Kundu, page 4
“From here to the Lahgi Valley and fifty miles north there are only five whites—Père Louis, Mr. Lansing, myself, Mrs. Sonderfeld—”
“And me!” said Kurt Sonderfeld. Then he laughed, a great deep bellow that rang out over the throbbing counterpoint of the kundus.
He was still laughing when he made up his mind to kill Max Lansing.
They dined by candlelight in the long room that looked out beyond the valley to mountains and the rich sky. The table was dressed with fine linen and silverware and flowers from Gerda’s garden. At each place was laid a single bloom of scarlet hibiscus. The wine glowed in long goblets of Bohemian crystal.
The servants were tall mountain boys in starched lap-laps that made a small rustling as they padded about on silent, naked feet. The candles glowed on their brown breasts and the rippling muscles of their shoulders.
The tension that had built up between Sonderfeld and his guests relaxed under the suavity of good food and wine and conversation that ranged beyond the mountain barriers to the old countries over the sea. The drums were still throbbing in the village; but they were muted now, and distant, subdued to monotone like the beat of surf on a sheltered beach.
Here, in the shadowy room under the grass thatch, was Europe—Europe of the old, decaying beauties, of the checkerboard frontiers, of the buried empires, Europe of the subtle centuries. Here woman was enthroned, soft under the candlelight, warm over the wine, smiling on her small court of churchman, trader, scholar and functionary, served by her dark, dumb slaves from the outer march.
Sonderfeld watched them as they bent to her, laughed at her small jokes, preened themselves to her coquetries. Theodore Nelson forgot his caution and told her stories of his travels in Brazil and Africa and Ceylon. Père Louis poured out his drolleries of mission life, while Lee Curtis rummaged in his shallow grab bag for trifles to divert her. Only Lansing refused his tribute. He sat, silent and resentful in the buzz of talk, while Sonderfeld watched him and sipped his wine and measured the harm that this unhappy man might do to him.
Gerda herself was a woman transformed. The brooding calm that normally enveloped her was shed like a cloak, revealing a nature of warmth and vitality. Her eyes sparkled, her gestures were vivid and expressive. As she became excited, she lapsed into little gaucheries of accent and idiom that added sauce and charm to her talk. The candlelight gave life to her ivory skin and made deep shadows in the curve of her throat and the hollow between her breasts. Small wonder, thought Sonderfeld, that other men desired her, when he himself could still be moved to fruitless want.
When the meal was over, they tuned the radio to music from Moresby, and Gerda danced with Curtis and Nelson and Lansing, while Père Louis and Sonderfeld sat by the big window with coffee and brandies. They heard the tinkle of the music and the shuffle of the dancers and the occasional burst of laughter from Gerda; but under it all was the kundu beat, louder now and faster as the drummers sweated over the black snakeskin.
Sonderfeld selected a cigar, slipped off the band and pierced the butt with more than usual care. The drums were making him restless again. His nerves were frayed by the vapid chatter behind him. The memory of the scene on the stoop nagged him with its insistent warning of danger. He needed time and solitude to compose himself and complete his plans. Yet he was forced to play out this little comedy of leisure and good manners.
Cradled in a chair three sizes too big for him, Père Louis puffed contentedly at his pipe and studied his host through the smoke haze. For a long time now he had been worried over the big man. Outside he was hard and polished as teakwood, but the worms were chewing at the core of him, and Père Louis had a care even for those who were not of his faith. That Sonderfeld was distant from his wife was plain enough, though he gave no sign of being jealous of her. But an unsatisfactory marriage was not enough to explain the cold pride, the urgent, disciplined ambition of the man. Carefully as a chess player Père Louis made his opening gambit of inquiry.
“You know, Kurt, I am very grateful for these evenings in your house.”
“I am glad to hear it, Father,” said Sonderfeld placidly.
“After all these years, you would think the need should grow less. It does not.”
“The need for what, Father?” He was glad of this desultory, calm exchange. It soothed him to patience, gave him time to set his thoughts in order.
Père Louis shrugged.
“Comfort. The comfort of civilized food and good wine and music. Companionship. The talk of one’s own people. Even the sight of a beautiful woman, the sound of her voice and of her laughter.”
Sonderfeld grinned.
“I thought, Father, you renounced these things when you took your vows.”
The priest made a wry gesture.
“To renounce is one thing. To stifle the need is quite another. I think perhaps it never dies until the body itself is destroyed. You should be very grateful for what you have here—a beautiful wife, a comfortable house, a serene living.”
“Grateful?” He rejected the word with angry contempt. “Grateful? To whom? To myself, for what I have attained with brains and patience and courage? To my wife, who makes herself a harlot in my own house? To these who eat my food and drink my liquor and lust after my woman? To the tribes, who would steal the last shovel from my store if they were not afraid of me? To the country, which would devour my coffee in a month if I were not here to keep it in check?”
If Père Louis was shocked by the outburst, he gave no sign. He shot a quick glance over his shoulder to see if the others had heard. They were still laughing and chattering and tapping their feet to the music. Gerda was pouring another round of drinks. He turned back to Sonderfeld. His canny eyes were hard. His mouth was grim.
“My friend,” he said softly, “you are a very unhappy man.”
“You are mistaken, Father. I am not unhappy. On the contrary, I am a very contented man. Why? Because I regard the follies of others as I regard the looseness of my wife—with contempt. They do not touch me. I have my own road to walk. I walk it alone and in peace.”
“Alone, yes. But not in peace. And where does it lead, this road of yours?”
Sonderfeld grinned crookedly and shook his head.
“Oh, no! I am too wise a fox for that. You will not bring me to your confessional, Father. Try my wife. She was a Catholic once. You may be able to lead her back to the fold. When she is too old for lust, she may develop a taste for piety. Who knows?”
“You are a fool, Kurt Sonderfeld,” said the little priest softly. “I know this road of yours, because I have seen many men walk it. I have heard them cry out in despair when it was too late to turn back. I know where it leads.”
“Where?”
“To death,” said Père Louis simply. “To death—and damnation.”
He stood up, brushed the ash from his shirt and stuffed his pipe in his pocket.”
“I must leave you now. It is a long walk to the Mission. I have an early Mass.”
Sonderfeld bowed ironically.
“I am sorry you have to leave. Remember that you are welcome here at any time.”
Père Louis shook his head. His lined face was tired and sad.
“No, Kurt. I shall not come again unless you need me and call for me. But I will give you a warning.”
“A warning?” Sonderfeld’s eyes were hard as pebbles. His mouth was a thin, stringent line.
“Look, Kurt,” the old man made a last, weary plea, “you tell me you are an unbeliever. The tribes on the other hand are believers. They believe intensely, passionately, in the old faiths. No matter that they are false, debased, cruel, they are part of the fabric of life for these people. For that reason, if for no other, their belief is stronger than your disbelief. If you tamper with it, if, in pride and ignorance, you try to turn it to your own advantage, it will destroy you. Believe me, it will destroy you utterly.”
“Nonsense, Father!” Sonderfeld said, and smiled as he said it. He stood up. Père Louis heaved himself out of the chair and stood looking up into the stony, mocking face of the big German. Anger blazed in his old eyes and his voice was charged with the biblical menace of the prophets.
“Stay away from the tribes, Kurt. Stay away from Kumo and the sorcerers. You are dealing with matters you do not understand. To call up devils is a simple thing. To exorcise them, one needs faith, hope, charity and the abundant mercy of God. Good night, my friend!”
Brusquely, Sonderfeld led him through the brief rituals of farewell and shepherded him out of the house. He stood a long time on the veranda listening to the drums and watching the small bat-like shadow flapping homeward under the casuarina trees. He felt no regret. He had rid himself of one possible obstacle to his plans. The next was Max Lansing. But his death was already written on the palm of his hand. Sonderfeld was prepared to wait a little longer.
He looked down at the laboratory hut. There was no light yet. N’Daria was still in the village. He shrugged indifferently. The nights were long for mountain lovers and the throbbing drums had not yet reached their climax.
Chapter Three
•
DOWN IN THE VILLAGE they were making kunande.
There were perhaps a hundred of them, bucks and girls, squatting two by two round the little fires in the long, low hut. Behind them, in the smoky shadows, sat the drummers, crouching over the kundus, filling fetid air with the deep, insistent beat that changed from song to song, from verse to refrain, with never a pause and never a falter.
The couples around the fires leant face to face and breast to breast, and sang low, murmurous, haunting songs that lapsed from time to time into a wordless, passionate melody. And, as they sang, they rolled their faces and their breasts together, lip to lip, nipple to nipple, cheek to brown and painted cheek.
The small flames shone on their oiled bodies and glistened on the green armour of the beetles in their headdress. Their plumes bobbed in the drifting smoke, and their necklets of shell and beads made a small clattering like castanets as they turned and rolled to the rolling of the drums.
The air was full of the smell of sweat and oil and smoke and the exhalation of bodies rising slowly to the pitch of passion. This was kunande, the public love-play of the unmarried, the courting time, the knowing time, when a man might tell from the responses of his singing partner whether she desired or disdained him. For this was the time of the woman. The girl chose her partner for the kunande, left him when she chose, solicited him if she wished, or held herself cool and aloof in the formal cadence of the songs.
N’Daria was among them, but the man with her was not Kumo. Kumo would come in his own time, and when he came she would leave her partner and go to him. For the present, she was content to sing and sway and warm herself with the contact of other flesh and let the drumbeats take slow possession of her blood.
A woman moved slowly down the line of singers. She was not adorned like the others. Her breasts were heavy with milk, her waist swollen with childbearing. Now she would throw fresh twigs on the fire, now she would part one couple and rearrange the partners. Now she would pour water in the open mouth of a drummer, as he bent his head without slackening his beat on the black kundu. This was the mistress of ceremonies, the duenna, ordering the courtship to the desires of her younger sisters, dreaming of her own days of kunande when she, too, wore the cane belt of the unmarried.
The drumbeats rose to a wild climax, then dropped suddenly to a low humming. The singing stopped. The singers opened their eyes and sat rigid, expectant. Distant at first, then closer and closer, they heard the running of the cassowary bird. They heard the great clawed feet pounding the earth—chuff-chuff-chuff—down the mountain path, through the darkness of the rain forest, on to the flat places of the taro gardens and into the village itself. Tomorrow they would go out and see the footprints in the black earth. But now they waited, tense and silent, as the beat came closer and closer, louder than the drums, then stopped abruptly outside the hut.
A moment later Kumo the Sorcerer stood in the doorway.
He did not enter, stooping as the others had done under the low lintel. He was there, erect and challenging as if he had walked through the wall. He wore a gold wig, fringed with green beetle shards. His forehead was painted green and the upper part of his face was red with ochre. His nose ornament was enormous, his feathered casque was scarlet and blue and orange. His pubic skirt was of woven bark, and his belt was covered with cowrie shells. His whole body shone with pig fat.
The boy who had been singing with N’Daria rose and moved back into the shadows. N’Daria sat waiting. Then Kumo gave a curt signal to the drummers, and they swung into a wild, loud beat as he moved down the hut and sat facing N’Daria. No word was spoken between them. They sang and moved their faces together as the others did, but N ‘ Daria’s body was on fire and the drums beat in her blood, pounding against her belly and her breasts and her closed eyelids.
Then, after a long time, slowly the drumbeats died and the fires died with them. Quietly the couples dispersed, some to sleep, some to carry on the love-play in a girl’s house, others to seek swift consummation in the shadows of the tangket trees.
Kumo and N’Daria left the hut with them and walked through the darkness to the house of N’Daria’s sister. Here there was food and drink and a small fire, and when they had eaten, two of the drummers came in with two more girls and they sat in pairs, backed against the bamboo walls, to make the greater love-play, called in pidgin “carry-leg.”
Kumo sat with his legs stretched out towards the center of the hut. N’Daria sat beside him, her body half turned to him, her thighs thrown over his left leg, his right leg locked over hers. Then began a long, slow ritual of excitement, tentative at first, then more and more intimate and urgent. At first, they sang a little, snatches of the kunande songs; then they laughed, telling stories of other lovers and scandalous doings in the village and on the jungle paths. They made laughing flatteries of one another’s bodies and their skill in the arts of love. Then, gradually, their voices dropped and their whispers became fiercer and more desirous.
“Does the white man touch you like this?”
“No—no—” She lied and half believed the lie in the warmth of the moment.
“Is the white man as great a man as I am?” His fingers pressed painfully into her flesh.
“He is not a man. Beside you he is a lizard.”
“If he touches you, I will kill him.”
“I would want you to kill him.”
“I will make his blood boil and his bones turn to water I will put ants in his brain and a snake in his belly.”
“And I will watch and laugh, Kumo.”
He caught her to him suddenly. His nails scored into her body, so that she gasped with the sudden pain.
“What does he teach you there in the little hut?”
She buried her face in his shoulder to hide the small smile of triumph. Kumo was a great sorcerer, the greatest in the valleys. Kumo could change himself into a cassowary bird and travel fast as the wind. But even Kumo did not know the secrets she learnt in Sonderfeld’s laboratory.
“Tell me. What does he teach you?”
She giggled and clung to him.
“What will you give me if I tell you?”
“I will give you the charm that makes children and the charm that destroys them. I will make you desired of all men. I will give you the power to strike any woman barren and make any man a giant to embrace you.”
“I want none of these things.”
His mouth pressed to her ear, he whispered urgently so that the others could not hear.
“What do you want? Tell me and I will give it to you. Am I not the greatest sorcerer in the valleys ? Does not the Red Spirit speak to me in the thunder and in the wind? Ask me and I will give. What do you want for the secrets of the white man’s room?”
“Only that you should take me—now!”
His body shuddered with the flattery and the triumph of it.
“And you will tell me, when?”
“Tomorrow or the day after, when I can come without being seen. But not now—not now!”
Kumo laughed. His plumes tossed. His teeth shone. He swept the girl to her feet and half ran, half carried her out of the hut.
The consummation was a wild, brief frenzy that left her, bruised and crumpled, alone in the tall and trodden kunai grass.
The drums were silent, and the fires were dying as N’Daria stumbled up the path to light the lamp in Sonderfeld’s laboratory. Her body was aching and her head was swimming with fatigue and drunkenness, but between her belly and her belt was a piece of cotton wool which carried the life of Kumo the Sorcerer.
Wee Georgie was waiting for his wives to come home. In the small squalid hut on the edge of the track, he sat shivering under a ragged greatcoat, lamenting his misfortunes like Job on his dunghill.
First was the irregularity of his marriage, unblessed by the Church, the Administration or the tribes. The plump brown sisters were happy enough to share his rations and warm his rumpled blankets, but they counted themselves still among the unmarried and went to the kunande and solaced themselves regularly with the village bachelors. Wee Georgie was a tolerant fellow, frankly admitting his own impotence, but the mountain nights were cold and his blood was so thinned with alcohol that he could not sleep without the companionable warmth of an oily body, fore and aft.
More than this, his kidneys were suffering from half a century of systematic abuse and he was forced to make repeated trips to the base of the big casuarina tree while the cold seeped into the fatty marrow of him.
But worse than all, theme of the longest lamentation, was the liquor shortage. Père Louis’ altar wine was thin comfort and soon gone—and Sonderfeld’s ill humour had robbed him of his weekend ration of hard spirit. There was only a quarter of a bottle of whisky between himself and the terrors of the night, and this he was saving until the girls came home, so that he could sit and listen to their spicy gossip of village love and piece out the scraps of scandal that might one day earn him an extra bottle from Sonderfeld. It was the only pleasure left to him in the days of his decline, and he clung to it jealously, cursing the shameless lusts that kept his women late from his pillow.
