25. Out of the Wild Woods

The other obvious thought was that Iliva was living in the forest, beyond the reach of her husband and the Gardeners’ courts. As the plantations extended further into the jungle, clearing out the dense growth and bringing more and more of the island under cultivation, many of those who had lived there were absorbed into the plantation community.

Living within the planted area, in the workers’ hostels within the stockades and in the shanties surrounding the forts, were a large number of people who knew in detail what was happening in the jungle beyond. One could not be quite so sure that their knowledge of Iliva was reliable but it was to be expected that the arrival in the jungle of a woman from the Village would not have gone unnoticed.

It was very common to hear stories from the outside among the people in the camps. The plantations and forts were encroaching relentlessly on the jungle and everyone one spoke to agreed that this was a good thing, protecting them from the Shadows and their puritan tendencies.

Indeed, as the area covered by bush reduced, coming into the camps was an increasingly necessary option. Even Hama Batu’s most loyal supporters began to find independent life in the forest difficult. Living in the forest needed a large area to support a given population and, for people following the traditional ways, life became harder and harder as more the land was taken over for the palm trees.

Animals as well as people were affected. The palms needed careful protection while young, principally from rats and wild pigs, but also from birds, monkeys and lemurs who would root out the germinated seeds and eat the fresh shoots. At one time or another, most of the forest animals appeared in the plantations.

There were dangerous insects, scorpions and centipedes a foot long and tarantulas as big as a man’s hand. Workers needed to be on their guard all the time in case of snakes. Cobras ten feet long were reported and other snakes, smaller but equally poisonous. Snakes were a special danger in the initial phase of forest clearance but even when the plantations were quite well established they could be found lurking in the cover crops or curled up high in the palms when the nuts were harvested.

The cobras, in particular, were always dangerous. Even their spit was poisonous, especially if it found its way into one’s eyes. People said that urine was the only antidote and a story that one heard often in those days was that a young worker – the friend of a friend of someone you had heard of – had surprised a cobra. The cobra spat into his eyes and his sight was saved by someone – the team leader, his friend, a Guardian Sergeant, depending on who told the story – urinating into his eyes.

I don’t know if the story was true or not but I can assure you that anyone with cobra spit in his eyes would have wanted someone to piss in them afterwards. And they would not have been short of volunteers to do it.

Snake stories, each more outlandish than the one before, were a characteristic of the time. Snakes in people’s beds, snakes in babies’ cots, snakes chasing men through the plantations: every possible adventure was recounted as the jungle struck back at those trying to conquer it.

Naturally this wasn’t all a one-way traffic. Many of those living in the camps were expert and cunning hunters and they would still go out to trap birds and animals to eat, while animals that strayed into the plantations mostly ended up in the pot. Wild pigs were particularly prized and when one was caught it was always the occasion for a party. Monkeys were another delicacy as the clearing of the forest brought them onto the open lands.

One side effect of this was that pets – baby animals captured when their mothers were killed – were common in the shanty towns. One family raised a baby orang-utan, a huge orange coloured animal that lived with them in their hut. Rumour was that the mother had brought it up with her own child, even breast feeding it when it was first captured, but this is not certain.

What is well attested is the familiarity with which it was treated. The animal ate with the family, being given the choicest fruit available, and it slept on the mattress with the children at night. During the day it stayed with them, protecting them from strangers, playing with them and, as it grew older, grooming them and combing their hair with its fingers. It was well known to be a quiet and peaceful animal and would ignore neighbours who were not part of the family with which it lived. The neighbours, in their turn, usually paid it very little attention.

One exception was the teenage son of friends of the host family. He took a particular delight in provoking a reaction from it, mimicking its behaviour, returning its glaring gaze and grunting in imitation of the sounds it made until it responded in some way or other. The orang-utan clearly did not enjoy the boy’s taunting. It ignored him as far as possible, or moved away when he came towards it. People told him again and again to stop teasing the animal but he persisted.

He would have done better to listen. One day, without warning, the ape – by now a six year old male – responded by seizing his arm and lifting him screaming and kicking into the air. The noise must have upset the animal even further because it placed its other hand over his mouth. The family insisted that the intention was simply to quiet his shrieks and that what followed was an accident. With a loud click, the boy’s head pressed backwards and the screaming stopped – his neck broken.

The orang-utan must have realised that it had done something bad because, when the neighbours burst in with their spears and axes they found the body abandoned on the floor and the ape hiding behind the curtain that screened off the sleeping area. The family tried in vain to protect it. It was hacked to pieces and cooked and eaten as, years earlier, its mother had been.

This story underlines the dangers of bringing wild things from the jungle into your home and, thankfully, as the forest was cleared, the chances of encountering a wild orang-utan diminished progressively. Nowadays I do not think that there are any kept as pets on the island and the plantations present open vistas in every direction. I believe that our change from coconut to palm oil cultivation and our progress in establishing the oil palm plantations is one of the great achievements of Morakeewa.

The reader may respond, “Ah, Tommu, you would say that. After all you have a personal interest.”
I would agree but, in spite of my own bias, I think there is objective evidence of the great usefulness of palm oil, both as an ingredient in food and cooking and as a lubricant. In the longer term, however, its real significance is that it can be used as a fuel for a certain type of engine.

When the Americans left the Tractor on the island, they accidentally left a supply of gasoline that had been brought to fuel their airplanes. I have already mentioned the controversy regarding the gasoline needed to operate the Tractor in the future.

Long after we first began planting palm trees, the Readers discovered that the engines in two derelict vehicles left by the Americans might be able to operate using palm oil as an alternative fuel source. One of the engines had already been damaged by attempting to run it using gasoline – 100 Octane aviation spirit – and, as a consequence, the second vehicle had been abandoned behind the hangar. The idea that it might run on palm oil prompted intensive research and, when the plantations began to produce, I was invited to bring some cans of carefully filtered palm oil down to the hangar where the engine had been mounted on a bench for testing.

Initial attempts to start the engine came to nothing. Far more power was required to turn it than could be delivered by a crank handle and the battery powering the electrical starter motor was long since defunct. Later, however, some young engineers under Langanipa’s supervision devised a system of pulleys that hoisted an enormous rock to a height of ten feet and then used its weight to turn the engine.
The result was that some weeks later, when I was next in the village, I was able to see the new engine, powered by oil from our own palms, running on the test bench.

It was also good to hear that, at long last, Langanipa had received some recognition for his work. He had finally been promoted. His wife complained that he was now only a Corporal while others who had done far less were Sergeants or even Lieutenants but Langanipa himself was as happy as a chicken in a feed bin.

A party of us went out to celebrate and Langanipa made a speech at the end of the evening. As we had all enjoyed ourselves somewhat copiously by the time he stood to address us, no one was very clear as to exactly what he meant to say – least of all the man himself – but it was certainly a great occasion.

A number of options were being considered for using the new engine. Simply using it to replace the engine of the Tractor was not a possibility because of its integrated design. Engine, gearbox and the drive to the wheels were all built as closely coupled, interlocking units and there was no way to adapt the new engine in this way. Also, there would be no advantage in replacing the engine of the Tractor which was still working with a new one even if it used a renewable energy source.

The truck from which the new engine had been taken could also be restored but, while this would provide an alternative way of moving goods, it would not enable any additional ploughing or cultivation. In the end, it was decided to try and cannibalise the truck parts to develop a second tractor and a separate trailer and a team of technical Guardians was assigned to find a way of building it.

Using spare steel rails, they welded a chassis that was shaped like a ladder, to which they bolted the engine, gearbox and drive and steering gear. It did not look at all graceful but, as Langanipa said, it was strong . And it worked.

The island was no longer completely dependent on what we had inherited from the Americans.

24. Plantations

Although it was impossible to be certain, I was also convinced that Iliva was not living among the plantation workers. As a Reader, I received the task of understanding what the Americans had left us regarding the cultivation of coconut and oil palms. Even though I used every opportunity to make my own enquiries, I never heard anything of her when I visited the plantations to supervise the germination process and train the workers on how to transplant, tend and feed the young palms.

The people recruited to create the plantation were certainly a mixed bunch. In the earliest days, a good deal of the work was done by the Guardians themselves as they felled trees to put up the first forts. Cultivation was almost an afterthought until the completion of the stadium when it became necessary to find work for the builders released as construction ended. Later, the pattern of creating a plantation became established, especially as the focus shifted from coconuts to oil palms, with the necessary adaptation of cultivation techniques.

The new system was just becoming established about the time of Iliva’s disappearance. The first task was the heavy work of clearing the jungle and cutting down the trees and of building the fort and the stockade to protect the nursery beds. In this phase, the trees provided building materials and it was important to clear the stumps and burn the undergrowth, providing ash that could be ploughed back into the ground and to get rid of unwanted plant diseases that might have remained from the jungle.

One of the problems we had to deal with, as we shifted our focus to oil palms was that we had relatively little information on their needs and how to grow them. What the Americans had left was not in their language so we had to work from some pages of notes, written by hand by an American, and attached to the other document. From this we understood that the seeds of the oil palm were dormant for many years and that we needed to warm them for three or four months before they would sprout.

This was very difficult to control as we needed to estimate the correct temperature, and it needed to be maintained day and night. In the end, the problem was resolved by Langanipa and Bahla. A room was constructed with a thick floor made from slabs from the airfield, which would retain the heat of the sun through the night. Langanipa measured the temperature using a long metal bar that rested on and turned a roller as it heated or cooled. By looking at the position of a disk on the end of the roller we could tell when the room was too cool and, if necessary, build a fire beneath the floor to raise the temperature.

Once the seeds had sprouted, we planted them in bamboo tubes for transport to the nursery beds near the fort. The young plants remained in the nursery beds for more than a year while the new plantation was cleared. After the fort and stockade had been completed, disposing of the felled trees was a problem and in the early times they were simply burned. Later, however, as we discovered how to heat certain rocks and extract pig iron, a requirement for fuel was created and ultimately, separate teams of charcoal burners were established to dig pits under the ground. The logs were buried there and huge fires were built over them to dry the wood and turn it into charcoal for the iron smelter.

Part of the problem of being sure that Iliva was not living in the plantations was that the workers’ camps, inside the stockade, were intended only for the official employees of the plantation. These were mainly men from the village and the forest who were brought up on six month contracts. Perhaps understandably, therefore, shanty towns outside the stockade were tolerated and the men could go there for recreation in their spare time.

These were unauthorised and, because the Guardians generally turned a blind eye to them, they were somewhat lawless places, rather like their counterparts in the Village. It was difficult to imagine that Iliva would have wanted to live in an environment of that type but a lone woman would not have been at all conspicuous there. Some men had wives and lovers living there and there were also shebeens selling illicit liquor and other entertainment, much of it provided by women.

My work meant that I had a good opportunity to talk to the workmen. Every day we would set out from the Guardian quarters in the fort and make our way into the plantation to set out and organise the day’s tasks. We would assign work parties to clearing the forest, uprooting stumps, burning undergrowth, weeding and so on, as appropriate. If the Tractor was in the plantation on that day, we would ride out on the trailer to arrive at sunrise.

The workers would already be there, with a fire built and we would share a drink with them. Having walked out from the camp, they would generally have set out much earlier than we had and be eating their breakfast. I was lucky enough to be on Guardian terms, under which tasty meals were provided for us but they generally ate much more simply, with perhaps a chunk of corn bread and some sugar water to sustain them for the whole day.

Guardians were more likely to have meat, fruit, coconut milk and hot tea so those of us prepared to share with the workmen were usually warmly welcomed. We would find them nursing hangovers from the night before and teasing each other about their adventures with the shanty women. They saw us as being rich and privileged with access to any woman we wanted and they would offer to introduce us to gorgeous girls that they knew in the camps. They said there were beautiful women there, positively fighting to make our acquaintance.

This wasn’t a serious conversation – the real difference between our situations would have made that uncomfortable I suppose. It did, however, provide every opportunity for me to explain how none of the women they offered would meet my standards which, perhaps surprisingly, exactly corresponded to a description of Iliva. All done jokingly, of course, but being on the right side of a Guardian (which is how they saw me) was no small achievement for a worker, so I have no doubt at all that they tried quite hard to fill my specification, but without success.

I sometimes wonder what I would have done if I had managed to locate her. It would not have been a good thing because, if I had found her, then I think that the news would inevitably have got back to Manla Kulu who was relentlessly pursuing his own search. I did not think about that then and, fortunately, the issue did not arise at the time.

As the work progressed, different skills were necessary, first to clear the land, then to help me to lay out and position the palms and to plant out the seedlings and ground cover; later, on a continuing basis, different teams were brought in to weed and fertilise the young trees and erect cages to protect them from rats and other pests.

As the plantations matured, the trip out to the work area in the morning changed. In a new plantation, we would see the jungle being cleared as the untended forest made way for orderly fields. At this stage, one had ample opportunity to see the Tractor at work.

It was then nearly forty years old. Through the efforts of the Technical Guardians, it was still functional but the paintwork had been almost worn away by careful cleaning and polishing each week. The metal showed the marks of welding and reinforcement where cracks had been mended. A track had been carved out of the side of the hill into the jungle and a large shed constructed in each stockade area, where the Tractor could be serviced and repaired. Whenever it came up to the plantations, a trunk of spare parts and the tools for servicing and emergency repairs were brought with it from the store left in the Hanger by the Americans.

The drivers of the Tractor were an elite Guardian squad, led by a Lieutenant and with half a dozen Sergeants qualified to do the actual driving. They were minor celebrities in their own right down in the village, and everyone knew them by sight. Each morning the two Sergeants on duty for the day would check the condition of the Tractor and supervise start-up before taking it out of the shed inside the stockade and into the plantation.

Depending on the task for the day, the appropriate implements would be loaded with the cans of fuel onto the trailer and they would set out for the fields. Generally, the Tractor was extremely reliable. Any part of it that was fragile or might break had long since been discarded or replaced and it worked from morning to night on ploughing and tilling.

When the Tractor occasionally failed to start, or broke down during the day, repairing it was the highest priority for everyone. The maintenance team that travelled with it would be galvanised into action and the driver of the moment would not rest easy until it was going again and clearly established that the breakdown was not due to his negligence.

The responsibility for looking after the Tractor was a heavy one and, no matter how much they pretended not to worry, the drivers themselves were a nervous and irascible group, much subject to digestive ailments and bad temper. The result was that, once the plantation had been prepared and these prima donnas went on to their next task, the rest of the team breathed a collective sigh of relief. No matter that hoeing weeds by hand was hard work, they were happier when the mechanised part of the operation was over.

As the plantation developed round the fort, the area nearby would start to contain recognisable palm trees and ground cover crops. The American notes suggested crops that would serve as feedstuff for grazing animals but, since they had not left any animals of this type with us, we adapted the recommendation and planted ground nuts and beans that we could use directly.

Because it took a number of years to establish a new plantation, I was able to work with the Guardians to supervise several sites at different stages of development. As I made my way from one to another of them, I made contact with many different teams of workers. After a while, they gave me a nickname which translates as ‘Only Perfection’. None of them found any trace of a woman like Iliva among the people that they knew in the camps.

23. The Verdict

The next morning, as Fasi and I made our way up the hill to the audience rooms, it was raining quite heavily, the water running in little rivers down the ruts in the road and filling our sandals with squelchy wetness. We were there earlier than on the previous day so that it was not so crowded and we made our way directly to the Frangipani room where we found Bahla and Iliva standing outside. The door was closed and when we looked inside it was empty; benches neatly arranged but with no sign of Lomu or the rest of the court.

“You had better wait here, Iliva, in case they decide to start the session.” Bahla said. “We don’t want to give them any excuses. I’ll go and see whether I can find anyone who knows what is happening.”
We went into the room and took our seats on the empty benches. Nothing happened for perhaps three quarters of an hour and then Bahla returned to report that he had not been able to find anyone who could tell us what was going on. Eventually, about mid morning, a green robed Gardener came in and began to set the room up with jugs of drinks and plates of snacks on the tables where the judge and other officials would sit.

“Will the case of Manla Kulu versus Iliva begin soon?” Bahla asked him.
“Oh no.” He replied. “The booking for that case has been cancelled for today. This will be the trial of a pig thief.”
“Cancelled?” Bahla was incredulous. “Without warning?”
“I’m sure that word will have been sent to everyone concerned.” The gardener replied. “I know that they cancelled it last night because I heard that there was an emergency meeting between the judge and Manla Kulu.”
“Oh No!” Fasi groaned. “I told you it would come to this.”
“Do you know when the judgement will be given?” Bahla asked.
“No idea.” The Gardener replied. “The new date should have been sent to your home address.

As we walked back down the hill, we must all have been thinking of the implications of a private interview between Lomu and Manla Kulu but no one said anything. We decided to accompany Iliva to her home where we found Manla Kulu standing on the veranda.
“Where have you been, woman?” he asked Iliva.
“I went up to the court.” She replied.
“Why did you do that? There was no hearing today.” Manla Kulu did not look directly at her.
“Nobody told me that.”
“Well they made the decision last night. Everybody knew that.”
“You knew that and yet you let me walk all the way up to the court?” Iliva’s voice shook slightly but she kept herself under strict control.

“You know that you will not listen to me.” He retorted. “You see now that sometimes I am right about things. Now you had better go inside. The children need to be fed.”
“But I asked Malia from next door to look after them.”
“Well I sent her home. There is no need to have someone come in and look after them when there is no trial.”
“Do you know when the hearing will resume?” Bahla asked him.
“Next Tuesday morning.” Manla Kulu said sulkily. “Although there will be no need for you to attend.”
“Oh, I shall be there.” Bahla answered.

Despite our protests, Iliva went in to the house and we returned to Langanipa’s, more worried than ever about the outcome.

When Tuesday morning came, the courtroom was much less crowded as Manla Kulu’s various witnesses were not present. Once the lesser officials were in position, Lomu entered and took his place on the judgement seat.
“In the name of Our Granny and of the gardeners of the Morakeewa, I am here to deliver judgment in the case of Manla Kulu and Manla Iliva of the village.” He allowed the words to resonate through the room.

“As far as the facts of the case are concerned, we find that Manla Kulu is of good character and that he has instructed his wife, Iliva with regard to the activities that she may and may not perform. We find that she has questioned his interpretation of the will of Our Granny and that this question has been brought to the court for judgement.

We have, in private session, explained to Manla Kulu that there is a distinction between her doubt of his interpretation and disrespect for Our Granny’s will. We do not find that she has committed the crime of Disrespect. Of this accusation, we find Iliva innocent.”

Beside me I heard Fasi breathe a sigh of relief.
“An important question has been raised in this case by Iliva. She asks how a person who has neither seen nor spoken to Our Granny can be certain of Her will. In this case, I believe, that we see an honest disagreement regarding the will of Our Granny and the resolution of this issue has occupied us from the first hearing of this case until the present time.

Our deliberations have led us to the following conclusions. That misinterpretation of the will of Our Granny is a grave risk for any individual. That even those closest to its expression could mistake the import of what they are told and that Her will can only be understood in the full context of all that she has said and done since the arrival of the Americans, and perhaps even before that time.

It is for this reason, therefore, that She has instituted the College of Gardeners who, since her retirement from public visibility, are appointed to interpret Her will for the island. The individual Gardener, knowing only a part of her intention, may err in interpreting her will. The College as a whole, however, combine to provide complete knowledge and understanding.
When a Gardener speaks purely of his own knowledge – and I look here specifically at Manla Kulu – then they may make an error. Speaking, however, in their official capacity, representing the combined understanding of the College, Gardeners are not fallible. The College as a whole, the creation of Our Granny, is the final authority on Her will and its interpretation.

Now, Manla Kulu, will you please confirm before the court, that you understand and accept the distinction between a private and personal opinion of Our Granny’s will and the public honour due to the collective understanding of the College of Gardeners?”
“I accept the distinction, Your Honour.” Manla Kulu answered solemnly.
“And do you undertake, for the future, to speak of Our Granny’s will only as part of this collective understanding?”
“I do so undertake, Your Honour.”

“Then I am pleased to deliver the judgement of Our Granny’s court.” Lomu smiled. “The judgement is that Iliva should now return home with her husband, Manla Kulu, and that since, in all things, he will be subservient to the authentic interpretation of Our Granny’s will by the Gardener’s College, she should subject herself to his regulation and, by so doing, to the will of Our Granny. Let it be so recorded.”

Lomu rose to his feet. The court stood and he was gone. Manla Kulu came over and seized Iliva by the arm.
“You heard that!” he grated. “You have made me look like an idiot! Well you are ordered to accompany me.” And he propelled her from the room, surrounded by the various ranks of Gardeners in attendance.
“What are we going to do?” Fasi said.
“There is nothing very much that we can do.” Bahla replied as we set off dejectedly down the hill.

Over the next few weeks we heard very little of Iliva. She did not appear outside her home and when Fasi saw the children they said that their mother was at home and spent her time cooking and caring for the house. She had no contact with the Reading Room and the only other indication of what had happened to her was that Manla Kulu staged a number of Gardeners’ feasts on the most lavish scale, inviting all of the senior Gardeners to one or other of them. From what one could gather, however, they did little to salvage his name in spite of the quality of the food.

Then one evening, Manla Kulu himself came down to Langapila’s house and confronted Fasi.
“Where is she?” he demanded. “I know that she is here and I demand that you turn her over to me!”
“What do you mean?” Fasi asked him in bewilderment. “Are you looking for Iliva?”
“You know that I am.” he said. “Now tell me where she is so that she can come home.”
It emerged that Manla Kulu had returned home in the evening to find the house dark and Iliva gone. The children knew nothing of their mother's disappearance. Since he would not believe Fasi that she knew nothing about this, he insisted on searching the house and, when it became clear that she was telling the truth, he demanded her help in finding Iliva.

He had already contacted all her known friends, checked at the Reading Room and alerted the Guardians but no trace of her could be found. In the end, he concluded that she could not still be in the village and set out to see whether he could track her down in the plantations that were being cleared in the jungle.

This may sound a simple task but one has to remember that, at that time, the task of taming the jungle, clearing trees and planting coconut and banana palms was proceeding as fast as could be managed with hutted camps for the men, women and even children engaged in the work, spread across the area being planted. Workers were moving from one camp to another as the work progressed and there was no way of tracking an individual.

Manla Kulu spent a great deal of effort trying to find his wife. He paid men to go from camp to camp asking whether she had been seen and Fasi believed that he had spies watching their house in case she made contact.

As, by absconding, Iliva was technically in breach of an order of the Gardeners’ Courts, an official reward was offered to anyone who reported her. Posters announcing the reward were placed strategically with a picture of Iliva (very good likenesses) drawn by an artist who could create a portrait from a description by someone who knew what she looked like.

All these efforts, however, came to nothing. She seemed to have disappeared completely and the only speculation was that either she was living out in the forest or that someone was deliberately hiding her.

22. The Trial

Over the weekend, Iliva had asked Bahla to assist her in preparing her case and, the night before the hearing, I met him at Langanipa’s house.
“It will all depend,” he said “on who the judge is. We have to hope that it is one of the more enlightened Gardeners. Now that Lailavu is gone, things are tightening up in the gardens but, if we get the right judge, things could be OK.”

Since Langanipa was occupied the next day down by the river, it was agreed that I would go with Fasi to the trial. It was to be held in the Gardener’s audience rooms up near Our Granny’s house.

We set out early. The weather was cloudy, humid and hot so that, even at eight in the morning, we were sweating as we climbed the hill. We found the courthouse surrounded by crowds of villagers waiting to be dealt with.

No one seemed to be in charge and none of the various people we asked knew exactly where the hearing was being held. Iliva had told Fasi that it was in the Frangipani room but that meant nothing. Some of the rooms had labels on the doors – pictures of flowers and animals – but they were in no order that we could discern and we wandered from one to the other looking for Iliva or someone who knew her.

Moving through the crowd was difficult as they jostled one another and jealously guarded their positions in line. Every now and then someone would stop us from passing because they thought we would overtake them in the queue and we had to explain why we were there and what we were looking for. We found a Gardener in a green Sarong and asked him for directions but he was busy marshalling the throng of people and said that he did not know anything about where the rooms were located.

Fasi became very frustrated and began to go up to people at random and explain that she was looking for her niece, who was in danger of being executed, but nobody was at all interested and attempted as best they could to ignore her. We found another Gardener who sent us round the back of the building but all that we found there was an empty room with dirty plates and cups and the remains of a meal on the table. Chairs were scattered about, some lying on the floor.

As we looked around, a woman came in and began to clear away but she could give us no idea of where the trial was being held or the whereabouts of the Frangipani room. In the meanwhile, it had begun to drizzle; light, warm rain that nevertheless soaked us as we walked across courtyards and lawns from one part of the building to another.

At last, by chance, we came out of a corridor and rounded a corner to find a door with a picture of a flower and the word Frangipani written on it. We tried to open it quietly but our way was blocked by another green-clad Gardener. He told us that we could not go in as the session had already started.

Fasi began to protest, but he threatened to ban us from the hearing if she continued so that we had to wait for the next break in proceedings before being admitted. We tried to ask what was happening but were immediately silenced by an usher and had to sit on a bench and try to understand the proceedings as they went ahead.

“Can you see who the judge is?” Fasi whispered.
“I think,” I whispered back. “That it is Lomu.”
Fasi was encouraged by this as Lomu was something of a celebrity among the Gardeners and, by everyone’s account, the hero of the trading expedition.

The trial was already in progress, with a succession of witnesses called on behalf of Manla Kulu who all testified in much the same vein.

“Yes, um, I have known Manla Kulu for many years, um.” The man in the witness box was saying. “He is very, um, reliable. Decidedly orthodox. Um, always ready to work for Our Granny’s will. He would never, er, question Her wisdom.
Always prepared to put the good of the group before his personal interests; a safe, um, pair of hands; reliable, um, very reliable and a thoroughly affable fellow and a true friend. Always acts in the best interests.

Yes, um, and I have met his wife. Beautiful girl; very attractive; wonderful cook, you know. Been keeping unsavoury company, I gather. Needs to listen to her husband. Sound chap. Known him for years, you know. Very reliable fellow.”

“Do you have first hand knowledge of anything that Iliva has done that would be precluded in any way by her marriage?” Bahla asked him.
“Oh Yes.” He replied. “I know that Manla Kulu says to her that she should not be talking to other people without his permission. I have heard him, um, say that; in my hearing. He has, er told her that.”

“But how can that constitute an offence on the part of Iliva?”
“Well I would have thought that was obvious.”
“In what way?”
“We are here for a trial, of course. If she had obeyed him, um, there would be no need for us to waste time here. It’s plain that she needs to listen more to her husband.”

This exchange set the pattern for the rest of the morning with one after another of Manla Kulu’s friends testifying as the case for the plaintiff meandered forward. The twin themes of the good character of Manla Kulu and, therefore, the correctness of anything that he wanted, were stressed, reiterated, repeated and then stressed again until the lunch break which, as it was a Gardener’s court, took nearly two hours.

When the court reconvened after the interval, Judge Lomu asked whether anything was to be said in defence and seemed surprised when Bahla replied that, yes, he would be calling witnesses to the importance of the work that Iliva had been doing as a (part time) reader.
“How is that relevant to the case in hand?” Lomu asked.
“We wish to show, Your Honour,” Bahla replied, “that the work that the defendant has been doing is of value to the society of Morakeewa.”

After some consultation with the representatives of the plaintiff, Lomu made a ruling.
“The plaintiff is prepared to concede, for the purposes of the argument, that this work may have been of some value.” He announced. “At the same time, the court is not being asked to rule on the value of any work that she may have done, but rather on whether she has rejected Our Granny’s instructions. Therefore, these witnesses are not relevant and may not be called, although the value of the work is to be recorded as commonly accepted in the case.”

Fasi looked at me in horror. “How can she possibly defend herself if she is not allowed witnesses?” she whispered.
“In that case, your honour,” Bahla said, “The defendant will address the court on her own behalf.”

I looked across at Iliva. She was a tall woman in her late thirties, handsome, more than beautiful, with her hair massed in a coil at the back of her head. She wore a plain, light coloured sarong wrapped around her and she stood foursquare and upright as she addressed the court.
“Your honour,” she spoke quietly but her voice carried through the room “You know, as do all of Our Granny’s Gardeners, that for these many years I have done my best in every way, loyally to serve Our Granny through services to my husband, Manla Kulu. I have prepared meals for Her Gardeners, I have raised children to be loyal to Her. There can surely be no doubt as to my respect for Our Granny and for the Gardeners she has provided to care for Her island and its people.

A great part – perhaps the greatest part – of what I have been able to contribute to the good of Our Granny’s people has been a result of what I have learned from the books that She preserved for us. This both in direct service to the Gardeners and, indirectly in advice to others on the island.

Manla Kulu, my husband, has signalled that he believes that my services would be better without the knowledge I gain from reading. I am grateful to him for the confidence that he shows in me and my abilities but I must also be honest and say that he overestimates my contribution. All that I have done is to adapt the experiences of those who have gone before me, as recorded in the books, to our own needs.

I have been able to test some small part of what others have discovered. Where I have found errors, I have occasionally been able to correct them. Where the knowledge left to us has proved reliable I have been able to apply it for all our good.

As the plaintiff has readily accepted, what I have achieved is not without value. Witnesses that I did not need to call, because of this acceptance, would have testified that my contribution included knowledge of the preparation of food, work with textiles and even of the chemical reactions involved in the combustion of gasoline in the Tractor itself.

I therefore submit that, in wishing me to give up contact with the books containing past knowledge, Manla Kulu overestimates my own abilities and that, in order to serve Our Granny better – as both he and I would certainly wish me to – I should be allowed continued access to the reading room.”

A man stood up at from the front benches, portly as only a Gardener would be, and wearing a brown sarong with bright yellow patterns radiating like sunflowers.
“Manla Kulu!” Fasi whispered.

“Please tell the judge,” he said, “What you have told me. Tell them that you doubt Our Granny’s will.”
“I have never said that I doubt Our Granny’s will.” Iliva answered calmly.
“How can you tell a bare faced lie when you are under oath? You know how many times you have said that you doubted the books. And that you doubted what I told you about Our Granny’s will. You know that you are under oath and you must tell the truth under oath.”

“Which is why I am telling the truth now. Of course one has to doubt the contents of the Books. They are just the record of what someone understood, or thought they understood, at a particular point in time. Our task is to find any mistakes and to correct them.”
“Yes. Yes.” Manla Kulu’s voice rose. “And you said that the same applied to Our Granny’s will. Admit it now.”

“I said that the same applied to your interpretation of Our Granny’s will. I have never suggested at any point that I doubted Her will. All I have said is that I doubted your understanding or it. I do not believe that there is a law against that.”
“You see, Your Honour! You see!” Manla Kulu laughed. “It is what I told you. She questions Our Granny’s will and she admits it in a public court room. Out of her own mouth.”

“One minute, Manla Kulu.” Lomu’s deep tones interrupted him. “There is, as your wife says, a significant distinction between doubting what you tell her and doubting Our Granny.”
He turned to Iliva. “You say that the Books contain errors?” he asked her.
“Certainly. Many, many errors.”
“And you accept that what Our Granny tells us provides certainty?”
“I have never, ever expressed any doubts regarding Our Granny or her will. I wish the record to show that I have sworn to that.”

“In that case, since Our Granny provides certainty and the books contain errors, what possible reason can you have for wishing to consult the books?” Lomu appeared to believe that he had found the key to the case.
“As I have explained, Your Honour,” Iliva answered calmly. “The books give us access to what previous generations thought. Even where they are mistaken, the lessons they provide are of value in serving Our Granny. Our Granny provided us with the books and it seems evident that it would run counter to Her will if we were not to make use of them.”

“You refer to Our Granny’s will yourself, I see. What makes you presume that you can understand it, given that you do not trust your husband’s interpretation?”
“I only say that Her will for the books seems evident to me. But surely that is to the point here. Anyone who comes in contact with Our Granny’s will forms some impression of what it is. I see no reason to defer to my husband who, like me, has never personally met or spoken to Our Granny.”

“Complex! More complex than I expected.” Lomu grunted. “I believe that this case requires some thought. For today, we have done enough. Return tomorrow morning and I will deliver my judgement.”