Читать книгу Keeping Faith - Roger Averill - Страница 10

6 TH APRIL 1994

Letters to your memory, I’ve heard them described like that; I’ve never kept one though — a journal. Except as a girl, playing at it, looking for an excuse to practise my handwriting. They always struck me as dumb, like talking to yourself. And boring. As if the little bits and pieces of life were worth recording.

Mum gave me this one not long before the accident, before she died. Hard bound, with ‘Wildflower Journal’ tooled and gilted into the dark green cloth, I have always found it beautiful to look at, to touch; too beautiful to write in. I feel guilty now, marking it, staining the thick, cream paper with ink. Each page is decorated with a drawing of a different Australian native flower. This one has a sprig of wattle curled around the top right corner, its yellow blossom smudged like pollen dust across the faintly printed lines.

I was nineteen and had just started nursing when Mum gave it to me. Making me promise I would use it, she said she wished she had kept one when she was my age. I have often wondered why, guessed at what secrets may have been kept in its pages. They wouldn’t be secret now, of course. I would have read them — written words keep an unfaithful silence. But perhaps that is what she meant, what she wanted.

That’s the thing about diaries — people write them pretending they’re written to themselves, but really they are all the time hoping someone, sometime, will be interested enough to sneak a look and read them. To be honest, that’s why I’m starting this one. Just in case. To keep account.

I meant to start it last year when the Mission posted me here in the mountains. I was too tired, though, and busy and in a way I’m glad I didn’t because it would have been full of loneliness and self-pity; every entry droning on about how much I missed home. I’m past that now. Concentrating on the work and building up relationships, I’ve started to really enjoy living here. I still have bad days, of course, but most of the time I thank God for the opportunity to serve Him, to care for these people.

It’s so beautiful here; I guess that helps. The hospital, my house, Dr Swinton’s place and all the Dwanigi houses are built on the top of Mt. Segum, the highest peak in the Yumakili Range. This morning, eating breakfast, I looked out the window and was amazed by what I saw.

My mouth still full of porridge, I ran outside. The air was brittle, thin, prickling as I struggled to breathe it in. The sun was up and shining but there was no heat in it, so that the sky above the mountain was a cold, pale blue. The startling thing was what lay beneath. The valleys of jungle, the gleam of river which normally snaked between them, had vanished under a false floor of cotton wool cloud. They were completely gone. Banished by something which looked so innocent, so soft. I imagined myself as Noah, the mountain top my Ark, floating above a world drowned in mist. I felt like an angel. As if God had chosen me and, plucking me from the earth, had deposited me here in heaven.

Lincoln walked up behind me and said hello. I hadn’t heard him coming and jumped at the sound of his voice. Lincoln became a Christian late last year and now helps out around the hospital. He’s taller than most Dwanigi men and the extra height makes him more awkward on the steep slopes. This morning he was wearing shorts and an old jumper unravelling at the collar. His arms were crossed against the cold, his eyes still puffy from sleep. ‘Dempu tetaua,’ he said, jutting his head towards the cloud, ‘Dempu’s shame, that’s what we call it.’ He began to explain that Dempu was a character in one of their legends, but when I asked what the story was about he wouldn’t say and suggested I ask Hisiu or one of the other old men who know the legends well.

Hisiu is a Dwanigi elder, a leader in the church. He came to the hospital this afternoon so I could dress a burn on his hand. Kneeling before him, smothering the blistered skin with antiseptic cream, I mentioned this morning’s cloud and asked about Dempu tetaua. His deep-set eyes widened with surprise. ‘Gracie, who told you of Dempu?’

‘Lincoln,’ I said, hoping I wasn’t getting him in trouble. ‘He wouldn’t tell me the story though; he said I should ask you.’

Bowing his head, Hisiu guided my gaze back to the afflicted hand. As I bandaged it, he told me Dempu’s story.

‘Dempu lived many, many years ago, long before the missionaries. Even as a boy he was strong and a good hunter. He had long black hair and teeth as white as an eagle’s egg and all the girls of the mountains thought him beautiful. Often they would talk of who would be his bride, of how many pigs they would offer his line. Sometimes their talk would lead to fighting and, like dogs hungry for tapioca, they would bite and scratch for his affection. But then, not long after he was made a man, rather than choose one of them, Dempu visited Ematea, one of Wonkori’s wives. Wonkori was a big man, and smart. Hiding in the bushes, he set a trap for Dempu and caught him with his wife.’

I kept my head down, winding the gauze around Hisiu’s flinching hand.

‘To punish him, Wonkori made words over Dempu so that no woman would ever lie with him again, because if she did her belly would grow fat with the children of a snake. In shame, Dempu left the mountain and for the rest of his days slept in a cave by the river. There he lived the life of a lonely man.’

I pinned the bandage to itself and Hisiu, seeing that I was finished, stood up. Saying thank you, he made a move towards the door. Calling out, I stopped him, asking how the sea of cloud related to Dempu’s story. He didn’t turn to face me, but stared through the window at the children playing marbles in the dirt.

‘We used to believe that those clouds were Dempu’s shame, the flow of his lonely seed, forever searching for a woman’s soil. Our old people would say that when Dempu tetaua came back to our valley it was a sign, a warning.’

Hisiu looked at me now, combing two fingers through his greying beard, smiling.

‘We don’t believe that any more. Now we know they are only clouds, sent by God to bring us rain.’