Pat Barker - The Ghost Road

But after Hocart was uneasily asleep, twitching and muttering, Rivers lay awake, thinking that if the islanders wanted to get rid of them it wouldn't be too difficult. White men died of blackwater fever all the time, and no doubt there were poisons that mimicked the symptoms. You only had to look at Ngea's skull to know that by the time the next steamer put in there wouldn't be enough of them left to make investigation possible. Moreover, the next steamer would be Brennan's, since he was the local trader, and, confronted by any sign of trouble, he'd simply skedaddle as fast as possible. No, they'd just have to wait and see, and be cautious.

Next morning, when he arrived in the village, the little boy had gone.

* * *

They were invited to witness the placing of Ngea's skull in the skull house. Njiru officiated.

At dawn they were woken by the screams of pigs being slaughtered, and all morning columns of smoke had risen from the cooking fires. It was noon before the ceremony started, the sun crashing down on shoulders and heads, the heat intensified by two fires, the sacrificial fire on the hearth in front of the skull house, and the common fire where Rivers and Hocart sat along with people from the village and the surrounding hamlets. Rivers looked out for the small captive boy, but could not see him. Beside him Lembu was plaiting a creeper which he used to tie Ngea's jaw-bone to his skull, before placing a diadem of shells round the cranium and other shells in the sockets of the eyes.

Across the fire, moving figures shimmered in the heat. A woman with a baby in her arms, Nanja, whose own child had died in the confining house and who was now nursing Kwini, the emaciated baby whom Rivers had first seen with Njiru. The child worried at the nipple, guzzling and snuffling— already her wasted thighs had begun to fill out. She would live, he thought, and the idea cheered him for, to western eyes, the stacked-up skulls made disturbing companions.

Njiru raised Ngea's crowned skull above his head, and a silence fell, broken only by the careless cries of the children, but they were some distance away. Rivers could follow most of Njiru's prayer without need of an interpreter. 'We offer pudding, we offer pig, to you the ghosts. Be propitious in war, be propitious in the sea fight, be propitious at the fort, be propitious at the burning of the thatch. Receive the chiefly dead…' Here Njiru placed Ngea's skull in the house. 'And be you propitious and smite our enemies, oh, oh, oh!'

It was a prayer for success in the great headhunting raid that ought to have concluded the mourning for the dead chief. The Vavolo, the Night Festival, at which all the young women were free— tugele —to all the returning warriors. But the raid would not happen. The prayer could not be answered. Njiru put pork and yam pudding in the sacrificial fire, whose flames burned dull in the sunlight. Then he took the remains of the pudding and walked round the stones that encircled the clearing, placing a mouthful of food on each stone. The stones were called tomate patu , stone ghosts, and were erected as memorials to men who died and whose bodies could not be brought home. Rivers watched him go from stone to stone.

Head-hunting had to be banned, and yet the effects of banning it were everywhere apparent in the listlessness and lethargy of the people's lives. Headhunting was what they had lived for. Though it might seem callous or frivolous to say so, head-hunting had been the most tremendous fun and without it life lost almost all its zest.

This was a people perishing from the absence of war. It showed in the genealogies, the decline in the birth rate from one generation to the next — the island's population was less than half what it had been in Rinambesi's youth — and much of that decline was deliberate.

Against the background of such despair might not the temptation of taking one small head in honour of a dead chief prove irresistible? Raids, no, they couldn't do that, the punishment was too severe. But who was to miss one small boy?

Rivers ate the baked yams and pork offered to him, but remained thoughtful. Once he looked up to see Njiru on the other side of the fire, a tall, lean, twisted shape wavering in the column of heat, and surprised on the other man's face an expression of — bitterness? No, stronger than that. Hatred, even.

* * *

Kundaite could interpret talk blong tomate : the language of ghosts. Sometimes, he said, a meeting was held on the night the old ghosts arrived to take the new ghost back to Sonto with them, and he would question the ghosts and the people would hear them speak. Would this be done for Ngea? Rivers asked. Kundaite didn't know, he wasn't sure, he didn't think so. Would it be done if we give you ten sticks of tobacco? Kundaite nodded. He was given five and promised the other five the following morning. Would they hear Ngea speak? Hocart asked. No, was the reply. 'Ngea he no speak yet. He all same small fellow piccanini.' Kundaite, grasping his tobacco sticks, seemed to be worried. 'Don't tell Njiru,' he said at last.

They all met at sunset in what had been Ngea's hall, and sat cross-legged around the fire. It had been made with green sticks and smoked badly. They coughed, their eyes watered, they waited, nothing happened. Outside it was totally dark, for the moon had not yet risen. Nanja brought in dry sticks, feeding them into the fire skilfully, one by one, until the flames crackled and spurted. Kwini cried and Nanja jiggled and soothed her. Older children sat big-eyed in the firelight, and Rivers felt his own eyelids grow heavy, for he had been up since dawn walking miles in the heat. He blinked hard, making himself look round the circle. Emele — Namboko Emele as she must now be called — was there, wearing brown bark cloth without lime or necklaces. But not Njiru, a surprising absence surely, since he'd placed Ngea's skull in the skull house.

Kundaite came in and sat beside the door in the side of the hut. At a word from him the torches were extinguished, though Rivers could still see people's faces clearly, leaping and shining in the firelight. Silence fell, and deepened, and deepened again. Kundaite closed his eyes and began to moan beneath his breath. Rivers watched him sceptically, wondering whether the attempt to induce a trance state was genuine or merely histrionic. Abruptly, Kundaite seemed to come to himself. He put three sticks of tobacco in the fire as a sacrificial offering, saying casually that the ghosts were on their way from Sonto. A long silence. Nothing happened. Somebody suggested the ghosts were afraid of a dog that was lying by the fire. The animal raised its head on hearing its name, decided there was nothing to worry about and settled down again with a sigh. Others said the ghosts were afraid of the white men.

River's back and thighs were aching from the squatting position. Suddenly Kundaite said, 'Listen, the canoes.' It was clear, looking round the circle, that they were hearing the swish of paddles. Joy and grief mingled on every face. Emele started the musical wailing characteristic of the women, but stopped when Kundaite held up his hand.

A tense silence. Then somebody whistled. The sound was curiously difficult to locate. Rivers looked round the faces, but could not see who was making the sound. The people began calling out names, familiar to him from the genealogies, each person calling the name of a relative who had recently died. Some not so recently. Namboko Taru called for her grandmother. Then the name Onda was called and somebody whistled again. Rivers could see Hocart also looking round the room, trying to locate the whistler.

A discussion about the white men followed, the ghost's whistles being translated by Kundaite. Who were the white men? Why were they here? Why did they want to hear the language of ghosts? Did the ghosts object to the white men's presence? Kundaite asked. 'What do we do if they say "yes"?' Hocart asked, not moving his lips. 'Get out quick.'