Mister Pip (12 page)

PEOPLE AVOIDED MR. WATTS for days. Groups either drew in closer, like a clump of bananas, or dispersed whenever he came near. Mr. Watts did not chase after them. He wasn't interested in pleading his blamelessness. You might almost have thought he failed to notice the coolness of everyone; but I knew Mr. Watts better than that. As I had come to know the meaning of
mammoth,
I would have said that Mr. Watts felt as lonely as the last mammoth.

People turned their minds back to the matter of Pip. By now, everyone in the village knew about him or thought they did, and some hotheads now mounted their own searches. I stood with my mum in our separate silence as groups of silly men armed with machetes disappeared into the jungle to hunt him down.

Others who knew about the book and Pip's place in it wondered where the book might be. The redskin soldiers would be back and the one thing that would save their houses would be to find that book with the name of Pip scattered across its pages. My mum must have known this. I imagine this very thing weighed on her conscience. She must have thought about hiding the book outside somewhere so it might be found.

She was not a stupid woman. She must have considered her options whenever she heard a fearful neighbor speculate on when the redskins would come back. And when the night sunk in around us, long and dense, she must have lain awake thinking—knowing what the right thing to do was, but also wondering if there was another way. Once, she might have said something to me. She might have confessed and asked for my help or just my ears. But I was too far away for her to confide in or to ask for my opinion. Even though I lay next to her, in the dark my silence placed me at a distance she could not reach. Of all the people she could not bear to disappoint, I was top of that list. Her daughter who resented her, not only for what our neighbors had lost but for the blame placed at Mr. Watts' door. If I had been willing or able to break my silence I would have thrown her own language back at her. I would have said the devil had gotten into her.

A
T NIGHT WE LISTENED TO GUNFIRE. There were no battles. This was the loose gunfire of rambos drunk on jungle juice trying to scare the redskins. They took aim at the stars and blasted up through the treetops. But there were also other nights of gunfire where stems of smoke greeted the dawn and we knew we were seeing the aftermath of something we did not want to send our minds to.

We were back to waiting for the redskin soldiers, and like before, the tension rose. People squabbled. Voices were raised. Wives fought with their husbands, and vice versa. Kids were shouted at. You saw little kids squirt across yards where we used to see roosters.

And one morning we saw Mr. Watts pull his wife, Grace, along in that trolley. For the occasion Mr. Watts had put on his red clown's nose. He was back to being Pop Eye, and that came as a shock—to see him slip once more into that role, but also to see how quickly we changed back to our old idea of him.

When people saw him pulling Grace along it dawned on them, as a mob, that the Wattses' house had been spared. Mr. Watts and Grace must still have their possessions. The proof was that stupid red clown's nose and the cart. No one could remember seeing their things dragged to the bonfire. But then no one would have expected it either because Mr. Watts was white and therefore lived outside the world in which these things happened.

It then occurred to people that Mr. Watts might have the missing book that would save their houses.

I did not join the rush on Mr. Watts and Grace's house. Of course not. I did not want Mr. Watts to look up and see his Matilda as part of that mob. Besides, I knew their search was a waste of time.
Great Expectations
was rolled up in my father's sleeping mat hanging from the rafter above the floor where my mum slept. Never in my life, not up to that moment or since, really, have I held such valuable information.

Now I knew something of the moral confusion my mum had experienced. As my neighbors rushed towards Mr. Watts' house I had the information that could have stopped them, but I said nothing, and did nothing.

Here is how a coward thinks:
If I stay inside my house I won't have to witness the ransacking of the Wattses' house. I won't have to know.

I don't know whether they looked for the book at the house, then, after searching far and wide for it, fell to anger and frustration. There was no way of knowing the precise nature of the mood of the mob.

But when I moved to the edge of the door and looked out I saw people carrying all the possessions belonging to the Wattses. Nothing was too small. Useless appliances with cords and plugs bouncing behind in the dirt. One woman carried a plastic clothes basket. She looked like she might be interested in hanging on to that for herself. But no one took things for themselves. They dragged the larger items. Men carried some of the furniture between them like a pig about to be spit-roast. I counted one or two smiles. But, I'm glad to say, I heard no cheering.

I had never seen an event like this before; I had never seen anything as vengeful as this, and yet, once again, the people went about it as if they knew what to do. No one had to tell them where to put everything. And they had many, many things. Stuff that was of value to us, but no one took anything. There were clothes. Photographs. Chairs. Ornaments made of wood. Carvings. A small table. And books. I had never seen so many books—I thought Mr. Watts might have given them to us kids to read.

Everything went up in flames.

This bonfire was more spectacular than the last. There was more wood. We watched the flames in silence. No one tried to hide their involvement, nor did the Wattses try to put out the blaze. There were no words of anger or blame.

Mr. Watts stood before the blaze with one arm around the shoulders of Grace. They looked as if they were farewelling someone. If he stopped short of appearing as a participant, Mr. Watts made what was happening seem necessary and acceptable.

THIS TIME WHEN the redskins reappeared it was as if they melted out of the jungle. They came upon us like cats. The last one out of the jungle was their commanding officer.

Some of the soldiers wore bandages that had bloodstains on them. Some of the bandages were strips torn from their shirts. Their officer looked to be sick with fever. His skin was jaundiced. The eyes of his men were inflamed and red, whereas his were yellow. Sweat coated his face; it oozed from him. He seemed too tired and ill for anger.

Once more we gathered without an order to do so. Some of the soldiers wandered off on their own, their weapons swinging lightly from their shoulders. I saw one enter a house and undo his trousers to urinate.

We all looked back at the officer. Surely he would have something to say about this—one of his men urinating in our houses? But he either didn't want to know or didn't care. When he spoke he sounded tired; that's when I noticed he was having trouble standing. He was very sick.

He told us he wanted food and medicines. Mabel's father held up his hand to speak on our behalf. “We have no medicines,” he said. This was true. It was also bad news. Very bad news. The bonfire must have slipped the officer's memory, because now we saw the reason why we had no medicines dawn on his sick face.

He rolled his head back on his shoulders and gazed up at the blue sky. He didn't have a reason to be annoyed with us. Mabel's father had given the information politely and without mention of the bonfire. All the same, the news appeared to deflate the officer. He was tired of being who he was: tired of his job, tired of this island, of us, and of the responsibility he carried.

One of his men brought him a pineapple. Perhaps it was to cheer him up. The soldier held it in both hands as an offering. The officer acknowledged the pineapple with a nod, but he waved it away. When he raised his fevered eyes we knew what was coming next.

“Last time we were here you concealed a man from us. You saw what happened because of your foolishness. I decided to give you time to think about your decision. That is why we went away. To give you time to think. Now we are back with our request.”

My mum closed her eyes, and this time I followed her example. So the next part I only heard. “I must warn you all,” I heard the officer say, “I do not have the patience that I had when you last saw me.”

There was a pause. As it lengthened I felt the thick heat of the midday sun. I heard the too joyful screech of a crow. Then I heard the redskin say, “Bring me this man Pip.”

There were people who might have spoken up. Mr. Watts, for one, had he been there. The soldiers must have forgotten where to find his house. Either that or they chose not to. I knew Grace had come down with fever, and I understood Mr. Watts was nursing her as best he could.

The other person who could have saved us was my mum. But she could not produce the book, not after the bonfire, which happened because of her failure to produce the book the first time. She couldn't do that, any more than I could betray her and lead the soldiers to my father's sleeping mat.

Under these circumstances, silence among such a large group of people is an uncomfortable thing to experience. Guilt spreads around even to those who have nothing to feel guilty about. Many held their breath. Or, as I heard later, many did what me and my mum did and closed their eyes. We closed our eyes in a bid to remove ourselves.

I remember hearing a wave slap playfully onto the beach. It had not occurred to me before to think of the ocean as a dumb useless thing.

“Very well,” said the officer without enthusiasm. It was almost possible to imagine that he wished he hadn't said that. It was almost possible to think that we had forced him to act, that we had given him no choice. That
we
were the ones to blame for everything.

I will say this for the soldiers. They went about burning our houses with appropriate solemnity. There were no wild shouts of joy. They didn't let off rounds of ammunition. It wasn't what you might expect. No. They asked us to burn our homes. They splashed kerosene in the doorway, then stepped back for the owner of the house to throw a lit torch in the doorway. My mother did so knowing that Mr. Watts' copy of
Great Expectations
would be lost forever.

As we watched the flames devour our houses it was like saying good-bye to a part of our lives. We missed that space. We hadn't thought of it in that way until then. Now some of us had an idea of what Mr. Watts had given up. People shut their eyes and recalled smells of meals eaten, old scents, conversations—some arguments, but also perhaps important decisions—celebrations, all of which had happened under a roof. Some of our neighbors spoke of a quiet stillness. Things you would have thought could be found elsewhere. There is stillness out to sea and under tall trees as well, but I suppose they didn't know about this other quality of stillness until their houses were destroyed.

In the first fire people had lost gifts and favorite things. A ball. A lucky fishhook. In my case, the shoes my father had sent me. The postcards. This time what people lost was their privacy. Where would they hide themselves now? I shared that same concern.

I had discovered that the plainest house can crown a fantasy or daydream. An open window can be tolerated. So can an open door. But I discovered the value of four walls and a roof. Something about containment that at the same time offers escape.

I worried about my secret life with Pip. Would I find him again under the trees or along the beach? I worried that the world around me would speak too loudly and want my company too much.

We slept outside the smoking ruins of our houses. We discovered that without a house your life feels bare. We had only the clothes we slept in. Yet some things cannot be taken or set fire to or shot. We still had the air. We still had the freshwater streams. We had fruit. We had our gardens. We were even left our pigs. And, by some stroke of good fortune, the redskin soldiers had also overlooked Gilbert's father's boat. It was up the dry creek bed where he always hauled it. When I saw its blue hull tipped over on its keel I felt a fish leap in my heart. We pounced on his nets and fishing tackle like the gifts they were. These were small, important victories in our bid to survive.

Gilbert's father suddenly looked like a man who had just awoken to his responsibilities. He was an expert fisherman who knew where to set his nets and where to find fish at night. He had been born with this fish sense. He knew fish better than the fish knew themselves, which was just as well because night was the only time he could risk fishing. If the redskin patrols saw his boat they would shoot on sight. We knew this because we had heard of such events happening further up the coast.

After two days the smoldering stopped, and we saw there was nothing left. Soon you could hear the chop-chop of machetes. People came and went out of the jungle. They carried spear leaves and long stripped branches. Two men could carry a heavy beam between them.

Within a week we had built new houses. These were not as good as our old ones. We didn't have milled timber or wooden floors. But they were as good as we could make with what we had. We stitched and wove them together. Everyone has seen a bird build its nest—well, that was us too.