CHAPTER FOURTEEN
We’d been walking for an hour or so, I guessed, when I asked, “Is Robert the one who taught you to speak English or did you learn in school?”
The tropical air, with its blanket of humidity lay heavy on my skin. During the silence, I thought of so many more questions. I determined for places I could crack through his tough exterior.
“Robert taught many Hundi English. He brought us scriptures to read and memorize. He brought us the gospel, along with many books I have read, over and over. I spoke English very well when I went for school, I learned it quickly. Sali learned it well, too. My uncles, the other clan leaders of our tribe also speak it…all but Mimbeck—he is a stubborn man…but it has come…how do you say…handy, to know it. Many languages in Papua New Guinea. At school I learned to write it, among other things…now I try to teach it to anyone who wants to learn.”
“Sali told me you teach the children and I’ve seen you. Do you enjoy teaching?”
“Very much. Our children are the future of our tribe and there is so much to learn. I want to start a school here one day.”
“Really?” I asked, surprised. “That would be amazing!”
“Yes, but I do not want to lose our heritage either. It is a hard balance to strike, to protect our tribe from outside influences while still learning to live in a changing world.”
“Do you often leave the tribe to travel to other places?”
“When necessary.”
How many more questions could I ask before he knew I was fishing for information?
I wanted to ask about his father and how he felt when he’d taken over as chief.
I wanted to know about his wife and what kind of person she was…
anything I could use to try and get him to soften toward me, but I settled with a comfortable silence, the first since my embarrassing encounter that morning.
The clay he’d smeared on my face had started to itch, and I felt for sure was ruining my complexion. I couldnt decide which was worse, pimples or sunburn, and realized without mirrors I couldn’t even see what was happening to my face. The thought was more comforting than I anticipated.
We walked on for another ten minutes in silence, Jahnu’s preferred method of communication, when he finally said, “You have heard much about me. Much more than I know of you.”
“Oh? What do you want to know?” My voice brightened, even to me, thankful not to carry the weight of the conversation any longer.
“Of your family?”
“Oh,” my voice dropped. What could I tell him about my family?
“Well, my parents are still living…I see my mom regularly. We are pretty close, but I don’t see my dad often because, well, he left when I was young…
and has another family. Uh, I had a brother, but he…
died when I was a teenager.” Silence stretched between us.
I wasn’t about to give any more information he could use against my own humanity.
Family wasn’t a subject I enjoyed talking about.
Jahnu looked back, catching my eye in a knowing glance.
I felt exposed, like he could read me as well as I could read Greg.
Greg. Do I tell him about Greg? And why wouldn’t I?
He was practically family. I loved him. Was ready to spend the rest of my life with him, wasn’t I?
My thumb touched the place where the diamond would’ve been, had I not left it with my things back at Makia.
Jahnu navigated over a fallen tree and offered his hand to help me, but my toe caught the edge of the limb and I fell head-long into his chest, knocking us both to the soft, peat-covered earth.
Jahnu laughed softly. I could feel the rumble of his chest. The impact jarred me, but the touch of his body under my hands more so.
I wanted to explore him and the feelings of desire he awoke in me, but instead scrambled off, my rosacea blooming up my neck and face.
“I’m sorry. I’m not usually so clumsy,” I said, embarrassed. Anyone who had been following me since this trip started might think otherwise, I thought ironically.
Jahnu propped himself on his elbow, his deep smile-lines stretching large lips. He made no haste to get up.
“Are you afraid of me, Sid-de-nee?” He held my attention, his smile fading.
“No,” but my racing heart suggested otherwise.
“Perhaps you should be,” he said, arching his eyebrows and staring at me unabashedly.
I jutted my chin. I was not afraid of Jahnu, but the thoughts and feelings I’d had since he’d rescued me from Mimbeck were a growing panic in the pit of my stomach and if he could read me so easily, I knew he could see it, too.
I was attracted to him, and that didn’t scare me.
It terrified me! It infuriated me. I felt foolish.
Absurd. I grasped for the composure to steady myself.
This was a silly crush brought on by abnormal trauma.
What was it called? Stockholm syndrome? The coping mechanism which causes victims to develop feelings for their captor?
That’s what I had. It would quickly be resolved once I left the Hundi and was reunited with Greg.
Greg. Tell him about Greg. But the words wouldn’t form.
I don’t know why I didn’t tell him. Protection for Greg?
Protection for myself? Or something else entirely?
Jahnu didn’t feel like a captor, like I’d first thought.
He’d saved me more than once, and though he wouldn’t take me back yet, it didn’t feel like it was to cause me harm.
If anything, I sensed he was trying to do what was best for his tribe, and I was an unfortunate interruption he didn’t know how to handle.
Before I realized it, Jahnu was offering his hand to help me to my feet. I wanted to refuse it, but quickly changed my approach. If I wanted him to soften toward me, maybe I shouldn’t fight it. He pulled me up, our bodies close, and I could feel the physical attraction between us.
“It is not far now,” he whispered.
In fact, it wasn’t far. Around the next bend I could see the faint glint of rusted metal covered in green moss and nestled in the jungle overgrowth. As the wing-span, tail, and fuselage came into view, I stood dumbfounded at the relic.
A piece of history suspended in time—charged with a haunting presence.
I approached it gingerly, as if not to disrupt the ghosts that made their home in the mangled metal.
I noted with wonder the American insignia of a blue-and-white star, still partially visible on the fuselage, and reached to touch the worn and chipping paint. There was a sense of the sacred here among the shrill vibration of the jungle.
I forgot about Jahnu, the jungle, my situation, and just for a moment, allowed myself to feel the magnitude of this experience.
I’d seen old relics from wartime before, behind glass in museums, where careful restoration and meticulous handling obstructed the authenticity and obscured the mystery they might’ve held.
But seeing this airplane, undisturbed from the place it was shot down and being slowly eaten away by jungle erosion, connected me even more poignantly to a time I had only ever read about in books.
Where had the men who’d flown this plane—probably not much older than teenagers—gone? Had they died on impact? No skeletons in the cockpit, I noted with a shiver. Had they crawled away injured, only to be met by unfriendly Hundi’s or other tribes-people who considered them a threat?
Of all the stories told from that great war, I couldn’t help but think of the stories that would never be told, swallowed up by sea or soil, known to no one. I felt a sense of pride to be a part of that American insignia, and an ache for home mixed with the emotions of this ordeal triggered tears.
“You weep for it?” Jahnu’s deep voice brought me back to the noise of the jungle.
“I don’t know. I suppose so. I wasn’t even alive during the war. I don’t even know much about it,” I said, swiping at the tears. Why was I crying? This was not like me.
“Our people’s history is in all of us, no matter when we were born.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“Was it a just war?”
I took a quick look at him over the rim of the cockpit.
“Is there ever a good reason for war?” My words seared him, evidenced by the flash of his eyes. He held my gaze and seemed to catch the double meaning.
“War is sometimes necessary—when you fight for your home, your people, your land against an enemy who threatens those t’ings.”
“But what if the other side sees it the same way?” I had to tread lightly. He was still in charge of what happened to me while I was with the Hundi, but I couldn’t help but prod a little. If I could help him see Makia they way I saw them, maybe he would understand.
“Is that the way of this war?” he asked, gesturing to the dilapidated airplane, “…two sides, fighting for the same t’ing?”
I was quiet for a moment, knowing that was not what happened in World War II.
The rise of Nazi ideology, economic depression, German revenge following the Treaty of Versailles compared to America and the Allied Powers who got pulled into the war to protect their homes, their families, their way of life.
It was not the same thing and I didn’t have a comeback for his question.
I begin to wonder if he was justified in his choice to attack Makia.
All this time I’d thought of Hundi as the enemy.
Was Makia really threatening the Hundi way of life, or did Hundi just not like the modernistic economy creeping into their side of the world?
They were the weaker tribe in size, at least from what I could tell.
If things continued the way they were, would they be forced to retreat and surrender their lands, or would they be annihilated in the process?