Shortly after, when Freemeade resumed talking about what he’d observed in the other villages, Mautu said, politely but firmly, ‘You must be very tired from all your research — go and have a rest and join us later for lotu and food.’

  That evening Freemeade appeared for lotu, without his beard. ‘Marx is gone, my friend?’ Mautu remarked.

  Freemeade smiled. ‘Yes, he didn’t last long.’

  While they ate, with Freemeade in his usual forceful manner describing his recent findings in great detail, Mautu noticed that Lalaga and most of their household, though trying to look engrossed in what Freemeade was saying, had lost interest. Lalaga ate quickly and then disappeared behind the curtains, supposedly to prepare her lessons.

  A few nights later, as they lay in their net being lullabied to sleep by the soft rhythmic thudding of rain on the thatching, with Mautu snug against her back, Lalaga asked, ‘Have you noticed that your professor doesn’t stay long after our evening meals?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Mautu asked.

  ‘I’ve heard stories from other villages.’

  ‘What stories?’ Mautu was sitting up, dreading the panic that was firing his belly. ‘What stories? Months ago, Sao told me about Freemeade questioning our children in an inappropriate way, and I warned him about it. Is that it?’ He could feel it: his panic re-igniting the ‘worry diarrhoea’ he’d started to suffer as soon as the professor had returned from his latest research trip.

  ‘About his being with other men.’

  ‘Why, why did you have to tell me that?’ he demanded.

  ‘Because you’re responsible for him. And at least it’s not our village saying that …’

  ‘But why tell me? You know my stomach’s been playing up!’

  ‘You brought him here and got Satoa to be the “object of his research”.’

  He was hurt by her lack of sympathy; the familiar jabs and twitches in his stomach worsened. ‘Why did I ever agree to let him come here?’

  ‘Because he healed me …’

  ‘And we had to reciprocate …’

  ‘You didn’t have to. Samoa and the fa’a-Samoa were already reciprocating by letting him do his research. He claims he’s doing it for our benefit, putting us on the scientific map of the world, and adding to the world’s pool of knowledge …’

  ‘We personally owe him a debt — your health, Lalaga …’

  ‘He invited himself here — you couldn’t refuse him. And how were we to know that he is … is …’

  ‘An arrogant collector of cultures? He may know and understand much about us but, unlike our friend Barker, he’d never dream of living permanently with us.’ Mautu clung on to Lalaga, wanting to melt totally into her and not have to get up in the morning and deal with Professor Fiapoto and the vengeful return of his worry diarrhoea.

  The rain was gone; everything outside dripped and glistened. Dawn could barely penetrate the dark clouds that clogged the sky. A lone rooster crowed from the other end of the village. Surprised by his pulsing hardness, Mautu debated against Lalaga’s warm body, decided against it, and slid out of the net.

  It snagged for an incredible instant in the corners of his eyes, and he shut his eyes firmly against it. But it pierced right through the centre of his sight down into his fears: Semisi sneaking out of the side of Freemeade’s fale into the stand of bananas. No, couldn’t be! He then cursed the Devil for putting it there. He looked again, and gasped audibly, his stomach now a twisting bundle of pain. Another youth — one of Semisi’s friends — was raising a row of blinds and creeping out.

  Mautu staggered up and, clutching his belly, tried not to trip over the sleepers as he stumbled towards the latrines.

  That morning he rushed to the latrine five times, feeling as if he were turning into painful, liquidy excrement and stench. Each time he grunted and dribbled and blasted, his end threatened to split apart, and his resolve to confront Freedmeade dribbled away. Until Lalaga returned from school at midday and found him pale and shivering and lying foetus-like in their net, and asked him why he hadn’t sent someone to get medicine from his doctor friend. ‘I don’t want to ever see that man again!’ he muttered. She got some anti-diarrhoea medicine from Semisi at Freemeade’s clinic, and plugged him up with that.

  Why was the Almighty plaguing him with such demanding problems? Why were other people causing problems that had little to do with him personally, but that he had to deal with because he was their pastor? The shadowy, flickering imagery of Semisi and his friend and the frightening implications of their furtive presence in Freemeade’s fale in the evil dead of night kept tidal-waving through his self-pity. He just wanted to stay in bed and be sick forever. And for two days he did, wallowing lushly in his household’s sensitive and indulgent care. Fearing a visit from Freemeade, he put the word out that he was too sick to receive visitors.

  In the almost midnight dark, Mautu squatted in the banana stand outside Freemeade’s fale, relieved there weren’t many mosquitoes about. The space smelled of damp and mould, and occasionally he felt ants crawling over his feet.

  Two rows of blinds at the back of the fale were still up, and the turned-down lamp on Freemeade’s desk spilled a weak, watery light onto the paepae. He couldn’t see Freemeade. He waited.

  A blur of movement? The blinds fell down in an almost audible chat-chat-chat and a figure wrapped in a sleeping sheet was slipping into the fale. Puffttt! And the lamp was out. Darkness. Muffled conversation. Freemeade and Semisi. The stones of the paepae clicked and clacked as someone walked over them. A row of blinds was pushed aside noiselessly and another person entered the fale. More whispering. Semisi’s suppressed, high-pitched laughter. Freemeade shushing him. Silence. Shuffling over mats. Pillows falling onto the floor.

  Expecting another panic attack, Mautu steadied himself. Nothing. Not a twitch. He wasn’t even angry or shocked any more. He was in control, sure of what God wanted him to do.

  Once back in their net he slid up against Lalaga, who was on her back and snoring softly through her mouth. He caressed the tops of her thighs and, slowly lifting her left leg, scissored his left leg across hers. Sometimes she loved pretending she was asleep while he was making love to her. He loved it too. Gently, so as not to wake her, he caressed her until she was moist and he was hard, and he slid in. His whole body sighed Ahh, Ahh! as he pushed in. He moved slowly, her snoring stopped, and he knew she was only pretending sleep, and that intensified his desire. Pictures of what he imagined was occurring in Freemeade’s fale also added to his strength and pleasure. No arrogant, sick professor was going to interfere with him and his people and get away with it! he told himself in American English. He moved harder and faster. She tightened and pushed back …

  For three days, when Freemeade came for their lotu and meals, Mautu behaved as if nothing were wrong. Soon after every meal, Freemeade would say he was tired and return to his fale. And Mautu delayed acting.

  ‘It is a very delicate subject,’ Sao said as soon as Mautu was seated. (Sao had sent for him.) ‘A subject Christian and civilised people shouldn’t discuss, but people are starting to talk not only here but in other villages. To be blunt, sir, Freemeade, your palagi, is behaving like the sinners of Sodom and Gomorrah. Do you get my meaning, sir?’ Mautu nodded. Right then Tavita entered and sat down at the back. ‘I’ve sent for Tavita because he was the one with the courage to bring the matter to my attention.’

  ‘I was asked by Poto and Vaomatua to do so, sir,’ Tavita said.

  ‘See how serious it is, Reverend?’ Sao emphasised. ‘Tavita, you tell the Reverend about the other villages.’

  ‘Reverend, there are stories about him … about him being with other men.’

  ‘Like in Sodom and Gomorrah,’ Sao interrupted. ‘Behaviour unbecoming of civilised humans.’ Clearing his throat, he added, ‘As you know, Reverend, Semisi and his kind have a place in our society. We tolerate and love them because they are our flesh and blood, and they are excellent aiga members: they are loyal, hard-working, and they serve us, their elders, with enormous love and generosity. So I don’t mind your professor being one of Semisi’s kind. No one minds. Papalagi may also allow such behaviour in their society. However, he is a famous, highly educated seeker of knowledge who we have admitted to study us. In return we have accorded him the respect we reserve for ali’i and servants of God like yourself, sir. And we expected him to behave like an ali’i. He hasn’t. He has shamed his aristocratic family, and betrayed the trust and friendship you and our village have put in him.’

  ‘People in the other villages are joking about him,’ Tavita prompted his grandfather.

  ‘Soon your palagi will be the brunt of ridicule and contempt even in our village. We don’t want that to happen, do we, Reverend?’

  ‘I will see to it, sir,’ Mautu promised, and asked if he could borrow Tavita for a while.

  ‘I don’t want to know what you’re going to do or how you’re going to do it,’ Sao ended their conversation.

  Once out of Sao’s hearing, Mautu ordered Tavita to have a fautasi and crew ready for a dawn departure, and a group of trusted people to help the professor pack that night. No one else was to be told about this. No one.

  To stop Freemeade from coming for their usual evening meal Mautu arranged for his meal to be delivered to him. While their household prepared for bed, Tavita signalled to Mautu from the edge of the light, and with Roni, Mikaele and two other men, they hurried to Freemeade’s fale.

  The blinds were drawn already. Mautu told the others to wait outside. He would conduct their conversation in English, he decided. That way he could discuss the tapu topic more freely.

  Dressed only in an ie lavalava, Freemeade was at his desk, writing. Mautu felt as if he were encased in a birthsac of utterly calm fluid, ready to exercise God’s and his village’s will and justice. Freemeade glanced up at him over the rims of his glasses. ‘Have you come, sir?’ he greeted Mautu in Samoan.

  Mautu sat down in the canvas chair. ‘Violence may erupt in Satoa if we don’t do something about it, Professor.’ He was pleased at Freemeade’s puzzled expression. ‘I need your help to stop it.’ Freemeade nodded. ‘You have to leave Satoa immediately, sir.’ Total puzzlement in Freemeade’s eyes. ‘You have to.’

  ‘But … but why and for how long?’ Freemeade asked, his hands clutching the arms of his chair.

  ‘For good, my friend.’ Freemeade’s eyes threatened to burst, his mouth widened in disbelief. ‘Yes, for good, Professor.’ ‘But … but … but …’ Freemeade stuttered.

  ‘You know why, Professor. You know why!’ Freemeade struggled out of his chair, fists clenched. ‘You have no defence, sir,’ Mautu continued his attack. ‘And we do not need to discuss your offences.’

  ‘Have you Sao’s and the fono’s authority to do this?’

  ‘Yes, it was Sao who instructed me to come and tell you. I am your host and friend so I am responsible for what you do in Satoa, sir.’

  Freemeade smashed his fists down on the desk. Papers and bottles scattered. ‘You are bloated with your own self-importance, Mautu: fat and corrupted by power! And these people follow you blindly.’

  ‘We don’t want all of Satoa to hear us, do we, sir? We don’t want your crimes and sins to be known to everyone, do we? Let’s do it the civilised way, the educated way. You’ve studied us long enough, Professor, to know what that way is.’ Freemeade slumped into his chair, hands to his mouth. ‘After you leave, no one in Satoa or elsewhere will know the real reason for your unexpected departure. We’ll tell them you had to return to your father’s funeral.’

  ‘What about what I’ve done for you and Lalaga?’

  ‘Look what we’ve done for you, Professor. On your return to your capitalist Heaven-on-Earth, America, and your illustrious university, you will write up your research, lecture on it, and publish it in books that will astound and change the papalagi world. You’ll be more famous and richer than you are now, sir. Isn’t that enough, Professor?’

  ‘I’ll not be talked to like that and ordered out by some … by some …’

  ‘… By some ignorant savage?’ Tavita’s threat in Samoan came over Freemeade’s head. Freemeade turned. Tavita took three measured steps towards him. ‘I, the savage, I now tell you to get out before we …’

  ‘That’s enough!’ Mautu ordered Tavita. ‘Tavita and his men will help you pack tonight,’ Mautu said to Freemeade. ‘A fautasi will take you to Apia. Even the neighbouring villages aren’t safe for you any more.’ He reached over to console his friend. Freemeade jerked his arm away. ‘I am sorry it had to end this way.’ Mautu turned and strode out of the fale into the darkness.

  At morning lotu, his voice rich with sadness, Mautu informed his surprised household that the professor, their dear friend, had left during the night to return to America and his father’s funeral at Boston. By midday every Satoan knew about it.

  Sao and Tavita ordered Semisi not to ever mention ‘Freemeade’s secret activities’. ‘Control your mouth or I’ll control it for you!’ Sao threatened his loquacious grandson, who controlled his mouth for a desperate two days and then unleashed it, secretly, to all the customers who shopped at his store, who in turn unleashed it to whoever was willing to be surprised and horrified and entertained …

  Led and managed by Peleiupu and Tavita, Lalaga’s gardening project flourished: every aiga now had a vegetable garden and enjoyed a healthier diet, though it took a while for most Satoans to acquire a taste for the new vegetables — beans, Chinese cabbage, tomatoes, carrots, eggplant, spring onions, pumpkins and squash. In one of his sermons Mautu prescribed these vegetables as ‘miracle food for the muscles, eyes, heart, intestines and soul’. Sao went one better: he stated in a sermon that ‘Our Lord tuned His sacred spirit on the miraculous vegetables that we now enjoy.’ Only their relatives knew that during the week Mautu and Sao ate only beans, and then the beans had to be fried with expensive corned beef ‘to make it taste’, Mautu instructed.

  At to’ona’i Mautu demonstrated that he enjoyed all God’s vegetables by eating them enthusiastically in large quantities in full view of the other reluctant elders. Only Lalaga knew that her husband suffered wild flatulence after each of his Sunday vegetable binges.

  From behind his store counter Semisi recommended eggplant — especially the large, bulbous, round, purple-black variety — to all his customers, claiming sensuously it was the remedy for flaccidity and lack of stamina. ‘One beautiful, strong eggplant and you can last all day and night!’

  Throughout Savai’i, Satoa became known as Le Nu’u o le Au Aivao, the Village of Grass-eaters. Some Satoans were ashamed and hurt by that until Mautu proclaimed from the pulpit that ‘only the ignorant and uneducated from the back’ would think that about God’s vegetables, whose health properties and scientific value for the humble human body had been explained to them by the most educated person ever to visit Samoa, Professor Freemeade of Harvard University. ‘Let the uneducated wallow in their bad health and ignorance, while we, who know and understand the latest findings in science, continue to enjoy good physical and spiritual health, consuming God’s vegetables,’ he concluded.

  In early January Mautu and Lalaga, in a fautasi tautaied by Tavita, took Naomi to Upolu and Vaiuta School. In their farewell in the principal’s office they all wept together, but Naomi was glad she was going to be away from Satoa and her parents and the arduous workload thrust upon her, particularly by her mother. She would continue to miss Peleiupu and Ruta, though.

  Mautu was scraping coconuts into a tanoa and feeding the chickens with it when he saw Lalaga approaching. Every time he scattered a handful of scraped coconut among the large flock, the chickens squawked and fought for it. He tried to ignore the strong smell of drying mud, coconut and the latrines.

  Lalaga’s shadow netted him. ‘Your most-loving daughter Ruta is now becoming known as a healer,’ she said. ‘A visitor from your pagan village is here — he told me Ruta’s going to have powers greater even than your pagan sister!’ She paused, he remained silent. ‘Your selfish wealthy daughter Pele is with child.’ He dropped the empty coconut shell into the basket. ‘She told me this afternoon before she left school.’ Peleiupu was twenty-six. Tears blurred his vision when he looked up at Lalaga. ‘It’s been almost four years since they married and people, as you know, were starting to talk,’ she continued. His tears dripped down his face and he didn’t try to hide them from her. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked. Noisily he sucked back the phlegm and tears in his throat. ‘You’re not a child!’ she tried to joke. She could be so insensitive, he decided. He sucked back his tears, caught them in one ball at the back of his throat and then SSSHHHRRRAAATTT, he spat the ball at the chickens, scattering them. ‘A’e, that’s not hygienic!’ she berated him.

  ‘I don’t care,’ he whispered and, for no reason, he started laughing softly. ‘I don’t care!’ He paused, laughing still. ‘It’s going to be a girl, a girl, a beautiful girl!’ he chanted.

  ‘Have all the chickens come in?’ she asked. When he didn’t reply, she called, ‘Ku, ku, ku, ku!’ A speckled hen, trailed by her brood of chicks, rushed from the undergrowth; a few others surged in from other directions. She scooped up handfuls of coconut and scattered it among the newcomers.

  ‘Has Pele fulfilled your demands?’ he asked. She looked away. ‘Has she? I want to talk to my daughter again, now!’ She started walking away. ‘Why did you force her to stop seeing me?’

  She stopped and, with her back to him, said, ‘Because you were the one who spoilt her. If she’d been raised like our other daughters, she wouldn’t have betrayed us.’

  ‘Hasn’t she paid enough for that?’

  She shook her head and said defiantly, ‘Not yet! No, not yet!’ He let her go.

  He continued scraping the coconuts and feeding the chickens, which swirledand regrouped according to where the coconut landed. In his imagination he saw a little girl, who looked just like Peleiupu when she’d been that age, trying not to fall over as she wandered through the chickens. Eyes as huge as a morning sky, smile as wide and winning as a morning tide. Chortling, cooing. Ah, his beautiful, wondrous granddaughter!