Mister Pip Read online

  Now, there was an obvious response available to Mr. Watts at this point. I expected him to clear up the confusion over Pip without fuss. Even Grace might have said something. But, as with my mum, she had closed her eyes, shut herself down to the point where she was physically present but otherwise not there.

  Whatever Mr. Watts might have said changed the moment his eyes rested on Daniel, beaming, a step behind the officer. I think that’s when he realized where the misunderstanding had come from, and a whole different set of circumstances resulted in Mr. Watts saying, “Yes, I am that man.”

  That was a lie that any one of us kids could have put right, and I understood, we all must have, the tremendous trust he placed in us at that moment. Daniel was the only one unaware of what was at stake. Either he didn’t understand or simply failed to hear Mr. Watts step lightly into the skin of the greatest English author of the nineteenth century.

  Here also was my mum’s chance to squash her enemy, but she said nothing. Her eyes remained closed. The adults who could have corrected the situation were afraid of being singled out. A distance had opened up between us and Mr. Watts, between his whiteness and our blackness, and none of us wanted to have to stand next to where Mr. Watts stood all alone.

  “Where is Mister Pip?” asked the officer.

  Another white might have laughed out loud, but Mr. Watts showed the question respect.

  “Sir, if I may explain. Pip is a creation. He is a character in a book.”

  The officer looked angry. The interrogation was drifting away from his control. He would have to ask what character, which book, and thereby reveal his ignorance. I could see those questions brewing in his face.

  “I understand the confusion,” Mr. Watts said at last. “If you allow me to, sir, I can show you the book and you will see that Pip is a character out of Great Expectations.”

  For the first time Mr. Watts looked to where the rest of us were. He singled me out. “Would you, Matilda? The book is on the desk.”

  I didn’t move until the officer gave a quick nod.

  I thought he would pick a soldier to go with me but he didn’t. One soldier, his weapon cradled in his arm, turned to watch me run to the schoolhouse. For the short distance I had to go I did not forget those bloodshot eyes or his gun. I knew what I had to do. I had to carry out the task as quickly and faithfully as possible.

  I ran into the empty classroom and stopped. Great Expectations was not where Mr. Watts had said it was. I walked up the aisles. I looked over the desktops. I crouched down to see if it had fallen on the floor. I looked up at the ceiling. The family of pale geckos was stock-still from when my rushing feet entered the room. Their black eyes, which watched me on so many other occasions, were flat and blank. Those lizards would not help even if they knew where the book was.

  Now I knew fear as Pip had known it when Magwitch threatened to tear his heart and liver out if he didn’t return in the morning with food and a file. I felt singled out by this darkness that had descended over our lives. As I left the schoolhouse I saw all the village, the soldiers, the officer, and Mr. Watts looking in my direction. I ran past the soldier with the bloodshot eyes. I did not speak to the officer. I ran up to Mr. Watts. I almost made the mistake of addressing him as Mr. Watts.

  “The book is not there, sir,” I said.

  If ever there was a time for Mr. Watts to show his fear, this would have been it.

  “Are you sure, Matilda?”

  “It is not on the desk, sir.”

  Mr. Watts looked mildly surprised. He gazed off into the nearby trees while he considered where the book might be.

  The officer glowered at me.

  “There is no book?”

  “There is a book, sir. I cannot find it.”

  “No. I have been lied to. There is no book.”

  The officer shouted out an order to his men to search every house. Mr. Watts tried to say something but the redskin cut him short. He jabbed his finger at Mr. Watts’ chest.

  “No! You stay here. All of you stay here.”

  He chose two soldiers to watch over us with their weapons, then joined his men in their search for Pip.

  We watched them enter our houses. We heard them breaking up our things. They began to pull things out of our houses. Our sleeping mats. Our clothes. The few possessions we had. They put everything in a big heap. When they had done that the officer gave an order to the two men watching over us. They were to march us over to the pile.

  There was a dangerous new look in the officer’s face. The earlier anger was gone. In its place was a cold and calculating look. One way or another he would end up on top. He would make us pay for our lack of cooperation.

  Once we were reassembled (and our number now included Mr. Watts and Grace) he lit a match. He held it up so we could all see.

  “I will give you one more chance. Bring me this man Pip or I will burn your possessions.”

  None of us said anything. We looked at the ground. This is when I heard Mr. Watts clear his throat. I knew that gesture, so did the others, and we looked up to see Mr. Watts advance towards the officer.

  “If I can explain, sir. The man you are looking for is a fiction, a made-up character. He is out of a novel…” And here he would customarily have said by the greatest English author of the nineteenth century. His name is Charles Dickens. But another thought caught, and I saw it register in his face, perhaps just in time, that Daniel had already revealed him to be Mr. Dickens. He had taken that identity to protect Daniel. He might make things worse if he now said he wasn’t Mr. Dickens.

  For the first time Mr. Watts looked worried. What could he say further to make the redskin officer understand? The truth would only make the officer look foolish in front of his men. All these different aspects of the problem revealed themselves in Mr. Watts’ face. And now the redskin mistook Mr. Watts’ hesitation for a lack of conviction.

  “Why should I believe you? You asked me to believe this man is in a book. When I ask for the book there is no book.”

  That was something Mr. Watts could defend, but when he opened his mouth to say something the officer held up a hand to silence him.

  “No. You will speak to me when I ask you to. I am not interested in any more of your lies.”

  He turned to face the rest of us.

  “You people are concealing a man known by the name of Pip. I give you one last chance to hand this man over. If you do not, I will suspect you of concealing a rebel. This is your last chance. Now, give me this man.”

  We would have handed over Pip were it possible, but we could not hand over what we didn’t possess—at least in the sense that the redskin officer understood.

  He struck a second match and held it up for all to see. This time, no one looked at the ground. We watched the flame burn down to his fingers. Daniel saw something of his sticking out of the pile. He casually began to walk over. He intended to pick out a plastic ball, as if someone had made a stupid mistake by placing it there in the first place. That’s what he had in mind to do when a soldier blocked him with his rifle and walked him backwards to our line.

  I looked over at my mum. She pretended to have a splinter in her palm. She shook her hand and muttered to herself. She bent over, held her wrist up close to her face, and studied an injury only she could see.

  The officer shouted an order. Two soldiers emptied kerosene over our sleeping mats and clothes. The officer struck another match and threw it on the pile. A flame burst up and licked across the trail of fuel. The fire was only skin-deep at this point. Now it began to smoke. Seconds later the pile burst into a bigger flame. Our things spit and spat like pork fat. It took no longer than five minutes to incinerate all our belongings. We were left with only the clothes we stood in.

  The officer didn’t look happy, or vengeful. He looked like a man sadly resigned to conducting such business.

  He dropped at the shoulders. He appeared to sink inside himself, perhaps to a darker place. Everything had just got much more s
erious. In the sort of solemn voice I had last heard from the minister, he announced, “You have been foolish. You cannot defeat me with your lies. I will give you two weeks to think about your decision. Next time we come here I expect this man Pip to be handed over.”

  The officer looked us over one last time, then made his way back to the beach. His soldiers followed like a pack of dogs after their master.

  FOR A WHILE WE STOOD AROUND THE charred embers. No one saying anything. I may have heard a woman sniff back tears over something she’d lost to the flames. Gilbert’s dad used a stick to poke around until he found a fishing reel. He dragged it away. It was made of plastic, which had partly melted away. That was the state of most of our things. A trace of their original condition remained, but they were damaged beyond use. Of our sleeping mats there was not a shred left.

  There were people without kids who did not know about Great Expectations. These grown-ups had no idea who Pip was or what the fuss was about. They assumed it was a matter of mistaken identity. Or that the person wanted by the redskins was living further up the coast. I heard that rumor, and even some smug statements concerning that person’s whereabouts. But those with kids in Mr. Watts’ class knew where to place the blame for their misfortune. And these were the people who Mr. Watts addressed in a voice more sad and regretful than I’d ever heard him use, apart from the time he read chapter 56 of Great Expectations, where Magwitch, recaptured, lies in prison, a sick old man awaiting trial. Mr. Watts’ tone had left no doubt about whom we should pity.

  Now he had the impossible job of accepting responsibility for the fire and the lost possessions of the village. People were still prodding the gray smoking coals in the wild hope of recovering something as small as a hair clip, when Mr. Watts walked slowly towards the smoldering remains. It was one of those moments that no one needs to explain, where people slip easily into the roles of the aggrieved. Mr. Watts didn’t try to duck the blame. But his apology had an unexpected starting point, and later I wondered if he designed it that way to defuse any anger he suspected might come his way.

  “Yesterday marked the tenth anniversary since Grace and I first moved here. We have had so many memories, so many wonderful experiences. I don’t know how we arrived at the events of today. I don’t know what I can tell you or say, because no words can replace the things you have lost. But please believe me when I say Pip is a confusion that I failed to see coming until it was too late. I am so sorry.”

  Those he spoke to couldn’t meet his eye. Those who did, my mum included, let the white man bake in the hot sun without the courtesy of a reply.

  Some took themselves off to their empty houses. Some chose to rake the embers—in case something had been missed. In one or two cases people could be seen smiling over something they held in their hand. Others, with machetes, went off to the jungle to cut down spear leaves for new sleeping mats.

  Mr. Watts waited for a reply, any reply, but there was none. It was left to Grace to take hold of his wrist and turn him back to the old mission house. I watched them walk away, one white and skinny, the other black and heavy in the hip.

  I wanted to run after them and say something that would make it better for Mr. Watts. I wanted to, but I did nothing.

  Instead I went into our house to see if the soldiers had overlooked anything. They had. Wedged into a corner was the pencil I used to keep my calendar. And up on one of the rafters was my father’s sleeping mat. I don’t imagine the soldiers had spared it for any reason other than their failure to see it. My mum would be pleased. It would be something at least, and it was the only thing she had left to remind her of my father. I thought I would spread it over the floor. It would be a nice surprise for her.

  As I pulled the mat down I felt something hard and small about the size of a river stone. And even as I was thinking stone my thoughts leaped onto another possibility. I quickly unrolled the mat and there was Mr. Watts’ copy of Great Expectations.

  It is hard to put into words my feelings of betrayal at that moment.

  I thought back to my mum standing in our frightened line, her eyes closed. What had her ears been doing? Had she not heard the redskin officer ask for the book—not once, but many times? And what were her eyes and ears doing when the same redskin had stood with a match burning down to his fingers as he asked once more, then for a final time, for someone to produce either Pip or the book in which he was said to appear?

  Even as I asked myself these questions I knew what she had been doing. Her silence was meant to destroy Pip and the standing of Mr. Watts, a godless white man who would seek to place in her daughter’s head a make-believe person with the same status as her kin. She had kept silent when she could have saved the possessions of the village.

  But now I saw her problem, because it was also my problem. If she had run back to our house to produce the book she would have had to explain how it got there in the first place. For the same reason, I could not give the book back to Mr. Watts. I would have to say where I had found it. To do so would be to betray my mum. She was stuck, and now I was stuck too. I had no choice but to roll the mat back up with that dog-eared copy of Great Expectations inside, and stick it back up on the rafters for my mother to find.

  WE FOUND WAYS to console ourselves. We reminded ourselves of what we still had. The fish were still in the sea. The fruits were still in the trees. The redskin soldiers had left us the air and shade.

  If I was my mum I might have asked myself, What use is all that to me if I have lost my daughter? Immediately after the redskins left she was nowhere to be found. I didn’t look too hard, but later, when I saw her down the beach, I was happy just to locate her.

  I didn’t need to go near her. I couldn’t bear that. Part of me, though, wanted her to know that I knew what she had done. I wanted her to know that I knew.

  Later that night, when we tried to make ourselves comfortable on the floorboards—she pretended not to notice my father’s sleeping mat—she wrapped herself up in a thick silence. Obviously she did not want to talk about the redskin soldiers. Our house must have been the only one not to have that conversation. As soon as she lay down she turned her head away from me. I don’t think either one of us slept.

  In the morning, to escape the suffocating air of guilt, I went down to the beach, and there I discovered my shrine to Pip was destroyed. The shells and heart seeds had been kicked away. After the trouble the first one caused I had no wish to create another PIP in the sand.

  We had lost things, irreplaceable things such as my father’s postcards. I remember one with a picture of a parrot. Another featured a kangaroo. There were my father’s clothes, which my mum used to keep folded together in a corner, as if he might stroll back into our lives at any moment. Once I found her holding my father’s shirt to her face. Well, all that was gone, along with my sneakers. They had arrived in the last package before the blockade. I didn’t wear them because they made my feet hurt. When I wondered why my father had sent me the wrong size I realized I was a smaller person in his memory than I was now. They were useless but I couldn’t give them away; I couldn’t give them away because they were from my father.

  Our few photographs also ended up in the fire, including the only ones of my dad taken on the island. The photos are gone, but I still remember them. One had him sitting with my mum at the fishermen’s club in Kieta at a Christmas work function. In the photograph my mum is much younger. She has a flower tucked behind her ear. Her bottom lip has dropped like a bud opening to welcome the smile onto her face. My dad has his arm around her. They lean forward as if interested in the question from their daughter holding this photograph years later: How did you achieve such happiness? And what happened to it?

  You would never guess that a hairbrush and a toothbrush could be so important and necessary. You don’t think a plate or a bowl is important until you don’t have either. On the other hand, you never knew a single coconut could have so many uses.

  There was one curious outcome in all of this.
My mum’s silence meant that while Mr. Watts’ copy of Great Expectations was saved, her beloved pidgin Bible went on the bonfire.

  PEOPLE AVOIDED MR. WATTS for days. Groups either drew in closer, like a clump of bananas, or dispersed whenever he came near. Mr. Watts did not chase after them. He wasn’t interested in pleading his blamelessness. You might almost have thought he failed to notice the coolness of everyone; but I knew Mr. Watts better than that. As I had come to know the meaning of mammoth, I would have said that Mr. Watts felt as lonely as the last mammoth.

  People turned their minds back to the matter of Pip. By now, everyone in the village knew about him or thought they did, and some hotheads now mounted their own searches. I stood with my mum in our separate silence as groups of silly men armed with machetes disappeared into the jungle to hunt him down.

  Others who knew about the book and Pip’s place in it wondered where the book might be. The redskin soldiers would be back and the one thing that would save their houses would be to find that book with the name of Pip scattered across its pages. My mum must have known this. I imagine this very thing weighed on her conscience. She must have thought about hiding the book outside somewhere so it might be found.

  She was not a stupid woman. She must have considered her options whenever she heard a fearful neighbor speculate on when the redskins would come back. And when the night sunk in around us, long and dense, she must have lain awake thinking—knowing what the right thing to do was, but also wondering if there was another way. Once, she might have said something to me. She might have confessed and asked for my help or just my ears. But I was too far away for her to confide in or to ask for my opinion. Even though I lay next to her, in the dark my silence placed me at a distance she could not reach. Of all the people she could not bear to disappoint, I was top of that list. Her daughter who resented her, not only for what our neighbors had lost but for the blame placed at Mr. Watts’ door. If I had been willing or able to break my silence I would have thrown her own language back at her. I would have said the devil had gotten into her.