A Dolphins Dream (23 page)

Said Jokatama, “Keli, we go make a fire and eat our lunch. Take a rest from the sea, eh.”

The boat drifted down the current while Jokatama collected the others, who climbed into the boat appearing not the least fatigued from their efforts. Sinaca sat high in the stern and Compton caught her eye and smiled. She returned it, then dropped her head. Jokatama, who stood next to her, caught the brief exchange and gave her a quick look of reproach.

The boat drew into a small cove without a coral shelf and was beached among ebony boulders that protruded up through blankets of starched-white sand. A large, black pot was brought out and filled with seawater and a fire was started. The women shucked clams at the water’s edge, working the knife inside and cutting deftly at the muscle, springing it open. The exquisitely patterned shells where thrown into the hot water and cooked and the meat pulled out and placed in the clam shell bowls. Matthew came and sat beside Compton and told him that the seashells would be kept and sold to the Indians who bought them for ten cents a pound. Compton was appalled at the profit margin, for he had seen similar shells selling at the airport for several dollars apiece. The reefs were being irreparably stripped of their beauty in exchange for a few pennies.

Gutted fish were placed on sticks and cooked over the open flame. Matthew brought Compton a fish stick and watched him pick away at the skin to get to the flesh. “Why youat part? All is good, eh.”

“Even the eyes?” asked Compton in jest.

“Eyes very good,“ replied Matthew, who grabbed his crotch in gesture.

Sinaca was busy and could not catch Compton’s repeated gaze. Near the end of the meal, after eating the boiled shell meat that went down in chewy balls, he managed to exchange a look with her that sucked his breath away. She was becoming more beautiful by the hour, equally unobtainable, and thus more desirable.

Jokatama approached Compton as the men finished their meal and the women were cleaning up. “We dive more, I take you back to the beach.”

Compton would have liked to have stayed and wondered what had caused Jokatama to alter plans that he believed included him. Something had happened but he couldn’t detect what it was. They filled the boat and dispatched the divers as they had in the morning. When Sinaca left, she avoided meeting Compton’s ill-disguised perusal, which continued as the boat drifted away.

When the last diver had left the boat, Jokatama motored back up the coast and Compton jumped out in knee-deep water. “Io vinaka,” he said. “Your divers are excellent. It was an honor for me to dive with them.”

This pleased Jokatama and he smiled broadly while turning the boat. “You come fish with us sometime again, Keli. Io vinaka.” He waved as the boat drifted down current and away from the beach. In the evening Moses arrived by way of boat in good spirits with a large bag slung over his shoulder. “Nigel at the resort bought the fish and paid two dollars a kilo. Sixty cents more than the Indian pays. The Sea God has been good to us, tonight we celebrate, eh. He produced from the bag three bowls, one larger than the other two, all made from the polished nut of the coconut, along with a three gallon plastic container filled with water.

“What have you got there?” asked Compton.

Moses grinned wickedly. “Tonight we honor the Sea God who feeds us. Tonight we drink kava. You have kava before?”

“Never had the pleasure,” said Compton grinning conspiratorially.

“Then you have a surprise tonight brother. Kava put you there good.”

“Isn’t it illegal, a narcotic?”

Moses shook his head, laughed and regained himself. “Yagon, the roots of the pepper tree. We pound ‘em up and mix with water. Drink ‘em up. Fijian custom to drink first and eat later.”

“Let’s do it!”

“Okay brother, have a seat.” Moses ceremoniously withdrew from the bag several handfuls of what appeared to be powered red clay. He carefully placed the kava in a threadbare dishtowel and closed it into a tight ball. Pouring water from the plastic container into the large wooden bowl, he dipped the cloth with the kava into the water and repeatedly squeezed the cloth, slowly turning the water a reddish brown color that became darker as he continued. Occasionally he would stop and, with a smaller bowl, dip into the liquid and pour from an exaggerated height, inspecting the color and usually adding more water. After twenty minutes of dipping, squeezing, and pouring, with nearly a gallon in the large bowl, he dipped the small cup again and handed it to Compton.

“You are the vulagi. The first drink is yours. Don’t sip, drink it all down in one swallow.”

Compton tilted the cup and gulped it down. It tasted unlike anything he had drunk before, slightly sweet, a bit like tea with a touch of earth. He lowered the cup and Moses softly clapped his hands twice saying what sounded like “mothay”. Compton handed him back the cup and Moses dipped and drank, downing it in a single gulp. He set the cup down and clapped again. “Good stuff, eh. This is the Fiji drink.”

Compton shrugged in non-commitment, his tongue and lips slightly tingling. “I had some visitors today. Jokatama came by in his boat and I went diving with the clan.”

“The Fiji divers are very good, eh.”

“They are incredible huntersomedon’t know how the hell they perform as well as they do without fins or a snorkel.”

“They are amazing, eh. They have nothing and they live in the water like a fish.”

“Maybe I’ll take one back with me to the States and teach him to dive with all the equipment,” teased Compton.

“Then what would become of him?”

“Fame and fortune. He’d be the best free dive spear fisherman in the world.”

“He already is,“ shrugged Moses. “Such a thing would make him forget that there are many divers in Fiji as good. It is better he stays humbled by the sea and doesn’t chase great deeds. The best diver in the village, Aprosa, is better because he has the tube and the fins. Everyone knows that.”

“Everyone except me.”

“You still finding out some things, eh. Did you spear fish and tease the sharks?”

“Yeah, but I was awful. It was difficult getting close to the fish. I had too much spear gun for the smaller fish.”

“There is big fish down there too, eh.”

“It’s not that easy. It takes time to understand the water. You have to know where the fish like to hole up, the position of the sun, the movement of the tide, current changes. There are many elements to consider and factor in.”

Moses laughed. “You already the expert, eh. I don’t think the Fiji diver knows about all these things. We better tell him. Fill his mind with the facts.” Moses shook with spasms of laughter but Compton was not amused and when Moses saw this he politely changed the subject. “Did you see the girl, Sinaca?”

“Yeah,” brightened Compton, “I did, but we could only look at each other once in awhile. We didn’t talk.”

“And what would you have talked about if you could?”
“I don’t know. It’s going to be difficult getting past her father. He keeps a close eye on her.”

“Be his friend, eh.” 

“It’s her brothers I worry about and I don’t even know who they are.”

“Show no fear. Once I was drinking in a bar in Suva talking to this pretty girl, jes’ having fun, when this glass come flying across the room and hit me right in the chest. A very big man, one that people knew as tough fighter, was standing there wanting to punch me up. I wasn’t afraid. I walked over to the barman and slammed my hand down and said the bartender, ‘See that man over there?’ and I pointed right at him. ‘You see him, I want to buy that man two beers.’ Later he came over and apologized. He thought I was trying to steal his girlfriend. When he knew I wasn’t afraid, he liked me. I became his friend, not his enemy.”

Moses filled Compton’s cup again and then his own.

“I wouldn’t have done that,“ said Compton. “Hell, I probably wouldn’t have been talking to the girl in the first place. In the States if somebody throws something, a fight starts. Or worse, a shooting. It’s becoming incredibly brutal over there.”

“It’s a brutal world. Full of thugs. I lost this tooth to three fellows who wanted my money. I didn’t have any and they punched me up anyway. Lost the goddamn tooth. I got a false tooth and when I fell down last year from the kava it came out in the dark. I think Vito’s dog ate it.”

Compton began to giggle.

“I can’t pay for another tooth.”

The giggles became belly laughs and Moses joined in with gut-wrenching howls.

“You know, Keli, that is the first time you have genuinely laughed. It’s important in such a brutal world to laugh, eh. The Fijian knows how to laugh, how to have a good time. They can forget their poorness and laugh at themselves and their relatives and their weakness. You know the Fiji jokes, the kerekere? We can do anything to our relations, play jokes, take anything that belongs to them. Mostly our first cousins and their children and our brothers and sisters in-law. They do the same, take anything that belongs without asking, no complaints. I have to give my watchto Mariah when I go to my brothers house so nobody take it.”

Moses poured fresh water, dipped and squeezed the kava cloth, filled a bowl for Compton, who drank it down.

“Do they just keep it? Your best shirt and shoes? Your boat? Your wife?”

“No woman, no boats, but everything else.”

“That doesn’t make sense. I don’t think it’s funny at all. It’s cruel. Why bother working hard and having nice things if someone can come along and claim it anytime they choose?”

“Why bother, eh,” said Moses, smiling at Compton’s bewilderment.

“Are you bullshitting me or is this really a Fijian custom?”

Moses appeared perplexed. “Do you think what I say is false?”
“Well, it is hard to believe.  What’s it called, kerekere?”

“That’s it. You ask for any favor and it must be given.”

“What sort of favor? There are all kinds of favors.”

“You know my cousin, James. He works for the airplanes on Taveuni. He checks the people in and out. My mother had to fly to Vana Levu for the doctor. She was very sick and the healer at the village say she needs something in the hospital. So I ask him to put her on the plane. It was filled all the way up with tourists. He say no, it’s impossible, so I kerekere him and even if it means he loses his job, he goes on the plane and take off a tourist and puts Mariah on. That is the way of kerekere.”

“Did he lose his job?”

“No, when the tourist got very mad and told the company at Nadi, James say that his first cousin had kerekere and the boss understood. He was a Fiji man. He knew it must be done, eh. Kerekere is so powerful that if it is not done, James could not survive the guilt.”

“I got to pee,” said Compton, rising to his feet. Moses squeezed the last of the kava into the bowl as Compton, whose urine had a light tingling sensation, peed into the sand at the foot of the sliding tide. He felt a definite slowing down, a tiredness in the muscles as though fatigued, but no sense of being drunk.

He returned as Moses was rising. “This kava is beginning to take its toll. I can feel it in my body. Tired.”

“That’s it, relax you,” said Moses, who walked up near the foot of the cliff and dumped the kava dregs. They then walked back down to the water’s edge.

“Why did you throw that stuff in the jungle?” asked Compton.  “You trying to get the land crabs high?”

Moses became solemn and spoke with a deliberation Compton seldom heard. “We never put the kava in the water, Keli. Not even on the sand where the tide might reach it. Very bad.”

“Why is that?”

They finished peeing in silence and returned to the kitchen table where Moses began to dip a fresh batch of kava. His body appeared stiff and he continued to look out into the darkness as though he were being watched. Compton didn’t know if this display was for effect or if it was unconscious.

“This is not for the vulagi to know. We are friends, eh. We share secrets. I tell you my life and you tell me your life, eh. We learn about the world.”

He dipped and squeezed the kava several times before continuing.

“The Sea God has the greatest power of all the gods. It is very dangerous and very kind. If a person goes to the water and asks a favor of the Sea God and gives it kava, he get what he asks, anything; to have food, to cure a sick person, to bring a child, anything all. Very powerful.”

“Could it bring me the Great Silver Fish?” asked Compton, mincing reverence.

“Of course. But you mustn’t think like that!” Moses spoke with such conviction that his body trembled and his eyes grew wide. Compton grinned stupidly, attempting to relieve the growing tension.

“It is not a laughing thing, Keli. The Sea God asks a favor in return and you must give it.” 

“What kind of favor?”

“A sacrifice.”

“You mean like a goat or something?”

Moses dipped the cup and gave it to Compton who drank it down. He then drew one for himself, clapped softly twice, said ”mothay,” and slugged it down.

“A human sacrifice,“ said Moses with such conviction it rendered Compton speechless.

After a long moment he gathered himself and asked, “What happens if a sacrifice isn’t offered?”

“The Sea God comes in your dreams every night until you go mad.”

Moses paused and dipped the cup again.

“Two years ago there was a man in the village whose wife was very sick. Everyone thought she was going to die. Even Dilolomo say the woman would die. One morning she was well again. Healthy as you, she was. After a month the man began screaming in the night, waking up half the village. They look in on him and he be full of sweat and very frightened. One night the man take his youngest daughter out in the boat and come back alone. His dreams stop after that.”

“That’s pretty serious.”

“He say she fall overboard but the village know what happen.”

“Does everyone believe in the Sea God or is it just something this particular village believes in?”

“Everyone believes. All islands, all villages. But they never speak of it, especially to the white people. That because the missionaries get very mad at the Sea God and make us feel ashamed. But the Sea God is stronger than their God. The Sea God lives in the water, eh. Their God lives in the sky. If I could fly then maybe I would be more worried about that God but everyday I’m in my boat, so I’m careful and don’t throw kava where the Sea God can have it.”