by Nicki Chen
“Careful, honey,” Jay warned, steadying her as she wobbled on her high heels. “Looks like someone had too much wine.”
She shrugged. “You never know until you try to walk in high heels. I have no idea how much I drank. Quan never let my glass go dry.”
“That’s his way. Quan’s an attentive host.”
“Yeah.” Diana sighed. “I’m going to miss them, all of them.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll be back.”
“I guess so.” The future seemed too uncertain to think that far ahead. But he was right, she’d only asked for a couple of years in Vanuatu. He must have taken that timeline seriously and arranged with headquarters for a limited stay in the South Pacific office. Still, she wasn’t ready to think about coming back to Manila.
They got in the car and drove down the quiet streets of Urdaneta Village and out onto Makati’s main avenues where the crush of the buses, jeepneys, and cars taking people to and from work was well over.
“Do you realize,” Diana said as they turned onto the highway, “that all the men at the party work for D-TAP?”
“Sure.”
“I mean, we do know other people, but most of our good friends are associated with the same organization.”
“It’s a large outfit.”
“I know.” They were quiet for a while. On another occasion months ago when Giulia was just beginning to turn against her life in the Philippines, she’d complained about being tired of being identified as a D-TAP spouse. “I have my own identity,” she’d insisted, her eyes on fire. “I’m me, Giulia Moretti.” They all felt that way. But it was unavoidable. That’s how they were identified on their visas: D-TAP spouse. Besides, Giulia did have her own identity. She was a mother.
Diana crossed her fingers in the darkness. God willing, she too would be a mother soon.
25
The sun was rising as they flew over northern Australia—a great dark dull shape against a shining ocean. They descended with a big swoop and landed at their first stop: Brisbane. Out the window, men in shorts and knee socks scurried around, some on foot, some riding bikes, while men in big-brimmed bush hats strolled behind them and chatted.
She heard giggling behind her. It had to be Clarita and Lourdes. She turned around and waved, and the two maids waved back. They looked excited. Neither of them had been abroad before. For them, this was to be a “great adventure.” In fact, that was exactly the way Clarita described it when she asked Diana if she could go with them. Clarita had been talking to Lourdes, Abby’s maid.
When Abby and Saudur left for Vanuatu, they had assumed they’d hire someone there to help around the house and with the twins. It hadn’t worked out, though, so Abby had contacted Lourdes, their Filipino maid, and Lourdes had immediately called Clarita.
“I want to go with you,” Clarita blurted out one afternoon while she and Diana were going through the canned goods, deciding which to take and which ones to give away.
Diana looked up, perplexed.
“The maid of Mrs. Rahman is going,” Clarita said fixing her gaze on the can of tomato sauce in her hand.
“Lourdes? To Vanuatu?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“But Clarita, you do know it’s a long way away, don’t you? And we won’t be coming back for maybe two years.”
“I know, ma’am.” She straightened her back and looked directly at Diana. “I want to go with you. It will be a great adventure.”
The next day Diana heard from Abby. Lourdes was afraid to travel alone, she said. Could she tag along with Jay and Diana?
Of course she could.
And now, here they were in the Brisbane transit lounge, the two women chattering in Tagalog with a Filipino couple. Diana glanced over her shoulder at them as she and Jay walked around the big airy room. “Will there be any Filipinos in Vanuatu?” she asked.
“A few.”
“Still, isn’t it going to be a shock for them? They’re used to crowds . . . to being surrounded by their own people.”
“Don’t worry, honey. They’ll do fine. Filipinos are good abroad.”
Diana looked back again. The two women seemed to be having such a good time with the Filipino couple. She took a deep breath. “Oh, well. Clarita said she was looking for an adventure. I sure hope this one doesn’t turn out to be too quiet and peaceful for her.”
Halfway around the transit lounge, a group of men in uniform caught Jay’s eye. “Be right back,” he said, giving Diana’s arm a squeeze.
She leaned against a post and watched him. How easily he struck up a conversation with strangers! Soon the men were all talking and gesturing and laughing.
“How did you know they spoke English?” she asked when he finally returned.
He shrugged. “I figured they were Gurkha soldiers recruited by the British. And they were. What I wanted to know was where they were going. They said they’ll be on our plane to Fiji. From there, they’ll head into the island’s interior for a month and a half of jungle training. Then they’ll fly back to Hong Kong.” His face lit up with the manly excitement of it all. “Gurkhas are the fiercest fighters on the planet,” he said.
Diana was puzzled for a moment. Every single one of the men was shorter than she was. And they were so pleasant looking and sturdy, extremely sturdy. “They’re from Nepal, aren’t they?”
“Right. Mountain men.”
The Air Vanuatu plane they flew from Fiji to Port Vila was a Boeing 727 like any other 727. The flight attendants, however, didn’t fit the usual mode. They smiled more, and they wore matching dresses in a floral print of pink, yellow, blue, and green. They were the first Melanesians Diana had ever encountered. She’d expected them to look like Polynesians, but they were darker, their hair kinkier.
A couple hours out of Fiji, the flight attendants came back down the aisle with a large basket of cellophane-wrapped candy. The toddler across the aisle plucked one out after careful study, and when urged to take more, blushed like a shy trick-or-treater before taking another. When it was his turn, Jay scooped up a handful.
“For you,” he said, dropping them in Diana’s lap.
“You’re in a good mood,” she blurted out as though she suspected him of playacting, which wasn’t the case. He’d given her no reason to think he regretted his decision to move.
“Of course I’m in a good mood.” He reached across and took back one of the candies he’d given her, unwrapped it, and popped it in his mouth. “I love traveling. Every time I leave headquarters for a mission, I feel like a weight’s been lifted off my shoulders.”
“But you love working there.”
“I do.” He sucked in his cheeks. “But it’s a pressure cooker. The D-TAP headquarters is like its own self-contained world. It’s a kind of mini-United Nations with all the conflicts, jealousies, alliances, and rivalries you’d expect to see there.”
Diana nodded. Even from the outside looking in, she could see how self-contained D-TAP was. Even the wives, like moons around Saturn, were caught up in the D-TAP universe.
“We’re all devoted to our work,” he said over the steady, comforting roar of the engines. “There’s something below the surface though. And it’s pervasive. You can’t get away from it.”
Diana glanced at him, at his full lips—tight now, as though pulled together by strings on either end—and at his pinched brows. It reminded her of a moment at Madeline’s dinner when she’d looked up and seen him looking equally angry. He and Paolo Moretti were sitting at the other end of the table. When there was a lull in the conversation, they’d quickly lowered their voices. She turned to ask him about it and then changed her mind. Better to let it be.
She looked down at the candies in her lap. “What am I going to do with all these?”
“Eat them?” he suggested. “Save them?”
She chose a red and white mint and stuffed the rest in her carry-on bag. Then, while Jay went back to his John le Carré novel, she turned and gazed out the window.
They were about two and a half hours out of Fiji by now. The ocean had looked calm the whole way, the water a lustrous blue that reached all the way into the Earth’s curve and then melded with the soft blue sky. So beautiful, and yet . . . She sucked the too sweet candy and looked for something else in the featureless blue view. An occasional whitecap flashed on the periphery of her vision, always disappearing before she could bring it into focus.
Ever since Fiji she’d been gazing out at the ocean’s pretty blue surface as though that were all there was to it. She hadn’t given a thought to the real ocean, that deep, deep watery world below her. All those creatures—sharks and turtles, rays and whales and spiky sea urchins—all of them hidden from view. The thought of that huge mysterious world sent a chill up her spine.
Suddenly the plane’s engines changed pitch. Oh my god, she thought, we’re almost there. Almost there, and Vanuatu was as much a mystery to her as was the ocean. Somehow in her rush to move, her single-minded focus on this one solution to her problem, she’d neglected to imagine what it would actually feel like to live on a remote little island in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean. She gripped her armrests and stared at the seat in front of her.
“What?” Jay folded a page and put his book away.
“Nothing.”
He leaned across her lap. “Look. I see something.”
And there it was, a strip of turquoise beyond the ocean’s monotonous blue, surf splashing white on a beach, a fringe of green trees. Their plane dropped lower until they were skimming over a plantation of shiny green coconut palms. Then they were on top of the runway, dusty bushes along the side, a few drying puddles. The plane settled onto a blanket of air, resting for a moment in that zone a few feet from the ground where you seem to be speeding up before you touch down, holding your breath before you land.
“Well, honey,” Jay said, patting her knee as the plane’s wheels hit the tarmac. “Welcome to paradise.”
They taxied past a tangle of green, turned toward the terminal, and came to a stop. Diana leaned her shoulder against Jay’s and unsnapped her seatbelt. “Looks good,” she said. It came out almost as a question.
But it smelled good, too. Clattering down from the plane on an aluminum staircase, she breathed in the warm, moist air—sun-kissed jungle foliage, a hint of jet fuel. Unlike that day almost four years ago when she’d stepped off the plane in Manila for the first time, here she wasn’t being assaulted by blistering heat. Instead the warm, soft air settled around her like a gentle caress.
She looked back at Clarita and Lourdes who were trailing behind. Then she took Jay’s hand, and together they walked toward the white terminal building. She was ready.
Inside, the long, high-ceilinged room that led to immigration was also white. As they approached the tables at the far end of the room, a tall Polynesian who looked like a sumo wrestler before fattening camp stepped out to greet them. “Siole Ifopo,” he said, tapping the photo-ID clipped to his pocket that identified him as a D-TAP technical assistant. “Over there.” He directed them past the three tables set aside for tourists to the only table for citizens and residents. “I’ll take care of your passports.”
Diana wondered why they would need help presenting their passports to the immigration officer. But Jay handed his over without complaint. So Diana collected Clarita and Lourdes’s passports and handed them together with her own to Siole.
He leafed through them, marked a couple of pages and handed them to the immigration officer, a dark-skinned young man who looked exceedingly proper and colonial in his stiff white uniform.
“Hm.” The man frowned. “Two years?”
“Until 1992.”
He nodded and adjusted some numbers before stamping their passports and handing them back.
In an easy minute they were at baggage claim, waiting for the carousel to start. “The chief’s wife came along,” Siole said. “Carole Anne. She’s waiting in the lobby. I told her I could get her an official badge.” He shrugged. “She didn’t think it was proper.”
Diana tried to picture Carole Anne Charbonneau. She hadn’t seen her for a few years, not since before Marshall was transferred to Vanuatu. Wasn’t she tall and blond? Somewhat stand-offish? Whatever. Abby was the one person Diana was waiting to see. They hadn’t made arrangements, but if she knew Abby, she’d be at the airport to greet them.
The belt jerked, and bags started tumbling out. Seeing her suitcase, Diana stepped forward. Just as she was about to grab it, though, Siole’s meaty hand closed around the handle. When he had all four of their suitcases, he tucked two under his arms and carried the other two by their handles. Motioning for Clarita and Lourdes to follow close behind carrying their own bags, he walked up to the customs officer and quickly arranged for all of them to be waved through. A scary-looking guy like Siole with a gift for making friends was always useful, even for an influential institution like the Development Trust for Asia and the Pacific.
Leaving customs, they passed through a doorway and out into yet another expansive white space, sunlight streaming in through high windows and glass doors. Something about the offbeat mix of people in the airport lobby sent a thrill up Diana’s spine and simultaneously left her feeling more than a little off-balance. Catching up with Jay, her mind wove them all together—the Europeans in shorts and sandals chatting with bearded government officials in safari suits, the couples at small tables sipping cappuccinos, the tourists in flip-flops and bush hats, the smiling ni-Vanuatu women wearing missionary-inspired calico dresses.
Carole Anne Charbonneau was standing off to one side, hands clasped in front of her, her blue-and-white dress and white flats looking conspicuously clean and crisp.
Abby was nowhere in sight.
Vanuatu
1990
26
“Welcome to Vanuatu.” Carole Anne threw her arms out as though to hug them all at once. “I know y’all are just going to love it here.”
Ah, yes, Diana remembered. Carole Anne was from Georgia.
They exchanged quick double-cheeked pecks. Then they all followed Siole through the door, which he somehow managed to shoulder through with his arms still full of suitcases. Diana scanned the lot across the street for Abby. Maybe she hadn’t realized how fast they would get through immigration and customs with Siole’s help.
“The parking lot is right over there,” Carole Anne said with a little wave of her fingers. Siole will be back before y’all know it.”
Leaving their suitcases on the curb, Siole hurried off. A minute or two later, he pulled up in a white Toyota.
“You see, here he is,” Carole Anne said. “Don’t y’all just love small airports?”
“It was good of you to meet us,” Jay said. “Big airports or small, it’s always nice to see a familiar face.”
Carole Anne clicked her tongue and blushed. Jay’s good looks always made women blush or smile too broadly and stand too close. Carole Anne was a blusher. “I . . . we . . . Marshall and I wouldn’t be able to forgive ourselves if no one had been here to meet y’all.” She smiled at Jay. “Y’all are part of the family now.” A blusher and a smiler.
“Excuse me,” Jay said, turning away so he could help with the suitcases.
“No, no. Siole can handle that.”
Jay shook his head and swung a suitcase into the trunk.
“Men,” Carole Anne sighed. Leaning closer to Diana while the men rearranged the suitcases to make room for Clarita and Lourdes’s bags, she whispered, “Be sure you tell him to order a white car.”
As was the case in Manila, D-TAP officers here were allowed to order a duty-free car. The office always did the paperwork, but no one had ever told them what to order. “White?”
“Yes. A Toyota. It’s what we all have. Port Vila is such a small town. Y’all don’t want to stand out. Please,” she said, gesturing toward the back seat. “Are all four of y’all going to fit back there?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Clarita said. “Lourdes can sit on my lap.
”
The ride into town—only seven minutes according to Carole Anne—led them first through an agricultural area, scruffy little fields on either side of the road with cattle grazing under spindly coconut palms. The still-alive fence posts sprouted leaves and beach hibiscus flowers. A man walking along the side of the road glared at them under his heavy brow. Then as their car passed, he broke into a toothy smile that totally transformed his face.
“You came right in the middle of a government crisis,” Siole said, glancing at them in the rearview mirror. “Watch out for the prime minister. He has a special relationship with a rich Vietnamese copra trader. Plus, he made the mistake of throwing some of his rivals out of the country. Now members of Parliament are calling for his resignation.”
And you call that a government crisis? Diana thought, remembering the People Power Revolution in the Philippines and the many armed coup attempts.
Carole Anne turned back and smiled. “Siole loves politics.”
They wheeled around a small roundabout. When the road straightened, the wild countryside gave way to driveways and huts and concrete block buildings with cars and pickup trucks parked at odd angles. The whole area, neither country nor town, looked ragged and confused, as though it couldn’t decide what it wanted to be. Not a particularly beautiful sight. But then, you couldn’t expect an entire country to be picturesque. Diana glanced at Jay, who was nodding and commenting and asking questions as Siole plied them with stories of the various factions in the country—the ni-Vanuatu from Tanna and Santo, the ranchers and plantation owners and shopkeepers, the French-speaking Vietnamese, and the rich Chinese, some of whom spoke English and some French.
Diana caught Jay’s eye and pointed off to their right where the land dropped down to a small shallow bay, resplendent in cream and lavender and turquoise.
