The malaga, which was made up of the young pastor and his parents and a group of matai, arrived late on Tuesday morning. Lefatu, Ruta and matai of their Aiga Sa-Tuifolau arrived soon after. As was the practice, Sao and the Satoa matai and aumaga gathered and welcomed them with an ava ceremony.

  Ruta, whom they hadn’t seen for over three years, joined Peleiupu and Naomi and they helped prepare the meal for their visitors. The women teased Peleiupu as they worked.

  ‘The young pastor is very handsome!’

  ‘Yes, like his palagi missionary teacher with the shiny head!’

  ‘No, he needs more hair oil.’

  ‘Any girl from the back would be proud to be his second house …’

  ‘I wonder if he can speak English?’ Ruta asked.

  ‘They say English is the best language for romance…’ Naomi taunted her.

  ‘And love!’ another joined in.

  ‘He looks as if he’s fluent in the romance language of the albinos!’ Ruta said.

  ‘To me, he looks more fluent in German, the language of war! So you’d better watch out, Pele!’ an old matron said. By now laughter was bubbling up all around.

  ‘I’m pretty good at defending myself!’ Peleiupu finally joined in.

  ‘Do you use the German method or the American or the British?’ the matron asked.

  Peleiupu pondered and replied, ‘What’s the British method of defence?’

  ‘Oh, you just talk your way out of war!’

  ‘That’s not an effective way,’ someone else interjected. ‘The best is the Satoan way.’

  ‘And what is that?’ Ruta asked.

  Chortling wildly the someone said, ‘The kick. The backward kick between the posts, or pulling off the attacker’s ie lavalava …’ The whole group broke into laughter.

  Afterwards, as they prepared to serve the food to their visitors and elders, Peleiupu was painfully aware that everyone was observing her and her future husband, who was sitting beside his father at the far side of the faletele, and to whom she felt no connection. Like her, he remained silent while the elders talked of everything else but their marriage. She started shaking when she was handed the foodmat for her future in-laws, shook some more as she took the mat and placed it in front of them, shook almost out of control as she took another foodmat to the young pastor, and almost crumpled to her knees when Sao declared, just as she placed the mat on the floor: ‘Pele, it is good that you and your intended have now met.’ The other Satoa matai echoed his congratulations. ‘He is quite good-looking, eh?’ Sao added. She burned with embarrassment as the elders, Lefatu being the loudest, laughed. She scurried back to her place in the safety of her sisters.

  There were no other references to the matter during the rest of the meal, after which the Satoans dispersed to their homes, and the malaga and their Fagaloto relatives bathed in the pool and then slept at the front and far side of the faletele.

  Instructed by Lalaga, Peleiupu organised a group of men to make the umu for their evening meal, and then hurried to join her sisters in the fale by the beach.

  Peleiupu asked Naomi, ‘Is he back from Apia?’

  ‘No. Semisi told me Tavita stayed in Apia after he heard about your marriage,’ Naomi replied.

  ‘Naomi has told me about Tavita,’ Ruta said.

  Ignoring her, Peleiupu said, ‘Semisi always exaggerates. He lies, also.’ Naomi remained silent. ‘Tavita has no deep feelings for me.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Ruta asked. ‘Have you talked with him about it?’

  ‘You know that is not done!’ Peleiupu insisted.

  ‘Semisi and his brothers and sisters say he is — he is keen on you,’ Naomi said.

  ‘They’re so afakasi in their forwardness, their lack of shame and reserve about their thoughts and feelings!’ Peleiupu protested. ‘Just like their palagi side, they believe in following their heart’s dictates, not their parents’ and aiga’s wishes.’

  ‘So you do have feelings for him?’ Ruta pursued.

  ‘I didn’t say that!’

  ‘Times have changed, Pele. Women can now choose,’ Naomi said.

  ‘I am meant to be a pastor’s wife. It is God’s decision,’ said Peleiupu.

  ‘And your parents’ and aiga’s, and especially our mother’s wish,’ Ruta added.

  ‘It is also my wish,’ Peleiupu heard herself saying. ‘There: it is my wish!’

  Naomi gazed into her face and Peleiupu had to look away. ‘You’re lying, Pele,’ Naomi accused. Ruta nodded. Peleiupu turned her back on them.

  ‘You feel trapped, don’t you, Pele?’ Ruta said, putting her comforting hand on Peleiupu’s shoulder. Peleiupu bowed her head. ‘You don’t really know what to do, eh?’ Peleiupu did not reply.

  ‘You should talk to Lefatu,’ Naomi suggested. ‘She has always made her own choices.’

  ‘Lefatu will understand and sympathise with you, Pele, but she will not encourage you to follow your true feelings,’ Ruta said. ‘She too will not go against our aiga’s decision. She can’t.’ Ruta hesitated and, while caressing her sister’s shoulder, added, ‘And I don’t know if she’ll want our aiga’s genealogy to include papalagi.’

  ‘That is — that’s not fair!’ Peleiupu protested. ‘Tavita is not papalagi!’ Ruta and Naomi kept looking at her. ‘What is wrong with having papalagi blood in our aiga, anyway?’

  ‘Nothing as far as I’m concerned,’ replied Naomi. She and Peleiupu glared at Ruta, who shrugged her shoulders, but Naomi wasn’t going to let her escape. ‘Yes, Ruta, what is wrong with having palagi blood?’

  ‘I live in a world so different from yours,’ Ruta explained. ‘It is still Samoan. Yours is changing into a palagi world. We are also the Aiga Sa-Tuifolau. That is very, very important …’

  ‘It may be important to you,’ Naomi interrupted, ‘but it has little meaning for us.’

  ‘Listen to Ruta, Naomi,’ Peleiupu advised.

  ‘Naomi, if you don’t understand why the Aiga Sa-Tuifolau is important, then you’re already in that other world the papalagi and his atua will dominate and change …’

  ‘The Tuifolau world is already past, or passing,’ Naomi insisted.

  ‘It is not, my clever sister!’ Ruta challenged. ‘Lefatu and I are still here!’

  ‘But everything and everyone else is leaving you behind,’ Naomi argued.

  ‘Are they?’ Ruta asked. ‘Perhaps spiritually we are already where you and your palagi world want to be eventually. Or put in Lefatu’s words: “We have always been here, we will always be here.” And what does “being left behind” mean, my clever sister?’ Her voice shook with suppressed anger. ‘Don’t you know that the future is already past and guiding us?’

  ‘Now you are too clever for me,’ Naomi attacked.

  ‘Pele, you tell this — this sister of ours what I mean,’ Ruta said.

  ‘I am not stupid!’ Naomi snapped.

  ‘But you are arrogant: you look down on our aiga and our being Samoan …’

  ‘I do not!’ Naomi insisted.

  ‘That’s enough, both of you!’ Peleiupu ordered. ‘We haven’t been together for over three years, and you’re arguing again.’ Playfully she slapped her sisters on their shoulders and started laughing. The others joined her. ‘It is good to be together again, eh, even though you still argue?’ They continued laughing. ‘How we got into this heavy discussion, when you two were only offering me free advice about my heart, I’ll never know!’ said Peleiupu. ‘And what’s wrong with being totolua, eh? After all, the Aiga Sa-Tuifolau is already of two bloods: that of the thieving bird and that of the philandering atua. Adding papalagi blood to it may calm it down!’ Tears filled their eyes as they laughed.

  As they joked and laughed they moved closer and closer until their foreheads were pressing together and they breathed in one another’s laughter. And Peleiupu decided to heed Ruta’s advice and not consult Lefatu.

  The next day after their morning meal, during which Lefatu insisted that Peleiupu share her foodmat, everyone else apart from Peleiupu left the main fale to the elders of both aiga.

  The leading tulafale of the Aiga Sa-Tutete’e made the formal proposal of marriage and Tuifolau accepted it. Then they discussed the wedding arrangements. During it all, Peleiupu kept gazing at the floor, cauled in an inexplicable but comforting serenity, with Lefatu holding her hand and whispering, ‘Be brave, be brave.’ It all seemed unreal; it had nothing to do with her — her thoughts were on Tavita.

  It was mid-afternoon. Naomi and Ruta stayed on the store veranda while Peleiupu went inside. For a moment she thought there was no one there but her eyes quickly grew accustomed to the gloom. ‘My brother, his mind is valea on you,’ Semisi’s voice bubbled out of the corner of the room. He yawned as he flopped into the seat behind the counter. ‘He’s gone to Apia to try and forget.’

  ‘That is not true,’ Peleiupu said defensively.

  ‘I told him he was stupid going valea over you, because you can’t marry him even if you wanted to! You have to marry the young pastor.’

  Peleiupu sat down opposite him. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she admitted.

  ‘No, there is no choice,’ Poto’s voice intruded. She was standing at the back door. ‘James, you go and get us something to drink.’ Semisi grunted in protest but shuffled off. Poto took his seat and couldn’t look at Peleiupu. ‘I’ve never been very observant, Pele. I didn’t see it happening.’

  ‘I need your advice, Poto.’

  ‘Semisi is usually silly when it comes to people, but what he said to you just as I entered is true, Pele.’

  ‘But we can exercise individual choice.’

  ‘What choice, Pele? If you were an ordinary girl, daughter of a minor matai or untitled person and not a pastor’s daughter who graduated from Vaiuta, you would have some choice: you could simply defy your aiga’s and village’s wishes by eloping with the choice of your heart. Your parents and aiga would proclaim their shame and pain loudly and publicly but they wouldn’t be shattered by it. In your case, Pele, such defiance could kill your parents, if not physically and emotionally then in reputation and standing. As pastor your father represents tradition, order, public morality and God. His children are expected, by society, to live up to those very demanding standards of morality. Of course what I’ve said you know already, Pele.’

  ‘So you believe in duty and doing what is right and proper?’

  ‘No. I defied my parents. As you know, my father, being our ali’i, represents right and proper behaviour. My aiga arranged for me to marry the son of the Ali’i of Safune. But my heart demanded that I elope with the youth I was in love with. A month before my marriage we eloped to his mother’s village. The public disgrace was terrible for my father and aiga. We were too afraid to return to Satoa.’ She paused. ‘But he wasn’t good to me, Pele. Neither were his relatives. They treated me like a slave. My father did not free me from it — I was getting what I deserved. As it was, my husband ran off with another woman four years later. I returned childless and poor to the silent wrath of my aiga who, in their treatment of me, ranked me last of all my sisters and brothers, even though I am the eldest.’ She pondered sadly for a while. ‘To escape from that, I eloped with a man who was part of a government malaga. To his village, Safata. It was a good and kind aiga but he fell ill and died a year later.’ She bowed her head. ‘When I returned to Satoa my mother and other elders forgave me. My father just said, “God has punished you.” When Barker decided to remain in Satoa and build a store, Sao married me off to him so our aiga could acquire the palagi’s wealth.’

  She stopped and wiped her eyes with the corner of her blouse. ‘You see, Pele, the defiant choice exacts a terrible price. They were marrying me to Barker, a strange foreign creature everyone looked down on, because I was now the lowest of the low, though Barker believed he was getting the ali’i’s eldest and most valued daughter!’ She started chortling. ‘Mine was an arranged marriage that I didn’t want. But I grew to respect and love that strange, haunted palagi. Who knows, like me, you may come to love your chosen husband. Don’t worry too much about Tavita: he’s young, he’ll learn from the pain and suffering and be a better husband for another woman …’

  When Peleiupu emerged from the store she stood between her sisters at the railing and let the strong sea breeze ripple through her clothes, hair and pores until her whole being was taut and humming with anticipation.

  ‘Did you and Poto have a good talk?’ Ruta asked.

  ‘Yes. I now know what I have to do,’ Peleiupu said. She started walking down the front steps before her sisters could question her further.

  For two weeks the aumaga cut and dried a substantial amount of copra, sold it to Poto, and Sao presented the money to Mautu to help with Peleiupu’s wedding. Sao also organised two fautasi and crews to take Mautu and his family to Apia to shop for the wedding.

  As usual, they stayed at the pastor Leupega’s house where, tired from their long trip, they showered and slept the morning away. Lalaga dragged them up in the early afternoon, instructed Mautu and the men about what to buy for the wedding, and then rushed her daughters to a dressmaker recommended by the pastor’s wife. Ruta and Naomi were measured for their bridesmaids’ outfits and Peleiupu for her wedding dress.

  Ruta and Naomi had not been to Apia for almost four years so they were keen to explore the shops, with Peleiupu as their outwardly enthusiastic guide. But Lalaga kept telling them, ‘We didn’t come all this way to enjoy ourselves. We have limited time, limited money, limited energy!’ For the rest of their stay Naomi and Ruta would parody their mother behind her back.

  At lunchtime, on their second day of heavy humidity and dust, they found themselves in front of the market. Emphatically, Peleiupu told Lalaga, ‘We are stopping here for something to eat and drink.’ She put her hand out to her mother.

  Lalaga hesitated, then fished in her bag and handed her five shillings. ‘Are you sure you’ll be safe here?’ Lalaga asked. Because of the oppressive noonday heat, most people were sitting under the verandas, having lunch. The only noise came from the direction of the saloon at the far end of the market complex.

  ‘Of course we’ll be safe,’ Peleiupu replied. ‘You’ve always advised us to trust Germans and English people and other palagi!’

  Lalaga had no answer for that. ‘I have to hurry ahead and see if your father has bought the right things,’ she said.

  ‘That’s right, Lalaga,’ Ruta encouraged her.

  ‘You know what he’s like — he’s probably spent money on the wrong things,’ Naomi echoed.

  Before Lalaga could change her mind, Peleiupu took her sisters’ arms and pushed them towards the nearest food stall.

  ‘Are you sure they’ll accept us here?’ Ruta whispered. Most of the stall owners and customers were papalagi. Those serving were mainly Samoan.

  ‘This is our country!’ Peleiupu declared.

  ‘This is also the Eleele Sa, the zone ruled by papalagi,’ Naomi reminded her.

  ‘That doesn’t mean Samoans can’t shop here.’ Peleiupu tried to be brave. ‘We used to come here from Vaiuta,’ she lied.

  They took a vacant table under the shade of a spacious veranda. ‘There, you two look just like rich palagi!’ Ruta said.

  ‘What would you like?’ Peleiupu asked. After they told her, she wove her way through the other tables, all occupied by papalagi. Though feeling painfully self-conscious, she pretended she was used to being there.

  At the counter she waited for the middle-aged papalagi woman with greying hair to serve her. The woman glanced up and continued what she was doing. A bushy-bearded man came and stood beside Peleiupu. The woman smiled at the man and asked, ‘What can I do for you, sir?’

  No, she was not going to retreat, Peleiupu determined. The woman took the man’s order and turned and gave the order in broken Samoan to her Samoan assistants.

  ‘Am I invisible?’ Peleiupu asked. The woman paused; then her head swivelled around and her eyes focused on Peleiupu for the first time. ‘Am I invisible?’ Peleiupu repeated in immaculate English. The woman’s lips started trembling. ‘I want three orange drinks and three of those cakes,’ Peleiupu ordered. She put her money on the counter. ‘How much is my order?’

  The woman hesitated, looked away, and replied, ‘Ten pence.’ Her assistants started filling the order.

  ‘Please bring my order and change to our table.’ Her back burned as she strode back, knowing the woman was watching her.

  They ate in silence: Ruta and Naomi were too preoccupied with observing the other customers. Peleiupu ate quickly, then pushed back her chair and said, ‘I’ll be back shortly; I’ve got to find a toilet.’ Her sisters looked distressed so she said, ‘Don’t worry. Just act like the aristocratic daughters of Tuifolau that you are. Any palagi savage who tries to mistreat you, tell them in your perfect arrogant English to go back to wherever they escaped from!’

  Once out of sight of her sisters, Peleiupu edged towards the saloon that Semisi had told her was one of Tavita’s favourite places.

  A thin man in a dirt-stained singlet and ie lavalava was sweeping the front veranda. He glanced up at her and said, ‘Women are not allowed in there.’ His top front teeth were missing. ‘Not women like you, anyway.’

  ‘I need to get a message to someone who’s in there,’ she said.

  ‘A palagi?’

  Peleiupu pondered quickly. ‘Yes, his name is Mr David Barker.’ The name sounded so unfamiliar when she said it; it had very little to do with the Tavita she knew. ‘Yes, Mr David Barker.’

  The man thought for a moment, then his eyes lit up. ‘From Satoa in Savai’i?’ Peleiupu nodded. ‘You mean Tavita?’ Peleiupu nodded some more. ‘He’s my friend. He brings me food when he comes from Savai’i, and gives me money when he leaves.’

  ‘Is he here?’

  ‘He’s been staying there for nearly a month.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Drinking heavily most of the time. And committing other sins. He’s not causing trouble though. The others leave him alone — they’re afraid of him ’cause they know he’s not afraid of anyone. He’s the first Samoan to be allowed open entry to this saloon. Must be because he spends lots of his money here.’