Chapter 8

Foolish, foolish: the self-reproach when he awakes and finds that his leg is reinjured. Consumed by the fever again, he has slept nearly twenty-four hours. Of course he would be ill again! Why could he not take it slowly and allow himself to regain his strength gradually? His impulsiveness again. Signing on with a whaler, then jumping ship and becoming trapped here with these cannibals. Melvill swears that if he can ever get home he will exorcise the rashness from his character--like a thirst for liquor or a passion for gambling. 

After breakfast Toby heads for the Ti and Melvill awaits Fayaway's visit--perhaps the only bright streak to his relapse. Melvill is weak from the fever but a little food has revitalized him somewhat. Melvill lies in Marheyo's hut anticipating Fayaway, her smile, her warmth, her natural beauty. Soon she is there with the tortoise-shell of ointment. Melvill is ready for the treatment; his leg is fully bared. 

As she starts at his toes Melvill says, "I should've let you work your magic yesterday and not run off halfcocked." 

Fayaway says something in return--maybe she understands a little. She continues to chatter as she works the ointment into his ankle and calf muscle. Already the tingling is in his foot and toes, each small joint separately hot. The balm is doing its work and soothing the pain but its heat seems to be traveling to his brain making him even more feverish. As Fayaway's practiced hands encircle his patella his arousal intensifies. He does not attempt to distract his mind this time. Melvill allows himself an odd pleasure in the discomfort as he strains against the folded sheet. Up and down, as the instinct in his blood battles weight and gravity. 

Fayaway talks on--much more than usual. Her strange island words make as much sense as his own thoughts: confused and digging back to a time before language. 

She dips her hand into the ointment and begins with renewed vigor at his thigh. The space between her working fingers and his genitals is all the space in the world. His mind occupies that small space willing it to close. Suddenly her finger grazes his right testicle--a misstroke she has not made before. Her hands are high on his thigh . . . then again her small finger running along the curve of his testicle. He is nearly mad with want; yet paralyzed too. His heart and his cock pound with the same ferocity. 

Fayaway stops and Melvill knows she is going to leave. He looks at her face and their eyes become fixed--like lovers', like fighters'. Saying nothing now she folds back the tappa sheet. With one hand, still sticky with the ointment, she cups Melvill's scrotum, gently squeezing; she places one finger of the other hand just below the head and begins to rub slowly. She had located a spot, a nerve that is beyond pleasure and is pure sexual intensity. In seconds the lower half of his body convulses, and a hot bead strikes Melvill on the cheek as the copious remainder bubbles onto his stomach. The smell of the salty Pacific fills his nostrils. He wants to reach out to Fayaway but he is inanimate and she is quickly gone. 

It is some time before Melvill realizes there is commotion outside. At first he thinks it is in response to Fayaway and him. He uses the tappa sheet to clean himself then dresses. With the aid of the crutch he hobbles out. Natives are rushing here and there but no one pays attention to Melvill, which settles his fear and guilt regarding Fayaway. An old woman, moving at a slower pace, passes him; he says, "What's happening?" He gestures all around at the tumult. Maybe she understands, as she gives a precise but worthless response. 

A young boy rushes past with a basket full of fruits. Melvill follows as quickly as he can. His leg is of no use, like lumber he is dragging. He is sweating and short of breath, yet there is still an odd bit of euphoria remaining from his encounter with Fayaway, the burden of desire temporarily lifted. He cannot fully grasp what is happening. A second boy, this one bearing a load of bamboo, passes him. Melvill watches the boy enter the ring of trees around the Ti and he disappears. 

When Melvill finally reaches the grove only old men and women remain. He is hoping to find Toby but he is gone. Marheyo and Tinor are there. "Where is everyone?" 

Marheyo says something and points to the sea path. Melvill is still confused, so Marheyo steps over to a nearby log and removes an ax with a metal head. He speaks more words and gestures again toward the sea path. 

Melvill's mind tries to fit it all together: Is it possible a ship has come to their harbor and they are trading for goods? 

Panicked, Melvill asks about Toby. Marheyo's vine-covered arm points to the sea path again. Melvill hurries as well as he can toward the sea. Surely Toby will secure passage for them both, if he can reach the ship at all. His friend would not abandon him here. The air of the jungle path feels cold; Melvill knows it is the sweat that drenches him. It worries him further that no more natives are running past him with their wares, as if the previous were the stragglers and the trading has been in progress for some time. . . . 

And Toby? Damn it, where is Toby? 

Melvill's crutch sticks in a depression and he tumbles onto the forest path. Still so far away from the pounding sea and he is exhausted. He is deaf except for the drumming of the salty blood in his ears. Toby. . . . 

He thinks of the first time he understood that Toby and he were kindred spirits aboard the Acushnet. Taggart has all hands up top; he believes someone has stolen from the ship's stores. He does not say what, though, nor when. He simply struts to and fro with that ungodly leather in his hand. He has a flogging in mind, like a damned military ship. Melvill wonders if the mean bastard is inventing the entire story to scratch his sadistic itch for violence and blood. Melvill follows Taggart's back as he slowly passes the line of sailors. It is a beautiful sunny day on the ocean, in contrast to the grotesqueness of the whaler. Before Taggart turns, Melvill makes eye contact with Tobias Greene, who occupies the bunk above his. They exchange whole paragraphs in that momentary glance: the madness of what is happening, their mutual hatred for Taggart, the fucker's lust for violence, the fucker's lust. There is great comfort in that connection--someone shares Melvill's view, someone who is not a thief nor cutthroat nor rapist. 

Toby. 

Melvill gets to his feet and makes another agonizing mile, to where the jungle begins to open, when he encounters the first of the returning Typees, some carrying ax heads and longbladed knives. "Is the ship gone?" Melvill is desperate for an answer but the natives walk around him. He repeats himself again and again. A few natives smile at him obliviously. He must press on, he must see for himself. He manages another quarter mile or so before he meets Korykory on the path. "I must know: where is Toby?" 

The words about Toby are indecipherable but the facial gestures, the diverting of his luminous brown eyes, are quite clear: Toby is gone. 

Melvill knows he is about to collapse but there is nothing to be done about it--life and time and fate roll over him like a brutal wave bearing him down to a cold black sea.