Ed Lacy - South Pacific Affair
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.”
