A Deal With The Elders
We stayed on Isla Verde for two more days, which Maruia permitted on the understanding that we would use the time to resupply with green coconut and to service the boat, and not to ask further questions. This suited all of us. The weather window was holding, but the GRIBs I pulled down on the single-sideband at 04:00 on the second morning showed a trough developing north of the Marquesas that would, within seventy-two hours, close our return window unless we were moving by then.
On the morning before we left, the three senior women of the island — Maruia, Tepahi, and a third woman named Vaitoa, whom we had only seen in the distance until that day — came out to *Maeva* together in a double outrigger.
Raimana met them at the boarding ladder and helped them aboard with the formal attentiveness of a younger kinsman. Hina had made coffee. Manning came up from below in a clean shirt. Eloa sat beside me at the wheel seat. I had cleaned the cockpit.
Maruia did the talking.
"We have come," she said, "to do what is necessary before you sail. There are things we wish to be said with all three families present, and there are things we wish to have you confirm in the hearing of all three."
"Yes," I said.
"Monsieur Manning. The book you will write. You have told us what you intend. We have considered. I repeat our terms, and ask you to repeat them back, and if we agree, we will shake