Island of the Sequined Love Nun

forever if you ate anyone besides the stale starchy god on the cross.
    Then the Japanese came and cut off Father Rodriquez's head and threw his god on a chain into the sea. Sarapul knew for sure then that the Father had been Lying all along. The Japanese raped and killed his wife and made his two sons work building the airstrip until they became sick and died. He asked the Turtle why his family had been taken away, and when the sign came in the form of a cloud shaped like an eel, the sorcerer said that it had happened because the Shark People had broken the taboos, had eaten their totem animals and taken fish from the forbidden reef: They were being punished.
    The next night Sarapul killed a Japanese soldier and built an oom to bake him in, but none of the Shark People would help him. Some were afraid of the god of Father Rodriquez and the rest were afraid of the Japanese. They took the body and fed it to the sharks who lived at the edge of the reef.
    In the morning the Japanese lined up the old sorcerer and a dozen children and machine-gunned them. And Sarapul lost his mind.
    Then the American planes came, dropping their bombs and fire from the sky for two days, and when the explosions stopped and the smoke cleared, the Japanese left, taking with them all the coconuts and breadfruit on the island. A week later Vincent arrived in the Sky Priestess.
    Sarapul still had the machete that the flyer had given him. It was more than he had ever gotten from Father Rodriquez's god, but the cannibal did not believe that Vincent was a god. Even if Vincent had scared away the Japanese and brought the food that saved the Shark People, Sarapul had angered the old gods before and he would not do it again.
    When the white Sorcerer arrived, he too talked of the god on the cross and although the Shark People took the food and medicine he gave them and even attended his services, they would not forsake Vincent, their savior. The god on the cross had let them down before. Eventually, the white Sorcerer fumed to Vincent too. But Sarapul clung to the old ways, even when the Sky Priestess resumed with her red scarf and explosions. It was all just entertainment: Christ was just a cracker, Vincent was just a flyer, and he, Sarapul, was a cannibal.
    Still, he did not blame Malink for banishing him or for clinging to Vincent's promises. Vincent was the god of Malink's childhood, and Malink clung to him in the same way that Sarapul clung to the old ways. Faith grew stronger when planted in a child. Sarapul knew that. He was mad, but he was not stupid.
    Until now he had never put an ounce of faith in Vincent, but this dream of Malink's vexed him. He would have to figure things out before he ate the man in his breadfruit tree. He had to talk to Malink now.
    The cannibal took the path that led into the village. He crept between the houses where the sweet rasp of snoring children wafted through the woven grass walls like the sizzle of frying pork, through the smoke of dying cook fires, past the bachelors' house, the men's house, and finally to the beach, where the men sat in a circle, drinking and talking softly, the moon spraying their shoulders with a cold blue light.
    The men continued to talk as Sarapul joined the circle, politely ignoring the creak and crackle of his old joints as he sat in the sand. Some of the younger men, chose who had grown up with the disciplinary specter of the cannibal, subtly changed position so they could reach their knives quickly. Malink greeted Sarapul with a nod, then filled the coconut shell cup from the big glass jug and handed it to him.
    "No coffee or sugar for a month," Malink said. "Vincent is angry."
    Sarapul drained the cup and handed it back. "How about cigarettes?"
    "The Sorcerer says that cigarettes are bad."
    "Vincent smoked cigarettes," Sarapul pointed out. "He gave you the lighter."
    The young men fidgeted at the firsthand reference to Vincent. It disturbed them when the old men spoke of Vincent as if he was a person. Malink reached inside the long flat basket where he kept the lighter along with his ocher personal belongings. He touched the Zippo that Vincent had given him.
    "Cigarettes aren't good for us," he repeated.
    "Then they should give us cigarettes for punishment," Sarapul insisted.
    Malink pulled a copy of People magazine from his basket, drawing everyone's attention away from the cannibal. The old chief tore a small square from the masthead page and handed it to Abo, a muscular young man