Black Marks on the White Page Read online

  It got repetitive. But repetition is an essential part of talanoa. And patience is required when islanders get into the talanoa moods, because the talanoa may circle and ripple around, touching here and there, before landing anywhere.

  More repetition and patience!

  Suddenly, Pio’s eyes sparkled. His face relaxed into a smile. He put the stuff that he was carrying on the ground, as if to touch the vanua, seeking permission to continue, then his hands stretched out, palms facing down, then back again, and again, almost like a Samoan dancer.

  Silently at first, then he explained, ‘The vanua is a figure lying down!’

  There was silence. This time, it was the silence of awe, not knowing how to continue.

  Pio continued, ‘If you look at the way a Fijian village is structured, you can see its head, its body, its arms and legs. The head and body of the village will die if the legs don’t go fishing, and if the arms don’t turn the plantation. The hands and feet will be lost if the head separates from the body. The vanua is like that, and it is lying down.’ Reclining. Relaxing. Resting.

  There was silence! This time, it was the silence of respect for the insights of a wise turaga.

  Questions rippled to Pio from several directions.

  ‘When did the vanua sit up?’

  ‘When did it stand up, so that Fijian societies became hierarchical?’

  ‘What roles did western colonisation and Christianisation play in raising up, erecting, the vanua?’

  ‘How do we get the vanua to lie down again?’

  ‘Can we relax the vanua so that it lies back down again?’

  ‘Should we keep the vanua standing, but encourage it to move?’

  Again, Pio wisely replied, ‘Come! Let’s go eat. It’s time for lunch!’

  A TALANOA IS DIFFICULT to complete, or contain. It lives on, beyond each of its tellings. Actually, each telling gives it new life.

  The next time I see Pio and Joeli I shall ask them:

  Did the vanua lie down willingly?

  Was the vanua lulled into lying down?

  Seduced, maybe?

  Was the vanua knocked down?

  Suggesting that ‘the vanua is fo‘ohake’, lying or fallen on its back, materialises these questions. That the vanua is lying down, is obvious. But why? And in whose interests?

  What about the chips? And the unfinished woodcarvings?

  As I await the next talanoa, may we remember that vanua refers to much more than land.

  Vanua also has to do, among other things, in our sea of talanoa, with identity and belonging.

  AFTER THE TSUNAMI

  SERIE BARFORD

  PENG IS A SECLUDED beach on a wondrous stretch of coastline that has been ground by the sea to fine grains of coral sand. Tropical palms, vines and wild flowers soften cliff faces broken by the jagged mouths of caves, where bodies were once buried foetal-like in baskets. Most of the sandalwood has been gutted from the forests but flame trees still hoist their arms to Christmas skies, entwining with frangipani and clusters of ripening lychee.

  The beachfront has picturesque ruins. Trees and ferns sprout from stone houses abandoned by a community weakened by leprosy and a lack of fresh water. Sharpened sticks mounted by hollowed coconut halves denote taboo places. The clan never went back, and I am living with them four kilometres inland.

  There are always those who relish solitude. At Peng it’s an ex-military French artist and a woman whose forebears once lived there. They reside amid sculptures behind a palisade patrolled by dogs. Two days after Christmas their dogs rushed me. The trio was maddened by sea-lice and the spectacle of a stranger ripping lychee from their rubbery casements with unbrushed teeth.

  I decided to ignore them, concentrating instead on the turquoise sea. Then one of them nipped my heels. ‘Piss off,’ I hissed as the artist appeared and called to the dogs. He seemed agitated. Almost distraught. All the while I was thinking, ‘My dog would make mincemeat of these buggers. He’s bigger, stroppier and goes for the jugular when threatened.’

  Drinking water is scarce at Peng and I wondered if the artist was dehydrated. He was of medium height, with a square face and skin roughened by constant exposure to salty wind and waves. ‘Have you heard the news?’ he asked, pushing the dogs away from me. He held a length of sandpaper in one of his heavy hands and a shell engraved with a spiral in the other.

  ‘What news?’ I had a radio but the power kept cutting out, which in turn immobilised the water pump for hours on end. I’d given up on the outside world and occupied myself with domestic matters such as keeping chickens out of the house, washing clothes with cold water as I showered, killing as many mosquitoes as I could, and finding affordable food at the market or village stores.

  ‘Tsunami!’ he gasped.

  ‘What?’ I was alarmed. The island had been fatally struck in the 1950s. An earthquake at sea had triggered a wave that obliterated entire villages along a shoreline usually protected by coral reefs. I turned to flee.

  ‘Wait!’ he shouted. ‘It’s already happened!’ and the Boxing Day tragedy spilled from him. He recounted descriptive news reports while I patted the now passive, scratching dogs, considering how the unexpected can strike you, even when you’re living beyond beyond.

  We cried for strangers and for friends and for paradise lost. He thought he’d escaped all earthly horrors when he’d settled at Peng. Now he wasn’t sure that he could be safe anywhere.

  ‘What about aftershocks?’ I asked. ‘Are we okay on this island?’ Doves cooed behind us. ‘It’s so tranquil here.’

  His eyes scanned the horizon. ‘For now,’ he replied.

  TRIBE MY NATION

  from The Wreck

  DÉWÉ GORODÉ

  translation Deborah Walker-Morrison and Raylene Ramsay

  AND THEY’RE ALL THERE, the bros, the pops and the grandpops, the sisters, the mamas and the grandmas, comrades, mates and relations making up the extended family. The years have brought with them spouses, partners and children, sharing the same hopes, the same unfailing determination. Welcomes are sung out to the beat of kanaka music over the loudspeakers as the protest marchers arrive in a steady flow. They come on foot, by car, bus and taxi. From downtown, from the four corners of the city, from the villages and tribes, they answer the call of the movement fighting against exploitation and domination in all its forms. Fighting for freedom, for justice, for dignity.

  Brothers born of long years of common struggle, the organisers meet and greet each other, and begin discussing details of the demands to be made in the speeches. Some deliberate as to what protocol should be observed, the customary gestures that must be made to local clans before speaking, singing, or setting foot on their soil. Speaking the link to the land. Others organise the banners and distribute placards and marshals’ badges. Others again keep a tally of who’s there and who’s not. The loudspeakers alternate marching instructions and music: Melanesian, Polynesian, Caribbean, African, in the original language or in English, Pidgin or French. They are setting the tone for the Big March on the tarseal of the town. The cops stop the traffic to allow the march to begin, as motorists look on and as TV cameras and news photographers prowl, on the lookout for the shot of the day or the shot of the century to sell later to the highest bidder.

  The party leaders and elected representatives lead the march arm in arm under the Kanaky flag, taking up the whole road. A giant placard at the head of the march pays tribute to all the exploited peoples of the planet in their ongoing struggle for dignity and a better quality of life. This march is part of the continuous struggle to beat the odds of a system stacked against them. The oppressed of the world are blinded to the true nature of the global market vampire that bleeds them dry. It appeals to them like a sky stuffed full of gods offering false promises to the colonised.

  The marchers stream past in a steady rhythm, picking up and chanting the slogans that are shouted out between songs from the loudspeakers, in a single resolute voice. The women follow
on, laughing and swapping gossip as they march. Those who haven’t seen each other in a while seize the opportunity to catch up with old friends, and their children, marching by their side, are happy to see their former classmates again. And so the long protest line advances slowly but surely through the streets of the town.

  Tom meets up with brothers, cousins and female relations from his tribe up north in the mountains across the Central Divide who have come to Noumea specially for the march. Their presence takes him back to childhood — memories of the schoolyard, of diving off the rocks or fishing for shrimp, loach-fish and eels in the creek. They talk about the mandarin season when, at dusk, they’d light the fire that warms body and soul at storytelling time in the Grande Case; or of the long silent walks through the bush when they would join the men hunting roussettes, notou pigeons, wild pig and deer. He thinks back to the smell of the forest, the taste of honey and roasted bancoule grubs dug out of tree trunks and fallen logs. He remembers the perfume of niaouli flowers and tabou wood and the unexpected beauty of wild orchids.

  The rhythm of the march and the chanting of slogans remind the marchers of the first meetings of the movement back home in the village, organised by the young people of back then, one of whom is among the leaders in the front row today. They march with the same enthusiasm, the same dignity, the same determination; with the same clear, simple, convincing voice that won a few old stalwarts of the colonial status quo over to their cause; with the same commitment that led the people to stake their land claims and begin political action on the barricades during the ‘Troubles’, under the control of party cells working towards a common purpose. They think back to the first time the Kanaky flag was raised, by an old grandfather who had the same measured gestures as the present leader, whose voice carried the same unequivocal truth. It was Tom’s own grandfather, in fact — an old clan chief who has always offered his crucial, unwavering support.

  And then, inside of Tom, they are there. His mother and father. They are still with him and will always be there with him. Alive as ever in his memory. They blend into memories of the tribu, that small corner of earth where he took his first steps and where, one day, he will lie again. He is what he is through what they made of him. They took upon themselves everything that might have weighed him down. The burdens of life. The weight of existence. And took it all away when they left him, when they were killed in the accident. Tom left too, not long after, for the army.

  After the leaders have presented their official list of demands to the authorities, the procession returns to its starting point and the march breaks up. The marchers head off in different directions through the town. As today is also a ‘Saturday shopping fest’, the city streets are decked out with garlands and banners. Everybody’s on the lookout for the bargain of a lifetime, anything from a multi-coloured beach ball to a reconditioned old car. Kids with their faces painted to look like cats, dogs or owls run around lighting firecrackers and firing water-pistols at imaginary bandits. Teenagers are checking out T-shirts, jeans and sneakers. Young girls try on lipstick, mascara, nail polish. Women pore over the prices of pots and pans, crockery and household items. Mums are busy perusing potted orchids, Colombo plants and cordylines, while dads linger in front of lawnmowers, weedeaters, rotary-hoes. The stallholders unpack their wares — stacking, displaying, covering the pavement with anything and everything they can possibly sell. The customers think twice, counting their pennies. Everybody’s calculating to the max.

  Except, that is, for the ones among the crowd who couldn’t give a hoot for all this showy display of merchandise. The dead-broke ones who have just come to look around, have a wander, check it out. They wait for mates with a few spare bucks to shout them a drink, a coffee or a meal or takeaways from one of the many foodstalls: spring rolls, meatballs, sandwiches, that they can sit on the grass and eat. Others have trouble finding a spot for themselves on the lawn between the bodies sitting or lying around in groups, talking, eating, and sleeping. But the constant movement of people passing by, coming and going continuously through the streets and gardens, seems to lead all and sundry off on some preset path, pounding the pavements in search of the ultimate object of desire. The narrow confines of the town centre are awash in the festive atmosphere that makes everyone want to move, mosey, go with the flow. The crowd mills around the town in a kind of magic merry-go-round, the hordes of noisy kids having a ball, oblivious to their parents. Everyday cares and woes dissolve away in the general euphoria; all the problems of the world appear to have been put aside by common consensus. And for those who are still having trouble keeping up or who can’t chill out, even for a few hours, there’ll always be plenty of good mates to get them drunk or stoned. For the regulars, this Saturday shopping fest means double the usual number of cans of beer and cartons of cheap red wine or free booze, taking them even higher, crazier, drunk beyond their wildest dreams.

  Tom’s cousin, who has become separated from him during the march, manages to catch up with Lena, the girl he’s been dating, though somewhat chastely, for a number of weeks now. Lena abandons the two cousins who had joined her for the protest and goes off with him. She appreciates the young man’s quiet manner; she’s not long lost her mother and is not in the mood for casual relationships. He’s in the middle of doing his army service and, since he’s on guard duty later this evening, he has to be back at the barracks quite early. But he also wants to find Tom and introduce Lena to him. They have chow mein and fried rice at a little Vietnamese place and are about to sit down for a chat in a busy café when Tom comes in with a girlfriend who happens to know Lena and who introduces them. Dressed in his Hawaiian shirt and smiling, Tom offers a friendly handshake all round and sits down opposite Lena. They order a round of drinks, then launch into a conversation that Lena has trouble following at first, what with the noise of the pool tables and pinball machines, the laughter coming from the next table and the sharp humour of Tom’s girlfriend, who has everyone in fits.

  Next thing, Lena hears her saying:

  —It’s a story about a fisherman grappling with a big catch on the end of his line, so big it pulls his canoe behind it for an entire night along the length of a wide bay. At dawn, shock number one! He finds himself back on the beach, sitting in front of the biggest fish he’s ever caught. With his axe he hacks a doorway into its belly that he then explores with a torch. And then, shock number two! He’s in the biggest coconut plantation he’s ever seen, with an endless supply of coconut milk. He walks on cautiously, driven by a mixture of curiosity and fear. And then, shock number three! An enormous woman, with a skirt and hair made of coconut fronds, a coconut trunk for a body, with coconuts for breasts and eyes, is lying before him on a gigantic mat. ‘Come and have a drink from my coconuts, little man,’ she whispers and her voice is like the wind that blows him between her breasts. ‘Come on, take hold of my two coconuts and have a drink. You know how. Go on, little man, don’t be afraid. Two good coconuts, just like the ones you drink every day! Help yourself, little man!’ He does as she says and suckles at her two coconuts as if she were his mother. He suckles and suckles and finally falls asleep like a baby between her two breasts. A long time after, as if at the end of a dream, he hears her voice, a whispering wind that says, ‘Farewell, little man, you’re a big boy now. You are truly a man.’ And there he is, back on the beach, under the coconut palms, in the place where the big fish landed his canoe. And then, final shock! No fish. No woman … Gone!

  AT REGULAR INTERVALS, PEOPLE they know come in, say hello, sit down next to their table or move on. The hustle and bustle of people from the surrounding boutiques and shops winds its way into the café and out the other side again, back onto the street. With all this commotion, Lena can’t really make out what anyone’s saying except for Tom, who has conveniently opted to address her exclusively, since she’s sitting opposite him. But from time to time, it’s the girlfriend’s voice that dominates. She has the gift of the gab and a whole repertoire of funny stories that
are a perfect fit for a day such as this. As she tells one story after another, Tom and Lena are in tears, looking into each other’s eyes. Between peals of laughter, unbeknownst to them all, something starts between the two of them; they turn away momentarily to look at the storyteller then back at each other while they listen to her tale:

  —This one’s about a man who boasts of owning a taro field containing every species of taro that exists. Ones for eating, ones for planting, medicinal ones and ones you exchange. Soon his taros produce so many shoots, sprouts and cuttings that he can’t remember their names and ends up completely lost and confused. The mountain taro ends up in the place where the water taro should be and vice versa.

  —What are you doing down there in the water, mountain-taro?

  —I am drowning, water-taro.

  —What are you doing up there on dry land, water-taro?

  —I am dying, mountain-taro.

  —And so, the collector’s taros perish. In wanting to possess them all, the man ends up losing them all.

  SHE CONTINUES LIKE THIS, captivating an audience that comes and goes, gathering around their small, round table topped with an ashtray that is steadily filling with butts and cigarette ash. An audience that has completely lost interest in the rowdy joyous spectacle that fills the rest of the room and the street outside.

  Tom and Lena are drifting now, borne along by their friend’s stories like two twigs, two wrecks drawn irresistibly together at the whim of the unfathomable current that binds them one to the other as they careen headlong towards some enchanted atoll, some tortured ocean. Each one floats, hopelessly adrift in the other’s amused gaze, carried away by the magical spontaneity of laughter. Like two enchanted children at a puppet show. For each of them, the telling of the stories is an exploration of the contours of a face, the meaning of a smile, the depths of a gaze. For each, the narration follows the lobe of an ear, brushes against a cheek, lingers at the nape of a neck. In this way, the storyteller’s tale, her humour and her entertainer’s art, serve the dual purpose of exposing and concealing the signs of an irreversible intimacy: tying the inextricable threads that will weave the story of a new couple waiting in the wings, about to be born, unbeknownst to them all.