| s-1
| Chapter Two: Master Lunre |
| s-2
| My father’s actions were largely incomprehensible to me, guided by his own secret and labyrinthine calculations. |
| s-3
| He dwelt in another world, a world of intrigue, bargains, contracts and clandestine purchases of land all over the island. |
| s-4
| He was in many ways a world in himself, whole as a sphere. |
| s-5
| No doubt his decisions were perfectly logical in his own eyes — even the one that prompted him, a patriotic islander, to bring me a tutor from Bain: Master Lunre, an Olondrian. |
| s-6
| The day began as it usually did when my father was expected home from his travels, the house festooned with flowers and stocked with coconut liquor. |
| s-7
| We stood by the gate, washed and perfumed and arrayed in our brightest clothes, my mother twisting her hands in her skirt, my father’s wife with red eyes. |
| s-8
| Jom, grown taller and broad in the shoulders, moaned gently to himself, while I stood nervously rubbing the heel of one sandal on the flagstones. |
| s-9
| We scanned the deep blue valley for the first sign of the company, but before we saw them we heard the children shouting: “A yellow man!” |
| s-10
| A yellow man! |
| s-11
| We glanced at one another in confusion. |
| s-12
| My mother bit her lower lip; Jom gave a groan of alarm. |
| s-13
| At first I thought the children meant my father, whose golden skin, the color of the night-monkey’s pelt, was a rarity in the islands; but certainly the children of Tyom were familiar with my father, and would never have greeted a council-member with such ill-mannered yells. |
| s-14
| Then I remembered the only “yellow man” I had ever seen, an Olondrian wizard and doctor who had visited Tyom in my childhood, who wore two pieces of glass on his eyes, attached to his ears with wires, and roamed the hills of Tinimavet, cutting bits off the trees. |
| s-15
| I have since learned that that doctor wrote a well-received treatise, On the Medicinal Properties of the Juice of the Young Coconut, and died a respected man in his native city of Deinivel; but at the time I felt certain he had returned with his sack of tree-cuttings. |
| s-16
| “There they are,” said Pavit, the head house-servant, in a strained voice. |
| s-17
| And there they were: a chain of riders weaving among the trees. |
| s-18
| My father’s plaited umbrella appeared, his still, imposing figure, and beside him another man, tall and lean, astride an island mule. |
| s-19
| The hectic screams of the children preceded the company into the village, so that they advanced like a festival, drawing people out of their houses. |
| s-20
| As they approached I saw that my father’s face was shining with pride, and his bearing had in it a new hauteur, like that of the old island kings. |
| s-21
| The man who rode beside him, looking uncomfortable with his long legs, kept his gaze lowered and fixed between the ears of his plodding mule. |
| s-22
| He was not yellow, but very pale brown, the color of raw cashews; he had silver hair, worn cropped close to the skull so that it resembled a cap. |
| s-23
| He was not the leaf-collecting doctor, but an altogether strange man, with silver eyebrows in his smooth face and long fine-knuckled hands. |
| s-24
| As he dismounted in front of the house I heard my mother whispering: “Protect us, God with the Black-and-White Tail, from that which is not of this earth.” |
| s-25
| My father dismounted from his mule and strutted toward us, grinning. |
| s-26
| I thought I caught an odor off him, of fish, sea-sickness and sweat. |
| s-27
| We knelt and stared down at the bald ground, murmuring ritual greetings, until he touched the tops of our heads with the palm of his fleshy hand. |
| s-28
| Then we stood, unable to keep from staring at the stranger, who faced us awkwardly, half-smiling, taller than any man there. |