All through that year I worked the plantation alone, with no company other than Goetz — who thought me stupid — and At Peace, her father’s child — who thought me mad for not shooting one or two of her people for their scorn. There were more than enough about to shoot, for everywhere I worked a silent group would gather to watch me toil. So much for socialism by example. When these were absent there was always Tepia a Tevu, making certain he knew where I was every moment of every day. Oh, how I wished to be home, to see my aged mother, to have some news of Leonid, perhaps for only a moment to take leave of the harsh world and go out to visit the simple grave in the Novodevichy Cemetery, the last resting place of Nadezhda Alleluyeva. It was not I who had been the heart-eater, but she.
When Stalin’s grandfather had been a serf, the Marquesans had been socialists for centuries, their chiefs primo inter pares when any fancy of the tsar was God’s will. They had been cooperators who thought nothing of personal property when trade in black slaves had been legal in Europe, and honorable too, democrats whose state had not needed to wither away, for it had never existed. But now…
Though I had resisted the theories of Goetz and the advice of Tranck, I knew now hope alone could not rekindle what was lost.
“They are hardly the best of what once was,” the trader said as we paddled out beyond the outer reef to meet the fortnightly packet bound for Ha-o. “There is a science of cultural genetics — you may have heard of this? I can show you the studies of Freilvacher and Krohn. Fact.” He exchanged the mail sack in which I had placed my letter with an identical one marked with the tricolore. It was empty, save for a periodical from Berlin, Der Stürmer, an anti-Semitic tract whose value to Goetz in a Jewless place I could not see. We wrestled aboard two cases of Patzenhoffer and a demi-john, and made for the quay. By the time we beached I had decided there was little sense in putting off what must be.
It was a Sunday. I could hear the himene from the Malachite church. With At Peace I walked down the smooth shore, the water of the lagoon a violet of incomparable purity. Together we entered the crowded church. As though on signal, the himene ceased. The two preachers had done their work well, gathering up what stray souls there were. When I went forward to speak, murmuring from the pews stopped me almost at once. Then, from the back, a sharp rebuke rang out.
“Tuitui!” Be silent! It was Tepia a Tevu, Turtle Eggs.
I was as shocked as on the day I had heard Kirov was dead and the terror unleashed. Though, for all that it was, it should not have been surprise. We had all known it would come to that: mass arrests, dissolution of the underground, flight. As now I knew what I had not permitted myself to acknowledge before: the policeman of the atoll was my ally, had been from the first.
“People of Atu-Hiva,” I said. “I have come to tell you that from tomorrow socialism will prevail on this isle. No more shall you be poor and fear the white. At dawn tomorrow each male head of family will report to the house of the chief for instruction and work — ” A buzz interrupted this, and I paused to turn to my left, where Seventh Man sat trying to contain his surprise. I had debated within myself whether to alert him or not, but I thought he might refuse. By storm I hoped to turn burden to honor. Tepia a Tevu had by now marched to the front and stood beneath the cross, glaring into the pews as I continued.
“Any male head of family who does not go to the house of the chief at dawn shall be sent away from Atu-Hiva in an outrigger and may never return. His possessions will be taken from him. Neither may his children accompany him”—this last was the worst, for the Marquesan loves his family more than his life — “and if he does return he will be killed.” I watched the women look to their husbands in fear. “These are the wishes of Tranck Tane. If the people of Atu-Hiva are good, and work well, then they will be rewarded with many presents, free at the store. If not, they will receive no free presents and will starve.” There was no murmuring now. A hand touched my sleeve.
It was William Lloyd. His partner stood stiffly at his side. “Captain Zabrodny,” the missionary whispered, “This is a house of God.”
“Both of you have two weeks to pack your things,” I said. “The mail steamer will take you to Ha-o.”
The missionary directed my gaze to the near wall, where that original letter from Monsieur l’Inspecteur des Établissements Français de l’Océanie, a ragged thing by then, was tacked.
I am certain none of the Marquesans had ever before heard a pistol shot, not at this range. By the time I had holed the permis three times the church was empty but for the two missionaries, a stiff Turtle Eggs, and Seventh Man, whose remembered dignity and new-found place would permit no display of fear. At Peace clutched my arm, such indescribable lust in her green eyes that at once I shared it and felt ill.
The remainder of that day I spent in consultation with Goetz, who long before had been advised his bookkeeping might be changed. For him it was hardly more than that. Where previously he was paid in copra processed from the nuts fallen from Tranck’s trees, now he would be paid through me. We worked out a simple minimum wage in tinned food, flour, sugar and cloth that he would issue free. Left to his discretion this way it was certain the trader would put a bit more aside for his eventual return to Hamburg. He was pleased.
Walking back I took the long route along the beach, peering into the water of the lagoon as though into some future whose end was clear. When I entered the little hut I shared with At Peace, I found inside the old chief. As I had looked into those waters, so did he now look across to the new demi-john. But for the occasional drops of native production he might have sampled over the years, here was more alcohol in one place than the atoll had seen. Turtle Eggs kept a nest of spies — nothing large as this could have been made, or drunk.
“As a sinner I look upon it,” Seventh Man said. “Not as a Malachite. As a Malachite, I do not drink.”
“The Malachites will soon be gone,” I said. From the lean-to kitchen outside, I could smell the baking fish At Peace had earlier speared. “The missionaries have given you nothing but reason to be content with this world in favor of the next. Do you believe in a next world, Seventh Man?”
“As a Malachite or as a man?” His eyes were fixed on the demi-john.
I broke the seal, poured out three cups. “Tranck Tane has told me to put all trust in you, Seventh Man.” I watched him empty his cup and set it down to be refilled. “Tranck Tane asks only that you help to bring in a great deal of copra, many nuts, and well-cured, and lead the divers later on when there will be pearl. And for this we will help you again to lead your people.”
“They are not mine,” he said. “In the old days perhaps, but in the old days we ate our enemies. Now we eat pig.” He laughed into the rum. “When there is that. In the old days we dove for pearl. Now we sit in the shade. In the old days we would take from the whites what they had, and if they would not give it, kill. Now we go to the trader and watch him mark his book and know that Tranck Tane pays for what we do not earn.”
“That will stop.”
“The people will starve.”
“The people will produce more,” I said. “They will tend the groves and produce only copra of the highest grade. They will no longer be permitted to dry the fruit of green nuts, which spoils.”
“The people know it spoils, pupinay captain. Should they care if Goetz does not?”