A True Story of Rarotonga in the 'Eighties

The Dilemma Of Ah Fu

By Julian Hillas

(Rarotonga, prior to its annexation in 1900, was nominally a British Protectorate. But, until well after the events described in the following sketch took place, official supervision was of the slenderest government beinr m the hands Arm or cwe,L“rthat lime One« L ' ta. A„ the charter' mentioned now ate d«d with the exception of “Amos Beere”—who under his own name enjoys the distinction of being „ne Ot the oldest white residents ,n the Group).

AH FU shuffled on to the verandah, the heels of his wooden slippers slap-slapping on the board floor. By leaning over the low railing he could have touched the people passing along the road below; men in scarlet and white pareus, women and girls in ankle-length Mother Hubbards and children in very little at all.

But Ah Fu was not interested in the people of Rarotonga on that particular afternoon in 1885. His thoughts, masked behind inscrutable almond-shaped eyes, were on his recent interview with Chang Ho Chang Ho smoked opium and lived in a big house on the shady waterfront, while he Ah Fu, slaved from morning till night as manager of the galvanised iron store in Avatieu. Chang Ho had complained that the business was not making enough money.

Ah Fu nodded to himself like a little soapstone Buddha which had been trans-

planted from its native element and was * f f i h ; o C ° ut ot i flvrio Just as if any store could be expected to do well while Wong Li lived on the I™?*?*- but - uns f “ssfu,y he had »PP OSed the ° f W °"g That was four years ago. How clearly he remembered the arrival of the dried up Cantonese . A schooner from Tahiti bad berthed overnight and, in the mom- Chang Ho went aboard; and, when he came on shore again, Wong Li accom- P amed him.

“Velly sick man”, Chang Ho had said. ‘‘Maybe he die velly soon. Maybe not.

You put him in the room at the back and feed him. See?”

Ah Fu had seen a good many things since then. From the outset, his guest seldom left the lean-to at the rear of the store and Ah Fu, who preferred eat ing alone, sent him in his meals by the man-of-all-work. Occasionally they met in the yard, or on the verandah, and then he would notice that the Cantonese kept his hands hidden beneath the folds of his wide sleeves.

But in those halycon days of the early ’eighties trade was brisk and he was too busy to think much about Wong Li. The astringent, faintly rancid odour of copra filled the store continually; barrels of

coconut oil stood ready in rows for ship ment; and in the compound, a great pile of iridescent pearl-shell flashed with multi-coloured fire as the sun struck down on its smooth surfaces. In ex change for these things, Ah Fu sold bolts of cheap printed cottons, rolls of scarlet and white pareu cloth, tobacco, ships’ biscuits, fish-hooks and all the hundred and one articles with which Chang Ho sought to beguile the brown man from his carefree, unproductive existence in a Garden of Eden, where the serpent had a pigtail and slanting eyes.

They had been good times, indeed.

Had been. The frown on Ah Fu’s parch ment-like face deepened as he recalled a certain evening when his store-boy had given notice.

“I not work here any more. No more back to-morrow. That fella belong ’um China too much sick”.

Ah Fu pressed for details.

“You no savvy that sickness?” The store-boy spat expressively in the thick dust. “You go look see. Him leper man. I not stop here any more. No blurry fear!”

Ah Fu, having verified this for him self, hurried to Chang Ho. But the latter scarcely listened . . . Wong Li and he were members of the same tong.

Besides, had not the Cantonese paid him well that he might be allowed to end his days in Rarotonga ? Ah Fu must be patient. Wong Li would die soon, anyway.

But, from then, business had fallen off. Groups which used to collect on

the verandah, gossiping in the cool late afternoon, no longer formed. Customers who formerly lingered over their shop ping now scuttled home as quickly as possible; and the more cautious ceased coming at all. People talked, and the Native Council, feeling that some action was necessary, officially waited upon Chang Ho, who received them suavely, professing his own ignorance of Wong Li’s condition until just recently. He agreed with them that it would be diffi cult—if not impossible—to find any shipmaster willing to carry such a pas senger . . . Patience . . . The Council, fuming inwardly, but baffled by this Oriental urbanity, filed out in silence.

As the weeks turned to months, and Wong Li continued to occupy the lean to, a gradual change came over Ah Fu.

Daily he made a practice of inspecting the former, peering quietly at him through a crack in the flimsy match boarding. The progress of the disease grew into an obsession. At first, only the hands had been affected; but, later, a curious puffiness appeared indiscrim inately and this, assuming a putty-grey pallor, subsided into soft ulcerous sores at mouth, nose and ears.

Towards the end of the second year, Ah Fu made one concession to his busi ness instincts. Without consulting Chang Ho, he erected a wire enclosure, twelve feet by twelve, and inside built a tiny palm-leaf hut. Into this he herded the still mentally alert but bodily decaying creature who was his guest.

Here, Wong Li at once became an ob ject of morbid public interest. Leprosy was rare, and natives visiting Avatieu from the outer villages were taken along in the hope of obtaining a glimpse of the unfortunate man. Twice daily, food was pushed between the lower strands of the cage, and bystanders considered an hour’s vigil well rewarded if they saw the almost shapeless stump, which served Wong Li for a hand, reach out from the hut and scoop in the basin of food.

And so passed another and another year. Ah Fu’s sparse black hair was shot with grey, his thin moustaches drooped miserably and over his high Mongolian cheek-bones the skin was yellow and veined like old ivory.

But, if Ah Fu had fared badly, there was one whom the passage of Time altered beyond recognition. Wong Li was now literally dropping to pieces.

Four years . . . and yet that very day Chang Ho had had the temerity to in fer that somehow the fault lay with Ah Fu. Further, he even managed to insinuate that the latter was responsible for Wong Li’s longevity.

AT this point Ah Fu’s meditations were interrupted by a short stocky European in dungarees and a high crowned rito hat. Ah Fu pushed his stool against the wall and followed the newcomer inside.

Amos Beere, trader, planter and one time mate of an Islands schooner, leaned on the counter. He had rather a liking for the little shrivelled-up Chinaman.

“How’s that leper pal of your’n gettin’ along?” he asked, “Ain’t ’e dead yet?”

“Him never die, I think”, Ah Fu shook his head sadly. “Velly bad my business this time, Amos”.

“Sure—that’s right. It’s a pity there ain’t no way of gettin’ rid of him—not as ’ow Pd care to ’ave ’im aboard. I suppose you never heard tell ’ow much Chang Ho got for lettin’ him stop

over ? I’d say myself it was a tidy bit”, Amos winked confidentially. “You Chinks don’t start off for China with out a few quid in your pocket—an’ yet PH bet you’ve never seen any money on Wong Li. ’Ave yer now?

Ah Fu confessed that he had not and Amos, pushing the wide-brimmed hat further on his head, prepared to leave, At the door he paused. “Mind you”, he continued, “There ain’t no law worth

speakin’ of down here an* a chap that’s as far gone as ’e is don’t require a lot

of helping. I don’t expect anyone would ask no questions, either, if they was to hear ’e’d died kind of sudden. Wot I mean is that if business is bad, it’s yer own fault—if yer get wot I’m drivin’ at”.

WHEN Amos had gone Ah Fu re mained for a minute or two lost in contemplation. Amos’s words had drawn up to the surface hitherto sub merged thoughts and given them definite shape.

He shuffled back onto the verandah.

The sun had sunk lower and hung, an amazing orange globe, above the dark blue of the ocean where the latter melted into the paler blue of a late afternoon sky. Behind him, the hills reached up swiftly in a flying buttress of naked peaks and serrated battle

merits, flood-lit by the tawny blaze of sunset. On his left, a grove of palms bent before the steady drive of the trade-wind and, from seaward, across the road facing the store, came the in cessant boom of breakers along the coral reef, rising to hollow thunder as the white lines of running surf went charg ing down the crescent sweep of the coast.

But Ah Fu was not interested in these things. His squinting yellow eyes rested on the wire enclosure into which he could easily have pitched a stone from where he stood. The more he thought about it, the more obvious Amos’s mean ing became. Who, after all, were likely to concern themselves with what happened to Wong Li? The Council?

The old Queen in her ramshackle palace ?

He dismissed them both immediately.

There only remained the rare British warship which visited the island— “ Commodore’s Law” —and this, also, he felt it might be safe to disregard. For some time, the question of just how to set about things worried him, for he was by nature a methodical creature, and liked to round off his actions in a neat and orderly manner.

And then, abreast down the darken ing road, came the answer to his prob lem. “Jacky Coconut” and “Monkey”, Rarotonga’s two hardest-case natives, arm in arm and open to any proposi tion which held out hopes of rum, money or women—but preferably rum.

Ah Fu leaned over the verandah rails and called gently to them.

IT was evening, and the main doors of the store had been closed for some time. An oil lamp bit feebly into the gloom of Ah Fu’s room, at the back of the building, illuminating faintly the faces of six men who sat around a stone demijohn, from which came the fine fruity odour of old Jamaica.

“Jacky Coconut”, a bronze-red moun tain of a man, with a ragged palisade of broken teeth, wiped the loose earth off his hands as he stretched across for the glass which Ah Fu held out. Be side him, the wizened “Monkey” was al ready drinking, the lamplight glitter ing on a bead of rum where it clung like a great ruby to the hairs on his unshaven chin.

Amos Beere, who had dropped in casually, and stayed to broach the demi john, glanced at their host.

“Wot’s up?” he enquired, “Gettin’ flush with money, ain’t yer? Enter tainin’ an’ all that kind o’ thing”.

But Ah Fu was plainly ill at ease, and he avoided the planter’s eye.

“Wong Li velly sick to-day. I look see this morning, an’ then I think may be he going to die soon. So I get ’um Jacky an’ the boys to dig grave all same ready put him in quick”.

Ah Fu plied his visitors with the fiery spirit, drinking nothing himself and re maining, by his own sobriety, a baro meter of the company’s intoxication.

The rum gradually loosened their tongues. Names, woven into the very fabric of Islands history, were bandied across the room. “Monkey” had sailed under the famous blackbirder, Bully

Hayes; Amos had been mate of a trad ing schooner on which the adventurous John Salmon eloped with the young Queen of Arorangi, but was pursued and brought back by her powerful kins woman, Makea Takau. Men and women, pearls, copra and trocas shell—the talk ran on interminably; and all the while Ah Fu watched them and waited.

Amos was the first to go under. His voice thickened and once or twice he almost slipped off his box. Ah Fu then judged that the moment had come for putting into execution the second part

of his plan, and he quietly replaced the cork in the demijohn.

“You drink him all up by-an’-by”, he said to the four natives. “This time you go look see Wong Li. I stop insides with Amos”.

They rose unsteadily to their feet, and he pushed them through the door.

In the yard, Jacky Coconut took charge.

Picking up two long poles which had been prepared during the afternoon, he led the way across to the wire enclosure.

A coldly metallic moon patterned the ground with strange shadows, and sil

vered the ash-grey fronds that composed the walls and roof of the hut, in one corner. A furry brown flying-fox passed overhead in zigzag flight, its shrill cry fading away as leathery wiflgs bore it swiftly inland.

Kicking open the door, Jacky Coco nut peered inside. “Bring a light", he directed while one of them rolled a palm leaf torch. Crackling red flames, he thrust this before him through the door way and, for a moment, even his rum deadened nerves jumped horribly as Wong Li, roused from sleep, pushed aside the pile of rags which covered his body. All but faceless, and thrice terrible in that lurid light, he stared at the intruders.

“What you wantee me for?” he quavered.

“We take you ’nother place”, Jacky Coconut informed him, “You keep quiet”.

They slid the poles under him, impro vising a kind of sedan-chair by means of the mat on which he lay and to which he now clung desperately. Their bur den was pathetically light, and they swung clear of the enclosure at a jog trot, heading for a patch of sandy ground on the beach side of the road.

It was an eerie procession, silent ex cept for the flip-flap of their bare feet in the dust, and as they went the tall warden shadows of the trees seemed to march with them.

Perhaps Wong Li sensed the strange ness of this journey.

“Where you taking me?” he called out; and when “Monkey”, with an oath,

The old store of Ah Fu still stands in Rarotonga. It was in the yard behind this building that the leper was kept, in a little hut.

Photo, taken recently by W. H. Watson.

told him he beat feebly on the poles with his mutilated hands. “But I not dead man yet. I not dead”, he moaned, his voice thin with a nameless terror.

“Then you damn well should be”, they shouted back, and the grim cortege proceeded, Wong Li continuing his fruit less tattoo.

At a point where the palms screened

them from the road, the four men halted, setting down their burden be side a freshly-dug pit. Jacky Coconut examined the grave critically, measur ing with his eye both its capacity and the object for which it had been pre pared.

“Lift him up”, he ordered; and under his direction the poles were held para llel with but above the opening; and, the ends of the mat slipping over them, Wong Li descended by his own weight into the hole.

Seeing the fate which awaited Kim the unfortunate creature struggled weakly.

As he touched bottom “Monkey” reached down and turned two sides of the mat inwards, folding them over the Chinaman like the flaps of an envelope.

On this, the others began shovelling earth, those who were without spades using their hands.

During a pause, Jacky Coconut leaned over the grave. The soil stirred with minute tremors and very faintly the voice of Wong Li could be heard call ing “Me no dead yet”.

Jacky Coconut bent lower. Spittle, running from the corners of his great bull mouth, trickled into the pit.

“You no dead yet, Wong Li?” he chuckled, “Never mind—you soon will be”, and, springing to his feet, he set to shovelling again, never stopping until the grave was a cylindrical mound, which they then stamped level with the surrounding ground.

“We go now an’ finish the rum”.

“Monkey” shouldered his spade with the satisfied air of a man who has suc cessfully accomplished a difficult task, and the others followed him up the path without a backward glance at the dark rectangular patch under the slow-rock ing sentinel palms.

Their entry roused Amos Beere from the half-sleep into which he had fallen.

He sat up and looked at them with fuddled curiosity.

“Where you bin?” he demanded, “What you bin doin’ outside?”

But it was Ah Fu who answered, and a great weight seemed to have been

lifted from the little storekeeper.' “Velly sad business, Amos”, he said impas sively, “Wong Li he die an’ these boys put him in ground for me. Velly good boys”.

“So ’e died at last, did ’e ? When was that?”

“Wong- Li dead now”, Ah Fu repeated, uncorking the demijohn. “You have ’nother little drink, Amos, an’ then go ’long home. We not worry any more for Wong Li—he too much dead now I think”. And for the first time that night, Chang Ho’s manager drained a tumbler of the old Jamaica.