The Plover: A Novel (23 page)

Declan came flying up the ladder from below when Taromauri shouted, and he too stood there agape as Pipa spouted and sang and bubbled and burbled in her chair. For a few minutes she poured out every word she had wanted to speak for the last four years but could not force past the prison of her teeth; she poured them out in no particular order, and there was no sense or syntax or structure to them at all, just a wild laughing jumbled spill of one headlong word after another, an ocean of phrases, and shards of stories, and threads of tales, and comments and observations, and remarks and ejaculations, and imprecations and recriminations, and jokes and puns, and explanations and fulminations, and musings and murmurs, and jollities and raileries, and snidery and speeches, and drollery and drivel, and mutterings and mumblery, and sarcasm and witticism, and falsification and rationalization, and songs in imitation and reverence for birds; and then, as the minutes passed, more and more songs of her own design and device, for in the four years during which she could not sing or speak, Pipa had somehow become a startling musician, crammed to the ears with notes and chords and snippets of song and rills and trills and runs of melody; and out they flew between the open gates of her teeth, her hands fluttering like wings, as Declan and Taromauri stood there entranced; and just as Declan turned to Taromauri to ask what in the fecking name of Jesus blessed Christmas had happened to the pip, there was a thump as Piko vaulted over the railing and landed by his baby girl and knelt and cupped her face in his hands and she shouted Papa, I can talk! I can talk! I love you! I can
talk
! Papa, I can
sing
! Listen! My mouth works and my voice works and I can
sing
! I
love
you! Listen,
listen
!

*   *   *

The two men who had kidnapped the minister for fisheries and marine resources and foreign affairs and marooned him at sea on a raft of rough planks were soon enough in their turn marooned by other men for offenses against the ruling cabal; and they drifted east for days, increasingly thirsty and desperate, until one morning they saw a tiny atoll, so tiny it had no name or map coordinates, and treeless and arid and caked with guano it was also; but nonetheless it was fixed and substantial, a refuge, however inhospitable, and they paddled madly toward it, with their blistered hands and blackened feet; but their raft was destroyed by the crushing surf, and one man was flung upon rock and coral, to be cruelly battered and torn, and drowned, and rendered into pieces by two sharks lurking for exactly this happy providential chance; and this man’s bones did drift to the bottom of the sea, and there were covered by silt and the detritus of time, until such a day as bones be revived, if such a day shall come.

His companion survived the crashing surf, and achieved the atoll, but once there was again marooned, this time in a tiny sea of salt and sand, scoured by the wind and at all times drummed by the roaring of the sea; and there he did bake, and slowly wither, and drown in the heat, and grow so parched that he did drink of his own bodily fluids, even unto his own blood, which is exactly as salty as the sea was when life was born in it, many years ago. After he died his body dried, and dissolved, and was blown back into the sea and into the crevices of the rocks beneath the sea; and so ended the two men who had kidnapped the minister, and set him to drift in the vastness of the ocean. What were their names? Lost and barren, sea and shark, silt and ashes, whispers and insinuations, sounds spoken less by the year until finally they are only words on pages of old ledgers on their island; and even those words will dissolve, in time.

*   *   *

There was a tense intense hour during which Pipa sang and burbled in her chair and then she fell silent for a moment and began to weep and her father still kneeling his face inches from hers said what? what? and she said Papa if I stop talking now will I ever be able to talk again? and then she laughed, realizing that she just
had
stopped talking and resumed talking, and he laughed also, and all was well and all manner of things were well, for a moment. Taromauri tried and mostly failed to explain what had happened, or what she
thought
had happened, and Declan finally gave up, grinning, and said okay, fine, hey, bird, thanks, good job, well done, I’m recommending you for promotion, and the gull flittered and Declan laughed and said all right, are we all done here with fecking miraculous stuff, let’s get on the road. So then the ship was prepared for the next stage of its journey, north by west, and stores and provisions laid by, and water tanks refilled, and farewells offered, and debts paid, and gratitude expressed, and so they prepared to sail, taking advantage of a prevailing wind at dusk, the captain still secretly leery of pursuit and confrontation, a feeling he expressed only to Piko belowdecks, as they triple-checked the hull patch.

We could buy guns here, said Piko quietly.

What, my bow and arrows are not enough?

I’m serious.

I know.

You think that guy is still after us?

Yeh. I don’t know why I’m sure, but somehow I’m sure. I don’t know why.

Pause.

Maybe we should be better … prepared, said Piko.

I don’t know, man. If we have guns we’ll end up using them, you know?

Better us than him.

Can you shoot?

No.

Me neither.

Pause.

Can Taromauri? asked Piko.

I don’t know.

Pause.

Is he coming for us or Taromauri?

Does it matter?

I guess not.

She’s one of us now, sort of.

Yeh.

Jesus, what a weird crew.

Hey, you hired us. And your gull.

Boy, this turned out to be not at all what it was supposed to be. I was just going to take off solo and whatever happened happened.

We
happened.

Yeh.

Regrets?

Nope. I figure carting you all around is payment for my sins or something.

We’re your fate, man. You’re the ancient mariner.

I
am not so ancient.
You
are the guy with the old goat beard. We better get moving. I want to be away before full dark. No moon tonight.

But they look at each other for a second, each man chewing his lip a little; and Declan brings the bow up to the cabin with him.

*   *   *

At dusk several people gather on the dock to which the
Plover
is roped. There is the balding doctor with one lens missing in his spectacles. There is the tall thin nurse who listened carefully to the minister for fisheries and marine resources and foreign affairs. There is the minister himself, barefoot, wearing an old suit of the softest tapa. I do not think I will ever wear shoes again, he says to the nurse, it being a shame to constrain or disguise these shining new feet. There is the Reverend Mister from the chapel choir, standing with his hand on Danilo Somethingivi
ć
’s shoulder. There are two men from the village where Piko bought the pig, bearing a gift for him: a large bundle of dried
hau
and
papala
sticks, cut to the proper length for throwing fire. Piko bows and accepts the gift with a smile. The Reverend Mister asks to speak to the captain of the vessel. He testifies as to the excellent character and inarguable work ethic of the young man who has been a stalwart of the choir and a trusted and respected worker at the airport since his arrival on the island, and then speaks about the natural and understandable ambition of the young to travel and conduct themselves adventurously, within reason; an urge each of us of a certain age remembers fondly and indeed often returns to in happy memory, sometimes to the rue of young listeners. This has been
my
experience, says the Reverend Mister with a smile, but be that as it may I conclude by requesting that you find space aboard your capacious ship for my young friend here, whom the choir and chapel community are sending on his way with a small token of our respect and love; just enough money, perhaps, to defray the cost of his passage. With that the Reverend Mister bows and withdraws, but before Declan can open his mouth to say Absolutely Not, the tall thin nurse asks to speak to the captain of the vessel, and formally presents the minister, whose feet indeed are glowing pink like new babies at the end of his legs, and she testifies to his recovered health, and requests that in lieu of payment rendered to the clinic for the repair of Declan’s arm, the minister be afforded passage, as his further residence on the island might put him in the way of unforeseen dangers arising from his past civic responsibilities, and inasmuch as the island community was not equipped to protect guests in such straits and circumstances, perhaps the distinguished captain would be so kind as to be of assistance in this matter, with something of the same spirit in which he himself was afforded assistance when he found himself in similar straits and circumstances; and the clinic would see fit to wipe all accrued and incurred debt from its books, considering the money to be the cost of the minister’s passage. And again Declan didn’t even get his mouth all the way open to say Jesus blessed Absolutely fecking Not before Piko was helping the minister over the railing and Taromauri was showing Danilo where to stash his gear. And so it was that the
Plover
slid away from the dock at dusk, in a flurry of terns, with four men, one woman, one girl, one gull, and one warbler aboard, the warbler having unaccountably returned from the lush island; but the
kiore
had not returned, and the warbler crouched in her accustomed spot under the water tank, mourning her companions.

*   *   *

Why are there no love stories on this boat? What kind of voyage is this, with male and female in it, over the course of many pages and miles, with no adamant and steamy love stories? But—there
are
love stories here. Have we not sung them sufficiently? Have we been too subtle? Did not the Rapanuian and the Rungarungawan kiss each other tenderly and treasure each other in the bones of their hearts? Does not Taromauri think and yearn for the man her husband was, and perhaps still is, in his bones? Is Declan not learning to love a child, and so tiptoeing out of the castle of the man he has been, and who knows how he might love, once released from his keep? Is Piko not slowly learning to love his daughter for who she is rather than who she was? But certainly, yes, there are so many pressing and puzzling questions about love here. Will Piko learn to love another woman other than the one he loved and lost? Will Declan fall in love with
anyone
older than a child in the space of this story? Will the minister come down from his vast perspective of national affairs, and concentrate on an affair with one single individual citizen of Pacifica? And what of Danilo—how is it that a handsome young man with a voice so lovely it stops people in the street and shivers their hearts is not besieged by romance, or himself besieging the alps of ardor? And Enrique—is Enrique a mere thin curtain of villainy, or is he a real man, a complex character of emotional swirl and surge, who finds a way through the prison of his rage, and opens himself to love? And most of all, most tender of all, most sweetly and sadly and gently of all, what of Pipa? Who will Pipa love? Who will Pipa be? Who will love her not as his daughter, not as her new daughter, not as his first lesson in love, not as a small citizen of his new nation, not as a magnet and light for terns, but for
herself,
her webbed and intricate being, her pipatude and pipaness, which has
never been in the world before,
in ten billion years, and will
never occur again,
not in this form, not with this music, not with this singular hammered grace? Any ideas? Or must we simply proceed, trimming the sails as need be, wary of reefs and rocks, secretly a little worried about the death of the old engine, attentive and curious as to the nature of the way ahead, our destination imagined but unfixed?

*   *   *

The morning rain, thorough and insistent, hung like gray sheets above the boat.
Is baisteach ar fhuinneoig ina clagarnaigh, gan sanas air o thitim oiche,
mutters Declan, half-awake in his bunk. The rain is a tattoo on the window, unslackening since the fall of night. Jesus, where did that come from? The fecking old man.
He
knew rain. In the dim he sees the huddled crowded sleepers. He slides the panel in Pipa’s bunk open and finds her staring at him.

What are you doing awake, little peach?

Listening to the terns. Hear them?

Nope.

They are telling stories.

You’re a nutcake.

Declan?

Pippish?

Can Tuesdays talk? When trees rub their branches together are they kissing or fighting? If you tell enough lies do you go blind? Did Papa
ever
not have a beard? I can’t imagine Papa not having a beard. Did
you
ever have a beard? Do fish have beards? What about birds? Can hawks grow beards? Can you not hear the terns ever? Can you hear fish when they talk? All those fish you caught with this boat, didn’t you ever talk to them? Are there people who can talk but don’t? Are there people who can talk with their mouths but not hear what they say? Are there people who can talk but don’t know any languages? Are languages alive as long as people talk them? If no one talks a language and it dies where does it go? Are you ever going to marry someone like Papa married Mama? If you have a daughter will you name her Pipa? Did you really think that Taromauri was a man? Can someone be a man
and
a woman? What if you are in the wrong body, can you switch sides? Do you have to speak a different language then? If you are a woman and you are married and you switch to being a man does your husband have to switch to being a woman so you can still be married? Do you just trade clothes then? If there are certain kinds of birds who know who you are and talk to you and something changes in you will they still know who you are or do you get a different kind of bird to watch after you or do you get no bird at all? If someone dies, what happens to their birds? After Mama died what happened to her ospreys? Did they have to find someone else to watch over? Did they forget their first person?