The Samurai Inheritance

XLIV

Kristian Anugu sat comfortably on the stairs of his longhouse, eyes as old as time staring at a present of which only he was aware. His hair was a frizzy helmet of tight-linked white curls and his sparse, stubbled beard and bushy, caterpillar eyebrows matched it. The eyes were a deep walnut, buried deep beneath hooded lids in furrows on either side of a broad, negroid nose and they had a mystic quality, full of shadows and secrets and ancient knowledge. At first sight he gave an impression of fragility — of brittle bone and tough gristle held together by skin the texture of worn parchment — but that was before you noticed the arms, which, for all his antiquity were well-muscled, and the hands. They were thick-fingered and powerful; strangler’s hands, Jamie thought for no reason. His only clothing was a kilt of brown material that covered his skinny legs as far as the knees, and his dark flesh was pitted and lined with old scars, each recording some long-healed wound or injury or brush with disfiguring disease. A length of frayed string hung round his wrinkled neck attached to what looked like a crumpled piece of lead. The longhouse was about twice the size of any other house in the village. Through the open doorway Jamie could see colourful ornaments and the intricately carved hollow wooden logs that he remembered from Magda’s museum as traditional Bougainville drums.

‘This is my grandfather, Kristian Anugu,’ Michael introduced the old man. ‘He is an elder of the Naasioi wantok, our tribe, or, more precisely, language group — and a very important person on the island.’

‘Please tell him I’m honoured to meet him.’ Jamie had no idea how to conduct what amounted to a negotiation in an entirely different language and culture from his own. Doug Stewart had planned to coach him on the march, but his induction had been taken over by events. Where experience was lacking, he reasoned, a pukka English gent would always fall back on cheerful good manners.

Kristian’s longhouse lay in the centre of a flat bowl between the jungle-covered mountains and, like the other houses scattered across the cleared ground, was surrounded by gardens planted with sweet potato, taro, vanilla, pineapple and banana. Close by were ordered groves of coconut palms and cocoa trees, the leaves fluttering gently in the warm breeze. After the heart-stopping terror of the ambush and the long trek carrying Doug Stewart, Jamie was almost overwhelmed by the soporific tranquillity of the place and he had to fight to keep his mind clear. Kristian Anugu listened to his grandson’s translation and nodded gravely, replying in a sonorous, low-pitched whisper that nonetheless conveyed great dignity, and in a language that sounded like the burbling of a mountain stream.

‘He welcomes you as a guest,’ Michael said. ‘He sees that you carry a great burden and have travelled far through darkness and danger to return it to the land of its origin. This thing, of his grandfather, was always destined to return to Papa’ala, which is the ancient name for our land. He says that the land is our mother, our lifeline and our protection.’ Kristian Anugu nodded sagely as if he understood the English words. ‘This has been forgotten but it is time for the restless spirits of the victims of the Fighting Time to have peace. Women own the land — everything you see here belongs to my mother — but it is men who must hold the land and protect it. His grandfather assures him that only once he has become part of the land again can the healing begin. He told him this when he was young and foolish, and it was only then that he understood the responsibilities of manhood. He has been waiting for this day since the time of the yelopelas.’

‘Ningan ko bananiai.’ The old man smiled, showing a mouth devoid of teeth.

‘He asks you to sit down beside him.’

Jamie accepted the invitation and Kristian said something to Michael that sounded like an order. The islander hesitated, his face twisted in an expression of what might have been foreboding, but he disappeared inside the hut. He returned after a few minutes with a large package wrapped in palm fronds, which he set beside his grandfather with the reverence of a man delivering a diplomatic gift.

Jamie reached for his rucksack, but Michael laid a hand on his arm. ‘There’s no hurry. He’s waited more than fifty years for this. He says to you this is not a business deal, but an exchange of gifts between friends. Before we begin, he will tell how he came to own the yelopela treasure.’

Jamie listened fascinated as Michael translated the tale of how Kristian, a young man in the prime of his life, had heard gunfire in the sky and seen a red streak across the jungle canopy ending in a great fireball. ‘He saw many planes fall after that, but this was the first,’ the Bougainvillean explained.

Kristian had noted the position of the crash with eyes long attuned to the confusion of the island’s jungle terrain. By the time he reached it he could hear the sounds of the yelopelas coming and he hid, watching the curious behaviour of the leader. When Jamie heard how the Japanese lieutenant had worshipped the yelopela king with the fine sword, he remembered what Doug Stewart had told him as they stood by the crashed American bomber. ‘Yamamoto,’ he whispered to himself. ‘The yelopela king must have been Admiral Yamamoto.’

‘At first he believed the treasure brought good fortune to him and his people. When the mine opened at Panguna and the white men came to the mountains with their measuring sticks, he began to have doubts. It was soon after that the disturbances and the killing began. My grandfather pitied his neighbours the Moroni, who lost everything and were forced to live with the salt-water people they despised, but they were not of our clan and it was none of his business. At first, we were left alone, then some white men from the mine came asking questions about a lost object he recognized as the yelopela treasure.’ A small crowd of curious curly haired children dressed in football tops or multicoloured cotton dresses gathered to see the visiting white man. Long hours playing in the sun had bleached blond highlights into their dark hair in contrast to the mothers who came to shoo them away and allow Michael to continue. ‘By now many island people had learned of Kristian Anugu’s powerful cargo and, though he denied any knowledge of it, the white men returned to press him. When he refused to give it up, they sent their Redskins to take it and he was forced to kill some of them, and retreat to the jungle where they dare not follow. For a few years he was left in peace, but later some faction of the BRA began to ask the same question. This time when he didn’t answer, they shot him from ambush.’ Sophisticated and well-educated or not Jamie noticed that Michael’s whole manner changed as he recounted the old man’s history. It was as if he had reverted to his childhood and Kristian was a figure of awe and power. ‘Fortunately, his grandfather protected him and he still wears the bullet as a charm. He had hidden the treasure where no man could find it, and by the time the fighters had stopped looking and burned the village, he had crawled to safety in the jungle.’ The black man hesitated. ‘What I don’t understand is how a briefcase from the Second World War suddenly became so interesting to everyone? As far as the clans were concerned it was just another piece of cargo with a certain amount of power. Kristian says he never told anyone about his grandfather or the yelopela king. Yet suddenly some white bloke puts two and two together and all hell breaks loose.’

‘Keith Devlin told me he was on Bougainville in the early days of the mine,’ Jamie said.

‘That still doesn’t explain—’

He was interrupted by what sounded like a question from Kristian just as Magda ran across from the radio hut. ‘The helicopter is on its way,’ she called out. ‘It will be here in thirty minutes.’

‘How’s Doug?’ Jamie asked.

‘He’s breathing more easily, but …’ She shrugged.

‘My grandfather would like to see his ancestor,’ Michael said.

Jamie unzipped the compartment of the rucksack feeling like a man about to jump out of a plane desperately trying to remember whether he’d tightened his parachute straps properly. He’d anticipated this moment with a mixture of fear and exhilaration, but there was no going back. Keith Devlin would get whatever it was he wanted from the Yamamoto exchange and unless Michael and his friends could stop him, he would get the island too. Yet it was accompanied by a sense of relief. He was freed of the burden he’d carried since Tokyo. Fiona and Lizzie would be safe, and he could forget he’d ever set foot on a place called Bougainville. Yet, looking at the faces of the three people who studied him so intently, he knew he was lying to himself. He would never forget Bougainville and if he didn’t do something about it, he would feel shame every time he heard Keith Devlin’s name. He drew the head from the bag and placed it gently in Kristian Anugu’s outstretched hand.

The old man closed his eyes and his thick fingers drifted across the frizzed hair and leathery features of the little coconut-sized ball of desiccated, withered flesh, the pink tips taking in the texture of every plane and every strand. A wave of emotions flowed across the weathered face and a tear left a silver trail through the stubble of one lined cheek. His chest began to pound as if some great energy was pulsing from the lifeless globe beneath his fingers.

‘Grandfather?’ Michael said.

‘Me’ekamui.’

‘He says, “God is Holy, the land is Holy, the flesh is Holy.”’

More words, but one was mentioned repeatedly: ‘Sipungeta’.

Jamie saw Michael shake his head, patently torn between disbelief and reverence, caught between the presence of his land, the knowing of his birth, and the logic of his upbringing and his education. Magda placed a hand on the islander’s arm and, eventually, he regained the composure to explain. ‘He says that from the ashes of the fire dance Papa’ala will rise again.’ The words seemed to catch in his throat. ‘The earth will swallow up the great obscenity that has been wrought upon it and the forest and the grass will cover the land again. Once more, the gardens of the Moroni will bloom upon the land that is rightfully theirs. The island of sorrow will again become the island of smiles.’

Kristian Anugu nodded in time to his grandson’s translation, staring into the gnarled, eyeless face that had once been his ancestor’s. Michael placed a large object in Jamie’s lap but the old man’s monologue had so mesmerized him that it wasn’t until it was in his grasp he realized it was the parcel the islander had brought from the longhouse. The banana leaves that wrapped the package were almost as old as the thing they concealed and they fell apart beneath his hands, turned to dust like the covers of a book that had been waiting a millennium to be opened. Without asking for consent he tore them away to reveal an old-fashioned leather briefcase with long straps and brass buckles made green by the damp climate. The thick hide was dried and cracked and had turned from brown to black over the years, but it was still solid enough to protect whatever it contained. But had the contents survived?

Jamie’s fingers hovered uncertainly over the straps. Keith Devlin would expect him to deliver the briefcase intact, but he’d given no direct instructions not to check the contents. Even if he had, it was before Jamie discovered Devlin’s true motives, and that knowledge changed everything. He looked up and found himself staring into Magda’s face. Her eyes shone with anticipation and she was holding her breath. They had to know, she was telling him, because without knowing how could they understand its significance to Keith Devlin and the tens of thousands of others whose futures were affected by his plans?

‘Open it.’ Michael had no doubts. ‘You owe it to my people.’

Jamie worked feverishly at the buckles, but the metal and the leather straps had fused into one mass.

‘Use this.’ The bearded islander leaned forward to hand him a Swiss army knife. Jamie opened it, resisting the temptation to use the blade to cut the straps, and instead worked it between the brass and the leather. It took minutes to free the first buckle, but the second came away more easily. He handed the knife back to Michael and released the clasp holding the flap. As he pulled it back the opened case released a draught of mildew-scented air that made him fear for what was inside. On closer inspection the contents consisted of two cardboard files that were close to disintegration but still each held two or three sheets of paper that remained remarkably well preserved. He removed a small aluminium flask from a side-pocket, along with a spectacle case and, more poignantly, a dark-haired female doll, six inches tall and dressed in a red kimono. Magda instinctively reached for the little figurine.

‘Someone’s daughter?’ she said. ‘It makes the owner of the briefcase suddenly seem much more human.’

Michael was less impressed. ‘What do the papers say?’ His voice was hard-edged in anticipation.

Jamie poked warily at the most prominent sheet. ‘It seems to be in decent shape for having been in there for so long. I suppose we don’t really have any choice, do we?’ He picked it up between two fingers and gingerly pulled the document free. It slipped clear without harm, thanks to the green mildew covering the coated surface. He cleared a small section and frowned at the long columns of unfamiliar script. He handed it to Magda. ‘Japanese or Chinese?’

‘Japanese,’ she confirmed breathlessly, reaching for the others. With a frown of concentration she rubbed away at the slimy coating and began to read. Jamie saw her eyes widen.

‘What is it?’

‘Let me read the others first,’ she said urgently.

Michael and Jamie craned over her as she studied each in turn. She shook her head. ‘It’s impossible.’

‘What does it say?’ Jamie repeated.

Magda spread her hands and there was a wildness, perhaps even fear, in her eyes. ‘Is the world ready to hear that Winston Churchill knew about the attack on Pearl Harbor a week before it happened?’