Marama

By Vanessa Griffen

THE Fijian woman spat generously on the small piece of bait on her hook, then she straightened up from her half-crouching position on the sea wall. She turned slightly side ways, and spun her line, making a wide hissing circle as the nylon cut through the air. Then, with a swift movement of her arm, she flung it far out into the still sea. She stood for a minute, watching the ripple where it had fallen, then she crouched down again, tucking her skirt about her, to wait.

There was in her pose an air of tireless, endless patience. The woman held the line lightly between her smooth hard fingers, and the slightest twitch brought her fingers firmly down on it. Sometimes she felt a harder tug at her bait, then she jerked the line quickly so that her hook would tear at the fish’s mouth.

With unhurried swiftness she then pulled in her line. There was nothing on it. Again, patiently, she spat on

the bait, rubbed her hands together, and cast her line into the water.

She sat down to wait.

This Fijian woman, any Fijian woman, was a common sight on the sea wall, sitting crouched, with faded cotton skirt billowing in the wind; or standing tall against the sky. Beside her, in a basket plaited out of green coconut leaf, she kept her bait.

A long interval of waiting passed and she scratched her head often and frowned against the glare of the sun. She watched the inter-island cutter chug past in the distance, and all the time her fingers were ready at her line.

Gulls appeared out of the sky to perch on the black beacon, and be hind them the borders of the reef curled white and brilliant. The Fijian woman sat on, with these things about her so familiar that she hardly noticed them. At last her patience was rewarded. When she

pulled in her line, there was a small fish flipping at the end of it. Still holding the line, she thumped the fish on the rough sea wall, until it lay still, silver and dead. She held it in her brown hand, and reaching in, took out the hook, and placed the fish in her basket.

The woman added fresh bait, spat, spun her line and cast it into the water. Again, she crouched down to wait. The sun, getting lower in the sky, shone indirectly; the sky deepened and the breeze grew cool.

She was interrupted by a dog sniffing around her basket. She was about to cuff it, when looking up, she saw that it belonged to a Euro pean couple who were hurrying up.

Instantly, a wide, shy good-natured grin spread across her face. The man got hold of the dog and smiled briefly at the Fijian woman.

“It’s all right, he won’t bite you,” he said.

But the Fijian woman had been

more worried that it might take her fish. Though they walked on, her peace was in a way broken. Though the dog had not got her fish there now seemed to be more flies than usual hovering over it.

By sunset the Fijian woman had only two fish in her basket. The reef, gulls and sea had become in distinct in the greyness of oncoming night. Behind her the cars went past on the road. A streetlight flashed on and she knew it was time to go.

She stood up, and her hand went to her aching back, stiff from crouch ing. To the cars that went past then, she was the dark bent shape of a Fijian woman tired after an after noon’s fishing. To the woman, her back ached because she did not fish often now, and when she did, the fish were slow in coming. But there were no cars to see the Fijian woman straighten up, and stand strong and with a strange stolid dignity, looking out to sea.

She turned and set off for home, holding her basket. She came to the single room which she shared with her married son and his two children.

The two children were waiting for her. They both had running noses and were fighting each other and whimpering for food. She said a few words to them and pushed them cut of her way. Then she sat down to prepare her fish. In the pot on the primus she found one last piece of taro: and her two fish were not enough. She went to the unlit corner, and took a 50 cent note from a tobacco tin.

“Come,” she said to the older child, “go to the store and get one tin of corned beef, and one bread.”

The child ran off with the note in his hand, and the Fijian woman sal down to wait.