A DOLPHIN’S DREAM

By

Carlos Eyles

Copyright © Carlos Eyles, 2011
All rights reserved

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locals is entirely coincidental.

DEDICATION

To the incredibly generous and kind Harvey Stoltz who wholeheartedly befriended me in typical Fijian fashion.

Books by Carlos Eyles

Inner Experience of Diving
Diving Free
Sea Stalking
Last of the Blue Water Hunters
Dolphin Borne
Secret Seas
Sea Shadows (photography/philosophy)
Blue Edge
Reflections in a Silver Sea (poetry/photography)

1

The sun had not yet broken the horizon and a thick, warm, tropical breeze brought the smell of smoke, carrying the faint stench of the Third World on its vapors. Michael Compton disembarked and was directed toward an antiquated air terminal, an American remnant from the last Pacific war.  From all appearances the war might still have been in progress, for armed militia stood at every entryway. The military coup than had occurred in May in the capitol city of Suva was apparently very much alive. Although the American consulate had cautioned its citizens to stay out of Fiji until the country had settled its affairs, Compton had dismissed the warning in the belief that the remote island of his destination was far removed from the conflicts in Suva. Now he was uncertain, for the weapons were real and the soldiers, though unmilitary in their bearing, appeared formidable in their camouflaged battle fatigues and snappy maroon berets.

The Port of Entry window was unmanned and Compton waited along with a growing number of tourists behind a blue line crudely painted on the floor. A small, dirt brown Indian stood near the window. Dressed in sandals, bright blue cotton pants and a white shirt that leaped with large red flowers, he spoke in idle conversation with a Fijian soldier who was leaning nonchalantly on his automatic weapon. The Indian appeared to be in no hurry to receive his charges and the impatient fidgeting of the growing queue could not inspire any sense urgency. When finally he seemed to be left with no other pressing business, he blithely assumed his position behind the POE window.

Compton handed over his passport and the Indian examined it with care in these times of “national security” concerns, first looking at his photograph and than at him, then back at the photograph. Although a shade under six feet, Compton’s ample midsection betrayed his height, and with large, rounded shoulders and thick arms that found their way into soft hands, he was the picture of the American tourist gone to seed. His salt and pepper hair was thick and cut short, and behind bone-rimmed glasses his eyes were a blue of deep water, the same hue that hung in dark circles beneath them. Save for a bright, open smile that exposed perfect teeth, his features appeared to have weathered turmoil, and reflected in deep lines the worn countenance of one who had been traveling his entire life. The Indian stamped the passport and issued a one month visa permit. A soldier directed him to an inspection area, where he opened and placed upon a long metal table one large backpack, a still larger bag containing diving gear that included mask, fins, buoyancy compensator, regulator, wet suit, assorted gauges and a dive computer.

“Scuba diving,” said Compton.

The inspector pute pieces together in his mind and smiled broadly, nodding to his cronies in understanding. “Diving,” he replied confidently.

Nearby, the Fijian soldier smiled as the inspector waved Compton through. “Big sharks in Fiji,” he said to Compton, who smiled weakly in response. The soldier then gleefully repeated himself, “Yes sir, big sharks.”

Compton carted his gear to the departure area and threaded his way through a milling sea of brown faces to the far end of the terminal and Sunflower Air Lines, where a yellow shirted Indian, sitting on a baggage scale, buoyantly declared that he wasn’t open for business. Compton retreated to a far wall and sat against a hard back wooden bench. A group of Indians had gathered nearby, a family it appeared. They crowded about a young, dark skinned girl with long black hair and ebony eyes who tearfully embraced each member. All the men --  brothers, uncles, grandfathers -- were openly weeping. She wiped away their tears with a stained white scarf while her own tears freely flowed.

Behind the Indians a Fijian family stood in a circle. A large black man with fearsome eyes held a light skinned baby in his arms, and was fondly stroking its head and shoulders. He passed the child to an old woman who caressed the baby in the same manner. She, in turn, passed it the next member of the family. The child was handed from soul to soul, blissfully receiving the affection as routinely as a breath.

The air was filled with heartfelt goodbyes and warm embraces. The atmosphere had more the feel of a church than of an air terminal. The love managed to reach Compton in the way of the observer, unattached yet making him cognizant of the warm effect it was having on him. Such an unfamiliar sensation, particularly in public, brought him a curious pleasure and there came the strange sense that he had, for reasons he could not yet fathom, correctly chosen this stopover in Fiji.

He became curious as to the relationships between the Indians and the Fijians. For that, apparently, was at the crux of the recent upheaval.  All those in uniform were large, well-muscled Fijian men with crude tattoos stringing their arms. Most were over six feet tall and quite handsome with full, sensual mouths, soft brown eyes and woolly hair done in a tight Afro style. The Indians were as unlike Fijians as hawks to butterflies, small in stature, with straight black hair neatly combed. Their eyes were wide and soft, yet alert like prey whose primary defense lay in flight. They wore freshly laundered clothes that, in their obvious poverty, appeared incongruously clean.  Compton observed no animosity between the races, who chatted freely among themselves and he wondered what all the fuss was about.

The Sunflower ticket counter suddenly acquired three yellow shirted Indians and Compton made his reservation for the earliest flight out to the island of Taveuni. He then called Taveuni Charters to confirm his arrival.

It would be another thirty minutes before boarding and he returned to his bench to observe in relative obscurity the tender comings and goings that were still unfolding in the packed terminal. The open displays of affection drove into fortressed regions of his psyche, bringing a pain that welled from a place nearer his consciousness than was comfortable. The contemplation of such matters was not within him and, in typical fashion, his mind deftly shifted into the mundane, which presented a ceaseless array of self-involved subjects with which to occupy itself. It was in this fashion that time passed pleasantly and without labor until his flight was called.

Yet another remnant of that now ancient war, a twin prop piston-driven plane, at least fifty years old, lifted its dozen passengers unsteadily over Veti Levu’s sectional farms, smoking cane fields, dirt roads and odd patches of dense greenery, all that remained of what was once a lush tropical rainforest. The plane bounced and wobbled into island cloud cover and then broke free after gaining altitude into crisp, clean air above the sparkling South Pacific. The antiquated craft rolled and rattled with every updraft, straining, it seemed, just to maintain altitude. The tittering nervousness of two young American women was pacified with the masculine reassurance of their companion. “It’s just like the cyclone ride at Magic Mountain.” Compton’s reaction was quite different. He had the feeling of time travel, the bouncing plane, the crew hunched over their controls behind a partially drawn curtain. Shades of Indiana Jones. It was the feeling of youth again, of embarking into the unknown to territories that were wild and full of mayhem, where all was new and terrifying. Compton corrected himself. New perhaps, but hardly terrifying. And probably not much mayhem going on either. Though there was unease, not so much in the plane ride, he realized, but in himself. An unease that had been his traveling companion since whimsy had compelled him to take the freelance job in Australia.

Islands of coral lay speckled brown in the jeweled, lapis sea, each trimmed in ivory and emerald, gems set in an oceanic belt that stretched to the far horizons. There were over three hundred and fifty islands in the Fijian Archipelago, the majority of which had never been set foot upon. Compton attempted to release his inborn tension with a long exhale as he surveyed the scattered islands. The breath brought an unexpected liberation and again he felt pleased over his impulse to visit this part of the world. He was not by nature an impulsive man but when the travel agent made the suggestion of an open-ended ticket that included stops in Fiji and New Zealand en route to Australia, he, as they say, seized the moment. Something he could not remember doing throughout his adult life. His last impulsive act was to become a certified scuba diver in the summer of his second year of college, before the world turned somber with achievement. In that rocking plane, he pondered the grand chasm that lingered in amnesia between these two events. It brought a sickness that drove his thoughts elsewhere, anywhere, and returned his eye to the jeweled blue wilderness of the Pacific. His attention rested on a single island, perfect in its isolation and hue. It seemed to convey a sense of peace, of freedom from the demons of a life in exile from itself. Really, he thought, that’s all I’ve been looking for, just a little peace.

After forty-five minutes the plane dropped sharply. A woman passenger squealed when it made a tight loop over a valley of dense jungle. Settling low, it crossed a narrow beach and skimmed over the tops of a grove of coconut trees. A dirt runway appeared, carved out of the grove, and the plane lighted smoothly on the grassy plain. It bumped and shuddered to the end of the runway, turned, and taxied back to a weather-beaten unpainted shack.

Among dour-faced Indians and darkly handsome Fijians outside the shack stood a tall, attractive, fair-skinned woman in her late thirties. She waved and came forward, introducing herself as Allison Scott, wife of John Scott, owners/operators of Taveuni Charters. Though somewhat lanky in appearance, she moved with the fluid grace of an athlete. Sun bleached blue eyes harbored loosely thrown stones, and her blond hair cut short, its wispy ends fluttering about her neck, softened her face in their frailty. Together they loaded Compton’s gear in the back of a late-model pickup truck and headed down a rutted dirt road that ran parallel to the coral encrusted coastline. “This,” said Allison, “is Taveuni’s thoroughfare.” After a pause she asked, “How long will you be staying with us?”

“Not long,” replied Compton, who was gazing out his window across a glassed-out sea whose colors appeared surreal and remarkable in their vivid casts.

“I’m on my way to Australia,” he said absently. “Just stopped for a dive and a quick look at Fiji.”

Allison drove on without comment while Compton continued to stare out to sea if in search of something.

“Stop,” he said. “Stop the car.”

Allison braked and pulled the truck over to the side of the road. Compton opened the door, still focused on the sea, his tongue licking his lips as a child when fully engrossed. He stumbled out of the truck and across bleached coral and black lava to the shoreline, where he stood transfixed. Allison waited in the truck for several minutes, then growing impatient, got out and tracked down her charge who had wandered south, never taking his eyes from the water. When she caught up to him she put her hand on his shoulder and at her touch Compton started, wheeling around as if awakened from sleep.  “It’s so beautiful,” he said. “The colors. The water. The sky.”

“Are you all right, Mr. Compton? You look a bit peaked.”

He turned to her, smiled and nodded, “Yes, yes, I’m all right. It’s just… Well, I guess I haven’t been down to the sea in a very long time. I’ve forgotten just how beautiful it is.”

He was having difficulty composing himself. The water had drawn him like a magnet and when he ventured close he very nearly came to tears and had no idea why. The power of the sea had always appealed to him, but never in this way. He was at a loss to explain its influence to himself, much less else.

“I’m fine,” he said in dismissal, turning for the truck. They walked back to the vehicle in silence. Allison had seen varying degrees of this sort of behavior from visitors upon their reaching the island, particularly from American and German women. They were all so emotional with regards to the sea, but not the men. This one was a bit of a wreck, she concluded.

Back in the truck, bouncing along the dirt road, the silence became awkward and Compton, very much feeling the discomfort of the quietude blurted, “Right now I could use some peace and quiet, no phones ringing, no car horns, or the even the static of a television.”

“Well,” she said a bit taken aback, “we can fill some of those requests. But we do have a phone and a car with a horn, but no TV.” She paused as Compton’s attention drifted back to the sea. “How much diving do you intend to do with us?”

“Trying to take it day to day. It’s been awhile since I’ve had a scuba rig on.“ Turning again to her, he brightened. “But I’m looking forward to it.”

The road plumed with dust and out of the swirling haze skipped a raggedy, barefoot child in shorts leading an Indian woman dressed in red, carrying a bundle of wood atop her head and a load of laundry under a free arm. The image arrived and departed as in a dream to be replaced with a pair of Fijian men ambling along barefoot in flowered shirts and swim trunks, walking with the freedom of the unburdened, their arms swinging loosely. The truck weaved to the jungle side of the road where a drab, wooden shack grew out of vine and tree, and a woman leaned against the doorway holding a naked child in the crook of her arm groping for a loose beast under the blue flowers of her blouse.

As the jungle consumed the shack, the truck quickly turned and climbed a steep drive that plateaued into a beautifully manicured compound of finely cut grass, coconut trees and colorful beds of exotic flowers. The resort lay atop cliffs that overlooked what Compton later learned was the Somosomo Straits, and contained a number of two-room bungalows that Allison referred to as bures. He was shown a bure adjacent to the main house that opened to a sea view. The room was clean and well maintained, the linen fresh, and the water ran hot and cold, a luxury, so he had been told by the travel agent. The accommodations were superb, far better than he had expected, and upon settling into the firm bed, he considered staying longer than a few days. If the food is good, he thought, I could stay here for a month. Well, a couple of weeks anyway. Really get into the diving, see a little of Taveuni before heading out. I’m not expected for another six weeks, why rush off to work? He rose from the bed and walked to the window as if to survey his decision. Looking out over the winking sea, its startling blue triggered his memory of the dream. He realized that it was the dream that drew him to the sea when he first caught sight of it upon his arrival. Unlike most dreams that fade upon waking, this dream of six months ago remained vivid and easily recalled. He could still feel the sensations of moving beneath the water as if in flight, past clouds of fish that glistened like falling rain in slow motion against a cobalt background that was as endless as another sky. In the dream, he swam towards a silver light that appeared to be a very large fish or dolphin. Then it turned into the depths and disappeared into the gloom. He remembered his mother’s interpretation of the dream when he told her about it while still in the hospital, she insisting it was a dream of life, and he correcting her, ”No, more of a death dream.”

He turned away from the window, suddenly feeling weak and reclined on the bed. Death had been close. Prior to the dream, he was scarcely clinging to life. As if to delay a drowning by holding his breath, that to breathe was to drown, to die. In those last frantic moments when he could no longer hold his breath and death was imminent, he gasped and sucked the sea into his lungs. Yet death did not enter with the sea, but a new breath was found, extracted out of the viscid atmosphere. It was then, through those labored breaths, that the dream came. Anger welled up at the thought of it all. He could never quite let go of his certainty that it was the hospital rather than the complications that had nearly killed him. There was never any way to really know for sure. Still it galled him. Yet at this moment it seemed to be the best thing that could have happened, but he didn’t know why, just a feeling. All those years chasing what -- the Godhead of life, money? That’s what very nearly killed him, not the broken leg. No more risks, play it safe, take the cushy job, do the nine to five and have your own time to go play. Time to reinvent myself into… what?

Idle thoughts of himself whirled in his head, going nowhere. He could almost feel the pressure of them and turned again to the sea in an attempt to release himself from the endless chatter that his mind knew so well. Maybe mother was right, it was a life dream and it was telling me to get a new one. The old one wasn’t working, really hadn’t ever worked. Well, actually it did work pretty good for awhile. He blinked away the thoughts and refocused on the sea, and it occurred to him in an odd realization that he never felt more alive than when under the water. He wondered where that thought had been summoned from and tried to remember the last time he had actually made a dive, but the image was vague and unformed. He lay down again feeling a weariness that all but glued his eyes shut and almost instantly fell asleep, not waking until he was called to dinner.

Meals were served in the central house around a magnificent rosewood table. The hosts, John and Allison Scott, were seated at either end of the table and the guests, who included two Germans that did not speak English, four Americans, and two young male Brits, were scattered in pairs around both sides of the table. Compton arrived late and sat down between the two American men in the middle of a one-upmanship of where’s the best diving in the world, a sort of “been there, done that” exercise among the widely traveled guests.

“Bonaire is a must for wall dives,” insisted the effervescent blond American wife of the rail thin husband, who nodded agreeably.

“The Bahamas still have the most sharks and everybody knows it,” she concluded, reaching for the breadbasket to punctuate her authority on the subject.

“Well then, everyone hasn’t been to Dangerous Reef in South Australia,” said the overweight bearded American with the redheaded wife, who was just about as perfect as a plastic surgeon make a woman in her late forties.

The Brits were a handsome couple who, in their inbred politeness, began to rise when Compton appeared but he, with a wave of the hand, seated them in mid-rise, not missing a beat in the discussion. “Anyway, Dangerous Reef is history, an old story,” continued the Beard, correcting himself. “Everyone’s going to Cape Town for the Great Whites these days. My God, they jump clear out of the water down there, chasing sea lions in the summertime.“

Rail Thin nodded in agreement. “We’ve been thinking about going there next year.”

“First class expedition. The Boers know how to treat a fellow diver. As long as they’re white, of course,” this to mild laughter as the Fijian cook, black as a work boot, brought in the fish bouillon, the table going conspicuously silent.

In the awkward hush, Allison introduced Compton. “This is Michael Compton from America, who I understand is an architect.”

Nods all around.

“What part of the States are you from?” asked the Blonde, whose name was Jennifer.

Compton smiled and answered in a voice he scarcely recognized. “All over, southern Florida, and California, mostly.”

“Is that Southern California?” asked the Beard, introducing himself again as Bernard, as if announcing a Grand Duke.

“Yes… well, no. I live along the Central Coast, actually. San Luis Obispo, Morro Bay, that area.”

“My God,” said the redhead, whose name was Vanessa. “That was where Kevin Munsen was based. He practically built the entire town of Morro Bay. I think it was Seaside Development, wasn’t it dear?”

Bernard nodded in bored agreement.

“Did you know him?”

Compton was unclear if she was addressing him until, wide-eyed, she stared him into a response.

“I’m sorry, who?”

“Seaside Development, Kevin Munsen,” she said, looking at her husband, Bernard, as if whatever was miscommunicated did not generate from her, and who assured her by way of a noncommittal smile that the fault indeed did not lie with her.

“No, never heard of him, uh, it,” Compton finally replied.

“He was probably there before you arrived,” Vanessa said to round out the logic of what had become an abstract discussion with which she was decidedly uncomfortable. She quickly dove into her soup. The rest followed suit and commented appropriately on its delicate flavor, which Allison attributed to the Fijian flair for fish soups. Compton hid in his soup as well, avoiding eye contact with what he concluded to be a rather motley group of divers.

However Bernard, bored as he was, sought entertainment of some form and asked, “So what kind of buildings do you design?”

Compton lifted hesitantly from his soup, looked at Bernard, took a breath and, in its release, his countenance appeared to change almost entirely, his eyes narrowing and mutating into something between mischievous and menacing. His now smiling face held a charm and wit that heretofore was unrevealed. “Actually, I‘m on my way to Australia to oversee a design of mine for a state funded Shakespearean theater. I like to do different designs, sports arenas, office buildings. Theaters are always fun, you can stretch yourself a bit there. I keep busy.”

All but Bernard were genuinely impressed. “I rather imagine you make a decent living?”

“I do all right, thanks,” replied Compton, cheery as you please, ignoring the deliberate intrusion into his privacy.

Vanessa tugged at Bernard’s arm and pulled it to her silicone breast, smiling secretly. “It’s the indecent living that costs so much.”

Bernard broke into laughing agreement and allowed his arm to linger on the polymerized appurtenance.

“I’ve always admired the great architects of the world,” said Jennifer. “Imagine creating something that will last forever.”

“Nothing lasts forever,” interjected Bernard.

That’s true,” agreed Compton. “But it will last well beyond our lives. And I suspect that in some realities, that would be forever.”

All laughed, except Bernard, who fully understood the implication of the comment and nodded in recognition of a clearly drawn line.

Bernard exuded a darkness that seeped from his eyes and seemed to conjure a shadow that descended over the table as the Fijian cook cleared the soup and brought the entrée of lamb loins with sweet yams and cabbage. Cordiality finally resumed with rave comments as to the meal’s presentation and then its flavors, as all dug in and carried on their previous conversation of the preferred dive sites of the world.

In the spirit of inclusion, Billy asked, “Been doing much diving lately, Mike? Or is it Michael?”

Compton looked up from his lamb. “Michael is fine, and no, not much diving in a while. I am looking forward to getting back into the water.”

“Do we have a novice here?” asked Bernard, washing his question down with a gulp of wine.

Compton smiled away the implication and to his lamb replied, ”Hardly,” in an awkward attempt to shift the focus elsewhere.

Bernard gazed at him as a predator might, sizing up a late night snack. The Brits, reading the remarks with the empathy of only those whose persecution is unremitting, very nearly spoke in unison, but Jason, the short haired blond with platinum highlights, beat Ian to the mark. “We’ve just been diving for a few years ourselves and are so looking forward to the Fijian experience.”

“Really?” said Bernard, barely managing to keep his sarcasm within bounds. Turning again to Compton, “So enlighten us, Mike, where has the diving taken you?”

Compton’s eyes narrowed again, his smile disappearing. “Far and deep.“

“That sounds more like a sex dream than a dive site. Come on, fill us in. Have you dove in places that would call for some experience, some courage?  Give us your story,” begged Billy.

Compton glanced around the table, all faces expectant. “The Andrea Doria. I made a couple dives on her.”

Billy whistled, “Whoa that’s the primo jump, man, the most dangerous of all wreck dives. Jesus, over two hundred feet! You using air or mixed gases? Tell us the story. Whoa! The Andrea Doria.”

Bernard acknowledged the feat with a nod. “Yes, by all means tell us.”

“I’d be happy to.” Compton sat higher in his seat and in so doing took full command of the table. “Well, the wreck is an Italian luxury liner, 700 feet long and 11 stories high, and lays in 240 feet of North Atlantic water. In 1956, she was broadsided by a Swedish ship 65 miles off Nantucket. Next to the Titanic, it’s the most seductive wreck in the world to dive, and the most dangerous. Bone chilling water, currents so strong they can rip your facemask off, silt that can wipe out all visibility in an instant. Her corridors are choked with electrical wiring and debris and her exterior is spider-webbed with acres of monofilament fishing nets. The wreck is a nightmare.”

“Haven’t a bunch a people died diving the Doria?” asked Billy, thoroughly enthralled.

“Yeah, I’m not sure how many but at least a dozen. They generally get lost or disoriented in the labyrinth below decks and run out of air before they can find their way out.”

“God, what a horrible way to die!  Why would anybody take that kind of risk?” asked Jennifer.

“For the same reason they climb Everest -- because it’s there. And for artifacts worth great sums of money. One guy recovered a couple of ceramic friezes worth several hundred thousand dollars apiece. There are more down there, something like 16 safes with jewels, gold-rimmed Doria tableware, the list goes on and on. “

“So what was the dive like?” asked Bernard, mildly intrigued.

“Spooky, very spooky, and cold to the point of mind numbing. Fortunately e wasn’t a current running the day we dropped in. We were using mixed gas, exotic helium-based mixes and computer generated ascent schedules. The safety factors are quite rigorous. I went with an experienced diver and just stayed close to him. But the first sighting of the wreck in those dark waters, well it looked like what you might imagine a ghost would look like. Sort of half-eaten away, dark and foreboding, ominous, like this creature lying in wait. A nightmare, like I said. It was all I could do to keep my heart from pounding out of my chest. Once you penetrate the hull, it gets a hundred times worse. You are inside the nightmare. Creepy hoses and wires hanging everywhere, grabbing at you in the dark, trying to entangle you. Except where your light falls, the interior is as black as a coal mine. We had backups of everything, but I was always worried my light would go out and I wouldn’t be able to find my way out. In some places it really silted up and reduced visibility down to a couple of feet. Frankly, it was all I could do to hold it together. I had a ton of confidence in my partner. He’d made fourteen dives on the wreck. Still I couldn’t wait to get out. I picked up a small saucer that some other diver had found and dropped on his way out, so I was happy just to have a souvenir. When we finally exited the wreck we had to be careful because all that fish netting draped everywhere was just waiting to snarl you up. They had cut holes in it, but still, if you came out the wrong way and were low on air, you’d have to cut your way out. It was like death waited for you at every turn. One mistake was all that wreck needed to do you in. Deco was a drag too. So long and so cold, with nothing to do but wait, hoping the current wouldn’t pick up and rip you off the line or the seas wouldn’t blow the boat off its hook.”

“Jesus,” was all Billy said, shaking his head.

“Yeah, it was quite an experience.”

“What about the second time”, asked Bernard.

“Pretty much the same as the first. I penetrated deeper into the ship, was a bit more relaxed. Recovered some silverware that polished up nice. But as they say, the most important thing you bring back from the Doria is yourself.  One guy lost about 60 minutes of decompression when his guideline broke and was swept off the wreck in the heavy current. He had to swim hard to recover his position and used up a lot of his air. In the confusion, he didn’t deploy the reel and lift bag he was carrying. He ascended without a line and completed his 50-foot stop, but ran out of air and had to surface. He was hit pretty hard with decompression sickness; puking, dizziness. They choppered him out and he spent 40 hours in the chamber. Got out with a bit of a gimp in his right leg. He was lucky.”

“Looks like we got a real pro diving with us,” announced Billy. “The Andria Doria is big time diving, brother. Big time!”

Jennifer turned to John Scott, the host, who was a quiet, internal man, craggy faced with a deep sea tan, in his mid-forties, thinning hair turned platinum from long days in the sun. He possessed the old, wizened eyes of a mariner who had his share of beatings by the sea and has thus made few errors in navigating the man-made shoals of daily life. “Are there any shipwrecks around these waters, Captain Scott?”

Scott brought the napkin to his mouth and hammered at its corners. “Not really. There’s an odd skiff and fishing boat that went down, but nothing of real interest.”

“God, I’d love to dive a big wreck,” she said wistfully as if referring to something other than diving.

“You can dive my big wreck anytime you like,” Billy lustfully replied, eliciting laughter all around.

Bernard remained conspicuously quiet but caught Compton’s eye and observed a deception in its shift.

Allison was still smiling when she stood. “I should think we’d probably better end the evening right there. Morning starts early here. Breakfast at sevenn.”

Everyone rose and as Compton passed John Scott he pulled him aside as the table emptied. “Are you all set for the dive tomorrow morning?”

Compton nodded confidently. “Yes, I am, thanks.”

“Just checking. This will be your first dive with us and I wanted to make sure you have everything you need.”

“I appreciate it. I’m all set and looking forward to it.”

Bernard overheard the exchange and stopped, preventing the rest of the party from leaving. “You sound pretty confident. You don’t think there’s any risk in diving tomorrow?”

Compton was clearly taken aback and instinctively became defensive. “I didn’t say that.” He then regained himself. ”In this sort of diving you just need to pay attention to one simple thing.”

“And what,” asked Bernard, finishing off his wine, “would that be?”

Compton cheerfully responded. “Look at your computer every now and again. What could be easier than that?”

Bernard had small eyes, black and dead as a reptile. Compton wondered why he hadn’t noticed them before. “Well, I know that someone with your vast diving experience would realize that when things go smoothly you are, of course, correct. It is only when things begin to go sour that one must be,” he paused for effect, ”more than casually prepared.”

John Scott, seeing where this discussion was headed, made an attempt to move the guests along, but Compton, with arm raised to deflect the interruption, responded. “I can only assume you must be speaking of your own ineptness. If you need some assistance in the water, I’ll be more than happy to help.”

“That’s not what I meant at all,” said Bernard, shaking his head in bemused disbelief. But before he could elaborate, Compton brushed by him and was out the door.

Compton did not meander about the compound with the others, but went directly to his bure where, after closing the door and releasing a deep sigh, he shook his head in perplexed disbelief. What possessed me to do that? Why must I create those damn stories?  Stories, Michael? Out and out lies for God’s sake. That asshole Bernard, I let him bully me into it. People just can’t leave well enough alone. I wasn’t bothering anybody. Christ, what bullshit! He began to chuckle at the wildness of his story. He was always amazed when these elaborate deceptions would just spew out of him. Where did they come from? I’ve been doing it ever since I was a kid, he thought. My clever ways got me out of some serious jams. I never got caught and if they came close I would cover it with another, more outrageous story. I should have been a writer. Put this stuff to some positive use. I detest that part of me. It’s such a weakness.

His self-loathing turned him to the window where he stared into the last of a smoky sunset. I strive towards the truth in myself, he thought, and wind up telling lies. I want the truth. I admire honesty in others, but can’t find it in myself. Now all this shame. It always ends this way. I know the outcome before I start and yet I go right on, caught up in the moment of center stage. It’s self-destructive. I can’t go among these people, face them in the morning. Them believing I’m this mix-gas wreck diver who goes to 250 feet.  Christ, what was I thinking?

Visions of the white beaches of Australia circled his mind like mosquitoes on a sunburned tourist. “I’ve got to get out of here,” he said aloud to the remnant sunset and began to absently repack his gear bag. I’ll leave on the first plane tomorrow. Tell everybody I’m recovering from chemotherapy treatments, doctor’s orders, shouldn’t have thought about diving in the first place. He shook his head, bewildered at this thing in his brain that would just take off like that and fabricate something other than the truth. The fact was, he silently mused, he couldn’t stand up to the truth. Never could when the stakes got over his head. It always had to be bigger and beer than the next guy. The realization was sobering. He longed for the truth in himself, but it seemed distant and unavailable. He always ran or lied, usually both. And he would run again and he loathed himself for these self-destructive flaws.

The decision to leave mortared itself into reality while he gazed sightlessly across a panorama of golden rays of an already sunken sun mirrored on the table-flat sea.

Across the pane of sea a single dolphin jumped.

It was a moment that shattered the endless chatter that filled his mind, leaving it as stilled as the water. The slick dolphin, plated in gold, suspended at the apex of its jump. The moment held, altered in time, as if to make eye contact somehow possible. Then slowly, the dolphin arched its body downward and reentered the water like freshly smelted gold pouring into a sea of platinum. He continued to stare out to sea watching the ripples where the dolphin had vanished, looking for it to break water again but it never reappeared.

Michael Compton did not believe in omens. He did not believe in astrology or palmistry or channeling, UFO’s or psychics. He had little use for symbols of any kind unless they were found on a set of blueprints. Yet he stood stunned, not so much at the obvious symbolism but at the absolute clarity of the message. Unable as the shoe in his left hand to conjure up a thought, he tried unsuccessfully to throw the shoe into his gear bag. It fell short and hit the floor. When finally his eyes left the sea, he collapsed on the bed, knowing at once he could not leave but not knowing why. The reasonless decision dropped him to his knees, which had suddenly gone weak. Perhaps he had glimpsed the truth and could no longer deny it. Perhaps he had no lies left in him. Perhaps it was here in this obscure place in the middle of the South Pacific that he had to finally make a stand. Maybe he was just tired of running from himself. Those thoughts did not enter his mind, could not enter. He only knew he could not leave, not just yet. The depth with which he knew this could not be fathomed or wrenched away from the reality of the moment. He only knew that he would not leave, could not resist the power of the idea, and certainly could not put a name to its source.

* * *

The breakfast call came at 7 AM sharp. In contrast to last night, Compton was the first to arrive and seated down to a freshly set table with cold papaya, scrambled eggs, Canadian bacon and Kona coffee, which the Fijian cook, Esther, poured from a fine ceramic pitcher. The others straggled in and said their “good mornings” in the polite and affected way of those who meant nothing of the kind. All were excited about the dive save for Bernard who continued to stare at Michael Compton with his reptilian eyes.

“All this must seen very small time to you,” remarked Billy to Compton. “What with the Andrea Doria, and all.”

Michael looked up from his eggs feigning mild surprise, then shifted into a bout of false modesty. “No, actually I find these dives equally exciting, though less anxiety filled,” he replied, feeling the awkwardness of the lie creep into his voice, wishing above all else that the Andrea Doria would simply go away, at the same time knowing that it wouldn’t. Now, he realized, he would have to live with the lie in some form of purgatory for as long as he resided here at the resort.

“Well, I would love to buddy up with you,” continued Billy. “I’m sure I could learn a few things about deep dives, but the wife and I pretty much stick together. You probably don’t want a buddy, anyway.  I know a lot of experienced divers prefer to dive solo.”

“I suppose that depends on the dive,” said Compton, attempting to finish off the conversation.

“No, actually it depends on the diver,” chirped in Bernard, sneering out the remark as he sat down to his breakfast.

Compton, in almost a reflex response, pushed his plate of ha-eaten eggs away, grabbed his coffee and excused himself from the table. Bernard received castigating looks from Billy and the gay couple, Ian and Jason, to which he grinned in response.

The unease with which Compton now found himself with these guests was very nearly unbearable. He strolled the grounds finishing off his coffee, taking in the sights of early morning Taveuni, which were spectacular, his mind unable to let go of the realization that he had to leave this self-imposed torture chamber. He could not discern how or why the breaching dolphin might, in any way, have altered that simple fact. Sleep had, as it usually does, softened and nearly obliterated the impact of the dolphin’s appearance and now he was at a loss as to its influence at all. It became abundantly clear he would leave the island or, at the very least, change resorts upon his return from the dives this afternoon.

The call came to load up. Compton, along with the guests, gathered his dive gear and all were ferried by truck down to a small inlet five miles from the resort that served as a harbor, of sorts, as well as a safe port for the hurricanes that blew through these islands on a regular basis.

The boat was open for the most part and its forty-foot length easily accommodated the eight divers, who sat on aluminum benches as it skipped over the water pushed by twin Honda Nineties. Compton sat next to Ian who had become nervous and was twittering away in his anxiety. Seeking reassurances from Jason that although he would jump first, he would not leave him and they would descend down the anchor line together. Bernard and his wife sat across from Compton and were sharing a private joke that he believed was directed at him, for they both shot furtive glances through their giggles.

The boat ran for nearly half an hour and as it began to slow, John Scott stood and spoke. “We’re diving the Flower Garden this morning, spectacular white sea anemone filling an entire deep wall. Have you all had some wall diving experience?” He looked for responses and everyone nodded except Compton who felt no need to extend his lies further into this fine morning. Scott’s eyes flicked over the group and came to rest on Compton, but he said nothing and Scott continued.

“This is the deep dive of the day, down to one hundred and twenty feet. Do we have anyone here who has a tendency to get narced at that depth?” Everyone but Compton shook his head. “Okay then,” continued Scott, “everybody check their gear and prepare their computers. We’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Compton had already hooked up his regulator and buoyancy compensator to the tank. The regulator had been serviced before he left the States and was working fine. However, the BC had apparently corroded somewhat and though it filled easily under pressure, did not discharge the air in single burps, instead seeping out slowly in a telltale whistle. Its high pitched squeak caught the attention of Ian and Jason, forcing him to abandon his tinkering with the air release valve to sustain his deception of the all-knowing superior diver.

The boat slowed and an Indian girl, Emily, the only crew member and a creature of singular beauty with large brown eyes, a full sensuous mouth and blue-black hair braided into a single strand that ran the length of her back, dropped anchor off the bow.

The divers slipped into their rigs and while last minute adjustments took place, Compton once again tried to release the remainder of air out of the partially inflated BC. But as the air trickled out and the valve began to whistle and draw stares, he turned his attention to putting on his mask and fins. Now the divers were standing and inching their way to the stern and jumping in under Scott’s instruction. “Swim to the anchor line. There’s a light current running. Drop down the line and we’ll meet on the anchor at the edge of the wall.”

Compton passed a box of weights and grabbed two of unknown poundage, placing them in his C pocket to compensate for the inflation, then jumped into the water and swam to the anchor line. He figured he could pull himself down until he hit neutral buoyancy and then the partially inflated BC would no longer be a factor. Also, at depth the additional pressure would discharge the remaining air and he could then dump the extra weight. He reached the anchor line with no difficulty and, along with everyone else, began to descend. The inflated BC was working directly against his descent. While others glided down with easy kicks, he was forced to pull himself down the line hand-over-hand. Halfway down to the forty-foot bottom he attempted to release the air from the still inflated BC, but it continued to dribble out in a slow stream of bubbles. The diver above, one of the Germans on her way to the anchor, passed him, giving a strange look, which seemed to fall somewhere between disbelief and disapproval.            Compton held onto the line to keep from rising and with his free hand attempted to work the BC, his movements beginning to slide into the frantic, jerky, gestures of the grossly incompetent. On the bottom, divers were pointing off over the edge of the wall where, swimming in the mid-water column, was a lone dolphin – silver gray, large bodied, with an ever-present smile. It seemed to hang in the water, casually eyeing the divers and their kaleidoscopic bevy of bubbles that rose to the surface, capturing the hidden light of the sea, dancing their way to oblivion.

Compton’s preoccupation prevented him from catching early sight of the dolphin, but when he finally saw it, he felt strangely attracted and was overtaken with a desire that was unfamiliar in its fervor. In his excitement, he released the anchor line to swim down for a closer look. In that moment, he realized his mistake, but rather than try and reclaim his hold on the line, he elected to power down to the dolphin with forceful kicks. The kicks, as mighty as they were, could not overcome the buoyancy of his BC and he began to rise. Seized by frustration and fueled by a resolute longing of unknown origins, he ripped at the BC, attempting to discharge the air by way of disembowelment, frantically pulling on the connector hose as he continued to rise to the surface. Finally, he managed to separate the connector hose from the BC and in a mini-explosion of air, the BC filled itself with water and aborted his ascent. Gleefully liberated, he immediately began to sink towards the near motionless dolphin below. Swimming furiously down and over the edge of the drop-off, he did not veer from the dolphin. It was deeper than it appeared and as he began to close the distance, the dolphin appeared to slip away as if it were a mirage. Then, as if called, the dolphin turned and swam off into the cobalt abyss, disappearing altogether. Out in this deep water with no bottom as a point of reference, Compton had no sense of his depth or if he was suspended or, in fact, sinking. He instinctively began to kick and look around. Far above, the other divers winked in silhouette at the edge of the wall. Slowly, in a semi-trance state, he realized that he had been sinking all the while and began to kick in earnest. Despite hard thrusts from his fins he continued to sink and panic began to ooze its way into his body. Though he felt restriction in his breath and his legs flailed against the thick atmosphere of water, he had the presence of mind to check his computer, discovering himself to be down over a hundred and sixty feet and still falling. Recognizing the severity of his predicament, he began a last ditch kick that did nothing but consume what little was left of his energy. The deep breaths of panic and exertion placed a demand on his regulator that it was unable to meet. Short of air, a building constriction in his chest released him from what was left of his senses and placed him in full panic. He knew he was going to die here, and as that thought took firm and undeniable root, John Scott was at his side, attempting to inflate the wreck of the ation and tching the last of a few trapped bubbles coursing their way past a gaping hole in its bladder. Scott pulled the quick release harness and handed over his spare regulator to Compton, who exchanged it for his own as Scott pulled the over-weighted scuba rig off Compton and let it fall away. Now they were rising with Scott’s hand under Compton’s arm, lifting him slowly to the surface. In the safety of Scott’s hands, his breath came under control and he was able to relax into the ascent. They rose to the edge of the wall where the other divers awaited, no doubt perplexed by the events that had unfolded before them. Compton saw them not as divers but as diners seated around tonight’s dinner table.

Scott assisted Compton aboard the boat and tore off his mask, his face swollen and veined with anger. “What the hell happened down there?”

Compton’s first impulse was to run, to hide, to fabricate a story, “equipment failure’ would have done nicely, would have satisfied all inquires. All evidence to the contrary was lying down in several hundred feet of water, and even if it was retrieved, nothing could be proved. These options ran through Compton’s mind in a millisecond and he saw them as a witness, detached and separate from their source. “I screwed up,” he said, removing his facemask. “My BC wasn’t working properly and I shouldn’t have made the jump. I tried to fix it, and things got out of hand.” He heard himself say the words as if it were someone else. There was a release in the truth, a lack of burden that seemed to free him from his terrible act. He sat on the bench and looked down at the floor.  “I panicked.”

Scott, taken aback by the directness of the admission, let his breath go in an audible sigh and shook his head. “Well, that was a close one. We were pretty deep.” Then, in a whisper to himself, “Close to one eighty. I can’t make another dive today. Emily will do the guide by herself, she’ll be fine.” Then back to Compton. “You feel okay? Any sickness or dizziness?”

“No,” said Compton, running his hand through his hair, subconsciously monitoring his vital signs, “I’m okay, I feel fine. Thanks, John. I owe you one.”

Scott was taking off his gear, his anger falling away with each article. “You don’t owe me anything, all in a day’s work.” He paused and watched Compton as he put his head in his hands and stared at the floor. “You never dove the Andrea Doria did you?”

Compton did not look up from the floor, could not meet the eyes of his savior, and slowly shook his head.

Later, when the other divers began to trickle back on board, the boat was an odd mix of joyous tourists back from the wonders of the deep and a dark foreboding that cast a pall that was all but suffocating.

Billy was the first to come over to Compton. “Man, I saw it all. I was looking up and saw the BC go, just exploded in your face. ”

Compton nodded, couldn’t bring himself to a full confession. He knew that if he said nothing, made no explanations, people have a tendency to fill in the blanks.

“I guess you wanted to take a closer look at the dolphin. Emily says they are rare out here.”

“You saw it, you saw the dolphin, too?” Compton’s voice was animated and Billy took a step back unsure of its purpose.

“Well, yeah we all saw it. It was pretty deep though. I figured you knew what you were doing.”

Compton hadn’t really been sure about the dolphin. The whole episode had been dreamlike. He smiled without realizing it. “Yeah,” was all he said. This explanation seemed to satisfy Billy and he returned to his seat to further explain the real truth of the event to his wife who waited anxiously for news from the source.

Ian and Jason were sympathetic and gave him a comforting pat on the shoulder and inquired as to his wellbeing. Compton nodded and said he was okay, all the while looking at Bernard who sat acrs from him, sucking on a bottle of water. His small eyes tracked the group, taking it all in, like some trial lawyer who was patiently waiting for the proper moment to reveal the true culprit and have the whole case thrown out of court. Humiliation lingered in the waiting and there was nothing Compton could do to forestall it. He sat in the knowledge that he would not lie and suffer any further degradations. Particularly in light of the fact that Scott was within hearing distance and he would not compromise the truth of his confession for Bernard or anyone else, no matter what prevailed.

Bernard waited until the boat had slowed as it neared the dock, then stood and strolled casually over to Compton, who hadn’t moved from his place. Looking down at him in the pathetic way of an adult about to reprimand a child, he took a pull on his water. “Looks like you had a little trouble back there, Mike.”

Compton looked up at him, annoyed, but said nothing. No sense in prolonging the punishment.

All on the boat had stopped talking and were fixed on the moment, not unlike the silence that precedes the dropping of the cyanide in an execution. In a voice filled with mock sympathy, Bernard crooned, “Well, the simple approach to diving seems to have its drawbacks.” He then leaned down and came close to Compton’s ear. “I’ll bet you’re not even an architect. I’m not going to waste my time on you.” He turned, took another hit of water and strolled back to his seat.

Compton kept to himself throughout the remainder of the afternoon and did not attend dinner. As the sun was setting he gazed out of the window, looking down at the pale water, its surface like marble slate, looking at the sea, looking for a dolphin, looking at himself. I’m on a bad roll, he thought. Too many things have turned sour these last few years. What the hell is going on? Really what is going on? That thing today, if I hadn’t lied it wouldn’t have been so bad. Hell, it wouldn’t have been bad at all really. Jesus, in a way I orchestrated the whole thing. Why do I do that, why do I try to be something I’m not?

The question fell to the core of him like an electric shock. It weakened him and he gripped the shutter for support. When was I last the true me, he silently wondered. When I was a kid I guess. That was pretty much right. I liked the world then because everything seemed, I don’t know, balanced, peaceful. Until my brothers started to show up. After each one came, Mom got a little crazier and then Andrew put her over the top. He realized for the first time that, as the oldest of four brothers, he had became mother to his brothers. Jesus, where was Dad? Yeah, it really went down hill from there. But not entirely. I had Elizabeth and she was cool, with the volleyball scholarship and Student Body president thing. Some of it was fun, like the volleyball. Well, really it was afterwards. The bar with the peanut shells on the floor and you bought a steak and a salad for five bucks and grilled it yourself, pitchers of beer with the guys. How did Donavon get all those girls? They would flock to him, even pretty ones. He was chubby and he stammered when he got excited. Go figure. Those days were maybe the best of my life. I loved those guys, Mike, Dennis, Bob, and I didn’t even know it. Love is such a killer, each time it takes another piece of your heart. Who sang that song? I want to say Bette Midler, but that can’t be right. Heather looked like Bette, a little bit, same kind of pouty mouth. She was loud like Bette. I never should have married her, what was I thinking? I should never have gotten married at all, to anyone. Janice was okay. At least she didn’t try to kill me. Well, near the end, taking that money and all. But Denise was just plain evil. Jesus, full of sex, but man she never owned a kind thought. Which is okay, you just don’t want any kids with an evil person. Bradley, what did I do to you? What did I do to me? The pain of thinking about his only son short-crcuited his ruminations and froze his mind in anguish.

When the circuit breaker of random thoughts broke him loose again, he could not remember why he was going over his past or what he was searching for. It was important, that much he remembered, but it was lost in the jumbled wiring of roof brain chatter. What was important, of primary concern, was leaving the resort as soon as possible. In light of today’s disaster, he had not the resolve to spend another night here and face these people from across the table. He was through fabricating stories, but he would have to begin elsewhere, at some other resort. It was no longer possible to be here, having laid out a groundwork of deceit that could not be overcome in a lifetime of truth telling.

He ventured out of his bure and hoped he would not encounter anyone, making his way to the office of John Scott. He knocked on the open door and Scott turned from his desk, motioning him to take a seat. “How are you feeling?” he said with the detached concern of a doctor inquiring as to the health of his patient.

“I’m fine. Again, I appreciate your help today. Thanks.”

“No worries, mate.”

“Listen, I’m thinking of moving on, but I’ve got no regulator or BC. Got any ideas?”

Scott shook his head. “I’ve got a couple of back ups but can’t let you take them with you. Stick around. There’s plenty of diving to do. You’ll be all right. You can buddy up with me.”

“Thanks, but I’ve made up my mind. I’m taking the next flight out. I’ll head for New Zealand, spend a little time there before moving on to Australia.”

Scott removed his glasses, setting them on the desk and rubbed his eyes. “I understand how you feel but I’m afraid I have some rather bad news. The coup has flared up and Sambuka has restricted all domestic flights until further notice. I shouldn’t think it will last more than a week or so. There are a number of resorts on this island, and those people need to get home.”

Compton sat forward in his chair, his hands reaching out beseechingly, his face screwed down in disbelief. “What am I supposed to do until then?”

“Well, that’s pretty much up to you. If you don’t want to do any diving, there’s the island to explore, and…”

Compton cut him off. “Can I rent a car?”

“No, not really, but there are cabs about.”

Compton shook his head as if to awaken from this new dream that was quickly becoming a less than desired reality. “I have to get out of here. If you can think of anything, any interesting place would do. I’m limited in funds, though. A big resort would be taxing.” He was beginning to ramble in his dread. “Are there any inexpensive places around?”

Scott’s hands padded the air in the manner of parents who are quietly trying to calm a traumatized child. “Let me check around, put the word out. We’ll turn something up.”

Compton regained his lost poise and sat back in his chair. “I’d appreciate it.” He paused. “I imagine the coup has made things difficult for you, as well.”

“You have no idea. Those boys in Suva have mucked up the works. They want a goddamn republic and have broken away from the Commonwealth, or the Commonwealth has broken away from them, I’m not sure which. Sambuka’s taken over the country and he doesn’t know what to do with it.”

“How did Sambuka justify the coup, anyway?”

“Fear. Fear of losing Fijian lands. Somebody pointed out that the Indians were enough of a majority to take over the legislature. The Fijians were afraid that once in power, the Indians would take over the tribal lands. Rubbish. It was a power play by Sambuka. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to find out that he is doing somebody else’s dirty work.”

“Who would that be?”

“We heard rumors that the Chinese were behind it, then the Americans. There was another story that a Fiji woman started it, thee of some history professor, for God’s sake. We all want what’s good for Fiji, but I’m not sure this is it. Allison and I have put in twenty-three years to get this operation off the ground…” His voice trailed off in dismay.

Compton stood to leave and as he did, Esther, the Fijian cook gently knocked and Scott motioned her into the room to pick up his after dinner tea. He introduced her to Compton in a formal manner and then continued explaining the circumstances of his dilemma. But Compton was distracted by the presence of the Fijian. Esther was not a particularly attractive woman. Her age could have been anywhere from twenty-five to forty–five. Compton had not really paid attention to her before and would have been hard pressed to recognize her on the street. Now he studied her closely. She had a round face and intelligent eyes and wore her hair in a tight Afro style common to the Fijian women he had seen. Powerful arms, folded across her stout mid-section, gave the impression of a well-dug post. She listened without comment until Scott had finished and then silently picked up the teacup, shaking her head before turning for the door.

Scott shrugged and laughed. “I have no idea what that means.  She’s impossible to read. Don’t worry, something will turn up.” They bid each other good night and Compton returned to his bure for yet another sleepless night.

* * *

The following morning after the guests had left for the dive and he had helped himself to a late breakfast, Compton wandered the flowered grounds to collect his thoughts. Scott will put out the word, he thought, but I’ll have to lay low, avoid Bernard and Billy and wait this thing out. Maybe I’ll reconnoiter Taveuni on my own, go to another resort. This avoidance thing is bullshit.

In the far corner of the compound, Esther was hanging laundry and Compton walked over. Perhaps he could charm some local information out of her, some cheapo resort only the Fijians might know. At this point, he was ready for just about anything. Standing before her with his best smile plastered across his face, he immediately dismissed the idea of any inquiry when she didn’t return the smile. Instead, she seemed to catch something in his face, a fleeting sign of recognition that briefly altered her stoic countenance. The intensity of her scrutiny was unsettling and he was about to turn and walk away when she asked, “There was a dolphin at your accident?”

Compton nodded, dumbfounded. Does all of Taveuni know about his episode, he wondered? He managed to blurt out, “Yes, yes, there was. How did you hear about it?”

Esther continued to hold her gaze, now directly into his eyes, as she said evenly, “Not too many dolphin in this water.”

“Really? I saw one the night before, right over there. ” He pointed out across the strait.

Esther cocked her head as if to hear with more clarity. “Two dolphin?” she said, holding up two fingers.

“Well, it could have been the same one, now that I think about it. Though, it would be impossible to know.”

Again Esther appraised him, searching his face to the point of discomfort. Then, without speaking, she returned to her laundry line. Compton felt as if he had been dismissed and was about to comment, but thought better of it.

He returned to the main bure and with Allison’s help got on the phone, calling around to the surrounding resorts. He stayed away from any that were five hundred a day or more, with no way of guessing how long this siege would last. Those within his price range had openings as soon as the flights were lifted and their guests could wing their way home, but none before that. Nor would they strive to make room for any new guests, for they feared food shortages might become a factor before the whole thing was over and there was scarcely enough for those already on board.

At the end of the day things were as bleak as ecelompton, fighting a looming depression, startled at a knock on his bure door. It was Scott who had some news. It seemed that Esther had unexpectedly decided to takes a week’s vacation and had invited Compton to accompany her home on the island of Qamea across the Tasman Strait. He added, “This might be just what you’re looking for.”

“Have you ever been to Qamea?”

“Plenty of times. It’s a pretty little island with good reefs to dive. In any case, the price is right until things settle down.”

Compton was bewildered. “I spoke with her this morning,“ he replied, fumbling for some recollection of the meeting. “She hardly talked to me.”

“Fijian’s have an odd manner about them,” explained Scott. “They’ sus a person out before they spend any time with them. Once that’s done, you have a friend for life. You must have made a good impression.”

“No, not at all, I don’t understand.”

“Well, something changed her mind. This is very unusual, even for Esther. A cab is picking you up tomorrow morning, eight sharp.”

2

An island cab of undetermined model and vintage, painted in garish colors with what appeared to be a burnt out Dead-Head, awaited Esther and Compton in the morning. Esther spoke Fijian to the middle-aged Indian driver as they climbed aboard. They then rattled north down the washboard dirt road past the airfield another ten minutes before stopping in front of a small building randomly painted in lavish colors of red, turquoise, white and navy blue.

“This is the Indian store,” announced Esther in a soft voice. ”We go here first for the gifts.”

Inside, goods were crammed from floor to ceiling, everything from cookies to chainsaws, marbles to Frisbees, fresh fruit to calendars. An Indian boy with a mini-calculator ran the store for his father who, from a room attached to the rear of the store and separated by a curtain of beads, observed the proceedings while stoically seated in a high backed chair.

Esther purchased a two-kilo bag of rice, a bag of sugar, a sack of flour, a loaf of bread, some leaf tobacco and a bottle of cooking oil. Compton offered to pay and she accepted, placing the goods in a large blanket, bundled it up and pointed up the road. “We go to my cousin James’ and wait for Moses.”

Compton stumbled along the rocky dirt road toting his backpack and what little was left of his dive gear in its deflated bag. “What happened to the cab?” he asked Esther, who was fairly prancing along in her bare feet with the blanket of goods thrown over one shoulder.

“It’s gone,” she said. “Jes‘ a short walk, eh.”

“Don’t these sharp rocks cut your feet? I don’t know how you can walk over them.”

“Fijian have tough feet. Strong backs and tough feet.” She laughed a choking, cough-like laugh that ripped through her lungs. “And that’s all they have.”

“What do you mean?”

“No brains and lazy. Fijian don’t work unless they have to.”

“Well, you seem bright enough. You have a job.”

“There’s always one in every family who does the work. Who pay the bills and send the children to school. I’m the one. See, no brains,” she coughed out a chuckle at her dilemma.

“You come from a large family?” inquired Compton.

“Two brothers, five sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, all over.  Everywhere there is family.”

“How many on Qamea?”

“Moses, my mother, and two sisters.

“Does Moses have a job?

“He fishes, but don’t give him money. He’s no good with money, jes’ spends it on fuel and my mother and sisters never have anything.”

“Does he catch fish?”

“Of course he catches fish.” Esther’s face screwed up at the foolishness of the question. “Thet’s where he gets the money.”

They arrived at a whitewashed house trimmed in turquoise. A tall, beige colored man with a pleasant, clean-shaven face and wide dark eyes came forward to greet them. He wore a tattered pair of flowered shorts and a plain green shirt open to the navel. In his arms was a small boy with a weeping gash down the length of his shin.

“This is my cousin, James,” said Esther. “This is Michael Compton from America. He is going to Qamea with Moses.” James extended his hand and gave Compton a single shake.

Smiling broadly, he gestured with his free hand. “Come in and have some tea.”

Compton followed them inside the house which, save for an old sofa, a card table, and a single chair, was bare. A rear window had broken out and a breeze from the sea blew through. The floor was laid in remnant patches of linoleum and a newspaper had been stuffed into a hole in the wall just above the doorway. Compton glanced at himself in a discolored mirror that hung alone on the near wall. Though the house had not seen a coat of paint but once in its existence, its floor was freshly swept and the sparse kitchen was clean and uncluttered. James and Esther went into the kitchen and left Compton with the boy, who stared at him in open-mouthed astonishment that Compton attributed to the bleached whiteness of his skin.

He could hear them speaking in rapid Fijian while Esther put on the kettle. Then, as if they knew they were being overheard, they walked out the back door to the edge of the section where the green sea skidded up to a wall of gathered stones and stood for a long moment looking south before returning to the kitchen. James brought in the tea and when everyone had taken a sip, Esther spoke.

“Moses is late. The wind come up, and we don’t see ‘em on the reef. Maybe he doesn’t come. But you wait for ‘em here.”

Compton put down his tea. Concern edged into his voice. “What about you?”

“I’m going to my sister’s up the road. If Moses come, you go with ‘em. He take you to Qamea.”

Compton flicked a glance around the room. “What if he doesn’t show up?”

Esther shrugged her round shoulders. “Then he come tomorrow or the day after that. Maybe I come back tomorrow and see what happen.”

Compton resurveyed the room, his mind working all that could go wrong here.

“You don’t have to stay,” continued Esther. “You get a cab at the airstrip and go back to Allison and John. Sleep there if you don’t like James’ couch. Moses will come but he won’t be looking for you.”

Compton’s stomach twisted into what was becoming a familiar knot. He smiled self-consciously, unsure of what to do next. Esther and James did not smile back. They waited.

Compton’s first impulse was to pick up his things and leave immediately but instead heard himself say, “No, I’ll be fine on the couch, if this is where Moses will come.”

“He come here first,” assured Esther. “He always does.” She reached out her hand and Compton shook it weakly, then she turned and stood at the door, nodding to James before turning for the road. Compton watched her walk down the rutted roads as if the sharp stones didn’t exist.

James had taken a seat at the table and was reading a newspaper from another week. “Sit down”, he said motioning to the couch, “and drink tea. Moses be along.”

The couch sagged and pinched Compton’s back while his mind slipped its way into paranoia. All my money, what’s left of my gear, everything is just sitting here, ready to get ripped off. This whole thing could be a setup. I ought to go back to the resort right now while I still have the chance.

James’ melodic voice penetrated Compton’s dark speculations. “I am shamed, Michael. We have not had a European in the house before. There is bread. Here, our friends eat if they are hungry.

“No, thank you. This is fine. The tea is plenty.”

James did not return to his newspaper and Compton knew he had sensed the awkwardness of the lie.

“Tell me, James, why after all her trouble did Esther decide not to visit her family on Qamea?”

James smiled. “She only say that so you don’t get lost on your way. She go back to work. Don’t worry, Moses come this day.“

A charade thought Compton. Nothing is what it seems. I’ve fallen into some kind of rabbit hole here and Alice should be showing up any second now. Meanwhile, I make pleasant conversation with this Cheshire Cat.

The next few hours were spent restlessly by both men. James repeatedly went out back and inspected the water for a sign of Moses and Compton, at every opportunity, would look out the open door to the road, waiting for a cab to pull up and a driver to call out his name. At least back at the resort I knew how the game was played, however horrendous it had become, but here? I’m sailing without a compass into dangerous waters. It doesn’t feel safe. These people appear harmless enough but I’ve already been lied to and now I’m a hostage for someone who may or may not show up. I got to get out of here at the first opportunity.

Into the late afternoon their conversation remained infrequent and awkward, due in large part to Compton’s singular belief that a conspiracy had been hatched to rob him of his possessions. The tension was palatable and felt by the boy who found refuge in his father’s arms whenever Compton drew near.

Mustering up the courage to leave, Compton was preparing his “Goodbye, I’m sorry” speech when in through the back door, with a rush of sea wind, walked a tall Fijian man wearing a blue skirt and a tee-shirt so filled with holes that it clung to his back like a spider web. An oversized red, white, and blue striped Rasta knit cap drifted over one ear nearly touching his shoulder.

“Bula,” he said to James, smiling through a missing front tooth. James broke into a wide grin and they shook hands formally and spoke rapid Fijian. As they talked, the man’s almond-shaped eyes continually glanced in Compton’s direction, absorbing everything they fell upon. He was lean and muscular, built along the lines of a basketball player in prime condition, yet his eyes indicated someone much older than his body. A wispy moustache graced his upper lip and contrasted with a strong jaw line. He spoke with confidence in his animated discussion with James, who shortly brought the man over and introduced him as Moses.

“Bula, Michael, welcome to Fiji,” said Moses who, with an irrepressible smile, extended his hand exposing a crude tattoo of a dagger running the length of his forearm. The hand was heavily callused and enveloped Compton’s as if it were a boy’s. Moses made a one pump shake and said in crisp English, “You wish to come to Qamea, eh?”

“Well, I hear it’s quite beautiful.”

Moses appraised Compton with a bemused smile. “You have come a long way to find your dream, eh.”

The remark both charmed and unsettled Compton, for he couldn’t think of a retort or even why this man would say such a thing. What dream was he talking about? The dream? Instead he asked, “How long will it take to get to Qamea?”

Moses flashed the gaping hole in his smile. “Who knows about the sea? Some days longer than others.”

Compton nodded. He should have known better than to ask such a question.

Moses spoke to James in Fijian, turned back to Compton. “I must have fuel for the boat, then we go.” He stood expectantly for a long moment before Compton realized that he was supposed to pay for the gas and pulled out two twenties, American.

“Will this be enough?”

“Yeah, yeah, plenty.” Moses slipped the money into his pocket and went out the back door where he picked up a ten-gallon plastic jug and a string of fish from his boat and disappeared around the corner. The instant he vanished, Compton recalled Esther’s warning about giving him money and wondered if he’d made a mistake and if, in fact, he would ever see this Moses again.

Turning to the co-conspirator, James, Compton asked, “So how far does he have to go for the fuel?”

“Not far, to the Indian store. Come, we load up the boat.” James carried Esther’s bundle down to the boat and Compton followed with his gear over the sea wall where a wooden, twelve–foot skiff was tethered to a length of rusting rebar in the mud beyond the wall. The hull of the skiff had once been painted yellow green and red, but now all three colors merged into a dull brown. The gunnels were gouged and darkly stained with what was probably blood. A relatively new fifteen-horse outboard powered the boat. Compton followed James into silt filled shallows that sucked a shoe from his foot. Bending to find it, his gear bag rolled off his shoulder and into the water.

James set his bundles in the bow among spools of fishing line, rags, buoys, gaffs and a plastic bucket of rusted hooks and lures. Pushing aside the debris, he made room for Compton’s gear. Compton found his shoe and threw it in along with the gear. Conspicuously absent from the debris was any evidence of emergency equipment.

While Compton contemplated his next move, the possibility of grabbing his things and bolting, James covered the front section of the boat with a vinyl sheet, firmly securing the edges.

“What’s that for?” asked Compton.

James gestured out to sea and the white water that gleamed atop the barrier reef several miles from where they stood. “It goin’ to get plenty wet.” He held the boat and waited for Compton to get in. I still have time to run, thought Compton, who hesitated at the side of the boat and while he paused Moses came around the corner carrying the containers of fuel. “Get in,” said James, and Compton awkwardly hefted himself into the boat. Moses returned and carried the fuel to the water where he and James spoke for a moment, then he stuffed something into James’s hand and scrambled aboard. He pulled the rebar out the mud, exchanged it for a ten-foot long tree branch that was worn smooth with use, and poled the boat out of the mud flats and across shallow rocks into three feet of silty water, where he lowered the outboard engine. A southeasterly wind blew across the barrier reef, down the island and into their faces, and by the time Moses had fired up the engine the boat had drifted a hundred yards from where James stood on the sea wall. When they passed him he waved heartily, almost anxiously, to Compton’s mind, as if he were witnessing the beginnings of a perilous voyage from which the wayfarers might never return.

Ahead, in the open seas far beyond the barrier reef, three jade-green islands rose like enchanted South Sea kingdoms found in forgotten fairytales. Due to their configuration, it was impossible for Compton to determine which island they would be heading toward. He pointed to the one on the far right and gestured to Moses. “Which one?”

Moses shouted over the noise of the wind and outboard. “It looks like there is three islands, eh. Is what you call…?

“An illusion?”

“That’s it, illusion. Only two islands. Qamea is on the right, not far, nine miles, but very much farther than that.”

“Is this the Somosomo Strait?”

“No, we be crossing the Tasman Strait, out past the barrier reef.”

Compton looked out over the three miles of relatively flat water to the edge of the barrier reef and its roiling white water. He surveyed the boat as if to calculate the level of abuse it could take before sinking. Headway appeared barely discernable as the motor droned steadily in the current raged water. Along the shore, ramshackle houses built on rotting stilts and lava stones overlooked the water. Brown skinned forms, all with splashes of color, roamed like grazing animals at a water hole. Slick-skinned children splashed like seal pups in the emerald water, their laughter blown pollen caught in scattered fragments above the wind and motor sounds. Figures stood like lava statues on rock promontories that jutted out into the sea, sporting all manner of primitive fishing gear, waiting steadfastly for a fish to bite. They passed a sandy beach, white as a bridal grown with coconut trees bordering the beach, a vision of perfection, seen in a thousand post cards, yet not a soul was to be seen on or near the beach. Compton pointed and asked, “Why isn’t there anyone on that beautiful beach?”

Moses, his focus unwavering on the boat’s direction, was busily weaving in and out and around looming coral heads that if struck could rip the prop and lower unit asunder. He scarcely looked at Compton and replied, “No fish on that beach and no time to lay down for the tan, eh.” He extended his arm, as if in proof. “Fijians already tan enough, eh,” he said, chuckling at the obvious.

As they neared the barrier reef the wind seemed to pick up and with it, the seas. The boat began to buck and roll and plunge its bow into oncoming waves and sea spray found its way into the boat, spritzing the men head to foot. Moses seemed to accept the spray and without attempting to duck out of the way, simply blinked it away.  Compton moved closer to the bow and was able to avoid or duck under some of the spray, but couldn’t avoid it all and within ten minutes both he and Moses were soaked to the skin.

The barrier reef appeared to be no more than a mile away and Compton calculated it would be reached in twenty minutes. Yet it was nearly an hour before they arrived at its edge. Although Compton was somewhat familiar with boats and sea conditions and was unfazed by the spray and pounding so far endured, he now considered with serious concern the seas that awaited them once outside the protection of the barrier reef. There a boiling caldron of white geysers exploded from monstrous breakers that struck its entire length.

“Is there another way to Qamea?” he shouted to Moses.

“No roads across this water, brother. No place to land a plane, no ferry boats. Maybe a fishing boat, at the south end of Taveuni but by the time we get there, we be in Qamea, eh.”

At the edge of the barrier reef the water turned green in the shallows and massive coral heads loomed white and treacherous inches below the hull as if Medusa and her slick skulled sisters were rising from the depths to destroy the tiny boat and devour its occupants. Fear clutched Compton and lodged in his throat. In grasping the gunnels, his knuckles turned bloodless as the moon. He held on, fully expecting the wood boat to come crashing down on his pale head, splintering to pieces in a single shattering moment. Moses had cut the engine and lifted the lower unit of the outboard out of the water. In the howling wind, Compton had not noticed that the engine was no longer running. Moses, who had the pole out, possessed the focus of a man who was, in effect, holding life by the slimmest of tendrils. As he poled the boat into the breaking surf, it seemed an impossible task to Compton and disaster seemed inevitable. As is often the case in life-threatening situations, the oddest things come to mind, and he thought about his wallet but could not let go of the boat to ensure that when his lifeless body was found, at least he could be identified. He checked landfall to see that, if in fact he did survive the sinking, he might be able to swim to shore. Moses was now poling the boat into the breaking surf through a narrow fifteen-foot passage that wove between coral mountains. A large breaker sucked away the water and Compton found himself gazing at a naked coral head that seemed to tower above the boat like some aquatic alien whose principal intent was the annihilation of their ever so fragile vessel. The boat was pushed with such force in every direction it seemed an impossibility to give it any bearing by way of a pole. The sea rose again and the pale heads of death submerged as if frightened or wary of intruders, seeking yet another way to cripple the feeble craft. Suddenly the shallows fell away into blue water and the boat lifted high on the rolling swells of the open ocean that, from Compton’s perspective, had every intention of hurling the tiny craft back into the bubbling caldron of the barrier reef. Cat-quick, Moses dropped the lower unit of the outboard back into the water and was starting it up when a breaking wave, clearly capable of pushing the boat back into the exposed reef, rose up like a five story building that was about to topple directly over them. Moses fired the engine, jammed it into gear and gave the boat full throttle. It caught water and began to climb the green wall of water higher and higher. Compton clung to the gunnels and could only stare upwards. White water fell from the great wave’s lips and kissed the boat and everything in it. Moses then turned to port midway up the liquid precipice and quartered it, slipping off the edge and dropping off its back in free fall. Sliding into a deep swell trough, he now powered out of danger and into the same southeast wind that pushed the seas with unabated power. A wave broke into the boat, drenching everything and filling it to the thwarts. Moses kept the power to the engine and they slowly pulled further away from the reef. When they were a safe distance, he slowed and they both bailed, using a plastic jug that had been cut in half. Off again, up a mountainous body of water to its crest, then slamming down on the back side that dropped away beneath them like a hideous unending roller coaster ride whose insane keeper had no intention of relinquishing control. Each wave brought a bone jarring crash that had Compton cringing in expectation of the boat splintering apart. Frequently he lost sight of the green island that rose in the near distance and would glance back at Moses, whose smile had vanished and whose dark eyes were filled with the sea, judging angles, speed and height of the oncoming waves. The boat torqued and twisted in the crushing seas and Compton rode it like a wild horse, continually shifting and rolling in his saddle of a seat to maintain a fine balance or be thrown overboard.

In the next hour, they scarcely made headway, or so it seemed. The island appeared no nearer and the foaming reef was still easily visible behind them. Moses steadily baled while watching the seas and steering the boat. Another great wave broke upon them, dumping blue water into the boat and swamping fuel cans, flipping over the hook and lure bucket and disconnecting the fuel line, killing the engine. Moses threw Compton his half of the bailing cup and without further instruction, Compton began to bale frantically in calf-deep water as Moses righted the fuel containers and cleaned out the fuel line before reattaching it.

As both men worked in diligent haste, Compton asked, “Does this happen every time you make a crossing?”

Moses shook his head as he worked. “It is the sea, nothing ever happens the same way. Sometimes worse, sometimes better, more difficult without the engine, eh.”

Compton could not imagine how one might traverse this water without an engine, and did not ask.

Into the third hour, all conversation had ceased and they had sunk into a mechanical state of balancing and baling.

By the fourth hour, the island had acquired dimension and in its lee they found a measure of sanctuary. Coconut trees were visible on the shoreline and Compton licked his lips, sitting down exhausted.  Moses poured a cup of water from a container and gave it to him.

“Ever been on a boat ride like that one, Michael?” Compton did not answer, for Moses had burst out in high-pitched laugher that was very nearly a cackle. “Fiji water always testing. Never make a man too proud, eh?“ Moses shook his head and laughed again, thoroughly amused. Compton didn’t know if he was laughing at him or the circumstances that, from his point of view, were far from entertaining. Yet he did feel a certain sense of exhilaration. Suddenly laughter erupted out of him, quite unexpectedly and he knew it was a release of some kind, a nrvous relief, and may well have been why Moses was laughing.

In the dusk, they shivered in the sunless wind. “We very near.  Jest about the next point.”

They motored around the point and down the island for a quarter of a mile and came to a small cove enclosed by a barrier reef. Moses ran up to it, pulled up the engine, and poled over the reef in water so shallow the boat bottomed out on a coral head. They had to wait for a bit of surge to lift it free. Compton caught the scent of smoke, as did Moses. “The smell of smoke is the smell of home, eh.” He poled into a mangrove near shore and floated into a pathway that had been hacked out of the lush, bush-like trees. A wild bird screeched. Without the noise of the engine, wind or sea, the rippled sound of a fish breaking the surface was heard and lent an otherworldly feeling to the place. In the fading light, the mangrove became dark, and on the still air came the pungent taste of rot. Compton could feel his senses sharpen and another self sniffed the strange, sweet air. In places the path had overgrown and they had to duck low to avoid the overhanging branches. The green corridor serpentined deeper towards the land, from where fragrances wafted that he could not identify. Around the last coil the mangroves disappeared and in a clearing on high ground above the blackened water stood a ramshackle dwelling.

The structure was a mishmash of wood and thatch, with a window-sized opening that ran the length of the facing wall and half the length of the far right-hand wall. At its apex smoke curled tightly above a corrugated roof. In the open doorway a large woman stood barefoot. Some of her was very young and some of her was very old. She wore a brown and white cotton dress that fell to her large feet, and her body seemed to fill the dress. Yet she moved from the doorway and down the steps with the grace of a dancer. Long hair touched her shoulders in silky waves and her skin was the color of walnut. When she smiled, two large front teeth protruded well past her upper lip and the upper left side of her jaw had no teeth at all. Grand, gummy gaps occurred on both sides of her lower jaw, yet her smile was open and warm as though her teeth were perfect and as white as seashells.

Moses jumped out and plunged the rebar into the mud and tied off the boat. He helped Compton with his gear and led the way out of the oozing mud to the foot of the house.

“Hello, hello,” greeted Moses. “I’ve brought a visitor.” He then spoke in rapid Fijian to the woman. When all was explained, he returned to English. “Michael, this is my mother, Mariah. This is Michael from America.” She nodded, but didn’t extend her hand.  “Look at this, “ exclaimed Moses, pointing to Compton’s feet, coated with black mud up to his calves. He hurriedly went to a fifty-gallon steel drum that sat at the side of the house and returned with a pitcher of water. Kneeling at Compton’s feet, he began to wash his legs and feet. It was an awkward moment for Compton, for another man had never done such a thing. He wondered why he would do it. Because I’m white or have money?

When he was through, Moses retrieved Esther’s bundle and carried it inside, providing Compton with an opportunity to further inspect the surroundings. The thatched walls were supported by tree branches that had been cut and shaped with an ax and then bound together with something other than rope. The corrugated tin siding was patched in alongside one wall and the same material partially covered the roof. Another fifty-gallon drum stood at the far end of the house, rusted and scorched from a thousand cooking’s. Fishing line, floats, broken axe handles and shovels lay among unopened coconuts. Chopped wood was stacked along the house and an underwater trap of some kind lay rusting next to a path of crushed white coral that ran into a hut and covered the floor like a cruel stone carpet. Chickens clucked nervously around a split coconut, stabbing away at the white meat. They were oserved by ducks with strange moldy red faces, waddling by on their way to the swamp. Dried forked tails of large fish were nailed to a tree and clamshells a foot and a half across lay strewn about the side of the house. A grunting pig wrestled with a morsel in a wooden cage that was suspended over the swamp water.

Mariah came to the door and said in English, “Please come inside. That Moses he leave you to yourself. Come in, come in.”

Compton stepped inside the doorway of an unlit room that was the kitchen and eating area. In the corner, smoke plumed and an iron sheet the size of a tabletop was suspended over an open fire, on top of which trembled a steaming kettle. Two girls, in there twenties, were working both sides of the fire, one cutting vegetables and the other kneading a mound of dough. Mariah introduced them as Bala and Adi, her daughters. Both girls, woman really, shyly glanced Compton’s way with self-conscious smiles.

Moses handed Compton his backpack saying, “You change your clothes in this room,” nodding to a beaded curtain that hung in the doorway. Compton entered a room that was dark and in the dimness he made out a single bed in the far corner and a shadow he could not indentify. He quickly changed into shorts and a tee-shirt and when he returned, a cup of hot tea was awaiting on a table made of rough-hewn wood with crude benches attached. Esther’s gifts had been removed and he sat with his back to a wall and waited for Moses. On shelves across the far wall were pots, pans, and kettles. Opposite, there were more shelves, lined with scalloped newspaper that held plates, cups, glasses, knives and forks. On the floor close to the fire was a stack of freshly cut wood and piled in two far corners were hammers, crude tools, pieces of line, hoses and other assorted odds and ends that Compton could not make out in the half light. A kerosene lamp was lit by one of the girls, as though to give light to his observations. Both the girls were barefoot and wore flower-print dresses that wrapped around their bodies above their breasts and down to their knees. As the outside light faded altogether, mosquitoes buzzed the room in increasing numbers, so delicate that one could scarcely feel them on the skin until bitten. While the Fijians seemed indifferent or weren’t being bitten, Compton flailed away at their attacks. He finally excused himself and forged through his belongings for a bottle of insect repellent. Returning to the kitchen, he offered the repellent to his hosts who politely refused. “We are not as tasteful as you,” said Moses who had returned in his absence. “Come see the rest of our home.”

Compton was ushered through the beaded door and by lantern light, Moses opened two glassless windows shuttered in corrugated tin, which were propped open by a tree branch. Compton held the lamp high to illuminate the bamboo walls and got a full view of a handsome, woven mat of palm fronds that covered the floor. In the far corner stood a wood frame bed with several cardboard suitcases beneath it. Other than the bed, the room was without furniture. Moses placed Compton’s bags in a corner across from the bed. “This is where you sleep.”

They returned to the kitchen where a white cloth had been laid over the table and set with plates, glasses, knives and forks. Moses rubbed his hands together and removed his cap, revealing long flat curls that had been pressed to his head. “Ah,” he said, “supper is coming.”

As the girls brought dishes to the table, Moses unabashedly described their contents. “And this one is curry and rice. Here is the cassava root that is ground up with onion and fried in oil, same as the fish.”  A glass of discolored water was placed before Compton, who began to pick it up, then hesitated. “The water comes from the well,” said Moses. “It is pure. No one gets sick from Fiji well water.”

Compton quickly raised the glass in an attempt to conceal his transparent concerns. “To my new friends,” he said and drank half the glass.

As the girls continued to work in the kitchen, Moses and Compton set upon the meal. Mariah sat with them at the table, but did not eat.

“This meal is excellent,” complimented Compton between mouthfuls. “Do you always eat this well?”

Moses in obvious delight replied, “It is amazing what they cook on a fire, eh? You have not eaten Fiji food?”

“No, this is my first. Does it all come from your garden?”

“All of it. We have breadfruit, taro, cassava root, bele, tomatoes, yams, carrots, onions, pumpkin, pawpaw, banana, beans, coconut and a few pineapple.”

“Last winter,” said Mariah, “the hurricane came and we lost our garden. This is a new one. We had to live on wild yams and cassava root and fish for a long time. But now we have pawpaw and bele and breadfruit. We have plenty now.”

Compton glanced around the house. “You had a hurricane here? Did it do much damage?”

“I was the only one here,” recounted Moses. “Everyone was on Taveuni for the holiday. It tore off the roof. I was under Mariah’s bed for two days trying to stay dry. A hurricane is a terrible fright, eh? So full of nature.”

“After our boat ride, I’m surprised you’re afraid of hurricanes.”

Moses beamed. “The ocean is not the place to be afraid, eh.  That was jes’ a bit of wind and sea today. It get much worse than that.”

“Does anything scare you, Moses, besides hurricanes?”

Moses pondered the question. “Roads scare me.”

“Roads?”

“Roads bring the people with money who want to take from the island. If the roads come, our peaceful life in the bush is over. They have tried twice to build roads, but the jungle was too strong for their machines. The trees dulled their chainsaws and broke their backs and they ran out of money.“

The room became silent and Compton felt uneasy without knowing why. He asked Mariah what she feared most. She too gave the question thought before answering.

“People,” she said finally.

Compton’s uneasiness grew to discomfort when he realized that she didn’t mean just any people, she meant white people, as Moses as much said.

Moses stood up from the table. “Let’s take our tea in the other room and let the woman have their meal.” He brought the lantern from the table and led the way into the matted room where he sat cross-legged with his back against the far wall. Compton followed suit and Mariah reclined against a pillow. The matting was immaculately clean and had the soft leathery texture of skin. Beneath it was another mat that cushioned their weight and further softened the floor. In the warmth of the lantern light, with a full belly, the discomfort of a few moments ago was forgotten and Compton wondered aloud, “Why didn’t the girls eat with us?”

Moses, who was watching the smoke twist out of the lantern, lifted his head to the question. “They eat later. Fiji girls do all the cooking and the washing and the cleaning. They are very busy. No time to play. But they have their boyfriends and get pregnant anyhow.”  He giggled at the girl’s plight.

“And the boys,” asked Compton. “What do they do?”

“They fetch the wood for the stove and dig the crops. When they come to twelve they go with the men to fish or work in the garden. The boy learns to carry the weight of himself, eh. In the home the girls answer to the woman, and she answers to the man. In the village the man answers to the chief. Everyone respects the elders. If the father dies, as my father did, then the eldest of the family, who is Esther, rules the family.”

“Lately,” continued Moses, “the traditions are being forgotten. The city steals the boys, as it stole me. They go to Suva, and don’t come back. That is why Sambuka take over the islands, so that Fiji keep its traditions and not lose them to the Indians and the Europeans who want our land.”

Moss’ voice trembled with emotion and Compton shifted to another topic. “You know, this has been quite a day for me and I am exhausted. Moses, can you show me where I am to sleep?

“We put the net up for you,” Moses announced in the midst of gathering himself up from the floor.

Mariah had already gotten up and was pulling out a mosquito netting from under the bed. Compton helped her tie the corners of the net to nails driven into the thick-branched ceiling beams. When it was done, she gave him a blanket and a pillow and he climbed under the net and lay on his back fully clothed. The lantern light flicked across the ceiling in strange, vaguely demonic shapes, and he felt as if the passage across the Tasman Strait had deposited him with a family that was completely removed from any visible constructs of the century from which he had departed less than a week ago. It was at once as unsettling as it was invigorating. And the conflict it bred was not unlike his personal battles in which he, more often than not, had became just another casualty in the war against himself.

Across the room, Mariah was already in bed and breathing heavily. In the far corner Bala and Adi spoke in whispered voices behind a hanging blanket that afforded them a small measure of privacy. In the silence of the hut the drone of the jungle insects rose to a grinding din. Compton, in his conflictive state, found comfort under the flimsy netting and, though missing the irony of his present circumstance or because of it, soon fell into deep sleep.

At three o’clock in the morning Compton was awakened by the diabolical shriek of a rooster prematurely announcing the dawn. Again at four and five o’clock the rooster announced his presence and was joined by two others, all of whom dueled until the sun was well up.  Compton felt he had scarcely slept and when the roosters fell silent he drifted back into fitful sleep. He awoke later drugged by the depth of his slumber unsure of where he was or how long he had been asleep.  Upon regaining his bearings, he was astonished to learn it was nearly eleven o’clock in the morning.

Breakfast of pawpaw, eggs, bread and tea were hot on the table when Compton came into the kitchen. Bala was by herself, offering no explanation as to the whereabouts of the others. Shortly after finishing breakfast Mariah came into the kitchen with an armful of vegetables, closely followed by Adi who was sweating profusely and caked with dirt. “Good morning, good morning. Did you sleep well?” inquired Mariah.

“Very well, until the roosters started singing.”

Mariah cackled. “The roosters take a turn in the morning. There is never a chance of waking late. The gardening must be done before it is hot. You are the first to sleep past six o’clock.”

Compton said softly to himself as he rose from the table, ”And I’ll probably be the last.”

Mariah overheard the mutter and said, “Probably,” and cocked an ear as if to hear him better.

Embarrassed, Compton sheepishly grinned. “The breakfast was first rate, thank you. I think I’ll have a look around the place if you don’t mind.”

“Yes, look around,” offered Mariah. “The toilet is down the path towards the sea. The small hut on the right.”

The path was bordered with exotic, brightly stippled flowers of delicate breeding and strange combinations of colors -- blue with orange, yellow with white and purples. The mangroves were to the left and to the right was dense jungle except for a section of land cleared for a stand of scaly trees heavy with the ripening, yellow papaya. He found the outhouse easily and at the sighting realized Mariah had anticipated his needs almost as if she were reading his thoughts.

He returned from the outhouse and found Mariah sitting on a bench that looked out the open doorway past the wandering chickens to the dense mangroves. Feeling awkward, he assumed an air of indifferent casualness and sat down beside her.

“ing is gaining and losing, eh,” she said wearily. “Gaining and losing, I never know which is better.”

Compton, in his discomfort, responded quickly, “Well, I’d guess that gaining is always better than losing.”

Mariah looked at him with eyes filled in equal parts of sadness and wisdom and gave an ever so slight shrug of her weighted shoulders, along with a despondent sort of smile conveying her knowledge of his ignorance. The gesture, unlike the reply, did not go unnoticed and he vowed to keep his mouth shut when in doubt of the question much less an answer.

They sat in a silence that rendered Compton to distraction, but he was not about to speak. She finally set her cup of tea down and tore an inch wide strip, six inches long from an old newspaper. Carefully laying a pinch of leaf tobacco down its center, she rolled a thin cigarette, lit it and sucked hard. “When I smoke this newspaper the words go inside me,“ she laughed, “but I never get any smarter.”

Compton fielded this remark with more confidence reading it as an opportunity to exhibit his humility. “Well, I used to read words and believed they’d make me smarter. I’m not so sure they really did.”

Mariah nodded but did not comment, choosing instead to gaze at the chickens that pecked at ground near their feet. Bala worked silently in the kitchen, grinding roots into mash and squeezing it into milk while Adi stoked the fire.

Mariah smoked her cigarette and Compton absently became aware of his breaths.

“Do you live in the city?” asked Mariah, briefly startling Compton.

“Well, I moved around. Mostly I lived in the suburbs of a city.”

Mariah drew deep inhales and exhaled slowly, watching the smoke curl to the ceiling.

“I’ve been to the city. I stayed in Suva with my daughter, Corin. Have you been to Suva?’

“No, I came straight from Nadi.”

“They always lookin’ at their watches in Suva. My daughter and her husband, they always late for somewhere. Rushin’ about. That is no life. That is the poorest way a man can live. I don’ understand why young people go to the city when everythin’ is here.”

Compton nodded in agreement, played it safe. “It is very quiet here, very peaceful.”

“They want their own things. They want money.”

Compton grew bold. “There’s nothing wrong with money. In America, you have to have it just to get by, lots of it.”

She looked and blinked with those deep brown eyes revealing things unknown to him and he wondered why he undertook to speak at all to such wisdom.

“Here we don’ need money, not much. We need rain. The rain don’ make us look at our watches, eh. When it comes, it comes. The rain is not in a hurry.”

Mariah smoked the newspaper down to a nub and let it drop on the coral floor. She blew out the last of the smoke. “It was better at the beach,” she said to the smoke.

Compton, fearful of another inane comment on his part, waited for her to continue but she watched the smoke wind its way into the light of the window and disappear. Eventually he could not contain himself in the deafening silence. “Do you like being so far away from other people?”

“It was lonely with a family. My husband was out and about and the children was gone. I got chickens to keep me company. When my husband died, Esther went to Suva and found Moses and brought him home. It’s not lonely when you have a family. You have a family?”

“My mother and father are divorced. I have a son but I don’t see him much.” Compton turned away from her insightful eyes and looked at the coral floor, feeling the pain of his loss etching its way across his face. Mariah did not reply and he reluctantly continued almost in a whisper. “He lives with his mother. My wife, well ex-wife. We’re divorced.’’

“I’m happy for my children. Moses’ a good man. He doesn’t work the garden like he should, he fishes, spends his money on the fuel. It’s a foolish waste, eh. But he loves the sea. He knows it well. It is a love, eh. What can you do? It’s a better life than the city. The city make him sick. He come back with very thin eyes. The cities make people sick.”

“You have everything you need here,” said Compton filled with false courage, “food, shelter, your health. It looks like Moses takes pretty good care of you.”

“Oh, that Moses, he makes me laugh. He makes Esther frown. Once she give him a hundred dollars that she save from her job to buy the farm a few things for Christmas. He was gone for tree days, drunk and runnin’ about with woman. Nobody give him money after that. He no differen’ then all Fiji men. They no good with easy money. They jes’ spend it on grog and end up fightin’. They don’t need money. They family always have a house for ‘em and there is fruit on the trees and fish in the sea.”

Mariah stared in silence at the chickens for such a length of time that Compton began to shift in his seat, which caused her to turn to him and ask, “What is marijuana? Do you smoke it?”

Compton was unprepared for the question that appeared out of, well, the smoke-filled haze. Clearly she was looking for something other than casual conversation, and he answered carefully. “I smoked it when I was younger.”

“It is bad, yeah?”

“There are far worse drugs than marijuana. Like anything, if you smoked it all the time it would be unhealthy for you, just like alcohol.”

“I think Moses take it. It is a worry. What does it do?”

“Well, for different people it does different things. I used to dream about things I’d like to do.”

“Yes, dreamin’ is better than work,” she laughed, then abruptly frowned. “They put a man in jail for five years if he have marijuana.  That is the law. Five years of your life! Fijian boys come out crazy. Five years ends their life.”

“That’s a harsh law.” Compton paused for a long moment, then asked, “Why are you asking these questions?”

“You are American, you know about drugs.” She paused. “More Americans be comin’ here, and bring their ideas. I’m afraid Moses will do as my husban’ and get drunk on the marijuana and sell our property to ‘em. You know the law say every Fijian must have their property. But if they sell it, that is all they get. We used to live down by the beach, on the other side of the hill. There’s no mosquitoes there and we could fish off the beach but my husband sol’ it and now we live here.”

Compton strung his lips tightly together in feigned sympathy. “This is still paradise. It’s very peaceful here.”

“Yes, very nice, but it’s not the beach.”

Compton had been holding an empty cup of tea for some time and in the awkwardness of Mariah’s loss he stood to throw the dregs into the swampy water but they fell short and landed on a white stone where he left them for the high tide to consume. Mariah rose and, moving gracefully, glided over to the sullied stone, gazed at it for a moment, then in deliberate fashion scooped up the dregs and walked over to the flower garden where she tossed them away. “You got plenty enough to think about already,” she said.

Compton apologized. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to dirty up the place.”

Mariah laughed and dismissed his apology with a wave of her hand. “This old place got so much dirt already you can’t tell the new from the old.”

Compton shrugged, embarrassed.

Mariah shook her head slowly, the laughter still in her eyes. “What you want to do is take a bath, eh. Down the path to the sea.”

Mariah spoke to the girls in the kitchen in Fijian, and shortly Adi appeared with a bar of soap and a fresh towel. In that moment Compton was struck by the generosity and kindness of these impoverished people who were so willing to give to an absolute stranger. Yet despite their benevolence he had the srong sense there was something they wanted from him. What exactly it was, however, was unclear and he pondered their motives while heading down the flowered path. All this was so new, nothing he had experienced before, no frame of references. The people, the place, the uncanny way Mariah could anticipate his thoughts. It was all so surreal. Had he been out of touch too long with people who were real? Who carried no agenda? Do such people even exist?

He came upon several pools at the sea’s edge but could not determine which one of the four was fresh. The sea is right here, he thought, surely they must all be salty. He began to taste the water and found the first two pools indeed salty but the third pool, to his amazement, was fresh. Must be some kind of spring, right here at the sea’s edge. He disrobed and slid into the pool, which was somewhat colder than the seawater. This place contradicts itself, he mused. Nothing appears to be what it is. He soaped up in the invigorating water. While this has the makings of a rather unique experience, I won’t be here long. What would I do? Where is there to go? This sort of existence would get boring quickly. I’ll stay until Moses goes off to Taveuni and then head back with him. The decision brought a comfort and he found himself thoroughly enjoying the remainder of his bath.

He finished and sat on a smooth rock, naked to the sun, and allowed himself to dry in its warmth. A freighter passed in the distance and he considered hopping aboard such a ship and maybe checkout the other islands. But there was an odd and almost powerful yearning to be in the water rather than on it.

The sun felt delicious on his skin and he lay back on the rock and closed his eyes. He fell asleep and dreamed of attending school and that everything was underwater and his pencil and books kept floating away and he struggled to retrieve them. The dream was brief and real, almost a daydream, and it momentarily left him confused when he awoke.

He wandered back to the rumpled shack where the girls were cooking and Mariah was nowhere to be seen. Adi brought him lemon grass tea and a bowl of coconut chips. He tried to strike up a conversation with her but she shyly retreated into the kitchen. Although it was mid-afternoon and Compton had missed lunch, and while he was not particularly hungry, the coconut seemed to be the perfect snack.

He had just finished the chips when Mariah emerged from her bedroom and beckoned with a long brown hand. “Come, I show you the garden.” She led the way west down a narrow path along the mangroves, past a stone collared fresh water well. Beyond the well was a half acre of cleared land, where well groomed rows of green standing vegetables shimmered in rich black soil.

Mariah gestured to the first row of plants. “This is bele. It is like the spinach. And this,” she said pointing to a spade-leafed plant with a narrow stem, “is taro. We eat the leaf, the stem and the root.  Cassava root there, kumala, we eat the root. It is like the sweet potato. Also, egg plant.” Further down the garden Compton recognized tomatoes, several avocado trees, a lemon tree, bananas, yams and pineapples. “There is the breadfruit tree. You know breadfruit?”

“I’ve heard of breadfruit and taro and cassava but never seen them. In the States we do eat tomatoes, egg plant, yams and papaya.”

“We call papaya pawpaw. There is also pumpkin, lemon grass for tea, ginger root, garlic, and saffron...”

Mariah stopped mid-sentence. “Listen, that is Moses, he’s comin’ around the point.”

Compton heard the faint sound of a motor in the distance. “How can you know that’s Moses boat?”

“I hear the motor. Everyone has a different sound, eh. Moses knows em’ all.”

They meandered back towards the hunt, Mariah picking vegetables as they walked, bele, taro, mustard weed and dill. They arrived at the hut as Moses drifted around the last mangrove.

“Bula, Michael,” greeted Moses holding up a fish. “I have a fish for dinner, a jack. A gift from the Sea God.” He handed the jack to a waiting Bala, staked the boat and came ashore in the mud.

“I go down to the sea well,” said Moses, ”and wash away the sea blood.”

Compton watched him walk down the path toward the outhouse with easy, purposeful strides and was struck by a surge of warmth for the man. He possessed the rare combination of innocence and wisdom and it occurred to him that he could well be in the presence of some kind of holy man or sage and in his own ignorance would not recognize him. When Moses disappeared around a flowered bend so also went Compton’s speculations and he stepped into the eating area where the girls were busy at the stove and cooking bench. Mariah had taken to her bed, so he sat alone at the table and waited for Moses. In the smoky room a kitten spun around the center post, working its new claws on the wood. A lone chick watched in mesmeric stupor, while the hen and her brood paraded across the floor in front of the woodpile. The kitten began to stalk the chick and was about to pounce when Mariah strolled out of the beaded doorway to check on dinner, waking the chick from its trance. It rushed back to the safety of the hen while Mariah perused the stove, then satisfied with the meal’s progress, returned to her bed without saying a word. Compton had yet to hear the voice of Adi who was always cooking or cleaning. Now she tended a skillet over the open flame and the strange-looking ducks hung just outside the doorway, dully observing her movements. Compton felt himself surrender to the moment and, for no particular reason, smiled.

Moses returned wearing a white, long-sleeved shirt, a blue sulu, the traditional wrap around skirt worn by men and women alike in much of the South Pacific, known by a dozen different names. The skirt didn’t appear in the least to be feminine, as one might expect, observed Compton. Quite the contrary, Moses’ masculinity appeared very much intact.

“Here,” Moses pointed to the center seat, “this is the place for the Vulage, the visitor.”

Mariah joined them as the girls brought a broth of fish in white ceramic bowls with thin slices of taro fried like potato chips. Then came fish cooked in coconut milk sprinkled with ginger and saffron. They brought bowls of boiled cassava, bele simmered in coconut milk, and another batch of taro chips. Compton was thoroughly impressed with the variety of dishes, each prepared from scratch and brought hot to the table using but the single, open fire.

“It’s amazing, eh,” said Moses, “how the girls manage the flame. They are taught very young how to keep it jes’ right. Steady and even for hours, it is…”

“An art,” finished Compton, who was becoming a bit unnerved by the regularity with which this family was reading his thoughts.

“Yes, yes, an art.”

“The meal is fabulous,” said Compton wolfing down his portions with restrained gluttony. He had never experienced food like this before, and could scarcely refrain from simply bolting it down and reaching for more.

“I work a hunger on the sea. I eat, but I never get fat, always the same,” declared Moses, patting his flat stomach.

Mariah chuckled, “It’s not that way with me, or the girls.”

“Maybe you should go fishing and I should stay home and do the cooking,” giggled Moses, reaching for another piece of fish. Compton glanced up to smile at the girls but they had left the kitchen and were nowhere in sight.

The instant Moses finished eating, the girls reappeared and poured lemon grass tea into yellow ceramic cups. He directed Compton through the beaded doorway where he settled into his appointed place against the wall.

No sooner had Compton made himself comfortable than a figure appeared at the entrance of the shack. Moses, whose back was to the door, turned at the movement of Compton’s eyes. A man stood stock still ii-darkness and Compton was unable to make out his features. Adi motioned him into the eating area and he stepped soundlessly into the lantern light. Against remarkably black skin his snow white nappy hair and beard fairly glowed. His shirtless upper torso was thin but well muscled and he wore an old blue and white bandanna around his forehead along with a dark brown sula that covered him from waist to mid-calf. Compton could not clearly see his face until he turned and looked directly at him. He appeared to be old, but not old in the sense that Compton understood the elderly. He was handsome and his eyes appeared as dark, fathomless pools brimming with untold wisdoms. He walked directly up to Compton as both he and Moses rose to greet him and stood gazing into Compton’s eyes while Moses stood mute along with everyone else in the room. The old man’s countenance bore a kindness Compton had never seen on another human being. Within the kindness rested honesty so profound that Compton seemed to fall into a momentary daze upon recognizing its depth.

The old man then nodded and stepped back. The moment was startling and Compton attempted, with some difficulty, to regain himself.

Moses, with obvious deference, almost entreaty, went to the old man and began to speak to him in Fijian. As they conversed they both repeatedly glanced in Compton’s direction creating further disconcert in him. Finally Moses spoke to Compton. “I am so sorry, Michael. I am a bad host, eh. This is Abraham, he is, how you say, has a great importance.” The gravity of Moses words spoke volumes and his face reflected, if not fear, then certainly a deep and abiding respect for the old man. Compton nodded at Abraham, who nodded back but did not smile. “He comes with a message for you,” continued Moses.

“For me?” Compton was incredulous.

“Yes, he say that something true waits for you in Fiji.”

Compton brushed his chin with his hand and did not immediately reply. Then he smiled. Now it comes, he thought. These guys are setting me up. This is a set up, he realized, almost relieved. I’ll play it out, see where it goes. “Really, and what is that?”

“He say you will know it when it comes.“

Compton maintained his frozen smile. The smile of the knowing, the smile of one who knows he is being led up the path of scam. “Let’s get everyone together and find out what true things await me.”

Moses understood sarcasm when he heard it and shook his head at Compton, then spoke in grave undertones. “You must listen to what this man says, Michael. He will send you where it is you wish to go, eh.”

“And where is that?” grinned Compton almost beside himself with understanding.

“He says you are incomplete and that you seek wholeness in yourself. That is why you are here.”

Compton’s grin temporarily faded and his eyes sought the face of the old man. In its absolute kindness he saw the truth of the words. Not a truth he was prepared to embrace but a truth that for the moment he was obliged to at least hear out. “Okay, go on,” he replied softly.

“He say that you must stay at Orchid Beach for awhile and hunt for a Great Silver Fish. He says that then you will meet a man.”

Compton was bewildered and then shocked when he remembered his dream and it threw him off balance. “I don’t understand, what are you talking about?”

“It is a very nice beach, not far from here. I do not know what is the Silver Fish. He say you must pay what you call it, rent, for staying at the beach.”

Compton regained himself, reacquiring his frozen smile. They had me going there, but here it comes. He was pleased with himself that he had properly diagnosed the motive of his charade. Fully confident now of where it was going, he allowed it to proceed. “And what would be the rent for this beach, how much?”

Moses’ grew even more solemn, if that were possible.  “A hundred pounds of fish a week,” he said.

“What?” Compton, once again thrown off stride.  “You mean a hundred dollars a week?”

They both turned to the old man who had been standing at the doorway but he had vanished. Moses went to the door and looked out into the night, shook his head and returned to Compton.

“He said a hundred pounds of fish. That is what he meant.” Compton opened his hands to beg the question. “Excuse me, but what is going on here, Moses?”

“Abraham has very special gifts. He can see things, eh, the rest of us cannot see. You listen to him, he is very wise. He say you live at Orchid Beach, very beautiful there and you hunt for a Silver Fish and then you will meet a man, eh.”

“A Great Silver Fish,” corrected Compton.  “What’s this hundred pounds of fish business.  Does he mean money?”

“No, you must get the fish, not the money. You must get the fish yourself.”

“I can’t buy the fish and give it to him?”

“No, you must get the fish yourself and give it to me.”

“And how am I supposed to get this fish?”

Moses gave Compton a look that asked how he could be so lacking in the obvious solution. “You fish for it,” he finally replied.

“I don’t know how to fish and I would think that it would take someone quite some time to get a hundred pounds of fish, much less each and every week. My god, that’s all you’d be doing.”

“I will teach you how to fish.”

Compton attempted to pull himself together and in a voice feigning calmness replied, ”Moses, I’m not interested in fishing at all.”

“You spearfish?”

“I used to, a little, when I first began to dive, small fish, but that was twenty years ago.”

“Then you will spear fish, eh. I will have Aprosa teach you. Compton couldn’t help but grin.  “I rather doubt I could spear a hundred pounds of fish a week.”

Aprosa teach you good. I take you to the deep reef where the wailu swim. You spear two maybe three fish and you have a hundred pounds. You pay for the fuel, that’s all.”

“How much for the fuel?”

Now Moses was smiling. “You will do it, this is good.” He grabbed Compton’s hand and gave it a shake.

“How much for the fuel?” repeated Compton cautiously, still unsure.

“Five dollars get us out to the reef and back. But first Aprosa teach you, then we go.”

“That’s it, five dollars?” Compton paused for a long moment then shrugged his shoulders. “Well, it appears I have nothing much to lose here. Let’s take a look at the beach tomorrow and maybe I’ll give it a week.  If I don’t come up with the hundred pounds for awhile what happens?”

“Nothing happens. You go to sea and learn from Aprosa. You don’t like it, I will take you back to Taveuni and the dive resort.”

They had not stopped shaking hands and Compton gave it a squeeze to seal it, then let go.

Compton could not fall asleep. The whole affair disturbed him. Were they running a scam, and if so, where was it going? How are they planning to extract money? He continued to see the kindness in Abraham’s face. The old man had no lies in him, he was utterly guileless. Sure, he felt incomplete, but who the hell doesn’t? He had long given up the quest for “something true” but the resurrection of that longing reached deep inside to a place he could not put a name to. And what is this business with the Silver Fish and the mystery man he is supposed to meet? These people are operating on some other wavelength. He realized he was having trouble accepting this entire experience really from the time he had met Esther. Yet there was also the strong feeling that he had long been insulated from the grit of real life and in that cocoon of isolation there was the almost desperate need to grow out of it and into something real and meaningful. He could not deny that there was an aspect of profound reality in this surreal place. He had indeed become Alice and had definitely fallen down the rabbit hole. He had to keep his wits about him but had nothing to lose by staying a week, then out. He would hang out in Wonderland, see if the Mad Hatter would show up.

3

Low, gray clouds ran with the wind, flashing blue sky. The ocean mirrored the sky in running shadows like great beasts that hovered just beneath the surface. A light wind ruffled the ocean’s skin, as the boat skipped over the water in half flight. They motored along Qamea’s easterly shore, the visibility in excess of fifty miles in all directions, not another boat nor any sign of human activity across the glimmering expanse. Compton was at once rejuvenated and reduced by the sheer vastness of the panorama.

In a matter of moments, before Compton could get his bearings off the island and reconfigure his internal compass, Moses cut back on the throttle and pointed to a small sandy beach several hundred yards away. Resting like a downed tyrannosaurus on that same beach was a massive fallen tree. Though the branches were bare, their circumference all but obscured the huts that appeared to rise out of the jungle like dreamscape. Moses cut the engine at the edge of a coral shelf that extended a hundred and fifty feet out from the island, and drifted into the beach. They jumped out and hauled the boat up onto the sand.

“Come look at your new home,” said Moses. “And take off your shoes. You won’t need ‘em here. Fijian have tough feet. Look, these feet can walk on fire.”

The beach was strewn with shells and dead coral, washed up to a two-foot-high sea wall that stood before the first hut. Walking gingerly on the sand and accompanying shells that bit into his tender feet, Compton fairly hopped into the nearest hut. It was without walls in the front, rear and west. A six-foot high trunk of the fallen tree served as the east wall and supported the structure, including the roof, which was at a severe pitch and covered with plaited palm fronds. Four large shelves stacked with cooking and eating utensils lined the tree-wall. At the rear of the open hut stood a cupboard, which Moses opened displaying a half dozen jars and several plastic containers, all securely covered. "You have coffee, sugar, curry, some rice, a bit of soap, salt, all ready to go."

Across from the cupboard, in the center of the hut facing the sea, was an ancient two-burner propane stove sitting on a weathered card table that was half buried in the sandy floor. To the right of the stove, inside the sea wall, stood a small, wooden table with attached benches that provided an unobstructed view across the Tasman Strait to the island of Taveuni, nine miles west.

Directly behind the kitchen area, on a raised cement foundation, sat a bamboo-walled bure. Behind it, a sheer, black lava cliff rose to the jungle, from which hung green vines, twisted for its full sixty-foot length. On either side of the cliff the jungle rose sharply up earthen inclines dense with fern and tree. Inside the fourteen-by-eighteen-foot structure was a table, a chair, a simple frame bed and, of all things, an old kerosene refrigerator in the far corner. The cement floor was partially covered with loose linoleum that was curling at the edges. A woven mat graced the floor in front of the bed, where Compton sat as Moses rolled up the bamboo shutters that faced the sea. “Sunday’s I sometimes come and enjoy the beach,” he said as he tied off the shutters. Compton crossed the room and looked out onto the beach where the low sun illuminated the blanched coral that shimmered in the curl of small glycerin waves.

“The beauty is everywhere in Fiji,” said Moses, “but I think that Orchid Beach is the most beautiful place on the island. Yellow orchids grow out of that fallen tree. It looks dead right now but when the leaves grow back, the orchids bloom. This tree and the orchids have been here for as long as anyone remers.”

Moses left the window and found a broom and began to sweep the dust and sand from the floor. Compton continued to stare out of the window. “Did you say this was your place?”

“It is on our leased land and I let the New Zealand man build the bure and the kitchen and dig the toilet. Life was hard here and he was old for it.  After the last hurricane, he went back to his country. He loved the beauty and was sad to leave.”

After sweeping the floor, Moses brought in bed sheets and a mosquito net, which he hung above the bed. He also brought four, five-gallon plastic containers of fresh water, as well as several pawpaw, a half bag of rice and a bunch of bele. “This will stand by you for a few days until I visit the Indian store. You make a list of what you need and I’ll come by and pick it up.”

“You’ll need money to buy the food, and we haven’t worked out the deal on this place, until I come up with the hundred pounds of fish each week.”

“I bring you fruit, vegetable and water for twenty dollars a week,” said Moses quickly as if to be done with the unpleasantness.

Compton expected far more and caught in the expectation, stumbled out with, “Are you sure twenty dollars will be enough?  Does that include the rent as well?”

Moses’ eyes narrowed giving the impression of a fox in deep thought. “The twenty dollars is for everything. But you must pay for the fuel when I take you in the boat.”

“Of course,” said Compton, who in afterthought believed Moses figured he’d become dependent on him then jack up the price. Or he’ll charge me a hundred bucks to get off this beach.

“You be very safe here. My bure is at the other side of the hill, but it’s easy to get lost in the jungle.”

“They’re snakes in the jungle?”

“No, the frogs killed them.”
“You have snake-killing frogs in the jungle?”

Moses cackled at the misunderstanding. “No, no the snakes died when they ate the frogs.”

“Thanks for the warning, I won’t eat any frogs.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Moses giggling and shaking his head, “no frogs for dinner.” His expression suddenly changed and he pointed to the shallow reefs that encased the water’s edge. “The current is very strong outside and the coral is sharp. Cuts without hurting, until later.”

“I appreciate your concern, Moses, but I’ve no intention of exploring the jungle or walking barefoot on live coral. My worry is more about you, what if something should happen…”

“Nothing will happen to me. There is fishing boats that come by every day. This is Fiji, all you have to do is wave.” He then paused, and said almost in afterthought, “They take you to Taveuni.”

Which of course was what Compton was asking and didn’t realize until hearing it from Moses.

Moses looked at the sky. “It isn’t good to work in the garden when the sun is hot. I be going.”

They turned the boat around in the sand and dragged it to the water. Moses was away in an instant and Compton stood at the water’s edge waving as he disappeared around the point. He sat in the sand, his eyes darting involuntarily to the empty sea that had swallowed Moses and then to the beach where tiny bits of broken coral, in reds, browns and whites, formed mosaic patterns on the virgin shoreline. Compton had been adrift since his release from the hospital but had never felt more unanchored than at this moment.         Absently, he unearthed a buried shell in the sand, the spiral of which had broken off, revealing an interior that was clean and pink and pure as a tear. He held it tight until it became hot in his hand and vowed he would only retrieve the broken shells that exposed their beauty in their wounds and leave the perfect ones on the beach to come and go on the tide.

Clouds raced in from the south, obscuring the sun. They swept over the island and compressed it. Rain began to fall light and steady a he moved from the beach to the kitchen table beneath the high-pitched roof. The drizzle turned to downpour that pock marked the beach with tiny explosions and beat its percussion on every leaf and rock and rolled its snare across the thatched roof. The din grew to such intensity that it seemed to occupy, with deadened fervor, all of his senses and constricted the vista to uncomfortable proportions.

It rained for the better part of the day and while Compton tidied up and prepared a meal, the rain occupied his mind and made it difficult to conjure up a long term thought.

The squall abated soon after an abridged sunset, as if a curtain had fallen to end a third and final act of this grand noir production. The night jungle came alive with a sound that seemed to reverberate off the sheer lava cliff giving it a life that was frightening in its volume alone, never mind the musicians who created it. Compton hastily made a dish of rice spiced with curry and boiled the green leaves of the bele that had the taste of spinach. The mosquitoes came in droves, forcing him into bed where he finished his dinner under the netting.

Afterwards, by the light of the kerosene lantern, he attempted to read from a copy of Newsweek brought from the States but found himself rereading the same paragraph as if to make sense of it. Lying in the fragile warmth of the lantern, he listened to the insect noise that spewed like raw electricity, blotting out the sound of the waves that lashed the beach. He imagined the insects massing into his hut and covering the netting so as to blacken it and suffocate him where he lay.

Outside the door there came the faint rustle of footsteps and he snapped alert from his waking incubus, waiting for the sounds to become those of a man. They remained dim and inconclusive, as if their source was at the core of the insect noise. Eventually they became distant and he fell into deep sleep listening to that which was, or was not, there.

4

At first light the air filled with the buoyant song of birds replacing the pestilential din of insects. From behind the netting Compton aimlessly inspected his body, discovering tiny bites covering much of his feet and arms. Minute bugs scrambled across his chest and belly and he swept them off as though they carried the plague, launching out of bed as if he had been sleeping on an anthill.

He had left the pawpaw on top of the dead refrigerator, believing it would be safe from who knows what and discovered a two-inch hole had been gnawed out by a rat or mouse, or possibly one of those fist sized, yellow bellied, jungle spiders. Hungry and anxious to be out of the insect ridden hut, he walked down to the water’s edge and cut the pawpaw open. The sweet orb of yellow nectar was more delicious than any fruit he could remember eating. Rather than save half, as was his plan, he ate its entirety and threw the rinds over a lava rock barrier that separated Orchid Beach from a small cove to the west. "Let the crabs eat it, or the mice, or the spiders," he said aloud. “Better it than me.”

The azure sky was absent of clouds and a soft breeze blew in from the east. Compton sat at the table drinking lemon grass tea and watching the sparse boat traffic, near and far, pass the beach. Everyone who saw him waved and he self-consciously waved back, feeling foolish and very much the inane tourist.

Midmorning Moses came round the point as Compton was finishing his third cup of tea. Moses, as usual, was all smiles. “Bula, Michael, how was your night? Did you sleep well?”

“The noise from the jungle was incredible. It’s worse than your place.”

Moses gave off a high giggle. “The jungle is like a barking dog, lots of noise but it won’t attack.”

“I was attacked. Take a look at these bites on my arms and legs.  I was under siege. The mosquito net didn’t seem to help.”

“No, no, those are love bites, gentle reminders of anher busy world. I bring the repellent from Taveuni, make your nights more restful, eh. I have a gift for you.”

He went to the skiff that floated at anchor just beyond the light shore break and retrieved a large bag and unloaded it on the table. Out poured three pawpaw, breadfruit, a spool of fishing line and several hooks.

“You wish to catch your fish, eh. These reefs have many fish. You make your list for the store and I catch a sand crab for the bait.”

Compton had no interest in fishing with the line but would not sour Moses’ enthusiasm, for he had already leaped from the kitchen table and was over the sea wall, digging for crabs with his toes. “They are crafty buggers. They cover their holes during the day.”

Moving from one spot to the next, he let out an “AAUGGG” sound when he located a cavity in the sand. Reaching down with his arm, well past the elbow, he came up with a golf ball sized crab.

“Squeeze ‘em tight and pull off their eyes.”

He brought the crab over to the table where Compton was working on his shopping list.

“Then you take off his back and inside there are three sections of meat. Each one goes right over the hook. Perfect, see, three on each side. Plenty bait in one crab. That’s all you need, one crab. You catch a reef fish with the crab and use the reef fish to catch the jack or mackerel. All from this one small crab. Amazing, eh! Everything’s right here, but the Indian man buys tin fish when he could catch the fish right outside the store. He have to get a job to buy the fish! I ask ‘em why he do this, an he shake his head and walk away.”

Compton read the shopping list to Moses. “Bread, rice, coffee, cooking oil, flour, tea, salt, onions, garlic, eggs, crackers and peanut butter if they have it. How about a couple of six packs of beer?”

“No beer, that’s in Somosomo. Also, two gallons of kerosene to get the refrigerator working,” added Moses taking the list. “I’ll fish on the way over and be back in the afternoon.”

Compton gave him thirty dollars.

“There is not much food in the Indian store,” advised Moses.  “Thirty dollars is too much.”

“That’s all right. Bring me back the change.”

“Right, right. Bring back the change.”

When Moses had pocketed the money, Compton idly wondered if he would see any of it again. Moses jumped into the boat, poled out to the edge of the reef and threw a crab baited hook over the side. Within minutes he pulled up a small fish, waved once and sped off into the open ocean towards Taveuni.

Compton walked over to an exposed flat rock that was well beyond the sandy beach and watched him go. The tide was out and the rock, as big as a kitchen floor, was pitted with tiny pools and fissures. A black-spiked worm-like arm caught his eye, twitching its way out of a thin film of water. At first glance he thought it could be the arm of some exotic octopus but closer inspection revealed the arms of a spidery starfish. Black-spiked arms began to materialize from every crack and beneath every rock, writhing like newborn snakes. The very rock he stood upon became festooned with serpentined arms and he leaped off of it as though it had become electrified. The creatures that slithered and squirmed about the earth disgusted him. He loathed the feel of an octopus, sea hare, or eel, for they conjured something from the underworld that was sinister and, at the very least, disgusting.

Returning to the far side of the beach wearing sandals, he edged out onto the coral that extended into deeper water and carefully made his way to a point where he could peer down into the pale shallows. Fish in brilliant yellows, blacks, oranges and neon blues gyrated like shimmering butterflies that had flocked to his feet to sun their wings. He blinked and backed away several steps for fear they held exotic poison that by their touch would render him ill and unto death. To his left was a large, shallow, pool with aerfect white sand bottom. The pool was empty and he gazed into it for relief both of his eye and his anxiety of unknown things. A ghostly apparition stirred before him, seen only in the eye but not the mind. Then a shadow glimmered briefly across the white sand but no object appeared as its source and he stepped to the safety of the dry beach. There, squinting into the pool, he again surveyed it until, above the shadow, there was revealed the faint outline of a fish, translucent as air and all but invisible were it not for its shadow. Another appeared, and another, all shadows of themselves. Unsettled by the fecundity that sprang from every inch of this water, he stumbled back upon the beach and sat among the broken shells. Selecting half a dozen whose flawed beauty had directed his hand, he later placed them in the center of the kitchen table and observed the sea from a less intrusive distance, where he contemplated this far place he had brought himself.

For even in his wildest imaginings he would never have placed himself in such circumstances. It was as if some other person or force had emerged from the bed of his hospital and was now inhabiting his body. This outrageous environment and its incongruous people that could read thoughts and in general occupied another realm of reality clearly disturbed him. It was the absence of control over these circumstances that had him in a state of imbalance and fear. Trying to keep this thing together was like trying to contain smoke. He felt on the edge of fleeing and returning to Taveuni and then a plane home. But there was no plane and something else was holding him fast, something keeping him here, almost against his will.

In the solitude of the open hut the bird sounds came in variegated shrills from the jungle. He looked into the nearest trees but could not find a single bird. Like the creatures of the ocean, the songs of the birds were shadows of themselves. Suddenly all the bird sounds ceased as though something ominous had entered the jungle. The small hairs on the back of his neck pricked and when, seconds later, the birds started up again, he realized he had been holding his breath.

The aria of the birds ran like the pipes of Pan through the jungle and he lay beside the fallen tree in the sun and listened to their song. A deep stillness overcame him and the discomfort lifted from his chest and dissolved into the sound.

* * *

Moses returned in the late afternoon.

“Bula, Michael. It was a very good day. I caught three fish and the Indian store had everything on your list. You lack for nothing, eh.”

“I lack for nothing,” repeated Compton while helping unload the groceries from the boat.

“Did you try some fishing?” asked Moses.

“No, I looked around near a shallow reef, saw some beautiful fish but like I said, I’m no fisherman.”

“Is it the sand crab pinch?”

“No, although they’re certainly well-armed.”

“Come over here.” He led the way to the far corner of the beach. “What do you see?”

“Old shells and broken coral washed up by the tide.”

Moses had the grin of a man with a secret. “Look carefully.”

A shell moved. Then others moved. Half of the shells were moving.

“Hermit crabs,” said Moses. “Jes’ take a stick and shove it in and pull ‘em out. Their pinchers are small, no pinch, see, very easy. Good bait but not as good as the sand crab.” He tossed the crab away and pointed to the nearest tree that towered over the hut. “Everything is here. We give the new leaves of this tree to babies with bellyaches. That tree over there has leaves that are bitter and cleans out your mouth and throat. If you get the sap in your eyes, it blinds. This one,” he said, walking up to the edge of the jungle, “you boil the leaves and drink the water and it washes you out if you are stopped up. Amazing, eh.”

Compton, who barely feigned interest, nodded and turned for the kitchen

“Would you like a cup of tea, Moses?” he asked.

“That would be good. Tea in the afternoon is a pleasure.” Moses fingered the seashells on the table while Compton made the tea.

“These are jewels, eh.”

“They’re beautiful. I like the broken ones, where you can see the inside.”

“The sea builds amazing creatures, all with their own secrets.  You see this one?” He held up a black and white checkered shell the size of a thumb nail. “It kills a man in five minutes. It has a tongue like a dagger. Tourists have put them into the sleeves of their wet suits and they are dead minutes later.”

Compton brought the tea. “You mean that little shell is deadly?”

“No, not the shell, the animal inside. Also, there is a stone fish, very dangerous, and the lionfish, and the sea snake. Everyone comes to Fiji and talks about the sharks. But it is not the things you see that will kill you, eh.”

“And where are these stone fish and lion fish and sea snakes?  Right in front of this beach, no doubt.”

Moses grinned, “No, no, you don’t have to worry. The lionfish come out at night and the sea snake is very shy. If you wear shoes in the water and step on the stone fish you won’t die. But there are others, eh. Don’t eat the red fish or the one with the white tipped spines, they are poisonous.”

This last bit of information drew Compton’s direct concern. “When I start to spear fish how will I know which ones are good to eat?”

“It is hard to know, so many kinds. They look alike for a small difference, eh.”

“Well, I don’t think I’ll eat any fish until it has your seal of approval.”

“Seal of approval?”

“Until you take a look at it and give me the okay to eat it.”

“Right, right, seal of approval. Yes, that would be a good thing. Cut out the meat and leave the heads for me to see.”

“The tropics are very different from the waters of the Pacific off California or even the Gulf waters in Mexico. Here there are hundreds of different creatures for every one that is in the colder Pacific. It’s a bit overwhelming.”

“So much to learn, eh. It is always that way. The world is full of amazing things. Tomorrow more things to learn. Aprosa will come in the morning, show you the sea. Teach you to dive with the breath and hunt for the fish with the spear.”

Compton dismissed this news with a hand wave. “Yeah, I’m looking forward to it,” he said unconvincingly.

Moses looked long at Compton, then suddenly gulped the last of his tea and stood. “I have something else,” and he fetched a fish from beneath a burlap bag in the boat. “Here is your dinner. I must get home before the rain and feed my family who is waiting. Do you need anything from the garden?”

Compton looked up into a clear sky. “No thanks, Moses. How much do I owe you for the fish?” Moses shook his head. “You owe me nothing. Ahh, I almost forgot, your change from the Indian store.” He reached into his shirt and handed it to Compton who self-consciously pocketed it without so much as a look.

“When are you coming back?” asked Compton with an edge to his voice.

“When I am here next,” Moses chuckled wading toward the skiff. Compton watched him go and as the skiff turned the point and disappeared, a lone rain bearing cloud edged over the trees and began to deposit its cargo.

The light rain came and went as grizzled clouds blew in and out from the southwest. Compton prepared dinner and watched the clouds gather over Taveuni and then blacken it with a deluge that obscured its shoreline. Realizing that he might not eat this well tomorrow, he ate the fish with unfamiliar relish, savoring its sweet freshness with every bite. Two herons flew in and settled in the shallows of the next cove. Like gray statues, they stalked the tide pools until engulfed by a leaden sky and sea.

Night fell and the jungle unleashed its great static. He again rd the rustle of footsteps outside the bure and, chagrined by his response the previous night, lifted the netting and with a flashlight ventured out to the open doorway. In the dead leaves, in the kitchen, on the sides of the hill, everywhere he looked moved land crabs like giant insects swinging great pinchers of pain in the pale moonlight.  The surreal scene played its sickly game and with the unease of a waking nightmare, he hurried back under the netting and lay awake listening to the rustle of the crabs, awaiting their arrival.

In the moonless early hours of the morning the sound of a boat engine aroused him from sleep. The boat motored to the edge of the coral and the engine stopped. Thoughts of beatings, theft and murder overcame him. How easy it would be. Who would ever know? He lay paralyzed on the bed. Shortly the engine started up again and the boat moved on down the island. When the sound of the engine faded altogether, he went to the kitchen and removed its largest knife from the drawer, then hopped back to the bure, maneuvering around the land crabs that seemed to have doubled in number since he first witnessed their invasion.

5

In the morning Compton ate pawpaw at the water’s edge and threw the rinds over to the next beach. He tried to husk a coconut with the big kitchen knife he had taken to bed. Twenty minutes of sweat and fury resulted in the removal of a thin strip of husk before he surrendered to the superior will of the nut, acknowledging that if it were the only source of food on the island, he would probably starve to death. In a final act of defeat he threw the coconut against the lava cliff and watched it bounce away unscathed. Turning to the beach he spied a yellow hull skiff at the edge of the coral and a single Fijian man who had lifted the outboard and was poling the boat across the coral.  The man waved and Compton waved back. When the boat reached the sand, he walked to the beached boat and greeted him. The man said his name was Aprosa. He was not large in the standard of most Fijians he had met but was well muscled with powerful legs and a sinister tattoo of unknown totems crawled down his arms and rib cage. The tattoos, it seemed, were in direct contrast to his gentle face. Compton thought he looked like that guy who played for the Lakers, Fisher, Derek Fisher. Fish they call him. Is he the Silver Fish who…?  Jesus, it’s catching, I’m starting to sound like Mariah and Moses.

“My name is Michael,” he said extending his hand. “Moses told me you’d be coming.” They shook hands and Aprosa introduced himself and then stood gazing at Compton for a long moment before asking, “You dive with the breath?”

Compton acknowledged that he had. “Yeah, I’ve done a bit of free diving. Though it has been awhile.”

Aprosa nodded. “You know the sea?”

“Sure”, replied Compton with a degree of confidence, beginning to conclude this whole thing could well be easier than first surmised. “I mean what are we talking about here, snorkeling. I know it as well as the next guy. Spent my share of time in the water.”

Aprosa turned and walked to the beached skiff and withdrew a facemask. He came over to a white strip of sand that appeared to fall off into deeper water and when he was knee deep turned to Compton. “You put on the mask and fins and we go to the outside of the reef, eh.”

Compton went to the tree stump where he kept his gear and returned to the beach to put it on. As he did, Aprosa picked up his facemask and began to examine it, particularly the glass.

“Those are corrective lenses,” said Compton. “My eyes, I’m a bit nearsighted.”

Aprosa nodded and handed the facemask over to him.  He took it and asked, “You’re not wearing any fins?”

Aprosa shook his head. “No need. There is a way out of the coral, a path, the sea knows. It takes you on its own strength. No need for the fins, I follow you.”

“There’s no way out of here,” said Compton in weak explanation.

“Come, I show you the way of the sea,” replied Aprosa who turned back on to the sand trail. Halfway to the beach he made a right turn into a seeming cul de sac of coral heads with Compton following. Aprosa then wove through another set of heads and reef and, without the benefit of fins, seemed to cruise through the maze without difficulty while Compton constantly used his fins to correct misdirection’s into the tight coral pathway. Suddenly the coral reefs fell away into deep water and more sand appeared and they paralleled a deep reef until they were out on the far edge where the water fell away into a bottom of sixty feet, then slid away to an abyss in excess of a hundred feet. Compton, suitably impressed, began to pull his snorkel to compliment Aprosa on his navigational skills but he had turned and was heading back to the beach through the same circuitous route.

They reached the beach and were sitting on the sand when Compton finally spoke. “That was impressive, Aprosa. Obviously you have been here before.”

“No, this is the first time.”

Compton’s lips parted in the grin of disbelief. What is it with these people? “Then how did you know where to go?”

“The sea told me, eh. You feel the way it moves. It comes in to the beach and comes out to the deep water without trouble. It has the knowledge and gives the instruction. You learn the knowledge of the sea before you hunt it, yes?”

The grin remained on Compton’s face. Right, you follow the subtle movements of a near non-existent current, something only a fish might know.

“I suppose so. What is the first lesson?”

Aprosa began to pick up pieces of red colored shells off the beach and as he was gathering them he told Compton to keep his equipment on. When he had accumulated two large handfuls of red shells he threw them into waist deep water. “You find each ones, eh.

“I thought I’d be diving in a bit deeper water than that.”

“We start here, teach the body what is the water. The brain thinks it knows but it is the body that needs the intelligence to hunt.”

Compton shrugged his shoulders in what could only be called a skeptical gesture and entered the water.

The shallow water was crystal clear and marvelously pleasant and in the light surge of the shoreline he used his arms to maintain position and keep steady. He felt a tap on his back and lifted up.

Aprosa stood above him. “Do not use the arms. Be relaxed in the body. Only the legs are used to move, eh. Take the long breath, not the short ones.”

Compton put his face back into the water. Taking Aprosa’s instruction, he soon relaxed and began to fe the movement of the surge and in that anticipation was plucking the shells from the sand with ease that brought a curious satisfaction. Within a half-hour he had picked up all the shells and handed them to Aprosa, who smiled in thanks then threw them back into the sea. “Let the sea have your body.”

The gesture appeared arrogant and didn’t make sense to Compton but he returned to the water without comment.

Soon he forgot Aprosa and forgot the water and forgot his body, and like a child in the center of his universe, picked shells from the bottom of the sea. The mindless chore became the smallest of pleasures, one he could not recall in all his life. Later he would think about it and realize that his body and the water were somehow communicating and that he had become an afterthought to the communication.

When he had completed the task he made his way to shore grinning like a twelve-year old boy. “That was fun, Aprosa. What else have you got for me today?"

Aprosa smiled back. “You did well, eh. I leave now. You go back into the water many times today and find more shells. Do not go deep.  Be still so the fish they will forget who you are. I will come back when you are ready for me.”

With that he got into his boat and poled off into the sea.

Compton was left on the beach to contemplate the morning. I’m not sure what he was talking about. I’m taking diving lessons from a cryptic Fijian native who comes and goes on whim. He looked out to sea following Aprosa’s frail boat to the horizon. This did feel right, he mused, I’ll give him that. What an interesting sensation, there’s this kind of magnetic pull that’s almost irresistible. He felt a certain focus he had when he was a boy wandering up the dry riverbed behind the house looking for tracks of raccoon and rabbit and the occasional deer. There was something gloriously perfect in those pursuits.

Compton lay back in the warm sand and fell asleep to boyhood adventures. When he awoke he walked to the kitchen and sat in the folding chair that looked out across the Tasman Strait with a sense of wellbeing that was recognized in the vague way a dream is recalled. If he hadn’t just awoke from a nap and his mind not yet kicked into gear, it would have passed without acknowledgement. Instead it rested warmly in his gut and remained a knowable thing as he gazed out to sea.

Eventually he arose from his seat and in that seemingly insignificant act thoughts flooded his consciousness and washed away the gossamer threads that connected him to the natural world.  He went about the kitchen seeking chores. He shimmed the table leg, fixed the broken chair by wrapping a splint around its back with a thin vine he found at the edge of the jungle. He walked the perimeter of the campsite looking for any trails into or out of the jungle and found none. He worked for a time on husking a coconut, but exhausted quickly from the effort, leaving the task all but begun. For dinner he ate the coconut Moses had brought and cooked a piece of fish in a pan. He was under the net before night fell in the throes of roof brain chatter and second thoughts regarding this whole affair.

6

Compton dove for shells as instructed for the better part of the morning, finding it to be a source of mindless pleasure as it was the day before. When he left the water his body felt rested and at ease with itself. This he was able to recognize by way of its unfamiliarity.

Near noon Moses arrived with fruit and vegetables from the garden and Compton offered him tea.

“Look at that kitchen,” said Moses, pointing to the fine lined drag marks across the sand that appeared to have been the work of a rake.  “Those land crabs are your friends, clean the place up every night. After the hurricane we catch ‘em on the full moon. Put ‘em in a bag and boil ‘em up. Feeds everybody.”

Compton nodded, making no mention of his paranoid episy he arose

“Aprosa come yesterday, eh. Teach you the sea.”

“It wasn’t much really, just picking up a bunch of shells. He says I should keep doing it until he comes back. It seems like a waste of time. I’m looking forward to getting into the deep water and learning how to spear fish.”

Moses shook his head in amusement. “Yeah, everyone wants it quick. Aprosa teach you right. Let the sea come in and wash off the bad habits of the mind. The body needs to know what it’s up against, eh. It’s the one that takes care of you in the sea, not the mind. You do everything Aprosa say. He is the best diver on the island and the island has many good divers.” He had picked up the battered but unharmed coconut on the table while he spoke and was examining the thin strip that had been torn out. “You need a pointed stick to open the nut. Over there is one I made with the cane knife.”

Compton followed him to the back of the bure near the cliff where a cluster of boulders had broken away. Coconut husks lay strewn about a pointed stick that had been wedged into a fissure of one of the boulders. Moses jammed the side of the coconut onto the wooden spike and rolled it as if it were made of foam instead of tough, fibrous bark, and tore off a large piece of husk down to the hard nut.   In minutes the coconut was husked clean. “There is a certain spot to hit the nut, right here.” He drew his fingernail along a line an inch below the third eye of the top of the nut and hit it across a rock, splitting it open like a monkey’s skull, spilling the milky fluid over his hands. After taking a drink, he gave it to Compton who took a small sip and was about to hand it back. “No, you drink it all, it is the next best thing to the mother’s milk. Very healthy, you drink one nut a day. Fix you up.”

Compton finished it off and then Moses cut chunks of meat out of the nut and served it on the blade of the knife. “Nature’s candy, eh.”

A red-hulled boat passed the cove on its way to open sea. Three men on board waved and Moses returned their greeting. “Fijian are friendly people, eh. They wave and call your name. It is polite to wave back. A sign of friendship.”

“That’s a little difficult for me. It seems hypocritical. I don’t even know these people.”

“What is hypocritical?”
“False. It would be false for me to be friendly and greet someone I don’t know.”

“Is that how it is in America?”

Compton gestured in acceptance with opened hands. “Yeah, maybe there’s just too many people. Everyone’s a stranger.”

“It is better to be friendly than unfriendly. It is not false if you mean it in your heart, eh. In Fiji there is genuine friendship. You jes’ sit and wave and say Bula, and everyone is your friend.”

“Did you know those men in the boat?”

“I don’t know who is their name. They are Fiji fisherman.” Moses paused and looked out after the red hulled boat. “They fish with the net. Once a month they go to the reefs and get all the fish they need.”

“Why don’t you use a net?” asked Compton. “Is it too expensive?”

Moses’ eyes remained on the red-hulled boat, his cheerful countenance lost on its wake.

“It is not the net. I am a pre-mix, part European and part Fiji. My father was a German and my mother was Fiji. I am a second class citizen, same as the Indian. They don’t allow me to fish the reefs.”

Moses cut a chunk of meat out of the coconut and pensively bit off a piece.

“That seems unfair,” Compton sympathized. “Besides, who’s there to stop you?”

“It is watched over by the Fiji fisherman. I can fish the reefs for myself, spearing them and using the line is okay. But no commercial, no nets. The free swimmers are the only fish they let me catch.

“That seems like a hard way to go. Can’t you get permission to fish the reefs? There are so many of them.”

Moses looked out to sea again, jaw muscle flexing in his brown cheeks. “The village can give permission,” he answered finally. “I ask for it once but no one ever say yes or no.”

“How far off the reefs must you fish?”

“Jes’ the reefs that can be walked on. The deep water reefs and all the blue water is okay.” Moses bit off another piece of coconut.  “Don’t worry about me, Michael. Soon they take all the fish from the reefs and have no skill in the deep water. I have the skill in the blue water, eh. It is what I live for.”

Moses chewed the coconut with the intensity of a hungry animal, rocking ever so slightly on the bench. The affront by the village was obviously painful and Compton put his hand on his shoulder.

“I think it’s wrong, Moses. The waters should be free for everyone to use.”

“No, they are Fiji waters,” responded Moses with a passion. “They belong to Fijians! In my heart I am all Fijian but who can see my heart and ask it to understand rules and laws.”

Moses blinked and searched for the red-hulled boat that had vanished into the sea. He spoke in a gentle voice so soft Compton could scarcely hear it.

“I’m not angry at my father for being white. He was a good man until drink took him away. He was wise and knew the world. When he was dying he say to me, ‘Give twice what you get. People are good.  Don’t be afraid of strangers.’” Moses paused as if seeing his father on his deathbed, listening to his voice. ”Also, he say, ‘Stay strong in your territory and help your friends when they are in need.’”

“That’s the sort of advice a father should give to a son,” said Compton.

“My father was very wise,“ continued Moses. “I think maybe that is why he was always drunk.”

“Did that make your life hard?”

“When I was very young my life was good. I lived with eight brothers and sisters. We lived apart from the other Fijians. I learned to speak English before Fijian. We had napkins and silverware. It was a proper life. But when I was nine my father became a drunk and after a time it broke the family. I was sent away to live with an uncle who was a Methodist minister. He mistreated me and made me into his slave. I cooked and cleaned and he beat me with a strap. Once he tied me to a tree for a night because I was late getting back from a chore.” Moses shook his head. “I was scared and screamed all night so he couldn’t sleep. I remember those nights I wished to be sleeping on my mother’s belly with my sisters and brother. The beatings made me crazy. When I was thirteen I run away and came back to live with my mother. I went to school but was far behind. In two years I passed ‘em. When my father sold our land at the beach I went to the city and my sisters left home and my brother went into the army. My father died after that. There was no one to take the farm. I was living in Suva when Esther came for me.”

Moses cut a chunk of meat from the coconut and split it in two, giving half to Compton.

“These days I don’t worry much. Jes’ enough to fish everyday without worry.”

“That sounds like someone who’s retired.”

“Yes, that’s it. I want to retire.” A laugh burst from Moses’ chest and he rose from the table, sprinted down the beach and jumped into his boat without another word, leaving Compton dumfounded at the table.

Near dusk, Compton was preparing dinner when a dark-hulled skiff trudged by the edge of the coral. The lone occupant waved and Compton returned the greeting. The boat proceeded another ten yards then abruptly swung back into the beach. Compton instantly regretted his gesture and stood frozen at the stove until the fellow had dragged his heavy boat up onto the sand. Only then did he make his way down to the beach. The man was very dark and his chiseled features were all but obscured by a fearsome and wild countenance that had Compton take a backward step when he came upon him.  “Bula,” he said, smiling through gaps of msing teeth and shook Compton’s hand with awkward formality. “I am Peter.” His black hair was long and unkempt and his clothes were ragged and scarcely covered him. Over them he wore a yellow, weather-beaten slicker that was so tattered it could not have possibly kept him even remotely dry. He was barefoot and both his feet and hands were so gnarled and scarred as to look of mutant cast. Compton offered him tea, which he accepted with childlike gratitude. In broken English, Peter explained that he was a fisherman from Taveuni. In the course of their crude exchange Compton asked where he fished and he carefully drew a chart on the sand indicating the best reef to fish at night when the moon and tide were right.         Compton asked where the big mackerel could be found and the fisherman indicated a reef, far out to sea, on the other side of the island. “Veddy dangerous, beg sea brak da bot.”

“Have you been there?”

“One time. We catch mackal sebenty, abe kilo. Also, beg jack and tune.”

“Where’s this reef at?”

“Foteen mile, da wey,” and he pointed across the jungle to the southeast.

“On the other side of the island? How come it’s so dangerous?”

The fisherman shook his head. “Beg sea, beg curren. Tek men, neber see gen. Sea God der.”

“Sea God?” asked Compton, glancing toward the sky.

“No, Sea God.” The fisherman shook his head and pointed to the ocean. There was an awkward silence as if the fisherman had spoken of something that he now regretted. Compton asked if he knew Moses and his yellow brown boat.

“I know da bot.

“Are there many other fishermen in these waters?”

“No too meny.”

“Why is that when there are so many fish in the sea?”

The fisherman smiled revealing oily teeth and raised a gnarled hand. “Sea har on men.”

“Then why do you fish?”

The fisherman sipped his tea and held the cup low to his knee, as if the question carried weight beyond his words. Then thumping his chest hard, he said in a near whisper, “It is en my hard. Good dey, I wan more. Bad dey I don” quit. Alwey deffron, alwey da same. Sontim beg fish, sontim small. My hard neber hev enoh fish.”

“Do you remember the biggest fish you ever caught?”

“Yeah, yeah. A sark. Ret by dis beach. He hook up tree in mouning. I fight ’em til after da sun come. Him twel foot and aff.” The fisherman spread his arms to full extension twice and then made a splitting gesture down his face and stomach with the side of his hand.  “My bot twel foot. Sark too beg. I cut ‘em wit small kneff. Tak hour to cut. ’Em live after I cut in aff. Sole ‘em for twenty dollar.”

The fisherman offered Compton his last cigarette and when it was refused he smoked it down to the filter, taking huge inhales that would have felled a horse. Flipping the butt into the sea, he looked up at the sky.  “Seben o’cock, I go.”

Compton helped him launch the heavy skiff. After clearing the coral and setting out for the straits, the fisherman waved just before disappearing into the coal black sea.

Dinner was late and the mosquitoes came. Compton turned out the lantern, hurriedly finished his meal and crept under the netting. The image of Peter the fisherman, by now far out on that sable hump of rolling swell, would not leave him. He saw himself, alone on that vast and perilous water, a boy, who thought he was a man.

7

The morning sea winked its glitter through the cracks in the bamboo walls and the sounds of the soft shore break temporarily washed away the self doubts of his manhood though they lingered, as doubts do, on the peripheries of a fear filled mind.

After breakfast Compton collected his gear from a large boulder that lay in front of the sleeping hut. In his preoccupation he did not see Aprosa pole his way in from the reef. Suddenly he just appeared, standing on the beach next to his boat. Compton went down to greet him with dive gear in hand.

“Bula,” said Compton, which caused Aprosa to smile and return the greeting.

“You have been in the water looking for the red shells, getting the body ready for the sea?”

“Yeah, but it gets a little boring after a while just laying there in the water. ”

“Only the mind is bored, the rest of you is learning much, eh.”

“I suppose,” said Compton rather dismissively. “I think I’m ready for the big water.”

Aprosa grinned shyly. “We see about thet, eh.” He then instructed Compton to put on his gear, while he put on his own. When they were ready he motioned with his hand to follow. “We get into a bit of deeper water. Can you dive to ten feet?”

Ten feet was to the bottom of the average swimming pool and Compton reassured him that, “Yes, I can dive to ten feet.”

“Good.”

They followed the stretch of sand out to where the coral gardens were in full bloom, no more than twenty-five feet from shore. On the ten foot bottom lay a single coral head where danced a multitude of colorful tropical fish. Aprosa instructed Compton to dive down to the coral head without disturbing the fish. Compton inhaled a deep breath, bent at the waist and as he began to slightly sink, kicked his way towards the bottom and the coral head. Not more than five feet into his dive the fish exploded away in all directions leaving the coral head barren of any leaving creature. Compton pulled out of the short-lived dive and returned to the surface.

“The fish, they run off,” said Aprosa.

“Well, yeah. They always take off when a diver comes near.”

Aprosa did not reply but put his face into the water and laid upon its surface. The tropical’s had returned to the coral head and picked up their dance where they left off, when Aprosa took a breath and bent into his dive. He glided downward after a small kick on the surface, then remained as still as a post in his descent. His glide down was not unlike the sinking of a single feather from a swan at altitude, effortlessly and without intrusion. If the fish knew he was present, they gave no evidence of it. It was almost as if Aprosa did not exist at all. He settled to the bottom in a sitting position, arms resting on crossed legs like a boy-size Buddha in meditation. The fish did not bolt off as Compton had expected but instead drifted over to Aprosa and began to flutter about his stilled form until he was almost obscured by the fish that enveloped him. Compton was struck by what appeared to be nothing short of some mystical power this man had over the fish and then he was similarly awed by the length of his breath-hold, which now stood at several minutes, and he gave no indication of ascending. More fish flashed to him until he was completely surrounded and could not be seen at all. When finally he began to rise from the bottom, it was with such deliberateness and in such ultra-slow motion that it seemed he did not so much unfold himself from the sitting position as he simply morphed into a fluid form that defied description. When he reached the surface he pointed back to the beach and they both swam to it. Compton, mesmerized by what he had seen, followed like an obedient dog.

They took off their gear and sat on the beach. “That was an amazing display, Aprosa. What sort of magic enabled you to achieve that?”

Aprosa smiled innocently and shrugged his shoulders. “No magic. Every Fiji spear fisherman can do that. It is nothing. It is an understanding of the sea, eh. The sea knows two things, sound and movement. If you are quiet and do not move then the sea will let you into it. The coral head and the fish are the teachers, eh. They will tell you when you move. They say when you make a sound.”

“Wait a minute. How can you move without moving?”

“You go very slow. You start a small kick and then you glide. It is the control of the body, eh. When you dive thesh see you. In the slow movement they see you get bigger but because nothing else moves they forget. They let you into their village because they know that they cannot be harmed by something that moves without moving.”

Aprosa rose and laid his gear into the boat. “I will come back when you can dive the coral head and the fish invite you into their village for some tea.” He giggled at his small joke and left Compton sitting mute on the beach.

For the remainder of the morning he sat listening to the shore break, falling in and out of its sounds. Within the sounds Aprosa’s words filtered through and he would attempt to decipher them as if they were some kind of code, the message of which presumed to lead him out of the emptiness of his existence. There was no denying he felt something vaguely come to life in him when in the water but he could not put a name to it. Had he not the time to ponder it there on the beach. It would have vanished as another unrealized thing. But it was the feeling of aliveness that made for the awareness of his deadness. How or when that occurred he had no idea because his life had become some sort of abstract idea of itself, barren of any real feeling. There was no real life to it. “The sea is real,” he said aloud as if to punctuate its reality. It feels to be the only real thing around me.

Mid-afternoon and the sun hung over Taveuni heavily veiled with leaded clouds whose silvered appendages glowed of freshly minted coin.

There is nothing remotely abstract here, he went on to himself.  This scene is more real than any possession or any city or any nation.

He lay back on the sand until the sun had set, as if seeing it for the first time, vowing as he did that he would try and grasp the gift that was, by some miracle, being handed to him.

8

After breakfast and feeling oddly confident, Compton slipped into his “shorty” wet suit, which left his arms below the elbow and his legs below the knee exposed. With a weight belt, mask, fins and snorkel, he entered the water directly in front of the beach and followed the sand path out into the maze of coral. After two wrong turns he found clear passage to the edge of the barrier reef and deep water. He swam parallel to a finger reef that jutted directly out to sea. The water was as clear as liquid glass and the coral reefs fairly shook with sea life. They appeared as if Poseidon himself had toppled from a great height and shattered into ten million pieces. Polyp covered kidneys and worm-ridden rib cages lay white and ancient, vented arteries leading to stone aortas protruded through smooth, perforated stomach linings. Alabaster spleens, soft and delicately textured, rested comfortably in the abdomen, membranes turned rigid and fixed to rock and reef filtering the sea-blood of its impurities. Clawed, bony fingers stretched hairless at odd angles to oversized skulls and brains, eyes and teeth.

All of Poseidon was there as if he had fallen yesterday and his life’s blood shouted in color and form. It rattled and trembled with kaleidoscopic fecundity. Fish of every shape and color probed the reef like garish jungle birds, splashed with the brilliance and fervent style of Hieronymus Bosh. Oranges stirred with electric blue, ruby dots studded with chocolate browns, waves of chartreuse upon bracing cerulean, egg-white bellies laid beneath pulsating purples, coal lacks co-mingling with swords of silver, pinstripe copper across mottled greens and dollops of gold trimmed in emerald. There were fish with huge heads and scarcely a tail. Some were all tail and very little head.  There was a fish that looked like a stone, (and there were stones that looked like fish). There were fish with eyes that filled their heads and fish whose eyes were lost in tiny dots. There were fish with oversized mouths and a fish with hardly a mouth at all. There was a fish as thin as a shadowless thread and fish so fat it moved as an anchorless balloon. pon

Somewhat apart from the multitudes lay a coral head swarming with fish. Twelve feet directly above it Compton rested on the surface and gathered himself, taking deep breaths and concentrating on the notion of moving without moving. Bending into the water he began his descent. Almost instantly the fish departed the top of the coral head as if swept by a wind and he halted in mid-dive as the fish continued to scatter. Returning to the surface, having no idea what or how he had spooked the fish, he waited until they had returned to their chores and again pumped up breaths and prepared to dive. Slowing his pace he descended with diligence and the fish held to their positions as his fins cleared the surface but as soon as he reached for his nose to clear his ears the fish retreated. Halting his dive he turned for the surface thinking, all right, I need to go even slower and have everything in place beforehand. When the fish reclaimed their positions, he dove. Again and again they sprinted off, this time when he was within six feet of the coral head.

And so it went for most of the morning. Sometimes he knew what he had done to cause the fish to flee, an inadvertent kick, a hand or arm movement, even a head turn. It became a discipline and exercise in body/mind awareness. While resting on the surface it occurred to him that it was with careful deliberation that Abraham had demanded a hundred pounds of fish a week. In that pursuit he would have to move out of his cerebral world of ineffective thought patterns and into a reality where one focused on the very basics of existence -- moving, observing, eating -- in general, paying close attention to the world at large and letting the trivial and extraneous business of the mind fall away to simply watching oneself move.

The failures mounted and he grew frustrated. It seemed the more intense his concentration, the clumsier he became. In the course of his defeats he spotted a large fish that appeared to be a twenty-pound grouper lying in deeper water beyond the coral head. He pumped up several breaths and carefully made a dive for a closer look at the fish. As he closed on the fish it turned tail and disappeared into a crevice. However, in the dive he became aware that when he passed the coral head the fish remained undisturbed on the head. They had apparently accepted him into their world as he had swum by, then at almost the exact moment of that realization the fish scattered in all directions as he rose to the surface thirty feet away from them. It was as if they had read his mind. Compton became fascinated by the implications. Something else was going on that transcended his body movement. Perhaps it was his eyes, could the fish see his eyes? Or was it even subtler than that? His intention? Was one linked to the other? He had grown cold and hungry and the sun called to him from the beach, as did a whole new set of questions to be pondered in its warmth.

Compton sunned himself while lunching on cooked spam and the theory of intent. Lose the intent of getting close along with its communication through the eyes and perhaps the fish would let him in if his body did not betray him. Anxious to test the theory he prepared to enter the water again, adding another five pounds of weight to his belt to lessen his effort to reach the bottom and insure a more pronounced glide pattern earlier in the dive.

In his first few attempts the movement in his body revealed him to the fish. But he now knew, or had a pretty good idea, when each movement startled the fish by way of the simple telegraphic nature of the exercise. They would only move when he moved and whatever moved or twitched was instantly recorded on the collective eyes of the school. It was late in the day when he was finally able to get all movements under control, as well as divert his eyes to the point of observing the fish in a peripheral sort of way and, at the same time, keep his mind clear of all intent. In that dive they held their place on the coral head. He had entered their realm and in that realization came the satisfying awareness of being fully accepted by the school. It brought a convincing sense of connection, not exclusively to the fish but to all that lived in the sea, perhaps more specifically to the sea itself. He dove in that manner until exhausted and returned to the beach in a state of self-imposed grace that expressed itself in joy filled dolphin kicks to the tune of losing his way back in. On the beach he watched the sun settle over Taveuni, igniting the leaves of its coconut trees with the fires of the departing sun, a self-satisfying pleasure etched upon his face, lighting him from within as if another sun had descended into his soul.

Compton slept better than he had in months, perhaps years, perhaps since he was a boy during the last full summer vacation of his life. He arose as a boy might, with an entire day before him and no real plans to fill it other than play. When one enters a new day where nothing is planned, anything can happen. One is prepared to embrace all events great or small and there comes an awareness of the unfolding of life as each act is revealed.  In this state of grace he fairly bounded to the shoreline after breakfast and entered the water as a boy in the midst of summer vacation might.

The fish awaited him as he awaited them. Initially he was out of balance on the first few dives and the fish scattered but soon his movements came under control. His eyes sought out the edges of the coral head rather than its center and his mind released the intent of its occupation. He soon fell into its midst. He laid upon the sand in stillness and observed the fish in their comings and goings, nibbling on the coral, establishing territories for who knows what, the pairing up of same species. They went about their day as if he didn’t exist. He had entered a sacred realm and forgot his breath. Such a small thing it was to watch fish, yet it was their acceptance of him as an aspect of nature, a part of the whole, that elevated the experience into the province of the extraordinary. He was unprepared for this inclusion and the feeling that came with it. It was as if he had entered another dimension of reality, one that had always existed long before man had set foot on the planet and one that will exist eons after he departs. One that felt true, and with it came the hint of connectedness, to the fish and with the sea itself as a living thing. There were times on the bottom when his breath-hold was forgotten and in the stillness of the moment he would forget himself and merge with the whole. Then when the demands of oxygen crept into him and he remembered his breath and thus himself, the separation would occur and he would feel it as he rose to the surface on his need. Exhaling with a rush, breathing deep breaths, he would look down into the colorful sea feeling himself breathing, empty of thoughts, at peace in the moments between breaths.

Through the morning he dove seeking the peace that lay within the moments of his breath-hold on the sea floor and between breaths on the surface. He had not known such peace in a long time but did not think about it for the thought itself could erase the moment and somehow he knew this and his body knew this and together they kept his mind quiet. He dove up and down from coral head to coral head watching fish, extending his breath-hold until it was forgotten.

When finally the cold awoke him to his body and its demands he swam with easy, purposeful strokes to the beach and cast upon the hot sand and lay as a basking turtle sheltered in harmony.

In the afternoon he went to the sea again seeking all that he had left earlier. But his intent was great. He wanted it too much and it did not come. The harder he tried the more elusive it became. The fish scattered, his mind worked on its pursuits and he struggled within himself.  It was as if the sea knew all that was contained in his mind and unless he could free his mind, empty it into the sea, then it would not permit him entrance. On some vague level knew this but could not relax into the reality of this ephemeral knowledge and eventually in frustration, swam back to the beach.

In the preparation of dinner his mind drifted to the morning and he wanted to share that experience with Moses and wondered when he would next see him. As the thought drifted from his mind, Moses appeared on the beach stepping out of his boat with a large sack over his shoulder.

“Bula”, he said. “I have brought you fresh vegetables and some fish.”

Compton greeted him warmly. ”Thanks so much for bringing the food.”

Moses unshouldered the sack and gave Compton a look, looking again this time from toe to head, stopping at his eyes and nodding approvingly. “I see the sea has done its work on you.”

Compton laughed. “You can see it? You are a marvel.”

Moses walked to the kitchen and deposited the goods. “It is not a difficult thing to see, eh. The sea does its work on us all, keeps us clean in our bodies and in our minds, that is the gift of diving in it everyday.”

Compton scrutinized him with the eye of one skilled in the ways of deception. “You know a great deal about diving for someone who doesn’t dive.”

Moses’ face grew dark and he licked his lips as if looking for words. “I am a fisherman, nothing more than that.”

“Well,” said Compton, “I had an incredible experience in the water this morning. I felt so,” he hesitated, searching for a word, “connected. It was…”

Moses held up his hand to halt any further conversation. “It is not a good thing to talk about what you did. Do not cloud your mind with talk. It weakens the strength of the teaching. Stay with the sea, learn about it and about yourself. The teaching of Aprosa is very important but the teaching of the sea is even more important. You can go nowhere without the teaching. Abraham said it would not work unless the teaching was right.”

“What wouldn’t work?”

Moses licked his lips again in search of an answer.  “I must go,” he finally said and hurried to the boat. After shoving off, he turned to Compton. “Do not stray from the teaching. Understand the sea and you will understand yourself.” He then poled off the reef, fired up the outboard and motored around the point without ever looking back.

9

Compton awoke late in the morning and wandered down to the kitchen where he found Aprosa sitting on the bow of his boat gnawing on a chunk of coconut. “Bula,” he said and waved. Compton returned the greeting and came down to the boat. “You have been diving, eh?” asked Aprosa. “I can see that the small fish have let you into their house.”

“How can you see that?” asked Compton without his usual skepticism.

“A piece of the sea is on your face, eh.”

Compton reflexively wiped his hand across his cheek, causing Aprosa to laugh uproariously. He patted Compton on the shoulder. “Come, we go into the water and find the real teachers.”

“What do you mean, the real teachers?”

“The small fish are not smart, they are like children, eh. The hunting fish, the ones who eat the other fish and the ones you will hunt, are very smart. You must learn how to get close to them.”

They put on their gear and entered the water, Compton following Aprosa through the coral maze and out along the edge of the coral line where the bottom began to drop away into water that appeared to be at least sixty feet deep.

Aprosa pulled the snorkel from his mouth and spoke to Compton. “From where the coral ends in the deep water to forty feet inside the reef line is where the big hunting fish hide. Every shot should be the kill shot, eh. If you miss the kill spot the grouper and the snapper take the spear to the deep holes and you have to dive deep to pull them out. To get close for the shot you must trick them. They are curious with intelligence, eh. So you fall to the bottom lie a dead man, with the gun out and ready, but no movement. They come in very slow to see who is this dead man on their reef. Sometime you hold the breath two minutes before they come in close for a good look. That is when you take the shot. But there is pressure in the deep water, eh. Pressure on the ears and face but mostly on the heart. This pressure on the heart does not hurt like the others but it affects the mind.”

Compton nodded as if he understood, understanding nothing.

“I show you.” Aprosa took several deep breaths and dropped down. In the gin-clear water the bottom looked no more than thirty-five feet away but Aprosa became smaller as he descended in a motionless glide and Compton knew that it must be far deeper that it appeared. Aprosa reached the bottom and settled on a large boulder in the sand. Small yellow and black tropical’s danced about him as he waited on the boulder. After a minute he extended his arm in ultra-slow-motion and pointed off in the direction of the reef wall. A large fish lay next to the wall and was slowly weaving its way towards the boulder. In what seemed like an eternity the fish came to within ten feet of the boulder. Aprosa then lifted off and in that movement the fish turned on itself and exploded away into the wall of the reef, the concussion of its tail sounding like a gunshot. Aprosa ascended in easy, powerful kicks, the long bladed fins bending nearly double from the stress. He reached the surface, exhaled and seemed unaffected by the lengthy breath-hold and ensuing ascent. Perhaps, thought Compton, it is not as deep as it looks.

“You go to the boulder,” said Aprosa. “Pull the snorkel away from your mouth so the bubbles do not tell the fish you are alive, put it back on the way up. Take three big breaths and then dive. Be relaxed, that is the secret of the deep dive, it preserves the strength.  Stay relaxed in the mind, do not let thoughts come in and steal the breath.“

Compton put his face in the water and looked down at the boulder and tried to relax into his breaths while breathing deeply. On the last breath he filled to capacity and dropped down, pulling the snorkel from his mouth and pinching his nose, pushing air into his ears to equalize the pressure. The first few kicks put him into a glide and then he began to fall without kicking. In the first twenty feet he felt light as a bird in flight and comfortable with his descent but as he continued to plummet thoughts began to creep in when the bottom appeared no nearer. He continued to drop and relieved the squeeze inside his mask by blowing a bit of air through his nose. He was dropping at a faster pace than expected and his ears hurt and were in need of more air for equalization. The pressure on his body was considerable and the boulder still seemed another twenty feet away.  In mid-water he could endure no more and turned to head back to the surface but instead of ascending as expected he continued to drop and, upon that realization, began to kick furiously and crawl skyward with his arms and hands gripping water that would only slip away. The effort halted his descent and slowly he began to rise but it had stolen his air and now with legs driving hard against the tonnage of water from above he felt a weakness overcome him. Panic welled in his throat like vomit and a sickness came. He was still a long way from the surface and now out of all air. The pretense of control having left him, he succumbed to the terror of his drowning. A lightness enveloped him, as if he were floating to the surface. He thought he had died but it was Aprosa’s strong arms around his waist lifting him to the surface. Upon reaching the surface Compton expelled the stale air like a whale and took heaving gasps that left him dizzy.

His breath eventually regained itself and when it did, Aprosa led him back to the beach. They sat under the shade of the orchid tree in silence until Compton uttered, almost to himself, “I lost it. I panicked.”

“To dive deep on the reath is not an easy thing to do, eh. There is many… I don’t know how you say it.”

“Barriers, obstacles?”

“No, many…,” Aprosa made a cutting gesture with his hand.

“Levels?”

“Yes, this is it, many levels. First the breath, then the pressure, then always the mind, and the legs must bring you back.“

“I thought it was over, I thought I was going to drown.”

“No, you were a long way from that, eh. You could have made it by yourself.”

“It didn’t feel that way but thanks for helping me. That last twenty feet was like the end of a marathon race. You hit the wall and there’s nothing left.”

Aprosa nodded. “We start small and work down to the bigger water.”

“I’m not sure I can do it, my body feels so weak.”

“It is not a weakness of the body. Soon your legs will be strong, that part is easy, just a bit of work. It is the mind that holds the fear and makes you feel weak. The weakness feeds the fear. They work together, they satisfy each other, eh.  First you show the mind that the body can do the dive. The mind does not trust words that it believes will weaken it. When the body can do the job, the mind will leave you alone.”

Aprosa rose as he finished and headed for the boat. Compton did not walk with him, staying beneath the tree. They waved to each other as Aprosa poled away. Compton watched him go until the horizon had swallowed him up. In the clarity of the unblemished vista his frailty revealed itself. This is the second time in two weeks. I am unraveling. The delusion of myself as competent is exposed like used film. Hell, the delusion of myself as a man is exposed. I am a boy among men with these Fijians. His gaze rested first on the orchid tree, then the beach and finally the sea. I have stumbled into a realm that is truly authentic only to discover I can barely function in it. He paused and, with knowledge only the thoroughly defeated understood, realized he could not survive in this place. When Moses comes with the food, I will leave his place before I kill myself.

In the afternoon he went into the sea with the melancholy of one who was saying their sweet goodbyes to a loved one whom they, in all likelihood, would never see again. Swimming to the deep boulder, he watched from the surface as if to reassure himself that it was in his best interests to leave. After all, the week was up and his time here had simply run its course. As the thought left him, he saw a flash of silver off in the deep water not far from the boulder. A shark! Big! No, a dolphin! Gray, moving in flight, cocking its head to one side. It’s looking up, gliding towards me. Compton’s mind shifted modes, the inner-dialogue ceased and his body drew breaths. Unhurried, he dove as the dolphin began to rise toward him. Now twenty feet away, the water crackled of finite electricity like champagne bubbles bursting on his chest. The dolphin was sonaring him, knew him in an instant. The two held the moment, both suspended in their liquid dream. Compton felt a welling in his chest that was not his lungs but his heart responding. Overcome with longing and the intense desire to further the connection he drifted closer and their eyes met in the briefest of moments. His need to breathe shifted the exchange and reluctantly he drifted back to the surface as the dolphin followed for a moment then turned and banked off into the cobalt. Upon his arrival on the surface his mind once again ushered in its dialogue and the moment was lost. What a beautiful creature, it sonard me, touched me. With what?  It touched me with something. His breath came fast now, regaining itself, and other thoughts poured in as though they were somehow connected to his breath. With a longer breath-hold I could have stayed around, maybe even swam with it.  He hung in the deep water for twenty minutes waiting for the dolphin to return, eyeing the boulder all the while. In that time the boulder had become a reminder, a symbol of the commitmentse did not keep, to himself or to his loved ones, a weakness that he loathed in himself. This boulder is my line in the sand, my crossroads. To run from it is to run forever from myself, my demons. He swam towards the coral wall and went inside to shallow water and began to dive in twenty feet. Each dive seemed to fill him with a welling determination. He observed his mind rather than the sea, and with a new clarity, saw how the pressure at depth would activate it and create a fear out of its demands for a breath, even when he had air enough in his lungs.

For the next week he watched his mind when he dove to depth but did not listen to it. Instead he listened to his body and the truth it imparted. He was astonished at how his perception of reality changed and how a sense of harmony with the sea began to inhabit his body. When he surrendered to this harmony, a feeling of wellbeing prevailed throughout his internal self. He gave himself over in finite increments to the knowledge of his body and it was becoming his underwater intelligence. It quietly announced when he really needed a breath, and it asked for more strength in his legs so he could rise from any depth and know he would always reach the surface. In the deeper water his body demanded that he stay relaxed when his mind was doing everything in its power to create tension and put anxiety in his heart.

Every morning and afternoon for two weeks thereafter he dove deeper and deeper and it was in this way that he eventually was able to dive to the deep boulder.

It was one thing to dive to the boulder and immediately return, quite another to dive to the boulder and wait out the big fish on a single breath-hold. He became strong in the belief that his legs, at the very end of the breath-hold when all air and strength had diminished, would carry him back to the world of air.

The coral trout and the snapper revealed their hiding places and stalked the boulder watching him as he watched them. They would circle the boulder and other boulders he dove and came so close that Compton knew that if he had a spear gun he could have sustained himself with fish brought home from the sea.

During the time he was out of the water he became aware that the constant chatter of his mind had abated, that the quiet he demanded of it in the water carried over to the land. It brought a peace that was refreshing and knowable. When Moses came with the fruit, vegetables and fish, they barely spoke.  Moses would gaze upon Compton’s face and smile and say, “Things are going well in the sea.”  Then he would leave before Compton could muster a reply. He had given up trying to extract an explanation out of Moses for anything. Or even that his one-week stay had long expired. He was in the middle of something extraordinary and it appeared that part of the process was this isolation, which in his solitude he had now grown to enjoy. When Moses last came, neither spoke at all, but both smiled as if some secret knowledge was being passed between them.

One morning in the middle of the fourth week, Compton awoke to the sound of small waves crashing on the sand. There was harmony to it like music that went directly to his heart. He listened for some time, his mind floating free and he realized that he had grown to embrace this place and of diving on a breath-hold. He had acquired a sense of balance and harmony that he could not conjure on his own.  There was a deep sense of gratitude for the sea that Aprosa had shown him and he was pleased with that understanding, pleased that he had not run back to Taveuni and back to a worn out life that had not been working for a long time. Pleased that he found the courage to go forward when all else was declaring he should run.

A knocking on his open door frame aroused him from the reverie. It was Aprosa, smiling as always, come to pay a visit.

“Bula, Michael, I have brought a gift.”

Compton rose from the bed and slipped beneath the netting to shake his hand. “Bula, Aprosa, you arein time for tea.”

When Compton reached the doorway he saw that Aprosa had in his hand a freshly varnished mahogany spear gun that was five feet in length.

Aprosa handed it to him. “You are ready.”

Compton took the gun and ran his hand down the slick stock and tugged on the thick bands of rubber at its end. He lifted it and placed his hand around the grip and on to the trigger. “It’s beautiful, thank you.  How much do I owe you?”

Aprosa took a step backward and the warmth of his countenance fell to a frown. “You owe me nothing. It is a gift.”

Compton, having realized the offence, apologized. “I’m sorry Aprosa, it’s difficult for me to sometimes accept such generosity.  Thank you.”

Aprosa regained his smile. “It come also from Moses and Abraham.”

Compton was deeply touched by this offering. He knew these people were next to poverty stricken. He could not imagine where they had come up with the money to pay for such a spear gun and, rather than take the chance of offending further, he said nothing.

“Let’s try it out, eh.”

Compton retrieved his gear and as they were walking down to the shoreline he asked, “How did you know I was ready? You haven’t seen me in three weeks.”

“Moses say he saw it on your face.” He then giggled and continued, “That Moses, he say, ’He is ready for the gun, he finally stopped talking.’” Aprosa continued to giggle and when the truth of it struck Compton, so did he.

They sat on the bow of Aprosa’s boat and he took the gun from Compton’s hand. “This spear gun is very powerful. It has three big bands of rubber, eh. It can kill any fish in the sea.”

“Is there extra line and floats or a reel for the really big fish?”

“No line, no floats, no reel,” replied Aprosa with untroubled honesty.

Compton knew enough about spear fishing to know that for really big fish you needed a dragline and float. Patiently he responded,  “I think you need to have a line to work the fish. To fight against it and tire it out. Otherwise it will dive to the bottom and take you and your gun for a very deep ride.”

Aprosa shrugged with disarming certainty. “I have no line for the fight. There is no fight.”

“Aprosa, it is impossible to hunt big fish without a drag line and floats. They would just pull you down an drown you. There is no other way.”

Aprosa smiled guilelessly at Compton. “When I shoot they die.”

“That would mean you would have to have pin-point accuracy on every shot, underwater, on a breath-hold, on a moving target.  That’s quite a feat. You miss one time and you lose everything.”

Aprosa shrugged again, “I don’t miss, eh.”

It occurred to Compton that the size of the fish might somehow have been misconstrued. “Just exactly how big are these fish you are spearing?”

“I spear a jack last week, was thirty kilos.”

Compton released a short, sharp breath. “That’s hard to believe.  You do this every time? Where do you hit the fish?”

Aprosa bent to the sand and with his finger carefully drew a picture of a fish. He detailed it with fins and a tail, eyes, gills and a lateral line. “If you put the spear in these places.“ He pointed to a spot just above the eye of the fish and then to a point where the lateral line met the gill plate, near the pectoral fin. “It kill the fish.”

“It seems you’re taking a big chance of losing the gun. One mistake, off half an inch and everything is history. You have only one spear gun?”

“Yes. A man from New Zealand gave me the long fins and the snorkel, too. He gone now.”

“I’ve never heard of anyone shooting with that kind of accuracy,” contended Compton, unwilling to accept such a notion.

“The spear goes where you point it, eh.  Not where you think you point it.”

“So one shot and if you miss, you lose your gun?

“This is it, no mistakes. Always the perfect shot. If you do not have the reel and the other, then you must be perfect every time. It is how you see the fish, eh, that make the perfect shot. The spear goes where it is aimed, it does not know anything else. If you aim high it goes high, if you aim low it goes low. To place the spear where you aim it you never see the whole fish. You just see the tiny spot where the spear will go. The spot is the size of the nail of the smallest finger, it never get any bigger than that. You see the spot and that is all you see. You aim the spear to that spot and the spear will go to that spot.  If you see the whole fish, the spot moves around to the whole fish and then you will miss.  It is a concentration, eh. How you say… a …”

“A discipline?”

“Yes, it is a discipline. To see only the small spot and nothing else. Even when the fish is very big and beautiful and even when you know that if you miss it will take the gun away. The mind wants to see everything but you cannot let it.”

“Is there nothing easy about spear fishing?”

“No, it is not supposed to be easy, eh. It cannot be done unless you are relaxed in the mind and in the breath and in the body, also the eyes, relaxed but alert, eh.”

Aprosa picked up the gun and showed Compton how to cock it by putting it into his gut and pulling back each band. Then how to fix the point, which was detachable so there would be no pressure on the spear shaft and thus work off the fish if there was a fight. He showed him how to hold the gun and sight along the barrel. Compton practiced by aiming on a tiny spot on the orchid tree. “Do not see the tree or the bark or a leaf. See nothing but the spot on the tree. When you are in the water your body must be a part of the gun, not bent, but even with the barrel, so you and the gun are all one thing. When you pull the trigger it does not come from the mind, it comes from the body. The body will know when everything is lined up, the mind is always adding up too many things and you will miss the spot or you will act too late. Do not listen when the mind speaks, trust the sense of the body. The body does not speak. It acts. Let it be free to act. When it is the right time to pull the trigger, the trigger will be pulled.”
Compton nodded in understanding but all he wanted to do was go into the water and stalk fish. “Well, lets go out and give it a try. I have to start paying my rent.”

Aprosa shook his head. “I will not go with you. The sea will teach you the rest. Begin with the small fish and when the body is sure of itself then go to the big fish on the outside reefs. The reef and the sea are living things and each fish is like a part of the sea’s blood and a piece of its brain, all connected to one another by the thickness of the water. For you to hunt you must become as the fish, a part of the sea/brain, or you will not be equal to the intelligence of the creatures.  One thing also, do not give the sharks an easy meal or soon when they see you they will come to expect it, more dangerous then, eh.”

They both shoved the boat off the beach and with spear gun in hand, Compton watched Aprosa pole his way over the reef and head out for Taveuni.

After entering the water he cocked the gun in the sand strip and it required all the strength he could muster. On the last band his arms quivered with muscle fatigue. Moving slowly along the edge of the reef inhaling deep breaths, he sucked in a final breath, pulled the snorkel from his mouth and bent into the water. With scarcely a kick he freed himself from the inverse gravity of the surface and glided down to the base of a reef, settling on a patch of sand. The distant sounds of snapping shrimp and the clicks and snaps of fish became an indecipherable music. The pressure of the water, tight and womb-like, gave a pleasurable sense of assimilation. He remained motionless on the sand and the fish, which had shifted in their awareotheof him at his descent, returned to their tasks and he was forgotten.

Behind the glass of the facemask his eyes moved from periphery to periphery, beyond the dancing fish out to the edge of vision where the snapper and coral trout would come. Lying in a state of relaxed alertness, he felt no need for air nor did his next breath concern him. He waited nearly a minute and a half and when no fish of size appeared he rose unhurriedly to the surface.

He worked his way to the outside edge of the reef, diving in deeper water with each new descent. At the end of the reef the depth was sixty feet and the current, invisible as the wind, moved like a force within a force, a river growing wild from an unrealized source.  He dropped down again, more for shelter from the current than for anything he saw. Near the bottom was a large cave hidden beneath a jutting lip of coral. From inside the cave came the sound of a thunderclap and a ball of rising sand gave evidence of a large fish fleeing into its recesses. Gliding into the dim mouth of the cave, which had a jagged diameter of six feet, he waited a moment for his eyes to adjust.  Two tunnels branched off to a Y, each occupying thin beams of sunlight which flickered through the coral ceiling like tiny suns held captive in a dark castle of cloud cover. Into this singular illumination he drifted, electing the tunnel to the right, pulling himself along by hand until reaching its narrowed end where, glowing with the supernatural light of an apparition, hovered a large grouper. He slowly brought the gun down and sighted along its barrel. In the low light he could not find the kill spot with any degree of certainty, and hesitated. If he shot and missed the kill spot the speared fish in all likelihood would retreat deeper into the cave and it would be difficult, if not impossible, to extract. He could lose his spear and even the gun. Back-tracking out of the cave and into the light, he glided upwards to the surface growing more comfortable with his decision.

Crossing a barren stretch of sand, he came to the eastern most point of the island, as he knew it. Here a deep canyon fell away in terraced coral to a hundred-foot bottom that leveled out and fell away again to blue infinity. Below, moving in the stilled way of objects viewed from a great height, were large coral trout, grouper, snapper and fish which man had put no names to. As Compton bent into a dive the fish moved again in choreographed escape, drifting and darting into the reef and down into the blue chasm where they vanished altogether.

The entire area revealed itself to be a vast colony of fish that converged on this single point of island, apparently to feed off the micro-organisms that swept through on the current who, in turn, were fed upon by the larger fish. The food chain made visible and Compton half wondered where he fit into its scheme. He continued to drift down on his dive to forty feet, where he lingered on a coral trout that had taken refuge in a small cave. A second coral trout lifted up from below, its brilliant reds filtered to a drab brown in the depths. Both fish were over thirty pounds, a bit more than he wished to handle on his first fish and he turned for the translucent ceiling where awaited a fresh breath.

Moving nearer to the reef, he began to explore the shallower caves for smaller fish. These caves were several feet in diameter and well concealed in the coral, generally visible only on descent, and he would glide to an entrance and place his spear at its mouth and, forgetting all that Aprosa had instructed, waited for the fish to pass.  But the fish were quick and his mind was slow and his reactions could not keep their pace. At one such cave he fired and missed. However, in a cave full of fish the spear hit another. The fish whipped wildly inside but he could not contain it, for the opening would only accommodate his head and one arm and, unable to reach the fish and out of breath, he abandoned the spear gun, leaving it floating off te attached line and swam to the surface. He had speared his first fish and was already well into a dilemma, which quickly compounded as two white tip sharks swam out of the deep and began to turn with agitation on the blood spoor that leaked from the cave. Regaining his breath, he cautiously dove and retrieved the floating gunstock, then proceeded to the mouth of the cave. The sharks eyed him and moved off, turning in tight circles in open water twenty-five feet away. He reached blindly into the cave and followed the spear with his hand until coming to the fish that had wedged itself in a corner by opening its gills. With a good handhold on the base of the gills, he was able to pull the fish free. It burst out of the cave thrashing in a spray of blood, which appeared green in the sun filtered depths. Turning to the sharks, which had moved considerably closer, his first reaction was to simply hand them the fish and move away. Remembering Aprosa’s words of an easy meal and the danger that would bring in the days and weeks to come, he held fast and kicked for the surface. The sharks scattered and then returned to the cavern’s blood spoor, circling madly on the scent. Compton caught the current west that pushed him with ease towards the beach, leaving the sharks to smell out an empty sea.

Drifting on the quick rails of the current, he passed a school of yellow-tailed snapper cruising as a single entity along the sandy bottom, flowing like liquid over a solitary boulder. A large napoleon wrasse, over a hundred pounds with its enormous head and gargoyle-like mouth and lips, sunned itself atop the shallows of a finger reef in four feet of water. Upon Compton’s appearance, it slipped over the opposite edge of the reef and out of sight.

Lifting his head from the water to locate Orchid Beach, he found instead, not twenty feet away, a large wooden boat overflowing with Fijian men and women, all smiling broadly.

“You catch fish?” asked the headman in English who manned the tiller.

Compton held up the fish. “Is this a good one to eat?”

“Io, yes, that is a good one.” He said something in Fijian to those in the boat and everyone laughed. Compton came alongside and held onto the gunwales. All the men in the boat had ancient goggles hanging from their necks. Some wore tee-shirts and others were bare-chested. They all wore ragged, ill-fitting shorts and each held a thin, rusty spear close to his body in the way of the old Masai. The women were fully clothed in cotton dresses of flowered prints. The older women wore bandanas around their heads and in their laps rested large spools of fishing line. A few of the younger women had goggles as did several boys. Compton caught the eye of a beautiful woman with a wonderfully shaped face set with almond eyes and a full, sensual mouth holding perfect teeth.  Seeing her, Compton reflexively lifted his facemask for a better look. Her brown eyes smiled and returned his gaze and then she shyly lowered her head. The headman gave a gesture of goodbye and Compton released the boat. All turned and waved as they motored around the East Point, Compton lowering his hand as the woman lowered hers.

He filleted the fish on the beach and despite the headman’s approval, threw the head up on a rock near the shoreline for Moses’ inspection.

While he prepared lunch in the kitchen, the Fijian boat reappeared from around the point, coming back down the island on the current with only a boy and the headman on board. The others were in the water. The men were diving, the older women perched in knee deep water at the edge of the finger reefs fishing with the line.  The younger women and boys were diving the shallow water atop the reefs, depositing their catches in the boat or in a purse-like bag that hung at their hips. The divers drifted with the current and slowly passed Orchid Beach as the boat picked up the women and deposited them on new reef points further down the island. In this fashion, they worked their way down the coastline.>

The presence of these divers would explain the spooky nature of the fish off the eastern most point, reasoned Compton.

Two divers made their way onto the beach, walking barefoot over the live coral. One of them was the woman he had seen in the boat. She wore a white blouse that clung to her brown breasts and she was stunningly beautiful. Compton stammered out a “Bula.”

She replied, “Bula,” and followed it with the loveliest smile he had ever seen. The boy came forward and asked in broken English if Compton had any matches so they might light a fire further down the island and cook their afternoon meal. Compton found a book of matches and gave them to the woman. She received them shyly and went off with the boy clambering over the rocks and coral as if it were fleece, disappearing behind the cluster of lava rocks that edged the far cove.

The boat pulled into shore a half-mile down the coast. Compton lay back on the sand next to the fallen tree and closed his eyes, better to visualize the woman who had stood dripping before him.

“Bula, Michael,” called Moses who startled Compton out of his daydream. “Enjoying the Fiji sun.” He carried two plastic containers of water that he placed in the kitchen and then retrieved a bunch of belle from the bow of the boat. “Picked fresh this morning by Mariah for you.”

“Please thank her for me. How about a cup of tea?”

“Will you look at that tree,” said Moses, as if he had just noticed some extraordinary feature that previously had escaped his attention. “Have you seen this trail of mud that leads up to that big mud nest near the branches?” he asked, walking to the base of the tree.

“A wasp nest?”

“Termites,” said Moses, pulling a piece of mud from the tree, spilling out white, maggot-like vermin on to the sand. “Isn’t that something. The kingfisher is the one who make that hole in the mud. It flies in and lays its eggs and when they hatch the babies eat the termites. That kingfisher come out of that hole like a bullet. Most birds have to flap a bit to get going, but the kingfisher is a bullet. The leaves on the tree turn red and fall into the water and sink. Sometimes the octopus hides under the red leaf, and he turns himself bright red.  Amazing, eh.”

Compton nodded, marginally interested, eager to describe his morning.

“I speared a small fish today and saw this beautiful girl. I want you to check and make sure its good enough to eat.”

“The girl?” quipped Moses.

Compton pointed to the shade of the boulder where the fish head lay. “It’s over there.”

Moses examined it. “That’s a good one. Good eating. Who is this girl’s name?”

“I don’t know. Actually she’s a woman and she was in a blue-hulled boat filled with people. There was an old man at the tiller who spoke pretty good English. They’re camping down the island. I think you can see them from the beach.”

“I see them already. That is Jokatama. His family has lots of girls. No name, eh.”

“No, but I gave them matches for a fire. Do you think they’ll bring them back?”

“They bring ‘em back,” assured Moses.

“What makes you so sure?”

Moses pointed to the boy who was just climbing over the rocks.  After returning the matches to Compton, Moses spoke to the boy in Fijian. They conversed briefly, then the boy shook Compton’s hand and left.

“Her name is Sinaca. She is the daughter of Jokatama. She is very beautiful. I watch her walk when I am in the village but she has very mean brothers, so I don’t watch her very long.”

“I’d like to see her again.”

Moses shook his head. “This isn’t the city, eh. You jes’ can’t walk up to a girl and screw her. She is a long way off from that. First you must be invited into the village.”

“Maybe you could arrange that for me?” asked Compton in mild astonishment at this own boldness and powerhey brattraction to the Fijian woman.

“I’ll work on it. You might be in paradise brother, but Sinaca lives in another place that is far away.”

They walked to the table and Compton brought out a coconut for Moses to husk. It was done in minutes and they ate it with their fingers and drank tea.

“You are a different man,” said Moses, appraising Compton as if he were wearing a new suit of clothes. “The sea holds a place in your eyes now, eh. Aprosa did his good work on you. He say you are ready to be the man who spears the wailu.”

“Well, I don’t know about that. It was an unbelievable three weeks. Aprosa should have a degree in psychology. Maybe open up a self-help enlightenment camp. Make a fortune.”

“Aprosa has no interest in a fortune, or open a camp. What is the psychology?”

“Nothing, he just said and did all the right things. He showed me how things worked and then left me to figure the details out on my own.”

“Is there another way?”

Compton shook his head, smiled. “No, I guess not.”

“Aprosa knows the sea, how to become invisible so the fish don’t see him. He has many tricks, eh. But it is the sea that changes a person.”

Compton looked out over the strait, nodded. “This is the best I’ve felt in a long time, maybe ever. It’s been a transformation. My mind…”  Compton caught himself and stopped, smiled at Moses, who smiled back.

“You are being prepared for what is to come, eh.”

Compton lifted his eyebrows. ”And what would that be?”

“You are on a new path, eh. Who can know where that might lead, and to who?”

Though curious, Compton knew he would get nothing more from Moses and nodded agreeably, wisely switching subjects. “I speared my first fish today and I want to thank you for the spear gun. It was a generous gift.”

“An Australia man shot a grouper with it and it was too strong and he could not hold the fish. It swam away with the gun and the spear. He went back to Australia and Aprosa found it three weeks later and we fix it up. Some varnish and the good rubber, made like the new ones they sell in Somosomo.”

“Well, it was thoughtful of you. Give my thanks to Abraham.” He paused in thought. “Will I see him again?”

Moses bit his lip and averted Compton’s gaze, regained himself and said, “Do not worry about him, jes’ go about your own business.” Moses paused. “No more bringing fish for you brother. Now you are the hunter and to eat what you have hunted is far better on the tongue, eh.”

“I hope I’m good enough to do this every day. Spear fishing is difficult, much harder than I imagined.”

“You will become good. Starvation makes good hunters of us all.”

“Are you saying that’s it, no more food?”

“No, no, I bring the vegetables but no more fish. You don’t spear the fish, you don’t eat fish.“

“Sometimes I feel like I’ve wandered into this, I don’t know, conspiracy.”

“What is conspiracy?”

“It’s a plan to… you know, trick me. What are you and Abraham up to anyway and how does Aprosa fit into all this?”

Moses grew serious and in the way of his thoughts began to lick his lips. “We are not trying to trick you. You can go back to Taveuni when you wish, eh. Where is the trick in that?”

Compton held his hands up in feigned protest. “I know, I know, but it’s too late now. I have to play this out, whatever it is. I’m learning some remarkable things and having too much fun to give it up.”

“You are learning about the sea, eh.”

“No, about myself.”

“Maybe that is the same thing, eh.”

Compton was continually amazed at the depth of Moses’ observations.  While he was becoming quite fond of him, there also grew a fear in the way of someone who possessed a knowledge one could never acquire. Not wishing to address those fears, he changed the suect. “I had a visitor a couple of weeks ago. I forgot to tell you when we stopped talking. He was an old fisherman. His name was Peter. Do you know who he is?”

“What is the color of his boat?”

“Dark green, old and beat up looking.”

“That’s no help. All the boats are old and beat up. Did he come from Taveuni?”

“Yeah, he was telling me about a reef fourteen miles southeast of the island that had big fish. He said it was dangerous and said something about a Sea God. What’s that all about?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know about that reef. Big seas brother, my boat is too small. The Qamea reef has the big mackerel. There is no need to go to a dangerous reef when you have all the fish you need right here, eh.”

“What about the Sea God, what’s that all about?” pressed Compton.

Moses dismissed the question with a wave of his hand.

“It is jes’ the idea of a fisherman.”

“He was talking about fishing when the wind and tide were right.  A real old timer.”

“The wind and tide is everything. So is the moon. It amazes me how that is so. How do the fish know when to bite and when not to bite? There are many secrets to fishing. When I was a boy, instead of going to school I listened to the old men talk about the fish. The sea and the fishermen was my school. I desired the sea with my heart but other things came first and they had to be done before I could fish.”

“What other things?”

“The foolish things we do before we stop and listen to our hearts.”

“That’s what Peter the fisherman said, that fishing was in his heart.”

“For every fisherman that is true, eh. What does your heart say to you?”

Compton looked down to his hands as if he was unaware they were closed. “I don’t know. Once I thought…” His voice trailed off.

Moses’ voice softened and his eyes rested evenly on Compton. “When did you last listen to your heart?”

The question caught Compton off guard, and he was at a loss for a response. In truth, such a question had never been asked of him.  “I don’t know what to say. I’m not even sure what you mean.”

“You have a heart. It speaks to you, eh. When you hear it, do you follow the voice?”

Compton watched himself clench and unclench his hands as though they were somehow disconnected and separate from him. “I’m still not sure what you mean.”

“You have not had the love of something?”

“Well, sure I have but not for a long time. I had a wife, actually several wives. And my boy. I love my boy.”

“Everyone loves their children, eh. But there is not something you have passion for?”

“You mean a woman?”

“That is not your heart speaking, that is your cock, brother.”

“Well then, a good looking woman,” responded Compton, making a feeble attempt to move the conversation elsewhere.

Moses wordlessly sipped his tea and attempted to hold Compton’s eyes with his own. In avoiding such contact, Compton bent to his tea but when finally he looked again, Moses was still there patiently awaiting a response.

The obligation to answer had now become imperative and he was unsure how that had occurred. Reluctantly he replied, “I guess it has been awhile since my heart has spoken. When I was a kid I loved my dog but my grandfather didn’t like it and gave it away…  Just gave it away.”

“And what does your heart say these days, now that you are a man?” asked Moses in an even, unthreatening voice.

“Well, I guess I really loved my second wife. Maybe she was the only woman I really loved, really opened up to and trusted.”

“What happened to her?’

Compton fingered his cup. “I loaned her a lot of money. She really needed it and I trusted her to pay it back. But she had no intention of paying it back. The whole thing ended badly. That was ten years ago. I guess my heart hasn’t spoken in a lon time.”

“The heart is always speaking but its voice gets lost, eh.  What do you desire for your life?”

“I’m on my way to Australia to teach software programs to architects. I’d like to start my own business. Right now it’s all freelance.”  The simple act of declaring the truth without embellishment brought a comfort and a satisfaction that he was making some internal progress.

“What about the boy, your son. You grieve for him?”

The truth felt good, very good, and Compton looked at his hands and found they were open.

“I came apart when my last wife took my boy back to Chicago and remarried. She dumped me because I wasn’t going anywhere. What she meant was I wasn’t making enough money. I lost everything in the last spec house. I went by the book, did everything right but the market fell out.” He paused for a long moment. “My boy calls her new husband, ‘Dad’.“ He paused again. “I don’t know what I want. Just to start a new life, I guess.”

“That is not the heart. That is your mind seeking peace.”

Compton pulled himself away from his hands and looked out to sea. “There was a time in high school when I would sit down and write poems. I fantasized that one day I might be a writer.”

“Fantasized? What is that?”

“A fantasy is like a wish.”

“Ahh, a wish,” beamed Moses. “Wishes come from the heart. That’s good. A writer?”

“That was a long time ago,” said Compton dismissively.

“Writing books?”

“Yeah, some poetry. I don’t know.”

“Then you should write a book, eh. A man can only do what his heart speaks. Anything else is foolishness and a waste of himself. I bring you paper and pencil from the Indian store.”

“No, Moses, that’s all right. I’ve nothing to write about, nothing to say.”

“That is your mind talking, not your heart. Write about now.  Write about me. The voice of the heart is soft, you must listen with care. Stop listening to your mind. It only make you sick.”

Compton shrugged. “Okay, bring the paper, we’ll see what the heart has to say.”

Moses grinned. “Right, right, see what the heart has to say.” He then stood up from the table. “Thank you for the tea. I must go. Do some fishing before the rain comes.”

Compton gestured to a cloudless sky. “What makes you think it’ll rain, Moses? There’s not a cloud in the sky.”

Moses rubbed his nose with his finger. “It’s not what I think. It’s what I know, eh. But don’t ask me how I know.”

Late afternoon rain clouds gathered over Taveuni and swept over Qamea dumping their loads in iron sheets. The storm pounded and shrieked and dominated the senses with ineffable power. Though Compton was not hungry he prepared dinner, for it was the only diversion available. He boiled the cassava root that Moses had brought. It turned out badly and he had to throw it away but he steamed the belle and pan fried the fish with a little lime. It was a delicacy worthy of the finest meal he could ever remember eating.

Night fell like a load of coal in a dark basement and the unrelenting rain extinguished the mosquitoes and drowned out the jungle of its insect noises. He sat at the kitchen table well into evening enjoying the deluge while drinking tea and wording a poem that was forgotten in sleep.

10

The sea, weighted by thick air that steamed from the jungle, struggled to produce a ripple from its porcelain surface. The green foliage glistened like freshly varnished spars and there came the sweet smell of rot.

Compton had finished eating the pawpaw down at the shoreline when, not twenty yards from where he stood, bait leaped from the shallows like silver coins issued from another sky. Directly behind them a great fish broke the platinum lining of the surface and arched a silver body that was as long as a mans leg. It appeared to be a barracuda. Though the sighting lasted for less than a moment it held him spellbound in anticipation of… what? Another display? A profound miracle? He didn’t know. He waited in the way he waited for the dolphin to reappear, scarcely breathing. Perhaps he was looking too hard, he thought. The fish never come when you’re looking too hard, so said Aprosa. He turned his attention to the sand and lightly touched its grainy sharpness, as if stroking skin. When he looked back again Moses had just rounded the East Point, standing in the boat as he liked to do, steering the outboard with his foot.

He brought breadfruit, pawpaw and a Time magazine. “This I get from my sister who works for a hotel in Suva. The travelers from overseas bring them and she sends them to me to practice my English reading.” He handed the magazine to Compton and asked, “Do you understand the work they call business? Why do the Americans make a magazine about work?”

“It used to make sense to me, when I was young and eager, interested in making a lot of money.”

“Why was that? How much do you need?

“I don’t know the answer to that. You try to make a lot of money so you don’t worry about not having enough.”

Moses shook his head in disbelief. “Either way it is a worry, eh.”

“Well, yeah, I never looked at it that way. Maybe Americans just like to worry a lot.”

“Maybe this is it. I see the people in the Half Done Village worry about such things. They do it all the time, as if it were a joy.” Moses paused. “Did the worry of business bring you money?”

“No, of course not. We Americans like to make money through investments. Which is, when you really get down to it, nothing more than guesswork based on some limited information. Sometimes we guess right, most of the time we guess wrong.”

“I have some information,” interrupted Moses. “There has been another coup by Colonel Sambuka. Two days ago.”

“A military coup?”

”Yes, like the one in May. There is curfew in Suva, everyone must be off the streets by dark.”

“That’s martial law. Must be pretty serious. What do the radio reports say?”

“An Indian store has been burned. There is fear the Indians might start shooting.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Because Sambuka has taken their power.”

“I don’t get it. What’s this whole thing really all about, Moses?”

“We are afraid the Indians will sell away our land. It is in the constitution that every Fijian has his own property. But the Indians could change that. They could steal our land and sell it to the Europeans to make money. The Fiji people don’t care about money, they are not like the Indians. It would be easy to steal our property.  Like my father’s property was stolen.”

“I thought you said he sold it.”

“Yes, but he sold it so cheaply that it was the same as stealing.”

“That wasn’t the Indian’s fault.”

Moses ignored Compton and continued, “We don’t want to become like the Maori and the Hawaiians and other islanders who had their land and traditions taken. We want to keep our land and our customs. We have to protect them now because in five years it might be too late.”

“That could be difficult to do.”

“We must become a republic and have Fiji rule.”

“But under what system of government will it rule?”

Moses eyes flashed about the kitchen and came to rest on Compton, who for the first time since he had met Moses, felt he had the advantage and was thoroughly enjoying himself. “I don’t know. All I know is that Sambuka is right to do this.”

“Has the radio been taken over by the government?”

“Yes.”

“Well, in that case you’re just getting Sambuka’s side of it, aren’t you?”

“This is true. The radio say that the Indians are fearful and many are leaving the countryTh

“You can’t blame them for that.” Compton had not seen this side of Moses, so embroiled in the dramas of mankind’s capricious machinations. It was the only time he had seen him disconnected from the natural world and removed from his imperious sense of things. It made him appear weak and became disheartening to witness. Compton suddenly found no joy in feeding the fire that burned so feverishly in Moses’ eyes and thus relented. “I can’t blame the Fijians for wanting to protect their interests. What you say about losing your land and customs to another culture is an old story. The American Indian in my own country lost everything to the white man, their land, their customs, worst of all their dignity. Eventually the values that had kept their culture strong for thousands of years were undermined by the greater influence. The American Indians didn’t care about money. They revered the land and they lost the very thing they cherished most. I don’t know what the answer is.”

Moses was staring out to sea as Compton spoke and it occurred to him that there might be something else on his mind, something he hadn’t mentioned. “What else is there, Moses? Anything I should know?”

“There is no planes.”

“What do you mean, no planes?”

“They’re not flying planes to the islands. You can’t leave here.”

Compton chuckled as if a joke had been played and he hit the table with his fist. “Well, shit. If I’m going to be stuck somewhere, it might as well be in paradise, right?”

Moses grinned, his missing front tooth radiating in its darkness. “I thought you might be angry.”

“Why should I be angry? I’m learning to spear fish, life is good right now. I have no desire to leave.”

“Stuck in paradise, this is it, eh. You stay here on Orchid Beach for as long as you wish, my friend.”

A boatload of brown skinned Fijians were making their way west. Compton stood for a better look.

Moses teased, “It is not Jokatama’s boat. No Sinaca for you, brother.”

“I don’t know how they can dive without fins”, said Compton absently. “The current’s so strong sometimes, it’s unbelievable, and those plastic goggles must hurt like hell at depth.”

“Do not be fooled by the Fiji divers. They know how to use the current and make it push them down. They never fight the ocean, eh, always at ease. They can dive that way all day long.”

“I don’t understand how they can hold position for any length of time in the current.”

“The current is like the wind, eh. It moves around. In a storm you can find a place to stand where there is no wind. They know where those places are in the sea, where the current can’t touch them.”

“Even if that’s possible, and I find it hard to believe, you can’t stay in one place all day. The current has tremendous force.”

“Oh, yes, the current is very powerful. Sometimes you can’t row a boat against it. There have been boats sucked right out to sea and never come back. My mother and sister were taken away in the afternoon. They drifted all night and finished up on Rabi Island twenty miles to the north. Picked up by a fisherman the next morning. They ate the fish they caught and drank coconut milk.”

The boat passed the beach and all on board waved.

Moses waved and shouted, “Bula, Io, vinaka.”

The greeting was returned.

“What are you saying to those people?” asked Compton. “What does eeoo vinaca mean?”

“Io means yes. Io vinaka means, yes please, but we use it as a greeting. When you shout from far away, it is understood."

“Would you teach me some simple words? Just so I could greet people and have an exchange.”

“Vinaka also means good and thank you. Sega vinaka means no thank you. Bula means life, but it is the same as hello. You are the vulage, the visitor. Kai vulage is a European visitor. So when you see a boat you shout, Bula, Io vinaka. Ahey shout it back. Soon all the villages will know you. Meikeli, they will say. That is your Fiji name for Michael. Keli, for your friends. When we visit the village they will say Keli.”

“When are we going to visit the village?”

“Ha! You want Sinaca! You must get a villager to speak for you.  Then Chief Isikeli gives permission. It takes time. It is not a fast thing.  They are cautious.”

“Why?”

“They remember the missionaries who caused big trouble when they brought religion. They stopped the old Fijians from eating each other and then make us fearful of God and scare hell out of us. They say the devil is in us and make us ashamed.”

“Is that why Christianity is so strong here? Guilt for the cannibal sins of their ancestors?”

“Maybe this is it. From one end to the other, we don’t get it right.” Moses shook his head and laughed at the spiritual plight of his people, then in the length of a blink he became serious. “Do you believe in God, Keli?”

“I don’t know, Moses. I think the concept of God might be a simple answer to some very complicated questions. Maybe there are no answers, or the answer is different for each one of us. Plato, a great thinker, said that man invented God as the perfect ideal of himself. Something to shoot for in our quest for moral perfection.”

Moses shook his head at the idea. “Who would want to be perfect?”

“I don’t know. From what I’ve seen, Moses, you are about as perfect as any man I’ve met. You shall be my God.” Compton stood up and genuflected to him, bearing upon his face a wide grin.

Moses did not laugh as Compton had expected. Solemnly, he gazed out to sea, then turned to Compton. “I wouldn’t want to be any man’s God. Soon they would want to kill me because nobody likes to have a God around where he can see their foolishness. I only know God when I fish. When my mind is not working and I hold the line.  Everything goes still, even though I know it is moving. When everything is still, that is when God shows up.”

“I’ve never known God but I do know that something very different happens to me when I’m under the water. A quiet comes over me and slows everything down. Like I can see with something other than my eyes.”

“Yes, yes, when I hold the line, it is that way. The ocean runs up the line and into my arm like a river. It feels like church should feel, very holy, very peaceful. The ocean is my church. The Open Ocean Church, eh.”

“You sound like someone who has spent more than a little time in church.”

“I went. It was between times of drinking and whoring in Suva. I didn’t know what to do after carrying on that way. Which direction should I take?  I ask my uncle and my aunt and the other relatives in Suva. The women told me to go to church. My first day in church the Methodist minister said, ‘There is one soul here today that is here for repentance.’ I knew he was talking about me, so I stood up and he received me and I was forgiven. But it wasn’t enough that he forgave me. What did he know of me? So I went to church two and three times a week waiting for something to happen. They talked and I listened and they took my money. Then a job came up in the church and I thought I would test God for the job. I waited three days. I thought if the job is for me then it will be waiting. When I went to the church, I was the only one who came for it.”

“Not a very popular job?”

“I was to watch the money and see who was coming to church and who was staying home. If someone didn’t show up after two weeks, I tell the minister and he goes off to the house. I kept things running, eh. The money was going for a newsletter and it paid for the minister’s travel. But nothing was going to the poor. I told him this. He say it was a business and that other things were more important. I spoke my mind. ‘What’s more important than helping others, isn’t that what a church is suppose to d’ He say, ‘We help them spiritually, that’s what a church is suppose to do. We help them in ways you can’t understand.’”

‘I understand enough,’ I said, and quit the job. I haven’t gone back to church.”

“Well, he was honest with you. Religion is a business.”

“This is it, eh, a business? But God is not a business, eh.”

“No, God is not a business. But can you tell me what life is all about, how does it work, in the grand scheme of things?”

Moses understood the depth of the question far better than Compton and he waved a tattooed arm at the jungle. “One day I lie on this beach. My mind very still. A leaf fell from that tree and the wind from the sea pushed it back into the jungle. I watched it and knew that it was me. It showed me how life happens over and over again.”

Compton bent, listening.

“Our lives are like the leaves on a tree in a great forest. Many different trees, many different leaves. We sprout and grow and turn to the sunshine and drink the rain. We are happy and because we are high above the ground we believe that we are superior to all things below us. We think our branch is the only branch of worth and that our tree is the most important tree in the forest. But we are many and our thoughts are very small. Life is long and we turn colors and then we begin to dry up and a wind comes and blows us to the ground. That is our death. But we do not end. We dry up to small pieces and then to dust and the rain sends us into the ground where we feed a new and different tree. We go up through the roots and very slowly climb to the branches and then to the twigs, waiting to become another leaf.”

“And so it goes,” interrupted Compton. “From tree to tree, from life to life.”

“Yes, and each time we think our tree is the most important tree in the forest.”

11

The veined sea lay like a marble slab that reflected the sun onto Taveuni, and the glimmering tufts of the coconut trees quivered like wind blown flaxen in the balmy morning. Moses would not be here this day, the chores of the farm had been neglected of late and Compton lay beneath the fallen tree and contemplated the new leaves that had doubled in size since he was last aware of them. One could read time by this tree, he realized. At least by the week, perhaps even by the day. And the tides keep a precise hourly watch both day and night. The galactic hourglass of the moon and sun preside over it all. Removing his watch from his wrist he had the urge to throw it into the water. Instead he dug a deep hole under the tree and placed it there and then covered it up. I’ll dig it up the day I leave, he promised himself.

The sun crept higher and exploded through the jungle’s capillaries of canopy and into the shallow water transforming coral heads great and small into prismatic jewels. A voice from the sea, whispered in the soft sounds of the shore break, beckoned and he slipped on his diving gear and entered the water.

Drifting out past the coral head that housed the pulsating fish, then gliding down the reef over polychromed fish that fluttered like other-worldly hummingbirds, he caught the current moving east towards the point.

Into slow, fluid, descents he soared towards the bottom catching the joyful sensation of underwater flight. The fish peeked out from their caves to watch, then darted back when he turned for the surface. Ascending from one such dive, hugging a high, breaking reef, he spied the large tail of a fish extending over the edge of the reef and halted his ascent. Half hidden by coral, he slowly lifted his head over the top of the reef and, not five feet away, finned a barracuda nearly seven feet long and as big around as a file cabinet. It was the largest fish he had ever seen. Its mouth was open and a cluster of blue wrasses were picking food from between its stiletto teeth. The wrasses worked diligently and when the barracuda twitched violently they darted out from its jaws, returning moments later to continue their task. The gun with its single wrap of shooting line was pointed at the barracuda’s spine. From this distance he would never have a better opportunity for a kill shot. Would Aprosa take this shot? What, he wondered, would a barracuda this size do if he didn’t kill it instantly? Would it rip the gun from his hand, or worse? It was foolhardy to consider spearing it.   Compton had been impressed with the skills of Aprosa, now he admired his courage. The gun remained pointed at the spine of the fish as if it knew what to do and was waiting for some final authority to release the trigger finger to its task. When the barracuda caught sight of the gun it instantly slid off the reef and circled in wary, agitated movements. Perhaps it was angry, thought Compton, to have allowed a man to come so close. He surfaced for a breath and the fish retreated to the blue expanse and was absorbed.

The sighting of the barracuda stirred his blood and he began to search out a fish for dinner. He dove into caves, waited at outcroppings and hid in the recesses of coral ledges, looking for the perfect shot on the right fish. But the fish were always too quick or, more precisely, he was too slow to pull the trigger in those instantaneous moments they would appear and the shot would present itself. When the opportunities did present themselves, a thought would enfold the sighting, “a big one,” or “be quick” or “fish,” and the moment would be lost.

When finally he let the spear fly more out of frustration than a clear sighting, it was hurried and poorly placed. A small coral trout weighing no more than five pounds fought wildly against the spear and tore itself apart in breaking loose. It swam to a long cave at the bottom of a fingered reef and disappeared.

There came a dread borne from some inner place he had never known that to waste its death would be tantamount to committing a mortal sin. He dove to the cave and paused for a moment at its entrance. This cave bent into a black hole for a considerable distance inside the reef. To be under the water on a breath-hold was one thing. To be deep inside a cave under the water on a breath-hold was another. He glided in. Fifteen feet into the passage it began to narrow, darken and turn, and he stopped to allow his eyes to adjust. Big-eyed squirrel fish hung in the dimness as if strung on a mobile that slowly spun on some invisible thread, their scales catching the angel hair light that filtered through the dense coral ceiling. He moved forward again until the tunnel funneled down and began to compress from either side. With no room to move and no fish to be seen, he backed out hurriedly, breath squeezing him, his fins kicking up the sand, churning the clear water murky and cutting down visibility. When the space in the tunnel permitted, he twisted around towards the entrance twenty feet away. Abruptly, the light dimmed and in the murkiness he realized that a shark had entered the cave, drawn by the blood spoor of the wounded fish. Adrenaline spiked his body, and the shark, sensing rapid heartbeats, came directly for him. When it was an arm length away, he thrust the gun into its nose and it wheeled violently in the tunnel and burst back out of the entrance. The adrenaline had consumed the last of his air and desperate for a breath, he all but caught the slipstream of the shark to the daylight that was the entrance. Outside three more white tips twisted in agitation and he launched himself into their midst, scattering them in all directions while kicking frantically for the surface. On top and blowing in explosive blasts out of the snorkel, he watched the sharks regroup at the entrance, engaged in a macabre dance that grew more frenetic by the moment. A wave of sickness came over him and he turned into the current and let it carry him back down the island toward the beach.

Compton heard the whistling in the blackness of the jungle long before he saw the light of the lantern. Moses broke out on the steep path that led to the beach, lantern light reflecting off his always smiling face and a radio that he held up for Compton to see. “Bula Keli, tonight we listen to the Fiji news. Hear how the coup is getting on.”

Moses hadn’t seated himself before Compton unleashed his shark encounter.

“There is fear in your voice, Keli,” said Moses when Compton had finished.  “It is on your face and in your eyes. Do the sharks frighten you that much?”

“Well I …I didn’t think so. Maybe, sometimes. It depends on the situation, I guess.”

“Why is that? You will soon dive in the deep water where the sharks swim, what then? You have seen sharks before?” Moses spoke directly into Compton’s averted eyes.

“Sure, I’ve seen sharks, plenty of sharks. Normally they don’t bother me.”

Moses maintained a steady gaze and waited.

“Okay,” relented Compton, unwilling to descend any further into the deception. “Sharks have always bothered me. I don’t know why I’ve never gotten use to them. Even on scuba, which is much safer because you’re on the bottom, more protected. Doing this free diving, I really feel at a disadvantage, so helpless floating on the surface or in mid-water, so vulnerable.”

Moses sipped his tea, his eyes never leaving Compton. “Maybe it’s not the sharks, eh.”

Compton became defensive out of his uncertainty.

“What do you mean? Of course it’s the sharks. What else could it be?”

“Maybe it’s your own death that troubles you, Keli.”

Compton felt cornered for reasons he could not explain. “No one wants to die, if that’s what you mean.”

“Only the very sick and the very old want to die, eh. But the fear of dying stops life from being lived. It brings a sickness of its own that is worse. Fear makes the body stiff and sickness enters. I have seen it happen many times.”

“And you, no doubt, have overcome this fear of death,” replied Compton pedantically.

Moses laughed. “I have overcome nothing. I am too busy being foolish and trying to live. But I have known the sickness of death and I smiled it out. I rid myself of death by laughing at it.”

The honesty with which he spoke shattered Compton’s conviction and was replaced with a truth of his own. “A few months before I came to Fiji I was in the hospital. Laid in a coma for twenty-three days. It was no laughing matter.”

Moses scrutinized Compton in a curious way and was about to say something but thought better of it. Then, “Sometimes death comes quick with no time to think. Fear is a disease that comes from too much thinking.”

Decidedly uncomfortable, Compton, through old habits assumed a smile that was in keeping with his discomfort. “Well, I’m quite sure that everyone who isn’t brain dead thinks about their death after a certain point in their life.“

Moses shook his head in frustration and began to gesture wildly with his hands.

“That is your problem, Keli, you think about it! The thinking makes you sick!. It is your thinking of the sharks that make you afraid. Jes’ dive, jes’ live, and when it is time for you to die, then die! Stop all this thinking before it kills you!”

Compton had never seen Moses so animated and the force of his words nearly blew him off his lofty perch. Yet still clinging to its edges, he argued weakly, “Sharks are a reality of the ocean, a dangerous reality.“

“They are the guards, that is all.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The big fish is a warrior, same as you. You have the spear and it has its power and the ocean. It can use its power and the ocean to kill you and that is proper, eh. But that’s not why you hunt it. You must take the fish from the guards of the sea, the sharks.  It is what all true men must do. They must hunt in their worlds and challenge the guards of that world. Differeguards for different men. For you the sharks are in the sea to keep you honest so that nothing of worth is taken without risk. You must have the skill to trick and not make the mistake. The sharks see to that, eh. They make you better.”

Compton shook his head, overwhelmed by the strange, illogical sense of Moses’ words. He could offer no rebuttal other than, “I’ll have to think about that.”

Moses slapped his thigh and laughed. And was laughing so convulsively that Compton, in his discomfort, shifted in his seat as though he were sitting on a bed of eels. Through his tears Moses saw Compton’s unease and regained himself and patted him on the shoulder. “If you must think, then we think together. What time does your watch say?”

“I don’t have it anymore. I buried it.”

“That is good, no need for a watch in Fiji, except for the news.”

Moses turned on a radio that was static-filled, and turned to a woman’s voice speaking in Fijian. He leaned over and put his ear close to the radio. As she machine-gunned her words out, he nodded in agreement. Occasionally he lifted his head to say, “That is good.” The broadcast lasted a half-hour and when it was over Moses announced confidently that, “It is going well for Sambuka. There is no violence.  The Indians are behaving themselves.”

“How do we really know what’s going on?” questioned Compton. “It’s Sambuka’s radio. He can say whatever he wants. He won’t report the truth unless it puts him in a favorable position.”

Moses sat forward, his eyes fixed on the radio, as if it were Sambuka himself. “If he lies, it is for the good of Fiji.”

“Maybe,” replied Compton, “but it is difficult to know what’s behind the coup. A powerful country is often pulling the strings because they want to control a place like Fiji for its own purposes.”

“This is a poor country. What would a big country do with Fiji?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they’re looking for a place to dump their toxic wastes. America did that to your neighbors up in the Marshall Islands.”

“That is why we must become a republic and keep the outsiders from taking our islands, like the Indians want to do.”

“In a way you need the Indians, don’t you. If they left, what would happen to the stores and the shops and transportation? How would you get your fuel and fishing hooks?”

“This is a right thing you say. As soon as the Indians leave, the Chinese would come in. They want to come to Fiji very badly but we keep them out.”

“The Chinese? How do they figure in all of this?”

“It is well known that they wish to come into Fiji and other islands in the South Pacific. It is the same with the Australians and the Russians and the Americans. The pressure is very great.”

“Where do you get this information?”

“My brother in the army tells me. He read the paper and we talk when he’s home for the holidays. It was he that said we must have Sambuka, a strong Fiji man to defend us against these countries.”

“Whoever would want to control Fiji must have the money and power to take it.”

“Sambuka will not be easily persuaded with money. He is a Fijian and lives only for Fiji.”

“I hope that’s true because if he isn’t, the outside world will come here and take anything they fancy and leave you with nothing but the garbage they make.”

Moses nodded in agreement. “I know what you say is true. I have seen the American resort owners and the Australians. They have shown a greed that the Indians do not have. I fear for the life of Fiji.  It is a place of beauty, eh. It has been left for us and we must treat it kindly because it is our child.”

Moses suddenly rose from the table and with radio in hand said a brisk good night and strode off into a jungle that absorbed him almost as quickly as the civilized world would engulf the Fijian people and their way of life once it decided to exploit them.

12

A light breeze blew out of the east and rippled the water into streaks of variegated blues. Compton had not seen Moses in two days.  The sharks still swam in his thoughts and he had not taken the spear gun into the water in the vain hope that Moses might appear with some fish. Now there was scarcely any food at all and it was becoming clear that Moses had no intention of bailing him out, giving him no alternative but to hunt.

His reluctance to dive was mitigated as soon as he entered the water. It embraced him like a loving thing and he was the child again in the arms of his impartial mother. He cocked the gun while hovering over the coral head of yellow fish, then swam out onto the far edge of the reef, catching the current that ran to the eastern most point. He halted at a finger reef that jutted out from the island, pumped up a breath and dove into water so clear it almost tasted of gin. A gray snapper with white spots on its back near the head showed itself on the tabletop coral at thirty feet. He drifted motionless on the current toward it but the fish had seen him and in its carnivorous way, eyed him while slipping the tabletop and vanishing into the labyrinth of the reef. Compton needed to eat and it was the empty gnawing at his stomach that, above all other demands, transformed him in those moments on the breath-hold from the casual sportier to a deadly serious hunter. He rose to the surface and viewed the panorama of hunting grounds that lay before him two hundred feet in all directions. He saw a school of six fish hovering in the mid-water column with brown and black stripes along with others that were lighter in color and knew them to be good eating, marking them as easy prey. He dove and drifted toward them as before but they seemed to move away without moving in the uncanny way of fish. No matter where he moved they always stayed just out of range of the spear gun. For nearly forty-five minutes he stalked the school before realizing they could not be approached from the surface. He had to come from a place hidden in the reef system. He dove down behind a massive coral head then swam clockwise around its base unseen by the fish, slowly moving into position with the gun straight out in front. The fish had indeed lost track of him and had swum within range of the gun. His hunger saw only the small spot on the fish and his body pulled the trigger. The spear flew true and hit the fish, killing it instantly.  With one motion, he retrieved it before it had begun to sink and turned for the surface eyeing the water below for sharks which, because of the clean kill, made no appearance. In his swim back to the beach he realized the absolute perfection of the stalk and marveled at how his body, when left to function on its own, was in perfect synchronicity with the environment. He deposited the fish in the shade of the tree and, in the throes of success, returned to the water.

That morning he speared three more fish and after each fish his confidence grew. Not so much in his physical ability, though it did, but in his understanding of both how the fish behaved in the sea and how, in the knowledge of that behavior, he was perfecting the stalk. Aprosa had left out that important element, he thought, but then he did say that the sea would teach me everything else. This, then, is the teaching. How the sea works, how different fish behave differently, and yet how it is all interrelated. It would take a lifetime to know just an aspect of it.  You could never know it all. Still, you could know enough to operate very effectively and survive.

He returned to the beach for breakfast and fried up the first fish, which filled his stomach and his soul, a more satisfying meal he could not remember. Before dinner that evening he said grace aloud which he had never done except at Thanksgiving, expressing his gratitude to the sea for its gift.

For breakfast the following morning he the last fish and in that knowledge and though satisfied, his hunger lurked and became a thing he knew would never disappear or be forgotten. It was in that urgency that he departed for the sea. He speared two small fish and returned to the beach without incident. When he entered the water a third time he discovered white tip sharks working on an old blood spoor. He lay upon the surface and watched them in their tireless pace, like confident dogs whose prey was a foregone conclusion. They paid no attention to him and moved as if he did not exist. He tried to learn something from their movements. Perhaps the shark in its cruel simplicity had no secrets to reveal. They needed no secrets. They reacted to weakness, that was all. Therefore, strength of body and mind was required at all times. When he dove upon them they reluctantly retreated to the depths. He became satisfied with himself, not so much so that he would hunt only in the area, and he moved a distance down the reef line where he dove deeper water. At forty feet he lay upon a boulder and waited out a ten pound coral trout. His breath-hold was good and the fish in its inherent curiosity tested it to his limits before coming into range. He focused on the spot and his body pulled the trigger. The fish quivered in its death throes but he had not the breath to swim over and retrieve it, so leaving the gun and the speared fish on the bottom, rose to the surface for a breath. While he regained his lungs three black tip sharks spun their way up from the deep drop off. He quickly realized that if the sharks were to descend on the fish they would take it and the spear to which the gun was attached to the far depths and he would be without the one tool needed to feed himself. He dove and reached the gun about the time the black tips arrived at the fish and as he ascended with the gun and the fish attached to the spear, twelve feet away the three sharks followed it up. They followed it right to the surface and now twitched in quick movements around the fish whose wound leaked blood.

Compton reacted in the way of the perpetually hungry and only realized that much later. He swam for the sharks using the spear gun stock as a club and hit the nearest shark. It wheeled around and exploded for the depths. He hit the second shark with all the power he could muster and it too fled, taking with it the third shark. Quickly gathering up the line, he grasped the fish in its gills and swam it to the beach.  In the swim he discovered a power that only appears when overcoming great fear.  He held the fish like a trophy. It was the largest he had speared and it would serve him well for two full days. Such a small thing, he thought, to land a fish on the strength of ones’ own skill and courage. His exuberance unleashed a war hoop when he reached the beach. This, in its own way in terms of accomplishment, eclipsed the day he received his college degree but he did not know why. He cast himself on the beach and shouted the news to Moses.

13

Moses did not appear that day or the next. Compton would not see him for over a week. In that time he continued to spear fish on the reef and his knowledge of the sea grew in unimaginable leaps. The vegetables had long been devoured and his diet was reduced to fish and the coconuts that fell at irregular intervals in the grove that surrounded the huts. The hollowness that began in his stomach was a constant reminder of the task that awaited him. The lack of food, or perhaps more, the lack of any reserves of food, kept him on a strange yet satisfying edge. The possibility of being unable to produce something to eat was an anxiety he was unfamiliar with, yet he knew that much of the world and its children lived this way on a daily basis for most, if not all, of their lives. The dull ache of starvation would not soon, if ever, be forgotten and while his existence now had a very serious edge to it, this same edge raised his skill level and awareness to a sharpness he could not conjure on his own. While this state of being heightened alertness in the water, he was always a bit anxious on land. Every morning he hunted for food and in the afternoons after the husking was done, he went to the beach and lay in the sun and looked out over the strait, his mind as quiet as the breeze that wafted in from Taveuni. His body was changing. There was strength in his legs, he had lost weight and his stomach was toned, as were his forearms from the husking and cocking the spear gun. His hands had acquired a strength he had never known. He inspected his body and took long, deep breaths and felt lungs inside the expansion of his chest that had been cleared of pollution. His eyesight had acquired keenness from continued observations in the water that carried over into daily living and he found he was wearing his glasses less frequently. He became astute to the small changes in the sea; a shift in the wind, the movement of the tides, a change in current, swell and chop. He entertained himself watching the subtle ways of nature play itself across the Tasman Strait.

His mind followed his hands over his body. It has been a long time since I have really paid attention to my body or seen such changes in it. Yet it is the simplification of my life that is remarkable.  Layers of myself have been peeled down to some primal core that feels utterly real. All those years living in some sort of façade, some made up idea of myself. It disconnected me to anything real. Yet I went about my day pretending to have the answers to all questions.  He smiled to himself. Only Moses seems to have all the answers. I wonder if these people, removed as they are from civilization are, in fact, more grounded by way of their acts in reality. They certainly seem to have a far better grip of it. Perhaps they have a better idea of themselves because they are reflected directly from nature. That is the key, he realized. Nature is the only true reflection. It does not lie or deceive. How you operate in nature is really who you are! Without the mind running the show it becomes possible to see what is really going on. There is no bullshit in nature. He paused and smiled and finished his thought, unless of course you’re camped out around a herd of water buffaloes.

Compton felt good. I am ready for the big fish, he announced to the beach.  I can punch out the deep dives and the last eight fish I have hit dead center and killed outright. A big fish should actually be easier. He reasoned that it’s a larger target. I’m ready for the deep reef. It’s about time I started paying my rent as Abraham declared. In the thought, Compton considered where this whole thing was going. He knew that both Moses and Abraham had something else in mind other than just learning to spear fish. In the meantime, I’ve been in Fiji over a month and my six-week visa will be up soon. Got to take care of that. He gazed at the tree before falling to the sand and picking up a handful of small, broken shells, letting them sift through his hand, astounded that such a peace was possible.

Moses showed up the following day with fresh vegetables. “I thought I better bring you something. The fish and coconut stop you up after awhile.” He then laughed, as he always did at the daily drama of man. “Hunger makes a man shoot true, eh.”

“Indeed it does, indeed it does,” said Compton nodding in agreement. “So much so that I think I am ready for the deep reef and the wailu.”

Moses frowned. “Do not be too full of yourself, Keli. It is different water and different fish. More powerful, that ocean out there can kill you with ease, eh. It is a big step from this reef to the deep water.”

“Well, when do you expect me to start paying my end of the rent as Abraham suggested?”

“When you are ready to pay the rent, eh.”

“I think I am ready now. I can feel it. I can feel the sea, it’s inside me.”

The smile returned to Moses face. “Yes, I can see it on your face and in your eyes but not qe is it in you. Soon, but the deep reef is still maybe two weeks away, eh.”

“No, the deep reef is tomorrow.”

Moses gazed deep and long at Compton then nodded almost indiscernibly, ”Okay, we go tomorrow. I pick you up early, eh. Go see the wailu, find out about how deep the sea runs in you.” He then handed the vegetables to Compton, turned to his boat and was gone.

14

The morning sun brought a shattering brilliance to the windless sea and sky. Bone white cumulus drifted high in the blue crystalline sky, and the sea, sparkling of liquid quartz, reflected a deeper blue of the sky. The high tide permitted Moses to motor over the barrier reef. Compton, with spear gun and gear bag in tow, came wordlessly aboard. Once clear of the reef Moses twisted to full throttle, lifting the boat up to a plane across the polished sea. Turning the point, they ran parallel with the black lava shoreline that, at the high tide mark, was devoured by green jungle. Enormous, hooded trees with ferns clinging to their lower branches rose high above the thick veined jungle.  Scattered coconut trees sprang along the shore wherever there was space enough for them to grow. Beneath the flying hull the transparent water revealed coral gardens and fish of exuberant colors suspended in their airless chambers. The terrain of the sea quickly fell away to canyons of deep water and then to infinite blue depths.

They motored northeast, straight out to sea. Moses took bearings off the easternmost point of Qamea, which stretched a considerable distance. After running several miles he slowed, checked bearings every few seconds, made a turn, corrected the bearing, made another turn, looked over the side and anchored with an old brake drum attached to a line. “This is it, brother.”

Compton wiggled into his wetsuit more for a feeling of security than to keep warm in the seventy-five degree water. He hitched on the weight belt and the rest of his gear and, with spear gun in hand, threw a leg over the side. With a mix of anticipation, excitement and fear, he looked down into the water.

“We are at the north end of the deep reef,” said Moses. “The mackerel are right here.”

Compton put the snorkel into his mouth and nodded, slipping into the high atmosphere of the deep reef. The northern edge of the reef spread like a white parachute of coral stretching southward as far as he could see. The top of the reef appeared to be lying in sixty feet of water and he made a preliminary dive with intentions of reaching it. He kicked down to ten feet and began a slow glide to twenty feet and neutral buoyancy where the great weight of the water bore on him and increased his glide two-fold. At forty feet, the bottom still seemed another sixty feet away. The visibility was in excess of one hundred and fifty feet. It was the clearest water he had ever seen and it was enormously deceiving. There was the sense of being suspended in air and everything appeared closer than it actually was. At sixty feet he pulled up from the dive and immediately began to kick hard to avoid his continued plummet to the depths. Along the top of the reef, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of tiny fish whose colors had been filtered by the depths, scurried among minor coral heads, burying themselves in their convolutions. A large parrot fish crushed coral in its bird-like beak, the sound carrying to the surface like it was taking place but a few feet away. Across the reef, in the mid-water column, a school of iridescent blue baitfish wandered in endless figure eight patterns like butterflies catching a thermocline. A handful of mid-sized jack breezed by to inspect the bait, their forked tails cutting quick water. The weight of the water and its resulting pressure was still very much in evidence and he feared that if he were to stop kicking for an instant he would drop to the reef like a stone and there be pressed into the coral until he was liquid. He kicked furiously into the compressd atmosphere, heavily muscled thighs eating what was left of an already depleted supply of oxygen. Now straining mightily to reach the surface, he would not look up to gauge headway for fear it would steal the last of his air in desperate hunger. As he neared the surface the weight of the water decreased and he gained speed, lifting himself, at the very end of this breath-hold, up and through the ceiling with a resounding exhale followed by a series of gasping breaths that rendered him dizzy and weak. Not a good beginning, he thought.

After regaining himself, he pulled back the three bands of rubber on the spear gun and hooked them onto place on the spear shaft.

By the time he had finished cocking the spear gun, the current had moved him across the reef and over the dark abyss of open water and he hurriedly kicked back to the edge of the reef with strong thrusts. The force of the current demanded a steady kick to hold position atop the reef. It was here that he waited for ten minutes until, from out of the north edge, materializing from the cobalt sheen came a large silver fish followed by two others of lesser size. He had never seen the South Pacific mackerel, the wailu, but was certain that these fish were the object of his quest and he pumped up deep breaths and dove. He leveled out at thirty-five feet and waited. He estimated the lead fish to be well over sixty pounds and as it swam directly toward him, driven by a fearless curiosity, he realized the fish could be over eighty pounds, probably more. The fish moved in as if propelled by some other force, for there was no tail or fin movement that he could perceive. In that moment, he forgot his breath, forgot he was under the water and shifted the spear gun to accommodate the elevation change. He waited and tried to focus on the spot behind the gill plate where it bisected the lateral line. When the fish was twelve feet away, he pulled the trigger. The spear shaft spit out into the water like stainless lightning, arched, and fell beneath the fish, which swam lazily away. Rising to the surface on hurried kicks, he realized that the ultra-clear water had fooled him badly. The fish appeared much closer than it actually was, or it was much larger than it appeared or, more likely, both. Surprisingly, he was neither angry nor frustrated by the missed shot, reasoning that the reef was probably teeming with mackerel. His concern lay more with the degree by which the clear water had tricked him and the compensations he would have to make to correct for the distortion of distance.

He reloaded the gun, re-strung the shooting line and worked his way to the north edge of the reef, fighting the current all the way.

The fish returned in the same pattern as before, the big one in front, the smaller fish trailing. Dropping to their depth he waited until the big mackerel was so close it seemed that the end of the extended spear gun might well touch it, and let the spear fly. It struck high on the fish, which turned and accelerated for the depths in a rush of raw power. Instantly, he knew he had seen too much of the fish and did not see the small place that would have been the kill shot. The force of the fish’s run was such that he was violently pulled down and dragged like a child’s doll to the depths. He made a feeble attempt to pull the fish toward him but the force, the power of the fish, was beyond his imagining and he quickly submitted to the will of the line. In the violence and power of the fish lay fears he had not reconciled or, for that matter, had a remote notion of their existence. The force of the fish’s run was such that he could feel the seal of his face mask losing its grip around his face and he couldn’t reach up in time to grab it before it was pulled away. Now, for all practical purposes, he was blind in the grip of something well beyond any control and upon that realization he released the spear gun and struck for the surface as the fish hurdled to the depths. Compton reached the surface and raised his arm in signto Moses who came and picked him up.

“Jesus, what a fish!” bellowed Compton, getting into the boat.  “Silver, with big eyes, a long mouth and a full set of teeth.”

“That’s the wailu!” confirmed Moses nodding in approval.

“It took the gun, my mask! Unbelievable, I couldn’t imagine such power! The excitement in Compton’s voice shifted down. “I missed the kill spot. It went out over the reef and out of sight. Think we can find it?”

“Terrible thing to lose a fish,” said Moses shaking his head. “Very bad.”

“We can find it, can’t we? The water is so clear. Throw a line over the side and tow me behind the boat. I should be able to see the gun in the clear water. I have and extra mask in my gear bag but they don’t have corrective lenses. I’m going to have to learn to dive without them, unless they have them on Taveuni.”

“Nothing like that on Taveuni,” said Moses who was about to say something else but held his tongue and went about lashing a line to a thwart as Compton donned the new mask and went over the side. He held the line with one hand as Moses put the boat in gear and left the other hand free to guide Moses from ten feet behind the boat. In this fashion they followed the invisible spoor into the fathomless blue.

The vast ocean was another country. Having no references for distance or depth it became as disorienting as deep space, with the accompanying sense of insignificance. Compton felt reduced by it, small and vulnerable, as if he were a piece of bait being trolled for larger game. Moses made for a reef a mile away that broke water and seemed to be the logical place the mackerel might run. When they reached the reef, nothing of the fish could be seen nor had the gun popped up as Compton expected it would. He guessed that the fish had probably gone deep and wrapped around a coral outcropping in an attempt to rid itself of the spear and in the doing, break loose from the shooting line and gun.

Moses trolled Compton back to the deep reef by way of another route without a sighting. They searched for another hour and when it was clear that neither the gun nor the fish would be found, Compton climbed into the boat and slumped onto a seat thoroughly exhausted.

“That was one hell of a fish,” he said.

“A big one, eh.”

“Yeah, but I don’t know how big. I’ve nothing to compare it to.  It could have been eighty pounds or a hundred pounds or more. It was awfully strong.” He paused, staring down at the bottom of the boat.  Then almost to himself he whispered, “I wasn’t ready for a fish like that.”

Moses said nothing and returned to the outboard and headed for Qamea. At full throttle the boat skimmed across the slick waters with scarcely a bump. Compton sagged in his seat and stared into an opened coconut. The mackerel swam before his eyes as vivid as the sun, shimmering of silver, moving with indomitable power. Out of that vision came the notion that this fish might well have been the Silver Fish that Abraham talked about and he asked Moses about it but he averted Compton’s eyes and shrugged. Compton scarcely noticed, returning to his thoughts. I didn’t see the small spot. I saw too much of the fish, no concentration when it mattered. Suddenly he blurted, ”Where can we get another spear gun?”

“That was an old one we fixed up. The new ones are in the store at Somosomo on Taveuni, a full day journey, eh.”

Compton looked back over the flat water where the reef was hidden. “Can we go to Somosomo tomorrow?”

“We have to get the fuel, but we can go.”

Compton nodded, “Good.” Then softly, “The fish was so big, so awesome, the power of it was… I bet it was a world record.”

Moses scrutinized him with knowledge of the foretold. “Be careful, Keli. It is dangerous to want more than you can carry in your boat, eh. The first big sea and the boat will sink. You never know when the big sea comes. Keep the boa light and you stay safe.

Compton did not hear him. He was staring back at the deep reef.

15

Moses arrived with fresh water and a sack of fresh vegetables. They drank tea before leaving and as they rose Compton brushed his legs across the table and winced in pain. Moses caught his reaction and then noticed the red and swollen coral cuts across his shins.

“You have the infections on your legs, jes’ like the Fiji. Coral is hard on the skin. Next time I go to the village I ask Mama Doc for the medicine. Today you go to the water and stand in the waves where it hit the beach. The water throw up the sand and clean the cuts proper.  Best way to clean ‘em up. Make the skin all pink inside, get rid of the rotten skin.”

They went down to the beach and Moses showed Compton where to stand.

“Ohh mannn!  That hurts like hell!” moaned Compton.

“You stay that way, fix you up.”

Compton withstood all he could for fifteen minutes then stepped back and stomped his feet back to life.

“That’s it. Let’s go while I can still walk.”

“A good day for a boat ride,” announced Moses cheerfully.

The morning sun was already scorching a sky barren of clouds and Compton had a notion to take a rain poncho, then dismissed it and climbed into the boat.

They skimmed across the untarnished Tasman Strait to the barrier reef of Taveuni in forty minutes. Moses caught a small jack near the reef and another just inside it. The fish had yellow-tinged bellies that graduated to pale blue near the lateral line. Black dots punctuated their backs, becoming more prominent near the tail. They reminded Compton of the cockatoo his mother kept caged in the kitchen when he was a boy.

Moses anchored in the mud in front of James’ house. No one was home and they walked through the house to the washboard dirt road. Simultaneously with their arrival, an old, broken down relic of a bus with rolled up canvas windows, dented fenders and bumpers all but rusted away, ground to a dusty halt at Moses’ raised hand.

Brown eyes in smiling brown faces observed Compton and Moses make their way back to a seat on the seaside of the bus. The Indian driver released the clutch as they were about to sit, slamming them into the seat as the vehicle lurched forward in a billow of dust. It raced headlong down the narrow road, wildly careening from one side to the other. All the turns, most of which were blind, were taken recklessly at top speed using the entire road without the slightest regard for man or beast coming in the opposite direction. The passengers chatted amicably amongst themselves and appeared oblivious to the dangerous edge with which their driver was taking them.

“Does he always drive like this?” asked Compton.

“Always,” came Moses’ genial reply. “He has crashed many times but no one was killed. The other driver is much safer but once he crashed and a person was killed, so everyone rides this bus because they think the driver is lucky.”

The bus stopped at a settlement of a dozen derelict houses loosely constructed of wood and corrugated iron. Brightly colored clothes snapped on sagging lines, untethered horses grazed where they pleased. Across from the bus an old woman stood from her chores in the garden and in rapt attention watched the passengers depart and board. Those who came aboard greeted those already in their seats as if they were old friends reuniting after a long absence. No one in the bus escaped a slight nod or raised eyebrow and always there was the warm, open smile. Compton was forced to acknowledge a perfect stranger who openly bid him hello. The bus plunged forward and the veteran passengers took the first seat available before being catapulted down the walkway. Up the road four men were working to clear bush from its shoulder, using sticks of wood to attack an impossible job. They had to jump quickly aside to avoid the bus’wild charge that would have taken them all out. At every stop the smell of poverty wafted in from the streets, yet when the passengers boarded they were cleanly scrubbed and neatly dressed. The bus slowed and felt its way across a rickety, wooden bridge that, by all appearances, should have already collapsed. Below, in a slow-moving river, naked children swam and splashed while old women washed laundry sitting fully clothed in the soapy water. The road opened up for a long straight stretch paralleling the beach. Far out on a coral head a white shawled woman in a blue dress with a white flower in her hair and a fishing line in her hand stood as still as a statue. In the foreground a half-naked man washed his horse in the same sea. The jungle closed off the sea and then opened again revealing two dugout canoes, each with a single fisherman who, Moses said later, rowed in from far islands and would sail back with the wind after they had sold their fish on Taveuni. They drifted silently on the green water, as still as a photograph.

The jarring dirt road smoothed out to pavement and the shacks of the poor were replaced by a few well-groomed yards and freshly painted homes of what Compton believed to be the middle class, such as they were. The bus slowed in front of a hotel across the street from an old train station that had been converted into a holding shed for coconuts. The bus ground to a halt in front of the general store and all passengers disembarked.

“This is Somosomo,” said Moses. “We go up the hill to the police station and get your visa fixed.”

Atop the hill, across from the police station, was the post office, a modern building unlike anything Compton had seen on Taveuni.  Moses pointed to it. “I go in there, you come and get me when it’s done.”

At the entrance to the police station sat a man selling kava for twenty-five cents a cup. This apparent conflict amused Compton, for he believed that kava, the obvious narcotic that it was, was somehow illegal. The officer at the desk was curt and immediately began to ask a barrage of questions. “What are you doing in Fiji? Where are you going? Where have you been?”

“I have come to extend my visa,” offered Compton.

“Not today,” retorted the officer. “The sergeant is out. Come back another day.”

“I can’t do that. This must get done today.”

“Then you have to wait many hours,” replied the deputy and pointed to the only chair in the station.

Compton sat and was making himself comfortable when the sergeant burst through the door and, without comment to anyone, disappeared behind an office door. He was a large man with enormous shoulders and a hard face accustomed to bullying lesser men. This, suspected Compton, is what happens to the few unfriendly Fijians. They become cops.

Twenty minutes passed before Compton was escorted into the sergeant’s quarters. The sergeant presented himself in a gruff and suspicious manner and made no attempt to conceal his disdain for Compton’s intrusion.

“What do you know of the coup?“ he demanded brusquely. Compton had forgotten about the coup and suddenly became nervous. Martial law was serious business, not the sort of thing for which he had pat responses that would appease authority.

“I know very little, almost nothing,” stammered Compton. “I’m a tourist on vacation from America.”

“What do they think of our coup in America?” questioned the sergeant, holding his perpetual frown with ease.

Sweat blistered and burst in Compton’s armpits and beaded on his forehead.

“They believe that Sambuka has done the right thing and they look forward to resuming relations with Fiji.”

The bulldog sergeant nodded his head in agreement. “What is your business in Fiji?”

“I’m a tourist. I’m staying at Taveuni Charters but I’ll be taking a boat to nearby islands for several weeks to fish and dive and I won’t be back before my visa is up.”

“Oh yes, plenty.”

The sergeant warily observed Compton for a long moment then abruptly stamped the passport. He smiled for the first and only time. “Enjoy your stay in Fiji.”

Compton found Moses sitting in a corner of the post office, his face hidden behind a magazine, and reported what had happened. Moses shook his head with concern.

“It is not good to lie to the sergeant. Pretty soon he know that you stay on Orchid Beach.”

“Come on, Moses. How can he possibly find out about me, way down here?”

“Fiji communication is amazing thing. Did you ask him about staying six months?”

“No. The business of the coup bothered me. I just wanted to get out of there.”

“It will be harder next time,” said Moses to a tree they were passing.

Compton doubted there would be “a next time” and did not press for an explanation.

They walked down the hill and across the street into the general store that inflatedly called itself a Super Market. It had eight aisles running the length of the store. They were stacked with various and sundry items that appeared to be without value or purpose in this part of the world, a source of comic relief for Compton after his encounter with the sergeant. Two entire rows were given to cheap toys and worthless trinkets. Another row contained, among other profitless items, silver polish, car wax, coffee makers, blenders, cheese knives, vacuum cleaner bags and toasters. There were two rows of hardware, with the usual axes, chain saws, shovels and carpentry tools. One single aisle was devoted to diving and fishing gear -- large spools of line, sinkers, hooks, lures, masks, fins, snorkels and spear guns that virtually no Fijian could afford. There were two spear guns that were the exact replica of the very gun the Silver Fish had taken and Compton lifted it from the rack as Moses inspected the rubber bands.

“Sometimes these guns are here for years and the rubber rots away. This one is good.” He pulled back on the band and inspected it at the point it was connected to the stainless steel wishbones that slid into the notches of the spear shaft. He then handed the gun back to Compton and strode off. “The groceries are over here.” Compton stroked the stock of the varnished wood and the Silver Fish appeared in the water and he took the gun and aimed it down the dive equipment aisle and pulled off an imaginary shot, then caught up to Moses in the last two aisles that remained unexplored, where Compton met his grocery needs, including a six-pack of Fiji Bitter, the local beer.

Outside while waiting for the bus, Compton opened a beer and offered one to Moses who refused but could not take his eyes from the bottle until Compton had drained it. The bus arrived with a different driver at the wheel and though presumably unlucky, he did not court disaster at every turn and was decidedly the superior of the two drivers.

The skies began to cloud as they loaded the boat. At the barrier reef dark cumulus bloated with rain coursed in from the south. Upon passing the barrier reef it began to drizzle and Compton recalled his ignored premonition of rain. Moses dug out a slicker of tattered plastic and offered it to him.

“No,” said Compton. “I knew it would rain today and I ignored my intuition. I deserve to get wet.”

“That is the biggest mistake a man can make,” agreed Moses. “That small voice is the true one, eh. The one we must always follow.”

The wind that delivered the cumulus stirred the ocean and swells blew up out of the southeast. Compton stood in the bow with the painter in hand as the downpour turned torrential. Riding the wild seas like a horse, he hooted like a cowboy whenever the boat slammed down on the backside of a wave. For over two hours he rode the foreshortened world of wind, sea and rain until they reached Orchid Beach, where he stumbled ashore exhausted.

“That was invigorating,” he said sprawling across the beach. “Everybody should ride across the Tasman Strait during a rain squall once in their life.”

Moses removed his shirt that was soaked and shook his legs of water. “But only once, eh. The next time you jes’ get wet.”

Compton gave Moses dry clothes and then fried a fish for them while Moses broke open a coconut.

They ate ravenously.

“That was a wild ride,” said Compton referring again to the boat trip.

“That was tame to the rides I had in Suva,” declared Moses, shaking his fork at Compton.

“I assume you’re referring to women,” coaxed Compton.

“The women and the bottle. Together they are the worst rides a man can have. When he falls off, he is bound to get hurt.” Moses continued to shake his fork at Compton as a teacher might admonish a child.

“How did you get enough money to travel to Suva in the first place?” inquired Compton, wanting more of the story.

Moses put down the fork and looked at his hands. “I worked in the copra fields until there was nothing left of my hands. I had thirty-five dollars. That amount would last two months on Taveuni, four months on Qamea. In Suva it lasted two days.”

Moses pulled his attention away from his hands and picked up the fork. “When I first got to Suva it seemed like the place of perfection that every man seeks, eh. The wharves were straight and strong and the roads were flat and smooth. There were bridges and cars. Everything was made of wood and plastic and steel. There were factories with big machines that did the work of a hundred men. So much progress, I thought, could only bring comfort and lift the burden of work, eh, make life easier. They were using different kinds of steel and fiberglass, everything was put together perfectly. All neat and smooth, it was amazing. It was there for everyone, eh, to use and have the benefit. I was in the land of miracles, I was ready to receive the perfect life.

I lived with a relation and got a job carrying tools and oil for the big freighters that come in. Very soon I saw that the people lived small lives. They were like herds of goats, all following the lead goat who followed the shepherd who was invisible to the rest of us. All those machines to do the work and the people could not find joy in the jobs left over. It was the same work over and over. Very boring, eh. It stole away the surprise of living. They knew what to expect everyday and it made them slow and stupid. But not me, I was making money and spending it on drink and women. I came to work late, full of fuck and drink, and one day the boss say my laughing is a bad influence and I have too much fun on the job, so they run me off. Okay, I thought, I’ll call my cousin who works at a club and get the job as bartender. Then I would not have to go look for a place to drink and whore up. I wasted nothing. I drank away my wages and fucked every girl that would talk to me. When I was broke I cheated the club at the cash register. I was a terrible man, terrible. Then at my worst, my very worst, I met a beautiful girl who was half Chinese and I fell in love with her. I told her that I drank. I wished to be honest. I was in love. Our second time together I got drunk. That should have finished it but she loved me. I don’t know why. She tried to stop me from drinking but I couldn’t. I was losing her but the drink was stronger than the love. She left me and said that I did not love myself, so how could she love me. She was right, I was a miserable human being. When Esther came and said that my father had died and there was no one to look after the farm, I decided then to become a man. I did not wish to be a drunk and waste my life. My father’s death was more important than the Chinese girl’s love, eh?”

Compton appraised Moses with eyes of enviousness. “I covet your experiences,” he said. “They have given you a wisdom that has escaped me.”

“If I have wisdom it is because I always listen to the old ones. They have the wisdom. They have the experience. The young ones are full of ideas and the old ones are full of experience. They have so much wisdom they don’t even know it. They mumble it out and you must get it the first time. They say, ‘You don’t sharpen a knife, you make it thin.’ See, a thin blade stays sharp longer, you have to sharpen it low otherwise you blunt the knife after one cutting. I listened to the old ones and learned how to bait the hook and the proper trolling speed and the trick of getting the mackerel by using the extra lead. I stopped going to school because I had no ambition. I went and listened to the old ones and began to fish because it was what I loved to do. Then I went to Suva and forgot everything. I had to come back to remember it again, eh.”

“My ambition was my undoing,” conceded Compton.

Moses, not missing a beat, finished off his thought. “A man must follow the thing he loves or he is lost in this life. The living becomes a waste.”

The sun was setting behind breaking cloud cover. Moses found a miracle in the silver/gray clouds that muted the sky to a pale orange over Taveuni. “Will you look at that! See how the colors change from one moment to the next. Sunsets change faster than the eye can catch. We never see the changes right away but see how different it already is!”

As tropical sunsets go, thought Compton, it was not particularly impressive.

“You know, Keli, a man changes as sure as the sunset. Very soft sometimes, you can barely see it. But he is changing all the time. See how different you are already. It is an amazing thing, eh.”

16

As promised, Moses arrived before daybreak and picked up Compton to hunt the deep reef. While Compton loaded his gear in determined focus, Moses caught his arm and nodded to the sunrise as if he were committing a sacrilege by way of ignoring the event. They both quietly watched it break free of its aquatic bonds and slide like a golden yolk across the water towards them. When blinded by its first light Compton turned and finished his task, then boarded the boat.

A light breeze stirred the water and a swell rose out of the east as if rippled by the sun’s emergence. Compton was geared up and ready to jump when Moses dropped him on the north edge of the reef. The water had the same breathless clarity as before and Compton cocked the spear gun and made a dive to thirty feet where he suspended in the still water. From out of the blue edge slid a sliver torpedo. It glistened from afar in the low light and he waited as the mackerel moved directly towards him. Even at that distance there was something strange about the fish but nothing he could immediately discern. The fish was magnificent and the ever-moving sea life on the reef seemed stilled in its presence. Forty feet away it turned broadside so that it might better observe Compton. Above the pectoral fin, mid-way to the dorsal fin, hung a large chuck of alabaster flesh. And there, just above it, a hole two inches in diameter where the spear had struck. The mackerel suddenly veered off its line of flight and descended back into the blue infinity to be quickly absorbed by the depths. Compton felt certain it had recognized him. Suspended in the water, he watched the fish go, strangely detached from it as if seeing it really for the first time. He now guessed its weight to be well over a hundred pounds. A world’s record if ever there was one. There’s no hurry, Compton reassured himself with uncharacteristic patience. This reef is its territory. Spearing it will just be a matter of time.

He worked the north end of the reef for an hour without a sighting and was of a mind to return to the boat when a pair of glowing shards of light came coasting across the reef. Two mackerel, which he judged to be twenty-five pounds apiece, came towards him steady as time He waited until they appeared to be an arm’s length away and he no longer saw them at all, only the solitary spot that rested on the lateral line behind the gill plate. When the spear was aligned, the body pulled the trigger. It struck the fish near the gill plate but missed the lateral line by half an inch and the fish hurtled down toward the pearly bottom. He attempted to turn it by pulling on the gun as the fish towed him down and managed through enormous effort to raise the fish’s head ever so slightly. Once this was accomplished, the fish actually began swimming towards the ceiling, enabling Compton to gain the surface and a much-needed breath. Kicking hard with air blasting from his snorkel, using his buoyancy, he slowly pulled the wild fish up toward him. When it was nearly in his hand, crystallizing like blue/gray thunderbolts hurled by Zeus, three white tip sharks converged on the frantic fish with every intention of relieving Compton of his prize. Seeing the sharks, he hesitated for a moment and the fish, feeling the slack, bolted, and he lost all that he had gained on the twelve foot shooting line thus bringing the sharks closer to a state of frenzy than they all ready were. He hauled up on the line again, inch by inch, and the sharks followed, rushing in and out, working up a feed on the blood spoor. Ten feet from the surface they were crossing in front of him in lightning snaps with fearful surges of speed that completely unnerved him. Ready to give up on the fish and let the sharks have it, he was suddenly struck in the back.  Thrashing at the water, he wheeled wildly striking the hull of Moses’ boat, which bobbed gently at his shoulder. He lifted his head out of the water and tore the snorkel loose from his mouth. “Sharks.”

“What kind?” asked Moses. “White tips?”

Compton had already put his head back in the water and nodded yes. Moses picked up the floating gun and began to haul in the line. Compton felt the tension and let him have it, quickly ducking under the boat and coming up on the opposite side, where he cleared the freeboard in a single lunge over the top.

Moses brought the fish up and into the boat as Compton leaned over the side for a glimpse of the sharks, seeing nothing but blue water and the indistinct distortion of the reef. When he looked up again Moses was holding the fish that appeared to weigh close to forty pounds, nearly twice as large as he had estimated. The power of the Silver Fish was suddenly understood.

“Don’t worry about the white tips,” said Moses, putting the fish in the bow. “The white tips are our friends. They don’t harm the Fiji divers.”

“They followed the fish right up,” replied Compton, a bit chagrined now. “They got awfully close. I was ready to give it to them.”

“No, no. When they see whose fish it is they go back. They don’t see you yet.”

“That’s exactly the way I wanted it.”
“They must see you, then they let you have it. It is very bad to give ’em a fish.”

“Yeah, Aprosa said the same thing.”

“The Fiji divers be very mad at that. If you give the shark a fish then it will want one every time, eh. You must show who is boss. Jes’ like a woman, or they take your fish, walk all over you.” He burst into laughter. “Jes’ like a woman.”

“Easy for you to say.” Compton spoke with a tinge of annoyance, “Sitting here nice and dry in the boat.”

Moses stopped laughing, though he maintained a curious smile.  “I was a diver once. I see sharks, like every Fiji boy. They jes’ doin’ their job. All Fiji divers treat sharks the same. Next time you pull up a fish they give it to you, no problem.”

“Good fish, brother,” proclaimed Moses nodding to the fish lying in the bottom of the boat. “See the big ones?”

“Yeah, I saw the same fish I lost the other day. Alive and strong with my wound on it but it took off when it saw me. Based on the size of this fish, I would say it was denitely well over a hundred pounds.”

Moses nodded but said nothing. Then smiled, “I have another spot, a good one. I get the big hookups there.” He hauled up the brake drum and they sped off to the west.

“This is jes’ the same reef that go on for miles. I’ve never been to the end of it.”

Compton examined the fish that lay at his feet. He put his finger in the spear hole and felt around. “There it is,” he muttered, feeling the backbone. “I just nicked it. Missed the spot. The shot went low by half an inch.“

“Next time you won’t be so lucky, eh. Another bus ride to Somosomo.”

“Incentive enough. I wonder if the gun shoots a tad low?”

“It shoots where you point it but you must be very close, eh.”

“Yeah,” said Compton, still feeling the backbone. “I probably wasn’t close enough.”

They traveled at top speed for twenty minutes before slowing to a drift. “This is it, right off the edge.”

As Compton prepared to enter the water Moses added, “These sharks take my fish off the hook. Big sharks here.”

Compton slid off the boat in an awkward, almost unwilling motion and his first sighting directly below, swimming atop the reef like a dog gone berserk, was the largest white tip shark he had seen since arriving in Fiji. It was doing figure eight patterns over and over in the same spot. Compton kept one hand on the gunwales until he was confident that the shark was orbiting a galaxy of its own creation, then tentatively moved off down the reef.

The reef was deep and dark and had an ominous feel to it as if the shark were Cerberus guarding the gates of hell. There were areas of fish activity and then stretches of reef barren of all life. Movement came from deep off the far edge and he dropped down to investigate.  Swimming in the bouncing pattern common to tuna was a single dogtooth. Too deep to intercept, he pushed back to the surface for a breath. There was something foreboding in the water. If it had been air, he could have smelled it and he began to repeatedly look over his shoulder, expecting a shark to be cruising up behind him. Fear oozed from him like a lanced boil and he recognized this as something, once started, could not easily be stopped. He headed back for the boat, questioning the validity of his feelings, suspecting his fear had jump-started his imagination. In this state of confusion he arrived at the boat where the same shark still swam maniacally in the same spot as though it were looking for its mind. The symbolism resonated far too closely and Compton quickly jumped into the boat and shook off the water with an involuntary shiver.

“See anything?” asked Moses.

“A small tuna and about the biggest white tip in the world was waiting for me when I got into the water.”

Moses laughed, shaking his head in mild disbelief at the seemingly endless array of erroneous perceptions that Compton churned out. “It wasn’t waiting for you. Sharks are stupid. Their brains are in their stomachs. Jes’ like a man’s brain is in his cock.”

“That shark was awfully strange. You never know when a shark can turn on you. Get you from behind.”

“Fiji diver always know when that time come.”

“Hey,” said Compton, annoyed at the confidence with which Moses spoke. “Nobody knows.”

“Sharks are not dangerous to Fiji diver because he has no fear of them. That’s why he knows when is that time. It is the fear that clouds the mind.”

Compton ended the conversation curtly. “Let’s head back to the beach. I’ve had enough for one day.”

Moses dropped him off at the beach and headed for Taveuni to sell the fish and refuel at the Indian store. In the late afternoon he returned.

“It was a good day, Keli. I caught three jacks on the way to Taveuni and sold ‘em with the mackerel. Here, I brought you a present.” Compton opened up the carrying sack and drew out paper and pen. “For your writing,eh. Begin your book from the heart.”

Compton was visibly moved by the gesture.

“Moses, I don’t know what to say. I’d forgotten all about it.”

“Vinaka. You say vinaka. We turn you into a genuine Fiji man.”

“I can’t think of anything to write,” confessed Compton, placing the pen and paper on the table.

“Listen to your heart, it knows.”

“In the meantime, how about some tea?”

“That would be good, hot tea.”

Moses sat at the table and watched the sea while Compton made tea, marveling at Moses’ capacity to enjoy the company of another without the need for continual conversation. Compton, however, could not sustain the silence. “Why is it you don’t dive? It seems to be the birthright of all Fijians.”

Moses accepted the cup of tea. “I never dive with the spear but I worked for the resort and went diving everyday with the tank for eight months. The job never called to me. The owners liked me, they wanted to make a manager of me. Ha, I have already been that in Suva, not for me. ’No’ I say, ’I’m going back to the farm and my fishing.’ Fishing calls to me. The money is hard, not as much as the resort, but I have faith in the sea, it gives me enough.”

“It’s hard to believe that there’s a resort way out here on this island.”

“This is a big island that has many secrets. The resort is around the west corner, twenty minutes by boat.”

“Then why don’t you sell your fish to the resort? You’d get more money and you wouldn’t have to travel to Taveuni. Are you on good terms with the owner?”

“Yes, Nigel, he likes me very much. I could sell him the fish. I think he buy it from the Indian store.”

Moses bent to his tea, his almond eyes in distant thought. “Yes, that is what I shall do. The Indian fellow has been cheating me for a long time.”

“Really, how does he do that?”

“When I go to weigh the fish for payment he takes off half a kilo. I once ask him about this and he say it was for the weight of the plastic bag. The bag weighs nothing. He believes I’m stupid so he takes advantage. I never say anything after that. Now he will lose my business and the business of the resort. He loses what is so precious to him, his money.”

“You knew he was cheating and you said nothing? I couldn’t have done that. I would have called him on it. No one gets away with that in the States.”

“If I say something then he would have cheated me elsewhere because I make him look foolish. You cannot change people by pointing out their weakness, eh.”

“I couldn’t have kept my mouth shut.”

“You would have been less for it.”
“Not necessarily. I would have been alert to his cheating and watched him closely.”

“But if your interest in money was less than his, you would have tired of it and he would have waited. You would have made him more cunning. He is not so cunning with me because I let him believe I’m stupid.”

Compton nodded more in admiration of Moses understanding of human nature than in agreement.

“Let people be what they are,” continued Moses. “Let everything be what it is. If you try and change a man or the world, it is you who changes, not them. I don’t worry about those things. I give people what they need and I receive what I need. It’s amazing how that works.”

“Well, that’s a beautiful way to think and believe. But you could never do it outside this small island. In the States everyone is like the Indian and every business is an Indian store. Except they are far more sophisticated and we’re cheated in a million different ways.”

“That is not life. Living like the Indian, watching every penny, not trusting, not giving to those who need. They have forgotten what is precious, eh.”

“Yes, and I guess I should include myself among them,” confessed Compton.

“Living is short, which is what makes life precious. Have you forgotten what is life?”

Compton turned his eyes away from Moses and gazed out to sea. To the sea he said, “So it seems, Moses, so it seems.”

Compton’s history rolled before his eyes and fell across his face. Moses reached across the table and placed his hand on Compton’s shoulder. “Do not worry my friend, Keli. You have come to Orchid Beach to remember what is life, eh.”

Moses rose slowly from the table. “I have to go now. Mariah waits for me.”

Compton watched him go from the table, then sat looking at the dregs of tea at the bottom of his cup. He tried to piece them back into a single, whole leaf, as if in the doing he could reshape his life and recapture the preciousness that had sifted away and was forever lost. He put his hand on the paper that Moses had brought and reached for the pen.

The ocean plays its rhythm on the sand and the low sun shatters the mountain peaks of Taveuni in the west.  It catches the edges of the water, briefly illuminating the tiny waves that break on the high coral. The scattered pieces of my life, like waves of light, fall and break and turn into air-filled foam that insulates and blinds me to a life unlived.

17

As if in dream they came, drifting on a turquoise sea, filled to the green gunwales of their dilapidated boats. The Fijian crew of several weeks ago appeared before the edge of the coral, all smiling and waving, “Io, vinaka, vulage.”

“Io vinaka,” called out Compton who came down to the beach and, without giving a thought, waved them ashore. Jokatama maintained his presence at the tiller and gave a wide toothy grin, saying, “Hello, hello,” and directed one of the men to drop a sack of sand tied to a line that served as an anchor. Everyone waded ashore, men, women, and a single boy. Compton looked for Sinaca among the women who filtered up the beach. When he found her she was peering into the window of his sleeping bure. Other women were in the kitchen poring over the food supplies and cooking utensils. The big spear gun was discovered leaning against the hut and had gathered a crowd of men. Compton picked up the gun and invited one of the men to pull back one of the bands of rubber. He knew it would be difficult if not impossible because they knew nothing of the technique involved that would induce a near solid 9/16ths band of dense rubber with a hundred-and-twenty-five-pounds of thrust back to the notches on the spear shaft. The Fijian accepted the gun, hefted it for weight and stroked the varnished mahogany stock with respect.       Putting the butt of the stock to his naked belly he reached up, grabbed the first band by the metal wishbone and pulled, bringing it back to the first notch with ease. He released it back to its original position and passed the gun to the man next to him who did the same. He in turn preformed the feat and passed it to the next man. When they had all taken a turn, they smiled and acknowledged the sharing with a slight head bow. Sinaca, who had been watching the demonstration, stood beside the tree and gave Compton a smile, which he returned self-consciously. She appeared more beautiful than he had remembered and were it not for Jokatama’s broad voice, he might have stared her into butter.

“Who is your name?”

“Moses calls me Meikeli, Keli for short.”

“You are from America, Keli?”

“Yes.”

“You like Fiji?”

“I like it very much.”

“You be on this beach a long time?”

“It’s day to day. I want to dive the deep reefs for the mackerel.”

“You come with us today, Keli, dive and spear fish. We show you Fiji way.”

Compton looked for Sinaca before he answered but she had vanished. “Yes, that would be… Give me a moment to get my gear together.”

Jokatama barked out an order and everyone returned to the boat. Compton came aboard and a seat was made for him the center of the overcrowded boat. Jokatama was at the tiller and instructed the boy, Matthew, to sit next to Compton and translate. On the other side of him sat a large woman wearing a green dress with white flowers and a yellow bandana tied around her wide head. She was knotting a small hook to the end of a fishing line that ran off a large spool resting in her broad lap. The men were dressed in ragged, blood-smeared shorts and some wore threadbare tee-shirts. Each carried a rusty spear shaft with the familiar ease of an appendage.   Nearly everyone on the boat, men and women alike, had a mass of scar tissue around their ankles and shins from coral cuts. Many of the wounds were open, puss filled and angry enough to cause a decided limp but Compton saw no evidence of the slightest discomfort. Sinaca was standing somewhere behind him and though he would have liked to turn around he resisted the temptation.

The boat rounded the point and at once began to let women off at the edge of jutting reefs. Each older women was accompanied by a younger woman and carried a woven pouch on her hip. Compton asked Matthew what the pouch was for and he said it was where they kept the shells and clams gathered by the younger women and the fish caught by the older women. He added that the girls also helped dislodge the fishhooks that get caught in the coral.

“What do you do with the shells?”

“Eat’ em and sell the shell. Very good, you have, yes?”

“Sure, maybe.”

As each member left the boat everyone expertly shifted to balance the unstable craft. Sinaca left with the woman who had been sitting next to Compton and the spear fishermen filtered out after the women. Within a hundred yards, Jokatama turned the boat around as the last diver fastened his goggles to his face and secured them with a rag tied behind his head. At the end of his spear was a single band of rubber to which an odd leather piece about an inch wide and two inches long was attached. This obviously propelled the spear but Compton was baffled as to how it was done.

Jokatama invited Compton to dive where he pleased and with whomever he chose. He pointed out that the blue-shirted diver was the best of the lot and would be the one to watch. Compton entered the water on the edge of a forty-foot drop off, the liquid as clear as fresh ice. It was in the back of his mind to find Sinaca but he didn’t want to appear obvious in that pursuit. He drifted down on the current and almost immediately the blue-shirted diver beckoned him inside the current to a finger reef. Without a snorkel, the blue-shirted diver repeatedly lifted his head from the water for breaths, yet despite the handicap and with no swim fins, he had little trouble in making dives to forty-feet. He inserted the dull end of the spear into the small leather strap that was attached to the rubber sling and into which he fitted the thumb of his left hand. Pulling the spear back, guided between the left thumb and forefinger like a pool cue, he released it with the right hand in the manner of a bow and arrow. The thin shaft was free and was used on small fish, lest a larger fish swim off with it once speared unless it was killed instantly by the perfect shot to the brain or backbone, which Moses declared was the skill level all Fijian hunters attained.

The blue-shirted diver frog kicked down to ten feet and pulled back the sling, held it still as a statue and glided down without equalizing his ears, to thirty-five feet, aimed, and let the spear fly, hitting a hand-sized fish mid-body. Retrieving the spear, he kicked to the surface with the fish still quivering at its end.

Compton was impressed.

The Fijian had considerable strength and superb stalking skills. By keeping his body perfectly still during the descent he created the illusion of not moving but simply getting larger as he closed on the fish. With spear drawn and ready and body poised, the shot was taken when just a few feet away. It was a fierce display of discipline that was made to appear effortless. Caught up in the heat of the hunt, Compton had forgotten Sinaca and, anxious to impress the blue-shirted diver, began to hunt himself, moving to the outside away from the small fish and their pursuers where he probed the caves and holes for larger fish. When no large fish could be found he pressed harder and moved ever deeper and quickly fatigued himself from the effort. He was finally able to spear a snapper in a deep cave that, while not large, was bigger than anything the Fijians were bringing up. He deposited it in a growing pile in the center of Jokatama’s boat and climbed aboard for a quick rest. Taking off his mask and attached snorkel, he exhaled a long breath, indicating his fatigue to Jokatama. The old man nodded in recognition and said something to the blue-shirted diver who had returned to the boat with another fish.

“Walter know the tube you wear,” he said to Compton. “Could he use it while you sit?”

“Yes, of course.” Compton undid the snorkel and gave it to a grateful Walter.

“He say it make the job easy,” said Jokatama affably. “Such a simple thing, eh.”

After a ten-minute rest Compton prepared to reenter the water.  “I have Walter give back the tube,“ assured Jokatama.

“No, that’s okay, let him use it for awhile,” replied Compton shrugging it off. “I’ll dive without it.”

Compton slid into the water and cocked the gun. He lifted his head for a breath, held it and put his face back into the water to search the depths. In thirty seconds he lifted again, hyperventilated a few breaths and returned his face to the water. After a half a dozen such maneuvers and always out of breath, he made a dive that ended in mid-descent desperate for another breath. Slowing his pace considerably, he continually struggled for a full breath as his admiration for the Fijian divers grew. He idly wondered what it must be like to dive without fins, as the Fijians appeared effortless in their dives. Following his curiosity he deposited the fins in the boat and hooked up with a Fijian diver and tried to keep pace. He managed to do so for the first ten minutes then tired badly and, unable to maintain a dive, retired to the surface. There his untimely breathing kept him in perpetual discomfort both on the water and in the knowledge that the Fijians were the superior divers in all regards. Compton could sustain only so much self-inflicted humiliation and ended the experiment, returning to the boat to find it filling up with Fijians.

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.”

Moses licked his lips and looked down at the kava and began to squeeze in earnest. Compton could not muster up much, if any, acceptance for what he just heard. But he did understand the power of a belief system, no matter how obscure. Clearly Moses believed and if the village believed and all the other villages in all the islands believed, then how much more true could it be?

Moses poured water into the large bowl and dipped fresh kava root and squeezed. They had drunk nearly a gallon of the first batch. Compton’s brain spun from the narcotic that was making magic of the night sky, which was bursting with stars and the three-quarter moon, upside down in the southern hemisphere, moving among the trees in the towering jungle.

“This place is feeling better to me everyday,” remarked Compton in a voice as tranquil as his surroundings. “Though some days are better than others.” He became amused at the analgesic condition of his body and brain and could not feel the mosquitoes feeding on his arms and legs.

“Today is important,” proclaimed Moses. “You can’t keep yesterday and you can’t catch tomorrow. Today is where the Fiji lives, the whole day and maybe all the night. They laugh at yesterday and make jokes. Tomorrow, they say, maybe we go fishing, maybe not.”

“I used to have a ready answer for that kind of existential philosophy,” said Compton, beginning to slur his words. “But these days I’m not so sure.”

“To not be sure of such things is wisdom,” granted Moses dipping another bowl.

Well into the second gallon Compton could not feel his legs beneath him and was having trouble getting to his feet.

“This stuff is wicked,“ he said.

Moses came over and helped him stand and they walked on the beach together.

“Moses, you have been very kind to me, extremely kind. You have brought me food and water, doing nice things all the time. Is it because a white person is special in Fiji?”

Moses blinked and looked away from Compton, then turned and faced him directly. “In Fiji, all visitors are special. You increase yourself, Keli. You are not special because you are white or because you come from America or that you have a bit of money. All visitors are treated the same, even those who have mean spirits."

Chagrined, Compton knew nowhere else to go with conversation and inanely asked, “Even the mean spirited? Why is that?”

“They are the other side of us, eh. Without them we know less of ourselves.”

Moses’ remark fell misunderstood on Compton who swayed in his tracks.

“The fact is that I’m a white man in this very brown world.”

“Keli, most Fijians believe that a white person is weak and unfit for the life of a man. They come to the resorts like women in pants and we have pity for them. It is plain they are less then us, eh. We try to make them feel strong and equal. We give them what we have. You do not see this because, like the others, you are filled with yourself. I would not say this, but in your way you have asked to know.”

They returned to the kitchen table and Compton collapsed on the bench in full realization of Moses’ words.

“You are right. As I have grown strong here I am beginning to see just how weak I was, weak in the mind and the body and the spirit. I see that the weaker a man is the more he is filled with the illusion of himself. It is a horrible state to come to terms with. I…” Compton paused realizing he had revealed more than he intended.

“I’m sorry, Moses. I’m… such generosity does not exist where I come from. People just don’t act this way.”

“It is not an act, Keli. It is knowing a hard life. We don’t move this life around. Nature is too big to move around.”

“It’s incredible here,” said Compton, throwing his arms out to the sea. “I’ve got a front row seat right here on this little beach. I’ll never look at a TV again. The sea and the wind and rain are awesome.”

“The sea is the strongest force in nature, eh. It whispers and roars and knocks you about. It is greater than all the rest of nature, even the hurricane. It breaks men and feeds them at the same time. I never know what the day will have for me, a full one or death. When you live on the sea you learn if you are a man or a boy. You look into the sea and it tells you. It shows the true self. When I’m in my boat, I know who is me. When I was in the city, always looking in the mirror, I was who I thought I was. There is a difference, eh.“

Compton was holding his head in his hands talking to the table.

“I think that’s my trouble. I don’t think I really know who I am. I don’t think I ever really knew.”

“Stop thinking so much! Let nature have its way with you. Live like a free man who owns nothing but has the right to use everything that nature gives.”

Compton held out the coconut cup to Moses for a refill.

“I’ll drink to that! To free men who own nothing!” he shouted.

“Bula, vinaka vaka levu,” chorused Moses.

“Also to Sinaca!” blared Compton. “I want Sinaca! I’ll do anything to see her.”

“It is not so easy, Keli. You have to ask her parents to walk with her. But first you must be invited to the village.”

“If I get invited to the village, what do I say to her? What do I do?’

“Jes’ be yourself. Believe you are the most handsome man on the island and you have much to offer. Be keen for the soft signals of women. They are very cunning in their ways but all women like sex.  They like it seven times more than a man.”

Compton burst out laughing and Moses poured another cup of kava.

“Seven times! How did you arrive at that figure? Must have been some long and involved research.”

“I learned when I was fourteen that women like sex more than the man. I had a girlfriend and she was thirteen and every time we kiss she wants to screw. She was hungry for it. She couldn’t hide it like a woman. She shook for it. Later I saw that women hide it until their moment. Until their bodies take over and they shake and want more. They could not get enough once they let go. But there are some who hold so tightly that they never shake, they never want more. They are giving a favor instead of enjoying. It’s the last they see of me.”

“Jesus, I wish I’d known that when I was fifteen. Hell, I wish I’d known that when I was thirty-five.”

“All Fiji man know this, that is why they only screw once or twice a month after they marry. Sometimes once every two months. It is the way the man takes control of his house or the woman will be boss and the man becomes weak and no good.”

“In America the men make love to the woman three, four times a week,” said Compton, his head back in his hands.

Moses let out a low whistle and poured the kava.

“And who is the boss in America?”

“Well, the man thinks he’s the boss but I’m not so sure.”

“Men are foolish, eh. Women are built for sex. They can enjoy it longer and better than men. It is to their favor to have the man believe their need is less. Jes’ as it is in our favor to have sex once a month. It is a battle, eh. If the woman is in control she will ruin the man but the man won’t ruin the woman, she is too strong.”

“Once a month seems pretty drastic.” Compton was shaking his head in imagined abstinence.

“In Fiji the men are in control and everyone is happy. Everyone does their work and has children and are good parents. Nobody is running off with somebody else. No divorce here. Divorce is very high in America, eh. Maybe because the woman is in control of the sex.”

“Having sex once a month is a hell of a price. How do you manage to get by?”

“Nothing to do with getting by. Most men get sex out of themselves when they are young. There are more important things than sex, eh. More important things than women."

“I think it’s too late for me. I didn’t get enough sex when I was young. Then it was with the same girl for a long time. She was always holding back. She made me crazy.”

Moses downed a slug of kava and broke into a fit of laughter. “You see what they can do! You see! Still you are crazy! You look at Sinaca and you are ready to go crazy again!”

Moses passed the cup to Compton and he drank.

“White folks don’t have their sex act together, so it comes out kind of crazy. We either have too much or not enough.”

Moses grinned. “Make you more crazy than you already are, eh.”

Compton nodded in agreement, “Yeah, if that’s possible.”

“You wait, let Sinaca come. The woman have the urge more than the man. She find a way to fill her need. Woman are smarter than men in these things. No need to go crazy, eh.”

“I’ll take your advice, wait and see what happens.”

They finished the second gallon and Moses began to mix a third.

Compton shook his head, “I’ve had enough, Moses. I can barely stand up now.”

“Right, then. It’s late. Time to eat.”

“Eat? I can’t eat anything,” whined Compton, propping his head in one hand. “Everything is spinning.”

“That bad, eh. Low tide for you tomorrow.”

Moses gathered up the kava and the bowls and was in his boat roaring off into the pitch-black sea at top speed before Compton moved from his seat. He staggered into the bure and collapsed under the netting. The room spun him to sleep and he dreamed unremembered, narcotic dreams.

18

Compton laid beneath the netting expecting the dullness of sleep to give way to a headache. A terrible hollowness consumed him instead, as though all the blood from his body had been drained away and replaced with brake fluid. He could not hold a simple thought. He made coffee and drank two cups but nothing changed. He wandered the beach, absently looking for shells but soon propped himself up against the fallen tree in self-imposed catatonia.

A blue heron appeared in the shallows, standing stock still over a tide pool. He watched it for a time, became distracted and when he looked again it had vanished as if it had never been there at all. The kingfisher perched on a far branch that extended out over the water. Suddenly it plummeted headlong into the shallows and reemerged with a piece of light flickering in its beak. Tips of greenery sprouted from every twig on the fallen tree and he wondered if they had done so in the precise moment before he caught sight of them. He went to the kitchen and wrote:

The kava has drilled a hole leaving me drained and empty, like a washed up shell on the beach.
The sea sounds roll into the hollow of my unlived past,
and reverberate in distant echoes.
The wild, abstract patterns of the tree branches against
the gray sky suspends over me like demons of the future.
The rock and crab, the heron and the kingfisher inhabit the present and I do not feel separate from them.

Compton put down the pen and returned to the warmth of the sand, where he immediately fell asleep. He dreamed of flight beneath the ocean, soaring free as a bird, gliding wherever he pleased in the liquid atmosphere. He swam with a silver creature that was without scales and as slick as mercury. It had the face of Sinaca and together they made lightning leaps about this inner sea.

He awoke in the late afternoon and felt surprisingly refreshed, almost cleansed. Moses had not come and he went to bed early without supper and did not dream again.

19

In the late afternoon of the following day Moses came with pawpaw and belle. He also brought a gift of smoked mackerel with shredded coconut and minced red pepper.

“And how was yesterday, my friend? Low tide, eh. That kava is bad stuff,” joked Moses in mock sympathy.

“Low tide is a good description. I had a strange day. It was like my personality had been erased or something. I had weird dreams of flying in the ocean. Very pleasant, though.”

“I brought some rain water to use for a bath,” said Moses, pointing to his nose in an exaggerated way. “Some soap, too.”

“Tomorrow,” announced Moses with a grand gesture worthy of a senator, “we go to the village of my sister, Judith, and you must smell like a pineapple. When we are there we see Aprosa at the Genuine Village. We stay for supper.”

As he spoke, Moses laid out Mariah’s meal on the table. “This clears the head and gives life to the mouth. Eat with your fingers.”

The mix of pepper with the shredded coconut and the smoked flavor of the fish was exquisite, and Compton so commented. Moses wordlessly nodded in agreement while eating voraciously. Between mouthfuls Moses explained that the three villages on the island lay along the same shoreline on the southwest side of the island and the one furthest east with the favored protection from the winds was the Genuine Village and also the home of Sinaca. It was built and lived in under the old traditions. The homes were of thatch and tree limb, had no electricity nor running water. Everyone worked for the benefit of the community and the chief determined the priorities of the village. The second village, which Moses called, The Half Done Village, was that of his sister Judith. The bures were built of milled timber with tin roofs. There was electricity, a school and running water. They had sought independence and so had no real chief, though there was a headman who represented the village at various gatherings. Moses knew little of the third village other than it was the home of the Paramount Chief and was more westernized than the other two villages.

“It has a poor feel to it, I don’t much care for it.”

“Tell me more of the old village,” asked Compton.

“There is no use in talking. You must walk it and smell it. Touch its skin for yourself, eh.” Then he stood and excused himself. “Mariah needs me back in the garden.”

“Thank her for the meal.”

“We were pigs, eh.”

20

A clean, white bag filled the bow of the boat. “When I go visiting,” explained Moses, “I always take a gift of vegetables. It is the Fiji way.”

They sped west under high, thin, gossamer clouds. The seas were glassed out and at full throttle they ran parallel with the island at the edge of the coral shelf, turning a prominent point that had thrust its way into sapphire depths and where verdant jungle appeared to grow out of the self-same water. They came upon a deep bay that opened wide to a long, sandy beach lined with coconut trees. Far offshore, nearly hidden in the lush foliage, stood several thatched bures. Smoke curled out from small, secluded fires and a boat was drawn high up on the sand. Moses pointed towards the settlement.

“That was our beach,” was all he said.

Small bays and beaches were passed but none as large or quite as beautiful as the first. Several had structures, while others were absent of any debris of man. Moses said they all belonged to outsiders, New Zealanders, Australians, and Americans.

Another extended point was navigated that Compton assumed to be the western edge of the island but it merely curved deeply into an “L” shape. Here a wide bay held half a dozen freshly painted boats on brightly colored moorings. Beyond, on the shore, in a forest of geometrically placed coconut trees and well-groomed shrubbery, rose a high-pitched roof of thatch and wood. Across manicured grounds of flower gardens and low trees were smaller bures. “This,” said Moses, “is the resort owned by Nigel. It pays poor wages,” he added.

The bay was protected by a barrier reef through which Moses, never diminishing his speed, found passage. He swept in close to shore where an elderly white man in a white jogging suit ran up and down a small beach as his wife watched while sitting uncomfortably on the stump of a coconut tree. Compton wondered how long it would be before the resort would consume this side of the island. A Fijian boy attending the boats on the beach waved and shouted to Moses by name. He returned the greeting as they crossed the bay and blasted through the other side of the barrier reef, entering a deep bay that was half a mile wide and cut into the island for perhaps three-quarters of a mile, providing excellent anchorage for large vessels. Directly across the bay, brightly painted boats lay on a steep sand beach and Moses pointed the skiff towards them. Beyond the beach, pitched corrugated roofs of unpainted tin caught the sun among dense groves of coconut trees.

Moses pulled the boat onto a sand beach that was devoid of human activity, grabbed his white bag of vegetables and headed inland. Compton followed up a well-worn path, past unpainted houses, rusting fuel drums, fishing nets, decrepit, staved-in boats that would never float again. Here and there atolls of grass stood as feeble reminders of less complicated times and further accentuated the cluttered, unkempt look of the place. The only color provided by nature came by way of exotic purple flowers that sprouted out of drab bushes. Small children stood naked in open doorways while their older brothers and sisters ran to join the growing procession that skipped beside Compton.

The entourage arrived at the home of Judith, who was waiting in the doorway holding a sickly infant in her thin brown arms. Moses presented her with the vegetables and introduced Compton to her husband, John, who had come around the corner of the house holding an oily engine part that belong to an outboard that was stripped down to its bare block and rested on wooden supports near the steps. John was very black with short, powerful arms and oversized shoulders. He led them into the house and Compton stood at the entrance, as previously instructed by Moses, to wait until offered the favored place.

There were no tables or chairs in the single large room. Stacked in every corner was debris: assorted tools, outboard engine parts, a harpoon, a fish net, gas cans, a bag of roots, laundry, a box half filled with assorted canned goods. In the centrner of oom, lying upside down, was a live sea turtle whose shell was the size of a dinner plate.

After a brief exchange, John returned to his outboard and Moses directed Compton to sit next to him on the hardwood floor. Moses and Judith chatted in Fijian and Moses occasionally translated the gist of the conversation that amounted to little more than village gossip. The three sullen children, all under the age of four, clung to the faded blue skirt of their mother, staring blankly out at Compton with runny, dull eyes. Judith, whose skin was perfect and the color of light chocolate and who was once quite beautiful, smiled sadly when offering her breast to the crying child in her arms. She appeared to be in her mid-thirties and later Compton learned she was twenty-three.

Moses crawled to the center of the room and turned over the turtle that had been quietly lying on its back. After regaining its bearings it made a pathetic dash for the doorway, its flippers slipping on the slick, worn, wood in a desperate attempt to escape to the sea. Moses said that the turtle was a pet, having been found four years ago when it was a baby. It had been kept prisoner on its back in the house all of its life. He allowed it to get to the doorway before sliding it back to the center of the room. While the children found delight in its aborted attempt to breakout, Judith looked on sadly, consigned, like the turtle, to a half-life that went no further than the doorway. The thumping of a drum sounded, a signal, Compton was told, for school to be finished for the day. Soon the children were straggling by in oversized clothes, happy and barefoot, all seeming much healthier than the younger children he had seen earlier. Perhaps, he reasoned, if they can survive their first six years they would live strong, happy lives, until adulthood.

Moses collared one of the children, spoke to him and sent him on his way. “He go find Aprosa.”

Moses and Judith continued to catch up on the local news. In his periodic translations, Moses indicated that more young people were leaving the village and heading off to Suva to find a better life. Although he shook his head in disapproval, he allowed as how they lived so poorly in this village that such a departure was almost expected.

Within the hour Aprosa appeared at the doorway. The gentle countenance of the man was as always and Compton broke into a smile when he saw him.

“Hey. Aprosa, how you doing?”

Aprosa smiled shyly. “Bula, Keli, I am doing well.” They shook hands. “You look fit and ready to dive all day, eh.”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far but I’m feeling good.”

“You brought up a wailu the other day, eh.”

“How did you know?”

“This is Fiji,” interrupted Moses. “Stop trying to figure everything out.” Both he and Aprosa giggled to each other as Compton gave an appeasing smile.

“Yeah, I have finally begun to pay my way around here, as well as feed myself, thanks to you. It helped that Moses stopped bringing me food so it was either hunt or starve.”

“The eye is sharp on an empty stomach, eh. Moses did you the favor.”

“Yes, he is always doing me the favor whether I know it or not.” At this pronouncement there was laughter all around.

“The big wailu, he took your gun, eh. You saw too much fish?”

Compton felt chagrined, but saw no intent of ridicule in Aprosa and his embarrassment dissolved in an instant. “Yeah, I didn’t see the spot,” an honest reply emerged. “Have you seen that big wailu on the reef? It’s huge.”

“I know the one. Very big. He the boss of the reef. I don’t spear it.”

“Why is that? Too big?” said Compton in mock challenge, expecting a smile.

However, no smile came and Aprosa remained resolute. “No, it is the friend of…” and he abruptly stopped and looked at Moses who nodded ever so slightly and Aprosa finished the sentence, “…the Sea God. Plenty other fish, eh.” The gravity with which Aprosa spoke was disconcerting and in that discomfort Compton changed the subject. “Well, I picked up another gun in Somosomo, so as you know, I’m back in business.”

“I go to the reef in three days. We dive together for the wailu, and maybe some jacks, yes.”

“Sure,” said Compton, “that’d be great.” Then to Moses, “Is this the same reef we’ve been diving?”

“That’s it, all the big fish on that reef,” confirmed Moses.

“Good,” said Aprosa, who then gently bid his goodbye’s and headed back to the Genuine Village.

Judith had cooked belle and rice and served it with canned fish.  The four of them ate off chipped ceramic plates while sitting in a circle on the floor. The children wedged themselves in the folds of Judith’s body and ate from her plate while the baby shrieked in high-pitched wails. Moses and John ignored the nerve-shattering cries and conversed amiably away in cordial Fijian, while Compton forced up smiles and choked down the undercooked meal.

After supper, Moses escorted Compton on a tour through the village. The golden light of dusk could not improve upon the drab uniformity of the singularly boxed and roofed houses nor turn to jewels the engine parts, fuel drums and the abandoned leavings of uncounted projects that would never see their moment of completion. They stopped at an open structure with waist-high walls that opened to the ceiling. Inside, two dozen children watched a Rambo movie on a television set, a small generator humming outside the wall.

“The Indian man from Taveuni come and for fifteen cents they watch the movie.”

“Do they choose their movies?” asked Compton. “Is that Rambo movie something they like?”

“They like anything he brings. Rambo, Ninja, Arnold who’s-his-name. Sometimes he bring the pornography for the men. It is a terrible thing to do, eh. Before the movies came the children play all day down at the beach and make the flower string for their mother’s neck. Now they kick each other and fight with sticks.”

“Why doesn’t the village stop him from bringing in such movies? There are other, far better movies than Rambo.”

“The Indian has the permission of the Paramount Chief. When he bring the movie to the Genuine Village the people don’t let the children come. So the Indian brings ‘em here instead.”

“Why don’t they throw him off the island?”

“The parents are ignorant. They believe the movie is a good thing and helps the children see the world. They have not been to Suva and have seen nothing in their lives but this village. So they are curious about everything outside, eh.”

Compton became angry and then embarrassed by his country’s abhorrent invasion into the Fijian child, as if he somehow were responsible.

“But why Rambo? Why pornography? There’s so much more to choose from.”

“John went to see the white people screw. He could not understand why people would do such a thing for others to see. They had no pride in themselves. He was ashamed that he saw it.”

“Do people still go and watch?”

“The young men go. They like to watch the white woman moan and carry on, then they go home and want their woman to do the same. They get angry when it doesn’t happen.”

Compton pulled at Moses’ arm. “Let’s get out of here.”

They returned to Judith’s house and inside, around the glow of lantern light, sat five men. In the shadows of this gathering oozed an ominous sense of foreboding and Compton hesitated at the door. Moses reassured him with a pat on the shoulder and they entered the room. John was serving up kava from a large bowl. A place was made for Compton and Moses, who rubbed his hands together as one would do before sitting down to a favored meal. Compton sat to Moses’ left, and to his left sat a grim looking fellow named Joseph whose eyes held lethal thoughts and whose powerful arms carried mercilesds.  Next to him sat a soiled, shirtless man called Cecil, whose body odor filled the room and whose humorless eyes fell dead and unfeeling upon Compton. The two others were of equal mien and had Fijian names that Compton could neither pronounce nor remember. All, including John, were a sullen group full of sickness wrought by way of a life that Compton had only witnessed when wandering the inner cities. Having encountered such open friendliness from every aspect of Fijian life, he was taken aback by this brooding circle. They drank their kava like drunks in a forgotten bar, purposefully and with a vengeance. They spoke only in Fijian and the conversation distanced Compton from the group. The kava was passed regularly and seemed to be stronger than the batch Moses had mixed.

Early into the second hour the words, “You have money?” crept out from the hapless circle. Compton, knowing the question was directed at him, had no idea who had spoken and searched the circle for acknowledgement. He was met with silent stares from all around. Moses flicked his eyes nervously and nodded in the direction of Cecil.

“No, not much,” replied Compton, affecting a pleasant tone to Cecil.

“Then how you get from America wit no money?”

“By American standards, I don’t have much money but by yours, I guess I have a lot.”

Cecil grunted and spit out a Fijian remark that by Moses’ reaction Compton guessed was less than hospitable.

“Do you have an interest in Americans?” asked Compton.

“No,” grunted Cecil. “They very rich and weak. They come to our islands and try and make us servants.”

“I’m not here to make anyone my servant.”

“Why you here then?”

“To see a bit of Fiji and hunt some fish.”

Moses clapped his hands for another bowl of kava and the anger in Cecil circled back into his chest by way of hunched shoulders. The kava was drunk and the bowl was passed and the malevolent air hung in the room like smoke, dense and suffocating. Moses did his best to try and lift the spirits of the group but he quickly fatigued for the burden of its weight was too great. After a time he got up to pee and Compton followed him out the door. They walked toward the beach, out of hearing distance from the house.

“Very mean spirit in that Cecil. He wants the money to go to Suva and find his sister who is a whore living with an American. He speaks of killing him and bringing his sister home.”

“These are the first Fijians I’ve seen that are not filled with good will.”

“You must be careful, the other one, who is Joseph, is Sinaca’s brother. He speaks little but he is a very mean fellow. They all want money to buy things they see on the movie. Even John, he buys that big outboard engine, one hundred horses. It goes too fast for his small boat, uses too much gas and is always broken. It is the same in every house in this village. It is a terrible thing, all this want.”

When they finished peeing, Moses held Compton’s arm. “You stay here. Wait for me down by the boat. The tide is good, we can get over the reef. I pick up your things and say goodbye to Judith.”

“Are you afraid for me, Moses?”

Moses laughed, “No, but too much kava and a cane knife might put ugly ideas in Cecil. He might see his sister’s pimp instead of you. Or maybe Joseph knows about the looks you give Sinaca, eh.”

Moses gave Compton a bag of fruit and two cans of fish when he returned. “I told Judith that you spear fish and the tin fish was not needed but she put them in the bag.”

Once they were away they slowed their pace and the boat pushed easily against the black water that churned silver phosphorescence beneath the bow. The moonless night was star blown and the white sand beaches along the shoreline glowed blue in their light. Compton let his hand drag over the side of the boat and his fingers felt for the tongue of warm water that rose to lick them on each swell. They passed the lights of the resort, which in their glare felt harsh on their skin and obscene to the eye. They did not speak in the revealing gleam but hurried to the sanctuary of darkness around the next point.

“Do you think drugs are bad, Keli?”

“What kind of drugs you talking about?”

“Pot. Do you think pot is bad?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because you are an American. You know about drugs, eh. You have used ‘em?”

The darkness shadowed Compton’s face and Moses could not read the shift in its aspect but his answer was curt and revealed himself. “Sure.”

“Was it a bad thing?”

“My second wife liked to smoke pot because it made sex better for her. It wasn’t my drug of choice, as they say.”

Compton reached deeper into the sea and scooped up a handful and splashed it on his face. “You been smoking?”

“An American came here last year and gave me some pot. I went down to Orchid Beach to smoke. I liked the pot but I worry, also.  In Fiji they put you in jail for five years if you have pot.”

“That’s a lot of years in jail but I imagine you’re fairly safe out here. I mean, who would know?”

“Sometimes the police come from Taveuni and check. The sergeant, he used to bust up fights but now he is looking for the pot.”

The boat rounded the western point and the swell increased. Compton gave himself over to the rocking motion, which the kava seemed to thrive on.

Moses adjusted the throttle and the boat rolled gently over the swell. “The American give me seeds to plant and said he would buy the pot from me and I could smoke it when I wanted. He did this so he would not have to find it in Suva. I am thinking about the pot all the time and worry that the police will find the plants.”

“If he needs to fly to Suva to score his pot, it sounds like he’s got a drug problem.”

“This pot is something, eh. Make you dream all the time. Everyone in Fiji like it. People are growing it all over. It is maybe a bad thing for me. The easy money is earned in worry.”

“Can’t you make money doing something else?”

“Money is hard in Fiji. There is no work, only the resort and the copra fields. In the copra fields you pick up two hundred and fifty coconut, about two hundred pounds, and carry them on your back to the drying shed, sometimes a half mile away, sometimes more. Then you cut them in half and sit with the copra and dig out the meat. You must cut your own firewood to fuel the dryer and put the meat in the dryer for eighteen hours for one bag. The workers are paid by the bag, one dollar and fifty a bag. Good worker can average three bags a day.“

“Jesus, that’s terrible. What about the resorts, what do they pay?”

“Not so bad, twelve hours for seven dollars but I don’t like the resort. Someone always watching you. Everyone is a boss except the Fijian. That’s the way in Fiji, everyone takes advantage; plantation owners, resorts, the Indians. All because we  jes’ need a little money, so that is what they pay us. We work hard but not all the time. Life is for a bit of work, a bit of fun, and for sitting, eh. Too much work make you sick.”

“Well, you better stay away from America, that’s all they do there is work. It gets worse every year. I remember when just my dad worked, now both parents work long hours. I was up to my eyeballs in work.”

Compton let the water roll through his fingers. It felt warm and inviting.

“The competition is fierce in America. Everyone is looking for an edge, something that will put them over the top. They lie and cheat and after awhile you begin to do it, too, just to keep up. You tell yourself it doesn’t feel wrong. When I was a kid, I could feel the wrong in my acts, then when I grew up the feeling sort of disappeared. Lately, my world has changed and has been exposing the things I’ve done that can’t be excused away.”

Compton was speaking softly to the water and Moses backed off the throttle to idle speed so he could hear him.

Moses spit into the water. “What is it that you did for the money?”

“I used to be an architect and built spec houses on the side. But I went broke, as you know, doing that, so now I’m training other architects how to use CAD software programs.” Compton reached down and pulled the water to his face, and doused it. “My father was a doctor. He took pride in his work. He once said that the only good work any man can do is the kind that can be felt and seen at the end of the day.”

Compton paused for a long moment, watched the water spill through the fingers of his outstretched hand, letting the kava release his burden.

“When my wife and I split up she got an injunction so I couldn’t see my son. My world came apart. I began to do cocaine. Then I broke my leg in a car wreck. Two places in the thigh bone, I got this rare thing called fat emboli which was caused by the bone break and got into my blood and formed a clot at the base of my brain stem. Couldn’t get any oxygen to the brain. Almost died, was in a coma for twenty-eight days. When I get out of the hospital, my ex had married somebody else and told my son I had died, and moved to Dallas. I haven’t seen either one in nearly two years. I’ve been trying to put my life back together ever since. Let me tell you, I’m a far better spear fisherman than I was a freelance architect. But being a spear fisherman in American is like being a computer repairman in Qamea.  Unique perhaps but not a whole lot of demand for their skills.”

The boat moved into a lee and the sea calmed to glass. Neither man spoke and Moses kept the speed of the boa at idle.

“That explains much,” said Moses, following the stars. Then he laughed, “Man is crazy, eh. He chases something that kills him if he catches it. Sometimes I think only the rich and the poor are free. The rest work for promises that never come.”

21

The late moon cast its blanched light through the opened window of the hut illuminating the white netting that surrounded Compton in his bed. It appeared web-like and sinister and to further the illusion a large spider was making its way across the top of the netting, its weight enough to shake the net with each step. In the moment, Compton felt helplessly trapped and doomed to a gruesome fate. Thrusting open the netting he launched the spider into flight.

“I want that Silver Fish,” he said aloud. The spear gun leaned against the fallen tree and he went to it. Using a flashlight, he carefully inspected it, diligently going over the detachable spear cable looking for kinks that might eventually become splits. He checked the rubber where it was tied to the metal wishbones that fit into the grooves of the spear shaft for any stress cracks, finding none. All was in order with the gun. He removed two pounds of weight from his belt so that neutral buoyancy would be ten feet deeper. Satisfied that all was in readiness, he slipped into the wetsuit at the sound of Moses’ outboard breaking the predawn tranquility as it came round the East Point. A diffused light of the still buried sun cast across the gray heavens, leeching into a stainless steel sea, obscuring any delineation between the two. Though the air was warm, the lack of sun created the illusion of cold and Compton involuntarily shivered. A light rain began to fall.

Moses looked at the sky. “The fish are tamed by the rain. There will be wailu on the reef.” He then pointed straight ahead. Suspended between the gray sky and sea floated a small boat.

“Aprosa,” uttered Moses.

The way he said it quickened Compton’s competitive pulse, warming his stomach and dissipating the false coldness. He had his gear on and was ready to enter the water the moment they arrived. At full throttle Moses soon came alongside Aprosa’s yellow-hulled skiff a young boy was sitting in the stern mechanically bailing water. A forty-five pound mackerel lay in the bow and Aprosa appeared thirty yards away swimming towards the boat bringing another. Moses had arrived at Orchid Beach before dawn and Compton had thought they would have plenty of time. Now he hurried into the sea, anxious to impress the master. He cocked the gun as Aprosa swam by carrying a fish as large as the one in the boat. Compton swam a hundred feet north of the boats and made a dive to clear his suit of bubbles. He was near the north edge of the reef where he had seen the fish before and there was no sign. He feared that Aprosa might have taken the only two fish on the reef or that he had spooked the others after the last spearing. Compton leveled off at thirty feet, turning slowly in a three-sixty sweep, the coral reef spread out below like a stone cloud. On the far edge of the coral two mackerel came in from the outside. Compton had not the breath-hold left to dive to their depth and waited in the hope that the fish would see him and begin to drift up. His throat had already constricted and he was in need of air. His chest grew tight and he could feel a convulsion looming in his solar plexus. The fish came swiftly now but he knew he could not wait them out, spear one and make it back to the surface and rose reluctantly before the fish reached his position.

Aprosa dove past Compton coming silently out of the gray ceiling with the fluid grace of a raptor descending on its prey. He leveled off at a depth equal to the mackerel, sixty feet, and like a statue framed in white coral, waited for the fish. One behind the other they came and when they were astonishingly close, he let loose the spear. The shaft struck the fish and stopped it dead in its tracks. It was a remarkable sight to witness. More remarkable was the realization that Aprosa was able to do this on each and every shot. He swam the fish up from the depths, his thigh muscles large and rippling from the load. He had placed the spear exactly on the lateral line behind the pectoral fin. The second fish drifted off undisturbed by the subtle swiftness of its partner’s demise and the reef went about its usual business unaware of any intrusion.

Compton inhaled several deep breaths and dropped down on the remaining fish, which had circled back and leveled off at fifty feet. When parallel to the fish and very close he aimed and pulled the trigger. The shaft hit an inch off the lateral line and the mackerel accelerated off towards the bottom. Compton held the line and kicked hard against the tremendous pull of the fish that, in its frenzy to wrench free of the spear, tore muscle and skin as it fought against it. Kicking furiously with legs now strong from his months in the water, Compton was able to make his way to the surface fighting the fish every foot of the way. From there he hauled it up with a determination he had never known in himself.

The two boats had been lashed together and Compton handed the still fighting fish up to Moses and climbed aboard. The rain had stopped and Aprosa sat in his boat with fins off eating a pawpaw.

“Your legs are strong, Keli,” he said. “Save you another trip to Somosomo.”

Compton grinned sheepishly. “Yeah, I saw too much of the fish, missed the spot.“ He spoke while restringing the shooting line and preparing to reenter the water. Aprosa made no move to join him and Compton hurried off the boat and into the water.

Save for a school of barracuda that breezed the reef like wingless vultures searching out carrion, the water was devoid of further fish activity. After a fruitless hour Compton returned to the boats where Moses and Aprosa were sharing a coconut, lost in idle gossip.

“No fish?” asked Moses. “Aprosa say they gone from the fight of the last one. They smell the death in the water.”

Compton removed his fins and settled into a seat across from Moses. “Is there somewhere else we can go?” he asked impatiently.

‴We have enough, eh.” replied Moses. “Hard to find fish now.  Did you see that big wailu?”

“No, nothing,” said Compton indignantly to the bottom of the boat.

“We go to the village, have plenty fish for everyone,” said Moses in a jubilant manner that seemed to disturb Compton, who did not reply and appeared overly absorbed in removing his wetsuit. He sat in the bow throughout the trip, thus avoiding conversation. They found passage through the barrier reef that encircled the resort and cut across the bay as before but when they broke through the far side of the bay they did not shoot straight across to the Half Done Village, instead heading southeast down the channel. On the far shore, emerald hills of tree and grass stretched to the low gray sky. An easterly breeze was rending the clouds and through patches of blue poured yellow light, polishing the hillsides to jade. Brown, thatched huts grew out of the hills as if fallen from the light and gardens splashed with deep purples and reds vibrated in the breeze. Pathways were lined in white stones that were used to encircle coconut trees and flower beds, further highlighting the magical setting.

At the shoreline where the mangroves ended and earth met the mud, two old and wrinkled women shucked clams. Moses said that they were in their seventies and had dived for the clams in nearby shallows. A thin, muscular man balancing on a narrow raft of bamboo stalks drifted silently out of the mangroves. He was holding a four-pronged spear and, according to Moses, was returning from a hunt along the mangroves for small fish, which he speared from the raft.  A tall, muscular man, heavy boned in the face and very black skin, introduced by Moses as Vito, had come down to the muddy shoreline to greet them. Shortly, children, men and women gathered at the base of a grassy knoll that stretched clean and uncluttered to the first bures and beyond.

Aprosa arrived and his three fish, along with Compton’s fish, were lifted from the boats and placed at the foot of the crowd. Compton stood apart from the gathering and when the fish were taken and paraded up the hill, he motioned Moses.

“I think it would be best if I went back to Orchid Beach.”

Moses appraised Compton for a long moment, then said, “All right, you go to the boat.”

After speaking to Vito, he returned wordlessly to the boat and poled out of the mud. From the beach came a shout from a woman. She was waving the boat back to shore but Moses shook his head no and she dropped her hand. Behind her stood Sinaca regally observing and when Compton saw her he turned his face to the sea as the boat cleared the mangroves.

They rode to Orchid Beach in silence. After beaching the boat Compton asked Moses up for tea. “I suppose I owe you an explanation.”

Moses said nothing and quietly fingered the shells in the middle of the table. When Compton had taken a seat, Moses said, “You have done a bad thing, Keli. You have insulted the village.”

“What are you talking about? How could I have done that?”

“They were to have a feast in your honor, with music and dancing.”

“Why my honor? I didn’t get three fish, Aprosa did.”

“So that is it, eh,” nodded Moses in understanding.

“One fish is hardly worth the labor of a celebration,” added Compton.

Moses put down his tea and looked out to sea, then turned to Compton. “Your pride is false, Keli. Your truths are small. The celebration is not because you brought a fish but you wished to share it with the village. It does not matter who gets the biggest fish or the most fish. Because everyday that changes. Nobody expected you to be a better spear fisherman than Aprosa. The village wishes to have a meal and laugh together and any reason is a good reason to do that. But you take that reason away from them. Chief Isikeli would have come, it would have been your time to be invited into the village.

“I didn’t know,” responded Compton stiffly. “I wanted to impress Sinaca.”

“If your pride was small it would have been easy to know but for you, Keli, it is difficult to see such things.”

“So what now?” asked Compton, the realization sinking in.

“They will forgive you because they know the smallness of the white man’s truths.”

“Will they forgive me just because I am white?”

“No, they forgive everyone. But only a white person would do such a thing, eh.”

“So they treat me differently because I’m white. They feel sorry for me, don’t they?”

“Of course they do. It is a terrible thing not to understand what is life and be confused about the simple things.”

Compton looked at the sky as if to hold back tears. It was true, he realized. I don’t understand life, real life. Hell, I still don’t understand myself.

“What must Sinaca think?” sprang from his lips. Moses impassively observed the torment that swept across Compton’s face.

“She will forgive quicker than the rest, already it is past her.”

“I mean, will she see me as the weak and confused white fool that I am?”

Moses laughed and shook his head. “You are two men, Keli. One man is weak with false pride and blind to truths, the other spears fish like a Fiji man. It is the spear fisherman that Sinaca sees and the people see. When you do something foolish like leave a celebration then they notice that you are white.”

Compton laughed at himself. “I know that everything you say is true, Moses. I don’t know why I do the things I do. It’s like if I don’t push life, it pushes me. Either way I wind up going in the wrong direction.”

“It is the small truths that your pride twists to please yourself. A man needs very little pride. Pride is like water inside the boat. A little bit is a good thing, it keeps the wood tight and washes the blood away. But when the boat begins to fill with too much water it cannot move and soon begins to sink. The man bails and bails to keep the boat from sinking. His head is down, he is working hard but his boat is not moving lightly across the water. He will say he has lived a worthwhile life but he has been bailing and knows nothing.”

Compton inhaled a deep breath as though he were about to make a dive, then let it out through his teeth.

Moses continued, “Well, you’re in a different world now. So pull your boat up on the beach and let your pride drain away, accept a little. Then we fix the leaks and put you back into the water so you can go lightly across the sea, eh.”

“How long does it take to fix leaks this bad?”

“They already being fixed, eh.”

Moses stood abruptly and said after a pause, “I’m going back to the village. There is eating and grog. Do you wish to come?”

“I’m too embarrassed. I think I’ll stay and give them some time to forget.”

“All right, brother.” Moses strode to the beach and was in the boat when Compton shouted to him.

“We go to the deep reef tomorrow for some wailu?”

Moses chuckled, and shouted back, “Kava night tonight.”

“Then I’ll see you when I see you.”

“No sooner than that, eh.”

22

It was with surprise and delight to see Moses arrive early in the morning and with scarcely a word between them, motored Compton out to the deep reef. On his first dive, the Silver Fish materialized out of a glycerin sea. The twisted white flesh of its wound caught the early light and identified it. The fish, in that grand pelagic style of movement that propelled it without tail or fin action, closed the distance as he held his place at a depth of forty feet. The fish drew to within twenty feet then broke off its line of approach and slid back to the edge of the reef and into the depths.

He dove for two hours but the Silver Fish did not reappear. Near the end of the dive a wailu breeout of those same depths and he speared it, finding the spot, making the kill. The fish quivered in its death throes and slowly sank but otherwise made no movement. White tips gathered at the top of the reef sixty feet down at the vibrations but were of no consequence. He handed the fish to Moses who hefted its weight and declared it to be around twenty-five kilos.

Compton elected to make no mention of the Silver Fish to Moses or report any further sightings. The Silver Fish was obviously held in high regard by Aprosa, and perhaps others, but when the time came he would spear it. Until then, he felt his intentions were best left undeclared.

“I take this fish to Taveuni,” said Moses. “The resort has plenty of fish. I need the kerosene and some rice. Do you wish anything?”

Compton, in his preoccupation replied, “A couple of things. I’ll give you a list.”

They headed back to Orchid Beach on a fixed sea. Minutes into the run Moses abruptly turned the boat back to the open water, directing it to a skiff far out on the edge of a breaking reef, midway to the horizon. “They are in need of a fish,” he muttered to the sea.

Compton, baffled by the remark but no longer surprised by declarations Moses might utter, sat back to see what exactly would transpire. The run was long on the flat sea and took every bit of twenty minutes. They came alongside a blue-hulled boat that was similar to most other skiffs on the island. An old Fijian man was at the outboard and in the bow was a white man wearing a large Panama hat. Moses asked the white fisherman if he wanted to buy a fish.

“Yes, by all means,” he cordially replied. “I need something for tonight.”

He identified himself as an Australian and was quite impressed with the size of the speared mackerel. “You speared that fish?” he asked, looking at Compton then at the spear gun.

“I did,” answered Compton, affecting a manner of boredom to enhance the feat.

“Magnificent! We had given up on fish today. We were about to pack it in. Your arrival was timely. A third of that fish would do nicely. What do I owe you?”

Ten dollars was agreed upon. Moses cut away a large portion and handed it to the Fijian who, in turn, gave him the money which he pocketed and bid a pleasant good day, turning the skiff back toward the island.

“Moses, you no longer surprise me but how in the hell did you know that boat needed a fish? You couldn’t possibly have seen anyone fishing from that distance.”

“I’m a fisherman. I know when a person desires a fish, eh.”

“Okay, but how did you know? This isn’t the first time you’ve pulled this sort of stunt.”

“It is the voice, eh.”

“What voice is that?”

“The voice that is always true.”

“And did it tell you that an Australian wanted a fish?”

Moses shrugged. “Of course. It was his need to buy and mine to sell, eh.”

Compton nervously laughed. “You know it wouldn’t surprise me at all if you began to levitate right here in the boat.”

“Levitate? What’s that?”

“You know, float up in the air, like an angel.”

“No, no Keli. I am only a man. I float on the water not on the air. A man knows very little. That is why he must listen to the voice. It is a simple thing, eh. No need to think.”

“We always get back to too much thinking, don’t we?”

Moses grinned and nodded. “Yes, and stay simple with a little bit of pride.”

Moses dropped Compton off at Orchid Beach and continued on to Taveuni, saying he would stop by on his way home.

After an overcast and soulless sunset, there began a hard rain. Compton ate dinner and quickly slipped under the netting, all the while anticipating the whine of Moses’ outboard. It did not come and he fell asleep to horrific scenes that played out on a dark and rain-swept sea, which consumed Moses and left Compton forever isolated on the beach.   >

23

Under the weight of their early morning cargo, potbellied clouds labored across the smudge-stained sky. Rain fell intermittently and blue lizards awaiting the sun’s blissful warmth stood watch on indigo boulders drawn from the sea. The blue lizards were fat with black insects and the polychromatic birds were fat with lizards.

The birds flourished on Qamea because it was without mongoose or snake, which are notorious nest robbers. Unlike Qamea, Taveuni had very few birds for it was overrun with mongoose that were brought over to kill the rats in the cane fields, which ruined the cash crops. However, the mongoose is a creature of the day while the rat is nocturnal. Thus man compounded his problem, for he found himself relentlessly invaded by destructive carrion forces both night and day.

Man’s interference in the natural world of Qamea was limited to the snake-killing frogs that pounded out a bass line for the melodious song of the jungle birds. It seemed to Compton that the tradeoff for those musically inclined was that rare and wonderful exception to man’s meddlesome hand in his otherwise visionless tampering with the natural world.

By early afternoon Moses had not made an appearance and Compton was now genuinely concerned. Should he hail a passing fishing boat? Or attempt to walk across the jungle to Moses’ settlement? Or hope for the best and wait it out here? Perhaps it was the day that piqued his worry, for it cloaked itself in somber clothes of dark grays and blacks that brought to mind a funeral procession. Wrought iron clouds were lowering the boom on Taveuni, accompanied by searing spikes of lighting skewering the breadth of its shoreline.

He watched as a thick blanket of rain plodded across the strait. When it reached him in convulsive sheets, he removed his clothes and ran naked on the beach with arms spread, feeling buoyant as a child. Winded, he sat at the table enjoying his nakedness, the anxiety of Moses’ absence having lifted and his spirits filled with the energy of the storm.

It was late afternoon when Moses finally arrived, coming from the jungle, carrying pawpaw, cabbage and store supplies on his back in a bag.

“Bula Keli, Vinika vaka levu. Did you wonder where I have gone?”

“I was worried. I thought you might have broken down out on the water. The storm was pretty bad.”

“Keli, do not think, it makes worry. If my engine breaks I have the oars. I have rowed many times across the strait. The ocean doesn’t want to kill me, it treats me well. I caught fifteen fish on the way to Taveuni yesterday. My boat was filled with fish. When I got there a big fishing boat had beat me in and filled up everyone’s fish box. No one would buy. Terrible. So I strung four fish to a line and went into the village bar and said, ‘You should be feeding your children instead of drinking away your wages. Here is fresh fish for your families.’ I sold three strings in the bar. I went to the Indian store and traded the rest for fuel. He gave me a dollar forty a kilo for the fish, then charges me full price for the fuel. He cheats me but it come out in my favor. I met Esther at the store and stayed with her for dinner and sleep. In the morning I fish my way home before you wake, then work in the garden all day. It was a good day, plenty of rain, no sun.”

“The universe is always in order with you, isn’t it. When all around you is in chaos and the odds suddenly turn against you, you seem to always find a way through it.”

“That is the exciting thing of life, eh. Everyday is unlike the last.  A new task must be done.”

“It doesn’t bother you that the Indian continues to cheat you?  I am amazed it doesn’t undermine your willingness to trust the next person.”

“Each time is a new time, eh. Each man deserves a chance to be honest. I remember this fellow from the Genuine Village, he wanted to get married and build a bu He had nothing and needed plenty of money for all the things a family must have. The only way he knows is to dive for sea slugs. Plenty hard work. He loves his woman very much and wants a number one bure for her, so he works six months and brings up four hundred kilos of sea slugs. No one has ever seen this much sea slugs. They call him the Sea Slug Man for the rest of his life.  He very famous for that. In Suva they will pay him nearly three thousand dollars for the sea slugs, a fortune that will last him until his children grow old. His best friend is going to Suva so he put the slugs in his hand, to make sure they get to Suva on the boat and to collect the money. It was a big job jes’ to load the slugs on the boat. Dead slugs are a terrible smell and worse to touch. His friend say he be back in a week with the money but he does not come back. The Sea Slug Man went to Suva but couldn’t find him. Three months later his friend came back to the village. He had been drunk and whoring for all that time. He bought an old motor scooter with the money he had left and give it to the Sea Slug Man as a wedding present.”

The idea of bringing a motor scooter to Qamea struck Compton as unbearably funny and he choked up with laughter. “Where could he ride it?”

“He couldn’t ride it. There are no roads, eh.”

Now Moses was laughing. “This man is no damn good, eh.”

“A motor scooter! What happened to it?”

“The fellow went to Taveuni and traded it for an ax.”

Moses and Compton convulsed with laughter, tears running down their cheeks.

“I should think the Sea Slug Man wanted to kill his friend,” said Compton, wiping the tears from his face.

“No, no,” corrected Moses. “He held no anger for him. He would have probably done the same thing himself. The village came together and they helped build a bure for him. Everyone knew that was not a good thing for the Sea Slug Man to have worked so hard to get all that money. That was his mistake, eh.”

24

High, thin clouds with vaporous wings flew across the morning sky where the budding sun blazed pale prisms on their feathered tips. Compton ate his daily ration of pawpaw down at the shoreline as the green hulled boat of Jokatama swung into view, overflowing with its brown skinned occupants.

“Bula, Io vinaka, Jokatama,” shouted Compton.

Boisterous greetings were returned as the boat pulled in as far as it could without having to use the pole. Compton sought out Sinaca and gave her a quick wave. She smiled shyly and returned an equally inconspicuous greeting. “Are you going for a dive?” asked Compton who, in his impatience, did not wait for Jokatama’s response. “May I come with you this morning.”

Though unaccustomed to such ill-mannered requests, Jokatama, after hesitating replied, “The current will change soon. If you swim with the current, we wait.”

“Fine,” agreed Compton. “I’ll see you on the point.”

He suited up and entered the water catching the current to the point where the empty boat, save for Jokatama and the boy, was waiting. The women were already at the edges of the finger reefs fishing and collecting shells and the men were in the water with their spears. However, in his quick search, Sinaca was nowhere to be found. He did notice that one of the spear fishermen was a woman wearing a blue print skirt and a white blouse similar to one Sinaca had on. She had pulled the rubber back in one motion, dropped down and let the spear fly. It hit the fish, killing it instantly. Retrieving the spear, she casually frog kicked to the surface. Compton had a clear look at her face and was certain the woman was Sinaca. He followed her to the boat where she deposited the fish, turned to him and flicked a smile. Before he could speak, she wheeled back into the water and left Compton staring up at Jokatama. After pleasantries, Jokatama announced that the tide would be chang

“Bula, Sinaca,” greeted Compton, facing her while treading water.

“Bula, Keli,” she replied softly, then shyly put her head back into the water and swam to the boat. Compton, at a momentary loss, cocked the gun and dove, more to avoid the stares of the others than to actually hunt. Upon her return he feigned continued interest in the hunt and swam slightly behind her as she dove the reef in search of fish. It quickly became apparent that Sinaca had exceptional skills with the spear. She moved like a sleek seal, exerting a minimum of energy yet covering the depths with a fluid grace that defied the fact she was without fins or a snorkel. On nearly every dive she found fish and never missed a shot.

At the tide change the tribe and the boat began to drift down the island on the current. In the course of thirty minutes Sinaca speared five fish. From all appearances she was the best diver of the lot, the men included, and Compton wondered why Moses had not mentioned her spear fishing skills or why she had not been spear fishing with the group on other occasions.

In addition to her skills with a spear, he was equally enchanted by the way her full dress would curl up high around her dark thighs on every descent and then on her ascent the way her white blouse, becoming transparent in the water, would cling to her breasts. Never had he witnessed a dance more erotic than the dives of Sinaca. In the fluid beckoning of her body language, he joined her, tentatively at first, feeling his way, mimicking her moves, then drawing close, soon finding a rhythm in the water that became a ballet as they pirouetted and plunged, soared and reclined around coral heads, in the unspoken communication of dance. With only a millimeter of water to separate them, belly to belly, he mirrored her every move, never taking his eyes from hers.

Beneath the sea, in Compton’s new home of homes, he had found a mermaid.

When they rested for a breath they did so like sleepy dolphins, turning slowly on the surface, touching lightly, dipping as if to cleanse, then falling again into the depths of their azure sky. The water became the conductor of their desires, for it crackled and sparked then vaporized in the heat of the dance.

They moved down the island a hundred yards from the nearest diver and in the silent sea Sinaca’s dives were deep. She glided on the slipstream of the current for long stretches. Compton would follow as she skimmed over tracts of white reef, banked off their edges and then rise as if to stall in flight, only to drop down again, spin and roll, and with every move he was there as if attached by some gossamer thread. He was in awe of her capacity to move about so fluently in the water. Were it not for the swim fins he could not possibly have stayed up with her. He came to her side and together they lifted over and through the reefs as carefree as sea lion pups. Their breath-holds were without thought and forgotten, lungs unaware of need. When they rose from the depths, he would pull her up with the thrust of his fins and she would let him, hand-in-hand, limp and trusting. Side-by-side they flew in the liquid sky, swept across a desert of sand and ascended over mountains of coral, in full mastery of the elements in weightless cavorting only eagles understood. She turned and faced him and they drifted as one, looking deep into the other’s eyes through the glass of goggle and mask. She grasped his hand and they dove to the base of a reef where there was a large opening to a cave. Entering it, they made a turn into an enormous underwater cavern that was illuminated by hieroglyphs of light that played through the perforated ceiling of coral. Floating upright, as if standing, above the white sand bottom that reflected the dappling light, Were it n leaned forward and brushed her lips across this mouth then turned and glided out of the cave to the surface.

For the moments they were together time had ceased for Compton and so, when the divers and the boat had caught up to them near the old campsite and intruded on their dance, it startled him as if being suddenly awakened from a dream. The tribe pulled the boat into shore and Sinaca joined the women to shuck the clams. Compton came ashore entranced, a man not yet awakened. Jokatama sat next to him and cheerfully asked the usual questions. “How is the beach?” and, “Qamea is beautiful, eh?” After a pause he asked in a decidedly somber tone, “How long you stay on Qamea?”

Compton replied that he wasn’t sure and had no immediate plans for the future. Jokatama’s brows knotted for a moment, then he stood and excused himself to attend other duties. After lunch Jokatama barked out a series of rambling orders to the clan and they acknowledged Compton with a smile and some said “Bula.” It was a long moment before he realized that Jokatama was taking him back to the Orchid Beach. Sinaca cast a quick look, then, as if she had revealed too much, lowering her head, not watching him leave. Jokatama was conspicuously silent on their return but Compton dismissed it, thinking the fishing probably wasn’t going well or he had some other clan associated problems on his mind. The parting was crisp but not unfriendly.

The following morning Moses brought pawpaw and his silence bore preoccupation.  “I had a terrible dream last night,“ he revealed finally.

They sat at the table and Compton made tea. “What was it about?” he asked.

“I was cutting very big branches off a tree with a long chain saw and had to reach up high to get at this big one. The saw bound up on this branch and pulled out of my hands. It whipped around and fell out of the branch and hit me on the neck. Blood was coming out of my neck in a terrible way. My head was coming off and I called for my brother. He came and put my head back on. I woke up very frightened. My heart was pounding and I ask Mariah to rub my chest. Even now it make me shake.”

“That was a powerful dream, sounds like one of self-destruction.”

“I wasn’t sure what it meant but now that you say it, I know that’s it. After our talk the other night about the marijuana I went up and looked at my plants. They were so harmless but they frightened me. Now I shall tear them out and write a letter to the American and say I don’t want to do this. You are my brother, Keli. You put my head back on straight.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, I think you’re right to get rid of the plants. You had a powerful dream, Moses, very vivid. They say it’s rare for adults to have that sort of dream with blood and terror. Those demand our attention. You seem to have gotten the message.”

“Today I go and dig ‘em up and bury ‘em. If I don’t, those plants will tear my head from my body, eh.”

Compton shook his head in undisguised wonderment. “You always know what must be done. I can only wonder at the opportunities I’ve squandered to avoid disaster when my dreams were shouting at me.”

“What do you dream of, Keli?”

“Lately I’ve had sweet dreams of the sea. Full of flight and play, none with the clarity of your dream. I imagine only an uncluttered mind could produce such a dream.”

Moses did not respond and after a moment Compton could no longer contain himself. “Jokatama and his crew were by here yesterday.”

Moses grinned conspiratorially. “Did you find many fish or did Sinaca’s beauty blind you to the job?”

“I didn’t look for fish. Sinaca was spearing fish. She was unbelievable in the water. As good as the men, better than the men.”

Moses set his cup of tea on the table and looked out to sea. He knows, reasoned Compton, who continued, “She is an excellent hunter. A pure joy to watch. She moves like a seal and spears more fish than any man. Why didn’t you tell me she was so good in the water?”

“I must say the truth now, Keli,” Moses paused. “I did not want you to fall in love with this girl.”

“Moses, I’m hardly in love with her. I confess, I can’t take my eyes off her.”

Moses continued to speak as if Compton hadn’t uttered a word. “She hunts like a man because she has made a bargain with the Sea God. That is why she swims in the water like a fish.”

“What are talking about?” Compton was beyond incredulous.

“Sinaca is not like other women in the villages. One day when she was still a girl, a boy give her a spear and she begin to dive for the fish. When the daughter of Jokatama brought a fish to the boat they thought she was lucky and they laughed. But everyday for three years she dived and soon she was as good as the men. Then the women of the village say that she had taken the kava and give it to the Sea God to make her good. After that her father take away the spear. He make her dive with the women, so the talk would stop and the people forget. But the women didn’t forget and now she is without a husband.”

“Are the men afraid of her, as well?”

“They are not afraid, but they are… not easy. Some think that the women might be right, that she was given the gift by the Sea God. There are some who do not go into the water at night unless Sinaca is in the bure with the women where they can watch her. Still, they say when she sleeps it is only her body and that her spirit is in the Sea God.”

“That’s a bit farfetched, Moses. What do you think?”

“What is farfetched?”

“Sounds crazy to me.”

“This is not crazy, eh. The Sea God lives. Bargains have been made and sacrifices have happened. I know, but I am not sure if Sinaca has done this thing.”

“Moses, you’ve always made good sense to me but this doesn’t make any sense at all. Would you swim with her at night?”

Moses slowly shook his head. “No,” he said.

“Well, if this is true, why would Jokatama allow her to hunt again?”

“It is because of you, Keli. He knew that you would not know that she could spear fish like the men. He did this because he knew that you would have to ask me and that I would speak the truth. He did this so you would stay away from her.”

“Why wouldn’t he want his daughter to see me? Especially since there are no other men in her life and none seem to want any part of her?”

“Jokatama is a good man. He treats his family well. He doesn’t want an outside man to come and make his pretty daughter pregnant or take her to Suva or some other faraway place. He wants her to live as a pure Fijian women in the village. He knows this life is the right one.”

“Moses, I believe you’re telling me the truth as you know it. But I don’t believe for a second that Sinaca has made some kind of pact with an ancient god. She is an exceptional girl, a woman who has a rare combination of talent and beauty. I’m not surprised that she can spear fish as good as a man. She’s spent her entire life in the water, why shouldn’t she be expert at spearing fish?”

“That is not all, Keli. She can swim farther than the man and dive deeper. Also, she speaks English.”

“Really?” asked Compton, intrigued. “Where did she learn to speak English?”

“I taught her when she was a little girl. She was very quick. All the time she ask questions. We talked until the trouble started with the Sea God.”

“There are women in America who would laugh at these accusations. There are women in America who can outperform men in every phase of physical activity.”

“We are not in America, Keli.”

“Well, I’m not going to stop trying to see her.”

Moses looked out to sea again, the muscles in his jaw working on the dilemma. “Already, Jokatama must know, eh, but you must respect the Fiji custom. Iou insult the family, Jokatama will make trouble and send his sons to do you harm. He doesn’t want the old women to start clicking their teeth about his daughter again.”

“I will try to adhere to the rules of Fiji custom but I won’t avoid Sinaca.” Compton paused. “Is this some kind of test to see if I have what it takes to court a Fiji woman?”

“No one asks about your courage, Keli. You are the American who hunts for the wailu. But they don’t want you to die as the sacrifice that Sinaca must offer.”

“So you say I could be the next sacrifice to the Sea God?” Compton was smiling now. “You know enough people put their belief into that sort of thing and before you know it, you have a self-fulfilling prophesy.”

“I don’t know what is that but the Sea God will not come for you in the day. Night is when it’s dangerous to be in the water.”

“Well, that’s reassuring, Moses. You have just confirmed my fears.” Compton’s quip escaped Moses altogether and he remained serious and unmoved in his convictions. “You know what bothers me more than anything is your rock solid belief that this is all real. I admit that there are some fairly incredible things going on here. The way you use your intuition is nothing less than remarkable. No doubt you’re operating under a different set of laws than I’ve ever been exposed to but I have to draw the line in a belief of a Sea God.”

Moses shrugged indifferently. “There are many different gods, Keli. If you believe in one then you can believe in ‘em all, eh.”

“What makes you so convinced that the Sea God is real?”

Moses glanced over his shoulder in what was becoming a familiar gesture. “When I was seven years old, before I go to school, I was out on the reefs fishing with my older sister, Alice, and she went around the corner to fish and I stay in the shallow. I was looking down in the water, and far inside I saw a Fiji man all dressed in leaves like the old ones who lived before my great grandfather. He talked to me. I could hear the voice say that spearing fish was the old tradition and that I was given the skill. He say that I had the power of the spearman.  Then he went away. This was not the underwater spear fishing but the spearing from the reefs, standing on the top of the coral and waiting to throw the spear. Later, it happened again in a different pool. He was a very dark man and ask me to use the spear like the old ones and it would go where I aimed it.  I never stopped thinking about the Fiji man. Whenever I went down to the water I looked for him and he came again and again and say that I had the power. One day I ask my father for a spear and he carved me a small one. It was the most important gift he ever give to me. I think he knew something because I was very young to have the spear. I went to the sea everyday and practiced throwing. It was all I wished to do. I would throw the spear and hit the fish then run across the coral and pin the fish with the spear, then pick it up with my hands. Sometimes I see plenty of fish and sometimes I see the man. If I saw the man I knew I would get a big fish, the wrasses. You have seen them? They swim in the shallow on top of the reefs where it’s warm.”

Compton nodded that he had seen them. “Napoleon wrasses,“ he said without Moses missing a beat.

“I was the best reef spearman on the island and everyone knew that I had the gift. Sometimes I could see a fish fifty feet away and throw the spear high and it would come down and hit the fish and kill it. When I was fifteen the man stopped coming into the pools and I stopped looking for him. A few years after, I went to Suva. When Esther brought me back I thought about spearing again and carved a new spear and went out to the reefs. I still had the skill and began to spear the fish. One week I speared two big wrasses both over ten kilos. Three days after, I dream of a big fish and I went and saw this great fish far out on the reef. I threw the spear andit flew like a bird by itself. It hit the wrasse and it jumped out of the water. It was over thirty kilos and it shook the spear out. No one ever speared a fish from the reef that weighed so much. I went out and found my spear and picked it up. It was hot, like fire in my hands. I couldn’t hold it and threw it ashore. My hand was hot and my body got very hot. I was scared and went to the Genuine Village. I go to my friend, David, very weak with bumps coming out on my skin. We didn’t know what was happening. They say I was talking to somebody who wasn’t there and it scared all the women. The healer Diloloma came. She looked at me and then rubbed herbs over my body. She told the women that my spirit was not in my body. I went into a long sleep and when I woke I was full of sweat and very weak. Diloloma ask me to stop spearing the fish. She said that the Sea God was trying to take my life for the fish it had given me. And I never speared another fish again. That is why I don’t dive with the spear.”

Compton was rubbing the back of his neck. “Well, it makes some sense now.”

Moses looked out on to the Tasman Strait and waved his tattooed arm across the panorama.

“The sea is more powerful than the land. More powerful than the hurricane. The hurricane does nothing to the sea. The next day it is the same. There is more in the sea than in the sky. If there is a God, it must live in the sea, eh.”

“Moses, you’ve again proposed an idea that is beyond debate. You’re probably right. If there is a God, it must live in the sea.”

25

The sound of the outboard ceased at the reef line. Compton could not see Moses in the moonless shadows until he had poled to the beach. They loaded gear and soon after clearing the reef, the sky began to glow from an indistinct source on the eastern horizon. A whisper entered Compton, like a withered leaf blown from the tree of the unconscious; insignificant, scarcely observed. “Take care of the spear.” The leaf settled, lost among the others, and was instantly forgotten.

They skimmed across a coal oil sea where not a breath of air or a ripple of sea prevailed. In the half-light of dawn the sea contained secrets that appeared to lie just beneath the surface. When they stopped and anchored and Compton submerged beneath the veil of the surface, the secrets became manifest. A low voltage tension carried through the water on its own stream. Schools of fish quivered at the nearness of death, their vulnerability tangible, and there was a bitter taste to the water. It was the time to feed and to be fed upon. In the ink blue water, beyond the visibility of a few feet, lay the vast unknown that simmered like a limitless cauldron fusing potions that had never been drunk. It was the unknown of the mind as it was the unknown in nature and for Compton there was no distinction. In this seething blood boil from which all life emerged there laid its antithesis, the very real possibility of vanishing from the world without a trace. In the acknowledgement of this understanding he became, as he always did when entering the water on the deep reef, hyper-alert, and attempted to listen his way through the water, or smell, if he could, the danger that prowled on the other side of sight. Muscles stiffened and he drew constricted breaths as if he were already deep and breathing through gills.

When the sun had not quite broken the horizon he was able to see the coral reef seventy feet below. It pulsated with a blue glow as though it were gelatinous and floated unattached to the sea floor. The baitfish nervously reflected the tension moving as a single unit, observing with a thousand eyes and sensing with half as many, lateral lines. Now, with every breath the blue hue of the ocean grew lighter and when the sun tipped the horizon the pale blue vanished altogether and the water crystallized and became as the air of dawn.

Compton descended to forty feet and caught the movement at te edge of the reef. Continuing to drop down to sixty feet, he paralleled a large tuna, the sequins of its metallic silver skin catching the light against darkened depths. It’s movement was fluid like liquid stainless steel through clear ice. It exuded a power that he had never witnessed in the water. It was fearless of him and came in close.

Aiming at the spot behind the pectoral fin, he pulled the trigger.  The spear struck the tuna and though the shot was true, the fish bolted to the edge of the reef with a power that was unimaginable. It nearly wrenched the gun from his hand but the gun had gained a significance that only a hunter who had depended of such tools would understand and he would not, could not, let it go. The fish hauled the man to the depths with such ease it was as if he did not exist. Time had taken a warped turn and Compton seemed to be observing the event from the inside out in a kind of slow motion. He was simultaneously equalizing his ears, for the depths became great, as he was kicking furiously trying in some way to turn the fish. Though the fish gave no indication of turning or even acknowledging he was attached to it, he continued to try. He was down well over a hundred feet moving along a coral shelf at a speed that all but dislodged his face mask had he not held it to his face while clearing his ears. He could not stop the fish, and he could not let go of the gun. In the core of this surreal world he realized that the fish would kill him if he did not let go of the gun. It was the constriction in his throat, the desperate need for air, that made the connection to reality that ultimately forced his fingers to open and release the gun. In that instant time resumed its flow and he dared to look up to the surface that appeared light years away, orbiting in another universe. He began a ponderous climb back towards the edge of his own world. As he ascended he watched the fish barrel down the reef and out of sight, the spear gun dancing behind it like some wild stick creature gone berserk. He did not look up at the surface again, for the distance was too great and it would only steal his air at the prospect of his task. But his legs were strong and carried him faithfully, as faithfully as his body had ever responded and when he reached the surface and exhaled a deep breath and inhaled again it was like being reborn into a new body.

Thinking only of his spear gun, he quickly regained himself and swam in the direction the tuna was last heading. At a hundred yards a flash of light in the depths brought him to a halt. At the reef’s edge the tuna struggled against a taunt line that had looped a large coral head. Tremendous pressure was being applied to the line and it appeared to have begun to fray as the struggling fish ran it hard along the razor sharp coral in deep water over a hundred feet. While regaining his breath Compton recalled his premonition and realized the extent of his misjudgment.

Though he had just been to a hundred feet, he did not get there under his own power and, exhausted from the ordeal, did not consider a dive. The fish remained beyond his depth limit. Even if he could have dived to that depth, there was too much pressure on the line to unwrap it. He dove for the fish with scarcely a notion of a plan and half-way down the muffled snap of the line ended all speculation. The tuna surged away from the reef, swimming slowly and vanishing into the blue with twenty feet of line trailing behind it and the spear dangling uselessly at its side. The wooden gun stock, free of the shooting line, seemed to hang in the water but was in fact slowly rising, and when it floated up to sixty feet he swam down and retrieved it. He ascended to the surface and signaled the boat. Moses pulled alongside and Compton tossed in the gunstock sans spear. When he had climbed into the boat Moses asked, ”Was it the Silver Fish?”

Compton picked up the stock and threw it against the thwart. “No, a tuna, a big tuna, over a hundred pounds. It took everything. I to tha’t stop it. I heard the little voice…”

Moses raised his eyebrows as if to speak but said nothing.

“I should have listened,” continued Compton. “It was all there, I knew I would get into a big one. Now I’ve got nothing, no spear, no point, nothing.” Compton paused in thought. “We have to go to Somosomo for a spear shaft.”

“No spear shafts there brother, only the guns.”

“You mean I have to buy another gun just to get a spear shaft?

“That’s right.”

“That‘s ridiculous. What happens when someone loses a spear here?’

“No Fiji man can afford the spear guns and if they have one, they make sure they don’t lose the shaft, like Aprosa. Mostly the Australians buy them and take them when they leave.”

“If that’s the only solution then I guess we buy another gun.”

Moses reached for the spear gun and turned it over in his hand. “There is a man on Taveuni who works with the metal. Maybe he fix it up. You be spearing fish very soon again.”

“Yeah, in the meantime that tuna will go off and die somewhere. It makes me sick to have that happen.”

“It will feed the hunger of the sea, there is no waste, eh.”

The truth of Moses’ words was of little solace as Compton gazed out over the vacant surface of the sea that had consumed more than his spear.

“When are you going to Taveuni?”

“I get a fish first, eh.”

“I’ll pay for the fuel,” pushed Compton.

“It would be a waste to not have a fish to sell. There is time for everything. The fish and the reef have nowhere to go, eh.”

Compton lifted his head and ran a hand through his hair. “Of course you’re right. I’m just pissed at myself. I knew I shouldn’t have taken the shot. I hate being stupid.”

“There is no disgrace in being foolish.”

The skies had turned to gray in the short time Compton had been in the water and Moses began to haul up the anchor. “Rain, coming soon.”

Halfway back to Orchid Beach the skies had gathered and were now unloading with remorseless vengeance. They could not see the island for the gray sheets of rain and before they reached the beach, Compton was obliged to bail out the rising water that gathered in the bottom of the boat.

The rain hammered the thatched roof of the kitchen and the men had to shout to be heard. Compton made tea and its warmth was welcomed. They sipped and listened and shook their heads at the maelstrom that descended and occupied their souls. When the rain finally abated and Compton stood to refill Moses empty cup, he pointed to his formerly infected shins. “The red is gone. Mama Doc’s medicine fix you up good.”

“Yeah, that stuff really worked. Frankly I’m surprised but that could just be my Western mind working out its conflicts.”

“She fix up the children in the village and make their bellies well, also pull the teeth. There is not too many medicine people left on Qamea. There was a good one named Bob. His mother is Diloloma, the number one healer. He was very good even when he was young. One night my friend Steven Morris was drinking with him on that long beach that was my father’s. In the early night, Bob say that a girl would come. The kava made Steven forget but after awhile he saw the light of a boat coming. Four men came ashore and lifted a blanket with a girl inside. She could not move or find her breath. She was dying. Her father was a teacher at the school on Taveuni, an educated man, and he brought her to Bob instead of the hospital. He say there wasn’t enough time for the hospital but everyone knew that he believed in the healer and not the hospital. Bob passed the kava around and then went out and found herbs to mix with the kava. The girl drank it and in ten minutes she was walking and breathing.”

Compton was unable to contain his skepticism. “Could he have planned it out, to fool your friend?”
“No, Steve had been with this fellow all day and all night. They had talked to no one. There was no trick in what he did. It is a knowledge of plants, eh, of the earth medicine.”

“I’d like to meet him. Is he still living on the beach?”

“He is in jail. They arrested him two years ago and put him in jail for being a doctor without permission.”

Compton let out an audible sigh. “What happened to his mother? Is she still around?”

“Diloloma became afraid and moved out of the village. She only heals very sick ones who know the way to her bure in the jungle. She is in sorrow because her son goes crazy in jail.”

“Does anyone else carry on these old healing practices, besides Mama Doc and Dilolomo?”

“Some, but they are all afraid. Everyone knows a little bit, eh. If you want to fix the eyes, you find Jeremiah. If you want to fix the mouth and the belly, you see Ruthie. Mama Doc, she take care of the children.”

“What would happen if they put Mama Doc in jail, where would the village children go?

“They have to go to the hospital on Taveuni but the people who go there get sicker. It be very bad for everyone.”

“I didn’t see many old people at the Half Done Village. What’s the life span of the people on Qamea?”

“Not many old ones in that village but in the Genuine Village they live a long time. They don’t stop, eh. They weave the mats and sometime they fish. There are some who are eighty years. They don’t sit around like the ones in the Half Done Village. They eat the better food but the food is bad in both villages. They eat too much taro and cassava and breadfruit. I learned from my father that you must eat the vegetables and fruit. I tell them but they don’t listen. That is why the women are fat.”

“Maybe they’re not getting enough sex,” Compton said playfully, more curious about Fijian sexual practices than he would wish to reveal.

“If the men screwed them more they might be thinner,”

Moses giggled. “A woman is a woman, eh, fat or thin. Their soul is either alive or dead. Look how beautiful the white woman is. I saw them everyday at the resort. They smile but they never laugh. They look pretty and you want to screw them but they are without themselves. They are unhappy and have a sadness in their eyes they cannot hide. Not Fiji woman. They are always laughing and singing and dancing. When we go to the Genuine Village, you will hear the singing every night.”

“When can we give the village another shot?”

“We must find someone to speak for you. I think Vito do that. I ask him when I’m there. Chief Isikeli have you for savusavu and you take the kava and tobacco. He listen to why you should come into the village and then decide.”

“When are you heading that way?”

“Be in no hurry, Keli. You can’t push the time, eh. It won’t be an easy thing. Jokatama might speak against you. He doesn’t want his daughter to be with you. Chief Isikeli already knows that you are here. I’ll watch and listen for the time. If there is talk, I have Vito speak for you. You have in your favor that you are a spear fisherman. They know you are not like the white people who come to the resort.”

The rain ended its assault and sunlight was piercing the low ceiling like a searchlight, spangling the windswept, white-capped seas, suggesting to Compton an open blue gray mouth flashing glistening, carnivorous teeth.

Moses rose from the table. “No fishing today. Go home and work in the garden before the sun comes out again. Do you wish me to find you some crabs for bait?”

“I’m not a fisherman.”

“Then I give you the pole spear to feed yourself. No big fish, just the little one, eh. You know how to use it? Take the rubber off the gun and tie it off the bottom. Then you…”

Compton waved him off. “I used a pole spear when I was a kid.  Thanks, it will keep me in food.”

Moses handed him thoroughly rusty, almost unrecognizable spear that had lay undetected in the bottom of the boat buried under debris. He felt its heft. “How long have you had this?”

“Many years. The New Zealand man gave it to me, but I never use the spear.”

“Okay, thanks, it’ll have to do.”

26

Moses did not return to Orchid Beach for several days. Perhaps the fishing was poor, reasoned Compton, or the farm was demanding more of his time. He hoped it was nothing more than that. While he missed the conversations, he enjoyed the solitude of the beach and spent time scribbling random notes to himself.

This business of Sinaca and the Sea God is disturbing. There’s no sorting it out. It’s impossible to know the truth.  Whose truths?  My truths seem to be losing validity, while the Fiji truths gain power and momentum. I should be frightened, but I’m not. I’m more curious than frightened. It’s like letting go to the unknown and believing in something that is unbelievable…

Finishing the notes, he realized he had not been wearing his glasses and that he was using them with less frequency. Miraculously, his eyesight had improved since he had been diving with the facemask without the corrective lenses. Under other circumstances he would have been astonished but merely acknowledged yet another unexplained phenomenon and determined that the glasses were no longer of use or value.

Jokatama’s boat hovered at the edge of the coral as Compton set aside his glasses. All on board waved and shouted like old friends.  Jokatama said they were going far around the island this day to hunt for clams and would not be diving these reefs. No invitation to join them was extended and when they swung out again Compton looked for Sinaca. She was among the women, half hidden in the stern, her hand resting on a gunwale. She lifted it ever so slightly when their eyes met and he lifted his hand in the same manner. In that moment he wanted her more then he imagined he could ever want another person and actually felt sick to his stomach as the boat made its turn and disappeared around the point. Were it not for the tide he might have stayed on the sand until he had withered away in morbid despair but the sea rolled to his feet as if to remind him that a sanctuary awaited which would wash away the freshly opened wounds of love.

He descended into a bucolic sea of blood red and vivid purple soft corals that grew out of their stone cousins like mini-explosions of colored gasses that the water held in mysterious suspension. The ivory escarpments of coral ran wild with the multitudes of fish probing the unscented corals like birds feasting in a vast orchard. A light surge, as an indecisive wind, swayed the root bound corals in rhythmic movement to music that was as silent as the orchard was scentless.

Compton speared a small emperor fish with the pole spear and let it dangle at its end until a white tip appeared. Slowly he brought it up, testing his nerve. The shark tracked the invisible bloodline upwards until it was ten feet from the man-creature who floated on the surface, then broke off its pursuit. Compton was tempted to drop the fish down again so the white tip might stick around but the shark meandered off and so he returned to the beach, five feet closer to his fears and relieved of the lovesickness that had earlier consumed him.

Moses appeared in the late afternoon bringing supplies and dinner of breaded eggplant, coconut meat, small potatoes topped with shaved coconut, shallots and peppers. They gorged themselves. In the twilight Moses announced, “Tonight we go fishing. It feels the right thing to do. Tonight we catch a big one.” He bounced down to the beach and began to dig with his foot, searching out the hollow places in the sand that held the crabs.

“These buggers cover their holes better than a Suva virgin.”

Finding a crab, he dug down with his hand and pulled it as scentimmediately plucking out the protruding eyes, flinging it back on the sand where, in its blindness, it held its pinchers high against the black unknown. “Cruel, eh,” he said, eyeing Compton gaping at the helpless creature.

He found three more and blinded them all, picked each up and casually dismembered it as they walked to the boat. Under the afterglow of day, Moses arranged the boat into a loose sort of order and let it drift out over the coral. Baiting the hook with a piece of crab, he swung the line over his head and cast it out into the blackened waters. The third cast produced a small red fish. “This one has the poisonous spines, be very careful.”

“Everything in these waters is either poisonous or toxic or deadly in one way or another,” said Compton flatly. “It’s a miracle you can survive on the sea at all.”

“It is all of life and all of death, all together. I get stung and bitten and infected and sick but I don’t die.” He struck the head of the red fish twice with the handle of the cane knife and tossed the fish aside. They motored over to the East Point where Moses lowered the brake drum anchor. He rigged up a kerosene lantern that hung by a crude wooden support that extended over the side of the boat, this to attract the small bait fish that, like moths, flew to the light, attracting the larger fish that fed upon them, an uncommon nocturnal treat in an otherwise shadowed sea. The lantern was rusty and the fragile support was held together with bits of wire and string and nearly disintegrated when Moses mounted it on the gunwales. In their small universe of light Moses cut up the single red fish, double hooked a piece of meat and lowered the line into the water. He handed the spool to Compton. “Take it down to fifteen feet. If nothing happens right away, take it down to the bottom.” He then cut another piece of bait, hooked it and dropped the line overboard.

Despite the lantern light the spherical sky gathered its stars in platinum trifles, glowing like acetylene blown sparks in the moonless evening. Unfamiliar constellations sprang from every compass point and Compton located what he thought to be the Southern Cross. Moses said no, that it was low, behind the island yet and could not be seen from where they sat. He pointed to a star that rose directly out of the east and rested low on the horizon. “There is the star we place our boats on when we fish the far reefs at night. It is due east and moves straight up from its place.”

“With that single star,” said Compton, “a navigator could find his way just about anywhere. The stars of the Northern Hemisphere swing in great arcs during a night. Only the North Star remains somewhat fixed but it is high and difficult to navigate by.”

“There are others which move little,’ said Moses, “but they are not as bright as that one. More miracles, eh. How can such a thing be there for us?”

“Well, I’m not sure they are there for us.”

“Who is it for if not for us? It is all here for us. The trees, the ocean, the wind, the sky, the stars, the air, all free to use. They cost nothing, eh. They are given. We use what we need and leave the rest for our children…”

Suddenly Moses arm jerked. “Missed it.”

Compton felt his line move and jerk down. “I’ve got one!”

“Pull the bugger up.”

Compton pulled hand over hand and brought up a small, twenty-four inch barracuda.

A change came over Moses. He stopped talking and held the line in one hand gently, almost caressing it, gazing out into the nothingness of the night sea. Every fiber of him concentrated on the line. He did not move or utter a sound for five full minutes.

No fish came.

“That must have been the only hungry fool in the school. We go to the bottom.” He quickly let out line and Compton followed suit. Suddenly Moses jerked the line and hauled up another barracuda the same size. Then Compton caught one and another after that. Moses ht ht two more and they waited, expecting the biting to continue, staring at the line, saying nothing, waiting for God to show up.

Compton’s line jerked with tremendous force and the line thundered out of his hand in a blaze, the spool jumping crazily, disgorging itself in the bottom of the boat.

“Pull it! Pull it hard!” shouted Moses. “Stop the fish! Set the hook!”

Compton was reluctant to tighten his grip on the line for fear it would cut deeply into his hand. “It’s going too fast!”

Moses reached over beneath Compton’s hand and grabbed the line and pulled back with a mighty heave, standing up as he did. An instant later the line went slack and he nearly fell backward into the sea. “Too late, we give him too much line. That was a big mackerel or barracuda, maybe a jack. We are in the right spot.”

Moses re-baited the hook with a piece of barracuda and lowered the line again. Compton was as keyed up as Moses now and all his focus was on the line. After fifteen minutes with no activity, he began to feel dizzy in the rolling boat on the blackened sea and tried to refocus on the stars, embarrassed by the sickness that was overtaking him. Sensing Compton’s discomfort, Moses relaxed his vigil and began to tell one of his Fiji stories when his lined jerked and he pulled in a small jack that made a strange guttural sound, which he imitated. “That’s how we call the mackerel.” Compton attempted to mimic the sound and Moses burst out laughing, “That sounds more like a poofta doing a job on somebody’s dick.”

“How would you know?” asked Compton. They were both laughing when the lantern went out.

“Shit, the lantern is out of fuel,” muttered Moses. He brought down the lantern and its support, lifted the oars and began to row back to the beach.

“When the current is right, it is better to move without the noise of the engine. I’ll use the jack tomorrow and troll for marlin. I caught one last August on the deep reef with the hand line. I fought it four hours. My hands bled and were sore for a week. They took my picture at the Indian store when I brought it in.”

“That sounds right out of Hemingway.”

“Where is Hemingway?”

“It’s not a place, it’s a man.”

“Same thing, eh.”

27

The water appeared as a plane of glass off the beach, its clarity so sharp that Compton could easily see schools of colorful fish hovering about coral heads like otherworldly bees suspended on a kaleidoscopic hive. The current was running strong from east to west and he had to swim in shallow on his way to the East Point to avoid the apex of its flow. When he reached the far point, in the transition zone where the fish collected, there was a lee in the current just inside the point. There the water was still as a pond and the fish population seemed oblivious to the energy that raged by its shores. Encouraged by last night’s bite, he wanted to scout the outside water for mackerel or jacks but the current prevented any diving, for just holding position against it would take all one’s strength and leave nothing for the dive, so he stayed close to the reef and worked the caves.

Feeling particularly sharp this day, he took two good shots with the pole spear within the first hour and inexplicably missed the fish completely. In the next hour he attempted to stalk the relatively easy emperor fish but missed yet another opportunity. The sharpness felt earlier gave way to the sense that something was out of place in the water and while he could feel it on some dim level, he could not quite identify it. It was similar to being in a familiar room and having a piece of furniture moved just enough for the room to look the same but be different. There emerged an ominous feel to it and it was pervasive enough to send him to the outside so that he might catch the current back to the refuge of the beach.

Diving to fifteen feet, he caught the full force of the current that propelled him like a petrel on a thermal lift. Flying as that selfsame bird and in the survey of the sea, he saw at the fringe of his visibility, in the brilliantly clear water, a shape materialize. It was a mammoth creature, a whale, running at the edge of the drop off, heading in his direction. In his elation he moved to intercept. It would a first encounter with a whale. It was either a bull pilot whale or perhaps a gray. In the moments that passed, as the creature came into clear view, he realized with crippling fear that it was not a whale at all but a shark, one of gigantic proportions. If it remained on its present course it would pass twenty feet beneath him and thirty feet to his right on the outside. It was greenish brown, the color of a tiger shark but too big to be a tiger shark, too wide, too long. Now he could see it clearly and judged its size to be twenty-five feet in length and five feet across the back with four-foot long pectoral fins jutting out on either side of its body. Its overall width was close to thirteen feet. Such statistics with the shark nearly upon him were insignificant, for they couldn’t begin to convey the awesome power and omnipotence of the beast. Compton was consumed with his imminent death and struck immobile in full body paralysis. The shark moved with effortless speed and with a will that obliterated every idea of shark that had ever been conjured in his most morbid fantasies. A dark, broken line near its tail was its only marking against the bile color of its skin. Its mouth was slightly ajar and exposed a set of primordial teeth that launched him into a pre-shock numbness that terminated all thought. The creature rolled slightly to its left for a better look at him and in its cold, black eye there was reflected the dull instinct to feed. Compton’s heart pounded like a jackhammer, signaling the terror, the surrender of a helpless prey. Though the pole spear was pointing in the direction of the shark it would have had no more effect that the prick of a pin on a charging rhinoceros.

The shark inexplicably peeled off toward the deep fringe and was out of sight in moments. Compton could not move. It required a supreme effort to get his legs to respond. Terrified to his core, he slid from reef to reef hugging their edges as a wounded animal might when adrift on the Serengeti, awaiting the return of its executioner. It was in this way that he was able to work his way into the beach. In that short swim he speculated what might have occurred had he been carrying a bleeding fish, which was usually the case. Thoughts of Sinaca and her alliance with the Sea God bloomed in his contorted imagination.

Compton was sitting on the beach in his dive gear when Moses came in the boat.

“I was working in the garden and got a terrible feeling,“ he said. “I came straight away.”

Compton told the story, describing the shark and its markings near the tail. “What kind of shark was it?”

Moses gazed out past the coral line where the shark had swum, blinked and licked his lips before slowly turning to Compton. “It was the Sea God.”

Compton smiled in acknowledgement of the observation. “Well, if ever there was a Sea God, that was it. But what’s the species?”

“It was a tiger,” said Moses, resuming his gaze on the water. “But everyone knows it is the Sea God. Very dangerous shark. Only one other man has seen the Sea God when he was in the water and lived and that was before I was born.”

Compton wiped his mouth with his forearm.

“You have no worries,” continued Moses. “If the shark did not eat you, that means you are safe from all sharks.”

Compton turned his attention to the water as if to see what Moses was fixed on and gave a slight shudder. “It moved so quickly, and it was so powerful. Like coming across a prehistoric beast that you thought was extinct. It could have taken me easily. I was helpless, absolutely, totally helpless.”

“if to seewill happen, Keli,” said Moses, studying the Tasman Strait as if something or someone was about to appear, “now that you have seen the Sea God?”

“What do you mean, what will happen?”

“A Paramount Chief on Taveuni died in August. It was less than a hundred days ago. Seeing the Sea God is a sign to all islands. The shark is looking for a sacrifice to honor the dead chief. No one wants to sacrifice a villager from their island. It brings shame for a wrong doing. This shark has protected Qamea because nothing happened to you.”

“Moses, if I hadn’t seen that shark then none of this would have meaning. I think you’re attaching significance to something that… It wouldn’t have been a sacrifice, it would’ve been a shark attack. A regular, read-about-it-in-the newspaper shark attack.”

“But you did see, Keli. That changes things, eh.”

“I would’ve been a sacrifice rather than a victim? Is that what you’re saying? I suppose it wouldn’t have made any difference to me because I would have been dead.”

“Yes, but you are not dead, but you should be. Chief Isikeli will want to see you now. You have honored him.”

“That’s all it took? I see a shark and now I’m an honored visitor?”

“You will be more than a honored visitor, brother.”

“You don’t suppose Sinaca became the shark so that I would be accepted in the village,” scoffed Compton.

Moses apparently had not considered this possibility and snapped his head around. “Tell no one those thoughts.” He spoke sharply and Compton was taken aback by its intensity. Before he could respond, Moses strode purposefully off towards the boat. “There is much to do.”

28

A skiff bearing two men at the oars and a third in the bow came around to the beach the next day. The man in the bow spoke Fijian and a younger man at the starboard oar translated in broken English. “Keli come to Vatusogosogo tomorrow for savusavu with Chief Isikeli?” Moses was also invited and would act as translator. Compton said that he would be honored. The three men bowed slightly and shoved off the beach, laboring on the oars against the current up around the East Point, presumably in search of Moses.

Moses arrived the next afternoon on a southwesterly wind, which ruffled the far seas, churning white water in mid-channel. The boat was filled with sacks of belle and taro root. Out of one of the bags he lifted a parcel wrapped in newspaper. Inside was a carton of cigarettes and a carefully wrapped cloth containing a quantity of powered kava.

“Seven dollars for the cigarettes and kava. It is good kava, four years old.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” said Compton. “What astounds me is how those men who came yesterday found out so fast that I had seen the shark?”

“It is amazing thing, the Fiji communication. The messages spread from person to person. I told the first fisherman I met. He was not going to the village but he told the next fisherman who was, and off it goes. You tell one person on the sea and no matter where the message is to go, even to the far islands, it is passed along. Gifts of food are given for the trouble. It is better that way, eh. People stay close in friendship. We must go. You have what you need for many days?”

“How long will I be there?”

“You might be there for a week, maybe more.”

Compton gathered his bag and climbed into the boat. They swept down the island and around the West Point and into the bay of the resort, which was sheltered against the southwesterly. They rode the smooth water across the bay towards the Half Done Village, then turned east up the deep bay where green jungle met the water line.  On the opposite shore, Vatusogosogo, the Genuine Village, rose sharply up the hillside in the golden hues of twilight that colored the thatched huts ocher and ignited the coconut trees into spies of crimson flames. In this near magical light the village was breathtaking in its profound rootedness to the earth, trimmed shrubs and whitewashed rock lined pathways framed in flowerbeds spewing vibrant and exotic tinctures. People, brown and handsome in brightly colored dress as flowerbeds themselves, walked from hut to hut. Moses deposited Compton on the shoreline with the sacks of goods and then anchored the boat. He slogged ashore in the mud with his sulu raised up around his thighs. High on the hillside children ran towards them from every direction like flowers bowled on the evening breeze. They gathered in chestnut clusters around the two men and strung out behind them as they began to walk, cherubic faces shining with expectation. The men followed a dirt path up a steep incline and came upon two half-naked men working on the bare bones of a bure. One of the men was fitfully powerful in arm and shoulder, with dark eyes and a wide, sensual mouth. He was as handsome a man as Compton had ever seen. Moses introduced him as Lukey and his voice was as soft as his body was hard. He spoke proudly of their undertaking and Moses offered his compliments. After handshakes all around they continued their climb up the hill, passing open kitchens filled with families busy preparing the evening meal. Everyone lifted their eyebrows and extended broad welcoming smiles.

Near the far west end of the village, midway to the top of the hill, Moses came to a halt in front of a bure where appeared a rail-thin woman with tombstone teeth and a wide smile, who stood at attention in the doorway. Moses introduced her to Compton as Lavenia, wife of Vito. Her skin was the color of light chocolate and her nose saddled with a grove of freckles. Compton could not help but grin when he shook her hand. Lavenia good-naturedly shooed away the flock of children who had gathered like moths around this strange fire and led Compton into the bure. The interior was similar to Moses’ bure and Compton suspected that all bures of this type were more or less the same, clean and appointed with only the bare essentials -- a woven matted floor, a single wooden bed and a small dressing table. They sat in the middle of the floor and, while Lavenia passed the latest gossip to Moses, he translated. She maintained direct eye contact with Compton as though she were speaking to him. Vito was out in the bush collecting sweet potato. Her three children were off doing the laundry in a nearby stream. Cousins had gone to Suva. A wedding was planned soon for the son of a brother. The garden was doing well since the last hurricane.

Their conversation was interrupted by three children who appeared in the doorway obediently waiting to be invited inside the bure. The smallest was a boy introduced as Jack, who, with a sad smile revealed blackened stubs of rotten baby teeth. Beside him was his older brother, Paul, perhaps ten with an oversized head and dark, watery eyes. Carrying a full load of laundry was a young girl introduced as Kanesi. In her early teens, with her mother’s light skin and large, intelligent, almond shaped eyes with thick curling lashes and high cheekbones, she was beautiful. Lavenia sent her off to fetch Vito in the bush and she returned minutes later with him in hand.

After introductions Vito led the way outside to the kitchen with young Jack resting in the crook of his arm. Vito, considerably older than Lavenia, was lean and strong in the body, his forehead inclined at a severe angle and his cheekbones unusually high, accenting wizened eyes that blinked intelligence and wit.

The kitchen was a square, separate structure, open midway to the ceiling. A fire burned in a raised pit where a steaming black kettle rested on an iron sheet. Shelves were filled with the similar cookware found in Mariah’s kitchen and they all sat at a rough-cut bench. While Lavenia poured lemon grass tea, Vito and Moses spoke earnestly in Fijian. A white dog came and sniffed at Compton and half a dozen chickens strayed through the dirt floor ecking for loose bits of food. Vito and Moses concluded their talk and in the last light Moses said to Compton, “It is time. They are waiting.”

Darkness, as it is want to do in the tropics, descended quickly from twilight and Compton stumbled up an eroded path behind Vito and Moses. The community silently watched the small procession from their kitchens. The quietude spoke of the event and its profound effect on everyone in the village. Compton could clearly sense something but could not put a name to it, like a dog picking up unregistered scents in an exotic garden. They arrived at the top of the hill where an old woman asked them to wait in a darkened bure twenty yards below that of the Chief’s. Moses instructed Compton to follow his every move once they entered the Chief’s bure. “Be humble, show no arrogance,” cautioned Moses.

Compton was first puzzled then a bit put off.  “Do you think I’m arrogant?”

Moses waved him off. “Now is not the time to tell you what I think.”

The woman returned and beckoned them into the bure of Chief Isikeli. Vito entered first followed by Moses and then Compton. The bure was much larger than any Compton had seen. It was empty except for an exquisite palm mat that covered the floor. Isikeli sat on the floor in front of a flickering lantern. He wore a dark sula, his chest bare and sagging with age. His eyes were narrowed to slits and his full head of white hair glowed in the recondite light. He produced a stately wave of his hand and the three men sat on the floor to face him. Vito began to speak in rapid, non-stop Fijian for five minutes. Isikeli listened without comment or expression. Vito then presented the kava and the cigarettes. Isikeli picked them up and held them aloft with a grand gesture, then spoke in an even, strong, voice. He then abruptly stood and the three men also rose and stood to face him. He crossed the room and shook Compton’s hand and said, “Welcome” in English. This was followed by words in Fijian, which Moses translated. “Now you are a member of this village. Your body and your soul is of this village. You are a brother and will forever be welcome.”

Vito, Moses and Compton walked out into the spectral light of the stars and, as apparitions themselves, floated back down the hillside. The sound of music wafted up the hillside to greet them, a lilting song in harmonies undisclosed accompanied by ukuleles and a guitar. The moment and its magic escaped Compton and he asked Moses what Vito had said.

“He say that you have come a great distance to honor the village and pay your respects and to please excuse the mistakes you might have made when you first came to the village.”

“That was it? That was all he said? Surely there was more to it than that. Didn’t he tell him about the shark?”

Moses held up his hand slightly and gave a sharp look, which terminated all conversation.

They returned to Vito’s bure where bowls had been laid out to mix the kava. A lantern was lit and Lukey appeared almost as if drawn by the fire, then an elder whose name was Tom arrived soon after, and Aprosa, who greeted Compton warmly. And finally, Isikeli himself.

They sat in a circle as Vito dipped and raised the coconut cup of liquid that spilled into the large wooden bowl. Gauging its color, he squeezed more kava or added more to perfect the brew. When it was blended to his liking he raised a cup into the air and issued a salutation. The cup was lowered and passed to Moses who translated. “Welcome our brother, Keli, from America, an honored member of this village and welcomed member of this house. Let us drink until daylight.”

Moses gave the cup to Compton who drank it down. The circle of men clapped twice and in unison said the word “mothay.” The cup was passed back and refilled and given to Chief Isikeli who raised it and made a brief pronouncement that all agreed to, then emptied it in one swallow. The group clapped again and repeated “mothay.The formalities completed, everyone seemed to sigh collectively and the countenance of the group changed dramatically. Casual conversation sprang up as the cup was passed in the other direction and each in the circle had their turn except Aprosa who nodded at the cup when he held it but did not drink.

Compton, for lack of conversational direction more than anything else, asked Moses what the word mothay meant.

“It is spelled m-o-c-e, and it means to sleep,” replied Moses. “But it could also mean good night.”

“But the night has just begun.”

“Yes, and it will be a good night, eh.”

When the cup had finished its rounds Isikeli asked Moses to translate as he spoke to Keli. “It is an honor to have the man who saw the Sea God in our village. It brings great respect to have a man of courage sit at the circle. I must ask you from which direction did it come? Was it swimming with the current or against the current? What did it do when it saw you? In what direction did it swim off?”

Compton answered each question accurately, for he had replayed the entire incident repeatedly in his mind’s eye and was certain that he would continue to play it for the rest of his life. Isikeli’s last question was of great importance and Compton had to be most specific in his description of the shark’s direction when it vanished into the depths. “North” was not sufficient.

“There are many islands north of here,” explained Moses, who then drew on the floor the high marks of various islands and Compton pointed to the one in the direction the shark swam.

“Rabi,” declared Moses solemnly.

All nodded in agreement. Vito lifted a bowl and another round of kava was drunk, apparently putting to a close all questioning regarding the Sea God and thus validating Compton’s role as witness to the affair.

Lavenia joined the group. She was handed a bowl and drank and suddenly shrieked in a high pitched voice. A moment later a female voice screeched a sharp reply from out of the darkness fifty yards away. The men burst into convulsive laughter. The two women continued to shout their conversation at the top of their lungs for the next five minutes. The absurdity of it had Compton laughing along with the others, though he had no clue what was being exchanged.

The evening was warm and all the men, except the eldest, Tom, and Compton, had their shirts off. The smell of their sweat, the earthy aftertaste of the kava, the dancing flame in the lantern reflecting on the glistening bodies, the clucking sounds of a primal tongue, all removed Compton from any suggestion of the century from which he had so recently journeyed. A deep sense of wellbeing pervaded him and settled profoundly in his belly and he stared at the flame in the lantern and unconsciously began to rock back and forth where he sat, as if music were playing inside of him. Vito saw this and nodded to him. Compton did not respond. Instead he, trance-like, removed his shirt, thus making the transformation complete. A warm energy seeped into his skin, permeating his eyes and brain with a growing sense of rightness that his body understood and embraced. There were no words for it. He scarcely knew, much less understood, what was happening but instinctively relaxed and allowed it to unfold.

Well into the second or third hour -- Compton had lost track -- he believed he was beginning to understand the conversations. When they began to speak about white men, he became more certain of it. Lukey spoke to Compton in English as if he had participated in all aspects of the conversation over the last few hours.

“I have seen the white men in the resorts. They very weak. I think the money make’ em weak, eh.”

“Money can make anyone weak,” replied Moses. “It is a strange hunger, money. The weakest Fijian is stronger than the man who wears the gold around his neck.”

“I have watched them,” said Aprosa. “They walk full of strength but they lack theselves, their eyes hold much fear.”

“Not all white people are this way,” explained Compton. “But the ones you see at the resort are more likely to have money because it costs so much to stay there. They believe their money can buy them the strength they lack.”

“We are better off with our poorness,” said Moses. “Money cannot buy what the heart lacks. Money cannot buy the beauty that is in Fiji.”

Compton seemed to awake from his slumber and shook his head in disagreement. All in the circle turned to him. In a compelling voice Moses had not heard he said, ”You are wrong about that, Moses. Unfortunately money can buy the beauty of Fiji. Money can destroy Fiji as it’s destroyed Hawaii and Tahiti and a hundred other similar island paradises.” Moses translated his words and the circle grew somber. Vito poured more kava and the men pulled out their leaf tobacco and tore newspaper and smoked pensively. “Money is a force,” Compton continued, “that is difficult for those without it to realize. It can do great good as it can destroy. It is the ultimate power in the world today. Never underestimate that power,” added Compton softly, almost to himself. Isikeli muttered something but the others remained silent and finished their tobacco, pondering the significance of Compton’s words.

When the smoke was done the conversation picked up again in the familiar lighthearted fashion as before.

The kava was being drunk in heroic quantities. The four-gallon container had been refilled and Vito was squeezing a fresh batch. At the open door behind him, out of the black void of night and into the yellow, smoky, lantern light, stepped Sinaca. She wore a white sula and had a large, white flower in her hair. Lavenia made a place for her and she sat without acknowledging Compton. Taking her cue, he refrained from openly staring but nonetheless stole glances whenever he could. Out of the water she possessed nobility and a presence that was more feminine, with less the raw animal power she generally displayed. Though she was a woman of sublime beauty, he thought it most peculiar that the men paid little attention to her. Lavenia, not one to miss much, caught Compton’s furtive glances and raised an eyebrow in recognition. She nudged Sinaca, who then gave him a full smile that brought involuntary warmth to his face. The bowl of kava was handed to her and she grasped it with graceful hands, tilting it up, exposing an elegant throat, and swallowed the liquid as sweat rolled down the center of Compton’s back.

Moses rose to go outside to relieve himself and Compton followed, stumbling in the pitch blackness. “That kava make banana leaf of your knees brother, be careful.”

“It’s not the kava, it’s Sinaca. She’s so beautiful. How did she know I was here?”

Moses shook his head in mild disbelief. “Everyone in the village knows you are here. Sinaca came to see you.”

“Is it all right for her to do that? Is it proper?”

“Oh yes, anyone is welcome after the men have spoken their business.” He paused for a moment. “Be very careful with that girl. Things must be done the Fiji way. Already Lavenia knows about you two. Soon the village knows, eh. You must be patient. Keep your brain in front of your prick.”

“That’s easy to say, hard to do.”

“Don’t make it hard, brother.” Moses began to giggle and Compton caught the giggles as well. They stood with their peckers in hand, laughing hysterically. “Shit, I pissed on my foot,” cursed Moses, and their laughter reached new crescendos. They returned to the circle with tears on their cheeks and, as Compton crossed over the center of the circle where Sinaca had casually stretched a leg, he brushed against it with his foot, igniting a voltage that ran up his thigh and lay crackling in his stomach.

Compton feigned indifference poorly and eventually succumbed to his desires and could not refrain from showering long, steady glances at Sinaca. However, it was less obvious if her feet became his study and in that discretion so went his eyes. Her feet were almost as large as his own, which was not unusual. All Fijians had enormous feet but hers remained a fascination in their singular prodigiousness. There was a power in their size alone but beyond that, the symmetry of muscle and bone structure gave him twinges. Then there was the wide perfect toes, brown as macadamia nuts with that beige underbelly that spoke to him in colors of sex and play of the kind he had never known. Never had he studied a foot such as this nor seen one that so attracted him. She was born with a pair of swim fins, he mused. It’s no wonder she could out swim me. One leg was well hidden, tucked as it was under the sula. However, a muscular calf, as dark and sinewy as mahogany, stretched out across the circle, smooth and protracted. He could almost smell the beads of sweat that glistened on that sweet skin. She kept her eyes hidden and to look into them might have been more than he could bear but her laughter with Lavenia displayed her perfect white teeth and the sight of her pink tongue stirred his loins to distraction. He noted the ease with which her laughter came and it fed his hunger. Lost in his delicious distractions he became startled when she abruptly stood and bid everyone “Vinaka,” giving Compton a parting glance before exiting into the night. He wanted to follow her, believing that perhaps that was the signal she was sending but his kava-addled brain swirled in indecision and he sat in a stupor unable to make a move towards the door. Lavenia called something out to the darkness, which generated hoots of laughter from the men. She looked at Compton and raised her eyebrows in the way of a shared secret.

After a short eternity of internal discussion and further wavering, Compton rose to his feet and staggered for the door. Moses guided him and followed him out.

“How are you doing, brother?” asked Moses.

“Should I have followed her? I was afraid of making an impropriety.”

“On this night you did the proper thing,” affirmed Moses.

“The kava is ruining me. I can’t go much longer. I don’t want to offend but I can barely stand up.”

“There is no offence when a person has had enough. It is not a sign of weakness. Do not worry about it.”

They returned to the circle and after another couple of rounds Compton lifted his hands in surrender. “No, thank you, I’ve had enough.”

Lavenia motioned him outside and led him to the kitchen where she served up cabbage cooked in coconut milk. He ate with a dead palate and upon returning to the main bure only Vito, Isikeli and Moses were left in the circle, slumped immobile, enveloped in their narcotic cocoons. He walked by them unnoticed and crawled under the netting. Lavenia also retired and slept with the children in the bed. When Compton awoke in the night the lantern was still going, Moses was sleeping next to him under the netting and Vito was curled up on the floor snoring fitfully, wrapped in a blanket to protect from the mosquitoes.

The next morning, drunk and prostrate beneath the netting, Compton listened to voices in the kitchen for an hour before groggily rising and stumbling outside wearing the same clothes he had slept in. The kitchen fire was going and Lavenia offered a cup of lemon grass tea.  In English, Vito said, “Low tide,” and gestured toward Compton. Moses giggled as Compton drank the tea and blearily watched women gather at the stream that ran along the far side of the kitchen, collecting water in plastic containers. Collectively they peeked into the open kitchen to view “the Man who saw the Sea God,” and smiled shyly when their curiosity had been satisfied.

Breakfast was pawpaw and rice cooked in coconut milk. Moses would be leaving on the tide and would be back in a few days. After breakfast everyone accompanied him down to the mangroves. Little Jack reached for Compton’s hand and walked proudly by his side. Viage children gathered from all corners of the hill and waved Moses off in a princely fashion. When he rounded the mangroves and had disappeared from sight, Lavenia grasped Compton’s hand and led him up the steep hill with the children parading behind. They stopped in front of an old bure where an elderly woman sat beside the door burnishing palm fronds over a stone. She and Lavenia exchanged words and out from the open doorway walked a short, rotund man with a high forehead and a wide, gum-filled smile, who introduced himself as David.

“You are Keli, the Man who saw the Sea God,” said David in crisp English.

“I expect that’s how I’ve come to be known,” replied Compton, embarrassed by the rather odd moniker that now seemed to have taken a life of its own.

“It is an honor. Only one other from this village has seen the Sea God from under the water. It is a frightful thing to see from a boat, eh. You spear the big wailu, also.”

“You know about that?”

“The village is like a person, eh, one thing with many eyes and ears. Come, I take and show you.”

Compton turned to say goodbye to Lavenia but she was already well down the hill with the children in tow. David led Compton down a narrow path into the jungle. They walked single file for a hundred yards then turned into a trail that had just recently been cut away. Coming to a small clearing, David stopped and gestured to a stone that was the size and height of a man and appeared to be growing out of the ground.

“This is the Rain Stone,” he said. “There is no other stone like it on the island. In times of no rain it was beaten with a special rod by our great grandfathers who blackened themselves with ash and dressed in leaves. They would attack it and beat it like a man until the rain came.”

“Did this ritual stop because it didn’t bring rain?” asked Compton.

“No, no. If you beat it, rain will come. But the missionaries have brought God and he decides to bring the rain if we are bad or good.”

“Cut me a stick with your cane knife.”

David smiled with the uncertainty of the freshly baptized. “This island needs much rain. The rivers are low and maybe this stone could use a good beating, eh.” He reluctantly cut away a green branch and handed it to Compton who gave the stone a good whack.

Smiling now with the certainty of the saved, a new and forgotten gleam in his eye, “No, you must beat it very hard,” enthused David.

Compton spit on his hands and began to flail away on the stone like a mad man, giving it the sort of lashing the priests of the Inquisition would look upon with favor. His display was a good deal more than David was prepared for, and his ever-present smile became tight-lipped and his eyes grew wide as he became uneasy in his movements. Compton tired eventually and his breaths came short and, having broken a good sweat, it was with everlasting relief to David that he finally tossed the rod into the jungle. “Well, that ought to do it. We don’t want to start a flood or anything.”

A nervous smile returned to David, convinced that the sighting of the Sea God had affected Keli in ways that would bear further discussion by the village elders. Remaining the good host, he replied, “It has been a long time since anyone has come to the stone for rain. I can’t recall it ever getting such a fine beating. Soon the village might call you the Rain Man who saw the Sea God.”

They followed the cut path back to the beaten trail and continued east.

“The missionaries took away more than your Rain Stone,” said Compton. “They changed your whole way of life.”

“Yes, we were very bad people until they came. We ate our brothers.”

“You mean the cannibalism?”

“Yes, very bad. We are shamed for what our great grandfathers did and we try to live good lives now.”

They turned up a path that broke away from the main trail. Here the jungle was thick and crept in a darkness that discouraged transgression.

“So which god do you believe in?” asked Compton. “The missionaries’ God or the Sea God?”

“There must be a God to save evil people but we must eat and live, eh,’ replied David. “The sea and land are not evil so they don’t need a special God to forgive their sins.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” said Compton, smiling.

David returned the smile. “You could not hear it, eh.”

They came to a clearing that brought light from the caliginous vegetation and within its confines there grew a small settlement of a half-dozen bures. From out of the largest strode none other than Jokatama. Immediately Compton glanced about but only children were in evidence. They were greeted warmly by Jokatama and were ushered into his bure and there introduced to his wife, a massive woman with as large a head as Compton had ever seen who, in direct contrast to her size, moved ever-so-lightly on her feet. She left the room and returned with tea, serving the men who sat on the wooden floor that was without mat or cushion. Jokatama was considerably friendlier than the last time Compton had seen him on the beach. “Welcome to my home, Keli. You are the Man who saw the Sea God. You dive with us, eh. You dive again many times.”

“You’ve been most generous to allow me to dive with your family,” responded Compton. “Do they all live here in this settlement of yours?”

Jokatama answered proudly, “Yes, everyone, cousins, brothers, aunts, uncles, children. We make it from the timber that comes from the resort. Cut it with the chain saw, make it strong for when the hurricane comes.”

“You should be well protected here in the jungle. The hurricane would have trouble finding you.”

“The hurricane goes where it pleases. If it wants my small bure it will find it.”

A light tapping of rain could be heard on the thatched roof and within moments the drizzle erupted into a gushing downpour.

“Keli beat the Rain Stone,” proclaimed David. “Give it a good beating. Now we must call him the Rain Man who saw the Sea God.”

“It is true, you beat the Rain Stone? Have you come to bring back the old ways? Be careful the preacher doesn’t hear about this.”

Both he and David rocked with laughter. “He will get some strong boys to throw you off the island,” added David.

The rain abruptly ceased.

“That was hardly enough rain to give me credit for renewing the old ways. Surely the preacher can overlook a small shower.”

“He is already troubled by your presence,” said Jokatama. “He is afraid you might be the One.”

“Which one is that?” asked Compton, seeking the punch line to the joke.

None was forthcoming and David stood and handed his teacup to Jokatama’s wife who had reentered the room by way of some mysterious signal. “We must return to the village,” said David, the unease having crept back into his face. Jokatama led them outside and bid an affable farewell. Compton scanned the compound for Sinaca and, though he couldn’t find her, sensed that she knew he was here and was watching him.

They followed another trail deep into the jungle where the trees grew into one another and obscured the light altogether save for that which filtered through a canopy so thick one could probably walk easily on its surface. David pointed to a particular tree whose root structure, much like the mangroves, was well above the ground and supported a tree whose trunk began ten feet above their heads. Atop the maze of roots the tree towered far above all others in the jungle. Nearly obscured, on the other side of the dense rooting, was a darkened, withered old bure, which David said was the home of the healer, Dilolomo.

“Could we go and meet her?” inquired Compton.

“She has no visitors who are not with sickness. When the hurricane crushed my bure and threw a piece of bamboo into my daughters eye, Dilolomo fixed her up.”

“You have no bure now?”

“No, I live with my in-laws but we are going to build a new one soon.”

“Does it cost much to build a bure?”

“If you use nails and cement you need the money. Sometimes I am the diving guide for the resort. They treat me favorably because I sing on the weekends.”

“You are a singer of songs?”

“The genuine Fiji songs. There is five of us. We are paid three dollars and fifty cents to sing and play our music. We love to sing. We would sing every night for nothing.”

The two men passed a stream where several young girls bathed naked in calf-deep water. Pendants of river water clung to their wooly hair and their round black buttocks glistened in the morning sun. It was not unnatural for them to be bathing in a public place but it was improper to stop and stare. David reminded Compton of this when the girls became self-conscious in their movements.

The trail led back to the village. They went directly to Lavenia’s kitchen where David spoke briefly with her and then politely excused himself. Compton had the feeling he was more under guard than a guest and under no circumstances would he be let out of anyone’s sight. Beneath the friendliness ran a vein of conspiracy and he wondered if it had anything to do with Sinaca or simple concern for his welfare or something else, something more foreboding.

While Lavenia cooked taro root Compton sat at the table and drank lemon grass tea. They tried to converse in Fijian but the magic of last night was gone and communication was hopeless. He could not distinguish the subtle clucks and intonations of the language and, taking another tack, pointed to his nose, saying in English the world, “nose.”  Lavenia repeated the word precisely. Encouraged, he began identifying parts of the body and Kenesi and Paul eagerly joined the lesson. Soon he was walking about the kitchen naming various articles of cookware. The girls were quick and Kenesi, eyes alight with intelligence, was particularly bright. Compton had an impulse to spirit her away from this choking poverty. In the western world her intellectual potential could be realized and her beauty would open doors to a comfortable life. But would she become another man’s object or worse? And how would that life distort and probably destroy her Fijian values and pure spirit? In the end, he concluded, it would probably do more harm than good. For all that western civilization could offer, she was better off here.

In the course of a few hours the family had built a vocabulary of over seventy-five words. Though he attempted to speak Fijian, the words sounded very much the same and unless spoken slowly, which the Fijians never did, one could spend a week and not have the vocabulary the family had acquired in two hours.

Vito returned from the bush in the late afternoon and inspected the kava root that had been drying out all day in the sun. Breaking the root into small pieces, he placed them in a tree stump that had been hollowed out at the top, creating an opening eight inches in diameter and two feet deep. With a baseball bat sized wooden club, similar perhaps to the war clubs his ancestors used to bludgeon their enemies before roasting them into “long pig,” Vito began to pound the root into powder. In rhythmic blows he worked up a sweat, the dull sounds echoing across the village calling to Lukey who, with two young men, arrived and began to take turns on the club, pounding the root with a vigor seldom seen in Fijians. What had begun as a ceremonial ritual was now an every night occurrence. Or in all probability, was a regular practice. In any case, Compton thought it strange that here was a group within a community, in the heart of paradise, without any evidence of stress or moral deficiency or lack of love or communal caring, which regularly indulged in the use of a drug. They were, as far as he could ascertain, addicted to it. Yet no communal judgment was decreed against those wo participated nor any stigma conferred upon them. Perhaps they understood it was in man’s nature to alter his state of consciousness and such proclivities were accepted as a part of life and not judged harshly by a compassionate and benevolent society.

Compton was offered the club and he pounded for ten minutes before turning it back to Vito. Bathed in sweat, he felt remarkably clear of the narcotic cobwebs that had shrouded his brain throughout the better part of the day and wondered how many more kava nights he had left in him and if he, too, would become an addict given enough time.

In the early evening, unable to tolerate the kava on an empty stomach, Compton had dinner with the children. The circle of David, Lukey, Vito and Tom were waiting for him and had already been passing the cup when he joined them.

Apparently Moses had mentioned the sexual practices of those in the States, for in the second hour Vito asked through David, “How much do the men have sex in America?”

Compton enjoyed any opportunity to be included and if sex was to be the topic, all the better.

“Well, it’s hard for me to speak for the entire population but I would guess that would average three times a week, quite a bit more for the younger ones.”

Lukey let out a low whistle.

“Is it the woman who make the push?” asked Vito.

“More often it’s the men,” replied Compton.

“Why,” asked Vito perplexed, “would the man want to weaken himself this way?”

“The men believe they are in need of sex more than the woman.”

Everyone in the circle laughed, including Lavenia.

“The woman are cunning,” said Lukey. “They trick the man, eh.”

“If they are,” replied Compton, “then they’ve been tricking us since we were small boys.”

“It is in the woman’s interest to trick,” explained David. “They must begin early. The daughter watches. It is passed along, eh.”

“Well, I’m sure there’s not a conspiracy going on,” said Compton, who was not sure at all. “At least a conscious one,” he added in afterthought.

“Who is in control of the house?” asked Lavenia.

“The man believes that he’s in control but my father wasn’t and I haven’t seen many men who are. The woman pretends she’s not in control but looking at it from afar, it’s easy to see the pretense. Moses seems to think it’s all tied into sex.”

They all laughed again and nodded their heads in agreement. “It is always the sex,” acknowledged David. “How is the man of America so foolish?”

“I don’t have an answer for that. When Moses told me how the Fijian man controls his house by denying his wife sex because her need is greater than his by seven times, it kind of confused me. I really didn’t believe him.”

“This is so,” said Lukey, “of all woman, eh. The Australian woman who is the wife of the resort owner is such. We all give her sex and she is never filled!”

The room rocked with laughter at this communal confession. Compton wondered if the cuckold husband had any awareness of the balance of justice that played itself out in the confines of his resort with regard to the extra curricular activities of his employees, to whom he paid slave wages.

The circle returned to their conversations in Fijian and Compton, content to sit and absorb, waited for Sinaca. By midnight she had not made an appearance and, groggy from the effects of kava, he excused himself and went to bed.

In the morning while Vito slept off his narcotic night, Lavenia groomed the children for Sunday church services, checking their hair for lice before they got dressed in their white cotton finest.

All who attended church were barefoot and each carried their worn and frayed bibles with utmost care. The men wore white, open-collared shirts and modest sulus, and the woman were adorned in brightly colored dresses that smelled of the sun. While restless coomed then moved from mother to grandmother before settling into a favored lap, Compton found a seat near the back, recognizing the same large bure where he had awaited savusavu with Chief Isikeli. The preacher came forward and to Compton’s astonishment it was Jokatama. He gave Compton a quick look that had not a whit of familiarity. The proceedings were not unlike the church services Compton had attended as a child of Presbyterian parents in the States. There was a reading from the bible in Fijian and then the first hymn was sung. A small black man stood and from his throat issued a bass line that possessed the grand power of an old tree. He was soon joined by several tenors of equal grace, then the alto voices of the women sprang into a rich and textured harmony that was incomparably beautiful. Finally a single soprano completed the four-part harmony. They were soon joined by every voice in the congregation and the room filled with joyous sound. It was abundantly clear that these people had come to church to sing. From their throats came the mellifluous earthbound music of angels. Their unfaltering voices played expertly with the harmonies. They sang from their hearts, and they sang of Jesus. The hymns were not sung with the emotional exuberance of gospel singers but rather with a gentle lilting quality in perfect pitch, unforced and sweet, childlike in its declaration of love for God.

Jokatama spoke again and as his sermon grew in its intensity, the corners of his mouth frothed in the white spittle of unflinching conviction. Compton did not know what he was saying but the way he said it was disturbing. In the heat of his homily he shot a long look at Compton indicating there was more going on than just the comings and goings of Jesus.

The beauty of the final hymn, however, could mollify the fire of the most fervent sermon. Compton was struck by the contradictions of this isolated community -- the hell-fire preacher and the angelic hymns, the Christian God who was in apparent opposition to the Sea God, the missionaries’ denial of all other gods that, nevertheless, seemed to triumph vigorously beneath the thin veneer of Christianity.

* * *

David came for Compton in the afternoon after the village had completed its nap.

"Come, I show you the Rock of Wishes."

Compton had very little interest in another rock of ancient power. His singular desire was to find Sinaca, who had not attended church as expected. He was now in the midst of preparing a vague plan to make his way to Jokatama's settlement for a chance meeting. However, part of that plan was to convince David to guide him but he was unmoved and could not be persuaded to make the journey. Compton reluctantly followed him down the hill, convinced that David was becoming more his keeper than his host.

The path, which led to the Rock of Wishes, ran down by the shoreline next to the mangroves. It was an enormous rock ten feet high by six feet wide, pockmarked with scores of tiny hollows bored out when the sea level was considerably higher than it was now. Legend had it that if one were to roll up a leaf from a nearby tree and deposit it into one of the hollows with a silent wish, the wish would come true. Compton found his leaf, selected his hollow and made his wish, as did David. Then they headed back the way they had come. Halfway to the village, Sinaca appeared on the trail coming towards them. Compton's heart collided with his throat upon seeing her, for this was precisely the wish he had made several minutes earlier. She was walking swiftly and regally down the path and, when she saw Compton, slowed her pace. They came face-to-face in the narrow path and stood not a foot away from each other's eyes. Compton felt he was under the water, holding his breath. When he did inhale, her sweet breath entered him and he became drunk with craving. She gazed at him with unwavering brown eyes that were clear and filled with desires he could not decipher.

"This is Sinaca," said David. "The daughter of Jokatama."

"Yes, I know," said Compton directly to Sinaca.

"Bula," she said and bowed her head and passed them gracefully.

On her way to the Rock of Wishes, thought Compton. I hope her wish is grander than mine. Resuming the hike up the trail, his frustration gradually overtook his desire. How will we ever get to be alone? Not here in the village, that's for sure. They're not letting me out of their collective sight. What is it they're trying to prevent me from seeing?

In the late afternoon David trekked a distracted Compton over the various historical points of the village. He showed him where the great grandfathers had cooked and eaten their enemies, friends and several missionaries. Compton scarcely noticed. Wherever he went he envisioned Sinaca standing before him, her eyes locked into his for that eternal moment. He was attempting to recall the sweetness of her breath when David, noting that the historical excursion was of little interest, proceeded down the hill and returned him to Lavenia's kitchen. She was preparing dinner and sensing his melancholy state, pointed to her nose and said, "nose." Compton smiled and began the English lesson that continued through dinner and until the men had gathered for another night of kava.

In the warmth of the lantern light Compton felt very much a member of the group. They drank and exchanged the village gossip for an hour before David indicated to Compton that Isikeli wished to ask some questions. Isikeli spoke in ponderous tones to David, who translated.

"Isikeli wants to know what the village can do to keep the outside world from stealing its children?"

Isikeli sat fixed in the lantern light, his concern etched on his face, his hands folded calmly in his lap.

"It will be difficult," began Compton. "You must continue to teach them the old ways. Keep them schooled in your traditions."

David translated to Isikeli who replied with quiet patience.

"They are not interested in the old ways," translated David. “They are interested in the television. We stop it but they go to the next village. It builds a want without a need."

"The television is very clever," agreed Compton, "but it's not real. It's make-believe."

"It is real in the eyes of children, eh," said Isikeli. "As real to them as the water and the sky."

"I don't know how you can keep your children from the temptations of the western world. They look very attractive, particularly when seen through the television. The reality of that world is much different. When they're older, they'll see that."

"When they are older it will be too late," sighed Isikeli. "If you could tell them of the falseness of your world they would listen."

"I'd have to learn your language," explained Compton. "It wouldn't be possible. You can only hope that if they do leave they will come back here, as Moses did. It's important to keep your land. As long as you have that, even if you are poor, you'll have something for your children to return to."

"Keeping our land is difficult," said David. "We are poor and always in need of money. There are offers to be rich but we refuse them. When the hurricanes come and destroy our homes and gardens, the Indians offer us the money for the land. It is difficult to refuse when your children are hungry."

“I would like to help. Tell Isikeli that I will think on the problem and we’ll talk again.” David did so and the room fell silent. Sitting in the silence, Compton felt the monumental weight of their concern. They had correctly envisioned the future and he could do nothing to prevent it from occurring. Isikeli rolled his leaf tobacco in the newspaper and lit it from the lantern. Taking a long pull, he slowly let out the smoke. Looking at Compton through the smoke, his ancient, child eyes asked, who will care for these islands, these pure waters and these reefs that keep us alive? What will become of my people?  Compton, unable to answer his eyes, looked away.

29

From a fitful night's sleep Compton awoke to the smell of smoke and chicken dung. The scents bore into him, reaching some primal core that, as Moses had said in what seemed to be years ago, “The smell of home.” A home that awaits but has never been occupied. Tea was served with pawpaw and rice. Vito was in the kitchen looking old in the face and little Jack was wrapped in his lap. They ate in silence and Vito left, leaving Jack in Compton's arms where he felt equally comfortable. Lavenia finished her morning chores as Compton finished his tea and she came to him and pointed to her nose and said, “nose." She led him out into the garden and identified in English each vegetable and then returned to the kitchen and covered every utensil. In the course of their limited conversation Compton made a reference to Sinaca and Lavenia raised her eyebrows in understanding. "She come," she said in perfect English.

"When?" asked Compton, eyes wide, expectant.

"Soon." She held her finger to her lips in conspiratorial allegiance.

They continued with the lesson and at one point a chicken crossed the dirt floor of the kitchen and Compton indicated it and said the word, "chicken." Lavenia attempted the word and he repeated it again, rubbing his stomach in the natural gesture that it was good to eat. Lavenia nodded in agreement but had trouble pronouncing the word. They continued until Vito returned, whereupon he and Lavenia had a brief discussion in private. When they were through she busied herself at the stove while Vito went out to the garden. He returned shortly holding the chicken high by its headless neck, his hand covered with blood. At the doorway lay the severed head, which little Jack discovered and was bent to it, touching the dead eye with a forefinger. Vito tossed the chicken into a pot of boiling water that Lavenia had prepared, while Compton sat at the table dumbstruck. From his meaningless gesture they had sacrificed one of their few and precious chickens. He had never been the recipient of such a singularly generous act and was overcome to the point of humility. He saw his own greed and his unwillingness to share with others the most insignificant of possessions. He wondered what he was clinging to that prevented him from becoming part of the village of man. The communal brotherhood of humans was in sharing what you had, in the firm belief, the faith really, that you would always have enough. That the Universe or God or the Great Spirit or the Sea God, would provide. He wondered where, in this most basic characteristic of humankind, he had lost its meaning or if he had ever been given it at all. He could not remember such a gift and he felt diminished for its absence in his life.

When the chicken was taken from the water, Vito sat at the short stool he used to shred coconut and commenced to pluck its feathers and cut off its feet. Jack picked up a feather and then pushed a chicken foot around the dirt floor with his toe, his mind attempting to piece together the creature that was alive moments ago. Compton sat at the table, as much taken by the gesture as by the lack of ceremony in its offering, which gave greater significance to the act. He came to understand that he had lived his entire adult life with scarcely a shred of true generosity, either given or received.

They consumed the entire chicken for lunch and then retired for an hour's nap. When they awoke Vito escorted Compton down to the raising of David's new bure. Fourteen men had gathered and, at first appearance, seemed more inclined to play than to work though a few seemed to be hard at it. Postholes were being dug with a single shovel and a steel pole was used to loosen the dirt and pound the rocks to rubble, which in turn was scooped out of the hole with bare hands. Another group, which included Vito, was expertly using their cane knives to hack out square ends, strip and notch tree branches. The men worked steadily and it appeart of the fourteen men, seven or eight were hard at work while the others sat and joked among themselves. In the course of an hour, however, those who had been idle worked their turn while the others rested, so there was continuous progress. It began raining and several who were not working at the time passed around a bar of soap and made practical use of the downpour. Compton noted that they shared everything willingly -- food, laughter, work and, of course, possessions. There was unity in their work and in their play. Watching them as the detached observer, he found himself intimidated by the casual, surefooted way they moved up and down the structure. Their fearlessness of the world was expressed in the free and fully realized use of their bodies. Such interaction made him feel incomplete, false and without real friendship. "Just be yourself," Moses had said. "Stop thinking of yourself and the falseness will disappear."

Be yourself, mused Compton. How easy to be yourself without reservation when you know who you are.

The crew worked diligently through the afternoon and into dusk. Moses arrived as the last timber was being nailed down and Compton called him aside. Without preamble, he blurted, "Listen, I haven't had a chance to be with Sinaca since you left. Would it be okay for me to go over to her settlement and visit? I think they're trying to prevent me from seeing her or seeing something I shouldn't. No one has let me out of their sight. I haven't had a single free moment."

"You are an honored guest," assured Moses patiently. "Their hospitality is genuine. You are free to walk where you wish. You are of the village now. You could visit Sinaca and nothing would be said but there would be thoughts."

"What do you mean, thoughts?"

"You saw the Sea God and have been given honor. If the village sees you with Sinaca, they might think bad thoughts. Maybe they would not want you in their bures. Maybe that is why they watch you closely, eh. It would be better for you to go back to Orchid Beach and wait for her to come. She knows the ideas of the village. That way they would not think poorly of you or be afraid that you were something else that the Sea God made to watch the village."

"What…? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

"Sometimes the Sea God turns a man into a fish or a dolphin or a shark because it wants to be close to that person. It is a dangerous thing."

This kind of thinking completely confounded Compton. He felt a certain obligation to the village now and had no desire to offend their hospitality or in any way abuse their generosity. He certainly didn't want to stir up trouble for Vito or Lavenia. This was not something he could easily reason out so he accepted Moses’ advice. "All right, I'll wait until she comes to the beach."

"Yesterday," said Moses, "I caught three big fish and went to Taveuni to sell the fish. I take your spear gun and give it to the man who works with metal. He say that another spear can be made but it take many days, maybe a week to carve a new one."

"If he is going to carve the metal, it may well take longer than that," quipped Compton.

Moses remained earnest. "Yes, he carves the metal."

Compton rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Is the gun safe with him?"

"Of course it is safe with him. You are the Man who saw the Sea God. Do you think he would sell your gun? Do you think someone would buy it?"

Compton's last night in the village was quietly festive. After eating an early meal with the children, he helped them with their English and then went over to the main bure where the circle of kava drinkers had gathered to see him off. It was the same group that had welcomed him the first night in the village, Chief Isikeli, old Tom, Lukey, Aprosa, Moses and Lavenia. The conversation, for the most part, centered on the building of David's new bure. Moses let Compton in on bits and pieces of the conversation but became so involved in the discussion that Compton was soon forgott. He waited, facing the door in his usual position, for Sinaca to appear and looked up and out into the darkness at every sound, knowing as he did that she would not come.

Aprosa had seated himself next to Compton and though he spoke English, said little to Compton or to anyone else in the group. When he did speak, Compton listened with rapt attention.

"To see the Sea God gives honor," began Aprosa gently. "I dive the deep water for many years and have not seen it. I think it asks you to be Fiji diver."

"In what way, Aprosa?"

"To hunt like the Fiji man. No line, one shot, dead, eh."

"You use the spear with incredible accuracy. I've never seen anything like it. You make it appear easy but it's very difficult to do.  I've tried for the kill shot but only done it a few times."

"You must make the kill spot very small, the black part of the eye."

"That's a very, very small spot. It’s getting smaller all the time. I don't think I could see a spot that small on a moving fish."

"If you look, you see it. When you see it, you hit it, eh."

"Okay, I'll make the spot smaller."

Aprosa nodded in approval then stood, excused himself from the circle and disappeared into the night. Compton then realized that he had not come to drink kava, he never drinks kava, but had come to offer advice.

Moses was up at dawn and woke Compton out of his narcotic stupor. "We must leave soon, the tide is moving."

Compton said goodbye to the children before they went off to school at the Half Done Village. Kenesi came, her bright eyes filled with warmth and Compton impulsively embraced her. Unprepared for the display of affection, which was not expressed publicly in Fiji, she became rigid in his arms. He released her to accept a gift from Lavenia, a small bottle of pure coconut oil that she had ground out of twelve coconuts and boiled over the fire for a full day. Compton had no gift and thus filled with the humility and abashment that comes from omission, excused himself and reentered the bure ostensibly to retrieve a bag and slipped fifty dollars into the pages of their bible. Any more would have been too much and they would probably have given it to others in greater need.

The kava circle came to see them off and there were handshakes all around. The entire village waited at the shoreline to bid them farewell and waved until the boat rounded the mangrove and was out of sight.

Moses returned Compton to Orchid Beach and declined an invitation to tea saying, "I come by tomorrow. Today I sleep off the kava." Compton followed his advice and fell under the netting and slept the day away.

30

Mountains of cumulus rolled over the morning skies of Qamea scattering splintered grains of silvered rain and Compton walked the beach in shorts to receive the sky's generous offering with a bar of soap. The squall passed and the sweet aroma of the jungle wafted thickly to his nostrils. The song of birds became manifest and for the first time he found the source of a particular song in the golden bird of paradise that had perched on a tree above the sleeping bure. A coconut had washed up on the West End of the beach and with nothing to eat for breakfast, he husked it on the spike, drank its milk and ate the meat. He threw a piece to the kingfisher, which had taken its place on the limb of the fallen orchid tree. The leaves had again doubled in size and in their shadow, hanging like yellow green testicles, were the bulbs for which the beach was named. At last, he thought, I’ll see the flowering beauty of this special place. A cool, expectant breeze blew the rain to the north, lightly texturing the sea. It brought to mind a half-remembered Zen koan, which he scribbled in the note pad, certain that it was inexact but seeming to fit the circumstances.

Is it the water which ripples the surface,

or is it the wind?

“Yeah.”

“No Fiji diver ever get a Runner that size with the pole. You are becoming more the man of the sea every day, Keli.”

Compton dismissed it so as to enhance the feat. "There was a school of them, they came right in to me. It was an easy shot."

Moses saw his pride but did not acknowledge it. "They are fearless, eh."

"Yeah, but because it was fearless it's now dead."

"Much better to die without fear than to live the life of a frightened creature."

"A few hours ago it was a beautiful fish swimming free, now it's dead and mutilated," countered Compton. "Which is better?"

Moses kicked the carcass, scattering the flies, picked it up and flung it into the water. "You are alive because it is dead. That was its gift to you. That is the gift of the dead to the living. When I die they will say, `Thank you for dying Moses.' I have to die to make room, eh.  That is my gift to the living."

"I'm not so sure it's that simple. I mean, what besides my death do I contribute to the whole picture? The taking of a beautiful fish can't be my sole contribution as a human. What do I put back? What do I give in return?"

"Nothing," replied Moses, shrugging his shoulders. "There is enough for all, if you take only what you need."

"There are people starving in the world and others are gouging for profit," argued Compton. "Where is the balance in that?"

"I know there is a balance in myself and I see it in the Genuine Village of Qamea and so I know that is right," offered Moses.

"Well, from this perspective it seems right but that's not how it's working out there in the big world these days."

"Do not worry about the big world, it knows how to take care of itself. You are thinking such things because you are coming closer to your death. You are becoming a true hunter now. You have seen life and death as equal things that come and go. And you are trying to make sense of it. There is no sense to it. That is what happens, eh. This was another fish that was given to you. You have treated it well and not made the profit. You have treated me well because you share it. You understand the beauty of the sea and the friendship of a brother. That is all there is in the small Fiji world. This Rainbow Runner is a very good fish, hard for the Fiji man to catch with his line or spear. The Sea God give you this fish, Keli. There is power for you when you eat it. The Sea God is preparing you for something and you better be strong when it comes."

"Moses, I don't believe the Sea God is preparing me for anything. The fish came, I shot it, end of story."

Moses shook his head in frustration.

"I have always believed these things I tell you as the way I have always believed that when I jump up, I come down. It is a law, eh?  What do you believe, Keli?  There is always more of what you don't believe than what you do believe.”

Compton began to protest, then sighed and nodded in agreement.

"You're right Moses, I know more about what I don't believe than what I do believe. I know I'm lacking but I don't know what to do about it. How can I believe in laws, believe in anything, that requires that first I must have faith in it. I need proof. I need to jump up and watch myself come down."

"You always be waiting for that proof," Moses said gently. "Children learn the easy things from the world like jumping up and coming down. Don't expect the world to show you its hidden things so easily. You must pay attention and watch how the other works."

"And how do I do that?"

"Jes' live the true life and be genuine in your deeds and the secrets will show themselves when you can see them."

"I'll take your word for it," said Compton.

"I bring something that take your mind off of your mind...  a ukulele, eh. You like music?"

"I didn't know you were a musician."

"I am a Fijian, it is the same thing, eh."

Moses carefully lifted a ukulele out of the bag that held the vegetables and, after tuning it, broke into a melodic Fijian song. When he had finished, Compton applauded, suitably impressed.

"You have a magnificent voice. Have you ever had any training or is it just naturally that good?"

"There was a lady in the church in Suva who showed me how to use the voice. They wanted me to sing the hymns but I wouldn't. There is no need to bring attention to yourself in church. It is enough to make a sweet noise, eh. Also to dance, but I would rather play and sing. People must celebrate life or they lack terribly. If you watch the little ones they always moving to the music, they feel it. It is in the human, like crying and laughing."

Compton prepared lunch while Moses played thely liftedd sang a medley of Fijian songs.

Later they walked the beach and found a live cone-shaped shell, as thick as a finger, three inches long spiraling up to a sharp point. Moses picked it up. "Look what music can do," and he held the shell close to his mouth and began to whistle. As he whistled a soft tune the foot of the muscle came into view and then extended beyond the opening as if trying to touch the music. The foot was nearly an inch out from the shell when Moses stopped and it slowly retracted. "You see what music does to all creatures."

"That's a pretty neat trick, Moses. How did you do that?"

"It's not a trick, it is something you have not seen but it's no trick. Who knows why shells do that, they jes' do it, eh."

Moses walked to the boat. "Mariah say I spend too much time here and the garden is lacking my sweat. You keep the ukulele and sing some joyful songs while I fix up the garden for Mariah."

"How soon will that blacksmith be done with my spear gun?"

"He does not hurry, eh. We will know when is the time. You keep diving like a Fiji man and then we get the gun."

"My visa is running out so I'm going to have to make another visit to the sergeant soon."

"Right, maybe next week. We go and get the gun and see the sergeant.

"Wait," said Compton, running back up the beach. "Don't forget the Rainbow Runner. Give it to Mariah and thank her for the vegetables."

"You have everything you need, plenty of water?"

"I've got it all."

"I come back the end of the week. Leave you to yourself for a time."

31

Compton lay beneath the netting in the late afternoon listening to the boats returning to their homeports in Taveuni. In the mornings, if he was in the kitchen or on the beach, they came in close and the Fijians smiled and waved. Though they were strangers, he no longer felt the hypocrite in these exchanges. It was an acknowledgment of his status as a hunter and the distinction pleased him. In the States he would have never admitted to such a thing. He had grown into this life in unimaginable ways. In truth, he was as comfortable with himself as he had ever been. There was little about this way of life that he found out of character. It was almost as if he had done it before, so familiar were his responses to the environment that his senses radiated in the pleasures of all that could be felt and seen, heard, smelled and tasted.

Two laughing brown eyes peered through the seaward window. He knew it was Sinaca before she revealed her nose and mouth. He rose slowly from the bed and she disappeared from the window. He came out the door, jumped off the steps and landed facing her. Water diamonds glistened in her hair and her clothes were damp. There were no moving boats nearby nor any anchored on the beach.

"How did you get here?" he asked.

She seemed puzzled at the question and cocked her head toward the western shoreline and pointed.

"That way I come."

"Yes, but how? Where is your boat?"

"No boat."

Compton laughed nervously.

"You couldn't have come from the village by sea or walked through the jungle?"

Again she pointed down the coastline.

"Swim, walk," she answered.

"You swam from the village and walked along the shoreline?"

"Yes."

For Compton, who could scarcely walk the lava shore in shoes, her explanation was beyond comprehension. The trek and swim had to be at least eight miles. But the fresh cuts on her ankles bled the undeniable truth.

"I'm sorry, Sinaca. It’s hard to believe that someone could come so far over such rough country. Wasn't the current strong?"

"Current very strong," confirmed Sinaca.

Compton regained his composure. "Please, please, come and have some tea."

She smiled and sat down at the table. She wore a full, white flowered blue dress that came below her knees and a white blouse that was still damp. It clung to r breasts in places and her nipples pressed against the fabric like brown noses sniffing out a stranger.

He brought tea and she accepted it with a smooth dark hand that had perfect, tiny, white, half-moons at the base of the fingernails. In her armpits and on her head were chips of black coral where other women have hair. Her shoulders were round and powerful and her strength was not disguised in the fluid movements of her arms and hands. Her skin was tight and smooth like a child's and her chocolate cream skin appeared to be the softest imaginable. She had the sweet smell of the sea about her and tiny deposits of salt caked in white webs on her neck.

"You like this beach?" she asked.

"Yes, it's very peaceful here. Very special."

Sinaca smiled. "It is the beach lovers come to. Now that you are here, they don't come."

"I didn't know I was intruding on a lover's beach. What will they do?"

"Find other place."

"Have you come here before?"

"To rest when I swim. I come and sit on the sand. You have beach like this in America?"

"Not quite like this. There are some very long beaches without coral. Many people visit them, thousands, all jammed into one another. It's a scene."

"What is scene?"

"Oh, a spectacle, an event. It's hard to explain. You would have to see it to understand."

"There is many people on the beach?"

"Way too many. It's not like this beach, which we've got to ourselves."

Sinaca stood and left the table and the tea and walked down to the beach. She walked loosely at the hips and her torso was upright and straight. She sat in the wet sand near where the waves curled up the beach and Compton followed. A gentle swell broke at her feet and ran up the beach, pushing her dress up high on her thighs. The blood raced to Compton's loins and were it not for the mild shock of the water sliding up his own legs he might have begun an erection that would have been difficult to suppress. She leaned her head back slightly and let the water caress her legs as though it were a lover.

"Have you lived on this island all your life?" asked Compton.

Sinaca gazed across the Tasman Strait to the northeast.

"No, I come from Laucala. My father brought us here when I was very small."

"Why did he move?

"The American, Forbes, bought the island."

"Malcolm Forbes?"

"Yes, that is who. He bought it and made jobs for everyone. He built a school for the children and pay for their school when they grow, the college, if they want."

"That sounds like a good situation, a generous answer to the poverty in Fiji."

"My father work too much. Everyone work too much. Sunday only day to fish."

"So he left because he couldn't fish when he wanted to?"

"He say there is no freedom to be a man. That they are not Fiji men anymore, they are American men who are weak with too much work and no time for fishing."

"Did you go to school?"

"I have been at the school but the sea is my teacher. The knowledge is greater, eh."

A wave rolled in and Sinaca opened her legs to it as a child might. The water stroked her thighs, gathered and foamed at her womanhood.

"You must be hungry," said Compton to distract himself. "Would you care for something to eat?"

Sinaca looked at the sky. "Yes." she said simply. Compton hadn't expected that answer and had not really considered what they would eat. "I have no fish but I can get my spear and find us some dinner. Would you like to come along? I have only one face mask so..."

"Give the mask to me. I get fish."

"Can you work the pole spear?"

"No spear, only the mask."

He suspected that she might have some fishing line in a pocket and so retrieved the mask, curious to the outcome.

"Here you go. It has a snorkel. Just blow out the water when it comes in."

"Yes," she said putting on the mask. "I know how."

"Do you have fishing line or something?"

She held her hands, palms up, with fingers spread wide. "I have these," she said and lifted her head back with laughter, exposing the roof of her mouth as pink as the palate of a cat. She skipped and dashed directly toward the water, then slipped into the sea. With easy, powerful, breaststrokes she gained the far edge of the finger reef and made a dive. Sitting on the beach, Compton watched her bare feet flash white just before they disappeared beneath the water. Her dives were lengthy, often over three minutes. Once he ran to fetch his fins for fear that she had drowned but when he returned she was afloat again, heading into shore on the kick of her legs alone. She came through the coral and onto the beach holding in her hands a silver fish with a red dorsal fin. It lay stilled in her hands until she handed it to Compton who, in a state of utter astonishment, did not properly grasp it and it wiggled free and leaped into the sea. She pounced on it, quick as a lioness and snatched it out of the sea foam. When she handed it to him again he grasped it with both hands and carried it up to the kitchen. Had he not seen her do it with his own eyes, he would never have believed that a human being could catch a fish with their bare hands in the open sea.

She put the mask and snorkel down on the table. "This mask is good, Fiji diver could spear many fish with this." She paused for a moment in thought. "Maybe too many fish, eh."

Compton brought the fish to the cutting board and filleted it out. While he cooked, Sinaca sat on the beach and dried herself in the warm wind of the sun's last tendrils, its zephyred fingers lifting her sula ever higher, exposing the full length of her muscled thigh. Its symmetry arousing him to new heights of desire.

They ate greedily. She licked her fingers clean and drank long gulps of water. In the last light of the day, Compton had stopped eating and was devouring her with his eyes, his shameless fervor causing her to turn away with a shy smile. Compton reached for her arm and she pulled away laughing, then leaped over the sea wall and ran to the water's edge. A half moon lifted darkly through the dense jungle and the night turned black as a bat's ear. He stumbled along the shoreline unable to find her until he stepped on her dress and blouse that were lying on the sand.

"Keli, I am here," she called from the sea.

Silhouetted against the shimmering glow of the low moon on the water, she stood waist deep near the edge where the coral dropped off.

"Come," she shouted.

"I can't see where the coral is," he shouted back. "I'll get all cut up."

She made her way back towards the beach and he was relieved that she had changed her mind about the swim. In the opaque light of the half-hidden moon, her breasts and shoulders, slick from the water, glistened like freshly oiled bearings. With strong fingers, she clasped his hand.

"Come, I show you the way, no cuts," and she lead him into the water with his clothes on.

"No, wait, let me take my clothes off."

He stripped down and she stood back observing the whiteness of his skin gleaming like burnished ivory in the dim moonlight. Reaching for his hand, she led him into water that felt warmer than the water of day, thicker and more alive. Fears of deadly creatures in the night ocean stiffened him. Feeling his tension, she pulled firmly on his hand.

"Come," she said, "behind me. I make the way."

Her voice was gentle, reassuring, and her hand was hot in his and he could not have said no. They came to the high coral and she laid him flat on his stomach and they floated through the barriers of fire and knives of stone out to water where they were able to tread and swim. Almost immediately, he had the overwhelming sense of being trapped, for he couldn't possibly find his way back without getting savagely cut on the coral. Sinaca swam with powerful stokes some distance away. The moon had risen over the jungle and reflected brightly across the water. In its light he saw her dive beneath the water and waited for her to reappear. After an interminable wait,  tightness grew in his chest and bloated to a terror which began to well in his stomach. Something very large and swift moved in the phosphorescent water and was making its way toward him. With shattering clarity he realized that he had been lured into this night water by design, and Moses’ words of caution rose to its full impact with an unremitting terror. Images of the Sea God flashed before him and he could almost feel its horrifying presence looming just beyond his vision, moving towards him. He attempted to contain his urgency and turned easily for the shore. He swam with fluid strokes and through enormous restraint didn't yield to his panic. However, despite all his efforts it continued to rise and lodged in his stomach and from there began to consume his body like a creature whose hunger could not be satisfied. He swam faster while at the same time his body was squeezed in constriction, a frightful noise escaping his throat as he began to thrash towards the coral reef line. He scarcely hesitated at the scalloped wall and pulled himself up and over it, hand over hand, half swimming, half crawling, dragging his stomach, chest and legs over the high places, feeling the heat of the cuts but never once stopping. Coral broke in his hands and salt water burned as though grasping branding irons fresh from their pyre and still he pulled himself along. Finding footing in waist deep water, he tried to run ashore, his legs and shins banging into low lying coral. He fell into a hole and rose again and fell into another before reaching the flat rock near the shore where he struggled onto the high ground breathing in heaving, frantic breaths and half-collapsed on the sand. His stomach felt warm and sticky and then set ablaze, as did his arms and hands, feet and legs.  He had not been on the beach for very long when Sinaca was at his side, bending over him.

"What have you done, Keli?"

"I... I thought there was a shark."

"You are cut from the coral." She rubbed her hand across the cuts and shook her head in anguish.

"I know why you do this, Keli. I make you cut yourself very bad. I am hurt with you."

She placed her hand on his face and turned it to hers. She kissed him on the mouth. Her lips were warm and had the bittersweet taste of seaweed. He pulled her to him and she gently pushed away from his grasp.

"I must go, Keli."

Picking up her clothes, she reentered the sea, swimming to the reef's end and went west. Compton lost sight of her when she dove. From far away he thought he heard an exhale that sounded very much like a dolphin.

32

Moses found Compton feverish beneath the netting. The tee- shirt he wore was stained through from the weeping cuts and had fused to his chest, his bare legs and feet looking as if they had been dragged over broken glass.

"What is this, Keli? What happened?!"

Moses lifted Compton's shirt and broke the skin, causing Compton to grimace in pain.

"I went swimming with Sinaca a couple of nights ago and I... I thought I saw a shark and panicked," confessed Compton, and then explained the story in detail. When he was through, Moses removed his cap and wiped his brow.

"You did the right thing, Keli, but look at you. You are hot in the body. We better take you to Dilolomo. She fix you up."

“No, no, I’ve got some serious infections. I need antibiotics. Take me to a real doctor.”

“No antibiotics on this island. That medicine at the hospital on Taveuni. But the doctor there is very bad, he only make you sicker, maybe even kill you if you give him the chance. Dilolomo see this kind of infection all the time, she fix you up.”

"I don't want the village to see me like this. They'll know I was scared and panicked."

"They would understand. They fear Sinaca's power, they would have done the same."

"Moses, I' done some thinking. It was hard for me to believe Sinaca has been given supernatural power by the Sea God, now I’m not so sure. I know it's your explanation for the unexplainable. Still…”

"You have been thinking again, eh, Keli. That is always dangerous for you."

"Moses, you’re the one who put this in my head but I'm not blaming you.” Then, almost to himself, “I did this."

"Come, we go to Dilolomo. We go up the river, go in the back way."

Moses loaded Compton in the boat and headed west. They passed the resort and stayed to the far shore of the deep bay across from the village. The mouth of a small river appeared at the apex of the bay where it curved in towards the land. They slowed at the mouth before edging into it. Moses stood in the stern looking for rocks and trees that broke the water intermittently as they pushed forward into a mild current. It became dark beneath the growth of trees that arched over the river and the song of birds filled the tunneled void, all but drowning out the sound of the engine. Mosquitoes descended on the boat like a moving cloak, drawn to the smell of blood that had seeped through Compton's shirt. They whined their virulent hymn en masse around his head and settled in droves on his bloodied shirt. He was too weak to wave them off and watched them suckle at the portent of a full meal that leeched through his shirt. In his detached state, he noted that a two-dollar bottle of insect repellent was all that stood between him and madness. They ducked under low hanging branches and wove their way deeper into the darkness. A half mile upriver, Moses turned into the west shore and ground the boat into the mud. He jumped ashore and held the boat for Compton, who struggled weakly through the mud and up a slippery embankment.

"Watch for the vines and roots, this trail is very thin," cautioned Moses.

The jungle was dense and inhospitable but beautiful in an evil sort of way, observed Compton through his delirium. Oversized, barren coconut trees abounded and stood like shrouded stick-men guarding the portals of hell. Cerberus-like boulders stood by their side, hunched, moments from springing into an attack, while succubus yellow and black butterflies dried their moist wings on red vampire-flowered bushes. Scarcely a trail existed, the low brush and vines like bony fingers clutching with every step, causing Compton to stumble and quickly exhausting him. Moses slowed the pace and hacked away at the undergrowth with the cane knife to make the way easier.

They came to the tall tree whose roots towered far above the ground. Moses snaked his way beneath the roots and Compton blindly followed. They broke out into a clearing where the old bure caught the sparse light of the high sun. A half-dozen chickens pecked among an assortment of plants growing in pots and pans that littered the open spaces away from the jungle.

"Wait here," instructed Moses, who called into the open doorway and then entered. Hushed voices filtered out the door. Moses reappeared and motioned Compton to enter.

There were no windows in the darkened hut and Compton sat next to Moses as instructed by hand signal. As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, a figure materialized against the far wall, a woman, very old with stringy white hair curling in tendrils about her head. Beads of light came from her eyes, which were nearly hidden in folds of wrinkled skin. She spoke to Moses in Fijian, who then instructed Compton to lie upon a rough-hewn table on his back. When he had done so, the woman leaned forward and gently pulled the shirt from his stomach and chest as he grunted out a stifled cry. Lifting the shirt over his head, she lightly ran her spider hands over the deep cuts that were fired and swollen with pus. Moses cringed in sympathetic pain. Dilolomo extended her tongue to Compton indicating what she wanted him to do. She examined his tongue carefully then felt his pulse in three different places on his right wrist and three different placess left wrist. Again she spoke to Moses and then left the room.

"She goes to take the plants to use," explained Moses.

Dilolomo returned with a set of leaves and crushed them loosely onto Compton's chest, stomach and legs. Without preamble she began to rub vigorously. Compton was unprepared for the excruciating pain that lanced through him and involuntarily pushed her arms away. She spoke in a soft tone to Moses who bent over and pinned Compton's arms at the wrists.

"She say you must not touch when she do this. It is painful, eh, but it must be done."

Again she rubbed hard and again the pain shot bolts of white light through his eyes and into his brain and he bit down to keep from screaming. She reopened the cuts and they freely bled. Her hands and arms becoming red with blood as she worked her way down his body to his feet. He was bathed in blood and sweat that dripped to the table where mosquitoes lapped at it like ravenous bats. When she was done, his body quaked in spiked pain with every heartbeat. Soon, however, the sharp spasms were relived by a warm numbness that was not unlike soaking in a hot tub of water. Dilolomo produced a white powder from a leather pouch and sprinkled it liberally over each cut. When she was through, Compton was white from chest to toe. She instructed Moses to stay with him for two hours and not allow him to move. Then she left. Compton fell asleep and when he awoke Dilolomo was sitting beside Moses whispering something to him. She motioned Compton to rise and gave Moses more of the white powder and a bag of herbs for a tea that Compton was to drink twice a day.

"How much do I owe her?" asked Compton in a voice that was remarkably calm and reflected his present sense of wellbeing.

"You pay her what you can," advised Moses, "but do not overpay or you make the insult."

Compton gave her twenty dollars Fijian, looking at Moses, who nodded in approval.

"Ask her when I can go diving again?"

Moses conveyed the request and she responded in a gentle, detached voice.

"She say that you must stay out of the water for two weeks. Let the medicine do its work, eh. If no infection comes back, then you go into the water."

The fever abated in two days and there were no signs of recurring infection. Moses visited Compton every day for a week, bringing dinner and making tea.

Sitting shirtless at the table, Compton lightly fingered the scabs on his chest and belly. “Last night I dreamed about Sinaca again. She won’t leave me.” He paused. “I don’t want her to leave me, even though something about her terrifies me. Still, I can’t stop thinking about her.”

Moses shook his head in mild frustration. “What are you’re thoughts?”

“I don’t know, they are like fantasies I play out. Us diving together, making love, just hanging out with her here on the beach.”

“More wishes, eh?”

“Yeah, wishes.”

“There is danger in such wishes. Be careful with Sinaca.”

“Yeah.” Compton’s eyes and thoughts had drifted out over the sparkling blue prairie, his fingers unconsciously drifting across his scarred chest and belly. A tender spot awakened him from his trance. "I don't know what she used but that was one hell of a quick recovery.   What was that medicine she put on me?"

"Dilolomo is amazing, eh. No one asks her about the herbs to clean the wounds but there is a special leaf to heal you proper. Are you strong enough to go to Somosomo tomorrow and fix up with the sergeant, get your spear back?

"Sure. You think the sergeant will have found out I was lying?"

"The sergeant knows everything. It's his business, eh. He is the boss of Taveuni.”

“Maybe I can kerekere him."

Moses laughed uproariously. "That would be the true test, eh, to kerekere the sergeant. I think he would put us in jail for that one."

"I thought kerekere worked on everybody."

"Not on the sergeant."

33

The sky was overcast and the air heavy. It felt like rain but Compton sensed it would clear and did not bring the rain poncho. He wore long pants and a long-sleeved shirt to hide the cuts and the running shoes he had worn when he first arrived. Moses picked him up midmorning.

"You looking like a tourist again," teased Moses. "You wear your sun glasses and a big hat and you right there."

"Maybe the sergeant won't recognize me and I'll skate right through this inquisition."

Passage across the strait was uneventful and they anchored in the sand in front of the Indian store. The bus with the maniacal Indian at the wheel nearly ran them down but the ride to Somosomo was without incident. A striking Indian girl came aboard bearing beautiful, soft brown eyes with incredibly long lashes and long, black silky hair braided down her back. She had a perfect body despite her effort to conceal it in a full dress. Compton nudged Moses when she passed.

"You can forget the Indian girls. They are all virgins. They do not leave their families for love or sex. Their marriages are planned. It is a poor way to go about life, eh. Hard enough to make a plan for a day but to plan marriage for life is lacking in sense. Besides, none of them know how to screw."

"How would you know?"

"That is what their planned husbands say. I have no knowledge of it myself. It is probably why the men look at the money instead of the woman. It is a fair punishment, eh."

Compton looked out the window for a moment, then turned to Moses. “Is there any way a man can love the Sea God and not die? I know I should forget about her but I can’t.”

Moses shook his head ever so slightly and was about to reply. Instead he pointed to the sea and a small boat with two men standing precariously in the bow and stern holding hand lines. “The fishing is poor closer to town,” was all he said.

They arrived in Somosomo and walked up the hill to the police station.

"I go to the post office," said Moses. "You come for me when you're through."

"Why don't you come with me? Are you trying to avoid the sergeant?"

Moses looked off, working his jaw muscles and Compton could almost guess what was coming.

"Have you done something," asked Compton, "or are you just paranoid?"

"What's that, paranoy?

"Nothing. Are you afraid of something?"

"The sergeant believes that I steal boats. Every time a boat is stolen in Taveuni he comes to my house. It is because of the boat that I bought which was stolen. He and the judge never believed me. If it is in their mind that I am guilty, then I am guilty, eh. I would not help you with the sergeant."

"Okay, I'll see you at the post office."

Compton walked to the police station wondering if Moses was or had been a thief. A fairly new engine sat on the back of his boat. Perhaps that was stolen. Surely the boat was his or, if he had stolen it, he had done it confident that the owner would have no interest in reacquiring it.

The deputy gave Compton the same line of inquiry he had heard before but he answered no questions and said he would wait for the sergeant's return. Within minutes the sergeant arrived, bristling and preoccupied, slamming the door to his office behind him. He was every bit as imposing as Compton remembered him but now the circumstances were different for he knew these people could easily recognize dishonesty and any form of chicanery, never mind weakness and fear. Just the sort of traits policeman prey on.

"You come see the sergeant," announced the deputy, motioning Compton into the office.

Compton was nervous. He didn't have the resources to bluff his way through. The sergeant was too canny for that. If he knows I didn't go fishing, projected Compton, which I'm sure he must I'll tell him my plans changed, I'll tell him...

"Bula" said the sergeant, offering him the chair that faced his desk. As Compton sat down he handed ove his passport, which the sergeant received somberly. After examining it for a moment he looked up at Compton and back at the passport, then broke into a broad smile that revealed crooked, stained teeth.

"Ah, the man who saw the Sea God on Qamea," he said.

Compton nodded warily, "Yes."

The sergeant stood and extended his hand.

"What can I do for you, my friend?"

"Ah, well, I was coming to extend my visa for six months," said Compton, wiping a sweaty neck with his hand.

The sergeant looked at the visa and shook his head. "I can't do that. You have been here already two months. I can make it four months, then you must get a special permit."

"That seems fair enough. That would be fine," replied Compton, smiling now.

The sergeant stamped and signed the visa. "You will be staying on Qamea, on Moses’ beach? No more fishing trips?"

Compton nodded in acknowledgment of the sergeant's imperial command of the comings and goings on his islands. "No more fishing trips."

"You going to spear the big wailu, eh."

Is there no end to this man's wealth of information, thought Compton. "Yes, I'm going to spear the big wailu."

"Io, good luck." The sergeant handed back the visa and shook Compton's hand. When Compton was at the door the sergeant said, "And say Bula to my friend Moses, who is at the post office."

Compton did not reply but lifted his hand in a gesture of weary acceptance of the sergeant's limitless reservoir of clairvoyant data.

Moses and Compton walked down the hill together.

"You were right, Moses, he knows everything, absolutely everything. It’s scary."

"Yes, isn't it."

"He knew about the Sea God and about the mackerel. He even knew you were waiting at the post office.

Moses grinned. "I think he knows that I pissed on my foot last month."

"Does he tap into his intuition like you do when somebody needs a fish or when you know it will rain?"

"No, he listens to all the gossip every night. No one can hide from the island gossip. It is impossible. Easy to keep watch, eh."

They caught the bus back to the Indian store and walked a block up the road to an old frame house the front yard of which was strewn with car parts, rusting iron bars and twisted pieces of metal. Picking their way through the maze of metal they wound their way to the back of the shack where there were still more heaps of metal and odd tools, including oxygen bottles and acetylene torches. Under a lean-to, out of the sun, two grizzled men sat in a car seat, drinking kava.

"Bula," said Moses, who continued to speak to them in Fijian. A thin, bent man with watery, yellow-stained eyes rose from the seat and extended a grimy black hand, which Compton shook.

"Bula," he said and then went to a shed, which was an extended mass of the clutter, where he extracted Compton's spear gun. Inserted into the trigger mechanism was a rusty rod that ran down the length of the stock. The fellow pulled the trigger, releasing the spear shaft into his hand. Satisfied with the result, he smiled and reinserted it into the mechanism and handed it to Compton. The spear shaft was little more than a smooth length of rebar that had been filed down to a point at one end. There were no wings nor barbs to hold a speared fish nor any threads to screw on another tip. It couldn't have been more primitive. Compton tested the release by pulling the trigger. It came easily and he hoped that it could hold the three-hundred-and-seventy-five pounds of pressure exerted through the rubber bands. The fellow produced a rasp and indicated to Compton how he had fashioned the configuration of metal to fit the mechanism. Compton forced a smile and pulled some bills from his pocket. But the fellow held up an oily hand, declining the money.

Compton looked at Moses and held out his hands in question.

"What's going on? He put time into this, why won't he take the money?"

"You are a Fi man who dives for the big fish without the tank. You saw the Sea God. He say, maybe one day you bring him some fish."

"That's not right. We've got to give him some money."

"Keli, this man has pride. Do not insult him. He knows he get it back, eh. This Fiji way."

Compton shook the man's hand and thanked him, "Vinaka."

Compton turned the gun over in his hands as they walked to the Indian store.

"Aprosa has a better rig than this! If I don't make a kill shot, I'll lose the goddamn shaft! There's not even a hole to run a line through! How the hell am I suppose to retrieve it? I'll have to tie a line on the spear."

"Tie a proper knot, eh," replied Moses, preoccupied with the Indian store just ahead.

"There's not a knot in the world that'll hold a round shaft! One miss and I'm out of business!"

Moses remained indifferent to Compton's ravings.

"That is the way it should be for the hunter, eh. Don't worry. Stop thinking about it. Jes' do what you must. Come, we go to the store and get the fuel."

Moses went into the store to pay for the fuel and reappeared moments later. "There is no fuel. The Indian say they are out in Suva. No planes running, nothing. Also, no new supplies, we better get what is left."

A run had been made on the store and it was stripped of essentials. There were no onions, eggs, or crackers, the sort of basic staples that Compton had come to consider luxuries. Moses bought a sack of flour and they each were sold a bag of rice. Compton bought a tin of cookies, which he opened and began to eat.

"The real question," said Compton, "is how do we get back to Qamea?"

"We row, Keli," stated Moses almost gleefully.

"That's a hell of a row in that old boat."

"Mariah, she make this row everyday when she was pregnant. That was before the outboard engines come to Fiji. If that woman can do it, then a man can do it, eh."

"Well, we better get going if we want to get home before December."

A light chop blew from the west and Moses rowed into it with easy, powerful, strokes. "This is the way to get around, eh. No engines, no fuel, jes' the back and arms. I have been thinking that I might have my friend build a boat with a sail. Sail on the wind, no fuel, no need of the Indian store. That is the way to do it, eh."

"Not a bad idea. But the wind changes direction quickly here. Do you know how to sail?"

"I know the sea. The other is easy."

"Sailing is a great way to go but you have to know what you're doing. I'd like to see you sail and fish at the same time. Catch a big mackerel just when the wind comes up going the wrong direction."

Moses shook his head.

"Your thoughts are an amazement to me. You find ten reasons for not doing something. Haven't you ever done something just for its pleasure?"

"Sure I have but not for a long time. I like to think things out."

"It is amazing you came to Fiji at all."

"It's a wonder to me, as well. Perhaps I needed to meet you and hunt for the Silver Fish."

"Oh, yes, the Silver Fish. But your thoughts haven't got you that fish yet, eh. Something always coming up that your thoughts cannot see. Better you jes' spear fish for pleasure and don't think so much about the biggest fish in Fiji, or the world. Then it come to you when it’s ready."

Compton gave him a look, wondering if he had somehow discovered his true motives for spearing the fish. It was disconcerting and he felt a need to turn away from his deception. "I've always operated best when I had a goal, something to shoot for."

"What is operate and goal? Life is not operating, it is living, eh. And what is the goal, something for the future? A deed in front of all others? Like living with the blinders of a horse. Living is working and sitting and doing things for the pleasure they give. Much better to live than to operate."

Compton began to mount an argument but saw his own futility and instead gazed out acrothe strait.

Progress was inexorably slow and after a time, Compton stopped measuring the island to gauge headway. Taking the oars for awhile, he amused Moses as he sidetracked and wandered about the ocean, unable to sustain a straight line. In what seemed like less than an hour, his back ached and his arms grew weak. The coral cuts on his hands had reopened and begun to bleed and, seeing this, Moses resumed rowing. By sunset they had come halfway and Qamea appeared within reach. However, as night fell the island disappeared and it was as if they were out in the middle of the ocean. Compton felt curiously uplifted, imagining himself as a mariner cast adrift on the open sea with no home other than this small boat and nothing to eat but the tin of cookies. The only sounds were of the water slapping against the hull and the rhythm of the oars in their locks. The hypnotic rhythm sustained the fantasy and he could have sat mesmerized in the boat all night had it not been for an outburst from Moses.

"Look at that!"

He pointed off to starboard. Compton didn't see it at first, the blackness of the ocean and the multi-moons reflecting off the water were disorienting but then the triangle fin appeared, cutting the surface like a plow through luminescent soil.

"That's a bloody big shark," said Moses who had stopped rowing and in whose voice Compton noted a distinctly different pitch.

Compton eyed the dorsal fin as it cut near the boat. The phosphorescent body glided beneath the hull and he observed it with strange detachment. His observations turned inward, for he was more curious at his own reaction to the shark than to the shark itself.

"That was a hammerhead," declared Moses. "I have seen them before out here. A big one like that scared the shit out of me one night when I was fishing. I thought it was the Sea God that had come for me. I rowed home as fast as this boat could move. Those hammerheads are ugly, eh. A real beast. They make my skin itch."

"I don't know," said Compton. "It's all different high and dry in a boat. They seem so removed, like birds on the wing. There's no sense of danger, I don't feel threatened at all. Kind of strange isn't it?"

"Not so strange, Keli. The Sea God has changed you, eh."

"You think so, Moses? Maybe. Something has changed, everything has changed."

"Only you have changed, Keli."

Compton took another turn on the oars, wrapping a rag around their ends to soften the bite on his hands. He rowed for a half-hour before they began to bleed in earnest. It was enough time to give Moses a rest and after turning the oars back over to him, they made Qamea in two hours.

34

The cuts on Compton's chest, stomach and legs healed dramatically in the next week, though his hands remained tender through constant use. He practiced everyday with the gun out of the water, aiming at leaves, making the spot the size of an eraser on a pencil and squeezing the trigger of the uncocked gun.

Fifteen days after his first visit to Dilolomo he was back in the water, moving at a leisurely pace to the East Point. The water embraced and intoxicated him and was a sanctuary from all that existed outside of it. The ocean dissolved his thoughts of Sinaca and the breath-hold sustained the infinite present for the length of every dive. The fish played their role in the suspension of time, until a sudden noise or movement startled them into flight and they accelerated into the hyperspace of the future. The currents of time moved in surreptitious directions, never maintaining an even plane as they are structured to do in the world of man.

A large coral trout turned, its curiosity drawing it to that which lay so fixed to the bottom. The fish moved slowly in its own time, often doubling back on itself but always moving upward of the motionless figure. Compton, in deliberate, slow-motion lifted toward the silvered heavens of the surface and the coral trout circled, ts thd, eyeing him as he ascended. A few minutes later, when Compton reappeared, the coral trout watched him fall like a wingless falcon from another sky. On the bottom again he waited patiently as the fish unhurriedly moved to inspect the motionless intruder, weaving its way on the force of its curiosity. When the fish was very close but not close enough Compton, out of breath, lifted again, drifting up and out of sight into the lighted ceiling. Compton came again and again, and each time the curiosity of the coral trout brought it a foot closer. On the sixth dive he held out the gun so that he would not need to move it and waited. The fish came slowly, turned away and came back again as a constriction built in Compton's throat. Inch-by-inch the fish moved closer and his lungs shouted their need but he ignored the call. The fish came yet another few inches closer and he focused on a small point directly behind its pectoral fin and let the spear fly. Completely out of breath, he could not wait to see what happened and kicked frantically for the ceiling. Exploding through the surface and pulling the snorkel from his mouth, he bellowed dizzying breaths. Catching wind and replacing the snorkel, he looked down. The coral trout was on its side, quivering and turning in a tight circle. Its backbone had been struck but not cleanly broken and so it floundered on the bottom with the spear in it. Unable to dive until he regained his breath, he watched the first white tip circle in. By the time he was able to sustain a decent breath, four sharks on the edge of frenzy darted in and out on the downed coral trout. He dove directly into the circle of sharks and hit one with the wooden stock of the spear gun, driving it off and scattering the others. Reaching the fish, he opened a gill and thrust a hand into it and swam to the surface. The fish was larger than he had first estimated, close to forty pounds. When he cleared the surface he bellowed a wild cry of triumph, the howl coming unexpected from a depth unfamiliar. He lay in rapt wonder of the fish and his reaction to the feat. In that moment, he realized the truth of Aprosa words; every shot must be a kill shot. There could be no insurance in the dragline that discouraged impeccability. There was no other way to hunt, he declared to himself. More importantly, no other way to live.

Moses came in the afternoon and was suitably impressed with the coral trout.

"That is the best eating fish. A big one, too. One shot dead, eh."

"Not quite," answered Compton. "I didn't have enough range but it was close enough. Another week of diving off this point and I'll be ready for the deep reef and the mackerel."

"You be a Fiji hunter soon. Then what will you do?"

Compton shrugged and in a moment of jest blurted, "I guess I'll go back to the States with my world record mackerel."

Moses appeared unfazed by the declaration, as if the subject had already been discussed. “And you will forget the lessons that Fiji give you," sweeping his hand over Orchid Beach.

Compton touched a scar on his hand.

"There's truth in what you say. Unless, of course, I take you with me."

"We would have to take Fiji with us, eh. Beauty does not travel long in the mind. It is lost to the moment that stands before us."

Moses pointed to the branches of the fallen tree and jumped out of the chair onto the sand.

"See, the first orchids bloom. The tree will soon be filled with these yellow beauties. It is a beautiful sight, yet it is forgotten easily. Maybe that's why nature must do it over and over again so that we don't forget what is beauty.

"You're right, Moses," Compton said wistfully. "I'll forget all of this one day. It's so vivid now, I think it'd be impossible to forget. But one day it'll be reduced to bits and pieces of my memory and a few scars."

Compton looked up at the tree and out across the water to Taveuni, then back to Moses. “Sometimes it's hard to believe I'm really here at all. After I'm gone it will…" Hetrailed off, contemplating a future barren of his present state.

Moses climbed part way up the tree and tickled a testicular bulb of a yet unopened orchid while Compton gazed out to sea, still lost in speculations of his eventual departure. Jumping from the tree, Moses landed inches away from his face.

"Keli, my friend, Steven Morris, who builds the boats wants to come to Qamea and live next year. I show you where he wants to build his bure. It's very near here."

"All right," agreed Compton, stumbling from his speculations.

"Yes, but first I show you the land we build it on. There is a beach hidden behind the mangroves jes' the other side of the point. Put on your shoes."

They hiked up to the jungle toward the East Point on a narrow path through groves of ferns, hanging vines, past tall trees, then back down to the shoreline and the mangroves. There it opened up to a small beach and above it lay a cleared area sloping gently toward the jungle.

"This place is beautiful," remarked Compton, genuinely impressed. "If you chopped off the tops of the mangroves, he'd have a full view of the ocean. No wind in here, perfect."

"Yes, and this ground can be used for the garden," said Moses, pointing east and west.

"What about fresh water?"

"Come, I show you."

Near the tide's edge was an area strewn with black boulders that melted into its sister lava. A pool rested in the crater of an outcropping of rocks. Moses scooped out the water and tasted it.

"This is fresh water from a spring. When the tide comes in it becomes a bit salty. But if a wall was built to keep out the tide, he have all the fresh water he need for himself and the garden."

"How did you find this spot?"

"There are places like this everywhere, eh. But Fiji man is lazy and doesn't want to do the work to make em' right. They want the fresh water next to the bure that is already built. This place has too much work."

"Very little work, really, and he'd have a great place. Look, he'd be right by the East Point there, just jump in the water and all the dinner he could ever eat is right there."

Compton sat on a boulder and looked out through the mangroves to the East Point where his mind descended below the surface and visualized the reef, the soft corals, the caves and fish exactly as it was and would always be.

"Perfect," he said to himself.

35

For three consecutive days Compton hunted the East Point. He was not interested in big fish but in small fish that were on the move. They were far more difficult to spear and the concentration required was demanding. He was placing the spear exactly where he wanted. On two fish he missed the mark by a hair's breadth and the shot on the third fish was dead center. He was seeing the spot and focusing down as he should but the currents and surge and the weightlessness made it difficult keeping the spear steady and maintaining the finite focus. Though this sort of exercise developed the concentration needed for accuracy on the big fish and though their kill spots were in proportion to their size, different problems were presented which could not be resolved anywhere but on the deep reef. There, the power of the fish and the depth of the dive were not contributing factors of a misplaced shot, but more a matter of life and death. Lesser fish than these mackerel had taken men to their graves.

Moses picked Compton up in the early morning well before the sun bloomed out of the sea. By the time they had rowed out to the deep reef it was far above the horizon. Compton had tied the shooting line near the base of the spear into a notch he had cut out with a small file. Because much of the momentum would be gone once the spear had traveled eighteen feet, he was reasonably confident that the line would hold the spear and the stress would be minimal. If, however, he were to miss the kill spot and the fish were to power off, nothing would stop irom taking the spear shaft. There were no wings at the tip of the spear to keep it in the flesh, much less a barb to hold it, so the shot had to be true.

The waxing moon was propelling the current into a force. It was under these same conditions that Compton had always seen the Silver Mackerel. He dropped down at the north edge expecting the fish to appear out of the blue as before. Suspended in neutral buoyancy he drifted like a dandelion in the wind of the current, moving east down the reef to its edge and then kicked hard to regain lost water. His legs were strong now and he didn't tire from steady kicking.

He worked the north edge of the reef for two hours without a sighting.

When the sun was high and he had all but given up, a single mackerel materialized over the east edge. It was over twenty kilos and it came slowly. He waited for it to close the distance. The spear was aimed, free of its wings and he of encumbering thoughts. The fish and the man drifted together in that curious stalking dance performed beneath the sea. When the fish was near and when the tip of the spear filled the spot, he pulled the trigger. The spear hit the fish, stopping it in its track, tipping it slightly from the impact as if it were casually looking up at the surface. He swam to the fish and, out of old habit, grasped the spear to draw the fish to him. The spear pulled out of the fish and the fish ignited into life as if a switch had been thrown. It whipped around hitting Compton in the chest with its tail and thundered off over the reef.

In the boat, Compton sat with Moses and tried to explain what had happened.

"The shot was right on. I hit the backbone but it didn't break. Just sort of paralyzed the fish and when I pulled on the spear it removed the blockage on the spinal column. The fish tore off like it was never hit. I have to get closer. It's going to take a short shot on those big fish, which have a lot of meat and bone to penetrate. I hit the spot, though. I was right on it."

Compton was pleased with himself, perhaps even a little surprised.

"I was right on it," he said again.

"Well, brother, soon you be taking off your fins and mask and snorkel and putting on a pair of goggles," Moses said with undisguised glee.

"No, I'll never get that far away from my civilized roots. Without fins in this current, I'd be clear over to Rabi by now. I couldn't dive thirty feet without a snorkel. This is as primitive as I'll get. But there's a certain sense of freedom, of resourcefulness, in not being umbilically attached to the machinery of the twentieth century. It was exhilarating. I'm ready to go tomorrow."

"Not tomorrow. The garden is lacking proper care, eh. But the next time, you do the rowing."

36

The marriage of Malia, daughter of Lavenia's sister, Ruth, to Benjamin, took place a week after Compton had lost the mackerel. Upon Moses’ insistence, Compton wore a sulu for the occasion. Moses arrived midmorning to allow plenty of time for the row and to utilize the current that was running west down the island. Compton sat in his usual place in the bow. When Moses was about to shove off he suddenly burst into giggles.

"What's so funny?" asked Compton.

Moses pointed to Compton's crotch. From his angle all that Compton possessed was dramatically exposed.

"What are your plans this evening, brother? You going to scare off all the women in the village."

Compton snapped his legs shut.

"Hey, wearing a dress is new for me. Nobody showed me the right way to sit."

"I'm not going to tell you how to sit, brother. But you better put some shorts on under the sulu because you'll get drunk and forget and the men will laugh and the women will run."

Compton put on shorts and the skiff was put to the current.

"We have to come back in the early morning tomorrow to catch the current for home. We don't want to row against this current with the kava in ur heads."

"You're the captain. We'll leave whenever you say."

"Am I the captain because I row the boat?"

"You are the captain only when you row. When it's my turn, then I'm the captain."

"Is that how it is in America?"

"Yes, whoever is in control is the captain."

"Not in Fiji. No one wants to be in control. They would let the boat drift and where it hits shore is where they are going; no captain, no control. Look, I am the captain and I am working like the fool."

They arrived an hour before the ceremony that was going to be in the large bure where the church services were held. Outside, bottles of Fiji Bitter were buried in a barrel of ice. The presence of the ice and beer was an anachronism that tarnished the proceedings in a way Compton found disconcerting, though not enough to dissuade him from downing several upon arrival. Long tables of food were laid out by the women and Compton spied Sinaca and Lavenia bringing steaming bowls from kitchens around the village. All three saw each other at the same time and all smiled in greeting. Sinaca, dressed in a radiant white sulu with blue flowers, had a white flower in her hair and looked lovely. So that he might observe her with some degree of discretion, he positioned himself on the hillside as if to better see the goings on.

Moses, who had entrenched himself at the kava circle, stood and came over to Compton.

"Come have a cup of kava, it is very strong, ten years old. Good stuff."

"Maybe later," said Compton. "It's a little too early for me."

Moses dropped his eyes to the beer in Compton's hand and then looked out over the rolling green hills at the people arriving from every direction.

"It is not good to be looking at Sinaca, brother," whispered Moses. "The women are watching you. They know. Even the men know. They are waiting for you to be proper and not show your affections in a public place. The wedding is the place to show respect for the families and the traditions. Be very careful not to insult."

"Am I that obvious?" asked Compton. “Okay, I'll be cool."

"Yes, be cool it. Have a cup of kava."

They made a place for Compton in the circle and he drank several cups of kava, remarking to Moses at its strength and this, like all things in the village, did not go unnoticed. Those in the circle praised Moses for Compton's discerning taste and this pleased him no end.

The wedding party gathered in the large bure, the guests dressed much as they did for church, wearing their cleanest and brightest sulus and dresses. The bride was barefoot and had a crown of flowers in her hair. She wore a white brocade dress that went to her ankles. The groom, wearing his best Sulu and a white shirt, was also barefoot and bedecked with leis that wound up around his neck nearly obscuring his chin. Jokatama presided over the ceremony that was performed in the Christian tradition. The guests stood as the vows were spoken, and rings, presented in a coconut cup, were exchanged. Throughout the ceremony, while all other eyes were on the newlyweds, Compton gazed at Sinaca. Whatever fear or doubts he may have had vanished in these moments of the wedding and the love that ached to free itself from its solitary confinement spilled from his eyes.

After the ceremony the newlyweds drank kava to the sunset and the guests gathered around the eating tables to fill their banana leaves with breadfruit cakes, cassava, smoked mackerel, clams, taro, yams in sugar, coconut rice, fish on a stick and assorted delicacies, all of them a marvel unto themselves. The kava circle did not bother with food and with a dozen or more men sitting, kept Vito busy mixing up new batches. After the meal, David and the other musicians sat near the kava drinkers and began to play and sing their music. David had a beautiful falsetto voice that wove in harmony with such texture and seamless melody that it conveyed a sense of tranquility and joy to the gathering as uplifting as it was beautifulp> The women had cleared the tables and the kava circle had grown. Compton had become a member of the serious drinkers, a default position having nowhere else to occupy himself. An incandescent moon had risen and all but overpowered the firelight. Couples paired off and began to dance, not in the loose, primitive, way that Compton had expected but in a slow rock and roll, a swaying of the hips and shoulders to the guitar rhythms. As the area filled with dancers, Compton looked for Sinaca. Surely, he thought, there could be no objections to them dancing. Moses sat across the circle and was engaged in a kava discussion that was all-involving and Compton could not catch his eye to confirm the propriety of dance. The combined effects of kava and beer were enough to persuade him to rise and look for Sinaca. He found her at the far edge of the circle that had formed around the dancers.

In bold strides for which the kava would later be held accountable, he made his way toward her.

"Would you like to dance?" he asked in a voice choking with desire.

Looking into his face she said, "Yes," as if she had been waiting for him all evening.

Compton held her hand and it was warm and her fingers felt for his fingers and they intertwined like tiny lovers curling into themselves. The music played non-stop, sweet, and melodic. They rocked and swayed and sometimes they touched with both hands and sometimes they let go. But his eyes never left her, nor did the eyes of the village leave them. They both sensed the scrutiny but the feeling was vague and carried only as far as their skin. It was in the heat of their skin that they were living and they floated on the music and found the rhythm of it and were carried away. Sinaca's eyes flowed up and down Compton's body in a shy yet compulsive manner. Each time they made physical contact Compton thought his legs would fold beneath him and he would crash to the floor. Sinaca's shoulders and arms and hips played to the music as if the sound was infused into her joints, creating a life of its own. They danced after the others had stopped and new dancers came onto the grass. They danced until their bodies glistened with sweat and their hearts and fingers grew fatigued with lovemaking. They danced until the musicians stopped for a break. And still they danced, for they were listening to another kind of music and it was with embarrassment that they realized the music had stopped and that everyone was watching them. Sinaca broke away and vanished among the guests in the darkness. Compton, having nowhere else to go, returned to the kava circle, whereupon he received a harsh look from Moses, who shook his head ever so slightly in disapproval. Having worked up a thirst, he drank kava on every pass. In between rounds he looked for Sinaca and kept an eye on the musicians, ready to leave the circle as soon as the music started up again.

When the musicians began to play he left the circle to find her. The drunkenness of love and especially the kava, had him dizzy and he wandered the grounds aimlessly in fruitless search. He came upon Lavenia who pointed to her nose and said, "nose," then broke into rapid Fijian as if Compton could understand her every word. He heard Sinaca's name and brightened immediately. Lavenia raised her eyebrows in recognition and pointed to a bure at the far edge of the celebration. "Sinaca," she said.

Compton broke away from the gathering and edged over to the bure and peered inside the one room structure. It appeared empty and he thought he had misunderstood Lavenia. He walked around to its far side and there in the shadows stood Sinaca, the whiteness of her dress and the flower in her hair suspended in the blackness. She saw him and turned away. Compton caught her by the arm.

"Sinaca, wait a minute. I've been looking for you."

He smelled the sea fragrance of her skin and drew her to him. She looked into his eyes and at his mouth and tried to catch her breath. The nearness of him was choking off her words.

"This is not good, Keli. We should not be ..."

Compton kissed her mouth, burning away her words. She tried to step back and was halted by the bure. Still in his arms, she kissed him back, tentatively at first and then passion swept over her. She let Compton have her mouth and it tasted sweet, like an exotic fruit. He kissed her neck and throat and tasted sea sweat and felt her back and shoulders that were as muscular as a man's. They lost themselves in each other's kisses and the pressure of their bodies brought a heat that melted all resistance. Feeling with hungry hands, he lifted her sulu to her hips and ran them over her hard buttocks. Suddenly, and without warning, he was violently ripped away and thrown to the ground by strong, steel fingers.

Two figures stood over him and he vaguely recognized one of them.

Sinaca was speaking Fijian as Compton rose and the man who was familiar to Compton grabbed her and threw her to the ground.

"What the hell are you doing?" growled Compton from a place where the hunter lived, and stepped toward the man who he now recognized as Joseph, the powerful, sullen brother of Sinaca who had drunk kava at the Half Done Village. The other man grabbed Compton by the shoulder and he shrugged him off.

"Leave her alone," whispered Compton more in control after recognizing Joseph. Bending down to help Sinaca to her feet, Joseph grabbed Compton's arms and tried to pull them apart. Compton shoved him hard and he drunkenly fell over backwards in the night. Compton quickly walked Sinaca out into the moonlight, hurrying her back to the wedding party. Again, there was a strong hand on his shoulder and he wheeled around to a fist that hit him hard in the face. Sagging to the ground, he groped blindly for the set of legs that stood over him. The blow had temporarily blurred his vision and he yanked hard at the legs, pulling the man down. He struck viciously at the body and was hit himself, then both men grappled wildly, throwing punches that did no further damage to the other. Noises seemed to come from far away, as strong hands picked Compton up and separated him from his attacker.

"That's enough, Keli!" shouted Moses, holding him off.

Compton had been hit in the nose and blood was smeared across his face, his sulu was gone and his shirt torn. Everyone in the village had watched the fight and Compton, who was now searching the faces for Sinaca, could not find her. An angry voice exploded as Compton was handed his sulu by Lavenia. Jokatama shouted in vehement tones as Moses led Compton by the arm away from the gathering.

"Come, Keli," said Moses. "We leave."

"Why should we go? Joseph threw the first punch. We weren't bothering anybody!"

"It was Sinaca's brothers, they say they were protecting her. You were taking advantage of a village girl. It was not a good thing, Keli.  We go."

They walked out of the crowd and down to the mangroves.

"Jesus, we did nothing," grieved Compton. "We were kissing, that was all."

"You should have kept your cock in your pants. Now Jokatama will have his way and the village will turn against your favor."

Compton was incredulous.

"I can't believe this! What will happen to Sinaca?"

"She'll be kept in the bure. They do not let her be alone now."

Compton stopped and pulled away from Moses’ grip.

"I can't let them do that. Let's go back up there and explain everything to Isikeli. We did nothing wrong."

Moses shook his head and continued to walk towards the mangroves, leaving Compton where he stood. Realizing that explanation was useless he reluctantly followed him down to the boat.

"I don't feel right walking away from this."

"Keli, in this village you must court a girl properly or be very careful you are not caught. It was a village celebration, eh, you were seen by everyone. Now they talk and have judgments. You are still the Man who saw the Sea God and they honor that but that is not a deed, eh.

The tide was out and the boat sat on mud flats twenty yards from the water. Moses pointed to it. "We have a task before us."

They slogged out into the mud sinking in up to their knees and began to push and drag the boat inch by inch towards the low tide ripple of water. Compton lost his footing and fell up to his chest in mud. Moses, on the other side of the boat, lifted his head back and laughed uproariously. "Keli, you should see yourself, blood on your face, your hair full of dirt and mud everywhere. What a night you have had, brother. You never forget this one, eh."

Compton looked down at himself and began to chuckle.

"This is the poorest night a man can have, eh," said Moses, pounding on the side of the boat. Compton’s chuckle became spasms of laughter. Shortly they were both sitting in the mud laughing and pounding the boat, splitting the silence of the estuary with the sounds of mankind at his finest.

When they had gotten the boat afloat and were caked with mud from head to foot, Moses rowed to the middle of the bay and dove over the side. Compton followed. They stripped off their clothes and washed and dunked one another like children, laughing and playing until the boat had drifted off in the light current and had to be chased down. Back on board, exhausted and naked, they sat in the moonlight looking at each other.

"Moses, I'm grateful that you have come into my life," said Compton. "It's hard to believe that I've known you for just three months, so much has happened."

"Friendship is another miracle of this life, eh. How can such a thing happen? It is the same as love, except without the sickness."

"Yeah, and I've never been sicker," confessed Compton. "I really love Sinaca."

Moses made no response. Resetting the oars, he began to row. The only sound was that of the water slipping off itself and the oars rhythmically dipping into the sea.

"It took me awhile to figure it out," continued Compton. "I didn't even know it was love when it hit me but she's all I think about."

"You did not honor that love, eh," said Moses, speaking slowly in cadence with the oars. "You must honor Sinaca and the village. They are all one thing."

"What did I do that was so wrong?"

"You got caught, eh. Even though you saw the Sea God, it makes no difference. You did not show respect. You made the insult."

"What can I do to make it right?"

Moses shipped the oars and the boat drifted on the light breeze, which he smelled before speaking.

"You must honor the village with a gift."

"Well, all right. I've got some money. What do you think I should get?"

"No, Keli, it is not made with money, eh. Something from yourself. A deed, something that brings honor to the village."

"Like what? Tell me what to do?"

"I don't know. If you listen to the small voice it will tell you, eh."

"I may never hear that voice again. The deed may never come!"

"The voice is clear, eh. It speaks. If you listen, the deed will be said."

37

Moses had rowed to Taveuni and Compton did not see him for three days. He could not lift himself from the despair that besieged him over Sinaca. His only refuge was the sea. There his full attention was on the hunt, where he obsessively was mastering the focused mindset required to hit the kill spot. These impeccable skills, he discovered, had been within him all along, waiting to serve. Once he trusted the intelligence of his body and was beyond the influence of his mind, he realized a level of excellence that lifted his skills into realms of the extraordinary.

Within these realms he found a solitude he had never experienced. He wandered unhurriedly beneath the waves until the cold or exhaustion would force him to the beach, where he would succumb to thoughts of Sinaca and become sick in his grief.

In the afternoon of the third day, Moses returned from ni. Compton saw him from afar, rowing the boat, not a good indication that matters had changed for the better in Suva or elsewhere.

Moses sat at the table, his eyes as troubled as Compton had ever seen them. "It is not good," he reported. "There is no fuel for the outboard. A small bit for the bus to run twice a day but that is diesel. The food in the stores is gone."

"You've got your garden," consoled Compton. "You'll be fine."

"Yes, but it is the others that worry me. They soon will be coming from the villages for food. We do not refuse friends."

"There's plenty of fish in the sea," said Compton. "No one's going to starve."

Moses maintained his morose outlook and Compton commented on it.

"What's troubling you? You look as depressed as I feel."

Moses’ eyes flicked to the sea, then back down at his hands.

"There is talk about Sambuka. They say his men are leaving and the economy is on collapse and that he has no plan for the future. Also, the Chinese are coming to take over Fiji with money and people.”           "Those are rumors. When things are not in supply the rumors begin. If there's fuel tomorrow the rumors will end. Frankly, I'm more concerned that I've got no onions to eat. It's hard to imagine an onion has become a luxury."

"You are right about this, Keli, you are becoming a true Fiji man. All you need is a hurricane to take away everything else and then you will know what it is to have nothing."

“And when I have nothing will the man Abraham said would come appear?”

The comment was unexpected and Moses, as was his custom in such situations, licked his lips as if to form an answer. “That man will come soon. Then we will see in which direction your journey will go.”

“Is his power so great that he will alter my life?”

“Your life is already changed, Keli.” Moses rose from the table. "And I must get to the garden. Mariah and Adi are waiting for the news from Taveuni."

Compton accompanied him to the boat.

"I'm ready to try the deep reef again. I've been hitting the kill spot on the fish. I'm ready for the big wailu."

"Two days, Keli. I know Mariah has plenty work for me in the garden. I'll come by in that morning. You be the captain this time."          The following morning clouds the color of fresh snow passed overhead on an easterly. As Compton was about to enter the water, the whispered voice came to him as soft as the clouds and as sure as the easterly. Acknowledging the foreshadow, he inspected the bands of rubber on the gun and found a split where the rubber was tied to the wishbone. When he stretched it for further examination, the split widened. It would have broken during the dive. He cut the band and retied it. In his inspection of the other bands a second split was discovered and repaired. The voice of intuition was clear and firm and in following it there came the realization that, if trusted, he would always know the right step to take. This sense of right knowing had been the object of an unconscious search all of his life and, like the skills of spear fishing, had been waiting to be revealed. It was similar to discovering a wisdom that existed beyond his mind, a true wisdom that was held in the gut waiting to be exercised and expressed in a heart that only hears and speaks the truth.

Entering the water he wandered the reefs without striving in the stalk. Alert and relaxed, he patiently waited for the fish to present itself and when it did, he speared it skillfully. After filleting it out and eating half for lunch, he brought the note pad to the beach and wrote:

Gray clouds dissolve into a silver sea that stretches the afternoon wide and far into the nightlight of eternity. I rest on the beach halfway between the jungle and the sea where the tide moves neither forward nor retreats. Time has stopped. In this place I can live forever in a single day.

The clouds have moved across the sun and dimmed the rth in their passing, leaving a single thread of light glistening on a faraway sea. A silver line divides the panorama as the sea below and the sky above. But this is an illusion. There is no division, the sea and the sky and the silver thread are all one thing and the time that holds them together does not exist.

The clouds pass and the sun reappears, throwing its diamonds across the sea; the tide is higher, I am older and all has changed.

38

Moses came the following morning under a clear sky and light wind. Compton was made captain and given the oars. He had zigzagged his way through the first mile when Moses, realizing that they might not arrive before noon at that rate, covered two miles in as much time.

In mild reproach Moses inquired, "With no motor for the boat, how would you ever get to Taveuni? What would happen in America if you didn't have your machines to do your work?"

"Probably wander around aimlessly," conceded Compton, "and then die of starvation because we'd be without an electric can opener."

Moses laughed and shook his head at the deplorable state of civilized man.

"Isn’t there any wealthy, helpless, Fijians in this country?" asked Compton, more in weak defense of his culture's sorry state than curiosity.

"I have seen wealthy Fijians in Suva. They are no different than the poor man, eh. They sit at the kava circle and either they are men or not, what they have does not make them men. Fijians don't care what a person has in the pocket, only if he is genuine. The falseness of a man is an easy thing to see, eh."

"Then what do you see in me, Moses?"

"I see a war between the false man and the true man. Every man has such a war, eh. I know that if you speak to the truth in the man, the falseness of him will leave."

"I have no doubt of that Moses. Every day it feels like a little more falseness slips away."

When they came to the reef, Compton went over the side. A light current was running but the visibility was clear and breathtaking. He cocked the spear and moved lightly across the surface. Almost immediately a great luminescent fish appeared out of the north edge. When it drew to within forty feet of him he could see the ugly wound that marked the Silver Fish. He felt along the spear gun with his hand, as if to remind himself that there were no alternatives short of a single true shot. He hyperventilated deep, long breaths then dropped down as a knife might fall into a bottomless pool. He leveled off at twenty feet to neutral buoyancy and waited motionless, the spear extended and pointed. There would be no movement other than his finger on the trigger. The Silver Fish closed the distance to fifteen feet where each had a clear look at the other. In that contact, the fish veered off its course and slid deliberately to the depths, making a half turn once as if to verify its decision before disappearing over the reef.

It recognized me, thought Compton rising to the surface, as if it were logical that a fish could differentiate between him and somebody or something else. It'll never allow me to get close again. Aprosa was right. It has too much magic, certainly too much for the likes of me.

Another mackerel had followed the Silver Fish in from the edge of the reef and while Compton recaptured his breath, it drifted east until it was directly below him. He dropped down and glided slightly away from the twenty kilo fish, feigning ignorance of its presence. Unthreatened by the slow moving object that came from the ceiling, the fish turned to follow. At thirty feet, Compton couldn't see or turn to look for the fish but leaned into a long slow arc that, when completed, faced the fish exactly broadside eight feet away. So smoothly did he execute the maneuver that the fish scarcely recognized one had been made. He looked for the pinpoint of light that reflected off the center of a single scale behind the gill plate, pulled the trigger and th rusty spear lashed out and hit the fish, killing it instantly. With a single kick, he drifted over and put a hand in the fish's gill and swam it to the surface. Other than his kicks, the reef and its inhabitants were undisturbed.

Moses nodded in approval, smiling a grand, gap-toothed smile.

"You're a Fiji diver, Keli. I have pride in your deed. You have done what no white man has done, eh. When Aprosa hears, he will also have pride."

Compton was pleased but not ecstatic. The results were expected and he felt neither elation nor triumph. Instead, his thoughts were on the Silver Fish and the undeniable knowledge that it had recognized him. There also came the relief of the burden of obsession that had blinded him to the power and beauty of the fish. He was pleased he hadn't speared it, nor would he ever spear it, for that would have been a regrettable act, one that could not be forgiven. When he spoke it was with a voice that was deep, almost tired, with understanding.

"I saw the Silver Fish today. It recognized me and turned away. We have to find another reef that holds big fish."

"This is the only one with the big fish. We would be rowing for no purpose trying to find a reef with fish like this."

"What about that reef the old fisherman talked about, what was his name? Peter? The one fourteen miles southeast of the island. He said it was filled with fish as big as the Silver Fish."

"That is too dangerous for this small boat. We have no fuel and we could not row that far, even on a perfect day. The currents are terrible out there. They would take us to the middle of the ocean and leave us there."

"If we get fuel, it'd be worth a try."

"No, Keli. I don't know where is that reef. We would be looking in the open sea until our eyes bled."

"We'll have to find Peter or someone who has been on it. Get bearings and pick the right day."

"You forget one thing, brother. There is no fuel. We would need plenty of fuel even if I decided it was safe, which it's not."

"How does the resort always manage to operate? They're running boats all the time. Where do they get fuel?

"They have a storage in fifty-five gallon drums."

"Will they sell it to you?"

"They do not favor anyone."

"Then we'll have to steal it."

Moses began to work the muscles in his jaw. "No, Keli, you must not steal for this. You will not get the fish if you steal for it, eh. We find Peter and get the bearings. Then if the fuel comes to us easily without wrong doing, I take you."

"Okay," agreed Compton. "That's fair enough."

"I take this fish to Taveuni tomorrow and sell it to the Indian store. The Indian might know who is the fisherman, Peter."

"I'd like to come with you. Maybe we can find some fuel."

"The boat is much faster with one, unless you want to be captain.

"I'll stay on Qamea," replied Compton without hesitation.

They arrived at Orchid Beach near noon. Moses cut the head of the fish off at the neck and with the cane knife split it between the eyes, opening it down the middle.

"The meat in the cheeks and jaws is sweetest," he explained. "The head is the favored gift. Every Fiji takes the head before the thick meat of the side and tail. You make soup with the head afterwards. Never have a terrible waste, catch it all, and eat it all, eh."

Compton cooked the pieces of meat that were carved out of the head over a hot flame in the frying pan. They were indeed sweet and delicious.

During lunch he commented on Moses’ cane knife, which was similar to a machete but with a narrower blade.

"Every Fiji man make his own knife," he said. "They do a good job of it because it must do all the work. I carved this handle to fit my hand and I make the snake to show it's mine."

"That's about the only tool they use to shape the wood for the bure, isn't it? Black and Decker would have a field day in these parts."

"Who is Black and Decker?"

"It's a power tool company. They make saws and drills, just plug it in and cut."

"No plug in this jungle, brother. You wish to see the proper timber we use to build Steven Morris' bure?"

"Sure, I’m always interested in timber," said Compton, the architect making an unexpected appearance.

They headed up the steep incline to the jungle. Moses lightly skipped through the undergrowth while Compton stumbled and trotted behind, laboring to keep pace.

"We build Steven Morris’ bure same as the others, eighteen feet by fourteen feet. Tie ‘em together with strips of bark from the vau tree, except where we nail the main timbers. Only the timbers from the vesi tree and the cibi tree will do. For two weeks we lay them under the roots of the mangroves so they won’t float away and the salt water stops the bore worms from eating them to dust."

Every few minutes Moses stopped and carefully examined a particular tree for cutting. He measured its width by hand lengths and eyeballed it for straightness. When a tree was found to his liking, he cut it down and trimmed off the branches.

Compton slid the stripped trees down the steep incline near the bure site on the East Point. In two hours, Moses had cut six posts ten feet high. They hauled them to the clearing where he stripped the bark with his cane knife and left the timber there to dry out before placing them in salt water. "Tomorrow maybe we cut twelve straight timbers from the cibi tree for the frame."

On their way back to Orchid Beach Moses asked, "You are thirsty, Keli?"

Compton acknowledged that he was and Moses cut a hanging vine that gushed with clear water.

"Drink this. It is the sweet water, plenty around. We use this when the hurricane mucks up the wells and the streams."

Compton drank from the vine and it was clean and sweet as promised. Along the path Moses dug out wild yams and carried them in his shirt. "The jungle is like the sea, eh. Full of secrets. When a man knows the secrets, his life becomes easy."

When they arrived back at the beach, Moses went immediately to his boat.

"Keep the fish in the refrigerator and I'll pick it up early in the morning so I get across the strait before the heat of the day."

Moses came with the sun and dropped off an armload of pawpaw then continued out across the strait in a forest of light beams that pierced the overcast sky like God’s favored pincushion. In these days of coarse food, the pawpaw was a luxury and he savored the sweet juice, grateful for a fruit that all but grew wild in the bush. There was fish for breakfast and ground up taro root that, without the onions to give it flavor, was bland and starchy. He was eating fish twice a day and hunted nearly every day. Lately he had found himself giving thanks for his bounty from the sea. To cover his spiritual bases, he acknowledged the Christian God for breakfast and the Sea God for supper.

Like the orchids on the tree something unique was revealing itself within Compton, a sense of completeness, a simplicity of knowing each and every act of daily living in its entirety. When he ate a meal that was all he did and when he washed dishes in a sandy tide pool that was all he did. Every act was separate and fulfilling, perfect in its place, each following the other with no thought given to future events or to the world outside Orchid Beach. The sea and the wind and the smells of the beach poured through him as the sea filters through the gills of a fish, extracting from it the essential elements of life. This existence had infused a certain calm readiness, an odd combination of always being a bit fatigued but never sleepy, relaxed, yet alert, never full in the belly but satisfied. He had actually lost weight but was stronger. His days were lived in the immediate present. That is, until he thought of Sinaca.

Then the wound reopened and spilled out in cascades of self-reproach. Why did things always go so wrong? Was it all my own doing, my own foolishness? No, it was love, not foolishness but Moses would say they are the same thing.

The sea was his escape from the self-recriminations and once they began, he would dress for the water and spend the entire morning and much of the afternoon adrift.

Seawater is very nearly equal in its components to human blood and it was in this vein of Fijian water that he flowed as a corpuscle in the body of the greater being towards the East Point. All was familiar, yet new. There were the same schools of emperor fish and the wary snappers and curious coral trout but there were also fish he had never seen and caves yet unexplored and he drifted as if out of his body, yet within himself. Stalking prey not in the manner of one seeking but in the manner of one waiting in readiness. He knew his meals to be gifts presented and would come as long as he remained alert and these days he could not be otherwise.

Diving and soaring to the hundred-foot bottom, he was unaware of depth and gave no thought to his breath. He ascended as a seal ascends, still attached to the bottom by sight and sense but moving, unaware of the action, as if responding to another force that could not be known. It was thus he drifted, attached to the water but unaware of his attachment, as a fish is unaware its atmosphere is liquid or that the element also harbors its catalytic power. In such a state, everything that can be observed is observed including those movements that are subtle and hidden.

Such a movement occurred on his seaside periphery causing him to turn partially and sustain the full visual impact of the creature that bore down on him from out of the blue, freezing him in his tracks. The dolphin came directly toward him and then dove, turning to its side, its clear, brown eye observing. Compton gathered himself, sucked in a breath and slowly dove to twenty feet, hanging perfectly still. The dolphin came round again and glided by less than six feet away. When he rose for a breath the dolphin ascended as well and they exhaled simultaneously. He uncocked the gun and let it fall near the reef and dove again where the dolphin waited for him. It appeared to be the same dolphin he had seen months ago. It was nearly eight feet long and gray with white spots on its chest and a white belly in the shape of an hourglass. Its smile was perpetual and it brought warmth to him, as in the reunion of friends long separated. At each turn the dolphin came closer. It mimicked his every movement and followed him when he went to the surface for breaths. Several times he extended his hand to touch the dolphin when it came close but it would slip away, just out of reach, never taking its eye from him. They spun up and down the sea scale, sometimes inches apart but never touching. The dolphin came toward him and lifted up, nearly standing on its tail. It cocked its head from one side to the other, looking into his mask, attempting, it seemed, to make contact of another kind. A wave, like a warm vibration, passed through Compton and he had to choke down a cry of welling emotion. The dolphin slipped behind him, barely ticking his fins and he stopped and turned toward it as it came alongside. Reaching out, he brushed his fingers along its full length. Then, as if the touch had been the intent of the encounter, the dolphin angled off and out into the deep water and was absorbed into the blue as a corpuscle in the life stream that was the plasma of the planet.

* * *

Moses came in the late afternoon with a rumor of fuel but he came on the strength of his arms at the oars and he brought little else. He had discovered which village the fisherman Peter lived in and had attempted, unsuccessfully, to track him down. He did, however, speak to a man who had fished the Fourteen-Mile Reef on a big boat and had given him bearings.

"This man say that the reef come up very high at low tide. Where is the white water, we move north two miles and there is the fish. Also he say that the Sea God is on that reef."

The image of the Sea God bearing down at close range rose vivid and clear in Compton's mind. At was not without effort that he blinked it away.

"I'm not going to worry about that," he said. "I'll just quietly sneak in and take the fish before the Sea God knows I'm there. It can be done with the one shot spear."

Moses agreed. "You stop all that thinking and the world come right the proper way."

"Does that same law apply to Sinaca?"

Moses shrugged. "Maybe it's better that you don't see her again. All that happened at the village is in the proper place, eh. You get your fish and then you go. All stays proper."

"I don't believe that, Moses. I should say, I don't feel that in my heart."

"Let me ask you something, brother. You did not make love to Sinaca when she was here, eh?"

"I made a fool out of myself before we could. Why do you ask?"

"If she is from the Sea God then no man can make love to her. She only makes love to the dolphin in the water. That is her marriage, to the dolphin."

"If I make love to her, will you believe that she is a woman of flesh and not the mistress of the Sea God?”

"If you try and make love to her, Keli, her brothers will punch you up again," said Moses giggling.

"It's odd that you should bring up a dolphin because yesterday I had an incredible experience with one." Compton recounted his moments with the dolphin.

When he had finished, Moses shook his head in that familiar way Compton had come to recognize as a precursor of disturbing news.

"It is amazing, eh, that such a wise creature would make a visit. This thing does not happen to the Fiji diver. Sometimes they see the dolphin but it is only a quick look, eh. But this one, it came near and stay with you in the water. And you were able to touch it? And you see it before?"

“Yes. Three or four times since I’ve been here. And I did touch it, with my fingers. It was an incredible sensation. Magical!"

Moses stared out to sea.

Here it comes, thought Compton.

"First the Sea God," said Moses in a voice that baffled Compton in its intent, "and now you touch a dolphin."

"Why does it trouble you? This sort of thing happens all the time in different parts of the world. I've heard about men and women touching dolphins all the time."

"But not the wild dolphins, Keli."

"Why don't I have a good feeling about this. What does it mean when a person touches a wild dolphin?"

Moses inhaled a breath that seemed to fill his body. Slowly he turned to Compton as he let out the breath.

"A person does not touch a dolphin. It is the dolphin that lets the touch happen."

Compton had no idea where he was heading. "Yeah, so, what are you getting at? What's this all about?"

Moses finished his exhale as if to engage the words he was about to speak but they would not come. After a long pause he said, "It is nothing, Keli. You must leave Sinaca to the village. She cannot come here and you will not find her if we go there. It is the wisdom of the village."

"I won't argue with that but I won't ignore her. If she comes, I'll take her in my arms."

"If she come, there will be no wrong doing on you," counseled Moses, who was now looking out across the strait to a low sun over Taveuni that glowed crimson through a narrow vein of muscled, charcoal clouds.

"That is an amazing color," he said, "like blood."

39

Compton dove the deep reef twice a week for three weeks, spearing seven mackerel, stoning all but one. The one fish had been mortally wounded but had come off the spear and fallen to the top of the reef ninety feet below where it convulsed in its death throes. He had dropped down to the reef, retrieved it and lifted its forty pounds up through the immense pressure to the surface, a feat that four months ago he could not have imagined much less accomplished.

He continued to hunt for his daily food off the East Poing nd maintained the same masterly level of accuracy, supplying both himself and Moses with an abundance of seafood.

Meanwhile, rumors persisted on Taveuni that fuel was on its way and, indeed, Moses had made a trip to the island a week before and discovered that five hundred gallons had arrived a day earlier and every drop had been sold within six hours. He had become angry with the Indian for not holding twenty gallons but would not advance the money as Compton had suggested.

"We would not see the money or the fuel. It is better that he knows I have the money. It will make his desire strong to take it from me. We wait."

In his travels, Moses had located Peter the fisherman and found that his bearings for the Fourteen-Mile Reef were consistent with those of the big boat fisherman. He was confident that with these bearings, sea conditions permissible, they could find the reef. "But if the sea changes," he cautioned, "then we turn around and come back, eh. I'm the captain on this trip and if I lose my boat, I'm finished."

Moses was leaving for Taveuni with the last mackerel and put his nose in the air. "I can smell the fuel on Taveuni, brother. Get the spear ready. We go in three days when the moon and tides are right."

Moses’ intuition, as always, was faultless. The fuel had come in and he returned with fifteen gallons, scarcely enough for the round trip voyage. Stopping off at Orchid Beach, he gave the news and a bag of rice to Compton.

"I also have other news," he said slyly. "The planes are going again."

Compton considered this new development with mixed feelings. The timing was right. Perhaps it was time to leave. Maybe I should listen to Moses instead of my heart and let the village have Sinaca. Before Compton's thoughts could fly unchecked into the future, Moses had him shove the boat off the sand and into the water.

"I come by in a day," he called out. "We can check everything then, eh."

"We should go over the bearings," agreed Compton, "and be ready to leave early Thursday morning."

"Right," said Moses pulling on the oars, stretching his back toward the East Point. It pleased Compton that although he had the fuel, Moses had elected to row and he watched him snatch up the sea in easy, strong strokes.

That night Compton was awakened by the sound of dripping water. As he looked through the gauzy netting, a shadow fluttered before him and he blinked to clear his eyes of sleep.

"It's me, Keli," said the soft voice of Sinaca, who revealed her face through the netting.

Compton lifted the netting, bringing Sinaca into focus standing before him in clothes wet and clinging.

"Sinaca," whispered Compton, whose hands reached for her but fell short of their mark in awkward indecision. Moving past her, he found a towel and placed it over her shoulders, wrapping it around her and squeezed tightly. "What are you doing here? I thought they were watching you night and day?"

They walked outside and Compton lit a lantern. Its light scattered the land crabs that were scavenging the kitchen and he made tea and sat next to her at the table.

"You leave soon, eh," said Sinaca. "I come to give goodbye."

"How did you know? How did you get away?"

"Moses say to a man from the village who was at the Indian store that when you have the big fish you go back to America."

"Fiji communication," conceded Compton, "never ceases to amaze me. Even my private thoughts become common knowledge."

Sinaca stood quietly while he pondered yet another Fijian paradox.

"How did you get away? Moses said you were being carefully watched."

"They must sleep, eh. When they sleep, I run, swim."

Sinaca's face radiated in the lantern light, her full mouth open slightly. There was confession in her breaths. Under curling lashes her eyes spoke to Compton in undertones of desire and he put his arm across her shoulders and lifted her mouth with his hand so that he could kiss it. The salttaste of her lips combined with the sweetness of her mouth was an aphrodisiac eagerly swallowed. She yielded to his kiss and freed herself from the towel and put her arms around him. He expected her body to be cold from the damp clothes but it was hot and steam rose from her armpits and between her breasts. Compton lost himself in her heat and was filled with a passion that was a mindless and exotic thing that rendered his sense of touch acute and wondrous. Sinaca's breasts were both hard and soft and where her nipples rose and pierced his palms, were both smooth and rough.

She led him onto the sand where she lay in the moonlight at the edge of the slipping shore. Compton lay beside her and began to kiss her again. He rolled onto her and kissed the sea salt from her neck and undid her blouse as she wrapped her arms around his back and pulled at his skin, turning it to fire. He knelt over her and removed her blouse and dress and with each article she became sleeker, more fluid, as if her flesh were turning to molten carbon. He fumbled clumsily at his own clothes as if his hands were meant for her body alone. She lay naked and black against the white sand. The sudden contrast aroused him further and he reached his hand down as a child might and stroked her legs, his fingers brushing the tight curls between her legs. She gave a small shudder, caressing his leg and running her hand up and over his stiffening member. They both watched it enfold from its whiteness as if it were an exotic shell the sea had washed up and made magic.

The spell was broken when a large wave crashed and caught them by surprise. Sinaca held him and they rolled in the sand and water, across the flat rock that was covered by the incoming tide and into deeper water. No thoughts of danger entered his mind. His only desire was to hold her and not lose the bond of her warmth.

Dreamlike they floated through the coral maze in water as warm as a womb and came to the small canyon of deep water that was protected from the current. She turned to him and, with both arms around his neck, kissed him again. He did not know how they stayed afloat nor did he care and when they kissed again and sank beneath the surface he did not leave her mouth. Their hands slid over each other like anguished eels. Wherever they touched became a heat that conquered the coolness of the water. He felt no need for air or sense that he was under the water or that he was rising or falling in the sea. Sinaca's body was strong and at times she seemed to carry his full weight under the water and could lift him to the surface in a way he did not know. He penetrated her and her legs locked around his hips. In the wild water they thrashed and sank and rolled, having lost any notion of where they were. In great shrieks of animal sounds they reached their peaks of desire and spent them, lost and storm-tossed, orbiting in spirals to the sandy bottom twenty feet below.

When they returned to the surface they floated next to one another in the manner of lolling whales, their hands resting on the other's breast as if to feel the heart beat. They lay in the undulating water, their breaths in perfect harmony, communicating in the way of animals, without thoughts and words. Then Sinaca took Compton's hand and led him back to the beach where they sat on the sand and let the night breeze waft them dry.

"I leave soon," she said softly. "I must be in the bure before the light comes."

Compton turned and placed his hand on her breast again and looked at it for a long while.

"I can't let you go," he whispered. "Something has happened to me. I've never had such feelings. They're so strong."

Sinaca placed her hand on top of his and held it.

"I must leave. It be very bad if I stay, eh."

"I know." Compton's voice whispered in disheartening acceptance. "Moses says that for me to get back in the good graces of the village I must give a gift. But he won't tell me what it should be.  Do you know?"

"To honor the village, you bure bethink like Fiji man. The answer will come."

"And if it doesn't. What about us?"

Sinaca lowered her head and did not answer for a long moment.  "I don't know such things. I know that if you go to the far reef you will find what you want."

"The mackerel, yes, I know it, too. I can feel it. It's a strange thing."

"Be careful, Keli. It is very dangerous water. You could also die."

She stood and picked up her clothes and walked into the water leaving him before he could respond.

He shouted after her, "Io, vinaka, Sinaca," and then softer so that she could not hear, "I love you."

40

Moses arrived two days later with a boat cleaned of its clutter and outfitted for the voyage.

"We have fresh water, plenty of coconuts and tools and fishing gear to catch the fish to eat. Also buckets for bailing and cloth for the wood to fix if the seams split and we leak."

Compton brought tea to the table.

"You make it sound like we're heading out into the North Atlantic. I thought this was the South Pacific?

"It is a very strong ocean, brother. Break up our little boat like it was a bit of straw in a hurricane.

"You sound worried, Moses. I've never seen you worried."

“The unknown is worrisome, eh. I can feel this Qamea water when it is ready to do something. That outside water has currents that can push my small boat wherever it wants. I have no feeling for its moods. There are reefs out there that no one knows. They come up high and the waves build very big and give no warning."

"We'll be fine," assured Compton. "I know it."

"Has the voice spoken to you?"

"No, not really. What about you?"

"No, and it is troublesome, eh."

In the silence of the moment Moses caught Compton’s eyes and then nodded. “There is something, eh. What is it, Keli?”

Compton smiled, never quite used to the employment of Moses’ gifts. "Sinaca came two days ago. We went out into the water at night and made love. As you can plainly see, I am still here. No Sea God ate me. She is a beautiful woman who the village is afraid of simply because she can spear fish like a man. Come on, I want to hear you admit you were wrong."

Moses cut a piece of meat from an opened coconut and chewed rapidly, not speaking until he had swallowed.

"You made love in the water, did you?"

Compton was mildly surprised at Moses’ inquiry.

"Yeah, and it was incredible!"

"When you touched the dolphin the last week I began to think. Very dangerous for me to do that but soon I am understanding what is the liking between you and Sinaca."

"Well, what's this theory of yours. Let's hear it."

"You might not like what is it. It will disturb your ideas."

"I doubt that. I'm so in love with her nothing will disturb me."

"Do you understand that if Sinaca is of the Sea God then she can only fall in love and have sex with a dolphin?"

"Moses, this might come as a shock to you but I am not a dolphin. I am a man, flesh and blood."

Moses worked his jaw muscles and licked his lips while glancing at the sea. Finally he returned his gaze directly to Compton. "It is known among the old ones that the creatures of the sky and earth and sea visit our homes and villages to know what it is to be human by dreaming a person into life."

"What do you mean, ‘dreaming them into life?’"

"At a time when a human is near death a creature can dream them back to life. You say you almost died before you came to Fiji, eh."

"Yes."

"It was in that time that a dolphin dreamed you back to life."

Compton was staggered by the absurdity of Moses’ declaration.

"That's incredible! You're telling me that I'm actually the dream of a dolphin! Compton dramatically pinched himself on the arm and then slammed his hand down on the table. "I'm as real as this table!"

"Keli, you dream are not the people and the things in the dream real while you are dreaming? You feel them and they bring fear or joy, eh. The dream only lasts a short while but while it lasts, they are as real as this table."

"Yeah, I suppose so," conceded Compton, still agitated. "But that's got nothing to do with this. This is real life," sweeping his arm to the entire panorama.

"Do the people in your dreams know they are being dreamed?"

Compton cast a disconcerted look at Moses, then stirred the shells on the table.

"This is bullshit. You're saying that I'm being dreamed by a dolphin."

Moses remained impassive.

"How do you know it's a dolphin?" asked Compton, now feigning mild amusement.  Moses looked out to the sea again and licked his lips, then turned to Compton, his countenance changing to a deeply resolved man who had a task before him. “Esther saw it first. She and Mariah have the gift of seeing those who are dreamed. Since Mariah was a little girl, the people whose lives are confused come from all the islands to find out if they are dreamed and to get a reason for their confusion. You are the first white man she has ever seen who was being dreamed. Esther has the gift as well but did not know what to do with you when she saw. She wasn’t sure with the white people. So she sent you to Qamea for Mariah to have a look. She see that the dolphin dream you but still she did not know what to do. ‘He is not a full man’, she say, ‘and he will not believe if we say the truth.’ She say, ‘Moses, you make him a Fiji man so he can hear the truth. If you do not do this then we send him back and the dream will soon end and he will die.’  So I say yes and then we trick you. We bring Abraham who tells you that you will meet a man. He knows nothing but the sea, but he knows the man you meet will be yourself, a Fiji man once the sea change you. I tell you what to do, get you on Orchid Beach so you can become Fiji man but also the dolphin has been with you, each time to help keep you here. So you come to Orchid Beach and become a man, not just a Fiji man, but a true man. The creatures pick the special people, they do not dream anyone to life who is not worth visiting. That was why we never see a white man before. They are no longer men, their lives are false, they are confused and frightened and who wants to have a dream like that?”

Compton slowly stood and took in the surroundings as if he were unsure of the beach he was standing on, like someone who had just awakened and was between two worlds.

“This has all been a trick? It has been you this entire time, staging this whole affair?”

“There was no other way. Would you have believed me when you first came? No! Your pride was too great. You would have laughed at us, believing that we were ignorant and superstitious people. You would have felt greater than us, maybe even sorry for us, and then you would have left. You would be dead by now. The only way was to trick you. You believed that you were a man and that you had a worthy life and that you understood the world but you know now that you did not. You understood nothing, you had no life and you were not a true man.”

Compton shook his head and collapsed on the table staring at the collected shells, fingering them, then picking one up, turned it slowly in his hand. In the turning, he shook his head again, then looked directly at Moses. “No, I am not a dream! I have not been dreamed into life!”

Moses came and put his arm across Compton’s shoulder. “It is not a bad thing. In one way we are all dreamed. The father dreams his son into life. The mother dreams her daughter into a better life. The parents were dreamed by their parents. The ugly one dreams the beautiful one. The foolish dream the cautious. The ignorant dream the wise. White skin dreams dark skin and dark skin dreams white skin. The incomplete man dreams God. We all dream each other. Only a few can step out of the old dream and into a new one. You are in a new dream that is all. Enjoy it.”

Compton grabbed his chest. “Are these scars a dream? I have never felt so real in my life.”

“That is because you are. Do not judge everything by the physical part of life. The flesh is frail, hardly more than a dream itself. There is a man in the village who has touched a turtle's head and is also being dreamed. It is the same thing when a wild bird lands on a man's shoulder or a snake crosses the foot but does not bite. They are creatures that are dreaming that person. It is an honor for the man to have the creature give him new life. But it is a different life than the one he had before."

"What do you mean, different? "

"He is apart from his brothers and sisters. The pettiness and troubles of the world are not his. Have you not noticed a difference in yourself?”

Compton clung desperately to the last vestiges of the reality he once knew and believed in like a drowning man might cling to a leaking inner tube.

"I've changed because I've been living in this incredible environment and hanging around you. It's you and the natural world that has changed me."

"What made you so ready for the changes? No white man could have changed as quick as you."

"Well, I think that depends on the white man, doesn't it? And who is this man that is being dreamed by a turtle?"

"You know him, Aprosa. If you watch him, he does not drink kava or spend time with the people of the village. He is of the water and must make love to the sea."

"Aprosa?" Had Moses named anyone else, Compton could have argued his case but Aprosa was different than the others. And it was the truth in this simple declaration that nudged him over the precipice of his old reality and into the valley of doubt. Sighing he asked, "So, what happens when the dolphin stops dreaming me?"

"Sometimes the dream lasts the life of the creature, sometimes a week. When the dolphin decides it has visited enough, it ends the dream and your body just disappears."

The idea of being dreamed had ramifications that were frightening to consider. Compton, with rational options closing down and nowhere to go, glanced at his hand that still held the broken shell, squeezed it tightly, smiled. “You had me going there with Aprosa but I still don’t buy it.”

"That is why you are safe with Sinaca," continued Moses, unfazed. "You will not be sacrificed. You are her lover, the dolphin. You will see, the two of you always will be in the water, like sea creatures."

Compton reset the shell in a circle convinced that all the logic Moses could muster would never persuade him that he was being dreamed by a dolphin. “Moses, you have stretched my beliefs further than I ever thought possible. You have shown me things I would never otherwise see but this is too much to accept. I’ll give you this though. The prospect of dying at any moment is really no different from ordinary life. Life is a precious thing, as you have constantly pointed out. It becomes even more precious with the awareness of death and the possibility it could come at any moment. I’ll hold that thought."

Moses saw the conviction in Keli’s eyes and nodded in acceptance. He smiled his gap-toothed smile. “Don’t start thinking now, Keli. It is nothing to worry about, eh." Moses stood away from the table and Compton followed his lead. "We leave at the sun in the morning. Do you still want to spear the fish?”

“I cannot change my life now. I want to thank you for all you have done for me. You are a true friend, the likes of which I have never known. I am ready for tomorrow.” Compton held out his hand and Moses smiled and shook it.

“Get plenty of sleep tonight, be ready for the journey."

"I'll be ready." Compton walked Moses down to the boat and stood on the beach as he rowed out into the twilight, an illuminated shadow in his ancient boat who looked as old as time.

41

Rrkably, Compton slept undisturbed through the night and awoke in a shadowless dawn at the sound of the outboard coming around the East Point. In its whine registered the sounds of urgency and restraint, triggering an adrenaline surge, which instantly warmed him in the chilly dawn.

Moses’ boat never looked more shipshape. When the long gun was placed along the gunnels, it marked the journey that was before them in no uncertain terms. Compton climbed aboard, anxious to be underway and Moses, sensing the moment as well, wordlessly shoved off, started the engine and engaged the gears in sure handed movements.

They motored west down the island, past the long beach and around the west point, skirting the barrier reef that enclosed the resort, straight southwest to the far point that marked the westernmost edge of the island. Once past this point they were out of the lee of the island and on the open seas where rolling ground swells increased two-fold in height and breadth. The size and strength of the swells was not unexpected and Moses instantly calculated their speed and power, taking surface readings on the currents for a later time when such information could be of paramount value.

"If these swells stay the same height and speed we ought to be able to get some decent sightings," added Compton. "But I wouldn't want them to get much higher."

“The bearings are off the southern tip of Taveuni, the East End of Laucala and the southeast end of Qamea,” said Moses, indicating all three points off the boat. “There is another island that is across the way many miles, Naitaba. It would be of help if we find it. But to find it we must know where to look, eh.”

Moses ran the outboard at three-quarter throttle to conserve on fuel and not pound the boat unnecessarily against the quartering swells. They settled into the pulse of boat and sea, each man seeking refuge within himself.

The idea of being dreamed by a dolphin began to intrigue Compton, more to occupy his time in this long journey than to acknowledge its validity. Somewhere he had read that life, for the most part, was lived as a dream and that all of mankind, save for a few, had no concept of true reality. It seems apparent, he observed, that from this perspective, my life in the civilized world was a dream-life. What I thought was real and important wasn’t and what I thought was complete nonsense has become real. In this boat, on this Fiji water, I have a better chance of discovering my true self. If this is another dream, then it's a preferable one, for here I can take my clues from the natural world where they are unfailing clear and though harsh, remain a consistent reflection. In the end, what does it matter? Maybe what Moses said was true, we are all dreamed by something else. Perhaps we are dreamed into life over and over again. What's better, I wonder, to be the dreamed or the dreamer?

From Compton's unconscious floated a question that tumbled from his throat.

"What would make the dolphin stop dreaming me?"

Moses responded as if the question were perfectly reasonable. "Maybe he gets tired of the way you live."

"Well then, I should avoid living a boring life."

"Yeah, yeah, avoid a boring life. Keep the dolphin interested and you will live a long time, eh."

There was a crazy sense to it that Compton found wonderfully easy to accept. Too easy, and he dismissed it before it could burrow into his logic and tamper with his convictions.

Moses continually checked bearings and made corrections while Compton deliberated over the swells, searching beneath the cobalt water that was as infinite as space, looking for a sign of the reef that he would not recognize until he had seen it.

Into the third hour, with the sun at its zenith, Moses cut the engine. "We should be very near but bearings by the eye can be off by miles. We eat, make our eyes sharp for the upswell of the reef."

"The swell has increased," observed Compton, "but not enough to obscure the high spot. Still, I wouldn't know where to look. It could be a hundred yards from here and we could miss it."

"Yeah, yeah. Plenty work to come."

Moses husked a coconut with his cane knife and shared the milk with Compton. He produced a cloth sack and carefully brought out a plate of smoked mackerel and taro chips.

"Mariah make this for us. Time to be a pig again, eh."

The sun and the sea had famished them and they ate everything.

"Maybe we should've saved some of it," said Compton, sucking his fingers clean.

"Have you ever seen a pig save anything? We keep the meat of the coconut for later."

Moses stood and scanned the horizon. "I don't see Naitaba. The big boat fisherman say it would help greatly but Peter say that it would be hard if there’s swells. I have to line up the south end of Taveuni with the east tip of Laucala but it is not clear where is the tip."

They both stood but neither could differentiate between Qamea or Laucala, which had merged in the distance. The south end of Taveuni, to which Moses had referred, shimmered indistinctly on the horizon. Moses turned and fired up the engine.

"We go this way," and he wheeled to the northeast.

They ran on that heading for a half an hour. Moses then stood again and looked for the upswell that would indicate the high spot of the reef. The sameness of the sea rolled relentlessly out of the east, reducing the boat and its occupants to blemishes on its vast, perpetually moving skin.

Moses systematically ran on different points of his mental compass for half an hour each, trying to section off an area he believed held the reef. By mid-afternoon the wind had risen and there had been no sighting. Concern carved its way onto his face. He kept shaking his head with every fruitless sighting, exchanging looks with Compton but never saying anything.

Cumulus blew high and strong out of the east and the sea was churning white caps. The boat pitched and rolled and Moses picked up a near empty gas can and shook it. "We must return, Keli. We have only fuel to get back. The sea is rising up, eh. It will be a very hard ride home and we will use more fuel against the sea. Also, I think that a current is pushing us south."

"We must be close," said Compton, squinting into the sun-reflected water. "We can't quit now. It might be just a few hundred yards away."

Moses shook his head vehemently.

"It is becoming dangerous, Keli. We cannot spend the fuel."

"Even if we run low on fuel we can still make the lee of Qamea and then row to Taveuni."

"The current out here has taken boats away forever. We cannot row against such a current. This water very strong, Keli. We are only men."

"Just a half hour more," appealed Compton. "I might not get this chance again. Who knows what the fuel situation might be in a week.  This is my only chance."

Moses had not stopped shaking his head, even when he acceded.

"Alright, but jes' half hour. Then we leave."

Compton stood in the bow and hung onto the painter attempting to penetrate the swirling water, having no idea how he would ever be able to discern the white water of an upswell from the white water that cascaded over the breaking swells.

"You tell me where to go, Keli!" shouted Moses. "Let the small voice take you to the reef."

Compton pursed his lips and pointed loosely off the starboard beam. Moses swung the boat with deliberation to that course. They ran in that direction for fifteen minutes and Compton pointed off the port quarter and Moses turned the boat again. After a half a mile he pointed off to starboard and Moses altered course yet again. Squinting into the building chop, Compton waited expectantly for a sign, some indication of a change in the configuration of the seas.

"It is time, Keli," declared Moses. "We must go. Already we have used too much fuel."

"No, wait! That way!" pointed Compton to starboard. "Try over there. Five minutes. Gimme just five more minutes."

Moses wiped the palm of his hand on his shorts and swung the boat again, hefting up the last fuel tank to gauge what remained.

Compton's sore eyes were bloodshot and rummy from staring into the glare of the harsh sea. The low sun was a blinding white light across the sea in the west and it was in this direction that he had pointed and to which Moses had reluctantly turned.

After several minutes Moses spoke with unbending resolve. "That was it, Keli. No more five minutes," and he turned the boat on a course for Qamea.

Compton continued to look back into the water where the sun reflected in the white light of an electrical flash.

A hundred and fifty yards away two waves came together and exploded in a towering funnel of water.

"There!” shouted Compton, pointing aft off the port quarter. "There it is! The upswell! We were right on top of it!"

The waves came together and crashed again as if to confirm the discovery. Moses turned the boat for a better look and the waves collided once again in thunderous explosion.

"That is it, Keli. Now we follow the reef for two miles north." Moses looked over the side. "You see the reef, Keli. Right there, all we had to do was look down, eh. Your little voice brought us to it."

Moses followed the trail of the white reef for two miles as Compton put on his diving gear. The sun was tittering on the upper most peaks of Taveuni when he entered the water. In the months he had been stalking fish he had never been in the water at this time of day and the underwater tension was a tangible thing. The small hairs on his arms and neck stood on end to receive the harbinger of the hunt. This was the hour when the pelagic fish were most active and when the undersea world came alive with a fierce energy fueled by a daylong hunger. It was a time when the sharks emerged from the abyss to prey on the weak and when the schools of bait squeezed tighter into dense balls that no light could penetrate. There was urgency in the movements of fish great and small that conjured both life and death in the immediate present. The electricity of tension shot through Compton and his adrenals involuntarily primed as he slipped into the water.

On the white reef, directly beneath him, an enormous school of silver blue bait twitched in choreographed vigilance. He cocked the spear and surveyed the reef as schools of bait hovered along its edges so dense they obscured the white coral beneath them. A school of barracuda skulked by in its slow, methodical fashion, weaving deceptively close to the bait. Suddenly the bait appeared to explode in a shower of fragmented light. A single barracuda hovered alone where the bait once was, tiny, sliver flakes like sequins, drifting from its mouth, then turning lazily toward its drifting school seeking refuge among its brethren. The reef was similar to the deep reef of Qamea, although it appeared deeper and was broken into two sections. In the narrow split that separated the reef, more bait hunkered for protection. He moved to the edge of the near reef where a pair of jacks, each over eighty pounds, cruised along the edge, and he dropped down. The jacks picked up his dive and altered course toward him. To his right and deeper, four mackerel, all as large as the Silver Fish, coasted in from the outside. Turning his spear from the jacks, he lined up on the mackerels. Within seconds they were upon him. Each was well over a hundred and twenty pounds. All records, surmised Compton. They drifted close enough for a shot but instead of pulling the trigger Compton lifted for the ceiling. The panorama of the reef, in its consummate wildness, laid bare the majesty of nature at her finest. The scene was breathtaking and it was for this that he rose to the surface. The reef was grander than all the manufactured dreams of the sea he had ever fantasized. It was everything the planet had once been and would never be again and he felt like the last man who would ever seeweror the fishermen with nets never see the empty space that is left when they are done.

Catching his breath, he forced himself to relax. Taking in deep inhales he watched the gigantic fish parade by in God's aquarium, the Sea God's aquarium, he corrected himself, where all the fish weighed over a hundred pounds. In the darkening waters the silver bodies of the fish glowed iridescent like metallic missiles against the blue background of the dimming depths. Taking a final breath, he dove and suspended at thirty feet where he could pick out a fish and set the angle for the shot. Three mackerel swung inside the reef near the split and he lined up on the leader. It advanced unerringly and he aimed, fixed now, having found the spot. Something to his right caused his eyes to flick and from the side there came another fish. Leaving the mackerel, he slowly turned on a fish that immediately dwarfed all others on the reef. It was a mackerel, of that he was sure but its size spoke of another kind of fish. Its head alone was larger than the jacks seen earlier but more than its size was the power that emanated from its alloyed skin. It moved as the Sea God moved fueled on an energy that came from another source. The power in the fish was intimidating and spoke of death and of life. All that he had understood of the ocean was embodied in the fish and in its predator way, as he closed swiftly. Moving with deliberateness that was uncalculated, he swung the spear gun. Then with a focus labored from his body, he let the ocean fall away and the fish fall away. He reduced the fish, from head to tail, from gill to pectoral fin, from eye to scale, from light to dark. He fixed the angle to a single spot in the center of a scale leaving a tiny, silver dot that filled his vision. The spot was but a few feet away when he let the spear fly.

The spear struck the great fish and it quivered in its track and glided to a stop. He kicked to it as it sank and caught it at forty feet, slipping a hand in its gill. The fish was considerably longer than he and as thick as his shoulders were wide. By the time he regained his kick and pointed to the surface, he and the fish had sunk another ten feet and were still sinking. Kicking furiously to stop the descent and sapping the last of his breath, he finally halted the descent and began to slowly move upwards but at great expense of energy. Halfway he realized he had not the breath to make it to the surface, oxygen depletion had taken its toll and weakened his kick. Twenty feet from the surface he let go of the fish. Free of the burden he skyrocketed up and punched through the ceiling, gasping for air in the white capped seas. Putting his face back into the water and breathing in echoing blasts through the snorkel, he watched the fish finish its drift downward and settle on top of the reef. A white tip nosed the blood spoor twenty feet above it but had yet to connect the blood to the motionless fish beneath it. Gasping in breaths he raised his hand in signal to Moses who, in the steep troughs of the sea could not see him until he heard shouting over the sea and wind. The boat came alongside and he threw in the gunstock without its spear and called out breathless instructions.

"Cut the anchor away and give me the line. The fish is down on the bottom at around a hundred feet, too heavy for me to bring up. When you feel me pull hard twice, haul me up, fast."

Moses cut the anchor away and handed Compton the line.

"Can you dive to a hundred feet, Keli?"

"I can dive to it but I can't bring the fish back up. Pull like I’m a drowning man."

Taking the line, Compton hyperventilated deep breaths and dropped down. The single white tip had been joined by five others  including an aggressive black tip. The sharks circled in anticipation above the mackerel. At that depth he gained momentum with each passing foot, at fifty feet he was plummeting to the bottom. Unable to halt or even slow his impetus, he collided into the back of a large shark, startling it into the other, temporarily scattering them in all directions. Falling to the mackerel, he secured a firm grip in its gill and tugged hard on the line. The line tightened and lifted him with fish in hand off the bottom. In the boat, Moses was pulling for all he was worth but the tonnage of water that compressed Compton and the fish to the sea floor generated a substantial load and the going was slow. He rose foot-by-laborious foot until at fifty feet he expelled half the air in his lungs to decrease the carbon dioxide buildup that was screaming at his brain for fresh air, fooling his body into believing that its need was not great. It was a dangerous maneuver, for now he could pass out without warning, a sudden hit, as if struck by a bullet at close range.

In the dimming light a shadow passed, staining the sea into an ominous darkness. Directly above Compton's head the massive body of a tiger shark, the Sea God, loomed like a great zeppelin. Compton could feel its hunger and in its size lay all that a man feared. He felt incredibly small and was shrinking by the moment in the presence of this lone survivor of the Jurassic. Before his mind spun its way into deterioration, Moses, unaware of the shark, pulled another hitch on the line and drove Compton’s head and shoulder into the white belly of the creature. In a thunderous body whip, the shark accelerated away bowling Compton over by the concussion and tearing the line from his hand. Righting himself, he began to kick frantically for the surface twenty-five feet away, knowing as he did that the kicking would invite the shark to turn and prey upon his flailing legs within the blood spoor of the fish. Dropping the fish wasn't considered and he pounded upwards, not looking down or behind or at anything but the surface twenty feet above. The white light of a thunderbolt exploded in his brain. His legs and arms tingled from lack of oxygen and he lifted the mackerel on an extended arm so that Moses might somehow reach the fish. Just as he broke the surface and gasped his first breath, a force with the power of Zeus hit the fish, nearly jerking his arm from his shoulder socket. His hand wedged into the gills could not be freed as the shark tore into the stomach of the mackerel. The sound of the ripping flesh was as distinct as a limb being torn from a great tree and as sickening as witnessing an arm or other such appendage floating free down a river of blood. It was as if his own stomach had been torn asunder, for a sickness came as the water swirled and sped by his face mask and into the viscera and blood that loomed and drifted like grand white maggots all about him. Suddenly all stopped and he managed another breath. There came a stillness that was itself foreboding and carried a doom unimaginable. He could not move for all the blood and intestines that mingled with his skin and caught in his hair and blinded him to all but that which lay a foot away. In that incarcerated nightmare his mind unleashed a terrible death that lay in the infinite next moment. His body, so sensitively tuned to the sea, betrayed him and acquiesced to the power of the mind which foretold the onslaught of jaws that would come unseen from any direction. Indefensible and vulnerable, he could only await in paralysis the next rush and the final assault. His body shook in anticipation of the Jurassic jaws and the force of ten thousand pounds of pressure squeezing his life into increments of seconds. He lay in the blood soaked slick awaiting his foreseen outcome, like one awaits the outcome in the final moments of a fatal car crash. Then from out of the sky and into the thick soup of guts a black arm reached and plucked him like God out of the jaws of death and into the boat, still holding the fish, his arm lodged in the gills. Moses freed his hand and attempted to swing the great fish into the boat. Its stomach gone, thirty pounds lighter, he was unable to hoist it in and so tied it off to a thwart.

“Keli, you looked like a finished man. All the blood. I thought the Sea God had killed you but ld not ive. The Sea God has spared you and you have brought a fish that no one in Fiji has ever caught. Compton did not answer but was heaving in great lung fills of air, not so much from the lack of oxygen but to reassure himself that he was alive and still capable of drawing a breath.

"Keli, that is the finest fish that has ever been seen in Fiji! It must be eighty kilos without the stomach! It is the greatest of the world records, eh!"

Compton tried to speak through heaving breaths but the words wouldn’t come.

“What happened down there? I saw the shark. It was the Sea God, eh. It came right under the boat and the line went loose. I feared your life was done."

Hunched over the seat, thoroughly spent, Compton was finally able to regain himself and when he spoke it was more to the bottom of the boat than to Moses.

"We better get that fish out of the water before the Sea God turns on it."

They hauled the fish into the boat and lashed it to the starboard side of the center bench and then to the stern where it extended two feet beyond the boat and hung in the water. Moses sat far to port at the outboard to trim the boat as best he could.

Compton could not take his eyes from the fish, feeling more the spectator than the solitary participant. It defies all logic, he thought, that a man could do such a thing on a breath-hold. He was astounded and humbled and filled with a grand sense of wonder for it all.

The weight of the fish in the burgeoning seas cost precious inches of freeboard and white-capped swells broke freely into the boat as it motored northwest towards Qamea. Moses bailed while at the helm but when the water line continued to rise he gave the bailing scoop to Compton. The engine strained under the weight of the fish and the stress of the quartering seas upon the hull was unremitting.

Within half an hour, nightfall struck them blinking into darkness. Moses located the western star and ran north at ninety degrees from it. Compton kept his wetsuit on because he was simply too tired to take it off. Moses had taken off his shirt and placed a leatherette blanket across his shoulders. The blackness sucked the triumph out of the moment as they hunched miserable and cold against the night sea. Twice the lashing on the fish broke and the bulk of its body slid into the sea nearly capsizing the boat from the sudden shift of weight. Periodically Moses would lift the gas can to gauge fuel consumption.

The sea pounded them at will for three straight hours. Into the fourth hour, with no land in sight and having no clear notion as to where they were or how far from Qamea they might be, the engine sputtered and finally died.

Moses’ voice pierced the darkness as if coming from the sky.

"We're out of gas, Keli. Now we find out if we are men, eh."

They could not row the boat with the fish on the starboard or port gunwales so it was lashed down the center. They sat on it with Moses in the middle and Compton in the stern. Moses rowed for an hour and then they exchanged places and Compton rowed for an hour. When one rowed the other bailed in rhythm to the oars. Neither ceased or slowed in their duties.

The dive had taken everything out of Compton and he did his work dazed, drifting in semi-delirium, confusing the white phosphorescent sea with the stars that hung in the low sky. He blindly steered by the star that was to be kept off his left shoulder. When he would get too far off course, Moses would signal with his hand to either the right or left and he would mechanically adjust. Surging, falling and rising, with nothing to fix the eye upon, he became sick and vomited as he rowed, convulsing into cramps that doubled him over. Moses relieved him at the oars and though he couldn't possibly have slept without falling off the fish, he could not account for the hours that passed nor for the silence that consumed him. His next awareness was of the sounds of the oars in the locks and only then did he realize that night sea had died and they were in the lee of the swell. Moses let the boat drift and retied the brake drum to the line and dropped it overboard.

"We spend the night here, Keli. This is Qamea."

They drank water and ate coconut meat and fell asleep where they sat.

Before dawn Moses was at the oars again. The island was less than a quarter mile away and the wind and heavy seas of yesterday gave no evidence of ever having existed.

"We catch the current now, take us right to Taveuni," said Moses, his spirits lifting and the smile returning to his face. "We get this fish weighed for the picture, eh."

Compton reached into the sea and splashed water on his face. He stretched his aching shoulders and back. "We aren't going to Taveuni. We're going to the village."

Moses nodded and smiled in understanding of everything that was left unspoken. "You not half a man anymore, Keli," and he bent enthusiastically to the oars.

"A Fiji man," declared Compton who in jest added, "who is being dreamed by a dolphin."

"Better to be a whole man being dreamed," said Moses lightheartedly, recognizing the denial, "than half a man who doesn't know what is life."

They rowed in silence for some time, each man drifting in his own world. Finally Moses spoke. “I am thinking…

Compton bolted out of his reverie, fully awake. “You are thinking?”

“It is a danger, eh. But I fear the village will have bad ideas if we tell them the true story of your deed. Such a feat has never been done by a Fiji man. They might start to believe that you have made the bargain with the Sea God. They will soon fear you and cast you out. Better we say you spear the fish, then the Sea God comes when the fish is tied to the boat and takes an offering. That way we all can rest.”

Compton smiled at the irony. “Done,” was all he said.

They arrived at the village and hung the fish by its tail on a tree. The entire village came down to view it. Small children touched it, old women gestured animatedly in its direction and the men quietly nodded in approval. Jokatama appeared at the outer edge of the gathering with his family but without Sinaca. Keli went to the fish and with Moses’ cane knife cut off the head, which was considerable, weighing close to fifty pounds and with outstretched arms presented it to Isikeli, who accepted it graciously and said, "Bula, Keli, Vinaka vana levu."

Keli returned to the fish and brought it down from the tree and cut off the end section that included the tail and presented it to Jokatama who was clearly moved by the gesture and whispered to one of his boys who ran off up the hill.

Keli had Moses instruct the village that the fish was to be divided up amongst them and that such a powerful fish would bring them healthy and happy lives. The men set to the fish with their cane knives as the boy arrived with Sinaca. Jokatama led her to Keli and put her hand into his, nodding once in approval. Sinaca shyly lowered her head, conscious that the women of the village were watching but unable to suppress a beaming smile. She turned her head to cast a look at Keli who, ever so gently, squeezed her hand.

42

Keli did not return to the United States nor did he again seek a fish whose size determined its merit in the world of records nor did he dig up the wristwatch that was buried beneath the fallen tree on Orchid Beach nor find cause to wear his glasses again.

After a proper courtship that lasted six months, Keli and Sinaca were married in the wedding hut. It was a grand wedding, a wedding of the gods, said the old women. Even the Paramount Chief of the Qamea attended. He was loud, drunk, corruptible and a disappointment to Keli. But the other villagers spoke well of him and passed no judgment. It was a traditional wedding that Moses approved of. There was food and kava but no beer on ice and there were no fights. Keli gave Sinaca a spear gusciousat he had purchased in the Somosomo General store and there was talk of what the two of them would do on the deep reef when the big wailu were running. Sinaca gave Keli a dark blue sulu with white flowers. Adi and Lavenia presented them with a grass mat they had woven for their bure. The sergeant came and giving perhaps the best gift of all declared that Keli was a Fiji man and could live on Qamea for as long as he wished, no questions asked, no permits required.

One fine morning two months before the wedding, twelve men showed up on the shores of the East Point and raised the frame of a bure in a single day. Moses had had the bure in mind for Keli all along. Keli and Sinaca moved in on their wedding day and in the ensuing months planted a garden, dug a good toilet and cut the mangroves away to provide a full view of the East Point and Taveuni across the Tasman Strait.

The coup and its residual effects died a natural death. Full services were restored to the outer islands and Sambuka went about the business of securing a republic for the Fijians. The international community voiced a mild protest but Fiji was a small, poverty stricken dot on the world map and its indiscretions were soon forgotten, much to the delight of all concerned.

Fishermen and villagers, in their journeys along the East Point, would often see the young couple working together in their garden, cleaning or repairing the bure. For the most part, they saw them in the water, diving and playing like sea creatures. The village declared they had never seen two people more in love.

Several times a week boats filled with Fijians on their way to dive sites would stop and pay their respects, bringing vegetables and other staples. More often than not Keli and Sinaca would come aboard and join the hunt for the day and thus double the take of fish. Once a week Moses would come by in his boat and take Keli and Sinaca out to the deep reef where they would hunt for mackerel. The Silver Fish would make an occasional appearance. Its wound had completely healed, leaving a dimpled scar on its otherwise polished, silver skin. Upon recognizing Keli, it would wheel off into the blue, not to be seen again for another month. Keli and Sinaca would each spear a mackerel, one for themselves and one for Moses, who would sell them both. The proceeds of this amounted to their entire income and was spent at the Indian store for household goods and the occasional luxury items of peanut butter or a tin of cookies. Whatever was left over was saved for special occasions.

Entering their second year on the East Point, Keli became skilled in using the native sling with the free shaft and was diving like a Fijian. Islanders passing the point would see the two naked, diving for their dinner and would give them wide berth, as mortal men would do when coming upon the gods at play.

In their days spent under the water, Sinaca taught Keli the secrets of the sea. He learned how to use the current to stay down and where it was calm in the lee of the reefs and how to catch fish with his bare hands. She showed him that everything under the sea was alive, the coral and stone no less than the grouper in the depths or the clown fish in the anemone. All life had meaning and he did his best to understand the movement of every fish, some of which would lead him to caves he had never known existed. Each reef was a book and every foot of it another page. Sinaca opened up a world that was infinite in its revealed secrets.

One day into the third year of their marriage a fisherman found them working the deep reef without a boat. They had swum that distance in the currents and were planning to swim back with the two mackerel they had speared. Apparently they had been doing it for some time. When word got back to the village, the old women said they had ridden the Sea God to the reefs and were no longer in need of boats or men. The rumors effectively reduced the flow of visitors to their door except, of course, Moses who remained loyal and visited often.

Over the years the village continued to lose its young people to the cities and one day, after five years on the East Point, Isikeli visited the bure of Keli and Sinaca and spoke of the problem. Keli, who could now speak fluent Fijian, returned with Isikeli and counseled the young people about the falseness of the material life in the city. He encouraged them to stay in the village and enrich their family life. He also spoke to the Indian who brought movies to the Half Done Village and offered to provide free films through a friend in the States if the Indian would stop showing films of violence. The Indian readily agreed.         Keli came to the village once a month and schooled young people on the pitfalls of the city life, much to the relief and gratitude of Isikeli. After several months, Keli asked a favor of the old chief. Would he permit Moses to use the nets to fish the reefs like the other Fijians. Isikeli gave his permission.

Keli and Sinaca had lived nine joyous years in their bure on the East Point when one day, while diving the deep reef, Keli disappeared. It was reported that he had drowned on a deep dive. His body was never recovered.

Sinaca went into mourning. She would see no visitors other than Moses who would bring supplies from the store on Taveuni. In the course of the weeks and months that followed, it was rumored by more than a few fishermen that Sinaca had been seen gamboling with a dolphin in the deep water off the East Point. The story was eventually confirmed when a boatload of Fijians came upon her as she was embracing a dolphin in the calm water between the finger reefs. The old women said that she was making love to it.

For the next two years Sinaca lived an isolated existence and had no visitors save for Moses, who continued to drop off necessities.  He never stayed long and asked no questions. On one such day he made a stop and found Sinaca near death on the bed. She had eaten a fish that had consumed the worms that come out of the sea floor on a full moon in late fall, making its flesh poisonous. She died that evening from ciguatera. The old woman said that the Sea God had finally reclaimed her. Moses and Jokatama buried her in the garden behind the bure on the East Point, for the village preferred that she not be buried on their grounds. This suited Jokatama for he didn't wish the women to speak unkindly of his daughter.

Three days after her burial Moses, returning from Taveuni, swung by close to Orchid Beach to admire the orchids, which were in full bloom. He noticed a large shape resting on the sand. Pulling the boat into shore, he discovered a dolphin had dragged itself up and over the coral, beaching itself high on the sand near the sea wall. It was severely lacerated and had lost a great deal of blood.

He went to the kitchen and made tea and brought it to the beach and sat next to the dolphin. Its skin was dry and split and it bled from its belly, laboring painfully with every breath.

Moses gently stroked its head. "Keli, you have come to be with Sinaca, eh. I thought you might. I remember when we drink tea together here on this beach and talk about ourselves, trying to bring each other to understanding. Here we are again and I think we have the understanding, eh."

The dolphin exhaled a weak breath.

"The dolphins and the whales sometimes push themselves on the beach to die because they have fallen in love while they dreamed a human.  A dolphin has only one love for its life, eh. You wish to lie next to your Sinaca. Do not worry my friend, it will be done."

Moses stayed with the dolphin through the night and was with it when it died near dawn. He fetched Aprosa and they carried the dolphin to the garden and dug a pit next to Sinaca where it was buried in a grave unmarked.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For reasons I can scarcely begin to understand much less explain this book has required 25 years of incubation and 3 incarnationso realize its present state. In that time many have lent hands and hearts. In the beginning in New Zealand where the first draft was written and then later abandoned were John and Judy Hare. On Taveuni Rick and Do Cammick. I hope you are all alive and in good health. To Margaret, my wife, who never lost faith, even when I did. David Smith, the book’s wonderful editor and a dear friend finally confirmed Margaret’s undying belief in the value of this work and gave his enormous talent to its conclusion. Finally, I am grateful to Tom Milliken for all he has done in behalf of this and so many of my creative journeys.

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Books by Carlos Eyles