Hawaii - James Michener [74]
In consternation he remembered that on the canoe young Tehani had done the same; but it was different. He had never known with older Marama one fifth of the sexual excitement he had experienced with Tehani; and yet his mind was tormented by his wife. He would see her at night when he returned from his silent walks with Pere. In his dreams he would hear Marama speak. And whenever he saw Wait-for-the-West-Wind, that perfect canoe, he would see Marama, for she had said, "I am the canoe!" And she was.
It was in this mood that one morning he dashed from his thatched hut where Tehani slept and ran to Mato, at the fishing grounds. Grabbing the surprised chief by the hand he dragged him to the hut, and jerked Tehani to her feet. "She is your woman, Mato," he shouted with unnecessary force.
"Teroro!" the young girl cried.
"You are no longer my woman!" Teroro shouted. "I watched you on the canoe. Mato never took his eyes from you. All right, Mato, now she is yours." And he stalked from the scene.
That afternoon, in torment of spirit, he sought out his brother and said simply, "I shall go back to Bora Bora."
The king was not surprised, for he had been watching his brother and news of his rejection of Tehani had been discussed with old Tupuna, who had said that Teroro was ill in spirit. "Why will you go? Tamatoa asked.
"I must bring Marama here," the younger man said. "We need more breadfruit, more dogs, everything. We need more people."
A council was held and all agreed that a trip south could prove helpful, especially if foodstuffs were brought back. "But who can be spared for such a long voyage?" Tupuna asked, and Teroro replied that he could sail West Wind to Bora Bora with only six men, if Pa and Hiro were two of them.
"I'll go," Mato insisted, but Teroro growled, "We have treated Tehani badly. You stay with her." And he would not take Mato, his greatest friend.
So the return trip was authorized, and the community began assembling its pitiful stores of spare food. This time there was no dried taro, no coconut, no breadfruit, no bamboo lengths to carry water. There were, fortunately, some bananas, but they did not dry and carry well. Dried fish there was in plenty, and on this the men would exist.
When the food was collected, Teroro divulged his plan. Drawing a rough pattern of the trip north, he pointed out that the canoe had sailed far east, then north, then far west. With a bold line in the sand he cut across this pattern and said, "We will sail directly south, and we will find the island."
"There will be no storm winds to aid you," Tupuna warned.
"We will ride with the currents," Teroro replied, "and we will paddle.
On the last day before departure, Teroro was sitting alone when one of the village women came to him and said plaintively, "On the return, if there is room in the canoe, will you please bring one thing for me?"
"What?" Teroro asked. "A child," the woman said. "Whose child?" he inquired.
"Any child," the woman replied, adding softly, "It is woeful to be in a land where there are no children."
It was impractical to bring a child so far, and Teroro said so, and dismissed the woman, but in a little while another came to him, saying, "Why should you bring pigs and breadfruit, Teroro? What our hearts ache for is children." And he sent her away.
But the women came again, and while they did not weep, there were tears in their throats as they spoke: "We are growing older, all of us. You and the king and Tupuna and all of us. There are babies, to be sure, but we need children."
"There are no children playing along the shore," another said. "Do you remember how they played in our lagoon?" And suddenly Teroro could see the lagoon at Bora Bora with hundreds of brown, naked children in the green waters, and he realized why Havaiki-of-the-North had seemed so barren.
"Please," the women pleaded, "bring us back some children."
Then, on the night of departure, for Teroro insisted upon leaving when the stars were visible, he confided to his brother: "I am not going solely for Marama. I am going to bring