A Dolphins Dream (7 page)

When he was through, Moses retrieved Esther’s bundle and carried it inside, providing Compton with an opportunity to further inspect the surroundings. The thatched walls were supported by tree branches that had been cut and shaped with an ax and then bound together with something other than rope. The corrugated tin siding was patched in alongside one wall and the same material partially covered the roof. Another fifty-gallon drum stood at the far end of the house, rusted and scorched from a thousand cooking’s. Fishing line, floats, broken axe handles and shovels lay among unopened coconuts. Chopped wood was stacked along the house and an underwater trap of some kind lay rusting next to a path of crushed white coral that ran into a hut and covered the floor like a cruel stone carpet. Chickens clucked nervously around a split coconut, stabbing away at the white meat. They were oserved by ducks with strange moldy red faces, waddling by on their way to the swamp. Dried forked tails of large fish were nailed to a tree and clamshells a foot and a half across lay strewn about the side of the house. A grunting pig wrestled with a morsel in a wooden cage that was suspended over the swamp water.    

Mariah came to the door and said in English, “Please come inside. That Moses he leave you to yourself. Come in, come in.”

Compton stepped inside the doorway of an unlit room that was the kitchen and eating area. In the corner, smoke plumed and an iron sheet the size of a tabletop was suspended over an open fire, on top of which trembled a steaming kettle. Two girls, in there twenties, were working both sides of the fire, one cutting vegetables and the other kneading a mound of dough. Mariah introduced them as Bala and Adi, her daughters. Both girls, woman really, shyly glanced Compton’s way with self-conscious smiles.

Moses handed Compton his backpack saying, “You change your clothes in this room,” nodding to a beaded curtain that hung in the doorway. Compton entered a room that was dark and in the dimness he made out a single bed in the far corner and a shadow he could not indentify. He quickly changed into shorts and a tee-shirt and when he returned, a cup of hot tea was awaiting on a table made of rough-hewn wood with crude benches attached. Esther’s gifts had been removed and he sat with his back to a wall and waited for Moses. On shelves across the far wall were pots, pans, and kettles. Opposite, there were more shelves, lined with scalloped newspaper that held plates, cups, glasses, knives and forks. On the floor close to the fire was a stack of freshly cut wood and piled in two far corners were hammers, crude tools, pieces of line, hoses and other assorted odds and ends that Compton could not make out in the half light. A kerosene lamp was lit by one of the girls, as though to give light to his observations. Both the girls were barefoot and wore flower-print dresses that wrapped around their bodies above their breasts and down to their knees. As the outside light faded altogether, mosquitoes buzzed the room in increasing numbers, so delicate that one could scarcely feel them on the skin until bitten. While the Fijians seemed indifferent or weren’t being bitten, Compton flailed away at their attacks. He finally excused himself and forged through his belongings for a bottle of insect repellent. Returning to the kitchen, he offered the repellent to his hosts who politely refused. “We are not as tasteful as you,” said Moses who had returned in his absence. “Come see the rest of our home.”

Compton was ushered through the beaded door and by lantern light, Moses opened two glassless windows shuttered in corrugated tin, which were propped open by a tree branch. Compton held the lamp high to illuminate the bamboo walls and got a full view of a handsome, woven mat of palm fronds that covered the floor. In the far corner stood a wood frame bed with several cardboard suitcases beneath it. Other than the bed, the room was without furniture. Moses placed Compton’s bags in a corner across from the bed. “This is where you sleep.”

They returned to the kitchen where a white cloth had been laid over the table and set with plates, glasses, knives and forks. Moses rubbed his hands together and removed his cap, revealing long flat curls that had been pressed to his head. “Ah,” he said, “supper is coming.”

As the girls brought dishes to the table, Moses unabashedly described their contents. “And this one is curry and rice. Here is the cassava root that is ground up with onion and fried in oil, same as the fish.”  A glass of discolored water was placed before Compton, who began to pick it up, then hesitated. “The water comes from the well,” said Moses. “It is pure. No one gets sick from Fiji well water.”

Compton quickly raised the glass in an attempt to conceal his transparent concerns. “To my new friends,” he said and drank half the glass.

As the girls continued to work in the kitchen, Moses and Compton set upon the meal. Mariah sat with them at the table, but did not eat.

“This meal is excellent,” complimented Compton between mouthfuls. “Do you always eat this well?”

Moses in obvious delight replied, “It is amazing what they cook on a fire, eh? You have not eaten Fiji food?”

“No, this is my first. Does it all come from your garden?”

“All of it. We have breadfruit, taro, cassava root, bele, tomatoes, yams, carrots, onions, pumpkin, pawpaw, banana, beans, coconut and a few pineapple.”

“Last winter,” said Mariah, “the hurricane came and we lost our garden. This is a new one. We had to live on wild yams and cassava root and fish for a long time. But now we have pawpaw and bele and breadfruit. We have plenty now.”

Compton glanced around the house. “You had a hurricane here? Did it do much damage?”

“I was the only one here,” recounted Moses. “Everyone was on Taveuni for the holiday. It tore off the roof. I was under Mariah’s bed for two days trying to stay dry. A hurricane is a terrible fright, eh? So full of nature.”  

“After our boat ride, I’m surprised you’re afraid of hurricanes.” 

Moses beamed. “The ocean is not the place to be afraid, eh.  That was jes’ a bit of wind and sea today. It get much worse than that.”

“Does anything scare you, Moses, besides hurricanes?”

Moses pondered the question. “Roads scare me.”

“Roads?”

“Roads bring the people with money who want to take from the island. If the roads come, our peaceful life in the bush is over. They have tried twice to build roads, but the jungle was too strong for their machines. The trees dulled their chainsaws and broke their backs and they ran out of money.“

The room became silent and Compton felt uneasy without knowing why. He asked Mariah what she feared most. She too gave the question thought before answering. 

“People,” she said finally.

Compton’s uneasiness grew to discomfort when he realized that she didn’t mean just any people, she meant white people, as Moses as much said.

Moses stood up from the table. “Let’s take our tea in the other room and let the woman have their meal.” He brought the lantern from the table and led the way into the matted room where he sat cross-legged with his back against the far wall. Compton followed suit and Mariah reclined against a pillow. The matting was immaculately clean and had the soft leathery texture of skin. Beneath it was another mat that cushioned their weight and further softened the floor. In the warmth of the lantern light, with a full belly, the discomfort of a few moments ago was forgotten and Compton wondered aloud, “Why didn’t the girls eat with us?”

Moses, who was watching the smoke twist out of the lantern, lifted his head to the question. “They eat later. Fiji girls do all the cooking and the washing and the cleaning. They are very busy. No time to play. But they have their boyfriends and get pregnant anyhow.”  He giggled at the girl’s plight.

“And the boys,” asked Compton. “What do they do?”

“They fetch the wood for the stove and dig the crops. When they come to twelve they go with the men to fish or work in the garden. The boy learns to carry the weight of himself, eh. In the home the girls answer to the woman, and she answers to the man. In the village the man answers to the chief. Everyone respects the elders. If the father dies, as my father did, then the eldest of the family, who is Esther, rules the family.”

“Lately,” continued Moses, “the traditions are being forgotten. The city steals the boys, as it stole me. They go to Suva, and don’t come back. That is why Sambuka take over the islands, so that Fiji keep its traditions and not lose them to the Indians and the Europeans who want our land.”

Moss’ voice trembled with emotion and Compton shifted to another topic. “You know, this has been quite a day for me and I am exhausted. Moses, can you show me where I am to sleep?

“We put the net up for you,” Moses announced in the midst of gathering himself up from the floor.

Mariah had already gotten up and was pulling out a mosquito netting from under the bed. Compton helped her tie the corners of the net to nails driven into the thick-branched ceiling beams. When it was done, she gave him a blanket and a pillow and he climbed under the net and lay on his back fully clothed. The lantern light flicked across the ceiling in strange, vaguely demonic shapes, and he felt as if the passage across the Tasman Strait had deposited him with a family that was completely removed from any visible constructs of the century from which he had departed less than a week ago. It was at once as unsettling as it was invigorating. And the conflict it bred was not unlike his personal battles in which he, more often than not, had became just another casualty in the war against himself.

Across the room, Mariah was already in bed and breathing heavily. In the far corner Bala and Adi spoke in whispered voices behind a hanging blanket that afforded them a small measure of privacy. In the silence of the hut the drone of the jungle insects rose to a grinding din. Compton, in his conflictive state, found comfort under the flimsy netting and, though missing the irony of his present circumstance or because of it, soon fell into deep sleep.

At three o’clock in the morning Compton was awakened by the diabolical shriek of a rooster prematurely announcing the dawn. Again at four and five o’clock the rooster announced his presence and was joined by two others, all of whom dueled until the sun was well up.  Compton felt he had scarcely slept and when the roosters fell silent he drifted back into fitful sleep. He awoke later drugged by the depth of his slumber unsure of where he was or how long he had been asleep.  Upon regaining his bearings, he was astonished to learn it was nearly eleven o’clock in the morning.

Breakfast of pawpaw, eggs, bread and tea were hot on the table when Compton came into the kitchen. Bala was by herself, offering no explanation as to the whereabouts of the others. Shortly after finishing breakfast Mariah came into the kitchen with an armful of vegetables, closely followed by Adi who was sweating profusely and caked with dirt. “Good morning, good morning. Did you sleep well?” inquired Mariah.

“Very well, until the roosters started singing.”

Mariah cackled. “The roosters take a turn in the morning. There is never a chance of waking late. The gardening must be done before it is hot. You are the first to sleep past six o’clock.”

Compton said softly to himself as he rose from the table, ”And I’ll probably be the last.”

Mariah overheard the mutter and said, “Probably,” and cocked an ear as if to hear him better.

Embarrassed, Compton sheepishly grinned. “The breakfast was first rate, thank you. I think I’ll have a look around the place if you don’t mind.”

“Yes, look around,” offered Mariah. “The toilet is down the path towards the sea. The small hut on the right.” 

The path was bordered with exotic, brightly stippled flowers of delicate breeding and strange combinations of colors -- blue with orange, yellow with white and purples. The mangroves were to the left and to the right was dense jungle except for a section of land cleared for a stand of scaly trees heavy with the ripening, yellow papaya. He found the outhouse easily and at the sighting realized Mariah had anticipated his needs almost as if she were reading his thoughts.

He returned from the outhouse and found Mariah sitting on a bench that looked out the open doorway past the wandering chickens to the dense mangroves. Feeling awkward, he assumed an air of indifferent casualness and sat down beside her.

“ing is gaining and losing, eh,” she said wearily. “Gaining and losing, I never know which is better.” 

Compton, in his discomfort, responded quickly, “Well, I’d guess that gaining is always better than losing.”

Mariah looked at him with eyes filled in equal parts of sadness and wisdom and gave an ever so slight shrug of her weighted shoulders, along with a despondent sort of smile conveying her knowledge of his ignorance. The gesture, unlike the reply, did not go unnoticed and he vowed to keep his mouth shut when in doubt of the question much less an answer.

They sat in a silence that rendered Compton to distraction, but he was not about to speak. She finally set her cup of tea down and tore an inch wide strip, six inches long from an old newspaper. Carefully laying a pinch of leaf tobacco down its center, she rolled a thin cigarette, lit it and sucked hard. “When I smoke this newspaper the words go inside me,“ she laughed, “but I never get any smarter.”

Compton fielded this remark with more confidence reading it as an opportunity to exhibit his humility. “Well, I used to read words and believed they’d make me smarter. I’m not so sure they really did.”

Mariah nodded but did not comment, choosing instead to gaze at the chickens that pecked at ground near their feet. Bala worked silently in the kitchen, grinding roots into mash and squeezing it into milk while Adi stoked the fire.

Mariah smoked her cigarette and Compton absently became aware of his breaths.

“Do you live in the city?” asked Mariah, briefly startling Compton.  

“Well, I moved around. Mostly I lived in the suburbs of a city.”

Mariah drew deep inhales and exhaled slowly, watching the smoke curl to the ceiling.

“I’ve been to the city. I stayed in Suva with my daughter, Corin. Have you been to Suva?’

“No, I came straight from Nadi.”