Return to Paradise

by James A. Michener

  I never saw M. Perouse so infuriated. He jumped up and stormed at me, “Do we never learn? Why do we die? Why do we bother to try to make the world a better place? So that some judge in Singapore can say Mr. John Doe is an honorable name because it is common in Liverpool, but Quoyn is not, because the damned stupid judge can’t pronounce it?”

  I have not repeated his exact phrasing, which was shocking even to me. The upshot was that he grabbed the depositions and would have destroyed them had I not said, “M. Perouse! If you do not send the clearance, Miss Crump may get a long jail sentence.”

  I can see him yet. He stood there, a man terribly disfigured, his entire body trembling with rage. Slowly he dropped the papers and fell back into his chair. He said a few words in Tonkinese to Quoyn, who smiled and left. He was silent for a long time and said, “Thank you, my friend. The very least I can do for Phyllis is to get a decent French signature. She was a very good girl, Phyllis. She sang like a thrush.”

  Night came on and we sat there. In the dusk he said, “I think we shall never learn, Crompton. We have a new fonctionnaire now, straight from Paris, a man with an unbelievable record for courage against the Nazis. Yet he says unofficially that what we should have done was shoot our yellow bastards right and left when we had the chance.” He poured a stiff brandy, which I must say I appreciated. Then he became more relaxed and said, “Yet look at us a year after the big affair! A few have lost money. None of us can order the Tonks about as we used to. But by God everyone has a better life.”

  He became actually expansive and said, “Crompton, you never liked music much, but are you up to some now?”

  I protested that on the contrary I enjoyed music very much, providing it wasn’t that blatant American jazz, and that I would relish some right then. I rose to tune the radio but he said, “No! Never use that if the real thing is at hand.”

  He called for the servant and said, “You can tell the girls to come in now,” and from the interior of the house appeared two beautiful little Tonkinese girls whom I judged to be about twenty and eighteen. They were dressed in European style, but with Tonkinese hairdo. He introduced them and said we were ready for some music.

  In a manner which betrayed their familiarity with the house, for in fact they lived there, the girls went to a cupboard and produced two odd instruments that I had never seen before. With tiny hammers they began to play the strange, elfin music I had heard earlier that afternoon.

  M. Perouse leaned back and smiled at the girls, whose beautifully placid faces did not change expression as they tinkled forth a new tune. “You’ve got to acquire a liking for it,” my host said.

  “The girls?” I whispered. “Who are they?”

  “The daughters of Nguyen Bo,” he replied. “They were orphans, you see. It was the least I could do for an old friend.” He listened to more of the music and then said he would like them to sing. They laughed nervously and said they did not like to perform before strangers.

  “Crompton’s no stranger!” he cried emphatically, slapping the younger girl on the bottom. As their thin reedy voices blended in an old French song he sighed and whispered, “If you seek the good life, Crompton, you must be prepared to accept many new things.”

  New Zealand

  New Zealand is probably the most beautiful country on earth. The official school history says that when Richard John Seddon, the great Prime Minister, died, “he passed on to a better place even than God’s own Country.”

  The New Zealander finds it difficult to believe that there could be a better land than his, either on earth or in heaven. He is always ready to boast of four national distinctions. “We have a land of unmatched beauty. (True) We have demonstrated that two races of different color can inhabit one land in peace and honor. (True) We showed the world how to pass social legislation for the good of all. (True) And today we enjoy the highest standard of living known by any nation. (False)”

  As regards the first claim, the natural beauty of New Zealand is difficult to believe. Its two islands, no larger than Colorado, combine all types of alluring scenery, all kinds of climates. Consider what you could see in one day’s travel.

  At the northern tip of North Island you find a dazzling tropical beach sixty miles long. (New Zealanders call it Ninety Mile Beach.) It ends in a cluster of handsome islands around which sport immense marlin and swordfish. Farther south are prehistoric sub-tropical forests with towering kauri pines that took 1500 years to mature. In the center of North Island is a brooding desert surmounted by three majestic volcanoes, one or the other of which seems always to be active, spouting lava ash by day and beacon fires at night. At Rotorua the wonders of Yellowstone Park are challenged, for here geysers play, mud pools bubble and hot waters tumble down over colored terraces.

  On the west coast you will see Mount Egmont, rising in beauty, the perfect snow-capped cone of a dead volcano, cloud wreathed and pointed like Fujiyama. But in New Zealand you always say, “Fujiyama looks a lot like Mount Egmont.”

  Now you leave the North Island and fly south across Cook Strait, where vast mountains sank into the sea until only their tips remained aloft. Here earth and ocean mingle in astonishing beauty, varied, twisted, glowing in the sunlight.

  Ahead lies South Island, where the real beauty of New Zealand is found. Here Mount Cook rises more than 12,000 feet, perpetually glaciated, with huge fingers of ice reaching almost into the sea. Nearby are the Southern Alps, immense rows of jagged peaks beneath which nestle dozens of wonderful lakes, each serving as a mirror for some great range of mountains.

  On the coast, near the glaciers, you find dramatic evidence of New Zealand’s turbulent geological history. During millions of years this land rose and fell repeatedly. When it lay under the sea, sand covered it. When it was thrust upward, limestone deposits collected. Finally the resulting rocks were forced high into the air, where howling winds eroded the sandstone layers and left tall rounded pillars of limestone wafers piled one upon the other, appropriately called The Pancakes. And then, since New Zealand scenery is completely prodigal in its wonders, the hungry Tasman Sea ate huge caverns beneath The Pancakes into which tides roar, bursting upward through crevices and shooting thin strands of spray high into the air.

  Farther south lies Milford Sound, first and finest of the fjords. Cutting deep inland, it is enclosed by brooding and majestic peaks. High waterfalls plunge from mountain plateaus directly into its waters, and jagged bays probe into dark forests. At the head of one such indentation Sutherland Falls leaps nearly 2,000 feet down into a solemn glen, one of the superb waterfalls of the world. Almost inaccessible, it is reached by means of a difficult trail labeled on maps “The World’s Finest Walk.” Along ten casual miles I counted forty sheer granite cliffs, each at least 800 feet high, three of them dropping precipitously for more than a thousand feet. I also saw at least 200 waterfalls, some of them hundreds of feet high. One unnamed one—there are so many wonders in this part of New Zealand that they are not even recorded—fell 300 feet and then leaped backward, borne aloft on surging currents of air. Another zigzagged eight times to get down a cliff face. A third fell some hundred feet, then dashed upon a huge projecting boulder which split the fall and threw each half high into the air, so that the falling plumes looked like two Grecians horses plunging into battle. At no point in the ten miles did I fail to see at least three waterfalls. Frequently more than ten were visible. And this was in the dry season!

  In the same ten miles there were other spectacular phenomena so far unnamed: a cataract that had gnawed its way sixty feet through solid rock, leaving at the land’s surface a gorge only 36 inches across; a tiny lake of perfect ultramarine; a balanced boulder bigger than a cathedral; a walled valley hidden in circles of granite cliff. And often above me flamed that most brilliant tree, the pohutukawa, at the end of whose branches grow massive clusters of scarlet flowers, so that sometimes the forest seemed to be on fire.

  On even the best maps the land south of Milford Sound is marked UNE
XPLORED. New Zealand has dozens of fjords still to be opened to travel. It has hundreds of natural wonders still to be discovered. One who knows the region said, “For the rest of this century my country could open up each year some new spectacle that would astonish the eye.”

  Proof of this came dramatically in 1949. New Zealand is geologically a recent land and has few animals that resemble those found elsewhere. It does, however, have some that are unique. Among those still living is the kiwi, a long-billed, flightless bird that has become the national symbol. (New Zealand fighting men are Kiwis.) Now almost extinct, the kiwi is famous for two qualities: it feeds by stomping its feet over worm holes to imitate rain, thus luring the hors d’oeurve into position; and it lays an egg of ridiculous size. If a hen were to do comparatively as well, chicken eggs would be 14 inches long and would weigh three pounds each!

  The most famous of New Zealand’s extinct creatures was the moa, a gigantic bird that towered above the heads of men who liked its rich meat so much they exterminated it about 150 years ago. (There’s a great fight on about this, some scholars maintaining that moas were never seen after 1350.) Another of the extinct birds was the notornis, a beautiful turkey-like creature with blue-green feathers and a brilliant red toucan-like bill. The last one was seen in 1898, a previous specimen having been eaten by shipwrecked sailors some years before.

  Then in 1949 some explorers in the wild southern valleys came upon a family of notornis that had miraculously survived. Cautious investigators probed the area and discovered perhaps fifty of the handsome fowl. A surge of excitement swept across the scientific world and other expeditions were hastily outfitted. Warned the Government: “It is ridiculous to call these excursions moa hunts. No moa could possibly be alive in New Zealand.” But the scientists point out that there used to be a dwarf moa and in most bars you can get even money that sooner or later a moa is going to turn up in those southern valleys marked UNEXPLORED.

  The first human beings to see this compact wonderland of New Zealand were a mysterious unidentified people who left carvings on the walls of caves. Scientists are divided as to whether these rude artists were ancestors of the famous Morions who were found here later and whose history is terrible to contemplate. Profoundly peaceful, they outlawed war and settled arguments by play-duels, the mock battle ending whenever a contestant cried, “Behold! I bleed!” For centuries they lived in quiet peace. Then the warlike Maoris fell upon them, killed the men, carried off the women. In 1930 there was only one Morion left alive. He was a grotesque fellow, Tommy Solomon, weighing 588 pounds. He liked to ride horses and always carried with him a small ladder by which to mount. In 1933 Tommy Solomon died, completely wiping out a distinct human race of which it was said, “They were gentle, therefore they perished.”

  The Maoris, who took their place, were certainly not gentle and they are not even close to perishing. They won New Zealand by some of the bravest exploits in maritime history. About the year 900 an intrepid Polynesian named Kupe drifted down to New Zealand from Tahiti and on his return established in Polynesian memory a description of a favored land called The Long White Cloud. In 1350 a great fleet of canoes migrated from Polynesia and brought permanent settlers to New Zealand.

  Regarding this hegira more specific information is recorded than is known about Columbus’ voyage some 150 years later. Today each Maori tribe traces its ancestry back to one of the original canoes and takes its name therefrom. For example, the Tainui tribe can relate proudly that the canoe Tainui was 70 feet long, captained by Hoturoa, that it sailed on the fourth night of December in 1350, and that “Taikehu was in charge of the great paddle Huahuaterangi.” The name of each paddler is remembered, plus the fact that the canoe’s priest turned out to be a thieving rascal who ran off with Hoturoa’s daughter. Even the chant that kept hope alive is recited: “Seek ye the way! Though the distance be great, though the way be long, keep thy course, O son! Across the waters is thy path.”

  The Maoris were wonderfully capable settlers, and are today the best off of all Polynesian peoples. They are darker, perhaps because of intermarriage with native tribes. They are more healthy, for their climate is better. And they are more gifted in self-government, because they stood boldly toe-to-toe with English invaders and slugged it out to a standstill. The Maoris were never totally defeated, so a sagacious treaty was devised whereby two vastly different civilizations could live together in mutual respect. The spirit of this Treaty of Waitongi still animates relations between Maori and Pakeha, as the white man is known. At the time of signing a native chief exclaimed, “The shadow of our land goes to Queen Victoria, but the substance remains with us.” Surely one day the Maoris will merge into the white stream that engulfs them, but for the present they cling boldly to their Maorihood, slowly acquiring the skills and tricks necessary for survival in a white man’s world.

  In the meantime they have a good life. They elect their own members of Parliament, who vote the straight Labor line because it was Labor that passed the law which gives parents $1.50 a week for each child. (Maoris call this the Stallion Fee.) Maoris can marry whites, live where they wish, enter whatever professions they prefer. As proof of their citizenship they fought with renowned bravery in both world wars, marching to battle singing their “Maori Battalion Song.”

  But you don’t live long in New Zealand without discovering that the Maori-Pakeha relationship is not all pleasant. A good deal of hypocrisy obscures realities. Many Maori villages are in fact slums. Sensitive Maoris confide that they never really feel at ease among whites, who shout public acceptance but practice private ostracism. As one complete realist said, “White men don’t marry our girls much any more, because Maori brides no longer inherit huge landed estates.” Even so, the relationship between brown and white in New Zealand is far superior to that between black and white in America.

  And the Maoris have a good time! At elections they often vote six or seven times if they particularly favor a candidate. They are great practical jokers, a favorite jest being to pick one’s teeth in the face of an enemy, thus signifying, “The flesh of your ancestors is caught in my teeth.” As a learned judge of Maori land disputes reported, “If Maori A claims land that once belonged to B’s family, there is one bit of evidence that supersedes all others. Can A prove that some ancestor of his killed and ate B’s ancestor? If so, the land clearly belongs to A.”

  Maoris have only vague concepts of private property. “The first Maori up in the morning is the best dressed.” It is not uncommon for a man who has bought a fine hat to give it ungrudgingly to the first friend who admires it. Says the white man: “The New Zealand Maori is the finest man on earth. But don’t lend him anything!”

  There is one aspect of Maori culture that is a sheer delight, one of those perfect art forms that haunts the memory with true loveliness. Young Maori girls, dressed in knotted cord blouses and skirts made of flax stems, become adept in swinging poi balls, made of compressed rushes tied to strings. (Short poi, six-inch strings; long poi, eighteen inches.) In delicate rhythms, sometimes brushing their skirts so as to yield an extra beat, teams of girls execute prolonged and intricate drills.

  On festive days they do the canoe poi. Then, with each girl whirling two short poi, they seat themselves upon the ground so as to represent their tribal canoe. In back of them a chief rushes up and down flourishing a greenstone club and urging them on. Somewhere in the shadows an old woman stands, chanting through blue-tattoed lips some wild Polynesian account of the great migration.

  Now, in their canoe, the girls make the poi balls fly. At first it seems nothing, merely another dance. Then slowly the poi take on the rhythms of the sea. Shoulders begin to weave as if hands carried great paddles. The chief rants and cries. Always the mournful woman chants in her husky voice.

  Now the poi balls whirr in the air, striking beaded skirts, tapping against the body. The entire audience is sailing in that ancestral canoe and the night is tense with the sound of the poi balls. Suddenly the woman moans
. In silence the girls fall backwards, as their ancestors had once collapsed from near starvation. There is now no sound but that of the mysterious poi balls, echoing the tiny slap of waves against the historic canoe. Then the chief shouts. The old woman screams the last measure of the chant. The girls revive, and the trembling poi balls leap to a beat of joy. And there is no one in the room who cannot see that early vision of the Long White Cloud!

  The white men who share New Zealand with the Maoris are all of British stock—English as far south as Christchurch, Scots the rest of the way—and no matter for how many generations a family has lived in New Zealand, everyone still speaks of going Home, and they proudly insist, “We are more English than the English.” Perhaps New Zealand’s position at the very antipodes from England has led them to cling tenaciously to every fragment of their English ancestry. This has both good and bad results. New Zealand has a more homogeneous population than any other major country, and in the last war the only four illiterate New Zealanders were found. On the other hand, gifted young people tend to run away from their own land, back to the security of England. Katherine Mansfield, the gifted storyteller, David Low, the cartoonist, and Lord Rutherford, the atomic trail blazer, are only three of thousands who fled their homeland.

  Every outstanding prime minister has been born outside New Zealand, and it is interesting to read the boast carved into the beautiful memorial church at Cave: “1928. It is noteworthy that all the men engaged in the building of this Church were British-born.” This yearning for the womb of England combined with life in a vivid new land has resulted in a nation which is most conservative in social life yet completely radical in social legislation.