Left on Paradise (34 page)

“Papa! Papa!” shouted the older of the girls as she ran to her parents. “A boat’s coming. From the sea.”

Her sister said the same and everyone jumped from their seat and hurried down the trail. Only Ursula and Kit lagged behind. Even though the distance was short, the two stragglers arrived before the sailboat was dragged ashore.

Most neighbors recognized Dr. Morales before he struck sand and greeted him with shouts across the surf. After the anthropologist ran aground, Brent and Viet pulled his boat beyond the tide’s reach while Morales stumbled on the sand with unsteady legs—looking sunburned, dehydrated, and several pounds lighter.

Kit offered fresh water and the anthropologist took both it and several green bananas Ryan picked from a nearby tree.

“That’s better,” Dr. Morales said after his thirst was quenched and hunger somewhat satisfied. “I’ll need a place to stay. Till I can return the boat tomorrow.”

“We have a guest tent,” Kit said.

“I’ll take it. And more supper.”

“I’ll roast some fish and breadfruit.”

“Good.”

Kit started back to camp as Dr. Morales followed.

“I have much to say,” the anthropologist said to the crowd, “after I eat. Someone bring my backpack.”

Sean picked up the backpack and followed, as did the entire village. Forty-five minutes later, Dr. Morales’s hunger was completely satisfied and Linh collected his dirty dishes. Inhabitants previously dispersed to their tents reassembled (even John now was numbered among them). Parents sent children to bed early so they could listen uninterrupted. Only after the entire village gathered around the campfire did Dr. Morales stand to speak: a cup of coffee in his hand and a pipe dangling from his mouth.

“Sorry,” Dr. Morales aid, “if this pipe offends anyone, but my matches got wet and I haven’t had a smoke in four days.”

No one objected.

“In any case, I was fortunate to make it home. The winds died and I had to paddle all day. I only caught a light breeze this afternoon. Who knows what might have happened if I’d been at sea another day. I was out of water and food.”

“What’s the news?” Jose asked.

“Patience,” Dr. Morales said as he struck a match and put it to the end of his pipe as he drew the flame into the bowl to burn tobacco. Only after he exhaled did he speak. “I’ve discovered an indigenous people.”

Mouths dropped and gasps sounded.

“Indians,” Sean said.

“Native Americans,” Jose corrected him.

Deidra shook her head. “If this weren’t such good news at the end of a nice day,” she said, “I’d call you both the dolts that you are.”

“Exactly,” Dr. Morales aid, “the people look to be of Polynesian ancestry—maybe Tahitian, except that some have blue eyes and light hair.”

“Maybe you’ve found the lost colony of Roanoke Island,” Sean joked and several neighbors smiled. “It’s been missing four hundred years.”

“What’s it mean?” Hilary asked.

“I’m not sure. Maybe they have blood ties to Pitcairn Island—where Christian Fletcher and his
Bounty
mutineers took their Tahitian women to escape the British fleet.”

“That’s hundreds of miles from here,” Deidra said. “Maybe a thousand.”

“Polynesians have traveled further,” Dr. Morales responded.

Deidra nodded.

“Besides,” the anthropologist said, “there are other possibilities. Perhaps a marooned sailor or an abandoned pirate fell upon a native girl. Or may be a GI. There were plenty of ships and planes lost in the Pacific during the Second World War.”

“That seems speculative,” Jose said.

“This isn’t”—Morales opened the backpack lying at his feet and pulled a steel helmet from inside—“It’s a gunner’s helmet. American issue, I believe.”

Everyone fell silent.

“It was preserved at a shrine outside their main camp. I gather that the owner of this steel hat was washed to the island.”

“Did he have a name?” Deidra asked.

“They called him,” Dr. Morales paused to translate, “goddess-gift.”

“I mean a Christian name. In English.”

“I don’t know it.”

“Did he have dog tags?”

Dr. Morales thought for a long minute.

“I didn’t see any,” the anthropologist said, “and I didn’t see a grave or any markings either. We can call him M.I.A.”

“Where do they live?” Deidra asked.

“There’s an atoll maybe three or four hours east, a little beyond the horizon.”

“I arrived,” the doctor moved his hands as he spoke, waving his pipe between puffs, “on the third day of sailing. The first two atolls were nothing but coral rings around submerged islands. Finally, I came upon a small atoll of about twenty islands (only one of them larger than a couple acres) enclosed within a coral-ringed lagoon. A village of indigenous peoples was there—surviving on coconuts, panandu, and a few fish. They also eat some birds and an occasional turtle.”

The speaker paused to remember the sequence of events.

“I came upon their island near dusk,” Dr. Morales continued as he rubbed his hands together from excitement, “and anchored the first night offshore, certain the island was inhabited by the sight of a small fire on what I later determined to be their sacred island. First thing in the morning, I gathered my courage and ran the boat aground where I saw some locals. When the people kept their distance, I used bait and nets to catch a couple fish that I grilled on the beach while the inhabitants watched from afar. After a couple hours, I picked out their chief—who was partially hidden in some brush.”

No one stirred while Dr. Morales added tobacco to his pipe.

“Where was I?” the anthropologist asked. “Well, I steadied my nerves and approached him—the old patriarch, I mean. He lived on the island with a young wife. She’s in her mid-twenties and they have three kids: two girls and one little boy. And a couple young men, maybe sixteen or so, live with them. There was also an old woman. Maybe some others too.”

“Were they dangerous?” Linh asked.

“I didn’t know, but I decided it was better to die and be eaten for dinner than live never knowing. This was the professional opportunity of the century. Far better than Margaret Meade being tricked by Samoan teenagers.”

Only those who knew that the renowned anthropologist Margaret Meade had built her academic reputation on badly translated interviews with Samoan teenaged girls—who had played an elaborate powder room prank on the scholar by boasting of fabricated sexual experiences that Meade naively accepted as cultural norms—laughed at the quip.

“They offered me a bit of food,” Morales said, “and one of the girls. I didn’t want to take her but it seemed to be a matter of custom, so I did. Just some half-starved teenager with bad teeth. Maybe seventeen. Don’t be shocked. We need to judge cultures from their own perspective, not ours. When in Rome ...”

Ilyana stood and walked away and Kit followed her. So did Linh and Tiffany. Heather stirred, but stayed.

“Did I say something?” Dr. Morales asked.

“I’ll explain later,” Charles said with a somber voice.

The anthropologist frowned.

“The girl,” Dr. Morales said, “wasn’t any younger than the teenager who loved Paul Gauguin. And I’m no older than he was. Younger, in fact, since I don’t turn forty-three for a full year. When in Tahiti, do as the ...”

Charles cut him off with a wave of the hand. “This isn’t the place or time. We’ll talk later.”

Dr. Morales shrugged.

“In any case,” the anthropologist said, “I only had to take her a couple times. Then she stopped coming and I was left alone to my work. They sleep in hammocks held together by matted coconut threads. Their beds sit a foot from the ground, covered by green leaves. The hammocks keep them dry enough when rains come. Of course, they have to raise a new roof whenever the leaves crumble. In any case, I was given a hammock and they made some urchin of a child sleep in the grass. The next day I helped with fishing. We used my nets to catch a sand shark and a few small fish. They were very excited.”

Dr. Morales took a moment to relight his pipe.

“Most of the islanders,” the anthropologist continued, “seem to live in polygamous families—some on separate islands. Every household has a man and usually two or three wives. Sometimes I saw a teenager or a few children, but childbirth and infant mortality appear to take high tolls. There weren’t too many young people.”

Now Dr. Morales changed subjects.

“They don’t eat well and it shows,” the scholar said. “Their teeth are rotted and their legs are bowed. Not one citrus tree on the whole atoll and only a handful of pineapple plants. They live on coconut and fish and turtle. Not much else as far as I can tell. Maybe an occasional gull or rodent. Of course, they’re not very tall. Maybe five foot or so for the men and several inches shorter for women.”

Dr. Morales took yet another puff from his pipe.

“The aborigines,” Dr. Morales said after blowing out tobacco smoke, “don’t wear much because there isn’t much to wear. Banana leaves covering the genitals is about it. The women grow hair to their waists, then cut it in long clumps with sharpened clam shells. I saw them do it with my own eyes. The long hair is used for thread. It was fascinating to observe.”

A few people rustled as Dr. Morales paused.

“I worked alongside them for ... what was it, four weeks?”

A couple heads nodded.

“And I picked up a good deal of their language during that time. They have a simple vocabulary and direct grammar. Not much in the way of subjunctive tense. Easy to learn.”

Everyone laughed.

“I have a good ear for languages,” Dr. Morales explained. “My second doctorate was in dialects of the Pacific, so it wasn’t hard to catch the tongue. At least enough to function like a tourist. A few words, like fish and chief and sun came straight from Polynesian. But by the end of my stay, I could also identify most meals, name a majority of the natives, and even list a few of their gods.”

“What kind of totem do they worship?” Deidra asked.

“A goddess called Ra’ankyi. They’ve cut a palm into her totem pole. It’s filled with images of life: coconuts, birds, fish, turtles, sharks. A woman’s face and body are carved at the top of what otherwise seems a rather textbook phallic-shaped totem pole: a thick, tall palm trunk with a shallow sway.”

“Is she a fertility goddess?” Heather asked.

“That’s what I think,” Dr. Morales said. “Locked in that terrible little atoll, they can see only that food keeps them alive and women produce life. It’s very crude, but also very intriguing. Imagine trying to make sense of life isolated on some small atoll. I’m not sure they fully appreciate the male role in procreation.”

“I know the feeling,” Sean said, though none of his neighbors laughed.

“Anyway,” Dr. Morales continued, “I left three days ago but hit a storm which washed most of my supplies overboard. I had only a canteen around my waist, a MRE in my pocket, and a compass around my neck. It feels good to stand on solid land. It’ll be even better to be in my own bed tomorrow.”

The whole neighborhood broke into extended applause and Dr. Morales bowed several times.

“This is so exciting,” Deidra said as the clapping finally died down, “real aborigines unspoiled by civilization. Just like my people once were. Will we have the chance to meet them someday?”

“That,” Dr. Morales said, “brings me to my plans. I told the chief when I left I would return with food and drink. He seemed very excited. Said that his forefathers long told of the coming of sea-men and raft-men. I guess we might fulfill his prophecy.”

“This sounds a little too familiar,” Deidra said with a grimace. “We’re not supposed to come as conquering gods are we? As Cortés and his conquistadors?”

Dr. Morales laughed out loud. “Nothing like that. They treated me more like a dinner guest than a divine prophecy. Very formal and very polite, but not overly deferential. They saved that for their own chief.”

“Because I wouldn’t want to play the role of Quetzalcoatl.”

“I swear to the God in whom I don’t believe,” Dr. Morales said with a broad smile, “that I won’t claim the atoll in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ or King Juan Carlos of Spain.”

“We need to be careful,” Deidra said, “not to wreck what they’ve created over the centuries.”

“It was because,” Dr. Morales said, “I didn’t want to infringe on an ancient culture that I decided not to share our technology with the islanders. Still, it might be useful to send a load of food to them.”

“Can’t they come here for food?”

“I forgot to tell you,” Dr. Morales answered, “they apparently don’t sail. Damndest Polynesians I ever heard of. It makes me think that whatever originally put them on that island is buried deep enough in their collective psyche to keep them from the seas. A few men float shallow rafts around the atoll to spear fish and all of them play some type of scrimmage sport in the lagoon shallows, but they never touch the high seas. It seems to be more than fear—almost a taboo.”

“You ought to be afraid to head into the open seas in that sailboat again,” Deidra said, “that ought to be taboo.”