In the House of Sorrow

Every Friday, an hour before the cicadas erupted in chorus and the sun started slotting into the darkness, Peleiupu and Tavita retreated into what Satoans referred to as ‘Pele’s office’ and shut the door on Satoa, and no one dared intrude. For that hour, she told them, she and Tavita belonged to themselves, and were not to be fed upon by others.

She would relax in her prince’s chair, which Tavita had given her for her thirtieth birthday eight years earlier, while Tavita smoked (and drank a glass or two of whisky that no one was supposed to know about). Most Satoans believed that wanting privacy, cutting yourself off from family, was a strange thing to do: privacy encouraged conspiracy, plotting, furtive consumption of food and other things you should be sharing with your community. Sao claimed it was a very papalagi characteristic, and said it was really Peleiupu who insisted on it, not his grandson, who was a true Satoan who loved being with others, always. As for her insisting that she and Tavita speak only English during that hour, that was really peculiar! (It was strange enough that she spoke mainly English to her children.) Her office was cluttered with books that she actually read, Sao reported. All those books and all that reading was one of the reasons she was so different from normal people.

Peleiupu fanned herself with quick pecking movements as she observed the village and sea. From her parents’ house eased the chorus of children reciting their times tables: ‘Two ones are two, two twos are four, two threes are six …!’ She visualised Maualuga, eyes shut tightly, trying to fish the correct answers out of her memory, and I’amafana, Sao’s namesake and as over-confident as his namesake, trying to outrace the other children.

Two canoes were crossing the bay, struggling against the receding tide. She paddled with the fishermen as they dug their paddles into the water and pushed back, dug and pushed, dug and pushed … Ahh, it was good for easing the tightness and pain in your neck and shoulders! Tavita usually massaged the pain away before she settled into her chair, but he was in Upolu with Mikaele and Faranisisi checking the viability of four trading stores they might buy from German owners who were leaving the country.

Jutting out from Totoume Point was the jetty that, with the help of the whole village, they had built a few years before when they’d bought their first motor vessel and renamed it the Lady Poto. Roni, Tavita’s fourth brother, who’d spent four years on foreign ships, captained the vessel, which they used to supply their other stores and transport passengers and goods to and from Apia.

Before the Great War they’d worked closely with the German company, selling it all their copra and buying nearly all their goods from it. So when New Zealand took control of the country at the start of the war, and the company was forced to sell its trading stations, it gave them first option in Savai’i, and they’d bought six of the stores cheaply. Against Tavita’s wishes Peleiupu had put Semisi in charge of the chain of stores, telling Semisi that ‘your oldest brother thinks you’re going to make a mess of it’.

‘Does he, does he, now?’ Semisi had exclaimed in English. ‘Well, I going to show that … that Afakasi son-a-bitch, who don’t even speak proper English, that I the best bloody businessman in this afakasi family!’ So far, Semisi was proving just that.

Since the start of the war, they’d bought three adjoining German businesses in the centre of Apia. At the moment people were renting them, but she planned at the end of the war to demolish them and build a large business complex that would be the headquarters of their company.

With pride Peleiupu gazed up at their new steepled church with the fifty front steps, amazing stained-glass windows and bright red roof. To the right of that was the pastor’s new house, a spacious rectangular building with red corrugated-iron roof, an abundant communal room and bedrooms. To the left of the church was the new school made up of two long buildings divided into classrooms.

A year after Lefatu’s birth Sao and Mautu, through the fono, had declared that God wanted to be praised by Satoans in a new church reflecting His importance and value. (Other nobody villages, orated Sao, are building churches that make our church look like a nobody church!) So she and Tavita had had to work behind Mautu and the fono, to ensure that the church was built properly, efficiently.

For the building fund the fono had levied monthly contributions on all aiga, and had all the copra cut and sold through Peleiupu’s store. When she discovered that Sao and the other trustees were misusing the building funds, Peleiupu got Tavita to ‘persuade’ Sao to appoint Poto as a trustee. Poto ensured that none of the trustees misused the funds any more. The others knew little accounting, so Peleiupu had to keep all the books, and an incensed Sao complained to Tavita that ‘your cheeky wife is getting too cheeky treating me like a dishonest child’. (She’d stopped all Sao’s and his friends’ unauthorised spending on tobacco, chewing gum, corned beef and other ‘essentials’.) And when Tavita had cautioned her about ‘mistreating’ his grandfather she’d handed him the books and told him to keep them, and pay for his own grandfather’s ‘expensive habits’. It didn’t take long for Tavita to realise that his interest did not lie in satisfying his grandfather’s insatiable appetites but in getting the church built as quickly and honestly as possible. She also persuaded him — and through him, Sao — to have the school and pastor’s house built. It would be cheaper that way and he’d also earn the love and respect of all Satoans.

The lavish official opening of the new buildings, attended by ‘nearly all of Samoa’ — Sao’s description — brought in enough money to cover all their costs and make a profit, which Peleiupu had to get Tavita to persuade Sao (who wanted to keep the bulk of the money) to divide evenly among all the aiga. She laughed about it now but the whole building project had often threatened the unity of her own family, and of Satoa, with some aiga threatening to convert to other churches and Sao and Mautu threatening to ostracise them from Satoa (and the ‘true Christian heaven’) forever.

A few months after the church opening, Sao had summoned a meeting of their aiga and, with tears in his rheumy eyes, had declared, ‘My favourite palagi grandson, David, otherwise known to you as Tavita, in his dynamic, selfless service to me and Satoa in building our church, pastor’s house and school, has proven he is a true Samoan, a true Satoan, and a true and most loyal member of our aiga. He has through his service raised this difficult, sometimes factious aiga to the level of being number one in this jealous village, in this envious district, in this faction-ridden country.’ Pausing dramatically and blowing his nose on the corner of his ie lavalava, he’d then ruled, ‘Toanamua, the second-highest title in our obedient aiga, is to be conferred on my grandson.’ With his regal right hand he’d motioned to Tavita to come forward and patted the mat next to him. A shy, suitably humble Tavita took that place. Then Sao had looked at all the leading matai of each branch of his aiga and asked them for their views — objections — to his God-inspired choice.

Each elder had spoken solemnly, expressing support, and Sao had congratulated them on agreeing with his ‘suggestion’. Happiness had filled every part of Peleiupu: Tavita deserved the title. She’d been happier still knowing that the matai of their aiga were pledging their support to Tavita not because of Sao but because they recognised that their self-interest would now be best served by Tavita (and ‘the unusual but gifted pastor’s daughter’). They would continue to pander to the old man’s vanity but Tavita was their new Sao.

A month later the title Toanamua was formally conferred on Tavita in the ‘largest, most generous, most aristocratic saofa’i ever witnessed in Samoa: thousands of pounds, hundreds of pigs and ie toga, and enough food to sink every glutton in the world!’ Sao would boast for the rest of his life. Peleiupu hadn’t minded the extravagance in this instance: the patronage had further strengthened their position in Satoa and the district and had declared to the country that a new leader had emerged in Savai’i. It was all good for business.

Though everyone now addressed him as Toanamua, Peleiupu would never want to call him that — he would always be Tavita, the reticent, sometimes clumsy young man who’d obeyed her decision to go to Pago Pago and get married there. That reckless courage had changed the course of her life, making her part of what that infuriatingly racist American Freemeade had described as ‘a beachcomber’s half-caste family, neither Samoan nor British, but lost between those cultural and genetic poles’. Freemeade, look where that in-limbo half-caste family is now! Peleiupu wanted to shout.

She wandered up to the windows and, letting the soft breeze cool her body, surveyed their compound. Barker’s old store was gone; in its place they’d built this large complex of store, warehouse, offices, bakery, copra-drying unit and shed. Her aiga’s faletele, with the highest paepae in Satoa, remained in front on the edge of the malae. And Sao and Vaomatua now had a new house just like the pastor’s.

Behind Sao’s house, nestled under sprawling monkeypod and mango trees, was her double-storeyed house with four bedrooms, a large sitting room, dining room and kitchen, designed after Jeanne Somerset Maun’s home in one of her favourite novels, The Sun and Shilling, by Graham Creme.

She’d almost died giving birth to Maualuga, the youngest, who was almost seven. She tried to suppress the memories of the pain: it felt as if she were being turned inside out. Everyone had sympathised with her, saying how sorry they were that Maualuga’s difficult birth had ended her chances of having any more children. But she was glad she would not have to go through that terrible experience again. Having children had been a matter of duty. She’d never had what Freemeade had described as ‘the maternal instinct’, but had never told anyone because they would have considered that unnatural. She loved her children more than anyone else, of that she was sure. Lefatu, at ten, had her Aunt Lefatu’s facial features, Lalaga’s small and tight body, Tavita’s stocky legs and Mautu’s large feet. Her green eyes and blonde-tipped hair were straight from Barker. Iakopo, nine, and named after Peleiupu’s brother who’d died of the Satoan Disease, had Lalaga’s prominent forehead, Sao’s bulbous and alert eyes, Vaomatua’s squatness, Poto’s slim legs — and Mautu’s large feet. I’amafana, eight, was Sao’s favourite, and Sao claimed that ‘the son of my daughter’s son looks just like me when I was his age’. There was no resemblance at all, but no one was foolish enough to tell Sao that. Mautu was partially brave and had told Sao that I’amafana’s large feet were his. Feet being lowly parts of a person, Sao had agreed with the pastor. Once, when I’amafana was talking excitedly, Vaomatua had commented to Sao, ‘Aren’t his blue eyes beautiful?’ Sao had accused her of being colour-blind. ‘Can’t you see his eyes are brown like mine?’ he’d ordered. Maualuga, Tavita’s favourite, was as beautiful as Ruta and Naomi were at her age, except she had cats’ eyes and golden brown hair. It was strange but no one in their aiga had ever said that any of Peleiupu’s children resembled her. Not even Tavita.

The large fireball was sinking into the western horizon, setting the sea and sky ablaze with a molten-lava red. As the crimson red flowed in from the west and over the beach and malae and up towards the range, Peleiupu followed its progress. Their plantation was spreading up over the foothills.

This was what they had achieved since their return from American Samoa, about fourteen years before. No one in Satoa had ever achieved so much in so short a time. Mautu told everyone that Peleiupu had ‘the Midas Touch’. Sao and the children wanted to hear that story, and Peleiupu had to tell it.

She’d never intended the success, but she was proud of her achievements.

She shielded her eyes and gazed into the sunset.

 

She woke at 5.30 am, as usual, kissed Maualuga, who was asleep in her father’s place, washed, dressed and hurried through the rich aroma of fresh bread to the bakery. She was free of all household chores. Poto and other relatives took care of those — and the children.

The two bakers, whom she’d sent to Apia to learn the skill, were taking the bread out of the oven. The room was a sea of heat, and the bakers and their two helpers were drenched with sweat. Another hot day in Paradise, Tavita would’ve remarked. The horses and cart were ready outside. She checked the orders, and the helpers loaded the baskets onto the cart for distribution to stores in the neighbouring villages. She thanked the bakers, wished them well for the day and hurried to the store.

She glanced up. The sun was squatting on the rim of the range. As usual a non-stop-talking Semisi and his assistant, Feleti (but known to everyone as ‘Frederiko’) were serving the customers. She discussed with Semisi what needed to be done that day. ‘Gosh, you still look young!’ Semisi made her day.

As usual Sili, Mikaele’s plantation foreman and his uncle, was waiting for her in the tool shed, where he and his six workers were having their morning meal of tea and bread. She greeted them formally. He told her what needed to be done. She approved it. As she started to leave, Sili said, ‘Isn’t that the Lady Poto?’ She turned to the bay.

Tavita was standing on the prow, arms folded, as the boat nosed through the slight swell. She waved; he didn’t see her.

She tried not to run as she made her way to the jetty.

The cheerful crowd, many still wrapped in their sleeping sheets, parted and let her through to the boat. Roni, Mikaele, Faranisisi and the crew were greeting their families, but she couldn’t see Tavita or any passengers. She embraced Roni, then Faranisisi, and felt puny in Mikaele’s huge arms. Of all the Barker children, Mikaele most resembled their father in size and appearance.

‘An epidemic has started in Apia and is spreading to other parts of the country,’ Mikaele told her.

‘It’s sweeping through the whole world, killing more people than the World War that’s just ended,’ Roni added.

‘We left Apia before we got sick,’ Faranisisi said. ‘We didn’t want to bring it to Satoa.’

‘That’s why we didn’t bring passengers,’ Roni said.

‘Don’t worry, we’ve had epidemics before!’ Tavita declared so the crowd could hear him. He stepped over the boat railing. ‘We’ve had smallpox, the fever, measles, mumps — and we’re still here!’ Some people laughed.

Peleiupu moved to him and he enveloped her in his arms and kissed her deeply. Embarrassed by this ‘very papalagi behaviour’, the others tried not to look. Breaking breathless from their kiss, Tavita said, ‘We’ll defeat the epidemic with kisses!’ Most of the crowd laughed again.

Later, as they moved through the crowd, Peleiupu heard them whispering about the epidemic ‘killing hundreds in Apia — killing them like flies’.

Tavita hurried her away from the others. ‘It’s very bad,’ he whispered. ‘I’ve instructed Roni and the others who were on the boat that if they start feeling sick they have to report to the clinic.’

They found Fa’amapu, the government nurse, bandaging a boy’s knee. She’d been in Satoa for about three years, with her husband and child, and was respected. Tavita told her about the epidemic. She would prepare the clinic in case people got sick, she said. She didn’t have enough medicine but would do her best. Peleiupu promised she would help her.

Most people greeted Tavita as they hurried through the village. Tavita waved and called but she sensed he was as focused on her as she was on him. The familiar burning sensation was cruising through her belly and down. A quick touch on his arm and shoulder. A long caress of his fingers over her hip, side, flank. ‘Accidental’ bumping of hips and thighs …

By the time they were on the veranda and Tavita was mobbed by their children, she was trembling almost visibly with desire. They had to be patient while the children had their breakfast — they weren’t allowed to talk, but Maualuga kept breaking that rule. Peleiupu sat on her hands to still her shaking — while Galu, Poto’s sister, fussed over the children and Siniva checked their clothes and combed their hair, and then took them to school. They had to be patient while Tavita answered Galu’s questions about the epidemic. Then finally, pretending he was tired, Tavita got up and headed for the bedroom. Pretending she had to hurry to her office, Peleiupu left too.

At the corner of the veranda Peleiupu checked, then slid around the corner of the house and around to the back. The door to their bedroom was ajar. She pulled it back quietly and slid into the room. Every pore and nerve of her was alive — more alive than ever before.

Wearing only an ie lavalava, Tavita lay on his back on their bed, eyes shut, but she knew — and was aroused knowing — that he was only pretending to be asleep. She cherished making love to him, though she rarely came. That only happened, they had discovered, when she was aroused in her head. Usually she would take her time, savouring the sight of him caressing her body, then she would watch him arousing himself. They could be bold and take their time now they had their own bedroom. For years, she’d not enjoyed it because they’d slept and lived in communal quarters. Always confined to making love at night and noiselessly so as not to wake the others. More recently when it had become a bit routine, she found she loved describing to him how she was feeling as he made love to her. He loved it too — the frank language of sexual desire.

Now, because they’d been apart for twelve days, she needed none of that. She lifted her ie lavalava, pulled off her wet panties and, trying to suppress her throat-deep groaning, she straddled him, knees on either side of his hips. He felt full and hot in her left hand as she raised her buttocks and then lowered herself down and around him, slowly. He started moaning and moving his hips. ‘Don’t, don’t!’ she stopped him. She clutched him and moved. ‘I’ve missed you so much, so much … ’ She pulled off her blouse, bent forward and, holding her full breasts, she rubbed her nipples over his quivering mouth and tongue.

He pumped his hips up hard, once. She gasped. He thrust up again, then again. ‘Ahh! Ahhh!’ she cried each time. When he thrust up again, she remained suspended, her whole body ready to burst. Then, gasping loudly, her body broke out in long shuddering waves as she came, burying her face in the pillows, clutching his thighs between hers.

As usual they waited until her sensitivity eased, then he started moving again.

A short while later she was in her office. Relaxed, feeling utterly safe now that Tavita was back home.

Running footsteps approached; she recognised them as Poto’s. ‘I was at the clinic helping Fa’amapu, and they’ve just brought in Samani. He was in Apia with Tavita!’ Poto said. ‘Fa’amapu ordered me out so I wouldn’t get infected. It’s definitely not our Satoan Disease. He’s delirious and vomiting and with the hottest fever I’ve ever felt. He feels as if he’s going to burn to ashes!’

On their way to the clinic they tried to walk normally so as not to alarm the others. ‘I’ve seen other epidemics, Pele,’ Poto said. ‘This is terrible.’

A worried group of Samani’s relatives sat on the veranda, kept out there by Fa’amapu who, with Samani’s mother, was covering the shivering patient with blankets and swabbing his face with a wet cloth. ‘We’ll sweat out his fever,’ Fa’amapu told them.

As Samani complained of an overwhelming headache and then continued coughing and vomiting loudly, his mother started weeping. Poto held her shoulders and steered her to her relatives outside. ‘He’ll be all right. God will heal him,’ she told her.

They agreed that all the people who’d been on the Lady Poto should be quarantined. Peleiupu instructed one of Samani’s brothers to fetch Mikaele. (Tavita would still be asleep.) ‘Hurry!’ she urged the boy.

‘You’re overreacting,’ Mikaele insisted when Poto told him the disease was the epidemic. She pushed him towards Samani. Peleiupu and Fa’amapu pulled the sweat-drenched blankets aside. The sight of a delirious Samani was enough. Mikaele rushed off to gather the others.

‘You’ll have to wake Tavita,’ Peleiupu called after him.

Shortly after, Mikaele had them in the clinic, with their sleeping sheets and mats. Tavita examined Samani and confirmed that it was the epidemic he’d seen in Apia.

For a long while they sat in silence around a patient who was lapsing into a coma and looked as if he were going to disintegrate and with it shatter their lives and the prosperity and happiness they’d achieved. Outside, the people gathered.

‘We must declare the clinic and the immediate area around it a quarantine zone,’ Peleiupu said. ‘Frightened people will not respect invisible boundaries so we must put up a fence.’

‘I’ll get Sao to call a meeting of the fono to issue regulations the people must follow,’ Tavita suggested.

‘It’s too late,’ Poto said. ‘Best to gather all the people in the church and tell them.’

So Tavita, Mikaele and the crew hurried to the warehouse, got supplies of timber and barbed wire and started erecting a fence twenty paces from and around the clinic. Many people offered to help but Tavita sent them home to check on their families. Peleiupu wrote a notice forbidding entry into the quarantine zone, and Tavita nailed it up on the entrance.

Whenever fears of inadequacy threatened to overwhelm her, Peleiupu sought her mother’s counsel. She slipped away from the clinic and hurried to the school.

The classes were still on, but Lalaga came out to see her. She told Lalaga what was happening. ‘Where’s Naomi?’ Lalaga asked Peleiupu. ‘Did Tavita stop at Manono to see how she and her children are?’ Peleiupu sensed her mother was trying to hide her fears for Naomi’s safety.

‘No, I don’t think they did, but I’m sure the epidemic hasn’t reached Manono.’ She tried to calm her. After graduating, Naomi had been hired as a teacher at Vaiuta and, for a few years, had refused to marry any of the young pastors Mautu and their family elders had recommended. Eventually with Lalaga’s relentless encouragement, Naomi had married Pate Mufale, a widower, and they had shifted to be the pastors at Manono.

‘My daughter! What’s going to happen to her?’ Lalaga continued. ‘And what about Ruta?’

‘I’ll remind Tavita and Roni to visit Naomi and Pate the next time they go to Apia,’ Pele replied, putting her arm around her mother as they headed for the clinic.

‘We rarely see them,’ Lalaga said. ‘Only once a year at the Salua annual fono.’ Peleiupu recalled that the rebellious Naomi had demanded that Mautu marry them in a simple ceremony at Vaiuta without the fa’a Samoa — the extravagant exchange of gifts between the two aiga. They were all surprised when Lalaga had supported her demands. Naomi and Pate now had five children, two from Pate’s previous marriage.

‘God will protect us but you’re quite correct, Pele, we have to protect ourselves.’ Lalaga whispered. ‘And don’t forget Ruta, send the boat to see how she is, please!’

Sao, Mautu, Vaomatua and other elders were already at the fence, challenging Tavita about his decision to declare the quarantine. Other people were milling around them. Some of Samani’s relatives were complaining about not being allowed to see him. ‘This is only another palagi epidemic: we’ve survived all the previous ones,’ Sao was saying.

‘What Tavita and Fa’amapu have done is absolutely right,’ Lalaga told Mautu, ignoring Sao.

‘Do you want this evil disease to spread?’ Mautu started to challenge her.

‘Do you want to die?’ she attacked. That shut him up. Lalaga was franker and less diplomatic about her views. Those who didn’t like her described that as being crude, cruel, brutal and arrogant. ‘Tell Fa’amapu to come!’ she called to Mikaele, who was sitting with the crew on the clinic veranda. Mikaele disappeared inside.

The message of the long, high-pitched wailing that erupted from the heart of the clinic was clear. Tavita ran back inside. Even before he was back, the crew members were at the fence, telling people that Samani had died.

‘He must have a proper Christian burial,’ Mautu insisted. Sao supported him.

‘Are you stupid? If you go in there you’ll rejoin us as carriers of that evil disease!’ Lalaga insisted. ‘You can conduct the service from here. Samani’s body can be brought closer to us.’

Samani’s uncle demanded that his nephew be buried on family land. Sao agreed. Peleiupu looked at Tavita, who hesitated and then said, ‘Sir, we have to bury him here, away from infecting you and your family.’

‘That would be burying him like an animal without a family!’ the man protested.

‘If I die, I too will be buried inside this fence,’ Tavita consoled them. ‘So will my brothers and sister. We’re doing this so the epidemic doesn’t kill our loved ones.’

At Lalaga’s suggestion — more an order — Sao sent messengers to gather the people in the church. By this time most Satoans were in the shade around the fence. They followed Sao and Mautu to the church, oblivious to the fierce heat. Peleiupu lingered behind, too frightened to leave Tavita. ‘Be brave!’ Tavita called to her.

Peleiupu chose to sit at the back of the church by the main entrance. The church was packed, and smelled heavily of sweat. After Sao greeted the people, and Fa’amapu started talking about the symptoms of the epidemic, Peleiupu slipped out and hurried to the school. She looked down at the clinic. Mikaele and the remaining four crewmen were extending the barbed-wire fence along the road to the jetty, while Tavita and Roni were digging Samani’s grave under the breadfruit tree to the right. She had to get her children home and away from all sources of contamination.

She had to. So she gathered them as they left their classrooms, herded them protesting to the house, instructed Tavita’s sister Siniva and Galu to keep them inside and rushed back down to the clinic.

Tavita came up to the fence, dressed in a clean ie lavalava and singlet, after cleaning off the sweat and dirt from digging the grave. How she wanted to reach over and hold him! He told her Samani’s body was being prepared for burial. What about a coffin? she reminded him. No time for that, he replied. They’ll wrap him up in mats, like they used to in pre-Christian times.

‘His skin has turned blue,’ Tavita said. ‘Strange. Fa’amapu says he may have contracted pneumonia, too.’

Roni, Mikaele and Faranisisi joined them. Faranisisi, who usually radiated energy and invulnerable confidence, looked pale and frightened. She was Peleiupu’s favourite sister-in-law, the most intelligent of the Barkers’ children, quick at reading what was happening, adept and clever at negotiating — marrying different people’s and groups’ interests no matter how divergent. She was still single, though Poto, Vaomatua and Semisi had tried matchmaking her with a string of men. Whenever she turned down a suitor, Poto criticised her loudly, but Sao always said, ‘Leave my granddaughter alone. He’s ugly anyway, and a nobody!’

Poto came and stood across from Faranisisi. ‘You feeling well?’ she asked the ones who were on the boat. They nodded; Faranisisi looked away. ‘The Almighty will be kind to us,’ Poto said. ‘He will withhold His wrath.’ The others looked at the ground.

Roni coughed and Peleiupu caught him gazing at her. He looked away; he could never look anyone in the face. Some Satoans called him ‘Roni Soso’ behind his back. With his hunched shoulders and thin frame, he moved and spoke slowly, reinforcing the impression that he was not very intelligent. But Peleiupu knew that Roni was quick-witted, cunning and fearless. During crises he was cool, didn’t panic, and formulated solutions carefully. He was also loved for his guitar playing. And loved most of all by Semisi, who would defend him to the death.

When he was twenty, with rumours circulating about two pregnancies, Roni had told Poto he was going abroad, and left before the Barker clan could discuss his request. (The Barkers always discussed such matters as a group.) They were so confident in his ability to survive, they didn’t worry about him too much. Then four years later, on Christmas morning just before lotu, he returned, sliding smoothly into their midst and occupying his usual post, as if he’d never been away. He brought with him an American accent, an even slower manner of speech, traces of grey hair, gifts for everyone, a weakness for whisky and his black guitar, and an almost total silence about where he’d been and what he’d done. Once, when drunk, he boasted he’d been to the Tsar’s palace in Moscow, the King’s palace in London and the White House in Washington, and had tasted ice and snow.

Because he loved Peleiupu he took her aside not long after his return and told her the stories he’d gathered about Arona or people who could’ve been Arona. How in San Francisco he’d happened to mention Arona and a Spaniard at the bar had said he’d spent three trips on a British ship, with a Polynesian called Aaron Midas as first mate, who’d treated him kindly and talked incessantly about one day returning home to his ageing parents. How on another ship, a Portuguese one, Roni had been told of a Polynesian sailor who’d bragged he was the ‘last pagan on Earth’, who would eat any Christian who tried to convert him; everyone had been afraid of him. How sailors across the seas were talking about a group of South Sea Islanders, led by a man called Aaron Knife, who controlled any ship they signed on. Yes, the stories were so real — but where was he? Peleiupu wondered.

Most amazing of all was Roni’s ability on the guitar and the songs he sang in Russian, English, French, German and Maori, the language of the Tangata Maori of New Zealand. Whenever he played and sang, the Satoans, especially the young ones, flocked to him.

Poto told everyone that Roni was too soso to catch a woman. But within a few months of his captaining the Lady Poto his notoriety for drinking and ‘catching’ women spread rapidly. Poto threatened that God was going to have him swallowed by a whale. A few times when Roni returned drunk, Sao beat him with his beautiful ebony walking stick with the pearl-shell inlays, which Roni had given him on his return.

When the rumour spread that he had the ‘fire illness’, his brothers jokingly told him the fire would ‘burn off his naughty, unruly firestick’.

Then he brought home Pa’ugata, a no-nonsense, well-organised woman who mothered him, controlled his drinking, and produced three children he adored. With Pa’ugata around they expected him to stop ‘catching’ other women but he didn’t — he claimed it wasn’t his fault: the women were catching him! Pa’ugata ignored those rumours: to her, her handsome husband was an excellent father and a scrupulously faithful husband. When Semisi’s mouth got out of hand (again) and he praised Roni for ‘hooking many wild catches and fattening them with his delicious roe’, Pa’ugata lost her cool, and Mikaele and Tavita had to restrain her from bushknifing off Semisi’s own catching instrument.

How Roni got the alcohol they would never know, but they all knew he’d been drinking when, as he was leaning against the quarantine fence, he started singing softly:

The sadness is coming.

We will live in the House of Sorrow.

So we must prepare for that

and face the Terror …

‘Don’t say that!’ Poto ordered him.

‘Mother, I am not talking, I am singing!’ Roni retorted. ‘You know the song.’ Before Poto could stop him, he continued:

We cannot turn the Terror away,

We cannot stay God’s wrathful hand …

And when Mikaele’s booming voice provided the bass, and Faranisisi the soprano, Poto turned impatiently to Tavita who looked away and joined the singing.

So we must be brave,

we must try and understand God’s design …

Peleiupu and the others joined in too.

As the power of their hymn of praise and courage allayed their fears of the epidemic, Poto finally joined in.

Samani’s uncle and relatives carried out Samani’s mat-wrapped body and laid it on mats at the quarantine entrance. They continued singing as they waited for Mautu and Lalaga to come and conduct the funeral service.

That evening at lotu, Sao and Poto suggested they shift their meal to the clinic. When they got there, other aiga were outside the fence, eating with the quarantined people. Two large fires illuminated the area and kept away most of the mosquitoes. Peleiupu and her children sat by the fence opposite Tavita and shared their food with him. The children monopolised him; their rapid-fire conversation distracted Peleiupu from her fear. When she gazed up into the heavens, the black depths of space sucked up her breath and made her feel puny and abandoned to the mercy of the epidemic.

When Mikaele slid up and sat beside Tavita, the children demanded that he tell them a story. Peleiupu thought of Mikaele as Tavita’s shadow — following, supporting and enforcing Tavita’s decisions. Most men were afraid of him for once he decided to enforce a family or fono decision, he tolerated no opposition. He maintained long periods of silence but when he spoke it was in amazing, intense, poetic language. ‘He’s inherited my gift for storytelling,’ Sao boasted to everyone. ‘No, he hasn’t!’ Mautu contradicted Sao behind Sao’s boastful back. ‘He’s inherited it from his father, Barker!’

Mikaele rose and started pacing around the fire. The flames threw his gigantic shadow over the clinic and his audience, who pressed in closer. Maualuga snuggled into Peleiupu’s lap, curled up and started sucking her thumb.

‘I begin our story …’ Mikaele started, voice low and inviting. ‘I begin our story with a couple: their names were Eleele and Lagi. They lived and lived and a girl was born. They called her Olatasi. They lived and lived and another child was born, another girl, Olalua. Then Olatolu, Olafa, Olalima, Olaono and, most beautiful of all, Olafitu.’ He beckoned the children closer. Lowering his voice, he continued, ‘As they grew, their parents observed that each one was immune to certain diseases. For instance, Olatasi was immune to all diseases except one, the common cold. Olalua was immune to all except ringworm and filiariasis. Olatolu was susceptible to three: yaws, tinea and arthritis; Olafa to four: diarrhoea, stomach ulcers, headaches and fever …’

Peleiupu realised that the diseases were all pre-papalagi ones.

‘… So you can say that their youngest and favourite daughter, Olafitu, was the most vulnerable to disease. And so forth. But they weren’t so concerned about their children’s health because Lagi was a gifted healer who could cure all the illnesses …’

As Peleiupu was snared by the story, she realised Mikaele was deliberately conjuring up a tale to tie it in with the threat of the epidemic.

‘… As they blossomed into beautiful women, tales of their beauty and special immunities spread throughout Samoa, and suitors came to court them. Nearly all of them chose Olatasi because not only was she as beautiful as the others but she was also vulnerable to only one disease. The least desirable was Olafitu, of course. The parents married Olatasi to the most aristocratic suitor, the son of the Tui-Manu’a; Olalua to the second most aristocratic, the son of the Tui-A’ana; Olatolu to the next one, and so on until only Olafitu was left.’ He paused. ‘Poor Olafitu, poor Olafitu!’ he sighed. ‘No one wanted to marry her because she was the one most open to death.’ Then, looking slyly at his audience, he said, ‘The stories that are our lives have strange ways of unfolding, eh?’ Straightening up suddenly, arms akimbo as if he were going to encompass them all, he continued. ‘Yes, every year Olafitu, spurned by suitors, struggled to survive her seven maladies, with her mother’s healing powers. She struggled with the pain, and through that learned about the ways of curing herself. She learned, yes, she learned …’

Mikaele went on to tell about the successful and blessed lives of the other sisters, while Olafitu was left to care for their ageing parents. Until one morning they found a strange castaway unconscious on their beach. ‘A slender, hairless man with eyes as luminous blue as a morning sky, ears like those of a pig, a sharp nose that pointed at you like a small knifeblade, and who wore a double skin and things like shoes …’

‘Like a papalagi?’ I’amafana offered.

‘Yes, like a papalagi but there were no papalagi in those days,’ Mikaele replied. ‘And he wasn’t a Samoan either. So he must’ve come from a place outside the thenknown world.’

‘Aotearoa?’ Sao offered.

‘Perhaps where he was from is not important to our story,’ Mikaele said. ‘What is important is that he was from a world not then known to our ancestors.’ The audience murmured their agreement. ‘Olafitu suggested that they take him to Lagi to be healed. They did. Lagi checked him, and found there was nothing visibly wrong with the stranger. But she couldn’t revive him.’ Mikaele paused and looked slowly around the audience. ‘Because Olafitu had learned from her illnesses not to trust surface wellness, Olafitu wanted to isolate the stranger from the village, just in case, but even her mother dismissed her caution. “He looks harmless,” she laughed. “Like a baby!” So as the story about the stranger, ‘the sleeping baby’, spread, crowds gathered to see him. Even Olafitu’s sisters and their families came to see. The elders allowed them to touch his body, breathe his breath, joke about his appearance: after all, they were immune to most diseases. Only Olafitu kept well away from him.’

‘Olaono and her three children were the first to die, three days later; then Olalima and her three children three days after that; then Olafa and her children three days later, and so on. With them died many others until there were only the ‘sleeping baby’, Olafitu and her parents, and twelve others who’d not visited the stranger. For about a week Olafitu tried to save her parents but they died too. The disease was like an inevitable sleep you drifted into and didn’t want to wake from, with no physical symptoms. This was truly a malady from outside their world — that was why even her sisters were not immune to it. But why was Olafitu not infected by it, especially when, of her whole family, she was the most vulnerable to disease? Helped by the few survivors, she took the ‘baby’ out beyond the reef, tied anchors to it, and dropped it into the depths out of which it had come. They burned all the remaining corpses and buried their ashes.’ He stopped and Peleiupu knew he wasn’t going to continue.

‘What happened after that?’ Sao demanded. The audience chorused.

‘Well, Olafitu and the other twelve survivors rebuilt our whole civilisation out of that great tragedy and sorrow.’

‘Yes, but what can we learn from that story?’ Mautu demanded.

Peleiupu waited eagerly for Mikaele’s reply.

He shrugged his shoulders, smiled sadly and said, ‘Olafitu never married!’ Disappointed, they waited.

‘So she never married — what’s that got to do with the meaning of the story?’ Mautu demanded.

‘It’s up to you what Olafitu’s story means,’ Mikaele replied. The audience was very dissatisfied. ‘Do stories have to have moral lessons? Meaning?’ Mikaele asked. ‘Do they have to be about our condition? Can’t they just be spellbinding stories that fire our imaginations, make us feel more than we are, make us want to conjure up more stories? Can’t they just be about other stories?’

Many of the children were asleep. They were picked up and piggy-backed home. It was colder and Peleiupu wrapped her sleeping sheet around her body. The elders left. She joined Pa’ugata, Roni, Tavita, Mikaele and Faranisisi around the fire, which had collapsed into red embers and ash. The chorus of cicadas had subsided but Peleiupu could still hear it in her memory. As it grew darker, the features of her loved ones around the fire disappeared, but she sensed Tavita’s intense and concerned scrutiny. That morning, when they’d made love, her senses had been extravagantly alive, more so than ever before. Now, though her senses remained heightened and lucid, it was not to the joys of life but to the fear of death claiming those she loved. She knew it was only a matter of time before the epidemic — the hairless, blue-eyed, sleeping baby — would strike at her family. Her hand reached through the fence to Tavita who withdrew and reminded her of possible contamination. ‘What are we going to do?’ she whispered. ‘Pray and hope God protects us,’ he replied, his voice devoid of conviction.

 

A cold, wet hand touched her forehead. The numerous presences that had been crowding around her vanished. It was not yet half-past five but she washed and dressed quickly in the dark, groped her way into their children’s rooms and, after checking that they were still breathing, hurried out into the dawn that was starting to lick the dew-covered malae.

The people on the clinic veranda were still asleep. She hurried around the fence until she was looking into the ward. Fa’amapu, Mikaele and Tavita were working on two blanket-wrapped patients who were shivering uncontrollably. Her heart danced knowing that Tavita was well, but when she saw his tears, she knew. She could not see Faranisisi anywhere. Tavita was rising and stumbling through the ward, over the fence and into her arms. ‘The quarantine is not working. Some people who didn’t come with us to Apia are sick too,’ he said. He tried to hold her back but she pushed him away and rushed into the ward.

Mikaele glanced up at her. Peleiupu fell to her knees and embraced Faranisisi, who was on fire and melting away in Peleiupu’s grasp. ‘Aue, aue, Faranisisi, don’t go!’

Suddenly Poto was wrenching Faranisisi away and, cradling her to her body, wailing and wailing as if the essence of all grief were the piercing lone sound of her voice. ‘My daughter, my daughter!’ she cried. ‘My beloved!’

‘Poto, Poto,’ Faranisisi cried, clutching her belly, ‘help me, they’re taking out the lining of my insides! The pain!’

Tavita held Peleiupu and half-carried her away from Poto and Faranisisi. Mikaele and Roni followed them. ‘Pele, you’re better than any of us at organising. What are we going to do?’ Tavita pleaded. ‘Look at me, Pele. We need you to plan what we have to do.’

Through the tears and sobbing, they discussed and agreed on a plan. The clinic needed medical supplies and a doctor — Roni and a crew would go on the Lady Poto to Apia and get those; the people would need food — Mikaele was to organise the men to ensure that food supplies were adequate, inspect every family daily, bring the sick to the clinic, and bury the dead; all gatherings were to be banned — the school would be shut indefinitely; Peleiupu would organise the women to help Fa’amapu nurse the sick, and enforce high standards of hygiene and sanitation in the village. ‘Be brave!’ Tavita called before they dispersed to carry out their various duties.

Peleiupu re-entered the clinic reluctantly. Another crewman had died. The ward was crowded with mourners. Sao, Vaomatua, Semisi and other relatives were with Poto and Faranisisi, who was cauled in that luminous aura Peleiupu had first seen around Barker when she was a child. The aura was illuminating every detail of Faranisisi as she struggled to breathe. ‘My beloved, don’t go!’ Poto kept crooning, but Faranisisi seemed at home in her birthsac. Peleiupu watched Faranisisi’s body and breath relax slowly in acceptance, in Poto’s arms.

She turned and left. There was much to do, and her methodical and defiant mother would help her. On her way out she instructed Mikaele to dig Faranisisi’s grave among those of their ancestors by the faletele, and then to help the other aiga dig graves for their dead.

Lalaga was in the church, preparing it for the funeral services. Peleiupu told her about Faranisisi and the other dead. The bodies must be buried as soon as possible, Lalaga agreed and said she would notify the aiga that there would be one funeral service at midday. ‘We will survive; we will defeat the epidemic. God will help us,’ Lalaga whispered, ‘Have you heard from Ruta?’

Peleiupu shook her head. ‘But I’m sure God’s protecting her and Lefatu.’

At her house Peleiupu sent Galu to gather the senior women, and while she waited she tried to console her children and Siniva about Faranisisi’s death. ‘Why did God take her away?’ Lefatu asked. Holding Siniva, she told her it was her responsibility now to help Poto and Semisi run the stores. ‘Forget your grief; you have a very important job to do. As the people become less capable of caring for themselves, you will have to use our stores and plantation to feed them.’ She sent her to fetch Sili, Tavita’s uncle who managed their plantation.

After she had explained to Sili that their plantation was to supply food for the whole village as the epidemic worsened, she told him to take his family and some of their relatives to help in that work. ‘Keep away from the village and contamination,’ she instructed him.

‘Shall I take your children to live with us?’ he suggested. Of all Sao’s children, he was the most loyal and hardworking, ashamed if he had to live off others.

With Siniva’s help, Peleiupu packed a bag of clothes for Maualuga and Lefatu. The boys refused to go. Lefatu sobbed into Peleiupu’s shoulder. ‘Look after your sister,’ Peleiupu whispered.

Sili gathered up Maualuga, and Peleiupu turned her back as they left. Be safe, please be safe!

‘This way, some of our children may live,’ Peleiupu justified her decision to Tavita later. ‘And I trust Sili with my life.’

At the midday funeral service Peleiupu again sat at the back. Many of the people wheezed and coughed. ‘My beloved sister was not killed by God,’ Tavita ended his eulogy for Faranisisi. ‘God does not kill good people. She was killed by arrogant papalagi administrators who allowed a ship, the SS Talune, to dock in Apia, despite warnings it had the epidemic on board. American authorities did not allow that cursed ship into American Samoa; consequently the epidemic has not struck them.’ Wiping his eyes, he vowed, ‘We must never forgive them for killing our loved ones!’

After Mautu’s sermon consoling the mourners, Sao shuffled up to the front. Fiercely he stabbed his walking stick into the air and declared, ‘Our whole village now supports the movement for self-government. We must drive these foreigners from our land. For too long we have suffered their arrogance! As a boy I watched my father and many relatives die in a mumps epidemic, my aunts and friends die in a smallpox epidemic, a sister and brother and half our village in a measles epidemic. All introduced by the papalagi. Now they have killed my granddaughter and your children!’ He started sobbing. Vaomatua and Poto helped him back to his seat.

Angry and defiant as they carried the dead out to the graves, the Satoans were still with hope that the epidemic would not be too severe or, if it was, that they would have the will and strength to overcome it. But Peleiupu could not afford such hope: she had to prepare for the worst.

 

Third day of the epidemic. The room was languid and smelt of dried sweat as Peleiupu moved through it. Galu was snoring softly. Beside her was Siniva. She went to her sons across the room, shut her eyes, reached down and placed her fingers against the side of I’amafana’s neck. His pulse was strong; his temperature was normal. She sighed, relieved. Caressed his cheek and moved to Iakopo who was curled into a ball. He was well too, she concluded.

With Mautu, Lalaga and two other matai they started their inspection of the village. Mikaele and a group of young men followed her. Everything was clearly defined in the bright morning light. All around them was the sound of coughing and vomiting and exclamations of pain.

In the nearest fale, the family were still asleep. No sickness, the mother told Peleiupu. The next fale had a sick mother and baby. They checked the rest of the family and instructed them to take their sick to the clinic. The husband protested; the others started weeping. Mautu consoled them, and told them why the sick must be shifted.

Five people were sick in the next four families. From the small fale by the beach came muted weeping for the dead. They hurried to it and found that their matai had just died. Peleiupu and Lalaga helped his wife bathe and dress the body, which was now darkish blue.

The rest of their inspection found three more dead and fifteen at various stages of the illness. Mikaele and his men helped shift the sick to the clinic, and complained of the stench of diarrhoea that now tainted the sick.

When they returned to the clinic, they found three more had died. Peleiupu felt as if she were trapped in an endless buzzing sound. Real yet unreal. There was a smell in the air that nagged at her to identify. Nagged at her. Nagged.

Mikaele and his men dug graves wherever the mourners wanted them. He told Peleiupu it was getting too difficult to dig individual graves — many of his helpers were sick or falling sick. She consulted Tavita, Sao and Mautu. The first mass grave — a long trench — would be dug by the clinic alongside the road to the jetty.

After the women had helped the families wrap the bodies in mats, the men carried them to the church. Seven in all. They were laid on mats in front of the pulpit. Only about half the congregation attended the service. Many were sick, most were nursing the sick, many were afraid of being infected.

The service was short. In the pulpit Mautu looked emaciated, pale, tired, lost in grief. He spoke of hope and faith in God’s ultimate compassion and forgiveness. Peleiupu sensed that most of the people were too deep in grief to hear.

All day Peleiupu helped Fa’amapu and the other women at the clinic. The medical supplies ran out and they tried indigenous medicines and cures. But by evening lotu, two more had died and some of their helpers had fallen sick.

Two more would die in the clinic during the night.

At home, without meaning to, Peleiupu fell asleep waiting for Tavita, who was helping dig the mass grave. He woke her. He started falling asleep on his feet as she washed him down with buckets of water, dried him and led him to bed. She asked him if he was hungry. He murmured that he was too tired even to grieve. He curled up and slept.

Even though it was stifling hot, she wrapped herself around Tavita from the back. For a moment he struggled to be free, then relaxed and started snoring. They burned and sweated into each other and, as sleep eased into her eyes, the persistent, tenacious sound of coughing picked at the edge of her hearing, replacing the healing, lulling sound of the sea that she had heard all her life.

 

Fifth day. Frantically Siniva woke Peleiupu. Galu was delirious and vomiting, complaining of pain in her limbs. Vaomatua and Poto were with her already. Peleiupu got Siniva to take the children out of the room. She made Galu drink the liquid cough medicine but she vomited it up in explosive gasps. ‘What are we going to do?’ Poto asked. Peleiupu refused to admit that Galu could not be saved, that the epidemic was an all-powerful creature that was laughing at her.

There had been two childless marriages in Galu’s life, so she’d devoted her boundless affection to Poto’s children, her nieces and nephews, and now to Peleiupu’s children. She had demanded little for herself and hated asking for help, but Peleiupu always ensured she was treated as well as Poto. And all her wards indulged her. Before her nephews grew into fearsome men, many suitors had courted her, and she had allowed a few furtive affairs to happen. However, a slick-talking government interpreter, who came with the Governor, had secretly wooed and won her. He promised to return and marry her, but didn’t, and Tavita and Mikaele and Roni had fautasied into Apia, traced the culprit to his office and pulverised not only him but those who came to his aid. After that the number of suitors — even the confident ones — had decreased drastically. However, when her nephews matured and understood her loneliness, they encouraged her to accept suitors — even arranged them without her knowledge. But Galu turned them all down, including the famous widowed, retired, ex-New Guinea missionary whom Sao had ordered her to marry.

When Peleiupu saw the luminous aura begin cauling Galu, she left the room and lay down beside Tavita, too afraid to tell him.

At dawn Vaomatua’s piercing wailing hooked Peleiupu and sent her scrambling to Galu.

Only half their inspection team turned up later that morning. Most of them were too tired and overwhelmed with grief. Mikaele arrived with only a few of his helpers. Despite Galu’s death, Sao insisted on accompanying the team. He shuffled along as if the air were the weight of the whole universe, and wept whenever they found the dying.

Their inspection yielded nine sick and three dead. In the last fale they found Pili, a one-year-old, playing in his excrement beside his dead parents. Lalaga cleaned him up and took him home to look after. ‘Another son,’ she said.

Peleiupu stopped as the others headed for the clinic. From the sea wafted the smell of coral and salt and fertile life, and that other smell she still couldn’t identify. All the dew-drenched fale with their lowered blinds looked as if they were under the total siege of the epidemic. No one dared move about.

At the midday burial service, the church was only half full. The twelve dead were buried side by side in the mass grave. Mikaele insisted on carrying Galu, who had raised him, down into the trench. He kissed the head of the bundle and scrambled back up, whimpering as he stumbled from the grave. ‘You’re an arsehole, an arsehole!’ he screamed at the sky.

Along the grave’s edge stood all the people Galu had raised. Wheezing, coughing, shivering. Head lowered, hands on his walking stick, which he had stabbed into the edge, Sao gazed down at his dead daughter. Most of the mourners had their heads covered with ie lavalava as if they were offering themselves to the epidemic’s unforgiving axe. Yes, arsehole, arsehole! Peleiupu wanted to shout at the epidemic.

 

Eighth day. Peleiupu was suddenly aware that she was trapped in the heavy liquid-like tiredness of her body. She tried to pull herself out of that body, desperately afraid it was going to die with her in its grip. She watched herself, an elastic creature, hands and feet digging into the chest and belly of her body, pushing down, pulling up, long gum-like strings detaching from her body as she did so. Pull, pull! The strings snapped in loud twangs, but new strings appeared and pulled her down. She heard her throat making frantic gulping sounds as she tried to breathe. Her arms and legs started jerking intermittently. Leg. Arm. Leg. Arm … The jerking became wild flailing as she struggled to stay out of the drowning, out of the thick liquid that was pouring into her mouth. Help! Help! Help! And she was awake and almost crying with relief, knowing it had only been a dream.

She lay gazing up at the early morning light swimming in waves across the ceiling. Wiped the sweat off her face and dried her armpits with a towel. It was so good to be alive. So good. But when she looked at Tavita, who was in a foetal position wrapped tightly in his sleeping sheet, she remembered the unforgiving, rapacious creature out there, and her joy at being alive turned again to fear and the desire to sleep.

Body, rise! Yes, roll off this bed. Feet, stand firmly on the floor and hold me up! Good. Left foot forward. Now right foot. Good, good. Peleiupu followed her feet step by step to her children’s room.

Siniva was purring softly. Across the room Iakopo lay on his side, his chest rising and falling. When she saw I’amafana, her panic stirred like a trapped bird. She took one step at a time — five steps to reach him. She still could not see any movement. Forced her left hand down towards his throat. Stopped. Pushed again. Her fingers discerned a faint pulse in the side of his neck. She pressed harder. The beat seemed regular, but she knew he had a high temperature. He stirred. His eyes opened suddenly and she was gazing down into their depths. ‘Mama, I’m not feeling well,’ he said. ‘My back, my stomach — the pain!’

Peleiupu felt his forehead, held his right wrist and took his pulse. One step at a time. Slow down. Pour a glass of water and make him drink the medicine. She undressed him, wiped his body with cold water until he was feeling cool, then she bundled him up in a clean sheet and blanket. He complained he was hot — very hot. ‘We have to reduce your fever,’ she told him.

Siniva sat down beside her. Iakopo woke and joined them. ‘Shall I tell Tavita?’ he offered.

‘No!’ Peleiupu ordered. ‘What are we going to do?’ She asked Siniva, who wound her arm around her shoulders and reminded her that Roni and the Lady Poto were due back soon with new medical supplies and, perhaps, with a skilled government physician who knew how to cure this new papalagi fever. There it was: hope, again. Hope for her son. Siniva also advised that Tavita, at least, should be told about I’amafana.

Tavita was still asleep on his back, arms outstretched over the pillows. ‘He … he is … he is sick!’ Peleiupu lengthened the sentence as she moved to the bed. ‘He … he is … he is sick!’ Like a chant that, if repeated correctly would effect the healing. Like a prayer that, if intoned correctly, would persuade God to grant her her desperate wish. ‘I’a … I’ama … I’amafana. I’amafana … I’amafana is … I’amafana is sick, Tavita!’ Tavita stirred and turned his head towards her. ‘Tavita, Tavita, our … our son is …’ She was locked in his eyes. He sat up and shook his head. ‘Yes, Tavita, our son is ill!’ He continued shaking his head. Before she could catch him he was escaping from the room and out of reach of her prayer.

Poto, Vaomatua, Sao and Mautu circled I’amafana’s bed while Lalaga nursed him. Silent, beaten, riven with grief, they were the elders of a community who no longer knew how to save that community. Peleiupu stepped into that equation. No sign of Iakopo, Siniva or Tavita. She rushed to Lalaga, who engulfed her in her arms the way she used to when she was a child searching for comfort and consolation. And for the first time since the epidemic invaded Satoa, Peleiupu released all her fears, pain and anguish. Her high-pitched, breathless screaming settled into an endless cry that circled the room, thrust out over the malae and through the church and clinic and all the fale of Satoa, searching and searching for God’s mercy.

Poto sent people to look for Tavita. She was told Tavita had taken Iakopo into the bush. ‘I’amafana is sick; why isn’t he here?’ Poto chastised him.

God was not merciful: I’amafana’s condition worsened. And as Lalaga and Poto fought for his life, Peleiupu withdrew into a fearful silence. Mautu held her and took her to her bedroom, where he fanned her as she lay on the bed, clutching I’amafana’s shirt. ‘Our forgiving Father will save him!’ Mautu told her.

‘Don’t, don’t say that to me!’ she attacked. ‘God doesn’t care about us. He is killing even our children!’

‘God did not bring this epidemic — the papalagi did. You heard what Tavita said in church.’

‘But God is doing nothing to stop it! He is a worthless, cruel God!’ When her father started to counter her, she said, ‘Only real people and real things and our efforts can save us, Papa. Roni and the medicines and doctor I hope he is bringing today.’

But the Lady Poto did not arrive that day. And Tavita did not come to be with Peleiupu when I’amafana died near midnight.

Peleiupu sent everyone away. She bathed him, oiled him with coconut oil until the whole room was reflected in his skin, dressed him in his favourite shirt and ie lavalava, selected their finest sleeping mats and siapo from under their bed, wrapped him in those, and tied it with sinnet Sao had plaited.

She sensed Tavita even before he opened the door and entered. ‘This is your son,’ she said, pointing at the mat-wrapped body on their bed. ‘Pick him up!’ He hesitated. ‘Pick him up!’ He stooped down and, in one sweeping motion, swept up the body.

Following Tavita and I’amafana, she picked up the two lamps and marched out and up the corridor and through the sitting room where the elders were waiting, and into the night. Lalaga and the others tried to follow. ‘No, no, no!’ she called.

When they returned at dawn, only Sao dared ask her where his great-grandson was buried. ‘Not even the epidemic will ever know,’ she promised.

 

Ninth day. Peleiupu and Tavita sat in their bedroom, gazing out at the bay. Peleiupu said, ‘The epidemic has dealt us the blow we dreaded most. The worst. But we’re still standing. I’m not afraid of it any more.’ The early morning light seemed to be emanating from the heart of the bay, and spreading out across the still water. In the wind was that smell.

‘The Lady Poto is coming,’ Tavita said. ‘Look!’ They watched it as it crossed the golden water and docked at the jetty.

‘I want Iakopo to be with me wherever I go,’ Peleiupu said.

They collected their remaining son as they headed for the jetty.

On the jetty was a small crowd, mainly their relatives. Pa’ugata and her children milled around Roni, who looked more gaunt and drawn. Iakopo ran to his cousins. Behind Roni stood a short, bespectacled man with a large balding head, chunky body and legs, and wearing khaki shorts and a white shirt. He was holding a small suitcase. ‘The authorities wouldn’t release any doctors to us,’ Roni said. ‘This is Malie. He’s been working at the hospital with the German doctors for a long time,’ Roni introduced the stranger. They shook hands. ‘We’ve also brought medical supplies we were able to buy, borrow or steal. Apia is short of them, for reasons I don’t need to tell you.’

‘I hope I can help,’ Malie said.

‘We also had to pay exorbitant prices for the supplies and the goods,’ Roni added.

‘Did you see Naomi?’ Peleiupu remebered.

‘Yes, we called into Manono, but she refused to come with us: they have to stay and help their people,’ Roni replied.

‘You tell Lalaga that,’ Peleiupu instructed him. ‘Did you see Ruta?’

‘We didn’t have time to go to Fagaloto,’ Roni replied.

‘You tell Lalaga that too.’

Peleiupu led Malie to the clinic, explaining to him what they’d been doing.

‘I’ve never seen any epidemic like this before,’ Malie said. ‘No one, not even the scientists in Europe, know what is causing it.’

‘Are you saying there is no cure?’ Peleiupu asked, reluctantly.

He shook his head, saying, ‘But we shouldn’t let the others know, should we? To have hope is a cure, isn’t it?’ He paused. ‘Many also develop pneumonia — that causes their skin to go dark blueish — it’s not the Black Plague.’

While they unloaded the boat Roni said that he and his crew had been forced to break into some stores and the hospital pharmacy at night, to get the supplies they needed. Because many of the police and store owners were dead or sick, security in Apia was lax.

Tavita and Mikaele arranged quickly for the boat’s cargo to be shared, daily, among all the families. ‘For free?’ Semisi asked.

‘What the hell do you think?’ snapped Mikaele. ‘Do you want us to profit from others’ misery?’

‘That’s enough!’ Tavita intervened.

They then arranged for the well members of the aumaga to take care of all the plantations and distribute the produce to those who needed it. Others were to go fishing daily.

That morning’s inspection produced ten sick, three dead; they buried nine that day, including one of Roni’s crew.

Mautu and Sao decided to shorten the service and hold it by the grave. Iakopo and other boys had to help Mikaele and his diminishing group of men carry the bodies to the grave and bury them. Many relatives were too sick to attend the funeral for their dead.

At the clinic they were impressed with Malie’s manner and skills. While he worked he also trained Fa’amapu, Peleiupu and his other helpers. Even Peleiupu was inspired, though she knew there was no cure.

That evening Peleiupu, Lalaga and Poto stayed on at the clinic. They ate with the patients and their relatives, and then continued helping Malie, in shifts, through the night.

Four died — no loud weeping, just a silent resignation and farewell prayers. After the four bodies were prepared for burial their relatives left quietly for home. Peleiupu told Malie that the four victims had survived longer than previous ones. That was a good sign, he said. They were entering the second phase of the epidemic. In Apia, where the epidemic had struck first, more and more people were surviving longer. He didn’t know why.

At dawn a baby girl died in Malie’s arms. He handed her to her grief-stricken mother and rushed out of the clinic. They heard his sobbing above the roaring of the surf on the reef. They were to learn later that Malie had lost his wife and four children to the epidemic.

The stench of death, as it worsened, seemed to produce with it larger and larger swarms of flies.

 

Fourteenth day. It seemed as if she’d been asleep for only a few minutes when Iakopo woke her and, handing her the clothes she’d asked him to bring, said he had to rush back home and help Tavita and Uncle Mikaele and his cousins make the largest umu ever made in Satoa because they had to cook enough food for everyone. Couldn’t he talk to her for a while? He shook his head and said that after making the umu, Mama Poto wanted him and his cousins to sweep out the church, and after that Papa Mautu wanted him to beat the lali for church, and after that, while the morning service was on, Uncle Mikaele wanted him and his cousins to help collect the sick and the dead. Wasn’t he afraid of being infected? she asked. ‘If I get it, I get it,’ he said. What about the dead? she pursued him. ‘What about them?’ he replied. Wasn’t he afraid of them? Shaking his head curtly, he said, ‘I know all of them well and they know me well, so they won’t harm me. We’re all aiga, remember?’

Yes, the wisdom of the innocent was amazing, she thought as he watched him running across the malae. The living, the sick, the dead, the future were indeed all aiga — family — sharing everything.

There was an acrid smell of fire and ash. Only a few columns of smoke rose from the kitchen fale; most people were too sick to cook their usual Sunday umu. The grieving for I’amafana began to swamp her again; she got up and continued working with the patients.

Even before the lali sounded for the morning service, eight more patients and two dead were brought to the clinic. The few who struggled to carry them were exhausted and sick, and most of them returned home immediately after. The ward and verandas of the clinic were now crowded with the sick and dying. Though they were meticulous in cleaning and disinfecting everything, the smell of vomit, blood, urine and excrement lingered. Through that, the unidentifiable smell kept taunting Peleiupu.

When she saw Mautu and Sao leading the small congregation and realised they were shifting the morning service to the clinic, she slipped out the back way, jumped down onto the beach and headed for the jetty. She had to shield her eyes from the painful glare of the sun on the white sand and the water.

The jetty and Lady Poto were deserted. Needing shade, she boarded the boat and, sitting down on the deck area, gazed out to sea. The boat rocked gently under her, and, as she melted into that rhythm, and the detailed memories of her son filled the blank whiteness of the horizon, she lay back and wept …

She awoke to the rich odour of octopus cooked in coconut cream, and hot palusami and taro, and sat up. ‘Our food is ready,’ Iakopo said. Tavita was standing beside him. The food was on two foodmats beside her.

‘It didn’t take us long to find you, Pele,’ Tavita said. ‘Did you have a good sleep?’

‘Yes, free of the epidemic for a while.’

‘Iakopo, you say our grace,’ he told their son, who closed his eyes and raced through the memorised family grace, and then shifted over to share his mother’s foodmat.

She looked at their food. Iakopo waited for her and then said, to encourage her, ‘I helped Sao make the palusami.’

At once she broke off a piece of taro and dug it into a palusami. As she chewed, Iakopo watched her. ‘Tastes very good,’ she congratulated him. ‘You’re a great palusami maker!’

‘He helped me make the octopus dish too,’ Tavita said.

As she watched her son digging hungrily into the food, her appetite returned and she joined him. When she looked over, Tavita was also eating.

‘What’s the matter, Pele?’ Iakopo interrupted her, a while later.

‘Your brother should be here, eating with us,’ Tavita saved her. ‘He’s not here  — but he is here, and will always be with us.’

Every Sunday after to’ona’i everyone slept, or tried to sleep. So apart from the coughing, the crowded clinic was quiet as they passed it. However, when they reached the edge of the malae it hit them. Everything in Satoa had a story, a memory, of their dead son. So their walk through the village in the heat was one of navigating that pain, which intensified with every memory. There, by the pandanus, I’amafana had fallen and grazed his right knee; there on the malae he’d played his first game of kilikiti — a duck; there in front of their faletele he’d been told off by Sao for pissing; there and there and there; that smell, that sound, that … In his death, he’d become the whole world of Satoa. Iakopo sensed his parents’ pain, so he reached out and held their hands.

Alone in their bedroom, Peleiupu and Tavita held on to each other and the enormous absence of their son, which they knew they had to live with for the rest of their lives.

‘I want to die, I want to die!’ Tavita whispered.

 

Fifteenth day. They were surprised when Semisi and Feleti brought them their morning meal. On two large trays covered with embroidered hand towels were papaya, mango, fresh bread and jam, and koko. In the middle of each tray, in small vases, were small branches of gardenia blossom. ‘A real palagi breakfast for real Samoans!’ Semisi declared, placing a tray on Peleiupu’s belly. ‘Don’t get out of bed.’ He sat down by Peleiupu’s legs while Feleti, a large figure with rolls of fat, sat down beside Tavita’s. ‘You need cheering up — this bloody Fa’ama’i is a hungry bitch!’ And before they knew it, Semisi started bawling into his hands. ‘It’s not fair; God’s not fair!’ he cried. Feleti started crying too. Tavita put his arms around both of them and drew them in to his sides.

‘It’s not bloody fair — Roni and Taimane and Ma’a are sick now!’ Semisi said.

Peleiupu got out of bed carefully so as not to upset the trays and, standing by the bed, hugged Semisi’s head to her belly. ‘The bitch won’t get all of us. It won’t,’ she crooned.

Semisi told them Poto wanted them to visit Roni and his sick daughters. Roni, Pa’ugata and their children lived with Mikaele and other relatives in the afolau behind Sao’s.

The sky was overcast. Semisi hoped it would rain. Peleiupu stopped in front of the bakery and looked down at the malae. Everything was overgrown — the grass, the patches of taro and ta’amu, the stands of bananas and sugar cane. Rubbish, fallen leaves, branches and coconuts were left lying about. Because they weren’t being fed regularly, the pigs had broken over the rock fences and were foraging through the village, digging up the malae and gardens. The chickens were doing the same. More emaciated and hungrier, the dogs roamed the night, fighting over the little food they could find. She refused to believe the rumour that the dogs were also devouring untended bodies. The white horse that belonged to a neighbour who’d died three days before was still tied to the palm tree behind the church; it had eaten all the grass within the length of its rope, down to the bare ground, and was now standing utterly still on three legs, its ribs and backbone almost protruding through its hide. Peleiupu sent Iakopo to untie it.

Even from that distance she could hear Roni wheezing and sucking back the mucus and phlegm, then spitting it out in explosive squawks.

Roni lay in the only bed in the fale. His sick daughters, Taimane and Ma’a, were curled up in their sleeping sheets on the floor, with Pa’ugata and Poto sitting with them. Semisi sat down in the chair beside the bed. Tavita and Mikaele lay near Poto, who, when everyone was seated, prayed to God to protect all their people, especially their children, Elisapeta and Ana and their families, who were living elsewhere.

‘Have a whisky, Pele,’ Roni greeted Peleiupu. ‘It’ll cure your grief!’ He laughed and drained his glass. Pa’ugata took the bottle away. ‘Compared to this bloody disease what harm can that whisky do?’ he complained.

‘Don’t be silly, ese lou fia tough!’ Semisi admonished him, tapping his head. Throughout their lives, Roni had always been Semisi’s ‘special young brother’, the one he indulged, giving him everything he wanted; the one he protected fiercely even against Poto; ‘the best guitarist on the planet I love singing duets with’; and the one who reciprocated Semisi’s love and devotion ‘one hundred and ten per cent.’

‘So because you think I’m dying, you’ve come to visit me, eh? All the Albinowhite children of the drunken palagi trader, Lord Almighty Barker!’

‘Ronald, now you are being stupid!’ Semisi retorted in English. ‘Our father was a brave and magnificent lord.’

‘See, Mama? My handsome brother can speak beautiful English, my father’s guttural language. No thanks to our neglectful father. It was Pele and Lalaga who taught Semisi. It was our precious father who taught Mautu and Pele. Why didn’t he teach us, Mama?’ Roni waited but Poto refused to reply. Smiling impishly, Roni said, ‘Being an afakasi I should be able to speak half-English and half-Samoan, but I can’t. I speak all-Samoan, so I’m Samoan. I eat Samoan. I shit Samoan. I sleep Samoan, and I …’ He hesitated.

‘Don’t say it!’ Pa’ugata stopped him.

‘I sing Samoan, I pray Samoan and I’ll die Samoan!’ Then, looking at Poto, he asked, ‘Mama, why do I have this palagi appearance and body when I am Samoan, eh? Every time we go to Apia or those arrogant Albinos visit us, they treat us as afakasi, illegitimate dregs of their civilisation, lost, unwanted, definitely inferior to them. Well, they’re all arseholes: lily-white albino arseholes!’

‘That’s enough, Ronald!’ Semisi demanded.

‘This is the Lord’s day, even if you don’t go to church any more,’ Poto attacked him. ‘And don’t swear like that in front of the children.’

‘You used to swear at Papa in front of us!’ Semisi turned on their mother.

‘That was the only English our Mama knew!’ laughed Roni.

‘Very colourful English too!’ joked Mikaele.

‘At least I know some English,’ Poto countered. ‘At least your self-centred father taught me some English.’

Tavita, who’d been drowsing, sat up and called, ‘Semisi, give your foul-mouthed brother the guitar!’

‘Yeah, get me my weapon!’ Roni said.

‘You’re too sick,’ Pa’ugata insisted.

‘And it’s Sunday,’ Poto reminded them. But she didn’t object when Semisi handed Roni his guitar, a large scratched, written-upon, battered instrument that Semisi boasted Roni had stolen off a Spanish ship in a Russian port called St Petersburg.

Semisi puffed up Roni’s pillows, sat him up and placed the pillows behind his back. Quickly Roni tuned his guitar and then started plucking it in the distinctive style Satoans had come to associate with him: a lilting, mournful, lucid style called ‘the Satoan slack key’. As he played, the music flowed over and through them like a soothing balm, a prayer that made them forget the epidemic and the suffering. His sick daughters stopped coughing and fell asleep. Then Semisi started singing:

O le sipi o le gata,

e u ono e o ona,

aua lava e te fefe

i le oti uigaese …

Roni sang with him. Peleiupu looked around. Poto and Pa’ugata were singing too. The Barker brood were again singing the world into their shape and balance in defiance of the albinos and the death they’d brought to Satoa.

… Inu vave, inu loa,

inu i le pia ina ia ona …

Roni died a few nights later, refusing to be taken to the clinic. His daughter Taimane died the day after. Ma’a was shifted to the clinic where, under Malie’s care, she survived for seven days, the longest anyone had lasted.

 

It was almost midday; a sea of heat covered Satoa and worsened the condition of the sick. From the ward, where she’d just finished bathing a patient, Peleiupu saw her parents and Sao standing in the shade of the breadfruit tree in front of the clinic. She sent out Iakopo with mats for them to sit on. Every now and then she paused in her work and observed them. They sat with a heavy stillness, gazing out to sea, so alone and lost. She excused herself to Malie and went out to them.

They smiled up at her, and continued their silent vigil. She sat down beside her mother. Through the palms along the shore she watched the breeze turning up the surface of the green sea as it headed towards them, her body tingling with anticipation of it. The palms bent and the foliage hummed as the breeze scurried through them. Then it was around them, weaving like a pet cat. She glanced at her elders: their eyes were shut and they were obviously enjoying the coolness.

Iakopo and two of his cousins arrived with foodmats. Breadfruit, miti and tinned fish. Politely, they put the food in front of their elders and retreated. ‘We are sorry there is no corned beef or salmon,’ Iakopo apologised for not bringing Sao’s and Mautu’s favourite food. ‘Semisi says we must be frugal.’

‘This is more than enough,’ Lalaga said. ‘Come and eat with us.’ But Iakopo declined, saying they had to rush back to Semisi, who wanted them to deliver food to other people.

Sao and her parents had always looked younger than their age, Peleiupu had observed. Yet within weeks of the epidemic and the devastating loss of loved ones, they now seemed old. Especially Sao and Mautu: prematurely white hair, their faces a geography of wrinkles, their eyes lost in deeply sunken sockets. They walked with a slow shuffle, their speech had slowed noticeably and they often withdrew into themselves for long periods.

Mautu’s large hands broke the food and delivered it to his mouth. He chewed slowly.

‘When will it end?’ Sao asked. Mautu continued eating as if he hadn’t heard. Peleiupu glanced at her mother and sensed she wasn’t going to answer either.

‘When it runs its natural course,’ Peleiupu replied. Sao looked at her. ‘Yes: all infectious diseases have cycles.’ Mautu nodded and continued eating. ‘This new type of influenza is much stronger than previous ones. It’s killing palagi too, even though they’ve built up immunity to influenza.’ She was going to tell them there was no cure but stopped herself.

‘When this curse is over, I’ll go with other matai and confront the Governor,’ Sao declared. ‘We must win back control of our country from these … these stinking, arrogant, uncivilised pigs!’ He almost choked as he swallowed back his tears.

Mautu reached over and laid his hand on Sao’s shoulder. ‘Be satisfied, sir. It is just the way things are.’ He started weeping too.

‘I’ll never be satisfied, Mautu. Never!’ Sao declared. ‘Pele is right: this could’ve been prevented. The foreign animals who rule us do not care about our lives!’ He pushed his foodmat away. So did Mautu, as they fought to control their sobbing.

‘They’re tired,’ Lalaga whispered to Peleiupu. Her hair was white too, her face more lined. ‘We’re all tired.’ Peleiupu held her hand. ‘Naomi, Ruta and Arona will be spared,’ Lalaga murmured.

‘I’m sure they are safe,’ Peleiupu consoled her.

Peleiupu collected their foodmats. As she walked away, she looked back. In the dark shade of the breadfruit tree, sitting in a triangle, her elders looked like fragile figures made of grey wood ash that could blow away with the breeze.

Her shadow pulled her forward. No one else was about. Because of the heat, even the pigs and dogs were resting in the shade.

The next morning Vaomatua, who’d been sick for a few days, woke and found Sao dead, staring up at the fale dome with a bemused smile. They got Malie to examine his body. He’d died in his sleep of a heart attack, Malie diagnosed. But the story that the Satoans believed and would spread was that their generous ali’i had died of a broken heart, and was smiling because he’d escaped the clutches of the epidemic.

When Vaomatua died two days later they said that she had died of a doubly broken heart: witnessing the death of her village and her loved ones, especially Sao, ‘the love of her life despite his having been a dictatorial and domineering husband’.

A few days after Sao and then Vaomatua were buried among their aiga dead beside their faletele, Mikaele reported to Tavita and Peleiupu that because they could no longer carry out daily inspections, people were dying in their homes without anyone knowing about it for days. That morning he and his helpers, now mainly boys such as Iakopo, had heard dogs scrapping viciously in a fale with drawn blinds. Before they got to the fale the stench of blood and rotting flesh struck them. He’d gone into the fale alone. Dogs were fighting over the bodies of the couple who owned the fale, who had been dead for a few days. He got his party to promise they’d tell no one about it, and they’d buried the remains behind the fale. In future they would have to burn those homes.

He and his overworked helpers were also struggling to harvest the plantations every third day, and cook and distribute the food to the people, most of whom were now too sick to look after themselves. He started weeping. ‘We’re trying our best but the arsehole epidemic is too strong!’ he cried.

Peleiupu sent Iakopo and his cousins to summon all the well people to Sao’s faletele. They had to regroup against the epidemic.

The few matai present insisted that Tavita occupy Sao’s post in the faletele. As Tavita spoke, Peleiupu counted eighteen men over the age of thirty, and twenty-seven under that; twenty-eight women over thirty, and thirty-seven under. All looked exhausted, dispirited. Tavita exhorted them to keep caring for their sick ones. ‘God has not forsaken us; God is merely testing our faith and courage.’ But Peleiupu noticed it was having little effect on them.

At the end of the meeting Lalaga said, ‘There is hope — signs of hope. Many are surviving longer. And Malie believes some of the children will recover fully.’

‘What hope?’ one of the deacons asked. ‘Jehovah will continue to test our faith until we are all dead!’

After the others left, Peleiupu walked out onto the paepae and looked across the village. Satoa was now populated more by the haunting presences of their recent dead than the living, she thought, and nobody complained any more about that clinging, sickly sweet smell of the epidemic. They were used to it, as if the epidemic were now a natural part of their existence.

‘Have you heard from Sili about Lefatu and Maualuga?’ Lalaga asked her when she got to the school that afternoon to help prepare it to house those sick families who had no one to care for them. ‘I miss them very much. So does Mautu.’ Peleiupu told her that she’d agreed with Sili that a visit might infect them with the illness.

As they worked, Lalaga said, ‘I’m beginning to feel guilty about surviving, about God giving me and Mautu preferential treatment. Not a twinge of the epidemic: not a sniff or a cough.’

‘Why do you think it is not touching us?’ Peleiupu asked.

‘Perhaps God has other things for us, other deaths. I hope he is also saving Naomi and Arona.’

Shortly after, Peleiupu sneaked out of the school, found Iakopo, pretended she was taking her son to help at the school and, after getting Tavita’s bushknife, yoke and two baskets, told Iakopo they were going into their plantation to get fruit for the patients.

The river looked cool and inviting as Iakopo led her up the track through the plantations. She remembered how she and Arona had accompanied Barker and Mautu in their mad search for gold along the river, and they’d found the dead on the foothills. It felt so long ago, and sadness and grief started hugging her again. She remembered also how she’d read Barker’s testament beside that other river, the Vaisigano, at Vaiuta School. The roar of the river saved her from drifting deeper into her grief. Pigeons cooed from deep within the vegetation. Now and then a branch snapped in the wind. She noticed that the plantations were choking in weeds and mile-a-minute creeper, now that the people were unable to care for them.

The land started sloping up to the foothills and, as they veered away from the river, the long sad silence of the land and bush buzzed in their ears. She’d always been afraid of that silence, which her Aunt Lefatu had once described as ‘the eternal, observing silence of the atua and the land’. Peleiupu noticed that Iakopo was keeping close to her. ‘The silence out of which we came and into which we will return,’ Lefatu had repeated.

‘We’re there,’ Iakopo said. The crops were free of weeds. Ahead, above the heads of the bananas, protruded the roof of Sili’s fale and a thin column of smoke. ‘I’m not a fool, Mama!’ Iakopo surprised her. ‘I knew we were coming to see my sisters.’ He laughed. ‘Fruit? Who eats fruit?’

‘Malie reckons fruit speeds up the healing,’ she countered. He started to run towards the fale. She held him back. ‘We must not contact them. We may be carrying the illness.’ He understood. ‘We’ll hide and watch and see how they are. All right?’

Carefully they picked their way through the bananas, yams, papaya, taro and cassava that surrounded the fale. Through the vegetation seeped the pungent smell of burning wood and husk. A child — was it Lefatu? — was singing a well-known lullaby, someone was scraping coconuts, a dog growled and snapped and then whelped in pain as someone struck it.

They squatted behind some ta’amu and watched.

Lefatu and Sili’s daughters were in the kitchen fale, drying banana leaves on the burning umu. They joked and recited rhymes. In front of the kitchen fale Sili’s wife sat on a tuai, scraping coconuts into a tanoa. Behind her sat Maualuga munching a hunk of coconut. Behind them, Sili and his oldest son were preparing the taro leaves for the palusami. From the fale came the voices of people. An idyllic aiga scene: Satoa as it was before the epidemic imposed its imagery of death and hopelessness.

She kept looking and looking at her daughters as if through sight alone she could possess them forever. Lefatu and the other girls brought the leaves to Sili, who thanked them. Maualuga jumped up from the tuai and joined the older girls as they sat peeling green bananas into a tanoa of water. Sili’s wife started showing her how to do it. As Maualuga concentrated, screwing up her face, Peleiupu concentrated too and imitated her daughter’s every move …

Iakopo tugged at her ie lavalava. She surfaced and discovered tears blurring her vision. She wiped them away. When she looked again, the girls were around Sili and his son, who was pouring the coconut cream into the taro leaves cupped in his father’s hands. Her daughters looked so well, so beautiful, and appeared as if they weren’t missing her and Tavita, at all.

On their way back they picked ripe papaya and a bunch of bananas and packed them into the baskets. She put the yoke through the baskets but, when she tried, she couldn’t lift the load. Iakopo pushed the baskets to the middle of the yoke, took one end of the yoke and told her to lift the other. ‘Lift!’ he called, and they lifted it to their shoulders. Together, with him leading — she marvelled at his determination — they carried it through the plantations, which were being invaded by the bush, beside a river that skipped and danced like her happiness as she’d observed her daughters, following a sun that was setting.

She found Tavita in the warehouse helping Semisi divide up the supplies, and signalled to him that she wanted to see him. He followed her into their bedroom.

‘Guess what?’ she enticed him. He started chuckling. ‘Well, go on, guess what?’

‘You’ve been to see Maualuga and Lefatu!’ he surprised her.

‘Iakopo told you, eh?’ He shook his head and laughed. ‘He did. Wait till I get him! He promised!’

‘Guess what?’

‘No!’ she cried. ‘No — you didn’t?’

He nodded and said, ‘Yes, I did. I’ve visited them twice already!’

Shrieking with laughter, she pummelled his shoulders. He hugged her tightly. ‘I’m so glad they’re well!’

That evening as she hurried through the surging chorus of cicadas to the clinic for lotu and her night shift, she heard what she refused to believe was laughter. She concentrated. Another short burst. She looked at the clinic veranda. Fa’amapu was talking animatedly to a group of patients and their carers who, as she listened, laughed periodically. She started running, with the cicadas’ cries pecking at her heels.

Fa’amapu met her at the top of the steps. ‘Two, Pele. Two of the children have recovered!’

Two patients died that night, three fewer than the previous night.

 

The next day’s inspection brought in two dead and three sick, half the number of the inspection two days before — and Mikaele and his team had to burn down three of the fale. Peleiupu noted, with increasing hope, that many people were again complaining about the cloying smell of the epidemic.

Boats, fautasi and other vessels had stopped calling into Satoa as soon as the epidemic had set in. So it was a surprise early on Monday morning, as Peleiupu and Iakopo crossed the malae after her night shift at the clinic, to hear a woman calling, ‘A boat, a boat is coming!’

‘It’s the government boat!’ someone else added.

She rushed up to their house. Poto, Tavita and other relatives were already on the store veranda, gazing down at the bay. The boat trailed a thin column of smoke as it nosed through the placid sea. ‘Bloody bastards!’ Semisi growled in English. ‘They got the fiakagaka to come here after what they done!’

‘They are probably going around Savai’i, helping!’ Mikaele sniggered. Only a few people were heading for the jetty.

‘They bloody uncivilised kekea from New Zealand!’ Semisi said.

‘Yeah, as usual they’ll be expecting us backward villagers to welcome them properly as our enlightened rulers!’ Mikaele said.

‘What are we going to do?’ Peleiupu asked Tavita.

‘You’re Sao now. If you want the matai to welcome them, you’ll have to call them — the few who’re left — immediately,’ Poto advised him.

‘There will be no welcome,’ Tavita decided. He sent Mikaele and other relatives to instruct the people to stay away from the jetty and the government officials.

Peleiupu went to bed, the others had their morning meal. She couldn’t sleep so she sat at the bedroom windows, reading and watching the boat docking beside the Lady Poto and an empty jetty.

A couple of crew members jumped onto the jetty and tied up the boat. Then three Samoan policemen in grey uniforms disembarked and stood at attention while two papalagi officials in khaki safari jackets, shorts and long white socks disembarked. After them followed two Samoan interpreters in white.

The papalagi officials surveyed the empty jetty and talked with their interpreters, who pointed at the clinic. Then the older interpreter, with the grey, almost bald head, bowed to the officials and talked with his colleague, who scurried to the clinic while the others waited.

She watched as Malie and Fa’amapu met the interpreter on the clinic veranda. While talking to the interpreter, Fa’amapu pointed at Sao’s faletele. The squat interpreter, who from that distance reminded Peleiupu of a crab, scurried back to his employers, who gestured towards Sao’s faletele. Most families kept their blinds lowered. Peleiupu returned to her family on the veranda.

‘Look at them: they’re servants of the New Zealand gang!’ Poto was saying. They laughed as they watched the interpreters heading towards them. Poto ordered Iakopo to go and tell their family to vacate their faletele.

The younger interpreter was setting a pace his older companion was huffing and puffing to keep up with. Semisi sprang to his feet and, with exaggerated gestures, imitated the older interpreter. ‘Auoi, auoi, my heart is going to die!’ he sing-songed. The others laughed. Clutching his genitals through his ie lavalava, he cried, ‘Auoi, auoi, the palagi boss is going to cut me off if I not do what he want!’ More laughter.

The interpreters stopped and looked up at them. Semisi clicked to attention, saluted and bowed. Their rich laughter puzzled their visitors. The older one called, ‘Please, where is his lordship Sao I’amafana’s maota?’

‘Please, your lordship, Sao I’amafana’s is over there!’ Semisi replied, pointing weak-wristedly at their faletele.

They tried not to laugh as the interpreters clambered up the high front paepae and into an empty faletele. After some discussion the younger one came onto the paepae and called to Semisi, ‘Please, your Lordship, there is no one here!’

‘Tell him!’ Poto ordered Semisi, who glanced at Tavita who nodded.

‘Please, your lordship, his lordship Sao I’amafana was killed by your epidemic,’ Semisi replied. Tavita and Peleiupu moved to either side of Poto, who was sitting in her favourite chair. Semisi sat down behind them.

The interpreters reached the top of the steps. Hesitated. Smiled. Tavita recognised the older one: Peliia Lelua, well-known aide to the Governor, and son of a famous pastor. The interpreters looked around. No one invited them to sit down.

When no one bothered to welcome them, Peliia asked, ‘Please, who am I speaking to?’ He was supremely confident because he was backed by the government and in his own right a high-ranking tulafale. No one replied. ‘Ah, we have come to inform you that important representatives of your government are visiting your village to help you.’ He waited. Still no reply. ‘Mr Mallard, secretary to the Governor, and Sergeant Mackintosh, his aide, are here to find out how you have fared during the epidemic. They want to help you. We want to help you.’ Again no reply. ‘Is there a problem, sir?’ he asked Tavita.

‘Before you enter territory you will not be able to defend, I must tell you that we do have a problem,’ Poto interjected. The interpreters looked disdainfully at her and nodded. ‘The problem is, you are only messengers of the important papalagi officials. That is the problem.’ The insult wounded, deeply, and Peleiupu knew that Peliia couldn’t believe Poto had the gall to ignore his rank, his title, his power. The younger one, son of an ali’i, was also wounded; he shut his eyes and pretended he hadn’t heard Poto. ‘So if you want to speak with the Ali’i of Satoa, go and fetch your papalagi masters, sir!’

‘Oi, auoi, kafefe, such insulting behaviour!’ Peliia exclaimed. ‘No one speaks to Peliia in such a manner. No one!’

‘Don’t you realise you are speaking to le Tofa a Peliia Lelua?’ the younger one intervened.

‘Go and fetch your masters!’ Tavita said. ‘Don’t forget, sirs, we are the government here.’

‘Get the hell outta here!’ Semisi’s voice erupted in English from inside the store, where he’d retreated with the other relatives who laughed.

The tension broke. The interpreters scrambled to their feet and backed off the veranda, with Peliia muttering threats, and Semisi’s and his friends’ crackling laughter chasing them.

Poto asked Tavita if he was going to welcome them in the faletele. Tavita asked her what she thought.

‘No,’ Peleiupu heard her anger speaking. ‘No, Mama. They have killed almost all our people.’ She started weeping. Poto hugged her.

Tavita summoned Mikaele and the other well men of their aiga. Other Satoan men arrived also. They sat on the veranda floor alongside Tavita and Poto, and waited for the government party. No mats were to be put out for their visitors; no speeches of welcome or ava either, Tavita ruled. A total denial of proper practice and hospitality. Some of the matai were uncomfortable about it. ‘They are murderers,’ he told them. ‘They have murdered our loved ones.’

When the three policemen came up the front steps, no one said anything. The policemen examined the group and withdrew to stand beside the steps. The interpreters entered, saw no mats, and sat to the side. Holding their helmets and wiping their faces with large white handkerchiefs, the papalagi smiled and, seeing no mats or chairs anywhere, looked at their interpreters, who refused to look up at them. When the papalagi met Poto’s unwavering stare they sat down and tried their awkward, painful best to sit cross-legged.

It was customary for the hosts to speak first, so the officials and their interpreters waited, and waited, and waited. The papalagi kept glancing at their interpreters, who refused to stop gazing at the floor. Eventually the chunky Mr Mallard, with the massive thighs and legs and chunky hairy arms, asked his chief interpreter, in English, ‘What’s happening, Joe?’

‘Mr Mallard, sir, this village has very different ways from the rest of Samoa,’ Joe, or Peliia, replied in English. ‘It is for us, the guests, to speak first.’ An outright lie. Peleiupu glanced at Tavita and Poto; like her, they were trying not to reveal that they understood English.

‘If that is the case, should I speak first, or should you open our discussions with a speech in Samoan?’ Mr Mallard asked.

‘Sir, I beg you to speak first. This village is of simple people who are very impressed you have come,’ the younger interpreter suggested, sure that ‘the simple people’ didn’t understand a word of English.

‘What do you think, Sergeant Mackintosh?’ Mr Mallard asked his companion, who was trying not to drown in the heat.

‘Quite frankly, sir, I’m getting impatient with all these ceremonies and speeches. Jesus, they take up hell of a lot of our valuable time. It’s all right for them — they’ve got nothing else to do all day but sit round and orate!’ Mackintosh replied.

‘That is enough, Sergeant. I know you have better things to do, but it is our duty to help these people. Like us they’ve lost loved ones in this awful epidemic. They’re suffering still.’

Joe straightened up and announced, ‘Your lordship Sao and the aiga of Satoa, Mr Mallard, the second most important person in your government, is going to speak to you!’

Mr Mallard licked his thin lips and, deepening his voice, said, ‘The dignitaries and chiefs of Saytoarr, I come to see how you have fared in the hands of this cruel epidemic …’ He stopped. Joe translated into Samoan what he’d said. ‘…I bring with me the greetings of your Governor, who is in great sorrow because he knows of the enormous suffering you, his people, have been through …’ Joe translated that. From inside the store erupted a high-pitched fart that trailed off into a long sweet note. They pretended they hadn’t heard it. ‘… Our Almighty Father, I am sure, has been with you as He has been with us, comforting us in our grief and pain …’

Peleiupu noticed that Joe’s translation was deviating from what Mr Mallard was saying. ‘… Our Governor, who loves you, is also very angry with the disrespectful way you have welcomed his representatives this beautiful morning,’ Joe translated. Mr Mallard continued: ‘We are very happy to be with you; we want to help in any way we can. We want to prove to you that your government has as much love for you …’

Joe’s translation: ‘We feel insulted, we feel trampled on. This is not the way true, full-blooded Samoan aristocrats treat guests. True Samoans are full of generosity and hospitality …’

‘Mr Mallard, I think you should stop your arrogant servant from insulting us further!’ Tavita interjected in English. Joe blinked repeatedly and kept swallowing. ‘Yes, Peliia, I can speak English, even though I am an ignorant afakasi from the back!’

‘Joe, what’s happening?’ Mr Mallard asked.

‘Yeah, Joe, what have you been saying in Samoan to these people?’ Mackintosh chorused.

Joe was obviously used to wielding power and manipulating the relationship between the English-speaking government and their Samoan-speaking wards. He controlled the process because, as go-between, he controlled the two languages. He recovered his composure quickly. ‘Sir, we try our best for to protect you and our Governor from these half-castes’ insulting welcome to you,’ Joe explained in English. ‘In all other villages, sir, you have been received properly, the true Samoan way.’

‘That’s correct, Joe,’ Mackintosh said, turning to Tavita. ‘Sir, whatever your title is, you and your people have been very disrespectful to your Governor and your government. It may be because you are not true Samoans …’

‘That is enough!’ Tavita interjected, in English. ‘Sao I’amafana was my grandfather. Your epidemic killed him and my grandmother and hundreds of our people.’

‘Our epidemic?’ Mr Mallard exclaimed. ‘Our epidemic, sir? Please explain yourself.’

‘This is all I’m going to say, then we want you to leave our village.’ The sergeant, the interpreters and the police closed in on him but Tavita continued. ‘The S.S. Talune, which brought the epidemic to Apia, should’ve been stopped. The Governor knew that ship had the sickness on board.’

‘That is the most dangerous lie I’ve ever heard!’ Mackintosh snapped. The interpreters glared at Tavita. ‘Where did you get that information from, sir?’

‘Our discussion is over,’ Tavita declared. The police stood threateningly behind the interpreters. ‘You must leave now.’

‘This is insulting half-caste behaviour!’ Joe tried to incense his masters. ‘No true Samoan ever treats you and the Governor this way, sir!’

‘No, sir, no full-blooded Samoan treats the government this way,’ his companion echoed.

‘That’s enough!’ Mr Mallard said. ‘Sir, I know you and your people have suffered greatly,’ he said to Tavita. ‘We too have lost loved ones.’ There was genuine sorrow in his voice. ‘I am very sorry if our … our officials have insulted you …’

‘Sir, that is not the way. We must be firm with them,’ Mackintosh interrupted.

Mr Mallard glanced at his aide. ‘Sergeant, you may be used to speaking to your underlings that way, but you will not speak to me or these people that way. Understand?’ Mackintosh looked away. ‘Sir, may I have your name, please?’ Mallard asked Tavita.

‘Toanamua Tavita, that is my title.’

‘His real name, it is David Barker, sir!’ Joe intervened once again.

Dead silence as Mr Mallard swung to his interpreter. ‘Sir, you have insulted the people of Saytoarr enough! Get up now and return to the boat. Go on, up!’ The policemen stepped back and their presence hurried Joe to his old feet. ‘You too, Sergeant.’ Mackintosh staggered up. ‘Wait for me at the jetty.’

They all watched as Mackintosh and the others retreated from the veranda. ‘May I ask, sir, how many of your people passed away in the epidemic?’

Tavita looked at Peleiupu. ‘About half of our population,’ Peleiupu said.

‘I am very sorry. That is more than in other villages. Nothing I can say will ever heal your pain and anger, so I won’t try. Perhaps one day I will be able to help you. Please let me know if you ever need help.’ He struggled up. ‘By the way, the epidemic is almost finished in Apia. It is also receding from the other villages we have visited. God has been merciful.’

 

The haze that covered the bay was glowing with the morning light as it shimmered up into mountains of cloud that filled the sky. Peleiupu opened her bedroom windows and let the breeze wash over her face. More and more people were recovering, though there was still the occasional death, and fewer people were getting sick. Peleiupu made the mistake of looking out at the bay again. For an instant her heart stopped: the haze was the shape of I’amafana’s smiling face. She sucked in air, gasping. Lefatu and Maualuga, were they still safe? She stumbled, breathless, to her bed and, lying down on her back, cupped her hands over her mouth and nose. Panic attacks, hyperventilation Malie had diagnosed when she had suffered her first attack in the clinic. Breathe! Breathe! You must live for your other children. Her guilt at being alive threatened again but she knew now there was a purpose to that: the reconstruction of Satoa and her aiga and business.

She hadn’t been in her office for weeks. She opened the windows, the breeze rushed in and foraged among her books. She browsed, touching and turning the pages and reading random paragraphs, enough to take her into that other world of the imagination that the epidemic had kept her away from …

Iakopo and Semisi brought in her breakfast: fa’alifu fa’i, koko and papaya. ‘It’s good, Pele, that you’re on a diet because that’s all we have to offer you!’ Semisi joked.

‘That’s all we can afford, eh?’ she joked back.

‘Yeah, nothing left in the warehouse, little left in the store,’ he said. ‘By your instruction, we’ve shared everything with the people in need — which is everybody.’

‘Not the way to do business, eh? Giving away your goods,’ she quipped.

Semisi was suddenly sobbing. ‘I miss him, miss him!’ he cried. His friend Feleti had died the week before. ‘He was such a beautiful person, Pele!’

She held him. ‘Yes, Semisi, he was. But we have to keep on going.’ She felt stupid saying that. ‘We’ve all lost people we love dearly.’ She started crying too. ‘We have to be brave. We have to rebuild our lives.’ She straightened him up and wiped away his tears. ‘I need you to help me and Tavita get our business and family back on our feet. We can’t help Satoa if we don’t do that.’ He nodded his large head.

While they waited for Tavita, Poto and the other elders of their family to gather, Peleiupu got Semisi to give her an inventory of their business. They had no goods to sell — but there were no customers either; their bakery was shut — no flour, no bakers; they had no copra; their plantation was feeding Satoa for free; they had only £803 in cash. ‘Nothin’ comin’ in, Pele,’ Semisi concluded. They didn’t know what had happened to their other stores; they had a boat that was not earning anything; most of their key people had died in the epidemic; and most of the population, because of the epidemic, would take a while to recover as customers and producers of copra, Peleiupu added.

Later while they ate with the others, that was the inventory Semisi conveyed to them. Peleiupu kept two things from them: her plan to relocate their business headquarters to Apia — she didn’t want to upset Poto yet; and her large secret savings accounts in Apia, which she would use to refinance their company.

‘What are we going to do?’ Semisi asked.

Poto, as usual, spoke first. ‘First, I’m more concerned about your sisters and their families than making money.’ Peleiupu did not flinch at that deliberate hurt. ‘We have to find out what’s happened to them. They’re your sisters, Tavita!’

‘We’re going to do that,’ Tavita replied. ‘But we may not have enough money to pay for fuel for the boat so we can visit my sisters.’

‘Pele’s right, Mama,’ Semisi defended Peleiupu. ‘And we’re all exhausted and grieving, so let’s not get bitchy with one another!’

‘Who told you to speak like that to me?’ Poto threatened.

‘That is enough, Mama!’ Mikaele said. Poto looked away from Peleiupu, nose in the air.

Siniva, who usually said little at their family discussions, cleared her throat. Peleiupu glanced at her. ‘Mama, Tavita and Pele are right. We have to rebuild the business, or what you and Papa Barker built may be lost. And we won’t be able to help our village.’

‘I apologise if I am again the problem in this family.’ Peleiupu heard herself hitting out at Poto. ‘I know I am married into this family so I’m not entitled to the same rights as all of you. So I’ll keep quiet.’

‘See what I’ve told you, Tavita?’ Poto countered. ‘See? Your wife thinks she rules our family!’

‘Mama, that is enough!’ Tavita ordered.

‘No, I want to hear what else your mother has to say!’ Peleiupu demanded.

‘That’s enough,’ Mikaele intervened. ‘The whole village is listening.’

‘I don’t care if they’re listening — let them listen,’ Poto said. ‘Better teach your spoilt wife to respect me, your mother!’ she ordered Tavita.

Relatives were outside the windows, trying to appear as if they were not watching them. Peleiupu didn’t care — all she wanted to do was hurt Poto, and it was wildly exciting, exhilarating. ‘Tavita, you teach your mother to respect me!’

Tavita smashed his fist down on the arm of his chair. ‘A’e, I’ve had enough of these creatures called women!’ he exclaimed.

‘What did you say?’ Poto demanded.

‘Yes, why are you criticising women?’ Peleiupu echoed Poto. Tavita sprang up.

‘If it wasn’t for a woman you wouldn’t have been born!’ Poto shouted.

Before Peleiupu could continue slashing him, he wheeled around and started storming out. ‘These creatures called women should all be cast into the sea!’ he shouted.

‘And why are you looking at us like that?’ Poto turned on Mikaele.

‘He’s another man, that’s why!’ Peleiupu slashed him too.

Mikaele rose slowly, and Peleiupu was suddenly aware of his bulk filling the room. ‘You bloody women are valea!’ he said. ‘Bloody crazy!’ He lumbered out of the room. Once outside he shouted at their relatives, ‘Get away from here. You all owe your miserable lives to Poto and Pele.’ Peleiupu started laughing, Poto started laughing, Semisi started laughing and, as they laughed together, Peleiupu became aware of her son gazing into her face, puzzled but grinning with happiness.

It was so good to be alive and laughing in the face of the epidemic: ready to go on living and rebuilding.

Afterwards Poto sent Iakopo to bring back Tavita and Mikaele, and in front of their family she acknowledged Peleiupu’s leadership by asking her for her plans for saving and developing their business.

They needed a source of quick revenue, Peleiupu explained. During the epidemic people couldn’t harvest their copra, so throughout the country there was an enormous crop of fallen coconuts that they had to harvest before the other companies did so. Quickly she outlined how they were to do that. To get money to run their boat so the harvesting could be done throughout Savai’i and their other stores could be restored, she suggested they harvest their crops in Satoa and sell them at the Apia market where, because of the epidemic, there were large shortages of food. ‘We have to do it now before our competitors can start,’ she urged them. ‘Five large cargoes of foodstuffs should return enough money to reprovision our Satoa store and pay for the boat to visit our other stores.’

‘Don’t forget to stop at Manono and see how Naomi and Pate and their children are,’ Lalaga reminded Peleiupu when she heard about this. ‘And go to Fagaloto, too, see how Ruta and Lefatu are.’ Her plea was laden with fear.