Hurricane
by Suzanne Perazzini
It's 1972 and I am teaching at Ba Methodist High School in Fiji on Volunteer Service Abroad. This is the year Hurricane Bebe devastates the country.
One always has warning of a hurricane. The weather gurus see it coming, know its speed, its intensity. But its unpredictability is not measurable. It changes direction, slows down. Other weather patterns come on the scene and then the party really gets under way. As it approaches, the national radio station dedicates itself to almost non-stop updates on the situation interspersed with instructions concerning preparation for and survival of this unpleasant event.
Long before it hits, dogs start their primeval howling to empty space. The Fijian boarders, who are, perhaps by virtue of age and culture, closer to the great mysteries of nature, sense the same subtle changes. They run in and out of buildings in a demented haze of indecision. Animals baying to a moonless sky, kids screaming to ward off weather demons, and yet the sun is still shining, the day windless and serene.
Mabs, Beverly — fellow teachers — and I, more evolved souls that we are, feel nothing, zip, nada. Just another day with an undisciplined radio announcer getting progressively more wound up. But then, we have no store of hurricane experience to draw on. Though the extreme agitation of every other living creature in the vicinity should be a warning. Even the Australian headmaster, who has lived here for ten years, behaves like a headless chook in his quest for order and discipline among the students.
We three ignorant, stress-free females live in the centre of the school compound, in a wooden house. Nearby, five huts for the boarders stand on stilts. Behind us flows an expandable trickle which passes for a stream and all around, towering over us, are mango trees.
Not completely unperturbed, we do listen to the instructions which come over the air. We fill containers with water, prepare kerosene lamps, and generally try to appear busy. Everywhere, there is the sound of hammering as windows are battened down, but we can't even shut half of ours. However, we refuse to get agitated.
As the day progresses, the radio tells of extensive damage on Rotuma, an island north west of Fiji and that Bebe is now heading for the outer Fijian islands of Yasawa. That means us next.
We wake up to the house shaking and rumbling. The roar outside is deafening. Rain is finding its way through every conceivable opening. Inside the house, papers are flying around in every room while, in the bathroom, the window has let go of its last screw and disappeared. The water in the toilet is lapping around as if the house is afloat on the high seas.
Outside, trees are leaning at 45-degree angles. All manner of debris, from baby birds to large branches, are flying on uncontrollable collision paths. The stream behind the house is a surging monster rapidly approaching our back door. The wind whips up to a fury and the whole house shudders, then it momentarily eases only to come back worse than before.
It starts to become very dark, yet it's only midday. It is hard to keep candles lit because of the house's own internal wind system. Posters are being ripped off the walls as if possessed. The roof is under continual attack from unidentified flying objects, windows breaking with the force of the blows.
At one o'clock, the stream starts to flow in under the back door. By then, we are scared witless. Deadly calm, but scared witless. Outside, two of the boarder's huts have completely disappeared. Another is listing drunkenly and the dining room has no roof. Branches are being ripped off large trees and are flying in search of a victim. The continual roar has been joined by a low rumbling thunder and it is impossible to hear each other. We communicate in an elaborate form of sign language.
For some reason we seem obsessed with drying dishes and tidying up the house — just another day in balmy Fiji. If we ignore it, maybe it will go away. But, it isn't going anywhere. When the back door whisks away skyward, we abandon the dishes in the kitchen and retrench to the living room. We have already left Beverly's room to the elements. Her window broke early on and the wind and rain in the room have created a death trap. The contents of the room are charging around airborne, ready to attack anyone foolhardy enough to enter.
Mab's room is inexplicably soaking wet, though our feeble attempts to batten down her window seem to have worked. Mine, on the sheltered side, has so far survived. We are sopping wet, even though we haven't been outside. We are all helpless inside the house, which seems to be trembling in its death throes. But we are reluctant to make the infinitely wise decision to abandon ship — for that is exactly what it seems — a rocking, rolling ship.
The roof starts to lift and slam down. It is buckling and straightening, banging and cracking. We stand in the living room holding hands, not through any conscious decision, but in what might be a basic instinct — to die in company. We stand, holding hands as the wind and rain reach a peak of fury, standing deadly still, waiting for the house to collapse.
And then the roof is gone, ripped clear off. We stand there, eyes shut and the strangest thing happens. The wind stops, the rain stops and in the eerie lull, we look at each other in calm silence, sure that we are within the eye of the hurricane and that it will all start again. We stand for five minutes, ten minutes, for an eternity. It gradually dawns on us that it is over, really over. We sit on the flooded floor of the wreck that was our house and we cry. We three ignorant foreigners huddle together and cry.
Suzanne Perazzini lives in New Zealand with her husband and 16-year-old son in a house overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Her life is punctuated by travel, writing and renovating homes.