A Dolphins Dream (16 page)

“I’d like to see her again.”

Moses shook his head. “This isn’t the city, eh. You jes’ can’t walk up to a girl and screw her. She is a long way off from that. First you must be invited into the village.”

“Maybe you could arrange that for me?” asked Compton in mild astonishment at this own boldness and powerhey brattraction to the Fijian woman.

“I’ll work on it. You might be in paradise brother, but Sinaca lives in another place that is far away.”

They walked to the table and Compton brought out a coconut for Moses to husk. It was done in minutes and they ate it with their fingers and drank tea.

“You are a different man,” said Moses, appraising Compton as if he were wearing a new suit of clothes. “The sea holds a place in your eyes now, eh. Aprosa did his good work on you. He say you are ready to be the man who spears the wailu.”

“Well, I don’t know about that. It was an unbelievable three weeks. Aprosa should have a degree in psychology. Maybe open up a self-help enlightenment camp. Make a fortune.”

“Aprosa has no interest in a fortune, or open a camp. What is the psychology?”

“Nothing, he just said and did all the right things. He showed me how things worked and then left me to figure the details out on my own.”

“Is there another way?”

Compton shook his head, smiled. “No, I guess not.”

“Aprosa knows the sea, how to become invisible so the fish don’t see him. He has many tricks, eh. But it is the sea that changes a person.”

Compton looked out over the strait, nodded. “This is the best I’ve felt in a long time, maybe ever. It’s been a transformation. My mind…”  Compton caught himself and stopped, smiled at Moses, who smiled back.

“You are being prepared for what is to come, eh.”

Compton lifted his eyebrows. ”And what would that be?”

“You are on a new path, eh. Who can know where that might lead, and to who?”

Though curious, Compton knew he would get nothing more from Moses and nodded agreeably, wisely switching subjects. “I speared my first fish today and I want to thank you for the spear gun. It was a generous gift.”

 “An Australia man shot a grouper with it and it was too strong and he could not hold the fish. It swam away with the gun and the spear. He went back to Australia and Aprosa found it three weeks later and we fix it up. Some varnish and the good rubber, made like the new ones they sell in Somosomo.”

“Well, it was thoughtful of you. Give my thanks to Abraham.” He paused in thought. “Will I see him again?”

Moses bit his lip and averted Compton’s gaze, regained himself and said, “Do not worry about him, jes’ go about your own business.” Moses paused. “No more bringing fish for you brother. Now you are the hunter and to eat what you have hunted is far better on the tongue, eh.”

“I hope I’m good enough to do this every day. Spear fishing is difficult, much harder than I imagined.”

“You will become good. Starvation makes good hunters of us all.”

“Are you saying that’s it, no more food?”

“No, no, I bring the vegetables but no more fish. You don’t spear the fish, you don’t eat fish.“

“Sometimes I feel like I’ve wandered into this, I don’t know, conspiracy.” 

“What is conspiracy?”

“It’s a plan to… you know, trick me. What are you and Abraham up to anyway and how does Aprosa fit into all this?”

Moses grew serious and in the way of his thoughts began to lick his lips. “We are not trying to trick you. You can go back to Taveuni when you wish, eh. Where is the trick in that?”

Compton held his hands up in feigned protest. “I know, I know, but it’s too late now. I have to play this out, whatever it is. I’m learning some remarkable things and having too much fun to give it up.”

“You are learning about the sea, eh.”

“No, about myself.”

“Maybe that is the same thing, eh.”

Compton was continually amazed at the depth of Moses’ observations.  While he was becoming quite fond of him, there also grew a fear in the way of someone who possessed a knowledge one could never acquire. Not wishing to address those fears, he changed the suect. “I had a visitor a couple of weeks ago. I forgot to tell you when we stopped talking. He was an old fisherman. His name was Peter. Do you know who he is?”

“What is the color of his boat?”

“Dark green, old and beat up looking.”

“That’s no help. All the boats are old and beat up. Did he come from Taveuni?”

“Yeah, he was telling me about a reef fourteen miles southeast of the island that had big fish. He said it was dangerous and said something about a Sea God. What’s that all about?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know about that reef. Big seas brother, my boat is too small. The Qamea reef has the big mackerel. There is no need to go to a dangerous reef when you have all the fish you need right here, eh.”

“What about the Sea God, what’s that all about?” pressed Compton.

Moses dismissed the question with a wave of his hand.

“It is jes’ the idea of a fisherman.”

“He was talking about fishing when the wind and tide were right.  A real old timer.”

“The wind and tide is everything. So is the moon. It amazes me how that is so. How do the fish know when to bite and when not to bite? There are many secrets to fishing. When I was a boy, instead of going to school I listened to the old men talk about the fish. The sea and the fishermen was my school. I desired the sea with my heart but other things came first and they had to be done before I could fish.”

“What other things?”

“The foolish things we do before we stop and listen to our hearts.”

“That’s what Peter the fisherman said, that fishing was in his heart.”

“For every fisherman that is true, eh. What does your heart say to you?”

Compton looked down to his hands as if he was unaware they were closed. “I don’t know. Once I thought…” His voice trailed off.

Moses’ voice softened and his eyes rested evenly on Compton. “When did you last listen to your heart?”

The question caught Compton off guard, and he was at a loss for a response. In truth, such a question had never been asked of him.  “I don’t know what to say. I’m not even sure what you mean.”

“You have a heart. It speaks to you, eh. When you hear it, do you follow the voice?”

Compton watched himself clench and unclench his hands as though they were somehow disconnected and separate from him. “I’m still not sure what you mean.”

“You have not had the love of something?”

“Well, sure I have but not for a long time. I had a wife, actually several wives. And my boy. I love my boy.”

“Everyone loves their children, eh. But there is not something you have passion for?”

“You mean a woman?”

“That is not your heart speaking, that is your cock, brother.”

“Well then, a good looking woman,” responded Compton, making a feeble attempt to move the conversation elsewhere.

Moses wordlessly sipped his tea and attempted to hold Compton’s eyes with his own. In avoiding such contact, Compton bent to his tea but when finally he looked again, Moses was still there patiently awaiting a response. 

The obligation to answer had now become imperative and he was unsure how that had occurred. Reluctantly he replied, “I guess it has been awhile since my heart has spoken. When I was a kid I loved my dog but my grandfather didn’t like it and gave it away…  Just gave it away.”

“And what does your heart say these days, now that you are a man?” asked Moses in an even, unthreatening voice.

“Well, I guess I really loved my second wife. Maybe she was the only woman I really loved, really opened up to and trusted.”

“What happened to her?’

Compton fingered his cup. “I loaned her a lot of money. She really needed it and I trusted her to pay it back. But she had no intention of paying it back. The whole thing ended badly. That was ten years ago. I guess my heart hasn’t spoken in a lon time.”

“The heart is always speaking but its voice gets lost, eh.  What do you desire for your life?”

“I’m on my way to Australia to teach software programs to architects. I’d like to start my own business. Right now it’s all freelance.”  The simple act of declaring the truth without embellishment brought a comfort and a satisfaction that he was making some internal progress.

“What about the boy, your son. You grieve for him?”

The truth felt good, very good, and Compton looked at his hands and found they were open.

“I came apart when my last wife took my boy back to Chicago and remarried. She dumped me because I wasn’t going anywhere. What she meant was I wasn’t making enough money. I lost everything in the last spec house. I went by the book, did everything right but the market fell out.” He paused for a long moment. “My boy calls her new husband, ‘Dad’.“ He paused again. “I don’t know what I want. Just to start a new life, I guess.”

“That is not the heart. That is your mind seeking peace.”

Compton pulled himself away from his hands and looked out to sea. “There was a time in high school when I would sit down and write poems. I fantasized that one day I might be a writer.”

“Fantasized? What is that?”

“A fantasy is like a wish.”

 “Ahh, a wish,” beamed Moses. “Wishes come from the heart. That’s good. A writer?”

“That was a long time ago,” said Compton dismissively.

“Writing books?”

“Yeah, some poetry. I don’t know.”

“Then you should write a book, eh. A man can only do what his heart speaks. Anything else is foolishness and a waste of himself. I bring you paper and pencil from the Indian store.”

“No, Moses, that’s all right. I’ve nothing to write about, nothing to say.”

“That is your mind talking, not your heart. Write about now.  Write about me. The voice of the heart is soft, you must listen with care. Stop listening to your mind. It only make you sick.”

Compton shrugged. “Okay, bring the paper, we’ll see what the heart has to say.”

Moses grinned. “Right, right, see what the heart has to say.” He then stood up from the table. “Thank you for the tea. I must go. Do some fishing before the rain comes.”   

Compton gestured to a cloudless sky. “What makes you think it’ll rain, Moses? There’s not a cloud in the sky.”

Moses rubbed his nose with his finger. “It’s not what I think. It’s what I know, eh. But don’t ask me how I know.”

Late afternoon rain clouds gathered over Taveuni and swept over Qamea dumping their loads in iron sheets. The storm pounded and shrieked and dominated the senses with ineffable power. Though Compton was not hungry he prepared dinner, for it was the only diversion available. He boiled the cassava root that Moses had brought. It turned out badly and he had to throw it away but he steamed the belle and pan fried the fish with a little lime. It was a delicacy worthy of the finest meal he could ever remember eating.   

Night fell like a load of coal in a dark basement and the unrelenting rain extinguished the mosquitoes and drowned out the jungle of its insect noises. He sat at the kitchen table well into evening enjoying the deluge while drinking tea and wording a poem that was forgotten in sleep.

The sea, weighted by thick air that steamed from the jungle, struggled to produce a ripple from its porcelain surface. The green foliage glistened like freshly varnished spars and there came the sweet smell of rot.   

Compton had finished eating the pawpaw down at the shoreline when, not twenty yards from where he stood, bait leaped from the shallows like silver coins issued from another sky. Directly behind them a great fish broke the platinum lining of the surface and arched a silver body that was as long as a mans leg. It appeared to be a barracuda. Though the sighting lasted for less than a moment it held him spellbound in anticipation of… what? Another display? A profound miracle? He didn’t know. He waited in the way he waited for the dolphin to reappear, scarcely breathing. Perhaps he was looking too hard, he thought. The fish never come when you’re looking too hard, so said Aprosa. He turned his attention to the sand and lightly touched its grainy sharpness, as if stroking skin. When he looked back again Moses had just rounded the East Point, standing in the boat as he liked to do, steering the outboard with his foot.

He brought breadfruit, pawpaw and a Time magazine. “This I get from my sister who works for a hotel in Suva. The travelers from overseas bring them and she sends them to me to practice my English reading.” He handed the magazine to Compton and asked, “Do you understand the work they call business? Why do the Americans make a magazine about work?”

“It used to make sense to me, when I was young and eager, interested in making a lot of money.”

“Why was that? How much do you need?

“I don’t know the answer to that. You try to make a lot of money so you don’t worry about not having enough.”

Moses shook his head in disbelief. “Either way it is a worry, eh.”

“Well, yeah, I never looked at it that way. Maybe Americans just like to worry a lot.”

“Maybe this is it. I see the people in the Half Done Village worry about such things. They do it all the time, as if it were a joy.” Moses paused. “Did the worry of business bring you money?”

“No, of course not. We Americans like to make money through investments. Which is, when you really get down to it, nothing more than guesswork based on some limited information. Sometimes we guess right, most of the time we guess wrong.”

“I have some information,” interrupted Moses. “There has been another coup by Colonel Sambuka. Two days ago.”

“A military coup?”

”Yes, like the one in May. There is curfew in Suva, everyone must be off the streets by dark.”

“That’s martial law. Must be pretty serious. What do the radio reports say?”

“An Indian store has been burned. There is fear the Indians might start shooting.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Because Sambuka has taken their power.”

“I don’t get it. What’s this whole thing really all about, Moses?”

“We are afraid the Indians will sell away our land. It is in the constitution that every Fijian has his own property. But the Indians could change that. They could steal our land and sell it to the Europeans to make money. The Fiji people don’t care about money, they are not like the Indians. It would be easy to steal our property.  Like my father’s property was stolen.”