‘No, I don’t want to go ashore!’ Peleiupu changed her mind when Tavita reached out to help her into the punt. The Lady Poto was anchored off Manono and they were ready to go and see how Naomi and her family were.
‘But you have to go!’ Lefatu, Peleiupu’s daughter, insisted. Peleiupu refused to look at Tavita. ‘I’m too afraid.’ Peleiupu pleaded. So Tavita and the two crew members pushed off. ‘Don’t stay too long,’ she called.
Lefatu and Maualuga pressed against their mother as they watched the punt, which was laden with baskets of foodstuffs, heading in to the loud, fearful clarity of the moving sea and sky and the beach on which people were now gathering.
They watched as the punt reached the shallows and a few men waded out and pulled it on to the beach. They watched as a woman — was it Naomi? — rushed up to Tavita and held him. Naomi? Yes it was her! As the woman waved and waved and they waved and waved back, Peleiupu’s joy filled the clarity of the sky. ‘It’s her, my sister, my sister!’ she cried, hugging her children.
While the punt was being unloaded, Naomi stood with Tavita. She’d wave to them periodically. When Tavita and his crew got back into the punt and the Manono people started carrying the baskets of food back to their village that stretched along the shore, Naomi remained alone on the beach. She and Peleiupu locked in their gaze that the punt traced from the shore to the Lady Poto.
Everyone gathered around Tavita as he reboarded. ‘God has been kind, Tavita said. ‘Naomi has recovered.’ He stopped, unable to look at Peleiupu. ‘Pate is recovering.’
‘And the children?’ Siniva asked.
‘Their lives … their lives have been taken by the epidemic,’ Tavita replied.
Peleiupu looked back at the shore. Naomi was gone. The beach was empty.
The Lady Poto docked in Apia in the late afternoon. Tavita and the crew unloaded the large cargo of foodstuffs and, hiring two carts, transported the food to the Tauese market. Even before they unloaded, the crowd was demanding to buy the crops, so they sold from the carts at double the prices they’d decided on in Satoa. Peleiupu’s bag was soon fat with money. Within minutes the carts were empty and heading back to the boat for more.
Her daughters, Maualuga and Lefatu, refused to let her and Siniva hold their hands as they walked along the main street of Apia. Only two ships lay in the harbour. Late morning, dusty, only a few people about, their heads down, eyes dazed with grief. After the epidemic the buildings and dwellings looked drab and shabby, piles of rubbish lay everywhere and, in the heat, gave off a putrid stench that the inhabitants seemed unaware of. Animals foraged through the rubbish. It was her daughters’ first visit to Apia and they were observing everything in hungry silence. A horse-drawn carriage clattered by, the driver gazing ahead while his papalagi passengers — a bearded man and a woman — talked.
She and Tavita hadn’t been able to resist getting their daughters back from Sili as soon as they had gone into their plantation to harvest the crops for Apia. She hadn’t bothered to consult Malie about whether it was now safe for her daughters — after all, the epidemic was virtually over, she believed. When in the afternoon her daughters had broken away from Tavita and into her office, she’d wept as she’d embraced them. Wept with happiness; wept some more when memories of I’amafana had burst upon her. From then on she’d not wanted them out of her sight, insisting even that they sleep in her bedroom. Hurt by this, Iakopo had retreated to stay with his grandparents. She had decided her first gift to her daughters on their safe return would be to show them Apia, for the first time.
The shops they went into had little to sell; new shipments were due soon, they were told. The shop assistants were gaunt-eyed and morose, but because it was their first visit, her daughters nevertheless viewed Apia as a wondrous storehouse of goods and papalagi.
Near the middle of the main street they stopped in front of a small bungalow under huge sprawling mango trees. She told them she was going in to see her lawyer, gave Siniva some money and told them to have lunch somewhere. She watched them until they disappeared around the bend.
Years before, when they’d returned from Pago Pago and she and Tavita had wanted to establish their company legally, someone had recommended that they see a New Zealand lawyer called Jim Mackson. For two days they’d tried persuading themselves to go: they considered themselves simple villagers intruding into the complex and forbidden world of the papalagi. Also, they’d not consulted a lawyer before — let alone a papalagi one. They had agreed finally, but at Mackson’s door, Tavita had fled.
Peleiupu had found herself in the office, with a squat woman typing at her desk. The woman had taken one look at her bare feet and dress and continued typing. ‘May I see Mr Mackson?’ she’d heard her arrogant, stubborn side asking in English. The woman had stopped typing. ‘May I see him?’ Peleiupu had repeated.
‘And you are?’ the woman had asked, in Samoan.
‘Mrs Peleiupu Barker,’ she’d replied, firmly, in English.
‘Are you here on business or what?’ the woman had asked, in English.
‘I am not here for work as a servant, if that is what you think.’
The woman had smiled and said, ‘I’m Mr Mackson’s secretary. My name’s Mrs Louisa Frech. Mr Mackson is a very busy man. What can he do for you?’
‘My husband and I would like to set up our company properly, legally.’
‘What kind of business is it?’
‘I would really like to see Mr Mackson and tell him.’
While Peleiupu had waited, she’d looked around the office. On the walls were photographs of different sports teams and she’d figured out quickly who Mr Mackson was in the photographs.
‘He’ll see you now,’ Mrs Frech had said, refusing to look at her.
Somewhere in the jowly, extra-large man who glanced up at her was the fit, muscular, blond youth from the photographs. Mr Mackson lumbered to his feet. He was bigger than Mikaele, and breathing heavily. ‘I don’t have much time,’ he’d wheezed, sweat pouring down his face and soaking his shirt collar.
‘We have a business in Savai’i, and we want to set it up properly,’ Peleiupu had explained. ‘It’s registered but we want a new ownership structure for it.’ She had his attention and curiosity at last. ‘By the way, my husband’s name is David Barker’ — the name had felt foreign in her mouth as she’d said it — ‘my name is Pele, and we own a store and plantation in Satoa. You’ve probably never heard of Satoa or us.’
‘You are correct there, Mrs Barker.’
‘It’s a small business but we sell a lot of copra each month to the stores here. That is increasing. We also sell goods to most of the trading stations and stores around Savai’i.’
‘You really must have your husband here to discuss this,’ he’d said.
‘Why?’ she’d confronted him. ‘He is busy and I’m quite capable of understanding what has to be done, Mr Mackson.’ He’d looked offended.
‘Very, very few women conduct business, Mrs Barker.’
‘What has my being a woman got to do with making money, sir?’
His eyes had lit up, his face rounding into a cheeky smile. ‘Yes, indeed, what has that got to do with making a healthy profit?’ His booming laughter had shaken the small room.
‘It’ll be profitable for you and us, sir,’ she’d guaranteed.
As they’d discussed the type of business she wanted established, he’d chortled intermittently, impressed by her intelligence and business savvy. When she’d risen to leave, he’d congratulated her on her English. ‘I learned it from books and my father, who’d learned it from a renegade beachcomber.’ She’d shaken his hand. ‘I’ll bring David tomorrow afternoon to sign the papers.’ She paused. ‘And pay your fee, sir.’
As their dealings with Mr Mackson had grown, they had come to enjoy devising new business deals and ventures with him. He was a breathing encyclopaedia of business information and gossip, and kept them informed about business opportunities. Early in their relationship they’d also asked Mackson to use his overseas connections to search for Arona, and over the years he’d provided some information, again mainly in the form of stories and rumours that added to the mythology of Arona the Sailor. Because they didn’t want to raise Lalaga’s and Mautu’s hopes, Peleiupu kept most of these from them.
They kept inviting Mackson to Satoa but he declined politely, and never invited them to his home. Rumours had it that Mrs Mackson was a strange woman who drank secretly and hardly ventured out of her home. His enemies whispered that, when inebriated, Mrs Mackson wandered the night, ‘talking to herself’.
Peleiupu pushed open the front door. Mrs Frech rushed over and embraced her. ‘I’m glad to see you, Pele. How’s your family?’
‘Almost half of our village died in the epidemic,’ she replied, and was again caught firmly in her sorrow.
Mrs Frech started crying. ‘My mother, two uncles, an aunt and four other relatives died … And Mr Mackson, poor man, lost his wife, Sandra, and two of his children. He took ill but thanks to our heavenly Father he has recovered. I don’t know how this town is going to recover from this. Very little money, very little food.’
‘Is Jim in?’ Peleiupu wanted to get away from Mrs Frech’s grief.
‘He’s in but he’s still depressed and sick. Very depressed …’
‘We’ve only got one day left in Apia so I need to see him now.’
When she saw the bespectacled man behind the large teak desk, she wanted to leave again. The white-haired figure was a skeletal caricature of the huge, boisterous, confident Jim Mackson she’d known before the epidemic. ‘Come in, Pele,’ the squeezy, thin voice invited her. She hurried in and sat down. His face had collapsed into rolls of skin that hung down from his jaw and neck. ‘It is wonderful to see you, Pele, and that you are well. Is David here too?’ She shook her head. ‘It’s been terrible. Terrible. So much death that death became normal, eh?’
‘Jim, I am very sorry about your wife and children.’
‘I wasn’t a religious person. I’m more religious now that I’ve survived the fire of grief. But I’m convinced there is no God. Well, not one that I can conceive of or believe in.’ There was a long heavy pause. ‘My wife never wanted to shift to Samoa from our comfortable middle-class existence in Auckland. But she now has to stay here permanently!’ Again, thin wheezing laughter. ‘I didn’t die, Pele, and that is the crux of the matter. I was spared!’
‘That assumes that something or someone spared you.’
‘The epidemic did, Pele.’
‘But the epidemic is merely an illness, without a will or consciousness or sense of justice that sentences some to die and some to live.’
‘We are getting too philosophical, aren’t we? Let’s be real, let’s stick to what we know, to things and people we can touch and maybe love …’
‘Or hate?’
‘That too. Pele, of all my clients, you see most lucidly the real world as it is, and deal with it as it is.’
‘I negotiate, I make deals!’ she parodied herself. ‘I too lost a son to the epidemic, and other loved ones. I couldn’t negotiate with the sickness …’
‘We are all equal in our loss,’ he sighed. ‘And perhaps we’ll find hope again.’
‘In business, in deals, in money, in the present that keeps moving until we too die.’
‘Pele, you’re too much!’ he laughed. ‘Just too much. So what can the thin Jim Mackson do for you this time?’
She told him quickly, while he took notes. ‘The new company is to be called Ralph William Barker Company, she concluded. ‘As you know, we valued four village stores that were up for sale before the epidemic; we want to buy them now.’
‘Great move. They’ll be cheaper now. Some of the owners have died, others are leaving indefinitely.’ He paused and then added, ‘Why don’t I make a list of all the other businesses that may be up for sale? The sickness has killed other businesses. The war, of course, and the New Zealand take-over have killed the German companies and plantations. They have to either sell or put them in British ownership.’
‘So when we return in a few weeks’ time you’ll have that list?’
He nodded. ‘As long as you have the money.’
‘We do,’ was all she was going to tell him. ‘And within six months we’ll have enough to buy more.’
‘Pele, as the daughter of a pastor — one of the most respected in Samoa — I thought you condemned usury and profiteering?’
‘That is not fair, sir!’ she laughed. ‘And my usury and profit-making have been good for you too, Jim.’
‘Of course, Pele!’ He laughed and wheezed.
She got up. ‘David and I will sign the new company papers — later today?’ They shook hands. He felt so fragile and vulnerable.
The next day she and Siniva and her daughters bought gifts for their relatives and elders and the other surviving Satoans: for Mautu an extra-large floral shirt that shone like a multi-coloured afternoon sun; for Lalaga and Poto identical feathered white hats for church; for Semisi white sandals from Italy; for Sili and his wife and children some clothes; an ie solosolo for Malie; a dress for Fa’amapu; and, for the other survivors, rolls of calico, cartons of cabin bread and tinned corned beef and fish and biscuits, bags of flour and sugar, sweets, jam, liquorice all-sorts and barrels of salted beef. ‘This is going to be our first celebration as a village since the sickness,’ Tavita declared.
The jetty was alive with their people as they entered Satoa Bay. Nearly all the survivors, Peleiupu figured. Hobbling, being piggy-backed, dancing and waving as the Lady Poto docked. Singing and dancing as they disembarked, singing and dancing as they followed them to Sao’s faletele and prepared and ate a huge feast of the papalagi food they’d brought and which they’d missed during the epidemic. During their celebration, many broke out of their laughter and joy into loud tears and sobbing as they remembered their loved ones who’d died.
The next morning they loaded another cargo of foodstuffs, and Tavita returned to Apia, taking Iakopo, Poto and Lalaga (Mautu refused to go), and those who had recovered fully, for a holiday.
In the following two weeks they took four more loads of cargo, which they sold quickly and at higher prices each time. By this time the largest harvest of copra ever produced in Satoa was drying in the sun, and more copra was being cut.
As they approached her parents’ house after midday, Peleiupu’s daughters ran on ahead and up the front steps. She could see her father asleep in the canvas chair she’d given him years before. White hair gleaming, his body lost in the large embrace of the chair. Of all the survivors he was one of the few who didn’t seem to be breaking out of his sorrow and depression. He now spent long periods in stillness, gazing into himself, and Lalaga insisted that he be left alone to contemplate his future life with God. The Satoans simply forgave him his grief and melancholy: he had earned it, and would be their spiritual guide and pastor until he died.
He still taught Bible studies at the school, but he rambled and bored his students. The effervescent enthusiasm he’d possessed before the epidemic had gone. Tavita was the first to point out to Peleiupu that her father now hardly mentioned God in his sermons. She listened carefully to his next sermon and had to agree with Tavita.
Worried about him, she tried to visit him once a day. Sometimes he appeared at her office, sat in her prince’s chair and browsed through her books, or slept. He tried but couldn’t get into the novels, especially the romances. Too unreal, he told Peleiupu. In the late afternoon, after biscuits and orange drink, his grandchildren took him home.
When Peleiupu reached them, Maualuga and Lefatu had woken him and he was questioning them. ‘Did you know your mother was the cleverest child in our school?’ he was asking.
‘You’ve told us that lots of times, Papa!’ Lefatu replied.
‘Yes, lots and lots of times!’ Maualuga chorused.
‘And is she still the cleverest person in the whole world?’ he asked.
The girls screwed up their faces, pretending they were thinking about it deeply, then chorused, ‘Yes, she is, she really is!’
‘Ah, and here she is,’ Mautu greeted her.
‘Where’s Mama?’ Maualuga asked.
‘Where else but in her vegetable garden?’ he replied. So the girls rushed towards the back of the house. Lalaga’s garden was the largest in Satoa, stretching from the house to the rock fence behind the village. As people had recovered from the epidemic she’d revived her gardening project, and each aiga was now weeding and replanting the gardens they’d neglected for all those months. She and her students helped those aiga that had only a few members left.
‘And how are you, Papa?’ Peleiupu asked, sitting down on the mat opposite him.
‘Where’s Iakopo?’ Mautu avoided her question. (Iakopo was his favourite grandchild, though he tried to hide it.) She told him he was with Tavita cutting copra. ‘You work Iakopo too hard, Pele,’ he complained. ‘He’s only a boy.’
‘He chooses to do it.’
‘Yes, he’s going to be like Lalaga — work, work, work.’
For a pleasant stretch, Peleiupu answered all his questions about the business, then, unexpectedly, he asked after Arona. ‘He’s probably still in New Zealand,’ she replied.
‘Why have we never heard from him?’ he repeated the twenty-year-old question that lay at the heart of their aiga. ‘I didn’t hurt him, Pele. Lalaga didn’t hurt him. We loved him, we were good to him.’ She looked away. ‘Yet for two decades he has punished us with guilt. What’s the use of sending us gifts and money, of collecting all the news and stories about him? Most of them are lies anyway. All we want is a word, just a word from him — a word about how he is, where he is, would free your mother and me, Pele.’ He dabbed at his eyes.
She hesitated and then lied. ‘I’ll ask Mr Mackson, our lawyer, to continue looking for him in New Zealand.’
His face lit up. ‘When, when, Pele?’
She’d do it the next time she was in Apia.
‘And your mother is very upset that you haven’t kept your promise to see how Ruta and Lefatu are!’ He chastised her.
She promised she’d do that when they visited their stores around Savaii. ‘Would you like to go with me?’ she asked.
‘Yes, I want to weed my parents’ graves, which must be overgrown with weeds after all these years,’ he replied. She tried to ignore the sad sense of finality in his remark. ‘I’m sure your mother will want to come too,’ he added. She told him they’d drop them off at Fagaloto and pick them up on their way back from inspecting the stores.
She was used to his sudden shifts into contemplative silence. She liked just sitting beside him letting her thoughts drift. They enjoyed it for a long time.
‘I wonder about him often,’ he mused. ‘He fills my dreams too.’
‘Arona?’
Shaking his head slowly, he said, ‘Fatutapu. It’s a beautiful name, eh, Pele?’ She nodded. ‘Fatutapu,’ he rolled the name lovingly over his tongue. ‘Fatutapu.’ A smooth round pebble which, as it dropped down the well of her imagination, brought to life again the ancient atua of her aiga.
While the heat ticked at the edge of their attention, he reminisced again about his childhood — these were stories she knew well and loved. When they gave way to stories of their early years in Satoa, and focused on Arona and Ruta and Naomi, sadness gripped her again.
Every Satoan wanted to go on the Lady Poto to Fagaloto and the six stores around Savai’i, but Tavita, through Poto who didn’t mince words when she wanted to be obeyed, announced that only she, the four crewmen, Semisi, Mikaele, Lalaga, Mautu, Iakopo (because Mautu needed someone to carry his bag; the other upset grandchildren were bribed with the promise of a trip to Apia), Peleiupu, Tavita, and Malie and Fa’amapu, who needed a holiday from the clinic, were going.
At first light even the disappointed Satoans turned up to farewell them. As the boat left the jetty two youths jumped onto the bow but dived off again when Mikaele advanced towards them. Everyone laughed and cheered.
High tide. Just a slight swell within the reef as the boat headed for Fagaloto. Clouds blocked out the sun so they felt cool. They hugged the coast and could see in detail the landscape, vegetation and villages. A few started feeling seasick; they lay down on the deck and tried to sleep. ‘See, you’ve all become sea-less creatures after years of being denied sea travel!’ Mikaele joked loudly. ‘You’ve become navigators who can’t read the sea and the stars!’
Almost an hour later they were taking the passage into Fagaloto Bay, a v-shaped indent in the high, rugged volcanic coastline. Black water, black rock, black sand, the village nestled around a white church at the head of the v, under palms and breadfruit. Immediately behind it, the bush-clad volcanic shelves tiered up to the high mountain range.
People gathered on the shore. Some waved. They dropped anchor. They couldn’t see Ruta or Lefatu in the crowd.
‘Papa, are you sure you’re well?’ Peleiupu asked, straightening his collar.
‘Don’t worry, Iakopo and Lalaga will look after me.’ He paused and, gazing at the village, said, ‘I am so happy to be home.’ She kissed him on the cheek. Iakopo edged away as she moved to do the same to him.
‘I’m afraid, Pele,’ Lalaga whispered. ‘I hope Ruta and Lefatu did not …’ She couldn’t say it.
‘I’m sure God protected them from the sickness.’ Peleiupu tried to console her but she too was riven with fear.
Mikaele and the crew loaded the two punts with their luggage and sacks and cartons of food. Tavita helped Mautu and Lalaga into one of the punts. Iakopo jumped in after them.
As the punt headed ashore, Peleiupu kept waving to Iakopo, who was standing on the bow; her son refused to wave back.
Three hours later light rain fell as they anchored off Falealupo. Peleiupu remembered what her father had told them about Falealupo: how in pre-Christian times the Atua Nafanua had established her religion in Falealupo and through her priests had dominated the country for three hundred years until the coming of Christianity; how Falealupo was where the sun set each evening, and how their pre-Christian ancestors had believed that the spirits of the dead departed from the Fafa, at the western edge of Falealupo beach, for Pulotu, the spirit world.
At the centre of the long line of fale that stretched along the beach was the large Roman Catholic church, which rose high above the vegetation. Not far from it was their store. They could see a few people gathering on the beach as the haze of rain swept across it. They dreaded having to go ashore to see if Ana, Tavita’s sister, and her husband, Atamai, were still alive.
The goods and supplies were loaded into the punts. Poto insisted on going ashore with them on the first punt. ‘I’m so afraid,’ she whispered to Peleiupu.
In silence they rowed ashore, and were soon soaked to the skin.
Most of the people on the beach were emaciated and hollow-eyed and struggling to stand up. Some of them waded in and pulled the punt in. No sign of Ana or Atamai. While Tavita, Mikaele and the crew unloaded the punts, Peleiupu and Semisi pulled Poto away and up over the beach to the edge of the malae.
‘Where are they?’ Poto demanded.
The village was overgrown with weeds, rubbish lay everywhere, many of the fale looked deserted, and some were burnt-down ruins. From that distance the store looked deserted too: its shutters were down. The gardens Poto had helped Ana plant around the store were smothered with creepers. They hurried. The rain intensified.
Someone had nailed boards across the shutters and the front door. They hurried to the fale behind it, to where Ana and Atamai had lived. Through the screen of rain they could see a woman, a youth and two young girls in the fale. Poto started whimpering. Semisi put his arm around her shoulders. ‘It’s all right, Mama,’ he kept telling her.
The youth and girls, who wore ragged, dirty clothes, came out to them. ‘Where is Atamai?’ Peleiupu asked.
‘He’s in there,’ the youth pointed into the fale. ‘We have been looking after him.’ Poto and Semisi rushed past them into the fale.
‘And Ana, where is she?’ Peleiupu asked. The girls looked at the youth, who gestured towards the church. Peleiupu started scrambling towards the building. ‘No!’ the youth called. ‘She died a few weeks ago.’ Peleiupu kept running to the mound, her wet clothes flapping and squishing around her.
A mass grave? She stopped at the edge of it, her feet buried in the rich mud that the rain was washing off the mound. Dropping to her knees, she thrust her hands into the mud.
Over the clatter and thudding of the rain she caught Poto’s and Semisi’s shrill wailing rushing towards her. She turned and her sight was filled with Poto stumbling towards her through the haze of rain, which made her appear as if she were evaporating. ‘Ana, Ana, Ana, my beloved!’ Poto’s plea clogged the world.
That was where Tavita and Mikaele found them, and Mikaele swept Poto up in his arms and carried her back to the fale.
Behind a curtain, Peleiupu forced Poto to change into dry clothes, and she and Semisi sat holding her. Peleiupu could hear Tavita talking to Atamai. A while later they stretched Poto out on a soft layer of mats and wrapped her in a sleeping sheet. Peleiupu dried herself, changed and joined the others.
Mikaele and Semisi went off to supervise the cleaning and re-provisioning of the store. Though he was thin and hollow-eyed, Atamai was recovering well. He’d been sick for over two weeks after Ana died. In his grief, the epidemic had attacked him, he said. While he was delirious, people had raided the store and taken almost every thing. Because of the epidemic, the matai fono had not yet done anything to find and punish the culprits. As he talked, Peleiupu began to sense the presence of a woman hovering in the background. Fanua was her name. Atamai explained that Fanua had been their closest friend since they’d settled in Falealupo. Three of Fanua’s children had died early in the epidemic, and when he fell ill, she and her remaining children took care of him. Fanua’s presence felt protective, Peleiupu sensed, as she tried to identify the person Fanua reminded her of.
Later as she and Fanua went to the store to get food, she identified her Aunt Lefatu as that person. Fanua had the same ageless physical features and sense of permanence and wisdom.
Some villagers were helping Semisi and Mikaele and the crew clean the store. Others were weeding the gardens. ‘Please forgive our people for taking your property,’ Fanua said. ‘Some of these people took part in the theft.’
‘And most of them owed money?’
‘Yes, all of them, including me,’ Fanua confessed.
Peleiupu filled a basket with tinned food, rice, flour, sugar, salt and lard. Fanua took the other side of the heavy basket and they carried it to Atamai’s kitchen fale.
‘At first we thought Ana was strange,’ Fanua said, as they cooked. ‘You know — the golden hair, the cats’ eyes and freckles. And even more weird when we found out she was a compulsive and expert fisher. She outfished our best — and our men didn’t like that. I think all our men fell in love with her, but she was unaware of it!’ Soft laughter. ‘Yes, oblivious to the effects her spectacular strangeness was having on our males. Of course we jealous women were waiting (and hoping) for the Lady to grow jealous too — jealous of Ana’s long golden hair and beauty. But we waited and waited and the Lady didn’t punish her at all, thereby telling us that Ana had her blessing and protection. Ana was the first long and golden-haired female in our district who didn’t have to cover her hair or wear it up.’
‘Excuse my ignorance, but “the Lady”?’ Peleiupu asked.
‘Nafanua,’ she replied casually. ‘I shouldn’t really be discussing her so openly but who cares? She can’t punish us worse than the papalagi epidemic has done.’ Sensing Peleiupu’s discomfort, Fanua added, ‘She’s harmless most of the time. Plus, we’re Christians now and don’t believe in the power of our pagan atua any more!’
‘You mean, you shouldn’t believe in her any more?’ Peleiupu asked.
‘If you want to put it that way.’ That impish wisdom again. ‘She was certainly useless in defending us against the epidemic.’
The smell of their cooking attracted Fanua’s and the neighbours’ children to the kitchen fale. So, as they cooked, Peleiupu filled plates for them. They ate ravenously.
‘Don’t you think She may have been punishing you for deserting her for palagi ways?’ Peleiupu asked Fanua.
‘That’s what my father and the elders believed. So when the sickness struck them, they just gave into it as just punishment from the Lady. I believe the Lady had nothing to do with the sickness. The papalagi brought it. It is their fault. She didn’t have the knowledge and, therefore, the mana to repel it, cure it.’
‘Why do you think you were not touched by it?’
‘Luck, pure luck.’
‘You don’t think she protected you?’
‘Do you believe the Christian God protected you from the sickness?’
Peleiupu nodded, but felt strangely uncomfortable as Fanua gazed at her. ‘Well, I suppose you could call God, luck!’
They packed the food, and the children helped carry it to the fale where they found a group of matai talking with Atamai and Tavita. When they entered and sat down at the back of the fale, ready to serve the food, one of the matai, a small man with a leg swollen with elephantiasis, welcomed Peleiupu formally. Peleiupu was surprised when Fanua interrupted him. ‘Well, are you hungry again? Is that why you’ve come?’ she asked. The matai grinned; the others gazed at the floor. ‘Why didn’t you come before to see how Atamai was?’
‘There you go again, Fanua!’ their leader tried to joke. ‘You forget we were all ill …’ His companions nodded.
‘You should’ve died too!’ she said. ‘The good people died and you lived. When the epidemic is all over, our village will meet to resolve the crisis of leadership — your very poor and selfish leadership since my father died.’
‘Please be satisfied, your ladyship,’ the youngest matai started apologising.
‘That is enough!’ Fanua ordered. ‘You will be given this food to fill your selfish bellies!’ Fanua and Peleiupu filled the foodmats and the children delivered them to everyone. ‘And when you finish gutsing, we’ll return and pack up your scraps,’ she insulted them further. ‘Toanamua, I am sorry I’ve had to be very honest with our leaders in front of you,’ she apologised to Tavita.
They filled a foodmat for Poto and took it to her behind the curtain. Poto refused to eat. She started shivering, so Fanua stretched her out and, oiling her hands, started massaging Poto’s forehead, neck and shoulders. As Peleiupu watched Fanua’s strong, long-fingered hands slipping, pressing, slipping, pressing and sliding over Poto’s forehead, she, like Poto, started feeling calm and relaxed. Poto drifted into sleep. ‘The death of our children is what we parents dread the most, eh, Pele?’ Fanua asked. The rain continued thudding on the thatched roof and sliding down in a screen from the eaves onto the stone paepae in a loud clatter. ‘I almost went insane when my children died.’
Tavita, Semisi and Mikaele were in the store when Peleiupu and Fanua went in. ‘Why aren’t you stacking the goods in the shelves?’ Peleiupu asked.
‘Who’s going to run the store? Atamai isn’t well enough yet,’ Semisi pointed out.
‘We may have to close it,’ Tavita added.
Without hesitation, Peleiupu asked Fanua, ‘Will you run it for us?’
‘Me? I’ve had no palagi education.’
‘I’m sure Atamai will teach you what to do,’ Peleiupu said. ‘And when he’s well enough, he’ll do it.’
Fanua continued shaking her head. ‘There’s no money in Falealupo to buy these goods anyway.’
‘But there are a lot of coconuts, eh?’ Peleiupu countered. ‘The people can pay with coconuts. While we’re here we can work out with you how many coconuts you should charge for each item.’
In the late afternoon, while Poto slept in the lulling beat of the rain, they met with Atamai and Fanua and worked a currency out. Fanua also agreed to organise gangs of workers to cut all the copra in Falealupo. Throughout their discussions Tavita maintained a suspicious stance, and when Fanua left with her children to visit patients, he attacked Peleiupu for offering Fanua the job without knowing much about her. Semisi agreed with him.
‘I know enough!’ Peleiupu insisted.
‘Pele’s choice is very sound,’ Atamai intervened.
‘Why?’ Tavita demanded.
Atamai looked around to see if anyone else was about. ‘Don’t you realise who she is?’ Atamai asked Tavita.
‘What are we supposed to know?’ Semisi asked.
‘She is the daughter of the tuua of Falealupo.’
‘What’s that got to do with knowing how to run a store — how to add and subtract?’ Tavita said impatiently.
‘She is also the guardian of the Lady,’ Peleiupu offered.
‘After her father, who died early in the epidemic, she is the most powerful — or, is it most feared? — person in this district,’ Atamai added. ‘Did you see the way she handled those matai earlier on?’
‘She’ll have no problems organising the men to cut copra,’ Peleiupu said.
‘And no one will dare steal from or raid our store. No one!’ Atamai said.
Before lotu that evening, while she helped Fanua and her son cook the evening meal, Peleiupu learned from Fanua that whenever their village suffered a crisis, their fono met late at night in her father’s faletele, in darkness, with all the blinds drawn except for one row facing the west. When Peleiupu asked why, Fanua hesitated, then, gazing full into her face, said, ‘For the Lady to enter the fono and be consulted about the crisis. During the sickness not once did she participate in the fono. For her own reasons, she seems to have abandoned us to the mercy of the epidemic.’
The chorus of cicadas thundered in their ears as the rain eased away.
In the next two weeks they visited the rest of their stores, and set up new people to run them and schemes to cut all the copra that was on the ground.
Poto refused to go ashore at Salelologa, where Elisapeta, her daughter, and her husband Heinrich ran their business. Since discovering Ana’s death at Falelupo she’d remained on board, playing patience or fishing from the boat. But before they could go ashore, Elisapeta and her surviving son were rowed to the Lady Poto, where she collapsed into Poto’s arms and told them her husband and other children had died two weeks before.
Tavita, Semisi and Peleiupu went ashore. (Peleiupu was relieved to be away from Elisapeta’s grief.) Before the epidemic, this had been their second most profitable store. Heinrich had been an excellent manager, adding a bakery, a plantation and a fautasi transport wing, and producing more copra than even their Satoa store. Since Heinrich’s death, his sister and her husband had managed the business, and were doing well.
When they were on their own Peleiupu told Tavita she didn’t want to return to the boat until they were ready to leave because she couldn’t face Elisapeta’s suffering. She was also dreading what they’d find at Fagaloto when they stopped to pick up her parents and Iakopo.
That night they slept in Elisapeta’s fale by the sea.
She woke to him caressing her back and flanks, deliciously, and she moved so he could remove her lavalava. For a long while he ran his fingers over her buttocks and between her legs from the back, until she was wet and trembling with anticipation. Lying on her side, she lifted her knees and thrust back her buttocks against him. His hand slid down between her buttocks and caressed her. She jerked, gasped, as he slid in. Reaching back, she held his buttocks still. Held him in there.
Later he moved slowly to the rhythm of the slow tide lapping at the rocks a short distance away. Slowly. For a long, long time they escaped the present and their grief …
Next morning, after breakfast with Heinrich’s family, Tavita told Peleiupu there was something important he wanted to discuss with her. She sensed he’d been thinking about it for a long time. They went back to the fale.
‘Please don’t misinterpret what I’m going to say.’ He paused and looked away. ‘I know you’re brighter than any of us, Pele, and that you’ve been brought up by your father to be honest and frank about your views …’ The more surprised she became, the more shocked she was. ‘… You are a very different and exceptional person, Pele. That is one of the reasons why I love you. But …’ He couldn’t continue, and she wasn’t going to help him. ‘But it is also the reason why I get annoyed with you.’ Looking directly at her, he said, ‘Pele, you must try not to keep making me look and feel inadequate and unintelligent in front of others.’
‘I don’t do that!’
‘See what I mean?’ he pleaded. ‘You’re angry even before you consider seriously what I’ve just said.’ He turned to leave. She held his arm.
‘Tavita, I’m sorry,’ she said in English.
‘See, every time you want to control our conversation you use English because you’re much better at it than me. Every time you use English when we’re with others you show how inadequate my English is.’
It was incredible that he held these views about her and their relationship and had not told her before. ‘Tavita, I don’t do that — I don’t do it deliberately. It’s just the way you’re choosing to see it.’
‘Is there any other way for me to see it?’ he attacked. ‘That is the way most people, including many of my aiga, see it, Pele. Look at this trip. In all our negotiations and deals you’ve made Semisi and me look like idiots, in public. The ideas and plans have been yours — and you’ve said so in front of everyone. Pele, I resent your making me look less of a man in public. I resent the way you think I don’t know when you’re manipulating me to do what you want.’
‘So what do I do, Tavita? If I try to convey my ideas and views to you privately so you won’t look unmanly in public, you accuse me of being manipulative. When I voice my views publicly I’m again accused of that!’ He refused to answer. ‘So what do we do, Tavita? What do you want me to do?’
‘Shit!’ he shouted in English. ‘Shit!’
‘Tavita, you’re the one who leads and runs our life and business. I may have the ideas but you have the qualities others respect and love. You trust people, you believe in them despite their awful failings and meanness, you’re not interested in making money for its own sake, you put the welfare and interests of our aiga and community before your own, and most precious of all …’ she started chortling. ‘… you’re insightful enough to realise that you love me and without me your life would be a misery!’ He swung around and started laughing. ‘Yeah, David, you not speak English better than me!’ she imitated his English. For once she didn’t care if people were watching as she grabbed him around the waist, hugged him and kissed him full on the mouth.
She felt as if she were moving back into the skin she wore as the girl who’d fallen ill on Barker’s death and had been brought to Fagaloto for Lefatu to heal, as she jumped off the punt onto the beach and watched her feet imprinting themselves in the soggy sand.
It was mid-morning and cool because the sun was hidden in cloud.
She dawdled behind as the others hurried up the track. The pandanus leaves reflected the mellow morning light. There it was: the heady scent of ripe guava and pandanus fruit.
She emerged from the vegetation and saw, up ahead through the rows of palms, their aiga’s fale. Tavita and the others were already seated around the main fale being served food. Lefatu’s husky laughter fondled Peleiupu’s hearing, and she tingled with happiness knowing that her aunt was alive and well. Lefatu was sitting with Iakopo sharing her foodmat. Opposite her were Lalaga and Mautu. No other elders. Ruta? Peleiupu searched again. She couldn’t see Ruta anywhere. Her feet refused to go forward. In the faleo’o were two people sitting beside someone lying in a stained mosquito net. The earth released her feet, Peleiupu started rushing to that net.
‘Ruta, Ruta!’ Peleiupu called, pulling up the side of the net.
‘I’m here, Pele!’ Ruta’s voice snatched at Peleiupu, who turned. There she was, right there outside the net. Thinner — older, much older — but beautiful, so beautiful in being alive. Her sister.
Hugging each other, they cried and laughed and cried.
‘Have you two gone crazy?’ Semisi called from the faletele. ‘You sound crazy!’ The rest of their aiga laughed.
‘Bring us some food!’ Ruta called.
A few minutes later as they ate, they talked and talked and talked as if they were conversing themselves into existence, into versions of themselves they’d missed over the past few years. Soon Lefatu and Lalaga joined them, and when they had finished serving the meal all the other women and girls joined them too. That night Tavita would ask her about what they, the women, had talked so animatedly, and she wouldn’t be able to recollect any details of it, but she’d never forget the intimate, blood-warm, renewing, reaffirming sound and feel of it all.
Later that day Ruta took her through the village, telling her that twenty-six aiga members had died in the epidemic, and only about two-fifths of Fagaloto’s population had survived.
Fagaloto looked and felt more alive than the other villages they had visited, with people repairing their homes, weeding their gardens, penning their pigs, cutting and burning the grass on the malae, and cleaning their church and communal pool. People smiled and greeted them as they walked through. Ruta attributed Fagaloto’s rapid recovery to Lefatu’s persistent, indomitable leadership after the leading matai had died.
The only store, owned by a German firm, had closed down. Most of the family who ran it were dead, Ruta informed Peleiupu, who knew it wouldn’t reopen because all German businesses had been closed down by the New Zealand administration. Ruta agreed with Peleiupu to persuade Lefatu to let her build a store.
On their return they found Mautu and Iakopo weeding around the faletele. Peleiupu cautioned their father about the heat, but he grinned and told them he was fitter than ever. ‘Here, I’m at peace,’ he added.
‘May we go to the pool later?’ Iakopo asked.
‘Yes, but only after we’ve weeded right around the fale. And if your mother and her sister help us, we’ll get it done quickly.’
‘Come on then, Mama and Ruta!’ Iakopo ordered.
‘What do we get out of it?’ Ruta asked. Iakopo glanced at his grandfather.
‘A visit to a secret and sacred place,’ Mautu replied. ‘I’m not saying any more until you two help us.’
Within a silent, quick half hour they’d done the weeding and Iakopo was complaining about having to pile the weeds into his baskets and empty them into the sea.
Because of the heat most people had retreated into their fale. Iakopo fetched Mautu’s bright red umbrella and sheltering him with it they went to the pool. A few young people were standing in the water, talking. They acknowledged them. Mautu washed his hands, face and head and retreated into the small poolside fale.
Iakopo followed his mother up the bank and laughed as he pushed her into the water, and then dived in after her. Ruta lowered herself into the water. ‘Since we’ve been here, I’ve taken Iakopo to see all the important places of my childhood,’ Mautu said. ‘Lefatu has probably told Ruta about them already …’ As he talked Peleiupu floated, letting the cool grip of the water relax her. ‘Every place is made up of many layers of maps: physical maps imposed by different periods of settlement; historical maps of those people and periods; story maps; music and song maps; maps of suffering and joy and inspiration. My father knew most of the maps that are Fagaloto, and he told us about them …’ Peleiupu drifted into herself. ‘… Fagaloto is a small and unimportant place. But if you know its maps, it becomes a profound and complex place, a home in the present that contains all that was before. It is everything that was, is and will move with us until we die and we take different forms that will continue moving with the present …’
Peleiupu told Iakopo it was time to leave the pool. He rushed up to the bank, did another dive and skimmed past her. ‘Nobody’s been listening to me!’ Mautu complained.
‘You know that’s not true, Papa!’ Ruta replied. She came out of the water, put up his umbrella and handed it to him. ‘Let’s go home and you can rest.’
‘Then you can take us to that place, Papa,’ Iakopo reminded him.
‘Don’t you ever forget anything?’ Mautu joked, tossing his grandson the towel.
As they strolled home, with Mautu in the middle under his red umbrella, they took turns drying themselves with the one towel. ‘So you see,’ Mautu continued from where he’d left off at the pool, ‘this walk is a walk over, through and with all that was and still is.’
‘That’s too complicated an explanation of reality for me, Papa,’ Peleiupu teased him. ‘I run away from history and all those other maps.’
‘Yes, you confine yourself to the present, trading with it!’ Ruta parodied. Peleiupu was hurt by the truth of it. Since living in Fagaloto, Ruta had stripped away all but the essential about herself and her life. Whenever Peleiupu heaped gifts and material possessions on her she gave them away. An attentive listener who talked only when she had to, Ruta moved unelaborately, without embellishments or unnecessary gestures. ‘Papa, reality is one humorous story, isn’t it? A story about the Va-nimonimo giving birth to the Rocks and the Rocks mating with the Sea and begetting the …’ Ruta continued.
‘I’m hungry,’ Iakopo complained.
Mautu started guffawing. ‘Yes, nothing as real as the hungry belly!’ Peleiupu and Ruta laughed. Iakopo looked puzzled.
‘Or death, which nearly swallowed up all of us,’ Ruta whispered to Peleiupu. Before they entered the fale Lalaga chastised Mautu for keeping Iakopo out in the heat. She handed Iakopo a clean ie lavalava and told him to hurry up out of the sun. ‘What about me?’ Mautu complained. ‘He can take the sun, he’s young. My carcass can’t!’
‘You have a hide as thick as a buffalo’s!’ she replied.
‘What do you know about buffaloes?’ he quipped. She tossed him a dry ie lavalava and singlet.
‘When are we going?’ Iakopo asked him.
‘Going where?’ Lalaga asked.
‘Just to get some pineapples from Ruta’s plantation,’ Iakopo lied. Mautu had sworn them to secrecy.
‘You can come too, Lalaga,’ Mautu invited her. Peleiupu was surprised by that, but was glad her mother was to be included in what she anticipated was going to be a complex revelation.
Peleiupu and Ruta went to the other end of the fale and changed. ‘What do you think he’s talking about?’ Peleiupu asked Ruta.
‘I don’t know. I know most of the maps he’s talking about. Lefatu has taught them to me. So I’m really curious, too.’
Peleiupu was surprised when, instead of heading into the plantations and the rugged interior, Mautu started across the malae towards the eastern end of the village. The sun was still hidden behind the range, which was casting its shadow over the village. The track felt wet and gritty under her bare feet. Only a few chickens and pigs were about. Most fale were hunched in sleep, still. Past the church, Mautu turned to the track that led along the seashore, his right hand on Iakopo’s shoulder.
Ruta and Peleiupu walked on either side of their mother. Peleiupu could tell from the spring in her mother’s step that she was excited too. It was getting hot already, so she was relieved they were not going into the bush. The slight breeze wafting in from the sea smelt faintly of decaying coral and fresh salt, and she could tell from the feeling in her bones that the tide was coming in.
At the last fale, deserted since the epidemic and now collapsing around its centre post, Mautu turned left and took the track over lava into thick vegetation and Totoume Peninsula. Ruta and Lalaga hesitated. Peleiupu wanted to ask but didn’t. She couldn’t remember much about that time Lefatu had taken her and her sisters into the peninsula: most strongly she recalled the feeling of solemnity laced with fear, and Lefatu walking as if she hadn’t wanted to damage the ground she was walking on.
The peninsula, made up of massive lava outcrops, was now covered with thick bush and tangled undergrowth. No one had ever been allowed to cut any of it. ‘Why is he taking us there?’ Lalaga asked.
Ruta, who obviously knew the track well, entered it and the bush and, as she led, pushed aside the branches and shrubs, making it easier for their parents. It was dank and dark and thick with the smell of decaying leaves and vegetation. Soon they were wet from the dew, and Peleiupu’s ie lavalava felt like a second skin. Around them sounded the cooing of pigeons and the cries of manutagi, miti and segasegamo’u. Peleiupu peered up into the tangled canopy and glimpsed some of the birds.
The track got steeper, more broken and strewn with boulders and rocks. Peleiupu started panting audibly, and envied Ruta and her mother who were fit, unflustered, unbothered by the steepness and difficulty of navigating boulders, rocks and gigantic tree roots. As they climbed, Peleiupu looked back, glimpsing the sea and the edge of the seashore. The tide was well in.
At the top of the rise she leaned against the side of the trunk of a gigantic tamanu tree and sucked in air. ‘You all right?’ Ruta asked. Peleiupu nodded and noticed that Mautu and Iakopo had disappeared down the other side, which was free of trees and undergrowth. Palm trees had replaced the other vegetation.
Peleiupu followed Ruta and Lalaga down the slope, holding on to shrubs and rocks to stop her from slipping.
The palms thickened into a large grove where the air was dark and cool and hurt their lungs as they breathed it in. Then they were in the centre of the grove, a circular clearing with seven flat boulders spaced around its circumference. The floor of the clearing was covered with shredded white coral, black river pebbles and broken shells. Ahead on the centre boulder was seated Mautu, on the next boulder to his right, Iakopo. Niuafei, centre of the Atua Fatutapu, Peleiupu remembered. And she was suddenly tense, heart beating faster. She glanced at her mother who was obviously feeling the same.
Ruta walked into the clearing, her feet clicking over the loose covering. She stopped at the centre, turned and beckoned them to enter. Because Ruta looked so secure and safe, Peleiupu accepted her invitation and went to her. Lalaga followed. Walled in by palm trees, Peleiupu felt as if she were in the calm eye of a whirlpool.
‘You’ve looked after it well,’ Mautu congratulated Ruta who sat down on the boulder to his left.
‘It is easy to do because most of our people dare not come here,’ Ruta explained. Lalaga sat down beside Iakopo. Mautu patted the place beside him on his boulder. Peleiupu took that.
‘Ruta knows everything — well, almost everything — about Niuafei,’ Mautu said. ‘And I’ve spent this week telling Iakopo about it.’ He paused. ‘But there’s an important part of it that I’ve never revealed to any of you. Lefatu and I were sworn to secrecy by our mother and our father’s sister.’ He rose awkwardly to his feet. Pointing his walking stick at the lava outcrops under the towering trees at the eastern edge of the clearing, he moved off towards them.
The rays of the morning sun penetrated the vegetation and armoured him with a white luminosity. ‘Come on!’ he called. Ruta followed him. As Peleiupu followed, she found her son almost hugging her side. Lalaga stayed close to him.
At the clearing’s edge Mautu pushed his walking stick into the thick undergrowth and pushed some of it aside. Ruta wrenched the branches off, revealing a narrow coral-covered path up to and through the outcrops. As Peleiupu entered, the cloying smell of decaying vegetation and damp earth clogged her nostrils. Moths and gnats scattered into the air as they moved deeper into shadow and the long, sad, watching silence.
The path ended twenty paces in. Mautu stopped and pointed up into the gap between the lava outcrops. Ruta clambered up over the rocks and tangled tree roots, and stood between the outcrops. ‘Move forward four more paces,’ Mautu instructed her. She did so and was in the middle of the outcrops. She stretched out her arms and touched both sides. ‘What are you standing on?’
She squatted down and, with both hands, dug up the loose surface. ‘Soil and loose pebbles and coral,’ she replied.
‘Dig further down,’ he called. Iakopo broke from Peleiupu’s side and, scrambling up to Ruta, dug with her. Ruta and Iakopo held up handfuls of shattered coral. ‘That is the place!’ he declared.
Peleiupu joined Ruta and Iakopo and examined the floor between the outcrops. Just under the rich layer of decaying leaves and soil was a thick layer of coral turned bone-white by the rain leaching down through it. Lalaga joined them and helped clear off the covering until the whole coral layer was exposed to the brightening light.
When Peleiupu looked down at her father, he was gazing up at them, with tears streaming down his face. ‘That is where he is buried,’ he announced. Peleiupu didn’t understand. ‘My father, Tuifolau Molimau, is buried there. Has Lefatu ever told you that, Ruta?’ She shook her head. Peleiupu stepped off her grandfather’s grave.
‘But what about the grave with the other aiga graves by the faletele?’ Lalaga asked.
‘My mother’s grave there is genuine, but my father is buried here. He made my mother and his sister Folofa’i promise to bury him here overlooking the centre of Niuafei.’
They came down and sat around him. Ruta wiped away his tears. ‘They buried a coffin packed with sacks of sand beside the fale,’ he confessed. ‘My mother and Folofa’i took out his body at night when everyone was asleep, and hid it away until after his coffin was mourned and buried. Then, at night, they brought him here. They kept it a secret even from me — until the night before I went away to Salua to study for the ministry. Because I was ashamed of our pagan heritage, I didn’t tell anyone about it until now. I was also afraid of what would happen to me if I broke my promise to my mother.’ Lalaga edged closer to him. ‘I’m glad they buried him here, in the heart of our aiga of master navigators and Fatutapu. I’m glad.’
‘You’ve come home at last, Papa,’ Ruta consoled him.
Lalaga held his arm. ‘We’ve all come home,’ she said. ‘I’ve been so condemning, Mautu, of the so-called pagan past of our people.’
‘Ruta, in the short time left before we return to Satoa, I want you to school Iakopo in our ways and maps, which our Tuifolau ancestors devised to live our lives by,’ he instructed. ‘One day he will need those maps to guide him and his mother back to Niuafei.’ Suddenly Peleiupu was aware that even the birds were silent. Their dead were with them and they felt safe and complete. ‘Lalaga, I want you to promise …’
‘No, no!’ Lalaga denied him. ‘I know what you’re going to ask!’
‘Then you’d better leave us, so I can discuss it with my daughters,’ he said. She rose, stopped, and sat down again. ‘Lalaga, my beloved, you have been my star-map all our life together. I want you to help me return to the start of that map, to here.’ He pointed to his father’s grave. ‘I want you to promise that I will be buried here beside my father.’ Silence, long and demanding. ‘Ruta and Pele, you will devise a way to get me back here, secretly. Bury only my work and my life in Satoa, but bring my bones back to Niuafei and my aiga.’
‘Papa, I’ll help Mama do it!’ Iakopo promised.
‘I also want you to promise that when you find Arona, you must persuade him to return home …’ He stopped, unable to finish.
‘If he is dead, promise you will bring him home still,’ Lalaga finished his wish.
‘And bury him here, beside me,’ Mautu added.