A Dolphins Dream (37 page)

"How much do I owe her?" asked Compton in a voice that was remarkably calm and reflected his present sense of wellbeing.

"You pay her what you can," advised Moses, "but do not overpay or you make the insult."

Compton gave her twenty dollars Fijian, looking at Moses, who nodded in approval.

"Ask her when I can go diving again?"

Moses conveyed the request and she responded in a gentle, detached voice.

"She say that you must stay out of the water for two weeks. Let the medicine do its work, eh. If no infection comes back, then you go into the water."

The fever abated in two days and there were no signs of recurring infection. Moses visited Compton every day for a week, bringing dinner and making tea.

Sitting shirtless at the table, Compton lightly fingered the scabs on his chest and belly. “Last night I dreamed about Sinaca again. She won’t leave me.” He paused. “I don’t want her to leave me, even though something about her terrifies me. Still, I can’t stop thinking about her.”

Moses shook his head in mild frustration. “What are you’re thoughts?”

“I don’t know, they are like fantasies I play out. Us diving together, making love, just hanging out with her here on the beach.”

“More wishes, eh?”

“Yeah, wishes.”

“There is danger in such wishes. Be careful with Sinaca.”

“Yeah.” Compton’s eyes and thoughts had drifted out over the sparkling blue prairie, his fingers unconsciously drifting across his scarred chest and belly. A tender spot awakened him from his trance. "I don't know what she used but that was one hell of a quick recovery.   What was that medicine she put on me?"

"Dilolomo is amazing, eh. No one asks her about the herbs to clean the wounds but there is a special leaf to heal you proper. Are you strong enough to go to Somosomo tomorrow and fix up with the sergeant, get your spear back?

"Sure. You think the sergeant will have found out I was lying?"

"The sergeant knows everything. It's his business, eh. He is the boss of Taveuni.”

“Maybe I can kerekere him."

Moses laughed uproariously. "That would be the true test, eh, to kerekere the sergeant. I think he would put us in jail for that one."

"I thought kerekere worked on everybody."

"Not on the sergeant."

The sky was overcast and the air heavy. It felt like rain but Compton sensed it would clear and did not bring the rain poncho. He wore long pants and a long-sleeved shirt to hide the cuts and the running shoes he had worn when he first arrived. Moses picked him up midmorning.

"You looking like a tourist again," teased Moses. "You wear your sun glasses and a big hat and you right there."

"Maybe the sergeant won't recognize me and I'll skate right through this inquisition."

Passage across the strait was uneventful and they anchored in the sand in front of the Indian store. The bus with the maniacal Indian at the wheel nearly ran them down but the ride to Somosomo was without incident. A striking Indian girl came aboard bearing beautiful, soft brown eyes with incredibly long lashes and long, black silky hair braided down her back. She had a perfect body despite her effort to conceal it in a full dress. Compton nudged Moses when she passed.

"You can forget the Indian girls. They are all virgins. They do not leave their families for love or sex. Their marriages are planned. It is a poor way to go about life, eh. Hard enough to make a plan for a day but to plan marriage for life is lacking in sense. Besides, none of them know how to screw."

"How would you know?"

"That is what their planned husbands say. I have no knowledge of it myself. It is probably why the men look at the money instead of the woman. It is a fair punishment, eh." 

Compton looked out the window for a moment, then turned to Moses. “Is there any way a man can love the Sea God and not die? I know I should forget about her but I can’t.”

Moses shook his head ever so slightly and was about to reply. Instead he pointed to the sea and a small boat with two men standing precariously in the bow and stern holding hand lines. “The fishing is poor closer to town,” was all he said.

They arrived in Somosomo and walked up the hill to the police station.

"I go to the post office," said Moses. "You come for me when you're through."

"Why don't you come with me? Are you trying to avoid the sergeant?"

Moses looked off, working his jaw muscles and Compton could almost guess what was coming.

"Have you done something," asked Compton, "or are you just paranoid?"

"What's that, paranoy?

"Nothing. Are you afraid of something?"

"The sergeant believes that I steal boats. Every time a boat is stolen in Taveuni he comes to my house. It is because of the boat that I bought which was stolen. He and the judge never believed me. If it is in their mind that I am guilty, then I am guilty, eh. I would not help you with the sergeant."

"Okay, I'll see you at the post office."

Compton walked to the police station wondering if Moses was or had been a thief. A fairly new engine sat on the back of his boat. Perhaps that was stolen. Surely the boat was his or, if he had stolen it, he had done it confident that the owner would have no interest in reacquiring it.

The deputy gave Compton the same line of inquiry he had heard before but he answered no questions and said he would wait for the sergeant's return. Within minutes the sergeant arrived, bristling and preoccupied, slamming the door to his office behind him. He was every bit as imposing as Compton remembered him but now the circumstances were different for he knew these people could easily recognize dishonesty and any form of chicanery, never mind weakness and fear. Just the sort of traits policeman prey on.

"You come see the sergeant," announced the deputy, motioning Compton into the office.

Compton was nervous. He didn't have the resources to bluff his way through. The sergeant was too canny for that. If he knows I didn't go fishing, projected Compton, which I'm sure he must I'll tell him my plans changed, I'll tell him...

"Bula" said the sergeant, offering him the chair that faced his desk. As Compton sat down he handed ove his passport, which the sergeant received somberly. After examining it for a moment he looked up at Compton and back at the passport, then broke into a broad smile that revealed crooked, stained teeth.

"Ah, the man who saw the Sea God on Qamea," he said.

Compton nodded warily, "Yes."

The sergeant stood and extended his hand.

            "What can I do for you, my friend?"

"Ah, well, I was coming to extend my visa for six months," said Compton, wiping a sweaty neck with his hand.

The sergeant looked at the visa and shook his head. "I can't do that. You have been here already two months. I can make it four months, then you must get a special permit."

"That seems fair enough. That would be fine," replied Compton, smiling now.

The sergeant stamped and signed the visa. "You will be staying on Qamea, on Moses’ beach? No more fishing trips?"

Compton nodded in acknowledgment of the sergeant's imperial command of the comings and goings on his islands. "No more fishing trips."

"You going to spear the big wailu, eh."

Is there no end to this man's wealth of information, thought Compton. "Yes, I'm going to spear the big wailu."

"Io, good luck." The sergeant handed back the visa and shook Compton's hand. When Compton was at the door the sergeant said, "And say Bula to my friend Moses, who is at the post office."

Compton did not reply but lifted his hand in a gesture of weary acceptance of the sergeant's limitless reservoir of clairvoyant data.

Moses and Compton walked down the hill together.

"You were right, Moses, he knows everything, absolutely everything. It’s scary."

"Yes, isn't it."

"He knew about the Sea God and about the mackerel. He even knew you were waiting at the post office.

Moses grinned. "I think he knows that I pissed on my foot last month."

"Does he tap into his intuition like you do when somebody needs a fish or when you know it will rain?"

"No, he listens to all the gossip every night. No one can hide from the island gossip. It is impossible. Easy to keep watch, eh."

They caught the bus back to the Indian store and walked a block up the road to an old frame house the front yard of which was strewn with car parts, rusting iron bars and twisted pieces of metal. Picking their way through the maze of metal they wound their way to the back of the shack where there were still more heaps of metal and odd tools, including oxygen bottles and acetylene torches. Under a lean-to, out of the sun, two grizzled men sat in a car seat, drinking kava.

"Bula," said Moses, who continued to speak to them in Fijian. A thin, bent man with watery, yellow-stained eyes rose from the seat and extended a grimy black hand, which Compton shook.

"Bula," he said and then went to a shed, which was an extended mass of the clutter, where he extracted Compton's spear gun. Inserted into the trigger mechanism was a rusty rod that ran down the length of the stock. The fellow pulled the trigger, releasing the spear shaft into his hand. Satisfied with the result, he smiled and reinserted it into the mechanism and handed it to Compton. The spear shaft was little more than a smooth length of rebar that had been filed down to a point at one end. There were no wings nor barbs to hold a speared fish nor any threads to screw on another tip. It couldn't have been more primitive. Compton tested the release by pulling the trigger. It came easily and he hoped that it could hold the three-hundred-and-seventy-five pounds of pressure exerted through the rubber bands. The fellow produced a rasp and indicated to Compton how he had fashioned the configuration of metal to fit the mechanism. Compton forced a smile and pulled some bills from his pocket. But the fellow held up an oily hand, declining the money.

Compton looked at Moses and held out his hands in question.

"What's going on? He put time into this, why won't he take the money?"

"You are a Fi man who dives for the big fish without the tank. You saw the Sea God. He say, maybe one day you bring him some fish."

"That's not right. We've got to give him some money."

"Keli, this man has pride. Do not insult him. He knows he get it back, eh. This Fiji way."

Compton shook the man's hand and thanked him, "Vinaka."

Compton turned the gun over in his hands as they walked to the Indian store.

"Aprosa has a better rig than this! If I don't make a kill shot, I'll lose the goddamn shaft! There's not even a hole to run a line through! How the hell am I suppose to retrieve it? I'll have to tie a line on the spear."

"Tie a proper knot, eh," replied Moses, preoccupied with the Indian store just ahead.

"There's not a knot in the world that'll hold a round shaft! One miss and I'm out of business!"

Moses remained indifferent to Compton's ravings.

"That is the way it should be for the hunter, eh. Don't worry. Stop thinking about it. Jes' do what you must. Come, we go to the store and get the fuel."

Moses went into the store to pay for the fuel and reappeared moments later. "There is no fuel. The Indian say they are out in Suva. No planes running, nothing. Also, no new supplies, we better get what is left."

A run had been made on the store and it was stripped of essentials. There were no onions, eggs, or crackers, the sort of basic staples that Compton had come to consider luxuries. Moses bought a sack of flour and they each were sold a bag of rice. Compton bought a tin of cookies, which he opened and began to eat.

"The real question," said Compton, "is how do we get back to Qamea?"

"We row, Keli," stated Moses almost gleefully.

"That's a hell of a row in that old boat."

"Mariah, she make this row everyday when she was pregnant. That was before the outboard engines come to Fiji. If that woman can do it, then a man can do it, eh."

"Well, we better get going if we want to get home before December."

A light chop blew from the west and Moses rowed into it with easy, powerful, strokes. "This is the way to get around, eh. No engines, no fuel, jes' the back and arms. I have been thinking that I might have my friend build a boat with a sail. Sail on the wind, no fuel, no need of the Indian store. That is the way to do it, eh."

"Not a bad idea. But the wind changes direction quickly here. Do you know how to sail?"

"I know the sea. The other is easy."

"Sailing is a great way to go but you have to know what you're doing. I'd like to see you sail and fish at the same time. Catch a big mackerel just when the wind comes up going the wrong direction."

Moses shook his head.

"Your thoughts are an amazement to me. You find ten reasons for not doing something. Haven't you ever done something just for its pleasure?"

"Sure I have but not for a long time. I like to think things out."

"It is amazing you came to Fiji at all."

"It's a wonder to me, as well. Perhaps I needed to meet you and hunt for the Silver Fish."

"Oh, yes, the Silver Fish. But your thoughts haven't got you that fish yet, eh. Something always coming up that your thoughts cannot see. Better you jes' spear fish for pleasure and don't think so much about the biggest fish in Fiji, or the world. Then it come to you when it’s ready."

Compton gave him a look, wondering if he had somehow discovered his true motives for spearing the fish. It was disconcerting and he felt a need to turn away from his deception. "I've always operated best when I had a goal, something to shoot for."

"What is operate and goal? Life is not operating, it is living, eh. And what is the goal, something for the future? A deed in front of all others? Like living with the blinders of a horse. Living is working and sitting and doing things for the pleasure they give. Much better to live than to operate."

Compton began to mount an argument but saw his own futility and instead gazed out acrothe strait.

Progress was inexorably slow and after a time, Compton stopped measuring the island to gauge headway. Taking the oars for awhile, he amused Moses as he sidetracked and wandered about the ocean, unable to sustain a straight line. In what seemed like less than an hour, his back ached and his arms grew weak. The coral cuts on his hands had reopened and begun to bleed and, seeing this, Moses resumed rowing. By sunset they had come halfway and Qamea appeared within reach. However, as night fell the island disappeared and it was as if they were out in the middle of the ocean. Compton felt curiously uplifted, imagining himself as a mariner cast adrift on the open sea with no home other than this small boat and nothing to eat but the tin of cookies. The only sounds were of the water slapping against the hull and the rhythm of the oars in their locks. The hypnotic rhythm sustained the fantasy and he could have sat mesmerized in the boat all night had it not been for an outburst from Moses.