The Navidad Incident (42 page)

“In Palau, not twenty years ago, there was an old crone who lived in a tiny village on Babelthuap Island. She raised chickens and pigs, and tended her field most ably for her age. One day, a Yankee traveler came to the village driving a hired carriage on his way to the tip of the island where a quaint old abai lodge with colourfully painted walls was to be found. Either he was all in a dither searching for the abai or he'd quaffed a peg ere leaving his lodgings, but he was in a goodly hurry when, passing the old lady's house, suddenly a chicken ran out into the road.”

“Common enough story. Chickens don't know about cars. Go on.”

“Aye, uncivilised fowl they are. The carriage hit the chicken and sent it to its Maker. The Yankee quickly halted his carriage, alighted and gathered up the dead bird. He was distraught, for without thinking he had killed a bird of no little value to poor country folk. Out of his own cultural waters, what could he say? A sensitive lot, it would seem, these foreigners.”

“A few of them.”

“I bow to your greater knowledge. In any case, this one did not simply run off. He took it upon himself to go, dead hen in hand, and apologise to its owner.”

“Which caused a big fuss.”

“Naturally. The old lady made such a to-do you would have thought the bird was her own beloved grandchild. As tho she were to bury it in the family grave instead of plucking it for the pot. So the Yankee pulled out his purse.”

“The decent thing.”

“Well, at the sight of the green bills, the old lady's eyes changed colour too. She proceeded to tell the Yankee about her bird: how clever, how beautiful, how noble it was, the pride of the village, practically a god in feathered form, but never did she name a price.”

“Smart move.”

“In countries rich and poor factors in a transaction pit themselves at opposite extremes o'er what they deem fair recompense. No mere percentage, but often figures apart. The old crone was determined to make him name the first price.”

“Wasn't there a market value?”

“In which market? Of course, chickens have value in the village market, but not in dollars. 'Tis all barter: one chicken for a bunch of bananas and some taro, or so many reef fish or a day's work.”

“Like Navidad in the old days.”

“The search for the abai now all but forgotten, the Yankee finally proposed a figure. A simple sum, which she multiplied by ten, and led him on, allowing the dupe to bargain her down to four times his original offer, whereupon the old lady accepted with a show of great displeasure.”

“Complete victory.”

“Tho wait, there's more to tell. As the old woman made to go inside, the Yankee stopped her and held out the dead bird.”

“Can't say I'm surprised.”

“Being of no mind to keep it or take it to his lodgings to have it cooked, he gave the fowl back. What else could he do?”

“Must have surprised the old woman, though.”

“That it did. She had no idea white folk could be so gullible. Once more she put on a woebegone air and accepted the feathery corpse as if to go bury it.”

“And that evening, she and the neighbors had roast chicken, eh?”

“Laughing one and all at the fool and his money, praising the stubborn old lady. She, meanwhile, had learnt a good lesson.”

“To always drive a hard bargain?”

“Nay, that when a foreigner meets a fowl, money falls from the heavens.”

“Hmm,” mutters Matías, detecting a note of mockery in Lee Bo's morality tale. This can only lead in an undesirable direction.

“Thereafter, in any idle moment, the old lady would wait in the shadows for a motor carriage to pass. And lo, they did, three or four times of a week. How difficult could it be to time a bird's release with the approach of the tyres? Then to slip back inside the house and wait with a long face for the Yank or Jap to come knocking? Ah, the sad stories, the tears, the better to drive up the price …”

“…and salt the roast chicken that evening.”

“With each success, she would invite the whole village, and receive bananas and taro in return. Three birds with one stone, as it were. But …” Lee Bo pauses for effect. Matías leans forward to hear him out. “Then she began to consider the poor defenseless victims and tried to teach the birds to fly.”

“So what are you saying?”

“Oh, nothing. Mere palaver.”

“You mean I'm the old woman and the people are my chickens, is that it?”

“Not in so many words. But all things being relative, shew me the man so singularly good, the policy so perfectly right. Where is the wholly wicked man or bad policy? Nay, you've been a fine chicken lady,” chides Lee Bo. “Crafty and forthright in equal measure, you've done well by your life. You knew the limits of your greed. Selfish but confident, the requisites of a politician. None dare question that. Nay, 'twas the Brun Reef ruse rais'd the bar too high. Not for the common people, nor e'en the Elders, there were unseen others who remonstrated. The murder of Tamang sufficed to convince the Elders, but 'twas really Brun Reef that did it.”

“That was big money. If it came off, I could've started up Air Navidad. It would have provided the capital base for developing the country, enough for industry to kick in. At least I thought so. A way for this country to take an active role among the major powers.”

“A big, fat pig for ev'ryone to roast and eat.”

“A necessary sacrifice.”

“The pig would not think so. And the ancestors are on the side of the pig,” he gently observes.

“It was them who sent Améliana?”

Lee Bo doesn't respond and Matías doesn't press the issue. In the ensuing silence, the candle flickers and drips, consuming their attention yet never getting any shorter.

“One thing I'd like to know,” Matías finally asks.

“That being?”

“What am I supposed to do now? What's the right next move? Not that you ever say much about anything important. You give me more minute particulars than anyone could possibly want to know about the past, present, and future, but since when have you ever given me any real advice? Maybe I should know better than to ask. Still, there is one detail you might oblige me with.”

Lee Bo gives a sly smile, as if he already knows what Matías is going to ask. He raises no objection, meaning he won't give him any practical tips.

“Several times since I became president, I received anonymous letters from someone in Japan. Know anything about that?” Matías asks straight out.

“Your ‘Friend of the Islands'?”

“That's right. Every time I had dealings with Japan, those letters leaked inside information. Saved my neck more than once, though I have no idea who was writing me or why. I doubt any civilian could get access to so many classified government files, so was it an official or a politician? Who among them would know so much about Navidad—or care? Like there was a Navidad spy burrowing in the Japanese nerve center, but there's never any talk of payoffs. Maybe just twice a year, some crucial clue-in arriving by ordinary mail.”

“Witness the letter about Brun Reef and the secret plan for a Japanese cantonment there. Sage counsel, yet you did not accept.”

“Right or wrong, that was my political judgment. Let's drop it, I can think that one over for the rest of my days. What I want to know about is the mole. Is he someone close to Kurokawa? Or a bureaucrat somewhere in Foreign Affairs? Why would anyone up there be so interested in this country? Or have access to so much information? It's not like some South Pacific department flunky just photocopied whatever papers passed across his desk. That data was purposefully collected. Risky business. Who'd risk his neck on such a stunt? Not once, but repeatedly?”

“A man from Ponape.”

“A Ponape islander in the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs?”

“Nay, nothing like that. Your pimpernel was one Daniel López, many years dead. Or rather his shadow … 'Tis a long story.”

“I've got plenty of time.”

“During the Great War, many a Pacific native was press'd into Imperial Army service and deployed on the front lines, López being one such conscript. Were he alive today, he would be five years your senior. His ankle was shattered by a volley in New Guinea, but he received scant attention before being pack'd home to Ponape. Lacking a doctor's care, he was crippled for life. Unable to work, he proved a burthen upon his family. The lean years right after the war must have worn heavily upon him, tho eventually he married, opened a small general store and e'en fathered a child.”

“Common enough story,” repeats Matías, as with the chicken lady fable.

“Aye, a most common plaint in the Imperial Japanese Domestic South Seas, tho 'twas not the end of the tale for López. Hearing that the newly form'd democratic government of Japan was duly compensating its war-wounded with welfare purses, he wonder'd: had he not been ordered to go to war by the Japanese government and maim'd in the line of duty? Were not his injuries as grave as any inflicted on a Japanese soldier? Why did he not merit like payment? The injustice of it! He was told upon conscription that he was a citizen of the realm, that his willing service made him a full imperial subject. Should not his pain be address'd as that of an imperial subject? The lack of compensation was insuff'rable to him.”

“Hard knocks,” mutters Matías, not that he was unaware of this side of Japan—or of all big countries, for that matter. It's precisely hardships like these that show up the arbitrary arrogance of colonial power to the small and downtrodden.

“The hard truth will out indeed. Yet López did not believe so. Consequently, he wrote a letter of enquiry contriving to suggest there must have been a serious mistake: surely his papers had been mislaid? And lo, he received a response, tho not the tidings he hoped for. Nay, the official writ declared that the new administration could not assume all responsibilities for the previous government—without a word about disbursements to Japanese veterans not applying to Domestic South Seas conscripts. 'Twas an unabashedly short set letter, a common instrument of dismissal, one of thousands posted by the Ministry of Welfare to settle like requests from the former colonies.”

“Tell me about it. Plenty of our boys sent angry demands to Japan too, especially in Cornelius's time, but nothing ever came of them. Even in my day, I made a show of trying on behalf of my long-suffering countrymen, but I knew better than to push.”

“López refused to credit the letter. It made no sense; this was wrong. Other lads would have cried themselves to sleep at this point, yet López believed in justice. Something of a moralist he was. He may have return'd home gimp, but what of the many who died? López did the impossible and made passage to Japan.”

“To lodge an appeal?”

“Aye, in person. Given to snap decisions, it would seem. Eventually he found his way to the ministry, where he was offered much the same explanation as in the letter. Like you, López spoke good Japanese, but talking obtained no progress. Entertaining no illusions now, he promptly fix'd his aim upon another mark. Quick on the trigger, that one … still is.”

“You've talked with him recently?”

“Aye, good mates we are,” confides Lee Bo. “López did not hurry back to his island, but stayed on in Tokyo to launch a one-man campaign. He penned a placard in Japanese decrying his unfair treatment and paraded in front of the Ministry from dawn to dusk.”

“Full of fight, I'll say that for him.”

“Hardly—he limp'd, dragging his right foot. He verged on despair inside. Tho when a friendly newspaperman wrote a sympathetic article—alas, no change of heart did it buy at the Ministry—a few contributions trickled in from local readers. López was able to go on protesting for several fortnights, e'en tho the Japanese Consul in Ponape spread malicious rumours about him. In the end, his money and mind spent, López decided to go home.”

Matías clears his throat. Had his own age and circumstances been only slightly different, he'd have been another López. Used by Japan instead of the other way around. Would he have had the guts to go to Japan and protest? But then again, had he allowed Japan to build a secret base at Brun Reef, could he still really claim to have the upper hand? He risked crippling the whole of Navidad himself.

“Half a year after faring back to Ponape, López died. A rheum afflicted in Japan inflamed his lungs and finally consumed him, as no remedies were to be had on his island. Soon enough, he was in a spiritual way.”

“Do those who die unsatisfied become ghosts?” asks Matías. It's something he's been meaning to ask for ages.

“I know not myself. Some become ghosts and some become birds.”

What Matías really wants to know is what it'll be like to die—for him personally— but can't bring himself to say the words.

“Why do certain ships take different courses?” Lee Bo continues. “Since his death, the Ponapean oft visits Japan, much as I call upon you here. In due course, López met a minor official at the Ministry of Welfare and talks with him not infrequently. This befriended clerk then goes home and writes missives about what he's learnt at work, informing people in Micronesia of things they ought to know. One of his addressees being His Excellency Matías Guili.”

“But what about Japan's national interests? His bureaucratic station? His job?”

“He seems unconcerned, no contradiction does he see. An able deckhand who shall ne'er, I daresay, climb higher than midshipman, he may yet play a part in some greater charting of policy for the region. He takes secret delight in all things South Pacific, a fond pastime if you will. He enjoys his talks with López and e'en relishes the challenge of a double identity, thus keeps writing letters incognito.”

Not that any of those letters will be reaching President Guili anymore, thinks Matías. That's Jim Jameson's job now.