He was at home, unshaved, dressed in old clothes and in his customary bedroom slippers. He had apparently been drinking rather heavily the night before, for his eyes were not focusing sharply and it took him some moments to realize who I was. When he did, he asked: ‘What is it, Michener?’ and when I complained about how my cable had been mishandled by Reri’s friends and warned him for the first time that things would have to be changed in Papeete, he produced a cable of his own, which informed him that his duties in Tahiti were being terminated and that he was being transferred to a post in Australia. I asked him somewhat acidly if Reri and her friends had decoded that one too, and he replied: ‘They decode them all. Nothing important ever comes this way,’ and since he was now being moved out of Tahiti, I saw no reason to file any report on his highly personal interpretations of government duty.
I left Papeete on the Hiro, but it was a lonely trip north, for neither Lew Hirshon nor Francis Sanford sailed with me, and as the old ship edged its way out of the lovely harbor, with the mountains of Moorea in the distance, I thought how painfully anticlimactic my trip to Tahiti had been. I began to form towering visions of how it ought to have been, if one were writing a book about it. The island would have been more beautiful, the grubby little interisland boats along the quay luxurious yachts. Ratchett Kimbrell would have been a distinguished diplomat, a former American ambassador who looked like Lewis Stone on a top-secret mission on which the fate of America in the Pacific depended, Reri fifteen years younger and the star not only of Tabu but also of Mutiny on the Bounty; she would also have been a Japanese spy, although how that could be I hadn’t quite worked out. Lieutenant Commander McClintock would have been even better-looking than he was, more like Clark Gable, and he would have been an American operative, a real do-or-die type, who had been sent there disguised as a foppish officer from Hawaii, but was actually a hero of the deadly Pacific war with hidden medals he had won in his aerial battles with Zeros, six of which he had shot down. And I would have been the disciplined observer with the golden pen of a Somerset Maugham or the silvery resonance of a Joseph Conrad.
What a romance I might have fashioned, with a proper literary climax: James Norman Hall and I take a secret flight north to rescue the dying Robert Dean Frisbie, whom we would find writing the final perfect pages of his last novel, which would ensure his immortality.
My sojourn in Tahiti might have happened the way I wished it had, and it ought to have, but it didn’t.
If Bora Bora from the air presented concentric circles with a majestic dead volcano in the center, Pukapuka showed only a circular lagoon completely empty but subtended by one of the most miserable reefs in the Pacific. At places only a few yards wide and a few feet above sea level, the land of the island turned endlessly until it completed the circle, providing here and there widened-out areas where clusters of mean huts clung perilously to what solid land there was. It was a place of utter loneliness, the end of the world, and all who saw it for the first time in those years had the same thought: Come a major hurricane, such as the one in the movie, this place is a goner.
As Hall had told me, there were two Pukapukas in the vicinity of Tahiti, one well to the northeast, the other somewhat farther to the northwest. We were headed for the latter, and when we dropped low over the ocean to line up for the narrow runway, it seemed as if there was no land available, only the dark ocean to the south, gray lagoon to the north. Then suddenly and with a touch of mystery the coral reef loomed up and we were throwing dust.
There was no airport building. Since we were in a hurry, we dropped the ramp quickly and ran down the metal stairs. There, standing with no shade to protect him, stood Frisbie, whose writings about the Pacific were some of the finest on the subject. He seemed old and frail. A man with an immense lantern jaw, as much of it as could be seen under his greasy pandanus hat, he wore torn clothes that had not been mended in years and a pair of soiled sneakers. What a pitiful contrast he was to James Norman Hall, whom I would meet later, a man of comparable talent but infinitely greater discipline. Was this the end of the writer, to be dying alone and ill and penniless on a remote atoll? It was fearful to see, this wreck of a man once great with promise, the ultimate beachcomber.
And then my attention was diverted from the mournful figure of Frisbie to one of the most touching tableaux I would ever see. To the airplane to bid their father farewell had come four of the Frisbie children, all clean and bright-faced and smiling. The oldest daughter, Johnnie, about fourteen, had risen early, we learned, and had scrubbed her brother and two sisters, dressing them in their best so that they would look proper when they went to say good-bye for what might be the last time. The boy was a lively lad, quite handsome, with mixed Caucasian-Polynesian features, while the other two sisters, twelve and ten, in island smocks and with flowers in their hair, could have been characters in an island fairy tale: They were handsome girls—Johnnie sober and responsible, Elaine round-faced and rowdy, Nga already a great beauty with luminous eyes and finely formed facial bones, the kind that most women long for.
If their father represented the prototypical fate of the beachcomber, his four children symbolized the splendid results of the Caucasian-Polynesian mix, as if to justify the great adventure of white men coming into the tropics. The juxtaposition was so painful that I had to look away as waves of emotion swept over me. In a few minutes we were going to load Frisbie onto our plane and whisk him away to a hospital in Samoa while his four children, only one even in her teens, stood bravely on the edge of the runway to watch him depart. How many children does one know, their mother dead, who are abandoned in such a predicament? How many children could survive on such a bleak atoll?
Deeply moved, I collected a handful of bills from our crew, and after we had taken aboard their father on a kind of stretcher, I ran down the steps and gave the oldest girl the money. Embracing her, I whispered: ‘We’ll save your father and we’ll come back to rescue you,’ and we were off, but as long as Pukapuka remained in sight I stared down to see those children standing on the coral strand.
I cannot leave them there, not even in memory. Some years later, when I was working in Hawaii, I received a cryptic letter from Rarotonga, capital of the Cook Islands. It came from a couple I did not know, but they must have been a wonderful pair, for they wrote:
We cannot guess by what terrible routes they reached here, but the three daughters of Robert Dean Frisbie are in Rarotonga. Their father died, as one might have expected, from a rusty hypodermic and no one knows what to do with the girls. We have learned that American law requires them to get onto American soil within the next two weeks if they hope to establish their claims to citizenship. Otherwise they must remain Polynesian islanders the rest of their lives.
We have collected enough money to ship them by air to Honolulu in time to save them. For the love of God, do something to help these wonderful children.
In the last few days of their eligibility, by utilizing the airplane tickets the good samaritans in Rarotonga had supplied, Johnnie, Elaine and Nga slipped into the United States, where we found homes for them. Lovely girls and well trained by their father, they fitted easily into American schools and later into American life. Johnnie published a book about her growing up and married Carl Hebenstreit, a television producer. Elaine married Don Over, a millionaire magazine publisher. And cool beautiful Nga went to Hollywood, where she married Adam West, star of the television series Batman. I saw them often, and thought of them as the magical fruit of the beachcomber syndrome. Even now I have a vision of them as they stood together on the coral strand of that isolated atoll. Had they not been the kind of children who would rise early on that morning and dress in their best to greet us and courageously bid their dying father farewell they would never have made it to the States. The boy had elected not to join them; he wanted to become a jockey in New Zealand, which he did.
During the flight from Pukapuka to the U.S. naval hospital in American Samoa I tended Frisbie, holding his head occ
asionally in my lap, and in moments when he felt strong enough to talk he told me of how he had reached the South Seas and of how he had wandered among the little islands, always preferring them to the big ones, and of how he had met his island wife. I think he said that he had lived on both the Pukapukas, but that his preference had been for the one on which I had found him. He had for a brief spell been an agent for the famous Burns Philp line of island stores, a task at which he said he was not very good, and he chuckled when he recalled his inept storekeeping. It was clear to me that his vital energies were failing and I hoped we could get him to the hospital while he was still conscious.
As soon as I entertained that painful thought I realized that what really bothered me was a much more selfish concern: I hoped he did not die on the airplane because if he did it would be a considerable inconvenience to us—it was imperative that we press on to my duties in Fiji, whatever they turned out to be.
When we had him in the Navy ambulance I told the doctor in charge: ‘Remind the authorities that he left four kids behind on Pukapuka,’ but the doctor replied, quite properly: ‘Let’s do first things first. Let’s see if we can keep him alive.’ I went to the rear door of the ambulance, and, using his Polynesian name, said to him: ‘Ropati, the doctors are quite hopeful, and I’ll start things moving to rescue your kids when I get back to Noumea.’ And I saw Frisbie no more.
When I arrived late that afternoon in Fiji and went to the G.P.H. in Suva, I found the hotel abuzz with gossip of one sort or another, but two substantiated facts stood out: Bishop Dawson had flown in from his convocation in Samoa and seemed to be in charge of urgent discussions on some crisis, no doubt the one for which I had been recalled; and the New Zealand girl, Laura Henslow, was still in charge of the registration desk, although somewhat flustered to see me when I stopped to sign her ledger. ‘Have you heard?’ she asked as I handed back the pen, and I replied: ‘Nobody tells me anything.’ Visibly wincing, she said: ‘This time there’s a lot to tell.’
In Fiji in those days the U.S. Navy maintained a one-man liaison office and I telephoned the officer in charge, asking him to have dinner with me in my hotel, and shortly he was sitting at my regular table while the barefoot and beturbaned Indian waiter who served me so well hovered over us. It was under his care that I learned to eat lamb curry, a dish of which I became excessively fond, especially when it was accompanied by Major Grey’s chutney, a remarkable concoction for which the major, whoever he was, deserved full marks.
‘What’s happening?’ I asked, placing before my guest the cable I had received in Tahiti; he did not even look at it, for Noumea had sent him a copy. Pushing it back, he said: ‘All hell’s broken loose, but maybe that isn’t the phrase to use, because it’s a Church matter.’
‘Involving what?’
Jerking his right thumb back over his shoulder toward the direction of the reception desk, he said softly: ‘The New Zealand girl. The young priest we just ordained, he’s fallen in love with her.’
‘Are you Catholic?’
‘No, but I helped Bishop Dawson at the ordination ceremony. Remember?’
‘Is that why the bishop hurried back from the big do in Samoa?’
‘It is.’
‘And what can I do to help?’
‘Stand by. This thing could develop in a lot of different ways.’
‘That’s not very helpful,’ and since the chair in which I was sitting provided a clear view of Laura’s desk, I could see she was still as agitated as she was when she greeted me. When she caught me staring at her, she waved her hands back and forth across her face as if she wished to make herself invisible. I could see that she was in trouble, and as our liaison officer continued his explanation I understood why.
‘We think it started shortly after Laura’s arrival from New Zealand. That would be well before his formal ordination, but well after he had been assured that he would be accepted as the first Fijian to ascend to the priesthood.’ He stopped, looked down at his lap and smoothed the crisp linen napkin. ‘The ugly part about this to me—as I said, I’m not a Catholic—is that he must have known about this long before he accepted ordination, and we’re positive he knew what he might be about to do that day of the big celebration. He was already teetering when he accepted entry into the priesthood. I call that dirty pool, damned dirty.’
‘What precisely is he thinking of?’
‘Resigning from the priesthood. Resigning from Catholicism, probably. Eloping with her and getting the hell off the island.’ With obvious bitterness he revealed the surprising cause of his anger: ‘What eats me about this is that it’s so unfair to Bishop Dawson. After all, he sponsored Bega, put his neck on the line to promote the young fool, first of his kind, and then to have it blow up in his face. Rotten. Rotten.’
‘How’s he taking it?’ and with my eyes I indicated the table at which the bishop was dining alone, looking morose.
‘He’s a living saint. No wonder they love him in the islands. Never raises his voice. Never threatens anyone. Seems to have only two ambitions. Protect the Church and save the young fellow for the priesthood. He seems willing to make any concession—move him to another island—send him back to the seminary. Dawson is my kind of churchman, and I’m in his corner all the way.’
‘And Laura?’
He was less than enthusiastic: ‘They tell me she’s proving very stubborn. Insists that since she and Bega really love one another, she will allow nothing to part them.’
‘What does he say?’
‘He doesn’t know what hit him. Everything coming down on him at once. Priesthood, sex, people shouting at him, but as I said, Bishop Dawson never shouts. Just argues persuasively, pointing out the inevitables. He must despise the mess—Dawson, that is—coming so late in his life and so damned disappointing.’
When I asked why the Navy was involved, and what I was supposed to report, he gave a good answer: ‘We can’t afford to have any disturbance in Fiji that might disrupt our supply routes, and a lot of military shipping refuels in this harbor. Also, if things deteriorate we may be calling for a plane to get these people out of here in one hell of a hurry.’
I responded: ‘I like your use of the military word deteriorate. You see this as a logistical problem, don’t you?’
He laughed: ‘In a way I do. In a well-ordered world where you live by the book, young priests do not fall in love with desk clerks,’ and his last words that evening were a warning: ‘Stand by for whatever happens. This thing can go either way—up, down or kerplooie,’ and he threw his two hands apart, fingers extended, as if a bomb had exploded.
When he returned for some late-night work at his office, I went up to the desk and asked Laura: ‘What goes on, Lady Macbeth?’ and she jerked her right thumb back toward the management office, well hidden from the big dining room: ‘They’re firing me tomorrow morning. Government House is getting into the act, too.’ Bringing her fingertips to her lips, she smiled ruefully and said: ‘Michener, I could have used you these last three weeks.’
‘Tough?’
‘Very.’
‘How did you meet him?’
She moved away from me as if uncertain of my reliability and apparently decided that the less she said the less anyone could use against her in case the enemy had sent me to spy on her: ‘We met. Suva isn’t a jail, you know. People do move about.’
‘He’s ready to leave the Church, isn’t he?’ When she refused to reply I asked: ‘You a Catholic?’
‘Church of England, but I take all religions seriously.’
‘Your parents living?’
‘Yes, but in this they don’t figure.’
‘What’s Bishop Dawson been saying?’
‘Drip, drip, drip. He thinks that in time water will wear away stone. But not this stone.’
‘So you’re determined?’ I asked and she replied with a phrase she must have acquired from some schoolbook: ‘I have been forged in fire.’
Her actions the next day showed th
is was not a careless use of words. Laura was discharged and told to get off the premises by nightfall; her continued presence jeopardized the good reputation of the hotel. That morning Bishop Dawson and several other high dignitaries were to meet with Father Bega in a last-ditch effort to persuade him to change his mind, put this sickness away from his heart and return full-fledged to the Church. Someone warned Laura of this meeting and with her jaw set she asked me to take her into the center of Suva to where the meeting was to be held, and on the way she told me with fierce determination: ‘If he meets with them alone, he’ll change his mind. I’ve got to stand with him or he’ll crumble.’ When I asked: ‘Might it not be better if he did?’ she said: ‘No! They’re using him, not as a man but as a symbol. A priest. The first Fijian to make that grade. I want him as a man.’ She moved away from me in the taxi and said from her corner: ‘The next half hour will determine everything. I will not allow him to meet those men alone. I will stand with him and they will be powerless to budge us.’
I was not allowed to attend the meeting, but it must have been a hectic one, with voices raised, and we heard later that only Bishop Dawson, that sage and kindly man, tried to cool tempers and keep the discussion focused on things that mattered. Apparently he was defeated by the rocklike insistence of Laura Henslow, a white woman fighting to defend her right to love a black man. The meeting lasted far more than the half hour Laura had predicted, and it was more heated than she had anticipated, but sometime after twelve, with tempers frayed, men broke from the meeting and informed me and the officer serving as acting American consul in Fiji: ‘They’ll be leaving. Advise Noumea to have the plane from Hawaii stop over at Nadi.’
That was the end of the storm over the heroic love affair that shook Fiji to its roots; Bishop Dawson had not been able to muster enough ecclesiastical power to defeat the stubborn New Zealand woman who by the sheerest accident and to her own amazement had fallen in love with the towering black priest for whom the Church had had such high hopes.
The World Is My Home: A Memoir Page 9