Daughter of the Reef (26 page)

The other men laughed nervously, and Rimapoa felt a cold sweat on his back at the mention of a human offering. He was an outsider and his remaining time in Knotted-cord's district was almost gone. He had no family, no influential people to help him.
 

“A man can protect himself from that fate,” said Two-oars, after devouring another piece of fish. “All he needs is a passionate woman—one with long fingernails.”
 

“What sort of woman can let her nails grow?” growled the crewman beside him. “Only a highborn daughter, who sits in her house all day while servants do her work.”
 

“Has anyone taken a good look at these island girls?” asked Two-oars.

“Not at their fingernails!” his companion answered.

“Well, a man can sometimes be lucky. Even if priests treat him as less than a man ever afterward.” Two-oars turned and barked an order to his cook. “Bring me the rest of those clams!”
 

Rimapoa sat in the darkness, finishing his food, wishing he could stop thinking about women. It was no longer just
hanihani
that he longed for. A woman's touch could make a sacred thing profane. A woman could make a man no longer fit for the gods!
 

 

Another month passed. The trolling canoe returned to Tahiti several times and then went out again. On an overcast morning, as the boat's crew sailed home, Rimapoa learned that his time with the
tira
had finally ended. Two-oars informed him that the place he had occupied was about to be reclaimed.
 

The boat had been out only one night this time. Now it was bringing in several baskets filled with reef fish that the men had speared by torchlight. As the crew brought the
tira
to shore and used logs to roll it into a shed, raindrops began falling lightly. Two-oars parceled out the catch, leaving some behind for the afternoon meal, sending the rest home to the families of his crew.
 

Under the usual arrangement, the patrons of these fishermen supplied them with vegetable food at all seasons in return for fish whenever it was available. Now the patrons were finding they could not provide all that the crewmen needed.
 

Rimapoa, however, accepted a
tiputa
, a rain-cape woven of pandanus leaves, in place of part of his share. Despite the downpour, he went out looking for Tepua. The
tiputa
hung down in front and back, keeping his body dry as he headed inland.
 

He did not let the news from Two-oars discourage him. He had known it would come and had prepared himself. Now he had a new offer to make to Tepua. This one he thought she might accept.
 

As he walked he heard infants wailing inside the houses. He remembered life as a child during the scarce season, how he had hungered for breadfruit when there was nothing but grated taro root. Soon, he feared, the children would be glad to have even the poorest of substitutes.
 

He noticed a mud-smeared group of men coming down from the hills carrying bunches of wild green plantains,
fe'i
, hanging from poles laid across their shoulders. To gather
fe'i
was strenuous and dangerous work, he knew. The shortage was getting worse.
 

As he came to the side of the female blackleg's compound, the rain shower stopped. The air was heavy, rich with smells of damp vegetation. He looked over at Tepua's usual place in the yard, but did not see her. The dark pile of emptied shells made him wonder how many hundreds of coconuts she had grated since joining the Arioi. What an occupation for a woman of her birth! But now, he suspected, that task was finished for a time. He saw no husked coconuts waiting.
 

From under a nearby thatched roof he heard the droning of several voices in a chant.

“So it was arranged for the beautiful maiden to become Oro's wife. The god descended to earth as a rainbow in order to see her for himself. He was greatly pleased and agreed to the marriage. But when the day arrived, Oro had no earthly possessions, no gifts to bring to the feast. ...”
 

Rimapoa listened awhile, pleased that he could pick out Tepua's voice from the others. At last, the instructor uttered a few words of praise for the novices and sent them to their other tasks.
 

When he saw Tepua emerge from the house, he had to tighten his fist to keep from crying out in joy. But what had happened to her proud spirit? Her shoulders were slumping and she kept her eyes on the damp ground.
 

Instead of going to her “grating pig,” she turned, with her two companions, toward the compound gate. “Tepua,” he whispered, but she was too far away to hear him.
 

Rimapoa hurried along the fence. Perhaps she was going out to work in the vegetable gardens. He hid near the path, behind the stout trunk of an ironwood tree, and picked up a stick from the ground.
 

Tepua walked last in the procession of young women. Rimapoa hissed and tossed his stick, dropping it neatly in her path. When she turned and saw him, her downcast expression brightened instantly.
 

She rushed up to greet him, pressing herself warmly into his arms. Her touch so filled him with delight that he could not speak at once. Deeply he inhaled the fragrance of her hair. She could make him forget everything, he realized, even his greatest fear. If she became his wife, he would never again worry about priests and their dark stone temples.
 

“I have learned the chants—all but one,” she whispered happily. “And that one is short! Even Aitofa is impressed.”

“Then will she let you out of your cage?” He had noticed how quiet the compound seemed today.

Tepua turned, glancing behind her, but no one was there to overhear. “Aitofa let some novices go back to their families,” she answered in a rush. “Until next season begins there is little to do here, and she is having trouble feeding us all. If I could get away, where would I go?”
 

“I know a place,” he answered with a smile. “I've been told of an atoll you would like very much. Its lagoon is full of fish, and nobody lives there!”
 

“Atoll!” She drew in her breath, her eyes opening wide.

“I would be happy to take you there.” He stood beaming, waiting for her to answer.

“But what about your work in the
tira
?”
 

“That has ended,” he answered, his feeling of excitement fading. “The drowned fisherman's son has come to take his father's place.”
 

“But—the high chief will send you away—”

“Do not worry,
tiare
. I have a plan. That is why I must go to this coral island. I intend to gather a gift for Knotted-cord that will keep him from sending me away. And if you help, you will solve a problem of your own. But I cannot explain now. Tell me first if you will go.”
 

“I must ask Aitofa,” she answered uncertainly.

“Then ask her soon,
tiare
, but keep our destination secret. Do not tell anyone what we are planning.”
 

 

 

13

 

ON a bright morning three days later, Tepua hastened out of Aitofa's compound and onto the path toward the fishermen's house. She could scarcely believe that Aitofa had finally let her go, but Tepua had recited her last chant perfectly, and had demonstrated her growing skills in mime as well.
 

Tepua had said she was going to visit distant kin, and Aitofa had not questioned her, smiling knowingly as she gave her assent.
Would she have agreed so readily if she knew I was meeting a fisherman
? Tepua wondered. Aitofa always insisted that her novices choose their men from the upper classes. It would be best if she never learned about Rimapoa.
 

As Tepua hurried along the path, the fresh breeze cooling her face, she recalled what he had told her about his atoll. “The rarest birds are plentiful there. We can collect feathers as easily as a child collects shells. Do you know that a tail feather from the man-of-war bird, just one feather, can be traded for a whole pig?”
 

Tepua knew how feathers were valued for ornaments. The scarce red-and-yellow ones had a special importance because they were used when calling on the gods. Rimapoa thought he could gain favor with the high chief through a gift of rare feathers. He had suggested that she help him collect them, and use her share to provide for her feast when she advanced to Pointed-thorn.
 

His idea, at first, had attracted her. With resources of her own, she could avoid accepting a patron. But surely, she told herself, Rimapoa was not the only one who knew about that atoll. If brightly colored birds were so plentiful there, why did no one else gather the feathers?
 

She had mulled over his plan, finally deciding that it was a ruse. He was using his mysterious destination as a lure. All he really wanted was a way to be alone with her. Yet she had agreed to sail with him!
 

She knew what was going to happen. They would be together for days, traveling from one island to the next. At night, when they lay near each other on a quiet beach, he would draw her close to him...
 

This prospect no longer daunted her. When she first joined Aitofa's household, she always turned her back when other women spoke of their lovers. Gradually, after so many months of sleeping alone, she had come to envy them.
 

It did not matter to her that the others took noblemen. Her chance to have a chief for a
tane
was gone. Rimapoa was the one man who deserved her affections, the only man she was willing to trust. Soon he was going away. He had waited for her so long, always kind and patient, and now she felt ready for him.
 

As she neared the beach the sight of the shimmering lagoon made her laugh aloud with pleasure. During her months of study she had not once been permitted to take this short walk from the compound. She had almost forgotten the beauty of the water here, its clear, azure color and distant whitecaps.
 

She found Rimapoa preparing the canoe, his supplies of food, water, and fishing gear already aboard. On the islands along the way, he had promised, they could find whatever else they needed. Looking as joyful as if he had just landed the choicest albacore in the sea, he launched the boat, then carried her through the surf and gently lowered her in.
 

The names of the islands, as he recited them, made a chant she liked better than any she had learned from the Arioi: Eimeo, Huahine, Porapora, Maupiti. She turned toward Eimeo, the only one close enough to be seen, its green slopes and rugged spires a startling sight on the horizon. That was their first destination, where they would spend the night.
 

Little whitecaps, topped with glistening foam, lapped against the outrigger's sides. Rimapoa's mat sail filled and the canoe's bow swung seaward, heading toward the pass through the reef. Soon they cleared the breakers.
 

The wind freshened, blowing gently from the southeast, and Rimapoa let the canoe run before it. The outrigger rose and fell in the rolling waves. Tepua sat in the stern, watching Rimapoa.
 

He looked bronzed and spare, wearing only a sunshade woven of coconut fronds, and the usual fishermen's
maro
about his loins. As he countered the pull of the wind in the sail with the steering oar, she watched the muscles bunch in his arms and chest. Droplets of water sparkled on his skin and the sun revealed flecks of gold in eyes that had always seemed so dark.
 

He looked happy in a way that she had never seen before, the worry lines gone from his face, his manner no longer guarded. She realized that she had never been with him on the open sea.
 

He was like the gulls that dipped about the mast's feather pennant, she thought, or the rainbow-colored
mahimahi
playing in the outrigger's wake. He was a creature of the sea. When one took the shimmering
mahimahi
out of the ocean, it lost its colors and became just another fish. Could such a thing be true of a man? Perhaps it was true of Rimapoa—that the colors of his spirit faded on land and renewed themselves at sea.
 

As the boat moved farther from Tahiti and out of the island's wind shadow, Tepua felt the breeze stiffen. Rimapoa pulled in the sail, and the canoe heeled as it gathered speed. The lean became more severe, driving the outrigger float beneath the surface, and he climbed out on the balance board to counterweight the wind's force against the sail.
 

Tepua noticed with alarm that water was racing past less than a handspan below the splashboard. “What are you doing?” she called with dismay.
 

He laughed, looking like a brown sea spider with his knees and elbows sticking out as he crouched at the end of the balance board. “I get my best speed this way,” he called back.
 

“But we are in no hurry!” Ahead, Eimeo's green peaks already seemed near.

As if in defiance, he hauled the sail closer and the canoe tilted even further, its splashboard kissing the waves as Tepua tried to scramble up the slanting bottom.
 

“We will go nowhere if we capsize!” she shouted above the roar of water past the hull.

Rimapoa threw back his head and laughed, his teeth flashing in the sun. “I thought you had sailed before,” he answered good-naturedly.

“I have!” Tepua grabbed for a handhold and tried to haul herself up. She slipped, skidded down into the bilges. “Rimapoa, if you do not stop this, we will go over!”
 

“Everything is lashed in,
tiare
,” he sang back. “Nothing will be lost. I am not such a fool to think that we cannot be swamped. Why not come out here with me? You will be more comfortable, and the canoe won't heel so badly.”