Devil-Devil (3 page)

4

CUSTOM MAGIC

The Roman Catholic mission station at Ruvabi was situated on a bluff overlooking a river winding through the trees towards the placid blue sea a few miles away. The thatched bamboo classrooms stood along one side of a grassy square while the dormitories and the huts of the teachers were across the way. The ramshackle sprawling mission house and a neat red-roofed stone church were a hundred yards off, on the far side of the station, close to the ever-encroaching bush. Scattered haphazardly about the area were the huts of those Christian families who had abandoned their villages over the years.

Kella climbed the steep path from the river to the school buildings in the early afternoon. He had departed from the village three hours earlier, leaving the headman sullenly promising to keep the dead man's hut intact. Kella had added a few succinct words as to what he would do to the headman if anything untoward should happen to Peter Oro. On his journey Kella had kept his eyes open in vain for the schoolboy, who had not returned to the village.

Solomon Bulko, the headmaster, was sitting in a cane-backed chair at the head of the path, strumming idly on a guitar as he waited for the police sergeant. He was wearing the black shorts and white shirt worn by pupils and staff alike at the school.

‘Which way now, bigfella?' inquired the headmaster casually, playing a complicated riff with spectacular ease.

‘Speak English,' Kella admonished with mock severity. ‘Pidgin is a bastard colonial mish-mash of a language. Set an example to your charges.'

Bulku grinned. He was a plump, jet-black, laid-back islander from Choiseul in the Western Solomons. His indolent manner concealed an incisive brain. He was the closest that Kella had to a friend in the islands.

‘They let you come back then,' observed the headmaster. ‘I thought they'd banned you from Malaita. I suppose they needed you to do some dirty work for them.'

He stood up and placed his guitar on the chair. He ambled across the bluff towards the school buildings with Kella, equably making no effort to carry the sergeant's pack.

‘What are you doing here?' he asked.

‘Routine patrol,' Kella told him truthfully. ‘I'm looking for an American anthropologist called Mallory. Have you seen him?'

‘He was stopping at the mission house until last week,' replied the headmaster. ‘Then he went walkabout into the mountains. Haven't seen him for four or five days. Is something wrong?'

‘Shouldn't think so,' Kella said. ‘He was supposed to fly over to Honiara for a meeting with the High Commissioner this week. When he didn't turn up, the authorities thought they'd better check.'

‘It's a long walk up into the high bush,' observed Bulko. ‘I was up visiting schools there only last week. Don't worry. He'll stagger down in a day or two looking embarrassed and the worse for wear. Then he'll go away and write a book about it:
The Devil-Devils of Kwaio: an in-depth study
.'

‘Why should he be different from the others?' agreed Kella. ‘What's he like?'

Bulko considered. ‘About forty, tall, thin, bald. Inhibited, buttoned-up. Decent enough but not a laugh a minute.'

They had reached the line of classrooms. A dozen of the older students were sitting on the grass, carving war clubs to be sold to tourists in the capital. The boys looked bored as they scraped away at the wood with their penknives.

‘What are you making?' Kella asked one of the pupils.

The boy shrugged. ‘A club,' he yawned.

‘I can see that,' said Kella patiently. ‘What sort of club —
dia
,
subi
or
alavolo
?'

The schoolboy looked blank. Some of the other students began to pay attention, welcoming any break in the tedium of the hot, empty afternoon.

‘They're all the same,' answered the youth indifferently. ‘They were for fighting and killing in the time before.'

Kella shook his head. ‘That's where you're wrong,' he said. ‘They used the
alavolo
for hand-to-hand fighting. The
subi
had another purpose.'

‘What was that?' asked one of the other pupils, a faint spark of interest in his eyes.

Kella hefted the half-finished club in his hand. The balance felt all wrong. ‘It was used to smash in the sides of the huts of enemies and then to finish off the wounded,' he said, handing back the club. ‘This isn't a proper
subi.
You're making the head too sharp. Which island are you from?'

‘Ada Gege.'

‘The chief Kwaisulia came from Ada Gege. He was the greatest warrior in all of Malaita. He used the
subi
in his battles. You owe it to his memory to make sure that each one you make is carved properly. If you're going to do it, do it right.'

Bulko caught up with Kella as the sergeant walked over towards the mission house.

‘That's right,' said the headmaster, panting slightly. ‘Undermine my authority, why don't you?'

‘You could use the carving lessons to teach the boys about their traditions.'

‘For God's sake,' scoffed Bulko. ‘They're only for the tourists. We ship the things out by the crateload every month. Who's to know?'

‘The
mamiski
,' said Kella. Bulko was a good man but he did not care enough. ‘The spirit people. They would know.'

The portly headmaster put his head on one side and regarded Kella. ‘I never know when you're serious these days,' he said. ‘Sooner or later you're going to have to make up your mind whether you're the progressive, technologically trained black hope for the future, or just another cosy, old-fashioned witch doctor. Where are you going now?'

‘To talk to Father Pierre.'

Bulko smirked. ‘Don't count on it. Things have changed since you were last here.'

‘I always see the father.'

‘Now he's got himself a watchdog, one with sharp teeth,' said Bulko. ‘Go and see for yourself.'

Kella increased his pace. Bulko called his name. Kella stopped and looked back. For once the plump headteacher seemed serious.

‘I'm sorry about the trouble you had at the killing ground,' he said. ‘Whitey overreacted.'

‘I made a mistake and was punished for it,' said Kella. ‘A man was killed because of me.'

‘How many degrees do you have?' asked Bulko, apparently inconsequentially.

‘You know how many,' Kella said, suspecting one of the headteacher's wind-ups. ‘The same as you. A BA from Sydney and an MPhil from London. So what?'

Bulko shook his head. ‘So much education and so little sense,' he sighed. ‘You didn't get dumped on by the old colonials because you ballsed-up an assignment. They tried to break you because you're an educated islander and they don't want you taking over one of their cushy jobs at the top. These islands will get independence just as soon as there are enough educated islanders to run things. We're threats. Especially you. They've got you pegged as a big man. That means you're a potential troublemaker.'

Kella shrugged and headed for the mission house. It looked different. The verandah fence had been repaired since his last visit, and the front of the building was freshly painted. A sister in the white robes of the Marist mission came out on to the verandah and regarded him suspiciously. She was small and trim, attractive in a severe manner, in her mid-twenties. Her skin had the soft pallor of someone unaccustomed to the tropical sun. When she spoke, it was with an American accent.

‘Something I can do for you?'

‘I've come to see Father Pierre,' said Kella.

‘He's resting,' said the sister, shaking her head. ‘He's an old man. He needs his sleep.'

‘You're new here,' said Kella. ‘Who are you?'

‘Sister Conchita,' said the nun, bridling slightly, as if not used to being challenged.

‘Conchita?'

For a moment the sister lost some of her assurance. She looked almost embarrassed.

‘When I finished my training, I thought I was going to be sent to South America. I took a name I thought would be appropriate there. Then I was posted to the Solomons instead.' She stopped suddenly, flustered. ‘Now just why am I telling you all this?' she wondered aloud.

‘It could have been worse,' offered Kella. ‘If they told you that you were going to the South Pole you might have called yourself Sister Igloo or Sister Husky.'

There was a sound of shuffling footsteps and Father Pierre appeared from the interior of the house. He was in his eighties, wizened and bowed with a few wisps of white hair drawn across his scalp. Spectacles with bottle lenses were perched on his nose. He was wearing faded black shorts reaching to his knees and an old blue shirt. A small wooden cross, inlaid with shell, hung around his neck. When he saw the police sergeant his face lit up.

‘Ben!' he said joyously. ‘I heard you were on the island. How are you?
E Diana asiana kufi riki oe lau.
'

‘I'm well, father,' said Kella.

‘Well, don't just stand there. Come in, come in.' The old man looked at the disapproving Sister Conchita. ‘Ben's an old friend,' he explained. ‘He was a student here once. I hoped he would be the first Melanesian priest in charge of the mission, but it didn't work out that way.'

The old priest took Kella through to the living room. Sister Conchita went into the kitchen, closing the door with a thud. The room had been renovated since Kella had last been in it. Most of the decrepit old furniture had been replaced and the wooden floorboards had been polished to a high sheen. Several open-topped crates of carvings from the school were in the process of being labelled before being dispatched to Honiara. One or two of the artefacts seemed to have been blackened with floor polish to give the carvings an aged effect.

Sister Conchita could be heard moving noisily about the kitchen. Father Pierre glanced in the direction of the sounds.

‘Nothing personal,' he grinned. ‘She's only been here a month and the girl's genuinely concerned for my well-being, bless her.'

‘She'll soon learn that you're as tough as old boots,' Kella assured him. ‘How many housekeepers have you seen off in the last forty years?'

‘Nine or ten,' said the priest vaguely. ‘And five bishops. Don't forget the bishops. They came and went with all the impact of the fluttering of butterfly wings. One of them wanted to move me out once.' Father Pierre grinned with yellow-toothed relish. Sister Conchita came in, radiating disapproval and carrying a tray with two glasses of lime juice. She lowered the tray on to a table.

‘It was in 1942, eighteen years ago,' went on the priest. ‘You know what it was like then. The Japanese were about to invade and everybody was panicking. The bishop wanted me to leave Malaita. Nonsense, of course. There was too much to do here. After all, the priest is responsible for the safety of everyone on the station.'

There was a clatter. Sister Conchita had upset one of the glasses. Red with embarrassment she muttered a word of apology and hurried out to return with a cloth with which to mop up the spilt lime juice.

‘Time for the radio sked,' said Father Pierre, ignoring the disturbance. ‘Do you have any messages to send to Honiara?'

Kella shook his head. Father Pierre went over to the antiquated radio transmitter and receiver taking up most of one side of the room. He sat down and switched it on in time for the daily scheduled hour when the bishop in Honiara contacted all the mission stations in turn.

Precisely on the hour, the booming voice of the bishop forced its way through the crackling overlapping frequencies. Kella noticed that Sister Conchita was standing near the door, listening to the messages. The different missions began to call with their requests. From one transmitter on Guadalcanal came a particularly plaintive appeal, ‘My lord, we're out of whisky and fags!' A priest on Santa Isabel asked for permission to conduct the burial of a child from a non-Christian village who had died in the mission hospital. When she heard this request Sister Conchita shifted position abruptly.

Throughout Father Pierre sat huddled in evident pleasure over the radio, providing a running commentary on the incoming messages. ‘Father Joseph has been called to Honiara — he's in trouble with the bishop! . . . Father Michael has been moved to another station — he can't handle the people where he is!' At one stage the old man bristled indignantly when the bishop broke into his native German to talk to a compatriot. ‘Secrets!' spat Father Pierre with disgust.

Eventually came the call sign for Ruvabi. Father Pierre picked up the microphone and answered eagerly. ‘All present and correct, my lord! Sergeant Kella has just arrived.'

‘I expect he's looking for Dr Mallory, the anthropologist,' boomed the prelate. ‘Has he returned yet?'

‘Not yet, my lord. But if he is in the high bush Ben Kella is the right man to find him.'

‘Tell him to take care,' warned the bishop. ‘There are rumours that Pazabosi is on the move again. It is important that no one disturbs him. I'm sure that the police commissioner will agree with me. Please pass my message on to Sergeant Kella. By the way, I hear there's been an earthquake in your region. Any damage?'

‘Minimal, my lord. A few trees uprooted, some rocks disturbed. Nothing we can't handle.'

A worried look had appeared on Sister Conchita's face. The nun caught Kella's inquiring gaze and looked away in annoyance.

‘How is Sister Conchita settling in?' went on the bishop.

‘Very well. She's cleaned places I didn't even know we had. She's looking after the native sisters, exports the carvings, keeps the books, supervises the medical centre, inspects schools and runs the farm. She is fully occupied.'

The bishop bade farewell to Ruvabi with a blessing. Father Pierre waited until the scheduled hour was over and then switched off the radio.