Cloud Permutations Read Online Free Page B

Bani Voko Voko Leo stole from them all. He was young and cocky, a lord of the Naetsaed; and he knew of Kal before Kal knew of him.
    Kal was passing by the Lukaot Naetklab when Bani dropped out of the shadows behind him. Bani’s boys materialised at the end of the narrow lane, blocking the only way. Bani said, ‘Yu go wea, boe blong profesi?’
    The question—where are you going?—was said casually. But it was the title he had given Kal—the boy of the prophecy—which made Kal stop and turn with wary suspicion. He had been on Tanna for a year by the time he first met Bani. His grandfather had hugged him, and said goodbye, and then left. The episode on Epi was not discussed. And there had been no witnesses (none that he knew of) to that eerie moment when the waters shifted and changed and a future he did not ask for was drawn on them as if they were sand. Kal said, ‘Mi go long haos,’ shifting his weight from one foot to the other, and Bani laughed. He had a nice laugh. A lot of girls thought that. Some boys too. Laughter can be deceptive. Bani said, ‘Your house is a long way from here,’ and made a sign with his hand. The two boys blocking the alleyway started to come closer. Kal was trapped in between.
    He had weathered clouds, rain, Vira’s death … he was not going to let a bunch of thugs (not that much older than himself) treat him as if he were a baby’s soft toy. He put his hands up, his fingers curled into inexpert fists.
    Bani laughed. ‘How old are you?’ he said. ‘Twelve? Thirteen? You shouldn’t be walking around here at night.’
    ‘I’m almost fourteen,’ Kal said, which was not entirely accurate. He had just turned thirteen. ‘Anyway, what’s it to you?’
    All the time he wanted to ask, how do you know about the prophecy?
    And meanwhile, the two other boys were coming closer …
    Bani raised his hand again. The two boys stopped. Bani came forward, away from the shadow. There was a single street-lamp in the lane, and now he stepped into its pool of light and Kal saw his face.
    Bani Voko Voko Leo was an albino.

— Chapter 7 —
     
    WAN PIKININI BLONG KAVA
     
     
     
    KAVA DREAMS like sugar-coated raisins on the scummy surface of an ancient cake … writers and poets, over the long centuries, have battled with the attempt to describe kava. What was it? A murky brown liquid, distilled from a root, a cousin of the common pepper and nothing like it? How could you describe the smell, earthy, gamey, a little like medicine and a little like an unpleasant serum? The Israeli poet Lior Tirosh, who in his journeys once even deigned to visit the remote islands of Oceania, had tried to capture a visit to a Kava Bar:
    A shack, with corrugated iron roof (Tirosh wrote)
    Low wooden benches, earth-made floor
     
    The light of distant stars and cigarettes:
    A kava bar .
     
    Coconut shells are lifted and replaced on the counter
    Then comes the rhythmic spitting
     
    An orchestrated hacking
    As of dying frogs:
     
    Slowly stillness settles
    Whispered conversations ebb and flow
     
    And rain, falling lightly
    Silences the leaves about to fall .
     
    The spitting, it must be said, was necessary: it allowed the kava drinker to connect with his ancestors, to share the kava and enter the dream-state described as ‘listening to the kava’. Kava bound a society together; it allowed the men and women to gather before sunset at the nakamal , to drink, to share a mental state that relaxed the body and facilitated conversation …
    Port Cargo, of course, had plenty of kava-bars. They were not nakamals , not sacred areas set aside for contemplation. They were a city’s version of nakamals , social places but not social spaces . They were not, you could say, kastom .
    At the time Kal first met Bani, he had not tasted kava. That was about to change.
    ‘Anyway, what’s it to you?’ Kal had said. Bani stepped out of the shadows, and Kal saw his face. Calmly, maddeningly calm, Bani said, ‘You are the boy who wants