43. Iliva's Story

“Do you think there is somewhere that I can borrow a towel?” I asked, as my brain failed completely to keep up with changing circumstances.

“Tommu! You’re soaking wet.” Iliva responded in the same, matter of fact tone. “You’d better come with me. Share my umbrella. But tell me, what on earth are you doing here?”

“I came to interview Manaku Jim,” I replied, “I was asking him about Our Granny. Then we had lunch and I drank more than I was used to and got lost on the way back from the bathroom.”

“Easily done.” Iliva replied, not specifying whether she meant the drinking or the getting lost.

She led me across to the building from which she had just emerged and opened the door.

“This is my house,” she said, “but no-one must find out. Please promise you won’t tell.”

“If you insist, I’ll promise. Although I would much rather let Fasi know where you are and stop her worrying about you.”

“No. No one must know. But now that you’re here, how are my children? You have to tell me everything about them.”

“Both well. They are living with Langanipa and Fasi and they always speak about you.” I followed her into her bathroom and she handed me a soft, woolly bath towel.

“There’s not a moment that I don’t think of them.” She continued. “You know that when Jim brought me here we thought they would be able to follow, but Manla Kulu hid them so that not even Jim’s connections could bring them out without letting them know where I was. All I have been able to get was an occasional report when someone happened to see them. You’ve no idea how it’s been.

I don’t even know if they would recognise me or what they look like.” She began to cry, “And how are Lanaganipa and Fasi? And Bahla and your dad?”

“Langanipa is getting on a bit. He could retire if he wanted to but you couldn’t get him away from his machines at any price. And Fasi says that he would be under her feet all day long if he was at home.

The kids keep them young. Your boy's a real credit to you. He’s a reader now and even though he’s only nineteen, Bahla relies on him a lot for the reference material on electricity. As for Ina, she seems to be carrying on where you left off too. She knows more about how the Americans make and dye cloth than you would believe.”

“But didn’t Manla Kulu stop them? He would never let them read at all, let alone take it seriously.”

“He tried, I know. But you can’t stop someone who really wants something. And over the last few years, Manla Kulu wasn’t really capable of stopping anyone, not even himself.”

“Yes,” Iliva agreed, “self control was never his strong point. He would get angry and lose his temper and then he'd beat me. He never knew when to stop. I think that I would have been killed if Jim hadn’t helped me. Manla Kulu used to lock me into the house when he went out so that I was like his prisoner.”

“How did Jim get involved?” I asked, “Everyone thought you were living in the forest.”

“Yes. Jim managed to lead people’s thoughts in that direction. He arranged everything so that when his friends broke into the house and rescued me, we took away with us things that would have been useful out there. Jim was really the only one who could have protected me.”

“What did Jim get out of it?” I don’t think I would have asked the question if it had not been for all the punch I had drunk.

Iliva looked at me coolly and then answered, “There was a bit of that at the beginning she said. But I was already older than his normal women, even when her rescued me. So, mainly, he has had cooking. And someone he can’t just push around. He needs that sometimes.

He manages to get the odd book for me and, over the years, it has become less likely that anyone would recognise me so I can socialise quite freely with most of the guests.”

“But why have you stayed away so long?” I asked. “Surely now that Manla Kulu is dead, no one would care about you one way or another.”

“Manla Kulu?” her voice rose incredulously, “What did I just hear you say about Manla Kulu?”

“I said that with Manla Kulu dead and, in any case, completely discredited, I doubt that anyone would touch you if you came home.”

“Dead!” she stopped in mid sentence, “But then he must have known that! And he didn’t tell me. Oh the Swine!”

“Who?” I asked. “Oh, Jim?”

“Wait here a minute, Tommu. I’ll get you some dry clothes. The footballers are always leaving things behind and you can use a clean shirt and shorts. Then I’ll come with you and show you the way back to the lunch. Mr Manaku Jim has been very kind to me over the years but I think that he has some explaining to do at this point.”

Suddenly Iliva was all business. She led me around to the front of the house. The rain had passed and the grass was steaming as the water evaporated. We walked together under the thatched roof of the veranda where Manaku Jim greeted us.

“Ah, Iliva,” he said, “I see you have found our missing guest. We thought he had forgotten us.”

“I’m afraid that I took a wrong turning.” I answered.

“Jim!” Iliva’s voice was like thunder, “Did you know that my husband was dead?”

“Dead?” Manaku Jim looked shifty, “Dead? Well, er, I may have heard a rumour to that effect.”

“And you didn’t think I might be interested in a rumour like that?”

“That isn’t something one would mention if one wasn’t certain.” Jim studiously avoided her gaze. “It wouldn’t have been right to tell you something like that and then find out that it wasn’t true, would it?”

“Jim, you know very well that you should have told me the moment that you heard even the whisper of a rumour.” Iliva looked at him angrily, “And if you had doubts, didn’t you have the means to check on the rumour very easily?”

“I would have done that. In fact, I was waiting for a report to confirm it and then, of course, I would have told you.”

“You mean that it was convenient that I didn’t know? You know how much it would mean to me to see my children and my family again. How could you think that you could keep it from me?”

Jim looked uncertain.

“Well, I knew that you had to be told, of course. You would find out sooner or later. It’s just that the occasion never arose. Manla Kulu has only died recently, isn’t that true, Tommu?” He looked at me for confirmation.

“I don’t suppose that it can be more than a couple of months.” I said.

“You see, Iliva, it would have been confirmed quite soon and then I would have been sure to tell you.” Jim was relieved.

“Well I think it's too late now.” Iliva replied. “With Manla Kulu dead, there is nothing to stop me from returning to my family. So that's what I'm going to do.”

“No, Iliva, wait.” Jim said, “You have been well looked after here. You have had access to books, you have had interesting work, and we depend on you. You know how much you are valued here.”

“That’s something you should have thought of before you hid the news of Kulu’s death.”

“Iliva, while you’ve been here, we have had a good time. You always had the opportunity to experiment with the best ingredients and work with the best equipment money could buy. You’re better off here, I’m sure.”

Almost as an afterthought, he continued, “And you are the best cook there is. What could I ever do to replace you? You must stay.”

“Jim,” Iliva responded, “there you are, thinking about yourself again. Me! Me! Me! Well that is no longer my problem. You know very well that I have wanted nothing, over all these long years but to see my children and my family. Now I can be with them, and that is where I am going.”

“And what will you do if I decide to stop you?” Jim’s expression was one of almost childish spite. “You know that it was the Gardener’s Courts that sentenced you in absentia. That didn’t depend on Manla Kulu and there is no limit on what they have decided.”

“You would be sentencing yourself,” she said, “You know very well that you have been harbouring me as a fugitive. You can’t just turn me in and get away scot free.”

“What? You mean that there would be no mitigation if I handed you over? Better late than never! That’s how they might see it. Would you like to try it and see?”

I could feel my head thumping as this exchange developed. I seemed to have precipitated a disastrous turn of events and I needed to find some way of making things better.

“Jim! Iliva!” I interrupted, “Please don’t fall out like this. Iliva, you know how much you owe to Jim. He has looked after you and protected you, probably even saved your life. Jim, would it be an honourable thing to keep Iliva from her children if she really wants to go to them? I don’t think that you could look at yourself in the mirror if you did that to someone who trusted you.

In any case, I know that Iliva is a brilliant manager and an even better cook, but there are other cooks on the island who could look after you. And against that, if you were to let her go, then perhaps I could offer you something in exchange that is quite unique.”

“What might that be?” Jim asked, “What can you give me that would make up for losing the best chef in the world?”

“What about the coloured portrait I showed you earlier? How would you like to have that picture of Our Granny to hang in your house?”

Jim looked at me slowly.

“Let me have another look at it.” He said.

I took the picture from my document wallet and handed it to him. He scrutinised it deliberately.

“It’s a very beautiful thing,” he said, “a very beautiful thing, indeed.”

He thought for a moment.

“Well,” he said, “Well perhaps she can go; but not immediately. I need time to find a replacement. I have come to depend on her.”

“But I will go with Tommu today, just to visit my children.” Iliva said decisively, “I can come back in the morning and then we can make an arrangement for the longer term. But today I must see them.”

Jim looked distractedly at the portrait.

“A very beautiful thing.” He said, “and the only one of its kind. Very well. Come back tomorrow and we’ll talk.”

42. Among Celebrities

Jim picked up the portrait and looked at it carefully.
“This is a beautiful thing, you know.” He scratched the surface gently with his fingernail. “Where did you get something like this?”
“A friend of mine painted it.”

“I would like one of these.” He said thoughtfully. “Do you think he could make one for me?”
“I’m afraid that would be impossible,” I answered, taking the picture back and replacing it in my document wallet, “because my friend is no longer alive and that is the only one of its kind.”

“I’m really sorry to hear that.” He paused, “That is very sad. Your friend must have been a very talented man.”
“Actually, a woman. And yes, she was brilliantly talented but that was a long time ago, before the war.”
“I would give anything to own a picture like that.” Jim said.
“I could never part with it.”

Fortunately, before the conversation continued any further on these lines, a servant came over to say that lunch was served, reminding Jim of his obligations as a host.
“Come inside,” he said, “take a plate and help yourself. There’s avocado and pineapple salad with prawns and I can recommend the mai-mai. It is served with a spicy coconut sauce – or try the tako poke. The mai-mai is fresh this morning and the octopus was caught in the rocks below the cliff. Both delicious.”
“Thank you.” I answered, seizing a dish and joining the group helping themselves from the table.

I found myself seated with the footballers to whom I had been introduced earlier. Kara, the girl who had been told to look after me, came over and joined us, handing me a bowl of fruit punch.
“You have to have more than pineapple juice with your meal.” she said, “But have I said something wrong? You seem to have been avoiding me.”
“Not at all.” I took a mouthful of the fruit, which provided a delicious mixture of sweet and tart tastes, “I just have to confess that I’ve been a little out of my depth. Everything here is quite astonishing.”

“It’s an amazing place. But what do you do, Tommu?” Kara asked, smiling at me. “Are you involved in football?”
“I’m afraid not,” I answered, swallowing another mouthful of punch, “I’m a Reader.”
“A Reader?” the girl was puzzled, “What is that?”

“When the Americans went home, they left many books.” Seeing the look of incomprehension on her face, I showed her my notebook, “Like these. You see these marks? They are the pictures of words, of sounds. Here is what Jim said earlier, ‘My father was an American airman and I was born after he had been recalled’.”

“And those marks are pictures of what Jim said?” Kara looked carefully at the writing, “That is the most creepy thing I ever saw. You must be the cleverest man in the world.
Now I know why Jim has brought you here. He has to have the best of everything. The best footballers, the best chef, everything.”
“Well the food is wonderful.” I said, “I don’t think I have tasted anything like it since before the war. The flavours on the fish and the octopus are magical and it is so tender.”

Rombo, the quarterback looked up from his plate.
“Yes,” he commented, “everything here is the best. You just have to look at the furniture. Solid wood and every joint perfect. And the place is so clean; none of the mess and the beggars and vagrants that you get in the village.”

“Yes, it’s disgusting the way that they just throw rubbish down in the streets.” Kara agreed with him, “Half eaten melons, rotting in the gutter, bananas squashed in the road. You can’t walk into the market without getting your feet covered in chicken poop.”

“They should pay some of the beggars to keep the place clean.” One of the other girls had come over to join the conversation. I thought she was the one who had been sunbathing naked, although I had not looked at her closely and, now she had a cloth wrapped round her, I wasn’t sure.

“Showing off their scars and diseases.” Sato, the other footballer, added. “And all of them have been wounded in the war, of course. No-one who just happened accidentally to cut themselves with a machete.”

The group laughed encouragingly and he continued, putting on a whining voice.
“Please sir, I have been fighting for you. Give me some money for food. I have twenty children and they are all hungry, sir. Do not forget that you owe me your safety and comfort.
And of course you know that anything you give him will go straight down his own throat.”

“And it isn’t even as if we are all that safe.” Rombo said. “If we were, they might have a point but, as it is, my uncle’s house was burned to the ground last month. So where does that leave us?”
I had been listening to this conversation as I ate my meal but now I put down my bowl.

“We shouldn’t be too cynical,” I said, “Do you know the man who sells toy birds at the top end of the market?”
“Old One Foot?” Sato laughed, “You need a nice duck, sir? See how it wobbles? ‘Must have lost its leg in the jungle, then.’ I always tell him.”
“Well Tahmo Lukuni told him that he was the bravest man he knew.” I said, “and gave him a medal.”

“Oh, the medal!” Sato shouted. “Oh the medal!”
The group howled with laughter and Sato stood up and limped round in a circle, waving an imaginary medal.
“Tahmo Lukuni, himself! He spoke to me!” he crowed. “Tahmo Lukuni.”
“No,” I protested, “he has been cheated. Tahmo Lukuni told him that it was made of rare feathers.”

“Rare feathers! Tommu, you are a born comedian.” Kara said as they all laughed again.
“Rare feathers,” I said indignantly, “and really it is just dyed chicken feathers.”
“Chicken feathers!” Sato hooted, “Chicken feathers! Oh Tommu, you are too much!”

He continued to hobble in a circle, now making clucking sounds.
“Cawk! Cawk! Cawk! Pawk! Pawk!” he flapped his arms in imitation of the chicken. “Chicken feathers! Wait until I see that beggar next! Cawk! Cawk! Cawk! Chicken feathers.”

I looked around the circle of faces. There was something grotesque in the way they were laughing, their mouths gaping round their perfect white teeth. My bowl was empty even though the girl, Kara, had been keeping it topped up. I realised that the delicious fruit must have disguised a concoction of nearly pure spirits. Goodness knows how much I had consumed. I felt a sudden pain in my head and knew that I had to leave the room.

“Excuse me,” I said, “can someone tell me the way to the bathroom?”
“To the left of the bar, go down the corridor,” Kara answered, “Second door on your right into another short corridor, and then at the end, right and left.”
“Thank you,” I muttered, getting to my feet and steadying myself on the back of a chair.

As I left the room, I could hear them laughing and Kara saying something about the ‘cleverest man in the world’.
‘Second door on the right, right and left.’ I told myself as I tried to steer a steady course down the corridors. At last I found the bathroom and leaned against the door before opening it and going in. I carefully locked it behind me and unbuttoned my shorts, resting the top of my head on the wall over the bowl to stop it from moving around.

‘Why on earth did I mention Manesh?’ I berated myself. The poor fellow was obviously already the butt of jokes and, I should never have thought that anyone here would understand what he might have been through. My head was beginning to hurt badly and the room would not keep still. I thought that it really had been too early for me and I should certainly have stuck to pineapple juice. Pity the poor Orang-utan. So much for the ‘cleverest man in the world’!

I turned round and sat down, resting my head in my hands until, after five minutes I reflected that I would not want anyone to come looking for me, so I tidied myself up as best I could, washed my hands, carefully, and went out of the door.
‘Left,’ I turned into the corridor, ‘and then left again.’ I opened a door but it was a bedroom, with women’s clothing scattered across the bed and the floor. When I found the second corridor, it seemed longer than it had on the way to the bathroom. At the end, the door was sticking but I threw myself against it and half jumped, half fell through as it suddenly gave under my weight.

I found myself outside. Somewhere, I had taken a wrong turning.
At first I was disoriented as I expected to be facing the sea, but then I realised that this was the back of the house. Over lunch, the weather had changed and rain was pouring down, so heavily that I could hardly see the wall of Our Granny’s house, ten yards away. I was instantly drenched to the skin.

I retreated under the eves where the thatch overhung the back wall. How could I go back into the dining room, wet through and dripping, I wondered. To the left, I could just discern an outbuilding, standing in the rain away from the main house. I could see washing lines and, against the side of the house, a pile of deck chairs.

I watched as a woman, a vague shape walking under an umbrella, emerged from the other building. She made her way through the downpour towards the main house. My best hope, I thought, was to ask her if I could borrow a towel and maybe even some dry clothing.

“Excuse me!” I called to her as she was about to go past, “Excuse me! Can you perhaps help me?”
“Yes?” She altered direction to walk towards me through the rain but then, suddenly, she put her hand over her mouth.
“Tommu!” she said, “what are you doing here? You have to promise not to tell anyone that you have seen me! Oh No! You have to promise.”

I looked at her through the rain and wondered who it was that could possibly have recognised me. Then suddenly it all made sense. I understood why the menu had reminded me of the time, long ago, before the war.

I had eaten those very dishes at Langanipa and Fasi’s house. No wonder the taste of the mai-mai and the tako poke had been familiar. Without realising it, the spices and the aroma of the food had stirred my memory of the times when Bahla and I had regularly spent our evenings with them.

The woman was Iliva.

41 Lunch at Jim's

The next morning was bright and clear with a deep blue sky and, since Jim’s house is up the hill and on the opposite side of Our Granny’s from the Village, I had to take the road all the way along Her front wall. The sun was hot so that, even though I walked slowly and tried to keep to the shade on the opposite side of the street, I could feel the sweat inside my shirt trickling down my back.

Jim’s entrance consisted of a wrought iron gate that blocked the road running next to Our Granny’s wall. It was about ten feet tall, shaded with an arch of purple bougainvillea. I pulled on a bell rope and heard a clanging inside where the road followed the curve of the wall around to the right and out of sight. As I waited outside, I had just time to reflect on the workmanship with which the gate was constructed. Wrought iron is scarce on the island and I could see that it had been made by a highly skilled craftsman.

Almost immediately, a servant wearing a loincloth came to answer the bell and, having verified my appointment, he opened the gate and led me on down the road. On the left side, opposite the wall was a hibiscus hedge covered in bright red blooms and, rising behind it, an avenue of palms, fine specimens of Archontophoenix Alexandrae. They are exotics and the only other example on the island I knew of was one planted by the Americans. These were younger, I guessed about thirty years old, and already impressive.

As we rounded the bend, the road opened out onto a grassy terrace. To the left, nothing but the sea and the sky, deep blue beyond a low wall. To the right, a thatched house with a shady veranda. A stream ran across the lawn from a spring near Our Granny’s wall, feeding a rocky pool in which some young men and girls were swimming and lounging and then making its way down the lawn towards the sea.

A man of middle height with a shock of white hair came towards me and shook my hand. His leathery skin was tanned the colour of teak, and shining from frequent application of cocoa butter.
“Manaku Jim,” he introduced himself, “and you must be Tommu, the famous tree planter.”
“I didn’t think you’d have heard of me, Sir.” I replied.
“I hadn’t, before last week,” he laughed, “but these days it’s best to know who one’s guests are, isn’t it?
But what’s this ‘Sir’? Call me Jim. Only my enemies call me anything else.”

He led me over to a bar on the veranda.
“What will you have to drink?” he asked as he reached into a dish of fruit, placed a pyramid of watermelon and some cubes of pineapple into his own bowl and added a generous measure of spirits.

“We have a selection of corn whiskey, rum and white cane spirits as well as beer and too many types of fruit juice to be worth trying to remember them all.
Here, Kara,” he called to a girl who was lying by the pool, “see that our guest has whatever he desires.”

“It’s a bit early for me, I think.” I said to her as she came over to the bar, “I’ll just have some pineapple juice if I may.”
“You may have anything that you want.” She smiled at me.

“So, Tommu,” Manaku Jim resumed, “What do you think of our set-up here? It’s taken me a while, but I’m just about getting it into shape.”
“It’s beautiful! It reminds me, somehow, of the way the Village was before the fire and the war; but how do you handle security? It seems so, er, so open.”
“Less open than you might think,” Jim responded, “Come down and I’ll show you.”

We made our way across the lawn towards the sea and, as we approached the low wall,
I realised that we were standing on the edge of a cliff. Looking down I could see the spray of waves breaking on the rocks, hundreds of feet below, with sea birds flying in and out of their nests on the ledges.

“You see, Tommu,” Jim smiled, “all we have to do is shut the gate and we’re in our own private world. The security next door is the best on the island and no-one can get to us from the sea. Now let me introduce you to some of the boys and girls.”

I looked round towards the house and, with something of a shock, noticed that one of the girls lying in the sun next to the pool was wearing no clothes at all. I carefully directed my gaze elsewhere as Manaku Jim led me over to a group of men and girls.
“This is Rombo, our star quarterback,” he said, “I’m sure that you know all about him, and this are Sato and Gomal, the heart of our defence.”

“Pleased to meet you.” I shook their hands, with the strange sense of uneasy awe and guilt that comes with meeting celebrities that one has never heard of.
“And this is Dana,” he introduced one of the girls, “I would tell you that she is the most beautiful girl on the island, which of course she is, if it didn’t do an injustice to the other ladies here. I have all the most beautiful girls on the island here with me.”

He walked over towards the corner of the veranda and the whole group followed.
“Now you need to meet Horrie.” He said, as we rounded the corner to find an Orang-utan chained to a staple in the wall. The animal was seated in the shade, in the centre of a patch of bare earth that its movements had worn out of the lush grass of the lawn.

“Hi, Horrie,” Jim greeted it, “this is Tommu, who has lived in your part of the world.” The monkey looked bored and threadbare and Jim handed it his bowl of drink, which it consumed noisily.
“They love the fruit, but you have to be careful not to let him drink too much,” he commented, “He’s amazingly strong. Gomal here is probably the strongest man I know but Horrie could snap him like a match stick. Not so, Gomal?”
“Eey, yes, he amazing strong.” Gomal grinned.

Jim led the group back to the front of the house and beckoned me to sit with him on a cane swing positioned in the shade of an umbrella of dried palm fronds.
“Now, Tommu,” he said, “I understand that you want to ask me some questions. What would you like me to tell you?”

I explained something of my ambition of providing a record of the creation of the Village and its history and to preserve some of the recollections of the people who had been involved.
“Perhaps the easiest place to start,” I continued, “would be with Our Granny. As her closest living relative, I thought you would have a unique perspective on her achievements.”

“Well, I can try and remember things.” Jim was thoughtful, “but you probably need to understand that I was never that close to my mother. She was always very occupied with the organisation of the island.”
“Your mother?!” I tried to hide my uncertainty, “I understood that she was your biological grandmother?”

“People tend to think that,” Jim laughed, “because I was brought up by my brother, Apu, and his wife, but actually, Shilda was my mother. My father was an American airman and I was born after he had been recalled to his home in America. As a result, it was easier for everyone that Apu looked after me. I spent a lot of time with my real mother, but most people have the impression that Apu was my dad.”

“You called her ‘Shilda’?” I looked at him. “How is that when there is so much debate about her name day? There are huge arguments about whether it is at the southern or the northern passage of the sun and neither is the name day for ‘Shilda’.”

“That is also quite simple. In the early days, when the idea of a national celebration was first thought of, it needed to be on a day that everyone could recognise and the day on which the sun passed overhead was chosen. Sometimes the sun was on its way south and other years it was passing northwards. At the start, no one thought it was important.

It was only later that the feast became associated with my mother’s name day and, of course, the disputes over her name began but by then it was too late to do anything. Her actual name, though, is Shilda and we always had a private celebration on her real name day.”

“That is quite astonishing, Sir, er, Jim.” I said. “Now, I wonder if you can throw some light on another puzzling question?”
I took the photograph from my notebook and handed it to him.
“Can you say which of the people in the photograph might be Our Granny?”

Jim took the photograph and held it out in front of him at arms’ length. He squinted at it and turned it upside down, then round the right way up.
“It’s not very big, is it?” he said. “I suppose this could be her on the left. Or perhaps this other one next to her. Maybe one of them is her sister.”
“Do you think that the man is your father?” I asked.

“That I couldn’t say,” He moved the picture closer and then held it as far away from him as his fingers would allow, “even if my eyes still worked properly. He left the island before I was born. He was an airman, you know.”

“What about these?” I asked, handing him the sketches and the portrait. “Do any of them look like her?”
“At least these are big enough to see.” He said, “When were they drawn?”
“Just before the fire, about five years ago.”

“Well they’re far too young,” he went on, “that’s one problem. My mother was forty when I was born and I’m sixty now, so five years ago she would have been about ninety five. The oldest of these must be of a woman in her fifties and Shilda never looked as severe as she does.
I always remember her smiling. This idea that ‘Our Granny wants us to go out and kill people’ is a pure invention of that windbag, Lomu.”
“Just to let you know,” I said, “I will not be writing down that remark.”

“Oh, write what you like.” Jim answered, “what I’m telling you is unofficial and I would have to deny it. If I were ever asked officially I would have to support Lomu, but I don’t care who knows what I really think of him. There’s nothing he can do about it.

Looking at the other two pictures,” he continued, “I can’t believe that whoever drew them had ever actually met my mother. This sketch looks pretty vacant and the coloured one...
I can tell you that if I met her she’d have an instant invitation to my parties here.”

40. In Search of Our Granny

I had decided that I should go and try to gain an appointment with Netto. He was reasonably accessible in the court house offices near Our Granny’s house but, when I arrived home, my father had a message to say that I was expected for lunch, the next day, at Manaku Jim’s house. I had not anticipated such a quick response so I needed to give some thought to what, exactly, I expected to ask him.

I wondered whether I should focus the interview on the details of the way that the force of Guardians had developed or concentrate on his knowledge of our Granny herself. He is her closest living relative and in the end, I concluded that I should take the opportunity to ask about his illustrious ancestor.

I could gain a good deal of information about the Guardians from my father and the other old timers among his friends. They could, however, throw little light on the argument about what Our Granny would want us to do that is at the heart of everything that happens in our world. There are almost as many views on this as there are people on the island. From the day that she retired from active life, people have argued and discussed, disagreed and fallen out.

I was actually there on the day that she left us. Unfortunately, however, my memories of the occasion are those of a child. I can remember that we ate a vegetable curry with coconuts and bananas. It was sweet and sticky and curiously lacking in flavour with a sort of puke yellow colour that somehow matched its taste. I felt nauseous and went to lie down in the shade while the other kids ran around screaming.

Then there was just confusion. I heard someone say “She’s gone home.” No-one knew what to do next. Most people waited, sitting on their picnic blankets and wondering whether she would come back. After a while, people started to drift off and my mother came and yelled at me for a while for having gone off on my own. Which struck me at the time (and still does, to an extent) as being very unfair. But I digress.

The point is that my personal memories shed no light on the turning point of our times so I have to rely on what other people remember. And that, of course, depends very much on whose memories we are talking about.

What everyone can agree on is that it was Granny’s Name Day celebration and that the sun was overhead. From there it all goes wrong. It turns out that people do not even agree on Our Granny’s original name. For those who say that her name was Manaku Chuacha, her name day was in the second part of the year when the sun passes from North to South. The others, who are equally certain that her name was Manaku Nemboline say that the sun was moving South to North.

Be that as it may, Granny’s name day had become the focus of the whole island by this time. Everyone gathered in the clearing in the village and Granny would come out to greet the crowd of people. Whereas once she had been regularly seen about the village, over the years she had gradually appeared less and less until, at the end, she would rely on her Gardeners to look after her everyday needs and her Name Day each year was the only time that people could rely on seeing her.

Of course this had made the Name Day correspondingly more important. People who needed her decision – on a marriage proposal, an inheritance, the punishment for a crime now all tried to speak to her at once. Clearly she could never deal with all these issues in just one day and, by the end, elaborate ploys were already being used to gain her attention. People would offer the gardeners enormous bribes in the time leading up to the Name Day.

The Guardians of The Tractor, then as now, had their own favourite representatives who were expected to ensure that the most important issues were addressed and Our Granny, as the link between the island’s past and its future, was also always prepared to make time for the questions of the traditional healers.

There is no reliable account of the issues that were brought before her on that last Name Day. Some people say that she dealt mainly with issues of land utilisation. Some maintain that it was a complex discussion of cross-cousin marriage and the precise relationship between two young people. Still others allege that she was asked to decide the fate of a woman caught in adultery.

In any case, by the middle of the afternoon, it seems that she decided to return to her house. She said that she was tired and the precise words she used are at the centre of every dispute to this day. Did she simply say that she was tired and needed to rest? Did she say that she was tired of the litigious disputes of the people? Did she say that she was tired of the people and of their lack adherence to tradition? Each faction has a view and each view is different. I can only report what I have been told.

A Guardian that I met while I lived at Our Granny’s house told me: “My uncle was one of those to whom she spoke regularly. She had, herself, appointed him to learn the driving of The Tractor only three or four years after the Americans returned to their home.

He had been instructed to obtain permission for a new field in what is now the banana plantation. As he was waiting for his opportunity to speak to Our Granny, he noticed that she did not look well. She was very frail by this time; probably nearly seventy years old and yet she listened carefully to the dispute before her. It was a complex decision about the paternity of a child born to a young girl who had had a relationship with a married man.

Having made her decision, she simply went back to her house to avoid the heat of the day. The confusion was caused because everyone expected her to return later. They waited but in the end, they had to apply to her house the next day and received permission to plough the new field.”

Convincing stuff, you may think, and the field exists to this day to support the story and yet…

From a pamphlet issued by Hama Batu’s Fundamental Truth Society I can quote: “Our Granny’s retreat from the world was her sign to us that she could not tolerate any longer the terrible evils brought into our midst by the idolatrous worshippers of The False Tractor. Before she left us she declared that the new worldly ways brought by this Great Satan were an abomination to be abhorred and fought against in a Holy War.

On her last meeting with her people, Our Granny was asked to judge cases of incest between cousins, of destruction of the natural environment and of drunkenness and immorality. And it came to pass that when she saw the iniquity of the people. Then she addressed all those gathered together and said ‘I am tired of this people and the evil that they do. I go into my house that I may not see their departure from the ways of the ancestors.’

And they that heard her sat in fear and trembling until the night fell because they feared her words and saw the wickedness of their ways.”

They say in the pamphlet that they base this on the evidence of four young men who were waiting for a judgement and later joined Hama Batu’s Shadows as a result of what they heard.

You can imagine that the truth of what actually happened seemed critically important to me as I set out to tell this story, so I asked my father what he remembered.

“She was clearly extremely upset.” He replied. “It was a very hot day. The sun beat down on the crowd and most of the people were interested only in the party. Remember that for us this was at the end of a time of austerity when we still often went hungry.

People were eating and drinking and enjoying themselves. They were not paying the attention to Our Granny that she deserved. After all, it was thanks to her that we had enough to eat and drink. People should have been grateful but all that they were interested in was drinking themselves into a stupor.

A group of young men were running around and making a noise so that she could hardly hear what people were asking her. You could not blame her for wanting to deal with the important things she was being asked in a quieter environment. They should have had more respect for Her but then a fight broke out and your mother became worried and went to search for you. When I next looked over to where She had been, She had left us.”

“What exact words did she use as she was going?” I asked.
“That is impossible to say.” He replied, “There was so much noise and distraction that there is no way anyone could have heard. All that we know for sure is that she left us and she has never been seen in public since that day.”

Having gained an audience with Manaku Jim, which both Bahla and I had thought quite unlikely, I now realised that the resolution of these questions was tantalisingly close. As a child, Jim is said to have been a favourite of Our Granny and he would almost certainly know the exact circumstances of her departure. He was probably still in contact with her and might even be able to tell us directly about Her life today. The idea of gaining an insight into what lay behind her instructions to the Gardeners, what logic she followed, and the type of information on which her decisions were based was intriguing.

On impulse, I took the photograph that I had retrieved from the ruins of Rega’s desk and her sketches and placed them with my notebooks. I thought that if I could validate one of her drawings that would be something that she would have liked. Then I thought of the beautiful painting of Our Granny that she had given to me and added that to the pile.

It had been her favourite and, I suspect, the one that she thought might be the best likeness. In part, it was its realism that she felt would have prevented Tahmo Lukuni from approving it. In the years since the fire, that portrait had travelled with me, more a link with the artist than with Our Granny. Perhaps, I thought, it might now reveal itself to be both.

39. Defending Civilisation

Even though I was not quite sure exactly what my conversation with Hasiki had meant or revealed, I was nevertheless satisfied with my morning’s work. I felt that what he had said could be taken in a number of different ways and that, by representing it as accurately as I could, I would be allowing each reader to make up his or her own mind.

The next morning, therefore, I decided not to look for further explanation of what he had said, but to press on to new topics. I asked him whether any other factors had contributed to the way in which the war had been carried out. He thought a little and then replied.

“Minister Lomu certainly felt that the ruthless prosecution of the war was an essential part of defending the civilisation that the Village represented.”
“By that, I suppose he meant the safeguarding of the knowledge and technologies left to us by the Americans?”

“I can’t be certain of that.” Hasiki answered, “My own impression was that he saw the Village as being an expression of Our Granny’s Will, something that she had established and that was therefore to be protected. I doubt, somehow, that he saw any particular value in knowledge or technology.

Most of the Gardeners regard knowledge, apart from knowledge of Our Granny, as rather a waste of time or, at best, as frivolous and expendable. In their view, if the Tractor were to be taken away then Our Granny would provide something else.”

“Isn’t that alarmingly like the view of Hama Batu and his men that if they succeed in destroying the Tractor the Americans will return and restore the ancient ways?”
“Hama Batu also believes in Our Granny.” Hasiki countered. “A perverted and distorted vision of Our Granny that they call Granny Frum but in so far as they agree with the views of Our Granny’s Gardeners then I would have thought that they are not in error. Unless, of course, the Gardeners say that they are, in which case, clearly they are in error.”

“Surely that would not be possible, sir?” I ventured. “ How could the Gardeners say that Hama Batu is wrong to agree with them?”
“I agree, Tommu, that it seems improbable but you have to recognise that this area of what is right and what is wrong in relation to beliefs regarding Our Granny is an extraordinarily esoteric area and a speciality of the Gardeners. It would be wrong of us to apply normal logic to it.

It could be, for example, that Hama Batu in the completeness of his errors is so totally wrong that he is even wrong when he maintains something that would otherwise be right. Only a Gardener’s court would be able to make that judgement, so we need to leave it open.

We should not presume to apply our secular logic to the area ordained by Our Granny as within the purview of her Gardeners. Remember that Our Granny’s Truth is the source of truth and logic on our island. If there is a conflict between what appears to be truth or logic with Our Granny’s Truth, Our Granny’s Truth will always prevail.

Again, I must underline that what I am telling you is based on my own imperfect understanding, but I would interpret ‘civilisation’, as the word would be used by Minister Lomu, as being the ideal of order and discipline and obedience to Our Granny’s Truth. That is what we are fighting this war to uphold.”

“But then, if I understand you sir, you are telling me that the war has nothing to do with the defence of the Tractor and the knowledge that goes with it.” I shook my head, puzzled.

“No, Tommu, it is more subtle than that, I think. If I am right, then we defend the Tractor too. The Tractor, however, is just a tool that Our Granny has given to her people to provide them with a means to serve her more effectively. We defend it because it was She who gave it to us. The lucky fact that it provides a means of living in comfort, however is not the reason for defending it. The Tractor just happens to be what we defend today. If it were taken away and Our Granny were to give us something else instead – something of no use at all to us – we would have the same obligation to defend that other gift as we do today to defend the Tractor.

What we are actually defending is the way the people on the island have been organised by Our Granny. The Gardeners are closest to Her and custodians of Her Will, the Guardians and Readers support them and the rest of the population are to help and obey them. If that were to break down then, as Lomu has made clear many times, no one would know what they needed to do. There would be no production, there would be no food and there would be no gifts to maintain Our Granny’s House.”

“I can see, sir, that the defence of civilisation might require that we act to counter the attacks of Hama Batu and the Shadows.” I looked at Hasiki trying to assess whether I was taking his words correctly and continued, “What is not so clear is whether that also determines the way in which the war needs to be fought.”

“I suppose there is some sort of link,” he replied, “but I doubt that I could articulate it. What Lomu is very clear about is that, in the final analysis, it is Our Granny’s Will that it be fought in this particular way.

She has revealed this to Her Gardeners and that is sufficient reason. We who do not have direct contact with her cannot be permitted to question this. That would amount to Disrespect for Our Granny’s Will and Disrespect for Her Gardeners.

It was Her Will that we should cast the net of suspicion wide. Her Will determined the policy of Forceful Questioning and of tests of loyalty.
Our Granny commanded directly that we should attack the forces of Hama Batu wherever they were to be found. If we then had to abandon the plantations because we could not defend them, then that, too, is a result of Our Granny’s Will.”

“Withdraw from the plantations?” I looked at Hasiki in alarm. “I had heard rumours that things were not going well there but I had no idea that we had withdrawn from them. If we have withdrawn, how are the trees being looked after?”

“Ah, Tommu. You and your trees. The news there, I’m afraid, is bad. I have not been up to the plantations since I retired but from what I know, the trees have largely been left to their own devices. I know that the Shadows have destroyed some trees, more or less on principle, but I don’t think they have made more than a token effort in that direction.”

I breathed a sigh of relief.
“At the same time,” Hasiki went on, “there has been no weeding or fertilisation and certainly no harvesting of the nuts. It upsets me almost as much to think of this as it does you. Both of us spent good years of our lives planting those trees and one doesn’t like to imagine that work being lost.”

“But I assume that you were able to protect the trees before your retirement?” I said hopefully.
“I’m afraid that I wasn’t in a position to do very much.” Hasiki frowned, “In the immediate aftermath of the fire, Paitor explained to me that he had a more important task for me than my work in the plantations, so someone else would be up there while I dedicated myself to the administrative tasks that resulted from the destruction of the hangar.”

“What sort of tasks could have been more important than the defence of the Plantations?” I wondered.
“Stock taking, for instance.” Hasiki smiled ruefully, “We had lost a lot of stores and equipment. And payroll administration. Any number of tasks could be more important, it turned out.

But they meant that I was not in a position to interfere in the running of the war. And of course, if I had been able to give it, I now recognise that all of my advice would have been bad. Bambafama was following the instructions of the Minister of War and, therefore, Our Granny’s Will.”

“Bambafama?” I raised my eyebrows. “Did he have any experience of war? I thought he was a technical officer?”
“He may not have had much experience,” Hasiki answered, “But I’m sure that he quickly learned as much about warfare as he knew about technology.

In any case, I could do nothing much to help. I was sitting in an office, drowning in paper. Requests for stores and uniforms, purchase requisitions, commissary vouchers, payment authorisations: you would not believe the effort it takes behind the scenes to supply an army in the field. Believe me, fighting the enemy is much easier. And less painful.”

Hasiki paused. He seemed lost in thought, but at last he spoke.
“Do you remember Starling?” he asked, suddenly.
“Indeed,” I replied. “Who could ever forget him?”
“I couldn’t even help him.” He continued. “Bravest man I ever knew but not prepared to shut up. It appears that he decided to give Bambafama and Lomu a piece of his mind on one of their visits to the plantations.

You have to realise that, more or less single handed, he was successfully protecting a whole sector of the plantations. The village around the fort where he lived was still loyal and he was regularly capturing anyone of Hama Batu’s agents who tried to infiltrate the area.

I only heard about the affair long after it was over and Starling was dead, but it appears that he committed Disrespect for Our Granny and Disrespect for The Minister. He was, I’m told, grossly insubordinate to Captain Bambafama, and he killed two of the men who tried to arrest him. At his court-martial, I’m told, he repeated all the offences except the killing of the guards and he was executed publicly as an example to others.

I was down in the Village of course and it was more than a week before the news of what had happened reached me. That is what made me decide to apply for early retirement. There was no point in doing a job that I heartily disliked that was so far away from what was really happening that I could have no impact. I’m sure, if I had been there that I could have persuaded Starling not to say what he did.”

“So it was you who asked for retirement?”
“It was. But I think that I was knocking at an open door. It clearly didn’t suit the Minister to have a person with my history of mistakes and disagreements in a senior position on the force, even one that was quite out of the way.

You may know that I met him many years ago and our relationship was never an easy one – so he probably would have grasped at any opportunity to move me on. In the end, I was able to negotiate a reasonable exit and a good pension and here I am. My wife complains that I hang around the house and get under her feet but I convince myself that she doesn’t really mean it. I try to keep fit and I look after the garden and grow a few vegetables.

You should come round for a meal one day, Tommu. Bring your father. I would like to show you my grandchildren. There are three, you know. My eldest boy has a daughter and the two girls have a son each.”

The interview was at an end so I thanked the Captain and began to gather my material together.

“Who else do you intend talking to?” Hasiki asked, as he walked with me to the door.
“I hope to speak to Gardener Netto,” I answered and I’m in negotiations, through one of the Guardians at Our Granny’s for an interview with Manaku Jim.”
“Clever.” Hasiki said. “Netto is a clever man. And Jim will be good value if you can get to talk to him.

38. Disrespect and Lies

When I arrived at Hasiki’s house with my notepad the next day, I found him waiting for me. He had clearly given some thought to what he would tell me, because, after a few token pleasantries, he immediately took control of the conversation.

“As a preamble to everything that I am about to tell Tommu – make sure that you record this word for word, it’s very important – I say explicitly that this is a personal point of view and therefore prone to errors. In particular, I rely on Tommu to verify this with the official view of the Gardeners and, knowing that the Gardener’s truth is superior to mine, being closer to Our Granny, to make whatever corrections are necessary.

I have agreed with Tommu that this account will focus not on truth, but on errors, mistakes and misunderstandings. In particular, it will address errors, mistakes and misunderstandings of my own that have been corrected over the years by the gracious attentions of Our Granny’s Gardeners.

I will begin with the immediate aftermath of the Great Fire, which consumed the hangar and killed more than one hundred people on the island. My initial error, I now confess, was to think that this was something that could be contained and addressed by ordinary measures. To this end, I thought that the best approach would have been a normal police investigation, a search for suspects and leads, that would disturb as little as possible the normal life of the island.

I now recognise that this was a fundamentally misguided notion, not in any way proportionate to the Disrespect shown for Our Granny by those who had committed the atrocity. It was, of course, foolishness on my part to allow the thought to cross my mind and I would like to record, with the wisdom of hindsight, my gratitude to Gardener Minister Lomu for pointing this out to me at the time.

The punishment of Disrespect, as Lomu said, should never be diluted by purely political and pragmatic considerations. Following instruction by Minister Lomu, I understand that it is a primary duty and has to be undertaken whatever the cost. My attempts to reduce the social impact of the investigation are, therefore, to be deplored although I have to confess that this is exactly what I did.

Indeed, I went so far as to use what authority I had to attempt to gain the early release of numerous detainees who had been picked up for questioning before my arrival from the plantations. This too was a grave error of judgement, as Lomu was later able to demonstrate, since many of these people, including those with no prior known history of Disrespect or reason for suspicion against them, were later found among the followers of Hama Batu.”
“That seems strange.” I interrupted, “Are you saying that their behaviour changed after they were arrested?”

“Sadly, it would appear so.” Hasiki replied gravely. “As you know, the period before the Great Fire had been very quiet with almost no security incidents. At the time, my view – misguided, of course – was that rising levels of prosperity, fuelled by new, sustainable energy sources had begun to demonstrate the advantages of modernising our society.

Looking back, one now has to admit that this was, as Lomu said, an illusion. A deep plot lurked beneath the apparently calm surface, with hundreds of participants. The Fire was the signal that it should go into execution.”
“Surely, though, a plot like that would have been impossible to keep secret. If that many people knew about it, something would have leaked out!”

“Careful, Tommu,” Hasiki smiled. “You must respect Our Granny’s view in this instance. At the time, I also advanced that argument but Our Granny’s representative was able to clarify that I was wrong; that their change in behaviour had nothing to do with the fact that they had been arrested and brought in for questioning.”
“Ah, yes, I see what you mean, sir. So the correct course of action was to come down hard on the offenders.”

“Indeed. Fortunately my misguided views had very little impact. Before I had arrived back from the plantations to take charge of the battle against the Evil Shadows, a more active campaign of action to round up suspect persons had already been begun by Captain-Major Paitor, acting on the orders of the Wise Gardener Lomu, Our Granny’s Minister for the War on Terror. Clearly, my own attempts to mitigate this effort were misguided and based on ignorance of the desired outcome.

In any case, I was, fortunately, prevented from pursuing my naïve and ill-advised plan by an occurrence that I, myself, had instigated, namely the identification by you, Tommu, of an informant who was irrevocably to alter the pattern of events.

This informant named many, many accomplices and supporters of the Evil Shadows, far more than I thought plausible or possible and, with this list in hand, a much more widespread program of arrest and interrogation was wisely instigated by Minister Lomu.

As I have already said, I had thought that support for the Shadows was quite limited in the period leading up to the fire. This program of mass arrest and interrogation proved me wrong. By the end of their detention questioning almost all the people on the list were shown to have strong sympathies for the Shadows even though, when arrested, they had denied any sympathy for them.

And now I will tell you of what absolutely proved Our Granny’s Minister to be correct. Even those few who were subsequently released because no evidence could be adduced to demonstrate their loyalty to Hama Batu tended to be implicated in later plots and terror activities.

There is, I suppose, no more to be said. One can only wonder what would have happened had they not been arrested and speculate as to the grave risks to the Village my own proposals would have resulted in.”
“My Goodness, Captain!” I exclaimed. “You are admitting to a great many mistakes. It might appear that were in complete opposition to Our Granny. Are you sure that I should record this?”

“Yes, Tommu, go ahead.” Hasiki answered. “It is better to record these errors, no matter how painful it is for me. Someone might learn from them. After all, it was all a long time ago. As you can see, my retirement is quite comfortable. I have a fine garden that produces more vegetables than my family and I can eat and all this is possible precisely because I recognise my previous errors and have reconciled myself to Our Granny’s Gardeners and everything that they say.

As I say, by the time I tried to stop the campaign of mass arrests, it was already too late. The interrogations had brought hundreds into custody and there was no safe way to release them. It forced people to choose sides and from then on my approach of conciliation and accommodation was, in any case, out of date and impracticable.”
“But that means that the Gardeners’ own tactics were creating support for their enemies? Couldn’t they see that?”

“Careful, Tommu.” Hasiki cautioned. “Don’t put words into my mouth. Remember that we have the authority of the Gardeners for the view that these people were already supporters of Hama Batu and the Evil Shadows. All that the arrests did, therefore, was to bring them into the open where they could be dealt with.
Hama Batu is the King of Lies. He and his people might appear to be ordinary villagers but they are not. Before the Fire, their lies were concealed. They pretended to be loyal workers and to support Our Granny. In fact, the supported Granny Frum, the false Granny of Hama Batu. Placing them in custody and questioning them forcefully merely revealed their true nature.

Knowing their true nature was essential if they were to be punished. Remember, as Minister Lomu also pointed out, that Lies about Our Granny and Her way, are even more dangerous than Disrespect. Disrespect is a personal crime, a crime of thought. Lies are a social activity. By telling Lies to others, they are corrupted. Lies must be stamped out because, like fire, they spread and grow.

Minister Lomu has told us many times that the War on Terror is a war about Truth. The aims of the war are to identify the liars who bear false witness, counter to Our Granny’s Truth. It is a difficult war because, by definition, a liar will invariably tell you that they are not one. It requires exceptional measures to scrape off the facade of falsehood to reveal the truth underneath.

Minister Lomu has laid out many times what is necessary. We need, he has made clear, to listen to these people when they think they are safe, to hear the truth of what they think when their guard is down. That is why it has been necessary for him to recruit so many observers: listeners who can report back to him what people say privately. That is the justification for ‘forceful questioning’ in which the veneer of respectability can be peeled back to reveal the truth, sometimes truth that the suspect himself is unaware of.

A war about Truth is fundamentally different from any other type. When you and I were together in the plantations, Tommu, we thought that there was a fairly clear boundary to be defended.

I’m not saying that we thought there were no members of the Shadows living amongst us but, by and large, they were not very active so we tended to ignore them. We thought that our problems related to incursions from outside. Small groups of jungle dwellers who would come in and try to destroy a stand of young trees or whatever.

Once the extent to which people were hiding their dissent became clear after the Fire, there was no telling who was involved. I remember the case of one particularly dangerous man who caused us problems for nearly three years. We traced dozens of cases of arson to him, not to mention robbery and even murder. When we captured him, there was no apparent connection with the rest of the Shadows but eventually it emerged that his brother had died in custody. There was a family link after all.
When we could no longer think of it as a war between the Village and outsiders and had to see it as a war within the Village, things became much more difficult. Without a fixed boundary, it was not only common to be paranoid but it was also common sense.”

“Captain,” I said, “I think I need to think all of this through. The way in which the war has been carried forward is very logical, as you have explained it. Clearly a campaign to punish disrespect and lies is both necessary and difficult but I find my mind confused by everything we have discussed this morning.”
“Yes, Tommu,” Hasiki answered, “I think that none of us find these issues easy. Perhaps we should break off now and continue tomorrow to allow ourselves to digest what we have said.”

37. Captain (Rtd.)

I would not wish anyone to think that my disagreement with Bahla regarding what testimony should be admitted to my records was acrimonious in any way. In fact, it was an ongoing debate over the whole time that the book developed and I was happy to consult him on each new interviewee.

We decided early on that I should attempt to speak to Captain Hasiki, recently retired from the Guardians, but finding a suitable representative to speak for the Gardeners was more problematical.

“You could apply to speak to Lomu,” Bahla said, “and I am sure that he would be eager to talk to you. You would, however, probably have to give him complete control of the output. I think your book would be even shorter than if you only put in things you could prove. In fact, I think it would spell the end of your ideas of allowing anyone else at all to say something.”

“Who else might I consult, do you think?” I felt that some reflection of the Gardeners was an important element in the story but, as Bahla had surmised, I wanted to preserve some balance and objectivity.

“I don’t know,” Bahla answered, “you’ve been living in Our Granny’s house and you know far more of them than I do. The only other Gardener that I have had contact with in the last few years was Manla Kulu, Iliva’s husband, and even if you could have interviewed him, his views would have been limited to what went on in the taverns and drinking clubs.”
“Don’t speak ill of the dead.” Manla Kulu’s overused liver had finally given up the unequal struggle against a Gardener’s unlimited supply of rum and corn liquor so the suggestion was purely academic. “Isn’t there anyone else you can think of?”

“How about Manaku Jim?” Bahla said thoughtfully. “He may not be a Gardener, but he has had his fingers in an awful lot of pies over the years.”
“Manaku Jim! What a stroke of genius. And I’m not female, so I won’t even have to sleep with him!”

“Don’t count on that. From what I hear it’s not a given. But thinking about it, there might be another option for a Gardener. I haven’t come across him since the Trading Expedition, but there was a second Gardener there as well as Lomu. He never said very much but he struck me as a thoughtful type. I can’t remember his name; Nemmo, Nerrow. Something like that.”

“Might it have been Netto?” I asked. “I’ve met someone called Netto in Our Granny’s gardens. Quiet as you describe him and I think he has quite a senior position in the Gardeners’ court system.”
“Yes. Netto. That was the name. How about him?”

So it was agreed that I would attempt to speak to Hasiki, to Manaku Jim and to Netto. We talked at some length about the Shadows but without reaching a conclusion. I felt that their point of view needed some explanation but, as Bahla pointed out, they had probably not forgotten that it was me, immediately after the fire, who had identified Senn.

I didn’t fancy the idea of finding out whether he was right or not. In the end, we decided to make do with the explanation that Bahla had received in the jungle from the man captured by the Trading Expedition.

With nothing to be gained by delay, I made my way next morning up the hill to Hasiki’s mansion at the top of the Village. It was a pleasant walk, although I could not help noticing that several houses along the way were boarded up or burned out, the result of sporadic attacks by the Shadows, even in the heart of the town.

Looking back down the hill, it was clear that the regular cultivation of the land had been disrupted. The Tractor was ploughing a field beyond the derelict shell of the hangar and I could see the heavily armed platoon protecting it as it worked. Further off, some of the fields were now fallow because resources had been diverted from farm work to the military effort.

I had not spent any time up in the plantations since I collected my things after the fire and moved into the Guardians’ accommodation at Our Granny’s house. I wondered how my palm trees were surviving. If we could not protect the fields near the Village and keep them cultivated, it seemed improbable that the much more vulnerable areas reclaimed from the jungle would have survived the war unscathed.

Hasiki lived in a walled compound reserved for the very wealthy. When I knocked on the gate, a cover slid aside and a voice from inside asked me for my name and business. When it emerged that I did not have an appointment I was almost sent away but, after explaining that this was a personal call, I was told to wait, which I did for perhaps half an hour. I had brought my notebook with me and spent the time checking through the questions I intended to ask and planning in my mind the explanation that I hoped would persuade Hasiki to speak to me.

When, eventually, the door in the gate opened, I entered a grassy space around which neat houses stood, each with its own distinct garden. Trees had been planted at intervals around the edges of the square and a servant with shears was trimming the rich, green lawn.

On a bench at the top of the square, Hasiki himself was waiting for me. He was dressed in sports clothes, short and slim, and he stood to greet me with a smile.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Tommu.” He said. “I wasn’t expecting anyone and I’ve just got back from my run. I try to make it a rule to do five miles every day and I don’t like to break the routine.”
“Yes. I haven’t been about much. I kept my head down while I was up at Our Granny’s house, and with my father’s health not what it was, I’m living down with him now.”

“How is the old man?” Hasiki sounded genuinely concerned, “He must be getting on a bit.”
“He turns seventy next birthday and the last five years haven’t been kind. His legs are going and he’s prone to minor illnesses – colds and such – that seem to turn into more than they should. But his mind is still sharp as an arrow. He sends his regards to you.”

“Return mine to him.” Hasiki smiled. “Now tell me what I can do for you. I’m sure that your visit isn’t just an accident.”
“I’ve started writing a book, sir. It’s a type that the Americans call ‘history’ and it tries to tell the story of our island. My friend, Bahla, has told me about the Trading Expedition and we thought that you would be the person who could tell us most about the war and particularly the last five years.”

“Hmmm. Interesting idea; but I’m not sure that it would be wise to go on record with some of the things I’ve seen. Even now that I’ve retired from the service, I think that our friends in Our Granny’s Garden might be a bit sensitive if I were to say something that could be interpreted as criticism.”
“I wouldn’t be asking you for opinions, sir. Just facts – things that no-one could dispute or argue about.”
“How old are you, Tommu?” Hasiki looked at me curiously.
“Just fifty, sir. Why do you ask?”

“Two years older than me.” Hasiki laughed, “and yet you obviously have a lot to learn about politics. To a Gardener, facts are the most dangerous things there are. People have a tendency to believe them.
Even half truths are powerful weapons, and the whole truth is sometimes unstoppable. I’m not sure that it would be safe for either of us to trust you with actual facts.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t see how the Gardeners, dedicated as they are to Our Granny’s Truth, could possibly object to facts and truth if that is what someone tells people.”

“I’m not sure how to explain this, Tommu.” Hasiki thought for a while, then continued, “You must have thought a lot about Our Granny?”
“Not really. She has always been there, I suppose, since before we were born. One doesn’t have to give her much thought. That is the work of the Gardeners.”
“Exactly. And according to the Gardeners, Our Granny is very wise and what she says is always right and correct. And yet, sometimes things happen because of what She has said that look far from wise.”
“Yes sir. I suppose that is because the Gardeners sometimes make mistakes in interpreting what She has said.”

“Spot on, again, Tommu.” Hasiki was reaching some sort of significant conclusion. “Now I want to be very clear that what I am about to say is not my own opinion. Quite the contrary. But there are people, much more cynical than I am, who have suggested that sometimes what the Gardeners say has very little to do with Our Granny and what She thinks. It will probably shock you as much as it shocks me to know that there are even some people who think that the Gardeners make up the judgements and decrees that they say come from Our Granny. People who say that, since She is no longer available to ask, the Gardeners can say anything they like in Her Name, and that no-one can tell the difference.”

“I see.” I looked at Hasiki thoughtfully. “You’re right. If that idea was widely believed, the whole life of the Village might fall apart. No-one would listen to the Gardeners or know what to do.”
“Indeed. And we’ve just agreed that the idea is a complete fabrication. But if a fantasy like that could be so destructive, think about what an inconvenient fact might be able to do. It should be no surprise that it is facts that are most to be feared.”

“Very well, then.” I countered. “I can see that you might not wish to talk to me about the facts of our island’s recent past. As you say, that might be something people could object to. But what about stories? Perhaps it might be possible for us to discuss how things might have been; things that are not true, or that you have not seen but that you might speculate about. Would you be able to tell me about them?”
“Interesting thought, Tommu, interesting thought.” Hasiki chuckled. “Are there any particular areas that interest you?”

“I’m not sure, actually. I thought I was going to ask you for facts and figures on the Guardians, the development of the service over the course of its history and so on. I’d have to think again about the sort of things we could cover under these new rules.”
“You’re right,” Hasiki said, “perhaps we both need to think this over. Why don’t you come back tomorrow, a bit later so that I can get my run out of the way, and let’s see what we’ve come up with.”

36. The Beginning

When I asked my father about what Manesh had said, he just smiled.
“Can you seriously imagine me going out and beating people up or ‘kicking ass’?” he asked.

My father is one of the gentlest men you can think of so I had to admit that the thought seemed somewhat unlikely.
“In my day, thank goodness,” he continued, “we had enough on our hands, learning to use the Tractor for ploughing. And there was plenty to do, clearing land to plant. The concrete runways had not even been taken up then and I can promise you that was backbreaking work.
No. I was never a tough guy and I never wanted to be one.”

He thought for a moment then went on.
“You have to feel sorry for Manesh, though. I can remember him as a young recruit. He was always the most enthusiastic. He was determined to be a captain one day, and now he sits there selling his birds. You have to allow him his dreams. I can’t imagine that they would harm anyone now.”
“Surely someone should put him right about you, Dad. People will think you are the way he tells it.”

“Pah! What harm does it do? The people who know me won’t believe him and the people who don’t know me won’t care. In a way, his life is over and if you could convince him that he was wrong about things, it would probably make him very unhappy. Better to leave things as they are.”
“But isn’t there something wrong in believing what isn’t true?”

“You youngsters!” my father snorted, “Perhaps Manesh is right. You do too much thinking. Everybody needs to believe something. Before the Americans came, we lived in the forest and every tree had a name and a spirit that lived in it, with its own personality and relationship to the tribe. We believed that but I can’t imagine it was the truth. Now the trees are gone and so are their names and we believe in the Tractor rather than the spirits. And yet, it was those old spirits that fed us and cared for us before the Americans.

Manesh gets through his life believing that I might have been a hard man. Why disillusion him? He has enough problems without having to think that he is wrong about me. And where would you stop in this truth campaign?

Tahmo Lukuni told him that he was the bravest man he had ever met and that he would always remember him. Do you think that Tahmo really meant that?”
He looked at me for an answer.
“Well, no,” I replied hesitantly, “he probably says that to everyone he gives a medal to.”

“Exactly. And you saw that Manesh’s medal is really important to him?
You spent some time thinking about how to make colours. It probably crossed your mind that the feathers he told you were from rare birds might have come from nearer to home. Would you tell him that what he believes in came from a chicken? Would you take the meaning of his medal away from him just because it isn’t exactly what he thinks it is? There's so little left of his life that we have no right to remove what he has.”
“But he wants to control what people think. He wants a world in which everyone thinks the same. Surely that is wrong?”

“Possibly, Tommu, possibly.” My father answered. “But you have to think of the context. You know when the Guardians go out into the jungle, they take those little shelters to sleep in. Bivouacs, we call them. Space inside for two men.

If you are in hostile territory and you live like that with another person, you have to be sure that they are not going to let you down. Your lives depend on each other so there is no room for differences. Everything boils down to a common point of view inside that tiny tent. The tent protects you from the rain and the wind and you can’t afford a split. Every move that you make has to be synchronised. If you want to take a pee, the other person has to co-operate. That tent is your whole world.

In the Village, believing in Our Granny is our tent. It’s a bigger tent with more space. We can afford more freedom than in a two man bivouac but Manesh is applying the standards of the two man tent – or at least the platoon – to the Village. I have never believed in stopping people from thinking or from being themselves, but with the threat of Hama Batu and the Shadows, who can say whether Manesh is right or wrong? Perhaps we need someone like the Gardeners to protect us from what we don’t know.

Do we want to walk out into the night and face the wind and the rain on our own? I’m too old to want to do that. And in any case, I haven’t read all the books that you have, so I don’t know if I could tell what was true out there or not.”
The conversation drifted on to other things but what my father had said stuck with me. I realised that, for the most part, I agreed with him and I began to think about the different ways in which people saw things. I thought about the dispute between Hama Batu (about whom, I realised, I knew next to nothing) and the Gardeners. From the time of the fire, I had lived mostly with the Gardeners at Our Granny’s house but I had never thought very much about what the war against the Shadows meant. Like Manesh, I was a part of the Village and saw things as a Villager.

I knew that the war originated in a different interpretation of Our Granny’s Will and that it had become desperately vicious, with both sides prepared to go to any lengths to achieve their aims. I had naturally assumed that the Gardeners, living so close to Her, understood Our Granny’s Will but the interpretation that Manesh had given to it seemed so one sided that it made me doubt what he had said and think more carefully about my own sense of what was happening in the world.

I think it was at that point that I decided to write this story; to record what people thought and, if possible, to let people see who was right and who was wrong. I had, almost without realising it, begun to think in terms of the history of Morakeewa. At first, I thought that all I needed to do was to record what people said, so that what I had been told by Manesh became one of the first things that I wrote down.

There is a sense in which this point, rather than the chapter that is first in order of reading, is the beginning of my book. In a way, the whole of this book is about Manesh and what he thinks, and a tiny tent, but as soon as I showed the first draft of what I had written to my friend, Bahla, I realised that there was more to do. Without some background material to describe the island and the people who lived there, the arrival of the Americans and the role of Our Granny, nobody would understand what I was writing.

As a result, Bahla and I discussed what I should do and he offered to tell me about the story of the Trading Expedition, which I have already described. The rest – the rest followed more or less naturally.

What was clear, almost immediately, was that I needed to talk to people involved in the events I wanted to describe so that we could capture their perceptions and obtain reliable information. At the same time, we needed to be aware that some of the participants might try to emphasise elements of the story that reflected well on them.

Bahla was anxious, in particular, that we ensure that only reliable information was included. Having seen what I had written about my meeting with Manesh, he took the view that the whole story would be better left out.

“Tommu,” he said, “You can’t include this rubbish. He thinks that he is the centre of the whole world. He is an unwitting pawn in the conflict between the Gardeners and Hama Batu over a vision of the future of the island and he doesn’t really understand either of them. What he told you is entirely subjective.

Even the stories he tells you, where he actually saw what happened, are really about his illusions and emotional reactions. I can see that you might not want to bring him down to earth with regard to some of the things that he believes in, just as you would not tell your child that the bird that takes away their baby teeth is not real. At the same time, why would anyone else need to hear about it?”

“No Bahla,” I disagreed, “The fact that Manesh and people like him believe these things is important, without regard for whether they are true or not. The only reason that the Gardeners and Hama Batu can sustain the war is that they can create stories that attract supporters. You can’t just ignore those stories. Also, as my father said, sometimes you can’t even tell which of those stories are true and which are false.”

“I still think that you should restrict yourself to verifiable facts. Only put in things that you can prove. The alternative is just too complicated and difficult. Your book may be shorter but you will at least be able to rely on it. Find yourself some intelligent people who understand exactly what happened and can give their insights.”

“I will do that too,” I replied, “but actually, I think that you are wrong. If I start to cut people out and to select people that I trust for inclusion then I am falling into the same trap as Manesh. It becomes my illusions and emotional reactions that I put in and my judgement of what it all means that I write down. I think that its better if I leave that judgement to my readers. Then I remain impartial.”

“Be careful,” Bahla said, “You’ll end up confusing people. You can’t record a murder or somebody being tortured in the same way as you talk about studying and increasing understanding; as if they are of the same value. At some point you have to say what is right and what is wrong. At some point you have to choose.”

“You may be right, Bahla,” I said, almost as if I believed him. Then I stuck out my chin defiantly.
“But I’d like to see how far I can get before I have to. I’d like to give everyone a chance to have their say. I don’t have any ambitions to control people and force anyone who reads my book to think one way or the other. I’d rather have them make their own minds up.”

35. Veteran

I reached into my pocket for another coin and, as I handed it to him, Manesh seized my hand.
“You’re a good lad, Tommu,” he said, “even though the rest of them have forgotten us. I always said you were a good friend, not like the others.”

“I’m sure that your services are appreciated, Manesh.” I said, trying to detach myself.
“Oh don’t doubt that!” He released my hand and picked up a woven straw basket shaped like an envelope from the ground next to him.

“Look at this. How many of these have you seen? Not many, I bet.”
Fumbling in the basket, he drew out a parcel made of banana leaves and began to unwrap it.
“Do you know who gave me this? It was Head Gardener Tahmo Lukuni himself. He shook my hand and gave it to me.” Manesh finished unwrapping the dried leaves to reveal a bouquet consisting of some brightly coloured feathers surrounding a carved wooden flower. He handed it to me and continued.

“I was one of the bravest men he had ever met. That’s what he told me. For exceptional valour. He would never forget the sacrifices I had made for Our Granny, defending her name against the dishonour of the savages. I am remembered forever. Can you believe that? Sergeant Major Manesh! I was promoted too, before I was discharged. Remembered forever.”

I looked at the object he had handed to me and straightened a kink in one of the rather dusty feathers.
“Careful, Tommu!” Manesh interjected. “That’s very delicate stuff. You see the flower? That is the flower of Our Granny’s garden, the same as on our money. Then the feathers are for service in the jungle. They come from birds that are only found in the deepest forest and they are rare and fragile.

Our Granny sent us out into the forest to fight against those who try to corrupt and misinterpret her message. Tahmo Lukuni told me that. They attack us with knives and arrows, but those are not the real danger. He said that the real danger is their words. When they say that they speak for Our Granny they are like the Shai-hathan.
They lurk in the mud and they inject their poison and then they eat the victim.

Out in the forest, we can see who the enemy is. It’s here in the Village that they are more dangerous. They want to destroy the way of life of Our Granny’s people and they speak soft, convincing words until they seduce young boys who don’t know any better. I told you before. We win the fight when it is in the open. That was our job. But in the Village we aren’t tough enough. We allow the soft words to grow and fester when we should stamp them out.”

“It’s hard, though, to control what people think.” I handed the trophy back to him and he carefully began to wrap it up in the dried leaves.
“That’s the excuse they always use.” Manesh was speaking quite loudly, “But what we need is discipline. Discipline the body and you discipline the mind. We allow these kids to do what they want to, when we should be keeping them under strict control. Every hour of the day should be filled. If they spent all their time doing, then they would have no time to think. It’s too much thinking that creates the danger.

And if any of them showed signs of not joining in, then the others would soon sort them out. If the body is healthy you don’t need medicine. It fights the diseases itself. In our platoon, if one of the men started behaving oddly, the other men would deal with it. I never had to do anything and that is the truth. The men would soon enough make him feel like an outsider and one day, if he didn’t pull his socks up, then the problem would deal with itself.” He made the gesture of a knife across his throat.

“That doesn’t sound like much fun for the one who is a bit of an outsider.” I commented. “Being picked on by the rest of the group.”
“Exactly. There is a type of behaviour that we don’t want and it should not be tolerated.”
“Yes,” I agreed; thinking, though, that I was probably not agreeing with his remark in quite the sense in which he had intended it.

“The Village isn’t like that.” He went on, “In the Village you have all sorts of people. Most of them don’t know they are born. They live on the fat of the land because of Our Granny and every day they are doing something to undermine her. They dress however they like. They come in illegally from the plantations.

These days, I live in a hut in the barrio and I know what it’s like there. All sorts of illegals. Stealing and intimidating people. If you have a couple of coins that you’ve earned honestly, then you had better watch out. And the Guardians down here? Don’t make me laugh. If you gave me one of my old platoons, I could show you how to deal with them.

One day I will meet up again with Tahmo Lukuni. I’ve seen him from a distance once or twice and he’d remember me. That’s what he said. And then I’ll be able to give him a report on what is happening down here. The people round him think they can keep the truth from him. But we shall see. When he knows what the situation really is here and how these Block Shadows – you know that there is a whole illegal organisation in the barrio – they think they can rule the roost. When he knows the truth, he’ll burn the place down.”

“Surely you can report them to the Guardians?” I asked.
“In theory, in theory,” Manesh answered, “but then you’re a dead man. There was one guy lived near me. He fell out with the Shadows and decided to do something about it. He had a good job down in the fields and he was sick of having to part with the percentage of his pay each week, so he gave information to the Guardians.

Five o’clock next morning, four platoons of Guardians turn up at the Block Shadow’s house. They surround it and in they go, clubs swinging. Well the Shadows inside put up one hell of a fight. The place was full of illegals and of course they were armed to the teeth, but in the end our guys burned the house down and most of the Shadows inside were killed and the rest were captured. And the ones who were captured would soon have been wishing to change places with the ones who had been killed, I can promise you that.

They thought that they were big men, of course. They always do. I could hear one of them going on about the Shai-hathan of the Tractor and the rest of the stuff they always talk about. They were going to get rid of the Tractor. The Americans would come back. The jungle would come back and we would all be like birds in the trees. You know their nonsense.

Well the Guardians took him away and I thought to myself, ‘You may think it’s OK to show disrespect for Our Granny, my friend, you may think you’re a big man!’ but I knew that he would soon be singing a different song. I knew what he was off to find.
But they found out who it was that informed on them. The next night the Shadows were there. None of us could go out to look. That would’ve been more than your life was worth. But we heard them come for him.”

“Did they kill him?”
“No. They wouldn’t do that. They took out his eyes so he couldn’t see. They burst his ears so he couldn’t hear. They cut out his tongue so he couldn’t tell. Then they cut off his parts so that he wouldn’t have children to see or hear or tell and they broke his legs and they left him. And the worst thing is that he didn’t die. He is still there, to warn everyone who sees him. I think that perhaps the best thing would be to finish him off, but his family cares for him. That is the terrible thing.”

“Good grief! Manesh,” I exclaimed, “That really is terrible!”
“Yes. But that is the sort of people you are dealing with. They have been brain washed by Hama Batu so that they don’t know right from wrong. They are as good as mad. Their fanatical ideas about their ‘Granny Frum’ justify any atrocity.

You would think that anyone who believed those ideas must be stupid, completely deranged, and yet some of their leaders are as clever as snakes. Leading honest people completely up the garden path. If I were still fit and in the service, I would hunt those people down. I would not rest until they were brought in. But what can I do, half a man? What can I do? And that is why I say that the Guardians in the Village are soft.” Manesh paused, breathing hard.

“Sometimes I think how things could be different. I feel the toes where my foot used to be and I think that I could still do something, but of course it’s too late. When the arrow scratched my leg, it didn’t feel like a serious wound. Just a scratch but I knew that if I let the poison get through to my heart I was dead.

So I took off my belt and I strapped it round below my knee. They say that it takes twenty minutes for the poison from one of those arrows to kill you and we were an hour and a half from the nearest plantation. So I just had to tie off my leg so that no blood could get through and I ran through the forest. Every ten minutes I slackened the belt then I twisted it tight again with the stick and ran some more.

It seemed like hours. Days even. My head was swimming when I got to the camp. I could hardly stand. And there was nothing they could do. They lanced my leg and let out the poison but they couldn’t take the belt off. If they had then either I would have bled to death or the poison would have got me. So I lay there on the bed. Three days they didn’t know whether I would live or not.

Then slowly I began to get better. But not my leg. My leg was blackish green and it began to stink. You have never smelt anything like it and they said the only way to save the rest of me was to cut the leg.
Even with that, there was no guarantee. But it worked and I’m alive.”

“Yes Manesh, at least you’re alive.” I was a bit shocked by the story.
“Don’t think I’m not grateful. Or that I want you to feel sorry for me.” Manesh looked at me defiantly. “I know that I’ve been lucky. There are men that fought with me who are paralysed. They have to sit in a cart and pay a boy to wheel them around. Others have lost both legs or been terribly mutilated. I’m one of the lucky ones.
But there’s nothing more that I can do. I sit here and watch the way the world goes and there is nothing that I can do about it. Nothing!”

34. Jungle Warfare

It is sometimes tempting to think that, if only one had done something different or not done something, things would have turned out better. Most of us can point to some moment where a casual decision had a profound effect on our lives: turning right instead of left and meeting the girl you ended up marrying, leaving a candle burning unattended and destroying the house. For me, when I pointed the burglar out to Manesh is one of those moments.

Naturally, at the time, I had no idea of how significant it was. It was only three or four years later when I met Manesh again that I found out the details of what happened at the courthouse after I had left. When I ran into him, he had lost a leg to gangrene after being wounded on patrol in the jungle and he was selling children’s toys in the street.

It turned out that he made them himself. Wooden birds; hens and ducks with a long handle coming out of the tail so that the child could push them along. The wheels were mounted with the axle off centre so that the bird waddled from side to side as it moved forward and they were realistically carved and coloured so that they were almost works of art. I think that Manesh, having lost his leg, had found something that he had a real talent for, although he told me that he struggled to make enough from them to keep body and soul together.

I didn’t recognise him until he called out to me from his seat at the roadside.
“Hey, Tommu!” he said. “Is that you? How is your father these days?”
“Manesh! Hello. I didn’t see you there. My dad’s not very well, I’m afraid. He’s been suffering with pains in his legs and knees for a while now, and he doesn’t go out much these days.”

“I’m really sorry to hear that. You don’t realise how important your legs are while they are working well. He’s the last of the old breed, you know. They knew how to do things in your father’s time. They took no nonsense, when his generation ran the show. He wouldn’t have been letting these savages get out of line.”

“My father?” The description didn’t really tally with my own impression of his service in the Guardians. In his day, I thought, the Guardians had mostly been occupied with farming, not fighting wars.
“Yes. He would have given them what for! He would have kicked ass.”
I tried to change the subject.
“It’s been a few years, Manesh,” I said, “I don’t think I’ve seen you since just after the fire.”

“That’s right. It’s been a tough time. Especially since I was invalided out of the service. You could probably use a nice duck. Look, this green and brown one would amuse any child. See how it waddles. Very realistic, I think.”

“I don’t have any kids,” I answered then, seeing his face fall, I continued “but I’ll have the duck anyway.”
As I felt in my pocket for a coin, he began to unscrew the handle and fold the toy up for me.

“I always thought of you as a friend, Tommu.” As he moved forward to hand it to me, I had to move away to avoid the smell of rum on his breath. “Even at the worst of times, I would think ‘Yes, if Tommu were here, he wouldn’t let me down.’
I remember the night we went together to the hangar. I helped you to get those pictures. Do you remember how I persuaded the captain to let you have them? And then you handed us Senn on a plate. It seems like yesterday.”
“Senn?” I asked uncertainly.
“Oh yes. You recognised him but it was us that got the truth out of him.”
“Senn was the name of my burglar?”

“That’s right. He thought he was tough, but a night in a room with Manesh soon put him right. Before he died he gave us everything he had. Names, places, times. Dozens of them. Everything we needed to react.”
“What? He died under interrogation?”

“Like I said. He wasn’t as tough as he thought. At first, he wouldn’t say nothing. Then he came up with a couple of names; but by the end he was squawking like a parakeet.”
“And you arrested all these people?”

“Most of them, I’d say. But by the finish he was so eager to give us names that some of them were people that didn’t even exist. That’s how he was talking. He was even making up names, just to help us.
Of course it would have been satisfying to be able to get back to him and confront him with the fact that some of the things he’d told us weren’t strictly true, but by then it was too late.”
“What sort of people did he name?” My curiosity overcame my uneasy desire to make my excuses and leave.

“Oh, all sorts. People you would never have suspected. But the real gold dust was the jungle stuff. He told us how to get to one of Hama Batu’s camps. He had actually visited it at some point and he gave us the directions. And that was right. Mind you, I’d probably still have my leg if it hadn’t been for getting involved in the jungle.

I don’t count the cost though. I would have put my head on the line to protect the Village and a leg isn’t much. Just the price a veteran has to pay. But if it hadn’t been for Senn, if you hadn’t pointed him out, I daresay that I wouldn’t ever have gone into the jungle at all.”
“I should be going.” I said. “My Dad’s expecting me.”

“Well give him my best regards. It’s been great meeting you, Tommu. To think that, if it hadn’t been for you, there would probably have been no war. That’s what I always tell people. I tell them that if it hadn’t been for Tommu and Manesh, we would never have been able to attack Hama Batu on his home ground. The whole thing would probably just have fizzled out.”
“Now wait a bit.” I interjected. “I can’t see how there wouldn’t have been a war without me.”

“Take my word for it. Hasiki would have won his argument if it hadn’t been for you. I got there just in time to stop him. I walked into the conference the next morning to tell them, and they had just agreed to let him turn loose the prisoners. The whole thing would just have been over.

Even then it was touch and go. Hasiki would have taken away the prisoner and nothing would have come of it. Knowing Hasiki, he would probably have given him some sort of pension or reward. But fortunately, Gardener Lomu was there. He saw right through Hasiki’s tricks. He knew him from way back and he soon put a stop to it.

‘This softly, softly stuff, Hasiki. You can see where it’s got us.’ That’s what he said, or words to that effect. ‘We have the information we need and we are going on the attack.’ And the Captain Major agreed with him. There were no flies on old Paitor. He ordered Hasiki to send out the troops, and for me it was the best thing he could do. I was in the right place at the right time to see some action, and all thanks to you.”
“So what happened after that?” I asked, a bit shocked.

“Well I was put in charge of one of the platoons to go into the jungle. A separate group went out to hunt down the people in the Village that Senn had named but the jungle was the big prize. That was where you could make a name for yourself, and I was in on that from the very start. I went home and packed and we reported in at midday.

We travelled up to the plantation in the Gardeners’ coach. Can you believe that? The Gardener’s own coach. And we were in the jungle first thing the next morning. More than sixty of us, armed to the teeth. It was a tough assignment, I can tell you that. But we were a rough, tough lot taking it on.

I can remember one night, sitting in a ditch. The mosquitoes were biting the shit out of us and I could smell the plants in the ditch next to me. Khaki weed. You know how that stuff stinks and so I took the khaki weed and I crushed it in my hand and rubbed it all over my arms and legs and face. Then the insects left me alone.

So I told all the men to get khaki weed too and to rub it on themselves and we had no more trouble from mosquitoes. That’s what we were like: resourceful. Nothing was going to stop us.
The Shadows didn’t understand that. They thought that when they got a few of us, we would stop. But no matter how many they could pick off with their hit and run tactics, no matter. We were going to keep on coming at them.”
“So did you find their camp?”

“Oh yes. Exactly where we’d been told it was. Miles and miles into the jungle. We’d lost nearly a fifth of the men by the time we got there, and of course it was deserted. Nothing left behind. They had known we were coming. But they kept attacking us and we kept fighting back. A lot of us were wounded by that time, of course, and there was no proper medical treatment, so we had to fight our way back home.

My leg was bandaged and it was hot and swollen but I never thought anything of it. We were the toughest group that you could imagine. We just kept on going.”
“How big was the camp that you found? Had there been a lot of people there?”

“Well they’d left, of course, so who can say for certain. But yes, quite a number. There must have been space there for at least twenty. More than twenty. Say thirty or forty. Or even more. Anyway a lot of them. But we didn’t care. We kept on going, no matter what.”
“And did you capture any of them?”

“Well we killed a number. I would say up to ten. Yes. At least ten. But capturing them would have been damned difficult. They would attack from out of nowhere and of course they used those poison arrows, so even a slight graze was already a serious problem. And then they would fade into the jungle as if they were, well as if they were shadows.

I suppose that is why they gave themselves that name. It was just like chasing shadows. Your hand closes on something and when you open it, nothing there. But we fought our way back to the plantations and we could confirm the location of their camp. And we had brought back a lot of weapons and things.
So we were among the early expeditions to the jungle. We led the way.

In those early days, they were real opposition. They had lived in the jungle and they knew it like the backs of their hands. Those were tough times. But we fought them; every inch of the way. It wasn’t like later when a lot of them, even in the forest, had come from the Village. And later, of course, they had captured rifles or stolen them in the Village. That made a difference.

That was the problem, of course, as fast as we got rid of them, they would get new recruits from the Village and the plantations. If the Guardians in the Village had kept things under control and stopped them from going into the jungle, we would have won the war by now. Finished. But they weren’t firm. If you can’t stand the fire, you shouldn’t be in the kitchen.
Yes. Everything that we won in the jungle was lost in the Village and that’s the sad truth.”

Manesh paused.
“But I can see that you need to get on Tommu. You’ve no time now to listen to me, so you must go. I can see that times have moved on. You need to get back to your father.”