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.