Getting Stoned With Savages - J. Maarten Troost [30]
I was beginning to feel a bond with Sam. He was my brother. “Sam,” I said. “Would you like another shell?”
He would.
I felt heavy. My steps were ponderous. “Are you all right?” I heard Sylvia ask. My wife. I felt the years together, the history, us. I loved her. “Splendid,” I said, aglow, and I shuffled on with Sam to the shed.
“Tank yu tumas,” Sam said.
“No, Sam. Tank yu tumas,”
Bislama, I thought. The language of poets. I took the bowl, a full shell. There was a light on the horizon, a flickering white orb. It was moving away from me. No. Toward me. I stared at the light. Come here, light. I drank the kava. I felt suffused with light.
I sat on the bench next to Sam, my brother. Smoked a cigarette. So sweet, this tobacco. Very heavy to lift this cigarette. I am, I thought. I am. Here. There are others. Such good people. They are my brothers. There is no time, no such thing. There is now, and it goes forever, on and on. Backward too, to the past. So heavy, this cigarette.
“Another shell?”
A voice. Whose voice? Dirk’s. A good man, Dirk. He is my brother. “Yes,” I said. Let us fly on.
Cannot move feet. Why do you not move, feet? Will speak to legs. Legs need help too. Push up with arms. Yes, standing now. Must get from here to there. Legs not moving. Why will you not move, legs? Ah, happy now. No need to move legs. Here is Dirk. A good man, Dirk. “Tank yu tumas.” Difficult to speak. Shall stop speaking. Here is the kava. There are the lights, stars, my brothers. Good kava. Very smooth. Can sit down now.
Have missed bench.
Here is the dirt. Shall rest here. Dirty, this dirt is. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. I am one with the dirt.
Who is this lifting me? Why, there is Sam. Hello, Sam. Can you hear me? Yes, you can. We are brothers. Thank you, Sam. There is my wife. Love her so. Shall tell her when mouth works. She is speaking. Go, she says. No, no, cannot go. Cannot move legs. Stay we must.
There is the moon. I see you, moon. Beautiful moon. I am watching you. Do you see me? I am one with you.
Still feel very heavy, so heavy. Shall sleep now.
Who is this carrying me? Hello, Sam. Hello, Dirk. My brothers. Do not carry me. Just let me lie here. I will be one with the dirt.
World is moving much too fast. Lights. Darkness. Lights again. Many more lights. Am inside a car. Do not like cars.
Here is my wife. Here is my house. No, no. Do not turn on lights. Lights must go off. Yes. The bed. Good idea. Shall just lie here for a moment. Am dreaming. Very strange dreams. Would like to wake up now. Cannot wake up.
IT WAS TWO DAYS before I returned to Earth, and many more before I ventured to another nakamal. I felt like I had been mugged, taken unawares, slugged from behind, and now I was wary. It had been a slow descent, nothing at all like a hangover, just a lingering sense that I was in a place far, far away, in a world of my own. “I asked the people at work,” Sylvia said. “And they said you had way too much kava. You should have stopped at two shells.”
“Well, maybe they should put a warning label on their kava.”
Not that it would have made any difference. I had had five shells. There is nothing quite like knowledge gained through hard experience. No one expects his local drug dealer to affix labels on dime bags: WARNING. SMOKING DOPE WILL GET YOU STONED. It was all about balance, calibrating the intake of a narcotic so that it produced a desired sensation. But what I had achieved—gross inebriation, semiparalysis, hallucinations—was, from a traditional Ni-Vanuatu point of view, a desired outcome. Vanuatu is a world of rituals, magic, and sorcery. There are spirits and ghosts. Dead ancestors aren’t quite as dead as they are in the West, and from time to time they drop by for a visit. The artwork of Vanuatu—headdresses adorned with the plumes of hawks, carved tree ferns, decorative tam-tams, or wooden drums—was, to my eyes, evocative and otherworldly. But in traditional