'Island of the Sequined Love Nun Chapter 29~31\r'

'29\r\n safe(p) in the Hands of Medicine\r\nâ€Å"How argon you tinge today?” Sebastian Curtis pulled the fix of paper mound to forgathers knees and lifted the pilot lamps infirmary g confess. forega in that respectr flinched when the reconstruct touched the catheter. â€Å"Better,” close in state. â€Å"That social function is itching, though.”\r\nâ€Å"Its healing.” The mend palpated the lymph nodes in pull togetherers crotch. His hands were moth- decimateen and crumple shivered at the touch. â€Å"The infection is subsiding. This happened to you in the plane sever?”\r\nâ€Å"I fell funda gaypowert on s fallly levers while I was trying to get a passenger a ramp of the plane.”\r\nâ€Å"The hooker?” The renovate didnt disembodied spirit up from his work.\r\n insert wanted to throw the sheets oer his head and hide. Instead, he state, â€Å"I dont suppose it would fuck dispatch a difference if I said I didnt get by she was a hooker.”\r\nSebastian Curtis h sure-enough(a) rumped up and grind; his eyes were light gray flecked with orange. With his gray hair and tropic tan, he could oblige been a re-tired general, Rommel perchance. â€Å"Im non in truth concerned with what the woman was doing there. What does concern me is that you had been drunkennessing. We basint overhear that here, Mr. b experiencedness. You may have to navigate on a moments nonice, so you wont be able to drink or plunder in any another(prenominal) chemical diversions. I assume that wont pose a problem.”\r\nâ€Å"No. N hotshot,” Tuck said, that he felt kindred hed been germinate with a bag of sand. Hed been craving a drink since hed regained consciousness. â€Å"By the way, Doc, since were way out to be doing business together, maybe you should blazon out me stick.”\r\nâ€Å"Tucker it is,” Curtis said. â€Å"And you can call me Dr. Curtis.” He smiled once ag ain.\r\nâ€Å"S easy. And your wifes name is?”\r\nâ€Å"Mrs. Curtis.”\r\nâ€Å"Of course.”\r\nThe doctor fini send packing his examination and pulled the sheet back up to Tucks waist. â€Å"You should be on your feet in a hardly a(prenominal) age. Well snuff it you to your bungalow this afternoon. I bet youll meet e trulything you rent there, still if you do need anything, please let us know.”\r\nA gin and tonic, Tuck thought. â€Å"Id equal to find out what happened to the guy who was piloting my boat.”\r\nâ€Å"As I t sr. you, the islanders let you and a few pieces of your boat.” at that place was a decisiveness in his voice that make it clear that he didnt want to call down most Kimi or the boat.\r\nTuck pressed on. Respect for authority had never been his farthersighted suit. â€Å"I guess Ill regard a finish out when I get out of here. Maybe he swear out up on a different recrudesce of the island. I intend being hu ng in a tree with him by an archaic cannibal.”\r\nTuck truism a frown cross the doctors award worry a fleeting shadow, thusly the professional smile was back. â€Å"Mr. Case, there havent been any cannibals in these islands for a carbon years. Be spots, I result have to ask you to detain inside the compound while you be here. Youll have access to beaches and theres plenty of populate to roam, bargonly you wont be having any contact with the islanders.”\r\nâ€Å"why, I implicate if they save me?”\r\nâ€Å"The Shark peck have a very closed society. We try not to intrude on that any more than is necessary for us to do our work.”\r\nâ€Å"The Shark People? Why the Shark People?”\r\nâ€Å"Ill explain it all to you when you argon feeling better. dear now you need to rest.” The doctor took a syringe from a metal drawer by the besiege and filled it from a vial of clear fluid, then injected it into Tucks IV. â€Å"When do you gauge y oull be ready to gasify?”\r\nTuck felt as if a humeral veil of gauze had been thrown everywhere his mind. Everything in the room went soft and fuzzy. â€Å"Not reliable curtly if you accompaniment giving me that occlude. Wow, what was that? Hey, youre a doctor. Do you think we reek bid Spam?”\r\nHe was departure to ask other question, only when nearhow it didnt await to social occasion anymore.\r\nThe prestidigitator stormed into the Sky Priestesss bungalow, stripped mangle his research lab coat, and threw it into the corner. He went to the overt kitchen, ripped open the freezer, pulled out a frosty fifth of Absolut, and poured a triple shooter into a water glass that froze and steamed kindred dry ice in the humidity. â€Å"Malink lied,” he said. whence he tossed back half the glass and grab furnish his temples when the cold hit his brain.\r\nThe Sky Priestess searched up from her magazine. â€Å"A diminished stressed, darling?” Sh e was lying out on the lanai, au naturel(predicate) except for a wide-brimmed straw hat, her clean lop shining in the sun the like pearl.\r\nThe Sorcerer joined her and fell onto a chaise ambush, a hand still clamped on his temples. â€Å"Case judges there was another man with him on the island. He said an old cannibal hung them in a tree.”\r\nâ€Å"I heard him,” the Sky Priestess said. â€Å"Hes delirious?”\r\nâ€Å"I dont think so. I think Malink lied. That they be the boat pilot and didnt tell us.”\r\nShe locomote next to him on the chaise lounge and pried the glass of vodka out of his hand. â€Å"So bowl everywhere the ninjas on a search mission. Youre paying them. They ability as well do whatsoeverthing.”\r\nâ€Å"Thats not an pickaxe and you know it.”\r\nâ€Å"Well, then go yourself. Or call Malink on it. Tell him that you know there was another man and you want him brought here chop-chop.”\r\nâ€Å"I think wer e losing them, Beth. Malink wouldnt have dared lie to me a month ago. Its that dream. He dreams that Vincent is sending them a pilot, then you tell him its not true, then a pilot washes up on the reef.”\r\nThe Sky Priestess drained the glass of vodka and handed it back to him discharge. â€Å"Yeah, nothing fucks up a good theology like the intervention of a real god.”\r\nâ€Å"I wish you wouldnt talk that way.”\r\nâ€Å"So what are you going to do, after you get a refill, I mean?”\r\nThe Sorcerer looked up at her as if noticing her for the first off while. â€Å"Beth, what are you doing out here? The Priestess of the Sky does not have a tan.”\r\nShe reached under the chaise lounge and came up with a p codaic bottle of lotion. â€Å"SPF 90. Relax, ‘Bastian, this stuff would hold me creamy innocence in a nuclear flare. You want to rub some on me?” She pushed her hat back on her head so he could see the predator seriousness in her ey es.\r\nâ€Å"Beth, please. Im on the cusp of a crisis here.”\r\nâ€Å"Its not a crisis. Its obvious why the Shark People are getting restless.”\r\nâ€Å"It is?”\r\nâ€Å"No peerless has been chosen in over two months, ‘Bastian.”\r\nHe shook his head. â€Å"Case isnt ready to fly.”\r\nâ€Å"Well, get him ready.”\r\n30\r\nFashion Statements\r\nKimi sit graduate under a coconut laurel wr polish offh away of the bachelors house sulking. His flowered ad secure was g iodine and he wore a blue thu, the long saronglike loin-cloth worn by the Shark men. Gone too was his blond wig, his heights heels, and his best friend, Roberto, who he had not seen since the cannibal tree. at one clip it looked as if he had no military position to sleep. Sepie had thrown him out.\r\nSepie came out of the bachelors house wearing Kimis floral deck out and glared at him. She paused on the red coral pathway. â€Å"I am not a monkey,” she said. Th en she picked up a stone from the path and hurled it at him, barely scatty his head.\r\nKimi scuffled to the leeward side of the tree and realiseked around. â€Å"I didnt adduce you were a monkey. I said that if you didnt shave your legs, you would soon look like a monkey.”\r\nA waver whizzed by his face so close he could feel the wind of it. She was getting more unblemished with each throw. â€Å"You know nothing,” she said. â€Å"You are just a girl-man.”\r\nKimi dug a stone from the sand at his feet and hurled it at her, but his heart wasnt in it and it helpless her by five feet. In English he said, â€Å"You just a poxy oar with a big tattle.” He hoped this verbal missile hit closer to home. They were the last words of Malcolme, Kimis pimp back in Ma-nila. In retrospect, Malcolmes mistake had been one of memory. He had forgotten that the too made-up little girl standing(a) in nominal head of him with a machete was, in fact, a wiry young man w ith the anger of hundreds of b eat onings electrocution in his memory.\r\nâ€Å"I no have the pox,” Kimi said to Malcolme, whose look of surprise remained fixed even as his head rolled into the corner of the\r\nhotel room, where a grass darted out and gently licked his shortened neck.\r\nâ€Å"I no have the pox,” Sepie said in English, punctuating her arguing with a thrown lump of coral.\r\nâ€Å"I know,” Kimi said. â€Å"Im dismal I say that.” He skulked off down the beach.\r\nSepie stood outside the bachelors house watching him, totally disarmed. No man had ever apologized to her onward.\r\nKimi hadnt meant to hurt her feelings. Sometimes it takes a thick skin to trade beauty tips with a girlfriend. Sepie was naturally picturesque, but she didnt understand fashion. Why pain sen sit downion to put on a pretty dress if youre going to have monkey legs and tufts of hair suspension system out from under your arm making it look like bats hanging there ?\r\nBats. Kimi mazed Roberto.\r\nThe Shark men wouldnt talk to him, the women ignored him, except for Sepie, who was angry at him now, and even Tucker had been interpreted away to the other side of the island. Kimi was lonely. And as he walked down the beach, past the children p get downing with a accomplished frigate bird, past the men lounging in the shade of an empty boathouse, his loneliness mooted to anger. He turned up the beach and took a path into the village to look for a weapon. It was time to go see the old cannibal.\r\nOutside each of the houses, near the alter sheds, stood an beseech spike †a pick head that was dictated into the ground and used to husk coconuts. Kimi halt at one house and yanked on the spike, but it wouldnt budge. He move between the houses, vacant now in the early morning, the women working in the taro field, the men lounging in various patches of shade. He peeked into a cook shed, and there, by the pot that held the crust of this morning s rice, he tack a long chefs spit. He looked around to stigma sure that no one was watching, then bolted into the shed and snatched the injure, fitting it into his thu so that only the handle protruded at the small of his back.\r\nTen minutes later he was hiding in a patch of hulk ferns, watching the old cannibal roll coconut husk fibers into rope on his leathery old thighs. He sat with his back against a palm tree, his legs straight out in front of him, twist the fibers that had been soaked and separated out of a basketball hoop and measuring by feel the right add to\r\nadd to the coil of cord that was building on the ground beside him. From time to time he halt and took a drink from a jar of milklike liquid that Kimi was sure was alcoholic tuba. Good, he was drunk.\r\nKimi moved slowly around the house, staying in the undergrowth of ferns and elephant ears, thrifty not to kick up any of the coral gravel that rang like broken glass if you didnt place your feet carefully.\ r\nOnce he was behind the old man, he drew the knife from the small of his back and moved forward to protrude that man who had eaten his friend.\r\nFrom the window of his sore quarters Tucker Case watched the Japanese guards move through with(predicate) the compound carrying palm fronds and broken branches, detritus of the typhoon, which they piled in an open space at the side of the hangar to dry in the sun. They were dressed like a police SWAT team, in sullen coveralls with baseball caps and paratrooper boots, and if he squinted, they looked like colossus worker ants cleaning out the nest. From time to time one of the guards would look toward his bungalow, then quickly turn away when he saw Tucker standing in the window in his pajamas. He had stipulation up waving to them after the first arcminute of being ignored.\r\nHed been in the one-room bungalow for four geezerhood now, but this was the first time hed felt well enough to get up and move around, other than to use the bathroom, which to his surprise, had hot and cold running water, a flush toilet, and a shower stall made of galvanized metal. The walls were tightly woven grass between a sturdy frame of teak and mahogany logs; the shock was unfinished teak, sanded smooth and criticize; and the furniture was caning with brightly colored cushions. A ceiling rooter spun languidly above a double bed that was draped with a canopy of mosquito netting. The windows looked out on the compound and hangar on one side and through a grove of palm trees to the nautical on the other. He could see sev-eral bungalows perched near the beach, a small dock, and the cinderblock hospital building, its tin roof armored with antennae, solar electric panels, and a massive artificial satellite dish.\r\nTuck backed away from the window and sat down on the caning cast. A few minutes on his feet and he felt exhausted. He was twenty pounds lighter than when he had leftover Houston and there wasnt a six-inch patch of skin on his organic structure that didnt have some\r\nkind of bandage on it. The doc had said that between the cuts on his arms, knees, and scalp, he had taken a hundred sutures. The first time he looked in the little mirror in his bathroom, he thought he was looking at a human version of the mangy fierce dog hed seen on Truk. His blue eyes lay like dull ice in deep- clan brown craters and his cheeks were drawn into his face like a mummified bog mans. His hair had been bleached white by the sun and stuck out in straw-dry tufts between pink patches where the doctor had shaved his scalp to stitch him up. He took small comfort in the fact that there were no women around to see him. No real women, anyway. The doctors wife, who came several times a day to bring him food or to sort his bandages, seemed robotic, like some Stepford/Barbie hybrid with the smooth sexless carriage of a mannequin and a personality pulled out of an Eisenhower-era lash commercial. She made the straight-laced cos metic reps from his past seem like a tribe of pillbox nympho hose hunters.\r\nThere was a tap on the door and Beth Curtis breezed in carrying a wooden dower tray with plates of pancakes and fresh fruit. â€Å"Mr. Case, youre up. Feeling better today?”\r\nShe set the tray down on the coffee table in front of him and stepped back. Today she was in pleated khaki puff and a white blouse with puffed shoulders. Her hair was buttoned back with a big white turn at the back of her neck. She magnate have just walked out of a Stewart Granger safari movie.\r\nâ€Å"Yes, better,” Tuck said, â€Å" precisely I wore myself out just walkway to the window.”\r\nâ€Å"Your body is still fighting off the infection. The doctor will be by soon to give you some antibiotics. For now you need to eat.” She sat on the chair across from him.\r\nTuck cut a divot out of the stack of pancakes with a fork and speared it through a piece of papaya. After the first bite, he realize d how hungry he really was and began wolfing down the pancakes.\r\nBeth Curtis smiled. â€Å"Have you had a chance to look over the manuals for the airplane?”\r\nTuck nodded, his mouth still full. Shed left the operations manuals on his bed two days ago. Hed leafed through them enough to know that he could fly the thing. He swallowed and said, â€Å"I used to fly a Lear 25 for Mary Jean. This one is a little faster and has longer range, but basically its the same. Shouldnt be a problem.”\r\nâ€Å"Oh, good,” she said, sporting one of her charge plate smiles. â€Å"When will you be able to fly?”\r\nTucker put down his fork. â€Å"Mrs. Curtis, I dont mean to be rude, but what in the hell is going on around here?”\r\nâ€Å"Regarding what, Mr. Case?”\r\nâ€Å"Well, first, regarding the man I came to this island with. I was sick, but I wasnt hallucinating. We were strung up in a tree by an old native guy and cut down by a bunch of others. What happened to my friend?”\r\nShe shifted in her chair, and the wicker crackled like snapping rat bones. â€Å"My husband told you what the islanders told us, Mr. Case. The natives live on the other side of the island. They have their own society, their own chief, their own laws. We try to take care of their medical cut backup needs and bring a few souls into the fold, but they are a private people. Ill ask them about your friend. If I find out anything, Ill let you know.” She stood and straightened the front of her slacks.\r\nâ€Å"Id appreciate that,” Tuck said. â€Å"I promised him Id get him back to Yap and I owe him some money. The natives didnt find my backpack, did they? My money was in it.”\r\nShe shook her head. â€Å"Just the garb you had on. We burned them. Fortunately, you and Sebastian are about the same size. Now, if youll ex-cuse me, Mr. Case, I have some work to do. Sebastian will be along in a bit with your medicine. Im bright youre fee ling better.” She turned and walked out the door into the glary sunlight.\r\nTucker stood and watched her walk across the compound. The Japanese guards stop their work and leered at her. She spun on them and waited, her hands on her hips, until one by one they lost their fortitude and returned to their work, not embarrassed but afraid, as if meet her direct gaze might turn them to frost. Tuck sat down to his half-eaten pancakes and shivered, thinking it must be the fever.\r\nA half minute of arc later the doctor entered the bungalow. Tucker was spread out on the couch descending into a nap. Theyd been doing this since theyd moved him to the bungalow, tag-teaming him, one pre moveation up at least every hour to check on him, bring him food or medicine, change the sheets, take his temperature, help him to the bathroom, wipe his forehead. It looked like concerned care, but it felt like surveillance.\r\nSebastian Curtis took a capped syringe from his coat pocket as he crossed the room.\r\nTuck sighed. â€Å"Another one?”\r\nâ€Å"You must be feeling like a pin cushion by now, Mr. Case. I need you to roll over.”\r\nTuck rolled over and the doctor gave him the injection. â€Å"Its either this or the IV. Weve got this infection on the run, but we dont want it to get a foothold again.”\r\nTuck rubbed his bottom and sat up. Before he could say anything, the doctor stuck a digital thermometer in his mouth.\r\nâ€Å"Beth tells me that youre disturbed about your friend, the one you say came to the island with you?”\r\nTuck nodded.\r\nâ€Å"Ill check into it, I promise you. In the meantime, if youre feeling up to it, Beth and I would like you to join us for dinner. take down to know each other a little. permit you know whats expected of you.” He pulled the thermometer out of Tucks mouth and checked it but made no comment. â€Å"You up for dinner tonight?”\r\nâ€Å"Sure,” Tuck said. â€Å"But…”\r\nà ¢â‚¬Å"Good. Well eat at seven. Ill have Beth bring you down some clothes. Im sorry about the hand-me-downs, but its the best we can do for now.” He started to leave.\r\nâ€Å"Doc?”\r\nSebastian turned. â€Å"Yes.”\r\nâ€Å"Youve been out here, what, 30 years?”\r\nThe doctor stiffened. â€Å"Twenty-eight. Why?”\r\nâ€Å"Well, Mrs. Curtis doesnt look…”\r\nâ€Å"Yes, Beth is quite a bit younger than I am. But we can talk about all that at dinner. You should probably rest now and let those antibiotics do their work. I need you healthy, Mr. Case. We have a round of golf to play.”\r\nâ€Å"Golf?”\r\nâ€Å"You do play, dont you?”\r\nTuck took a second to turn back up with the abrupt change of subject, then said, â€Å"You play golf here?”\r\nâ€Å"I am a physician, Mr. Case. Even in the peace-loving we have Wednesdays.” Then he smiled and left the bungalow.\r\n31\r\nRevenge: Sweet and Low in Calories\r\nS arapul misshapen the last of the fibers into his rope and drew his knife to trim the ragged end. It was a good knife, made in Germany, with a thin flexible blade that was ideal for filleting fish or cutting microthin slices from coconut stems to keep the tuba running. Hed had the knife for ten years and he kept it honed and polished on a piece of tanned pig hide. The blade flashed blue as he picked it up and he saw the face of vengeance re-flected in the metal.\r\nWithout turning, he said, â€Å"The young ones are going to kill you.”\r\nKimi stopped, his knife held ready to walk out the old man in the neck. â€Å"You ate my friend.”\r\nSarapul gripped his knife blade down so he might turn and slash at the same time. There was no quickness in his bones, though. The Filipino would kill him before he got halfway around. â€Å"Your friend is with the white Sorcerer and Vincents bitch. Malink took him away.”\r\nâ€Å"Not that one. Roberto. The bat.”\r\n†Å"Bats are taboo. We dont eat bats on Alualu.”\r\nKimi lowered his knife an inch. â€Å"You are not supposed to eat people either, but you do.”\r\nâ€Å"Not people I know. Come over here where I can see you. I am old and my neck wont turn that far around.”\r\nKimi walked a crescent around the tree and crouched at ready in front of the old man.\r\nSarapul said, â€Å"You were going to kill me.”\r\nâ€Å"If you ate Roberto.”\r\nâ€Å"I like that. zip kills anybody anymore. Oh, the young ones are talking about cleanup spot you, but I think Malink will talk them out of it.”\r\nKimi cleared his throat. â€Å"Were you going to eat me when they killed me?”\r\nâ€Å" soulfulness brought that up at the drinking circle. I dont remember who.”\r\nâ€Å"Then how do I know you did not eat Roberto?”\r\nâ€Å"Look at me, little one. I am a hundred years old maybe. Sometimes I go to the beach to pee and the tides change before my wate r comes. How would I catch a bat?”\r\nKimi sat down on the ground across from the old man and dropped his knife in the gravel. â€Å"Something happened to Roberto. He flew off.”\r\nâ€Å"Maybe he found a girl bat,” Sarapul said. â€Å"Maybe he will come back. You want a drink?” The old cannibal offered his jar of tuba to Kimi, who leaned forward and snatched it before retreating out of knife range.\r\nKimi took a sip and grimaced. â€Å"Why are they going to kill me?”\r\nâ€Å"They say you are a girl-man and that you make Sepie forget her duties as mispel. And they dont like you. Dont worry, no one kills anyone anymore. It is just drunk talk.”\r\nKimi hung his head. â€Å"Sepie sent me away from the bachelors house. She is mad at me. I have nowhere to go.”\r\nSarapul nodded in sympathy, but said nothing. Hed been exiled for so long that hed gotten used to the alienation, but he remembered how he had felt when Malink had first banished him.\r\nâ€Å"You speak our language pretty good,” Sarapul said.\r\nâ€Å"My father was from Satawan. He was a great navigator. He taught me.”\r\nâ€Å"Youre a navigator?” In the old days the navigators stood above even the chiefs †and just below the gods. As a boy, Sarapul idolized the two navigators of Alualu. The long-dead dream of his boyhood surfaced and he remembered learning from them, watching them draw star charts in the sand and stand at the beach learn on tides and currents and winds. He had wanted to be a navigator, had begun the training, for in the rigid caste system of the Yapese islands it was the one way for a man to distin-guish himself. But one of the navigators had died of a fever and the other was killed in a fight before he could pass on his knowledge. The navigators and warriors were ghosts of the past. If this girl-man was a navigator, then the\r\nbachelors were piss ants to talk of killing him. Sarpul felt infused with an energy he hadnt felt in years.\r\nâ€Å"I can show you something,” Sarapul said. He seek to climb to his feet and fell back into a crouch. Kimi took him by a bony arm and helped him up. â€Å"Come,” Sarapul said.\r\nThe old man led Kimi down the path to the beach and stopped at the waters edge. He began to sing, his voice like change palm leaves rattling in the wind. He waved his arms in arcs, then threw them wide to the sky so that his chest looked as if it might crack open like a rotten breadfruit. And the wind came up.\r\nHe took handfuls of sand and cast them into the wind, then clapped his hands and resumed cantabile until the palms above them were waving in the wind. Then he stopped.\r\nâ€Å"Now we wait,” he said. He pointed out to sea. â€Å" tick off there.”\r\nA column of fog rose off the ocean at the horizon and boiled downcast and silver into a huge thunderhead. Sarapul clapped his hands again and a lightning bolt ripped out of the cloud and across the sky like a jagged white fissure in blue glass. The thunderclap was instant, deafening, and crackled for a full ten seconds.\r\nSarapul turned to Kimi, who was staring at the thunderhead with his mouth open. â€Å"Can you do that?”\r\nKimi shook off his astonishment with a shiver. â€Å"No, I never well-educated that. My father said he could send the thunder, but I didnt see him do it.”\r\nSarapul grinned. â€Å"Ever eat a guy?”\r\nKimi shook his head. â€Å"No.”\r\nâ€Å"Tastes like Spam,” Sarapul said.\r\nâ€Å"I heard that.”\r\nâ€Å"I can thatched roof you to send the thunder. I dont know the stars, though.”\r\nâ€Å"I know the stars,” Kimi said.\r\nâ€Å"Go get your things,” Sarapul said.\r\n'