Euphoria

25

The morning began as the one before, with children scrambling in and out of her lap, and hand games and explosions of laughter. Bani brought me coffee and I worked at her typewriter. A few boys peered in through the netting. Chanta didn’t come but I thought more about my conversation with him and jotted down some questions for Teket when I returned.

All at once, far too early, Nell scooted everyone out of the house.

‘What’s going on?’ I called to her.

‘No mothers,’ she said. ‘No adult women today.’ She began packing her visiting bag. She was wearing the blue dress I’d first seen her in. ‘Something is going on. It happened last month and they wouldn’t let me in. I’m not going to be brushed off this time. I’ll be back at teatime.’ And she was gone.

By teatime Fen might be back, too.

I spent a few hours at their bookshelves and the piles of books around them. They had brought so many books, American novels I’d never heard of, ethnographies that had won prizes I didn’t know about, books by sociologists and psychologists with strange names from places like California and Texas. It was a whole universe I barely knew existed. They had a mound of magazines, too. I read about Roosevelt’s election and something called the Cyclotron, an atom-smasher that forced particles around in circles to accelerations of over a million electron volts, at which point they broke and formed a new kind of radium. I would have stayed in reading all day, but Kanup came round to ask if I wanted to go fishing.

I followed him down to the water. The sky was clear and the sun beat down, but the ground was pocked and shredded from the storm, littered with huge fronds and leaves, nuts and hard unripe fruits. We crunched through piles of debris to get to his boat on the beach. Many canoes were already on the water, paddled by men. I asked him why the men were fishing today, and not the women.

He smiled and said the women were busy. He seemed to want to imply more, but not say it. ‘The women are crazy today,’ he said.

We checked our nets and headed out. The Tam men were born and bred to be artisans: potters, painters, and mask makers. They were, I learned that afternoon, staggeringly poor fishermen. They argued and insulted one another. Their fingers ripped holes in the fragile fiber nets. They didn’t seem to understand how the traps worked. Their loud voices scared the fish. I had a good chuckle watching them, but all the while I was aware of the far side of the lake, dimly shimmering, from where at any moment my canoe would reappear.

I was glad when we got back to shore, eager for tea with Nell and what little time alone with her remained. But Kanup wanted to wash out the canoe, which he thought smelled of fish though he hadn’t caught anything, and plug up a small leak, so we went to get some gum sap from his house. I called up to Nell as we went by, but there was no answer.

When we returned to the beach she was standing ankle-deep in the water, both hands shielding her eyes, scouring the surface of the lake. Kanup was talking and she turned about and saw us. Her arms dropped to her sides.

‘They told me you’d left!’

‘Left?’

‘Yes. Chanta told me you’d gone off in a boat.’

‘I went fishing with Kanup.’

‘Oh, thank God.’ She grabbed me by my shirtsleeves. ‘I really thought you’d gone to find them.’

‘Bit late for that.’

Kanup had gone over to his canoe, but I did not follow to help him because Nell hadn’t let me go. She held on and examined the fabric of my plain white shirt. There was something different about her.

‘I thought you’d gone to Bett,’ she said.

‘Bett?’

‘Because she has a boat.’

I’d forgotten about Bett and her boat. And that I’d told Fen about her.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said laughing, though she seemed to be crying, too. She let go of my shirtsleeves and brushed at her face quickly. ‘I’ve had a very strange day, Bankson.’

I could not take my eyes off her. It was as if she were performing some trick, some sort of unfolding. There was something raw and exposed about her, as if many things had already happened between us, as if time had leapt ahead and we were already lovers. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Let’s go up to the house.’

I gave Kanup an apologetic shrug, which I wasn’t sure he understood. But nothing could have separated me from Nell at that moment. I took one last fearful glance at the horizon. Empty. A bit more time. I followed her closely up the path.

We didn’t have tea. She poured us whiskey, and we sat across from each other at the kitchen table. ‘I don’t know if you’ll believe me.’

‘Of course I will.’

She stood up. ‘Sorry, I think I should write it all up first.’ She went to her desk and slid a piece of paper into her typewriter. I waited for the rush of keys. Nothing. She came back and sat down at the table. ‘I think maybe I do need to tell you.’ She took a long sip of her whiskey. She had a lovely throat, unmarred by the tropics. When she put the glass down she looked at me directly.

‘If I tried to tell Fen this, he wouldn’t believe me. He’d say I’d made it up, or mis—’

‘Tell me, Nell.’

‘As soon as I turned up the women’s road, I felt it, the same queer stillness as that one other time when they kept me out. I went straight to the last house, where smoke was coming out of all three chimneys and all the windows were sealed tight. I pushed through the curtain before anyone could stop me and was struck in the face by hot stinky wet air, like a smelly steam house. I gagged and tried to stick my nose out the doorway for some air but Malun pulled me in and took my basket and told me it was the minyana and they’d all decided I could stay.’

The minyana. She hadn’t heard this word before, she told me. When her eyes adapted to the dark room, she made out round black slabs of something cooking in small amounts of water on pans in the hearths. The room was full of women, many more than usual, and no one was mending a line or weaving a basket or nursing a baby. There were no children at all. Some of the women tended the pans on the fire and others were lying on mats along all sides of the room. All at once the black slabs were flipped over. They made a great clatter. They were stones, smooth round stones cooking in flat earthen pans. The women then left the stones and came away from the fire, carrying small pots they had been warming. Each woman on a mat was paired with a woman at the fire. An old woman named Yepe led Nell to a mat. ‘I tried to get my notebook from my basket but she stopped me and made me lie down.’ Yepe squatted next to her and unfastened her dress clumsily, inexperienced with buttons. Then she dipped her hands into the pot. They came out thick and dripping with oil and she placed them on Nell’s neck and began a slow massage, working her way down her back slowly, kneading, her hands moving easily in the thick oil. ‘It was happening like this all down the rows of mats, the massages deepening, quickening, and the women — you have to understand, these women are hardworking and unpampered; the Tam men are the ones who have much more leisure, who sit around painting their pots and their bodies and gossiping — these women started grunting and groaning.’

Nell got up for the whiskey bottle, and when she came back she took the seat sideways to mine, filled our glasses, and put her feet on the rungs of my chair. ‘You’re sure you want me to go on?’

‘Quite sure.’

The massage became erotic. Yepe’s hands slid under her and cupped her breasts and rubbed her nipples with her thumb and moved to the buttocks and pushed the flesh hard up and down and pressed her fingers against the anus. The women on the mats were making a good deal of noise now, their bodies no longer passive but pushing up against the hands. Some of the women on the mats tried to reach between their legs or turn over but they were not allowed. Bo nun, someone said. Not yet. Yepe returned to her hearth and with a forked stick lifted steaming stones from the pans and placed them on a strip of bark cloth and brought them back. The women on the mats flipped over all at once. They cried out as the stones were rubbed with oil.

‘Well, you can probably imagine the rest,’ she said.

‘No, I can’t. I have an awful imagination.’

‘Yepe placed a stone here.’ She undid a few of the white front buttons of her blue dress and put my hand flat on her stomach. ‘And moved it in slow circles.’ Her skin was still oiled, still warm. I kept my circles small and slow on her taut belly, though I wanted to touch every bone, every patch of her. I wanted every part of her pressed against me.

‘Slowly, she pushed it up, up and along the collarbone.’ I did what she said and my hand, passing through, grazed her breasts (no brassiere today), which were fuller than I’d guessed, and traveled the ridge of her collarbone several times. ‘And down again, back and forth across the nipples.’ She watched me. I watched her. Our eyes had not lowered or shut. So often a woman’s pleasure felt to me a mystery, the slightest wisp of a thing you were meant to find, and she having no better idea of where to look than you did.

‘Then she turned the stone on its side and brought it down—’

I kissed her. Or, as Nell later claimed, I leapt at her. I could not touch enough of her at once. I don’t remember removing clothes, hers or mine, but we were naked and laughing at our groping and when she reached down and felt me she smiled and said it wasn’t quite a stone, but it would do.

‘Well, that’s a relief,’ she said as we lay stuck together, mottled in bugs and dirt.

‘Is it?’

‘Remember elephants in large boots?’

‘The ink blot?’

‘That was the sex card. You’re supposed to see something sexual. And you said elephants in large boots. It had me worried. Listen to that.’

Sounds came from every direction — the beach, the gardens, the fields behind the women’s road.

If I hadn’t understood, I might not have said it was human.

‘Lots of sex tonight,’ she said. ‘The men are a bit threatened by the stones, apparently. The night of the minyana they need to be reassured that their women still want them.’

‘Reassure away.’

We did not sleep that night. We moved to my mat and talked and pressed our bodies together. She told me the Tam believed that love grows in the stomach and that they went around clutching their bellies when their hearts were broken. ‘You are in my stomach’ was their most intimate expression of love.

We knew that Fen could return at any moment, but we did not mention it.

‘The Mumbanyo kill their twins,’ she told me close to morning, ‘because two babies meant two different lovers.’ It was the only time she alluded to him or her pregnancy.

We did not hear Bani come up. He must have been standing there awhile, trying at first to give our spirits time to return to our bodies, for when he did rouse us his voice was loud and fed up. ‘Nell-Nell!’ His lips were touching the thin ghostly netting. ‘Fen di lam,’ he said. ‘Mirba tun.’

She leapt up as if a snake had bitten her. Bani went back down the ladder. ‘He’s halfway across the lake.’

‘Bugger.’

‘Yes, bugga,’ she mimicked. I touched her back as she groped around for her dress, and she stopped and kissed me, and I felt, stupidly, that it would all be okay.

We needn’t have hurried. When we reached the shore the boat was still far off. We could have stayed in bed, made love one more time.

‘He’s cut the engine too soon.’ I knew I’d now find any fault with him I could. ‘It wouldn’t disturb anyone from all the way out there.’ He’d tried to sneak up on us, I suspected.

Nell was shielding her eyes with her hand, though it was not a bright morning. There seemed to be no sun at all in the low metal-colored sky. It wasn’t raining, but it felt like we were breathing water. I wanted her to reach for me, claim me, but she stood rigid as a meerkat, focused on the boat, still a blemish, coming slowly toward shore. I touched the back of her neck, the short hairs that had come loose from her plait. I felt as wide open and undefended as a man can be.

‘Please dear God don’t let him have that flute,’ Nell said.

The outlines of the figures in the boat sharpened: one seated in the stern, one standing amidships. But they were still so far away. I wanted to go back to bed with her and resented this standing and waiting I had to do before he took her back. And I resented Bani for stealing these last minutes from me, even though Fen might have found her lying in my arms.

Bani and a few other boys were farther down the beach, talking boisterously and laughing, reliving, I was sure, the night before, rehearsing their stories for Xambun.

Nell was squinting. She’d left her glasses behind. ‘What do you see?’ she asked. ‘They’re saying it was a good hunt. They’re saying they’ve got something big, a boar or a buck.’

For a few moments that’s what it looked like: a good hunt, an animal slumped over the bow of my thin canoe.

And then one of Bani’s friends let out a scream. And I saw what he saw.

The standing figure in the middle was not a man but a long thick pole, the paddling figure in the stern was Fen, and what had looked like an animal carcass was Xambun draped diagonally in the bow.

‘What is it, Andrew?’ Nell wailed. I think it was the only time she ever said my first name.

I wrapped her in my arms and told her quietly in her ear. Behind us the screaming began and never stopped. The sides of my canoe were streaked with blood. When the boat came close enough, Bani and the other boys waded out up to their necks to reach Xambun. They lifted his body up off the boat and carried it high in their arms toward land.

Fen was saying the same thing over and over: Fua nengaina fil. I didn’t know what it meant. There was splashing and wailing and Xambun was handed over to Malun, who had come running and shrieking onto the beach. She sank to the wet sand with her son, his blood no longer running and his skin the color of driftwood. Nell pulled away from me and went to her. She wrapped her arms around Malun, but Malun threw her off. She hollered and shook Xambun, tears, spit, and sweat coming off her as she moved, as if she believed that with enough force she could bend back the universe.

Fen squatted in the shallows beside Nell. His face was narrower than I remembered, a blade slicing the air, his forehead white but the rest stained with blood. His shirtfront was caked with it as well.

‘Fua nengaina fil,’ he cried out to them, as if he were still in the boat and they were hundreds of yards away. He spoke directly to Malun and tears cut pale lines through the dried blood on his face. Malun, when she registered him, screeched like an animal that had been bitten. With her two arms she shoved him away from her son’s body.

‘It wasn’t my fault, Nell. They ambushed us. Kolekamban ambushed us.’

I could see the arrow wounds: one in the temple, one in the chest. Clean, precise shots.

More and more people were coming onto the beach, encircling us, pressing in to see Xambun. I could barely breathe. From somewhere behind us a slit drum started up, awful, powerful, drawn-out knells loud enough for every person and spirit on the lake to hear. The sound shook through me.

I crouched next to Fen. ‘Did they see it was you?’ I said.

He lifted his mess of a face to me and seemed to break into a smile. ‘No! No one saw me. I was invisible.’ He turned to Nell. ‘I used the spell and I was invisible.’

But Nell was still trying to hold Malun, trying to reach her and comfort her in her hysteria.

‘Did they see you leave with the flute?’ I asked Fen.

‘They couldn’t see me. Only Xambun.’

‘If they saw you, they’ll come after you.’

‘They didn’t see me, Bankson. Nellie.’ He grabbed Nell’s face and turned it to his. ‘Nellie, I’m sorry.’ His head lurched and fell against her chest and he heaved up sobs that no one could hear in the chaos.

I broke out of the circle and fetched my boat, which had drifted downshore. I pulled it back toward the path that led to their house. The flute was wrapped in towels and tied up with the twine from Helen’s manuscript. It was as thick as a man’s thigh. I took it out then flipped the boat. Blood and water funneled out into the sand. I set it to rights, and as I straightened up I felt light-headed and sat down. All around me people had given over to grief, weeping and keening and singing in groups in the sand, the women’s skin still glistening with oil from the day before.

Several men I didn’t recognize, older men who had already covered themselves with funereal mud, approached the canoe. One examined the engine without touching it, keeping his distance in case it roared to life, but the other two went straight for the flute and began plucking at the twine.

Fen called out something and came running.

‘Jesus, Bankson, don’t let them touch it.’ He reached out for the tall bundle but the two men pulled it away. Fen lunged for it, seized it with one arm and shoved off the men with the other.

‘Be careful, Fen. Be very careful right now,’ I said quietly.

The largest man began asking questions, one after the other, urgent but precise. Fen answered solemnly. At one point he broke down, and seemed to be offering a long apology. The large man had no patience for this. He held up his hand then pointed to the flute. Fen told him no. He asked again and Fen said no more sharply, which put an end to the conversation.

After they walked away Fen said, ‘They want to bury the flute with Xambun.’

‘Seems the least you could do for them, given—’

‘Stick it in the ground to rot? After everything I went through?’

‘Now is not the time to upset them.’

‘Oh, is now not the time?’ he mimicked bitterly. ‘Are you an expert on my tribe, too?’

‘A man has been murdered, Fen.’

‘Just stay out of it, Bankson, all right? Will you do that for once?’ He lifted the flute and carried it awkwardly away.

The three men had moved down the beach to where a larger group of men gathered around the slit drum. But the drumming had stopped as the players listened to what the mud-painted men had to say.

I knew what was happening. They were all realizing that it had not been a hunt but a raid Fen had taken Xambun on, and that now Fen was unwilling to share the spoils with Xambun’s spirit. Without the flute, Xambun would be restless, would make trouble for them all. They had to get it. I could see it in their eyes. It was perhaps just the beginning of what they would need to avenge Xambun’s death.

I pushed my way back in to Nell.

Her eyes were shut. Malun was calmer and letting Nell stroke her back.

‘We need to go. We need to leave here now.’ I pressed my cheek to her temple, her hair against my lips. ‘We do. We need to go.’

Without opening her eyes, she said, ‘We can’t. Not now. Not like this.’

‘Listen to me.’ I took both her arms. ‘We need to get in my boat and go.’

She yanked herself out of my grip. ‘I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving her.’

‘It’s not safe, Nell. No one is safe.’

‘I know them. They won’t hurt us. They’re not like your Kiona.’

‘They want the flute.’

‘Let them have the flute.’

‘He’ll never give it to them, Nell. He’ll die before he does.’

‘We can’t go. These are my people.’ Her voice broke. She understood. She understood about their gods and amends — and Fen’s brutal possessiveness.

Her small face was smeared with blood and sand and she looked as if she’d never resented someone more than she resented me and my good sense. She resisted a little while longer then I guided her out and up the beach.

People were still streaming onto the sand from the road. I saw Chanta and Kanup and little Luquo, who was screaming for his brother. But no one stopped us. The men by the drums watched us move away but they did not come after us.

Fen was in a chair, the flute leaning up beside him. Nell went straight to her bedroom. He jumped up and followed her.

‘Don’t come in here.’

‘Nell, I need to tell you something.’

‘No.’

‘I talked to Abapenamo. They did give it to me. The flute was a gift. It’s rightfully mine.’

‘You think I care who owns it now? You got a man killed for it, Fen. Xambun is dead.’

‘I know, Nellie. I know.’ He slid to the ground and wrapped his arms around her legs.

A raw loathing coursed through me. ‘Get up, Fen,’ I said through the netting. ‘Pack your bags. We’re leaving.’

I got the canoe and brought it around to a smaller beach where they met me. We loaded it up with my suitcases, their duffels, and the small trunk. I’d found her specs by my mat and handed them to her when Fen wasn’t looking. She put them on without acknowledgment of anything else and turned back to the other beach, the entire village gathered there now.

‘Don’t call attention to anything,’ I said quietly. ‘Just get in the boat.’

Fen and his flute got in. ‘It’s out of petrol, you know,’ he said, as if that were my fault. ‘I had to paddle most of the way back.’

Good, I thought. Gave me more time with your wife.

‘I’ve another jug right here,’ I said. ‘You left it when you stole my boat.’

I affixed the petrol line to the new jug and gave it a pump. The motor turned over on the first try. A few small heads lifted and turned. Only the children playing in the water heard the sound of the engine.

‘Baya ban!’ little Amini hollered from the shallows.

Nell raised herself up and in a low cracked voice called out, ‘Baya ban!’

‘Baya ban!’

‘Baya ban!’ Nell called. I wanted to tell her to stop, but the men by the drums on the far side of the beach seemed not to hear her in the tumult.

Nell warbled out every long name of each child waving to her, complete with clan and maternal and paternal ancestor names, until her words gave out and her wailing became incoherent. The children waded deeper into the water as we pulled away and splashed madly at our boat, screaming out things I couldn’t understand.

Go. Go to your beautiful dances, your beautiful ceremonies. And we will bury our dead.

The sky seemed so low, so bleak. For a moment I lost my bearings entirely, and I wasn’t even sure where to point the boat, how to get back to the river. Then I remembered the canal between the hills and I pushed up the throttle and the motor drowned out all their voices. The canoe lifted, lurched, then skimmed fast across the black lake.

We flagged down a pinnace almost as soon as we reached the Sepik proper. It was a boat full of missionaries from Glasgow who planned to sprinkle themselves and their faith all over the region. I could see their hearty confidence falter as soon as they saw us.

‘Been through the wars, have ye?’ one of them managed, but they shrunk from us as soon as we climbed on board. Nor did we give them much opportunity for conversation, though one of them bought my canoe and engine for far more than they were worth. Nell tried to persuade me not to sell, to go directly back to the Kiona. But I was determined to go with them to Sydney, and I needed the money. While Fen was up talking to the driver about getting the rest of their stuff picked up, I told her I’d go as far as New York with her if she’d let me. She shut her eyes and Fen came back to his seat beside her before she had answered.