One Big Damn Puzzler Read online

  The pig had come into their lives like this: the black bantam pigs had been hunted for enough years to know to stay out of the way of humans. They tended to keep deep in the jungle, where they were more or less safe. None of the islanders could be bothered to shift themselves and go on a pig hunt there. What with the having to make spears for themselves which had no other use than pig killing, and crawl through dense undergrowth with the constant risk of stepping on a bright green shoestring and maybe not even knowing anything about it until half a minute later when you were dead, and then still not necessarily – indeed probably not – catching a pig, well, why would you bother, unless it was for a wedding or a funeral, or some other special occasion? After all, the islanders had lived for millions of years without the taste of pork and it always seemed to most of them that they could go without it another day or two at least. But every so often the pigs would come out of the deep jungle in search of the orange fungi that grew around the bases of the trees in the various clearings the natives had made. The fungi wouldn’t grow where there was dense undergrowth, but where it got thinner, they were everywhere. The amazing thing about the fungi was that they were poisonous. Just as deadly as a shoestring bite if you ate them, although not as fast-acting. This made being poisoned by them both a better and a worse way to die. You were in terrible agony for twenty-four hours from stomach cramps and your arse exploded with hot crap that seared the skin off it, but on the other hand, at least you got time to say – or rather, scream – goodbye to your friends and neighbours. Why would anyone eat the orange fungi? Well, they looked just like a species of light red fungi that were the sweetest most succulent thing you ever tasted, and some people, well, some people just never learn. But anyway, the amazing thing about the fungi was that they were poisonous to humans, but when the pigs ate them, they didn’t kill the pigs. Not only that but, unlike when the natives had fired poison darts at the pigs and then eaten them and died, when you ate a pig that had eaten the fungi, it didn’t harm you either. This was very convenient. After all, you knew when you’d fired a poison dart at a pig, but you couldn’t ask it what it had been eating.

  Although, thought Lamua, Managua might. Managua talked to his pig. Managua’s pig even had a name, Cordelia. How all this had come about was that a boy had been out looking for red fungi when he came across a larger than average black bantam sow grazing in the same area. It was fortunate for the boy and his family that he did see the pig because he’d been about to pick the fungi when the pig came along and started eating them. Lucky escape! The fungi were, of course, the orange kind; the pigs never touched the reds, which only tasted so good after they were cooked.

  The boy forgot all about fungi and raced back and told his father what he’d seen and that the pig was big and extremely fat. His father called a few other guys and as no-one could be bothered to sit down and make a spear they grabbed the clubs they used to finish off bamboo pit pigs and ran as fast as they could to the place.

  The pig was long gone, black bantams having an instinct about such things as human kids running off yelling about them, but there were enough orange fungi – at least they looked like orange fungi and no-one was going to test them to find out – to convince the men the pig would most likely return and that it was worth digging a bamboo pit, so that’s exactly what they did. Then they sat down, sharpened some bamboo stakes, stuck them in the bottom, put a few palm leaves over the hole to cover it and went home to carry on with their lives. Everyone knew of course that a watched bamboo pit would never produce a pig, the animals were too canny for that. The best thing was to go away and forget all about it until you heard a pig squeal. Unless you were very unlucky and the bamboo stakes got the pig right away it would probably only be severely wounded and it would squeal loud enough to wake the dead, not that the dead were actually asleep, not according to the islanders’ mythology, that is, but that’s something else.

  It so happened that the big sow wandered back on the very day that the plane came in. This was six months ago and, as usual, everyone in the village had gone down to the landing beach to meet it. Only Managua was left, poring over Hamlet and trying to work out the central enigma of the play, the reason for the hero’s inability to act. This was especially difficult for him because his Complete Shakespeare didn’t actually live up to its title. It had been complete, at some time in its life, but when Managua acquired it, when he was picking over some things the British had left at the Captain Cook Hotel, it had been missing a few pages. There were two gone from Hamlet, just before the end of Act III, and they were important ones because Polonius somehow got himself killed in them. Their absence meant that Managua just couldn’t figure out the play; if Hamlet could kill Polonius so precipitately and seemingly with virtually no provocation, why wouldn’t he take a sling or a bow and arrow and finish Claudius right at the start? What was it that prevented him from acting? To Managua it beggared belief that a genius like Shakespeare had written such a great play – Managua considered it his very best – that just didn’t add up. He became convinced that the answer to the riddle must lie in those missing two pages. If only he had those, all would be explained! And that was why, seeing from Tigua’s struggle to carry it, the weight of William Hardt’s suitcase, he would become excited at the idea that it might contain a Complete – a truly complete – Shakespeare, or if not, then a Hamlet. After all, what kind of man would carry his own weight in books around with him and not have Hamlet? Anyone who had so many books would know to have that one.

  Be that as it may, on this previous occasion of the plane’s visit, this day six months earlier, Managua had been fretting over this perennial problem when he was shaken from his reverie by what he at first thought was a child being tortured. Of course he realized almost right away that it couldn’t be a child. The islanders never even smacked their children let alone tortured them. It had to be a pig caught in a bamboo pit.

  Managua crawled across the floor of his hut and found his leg. He had to crawl because Lamua was down at the landing beach and not there to hand it to him. He hadn’t expected to be going anywhere. He knew of course about the new bamboo pit, although he wasn’t sure where it was, but that didn’t matter because all he had to do was follow the death screams of the pig.

  Sound travels strangely in the jungle. It cannot move in straight lines because of the dense vegetation so it must meander around trees, push aside gigantic leaves, disturb the petals of exotic flowers as it threads its way through them and dodge between immovable shrubs. Consequently it took Managua some time to locate the bamboo pit and even longer to get there because his progress was slow on account of his artificial leg, the only advantage of which was that it reduced by 50 per cent his chances of being bitten by a green shoestring should he happen to step on one.

  Eventually Managua reached the pit and was dismayed by the pitiful sight that greeted him, not to mention the noise which was like a thousand parrots screeching at once. The pig had evidently fallen straight down, her legs splayed out on either side so her stomach was impaled by the bamboo stakes, several of which protruded through her back.

  For a moment Managua was helpless. The screaming of the pig was such that he couldn’t think. Then he realized the pig was looking at him with something that could only be supplication in its small black eyes. It was actually asking him to finish it off. ‘Come on, get on with it,’ those eyes seemed to say. ‘Where’s your club?’

  It was a good question. Where was his club? Stupidly Managua had not had the foresight to bring one and it was too late to go back for one now. By the time he returned here with it the pig would be dead anyway, having suffered the most unspeakable agony in the meantime. Anyone else might have run back for a club but not someone with Managua’s prosthetic limb. Not for the first time he cursed it for its uselessness but even as he was doing so an idea blossomed in his brain. Perhaps his Achilles heel – or rather his whole bloody damn Achilles leg – could also be his strength.

  ‘All right, all rig
ht, calm youself,’ he said to the pig, and for a moment it did indeed stop screaming, as though listening to what he was saying. He eased himself down onto the ground beside the edge of the pit, as close to the pig’s head as he could manage. Then he reached down to his knee and unfastened the leather straps that held on the leg. It was not of the latest design where the lightest metals are shaped in such a way as to give them disproportionate strength. In fact it was second-hand, second-leg, Managua told himself, although perhaps that should be third, since would not the original owner have been using it as a second leg to replace the one that he had lost? or even fourth because Managua was also using it for that purpose . . .?

  Whatever, this was not the time to think about it. Suffice to say, the leg was plenty damn heavy, as anyone who had tried walking with it would tell you. Having removed it, Managua turned it around and took the foot – not that you could actually call it that, it ended in just a rounded tip – in his fingers. He hefted it in his hand, getting the feel of it. Then he rolled over so that he was on his front, and shutting his eyes because he couldn’t bear to look at the pig while he did it, he swung with all his might. There was a surprisingly soft thud and an immediate cessation of the screams. Managua opened his eyes and found the lifeless eyes of the pig staring back at him. He’d killed the pig at the very first attempt. Kneed it to death with a single blow.

  He was just heaving a sigh that was a mixture of satisfaction and relief when the screaming from the pit started up again. It was such a shock Managua almost dropped his leg into the pit. Thinking the pig must have recovered and cursing himself for being so smug, Managua peered down into the pit again. The same lifeless eyes returned his gaze.

  At this Managua began fumbling with his prosthetic limb once more. He had but one thought – to get away from there fast, or at least as fast as a man with an antiquely overweight artificial leg could. Like all the islanders Managua knew that nothing really died and that the spirits of his ancestors were all around, as any regular visitor to the kassa house understood. And it went without saying that the same thing applied to animals, for how could the dead live in a world without them? But it was one thing to believe all that and another to be stuck in the jungle with a dead pig, one you had just killed, and hear it carry right on screaming just as if it were still alive.

  Managua could hardly manage to do his leg straps up. He was so scared his fingers just wouldn’t work. But fortunately, the time it took him to turn his leg back from a murder weapon to its original purpose also allowed him to think and to notice that the screaming wasn’t quite the same. It was higher, more shrill, less powerful. And then it occurred to him to wonder why a dead pig should go on screaming. If it was dead it couldn’t be in pain any more. Why, he’d seen people who had died in terrible agony from eating orange fungi walking around afterwards with big smiles on their faces. What in the name of fug-a-fug did the pig have to scream about now?

  Carefully, ready to roll back at any moment, he lifted his shoulders and turned his head to peep into the pit. The pig was as lifeless as before. He’d caught it a good one with his knee – especially for a first attempt – and this was one pig that wasn’t going to get up again, at least not in this life.

  And then he saw it move. Or rather he didn’t, but he thought he did. Its backside seemed to be twitching. He looked at the front end of the pig. Dead as dead could be. He looked at the back end. Definitely twitching. Then, without any warning, a bit of the pig’s arse seemed to detach itself and start moving towards the pig’s head. Not only that, but this bit of the pig’s arse was what was doing all the screaming.

  Managua was afraid to breathe. This sort of thing just could not happen, at least not without kassa. It was only when the bit of arse reached the pig’s face and its screaming subsided into what Managua could only call a whimper that he at last realized what was going on. It wasn’t a bit of pig’s arse after all. He was looking at a baby pig. It must have been walking along with its mother and fallen into the pit with her when what they’d thought was the ground suddenly gave way beneath them. The baby pig was no bigger than a man’s hand and right now it was standing beside its dead mother’s head and licking her lifeless snout.

  Then and there Managua knew that he would never eat pig again. It was surely as unnatural as eating monkeys. A vile habit the British had introduced and perverted his people with. He was at once glad that he had put the mother pig out of her agony and sick at the memory of the actual execution of his act of mercy. The little pig’s continuing screams made him feel guilt at having orphaned it and he felt compelled to explain himself. ‘I is must do,’ he said softly. ‘You mamu is suffer real damn bad. There is be no other way.’

  When he spoke the pig stopped screaming, not so much with the air of listening to him but more as if from fear that he might be about to produce an artificial leg and bash its brains out. Managua resolved he would do his best to make it up to the piglet. It was too young to survive in the jungle alone. He would take it home and care for it.

  And that’s what happened. When everyone came back from the landing beach and heard the little pig’s cries, they found Managua had climbed down into the pit and was cradling the shrieking animal in his arms. Of course he couldn’t get back out of the pit again, not with one leg useless for climbing and both arms occupied by pig, so he’d been there all afternoon. And everyone agreed he’d earned the right to keep the pig for enduring its screams for so long. No-one else wanted it anyway; it was too noisy and it was too small to eat.

  And now Lamua couldn’t bear to think about how Managua had nurtured the pig and fallen in love with it and out of love with her. She didn’t want to go over and over in her mind that it was all somehow connected with her failure to provide him with children. It was a double disappointment for him, she knew. He was unlucky in his choice of wives. Although his first wife had managed to produce a baby it hadn’t given Managua a family because soon afterwards mother and child had died. As for Lamua, she knew there was something wrong with her. The floating babies never sought her out to be their mother.

  She felt a tear prick her eye, and hastily wiped it away before it could get going. She told herself that she had done too much crying over that, and that anyway, there was no time for this today. She had to put all these thoughts out of her mind for now and concentrate on finding the pig.

  She spent a few fruitless minutes searching the hut. She flicked idly through the papers on Managua’s desk, as though he might have left some clue there, but then she realized what she was doing and laughed at herself. After all, what was she searching for? A picture of a pig and the place where it was hidden? Like everyone on the island apart from Managua and, of course, Miss Lucy, Lamua couldn’t read. And if she had been able to, her understanding of English probably meant she wasn’t up to reading it. The islanders’ indigenous language had no written form and was so limited in vocabulary that after the arrival of the British they had relied more and more on a mixture of it and English to express themselves. English had all but replaced the old words, but when Managua read aloud to her from his Shakespeare there always seemed to be plenty of words Lamua didn’t know.

  Earlier efforts to follow Managua when he went out and she suspected he was sneaking off to feed the pig had ended in failure. The old gamada had a way of knowing you were following him and once or twice he’d limped all over the island for a whole afternoon just to annoy her, although it must have been much harder work and more exhausting for him than for her. He was that kind of man; he would put up with a great deal of discomfort to cause her a little.

  So today Lamua had decided to follow his tracks. It was quite easy at first, trailing the combination of bare footprint and round indentation left by the end of his artificial limb. She was able to make out where it left their hut and walked across the open space that was the centre of the village. But then she began to have problems. The trouble was so many of the islanders had artificial legs that it was difficult to make out which
indentations belonged to Managua and which to someone else. And to confuse matters even further there were the almost identical marks made by the high heels that Tigua and his she-boy friends usually wore.

  In the end Lamua decided there was nothing for it but to trust to instinct, to her intuition for which was Managua’s artificial leg dent, and this was what she did. After the open space in the village centre, where it seemed to linger, taking a small pace back or forward here and there, mingling with the she-boys, crossing another couple of dents that were surely different and smaller, made by a child’s prosthetic foot most likely, the trail suddenly struck off into the jungle. Once there it followed a solitary course. At one point another similar trail crossed it, but when Lamua ignored that and carried on following her original path it turned out that this was the other trail circling back to cross itself.

  Pushing an adula frond out of her way she fumed at the thought that Managua might have deliberately doubled back to show her he knew she would be trailing him. The old bastard! Crafty as a koku-koku. But Lamua was a woman spurned and was not to be so easily put off. She stuck with the trail and followed it for some considerable distance, until she had circled around in the jungle so many times she had no idea where she was.

  Then she heard the soft moan of the waves and realized she was close to the ocean. Here the tracks made an abrupt right turn and plunged through a line of trees and Lamua found herself out on the beach. The breeze was off the water today and told her immediately which beach she was on. The shitting beach! No more than a couple of hundred paces from the village where she’d started out.

  Gingerly, treading carefully to avoid stepping in anything unpleasant, as the tide hadn’t been in since the morning, Lamua followed the trail, the footprint now accompanied by a small hole where Managua’s stump had drilled into the soft dry sand. Lamua found herself walking in her husband’s footsteps, or foot-and-stumpsteps, to avoid the faeces all around.