A Dolphins Dream (22 page)

“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.

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 9/16
^ths
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.