Shamanka Part 30

If Aunt Candy had been a kind person, Sam would never have been shut in the attic and would never have discovered who her real father was. And didn't Ruby say that suffering makes you who you are? She leans against a barrel and looks at the photo inside the locket.

"I'm not sure who I am any more, Lola. I've changed, don't you think?"

"Ooo." The orang-utan rakes her fingers through Sam's tangled, waist-length hair.

"Ouch! I know it needs combing, but you're not my mum; she's dead. That's twice she's been dead. First it was an illusion, now it's real. Was she as lovely as everyone says?"

"Ooo."

Lola, who has allegedly died only once, isn't giving much away. Sam keeps asking questions.

"Do you think it's a coincidence that my magic number is three and my mother was a triplet born on the third of the third at three minutes past three? I doubt even Bart could explain that away with statistics. I wonder if he's still playing statues in Covent Garden?"

No, he isn't. Nor is Ruth Abafey gathering herbs by moonlight. Mrs Reafy has moved on, and I can tell you with absolute conviction that Mr Fraye has disappeared in a puff of smoke along with the Inspector of Miracles and Athea Furby the goat bells are still there though.

What has become of the others on the list? Is Father Bayu still tending his orchids? You can search for ever but you'll never find him, or Professor Farthy, or Ruby Featha, or the inscrutable Fu Bar Yetah. Mr Bahut, Tuhab? They have also vanished into thin air.

They haven't died, so where are they? I put it to you that they are all the same person. There is a master of disguise at work. He can appear as any character, wherever and whenever he pleases. He might be sitting next to you right now. I confess I've been on the rum, but I suspect there's an element of truth in my theory. We shall see.

Dawn is breaking. The s.h.i.+p is about to dock in Santa Ysabel. The crates are unloaded, but no matter how long you watch, you won't see Sam and Lola disembark. I misdirected you so they could escape. While you were listening to my theory, Sam lowered a dinghy into the water and the two of them rowed away.

There they are now, bobbing about in the Solomon Sea. It was never Sam's intention to go to Santa Ysabel. She felt strongly that she was meant to go elsewhere but where? The witch doctor's list isn't giving her any clues. She's relaxed though, like someone who knows fate is out of her hands unless she is in a trance. The waves drum against the dinghy.

Bom-bom bomba... Bom-bom bomba...

She closes her eyes. Her hand flops over the side.

Bom-ba, bom-ba, bom-ba ... bomba.

She's falling asleep. The witch doctor's notebook slips through her fingers and sinks down to the bottom of the ocean where it's engulfed by a giant clam. If you ever go diving in the Solomon Sea, you must find that clam and persuade him to let you have the book back. Keep it; it has your name on it. But, hark! Is that the cry of the Torresian crow? Sam stirs, sits up in the dinghy and rubs her eyes.

"Where are we, Lola? Which island should we head for? That one, that one ... or that one?

Sam hoped the wind or the tide might have chosen her destination, but maybe she can't leave every decision to fate. She stands up and scans the horizon. "Eeeny ... meeny ... miny... WOAH!"

Something strikes the bottom of the dinghy with a hefty blow and throws her right off her feet. If Lola hadn't grabbed her ankles, she would have fallen overboard.

"Hold tight, Lola! It might be a shark... Arghhh here it comes again!"

Ordinarily, it might well have been a shark there are plenty of sharks in the Solomon Sea but it isn't.

"It's a leatherback turtle!" cries Sam. "It's huge!"

It circles them, then it heads for the third island, its great flippers sculling through the water. Sam rows after it as fast as she can, worried that it might get away; but it's in no real hurry. As the dinghy sc.r.a.pes against the edge of the reef, the turtle pokes its head out, blows water from its nostrils, then submerges. Sam watches it swim back out to sea.

"I'm glad it was a t.i.tle and not a shark, aren't you, Lola?" She paddles through the shallows onto the sand, mumbling to herself. "Did I just say t.i.tle? No, why would I? I must have sunstroke. I should never have given my ringmaster's hat to Bahut."

s.h.i.+elding her eyes from the sun, Sam surveys the small island, sheltered by coconut palms and mangrove trees. A soft wind wafts the scent of sun-warmed wood across the bay. She's a million miles from St Peter's Square, but she's never felt closer to home.

"If this is paradise, we must be dead, Lola. Esperanza was right. Death is a good place; we can make sandpies."

Hand in hand, they skip over the sand into the wilderness.

GHOST WRITING.

The masked magician tells the audience there is a ghost in the room and says, "Spirit, I command you to write down the name of the girl with dark hair on this piece of paper." After a short while ... the paper shakes. The magician holds it close to the light bulb hey presto! the girl's name has appeared. How?

THE SECRET.

The masked magician knew the name of the girl and wrote it on the paper earlier with invisible ink. To make invisible ink, simply use a toothpick dipped in lemon juice.

The magician rattled the paper to create the illusion that a ghost was writing on it and the heat from the lamp made the name appear.

SAN JORGE.

Where is John Tabuh? I can tell you only this much: he's on an island, but I never did find out the name of it or how he got there. Maybe he travelled by s.h.i.+p or did an old lady disguised as a sheep farmer take pity on him and fly him there in her helicopter?

Right now, I'm more interested in his state of mind, which has reached an all-time low. It's no good telling him to cheer up, that it might never happen. As far as he can see, it has happened things can't get any worse.

John had made a valiant effort to heal Christa. He'd put aside his cynicism and drawn on everything he'd learnt on his mission. He'd tried using herbs, but those didn't work. He'd tried the laying on of hands. He'd sprinkled her with holy water despite the chaos he'd caused at Lourdes, he'd slipped some into his pocket because he liked the shape of the bottle.

He'd tried chanting, but words failed him. He'd sat with a pencil and paper in the hope that the spirits might send him a prescription via automatic writing, but the psychic surgery was shut. He tried qi gong, pranayama you name it, he tried it. But Christa remained in a coma.

Unable to feel her pulse, John became more and more desperate. He prayed to Jesus, Mary, all the saints. He prayed to Allah, s.h.i.+va and Buddha. He prayed to sun G.o.ds, sea G.o.ds, every G.o.d he'd ever heard of, but none of them returned the favour.

He even summoned Lucifer, and when the devil didn't reply, he called upon the spirits of his ancestors. Like my elderly relatives, they were hurt that he hadn't been in touch for so long and didn't see why they should help him out in a crisis.

Christa lay lifeless in his arms. He took out his magic wand, waved it over her body and cried, "Abracadabra! Abracadabra! Abracadabra!"

Nothing happened; he hurled the wand into the sea. There was no such thing as magic. It was all an illusion; that was the reality. He'd lost Sam, his wife, his twins, his father, his orang-utan and his home.

He felt like throwing himself into the sea after his wand. The only thing that stopped him was the thought that he'd have to face his father in the Lower World, and he'd be even more disappointed in his son than he was already. So he picked orchids instead.

John gathered great armfuls and arranged three of the best blooms in Christa's hair. Then he placed her in the magic box and covered her with the rest of the flowers. Satisfied with the arrangement, he felt in his pocket for the list Christa had copied from the witch doctor's notebook, took out his pen and scratched an angry line through each person.

It was only when he came to the last name that John hesitated. This was the name Sam had never seen; it was ripped when she first opened the notebook the pages had been stuck together if you remember.

It just said Shamanka. There was no portrait, just a rough map of San Jorge. All credit to John Tabuh, he'd managed to find everyone his father had asked him to visit so far and that was without the benefit of his copied list ever glowing hot like the one in the genuine notebook. He could find this Shamanka if he wanted to.

Did he want to though? Christa was dead. None of the people he'd seen had convinced him that resurrection was possible quite the opposite in fact. He sucked the end of his pen, cursed his father and scribbled out the last name furiously.

Only it refused to be obliterated. The ink from his pen wouldn't stick to the paper; it formed little blue beads, which popped and vanished. Perhaps there was a drop of grease on the page. He felt with his thumb, but the paper was clean.

He reached for his pencil instead, and pressed so hard he almost made a hole. He blanked out "Shamanka" with dozens of thick black strokes, and when he could no longer see the name, he shouted, "There!" as if to imply that no one could make him do anything he didn't want to any more.

He was about to rip the list out of his notebook and screw it up when he noticed something very odd: his pencil strokes were moving. He blinked, but they were definitely moving. They were forming a fuzzy queue and were sliding off the page. He snapped the book shut to trap them, but they were too quick; they slipped out and escaped across the sand.

John's immediate thought was that he must be seeing things; he hadn't eaten or slept for days. It was a possibility. He took a deep breath and opened the book again.

SHAMANKA!.

It was still there, as bold as ever, as if it were screaming at him. The witch doctor would be heard he would be obeyed, because he was John's father. But John didn't believe in the old magic. There had to be a logical reason for the ink and pencil marks to disappear, possibly to do with the texture of the paper and the reaction of sunlight on pigment.

The Dark Prince told himself this but something in his subconscious said otherwise. Before he knew it, he was reaching for his knife and looking for a suitable log to turn into a dugout canoe big enough to carry him and his magic box to San Jorge.

The moon is up. A group of Melanesians are waiting for John Tabuh. They don't know who he is, but they've been sitting at the edge of the coral reef for hours, reading the waves. They know the ripples are caused by a small craft with a heavy cargo. By studying the distance between each wave, they've estimated that he'll arrive any minute.

Here he comes now! The Melanesians greet him noisily. They jump into the water and help him drag the mwa sawah onto the sand, which is littered with pale pink sh.e.l.ls. They're fascinated by the ornate, coffin-shaped box; what's in it? John Tabuh clutches his heart.

"My wife."

"Ah!"

They can tell by his face that she lies dead inside the box and are bemused. They don't put their dead in boxes here; they leave them on the reef for the sharks to take and they suggest to John that this would be a most charming ending for his woman.

Or why not leave her body to decompose in the canoe? That's another tradition of theirs. He could collect her bones when the birds had picked them clean and make a nice shrine. There are many such shrines on the island, some with complete skeletons of their great, great, great grandfathers; would he like to see them?

John thanks them but says he has other plans. He has come here to find someone. Is there a Shamanka living on this island? At the mention of the name, the Melanesians let out a unanimous shriek, cover their eyes and fall to their knees. Terrified as they obviously are, John persists.

"Could your Shamanka bring my wife back to life?"

They beat their b.r.e.a.s.t.s in anguish. Don't even think about it! If you ask Shamanka to bring back the dead, you will incur the wrath of the spirits; they will seek terrible revenge on you!

John tries to picture what form this revenge might take. He conjures up several images that make his eyes water, but as he doesn't believe in spirits, he says to the Melanesians, "I will sacrifice my soul if Shamanka can resurrect my wife."

He's joking. It isn't a very funny joke, putting himself up for sacrifice, but he's feeling frivolous. It's the kind of euphoria that often creeps up on mourners after a funeral. They catch themselves laughing, yet moments ago they swore they'd never smile again. Grief is so two-faced.

John is certain Christa's resurrection won't happen anyway. She's dead; death is final. But now that he's here, he might as well see Shamanka and get the whole nonsense over with. Afterwards, he will find a beautiful spot and bury his wife the western way. Having done that, he has decided to Live Life Dangerously. He will swim three times a day in shark-infested water. He will eat puffer fish. He will visit the frozen wastes without a coat and while he's there, he will stroke hungry polar bears.

According to Bart Hayfue, if you live this dangerously, statistically you'll soon be killed. It's hard to say how soon though, because luck always comes into the equation. The sharks might be vegans. You might be immune to puffer fish poison. The polar bears might be friendly.

John hopes his luck will run out soon. He can't see the point of living any more, and if he's killed by sharks, poison or polar bears, his father can hardly accuse him of suicide. If he b.u.mps into Yafer in the Lower World, he can tell him with a clear conscience that he suffered a fatal accident whilst engaged in Manly Pursuits. Maybe they'd be able to patch things up in the afterlife and do some bonding.

Please excuse the Dark Prince's mental ramblings; he's grieving, remember. The Melanesians realize this and eventually they dust the sand off their knees and help him carry the magic box out of the canoe.

Women and children arrive with flaming torches. They have heard about the man who has come to sacrifice himself and, as they have no television, this promises to be a most exciting evening. They bring him roasted fish wrapped in leaves. Grubs in honey. A potent drink made from fermented fruit. The elders beat their drums. The magic box is hoisted onto the shoulders of six strapping youths and John Tabuh is swept along by a procession of wailing dancers.

They are taking him to Shamanka's lair.

MAGIC ALPHABETS.

Many alphabets said to have magical properties have existed through the ages. They are still used by witches and shamans to write secret notes and to empower their spells.

This Celestial Alphabet contains images believed to have been sent by messenger angels.

SHAMANKA.

"Shamanka! Shamanka! See the man willing to sacrifice his soul to you. Come out of your cave. Work your big magic. Bring his woman back to life. Come, Shamanka, come!"

The Melanesians are chanting. The elders are drumming. The strapping youths lay the box down by the mouth of the cave and back away. John Tabuh, intoxicated by the rhythm of the drums stands with his hands clasped behind his back to stop them trembling.

Is he afraid? No, but here is a magician who suddenly finds himself not on stage, but in the audience. He's not used to being in this position. What's more, he's the only one who doesn't know what's going to happen next.

You'd think that the Dark Prince who understands the psychology of an audience better than most could avoid reacting along with the crowd, but it's proving impossible; the mood is contagious. He waits wide-eyed and breathless for Shamanka to appear.

The moon slips out from behind a cloud and creates a white spotlight on the sand. On cue, the drumming and the chanting stop. A hush falls over the audience, its many eyes mesmerized by the circle of moonlight. Keep watching ... keep watching. The sea holds its breath, listening for the ominous rattle that heralds the arrival of the one who can hold back the tide.

Tsss ... tsss ... tsss ... like the hiss of a serpent slipping out of the theatre wings.

Tsss ... tsss ... tsss ... invisible against the velvet-black backdrop of the night.

Tsss ... tsss ... tsss ... nearer and nearer. Nearer, nearer and nearer...

Aiyeeeeeeee!

Everyone jumps back, afraid to look yet unable to avert their gaze, like rabbits entranced by a stoat. Shamanka is materializing on stage in a whirl of blinding sand. She appears without footsteps or wings, as if she's neither human nor angel: so what is she? She isn't a ghost, yet she wears the luminous mask of a lost soul; are we staring Death in the face?