Malu came, not toward Peter and Wang-mu, but toward Grace Drinker; they enveloped each other in a huge tectonic embrace. Surely mountains shuddered when they met. Wang-mu felt the quaking in her own body. Why am I trembling? Not for fear. I’m not afraid of this man. He won’t harm me. And yet I tremble to see him embrace Grace Drinker. I don’t want him to turn toward me. I don’t want him to cast his gaze upon me.
Malu turned toward her. His eyes locked on hers. His face showed no expression. He simply owned her eyes. She did not look away, but her steady gaze at him was not defiance or strength, it was simply her inability to look at anything else while he commanded her attention.
Then he looked at Peter. Wang-mu wanted to turn and see how he responded, whether he also felt the power in this man’s eyes. But she could not turn. Still, after a long moment, when Malu finally looked away, she heard Peter murmur, “Son of a bitch,” and she knew that, in his own coarse way, he had been touched.
It took many long minutes for Malu to be seated on a mat under a roof built just that morning for this moment, and which, Grace assured them, would be burnt when Malu left, so that no one else would ever sit under the roof again. Food was brought to Malu then; and Grace had also warned them that no one would eat with Malu or watch him eat.
But Malu would not taste the food. Instead, he beckoned to Wang-mu and Peter.
The men were shocked. Grace Drinker was shocked. But Grace at once came to them, beckoning. “He calls you.”
“You said we couldn’t eat with him,” said Peter.
“Unless he asks you. How can he ask you? I don’t know what this means.”
“Is he setting us up to be killed for sacrilege?” asked Peter.
“No, he’s not a god, he’s a man. A holy man, a wise and great man, but offending him is not sacrilege, it’s just unbearable bad manners, so don’t offend him, please come.”
They went to him. As they stood across from him, the food in bowls and baskets between them, he let loose a stream of Samoan.
Or was it Samoan? Peter looked puzzled when Wang-mu glanced at him, and he murmured, “Jane doesn’t understand what he’s saying.”
Jane didn’t understand, but Grace Drinker did. “He’s addressing you in the ancient holy language. The one that has no English or other European words. The language that is spoken only to the gods.”
“Then why is he saying it to us?” asked Wang-mu.
“I don’t know. He doesn’t think that you’re gods. Not the two of you, though he does say you bring a god to him. He wants you to sit down and taste the food first.”
“Can we do that?” asked Peter.
“I beg you to do it,” said Grace.
“Am I getting the impression that there’s no script here?” said Peter. Wang-mu heard a slight weakness in his voice and realized that his attempt at humor was pure bravado, to hide his fear. Perhaps that’s what it always was.
“There’s a script,” said Grace. “But you’re not writing it and I don’t know what it is either.”
They sat down. They reached into each bowl, tasted from each basket as Malu offered it to them. Then he dipped, took, tasted after them, chewing what they chewed, swallowing what they swallowed.
Wang-mu had little appetite. She hoped he did not expect her to eat the portions that she had seen other Samoans eat. She would throw up long before she got to that point.
But the meal was not so much a feast as a sacrament, apparently. They tasted everything, but completed nothing. Malu spoke to Grace in the high language and she relayed the command in common speech; several men came and carried away the baskets.
Then Grace’s husband came out with a jar of something. A liquid, for Malu took it in his hands and sipped it. Then he offered it to them. Peter took it, tasted. “Jane says it must be kava. A mild intoxicant, but it’s holy and hospitable here.”