Return to Paradise

by James A. Michener

  “I’ll be back,” she reassured him.

  “What are you going to do?” Teuru whispered.

  “Stop here for a while,” Hedy said.

  “What am I to do?” Teuru pleaded.

  “Well,” said the self-assured little beauty with a flip of her head, “there’s a lot more yachts.”

  “I couldn’t do that.”

  Suddenly Hedy was all tender affection. “You’re right! You’ve got to take these things very slowly. I remember when Maggi smuggled me ashore at Bora Bora. I was scared to death. I knew I’d never be able to talk with a major. An American, too.”

  “Were you?”

  “Oh, yes,” Hedy replied. She kissed Teuru good-bye and the girls began to cry.

  “Whatsamatter down there?” the yachtsman shouted.

  “My friend,” Hedy blubbered.

  “Whatsamatter with your friend?”

  “She’s never been away from home before!”

  “Well, bring her along.”

  There was fresh sobbing, rising to a wail of remorse and lonely anguish. The American was totally bewildered as he watched his girl open her purse and hand the barefooted stranger a fistful of francs. He was even more surprised when Hedy wiped her eyes, flashed him a wonderful smile, pitched her bag aboard and shinnied up the ropes with the friendly cry, “All right! Where’s that fish?”

  Teuru was now alone in Papeete. Stuffing Hedy’s benevolent francs into her suitcase, she pulled out a slim scrap of paper on which Maggi had scrawled two words: HOTEL MONTPARNASSE. She was about to seek a policeman when she beheld a sight that would have made the heart of any young girl dance with pleasure. Down the quay came three French sailors in dazzling white uniforms and red pompoms. Their shorts stopped crisply at the knee and they wore hard-ribbed white socks and highly polished shoes. They were laughing. They were laughing and making a great fuss, so that Teuru had to laugh, too.

  They saw her hesitating at the edge of the road and quickly surrounded her. In French the tallest cried, “Ah, the village maiden comes to the city!” Then they offered her a cigarette.

  “Ah! Virtuous maiden! She doesn’t smoke!”

  “I’m looking for a hotel,” Teuru explained.

  “Voilà!” the sailors shouted.

  “What happens here?” a policeman asked, patting himself on the belly.

  “We’re showing m’mzelle to her hotel!” the tall sailor announced, making a little rhyme which his friends mimicked in mincing style.

  They grabbed her by the waist and swung her down the street, so that she had to dance with them. Then they lifted her high into the air and planted her bare feet on the sidewalk. “The hotel of m’mzelle!” they cried, and then the leader said very seriously, “Let it never be remarked that the men of Jean Delacroix were not gallant. Your official welcome to Papeete.” And he kissed her firmly on the lips.

  “So too the engine-room crew!” cried the next sailor, holding her face to attention and wiping off his lips with his shirt sleeve.

  But the third sailor stood back. He blushed considerably and indicated that he would not force his attentions on Teuru. His companions mocked him and the leader cried, “M’mzelle! Our good friend Victor, he does not like girls! Therefore, on behalf of Victor, I salute you again.” He lifted her into his arms, but this time Teuru did not feel his lips, for over his shoulder she saw the confused, scarlet face of Victor.

  When the sailors left, their six handsome white-ribbed legs making rare patterns in the dusk, Teuru watched them for a moment, then laughed and hoisted her suitcase, turned on her bare feet and marched into the Hotel Montparnasse. This establishment, so inappropriately named, faced the peaks of Moorea, but otherwise its facilities were unspeakable. It had served wastrels and wanderers for almost a hundred years and in that time Rupert Brooke, Stevenson, Henry Adams, and Gauguin had lounged upon its dirty verandah, staring at the pantomime of Papeete. Now it was run by a German woman who wore stiff black lace collars, as if to bring to the hotel a respectability it had never owned.

  “What do you want?” Frau Henslick snapped.

  Teuru thrust the piece of paper onto the counter and Frau Henslick shouted, “What am I supposed to do? This says nothing.”

  “Maggi sent me.”

  “You mean the fat woman?”

  “Yes!” Teuru beamed. “She said you might need help.”

  “I do,” Frau Henslick cried. “I always do.” She came from behind the counter and examined Teuru as if she were a horse. “Got your teeth?” Teuru opened her mouth and the woman nodded approvingly. “Can you work?”

  “Yes,” Teuru said. “I’m a good worker.”

  Suddenly the German woman screamed, “When you work here I want you to sleep in your own bed.”

  “What do you mean?” Teuru asked.

  The German woman screamed even more loudly, “You island girls!”

  That ended the conversation. Frau Henslick led Teuru to a dingy room, kicked the door open and said, “You start work at six in the morning.” Before the girl could reply, the angular woman had disappeared.

  It was then seven, and Teuru was hungry, but before she could ask about food she heard the heavy shouting of a man: “Damn it! I want some hot water!”

  There was some scuffling and Frau Henslick banged open Teuru’s door. “You!” she shouted. “Take this upstairs to Mr. Roe.”

  Teuru lugged the pitcher to the upper hall and then wondered where she should deliver it. Reasoning that if she waited the man would shout again, she heard an irritated bellow issue from Room 16: “You old sow! Where’s the water?”

  Cautiously she pushed open the door and faced a young man standing in his shorts. He was red headed and had a week’s growth of beard. “Thanks,” he said, turning his back on her.

  At the door she asked, “Are you an American?”

  “Yes,” he said, swabbing his face.

  “I’ve never seen an American before.”

  “We’re pretty sturdy stuff,” he said, lathering his beard.

  She started downstairs, but he came to the door and called, “You eaten yet? Good. I’m just getting over a four-day drunk. How’s about holding me up till I get to the restaurant?”

  “I’ll put my shoes on,” she said.

  “Don’t bother. I never wear any.”

  He made her sit down while he shaved, cursing the blade. Finally he asked, “Do I look pretty awful?”

  “You look pale,” she replied.

  He studied the mirror and shuddered: “Let’s get out of here!”

  He took her to the Yacht Club and insisted that she order the best of everything. He himself took poached eggs but couldn’t manage them. Instead he sat back and admired the way she stuffed down the meat and vegetables. “I was hungry,” she said.

  “I feel nourished, just watching you,” he laughed, but she made him eat some of her meat and he said it tasted pretty good, so he ordered some more, and while he pecked at it, she told him of Hedy.

  “Which yacht was it?” he asked. When she described it he said, “Shell be a wizard if she gets a nickel out of that old bastard.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “I came down here with him,” Mr. Roe said.

  “You will go back with him, too?”

  “I’d sooner be dead.” From the street came the sound of music and he said, “Would you like to dance?”

  “I have no shoes.”

  “You forget, neither do I.” He led her to Quinn’s, a place Maggi had often mentioned, and there Teuru saw the gaiety of this island. As soon as Mr. Roe entered, everybody shouted to him and couples stopped by his table to ask what was new. He made no move to dance and she was not surprised when a very beautiful girl in shoes took him completely away. He did not return to Teuru at all but sat across the floor drinking gin and growing more glazed each hour.

  In her embarrassment Teuru was about to leave when there was commotion at the door and the three French sailors roared in. The leader s
aw Teuru at once and swung her onto the floor. He was good at native dances and flourished his hips as well as an island man. Soon Teuru felt her hair swinging about her shoulders, and then, as earlier that night, she saw across the room the penetrating stare of thin-faced Victor.

  When she joined the sailors at their table, the young man rose properly, bowed and said, “My name is Victor de la Foret,” and in those brief words he opened for Teuru a completely new vision of life, because when she said that she was from Raiatea, he replied, “I was born there.”

  “You were?” she asked. “I never heard of you.”

  “In spirit,” he explained. “I had an uncle who served in these islands, and from the time I was a boy …” Nervously at first and then with a rush of golden words he told Teuru the history of her island: the hills that contained the sacred marae, the straits from which the canoes set out to populate the Pacific, the forgotten groves where the lewd ritual dances were held. He was only twenty-one and he had never seen Raiatea, but he knew the island better than Teuru, who had left it only yesterday.

  When Quinn’s closed the young couple walked along the quay until they found a bench, and then he told her of the map he had drawn of Raiatea, many years ago. “It was marked with a star,” he said.

  “What for?” she asked.

  “Raiatea was the source. Women like you bore brave sons and they risked all the dangers of the sea.”

  For a moment these new ideas cast a spell over Teuru and she was back in the age when men of Raiatea ruled the oceans. Not until that night had she known that she carried such blood. Better than she could have liked any American, she liked this young sailor, and impulsively she reached out her brown hand and touched the red pompom. “It dances,” she said, “on your white hat.”

  Victor drew back and even in the faltering light she could detect his blush. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he said nervously.

  “Why not?” she asked perplexed.

  “It’s a rule,” he said. “A silly rule.”

  “What is?”

  “A girl … who touches a pompom … a sailor’s red pompom, that is …”

  “I’m very sorry,” Teuru apologized.

  “It’s nothing,” he assured her. “A stupid rule. But she must kiss him.”

  This was not play-kissing and Teuru rose in embarrassment and started to leave, but Victor caught her by the hand and said quietly, “Tonight … when the others were kissing you … I was afraid.”

  In stately grace the barefooted girl bent down and placed her lips on his. Her long hair fell about his shoulders and across his eyes. At first he did not move. Then, in an excess of joy, he flung his arms about her and pulled her down upon his knees. “You are like the queen of my island,” he whispered.

  These words were very sweet to Teuru, but she was somewhat perplexed—recalling all that Maggi had told her about how men behave—when Victor made no move to kiss her again but spent the night asking her detailed questions about Raiatea. Toward morning, when pale light was quivering upon the tips of Moorea, a bugle sounded on the Jean Delacroix and Victor said he must leave.

  “I must see you each day,” he whispered. Then, staring at his shoes, he confided his secret. “I joined the Jean Delacroix to see these islands. Because, you understand, I am going to write a great poem about Raiatea. In the ancient days, of course.”

  A policeman stopped by the bench and said, “You’d better get back to your ship, vice-admiral.”

  “Will you talk with me again tonight?” Victor begged, and Teuru said that she would. She reached the Montparnasse at five minutes to six and Frau Henslick screamed, “Come in, you baggage. Are you sober enough to work?”

  “I’m all right,” Teuru replied. Indeed, she thought the words had never really applied to her before that moment. She felt all right.

  “Then go up and see what Mr. Roe’s making such a noise about.”

  There was a wild clatter at the head of the stairs, followed by a bucket bouncing down, step by step. “I said I wanted some ice!” Mr. Roe stormed.

  “Get him some,” Frau Henslick ordered.

  Teuru hauled some up to Room 16 and Mr. Roe shouted, “Bring it in!”

  Gingerly Teuru pushed open the door, keeping her eyes down, for Mr. Roe was wearing almost nothing and in his bed slept the pretty girl, who now did not have her shoes on. By no gesture did Mr. Roe acknowledge that he had ever seen Teuru, and it was apparent that he knew nothing of the evening before.

  All that morning Frau Henslick kept Teuru hopping so that when siesta time came the girl did not even bother with food but fell into a death-like sleep for two hours, awakening only when the German woman shook her. “Mr. Roe wants you again,” Frau Henslick said.

  “He makes a lot of trouble,” Teuru said sleepily.

  “He pays his bills,” the landlady said simply, and thus Teuru was introduced to the rules of Hotel Montparnasse. People who paid were let alone. Teuru learned never to enter any room unless invited. Each night after eleven stray girls from all the outlying islands wandered through the hotel, checking up to see if all the men were sleeping well. It was not uncommon for two or sometimes three girls to spend the night in one visitor’s room: one in bed and two on the floor. If no other place was available, they crowded into Mr. Roe’s room, for he never bothered them, and if, as was often the case, he found them in his bed when he got back, he would curl up in a chair on the verandah, unless he was very drunk, when he would roar, “Get the hell out of here. I’ve got to get some sleep.” And there would be a scurry of bare feet down the corridors.

  Teuru was not bothered by the Montparnasse because she herself lived in a kind of dream world. During almost every free moment she was with Victor de la Foret. On rented bicycles they rode and then clambered up to the pool of Pierre Loti where, generations before, the romantic novelist had wooed his island girl. They danced, went to boxing shows and sat in the movies. But most of all they talked. Teuru, who had been a quiet girl—Povenaaa’s chin was always bobbing—now found herself able to speak for minutes at a time, relating her memories of Raiatea. True, she sometimes wondered when they were going to get around to those things that Maggi had said “were all that men wanted, anyway!”

  When Victor finally did, Teuru was completely shocked. It happened one night while they were sitting on the bench. The young sailor caught Teuru by the waist and cried, “We are going to get married!”

  “Married!” Teuru repeated. She was astounded at the idea. After all, she was only seventeen, not nearly of an age to marry. She had not yet lived with a man, she had borne no children, knew nothing of life. She suspected that it was both unfair and ungallant of Victor to propose such a thing and in extreme perplexity she told him he had better go back to his ship.

  “But will you marry me?” he begged.

  “Not right away,” she parried, and as soon as he had left she scurried across the quay to Hedy’s yacht and scrambled aboard. In the darkness she upset a bucket and heard a gruff voice cry, “Get off’n this boat, you crooks!”

  “Hedy!” she whispered. “It’s Teuru!”

  There were muffled protests but soon the Polynesian girl appeared. She embraced her friend and said, “The skipper complains a lot, but he bought me this robe.”

  They sat on the deck and Hedy listened carefully while Teuru explained about the wedding proposal. “I warned you!” Hedy cried indignantly. “I told you Frenchmen were no good. To expect you to marry him. So young! And no money!”

  “What shall I do?” Teuru begged.

  “You go back to Raiatea. Maggi and Povenaaa will tell you I’m right.”

  “Will you ever get married, Hedy?”

  “Of course. In two or three years.”

  “Then why can’t I?”

  “At your age! You haven’t even had a baby yet. You go home.”

  So next morning Teuru informed Frau Henslick that she’d be sailing on the Tuesday Hiro. The German woman bawled at her for being an ingrate,
but Teuru was determined. Nevertheless, as the day ended she nervously watched the Jean Delacroix, waiting for the white suit and red pompom she had grown to love.

  She was surprised, therefore, when Victor did not appear at the accustomed hour, and she was wandering idly along the quay when a young man in civilian clothes …

  “Victor!” she cried. “I hardly knew you!”

  “I was keeping it as a surprise. My enlistment’s up and I cabled Paris for special permission to stay out here.” He dropped his voice and added, “So that we could get married.”

  “But we can’t!” Teuru objected. “I’m going home next Hiro.”

  “That’s what I planned, too,” he said eagerly.

  “What did you plan?” Teuru asked, half in tears.

  “To go with you … to Raiatea. Our first home! We’ll get married on Monday.”

  “But Povenaaa would never let us!” Teuru protested.

  “We’ll talk with M’sieur Povenaaa,” Victor insisted, and on Tuesday they were aboard the Hiro. There was a fine cry as Hedy and her American saw them off, with many flowers. Frau Henslick was there, too, with more flowers, and an old woman from Raiatea who just came down for the general lament. Victor said, “I am sure it must have been like this when the canoes set out for Hawaii But Raiatea’s only a few miles.”

  Teuru said, between tears, “It’s always so sad to part.”

  That night they sat upon a crate of knitting yarn and watched the timeless race of the moon across the tropical heavens. As new constellations appeared, Victor named them, and all around was the music of a small ship plowing through starry night: the lowing of cattle, the whispers of women talking, the patient throb of the reluctant engines, the cry of a night bird, the echo of waves against wood.

  Teuru sat close to Victor and in spite of Hedy’s warnings, in spite of what she knew Povenaaa and Maggi would say, she wanted to marry this Frenchman. She was about to tell him so when a mysterious sound came from the port quarter and Victor rose. He peered into the darkness and asked, “What is that noise?”

  Teuru stood beside him, her face pressed into the wind, and before she could speak the first probing dagger of light cut across the waves and poised above the hills of Raiatea.