Christopher Moore - Island of the Sequined Love Nun

toiled in taro fields from the time they could walk, a mispel was allowed to nap in the shade, conserving her energy for her nocturnal duties. A mispel often ended her tour of duty by marrying a man of high status. No stigma followed her into married life, and she would be sought out to the end of her days by the other women for advice on handling men.

Sepie, however, had not been chosen because of any special skill, nor had she passed through any vigorous concubinal boot camp. Sepie had been marked for mispel from the moment of her menses, when she emerged from the women’s house with her lavalava tied a bit too high and showing a bit too much cappuccino thigh, her skin rubbed with copra until she glistened all over, and her breasts shining like polished wooden tea cups. She had painted her lips with the juice of crushed berries and peppered her long black hair with scores of sweet jasmine blossoms. She giggled coquettishly in the presence of all the men, danced dangerously close to the taboo of speaking to them in public, risked beatings by refusing to fall to her knees when her male cousins passed, and went about her chores with a wiggly energy that had caused more than one of the distracted village boys to fall out of a breadfruit tree during harvest. (She broke ankles as well as hearts.) Sepie was all titter and tease, a lazy girl who excelled at leisure, a natural at invoking and denying desire, a wet dream deferred. At fifteen she took up residence in the bachelors’ house and had lived there for four years.

When Malink and the men brought the flyer and the man in the dress to her, she knew she was in for some trouble.

“Take care of them,” Malink said. “Feed them. Help to make them strong.”

Sepie kept her head bowed while Malink spoke, but when he finished she took his hand and led him into the bachelors’ house, gesturing to the other men to lay the flyer and his friend on the ground outside. The men smiled among themselves, thinking that old Malink was going inside to receive a special favor from the mispel. What, in fact, he was receiving was an ass chewing.

“Why don’t you take them to your house, Malink? I don’t want them here.”

“It’s a secret. If my wife and daughters find out they are here, then everyone will know.”

“I’m the only one who can keep a secret in the bachelors’ house. Take them to old Sarapul’s house. No one goes there.”

“He wants to eat them.” Malink couldn’t remember ever having to argue with a woman and he wasn’t at all prepared for it.

“You’re chief. Tell him not to. I will not cook for them. If I feed them, they will shit. I’m not going to clean it up.”

“Sepie, what will you do when you marry and have children? You will have to do these things then. I am asking you as your chief to do these things.”

“No,” Sepie said.

Malink sighed. “I am asking you to do these things because these men have been sent to us by Vincent.”

Sepie didn’t know what to say. She had heard the Sky Priestess chastise Malink in front of the people, but she had been more concerned with losing coffee and sugar for a month than with the actual offense. “You will tell the men to cook for them?”

“Yes.”

“And they will carry them to the beach and wash them if they shit?”

“I will tell them. Please, Sepie.”

No man had ever said “please” to her before, let alone the chief. It was not a courtesy that women deserved. For the first time she realized how desperate Malink really was. “And you will tell Abo to wash his dick when it is his turn.”

“What does that have to do with this?”

“He is stinky.”

“I will tell him.”

“And you will tell Favo to quit making me put beads in his ass.”

“Favo does that?”

“He said he learned it from the Japanese.”

“Really? Favo?”

“Yes.”

“But he’s old, and he has a wife and many grandchildren.”

“He says it makes his spear stronger.”

“He does? I mean, does it work?” Malink had momentarily forgotten why he was here.

“I don’t like it. It is evil and unclean.”

“You’re talking about my old friend Favo, right? He’s the one you’re talking about?”

“I told him only bachelors were suppose to stay here, but he says his wife doesn’t understand him. His hands are like the skin of a shark.”

“What kind of beads?”

“Tell him,” Sepie said.

“Okay,” Malink said in English. Then to himself he said: “Old Favo.” He shook his head as he walked out of the bachelors’ house. “Beads.”

Sepie watched him go, wishing that she had asked for more favors.

Outside the men were grinning when Malink stepped into the moonlight. He hitched up his loincloth and averted his eyes from theirs.

“Take them inside. You must cook and clean for them. Don’t let the woman do it. It is too important for her.”

As the men carried Tuck and Kimi into the bachelors’ house, Favo ambled up to Malink. “How was it?”

Malink looked at his old friend and noticed for the first time that Favo wore a long string of ivory beads around his neck. “I have to go home now,” Malink said.

Sepie was, once again, swabbing up the wooden floor where the pilot had urinated on himself, when she heard the other one speak for the first time. The men had propped the Filipino up in the corner, where he had sat drinking the coconut milk and fish broth that she had been pouring into the pilot, but except for a few grunts when he made his way outside to urinate, the man in the dress had been quiet for two days. Sepie had learned to ignore him. He didn’t smell as bad as the pilot, and she sort of liked his flowered dress. She’d said a prayer to Vincent for a dress just like it.

“Where is Roberto?” the Filipino said.

Sepie jumped. It didn’t surprise her so much that he had spoken, but that he had spoken in her language. Although the words were clipped, the way someone from Iffallik or Satawan might speak.

“He’s right here,” she said. “Your friend stinks. You should take him outside and wash him in the sea.”

“That’s not Roberto. That’s Tucker. Roberto is shorter.” Kimi crawled over to Tuck and laid his hand on the flyer’s forehead. “He has bad fever. You have medicine?”

“Aspirin,” Sepie said. Malink had given her a bottle of the tablets to crush into the flyer’s broth, but after he gagged on the first dose she had stopped giving it to him.

“He is more sick than aspirin. He needs a doctor. You have a doctor?”

“We have the Sorcerer. He does our medicine. He was a doctor before the Sky Priestess came.”

Kimi looked at her. “What island is this?”

“Alualu.”

“Ha! We have to get doctor for Tucker. He owes me five hundred dollars.”

Sepie’s eyes went wide. No wonder he wears such a fine dress. Five hundred dollars! She said, “The chief says I have to be secret about this man. Everyone knows he is here. The boys get drunk and talk. But I can’t get the doctor.”

“Why are you taking care of him? You are just a girl.”

“I am not just a girl. I am mispel.”

Kimi scoffed. “There are no mispels anymore.”

Sepie threw down the rag she was using to wipe the floor. “What do you know? You are a man in a dress, and I don’t believe you have five hundred dollars.”

“It was a nice dress before the typhoon,” Kimi said. “Wash-and-wear. No dry cleaning.”

Sepie nodded as if she knew what he was talking about. “It is a very pretty dress. I like it.”

“You do?” Kimi picked at the crushed pleats around his legs. “It’s just an old thing I picked up in Manila. It was on sale. You really like it?”

Sepie didn’t understand. Among her people, if you admired someone’s else possession, manners bound them to give it to you. How could this silly man speak her language and still not know her customs. And he wasn’t even looking at her that way all men looked at her.