by Graeme Lay
‘You’re from the United States Army?’ I ask in surprise.
He points to the yellow-lettered regimental patch on his army shirt pocket. ‘Yessir! US Marines!’
‘But what are you doing here?’
‘Whirr here fur cross-training. Month of cross-training with the French. You a Britisher?’
‘No, I’m from New Zealand.’
‘That so? I was in Sydney last year.’
‘Cross-training?’
‘You got it.’ He turns away. ‘Okay guys, let’s get our asses back to barracks.’
The road to the plateau of Taravao climbs straight and steady up the slopes of Tahiti Iti. My bike is well geared and takes the slope without exhausting its rider. What surprises me is that the land here is mostly in pasture: lush green grass grazed by some strange breed of dairy cow with a rust-coloured hide. Standing tall among the pastures are groves of trees, mostly mangoes and eucalypts, and the fields are enclosed by hedgerows. The grazing herds, rich pastures and hedgerows look just like parts of Normandy, until I glance at the wavy coastline far below. Not many coconut palms in Normandy.
From the 750-metre plateau the view is panoramic. The western sweep of Tahiti’s sloping, tree-studded pastureland tapers as it descends to the narrow isthmus, then broadens and rears up abruptly to the multiple Matterhorns of Tahiti Nui, forest-covered, precipitous, misty. From up here the sheltered western coast of both islands is laid out far below, a suture line of reef, currents like stretch marks, and two broad breaches in the reef where surfers zigzag among the wave breaks like water-bugs. Relishing what must be one of the loveliest views in the South Pacific, I reluctantly mount my bike and begin the long freewheeling ride back to Taravao, the soft wind cooling my face, pushing back my hair.
It’s hard to pull myself away from Fare Nana’o. It’s tranquil, natural and beautiful – no overpriced boutiques, no fancy cocktails, no pressure to take part in banal activities – and the only sound is the soughing of the sea under the floorboards. But I have to move on. There is the Circle Island Tour to complete.
Monique rings Tahiti Tours and confirms that Teva will be coming past at noon. I share a last coffee with Tuco, Bertha and the others, then carry my case out to the roadside and sit under a breadfruit tree to await the arrival of Teva’s minibus. As I admire the green cone of Tahiti Iti, the bus hoves into view and draws up alongside me. Teva greets me affably and I pull open the bus’s side door. As it slides back I hear a voice, a loud voice, a voice I know. ‘Hello again! You take the high road and I’ll take the low road!’ Errol!
All that’s changed is his shirt – he’s swapped the purple Hawaiian one for a yellow Hawaiian one. He fixes me with his hideous gaze. ‘I enjoyed yesterday’s tour so much, I thought I’d do it all over again,’ he says, and waves his disposable camera. ‘In case there was anything I missed.’
Today, Teva’s bus is nearly full, mainly with elderly tourists, most of whom are already half asleep. I find myself a seat near the back, as far away from Errol as I can get. The bus crosses the isthmus and comes to a large inlet. Teva speaks into his microphone: ‘This is Papeari. Those wooden stakes and fences you can see there in the bay are mussel farms.’
From the middle of the bus, a voice begins to bray. ‘Like in the Marlborough Sounds. They grow mussels like that there, too. On ropes. Just like those ones. Green-lipped mussels.’
FOURTEEN
THE POPULATION SURVEY
TAHITI
BACK IN TAHITI to do more research on the life and times of Paul Gauguin, I’m assigned to meet a man called Jules. I know nothing about him; I don’t know where he lives or what he looks like. Waiting somewhat anxiously as various vehicles draw up outside my Papeete hotel, I scan them all for a Jules who’s looking for a Graeme. Then, a few minutes after the appointed time, a silver Peugeot 307 draws up on the forecourt and a middle-aged man heaves himself out from behind the wheel. He wears shorts, a ming-blue tropical shirt and baggy navy-blue shorts.
‘M’sieur Graeme?’
‘Oui. Jules?’
‘Yes.’
‘Enchantez, M’sieur.’
‘Pleased to meet you, too.’
Jules is a large man. A very large man. Not in height – he’s shorter than I am – but in girth. He has the build of a Bulgarian wrestler. He also has large ears, a scrubby little moustache, and a head as big, round and hairless as a Moeraki boulder. As we drive out of Papeete towards the east coast of Tahiti, he provides me with the condensed version of his life. Jules has been many things: a translator, a union delegate, an industrial mediator, a teacher and an installer of tinted windows in automobiles. At the moment he drives the school bus on Moorea and guides people like me around Tahiti.
Jules also tells me he was brought up a Mormon but has abandoned that faith, although he still does not drink or smoke. His accent retains traces of his early years in New Mexico with his parents, so that as well as speaking English fluently – his conversation is sprinkled with words like ‘paradoxically’, ‘discerning’ and ‘sophisticated’– he does so with a Speedy Gonzales accent. He speaks French and Tahitian with equal facility, along with a little German, as befits a man whose bloodlines are European and Polynesian. His English grandfather emigrated to the Marquesas in the 1890s and became a trader on the island of Hiva Oa, where he married a local woman and got to know Paul Gauguin.
Jules is a fountain of knowledge about French Polynesia. I’ve never met anyone who knows so much about the history of the place, and about who’s currently doing what to whom and for how big a rake-off. It’s a reminder that Tahiti is really one big village where everyone monitors everyone else’s fortunes extremely closely. But there’s nothing malicious about Jules: all the gossip he passes on to me is harmless enough – and undeniably interesting. Married for more than thirty years to a Chinese woman with whom he has three adult children, Jules has recently divorced her in favour of a twenty-two-year-old woman ‘younger than my daughter’. ‘My honey’, as he refers to her, was one of his students in Papeete. Jules sighs contentedly. ‘And now,’ he muses dreamily, ‘life is very good again.’
Jules drives us down the wild east coast of Tahiti, where the sea is rough and driven hard on to the rocky shore by south-easterly trade winds, then turns off the coast road and up a valley. ‘You been here before?’ he inquires.
I peer around. ‘No, never.’
‘This is the Faarumai valley,’ Jules announces. He slows the car to a crawl along the narrow road. ‘A very lovely place.’
Enclosed by walls of volcanic rock, the valley floor is covered with plantation crops: taro, bananas, breadfruit, beans and tomatoes. It is a real-life Garden of Eden. Spread among the trees are small bungalows and lean-tos surrounded by fruit trees and vegetable gardens which seem to burst from the rich, dark soil. About five kilometres long, it tapers to its end at a parapet of sheer rock hundreds of metres high, down which three separate waterfalls cascade into a large shiny pool. Through the waterfalls’ gossamer mist a rainbow appears, its colours shimmering in the still air. Surrounding the pool is dense forest, through which a walkway and a viewing platform have been built. Standing on the platform, I peer up into the mist. High above the valley head, the river which feeds the waterfalls spills over a cleft in the rock.
‘Beautiful place, uh?’
‘It’s lovely, yes.’
‘I’m glad you like it.’ Jules rubs his great belly. ‘Now, I’ll tell you a story about the people who live here …’
When, a few years ago, the territorial government of French Polynesia commissioned a population survey of the region, they found that the birth rate – previously so high it was thought to be well-nigh unsustainable – was at last beginning to decline throughout the islands. There was only one exception – the Faarumai valley. In this secluded place couples were still having seven, eight or nine children per family. At first the demographers were mystified. However, closer investigation revealed that the valley, being narrow and e
nclosed by perpendicular cliffs, was the only area in French Polynesia which could not receive the region’s otherwise comprehensive television service.
‘There was nothing else for the people to do in the evenings except fuck,’ Jules explains. ‘They were careless about contraception, so the women were always pregnant. So, to get the birth rate down, the government arranged for a TV transmitter to be brought in by helicopter and placed right up there.’ He points to the lip of the cliff, high above us, where the waterfalls originate. ‘Then, a year after TV came to the valley, they did another population survey.’
‘And the birth rate had gone down?’
‘Uh-uh. The birth rate in the valley had gone up even more.’ At my perplexed look, he explains. ‘The people were watching the French porn channel on TV every night, getting aroused, then fucking each other even more. So the population grew even faster.’ Jules scratches his bald dome vigorously. ‘So the Catholic Church entered the picture. Disgusted by all the porn the people were watching, the bishop in Papeete insisted that a special coder be put on the Faarumai TV signal, so the porn channel was blocked out.’
‘And that did the trick, right?’
Jules winces. ‘Wrong. The kids – you know, the teenagers – they easily worked out how to decode the TV signal. So, while their parents were still working in the plantations, they came home from school, went to each other’s houses, watched the porn channel, got the hots and started fucking like crazy. So the teenage birth rate rocketed up.’ Jules turns away and chuckles. ‘Human nature’s funny sometimes, eh?’
‘It certainly is.’ Looking around at the abundant gardens, and the little houses, all now with a TV dish atop their roofs, and imagining the indoor lives of the valley’s horny inhabitants, I ask Jules, ‘So, what’s the latest on the birth rate here?’
Jules chuckles. ‘The new figures are due from the Statistics Department next month. The whole of Tahiti is waiting to see.’
We’re both still laughing when Jules reaches the beginning of the valley and turns the car back on to the coast road. I have never seen the northern coast of Tahiti Iti, so I ask him to drive me across the Taravao isthmus to the end of the road, to the last village, Tautira. As he does so, Jules tells me that there are government plans to build a second port for the territory out here, because Papeete harbour is now so congested. ‘It’ll be huge, one that’ll take big container ships. And big port facilities, cranes, breakwaters, the works.’
Looking around at the tranquil coast, where there are now just a few fishing boats moored in a tiny harbour, I say, ‘But that’ll ruin the whole area. And cost a fortune.’
Jules nods sadly. ‘Sure. Already the locals are gearing up to fight it. And it’s going to mean raising billions of francs.’
‘Where’s that sort of money going to come from?’
‘From Paris. From Gaston Flosse’s buddy. Jacques Chirac.’ Gaston Flosse was until recently the head of the French Polynesian Territorial Assembly.
Tautira’s an attractive settlement, built right across a level coastal plain, with many new houses on the edge of the lagoon. Although it’s tranquil now, it’s been blasted by cyclones in recent years, with many houses demolished by wind and waves. The only building that survived the cyclones was the sturdy Catholic church, standing inland near the centre of the plain.
We drive through the village and out the other side, still following the coast closely. Gradually the road gets narrower as it shadows the lagoon edge. Jules keeps up his nonchalant socio-political commentary. ‘That guy there’ – he points to a tall man dressed only in shorts, who’s tinkering with an outboard motor – ‘just got out of prison. He was a contractor for the first harbour development. Turns out he embezzled millions of government francs. They gave him four years. He served three, and while he was in there his two sons did exactly the same. Put most of the harbour development money into their own bank accounts. How dumb. You’d think they’d think of something more original, wouldn’t you?’
‘You would. So what happened to them?’
‘They’re in prison too. They each got eight years.’
Now the road stops, although there’s a track which leads around the island and eventually to Teahupoo. Although we can’t go any further, I get out, stand at the mouth of the Vaitepiha River and stare out across the shot-silk sea. It was out there in Vaitepiha Bay, on 8 August 1773, that James Cook anchored his sloop Resolution inside the reef. The place is still marked on most local maps of Tahiti as ‘Mouillage de Cook’, Cook’s Anchorage. Cook dropped anchor because he was in a hurry. Scurvy had broken out aboard Resolution’s sister ship, Adventure, on the way from New Zealand; the crew was in desperate need of fresh fruit and vegetables and he couldn’t expend more time getting to Matavai Bay, his favourite anchorage, on Tahiti Nui’s north coast. But during the night Resolution’s anchor dragged and she almost went on to the reef – she was eventually pulled clear by the longboats of both sloops. While this crisis was occupying the ships’ crews, the Tahitians swarmed aboard in a frenzy to trade anything the Europeans wanted for western goods.
‘Especially nails?’ I remark to Jules.
‘Yes, yes. Those Tahitian girls would do anything for a nail.’ He grins. ‘When I was a young man and read that, I went down to the waterfront with some nails and waved them about. It didn’t work. The girls were only interested in dollars.’
Cook sailed away from Vaitepiha Bay shortly afterwards, to his accustomed anchorage at Matavai Bay, but he was here long enough to give this district historical provenance. Driving back along the road, Jules says, ‘The Spanish were here too, you know.’
‘In Tautira?’
‘Yes.’
Sure enough, on the door of the church in Tautira there’s a plaque commemorating the 1774 visit of two Spanish ships, a reminder that the Spaniards were among the first European explorers to penetrate the South Pacific. At Tautira the Spaniards built a fort, erected a cross and claimed Tahiti for the King of Spain. Two priests from Lima were left behind. They lived in a house from which they hardly emerged and went home as soon as another Spanish ship called. When Cook returned to the district on his third voyage, in August 1777, again to obtain much-needed fresh food and water, he was affronted by the news that the Spanish had put in a claim for Tahiti. By now regarding both Tahiti Nui and Tahiti Iti as integral parts of Britain, Cook insisted that the Spaniards’ cross be removed and replaced with his own. On it he had one of his carpenters carve the subtle rejoinder, ‘Georgius Tertius Rex, Annis 1767, 1769, 1773, 1774 – 1777’.
FIFTEEN
A MYSTERIOUS HEART
TAHITI
‘WE … ANCHORED IN nine fathoms of water, within half a mile of the shore. The land appeared as uneven as a piece of crumpled paper, being divided irregularly into hills and valleys; but a beautiful verdure covered both, even to the tops of the highest peaks.’
So wrote Sydney Parkinson aboard James Cook’s Endeavour, in Matavai Bay, Tahiti, on 13 April 1769. Parkinson was a twenty-two-year-old artist from Edinburgh, a Quaker and a brilliant botanical illustrator. While he busied himself drawing the myriad plants of Tahiti, his shipmates fell under the spell of the island’s women. The Endeavour was the third European ship to arrive at Tahiti, following Samuel Wallis’s Dolphin in 1767 and Louis-Antoine de Bougainville’s Boudeusee in 1768, so already the Tahitians were well aware of what the crews on the European sailing ships were seeking.
Cook’s men must have thought they had arrived in paradise without the inconvenience of dying. The Tahitians had no inhibitions about sex, and any constraints the Englishmen might have harboured quickly disappeared. The commonest price for sex, a nail, proved mutually satisfactory, until the supply of nails dwindled and the very structure of the Endeavour was threatened.
In downtown Papeete at nine in the morning, late-model Citroens, Peugeots and Renaults are zipping along the fourlane waterfront carriageway, Boulevard Pomare. Somewhere in the distance a klaxon wails. A smell of fresh
coffee, croissants, jasmine and tiare Tahiti – the fragrant national flower – is in the air. Tethered to the doorstep of the town are luxury yachts from all over the world, their masts rocking like metronomes as they sway in the harbour swell. On the pavements, people of all hues mingle and greet each other. Bonjour, bonjour. Ça va? Très bien, merci. Many are families, typically consisting of a French father, a Tahitian, Chinese or mixed-race mother and a pair of beautiful, caramel-skinned children. The 235-year-old love affair between the races goes on.
Already the sun’s heat is fierce, the sky a high-gloss blue. Behind Papeete, rising steeply in ridges to verdant, sawtooth mountains whose peaks are wrapped in cloud, is the mysterious core of Tahiti, the ‘crumpled paper’ of Sydney Parkinson’s journal. La coeur de Tahiti. It is a heart I have never seen, but have long been curious about. What is in there? Lakes? Rivers? Villages? Nearly all visitors to Tahiti bypass the heart, barely pausing in Papeete before heading straight out to the enticing islands of the Society Group: Moorea, Huahine, Bora Bora. All I know is that in 1791, two years after the mutiny on HMS Bounty, six of the mutineers – John Sumner, John Millward, Thomas Burkitt, William Muspratt, Thomas McIntosh and Henry Hillbrant – fled up one of the valleys of Tahiti in an attempt to escape the vengeance of the pursuing Royal Navy, an expedition led by the merciless Captain Edward Edwards of HMS Pandora. The six runaways made it into the interior, but the Tahitians, knowing full well on which side their breadfruit was buttered, betrayed them. The mutineers were captured, and returned to the coast and eventually to England to stand trial.
A four-wheel-drive Toyota utility swings into the lay-by on Boulevard Pomare. A tall, mahogany-brown young man jumps out, shakes my hand, grins widely. ‘Bonjour M’sieur. Je m’appelle Poken.’ He hefts my bag on to the back of the ute. His long hair hangs down his back, and he wears a baseball cap, blue singlet and dark blue shorts. The circular-patterned tattoos of the Marquesas Islands adorn his sinewy arms and legs.