Return to Paradise

by James A. Michener

  The drowsy man twisted on his numbed hip, punched two dirty fists into his eyes and looked up protestingly. When he recognized Maggi he scrambled to his feet, using her solid body as a post by which to haul himself to attention.

  “Maggi!” he cried, embracing her warmly. “I didn’t expect you!”

  “Oh, Povenaaa! What news?”

  He became all attention. He took off her hat and placed it carefully on a hook. He held a chair for her and banged furiously on the table for service. “Hey, there! Two breakfasts!”

  A misanthropic servant stuck his head out from among the pots and asked dolefully, “Who’s going to pay for two breakfasts?” Then he saw Maggi and smiled wanly. “For you, two breakfasts.”

  He produced coffee cups which weighed a pound each, great brutal things, cold brioches and rancid Australian butter, served in a tin with a jagged edge. As Maggi sipped the chicory-laden brew, Povenaaa twisted his toes around the rung of the chair and asked impatiently, “What’s the news, Maggi? Money?”

  The big woman tried to play coy and savored her coffee down to the sticky sugar. Then she straightened her Mother Hubbard and said with tremendous import, “What we’ve waited for, Povenaaa. The Americans are back!”

  The effect of this news on Povenaaa was electric. He rubbed his unwashed face, pressed down the front of his dirty shirt and cried ecstatically, “Ah! Les Américains!”

  “Yes. The yachts have begun to arrive.”

  “Lots of men?” Povenaaa drooled. “Lots of money?”

  “Like the old days,” Maggi replied, and the two neighbors sighed nostalgically. Then abruptly, as if a deal had been concluded, Maggi slapped the table and cried, “Well! Why do we wait? Get Teuru!”

  Povenaaa rose creakingly, shook the hangover out of his joints and went uncertainly to the door, bellowing, “Teuru! Teuru!”

  From a clapboard house down the road a young girl appeared. She had been interrupted at her toilet, for she carried a brush with which she tugged at her long black hair which fell to her waist. She was barefooted and wore a cotton skirt with a skimpy bandanna halter. She was not a girl of extraordinary beauty, but she was handsomely proportioned and majestically straight in the Polynesian fashion. But her most memorable gift was a gamin smile and flashing black eyes that brimmed with an inner merriment.

  She stood in the dust of the road, looking for her father, and when she saw him stumbling out from Le Croix du Sud she laughed affectionately and said, “Father! Stop the noise! You’re drunk again.”

  “No, Teuru! Such news!”

  His daughter remained in the road, brushing her hair, until Povenaaa shook her by the shoulders. “Maggi’s back!” he cried like a little boy relaying Christmas news.

  “So soon?”

  “And with such glorious news!”

  With much nervous excitement Povenaaa led his daughter into the hotel and arranged a seat beside Maggi, who pinched her on the chin and cried, “I’m so happy for you!”

  Before Teuru could ask why, some tourists from the Hiro entered the hotel and the men could not keep their eyes off the young girl, for it was deliciously apparent that she wore nothing beneath her cotton skirt, since Povenaaa had forced his daughter into her chair in such a way as to expose a splendid leg.

  The men’s eyes popping at the bar gave Maggi intense pleasure but after the peep show had continued for some minutes, unknown to Teuru, the fat woman leaned over and with ostentatious prudery pulled down the offending dress. “Never show that much,” she whispered, “except on purpose.”

  Povenaaa clasped his hands and giggled, “Teuru! You’re going to Tahiti!”

  At this Maggi clasped her young friend’s hands and cried, “Oh, what I could do in Papeete these days if I was seventeen, like you.”

  “What’s happened?” Teuru asked, caught up in the excitement.

  Povenaaa giggled again. “The Americans! They’ve come back!”

  “Yes, thank God!” Maggi drooled. “And you’re going down to live on the best things dollars can buy.”

  “But I’ve never been to Tahiti,” Teuru protested.

  Maggi pulled her chair away from the bar and whispered, “You’ll go, Teuru, and on the first day you’ll meet a rich American on his yacht. All across the Pacific hell have been dreaming of you.”

  “But I’ve never seen an American,” Teuru pointed out.

  Maggi ignored the interruption and said, “Hell let you live in his cabin. You’ll eat your meals at the Yacht Club. Chinese girls will sew your dresses.”

  “You’ll wear shoes, of course,” Povenaaa interrupted. “White men like their girls to wear shoes.”

  “And if you find a handsome young lover,” Maggi continued, “you’ll have enough American money to pay his rent at the Hotel Montparnasse, where you can meet him at night.”

  “When the rich American is asleep,” Povenaaa explained.

  “And when the yacht sails there’ll be another one coming in,” Maggi said, recalling her boisterous youth in Papeete. “And who knows? Maybe later you will even get married.”

  Teuru listened to this recital with close attention. Povenaaa had always told her that some day the rich Americans would be coming back and it would be heaven for pretty girls. “And you’ll be pretty!” he had assured her.

  “But I wouldn’t know what to do,” she blushed.

  “Do!” Maggi roared. “You don’t do anything!” Then she dropped her voice and said, “With American men it’s very simple. Look at that fellow at the bar. He’s French, but all men are more or less the same. Povenaaa and I will leave. I’ll manage to pull your dress up the way it was before. Watch what happens!”

  As the big woman led Povenaaa from the hotel she hiked Teuru’s dress accidentally, and all the men at the bar snapped to attention. A wife complained, “You haven’t stared at me like that for ten years, Henri.” To which he replied, “Ah, yes! But you haven’t looked like that for fifteen.”

  Then one of them reacted as Maggi had prophesied. In three minutes he was trying to buy Teuru a drink. “I don’t drink,” she laughed. “My father does enough for both of us.”

  “Was that your father leaving here a moment ago?”

  “Yes.”

  “Remarkably handsome fellow,” the tourist said.

  “You sound very silly,” Teuru replied, whereupon the man coughed. At this poing Maggi and Povenaaa returned. The Frenchman was completely confused and became more so when Povenaaa said, “Thanks, I’ll have a cognac.”

  When the tourist had been eased away, after paying for the drinks, Maggi said, “See! It’s simple! And with an American—much easier.” Dramatically she fumbled in her bag and produced a slip of paper. “Voilà! M’mzelle Teuru! Her ticket to Tahiti!”

  The excitement of an actual ticket on the Hiro and the lure of Papeete were powerful, and Teuru’s dark eyes bubbled with merry anticipation, but suddenly they sobered and she said, “I can’t go.”

  “Why not?” Maggi snorted.

  “I promised … Kim Sing … to work his vanilla vines again.”

  Povenaaa exploded. “The Chinaman’s vanilla! You compare that to a rich American!”

  Maggi said quietly, “You were too young during the war, Teuru. We never smuggled you across to Bora Bora. But the lucky girls who did reach the American camp—they lived in paradise.”

  “A true paradise,” Povenaaa cried. “Canned food. Jeep rides. Trips in the airplane. Whole cartons of cigarettes.”

  Maggi explained, “There’s no reason to be afraid of Americans. I remember when they had a certain major who was what the men called an old bitch. Nobody could do anything with him. So I sent Hedy over and half an hour later she had his pants off.”

  Inspired, Povenaaa went to the door and roared, “Hedy! Come here!”

  In a moment the heads at the bar almost snapped off, for into the doorway came a slim Polynesian girl of twenty-four. She held a very blonde child by the hand, and these two created a sensation of perfect bea
uty. Hedy—she had been so designated by the Americans—had the delicate quality of the actress from whom she had been named, but the frangipani flowers in her hair were her own device. When she spoke her voice was childish and musical. She did not want her daughter to enter the bar, so she said, “Major, you go back home.” Then she saw Maggi and cried in her tinkling voice, “Good return, Maggi!”

  “For you it’s good,” Maggi chuckled.

  “You bring a message?” Hedy asked, keeping her eyes shyly upon the floor so that she would not have to look at the strange men along the bar.

  “Such a message!” Povenaaa beamed.

  “The Americans!” Maggi whispered, “They’re back.”

  Unlike Teuru, Hedy knew how to appreciate this luxurious news. She smiled with delicate satisfaction, moved a little nearer Maggi, and sighed, “During the war they used to say, ‘Come peace, Baby, you’ll see me back here with a fist full of dough.’ ”

  “She talks just like an American,” Povenaaa said proudly.

  Hedy sighed again and sort of hugged herself. “I should like to be in Papeete now!”

  “And here’s your ticket!” Maggi cried, producing another strip of paper.

  “Oh, Maggi!” Hedy cried, embracing the fat woman. Then she pouted, “But what about Major?”

  “I was thinking about Major,” Maggi said softly.

  There was a long moment while Hedy and Maggi stared at each other. Then, impulsively, the younger woman kissed the older and laughed, “You’ve always wanted Major, haven’t you? Well, she’s yours.”

  Povenaaa was sent to find Major and returned shortly with the fair-haired little girl, who ran promptly to her mother, but Hedy lifted the child deftly into Maggi’s voluminous lap. “Maggi’s your mother now,” Hedy said gently.

  The little girl looked first at her mother, then at her new mother. Both women winked at her and before the winks had rustled to rest, little Major—named after an American officer long since forgotten—accepted the new order. Hedy patted her approvingly and whispered, “You be good. Hedy’s going to Tahiti.”

  Then Povenaaa spoke, officially, “You girls will love Papeete. I want you to behave yourselves. No drinking. Don’t become bums like me. And remember that Americans do not shoot pistols all the time like the movies. I’ve known some very decent men.” Then he stopped. He saw tears in his daughter’s eyes. “What’s the matter, Teuru?” he snapped.

  “I want to see Papeete,” she said haltingly. “I think I would like Americans but …”

  “Poor little Teuru!” Povenaaa whispered. But her indecision frightened him and he realized he must tell her the whole truth. “You must go,” he pleaded. “For my sake if for nothing else. For if you could save only three hundred American dollars … Well, I could buy that surplus jeep on Bora Bora.” He looked at Teuru in triumph, as if the coveted vehicle were already his. “And with a jeep! Why, I could be a very important man in Raiatea. With a jeep, that is.”

  The Hiro blew its whistle once. “I must pack!” Hedy cried. “Maggi! You must help me.”

  The two women bustled out of Le Croix du Sud and one of the men at the bar came to Povenaaa’s table. “Your pardon, sir. Who was that remarkable girl?”

  “The big one or the little one?” Povenaaa asked.

  “The … younger one.”

  “Name’s Hedy. She’s going to Tahiti.” Then he grabbed Teuru’s hand and started for the door, where he turned and added proudly, “And my daughter’s going, too.”

  The Hiro blew its whistle twice, and then followed an amazing pageant of Polynesian life. Everybody on the dock began to weep. Maggi lowed and whimpered like a grief-stricken heifer. Povenaaa blubbered helplessly, repeating over and over again, “My daughter! My daughter!” Stragglers who had drifted down merely to watch the Hiro were caught in the lamenting and they too wept in an abandonment of sorrow. Tahiti lay less than a hundred miles away, and the ship sailed each week, but the sorrow in Raiatea could have been no greater had the passengers this day been destined for the Arctic wastes.

  In a final debauchery of despair Maggi shrieked, “Hedy, look after Teuru!”

  Hedy burst into passionate tears and screamed, “Povenaaa, I’ll show Teuru what to do.”

  The Hiro blew its whistle the last time and stood out into the channel, and as it did so a transformation came over Hedy. She stopped weeping instantly, lifted her lovely head into the breeze and looked southward. “Oh, Teuru,” she whispered happily. “Tomorrow night we shall sleep in Papeete!” Then a frown puckered her forehead and she added, “But I wonder with who?”

  Teuru blushed. A delicate color came to her cheeks, shining for a moment under the soft brown skin. “It’s all very well to joke about such things, but …”

  “Sssh!” Hedy warned. “Those gentlemen are looking at us. I’ll bet they want to buy us some beer.” But when she turned she saw that Teuru was weeping. “Why are you crying now?” she asked sharply. “The boat’s sailed.”

  And Teuru sniffled, “You’ve been away from home before. I haven’t.”

  But by the following evening, when the Hiro like an exhausted porpoise rolled on toward Tahiti, Teuru’s bubbling good humor returned and she shared in the general excitement as the glorious climax of their journey unfolded. To the west sprang the peaks of Moorea, crimson in sunlight. Ahead loomed the stumpy, cloud-wreathed hills of Tahiti. Seagulls dipped majestically about the ship, welcoming it as if it were a rich caravel, and even the seasick cattle revived as they caught the scent of land.

  “Hedy!” Teuru cried, “look at those beautiful ships!”

  “They must be the yachts,” Hedy said, straightening her dress.

  “And the white spires.”

  “Churches,” Hedy guessed, keeping her attention focused on the yachts.

  “But what’s that?” Teuru cried.

  To starboard, tied up to the quay that ran along the waterfront, stood a huge ship painted white. Along its deck moved sailors, also in white, each with a red pompom on his hat. “It’s a French ship,” Hedy sniffed scornfully. “You stay away from the French.”

  “It’s lovely,” Teuru said happily. “Even if it is French.” Like most residents of the northern islands, she had inherited a revolutionary hatred of the French who had subdued her islands last and with force.

  “Ah!” Hedy cried. “Those yachts are American!”

  But Teuru was fascinated by the warship, and as the tired old Hiro limped into port she stood at the railing and stared at the cruiser Jean Delacroix as long as it remained visible. Then, perforce, she had to look elsewhere, and for the first time she saw the rich panorama of Papeete.

  Along the quay important Frenchmen bustled in coats that seemed too tight. Chinamen rode bicycles that teetered perilously, while handsome native men from the fishing boats hauled bonita onto the cobbled stones. Girls in Paris frocks walked slowly back and forth in twos and threes as officials in uniform bustled about giving orders and a nest of tourists lolled in a rented sports car blowing their horn at everyone. Three nuns waited on the dock for a sister reporting in from an out station, and innumerable black and white and yellow boys ran screaming into alleys.

  There was a color about Papeete that night that Teuru never would forget. The white clouds turning to purple. The silvery flash of bonita as they scintillated in the sun. The golden yellow towers of the Douane. The majestic motion of many people as their various colors blended, and everywhere the glorious flowers of Tahiti.

  That was how Povenaaa’s daughter arrived in Papeete. She stepped upon the dock barefooted, in a close fitting green-and-white pareu, her long black hair reaching her waist, a frangipani behind her left ear, a little wicker suitcase in her hand, and on the back of her head, a straw hat. She took a deep breath of the new air and whispered, “We’re here, Hedy.”

  The older girl presented a much different appearance. She wore shoes, very high in the heel, and a dress drawn tightly about her small waist. Her hair was done in plaited str
ands wound into a crown. For lips she had two scarlet dabs, but against the white flowers in her hair they seemed appropriate. She handed Teuru her suitcase, explaining, “American men don’t like to see pretty girls lugging things.”

  As if she had lived in Papeete all her life, she led Teuru off the dock and westward to where the yachts were anchored. She knew she had little time, for the sun already had the peaks of Moorea aflame. Then abruptly she stopped. Suddenly she was no longer in a hurry. Motioning Teuru to stay behind, she sidled along the waterfront to where a yacht was tied stern to. A man of fifty was leaning over a board, cleaning fish. Hedy laughed musically and the yachtsman looked up.

  “Watcha laughin’ at?” he demanded.

  “That’s no way to clean a fish!” Hedy taunted.

  “Whatsa matter with my way?”

  “You’ll cut yourself.” She leaned slightly on the ropes, swaying with the motion of the ship. Then she laughed again.

  “You think you could do it any better?” the yachtsman asked.

  “Sure!” Hedy cried, using a French accent she had found irresistible during the war.

  “If you’re so smart, let’s see.” The man reached aft with a boat hook and steadied Hedy as she swung herself aboard. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Fish-cleaner,” she teased.

  “No. Your real name.”

  “Hedy,” she replied.

  “Like Hedy Lamarr?”

  “Yes. An American major said I looked like her.” The petite girl leaned over to survey the mutilated fish, but she was careful to keep her lovely profile steady for several seconds.

  “Say!” the yachtsman cried. “You do, at that!” He moved toward her, attracted by her extravagant charm, but as he did so she lifted the fish and laughed at him with tinkling music.

  “You’ve ruined the fish,” she said.

  “Where’d’joo learn to speak English so good?”

  “Oh!” she cried. “My bag!” She ran to the stern and started to shinny down the ropes.

  “Don’t go!” the American cried.