Nation Read online

  “And made a Garden of the Earth”—fruit and leaves rained down on the deck, but a shudder meant that a broken tree had ripped away part of the hull, spilling the ballast—“We pray to Thee to stretch Thy hand”—Captain Roberts gripped the useless wheel tighter, and laughed at the roaring dark—“To those in peril on the land.”

  And three great fig trees, whose buttressed roots had withstood centuries of cyclones, raced out of the future and came as a big surprise. His last thought was: Perhaps who raised the mountains high would have been a better line in the circums—

  Captain Roberts went to Heaven, which wasn’t everything that he’d expected, and as the receding water gently marooned the wreck of the Sweet Judy on the forest floor, only one soul was left alive. Or possibly two, if you like parrots.

  On the day the world ended Mau was on his way home. It was a journey of more than twenty miles. But he knew the way, oh yes. If you didn’t know the way, you weren’t a man. And he was a man…well, nearly. He’d lived for a month on the island of the boys, hadn’t he? Just surviving on that place was enough to make you a man….

  Well, surviving and then getting back.

  No one ever told you about the Boys’ Island, not properly. You picked up stuff as you grew, but there was one thing you learned very soon:

  The point about the Boys’ Island was that you got away from the Boys’ Island. You left your boy soul there and were given a man soul when you got back to the Nation.

  You had to get back—otherwise something terrible happened: If you didn’t get back in thirty days, they came and fetched you, and you’d never be a man, not really. The boys said it would be better to drown than be fetched. Everyone would know you’d failed, and you’d probably never get a wife, and if you did get a wife, she’d be a woman none of the real men wanted, with bad teeth and smelly breath.

  Mau had lain awake for weeks worrying about this. You were allowed to take only your knife to the island, and he had nightmares about building a canoe in thirty days with just a knife. It couldn’t be done. But all the men in the Nation had done it, so there had to be a way, didn’t there?

  On his second day on the Boys’ Island he’d found it.

  There was a god anchor in the middle of the island, a brown stone cube half buried in sand and soil. Heavy vines grew over it and wrapped around a huge tabago tree. Carved deeply into the tree’s dry bark, in the language for children, were the signs: MEN HELP OTHER MEN. Next to it, wedged into the wood, was an alaki, a carved black stone on a long handle. Hold it one way, it was an axe. Hold it the other, it was an adze, good for hollowing out a log.

  He pulled out the axe and learned the lesson. So had many other boys; Mau climbed the tree one evening and found the hundreds of marks all the way up the trunk where generations of grateful boys had left the axe, or one like it, for those who came after. Some of them would be Grandfathers now, up in the cave on the mountain, back home.

  They would be watching, with eyes that could see for miles, and perhaps they watched him when he discovered the log, well seasoned, and not too well hidden among the pandanuses at the back of the little island. When he got home he’d say he found it, and everyone would say that was lucky, and perhaps the gods had put it there. Now that he came to think about it, his father and a couple of his uncles had gone off fishing near the island early one morning without inviting him to come with them….

  It had been a good time. He knew how to make fire, and he’d found the little freshwater spring. He’d made a spear good enough to get fish from the lagoon. And he’d made a good canoe, firm and light, with an outrigger. All you had to build was something that would get you home, but he’d worked on this canoe with knife and skateskin so that it whispered over the water.

  He hadn’t rushed his last day as a boy. His father had told him not to. Clean up the camp, he’d said. Soon you will belong to a wife and children. That will be fine. But sometimes you will look back fondly on your last day as a boy. Make it a warm memory, and be back in time for the feast.

  The camp was so clean that you wouldn’t know he’d been there. Now he stood in front of the ancient tabago tree for the last time, the axe in his hand and, he was sure, the Grandfathers looking over his shoulder.

  It was going to be perfect, he knew. Last night the stars of Air, Fire, and Water had been in the sky together. It was a good time for new beginnings.

  He found a clear place in the soft bark and raised the axe. For a moment his eye caught the little blue bead tied to his wrist; it would keep him safe on the journey home. His father had told him how proud he’d be on his way back. But he would need to be careful and not draw the attention of any gods or spirits to himself. It was not good to be between souls. He’d be like mihei gawi, the little blue hermit crab, scuttling from his shell to a new one once a year, easy prey for any passing squid.

  It was not a nice thought, but he had a good canoe and a calm sea, and he would scuttle fast, oh yes! He swung the axe as hard as he could, thinking: Hah! The next boy to pull this out will deserve to be called a man.

  “Men help other men!” he shouted as the stone hit the bark.

  He’d meant it to have an effect. It did, far more than he expected. From every corner of the little island, birds exploded into the air like a cloud of bees. Finches and waders and ducks rose out of the bushes and filled the air with panic and feathers. Some of the larger ones headed out to sea, but most of them just circled, as though terrified to stay but with nowhere else to go.

  Mau walked through them as he went down to the beach. Bright wings zipped past his face like hail, and it would have been wondrously pretty if it weren’t for the fact that every single bird was taking this opportunity to have a really good crap. If you’re in a hurry, there is no point in carrying unnecessary weight.

  Something was wrong. He could feel it in the air, in the sudden calm, in the way the world felt suddenly as though something heavy was pressing down on it.

  And now it hit Mau, knocking him flat on the sand. His head was trying to explode. It was worse even than that time when he’d played the stone game and had hung on too long. Something was weighing down on the world like a big gray rock.

  Then the pain went as fast as it had it come, with a zip, leaving him gasping and dazed. And still the birds swarmed overhead.

  As Mau staggered to his feet, all he knew was that here was not a good place to be anymore, and if it was the only thing he knew, then at least he knew it with every nail and hair of his body.

  Thunder rolled in the clear sky, one great hard jolt of it that rattled off the horizon. Mau staggered down to the tiny lagoon while the noise went on, and there was the canoe waiting for him in the white sand of the water’s edge. But the usually calm water was…dancing, dancing like water danced under heavy rain, although no rain was falling.

  He had to get away. The canoe sloped easily into the water, and he paddled frantically for the gap in the reef that led to the open sea. Beneath him and around him, fish were doing the same thing—

  The sound went on, like something solid, smashing into the air and breaking it. It filled the whole of the sky. For Mau it was like a giant slap on the ears. He tried to paddle faster, and then the thought rose in his mind: Animals flee. His father had told him so. Boys flee. A man does not flee. He turns to look at his enemy, to watch what he does and find his weakness.

  Mau let the canoe slide out of the lagoon and easily rode the surf into the ocean, and then he looked around, like a man.

  The horizon was one great cloud, boiling and climbing, full of fire and lightning and growling like a nightmare.

  A wave crashed in the coral, and that was wrong too. Mau knew the sea, and there was also something wrong with that. The Boys’ Island was falling way behind him, because a terrible current was dragging him toward the great bag of storms. It was as if the horizon was drinking the sea.

  Men looked at their enemy, yes, but sometimes they turned around and paddled like mad.

 
; It made no difference. The sea was sliding and then, suddenly, was dancing again, like the water in the lagoon. Mau, trying to think straight, fought to get the canoe under control.

  He’d get back. Of course he would. He could see the picture in his head, small and clear. He turned it around, savoring the taste of it.

  Everyone would be there. Everyone. There could be no exceptions. Old, sick men would prefer to die on mats at the water’s edge rather than not be there; women would give birth there if they had to, while watching for the homecoming canoe. It was unthinkable to miss the arrival of a new man. That would bring down terrible bad luck on the whole Nation.

  His father would be watching for him at the edge of the reef, and they’d bring the canoe up the beach, and his uncles would come running, and the new young men would rush to congratulate him, and the boys he’d left behind would be envious, and his mother and the other women would start on the feast, and there would be the…thing with the sharp knife, where you didn’t scream, and then…there would be everything.

  And if he could just hold it in his mind, then it would be so. There was a shining silver thread connecting him to that future. It would work like a god anchor, which stopped the gods from wandering away.

  Gods, that was it! This was coming from the Gods’ Island. It was over the horizon and you couldn’t see it even from here, but the old men said it had roared, back in the long ago, and there had been rough water and a lot of smoke and thunder because the Fire god was angry. Maybe he’d gotten angry again.

  The cloud was reaching up to the top of the sky, but there was something new down at sea level. It was a dark gray line, getting bigger. A wave? Well, he knew about waves. You attacked them before they attacked you. He’d learned how to play with them. Don’t let them tumble you. Use them. Waves were easy.

  But this one was not acting like the normal waves at the mouth of the reef. It seemed as though it was standing still.

  He stared at it and realized what he was seeing. It looked as if it was standing still because it was a big wave a long way off, and it was moving very fast, dragging black night behind it.

  Very fast, and not so far away now. Not a wave, either. It was too big. It was a mountain of water, with lightning dancing along the top, and it was rushing, and it was roaring, and it scooped up the canoe like a fly.

  Soaring up into the towering, foaming curve of the wave, Mau thrust the paddle under the vines that held the outrigger and grabbed on as—

  It rained. It was a heavy, muddy rain, full of ash and sadness. Mau awoke from dreams of roast pork and cheering men, and opened his eyes under a gray sky.

  Then he was sick.

  The canoe rocked gently in the swell while he added, in a small way, to what was already floating there—bits of wood, leaves, fish….

  Cooked fish?

  Mau paddled over to a large hehe fish, which he managed to drag aboard. It had been boiled, right enough, and it was a feast.

  He needed a feast. He ached everywhere. One side of his head was sticky with, as it turned out, blood. At some point he must have hit it on the side of the canoe, which wasn’t surprising. The ride through the wave was an ear-banging, chest-burning memory, the kind of dream you are happy to wake up from. All he’d been able to do was hold on.

  There had been a tunnel in the water, like a moving cave of air in the roll of the giant wave, and then there had been a storm of surf as the canoe came out of the water like a dolphin. He would swear it had leaped in the air. And there had been singing! He’d heard it for just a few seconds, while the canoe raced down the back of the wave. It must have been a god, or maybe a demon…or maybe it was just what you hear in your head as you half fly and half drown, in a world where water and air are changing places every second. But it was over now, and the sea that had tried to kill him was about to give him dinner.

  The fish was good. He could feel the warmth entering his bones. There were plenty more, bobbing with all the other stuff. There were a few young coconuts, and he drank the milk gratefully and began to cheer up. This would be a story to tell! And a wave that big must have washed up at home, so they’d know he wasn’t lying.

  And home was…where? He couldn’t see the Boys’ Island. He couldn’t see the sky. There were no islands. But one horizon was lighter than the other. The sun was setting over there somewhere. Last night he’d watched the sun set over the Nation. That had to be the way. He set out steadily, watching that pale horizon.

  There were birds everywhere, perching on anything that floated. Mostly they were little finches, chattering madly as the canoe went past. Some of them even fluttered over and perched on the canoe itself, huddling together and staring at him with a sort of desperate, terrified optimism. One even perched on his head.

  While he was tying to untangle it from his hair, there was a thump as something much heavier landed on the stern of the canoe, causing the finches to scatter and then flutter back because they were too tired to make it to anywhere else. But they kept as far away as possible from the new passenger, because it wasn’t particular about who it ate.

  It was a big bird, with shiny blue-black feathers and a white chest, and little white feathers covering its legs. Its huge beak, though, was brilliant red and yellow.

  It was a grandfather bird, and good luck—to people at least—even if it did slow Mau down and eat one of his fish. Grandfather birds had learned not to be frightened of people; it was bad luck even to shoosh one away. He could feel its beady eyes on the back of his neck as he paddled onward. He hoped it might be lucky. If he had some luck, he could be home long before midnight.

  There was an Erk! as the grandfather bird took off again with another of Mau’s boiled fish in its beak, making the canoe wallow for a moment. Well, at least I’m a bit lighter, Mau thought. It’s not as though I need the fish in any case. I’ll be filling up with pork tonight!

  The bird landed heavily on a log a little way ahead. Quite a large log, in fact. As he drew nearer, Mau saw that it was a whole tree, even with its roots, although a lot of its branches had been torn off.

  He saw the axe, tangled, rising out of the water. But part of him already knew he was going to see it. The sight of it raced toward his eyes and became, just for a moment, the center of the turning world.

  The grandfather bird, having juggled the fish so that it could swallow it whole, took off in its gloomy is-this-really-worth-it? way and flapped with its big, slow wings nearly touching the scummy water.

  With its weight gone, the tree started to roll back. But Mau was already in the water and caught the axe handle as it was pulled under. Holding his breath, he braced his legs against the tree’s trunk and tugged. Oh, he’d been clever, hadn’t he, that moment a hundred years ago now, slamming the axe hard into the tree to show the next boy what a big man he was….

  It should have worked. With his last mighty heave the axe should have come free. That’s how it should have been, in a perfect world. But the swollen wood had gripped it firmly.

  Mau dived again three more times, and came up every time coughing and spitting seawater. He had a deep, angry feeling that this wasn’t right; the gods had sent the axe to him, he was sure of that. They had sent it to him because he was going to need it, he was certain of it, and he had failed.

  In the end he swam back to the canoe and grabbed the paddle before the grandfather bird was out of sight. They always flew back to land at night, and he was pretty certain that there couldn’t be much of the Boys’ Island to go back to. The tabago tree was hundreds of years old, and it had roots thicker than Mau’s waist. It looked as though they had practically held the island together! And there had been a god anchor among them. No wave should have been able to shift a god anchor. It would be like moving the world.

  The grandfather bird flapped onward. Ahead of it, the thin line of the horizon grew redder, redder than any Mau had ever seen before. He paddled on as fast as he could, trying not to think about what he was going to find ahead of him; and be
cause he was trying not to think them, the thoughts ran around in his head like excited dogs.

  He tried to calm them down. Look, the Boys’ Island was hardly anything more than a lump of rock surrounded by sandbanks, was it? he thought. It wasn’t good for being anything but a fishing camp or a place for boys to try to be men. The Nation had mountains—well, one good one—had a river, there were caves, there were whole forests, there were men who’d know what to do!

  Wouldn’t they? And what could they do?

  But the little picture of his man-soul feast flickered in his head. It wouldn’t stay still, and he couldn’t find the silver thread that dragged him toward it.

  Something dark drifted in front of the sunset, and he almost burst into tears. It was a perfect sunset wave, rolling across the red disk that was just sinking below the horizon. Every man in the Islands of the Sun had that image as his manhood tattoo, and in a few hours—he knew it—so would he.

  And then, where the wave had been, there was the Nation. He could recognize its outline anywhere. It was five miles away maybe. Well, he could do another five miles. And soon he’d see the light of the fires.

  Paddling faster, eyes straining to see the darker shape in the strange twilight, he made out the whiteness of the surf over the reef. And soon, please, soon he would see the light of the fires!

  Now he could smell them, all the smells of the land except the one he wanted, which was the smell of smoke.

  And then, there it was, a sharp little tone in the scents of sea and forest. There was a fire somewhere. He couldn’t see it, but where there was smoke, there were people. Of course, if the wave had come this way, there wouldn’t be much dry wood. The wave wouldn’t be bad here, not here. He’d seen big waves before, and they would make a mess, and splinter a canoe or two. All right, this one had looked really big, but waves did when they went over the top of you! People had gone up the mountain and brought down dry wood. Yes, that’s what had happened. That was certainly what had happened. He had worried about nothing. They would be back soon.