Hawaii - James Michener [76]
When the prayers were over he joined her there, and they sat in silence, profound communion passing between them, and she was both forgiving and consoling in the disappointing moments when they found him too exhausted with famine even to make love with her. She laughed softly and said, from the edge of the house, "See what happened on the last night we made love." And she took from a maid's arms a boy nearly a year old, with wide eyes and dark hair like his father's.
Tororo looked at his son, and at the wife he had left behind because she could bear no children, and in his embarrassment he began to laugh. Marama laughed too, and teased: "You looked so ridiculous out there, praying to Oro. And Pa putting on that long face! 'Now let us go to the temple of Oro!' It was a good idea, Teroro, but it wasn't necessary."
"What do you mean?"
"Haven't you noticed how much older the High Priest looks? He has been very badly treated."
"That's good news. How?"
"After all his scheming to banish you and Tamatoa, so that he could become the chief priest at Havaiki ..."
"You mean, they were just using him? To subdue Bora Bora?"
"Yes. They had no intention of making him chief priest. After you killed your wife's father . . ."
"She's not my wife. I gave her to Mato."
Marama paused for a moment and looked at the floor. Quietly, she added, "The men of Havaiki tried to give us a new king, but we fought."
"Then why do you keep the High Priest?"
"We need a priest," she said simply. "Every island needs a priest." And they fell silent, listening to the soft waves of the lagoon, and after a long while Teroro said, "You must find a dozen women who will go with us. It's a hard journey." Then he added, "And this time we'll take some children with us." His voice brightened. "We'll take the little fellow."
"No," Marama said. "He's too young. We'll trade him for an older boy," and in the island tradition she went from house to house, until she found an eight-year-old boy she liked, and to his willing mother she gave her son. When Teroro saw the new boy, he liked him too, and after the child was sent away to wait for the canoe's departure, he took his wife in his arms and whispered, "You are the canoe of my life, Marama. In you I make my voyage."
At the consecration of the new idol of Oro, the High Priest insisted upon killing a slave, and Teroro hid his face in shame, for he and his men knew that once the reef was breasted, the idol would pitch into the sea, so that when the High Priest delivered the god to the becoming-priest Teroro, the latter took it gravely, not as an idol but as a symbol of the needless death of a man; and whether he or the crew liked the statue or not, it had somehow become a thing of sanctification, and Teroro treated it as such, for it spoke to him of blood. At the same time it reminded him of the difficulty which now faced him: he had to get the red-rock statue of the goddess Pere from the temple without exciting the High Priest's suspicion that that had been the real reason for the return. In secrecy he held council with Pa and Hiro to canvass the ways by which Pere might be kidnaped.
Pa suggested: "You fooled the priests with your talk of Oro. Fool them again."
"No," Teroro replied. "We were able to fool them about Oro because they wanted to believe. To mention a forgotten goddess like Pere would arouse their suspicions."
"Could we steal it?" Hiro proposed.
"Who knows where it is?" Teroro countered. They discussed other possibilities