Wolfe, Gene - The Best of Gene Wolfe

I said I could not understand how we could have missed it, and he said, “Look at this jungle, Baden. One of those buildings could be within ten feet of us.”

After that we went on for another mile or two and came out on the beach. I did not know where we were, but Rob did. “This is where we separate. The village is that way, and your bungalow the other way, beyond the bay.”

I had been thinking about the Japs, and asked if they were all dead, and he said they were. “They were older every year and fewer every year, and a time came when the rifles and machine guns that had kept the villages in terror no longer worked. And after that, a time when the people realized they didn’t. They went to the Japanese camp one night with their spears and war clubs. They killed the remaining Japanese and ate them, and sometimes they make sly little jokes about it when they want to get my goat.”

I was feeling rocky and knew I was in for a bad time, so I came back here. I was sick the rest of the afternoon and all night, chills, fever, headache, the works. I remember watching the little vase on the bureau get up and walk to the other side, and sit back down, and seeing an American in a baseball cap float in. He took off his cap and combed his hair in front of the mirror, and floated back out. It was a Cardinals cap.

Now about Hanga, the little man I see on the beach.

After I wrote all that about the palace, I wanted to ask Rob a couple of questions and tell him Mary was coming. All right, no one has actually said she was, and so far I have heard nothing from her directly, only the one e-mail from Pops. But she went to Africa, so why not here? I thanked Pops and told him where I am again. He knows how much I want to see her. If she comes, I am going to ask Rob to remarry us, if she will.

Started down the beach, and I saw him, but after half a minute or so he seemed to melt into the haze. I told myself I was still seeing things, and I was still sick, and I reminded myself that I promised to go by Rob’s mission next time I felt bad. But when I got to the end of the bay, there he was, perfectly real, sitting in the shade of one of the young palms. I wanted to talk to him, so I said, “Okay if I sit down too? This sun’s frying my brains.”

He smiled (the pointed teeth are real) and said, “The tree is my hat.”

I thought he just meant the shade, but after I sat he showed me, biting off a palm frond and peeling a strip from it, then showing me how to peel them and weave them into a rough sort of straw hat, with a high crown and a wide brim.

We talked a little, although he does not speak English as well as some of the others. He does not live in the village, and the people who do, do not like him although he likes them. They are afraid of him, he says, and give him things because they are. They prefer he stay away. “No village, no boat.”

I said it must be lonely, but he only stared out to sea. I doubt that he knows the word.

He wanted to know about the charm the king gave me. I described it and asked if it brings good luck. He shook his head. “No malhoi. ” Picking up a single palm fiber, “This malhoi. ” Not knowing what malhoi meant, I was in no position to argue.

That is pretty much all, except that I told him to visit when he wants company and he told me I must eat fish to restore my health. (I have no idea who told him I am ill sometimes, but I never tried to keep it a secret.) Also that I would never have to fear an attack (I think that must have been what he meant) while he was with me.

His skin is rough and hard, much lighter in color than the skin of my forearm, but I have no idea whether that is a symptom or a birth defect. When I got up to leave, he stood too and came no higher than my chest. Poor little man.

O

ne more thing. I had not intended to put it down, but after what Rob said maybe I should. When I had walked some distance toward the village, I turned back to wave to Hanga, and he was gone. I walked back, thinking that the shade of the palm had fooled me; he was not there. I went to the bay, thinking he was in the water as Rob suggested. It is a beautiful little cove, but Hanga was not there either. I am beginning to feel sympathy for the old mariners. These islands vanished when they approached.

At any rate, Rob says that malhoi means “strong.” Since a palm fiber is not as strong as a cotton thread, there must be something wrong somewhere. (More likely, something I do not understand.) Maybe the word has more than one meaning.

Hanga means “shark,” Rob says, but he does not know my friend Hanga. Nearly all the men are named for fish.

M

ore e-mail, this time the witch. There is danger hanging over you. I feel it and know some higher power guided you to me. Be careful. Stay away from places of worship; my tarot shows trouble for you there. Tell me about the fetish you mentioned.

I doubt that I should, and that I will e-mail her again.

9

Feb. I guess I wore myself out on writing Thursday. I see I wrote nothing yesterday. To tell the truth, there was nothing to write about except my swim in Hanga’s bay. And I cannot write about that in a way that makes sense. Beautiful beyond description. That is all I can say. To tell the truth, I am afraid to go back. Afraid I will be disappointed. No spot on earth, even under the sea, can be as lovely as I remember it. Colored coral, and the little sea animals that look like flowers, and schools of blue and red and orange fish like live jewels.

Today when I went to see Rob (all right, Annys warned me, but I think she is full of it) I said he probably likes to think God made this beautiful world so we could admire it, but if He had, He would have given us gills.

“Do I also think that He made the stars for us, Baden? All those flaming suns hundreds and thousands of light-years away? Did God create whole galaxies so that once or twice in our lives we might chance to look up and glimpse them?”

When he said that I had to wonder about people like me, who work for the Federal Government. Would we be driven out someday, like the people Rob talked about? A lot of us do not care any more about ordinary people than they did. I know P.D. does not.

A woman who had cut her hand came in about then. Rob talked to her in her own language while he treated her, and she talked a good deal more, chattering away. When she left I asked whether he had really understood everything she said. He said, “I did and I didn’t. I knew all the words she used, if that’s what you mean. How long have you been here now, Baden?”

I told him and he said, “About five weeks? That’s perfect. I’ve been here about five years. I don’t speak as well as they do. Sometimes I have to stop to think of the right word, and sometimes I can’t think of it at all. But I understand when I hear them. It’s not an elaborate language. Are you troubled by ghosts?”

I suppose I gawked.

“That was one of the things she said. The king has sent for a woman from another village to rid you of them, a sort of witch doctress, I imagine. Her name is Langitokoua.”

I said the only ghost bothering me was my dead marriage’s and I hoped to resuscitate it with his help.

He tried to look through me and may have succeeded; he has that kind of eyes. “You still don’t know when Mary’s coming?”

I shook my head.

“She’ll want to rest a few days after her trip to Africa. I hope you’re allowing for that.”

“And she’ll have to fly from Chicago to Los Angeles, from Los Angeles to Melbourne, and from there to Cairns, after which she’ll have to wait for the next plane to Kololahi. Believe me, Rob, I’ve taken all that into consideration.”

“Good. Has it occurred to you that your little friend Hanga might be a ghost? I mean, has it occurred to you since you spoke to him?”