From: avjohn@iiasa.ac.at (Aviott  JOHN)
Subject: island gothic
Organization: IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 13:17:16 GMT

Many thanks for the comments on the Beethoven story
last week.  Emboldened by the positive response,
here's another short story I wrote a year ago.
This one hasn't been published yet, so any of you
editors out there reading this....



Island Gothic
by Aviott JOHN
e-mail address:
avjohn@iiasa.iiasa.ac.at
COMMENTS AND CRITICISM WELCOME!!

ISLAND GOTHIC

The landscape seared the imagination.  In reality it was the light,
but the land reflected the light with such strength that it struck
the eye and seemed to etch itself into the brain like radiation
patterns after an atomic explosion.  This was in the day.  In the
night the moon, if it was out, was a silent witness to life on
Corout, like the eye of a benevolent Cyclop watching over his flock.

On moonless nights the stars came out and filled the sky, winking
and waving at the lonely island.  The Coroutiens believed the stars
were the spirits of their ancestors, the forefathers of the tribe
emerging periodically from eternal night to see how their progeny
were doing.  On such nights, the women took especial care and groomed
themselves well in order to favorably impress their ancestors and
assure them that all was well with the tribe.  They oiled their long,
black uncut hair abundantly with coconut oil.  The oil was perfumed
with the heady scents of jasmine and oleander which seemed to
permeate their skin and emanate from it, so that the women of Corout
lived and moved in a cloud of erotic fragrance.  They bound their
breasts with strips of thick homespun cloth and changed into fresh
skirts of printed cotton.  And then they left the village, looking
for solitude in which to meditate and pray.  It was this prayer, they
believed, which was the salvation of their tribe.

It was a night when the moon beamed down its soft friendly light on
the island of Corout, impartially flecking the ocean and the ghostly
outlines of the white cliffs with silver.  In the gentle light, the
cliffs looked as insubstantial as a bank of mist, soft and cottony in
contrast to their hard whiteness in the day.  At the foot of the
cliffs was a narrow spit of yellow sand with a small rock in the
middle of it.  The water lapped at the foot of the rock, but the
watcher at the top of the white cliff knew the island well.  That was
no rock, he decided.  It could only be Arma.

 'Arma, O Arma,' he cooed in honeyed tones.  The stone did not move,
but he knew it heard his cry and stiffened.  The path leading down to
the tiny beach was a slender thread in the moonlight and he started
down, knowing she could not escape him.  This path was the only way
up the cliff.  He descended rapidly, pausing from time to time to
clutch at a clump of grass and take stock of his descent.  Once he
looked out to sea and saw in the deceptive light what looked like a
boat.  He could not be sure, and he glanced at the beach for a moment
to clear his eyes.  But Arma was no longer there.  He forgot the
boat, real or imagined, and hurried down the path.  There was only
one way she could have escaped him and that was by swimming out to
sea and striking for the beach in front of the village, two
kilometers away as the crow flies.

Once on level ground Arrau sprinted to the water's edge, his strong
legs kicking up soft spurts of sand.  'Arma, Arma, where are you?' he
called to the sea, his voice swollen with ill-repressed passion.

 'Arma?' his voice took on a petulant note of complaint.  'Why do
you run away from me?'  He was answered by silence and the swish of
the sea rising and falling with each wave, a fluid pendulum marking
time in the darkness.  He cocked his ears and listened for the splash
of a swimmer but heard nothing.  Maybe she was simply floating on her
back out there in the warm water, mocking his ardor.  Arrau was
momentarily indignant.  What business did she have laughing at him,
the chief's son?  But the indignation vanished as he recalled Arma's
lovely features.

 'Arma, answer me,' he called once again, and his voice had more
wheedle and less whine to it.  His heart stood still and then thumped
madly when he heard her answering whisper from the water.

 'Arrau!  Here.  Over here!'  The voice was guttural and tense, as
though laboring under a great strain or emotion.  Arrau's heart leapt
and told him this was the voice of a young girl who is suddenly
overwhelmed by a discovery within herself; like a marble poised on a
ledge, she makes the freefall transition from girl to woman and the
passion of maturity.  And undoubtedly the passion was his due; Arrau,
not only the chief's son, but strong, handsome and desirable in his
own right.

 'I'm coming!'  He leapt joyfully into the waves, turning his face
in the direction of her voice.  'Where are you?'
 'Here, over here.'

He struck forward fast and rode with the water, moving lithely
underneath and through the breaking curlers.  In the stiller water a
few yards beyond the line of surf, he could see her face gleam wetly
in the moonlight.  She crabbed through the water, using a sidestroke
to move to him.

 'Help me,' Arma said, and suddenly Arrau saw the shape she hauled. 
It looked like a log of wood, but curiously pliant and Arrau knew it
was a body.  He swam closer and took the man's head from the crook of
her arm.  She released the burden with a sigh of relief and swam
beside him as he kicked powerfully to the shore.  She was beside him
when he reached the sandy, roiling surf and caught the body under the
arms.

 'There is a boat,' she said, gesturing with a backward chin as she
dragged the body ashore and Arrau swam out again into the
phosphorescence.  He swam for a great distance and thought he had
missed the boat in the deceptive light but then saw it a few yards to
his right.  He altered direction and made for the boat.  It was a
nine meter boat, the kind that usually sailed with two people aboard. 
He heaved himself over the side and lay panting on the flat deck for
a second, looking for signs of life.  There were none.

Arrau wetly padded down the companionway, calling a Hola of warning
before he descended the narrow steps to the cabin.  There was a small
galley and beyond that a table with fitted bench seats that doubled
as bunks.  A small door gave onto a claustrophobic space that was
used for stowing gear but could at a pinch double as a bunk for an
extra pair of hands.

An electric lamp fixed on the far bulkhead burned feebly.  The
craft had an inboard diesel and the key was in the ignition.  Arrau
turned the key twice, guessing its function but was answered by empty
clicks that seemed to echo from a lifeless engine.  He went back on
deck and inspected the craft.  There was no sign of damage.  He went
forward to the bow and found the anchor, checked the length of cable
attached to it and then dropped it overboard.  The sea was very calm
tonight and the vessel would be safe, its anchor dragging along the
even sandy bottom in the gentle current that tugged past the island. 
Tomorrow he would find paddles and canvas for a sail and bring it
round to the harbor by the village.

For the first time in her life, Arma was glad of the man's strength
as he carried the inert body along the straggling narrow path up the
white cliff.  The path was safe enough for the average man or woman,
but carrying a burden along it, and in the dark, called for physical
resources that the average man or woman did not possess.

 'I'm glad you came when you did,' she admitted grudgingly.  'I
could never have managed to carry him up this path.'  Arrau was
silent, for although the tribute to his strength pleased him, this
was not what he wanted to hear from her.  The knot in his throat was
the inarticulate wish of a muscular male that she be happy with his
coming for his own sake, not for his strength.  Once at the top of
the cliff, he set his burden down and rested for a minute while she
fussed with the body (he could not think of the man as a living
being) and put a ear to his chest.

 'He breathes.  He is alive,' she said, and there was pride and joy
in Arma's voice.  A successful hunter is proud of his kill, proud of
his physical prowess, and joyfully anticipates the adulation he will
receive from the hungry women and children in the camp.  This was the
pride and satisfaction the men of Corout felt when they strode into
the village with a large dead fish.  Arma's pride was dissimilar but
apposite.  It was the pride of a benefactress compounded by the
simple joy of saving a life.  When she put her ear to the man's chest
and heard the heartbeat, she felt the joy of a hunter when he slings
the carcase of his prey across his back.

All around the village the undergrowth was dense, for the island of
Corout luxuriated in rich volcanic soil at a blessed latitude.  Only
scratch a furrow in the ground, drop seeds in it, and the grain grew
of itself.  There was no further work to do until harvest-time,
except for an occasional listless scrabbling to uproot weeds.  The
women always had work to do: the pounding of rice into flour for
cakes, the boning and skilleting of fish for preserving, the drying
of coconuts for copra and coconut oil; the carding, threading and
dyeing of hemp and husk into the natural fibre from which their
clothes were finally woven by male craftsmen.

For the men there was the sea and the fish in it, waiting to be
woken from the depths, waiting to be called into the patiently
waiting nets.  There were complicated strategies to accomplish this. 
For every action there was a reason and a ritual.  And the ritual was
rooted unshakeably in the reason so that there was no separating the
one from the other.  To ignore ritual therefore was to ignore reason,
and to ignore reason was to imperil the structure of a life that had
evolved slowly through the centuries.  If the men had their rituals
with the fishing and the sea, the women had theirs too.

In reality it was the women who supplied three-fourths of the food
for the tribe.  The men held the glamor jobs, trotting into the
village with the occasional triumphantly shoulder-hoisted dead fish. 
But for the many days and weeks when there was no fish, when there
was a storm and the sea boiled with the rage of unappeased gods, the
food set in front of the restless eyes of the men and children was
that grown, pounded, kneaded and baked by their women.

The women were voluptuous figures, their scanty attire enhancing
the allure of supple sun and wind burned bodies.  To the men, the
natural beauty of the women was simply a fact of everyday life, like
the sun, the sea and the lush landscape.  They paid no heed to the
magnificence of the days in Corout; neither to the craggy majesty of
its mountains and white cliffs, nor to the silky black velvet of its
caressing wind-swept nights.  They were sleek men, dark haired like
their women; well-muscled, with the heavy rounded muscles of pampered
athletes, not the stringy sinews that drape the bodies of manual
laborers who struggle for a living.

Arrau was a prime specimen among these; larger, faster, stronger
and cleverer than the rest.  He was almost a freak; so many of the
qualities considered desirable in a male were to be found
in him.  At the age of twenty, his reputation almost eclipsed that of
his father, who was no undeserving chief himself.  Given all these
qualities, it was not surprising that Arrau lacked in modesty.  This
was a quality that was not considered particularly appropriate to a
young man, and no one thought less of Arrau for his lack of it --
except for Arma.  And in the nature of things, Arma was the only
woman Arrau really wanted.  Where any other woman in the village
would have given herself for the asking, Arrau chose to develop a
passion for the only one who wouldn't.  Arma's disdain for him was so
evident that his passion for her was preordained and inevitable, for
there is nothing like the indifference of a beautiful woman to
inflame the senses of egotistical younth.

All thought was far from the minds of the two young people as they
raced along the narrow path through the thick undergrowth that led to
the village.  The huts were dark and even Arrau's great strength was
beginning to flag when they reached the clearing between the two rows
of thatched dwellings.

 'To my hut,' gasped Arma and was thankful when Arrau did not demur. 
He was almost staggering from fatigue now, because Arma had led the
way at a fast half-trot.  Arrau thankfully lowered his heavy burden
onto the hard-packed dry earthen floor of Arma's hut.

 'What next?' he whispered.  No one stirred in the other huts.  The
village was still.  Arma rushed about, first making a second bed of
fresh straw and then working the inert male body onto it.

 'Go to sleep,' she whispered.  'We shall do nothing till morning. 
I will look after him this night.'

Arrau, accustomed to making decisions and giving commands,
hesitated.

 'I will wake the chief, my father,' said Arrau.

 'No, not now.  In the morning.  Go,' said Arma firmly.  Arrau did
not move.  'You must rest awhile,' she added.  'No one but you could
have carried him so far unaided.'  Arrau's face glowed with pleasure
and he meekly disappeared into the darkness as she commanded.

Arma did not sleep that night.  She tended her patient by the light
of a coconut oil lamp, carefully loosening his clothing and wiping
the dried encrusted salt off his face with a damp cloth.  She placed
the back of her hand often on his brow; and at some hour of the night
the fever inside him began to rage and his brow grew too hot to
touch, like a volcanic rock in the noonday sun.  She removed all his
clothing then, and wiped his body repeatedly with a wet cloth, trying
to draw away the terrible heat from his body.

The fever subsided at dawn and only then did she see his face.  It
was a young-old face.  Etched on it were experiences too terrible to
be spoken about.  Two deep lines ran vertically down each sunken
cheek, from the outer corner of each eye to the corners of his mouth. 
These lines were like open wounds that still shed pain from some
endless store of sorrow.  The nose was long and straight.  A purple
bruise marred the broad expanse of forehead and the hair on his head
was thickly matted to a dark brown mess that felt tough and stringy
like coconut fiber.  She looked down at his body then, and noticed
his nakedness, the strange copper of his skin, the thin ropes of
muscle that lay flaccid across his giant frame, the shrivelled sea
cucumber that was his manhood and the still-open gash on his thigh. 
As she watched, the shrivelled sea cucumber stirred and stretched. 
Arma turned with a start and saw the dark brown eyes looking straight
at her.  The stranger's fever leapt to her face and without knowing
why, she moved out of his line of sight and quickly bound her breasts
with the thick cloth she habitually wore during the day.

It was fully light now and her stooping mother entered,
straightening with hand on her back upon sight of the stranger.

 'Last night,' explained Arma quickly.  'In a boat at sea.  I found
him and Arrau carried him back here for me.'

 'You were with Arrau last night?'  Molona could not hide the
pleasure she felt.  Arrau's passion for Arma was well known and
Molona writhed inwardly every time her daughter spurned the chief's
son.  What more did her daughter want or expect than this demigod
of a man?

 'Yes.  I was at the white cliffs last night and he saw me there.  I
found this man and his boat.  Arrau carried him back.'

 'Did Arrau speak to you?' Molona asked eagerly, momentarily
ignoring the stranger.

 'He has a tongue like everyone else.  Why should he not?' Arma
parried.

Molona was impatient.  'You know what I mean, child.  Do you think
it is a secret?  Do you think no one knows of his passion for you? 
You can be the wife of the next chief if you will only come to your
senses.  A man like Arrau has too much pride to stand your behaviour
for long.'

 'Do you mean you will force me to marry him?'  Arma's voice was
low.  Molona looked sadly at her beautiful daughter.

 'You father is a patient man, my child, and he loves you.  But if
Arrau asks for you, how can he refuse?'

 'How can he consent without my word?'

 'Will you have Arrau be your father's enemy?' Molona countered.

Arma trembled with frustration and rage.  'The seasons come and go
on this beautiful island, but nothing really changes.  Everything is
as it always has been; only the vegetation dies to be born again.'

 'Yes, my child.  Everything will be the same even after you and I
are gone.'

 'No,' said Arma softly to herself.  'No,' and turned to the silent
stranger for moral support.  The look in his dark brown still-fevered
eyes were like spears that entered her body.  Molona knelt by the
stranger and spoke to him, but he shook his head in incomprehension,
hiding his nakedness with the palms of his hands.  Molona covered him
with a thick blanket and left the hut, calling Arma to her.

 'I will make some food for him and then he must be moved to your
father's hut.  He cannot stay with you.'

 'He will stay with me till he is well.'

 'You know what this means.'

 'Yes.  But he is ill and should not be moved.'

 'He did not look too ill to me,' said Molona whose sharp eyes had
not missed the stranger's covetous glance.  'And what will happen
afterwards?  You know nothing about him.  What if he cannot fish?'

 'Then he will eat the manioc and rice that I plant and cook.'

 'Oh, my daughter,' Molona's voice was almost a lament.  'Do not do
this thing.'

Molona and her daughter fed the stranger with cakes made of steamed
and pounded rice flour, and goat's milk sweetened with wild honey
gathered on the mountainside.  He was obviously much better now and
ate with relish, although his eyes still burned with the fever. 
Arrau arrived soon after with his father the chief.

Kafar was a stately man, with much knowledge of the ways of the
world, having travelled in his youth from this island to lands far
beyond.  The island's minstrels even claimed that their chief had
slept with the Sun goddess.  Did he not depart in the direction of her
setting and did he not return after many seasons from the direction
of the dawn?  So great was the heat of the sun's passion for their
chief that she burned fiercely when he was away, scorching the island,
and no rain fell.  She would not let him go until Malo, the God of
the Sea, heard the tribe's prayers and promised her the gift of a
golden fish every day until the end of his days.  As everyone knows,
the days of a God are unnumbered.  The Sun goddess, appeased by the
gift for eternity, had therefore let Kafar go.

When the minstrels sang this ballad, Kafar merely smiled and said
nothing.  And when he spoke of his travels, he never spoke of his
affair with the Sun, but only of wonderful lands far away where
giant iron horses rode vast distances at great speed on twin ribbons
and gigantic boats sailed that were larger than their island. 
He told his people that the ships that flew buzzing in the sky
overhead were really made of metal and were as large as a hundred,
two hundred of their village huts put together.  And the people
believed him because he was their chief.  But they also believed that
he had seduced the Sun.

The chief spoke dignified words of welcome and the stranger raised
his arms, gestured and spoke in strange syllables, pointing always to
the sea and then to his chest.

 'Perhaps he worries about his sailing vessel,' said Arrau.  He
knelt down then and drew a boat in the sand, tapping his own chest
and pointing to the lagoon within the reef.  The stranger looked
pleased, smiled and gesticulated.  Arma stood close to him and he
caught her hand in a gesture of gratitude.  Arrau noticed her flush
with pleasure at the stranger's touch and his eyes narrowed.  He
heavily tapped the stranger's chest, then his own and pointed at the
drawing in the sand.

 'I will bring your boat now,' he said and strode away, followed by
admiring glances from the gathered women and Kafar's gaze of
benevolent pride.
 
  *         *         *         *         *         *

There was a feast in the village to honour and welcome the
stranger.  Many fires burned in the grassy common that lay at one end
of the village, encircled by tall coconut palms.  The five great
burnished copper cauldrons that were the common property of the
village were brought out from their storage space beneath the floor
of the granary.  The granary itself was opened in the presence of the
chief who supervised the removal of two sacks of grain and manioc
flour, three tins of coconut oil both for cooking and for lighting
torches and oil lamps.  The women pounded, kneaded and baked for two
days.  The men disappeared singly, or in groups of twos and threes as
was their custom to hunt or to fish.  On the first day Arrau went out
alone in his dugout, paddling powerfully far beyond the reef.  He
returned long after the sun had passed its zenith, and all the
women of the village stopped their pounding and chopping to watch,
for his canoe canted heavily to one side and Arrau sat almost in the
water.

Arrau leapt into the shallows and lightly tossed the net from his
boat onto the sandy shore.  There was a gasp of admiration from the
surrounding women, for it was as heavy as the net of ten men after a
full day's fishing.  Arrau glowed with silent pride at the admiring
female glances all around him, and then his face fell for Arma was
nowhere to be seen.  He swallowed his pride and spoke softly to the
chief's wife, his mother, who stood close to him swollen with
maternal pride like a young woman with child.

 'Where is Arma?  I have something to show her.'

His mother's face grew dark.  'Arma, my son?  She has been with us
since morning, sharing in women's work.  But always she runs away to
feed the stranger, to see if he is sleeping well, to see if his fever
runs high.'

Arrau turned savagely back to his boat, the triumph of his
forthcoming revelation already turned to bitterness in his mouth;
but he could not delay further
because some of the curious young children stood in the water beside
his boat and had seen the outlines of the gigantic form.  One or two
of them had screamed with terror and run back to the shore, setting
up a buzz and chatter among the women.

 'What is it?' they said to one another.  'What is that thing?  Can
you see it?  In the water, behind his boat.  Look, look!  It shines
like the copper cauldrons that our chief brought back from his
wanderings.  Arrau, Arrau, tell us,' they implored.  'Show us what
hangs behind your boat.'

The taste of victory was already like ashes in Arrau's mouth as he
dragged his great catch onto the shore.  The children chortled with
glee and one or two of the women swooned.  They were amazed, one and
all, for they had never seen anything like it.  They crowded
reverently around as Arrau maneuvered the giant golden body onto the
sand with his gaff.  Hearing the commotion one of the grizzled male
elders hastened from the common hut where he sat mending a fishing
net.

 'Make way.'  He pushed the women and children aside.  'Ah, Arrau,
what have you brought for us?' he asked, looking at the beloved face
of the chief's son.  Arrau did not reply but modestly looked down at
the sand and the old man followed his gaze.

He raised his arms with a gasp and slowly sank to his knees in the
sand, shaking his head and muttering to himself.  The others crowded
round to hear.

 'What does he say?  What is he saying?' they whispered to one
another.

 'The golden fish!  He says he can die happy now that he has seen
the golden fish.  Arrau has brought a great blessing on the tribe.'

 'What is it?  What is this golden fish?  Hush, hush.  Listen to the
old man.  Hear what he says.'

They fell silent and strained to hear what the man said.  He was
singing softly now, on his knees in the sand, a chant that the
minstrels sang in praise of the great men of the tribe, lately to
honour Arrau.

  He speared the giant bluefin, (sang the old man in verse)
  The fighting marlin and the muscular tuna.
  Oh, how great is the skill of Arrau.
  His strength is as the strength of ten
  His speed with the spear rivals the falling kestrel
  His cunning with the line outdoes the swimming shark
  His strokes with the paddle make Malo tremble with envy
  He outshines all but his father the chief
  Even the fish of the sea leap trembling into his arms.'

And when the old man in his quavery voice had finished singing this
paean, many of the younger women (and some of the older ones) grew
faint with desire and even as the fish of the sea, wished to leap
trembling into Arrau's mighty arms.  But they remained silent and
crowded around to look as the old man reverently touched the open
mouth of the dead fish.  It really was a beautiful fish.  It's length
was about the height of two men, the snout was pointed like a
marlin's.  The skin was smooth, free of scales; the sleek shape was
firm to the touch, like a muscular torpedo with a tiny dorsal fin and
exquisitely shaped tail fins.  The women ignored the old man and the
fish and crowded around Arrau.

 'Tell us,' they gushed.  'How and where did you find this wonderful
fish?'

But Arrau's eyes narrowed for Arma was not yet among the women.

 'I will tell you later,' he said.  'Tomorrow night, during or after
the feast.'  For his heart was heavy and he could hardly speak.  'Now
I must go and hunt the wild boar.  We must have much meat to honor
our guest.'  With this excuse he raised his eyes in the direction of
Arma's hut, hoping for a glimpse of her, but the reed curtain did not
part and there was no sound from within.

Arrau went alone in search of a wild boar.  The chief's wife tried
to dissuade him.  'My son, do not go alone.  Wait till one of the
other men returns.  Your father the chief always said at least three
men are needed to hunt the wild boar.'  But Arrau shrugged her pleas
aside and strode into the thickly forested slopes of the mountains in
search of juicy meat for the feast.

Arrau returned late at night.  Many of the cooking fires still
burned and the scents of roasting fish and baking bread filled the
air.  All the men were taking their ease in front of the long, common
hut, drinking slightly fermented palm toddy and resting after the
day's labors.  The copper skinned stranger was among them, drinking
from a large cup.  Arrau's eyes narrowed when he saw that it was the
chief's own cup, soon to be his, Arrau's, that the stranger drank
from.

Arrau flung his burden with more violence than intended at the
stranger's feet.

 'This I have brought to honor you, for the feast that we give to
you tomorrow night,' he said in a loud belligerent voice.  Arrau's
father the chief stole up soft-footed to his son and laid a placating
hand on his shoulder.

 'This is a great gift, my son,' gently soothing, understanding the
reason for the young man's anger and frustration.  'Two magnificent
wild boars, singlehanded.  And everyone in the village has seen the
golden fish you brought; truly a gift from the gods and alone
sufficient for the grandest feast.  You have this day outdone
yourself and will go down forever in the annals of the tribe. 
Already the minstrels are at work, feverishly struggling to compose
songs suitable to acclaim your feat.  However, Calimo confessed to me
just now that not in a hundred seasons can they compose something
that will do justice to your deeds.'

The wise chief spoke thus to the angry youth, and all the
surrounding men nodded in agreement with the chief's words.  The
stranger too paid compliments.

 'I have never before seen such large wild boar.  They look fierce
even in death.  And the golden fish!  I have never before seen the
fish you caught today, but I'm an icthyologist and can identify it as
belonging to the order Squaliformes Antigua, probably a sub-species
within the order to which also belong the sharks.  Not since the
coelacanth was fished out of South African waters in 1938 has there
been a discovery of comparable significance to yours.'  He raised a
hand in despair at the stony mask of Arrau's face, not knowing the
reason for the young man's belligerence.  'But why am I saying this
to you?  Of course you don't understand a word.  If only I knew what
went on behind that savage, handsome face of yours!  But I see that
your father the chief is a wise man.  We understand each other
although we have no words in common.'

And Arrau, not comprehending the stranger's speech and choosing to
overlook the conciliatory, complimentary tone, asked, 'And why is
this stranger honored with the chief's cup?  It is to be mine as
well, and I should have been told.'

 'It was my wish that he drink from the chief's cup,' said Kafar
sternly, and Arrau was silent at his father's angry glance.

 'It is late and I must rest now,' said Arrau sullenly, refusing the
filled cup of toddy that one of the men held out to him.  Kafar
followed his son's departure with troubled eyes and the icthyologist
realized that the generation gap existed here too, in this remote
little island community.

The feast to honor the stranger began the next day at dusk.  The
minstrels gathered with the musicians around them.  The drummers
pounded rhythmically on hollowed logs, giving the time to men who
produced weirdly haunting melodies on single stringed instruments. 
The echo chambers of these instruments were hollowed dried gourds,
and the strings of fish gut.  The gourds were of different shapes and
sizes and the stranger observed that according to size and shape,
some players plucked the strings while others fiddled using bows of
either gut or some other natural fiber.

The icthyologist gave himself up to enjoyment of the feast and the
music.  When the dancers began to chant and sway, he joined them, not
understanding the words, which were the newest compositions in honor
of Arrau.  He ate well and drank often, for Arma constantly
replenished his cup and was always at hand to see that there was
sufficient food on his leaf.  When the chief smiled and clapped his
shoulder after the dancing, the stranger's happiness was complete and
he did not notice the angry, almost hate-filled glances that Arrau
darted at him.

 'Ah, this is perfect,' he thought to himself.  'If there is a
paradise on earth, this is it.  And I stumbled on it thanks to the
storm and the dead diesel engine.  The question now is how to
preserve this paradise and prevent exploitation by the greed of the
civilized.'

He lifted his head and surveyed at the scene.  To his right was the
grassy meadow ringed by tall, graceful coconut palms.  There was much
clapping of hands, laughter and singing in the knot of people
surrounding the minstrels in the center.  The meadow was illuminated
by inumerable torches and cooking fires.  The torches were really
superfluous tonight, he thought, for the moon was out in full
splendor, perfectly rounded and the old man in the moon seemed to
beam down benevolently.

He turned his head left and saw the sea, the gentle curve of sandy
beach and the straight white line of surf at the reef which guarded
the bay.  The sea was still, oily and calm in the moonlight, with
hardly a breath of breeze to stir its surface.  Even as he watched, a
shadow crossed the surface of the moon.  It was as though a giant
celestial mouse were taking large bites out of its greenish yellow
cheese, as more and more of it disappeared.  The stranger had not
seen a lunar eclipse for years and watched interestedly as more and
more of the moon disappeared.  Behind him the singing and revelry had
stopped.  He turned to listen as voices were raised in the common.

 'Look, look!  The moon is being eaten away,' said an old greybeard,
and there was fear in his voice.

 'Listen to me, my children, I have seen this before.  This will
soon pass,' said Kafar soothingly to his people.

 'I too have seen this before,' said the old greybeard.  'It
happened on the night that a young man named Galiwa dropped and broke
a statue of the God Malo.  We had to act swiftly then, to gather the
council of elders.  Galiwa was a brave young man.  He confessed his
mistake at once and offered to atone for it.  Without hesitation he
walked into the sea and was swallowed up.  He was never seen again,
not even his bones.'

 'And what crime do you think has been committed here today?' asked
Kafar tolerantly.  He was certain that he could talk his people out
of this foolishness; certain that all would be well in an hour or two
when the moon came out again.

 'We have to find out,' said the old man.  'Does anyone know a
reason why a god could be angry with us?'  There was dead silence.

 'Does anyone know?' he repeated.  'Are we all innocent?  Or is
there a coward among us who does not dare confess?'  The silence
persisted and the panic in the old man's voice was audible.  'If you
remain silent now, we will lose the moon forever.'

 'Perhaps... perhaps...' said a low, hesitant female voice, 'the Sun
Goddess is angry.'

 'Who was that?  Who spoke?'  The old man jumped and peered
anxiously into the torch-lit darkness.

 'It was I who spoke,' said Arma stepping into the circle of
torchlight.

 'What an extra-ordinarily beautiful girl,' thought the stranger who
did not understand what was going on and wondered why the feasting
had suddenly stopped.  Surely they were not afraid of the eclipse! 
If only he could explain to them that it would not last more than a
few minutes.

Arrau's love-filled heart sank when Arma stepped into the
firelight.  Surely Arma, beautiful Arma had not done anything wrong. 
He threw a beseeching glance at Kafar.  The chief watched the
proceedings in grave silence.  Even the chief could not interfere
with the council of elders or revoke their decisions.  At best he
could try and dissuade them from a certain course of action.  By now
all the elders had slowly filtered to the forefront of the gathering.

 'Speak, child.  Do not be afraid to tell us what you have done,'
said the chief elder in a kindly voice.  Behind him, Molona began to
wail loudly.

 'You misunderstand.  I did nothing.  I only thought perhaps the
goddess of the sun is angry with us.'

 'Why, child?'

 'Malo promised her a golden fish from the sea every day if she
would release our chief.  Perhaps the golden fish that Arrau caught
yesterday was actually on its way from Malo to the Sun when he caught
it.'

 'But that was yesterday,' cried Kafar in a terrible voice, filled
with loud anguish.  'Arrau caught the fish yesterday.  And the moon
disappears today.  Listen to me, O my people,' he pleaded, in
desperate urgency to avert what he knew was coming.  'Arrau caught
the golden fish yesterday.  And the moon appeared today till a few
minutes ago.  The golden fish cannot be the reason for its
disappearance.'

 'Very true.  I did not think of that,' said Arma in a relieved
voice, for although she did not love Arrau, she did not wish him
harm.

But the elders still huddled together and conferred in low tones.

 'Kafar,' said the chief elder sorrowfully in the heavy silence, 'we
know how you love your son.  Indeed, he is the pride of all our
people.  But,' he indicated the circle of faces illuminated in the
flickering torchlight, 'what is one life compared to the lives of
many?  What is one life, even that of a fine man like Arrau, compared
to the existence of our tribe?  Arrau must die to save our people.'

 'But why?  Why?  You know that the fish was caught yesterday.  Why
did not the moon disappear last night?  Why did it wait until
tonight?'

 'Because tonight is the night of the full moon,' said the chief
elder with irrefutable logic.

 'No, no.  I will not allow it.'

 'Even if you are the chief, you cannot stop it.'  All the elders
murmured in sympathy.  Arrau stepped forward and looked at his father
in the firelight.

 'I know and am glad my father loves me well.  But I am not afraid
to die.  I have only one last wish of my father and I pray that he
will grant it.'

 'What is it my son?' said Kafar in a voice that was suddenly old
and trembling.  'Ask what you want and I will give it to you.'

 'I did not wish to die in my hut of old age,' said Arrau with a
thin smile.  'I always wished to die in the heat of the hunt, to feel
the tusk of a wild boar tear into my flesh even as I speared it to
death to feed our people.  Your prowess with the spear, my father, is
second to none.  I wish to die by your hand.'

The stranger heard with alarm the great sob of agony with which
Kafar flung himself to the ground, saw uncomprehending the chief
being gently raised to his feet by his handsome son, saw Arrau hand
over a tall spear after fingering the edge of the blade to make sure
it was sharp enough to kill.  Arrau walked to the edge of the
clearing, stood with his back to one of the coconut palms and waited
for Kafar.

Kafar felt weak, ill and old as he faced his beloved son.  He
hefted the spear and took a few paces forward, oblivious to all
around him, seeing only the tall, erect figure before him.  The
stranger moved closer to observe, thinking this was part of the
feast, a rite of manhood, perhaps, or a test of courage.  Maybe it
was religious as well, because everyone suddenly looked so pious and
grave.  He saw the chief raise his spear and only at the last moment
understood the terrible nature of what was about to happen.

 'No,' he screamed and flung himself forward at the very instant
that Kafar launched his spear.

There was dead silence for an eternity.  In his heart Kafar felt
sorrow mingled with joy, for in the reddish glow of the torchlight he
could see the tall form of his son leaning motionless against the
coconut palm, with the stranger lying crumpled at his feet.

It was Arma who moved first.  She screamed the gut-wrenching
sorrow of bereavement, throwing herself upon the inert form of
the stranger.  The elders watched her in pitying silence then raised
their heads to the heavens to see if the Sun Goddess was appeased and
would return the moon.  Even as they watched, a sliver of light
appeared in the dark sky.  A hushed murmur went through the throng as
the sliver rapidly expanded.  First there was a quarter moon, then a
few clouds scudded high across the sky and when they moved away,
there was already a half moon that cast her silvery light on the
grove.  Kafar lowered his head to look thankfully at his son and then
gave a great cry that startled the tribe anew.  This time the chief's
wife joined in his cry of grief.

 'My son, my son.  What have I done?'

For Arrau was dead, pinned erect to the tree by the unforgiving
spear that had savaged his chest and entered deep into the trunk of
the graceful palm.

At the same instant, in counterpoint to the parents' grief, there
was a scream from Arma who lifted her head and surveyed the elders in
wonderment.

 'He lives.  He lives,' she cried.  'The stranger lives.  He is not
dead.  Help me.  Help me carry him into the hut.'

Many hands reached out to help Arma carry the limp body to her hut. 
They were all shaken by what had occurred, but the moon was back, so
they were relieved.  They had made a difficult decision and their
decision had been the right one.  This knowledge made them curiously
lighthearted, a lightheartedness they suppressed in the face of
Kafar's sorrow.

 'The fever is upon him again,' said one of the elders, touching the
stranger's brow.  'That is why he fainted at the sudden exertion.'

 'And I thought he was dead,' said Arma with a half sob of thankful
relief.  The Gods had given her this man tonight.  She would make
sure they would not take him away again.

Arma nursed the stranger with complete devotion for five nights and
four days.  The fever broke on the fifth night and the next morning
he awoke clear eyed and hungry.  He reached out and touched her as
she lay beside him deep in exhausted sleep.  But such was her concern
that she awoke instantly at his touch.  He smiled at her sleepy face
and she smiled back at the knowledge that he was well and would soon
be on his feet.  He tried to rise, but she gently pressed him back
onto the pallet of straw.  She brought a cup of warm goat's milk, a
little piece of cold meat and several small rice cakes and watched
him eat.  Afterwards he lay down again and she huddled her body
against his to warm him and they slept like the dead until dusk. 
When she awoke, he was up and wearing his own clothes that she had
washed and folded.

He patted her cheek when she opened her eyes, rubbed his belly in a
gesture of content and pointed to a full clay dish of food that stood
next to her bed, probably prepared and brought there by Molona.  She
ate a few handfuls of the food, took a drink of water from the
earthen pot that stood in the corner and lay down again, watching the
man in the falling light.  He was looking much better now.  He was
obviously a strong and healthy man.

He felt her eyes on him and turned.

 'Thank you for looking after me.'

Arma shook her head in incomprehension, then tapped her chest.

 'Arma,' she said.  'Arma.'

 'I know,' he nodded.  'You're Arma.  And I'm Vargis.'

 'Fargis?' she said and giggled, for farugis was the name of a foul-
smelling beetle that infested the mountains on their island.

 'No, not Fargis, Vargis.'  He caught her hand and placed it on his
chest.  'Me Vargis.'  He released her hand, but she let it remain on
his chest.

 'Me Vargis, Me Vargis,' she repeated in the rapidly falling light.

Vargis recuperated quickly under Arma's nursing care.  In the days
that followed he began to walk about, sitting in the long hut with
the old men and helping them mend nets, learning a few words of the
island language.  On other days he worked on his boat, repairing the
broken mast and mending the sails.  The diesel motor could not be
fixed without spares, but he was a good sailor and knew that with the
right winds and some luck he could find his way back home in two or
three weeks.  Arma came to fetch him every evening and they spent the
nights together.  She gave herself to him with fierce abandon,
willing his seed into her womb.

 'Me Vargis, I want your child, many children.  I will never let you
go,' she whispered to him.

 'O my beautiful savage!  If only I knew what you said in your
passion,' exclaimed Vargis, stroking her thick hair after the ritual
of love.  'You want me to stay here, learn your language and make
love to you till the end of my days, but how can I tell you?  I have
a wife, two children and a basset hound who probably think I'm dead. 
I have to go back to them.'  He lifted her face with a finger under
her chin.  'Do you know what a basset hound is?'

 'How?' said Arma.  'Bisset how?'

 'Not quite.  I think in your language the word is "piko."  Piko. 
Bow-wow.'

Arma thought he wished to play a love-game and bit his shoulder
with a playful growl like a tiny piko.

 'Ouch, no.  That's not what I meant.'  He turned her face to him in
the darkness.  'Look at me my child.  I have to leave you soon.  Do
you know what that means?  Good-bye, Adios, Aloha, Sayonara; what
does one say in your language and how does one say it to a beautiful
half-savage child-woman?  I leave tomorrow.'

And Arma laughed softly in the darkness, not understanding the
words, hearing only the soft tenderness in his voice.  She knew that
something special had happened on this night.  The stranger's seed
had entered her womb and now he was a part of her forever.
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