The Sex Lives of Cannibals (10 page)

When the shower passed, the driver was smiling. “Maybe tomorrow it will rain again.”

But it didn’t rain the next day, nor the day after that, nor did it rain in the following weeks. It didn’t rain for months. Tarawa remained parched. The truck became perpetually unavailable and we never saw the other four cubic meters of water. We tracked our water as others track their money. And then, of course, the electricity failed.

At first, it wasn’t so bad. For a few hours every couple of days, the ceiling fans would cease their whirling, the water pump would stand idle, and my computer remained off, which was just as well, in case inspiration hit me and I completed my novel in a month or two, and what would I do then? Best to pace myself.

But soon the electricity was off for days at a time and we became dependent for our light on kerosene lanterns, which are extremely useful and easy to use, except when you turn the lever-thing the wrong way and your filament disappears into the kerosene basin and, of course, it’s dark so you can’t see what you’re doing, and inevitably your girlfriend is standing there beside you saying, “What, again?” and you remind her that from the beginning you were very up front about your competence as a handyman.

More troubling than lighting issues, and more irritating than slogging buckets of water from the tank to the house, was trying to sleep without a fan, which we typically had to set to hurricane force for it to become cool enough to sleep. A cinder-block house might be useful to have on the Siberian steppes, but not so on an equatorial atoll devoid of power. The heat was enraging. Rivulets of sweat streaked the body. When I turned, Sylvia would declare: “You’re too close. Don’t touch me.” Throughout the night, no longer softened by the white noise of a whirling ceiling fan, the waves, the booming earth-quaking sound of breaking waves, would cause heart palpitations. Meanwhile, in the absence of our nightly gales, mosquitoes humored themselves with a few flybys, causing us to slap ourselves senseless, until they quietly did their feeding and, as the night progressed, an even tempo would be reached—
buzz-slap-scratch buzz-slap-scratch
.

And then the ants came marching in. Apparently, they found their living quarters in the exterior mortar of the house a little cramped and so they dug through and suddenly we were sharing the bedroom with a billion ants. On that awful dawn, I awoke with a howl to the bites of hundreds of ants clambering all over me, though curiously they left Sylvia alone, which may say something about how ripe I was then. But just as Sylvia began to feel confident that my magnetism within the bug world would save her from the visitations of night creatures, she awoke to find a beetle in her ear. Naturally enough, she wanted to share this news with me, which she did, with considerable aplomb. “There’s a bug in my ear,” she declared, and indeed there was. It was a coconut beetle, burrowing toward her brain, and this Sylvia wanted removed pronto. It took some work. I tried floating it out with water, but the little bugger was persistent, and so tweezers were needed and I’m pretty sure I got most of it out. Sylvia didn’t think it funny when I speculated about eggs.

It wasn’t all glum, however. I forged a strong friendship with Buebue, who was the chief electrician on Tarawa. In the United States, when one calls, well, just about any corporate-type organization for any reason at all, one is inevitably left seething after three attempts to navigate the automated customer-service line (“to serve you better”) and eighteen hours on hold (“your call is important to us”) only to finally be connected with the rude, abrasive morons that the American corporate world feels inclined to use as their link to their customers. And the experience of calling a U.S. government agency, of course, is what leads people to join the Montana militia. On Tarawa, however, a simple call to the power station to determine whether there might be any electricity forthcoming was directed straight to the man who knew all, Buebue, even on his days off, when I would be told to call him at home. He was like an oracle. If Buebue said there was to be light, then there was light. If Buebue said that all would be dark, darkness prevailed. And he didn’t spin the situation either. He just told it like it was, which left me bewildered at first, when he explained that there would be no electricity this evening because they forgot to bring the diesel, or because the technicians were too drunk to be trusted around a generator, or because he had absolutely no clue why the generator wasn’t working but that he was pretty confident it wasn’t going to work for a while yet, or—and this really hurt—the power station in Betio caught fire, reducing Tarawa’s power generation capabilities by half and spare parts weren’t expected until 2012, but I soon found this brutal candor refreshing.

He was such a nice guy too, always inquiring about Sylvia’s welfare and thanking me kindly for wondering about his kids, that I felt guilty as Judas the one night that I took advantage of his obliging nature. We were experiencing rolling blackouts at the time, with each corner of the island taking its turn in darkness, when we heard the exciting news that Australian friends of ours, volunteers, had received in the mail a package containing a videotape of the funeral of Princess Diana, whose death had greatly saddened Tarawa. I cannot quite overstate the importance of this vestige of our own world—what with Elton John and all that—particularly as we were then feeling acutely isolated from happenings of global import, and we immediately set upon procuring a television and VCR and organizing a gathering, complete with scones and jam and a highly prized bottle of sherry, which may strike some as morbid, but for us the videotape was like a revered talisman connecting us to our people and was cause for celebration. Of course, the power went out just as I was about to press the play button, which was highly disappointing and led me to call Buebue. I explained that the
I-Matang
community was present in our house and that they had clustered here to mourn Princess Diana, and could we please, please have some electricity, particularly since we were expecting the Australian high commissioner, which wasn’t true at all, since the Australian high commissioner was an uptight nitwit who carried on as if he were assigned to London, not Tarawa, which for diplomats is, frankly, an assignment portending the end of one’s career. However, I dropped his name because Australian foreign aid pretty much comprises the entirety of the government budget of Kiribati and, therefore, I thought it likely that the Public Utility Board could be browbeaten by mentioning the Australian high commissioner and his need for electricity-driven entertainment. This turned out to be true and we watched and mourned and speculated about Dodi while the rest of Tarawa remained dark. I have felt guilty ever since.

CHAPTER
9

In which the Author seeks wisdom on the ways of Tarawa from Tiabo.

W
hen I was a youngster, I often found myself in conversations that began with,
If you were stuck on a deserted island, what ten . . .
And then we would spend hours listing the absolutely essential can’t-live-without-them top ten records, or books, or, as we discovered the delusions of adolescence, girls we needed to make our stay on a deserted island an enjoyable one. As the years went by, the lists changed. Iron Maiden was no longer essential listening, but The Smiths were, until they too were tossed off in favor of Fugazi, which was soon discarded to make room for Massive Attack. After crossing off Elizabeth and Carla and Becky, I settled on the woman I wanted to live with on a deserted island, and so this just left books and CDs. As I packed, I was acutely aware of the importance of bringing just the right combination to ensure that no matter what my musical or literary desire, I would have just what I needed, right here on my deserted island. True, Tarawa wasn’t actually deserted. In fact, it was overpopulated. But there were no bookstores or record stores, and so I packed as if I were departing for Pluto. For books, it was a mixture of authors we were both likely to enjoy (Philip Roth), combined with a few books we were unlikely to ever read unless stuck on a deserted island (
Ulysses
), as well as a couple of compromise authors (the novelist Anne Tyler for her, the Polish journalist Ryszard Kapu´sci´nski for me). As CDs are lighter, I packed thirty-odd discs that I felt could comprehensively meet any likely musical desire. Did I feel funky? Well, we could go to Sly Stone or the Beastie Boys. Did I want to kick back and chill? Mazzy Star was there to help me. Did I wish I was in Paris, walking on a rain-slicked cobblestone alley on a drizzling October evening? Miles Davis would take me there. Was I up for a bout of brooding? Hello Chopin’s Nocturnes. Was I feeling a little romantic, a little melancholic? Cesaria Evora would tell me to pull up a chair and have a cigarette.

I was thinking about these CDs a few months later, when once again I was being driven to the brink of insanity by an ear-shattering, 120-beat-a-minute rendition of “La Macarena,” the only song ever played on Tarawa. It was everywhere. If I was in a minibus, overburdened as always with twentysome people and a dozen fish, hurtling down the road at a heart-stopping speed, the driver was inevitably blasting a beat-enhanced version of “La Macarena” that looped over and over again. If I was drinking with a few of the soccer players who kindly let me demonstrate my mediocrity on the soccer field with them, our piss-up in one of the seedy dives in Betio would occur to the skull-racking jangle of “La Macarena.” If I happened across some teenage boys who had gotten their hands on an old Japanese boom box, they were undoubtedly loitering to a faint and tinny “La Macarena.”

What finally brought me to the brink was the recent acquisition of a boom box by the family that lived across the road. One of their members, a seaman, had just returned from two years at sea and, as is the custom, every penny he earned that was not spent on debauchery in a distant port of call was used for expensive gifts for his family. Typically this took the form of televisions, VCRs, and stereos, all unavailable in Kiribati. A few shops had begun renting pirated movies sent up from Fiji. These movies were typically recorded by a video camera in a movie theater, with the result that the actors’ faces appeared strangely dull and elongated, as if the movie was filmed by El Greco. Audience members could be seen stretching and heard coughing. If renting a movie, one made sure to avoid comedies since you could hardly hear a word over the laughter and chatter of those fortunate enough to see the movie in a theater. “Could you keep it down,” you find yourself telling the screen. But while you could locate copies of
Titanic
and
Forrest Gump
on Tarawa, there was little music available beyond “La Macarena.” I know because I looked. I looked everywhere. I looked everywhere because I forgot our CDs in my mother’s garage in Washington, thousands and thousands of miles away.

It is difficult to convey the magnitude of this catastrophe. I would have been very pleased if I had forgotten my sweaters, which were already rotting in a closet, or my shoes, which within a month had turned green with mold. Each day I stared forlornly at our stereo, which we had purchased for an outrageous sum of money from Kate, who had bought it from her predecessor. “If you don’t want it,” Kate said, “there are plenty of others here who do.” No doubt this was true, and we forked over a large amount of bills. Every day at noon, I turned the stereo on to listen to the broadcast from Radio Australia, which Radio Kiribati carried for ten minutes, while they searched for yet another version of “La Macarena” to play for the remainder of the day. Radio Australia claimed to deliver the international news, but you wouldn’t know it from listening. Presumably, the world was as tumultuous as ever, but inevitably the lead story on Radio Australia would involve a kangaroo and a dingo in Wagga Wagga, followed by a nine-minute play-by-play summary of the Australian cricket team’s triumph over England. And then it was back to “La Macarena.”

I had sent a fax to my mother, asking her to mail the box of CDs.
They’re right beside the ski boots
, I wrote. A few days later, we received a fax from her. The CDs were in the mail, she assured us. They were sent by super-duper express mail and would arrive any day. The months ticked by.

In a fit of despair, I went to the Angirota Store and bought
Wayne Newton’s Greatest Hits
and
Melanesian Love Songs
. When I put in the Wayne Newton tape, the stereo emitted a primal groan and ate the tape. It was trying to tell me something, I felt. The stereo was more amenable to
Melanesian Love Songs
. With the moon shimmering over the ocean, Sylvia and I listened to Melanesian love ballads—
You cost me two pigs, woman/ I expect you to work/ While I spend my days/ drinking kava under the banyan tree
.

With musical selections reduced to
Melanesian Love Songs
and “La Macarena,” I began to yearn for power failures. When these occurred the techno thump of “La Macarena” would cease, and soon the air would be filled with the soft cadences of ancient songs sweetly delivered by honeyed voices. The I-Kiribati are a remarkably musical people. Everyone sings. There is something arresting about seeing a tough-looking teenage boy suddenly put a flower behind his ear and begin to croon. Everyone sings well too, so it was a mystery to me why their taste in recorded music was so awful.

Sadly, on many days the power remained on, sometimes for hours at a time, and I would be reduced to an imbecilic state by the endless playing of “La Macarena.” It was hot. My novel—and this is a small understatement—was not going very well. My disposition was not enhanced by “La Macarena.” I wondered if I could simply walk across the road and kindly ask the neighbors to shut the fucking music off.

Small matters tend to be complex matters in Kiribati. Fortunately, I had Tiabo, our housekeeper, to turn to for guidance. I had been wrong about Tiabo. While it is true she did not direct any come-hither glances my way, she did undulate. She moved with the languorous hip sway of a large woman in the tropics. Two mornings a week, she arrived to clean the house. I felt deeply uncomfortable about this at first, but after some long rationalizations, I convinced myself that there was nothing intrinsically exploitive about the arrangement. She was a single mother, without connections or education. She needed a job. We had a job for her. She was paid well. She conducted herself with dignity. I treated her with respect, and with time we became friends. On her other days, she worked at the FSP office, where Sylvia soon promoted her from cleaning lady to managing the seed distribution program. As it was considered scandalous for a woman to be in a house alone with a man, particularly an
I-Matang
, who were well known for groping their housegirls, Tiabo often arrived with her sister Reibo. It was after one little incident when it occurred to me that I needed to watch what I said in Kiribati.

“Reibo,” I said. “Have you by chance seen a twenty-dollar bill lying around? I thought I had left it in the basket.”

“No,” she said. Reibo spoke very little English. Each month, I acquired a little more I-Kiribati, but when my language ability failed, which was often, I usually spoke in English, Reibo replied in I-Kiribati, and we understood each other perfectly. Or so I thought.

Later that afternoon, Ruiti, the FSP accountant, stopped by the house. “Tiabo and Reibo are very upset,” she said. This worried me. Had I done something obscene or disrespectful? I was sure I hadn’t. Nevertheless, misunderstandings do occur, and I began to worry about being besieged by the male members of their family demanding some particularly gruesome form of island justice. But I was certain I had done nothing wrong or untoward. I had no idea why Tiabo and Reibo might be upset.

“They say you accused Reibo of stealing twenty dollars. They are crying. They are very ashamed.”

Oh, dear.

Stealing, I was told, was a major offense in I-Kiribati culture. I could see why. There is absolutely no good reason for stealing in Kiribati. This is because of the
bubuti
system. In the
bubuti
system, someone can walk up to you and say
I bubuti you for your flipflops
, and without a peep of complaint you are obliged to hand over your flipflops. The following day, you can go up to the guy who is now wearing your flipflops, and say
I bubuti you for your fishing net
, and suddenly you have a new fishing net. In such a way, Kiribati remains profoundly egalitarian.

I-Matangs
can choose to play along. I know one volunteer, determined to go native as they say, who lost her shoes, her bicycle, her hat, most of her clothing, and a good deal of her monthly stipend to the
bubuti
. She was a little dim, however, and it never occurred to her to
bubuti
others, and so she spent her days walking barefoot, with a sunburned scalp, dressed in rags, wondering how on earth she was going to afford her daily fish.

One day, a man, a complete stranger to me, walked up to the door and politely said: “I
bubuti
you for bus fare.” Warily, still attuned to big-city panhandlers, I gave it to him. As the
bubutis
rolled in, however, I felt no obligation to comply. Pocket change, sure. The FSP pickup truck, no. It was my ability, or rather the
I-Matang
’s ability to say no to a
bubuti
, that made foreigners useful on Tarawa. Because of the
bubuti
system, the I-Kiribati tend to avoid seeking positions of power. This was made clear to me when I met Airan, a young Australian-educated employee of the Bank of Kiribati. He was one of a dozen or so Young Turks on Tarawa, benefactors of Australian scholarships and groomed by the Western aid industry to be a future leader. He was, however, miserable. He had just been promoted to assistant manager.

“This is very bad,” he said.

“Why?” I asked. “That’s excellent news.”

“No. People will come to me with
bubuti
. They will
bubuti
me for money. They will
bubuti
me for jobs. It is very difficult.”

Jobs are fleeting. Cultural demands are not. Airan begged not to be promoted, and so the management of the Bank of Kiribati remained in
I-Matang
hands. The
bubuti
system was why FSP always had an
I-Matang
director. Sylvia’s presence ensured that the organization would not crumble under the demands of the
bubuti
system, which is exactly what occurred when the only other international nongovernmental organization to work in Kiribati decided to localize. Its project funds were soon gobbled up in a flurry of
bubutis
and the organization dissolved. Within the
bubuti
system, outright stealing is regarded as a perfidious offense, though this didn’t stop someone from stealing my running shoes.

Tiabo and Reibo arrived again in the evening. They were still sobbing.

“Reibo said she did not steal twenty dollars,” Tiabo explained. “But if you think she did, you must fire us.”

“No, no, no,” I said. “Really, I was just wondering where it was. I found it later in my pocket.”

Tiabo explained this to Reibo, who began to beam. I did not actually ever find the errant twenty dollars, but I crumble when confronted by tears.

As I continued to be flailed by “La Macarena,” I took small comfort in the fact that at least no one on Tarawa had ever seen the video, and I was therefore spared the sight of an entire nation spending their days line dancing. Still, the song grated, and I asked Tiabo if she thought it was permissible for me to ask the neighbors to turn the music down. I did not care if I was polite or not, but I did want to avoid antagonizing the household’s youth. They were not in school. They did not work. The traditional rigors of subsistence living did not fully occupy them on Tarawa. And like elsewhere in the world, idle youth have a way of being immensely irritating.

“In Kiribati, we don’t do that,” Tiabo said.

“Why not?” I asked. “I would think that loud noise would bother people.”

“This is true. But we don’t ask people to be quiet.”

I found this perplexing. Kiribati is a fairly complex society with all sorts of unspoken rules that seek to minimize any potential sources of conflict. Who has the right to harvest a particular coconut tree, for instance, involves an elaborate scheme in which the oldest son has that right for the first year, and then relinquishes it to the next eldest, and so on, until it loops around again, and then it’s the turn of the first son of the eldest brother, and on and on, with the result that no one feels slighted or deprived. Then it occurred to me that the repeated playing of a dreadful song like “La Macarena” at provocatively loud levels is an entirely new problem for Kiribati. In the United States, we have more than seventy years of experience in dealing with noisy neighbors. After much experimentation, we now resort to a friendly,
Turn it down, asshole
. This is greeted with a polite
Fuck you
, which is followed by a call to the police, who arrive to issue a citation, and once again peace and tranquility are restored. Noise pollution in Kiribati, however, hasn’t been around long enough for the I-Kiribati to develop such a sophisticated form of conflict resolution. It was like many of the problems on Tarawa. The problems were new and imported, yet the culture remained old and unvarying.