The Navigator

This feast, they all agreed, was different from the other. The food was better for one thing; the liquor was two notches above the first fire-water. The company had improved too; more educated, more in tune with the times, which also were better because the land was yielding its fruits and the sea was now a measurable risk, and, come to think of it, for a mixed bag of nobodies, they hadn’t done too badly on Thorkild’s Island…That’s right, Chief! That’s what it was: Thorkild’s island – god-forgotten, man-forgotten in the ever-loving middle of nowhere!

At which high and clamorous point, Franz Harsanyi asserted himself. He wanted to deliver declaim and specify that if you didn’t have a Hungarian, you didn’t have a script; and without a script you could not impose a form on the material, the magma, the incandescent – see, he wasn’t drunk! – the incandescent lava of their lives. He, Franz Harsanyi, was Hungarian. He spoke, wrote, lived and breathed American, because his own language was unintelligible. He had learned Polynesian because what the American language expressed was an obscenity, from which they should all thank God to have escaped.

To celebrate that escape he, Franz Harsanyi, son of the puszta, had begun to write a poem, an epic, a saga of the castaways from the Frigate Bird. This saga he was about to recite, and would continue from feast to feast. Objections? None. He now sought the permission of the chief to present his humble – no, by Christ! – his noble work. Thank you Chief. With gratitude and good heart he would now begin. And if his colleague, Simon Cohen, cared to embellish the text with melody and rhythm, he would welcome it. If the people, the profane but beloved vulgus, would care to repeat the choruses, he would be happy to hear them.

‘Praise God,

Brothers and sisters,

Wives, sons and lovers!…

Once upon a time,

Long out of our time,

There was a man,

Who had a dream.

Men who have dreams

Are mad and dangerous.

They deny the great truths

Of news at twelve,

And commentary at one

And blah-blah-blah

And cornflake ads

And colonels chomping chicken,

Licking their fingers afterwards,

Because,

To lick a sticky finger

Is already, paradise!

Are you with me, brothers and sisters?

Brother, we’re with you!

This man – Professor yet! –

Haphaole nobody,

Said “Come with me!

Come sail away

And find this nowhere island.”

So we sailed.

He didn’t even own

The ship we sailed in;

Wrecked it, nonetheless,

And dumped us here,

On Thorkild’s Island.

Castaways together.

Oh God help us,

Brothers all and sisters all!

He mated us,

Berated us,

Put us together.

Pulled us apart,

Fought us,

Besought us,

Hammered and clamoured

And generally fraught us

And finally brought us –

To love and to cherish

– You like it or perish! –

This granular speck,

This great lump of dreck,

Dredged up from the drink

The bottomless sink,

Now let’s be specific

Of the goddam Pacific …

And nobody knows that we’re here!

God rot Gunnar Thorkild!’

There was more, pages more, he protested. But they dragged him down, and gagged him with a banana, and promised that they would hear him again – but not yet, Hungarian scribbler, not yet! Music they would have; and Simon Cohen played while they sang and danced. Then, when the songs had tailed away, Carl Magnusson rose, painfully, to his feet. Molly Kaapu held out her hand to steady him. He drew her up to stand beside him. Then he began:

‘I liked Franz Harsanyi’s poem. I once put twenty thousand dollars in a musical by a Hungarian. I lost the lot; but I had a wonderful time with his girl-friend who came from Bolivia! I’m sure Franz is a better writer and a better lover than he was!’ He let them laugh awhile and then hushed them with a gesture. ‘My dear friends – and you, Molly who are much more than a friend to me – I beg you to hear me out. I’m leaving you tonight. My friends, Gunnar Thorkild and Mister Mark Gilman are going to walk me out of here. We’re going to rest in your house, Willy, if you’ll allow us. At sunrise, we’re going up to the high place where Kaloni Kienga and his ancestors sit, looking out at the sea. I’m going to stay there and sleep quietly with great men until judgement day – whatever and wherever that may be. Before I go, I want to embrace each one of you, and tell you that because of you, because of the things we have done together, I go a happy man…Nothing in my life pleases me so much as this moment. Nothing you can do or say will give me so much joy as a last kiss, a last handshake – and no words at all. I am proud that it was my Frigate Bird that brought us here. I am proud that Mark Gilman who came, a child, is now almost a man. I am honoured that Gunnar Thorkild, who once came to me for help, is now my chief and will walk with me on this last journey. He will speak to you now. Then, I beg you, let us go quickly and quietly.’

They were all silent, caught in a syncope of grief and foreboding. Gunnar Thorkild rose in his place. It was the moment he had dreaded, the exalted, open moment when, with the right word, he could bind them to him forever and with the wrong one lose them utterly. He closed his eyes, gathering himself, a blind man stepping out into blackness. Then he flung out his arms in a hieratic gesture and his voice rolled out, solemn and sonorous over the assembly:

‘Carl Magnusson, our friend, is about to leave us. He wants no tears, no eulogy. We will respect his wishes. Like my grandfather and all the others on the high place, he passes out of our lives and into our common memory. I could not prepare you for this, because he had charged me to hold it secret until the final moment. Neither could I prepare you for another moment, another passing, which is now upon us…Stand up, Mark Gilman!’

The boy rose, slowly, and stood rigid before them, the light of the torches and the pit shining on his naked breast and shoulders.

‘Look well at this boy! You will never see him again; because, when he comes back to you he will be a man. You men will receive him into your fellowship. You women will acknowledge him, treat with him as you do with other men. Today, you saw him go out in a frail boat, to meet the great sea. You saw him bring it home, with its crew, safe through a dangerous passage. Tonight he goes out with me and with Carl Magnusson to the encounter that will make him a man. He will see life. He will see death. He will hear and he will recognize that which we call the voice of God – the rumbling at the deep foundation of all things. He is afraid now; but when he returns he will be at peace. You will wait for him here, all of you; and you will receive him with joy and with respect. This is the nature of life, my friends; a man – a great man – leaves us; a young man comes to us, with the seeds of greatness in him…Now, it is time to go!’

On the way to the terrace they spoke little. Carl Magnusson pressed on, eager and breathless, as though afraid that death might escape him before he recognized it. When Thorkild remonstrated the old man rebuffed him angrily. He knew his own heart-beat and the sound of the hammer in his skull; he would not waste himself on argument. By the time they reached Willy Kuhio’s hut he was tottering with exhaustion. When they laid him on the bed he collapsed silently into a deep sleep. Thorkild sat with him until his pulse steadied and his breathing became more regular, then he walked outside to join Mark Gilman.

The air was damp and heavy with scent of pikake and ginger flowers. The moonlight lay silver on the rows of plantation trees, sugar-cane, banana, papaya, and on the beds of wild pineapple and pepper plant and husk-tomatoes. In the shadows they could hear the grunting and scuffling of the penned animals, and the stirring of night birds in the jungle. The boy said:

‘Tonight, when you were making your speech, it was as if you were another man, older and bigger. Even your voice was different. The people were afraid of you. They drew back as you passed. They kept looking at you, behind your back. I thought about the story you told: Moses coming down from the mountain.’

‘Oh brother! At first I was so scared I wanted to jump overboard and swim home. Even the sharks seemed less dangerous than what I was doing. Then, suddenly, it was like switching on a light. I knew what to do. I knew that I knew. That was the big thing: I knew that I knew. After that everything was easy – even coming through the channel!… Oh, I meant to say, thank you. I was excited. I forgot.’

‘Do you still hear it? For instance, when you were speaking tonight, were you hearing it then?’

‘I don’t know either Mark…And that’s the terror of the high place, and the high man. Is it God he hears or the echo of his own mad shouting? There is a moment when he knows and he knows that he knows, as you did today. There are all the other moments when he does not know – but he still must speak and still must act, and bear the consequence until he dies…When I sent you out this morning, I knew it was a risk – a big one. Suppose you hadn’t made the channel and piled up on the reef. I would have been answerable to all the people for all your lives. What was I, when I sent you out, Mark? A vain teacher, showing off a star pupil – or a wise chief leading a son of the tribe to manhood?’

‘You will now, Mark…Let’s get some sleep. It’s only a few hours to sunrise.’

The walk to the crater rim was a long, slow, purgatory. Magnusson’s strength was failing, fast. Every hundred paces they had to stop and rest him – while he gulped down the thin air of the summit, and battled to control the spasms of coughing that threatened to tear him apart. More than once, Thorkild offered to carry him; but he refused. He would walk, every goddam step! He would die, by Christ! on his own two feet. When they came to the mouth of the tunnel, Thorkild propped him against the rock wall and gave him a mouthful of water from the gourd. He gagged and spat it out, then leaned back, trembling and gasping. Thorkild urged him desperately to hold on. Magnusson gave him a pale twisted grin.

They put his arms around their shoulders, heaved him off the rock face and half-dragged, half-carried him down the tunnel to the platform of the navigators. When the sunlight hit him he screamed in pure terror. He was blind – blind! They held him, rocking and writhing between them until he was calm again. They set him on his feet, and let him stand, alone. Thorkild said softly:

For a long moment, he stood there gazing out on the blazing immensity of sea and sky and the sea-birds wheeling through it. Then, it was as if a new life took possession of his aged body. He threw out his arms in a gesture of total embrace. He tossed back his white mane and shouted:

They caught him as he crumpled and carried him along the ledge, and sat him, cross-legged, upon the stone beside the skeleton of Kaloni Kienga the Navigator. Thorkild closed the dead eyes, folded the slack hands, and stepped back. Mark Gilman stood transfixed, staring at the dead man on his pedestal. Thorkild drew him forward, lifted his hand and laid it on Magnusson’s cheek.

The boy said nothing. He turned away and stood a long time staring out over the steep fall of the land, to the sun-drenched sea, and the empty sky beyond. Then, in a voice that was scarcely a whisper he said:

They walked side by side along the row of long-dead navigators. When they came to the last platform with its pile of yellowed bones, Thorkild stopped, picked up the weathered paddle and held it out to Mark Gilman.

‘The paddle with which he made his last journey…The symbol is that of the sea-god Kanaloa. Stick it in the sand outside your hut. It will remind you of what you are and what has happened to you today.’

Their home-coming was an anti-climax. The sea-board folk were busy about their own concerns. The uplanders were anxious to be gone. The impact of the night’s drama had dissipated itself. All the obits for Carl Magnusson had been spoken. Molly Kaapu had been comforted with tears and embraces. The decencies being thus disposed of, they must close ranks and begin again the consoling humdrum round of existence.

Mark Gilman planted the paddle outside his hut and then went out fishing with Tioto. Thorkild gave a brief dispassionate account of the last hours of Carl Magnusson, said goodbye to the guests, wrote his log and retired gratefully for an afternoon’s sleep. Just before sunset, Sally woke him and they went down, together, to swim in the lagoon.

She was tired of people, she told him, weary of their pin-prick demands, their incessant plaguing problems. She was sick of being eaten up and seeing him eaten up by hungry piranhas. So please! tonight they would eat alone; they would drink some of the whisky Carl had left; they would get a little drunk, go to bed early and make love and never once talk about anybody but themselves. To all of which Gunnar Thorkild said yea, amen, and if he could whistle her away for a week by herself, he would be the happiest man alive.

He made a big ceremony of their solitude. Ten yards from the hut, he printed a large sign in the sand: ‘Do Not Disturb!’ He built a fireplace of stones outside the door, commandeered half a bottle of whisky, two fish and a basket of fruit from the common stock, set out stools and a bamboo bench, and proceeded to prepare the meal himself. One or two hardy spirits wandered by, hoping for a chat, but he hunted them away. Couldn’t they read? For once, just once, he’d like to be left alone to entertain his wife!

The exercise, however, proved more difficult than he expected. Sally was more low-spirited than he had ever known her to be. She ate little. She had lost her taste for liquor. She laughed at one joke and lost interest in the rest. She was too tired to stay up; too restless to go to bed. She would like to make love; but later. She was sorry to be bitchy; but she couldn’t help it. No it wasn’t the curse, and it wasn’t her fault and it wasn’t his and – Oh hell! – it was all such a bloody, tearful, useless mess! Then the dam burst and it all spilled out:

‘… I feel so helpless; that’s all! I spent half my life training for medicine, and now what can I do? Nothing. I’m – I’m just a barber-surgeon, cupping and bleeding! I can’t even lay on hands, or minister to the mind diseased like you did last night…Oh love! Don’t try to con me! I knew what you were doing. I knew why. I thought it was the greatest performance I’d ever seen in my life; and I was ten times more jealous than if you’d hauled a woman away from the fire and laid her in front of my eyes! You don’t even know how to empty a bed-pan; but you’re the healer, not me! Can you imagine how that feels?’

‘Peter Lorillard. I examined him this afternoon. His throat’s raw with what looks like streptococcal infection. His lymph nodes are enlarged and he’s got a lump the size of a pigeon’s egg in his groin.’

‘It could. But there’s no way I can prove it without blood tests. Even if I could, it wouldn’t make any difference because I’ve got no drugs to treat him with. It might also mean that he’s got glandular fever, or quite possibly cancer.’

‘Oldest lie in the book. I substituted the symptom for the disease. He’s got swollen glands. I told him they’d probably clear up quickly.’

Afterwards, even that small joke turned sour. As he was caressing her breasts, his fingers encountered a hard lump. She moved his hand to another spot. He would not be put off. He asked:

‘All right! Possibly!… What difference does it make? If it gets better, fine!’

‘At my age, and without surgery, it means a quick development of secondaries and a negative prognosis…And before it gets too bad you, my dear lover, are going to walk me up that mountain and very quietly put me to sleep the way I showed you!… And if you weaken on me I’ll walk myself up and toss myself off the highest cliff I can find! Is that clear?’

‘The best surgeon in the best hospital. I’m going to get you home, if it’s the last goddam thing I do.’

‘Oh my love, don’t torment yourself. My way’s much easier – less messy too. I wish you hadn’t found out.’

‘It wouldn’t have made a scrap of difference. We’ll talk no more about it. Just hold me. Give me good dreams.’

When she lapsed finally into sleep, he eased himself away from her and went outside. The night was full of stars, low and tempting as fruit on a tree – dead sea fruit, dust and ashes in the mouth. He walked over to the spot where the great log was being slowly shaped and hollowed. Hernan Castillo stood leaning against it, chatting with Franz Harsanyi. Thorkild asked him casually enough:

‘It’s not the manpower – or the woman-power, Chief. We’ve got plenty of hands, but not enough effective tools to put in ’em. Stone axes don’t last like steel. The handles break; the bindings come off. Then I have to stop work and repair them. The two steel ones we have must be constantly honed…I’ve tried teaching Franz and some of the others how to make stone heads and blades, but they haven’t the knack. There’s another thing too. We’ve established a good rhythm now. If you break it you’ll find the work will go slower and not faster.’

‘What’s the hurry, anyway? We’ve got a perfectly serviceable craft out there. Why rush the big one and botch it?’

‘No rush, Hernan. It was just cracker-barrel chat…Franz, I didn’t have time last night to compliment you on your epic.’

‘That’s a nice safe promise,’ said Harsanyi with a laugh. ‘It leaves all your options open.’

‘Yes, doesn’t it?…Have you fellows handled the new boat yet?’ ‘Just round the lagoon. Why?’

‘The longer the better,’ said Franz Harsanyi. ‘After seeing young Gilman’s performance, I abdicated!’

‘From this, nobody abdicates,’ said Thorkild flatly. ‘I’ll be breathing down your neck in a few days.’

He left them groaning a duet of protest and walked over to the fire-pit where Molly Kaapu sat, alone, warming herself at the embers, swaying and crooning an old lament. He sat down beside her, took her big, work-hardened hand in his own, and began to talk to her in the old language.

‘Ai-ee! That breaks my heart Kaloni…Why did he go like that? Why didn’t he stay with me?’

‘Because he wanted you to remember him as a man – a high man! He didn’t want to be an old man, turning into a child again.’

‘I’m a lonely old woman Kaloni. Who needs Mother Molly now that he’s gone?’

‘Kaloni, when you got a shark on your tail, you got no time to think. You hit the first big wave and ride it into the beach. You hear me?’

‘You miss the wave; you have to turn and punch the shark on the nose. No other way.’

‘And to hell with you too, Molly Kaapu! Come on, you can’t sit here all night! I’ll walk you back to the hut.’

In the morning, early, while Sally was still sleeping, he left the camp and walked up the jungle trail to the terrace. When he got there he found Lorillard already at work, slashing out a new clearing on the far side of the plantation. Lorillard was surprised to see him:

‘Yes. I need to talk to you. I’d rather the others didn’t know about this for a while.’

‘Before I start, let me say something. You and I have always been at odds, Peter. I’m begging you now to forget all the past and help me if you can. Will you do that?’

‘Here it is then. Sally examined you yesterday. She gave you a bland diagnosis, because she’s helpless to do anything for you. It’s her opinion you may have filariasis – or as a long shot, something more serious.’

‘There’s more. Sally has a lump on her breast which could be a malignancy.’

‘Which they can’t get. So they’re forced to endure what can’t be cured.’

‘I’m afraid it isn’t that simple – at least for Sally. If it turns out that she has a malignancy, she’s asked me to kill her!’

‘I’m not surprised.’ Lorillard was very calm about it. ‘I’d probably do the same thing. To me it seems normal and logical; if the patient suffers unbelievable pain without any hope of relief, how can you refuse the mercy of death? If there is no case against you at law – and here there certainly isn’t – how can you possible reject the plea? This is one of those situations where conventional morality has no reference; and there’s certainly no room left for hypocrisy. I’m sorry if that sounds cold-blooded; but I’ve been toying with the same thought as Sally.’

‘I understand. From a personal point of view, I’m in no position to argue the proposition. From the point of view of this small society of ours, it raises some frightening consequences. Every one who falls terminally ill claims the same right of release from suffering. The rest are all doomed to become, at some future time, executioners.’

‘Or executors of a filial or social duty…You’re the traditionalist, Thorkild. I never thought to find you so squeamish.’

‘Which is the point I came to discuss. If there were a chance, a reasonable chance, to get you and Sally back to civilization for diagnosis and treatment, would you take it?’

‘Naturally…But the chance diminishes with every day. The big boat can’t be finished for months yet.’

‘No, wait! You think about it for a while. You’re a seaman. You’ve been through survival training. You know that, with sane and experienced people, the odds in favour of survival are pretty good. That craft is fast and it’s seaworthy. We’ve got a fairly accurate fix on our present position. We’re at most five hundred miles from the nearest inhabited atoll – east or west. Say you make a hundred and fifty miles a day – no, put it at the very lowest, a hundred. That’s a five-day journey at most. And once you’re up among the atolls you’re home free. The boat’s not too roomy but can carry food and water sufficient for four people. It’s not really such a stupendous undertaking…If you’re fit enough to work like a dog up here, you’re fit enough for a week’s sailing. So is Sally. If I gave you Mark, who is a good navigator and light to carry, and one more man, I think you’d have a much better than even chance. Once you got anywhere within shouting distance of a radio station you’d have the whole goddam Navy steaming out to pick you up.’

‘Then you and Sally wouldn’t be that much worse off. And we’d lose two men, who would have accepted the risk anyway.’

‘There’s a choice. Willy Kuhio, Adam Briggs, Tioto and myself. The rest you can forget. They lack the training and the sea sense for this kind of job.’

‘Two,’ said Lorillard with sober conviction. ‘The others would kill us, before they’d let you go.’

‘What have I got to lose? I’ll buy it. I wonder if you’ll be able to sell the others. Have you spoken to anyone else?’

‘No. You were the first. I’d like you to keep it to yourself until I give the word.’

‘Of course. I’ll give you a warning though. You take away two men, the women are going to have something to say about it; and with the doctor gone, and two babies on the way, they’re going to say more.’

‘I didn’t say there weren’t answers. I was just preparing you for the questions. You realize that you’ll have to come to an open debate on this.’

‘In that case, let’s get our debate over now. If we do mount this – this expedition, who commands it?’

Lorillard held out his hand. There was in his voice a note of regret and reluctant admiration.

‘A pity we didn’t learn to trust each other sooner. Still, that’s water over the dam! I’ll come down any time you need me. I wish you luck. You may have a bigger battle than you expect…’

His first and his longest battle was with Sally herself. It went on for two days and a night of tears, angers, endearments, arguments, counter arguments and finally outright rebellion. She would not go. They could carry her to the boat by main force; she would leap over-board rather than submit to this ignominious dismissal, this useless risk of four lives. There was no proof, no way to prove yet, that the growth was malignant. Lorillard was obviously ill – yes. He had chosen to go. Fine! He was a free agent; which was exactly what she, herself, demanded to be. And what about her duty to the community? There were two women coming to term, who would need all the skill she commanded. There would be infants to be nursed through the first dangerous months. More! How could she expect other married women to risk their husbands’ lives on her single behalf? The whole idea was monstrous. She would not entertain it an instant longer.

Was it more monstrous, Thorkild brought her back, time and again to the wintry argument, was it more unthinkable than to ask a lover, a husband to contemplate for months on end, an execution in cold blood, knowing all the while that a chance of salvation and cure had been thrown away? Which would she rather share with the group: the risks of an escape, or the long-drawn horror of a painful dissolution, that all would read as the paradigm of their own end?… Dilemma? Sure there was dilemma; and every single man and woman was impaled on the horns. If someone didn’t pull them off, they would all bleed to death…

There was one more solution, simple and trenchant. He, Gunnar Thorkild, would take the boat and sail, single-handed to Tubuai or the Austral Islands. This would put only one man at risk; and, for the grandson of Kaloni Kienga, the risk would be minimal. This, too, she rejected out of hand. It would leave the tribe without a head. Small as it was, it would disintegrate quickly into warring cells, because there was no one else strong enough to hold them together. He should not, he must not, discount the importance of his moral power; which was, in part, his own creation and, in part, an endowment from the people themselves. The moment he left, they would believe themselves betrayed. If he failed in his mission this anger would be turned on those who had caused it to be undertaken: Lorillard and herself. So, impasse again. Thorkild felt like a man drowning in a bath of feathers. He strode away in search of Adam Briggs.

Briggs, normally warm and forthcoming in discussion, declined this one altogether. When Thorkild pressed to know why, he explained with deliberate care:

‘… This is Charlie Kamakau, all over again; except, this time it’s much more complicated. Everyone has a special case to plead. Let’s start with something very simple: the boat. We all built it, we all own it. We use it for fishing, on which our food supply depends. If we give it up for a mercy mission, which may or may not succeed, our economy’s at risk again…Now, understand; this isn’t me, Adam Briggs, talking. This is the argument you’ll get – and it makes sense! Let’s go further. After a lot of trouble and blood, you’ve finally got a community that’s balanced off and settled down. That doesn’t mean that everyone’s whistling “Moonlight and Roses”; but they’re settled and rubbing along. You pull two men out; and, if they don’t come back, you’ve got two extra women. More trouble and more problems!…But – and this sounds rougher than I mean it to be – if Sally dies and Lorillard dies, there’s grief and loss, but still a balance. Now let’s talk about you. Deep down inside, we all know you’re the man who got us together and brought us here. If things go wrong, we’ve always got someone to blame…you! On the other hand, you’ve done great things – like Franz Harsanyi said in his poem, hammered us and bullied us and held us together like a lynch-pin holds a wheel. Pull out the lynch-pin and we spin into madness. It’d be like the Pope marrying a nun! I was brought up in that kind of madness, Chief. If you couldn’t blame it on the blacks, you’d pin it on the Jews or the Catholics…It’s the scapegoat principle; and the theory is that your back’s broad enough to carry us all…’ He broke off and gave a small, embarrassed laugh. ‘And after all that, will you still believe I bleed for Sally and you; and I’m sure as hell glad I don’t have to decide the issue.’

‘No, Chief. Don’t ever try it! This time you lay out all the cards face up, and let the people decide.’

‘I hope not Chief. But if they force you to it, the pleading had better be mighty eloquent.’

‘And you, Chief, and the other women! I don’t forget any of that. I just say that today’s a new day and I can’t bet on tomorrow because the horses aren’t posted yet.’

‘To ask you to nurse Sally when she gets sick, and knock her off when she can’t take any more!’

‘It’s the name of the game isn’t it? All dogs together in a dog’s world…See you around, Mister Briggs!’

Never in his life had he felt so resentful or so solitary. He went down to the beach, pushed out the boat, hoisted the sail and took it racing up and down the lagoon, in a frenzy of frustration and anger. He skirted the reef dangerously, slalomed through the coral heads, swung close inshore so that his bottom was inches off the sand, then out again, shouting and cursing at the top of his voice! A small group gathered on the beach to watch his antics. He ignored them. They would still be there, applauding the butchery, when Sally came to die and Lorillard and anyone else who could not tolerate the obscenity of the universe.

Carl Magnusson, you old pirate, I wish I were up there with you, looking down like the Gautama himself, on this spinning-wheel of creation. I wish I could talk to you now, Carl! I wish I could know what you know; see it plain; read it, calm and simple as a petroglyph…dancing figures on black volcanic stone. I’m going home Carl. I’m beaching this thing and going home, but what do I do when I get there? Carl, I searched all my life for this place. You helped me find it. I knew, the moment I saw it, breached the magic portal, it was my place. Now they’ve defiled it for me. What do I do?

His anger spent at last, he beached the boat and walked up to the cascade to refresh himself. He found Yoko Nagamuna kneeling by the spring, washing taro tubers in preparation for the evening meal. She was swollen now and moved awkwardly, like a comical doll. Thorkild walked into the pool and began helping her to wash the vegetables. He asked:

‘Not bad. The baby’s moving a lot. I’m retaining too much fluid, Sally says; but otherwise I’m O.K.…I’ll be glad when it’s over.’

‘Oh sure, he treats everything well – sticks, stones, people. He just doesn’t get excited about anything. Sometimes I could scream. He’s as methodical as a clock. All I hear is the ticking. Sometimes I wish he’d beat me or shout at me just to break the monotony!’

‘Don’t knock the placid life, sweetheart! It’s got a lot to recommend it.’

‘No way to keep secrets in this place, Chief. I heard Jenny and Adam quarrelling in their hut. Naturally I listened. That’s how I knew about Sally and what you want to do. You’ve got problems! Seems we may all have a problem.’

‘So, let’s talk about your part of it, Yoko…What do you think I should do?’

‘Oh no, Chief! Not that way! You come clean with me first! Are you canvassing votes, asking for advice, or counting heads?’

‘You know I never hit pregnant women or men with spectacles…I’ll rephrase the question. Two people need urgent medical attention. We want to get off the island. I want to mount an escape mission that involves risking their lives and two others, but which has a reasonable chance of success. Would you agree to it or not?’

‘I care for me, Chief. Just me!… If you’re around I’ll know there’s someone who will spare me half a thought sometimes. If you’re not, then I’m just a little Nisei girl with a baby she doesn’t want and a protector who’ll dump her the first chance he gets. Also, if your wife’s gone, there’ll be a little more of you to share among the rest of us…That’s my answer.’

‘I watched you out on the lagoon. You were like a crazy man. The others saw it too. They were worried you’d break the boat. I wasn’t. I just wondered what put the burr under your tail…Want to tell it to your little geisha? Or do you think I’d make mischief out of that too?’

‘For what?’ She tapped her swollen belly. ‘I’ve got all the mischief I can handle in there. What’s bothering you Chief?’

‘Two things Yoko. Sally refuses to go; and even if I manage to persuade her, I’m still in a jam. There are only three men I can count on to sail the boat with Lorillard: myself, Willy Kuhio, Adam Briggs. The fairest way to make the choice would be by drawing lots. Now, if I can’t go, that leaves two. And this morning Adam made it clear he wanted no part of it. I can’t understand why. I’ve always been closer to him than any of the other men; and he’d always told me the one thing he wanted to be was a great navigator…This morning, though, he was like a stranger. At the end there were hard words, harder still to unsay …’

‘You may not believe me.’ She was hesitant and subdued. ‘Then you’ll think I’m making more trouble…And I’m not, because I’m so damn tired; and I’m scared of having this baby; and I’m lonely because Hernan doesn’t care; and even if I deserve it, that’s hard to take now…’

She began to weep, in an odd whimpering way like a hurt puppy. Thorkild reached out to touch her. She drew away.

‘Don’t do that please! I’m messy and ugly and I don’t want pity or kindness. I know I’m a bitch. I always have been. But now I’d like a little loving for a change…Even Ellen’s kind of loving would do!’

‘Let’s share the crumbs!’ said Thorkild, with a grin. ‘Dry your eyes, geisha girl! Tell me how I fouled-up with Adam.’

‘Oh dear! It’s all so complicated – so goddam silly. And yet it’s not his fault …’

‘Well, in the first place, he knew you were Jenny’s big love. So long as you were there, he could get nowhere. You stepped back. It was like handing her to him on a plate. At first he was so much in love with her it didn’t matter. Now he’s had time to brood on it. Next, you started training young Mark Gilman, pushing Adam into second place. You’d promised, remember, to make him a great sailor like yourself …’

‘I told you. I heard the argument. Some of it was ugly. There’s something else too. When your grandfather was on board the Frigate Bird, he made some kind of prophecy that, one day, Jenny would bear a chief’s son!’

‘Jenny hasn’t. Whether she believed it or not, it became a sort of party-piece with her, like a school-girl’s first visit to a fortune-teller: the tall dark man in her life and all that. At first she and Adam made a joke of it; but the joke’s worn thin. So, today, when you talked to Adam and he saw that he might be chosen to go, and that Jenny would be left here on the island, and that you’d be without your wife…You see, it all adds up, doesn’t it?’

‘And you can’t, you mustn’t try to clear it up,’ said Yoko Nagamuna. ‘Just leave it there and hope it will go away. But for everyone’s sake you had to know…And believe me, please! That’s not mischief.’

‘That’s the trouble, Chief. You can’t bury anything. You plant it and it springs up one fine day – like armed men, or the trees that eat the temple. It’s a hard lesson; I’m afraid I learnt it too late in the day.’

There was another blow coming. The air was too still. To the east, the clouds were piling, into a black solid front. Already the sea was rising and the sea-birds flying home to their crannies on the high crater. It was the season, now, when the big ones built up: hurricanes that swept along Capricorn, clear to the coast of Queensland. There was no time now for arguments and recriminations. This was elemental danger. They had to secure themselves against it.

Thorkild hurried, shouting, about the camp. The boat, the canvas canoe and the raft must be hauled right to the upper edge of the camp. All tools and utensils must be stowed in the store-hut. The hot coals from the fire-pit should be collected in a pierced tin can and carried with dry firewood to a deep cranny in the rock-face. Food and drink should be collected for use during the storm. They would all shelter in the huts under the lee of the cliff, away from falling coconuts that would split their skulls, or trees that a great wind could uproot like match-sticks. If the huts went, they would take to the jungle and shelter with the folk on the terrace. Move, everybody! Move!

There was darkness first, as if a black pall had been laid over the land. Out of the darkness came lightning – great, jagged tongues licking down from the sky, and, an instant after, deafening thunder-claps whose echoes rolled over them like avenging chariots. Then the rain came, torrents of it, lashed and swept by the hurricane wind that spiralled around the solitary cone-shaped island in the middle of an empty sea.

The noise was deafening, the thunder, the relentless slam of the rain, the banshee howl of the wind, the pounding of the surf and the surge of the wash over the tide mark, and into the compound itself. Tall palms were uprooted bodily. Others were snapped clean in two. The unsheltered huts collapsed like card houses, their thatch torn off, their walls shredded. Those under the lee of the cliff fared a little better. Their frames held; but the roofs sagged and leaked and their matting walls were breached, drenching the occupants with icy water. The track to the terraces became a muddy torrent, scouring through the camp, littering it with jungle debris. The only thing that held firm was the great log which was to be their boat; but they watched anxiously hour after hour as the sea wash and the mountain torrents surged around it.

Long after night-fall the storm was still raging, as if it were anchored forever like Prometheus to the mountain. There was no lightning now, only the incessant wail of the wind and the beat of the rain, and the ominous surge of the sea. The huts were awash. They could not light fires or torches. They ate what they could hold down, and voided themselves in corners, and then huddled together for comfort against the whirling nightmare.

Then, slowly, the nightmare passed. The wind dropped; the rain ceased; and the moon showed pale and grim through the ragged curtain of clouds. They walked out, shin deep in water, to survey the damage. The big log was still there. The canoe was awash but intact. For the rest it was like the abomination of desolation. The store-house had collapsed and water was pouring through the ruins. Five huts had been totally destroyed. Their taro patch was a quagmire; and half the precious coconut trees had been uprooted or snapped. The whole beach was a welter of white foam. The compound was a swamp, covered with nameless refuse.

For a while no one said anything. Some of the women were weeping quietly. The men were too stunned even to curse. They waited for Thorkild to give them a lead. He was nowhere to be seen. It was as if he had been whirled away by the wind or swallowed by the sea. A few moments later they saw him, crawling like some bedraggled animal, from under the wreckage of the store-hut. He was carrying two bottles of bourbon, the last of Magnusson’s stock and a small can of diesel. He announced calmly:

‘First we have a drink. Then you girls bale out the hollow in the big canoe. We’ll use that for the fire-pit. Bring down the coals and the firewood from the rock. Scrape up what food is left and we’ll make something warm. Jump to it now! We start work at first light.’

The clear, bright dawn made a mockery of the ruin that surrounded them; but Thorkild gave them no time to bewail their misfortune. He sent Mark Gilman up the mountain to see how the terrace folk had fared and to solicit their help if they could spare it. Then, he harried his abject tribe like a slave driver. The standing huts must be drained, swept, thatched and walled. The stores must be salvaged, dried, re-stacked and placed under temporary cover. The compound must be cleared of litter, the fire-pit emptied and refuelled. Fallen coconuts must be collected and stacked. The canoe and the raft must be checked for damage and damaged lashings renewed. The ruined huts should be demolished. The logs of the fallen palms would be useful. They should be sized and stacked. Later they could be used to frame a stouter building…The fallen fronds would serve for thread and thatch…Someone should check the fish traps to see if any had survived. Later, when the lagoon calmed down, they should fish for their supper…He would brook no grumbling or complaints. The means of life were still to hand. Worse things happened in earthquakes and forest-fires.

At midday, Mark Gilman came back with Willy Kuhio and Simon Cohen. They brought meat, fresh fruit and news. On the plateau they had fared better. The mountain walls had sheltered them from the main force of the wind. The houses had held, although the roofs had leaked badly. The main damage was to the garden plots themselves where newly opened topsoil had been washed away. Lorillard was working, now, with the women, to replace the lost soil and stake up the young plants. Willy and Simon would stay down as long as they were needed. The early inhabitants must have known something; settling up there instead of on the beach. By nightfall the site was habitable again; although they would have to share sleeping quarters until the new huts were built.

‘And this time,’ said Thorkild grimly, ‘we’ll plan and build for permanence. It’s clear we’re going to be here for a long time yet.’

‘But I thought …’ Jenny blurted out the words and then stopped in mid-sentence. The others sat silent, attentive only to their food.

‘As I was saying,’ Thorkild went on calmly. ‘We’ll need to build more comfortably and permanently. The big boat will take a long time to finish. I did discuss with some of you – and it is clear that they have discussed it with others – the possibility of sending out the small boat, with a picked crew, to get our sick people back to civilization and send a rescue party for the rest of us. This project obviously does not recommend itself to you. My wife, for example, may be seriously ill; but she simply refuses to go, because she feels the community needs her, and she cannot take the responsibility for breaking up family groups. This is her decision. I disagree with it. I cannot change it. Peter Lorillard also is ailing; but without facilities neither an adequate diagnosis nor adequate treatment can be offered to him. He would be prepared to risk a rescue bid; but he would in no way insist on it. I, too, would be prepared to risk it, even single-handed; but it has been made clear to me that the community has claims on me which it is not prepared to waive. So, that question is closed; and we are back to our normal life here …’ No one spoke. He went on in the same detached fashion. ‘I’d suggest we floor the houses this time, frame them more strongly, make gable roofs with thicker thatch and provide more space for family groups. If it finally appears that Peter Lorillard is suffering from filariasis which is a parasitic disease carried by mosquitoes, then I am going to insist that we make different arrangements for farming the terrace. We’ll take short turns working up there, and then retire to the shore where the sea-breezes keep the mosquitoes away …’

‘May I ask a question, Chief?’ It was Ellen Ching who spoke, crisp and detached as always.

‘It’s for your wife. Sally, what is the prognosis for a case of filariasis?’

‘Prolonged exposure and continued deposit of the parasites causes permanent blocking of lymph glands and ultimately the swollen condition which is called elephantiasis. The patient becomes permanently debilitated and disabled.’

‘Thank you. A question for you, Chief. What are the chances of a small boat with a skilled crew making a safe arrival?’

‘Since we’re not all present,’ said Gunnar Thorkild firmly, ‘I don’t think we should discuss that question any further.’

‘I agree.’ Ellen Ching was precise and persistent. ‘But we do have a council appointed to represent our views to the chief and offer him advice. I think it’s time the council started doing its job…In these circumstances it’s shameful to expect one man to carry the can for all of us.’

‘We’ll co-opt another,’ said Ellen Ching. ‘And since all this can only embarrass Sally and the Chief I suggest we defer it until tomorrow. I’ll go up to the terrace and talk with Peter Lorillard and Martha. Then we’ll arrange a full meeting. Agreed?’

‘Hold it!’ Thorkild scrambled slowly to his feet. ‘Boys and girls, one and all. Let me tell you something. I’m tired! I’ve nursed your sick and buried your dead and showed you how to catch fish, build houses, eat, sleep and swing your partners. And now, I’m so damn tired, you could stop the world and toss me off and I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell. So now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to take a walk with my wife.’

He pulled Sally to her feet and left them, shocked and gape-mouthed, staring at each other across the fire-pit.

They walked down to the far end of the beach, picking their way cautiously over fallen trees and torn palm fronds and tangled roots and all the detritus of the storm. They found a dry rock and perched themselves on it, looking out over the waste of white water to the scatter of stars and galaxies. Sally said lightly:

‘So you tell me what’s fair, sweetheart! They’ll sleep dry and fed tonight because I drove ’em! They’ll talk their heads off because I made sure they’d have leisure to do it, while I’m too damned tired even to spit.’

‘If we’d been out at sea, you and I, in the small boat, would we have survived?’

‘Want it? No. Send you, yes. Because you’d still have a chance, a ticket in the lottery. Stay here and you’ve got no hope, no chance at all.’

‘Is that what you’re afraid of Gunnar? Would you rather it were the sea that sent me off, than you, my lover, my husband? Would that be easier for you?’

‘No. One way I’d know you had left, loving me. The other, even if you survived and were cured, I’d never be sure. You might hate me for the rest of my days; but still …’

‘You were such a light man once. I loved you that way. Now, I hardly seem to know you.’

‘But suppose I want the other way; the easy, quiet way, the pin-prick while I sleep and the long, quiet darkness. What then? You gave Carl what he wanted. Would you refuse it to me?’

‘You refused it to Charlie Kamakau. You said, and I remember it very clearly, “I won’t do it because I swore to cure, not to harm.”’

‘Because, don’t you see, we’re one person…It may never happen. All I want to know is that if it does, we’re agreed. Then I can live quietly and happily – very happily, my love! Gunnar, why are you fighting me so hard on this point?’

‘First, because you’re excluding all other possibilities; and I think that’s wrong.’

‘Then we’re two people again, not one. Second reason: what you’re asking me to do has consequences for everyone else. Long consequences. I can’t measure them all; but I can’t commit to them as lightly as you think.’

‘I don’t care about other people. It’s me! My life! My body that suffers!’

‘And when you are gone, my sweet – however you go – I am still here, people are still here, and the law and custom they live by still obtains. Look! If there is no other way of sparing you intolerable suffering, then, for me and for them a different situation exists. The essence of the act hasn’t changed; but the circumstances and the consequences have. The decision is ad hoc, made under extremity. This way it’s a clear collusion; it’s precedent; it says, “Yes, a killing is arranged. Other killings can be arranged.” Don’t you see the enormity of that?’

‘All I can see…’ Her voice was like a winter wind, cold and distant. ‘I’ve asked you to promise me an act of love, if and when I need it. You’ve refused.’

‘I’ve offered you a chance of life. You’ve refused it. You make death a test of love!’

‘Sorry, I can’t oblige you.’ Even in this extremity, he found still a hint of humour. ‘We’ve twelve people in four huts. You’ll have the women for company.’

As they passed the fire-pit he fell back to say goodnight to Molly Kaapu who was still there chatting to Ellen Ching and Franz Harsanyi. Molly gave him a long, searching look and asked, in the old language:

‘We saved some whisky for you,’ said Ellen Ching. ‘You look as though you need it!’

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