The Great Lover

by Jill Dawson

  Taatamata’s answer to my question about immortality is convoluted. It involves a lagoon, water so deep that only the best divers venture into it; and according to Taatamata, once you make that dive, and reach that mysterious place, if you survive you will never be the same again; you will come up transformed.

  Such nonsense…wash your mind of foolishness…Hour after hour we have floated here in the blossom-hung darkness. I stroke her silky black hair and soon she is closing her eyes and purring and, with unmistakable gestures, snuggling against me again and touching my skin, smoothing her palm over the hairs on my chest, murmuring, ‘Pupure, little sweetheart, so pale…’ She seems to find it perverse when I try to kiss her, preferring instead to rub her face against mine, and bend her nose against my skin. Under her touch my skin grows more sensitive to light and night air and the feel of water and wood and sea breeze. Desire flares up again and this time she surprises me by sitting upon me in the most extraordinary way.

  That alone is life, I say to myself. All else is death.

  That night, the first spent in Mataiea, I dream of Father, who turns into Dick. We are in the dorm at Rugby. Father and Dick are interchangeable; I only know that it’s my brother by the glass of whisky in his hand. They are standing over me now; we’re in the sick-bay and I’m half blind with the pink-eye, and feverish. A cockerel is crowing. Someone–Teura, the mahu girl-boy–is tending me, pounding some mother-of-pearl into a paste in a jolly little bowl, then laying it gently on my eyes with his big, city-gent hands. Am I dead? No, only suffering with conjunctivitis.

  Father and Dick are smoking and nodding. ‘He should have been a girl,’ Father says. ‘It would have compensated Ruth so.’ (It seems the Ranee had a name once, before she was Mother.) So then I stare down at my body and it is changing: I am now a small brown-skinned girl, crowned with flowers; I’m gambolling round the bedroom. I have a name, a new name, but I don’t know what it is–a girl with blonde hair and dark skin, but ancient eyes and refined cheekbones, like Taatamata. At last everyone is happy. Father tweaks my cheek and calls me Pupure. My eyes open and the pink crust on my lids crumbles: I see properly at last–a vast lagoon of the most limpid blue. Swimmers into cleanness leaping. Now the lovely nymph Nell is standing there, under a mountain, dipping a basin into the pool and trickling it over her hands, just like my dear nursie used to do. Nell touches my mouth, the corner of my mouth: I have been stung by a bee. Her fingers taste of Grantchester honey from the apple orchard. Bathtime! She calls, Taü here! Sweetheart. And I wake up.

  My little hut is cool, and there are leaves on the floor, walls made of leaves, leaves woven into the roof above my head, a white canopy draped like a tepee above our bed to keep out the mosquitoes. And suddenly it’s damned cold, an icy breeze, and a blond ghost is here, still hovering from the dream; someone young, and naked, slipping between those draped veils. Is it a boy? A young man? Is it Denham? Denham died. Back in the summer of July 1912, in the midst of the worst times, the times when my mind seemed to slip its moorings. He died of–of what? A short illness. I wrote a brief letter of condolence to his father. I could not be truthful. That is all.

  Denham seems to have been, in the end, a pretty affectation I had no desire to repeat. As the figure turns to face me, though, I see it isn’t Denham at all. It’s a boy, much younger, a small, stubborn, serious boy, pudding-bowl hair and eyes the colour of the brightest parrotfish, and he’s staring at me. Just for a moment. If I sit up, he will be gone.

  We drank the strong narcotic last night, arriving late in our new hotel, and no doubt that explains my dreams and the waking hallucination, but reason doesn’t make the boy run away. He hangs in the folds of the mosquito drape, shyly staring at me, as if I am the most extraordinary, the most unexpected thing. At last I know who he is and why I feel such a stab of love for him, and such loss; enough to cross the Pacific ocean, the furthest seas. ‘Did you keep faith with me?’ he asks.

  ‘In my fashion,’ is all I can grunt in reply.

  ‘As you see,’ he says, ‘unwanted or not, I’m still here.’

  ‘Eh,’ I murmur, and the ghost vanishes. I’m awfully fluent in Tahitian these days. Eh, I believe, is the Tahitian word for yes.

  Banbridge has not given up his quest for the most lucrative pearl. That’s why we’re here in Mataiea, apart from the fact that it’s cooler, and therefore bearable. Today we go out with the divers to a secret location (Banbridge says so many of the pearling beds have been ravaged already by rapacious rascals–he does not include himself in this category–that we must search further afield).

  En route to Mataiea Banbridge kept up his travelogue with relentless zeal. A cart–the sort used for transporting bananas–and two mangy donkeys provided our car, and it was so bumpy, and so full of hot air, that most of the time I preferred to walk beside Miri and Teipo. Only when my toes began to smart, with a remnant of my old infection, did I permit myself to get back in the cart and sit with the girls (I continue to think of Teura as a girl, no matter what), little Georges and Banbridge.

  The house where Paul Gauguin lived is pointed out at Punaauia. I challenge Banbridge on this–it could hardly have been Gaugin’s only home at Punaauia, for I’ve heard that the house he lived in was burned, after he left, by natives who feared the ‘spirit’ of the paintings and carvings. We make a short stop here, in search of Gauguin’s son Emile, the mighty fisherman who still lives in the neighbourhood, along with his mother, the model for the painting Nevermore. Both are absent.

  ‘All paintings gone or burned. C’est fini!’ the barman Miri says, as we climb back into the cart, his moustache twitching with satisfaction. But tupapau, Miri insists, can be seen at the windows of the house. Tupapau walk in the shadows of the forest.

  ‘Spirits of dead people. Gauguin’s ghost,’ Taatamata helpfully translates.

  Hard to mistake the pleasure these people take in thwarting our desires, or of proving us wrong. Gauguin’s paintings–carried off or destroyed. Pearls–best ones robbed by divers and merchants from every nation. It reminds me of an argument, of sorts, between Taatamata and myself when I told her of the Samoan princess I’d heard of who, after a Samoan dinner party at Apia, led her guests–the officers of an English gunboat–to the town flagstaff and, before anyone could stop her, leaped on to the pole and raced up the sixty feet of it. She thereupon seized the German flag, tore it to pieces, brought it down and danced on it.

  I told Taatamata this tale after my discussion with Banbridge about the curious fact of Samoans preferring us British to Germans, despite the fairness of the German government. It was meant to illustrate the same thing. But, to my astonishment, Taatamata didn’t see it that way. ‘Samoan princess not a good diver,’ she suddenly said. ‘Good climber, eh, but not a good diver, like me. I dive très bien–better than Samoan princess.’

  This made me laugh. ‘Surely the point is, my dear sweetheart, not simply the extravagance of the feat, and how good a climber she was, but her purpose. To demonstrate that she would prefer to be ruled by the British, despite everything, and that Samoans are therefore wholly irrational.’

  Taatamata narrowed her eyes and folded her arms across the ugly missionary dress. ‘Samoans prefer Samoan rule. Not German flag. But I dive better than princess.’

  There is no budging her. So I am not in the least surprised when, on arriving at our destination–a lagoon of turquoise cream, buttery and silky-smooth, with glittering jewel-like strips at the centre–and after being shown to the canoes, Taatamata insists on coming with us, hoping to impress me, I believe, with her superior diving. It may be a secret location, but not to everyone, and is obviously a fruitful spot, as our boat joins several others, full of ropes and gleaming brown bodies. Most wear the strange wooden goggles with glass eyepieces that Miri now hands to me and Taatamata. She refuses them, suspicious.

  Little Georges starts up a cry and clings to her skirts but Teura soothes him and he seems to accept her as a perfectly good substitute, as she peel
s an orange and sits beside him on the beach to watch. Banbridge, still sweating in his city clothes, wants to come out on the boats with us, but of course has no intention of getting wet.

  The sea is so transparent that even wading out to the boat, carrying the ropes, I see the yellow trumpet fish hovering there, as if mindful of how ridiculous they look, with their black button eyes and silly noses. Taatamata has stripped to a pareu, her small perfect breasts bare to the sun, in readiness for her dive. Apparently before the Church got here this was the custom; Gauguin did not exaggerate, only found girls who had not yet discovered the fig-leaf injunction. (With her hair loosened down her back and a stray garland of flowers still dangling there, I can hardly look at her for fear of losing my head and throwing her down at once on the sand.)

  ‘First our divers will go down the rope,’ Miri says, to show me how it’s done.

  The boat is anchored and the rope lowered into the sea with its heavy lead attached, plopping with a small splash, and the first boy flies off the boat like an arrow, diving after it. A second follows, this time sliding slowly into the clear water with his tete, his shell basket. These are slim boats, big enough for two people at most, their hulls full of long ropes, so we are anchored close together (the better to cover the entire sea-bed), about half a dozen canoes, all of us craning over the side to await breathlessly the boy’s reappearance. Taatamata stretches up and shields her eyes against the sun. Long minutes pass. A tern flies overhead. Then, splashing, laughing, both boys appear, the one triumphantly holding up a handful of oysters, the other his basket, with a scattering of shells. Miri explains that they hold on to the rope and skip out on to the sea-bed somewhat like a parachutist using his free hand to alter the direction of his descent until carried to a promising patch of reef. Tete seems also to be the word for the boy, not just the basket, so I wonder if it translates as ‘helper’, but Banbridge has no interest in this point. His eyes graze hungrily the basket of oysters and he slaps me on the back. ‘You next, old boy!’

  But he’s too late–Taatamata has already dived, smart as a fish, over the side of the boat, arcing into the water. I see from the way the rope tugs that she must be pulling it out sideways. I slip into the water beside her, cursing for forgetting my spear-gun–I can never quite dispel my fear of sharks, no matter how often the natives describe them as ‘friendly’–and marvelling, as ever, at the sudden shift in time and space that occurs as soon as one enters the water. Time itself re-forming to reveal a busy little world of darting, iridescent fish, electric blue or sooty black; tiny striped clown-fish; leopard fish; one about a foot long and shaped like a bullet; or the ones with the serrated, blackened frill on their backs; or the translucent ones that flutter like pieces of paper.

  Through the glass of goggles, about twenty feet down, I quickly spy Taatamata, her black hair gesticulating like arms. The goggles are a novelty for me and not a comfortable one: disconcertingly they give Taatamata the appearance of an exotic fish too, one caught in a tank. She dives deeper, working her way down by grasping the rope, then makes excited movements, in a graceful underwater ballet, as she reaches the sea-bed lined with sea slugs, like a carpet of sandy turds, and spies a terrific booty of oysters. I am so excited I almost let out my breath but as neither of us remembered the basket, I swiftly gather as many as I can, eyes now stinging behind the goggles and the same hissing sound of the hive of the sea in my ears. I accept the shells she pushes into my arms and thrust myself to the surface, blood now clamouring in my ears.

  There are cheers as I scramble, panting, into the boat, tumbling the sharp shells in my arms beneath me.

  I look round for Taatamata to compliment her on her work, but the surface of the water is unbroken, and she is not in the boat.

  The tautness of our rope shows she must still be holding on. I lie on my stomach to peer over but see nothing. I stare wildly round at the other boats. I shout–but most canoes are empty or too far off, their divers busy pulling up baskets, preoccupied. Banbridge has his back to me and is avidly watching the other side of the lagoon for the return of his boy. I tug on the rope. I feel the weight of something. Something dark and tangled wraps round it–Taatamata’s hair? But no, it’s only seaweed.

  My heart has started to press at the cage of my chest, and although my lungs are burning, I dive again, flinging the wooden goggles on to the boat. The canoe tips and sways, threatening to throw my small hoard into the sea.

  I work my hands down the rope, to push myself deeper, and can still feel its tautness. Despite the pure turquoise blue, I see nothing except the silver barracuda, so fine they barely look real, like silk ribbons. How long can a person stay down like that? How long can she hold her breath? Taravana, Miri said, is the greatest danger to divers: a mental disorder caused by lack of oxygen to the brain. ‘Divers look like drunk,’ he told me cheerfully. Where is Taatamata?

  And then, as my lungs feel ready to split, and I can hold out no longer, I spy her. Another ten feet down, calmly gathering shells. She waves to me with her one free hand; the other still holds the rope, which billows out like a giant question mark–it must be fifty feet long. My ears suffer a sharp, stabbing pain and though I want with all my might to reach her, to go further, down deeper, something stronger is pushing at me, forcing me up, up to the surface.

  As I rupture the water I feel as if a long bird-like scream rends the air but it is only the sound inside my ears and perhaps a voice in my head crying, ‘Taatamata!’ I glance quickly towards the beach where the little figure of Georges is innocently chasing turtles, oblivious to the danger his mother is in.

  I start pulling on the rope, hoping to haul her up that way, and Miri sees what I am doing, dives towards my boat and comes to my aid. My bowels seem to be tearing away from my body, my arms wrenched from my shoulders. And as we pull together, the head of Taatamata suddenly breaches the surface, shining black hair splaying out like a bejewelled starfish, and–I hold my breath–at last she gasps, splutters, frantic for air, but alive.

  Miri and I lift her naked self into the boat, her body almost slipping from our arms, and she releases a great bundle of oysters knotted in her pareu on to the floor of the boat. ‘I am good diver,’ she says, at last, when words stumble back to her. ‘I dive like princess.’

  I have vomited quietly over the side of the boat.

  Taatamata gives me a sly look, remembering, no doubt, the terror that blazed in my eyes as she surfaced, knowing at last the devilish handle she has on me.

  I want to weep and wail for, of course, it hurts, it hurts, damn it–but I take the wicked, magnificent, triumphant girl in my arms and cradle her and squeeze her lavishly, not caring at the looks from Banbridge or the others. She takes this as her just deserts, absorbs the petting luxuriantly, wallowing back in the boat, truly like a princess. She is not smiling.

  So this is when I decide that my soujourn in the South Seas is over. I have learned my lesson, and I understand it. Of course, I do not tell Taatamata then and there. There is the celebration on the beach to go through, when the oysters are cleaned and ransacked with knives, their shells prised open and their fruit revealed.

  Banbridge stands with his arms folded behind his back, in the stance of a hungry heron, watching for fish. Excitement crackles in the air as the divers go through their task of sorting the shells: no doubt Banbridge is convinced he will find the huge poe rava he has long dreamed of, worth several thousand dollars. The men sit at their boats, using the oar to rest the shells on as they prise them open with their knives. The shells are then lined up neatly, each man according to the haul of his own boat, to display the nacre linings. When a pearl is found men crowd round, examining each for flaws, ridges in the lustre, and colour identification. Someone has produced a makeshift scale for weighing the mother-of-pearl; the beach is full of traders and excited villagers. The scent of smoking fish and a child’s drumbeat tell me they are warming up for a celebration.

  As the findings are sorted, the divers mutter a
kind of chant to categorise their finds: ‘rava’ (greenish-black), ‘motea’ (silver-grey) and ‘uouo’ (white). Finally the bunch of shells from our boat is reached and Taatamata and I cluster round to see the results of our catch. It seems that only one oyster in several thousand contains a pearl, most of practically no value. But as the haul that Taatamata brought up is worked over, she turns confidently to me and announces, ‘Taatamata plenty lucky. Always find poe rava,’ and, sure enough, one appears, a glistening dark eye in its satin lining. Banbridge grabs it at once, holds it to his eyeglass, then sniffs in derision: merely the size of a pea, and with a visible fine ridge round the middle, a flaw. He tells me at once, in his supercilious way, that it’s worthless–‘Here, have it,’ he says, thrusting it back at Taatamata. Now wearing her ugly blue dress again, she slips it into a pocket, smiling at me.

  The day is growing dark, and torches are fetched. The faces of the fishermen, growing tired of their task, are now lit up by these flaring lights against tropical stars, like a Rembrandt picture with lights on the immediate faces and the rest in inky darkness; and here, some dancers appear, six girls and six men from the village, naked to the waist, and glistening with coconut-palm oil. They begin dancing to a sound of high nasal wailing and hand-clapping. Despite everything, despite my resolution to leave, I feel my blood thrill once more.

  The dance is so much more marvellous and curious than I can ever describe. The women face each other mostly, making very slight rhythmic motions with their hands, feet and thighs. And as the crisis approaches, the movement grows slighter and, in proportion, more exciting. Which is queer. But reveals the dancers’ greater skill, because, yes, this smallness and intensity works in the way that lavish, frantic gestures at this moment would not.