Complete Short Fiction by Ted Kosmatka

Author:Ted Kosmatka [Kosmatka, Ted]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2025-12-24T00:00:00+00:00

Old Laklani, when he heard finally of what happened, began speaking again in Kuwa’i’s presence. They spent a drunken night at the boat works, crying for Elissa, who died too young and left behind an orphan to be reared by jackals.

“I have no sons,” Laklani said. “And now no niece. What did they call the boy?”

“They never said.”

“There can be protection in a name. The Kuhiki can’t remember what they can’t write down. They can’t write down what they can’t pronounce. When you have your own sons, remember, it is a good name that can’t be pronounced by outsiders.”

Work, as Kuwa’i had found before, was a poor analgesic for a wounded conscience. But there were other ways. Although Wik’wai was a place and not really a town, it came to be known for the boats it launched into the lagoon. The valley prospered, and over the next year, Kuwa’i played at love with many of the girls who lived there, eventually coming to favor, for reasons unclear to himself, darker girls over lighter. Taller over short. And when he realized this, his contrary nature caused him to set his sights on the illegitimate daughter of Wik’wai’s seamstress, Iasepa, who herself was reputed to be the offspring of a whaler from beyond the islands. The girl’s name was Mara. She was short and unlikely—her hair almost blindingly blonde in the summer sun. When Kuwa’i finally managed to drive away the swarm of boys that seemed always to orbit her, he found her intelligent and receptive. She spoke of travel and seeing the world. They explored each other’s bodies the first time in the garden behind her house, driving themselves into the dark earth with such fervor that no one who saw the print could have doubted what took place there.

The affair continued for an entire season, and the girl talked and talked on the subject of people, to the exclusion of other subjects, disgorging every smallest gossip in an unending torrent of hearsay until Kuwa’i could stand it no more. When the wind changed, Kuwa’i told her it was over.

At first she denied it. Then grew angry. “Look at you, then look at me,” she said, whipping her blonde hair over her shoulder. “You’re beneath me.”

“Then I’m doing you a favor,” he said.

“I hope you burn in hell,” she said.

The next day Kuwa’i found the boat shop’s windows had been smashed out by a rock, and all his tools were stolen. “I will fix the glass,” he told Laklani. He paid children to fish his tools from the lagoon.

Their work continued through several seasons, and during this time, Laklani gradually gave over control of the boat shop to Kuwa’i, who accepted the work with enthusiasm but resisted his employer’s attempts at financial remuneration. He and Laklani had long, contentious arguments on the subject of Kuwa’i’s compensation, with Laklani attempting to pay more and Kuwa’i demanding less, while the whole valley smiled at their backward negotiations, which sometimes got quite heated. Laklani

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