Nation

He surfaced again after a big wave passed over him, and now the paddler was trying to fend the canoe off the ragged edges of the gap. He was an old man. But he wasn’t alone. Mau heard a baby crying somewhere in the bottom of the canoe.

Another big surge made the canoe spin, and Mau grabbed at it. It rammed his back against the coral before turning away once more, but he was ready for it when it swung around for a second try at crushing him, and he heaved himself up and into the canoe a moment before it crunched into the reef again.

There was someone else lying under a blanket in the rocking canoe. He paid them no attention but grabbed a paddle and dug it into the water. The old man had some sense, at least, and kept the canoe off the rocks while Mau tried to move it toward the beach. Panic wouldn’t help here; you just had to pull it out of the churning mass of water a few inches at a time, with long patient strokes that got easier as you drove it free, until suddenly it was in calmer water and moving quickly. He relaxed a little then, but not too much, because he wasn’t sure he’d have the strength left to move it again if it stopped.

He leaped out as the canoe was about to hit the beach, and managed to pull it a little farther up onto the sand.

The man almost tumbled out — and tried to lift the other person out from under the blanket. A woman. The old man was a bag of bones, and with far more bones than bag. Mau helped him carry the woman and the baby close to the fire, and laid them on the blanket. At first he thought the woman was dead, but there was a flicker of life around her lips.

“She needs water, ” croaked the old man, “and the child needs milk! Where are your women? They will know! ”

Daphne came running up, parasol bobbing. “Oh, the poor things! ” she said.

Mau took the baby from the woman, who made a weak and pitiful attempt to hang on to it, and handed it to the girl.

He heard “Oh, isn’t he lovely — ur, yuck! ” behind him as he hurried to the river and came back with a couple of brimming coconut shells of water that still had the taste of ashes.

“Where are the other women? ” asked the old man as Daphne held the dripping baby at arm’s length and looked around desperately for somewhere to put it.

“There’s just this one, ” said Mau.

“But she’s a trouserman woman! They are not proper human beings! ” said the old man.

This was news to Mau. “There’s only the two of us here, ” he said.

The old man looked crestfallen. “But this is the Nation! ” he wailed. “An island of stone, beloved of the gods! I trained as a priest here. All the time I paddled I was thinking, the Nation will have survived! And there’s just a boy and a cursed girl from the unbaked people? ”

“Unbaked? ”

“Have you been taught nothing? Imo made them first, when He was learning, but He did not leave them long enough in the sun. And you will learn that they are so proud, they cover themselves in the sun. They really are very stupid, too. ”

They have more colors than we do, Mau thought, but he didn’t say so.

“My name is Mau, ” he said, because at least that wouldn’t start an argument.

“And I must speak to your chief. Run, boy. Tell him my name. He may have heard of Ataba the priest. ” There was a sad but hopeful sound to that last sentence, as if the old man thought this was not very likely.

“There is no chief, not since the wave. It brought the trouserman girl here, and everyone else it… took away. I did tell you, sir. ”

“But this is such a big island! ”

“I don’t think the wave cared. ”

The baby started to cry. Daphne tried to cuddle it without getting too close, and made embarrassed shushing noises.

“Then an older man — ” Ataba began.

“There isn’t anyone, ” said Mau patiently. “There’s just me and the trouserman girl. ” He wondered how many times he would have to say this before the old man managed to find the right-shaped space for it in his bald head.

“Only you? ” said Ataba, looking bewildered.

“Believe me, sir, sometimes I don’t believe it either, ” Mau said. “I think I’ll wake up and it will all be a dream. ”

“You had the wonderful white god anchors, ” said the old man. “I was brought here to see them when I was a small boy, and that was when I decided I wanted to be a — ”

“I think I’d better give this little boy back to his mummy, ” said Daphne quickly. Mau didn’t understand the words, but the tone of determination translated itself very well. The baby was screaming.

“His mother cannot feed him, ” said Ataba to Mau. “I found her on a big raft with the child, only yesterday. There was food on it, but she wouldn’t eat and the child takes no nourishment from her. It will die soon. ”

Mau looked at the little bawling face, and thought: No. Does not happen.

He caught the ghost girl’s eye, pointed to the baby, and made eating motions with his mouth.

“You eat babies? ” said Daphne, stepping back. Mau picked up the tone of horror, and it took a lot of creative miming to get her to understand that the one who was going to be fed was the baby.

“What? ” said Daphne. “Feed it? What with? ”

Oh, well, Mau thought, the baby is screaming and I’m in trouble whatever happens. But… does not happen. He waved vaguely at her flat chest, under its slightly grubby white frills.

Daphne went bright pink. “What? No! How dare you! You have to… ” She hesitated. She wasn’t really sure about this, since everything she knew on the subject of the lumps at the front was based on an overheard, giggly conversation between the housemaids that she had found unbelievable, and a strange lecture from one of her aunts, in which the phrase “when you’re old enough” had turned up a lot and the rest of it sounded unlikely.

“You have to be married, ” she said firmly. It didn’t matter that he didn’t understand, she felt better for saying it.