Nobody had called me Miss in a long time. I liked Lindqvist’s elderly voice, its burled tone of sympathy and Scandinavian reserve. I also liked his written voice, from books of his that Bob had lent me—works of history, anthropology, and devastating polemics against nuclear testing in the waters he’d got to know from the deck of a raft, just two years after Hiroshima. Past seventy now, he had the beard, face and skull of a porcelain Confucius, his skin translucent, islanded with tiny moles; and sea eyes, cobalt or grey depending on the light. He was wearing a white T-shirt, khaki shorts, and lime-green flip flops.
“Tahiti is a land of the past, Miss Wyvern. And it always has been.” We clicked glasses. “Everyone will say to you, ‘Ah, if only you could have seen this place thirty years ago!’ Before the bombs. Before Papeete became a boom town.” (He chuckled at his pun, which sounded rehearsed.) “And this is true. But when I first came here—back in ’47—everyone said to me then, ‘Ah, you should have seen this place thirty years ago!’”
I mentioned something I’d read while looking into spears: as early as the 1790s, Captain George Vancouver had complained about the Tahitians neglecting their genuine crafts to make rubbishy souvenirs for sailors. “Yes!” Lindqvist laughed and nodded at a wooden tiki guarding the cash register. “Tahiti invented airport art.”
I’d sent him everything I knew about my father. I still hoped he might suddenly recall meeting Jon or hearing of him, though he’d told me in a letter that he didn’t.
“I’ve been in Stockholm a lot lately. My wife’s still there. Her sister’s unwell. I haven’t been able to do much for you, I’m afraid. I suggest you start at the Port Authority. Every ship that comes is entered in a register. There should be a record of the Bremerhaven.” He dabbed his chin with an immaculate white napkin. “No. Records so old will be in the archives at the museum. Speak to Alphonse Manu. Tell him I sent you.”
As I left I gave him the calling cards Bob had suggested, a bottle of aquavit and a film I made years ago about the Dew Line, a string of missile warning stations built across the Canadian Arctic by the Americans. I wasn’t allowed in those radar bases, but I’d managed to film their spoor—middens of rusting drums and frozen garbage strewn over the ice. A biologist had found that the livers of polar bears were toxic waste sites, riddled with PCBs.
“These things are everywhere,” said Lindqvist glumly. “In Peru they say that each night God cleans up the mess men make by day. But this is no longer true. I think we make too much. Even for God.”
Alphonse Manu came out of a back room at the Tahiti Museum, blinking in the sunlight splashed across the patio. He addressed me in Tahitian, then apologized in English for the mistake. I was getting used to this and rather liking it.
We found her quickly: the Bremerhaven, Apia, goélette, H. Westermann. She had arrived in Papeete on October 17, 1953, from Fakarava in the Tuamotu atolls. Evidently she’d called at the Marquesas before that, but the records gave only her last port of call and her next. On October 26th she’d left Tahiti for Aitutaki in the Cook Islands. My heart shrank at the enormity of the Pacific and my task. Might Jon have stayed aboard until the Cooks, a British territory? And where might the schooner have gone next: Tonga, Fiji, New Zealand?
“What about police and immigration records? My father might have been detained here. I don’t think he had any proof of identity or nationality.”
“I wish we had these informations!” Alphonse Manu spread his hands in a Gallic gesture of regret and sympathy. “But these are not like shipping. Not open to the public. Papers that old, if they exist, will be in Paris. Have you tried the British consulate?”
I had; the consul was away on urgent business. (Later, after my arrest, I had a languid visit from Her Majesty’s representative, an Etonian with schoolboy French. He spends most of his time in a mountain valley where, on dit, he grows orchids and beds underage girls in a hut stocked with fine editions of Shelley and Donne.)
Manu then took me through the museum galleries, waiting patiently whenever I stopped to make notes. There were no other visitors. Chickens were pecking at windfalls under a large mango tree shading a courtyard where old canoes were displayed, their planks sewn together like pieces of shoe. In boats like these, without charts or compass, the Polynesians had reached every habitable spot on half a world—the most farflung culture of antiquity. How had they known there was any land at all beyond the horizon? What made them gamble on the mere chance there might be?
I said, “It’s as if they found the islands by prayer.”
Marius explanations were more mundane: “They knew the stars, the ways of winds and birds. They say a master navigator could identify currents by dipping his scrotum in the sea.”
We entered the exhibition hall by the exit and worked down through time. Soon I was in the nineteenth century, among paintings of the Tahitian dynasty set up by the London Mission and its guns. More deadly were the white mans plagues. So many died of consumption in the royal household that the kings became known as Pomare, “Cough in the Night.” Here was the last of them, Pomare V, the one who built my jail: a dandy with a pencil moustache, dressed like a Mexican general, the black pearls of his eyes boring maniacally into the lens.
Beyond him was his mother, Pomare Vahine, “Night Cough Woman,” Tahitis only queen, who reigned longer than all the men together. She’d sat for an oil painting at my age, plump but still supple and Polynesian in a pale silk dress, a red hibiscus and a tiara of gardenias on her long sleek hair. In later photos she was grimly Victorian and all in black, a sad old woman widowed by the past.
Nearby was her crown—a pantomime affair of gilt and velvet, with TAHITI spelt in big letters over the royal brow, as if both queen and subjects had to be reminded where they were.
I was glad to leave the irony of Methodists playing pope in the South Seas, and descend to first contact in the 1760s. The Tahitians had formed a theory about the popaa race: the gods had blessed the whites with iron but cursed them to be all one sex, roaming the sea for women until the teeth fell out of their heads. Girls swam out to the great stinking ships and gave aroha for a nail. Sailors pulled so many nails that the ships began falling apart.
I must have let out a whoop, for Manu was rubbing his eyes in astonishment. There, in a glass case crammed with heathen things of wood and stone, were half a dozen spears like Henderson’s.
Well, not exactly alike—these were smaller, less impressive—but close enough in style to confirm that his came from the Society Islands, as he says in his last notebook. (I’ll let Frank tell you about that in due course.)
Manu pronounced for me the assegais true name: omore.
Like the Italian for love.
“You must not fly to Nuku Hiva,” Lars Lindqvist said when I rang to thank him. “You must go by boat! And smaller the boat the better. You don’t get seasick, do you, Miss Wyvern? Good. Come for a sunset drink next Tuesday. There will be people here who can help. And don’t do too much unpacking, I think soon they will sail.”
He gave me directions to his house, a kilometre number on the road around the island. It was now Thursday; I had five days on my hands—days I would otherwise have to spend badgering the air service to Nuku Hiva. They had only two flights a week, heavily booked, and couldn’t find my reservation. There were also island steamers, which had replaced the schooners of my father’s day. But Lindqvist’s offer was much more appealing.
Months of tension and anticipation were starting to seep away. I felt free, excited, apprehensive, and at the same time very tired. I took a ferry to the neighbouring island of Moorea, a quieter place, “like Tahiti thirty years ago,” someone told me. From a distance, Tahiti was magnificent, an emerald volcano on the water, conical and soft as a breast.
I arrived at Lindqvist’s late, after a rush-hour ride in a crush of portly Polynesians, trussed chickens, carrier bags, wicker hats and baskets. The bus went on its way in a whirlwind of smoke and noise, leaving me on the kerb. French commuters shot by
in Renaults and Citroens, gripping their steering-wheels with metropolitan ennui. The air was a sultry mix of fruit, seaweed, exhaust, coconut oil. My dress was sticking to my skin, underwear showing through. I felt hot, smelly, and indecent. Somehow Tahitian girls could ride two-up on a scooter and look gorgeous, not even ruffling the flowers in their hair.
A pair of high wooden gates set in a mossy breeze-block wall. I pressed a button corroded by salt air. The result was an explosion of large hounds, who hurled themselves at the gate and bayed on their hind legs, sending flecks of drool over the top. Then a few gruff Nordic words. The dogs settled, the gate shrieked on its hinges.
“Come! Come! Sorry about my watchdogs. But we need them, you know. Even out here.” The old mans papery hand, mapped with blue, patted the Dalmatians’ heads and reached for mine. He kissed my cheeks in the French way. “We are sitting in the library. Come!” He was wearing a faded red T-shirt and blue bathing trunks. I stopped worrying about my dress.
He walked briskly for his age, past the main house and across a lawn bordered with crotons. The land sloped down to a beach where piles of coconut husk were smouldering to drive away mosquitoes. The dogs lay down under a breadfruit, duty done, chins on paws. Lars looked at them indulgently. “It is true what is said about Dalmatians. Either they have spots or they have brains. These have spots.”
His library was a small elegant building like a cricket pavilion. Light strained through wooden louvres onto bookshelves and wicker furniture. Books were interleaved like sleeping lovers across the mahogany floor. There was a musk of paper and glue slowly dissolving in the humid air.
A couple rose to greet me, perhaps late twenties: a man in frayed cut-offs, a slim woman with dark bobbed hair, bare feet, and a short black dress—the sort that makes you look more naked and alluring than if you have nothing on at all. I thought: She must have bought that here and I want one. She looked French, and had a French name—Natalie—but her “Glad to know ya, Liv” was pure Australian. Simon, her boyfriend, was also from New South Wales, an unkempt redhead “into molluscs.”
“These two are leaving soon for Nuku Hiva,” Lars added breathily. “Where Melville deserted! And where I deeply wish you will find what you are looking for. Taiohae Bay! By sea! What more can you ask, Miss Wyvern?”
“Liv, please.” Evidently Lindqvist hadn’t told them about Jon. I was grateful. It seemed too intimate a thing to reveal then. I mentioned my interest in Melville and Henderson, adding only that my father had been to Nuku Hiva in the fifties, by schooner, and I’d always wanted to do the same.
“Before this goes any further, I’d better admit I know next to nothing about sailing. How long will it take you to get there? I’ve really no idea.”
“Neither have we,” said Natalie, glancing at Simon.
“All depends on winds,” he said. “Could be anywhere from ten days to thirty. Hope you’re not in a rush.”
Lars produced a tray of beer. “Now we watch the sunset. This isn’t the North. Or the South.” (Smiling at the Australians.) “In these latitudes, if you blink you miss it.” He was right. The low sun slipped from a bank of cloud, looking for a moment like a crescent moon on its back. Then it swelled to a magenta disc and melted onto the sea. We sat quietly, sipping thin Tahitian lager, our eyes adapting to the sudden dusk. I could hardly see the others or make out the spines of books. At length, Lars lit an oil lamp that hung above the table, and the old titles on history and exploration in half a dozen languages reappeared around us like benign ancestors.
Natalie had recently qualified as a GP, Simon was finishing a thesis. Something to do with snails. He was also an experienced sailor, with a master’s ticket. And there was a third member of their crew not present, an islander with relatives in Papeete.
“How’s your French?” Lars asked me, his pale eyes flashing in the lamplight.
“Not so good, I’m afraid.”
“Good! This is good. Make sure you speak it very badly on Tahiti. Some of the local boys are … patriots. They like French money, but that doesn’t mean they like the French. Three soldiers went to hospital last week. They won’t bother Anglo-Saxons or Scandinavians so long as they can tell the difference. The French have made their colonies disappear by metafiction. Mais non! We have no colonies, they are all indivisible parts of France. A deputy in Paris and voilà, democracy. But things could be worse. Tahiti is not yet Hawaii.”
I remarked how anachronistic it felt to be in a colonial possession. One can argue that most of the world’s a de facto colony these days, but this was the real thing—a quaint affair of white officials in crisp uniforms, of flags raised and lowered beside palm trees.
“Basically they buy the locals off,” Natalie said. “Subsidized Camembert and Vichy water in every tin-roof shop. Costs Paris a fortune. But if they gave Polynesia back they’d have nowhere to let off their bombs, poor dears.”
“The cargo cult of Camembert!” said Lars. “We say to the French, if your bombs are so safe as you claim, why don’t you let them off in France? And they reply, But this is France!”
A gecko began chirruping above us. I noticed a faded black-and-white photo on the wall behind his chair. “Is that the Kon-Tikti”
“In final moments. A sad day. A painful one, too. I still have the coral scars.” He went over to a map on the wall, tapping a worn spot. “Raroia Atoll. One of the Tuamotus. Old sailors called them the Dangerous Isles. With reason! They’re so flat you can’t see them coming.” He uncapped more beer and handed it round, his eyes returning to the photo, tracked and eaten by tiny insects behind the glass.
“Last of the Inca ships. Of course, ours was small. Just for six. Pizarro saw ones that carried crews of twenty, and thirty tons of freight.”
“How did you know what Inca ships looked like? Did the Spaniards leave descriptions?”
“Ha! A filmer’s question! No, they didn’t. They didn’t even describe the gold very well. Only its weight. But smaller craft of the same type were still in use last century. Lucky for us, von Humboldt made good drawings. We did what we could to copy him.”
“So you had no idea it would work?”
“Quite so. It was a tough trip! A heavy sea would wash through the deck-house. Through our bunks. But she handled better than anyone thought. Even we, and we were the believers. If we hadn’t hit that reef we might have gone all the way to New Zealand!”
“Our boat’s a white mans boat,” Simon cut in, Lars taking on the ruffled look of someone seldom interrupted. “Fifty-two-footer. Bar fridge. Propane galley. And a flush head, you’ll be relieved to hear. She is old, one of the last of the South Seas schooners. Built in Fiji about forty years ago. Old-fashioned even then. A rich bloke bought her recently and refitted her as a yacht. Rigs pretty much original. Two masts, gaffs, three jibs. Wants four to sail her, especially what were doing, beating against the trades. Till now we’ve been a hand short, though Vatu—you’ll meet him when we sail—Vatu’s worth two of us.”
“Everyone else goes the other way.” Natalie was picking a fly from her beer. “Your typical yachtie winters in California or Mexico, waits till the cyclones are over, then heads southwest. Marquesas, Tahiti, Cooks, Fiji, Oz. But we silly buggers thought we’d buck the trend. The owner made it worth our while. Wants his pride and joy delivered to Nuku Hiva, so he can sail back the easy way.”
“So you’re like Jack Kerouac and his pals. Driving an old geezers Cadillac flat out across America.”
“S’pose we are, Liv. S’pose we are.” Simon chuckled and raised his glass. “Only were not as well behaved.”
Rather diffidently, they added that their trip had a serious side. Simon hoped to gather specimens on the way. “Shellfish, squid. Anything dead or alive I can get. We’d like to know how much plutonium, tritium and other Parisian fragrances are being sprinkled about down here. The French aren’t talking. You can buy fish in Papeete market that’ll make a Geiger counter roar.”
“You might want to sleep on this
,” Natalie added. “We don’t expect any bother, but you never know. By the way, not a word to anyone, please. Whether you decide to come with us or not. The DGSE have very long ears.”
“Who?”
“The frog CIA,” said Simon. “But she’ll be apples. They won’t touch us in international waters.”
Lars explained that the Tahitian islands were downwind from Moruroa Atoll, where the French did atmospheric tests into the 1970s, long after other nuclear powers had stopped. Fallout had even rained on descendants of the Bounty mutineers at Pitcairn Island, a thousand kilometres upwind. Underground tests were continuing, about one a month.
He said that atolls—unstable crusts of coral on the lips of undersea volcanoes—were about the worst geological formation one could pick for nuclear tests. Bikini Atoll, in the Marshalls, had been blown in two by an early American bomb. The French tests were smaller, but after more than a hundred blasts their testing sites were “like crushed meringue,” leaking radiation and plutonium from countless cracks and pores. They were also sinking fast. Hurricanes had swept right over them, washing stockpiled waste into the sea. No one outside the French military knew how widespread the contamination was. Hence the need for samples.
“If the French hadn’t lost Algeria,” he added wistfully, “this would never have happened here. They could have used the desert. Not that I wish ill on the Algerians. But I am often thinking Tahiti might still be the quiet place I found in ’47.” The lamp was faltering, releasing a warm kerosene smell into the room.
I’d read some of this in Lindqvist’s books, but to hear him speak of it in that half-darkness, to the tolling of swells on the reef, brought an immediacy to these concerns that made my own quest seem small and self-absorbed. My interest was one mans fate; theirs the fate of an ocean, perhaps a world.
I decided to sail with the Australians. Their schooner would bring me near to Jon, to his experience in 1953. The trip would help me prepare for whatever I might find. And if nothing else it was a way to honour his memory. The risk of trouble from the authorities seemed slight. I worried more about my seamanship.
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