A Dolphins Dream (8 page)

“They always lookin’ at their watches in Suva. My daughter and her husband, they always late for somewhere. Rushin’ about. That is no life. That is the poorest way a man can live. I don’ understand why young people go to the city when everythin’ is here.”

Compton nodded in agreement, played it safe. “It is very quiet here, very peaceful.”

“They want their own things. They want money.”

Compton grew bold. “There’s nothing wrong with money. In America, you have to have it just to get by, lots of it.”

She looked and blinked with those deep brown eyes revealing things unknown to him and he wondered why he undertook to speak at all to such wisdom.

“Here we don’ need money, not much. We need rain. The rain don’ make us look at our watches, eh. When it comes, it comes. The rain is not in a hurry.”

  Mariah smoked the newspaper down to a nub and let it drop on the coral floor. She blew out the last of the smoke. “It was better at the beach,” she said to the smoke.

Compton, fearful of another inane comment on his part, waited for her to continue but she watched the smoke wind its way into the light of the window and disappear. Eventually he could not contain himself in the deafening silence. “Do you like being so far away from other people?”

“It was lonely with a family. My husband was out and about and the children was gone. I got chickens to keep me company. When my husband died, Esther went to Suva and found Moses and brought him home. It’s not lonely when you have a family. You have a family?”

“My mother and father are divorced. I have a son but I don’t see him much.” Compton turned away from her insightful eyes and looked at the coral floor, feeling the pain of his loss etching its way across his face. Mariah did not reply and he reluctantly continued almost in a whisper. “He lives with his mother. My wife, well ex-wife. We’re divorced.’’

“I’m happy for my children. Moses’ a good man. He doesn’t work the garden like he should, he fishes, spends his money on the fuel. It’s a foolish waste, eh. But he loves the sea. He knows it well. It is a love, eh. What can you do? It’s a better life than the city. The city make him sick. He come back with very thin eyes. The cities make people sick.”

“You have everything you need here,” said Compton filled with false courage, “food, shelter, your health. It looks like Moses takes pretty good care of you.”

“Oh, that Moses, he makes me laugh. He makes Esther frown. Once she give him a hundred dollars that she save from her job to buy the farm a few things for Christmas. He was gone for tree days, drunk and runnin’ about with woman. Nobody give him money after that. He no differen’ then all Fiji men. They no good with easy money. They jes’ spend it on grog and end up fightin’. They don’t need money. They family always have a house for ‘em and there is fruit on the trees and fish in the sea.”

Mariah stared in silence at the chickens for such a length of time that Compton began to shift in his seat, which caused her to turn to him and ask, “What is marijuana? Do you smoke it?”

Compton was unprepared for the question that appeared out of, well, the smoke-filled haze. Clearly she was looking for something other than casual conversation, and he answered carefully. “I smoked it when I was younger.”

“It is bad, yeah?”

“There are far worse drugs than marijuana. Like anything, if you smoked it all the time it would be unhealthy for you, just like alcohol.”

“I think Moses take it. It is a worry. What does it do?”

“Well, for different people it does different things. I used to dream about things I’d like to do.”

“Yes, dreamin’ is better than work,” she laughed, then abruptly frowned. “They put a man in jail for five years if he have marijuana.  That is the law. Five years of your life! Fijian boys come out crazy. Five years ends their life.”

“That’s a harsh law.” Compton paused for a long moment, then asked, “Why are you asking these questions?”

“You are American, you know about drugs.” She paused. “More Americans be comin’ here, and bring their ideas. I’m afraid Moses will do as my husban’ and get drunk on the marijuana and sell our property to ‘em. You know the law say every Fijian must have their property. But if they sell it, that is all they get. We used to live down by the beach, on the other side of the hill. There’s no mosquitoes there and we could fish off the beach but my husband sol’ it and now we live here.” 

Compton strung his lips tightly together in feigned sympathy. “This is still paradise. It’s very peaceful here.”

“Yes, very nice, but it’s not the beach.”

Compton had been holding an empty cup of tea for some time and in the awkwardness of Mariah’s loss he stood to throw the dregs into the swampy water but they fell short and landed on a white stone where he left them for the high tide to consume. Mariah rose and, moving gracefully, glided over to the sullied stone, gazed at it for a moment, then in deliberate fashion scooped up the dregs and walked over to the flower garden where she tossed them away. “You got plenty enough to think about already,” she said.

Compton apologized. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to dirty up the place.”

Mariah laughed and dismissed his apology with a wave of her hand. “This old place got so much dirt already you can’t tell the new from the old.”

Compton shrugged, embarrassed.

Mariah shook her head slowly, the laughter still in her eyes. “What you want to do is take a bath, eh. Down the path to the sea.”

Mariah spoke to the girls in the kitchen in Fijian, and shortly Adi appeared with a bar of soap and a fresh towel. In that moment Compton was struck by the generosity and kindness of these impoverished people who were so willing to give to an absolute stranger. Yet despite their benevolence he had the srong sense there was something they wanted from him. What exactly it was, however, was unclear and he pondered their motives while heading down the flowered path. All this was so new, nothing he had experienced before, no frame of references. The people, the place, the uncanny way Mariah could anticipate his thoughts. It was all so surreal. Had he been out of touch too long with people who were real? Who carried no agenda? Do such people even exist?

He came upon several pools at the sea’s edge but could not determine which one of the four was fresh. The sea is right here, he thought, surely they must all be salty. He began to taste the water and found the first two pools indeed salty but the third pool, to his amazement, was fresh. Must be some kind of spring, right here at the sea’s edge. He disrobed and slid into the pool, which was somewhat colder than the seawater. This place contradicts itself, he mused. Nothing appears to be what it is. He soaped up in the invigorating water. While this has the makings of a rather unique experience, I won’t be here long. What would I do? Where is there to go? This sort of existence would get boring quickly. I’ll stay until Moses goes off to Taveuni and then head back with him. The decision brought a comfort and he found himself thoroughly enjoying the remainder of his bath.

He finished and sat on a smooth rock, naked to the sun, and allowed himself to dry in its warmth. A freighter passed in the distance and he considered hopping aboard such a ship and maybe checkout the other islands. But there was an odd and almost powerful yearning to be in the water rather than on it.

The sun felt delicious on his skin and he lay back on the rock and closed his eyes. He fell asleep and dreamed of attending school and that everything was underwater and his pencil and books kept floating away and he struggled to retrieve them. The dream was brief and real, almost a daydream, and it momentarily left him confused when he awoke.

He wandered back to the rumpled shack where the girls were cooking and Mariah was nowhere to be seen. Adi brought him lemon grass tea and a bowl of coconut chips. He tried to strike up a conversation with her but she shyly retreated into the kitchen. Although it was mid-afternoon and Compton had missed lunch, and while he was not particularly hungry, the coconut seemed to be the perfect snack. 

He had just finished the chips when Mariah emerged from her bedroom and beckoned with a long brown hand. “Come, I show you the garden.” She led the way west down a narrow path along the mangroves, past a stone collared fresh water well. Beyond the well was a half acre of cleared land, where well groomed rows of green standing vegetables shimmered in rich black soil.

Mariah gestured to the first row of plants. “This is bele. It is like the spinach. And this,” she said pointing to a spade-leafed plant with a narrow stem, “is taro. We eat the leaf, the stem and the root.  Cassava root there, kumala, we eat the root. It is like the sweet potato. Also, egg plant.” Further down the garden Compton recognized tomatoes, several avocado trees, a lemon tree, bananas, yams and pineapples. “There is the breadfruit tree. You know breadfruit?”

“I’ve heard of breadfruit and taro and cassava but never seen them. In the States we do eat tomatoes, egg plant, yams and papaya.”

“We call papaya pawpaw. There is also pumpkin, lemon grass for tea, ginger root, garlic, and saffron...”

Mariah stopped mid-sentence. “Listen, that is Moses, he’s comin’ around the point.”

Compton heard the faint sound of a motor in the distance. “How can you know that’s Moses boat?”

“I hear the motor. Everyone has a different sound, eh. Moses knows em’ all.”

They meandered back towards the hunt, Mariah picking vegetables as they walked, bele, taro, mustard weed and dill. They arrived at the hut as Moses drifted around the last mangrove.

“Bula, Michael,” greeted Moses holding up a fish. “I have a fish for dinner, a jack. A gift from the Sea God.” He handed the jack to a waiting Bala, staked the boat and came ashore in the mud.

“I go down to the sea well,” said Moses, ”and wash away the sea blood.”

Compton watched him walk down the path toward the outhouse with easy, purposeful strides and was struck by a surge of warmth for the man. He possessed the rare combination of innocence and wisdom and it occurred to him that he could well be in the presence of some kind of holy man or sage and in his own ignorance would not recognize him. When Moses disappeared around a flowered bend so also went Compton’s speculations and he stepped into the eating area where the girls were busy at the stove and cooking bench. Mariah had taken to her bed, so he sat alone at the table and waited for Moses. In the smoky room a kitten spun around the center post, working its new claws on the wood. A lone chick watched in mesmeric stupor, while the hen and her brood paraded across the floor in front of the woodpile. The kitten began to stalk the chick and was about to pounce when Mariah strolled out of the beaded doorway to check on dinner, waking the chick from its trance. It rushed back to the safety of the hen while Mariah perused the stove, then satisfied with the meal’s progress, returned to her bed without saying a word. Compton had yet to hear the voice of Adi who was always cooking or cleaning. Now she tended a skillet over the open flame and the strange-looking ducks hung just outside the doorway, dully observing her movements. Compton felt himself surrender to the moment and, for no particular reason, smiled.

Moses returned wearing a white, long-sleeved shirt, a blue sulu, the traditional wrap around skirt worn by men and women alike in much of the South Pacific, known by a dozen different names. The skirt didn’t appear in the least to be feminine, as one might expect, observed Compton. Quite the contrary, Moses’ masculinity appeared very much intact. 

“Here,” Moses pointed to the center seat, “this is the place for the Vulage, the visitor.”

Mariah joined them as the girls brought a broth of fish in white ceramic bowls with thin slices of taro fried like potato chips. Then came fish cooked in coconut milk sprinkled with ginger and saffron. They brought bowls of boiled cassava, bele simmered in coconut milk, and another batch of taro chips. Compton was thoroughly impressed with the variety of dishes, each prepared from scratch and brought hot to the table using but the single, open fire.

“It’s amazing, eh,” said Moses, “how the girls manage the flame. They are taught very young how to keep it jes’ right. Steady and even for hours, it is…”

“An art,” finished Compton, who was becoming a bit unnerved by the regularity with which this family was reading his thoughts.

“Yes, yes, an art.”

“The meal is fabulous,” said Compton wolfing down his portions with restrained gluttony. He had never experienced food like this before, and could scarcely refrain from simply bolting it down and reaching for more.

“I work a hunger on the sea. I eat, but I never get fat, always the same,” declared Moses, patting his flat stomach.     

Mariah chuckled, “It’s not that way with me, or the girls.”

“Maybe you should go fishing and I should stay home and do the cooking,” giggled Moses, reaching for another piece of fish. Compton glanced up to smile at the girls but they had left the kitchen and were nowhere in sight.

The instant Moses finished eating, the girls reappeared and poured lemon grass tea into yellow ceramic cups. He directed Compton through the beaded doorway where he settled into his appointed place against the wall.

  No sooner had Compton made himself comfortable than a figure appeared at the entrance of the shack. Moses, whose back was to the door, turned at the movement of Compton’s eyes. A man stood stock still ii-darkness and Compton was unable to make out his features. Adi motioned him into the eating area and he stepped soundlessly into the lantern light. Against remarkably black skin his snow white nappy hair and beard fairly glowed. His shirtless upper torso was thin but well muscled and he wore an old blue and white bandanna around his forehead along with a dark brown sula that covered him from waist to mid-calf. Compton could not clearly see his face until he turned and looked directly at him. He appeared to be old, but not old in the sense that Compton understood the elderly. He was handsome and his eyes appeared as dark, fathomless pools brimming with untold wisdoms. He walked directly up to Compton as both he and Moses rose to greet him and stood gazing into Compton’s eyes while Moses stood mute along with everyone else in the room. The old man’s countenance bore a kindness Compton had never seen on another human being. Within the kindness rested honesty so profound that Compton seemed to fall into a momentary daze upon recognizing its depth.