In the light of the false dawn, I come out of the jungle and walk along the beach. I look for salvage and wreckage and bodies.
The shore slopes down at a shallow angle from the tree line to the sea. The fine, powdery sand is polished by the relentless action of the eternal surf and will blaze when the noon sun burns everything into crisp contrast. But, in the gentle dawn light, the beach is as soft and as inviting as a down bed. I sink up to my ankles and stretch out, pushing to reach the high tide mark, where a wide band of viscous oil has left stripes of darkness that glimmer with rainbows where the light falls upon them.
The wind blows from offshore, and it brings the smoke to me, the air graced with hints of charcoaled flesh and the acerbic smell of burnt fibreglass. I squat and watch the smouldering wreck for a long time. The yacht has burned to the waterline. You’d think that .50 cal bullets kicking up fountains in front of you would be the internationally understood symbol for turn around. But not these guys. They kept on coming, at full speed, that big sail out — a spinnaker I think it’s called. They didn’t alter course, not a degree, bearing down on the island. The fringing reef, where the smooth, sandy bottom of the bay suddenly rises ten metres to the surface in a wall of living limestone, would have stopped them two hundred metres from shore. But once they crashed onto the reef, they could’ve got out and walked the rest of the way.
And standing orders are no landings. Not until you’ve cleared quarantine.
So we shot them.
***
Piper had the morning watch yesterday; she’s good, a bit too intense for a fifteen-year-old, but she’s got sharp eyes and a keen sense of duty. She picked out the boat when it was still hull down, its sails a pink triangle catching the morning sun from over the horizon. Her three sharp raps on the ship’s bell we use as an alarm brought me out of my cot in an instant. Duncan and Larry were already at the top of the tower by the time I climbed up, discussing the approaching boat as Piper glassed it with binos. They glanced at me, Larry’s habitual smile strained at the edges, Duncan as dour as ever.
“Zac. Morning. You’ve seen our friend out to the northwest?” asked Larry.
The tower is six metres tall, with an old sail rigged as shade and made of bamboo, thick shafts we harvest from the northern end of the island. It’s located at the north end of First Landing, the long, thin bay that runs up the northwestern edge of Madau Island. The island itself is shaped like a horseshoe, its open mouth facing southeast, the north arm mostly thick jungle, the southern arm where the village and the gardens and most of the locals live. To the east is Woodlark Island, which is overrun by the damned and off limits.
Most expats live just inside the tree line at First Landing, so they’re always the first to respond to the rare alarms. The tower is built on the old concrete foundations of an American bunker, left over from World War Two, where a slight rise dominates the northern edge of the beach. The northern and western horizons are an unmarked curve of blue.
I took the binos and scanned this curve, searching for the stranger. Piper muttered, “No, Zac, northwest is over this way,” and pushed me around to face the boat. The sun was above the horizon by now, and the sails had lost their pink tinge. The front one was a big yellow bulge adorned with a white bear leaning on the word BUNDABERG.
“It seems to be quite fast, leaning over at an alarming angle,” I said. “Is that normal?”
“She’s got a lot of sail up for this breeze. It’s a wonder that spinnaker hasn’t split,” said Larry as he took the binos from me. He’s a stout Englishman whose love of the locally brewed hooch has allowed him to keep his large belly despite our sparse island diets. He and Duncan shared a significant look: one of those knowing glances that yachties love to use around us landlubbers, who have no idea about the subtleties of boats.
“How long has it been since the last—”
Piper cut me off before I could finish my question. “We haven’t seen an expat boat in over a year.”
“Three local sailing canoes in that time. One was a registered trading boat from the Trobes who followed quarantine. The other two veered off as soon as we fired warning shots. We never knew where they came from.” Duncan had the binos to his eyes, and his mouth frowned through his thick salt-and-pepper beard. Duncan’s gruff Scottish burr was as taciturn as always; the only time I’ve ever heard anything like warmth in his voice was when I overheard him talking privately to Larry, neither of them aware that I had come to the door of their hut. “I don’t like it.”
“Five, six miles out,” murmured Piper. She removed the protective canvas cover from the .50 cal mounted on the tower. The gun can fire half-inch-diameter bullets out past a mile. If Piper’s estimate of the boat’s distance was right — and I’m sure it was — then it would be about half an hour before the yacht was in range.
By this stage, other expats had gathered beneath the tower. They sat on the mossy concrete of the bunker and chattered with nervous excitement, like a crowd attending a public execution in olden times. A few locals appeared, and coconuts were opened and drunk. I saw a couple of Council members — Michael and Big Kev — down there. But it was already pretty crowded up at the top of the tower, so no one climbed up to join us.
“The question is, are they coming here?” said Larry, watching the yacht stand on.
“Of course they’re coming here. The question is, how do they know we’re here?” muttered Duncan.
“If they know we’re here.” Piper spun the gun on its mount so she could pluck the canvas sheath from the muzzle. “They could just be coming back to an old anchorage.”
“You’re sure there’s been no radio chatter?” Duncan asked Larry.
“Definitely not. No strangers on any HF channels in over six months.”
“Who was the last?”
“I picked up a mayday from a boat named Mirabelle in… September, it must have been. He was half delirious. Said he was in Kupang, that his anchor was dragging, and he was being blown on shore by the afternoon sea breeze. But he never answered any hails and never came up again.”
There was a brief silence in the tower as we considered this unknown mariner’s fate. But Piper and Duncan are too businesslike to waste time in idle reflection. “There’s no change in quarantine procedure,” said Duncan. This was his simple way of telling Piper that she was to sink the boat if it didn’t stop. He made no allowances for her age; by his own words, if Piper is old enough to stand a watch, she’s old enough to shoot.
Her only acknowledgement was a tight nod, the gun’s spade handles gripped tightly in her hands. The ammunition tin was clipped on, but she hadn’t fed the belt of bullets into the gun yet; Duncan is a stickler for quarantine procedure and doesn’t let anyone load until it’s almost time to fire.
I didn’t know how Piper could be so calm; my own heart was beating a mile a minute, and my hands trembled at the suppressed emotions flowing through me. Piper had only been standing watches for six months, and now she was ready to destroy the first ship we’d seen in that time. I was in awe at her composure — and a little scared by it. But then, she doesn’t have the memories that I have: of the day the green schooner came down on Woodlark Island and brought the damned to our shores.
Duncan had the binos up to his eyes again as he moved next to Piper. The girl isn’t his daughter, although she might as well be. “Bastard must be doing eight, nine knots.” He dropped his hand onto her shoulder. “Don’t get excited, kiddo. Who’s out?”
The last question was directed to Larry, who acts as our harbour master. He didn’t need to scan the bay, dotted as it was with half a dozen moored yachts, before answering. “Only Matty in Voodoo. She’s on a scavenger run out to the Solomons.”
“I assume that she’s solo?” That was Duncan’s idea of a joke — Matai is the nineteen-year-old skipper of a yacht named Voodoo, and her irritable, aloof nature is notable even by solo sailor standards.
Larry chuckled dutifully. “She’s been gone three weeks — but she hasn’t come up on a scheduled radio check in over a fortnight. Last sched, she said she was investigating a strange island ninety miles to the east of Pockington Reef.”
“There’s no island there!” objected Piper. She had wanted to go out with Matty and was still piqued at Matty’s out-of-hand dismissal.
“Yes, I suggested as much when she called it in. Her response was… well, not suitable for your young ears.”
“That’s unlike Matty to be prickly. She’s probably dumped the scheds to teach you a lesson.” Two jokes from Duncan in as many minutes. He was in high form, which I thought odd with the unknown boat approaching. I was about to try my own hand at wit when I realised: No, he’s not in good spirits. That was his way of diffusing tension and keeping the team — and those within eavesdropping distance — calm.
“Captain Duncan, sir!” We looked over the side of the tower to see Roman among the gathered crowd. Roman is the nephew of Auntie Ruthie, one of the island’s local leaders. His cheerful nature and good English mean he’s often carrying messages back and forth between the expat camp and the local village. I like him; he has a soldier’s disdain for politics and is never happier than when he’s fishing from his canoe off the reef. But, like a soldier, he never shirks from duty, no matter how unpleasant the task, and his loyalty to Auntie is unquestioned. His curly black beard framed his brilliant white teeth as he grinned a good morning at us. “Do you have a message for Auntie?”
“Good morning, Roman. I’m pleased to see you.” Duncan pitched his voice to carry across the bay; he knew that most expats followed his lead when dealing with the locals and so was always exceptionally hearty and direct with them. “Please wish Auntie a good morning too and let her know that an expat yacht is heading towards the island. We don’t recognise it, so we’ll follow standard quarantine procedure.”
Roman’s happy-go-lucky nature causes some expats to underestimate him, but he’s no fool. “Do you think there will be good fishing this morning?” I realised the subtext of his question immediately. Meaning: Was it safe for the fishermen to go out? Meaning: Do you think there will be shooting?
Everyone was silent as Duncan weighed his response. He knew his words would set expectations of the coming situation. The waves lapping on the shore and the morning calls of jungle birds seemed unnaturally loud in the gentle morning breeze. “I think it would be better if the fishermen waited until this afternoon,” said Duncan.
Roman nodded in understanding and trotted off into the jungle, following one of the main paths that connected the beaches, settlements, and vegetable gardens of Madau Island like a cobweb. Below the watchtower, there was a quiet murmur as the slower expats were filled in: Duncan expected there to be shooting.
Larry pursed his lips as Duncan turned back to us. “Do you think that was wise? It just reinforces to the locals that outsiders are a threat.”
“It reinforces to them that we treat our own no less severely than we would treat them,” Duncan said. We could see the bear on the sail clearly now, even without binos. The yacht didn’t seem to have changed its course or speed one bit. “Everything about this is wrong.”
“Like what?” I asked.
Duncan glanced quickly at me, as if he had forgotten I was there. “They should’ve doused that spinnaker when the sea breeze picked up after dawn. Hell, what are they doing flying it at night anyway? Recklessness is one thing, but look how the boat is heeling, how the bow is lifting on every rise?”
Larry kindly translated for me. “What Duncan means is the wind is too strong for so big a sail. They should have put it away and switched to something smaller.”
“And look, it’s brand new too… who the hell has a brand-new spinnaker in this day and age?” Duncan added. “Bundaberg is in Australia, right? Isaac, if they heave to, I want you to go out in the quarantine canoe. Find out what their story is.”
“Of course.” I didn’t bother pointing out that the only thing Australian about me is my birth certificate. My parents were Australians who ran a dive centre in Madang, a town on the New Guinea mainland. Technically I’m Australian too, but the only time I ever spent there was the two weeks following my birth at Cairns General Hospital, necessary for Australian paperwork. I’ve lived all of my twenty-two years in New Guinea, and it’s my knowledge of the local culture and languages that bought me a seat at the Council Table despite my age. It’s why I was allowed up the tower, so I’d know the story from the beginning.
Duncan’s thoughts flickered across his face as the yacht neared, never deviating from its course, its great yellow sail bulging until even I could see it was on the verge of splitting.
I knew that the quarantine procedures were developed for a reason. With most of the world destroyed by a virulent plague thirteen years ago — and with the damned survivors driven by a tortured compulsion to spread their disease — we can’t risk the slightest chance of an infected getting ashore. We only need to look to the east, where Woodlark Island looms, completely given over to the damned, to remind us of the consequences of laxity.
The airborne variant of the plague hasn’t been seen in over a decade. It was a victim of its own success; in the end, it killed its hosts faster than they could infect the dwindling pool of survivors. The strain we deal with today that creates the damned is passed in fluid transmission: blood and saliva. Thus our vigilance. Thus quarantine.
Even so, I couldn’t help but wonder. Duncan, Piper, even Larry, were committed — if that boat crossed an invisible line out there in the jagged, choppy waves of the bay, they would have no hesitation about cutting it to pieces.
But how would the yacht’s crew know where this line was?
Every minute brought the yacht a quarter of a kilometre closer. We had barely four minutes before the yacht hit the reef, where anyone on board would be able to just wade ashore. I understand the importance of quarantine — but even so, there was something relentlessly cold-blooded about the way the moments piled one on top of each other, slowly and then so quickly, as we rushed to an event that could never be undone.
“Hail them,” said Duncan.
Larry raised his handheld VHF radio to his mouth. “Sailing vessel, sailing vessel, sailing vessel, this is Madau Control on Channel 16, heave to or you will be fired upon.” He paused and waited for a response. After half-a-dozen breaths, he tried again. When his third hail went unanswered, he said, “Switching to Channel 9.” As procedure dictated, after trying Channel 9, he would go to 68, then 72, and then 10, cycling through all the other channels that could possibly be in use.
“Load,” said Duncan, only loud enough that we could hear.
Piper moved firmly and decisively. I knew she was proud of her weapons proficiency. She popped open the cover, laid the thick belt of shining bullets carefully on the tray, slapped the cover closed and then stepped aside. I was surprised; I wouldn’t have expected her to pass up the opportunity to finally fire live. But she was just making space so that Duncan could help her with the only thing she couldn’t handle — she lacked the strength to rack the powerful charging lever. He pulled the tight, spring-loaded lever twice to cock the gun, and she took it back, her thumbs next to but not on the leaf trigger, carefully drawing a bead ahead of the yacht.
Larry had barely finished the last hail before Duncan said, “Warning shots.”
The whole tower shook as Piper let off a short burst. The gun sounded like a flurry of hammer blows striking an anvil. She watched her fall of shot carefully, as the rounds kicked up fountains of white water fifty metres to the side of the yacht. The spinnaker blanketed the whole vessel — we could see nothing of the cockpit or any sign of crew from our position.
“Are any other vessels manned?” asked Duncan, looking southward to the five boats tucked into anchorage at the southern end of the harbour. There were two sloops, Larry’s Razzmatazz and Duncan’s Excelsior; two catamarans, Shiloh and Fidelio; and Queen Victoria, an old rusty ferryboat.
Larry said, “Enzo is on Fidelio.” Fidelio was anchored farthest to the south — if anyone had a clear view of the incoming yacht’s deck, it would be Enzo.
“No,” Enzo answered when hailed, his accent pure southern French. “I see no one at the helm.”
“Can you see the helm clearly?” clarified Larry.
“Yes, of course. But there is no one there.”
Duncan nodded, almost relieved at this news. “Okay. Take out the sails.”
Piper’s mouth twitched at the corners as she fired. The spinnaker disintegrated into long yellow streamers with the speed of a bursting balloon. A loud, discordant striking noise echoed across the bay — one of the bullets must have punched straight through the aluminium mast. “Good shooting,” Duncan said.
Like an enormous sheet of paper being ripped, the main sail split in two. With its spinnaker in rags and the main torn, the yacht faltered and slowed. It turned slowly around as the wind caught the remains of the mainsail, coming side on as it entered a long curve. We could see its hull now, long and sleek, painted a bright banana yellow. Duncan and Larry watched its course as keenly as a pair of hunting dogs, calculating the probability of it now turning enough to miss the islands. But after a second, they shook their heads, and even I could see that the yacht was in too close — the onshore breeze would shortly drive it onto the reef.
Duncan said, “Sink it.”
Piper sighed, sounding almost happy as she lowered the gun and sent fifty rounds into the yacht’s waterline.
I was sent out to inspect the wreck later in the afternoon, after it had been burning all day. It didn’t sink, despite Piper’s on-point shooting. It exploded into flames and drifted, but something on board — empty fuel or water tanks maybe — kept it afloat. Piper had wanted to blast it into driftwood, but Duncan said it would be a waste of ammunition. Within minutes, a tall column of black smoke reached into the sky and we could see his meaning — there was nothing getting off that floating holocaust.
It went onto the reef on the afternoon high tide. Roman paddled me out when the flames had died. The two of us were the unofficial ambassadors of the twin community of Madau, locals and expats. The boat was nothing but a black shell, burnt to the waterline.
Both of us were quiet as we looked over the wreck.
I could see no human remains.
But I could smell burned meat.
***
I can still smell it this morning, as I sit in the sand and consider what happened. I know my feelings are illogical. Madau Island is one of the few remaining bastions of humanity. The plague that almost wiped our species from the Earth was the apocalypse, pure and simple. The infection and fatality rates were almost absolute. To see your world slipping away in days was terrible enough. But then, the virus mutated and those it killed… started coming back.
The First World fell so quickly. I was nine years old; I remember it as a series of snapshots, my memories like looking through a photo album, with images and instances sometimes captioned and sometimes mysteriously significant for reasons that I don’t understand. I remember my mother covering her mouth with her hands as we watched the riots in New York and London live on Al Jazeera. Mumbai, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Manila, Jakarta… the great cities around the world, on fire.
I remember us in Uncle Clem’s fishing boat, a half-cabin cruiser named Hooked Up. Maybe ten people? When the first cases appeared in Port Moresby and Goroka and then everywhere at once. Panic, running. Gunfire and looting. We had always been taught tsunami survival drills, so we knew to run to the hills when the tide went out and before the flood came. But this flood was a wave of human insanity; instead of seeking higher ground, we found sanctuary on the ocean.
We idled offshore, in the middle of the lagoon, and watched the smoke rise into the sky. Pyres in Madang, Alexshafin, the tuna factory, the fuel dock. A Ramu Sugar bulk carrier burning like a dirty flare. Mum holding me so tightly that I couldn’t breathe. Some locals came out to us in one of the ubiquitous six-metre-long fibreglass dinghies everyone called banana boats. Mum pushed me down into the cabin as Uncle Clem and Dad raised shotguns and there was shooting and then we were going fast for a long time and then days of drifting as the adults argued over what to do.
We went into a Mobil fuel dock in Alotau, and I remember wondering how we could have gone so far so quickly. Uncle Clem went ashore with Dad, but only Dad came back. By this stage, the other people on the boat had gone, but I don’t remember where or when.
I do remember Dad shaking as his eyes filled with blood, babbling that corpses were walking, how they tore Uncle Clem to pieces in front of him. Mum screamed as he clasped the anchor to his chest and threw himself overboard. I slipped her grasp and dived after him, but he sank faster than I could swim. Holding the anchor, he looked up at me as he sank with eyes clouded with blood and regret.
That’s a memory I would be fine with losing, but it’s the strongest and most vivid of them all.
Then there was just me and Mum, and she kept talking about a place called Cooktown. We were out in the middle of the Coral Sea; Mum had just realised we didn’t have enough fuel to make it when the jet fighters appeared. They came in low and lined up with the boat, and then everything was on fire and I was in the water and I remember, so clearly, the red kangaroo painted on the fighters’ wings as they streaked overhead.
I drifted on wreckage for a long time. Blind, burnt, blistered, more a piece of roast pork crackling than a boy. Then into my dark world came the taste of coconut and a woman singing hymns in pidgin:
God you givim laif long mis
na mi carry hevi long yu…
***
I look out to the smouldering wreckage of the yacht. Waves beat against it, grinding fibreglass against coral. Larry told me that it would be washed off the reef soon — the coming full moon will bring a king tide that will ease the yacht into the deep water of the bay. If it doesn’t, I’m sure that Duncan will send out canoes to help it on its way. Some of the more militant of the expats argue that we should leave the wreck out there, visible on the reef as a warning to others. But they’re in the minority. Most of us don’t need or want the reminder of what this world has made us.
I think that is what bothers me about this situation. I understand why quarantine is vital. We tried to hail them. We fired warning shots. Which, I will say, is more than I ever got on Hooked Up. But my mind hates me and keep inventing scenarios where the crew were entirely innocent. What if they were belowdecks, cooking breakfast? What if they had fallen asleep and were off course?
What if, what if, what if.
What if I was kept up all night by these stupid thoughts, my subconscious acting as my own worst enemy?
Logically I can accept what my emotions can’t. But, equally as logically, I can’t ignore the irony of it all. The human race is on the edge of extinction. It seems perverse to cull our own numbers because some were ignorant of procedure.
***
I’m still squatting on the beach long after the breakfast cook fires have been lit. That’s where Roman finds me; he drops to sit next to me after his usual silent approach. We both look out to the wreck wordlessly. The air still. No breeze this morning. I can hear the sound of children playing in the jungle — a mix of expat and local kids, judging from the melody of English, pidgin, and tok ples cries and shouts. After a while, as if he’s loathe to intrude upon my thoughts, Roman cautiously says, “Auntie would like to see you.”
“Me? Not Duncan?”
“No. Just you. Nothing official. She just wants to chat.”
I stand slowly and follow Roman as he leads me down the beach and into the jungle. The path we follow is a well-trod one. Like most locals, Roman doesn’t go anywhere without his machete, and he swings idly at any tree branch encroaching on the path. I don’t come this way often; the locals have their side of the island and we have ours and, in the interests of harmony, we try to keep out of each other’s backyards.
Roman sings as we walk along the path. He doesn’t seem bothered by the native bees — stingless, mindless little things that descend on us in droves, lapping up the sweat that springs up as soon as we enter the fetid, humid shadows of the jungle. I suspect that Roman’s singing serves a dual purpose. It alerts anyone in our path that we are coming and stops me from asking any idle questions.
Not that I have them. I mean, I have questions, but they are not idle. Auntie summoning one of us like this is rare — in fact, I can’t recall it ever happening before. Usually, everything goes through Duncan, Abella, or some other senior on the Council. We have our protocols and formalities, like two little nations on the one island, with boundaries between our communities that are usually respected.
It wasn’t always like this. In the years following the Great Dying, the locals took in any expats that made it to their shores, making them part of the family. But tensions rose over a variety of petty disputes, and wiser, cooler heads decided that it would be best if the expatriates — the outsiders, the foreigners, the refugees — lived in their own community.
I want to know why I’ve been summoned and what Auntie could possibly want to talk about — but I know that Roman would tell me if he wanted to. So I keep my mouth shut and try to ignore the infuriating bees that crawl along my hairline and around my ears and nostrils, undaunted by my slaps and brushing hands.
Another local appears farther down the path, walking towards us. I don’t know his name, but I recognise him as one of the fishermen who come daily to the reef. He’s in his early twenties, his skin dark even by local standards. He wears ratty purple shorts and an old baseball cap, faded to a delicate pink, the word MAROONS faintly legible on the brow. He carries a pair of fishing spears on his shoulder. His step falters when he sees us coming — when he sees me coming — but he quickly recovers and comes on. He shakes hands with Roman, local style, a gentle grasping of Roman’s first two fingers, and speaks quietly to him. They speak Muyuw, the local language. They’ve avoided teaching us expats the language, but I’ve picked up a little over the years, and I catch the words for meeting and territory and Auntie’s local name.
I make room on the path to let the fisherman pass, and he ignores my smile and good morning. We push on, and I wait until we’ve gone around a corner in the path before saying, “He didn’t seem very friendly today.”
“Fishermen think too many people fishing on the reef,” says Roman with a shrug. “It’s okay. Fishermen always think this.”
“Too many people or too many expats?”
“I’m not sure,” says Roman. Meaning, of course, too many expats.
The path opens out into a clearing of black earth stamped concrete hard by generations of bare feet. Children see me coming and run squealing into the thatched huts that rise along the far side of the clearing. An old man cuts the already stubble-short grass with expert, sweeping swings of his machete, and a group of women sit under the raised big hut, making rope by rolling coconut fibre on their thighs. They call out cheekily to Roman, friendly and curious about why I am coming down this way, and he answers with a florid, lyrical answer that makes them all laugh.
We head through gardens of taro, cabbage, and sweet potato before we arrive at the main village. I love the way the locals build their houses. People hear about huts and think they must be crude affairs, but the houses of the locals are skilfully built of rainforest hardwood frames with walls woven from pandan palm leaves and bamboo, split lengthwise into flat planks for the floors. They’re raised high enough that you can walk upright beneath them. Dozens of people, men and women, sit around under their houses, working on a variety of community tasks such as weaving baskets and husking coconuts. A group of men, who have the lean physiques of hunters and farmers, harden spears in a bed of hot coals. All of them pause their work to watch us pass, fixing me with hard, unpleasant expressions.
Auntie’s house is the only Western-style building in the village. It was once the government aid post, a fibreboard building on a concrete foundation with a tin roof, long rusted and replaced with palm thatch. Auntie herself sits on the front porch with two of her sisters, all of them chewing on the local narcotic betel nut, talking and laughing amongst themselves, pausing only to discreetly spit streams of red saliva into bamboo cups.
Auntie heaves her bulky frame upright as we come up to her house. She wears a bright-purple dress, and her long kinky hair rises in a dark afro. She gives me a wide smile; her teeth, like those of so many of her kin, are stained black from years of chewing betel nut, a sight that never fails to unsettle newcomers. “Little Isaac, my ocean son. You have grown so much!”
“Auntie, it is good to see you,” I say as we hug. “Thank you for this invitation.”
“It is too long since you visited.”
Her sisters murmur amongst themselves in Muyuw; I catch the words handsome crocodile, and they all laugh. Auntie shushes them and says, “Roman, fetch Auntie my walking stick. I want to see the gardens.”
She leads me down a jungle path running from behind her hut. The path leads back to the gardens — it doesn’t escape my notice that this route avoids walking back through the main village. Auntie takes her time getting to the point as she tuts over grubs eating the leaves of the taro plants. “Look at these little rascals,” she says as she flicks the grubs away, frowning at the group of farmers who follow us as at a respectful distance. “They should be checking the plants every day!” Her dark face grows even darker with anger before suddenly clearing, her smile like the sun breaking through the clouds. “How long has it been since I pulled you from the sea? Ten years?”
“It’s been thirteen years since the Great Dying.”
“Thirteen years… tell me, do you still believe it was the Rapture — that we were left behind?”
Like all of the islanders, Auntie was raised in a Christian community, presided over by an expatriate Lutheran priest. However, having the apocalypse come and go has shattered all traditional beliefs, and many people have developed a highly variable, very fluid relationship with God over the years. I answer cautiously, “Who are we to question the will of God?”
She grunts, annoyed at my ambiguous response, so I take the risk of giving her my opinion instead. “What happened was not as the Bible described the End Times. The Old Testament is rife with plagues and great calamities striking those who displeased the Lord. God said that the next flood would not be water, but fire. Perhaps the Rapture is yet to come. Perhaps the ungodly have been punished, and we were chosen.”
She nods slowly. “There are those who say that God has forsaken us. Or that heaven is empty.”
“Auntie, there is what I was taught, and there is what I have seen with my own eyes. I don’t think what has happened to us was foretold in any book. I don’t think the plague was God’s punishment.”
“Why?”
“Look to our neighbours. Six thousand souls taken on Woodlark in a matter of days. Why would God forsake them and spare us? Our friends and neighbours. Our children went to Mrs. Aloysius’s school — I went to her school. I do not believe the Lord to be capricious.”
“Talk like that is why some people say we should drive you expats away. You know that, don’t you?”
“I do. As I know that there are many in your community — as in ours — who wish for nothing more than harmony. The world outside has died. But on Madau, there is life still. Let us keep it that way.”
“Let us indeed. It is such a pity that our communities cannot be more open. We are all God’s children, living here in paradise. But there was a serpent even in Eden. I need to remind myself it is all according to God’s plan, even the most petty of jealousies.”
I’m not sure what she’s referring to exactly, if it’s the old problems or some new situation I know nothing about, so I just nod noncommittally and say, “Indeed, but is it not human nature to struggle on the path to grace?”
She waves her hand airily, dismissing my attempt to engage in theology. She pinches a fat caterpillar from a taro leaf and directs an angry blast back at her followers, speaking pidgin so I know her displeasure has nothing to do with me. I can’t help but smile at her honest outrage at the grubs and her threats to feed the cringing farmers to her dog. She’s all smiles when she turns back to me. “It’s true what you say about seeing with your own eyes. I have never seen the dead rise. But so many of my people tell me what happened on Woodlark that I must believe it to be true. At some point faith becomes inevitable.”
“But there is a difference between true faith and blind faith.”
She grunts and walks on for a while. She whirls to me, surprisingly spry for a woman of her bulk, and fixes me with a penetrating eye. “You speak Muyuw.”
“I know a little.”
She waves her hand in dismissal. “Don’t kid me, child. I pulled you from the water as Moses was pulled from the reeds. I didn’t bring you here to be sneaky. Answer honestly or not at all. You speak our language, although you pretend you do not. Don’t worry, I will not let the others know. You have many tok pleses?”
Tok ples means a local language. “Mum taught me a little French. I speak pidgin of course.”
“Motu?” The language of the south coast of the mainland.
“Yes, pretty well.”
“And what about Kilivila?”
Now I’m really cautious when I answer. “The language of the Trobriand Islands? Yes, I have a little, picked up from trading boats.”
“You should learn some more. How long do you think it will be before there is another fight?”
The abrupt change in the course of her questioning catches me off guard, and it is a moment before I respond. A dog is barking angrily at something, and the hot midmorning air is heavy with the buzz of insects. “It’s inevitable. A month, a year? I don’t know when. But sooner or later there will be another fight — over a woman or a theft or something. And then everything will break open.”
She nods slowly, pleased that I have understood yet a little sad at our shared pessimism. “You would think this island was big enough for all of us. But even in paradise, there is never enough space. You have heard the talk that we should sink the boats?”
I hide my surprise; the subject is almost taboo. “There are those in our camp that fear our traders and scavengers will bring the plague. But most understand that we need supplies. The risk is minimal provided we follow quarantine.” Both of us understand that this is one of the causes of tension. The local sailing canoes can island-hop across surprising distances — but to get Western supplies like technology or medicine or machinery requires two things: oceangoing yachts and guns. And the expats control both.
“Cargo is important,” says Auntie with the solemn dignity that she usually reserves for prayers. She is about to say something else when a far-off, tinny ringing reaches us. She cocks her head, listening, as the three thin notes float in from the shoreline.
It’s the watchtower alarm bell.
She slaps me on the shoulder. “Go!”
