A Nunu-Penni And A Tralala

Short Story

By Alice Allen Innes

KOROLEVU is called a ghost-town these days. Its once lovely homes are now shabby sheds and drab houses. It was a 39-pub town, once; with its harbour full of sailing ships—ships that carried tragedy and romance.

But, because I spent my girlhood there, and perhaps for other reasons, I can still see beauty in the place and I can still dig up romance.

Take, for example, the story of my laundress, Marsiela.

MARSIELA had been upset about her scallywag lover, Joni. He promised so much! He was going to make lots of money so that they soon would be able to marry. But Joni, although likeable, was ever making fun of the business of living. Had he not said: “We will marry when the 801010 rises—then we will not have to buy a pig for a feast!”

That Johnny! Everyone in the koro rocked with laughter. “Joni makes his meke when the sea-worms rise and we all gather the rich food! He will never have enough money to make a wedding feast.”

Marsiela had, at first, laughed also. But when Joni had worked on three copra ships and had come back with little more than a sore head it did not seem funny any more.

Some of the men who had worked had gone back to their villages with tins of meat and biscuits, or even bread. Others had taken a few shirts or a “soldier’s suit” —the hot khaki boiler-suits sold as disposals goods by the Indian stores and the currently fashionable item of Fijian male attire.

A few of the boys had even taken back

a new, long “dress-marama” for their wives and sweethearts.

Jonis homecomings, however, were all of a pattern: sore head, no money, no presents. He always had a few jokes, nonetheless.

“Sa oti na beer,” he would say wag gishly, hitting his head and swearing off beer for life. And to his angry little sweetheart he would make more vows.

“We shall be married soon,’’ he would say. “I will love you much always and we will spend our money on nice sauce pans and pretty frocks and plenty of food.”

“Ah, you laugh and you lie, Joni,”

Marsiela would spit at him. “You get drunk and spend your earnings and I am ashamed. I have finished now. Tomasi, the policeman, he is wise and kind and saves his pay for food!”

“Pood!” Joni would throw back his huge head and open his mouth like a vast cavern. His roars of laughter echoed over the valley. “You poor, little, thin one, your belly would not hold a full meal.

Anyway, the sea ih full of good fish and the tapioca grows upon the hillside for the taking.”

“Small, perhaps,’ said Marsiela, “but not too small to carry your son who will soon be in need of food.’

Thereupon Joni would boast of the food he would fetch for her and her child.

“Big Mouth Joni,” she would call him then. “The sea is indeed full of fish but do you go fishing? No! The tide is perhaps too high. Or perhaps too low.

Or the canoe leaks. Always you lie and laze.” She stood and looked at him a moment, her eyes flashing. “We cannot even buy a pig for our wedding feast,” she wailed.

IN exasperation, Joni bent down and splashed his face and head in the cool waters of the creek, hitched up his store pants and went to bring her a green coconut as a peace offering. He climbed the tall palm tree with surprising agility for one of his massive size and returned with the trophy. One hit with his knife lifted the tip off and Marseila came over to drink of the nut thirstily.

Joni watched her while the cool liquid slid down her brown throat. “There is a tralala to-night at the Indian kava room. You and I will dance better than anyone there.” His voice was slyly coax ing.

Marsiela looked up sharply with eager inquiry then tossed the nut from her and slumped wearily to the creek bank.

“It costs money to go to a tralala,” she said, “and when one does go one must not be ashamed of one’s dress and one must have a lei of flowers that costs two shillings and one must also have a shill ing for a salasala (a lottery for a native pudding).” She ticked off the items on her long slender fingers emphatically.

“I shall borrow again from the Indian,”

Joni whispered, “he always wants to lend me money.” He played with that happy idea as though he were telling her that he had come by lots of money un expectedly.

But Marsiela was not mollified. She stamped her foot. “No,” she said, “we shall not go to the tralala until we go to make a celebration for our wedding. We will marry next week, when the sea-food rises, and we will tell our friends and family truthfully that we have wasted all our money—that I have spent my sewing money and washing money going to the

and, for the first time since his arrival in the Islands, proudly wore on his breast a salvage medal given him by the British Government. He was armed with two picture-show, and you have spent all you have earned on beer.

“We shall eat our shame and have no pig at our wedding, but we will fill all the bellies with the balolo. cooked as only my mother knows how to cook them. They shall be tied in taro leaves and served in coconut cream. Next week. Joni, we shall tell them all to come, but if you have not caught a canoe-load of balolo, then do not bother. I shall marry that day, but the child that lies under my heart will know only Tomasi as a father.”

Marsiela thumped her breast dramatic ally and stalked off towards the village.

A wedding without a pig! How could she ever live down the shame of it?

Joni’s good-natured face wrinkled into puzzled lines. “Such a little woman, but such a cross one.” He shook his head.

THE little dance-hall was lit by two electric light bulbs covered with pink paper frills. Tepona, fat and jolly, was standing at the door calling to passers-by to buy her paper-flower leis.

Anei, a slender little vamp of light hue was offering the dancers leis of real flowers —of scented vine, white arbutus, of frangipanni and the scarlet flowers of the islands.

“Look at my flowers,” she cried, “I make them fresh and sweet for you—not like the lazy Tepona, who sells you flowers of fly-blown paper—perhaps she swept them up after the last tralala!”

The crowd laughed and pushed forward to buy the entrance tickets.

The tralala had swept Fiji as the Hokey-pokey and the Lambeth Walk had, in their day, swept the outside world.

Starting first as a game at Mission children’s parties, this “walking to music” had a wide appeal to all Islands people.

Just simple steps which a smart one could improvise, side-by-side the local belles and beaux stepped and shuffled to music.

The orchestra of three guitar players sang as they played tunes well-known to radio listeners but with words peculiarly their own. “The cow is happy when she eats the grass,” was a most popular ditty of that time, and every dancer sang in harmony with the band.

But Joni and Marsiela, missing all the fun, were furtively sitting on a seat on the water front, over the road from the dancing. They could go to the tralala, Joni having borrowed two shillings. But still Marsiela stubbornly would not go.

There they sat the whole evening, eager for festivity, each blaming the other.

And while they sat, so occupied, along came Simeli, a visiting policeman and cousin to Joni. Simeli’s father had been a school teacher and a brilliant student: he had passed on his brains, if not his industry, to his son.

Simeli joined the two disgruntled lovers and soon heard the story. “Money you want? That’s easy to get! I shall give a nunu-penni for you,” he said, promptly.

Excitedly, Joni jumped up and caught Marsiela’s arm. “That’s it,” he said. “You see? You make too much trouble over little things. I knew everything would turn out happy.” Once more he was the old, bright Joni.

But the little woman looked sulky and unconvinced. “What is a nunu-penni?” she demanded.

“Why,” said Simeli, “when you want money and don’t want to ask your friends for it, then you take it from them!”

Simeli and Joni burst into roars of laughter, caught Masiela each to an arm, and hurried her off back to the village.

IF you know Korolevu, then you will know that nowhere in the Pacific can a moonlight night have more enchant ment. Away out on the Koro Sea lie the beautiful islands of Batiki, Motoriki, the leper island of Makogai, and the Island of Warriors, Wakaya. A silver path lies over the sea, and it is a time of cool delight after the heat and stress of the day—a time of enchantment as heady as wine.

On such a night Simeli called his friends to gather at his bure to make a nunu-penni for Johi. One by one they came out along the beach road from the township and each brought a bilo —their coconut-shell drinking cup—and each brought a pocket-full of Fijian pennies.

Simeli and Joni had arranged a large enamel bowl of kava and a number of bilos as a centre-piece in the long mat covered room. These were democratic days, only dimly related to the kava dr inking that had once been a ceremonial affair of heirloom wooden bowls of carved wood. This new fashion of kava-dnnk ing had an entirely different meaning.

With the bucks seated around the toddy, Simeli, as became a Master of Ceremonies and a Fijian, launched into a fine speech in which he stressed the pleasure it gave him—and no doubt gave the other of Joni’s friends present—to place a penni in their empty bowl and pass it up to drink (or nunu) the penny s worth of good wishes to such a fine bride groom.

Simeli, to start the ball 'rolling in worthy fashion, would place a shilling in the bilo, and into the empty coconut shell rattled the first good coin.

The company seemed a little crestfallen at this unwonted display of wealth but, with taunts and jibes, other shillings fol lowed the first. The bilos were filled with soapy-looking kava and passed around to be drunk with zest. Simeli led the sing ing, and Joni told the newest waterfront yarns. It was a good nunu-penni—and the bilo of money was inconspicuously emptied at intervals into Simeli’s pocket.

The large washbowl of kava was re peatedly refilled. The singing went on until the merrymakers finally dozed off to sleep, as dawn crept in over the sea.

Simeli and Joni, their heads clear .but their legs uncertain, were anchored, like their friends, but they had a satisfac tory business discussion, notwithstanding.

Thirty-odd guests had netted them £l6.

Simeli took fifty per cent., to oblige his happy friend.

THERE should, perhaps, be a moral in this story. But it is so like a true story that I am afraid the villain of the piece came out on top of the world.

But there was also romance, in good measure.

Joni had nobly resisted the temptation to squander his easily-won fortune on the day after his party and had presented the delighted and astonished Marsiela with a battered old military hat, the crown of which bulged with coins. Eight pounds!

Marsiela was a thrifty wench and she made good bargains. A fine pig for her wedding feast cost £3; there was £2 for her cousins to build her a new bure; there were odd shillings for some pots and pans for (which her housewifely mind had hankered. Lastly, there in its paper wrapping, was a real marama dress of flowered silk —the most beautiful dress that Marsiela had even owned. It was to be worn with one of Anei’s largest leis, for her wedding.

I did my own laundry that week —the engagement book of my laundress was well filled. But I am a sentimental per son and compensation came in an in vitation to attend the wedding feast of Marsiela and Joni.