One Big Damn Puzzler by John Harding
He and Lintoa raised Tigua from the bed and into an upright position. Immediately Tigua opened his mouth and projectile vomited salt water and bits of fungi stew right across the room, spattering the onlookers in the doorway like shrapnel, those who’d seen shrapnel – which was a fair percentage of them given all the landmine explosions that had occurred – afterwards said.
William took Tigua under the left shoulder and Lintoa the right. The slight she-boy seemed surprisingly heavy. He was, William reflected, a dead weight. After a couple of circuits around the small hut William realized they weren’t walking Tigua, they were dragging him. ‘Come on, Tigua,’ he urged, ‘you’ve got to move your legs, get your circulation going, it’s your only hope.’
They took a few more steps. Tigua’s head lolled to one side like a rag doll’s, an effect emphasized by the freakishly large appearance of his lips because his lipstick had smudged. Lintoa reached down and picked up a water pot. He tossed the water into Tigua’s face, dropped the pot and then slapped his cheeks two or three times with the palm of his hand. ‘Wake up, you stupid sow.’ His voice was strangulated. He could hardly get the words out. Tigua opened his eyes, stared at nothing in particular and projectile vomited across the room again. His mother rushed forward with a cloth and wiped his face clean.
William and Lintoa marched around the room once more. This time Tigua’s feet began to move. He was somnolent, but at least he was moving. Faster and faster they marched him around, ignoring his pleadings. ‘No, no,’ he begged, his voice rasping and barely audible, ‘you is let me go. Just let me go.’
‘I is not give you up unless I is be dead myself,’ said Lintoa. ‘Come on, you little sow, faster!’
On and on they went, up and down the small hut until William began to feel dizzy from the constant turning. He waved at the crowd in the doorway with his free hand. ‘Get out of the way, we need more room,’ and then they marched the semi-conscious she-boy outside.
There was only a sliver of moon to light their weary path around and around the clearing in the village centre but people brought torches and their flickering light hollowed out the cheeks and eye sockets of the spectators making them appear ghouls to William as he hurried up and down past them. And certainly their presence was ghoulish. Every expression was the same, amazement at this strange behaviour of the gwanga, sheer disbelief that anyone should bother to waste so much effort when the outcome could never be in any doubt.
They must have carried on for a couple of hours before William realized something had changed. Their burden had grown heavier. Tigua’s feet had stopped moving. His head had slumped onto his chest. A trickle of snot escaped one nostril and ran down his mascara-smudged cheek.
‘Stop!’ he said to Lintoa.
The big she-boy hardly seemed to hear. He was scarcely more conscious than his friend. It took him a few more steps to register the instruction. They examined Tigua’s face. Tenderly, as though fearful his big fingers might damage so delicate a flower as the slight Tigua, Lintoa brushed away the snot. William put his head to Tigua’s chest. He felt the bra beneath the dress against his ear, a piece of limp cloth filled with a few rags, nothing like the firmness of a real breast.
‘Let’s get him inside, I can’t hear anything!’
They laid Tigua on his bed. William was relieved to see the boy’s chest rise, not very much, no more than a sparrow’s breath perhaps, but still some sign of life.
‘Tigua,’ he said. ‘Can you hear me?’
Tigua’s eyes slid slowly open. His lips essayed a smile, but the effort was too much and they gave up halfway, leaving a curious little grin upon them as though, inappropriately, they were registering a rude joke.
‘I is not can see. Eyes is not work no more. Where is be Lintoa?’
‘Here I is be. I is not leave you. I is never leave you.’ He kissed him lightly on his dried and blistered lips.
Tigua’s right hand moved. His smile faded and his face contorted with effort as he managed to raise his arm. He let fall his hand on Lintoa’s head and made a scratching movement through the big boy’s long silky hair.
‘I is must go now, Lintoa. I is not can hang on no longer. I is see you soon in kassa house. You is know what for I is say this?’
The tears were streaming down his face but Lintoa didn’t bother to wipe them away. ‘Yes. You is mean I is go be in kassa house soon. You is tell me I is be boy. Is be so, is be not?’
There was no reply. Tigua’s eyes no longer looked at the she-boy friend she couldn’t see. They stared blankly at the roof.
Lintoa kneeled beside the bed with his head upon Tigua’s breast while Lucy, shrugging away William’s hand when he put it on her shoulder, left. Lintoa remained there while Tigua’s mother fought a silent battle against the urge to keen and someone went to begin boiling water to wash the corpse. He stayed until the first light crept in through the doorway, having chased away the inadequate moon, which had been no use for an orange-fungi antidote. William kept vigil with him through all the long hours, but at last dozed off in a corner of the hut. He awoke when he heard the big she-boy move.
Lintoa walked over to where the green slingbacks stood sentinel upon the dismal scene. He bent and picked them up, gently, with one hand, taking infinite care, as though they were not just some white woman’s cast-offs, but something precious, which of course they were. He separated them, holding one in each hand, tipping them this way and that, examining their workmanship, the way the uppers were connected to the soles, the manner in which the heels had been attached. He transferred the one in his left hand to his right and held them both together as a pair, face-on, as if someone were wearing them. Without warning, he gave an angry flick of his powerful wrist and the shoes shot across the hut, clattered against the far wall and dropped to the dirt floor.
‘She is be one crazy little sow!’ he shouted. ‘Anyone is can see they is never go fit me anyway.’ On his way out of the hut he paused only to kick one of the shoes with his too-big bare foot as he passed and then he was gone.
Wearily, William dragged himself to his feet. He walked across the hut and retrieved the shoes. He cradled them in his hands. They were so small. Lucy’s shoes! He silently upbraided himself for selfishly thinking of her. He put his mind back on Tigua. He remembered the first time he had seen the poor girl, struggling along in these self-same shoes with his suitcase. Girl! He couldn’t help smiling at himself for that, for always thinking of Tigua as a girl. Girl, boy, what did it matter? He, she, was neither now. He placed the shoes on the ground, side by side as they had been before Lintoa had disturbed them, and shuffled outside where all he could hear was the Pacific’s furious roar.
FIFTY-THREE
WILLIAM WAS DESPERATE to see Lucy. He had only three days before the plane came. He had to talk to her, to absolve himself in her eyes from any responsibility for Tigua’s death. He needed to persuade her that what he was doing was for the good of the islanders. That he was bringing them not only justice but a better life. There was no immediate opportunity. Lucy spent the whole day ensconced in the dead she-boy’s family hut, along with many of the village women, helping to wash and prepare the corpse for burial, as tradition demanded of the female relatives and friends of the deceased.
Outside, Tigua’s four older brothers were digging the burial pit in the centre of the village. William was struck by how matter-of-factly they went about their task. Not one of them looked sad. Not one of them shed a tear. In contrast they were surrounded by dozens of keening and shrieking women, and men who had shaved their heads and covered themselves in ashes to express their grief. How could the little she-boy’s own brothers be so immune to that emotion? thought William. How could anyone not be in tears at losing someone as funny and full of life as Tigua? He didn’t know, of course, that custom did not allow close relatives to show grief but required them to keep their emotions bottled and that only those unrelated to the deceased were permitted to express their feelings. When the pit was finished t
William asked Managua what would happen next.
‘Women is keep watch with Tigua body all night for keep away evil spirits,’ the old man said. ‘Next day we is bury she.’
There was obviously no point in waiting for Lucy. The walk back to the Captain Cook seemed unusually long as he trudged along the sand alone. He could not help recalling the first time he had made the journey with Tigua, the little she-boy skipping around him and getting the wrong end of the stick, thinking British tourists had wanted to come halfway round the world to shit on the island’s beach.
As William curled up on the mahogany table he noticed that the tide was going out. The sound of the sea subsided and there was silence, save for the distant wail of some persistent seabird. He was so tired he fell asleep in spite of it. He didn’t know it was the keening women he could hear.
Next morning while the village hummed with activity in preparation for the funeral, William asked Pilua to return to the Captain Cook with him so he could question her about the assault on her. There was, as he expected, some resistance to the idea from Managua, but Pilua overruled her husband: ‘No, I is want for tell. Is be right Americans is know what they soldiers is do with me.’ The old man shrugged and turned away, already, it seemed to William, half defeated by events.
Before the interview William felt a bleak nothingness. He missed the warmth of Tigua. He lacked the comfort only Lucy could bring. It seemed doubly cruel that the loss of the one meant the loss of the other. But the mood dissipated after listening to Pilua. His emotions woke again. He was moved and enraged by what she told him. Afterwards he went to see Purnu and informed him roundly that it would be a wicked distortion of the island’s taboo against sleeping with foreigners if she were not allowed to live with her husband.
Purnu shrugged. ‘Is be for Managua for decide. I is not oppose he if he is take she in he house. If he is say taboo is not matter, then who is I for argue?’
William could see the dollar signs flashing in Purnu’s eyes. He was seizing the chance to make Managua break with tradition.
Towards mid-afternoon those not already mourning in the centre of the village began to gather there, grouped around the pit Tigua’s brothers had dug. The keening and singing continued among those in the inner circle. Behind them some men danced and moaned a rough dirge. And behind the ring of dancers, those on the periphery of the mourning circle smoked kassa pipes and chatted, often smiling and joking as though the occasion were a festival not a funeral. William was shocked by the lack of respect among these people. He didn’t know they were some of Tigua’s closest relatives and that they were struggling hard to behave as was expected of them.
After an hour or so there was a sudden lull in the keening and then a gasp as the corpse emerged from Tigua’s hut, borne on the shoulders of her four brothers, who were naturally all smiling. Tigua’s parents followed the body, with Lucy supporting his mother. William had been wondering what the dead she-boy would be wearing. Would Tigua have reverted to her real sex, perhaps, and be clad in a pubic leaf? Or maybe the traditional grass skirt the island girls wore, perhaps in some elaborate funereal version? Or would Lintoa have given her his red dress, the one she had so coveted in life? But it was none of these. Some coconut matting had been rolled around the body, leaving exposed only the head at one end and the feet, now shorn for ever of high heels, at the other. William couldn’t help thinking of a hot dog as he watched the four young men lower the package into the pit. At the last they just dropped their sister, like an object, a piece of trash, perhaps, something to be disposed of, not something that had ever been alive. The whole affair was completely without ceremony; no prayers were said, no songs sung; Tigua was simply dumped.
He found Managua standing by his side. ‘Poor Tigua,’ murmured William.
‘What for poor Tigua? Is be nothing wrong for she, she is be on Tuma now, is be happy there. Is be rest of we who is be poor.’ The old man paused to wipe away a tear. ‘We is must live we lives without she. We is go miss she jokes and laughter. She is be one silly girl who is always make we smile and we is all go miss have she around all time. Is not be enough for just see she in kassa house. Is not be same thing at all.’
Tigua’s brothers took the logs they had piled up earlier and dropped them lengthways into the pit, onto the corpse, forming a layer that eventually covered it completely, thereby protecting it from desecration by any wild animals. Even a black bantam pig would not have been able to get through such a shield. After the task was completed the young men walked away and the crowd began to disperse.
‘That’s it?’ said William to Managua. ‘That’s Tigua’s funeral? It’s all over?’
‘This part is be finish. More is happen tomorrow. Now, if you is excuse me, gwanga, I is waste enough time today. I is have play I is must write.’ And the old man limped off. William looked around for Lucy, but she was not to be seen. She must have gone back into Tigua’s family hut.
He sat around for most of the afternoon, waiting for her to emerge. A breeze got up, whistling through the palm trees and making them nod their heads as if in some crazy dance. Otherwise, all was quiet. The keening and shrieking had stopped with Tigua’s interment.
In the late afternoon, Lucy appeared. William had almost dozed off and the first he knew about it was when he caught a flash of movement as her small figure dashed into the jungle, heading for the shore.
He chased after her and caught up with her on the beach. ‘Lucy!’ he called after her. ‘Lucy, wait a minute!’
She turned and shouted, ‘Go away! Leave me alone! I never want to see you again!’
She carried on running. He followed her and grabbed her arm. She spun round. ‘Go away! I hate you for what you’ve done!’
‘How can you blame me for Tigua’s death? She’d have found out about Perlua sooner or later.’
‘If Lintoa hadn’t been looking for Pilua because of you he’d never have seen the girl. Tigua would still be alive.’
‘You think Lintoa was going to stay a monk for the rest of his life? You think he was going to marry Tigua?’
A cascade of spray enveloped them both. Neither could speak. They were both soaked.
‘It would all have happened differently.’ Lucy was shouting to make herself heard over the crashing of the breakers. ‘She’d have been a couple of years older. She’d have got used to the idea of Lintoa being with somebody else. She’d have accepted he could never be hers.’
‘Maybe,’ said William. He paused. Funny how both of them were speaking of Tigua as a girl now. ‘Maybe she would. I don’t think so.’
‘You don’t think so!’ yelled Lucy. ‘You know so much about these people, don’t you? You’ve been here less than four weeks and you know what’s best for them.’
‘I’m not claiming that, but I think the money will help them. How many women here die in childbirth? How many succumb to infectious diseases? You’re telling me they can’t use a few tools and machines to make their lives a bit easier?’
‘They’re happy as they are!’
‘That’s because they don’t know anything better. Why should they be denied what the rest of the world has? You’re just patronizing them, saying you know what’s best.’
‘Well, I know what isn’t, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s.’
‘That’s a bit of a cliché, don’t you think? Not all of America’s like that. What about education? Would you deny them that?’
‘Your idea of education, yes. Cable TV! I was crazy to get involved with you. Your kind are all the same. You go blundering into things you know nothing about out of some misguided desire to feel better about yourself. The people here are doing all right. Why can’t you just keep your fucking nose out and leave them alone!’
She tried to turn and go but he still had hold of
‘Do you think that just because I let them alone they’d be left alone? The world’s getting smaller. They’ve already had a nasty brush with it thanks to the US military. Better we don’t leave them to wait for the next contact like that. Better we get them the money they’re entitled to now so they can resist malign influences and paddle their own canoes.’
‘They don’t want your money. They don’t need it.’
‘Maybe not now, but mark my words, they soon will. And there’s the little matter of justice. You can’t let the US government get away with this. Suing them is the only way to stop them doing it again and again. And they should be made to pay. People were maimed and killed. A woman was raped.’
‘Yes and she has a beautiful daughter whom she loves. That’s her compensation. Now let me go!’
‘I can’t let you go. I don’t ever want to let you go. I – I—’ He stopped, finding himself surprised at the words that had so nearly tumbled out of his mouth. His jaw clamped as his molars ground alternately, but he forced them to stop. This was no time to get into that. ‘Hey, guess what, Lucy, I think I love—’
‘I hate you!’
‘No you don’t. You know you’re only saying that. You can’t tell me the last couple of weeks meant nothing to you.’
‘It was a bit of sex with the only white man who’s come along for a long time, that’s all. It was because you were the only guy who wasn’t taboo. It was nothing personal!’
‘But the things you said, they weren’t just about sex.’
‘I said them because I thought it would help me persuade you to leave these people in peace! That’s the only reason! I didn’t mean a word of it! Now let go of my fucking arms!’ She shook his hands off and ran off along the surf. William stood gazing after her, watching her movement stroboscopically as his eyes did their old thing.