Rebecca

Morning comes with washed light and the rising chatter of people, the calls of roosters and chickens, the gurgle of children as constant as a river. The ocean marks an easy tempo on the shore, dampened by clouds. It is not yet hot, but will be soon. In the cooking shelter, Rebecca finishes wrapping some of the leftovers for Anaei to take to school. The girl sits on the ground just outside the entrance, glancing back now and again at her mother as she doodles with her fingers in the earth. She draws maps of this place, the paths she makes of it.

“I can help cook and clean,” Anaei says, looking sideways at her mother. “And sew.”

Rebecca tries to hide her smile. “You are going to school.”

“Astrid doesn’t have to go to school.” And when that doesn’t work: “I’m sad and miss Ouben.” Rebecca reaches to her daughter, who comes to her. She wishes she could keep Anaei beside her, not just today but always.

“I know,” Rebecca says in her mother’s language. “Me too, but he is watching us from Heaven and doesn’t want us to be sad.” She pulls back to peer at her daughter, her open face shining. “If he was here, he wouldn’t be able to wait to go to school, to see and learn all the things that you are learning.” She kisses Anaei’s nose. “He would want to be like his big sister.”

Anaei squirms some, her pleasure at the compliment mixed with sadness, but she stays close as Rebecca folds the last small square of laplap into a wide clean leaf and seals it in the old plastic paint bucket—which, thankfully, they have not needed for drinking water since the clearing of the stream at the old village site—then hangs it from a hook in the rafters.

With her hands now empty, Rebecca feels unmoored, as though she is floating between two shores, longing for land to light on. The world narrows. She is not here; she is somewhere else. The same place her voice went six months ago, when Ouben died. She begins to hum a tuneless phrase to stop herself from wanting to stay there, to remind herself of where she is.

She has hummed like this to soothe herself since she was a little girl. Traditional songs as well as church ones; it is not the words that buoy her, but the melodies. She was humming when Ouben died in her arms. He was fevered and sweating, and her lips vibrated as she hummed a lilting tune against his skull. He could hear her, and she could hear the tune in her head, but no one else could. He took the song with him when his breath stopped.

She didn’t tell Michelle that. She is still uncertain of what she is willing to share with this woman, who immediately clung to her when she mentioned Ouben. Rebecca almost regrets sharing him with their guest, but she couldn’t help herself in the dark. His name is so often what pulls her through from moment to moment.

“We will see you in the gardens?” Lehina is standing in the bright sun just outside the cooking shelter and her question startles Rebecca, who lifts her hand in acknowledgment. Lehina lingers briefly, before returning the gesture and continuing up the nearby path.

It has been seven months since the cyclone and life goes on, both inside and outside of the cooking hut. The bush and gardens are growing again, the vines are creeping up over the fallen trees, and the tree ferns are once more spreading themselves wide, elegant when they dance on the breeze. Already, the plot where Ouben’s body is buried has begun to disappear.

Her arms can’t remember his weight anymore. Perhaps because he grew so much in the short time that she had to hold him—the small weight of him growing heavier and heavier in the first thirteen months, and him growing stronger as he began to pull away from her, arching his back in her embrace to get down, to get away. But then the cyclone struck, and he became lighter and lighter as he shrank into himself and into her. She tried to hold him fast to her, to life. Sometimes she is so physically desperate for him she picks things up around the cooking hut, trying to conjure the weight of her son, but none of these things—the empty pots, the woven baskets, the mats they sit on—have the weight of life.

“Hallo miss!” Bridely’s voice comes like a wave before her, and the woman is already talking before Rebecca has a chance to greet her. “They didn’t like the laplap yesterday,” Bridely says as she steps carefully across the wide threshold, putting her hand on Anaei’s head as she enters. She moves slower now, as the impatient baby grows inside her. It’s true, Rebecca thinks, each of the Stewarts moved the food around the plates they had been handed, pecked at small bites of it, before making a show of not being hungry. “Did they like breakfast at least? You gave them eggs and bread?” Rebecca nods. “That’s what white people like. And fruit juice. Everyone likes fruit juice.”

Bridely doesn’t expect Rebecca to speak about mundane things, so she fills the space with her own words and thoughts. It used to irritate Rebecca, but now she is glad for the young woman’s chatter.

“My mother told me that I wouldn’t like white people’s food. ‘Food belongs in its place,’ she said.” Bridely affects an accent that Rebecca cannot place, and she wonders if this is really what Bridely’s mother sounds like. “But then she eats rice and canned tuna!”

Anaei stares at Bridely, fascinated by the young woman, her good cheer and her swollen shape.

“Me,” Bridely continues, as she lowers herself heavily to the ground and sits with her legs stretched out on the mat, “I like pizza.” She puts her hands flat in front of her mouth as though she is eating, trying to make Rebecca and Anaei laugh. “Have you had it?” Bridely asks, then pats the space beside her on the mat for Anaei to sit. Anaei shakes her head. “I had it in Fiji when Willie’s football team was in a tournament there. I would eat it every day if I could. Or McDonald’s!” She throws back her head and laughs.

Rebecca likes Bridely’s attitude towards the foreigners—astonishment and dismissal at once. She takes what she likes from them, but doesn’t see them as particularly special. Bridely goes quiet and then, as if she can read Rebecca’s thoughts, she says with a small chuckle, “How are they supposed to help us? I’m not sure they can help themselves!”

Rebecca shakes her head, though she thinks Bridely is right. Instead she says to Anaei, “That food would make you sick.”

Bridely smiles wide again. “That’s what all the mamas say.” She runs her hand over the round of her belly as though satiated. Rebecca looks away.

Bridely is so young, only a year older than Rebecca was when she first came to this island. She is a slight, skinny girl, her hair tinted with a reddish gold. Bridely supported her through the days and weeks after Ouben’s death, guiding her hands until they remembered what to do, placing a knife in her palm, or taro in front of her to grate, distracting Anaei. She told stories of Ouben, described him over and over again to Rebecca, reviving his laugh and the deep brown of his eyes, the curls of hair at the nape of his neck, the seashell of his tiny ears, the whorl of his fingerprints. She offered them as gifts, and they sustained Rebecca.

Bridely’s belly presses out of her now, round as a coconut, though much bigger. But she is skin and bones behind it. She should eat more; the baby is taking all of the food. Her belly grows, but Bridely does not. Without a word, Rebecca slides a leaf of leftover rice and some cooked taro to her, and Bridely scoops it sloppily with her fingers. Rebecca hands her a metal fork she has already washed, which Bridely takes with a smile.

Outside there is the murmur of voices—women coming closer, men moving away, the chaotic babble of children, like birds taking to the sky. Lalim, David’s brother’s wife, ducks into the hut, followed by David’s mother, Numalin, shuffling her feet forward. Bridely begins to press herself up to give the old woman her space near the door, but Numalin puts a hand on her shoulder, both keeping her in place and using Bridely to lower herself to the ground.

“Looking for Jacob?” Numalin teases Bridely, who drops her gaze to hide her smile. “All you young women are always watching for Jacob,” she continues. “He’s always hanging around waiting for you to cook him something.”

“I’m a married woman,” Bridely says.

Lalim sucks her teeth. “Doesn’t mean you are not looking. It is nice to have a young man around to look at.” Bridely blushes. “Will Jimmy make it back for the birth?” Lalim asks, naming Bridely’s husband, who no one has heard from in some months. His absence makes them all worry. They have birthed babies before, but it would be good if Jimmy sent money in case they need a doctor.

Bridely deflects by asking about Lalim’s nephew. “Is he coming home soon?”

“There is nothing here for him right now. He has found a woman in Vila he wants to marry, and has to make money so he can.”

“Jacob must have a girlfriend,” Bridely says, turning to Rebecca, who shrugs. She goes on: “Probably many. He is too handsome.” She leans slightly into the centre of the group, and her voice drops. “I heard he was talking to a girl in the north. They met in Vila, and she returned to her place after the storm.”

“Jacob is a good boy. He won’t be talking with girls. Who told you that?” Numalin asks.

“Never you mind,” Lalim says. “I heard the girl was still in Vila.”

“You are all gossiping,” Numalin says. “There is no such girl. His parents would know.”

“She would be lucky,” Bridely says.

Lalim stands and pulls down a basket full of cloth from the rafters. Each of the women reaches in, takes a piece, eyes it up, and then bends to sewing, their hands moving evenly while they talk. Anaei watches Bridely, her head cocked to the side, taking in every detail of how the young woman moves.

The gossip about Jacob unsettles Rebecca. These women are her friends, but to hear them talk about him in this way, as though there are no consequences attached to what they jabber about, unnerves her. “Jacob does have a job in New Zealand,” Rebecca says eventually. She has not said the words aloud before, has barely acknowledged them to herself. But in front of her friends she tries to sound proud, the way that she knows Lalim would sound if her nephew had gotten honest work.

“Ah! That’s good news,” Lalim says now. “He will be able to help pay for Anaei’s schooling. Maybe she can even go away to Vila when she is older.”

“I’m never going away.” Anaei shakes her head.

“Don’t be silly,” Numalin says to her. “Wives go with their husbands. That is how it is.”

“Then I’ll marry Jacob.”

“Not if he is gone away!” Numalin laughs her croaking laugh that sounds older than she is. Anaei frowns, and Rebecca tries to pull her daughter to her, but the girl scooches closer to Bridely.

Numalin’s laugh slips to a cough, and after she clears her throat, she adds, “David must be pleased. It is hard to find good work.”

Rebecca holds her tongue because she hasn’t told David that Jacob does want to go away. She knows it will hurt him, and he has already been so hurt. But her friends are right. It is hard to find work, especially here. Especially now. He will be proud of his son, won’t he?

“They are not what I expected,” Lalim says, continuing a conversation out loud that she has clearly been having in her head. She is often like this, changing the stroke of their talk in strange ways. For once, Rebecca is grateful for it, a turning away from Jacob and David.

“What did you expect?” Rebecca asks.

Lalim tilts her head, thoughtful, having spoken before she knew what she wanted to say. “They are more quiet than I would have thought,” she begins, “like they might break something.” She gives a quick bark of a laugh. “Or like we might break them!”

Numalin and Bridely laugh with her. Rebecca nods tightly.

“They have so much luggage,” Bridely adds. “More than I had when I came to live here. And do you think they are old? I think they look old.”

“I was surprised they brought a grandmother with them,” Numalin says. “White people don’t respect their families the way we do.”

Bridely giggles again at this, then adds, “They’re very tall.”

“Not Michelle.”

“No. But even their little girl is taller than Anaei!”

“They had a boy who died,” Rebecca says, recalling Michelle’s voice in the night, the exchange of their sons’ names.

Numalin clicks her tongue, and Lalim makes an empathetic sound as she reaches to stroke Anaei’s back. “They are not so different then. Not so big,” she says, using a word in her language that Rebecca knows. It means when a man thinks he is important, thinks he is brave. Sometimes the women use this word as a sly jab at Robson, and they all chuckle at it, even Rebecca.

“I think they are different,” Bridely says. “People are like their places. They are cold and full of money, just like Toronto. I should have married someone from there.” She laughs loudly, the gap in her teeth flashing.

“It is sad,” Lalim says, “but it does not change the fact that we must cook for them and share with them.” She pauses. “They have that look.”

“They are our guests,” Numalin scolds, “no matter what they look like.”

“What look?” Bridely asks Lalim, who makes a face, bending her lips into a frown.

“That sadness. You know. Pity.” She glances at Rebecca.

Rebecca knows the look. It was how the doctors looked at her when they finally came from the north and saw Ouben. They told her she should have come to them sooner. They said maybe then they might have been able to do something, as they squirted some bright-coloured antibiotics into his mouth. How was she supposed to get to them? The roads were impassable with uprooted trees and mudslides. Her baby was too sick for such a journey.

“Robson says that when we have their forgiveness, then things will change here,” Bridely adds. “But how does that change things?”

“Not forgiveness,” Numalin says, her voice a croak again. She clears her throat once more and spits into a square of cloth that she pulls from the pocket of her wide skirt, then folds and sets just outside the threshold of the hut. “We must come together, that is how our grandmothers would say it.”

Rebecca wants to confide a thought that has been nagging at her, about these people being here, how maybe they carry too much need with them, too much grief. She worries they will take more than they give, and the people here can’t afford to give any more.

She is about to say something when the church bell in the distance tolls and the women begin to shift themselves to leave, taking small wrapped packages of leftovers—some to eat in the gardens later, some to deliver to the men clearing grounds to build new homes.

Lalim rests her hand on top of Rebecca’s head when she passes, and it is a soothing, soft scratching like a mother would offer a child. She misses the touch when Lalim moves on. “We will see you in the gardens, yes?”

Rebecca nods.

Soon it is just Rebecca, Bridely, and Anaei in the cooking hut once more.

“You should get ready,” Rebecca tells Anaei, though she also means it for Bridely, who will walk with the children to the school in Robson’s village. Anaei grabs her small flip-flops but then giggles at a growl from Bridely’s belly. Bridely smiles with one hand over her mouth, hiding the pretty gap in her teeth, her other hand resting flat against her belly. “He is hungry today.” Her belly rolls. “And angry.”

“And what about you?” Rebecca does and doesn’t want to talk about this baby.

Bridely shrugs. “I’m whatever he is.”

Rebecca remembers the defeat and astonishment of this, feeling like her body was not her own. Feeling occupied by another being, by the future. Ouben made her happy and slow, where Anaei made her anxious and unable to sit down.

“I heard on the radio,” Bridely is saying, “that Willie’s team won in Fiji.”

“This is good news,” Rebecca says, handing Anaei her lunch, which the little girl slides into a small bag like the ones she has been learning to weave.

Bridely’s brother is her one love. A football player with the national team, he travels much of the time and has not been home to see his family for over a year. He sends home money and shirts and scarves with the team logo on them, which Bridely wears with devotion. Rebecca lets her talk. She knows that Bridely doesn’t get much chance to in her father-in-law’s house, where she sleeps while her husband is away in Australia. He has been away since before Bridely discovered she was pregnant. Bridely is glad that he is gone and so is Rebecca. He was rough with his wife. When she was first married, Bridely was often seen with bruises on her body or cradling an injured arm. Rebecca and the other women didn’t mention the injuries, but they would make sure she had food to serve him, and a place for herself among them. He sends home a little money to his father, but Bridely sees none of it.

“They are going to Australia for the playoffs, and I am going to go with them. I’m going to go, and I think never come back here. I’ll find a job in Sydney and live in a big apartment away from the sea.” She peers over Rebecca’s shoulder at the sparkle and dance of the ocean. “You can come visit me.”

“Everyone there wants to live by the sea,” Rebecca says.

“Not me. I will never live by the sea again. It is always so loud and booming.” She shivers. “Willie will introduce me to all the famous football players and—”

“Ouben was going to be a football player,” Anaei says from the entrance of the shelter, shifting anxiously from foot to foot. Sometimes Rebecca worries that Anaei spends too much time with Bridely listening to the football games, too much time listening to Bridely. But her comment makes Rebecca smile.

“You think so?” she asks.

“Oh yes! Remember the way he kicked you in your belly, and even when he was out? Kick kick kick.” She mimics the flailing of his soft round legs.

“He would have been a great one, I bet,” Bridely enthuses.

“A great what?” Jacob appears in the threshold as a shadow.

“Football player—Ouben,” Anaei explains, and kicks at the air around Jacob’s ankles.

“I bet he would have.”

As Anaei and Bridely set out for school, Rebecca tries to conjure Ouben as a young man, to see him at Jacob’s age, at the cusp of a new life. Would he go away? Would she be able to find a way to keep him here? It is almost impossible for her to picture him. She can picture Jacob, and her own brother. She can imagine David as a young man. But her heart stutters at the empty space where Ouben should be.

“Are you ready?” David asks from where he has appeared behind Jacob, startling her.

She should tell David that his son is thinking of leaving, and she should tell Jacob to talk to his father. She wishes she could be the bridge that joins them, but for now their silences settle back upon her.