‘Wait a minute,’ I said to Osana, ‘is that live ammunition?’
‘Not now, taubada,’ he said, and he started to laugh. ‘But lots of people died at first, in the war. They were hammering those bullets to make bracelets, and the big ones, they would stick three in the ground and put a cooking-pot on them and light a fire between. There were big bangs then, taubada. But not now.’
‘Where did it all come from?’ I said.
‘Out of the sky, taubada,’ he said. ‘From their ancestors, they said then. It was a Spitfire, taubada, that crashed over that way, in the swamp. The Air Force thought it was in the sea, they did not know until after the war. And these people, they did not know what it was, they said: ‘O, it is our ancestors, it is cargo.’ Then their cargo went bang in their faces. Life is sad, taubada.’
I didn’t say anything, in case of saying too much, but walked a bit faster after the others, nearly colliding with them when they stopped. They had fetched up at a covered platform towards the centre of the hamlet, and Alistair was stooping in under the thatch and staring at something.
I came behind him and peered over his shoulder, and was looking at an old dry mummy laid out on a mat.
‘
I masisi
,’ the VC whispered. ‘He’s asleep.’
‘Tim,’ Alistair said, also whispering, ‘we’ll come back later.’
But suddenly, as he was turning, someone else was there. He must have been sitting on the ground, at the far end of the platform, hidden from us, and only then stood up, half stooped, and looked at us across the body of the old chief. I could have sworn that his eyes had grown, in the few days since he had put the wind up me on board the
lgau.
‘Hey, look,’ I said, ‘it’s Two-bob. Is this where he lives?’
Then I got shoved aside, as Alistair swung round to speak to Benoni. Though he kept his voice down, the questions sounded urgent, a bit angry. And Benoni and Boitoku, answering him, could have been nervous.
But Osana only looked amused. His face was saying: Look at me being amused.
When Alistair turned back, Two-bob was still watching us, and poised, as if he had been expecting an order.
‘Who is he?’ I muttered to Alistair. ‘Does anyone know?’
‘Not exactly,’ he said, too low for the others to hear, but not quite to me, either. ‘He calls himself Metusela now, but he says his name used to be Mwanebu. He says his mother was a sister of Dipapa’s who married a Muyuwa man, and Dipapa says it’s true. But that’s not what he told us. He said he was born in the other village, Obomatu, and went to work on a plantation when he was a young man.’
I said: ‘I didn’t know you’d talked to him.’
‘We had a letter about him,’ he said, ‘before he arrived in Osiwa. He’s been in the calaboose at Esa’ala. Nothing serious—he joined in a metho party while he was working round a hospital, and some of the guests finished up blind or dead. Well, he can’t do that again, not here. But why should he lie about where he came from?’
‘Does it matter?’ I said, wishing the man would do something, instead of just standing there with his arms dangling and his eyes eating us up.
‘To someone it does,’ Alistair said. ‘I can’t tell you here. But if he’s who he says he is, well, he’s in line to be the next chief.’
‘
Him
?’ I said.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Funny thought, isn’t it? But no gossiping, understand?’
‘Who can
I
gossip with?’ I started to say. But he had raised his head, and for the first time was acknowledging the man at the other end of the platform. ‘Metusela,’ he said, ‘okay.’
Like a robot, still with his eyes on us, Metusela stretched out his arm. He began to tap with a fingernail on the platform beside the chief’s ear. Everything was so quiet, I never heard a village so quiet: the five of us at one end, he at the other, in the midday silence, and the slow tap-tap-tap going on by that old mummy’s skull.
And at last Dipapa’s spirit came back again. It heard the tapping, from wherever it is that spirits go, and it turned for home, hurrying, towards Metusela’s nail. While we watched, the old man’s spirit flew into the old man’s head, and pushed up his eyelids, and he lay staring at the thatch.
We watched Dipapa wake, and nobody said a word. He did not stretch or yawn. It was like a snake waking. For a little while he lay with his eyes open, then he reared up, like a snake with loose skin.
Dipapa was perhaps the oldest man in the world. The Dimdims say they think he was more than eighty years.
When I was in other villages, I laughed at Dipapa. But when I was near him I was shy, and never spoke.
Once a man at Vaimuna said to Mister Cawdor: ‘Taubada, I wish that Dipapa was dead.’ And Mister Cawdor said: ‘No. Why do you speak like that? He is my friend, a good old man.’ ‘Oh yes, taubada,’ the Vaimuna man said, ‘by day he is a good old man. By night it is otherwise.’
In Osiwa, when they talked of his sorcery, I said: ‘Ignorance.’ But when I was near him, I was never sure.
Who knows what is inside his house, all sealed like that so that nobody else’s sorcery could get in? Some day, I thought, perhaps Benoni will know: the things, but never the words. No one will fear Benoni, he is not like a chief.
But everyone who saw Dipapa knew that he was a chief, and felt it, like a sound or the temperature of the air.
When Dipapa was awake he sat up on the platform and turned his face towards Mister Cawdor. He had no teeth, and his head was like a skull. He was always sucking in his cheeks, and moving his lips, which were thin, like a white man’s lips. He looked a long time at Mister Cawdor with his big eyes, which were brighter than any other man’s eyes, and yet cloudy.
‘O Dipapa,’ Mister Cawdor said, ‘already I have returned.’
‘O Misa Kodo,’ Dipapa said, not moving his head or any part of him, but staring into Mister Cawdor’s eyes. ‘Again I see you at Wayouyo.’
‘You are well?’ said Mister Cawdor.
‘I am well,’ said Dipapa, ‘except for the malaria. Perhaps—’
‘Yes, certainly,’ Mister Cawdor said. ‘You shall have some bully-beef and rice soon, for the malaria.’
‘My great thanks,’ said Dipapa. Then he began to look, though his head did not move, at the face of Mister Dalwood.
‘The name of my companion,’ Mister Cawdor said, ‘is Misa Dolu’udi. He is a benevolent man, as well as strong.’
‘I see,’ Dipapa said, nodding. But he muttered, as if he was not pleased: ‘He is very young.’
‘O Dipapa,’ Mister Cawdor said, ‘you know it, he will be old before long.’
Dipapa smiled then, showing his red gums and his red tongue. ‘Misa Kodo,’ he said, patting the mat beside him, ‘come, sit. Will you drink, will you chew?’ And as Mister Cawdor climbed up beside him, he said out of one corner of his mouth to Benoni and Boitoku: ‘They will drink,’ and out of the other corner of his mouth to the madman Metusela: ‘They will chew.’ And Benoni and Boitoku ran away to get green coconuts, while Metusela dived under the platform and brought out Dipapa’s lime-gourd and the bag with his betelnut and all the other things.
When Mister Dalwood saw the lime-gourd, he whispered to me: ‘What’s that?’
‘The lime-gourd of Dipapa’s ancestors,’ I said. ‘When he walks, there is a man to carry it.’
‘Like a king,’ Mister Dalwood said, staring at the old man, who had in one hand the great yellow gourd, and in the other a great ebony spatula as long as a man’s forearm, all carved with animals and birds and branches with leaves.
Mister Cawdor had been tearing the husk away from the betelnut that Dipapa had given him, using his teeth. He took the spatula from Dipapa and dug lime from the gourd and wrapped it in a pepper-leaf which he put into his mouth. While he chewed he nodded to Dipapa and looked grateful.
All the time Metusela had been pounding betelnut for Dipapa, who had no teeth, and he handed it to the old man in an ebony mortar carved like a war-canoe, with a tall smooth ebony mast which was the pestle.
‘Look at that,’ Mister Dalwood said. ‘Alistair, look at that. That’s beautiful.’
He was speaking in his loud voice, and Dipapa, scooping the betelnut into his mouth, peered at him over the little boat and did not seem pleased.
‘He says,’ Mister Cawdor told Dipapa, ‘that your mortar is very beautiful. All the Dimdims say that. They think it is very fine, the carved ebony of your people.’
‘You say?’ said Dipapa. ‘Then I will give the boy something in ebony, a
kuto
or a
sabu
.’
‘
Kuto
?’ Mister Cawdor said. ‘
Sabu
? I do not know those words.’ And he turned to me, and said: ‘Osana?’
That made me pleased, because Mister Cawdor thought he knew everything about the language, though he did not, and I said in a kind voice: ‘
Kuto
, taubada, it is like a sharp knife, carved in ebony. And
sabu
is a big knife of ebony, a sword.’
‘
E, mokita
?’ cried Mister Cawdor, looking astonished. ‘A knife and a sword? But those are white men’s words, the language of France.’
‘It is possible, taubada,’ I said.
Dipapa mumbled his betelnut between his gums and seemed sleepy, not interested in the talk of Mister Cawdor and me. But he said: ‘If you wish, Misa Kodo, I will show you a
sabu
which is not made of ebony, but of iron.’ And to Metusela he said: ‘Go, get the old
sabu
,’ and Metusela ran off.
We watched Metusela open the door of Dipapa’s house and step into the darkness. We could see him still, through the doorway, feeling about, and I thought it very strange that he knew what was inside Dipapa’s house, which certainly Benoni would not have known, or any of Dipapa’s wives. In a minute he came out again and closed the door, and ran back to us, holding a long sword which shone.
Dipapa took the sword from Metusela and gave it to Mister Cawdor, who stared and stared at it, up and down. He ran his finger down the edge of it, which was all broken away, like a saw.
‘Some white men in a ship,’ Dipapa said, ‘gave it to my ancestors. Long ago they cut down trees with it, but today no more.’
‘Good God,’ Mister Cawdor said in English, and Mister Dalwood too was staring.
‘There is writing on it,’ Dipapa said.
‘I saw,’ said Mister Cawdor. ‘O Dipapa, it is the mark of Louis, the King of France. I think in the year that his sailing-master gave the
sabu
to your ancestor, the people of Louis cut off his head.’
‘Truly?’ said Dipapa. ‘Bad doings. Our custom is not like that.’
‘
Sabu
,’ Mister Cawdor said to himself. ‘
Kuto
.’
‘Let me in on it,’ said Mister Dalwood, who was wanting to see the sword, but Mister Cawdor would not take any notice of his hand reaching out. ‘Alistair, what’s it all about? Who gave it to them?’
Mister Cawdor said in English: ‘D’Entrecasteaux, I should think. In 1793. And some knives as well. And ever since they’ve been making copies of them in ebony.’
‘Fantastic,’ Mister Dalwood said, like Mister Cawdor looking very pleased. ‘How much does he want for it?’
But Mister Cawdor did not seem to hear, and went on gazing at the sword, and rubbing at the mark of the King of France with his thumb.
‘They come, they go,’ Dipapa said, sucking his gums and looking towards the sky, like a man half asleep. ‘Black men, white men, canoes, steamers. They bring their somethings. But we—we stay and watch, that is all. Every day the same.’
Nobody would tell me what they were talking about. For a while they let me handle the sword, but then the old man asked for it back, and Metusela took it away and shut it in the house. Benoni and Boitoku came back with green coconuts and gave me a drink, and that was all rather ceremonious while it lasted, but obviously I didn’t count for much so long as Misa Kodo was in the area.
‘Alistair,’ I said, when everyone was quiet for a moment, ‘do I need to stay?’
‘You bored?’ he said, looking round. ‘Okay, go for a walk.’
As he spoke I noticed his lips and teeth, bright red with betelnut. ‘By the way, you look disgusting,’ I said, and he lobbed a mouthful of crimson spit on the ground near my shoe.
Boitoku wanted to come with me, but I told him no, because they wear me out, these friendly old men, always pointing to something and trying to explain it with their fingers and eyebrows. I said: ‘No, thanks, I’ll just take a walk by myself,’ and Osana translated that, probably rudely, and the sad old VC looked put down.
Every part of the village was deserted when I wandered through. The people were at the resthouse, exclaiming over our somethings and getting the news from the houseboys and policemen. I walked by the fabulous yam-house, and then turned aside towards a gap I noticed in the grove, where there seemed to be a road leading to a circle of palms.
The path was mown and edged with a coral wall planted with crotons, as neat as a town garden. At the end of it I came out in a mown clearing, and thought at first that perhaps they danced there, or played cricket, because some of them do play a kind of cricket, with homemade bats like they used in the Middle Ages, and about sixty men to a side. But the clearing was not an empty space, after all, and when I came by the last palm, I saw the house away to the left.
Then I wished Alistair was with me, it seemed too good a joke not to share. The house was a church, it had a cross at the peak of the gable. But all along the top of the pandanus-leaf half-wall were shapes in wood, beautifully carved, brightly painted. Hearts, clubs, diamonds and spades.
I wondered if they had a native catechist for this casino, and then remembered Mak saying that on Kailuana God died in the Great War. Yet there the church was, in the fresh-mown grass, the paint of it still spanking new; and some people who had once played cards somewhere had worked hard for weeks or months to make it beautiful like that.
I walked nearer, and looked up the cross. It wasn’t a cross at all. It was a plane, a nasty-looking sharklike plane, carved in ebony.
Inside, from all the rafters, planes hung from cords and revolved in the faint breeze. Planes of all sizes, painted bright colours, or of polished wood with patterns picked out in lime. There were shiny planes, too, built of tin cans, and some crude little ones in brass. I thought of the old ammo around Dipapa’s flower-bed, and Osana saying: Then their cargo went bang in their faces.