The Miss Tutti Frutti Contest

by Graeme Lay

  The next stage of the canoe race, from Raiatea to Tahaa, is relatively undemanding, being only twenty-six kilometres and confined to the smoother lagoon waters inside the enclosing reefs of both islands. But it’s still ferociously contested, with a winning time of just under two hours. At Tahaa’s main village, Tapuamu, the crews carry the canoes ashore on their shoulders and wash themselves and their vessels down by the marina, before turning in early. The third, final and longest (fifty-eight kilometre) stage of the race will take place next day between Tahaa and Bora Bora, whose dramatic profile we can already see on the horizon.

  Bora Bora is justifiably known as one of the most beautiful islands in the world. Its volcanic core thrusts straight up from the ocean like an ancient green molar. The whole island is enclosed by a lagoon whose waters are varying shades of blinding blue. The coral sands of a ring of motus feather into the lagoon. From the deck of Haumana, I’m reminded immediately of the Rogers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific. Bora Bora wasn’t the model for James A. Michener’s mystical Bali Hai – that was an island in Vanuatu – but it could still be the template.

  That night I read a short story by Alex du Prel, a European writer who lives on Moorea. The story is about a Polynesian woman on Bora Bora called Madame Dorita. The narrator of the story goes to Madame Dorita’s house to fix her washing machine and, while there, sees a beautifully made chest filled with old but perfectly maintained tools. Intrigued, the narrator asks about the chest and Madame Dorita, who is in her fifties, tells him the story of how it came into her possession.

  The chest belonged to an American, one of the several thousand soldiers stationed on Bora Bora for nearly four years during World War II. At the age of sixteen Mademoiselle Dorita fell in love with one of the Americans, a young man called Mike, and became pregnant by him. Shortly afterwards the A-bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Americans pulled out of the bases in Polynesia and occupied Japan. Mike told the girl he had to leave, but promised to return and get her and the baby. He gave her his tool-chest to look after until he did so, showing her how to oil the tools and polish the chest to keep them in perfect condition.

  The girl followed his instructions faithfully, even when French soldiers came to Bora Bora to loot the island of everything the Americans had left behind. To stop the chest falling into the hands of the French the young girl carried it into the mountains and hid it in one of the caves where her ancestors placed the bones of their dead. And every week she went there and oiled the tools. Mike never returned. Mademoiselle Dorita bore his daughter, then married a local man and had children by him, but she still believed, thirty-five years after he left, that one day Mike would return to her.

  Touched by this tale, the narrator decides to trace the American. During a trip to the United States, he learns at the Department of Veterans’ Administration that Mike married in 1951, had a family, and is now living in the small town of Rio Minas, New Mexico. He drives there to meet him.

  He finds himself in a small, dusty town, hostile to outsiders and palpably illiberal in outlook. He has no difficulty finding Mike, but does not disclose the real purpose of his visit. Mike Shay is a pillar of the small, inward-looking community, and only too pleased to talk about ‘his’ war. When the conversation is steered towards Bora Bora, he talks of the island in great detail, but never once mentions Madame Dorita. When at last the narrator raises the issue of fraternisation with local women, the American becomes first secretive, then confiding. Yes, he had had local girls during his time on Bora Bora – ‘native women’, as he calls them. He even had a ‘Jap’ girl later on, in Nagoya. Mike, it seems, is an old-fashioned Southern racist who hardly gave his Polynesian lover a second thought.

  The narrator concludes his story by saying that he never told anyone about his trip to New Mexico and that, as far as he knows, Madame Dorita continues to shine Mike’s tools and keep them in the beautiful chest. The story, called ‘The Hope Chest’, ends with some interesting statistics. The 4,400 Americans stationed on Bora Bora during World War II fathered 132 children by local women. Only one came back to get his vahine and marry her.

  Not long afterwards, while on Moorea, I look up Alex du Prel and discover he publishes Tahiti Pacifique, a monthly magazine of political comment and cultural issues of French Polynesia and Pacific islands, a courageous enterprise. A balding, shambling bear of a man, Alex greets me genially and suggests we go out to lunch at a nearby waterfront village.

  There, over Hinano beer, we chat and commiserate over our fates, the way writers inevitably do when they meet. Then I ask Alex, because his nationality seems a little obscure, ‘Where were you born?’ In the US Virgin Islands, he tells me, to an American father and a German mother. When? ‘Nineteen forty-four,’ he replies. Same year as me. ‘Which month?’ He puts his beer glass down. ‘January. I’m a Capricorn.’ I stare at my companion. ‘Date?’ ‘The fifteenth,’ he replies, matter of factly. ‘That’s my birthday, too,’ I say. We burst out laughing, then drink a toast to each other. For the first time in my life I have met a twin.

  Unusually, there’s only one navigable passage through Bora Bora’s reef, Teavanui, on the island’s western side. Now the whole fleet – outriggers, speedboats and spectator vessels – is streaming towards it. The sea is again swelly, the going very tough for the canoeists. Louis speeds and swerves his boat among the swells, shouting at his mates in the other boats and laughing hysterically at everything they say when they shout back. Flying fish, startled out of the water by the flotilla, skim the water ahead of us.

  It’s three and a half hours before the canoes sweep through the passage, cross the wide lagoon and dig their way into Matira Bay, where they are greeted with acclaim by locals, visitors, a battery of news photographers and Monsieur Gaston Flosse, French Polynesia’s president, who looks just like New Zealand novelist Maurice Gee. Several of the outrigger crews collapse with heat exhaustion and have to be revived by first-aid workers. Astonishingly, after dropping me off in the shallows by the beach and seeing who’s won the race –Te Pae Ti’a from Rangiroa atoll in the Tuamotu archipelago – Louis the boatman turns his speedboat around and stands in the bow, revving the engine.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I ask. ‘Aren’t you coming to watch the show?’

  Louis points at the horizon and shouts, ‘No. I go back now. Home to Huahine. Fishing tomorrow!’ He gives his insane laugh once more, pulls his baseball cap down hard on his head, waves goodbye and guns the motor, heading for Teavanui Pass and the long open-sea crossing back to Fare. He hasn’t even set foot ashore.

  Tahitian dance teams perform on a barge moored just off Matira beach. Gaston Flosse makes a speech and presents the trophies. Gaston, born on Mangareva Island in the Gambier group, has been president of the French Polynesia Territorial Assembly continuously since 1991 and for other terms before that. He has, in every sense of the word, done very well for himself. In 2002 a Paris court cleared him of corruption charges, and in 2003 his territory was paid an official visit by his close friend and patron, French president Jacques Chirac. Gaston’s slogan could well have been ‘Polynesie Français, c’est moi’. France gives its most prized overseas territory many millions of dollars of development money every year. Gaston, now in his seventies, also has a great fondness for beautiful young women – his latest wife is in her early twenties. Then, in May 2004, the unthinkable happened: Gaston Flosse was voted out of office and replaced as president by a long-time pro-independence campaigner, Oscar Temaru. A new political era for French Polynesia had begun.

  The winning Hawaiiki Nui Vaka teams are interviewed for international television, then it’s party time again. The Hawaiian rock band pounds out its Eagles numbers while food and drink are served in a big marquee by the beach. In the evening there’s a dance in nearby Anau village. The transvestites from Haumana – Tomita, Sabine, Sophie and Tiare – attend, wearing their best frocks and high heels. But it’s been a big day, and no one stays late. We stroll back to the wha
rf under the stars, then transfer by launch to Haumana. As we glide across the lagoon in the warm blackness, the guitar strains of ‘Hotel California’ echo out from the marquee, where the canoe teams are still celebrating their achievement.

  Hawaiiki Nui Va’a is one of the great sporting events of the South Pacific, a testimony to discipline, endurance and fortitude. Watching the crews pack up their canoes, then leaving Haumana, I’m aware that I’ve witnessed something very special over these last few days. Before we climb into the boat’s tender and motor away to the airport, Tomita beams goodbye, murmurs, ‘Au revoir M’sieur Graeme,’ and kisses me hard on both cheeks, her dark whiskers rasping my face. When I’m a safe distance away, I blow back a double kiss.

  Later, as my plane soars over Bora Bora and heads east for Huahine, I stare down at the lagoon, the motus, the main town of Vaitape and the island’s three great mountains, Otemanu, Pahia and Hue. I’m wondering in which mountain Madame Dorita hid her Hope Chest.

  TEN

  HOW TO HAVE A HONEYMOON

  LEEWARD ISLANDS

  I AM SITTING WITH my new Tahitian friend Armand in the middle of Topatii. Topatii must be the smallest of all of the Leeward Islands of French Polynesia. No bigger than a tennis court, no higher than a wine bottle above sea level, and covered with ironwood trees, it lies in the middle of the largest passage in the reef on the eastern coast of Huahine. All around it, deep turbulent water streams through the breach from the Pacific Ocean, driven by a hot strong trade wind.

  Armand and I have come out to the tiny motu in his outrigger to snorkel, but the wind is too strong, so we’re sitting on the powdery white sand under the ironwood trees, talking. Armand is about twenty-five, solidly built but not fat. He has a mop of thick black hair, a flattened nose, a silver ring through one earlobe and wraparound sunglasses which are usually shoved up on his forehead. Intricate traditional tattooes adorn his wrists. He could be Maori, from Rotorua, or Kaitaia, but he is a Huahinian and a descendant, he assures me, of Omai, the young Raiatean who was taken to England by Cook’s 1774 expedition. On the wall of the hotel where I’m staying, and where Armand works, there’s a huge mural of Omai, standing proud in traditional costume.

  Armand speaks Tahitian, French and English with equal facility. ‘Tell me something,’ he says, very serious all of a sudden. ‘I have heard that in New Zealand you drive on the wrong side of the road. Is that true?’

  ‘We drive on the left, yes.’

  Frowning, Armand draws a highway in the coral sand with his hand, a median strip with his finger. ‘You drive –’ he makes an arrow on the left – ‘on this side?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What about the car steering wheel? That is on the left too?’

  ‘No, the steering wheel is on the right.’

  ‘Ay-yay-yay! On the right?’

  ‘Right.’

  Armand is even more perplexed now. ‘Why do you drive on that side?’ he asks.

  ‘I suppose because we were settled by the British, and they drive on the left.’

  ‘So … you must change gears with your left hand?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And the cars have to be specially made like that?’

  ‘Well, yes, but they’re mostly made in Japan, and the Japanese drive on the left too.’

  ‘They do too?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. And the Australians, and the Indians. But nearly everyone else in the world drives on the same side as you.’

  Armand nods, seemingly satisfied. He gets to his feet and brushes the sand from his blue pareo. ‘Okay, we go to Faie village now.’

  Ten minutes later he guides the big outrigger into the still water of the Faie inlet. This notch in Huahine’s eastern side is surrounded by hills, with stands of coconut palms at sea level and, above them, delicately fronded, flat-topped acacia trees. Small clearings on the hillsides are planted with grey, spiky pineapple plants. Amid the luxuriant greenery, they look like sea urchins in a rock pool.

  At the head of the inlet Armand ties up to a jetty beside a cluster of other outriggers. As we get out he picks up a bucket from the canoe; in it is the meaty blue-black head of a large tuna.

  Faie, three minutes’ walk away, consists of one street of houses, a couple of stores and a new Adventist church. Large mango, breadfruit and citrus trees line the little street. Towering above them, ramparts of volcanic rock, hundreds of metres high, enfold the village. They are covered in dark green bush, and are so high that only a sliver of sky is visible.

  Today is Sunday but, being Adventists, the people of Faie village carried out their devotions yesterday, so the shops are open. Children are playing marbles in the dusty street and men are playing petanque alongside them. They greet Armand enthusiastically in Tahitian, joke and laugh as he passes. The difference between the French and Tahitian tongues is marked, and most obvious when Tahitians get together. The latter is guttural, clipped and vowel rich, and comments are inevitably followed by a burst of high-pitched laughter. Tahitians seem to find almost everything a joke.

  A small stream channelled by low concrete walls cuts right across the village street. Armand gets down into the stream just below a bridge. The water is very clear and shallow, coming to just above his ankles, and the bed is covered with small round stones. The roots of a huge mango tree have grown down from the concrete wall into the water. I stand on the bank and watch Armand hold the tuna head under the water beside the tree roots and waft it gently to and fro in the slow current. A couple of village men sit on top of the concrete wall on the other side of the stream, smoking and staring down at a sight they must have witnessed many times. A few children, most holding cans of Pepsi, stand behind them, giggling.

  Within a minute the first head appears, emerging tentatively from the shadows beneath the tree roots. Then another appears, and a third and a fourth, a row of waving heads and watchful eyes. Then they emerge fully, their sinuous bodies waving gently in the current. There are about a dozen of them. Giant eels. They converge on the tuna head, the smaller ones being shoved aside by a couple of massive ones whose bodies, as thick as a man’s thigh, twist and turn as they gorge on the pink fish meat.

  Eeling was a popular pastime of mine when I was a boy. There was something mysterious – even sinister – about the ebony-hued creatures which dwelt in the dark recesses of rivers and lakes in my neighbourhood. Catching them was like hunting, but we never contemplated eating them: they were too repulsive. These Faie eels are dappled, not black like New Zealand eels, but their eyes are just as scary – the same repellent pale blue. There are so many of them tearing at the hapless tuna head that it resembles Medusa with the serpents. Armand tells me that the eels are sacred to the villagers of Faie, as one of their ancestors is believed to have been an eel himself. They feed their eels the offcuts of the fish they catch in the lagoon, and never harm them.

  When Armand gouges out the tuna’s eyes and tosses them into the water, the eels go into a frenzy. The largest, a monster a couple of metres long, pushes the rest away, swallows an eyeball, then slides backward into his lair, his watchful head still protruding. I think how easy it would be to spear him.

  Armand sees me staring, and laughs. ‘You want to hold him? He won’t mind.’

  He scoops up another one, only a fraction smaller, and strokes its side as if it were a cat. ‘Like this, see?’

  ‘Not today, thanks.’

  Later we sit under a tree in the village with a shopkeeper and his wife, drinking Pepsi and eating warm butter cake flavoured with locally grown vanilla. The shopkeeper wears only a yellow pareu, and his big belly is brown and perfectly round. Armand tells him something in Tahitian and the other man’s eyes grow huge with disbelief. Looking at me incredulously, he exhales and says, ‘Aaaaaeeee …’

  ‘What did you say?’ I ask Armand.

  He swallows some cake. ‘I told him that in your country the cars go on the wrong side of the road.’ It is honeymoon season in the South Pacific. Couples co
me from the United States, Germany, France, Switzerland, Japan and Italy, but mainly from Italy. Tahiti and its surrounding islands are especially popular with young Italians, and they and the other honeymooners make up most of the guests at my hotel in Huahine. The other group are geriatric French couples, so that surrounding me are either the young and the beautiful or the elderly and the decrepit, with only me in the middle.

  It’s interesting to sit and study the honeymooners. They are like a separate species, something from a David Attenborough documentary, as they carry out their post-courtship rituals. They change outfits several times a day, depending on whether they’re strolling beside the lagoon, lounging by the pool, having lunch or having dinner. And although they do a lot of public touching and eye-gazing, you can tell that, for some of them, things are not quite as idyllic as the pre-wedding publicity led them to believe. The new husbands often look distracted, the new wives have an edge of anxiety.

  One couple catches everyone’s attention because they are so physically striking. He is American, about twenty-four, tall, with dark, fashionably cut short hair, a Roman nose and clear green eyes. He walks about the hotel with the confidence and command of a young courtroom lawyer on the way up. She is tall too, and fair, her long blonde hair tumbling down over her shoulders. Her face is not as beautiful as his, but her figure compensates. She has the long, perfect legs and the erect carriage of the catwalk. From her deportment and constant change of clothes, she can be nothing but a Californian model. Both are bronzed, and neither will need cosmetic surgery for at least five years. I come to think of them as Lance and Carol.

  Lance and Carol have what is called an ‘overwater bungalow’, a unit connected to the rest of the resort by a narrow wooden bridge. Many times a day Carol walks over the bridge, bearing coffee, fruit juice, beer and cocktails on a tray from the bar. The recipient of all these fluids, Lance, emerges from the bungalow mainly for meals, dressed in designer jeans, boat shoes, and a floral shirt open to the navel to reveal his hairless chest and glittering gold chain. Carol hangs on his arm, and as they pass the bar and the mural of Omai on their way to the dining room, for the benefit of the other guests – and in particular the elderly ones – she nuzzles Lance’s neck and slides her long fingers over his tight buttocks.