eat it! I have got some sense of the value of the book.'

‘I don't doubt it, but I'm afraid I can't let you have it.'

Washington was well aware that Nyall was not being unreasonable, but he chose to be angry. The books, he told himself, would be rotting away. They were probably half devoured by cockroaches, and Nyall would never touch them, that was certain. ‘How typical!' he said, raising his eyes and appealing to the heavens. ‘And we ask ourselves why nothing gets done in this country. You go to Transport for a jeep and you can't have one without filling in fifteen pink forms, by which time you don't want it any more. You go to Housing to get a door for your bathroom and you can't have it because Plan P hasn't any doors and Plan X hasn't any bathrooms. Everywhere you go you're up against some petty regulation made by a doddering old fool in Australia who has never been out of his home town and thinks that a yam is a kind of oyster. And, to crown it all, when you try to find out something about the poor innocent brown victims you're slowly killing off with tuberculosis and whooping cough …' He stopped and mentally cursed himself. It had slipped out, he had not meant to say that.

Anthony Nyall's expression had not changed. There was perhaps the faintest flush in his cheeks but his gaze lost none of its steadiness.

‘God knows why we stay here at all,' Washington said more softly. ‘We should have packed up and cleared out years ago.'

‘Why don't you take your leave, Washington? It's due, isn't it?'

The leave that he could not take always enraged him. He forgot to be discreet and said fretfully, ‘Why should I take it?' Damn him for preaching at me! I'll show him, and his big sleek brother too. He'll be glad to lend me his books. But he kept his temper. ‘Could I just glance at a reference, under your eye as it were?' he said, glancing at the bookcase.

There was no reason why Nyall should refuse this request, but he did not move and only said, ‘Perhaps I can tell you what you want to know. I'm familiar with the book.'

‘Well, yes, maybe you can. There's a chapter on …'

‘Vada men?' Nyall said, raising his disconcerting eyes. ‘Yes, there is, I know. But then sorcery is such a loose subject that you're not to know whether the Orolola vada men function in the same way as those in the Bava valley. The two areas are some distance apart. But as we have no knowledge of the Bava valley, I suppose it's the best you would have to go on.'

Washington laughed to hide his consternation. ‘Now what would give you the idea that I'm interested in Bava valley sorcery?' he said, and then immediately wished that he had not spoken.

Nyall did not look at him. He opened a drawer and produced a tin of cigarettes. ‘Since Warwick's trip …' He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I assume you want to know about the most extreme form of magic, magic to kill.' His eyes were fixed across the room, and his voice had the cool, impersonal tone of a lecturer. ‘There are several methods used. There is pointing or stabbing from a distance. The sorcerer hides, or is invisible, stabs at his victim with some sharp instrument which produces a fatal illness and the victim dies. There are various local explanations. Some say that he manages to inject into the victim some foreign matter, others that he drags out the victim's soul. Then there is another specialised type of magic, performed in company. One man waylays the victim and shoots him, others come behind, cut him up and extract his soul. Then others come and put him together again. He is brought to life and sent back to his village. He remembers nothing of what has happened, but he has no soul and so he lies down and dies. The victims in these cases would not have actual evidence of sorcery. They would either be told about it, or fear that it might happen, or, if they should become ill, assume that it had.

‘Then there's the personal leavings magic. You're probably familiar with that; it's common all over the Territory. A substitute for the victim is obtained, something that has been attached to him, something that has been impregnated with the sweat of his body – a discarded arm-band, for instance – or scraps of food he's been eating, or a lock of his hair. This undergoes various treatments and is usually placed in a piece of hollow bamboo in some sort of dirty mixture, often the victim's excrement. When the bamboo blows its stopper' – he displayed the palms of his hands in a gesture of finality – ‘finish … the end.'

‘I see.' Washington threw his butt on the floor and ground it with his heel. He knew all this and knew that Nyall knew that he knew it. He picked up one of the stones from the desk and inspected it. ‘Who are the vada men?' he said.

‘Just about anyone. There are, of course, notorious sorcerers, but anyone can practise sorcery, providing that he persuades himself that he knows some of the charms, spells, the right sort of mixtures to use and persuades others; and that's even more important.'

‘And how do they protect themselves? The victims, I mean?'

‘By counter-sorcery. It seems to be the only way. If you are afraid of sorcery, you buy a sorcerer of your own to make counter-magic.'

‘And the dead?' said Washington, staring at the stone he held in his hand.

‘The dead? You mean are they afraid of the dead?'

Washington spoke lightly and laughed. ‘I mean would they fear, for instance, a dead sorcerer making payback?'

He need not have composed his features into an expression of nonchalance because Nyall did not glance at his face. Throughout the conversation they had studiously avoided each other's eyes.

‘They might. They'll believe just about anything. The sorcery is elastic and constantly changing. But for the most part they seem to forget the dead. They revere and fear them a little, but not as strongly as we do. A live sorcerer would be much more fearful to them. The dead are more harmless. The notion of a spirit seeking revenge is more European. With Papuans the living make revenge, and death dilutes their power. They don't have, perhaps, such a complicated sense of guilt as we have.'

Washington did not smile. ‘Guilt!' He put down the stone and picked up the black coconut with the carved face. ‘But it would be possible; it is heard of?'

‘A dead sorcerer making purri purri? Of course it's possible. Anything's possible providing you're sufficiently credulous.'

‘I see you don't think much of it all.'

‘Oh, admittedly strange things happen. But there isn't much that can't be put down to suggestion.'

‘Don't you think it's rather childish,' Washington said crisply, ‘to dismiss so scornfully those phenomena that we ourselves may be too insensitive to experience?'

Now Nyall turned his large eyes full upon him. ‘Childish or not,' he said, ‘it's wise. I only know that in this country you've got to keep your two feet on the ground. Men up here, as you know, do nothing by halves. They act and think grandly. People don't just drink here, they're dipsomaniacs; when they make money, they make fortunes; when they lose money, they go bankrupt. And when they grow fanciful, they end up by going mad,' he paused, ‘or killing themselves.'

Washington threw back his head and roared with laughter. ‘Like poor Warwick, you mean. Well, that won't happen to me, I assure you. I have far too much to live for. And as for keeping your feet on the ground, I don't agree with you. This country has been ruined by people with their feet on the ground. It needs men of imagination, and men of vision, not the stuffy, government clerks with their red tape and carbon copies, or brawny beef and muscle men from the bush. What we want are men who'll take the trouble to understand the people, who'll find out how they think, and think in the same way.'

‘A few years ago I would have agreed with you, but not now. You'll never understand the Papuan, Washington, and you know it. We're here to guide and guard, not to understand. Only children can understand children, and we aren't children any longer. It may be unfortunate, but it's true. Sometimes we would so like to be, but we can't turn back. We've lost the eyes that see fairies. All our fairies are gone. There are only a few left for drunkards and madmen.'

‘Oh! And which am I?' said Washington shrilly. A feeling of having been caught out enraged him. He lashed out at what he hoped might be the other man's Achilles' heel. ‘Guide and guard! That's pretty good coming from you.'

He would like to have said more but dared not. The rest was understood between them. ‘Everyone knows you haven't done a stroke of work for six months. You would have been kicked out months ago if you weren't Trevor's brother. Warwick would never have put up with you much longer.'

But Anthony Nyall's expression did not change and all he said was, ‘You've been here too long and you need leave.'

Washington was thoroughly unnerved. He had a feeling of having said too much or not enough, and to rectify the latter error, talked on. He spoke in the sweet, sharp tone that had lost him most of his friends. ‘I happen to be one of the few people in this country who considers it sufficiently interesting to be studied,' he said. ‘I've never liked the average white man here, carrying up from Australia with him his pub, racecourse and golf links. When I sail I go in a canoe, not in a yacht. I like Papuans, and I'm interested in them. If there were a few more who made an attempt to understand them, instead of imposing on them half-baked canons of white conduct, we might get somewhere.'

‘I believe that you've sacked all your boys,' Nyall said coolly.

‘I won't have thieves!' Washington said passionately. ‘I'd rather be without boys if I can't trust them.'

‘Now that's very powerful magic,' said Nyall, pointing to the coconut in Washington's hand. ‘Orokola magic. There are a lot of them used up in the hills, probably in the Bava valley too. They're mostly harmless, but if you know the right charms and stuff them with the right herbs, they can do just about anything. If you hang it up on your door, it'll keep the thieves away.'

‘I'll thank you not to be funny,' Washington said frigidly.

Nyall stood up. ‘Well then, don't ask for information under false pretences. This is a small town and practically every man's life is public property, particularly a man like you who's always lived unconventionally. The place is getting you down. You're a pack of nerves. You've quarrelled with every boy you've had in your house for the past two months. You've got the wind up and it's time you got out. You know as well as I do what happens to people who stay when they get into your condition. You can't fight this place. Get out and don't be a fool!'

It was all so true there was nothing Washington could say. He could no longer be angry. He felt exhausted and stripped of his defences. He thought of Sylvia and momentarily longed to be with her. He slunk from the room.

When Anthony Nyall looked back at his desk, the small black coconut had gone.