CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Throughout the next two days I neither saw nor spoke to Jahnu. He regressed to the old way of keeping his distance. When our evening hours together ceased, the absence and rejection pierced me more than I’d like to admit. Through Sali, I’d heard he had sent messengers to Makia.
Stahgan, Bosai, and Gasowe were dispatched the very next morning after our discussion, and I was beginning to feel anxious for word of their return.
Would Greg come back with them to bring me home?
The image would not focus when I tried to imagine him here, talking to Jahnu.
I stuffed down my fears and anxiety knowing there was nothing I could do about it.
At dawn, I joined Sali’s family and a few other family groups in the communal canopy for breakfast as usual. While we waited for the sago cakes to bake, I helped the little girls with their beadwork.
Together we threaded the small cowrie shells into intricate designs, much like the shells Talula wore at her wedding. After a while of working, the girls became interested in adorning my hair with some of their creations.
I’d braided my hair this morning into two French braids on either side of my head, feeling the heat of the day before I’d ever left the treehouse.
“Beautiful,” they said in English, touching my hair, mesmerized by the twisting shape of the braid.
The girls’ hair was not long or smooth like mine, but each kept a short, kinky afro, combed out or rubbed into short dreadlocks. I helped them decorate their hair with the beads and shells, making a connection in spite of the language barriers.
I was thankful for the distraction. The events of the last few days unsettled me and strangely, sorrow filled my heart knowing my time here with the Hundi was quickly coming to a close.
I would never be the same after this experience.
Parts of me had begun to heal. Holes I never imagined could be filled again.
The boys, not to be left out, made some sort of game where they egged each other on in a challenge to run down the line and pull at the girls’ hair before getting caught or scolded. The little girls yammered at them. Even my braid had been pulled a time or two, in fun.
When I had finished with the last girl, I motioned to the others while the boys were taking a momentary reprieve.
“Next time they come, we chase them.” When the boys came back through the area, we pounced with squeals of laughter, and started chasing them back around the porch.
Upon rounding the corner, still laughing, I ran smack into Jahnu’s bare chest. The force of our collision caused me to lose my balance, but he grasped me by the arms and pulled me close.
“Good morning, Sid-de-nee,” he whispered.
“Good morning,” I said, wiping sweat from my forehead. “The children and I were just playing…” I attempted to explain myself.
“And it seems you are once again in need of my rescue and it is not even half a day,” he winked, and I was relieved our last encounter hadn’t left him angry.
I shoved him playfully, aware of his hands still on my arms. I noticed he kept them there a little longer than was necessary, as his eyes searched for mine. I hurried to come up with a sarcastic remark to counter his teasing.
“Well, I’m surprised at your quickness, seeing what an old man you are…” I was rewarded with his huge smile.
We stood there touching, the space between us filled with an awkward and uncomfortable emotion because it had no outlet in the canopy, as occupied as it was.
His eyes grew pensive and I felt the force of his unveiled desire as if he’d put it into words instead of in his look.
The children ran by again in a yammer, rescuing me from his gaze and pulling on my arm, saving me from the flush of my skin.
I went to serve in the breakfast line along with Sali. Each banana leaf was filled with hot sago cakes and smoked piranha, and Jahnu was the last to come through the line. I placed the food on his plate and asked calmly, “Have you heard anything from the messengers you sent to Makia?”
“Not yet. When I hear somet’ing, you will also hear,” he said quietly. When he didn’t move on, I looked up and noticed the gears working in his mind.
“Maybe you would like to come with me today? There is something I may show you…something to be a distraction, while we wait.” Jahnu was definitely nervous, and stood there awkwardly, holding the banana leaf like the platter for the heart he’d just pulled out of his chest as an offering to me.
Was this not the same man who held me when I wept? Our usual intimacy had been replaced with this stoic formality. Sali noticed our exchange and then lowered her head to hide her smile.
I blushed. I could feel it. Was it his nervousness, or my own that tied my tongue? Finally, Sali nudged me.
“I—yes. I will go with you.”
Jahnu tilted his head forward and exited the canopy, saying nothing more. I raised my eyebrows to Sali, my expression full of questions I couldn’t put into words.
“He enjoys spending time wit’ you. Someone else ta speak the English than an old woman.”
I didn’t voice it, but I wanted to tell that old woman I didn’t want to spend my time with anyone else.
The jungle’s phosphorous breath left the air thick with its green dampness.
There wasn’t a place safe from the glowing sun.
The leaves felt fuller, the vegetation growing with an almost audible groan, as if the sun were a demanding mother insistent that her children rouse themselves against their reluctance and rise to the occasion.
It reminded me of the dog-days of summer in Houston, when everything cried out for relief from the summer heat. When I’d walk across the hospital parking lot, the melting tar sticking to the bottom of my tennis shoes.
I joined Jahnu on the path where he’d been waiting for me. I felt his nervous energy and looked down to avoid his eyes—butterflies dancing in my belly. Why did I feel like I was about to go on a first date…or a last?
“Ready to go?” He wasn’t cheerful, but I could tell he was trying to make an effort not to be morose.
“Where are we going this time?”
“Somet’ing for this heat,” he said dramatically, making me smile, and I fell into step behind him. Wiping the sweat from my forehead and peeling my tunic from my chest, I wished I could go as naked as he.
“There are not many places like this on the island, but if you can bear the smell, it will cool us off.”
We traveled for twenty minutes downhill, conveniently avoiding any conversation about my departure, but sharing stories about summers growing up.
We conversed with alacrity. It was as if we stuffed every conversation we could in the time we had left.
“Do you see those two peaks in the distance?” Jahnu asked, pointing as we came up to a ridge overlooking a canyon full of tree-covered mountains, hills, and palms. I nodded.
One mountain peak was covered in green, its mossy exterior a stark contrast to the other, which was black and rocky.
“One is called Mount Ialibu and the other is Mount Giluwe. They used to be much closer to each other, like brothers, but they had a fight and separated. One day, Mount Giluwe say, ‘There are too many people and animals around us. We must kill them all.’ Mount Ialibu say, ‘I do not like the way you talk. Please, can you change your mind? I want to live in front of people and I do not want to kill them. You must go and stay in the middle of the bush where there are no people.’ Mount Giluwe became angry and took the mumued greens and threw them on Mount Ialibu’s face.
So Mount Ialibu took a stick and broke Mount Giluwe’s teeth. That is why they look as they do.”
I smiled. “I like your stories. What is the lesson from this one?”
“Lesson? There is no lesson. That is what really happened!” he said, surprised I wouldn’t believe him, which only made me laugh more.
After a while we walked in a companionable silence under the peaceful refrain of jungle notes when I noticed another part of the village I’d never seen before.
“Wait, what is this area?” I turned to my right, and through a ridge of jungle forest, I came into a clearing where I saw dozens of abandoned treehouses and huts.
Some lay in ruin and rubble, blackened and crumbling into the earth.
I stood, realizing what I’d happened upon, and heard Jahnu’s approach behind me.
“This is the southern village. Many like this around Hundi’s mountain, like the eastern village where we were the other day…but this one is…no more.”
I sensed the desolation before I even saw it.
The small, deserted village was charged with the same venerated energy I’d experienced at seeing the airplane.
People had suffered here. Hundians had died here.
The charred rubble bespoke of tragedy, and the spirit of the place fell around me like fog settling on a fresh battlefield.
Jahnu hesitated, his reserved silence cast a guarded mood between us.
“This is where the fire broke out?”
Jahnu only nodded, with a far-off look in his eyes. I scanned the rubble, unsettled.
“Come, now,” he redirected our path, his eyes full of tears for the tragic loss.
We walked in silence for several minutes. I was sorry I’d discovered the place that held so many painful memories for Jahnu, “I’m sorry…”
The previous glimpse of his lighter, cheerful side vanished.
Sali never told me how many had perished in the fire, but I now realized it had to have been a dozen or more.
I understood now why Jahnu wanted to blame Makia.
There was no one else he could hold responsible for the devastation.
I don’t know how the Hundi were living with that kind of sorrow.
If I had a way to take out my anger on someone after losing Jonathan, would I have done it?
The path was overgrown. Jahnu held a small machete and whacked at the shrubbery, clearing a path while we walked.