Cannibals—or Us? Back to Reality

Returning from the abandoned village. Our payment for a night’s lodging. The legacy of the cannibals and a young sailor’s fortitude. What makes us strong, brother? (The story begins in the previous two reports.) ...For a long time, I cannot close my eyes. Something is scratching in the corner—wild rats, perhaps, or lizards. The moon is asleep, and the rustling darkness is broken only by the roar of the surf and the occasional muffled... gunshot? ...What is that? I drift off and do not think about the strange “gunshots” again until the following night. In the morning, we had a revelation: even if everyone else leaves, we are not going anywhere today. We are staying in the abandoned village. We need to give our legs a rest, and besides, our hands are itching to spruce up our little hideaway. After much hesitation, three of the four Brazilians decide to join us: Thiago, a true macho man; his girlfriend Cristina; and Violet. André, who fed us Brazilian bobó for dinner, leaves. Tomorrow he is departing for Hiva Oa aboard a passing yacht, then heading to Tahiti, where he wants to return to life on terra firma. The Legacy of the Cannibals There are half as many hammocks on the south side of the river today. Once, in the village of Ouia’s final years, the house of Chief Tei Tetua stood there. He departed for the Valley of the Ancestors, probably back in the 1940s, having outlived all his fellow tribesmen. Long ago, before the Europeans arrived, the entire valley was inhabited. Perhaps the clearing where we sat around the fire looked in those days as it does in the photograph. In the 16th century, the Spaniards from the first European ship rewarded the islanders for their hospitality: they killed only a couple of dozen people (what was that compared with thousands?), slept with almost all the women, and planted maize on the island. The maize failed to take root. The diseases, however, spread like wildfire.... Over the course of four centuries, most of the population died out. The people who died from diseases brought by Europeans may have been buried in those very platforms. Somewhere around here, Thor Heyerdahl discovered ancient statues of the Polynesian god Tiki. No one knows anything about them now. Were they taken abroad by his followers? How I regret not even shining a torch into the narrow opening beneath that imposing stonework! We are so accustomed to every historical site of even the slightest value having already been excavated, studied and fenced off that, when we find ourselves in an untouched place lost in the ocean, we do not even attempt to investigate it. That is what distinguishes an expedition from mere travel: conducting significant research of your own. That is how I reproach myself whenever I remember our day in the abandoned village of Ouia. A Communist Volunteer Workday and Foraging for Food Until lunchtime, the young sailors, Cristina and I indulged our insatiable urge to turn the world into a blooming garden. It runs in her family too ). While the men sipped maté and Violet meditated, we turned the huge rocks obstructing the way into rock gardens. We laid out paths and put a border around the place where orange peel and other scraps were to be thrown. We also paved the area beside the shelter. The coconuts and palm fronds strewn about haphazardly were put where they belonged. Not exactly the formal gardens of Versailles, of course, but not bad either. Our souls were satisfied—but what were we going to eat? Our naïve hopes of finding breadfruit and orange trees right in the middle of the abandoned village had already been dashed the day before, and now we would have to walk five kilometres to reach them. Andryukha armed himself with a hunting knife and disappeared into the thickets. The wild chickens fell silent in terror among the bushes. An hour later, the captain returned with cassava roots, a green papaya, bananas and red pods of fiery chilli. — Well, young sailors, shall we go and catch some crabs? The captain pulled a helmet he had found beneath the neighbouring tarpaulin onto his head (so the crabs would not injure it), Lada brandished her staff belligerently, and Nastya picked up a bucket. Then the whole company disappeared among the jagged cliffs. They caught four crabs, two large and two small, and the entire family ended its existence in a pot over the fire. Amen. Sitting Around the Fire Until Dawn We were as though we were brother and sister. And we parted so carelessly, so lightly. “Do you live far away?” “Far away.” (a song by bard Yuri Zykov) The true stories of a Brazilian captain, a Czech captain’s daughter and a French Tahitian woman diver, told in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, deserve a post of their own. You won’t mind if they come out tomorrow, will you? Having discovered a kaleidoscope of inner worlds in one another, the others and I retired to our hammocks and bunks. In the protective glow of the fire’s embers, I drift into sleep, barely making out sounds like distant gunshots. And only the shades of Thor Heyerdahl and Morpheus whisper mystically straight into my dreams: “Those aren’t gunsho-o-ots, those are coconuts falling to the grou-u-und. Boom... Boom... Oom...” If We Make It Home After a delicious breakfast of rice in coconut milk and tea with orange (which was so sour it served as a lemon), we left Ouia and set a course for the pass through the “Round-the-World Mountains.” That was what one of the young sailors and I had christened this cloud-piercing boundary between western and eastern Fatu Hiva. Almost immediately, we lost the trail. Even the stone cairns marking the route did not help. While searching for the path, we come across an old pair of trekking boots—all that remains of the last European eaten in these parts. The boots block a goat track, signalling: do not go that way. After wandering around for another half-hour, we found the trail and erected another cairn so that Thiago and Cristina would not lose their way after us and the owner of the old boots. The trail climbs steeply uphill. We have not even reached the wall yet, and we are already thoroughly exhausted. And there is the wall. The young sailor displays miraculous courage and does not even groan. Clinging to roots, we tackle the dried-out trail in a couple of hours and unexpectedly emerge onto a ledge at the edge of a precipice. Would you look at that! We have already made it up! Cristina, who set out after us, later confided that throughout the difficult part of the route she kept telling herself, “If Lada could do it, so can I.” The gentler climb to the pass is enlivened by an entire forest of wild guava. Ladka gathers the fruit with such delight that it seems she will now run ahead of everyone all the way to the yacht. At the pass, we mistakenly assume that the hardest part is behind us—after all, it is only a nine-kilometre descent, and on a road at that. But some of the young sailors had left all their strength back there, on the climb along the edge of the precipice. And for the final kilometres of the ve-e-ery steep descent, we trudge like injured horses—which, as everyone knows, are shot. — Would you like a lift? asks the second driver to stop for us. — No, merci beaucoup, we reply bravely, and continue crawling through the hardest final mile. — Let’s make tomorrow Log Day and not go anywhere. — Let’s. And I strike up the song about “for you are human, strong and brave.” A couple of minutes later, the young sailor starts limping and whining again: — Muuum, sto-o-op... I can’t walk any farther. — I feel like the Little Mermaid when they conjured legs for her. As though thousands of needles were piercing my feet with every step. Not a thousand in my case, of course. But about a hundred, Nastya says honestly, dragging one leg behind her. The Return We are hobbling through the seventeenth kilometre down the steep slope, savouring the thought that in a quarter of an hour—which seems endless—we will immerse ourselves in the river. Andryukha dreams of lying down in the water fully clothed. We would rather undress. These radiant dreams alone stand between the female members of the crew and the desire to collapse and never move again. The sun has set. There is our bay. Laduska greets our return home with the words: — My little boat, how I love you! The moment she steps aboard, the young sailor dutifully presses her lips to the teak deck. Tomorrow is officially declared “Log Day.” As the young sailor explains, “That’s when you can lie around and do nothing, just read and do whatever you want.” :). Dear friends, thank you for your comments, advice and questions. Do you know how precious they are to us here at the edge of the world? Very precious! They set us thinking about new meanings. Right now, we are taking our time answering the question “Why?” for ourselves: — Why sail around the world? — What is its purpose, apart from the voyage itself? — Why drag ourselves into the mountains—and drag the children along too—when we could be lazing around on the shore? Though we answered that question for ourselves long ago: Growth happens only when you do what is difficult. May you all find meaning!