Sister Conchita cut out the engine of her canoe. She had not been the first to arrive for the funeral of Papa Noah. Already there were several hundred canoes in the lagoon ahead of her, all lying motionless. The armada varied from simple dugouts with a single occupant to large, plank-built craft containing whole families. Apart from the occasional cry of a baby there was no sound on the water. The eyes of all the islanders were on a small collection of rocks rising ahead of them among the larger artificial islands.
A single narrow channel of water had been left between the massed canoes. Sister Conchita paddled down it towards the tiny island known as Foubebe, where she had been told that the burial of Papa Noah was to take place. She could see only three islanders already crowded together on the normally uninhabited patch of rock. It was a few yards across in diameter and consisted of nothing but a small thatched hutch that served as an Anglican church. Two of the waiting men were wearing loincloths. A third, older man was clad in a ceremonial grass skirt, with markings in white lime drawn across his face and body. He was squatting cross-legged on the hard ground, apparently in a trance.
The nun brought her canoe alongside. The islanders on the rock ignored her, but as far as Sister Conchita could make out, they did not look actively hostile. No one offered to help her up on to the island, so she tethered her canoe to an outcrop and scrambled up as best she could, greeting the others as she took her place among them. Although they were pressed together like seeds in a pomegranate, no one bothered to reply. On the far side of the artificial island Sister Conchita could see even more canoes in the lagoon, forming a huge shifting carpet of brown and grey on the water for as far as the eye could make out.
The creepers covering the entrance to the church were brushed clumsily aside and a plump, worried face peered out of the hut. After a pause, unwillingly a fourth man emerged. With something approaching relief, Sister Conchita recognized the latest arrival as Brother Baddeley, a local Anglican pastor who sometimes assisted Brother John in his local missionary duties. He was a small, tubby, inoffensive Guadalcanal man, wearing a tattered brown cassock and carrying a well-used Bible. He nodded to the sister, looked apprehensively at the other hulking Melanesians and in silence led the watchful group in single file round to the back of the church.
Behind the hut lay the body of Papa Noah. His torso had been wrapped in talo bark and sago palm leaves roughly in the shape of a fish, leaving only his head and face exposed. A rectangle of rock on the ground, about six feet in length, had been excavated and replaced with sand to a depth of three or four feet. A hole had been dug in this sand and the loosened material had been placed in a mound running along the sides of the grave. Effortlessly the two younger Melanesians lifted the emaciated corpse and placed it at the bottom of the newly formed cavity. Brother Baddeley looked uneasily at the man daubed with lime, who gave no sign of recognition. The Anglican missionary cleared his throat and began rattling through the burial service.
‘I am the resurrection and the life . . .’ he gabbled in an unnaturally high-pitched tone.
Somehow the squat Guadalcanal man stumbled through the ceremony, looking up often to glance fearfully at the three islanders on the compacted rocks. Sister Conchita wondered why he was so frightened of the other men. She could only conclude that the painted older one was a custom priest and his burly companions were two of his acolytes. It was accepted that most of the older Solomon Islanders and many of the younger ones followed a tortuous mixture of Christianity and traditional pagan ancestor worship, but she had never before witnessed a funeral service in which both faiths were represented officially at the same time.
Was that why Brother John had asked her to attend? Perhaps he was worried that without an expatriate present, the custom priest would have taken advantage of Brother Baddeley’s manifest timidity.
‘Blessed be the name of the Lord,’ the Melanesian Mission representative gibbered to a conclusion. Almost before the words were out of his mouth the custom priest had shouldered the inoffensive Guadalcanal man out of his way. He picked up a length of taba wood lying at his feet and placed it over the body of Papa Noah.
‘Noni diena,’ he cried in a piercing eldritch screech heard right across the lagoon, peering into the grave. A collective sigh went up from the distant canoes.
Sister Conchita edged closer to the still petrified Brother Baddeley. ‘What does that mean?’ she whispered.
‘He is welcoming the dead man to the pagan paradise,’ muttered the missionary. ‘He is telling him that he will soon be going in another canoe to another shore.’
‘I thought that was our line,’ said Sister Conchita disapprovingly, deciding that it was not her place to interfere, much as she disapproved of the form the strange ceremony seemed to be taking. This was one of Brother John’s churches; he should be here to maintain a seemly form of order of service on the island.
Taking his time, the custom priest stepped aside disdainfully. His two followers each picked up a large clam shell from a heap placed by the side of the grave and started shovelling sand from the piles along the side back into the hole. Brother Baddeley made the sign of the cross in the air before him, and ineffectually tried to help, using his bare hands to move the sand. Within minutes the grave had been filled in, without any substantial aid from the Anglican cleric. The custom priest shouldered Brother Baddeley aside again, and the Anglican minister stumbled and almost fell. Sister Conchita changed her mind about interfering. Impetuously she stepped forward to the side of the grave and intoned the Latin prayer for the dead. The words rang out over the lagoon in her small, clear voice:
‘De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine. Domine. Exaudi vocem meam.’
One of the large Melanesians started towards her, but the custom priest called him back. The old man stared hard at Sister Conchita. She met his gaze unflinchingly. God stay with me now; I know you will, she thought. The custom priest continued to regard her. A flicker of something shaded his rheumy eyes before he turned away. Surely it could not have been respect, thought the nun.
The custom priest leapt into a canoe, followed by the other two islanders, who picked up their paddles. Slowly the massed canoes began to disperse in the wake of the priest’s, their occupants paddling away in silence. Soon, as the logjam broke up, most of them were being propelled energetically across the lagoon back towards the main island. Only when the mourners were well away from the small artificial island did Brother Baddeley relax and take out a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his glistening face.
‘What was that all about?’ asked Sister Conchita.
Baddeley shuddered. ‘Bad magic,’ he said fervently. The rotund man was beginning to recover from his fright. ‘All finished now,’ he said.
‘But why were they here?’ asked Sister Conchita. ‘Did Brother John know that they were going to try to hijack the funeral?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Brother Baddeley. ‘That’s why he wanted you to be here. Brother John knew that even the custom priest would not harm a neena under the protection of Sergeant Kella.’
Sister Conchita was aware of a pang of annoyance. She had hoped that she had been invited to the ceremony in her own right, not because the ubiquitous policeman seemed to have taken her under his wing.
‘Sergeant Kella has bigger magic than the custom priest,’ said Baddeley slightly desperately, as if trying to convince himself. ‘Bigger than anybody.’
Sister Conchita looked at the newly filled-in grave. ‘What happens now?’ she asked. ‘Will Papa Noah’s body remain here?’
Brother Baddeley shook his head. ‘They call this the Big Man’s Island,’ he told her. ‘If a great chief or priest of any tribe or religion dies in Lau, he is buried here on Foubebe. His body lies in the sand for six months. Then it will be dug up. After that his wantoks may collect his bones and take them back to bury them in his own village.’
‘I can’t get over the number of mourners here this morning,’ marvelled Sister Conchita.
‘They were members of the Lau Church of the Blessed Ark,’ Baddeley told her, his plump, guileless face creased with worry lines. ‘They were representing many more. It was just becoming an important religion when Papa Noah was killed. It is all very vexatious!’
He shook Sister Conchita’s hand and walked back into the church. Sister Conchita turned towards her canoe. She lifted her eyes to the cloudless sky.
‘I never doubted for a moment,’ she said.