One Big Damn Puzzler by John Harding
If the exterior of the hut was hardly altered, inside it had been transformed. Gone was Managua’s upturned plastic milk crate and in its place stood a large wooden keyhole desk, on top of which a computer sat winking. Across the room was a huge widescreen TV on a plastic stand, complete with DVD player and video recorder. Managua picked up a remote control and pointed it at the TV. A man in historic costume appeared. It took William a moment or two to realize it was Laurence Olivier in the film of Hamlet.
‘He is be one plenty damn bad actor,’ said Managua. ‘He is talk like he is need for shit plenty bad. I is show Lintoa for teach he how he is must not act.’ He pressed the remote and the picture vanished. Managua spat on the hard earth floor. ‘Is not even be in surround sound.’
‘Who is go want for hear that guy in surround sound?’ Lintoa said. ‘Is be bad enough for have he talk like that just from front.’ He turned to William. ‘Me, I is prefer Die Hard. Sound is be so good in that one is make walls shake. First time I is see I is think there is be hurricane.’
‘Huh!’ Managua rolled his eyes.
‘Bruce Willis is be one plenty fine actor,’ protested Lintoa.
‘Huh!’ repeated Managua.
‘He is make fine Laertes. He is be damn good for fight,’ insisted the former she-boy.
Managua shrugged. ‘Yes, he is be plenty good in duel scene, I is give you that.’
Before Lintoa could argue any more there was a commotion in the doorway and William looked round to see Perlua come in, flanked by two toddlers, naked little boys, each as white as she, and identical to one another.
Lintoa rushed over to them and picked them up, sitting one on each of his massive forearms. ‘Is be my family,’ he announced proudly. ‘My wife, Perlua, you is know, of course.’ William smiled at her. She was, if anything, more beautiful than ever. She had that serene knowingness that motherhood confers upon some women. ‘And these is be my sons. They is be twins. They names is be Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, like they two in Hamlet because no-one is can tell which of they is be which either.’
William sat on the floor and allowed the toddlers to tumble all over him and to prod and poke and pull him. Without looking up he said, ‘I understand Miss Lucy has a child now.’
‘Yes,’ replied Managua. ‘She is have girl.’
William glanced at him. The old man was regarding him seriously. ‘Does the child look like anyone?’ William asked. It came out as a whisper.
‘How is child go look like anyone? She is not have father for mould she. She is have some slight coincidental resemblance with she mamu, yes, blue eyes, yellow hair, but that is be all. What you is expect with no father?’
William pretended to be absorbed in getting his hat back from one of the children. ‘Lucy isn’t married, then?’
‘No, she is not be marry,’ said Managua. ‘She is become teacher. Is teach all children read and write. We is make whole generation of Shakespeares. People is use some of they dollars for buy books for she. Books is be more cheap than DVDs.’
Eventually William extracted himself from the children and stood up. He congratulated Lintoa on his young family. He declined Pilua’s offer of stew. ‘I think I’ll just take a walk,’ he said. Managua nodded. He didn’t make any move to accompany William. He might have gotten older, but he was still no fool.
William set off along the beach. It was a fine afternoon. The tide was on the way out and he watched a stranded sea turtle lumbering back towards the surf. He’d heard tell they lived for as much as a hundred, maybe, mebbe, even two hundred years. Time enough to make a mistake or two and put it right again, if you didn’t get caught by hunters in the meantime. There weren’t any hunters out today. At one time small boys had patrolled the beach regularly, on the lookout for easy turtle meat. He imagined they were all indoors now, watching TV or playing computer games, just like American kids. He sighed. You couldn’t have everything. You couldn’t have a school and literacy and a playhouse and a hospital and all the benefits of civilization and still kill turtles for fun, he guessed.
As he neared Lucy’s house he heard the sound of voices, children’s voices, singing, he thought at first, but as he got closer, he realized it was chanting. There were maybe twenty kids squatting on the beach in front of the house, ranged in a semicircle around an adult. As he got closer the blonde hair came into focus. He could see the shape of a woman. But the breasts weren’t pointy any more. Maybe age, maybe motherhood, had softened them.
‘Four twos is be eight, five twos is be ten, six twos is be twelve, seven twos is be fourteen, eight twos is be . . .’ the children chanted. The woman looked up. She lifted a hand to push the hair out of her eyes and then used it to shield them from the sun as she stared at him. He was too far away to see her features. She probably couldn’t see him well enough yet to know who he was and run away. He was wondering whether or not to proceed – after all he hadn’t planned on his possible humiliation in front of twenty little kids – when the door of the house opened and a man came out, a stocky figure in Western clothes, tan shirt and pants and a slouch hat. He walked down the steps from the house to the beach. Lucy turned to look up at him. He bent and whispered something in her ear. William thought back to his conversation with Managua. He’d asked if Lucy was married. He hadn’t inquired whether she had a boyfriend. Before the conversation was over and Lucy could turn her gaze back to him, William had turned tail and fled.
He cursed himself for being so cowardly. Somewhere among those children, probably, was his daughter. He wanted to see her. He wanted to find out how his genes and Lucy’s had arranged themselves in her. Lucy couldn’t deny him that. As he made his way back towards the village he found himself indulging in a fantasy about Lucy, as he had done once before on this very walk, so long ago now, it seemed, only this time the narrative was negative. He imagined a custody case with him fighting for access rights to his child. But already he knew there wouldn’t be much point. He couldn’t, as he’d planned, stay on the island, not with Lucy living on it with another man. He wouldn’t need to be allowed to see his daughter more than once every five years, he told himself grimly, the island was still so difficult to get to. He began estimating how many years of life he had left and dividing it by five. It meant he’d see his child maybe eight, or nine or, at most, ten times. After that he’d be dependent on her smuggling herself into the kassa house, as her mother had once done, for them to meet.
He wandered out onto the island’s main road where he followed the heartbreaking procession of grotesquely fat natives. As they approached the village by this route it took on the appearance of a strip mall, so familiar in America. There were a couple of concrete-built fast-food shops, one advertising PIG BURGERS, the other boasting SOUTHERN FRIED TURTLE MEAT. There was a large queue of large natives outside each. The area was littered with polystyrene carry-out food boxes and plastic cups. William could only stand and stare at what his dollars had done. From somewhere off in the jungle he heard – as he always seemed to at these pivotal moments of self-examination – the sarcastic cackle of a howler monkey.
In the village he came again to PURNU MINI MARKET and decided to visit the little sorcerer. The glass door had a handwritten sign stuck to it: ARTIFICIAL LIMB WEARERS! PREVENT ARTHRITIS! OIL YOU METAL LEG JOINTS NOW! SPECIAL CHEAP ONE MOON ONLY!
As William pushed open the door a bell announced his presence. A second or two later what he at first took to be a large rubber beach ball bounced through a doorway at the back of the shop. William was trying to peer through the doorway to see who had kicked or thrown the ball when he noticed it had things sticking out of it and then that these things were arms and legs and a head like a rat’s. It was Purnu, grown freakishly large and round. It had been easy to mistake him for a beach ball because of the tight-fitting striped T-shirt and shorts he was wearing and because, by comparison with his torso, his arms and legs were like small flippers.
‘Ah, gwanga, I is hear you is be back. If I is know earlier I is co
‘It’s OK,’ said William, ‘don’t mention it.’ He looked around at the shelves lined with bottles of cola and potato chips. ‘This is some place you have here.’
‘I is invest my dollars in retail. Now everyone is buy most of they food from mini market.’
‘They buy food, even when there are plenty of fish in the sea and fruit on practically every tree and vegetables grow so easily in their gardens?’
Purnu sighed. ‘They things is be too much work.’ William winced at the word. When he’d first come to the island the natives hadn’t known the concept of it. ‘Besides, everything is change now we is have satellite TV. People is want tasty things they is see there.’
He paused to serve a well-built islander who had a trolley-load of cola bottles, tinned food and several giant packs of corn crackers. William watched Purnu stuff a sheaf of dollars into the cash register. The little man looked up and smiled. ‘You is see, I is make plenty dollars.’
‘Tell me,’ said William, ‘how do they pay you for magic these days, dollars or yams?’
Purnu shrugged apologetically. ‘I is not do magic any more. This is be plenty more easy for make living. With magic you is must always be out at night of full moon for catch this, or dig up that, or bury some other thing. Then you is must make spell. Shop is be plenty more simple. Stuff is come in on plane. I is pay boy for put on shelves. People is take off shelf and is give me dollars. Besides, people is not want magic no more.’
‘There isn’t any magic?’ William could hardly stop his voice cracking with despair.
‘People is not grow crops so is not need spell for protect they. Is not need sorcerer for help catch fish because is not need fish.’ He waved an arm to indicate shelves loaded with Doritos and Cheerios that made fishing unnecessary. ‘If they is get sick, is have hospital. What for they is need magic?’
SIXTY-NINE
IN THE AFTERNOON William had Tr’boa drive him out to the hospital. When he saw it he was reminded of the Captain Cook in the old days; it was half-finished. The single-storey building was of cinder block that had not yet been rendered. A few natives stood around a whirring cement mixer, chatting in a desultory manner that suggested it would be a struggle ever to get the place built. They looked ill-suited for the job, incongruously dressed as they were in nothing but pubic leaves and hard hats.
Inside there was a desk with a reception plaque. A plump young girl sat behind it, the nipples of her large and pendulous naked breasts tickling the keys of her computer keyboard.
‘I’d like to see the doctor,’ William told her. ‘My name’s William Hardt.’
‘You is have appointment?’
‘No, I’d just like to talk to him for a few minutes, to get some information.’
‘He is make operation for this moment, but I is go see what I is can do. You is please take seat in waiting area.’ She indicated the far side of the room where there were a dozen or so chairs. Half of them were occupied by superfat natives. As he sat down William observed that every one of them was missing a foot or lower leg. When a couple of them smiled at him, he noticed they were both light a tooth or two too. There were no magazines to read and there was nothing for William to do as the minutes ticked by save watch these patient patients as they opened packet after packet of potato chips and other snack foods and crammed the contents into their mouths. The idea seemed to be to get the stuff from the pack down into your stomach without either looking at it or chewing it.
Eventually he heard footsteps. ‘Mistuh Hardt!’ called the receptionist. He went over to her desk. ‘The doctor is see you now. You is please take door on right.’ As William walked off down the corridor he noticed how quiet it had suddenly become. Glancing at his fellow attendees he saw they had all stopped rustling their paper bags and munching the contents to glare furiously at him with that look reserved the world over for queue jumpers.
He knocked on the door and an indistinct voice replied, ‘Come in.’ The doctor was sitting behind a desk writing on a clipboard. He was wearing a surgical gown, hat and face mask. Without looking up, he gestured to William to take the customer’s chair on the other side of the desk. Finally he grunted, tossed the clipboard to one side and the eyes flicked up. There was something familiar about them.
‘Hardt? Is it really you? You’ve come back.’
The words were so muffled by the mask it was all William could do to make them out let alone identify the speaker. The doctor reached up and pulled down the mask. William gasped. ‘Dr Gold!’
‘It is you. I never thought I’d see you here again, Hardt.’
‘I could say the same about you. What are you doing here?’
Gold shrugged and lifted his arms to indicate the building around him. ‘I work here. This is my hospital.’
‘But how . . . why?’
‘I heard about the fix these people were in. Things sounded so bad I couldn’t ignore it. I gave up my job – which was mostly trying to stop people getting their rightful compensation from Uncle Sam – and came out here to do what I could to help.’
‘I don’t understand. All these people with missing legs.’
‘Without their missing legs, you mean, my friend.’
‘But the US army was supposed to clear all the mines. How come so many more people are getting injured?’
Gold smiled grimly. ‘And the US kept its word. It’s not mines, Hardt.’
‘Not mines? But what, then?’
‘Diabetes.’
‘Diabetes?’
‘Diabetes mellitus, to give it its full name. There’s an epidemic of it. More than thirty per cent of the islanders have it.’
‘Thirty per cent? But that’s incredible!’
‘Not when you appreciate the facts. The people in this region of the South Pacific have a genetic disposition towards diabetes. Fortunately, until now they did not have the lifestyle to activate that disposition. Then you came along and gave them all those dollars. They spent them on sugary carbonated drinks and snack foods. The result is an explosion of adult-onset diabetes.’
William shook his head. For a whole minute he was speechless. ‘B-but that doesn’t explain why so many of them have lost limbs.’
‘When you arrived I was performing a foot amputation. Amputations are virtually the only operation I do here. Diabetes is the most common cause of amputation the world over. I would have thought you might know that.’
William put his head in his hands.
‘It’s ironic, isn’t it?’ continued Gold. ‘You got them money to compensate them for losing their limbs and that money has meant that even more of them have finished up missing a foot or a leg.’
William didn’t move. Gold smiled. ‘But look at it this way, my friend. It’s not all bad. If you hadn’t got them the dollars they wouldn’t have been able to afford this splendid hospital to treat their diabetes.’
Gold stood up and removed his hat and gown. He walked over to a washbasin in a corner of the room, ran some water and splashed it over his face. He picked up a towel and dried himself then turned and gazed at William who finally lifted his head from his hands.
‘What have I done?’ William’s voice came out so harsh you’d have thought he’d just had his throat rubbed with sandpaper rather than been told a shocking piece of news.
Gold shrugged. ‘You’ve been an American. It’s our big problem. We mean so well. We want to help everyone. We think we know best and we act from the best possible motives. And then the politicians and the corporations take over for the only reason they know which is to make another buck. Result, catastrophe.’
‘Is – is there nothing we can do?’
‘Sure. When someone comes to me with a blackened toe because he has no circulation in it and gangrene has set in I can cut it off. And when he comes back I can remove the ot
‘But the money? All the millions of dollars they have. There must be some use we can put that to.’
‘Gone!’ said Gold, smiling broadly now.
‘Gone? What do you mean?’
‘It’s mostly gone. Beach was here recently to pay the last small amount. But the people have spent most of it.’
‘But how could they? It was millions of dollars. What did they spend it all on?’
‘Doritos and Cheerios and Oreos and Coca-Cola and Pepsi. They bought a few electronic toys and the occasional SUV, but most of it they frittered away on American snack foods and carbonated drinks. I’m doing a lot of dental work, too, even though I’m not trained for it. The sweet stuff wreaks havoc on their teeth. Diabetes and tooth decay, that’s all they got out of it.’
‘I can’t believe it. They couldn’t have spent millions on those things.’
Gold smiled. ‘Oh yes, they could. It all had to be imported by air, that put up the cost. And they consume prodigious quantities of it. You’ve seen the size of the customers in my waiting room. Buying their food meant they also abandoned their traditional pursuits of hunting and gardening. They have chemical toilets in their huts so they don’t even have to walk to the beach to take a dump any more. Lack of exercise is a good friend to diabetes.’
Tears were running down William’s face. ‘What have I done?’ he asked again.
Gold walked around the desk and gave him a kindly pat on the shoulder. ‘It’s OK, my friend, the end is in sight.’
William looked up at him, a gleam of hope in his eye. ‘It is?’
‘Sure thing. When they run out of money they won’t be able to eat any more junk.’
Gold took William to his living quarters at the rear of the hospital. He had his own cinder-block building with a terrace that overlooked the ocean. He left William there with a beer while he dealt with his patients. William sat and watched the ocean which he couldn’t hear above the ear-shattering judderings of a pneumatic drill that was duetting with the regular chug-chug-chug of the hospital generator. This aural intrusion into the visual paradise before him was such an obvious metaphor for what William had done to the island that his cheeks grew hot with a shame that even the tears that slid down them failed to cool. He thought how he’d carried out his own September 11 on the island. He had done far more damage than any terrorist ever could.