by Tatjana Soli
From Papeete, each was on his own to discover the where and the how of finding the right atoll. Within hours, every charter tourist helicopter and boat was gone. The French military, reeling from budget cuts and layoffs, were even further behind than the newspaper reporters. Worried about looking bad and thus instigating another round of cuts and layoffs, once they caught wind of the reporters descending, they decided to send covert operatives—that is, pretty French waitresses from the hotels where the press were staying—to either find out or accompany them, carrying satellite GPS on their persons.
By noon, helicopters, amphibious airplanes, frigates, and motorboats were converging on the small, hitherto exclusive and unknown atoll.
* * *
Wende shivered in the predawn night, despite the blood-warm air, although in the bigger sense she was no longer physically on the island. Definitely not recognizably as the person formerly known as Wende, who had occupied the resort during the last two months. She ate as much as she felt like and didn’t bother with exercise. Waking, she took a quick shower and clothed herself in her new roomy, comfort clothes, without looking in the mirror. As she gave up the elaborate toilette that went into being a “hottie,” she realized the obvious: she could abandon her beauty now or not, but either way, it would abandon her eventually. It was a loyalty program with a built-in, guaranteed obsolescence. Time would erode her most valuable asset, so she better be prepared.
None of these thoughts greatly bothered her because she felt like pure spirit, and this pure spirit’s only purpose was to bear witness to the vision that existed in her head, to get it down as quickly as possible before it expired or disappeared under the taxing logistics of dealing with one hundred and fifty Polynesian extras; plus the cranky principal actors, including one gloomy rock star ex-boyfriend; plus a suicidal owner, Loren, threatening to pull the electrical plug; plus the technical difficulties of the transmission to the stoned hacker friend in Cutthroat, who asked repeatedly, in texts—’SUP? nOOb—plus whatever the reaction was out there, back in the world.
The eight “Cannibal Kidnappers,” as the Observer had dubbed them, showed up for their continuity check, visibly subdued even behind their coconut masks. On balance, Wende thought it had worked out nicely to let them get shit-faced the previous night. Now they had a stolidness about them that was not typical of these rambunctious, puppy-fun men, but they did look a little slow, a little dazed. Hungover rather than menacing.
“Before the camera goes on, how about a few laps up and down the beach? I need a little pep. Some energy, people!”
“Why do they need to jog?” Cooked asked, petulant at his abrupt dismissal both as boy toy and lead actor in the video.
“Trust me on this.”
Dex sat in her director’s chair (dug up from the yacht of a movie producer who had been a former guest).
“How you doing?” she said gently.
“You didn’t care if I bled to death.”
“A doctor will be here any minute. Not my fault that they couldn’t find a boat last night, huh?”
“If anyone cared, one of the ones docked here could have made the trip.”
Wende nodded, frowned. “The sun comes up. You give your speech, Cooked gives his, bam, we’re done.”
“We’re done, too, that’s what you’re saying.”
She moved in close to him. “Today, Dex, you are doing something great. You are helping people who don’t have a voice. You are putting your fame to a higher purpose. You are touching on the wings of greatness. I, for one, have never been as turned on by you as I am this very minute. Think what it’s going to do to your fans. Think Lennon, Clapton, Bono.”
Dex blinked. “And us?”
“Let’s not have things messy right now.”
“You used me.”
Dex had never cared so deeply now that she didn’t.
* * *
The red disk of the sun rose out of the primal broth of ocean as the Crusoe live cam returned to shaky, computer-generated faux life, capturing the light on the water and the pole in front of it in a symbolically powerful crucifixion tableau. Unbeknownst to the experts, the live cam had been moved and pointed in a different direction in order to capture that very sunrise (Loren had purposely avoided such a location for its commercial vulgarity, much preferring the more subtle Japanese aesthetic of a slow lightening of sky, water, and sand to represent the passage of time), confusing the calculations of the experts and bringing the island a few more hours of splendid isolation.
The faint throbbing of drums grew louder and louder as they approached. The eight “Cannibal Henchmen” (Daily Star), as they were now known in the world press, came on, but this time they weren’t restraining a bound Dex. They were forming an escort. Although Wende had considered dragging the whole thing out, Ann had convinced her to end the charade as quickly as possible. Dex walked solemnly between his former jailors. They had removed some of his bruise makeup and applied cover-up to the real bruises so that the damage wasn’t a reminder of yesterday’s brutality. Wende didn’t want the audience thinking that this turnabout was coerced Stockholm syndrome stuff.
Dex stepped in front of the “cannibals,” who formed a fierce backdrop behind him.
“I’m Dex Cooper from the band Prospero. As some of you may know by now, I came to the islands to rest and write music with my girl … my former … anyway…”
Dex coughed, looking down. Either he was lost deep in thought or he had forgotten his lines.
“The point is, I was here purely as a tourist, in love with the beauty of the place and making music, when I was abducted by this Polynesian tribe of indigenous peoples. By the way, they find the term ‘cannibal’ highly insulting and inflammatory. They prefer the term ‘Ma ‘ohi.’ More on that later.
“Of course, I was really scared at first, and then, when I realized the whole cannibalism thing wasn’t going to happen, I was just pissed that my vacation was being ruined.”
Wende cringed. Dex was rambling. She’d asked him point-blank if he could improvise, and he’d said yes, but he was going off message.
“Thing is, these guys are cool. They’ve told me about the generations of mistreatment they have suffered under. Tomato, tomahto; potato, potahto; territory, colony—far as I can tell, they’re all the same. Thing is, these people are one with their environment. They’ve told me about the land being poisoned. The oceans, too. There are areas where the fish they used to eat now make them sick. Cancer, leukemia, birth defects—they’ve got them all here. In record-high numbers. And even though it happened a long time ago, like in the ’60s and ’70s, the effects are as if it happened yesterday. They kidnapped me in frustration because no one will listen. Not the government, not the world press, and, well, you’re listening now, aren’t you? Not for the right reasons, but sometimes we have to have something jammed down our throat, have our nose busted, our ribs cracked in order to get our attention, don’t we?”
My man came through, Wende thought, and made a fist pump for victory. She signaled Cooked to go on.
“This is one of the leading businessmen in the area, Vane ‘Cooked’ Teriieroo, and he owns the buff resort where I’ve been staying. He’s involved himself in negotiating my release. He’ll take over now.”
Cooked came on, wooden and nervous. “We know that the people of the world might not believe us. They think we, to use the words of the great Shakespeare, make ‘much ado about nothing.’ But the great doctor Albert Schweitzer wrote in 1964 to our freedom leader, the great Teariki, ‘Long before receiving your letter, I was worried about the fate of the Polynesian people. I have been fighting against all atomic weapons and nuclear tests since 1955. It is sad to learn that they have been forced on the inhabitants of your islands. Yet I know that the French Parliament would not come to your assistance…’”
Wende’s eyes glazed over. She was dying a thousand professional deaths. She’d begged, begged, him not to read the letter because it would suck energy from the telec
ast, but no. It dragged. Should have been paraphrased. Viewer attention span, people!
“‘Those who claim that these tests are harmless are liars. Like many other persons, I am ashamed of the Parliament’s attitude on this matter. The Parliament and the general public are sacrificing you. I feel sorry for you and shall continue to do so … Who could imagine that France would be willing to deliver its own citizens to the military in this manner?’”
Like an ace pitcher, Cooked shook off the signs from Wende to cut short. “The testing finally stopped in 1996. Its effects have not.”
He read from another paper that listed the number of thyroid and reproductive cancers in the affected populations, the number of birth defects and infertilities. He listed contaminant levels in the ocean, and then hit on one of their primary concerns: Moruroa and Fangataufa, where the most intensive nuclear testing occurred. “Islands that are now radioactive time bombs.”
Dex had moved off to the side of Cooked to give him center stage. He bowed his head to concentrate on the words, except that not only did he bow his head, he also closed his eyes, and started to sway ever so slightly, as if he were listening to the most uplifting gospel. A look of ecstasy passed onto his face that couldn’t be caused by the bureaucratic droning of Cooked, thus inadvertently stealing the show. Was he listening to music through his earbuds? Never share the stage with children, animals, or rock stars.
Cooked continued. “We do not believe that the radioactive poisons are imprisoned in the rock. We believe there is leakage. Moruroa is nearing collapse, which will spill large amounts of radioactive plutonium into the ocean, affecting all of the South Pacific and reaching Asia and the Americas also. Why is nothing being done, except to keep people out of these areas?”
A seismic shift was happening within Cooked. His words were tamped down and bloodless on the outside because he was trying to not burst out in tears, not start shouting and parading, fulfilling the stereotype of the childish native unable to control his emotions. These words were not dry statistics to him. They were wounds. They cracked his heart open. He suddenly understood Titi’s point, that his previous methods—setting bags of dog crap on fire in front of politicians’ houses in Papeete, planning to blow up hotel rooms—had been wrongheaded, that the dignity of words and reason were the only path toward getting respect. In those few moments on the camera, as he bored the news networks, to the point that they would end up excerpting his speech or cutting it entirely, he had finally grown up.
“The kidnappers’ demands: In addition to reparations, which have been promised but are still being stalled, they want open health records. Access to the 114 pages of blacked-out declassified Ministry of Defense documents. Open access to the supposedly ‘safe’ atolls used for testing, which are now guarded by the military with a twenty-mile exclusion zone.”
Richard sprang up for his bit part, as if this was suddenly a press conference for tourists. “What about the American tests on Bikini Atoll?”
Cooked looked at him thoughtfully. “I do not believe two wrongs make a right.”
Ann clucked her tongue. Score.
The idea by bringing up Bikini had been Wende’s to forestall criticism of an American rocker attacking the French government. Forget movies, Ann thought. The girl should run for president.
“We should go,” Dex mumbled.
Cooked paused, looked at him. They had gone off script. “Huh?”
Dex looked up, and there was a wicked, crazed light in his eyes, like a fifteen-year-old discovering the keys to the family car. “We should go to Moruroa.”
The reasons came piling in like coins from a winning slot machine: Wende had dumped him, he was a burnout, Harry’s death, his father’s disapproval, the family scandal, his own banishment, all leading him to this one ripe moment of action. Why not?
No, Wende desperately mouthed off camera.
Dex looked her in the eye, then moved up next to Cooked.
“Captain Cook sailed to the islands to conquer, to take away. We will sail from the islands for peace.”
Dex put his arm over Cooked’s shoulders, and they walked off. The “cannibals” looked confused for a moment, then followed.
And now back to our regularly scheduled beach programming.
As soon as Cooked stepped off camera he broke down into tears, emotionally ripped, a changed man.
Wende patted his shoulder as she went by. “Don’t worry. It wasn’t that terrible.”
Dex had pulled a fast one, hijacked the hijacking.
“Now what?” Wende asked. “We were supposed to kick it down, and you just lit the thing back up.”
“You’re new at this game,” Dex answered. “Learn. We need strong visuals. Let’s take one of the traditional outriggers here for the wedding. Leave the lagoon and board a boat out on the open ocean. Then we record the trip heading to Moruroa. Take the live cam and a satellite feed.”
“It’s dangerous. Radiation and stuff.”
“It’s symbolic. Scientists visit there all the time … don’t they?”
Cooked shrugged.
“What about the police stopping you?”
“Wende, baby, the whole wide world will be watching. What can they do?”
“Okay,” Wende said, trying to not fall behind and sound reactionary. “First of all, we need a boat.”
“You’ll find one,” Dex said, and limped away.
Cooked stopped them. “I’m not going.”
“Really? You were going to blow up a building, and you won’t take a boat ride?” Dex asked. “How will it look for Polynesian independence and a safe environment for a local not to be part of it?”
“It’s bad juju, dude.”
“Come on, you don’t believe in that stuff.” As he said it, Dex realized that he himself did. “You’ll be the George Clooney of Polynesia.”
Cooked nodded, unsure yet pleased at the comparison.
* * *
The illusion irretrievably broken, Loren gave in and flipped the switch, and the whole resort was WiFi-enabled.
“You had this and kept it from us?” Ann asked.
“We use it when no one is around. Deprivation is part of the experience.”
It seemed like the cheapest hucksterism to have withheld it, but now that everyone had returned to his or her portable device of choice, their previous off-the-grid status was remembered with nostalgia.
And then CNN called.
Rather, the new star girl reporter Laura Vann called. She wanted to fly a charter that hour from NYC to do an exclusive hour-long interview with Dex and Cooked.
“This is it,” Wende said. “We need to clean up the island. Laura said, ‘This interview is of world significance.’”
“I wonder if she’ll wear a bikini,” Dex said.
“I won’t do it,” Cooked announced. He couldn’t stand going through the unbearable stage fright again.
“Remember when I said Clooney?” Dex said. “Clooney’s nothing. This will make you the Gandhi of Polynesia.”
Cooked nodded gravely. He understood that, beneath all the flattery, he’d become a pawn, no longer in charge of himself. All he knew of Gandhi was Ben Kingsley in the movie that he saw as a kid during a matinee one afternoon in Papeete, with Titi’s uncle, the wannabe stuntman Aitu. They were there only because the Jackie Chan one had sold out. He didn’t remember the story ending well.
Titi had already sped away to direct island maintenance, begging guests to pitch in with the lure that the most important reporter in the world was coming to interview Cooked.
“He’ll be famous,” Titi said. “He will save us with his words. So do your duty and pick up a rake.”
Cooked thought she was laying it on a bit thick and left to find something to eat. As he made his way to the kitchen, relatives, friends, acquaintances all slapped him on the back or hugged him. It was spooky. By the time he came out of the kitchen, holding a supersize ham sandwich, a crowd had gathered. Seeing him, they dropped down on their knee
s, leaving a path for him, so that he had the sensation of walking among dwarfs. It was kind of cool until he realized the significance of the act—they were counting on him to not fuck up.
“Hey, Fineeva,” he said to a first cousin kneeling by his left hand. “How’s it shakin’?”
Fineeva closed her eyes and lowered her head as if she were in the presence of a deity.
He was in a world of trouble.
Cooked hurried back to the deluxe digs Loren had bribed them with, and rooted around in his boxes of junk until he found a lid of his extra-potent skunk bud. He felt it was incumbent on himself to prepare for this meeting, and part of that involved a ritual cleansing. Besides, he just needed to get high. In the old days they had used kava, but that was expensive and hard to come by. Time was short; Mary Jane would have to do. The old ceremonies and priests had long been lost, but Cooked knew that it basically involved going off alone and being in an altered state of consciousness so that he could commune with the gods and ancestors and tap into a higher source of knowledge. Beyond a doubt, he was inadequate to the job being asked of him, but he was trapped. A tool. He was no Gandhi, just another poor sap in above his head. If nothing else, at least he’d enjoy being stoned for a few hours.
As he prepared to go off, he decided to start early and rolled himself a joint to calm down. He packed nothing more than a flashlight, bottled water, power bars, chocolate, fruit (he regretted he hadn’t thought ahead and made two ham sandwiches); then he decided to throw in his iPod, his iPhone, and a laptop for watching DVDs. What was he doing? He took all the electronic gadgets back out—he was going old-school—and replaced them with a book, Colossus, that Titi was reading. But he worried the book might bore him during the long, lonely night, so he sat on the bed and read the first few pages to make sure he liked it.
I sit here in the child gulag commonly known as second grade. The wooden top of my desk is sticky with the collective germ-ridden, grimy smudge-prints of hands from decades of inmates before me, going as far back possibly as my dad, who attended this very same school, only to grow up, lose his hair, and become a prick to my mother and me. I believe I appear alert and to be listening to Mrs. Cornish’s endless babbling …
