Nadi, Fiji: Christmas Day (cont.)

Moments after arriving in downtown Nadi, we saw the tattooed man and got out to greet him. He ignored us, approached the driver’s side of the cab and had harsh words with him in Fijian. Before the door was even closed the driver peeled out. Again, we were alone.

We had one wildcard, out of the control of the man with spider webbed hands – something we could hold onto for safety and reassurance. Now it was gone.

The man began hailing approaching cabs.

Another driver pulled to the curb and gave the man a nod. Rachele and I made frenzied eye contact as we entered the back seat.

“We will stop at my sister’s house. Yes?” The man said from the front seat without looking back.

-No, we will not go. You said we would go to your house for dinner!

I grunted cowardly, accepting his proposal.

My chest tightened as we veered onto a dirt road. A small rusted car filled with Fijian men came from behind and followed closely. One man pointed in our direction and the others laughed. Two turns and they were still close behind. I could barely breath. Two more turns. I nudged Rachele’s thigh with my knee and pointed with a quick jerk of my eyes. Her grip on my forearm tightened.

We squealed to a slow stop, and the man looked back for the first time since we left.

“You wait here.”

He disappeared behind a crudely constructed fence of corrugated tin scraps. We sat helpless in the idling cab sandwiched between the rusting fence and a homemade bamboo cage housing three full-grown pigs. They were splotched with grime and packed too close together. They writhed and squealed. Everything felt wrong.

-We should run.
-Where would we go?

The man came from behind the fence in a bouncing jog and Rachele squeezed my forearm tighter, painting a pale red outline around her fingers. The man jumped back into the front seat, turned back and smiled menacingly.

“Now we get beer. Yes? Give me the money,” he said as he reached his arm to the back.

I handed him the money. When we began driving again, I looked back for the first time since we had stopped. Nothing, the men were gone but there was no time for relief.

The brakes squealed again as we pulled over in front of a chain link fence.

“This is black market for beer. I get the beer,” the man said as he shuffled out of the car.

There was a moment of quiet. A moment when I almost felt silly for worrying so much, for being so tense.

-He’s going to get some beer and we’ll have an amazing chicken curry din…

In a startling jerk the driver threw his head between the front seats and faced us, his eyes wide and frantic.

“This is bad man!” his voice almost cracked. His hands were still on the wheel and he whipped back into a position of fake idle, checking to see if the man had caught him.

After watching the man for a moment, finding the right instant, he threw his head back around to show us the weight in his eyes.

“Do not go with this man!”

Again he whipped himself back into an innocent forward stare. This time the man was already on his way back to the car. The driver sat statue-still as the man extended his head through the window.

“This is not enough money for beer. You give me more.” He reached his arm toward us and tongued his toothless gums.

The outline of Rachele’s fingers turned from red to white and I handed him more money.

-Now we should run.
-If now is not the time then when!
-We cannot go with this man.
-We should not even be here
-Think of an excuse
-I can’t

“Ok. We go now. Yes?” The man was back in the front seat holding a case of longnecks. The driver stared forward and drove.

-If you do not act now…

“I thought you brought it,” I projected my half whisper to the front of the car. “Rachele, I need my medicine! I can’t believe you forgot it.” The man noticed the one sided conversation and looked back, worried.

-You will not get what you want from us.

“What is the matter?” the man asked, sensing a change.

“We forget to get my medicine, and I can’t wait until after dinner to take it,” My voice was strung thin and lacked authority.

“Ok, we go pick it up, and then we eat.” He did not want us to leave. Not after all this planning.

-You cannot have us.

I reeled desperately searching for an acceptable response.

“No no, the beer will get warm and your girlfriend is waiting. We will drop you off and then the driver will take us back.” I wondered if I could cut it as an actor. I could not. My voice was full of panic; it cracked.

The man stared hard into my eyes. They betrayed the truth. He knew I was lying. He knew that something had scared us off. His head raced to find a way to keep us, but he only stared. The cab was filled with heavy dead air and I struggled to inhale. The choking silence lasted too long, but no one knew what to say.

The driver finally broke the silence. He spoke quietly and in Fijian. Whatever he said angered the man who responded with loud, harsh Fijian words. Again it was silent.

The driver continued down the dirt road and only the clunking noises of the car filled the tense air.

-Where are we going?

I looked at Rachele, still clutching my forearm, to silently ask her if she had any idea where they might be taking us, but she was as frightened and confused as I. I scanned the shanties on the side of the road hoping to find something familiar, a landmark, something, but nothing.

-They’re in it together! The driver was not trying to warn us. He was testing us, playing with us. Now they will take us somewhere and have their way!

I envisioned cannibal masks and clubs and strange ceremonies.

-Wait! This is the hill where the man lives, the driver is helping us!
-No wait, the man and the driver will kill us together.

As we pulled into the man’s driveway he swiveled around in his seat. “OK, you get the medicine and then you come back yes?” It was more a demand than a question. “I have invited you to dinner and beers. You will come.”

I quickly nodded my head in agreement. He stepped out of the front seat, closed his door and opened mine. Just as he began to reach his dirty, splotched arm inside the car the driver slammed the gas. For a brief moment the car stood still as the wheels spun in the powdery dust and the man’s dirty spider-webbed hand groped for something to grab. Then we were gone.

Too much dust filled the air and the car to see anything. My door was bouncing open as we swerved fast down the dirt hill. The wind sucked the dust from the car and I reached out and grabbed the flapping door.

The driver turned his whole body around to face us as he sped down the road “I save you! I save you very much!”

Rachele and I looked at him, then at each other. We would have been relieved if our driver wasn’t turning around to make eye contact while careening down a narrow dirt road.

“This man, he is very bad man! He will make you eat drugs so your brain doesn’t work. He has the magic hem! It will make your brain not work and he will take away your life!” the driver spoke with fear in his voice.

After a few minutes, the driver slammed on the brakes again filling the air with dust. He opened his door and ran to the side of the road grabbing leafs from the nearest banana tree. Jumping back in the car he began furiously brushing himself and the car. He handed the leafs to us and demanded that we brush ourselves and anything the man could have touched with the leafs.

“You must use the banana leave to make yourself pure. What else has the man touched?” The driver was in a panic.

Once he felt the car was sufficiently purified, we continued on to our hotel. Though I was positive he would demand payment for saving us, he refused to accept the substantial tip that I offered.

We walked into the cool air of the hotel too shocked to speak. We both understood that we needed to let everything sink in before anything could be discussed.

“You want to get the buffet dinner?”

“Sure.”

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