Hawaii - James Michener [59]
Still the canoe bore on. At night Teroro, with his lips burning, would place on the platform near the prow a half coconut, filled with placid sea water, and in it he would catch the reflection of the fixed star, and by keeping this reflection constant in the cup, he maintained his course.
At daybreak, red-eyed Teura would sit in the blazing heat, her old body almost desiccated by the sun, and speculate upon the omens. Hour after hour she muttered, "What will bring rain?" The flight of birds might indicate where islands were, and water, but no birds flew. "Red clouds in patches in the eastern sky bring rain, for certain," she recalled, but there were no clouds. At night the moon was full, brilliant as a disk of polished Tridacna, but when she studied the moon she found no ring around it, no omen of storm. "If there were a wind," she muttered, "it might bring us to a storm," but there was no wind. Repeatedly she chanted: "Stand up, stand up, the big wave from Tahiti. Blow down, blow down, the great wind from Moorea." But in these new seas her invocations were powerless.
Day followed day of remorseless heat, worse than anyone in the canoe had ever previously experienced. On the seventeenth day one of the women died, and as her body was plunged into the perpetual care of Ta'aroa, god of the mysterious deep, the men who were to have been her husbands wept, and through the entire canoe there was a longing for rain and the cool valleys of Bora Bora, and it was not surprising that many began to deplore having come upon this voyage.
Hot nights were followed by blazing days, and the only thing that seemed to live in the canoe was the dancing new star as it leaped about in the coconut cup which Teroro studied; and then late one night as the navigator watched his star, he saw on the horizon, lighted by the moon, a breath of storm. It was small at first, and wavering, and Mato whispered, "Is that rain?"
At first Teroro would not reply, and then, with a mighty shout, he roared into the night, "Rain!"
The grass house emptied. The sleeping paddlers wakened and watched as a cloud obscured the moon. A wind rose, and a light capping of the sea could be seen in starlight. It must be a substantial storm, and not a passing squall. It was worth pursuing, and everyone began to paddle furiously. Those with no paddles used their hands, and even the king, distraught with hope, grabbed a bailing bucket from a slave and paddled with it.
How desperately they worked, and how tantalizingly the storm eluded them. Through the remaining portion of the night, the canoe sped on, its men collapsing with thirst and exhaustion, in pursuit of the storm. They did not catch it, and as the blazing day came upon them, driving the clouds back to the horizon, and then beyond, an awful misery settled upon the canoe. The paddlers, their strength exhausted in the fruitless quest, lay listless and allowed the sun to beat upon them. Teroro was of no use. Old Tupuna was near death, and the pigs wept protestingly in the waterless heat.
Only the king was active. Sitting cross-legged on his mat he prayed ceaselessly. "Great Tane, you have always been generous to us in the past," he cajoled. "You have given us taro and breadfruit in abundance. You brought our pigs to fatness and birds to our traps. I am grateful to you, Tane. I am loyal to you. I prefer you above all other gods." He continued in this way for many minutes, hot sweat upon his face, reminding the deity of their close and profitable relationships in the past. Then, from the depth of his despair, he pleaded: "Tane, bring us rain."
From a short distance forward, red-eyed Teura heard the king praying and crept back to him, but she brought him terror, not assurance, for she whispered, "The fault is mine, nephew."
"What have you done?" the king asked in spittle-dry tones.
"Two nights before we left Bora Bora I had a dream and I ignored it. A voice came to me crying, 'Teura, you have forgotten me.'"
"What?"