"DANCES WITH FIRE"

Chapter 4

Hassie Mildred Gaugau

 

"Tavita.  Tavita!"

"What?"  English came out before he could think.  They had asked him something, what was it?  He tried to come back to the present.  Finally his subconscious came through to him.

"Why do I have a beard?"

Ah.  That was the question.  What do I tell the?  They've heard stories about me, but how much do I want them to know?

"Tavita?"

"Ioe (yes) I'm sorry," he switched back to Samoan.  "The beard, yes.  Well it's just easier when you're on the r---, I mean when you're traveling."

"Son, you are home now," his uncle, the high chief said.  "We think it's time that you shaved that thing off.  We want to see what our celebrity looks like, don't we?" He turned to the other chiefs and the family.

Everyone nodded and no one seemed to notice his slip of the tongue.  Maybe he was paranoid.  After all unless Vi had talked, which would have been stupid when he was supposed to have make people, the mafia, believe that he was dead.

"Sure, I'll shave," he stood up.  "Uncle, you have a razor I can use?"

Everyone applauded when he came in cleanshaven.  "No wonder we heard so many stories about all the women being after you." One of his aunts stood and touched his smooth olive face.  "If I wasn't so old and kin, I'd go after you myself."

"Thank you Auntie Sulah, and I'd go after you too," he hugged her.

"Oh Tavita!" she pushed him away.

More stories, laughs, and questions, then it was time to return to Luatuanu'u.  As they boarded the bus, he saw the boat that he had taken, to Pago Pago, all those years before.  Mele realized that he was lost in thoughts of the past and didn't interupt.

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The boat ride had taken over eight hours.  At first he was excited, then scared, then tired.  He fell asleep, on the deck, rolled in Toese's lavalava.  When he woke the sun was bright and they were sliding quietly into a huge bay.  Rock cliffs rose almost directly from the ocean.  Only occasionally did he see sand beaches.  An inlet here and one there gave evidence that people indeed lived here.  But there were no taro patches, only a few coconut trees, hardly any bananas.  How did these people live?  What did they eat?  He looked around and wondered then realized, with relief, thank goodness, I'll only be here a few weeks until I go to AMERIKA.

The boat docked.  "Now what?" he puzzled.

"Tavita Vaoifi?"  A voice interrupted. "Are you Tavita Vaoifi?"  A tall man stepped toward him with his hand out.

"Yes sir," Tavita returned the handshake.

"Welcome to Tutuila, I'm Bishop Tao.  Congratulations on your scholarship.  You'll stay with my family until time to go the the United States."

The bishop's family lived in a very nice fale.  After they heard his story about the hasty departure, they gave him new lavalavas and all the other things he needed.

During the weeks that followed, he helped with everything that he could and waited to leave.  But the war soon surrounded Samoa on all sides and it was impossible to leave the island.  Even boats to and from Western Samoa were few.  Only naval vessels steamed in and out of the protected harbor.

"Bishop," Tavita bowed his head as he spoke to the high chief.  "I appreciate everything that you and your family are doing for me, but I want to do more to help out.  I notice that you buy all of your taro and bananas from the market."

"Yes son, we do.  I'm just too busy with my job and duties with the church to work the land."

"I see that there is plenty of land for a plantation in back of your fale," Tavita motioned toward the hill.  "If it would be okay with you, I would like to plant taro and bananas, maybe some papaya and yams."

He was excited now and raised his head, speaking directly to the chief.  "I've seen trees, up the mountain, that I could use for posts and there's plenty of pandanas for thatches, I could make my own fale, right there on the plantation."

"Yes, my son," Bishop Tao smiled at his eagerness.  "That would be fine, but you know that you don't have to?"

"Yes sir,," Tavita bowed his head again, ashamed that he had forgotten to respect his elder.  "But I would like to."

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  The bus rocked to a stop and Mele touched his arm.  "Tavita we're home."

"Oh yes," he looked around, stood up and helped her from the bus.  "Sorry, I was just remembering my stay in Tutuila."

"That's okay son," her footsteps crunched over the coral.  "Maybe you will share some of those memories with me."

"Yeah, I'll do that," he trotted off ahead of her.  "But right now I want to check with Vaoifi about the plantation."

He found his dad, seated on the floor of their fale, braiding sennit. (coconut fibers)

"Tama (father), I know that you are not strong enough to work the fields, and Villiamu is with his wife's family."  He sat on the coral floor, picked up some strands of sennit and tried to imitate Vaoifi's deft movements.  "Tennie is at school, Toese has her only family to look after and Samita isn't old enough to do all the work that has to be done.  Do you even have a plantation anymore?"

"There's only the one that you helped me start before you left."  The old man's hands rested in his lap.  "I've been sick, as you know and haven't been able to keep them productive.  We get by, but nothing like when you were here."

"I'll go check it first thing tomorrow," Tavita looked at his once robust father and was glad for the events, no matter how challenging, that had caused him to return home.  "I hope there's still some cocoa left.  Right now, though, I'm going to the ocean and get fish for our aiga o le po (family dinner.)"

The next morning, he was up, before the sun crested the mountain.  With a machete in his hand, he followed the long forgotten trail up the side of the cliff and into the bush.  First one plantation, then the next, one disappointment after another, as sucker taro plants struggled to mature.  Spindly little bananas, only a few per bunch, hung from trees that hadn't been propped or thinned.  The one thing that grew in profusion was breadfruit.  The trees flourished without care and continued, twice a year to give food for the taking.

Well, at least the cocoa is still here," he slashed at the vines that grew almost as he watched, over the gray barked trees.  "Maybe if I get this cleared and they get some sun, we'll have cocoa in a few months."

The sun poured golden rays onto his sweat soaked body.  But his knife continued to rip through the incessant growth that threatened to devour everything that was left of his and Vaoifi's hard work.

His had raised to strike, but there in the middle of the vines stood a gnarled stunted orange tree.  Fruit studded every twisted limb.

"Oranges," he picked one and began to peel the green fruit.

"Oh my God," he laughed out loud, as the pungent spray of delicious fragrance took him back to the boy in American Samoa.

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Oranges, to him, even though they were ripe, had always been green in color on the outside, only shades of orange touched the portions of the peel.  These were the only ones he had ever seen or eaten.  One day he saw an orange that was actually orange.  He took the fruit, looked it over several times trying to decide how to eat it.  At last he slipped behind the store and bit into the strange orange food.

"Anggh, pfft!"  He spit and sputtered.  "This is bad!  But I see people buy these, they must eat them."

With each bitter bite his face contorted.  Even his eyes smarted when the juice sprayed upward, but he made himself finish every morsel.  After all, he had been taught to never waste food.

The last caustic swallow had just gone down when he saw a little boy, maybe five or six, walk over to a rubbish can with the same kind of fruit he had just finished chocking down.  But the boy stood there and took off the outside of the fruit and threw it into the can.  Then he ate the inside.

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"What a stupid kid I was," Tavita laughed to himself as he bit into the ripe green orange, after peeling it.  "It's a wonder I ever lived to make it back here."

He cleared a few more cocoa, then returned to the village.

"Vaoifi, Mele," he joined them as they readied for their evening meal.  "I need to get a job.  There's lots of work to do getting the plantation back into production, but it's going to take money."

"Yes son," Vaoifi lowered himself onto the mats, "we'll talk about that, but now it's time for evening prayers."

Tavita looked at Mele and Samita, who were also seated, on the floor.  He could hear hymns coming from neighboring fales.  Then Vaoifi's voice broke into song joined by the others.  At first Tavita mumbled the words as the long forgotten ritual came back to him.  Then a peaceful spiritual cloak embraced him as the words remembered came out strong and proud.  As soon as the song finished, Vaoifi gave a long prayer of thanksgiving.  Amen's all around followed and then the evening meal was servedl

"Now son," Vaoifi ate from his banana leaf plate and drank from a coconut.  "What were you saying about the plantation?"

"There's lots to do to get your land back into production and I want to clear and claim as much as I can for my own use."  He scooped into the palusami (a dish made from taro leaves, coconut cream, and sea water) with a chunk of taro (a root vegetable.)  "This is going to take money as well as hard work.  I'll go into town tomorrow and find a job.  I'll work during the day then get the plantation in shape after I get home."

"But son," Mele served the roasted chicken, that she had had Samita kill after school.  "You can't do all that yourself and there's no one here to help you."

"Sure I can," he licked chicken bits from his fingers.  "We'll be rich again, like we were before I left.  You'll be able to buy some new lavalavas and we'll use kerosene lamps instead of this charcoal fire for light, just you wait and see."

The next morning, he was out by the road where he waited for the bus.  No one walked into Apia anymore, everyone rode the "pesi."  In town, he went to the post office, then the police station where he filled out applications and was told that they would know something in two weeks.  Well he needed something before that, but while he waited, he cleaned and improved Vaoifi's plantation and started to clear a place for himself.  He also built his own fale near Toese and her husband's, on the beach.

"Tavita," Toese said one afternoon while she helped him with his house.  "Are you still looking for work?"

"Yeah," he was deep into tying the thatches and answered in English before he thought, "I mean, ioe," he changed back to Samoan.

"Well I heard that the church school is looking for a teacher and I thought that you would be good for the job."

"Sis, that's great!"   He gave her a hug.  "I'm sure I can do that.  I'll go first thing in the morning."

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  That night, in his own fale, he thought about the similarities of his life now and when he was in Pago Pago.  The plantations and the hunt for a job.  The only differences were his age and abilities.  But when he thought about it they weren't so different either.

He had planted, weeded, and watched the taro reach maturity.  The bananas came along at almost the same time.  Papaya seemed to multiply on it's own and the yams would be there for years to come.

"Son," Brother Teo looked at the beautiful crops.  "You've done a wonderful job.  You've given us much more than we've given you in your stay with us."

"Thank you sir," Tavita beamed at the praise.  "But now that things only have to be tended occasionally, I'd like to get a job to earn real money.  I feel badly when my father has to send money to buy my supplies.  I want to support myself."

 "Well, if you really want to," the chief said, "I saw an ad in the paper wanting a boy to help at Haleck's store. You could ride the bus into town with me, to apply."

The next morning, at the store, Tavita took a test along with several other boys, to see how much English they knew.  His school training and the association with the Marines paid off and he was hired.

His job consisted of keeping the grocery store clean and serving ice cream and making shakes for the sailors who came in every day.  Like Aggie's this was the only store in town that served ice cream so they stayed busy and Tavita's vocabulary improved tremendously, but some of the words he was careful not to use around the Teo family.

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"I hope I can do as well here," he thought as the lullaby of waves outside his new fale soothed him to sleep.

The next morning he hurried into town and went directly to the church school where he was hired and put to work that same afternoon.  He was to teach fifth and sixth grades.  This was great.  The job schedule gave him time to work the land after school and on weekends.

"Tavita," the school principal approached him after he'd been there almost two months.  "You've probably heard about or remember the fiafia (party-luau) competition that we have every year.  The one where Upolu, Savai'i and Ttuila try to outdo each other with our traditional songs and dances."

"Yes sir, I remember," Tavita gathered his books to start home.

"Well, someone mentioned that you danced professionally, in the states, is that right?"

"Yes sir, I did some."

"We were wondering if you might come up with something for us," the principal shuffled his bare feet on the coral.

"I had heard a little about it."  Tavita moved his feet carefully across the coral, not yet accustomed to going without shoes.  "What kind of show did you want?"
"Anything!  Anything that you come up with, I'm sure would be great!"  The official couldn't seem to believe his good fortune.  "We'll be happy to do whatever we can to help, of course, I know this is short notice.  Savai'i is tonight, Tutuila tomorrow night, and we're scheduled for the next night."

Aghast at such a huge request, on such short notice, he almost turned it down, but at the last minute decided to accept the challenge.  He took advantage of the offer for help and the next two day sent people in every direction.  One of the errands was to find So'olotoga, one of his friends from school, before he had left for American Samoa.  They had played in the school band together.  Others were sent to find warriors knives.  Still others brought burlap sacks, wire, and kerosene.  The principal was assigned to operate the lights while Tavita's classes worked to set the stage just right.  From the class he also chose the best dancers, since all Samoan children learn to dance early,  and while the errands were being completed, he gathered the dancers together and worked out a simple routine for them, that would be the preamble to the big finish.

When everyone returned there were five or six knives, piles of sacks, enough wire to fence half of Apia and enough kerosene to light all the houses in the village.

The big day arrived.  Tavita gave last minute instructions to the principal for the light positions and times, then taught Sa'olotoga the drum cadence he needed.

"Son, I heard that you needed ti leaves and coconut oil."  Mele walked into his classroom.  "I hope that these are okay."

"Thank you," he took the last pieces of "equipment" from her.  "These are just what I wanted.  The show will start in about an hour, is Vaoifi here?"

"Oh yes, we wouldn't have missed this for anything.  We'll be out front."

Tavita watched with pride, as the class preformed their numbers amazingly well, with so little practice.  As their routines were coming to an end, he gave last minute instructions, wrapped the burlap around the knives and secured it with wires. Then he dipped the burlap into the kerosene.  He fashioned garlands for his arms and legs from the ti, rubbed his entire body with the coconut oil and fixed a short lavalava around his waist.  Then he hooked two ti leaves together, slashed them into a fringe and placed the resulting ornament around his neck.  He was ready.

As the class finished their numbers, the lights went out.  Total darkness enveloped the crowd.  Drums sounded.  a cadence throbbed from the depths of the past.  A warrior's cry slashed through the black, as fire streaked from left to right.