‘Were they cannibals?’
It was not safe to give them an honest answer. She did not know who their men were. ‘No. They fully understand and abide by the new laws.’
‘They’re not new,’ Eva said. ‘They were issued four years ago.’
‘I think to an ancient tribe it all feels new. But they obey.’ And blame all their bad luck on the lack of homicide.
‘Do they talk about it?’ Tillie said.
She wondered why every white asked about cannibalism. She thought of Fen when he returned from the ten-day hunt, his sad attempt to keep it from her. I tasted it, he finally blurted out. And they’re right, it does taste like old pig. It was a joke the Mumbanyo had, that the missionaries had tasted like old pig.
‘They speak of it with great longing.’
The two women, even long brazen Eva, shrank a bit.
And then Tillie asked, ‘Did you read the book about the Solomon Islands?’
‘Where all the children were fornicating in the bushes?’
‘Eva!’
‘I did.’ And then, Nell couldn’t help herself, ‘Did you like it?’
‘Oh I don’t know,’ Tillie said. ‘I don’t understand what all the fuss is about.’
‘Is there fuss?’ Nell said. She’d heard nothing about its reception in Australia.
‘I’ll say.’
She wanted to ask by whom and about what, but one of the men was coming around with an enormous bottle of gin, refilling glasses.
‘Your husband said you wouldn’t want any,’ he said to her apologetically, for he did not have a glass for her.
Fen had his back to her but she could see the expression on his face just from the way he was standing with his back arched and his heels slightly lifted. He would be compensating for his wrinkled clothing and his odd profession with a hard masculine glare. He would allow himself a small smile only if he himself had made the joke.
Fortified by several sips, Tillie continued her inquiry. ‘And what will you write about these tribes?’
‘It’s all a jumble in my head still. I never know anything until I get back to my desk in New York.’ She was aware of her own impulse to compete, to establish dominance over these clean, pretty women by conjuring up a desk in New York.
‘Is that where you’re headed now, back to your desk?’
Her desk. Her office. The diagonal window that looked out onto Amsterdam and 118th. Distance could feel like a terrible claustrophobia at times. ‘No, we’re going to Victoria next, to study the Aborigines.’
Tillie pulled a pout. ‘You poor thing. You look beat up enough as it is.’
‘We can tell you right here all you need to know about the Abos,’ Eva said.
‘It was just this last five months, this last tribe.’ She could not think how to describe them. She and Fen had not agreed on one thing about the Mumbanyo. He had stripped her of her opinions. She marveled now at the blankness. Tillie was looking at her with a drunk’s depthless concern. ‘Sometimes you just find a culture that breaks your heart,’ she said finally.
‘Nellie,’ Fen called at her. ‘Minton says Bankson is still here.’ He waved his hand upriver.
Of course he is, she thought, but said, ‘The one who stole your butterfly net?’ She was trying to be playful.
‘He didn’t steal anything.’
What had he said exactly? It had been on the ship coming home from the Solomons, in one of their first conversations. They’d been gossiping about their old professors. Haddon liked me, Fen had said, but he gave Bankson his butterfly net.
Bankson had ruined their plans. They’d come in ‘31 to study two New Guinea tribes. But because Bankson was on the Sepik River, they’d gone north, up the mountains to the Anapa, with the hope that when they came back down in a year he’d be gone and they’d have their pick of the river tribes, whose less isolated cultures were rich with artistic, economic, and spiritual traditions. But he was still there, so they’d gone in the opposite direction from him and the Kiona he studied, south down a tributary of the Sepik called the Yuat, where they’d found the Mumbanyo. She had known that tribe was a mistake after the first week, but it took her five months to convince Fen to leave.
Fen stood beside her. ‘We should go and see him.’
‘Really?’ He’d never suggested this before. Why now, when they’d already made arrangements for Australia? He had been with Haddon, Bankson, and the butterfly net in Sydney four years ago, and she didn’t think they had liked each other much.