The Atua Man: A Novel

Larry clung to his ever-present satchel. As usual, Larry wore his long sleeve Tahitian print shirt, pith helmet and shorts. He made sure he had his introduction letter to the haka‘iki, or chief. He checked his video equipment in his bag. The younger crew brought with them their cameras, recorders, and sketch pads. It was very hot and still, and the kids wore only their bathing suits; Melanie’s was a small bikini.

On shore, Larry and his crew were greeted by two fully tattooed men, also wearing traditional loincloths. They escorted the crew of the Mata‘i inland, past the canoe sheds, across the grassy commons, with a tohua, a sacred dance space, at its center. The sides of the valley were steep and close, and they pinched into a gorge not far from shore. A rutted dirt road came through the gorge into the settlement. This was the first place Mata‘i had anchored that had no church, and the attitude was different, aboriginal. No one wore Western dress. The children were naked and the women bare breasted. Very few Westerners visited this valley.

It didn’t take long for Larry and his crew to reach the haka‘iki’s home. The wood-framed house stood on a tall paepae overlooking the village and had a large, thatched roof lanai in front. Four tattooed bodyguards made Larry and his crew wait outside the residence while the chief’s tuhunas, or priests, chanted a welcome to the aoes, or foreigners. When the chant finished the haka‘iki came out and greeted each of the visitors by pressing his forehead to theirs and exchanging breath. Larry gave the chief the message from Jacques at Hanamenu, and the haka‘iki invited the aoes into his house.

Larry and his crew sat on finely woven mats on the darkly polished wooden floor. Also, in the room were the elders from the settlement. A haka‘iki servant ladled kava from a large bowl into the guest’s cups. Kava was a native intoxicant made from the root of the ti plant. Melanie took a sip of the brown liquid and didn’t like the taste. The others politely sipped the drink. Larry and the elders talked in French, while Melanie recorded everything on her Walkman and noted her impressions, like a good reporter, on her steno pad. David busied himself sketching and tried to understand the French being spoken. Jason meditated without closing his eyes and looking obvious. He wanted to sense if there was some underlying atmosphere that the island shamans had created, like what had happened to him on Hiva Oa, that might affect him and what they were doing there. He felt nothing out of the ordinary. The elders, high priest, and keepers of the sacred rituals felt the atmosphere of Jason’s meditation. The most sensitive of the priests even saw an aura around him.

As the afternoon wore on, the people from the yacht drank more kava and ate the haka‘iki’s food. Two young women watched the aoe from behind a fretted screen. When Jason laid eyes upon them, their exotic beauty entranced him. David had a strange sensation come over him, too, one that he tried to dismiss. It felt evil and disturbed his sketching. He poked Jason to indicate he should stop looking at the girls.

“Those are my daughters,” said the haka‘iki in broken English, interrupting the story he was telling Larry. “They are in seclusion until the ceremony tonight.”

“They’re beautiful,” Jason murmured. His voice seemed distant as he took another sip of kava. David prodded him to pay attention. Jason turned his gaze to the haka‘iki. The chief had been fixated on Jason since he entered the room. He not only examined every part of Jason physically, but probed him mentally and psychically too. The elders had been doing the same thing and watched Jason slide from a self-assured introspection into the shadowy mental condition being created in preparation for the ritual.

At that moment, the haka‘iki brought the young people into the conversation. Larry translated the French and relayed that the ancient ceremony they were going to witness that night had almost been lost because of the oppression of the Catholic Church and the French military. “The priests saw everything in terms of sex. They banned dancing because it was lewd. They thought our dress was vulgar. They forbade men and women to bathe together in public. They believed tattooing was the work of the devil, and they outlawed drinking kava because it was an aphrodisiac.”

David looked at Jason, grinning, and flashed the shaka sign. He pushed aside his Baptist conditioning and embraced the atmosphere of the coming ritual.

“But Hakamaii was spared the plague of the Christians,” Larry went on, doing his best to keep up with the chief. “We were remote enough to keep the priests at bay. But without a church we were not allowed to mingle with the other communities and our village nearly died. Twenty-three years ago, Larry’s friend Jacques, saved us. He brought new people to the valley and fragments of our old chants. Our population began to grow, and people came to see our ceremonies. Now we are famous—or infamous; the old rituals are not accepted by all.”

Outside, at dusk, a bonfire was lit in the commons and the villagers began their feast. The crowd swirled around the tohua. People gorged on food—sweet succulent meats swimming in exotic syrups—as they searched for a place to sit and watch the ceremony. The haka‘iki’s men walked through the crowd ladling kava into the coconut bowls of the spectators. Torches gave off the only light, and young people, many who had traveled from other Hiva islands, poured through the gorge to join this most sacred festival. Everyone was adorned with flowers and greenery. And Larry filmed everything.

David stood watching the crowd and he couldn’t help feeling that what he saw was sinful. It was indulgent, hedonistic, and he grew uncomfortable with the vibe. Jason roamed around like he was at a cocktail party, looking very detached, like he was in a dream. The haka‘iki’s men gestured for David and Melanie to join the circle forming around the tohua. All of the Hiva boys wanted to touch Melanie’s white skin and she was forced to shove intoxicated young men off of her. She dropped her camera in her small, crossbody bag and found a seat next to David.

“I wish I’d put my T-shirt and shorts in here,” she said, placing her satchel between them. Jason staggered over to his shipmates and sat down next to Melanie. He had a full bowl of kava in his hands and a glazed look on his face. He was overly friendly, talking to the nearby native girls, who had no idea what he was saying, but laughed and talked back to him like they were old friends speaking the same language. Melanie turned away from Jason and held on to David.

“What’s gotten into Jason?” she asked.

A troupe of drummers strode onto the tohua and beat out a fast, ancient rhythm, grabbing everybody’s attention. Then twenty female dancers surged into the sacred circle. Bare breasted and wearing feathered crowns, they kicked up dust as they danced around the tohua, moving around the clusters of excited natives, enticing them with their sexuality. Grass skirts undulated as they followed the beat with their hips. The ‘upa‘upa—the fast gyrating of hips and abdomen—exploded in front of the spectators.

The rhythm changed and the women moved to one side as a line of male dancers entered the circle. The leader was covered in vines and thrust a spear out in front of him. He wove through the other dancers as if hunting, leading his men around the circle toward the women. In the line of men were two dancers who carried a boy tied to a pole as if he were a pig. As the hunters moved through the crowd, the women ran in mock terror until one girl, exceptionally beautiful, stepped in front of the leader and held up her arms. The drumming stopped and for a moment everything was still as the hunter and the girl stared at each other. Then she began a slow, seductive hip movement and lowered her arms in a beckoning fashion. The drummers picked up her rhythm and the hunter dropped his spear in surrender. The passion grew as the rest of the women who had fled returned and found men to seduce.

The dancers went through the moves of sexual foreplay and followed the drummers’ every rhythm until the drums stopped. The dancers stood in place, panting. The drums began again, and the dancers walked around the circle, men in one direction and women in the other. One woman stopped in front of David, grabbed his arm, and pulled him up. She placed her hands on David’s hips, showing him what to do. A sexy young guy pulled Melanie from the crowd and did the same; soon she was gyrating her hips in a figure eight to the rhythm of the drums. All around the circle dancers were pulling new people onto the tohua. The Hiva people knew the movements. The beauty who had danced with the hunter chose Jason. The beat picked up, and the dancing created clouds of dust.

Larry caught it all on film. He was zooming in on Melanie when her dance partner reached around her back and cut her bikini strap with a piece of shell. Melanie tried to hang on to her top, and at the same time, shove the boy away. Larry dropped his camera. He ran up to help Melanie, but the young Hiva man gave Larry a shoulder check that knocked Larry to the ground. Then the kid grabbed Melanie and pulled her from the circle. Larry charged the boy, seized him around the waist, and tore him away from Melanie, still desperately clinging to her top. David rushed over to help.

“We’re leaving. This is going to get ugly,” Larry put his arm around his daughter, protectively, as they shoved their way toward the landing. “Get Jason.”

David pushed his way back through the crowd to where he’d last seen Jason. Jason and the Hiva girl were gone. Dave struggled on through the mob, heading toward the far end of the tohua, toward the haka‘iki’s house. A Hiva boy, much larger than David, grabbed David from behind and pinned his arms to his side. The boy began kissing David on the neck. David struggled but couldn’t break the boy’s grip. At that moment, the girl he’d been dancing with staggered up to him and pulled down his shorts. She was naked. The boy let go of David and chased the girl, who ran away laughing, loving the game.

David took a step in the other direction but tripped over his shorts. Another girl ran over and jumped on him. They stumbled around in a cloud of groping kids. After a month at sea, David was aroused. The girl grabbed his cock and wanted to pull him on top of her right there. It was not the time, nor place, and David had to rescue Jason. Duty, and all his Baptist conditioning forced David to shove the girl away. She ran off and David pulled up his trunks and cinched them tight. He spotted Jason and the gorgeous dancer stride up the hill, leaving the commons. David ran after them. Before he could get close, however, two of the haka‘iki’s guards blocked his way. He yelled after his buddy, but Jason didn’t look back. The guards pushed David into the frenzied circle. A moment later he heard the air horn blaring from the landing. He reluctantly raced back to shore.

Larry had managed to get Melanie out of the circle and to the boat ramp. Protecting his daughter from handful of oversexed adolescents, he blew the horn again. He needed David there to bring the dinghy. David shoved his way through the crowd and moments later showed up.

“Where the fuck is Jason?” Larry shouted.

“I couldn’t get to him.”

“Forget him. Swim out to the boat and bring back the dinghy.”

Not again, David thought. “We can’t leave him.”

“You’ll never find him in that madness. He’s probably been taken away by now anyway.”

David just stood there, torn. Jason had been taken away.

“For the last time, Dave, we need a way out of here!” Larry said. “These people won’t take us back to the boat.

David looked at Melanie and she nodded for him to do as her father said. She was terrified.

David dove into the water. It was dark and the flickering light from the bonfire and torches danced over the waves. The drums grew louder, and he swam faster, feeling like Tommo in Melville’s novel Typee escaping from the cannibals. It was a long swim, with the surge taking him this way and that before he finally reached the boat.

On shore, the haka‘iki cornered Larry, and the boys bothering Melanie melted back into the circle. He begged Larry not to take Melanie from the ceremony. She wouldn’t be hurt. And besides, the wild melee was all part of the preparation for the sacred ritual that Jacques wanted Larry to film. But Larry was now enraged.

“It’s my fault, Melanie.” Larry held his daughter close, wary of the bodyguards gathering around the haka‘iki. “I should have asked more questions before I gave the haka‘iki that note.”

“What did the note say?”

“I’ll tell you later. Right now, we need our dinghy. Where the hell is David.”

David climbed on board Mata‘i and lowered the dinghy. He’d barely caught his breath as he lowered Mata‘i Iti over the side, unhooked the tackle, and started rowing back to shore. Then the drumming stopped. When he reached the boat ramp a squad of armed men had surrounded Larry and Melanie—native warriors gripping wooden spears. David could see nothing modern in that picture. The men looked like the savages Melville had described. David rode the back of a swell up the boat ramp and grounded the dinghy as close as he could get to Larry and Melanie. He jumped out as the water began to recede and held onto the painter, keeping the dinghy from drifting back out to sea.

“Turn it around,” Larry ordered.

David did as he was told and wondered why they weren’t all taken captive. Was the haka‘iki afraid of Larry?

“You’re making a big mistake,” Larry shouted, still speaking French. “That boy isn’t the one we thought he was. You’ll kill him and destroy any chance you have of reviving your culture.”

The haka‘iki was in Larry’s face as a phalanx of warriors closed in on them. “The elders and Tuhuna O’ono met him. They disagree. He is the one,” the haka‘iki shouted back at Larry. “You tested him. He meets all the requirements. He has the gifts.”

“He’s not Polynesian!” Larry argued.

“You said he was prepared. He knows the Kumulipo. He’s the best candidate we’ve ever had for the atua ritual. That’s why you came. Those were your orders from Hiva Oa.”

“Bring Jason back to our boat tonight, before it’s too late.”

“It’s already too late. Let your daughter and the boy stay. We will open their souls.”

David could tell from the shouting that Larry had used Jason in some cruel way. Larry had brought them to this primeval place, and now Jason would complete the ritual without Larry filming it.

Larry turned from the haka‘iki and stepped into his dinghy. One of the haka‘iki’s men handed Larry his camera. Larry helped Melanie into the dinghy, and on the next surge David pushed them out and rowed back to Mata‘i in the blackness of a moonless night.

As soon as they were on board the yacht, Larry brought out his guns, the Winchester and the Colt. He didn’t want to talk about their situation, but Melanie and David insisted on it.

David understood French better than Larry had realized, and he now confronted Larry with what had been said. “Jason was the chosen one? He was the best person for the atua ritual? The ritual that would kill him? You were planning Jason’s death!” Melanie was horrified. David grabbed Larry’s rifle from the cockpit and scampered aft to climb into the dinghy. “I’ll find him.”

Larry blocked his way. He grabbed the rifle with a speed and force David didn’t expect from an old man, popped out the magazine, and put it in his pocket. “Sit down.”

Melanie jumped up and stood next to David, facing down her father. “What were the other guns for? Are you hoping to start a revolution?”

Larry shrugged. He forgot how timid Melanie’s generation was. Don’t make waves; just take care of me. “How disappointing you two are. You have no idea what it costs to be free.”

“You can’t play with Jason’s life like this.”

“This is no game, Dave. Those people don’t care about us. Hell, they don’t even like us.”

David left the cockpit, grabbed his swim fins from the lazarette, and dove into the water. He looked up at Melanie, hoping she’d join him.

“You do this, and they will kill you.” Larry stood at the rail hoping to block his daughter from diving off the boat. “They will rape my daughter and keep raping her until she’s pregnant, and they’ll hold her hostage until she has a baby.”

David looked toward shore and dozens of men stood ready to launch their canoes. Behind them was a frenzy of lovemaking and shouting.

“This is insane,” Melanie cried. “We can’t leave him.”

“He’s already dead.” Larry moved to embrace his daughter.

Melanie let out a sob and pushed her father away. He grabbed a shroud to keep from falling overboard. He stared back to the shore and saw men carrying canoes to the boat ramp. “We need to get the anchor up without a sound. You two do that now.”

“Everything is a lie with you,” Melanie cried, beating on her father’s back. “You think you’re doing good. You think you’ve enabled J.J.’s rise to glory, or some such shit. Oh fuck. You’re an idiot!”

She crumpled onto the deck, hung over the rail and vomited.

David looked to shore. A growing fleet of canoes pointed toward them. Machetes flashed in the firelight. “Do they have guns?”

“I doubt it. Not from me, anyway,” Larry would not take his eyes off the natives.

David climbed back onboard and put his arm around Melanie. He’d never felt so trapped or useless in his life. “Maybe we can wait them out here. They wouldn’t come on the boat. We can see what happens in the morning.”

The drums began again, this time a threatening war rhythm. The frenzy was no longer lustful; it was dangerous. The men lining the shore began slapping their bodies and chanting a haka, something all Polynesian people did before attacking.

“I’m serious. Get the anchor onboard now. They can’t know we’re leaving, so no winch, no motor, no noise until we’re free.”

David and Melanie went forward pulling up the anchor hand over hand. Slowly Mata‘i moved to a position directly over the hook. Larry kept an eye on the shore. At the first sign of canoes being launched toward them he was prepared to fire up the diesel and take the boat out. But Melanie and David couldn’t pull the anchor off the bottom. It was stuck.

Larry quickly realized this. David slipped over the side, even though he was a poor diver. Melanie knew that he could not clear his ears and if he dove deeper than fifteen feet he’d be in great pain. Melanie started to slip over the side to help, but Larry grabbed her, holding her back.

“I said for Dave to free it. Melanie you stay on deck.” This order was in a whispered shout.

Things became more aggressive on shore; the warriors began pounding on their canoes with their paddles. It was a terrifying sound. On David’s first try he only got halfway to the bottom before his ears screeched. When David got back to the surface Larry said, “Be a man, Dave.”

David fantasized swimming ashore and hiding in the jungle and rescuing Jason—it’s better to lose your life for a friend, but there was Melanie looking over the rail at him. His second try got him closer and he could make out what was hanging up the anchor. On the third try, with his ears screaming in pain, he was able to pull one of the flukes out of a hole and untangle the chain from a large rock. He gave the anchor line a tug, to signal Melanie, and a few seconds later the anchor and chain were free.

He drifted to the surface, tasting blood in the back of his mouth and wondering if he’d ever hear again. Melanie secured the anchor. As soon as Larry saw David grab the gunwale, he started the motor. As David climbed on deck he glanced toward shore where the men began to push their canoes into the water. The first canoes hit the water with their outboard motors running. More canoes followed.

Larry put Mata‘i in gear and powered toward the open sea with the throttle wide open. The yacht was not nearly as fast as the canoes with the outboard motors, but they had a fifty-yard head start. Larry gave David the helm and went aft with his Winchester. He took the magazine from his pocket, shoved it into the rifle, and chambered a round. He braced himself on the backstay and aimed at the lead canoe.

Just as he was about to fire Melanie screamed and shoved his rifle toward the sky. “You are not going to kill anybody else!” The shot fired into the air and Larry shoved his daughter aside and took aim again. But the islanders had turned back.

Larry yelled at his daughter. “Don’t you ever interfere with what I’m doing. Ever!” He set the safety on the gun and returned to the cockpit, Melanie on his heels, yelling, “You tell me what was in that note now!”

After catching his breath and letting the adrenalin diminish, Larry spoke in a very measured manner. “Jacques told me that the people of Hakamaii were going to revive the ancient initiation ritual and that I should record it.” He paused. “That’s what was in the note I gave the chief. He told me not to be shocked, that it was just a reenactment.”

“You’re a fucking nutcase jeopardizing us like this! And for what?” said David standing at the helm.

“For the greater good! Jacques told me I’d understand when I saw the ritual.” Larry picked up the Colt from the cockpit seat and automatically popped the magazine and checked the ammunition. He shoved the clip back in the handle of the gun and shoved it into his pocket. This was so professional and so unthinking that David wondered what other secrets Larry had kept from them.

Melanie was outraged. “You knew this was going to happen to Jason?”

“I thought we were going to see a performance. That’s all. We thought we could help them restore their power, their mana. Perhaps that would have mitigated some of the damage done by our forefathers. I expect Jason will rise to the occasion.”

“You’re such a fucking liar.” David’s anger rose to where he was out of breath. “You said J.J. was not the one! You brought him down here for this, didn’t you? All that bullshit about J.J. calming the sea was just a ruse. You were covering something up! What?”

“You don’t have the consciousness to understand. I thought Jason did, but once we were out to sea, I knew that he didn’t. There are things these people can do that are mind-boggling. All the sex and stuff is meaningless. Granted, they want to expand the gene pool, but that’s easy. What the Hiva people truly want goes back to when the gods visited this planet. All spirituality comes from that source, and these people have a direct connection to it. I know that. If Jason really were the chosen one, these people would make him a new messiah, an atua man—if he survived the initiation. But I don’t think he is and there’s nothing I can do to save him. His fate is with the Tuhuna O’ono.”

Melanie screamed at the top of her lungs. She was no longer his daughter. She would bring charges of murder against him. Her mother was right; he ruined everything he touched. She warned him never to talk to her again. Larry grabbed the rifle and took his weapons below to his cabin. Melanie stood over the companionway shrieking at him as Larry closed the hatch.

David drove the Mata‘i straight out to sea, motoring at ten knots into a five-foot swell and traveling directly away from the valley. When Melanie had finished her rant, David asked her to take the helm. She did and he set the sails. When the sails were drawing, Melanie killed the motor. David went into the salon and studied the charts. He came back on deck and said, “Keep the island to the left and when we clear it, it’s due north to Taiohae.”

“I hope the fucking French Navy is there. They can save J.J. and then execute Larry.”

As Larry and the Mata‘i sailed away from Ua Pou, Jason and the dancer staggered up the east side of the valley with a horde of people, all intoxicated and full of lust. They entered a meadow ringed with ancient paepaes and towering breadfruit trees. Scattered around the meadow were woven mats for lovemaking. The Hiva girl striped off her headdress and leis and pressed her breasts against Jason’s bare chest. If she could have crawled under his skin, she would have.

Around them, other couples copulated while still standing. She removed Jason’s shorts and pushed him down on the nearest mat. Nothing but lust filled their minds. Jason would have this girl without a thought. Lillian was a world away, and his desire in the moment was all that mattered.

Before they could begin their lovemaking, however, the tuhuna O’ono, the sacred priest, and three of his acolytes separated the couple. This was not the person to receive Jason’s seed. The girl, terrified of the priests, fled. The priest put a drug-soaked cloth into Jason’s mouth, and he became limp. The holy men dragged him to a me‘ae at the edge of the meadow overlooking the sacred valley. Tapu sticks forbade any but the priests to enter.

Tiki images of the Hiva deities stood at the corners of the me‘ae. Atea, the father of the people, stood on one side of the altar, and Atanua, his wife, stood on the other. A wind blew over the open temple as the priest laid a listless Jason on a thick bed of smooth mats in the middle of the sacred space. Jason tried to get up, but the combination of the drug and kava semi-paralyzed him. The Tuhuna O’ono lit a brazier under the altar and in the soft light of the coals Jason saw ten girls sitting around the images of their gods. They were all naked. Some were just entering puberty.

The priest began chanting and one of the girls was brought to Jason. She began arousing him. While kava relaxes the body, and is a mild aphrodisiac, the Tuhuna O‘ono squeezed another potion into Jason’s mouth from a small sponge. It was a powerful sexual stimulant made from ginger type roots and tree bark. Jason was hard in a few seconds. The girl, at this point, took his penis into her and danced on top of him until she felt him ejaculate. The tuhuna’s assistants watched and pulled the girl away as soon as they knew she had his seed. Before Jason could collapse, the priest moistened his lips with the drug sodden sponge. By the time the acolytes brought over another girl, Jason was ready again.

Through the fog of the intoxicants and the rhythm of sex, Jason became aware of his primitive self. The pleasure of sex tied him to the physical and the chanting hypnotized him into believing he had a duty to perform for these people. Part of his mentality traveled through their Hiva myths, into the time of their gods, and he saw the Hiva path into the spiritual. It was filled with conflict. Heroes needed to be created to fight evil. Men needed to be infused with the power of the gods to vanquish the dark forces, the demons and devils that brought suffering to these people. But this was not his path.

Another part of his mind brought peace. It assured him that his soul, his true self was the same substance as the earth and sea and heavens above. Pleasure spread across the universe like waves rolling over an atoll. His inner grace knew no boundaries. It filled all space leaving no opposite, only one life, one love, one self. He felt the oneness of the others. He let It take over, until his mortal-self surrendered to infinite consciousness. He was without opposite or conflict, beyond myth, and entered a state of omnipresence. With all the power, conflict, and domination being inflected on him, he realized he was being raped. Yet he had to include the Hiva people in his prayer of spiritual oneness. He had to forgive their animalistic rituals. Forgiveness detached him from the physical and released him from the psychic connections being forced upon him. The more he let It take over, the less he struggled both mentally and physically. Without love there could be no physical bondage, and he felt no love. He held onto the knowledge that forgiveness would heal the terrible guilt to come and reveal the reality of who he truly was.

He had sex all night, impregnating eight of the highest caste girls in the valley.