Visitants (11 page)

When Sagova and Mister Dalwood had sat down again, Mister Cawdor said: ‘Why did you do that, Sagova?’

Sagova laughed and looked shy. ‘I was afraid,’ he said, ‘of being made impotent.’

‘O!’ said Mister Cawdor. ‘Then, am I impotent now?’

‘I don’t know, taubada,’ Sagova said, full of shame. ‘Your custom is different. For us, if a woman’s box passed over our legs like that, that would be the end.’

‘Sssss. You talk gammon,’ I said to Sagova.

‘Osana, shut up,’ said Mister Cawdor.

‘Very good, taubada,’ I said. ‘He does not talk gammon, and you are impotent.’

And Mister Cawdor just looked at me quietly, smiling the way he often smiled, not really with his mouth but with his eyebrows.

His face changed like no other man’s. One time you could hardly see his face. That was when the Dimdims at Osiwa were saying that he would have to be sent away to Dimdim, because he was always drunk, not very drunk, but always. For a while he would not shave or wash or change his clothes, and Kailusa was in despair, because Mister Cawdor was his
vaigua
, his jewel, that ignorant hunchback. So Kailusa thought of a plan, but could not explain it to Mister Dalwood, and he came with Mister Dalwood to me, and asked me to interpret.

When I had told Mister Dalwood Kailusa’s idea we both laughed very much, and I said I would like to see what they were going to do, and Mister Dalwood said that I might come with them. So we went to the big room in their house, and when Mister Cawdor came in, all dirty and with his face covered with hair, Mister Dalwood jumped on him and twisted his arms and they fell into a chair. Mister Cawdor was very angry and said filthy things, but when he saw Kailusa coming in with the hot water and the razor he began to laugh. So Kailusa put the soap on his face and shaved him, and all the time he just laughed, and sat quiet on Mister Dalwood’s knees like a baby.

Then Kailusa brought a glass and held it in front of Mister Cawdor and said: ‘Now, taubada, you are a young man again.’

And truly, after all that beard was gone, he was a very young man, and when he looked at his face in the glass it was as if he had forgotten. A long, long time he looked at his face in the glass, and then he said: ‘Very good, Kailusa, now cut my hair.’ And next he went and put out the wooden figures for the game called chess that he played with Mister Dalwood. So afterwards the Dimdims thought that he was like before, in the days when the sinabada lived with him. But I knew that that was not true, and that some day I would have to say.

All the time, while I was thinking about Mister Cawdor’s face, the men from the village were passing with chickens. Some chickens were tied and some had green palm-fronds woven around them, and all of them were crying out. The dinghy was filled with them, there was a great pile of them on the shore, and old Sayam was stamping up and down, furious because of his boat.

‘Taubada,’ Sayam called to Mister Cawdor, ‘how many chickens are going in the
Igau
?’

‘I do not know,’ Mister Cawdor said. ‘You count.’

‘I counted already,’ Sayam said. ‘Taubada, seventy-three chickens.’

‘Very good,’ said Mister Cawdor. ‘We will eat, and these people will smoke.’

‘But seventy-three chickens, taubada,’ Sayam cried out. ‘They will shit everywhere, everywhere.’

‘E,’ said Mister Cawdor, moving his shoulders, ‘it is their custom.’

Sayam looked for a little while at Mister Cawdor. Then he spat a lot of betelnut on the sand, and went out through the water to the dinghy, muttering: ‘Madness.’

Mister Dalwood had found a little hermit crab without a house, and was searching for a shell to give it. When he did find a shell, the crab would not go into it, because there was another crab inside. So Mister Dalwood searched again, and at last found an empty shell. It was too big, but the crab got into it, and scuttled away.

‘My good deed for the day,’ said Mister Dalwood.

Sagova said to Mister Cawdor: ‘You like to eat chicken, taubada?’

‘Yes,’ Mister Cawdor said. But he lied, because he never liked to eat anything.

‘You like to eat this, taubada?’ Sagova said, and he opened a banana-leaf parcel and offered Mister Cawdor a boiled mango.

Mister Cawdor looked round for Kailusa, sighing a little. ‘Kailusa,’ he said, ‘give my companion a stick of tobacco.’ And to Sagova he said: ‘My very great thanks, but today I do not eat. However, my nephew will eat it.’ Then he spoke in English to Mister Dalwood, and said: ‘Right, Tim, ram it down.’ That was Mister Dalwood’s biggest work in the villages, to eat, and a ship could not contain all the yams and maize and sago dumplings and pig-fat that he has put into his belly this year, in order to look polite.

Mister Dalwood sighed too when Mister Cawdor said that, but ate the mango, making noises of joy. All the time Sagova stared at his throat, and looked proud whenever he saw Mister Dalwood swallow.

‘Sagova,’ said Mister Cawdor, ‘speak to me. Do you remember Taudoga?’

‘Oh, yes, taubada,’ Sagova said. ‘But I was a child then. I was not in those doings.’

‘What were they like,’ Mister Cawdor said, ‘those doings? Were they like Christians, like Church?’

‘Truly, I do not know,’ Sagova said. ‘I did not see. But I know the reason. The older men did not want the young men to have the girls. So they called themselves sergeants and names like that, and said that the girls were only for them. They had dancing, taubada, but the young men were not allowed to see it. The older men and the girls danced in two circles, and when they stopped the man seized the girl facing him and took her away into the bush.’

‘That is like a game,’ I said, ‘that they play at the Mission. It is called Musical Chairs.’

‘True, Osana,’ Mister Cawdor said. ‘Sagova, you say: did Taudoga truly vanish? You did not hide him?’

‘No, taubada. He did truly vanish. And when he was gone, that madness was over.’

‘You did not kill him, you Kaga people?’

‘No, taubada!’ Sagova cried out. ‘He just vanished, and afterwards nobody saw him. Taubada, I am not lying.’

‘I believe,’ Mister Cawdor said. ‘I believe your word. Well, enough of Taudoga. My talk is finished.’

By that time Mister Dalwood had finished his mango, and threw the mango-stone at a gull. Then he walked in the sand, pulling the strings of the fruit out of his big teeth. ‘Very good,’ Mister Dalwood exclaimed, nodding to Sagova. But in English he said: ‘It wasn’t too bad, but let’s push off quick. I was watched. Any minute now we’ll have the ladies from Meals on Wheels.’

‘Right,’ Mister Cawdor said, beginning to get up from the sand. ‘Sagova, our gratitude, and goodbye.’

‘Taubada,’ Sagova said, putting his hand on Mister Cawdor’s arm, ‘wait a little. I want to ask a question. The people are talking about the star. Taubada, what is the star?’

‘Star?’ Mister Cawdor said. ‘Which star?’

‘It flies,’ Sagova said. ‘It flew last night from the south-east wind to the north-east wind.’

‘Perhaps it is a
mulukwausi
,’ Mister Cawdor said, ‘a flying witch.’ And he laughed, as all the Dimdims do at the
mulukwausi
that ignorant people believe in, because they think it is funny that fire should stream from their women’s parts.

‘No, taubada,’ Sagova said, sounding annoyed. ‘Not
mulukwausi
, taubada. A star, that flies.’

‘E,’ said Mister Cawdor, ‘I will tell you my mind. I think it is a machine, a Dimdim machine, and its name is Sputnik. It does nobody any harm. It flies in the sky and shines, that is all, like one of those glass floats of the Japanese fishermen.’

‘True?’ said Sagova. ‘Well, I will tell the people.’

‘Yes, tell them,’ said Mister Cawdor; ‘and tell them also that I am sorry that I spoke of what they did not want to remember. Well, the dinghy has come back. Goodbye, my friend. I will see you perhaps at Wayouyo when you come on the
kula
.’

‘Yes, perhaps,’ Sagova said, and he shook hands with Mister Cawdor and Mister Dalwood and me. Then we waded to the dinghy and rowed away, with chickens packed all around us like Dimdim cushions.

In those first days the weather was like early mornings when I was a kid, the south-easterly blew quiet and cool, hardly marking the sea, and the clouds were fairweather wisps along the horizons. That evening, between Kaga and Kailuana, the sea died to a smooth curve of bottomless blue, and the blue of the sky faded and changed to green: an apple-green peacock-green sky pouring down a pink and golden light. The
Igau
turned rosy in the glow, which coloured the sea, too, so that it passed through lavender to deep violet, while the faces and shapes of the people became ghostly and strange.

Sayam stood at the wheel wearing the face of a Mexican god, and listened to the plop of eggs behind him. Seventy-three eggs must have been dropped that evening in the belly of the fresh-painted
Igau.
So Sayam scowled and snapped at his admirers, steering that enormous omelette through the purple sea.

I thought Alistair would be asleep, I was so nearly asleep myself, and everything was so quiet, and I felt so alone. When the singing began I didn’t even wonder about it, it just seemed right, and meant for me. I lay by Alistair on the decking over Sayam’s head and let the song come to me.

Hard to believe that he understood perhaps four words of that, he sang with such passionate sadness. When it struck me, I scrambled to my knees and stared at him: coal-black in that light, his mauve rami burning. Cross-legged near Alistair’s head, singing to Alistair.

I thought of the music books in the cupboard where he had thrown all her things, and knew that the song would be there, inside one of the books with her maiden-name on the cover.

‘Kailusa,’ I said.

Alistair’s hand came away from his eyes. ‘Very good, Kailusa,’ he said. ‘Another time.’ And the boy (that boy of round about forty) lifted his head and began again, out of that broad deep chest that had something to do with his deformity. Over the ghostly
Igau
on the empty sea the words hung like frigate-birds.

The sea was pale when we came to Kailuana again, but the island was black. We could tell where the house was among the palms because one shutter was full of light, and we knew that Misa Makadoneli would be standing there, looking for us, seeing us black like the island on the pale sea.

When the people came back he and Naibusi were waiting on the veranda, and he said to Alistea: ‘You’re late, old man, you’ve been holding us up.’ He was dressed in his pyjamas that he puts on at six o’clock, and he had his rum and his pipe that Naibusi brings at half past six, and he sat at the table by the lamp wearing his hat, because the cockatoo likes to sit on his head at that time, and looked cross.

Because he was in a bad humour Alistea was gentle with him, and said we had been delayed by a
vineilida
, one of those rocks that are alive and live at the bottom of the sea. Then Popu flew down on to the table and began to drink Timi’s rum, and Timi let him drink it, and soon Popu was drunk.

Popu staggered around the table flapping his wings and screaming, with all his feathers standing up, until he could not walk any more. Then he lay on his back and cried his name very pitifully, like a baby. Timi was laughing and laughing, and soon he was drunk too, and kept looking at me. So I said to Misa Makadoneli that I felt sick, and I went down the back steps to the village and stayed in Naibusi’s house, to stop Timi from looking at me, because nothing can happen in the big house that Misa Makadoneli does not see.

Afterwards, when it was nine o’clock and Misa Makadoneli was in his bed, I went to help Naibusi in the cookhouse. Naibusi was making bread and her hands were covered with flour. ‘O,’ she said, ‘Misa Kodo wants his tobacco that I cut tonight. You take it to him, I have too much work. He is in his room.’

I went to Alistea’s door and knocked and he called to me to come in. He was lying on his bed and reading a book, and he looked very hot.

‘O, Saliba,’ he said. ‘Shall we sleep?’

‘Ssss,’ I said. ‘Anyway, I do not think you want to sleep with me.’

‘You are very pleasing,’ he said, ‘O face-like-the-moon.’ But he was smiling, and I did not think he truly thought I was pleasing, though he liked to be my friend.

‘It is hot,’ he said. ‘The window will not open?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Here is your tobacco that Naibusi sent.’

‘Put it there,’ he said, pointing at the box beside his bed, ‘and say to Naibusi my thanks. E, I do not like this room. It smells. It smells of rot.’

‘The name of the house is Rotten Wood,’ I said.

‘That is the truth,’ he said. ‘But your garland smells very good.’

I was stooping to set down his tin of tobacco on the box, and he put his arms around my body and his face against my garland of bwita flowers.

I was not angry, I did not move away, but I said: ‘Taubada, I do not want that.’ Still I thought: He is my friend. But I did not like his body, which had black hair on it like so many Dimdims, though not like Timi, and his face was rough with hair and hurt my skin. ‘Taubada,’ I said, ‘I will go.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘stay a little.’ He turned his face upwards to look at my face, and his face was very young, he seemed like a boy. ‘Nowadays,’ he said, ‘I have no woman.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I heard the people talking. My grief for you.’

‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘my mind is heavy. Yet truly, I was not happy before, when the sinabada was with me.’

‘Why?’ I said.

‘I do not know,’ he said. ‘We were not happy. Perhaps I am not a good lover.’

‘Truly?’ I said. ‘In what way are you not a good lover?’ Then I saw in his face that he had wanted me to think that he was joking, and because I thought he was not joking his eyes went dark and small.

‘It is bad,’ he said. ‘I talk too much.’ And he stopped holding me and lay back on the bed, in his white Dimdim yavi, with hairs on his chest and belly.