Huia Short Stories 10 (4 page)

Navigation

Philip Evans

We come. Home is far behind, and there is no thought of turning back. The sea is solid grey with the white flecks of breaking foam. The sail cracks and billows with wind, taking us in the right direction. There is no need for the paddles today. The men are happy because they can rest their calloused hands and weary shoulders. Our twin prows bounce on the chop and the spray leaps and travels half the length of the vessel, stinging against my cheeks. The strong masts creak and give with the breeze. The captain sometimes runs to check and reassure himself that the lashings holding the masts in place remain tight and true.

We come, towards the cold. The navigator is at one with the steering oar. His feet are planted on the boards; his dark calves are firm, his eyes aimed somewhere over the horizon.

We come, and all I can worry about is my poor hair. When we waved goodbye to home and sailed away from the warm tides, my hair was still black and sleek. Now it has become thick and twined together by the salt, and its ends almost flaxen in colour like sailing ropes. The wooden comb that I brought from home cannot be dragged through. The white flower that I wore as we waved goodbye has long since wilted to a stalk and been cast away into the current. The older women tell me not to fuss about my hair, but I cannot help it. I used to have the hair of a chieftainess.

My hair is not the only thing that has changed. I used to be plump, but I have lost all my puppy fat. I can run my finger down my side and count my ribs.

There is a boy who is looking at me. He has been looking at me for the whole journey. Whether he sees me plump or spare, it does not seem to matter to him. He has no business to look. He is not high-born; he is not handsome, nor a great warrior, nor a great fisherman or sailor. On the first day of our journey, before we had even got out of the calm lagoon and onto the ocean proper, he was sick over the side. The fish rose up to pick at bits of his last meal, half-digested. We women gave him a new name, Puke-eaten-by-fish. Over the journey it has become shortened to Fishpuke.

There he goes again: his eyes catch mine before he tears them away and blows out his breath, his cheeks puffing out. He is maybe about my age. He is tall, but still has the thinness of boyhood. Poor Fishpuke.

Often I wonder how much longer we must endure the sea. It must also be in the minds of everybody else here. Perhaps only the navigator and the captain really have any idea how far there is to go, or whether we will even find our destination among this expanse of ocean. We must trust them; we must trust that they know where they are taking us and can find the land that is said to be in this cold water. Often they consult; they point to some place out over the rim of the sea.

I go to the side and dip my fingers in the sea. This gives me reassurance; it measures our speed. My fingertips cut a whooshing gouge in the water's surface, leaving a foaming trail. It feels like progress. Look out for us, new land. We are coming.

One of the men sees me with my fingers in the water. ‘Hoi!' he says. The captain comes running over to scold me. ‘You want to keep your fingers, don't you? There are sharks and other big fish,' he says. ‘The cold water makes them hungry.' He pulls me by my arm away from the side. The navigator turns to look. He sees me, takes me in as a minor distraction, then his gaze goes back to the horizon. His concern is the sea. But the captain has to worry about what will happen when we find land. I am a chieftain's daughter, and a valuable marriage prize. He needs me in one piece.

Yes, marriage, that's what I said. After all, we are told that this land might already be inhabited. If there are people there, they might not be quite like us. We are told they may be giants, or might have strange powers, or might be more closely descended from the gods than we are. They might have sprung from the land; they might be rock people who count the mountains among their ancestors. We have few men and few weapons – we will have to marry our way into the land, rather than conquering.

I hope that the land, if we find it, will turn out to be empty. It would perhaps be better to remain at sea forever and marry Fishpuke than marry one of the rock people.

If I had any choice in the matter, I would choose a man like the navigator, though he is older than me; perhaps old enough to be my father. There is something about those eyes, always fixed ahead. It is the confidence in the way he stands. We have come to rely on his sense of certainty. It is all that keeps us from going crazy. The rest of us rely on him completely, and I think some of us women feel giddy whenever he walks past. But he can have no thought of women or sex. While he is steering the vessel he is in a high state of sacredness and restriction. One of the older women tells me that his spirit swims ahead of the vessel, guiding us through the currents. The navigator must not break the restrictions. He must not sever the connection with the spirit fish.

The navigator is going to sleep. Even he tires sometimes. He calls Fishpuke up to take over at the steering oar. ‘Keep us straight,' he says, pointing beyond the horizon. ‘Don't pull either to the left or right. Keep the end of the oar in line with the masts. All the people will watch to make sure you don't stray. Tonight, enough cloud will clear and we can take another reading from the stars.'

It is time to prepare the meal. This becomes easier each day, as the supplies begin to dwindle. Today it is a morsel of fish and dried sweet potato. The first portion is offered to the east, where the sun rises, to the sea god. He's ever-present out here; we can feel him all around, and we know how important it is not to neglect him. I hope he is wearing his best cloak in these cold waters.

The dogs whine and lick their chops as the propitiations are made to the sea god. Fishpuke is looking hungry too. But he must not eat yet. He is under heavy tabu while he is there at that oar. We distribute the meal to the rest. One of the younger girls approaches the navigator and feeds him portions directly into his mouth with a fork.

We tend to the animals and plants we are bringing with us. We make sure that the seed we have brought is not being ruined by the salt water. We feed the chickens on shredded coconut and the dogs on dinner scraps. There is also a rat on board, and one of the men is trying to catch it. Each time he spots it, he goes after it with his club, but so far it has been too quick and cunning for him. He runs hither and thither, seeking it under piles of empty water gourds and among the loops of anchor rope. He is wasting his energy.

It is early evening. The light is beginning to change. Suddenly there is a shout from Fishpuke. ‘Hoi! Hoi! Hoi!'

We stop what we're doing and stand up to look. Has he spotted land? No, but he has seen a dark shape in the water ahead of us. A whale? There are birds soaring around it and settling sometimes to paddle alongside it. A dead whale? If so, maybe we can cut it up for food. The navigator stands and tiptoes out along one of the hulls to its prow. We pass by the dark object, which turns out to be a floating log, not long dead, with leaves still growing from it, and with a great mat of seaweed hooked on a submerged branch. We can see excitement in the captain's eyes, and the navigator's. The captain gives an order for a light anchor to be put over the side, so that he can watch the direction in which the rope is dragged, and make a reading of the current. This will maybe tell us the direction from which the log has drifted. The captain and navigator consult, and appear to agree that our present direction is right and good.

The cold becomes fiercer as the night comes down. We women go under the hut-like shelter that stands on the deck. I wrap myself in a cloak and huddle myself against one of the posts that holds up the shelter. For warmth, I sleep with a pregnant dog. Her belly is rounded and her teats prominent. I am hopeful for her that we will find land before the pups come. ‘Driftwood and weed,' say the older ladies. ‘Those are the signs!' I share their excitement, but at the same time I worry. I hope my dreams tonight will not be about the rock people. I worry about this so much that I cannot sleep. I put my head out of the shelter and see that all the men are awake, and they are busy. Fishpuke is still at the steering oar, while the captain and navigator are muttering their incantations, which will go on all night. The stars are out, and away at the horizon I can see the soundless flash of distant lightning, a storm far out in another part of this vast ocean.

I go back and lie again with the pregnant bitch. One of the older women is awake too. Quietly, almost below her breath, she sings a dirge for those who have died on our journey and a lament for the homeland left far behind. Her words recall the coconut groves, the warm lagoon, the reef teaming with fish, the mist around the mountain, the billowing clouds and the cloudless days. She recalls how the great chief, my grandfather, died, and how his wicked sons squabbled over the best of his lands. How there was blood spilt. How there was a great council of the people to resolve the dispute without further bloodshed, and how the council found against the older of the two sons. The elder son was the less popular. People said that he was all bombast, and that if he really wished for new land, he should set sail in search of it elsewhere. He brooded on this for months, and, after consulting his advisors, decided that he would indeed take the challenge laid down before him, and head to sea. Better to die on the ocean, leading a great expedition, than to stay home and die in obscurity, a minor chief – so he reasoned. He gathered his men and, with many incantations, felled four great trees from the inland forest. The sound of chipping axes drifted over the lagoon for many weeks. I recall how we women were not allowed near, since the men were under a great state of restriction as they completed the work, which was done under the cover of a great canoe-building house at the forest edge. We finally saw the two ships when they had taken shape and had been dragged to the edge of the lagoon. For each ship, two great canoe hulls had been fixed together with stout poles, onto which the masts had been lashed, and a deck and shelter hut built on top. The sails had been fashioned and already fitted. I remember how there was a full day of prayers and offerings to the sea god when the ships were finally put onto the water. Here, we women began to provision them for the long journey to the land that is supposed to be found under the southern stars, where the sign of the great anchor shines in the night sky. There were stories about the place – it was rumoured that great navigators from our neighbouring islands had found it by accident and returned with stories about its ample land. The distance made the journey a great risk, but worth it if the stories were true.

There were tears from both men and women as we sailed away. People came from all over the island, even from villages on the opposite side, to watch us depart through the gap in the reef. The chief's elder son stood in a heroic pose on the other ship as we cruised out onto the open sea. We watched as the island diminished to become a distant shelf of land, then a shimmer on the horizon, then a memory.

We had pleasant sailing conditions for a while, but this did not last. The sea and wind gods are not friends; that much we already knew. It was not long before the sea and wind resumed their debate, the wind cursing the ocean like an old witch, and the ocean fighting back with waves like great rolling hills. We held to the woodwork for our lives as we mounted each huge swell, our great vessel suddenly seeming little better than a child's toy. Wicker cages slid around the deck, and the chickens inside clucked and scrambled in alarm. The navigator held the steering oar, prepared to wait with infinite patience for the storm to blow itself out of breath. The captain shouted instructions at the other men to check every lashing, to work with the bailer to empty the storm water from the twin hulls. When the sea had again levelled out, the wind died completely, and no incantation would raise it again for many days. There had been days and nights full of demoralising paddle work. There was nothing to see on that sparkling broad ocean; only the hammerheads that glide underneath. The other vessel had disappeared completely, and we talked among ourselves about whether they might have been sunk, or whether they might have been blown right to the new lands, and already been planting their crops.

One of our men went mad and jumped overboard, preferring the depths.

Oh, the horrible sameness of the days.

I sleep not a single moment that night. I am awake with the old woman's lamentations of all these events, and, from outside the shelter, the sacred mutterings of the captain and the navigator.

I emerge from the shelter at first light of the sunrise. We have seen so many sunrises out here on the ocean that I have lost count. The pink light is chilled by another cutting wind. The incantations have finished and the wind remains favourable. The women are up and about on the deck, where the wind blows our hair around, making ears and the tips of noses feel numb and salt-preserved. We go about the morning routine, distributing food from our ever more meagre resources.

‘Hoi!' shouts the navigator. He points up and we look to see birds, sleek like darts, gliding overhead. ‘Kua, kua, kua,' the birds call as they speed away towards the horizon. The navigator gets to his feet and strides over to the stern, where he and Fishpuke jointly apply their muscles to the steering oar. We hear it whoosh in the current, and we feel the vessel respond, turning to follow in the birds' path.

The captain comes around to talk with us. ‘It will be in the next few days,' he promises us. ‘Maybe even today.' We smile at the prospect, though none of us is sure that we believe him. People are unwilling to believe, and then find themselves disappointed. I look around at the people and see that they are desperate for land, any land, where they can mark out their gardens and plant the sweet potato and the yam and the breadfruit. They are tired of salt spray and rope callouses.

The navigator stays at the oar, and Fishpuke is ordered up the foremast to keep a watch. He obeys, happy with the chance to show off, sliding up the mast as if it were a coconut tree.