The Man with the Compound Eyes (37 page)

“Na hudanan,”
the elder replied. (It’s going to rain).

Actually, it had been raining incessantly since last year, far more than predicted. Rain now seemed to be the only weather, from drizzle and occasional sunshiny rain to afternoon thundershowers and sudden downpours. “We’re drowning!” was the mood of the entire island. There was a deluge of reports of floods and landslides, along with a concomitant economic downturn. The malaise had lasted over a year and had contributed to the low voter turnout—less than fifty percent!—in the election at the end of the previous year. The islanders no longer believed any politician could get them out of this mess.

“How can one mudskipper lead a school of mudskippers out of the mire?” wrote Alice’s cynical friend Ming in a letter to the editor.

One day at dawn Alice was finally done revising. She’d completed two works of fiction, a novel and a short story. Atile’i already had a vague idea of what “fiction” was. It was like he’d always imagined there was a story behind everything he did not understand on Gesi Gesi. When Alice told Atile’i she was done, Atile’i asked: “What’s the name of it?”

“The long one or the short one?”

“The long one.”

“The Man with the Compound Eyes.”

“And the short one?”

“It’s also called, ‘The Man with the Compound Eyes.’ ”

That afternoon, Atile’i insisted on taking Alice somewhere. Alice was initially quite surprised, and extremely apprehensive, because she was still unwilling for Atile’i to be seen in public, lest he get hurt. When they were almost at the coast, Atile’i led Alice into a wood to the right, through which there was no distinct path to be seen. It would originally have been on slope land, but what with recent terrestrial transformations it was now surprisingly close to the shoreline. Various kinds of garbage that had not been (and might never be) cleared were piled up at the edge of the wood. Atile’i had something to show her. He lifted up what seemed to be a huge sheet of scrap canvas, to reveal something astonishing underneath. It was a boat.

All this time, Atile’i had been sneaking down at night while Alice was asleep and coming here to build a boat. But it was not a
talawaka
this time. It was made out of several kinds of wood from the mountains and some garbage collected at the beach. The basic construction of the hull reminded Alice of the traditional balangays of the Tao people of Orchid Island, only with a rain awning. Atile’i explained, “I saw the boat in a book. I learned how.”

How had the youth before her managed to construct a seemingly well-formed plank canoe with only crude tools and a few pictures in a book to consult?

“I can read books.” It was true. Atile’i had gone through many books
since he started reading on Gesi Gesi, even though he never understood the writing. He had his own way of reading.

Alice wished Atile’i would stay, but as he would not give a definite answer, Alice knew that he was determined to go.

“I heard Rasula’s voice. And there were two. Every evening,” Atile’i said. “But lately there’s only one left. Wayo Wayoans … belong at sea. I … must find Rasula.”

With heavy steps, they walked wordlessly back to the hunting hut. They did not sleep the whole night through. By morning, Alice had prepared two full suitcases of things she imagined one should take along on a journey across the sea. Atile’i smiled and reduced the gear to a single suitcase. He asked Alice for a fistful of pens.

“If I die soon, my spirit … might never leave. If I live long, I can … draw pictures on my skin.” He took off the green polo shirt that Alice had bought him, and his chest, arms, belly, and even the parts of the back he could twist his arms to reach, were covered in the stories of their life together on the island: Ohiyo, water flowing into the sea at the river mouth on a rainy day, alpine birds, and even Toto. He drew Toto’s tiny form on a huge, apparently boundless cliff that extended from his hips to his shoulder blades. Alice could not understand how he had managed to do it.

Alice couldn’t resist caressing his dark, youthful body, which was going forth to meet death a second time. Finally, her tears started to fall, and she cried and cried like the rainy season you can never drive away.

Dahu drove Detlef and Sara, Anu, Hafay and Umav. Heading south, they saw a sea that had flooded the rocky coastal terrace terrain. They saw a sea that had forced the tribal villagers of Laeno to move inland. It was like they were on an inspection tour. They witnessed how the great ocean had dumped back all the trash people had dumped into it, and how the mountains had buried the hollows people had dug into the mountains to build roads thinking there would always be roads here.

Dahu was about to turn onto a county highway that had been pushed through by the local government about seven or eight years before. Local politicians claimed that the rationale for the road was improving
transportation in remote areas and completing the ring road around the island. Later it was demonstrated that the road had been built for the sole purpose of conveying nuclear waste to a small southern village for dumping. It had absolutely nothing to do with making life more convenient for the local villagers.

The night before, they had stopped at a noodle shop in a small seaside village for some food and rest. Anu ordered two hundred dumplings in one go. Dahu told them about the route they would take the next morning. “I went there nine years ago, before the county highway was completed. Let’s not take the highway all the way. I want to take you guys along the old hiking trail. You’ll see the most sublime coastal scenery. In the beginning, it was the trail the aboriginal people on this side of the mountain took when they wanted to deal with the aboriginal people on the other side of the mountain. I think we should leave at dawn, to make it there for daybreak.”

Right then the television in the little noodle shop was broadcasting one of those tireless talk shows. The topic this evening was castaways in the Bermuda Triangle. At one point they were talking about the Gulf of Mexico, where about twenty years before the fishery had collapsed because of an oil spill and where six months ago a squid boat that hadn’t been able to catch a thing had rescued a dark-skinned girl with charred red hair. The girl was thought to have been drifting for at least a month. She was very weak, and only managed to regain consciousness for a few minutes upon receiving medical assistance, during which time she kept muttering, “Atile’i! Atile’i!” Language experts believed this was very likely a word of supplication in her language. The girl was put on life support. She slipped back into a coma, but her brain activity only ceased when doctors performed a Caesarean and removed the fetus she was carrying from her abdomen.

“It’s a miracle.” Hafay and Dahu both realized that the leggy anchorwoman with the heavy makeup was actually Lily, the lady from the day the Trash Vortex hit. The ex-anchorwoman on this channel got sacked after the tsunami incident; who knows how Lily had gotten promoted to the post? The infant was vigorous, the report continued,
despite an unfortunate congenital defect: its legs were joined together, like a cetacean tail fin.

Sara had Dahu translate the news for her. Nobody knew whether to be sad or happy for the child. Umav said, “Sweet! Fused legs will make it easier to swim.”

They could be sure there would be no good news in the weather forecast, because the earliest typhoon of the year was in the offing, and at the beginning of March already. It would very likely advance toward the east coast. Experts predicted that the storm would break up the Trash Vortex and cause it to surround the whole island. Moreover, the typhoon had a well-developed cloud structure and would bring a considerable amount of rain.

By the wee hours of the morning, Dahu and the other travelers were on the road again. In the darkness, the two cars were flooded with a multilingual torrent. But soon Dahu had to slow down and stop because of reduced visibility up ahead.

“I can’t see the road,” Dahu said.

The road had disappeared.

Because of the haze, they could not see the shape of the sun when it appeared on the horizon. Initially all they could see was the space immediately in front of the headlights. Gradually it got light enough for them to see where the road should have been: the road had been engulfed by the rising sea. Maybe it was too remote for there to be any reports on it, or maybe they had not been paying attention to the news. In any case, this unnecessary road, rarely traveled except for transporting nuclear waste, had now sunk beneath the waves, just like that.

As if the ocean is where they’d taken the road to get to, the band of travelers stood and gazed out across the vast Pacific at a listless sunrise, at the end of the road.

Dahu, Hafay, Umav, Anu, Detlef and Sara all got out of the cars and stood at the edge of the road that led into the sea, speechless. And the resolute Pacific kept delivering wave after distant wave.

Having set out a bit earlier than Dahu and Anu and the others, Alice was now helping Atile’i slowly push his boat into the sea. Alice cocked her head
and looked at Atile’i, wondering whether all of this had really happened or if it had been a figment of her imagination. Had she really spent the past while living with a youth who had come here across the Pacific on a floating island of garbage?

The sea was indistinct in the darkness, like a grainy old photograph. It was as if there was finally something to grasp hold of out there in the void. Alice sat in Atile’i’s boat. Staring out into the distance, they were both preoccupied. Time passed slowly, and Atile’i didn’t show any sign of rowing. It wasn’t until a flock of gulls flew past that Atile’i finally spoke. “Alice, can you pray for me?”

“Sure. But to whom should I pray?”

“Anyone. Kabang, or your god, or to the ocean.”

“Will my prayer make any difference?”

“Maybe not. The Sea Sage … my father says that you never know what will happen in the face of the sea, for the sea taketh away and the sea suddenly giveth another day. This is why we must pray.” Atile’i slipped into Wayo Wayoan halfway through, leaving Alice a bit in the dark as to what he was on about.

Dahu and the others sat down like there was a beach at the end of the road. They did not want to leave too soon, even though they were certain there was no going on to the old trail. Dahu was rambling on about the time he’d hiked it many years before. He talked and talked, his voice trailing off until not even he could hear it anymore. Umav kicked at the waves. Sara took samples of seawater. Detlef was recording the scene with his video camera. Anu just took off his clothes and jumped in for a swim.

Dahu noticed Hafay was wearing sandals today instead of boots, exposing her extra toes. He felt that each extra toe was like an adorable millet sprout.

Hafay started to sing. They all stopped what they were doing the moment they heard her voice. Even the sea seemed to cease slapping at the shore. All that remained in the world was her song.

First she sang a Pangcah ballad, then an air she’d composed herself, then an English folk anthem from many years before. This was a song she had learned from a CD that man had given her. She had memorized every
verse of every song on those CDs, even though she had no idea what the lyrics meant.

This was a song from such a long time ago. But even Dahu, who had heard Hafay sing a lot of songs before, felt like Hafay’s voice replenished something inside his empty soul. Even Anu, who did not understand a word, felt like he was responsible for the sorrow in the song. Even Detlef, who had really been to the heart of a mountain, felt like something had been hollowed out and a cavern had appeared, a cavern so deep and vast it could never be reinforced. And even Umav, who was just a girl who did not yet know the ways of the world, felt that a hard rain was really going to fall.

Her red hair flying like a flag, Sara was stunned by Hafay’s voice. The
raindrops in Hafay’s song seemed to shatter in the gale, making the rain seem much heavier than it actually was. Sara and Hafay exchanged a glance, and then Sara took over the lead, with Hafay singing harmony: