Daughter of the Reef (16 page)

Tepua felt her temper simmering. Perhaps it was not the slight against her homeland but the discovery that this man, charming though he might be, shared the arrogance that Tepua found in many Tahitians. This island might have its abundance, its green-clad heights and cascading streams, but she missed the stark beauty of her atoll, its landscape of sand and coral and water. Her people were not as rich or plump as the Maohi, but they were still her people.
 

“I am satisfied with my place,” she said, trying to keep the edge from her voice. “For now.”

The answer seemed to startle him. “And later?” he asked after a pause.

A motion on Matopahu's far side drew her attention. Pigs-run-out was heaving himself off the stool to go congratulate the winning
ponara
dancers.
 

Tepua decided that with the headman gone, she could be more candid. She lifted her chin. “Perhaps I will not pound bark-cloth forever.”
 

“You could teach young girls to dance. I would not say this to my host, but his daughter has little aptitude for the art. You have at least made her presentable.”
 

Tepua stared at him directly. Should she share her new dream with him? Something about this man drew her secrets from her. She did not know whether she resented this or welcomed it. She tried to put her wish into words that would not sound absurd.
 

“Sometimes ... when I dance, I feel it is not just me doing the dancing. I become something more.” She glanced up. “Do you understand?”
 

“I do.”

“Does such a thing ever happen to you?” As soon as she finished, she wished she could take back her words. A little vertical line formed between his brows, as if her question had disturbed him.
 

“Not when I dance,” he said. “But there are other times ... yes.”

Tepua felt her eyes widen. He did understand! He did share something that was precious to her. She was seized by a hunger to know more, to share more, but she stanched her impulse to flood him with questions. If he wanted to tell her, he would.
 

“I have heard,” she continued, “that Oro sometimes inspires a dancer. I think that happened when I danced for the Arioi.” She took a breath, feeling her pulse beat at the base of her throat while something inside her screamed a warning in Bone-needle's voice. Yet she forged ahead, feeling her own voice start to tremble with intensity. “It may be, as you say, that the gods sent me here, to Tahiti. If so, then perhaps they wish me to honor Oro—by joining the performers of the Arioi society.”
 

Matopahu's brows rose. “One does not draw such a conclusion lightly. Tell me what you know of the Arioi.”

Tepua recalled what she had learned by questioning Hoihoi and Hard-mallet, but she knew how inadequate their explanations must be. Under his stare, she became tongue-tied. He smiled again, putting her at ease, and she felt another rush of happiness.
 

“You need not answer,” he said. “The Arioi are important to us. They help keep peace in ways you may not understand yet. Young people of the best families are encouraged to join the society, so they will not breed trouble. They are kept busy trying to rise through the ranks.”
 

“Then that must please the chiefs—”

“Not as much as you might think, You see, the Arioi do not hesitate to make their views known—through their satires. If a chief is ridiculed by the Arioi, he soon mends his ways.”
 

Tepua paused, trying to take in all he had said. “Then you have given me another reason to admire these Arioi. They have the courage to stand up to overbearing chiefs.”
 

“Yes. That is sometimes very useful.”

Suddenly a thought came to her, and she spoke in a rush. “You say men of the high families are urged to join them. Does that mean you are a member?”
 

“For reasons of my own, I am not.”

She stared at him in silence, regretting her hasty words.

“But do not let that discourage you. The Arioi may be what you need. Certainly you seem out of place here, like a custard apple in a mango tree. You are the headman's servant, but you have the stature and grace of a noblewoman. Tell me your background.”
 

Tepua met his eyes again. They were deep, liquid, a color too rich to be called brown. She knew that if she tried to lie to this man, she would merely show herself for a fool. Yet how to explain?
 

“I was a member of the chief's court on my home island. I was sent away.”

“Intrigue?” he asked. He reached toward her and gently cupped her chin, raising her eyes to meet his. His touch made gooseflesh rise on her nape. “Jealousy among the ladies of the court?”
 

Inwardly Tepua smiled, though she kept her expression solemn. An arranged marriage was anything but an intrigue, but it had certainly led to her present troubles.
 

“Problems at court, yes. It will be better for me if no one learns where I have gone. They think I am dead, and I wish them to go on believing that.”
 

“I will not tell anyone,” he answered. Then he leaned forward and pressed his nose against hers. The warmth of his touch did things to her that even the dancing had not done. The delicious sensation of one nose sliding against another intensified all her other feelings.
 

“Ha, I see you like my dancer!” Pigs-run-out said lustily to Matopahu as he plumped himself down on the stool beside his guest. “Of course, my good friend, I share everything I have with you. She is yours for the night.”
 

She is yours
! Suddenly all of Tepua's warm feelings drained away. What an insult—to be offered to a guest in such a coarse way. However charming and desirable Matopahu might be, she would not be handed to him like a roll of
tapa
cloth. She was Kohekapu's daughter.
 

Her temper spoke for her as she turned to the headman. “I am not yours to give!” she answered angrily.

The headman's mouth fell open, and for a moment an ugly silence reigned. Pigs-run-out took a deep breath while the brown in his cheeks flushed to a dusky red. Tepua braced herself. chief's in her own islands did not bother scolding or punishing servants. They simply gave an order to have the offender killed.
 

Suddenly Matopahu began to laugh.

“What amuses you so, my noble friend?” asked Pigs-run-out sullenly. “That this woman does not respect her betters?”

“Not at all, my gracious host. You have mistaken my intentions and that is why I laugh. This dancer is not to my taste. Amusing to talk to, but no more. The woman I want is standing over there—Hard-mallet. See how she looks at me!”
 

All thanks to the gods
. Tepua sighed. They had saved her by making Matopahu choose the right woman after all. Yet her joy for Hard-mallet was mixed with envy and anguish.
 

Tepua left her seat. She stood behind the men, uncertain of what to do next. Matopahu had rescued her from a bad situation, but his words hurt bitterly. She went hot and cold by turns as they sounded again in her memory. What a child she had been—trusting him, prattling about her dreams of becoming an Arioi.
 

The headman's expression suddenly changed to one of relief. “Hard-mallet is a good choice,” he told Matopahu with a sly grin. “She will make your mallet hard, and more than once. I am happy to share her with you.” He beckoned to the other woman, showing that she should sit where Tepua had been.
 

Tepua blinked back tears as she hurried away. If her father and brothers were here ... No, she must not think of home. She did not even know who among her bridal party had survived the storm.
 

She left the yard and went to the servants' house, curled upon a mat, and covered her ears. She tried not to hear the raucous singing, tried not to weep, tried not to envy Hard-mallet.
 

She knew what the rest of the evening would bring. Entertainments always aroused the passions. Soon eager couples would go off together into the shadowy sleeping houses. Even in the servants' quarters she would hear the soft rustling of clothing, the sighs of pleasure. And she would spend the night alone, without Hard-mallet's comforting presence beside her.
 

If that ocean storm had not come, she would now be lying with her husband, a man who surely outshone Matopahu! She tossed angrily on her mat, blaming the nobleman for her unhappiness. He had charmed her, flattered her, made her desire him.
 

Tepua sat up, blinking back tears. She would not stay here, enduring the misery. Better to go to the comfort of her two friends, Rimapoa and Hoihoi, even if she risked the roaming night spirits. Pigs-run-out would not need her before morning. If he did call for her, too bad. She wiped her cheeks defiantly and stood up.
 

When she slipped back outside, she saw the audience watching a comical performance—a pair of clowns cavorting in painted costumes.
Call one clown Pigs-run-out and the other Matopahu
, she thought as she ran past the guards at the gate and out onto the moonlit path.
 

 

 

9

 

AT dawn Tepua returned to her sleeping place, and found no sign that anyone had noticed her absence. The other women woke, groggily, to begin their morning tasks. They glanced at her but said nothing. Perhaps none of them had overheard Matopahu and the headman. Perhaps they did not know how she had been shamed.
 

But everyone knew that Hard-mallet had not slept in the women's quarters. When the women glanced at her empty place, they raised eyebrows and smiled at each other.
 

Tepua did her best to keep busy, and away from the men. When she heard a loud commotion—a chorus of sad cries as Matopahu departed—she was carrying water to the caged dogs at the side of the compound.
 

“Do not be angry with me,” said Hard-mallet later as they went out to work in the yam garden.

“Why should I care?” asked Tepua. “He is not to my taste. The man I want is Pigs-run-out!”

Hard-mallet stared at her for a moment, and then she understood the joke. The two women laughed, and hugged each other. Tepua felt her pain easing.
 

In the days following Matopahu's visit, she was relieved to hear nothing more from the headman about the incident. He seemed preoccupied with his practical affairs, ordering the household to produce a vast quantity of bark-cloth. “He needs the
tapa
for gifts,” Hard-mallet explained. “He is always generous with his friends. Especially if he wants something in return.”
 

Tepua made no complaint when she was ordered to join in the task. The work would be tedious, she knew, but it would help pass the time until the Arioi returned to give another performance.
 

And then ... She did not know what would happen. Perhaps Oro would seize her once again, and this time the players would realize that she belonged among them. It was this hope that sustained her during the long, grueling days.
 

Until now Tepua had only worked on the final stages of clothmaking. Now Hard-mallet showed her where the paper mulberry trees grew in neat plantations, their lower branches kept trimmed away so that the bark would strip off in unbroken sections. Men felled the trees using stone adzes bound by cords to stout wooden handles, then stacked the slender saplings beside a stream.
 

Tepua learned how to slit the bark along the length of the tree, then use a pointed stick to pry it loose. Then she washed the sections she had stripped, laid them on a slanting board against her knees, and scraped away the coarse outer layer with a cockleshell. It was hard, repetitive labor, but it kept her mind from things she did not wish to think about.
 

Despite herself, her thoughts drifted often toward Mato-pahu. His words of rejection still made her cheeks burn. Perhaps he had saved her from punishment, but she thought he could have done so more gracefully.
 

It was impossible to keep him long from her mind. Sometimes another woman would speak his name, or mention something she knew about him. Matopahu was a skilled navigator, Tepua heard, a man who could steer by waves and wind and stars. And though he was neither chief nor high priest, the gods had marked him for distinction in another way. At times he fell into a trance, and a god spoke through his lips, warning the people of troubles to come.
 

These revelations did little to change Tepua's opinion of the high chief's brother. For a time, she wished not to think about men at all. She welcomed the routine of making
tapa
, which occupied both her hands and her mind.
 

Once she had the inner bark scraped clean, she wrapped it in plantain leaves, placed it in the stream, weighted it with rocks, and left it to steep with similar packets. While the fiber cured she stripped, cleaned, and scraped more, depositing other packages to soak in the running water.
 

After two or three days, when she drew the bundle out, she found the bark had become clammy and glutinous, ready for working. Now the enjoyable part of the task began. At their usual shady place in the compound, the women spread their bark strips atop a long mat of plantain leaves, overlapping the narrow pieces in several layers. When the bark sheet was dry enough to be handled, they spread one end over a narrow wooden beam, dampened the fibers, and began to pound them with their wooden beaters.
 

Hard-mallet had two
tapa
beaters that she prized highly and kept apart from the communal store by hanging them in her quarters with sennit cords. These beaters were long blocks of close-grained wood, four-faced on one end and rounded into a handle on the other. Each surface was scored by grooves, whose fineness varied on different sides.