South Pacific Affair

Chapter III

We didn't sail the next morning. When I returned to the Hooker and told Eddie, he was all for it, and promptly took four hundred francs to buy some “shirts and things.” He came back two afternoons later, without any “shirts and things”; he merely said he had been sleeping off a drunk “someplace” and promptly went to sleep.

Mrs. Adams was a true islander, for when I told her we weren't sailing, that I couldn't locate Eddie, she accepted it as a normal thing, said it was all for the good because there was an old French movie she wanted to see.

But two days later she was at the quay bright and early with her woven pandanus bags, her jars, and several elderly Tahitian women who kissed her goodbye and gave her roasted chickens. Eddie and I—mostly I—had sprayed and cleaned the cabin, arranged to sleep on deck. When we stopped at Motuiti isle for the customs men to give the boat a going over for rum—there was a twenty-five buck fine for every litre found hidden away—Eddie suggested we eat one of the chickens. Nancy agreed and the three of us sat down and went through two fine-tasting roasted chickens.

The old lady turned out to be a good sailor and, of course, fell in love with our cutter. She took the wheel, did the cooking, spoke Tahitian, French, and even Chinese, and got along first-rate with Eddie. Like all Polynesians, even though he came from far away Hawaii, he had relatives in every island and atoll, and it seemed Mrs. Adams knew them all, in fact there wasn't an isle in the Pacific she hadn't visited. So she and Eddie sat gabbing about so and so ”... on Rarotonga. Ah, he is a fine man and all of his wives have always been good women.” And Eddie would add, “His second wife, Tar a, was a cousin of my mama's aunt.” Of course, I felt like a stranger.

On the first morning out when it was Eddie's watch he took the wheel from Nancy, glanced at the sun for a moment, told her “You're way off the course, Nancy. You're going south by southeast instead of by southwest.”

“I changed the course,” she said simply. “I thought we might stop at PellaPella. That's a small island near the Cook group. Ever been there?”

“Nope, but I heard of it. Isn't that the island of the great house?”

“It is and the house belongs to a very dear friend of mine, Edmond Stewart.”

I was a trifle annoyed at the high-handed way she had changed the course, then doubly angry at myself for being annoyed. She was paying for the cruise and what difference did it make to me where we went? I got into the conversation with, “Isn't he the writer, did all those books about the waving palms and eager, waving bosoms?”

The old lady laughed. “Indeed, Edmond has written some of the world's most trite novels and made a fortune. But don't let his books fool you. He's an intelligent man. This will only take us a few hundred miles off our course and no doubt you will be able to trade.”

“Sure,” I said, “we go any place the wind takes us.”

Later, wanting to know everything about Ruita's background, I asked casually: “When did you first come to the South Seas, Nancy?”

“Back in 1912. As Seventh Day Missionaries in the Marquesas. We were frauds. Tom started out studying for the cloth but gave it up for botany. He didn't want to teach and longed to come here. The only way we could swing it was as missionaries. We had three very fine years, then a year on PellaPella, followed by more wonderful years in the Tuamotus. Tom died there, in the flu epidemic which swept the islands.”

Eddie said he was sorry to hear that, the proper note of sorrow in his voice. I asked, “Did you meet Ruita's father in the atolls?”

“No, that was on Numaga. I really don't know much about Louise's father. Barely remember him at all.” Mrs. Adams said this in a very matter-of-fact voice, and I shut up.

Eddie was in one of his talkative moods. After he finished with his war experiences, he started on the ring—talked for two days. The old lady listened as if she were interested; maybe she was.

Mrs. Adams did lots of fishing, with an expensive glass rod and reel. Each fish became a short biology lecture, complete with the Latin name, feeding and breeding habits. Between fish talks and fight talk, I tried to steer the conversation around to Ruita but always came up against a blank wall. When I told her, “Ruita has many of your features,” Mrs. Adams looked puzzled and asked, “You really think so?”

We sighted the PellaPella late in the afternoon but stayed outside all night, tacking back and forth. In the morning I got the engine going while Eddie sat on the bowsprit, called back steering directions which weren't necessary as the channel was plenty wide and deep. The first thing we saw as we slid into the smooth water of the harbor was the Shanghai anchored there.

We dropped our iron on the other side of the small harbor, opposite the schooner. The bottom was sandy and Eddie growled that we would have to keep an anchor watch.

The forward deck of the Shanghai was full of sailing canoes, all of them lashed together. I saw Buck and Teng watching us through glasses. There seemed to be a lot of men gathered on the beach and when several canoes came out to greet us, Eddie and Mrs. Adams chattered with them in dialect, asked about Mr. Stewart. They told us the men on the beach were playing soccer, a last game, as most of them had signed on the Shanghai as divers. When Eddie asked about copra they said there was some we could pick up. Evidently Buck wasn't interested in a few tons of copra; probably expected to be away from Papeete so long the stuff would spoil.

Mrs. Adams was in a hurry to see her Edmond so we all piled into the dinghy and rowed ashore. The soccer players surrounded us to say hello and of course they were kicking the ball around with their bare feet. Eddie, the show-off, immediately flexed his heavy muscles, then picked up the ball and punched it, sending it high in the air.

When Nancy impatiently told him to come on, Eddie said he'd rather hang around the beach; it was best to keep an eye on the boat anyway in case the anchor slipped.

Nancy and I walked through the short village main street lined with well constructed huts, each with paths and flowerbeds bordered with empty beer bottles. Most of the islanders had bicycles and in front of one hut there was a 1947 Buick without tires, in various stages of rust. A young man told us rather proudly it was his.

It was about a half a mile of sharp uphill, zigzag walking to reach Stewart's house and while it was a kick to be climbing a hill after all the months of living on a deck, we had to rest several times. I was puffing harder than the old lady.

An old man came along carrying a pole with a hook on one end, pulled down a nut for us to drink. He had a wrist-watch on his left arm and a gold flexible watchband on the other. As we started up the mountain path again I asked Nancy where the people got all the beer, the car, the many bicycles, broken and running, and the wristwatches.

“When they dive they make good wages, sometimes as high as two hundred dollars a day for a very, very good day. Of course they are swindled out of the money. I'm sure that schooner in the harbor is loaded with cycles, fancy jewelry, and other trash, all of which will be sold at fantastic prices. Have you ever visited an atoll during the diving season, Ray?”

I shook my head.

“It's quite a sight. A carnival of cheating. The divers return —or are towed for fancy fees—with their canoes full 6f mussels and right at the edge of the beach are merchants hawking all kinds of junk—from ballpoint pens to bicycles and tins of food—along with gambling, prostitutes, rum, candies, shoes and clothing. The divers seldom return with any money but they all consider they have had a grand time.”

“It's a shame to exploit them that way.”

Nancy winked at me. “Whether we return with money or not makes little difference in our lives for money is not a necessity here, only a trinket.”

“Sometimes Eddie and I miss those 'trinkets,' but it doesn't worry us too much.”

“Money can be a burden. I am the last of my family—in the States—and from various inheritances, some from people I've never seen, I have almost a half-million dollars back in Boston. That will be Louise's some day, but lawyers constantly write me and are puzzled as to why I never invest.”

I stopped walking. “You have a half a million bucks?”

She looked at me sharply. “Why? Does that make any difference? If it was waiting for you in the States, would you give up all this peace, rush to get it?”

“Well ... I don't know.”

She suddenly laughed and reached up and ran her hand through my wild red hair, knocking my cap off. “I like you, Ray, you're honest—I think. Now, let's stop talking about a silly thing like money and start walking. Another turn and we'll be on the other side of this stupid hill, in view of the house.”

When I had my first up-close view of Stewart's house it was breath-taking. The house was made of hard pine wood, all bleached grey-white by the sun, and built like a Swiss chalet. It had three stories and how it clung to the sharp slope of the mountain was a puzzle. From the rear porch one could spit several hundred feet straight down.

“A monstrosity of conceit, isn't it?” Nancy said.

“It must have cost a fortune.”

“Indeed it did. Edmond sold two of his silly books to the motion pictures for a fantastic price back in—can't recall when. Sometime in the twenties. He spent it all on this—much like the islander who has the car below. Unfortunately he has been forced to live in one room for the last several years—he's bedridden. I am anxious for you to meet him, like him.”

We walked through a large and well-cultivated garden with pear and peach trees, along with mangoes and other tropical fruits, and reached the entrance of the house which was on the middle floor. A fat islander in clean white drill shorts came out to greet us, followed by several young girls dressed in pareu cloths. They greeted Nancy with great delight, hugging and kissing her and I could make out enough of their dialect to hear the man say, “We are pleased you return to us so soon, Mama. What is new in Papeete? Did you bring the cigarette holder I want?”

The “Mama” was merely a form of greeting, but the old lady had said she hadn't been here in years and now I wondered why she lied to me. She got a bit flustered and stopped their talk by taking out small gifts from her handbag.

I was standing in the doorway, lost in all this chatter. One of the girls asked if I wanted some cold beer. Before I could answer yes, a deep, bull-like voice roared through the house with mild thunder.

“Nancy Adams! Lord God, what are you waiting out here for? Come to me at once. And bring the young man for me to examine!”

The girls giggled and Nancy sighed. She took me into another room while I wondered how this Stewart knew I was coming.

The room was tremendous, the entire width and depth of the house, with great sliding windows giving a complete view of the harbor and the ocean. In a large bed near the windows a thin little man was propped up on two pillows. He had a crazy white beard starting below his eyes and going half way down his chest, where it was neatly tied with two red ribbons. His long face seemed all hair, but the eyes were sharp and alert, and what little skin could be seen was transparent and wax-like. The beard around his mouth was stained a dirty tobacco brown.

He waved a scrawny hand with two large black pearl rings at us, and his shoulders were bare, sickly and pale. He had a thin blanket over him, and an open book lay upon it. Books were also piled on the floor all over the room. As he waved his arm at us again, the covers fell back a Utile and I saw the butt of an automatic lying beside him.

This almost comic deep voice came out of his shriveled body as he roared, “Well damn it, young man, take a seat! You, Nancy, you look trim and young and if I was able I'd pull you down into bed with me.” This was followed by deep laughter which shook his little body. He had some kind of pillow under his legs for the lower part of the thin cover bulged.

Mrs. Adams laughed coyly, a shrill little laugh. “You must be getting senile, Edmond, you sound like one of your horrible characters.”

This snappy line seemed to amuse the old boy, who looked like he was at least a hundred, and he sent out more waves of bull-laughter. Then he asked, “How long are you staying, Nancy?”

She looked at me and I said, “A day or so, depending upon what trading we can do.”

His eyes brightened and from under the tobacco stains in his beard he said, “A sweet sea boat, Mr. Jundson. I watched you coming through the channel hours ago. A very pleasing boat, indeed. There is not much trading here. We don't bother with copra except the old men make some when they feel like it. Mostly the men go in for diving and naturally that filthy scoundrel, Buck, bleeds them out of every sou. If you were collecting junk and scrap, this would be the island for you.”

Nancy suddenly stood. “Edmond, if you are about to lecture on mankind, I think I'd rather spend the time taking a tub. Hot water working?”

“You know I haven't left this cursed bed for a year. How would I know if the blasted hot water is working? Go, go, wash yourself with smell soap, be a silly female. We men have talk.”

“I know,” Nancy said, heading for the door like a hammy actress murdering an exit line, “and man-talk is so boring.”

When she left, Stewart chuckled in his beard, told me, “Isn't it wonderful the way she is still a child at times?” His eyes were staring at me and I didn't know if I was supposed to answer, or not. So we both were silent for a while, as I tried to figure the old duck out. Then he asked abruptly, “How long have you been in the islands, Mr. Jundson?”

“Over a year.”

The eyes seemed to be judging me for a long moment, then Stewart said, “I doubt you're a crook. Remittance man?”

“Might be called that. I emptied my wife's bank account and came here. You see, I'd read a good deal about the South Pacific, including all of your books.”

Stewart actually snorted, the brown hairs around his mouth flying up. That impossible deep voice asked, “What did you think of my books?”

“Oh ... I'd rather not say.”

Tell me! I'm not a moron. I know they are pure crab dung, but I never thought anybody would take them seriously.”

“Well ...” I felt both angry and uneasy talking to the old guy—everything about him seemed so unreal. “Why didn't you write the truth?”

“The truth is a luxury few can afford. Someplace on the shelves over there you'll find a moldy manuscript. That's the truth. I wrote it in 1937 when my name was at its zenith but not a publisher would take it. I told the most sordid story of history, how every white pig, scum, and crackpot came to a paradise and committed mass murder. How in a little over a century we had killed four-fifths, or over eight hundred thousand, of the sweetest people the Lord God ever put on earth. The most needless and wasteful crime in history!” One thin hand crept down to the butt of the gun under the covers and for a second I thought he was going to shoot me.

I said quickly, “Guess we all came here too late for our dreams. Come starry-eyed and found—”

“Starry-eyed!” he shouted and how that bull voice ever came from the tiny body was a miracle. “That's utter cynicism, Jundson, and cynicism is a shallow thing, the shield of the stupid. Damn it, we weren't starry-eyed! We came out of a jungle of greed with deliberate murder and misery, with—” He stopped abruptly, the room thick with the boom of his voice. “Speeches at a wake are senseless. Jundson, listen to me, the dream is still here if a man is ready for it. The islands must become a retreat, a final retreat a palm monastery, if you will. However, if you're not prepared, then it's suicide. You go on the reef. Do you follow me, Mr. Jundson?”

“No, sir.”

“An honest answer, at least,” he said, brushing the hair from his mouth. I had a glimpse of thin wet lips. “Jundson, I'm talking to you like I've talked to few white men—and I don't use white in a color sense. The difficulty here is we try to live like Bostonians, or New Yorkers, or Londoners, with all the false values and standards, instead of living like islanders. I don't mean any nonsense like 'going native'; the very terminology is an asinine bit of patronizing—we don't have the skills of the islanders. No, consider that whore house called Papeete, the 'Paris of the Pacific' Lord God, Paris doesn't belong in the Pacific! It's as out of place as a palm tree in Pigalle!”

He stopped talking in that sudden way he had, reached under the bedtable and came up with a cigar. “Want one?”

“Not at the moment,” I said.

“When you do, take some.” He lit the cigar and threw the match on the floor, then turned his head and sent a batch of spit which missed the match. We both watched it burn out. I still had this uneasy feeling as I waited for him to continue, somehow certain Nancy had brought me here only to hear him. Finally I said, “It is difficult to—uh—adjust completely.”

“Young man, if you have to adjust you're licked. You must be ready to accept this new life. Be ready to give up ambition and this inane thing we call drive. Here it doesn't matter a tinker's damn if you have four coconuts and I have a dozen. I can't be any happier with my dozen than you with your few.”

“Have you been happy?”

“No. I wasn't prepared, or able to shed my old ideas, until it was to late. This caught up with me.” He held up the cover for a moment. I not only saw the gun again, but his horrible legs—like swollen lumpy potato sacks, the skin hardened and cracked. His thighs were several feet thick. Fey-fey is the island name for elephantitis.

“I'm dying,” Stewart said calmly, dropping the blanket and puffing on his cigar. “If a man isn't afraid to die he's got his life made. But in the months I've been lying in this linen cage, I think for the first time I've found peace—understood the islands and myself. Lord God, life should mean more than the memories of the number of bottles you've killed, the expensive foods you've eaten, the endless women—so many they have no identity!”

“What should it mean?”

“I don't know!” he snapped, glaring at me, moving the cigar around with his teeth. “I'm not a mystic, young man, but perhaps life is the things we don't understand but simply know are beautiful—the sense of peace living on an atoll gives one, the dawns and sunsets so vivid you want to cry, a man and woman locked in an embrace because of all the humans in this world they want only each other...” He lapsed into silence and after a few seconds giggled—an obscene laugh. “I don't know why I'm telling you all this, Jundson. If somebody had dared to give me advice when I first came here—Lord God, I wouldn't have paid him any attention.”

“Then why are you telling me this?”

“Because I'd like to see one popaa make it here—really make it.” He blew out a fierce cloud of smoke and shut his eyes. After a moment he said softly, “I have talked too much, I am weary. The twin monsters I call legs sap my strength. Did I say I wasn't afraid to die? This is a lie. Or maybe it isn't fear as much as curiosity which stops me from blowing my worn brains out. But enough talk. I will sleep.”

I stared at the long stained beard, the cigar still sticking up and smoking evenly, the ridiculous red ribbon bows. After a few seconds he opened his lips to snore—the cigar fell over on his beard. Before I could reach it, a girl raced into the room, grabbed the cigar, pinched out the few singed hairs. I stared at her as if this was all a nightmare—was her sole job to wait for the damn cigar to fall?

She was very cute, with crimson hibiscus flowers over her left ear—meaning she was looking for a sweetheart. As she bent over, I'd seen the delightful lines of her body beneath her pareu. Placing the cigar on the bedtable, she looked me over, her eyes teasing. I asked in Tahitian, “Why does he wear red ribbons?”

“Because it pleases him.”

Okay, ask a dumb question and all that, but I'd taken enough crap for one day. I walked out onto the balcony, around to another room. The village and harbor seemed directly below me. The Hooker looked tiny, a perfect toy boat; even the Shanghai seemed small. On the beach the soccer players crowded around a squat brown man who could only be Eddie. He seemed to be talking to two men in white shirts and pants.

I went inside. I was in a dining room. Going through the drawers of a sideboard, I found several pairs of German field glasses. With a view like this a man would have glasses about.

Putting the glasses on the group I saw Mr. Teng now stretched out on the sand. Buck was bending over him; he seemed to be shaking with laughter, pointing to an open book which lay on the sand. Eddie was smiling too, but the crowd of islanders seemed more puzzled than amused. Somebody brought a shell full of water to Buck, who dumped it on Teng. Teng got slowly to his feet and rubbed his face. He walked away, followed by Buck, who kept grinning like an ape as he pointed to the book back on the sand.

“Anything happening down there?”

I put the glasses down, turned to see Nancy Adams in the doorway. “Nothing much,” I told her. “Let's go.”

“Yes, Edmond will sleep for the rest of the day. We will see him tomorrow.”

We said goodbye to the man and the girls, started down the mountain road. The sun was directly above us, with not much of a breeze. I asked Nancy, “Why does Stewart keep a gun in his bed?”

“I suppose because he feels helpless. Only has the gun near when a boat is in. Some traders are a bit uncouth. I'm rather good with a rifle for that very reason, myself.”

“Perhaps he keeps it handy because he thinks of suicide?”

“Oh, one day he may blow his head off,” she said calmly, the easy way islanders talk of sex or death. “I'm going to visit some families I know. Like to come along, Ray?”

“Nope, I've had it.”

“I may spend the night at Edmond's house, depending on how tired he is. But in any case I shall send word.” Nancy turned off into a path. I kept going downhill, breaking into a trot.

When I reached the beach the dinghy was gone. I saw Eddie sitting on the deck of the Hooker. I waved and shouted he didn't seem to hear me. Finally two little boys who couldn't be fifteen years old between them, paddled up very proudly in a small open canoe and said they would take me out. I almost capsized them getting in. I bailed while they paddled furiously, and we managed to reach the Hooker, all of us soaking wet.

Eddie was squatting on the deck, trying to read the Spanish label on a bottle of stomach medicine. When I'd thanked the kids for taking me out and they paddled off, I asked Eddie, “Didn't you hear me shouting myself hoarse for the dinghy?”

“Damn, this is good stuff, whatever it is. Has a kick like rum. Why didn't you tell me we were carrying it?”

“Because it's for trade, not for warming your gut. Why didn't you come in for me?”

“I was going to, after I sampled this bottle,” Eddie said, taking a long swig. “Reason I came back to the boat, the damn anchor is slipping. I noticed she was inching away. I got another iron down, but we got to watch her tonight I've been busy while you've been socializing and—”

“Find out if there's any shell or copra here for us?” I cut in abruptly.

Eddie gave me a quick look as he took another swig, belched, then put the bottle in the shade. “Kind of jumpy today, aren't you, Ray? Don't take it out on me.”

“Take out what?”

“Whatever you're up in the air about. Look, a couple of old jokers started making some copra last week for the Shanghai but they're sore at Teng because he won't advance them any rum. I opened a case of this stomach medicine and we all got a jag on. So they're selling us their copra, sacking it this afternoon. They figure about six hundred pounds. Have a couple of fine looking gals here but they don't go with strange sailors—afraid of getting sick. What did you find up in the big house, rum?”

“Nothing but an old man full of advice and fey-fey. Ever see this Stewart?”

“No, but I've heard of him all over the Pacific. Old guy has been on a forty-year binge, everything one big party to him. By the way, Mama has been handing us a line—she was here less than a month ago.”

I sat beside Eddie, took a whiff of the bottle. It smelt like stale cough medicine. “Yeah. Also must have wirelessed the old gent we were coming. He handed me a fast pitch about what a dream it'll be to put my ass down on an island for the rest of my life. I don't get the play.”

Eddie lit an American cigarette he must have chiseled from an islander, took a long pull on the bottle, handed me the heel. “Take some, Ray, you ain't bright today.”

The stuff did have a bang, wasn't too bitter. “You full of advice today, too?”

“I'm full of this medicine, feeling high. Ray, he wasn't talking about any island, but about Numaga and Ruita. What's this whole voyage for, except Mama wants to learn the sort of son-in-law you'll make? Make certain daughter isn't placing her chips on a popaa who takes off after a few nights.”

“Everybody is goddamn busy minding my business!” I said, angry—because Eddie had it about right I was restless, tight as a coiled spring. Pulling in the dinghy, I told him, “Let's go ashore, see how they're coming with the copra.”

“In this heat? Everybody's sleeping, except on the Shanghai —they're getting ready to sail. Ray, I kayoed Teng again. There's a hard head for you. I was kidding around on the beach with the soccer players, when Teng comes along with that rat-faced Buck. Teng says, 'I have studied ways of countering a blow. I should like to fight you again. Are you willing?' I told him okay. The Chinaman has this Judo book with him, so when he turned to hand it to Buck, I flattened him. Thought the Swede would bust a gut laughing.”

We rowed by the Shanghai. Mr. Teng was bawling out an islander for not lashing his canoe on deck, but seeing us, he ran to the railing, waved his fist at Eddie as he shouted, “You are a dirty fighter!” The right side of his face was swollen.

Eddie laughed. “That's me. Read the next lesson in your book. What the hell do you think Judo is but 'dirty' fighting!”

Mr. Teng waved his fist a few more times, then went back to bawling out the islander. When we beached the dinghy we found two men fooling with a guitar in the shade of a group of stumpy trees that I'd never seen before. They promised to keep an eye on the Hooker, in case she started dragging her anchor.

We started down the beach and when I asked Eddie, “What kind of trees were those?” he said, “Don't ask me, ask Mama. She knows everything.”

I didn't know if he was razzing me or not, but I felt too mad to talk. We kept walking till we reached a point where the island narrowed—almost like it was pulled out—and nearly reached the reef. Several hundred nuts had been expertly sliced in half, piled in a small pyramid, meat side down to protect them from rotting in the rains. I picked up one of the half-shells; the pulpy white coconut meat seemed dry. There were some empty burlap bags at one side of the pile.

The walk had left us both dripping with sweat. We looked around for whoever was making the copra, but couldn't see a soul. Eddie said, “Let's cool off.”

We stripped and splashed around in the water, but didn't go out far in case there were sharks. The tide was still going out and the coral reef stood rusty red and rough above the water.

Returning to the beach we shook small crabs out of our clothes as we walked around, quickly drying in the scorching sun. Then we dressed and found some shade and stretched out. Eddie said, “This is a nice island Difference of temperature up on that mountain means they can grow a lot of good fruits and vegetables.”

I had my eyes shut against the glare of the sun on the sea and didn't bother answering him. I was thinking about Nancy Adams, both flattered and annoyed that she was taking all this trouble with me. And what an odd old woman she was— certainly the most uninhibited woman I'd ever met. Her knowledge of so many things, a sweet old woman with her dough back in the States. And her syph here with her. Did she pass that on to Ruita?

That was a silly thought. Was Ruita in on this business of pushing me into marriage with her? And what if she was? That was more honest than my fluffing off. I was suddenly full of a terrible warm longing for her—wanted Ruita in the sand beside me ... to open my eyes and see her lovely brown face, the good body, the delicate smell of whatever flowers she crushed into the coconut oil she used for perfume.

I fell asleep thinking of perfumes—dreamed of Milly, the usual dream, always so sharp and clear ... then the cowardly feeling for having run away.

I was home, going directly into the kitchen for a snack, as I always did. Must have been twenty minutes later when I went into the bedroom for a handkerchief. Milly was sitting in bed, smoking a cigarette. Barry was lying face down; even his back looked neat and handsome. Milly asked, “Well, Ray?” I didn't say a word. Barry finally turned over and faced me. He wasn't pale nor flushed. He said, “Sorry, Ray. Guess that's all there is to say, in a situation like this.”

At the time I really didn't feel a thing. I was a stranger folding his handkerchief, watching two people in bed. All that came to my mind was, they shouldn't have done it in my room. The bank book was in the same drawer with the handkerchiefs. I took the book, went out without saying a word; rode a cab to the bank, then another cab to the airport, and the next morning I was on a plane winging toward Hawaii....

Eddie was shaking me. “We're smart, sleeping in the sun. Feel baked enough to eat. Must be after three. They should be along to sack the copra. We'll need the dinghy to get the sacks back to the Hooker. You go back and row it down— and check the anchor. Ill help make copra here. I could use a little exercise.” He pinched his hard stomach.

I had to row the mile or so to the Hooker and back three times that afternoon, taking three seventy-five-pound sacks of copra each trip. By the end of the afternoon I was pooped and had drunk so many coconuts and oranges, I had the runs. Eddie went ashore, bought taro and rice at the Chinese store —after he explained his face to the storekeeper who gave him the usual “Lion Face!” scream—and made a thick fish gumbo which seemed to do some good. Then he suggested I try the stomach medicine and we both knocked off a few bottles and got high—and upset my stomach again.

Eddie and I had our mats atop the cabin and I was keeping an eye on the beach, but Nancy didn't show. Before I fell into a drunken sleep I kept telling myself she had a hell of a nerve. And by God I'd tell her off, let her know she couldn't walk all over me, scheme behind my back like I was a schoolboy.

I dozed off on this thought and the next thing I knew I was covered with stinking slimy slop. Eddie sat up, sputtering, yelled at me, “What the hell did you turn loose, you slob?”

“Me?” I managed to say, tasting something terrible on my lips. The night was clear and I saw the whole deck was covered with dripping slop and garbage. The stench was terrific. Eddie stoop up, shaking himself and cursing and as I got to my feet I was knocked flat in all this swishing, ripe crap and slops sliding over our decks ... as our stern gently bunked into the Shanghai, which loomed up over us like a cliff. While I scooped the garbage off the motor hatch, Eddie jumped into the dinghy and rowed like mad, trying to pull the Hooker away from the schooner.

Above us I heard a polite laugh and made out the flat face of Mr. Teng, heard his soft voice calling out, “Sorry, didn't know you were below us. You must have slipped your anchor.” This was followed by the laughter of the islanders who lined the rail.

Between strokes Eddie grunted from the dinghy, “I'll bet you didn't, you miserable crud!”

Eddie could barely move us with the dinghy. The heavy diesel coughed, then roared, and I was smothered with exhaust gas smelling worse than the slop. The Shanghai's anchor came up as she got under way, bumping us again and throwing me flat in the garbage—like a slapstick movie.

The slime and exhaust stink was making me sick so I dived in, swam over to the dinghy. With the two of us rowing we managed to move the cutter, then Eddie cursed again, said, “Stop rowing! Let's drift over the Shanghai's anchorage— must be a rocky bottom there to hold her.”

We spent the two hours before dawn huddled in the dinghy, mad and cold, and almost giving up every time we drifted in the lee of the Hooker. Eddie kept muttering about killing Mr. Teng, pushing Buck's pointed face inside out. Finally I said, “Aw, shut up! We're a fine couple of sailors—some anchor watch, both of us sleeping one off!”

“Ain't all our fault—there was a deck full of people on the schooner. Somebody must have glanced over the rail, saw us drifting toward them. And that was sure more than one pail of slops they dropped. Teng figured this out, all right!”

“All Nancy's fault for our corning to this crummy island!” I said like a kid. “She has to stick her nose into my business!”

When the sun came up we went aboard and threw out the mats and blankets we'd been sleeping on, started to clean up the boat. By noon we had her pretty well scrubbed down, although the odor remained. Luckily, nothing had run into the cabin. We made coffee, were just able to keep it down, when Nancy Adams, appeared on the beach, waved to us.

“Get ready to sail!” I told Eddie, jumping into the dinghy. I made the beach as if racing and Nancy looked at me queerly —I only had on a pair of badly torn, dirty shorts. She said, “I'm so sorry I forgot to send anyone to tell you I was staying the night at—”

“Forget it,” I snapped. “We're sailing.”

“Sailing? Edmond is expecting you for lunch.”

“Mrs. Adams, you're a passenger and as owner of the boat I am hereby informing you we're sailing!”

She looked startled. “Ray Jundson, you're being rude.”

“I sure am.” I pointed to the dinghy. “Coming?”

She went over and told a little boy something to tell Stewart, then I pushed the dinghy back into the water and Nancy took a seat, didn't say a word as I started rowing. Finally she said, “Mr. Jundson, you are an inexcusable boor!”

“I wouldn't speak of manners, Mrs. Adams. You've lied to us about not being on PellaPella in months—you were here several weeks ago. Also, I am quite capable of making up my own mind about settling down and asking your daughter to marry me without having a talking beard hand me a lot of gas!”

The old lady simply stared at me with hard eyes, then looked away. She stepped aboard the Hooker and sat on the cabin without saying a word to Eddie. While he tied up the dinghy, I worked on the motor. It took me about twenty minute to get it going, including taking some bits of fish bone out of the carburetor—and don't ask me how they got in there.

As we headed through the channel, out to sea, Nancy wrinkled her thin nose, announced, “Something smells.”

“Ray had the runs last night,” Eddie said, with a straight face. “But you're lucky—the copra bugs shut the door and your cabin wasn't touched.”

“Must you be so crude, Mr. Romanos!” Nancy said, going below.

Outside the reef a smart wind put the Hooker's port rail under and we sped away like a racing sloop as I cut the motor. Our decks were washed by spray and when I asked Eddie what the hell was the idea of straining the mast, he said, “I'm doing it on purpose—clean the decks.”

After a few hours the old lady came back on deck and started making lunch. She was humming to herself and seemed to have forgotten her huff. Eddie started telling her now he was going to break Buck's beak and then went into some bull about his ring career.

Matter of fact I was feeling pretty relaxed myself. The good clean breeze, the singing sound of the Hooker slicing the waves, the fact we had some copra, all made me simmer down and uncoil. It even struck me funny the way the Shanghai people must have watched us inching toward them, and start getting buckets of garbage ready.

Nancy made a simple lunch of roasted bread-fruit, crab legs, and opened a tin of sweet pears for dessert. As we were eating I told her, “Sorry I blew my top back there. We had an accident last night. The Shanghai dumped garbage on our deck, covered us both with slop while we were sleeping-drunk and—well—I was pretty hot about things.”

“It doesn't matter, Ray,” she said sweetly, maybe putting it on.

“Okay,” I said, deciding I could play the game too. Reaching up, Nancy pulled at my red hair. “Worry about such petty things and your hair will grey like mine.” I grinned. “I know, don't tell me—aita peapea.”