Baptism of Fire (19 page)

Joshua flung a muddy arm around his mother's shoulders, and they both started talking at once. ‘We're here. Father … is Father …?'

‘Oh, Joshua. I was so worried. And Hannah.'

She hugged him back, uncaring of his filthy state. Not able to rise because of his embrace, she extended a hand to her niece, squeezing it warmly. So warmly, in fact, that Hannah was in danger of losing circulation in her fingers.

‘We couldn't come home. We had to wait out the storm in the village,' Hannah explained.

‘How sensible.' One hand occupied with her son, the other holding onto her niece, Aunt Constance had no hands spare to mop at her tear-stained face and sniffed like a toddler.

‘Father..?' Joshua was in an agony of suspense.

Lips quivering, his mother replied, ‘He said … he said he was
hungry
!'

A wave of relief washed over Hannah and she couldn't speak.

‘I can't explain it. Just as the storm hit, he seemed to turn the corner towards recovery. He opened his eyes and said, “Mrs Stanton. I'm feeling rather peckish.”' She had deepened her voice and gave a fair imitation of her husband. ‘Hannah, what's that in your hand?'

She swung the gauze bag behind her back. ‘Oh, it's a gift from someone in the village.'

‘Jothua,' Deborah appeared in the doorway, her voice strident. Her nose screwed up with disapproval, she added, ‘You're dirty. Farver wanths you and Hannah.'

Hannah wondered how she would feel when she saw her uncle after all that had happened. Both she and Uncle Henry had their own strong, often opposing ideas. She would always question things, which irritated him, but she couldn't help it. Not only because, as her father said, she ‘was born with the word
why
already on her lips', but also because questions were more important than the answers.

And of course, she sometimes disliked what Uncle Henry said or did. But he had begun to open his heart to her, shared memories of his
brother—her father. Neither of them could pretend those things had not been said. Now she understood him a little. That helped and they would never again be strangers.

‘The Lord is merciful,' said Aunt Constance. ‘We're all together again.' She smiled at Hannah. ‘Let this be a lesson to you, my dears. Prayer can work miracles.'

Could it? Hannah wondered. Was Uncle Henry's recovery due to prayer,
vakadraunikau
, his own will to survive, coincidence—or a combination? She couldn't be sure. Perhaps she never would be: which was fine with her. Then she could go on asking.

 

Askenasy, Hans:
Cannibalism: From Sacrifice to Survival
1994, New York, Prometheus Books

Brewster, A.B:
King of The Cannibal Islands
1937, London, Robert Hale & Co

By a lady (Mary Davis Wallis):
Life in Fiji (Or Five Years Among the Cannibals)
1851, William Heath

By a Peripatetic Parson:
Parts of the Pacific
1896, London, Swan Sonnenschien & Co

Calvert, James:
Fiji and the Fijians
1870, Oxford, Hodder & Stoughton

Cooper Stonehewer, H:
Coral Islands of the Pacific
1882, London, Richard Bentley & Son

Clunie, Fergus:
Fijian Weapons and Warfare
1976, Suva, Fiji Museum

DeRicci, J.H:
Fiji—Our New Province in the South Seas
1875, London, Edward Standford

Erskine, Captain John:
A Cruise in the Western Pacific
(
Among the Islands
) 1853, London, John Murray

Fobres, Litton:
Two Years in Fiji
1875, London, Longmans, Green and Co

Gordon Cumming, C.F:
At Home in Fiji
1882, London, W. Black & Sons

Henderson:
Journal of Thomas Williams, Volumes I & II
1931, Sydney, Angus and Robertson

Horne, J:
A Year in Fiji
1881, London, Edward Stanford

Sahlins, Marshall:
Culture and Practical Reason
1976, Chicago, University of Chicago Press

Schütz, A.J:
Say it in Fijian
1994, Brisbane, Robert Browne & Associates

Reeves Sanday, Peggy:
Divine Hunger: Cannibalism as a Cultural System
1986, New York, Cambridge University Press

Smythe, Mrs:
Ten Months in the Fiji Islands
1864, Oxford, Parker

St Johnston, Alfred:
Camping Among Cannibals
1883, London, Macmillan

Williams, Thomas:
Fiji and the Fijians, Volumes I & II
1858, London, Alexander Heylin

The writing of this book was assisted by
the South Australian Government
through the Department of the Arts
and Cultural Development.

Christine Harris's first collection of short stories,
Outer Face
(1992), was an instant bestseller and her second and third collections,
Buried Secrets
(1993) and
Party Animals
(1995), have established her as one of Australia's leading writers of short stories for young adults.

Strike!
(1994), set on the Australian waterfront of 1928, was her first novel but it was in her second,
Baptism of Fire
(1996), dealing with 19th century Fiji, that she began to explore in depth the implications of cultural contact. Christine takes this subject even further in her latest collection of short stories,
Fortune Cookies
, lifting aside the familiar imagery of places like China, Vietnam, Singapore, Korea, the Philippines, Bali and Australia and allowing us to share the reality of lives that are at best only half understood. In her brilliant new novel,
Foreign Devil
(1999), she shares startling insights into a China that few people know about. An outstanding achievement, this is Christine's best novel yet.

There's so much more at
randomhouse.com.au