‘Good, then,’ said Naibusi. ‘I am content. I think I would not understand star-people. I do not understand Dimdims yet.’
By that time Naibusi and I were finished and were hanging up the cloths and were going to go to the hut to sleep. But suddenly a huge noise came down the passage, like screams and whistles and music, and the girls were shouting and beating their hands.
‘
Ki
!’ cried Naibusi. ‘It is the radio.’
‘Not that one?’ I said. ‘Not the new one?’ Because Misa Makadoneli had sent for a new radio from Samarai when the old one broke, but the Samarai people put the radio in the mail-bag, and the pilot of the plane dropped the mail-bag near the front steps, like always.
‘No, I think the old one,’ Naibusi said. And suddenly all the girls came running into the cookhouse, laughing and crying out.
‘O!’ they called. ‘Misa Dolu’udi has mended the radio.’
And they said: ‘Salib’, you come. Misa Dolu’udi says.’
‘He is going to dance,’ they said. ‘Salib’, you come and dance with Misa Dolu’udi.’
‘I will not dance with a man,’ I said, shaking my head.
‘Yes, you will dance,’ they cried. ‘Like a Dimdim, Salib’. Come and dance, O sinabada.’
And then they were dragging me away. They were laughing, but it was not kind. Naibusi was calling: ‘
Des’, des’
, she is tired,’ and I was fighting them, but they were dragging me away from the cookhouse and across the veranda, and into the passage that was full of whistles and music.
In the big room they had closed the shutters because of the rain. It was hot, with the lamps and the people, and all the people were shining. And they were laughing and shouting, and the old radio on the table was screaming, and the air was full of smoke and the smell of flowers and the Dimdims’ drink. I could not breathe in the room, and tried to go away, but all the girls were in the doorway.
Misa Makadoneli was sitting on a chair. His eyes were like blue beads behind his glasses, and he was smiling with all his teeth into the air.
Alistea’s head was against the back of the sofa. He did not move. His eyes were open just a little way, like a dead man, and his face was an ugly colour, like soap.
But Timi was dancing, by himself, in the middle of the room. He was dancing a Dimdim dance to the music of the radio, wearing only his yavi that he swims in, and looked pink and glistening, but hard, like stone. He danced in his bare feet on the mats, and sometimes his feet caught in the edges and he stumbled across the room.
‘Salib’!’ Timi shouted.
He was smiling, with his big teeth and his blue eyes.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Taubada,’ I called to Misa Makadoneli. But Misa Makadoneli was smiling too, and nodding his head, and said nothing.
I shouted at the girls: ‘I want to go,’ but they would not move from the door. They were yelling: ‘Dance, Salib’, dance, we want to see,’ and suddenly people pushed me in the back, and I went running towards Timi.
I did not think he was cruel. I did not think he wanted to hurt me. But he did. He put his arms around me, and moved with me, among the screams and the laughter.
‘No, no,’ I cried to him. ‘No. Your shame.’
He was talking to me in English, and smiling, while I fought him.
‘Why?’ I kept crying to him. ‘Why? I am not a shamed woman. Taubada, why this?’
But he was like a deaf man. He did not hear, even, that I called him
taubada.
He went on holding me, and trying to move with me, and smiling. And suddenly he bent his head, so that I smelt the Dimdim drink on his breath, and kissed my mouth.
Then I must have screamed, and tore at his face with my nails, and he cried out too and stumbled back, with blood running down from near his eyes. He cried out: ‘Salib’!’ sounding astonished, and lifted his hands to his eyes. So I pushed at him, and then ran towards the girls and scratched and beat at them till they let me through, and ran down the passage towards the veranda and the cookhouse.
When I was in the cookhouse Naibusi came after me. She said: ‘Put away the knife, Salib’.’
‘I am going to cut him,’ I said. ‘I am going to cut his face.’
‘No,’ said Naibusi. ‘That would be bad, Salib’.’
‘I am going to hurt him,’ I said. ‘He is a filthy man.’
‘No,’ said Naibusi. ‘His mind is not bad. Only, their customs are different.’
‘O Naibus’,’ I said, ‘I will go away. I will go to Wayouyo. I do not want to see a Dimdim again. My shame is very great.’
‘Yes,’ Naibusi said, ‘go tomorrow. For a while. But give me the knife.’
And then I was on my knees, weeping into Naibusi’s skirt. ‘O Naibus’,’ I was saying. ‘O my mother.’ And Naibusi was stroking my head and saying: ‘
Des
’,
desila
, my child. All will be well. You will see, how all will be well.’
I had sat Dalwood down on my chair at the table, and had turned up his face towards the lamp to examine the scratches, when suddenly, beyond the lamplight, she materialized. In that old blue dress, stiff as a stake, with that old dried noble head on top of it.
‘O Naibus’,’ I said. ‘Look what has happened. Go and get the box of medicine.’
But she did not move. And when our eyes met, I saw that she had other things on her mind.
‘Your shame,’ she hissed. ‘O, your shame.’
‘No, Naibus’,’ I said. ‘The girl did not understand. See, here. She has made him bleed.’
She looked, not at the blood, but into his eyes, and he flinched. ‘Idiot,’ she said.
‘What does she say?’ he asked me. He sounded very subdued, and turned his head towards me to avoid the old woman.
‘Naibus’,’ I said, pleading for him, ‘he is young, he is a young Dimdim. He wanted to dance a Dimdim dance. His custom is different. Old woman, you and I are going to quarrel by and by.’
‘Good, then,’ she said. ‘I am content. Let us quarrel. You are an idiot, like him.
A paek’
,’ she said, with eyes like bullets. ‘I refuse.’
‘You would not,’ I said. And believed and knew that she would not, but still the words clutched like cold hands. To die alone, in this house, without her, and she alone in some village. ‘No, Naibusi. You shall not speak like that.’
‘E, we shall see,’ she said, and shrugged. Then she was staring at the sofa, at Cawdor, who had been quiet and forgotten a long time. ‘He is asleep?’ she said.
We turned to look. His eyes were closed, and suddenly we noticed how bad his colour was. ‘Hey, Alistair,’ Dalwood said, ‘are you all right?’
‘Yes,’ he said, and his eyes opened and he was looking at Naibusi. ‘What, old woman?’ he said, slurring the words.
‘Why did you not speak?’ she demanded.
‘I did not see,’ he mumbled. ‘I did not truly see. Naibus’,’ he said, ‘I am ill, I think.’ He got to his feet, shakily, and stepped towards her. Then he staggered, and fell full-length on the floor.
Dalwood was making a great noise. ‘Jesus, Cawdor, you’re paralytic.’
But Naibusi wailed. Naibusi was on her haunches, holding Cawdor’s head to her breast, and stroking it. ‘
Kapisila
!’ she cried. ‘My grief for him! I did not understand. I do not want Misa Kodo to die.’
When I went to Wayouyo in the night the rain had stopped for a while and the fireflies were burning in the dripping bushes. I was afraid in the dark, and sometimes I missed the path. But it was in the taller bushes by the path that the fireflies hung, and so I would find the road again by the little green flames among the leaves.
I did not weep after I left the house, but once I cried out, when the night-bird swooped by me and I felt the wind of its wings in my hair. I cried out and jumped away, thinking of bad luck, searching for the bird in the branches and the sky, in case it might come again. Then I saw the light. Just for a moment I saw the light, and I thought: It is them. I thought: It is them, and I was not sad any more. Let them come, I thought, and chase away the Dimdims. Let them kill the Dimdims, who bring nothing but disappointment and shame. I stared and stared at the sky, forgetting the bird, and though the light did not come again my mind was quiet.
I turned over in the camp-bed, and the pillow rubbed across the scratches on my face and made them sting. So I woke, remembering. The room was dark, still shuttered, and the roof rattled with little gusts of rain. It was hot again, I was sweating, and my sweat in the marks of her nails brought back all the triumphs of the evening. For a while I wondered if what was making my head ache might be an obscure tropical disease, fatal with any luck, and okay for my mother to mention to her friends. But it just wasn’t a room that it was possible to die in, stinking like that of tobacco and rum and flowers and the built-in mildew, and my watch said it was eight o’clock already, and we were due to sail at that time for Osiwa. So I rolled out, making plans to die at sea, and shambled down the passage towards the shower. Then I remembered Alistair.
He wasn’t in his room, and nothing else was in his room. All packed and gone, and the bedding folded and stacked, the way Kailusa did it, Army-style.
Then he’s all right, I thought. Of course, he was all right all along.
That poor old lady, getting herself into a state, just because a Dimdim drank himself under the table.
But I thought of the old man, too, after we had put the body to bed, gripping my elbow, all confidential, and suddenly stone-cold sober. ‘Dalwood,’ he said, ‘don’t tell him what Naibusi’s been saying. He thinks like a kanaka, in some ways. It would worry him.’
Meaning that he, Mak, was worried. Meaning that
he
thought like a native in some ways. Because he does believe that Naibusi has a talent, like dogs or bees, that are supposed to know when a man is going to die.
I went out on to the veranda and Alistair was there, in clean clothes, showered and combed, at the rail with Mak, his back to me. And he looked so straight and sturdy beside the stalky old man that I thought: You gammon, Naibus’. They were talking quietly, watching the dinghy and canoes taking our gear out on the choppy sea to the
Igau.
‘Conscientious, aren’t you?’ I said behind him.
He turned back from the rail, looking greyish, though carefully shaved. Without a flicker of a smile he asked: ‘What have you done to your face?’ He seemed honestly curious, and concerned.
‘Not before breakfast, mate,’ I said. ‘I don’t feel funny.’
But the old man had been fascinated by the question, and jumped in to explain. ‘I say, Dalwood,’ he said, ‘Cawdor’s had a blackout. Doesn’t remember a thing. Sounds bad, don’t you think?’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Sounds like another step along the road to Alcoholics Anonymous.’
The MacDonnell went rambling on. ‘Ought to see a doctor, old chap. You’ll be at Osiwa tonight. Drop in on the MO and ask him what he thinks.’
‘Mak,’ Alistair said, ‘we haven’t got an MO at Osiwa just now. The MO at Osiwa was run away with by my wife.’
‘Oh,’ said the MacDonnell in confusion. ‘Sorry, old man. Thought you’d have had another one by this time.’
I said to Alistair: ‘You enjoyed saying that, didn’t you? You creep,’ I said, and he laughed as if he couldn’t help it, though I saw that it hurt his head worse than mine.
‘Time you got cracking,’ he said. ‘You look as if you’d been bombed. I’m not waiting round for you. I’m going aboard now. Where’s Naibusi, Mak?’
The old man threw back his head and yelled, out of his chicken-neck: ‘Naibusi–
O
!’ And the old woman was suddenly there among us, smiling, with a faint smell of yams, but no sound.
‘I am leaving, Naibus’,’ Alistair said. ‘
Kayoni, kagu toki, numwoya.
’
‘Goodbye,’ she said. ‘Taubada—when will you come again?’
‘A week,’ he said. ‘Two weeks. Soon.’
‘Good,’ she said to herself. ‘Very good.’
‘Naibus’,’ he said, ‘why are you looking at me like that?’
‘E, why would I not look at you?’ she said. ‘Because you a very beautiful man, that is why.’
Even with a hangover, when he laughed he could look like a kid. ‘O, my sweetheart,’ he said. ‘Well, I am going. But where is Salib’?’
The old woman, who hadn’t seemed to see me before, managed to give the impression of seeing me a lot less, and murmured: ‘Salib’? E, Salib’ has gone to Wayouyo. To her mother’s sister. Next time she will be here.’
‘
Ki
?’ said Misa Kodo thoughtfully.
‘I’d better go and shower,’ I said, and grabbed my towel and went away down the veranda. Because Misa Kodo was observing me suddenly, as keenly as Naibusi wasn’t, and the silence was loud with dropping pennies.
‘He is young,’ I heard the MacDonnell say. ‘Naibusi, enough. It is finished.’
Turning into the bathroom I risked a look back at them, the little group isolated at the edge of the long bare splintery deck. The sea behind them was hazed with rain and the rising steam of the grass. It was a funny lonely feeling, the feeling I had then, that by removing myself I’d somehow made the gathering complete. And although it was all baloney, although he didn’t even know what they were thinking, it was funny too how they suggested, just by their attitudes, two devoted old parents making the most, while they had him, of their brave doomed bomber-pilot son.
The
Igau
came to Budibudi shining with the wet, but the rain was over for the daytime, and the sea was green and flat. Steam was rising from the island as we came ashore in the dinghy, and the beach was smooth and hard with rain. On the beach two canoes were pulled up, and past them were the two huts where the three men had lived. A cooking-pot filled to the top with rainwater sat outside the huts on stones, over the wet ashes of a fire. There were yams in the pot, and the yams were done.
‘No footprints, of course,’ Mister Cawdor said to himself. ‘Not even the men from Wayouyo.’
‘No, taubada, nothing,’ I said. ‘See, taubada,’ I told him, pointing to the grove, ‘there is Dipapa’s betelnut plantation that the men guarded.’
‘E,’ said Mister Cawdor, and nodded his head. ‘Osana, were those men not afraid to live at Budibudi?’