TEN

Is not give for while or take for while for give back,

Thing you is give or is take is get lost and then friend is go same way,

All this give and take is make man not so sharp for look after things.

But this most important: is not not talk tru for you self

And is then follow, like sun-down is be after sun-up

You is must talk tru for any other fella too.

THIS HAMLET IS be plenty damn hard, Managua told himself. He was starting to think it was not worth it. When he looked at the islanders they were like heedless children. The young ones ran around making fug-a-fug with everyone and everybody – and he wasn’t criticizing it, he had done the same when he was young, before he was married – they picked fruit, they fished, they settled down, had children, they died and then they returned to the kassa house. Those were the parameters of their lives and deaths.

They never thought about why they were here, they had no appreciation of the finer things the human mind was capable of, the part of man that could rise above food and kassa and the animal way one body fitted into another.

What he was attempting was so damned hard, he wondered if it was actually possible. Even if he had the meaning right, and he was not certain that he had, he wasn’t sure the islanders had the cultural references to understand Shakespeare’s world view. Even supposing that his translation of Polonius’s farewell speech to Laertes was accurate, what could it possibly convey to people who had no idea of their grown-up children going any further than a new hut next door? The longest anyone was ever separated from his parents was when he went fishing or on a pig hunt without them. A matter of a few hours. It didn’t require any homilies about how to treat your fellow man.

And all the stuff about borrowing and lending. The islanders had no real concept of personal possessions. If you asked an islander to lend you something the very idea would be so alien he would insist upon giving it to you. If you asked him for one fish, he was likely to press upon you two. If you asked him for a pubic leaf, he’d offer you his ceremonial skirt as well. For keeps. He wouldn’t expect to get it back. The very idea of asking someone to give you something and then insisting on returning it would be seen rather as an insult. As far as the islanders were concerned, everything had been put here for everyone to use. There was enough for them all. If at a particular moment you had something in your hands that someone else wanted or needed, and they had no yams to trade for it, why would you not give it to them?

But then, Hamlet was such a wonderful play that Managua longed to see it performed. The only trouble was that his version might so bowdlerize the ideas it contained as to render it, if not meaningless, then ordinary. It was possible that in converting it to an island version it might be unavoidable that he destroyed what had made it great in the first place.

Then there were some parts of it even he didn’t understand, in spite of all his reading. He would have to ask the gwanga about them; after all, the gwanga had actually seen Hamlet. There must be many things that were puzzling when you just read them in the Complete Shakespeare that would become clear when you saw the play performed.

Managua tossed his pencil angrily across the room. That damned gwanga! It was his fault that Managua had got so little done all morning, his fault that he could not concentrate, he realized that now when the image of the white man swam to the surface of his mind. He’d been there all day, lurking beneath his thoughts, tugging at him like the undertow at the landing beach, pulling him down from the nobler – the loftier – thoughts of Shakespeare.

Managua bent and picked up his leg and strapped it on. It was no good, he couldn’t work with all this on his mind. It was no use ignoring this Pilua business. If he didn’t do something about it, the gwanga would start asking around. Questions whose answers could lead to something that would destroy the island for ever. But what could he, Managua, do?

Perhaps he should consult Miss Lucy. After all, she understood how the islanders’ beliefs underpinned their whole way of life and had always gone out of her way to respect them, apart of course from the silly mistake she’d made over the business of the dresses, and then, of course, she had meant well.

Then again, if he asked her advice, would he not have to lay the whole damn thing out before her? What if she betrayed him to the gwanga? He did not think that she would, but who knew if she would feel obliged to side with another white person?

He would take a walk, maybe talk it over with Cordelia, if his wife wasn’t watching him too closely. Of course the pig couldn’t understand him, but he often found expressing his thoughts aloud to her helped him find out what they were.

Just as Managua was getting to his feet, or rather foot, Lamua came in. She had a guilty air about her and he knew at once that she had been looking for the pig. But she didn’t look guilty enough to make him think she’d found Cordelia and harmed her, so he didn’t bother to get into a big row about that. The important thing was that he not act suspiciously. It was bad enough this business with the pig, without adding Pilua to the problems between him and his wife.

Lamua began tidying his desk which Managua interpreted as a declaration of hostility because she was angry at not finding the pig. He declined the gauntlet and limped out.

He crossed the central space in front of the kassa hut and saw Tigua and her two she-boy pals larking about. They were playing some kind of game, trying to walk along an old log wearing those damn high heels Miss Lucy had given them. Tigua could do it easily, but the big girl, Lintoa, had a real problem. She was sowing and complaining about her feet hurting, which was not surprising when you thought she was wearing an old pair of Miss Lucy’s shoes. Even with new bigger straps they were still far too small.

Their silliness annoyed Managua. There were two old women in the village who had lost a foot and one who had lost both. The she-boys ought to be helping them, doing the things girls were supposed to do, cooking, cleaning, making clothes. But these young people today thought only of having fun. It used not to be this way.

He caught himself thinking this and told himself he was getting old and intolerant. He liked young people. He didn’t want to be one of those old folk who went on about how things were better when they were young. Besides, it probably wasn’t true. Nothing ever really changed on the island. It had always remained the same – despite the meddling of the British and the murderous impact of the Americans, both of which it had survived intact, well, almost, apart from his own leg and a few other missing limbs – and always would. Provided, of course, that he could stop this gwanga from interfering.

Tigua’s high-pitched giggle broke into his thoughts. She was one silly girl! He regretted having offered her the part of Ophelia, if and when his Hamlet was performed. He worried that she lacked the seriousness for the part. He didn’t see Ophelia as much of a giggler. Sussua was the prettiest of the three, but she was so shy you couldn’t give her a major role. And Lintoa would never impress anyone as a female lead. Lintoa was just too big. As it was she would have to play Gertrude, which in itself might stretch the audience’s credulity. It would be difficult to believe that Lintoa had got one man to marry her, let alone two – and one of them to murder the other for her into the bargain.

Looking at them now, Managua wondered, not for the first time, if he should have done Macbeth instead. They would have been perfect for the three weird sisters. Seeing them now in their Westerners’ dresses, with their susus strapped up in the devices underneath, tottering around on their high heels, he thought they were certainly weird all right.

Ah well! He would just have to work with what he’d got. It was no different from the way Shakespeare had done it. They didn’t have women actors in his day. All his female characters had been she-boys too.

He remembered he hadn’t asked Tigua to take the food for the gwanga to the Captain Cook and limped towards the she-boys. ‘Tigua!’ he shouted. It came out rather more angrily than he’d intended, but then the way the three of them were behaving was beyond tolerance and he knew it was Tigua who was the ringleader. She was the most imaginative and resourceful of the three.

Tigua twisted to see who had called and fell over because of the high heels. At the sight of Managua she removed them, pulled herself to her feet and hurried over, one hand behind her back, obviously holding and concealing the shoes.

Managua didn’t mention them. This was not the time to be getting into that; the three of them knew what he thought about the dresses.

‘I is want you is go take food for gwanga at Captain Cook,’ he said.

Tigua’s face brightened. A little with relief at the shoes being ignored by Managua for once, but mainly at her good fortune in being the one selected to go see the gwanga. Just wait till Lintoa found out.