Beat Not the Bones by Charlotte Jay Page A

done by a child, pinned on the opposite wall. Littered about the table among the files and wire baskets were half a dozen tins of bully beef, a round, yellow gourd with a boar’s tusk stopper, three little wooden figures and a human skull. Down in one of the smaller offices somebody was using a typewriter.
    She looked into the first office, but it was empty; the desk was tidy and the louvres behind had been closed. The second office was also empty. The third office looked and smelled like the basement of a museum. Bundles of spears and arrows were propped in corners; axes, masks and drums had been pushed under tables and on top of the bookcase; over the large, untidy desk, acting at times as paper weights for loose sheets of paper, were round, smooth stones.
    At a small table in the corner sat a Papuan man. He had stopped typing and was studying a child’s elementary reader.
    He looked different from any Papuan Stella had seen up to date. He wore khaki shorts and shirt with an air of ease and familiarity. His hair was parted on one side and cut like a white man’s, except that one heavy lock had been left rather long and stuck out like a cockade. His skin was light bronze and his face handsome. He had neither the flat features of the Mekeo, nor the beaked, semitic face of some of the darker men she had seen in town. He might have been southern European but for his thin wrists and long, shadowy hands. He wore sandals, and a watch, and smoked a cigarette. He stood up promptly when he saw Stella. ‘Good afternoon.’ he said. ‘Did you want to see Mr Nyall?’
    It seemed an extraordinary thing to say, when Trevor Nyall was playing golf. She blinked at him, puzzled.
    â€˜He’s not here,’ continued the man.‘I am the only one.’
    â€˜I didn’t come to see him.’ She looked around her. ‘Perhaps you could help me.’
    â€˜Would you like to sit down?’ He drew up a chair, offering it and then stepping back.
    She sat down. No one had told her that there was a particular way to behave in front of Papuans and she was not in the least nervous. She wondered why he did not sit down, but remained standing at attention in front of her. ‘Have you been here long?’
    â€˜A long time. I work for the government ever since I was a small boy.’
    She might be at ease, but he was not. He spoke like a courteous child talking to an adult.
    â€˜What’s your name?’
    â€˜Hitolo, sinabada.’
    It was a name she did not know. ‘Perhaps …’ she began.
    â€˜I work for the government longer than anyone else in the village,’ he said, and smiled broadly as if she must be glad to hear this.
    â€˜Perhaps you knew my husband, Mr Warwick.’
    â€˜Oh, yes.’ Hitolo’s grin split wide. ‘I knew him well. I was his clerk, I used to go with him everywhere. He was a very great man. He came to my wedding – it was in a church and my wife wore a white frock and veil – and sat at the end of the table and made a speech.’ He paused, and then said joyously, ‘We had sandwiches !’
    She felt a little of the difference in him then, and looked down at his hands, where this difference seemed most strongly to reside. ‘I am Mr Warwick’s wife,’ she said. It was something that he seemed not to have grasped.
    â€˜How do you do. I am very pleased to meet you.’ Smiling still, he held out his hand.
    She pressed the strange, moist, unfamiliar fingers and drew her hand away. ‘Perhaps you can tell me,’ she said, ‘where I can find a man named Sereva.’
    He did not answer her but stood looking at her, smiling still. She waited, looking up into his face and noticed that, though his features had not relaxed, the smile had died. The life behind the eyes had gone; she might have been looking at a human skull. His lips drooped and his face became expressionless. He jerked his head around,