Return to Paradise

by James A. Michener

  Immediately, the driver burst into voluble approval. “He’s a wonderful leader. No one puts anything over on him.” He said much more, but McGurn had heard enough.

  At the hotel, McGurn felt that he had burst from out the darkness of Billimoria’s turgid mind into the bright clarity of Toni’s. She had drinks waiting on the lower verandah and sat handsomely against the backdrop of rain that strung a hazy veil across the harbor. A ship putting out to Levuka showed fairy lights, and its last crying echoes made the night beautiful.

  “Toni!” the American cried with real delight. “You look so … refreshing.”

  “I’ve always liked talking with Americans,” she said bluntly. She was so clean and appealing that McGurn could not possibly hide his feelings.

  “I was afraid you might have gone to bed.”

  “I should have waited considerably longer,” she said, and his head throbbed with happiness.

  He could not know that Toni wished to talk with him because she remembered Yanks of quite a different sort. Once during the war, she had deceived her mother and flown across the island to the American airbase, where she had met a rollicking fighter pilot. They had, as she expressed it, “necked up a storm,” and he had named her his Little Duchess. When he left for Guadal, he informed her that he was married. She still carried an angriness about her heart; but at the same time, she thought that she could have been happy with that Yank. She had enjoyed his clean laugh, his sense of freedom.

  In her travels with Sir Charles, she had met many homesick men who had wanted to marry her. This had not turned her head. As Lady Maud said, “If a woman can’t marry off her daughters in the tropics, she must have reared a nest of gorgons.” But Toni was tired of empire builders. She was tired of the white man’s world and the white man’s law, administered in mock justice by her austere father. For that very reason McGurn disturbed her. At the precise time when England was laying down some of the burdens of empire, America was picking hers up; and the type of man to do this work was the same whether English or American. “Mr. McGurn is very tedious,” she was thinking. And yet he was not a man to dismiss easily.

  “Your family has a fine liberal spirit,” he was saying.

  “Due mostly to Mums,” she replied. “Mums works on the principle that human beings are primarily animals. That sure keeps down neuroses.”

  “And your father?”

  “For him, people are totally damned and always breaking laws established by right-thinking Englishmen.”

  “And you?” he asked, lighting his pipe.

  “I partake of both. Men are animals who must be kept in line.”

  “You really think that?” he asked, nervously puttering with his pipe so as to keep from reaching for her hand.

  “Of course I do!” she said lightly.

  “What about man as a divine, aspiring creation?”

  “Where have you seen the divinity? What aspiration?”

  It was then that he began to realize that he bored her. It was a frightening sensation. Here was a girl he could love. He knew it. Yet he knew that she thought him uninteresting. “What kind of people do you like?” he asked abruptly.

  Now it was her turn to feel that this rain-swept evening in Suva was heavy with importance. Here was a man who was cautiously feeling his ground so that he could determine whether she was the kind of girl he wanted to marry. “Oh,” she said casually, “in spite of my theory I tend to like men …” She stopped. She realized that he had not asked her what kind of men she liked. But she added, “Well, like you. Enough brains to get by on. Maybe a little more daring.” She paused and then added with a laugh, “Like most girls. A beast with brains.”

  “I don’t know about the brains,” he laughed, “but as for the beast …” Suddenly he took her in his arms and kissed her. Finally, when the hotel lights had been extinguished, when the tropical rain had settled into a throbbing fall, he walked her to her door.

  Next morning the mynah birds wakened him long before his usual hour. Reluctantly he pulled himself together and went out on the verandah. Lady Maud was waiting.

  “Tea?” she offered brightly.

  “Yes,” McGurn replied with no enthusiasm.

  Lady Maud twisted her head and leered at him. “It’ll rain for two more weeks,” she said ghoulishly. He sat down with her and started to offer some commonplace about the weather when she stopped him with a bombshell. “I hear you were necking with my daughter last night.” Before he could recover she added. “I’ve got to speak frankly. You won’t like this but here goes. If you want to marry Toni, you’ve got to be less stuffy.”

  McGurn coughed. He was completely set back; then, as if he were at a disadvantage in a chancellery, he said slowly, “I’ll have some more tea, if you please.”

  “I don’t understand it,” Lady Maud continued, “but Toni has an affinity for Yanks. She’d like to live in America.”

  McGurn swallowed very hard. “Is there any chance …”

  Lady Maud studied him carefully. “You’re very tedious. But you would also make a good husband.”

  The American kept his lips to his teacup for a long time. Then he said carefully, “By those standards I should think Sir Charles a bit—forgive me—stuffy, shall we say?”

  “S’Chalz!” Lady Maud exploded hilariously. “My God, he’s so stuffy taxidermists look at him with pride. Oh, my dear young man, if you think that by patterning yourself after S’Chalz you’ll win Toni … Oh, what a dreadful error!” She laughed merrily and added, “Find a model as far removed from S’Chalz as possible.”

  At breakfast he was considerably bucked up when Toni went out of her way to smile at him. His fears returned, however, when he arrived at the airdrome to see Harvey. The young man began by being ultrapolite, but when McGurn finished his warnings, Harvey said, “Too late, chum. If Billimoria wants to start trouble, now he’s got a reason.”

  “What do you mean?” McGurn asked nervously.

  “Last night Pata and I decided that since we have so few days … Well, she moved in.”

  McGurn actually fell into a chair. “What utter folly!” he said in a low, impassioned voice.

  “I’ll be leaving in a few days,” Harvey reassured him.

  “A few days may be all they need. Joe, you’re asking for trouble.”

  “Sometimes a fellow doesn’t care,” Harvey replied.

  Then McGurn became fighting mad. “Listen!” he commanded. “Less than a hundred years ago one of my ancestors lost an entire crew on these islands. Roasted and eaten. People of good will came here and changed all that through self-sacrifice and devotion. Don’t ruin their work, Joe.”

  “I’m to give up the one powerful happiness I’ve known? For what?”

  “To help an island through a time of crisis.”

  “And when it passes, another crisis comes along.”

  “All right! Then you try to heal that rupture, too,” McGurn pleaded. “Life is a series of crises. Only cowards throw in the sponge.”

  “Very noble,” Harvey sneered. “Very Sunday school. Maybe what you ought to do is let the whole rotten edifice crumble. Start over new.”

  “You’re wrong to throw in the sponge that way, Joe. This mess is no worse than others in the world. You pitch in here and see what can be done. You don’t wreck a civilization with irresponsible actions.”

  “Our actions are terribly responsible, McGurn. Pata and I worked this out last night.”

  “So you’d ruin her life …”

  “Ruin? What’s your definition of life? The protection of virginity till you’re eighty? Wearing stiff white shirts like yours? You be careful, McGurn, that you don’t ruin your life!”

  There was nothing more to say. For McGurn, Joe Harvey was the new barbarian who would one day desolate the world. Back in his room the diplomat lay down and thought, “It would be so easy to forget the whole mess, as he called it. But you’ve got to try to hold things together.” He was brooding upon the agitated world when he
heard Toni’s clear voice outside his door.

  “Want to go for a boat trip, even if it is raining?”

  In the days that followed Louis McGurn lived in a kind of dream. Wherever he went through the wet streets of Suva he saw Indians who resented his presence. He saw Fijians who laughed as if there were no day but now. And he saw thoughtful white men deeply disturbed by the trial. Most of all, he saw Toni.

  Wherever they went—these two self-analyzing, debating creatures—they seemed to see Pata Cadi and her white lover. Once Toni noticed them in the cinema and she whispered to McGurn, “I’d like to be in love like that. Just once.” To his astonishment he impulsively grasped her hands right there in public and exclaimed, “I am.”

  Nothing happened to upset the trial, and with great relief McGurn greeted the last day of Harvey’s residence in Fiji, but his spirits fell when the young American appeared in the G.P.H. shouting across the lobby, “Well, chum. I’m shoving off tomorrow.”

  “Considerate of you to stop by,” McGurn said icily. “I trust nothing will happen before you get away.”

  Harvey grinned. “Still the old worry-wart, hey?” McGurn managed a stiff smile and Harvey continued. “My Fijian pals at the airport are throwing me a farewell feast. Pata’s coming and I thought you might like to join us and bury the hatchet.”

  McGurn visibly withdrew into his shell of conventionalism. He was about to refuse the invitation when he saw Toni Jacquemart running down the stairs to join him. “You’re Joe Harvey!” she cried, extending her hand.

  “I stopped by to invite Mr. McGurn to a native feast,” Joe explained.

  “Sounds wonderful,” Toni exclaimed. “And I’ll bet your Indian girl is going, too. Oh, Louis! Can I tag along?”

  “I’m not going,” McGurn said flatly.

  “Oh!” Toni’s mouth drooped. “Can’t you cancel …”

  “It’s not another engagement,” McGurn explained honestly. “It’s just that … well … it isn’t the thing to do. Not now.”

  Toni flushed and turned away in anger. “Tell me, Mr. Harvey. Would you and your pretty girl take me? Even if Mr. McGurn can’t make it?”

  “Sure!” Harvey agreed, shaking her hand vigorously. “But you know, this isn’t exactly full dress.”

  “That’s why I want to go.” Toni laughed.

  “But it would be more fun,” Harvey said, “if Mr. McGurn came, too.”

  The diplomat felt cornered. He knew how dangerous the murky hills of Fiji were, with the winds of hate tearing across them. He knew that as an official observer he had no business getting mixed up in a Fijian feast. And above all he knew that Sir Charles Jacquemart’s daughter was almost criminally irresponsible if she meddled in Fijian-Indian affairs. And yet he was in love. If Toni engaged in folly, it was his job to protect her from the consequences. “I’ll go along,” he said quietly.

  Twice during the day he regretted his assent and thought of telling Sir Charles about his daughter’s impending indiscretion; but he knew that if he did, he would surrender any chance he might have of marrying this delectable and headstrong girl. Yet his sense of propriety was so ingrained that he had to warn somebody, so he slipped into Lady Jacquemart’s room shortly after lunch and blurted out the evening schedule.

  For once Lady Maud did not joke. “Will Toni be safe?” she asked soberly.

  “Normally I’d say so. But Harvey has been threatened by fanatical Indians.”

  “So there’s a spice of danger?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then,” Lady Maud announced firmly, “go ahead. This may convince Toni you’re a man and not a mouse.” And she slapped him on the seat of his pants.

  At dusk, this odd quartet drove fifteen miles into the hills of Fiji. The rain fell mournfully about them and the car lights shone upon great jungle streamers that encroached upon the road. The night was so dark and the feel of the jungle so close upon them that each of the girls huddled against her escort.

  And then, suddenly, the car turned into a village square, a horn blew, and giant Fijians tumbled out into murky light. A strong voice shouted, “Joe Harvey come!”

  Men of the village who had worked for Joe appeared and carried the girls into a huge native house where many people were gathered. McGurn tried to walk under his own command, but found the footing impossible. “It’s soapstone,” Joe laughed, as he slipped and sloshed along the village tracks. He had been there before.

  Inside the jungle house, three pressure lamps, hung from the roof, made the place bright. Strands of sennit, miles long, had been woven into the roof, and now this roof danced with golden patterns that enchanted the eye. Toni Jacquemart looked about her as the men put her down. The great feel of the tropical night was upon her. “It’s glorious,” she said. Then, with a sense of what was right, she went to the chief and said, “We are pleased to be your guests.”

  The natives cheered this felicity and cheered again when Joe Harvey produced four bottles of gin, strictly forbidden to the Fijis. The chief placed the four bottles in a line before him and cried many words in Fijian. Then another old man spoke and dedicated the gin to the guests, and to the night’s festivities.

  It was apparent that Joe was a great favorite with these men, for they joked at his expense and when he could catch the meaning of their Fiji words, he cussed them soundly, and they drank gin together.

  Pata and Toni formed a fast friendship and sat together at the long and beautifully woven frond mat that served as table. Soon, the chief yelled at his women, and they yelled back. Toni said afterwards that there had never been a meal served like that before. One woman ambled in with a pot full of dalo which she slammed on the table. Then for ten minutes nothing happened. The chief yelled some more, and another villager shuffled in with some boiled fish. It took an hour to serve the meal and another hour to eat it. The pièce de résistance was a dalo pudding with coconut and brown rice. It was chewy and delicious.

  “I’ve been a pig!” Toni cried, and impulsively she leaned over and embraced Pata’s shoulders. The chief applauded and embraced Joe. Then there was much shouting and an old woman brought in a large bowl. She sat cross-legged before it and began to knead a whitish powder into a cloth sack. This she plunged into the water and swished it back and forth many times. Finally, a dirty, pale-white fluid resulted.

  “Yaqona!” Joe cried, and the chief ordered him to be served.

  A young girl kneeled in stately manner before the ceremonial bowl and was handed a dipperful of the whitish liquid. Solemnly, she bore it to Harvey, who solemnly took it. The girl kneeled on the ground and clapped her hands twice. Gravely, Joe lifted the dipper to his lips and in a mighty effort put the contents down in one draught.

  “Mala!” shouted the Fijians in applause.

  The serving maid next attended Pata and then Toni, who also handled hers in one gulp. The chief was impressed. Now it was McGurn’s turn. He took the dipper and gingerly tasted the unpleasant-looking liquid. It was slimy to the tongue, earthy-tasting and mildly tingling at the gums. It took him three tries to drain the bowl. He did not like yaqona.

  Now the evening was started, and slowly the natives began to hum songs or even to break into words. Harvey, with a gin bottle in one hand and his other upon the chief’s arm, reverently began to sing the haunting phrases of Isa Lei. “Ahhhhhh!” cried the natives in approval. Toni caught up the immortal phrases of this best of all island songs and for a moment the two alien voices sang the great lament of Fiji. Then, as if the song had been intended for finer powers, the natives began to join in.

  When the antiphonal chorus was reached, the hut seemed to explode with grandeur. The mighty, deep-probing voices of the basses carried the aching song far back in time, when suddenly the high, wailing voices of the women would throw it against the present night. When the long chord of conclusion was reached, Joe cried, “Again,” and this time one woman sang the melody and all the others in the hut harmonized upon her refrain until the chorus was reached, when the full
power of the basses was let loose. Even Louis McGurn was deeply moved, and Toni, seeing this, reached down and kissed his hand.

  She became the heroine of the evening a few minutes later when the next round of yaqona was started, this time with a chief as server. Joe whispered to her, “When you finish the drink sing out Dairo.”

  “What’s it mean?” Toni asked.

  “You’ll see!” So when she had gurgled down the last drop of yaqona, she cried loudly, “Dairo!”

  McGurn thought a riot had started. The amazed chief dropped the bowl while six or seven native men leaped to their feet and started to shout violently. Soon, the entire Fijian population of the hut had centered on Toni, screaming imprecations at her.

  “What have I done?” she pleaded.

  Joe was laughing hilariously. “It’s their totem,” he said. “When you use it that way, it means, ‘The yaqona was pretty good, what there was of it.’ ”

  While Joe explained, the senior chief ordered the whole bowl of liquor brought to Toni’s feet. Then, with a large ladle, he filled a large bowl and personally thrust it at the white girl.

  “You’ve got to drink it!” Joe assured her.

  With misgivings, she put it to her lips and took one long swig after another. Finally, somewhat dizzy, she handed back the empty bowl. The chiefs cheered and the women squealed their delight.

  “Is good?” the senior chief demanded.

  “Very good!” Toni said.

  Then, as Louis was served his portion, she jabbed him and cried, “I dare you to yell Dairo.” He looked at her as if to say, “Don’t be foolish,” so she nudged him again.

  He had a very clear understanding that unless he cried Dairo, he would never marry Toni Jacquemart. He also knew that if he passed this test, she would apply no others, for she was in no way vicious, so in a half voice, not intending to offend, he whispered Dairo.

  This time, it was no mere woman who had offended the tribe. In an instant, McGurn’s coat and shirt had been pulled off, and all the women of the hut were lashing at him with small switches. Then he was handed a huge bowl of the dirty water. He drank until his ears popped, but he did hand back an empty vessel.