Henderson's Spear by Ronald Wright

Author:Ronald Wright [Wright, Ronald]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307371089
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Published: 2001-06-15T04:00:00+00:00

Now the skin had been nimbly removed by one of the guides. Eddy’s prize was a female. Deep inside her silky pouch were three tiny pups, naked and pink, the size of a human baby’s finger, still fastened on their mothers severed teats. One by one, the beater crushed them in his hand.

Nine

TAHITI

Arue Prison

AT TWO IN THE MORNING FAAA AIRPORT seemed a small, hot Marseilles. The red-eye flight from Los Angeles was packed and overheated. I was tired and sweaty, the thick T-shirt under my denim shift a mistake. I lay on the foreshore of sleep with dank memories of Lumley, as I’ve told you.

It seemed that card-carrying Anglo-Saxons were not really welcome in Tahiti. The officials—all white men—clearly would rather have been elsewhere. Admitting me to their country (whose country, actually?) was an exasperating inconvenience keeping them from imported wines and local mistresses. Young Tahitian vahines walked along the passport queue planting intensely scented gardenias behind visitors’ ears. The girls were bored, and my first thought was that the bloom might contain a bugging device to detect insulting remarks directed at la patrie. But to be fair, it was two o’clock in the morning.

The officer said something in a lovely rolling language I’d never heard before. Perhaps the warm way I was dressed made him take me for a local, or was it my colour? The Vancouver summer had been fine, I’d ripened in the sun. Where did I fit in? With the jaundiced French, the café-au-lait Tahitians, or the Demis, the people in between? Maybe he thought I was a Demi.

Bloodshot eyes travelled up from my photo to my face and back several times, not hurrying over my chest on the way. He was short, his face pinched and suspicious, in a kepi complete with flap over his neck. A Legionnaire from a Tintin cartoon. He spoke again, this time in rapid French. I asked if there was someone who spoke English.

“Vous êtes Canadienne, non?” He arched an eyebrow, implying that all Canadians spoke French, or if they didn’t, they should.

I was taken to a small room where laborious inspections were in progress. Large beetles were flying at the lights. Perhaps I was singled out because of my backpack and camping supplies. A customs man—also French, but without kepi—unrolled my tent, mosquito net, and sleeping pad; he took out my freeze-dried tandoori chicken and spaghetti. All this I’d brought for Nuku Hiva. A tent, I’d been warned, would be essential. There were few places to stay, it rained a lot, and the island had deadly centipedes as big as bacon rashers (Melville nearly lost his leg to one). Bob had bought me the camping gear himself months ago, at a store on Robson advertising its sale with Now Is the Winter of Our Discount Tents, a slogan no English prof could resist.

I missed him already. Term was starting soon. Bob wouldn’t be able to join me for three or four months. The plan was that I’d get my travelling done, and he’d come early in December on “research.

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