The Navigator Page 9

  Carl Magnusson gathered up the cards with his one good hand, and pushed them across to Sally Anderton to shuffle. His tone was flat and formal.

  ‘Thank you Thorkild. I’ll think about what you have said. Your apology is accepted. While you’re on watch tonight would you have Charles Kamakau check the injectors? We seem to be running a bit rough on the port engine.’

  ‘He rubbed my nose in it.’ said Gunnar Thorkild bitterly. ‘He sat there, let me go through it all, and then rubbed my nose in the muck. Oh brother…!’

  Briggs was at the wheel and Thorkild was standing at the midships rail with Sally Anderton, staring down at the luminescent wash that curled away from the planking. Sally Anderton linked her arm in his and drew him away.

  ‘Walk me a while please!’

  ‘If you like.’

  As they paced the deck, grateful for the silence, they passed Malo and Tioto, the men-lovers from Kauai, stretched on the hatch-cover, talking in low tones, embracing sometimes, giggling like children over some private joke. They saluted Thorkild without embarrassment and assured him that they were awake and watchful. See! The sails were stowed neatly, halyards were cleated, sheets were coiled and tidy.

  ‘A good run, eh, Mister?’

  ‘Sure, a good run.’

  Sally Anderton smiled and said ruefully:

  ‘There’s all kinds of loving. I wish I’d realized it sooner.’

  ‘You’re lucky. Some people never learn. They live all their lives in one idiom, one little set of convictions…Like tonight, with Magnusson…I might have been talking Urdu for all he understood.’

  ‘No! You’re wrong – terribly wrong.’

  ‘For God’s sake Sally! You were there. You …’

  ‘I was there, afterwards too – long afterwards. I saw a stubborn old man who knew he had missed a beautiful moment, because he’d never learned to bend, even for an instant in his life. When you left we played one hand. Then he threw down the cards and burst out. “Hell Sally! Does he have to think I’m a monster? Does he want me to cut my heart out and show it to him on a dish. I know what he means – better than he does, maybe! But he throws a goddam document in my face, and says he’ll answer to it if I want! Why does he have to be so formal? Why doesn’t he call me Carl? He’s a man in his own right. He’s got more of everything than I’ve got, except money. And what the hell does that mean…!” I settled him down and dosed him. I lay down beside him and held him till he was calm. He wanted me to make love to him, but I couldn’t and he shouldn’t. He’s so lonely sometimes, my heart bleeds for him. That’s the penalty of power. He knows it; but the payment comes heavy…Don’t ever let him know I told you all this. He’d never trust me again.’

  ‘I won’t tell him…And thanks Sally.’

  ‘You’re welcome…Would you like some coffee?’

  ‘You go ahead and make it. I’ll join you in the galley when I’ve finished my rounds.’

  He made his tour of the deck, talked a moment with Adam Briggs in the wheelhouse and then went down to the engine-room to check the gauges and write up the engineer’s log. On his way back to the galley he passed through the cabin area and heard Martha Gilman’s voice, and, after it, a man’s suppressed laughter. He stopped in his tracks, then shrugged and passed by, frowning. A moment after, he saw the humour of it and grinned sourly. The sea-change was working and there was no mate or master who could stop it.

  In the galley, Sally Anderton was cutting sandwiches and waiting for the coffee to percolate.

  ‘All’s well, Mr Mate?’

  ‘All’s well, topside and below.’

  ‘Here’s something else for the log…I’m signing on for the middle watch.’ ‘You’ll be welcome.’

  She put down the knife, wiped her hands on a paper towel, then leaned against the bench, looking at him.

  ‘There’s something I want to say, Gunnar.’

  ‘Say it.’

  ‘When I saw you face Carl tonight, I saw a man I could respect and maybe love. But whatever it is, respect, love, friendship, I don’t want to play out the whole silly scene. I loathe coy women. I don’t like bitch-games. So let’s get the flirtation over and done. There’s something good between us. I feel it. I think you feel it too. Whatever grows out of it, I want it easy and open. And so long as Carl’s alive and I’m his doctor, he has to know…’

  ‘The rules of the game, eh?’ Gunnar Thorkild stretched out his hands and drew her to him. ‘This time, I spread my mat outside her father’s door?’

  ‘Or you tell me goodnight and pass by; but let’s be able to smile at each other when we meet.’

  ‘There’s also ritual rape.’ Thorkild mocked her gently. ‘The lover anoints himself with coconut oil, creeps into the hut, lies down beside the girl and hopes she’s willing. If she screams, he bolts for the door and his pursuers can’t hold him for the oil on his body.’

  ‘Have you ever tried it?’

  ‘Not yet. I’m not a very fast runner.’

  ‘And I don’t have a very big scream.’

  He kissed her then and the kissing was warm and easy with the taste of love in it; and, when he went back on deck to resume his watch, he found himself singing the chant of the young bachelors:

  ‘Today my son is happy,

  He has bound his body with sennit cord,

  He is hard in bone and flesh

  And full of a man’s seed …’

  They had cleared Nuku Hiva and were coasting down past the atolls to Hiva Oa, before he found the words or the courage to talk to Carl Magnusson. It was a bright morning, but the wind was already fresh and they could see the surf piling up on the distant reefs. Magnusson was at the wheel, and Thorkild was working over the chart tables. Magnusson was raw-tongued and irritable:

  ‘These blasted French! They kept us two hours late with their paperwork, and charged us an extra day’s harbour dues for the privilege. Now we won’t make Hiva Oa until dark, and we’ll have to stand off all night. There’s no way we’re going to run the reef in darkness.’

  Thorkild looked up from his calculations:

  ‘The new moon rises at eight. We’ll be off the channel at eight-twenty. I’ll take her in for you Carl.’

  Magnusson gave him a swift sidelong look and said emphatically:

  ‘No way! Not with that surf. And it’ll be bigger by nightfall.’

  ‘Relax Carl. I know the channel like the back of my hand. Besides my grandfather will be waiting for us. He’ll have beacon fires lit on the beach, like they do for the homing fishermen…What’s the alternative? Twelve hours running up and down waiting for sunrise, and an uncomfortable night for everyone. Come on Carl! You know me. I’m not going to risk your ship or your passengers!’

  Magnusson hesitated and finally nodded a grudging assent.

  ‘Very well. I trust you…But how can your grandfather possibly know you’re arriving tonight?’

  ‘He knows. He’ll be waiting. And Carl, when we’ve dropped anchor, I’m going ashore, alone. I want you to hold everyone else on board until morning. This meeting is important to me, and to him.’

  ‘Afterwards,’ said Carl Magnusson deliberately, ‘I want to meet him in private. What languages does he speak?’

  ‘His own and island French. He has very little English.’

  ‘You’ll have to interpret then. And Gunnar …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘This is important to me too. Would you believe I’m scared?…Me, Carl Magnusson, scared to meet an old boatman on a little island in the middle of nowhere!’

  ‘There’s nothing to be scared of Carl. It’s a moment for respect. That’s all.’

  ‘I have respect. I have it for you too, though I’ve been a long time saying it.’

  ‘Thank you…There’s something else I wanted to say.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Sally Anderton …’

  ‘I know. She told me. Are you in love with her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She was mine o
nce.’ Magnusson was suddenly harsh and abrupt. ‘She’s had other lovers and a no-good husband as well. If that matters, you’d better come to terms with it now.’

  ‘Among my people,’ said Gunnar Thorkild quietly, ‘there was never a cult of virginity. In the old days the maiden was deflowered, in a public act, by the chief, and sometimes by her own father. It wasn’t a damage. It was a rite of passage to womanhood.’

  ‘That’s not all of it. I want – I need her close to me!’

  ‘I owe you a debt. Maybe I can pay it this way. Keep her close.’

  ‘I don’t understand you at all, Gunnar.’

  ‘I think you do. I’m nearly home. I was begotten on my father’s ship, in the lagoon where we’ll drop anchor tonight. It’s another world, with other ways. The high man is respected, and his rights are accepted without question. You’re a high man too, Carl. I think you and my grandfather will understand each other.’

  ‘Get off my bridge!’ growled Carl Magnusson. ‘Before I make a goddam fool of myself!’

  On the white beach, under the sickle moon, Gunnar Thorkild sat with Kaloni Kienga the Navigator. They had eaten together, fish cooked on the hot stones of the pit. They had drunk whisky, which Thorkild had brought from the ship. The old man had sat in silence, while Thorkild laid out for him, in words and symbols, the story of his coming, and the why and the how of the bargains he had been forced to make to ensure his arrival.

  When he had finished, he too fell silent, because it was proper to wait upon the judgement, and not plead for it or pre-empt it. If he had spoken the truth, the old man would know it from his communion with the ancestor gods; if a lie, then the gods would dispose of the liar in their own fashion.

  Kaloni the Navigator seemed to be asleep. His eyes were closed, his head sunk on his breast, his hands slack upon his knees. But Thorkild knew that he was not sleeping. He was closing out the land and the sea, and opening himself to the timeless past. Finally he raised his head, and opened his eyes and said simply:

  ‘It is well. It would not have happened if it had not been disposed.’

  Gunnar Thorkild gave a long exhalation of relief. It was as if a storm cloud had lifted and the sea was bright again and the landfall in sight. He said gratefully:

  ‘I’m glad. You will come with me?’

  ‘I will come. And afterwards I will leave you.’

  ‘And I may follow – with the people who are on board?’

  ‘It is so disposed. You will follow.’

  ‘Will I come to the island?’

  ‘You will come to it.’

  ‘And afterwards?’

  ‘I shall be dead and you will find me in the high place. That is all I have been told.’

  ‘And the people with me?’

  ‘They will be yours, not mine. I have no people now, only you; and, when you send me to the ancestors, you will be alone…Now there is a thing to be done. Come!’

  He stood up and, with Thorkild at his heels, walked down the beach, and through the coconut fringe, past the taro patches and along a narrow path, scarcely discernible in the tropic undergrowth. The path rose steeply along the shoulder of a valley, deep as an axe-cut in the hills, and then it opened suddenly into what had once been a clearing, but was now a kind of chamber, arched with living trees, and floored with moss and rotting leaves and low undergrowth. When his eyes became accustomed to the near-darkness, Thorkild saw the shapes of tumbled carvings, with great heads and stumpy bodies, and short dwarfish legs. Beyond the carvings were the stone platforms from which they had fallen. Kaloni Kienga pointed to one of the platforms:

  ‘Sit there.’

  He sat down, and ran his hands over the surface of the stone. It was clear of moss, and the surface was covered with glyptic symbols which he could feel but could not see. The old man came and sat beside him.

  ‘Take my hands.’

  Thorkild took the old man’s hands in his own. They were cold and clammy as chicken skin; he felt himself shivering at the touch.

  ‘Now,’ said Kaloni Kienga, ‘we will wait.’

  ‘For what, Grandfather?’

  ‘For that which comes and abides. For that which passes from me and is given to you.’

  ‘I’m afraid, Grandfather.’

  ‘In this place there is nothing to fear…Afterwards, we will go down and put to sea.’

  As with all else, there was ceremony. Thorkild, the inheritor, must be presented to the chief and the villagers. Kaloni’s boat must be loaded with provisions for his journey: with water, dried fish, bananas, coconuts and breadfruit paste wrapped in pandanus leaves. No matter that there was food and water on the Frigate Bird; the navigator must carry his own viaticum. He would not share quarters with anyone; he would sleep on deck, on his own mat, in the belly of his own boat, sheltered from the weather by a covering of woven palm leaves. Because he would be a guest, he must bring a gift for the captain – a wooden bailing-scoop whose handle was carved in the shape of a kneeling woman…

  When they paddled out to the Frigate Bird they were accompanied by a flotilla of small craft, and a score of swimming children. While the canoe was being hoisted inboard and lashed on deck, Thorkild presented his grandfather to Magnusson and the rest of the group. It was a moment, curiously grave and formal, in which the old navigator seemed to measure each man and woman, before delivering the greeting for Thorkild to translate.

  When Magnusson thanked him for his gift he said, ‘Tell him I am grateful that he has brought you to me; that I shall remember him when he makes his own journey.’ To Jenny he said, ‘One day you will bear a chief’s son,’ and when she blushed and giggled, he smiled gravely and said, ‘There is more than one fruit on the trees.’ With the boy, Mark, he was strangely moved. He looked at him a long moment, then laid a hand on his head, looked up at Thorkild and announced: ‘Hold this boy close. He is the one who will remember …’

  Franz Harsanyi, who was standing close by, gave a small gasp of surprise and said, ‘He’s right by God! The kid’s got a memory like a computer.’

  The old man turned to him and addressed him directly:

  ‘You of the tongues! Teach him!’

  ‘I hear you,’ said Franz Harsanyi. ‘I will teach him!’

  To the others he offered only a simple greeting; but when Adam Briggs was presented he said to Thorkild: ‘This one will read the water,’ and when Lorillard nodded a greeting the old man murmured a phrase of contempt: ‘Sucker-fish…the little one who swims with the big shark.’

  ‘What did he say?’ asked Lorillard.

  ‘Just a greeting,’ said Gunnar Thorkild. ‘He recognizes you and salutes you.’ He turned to Magnusson. ‘Do you want to talk with my grandfather now or later, Carl?’

  ‘Forget it!’ said Carl Magnusson. ‘He needs no words from me. Lash down and secure for sea. That wind’s getting up and I’d like to get the hell out of here.’

  It was Kaloni Kienga who took them out, through the boil of the channel and the big rollers beyond it, until they could set sail and head south across the wind to the tail of the archipelago. Standing at the wheel, grey-haired, naked except for his skirt of tapa cloth, he looked like an apparition from the great past, the past of Kaho, the blind one, and Tutapu, the fierce pursuer, and the men of the high family who were called fafakitahi, the feelers of the sea. Gunnar Thorkild felt a surge of pride and elation as he watched the Frigate Bird settle to the sea, and heard Carl Magnusson’s aside to Lorillard:

  ‘Relax, man! He’s nursing her like a baby! It’s beautiful.’

  As he made his round of the deck he heard the Kauai men gossiping and caught the awe in their tones as they described the aura that hung about the old man. Martha Gilman, who was propped against the mast, sketching, looked up as he passed and asked calmly:

  ‘Are you happy now?’

  ‘Yes. I’m glad he’s come. By the way, I’m sorry about the other night.’

  ‘Forget it. I should have minded my own business. What did your grandfathe
r say about Mark?’

  ‘He said I should hold him close, because he is the one who will remember.’

  ‘What did he mean by that?’

  ‘I don’t know. It will come clear in time.’

  ‘What did you do ashore last night?’

  ‘I stayed with my grandfather.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that.’

  ‘I know you didn’t.’ He grinned at her and laid a hand on her hair. ‘It was…an event, a psychic event. Before it, I was afraid. Afterwards, very calm…Can I tell you something?’

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘You’re still family. I hope Lorillard will make you happy.’

  ‘Thanks…I hope Sally Anderton will do the same for you.’

  ‘Does it show?’

  ‘It shows…Now do you mind? I’d like to finish this before lunch.’

  The most curious reaction came from Monica O’Grady, the horse-faced girl from San Francisco, who came up to smoke a cigarette with him on the afterdeck. She said in her brusque bawdy fashion:

  ‘I’ve never seen you look so relaxed, Professor. Did you get laid last night?’

  Thorkild laughed.

  ‘No. Did you?’

  ‘No, but I wish to Christ I had – or could. I don’t know what it’s doing for anyone else, but the sea-air makes me randy.’

  ‘Sorry I can’t help.’

  ‘I know. You’re bespoke. It’s all over the ship. Anyway I didn’t come up here to talk about my sex life …’

  ‘What’s on your mind, O’Grady?’

  ‘That old man, your grandfather. When I shook hands with him, I had the strangest feeling…I can’t shake it off. It’s the Irish in me, I guess. My own grandmother was supposed to have the second sight…But it was almost as though he were warning me about something – some threat, some danger. It reminded me of a thing my father used to say, which always gave me goosebumps: “Never come to land when the sea-birds are leaving it”…Don’t laugh at me now, or I’ll spit in your eye!’