Shamanka Part 31

She's the height of two men. She towers over the crouched figure of John Tabuh. She leaps on impossible springs. Is she subhuman, superhuman? He can't say; he can't speak.

She swoops around the magic box casting a circle, thrusting her fists in the sand. At each point of the compa.s.s, flames bloom like cactus flowers. She stamps on the ground. She throws her head back, her spine arches over and her headdress brushes the floor.

She stamps with her hands and her feet, harder and harder. The vibrations shunt the audience backwards. They cling to the sand with their fingers but they can't hold on they're s.h.i.+fting backwards ... backwards ... towards the sea all except for John Tabuh, who wraps his arms around the trunk of a palm and hangs on.

Shamanka stamps and stamps, and as she stamps, the magic box shakes and the lid sc.r.a.pes and s.h.i.+fts. The islanders grab their children and shoot off into the darkness like rockets, leaving a trail of fading screams in their wake.

Only John remains. The performance is all for him now. As he clings to the tree, watching the box b.u.mp up and down all by itself, he tells himself it has to be an illusion. But he can see no strings, no mirrors. Is there a trapdoor hidden in the sand under the box? Is there a man in the trap, making the box move? Maybe the Melanesians are her stooges. Maybe they told Shamanka he was coming and devised this show together.

This is the most rational answer, but John is wrong. Perhaps Shamanka has misdirected him. She sent the Melanesians screaming and while he was watching them, his eyes were diverted from the box; that's when she put something under it to make it jump.

Wrong again. Shamanka is innocent. She didn't put anything under the box; the turtle did. She crawled out of the sea one night, laid her eggs and buried them on the beach. The box was placed on top of her nest, and now the eggs are hatching. Hundreds of little leathery wings are pus.h.i.+ng up through the sand, rocking the box.

Was it a coincidence that the box was laid over the turtle's nest the night the eggs would hatch? It seems unlikely, but maybe there were lots of nests, in which case it wouldn't have mattered where the box was placed. The baby turtles would have s.h.i.+fted it soon enough. Right now, they're flapping across the beach like birds trying to fly through apple crumble. They're racing towards the navy blue blanket of sea, and as the last wave of turtles breaks out from under the box, the lid flies open.

Shamanka stops stamping and stoops so low over the magic box her headdress touches her toes. She stares inside. She stares and stares. The sea spray whispers, "Mother?"

John Tabuh lets go of the tree. He watches as Shamanka kicks off her red fur underskirt and casts it away. It rolls into the shadows. John watches it melt into the darkness... Misdirection! When he looks back, she's half the size, as if she's stepped down from someone's shoulders. Now that she's taken off her headdress, she's no taller than a girl. As she removes her mask of death, a sliver of moonlight reflects in her dark hair but it's not the moonlight; it's a blonde streak.

John Tabuh breaks out into a cold sweat. It can't be Sam. It can't be ... unless someone has resurrected her? But that's impossible. No one had offered him the slightest hope, least of all without a body. Sam was burnt to ashes in the fire; the witch had said so, hadn't she?

No! Think back, John Tabuh. Ruth Abafey said all that remained was the silver rattle; she never said that the baby had burnt to death you jumped to that conclusion. A good witch doctor never jumps to conclusions; he reads between the lines.

John Tabuh's daughter is sitting by the magic box staring at her mother's body. He wants to run to her and hold her in his arms. But he doesn't. He stays where he is, clutching his head. The Melanesians have drugged him; he must force himself to think straight. So help me, Father.

He writes in the sand with his finger: S-H-A-M-A-N-K-A.

He stares at the girl, stares at the letters. He rubs them out and writes them in a different order.

S-A-M-H-A-N-A-K.

A breeze gets up. The letters buzz before his eyes like sandflies. He s.h.i.+elds them with his fingers, but they're s.h.i.+fting. He blinks, he blinks again, but there it is, spelled out before him.

S-A-M K-H-A-A-N.

Is there magic in letters? Are these letters magic symbols, magic spells? He takes his father's list out of his pocket. He can barely read it; he's shaking with excitement and this helps to jumble up the letters. He rearranges them in his head.

R-U-T-H A-B-A-F-E-Y ... YAFER TABUH!

B-A-R-T H-A-Y-F-U-E ... YAFER TABUH!

H-U-B-E-R-T F-A-Y-A ... YAFER TABUH!

They don't all fall into the exactly same pattern, but even so...

F-A-T-H-E-R B-A-Y-U ... FREYA TABUH!

F-E-Y R-A ... FREYA!

Effie Ray? How do you solve that one? Phonetically: F-E R-A-Y ... FREYA!

Out of the corner of his eye, John sees that someone has joined his daughter someone short and stout and red-haired, like his departed mother.

It's Lola! Shamanka was not as tall as two men. She was as tall as a girl standing on the shoulders of an ape! John has worked that out for himself, but what he can't fathom is how his father has managed to orchestrate fate and time to bring Sam back to him or why.

Most sons would be impressed at their father's ability to go against the laws of nature and pull off a trick like that. They'd run home and apologize for pooh-poohing the power of his magic, but not John. Right now, he's livid. Why couldn't his father have been a farmer or a tailor or a dentist? Only a witch doctor would send his only son to h.e.l.l and back in order to learn his trade; only a witch doctor or a psychopath would kill off his son's wife and to prove what?

Christa lies dead. His daughter is bent over the magic box still. Is she crying? It is hard to tell but Kitty had said never to hold back the tears. John can't bear to watch her grieve alone. He pulls out a silk handkerchief ... and another ... and another ... they're all knotted together in true magician style. He walks over.

"Sam?"

She looks straight through him. "I am Shamanka!"

There's an odd expression on her face, almost as if she's annoyed at being interrupted. John Tabuh shows her the silver rattle. He knows she knows who he is; he's hoping she'll fling her arms around him and cry, "Daddy!" But that only happens in his dreams. John a.s.sumes she's angry with him. He a.s.sumes she blames him for not bringing her mother back to life, just as he blamed his father. A good witch doctor should never make a.s.sumptions however.

John Tabuh takes a deep breath it's all in the breathing and apologizes to Sam from the bottom of his heart. "Sam, I'd sell my soul if it would bring your mother back, but there's no such magic. I've spoken to the wisest people on Earth, but none of them has the power of life over death."

Sam looks at him in despair. How can he have travelled so far and learnt so little? What does she have to do to make him believe in Grandpa? She folds her arms defiantly. "Ah, but you haven't spoken to me yet."

She begins to chant an ancient chant. It's in Motu but it means the same the world over. It's the most powerful chant in the universe, because when Sam says it, every woman who has ever loved a child responds as if it were her own little one tugging at her skirts.

"Mother ... Mother ... Mother?"

The voices of mothers around the globe fill the air. In English, French, Spanish, Swahili...

"I'm here ... here ... here."

The mother turtle calls, mother seabirds call and not so far away, in Borneo and Sumatra, mother orang-utans croon to their own babies, real or imagined. Newborn or dead. John holds his daughter by the shoulders and turns her towards him. He watches her lips, her throat. They do not move. "I know how you're doing that..."

Now he hears a voice calling from inside the magic box: sweeter than Candy's, softer than Kitty's. John throws his hat on the floor.

"Don't it's just ventriloquism. I can do it."

He throws his voice to Lola: "Listen to your father!"

But Sam isn't throwing her voice. Behind them, a woman laughs lightly. "I'm here."

Christa is sitting up in the box and smiling. She reaches out and holds Sam so close, she can hear her heart beating.

Bom-ba ... bomba! Bom-ba ... bomba!

Bom-ba ... bomba! Bom-ba ... bomba!

Was it a true resurrection? Did the sound of Sam's voice break a curse? Did she heal her mother with psychic surgery? Was a miracle brought about by the sprinkling of holy water?

I doubt it; I'm not convinced that Christa Tabuh was dead in the first place. I happen to know that if you swallow the slime from a certain Australian toad, which has been secretly dunked in your drink, you will fall into a deep coma and appear well and truly dead especially to a young doctor who's only just pa.s.sed his medical exams.

There are only two known antidotes to this toad slime; one is stored at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases and the other is known only to me. I'll tell you what it is, in case you ever accept a toad-flavoured drink from a medicine man and find yourself without a pulse.

The antidote is the acid from the bite of a yellow spider that lives inside a rare species of orchid. These orchids are only found in the Solomon Islands and they just happen to be the ones that John Tabuh wove into Christa's hair.

To this day, I remain sceptical about the resurrection of mortals. But John Tabuh does not; this is the turning point for him. Something far greater than luck or chance has reunited him with the wife, child and father he thought he'd lost for ever.

Was it magic? The Dark Prince thinks he's finally found the answer, but is he right? That is something you must find out for yourself. For now, it's only right that he should go home to New Guinea to show off his beautiful wife and his wisest of daughters to his dear old dad.

In whom he has every faith.

HOW TO DISAPPEAR IN A PUFF OF SMOKE.

The masked magician takes a bow. There is a thunder crack! Swirling green smoke fills the stage. As it clears, we realize that the magician has vanished. How?

THE SECRET.

There are several ways of creating smoke, fog and mist to use as a screen and enhance illusions.

1. Pyro flash cartridges: These produce deeply coloured, dense smoke for 7 to 30 seconds plenty of time to "dematerialize" right in front of the audience's eyes.

2. Smoke guns: These feed liquid smoke into a heated chamber. It then vaporizes and produces a jet of dense white smoke a perfect piece of misdirection.

3. Smoke chillers: These use solid CO2 to produce lowlying smoke ideal for creating the right atmosphere for a ghostly apparition.

4. Dry ice: This produces dense, white, water-vapour smoke, forced out of the front of a kettle ideal for creating eerie midnight wharf scenes.

5. Liquid nitrogen foggers: These spray a fine mist, which drops the air temperature and causes a low-lying fog, ideal for disguising ... well, all manner of things.

YOUR TURN.

What happened next? John Tabuh returned home to his father and was welcomed with open arms. He hadn't failed his mission; he'd swallowed his youthful pride, learnt his lesson and apologized profusely for ever doubting the Old Magic. Even so, John worried that he wasn't fit to walk in Yafer Tabuh's shadow, never mind step into his shoes.

"I'm afraid I'll never make a great witch doctor," he confessed sadly.

To his surprise, his father heartily disagreed. He shook his head so vigorously, he almost had his eye out with his hornbill necklace.

"Number One Son, you have already made a great witch doctor!" he guffawed, clapping John so hard on the back, he began to choke on the betel nut he was chewing.

"I'm ... heuuurch ... got a nut stuck ... not quite sure what you ... heuuurch ... urgle," John choked.

Sam stepped in and gave him the Heimlich manoeuvre. There's nothing magical about this procedure you don't need to be Athea Furby to perform it. Simply study these instructions: 1. From behind, grasp the sufferer round the upper abdomen.

2. Clasp one hand over the other with the fist in the angle of the rib cage.

3. Pull hard inwards and upwards against the bottom of the breastbone the sudden increase of pressure in the chest should force the food out.

4. Rea.s.sure the patient (unless you're too late, in which case call a witch doctor).

Thanks entirely to Sam's quick thinking, the nut shot out of the Dark Prince's gullet into the Sepik River and he was able to continue his conversation.

"Sorry, Father, what were you saying before I almost choked to death?"

Yafer Tabuh grinned from ear to ear. "I was about to say that you have already made the perfect witch doctor!"

"I have?"

"Certainly. With the help of your wife, whom I chose for you most carefully, you have made Shamanka!"

He took Sam's hand and held it up in the air. There was a roar of approval from the crowd, who had been gathering on the banks since the early hours of the morning to welcome her. The witch doctor embraced his granddaughter fondly then made the sign of the triangle.

"She who is born to the third triplet on the third day of the third month at three minutes past three will grow to be wiser than her father and her grandfather put together!"

There was another roar of approval and much banging of drums, which sent the Torresian crows shrieking into the sky.

"Shamanka! Shamanka! Shamanka!"

Yafer called for silence. He took off his headdress with the bird of paradise feathers and with great solemnity he placed it on Sam's head, and because she was so much wiser than her years and because her head was so full of magic, it fitted like a dream.

It wasn't a dream though. When Yafer Tabuh finally departed from this world at the age of 105, it was cast in stone that he was not to be resurrected and that his granddaughter, Sam, should inherit his crown. Thus, the little girl from St Peter's Square became the next witch doctor and the Old Magic lived on.

It still lives on. When I count to three, you will be back in your theatre seat. Sit tight, I would hate you to miss the end of the show.

One ... two ... three...