“Twice a week, the plane from Cairns brings new tourists.”
“Who almost never go five miles from Kololahi.”
“Almost never, Baden. Not never. You say it wasn’t one of the villagers. All right, I accept that. Was it me?”
“Of course not.”
“Then it was someone from outside the village, someone from another village, from Kololahi, or a tourist. Why shake your head?”
I told him.
“I doubt there’s a leprosarium nearer than the Marshalls. Anyway, I don’t know of one closer. Unless you saw something else, some other sign of the disease, I doubt that this little man you saw had leprosy. It’s a lot more likely that you saw a tourist with pasty white skin greased with sun blocker. As for his disappearing, the explanation seems pretty obvious. He dived off the rocks into the bay.”
“There wasn’t anybody there. I looked.”
“There wasn’t anybody there you saw, you mean. He would have been up to his neck in water, and the sun was glaring on the water, wasn’t it?”
“I suppose so.”
“It must have been. The weather’s been clear.” Rob drained his Coke and pushed it away. “As for his not leaving footprints, stop playing Sherlock Holmes. That’s harsh, I realize, but I say it for your own good. Footprints in soft sand are shapeless indentations at best.”
“I could see mine.”
“You knew where to look. Did you try to backtrack yourself? I thought not. May I ask a few questions? When you saw him, did you think he was real?”
“Yes, absolutely. Would you like another one? Or something to eat?”
“No, thanks. When was the last time you had an attack?”
“A bad one? About six weeks.”
“How about a not-bad one?”
“Last night, but it didn’t amount to much. Two hours of chills, and it went away.”
“That must have been a relief. No, I see it wasn’t. Baden, the next time you have an attack, severe or not, I want you to come and see me. Understand?”
I promised.
T
4
Feb. Saw him again last night, and he has pointed teeth. I was shaking under the netting, and he looked through the window and smiled. Told Rob, and said I read somewhere that cannibals used to file their teeth. I know these people were cannibals three or four generations back, and I asked if they had done it. He thinks not but will ask the king.
I
5
Feb. Two men with spears came to take me to the king. I asked if I was under arrest, and they laughed. No
When the king was finished, he hung this piece of carved bone around my neck. While we were walking back to the village, he put his arm around me, which surprised me more than anything. He is bigger than a tackle in the NFL, and must weigh four hundred pounds. It felt like I was carrying a calf.
H
orrible,
Got out the carved-bone thing the king gave me. Old, and probably ought to be in a museum, but I suppose I had better wear it as long as I stay here, at least when I go out. Suppose I were to offend him? He might sit on me! Seems to be a fish with pictures scratched into both sides. More fish, man in a hat, etc. Cord through the eye. Wish I had a magnifying glass.
6
Feb. Still haven’t gone back to bed, but my watch says Wednesday. Wrote a long e-mail, typing it in as it came to me. Told her where I am and what I’m doing, and begged her to respond. After that I went outside and swam naked in the moonlit sea. Tomorrow I want to look for the place where the king hung this fish charm on me. Back to bed.
M
orning, and beautiful. Why has it taken me so long to see what a beautiful place this is? (Maybe my heart just got back from Africa.) Palms swaying forever in the trade winds, and people like heroic bronze statues. How small, how stunted and pale, we have to look to them!
Took a real swim to get the screaming out of my ears. Will I laugh in a year when I see that I said my midnight swim made me understand these people better? Maybe I will. But it did. They have been swimming in the moon like that for hundreds of years.
* * *
E
