Another Throw of The Dice, Page 3

  When he eventually got up to leave, Yushi offered her some money for the English lesson and she was horrified.

  ‘I have an idea. Bring your flatmates and your girlfriend here for a meal tomorrow night and I’ll cook you something English. Would you like that?’ She had no idea what she meant exactly by English because roast beef and Yorkshire pudding was all she thought of in those terms. Pasta was her strong point but no matter how much it had been embraced by Anglo- Saxons, it was not English. Oh well, tinned baked beans embroidered by something or other, might qualify.

  ‘Thank you very much. We have saki which the’ (he looked at his notebook) ‘burglars did not take.’

  As he sped off on his bike, Min wondered why she had bitten off more than she could chew - an apposite metaphor in the circumstances. She lay down on her bed again to rack her brains and soon she was standing in an enormous hangar and someone was trying to saw open a car with a huge can opener. She was calling out but no sound escaped her lips. The words she was trying to say were ‘You need the jaws of life and you are using the jaws of death’. She felt helpless and ineffectual. Suddenly she was blindfolded from behind and led away and was accused of abusing the language. The more she tried to justify herself, the more she was pushed and the blindfold was tightened. She started to struggle and woke up with relief washing over her.

  She marvelled at the wild plunge her mind had taken into her subconscious, fascinating her with its bizarre store of imagery and dissociated imprints. It had once again, indicated significant influences in a jumble of surreality.

  She did enjoy these siestas which tided over the soporific heat of the noon, but it was now late enough and time enough to walk to the post office and make another attempt to get a telephone. She would appeal to a sense of family because her parents felt insecure with no ready communication.

  When she arrived at the first level of the mysteries, she was told that Iosefa the keeper of the mysteries, had gone to the airport so she asked if she could see his replacement. Her interlocutor refused to make eye contact and kept looking over her shoulder to some other petitioners waiting on a bench.

  ‘When will Iosefa be back?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He shrugged and walked off behind a screen. Min followed him and when he sat down at his desk he looked angrily at her and pointed to the exit.

  ‘Look, I have come here to teach and I have left my family behind in New Zealand. I need to be able to contact them because my parents are quite old. Who else can I ask? Can I ask the minister of education?’

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘I live not far from Eturasi Ituri - do you know him?’ Of course he did, but wordlessly he pulled open a drawer and took out a form which he passed over the desk. He indicated that she should fill it in.

  ‘Do you live alone?’

  ‘Yes - but I do have a dog,’ she lied, realising that her admission was unguarded.

  He picked up a telephone and nodded to her to say that the audience was over, so she returned to the outer chamber and filled in the cyclostyled form.

  On the way home she began to think that a dog might be an advantage even though she had no experience of caring for one. Her parents were not animal lovers and the only time a dog was mentioned in the house was to recall the time her father had been bitten on the leg and had had to buy a new pair of trousers. Dogs however were favoured by expatriates in this town and many were dangerous and used as guards on the big estates. She had gone off the idea by the time she reached home.

  Dinah was sitting on the doorstep reading a letter, so Min reported on her visit to the post office and the tale of the imaginary dog. Dinah laughed and said that she had a friend in Australia who had a recording of a dog’s bark which was triggered by the doorbell. Maybe Min could invest in one of those.

  ‘Anyway, I’ve come to arrange our trip to the market in the morning. How does 7 o’clock sound?’

  ‘Perfect. Remind me to tell you about Yushi’s burglary. I’ve invited him and his mates for an English meal tomorrow and have no idea what to cook.’

  ‘How about toad in the hole - which Robert calls - can you guess?’

  ‘You’re a brick. You and Robert are invited too. Just don’t tell Robert what’s on the menu.’

  Dinah gave a witty salute as she started the engine of her van and Min went inside to mull over the eventful day. She was hot and too tired to eat a proper meal. At this rate she would become the sylph that she had always wanted to be.

  She looked glumly at her furniture which suddenly reminded her of an austere convent parlour where she had once been reprimanded for singing “All wipe your noses” in chapel, instead of “Ora pro nobis”, and she felt overwhelmed. The empty space on the wall where a telephone should be, was the last straw. She stomped off to the cool bedroom and threw herself on the bed where she uttered a husky growl,

  ‘I need a break from God’s grace - I’m over it!’

  Instead of a clap of divine thunder, she heard the resonant snort of her neighbour’s pig and she felt strangely relieved of a long-standing burden.

  Chapter 7

  Eturasi was sitting in the back room behind the printing press reading through the galley proofs for the paper. It was a demanding business, keeping abreast of the country’s affairs each week on both the domestic and foreign fronts. It was also a considerable responsibility to be as objective as possible. All this, plus an able and reliable compositor working in a ramshackle shed in the searing heat, produced a ten- or twelve-page tabloid every Thursday.

  He was currently editing the Peace Corps report of the nuclear ship visit which included the results of the basketball match. Eturasi was neither for nor against the visit but he could not ignore the welcome windfall for the local economy which was heavily dependent on remittances from local people living overseas. The Peace Corps article touched on the role of the US navy as a stabilising influence in the Pacific, but he decided to leave this out. There were plenty of people who disagreed with the paper’s editorial policy but he always pointed out that they were welcome to set up in competition at any time. His understated style and encyclopedic knowledge earned him respect in many quarters.

  It had been decided that Luatasi and the two children would go to New Zealand if her younger sister’s scholarship came through but Eturasi couldn’t get away because there was no assistant editor. He had employed a promising young man for a few months who, as so often was the case, had gone overseas to study. It was then suggested that he employ a volunteer replacement. However, he rejected the idea on the grounds of cultural ignorance. His attitude to overseas volunteers was problematic because of his sensitivity to unenquiring paternalism. Just as he was thinking of shutting up shop for the day, there was a ring on the bell in the front office. Min had come to have a chat and some advice about her programme and its literary content. She used the word

  ‘relevance’ and he stiffened visibly. There was a pause before he looked her straight in the eye and asked her what she meant. Flustered for a moment, Min said she wanted to connect with the students’ experience.

  ‘Is that what you think about at home, or do you think more about extending the students’ horizons?’

  ‘I try to do both I suppose, but most of the material we use belongs to our cultural canon whereas here I would like to choose material which the students can relate to.’

  ‘Is your knowledge of this culture adequate to use it as any sort of a guide for your teaching?’

  Min felt defensive and miserable. She had waded into deeper water than she had anticipated and she looked away. Bloody hell. Her intentions were being misconstrued. Eturasi knew the effect he was having and he spoke more gently.

  ‘Remember that these students are going to teach and the wider their experience is - no matter how vicarious - the better. Don’t underestimate them.’

  ‘I certainly don’t want to do that. But I have a problem with lack of materials. Is there a conduit for funds through say
, UNESCO or the UNDP ?’

  Eturasi smiled. After a careful pause, he told Min that she was welcome to approach them and he’d be very interested in how she got on. This did not sound encouraging. She leaned forward to pick up her kit full of books which she had intended to show him but which now seemed redundant. He stood up and wished her good luck and asked her to keep in touch. She thanked him for his time and left the building deflated and confused. Clearly she had to adjust her perspective but deep inside her, she felt as if she had been chastised for her good intentions.

  Across the road was the public library where Dinah worked, so she blindly went across with no particular plan in mind but in need of a reflective pause. The magazine stand was the first sign that she was entering a library and she approached the librarian at the despatch desk to explain that she was looking for material which she could trawl for teaching resources. Her reply was a wave of the hand indicating a table of newspapers and sad-looking dog-eared periodicals by the window. Min sat on the window seat and contemplated the collection. Her eye lit on some faces long since removed from the celebrity pantheon and a closer look revealed depressingly old publication dates. She rolled her eyes and had an urge to harangue the woman on duty to relieve her pent-up feelings.

  Fortunately, Dinah appeared from a side room and Min said to herself,

  ‘Now she can take a diatribe.’ But before she let fly, Dinah enthused about the chance to have a drink at her favourite watering hole and Min acquiesced limply. Once they had sat down with their drinks, Min felt her eyes smart and her throat constrict. Dinah put her hand out to touch hers and it was enough to open the sluice gate. She told Dinah that the sight of all that out of date crap coupled with the homily she had got from Eturasi, aroused her anger and misery. She said she felt desperately inadequate and homesick and wanted to throw in the towel. The task was beyond her and the loneliness was desolate. Dinah listened with her hand still firmly holding hers and waited for the tears and the misery to abate.

  ‘We’ve all felt like this at some point. It’s a combination of culture shock and dislocation. Please hang in there and don’t take things too seriously. That’s how I coped - and Rob too I think, although he is a bit better at containing his feelings.’

  ‘But I have to find material in a hurry and Eturasi was implicitly dismissive of the UN agencies though you’d think UNESCO would be a major help.’

  ‘What about the college library? I thought that’s where most of the stuff would be - a public library is a fairly novel concept here after all.’

  Min leaned forward and invited Dinah to come and look at the miscellaneous collection which lined the gecko-infested shelves at the college. Would the Life of Ron Hubbard or the abridged version of the Wind in the Willows appeal? The students deserved a whole lot better and it was time something was done. What exactly she was unsure, but she’d ask the principal about a source of funds which she would follow up.

  ‘That’s my girl. Get the bit between your teeth and in the meantime, I’ll try and update our celebs. All those passé bimbos will disappear…’

  Min thanked Dinah for trying to restore her equilibrium and as they were parting, Dinah remembered Lucky’s invitation to the Big Island. She would discuss it with him first but she was sure he would agree to Min’s joining in. Then there was Semese even though they would not be sharing his village accommodation.

  ‘I’ll be in touch when I’m a less sodden blanket.’ Min shouldered her kit of books and turned for what did not yet feel like home.

  Chapter 8

  Lucky went to the High Commission to read the newspapers and to catch up on Australian news. He was thinking about himself a lot these days and this was something new. His dreams were more memorable than before and they were mostly centred around his boyhood and people who had died. It was as if it was his first chance to think about the past and its influences. The work he was doing was less demanding than he was used to but there were frustrations he was not used to and which took up time and called for some ingenuity.

  The papers were full of gossip, of upturns and downturns, of medium terms and long terms. He smiled at the arcane analyses by the experts whose wholesale use of jargon made it all the more remote. Language was one of the arms of power he thought, as he scanned some of the articles. Then he saw references to English as a Foreign Language as a saleable commodity on the free market and his heart sank. Was there anything beyond the purview of economic rationalists? Water and air would be next.

  He looked at his watch and realised that he would not have time to go home to take a shower before he met Semese at the Seasider. He gave himself a quick squirt of body freshener in the car and when he arrived, there was no sign of Semese so he bought a beer and sat down in the shade where he could watch the seawater lapping against the roadside wall. The ocean fascinated him and he wondered what it must be like to live on planet earth and never see it.

  He had asked Semese if he could invite his friends Dinah and Robert, on the excursion to the Big Island and he said they would stay in the hotel in that case. He had arranged for them to meet for a drink too. He found Dinah easy company and what his mother would have called “a good sort”. Robert was an unknown quantity but, without any evidence to prove it, Lucky thought he would be a practical backstop to have on voyages into the unknown. Perhaps it was because he reminded him of an outback farmer with his old akubra hat worn at a similar angle. While he was idly thinking thus, he saw Dinah and Robert parking their van near the fence. Dinah waved and then Lucky saw Semese coming from behind the bar towards where he was sitting. Before they sat down Lucky stood and introduced everybody and asked what he could get them to drink. When he came back with their beers, Robert and Semese were talking about the Big Island as familiar territory where Robert often went on forestry business. Dinah was sitting with her elbows on the table and her chin on her hands, listening with interest. She smiled broadly at Lucky and said ‘Thanks mate.’ He asked her if she was looking forward to the excursion and she said how interested she was to go where Robert had spent a lot of time. There was a large plantation of exotic trees which was intended as a cash crop for the economy and to take pressure off the harvesting of the tropical hardwoods.

  Dinah asked Lucky what had brought him so far from home and his answer - ‘Curiosity’ - was less than satisfactory. They talked about their respective home states and Lucky asked Dinah if she had ever been to Melbourne.

  ‘No-o-o but have you been to Townsville?’

  He mimicked her answer but they agreed that being Australian was the key to mateship especially when far from dear old Oz. At this point, Robert tuned into their exchange and warned them not to treat him as a younger sibling. New Zealand had refused to join the Federation of States in 1901 and was determined to plough its own furrow. Semese was amused at this declaration of independence and said that, as an even smaller entity his country had an uphill battle to do the same.

  The conversation continued in a jocose tone drawing parallels with immigration patterns which lured talent from the small to the large and how the smallest was the biggest loser.

  The subject was a serious and interesting one but Lucky wanted to keep the tone light, so he said,

  ’Well I for one, want to thank you for your hospitality both present and future.’ This was greeted with a hoot of agreement and they all raised their glasses and held them out for a refill. Robert got up and asked if it was the same again and as he walked to the bar, Min saw him from the other side of the room and called his name. When she recognised the others she came over to say hello and was introduced to Semese who shook her hand and invited her to join them. He asked her if she would like to go with them to the Big Island and she hesitated a moment. She said ‘Let me get my drink from the other table.’

  She wondered if she was in the mood to take on another new challenge. Semese smiled and waited for her to accept his invitation. While Min toyed with her glass, Dinah stepped in and said that Min had be
en suffering a crisis of confidence which they had all been through and Semese looked puzzled. He said he was sorry to hear that and then added brightly that they needed another kiwi anyway.

  ‘There’s nothing like a balance of power in international affairs.’ He leaned back in his chair and smiled like an honest broker charged with the maintenance of trans-Tasman relations.

  A discussion of ferry timetables and sailings, which Robert pointed out were not always the same, meant that he would get the information and pass it on before booking. Semese said he must go home to his near and dear who had not seen much of him lately, but he offered to contact his friend who owned one of the hotels on the island and he would let Lucky know how that went.

  The four remaining opted for another drink to celebrate the fact that there were no “booze buses” about to ambush them on their way home. Lucky commented on how much easier it must be to come to this laissez-faire regime than to go in the other direction and Robert added that most of the Pacific islanders in New Zealand tended to congregate in certain areas for solidarity. He said that the economic imperative must be a burden on those who made the transit for the benefit of family back in the Pacific. Dinah said she couldn’t imagine going to a New Zealand winter, especially in the south island where they would see snow for the first time.

  ‘Some like it cold,’ quipped Robert.

  ‘I’m imagining some of the larger ladies cuirassed in padded jackets,’

  said Lucky as he drained his glass and massaged his lips energetically.

  ‘The zone of elegance is limited come to think of it,’ laughed Dinah. ‘If it’s too hot, you have to shed garments and if it’s too cold you have to pile them on. Either way, the Parisian couturiers would find it a challenge.’

  Min accepted Lucky’s offer of a ride home and invited him in, hoping he would refuse because she was feeling tired and slightly woozy. However instead of going straight to bed, she went outside into the silent still night of moonless blackness. The complete absence of ambient light was a novel experience and she could sense an infinite void, empty of compassion. She recalled Simone de Beauvoir’s experience while camping alone in the French Massif Central, where she discovered “ce néant que cache tout décor quotidien”. To accept that sense of the void and affirm one’s being was the task of the non-believer.