BLUE EYES: Chapter 21

Summary: Felicity learns about the story of John Diggle's life (which also gives us the back story of Malcolm Merlyn). She and John tour the village, and stuff happens.

"And that's how I came to live on this island some ten years ago," John Diggle said to Felicity.

After the morning meal they had shared together, Oliver had been called to see the Chief privately, so the John and Felicity thought that getting further acquainted with the village and its people was a worthwhile way to pass the time while waiting for Oliver to come back. They had been walking around the village for a while when Felicity had expressed curiosity about her new friend's background. He had kindly obliged and narrated the story of his life. She eagerly listened as they walked along the terraced fields and down the dirt paths that led to the different parts of the village.

John had started by telling her that he had come from a family of Negro slaves. He had been among the third generation of slaves in his family line, having been born to parents who had been slaves on a plantation in the southern state of Georgia. His parents and youngest sister had been among the countless casualties of cruelty and disease during the Civil War. He and his younger brother Andy had survived the atrocities of the nation's bloody strife and had set out northward on foot, seeking a better life and a decent education in a school for the "colored" in Virginia that specialized in agriculture. Life had been hard, and not long after John had begun formal schooling, his younger brother had contracted tuberculosis and later perished. John had persevered despite his bitter losses in life and eventually graduated with high marks. It was some time after that when he had met businessman Malcolm Merlyn, who had been well on his way of rising from the ash heap that the war had left him wallowing in.

Mr. Merlyn's wife Rebecca had died during the Civil War due to an accidental but fatal bullet when a battalion of Union soldiers passed through their town and seized his plantation. Mrs. Merlyn had died protecting one of her female slaves, their son's nanny, whom a couple of drunk soldiers had been harassing one evening. Malcolm had mourned that loss inconsolably, and since then had harbored a deep-seated hatred for "northerners" in his heart. By the time the war was over, his plantation had become almost a barren wasteland, for the man had lost any kind of motivation to till his land. He had not even wanted to live on his property if he had to live in it without his precious wife. So, he had sold the huge house and the plantation, and using whatever else he had left, stored in the bank, he set out to the Far East, in the hopes of starting anew in a foreign land, thousands of miles away from what used to be his home, from the place where his miseries had begun.

Malcolm had resolved that he was going to be greater, wealthier, and more powerful than he had been before. Nothing was going to get in his way, and no one was going to make him feel helpless and powerless to protect the ones he loved, ever again. If it had to come down to being shrewd or perhaps even ruthless, he'd decided that he was willing and ready to cross the line, long before the first opportunity had presented itself.

Malcolm had bought a piece of land near Paradise Point and grew tobacco for export. Soon, he had also succeeded in befriending politicians, colonial government officials, and even a few ranking military officers. By the time he had fetched his son and brought him back to live with him in Kinanyaoan Island, he had already been counted among the most influential landowners in the colony. In fact, his political and economic clout had been powerful enough for him to have convinced the governor-general back then to grant him permission to negotiate a deal with the leader of a Kinanyao clan on the south side of the island, which allowed him to annex even more land near Paradise Point. That controversial transaction had caused quite a stir among the Kinanyao clans, instigating strife amongst them – something that Malcolm had welcomed, for it allowed him to extend his property even further inland, while the dissenting clans had been pushed further up the Abu Mountains as the foreigners widened their territorial claims.

John Diggle had met Mr. Merlyn when John had gone back to Georgia to visit his relatives. He had been without a job then, and Mr. Merlyn had offered him work, as well as a fresh start in a foreign land. Merlyn had enticed him with promises of a good-paying job and fascinating stories of an enchanting, far-away land in the east. The businessman had told him that he owned a vast property there and needed a servant he could trust, someone who could take charge of the natives that he had employed in his tobacco plantation. Having been unable to locate his relatives, John had taken the opportunity and sailed to Kinanyaoan Island with his new employer, Malcolm Merlyn, and his fifteen-year-old son Thomas, who had been shocked upon arriving on the island to find that his father had already remarried and fathered a child there.

"So, when did you move from Paradise Point to Christentown?" Felicity asked John.

"About five years ago," John answered. "Christentown was the newest settlement. Establishing the town was part of the colonial government's policy of relocating the native population. There were already too many of them flocking to Paradise Point, especially after the Great Plague. Governor-General Sebastian Blood put Mr. Merlyn in charge of running the settlement and made him some sort of mayor. It wasn't long after we moved to Christentown that I met Asintado."

"Well, I'm happy that Oliv- I mean, Asintado has you for a friend," Felicity remarked. "His life must have been pretty sad and lonely, what with him living alone in the jungle these past few years."

John looked at her earnestly and said, "He is a good man, Felicity. I think that by now, you would agree with me."

Felicity smiled. "He is. He's saved my life a number of times – the most recent one, he did at the risk of his own life. But…" She paused to take a breath. "It isn't just his bravery and selflessness. It's more than that. It's…"

She wanted to tell John that Oliver was the kindest, most caring, and most thoughtful man she'd ever had the pleasure of meeting. Friends and family back in Starling would never believe her if they just looked at her husband's strange and rugged – not to mention, fierce – outward appearance. She was finding that her husband – this stalwart tribal warrior who had protected her like a ferocious animal protecting its young – can be just as sweet and tender as a lamb. She found herself wondering who the savage ones and who the civilized ones in this world truly were.

The smile on Big John's face told Felicity that he somehow understood what she was finding hard to describe with mere words.

Near the foot of the hill, they passed by a fale that looked slightly bigger and evidently more elevated from the ground than most houses in the village. There was a group of women gathered in the sunken ground underneath the house. They were sitting around wooden beams hanging from the ceiling, which was actually the floor of the house above. The younger women looked like they were watching the oldest female weave a tribal cloth using brightly colored threads. They were carrying on a lively conversation as they watched the expert weaver work.

Curious as to what the women were doing, Felicity stopped to watch the old woman weave. When she took a few steps closer to them, some of the younger women looked at her and began to talk in hushed voices. They didn't have to, for Felicity could not really understand what they were saying in Kinanyao. It didn't take Felicity long to realize that they were talking about her. The body language and the facial expressions certainly made her feel like she had instantly become the object of either envy or ridicule. Or both.

She took a couple of steps back, not wanting to intrude any further or invite even more trouble. As she withdrew from the unwelcoming group of women to rejoin John on the dirt path, one of the women who was chewing on a betel nut with blood red pigment spoke out, obviously intending to let Felicity hear her outburst.

"Baket?! Isu, nto kitaen!" the woman said with cynicism, giving Felicity a side-eye. "Adda ti duwwa nga buras nya." The woman laughed scornfully, and the other young women also laughed with her.

"Big John?" Felicity said in hushed tone. She bit her lower lip in trepidation. She wasn't sure if she really wanted to find out what the women were saying about her.

Immediately John Diggle knew what she was asking for. He shrugged and simply said, "I don't understand everything," which was true. John was the kind of person who did not have it in him to lie. Yet the expression on his face and the way he shrugged his shoulders betrayed the fact that he did understand something. She stared at him in anticipation, waiting for an interpretation.

"Felicity, I don't understand Kinanyao very well," John told her as he began to turn and walk away briskly.

But she followed after him and said, "But you do understand a little, don't you? You've worked day in and day out with native workers at the plantation for years now." She was right, and she knew it.

"Big John, please," she pleaded. She knew that not getting a proper answer would bother her for the rest of the day, maybe more.

John hesitated a little, unsure of whether or not he should yield. When they were already out of the women's earshot, he decided that she had a right to know. If she remained ignorant of what some malicious people in the village were saying about her, she would be defenseless against those who might try to harm her with gossip and insults. She would be the constant subject and object of ridicule. She had to know. So, when they were already a safe distance away from the weaver's house, John stopped walking and turned to her.

"Felicity, those women were talking nonsense, old-fashioned gossip," he began to say.

"About me."

John nodded, pursing his lips. "About you being Asintado's wife."

"What were they saying?" Felicity asked.

"The woman who spoke out seemed to be challenging your position as Asintado's favored wife."

"What does that mean?" she asked, increasingly agitated.

"They spoke of you having two harvests." John swallowed. He was more hesitant now to continue, but seeing Felicity glaring at him, he caved.

"If I understand Kinanyao custom correctly, a man's first wife has two harvests to prove that she is capable of conceiving before…"

"Before what?" she asked again, even more anxious than before.

John looked her straight in the eye and replied, "Before the husband has to find himself another wife that could."

Felicity was dumbfounded. And upset. "What do you mean the husband has to find another wife? What kind of custom is that? I can't believe a woman has to share her husband just because she can't have children in such a short time! What if the wife does not agree with this? Doesn't she get to say something?" Felicity could not believe that such a social norm even existed.

"Felicity, we do not make the rules here," John reasoned.

"But…"

Felicity could not hold back the tears any longer. The dam of surging emotions burst, and she took off like a whirlwind, John calling out her name behind her.

The myriad of thoughts swirled in her mind as she ran back to their house. She needed to be alone. She wanted to be. The peace and quiet, the solitude would help her calm down and think through what she had just discovered about a possible future for her and Oliver. It did not make sense to her at all – how people would value having children over preserving the sacred union between a husband and wife. She was so sure that she had started to care about Oliver; in fact, she was so close to telling him that she loved him. She was fully aware that in time, she would willingly give herself to him and to the kind of physical intimacy that, hopefully, would not only produce children – out of love and not obligation – but also satisfy their need for affection and pleasure.

But with this recent discovery of what Kinanyao culture demanded of her as a wife, she felt utterly forlorn and insecure. A part of her even felt degraded, like she was some commodity to be discarded if it did not perform or measure up to people's expectations. Still another part of her was indignant at the thought that women in the village were already contemplating on falling in line behind her, just in case she failed to give the favored son of the Kinanyao chief an offspring by the second harvest.

Should she force herself to want to make love with Oliver because of the pressure of time constraints and social norms? And what if, when she was finally ready, she still wasn't able to conceive? What then? Did Oliver value her enough to remain monogamous, or was he more faithful to his tribe than to his own wife?

At the foot of the ladder to their house, Oliver met her. He had already been waiting for her for some time. He stood up to greet her with a smile, but she couldn't even look at his face.

"Felicity?"

She did not answer him. She did not even look up to meet his gaze.

"What is wrong? Why are you crying?" he asked. He was troubled upon seeing that his wife was upset.

He reached out to touch her arm, but she flinched. "Oliver, please… Just leave me alone," she begged him, and hastily went up into the house.

For the first time since their unexpected ceremony, she was on the verge of truly regretting becoming Oliver's wife. She had already lost her beloved father. Now she had to deal with the possibility of losing her husband, whom she was just learning to love.

Your thoughts on this chapter? I hope you don't hate me for ending the chapter with angst and hurt. Don't worry, after hurt comes comfort. ;-)

Author's Notes:
1. By now it's clearer what the historical period I have chosen for this AU fic is. The story is set in the tropical Far East, post-Civil War, after slavery has already been abolished, towards the turn of the 20th century.

2. "Baket?! Isu, nto kitaen! Adda ti duwwa nga buras nya." This can be translated into English as: "Wife?! Huh! We shall see. She has two harvests." What John Diggle tells Felicity is not a direct translation, as he does not really speak Kinanyao. He only understands some things in context, having picked up some basic words in his daily interactions with natives working in the Merlyn plantations. What he tells her is what he understood the words to mean, which just goes to show how intelligent and insightful this man is. His interpretation is spot on.