Wu Ming-Yi - The Man with the Compound Eyes

When a man made a talawaka , Rasula would stand off to the side and quietly observe. Sometimes when she was chatting with Nale’ida she would ask lots of questions about the techniques of talawaka construction. She knew that Nale’ida was deeply in love with her, and that if she had conceived Atile’i’s child Nale’ida would be obliged as Atile’i’s older brother to care for her. This was another Wayo Wayoan custom. But she did not love Nale’ida back. Atile’i and Nale’ida were like Yigasa (the sun) and Nalusa (the moon). She loved Atile’i’s sunny disposition, not Nale’ida’s lunar nature. There was nothing she could do about how she felt, for no one can pit her heart against the sea. She let Nale’ida visit her at dusk simply because she wanted to listen to him tell stories of the sea and tell her more about the principles of navigation.

But you had to give him credit: Nale’ida, who looked like Atile’i except for his nose, talked a lot of sense. “The sea cannot be taught. You learn it with your life,” he said. But even though Nale’ida loved Rasula the way a fisherman loves an enormous fish, he still did not dare break the taboo against lady guests riding in a talawaka .

Without telling anyone, Rasula began gathering and preparing the building materials on her own. She cleared a place in the woods a fair distance from her house, keeping the unformed, fetal talawaka covered during the day, coming only at night to work on it in secret. Weaving was no trouble, as she had inherited Saliya’s nimble hands; moving the bigger branches out of the woods was harder, though she could do it with a bit more patience and a few bruises on her arms and legs. Rasula’s talawaka was taking shape. She used a file made from a sea urchin to do the finishing work and carve an image of the seafaring Atile’i on the hull.

The island was small, but Rasula did everything with the utmost secrecy, so almost everyone remained ignorant of her seafaring scheme. Nale’ida was blinded by love, the other men who visited the house by burning lust. The only one who knew, her mother Saliya, chose silence, believing that Rasula would quit. Saliya could tell Rasula was pregnant from her posture and smell, and assumed that when she discovered the soul of a little Atile’i inside her she would give up as a matter of course.

Thrice the moon died and thrice it came back up to life. Early next morning, Rasula burrowed under the covers and to her mother said: “Yina, tomorrow I’m going out to sea.”

“Going out to sea?”

“Yes. My talawaka is ready. I’ve heard many stories of the sea. Atile’i was my teacher, and Nale’ida, too, has taught me well, so even though I’ve never gone to sea I know its ways. Now all I need is your blessing, and nourishment for the trip, that I may find Atile’i safe and sound.”

“Atile’i’s dead and gone, Nana.”

“He is not dead. I know. I feel it.”

“Nana, do you realize there’s a little soul in your body? Atile’i is in your belly.”

“Yina, I know. I want to show Atile’i the Atile’i growing inside me.”

“Nana, do you know where Atile’i is?”

“I know that he is somewhere on the sea.”

“The sea is too big, Nana. You are dooming yourself and the Atile’i in your belly to death.”

“You know, Yina, that living on this loveless island is about the same as death.”

“You think I do not love you, Nana?”

Rasula did not cry. She was like a sinking ship, getting heavier and heavier. The water was pouring in, not flowing out.

“Forgive me, Yina, forgive me.”

Saliya could’ve gotten the villagers to stop Rasula, but she did not. She knew that restraining her daughter would merely cause her to wither away before her eyes. Let be, let be, Kabang must have arranged for Rasula to die at sea, her tomb an ocean wave.

Saliya gave up on persuasion. She helped Rasula push the talawaka all the way to the seashore at midnight the next day. As she pushed, Saliya felt her soul sinking into the sand. The two of them were shocked to see someone standing on the shore in the moonlight.

It was the Sea Sage. Obviously, there was nothing about the sea that the Sea Sage did not know. He had been watching the situation unfold, just letting it run its course. He walked over and helped Rasula and Saliya push the talawaka into the sea. He performed Mana , a ritual blessing, by sticking the skull of a great fish onto the prow. A talawaka that had not received Mana would go blind in the sea and mistake itself for a fish. Moving swiftly along, it would suddenly sink beneath the waves and actually turn into a fish, never to float to the surface again.

“Kabang has spoken: the fish will always return.” Not even the Sea Sage had the words to comfort Saliya. All he could manage was this old island proverb.

Pregnant and untrained in the operation of a talawaka , Rasula was unable to pit herself against the wind. Nor could she “feel the direction of the wind with the testicles,” as Atile’i had put it. She stopped trying to steer and yielded her heart up to Kabang, her body to the mona’e , to the waves of the sea. Maybe because she’d received the Sea Sage’s blessing, the sea remained calm for three days in a row, like a preternaturally flat inland plain. But this was the first time Rasula had come face to face with the sea itself, and she did not know where to turn: where in such a vast, shoreless expanse should she look for Atile’i? Her search had gotten her powerfully motivated, and terribly lost. It had become an obsession, an irresistible idea, and it would bury her. The “sea rations” of dried fruit, dried fish, coconut and cooked breadfruit were running out, and the water in the seaweed skin was almost gone. Rasula had an oyster-shell hook, but fishing was not as easy as she had imagined.

And where was Atile’i now?

Rasula enjoyed three days of fine weather, but only three. Then the weather broke, and swells appeared out of nowhere. The spirits of the second sons of Wayo Wayo wanted to reveal themselves, to warn Rasula and tell her to row left, but not being a second son she could neither see the spirits nor hear their voices. All the spirits could do was turn into sperm whales and swim alongside her talawaka , inadvertently raising even bigger waves.

But not even the spirits of the second sons of Wayo Wayo knew that these waves would beach this island maiden on the shores of another island. At first glance, this other island looked about the same as the one on which Atile’i had landed. Very luckily, the island had a crescent-shaped promontory, creating a safe haven for Rasula. Her talawaka wedged in, stopped and moved no more. Rasula fell into a coma, like going to sleep.

Little did Rasula know that Saliya had cried nonstop for a week after she left. She cried blood in the end, until finally, at dusk of the seventh day, she fell down on the beach, like a little shell, like an oar that didn’t belong to any man. Saliya’s spine was still as beautiful as a dolphin’s when the men discovered her body, and almost all the island men attended her funeral. In their hearts, they were all truly sadder to lose Saliya than they would have been at the passing of their own wives.

Another thing not even the spirits of the second sons knew was that the island onto which they saw Rasula step, which looked about the same as Atile’i’s island (both being compounded of countless bits of strange stuff), was not the same island at all. In fact, Rasula’s island was headed in the opposite direction.

I sometimes think I’ve come full circle and ended up back at the shore.