Things Bright and Beautiful Read online

  Anbara Salam

  * * *

  THINGS BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL

  Contents

  Part One: Five Months Earlier

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Part Two

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Acknowledgements

  Follow Penguin

  For my grandparents:

  Rasha and Walid, Jock and Marion

  Beatriz knew it was wrong to hate a missionary, but when it came to Marietta, she couldn’t help herself. Marietta liked to hum. Interminable, tuneless humming, like the dirge of a bluebottle. Bea was acutely aware of quite how often Marietta felt the need to serenade the Lord. Marietta sang ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’ in the garden. She droned ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ in her bedroom. She whined ‘Jesus, Mi Lavem Yu Tumas’ under her breath while they ate supper together. Upon interrogation, Max claimed he hadn’t noticed, but Bea didn’t believe him. The noise filtered through the cracks in the bamboo walls, and crawled right into the ears. Mission House was simply not built for two people, and one hummer.

  When Marietta and Max were out witnessing, Bea found the normal sound of the jungle a blessed relief. The tickling of ants stirring in the earth, the rain in the palms. She accomplished the housework with unusual gusto. She scrubbed their clothes in the bucket. She picked large curls of rat droppings out of the rice sack, chopped firewood with her bushknife, and swept their bedrooms for scorpions. And then, invariably, she would catch herself launching into a half-remembered chorus of ‘Lead, Kindly Light’, and curse the God who had chosen Marietta as His missionary.

  Marietta appeared in Bambayot on a Wednesday afternoon. That morning, Max had been further north along the coast, visiting a tiny village in the shadow of a waterfall. He was climbing the hill towards Mission House when he saw her sitting on the stump outside the front door. As Max’s shadow fell over her, she looked up and smiled, exposing long yellowed teeth. Marietta was a short, portly woman in her late fifties with a round face and silvery hair. Max realized he was having trouble not looking at a protuberant pink mole on her left cheek.

  She shook Max’s hand so vigorously her gold cross necklace trembled over her breasts. ‘More missionaries in my village,’ she said. ‘Well, praise the Lord.’

  Max smiled, though her immediate and exclusive claim to Bambayot fluttered around in his chest.

  Bea was up ‘on top’ in the hills picking naus fruit, and Max felt clumsy trying to entertain this unexpected guest. In the kitchen, he dropped the pot so hard it bounced, and chuckled pointedly to cover his embarrassment. He heard a stool scrape in the living room, and Marietta materialized behind him. She took hold of the pot and dismissed him with a pat on the arm. Whistling, she strode outside to draw water at the pump. Back in the kitchen, she settled the pot over the fire, blowing on it gently until the embers glowed. Max realized she must have lived in the house – their house – for years.

  She muttered to herself, ‘Let me see, they were here. Where did I leave them?’

  Max cleared his throat. ‘The cups are hanging from the hooks on the left wall.’

  ‘So they are, thank you.’

  Within minutes, Marietta was back, carrying two tin mugs of black tea. She sat down on the other stool at the table with a groan. After a minute of silent blowing and sipping, Marietta exhaled. ‘So, Pastor. You must tell me everything. How long have you been on the island?’

  ‘Around four months, I suppose.’

  ‘Goodness.’ Marietta whistled through her teeth. ‘As long as that? I did hear about a new whiteman, but I didn’t realize it was so long ago.’ She looked off into the distance.

  After another sip, Max cleared his throat again. ‘I hope you won’t think this an odd question, but –’ he paused, realizing he didn’t actually have a question ‘– but well, we had no idea there was still another missionary on the island. Have you been away for a long time?’

  Marietta gave him a flat smile, ‘I guess Filip never mentioned me?’

  ‘Filip Aru?’

  Marietta nodded.

  ‘No, not at all,’ Max said.

  ‘Quelle surprise,’ she said, raising her eyebrows. ‘Yes, I have been away for a while.’ She stifled a yawn, and stretched a little, folding her arms behind her head, pointing her breasts towards Max as she did so. ‘I left for the East at the end of the last dry season, and that’s where I’ve been,’ she said.

  ‘Ah. East,’ Max parroted.

  ‘Yes,’ she shook her head, as if he had said something insightful. ‘East. It’s been an adventure, I can tell you. You’re familiar with Chief Liki, of course?’

  Chief Liki was a renowned sorcerer on the east coast. Most villagers on Advent Island were wary of the East. It was widely regarded as a swampy wilderness, governed by leaf magic, and populated by vampires. Even people who had lived their whole lives in the mountains of Central had never ventured to the East. This was partly due to fear of the vampires, and partly because there were no roads. Instead, a couple of tracks wound along tight precipices that disintegrated into mossy footholds, gouged into cliff faces overhanging deep gorges. The hillsides leading to the East were so steep that during the monsoon season, people in Central called it ‘the brown rain’. The slopes became a waterfall of noxious, slippery mud that coated the mountains, and made the route impassable for months. The terrain was mostly slimy cliffs, tabu hilltops, and patches of dense jungle whirring with mosquitoes. To make matters worse, there was no significant land mass between the east of Advent Island and South America, and winds blew straight off the ocean, smashing nightmarish waves on to black rocks. The climate was so dire, villagers huddled together inside one smoky thatched hut for months on end until the rains stopped. Max looked at Marietta again and felt a nudge of admiration for her. It was no mean feat for anyone, let alone an elderly, clearly unfit, lone, white, Christian woman, to travel to the East.

  ‘And you were there for the whole of the rainy season?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. Well, you can’t cross the roads until it’s very dry.’

  ‘I imagine.’ Max sipped his tea.

  ‘And there was my leg.’ She patted her left shin.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes, darned tropical ulcer. Horrible. The whole thing was swelled up. Could hardly move. It was months before anyone could walk up to the North and get antibiotics. Pus everywhere. A whole scoop came out in the end.’ She exhaled in a laugh, still rubbing at the shin.

  Max couldn’t help but look at her pale leg, exposed under a canvas skirt. It was covered in sparse grey hairs, and marked with an inverted round scar, as if a large lipsticked mouth had given it an open kiss.

  He made a noise of non-committal sympathy. ‘Is it healed now?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ She took another gulp of tea, brushing hair back from her eye.

  ‘And for the whole of this duration, you were staying with Chief Liki?’

  Marietta nodded.

  ‘W
hat was it like?’ Max asked.

  She shook her head slowly. ‘I would barely know where to begin. That place is in bad need of the light of Christian leadership, I can tell you. He’s a difficult man.’

  Max leant forward in his chair. ‘And were the people – were they receptive to the Word?’ This was the reason why he had come to the New Hebrides, this very reason. To think there were still villages, here on the island, which had never heard the Word. It was the last frontier. His chance to carve out another kingdom for the Lord.

  Marietta had not answered. She had pursed her lips, and was breathing heavily through her nose. She cleared her throat. ‘Liki is not likely to allow Christian worship, no. But he allowed me to stay there, to preach, with no harm done to me. We met every so often, he wanted to ask me questions about the new religion. But really, he seemed to think he was preaching to me!’ She gripped her knee in emphasis. ‘You see, he thought I would go back South and spread the word about his wonderful leadership.’ She laughed again.

  ‘What kind of leadership is that?’ Max pressed his fingers against the tin mug, now it was cool enough to touch properly.

  ‘Well, he’s a sort of –’ she paused, then caught Max’s eye. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve been speaking Pansi for so long, my English is a bit rusty. What’s the word – he controls every aspect of life?’

  ‘A dictator?’ Max filled in. ‘An autocrat?’

  Marietta slapped her knee, ‘Yes, exactly. That exactly.’ She opened her mouth to continue, but the door swung open and Beatriz appeared in the door frame. Her face was flushed, and she was carrying an island basket with the strap braced across her forehead, so the knot stuck up from her hair like a straggly headdress.

  Bea half stepped forward, and stopped abruptly. She looked between Max and this strange white person. Max was perched on the edge of his stool, one elbow leaning on the table, and the woman had paused mid-sentence. Bea felt suddenly like she was intruding. She started to say something but only opened her mouth and then closed it again.

  ‘Bea!’ Max stood quickly, his eyes bright. The sitting woman smiled at Bea with enthusiasm.

  ‘Bea, this is Marietta Hardwood – the old missionary,’ he said, holding out his left hand.

  Bea took hold of Max’s hand, unsure why he was greeting her with a formal handshake.

  Max read the confusion on Bea’s face, as it occurred to both of them he had meant the ‘last’ missionary, and not ‘old’. They looked at Marietta with a synchronized glance of simultaneous panic, like two small birds. Marietta smiled and waved the comment aside, leaning back on her stool. Max hovered, glancing between Bea and the remaining stool. Bea removed the island basket from around her head, and rubbed the indent it had made in her skin, settling uncomfortably into a half-perch on the window sill. Marietta was gazing at Bea with friendly curiosity. Max desperately wanted to return to their conversation, but was conscious a polite time would have to pass while Bea’s entrance was acknowledged.

  ‘Well, I must say, this is lovely.’ Marietta grinned her yellow grin.

  Bea twisted the strap of her island basket in her fingers and smiled back at her uncertainly.

  Marietta turned her head to Max. ‘Just lovely to see a young couple working together in the service of the Lord.’

  Max nodded humbly.

  ‘And where have you been?’ Marietta addressed Bea again, in a perceptibly louder voice, the tone of a headmistress questioning a pupil.

  Bea’s stomach constricted. ‘Natsulele,’ she said. Max’s eyes were pleading, so she added another smile.

  ‘Witnessing?’ Marietta asked, enunciating each syllable.

  Bea was taken aback. ‘No – with a friend. For storyan.’

  ‘Oh, storyan, that’s nice.’ Marietta leant back on the stool. ‘Nothing like a good old storytelling session to lift up the spirits. It’s so important to keep up friendships, you know,’ she said to Max.

  Max nodded sagely. He heard Bea’s voice behind him.

  ‘Are you visiting for long?’

  Her expression was the picture of innocent hospitality, but Max knew better.

  ‘Well, I’m not sure. Don’t worry, though –’ Marietta held up her hand, with a smile ‘– I won’t get in your folks’ way. Last thing you need is an old biddy like me under your feet.’

  Max and Bea tittered politely.

  Marietta got to her feet, sighing. ‘I must declare, I’m beat. I’m going to lay down for a siesta. Which room are you two using?’

  Max and Bea exchanged a glance. Somehow, Max didn’t want to admit they each had one room. Maybe it was extravagant; but he snored, and Bea was so messy. Bea bit her lip, wondering if she would have to give up the only space she had to herself. And would Max even want her beside him? She recalled the state of her room – the bed was unmade, the table nubbly with spilt candle wax. By the window she’d left a glass of water which contained a drowned purple moth.

  ‘I’ll set up the small bedroom for you,’ Bea said, standing up and brushing the dust from the seat of her skirt.

  ‘When I lived here, that used to be my laundry room,’ Marietta called after her.

  Bea cleared up in a hurry, sweeping everything into the trunk, laying fresh sheets on the bed, listening to the low bray of Marietta’s voice mixed with Max’s through the wall.

  The next few nights were uncomfortable for both Bea and Max. Bea felt a little shy, approaching Max’s bed, her face covered in cold cream, her hair pinned up with rags. It made her feel strangely vulnerable for him to see her in such a state of domestic frumpiness. Max thoughtfully tried to make space for her in the bed, but as soon as he fell asleep, he would sprawl sideways, his thick limbs hanging over her like heavy branches. If he rolled over on to her in the night, she could hardly prise herself out from under his weight. She had to stretch her knees out into the mosquito net, and tangled herself up in it. Max snored, and his hot breath condensed against her neck – as if the nights were not humid enough, she thought crossly, heaving his calf off her thigh with frustration. When, in the early mornings, Bea woke to feel the stiffening of his erection against the small of her back, she found the slight pressure oddly comforting. But she knew it was just a reflex, not an invitation, and Max would only feel humiliated by a body he could not control properly. So she pretended to sleep on, oblivious.

  Max, for his part, wasn’t enjoying the new arrangements much either. He breathed in the tail ends of the rags in Bea’s hair, making him sniff and tickle. Bea pressed her cold toes up against him while he slept, slipping them into the most vulnerable corners of his body. Once asleep, she wriggled continuously, turning over and over, scratching him with her toenails all the while. And her sleep talking in Spanish disconcerted him. Once, she woke him urgently in the night, her fingers gripping his shoulder. But when he asked her what was wrong, she rolled off an incomprehensible Spanish emergency, and fell back down, still asleep. He lay awake for hours after this, a nebulous jealousy tugging at him. No matter how long he was married to Bea, she would always have had a life before him, a life he knew nothing about.

  After the sixth night, Bea sat up in the early hours of the morning with a muffled squeak. Tears hung in her eyes, her hair sticking in all directions. ‘I can’t bear it any longer!’ she said.

  Max sat up too, his eyes heavy.

  ‘How long is she going to be here?’ she demanded.

  Max shushed her, but Bea could see he was wondering this, too.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted, wiping his left eye.

  ‘How can we go on like this?’ Bea gestured to the bed with one hand, clutching a hollow pillowcase she had wrestled out from under his head. Max was relieved to hear she was genuinely asking his opinion, and not rhetorically threatening a tantrum.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, trying to stifle a grin.

  ‘What?’ Bea mirrored his smile. ‘What’s so funny?’ Putting her hand to her head, she felt curls of escaped hair loosed from the rags. She put a self-c
onscious palm over her face and he pulled her into him to muffle her giggles.

  The next few nights were better as they established a pattern. They would fall asleep with her head inside the crook of his shoulder, and once asleep, turn to face the same direction, Bea’s head in the hollow of his neck, so he would not choke on her hair. And though she would not have thought to tell him, Bea began to enjoy sleeping in Max’s single bed. She took cautious comfort from their restful intimacy, since sleeping was all Max would want to do.

  At first, Max found Marietta a welcome guest. He enjoyed, although he would never have confessed it in so many words, having someone to properly talk to. Marietta and he would sit on twin benches in the vestry and talk by the paltry light of the hurricane lamp, its pink shade abandoned like a shed skin. They shared readings from the Bible, or compared notes from his library of exegetical commentaries. They rarely agreed on anything, and Marietta was prone to long, honky sermonizing, but they were both Lewis aficionados, and sometimes Marietta would read aloud from The Screwtape Letters, performing the voices with flair. Sometimes they worked on Marietta’s pet project: a lexicography of the sand-drawing language that Chief Liki used in his sorcery school. Eventually, she wished to translate the Bible into their language for use in witnessing.

  Marietta was always up at daybreak, and they drank black tea at the table while the last cockroaches sleepily wound down around the table legs. They went out to witness together, visiting villages in Central and along the west coast. Marietta had a veritable second stomach for kava, and cheerfully ignored the strict tabus that prohibited kava drinking for either women or churchmen. ‘Witnessing begins at the watering hole,’ she would say, nodding her head from side to side as if it were a Bible verse. After perhaps the thirteenth time she delivered this aphorism, Max began to wonder if it actually was a kind of paraphrase, and guiltily flipped through Leviticus one evening after Marietta had commenced her cacophonous snoring.

  Bea, meanwhile, tried her hardest to keep her opinions about Marietta to herself. But she interfered with the housework in a way that should have been a blessing, but felt like a curse. Marietta fussily chased Bea away from the kitchen, and recommenced banging pots and pans together with the cheerful buoyancy of the terrible cook. She was out with Max all day long, and in the evenings, after a walkabout, Marietta came back to the house and dropped on to her stool with tumultuous sighs. Bea never understood why, with all that walking around, Marietta never got any less fat. After eating supper, Max and Marietta retreated to the vestry, and Bea followed the departure of their only hurricane lamp with narrowed eyes. She would be left in Mission House alone with their preciously rationed candles.