Chapter 10

Food revives Melvill; it is a midday meal. He has found that his long convalescence has much improved his leg. He cautions himself to go slowly in order to make a full recovery and not to run to the sea like a lunatic. He thinks of Marnoo's advice: trust in Fayaway. Advice which is easy to follow. 

When the meal is finished he goes out into the bright day. He brings his crutch but uses it more as a walkingstick. He wants to see Fayaway; however all this time on the island and he is not certain where she lives, only the general direction from which she comes. Perhaps it is the cluster of huts where Melvill was taken to see the slain warrior. It is not terribly far and if he proceeds slowly his leg should hold up, he hopes. 

The day is excessively hot, even for the tropics. Melvill's shirt is unbuttoned and flaps completely open, the loose tail hanging down to nearly his knee. Something about the way the shirt is fitting reminds him of an oversized cloak his father used to wear in winter. He sees his father coming in from a day of business, removing the black cloak in the foyer, frost clinging to his mustache but already beginning to melt. His father smiling kindly beneath the large wet mustache. Then he sees his father's face inanimate and pale in death--that terrible black casket, dominating the parlor, that black casket that surfaces in Melvill's mind from time to time, always unexpectedly. 

This path does not seem even remotely familiar to him. The path itself is unusual, with stones protruding from the earth like broken fingers. The stones are worn smooth and quite different underfoot from the volcanic sand that permeates most of the valley. Small birds--orange, bright blue, and yellow--flit back and forth in front of Melvill. Their small wings make no sound in the heavy moist air. The trees however seem less tropical, like those found in a more temperate climate. Melvill misses the fir trees of his home, and the hardwood oaks whose leaves paint the autumn landscape so majestically. This island is a beautiful place, he thinks, an Eden populated with a noble people--why then do I want so desperately to leave? Essentially, he thinks, this island in the South Pacific Ocean is not home; my family does not reside here, nor do they stem from here. It is that simple: home attracts him because it is home. Only his New York and his New England will settle him, will quell his restlessness. He had to sail across the globe and risk his life among these cannibals to finally understand. 

Through the trees Melvill can see the first huts of this neighborhood cluster. Then in full view with the blue lake behind he sees mainly old women in the yard doing various chores, and the naked children playing. There are perhaps thirty huts which stretch two thirds around the oval lake. Melvill notices the stone slab where Toonoo's body lay in its final rest, he sees again the garland of white flowers. It is the children who notice and greet Melvill, running to him in a gleeful disorganized flock. He can hear his name--"Hermes . . . Hermes"--within their chatter. He is surprised at his celebrity. The children bounce around him as he continues to make his slow path. He cannot help noticing the girls who have begun to sprout buds of breasts. He decides to make use of the happy children: "Fayaway? Where can I find Fayaway?" 

Instantly her name, perhaps with an air of celebrity too, cascades from the children. They herd him in a new direction. Women look up from their work for a moment as Melvill and the children pass, then they return unimpressed to their tasks. Steered by the boys and girls Melvill does not use his crutch at all. 

They stop in front of a hut that is slightly larger than the ones nearest it. A girl, perhaps the oldest child there, approaches the hut's opening and speaks with someone inside. Melvill distinctly hears the girl giggle. In a moment Fayaway steps from the opening out into the daylight. Always her raw beauty astonishes him. She does not appear surprised to see him. She says something about his "league." 

"Yes, doing better again." He gives his leg a hardy slap to emphasize its regained vitality. "I'm here to . . . Marnoo instructed me. . . ." He does not know what to say, even though he understands his precise words matter little. 

But she does not make him stand there stammering any longer. Fayaway says something to the children and they run off chirping happily in their strange tongues. Like a big sister promising candy to her pestering younger siblings, thinks Melvill. Then Fayaway steps forward and gestures toward the lake. 

"A capital idea--let's stroll near the lake." Its darkblue waters give it the appearance of depth, almost an oceanlike depth. They walk in silence for a while. Melvill notices the sunlight etching white ripples in the water. First he wishes Fayaway were an Englishspeaking girl; then he recalls his awkwardness with those girls too and is glad in a way that she comprehends only a little English. He thinks about his foolish shyness with the New Bedford whore Madeline who kindly inquired about his specific wants until she understood his greenness and directed the whole affair herself. He thinks about the softness of Madeline's breasts, a tiny brown mole on the left one, the one that she held to his lips to begin, and how they smelled of beer as her last customer, only minutes departed, must have had it thick on his breath. 

Arousal begins in Melvill and he forces himself to think of more mundane subjects, the shape of the clouds overhead, what types of fish might dwell in the lake--and to not look at Fayaway, even peripherally, because it only increases his physical discomfort. 

In some tall grass by the lake's edge is a small canoe with one crude paddle resting on its upturned bottom. "A boat," says Melvill, thankful for the diversion. "We must take it out on the lake." He steps over to the canoe. 

Fayway begins protesting, her alien words obviously in the negative. 

"It's all right. I think I can handle a miniature canoe." He exchanges his crutch for the paddle. He has some difficulty flipping over the canoe: it has been resting there a long time and has made a deep impression in the sandy bank. Underneath the grass is dead and some viny weeds are growing in a tangle. 

Meantime Fayaway's protestations have been increasing, and Melvill can now decipher the word "taboo." 

"Ah, you people and your taboos," he says, beginning to feel annoyed, then he recalls Marnoo's explanation that it was the Typees' superstitiousness that prevented them from hacking Toby and him to death when they arrived. "It's all right," says Melvill, patient again but stubborn. "Nothing is going to happen." It must not be too taboo, he thinks, if the canoe is here in the first place. 

Fayaway is obviously perplexed. Her pretty face is contorted with anxiety. 

Melvill puts the canoe in the lake and steps in as it glides into deeper water. He uses the paddle to slow its departure. "You see--it's fine." He motions to Fayaway to join him but she is resolute on the bank, as fixed as those viny weeds in the soil. He paddles a bit farther and repeats his assurances. 

She holds her pose for a moment then suddenly marches forward into the water. Melvill thinks she has changed her mind but she quickly unties the short white cloth at her waist, tosses it to the bank, and dives into the lake. She swims as effortlessly as a dolphin underwater, her narrow brown buttocks just brushing the surface. Fayaway slips past Melvill in the canoe and rises to take a breath; then she is stroking toward the deep center of the lake leaving Melvill behind. He sees the white soles of her kicking feet as he turns the canoe and paddles hard to try to catch her. When Fayaway reaches the middle she rolls over to float on her back. 

Melvill stops paddling as he nears her. "You're an amazing swimmer." 

She is squinting against the sun but smiles up at him as if she understands the compliment. Her long black hair is fanned out on the water, like a creature in its natural habitat. As Fayaway closes her eyes against the sun Melvill gazes at the small black patch between her gently kicking legs: it is essentially the only part of her anatomy he has not seen, which amplifies its natural hold on his imagination. Melvill looks back at Fayaway's face to find her staring at him. He cannot read her expression. She instantly turns onto her stomach and dives under the canoe. She goes so deep Melvill can barely see her sleek form. Then she disappears altogether and he begins notching the seconds in his mind. Fifteen seconds . . . a half a minute. . . . Fayaway is under water so long he starts to be concerned. Should he go in after her? Should he call for help? Suddenly she pops up an astonishing distance from the canoe. She smiles and waves at Melvill before diving under again. He notes the sighting, the last glimpse of her, Fayaway's feet, her toes pointing toward the sun, and begins paddling in her direction. But he is only halfway when Fayaway surfaces again, at a right angle to Melvill's canoe. Again she smiles and waves before plunging down. 

Melvill says, "This is obviously a game you wish to play," but there is no point to his remark. 

Melvill maneuvers toward her newest set of concentric circles to demonstrate some interest in the game. This time she shows herself to his left, not quite as distant as she has been--perhaps she is finally tiring. She waves, less vigorously, before going underwater. Melvill turns the canoe toward her last appearance but does not bother working the paddle, only using it as a rudder to stay straight. 

A longer period of time elapses and Melvill starts to worry again. He thinks of young Jones from the Acushnet and of the search boats that circled aft even into the night, their lanterns like the yellow eyes of seamonsters in the gloom. 

Fayaway comes up panting at the side of the canoe. In her right hand she is holding something while she grips the canoe with her left. It takes Melvill a moment to realize it is a black snake partially curled around her wrist. 

Melvill tries to disguise his aversion while Fayaway chatters excitedly, having quickly regained her breath. She seems to be telling about the snake or how she came to catch it. It is thicker than Fayaway's thumb. He hopes she does not intend to hand him the snake or even put it in the boat. He envisions girlishly beating the snake to death with the paddle. 

With a final flourish of commentary, Fayaway releases the snake into the water. It skims along the surface with impressive speed, leaving no trail. 

Melvill looks back to Fayaway and again she is staring at him, not smiling but not severe either--another of those Typee masks he cannot fathom. 

There are voices calling from the shore. A small group of islanders is beckoning them, or just Fayaway. "Looks like--" Melvill begins but Fayaway is already stroking toward her clansmen. Her buttocks and legs working smoothly--tirelessly it would seem. 

Fayaway reaches shore before him and he suspects that the group will instantly absorb her and he will be left alone. But after the briefest conversation Fayaway is there by herself on the bank waiting for him, tying on her white skirt. He notices that all the ablebodied men are leaving the cluster of huts together. Is another battle to ensue? However there is no urgency in their departure. They might have been a group of churchgoers strolling to Sunday worship. He tries to imagine the Typees in dark woolen clothing, Bibles in hand. The picture will not take shape. They appear to be headed toward the hub of the Typee Valley, toward Marheyo's cluster of huts or the Ti grove itself. 

Melvill pulls the canoe onto the bank and replaces it as nearly as possible to its previous resting place then he retrieves his crutch from the tall grass and uses it for its intended purpose. He can feel the effects of the exertion on his hip joint, where the malady seems to have localized. 

"I should most likely go home, back to Marheyo's." 

Fayaway shakes her head no, smiles and urges him in another direction. 

"My leg is starting to feel inflamed again." He pats his hip. 

She says something, mentioning his "league," but urges him again. 

Marnoo's advice--trust in Fayaway--returns to him. Behind the hut where he found her is an obscure path, narrow and shaded. The path itself seems to be of smooth stone, uphill, and it is not quite wide enough for them to walk abreast; Fayaway is slightly ahead and moves at an angle. There is an otherworldliness to the path. The air feels cooler, less tropical, and the bird and insect sounds are not the same. They are more like echoes--the echoes of extinct species, he thinks. Melvill favors his good leg as they tread onward. He wishes that he had stayed in Marheyo's hut allowing his leg to recover even further. 

The vegetation on the lefthand side of the path ends abruptly revealing a wall of rock that extends straight up and disappears in the thick leafy canopy. Soon the path ends altogether, slightly wider at its terminus. Fayaway, who has been perfectly quiet, begins talking and gesturing toward the wall of stone. Melvill listens intently to her words but they are as enigmatic as always. Then he realizes there is a shape in the stone that the gloom has helped to conceal. At first it looks naturally formed. But no, some hand has been at work chipping and smoothing. It is a large face, broad and thick-lipped like the Typees, and nearly as tall as Melvill, its forehead almost even with Melvill's, its chin at his feet. Its eyes are two palm-size circles. The left eye is less distinct, partially eroded, giving the impression there is a membrane over the pupil, making the carving half blind. 

"Boolaa," Fayaway is saying. "Boolaa." 

Melvill repeats the strange word. It must be one of their many gods. 

Fayaway runs her fingers near the carving, especially its large eyes but she never touches it, Melvill notes. Taboo no doubt. Fayaway begins to back away from Boolaa and Melvill reacts to follow. She stops him and gestures more dramatically toward the wall. Fayaway wants him to stay there--with this bizarre god who stares expressionless into an impenetrable jungle--while she returns down the path. 

"I would prefer not to." 

Fayaway pays no attention as she turns her back to him and vanishes into the dusky path. 

Melvill peers into Boolaa's eyes, circles in a pair of rough-hewn squares. He risks the taboo and touches the partly eroded eye. He expects the stone to feel cool but it is warm, which startles him. Some sort of subterranean heat that gives the impression the stone god is alive. 

Boolaa, who are you to these people? Their god of the mountain, the jungle? Of narrow footpaths? Of lonesome stonecarvers? I don't know what Fayaway expects me to do here. If you were the face of my God, what would I say? Ask? But who's to say you aren't my God, secluded here on this remote island, in this valley of cannibals, and not in the confines of some New England worshiphouse, nor in Rome? 

Melvill smiles at the sacrilege, the heresy. 

He steps back to gain a fuller view of the face. It looks slightly malevolent close but loses some of its harshness with distance. He studies the deeply grooved lines. Their darkness seems to move, to flow in and around the face, like black blood through a primitive circulatory system. 

Well, Boolaa, in lieu of my God . . . what do I do to get home? What path do I follow? Melvill realizes the broader question: If I get home, what then? What new line for my failure? What new enterprise with which to sink? 

Pain suddenly surges through his leg, like a wave at high tide, and he drops to his knees and hands, the crutch pinned to the hard ground. Melvill looks into the closed lips of Boolaa. The idol's silence surrounds him, thunderously. Yes, first things first. First to get off this island. Out of this valley of cannibals. He stares into Boolaa's stone face. No answers. No compass. No sextant. No astrolabe. He looks up along the wall of rock and verdant canopy: no sky, no sun, no stars. . . .  

Something cold pricks him on the cheek. Again, again. Drops of water. It is raining up there somewhere on the mountain, and water is running and falling along its cracks and crevices to find him there kneeling before Boolaa. Water is streaking Boolaa's face, especially the eroded eye. The god appears to be crying. Melvill touches his own face, where rainwater has dampened his beard. Here I am: weeping with this ancient god. 

When Melvill returns down the path he finds Fayaway waiting. They return to Fayaway's hut and Melvill departs alone, leaning heavily on his crutch. 

The path is quite desolate--even the fauna are subdued. Melvill aches to hear Toby call out to him old fellow, proving this isolation some terrible dream. But where would he wake? With Toby but still among the cannibals? With Toby but still aboard the wretched whaleship? Or another ship but still thousands of miles from home? Back in Albany with the family's sickly business and his mother who seems determined to mourn forever? 

There are so many layers to his nightmare, like a rotten onion, it seems futile to wish for deliverance. However natural instinct for survival is still at his core driving him . . . to seek a way from this valley . . . this island . . . this ocean. 

Finally he reaches Marheyo's cluster of huts. Only Tinor and the other old women are there; even the children are away. Tinor, who is crouched next to a friend removing berries from some jungle sprig, acknowledges Melvill with a glance and a nod. No words. 

"Where are the men? Where are the children?" Melvill holds his free hand at waist level to try to communicate children. 

Of course there is no response. His leg is sore though not as bad as he feared it might become. His curiosity, combined with anxiety, pushes him on. He suspects the Ti grove is a likely place to look for a mass gathering. He digs his crutch into the ground and moves ahead. He does not go far when he determines his suspicions were on target. Ahead in the grove he can see movement through the trees, and he can hear an occasional childish shout, which spurs him on. 

Passing among the trees the air is cooler and he is tempted to stop and rest but keeps going. The clearing in the center of the buildings is teeming with children at play. Melvill has barely emerged from the trees when one child sees him, calls out, and suddenly they are all around him, gaily corralling him toward the middle of the grove. He tries to quiet them. He wants to know where their fathers and grandfathers are. He wants to know what is happening. 

He halts near the center. The children are swarming everywhere around him--dozens of them--some holding hands circling him, some simply running to and fro, shouting, calling out, "Her-meez!" 

Melvill continues to try to calm them. He looks up at the Ti. This is where the men have assembled. They are apparently packed tightly into the overlarge hut, standing room only. The youngest men, boys really, have spilled out onto the portico. Their attention is suddenly divided between what is happening inside and the children's playful riot. Melvill wonders if he is the cause of it all. Are the men discussing him inside the Ti? What are they concluding? Melvill's throat tightens, as if caught in a snare. Perhaps he is merely overthirsty. 

He makes his way to a log to rest. The children soon lose interest in him and scamper into other games. Words thick with emotion belch from inside the Ti. Their denotations are lost on him but their connotations seem clear: sometimes sympathetic, sometimes hostile, and other times merely inquisitive. Occasionally one of the boys on the portico glances over at him. Melvill wishes he had a book or a newspaper, anything to focus his attention--rather than just sit there staring like a cat in the yard, swishing his tail at an interesting moth. 

At length the meeting adjourns and men file out of the Ti and down its stone base. They come and come, more men inside than Melvill could have imagined. Many seem to notice him, many do not. At last a familiar face, Korykory walks up to him and says some phrase in greeting. The young islander then tries to explain something, something in the sky, but not the sun, Melvill gathers. Is Korykory just making conversation or is this information truly important to Melvill. He cannot say. Marheyo joins them. The old man is somber as always. Mehevi, the chief, passes and smiles broadly at Melvill. Melvill takes it as a good sign and begins to feel more at ease--until Mowmow, the one-eyed warrior captain, also passes and glares at Melvill with his solitary orb, his provoking bull's-eye. Melvill thinks of the Greek hero Ulysses and his battle with the Cyclops, and Melvill wishes for the Greek's strength and cunning. 

Korykory encourages Melvill to rise, and they turn toward Marheyo's hut. Melvill limps on his now stiff leg. Korykory, seeing this, instantly takes Melvill onto his back. So again Melvill watches the birds on Korykory's muscular shoulders take flight.