29. The Question

We finished our meal and sat for a moment without speaking. At last Rega broke the silence.
“If you’d like to see the photograph, I have it down in my desk.”

“That would be intriguing.” We walked slowly back down to the hangar, pausing as we passed through the market to look at some of the stalls. When we reached her office, she opened a drawer and brought out pile of drawings from which she extracted the photograph.
“Do we know anything about the American?” I asked.
“Nothing. I suppose that he was someone from the airbase.”
“I could find out a bit more about him from his uniform.” I looked at the picture closely. “You can tell, from that, whether he was a solder or an airman and even how important he was. We have several books about the organisation of the American military.”
“Would you do that? I don’t suppose it will help very much in working out what Our Granny looked like, but it would be interesting.”

“Sure. I’ll bring a couple of books over and we can look him up together.” I paused. “So do you have any progress on your own picture of Our Granny?”
“Half a dozen sketches,” she spread some drawings over the surface of the desk, “but I think you can see the problem.”
“Yes. I can. No two are of the same person.”
“Exactly. There is even less agreement about Our Granny than there was about my master of disguise. This is a youngish woman with a long straight nose and a pronounced chin. Very severe looking.”
“And this,” I said “Is a woman of the same age, more or less, with a round face and laughing eyes.”

“She's older in this one – it’s from Tahmo Lukuni’s description. It was incredibly difficult to draw because every time I chalked in a feature he wouldn’t say ‘The nose is too long.’ Or ‘Face too round.’ He would say ‘She needs more respect.’ Or ‘Not kind enough’. And as you can see, what she actually looks like is pretty random. But Lukuni thought she had the right personality.”
“They all seem to be completely different.” I commented, scanning across them for a common theme. “You’d think that at least they would agree on whether she had dark or light skin.”

“Every shade from pale as coconut meat to black as ebony, according to my witnesses. And they all claim to have worked closely for her for many years. I showed the pictures to Paitor and asked him whether any of them looked like Her but he just laughed and said that it was a long time since he had seen Her. ‘I told you that it wouldn’t be easy.’ That’s what he said.”

“How are you going to draw a composite image from that lot?”
“That’s my problem. No matter which of Her Gardeners you ask about Our Granny, and no matter what description they give you, there are five others saying they are wrong. There is no consensus to work from. I’m surprised there isn’t one of them who thinks She is a man.”
“Perhaps you just asked the wrong people.” I laughed. “I’m sure that if you’d asked a few more you would have found someone who thought that she was a man.”
“Don’t joke!” she looked at me severely. “If I don’t come up with something then my job is probably on the line.”

“I shouldn’t think so. Paitor understands the problem. I think that what you should do is go back to Tahmo and show him the sketches you have. He’ll pick one and then you just burn the rest.”
“But would that one look like Our Granny?” she cried in distress.
“What does that matter? You’ve done the job you were asked for. They don’t want a picture of Our Granny. They want a picture of their idea of Our Granny and you’ll have given them that.”

She thought for a moment. “Perhaps you’re right. But I would still like to try and finish what I’ve started. Not least because I’m beginning to wonder what Our Granny actually does look like.”
“Well perhaps you should go and see Manaku Jim. He would know what she looked like.”
“Manaku Jim? I wouldn’t go up there. If he liked me then I’d end up having to sleep with him. Urgh.”
“I thought that all the women wanted to sleep with Manaku Jim.” I looked at her.
“Perhaps once, years ago. He gives me the creeps.”

I left her with the problem, but the next day I was back with the books on the American military and we found that the American was an officer in the navy. The following day found me there again, to see what progress she had made with the picture of Our Granny. Somehow, without precisely intending to, I found myself at the hangar most days.

We got into the habit of lunching together, walking up through the market, or sometimes down to the shore. I discovered that her family had moved to the village when she was about ten years old and that she had lived for some time in the shanty towns. She had always been able to draw and this was the key to an independent life for her. She now had a comfortable room in a house in the village, living with a friend of hers who was married.

I began teaching her to read and showed her some of the books from the Reading Room that dealt with art and the techniques of drawing. One book, in particular, described a painter from a place called Florence and showed coloured pictures of his work that she felt were outstandingly well executed. This led us into research on how to produce different colours and we spent time out in the fields searching for coloured rocks that we could grind up to make paints by mixing them with egg whites and other binders.

We also spoke to the tattoo artists from the market and the women who made batik, learning from them how they produced their colours and tints and Rega began to experiment with coloured paintings. She produced pictures of flowers and some of the local children and a coloured version of one of the sketches of Our Granny. It was in the style of Michelangelo with the face illuminated by light shining from above.

It wasn’t the version from Lukuni’s description and she said that she knew it was not one of which he would approve. It made Our Granny look rather light hearted so she gave it to me that year on my birthday to hang in my house.

One evening I went to visit my father. I made it a habit of going to cook dinner for him at least once a week when I was in the village. He had bought a piece of pork and some bindi, which we cooked with mushrooms and corn. After dinner as we sat looking out over the village he broached the subject of Rega.

“Are you getting serious with that woman, then?” he asked brusquely.
“Hold on, hold on.” I was caught off guard. “Rega and I are good friends. There’s no need to read more into it than that.”
“You’re down at the hangar every day.” He took a sip of his beer. “Don’t tell me that you come down there to see me.”
“No, I’m helping her to make paints.”
“And having lunch together, and spending the evenings with her.”

“Spending time together doesn’t necessarily mean anything. We have interests in common.”
“Are you saying that you don’t find her attractive?” he looked at me slyly.
“She’s attractive. Very attractive, I think. But we’re comfortable together. I wouldn’t want to upset that.”
“You mean that you’ve never thought, for example, of kissing her?”
“Dad!” I protested. “She’d probably be shocked. It would upset her. I enjoy seeing her and I wouldn’t want to put that at risk.”

“Sometimes you have to take a risk. There’s only the two of us, now that your mum is gone, and I sometimes think that it might be nice to have grandchildren.”
“Stop! Stop! You’re taking an innocent friendship and turning it all of a sudden into grandchildren. Where does this all come from? I am just helping the woman to improve her art and now you want me to marry her?”
“Well have you talked to her seriously about your relationship?”
“No. we’ve never discussed it.” It occurred to me that perhaps Rega had, once or twice, obliquely started to turn the conversation in the direction of what, exactly, our relationship was but I had felt a bit uncomfortable and we certainly had never gone into the matter. So strictly speaking, what I said was true.

“You have to think about it from her point of view as well, you know.” My father said. “ You monopolise her and, even if you don’t think of it as a relationship, other people do. She is wasting a lot of time with you if you aren’t actually interested. If you don’t think that it will come to anything, you owe it to her to be clear about it. She won’t find anyone else as long as you are hanging about.”

“I don’t see how I could make any sort of commitment to a relationship. You know that I spend most of the year up in the plantations. I’m due to leave again soon.”
“Even more important, then, that you sort yourself out. You can’t just walk off and leave her hanging in the air while you’re incommunicado up in the jungle.”
“It’s not the jungle, Dad. You know that.” I objected. “The plantations are cleared and under the control of the Village. And it isn’t as if I am so very far away. It is only a couple of hours walk. I can always come down and see her at the weekends.”
“Don’t try and change the subject and split hairs and nit-pick me!” My father looked at me sternly. “I don’t care if you are in the jungle or on the farm or here in the Village. The important question is what do you feel about Rega. That is something that she has a right to know, so that she can make her own mind up about you. You say that you don’t have a relationship, but I suspect that she might not agree with you. That is something you need to sort out for yourself and clarify with her.”

“All right. All right.” I conceded. “Stop all the pressure. I admit that I need to clear this up. But it’s something I don’t really know myself. I need to think about it. I’ll tell you what. I’m up in the plantations now for two weeks. Then I have to come back for some meetings. I’ll speak to her then.”