Dead Reckoning (8 page)

The preacher then told a story that went on for some time. I scanned the faces. No one made a sound. When the preacher stopped talking everyone looked to the door. An explosion followed causing a banner to unfurl from the ceiling. To the delight of the crowd, it came down backwards and upside down. The Marshallese words written on the other side were barely visible through the fabric. Everyone laughed. This remained a distraction for some time among the parishioners, especially the children, whose attention could only be drawn from the banner with much prodding. Even well after the event, people nudged their neighbors, pointed to the sign, and recounted what had happened—as if the neighbor had somehow since forgotten. I watched one man scowl and nod impatiently, annoyed at his neighbor for telling him that which he already knew.

Everyone clapped as music began and the dancers in white streamed into the church. As they entered, the dancers performed a routine that consisted of a forward shuffle followed by a slightly shorter backward shuffle. At the pace of three steps forward and two steps back, it took them the better part of ten minutes to assemble entirely in the church. In unison, the performers shouted a word and stomped their feet, which signaled the end of the song.

I became very hot and began to perspire, but I knew that leaving in the middle of a performance, especially a sacred one as this appeared to be, would be offensive nearly anywhere. I thought it better to try to leave than to pass out, so I attempted to extricate myself from the church without drawing attention. But as does naturally occur in those situations, I bumped into a small planter
that refused to give way quietly. No one looked at me but rather remained fixed on the performers, as if afraid to look away lest they miss the very thing for which they waited. I managed to withdraw to an exterior foyer that gave me a different angle from which to search and also provided access to a light breeze. Hot air moving is always better than hot air standing still.

I was now seated in the front row of a posterior section where the faithful with less dependably quiet children and those wishing to freely come and go were seated. In front of me was a walkway between the sections. Children skittered up and down aisle to the disapproving looks of adults. The ancillary activity provided an interesting diversion since I had no idea what was going on.

I stood out in the crowd, and nearly every child who passed looked at me curiously. Some smiled, some frowned, and some looked away feigning ambivalence, as I looked at them. I decided that children are the same in every culture.

Suddenly, the performers broke into a more vigorous dance and song. I could not understand the song, but it was obviously well known as many of the onlookers sang along. Separated by sex, men on one side, and women on the other, the performers danced in unison. The men made a rowing motion as they danced and sang. At periodic intervals, they shouted a word at which point the women stopped dancing and swooned while the crowd laughed. This performance continued until the group made three complete circles around the church.

For all I knew, perhaps Denver was among the performers. So I sat through a few songs and observed.

For the next performance, the sexes intermingled. It was a much more somber sounding song, and no one laughed. The sea of white swayed to and fro, singing in unison, acting like a single organism, much like a school of fish. Two rows of people shuffled slowly in one direction while a single row of men moved swiftly between them in the opposite direction, much like a current on
the open sea opposes the water surrounding it. Denver was not among the people.

A girl of not more than sixteen walked in front of me, carrying one infant child with three others of increasing age in tow. The youngest child ignored me, but the two older boys held up a hand for me to slap as they went by. I obliged, and they smiled. Another girl saw this and began to walk my way. She stared at me as she approached but began to look apprehensive as she drew nearer. I considered that my squinting in the bright light might have made me look angry, so I forced a smile. She sat down next to me and tapped my hand as one’s own child might when wishing to ask a question in a quiet place.

She was no more than eight years old and dressed in a thin yellow dress with white flowers printed on it. She wore only flip flops on her feet, but she was clean, and her hair was tied up with a bow. Her teeth were unusually white and straight, although she was too young to have had braces.

“Do you live on Kwaj?” she asked, in perfect English.

“Yes I do.”

“Why?”

“Because I work there, so I have to live there.”

“My daddy works on Kwaj, but they won’t let him live there.”

“Hmm,” was the only response I could manage.

“Why?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I replied.

She got up and walked back to where she had been sitting. I felt a sudden pang of sadness that my new friend had already left—a sort of regret that I now had no one to talk to and, once again, stood out as the American with no friends.

She picked up her backpack and came back and sat down next to me again. Relieved, I smiled.

“Do you understand Marshallese?” she asked.

“No.”

“Why are you sitting here if you don’t know what they are saying?”

“I was looking for a friend. I thought I might find him here.”

“Who is your friend?”

“Denver. Do you know him?”

“Yes. He does not go to this church. Do you want me to tell you what they are saying? What these dances mean?”

“Please,” I said, curious to find out why such an elaborate ceremony took place on a Wednesday.

“Today is Gospel Day,” she informed me. “This is our celebration of when the missionaries brought the Bible and Christianity to the Marshall Islands.”

She proceeded to explain each of three consecutive dances to me. One was about the importance of community, another about the significance of fishing, and yet another was a tribute to the wind, swells, and currents that provided them with abundance. The girl spoke so rapidly that I couldn’t get a word in.

Just as I began to grow impatient, she asked me if I wanted her to show me to Denver’s church.

“Shouldn’t you stay here with your family?” I said. “Just tell me the way.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Aren’t your parents here?”

“No. My uncle and auntie are here. My parents go to another church.”

I didn’t bother to continue the line of questioning.

I followed her out of the church and up the street to Ocean Road. We walked a quarter mile to a large, two-story, blue, cinderblock building. A courtyard on the north side of the building held a basketball court enclosed by chain link fence. I heard music inside.

She led me through a side door, and into a foyer next to the large room in which services were being conducted. We walked to the entrance to the room and looked in. Everyone turned to look. Denver, seated across the room, smiled and gave me the standard Marshallese upward head nod and got up to make his way over. Several men suddenly noticed Denver’s importance and patted him on the back as he passed. He smiled and nodded to the men as if to confirm that he was indeed, suddenly, very important.

I thanked the girl and offered her a dollar for her trouble. She initially refused but acquiesced, possibly in embarrassment, as nearby children looked jealously at her, then me, then the dollar, then her again.

“Yokwe, my friend!” Denver exclaimed with great excitement.

I turned to say good bye to the girl, but she was gone.

“Who was that girl?” I asked.

“A cousin,” replied Denver. “Do you want something to drink?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Why are you here, Matt?”

“I need a favor,” I said, knowing that it was beyond him to refuse. He would do anything for me by nature.

“I will be pleased to help. Can you wait? It will only be a few minutes more. Here, sit down,” Denver said rapidly.

Before I could refuse, he had pushed a small boy out of a cafeteria style chair and pulled it over in front of me. The boy looked hesitantly at me as he stood next to his mother and rubbed his pride. His mother seemed not to notice, or perhaps found it a perfectly normal way to treat a child. Denver subsequently found a can of some sort of fruit juice, so I sat in a chair I didn’t wish for and drank juice I neither liked nor wanted. At least the juice was cold.

Afraid to offend anyone by not appearing to enjoy the proceedings, I feigned interest. Luckily, some natural type of break in the service coincided with my finishing the juice, and I got up and walked toward the door. Denver had managed to slip out unnoticed and was already outside talking to some men.

As I entered the group, Denver proudly introduced me as his good friend.

The men all nodded in unison and then stood silently as if waiting for me to say something profound. I failed them.

“I need to speak to you in private, Denver.”

“Yes, yes, ok. Let’s go.”

Denver hurried me out onto the street.

“Can you come to my house? I
have something important to do.”

There were still people around within earshot, and I knew it was going to be very difficult to change his mind. So I agreed.

We passed a restaurant called Litake Fast Food. During my first trip to Ebeye, I saw the mayor eat there and reasoned that it must be ok. I had never eaten anywhere else since. Incidentally, it actually had good food, food that was different than what we had on Kwaj, and given the lack of choice on Kwaj, different was good.

We passed in front of the Hospital and Denver stopped. He asked if I could wait a minute as he needed to get something from inside. While I waited out front, I watched people come and go from the building across the street. High plywood fences surrounded the complex, much like what you might find at a lumber yard. People came and went through a single gate, carrying sacks of rice. I moved over a few feet so I could see inside as the gate opened and closed.

The spot was sheltered from the wind, and the sun beat down, so I began to perspire heavily again. The gate opened, and I saw hundreds of identical bags of rice stored inside. The writing on the bags was not English. I thought it might be Filipino. The place reminded me of a feed store, but for people.

Just as I was about to go over and look around in the feed store, some children ambled by, distracting me. Then, Denver came up behind me.

“Ok, let’s go. I’ve got it,” he said as held up a brown bag, apparently thinking its contents were obvious to me.

Denver was six inches shorter than me, but his stocky little legs moved quickly. I had to work to stay up with him. People were everywhere. Of the people we passed on our side of the road, Denver greeted more by name than he ignored. We walked into a neighborhood of silver trailers—single wide—which, anywhere else, would have been a sign of poverty. But on Ebeye, such
trailers were excellent accommodations. I immediately recognized them as old Army trailers that had been donated to the Marshallese—the government, that is—free to the mayor and almost certainly re-sold or rented to the people at a handsome profit.

Children gathered around as we approached Denver’s trailer.
Ebeye’s children had grown used to Americans passing out candy when they visited, which almost certainly contributed to the Diabetes epidemic on the island. Denver said something to them in Marshallese, and they all stepped back and began milling around as if that was what they had intended all along—all, except for a little boy with no legs who slipped out from under the trailer. He moved by using his arms as legs to swing his body forward, much like a monkey. He stopped in front of us and blocked the path to Denver’s trailer. Denver said something to him too, something which I only recognized as different from his order to the other children. The boy refused to move. Denver picked him up and placed him out of the way. A girl came over to comfort the boy. I smiled at them on passing, and the girl reciprocated. The boy simply stared blankly.

The trailer was as clean as could have been expected on Ebeye, but it was, of course, not well appointed. Upside down buckets served as chairs around a very old, steel-legged, orange-vinyl-topped table. A window-unit air conditioner held open a window, but otherwise sat idle.

I heard voices and a child crying from a back room.

“Just a minute. You can come if you like,” he motioned me toward the back.

We entered what apparently served as the master bedroom at the end of the trailer. A woman and an ancient Marshallese man sat on a bed consoling a young girl. Denver handed the bag to the old man. The old man opened the bag and withdrew some sort of plant and began to mash it into a bowl. When the plant became a paste, the woman drew back the covers. The girl’s right arm was black and blue and swollen between the wrist and elbow. The girl began screaming again, although no one had yet touched her. The woman shooshed her, and I realized that the sound for quiet was the same in any language.

The woman grabbed the injured arm and began to massage it. The girl howled in pain. The old man scooped up a large portion of the plant paste and spread it over the girl’s arm. She screamed again.