South Pacific Affair

Chapter IV

Ruita was laying atop the cabin, sleeping. She was wearing shorts and a halter made of red pareu cloth. She had a pink flower in her hair, over her left ear—which could mean, according to the island custom, she was looking for a sweetheart; or in Ruita's case that she merely felt like wearing a flower over her left ear.

Eddie was at the wheel and Nancy Adams was sitting beside him, both of them chattering about rain in general. I was watching the pitching horizon, the clouds, anything to keep my eyes off Ruita.

Eddie said, “I have some new shampoo I bought off the Chinaman in PellaPella. Maybe I try it now when it rains, although I have heard that to wash your hair makes for baldness. I like rain.”

Mrs. Adams said, “But only when there is high ground handy. Ever in a tidal wave, Eddie?”

“Been in a couple of small hurricanes but no tidal wave.”

“I was in a big one. It was the hurricane of nineteen— What was that year? Nineteen and—?”

Ruita wasn't asleep; she must have been listening, for she called out loudly against the wind, “The year doesn't matter, Mama.” I noticed whenever the old woman got this blank look on her face, when her memory tripped her, Ruita would step in and ease her over the rough spots. I was sure she knew all about her mother's syphilis.

“Well,” Nancy went on—bending Eddie's tin ear, “I'd say it was about 1937. We were on Forliga, the very atoll we're headed for now. It had rained hard for several days in a row...”

I was too restless to listen to tidal wave stories. I went forward, sat beside Ruita. “What about you, Ray, how do you stand with rain?” she asked, watching me through half-closed almond-shaped eyes. She looked all the adjectives—from exotic to sensuous.

“Never thought about it. Since I've been in the islands I like rain because it means a bath. Back home it merely meant rubbers, cold, and taxi cabs.”

“I love to watch the rain clouds building up; a dull angry grey, so threatening and clumsy—and often such a big empty bluff'.”

She had one arm near my leg and I touched her fingers, told her, “Now that we've covered the weather, let's get down to something interesting. You have lovely hands, long strong fingers.”

“Have I, Ray?” she said in an almost listless voice. “Sometimes I paint my nails, as in the fashion magazines. That's such a vain idea, a peacock idea. But I think on my hands it does look good because of the contrast, the red and my brown skin. However, on a popaa woman with pasty pale skin, I imagine it must look rather gaudy.”

“That's like with the rain—hard to say,” I said, not sure if she was needling me or not. I wasn't sure of anything with Ruita.

When we had reach Numaga I was wondering what sort of reception she would give me, what I would say to her when we were alone. But we weren't alone—no sooner had we raced over the reef and dropped anchor when Ruita came out in a canoe, told Nancy her half-brother was being married on the Forliga atoll, and there was to be a big party. They had sent word that they were holding off the ceremony till Nancy and Ruita could attend. Mrs. Adams said they certainly had to go to the wedding, so we refilled our water tanks and took on food while waiting for the next high tide, then sailed out with Ruita aboard.

Ruita's greeting to me had been both warm and merely friendly. I felt sure she was wearing the flower over her left ear for me, and when we shook hands her hand had been warm and demanding in mine. Yet all she had said was, “I am glad to see you again, Mr. Jundson,” which could have been the truth or politeness.

I had a little speech ready in the back of my mind, something about how sorry I was for what had happened on the beach the last time, and was glad I never had a chance to say it. For even now, as I sat beside her, my eyes eating her up, I still had a vague feeling this wasn't for me; I would only wreck the both of us. As that old goat Stewart had said, maybe I wasn't ready for the paradise “rut” although what the hell I was ready for I didn't know.

The rain came down swiftly, a sudden warm driving sheet of water. Ruita jumped up and ran for the cabin. She came out in a moment with a blouse of her mother's, a red pareu cloth, some panties plus two cakes of soap. She gave a cake to the old lady as Eddie shouted, “Take the wheel, Nancy. I'll go first and try out that shampoo.”

I grabbed the wheel and Eddie jumped down into the cabin, came out as Ruita and Nancy stripped and thoroughly soaped themselves in the fresh water. Eddie slipped off his shorts and started whipping up a lather on his head. He seemed to be having a big time.

Meanwhile Ruita washed her face and her breasts and her hips; then her clothes, using one of her slender thighs as a washing board.

“Civilized” people regard sex as a sin—whether they admit it on the couch or not—and nudity becomes sex and thus wanton and sordid. The islanders look upon nude bathing, or washing in the rain, as something very convenient and practical. I am sure they weren't giving it a second thought, but not having lost all of my “civilization,” I was gaping at Ruita's brown nakedness like a schoolboy at a keyhole.

While Ruita and her mother hung their clothes on the rigging—for the sun that would be out in a few minutes— Eddie came back and hung his shorts on the boom, said the shampoo was wonderful, and to take my bath. I shook my head—not out of false modesty, but to save myself a lot of embarrassment.

Mrs. Adams said, as the sun began streaking through the grey rain clouds, “Have the towels ready, Louise. More people get colds because they wait for the sun to dry them than—”

I said, “I'll get the towels.”

“Hurry,” Nancy said, running a hand over her sagging flat breasts. “Too much wind.”

Down in the cabin I took three towels, shook them free of roaches, then stood on the steps and tossed a towel at Eddie, handed another to Mrs. Adams, and stepped back into the cabin.

Ruita called me and I didn't move. I heard her feet at the top of the cabin steps, then she stood before me, her skin a soft wet golden brown. “You forgot my towel, Ray.”

“I didn't forget.” I held out the towel.

“What?” she asked, coming nearer, and I realized I was talking in a whisper.

She reached for the towel and I pulled it back. “Let me dry you?”

“Ray...”

“Please,” I said and ran the towel over her shoulders, gently dried and blotted every inch of her body. Neither of us looked at the other, the hot stillness of the cabin a protecting blanket about us.

When I finished I saw sweat running down her sides and even through the rough towel I could feel the rapid beat of her heart. Her eyes were closed and for a moment I stood and stared at her naked beauty. Then I said the thing which was deepest in my heart. “Dearest, forgive me for not... on the beach... that time.”

She said, “Ray,” like a tiny sigh and when she opened her eyes they were warm and soft. Taking one end of the towel, she started to dry my shoulders. When I took her in my arms, kissed her, her arms circled my back and pressed me to her with such wonderful strength.

I awoke to find her still sleeping at my side. I let my hands explore the firm softness of her body. I kissed her full lips and she moved in her sleep; her hands caressed my body and her eyes actually opened like two dark pools of softness. The sunlight pouring in through two of the portholes spotlighted the blackness of her hair, the strong curve of her throat and shoulders. She placed both my hands on her breasts and we kissed as fiercely as possible, our lips pressed together tightly.

When I awoke the second time, she was propped up on one elbow, smiling down at me. We had a light blanket over us and the cabin was almost dark. There was a slight buzzing sound in the cabin and glancing through a porthole I saw a star on the pale horizon.

I sat up, brushing against her, said stupidly, “It's late!”

“Late? For what? For this?” And she flung herself on top of me, every part of her, lips, hands, legs, and body, eager and demanding. This time we didn't go back to sleep, held each other, full of a wild peace. Then I whispered, “I must get up—relieve Eddie. It's way past his watch.”

“I suppose you must. And we must eat. Oh darling, I'm so terribly hungry, wonderfully empty and tired.”

I kissed her lightly, then sat up and pulled out one of the drawers below the bunk, got a pair of pants and a sweater. As I jumped out of the bunk and dressed, I noticed Nancy Adams on the other bunk, snoring. I stood there, like an idiot, as Ruita said, “Ray, get me some clothes, I'm—”

“Shhh!” I said, pointing to the old woman.

“Oh, Mama sleeps soundly. Hand me that bag by Mama's bunk, please.”

I gave her the bag, put on my sweater, and stepped up on the deck. It was a clear night, the half-moon out bright and clean. The clothes had been removed from the rigging. Eddie was sitting at the wheel, wearing a sweatshirt and a pair of my old army pants. He was smoking a stinking cigar. When he saw me he said casually, “There's some warm tea in the box, breadfruit, and tinned beef.” He motioned toward the ten-gallon tin inside of which a pot of tea was resting on the slow burning oil stove.

“It's been six, seven hours, way past my watch. Why didn't you call me?”

He glanced at me as if I had said something too stupid to call for an answer. And I had. I took the wheel and he said, “Nice wind. Keep her headed toward that big star ahead of us.” He flexed his muscles for a moment, waved his arms about like a pitcher warming up, then he ran a hand through his thick black hair, said, “That damn shampoo sure makes the hair smooth and soft. Feel.”

He bent his head toward me. I pushed it away and he laughed, said, “I forgot, you have felt of all the soft hair you want, for now.” He grabbed a banana from the food basket next to the stove, went forward and stretched out on his mat atop the cabin.

Ruita came up and sat beside me. She wore slacks and a white turtleneck sweater. When I squeezed her hand and asked if she was cold, she smiled at me, said, “I'll never be really cold again. But I'm hungry.” And I thought if Milly had said she'd never be cold again, I would have told her to stop the soap opera cracks, yet from Ruita it seemed natural and true.

We drank lukewarm tea and then tore through the canned beef and doughy breadfruit. We drank nuts, ate bananas and some over-ripe mangos till we were too stuffed to move.

After awhile she yawned, then reached over and kissed me, asking, “When does Eddie take over so we can go back to sleep?”

“You'll have to sleep alone tonight. Having your mother makes me nervous.”

Ruita looked at me with surprise. “But what has Mama to do with it?”

“I like to love you in private.”

“Fine, then we shall sleep on deck.”

“Eddie will be at the wheel.”

“Eddie has certainly seen people make love so many times, it means nothing to him.”

“I know, but it means something to me.”

“Ray, I want to sleep with you.”

“I want to be with you, but not this way. It would spoil it—for both of us.”

“You and your silly popaa conventions. In the islands love-making is no more hidden than eating. Whole families live in one hut and babies see love-making from the time they are able to look. We are enjoying ourselves, why should not Mama sleep happily near our enjoyment?” She was so upset she said most of this in French.

“Honey, I'm not arguing with you. The point is, it makes me uneasy having people around. Also, I'm pooped.”

She giggled. “Po-oo-oped. That is a funny sounding word. I am full of a delicious weariness myself, but still... The popaa mind is hupe hupe.”

This meant “very ugly” in Tahitian. “Why do you have to keep raising this popaa stuff like a little wall between us?”

“There will never be a wall between us,” she said, kissing my ear. “You are the one who raises the crazy popaa idea —you half-popaa. Tell me, was your great-grandmother, the Indian, beautiful?”

I wanted to tell her that my great-grandmother came from Latvia and I doubted if they had Indians there, but I knew how much Eddie's story had impressed her—and Eddie. I said, “Well, I wouldn't know.”

“Were they ashamed of her?” she asked, pulling a little away from me.

I put her face against mine again. “Look, I wasn't around then. You really hate whites, don't you?” I said, not sure what I was saying, or wanted to say.

Ruita nodded, her soft cheek moving against my beard. “Yes, I dislike them all. It's easiest that way. Whites are so needlessly cruel and arrogant. They come here, to a world of brown people, and we do not look down upon them because of their skin. In Sydney, when one of the teachers found I was an islander she asked me, 'Have you ever been to the Marquesas Islands where the great Gauguin lived?' There was a happy and full life in the Marquesas—When popaas were freezing their derrieres in European caves, ignorant of fire. Yet to this smug woman the islands only meant a Frenchman who contributed a few more syphilis germs to the death of people.”

I wondered again if she knew of Nancy's sickness as I said, “But he was a great artist.”

“Of course, but his art was not as great or as beautiful as the life the Marquesas people knew!”

“But I—and Nancy—we are popaas? Where does that leave us, in your thinking?”

“No you are not popaas, you are humans, like the islanders. Ray, I love you so much. I hope soon we make a baby ... a pretty aiu.”

“Maybe,” I said, frightened cold at the idea.

“A little girl with my brown skin and your red hair, perhaps I shall let her even have your silly straight nose. And we will put drops of lime juice in her eyes when she is born, then feed her on coconut milk, and my milk. And fried shark's liver to give her vitamins so she will grow up tall and strong, like us, like all island people. Your American magazines, the fuss they make over these vitamins—-about which we here have known for hundreds of years. Ray, we must make lots of babies. The islands are wonderful places for children.”

“Guess they are,” I said, cautiously.

“You guess?” Ruita repeated, nibbling at my cheek. “They are! Children are loved here. A child can move in with any family and be raised with love and care.”

It was true. If a girl had a baby “out of wedlock,” to use our cruel popaa phrase, the family next door would be only too glad to take it, no matter how many children of their own they had. In a place where there is plenty of food for the taking, “another mouth to feed” is hardly a problem. The child would be raised as the family's, even though the real mother might spend all her life less than two hundred yards away.

At the moment children were farthest from my mind, I didn't even want to think about not having them. Ruita and I held each other close; I holding the wheel with one hand or sometimes with my knees. The Hooker was sailing smoothly, sliding a little off-course now and then—but our course wasn't that exact. When Eddie took over my watch he usually took a long look at the sun or the stars, and immediately corrected the wheel with his crystal ball navigation.

Ruita slept for awhile in this cramped position, then she got up and rubbed her legs, told me, “I go below now. Sure you will not join me?”

“Yeah, I'm sure, and you know why. I'll sleep out here. Look, do me a favor and put some water on to boil.”

“You want tea?” she asked, starting for our tin “galley.”

“I'm going to shave.”

She laughed, the sound soft and full against the slapping sound of the waves cutting across our bow. “No, Ray, don't shave. I like that rough stubble on your face, even when it hurts me. Also the way you are a nice brown all over, except around your middle, where you are white as a shark's belly. In Forliga we shall bathe in the sun together and then you will be brown all over like me. Good night, my Ray.”

She gave me a quick kiss and went to her bunk below. I sat at the wheel, hearing the sound of the waves and staring at the stars, listening to the faint wind... and not seeing or hearing a damn thing. I was in a numbed state of contentment, not trying to think of anything ... yet a number of vague, sly, thoughts were strolling through the back of my mind. Like: even if I ran out on Ruita later, tonight was worth it, for both of us, worth my being a rat. Or: I was suddenly amused by Nancy Adams being within a few feet from where I was sleeping with her daughter.

Eddie was standing in front of me, yawning and stretching. He glanced at the moon, said, “Must be after midnight. Why didn't you wake me?”

“No rush. How soon will we start closing in on the atolls?”

“Early in the morning. Where's Ruita?”

“Below.”

“You go to her. I can hold the wheel till morning and then the old woman can handle the wheel for awhile.”

“I'm bedding down on the deck.”

“Alone?” I nodded.

“Hey, have a fight so soon?”

“Nope,” I said, walking toward the cabin roof. I heard Eddie mutter, “Jeez, you mean she has some of them wacky popaa ideas in her, too?”

I was full of deep inner exhaustion you can only get from one thing, and I slept as soon as I stretched out. I awoke to see Ruita sitting beside me, sitting so her body shaded the morning sun from my eyes. She was wearing a loose white blouse and red shorts, and against the sun I studied the perfect silhouette of her breasts. She had made a flower out of palm leaves and was wearing it over her right ear—she had a sweetheart.

As I sat up she turned and smiled, said, “Good morning, darling.”

“Hello, honey.”

We kissed and there was an exciting warm smell to her. For a moment she drove me crazy by flicking her tongue in my ear. I jumped to my feet, pulling her up, both of us grinning. On the port horizon we were passing a reef, and on the starboard side a school of porpoises were convoying the Hooker, gliding in and out of the water some thirty feet from us. Nancy was at the wheel with Eddie, both of them watching the big fish.

Ruita tossed a pail over the side and came up with it full of water, said, “For your bath.” I stripped to my shorts and emptied the pail of cool salt water over my head. She went down into the cabin and returned with another pair, helped me take my wet ones off, asked if I was hungry as I stood naked, waiting for the wind to dry me off. She was very casual and I was embarrassed because I was embarrassed. I suddenly reached over, kissed her, said I was starved. She brought me a drinking nut, a fried flying fish soaked in lime juice, and the last of our bananas.

I was dry and put on my shorts, went back to the wheel where Nancy was playing checkers with Eddie. The old woman gave her daughter a little hug and slipped me a big smile. There was something too pat about Nancy's approach to me—as though she had me tight in the son-in-law bag— which annoyed me.

Eddie told me to steer at right angles to a group of clouds on the horizon and I checked this on the compass, to find something I could call a course.

Eddie and Mrs. Adams went on with their checker game. Each square on the worn board had a hole and each checker a nail driven through it—so it would stay put in the wind. I wasn't much of a checker fan, but sometimes Eddie and I would go on a spree, play for several days, and then not use the board for months. The same with the torn deck of cards we had.

Ruita said she wanted to get a book out of her bag, stopping on the lower cabin steps—out of sight of the others —to blow a kiss at me.

A breeze came up and for awhile everything was quiet, except for the washing sound the Hooker made whenever she dipped into a wave trough. Mrs. Adams beat Eddie, as usual, then went over and sat by Ruita, neither of them speaking. Ruita was deep in her book but the old woman stared at me, weighing me with her eyes; evidently she found it all pleasing to her. I felt like a butterfly pinned under a glass and for a wild moment wondered if Ruita wasn't in on the “plot” too— although that didn't make any sense, because if she merely wanted a man or a husband she could have her pick.

Eddie pointed up at several black frigate birds wheeling overhead, said, “We must be near the bigger atolls. Ugly birds.”

“Young ones make good eating,” Nancy said. “Taste like chicken. Did you know these atolls were first sighted by a Portuguese explorer named...” The blank look swept over her old face. Ruita said quickly, “Momma, you sound as if there weren't people living on the Tuamotus until Quiros saw them.”

“Louise, you know I didn't mean it that way.” Nancy turned to me. “Do you like the atolls, Ray?”

“Guess so. And birds.” I nodded at the frigate birds soaring in the blue sky. “Isn't it something—the feeling of freedom they give? Free to go anyplace they wish?” It was pretty cornball, but the old lady got it; her eyes turned very solemn.