FINAL ISLANDS IN THE SUN 7

                                                                               

Chapter 7

It was dusk when Tomwaya eased down his four-wheel drive to a halt. He turned on the high beam for a closer look and saw what appeared to be a road block.

   “Probably a fallen tree,” said his passenger. “We can drive around it, can’t we?”

   “I’m not sure,” said Tomwaya and revved the engine to drive up closer.

   It wasn’t a fallen tree, they realized. Someone cut down several trees to make the road block look complete. They couldn’t drive around it. Tomwaya cut the engine and the lights went dead. Darkness was fast approaching. The cicadas let out their shrill chirping and both men wondered who could have devised a plan such as this and for what. All else around them was silent.

    “You can turn and drive back to town,” said the old passenger from the cities. “I’ll walk the rest of the way from here.”

    Tomwaya was annoyed. He felt he was being dismissed sooner than business required. He still needed to collect the rest of his fees.

   “Will you be all right then?” he asked the passenger instead.

   “Yes, I’ll be fine.”

    “I believe you will be,” said Tomwaya, disliking the idea of driving back to Alotau at night. “Anyway, this is Milne Bay, peaceful country…”

   The passenger placed the pack, his only luggage, over a shoulder and began walking towards the pile of wood and branches that formed the road block. Barely had he taken five steps when they heard an engine and what sounded like a chorus of war chants. A light from the oncoming vehicle lit up the pile of wood and branches then drove around it, swerving up fast to Tomwaya and his passenger. About ten youth jumped down from the vehicle and surrounded them. They were carrying high powered rifles such as Tomwaya and his passenger had never seen before. One walked over swiftly with a tramontina and paced the blade next to the old traveller’s neck. Tomwaya screamed in protest. The leader of the youth jumped down from the vehicle and ordered the boy to withdraw the knife. He asked for a flash light and was given one. He shone the light on the faces of the two elderly men.

    “Not the material they want,” said the leader, walking away to inspect Tomwaya’s four wheel drive.

    There wasn’t much cargo or luggage in the vehicle. But the leader seemed to like the vehicle. It looked new, powerful, like the ones he used to drive up the highway from Lae to Goroka to Hagen and Kundiawa. He walked back to the elderly men. He demanded to see what was inside the bag the old passenger was carrying. One of the boys snatched it from the old man and ripped it open on the ground. Books. Nothing but books and stationery. The leader held out a book to the light. Ten Thousand Years in a Lifetime. He took out another. Wanpis. And then several more, examining each carefully and with a look of amusement by the flash light. The Crocodile.  Maiba. My Mother Calls Me Yaltep. He burst out laughing when he took out a booklet titled Naked Thoughts.

    “What’s the big deal?” he then said, more or less talking to himself or, rather, thinking aloud. Then, turning to look over the old passenger from head to toe, said, “I majored in political science. No big deal there either.”

    “Who are you people?” Tomwaya spoke suddenly, causing the others to lift rifle butts menacingly at him.

    “We are soldiers, hasol,” chorused the youth, surrounding him fast.

    “His name is Mr. Tomwaya,” put in the old passenger, stepping forward.

    A boy threw a backhander at the old passenger which Tomwaya caught in time.

    “All right, all right, take it easy,” said their leader. “The two old men are harmless – you can bloody well see that. Think of them as your grandfather, your father or your uncle. Be good to them. We are taking them in, though. Area command might want to interview them.”

    He led Tomwaya and the old passenger back to the four wheel drive.

    “Tommy, Figah,” he continued barking out orders, “come with me. You, too, Gabby. Now the rest of you mind the utility. Drive after us. Tommy and Gabby, jumped on the back. Figah, stick with me, na boskru lo mi. I’m driving. Tupela lapun ba sindaun lo baksaid. Now you hear me, men?”

    “Yoohh!” came the war cry.

    “All right, let’s go!”

    They drove away quickly, letting out wild yelps of war cries. A firefly flew in, did a few winks around Tomwaya and the old passenger and flew out gain. Tomwaya nudged his old companion and said all would be well. The other looked out at the coastal villages they were speeding past, each house lit up by Tilley and hurricane lamps, but appearing abandoned somewhat. He saw a little village with two or three hamlets lit up by solar powered tubes and guessed that would have been Topura. Dogura would be about sixteen miles ahead of them and where he was hoping to catch a dinghy to Cape Vogel, once upon a time known as the great Baniara District.   

     “So you boys are not raskols from around here after all?” said Tomwaya, addressing the leader of the youth who had now taken over his double cab four wheel drive.

     “You are very observant, old man,” said the leader. “And yes, if we were your so-called raskols you’d both be dead by now.”

    “I can see that,” said Tomwaya. “You sound intelligent, though, highly educated. And some of your boys are carrying some high powered weapons, too, the sort that neither the army nor police force can afford nowadays. So do tell us, young man, who are you people – what are you, really?”

     “We are the caretakers spilled over from Collingwood Bay,” came the prompt reply. “And don’t tell us you two old men, wise looking as you are, never heard of that place before…”

     “I see,” said Tomwaya and the old passenger at once.    

     “So can this mean we’ve stumbled into some kind of civil unrest like Bougainville and right here in the Milne Bay Province?” asked Tomwaya, somewhat testily. “A large scale civil war in the making… er, that is, judging from the type of uniform you’re all wearing…?”

      “Look, if you have any more questions reserve them for the area command at Dogura,” said the youth leader. “But for your information Tufi and Collingwood Bay have now become our stronghold, our headquarters. We believe our country has had enough of corrupt leaders. It needs a complete overhaul. We are here to ensure that happens…”

    “Then you must be salvation for PNG then…?”

    “Again, you reserve that opinion for the area command at Dogura. But I’ll tell you both now that if it wasn’t for that witch lawyer they call Lady Gaesasara nothing of what you see now and what you will see throughout the country tomorrow onwards would have happened.”

     Tomwaya was alarmed.

     “How on earth has this come about? She’s a great lawyer. She is all for Papua New Guinea!”

    “Not any more. At least not until she sacked the biggest multi-billion benefactor company there ever was operating in Papua New Guinea.”

    “What company?” Tomwaya demanded to know, sounding more alarmed than ever.

    “That,” said the leader with impatience, “is what you ask the area command at Dogura. Now, do you want me to pull over, get out and give you a lecture on this – or, should we be driving on?”

    “Drive on,” said the old passenger.  

FINAL ISLANDS IN THE SUN - Chapter 6

                                                                              

           
Chapter 6 

    Mimi lifted the long bamboo steering pole high in the air and was about to whack it across Diko’s back when Foroga burst out laughing.

    “That Labiadogha again,” Foroga kept laughing. “The hunchback got us fooled yet again.”

    “Who is Labiadoga?” said Amy, rousing herself up from a slight snooze.

    “Labiadogha, that old spastic from town,” said Diko.

    “You are the long long,” said Mimi, lifting the bamboo pole again. “If it wasn’t for your stupidity we wouldn’t be having this.”

    Diko cringed, leapt over the luggage and dived for cover between Dan and Amy.

    Mimi was muttering curses.

    “That retard got you outwitted again, Diko,” she said. “And he knows he’s had you. He’s laughing at us right this minute. When will you ever wake up to that?”

   “I was in a hurry,” said Diko. “I didn’t know, I didn’t know.”

  Mimi dropped the bamboo pole and threw up her arms in despair.

    Foroga explained to the guests that Labiadogha was a colorful personality in Alotau town. He had a way of drawing large crowds with his old homemade guitar and singing suggestive songs that brought laughter from all. Though a comic he had a way with women especially when they could sense his talents in making a lot of money. His exploits, further explained Foroga, included loading cartons of lager beer on a truck then selling these as wholesale items to unwary trade store owners. When rural beer drinkers bought these cartons, travelled to their villages and opened them up they found bottles filled with fresh water. His version of a four gallon zoom was one such pastime of deceit which Diko failed to remember or realize. Instead of petrol he used salt water and mixed that with thick oil to produce his version of the zoom. Now they had run of zoom and the only plastic container they were relying on to take them back to Alotau was what Labiadogha sold to Diko for fifty-nine kina.

    The southerlies were picking up rapidly and the surface of water all around them began breaking into swirls. Mimi brought out a long paddle and maneuvered the vessel to point shoreward which they realized was too far off. Foroga upon leaving Samarai Island decided to take the dinghy out into the open so that the flight into the bay and Alotau town from there would be swift. Little did she know that she would be denied just one plastic of zoom to complete that impressive turn in her talents of seafaring. To many of her contemporaries around Alotau town she was the best of the best, the “smoothest of smooth operators”. She’d surf the rough seas, they’d boast about her, and let her dinghy glide when the waves got roughest. Her passengers never felt safer when she was in charge. Now she could only stand at her post and laugh at the trick Labiadogha played on her and her crew.

   “Clever old bugger,” she kept shaking her head.

    Then they all realized they were floating in silence.

    It was the sudden whistle of a dying engine minutes earlier that woke those who were dozing off. Dan stood up to look around, stretched and yawned. Doboro Fjords, too, stood up to stretch himself and then jokingly asked for a fishing line to cast over the sea. It was at this point that Mimi lifted the bamboo pole to go after Diko when also Foroga tilted the plastic of zoom to let the salt water out, shaking her head in dismay. She stood up now and began assuring the guests that they would be fine and that help would be along the way as there were many dinghies sailing to and from Samarai. There were left over salmon sandwiches in the cooler so they need not worry about food, she said.

   “Those in need of visiting the loo may jump overboard and come up again when done,” offered Diko.

   “Oh, shut up,” said Mimi, reaching for the bamboo pole again.

    Foroga ordered the two to stop fooling around and hoist a canvas to serve as a sail. They found one that covered the luggage and using the bamboo pole fashioned a sail and stood it up. There was a slight breeze coming from the outer ocean and the canvas billowed a bit. They waited but it seemed a strong wind would be needed to get them closer to the shores. The southerlies that rose earlier seemed to have gone further northward with their ripples and swirls.

    Diko went through the luggage compartment of the dinghy and came out with a couple of sheets. These he tied to the bamboo pole and two of the dinghy’s paddles, after which had them suspended forming a shade for the guests. The sun was fast travelling towards the western horizon but the heat at this time of the day could become unbearable for the tourists, both he and the two girls were mindful of that. Anything that went amiss with the guests would be their responsibility, warned numwaya Nathalie.

    Foroga scooped up some sea water in her palms and tasted it. She told the others the weather would be kind to them but only for so long.

    “How long?” asked Amy, assisting Diko with the shade.

    “There’s a southerly swell heading this way,” said Foroga. “It should get us to the shores by nightfall.”

    “Will there be rain?” asked Doboro Fjords. “Might there be a storm?”

    “What do the clouds say?” asked Foroga.

    “I can’t see any,” said Doboro Fjords. “But the sky’s clear as the blue of the sea.”

    He didn’t appear enthusiastic about that remark. Weather around Alotau area, he knew as much as his fellow dinghy travellers, wasn’t at all predictable. He looked at Foroga and noticed a slight trace of smile. He was being tested. There was going to be a storm late that afternoon, while they were out floating in the open sea. Dan and Mimi rummaged through the luggage compartment for anything they could find. There was a first aid kit in one of the boxes, along with diving equipment which they could probably need later. A small tool box was found together with flash lights and emergency flares. The sail they hoisted looked humbly set. The shade looked fantastic, accommodating enough. The sea all around them looked exceptionally calm all of a sudden and this worried them a bit. So they all turned to Foroga, as if awaiting further advice or instructions from her.

     She moved about the dinghy from head to tail, probably wondering how it was that Labiadogha got them screwed up like this. The sun was setting behind the western horizon and she knew that wouldn’t be much comfort for all aboard. She didn’t want to blame Diko or Mimi, her little cousins, for that.  She knew she was responsible for all of them there and then. Numwaya Nathalie had told them so. And numwaya’s word was her word. But most of all she loved her dinghy. A 22 footer running on a 40 horse power engine: and she wondered, wondered: could this have been that popular product from Samarai Plastics known all over the world as the “Banana Boat” and carefully crafted and modeled by those old missionaries and local tradesmen of long ago to be entirely seaworthy come what may and which might have traveled as far across the seas as possible under the British flag to unknown lands and islands such as the West Indies? Who could tell, who could tell? Who could tell how far abroad little vessels such her’s might have traveled in time and history. It was the vessel that made her become known as the smooth operator, the queen of Milne Bay rough waters.

                                                                          

FINAL ISLANDS IN THE SUN - 5

                                                                               

                     

FINAL ISLANDS IN THE SUN – Chapter 5

 

    The informal trader rushed up to the gates demanding to see the boss woman who was harboring the younger woman who bashed up her son. Or so the security personnel thought of her sudden intrusion. So they tried all they could to restrain her.

    She shook the men off, for she herself was largely built, typical of a Motu-Koita mother, and entered the gates, screaming and wailing at the top of her voice. The men instantly jumped clear, mindful of the rules they were tasked to carry out, and those rules said plainly and clearly that they should never lay a hand on a woman, least of all touch her. The woman continued wailing and uttering phrases in Koita.

    It was 5.55am when all this happened, Lady Gaesasara just emerging from the house in a track suit, ready for her routine morning run. The fog of morning light had yet to lift but the noise all around the neighborhood indicated that all was awake to the chores of yet another day. She need not, she felt, take extra precautions in jogging out to the gates when the noise coming from there forced her to stop. She waited a while, listening and checking the timer on her wrist. The early morning rays of the sun started hitting the surrounding burnt sienna hills by now and the valley where the Writer’s Villa kept itself comfortably nestled began to lighten up. In a little while all visibility became clear and she could easily see the wailing woman stumbling into the courtyard.   

    The woman quieted down upon seeing Lady Gaesasara, took a couple of steps forward but paused, casting a questioning glance at the security officers. They in turn nodded her forward. Then of course they had to control the crowd that followed the woman. There were men, women and children, shouting out for vengeance, it seemed. The men in particular were demanding compensation for wounds inflicted on their little boy.

    As if adding punctuation marks to all that shouting the large woman quickly fell to her knees and blurted out: “Aiyoi… Tanobada isuka da miare, di magi oro mave se magi gumage na ore na goi gore nu? Ege daki ai oroi ma.”

    There was a sudden hush outside the gates.

    The crowd began leaving, each to his or her own, until there was no one left for the security guards to argue with. The guards too must have felt the impact of what the large woman was moaning about and perhaps thought it was too much for the human heart to contend with. Only a handful of men could be heard mumbling over the shoulder but they too left as quickly as they had come.

    Bright sunshine flooded the valley.

    Lady Gaesasara descended from the steps.

    “Orogo no…” she beckoned the informal trader. “We must sit down and talk.”

    She led the large woman a few terraces up the side of the house from which vantage point they could have a better view of the whole valley. This valley was once a hunting ground of the Motu-Koita people, she explained. The Motu and Koita would decide upon a month and camp here for days. At the given signal and depending on weather and direction of winds, the kunai you see all around us would be set alight. Whatever game that lay down there, at the bottom, where the streets are now, would be at the mercy of hunters waiting in a ring around the valley.  The game caught would be enough to feed large clans and families around the coastal villages not far from here.

   The informal trader looked puzzled. She did not come here to listen to fables and oral histories. But that would be Lady Gaesasara’s way of soothing the nerves of unexpected visitors, or more precisely trespassers, who might need time to calm down a bit before speaking their minds truthfully. When they reached a higher terrace where there was a spare hut that looked like a yam house, and a chair offered her, the large woman stood very still, not knowing what to do or say.

    “Please sit,” said Lady Gaesasara.

    The woman sat down stiffly.

    “I came after my son,” she then said suddenly. “He was beaten up badly by one of your’s. My heart aches to know why.”

    “And so mine,” said Lady Gaesasara taking a chair next to her. “Children are hard to control these days. And it is always the parents to blame for their wrongs.”

     The woman did not feel any anger when she heard this. She agreed parents played an enormous role on the welfare of their children. She wanted then to explain that she was in the village when her boy got into trouble coming home from school. And anyhow, her husband was such a drunk and gambler he never did much for the boy… But she thought better of that and decided to apologize for waking the lady lawyer up and disturbing the neighborhood.

    Lady Gaesasara told the woman there was nothing to apologize for and that she could do all she could to help her boy. And anyhow, she said, it was worth the while talking with her rather than rushing out there to stomp about from one end of the valley to the other.

    “And you hid one little secret from me in our talk,” said the woman, looking at the younger woman straight in the eye.

    “I did?”

    “Those hunters: they were not up along the sides of these hills around us. It would be too dangerous up there. They were all standing in wait at both ends of this valley, down there, at the gullies, as the fires scorched the earth. The game tried to escape through the gullies, not uphill.”

    “You are a Koita woman,” smiled Lady Gaesasara. “Koita mothers are wise.”

     From where they were the Writer’s Villa became the centre of the valley. All around were hills that remained scorched the year round by kunai fires, enabling the valley to resemble a curled up spotted tiger at rest. But it was haven enough for the noble mind, most of the residents of the valley would boast, conveniently removed from the noise of the city. Very few private homes could be found here, and the few that could be spotted have sprung up sporadically as fringe low cost houses fencing in the entire valley. It was from these fringe houses that the informal trader had come to express her grievances.

    An alarm went off from the Writer’s Villa just below them. It rang louder than it should as that would be Kedu Sarah’s way of reminding Lady Gaesasara that she was spending far too much time entertaining an intruder instead of being back in the house, as she often did from her morning runs, washing up and getting ready for breakfast with her children.

    Lady Gaesasara stood up from her chair, checking the timer on her wrist: “Just about time I got back from that morning run. I say,” she then turned to the woman, “do stay for breakfast with me.”

    The large woman was having difficulty getting up from her chair. Part of her clothing got caught at a side of the chair she was sitting in and in the process of freeing herself she noticed how heavy the chair was. She burst out laughing, surprising Lady Gaesasara.

    “You people are worse than the taukurokuro,” she kept on laughing as she struggled with the chair. “Are these chairs made of iron?”

     “They are indeed,” said Lady Gaesasara joining in with the laughter. “They are what my father collected from Andre Miller’s old Botanical Gardens... a long, long time ago. These white iron chairs and those flower pots you see all around. Quite elaborate in their rococoish design… and, and quite exquisite, wouldn’t you agree so? I’ll tell you more about them… but perhaps another time...  another time…”

     “My, my,” said the woman, reaching out to touch the lady lawyer’s wrist for the first time that morning. “No wonder you are so important.”

    Kedu Sarah, the matron of the Writer’s Villa, was on the verge of lecturing Lady Gaesasara on time management when the two women walked down to the house. She looked disapprovingly at the informal trader then walked down a set of cement blocks to a bungalow next door to rouse Miss Caswell and the little boy up. But on her way up after waking Miss Caswell and ordering her to get the boy ready for breakfast she merely said to the informal trader: “Make yourself comfortable. Breakfast will be served shortly.”

    The breakfast consisting of tapioca bread, pawpaw slices and tea and milk for the children was served under the house. All looked tensed up a little round the table as Kedu Sarah said the Grace, except Lady Gaesasara and her two children. When Miss Caswell walked up from the bungalow with the little boy the mother rose and embraced her son, quietly crying and asking if she had failed as a mother, had she not looked after her little baby well? She studied her son closely and noticed that the only marks visible were but a thin dark lining under the left eye. There were no stitches as she had heard previously from her husband; and there appeared no evidence that her son was hospitalized. Miss Caswell nevertheless appeared remorseful and showed this with a hug for the mother before sitting down at the table. Food usually is the thing that settles the heart in strife.
 

    "Our hill together!"

    It was Richard, the leader of the security guards, walking up from the gates to announce that Sergeant Mata Hanai had arrived to escort Miss Caswell to the court house. Sergeant Mata Hanai was the old police officer at the Boroko Police Station who had released Miss Caswell to Lady Gaesasara’s custody the day before. 
 

    "Our hill together," chorused those at the breakfast table.

    “Pity the old boy can’t join us for breakfast, Richard,” said Lady Gaesasara.

    “Yes, a pity,” said Richard, picking up a piece of tapioca bread. “But as it is, Lady Gaesasara, it is the way with the old ones. All your father’s friends will stay away from the villa until the thought of your mother’s passing evaporates completely from their minds. And they won’t visit even when your father’s here.”

    “I know, Richard.”

    Kedu Sarah took Miss Caswell and the boy down to Sergeant Mata Hanai who would be driving them to Boroko. She and the large woman, the boy’s mother, would be following suit in her little station wagon. Richard took Byron and Emily, Lady Gaesasara’s children, to school soon after in the security van. On their way out they saw a well-dressed woman driving in to take Lady Gaesasara to the Waigani court houses. She gave the "our hills together" salute and Richard and the two little ones returned the gesture. When a woman dresses up like that, thought Richard amusedly, we will hear in the six o’clock news of yet another multi-billion dollar rogue of a foreign company sacked by the government.     

    At the Boroko District Court two hours later Magistrate Dickson Weraura looked up from an unusually thick file, as prepared by Sergeant Mata Hanai himself, and asked which one of those present in the room was Miss Caswell.

    “I am, your worship,” said Miss Caswell, rising.

    “You are,” said the Magistrate, and after being sure who the accused was read out the charges.

     A hush fell upon the court room.

    “Miss Caswell, you realize how serious these allegations are: an adult willfully beating up a minor. Do you have anything to say to these allegations?”

    “I deny the allegations, your worship,” said Miss Caswell. “I deny all of the allegations.”

    “You deny the allegations.”

    The magistrate tapped a finger on the file thoughtfully. He turned to the clerk, a young woman of about Miss Caswell’s age, and motioned her to record all that was heard. The clerk in the meantime caught herself watching Miss Caswell intently, with fascination as a matter of fact. Magistrate Dickson pretended he did not see that.

   “And what is your occupation, Miss Caswell?” he then asked.

    “I am a lawyer, your worship.”

    “I see. And how much do you earn a fortnight by way of net salary?”

    Miss Caswell felt Kedu Sarah’s foot on her’s and smiled.

    “Five hundred and eighty-five kina and forty-five toea, your worship,” she answered. “On a graduate salary.”

    “And who are your employers, Miss Caswell?”

    “I have but one employer, your worship. Lady Gaesasara and Associates.”

     The magistrate looked at Miss Caswell for a moment then closed the file, pushing it towards the clerk. He then explained that although the charges were serious some leniency was accorded her upon the understanding that she was acting on impulse and in response to certain usages of language by men that demean women in general. “However, that should not,” continued the magistrate, “rule out the error on your part of attacking a minor, for which this court orders you, Miss Caswell, to pay a fine of one hundred kina and to take into your keep this eleven year-old boy as a minor equivalent of a dependent whereupon all responsibilities pertaining to his welfare including education, health, food, clothing and shelter shall be yours until the authority of this court feels satisfied that he be returned to his rightful parents.”

    

All chapters subject to re-writes and further editing.

NEWS FROM UWA PUBLISHING

                                                                    

A publication from UWA Publishing

This is an important message which concerns all writers living in Papua New Guinea and abroad and who have an interest in writing about the country through their own experiences or observations. The message comes from the Director of UWA Publishing at the University of Western Australia. It is as follows:

6 October 2013

Dear writer

I would like to invite you to submit a piece of writing for consideration to be included in an anthology to be published in 2014 by UWA Publishing. The project has come from discussions and observations between Drusilla Modjeska and myself about the absence of lively, distinctive and new voices from Papua New Guinea in the past years for readers outside of PNG. Particularly we are thinking of those of us in Australia who have a long and abiding connection and interest in PNG as a near neighbour. We know that writers are producing new work but it is not travelling to enthusiastic readers, and we are very keen to make some of this happen.

We are proposing an anthology that contains both fiction and non-fiction, writing by PNG residents: by this we are not wishing to limit contributors to Nationals only but to invite others who have lived in PNG to submit work.  We encourage writing that captures a sense of PNG today: in non-fiction all social, political and cultural topics are welcomed and encouraged, and the fiction we imagine publishing will be as broad in its scope.

It is important that this anthology has PNG editors, particularly as it will be published in Australia, and I have asked Russell Soaba, Tania Nugent and Steven Winduo to be the editors:  people with a keen sense of an historical past as well as a close connection with contemporary culture.

In the first place, then, I invite you to make contact with your interest in submitting a piece of writing by emailing me at terriann.white@uwa.edu.au

We will be interested in receiving fiction from fragment-length to 1500 words length, and non-fiction up to 2000 words. Authors selected for publication will be paid a fee. Deadline for submissions is 31 January 2014.

With my best wishes

 

Terri-ann

 

Terri-ann can be contacted at the following address:

Professor Terri-ann White FAHA

Director

UWA PUBLISHING

The University of Western Australia

35 Stirling Highway, Crawley WA 6009 M419

Tel:  +61 8 6488 1343

Fax: +61 8 6488 1027

Email:  terriann.white@uwa.edu.au

 

 

Good luck to all of us writers, then...

BOUGAINVILLE'S GREAT EXPECTATIONS

                                                                           

 

A review of the film Mr. Pip

 

The Papua New Guinean soldier wants to know who Mr. Pip is. His men round up the villagers who are then severely interrogated. A little boy, as slow a learner as Mr. Watts is (for that is Mr. Pip’s real name), says he knows where Mr. Pip is. The boy points out a house and a white man is brought forward. The white man soon realizes the dilemma of fiction and discursive information and in the process of differentiating the two for the benefit of the soldier and his men, he, the soldier, shoots him twice on the chest, calling him a liar and a spy. His body is then dragged to the back of a house and hacked to pieces. To the soldier Mr. Pip is never that fictitious character from Charles Dickens’ novel, Great Expectations, but a master-mind controlling the BRA. The soldier’s next task is to find Mr. Charles Dickens himself and similarly execute him.  

 

Or so goes the story of this film, Mr. Pip.

 

When Lloyd Jones set out to publish the novel Mister Pip in 2006, he probably had in mind the Bougainville copper mine as not only the largest mine in the world in 1988 but also a complex multi-billion dollar corporation from which much would be expected, all at the expense of the ordinary Bougainville islander and those that came to live on that island. Schools and other government service agencies on the island were shut down, the people had nowhere to turn to but unto themselves for all possible means of survival as just a few meters next to them was a war raging between the BRA and the Papua New Guinea armed forces. But it was to the people themselves that all bruises and trauma of that war were left, with so many desolate hours of “great expectations” lying ahead of them somewhere in the distance of an unseen future. And the resultant revelation for all of that would be nothing but an abandoned crater, a hole in the ground not worth fighting for.

 

The journalist Sean Dorney looked at Bougainville and offered extensive reports over ABC and other media publications of atrocities on the island and for which he was threatened or deported.

 

But this film, Mr. Pip, needs to be understood not so much as a report on what happened on Bougainville as to its insistence on asking some of the greatest questions of literary merit since time immemorial, especially on the plight of ordinary people in extremely difficult circumstances. Miss Xzannjah Matsi and Hugh Laurie join forces to give not only Bougainville but also the whole of Papua New Guinea the best of performances since Abert Toro’s Tukana and the William Takaku-Pearce Brosnan portrayal of Man Friday. The casting was excellent and the use of organic material in the form of raw village talent deserves commendation. Who can judge between character and real life? Who can boast of who’s who in Hollywood or Bollywood but a remarkable piece of literary rendering of ordinary humanity on film, the big silver screen, like this one? There, and only then, do we hear voices of the masters, like Charles Dickens; like Mr. Watts aka Mr. Pip; and that little Buka girl that snaps out of a reverie, out of the strangeness of a long dream just to learn from the wisdom of the crabs and Mr. Dickens that home is where we all want to be and certainly not a thing to be ashamed of. Mr. Pip, the only white man in that village perishes. The other villagers, including Matilda, barely manage to escape. And when they do, there is much to look back to as reminder. In essence, the civil war was utterly senseless.

 

The film also carries some historical references, through dialogue, character flash backs and certain locations of filming, that trace and reflect upon those famous yet now forgotten black birding voyages of the 18^th and 19^th centuries. The island of Bougainville has once upon a time been a gold mine of black slavery. Not a single 19^th century British novel, be it Dickens or Jane Austen, passes by us without a slight mention of slave trade whether from Africa or anywhere else such as the Pacific islands. Both the author of the novel and the film makers have been careful enough to remain faithful to their historical research data, by sparing us a little of that information. In this film, Mr. Pip, in particular, we are given the opportunity to trace those black birding voyages, when Matilda (the character Xzannjah’s portraying) makes her way from Bougainville to the Solomon Islands, to Australia and finally to Great Britain where she inherits part of a house that belongs to Mr. Pip. Matilda, of course, turns down the offer when she remembers she could not, much as she might have, save Mr. Pip from the PNG soldiers. She inherits rather a copy of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations.

 

This is a good film. Get to see it soon. 

This review posted simultaneously by The Anuki Country Press.

FINAL ISLANDS - 3

                                                   

    

FINAL ISLANDS IN THE SUN

Chapter 3





     Nathalie stood with her guests under the shed at Alotau’s Sanderson Bay station and watched the girls prepare the dinghy for the trip to Samarai. She enjoyed sending her guests to the island, relishing every moment of pleasure each trip had brought them. Both she and her guests knew that time spent in Milne Bay without a trip to the island was time wasted indeed. Every one of them knew and valued the island’s historical significance. Although run down in many ways, Samarai remained the island to visit; especially for those who treasured the note book, the diary or the camera. To the locals and tourists alike the island was a reminder of a certain monumental past such as in being the administrative centre for the entire province once upon a time, a brief stopover for foreign trading vessels and ocean liners, or a mooring isle for storm beaten vessels of those ancient mariners from far off shores…  
As the girls prepared the dinghy, bailing out the previous day’s rain water and loading the luggage, the guests settled comfortably along the benches offshore, either reading books or looking out at the vast display of sailing vessels and the sea stretching out of the bay. A couple from Dover, Colorado Springs asked how long it would take to sail to the island.

    “On my 22 footer, it will be just under an hour and a half. You should be there long before lunch time. The girls prepared mackerel sandwiches with a lot of salad for your lunch. In case you need that. But food at Samarai will be just as good, provided you get there before all goes stale.”

    “Hey Doboro Fjords,” called out one of the girls from the dinghy, “this trip is more than your scuba diving lessons yesterday. You need to be ready.”

     “Stop teasing our guests, Foroga, and finish loading the dinghy. We have to get them to  Samarai before lunch today.”

      “Gala bo kuwali,” said Foroga. “But tell the doboro from Norway to be ready. This ain’t peaceful Tufi, you know. Weather around here can be unpredictable at times. Look at the clouds overhead.”

      “Then test the water, Foroga,” said Nathalie. “I want my guests back safe and sound by 4pm this afternoon.”

    “Yam nuamaise, Numwaya…”

     Foroga scooped up salt water in her palms and threw it into her mouth, letting her taste buds work. In a moment she gave the thumbs up sign and the other girls scurried to load the dinghy with luggage and supplies for the day.

    “And where is that boy with the zooms?” asked Nathalie.

    “Who knows?” chorused the girls.

    Presently a boy with plastic containers walked up to them, panting heavily. Foroga ordered him to load the plastics quickly. He looked lethargic, if not plain lazy, and this annoyed the girls all the more.

    “Did you go all the way to Sagarai to get the zooms?” scolded Nathalie.

    “The service station was crowded, Numwaya,” said the boy apologetically as he loaded the plastic containers. “Holiday time. Peak period, remember?”

    “Don’t you dare ask me to remember anything, young man,” muttered Nathalie under her breath, careful not to let the tourists overhear her. “If there’s anything worth remembering it’s the day I rescued you from your grandfather treating you as a slave in his yam gardens. Be thankful you have breakfast served you in time while you’re with me.”

    “Yam nuamaise, Numwaya,” said the boy and looked as if he would not raise his head for a while yet.

      At which point the girls had heaved the dinghy in, stationing it by its side along the wharf for the guests to board. The guests did so without difficulty, Doboro Fjords being the first. He was known as that for being a Norwegian who loved his sojourns at Tufi more than any other place in Papua New Guinea. He had happened by this province out of curiosity before travelling on to the Tufi fjords, he had explained upon arrival. But, explanations or not, the girls at the Numwaya Nathalie Lodge found him good company, especially in the way he would serenade them on a guitar with a Belafonte tune after a glass or two of red. The girls in turn would use the “five key” on the same guitar to sing him some Hetei Dickson tunes, telling him that Hetei Dickson was a better Belafonte for the Milne Bay Province than any other.

    “O island in the sun…made for me by my father’s hand…” he would begin.

    “No, no, no, Doboro Fjords!” they would scream at him like parakeets. “You sing, ‘I’m going back to the island… down Eastern Papua way’…”

    When everyone was comfortably boarded the girls working on the dinghy alighted, leaving Foroga and Mimi manage the trip to Samarai. The boy who brought the plastic containers appeared distraught. The couple from Dover known as Mr. and Mrs. Goldberg, or Dan and Amie, realized his troubles before anyone else could.

    “Let Diko come along, too, Nathalie dear,” said Amie Goldberg. “We need company.”

    “All right,” said Nathalie, almost reluctantly. She turned to the boy. “Get on, then, Diko. And be kind to our guests. Don’t bother them with petty requests and stuff.”

     “He never does,” said Dan.

     Doboro Fjords moved to give Diko space as Foroga prepared to start the 40 horse power engine.

     “Uncle Tomwaya should be home before we get back,” said Mimi.

     “He’d better be,” said Nathalie. “Anyway, it’s not unusual for him to overnight along the north coast if he’s too tired to drive back.”

     “He’ll be all right,” said Foroga. “Here, Diko, don’t sit idle. Distribute the life jackets. Have everyone wear them, please. Regulations.”

     “Better be going, then,” said Nathalie. “Before the weather changes its mind.”

     “See you later in the evening,” said the guests.

     “Have a safe trip. Enjoy.”    

     The girls eased the dinghy out slowly, letting it weave among the other vessels, Mimi at the front with a bamboo pole, plodding at the tyre guards to gain clear passage. Diko held the sides of the bigger boats to push the dinghy along. The guests turned and waved to Nathalie.

     Once clear and out in the open Foroga started the engine and directed everyone to sit where she thought would be the safest. She revved the engine, put it into gear. Mimi took up her station at the front and the dinghy tilted skywards. It was flying.

                                                              

Chapter 4 of this novel: revised, edited and updated at The Anuki Country Press.

*All chapters subject to alteration or renaming as the novel progresses.     

FINAL ISLANDS IN THE SUN - Chapter 2

                                                                       

FINAL ISLANDS IN THE SUN

 

Chapter Two

    “So what did you want to become?”

    The question came to her mind from an old man whom she could hardly remember. She tried visualizing that old man. The best she could make out was her class mates at university telling her how wise that old man was. Very wise, they insisted.

    “So what did you want to become? At his age, I mean?”

    The old man had this sinister habit of repeating the same thing over and over.

    She turned, feeling dazed. She wanted to answer the old man’s question, tell him he was outdated; and that his kind never lasted long.

    “Miss,” came a harsh voice, and she realized she was at a police station.

    “Miss,” the constable repeated, edging her along, into the dark confines of the station’s interview rooms. “The senior sergeants are waiting.”

    Then as if in place of reciting ‘you have the right to remain silent’ the constable blurted out suddenly: “You bashed up that little boy like he was an adult.”

    She started.

    She knew then that even she might have been manhandled somewhere along the way.

    She swore. She spat.

    “The little brat was paraphrasing you grown up apes,” she muttered under her breath.

    “Constable,” a senior policeman emerged from a room down the corridor. “Just show Miss Caswell in, will you?”

     The constable instantly snapped shut his heels and led her into what looked like a conference room for senior police officers. Three senior sergeants looked up mournfully at her. She shrugged, took the seat offered her.

     “Someone coming for you, Miss Caswell?” said the one who had directed the constable to lead her in. “We have an odd case here,” he added, indicating a file on the table.

     “The laws you women create in parliament, Miss Caswell, bounce back at you like this one,” chuckled another, pushing the file towards her.

    Caswell was cracking her now bruised knuckles. The three senior sergeants smiled.

    “Let us hope someone does come for you, Miss Caswell,” they all said, rose and went outside.

    She was left alone. She flipped through the pages. The intending charges looked ridiculously fabricated. She didn’t lie in wait and ambush the innocent little boy. And what’s this about child abuse, for God’s sake? She read on: complex childhood plus peer pressure, parental demands of getting the best in life, failed emotional associations, high cost of professional maintenance fees, boredom, aloneness, lack of social input… what the heck is lack of social input… all these, culminating in that resort to aggression as necessary distraction…adding, finally, that child abuse was a serious offence.

    She pushed the file away, making it look as if she did not open it at all. The sergeant who did the chuckling seemed too old to be employed in the police force. She wondered why aged old seniors like him still loitered around in the public service.

 

    She sat there, waiting. A cleaner mopped her way in to where she was and asked her to lift her feet so she could do the rest of the room. She obliged. After mopping the whole room the cleaner asked if there was anything she wanted. Yes, she wanted the senior officials attending her case immediately.

    The cleaner advised her that they would be out for a while. It was their lunch hour.

    “Oh, great...”

    “The people who forced you down to this police station were remorseless, my elder,” said the cleaner.

    “I don’t need your sympathy,” she said. “That boy needed discipline.”

    “Still, they shouldn’t have dragged you here by the hand,” said the cleaner, adding “my elder” with extreme courtesy.

    The cleaner had a point. People justice was getting out of hand in Port Moresby. She looked at the cleaner closely. She looked familiar, like someone from her part of the country. She wondered, though, why an elderly looking cleaner like this one would address her as “my elder”.

    But as if in answer to her wondering, the cleaner bowed slightly and said, “Our hill together, my elder.”

    There was a commotion outside.

    The cleaner did a sudden genuflect and remained still, her head bowed.

    The three senior sergeants made their return to the interview room somewhat hurriedly. The fat and older one was sweating. It was a behavior least expected of the seniors. A few security personnel entered the police station, clicked their heels and stood at attention. The crowd moved aside to let a woman through. The woman looked thirtyish. She displayed a certain amount of authority about her, sniffing at what lay before her from a height. The cleaner remained as she was. The woman looked at the cleaner briefly then waved her to rise.

    “Ku Gaesasara,” said the cleaner and rose to stand at ease.

    The woman nodded and marched into the interview room.

    “Lady Gaesasara,” said the fat old sergeant with a bow, his palms glued together in reverence. “It is good to see you here in person. We did not realize Miss Caswell was your client. Do forgive us.”

     “There is nothing to forgive, my elder,” said the woman. “I must rather thank you and your good officers for looking after my client well. Is there anything you would like me to know   before I take her away?”

     “Nothing that would warrant addition to the noise the media is making about Miss Caswell, Lady Gaesasara,” said the old sergeant, “except, of course, her file here which we shall keep for our own records.”

     “Ah, yes; the media and their usual tirades. Very well, then, I shall leave with my client.”

      As the constable escorted her out to Lady Gaesasara’s men, the cleaner leaned over to the woman they called Miss Caswell and whispered, “Our hill together. You are in good hands. All charges will be dropped.”    

    Miss Caswell looked puzzled. She turned, regardless, nodded her thanks to the cleaner and the constable and was whisked out of sight.

    The old man and the other sergeants followed suit, escorting Lady Gaesasara to her car. The young constable turned and joined them, to whom Lady Gaesasara turned and said, “And where are you from, young man?”

    “Boku, Sir.”

    “Sir?”

    “Lady Gaesasara.”

    “And where might Boku be?”

    “Inland Rigo, Lady Gaesasara.”

    “Ah, yes. Where the loyal ones come from, wouldn’t you say so, constable?”

    “I heard mention of such, Lady Gaesasara.”

    “As loyal as the Baniaras?”

    “That also I heard mention of.”

    “You heard mention of these, constable. Don’t you have an opinion of your own?”

    “That I do, sir!” said the constable and quickly snapped shut his heels to attention. “Ku Gaesasara! Our hill together!”

    The senior police officers, particularly the old sergeant, nodded in agreement. Lady Gaesasara was visibly impressed. The power of law, she thought.

    The crowd that had brought Miss Caswell to the station decreased in number by now. A few angry murmurs could be heard, however. But there were no rocks or stones, nor even sticks and footwear cast that day. And Lady Gaesasara’s party along with the police officers would then wonder how long it would take to hold out such spates of mob justice. The saddest thought of all that crossed Lady Gaesasara’s mind was what to do with the little boy who had provoked a simple law-abiding woman to violence.