Ed Lacy - South Pacific Affair

She said, “Ray,” like a tiny sigh and when she opened her eyes they were warm and soft. Taking one end of the towel, she started to dry my shoulders. When I took her in my arms, kissed her, her arms circled my back and pressed me to her with such wonderful strength.

I awoke to find her still sleeping at my side. I let my hands explore the firm softness of her body. I kissed her full lips and she moved in her sleep; her hands caressed my body and her eyes actually opened like two dark pools of softness. The sunlight pouring in through two of the portholes spotlighted the blackness of her hair, the strong curve of her throat and shoulders. She placed both my hands on her breasts and we kissed as fiercely as possible, our lips pressed together tightly.

When I awoke the second time, she was propped up on one elbow, smiling down at me. We had a light blanket over us and the cabin was almost dark. There was a slight buzzing sound in the cabin and glancing through a porthole I saw a star on the pale horizon.

I sat up, brushing against her, said stupidly, “It's late!”

“Late? For what? For this?” And she flung herself on top of me, every part of her, lips, hands, legs, and body, eager and demanding. This time we didn't go back to sleep, held each other, full of a wild peace. Then I whispered, “I must get up—relieve Eddie. It's way past his watch.”

“I suppose you must. And we must eat. Oh darling, I'm so terribly hungry, wonderfully empty and tired.”

I kissed her lightly, then sat up and pulled out one of the drawers below the bunk, got a pair of pants and a sweater. As I jumped out of the bunk and dressed, I noticed Nancy Adams on the other bunk, snoring. I stood there, like an idiot, as Ruita said, “Ray, get me some clothes, I'm—”

“Shhh!” I said, pointing to the old woman.

“Oh, Mama sleeps soundly. Hand me that bag by Mama's bunk, please.”

I gave her the bag, put on my sweater, and stepped up on the deck. It was a clear night, the half-moon out bright and clean. The clothes had been removed from the rigging. Eddie was sitting at the wheel, wearing a sweatshirt and a pair of my old army pants. He was smoking a stinking cigar. When he saw me he said casually, “There's some warm tea in the box, breadfruit, and tinned beef.” He motioned toward the ten-gallon tin inside of which a pot of tea was resting on the slow burning oil stove.

“It's been six, seven hours, way past my watch. Why didn't you call me?”

He glanced at me as if I had said something too stupid to call for an answer. And I had. I took the wheel and he said, “Nice wind. Keep her headed toward that big star ahead of us.” He flexed his muscles for a moment, waved his arms about like a pitcher warming up, then he ran a hand through his thick black hair, said, “That damn shampoo sure makes the hair smooth and soft. Feel.”

He bent his head toward me. I pushed it away and he laughed, said, “I forgot, you have felt of all the soft hair you want, for now.” He grabbed a banana from the food basket next to the stove, went forward and stretched out on his mat atop the cabin.

Ruita came up and sat beside me. She wore slacks and a white turtleneck sweater. When I squeezed her hand and asked if she was cold, she smiled at me, said, “I'll never be really cold again. But I'm hungry.” And I thought if Milly had said she'd never be cold again, I would have told her to stop the soap opera cracks, yet from Ruita it seemed natural and true.

We drank lukewarm tea and then tore through the canned beef and doughy breadfruit. We drank nuts, ate bananas and some over-ripe mangos till we were too stuffed to move.

After awhile she yawned, then reached over and kissed me, asking, “When does Eddie take over so we can go back to sleep?”

“You'll have to sleep alone tonight. Having your mother makes me nervous.”

Ruita looked at me with surprise. “But what has Mama to do with it?”

“I like to love you in private.”

“Fine, then we shall sleep on deck.”

“Eddie will be at the wheel.”

“Eddie has certainly seen people make love so many times, it means nothing to him.”

“I know, but it means something to me.”

“Ray, I want to sleep with you.”

“I want to be with you, but not this way. It would spoil it—for both of us.”

“You and your silly popaa conventions. In the islands love-making is no more hidden than eating. Whole families live in one hut and babies see love-making from the time they are able to look. We are enjoying ourselves, why should not Mama sleep happily near our enjoyment?” She was so upset she said most of this in French.

“Honey, I'm not arguing with you. The point is, it makes me uneasy having people around. Also, I'm pooped.”

She giggled. “Po-oo-oped. That is a funny sounding word. I am full of a delicious weariness myself, but still... The popaa mind is hupe hupe.”

This meant “very ugly” in Tahitian. “Why do you have to keep raising this popaa stuff like a little wall between us?”

“There will never be a wall between us,” she said, kissing my ear. “You are the one who raises the crazy popaa idea —you half-popaa. Tell me, was your great-grandmother, the Indian, beautiful?”

I wanted to tell her that my great-grandmother came from Latvia and I doubted if they had Indians there, but I knew how much Eddie's story had impressed her—and Eddie. I said, “Well, I wouldn't know.”

“Were they ashamed of her?” she asked, pulling a little away from me.

I put her face against mine again. “Look, I wasn't around then. You really hate whites, don't you?” I said, not sure what I was saying, or wanted to say.

Ruita nodded, her soft cheek moving against my beard. “Yes, I dislike them all. It's easiest that way. Whites are so needlessly cruel and arrogant. They come here, to a world of brown people, and we do not look down upon them because of their skin. In Sydney, when one of the teachers found I was an islander she asked me, 'Have you ever been to the Marquesas Islands where the great Gauguin lived?' There was a happy and full life in the Marquesas—When popaas were freezing their derrieres in European caves, ignorant of fire. Yet to this smug woman the islands only meant a Frenchman who contributed a few more syphilis germs to the death of people.”

I wondered again if she knew of Nancy's sickness as I said, “But he was a great artist.”

“Of course, but his art was not as great or as beautiful as the life the Marquesas people knew!”

“But I—and Nancy—we are popaas? Where does that leave us, in your thinking?”

“No you are not popaas, you are humans, like the islanders. Ray, I love you so much. I hope soon we make a baby ... a pretty aiu.”

“Maybe,” I said, frightened cold at the idea.

“A little girl with my brown skin and your red hair, perhaps I shall let her even have your silly straight nose. And we will put drops of lime juice in her eyes when she is born, then feed her on coconut milk, and my milk. And fried shark's liver to give her vitamins so she will grow up tall and strong, like us, like all island people. Your American magazines, the fuss they make over these vitamins—-about which we here have known for hundreds of years. Ray, we must make lots of babies. The islands are wonderful places for children.”

“Guess they are,” I said, cautiously.

“You guess?” Ruita repeated, nibbling at my cheek. “They are! Children are loved here. A child can move in with any family and be raised with love and care.”

It was true. If a girl had a baby “out of wedlock,” to use our cruel popaa phrase, the family next door would be only too glad to take it, no matter how many children of their own they had. In a place where there is plenty of food for the taking, “another mouth to feed” is hardly a problem. The child would be raised as the family's, even though the real mother might spend all her life less than two hundred yards away.

At the moment children were farthest from my mind, I didn't even want to think about not having them. Ruita and I held each other close; I holding the wheel with one hand or sometimes with my knees. The Hooker was sailing smoothly, sliding a little off-course now and then—but our course wasn't that exact. When Eddie took over my watch he usually took a long look at the sun or the stars, and immediately corrected the wheel with his crystal ball navigation.

Ruita slept for awhile in this cramped position, then she got up and rubbed her legs, told me, “I go below now. Sure you will not join me?”

“Yeah, I'm sure, and you know why. I'll sleep out here. Look, do me a favor and put some water on to boil.”

“You want tea?” she asked, starting for our tin “galley.”

“I'm going to shave.”

She laughed, the sound soft and full against the slapping sound of the waves cutting across our bow. “No, Ray, don't shave. I like that rough stubble on your face, even when it hurts me. Also the way you are a nice brown all over, except around your middle, where you are white as a shark's belly. In Forliga we shall bathe in the sun together and then you will be brown all over like me. Good night, my Ray.”

She gave me a quick kiss and went to her bunk below. I sat at the wheel, hearing the sound of the waves and staring at the stars, listening to the faint wind... and not seeing or hearing a damn thing. I was in a numbed state of contentment, not trying to think of anything ... yet a number of vague, sly, thoughts were strolling through the back of my mind. Like: even if I ran out on Ruita later, tonight was worth it, for both of us, worth my being a rat. Or: I was suddenly amused by Nancy Adams being within a few feet from where I was sleeping with her daughter.

Eddie was standing in front of me, yawning and stretching. He glanced at the moon, said, “Must be after midnight. Why didn't you wake me?”

“No rush. How soon will we start closing in on the atolls?”

“Early in the morning. Where's Ruita?”

“Below.”

“You go to her. I can hold the wheel till morning and then the old woman can handle the wheel for awhile.”

“I'm bedding down on the deck.”

“Alone?” I nodded.

“Hey, have a fight so soon?”

“Nope,” I said, walking toward the cabin roof. I heard Eddie mutter, “Jeez, you mean she has some of them wacky popaa ideas in her, too?”

I was full of deep inner exhaustion you can only get from one thing, and I slept as soon as I stretched out. I awoke to see Ruita sitting beside me, sitting so her body shaded the morning sun from my eyes. She was wearing a loose white blouse and red shorts, and against the sun I studied the perfect silhouette of her breasts. She had made a flower out of palm leaves and was wearing it over her right ear—she had a sweetheart.

As I sat up she turned and smiled, said, “Good morning, darling.”

“Hello, honey.”

We kissed and there was an exciting warm smell to her. For a moment she drove me crazy by flicking her tongue in my ear. I jumped to my feet, pulling her up, both of us grinning. On the port horizon we were passing a reef, and on the starboard side a school of porpoises were convoying the Hooker, gliding in and out of the water some thirty feet from us. Nancy was at the wheel with Eddie, both of them watching the big fish.

Ruita tossed a pail over the side and came up with it full of water, said, “For your bath.” I stripped to my shorts and emptied the pail of cool salt water over my head. She went down into the cabin and returned with another pair, helped me take my wet ones off, asked if I was hungry as I stood naked, waiting for the wind to dry me off. She was very casual and I was embarrassed because I was embarrassed. I suddenly reached over, kissed her, said I was starved. She brought me a drinking nut, a fried flying fish soaked in lime juice, and the last of our bananas.