4. The Tree of Knowledge

As a child, I never had any hope of becoming a Guardian. My friends could run faster and fight harder than me. Although I was fascinated by the stories of the Guardians and how they protected and cared for The Tractor, when it came down to doing things, I was happier with the idea than the execution.

I suppose, in a way, I was always destined to become a Reader. My father was a Guardian and when I was old enough, he spoke to someone who knew someone and it was agreed that Our Granny would be asked for permission for me to learn the Books.

This was quite soon after Our Granny separated herself, when even relatively insignificant issues were still dealt with at Our Granny’s house so it was necessary that I go there myself to ask for her blessing. It was, of course, a great event for which much preparation was required.

Both my father and I needed new, clean clothes and I attended a number of discussions between my father and the Chief Reader regarding the exact details of the expedition. In addition to the gifts of a straw mat and a chicken for the Chief Reader, my father provided a jug of corn liquor and a roast pig for presentation to Our Granny and I was coached with answers to question I might be asked in the course of the interview.

Then, as now, Our Granny’s house was on the hill overlooking the village although the gardens were not as large as they have now become. We all knew that behind the rich green of the hibiscus hedges the gardens, even then, were splendid and I can remember as if it were yesterday the sense of trepidation as we set out that morning from our home.

It was still early, before the heat of the day, with dew on the grass and a clear blue sky. The parakeets chattered in the palm trees and the shrill whistle of the cicadas filled the air at the edge of audibility. Our route took us down to the Book Room where we met the Chief Reader and, having presented him with his gifts, we started our walk up the hill to Our Granny’s House. It would only have taken perhaps half an hour – the Chief Reader was not a fast walker, but by the time we reached the gate, the sun had risen so that we were hot and sweating.

At the gate, we were greeted by one of the Gardeners. I had seen them in the village, of course, dressed in their colourfully dyed sarongs, but I was not prepared for the girth of the man who met us. While he was not very tall, I could immediately see by his glistening hair and skin that he was one those who enjoyed the privileges so generously provided to Our Granny’s household.

Having established our identities and purpose and presented our offerings, we followed him along a path lined with hibiscus, syringa  and poinsettias. The lawns were immaculately trimmed and we arrived after a short walk at a thatched arbour where we waited in the shade on benches built onto the rush walls of the building. The elevation gave us a magnificent view of the village and the fields and sea beyond.

At last, another Gardiner arrived and escorted us to a larger thatched building where a group surrounded a tall, striking man wrapped in a rich purple and green sarong.

“We greet you.” He said in a deep bass. “Our Granny has given to us the task, today of meeting with you and of hearing your case. She thanks you for your gifts. Let us sit down and reason together.” He gestured to an intricately woven straw mat and the four of us seated ourselves in the shade of the building. The sea breeze gave us respite from the heat of the day and the Chief Reader, who seemed to know the Gardener quite well, presented our proposal on my father’s behalf.

“First and most importantly, we bring greetings and wishes of long life and good health to Our Granny. Would you, Lailavu,” he inclined his head respectfully, “Would you please convey them to her.”

Lailavu replied in the same tone and some minutes were spent in compliment  and counter‑compliment before they reached the business of the day.

“This boy,” the Chief Reader gestured towards me, “is Tommu. His father is a loyal Guardian of The Tractor but we believe that Tommu’s path does not lie in that direction. He is very able in languages and with words and we would wish that Our Granny should  grant that he joins the Readers of the Books, to study the wisdom of the Americans for the good of our people.”

Lailavu examined me closely. Finally he spoke to me:

“Tommu,” he said, “What is it that makes you believe that you should study to read the Books of the Americans?”

“This seems to me,” I replied, “a heavy task that will bring great benefits to our village. While it may not be as glorious an assignment as that of the Guardians who care for The Great Tractor, I believe that it is where my talent lies and that is why I wish to undertake it.”

He thought a while and then asked me some further questions. My father too was examined, mostly with regard to his commitment to Our Granny and eventually, our interlocutor appeared to reach a conclusion.

“I believe,” he said gravely, “that you are suited to the learning of the Readers. I will recommend to Our Granny that your appointment should be approved for one year’s trial and if, after that time, you receive a positive report from the Chief Reader, you shall continue to work with him permanently.”

With that, we were escorted back through the gardens and I was able to begin my work in the Book Room.

Many people are under the impression that the Books relate only to the details of caring for The Tractor but that is a very small part of the thousands that we have. The Americans brought with them Books of many different types. Some, like the instruction manuals for The Tractor and the Weapons are very practical, with direct relevance to the daily work of the Guardians. There are also manuals of discipline and health with stipulations regarding the daily habits of the American troops and we try to follow them too.

Even among these Books, there is a considerable amount of material that is not directly useful to us. The operations manuals of the Airplanes are there in abundance but, since the Americans left us no functional airplanes, they are of theoretical interest. Some of our people believe that we could, if we spent enough time, construct an airplane but that is generally thought to be unrealistic.

But determining which Books are relevant and which are not is never simple. Indeed, one can never tell in advance when some volume that appears to deal with topics a thousand miles from the concerns of our island will throw up a hint that, when properly investigated, proves crucial to our understanding of the world.

Crucial to the problems we have is the fact that The Books are all written in a foreign language. After studying them for so many years, of course, we have begun to understand  many of the words but there are still difficulties that result in a good deal of debate and discussion.

One of the great imponderables relates to the pronunciation of the words. We know some words because they were used by the Americans so words like ‘Tractor’ or ‘Gasoline’ are at the core of what we know about speaking the American language. Other words are much more difficult.

‘Plough’, for example, is a word that you would expect to know well. After all, something so close to The Tractor must have been spoken of by the Americans when they were here. Unfortunately, however, no reliable account remains of how they said the word. The result is that today the correct pronunciation is a source of quite acrimonious dispute in certain circles. Some experts maintain that it should rhyme with ‘Gouge’ while others maintain with absolute certainty that the ‘h’ at the end should be silent.

For myself, you will find that I do not incline to taking strong positions one way or the other and I believe that this is something we shall never know for certain unless we should, one day, encounter a living American.

Another issue is one that I alluded to earlier. The Books are not all equal. Some are solid and reliable. If they are difficult to understand, then we can usually find clues to what they mean either in the world outside or in other of The Books.

An example: the description of a transformer refers to ‘copper wire’. When this was first read, it appeared very mysterious. We had no indication of what these two words might signify. The first breakthrough came when we were able to connect a word inherited from the Americans, ‘waiyer’ with the word that we had thought of as ‘wirreh’. This allowed us to realise that ‘wire’ might be a thin strand of metal. But what type of metal was ‘copper’ wire?

It was several years before, in another, completely different Book we found a picture of a transformer. At this point, we knew what we were looking for and a small transformer was identified in a derelict machine that we had brought in from the jungle. We were able to take it to pieces and find the copper wire of which it was made. Now we had the information we needed to interpret more of the description and we could ultimately construct our own transformers, more or less as we needed them, to repair the arc welding equipment which, up to that point, had not been usable.

This was an example of what I have called a ‘reliable’ book. The information may be difficult to interpret or understand but it relates to the real world and can be checked and tested objectively. In the end, it either works or it does not. Also, if it does not work, then it is as likely to be a failure of understanding on the part of the researchers as an inaccuracy in the Book in question.

The other type of Book is much less predictable. Books of this type contain stories or beliefs. It is often not clear from the content what the meaning of the story is or whether it is true. Some of the stories are clearly incorrect. They contradict themselves and it is clear that they contain errors. Some are internally consistent yet remain entirely improbable, even though (in some cases) the Americans appear to have believed them to be true.

Some are both consistent and probable, are not believed in and yet appear to have been written to illustrate the way people typically behave. Some are reflections on the past, with accounts of what seem to be real events. It is reading these Books that made me think of writing down the material that you are reading now. Why should only the Americans have written down stories? The story of our land is as important as any other and I decided to write it.

This seemed an exceptionally fine idea at first and I considered that I would be the ideal person to take on this task. To my dismay I find, as I write, that it is far more difficult than I thought it would be; and for a strange and unexpected reason. The problem is words. My assumption had been that my experience working with The Books and the love of words that implies would be a great asset in finding the right words to describe our story.

Six of us labour daily to decipher The Books and to build our own picture of the world, taking account of the learning and wisdom of the Americans; sifting out their errors and inconsistencies and building our own knowledge. All of us have a love of words, their history and their meanings, both of our own words and those of the Americans. Our objective is exactness. To find out the truth that reveals how things work.

That is the barrier to the writing of this book. Some can take words and turn them into weapons: line them up and march them into battle with a single, undisputed purpose and meaning. That is what a person who loves words cannot do. A mother understands her son’s strengths and weaknesses, sees every side of their nature and still thinks of them as the child of her womb. Sending her children to fight requires closing off that wide view and reducing them to expendable icons that can be sent out to fight or die as things may turn out.

A person who is absorbed, some would say obsessed, by words sees them with so many meanings that they are as likely to turn and bite the speaker as to go out and conquer the world. Every sentence is full of ambiguities with meanings proliferating with the senses in which the words can be used. When is a sentence just its literal meaning? In real life, every sentence is somehow a metaphor.

The name of our island is Morakeewa. It comes from two words: Moru means wildness or wilderness, forest or jungle. Akeewa means unconquered, or perhaps unconquerable. Until The Tractor, no-one ever questioned this name. In relation to the island we were always survivors – never conquerors. But The Tractor calls into discussion the very name of our home. Can we perhaps conquer the wilderness as we have cleared and planted the southern plains. Does Morakeewa stand before us as a challenge ‘unconquered’ or as an immovable barrier – ‘unconquerable’. The partisans, on both sides, claim to understand the answer to this riddle.

The north part of the island is ‘hathan’ – swamp. The word ‘hathan’ also refers to being trapped and eaten by the swamp. An object that is stolen is ‘hathan’ in the old language. The Americans did not come to the island with just one Tractor. They took many tractors away with them but there are stories of other Tractors hathan in the swamps. Tractors that dared to challenge Morakeewa and were never seen again – neither the tractors nor their operators.

The swamps hold other terrors beside. There are crocodiles as long as a man and snakes so poisonous that they can kill a man if they spit in his eyes (so they say). Worse than all of these is the lizard of the swamp, Shai-hathan. These animals are not so large as a crocodile but they stand taller from the ground and they can move as quickly as a man can run. And like a snake, they are venomous, stealthy. Standing only as high as a man’s knee they lurk in the mud, half buried like an old decaying log and when an animal, a monkey or a man strays into the swamp, they come from behind and administer their poison so that the doomed creature is paralysed. Trapped in the mud, sometimes fully conscious, they are consumed by the Shai-hathan.

My father spent some time in the northern swamps and he saw a great monkey trapped in the swamp. It had been paralysed by the Shai-hathan and three of them had gathered and were feasting on its living flesh. As he was going to a remote camp he was alerted by its screams. On his way back the next day, the animal was still alive but it could no longer make any sounds. Its arms and legs had been eaten and one of the Shai-hathan was eating the inside of the great ape from the back end so that its head and shoulders were lost inside the body of the animal.

To our people, the Shai-hathan is the ultimate symbol of evil. The word ‘shai’ means the soul of an animal or plant. So the literal translation of the name of the Shai-hathan is swamp of the soul or perhaps soul-thief. The word is surrounded by many taboos and to call a person ‘Shai-hathan’ is so offensive that it almost inevitably results in a fight to the death.

Even today, it is rare to hear the word used in this way and I know that some will be offended by the explanation I have given above. As a well-brought up child, I do not think that I ever heard the word used as an insult until I was an adult.

The Guardians of The Tractor had decided they had need of a new field. There is a river running in a deep valley about five miles from the village and the land on this side of the ravine had been brought under cultivation. On the other side was a wild meadow lined with trees where people had always been able to gather mushrooms and to find all kinds of wild fruit.

Granny was consulted and it was decided to build a road and a causeway so that the meadow could be ploughed and planted. As you can imagine, some of the people who still lived beyond the river were not pleased by this idea and a group of them, with bones in their noses and ears and paint on their faces came to protest. They were brought in to the Guardians’ meeting hall and given a sumptuous repast. There was corn bread, ground-nut paste and bananas. This was followed by pineapple and mangoes as a desert with guava juice to drink and (this may have been a mistake) corn liquor and rum distilled from locally grown sugar cane.

At the end of the meal, the Head of the Guardians made a speech. He explained that The Tractor had brought this bounty to the village and that with the new road The Tractor would bring the same to our visitors. The leader of the tribesmen stood up.

“I thank you for this food and drink.” He said grandly. “I see what it has made in the village. I see men who no longer hunt or spend time in their natural state. This is not our way. This is not the way of Morakeewa.

You may call yourselves Guardians but I see men whose souls have been eaten. You may bring your Shai-hathan across the bridge to us but if you do we will destroy it before we will be eaten by it.” And one-by-one they left the shed and went away.

Of course this is not how things turned out. The road was completed, and the causeway and I believe that some of those very savages now work as Guardians. And some are among the ones who do nothing but consume the corn liquor produced by virtue of The Tractor.