THE WINDS OF DESTINY

THE WINDS OF DESTINY

Eric J Drysdale

The island lay like a clamshell on the surface of the great ocean. For generations the natives had fished the seas, carved their boats from the trees on the island and lived their lives, and they didn’t know the name of the great ocean or of their island.

Then the white man came and told them the name of the great ocean and of their island.

The white man had names for many things; for the one God they were told to worship, for the day of the week and for the season of the year and even for the diseases they brought with them that killed many, in spite of their one God.

But the white man didn’t know the joy of the sun on their face in the morning as they cast their nets into the sea and pulled forth its bounty. They didn’t know how the red of the setting sun painted the carved wood of the boat they’d been building a special golden red that rendered satisfaction with the day’s work. And they didn’t know the pleasure of lying with your woman on the warm sand washed by the moonlight on a summer night as you listen to the surge of the eternal sea.

Ki was a boat builder by instinct, by desire and by the knowledge passed on by generations of forebears. He knew how to select the right tree for the boat he was building and how to carve it in such a way that the spirit of the timber, embraced by the bark and the sap, would be released and look its most beautiful. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d not been around timber with a blade, an adze in his hand. He was taught by his father and his grandfather. The blade became an extension of his arm and what he fashioned a thing of love, a revelation from his innermost being.

When he was in his teens the white man’s missionary took him aside and taught him about the one God and taught him to read and to write. He felt both privileged and grateful to the missionary for he spent more time with Ki than any of the other boys. As a result of his expanding interest in Christianity and religion he would usually carve a crucifix and affix this to the prow of each boat he built. In this way he felt that Christ would go ahead of the crews to increase their catch and calm the stormy seas.

As his knowledge increased the missionary made him an assistant and he spent less time building boats and more time with the missionary. At this time too his developing manhood found increasing pleasure in the companionship of Lia and thus the time he spent building boats was eroded once again. His desire to work with wood, his yearning to spread the gospel and his love for Lia formed an unhappy triumvirate with which he wrestled every day. At no time did he feel happier or more fulfilled than when he lay with Lia on a warm moonlit night feeling the cohesion of being at one with the earth and the sea and the sky, but in the morning he would be stricken with guilt as he made his way towards the church, the missionary’s words echoing in his tormented mind.

Many times Ki had seen the great wind rage across the island smashing down their huts, uprooting trees and destroying their boats. In his twenty-first year, however, the island was visited by a wind the magnitude and fierceness of which he had not seen before. Ki had been working on a special boat. It was finished to the extent that it was seaworthy but the crucifix and the ornamentation to personalize it had not yet been completed. The boat lay half out of the water, loosely tied to an old tree stump half buried in the sand. The winds increased progressively through the night, their hut shuddering under the impact, the salt spray driven off the tumultuous surf like slivers of metal. The full force of the cyclone struck in the early hours of the morning marching across the island like a demented giant, smashing down all in its path. Then the eye was upon them and they cringed fearfully waiting in their meagre shelters for the resumption they knew would come. By dawn the storm had abated but a fabric woven from fear and pain and death blanketed the island.

Ki and Lia sheltered in a small cave and emerged stunned but with no physical injuries. But they were among the lucky ones. At least one in five were either dead or seriously wounded. Every hut had been either completely destroyed or substantially damaged. Most of their boats had been smashed against the shore or ripped free from their lines and carried out to sea. And when he went to inspect the church Ki found it had been completely destroyed and the lifeless body of the missionary pinned under a large beam.

“How could you let this happen, God?” he cried out in anguish as he tore at the rubble to release the body of his friend. Tears coursed down his dark cheeks. “All he ever wanted to do was your will, God!”

In the days and weeks that followed Ki worked as one possessed; firstly helping to tend the injured and bury the dead, and then to build new huts and new boats. Once the immediate needs had been attended to he took to walking along the beach for hours or sitting on rocky outcrops staring at the ever-changing patterns of the sea. He spoke to God, to the sea and the sky but got no answers and even Lia could not comfort him. In the end he announced he was going away, probably to an island his grandfather had told him about, that lay a week’s sail towards the rising sun. Lia went with him because she could imagine no other choice and because an instinctive ancient wisdom told her that the new life growing in her full young body may be the one thing that would give purpose and commitment back to her man.

They sailed towards the rising sun on the first morning after the full moon. Ki kept his eyes towards the rising sun, striving to leave behind his youth, his anger, his pain and the white man’s one God.

***

Ki and Lia sailed away towards the island of the rising sun and on the morning of the eighth day they awoke to find an island on the horizon. The natives spoke their language and made them welcome as did an old missionary, but Ki expressed no interest in either the missionary or his God.

It quickly became apparent that their brother from the island towards the setting sun had great skill with a blade and soon he was much in demand as a boat builder. The months passed and some of the old joy came back to Ki. He took satisfaction in the shaping of the timber and the knowledge that his skill was making a valuable contribution to the island community. Lia gave birth to a healthy baby boy and their life was rich and full and satisfying. Before another three seasons had passed she shyly took his hand one evening and gently laid it on her swelling abdomen and his heart was filled with much joy.

The new baby was born in summer; healthy, squalling and robust but by the winter a pall of death had swept across the island. Cholera had stricken almost every family, many had succumbed or were gravely ill. Ki’s youngest son too was very sick and as the missionary’s meagre supply of medicine had been rapidly exhausted, Ki planned to sail on the morning tide to a white settlement three days to the north to get medicine and a doctor. But that was not to be, for during the evening the heavy, angry winds of a tropical cyclone lashed the island smashing numerous boats and carrying the others away.

The older natives believed that their old gods were angry with them for listening to the missionary and the white man’s one God, but Ki did not believe this. Although he was disenchanted with the white man’s one God, he had learnt enough from the missionary to know that they lived in a cyclone belt and the periodic cyclones were a part of their way of life.

The able-bodied worked at a frenzied pace attending to the urgent needs. At nightfall Ki walked down to the ocean alone and exhausted. He stood looking out at the now calm sea and then suddenly he beat his chest with his fists; a high keening cry escaping from his lips. He fell to his knees on the damp sand, “Why God, why?” he cried in anger and pain and frustration and suddenly a glimmer of an idea occurred to him and he looked up at the star-specked night sky: “The old missionary said that I would become a missionary and reach out to my people; that building boats was fine but others could do that. If the old missionary was right and you are the one God and you can do all the things that he said, if you can find a way for me to save my family and to help the people of the island, then I will become a missionary for you.” He sank down onto the sand, great sobs shuddering through his weary frame.

In the morning he walked down to the ocean hoping that daylight may reveal a ship on the horizon that would bring help for the desperate people. At first he looked too far out and saw nothing and then a movement at the water’s edge attracted his attention and to his amazement he saw a boat bobbing gently in the swell. He rushed up and inspected it quickly and efficiently and was further amazed to realise that it was, in fact, the boat he’d built on the island of his birth that had been carried away by the cyclone. How could that be? Where had it been for two years? And how could it possibly now be beached in their harbour when they so desperately needed it? He inspected it once again to satisfy himself that what he saw was what he knew. Then he fell on his knees in the sand and cried out to God, “This must be your answer, God. I will get help for my family and for the people and I will become a missionary for you.” And he did.

He sailed for the island that morning and returned with a doctor and the medicine and although many more died, many were saved. The old missionary, although he’d escaped the cholera, had been injured in the cyclone and his healing would be slow and painful. He was surprised and grateful for Ki’s assistance.

Because of what he’d done for the people of the island he was able to speak to them readily however they had many questions and although he usually was able to answer these in a way that seemed to satisfy them, his answers did not satisfy himself. He became more and more introspective, withdrawn. Where once he derived pleasure just from walking through the forest he now felt nothing but frustration. He would look at a fine tree and where once the shape and contours of the boat would be formed in his mind’s eye he now felt the hand of God restraining him from even picking up a blade. He and Lia were married by the old missionary and he still spoke to the people at every opportunity about God, about good and evil, right and wrong, but there was a hollowness about his words and he saw his own doubts and questions reflected in their eyes.

One day the old missionary, who had regained much of his former strength and enthusiasm, suggested they go for a walk in the forest. They walked in silence for some time. Then the old man stopped in front of a large tree.

“Tell me lad, what do you see?”

Ki looked at him in surprise. “What do you mean? A tree.”

The old man shook his head slowly and then said gently, “No, Ki, I see a tree, you see a boat. A man cannot honour himself or his God doing that which is not in his heart. Sometimes we have to do things that are not to our liking but we should not seek to do the things that make us unhappy when there is no need.”

“But I have an obligation to God to preach for him”, Ki protested.

“Did God ask you to do that?” the old man asked in the same, soft modulated voice.

“No, but I said that if he provided a way for me to save my family and the people from cholera I would become a missionary for him, and the boat was there the next morning.”

“You are not as good a preacher as you are a boat builder”, he paused, “too often people attach a magnitude and a significance to things that they do not deserve. God doesn’t make deals. If the boat did come from God do you think he would not have been happy to provide it to enable Ki the boat builder to save his family and the people of the island?”

Ki was silent, looking down.

“If you use your skill and your love of timber to make fine boats are you not making a contribution to the society? Are you not honouring your God?”

And so once again Ki became a boat builder and the sound could be heard of him singing in time with the ring of the adze as the blade bit into the tree trunks. The morning sun burnishing the shiny metal with gold as the blade rose and fell in a swift even arc. And in the evening he could be seen walking along the ocean shore with Lia and the two little boys, a smile upon his face, and contentment in his heart.

THE END