10

He went back to the village on a Saturday, crossing his own bridge and hiking happily along the familiar trail, sniffing in curiosity at a thick yellow sky. It was not Galani but another who greeted him silently at the edge of the forest and permitted him to pass, gesturing broadly with the machete. Morrison bore strange cargo: an empty rum bottle, ten gas lighters guaranteed at a hundred lights each, and fifty barbed fish-hooks with two hundred yards of nylon line.

Bawi once more said oooh and aaah, and this time the whole village came to see, thronging the dust before Dulani’s hut. Morrison smiled at Alalani, at Malani, at all of them. He asked Bawi to convey his hope that these things, too, would be shared. “Oh yis sor,” Bawi said. Morrison explained the lighters, but had no need to explain the fish-hooks, two of which were given immediately to boys. Bawi himself cut a few feet of line for each of them. Morrison taught him a fisherman’s knot; Bawi in turn taught the boys, who rehearsed it twice, gravely, before dashing to the river. And when Dulani had spoken, and Bawi had said much tank, all man much tank, Morrison said, “This come cross bridge,” and Bawi was thoughtful.

The village returned to work, and Dulani to his doze. Morrison knew by now that the chief was sick, deficient—blood? nervous system? The sight, or the thought, of blood and disease no longer roused loathing in Morrison, that too had receded, but Dulani was something else—a mystery that inspired not the diagnostic impulse but a prickly horror: the unknown, the hand of God. There was sharpness to a wound, finality in death; in Dulani there was only disease.

Morrison moved off, following Bawi in an aimless ramble through the village. With the machete Bawi pointed to a dog, brown, smooth-coated, blunt-muzzled, tongue lolling: “Dis one good. Much pig.”

Morrison was indifferent to dogs. “Bawi: you have big cats here?”

“Cats?”

“Mountain lion. Jaguar.”

“No, no,” Bawi said. “One time, hagwa. Long time back one hagwa. No come now.”

Can’t have everything, Morrison thought. Cross it off the list. Distinguished visitor like me, too; not one cat. Eminent—eminent—but he had forgotten the fancy word for cat-lover. Voices disappointment. Registers protest. The women were grinding cassava, and Alalani was among them, sitting awkwardly in the dust like a shiny leather doll, her legs wide and the wooden bowl between them tight against her belly, her round young breasts bobbing and swaying as she drove the stone pestle in its circular path. An older woman spoke; Alalani giggled. She was glossy, not a wrinkle. Near her drab birds like sparrows pecked at spillings. The glare of the day had diminished, the light was coarser; above him clouds strayed like lost sheep, and carrion crows flapped listlessly. Morrison too was listless; it was the shift of wind, the change of weather, that had driven him across the bridge a day early. Two little girls played a game with pebbles, squatting and intent; they did not smile as he passed.

“Rain come,” Bawi said.

“Last time you said thirty days,” Morrison chaffed.

Bawi caught his tone and grinned. “Come soon. Come soon.”

“Bawi: what does Lani mean?”

Bawi blinked. “Name all peep. Lani.”

“I know. But does it mean more than that? La means water. Are the Lani the people of the water?”

“Ah, ah! Yis sor!” Bawi clapped his hands in glee. “Long long time Lani place by wawda. By big wawda. Lani come here, come much day.” His hands said a hundred days.

“That many days to come here from the water.”

“Yis sor.”

They must once have been good fishermen, Morrison thought; and they have forgotten even that. “What is kinjo?”

Bawi was shocked. “You kinjo man.”

“White man?”

Now he was perplexed. “Yis sor. Whi’ man. Big whi’ man, kinjo. Big big whi’ man.”

“I don’t understand. You mean a tall man?” With his hand he explained.

“No no. Dis place Dulani big man. Whi’ man Dulani, kinjo.”

“I don’t understand.”

They walked together, Bawi’s head bowed. The sun was lower; Morrison had never seen the village softened by evening shadow. He felt almost cool.

“You come,” Bawi said. “Come Dulani.”

Dulani saw no bar to Bawi’s wish, but called certain elders to him. Bawi orated. Morrison understood nothing; only that Bawi sought a boon. The elders sat before Dulani in a semicircle, and murmured when Bawi paused. They wore loincloths and seemed rather sleepy, as though the call to duty had come at nap-time. One scratched himself incessantly. One glanced at the sky and grimaced. One was Malani, who beamed at Morrison.

“Bawi tell, you good man, you bring knife, you bring good ting, you … friend. Bawi tell, you come look kinjo. Dis man,” and he waved at the six elders, “say yis, say no.”

They said yis. Dulani rose, with difficulty but without help. He nodded slowly, seemed to forget why he had risen, and hobbled feebly to a corner of his hut. He unfolded what looked like a lap robe—a boar’s hide, Morrison guessed—and withdrew a cloth bag. He returned to his seat and Morrison saw that the bag was a simple cotton bag with a drawstring. He had once owned such a bag, and the memory of it was suddenly sharp. A rabbit’s foot, a flawed marble … thirty-five years. It had been a nuts-and-bolts bag and bore the name of a hardware store. He could smell the coarse cloth and the stain of oil.

The elders murmured again. In the manner of a myopic tailor Dulani loosed the drawstring and peered within. With finicking delicacy he inserted thumb and forefinger.

He withdrew a silver coin, and offered it to Morrison. Morrison leaned forward respectfully and accepted the coin with care and elegance.

They watched him in silence.

The coin was a shilling. The words stood bright, one shilling, and the date, 1940, and ringing the head this legend: GEORGIUS VI D:G:BR:OMN:REX.

King George.

“Ah,” he cried reverently. “Kinjo!”

Murmurs, smiles, a gracious, graceful, gratified turn of Bawi’s wrist, like some dandy Louis with a perfumed kerchief.

Dulani’s hand, supplicant and steady, awaited the coin; he bowed, owlish, restored the shilling to its reliquary, and dismissed his court.

Amid outcries and laughter the two boys paraded their perai; villagers chanted and clapped, and Bawi grinned his grin and rubbed their heads like any man. “Plenny eat,” he said. “Tami eat.”

“Yes. Thank you.” Morrison wondered: raw? No. Baked, in a ritual complexity of embers, the fish wrapped in broad leaves. The cooking was performed by one of the elders, and another delivered the benediction, an incantation, while Dulani rocked and swayed. Morrison asked Bawi what the man had said.

“He say, want much fish.”

“Did he give thanks?”

Bawi nodded. “Much tank big fish.”

“Thanks to who?”

“No no. No tank man. Tank big fish. All fish pop.”

He had thanked the father of all fish. That was reasonable. Send us more fat sons. The smell of the baking fish roused hunger in Morrison, fishy and woody at once. “Will we drink cassava booze?”

Bawi grinned.

The sun was low when they sat on the ground to eat. The perai was a flat monster, probably five pounds, eyeless now, and nine of them ate it: the six syndics and the boss and Bawi and Morrison. The booze was even stronger than Morrison had remembered, but all tastes were good now. He seemed to be thinking with his body and not his brain, using senses and not logic, feelings and not principles: what was, was. The fish filled the belly and the booze filled the head, and that was what mattered. Belches resounded, and small whoops of pleasure. Manioc patties went down like hot cakes, which come to think of it they were. Morrison offered compliments to the chef. His leaf was twice filled, his gourd never empty. Alalani served him; when she bent for his leaf, her breast caressed his arm, and his heart swelled, and he scrabbled for the gourd, needing a long swallow of corrective fire. He trembled. Long shadows purpled the dust, and beyond their circle the evening was still, only the cheerful call of a child and the murmuring breath of the village. As the sun set, Alalani returned and set mangoes before them, and Dulani made another short speech.

“Bawi,” Morrison asked later, “when I go back, can you give me cassava booze in this?” He tapped the rum bottle.

“Ooh.” Bawi was overwhelmed; joy suffused him. “Vairy fuckin good. Yis sor.” Morrison saw that he was happy to be able to give something, anything; and Morrison was touched.

The booze flowed endlessly. As the sun declined, so did Morrison, and with the last light he fell into a glazed, cheery stupor; he lay like a smile made flesh while the elders chatted and picked their teeth with fishbones.

“Dis man say bridge good,” Bawi said. “Bridge good. Good ting come.”

“My pleasure,” Morrison breathed. “Engineer Morrison. My card.”

Bawi contemplated him. “Tami sleep.”

“Good.” Morrison had drunk a pint of cassava booze, he guessed. “I find that I am unaccustomed to the vin du pays.”

But Bawi was chatting with the others again. Then he spoke: “Tami sleep kinjo hut.”

“Good.” The sooner the better. “Fitting. Eminent snoozer shares royal digs.”

“Tami talk much,” Bawi said appreciatively.

His pillow was the ancient haversack: stiff canvas and greening grommets, with no name or number. The dirt floor was hard but there was no choice; he directed a short prayer to the god of venomous snakes and spiders. Get me out of this alive and I will endow a herpetarium to the glory of the Great Bushmaster. He fizzed and gurgled pleasantly. A night on the town. His town. The old home town. The parable of the prodigal and the fatted perai.

Bawi unfurled a length of Portagee cloth: sheets, no less. In the last hush of light all he could see of Bawi was the grin. Bawi touched his shoulder and melted into the night. Morrison stripped and lay on his back wondering if he would awaken black, or a small child. The disappearing engineer. International scandal.

The frogs were noisy. They spoke several languages. Kekekek. Reep-reep-reep. Kachung. Kachung. Reep. And were answered from the forest: insects? birds? Kaark. Kaark. Tututu. Eee-eee. Kachung.

A light: he sat up, his heart thudding. It was Bawi with a lighter, and behind him Alalani, with a gourd. Water. She set it down and stared at his body. He felt exotic again, and knew that she wanted to touch him; a dull flicker in his loins answered the dull flicker of flame. He drew a long breath, and his heart thudded wilder. Oh God: this is the wrong thing to pray for but oh God. Bawi backed out of the hut, and left him blind. He heard her breathe.

She touched him then, and he shuddered, and the dull flicker became a leaping fire. He wanted to cry; no use, no use; but there was no need. He touched a shoulder, a full, hanging breast, the sweet swell of a hip, and he rose to her answering caress like the first man.

The rest of that night was delirium.

And what a sunny morning! He awoke laughing, alone, alive with relief. He drank from the gourd, and rushed to the stream for a wash; the village was long awake. Women snickered as he trotted by, and he laughed at them, and back at the kinjo hut he found a mango on his bed. Bawi joined him there, that silly grin splitting his silly face, and Morrison laughed again, slobbering mango juice onto his chest. Cock-of-the-walk. He quickened all morning to titters and nudges, and remembered a morning in his seventeenth year: do I look different? does it show? Bernard Morrison: what have you done? You man about town, you rascal and rake, you gay old dog!

When he left they came to see him off. All but Alalani. A taboo? They laughed and whooped, shouted and murmured, and in the presence of so many he was at first embarrassed. But even Dulani came to the edge of the village, and even Dulani was laughing, and it was a fatherly Dulani who placed the bottle in his hands and cackled contentedly, eh-eh-eh. At that, Morrison simply let go, and bellowed laughter; so they all let go, and peals of jubilation sent him on his way.