GENEralities

I’ve always thought the French kepi is a ridiculous looking piece of head wear. I don’t know why. Perhaps it was forever spoiled for me as serious military head gear when I saw Peter Sellars, as Inspector Clouseau, wearing one with a pigeon sitting on it in one of his Pink Panther films. Yet, seeing one for the first time on a real French person’s head, I had to admit that it looked very crisp and smart. I liked it.

I was standing in one of the interminable arrival lines in Papeete International Airport with my family after the long flight from Los Angeles. It was two in the morning and the air felt wet and hot as it always does when you first emerge from your air conditioned airliner cocoon in the tropics. The combined effect of the flying, the heat, the humidity, the hour and the long wait for customs and immigration had reduced the children to a state of abrasive boredom. Ruth was having one of her silences.

“What kind of hat is that?” asked Trevor, the younger of the two children, sleepily. Like all boys his age, he was fascinated with uniforms.

“It’s a kepi . Don’t you know anything?” scoffed Ngaio with all the weight of the knowledge of her twelve years.

The kepi  was being worn by a crisply dressed Immigration Officer. He looked very efficient.

“Welcome to Tahiti,” he said as each weary passenger stepped up to the counter. “How long will you be staying here?”

I looked at Ruth. That was the question for us, too, really. How long? Should I stay, or should I go? Even exhausted and silent, she was lovely. There were lines, and shapes, and movements in her that were still dear. I remembered the breathless feeling of discovery when we first came together. She was exotic and wonderfully other in her femaleness.

“Enjoy your stay in Tahiti,” said the Immigration Officer in the kepi  to one of the passengers ahead of us.  The French Polynesian air was almost palpable; peppery and sweet with the smell of the cascades of bougainvillea that surrounded the arrivals hall.

“Hi. Where are you from?”

I turned toward the voice. Just behind us in the line up was a wiry, sandy haired man, fair skinned and lightly freckled, wearing a loose fitting white cotton shirt, cutoffs and , strangely in that steam bath of a place, what looked like black leather insulated winter boots. He appeared to be unaffected by the hour or the sultry environment.

“I’m Mike; from Connecticut; in the States,” he beamed. “How long are you folks going to be here?” He seemed unaware of our tension and my reserve as he chattered and we slowly progressed toward the man in the kepi .

Once through immigration we jockeyed for position around the luggage carousel, cleared customs and made our way out to the waiting taxis. Mike waved and smiled whenever he caught my eye and made the children laugh by making faces at them. Even Ruth responded to his antics.

* * *

I was up and outside early to escape the noise of the aged air conditioner in our room. The morning was clear, warm and, thanks to some early morning rain, as fresh as it ever is in Tahiti.

Mike was sitting on the small breakwater in front of the hotel looking out across the lagoon through a thirty five millimetre camera. He greeted me happily, delighted that we had ended up in the same hotel. His face looked freshly scrubbed and his eyes were clear, as if he had enjoyed a full, satisfying night’s sleep.

Together we gazed out across the water. It was mirror calm inside the reef but we could hear the deep rumble of the surf pounding on the coral half a mile out. Yachts of pristine white floated motionless as if held in place by their liquid reflections in the lagoon. Beside us an outrigger dugout canoe sat, beached, looking forlorn in its futile coat of peeling and flaking dark blue paint. The beach was hardly that; a few feet of dark sand cluttered with shards of coral, rocks and plastic Javex containers. Mike told me about his camera.

“All I have to do is point it and push the button. It’s got automatic everything.” He showed me the excellences of it. “Talked it over with the guys before I bought it. Charlie Boyer’s got a cousin who takes pictures for a living — knows all kinds of things about cameras.” Charlie Boyer (pronounced “Boyer” not “Boyay”) was one of the circle of “guys” who, along with Mike, met at the cafe for coffee every morning back in Connecticut. Charlie’s cousin photographed houses for a real estate office and cars for the local auto trader magazine. Mike went on to describe the small town ritual of those meetings. It made me think of Norman Rockwell prints, slow speech and long comfortable silences. I had the impression that for Mike the joy of photography was more the process of arriving at a consensus with the “guys” on which camera to buy, than actually owning and using one.  I also realized, with an uncomfortable jolt, that it was a long time since Ruth and I had enjoyed the process leading up to buying something like Mike’s camera. I remembered the closeness and delighted sense of anticipation with which we pored over catalogues and talked of the relative merits of this item and that in the early years of our marriage.

“Well, better get on my way. Time for my walk. It’ll be time for breakfast soon. Got into the habit of walking as a postie,” he said. “Still got my postie boots. Postal Service issue, y’know. I didn’t wear them out fast enough to get to the new ones they kept giving me so I’ve got two pairs waiting at home. Brand new. Got four shirts, too.” He strode off along the beach, a wiry figure with his shirt tail waving over faded cutoffs and a pair of official U.S. Postal Service postman’s boots.

* * *

Breakfast in Tahiti was a special tropical mixture of things French and things Polynesian. Big fresh croissants with slices of fresh papaya and strong black coffee served by graceful, bare footed women with shy smiles. The restaurant was open to the breeze. Tables were set on terraces rising from a clear, spring fed pond in which fish swam lazily.

The tension of the long flight and wait in the airport arrival hall had faded with our few hours of sleep. The children were noisily interested in all the things they were experiencing. Ruth was more communicative than the night before but there was none of the transformation I had half hoped would take place just by our being in such exotic surroundings.
“This bun’s got chocolate in it. Yuck!”

“Ngaio! Not so loud. Yes, it does have chocolate in it. Isn’t that interesting,” Ruth said, barely moving her lips; the typical delivery of all parents having to reprimand errant children in quiet public places. “And it’s a croissant, not a bun. This is French Polynesia.”

“There’s no Cheez Whiz, either.” Ngaio collapsed into a preteen slouch, petulant almost woman’s lips set tightly.

I was uncomfortably reminded of Ruth’s version of that look. But as I became aware of the thought Ruth glanced at me over the dark island coffee and gave me one of her private smiles at Ngaio’s North American disgust. It seemed that that’s all there was these days. Tiny glimmers of the warmth we used to send each other in a barrage of private signals whenever we were together.

“Do they have Cheez Whiz in New Zealand?” Ngaio glared at us across the abandoned croissant.

Our trip home to New Zealand was to reestablish contact with our families after ten years away in Canada and to see if we still belonged there. The possibility of returning to live was often in our minds. Underlying this was the unexpressed need to go back to our beginnings as a couple to see if we belonged together anymore.

“I’ll eat your bun.” Trevor wiped chocolate from his lips with the back of his hand as he eyed the chocolate croissant.

“Trevor! It’s a croissant!” Ruth hissed as she leaned elaborately across the table in front of the children to screen their behaviour form the other guests.

Trevor slipped the offending croissant on to his plate under the baleful scrutiny of his older sister. They were a striking pair with their dark beauty so like their mother’s. But it was as if Ruth’s personality was split between them. Trevor, calm and accepting as she was when content and placid; Ngaio, mercurial and temperamental as she was when aroused. But neither child seemed to possess the balancing other half of the  personality.
Mike came in from his walk just as we were finishing our breakfast. “I’ll have coffee, ham and eggs over easy . . . you know, you cook them a while and then you sorta flip them.” The waitress smiled as he mimed his instructions. He grinned and winked at the children as the waitress padded off to the kitchen.

Trevor returned the smile evenly through his plundered croissant. Ngaio switched in an elfin flash, from pout to sparkling grin. Ruth smiled and sipped her coffee politely.

* * *

Later, at the bottom of the stairs leading to our room, Ruth and I discovered Mike dancing a sort of horn pipe to the accompaniment of one of those tine two inch harmonicas. He was entertaining a group of children, among them Ngaio and Trevor. They were all enthralled. Mike’s elbows and knees pumped briskly as he leaped and shuffled and cavorted. He was called the Dancing Postie back in Connecticut, he said.

We were on our way to Venus Point for the afternoon. The children had asked us to go to a beach with surf, the waveless lagoon being a big disappointment for them.

“Mind if I come along?” Mike asked. “Went into town this morning. You just have too wave down one them Le Trucks right outside the hotel. You pay when you get off. I just gave the driver all my change and he took what I owed and gave the rest back. It was great!”

* * *

So off we went to Papeete with Mike. He waved Le Truck down and ushered us aboard. The vehicle turned out to be the staple mode of public transportation for the island. It was a small truck with a gaily coloured, much decorated passenger compartment perched on the back. Inside there were simple wooden benches down the centre and on each side. Windows of perspex could be lowered into the walls to let in the breeze. Mike greeted everyone loudly. The Tahitian passengers smiled as we climbed awkwardly up the wooden steps at the back. Once aboard and under way the noise of the truck and the high volume reggae coming through the speakers just above our heads made conversation impossible.
Ruth sat opposite Mike and I, Trevor and Ngaio on either side of her. Trevor’s eyes glazed over with fatigue as soon as the truck got up to speed. I watched them, heads and torsos swaying in unison, legs braced on the bare plywood floor, as the truck jolted along. Every now and then they and the other passengers were in sync with the reggae blaring over the noise of the truck. Mike’s head began to nod in sympathetic cadence as he started to doze beside me. I felt as if I was the only one not affected by the music — as if I was out of time and out of tune.

Ruth’s having chosen to sit at a distance was typical of the way things had developed with us — a symptom of the dull malaise in our marriage. We no longer moved together as if synchronized by our relationship. We had been so attuned for so many years; perfectly matched everyone said, we never missed a beat. Then came the discordant notes, the dissonances, the disappointments, the withdrawals, the boredom. I found myself envying Mike; his freedom and his lack of encumbrances now he was alone.

There was a yell from the cab. A large tattooed arm waved widely from the driver’s window. A young woman walking along the side of the road smiled shyly in reply but covered her mouth with one hand as she waved back with the other.

In Papeete, Mike showed us where to alight and we set off in search of the market, on the other side of which, we were told, would be found another Le Truck for Venus Point. The market was packed with people and produce, mountains of green watermelons and racks hung heavy with freshly caught fish for sale.

“Ah . . . ou est le truck pour Venus Point?”

Knowing that an answer in French would be useless by the halting way in which the question was delivered, those asked simply smiled and pointed in the direction we should go.

* * *

The sand at Venus Point is black. Not at all like the gleaming white sanded scenes in the tourist brochures. But the view from the beach and its setting made the colour of the sand immaterial. Inland, the multi textured green of the vegetation enveloping the peaks was broken here and there on the steep valley walls by the spectacular thin veil of a high waterfall. Beyond the surf on the horizon sat the island of Moorea, peaks canopied by clouds.

“Look at the waves!” hooted Trevor. He and Ngaio struggled out of their clothes and headed for the water as Ruth and I spread our towels and paraphernalia to define our patch of sand — our territory for the afternoon. We settled to drink in the sights and smells.

Mike chatted to the European mothers who lay in the sun watching their children as they played in the surf. The women were naked from the waist up but I knew Mike would be telling them about Connecticut and his postie boots as if he passed the time with young, bare breasted women every day. I watched him stride between young matrons, waving in greeting and farewell, shirt fluttering in the trade wind breeze.

* * *

Dinner had a dreamlike quality that evening; a result of the late night arrival from Los Angeles and the busy day of heat and sights and colour. The restaurant looked as if it was suspended in the warm tropical evening air, tethered by the table top candle fingers of orange light across the pond. The beautiful waitresses with frangipane flowers in their dark hair glided to and fro in the glow of the many flames.

Mike played his tiny harmonica for the native entertainers. They were joined in enthusiastic applause by the diners. Everyone was delighted. It seemed perfectly natural that he should entertain us. Mike returned to our table flushed with excitement and pleasure.

* * *

Once the meal was eaten the mood subsided. The brown skinned men with guitars and the ukulele strummed and sang on. We sat washed by the sound of their harmonies, by the gentle, insistent rhythms of fingers on the strings. Even Ngaio and Trevor were quiet. I was half mesmerized by the light playing on the polished surfaces of the instruments and by the gleam of white teeth behind the smiles in the dimness of the tiny stage.

I looked at Ruth and remembered our Le Truck driver’s admiring shout to the girl on the side of the road that morning. I had approached Ruth with the same bravado when we first met. There had been more madness then and more whimsy; like Mike with his mouth organ, his dancing and his boots.

“Evy didn’t like me playing the mouth organ and dancing and that,” Mike said.

“Evy?” said Ruth.

“My ex.”

“What happened?”

I glanced quickly at Mike, expecting annoyance or embarrassment. He shrugged and turned the little harmonica over in his hands.

“I dunno. We had a lot of fun, me and her. But as time went by the things she saw in me weren’t the things she wanted to see I guess. She wanted somebody solid, steadier than me, not a postie with the mouth organ and all. And I was always stopping and gabbing with folks on my route. One day I guess she decided that I was talking to everybody but her.” He shrugged again. “And that’s about it.” He looked at us soberly for a moment before slipping the harmonica into his shirt pocket and rising.

Ruth watched Mike as he passed through the pools of light under the palm trees on his way to his room. “It’s funny, isn’t it,” she said quietly, “how two different marriages can come unstuck for reasons that are completely opposite: two women and two men with totally different, even opposite, problems but the result is the same.”

“Two marriages?” I said. She contined to stare out across the pond to where Mike had been swallowed by the tropical darkness. Trevor murmered quietly as, slumped asleep in his chair, he began to sag to one side. Ruth turned gently eased him upright again. Her wordless answer to my question came in the tiny upward curve of an eye brow and a matching tilt of her head to one side.

“Dad, how come you don’t play the mouth organ?” asked Ngaio sleepily.

Suddenly I felt it: something broken; a keen, stabbing sense of loss and sadness as I looked out across the water to the place where we had just watched Mike, a solitary straw hatted figure, open shirt flapping in the night breeze as he strode, postman like, into the last and deepest shadow cast by the black palms.

* * *

Next morning Ruth went home. She had decided that that was where she needed to be to think about whether or not to choose me and the marriage again. My choice also had to made at home so I decided to carry on New Zealand. Ngaio and Trevor were subdued and confused by the change in plans, but still wanted to see their New Zealand grandparents.

Ngaio, Trevor and I saw her off. My last impression of her before she disappeared was of her smile to the customs officer wearing the kepi as he stamped her passport and waved her on. 

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