26 TRUTH

With the dinghy back in the water, and the gear stowed away, they started the engine. With the wind at their back, they returned to Tupana village relatively quickly. It was just noon when they landed on the beach and pulled the boat up. Kahekili must have seen them coming because he was there and assisted them with the inflatable and their gear, to haul it back to Leilani's house. He looked at Ivan and Leilani, then Gábor and Vai and smiled.

"You look good togezer." Zee ori continu en zee fare, non?"

Leilani said something in Tahitian, Vai, and Kahekili burst out in laughter, and Kahekili clapped Ivan several times on the shoulder. Vai looked at Gábor with an indescribable face expression.

"Very impressif, mon ami".

Gábor started to get curious as to what Ivan did that was so impressive, but he didn't ask. Ivan had a sheepish grin on his face and looked for something on the floor. Kahekili helped to put the engine onto a stand, connected a fresh water hose to a faucet, and with the lower leg of the engine submersed in a five-gallon bucket, he let the water flow. He started the engine and ran it for a minute to purge the salt water from it and then stored the engine in the shed.

Leilani and Vai went into the kitchen to cook rice and fried fish with vegetables, Leilani put some on a plate along with some water, and Vai took the tray to the sick bay. When she came back, she asked if they wanted to see Lundy.

"After we have something to eat," said Gábor and stepped outside to catch Kahekili before he left. His wife had cooked too and she had called him to eat.

"Kahekili, is here a shop one can buy provisions?"

"Oui, on zee acer side of zee town. You need somzing?"

"I want to repay Leilani for her kindness and I know she will not accept money, so I want to restock her food supplies."

"Gábor, don't bozzer. She will not take a zing. You are amies. You give mani zings, new dance, mani good fun. No bozzer."

Kahekili turned, walked to his fare and Gábor stood alone on the road. Gábor walked back into the house, sat down, and ate with the others. Finished with lunch, they washed the dishes and to the women's delight, the men helped. Leilani kissed Ivan and asked Vai to get some medical supplies from the cabinet while they were seeing Mr. Lundy.

Together they walked toward the fare and entered. Lundy was sitting up in bed and not looking good. His eyes were bloodshot and a kind of restless roaming of his eyes indicated a confused mental state.

"Who are you?" he asked and his eyes stopped on Ivan.

"Cherenkov, Ivan Cherenkov, don't you remember me? I talked to you yesterday."

"You did? About what?"

"Insurance. You fell off a boat and we came to take you back to your boat."

"A boat, yes. I remember. Fishing with my friend."

"Do you remember falling into the water?"

"A big fish playing with me, I remember."

"Do you recall dolphins?

Lundy's eyes started to water.

"Yes, I love dolphins, they talk to me. What about them?" Lundy's face relaxed and his eyes stopped roaming.

"Do you know where you are Mr. Lundy?"

"In a room, in a hospital, I‘m told."

"You are in a hospital, Mr. Lundy."

"Yes. I remember I told you."

"Do you know where you're from?"

"San Francisco. I'm from San Francisco."

"That's correct. You are from San Francisco, Mr. Lundy."

"Yes, yes I know. San Francisco. Are you a doctor?"

Ivan ignored the question.

"Do you remember the name of the ship you were on as crew?"

"What ship?

"Mr. Lundy, if you are well enough tomorrow we will take you to Tahiti and you can go back to San Francisco when you feel better. You have a nasty scratch on your face. Do you remember how that happened?"

Lundy began to shake and looked aggravated. Leilani took his hand and patted it.

"It's okay Jon, you're safe here."

Jon relaxed and talked half to her and half to Ivan.

"No, but I have sometimes when I sleep, pictures of a lion hitting me and then dolphins swimming, with me. I love dolphins. They are my friends. I'm afraid of lions. Dolphins don't eat people."

He had a far-away look on his face and his eyes had calmed down.

"I want to see my friends, not lions."

He closed his eyes and the three left the room. Vai gathered the dishes and took them back to the house.

"Leilani, what do you think? Could we take him to Tahiti? He seems to be more confused than yesterday." Ivan inquired.

"He needs surgery. Besides his mental state, he is in a better state than two days ago and the weather is calm. If it holds, it is possible to take him, but I want to come too and if possible Vai as well. We must take him to the hospital there and they can look after him much better than I can here. What worries me is his trauma to his skull. I'm pretty sure there is a piece of bone that causes his amnesia. I think the memory may not come back. His mental confusion is profound. It would take a miracle if he ever gets back who he is."

Vai had finished the clean up and stood as they entered the living room. The lights inside the house lent her face and figure a golden glow and Gábor stared at her as he did when he saw Helena for the first time. He tore his eyes from her and asked Leilani.

"Why do you want to come to Tahiti? It will take at least ten hours to get there with five people aboard, and it would be uncomfortable."

Gábor had a big lump in his throat. If the two women insisted on coming, it would complicate things. Vai would want to meet with Helena and possibly Leo. She was just too attractive and he was well aware of her distracting effect on him. The temptation of Vai was a very palpable reality and he feared it could become a problem. To expose himself to her company for that long a time was not wise.

"I am his doctor, you know. He is in my charge and unless you have a higher authority to tell me otherwise, we come along or you sail alone without him. I'll put him on the plane."

That was clear enough and Gábor admired her decisive mannerism. She was a woman with a steely character, something he valued highly. Nevertheless, he was in a bind. They had offered to take Lundy and the doctor had all the rights to accompany them on the trip, he was her patient. His objection was about Vai. Was Vai like her mother? Ivan was a level headed person and yet he'd fallen head over heels for Leilani, but Ivan was a bachelor, not married as he was. In addition, there was the issue with the story Ivan came up with and they'd better clear that up before sailing to Papeete. Gábor was not sure how to go about that. He'd had no practice in how to fix a lie, especially when it was not his own. How could he help Ivan? Leilani would wonder about the insurance agency and the whole mess with the police investigation and his son that went overboard.

Then he caught himself. He'd decided to include Leilani and Vai in their little secret a few hours ago, so he might as well get on with the truth.

"Leilani, we must talk to you. It is very important to me that you listen and try to understand what this is all about. Can I trust your discretion? I want you to know that I trust you to do the right thing and whatever you decide to do, I will agree with and I'm sure my friend Ivan will too. I know that Ivan is in love with you and that he must be seeing something in you too that makes him trust in you. I must have your word that none of what we are about to tell you goes any further than this house and you will not tell anybody else about what you are going to hear before you consult with us first. Do I have your word of honour?"

Leilani and Vai didn't utter a sound while Gábor spoke and they got the idea it was very important. For a minute Leilani looked at him speculatively. This sounded serious, she thought. Vai looked expectantly at Gábor. Then both women nodded.

"On my honour," they said as one.

Leilani listened with furrowed eyebrows and her mouth closed as Gábor began at the beginning with Leo's birth, the changes he went through, how they'd tried to hide him from people, the fear of his discovery, and the shame they felt about hiding Leo as if he were a monstrosity. His own rejection of Leo, the undercurrent of resentment and blame for the woman he loved because of the child she had borne and thought it was an animal she gave birth to.

Not with one word did he talk about the dark times he and Helena went through. Not even Ivan knew about it. The shame for avoiding Helena out of fear of producing another "animal" was still deep in him. He talked about his self-rejection, hinting that possibly his genes may have created Leo's being and his loathing for himself. Their plan to hide Leo away before society found out what he was, as well as his parents who had created this…this something, equally despicable, becoming the outcasts of humanity, had come to this point. They had loved Leo then too, not as one would love a human child, but as a pet. The problem was he was their flesh and blood.

Then the discovery through Ivan that Leo was intelligent and only needed to learn to formulate words to communicate, something his parents never even considered possible. Leo still needed time to advance in that field. The plan remained to have Leo live on an island and give him an education and a chance to speak a human language and get to know how to deal with people, but they needed time. They figured it would take five years for Leo to be ready to go to school with other humans, but Leo was progressing much, much faster. Chronologically he was only six, but in maturity at least eighteen to twenty years old. In Canada, by law, Leo had to attend school by the age of six, but in order to accept Leo, he needed at least to be able to communicate, and he had to be a human. The authorities had a child on record. They had a large cat instead. What happened to the child? The plan, that Leo had to disappear, was born. He had to disappear by falling over the side of the ship and they would declare Leo lost at sea. Ivan would secretly pick him up and take him to a place where they could hide until Leo was ready to resurface. Unfortunately exactly that happened, but not as they had planned. Something they wanted to fake became real when Lundy discovered and attacked Leo. Gábor had tried to keep the man off Leo and in the scuffle; both Leo and the black man fell overboard, before they reached the rendezvous-point where the "Accident" was to take place. Gábor claimed the person Lundy had attacked was their son and Lundy knew it was a huge cat he fell overboard with. If Lundy remembered what happened to him, Leo's identity was exposed and with it his parents. The authorities would accuse them of attempting to dispose of their own child because of a birth defect.

COLD-BLOODED FREAK PARENTS KILL INNOCENT CHILD WITH BIRTH DEFECT.

That is what the headlines would read. And if they presented Leo to society, their cruelty would kill him. That headline would read:

FREAKY PARENTS REAR MONSTER.

They must ensure Mr. Lundy's silence until Leo was ready to face human society. They came here to talk with him, pay him for his silence or...

At this point, he had talked for over an hour and, drunk a gallon of water, and two bottles of beer. He was exhausted and barely noticed the two women silently crying. Their shoulders were jerking spastically and a pack of paper towels lay in heaps on the floor.

Ivan was sitting with a grim face on the sofa and for a long time no one spoke and in the silence, the soft sobbing of the women was the only sound, even the sound of birds seemed to be absent. The world held its breath. Vai with tears in her eyes, asked:

"What happened to Leo?"

"The crew searched for them, then the Coast Guard's S&R came and began looking, and we had to remain aboard for the investigation. Later we sailed to Tahiti where they let us go. We bought that boat you saw by the beach and did our own S&R and we think the dolphins rescued Leo and Lundy by depositing them here."

"What makes you think the Dolphins have rescued them?" asked Leilani.

"They showed up at the boat as we were sailing along the reef northward, bumped the boat a few times, then swam toward the south and returned, bumped the boat again and Helena got curious as to what they wanted and we followed them.

When we spotted an apparently human body on the reef, we investigated and found it was Leo, our child. After he regained some strength, he recalled the dolphins pushing him through the water and when he was on the coral reef, he saw Lundy walking up the beach before losing consciousness. That's how we knew Lundy was here."

Vai's eyes were fixed on Gábor and a strange light was in her eyes, like someone who's found something she's been searching for a long time, and it seemed she wanted to say something, but then she clamped her mouth shut and listened.

"We took Leo to a place where he can hide and left him in Helena's care, so we could come back here to find Lundy."

"So Leo is safe then?" Vai seemed to be excited.

"Yes. He is okay and they are waiting for our return."

Vai looked relieved and looked at him with wide eyes.

"So what can you do?" asked Leilani with a tiny voice. "You can't kill this man. I won't let you. He has a right to live."

"No, we won't kill him, although it has crossed my mind several times," confessed Gábor.

"We have money," said Ivan, "and we're hoping to buy his discretion at least until Leo is ready. Now with his amnesia, it may not be necessary. If he remembers nothing, Leo is safe and if he does remember, we may be in the position to buy his silence, but for how long?"

"Where are Leo and your wife now?"

"On an island near Tahiti. But please don't ask for the exact location. It's better for you if you don't know."

Leilani's face had lost all expression after Gábor's admittance of considering killing Lundy and she looked at the two men with a facial expression that was difficult to interpret. The light had gone from her eyes and signs of despondency settled in. It broke Gábor's heart.

"It's safe to assume you are not insurance agents and so who exactly am I dealing with? The Mafia?"

Leilani's voice was brittle. A sense of fear and hopelessness settled in her soul. Ivan's heart constricted and Gábor felt his spirit sink. Never in his life did he feel such deep despair and utter dejection, and then he braced himself. Gábor spoke quietly, but with firmness, facing the music.

"I'm guilty of having put my friend into a situation of being dishonest and possibly destroying his happiness. I am the father of Leo and I'm proud to have given life to him. I am also the mate of the woman who gave birth to Leo and whose life and honour I would defend with my life. The rest is academics and of no consequence to anyone but my friend and my family."

Mentally he erected Chinese Walls around himself and both women felt it with a shudder. Gábor's eyes were hard and his body seemed to have turned into a fortress.

He stood up, towering over the two women. There was something final and defiant in his tone and at that moment, Vai got a glimpse of his mental strength. She felt his pain and anguish and wished to comfort him, but a wall of steel surrounded him, impenetrable. And there was something else she wanted to tell him, but this was not the right moment and he wouldn't have heard it even if she'd shouted.

Leilani looked for a long time at Gábor, there was a measured look on her face, and she turned to Ivan who seemed to have found something on the floor to look at with blind eyes.

"And you. Where is the man I met last night? Who are you?" Her voice sounded as if it was coming from the grave, disheartened, without hope and it was obvious she felt hurt by their lies and deception. She had welcomed them into her place, and they had fooled her. She had fallen for a lie. She had let her guard down, trusted them, and fallen for a man as she had in the past a few times, but this time it was worse than ever. She hated herself.

Ivan rose to his feet. "I don't know who I am. I can tell you who I'm not. I'm not a man proud of some things I've done in my life. One is that I lied to someone who didn't deserve it, but I'm damned proud to be a friend to that man standing in your kitchen. He had had enough pain to deal with in this life, and so have I. I'm very sorry to have caused you pain and I didn't mean that. It wasn't my intention to deceive you. I didn't expect to fall in love with you, but I did. I'm truly sorry to have caused you pain."

He walked over to Gábor and put his arm around him and said quietly: "I think we're finished here. Let's go back to Leo and Helena. They're waiting. We've lost this fight."

Somehow they made their way to their room and packed their gear in silence. Ivan took a few items from his pack and put them on the bed and they left silently. They walked through the house, passed the two women who stood like they were rooted to the ground, and without a word they stepped down from the veranda onto the road and strode toward their boat.  Both men felt as if they had lead in their legs.

Vai felt numb, paralyzed, and just wanted to run after them and stop them from leaving, but she couldn't move. Leilani felt frozen and she too felt like stopping them, convinced that this was a bad dream and she would wake up in bed with Ivan's arms around her. The sun was still about two hand spans above the horizon when the men got to the beach, and there was Kahekili working on his boat's engine. He looked at them and noticed their somber faces. He didn't say a word, but when they stepped up, he lifted his head and looking at them straight in the eyes, he saw a deep sadness. He pointed at the engine.

"Pas bon. Like life. Sometime good, sometime no."

They took off the cover and looked at the motor. Ivan pulled the starter cord and the engine turned over but did not fire. He removed the spark plug from the cylinder head and with the cable from the distributor still attached to the plug, he touched the housing and told Kahekili, "pull" and there was no spark.

Next, he opened the distributor cap and looked inside and there was the rotor arm, loose on the post, and the c-clip normally holding the rotor arm in place, in the dish. He replaced the rotor arm, clipped the c-clip in its groove, closed the distributor cap, and instructed Kahekili to pull the starter cord.

This time there was a spark. He reinserted the spark plug and tightened it, replaced the cable and Kahekili pulled the cord. The engine came to life at once. All of this took at the most twenty minutes. Kahekili grinned and the three pushed the dinghy into the water. Gábor walked to the backpacks and grabbed them when a voice stopped him.

"Aren't you forgetting something? You're not planning to sail without us, are you?" He turned toward the direction of the voice and saw Leilani, Vai, and Lundy standing in the shadows and looking at him, with some packages at their feet. Vai still had the sarong around her and Leilani was dressed in long pants and buttoned shirt. His heart dared to soar and he shouted to Ivan.

"Three more to go, Ivan." Ivan turned around and froze. Then slowly he sauntered back to them, grabbed two of the packages and rumbled, "You almost missed the boat," and followed by the three people marched toward the waiting man and his boat in the swells.

Gábor also grabbed two bags and followed them with mixed feelings. On one side was the possible rekindling of communication between Ivan and Leilani as well as the transport of the injured man to Papeete, on the other the anxiety that Vai's presence for ten hours would cause. He was happy to be near her as much as he was afraid of her. Her mother had aroused his libido the moment he met her and his male instincts assaulted his sense of loyalty to Helena, but then Ivan took Leilani in a storm and let him settle his restless desire for a beautiful woman. Soon he would see Helena, but this young woman went under his skin. Being exposed to her charm and primal emanations for ten hours at least caused him some uneasy feelings. He felt a strong attraction to Vai and decided to be very reserved with her.