Chapter 5:
We have had the most amazing, unbelievable weather lately. The weather service said that two pressure systems had collided about a thousand miles off shore. The result were ocean waves that must have been twenty to thirty feet high. They formed huge mountains of water that churned and pounded onto the shore.
I was awakened Tuesday night by Ione, Pelu's son, knocking loudly on my front door. "Big storm coming!" he said, smiling as he stood outside in the drizzling rain and pointed toward the beach. I could hear then the crash of the surf on the sand.
Grabbing a parka and slipping my feet into flipflops – it's what people here on the islands wear in place of shoes – I followed Ione out back where I was surprised to see nearly twenty people, including Pelu and his wife Teinia, working frantically to fill sandbags. I noticed then, too, how swollen the ocean was. It had risen at least a good three to four feet in depth. The shoreline, which normally is about 150 yards away from my home, was now less than 65 feet away and creeping closer. Teinia waved and hurried over to me as Ione ran back to help the other men.
"Your house good it sit on a hill," Teinia said, nodding with her head. "But it still might get wet if the ocean continue to rise. Pelu think it will, that's why he bring the boys. They fill the sandbags and place them around. It block out the water so not too much damage."
"What about your place?" I asked, inwardly amazed and grateful that they would come to help me.
"Oh we okay," Teinia said, making a waving motion with her hand. "We move to the schoolhouse and wait til the storm finish then we go back."
Their home is not on an incline like mine. "Has the water gone in?" I asked, and she nodded and grinned broadly.
She held her hand up to her hip. "This high!"
I was appalled. "Teinia! Shouldn't these men be there helping you?"
She shook her head and wrinkled her nose. "Nah, no need. We okay. Now maybe Pelu build me a new house, bigger and better than the old one!"
I stared at her another moment and then couldn't help but smile back.
Teinia's reaction is typical of the women here. They do not waste time worrying over the things they cannot change but instead look to what they can do. It's a trait that I'm trying to adopt into my own life.
The storm didn't turn out to be as bad as we thought it would be, but the waves it generated were incredible, even terrifying at times, and lasted throughout the week. The worst was at high tide when the water came within a few feet of the house, but thanks to the sandbags Pelu and his men put up, my home remained safe. Pelu and Teinia's house, on the other hand, had not fared so well. The water broke through the back door and windows, flooded through the house and forced its way out the front garage. They moved in with relatives while Pelu and his work crew assessed what could be salvaged and what had to go.
There was a lot of clean-up work that followed in the ensuing days. I pitched in where I could, mostly helping Teinia and the other women with the washing and cooking. It was while I was hanging out sheets on the clothesline that I reflected on how different my life had become. I felt different too, like a new person almost. It was as if that part of my life, the years that belonged to Section and all of the darkness surrounding it, had faded further into the distance. Now I was just Nikita.
I've not heard from O'Brian in weeks. A part of me is glad, it's easier to focus on the now when there are no ties with the past. But I'd be lying if I said that I am completely happy that he hasn't called back, for it can only mean that whoever had been looking for me has stopped. I tell myself that that is good news… but my heart and the ache I feel there does not agree with me.