His face lit up. ‘When, when, Pele?’

  She’d do it the next time she was in Apia.

  ‘And your mother is very upset that you haven’t kept your promise to see how Ruta and Lefatu are!’ He chastised her.

  She promised she’d do that when they visited their stores around Savaii. ‘Would you like to go with me?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, I want to weed my parents’ graves, which must be overgrown with weeds after all these years,’ he replied. She tried to ignore the sad sense of finality in his remark. ‘I’m sure your mother will want to come too,’ he added. She told him they’d drop them off at Fagaloto and pick them up on their way back from inspecting the stores.

  She was used to his sudden shifts into contemplative silence. She liked just sitting beside him letting her thoughts drift. They enjoyed it for a long time.

  ‘I wonder about him often,’ he mused. ‘He fills my dreams too.’

  ‘Arona?’

  Shaking his head slowly, he said, ‘Fatutapu. It’s a beautiful name, eh, Pele?’ She nodded. ‘Fatutapu,’ he rolled the name lovingly over his tongue. ‘Fatutapu.’ A smooth round pebble which, as it dropped down the well of her imagination, brought to life again the ancient atua of her aiga.

  While the heat ticked at the edge of their attention, he reminisced again about his childhood — these were stories she knew well and loved. When they gave way to stories of their early years in Satoa, and focused on Arona and Ruta and Naomi, sadness gripped her again.

  Every Satoan wanted to go on the Lady Poto to Fagaloto and the six stores around Savai’i, but Tavita, through Poto who didn’t mince words when she wanted to be obeyed, announced that only she, the four crewmen, Semisi, Mikaele, Lalaga, Mautu, Iakopo (because Mautu needed someone to carry his bag; the other upset grandchildren were bribed with the promise of a trip to Apia), Peleiupu, Tavita, and Malie and Fa’amapu, who needed a holiday from the clinic, were going.

  At first light even the disappointed Satoans turned up to farewell them. As the boat left the jetty two youths jumped onto the bow but dived off again when Mikaele advanced towards them. Everyone laughed and cheered.

  High tide. Just a slight swell within the reef as the boat headed for Fagaloto. Clouds blocked out the sun so they felt cool. They hugged the coast and could see in detail the landscape, vegetation and villages. A few started feeling seasick; they lay down on the deck and tried to sleep. ‘See, you’ve all become sea-less creatures after years of being denied sea travel!’ Mikaele joked loudly. ‘You’ve become navigators who can’t read the sea and the stars!’

  Almost an hour later they were taking the passage into Fagaloto Bay, a v-shaped indent in the high, rugged volcanic coastline. Black water, black rock, black sand, the village nestled around a white church at the head of the v, under palms and breadfruit. Immediately behind it, the bush-clad volcanic shelves tiered up to the high mountain range.

  People gathered on the shore. Some waved. They dropped anchor. They couldn’t see Ruta or Lefatu in the crowd.

  ‘Papa, are you sure you’re well?’ Peleiupu asked, straightening his collar.

  ‘Don’t worry, Iakopo and Lalaga will look after me.’ He paused and, gazing at the village, said, ‘I am so happy to be home.’ She kissed him on the cheek. Iakopo edged away as she moved to do the same to him.

  ‘I’m afraid, Pele,’ Lalaga whispered. ‘I hope Ruta and Lefatu did not …’ She couldn’t say it.

  ‘I’m sure God protected them from the sickness.’ Peleiupu tried to console her but she too was riven with fear.

  Mikaele and the crew loaded the two punts with their luggage and sacks and cartons of food. Tavita helped Mautu and Lalaga into one of the punts. Iakopo jumped in after them.

  As the punt headed ashore, Peleiupu kept waving to Iakopo, who was standing on the bow; her son refused to wave back.

  Three hours later light rain fell as they anchored off Falealupo. Peleiupu remembered what her father had told them about Falealupo: how in pre-Christian times the Atua Nafanua had established her religion in Falealupo and through her priests had dominated the country for three hundred years until the coming of Christianity; how Falealupo was where the sun set each evening, and how their pre-Christian ancestors had believed that the spirits of the dead departed from the Fafa, at the western edge of Falealupo beach, for Pulotu, the spirit world.

  At the centre of the long line of fale that stretched along the beach was the large Roman Catholic church, which rose high above the vegetation. Not far from it was their store. They could see a few people gathering on the beach as the haze of rain swept across it. They dreaded having to go ashore to see if Ana, Tavita’s sister, and her husband, Atamai, were still alive.

  The goods and supplies were loaded into the punts. Poto insisted on going ashore with them on the first punt. ‘I’m so afraid,’ she whispered to Peleiupu.

  In silence they rowed ashore, and were soon soaked to the skin.

  Most of the people on the beach were emaciated and hollow-eyed and struggling to stand up. Some of them waded in and pulled the punt in. No sign of Ana or Atamai. While Tavita, Mikaele and the crew unloaded the punts, Peleiupu and Semisi pulled Poto away and up over the beach to the edge of the malae.

  ‘Where are they?’ Poto demanded.

  The village was overgrown with weeds, rubbish lay everywhere, many of the fale looked deserted, and some were burnt-down ruins. From that distance the store looked deserted too: its shutters were down. The gardens Poto had helped Ana plant around the store were smothered with creepers. They hurried. The rain intensified.

  Someone had nailed boards across the shutters and the front door. They hurried to the fale behind it, to where Ana and Atamai had lived. Through the screen of rain they could see a woman, a youth and two young girls in the fale. Poto started whimpering. Semisi put his arm around her shoulders. ‘It’s all right, Mama,’ he kept telling her.

  The youth and girls, who wore ragged, dirty clothes, came out to them. ‘Where is Atamai?’ Peleiupu asked.

  ‘He’s in there,’ the youth pointed into the fale. ‘We have been looking after him.’ Poto and Semisi rushed past them into the fale.

  ‘And Ana, where is she?’ Peleiupu asked. The girls looked at the youth, who gestured towards the church. Peleiupu started scrambling towards the building. ‘No!’ the youth called. ‘She died a few weeks ago.’ Peleiupu kept running to the mound, her wet clothes flapping and squishing around her.

  A mass grave? She stopped at the edge of it, her feet buried in the rich mud that the rain was washing off the mound. Dropping to her knees, she thrust her hands into the mud.

  Over the clatter and thudding of the rain she caught Poto’s and Semisi’s shrill wailing rushing towards her. She turned and her sight was filled with Poto stumbling towards her through the haze of rain, which made her appear as if she were evaporating. ‘Ana, Ana, Ana, my beloved!’ Poto’s plea clogged the world.

  That was where Tavita and Mikaele found them, and Mikaele swept Poto up in his arms and carried her back to the fale.

  Behind a curtain, Peleiupu forced Poto to change into dry clothes, and she and Semisi sat holding her. Peleiupu could hear Tavita talking to Atamai. A while later they stretched Poto out on a soft layer of mats and wrapped her in a sleeping sheet. Peleiupu dried herself, changed and joined the others.

  Mikaele and Semisi went off to supervise the cleaning and re-provisioning of the store. Though he was thin and hollow-eyed, Atamai was recovering well. He’d been sick for over two weeks after Ana died. In his grief, the epidemic had attacked him, he said. While he was delirious, people had raided the store and taken almost every thing. Because of the epidemic, the matai fono had not yet done anything to find and punish the culprits. As he talked, Peleiupu began to sense the presence of a woman hovering in the background. Fanua was her name. Atamai explained that Fanua had been their closest friend since they’d settled in Falealupo. Three of Fanua’s children had died early in the epidemic, and when he fell ill, she and her remaining children took care of him. Fanua’s presence felt protective, Peleiupu sensed, as she tried to identify the person Fanua reminded her of.

  Later as she and Fanua went to the store to get food, she identified her Aunt Lefatu as that person. Fanua had the same ageless physical features and sense of permanence and wisdom.

  Some villagers were helping Semisi and Mikaele and the crew clean the store. Others were weeding the gardens. ‘Please forgive our people for taking your property,’ Fanua said. ‘Some of these people took part in the theft.’

  ‘And most of them owed money?’

  ‘Yes, all of them, including me,’ Fanua confessed.

  Peleiupu filled a basket with tinned food, rice, flour, sugar, salt and lard. Fanua took the other side of the heavy basket and they carried it to Atamai’s kitchen fale.

  ‘At first we thought Ana was strange,’ Fanua said, as they cooked. ‘You know — the golden hair, the cats’ eyes and freckles. And even more weird when we found out she was a compulsive and expert fisher. She outfished our best — and our men didn’t like that. I think all our men fell in love with her, but she was unaware of it!’ Soft laughter. ‘Yes, oblivious to the effects her spectacular strangeness was having on our males. Of course we jealous women were waiting (and hoping) for the Lady to grow jealous too — jealous of Ana’s long golden hair and beauty. But we waited and waited and the Lady didn’t punish her at all, thereby telling us that Ana had her blessing and protection. Ana was the first long and golden-haired female in our district who didn’t have to cover her hair or wear it up.’

  ‘Excuse my ignorance, but “the Lady”?’ Peleiupu asked.

  ‘Nafanua,’ she replied casually. ‘I shouldn’t really be discussing her so openly but who cares? She can’t punish us worse than the papalagi epidemic has done.’ Sensing Peleiupu’s discomfort, Fanua added, ‘She’s harmless most of the time. Plus, we’re Christians now and don’t believe in the power of our pagan atua any more!’

  ‘You mean, you shouldn’t believe in her any more?’ Peleiupu asked.

  ‘If you want to put it that way.’ That impish wisdom again. ‘She was certainly useless in defending us against the epidemic.’

  The smell of their cooking attracted Fanua’s and the neighbours’ children to the kitchen fale. So, as they cooked, Peleiupu filled plates for them. They ate ravenously.

  ‘Don’t you think She may have been punishing you for deserting her for palagi ways?’ Peleiupu asked Fanua.

  ‘That’s what my father and the elders believed. So when the sickness struck them, they just gave into it as just punishment from the Lady. I believe the Lady had nothing to do with the sickness. The papalagi brought it. It is their fault. She didn’t have the knowledge and, therefore, the mana to repel it, cure it.’

  ‘Why do you think you were not touched by it?’

  ‘Luck, pure luck.’

  ‘You don’t think she protected you?’

  ‘Do you believe the Christian God protected you from the sickness?’

  Peleiupu nodded, but felt strangely uncomfortable as Fanua gazed at her. ‘Well, I suppose you could call God, luck!’

  They packed the food, and the children helped carry it to the fale where they found a group of matai talking with Atamai and Tavita. When they entered and sat down at the back of the fale, ready to serve the food, one of the matai, a small man with a leg swollen with elephantiasis, welcomed Peleiupu formally. Peleiupu was surprised when Fanua interrupted him. ‘Well, are you hungry again? Is that why you’ve come?’ she asked. The matai grinned; the others gazed at the floor. ‘Why didn’t you come before to see how Atamai was?’

  ‘There you go again, Fanua!’ their leader tried to joke. ‘You forget we were all ill …’ His companions nodded.

  ‘You should’ve died too!’ she said. ‘The good people died and you lived. When the epidemic is all over, our village will meet to resolve the crisis of leadership — your very poor and selfish leadership since my father died.’

  ‘Please be satisfied, your ladyship,’ the youngest matai started apologising.

  ‘That is enough!’ Fanua ordered. ‘You will be given this food to fill your selfish bellies!’ Fanua and Peleiupu filled the foodmats and the children delivered them to everyone. ‘And when you finish gutsing, we’ll return and pack up your scraps,’ she insulted them further. ‘Toanamua, I am sorry I’ve had to be very honest with our leaders in front of you,’ she apologised to Tavita.

  They filled a foodmat for Poto and took it to her behind the curtain. Poto refused to eat. She started shivering, so Fanua stretched her out and, oiling her hands, started massaging Poto’s forehead, neck and shoulders. As Peleiupu watched Fanua’s strong, long-fingered hands slipping, pressing, slipping, pressing and sliding over Poto’s forehead, she, like Poto, started feeling calm and relaxed. Poto drifted into sleep. ‘The death of our children is what we parents dread the most, eh, Pele?’ Fanua asked. The rain continued thudding on the thatched roof and sliding down in a screen from the eaves onto the stone paepae in a loud clatter. ‘I almost went insane when my children died.’

  Tavita, Semisi and Mikaele were in the store when Peleiupu and Fanua went in. ‘Why aren’t you stacking the goods in the shelves?’ Peleiupu asked.

  ‘Who’s going to run the store? Atamai isn’t well enough yet,’ Semisi pointed out.

  ‘We may have to close it,’ Tavita added.

  Without hesitation, Peleiupu asked Fanua, ‘Will you run it for us?’

  ‘Me? I’ve had no palagi education.’

  ‘I’m sure Atamai will teach you what to do,’ Peleiupu said. ‘And when he’s well enough, he’ll do it.’

  Fanua continued shaking her head. ‘There’s no money in Falealupo to buy these goods anyway.’

  ‘But there are a lot of coconuts, eh?’ Peleiupu countered. ‘The people can pay with coconuts. While we’re here we can work out with you how many coconuts you should charge for each item.’

  In the late afternoon, while Poto slept in the lulling beat of the rain, they met with Atamai and Fanua and worked a currency out. Fanua also agreed to organise gangs of workers to cut all the copra in Falealupo. Throughout their discussions Tavita maintained a suspicious stance, and when Fanua left with her children to visit patients, he attacked Peleiupu for offering Fanua the job without knowing much about her. Semisi agreed with him.

  ‘I know enough!’ Peleiupu insisted.

  ‘Pele’s choice is very sound,’ Atamai intervened.

  ‘Why?’ Tavita demanded.

  Atamai looked around to see if anyone else was about. ‘Don’t you realise who she is?’ Atamai asked Tavita.

  ‘What are we supposed to know?’ Semisi asked.

  ‘She is the daughter of the tuua of Falealupo.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with knowing how to run a store — how to add and subtract?’ Tavita said impatiently.

  ‘She is also the guardian of the Lady,’ Peleiupu offered.

  ‘After her father, who died early in the epidemic, she is the most powerful — or, is it most feared? — person in this district,’ Atamai added. ‘Did you see the way she handled those matai earlier on?’

  ‘She’ll have no problems organising the men to cut copra,’ Peleiupu said.

  ‘And no one will dare steal from or raid our store. No one!’ Atamai said.

  Before lotu that evening, while she helped Fanua and her son cook the evening meal, Peleiupu learned from Fanua that whenever their village suffered a crisis, their fono met late at night in her father’s faletele, in darkness, with all the blinds drawn except for one row facing the west. When Peleiupu asked why, Fanua hesitated, then, gazing full into her face, said, ‘For the Lady to enter the fono and be consulted about the crisis. During the sickness not once did she participate in the fono. For her own reasons, she seems to have abandoned us to the mercy of the epidemic.’

  The chorus of cicadas thundered in their ears as the rain eased away.

  In the next two weeks they visited the rest of their stores, and set up new people to run them and schemes to cut all the copra that was on the ground.

  Poto refused to go ashore at Salelologa, where Elisapeta, her daughter, and her husband Heinrich ran their business. Since discovering Ana’s death at Falelupo she’d remained on board, playing patience or fishing from the boat. But before they could go ashore, Elisapeta and her surviving son were rowed to the Lady Poto, where she collapsed into Poto’s arms and told them her husband and other children had died two weeks before.

  Tavita, Semisi and Peleiupu went ashore. (Peleiupu was relieved to be away from Elisapeta’s grief.) Before the epidemic, this had been their second most profitable store. Heinrich had been an excellent manager, adding a bakery, a plantation and a fautasi transport wing, and producing more copra than even their Satoa store. Since Heinrich’s death, his sister and her husband had managed the business, and were doing well.

  When they were on their own Peleiupu told Tavita she didn’t want to return to the boat until they were ready to leave because she couldn’t face Elisapeta’s suffering. She was also dreading what they’d find at Fagaloto when they stopped to pick up her parents and Iakopo.

  That night they slept in Elisapeta’s fale by the sea.

  She woke to him caressing her back and flanks, deliciously, and she moved so he could remove her lavalava. For a long while he ran his fingers over her buttocks and between her legs from the back, until she was wet and trembling with anticipation. Lying on her side, she lifted her knees and thrust back her buttocks against him. His hand slid down between her buttocks and caressed her. She jerked, gasped, as he slid in. Reaching back, she held his buttocks still. Held him in there.

  Later he moved slowly to the rhythm of the slow tide lapping at the rocks a short distance away. Slowly. For a long, long time they escaped the present and their grief …

  Next morning, after breakfast with Heinrich’s family, Tavita told Peleiupu there was something important he wanted to discuss with her. She sensed he’d been thinking about it for a long time. They went back to the fale.