Islands of Deception

by Constance Hood

  The halter-top of Naomi’s sundress showed off her shoulders and Hank forgot all about his worries for dinner. She waved and then called to him, “Mon Cher! Please help me with this.” On the stoop beside her was an enormous picnic basket. Through its wood slats he smelled everything he had not eaten in five years. He lifted the basket and then picked up his map to the beach. Naomi looked at it and said, “That is a lovely beach, but I know of one where we will have more privacy. May I direct you there?”

  “Of course, as long as you know how to get back out after dark. I’m not sure of the roads.”

  She laughed, “I will get you home safely. And don’t worry about the road.” They turned out of the main roads toward the beach at Anse Vata, which matched his directions. Then she directed him to a boat landing. “We are going over to a tiny island. Can those shoes go in the water? The coral is sharp.” She called to the boatman. “Pierre! Please take us over to Isle aux Canards – and do you have some water sandals for my friend?” The picnic basket went into the boat, and they set out across the vast lagoon toward a tiny spot of land. He investigated the white pebbled beach, land out of a dream. Naomi unpacked tartare de ton, a rich sausage, cheeses, biscuits and wine. A selection of unfamiliar fruits lay in the basket, along with some French chocolates. As they began to eat, she nibbled at the treats, and he cut into his open faced sandwiches, voraciously consuming them as if he were a condemned man going into his last meal.

  The last course was cheese – gruyere, camembert, brie, and a wonderful Roquefort. Naomi smiled at his naivete, as he whacked the ends off the wedges and piled the French cheeses onto his dessert plate.

  “You haven’t eaten cheese before?”

  “The Dutch invented cheese – Gouda, Edam, Leidse…”

  “Have you missed it much?”

  “Actually, if I had to eat only two foods for the rest of my life, they would be Roggebrod and good cheeses. I suppose an apple and maybe a bit of ginger now and then would be perfect. And, of course, chocolates – Dutch chocolates.”

  She took a small piece of the Camembert and a bit of fruit, setting the two carefully into his mouth. “Is this too delicate?”

  The absurd lecture stopped. He let the smooth cheese coat his palate and waft through his nostrils before he took a deep breath.

  “It’s delicious. You enjoy French food, yes?”

  “Very much…. My mama was half French.” Here she took a deep breath and then coughed into her napkin. Wiping her eyes, she set it back down on the table.

  He took her hand. “What happened to your mama?”

  “She died when I was twelve. My father’s other women didn’t want me, so I went to live with the nuns in the little French convent.” She looked straight into his eyes. “So, how is it that you are a Dutchman working with the U.S. Army? Isn’t Holland part of Germany?”

  He smiled, expecting the question. “I’m a businessman and the army will buy supplies from anyone who can locate them.”

  That wasn’t exactly what she wanted to know. “But why didn’t you stay in Holland?” She paused, digging a little deeper. “Didn’t you have a family?”

  “My mother – I thought she loved us and would protect our inheritance, but she married again. My brother and sister ­– my sister is very…complicated.”

  “Women can be complicated.” She smiled gently and reached over toward an unfamiliar orange fruit, placing her hand over the knife in his, “here, like this,” and pulled off a perfect translucent slice of the mango. Cleaning up the edge a little herself, she licked the knife off. “I’m not sure we even understand ourselves.” Then she placed the knife between her teeth and folded her napkin.

  He watched her intently. “So, you work for the Free French. Why do you work?”

  She examined the picnic basket, which now had been emptied of a week’s salary. “My father did not acknowledge me in his will. He and my mother were never married. Their parents were not married. French laws do not acknowledge us. We have to make our own way.”

  “You and I are not so different. I was also disinherited when my mother remarried. My future was gone.”

  “Ah, but you are very talented. You speak many languages and you work hard. What do you do all day long?”

  “I try to make some money – finding things people need. I enjoy the travel.”

  His answer left even bigger questions. He gazed out over the water watching the sun drop beneath the horizon. It was as if he hadn’t heard her. She tried again.

  “What do you like to do best?”

  “Photography. I like pictures.”

  “And what do you like to photograph?”

  “Women mostly. Beautiful places, and of course women in beautiful places.”

  “Will you take a picture of me?”

  Hans flinched. She was not like the whores on the beach. “Yes, but not tonight. Tonight’s pictures I wish to keep here.” He tapped his heart.

  She reached across and touched him, “Would you like to swim now?”

  “I don’t have a proper swimming suit.”

  “It’s getting dark and the water is warm.” She untied the halter to her dress and stepped out of it, slipped on a pair of water sandals and was gone, Venus sinking into the sea. He gasped for air, but there was none. Oh dear God, what was he to do now? If he undressed, she would surely see his prurient interest in her. He walked into the water in the borrowed shorts not feeling the cuts from the coral on his feet.

  She moved like a dolphin, swimming out far into the bay with a graceful freestyle. He calmly splashed himself near the beach. She swam back and splashed water in his face. She followed him, wringing out her hair and leaving herself uncovered in the night air.

  “When do you leave Noumea?”

  “When this awful war ends. Who knows how long that will be? And you, how long have you worked in the French offices?”

  He looked at her body, which was very unlike the experience of developing photos of nude women. He wanted to touch her, to smell her, and to seize her. He hardly heard her answer.

  “Oh, about three months. I needed a job and the nuns educated me well enough to work.”

  He ached for her, but tried to keep himself under control. The wet white shorts were not much help.

  Naomi spoke. “I think it is getting close to 10:00 and Pierre will be back with the boat. We need to get back in time for curfew.”

  “When can I see you again?” He didn’t want to take her to the bars on Saturday night, and have her ogled by all the men from the bases. She was his now. He just needed to figure out how he could seal her heart. She knew the correct answer.

  “How about Sunday afternoon? I can show you another wonderful place.” She kissed him on the cheek. He turned her head and kissed her on the lips.

  Naomi did not tell him that she had an appointment on Saturday night. First she had to pull together her personal notes from her workweek in the French Information and Propaganda Department. Her friend Jules Chemin was visiting from Tonkin. Jules’ brother, Henri, had quit corresponding recently, and Jules had come to visit New Caledonia and learn more about his disappearance from the airwaves. What the hell? Henri Chemin had harmed no one. The two brothers had been very close, and radioed each other at least twice a week. Jules did not like the silence. She was to meet him at a small café a little bit up the coast from town, one that was only visited by locals.

  ***

  Jules Chemin waited at a table for two. A few small orchids sat in a water glass, and the candle flickered. He avoided tapping his fingers or drawing any attention to his impatience. Instead, he lit a cigarette and took a slow drag, eyes focused in the distance, a man not to be disturbed. Naomi was an interesting tool, if he could control her. She sauntered in nearly half an hour late.

  Chemin didn’t look forward to this interrogation. The girl was French-Tonkinese
on one side and some sort of Dutch-Afrikaner mix on the other. Her loyalties were to the next person who could put out a bowl of food. But she charmed men and could get them to do anything she asked.

  Chemin would rather have stayed home in Tonkin. His home was filled with precious Chinese antiques, traded and purchased for safe passage as people fled one Chinese regime after another. A bevy of servants waited on his every need, and clients paid him well. Now he had to find Henri on an island full of Americans, Australians and Free French – a stewpot of criminal elements that had inbred for some two hundred years. Peace would be possible if only the Vichy and the Japanese could work out the terms. There was no reason for all the disturbances with ragtag alliances across a bunch of islands populated with brown savages.

  Chemin ordered dinner, then asked, “So, tell me the latest island gossip. How are you enjoying the governor’s parties?”

  Naomi thought quietly, and decided not to share any information about her private life with him. “I’ve actually been working a lot since I started the new job in Laigret’s office. He hasn’t held any parties. People are moving in and out so fast that I don’t know if we even have time to get gossip started.”

  “Ah, the Americans are getting hit very hard in the islands. The Japanese are determined to send them home either in boxes or in pieces.”

  Naomi picked up her lobster and tore off the claw, played with it, then sucked out the insides. Jules admired his savage companion. “Why would a beauty like you be working so hard? There are certainly enough men around here willing to take care of you very nicely. There has to be more in their lives than tinned food and hospital supplies.”

  He had a point. Naomi was attractive enough to find a rich man in this sea of soldiers. She just didn’t see herself as being a happy housewife – a nun who would still need to bed the same man every night, and raise children by day.

  Jules continued to probe. “So, what have you heard from Henri recently?”

  She startled. She was not assigned to keep tabs on Henri Chemin. She barely knew him. She had been to parties at his house along with several other girls, but their job was to just serve as hostesses.

  “I need your help. Henri had a Dutch visitor about a week before his last message. We may be looking for a Dutchman.” He pushed his food aside and lit a cigarette. “Or maybe a Gaullist.”

  She pondered his comment. “Jules, we are looking for a coconut flake in a bowl of rice. The Dutch aren’t even in the war. But let’s see, I was at a Javanese Christmas party with a good eighty people or so. I have a nice candidate.”

  “Have you slept with him?”

  “I said he was a nice candidate. He is a Dutch trader who sells to the Americans. He gets us some little necessities now and then. I went out with him a few days ago.”

  “So, who does he know?”

  “I’m not sure, he talked about his family in Holland. And church. He talked about church. He is too boring and innocent to be a spy.”

  “Mon Dieu! Church! What were you wearing?”

  A sharp knife slit the lobster’s tail, and this time she drew out the flesh and dipped it into a warm bath of sweet butter. “Mmmm… this is delicious!” She licked the butter off of her fingers. “I should be a mermaid so that I could eat lobsters every day.” Jules stared at her.

  “Oh, we went over to the island with a picnic. I went swimming; he was very uncomfortable.”

  “Are you seeing him again?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon and no, I don’t know where we will go. I will make sure we get time alone.” Naomi paused to push the shells aside. Lost in thought, she pulled at the hem of the linen napkin and set it aside.

  “Look Jules, I think this man is a virgin. I don’t think I should seduce him. I need to keep him interested. There’s definitely something under his honest grin. I don’t know if he is the man you are looking for, but I could help you eliminate the question.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Noumea

  March 1943

  TELL NOBODY – NOT EVEN HER

  Careless talk costs lives ~ Poster

  She was the world to him. He no longer saw dark when he looked into her eyes. He saw a Pacific sunrise, the warmth of the colors bathing everything around her. Her scent, of flowers unknown to him, her dark skin untouched except by the clear waters of the lagoon, the jungle around them. Hunger struck in a new way. Hans was ravenous. He wanted her, to consume her, and to be beside her, reborn and intact at the same time. Flames of anticipation and danger flitted through his dreams – excruciating nights and distracted days until he could see her again. They say that passion is like death, and on this island he was surrounded by both. If he could die once, with her, he would have lived a full life.

  Her mix of European perfection and Asian features blended into a unique beauty. Her smile lit rooms, and it lit him. The nights alone were almost unbearable as he lay in bed with his body on fire. Even the cotton sheets irritated his skin.

  Then he pondered a second set of questions. What race was he? What if his race were a problem, one with real significance? He didn’t want to throw away his future over a circumcision scar that had been set on him as an infant.

  By now he knew that the Germans had gone through schoolrooms, having children list their grandparents’ names on forms, to see if they qualified as Aryan. The existence of one Jewish grandparent cut a child off from the privileges of a society to come. Holland had been built on trade and its population was a three hundred year mix of people and languages. He had erased his past in a single afternoon in New York City. Was he a Jew even if he never set foot in a synagogue, not ever again? Then a new set of worries arose. What would he tell her? Would she know that another man might not … Had she seen other men? She did not tell him she was a virgin. She teased him, but he had never asked and she had never volunteered any information.

  He decided to plan another picnic, one that would show his ability to provide and care for her. It was the hottest day yet, one where the sun and breezes stood still. So hot that it seemed as if steam would begin to rise from the harbor at any moment. The seas were supposed to boil when the world ended. Maybe this was the day. He looked out onto the docks at the Kanak laborers, lifting their heavy loads and managing the equipment. His mind could hardly follow the numbers on spreadsheets, and those men were actively working. The weekend was coming. He had received permission to take a jeep for an entire day.

  He did not talk much as they drove the unfamiliar roads crossing the island. Rains had gouged deep ruts that dried in the sun, often derailing the vehicle. The men had told him that the Blue River was the perfect place for a date. They bounced on the hard seats in the hot sun, bugs snapping at them or splattering on the windshield. Finally she suggested a stop, a clearing in the woods at a bend in the river, a massive boulder facing a deep pool. There had never been so much blue. Blue was the color of life as he knew it, but the steely blue of the North Sea was replaced by a true azure, a jewel that had no boundaries.

  He got out, but before he could open the door on her side of the car, she had jumped out and climbed the boulder, pulling off her sarong. Laughing, she dove off into the stream, her new American styled swimming suit gleaming in the afternoon sun. She was more beautiful than any pin-up girl he had ever seen in the calendars, the sun drenching her bare back and arms.

  Hans had no idea how to dive. He stood on the rock, tugging on his new swimsuit, knitted navy blue wool with a white canvas belt. He had never confronted mountain streams and granite outcroppings. The North Sea dunes in Holland roll quietly toward a stormy sea, where danger is having a wave topple you. He might break every bone in his body on that rock. But if he could dive, he would be back in the womb of the earth. He took a deep breath and jumped. Water surrounded him completely. The luminescent bubbles, were they his breath? A flash of sunlight appeared above him, and he broke the surface, alive
once more. She swam away, elusive as a fish escaping a predatory bird, and then raced toward him and splashed his face.

  Breathless, they climbed out of the water and spread out an Army blanket. Trade winds curled through the trees as they kissed in silver sunlight. The Island pines were nothing like the stalwart trees of the American north woods. The crookedness of the trees wasn’t apparent at first; but then he saw the straightness of the nearly horizontal branches, perfectly arrayed and symmetrical. When the winds blow, the branches still appeared straight, but the entire tree swayed in the breezes, and the trunks grew into a long waved form, bent by forces of nature. Naomi had the grace of an island pine, but he still didn’t know where her center was. He wanted to possess her, not be blown over in some wild island typhoon.

  Shortly after they finished their picnic, a gentle rainstorm began, suddenly and quietly announcing itself. She took his hand and they started down a walking path, following the signs toward the largest living thing on the island, a thousand year old Kaori tree. Suddenly she shivered, a little cool in the sudden breeze. He stopped and wrapped the picnic blanket around her, trembling as he kissed her softly, gently rubbing her back to warm her. She took the edge of the blanket and wrapped it around him. The earth was soft, and it was over much too quickly.

  Some moments later, he spoke. “After we are married, we will swim without our suits, every day if you like.”

  “Pardon?”

  “But we won’t be able to marry until the end of the war, when we can return to the U.S. or Europe and get my business going again. I can’t have a wife right now.”

  “Perhaps not, but we will have time to get to know each other.”

  ***

  Jules Chemin had given her a week to learn as much as possible. She and Hank spent each evening together. He took her out to dinner. He wanted to provide for her, but what sorts of things do husbands talk about?