Sister of the Sun (2 page)

With chagrin, Tepua glanced down at herself. The fine atoll wrap that Paruru had brought her, tied with a sash, hung drenched and tattered about her waist. The pearl-shell necklace, she was pleased to see, had survived.
 

 

By the time Tepua emerged from Ehi's oblong, thatched house, a large crowd had gathered. To her dismay, Tepua saw few expressions of joy on the faces of people she had known all her life. She began to wonder at this lack of an enthusiastic greeting. "Am I no longer welcome here?" she asked Ehi in a whisper.
 

"Everyone is worried about Kohekapu," Ehi answered quickly. "They cannot think of anything else." Tepua was not satisfied with that answer, but for now she did not press the point. She heard the deep voice of a drum and turned in the direction of her father's
marae
, his sacred open-air courtyard. She could not see it through the trees, but she knew that priests were busy petitioning the gods to restore Kohekapu's health.
 

"Come,'' said Paruru, who had been waiting by the door. Ehi stepped aside, leaving Tepua to accompany him alone. Paruru was the
kaito-nui
, the high chief's first warrior. She remembered him from childhood as a tall figure who loomed over her, and later as a man whose mere presence excited her. But during the voyage from Tahiti, with so many eyes watching, she had been cool to him.
 

Now Paruru strode forward, leading her onto a broad, shaded path beneath the coconut palms. She breathed the familiar fragrance, a mixture of salt spray and faint perfumes from blossoming trees. Underfoot she felt the crushed coral that covered much of the island.
Home
! Every scent was delicious; every sensation brought back an earlier time. She followed him quickly, coming out on the lagoon beach.
 

The booming of drums grew louder, and beyond that she heard surf pounding the outer shore. Tepua's coral cuts still stung, despite Ehi's ointment, but she tried not to notice the pain. Just ahead lay the most important dwelling on the atoll—the house of Kohekapu—oblong in shape and thatched with slender
fara
leaves. It had once seemed huge to Tepua, and she wondered if it had somehow grown smaller.
 

Paruru spoke to the man standing guard, then waved Tepua to go in alone. She hesitated, her pulse beating with the drums of the priests. Then she pulled aside the hanging that covered the low entranceway and ducked into the dim interior of the house.
 

Her father lay stretched on his thick pile of finely plaited mats, his head on the smoothed log that served as a headrest. Another mat, plaited of coarser leaves, covered him to his neck. Beside him crouched a
tahunga
, a priest of healing, who chanted and waved a small bunch of red feathers. Kohekapu grunted a command, sending the tahunga back a few steps.

Tepua knelt beside her father and pressed her nose to his cheek. The sparse whiskers of his beard seemed whiter than she remembered, the wrinkles of his forehead deeper.
 

"Come to me, first daughter," said Kohekapu in a cracked and tired voice. "Let me see for myself that the sea gods did not take you."
 

Swallowing hard, she said, "I am well, Father. My guardian spirit has protected me."

He grunted assent. "Then I owe something to your protector. I will have an offering made to Tapahi-roro-ariki."

"That is kind of you."

"But speak to me, daughter. Tell me of your life in Tahiti. I heard such tales after your brother's visit that I do not know what to believe."
 

Recalling the incident, Tepua frowned and clenched her fist in anger. Her married brother had come to Tahiti for the Ripening Festival. When he found Tepua there, he demanded that she return with him to her father. She had refused men, earning her brother's scorn. He knew only atoll ways. He could not understand that the gods had brought her to Tahiti and wished her to remain there.
 

"Father," she said softly. "I have joined the Arioi sect, as you must know. I have pledged myself to serve a high-island god, Oro-of-the-laid-down-spear."
 

Kohekapu cleared his throat "I am familiar with this god. The people of Tahiti make much of him. But such a power does not bother with people like us, so distant from the lands that he watches over. We must look to our ancestors in times of trouble. The great Oro will not hear us."
 

Tepua did not know how to answer him. In her thoughts, she was now a high-islander. While living on Tahiti, the problems of her kin had seemed remote.
 

"But what will become of you, my sweet flower," he asked, "with your wild dancing and your foreign god? I know that Arioi women must not bear children. What kind of life will that be, with no sons and daughters?"
 

"One day, Father, when I have finished my duty, I will leave the Arioi. Then I will have sons. My children will be of the
ariki
, of the high chiefs, not only here but in Tahiti."
 

"Then you have a man, and one of high birth. I am glad to hear that, daughter. But I regret that he is so far away. It is important that you remain with your own people awhile. That is what the
ringoringo
seems to be telling us."
 

As she took in his words Tepua's mouth fell open and a chill touched her shoulders. From time to time a child-ghost, or
ringoringo
, flew out from the Vast Darkness, crying faintly beyond the roar of the surf. The voice brought a warning—that some great change was coming.
 

"Every morning at dawn we have heard it," said her father. "For seven days. The priests tried divination, but learned nothing of what is to come."
 

Tepua felt her throat tighten. She clasped her father's weathered hand, whispering, "I will stay by you. Until you have an answer, and are well."
 

"Ah, daughter, do not fool yourself. My body will not get well. Soon my spirit will fly from here to join the ancestors. I will learn what is coming, and then I will send you a message."
 

She blinked away a tear. "Go now," Kohekapu continued, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. "I must rest. We will talk later."

With a sigh Tepua turned away. Only now did she gaze down the full length of the one-room dwelling, whose thatched walls curved inward as they rose, suggesting the contours of an overturned canoe. Then she noticed, at the far end of the house, the bulky form of Natunatu, her father's second wife, sitting cross-legged as she quietly chanted her own pleas to the spirits. Tepua did not interrupt her prayers.
 

Long ago, after consultation with the gods, the atoll's ruling succession had been decided. Natunatu's son, Umia, was to be the next high chief. As was customary, Kohekapu retained power until the boy reached a proper age to take up his duties. Tepua frowned as she headed for the doorway, its mat covering now streaming sunlight. Young as he was, Umia might be chief sooner than anyone expected. She hoped the priests and elders had prepared him well.
 

 

Outside again, Tepua blinked, dazzled by the sudden brightness. She looked up and saw that half the clouds had blown away, leaving a stretch of blue sky and a brilliant sun. The remaining clouds were quickly vanishing.
 

She remembered how homesick she had been during her first days in Tahiti. The sights and smells of the atoll had never been far from her mind. Now Tepua wanted to stop for a moment just to look around.
 

Glancing across the lagoon, its color pale as sand in the shallows, rich azure farther out, she studied distant islets. She and Maukiri, Ehi's daughter, had a favorite....
 

"Tepua!"

She turned, and her mood brightened at once. Here came Maukiri running along the sandy beach, sturdy brown legs flying. Tepua eagerly embraced her young cousin. "I was picking clams," Maukiri explained breathlessly. "Ehi just found me."
 

"Ah, it has been so long." Tepua stood back to look at her cousin, the broad face and full lips, the dark hair askew in the breeze. For decoration Maukiri wore tiny fern leaves thrust through the holes in her earlobes. A shade woven of a coconut frond kept the sun from her eyes.
 

"I prayed every day that the spirits would bring you back to me," said Maukiri, taking Tepua's arm and leading her along the narrow beach. "And now it will be just like before. We will go to our islet, where no one can find us. Stretch out in the shade and say whatever we please."
 

Tepua recalled the islet, the special
motu
, that she and Maukiri had claimed as their own. It was too small for a family to live on. Coral heads studded the surrounding waters, discouraging casual visitors from risking their canoes. But for one who knew how to get onto the tiny beach, it was a perfect refuge.
 

"The sun is getting hotter," said Maukiri. "We should go now, before someone finds work for us."

Tepua laughed. Maukiri was talking as if the two of them were still children. She glanced back toward Kohekapu's house.

"You have seen him?" Maukiri whispered, her expression suddenly solemn.

"Yes. He is resting now."

"And Natunatu?"

"Praying."

"Praying that her son will soon be chief," Maukiri answered harshly.

"Let's not talk about that now." Tepua and Natunatu had never gotten along. Tepua could not remember when she had last exchanged even a word of greeting with her father's second wife. But she held no grudge against Natunatu's son. Umia had been a growing youth when Tepua last saw him.
 

"Look," said Maukiri, pointing to a battered
vaka
, a single-hulled canoe with an outrigger float, that was drawn high up on the sand.
 

Tepua stared at the old canoe for a moment before she recognized it as one they had often used for paddling about the lagoon. "Have you gotten your brothers to tighten the seams yet?" she asked. Her people built their hulls from small planks, fitted edge to edge and sewn together with coconut fiber cord. After much use, the seams began to leak intolerably. She and Maukiri used to argue about who was to bail, waiting until the hull was half-filled with water before finally getting started.
 

"Come with me and find out," Maukiri answered in a teasing voice.

Tepua could not resist. Together, she and Maukiri pushed the small outrigger canoe into the warm, shallow water that covered the reef flat near shore. They waded a short way out over the soft bottom, then climbed into the
vaka
.
 

A slight breeze ruffled the surface of the lagoon as the two young women began to paddle. They were past the reef flat now. Looking down into deep, clear water, Tepua saw gardens of branching coral, a swarm of striped fish, and a baby eel. Long, maroon sea cucumbers lay motionless on the bottom.
 

The hot sun felt good on her back after the chill of the morning's wind. The canoe rocked gently, stabilized by the long outrigger float that was attached by slender poles. Across the water, trees of other islets stood in clusters.
 

Tepua glanced back toward the shallows and saw a group of women gathering clams, shucking them quickly and tossing the thick, white shells onto a heap that rose out of the lagoon. Her mouth watered for a taste.
 

Then she noticed that her feet were getting wet again. "So your boat is as leaky as ever! "she complained as a thin layer of water began sloshing in the bottom of the canoe.
 

"Not as bad as before," Maukiri protested. "But since you are the honored visitor, I will bail today." They paused, halfway to their destination, while Maukiri scooped out some of the water with a coconut shell. Tepua sat watching for a moment. Then she sighed, picked up a second shell, and began to help.
 

At last they reached the channel they had long ago discovered, threading their way between coral heads that broke the surface with each gentle motion of the waves. Half the small
motu
was well shaded by palms and thorny-leaved
fara
trees. On the other half, a white sand beach glistened in the afternoon sunlight.
 

Tepua helped her cousin pull the canoe ashore, then ran over the hot sand into the cool beneath the palms. Thirsty after her paddling, she picked up a green coconut that looked freshly fallen and shook it to listen for the water. It was a
viavia
, the best kind for drinking.
 

The sharp stake that she remembered still stood upright in the ground beneath the trees. With a practiced blow, Tepua rammed the coconut's husk onto the stake and started tearing away the thick, fibrous covering.
 

"That is something new," said Maukiri, when she caught up with her.

Tepua realized what she was doing and felt her face burn. In the past, she recalled, she had always prevailed on Maukiri to do the heavy work of opening coconuts. Tepua had insisted that a chief's daughter must save her strength for more delicate tasks. But in Tahiti, as servant to a chiefess of the Arioi, Tepua had husked enough coconuts— more than enough—to feed everyone on her atoll.
 

"And I see you are good at it!" Maukiri laughed and went searching for a drinking nut of her own. Tepua paused for a moment, then continued her work. What was the point of pretending she did not know how? With a blade of seashell that was kept conveniently beside the stake, Tepua cut through the "mouth" of the nut and began to drink.
 

She swallowed the cool, sweet liquid greedily. Even in Tahiti, the coconuts did not taste quite as rich as this one. Within the
viavia
, the soft, white meat had a special fragrance. Tepua held the drained nut in one hand, tapped it sharply about the middle with a rock, and broke it open. With her fingers she brought out the first tender morsel.