The Man with the Compound Eyes (11 page)

Alice woke up from the dream they’d recorded in the clinic in Tokyo. Still half asleep, she saw from the clock over the bed that it was about four in the morning. Ohiyo was sound asleep. Do cats ever need a lot of sleep! Ohiyo was sleeping by a digital album she had knocked over. Alice did not have to look to know it was the album beginning with one of Toto’s baby pictures. Alice tried stretching out her hand to get at it without waking Ohiyo but could not get at it. She could only play the images she knew only too well in her mind’s eye. It occurred to her that Toto might just be sealed off in a deathless world somewhere, that he might be alive as if in a photograph, in a place death could never enter. Was Toto somewhere like that, carrying his specimen case as he searched for something he had never seen before?

Before Atile’i went to sea, Rasula prepared a bottle of fine
kiki’a
wine, a local delicacy women and children made by letting the rhizome of a certain tuber ferment in their mouths into a viscid liquor. The process sometimes required three days of chewing. The taste of the wine varied with the smell and composition of the saliva of the person who chewed it. The mellow wine from Rasula’s mouth had been the toast of the island since she was a girl. Mixed with the starch of the tuber, her saliva produced an aroma men found captivating. Instead of making you drunk, it tended to induce the most indescribable palpitations. Some men who had drunk it even claimed that their futures had flashed before their eyes.

After Atile’i had shot his seed, Rasula took out the wine she’d chewed for him and advised him to sip her wine slowly so as to remember her smell, the look in her eyes, the warmth of her nether parts.

But where was Atile’i now?

The men of the island all desired Rasula but none dared make a move on her. Nobody knew who her father was. Her
Yina
(the Wayo Wayoan word for mother) Saliya’s weaving was the best on the island, but, lacking the protection of a husband, Saliya had no way to obtain an allotment of land, and women were not allowed to go to sea. The only way she could
get land, fish and other forms of upkeep was to do public service in the village. Mainly, she wove saltgrass sandals for the islanders. Rasula would often help Saliya pick vines in the woods and collect saltgrass by the shore: the vines were for the sole, the saltgrass for the upper. Saliya’s weaving talents were not limited to sandals; she could also make fishnets, nets that not even the Ima Ima fish, the strongest fish that swam in the waters around the island, could escape. Saliya might well have woven enough nets over the years to cover the entire island.

Men would often take a detour past Saliya’s house after a hard day of fishing and help with repairs around the house, maybe leaving a fish or two, or maybe a sea cucumber or a tasty octopus. It was only after she had her first period that Rasula realized that they were actually there for her mother’s hands, not only for the sandals, the fishnets or out of a desire to tell stories. Rasula had heard their tributes to her mother’s hands:

When Saliya was young she was as beautiful as Rasula, or even more lovely, because Saliya had a pure, Wayo Wayoan beauty.
Saliya
in Wayo Wayoan meant “a spine with a graceful delphine arc.” As a maiden, she could simply sit at the seashore facing away from the village with her hair hanging down her back and it was enough to make the island’s heart break.

Rasula’s favorite activities were watching seagulls bearing the moon aloft and collecting freshly molted crab shells, but now she was like a seabird with wounded wings, gazing at the sea but unable to leave the island. Saliya could totally understand what Rasula was feeling. She quietly regarded her child, suspecting that another little spark of life had appeared within her soul. Being unable to spend a lifetime with the man she loved was the fate of many a Wayo Wayoan woman, but to bear his child was the grace of Kabang. This was because the child might be a boy, and a boy could help them start a new family.

One day when mother and daughter were sitting in the doorway weaving sandals, Rasula suddenly struck up a conversation.

“Yina, why aren’t women allowed to go to sea?”

“This is the rule of the ancestors, the law of nature. Women can only go to the seashore to collect shellfish. But you must never forget that shellfish with spines are not to be touched.”

“Why did they make this rule, and what if one breaks it?”

“Oh, my dear Nana (the Wayo Wayoan word for daughter), you well know that a girl who breaks this rule would turn into a spiny urchin which none would dare approach.”

“Have you actually ever seen someone change into a spiny urchin?”

“There are urchins everywhere.”

“No, Yina, I mean have you ever seen a real live person turn into an urchin?”

“No, Nana, and neither has anyone else, for she would sink into the sea before the change comes upon her.”

“Yina, I don’t believe you.” Rasula heaved a long sigh, with a faraway look in her eye. Saliya looked at Rasula and in her heart answered her sigh, thinking: It wasn’t my wish for you to have such a pair of pearly eyes, daughter of mine.

“Yina, I don’t believe you. I want to build a
talawaka
of my own.”

“What? No, you can’t. A
talawaka
is not for a woman to own.”

“I want to
build
a
talawaka
.”

Saliya knew that when Rasula had made up her mind she was as irretrievable as a stone sunk to the bottom of the sea, and so she said nothing more.

When a man made a
talawaka
, Rasula would stand off to the side and quietly observe. Sometimes when she was chatting with Nale’ida she would ask lots of questions about the techniques of
talawaka
construction. She knew that Nale’ida was deeply in love with her, and that if she had conceived Atile’i’s child Nale’ida would be obliged as Atile’i’s older brother to care for her. This was another Wayo Wayoan custom. But she did not love Nale’ida back. Atile’i and Nale’ida were like
Yigasa
(the sun) and
Nalusa
(the moon). She loved Atile’i’s sunny disposition, not Nale’ida’s lunar nature. There was nothing she could do about how she felt, for no one can pit her heart against the sea. She let Nale’ida visit her at dusk simply because she wanted to listen to him tell stories of the sea and tell her more about the principles of navigation.

But you had to give him credit: Nale’ida, who looked like Atile’i except for his nose, talked a lot of sense. “The sea cannot be taught. You learn it with your life,” he said. But even though Nale’ida loved Rasula the way a fisherman loves an enormous fish, he still did not dare break the taboo against lady guests riding in a
talawaka
.

Without telling anyone, Rasula began gathering and preparing the building materials on her own. She cleared a place in the woods a fair distance from her house, keeping the unformed, fetal
talawaka
covered during the day, coming only at night to work on it in secret. Weaving was no trouble, as she had inherited Saliya’s nimble hands; moving the bigger branches out of the woods was harder, though she could do it with a bit more patience and a few bruises on her arms and legs. Rasula’s
talawaka
was taking shape. She used a file made from a sea urchin to do the finishing work and carve an image of the seafaring Atile’i on the hull.

The island was small, but Rasula did everything with the utmost secrecy, so almost everyone remained ignorant of her seafaring scheme. Nale’ida was blinded by love, the other men who visited the house by burning lust. The only one who knew, her mother Saliya, chose silence, believing that Rasula would quit. Saliya could tell Rasula was pregnant from her posture and smell, and assumed that when she discovered the soul of a little Atile’i inside her she would give up as a matter of course.

Thrice the moon died and thrice it came back up to life. Early next morning, Rasula burrowed under the covers and to her mother said: “Yina, tomorrow I’m going out to sea.”

“Going out to sea?”

“Yes. My
talawaka
is ready. I’ve heard many stories of the sea. Atile’i was my teacher, and Nale’ida, too, has taught me well, so even though I’ve never gone to sea I know its ways. Now all I need is your blessing, and nourishment for the trip, that I may find Atile’i safe and sound.”

“Atile’i’s dead and gone, Nana.”

“He is not dead. I know. I feel it.”

“Nana, do you realize there’s a little soul in your body? Atile’i is in your belly.”

“Yina, I know. I want to show Atile’i the Atile’i growing inside me.”

“Nana, do you know where Atile’i is?”

“I know that he is somewhere on the sea.”

“The sea is too big, Nana. You are dooming yourself and the Atile’i in your belly to death.”

“You know, Yina, that living on this loveless island is about the same as death.”

“You think I do not love you, Nana?”

Rasula did not cry. She was like a sinking ship, getting heavier and heavier. The water was pouring in, not flowing out.

“Forgive me, Yina, forgive me.”

Saliya could’ve gotten the villagers to stop Rasula, but she did not. She knew that restraining her daughter would merely cause her to wither away before her eyes. Let be, let be, Kabang must have arranged for Rasula to die at sea, her tomb an ocean wave.

Saliya gave up on persuasion. She helped Rasula push the
talawaka
all the way to the seashore at midnight the next day. As she pushed, Saliya felt her soul sinking into the sand. The two of them were shocked to see someone standing on the shore in the moonlight.

It was the Sea Sage. Obviously, there was nothing about the sea that the Sea Sage did not know. He had been watching the situation unfold, just letting it run its course. He walked over and helped Rasula and Saliya push the
talawaka
into the sea. He performed
Mana
, a ritual blessing, by sticking the skull of a great fish onto the prow. A
talawaka
that had not received
Mana
would go blind in the sea and mistake itself for a fish. Moving swiftly along, it would suddenly sink beneath the waves and actually turn into a fish, never to float to the surface again.

“Kabang has spoken: the fish will always return.” Not even the Sea Sage had the words to comfort Saliya. All he could manage was this old island proverb.

Pregnant and untrained in the operation of a
talawaka
, Rasula was unable to pit herself against the wind. Nor could she “feel the direction of the wind with the testicles,” as Atile’i had put it. She stopped trying to steer and yielded her heart up to Kabang, her body to the
mona’e
, to the waves of the sea. Maybe
because she’d received the Sea Sage’s blessing, the sea remained calm for three days in a row, like a preternaturally flat inland plain. But this was the first time Rasula had come face to face with the sea itself, and she did not know where to turn: where in such a vast, shoreless expanse should she look for Atile’i? Her search had gotten her powerfully motivated, and terribly lost. It had become an obsession, an irresistible idea, and it would bury her. The “sea rations” of dried fruit, dried fish, coconut and cooked breadfruit were running out, and the water in the seaweed skin was almost gone. Rasula had an oyster-shell hook, but fishing was not as easy as she had imagined.

And where was Atile’i now?

Rasula enjoyed three days of fine weather, but only three. Then the weather broke, and swells appeared out of nowhere. The spirits of the second sons of Wayo Wayo wanted to reveal themselves, to warn Rasula and tell her to row left, but not being a second son she could neither see the spirits nor hear their voices. All the spirits could do was turn into sperm whales and swim alongside her
talawaka
, inadvertently raising even bigger waves.

But not even the spirits of the second sons of Wayo Wayo knew that these waves would beach this island maiden on the shores of another island. At first glance, this other island looked about the same as the one on which Atile’i had landed. Very luckily, the island had a crescent-shaped promontory, creating a safe haven for Rasula. Her
talawaka
wedged in, stopped and moved no more. Rasula fell into a coma, like going to sleep.

Little did Rasula know that Saliya had cried nonstop for a week after she left. She cried blood in the end, until finally, at dusk of the seventh day, she fell down on the beach, like a little shell, like an oar that didn’t belong to any man. Saliya’s spine was still as beautiful as a dolphin’s when the men discovered her body, and almost all the island men attended her funeral. In their hearts, they were all truly sadder to lose Saliya than they would have been at the passing of their own wives.

Another thing not even the spirits of the second sons knew was that the island onto which they saw Rasula step, which looked about the same as Atile’i’s island (both being compounded of countless bits of strange stuff), was not the same island at all. In fact, Rasula’s island was headed in the opposite direction.