Chapter 4

Will they appear different? How can they not? And Fayaway too-will the stain of blood be upon her as well? Melvill realizes he had stopped thinking of the Typees as cannibals sometime before. They were simply strange islanders. The menace has returned: the possibility of cruel death followed by the unthinkable horror. But that is precisely it. It is thinkable now. Cannibalism is real--like the whales who break water, sudden islands in the sea, like the ancient green continent of Europe, like your father's funeral, like your mother's weeping at it. Like Christianity? Like a heaven and a hell? 

Marheyo and the others had returned in the night, the smell of woodsmoke clinging in the dark. It was late: their cannibal rituals had persisted past the midnight hour. When Melvill looks at Marheyo in faintest light of day, the old man awake bumping around the hut, he expects to see the reddish brown stain on his face. At first, still feigning sleep, he believes he does see the mark of the feast; but it is only shadows in the gloomy hut. The rest of the natives in the hut are snoring peacefully, exhausted no doubt from their long night. 

Marheyo steps out into the early day. Melvill checks Toby and he too seems to be sleeping. For a moment he wonders about his friend's dreaming, was it as bizarre as his own? Melvill, as quietly as he is able with his stiff leg and his crutch, follows Marheyo out of the hut. The sky is graywhite for lack of sunlight. 

The old man is out of view. Melvill assumes he is headed for the reeds near the stream to relieve himself. That is the direction Melvill heads, his crutch swinging along beside him. But Marheyo is not at the reed patch; no one is. His next guess is the Ti grove and in a few minutes he finds Marheyo there cleaning up the remains of Toonoo's funeral, the charred wood and ashes. Three other old men are assisting. Unlike the previous night, Melvill does not try to stay hidden. He rests on a log in front of the Ti as the natives scoop the ashes onto a large swath of cloth, longer and wider than a bedsheet--perhaps a twin to the one in which Toonoo was wrapped at his funeral. When the evidence is all gathered they meticulously fold the cloth until the four corners are brought into a bundle. Then one of the old men takes it and begins down the sea path. Marheyo and the others rake at the sandy ground with long sticks until all indications of the funeral pyre are erased. 

Marheyo comes to Melvill on the log and says something about breakfast, "kiki," and they return to his hut. Everyone is awake and Tinor is preparing the meal. 

Toby looks tired still. 

"How was your sleep?" Melvill asks. 

"Dreadful, truly." 

Melvill thinks vaguely of his own dreams but the events that inspired them are already beginning to mutate--too unreal, or surreal, for his mind to hold onto the exact details. 

After their simple breakfast Marheyo clears everyone from the hut except Melvill. Fayaway is coming. Melvill's pulse quickens at the thought of her. Fayaway's sexual appeal has always been great but now that she is truly part of a cannibal tribe her persona is even more powerful. Along with the beauty, the long firm lines of her juvenile body, there is an element of danger: leanjungled and predatory. 

Melvill's mind is beginning to conjure all kinds of images of Fayaway when she arrives at the hut, the sound of Marheyo greeting her outside. Melvill looks up anticipating the face of his fancy and is somewhat surprised, disappointed even, to see sweetlooking Fayaway smiling at him, as docile as any New England schoolgirl. In fact today she is wearing a piece of tappa on her shoulders tied at the neck so that it obscures her breasts. Melvill has only seen older Typee women who are working in the sun cover themselves in this way, their breasts swaying like bags of grain under the loose cloth. 

She places the tortoise-shell bowl on the floor as Melvill bares his leg. Before coating her hands Fayaway inspects the leg, kneading its flesh. She comments on the "league" and uses a Typee word that Melvill recognizes: "arva," strong. 

"Yes, regaining some of its use has strengthened the limb." 

She smiles and says "arva" again. Then Fayaway dips her hands into the gelatinous mixture, coating them thoroughly, and she begins massaging Melvill's toes and foot. 

Melvill tries to distract himself by thinking about the battle with the Happars. Is that it? A brief jungle skirmish and a few fallen warriors--and the conflict is resolved? What a delicate balance the enemies have achieved, such a small misstep can throw them at each other. Yet they do not seem intent on genocide. Perhaps they have an instinctive understanding of the greater dangers from without: the Europeans and Americans who will eventually encroach upon them to extinction. He thinks of the native inhabitants of his own country and their steadily being driven west and being diminished every step of the long slow journey. The ointment's afterheat is engulfing his foot and ankle. 

Fayaway's touch explores the skull-like structure of his knee. She always lingers for a moment at the small scar on the skin holding the patella, the result of bounding over an ancient fence and cutting himself on a nail. The torn pant leg and the blood soaking through are still vivid boyhood memories. Fayaway, perhaps enveloped in her own reverie, moves above the knee to the thigh. Her fingers seem to tug marionette strings to his organ, which twitches to her delicate manipulations, a supple dance partner. His scrotum swells with the vitality of swimming life. 

Impulsively Melvill reaches up and unties the tappa shroud around Fayaway's shoulders and it falls away. He allows himself a moment's glance at her lovely breasts; and even in that brief instant he can see her nipples rising. Hungry, consumed, he looks into her eyes, fresh and ancient at the same moment. Her hands are on his thigh but her fingers are motionless. Melvill realizes he is salivating, like at the cannibal's feast. 

There is something in Fayaway's eyes but he cannot interpret it. Even her emotions are transmitted in this alien island vernacular. Melvill begins to summon words; however his brain is slow traveling from the primeval to the modern day. Fayaway diverts her eyes, picks up the white cloth and bowl, and rushes from the hut. 

Melvill stares at the dark thatched ceiling. Miserable with longing and self-reproach. Gorged with emptiness. He feels as though everything is falling asunder: events are beyond his control yet his actions affect them. It is a familiar feeling--his father's death, the family business faltering, the trip west to Illinois to try his hand at farming, life aboard the Acushnet, and now this nightmarish place, where only some mystical force prevents his murder. 

Melvill rises and uses his crutch to walk toward the bathing pool. His pant leg sticks in the half-applied ointment. Are the Typees staring at him? Do they know of his indiscretion? The pace of the villagers seems slowed as if the recent events have sapped their energies. Melvill feels weakened too. At the edge of the pool he disrobes completely then sinks into the cool water letting himself drop down like an iron ball. Down until his toes feel the sand and pebbles, then his legs and buttocks. There he sits submerged, the sharper stones digging into his flesh giving him pain and a kind of pleasure. The heat from the jungle ointment on his leg dissipating in the mountainfed stream, the current running cold as Allegheny snow on the bottom. The water fills his ears, shutting out a world beyond his comprehension anyway.  

Melvill is naked and alone in the womb of the stream.