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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 12, Issue 5 (August 2, 1937)

Alpheim — A Short Story

page 32

Alpheim
A Short Story
.

(Concluded.)

“Then I am on her like a cat, and drag her back in here by the hair.”

“Then I am on her like a cat, and drag her back in here by the hair.”

The Story So Far:

McKinley, a constabulary officer, is sent to Fangaloa to confiscate a shotgun with which a trader (Alpheim) has been threatening the natives. Not knowing Alpheim, he endeavours to find out what sort of man he is; but the commanding officer gives curiously guarded answers. At Fangaloa McKinley meets a chief who tells him that he should have brought a gun. This ominous remark is followed by a gunshot from across the bay. McKinley borrows a canoe and reaches the far shore, where a Saraoan boy informs him that the “white man” has gone mad. McKinley walks up to the store alone. Alpheim adopts a hostile attitude, but the astute McKinley overcomes this with peace-offerings of books, eigars and gin. He is then claimed by the eccentrie Alpheim as the Fairy Prince for whom his daughter has been waiting; but there is no sign of the daughter. By playing on McKinley's confidence Alpheim induces him to stay the night. McKinley feels that he can humour his fantastic host, and leaves Alpheim in the store to go down to the village bathing-pool. While there he meets an old Samoan woman who reports that Alpheim quarreled with his native wife and killed his daughter. This story is corroborated by a girl who says that Elsa Alpheim has not been seen for three days; and that some boys who visited the stere to sell Alpheim a fish were fired upon and forced to run away. McKinley himself has seen this incident through his binoculars.

For the second time that day, I walked up to that store. The old woman had suggested that I take some men with me. But the Samoans are so excitable in any crisis that you don't know what they'll do.

I went around the front way, on the sand. Lamps had been lit in many of the fales, and the members of each household were at evening prayers.

This time, I made no noise at all.

My boots were tied together by the laces, and I had put on a pair of canvas shoes.

There was a certain savage humour in the notion that I was about to have dinner with a murderer who fancied that he had outwitted me.

Alpheim was sitting in an easychair; he had his back to me. There was a kerosene lamp on the table, and Alpheim was looking through one of the books I'd brought him.

The gun was in a corner by the door.

I dropped my heavy boots on the verandah, and strolled into the room.

Alpheim shot out of the chair and spun round. He still held the book open with his thumb, but he was trembling. He looked straight at my feet, to see how I had come so quietly.

“You make me jump!” he cried. He waved the book.

“Here is a murder story—and you frighten me like that.”

Then he became suspicious.

“But you are back already?”

“Yes,” I said. “There were some women at the pool.”

He gave me a sharp look, and laughed harshly.

“When I am young like you the women run from me, not I from them. Come, we have dinner. Do you like fish?”

“Why did he ask me that?” I thought.

I answered, “Yes. I'm very fond of it. It makes me thirsty, though.”

“It is a good way for a man to be,” said Alpheim with a chuckle. And he went out to the kitchen.

He had set the table, in the rough page 33 way that a man has, with enamel plates and odds and ends of crockery, such as no woman would wish a guest to see. The milk was in a tin with two holes punched in it, and there was a newly-opened tin of butter with the jagged lid prised up at a sharp angle. You felt that it was likely to fall back again at any moment.

Then there were biscuits, salmon, and corned beef—also from tins; boiled taro, baked bananas, and fried breadfruit.

When Alpheim came back, he had a coffee-pot in one hand and two plates of fried fish in the other.

We started with the fish. (Everything else was cold.)

Alpheim ate it with a biscuit in one hand and a fork in the other; it was so hot that he blew on every mouthful.

“I get this fish for nothing,” he began. “Some boys come here to ask me do I want to buy it. But I know they only make a togafiti (trick). They come to quiz. So I say, ‘Alu!’”

“Or,” I put in, “as they say in America: ‘Scram!’”

“Then they say I am manumanu (mean), and throw stones on the roof. I get my gun and fire it in the air, and coconuts fall down; and those boys drop the fish and run.”

“It was a good fish, anyway,” I said.

The man was trying to find out how much I knew.

We ate in silence for a while, but every time I looked down at my plate I could feel Alpheim watching me.

At last he came straight out with it: “And were you talking to those women at the pool?”

“Yes,” I said. “One of them asked me how the Mad One was.”

Alpheim grunted, laid down his fork, and proceeded to extract a fishbone from his moustache.

“They all think I am mad,” he went on gravely. “It is because I am too clever for them. For ten years I live in Fangaloa, and they all hate me. But this is the only store. They do not like to take their copra in boats to Falefa, because the trader there pays the same price as me.

“All day I think. I read a lot. But I am lonely. Now that I get old, I need a son. How is everyone in Apia?”

“About the same,” I said.

“For three years I do not go there any more. The last time is too much. You like some more coffee? It is Samoan coffee. But I tell you:

“One day Svenson comes to take stock. We drink whiskey and talk all night. Next day, a headache. So we finish all the whiskey and take stock. We have roast chicken and a sucking-pig. Then Svenson tells me, ‘Alpheim, why don't you come with me to Apia?’ I wonder has he found a shortage, but no. I do not like to leave the old woman in the store. She gives the Kanakas aitalafu (credit). But I go with Svenson.

“We get to Apia, and it is like New York or London. There is a big ship with tourists—people everywhere—so I feel in my pocket for my tie, and put it on. Then I meet Henry Arlington and he says, ‘Hullo, Alpy! When did you come over?' ‘I just get in,’ I tell him. So he says, ‘You're looking fine. When are you going back again?’ I tell him Friday. So we walk up the Beach, and Henry says, ‘Well, how about a drink?’

“There are some ladies from the tourist ship. One of the ladies says, ‘What ever is the matter with that old man's arm?’ I am pretending not to hear, but a man with horn spectacles comes up to me and says, ‘Good-day, old-timer!’ And when I stop, the lady takes a picture of my arm.”

Instinctively, I looked at Alpheim's arm.

“That day,” he said, “I finish. It is the strange people and the ship, like I leave home in when I am eighteen. I think if I go back some time nobody knows me, and the people put me in a circus, in a tent.”

He held out that awful arm of his as if he wanted me to bandage it. “Before, I play the violin,” he told me.

“Let's have a drink,” I said.

He tossed down half a tumblerful.

“So,” he went on, “it is too much. I have a drink with Henry. Then I think, ‘I go now to the office and talk with the manager.’ The boys say, ‘Have one more before you go.’ I have it.

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“I wake up in the morning when the sun is high. I wonder where I am. I do not know what day it is. The boys have gone to work. The manager is saying, ‘Where is Alp-heim? Find him!’ So Henry comes to find me. He has a bottle with, him. I have eye-openers on an empty stomach; and I am drunk again. Then Henry goes back to the manager and says, ‘I look everywhere for Alpheim, but I do not find him.’

“One night they put me on a boat. I have a life-belt for a pillow. In two minutes, I am fast asleep. I wake up when the engine stops, and I am here. It is like a dream. I leave my coat and tie in Apia. My hat is lost. And the old woman says, ‘Did you bring so-and-so?’ But I forget to buy it, and there is faalavelave (trouble). The captain says, ‘Hey, Alpheim! There is a parcel yet.’ Until they open it, I do not know it is a new dress that I buy for Elsa.”

We had another gin.

“You seem to be very fond of Elsa,” I remarked.

Alpheim burst into tears.

“All right,” he said. “All right! For three days and two nights I have no sleep because of her. I tell you! We fight about the gramophone. I am a lover of good music. I have the best records in Samoa. That day I go to Samamea, to my shed there, to weigh copra. Elsa is by herself. The old woman I kick out before: she has too many natives here.

“I send a boy to Falefa to buy needles for the gramophone. At Samamea there is much copra; they are wanting money for the church; and the chiefs talk to me. When I come back it is already late. But I am thinking, ‘Ah, now I have some opera, some string-quartet.’ And I am very happy then.

“I come in. I see Elsa and the native boy with all my records on the table. And I say, ‘What have you done?’ Then she begins to cry, ‘Father, it was wound too tight. The spring is broken.’ So I am like a mad man, and the boy flies out the door. There are the needles. But what use are they?

“‘You fool,' I tell her. ‘How many times I show you that you wind the gramophone when it is running? Eh?’ I grab her by the dress. And she says, ‘Father, father, it was him!’

“ ‘What do you mean in having that Kanaka here?’ I shout at her. And then I think, ‘By God, I wonder if it is the spring that they look guilty for?'

“I rush over to the gramophone.”

Alpheim sprang up and began to re-enact it all.

“I have a canvas bag with money in my hand. When I let Elsa go, she runs. ‘A—ah,’ I think, ‘it is a trick. They make a fool of me. They had been on the couch, and now they run away together. All Samoa will laugh at me.’

“So I rush after her. She flies to the door there. She is too quick for me. She is outside already. So I throw the bag of money, and I knock her down. Then I am on her like a cat, and drag her back in here by the hair.”

He stood there panting, and the shadow of him filled the room.

“Yes?” I said.

“She screams. She fights. I am too strong for her.”

He sat down with his head between his hands.

“And afterwards, I think about the gramophone. I try it. It is broken!. It is broken like my heart. I kneel beside her on the floor, and I say, ‘Elsa! Elsa! Please forgive me!’ But there is no answer; so I leave her there.”

I noticed that my wristlet-watch was ticking very loudly.

“That night I walk the house. I drink pineapple gin. When the Kanakas come to look, I hunt them; and they run like pili (a large lizard). I think about the night that she is born, and I am there. I sit beside her bed when she is sick, and hold her hand. I see her when the time is by for her to be a woman, and the boys are there like pe'a (flying-foxes) in a mango-tree. Yes, all the years fly back again.”

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“You haven't told me what you did to her,” I said.

He groaned.

“You look! You look! I do what the Kanakas do.”

“Where is she?” I demanded.

He pointed to the store.

“Give me the key,” I said.

He groped into a trouser pocket.

“You take the lamp. There is no light.”

The store was very dark and stuffy; it smelt of soap, kerosene, and calico. There was a copra sack nailed up to screen the window. I put the lamp down on the counter.

Elsa was huddled on a sleeping-mat, face-down, her arms flung up around her head. Beside her was a cheap trade mirror—broken.

I unlatched the little gate at one end of the counter.

The girl sprang up and bolted into a far corner with her back to me.

“Leave me! Go away! Get out!” she moaned.

Alpheim had clipped her head all over, like a convict's. Her dark hair lay in coils on a white pillow.

“I thought that you were dead,” I stammered, backing out.

“I wish I was! I wish I was! If the Samoans see me, they will think it's true.”

I realised that she had heard it all. I closed the door and left her there.

Alpheim was huddled in an easy-phair, staring stupidly in front of him. He looked very old and haggard. When I put down the lamp he shivered.

“You fool!” I said. “You—fool!”

He whimpered like a child.

“I am her father,” he began.

I shut him up by saying, “Listen, Alpheim. To-night you told me that the natives hated you because you were too clever for them. You said that if any man laid hands on Elsa you would blow his brains out. You blubbered over her. And now you shame her; now you treat her like a wanton. Suppose somebody overheard you, some native who knows English. That story will go round the island like a hurricane. For years the natives in this place have waited for a chance to get you; and now the time has come.”

He lolled there like a rag doll, open-mouthed.

“The shame of it! The shame!”

“You should have thought of that before,” I said. “Now look. You can't keep the girl cooped up forever, like a fowl. The Company will want to know why no one can do business in the store, and you'll be emptied out. Where will you go? That boy is sure to have told someone in the village that there was a row that day; he may even say it was because he broke the gramophone. But who'll believe him? No one. And if one native woman gets a glimpse of Elsa's head, she's done for. You know what a shaved head means here: it's the trade-mark of a girl who's misbehaved herself.”

Alpheim rocked to and fro.

“My pride!” he wailed. “My pride!”

“Here,” I told him. “Pour this on your pride.”

I shoved a glass of gin into his hand.

“We've got to get her out of here,” I said. “You know the old saying: ‘A lie is halfway round the world before the truth can get its boots on.’ And if the lie's about a woman—well, God help her! Tell me, has anybody page 38 page 39 seen that girl since you locked her in the store?”

“No, no one. They are all too frightened of the gun.”

“Right,” I went on. “To-morrow it is Sunday. In the morning, while the natives are at church, I'll borrow a canoe and go across to Musumusu. Then we'll walk to Falefa. Til get Herman Schwartz's car and drive Elsa into Apia. But where shall I take her to?”

Alpheim sat up and took notice.

“Come,” he said. “We go outside. She hears us here.”

We went outside. Alpheim talked rapidly.

“She has an aunt in Apia, a Samoan woman married to an overseer at Avolau; but that is far from Apia, in the bush, and Elsa does not like to live there any more than here. She wants all the time to go to Pago Pago, where the big ships come from Honolulu, and there are talking-pictures, and dances with the navy men. I tell her she stays first with her aunt, until her hair grows. Then she goes, maybe, to Pago. Eh?”

“All right,” I said. “You tell her now.”

I went down to the beach, where I could think.

There was a moon. Across the bay, behind the village of Salimu, was a mountain that went straight up in the air. The thatched huts of the village nestled underneath it like chickens underneath a hen. The bay was so calm and still that it looked as if you could have walked across it.

I wondered how Alpheim had come to know my name, and where he got that Fairy Prince stuff from. There is nothing more romantic or flattering to one's vanity than the thought that some girl you've never met is keen about you.

When I got back to the store, Elsa had made up a bed for me on the couch. The dirty dishes were no longer on the table.

“It is settled,” Alpheim said.

I undressed and crawled in under the mosquito-net.

Next day we got away. We took the best of Alpheim's two canoes. Elsa had made her hair into a plait and wore it underneath a scarf tied tightly on her head. She would not say good-bye to Alpheim.

He tried to make a little speech to me. He said, “Good-bye, McKinley. Maybe I never see your face again—”

“Oh, that reminds me,” I put in.

“I'm going to take that gun of yours.”

He handed it to me without another word.

We shook hands.

Alpheim did not come down to the beach.

When we had crossed the bay he was still standing on the front verandah with one hand above his eyes. He waved to us, and I waved back. He turned and went inside.

We climbed the steep track that goes up from Musumusu to the wooded promontory on the west side of the bay. I turned to have a last look at the store.

The place was locked up, and on fire.

“Elsa!” I said. “Look!”

Alpheim was paddling a canoe straight out to sea.

We ran down through the bush until we came to an open space beside an old chief's tomb. You can see that tomb from any passing ship.

I shouted and hallooed, but Alpheim took no notice. So I got out the binoculars and watched him.

He sat very straight and stiff, paddling like a machine. He steered a course dead in the centre of the pathway of the sun. I watched him till he was a black speck against the shimmer of the sea and his movements made him look like a beetle of some sort crawling on a burnished tray.

“Poor father!” Elsa said.

She crossed herself. And I took off my topee.

That was the end of Alpheim.

“But what happened to the girl?” somebody asked.

“She had no aunt at Avolau. I left her at the convent.”

McKinley got up and went out of the smoking-room.

Nobody spoke a word until he'd gone.

Then Crosby said, “You know, I like McKinley, but he's the biggest liar south of the Equator.”

That night, when I'd turned in, there was a knock outside my cabin door, and McKinley poked his head around the curtain.

“Oh,” I said. “Come in.”

I wanted to hear more about the story.

But all he said was, “I wondered if you'd ever read this—I just got it back from Crosby; it's not bad.”

He handed me a book.

“Good-night.”

“Thanks,” I said.

It was a copy of Green Mansions.

Written on the flyleaf were three names and a date:

Elsa McKinley, Apia, 1934.