A Drink Called Paradise by Terese Svoboda Page A
Authors: Terese Svoboda
Tags: A Drink Called Paradise
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havenât had visitors for such a long time that we are making a party to show our respect. But for such a party, we have to wait for the sauce to sour, for one of the pigs to get big.
Ngarima, I say. I am stopped from saying what a fine thing this is to do, but unnecessary, how many pigs do you have? let alone how ungrateful I am to be here where pigs scream first thing in the morning and deformed babies roll out of mats and giant sponges lurk, and whatâs wrong with Temu anyway? when I see whatâs coiled on her shoulder. Intestines, garden-hose long. They are all clean, I see that, flat and clean, thereâs a bottle of Joy in her hand, I see its bubbles not far away, a little extra foam, and a little something brown swirling around me in the water.
So much for the water.
I get out and shake myself dry.
Another pig is dying behind us. Why not a woman? The scream is high-pitched enough, furious and animal enough. A woman in high heels, a hoofed woman. The lagoon goes red, and deep inside it starts glowing, it starts to scream itself.
A boat is coming, isnât it? I say. In time for leftovers?
Ngarima starts. A boat will come, she says. Yes, she says. Her yes sounds like yes , it is possible a boat will come like the sun will rise, the day end.
Behind us men throw dice against the church wall, the noise of their play followed by soft ha-haâs that could be laughter or something else I donât understand. One of them flicks on a cordless razor. It has to be cordlessâthere are no plugs. Then he brings that buzzing razor over to the dead pig and begins to shave it.
When was the army here last? I ask.
The army doesnât come here, Ngarima says She is watching the surf the way I do, but the way she watches is betterâshe can see past it, she can see into it.
But Barclay says it comes. He told me they showed movies.
She squeezes her hose again. Yes, a sort of army still comes. She gives me a look that I equate with their present tense: every word she says revealed to her as she says it.
Over the sound of pig death begin the quick strokes of a drum. They are a heartbeatâs, doubled. Ngarimaâs son walks down the beach from where that sound is coming to take the hose from Ngarima.
Go practice the dance, she says to me. Until itâs time.
I look out at the empty ocean. The dancing faces it.
In second grade we had to dance, I say to Ngarimaâs son. We put on skirts made of paper cut into wavy lengths that stained, and we had to wriggle. I wriggled hard the way a robot would so no one would laugh. I hated it when they laughed.
Ngarimaâs son is already smiling.
I follow him to where four women weave something about birds with their hands over their hips, and their hips say something else in circles, each hip saying it exactly the same way as the next womanâs. Only the size of the hips varies, and as fast as I see this, the size doesnât matter, one matches the other in what they say with how they move. Itâs not that collecting-shells kind of dancing, that bursting forth, but the engine of the island in serious precision. Maybe this is Morris dancing, maybe this is square dancing, but when the men waggle their knees open and shut and dance close and dance closer to the womenâs hips, it isnât folk, I canât dance it with my parents paying for the outfit.
Ngarimaâs son dances, boy enough to make a farce of the dance and its peacock engagement, and the other men are old, the other end of what wags. But they wag, they shimmy and wriggle up to me, scissoring their knees and legs while the drum tats louder and harder and I start to sway.
You have to put your arms up to sway right. The hips need room. But with your arms up, men find places to hold on to, the curve and the bulge where the breasts grow, though they donât touch me. But then I donât sway much.
At a nightclub on the island where we shot Paradise, all the tourists were
Ngarima, I say. I am stopped from saying what a fine thing this is to do, but unnecessary, how many pigs do you have? let alone how ungrateful I am to be here where pigs scream first thing in the morning and deformed babies roll out of mats and giant sponges lurk, and whatâs wrong with Temu anyway? when I see whatâs coiled on her shoulder. Intestines, garden-hose long. They are all clean, I see that, flat and clean, thereâs a bottle of Joy in her hand, I see its bubbles not far away, a little extra foam, and a little something brown swirling around me in the water.
So much for the water.
I get out and shake myself dry.
Another pig is dying behind us. Why not a woman? The scream is high-pitched enough, furious and animal enough. A woman in high heels, a hoofed woman. The lagoon goes red, and deep inside it starts glowing, it starts to scream itself.
A boat is coming, isnât it? I say. In time for leftovers?
Ngarima starts. A boat will come, she says. Yes, she says. Her yes sounds like yes , it is possible a boat will come like the sun will rise, the day end.
Behind us men throw dice against the church wall, the noise of their play followed by soft ha-haâs that could be laughter or something else I donât understand. One of them flicks on a cordless razor. It has to be cordlessâthere are no plugs. Then he brings that buzzing razor over to the dead pig and begins to shave it.
When was the army here last? I ask.
The army doesnât come here, Ngarima says She is watching the surf the way I do, but the way she watches is betterâshe can see past it, she can see into it.
But Barclay says it comes. He told me they showed movies.
She squeezes her hose again. Yes, a sort of army still comes. She gives me a look that I equate with their present tense: every word she says revealed to her as she says it.
Over the sound of pig death begin the quick strokes of a drum. They are a heartbeatâs, doubled. Ngarimaâs son walks down the beach from where that sound is coming to take the hose from Ngarima.
Go practice the dance, she says to me. Until itâs time.
I look out at the empty ocean. The dancing faces it.
In second grade we had to dance, I say to Ngarimaâs son. We put on skirts made of paper cut into wavy lengths that stained, and we had to wriggle. I wriggled hard the way a robot would so no one would laugh. I hated it when they laughed.
Ngarimaâs son is already smiling.
I follow him to where four women weave something about birds with their hands over their hips, and their hips say something else in circles, each hip saying it exactly the same way as the next womanâs. Only the size of the hips varies, and as fast as I see this, the size doesnât matter, one matches the other in what they say with how they move. Itâs not that collecting-shells kind of dancing, that bursting forth, but the engine of the island in serious precision. Maybe this is Morris dancing, maybe this is square dancing, but when the men waggle their knees open and shut and dance close and dance closer to the womenâs hips, it isnât folk, I canât dance it with my parents paying for the outfit.
Ngarimaâs son dances, boy enough to make a farce of the dance and its peacock engagement, and the other men are old, the other end of what wags. But they wag, they shimmy and wriggle up to me, scissoring their knees and legs while the drum tats louder and harder and I start to sway.
You have to put your arms up to sway right. The hips need room. But with your arms up, men find places to hold on to, the curve and the bulge where the breasts grow, though they donât touch me. But then I donât sway much.
At a nightclub on the island where we shot Paradise, all the tourists were
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