‘I am your wife now,’ she heard herself inviting him, discovering she wasn’t afraid of his smoky odour, which now filled the net and enveloped her. She wanted to lose herself totally in it and was surprised and afraid that she was ignoring Misi Peta’s cautions. She sensed him moving towards her. She reached out and felt her hands moving slowly over the heat of his chest. However, as his arms came around her, she found her invitation turning into defence, a struggle to push him away. Yes, yes, yes, she murmured in her head, yet her knees pushed at him. His weight and strength, the whole wet heat and smell of him, she wanted to absorb, become part of, yet she struggled — for Misi Peta and her whole public upbringing.

  ‘It’s a sin, a sin,’ he repeated, his body a slippery insistent embrace. But he moved to counter her resistance, her scratching and pushing and knees and panting cries. ‘It’s wrong!’ he moaned. She pushed away and allowed him to pull her blouse up and over her head. Then the heat of his chest was crushing her taut nipples and breasts and it was exquisite, the enveloping cold-hot fire of it. ‘It’s wrong!’ he moaned, as he buried his face in her neck and his lips and wetness were a fire around every bit of her. Her knees stopped pushing and, as she stuffed the corner of her lavalava into her mouth to stifle her cries, she wound her arms around him. When his fingers danced down her stomach and between her legs and over her wetness, as if he were breathing on her, she cried Aahah … ah … ah!

  He pushed her right hand down his belly. She let him, and for an instant the thick round heat of his penis repelled her, but when he pressed her fingers around it, and he murmured, ‘Yes, it’s good,’ she clutched it. ‘Uhh, uhh!’ he cried as he pushed it up and down within her grip.

  She loved the free-flowing wetness and heat of it, and she pushed against his fingers as he fondled and caressed her. Then she felt his whole body tensing — a wave, a cry surging up from his hips into the hard thickness of him, which jerked and jerked in her grip and he cried through his closed mouth as the warm liquid shot onto her belly. ‘Forgive me, forgive me!’ he murmured.

  Suspended inexplicably at the height of the wave, she was puzzled and felt guilty when he rolled off her and wrapped his ie lavalava around his waist.

  At dawn when she woke he was gone. She heard him in the kitchen fale and knew he was preparing the morning meal. She raised the nearest row of blinds — it was still quite chilly and dark, though the horizon line of light was expanding — and jumped down onto the beach, wrapped her ie lavalava around her shoulders, squatted and urinated. She was surprised that she was experiencing no guilt or shame, and even more surprised that she was shamelessly savouring every memory of it.

  The dark warm water wove around her feet, then her legs and thighs as she waded into it. She washed the stains off her ie lavalava and then raising it to belly height, squeezed the water out of it. The water cascaded in a rope-like stream and splattered into the surface of the sea. Lalaga closed her eyes, turned her face towards the sky and sucked in large gulps of the cold air, as if she wanted to inhale everything, the whole world of smells and tastes and feelings and desire and Mautu — yes, especially Mautu.

  Mautu spent the whole day in the plantation with some of the young men of her aiga, and she helped the children and women dismantle the shelters and clean up the fale and grounds.

  That evening, as soon as they were alone in their fale, after the lotu and the meal and their bathing in the communal pool, during which he avoided looking at her, she blew out the lamp and got into the net. ‘Are you tired from working?’ she asked when he lay down beside her.

  ‘No, just aching a bit.’

  ‘Let me massage your back.’ She was surprised by her boldness.

  There was a hesitant pause, then he said, ‘Yes, go ahead.’

  She was shaking and could hardly hold the bottle of oil as she pulled out the coconut husk cork, poured some oil into her left hand, rubbed her hands together, and then started rubbing the oil into his shoulders. The whole slippery heat and feel of his body and the knowledge that he was also wanting her forced her to stop periodically and suck in air through her mouth. ‘It’s good, very good!’ he kept murmuring. That made her feel bolder, so she pressed and squeezed harder as she moved methodically down his back.

  ‘It was wrong, what I did last night,’ he said out of the darkness.

  ‘No it wasn’t, we are man and wife now.’ When her hands reached the top of his ie lavalava he pushed it down. The scent of the oil filled her nostrils. ‘That’s good,’ he moaned as her hands moved over his buttocks, as she slid and slipped and kneaded.

  ‘No!’ was her automatic cry when his left hand gripped her knee. She stopped massaging. His fingers started caressing the inside of her thigh, lightly, moving upwards. She leaned forward over him, her hands pressing firmly and sliding down the backs of his thighs, more urgently as his fingers played.

  When his insistent hand clasped her between her legs, and his fingers opened her wetness gently, she shivered and held on to his thighs to stop herself from falling. ‘I’ve never told you how beautiful you are,’ he said. ‘I am very lucky you are my wife, Lalaga.’ He was on his knees now and holding her against his body. ‘Don’t be afraid: as you say, we are husband and wife now.’ He tightened his embrace and stilled her shaking body, nuzzling her neck with his mouth and nose. ‘Here, lie back.’ He lifted her easily and laid her on the mats. ‘I’ll massage you, get rid of your fears.’

  He was so wrong, she would think afterwards — it wasn’t fear, it was uncontrollable desire, lust, love, call it what you like. She helped him take off her blouse and ie lavalava. When his hands started exploring her again, they were covered with oil and she felt as if her whole outer and inner selves were being caressed by his hands. Then all of her was centred on her wetness, over which his oiled fingers were now moving with an exquisite rhythm. She stuffed the corner of her sleeping sheet into her mouth. ‘It may hurt,’ he whispered as he parted her legs, and she raised her knees. His thick hardness pressed against her thigh for a moment, slippery with oil, and hot. She waited for the pain she’d been told would come. Waited. At first when he surged against her there was a tightness and resistance, but she held on and, wrapping her arms around his hips and buttocks, pushed him in hard, into a widening, an expanding, an opening up of all of herself to all of him. No pain. But she wanted him to slow down as he again, like the night before, moved urgently, rapidly. ‘I’m sorry, sorry,’ he kept gasping into her neck as he tensed to breaking and then ejaculated into her.

  She lay beside him for a long time, gazing into the darkness. Nothing was as she’d been raised to believe. She was supposed to be ashamed of the desires of the flesh; she wasn’t. She was a pastor’s wife and not meant to show any sexual feelings, even towards her husband — yet she’d unashamedly shown Mautu her desire and brazenly encouraged him. And despite her reminding herself that women weren’t meant to experience and enjoy orgasms — yes, she could even say it — she now wanted that more than anything else with Mautu. When she heard him snoring lightly, she found she was annoyed with him for having hurried.

  The next night it rained steadily. The heavy muffled sound of it made her feel as if they were caught totally within their desire for each other, and when Mautu lay beside her, she rolled him over to his stomach and started massaging him again. This time she lingered over every stroke, every circling of her hands pressing into his body, all the kneading and plucking of her fingers. She didn’t even wait for him to push down his ie lavalava; she stripped it right off, trickled oil out of the bottle onto his buttocks, and massaged — long lingering caresses. A thin, endless humming issued from his clenched mouth. When his hand started exploring her thigh, she held it palm upwards and dripped oil into it. Soon every stroke of his oiled hand against her thigh took the air out of her lungs. She parted her legs more and more as his hand moved up, and she dipped her hands down into the groove between his buttocks, dipped and caressed.

  ‘Is that all right?’ he asked as his fingers moved into her wetness.

  ‘Yes, yes!’ she moaned. He rolled onto his back, and his fingers were inside her. With his other hand he took hers and wrapped it around his erectness. It was fat and pulsating as she twisted and swivelled her hand around it, learning how to make it enjoy her playing.

  ‘Is that good?’ he asked as his fingers moved in and out of her.

  ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ she cried, moving her hips rhythmically against his fingers.

  When he rolled her onto her back she held onto his penis and guided it into herself in one long, smooth movement. ‘Don’t! Don’t!’ She held on to his hips, stopping him from moving. He knew and moved slowly, gently, and she responded, and then as she moved faster, her breath broke out of her mouth in ragged gasps. Up and up and up she mounted and then in one long cry exploded into the darkness and the drumming of the protecting rain.

  ‘Is it wrong for me to enjoy it too, and to enjoy it so much?’ she asked hesitantly, later. When he didn’t reply, she sensed he was going to deny her, but he didn’t.

  ‘No, I don’t mind,’ he said, pressing his face against her shoulder. ‘I like it, I like you enjoying it.’

  ‘You mean, it adds to your enjoyment — my wanton abandonment to passion?’ She asked. He laughed softly against her breast, licking the nipple once. ‘You don’t behave like a good pastor, do you?’ she joked.

  ‘I’m wicked like you!’ he laughed. ‘But God will forgive us because we love each other truthfully …’ He stopped abruptly.

  ‘So you love me, do you?’ she asked. He nodded against her breast.

  ‘But you’ve not known me very long.’

  ‘I know what is in my heart,’ he said. ‘I have great love for you, Lalaga.’

  For the next two weeks, while they had the fale to themselves and before they shifted to Mautu’s aiga, they abandoned themselves to their enormous passion every time they were alone. Twice they even risked it during the daytime, in the fale. Three times on the excuse of getting crops they went into the plantation and, hidden in the trees, continued exploring the limits of their desire. At first they were both surprised by their boldness and shamelessness, but as they experienced no guilt they became more daring.

  In public they were the model pastor and wife: self-control and moderation. It was to be that way all their lives.

  Mautu divulged little about his aiga to Lalaga, but from the five visits she’d made and from what others said, she feared for her children.

  In the pre-Christian religion, the holders of the Tuifolau title and Mautu’s direct ancestors were the taulaaitu of the Atua Fatutapu, revered throughout the country. With the fervent consent of their converts, the missionaries banished the atua. Mautu’s uncle, Tuifolau Lei’a, the atua’s taulaaitu at the time, committed suicide by simply vanishing into the mountains. At the height of his priesthood Tuifolau Lei’a was loved and respected for his gift of curing most ma’i aitu and healing any malady using fofo techniques and herbal cures, but was feared for his powers of casting spells. Most effective was his ability of making victims sleep themselves to death. It was also believed he could make himself invisible, steal any person’s soul, and change into any creature.

  Though the people claimed publicly they no longer believed in the superstitions of ‘the Days Before the Light’, they believed Fatutapu was now an aitu, an evil demon and ally of Satan, and that the Aiga Tuifolau were still Fatutapu’s guardians, with Mautu’s sister, Lefatu, the atua’s taulaaitu. Mautu neither denied nor confirmed this but Lalaga knew that whenever someone was afflicted with ma’i aitu the victim was taken (secretly) to Lefatu who, everyone believed, possessed what the missionaries branded as ‘the powers of Darkness’.

  Because of all this Lalaga avoided visiting Mautu’s aiga.

  Lalaga attributed what Mautu kept cursing, after each ‘meeting of their flesh’ (her description), as his ‘sinful weakness’ to his aiga’s aitu and to his father, who’d had numerous wives, Mautu’s mother being the last and only one he’d married in church. In the district he was known affectionately (but not to his face) as ‘Tuifolau-ma-le-Gaau’, Tuifolau-with-the-Intestine. The reference was shamefully obvious and unchristian, Lalaga thought. Over twenty-five known children were proof of the fecundity of his intestine and the fertile source of the endless tales his people told about him everywhere they went. (Only God and his closest friends knew how many other children existed.) Rumour had it that he died at eighty-eight of a heart attack while he was trying, once again, to tame his unruly intestine. Lalaga preferred to believe her Christian brethren’s claim that he’d been struck down by the Almighty for his ‘sins of the flesh’.

  Peleiupu was now a gangly thirteen-year-old: taller than her friends, with a high pronounced forehead that was to become the most distinctive feature of her descendants, eyes as fiercely dark as cold-water springs, and fine wavy hair (Mautu refused to have it cut), which rippled behind her when she ran — and she ran almost everywhere.

  She’d been born two months late but it had been an easy birth, and when the midwife was cutting the umbilical cord they’d noticed, with astonishment, a knowing smile on her face and those intense eyes examining them. The midwife predicted an exceptional intelligence, which was soon evident, and people expected her to become a precocious child. She didn’t. She exercised mature control over her behaviour. Though many people were uncomfortable when she was around, feeling her observing them and uncovering to the quick of their darkness their innermost secrets and, most disconcerting of all, anticipating their thoughts and actions, no one feared her, for she exuded an aura of understanding trust — their secrets were safe with her. They came to admire her tremendously and, when chastising their children, held her up as the ideal they should emulate. Affectionately they referred to her as ‘the pastor’s walking-stick’ because she accompanied Mautu everywhere.

  A year younger than Peleiupu, Arona was already a miniature version of his father’s former build: thickset, with a square head, long muscular arms and large hands, and showing signs of developing phenomenal physical strength. He’d been conceived during the ninth devastating whooping cough epidemic since the papalagi had introduced it, which had again killed many Satoan children. So when he was born his parents were relieved that he had no physical deformities. From the day he started walking he revealed a slow, deliberate manner, and seemed indifferent to everyone but his parents and sisters.

  As his strength blossomed, his appetite for everything became a ravishing hunger that frightened Lalaga in particular because she thought he had inherited it from her and Mautu. She feared that his ‘appetite’ would be even more demanding than theirs.

  Ruta and Naomi were separated by a year but Lalaga treated them as twins. They both learned to talk early and were soon taking everywhere their endless chatter and laughter and quarrels, which ended quickly with tearful bouts of reconciliation. They became well known in Satoa for this, and adults encouraged them, good-naturedly, to show that they were especially gifted with language.

  Noting every change in her children, Lalaga’s concern for their safety deepened. They seemed driven by forces inherited from her and Mautu and their aiga — forces that would either turn them into exceptional people or consume them, perhaps even turning them into allies of Satan. None were going to pursue moderation. So she worked hard to protect them from themselves, but the more she did so, the more they moved into their father’s orbit.

  Mautu came to spend much time teaching his children but he remained unaware of what was happening to them because to him childhood was an uninteresting period, unworthy of his attention. Not that he didn’t love them: they were special people with whom he wanted to share his new knowledge. Books and English were the keys to opening up their imaginations to the miraculous secrets and powers of God’s magnificent universe. There were multiple dimensions to reality, to God, and the papalagi possessed many of the ways of seeing those dimensions. His children were to discover that understanding with him. As Mautu pursued his speculations and took their children with him, Lalaga wove a protective web around them all. The children went adventuring with Mautu and eventually outgrew the other Satoan children. An unbreakable bond of alofa and respect grew between them, and their devotion to their parents intensified and became one of the strengths of their lives.

  Prospecting

  It was mid-1893.

  On his next trip into Apia with Barker, Mautu brought home a new pick, a shovel and a bushknife, which he stored in the cupboard where he kept most of his valuable possessions. Curious about what he was going to use them for, Lalaga and their children waited for him to tell them that night during their English lesson. He didn’t.

  Next morning, which was Tuesday, they watched to see what he was going to do. After their meal at mid-morning he put on his working ie lavalava, got out the new implements, and handed the shovel to Peleiupu.

  ‘May I come too?’ Arona asked.

  ‘Yes, may we?’ chorused Ruta and Naomi. Mautu shook his head and started towards Barker’s house, which was across the malae under some breadfruit trees.

  ‘You’re too young,’ Peleiupu remarked to the other children.

  ‘So are you!’ replied Ruta. Peleiupu flicked back her long mane, wheeled, and followed Mautu, carrying the shovel, like a rifle, across her shoulder.

  She waited on the veranda while Mautu went in to see Barker. Three of Barker’s youngest children, snotty-nosed and naked, came out and, stopping a few paces away in a group, scrutinised her. Peleiupu knew them but, as yet, she refused to befriend any of Barker’s children: she considered them too rude, too forward, altogether too papalagi, even though their mother was Samoan and they couldn’t speak English.

  ‘Is it our shovel?’ the second girl asked, her right forefinger drilling into her right nostril. Peleiupu shook her head once.