Chapter VII · A Debtor of Moy Ling

PUAREI'S house stood halfway down the village street at Rutiaro, facing a broad indentation from the lagoon. The Catholic church adjoined it on one side, the Protestant church on the other. Neither of them was an imposing structure, but they towered above the small frame dwelling of the chief with an air of protection, of jealous watchfulness. On sunny days they shaded his roof in turn; and, when it rained, poured over it streams of water, through lead pipes projecting from their own ampler roofs—a purely utilitarian function, since the drainage from the three buildings furnished the fresh-water supply of the settlement. If the showers were light the overflow from the largess of the rival churches, plashing on the sheets of corrugated iron, filled the house with a monotonous murmur, like the drowsy argument of two soft-voiced missionaries; but during a heavy downpour the senses were stunned by the incessant thunder, as though one were inclosed in an immense drum, beaten with nonsectarian vigor by all the Salvation Armies in the world.

It was during such a deluge, one day in early spring, that I lay on the guest bed in Puarei's one-room house, watching Poura, his wife, who had washed my linen with her own hands and was then ironing it. It was not, strictly speaking, linen. The articles were three—a sleeveless gauze singlet, a cotton handkerchief, and a faded khaki shirt. A pair of khaki trousers, a pair of canvas tennis shoes, and a pandanus hat completed my wardrobe. Since I needed the whole of it when going abroad about the island, it was necessary to go to bed on washing day, and to wait there until the laundering was finished, and such repairs made as constant wear had caused and further wear demanded. How to replenish it and to meet other simple urgent needs gave me cause for some concern, and I was going over the problem as I lay on Puarei's guest bed. It was toward the end of my second week at Rutiaro, and already I was beginning to look decidedly shabby. My shoes were rotted out with sea water, and both shirt and trousers, which were far from new at the time of my arrival, gave evidence of early dissolution. Poura had washed, sewed on buttons, drawn seams together, but the garments were chronically ailing, as hopeless of effective repair as an old man far gone in senile decay. Poura was becoming discouraged about them, and I knew that she must be wondering why I didn't buy some fresh ones. I had a very good reason for not doing so—I had no money. I had been left at Rutiaro without so much as a twenty-five-centime piece, and the Banque de l'Indo-Chine was six hundred miles away.

It would not occur to either Puarei or his wife that I was in need of funds. Theirs was one of the more primitive atolls of the Low Archipelago, where all white men are regarded as mysteriously affluent. If, instead of being marooned at Rutiaro through Tino's fit of temper, I had been discovered a mile outside the reef, making toward the land clad only in a pair of swimming trunks, upon reaching it my rescuers would have expected me, as a matter of course, to take a bulky parcel of thousand-franc notes from beneath that garment. I had, in fact, made a secret inventory of my wealth after the sudden departure of the Caleb Winship, hoping there might be a forgotten bank note in one of my trousers pockets. What I found was a cotton handkerchief, a picture post card of the Woolworth Building, and a small musical instrument called an ocharina, or, more commonly, a sweet-potato whistle. The handkerchief I needed; the post card seemed of no practical use as a means of barter; and, while I might have given up the ocharina, it had but a slight monetary value, and Moy Ling, the Chinese storekeeper of the village, was not interested in it. I didn't offer it to him outright. Instead, I played on it, in front of his shop, "The March of the Black Watch," which I could render with some skill. Thereafter every youngster on the island coveted the instrument, but Moy Ling made no offers and the prospect of a wardrobe was as far away as ever.

His supply of European clothing was limited, but ample to supply my wants. He found for me three undershirts, size forty-four, two gingham outer shirts of less ample proportions, a pair of dungaree overalls, and a pair of rope-sole shoes. I asked him to put these articles aside and went off to reflect upon ways and means of opening a credit account with the canny Chinaman. There was one possible method open to me; I might adopt the pareu as a costume. I could buy three of them for the price of one undershirt, and I believed that Moy Ling would trust me to that extent. Nearly all of the natives wore pareus. They had put aside their trousers and shirts and gingham dresses now that I was no longer a stranger to them, and were much more comfortable in their simple, knee-length garments, those of the men reaching from the waist, those of the women twisted tightly under the arms. Simple and convenient though it was, I felt that it would be absurd for me to assume that style of dress, since I was not accustomed to it. Furthermore, I remembered the ridiculous appearance of Americans and Europeans I had seen at Tahiti—queer people from all sorts of queer places, who come and go through the capital of French Oceania. They rushed into pareus the moment of their arrival at Papeete, and before a week had passed were more primitive in a sophisticated way than the Tahitians themselves. I had no desire to join the ranks of the amateur cannibals, even though there was some excuse for it at Rutiaro; and I knew that the Paumotuans would have more respect for me if I dressed after the manner of my own race.

But how obtain clothing without money—without divulging to anyone that I had no money? The question dinned through my brain with annoying persistence, like the thunder of falling water on Puarei's iron roof. Would it, after all, be best to confide in the chief? I could tell him of my bank account at Papeete, and he knew, of course, that the Caleb Winship had left me without a word of warning, taking my sea chest with her. I was tempted to make a confession of my predicament, but pride or a kind of childish vanity prevented me.

"No, by Jove!" I said. "I'll be hanged if I do! Puarei, his wife—all the rest of them—expect me to live up to their traditional conceptions of white men. I am supposed to be mysteriously affluent, and I owe it to them to preserve that myth in all its romantic glamour."

I had no feeling of guilt in making this decision; rather, a sense of virtue, like that of an indulgent father upon assuring his children that there is a Santa Claus. I decided to be not only mysteriously, but incredibly, affluent. Therefore, when the rain had passed I put on my mended garments and went to Moy Ling's shop.

I found him splitting coconuts in front of his copra shed, and beckoned to him in a careless way. He came forward, smiling pleasantly as usual, but there was a shrewd glitter in his eyes which said, quite as plainly as words, "Honorable sir, I bow before you, but I expect an adequate monetary return for the service." I was not intimidated, however, and when he brought forth the articles I had selected earlier I waved them aside—all of them excepting the rope-sole shoes, the only male footgear of any kind on the island. I explained that I had not before seen the bolt of white drill—the most expensive cloth in his shop—and that I wanted enough of it to make four suits. I saw at once that I had risen in his estimation about 75 per cent, and, thus encouraged, I went on buying lavishly—white-cotton cloth for underwear and shirts; some pencils and his entire supply of notebooks for my voluminous observations on the life and character of the Paumotuans; a Night-King flash lamp; a dozen silk handkerchiefs of Chinese manufacture; a dozen pairs of earrings and four lockets and chains; ten kilos of flour and two of coffee; three bottles of perfume in fancy boxes; four large bolts of ribbon—enough to reach from one end of the village to the other; side and back combs for women, superbly ornamented with bits of colored glass; a bolt of mosquito netting; a monkey wrench; two Beacon lanterns; a pandanus mat; and one bow tie already made up, the kind sold at home in "gents' furnishings" shops.

At the beginning I had no thought of going in so recklessly. But as I went from article to article the conviction grew upon me that the deeper I plunged the greater the impression I should make upon Moy Ling, and it was essential that I should convince him that my mythical wealth was real. He became more and more deferential as my heap of purchases increased in size. I made no inquiry as to the price of anything, believing that to be in keeping with the mysteriously affluent tradition. At my back I heard a hum of excited conversation. The shop was filled with people. I felt the crush behind me, but took no notice of it and went on with my passionless orgy of spending: two bolts of women's dress goods; four pocketknives; a can of green paint and another of white—but details are tiresome. It is enough to say that I bought lavishly, and selected odds and ends of things because Moy's shop contained nothing else. He had a large supply of food, but in other respects his stock was low, and when I had finished, some of his shelves were almost bare. On one there remained only a box of chewing gum. An inscription printed on the side of it read: "Chew on, MacDuff! You can't chew out the original mint-leaf flavor" of somebody's pepsin gum—words to that effect. That product of American epicureanism is to be found, strangely enough, at nearly every Chinaman's store in the Low Archipelago. I bought twenty packages of it, since there were no other confections to be had, and distributed them among the children. The youthful MacDuffs chewed on for some thirty seconds and then swallowed, believing, in their unenlightened way, that gum is a sort of food. I had read of monkeys dying in zoos because of the same practice; but, in so far as I know, there were no ill effects from it at Rutiaro, either then or later.

I succeeded very well in impressing Puarei. He was astonished at the number of my purchases; and Poura said, "Au-e!" shooed out the mint-breathed porters who carried them to the house, and sat down in the doorway, her enormous body completely blocking the entrance. On the veranda the conversation crackled and sparkled with conjecture. I could hear above the others the voice of Paki, wife of the constable, enumerating the things I had bought. It sounded odd in Paumotuan—a high-pitched recitative of strange words, most of them adapted from the English since all of the articles were unknown to the natives before the coming of the traders—faraoa (flour), ripine (ribbon), peni (pencil or pen), taofe (coffee), etc.

I myself was wondering what use I could make of some of my wealth. The flour I would give to Puarei, and his ten-ton cutter was badly in need of paint. Poura would be glad to have the dress goods for herself and her girls, for the Rutiaroans put aside their pareus on Sunday and dressed in European costume. I could also give her the mosquito netting as a drapery for the guest bed. I had, in fact, bought it with that end in mind, for on windless nights, particularly after a rain, the mosquitoes were a fearful nuisance. Puarei's household was used to them, but I tossed and tumbled, and at last would have to paddle out on the lagoon and stay there till morning. The coffee, likewise, was for my own use, Puarei believing that the drinking of either tea or coffee was forbidden by his variety of the Christian religion. Tobacco, too, was a product of evil, and the use of it made broad the way to hell. It is impossible to believe that any missionary would wander so far to preach such theology. What had happened, very likely, was that one of the more austere churchmen who visit Rutiaro at rare intervals had condemned those white man's comforts as injurious to health. He must have been severe in his denunciation, for Puarei had got the idea that abstinence from the enjoyment of them was exacted in a sort of amendment to the Ten Commandments. I did my best to corrupt him, for breakfast at his house was to me a cheerless meal. His faith was not to be shaken, however, although he admitted that coffee drinking might not damn me, since I had been taught to believe that it would not.

I was thinking with pleasure of his tolerance and of the comforting beverage I should have the following morning when I remembered that mine was green Tahiti coffee which must be taken to Moy Ling for roasting. His shop was deserted. I could see it at the end of the sunlit street, steaming with moisture after the rain. The open doorway was a square of black shadow. It lightened with a misty glimmer as I watched, and suddenly Moy flashed into view. He ran quickly down the steps, halted irresolutely, and stood for a moment, shading his eyes with his hand, looking in the direction of Puarei's house. Then he turned, mounted the steps again, and vanished slowly in the gloom. I was uneasy, knowing what he was thinking; but an island less than three miles long, with an average width of four hundred yards, offers a poor refuge for a faint-hearted debtor. And so, having stowed my other purchases under the guest bed, I took the bag of coffee and returned to Moy's store, hoping that I might quiet his fears by increasing my obligation to him.

When one is without them, clothing, coffee, tobacco, and other such necessities assume a place of exaggerated importance, which is the reason why the memories of the earlier part of my stay at Rutiaro are tinged with the thought of them. But I had not come to the Low Islands to spend all of my time and energy in the mere fight for a comfortable existence. I could have done that quite as well at home, with greater results in the development of a more or less Crusoe-like resourcefulness. At Rutiaro the life was strange and new to me, and I found the days too short for observing it and the nights for reflecting upon it. My first interest, of course, was Puarei's household—the chief, his wife, two sons, and three daughters all housed in that one-room frame building. The room was commodious, however, about twenty-five feet by fifteen, and on the lagoon side there was a broad veranda where Poura and her daughters did much of their work and passed their hours of leisure. Behind the house was a large cistern, built of blocks of cemented coral, and a small outkitchen made of the odds and ends of packing cases and roofed with thatch.

I wondered at Puarei's preference for a board box covered with corrugated iron, to the seemly houses of the other Rutiaroans. He thought it a palace, and, being a chief, the richest man of the atoll, it was in keeping with the later Paumotuan tradition that he should have a white man's kind of dwelling. Unsightly though it was without, the economy of furnishing gave the interior an air of pleasant spaciousness, like that of the island itself with its scarcity of plant life and of trees other than the coconut. There was no European furniture with the exception of a sewing machine and the guest bed, an old-fashioned, slatted affair which looked strange in that environment. On it was a mattress of kspok and two immense pillows filled with the same material. The linen was immaculate, and the outer coverlet decorated with hibiscus flowers worked in silk. I had no hesitation in accepting the bed, for it would not have held Puarei and his wife. The slats would have given away at once under their weight, and Poura assured me that the children preferred sleeping on their mats on the veranda. The rest of the furnishings were like those of the other houses—two or three chests for clothing; pandanus mats for the floor; paddles, fishing spears, and water glasses stacked in a corner or lying across the rafters. An open cabinet of native manufacture held the toilet articles of the women—a hand mirror, a few combs, and a bottle of unscented coconut oil, the one cosmetic of the Low Islands, which was used by all members of the family. There were also several articles of jewelry such as the traders sell, some fishing hooks of pearl shell, and, on a lower shelf, a Tahitian Bible. The walls were hung with branches of curiously formed coral, hat wreaths and necklaces of shell wrought in beautiful and intricate designs. There were no pictures other than the open windows looking out on the lagoon in one direction, and in the other, across the level, shaded floor of the island toward the sea.

We spent but little time indoors. All of the cooking was done in the open, and we had our food there, sitting cross-legged around a cloth of green fronds. The trees around us furnished the dishes. I had not used my tin spoon and the two-pronged fork since the evening of my arrival, and learned to suck the miti sauce from my fingers with as loud a zest as any of them. Usually we had two meals a day at Rutiaro, but there was no regularity about the time of serving them. We ate when we were hungry and food was to be had, sometimes in the middle of the afternoon, and as late as ten in the evening. That is one reason why I remember so well the feasts prepared by Poura and her daughters, and served by them, for they never sat down to their own food until we had finished. Feasts of a simple kind, but, by Jove! how good everything tasted after a day of fishing and swimming in the lagoon or out at sea. I didn't tire of coconuts as quickly as I had feared I should; and the fish were prepared in a variety of ways—boiled, roasted over hot stones, grilled on the coals, or we ate them raw with a savor of miti sauce. Puarei's dog, one of the best fishers of the island, was the only member of the family discriminating in his requirements. He often came up while we were at dinner, with a live fish in his mouth, which he would lay at Poura's feet, looking at her appealingly until she cooked it for him. Sometimes, to tease him, she threw it away, but he would bring it back, and, no matter how hungry he might be, refuse to eat it raw.

The sea furnished occasional variety of diet in the way of turtles and devilfish; and I contributed rice, tinned meat, and other preserved food which I bought of Moy Ling whenever I imagined his confidence in me was beginning to falter. That was a risky procedure, only to be undertaken on the days when I was so filled with animal spirits that I more than half believed in my wealth, in my power to draw money or anything else I wanted out of the clear, dry air of Rutiaro.

One thing I had wanted from the first, above all others—a house. The idea of imposing indefinitely upon Puarei's hospitality was distasteful, and no boats were expected within five or six months. I had not, in years, lived for so long a period at any one place. Here was an opportunity I had often dreamed of for having a home of my own. I should have to ask the chief for it, and at first thought the request seemed a large one. Then, too, how could I say to him with any show of logic: "Puarei, I am not willing to bother you longer by occupying the guest bed in your house. Therefore, will you please give me a house to myself?" He might think I had peculiar ideas of delicacy. But further reflection convinced me that, while I could not ask him for a pair of trousers—not even for so trifling a thing as a shirt button, since he would have to purchase it at Moy Ling's store—I might legitimately suggest the gift of a house. It would cost only the labor of making it, and that was not great. At Rutiaro houses were built in less time than was needed to sail across the lagoon and back. The inhabitants might reasonably have adopted the early Chinese method of roasting pig by putting the carcasses in their dwellings and setting fire to the thatch. It would have been a sensible procedure, employed at times when the old thatch needed renewal. Nothing permanent would have been destroyed except the framework of poles, and that could be replaced as easily as firewood could be cut for a Maori oven.

The upshot of the matter was that I was given not only a house, but an island of my own to set it on—I who had lived much of my life up four or five flights of stairs, in furnished rooms looking out on chimney pots and brick courts filled with odors and family washings. The site was a small motu lying at the entrance to the lagoon, four miles from the village island. It had a name which meant, "The place where the souls were eaten." Once, a man, his wife, and two children went there to fish on the reef near the pass. All of them were taken ill of some mysterious disease, and died on the same day. As their souls left their bodies they were seized and eaten by some vindictive human spirits in the form of sea birds. The legend was evidently a very ancient one, and the events which it described had happened so long ago that fear of the place had largely vanished. Nevertheless, the chief tried to persuade me to choose another site; and Poura, when she learned that I wanted to live on the Soul-Eaters' Island, was deeply concerned. Neither of them could understand why I should want to live away from the village island. I wince, even now, when I think of the appalling tactlessness of that request; but the fact is that the Paumotuans themselves, by their example, had got me into the vicious habit of truth-telling in such matters. There is no word in their language for tact. They believe that a man has adequate, although sometimes hidden, reasons for doing what he wants to do, and they understand that it explains seemingly uncourtly behavior.

I had accepted, almost unconsciously, their own point of view, so that it didn't occur to me to invent any polite falsehoods. But my knowledge of Paumotuan was more limited than Paurei's knowledge of French, and how was I to explain my desire for so lonely a place as the Soul-Eaters' Island? The Paumotuans, from their scarcity of numbers, the isolation of their fragments of land, the dangers of the sea around them, are drawn together naturally, inevitably. How make clear to them the unnatural gregariousness of life in great cities? Suddenly I thought of my picture post card of the Woolworth Building. I told them that in America many people, thousands of them, were cooped together in houses of that sort. I had been compelled to spend several years in one and had got such a horror of the life that I had come all the way to the Cloud of Islands, searching for a place where I might be occasionally alone.

While the post card was passing from hand to hand, Huirai, the constable, loyal friend in every emergency, gave color to my explanation by describing—for the thousand and first time, I suppose—his adventures in San Francisco. Dusk deepened, the last ghostly light faded from the clouds along the northern horizon, and still he talked on; and the idlers on the chief's veranda listened with as keen interest as though they had never heard the story before. Poura, who was at work on my new wardrobe, lit a lamp and placed it on the floor beside her, shading it from her eyes with a piece of matting. The light ran smoothly over her brown hands, and the mountain of shadow behind her blotted out the forms of the trees. Now and then she put down her work and gazed intently in Huirai's direction. His voice rose and fell, thrilled with excitement, died away to a deep whisper of awe as he told of the wonders he had seen, the street cars, the lofty buildings, the elevators which rose to an immense height as swiftly as a coconut would fall, the trains, the motors, the ships, the pictures which were alive. He imitated sounds with amazing fidelity, and his gestures, vaguely seen in the gloom, were vividly pictorial of the marvels he had met with in his travels.

The story ended abruptly and Huirai sat down, conscious of the effect he had produced. No one spoke for a long while. Then the chief, who was sitting beside me, broke the silence with that strange Polynesian exclamation of wonder too great for words, "Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah!" uttered with distinct, rapid precision, like the staccato of machine-gun fire. He laid his hand on my knee affectionately, with an air of possessorship; and at the contact a feeling of pride rose in me, as though I were the planner of the cities, the magician whose brain had given birth to the marvels Huirai had described. But conceit of that kind may be measurably reduced by a moment of reflection, and I remembered that the extent of my contribution to my native land was that I had left it. Small cause for vanity there. However, I had no mind for another tussle with my conscience. I had been the indirect cause of eloquence in Huirai and of enjoyment in his auditors. That was enough for one evening on the credit side. On the other side, to Puarei, to Poura, to his children, and to all the kindly, hospitable people of Rutiaro I was under an obligation which I could never hope to cancel. But they didn't expect me to cancel it. I was not even under the necessity of showing appreciation. Just as there is no word in their language for "tact," there is none approaching our word "gratitude" in meaning. To a man in my position, owner of Soul-Eaters' Island, and of a house to be built there the following day, that was something to be grateful for.

The Chinese language is richer, I believe, in terms implying obligation. I was reminded, less pleasantly, of another account on the debit side, by the flare of a match which lit up for a moment the pensive, cadaverous face of Moy Ling.