Part Two – The Frenchman

It grew dark quickly. Night in the tropics always falls like a scented whisper, hushing all sounds, softening all harshness, muting to an echo all stridency. The moon appeared so suddenly in the heavens that it seemed as as if it had been bewitched there by a magician’s hand. The limbs and branches of the great flamboyant trees along the sea wall became sable arms stretching longingly out to the ocean. In the moon’s light the giant blooms glowed as scarlet as in the sunlight. The palm trees shimmered and looked as though washed in silver. Like deep drums the surf pounded in the distance, but the water in the harbor hummed a little melody and placidly preened itself. 

Mandolins accompanying soft native voices came faintly to us from the decks of the schooners. The acrid smell of sea was diluted with the heavy, almost overpowering, scent of gardenia and frangipani. Tahitian women in white Mother Hubbards and carrying open umbrellas to protect themselves against the evil spirit of the moon strolled by with their inimitable walk. Tourists, weary and limp, trudged by on their way back to their cabins on shipboard. 

We sat in perfect content, smoking, each thinking his own thoughts. The Russian Pearl Buyer put an elbow on the table and rested his chin on his hand. 

“Strange about all of us here.” he mused. “With the exception of our genial host, each of us must have a particular reason for being here.” 

“You think I have no reason?” the Frenchman protested softly. “Because I confessed to a family – a beautiful wife and six comely, marriageable daughters? A normal life – outwardly yes.” 

He gazed out over the softly pulsating ocean for a moment.

“Thirty-six years ago, mes amis, I came to Tahiti. I had to leave a wife and six sons. Very young they were, just like that.” and his hand measured six imaginary stair steps. 

“Six comely, marriageable sons” the Consul interjected gravely, his smile lurking only in his eyes. The Pearl Buyer crossed his arms on the table and leaned forward. 

“Father Abraham!” he ejaculated in simulated horror. “What are you saying now? First you tell us it is six daughters. Now it is six sons!” He shook his head sadly and clicked his tongue. 

“You can jest, mes amis,” the Frenchman reproached them. “But I assure you it was no jesting matter then. It was was serious – it was tragedy.”

The Artist reproved the two offenders with a look of feigned contempt. “It is the wine, no doubt, monsieur, that has inspired a little the imagined wit in our two friends here. You say you had to leave France?”

The Frenchman nodded.

“It was the world war. The whole world was sick, sick with war fever. If you were in Europe at that time – well you will comprehend.” And he looked at them as if pleading for understanding.

His last words charged the group with hidden memories. It was startling to watch them. Gone were the leisurely cosmopolites, halted for a few enjoyable hours on this crossroad of the world.

I watched the change of expressions. The superficial miens they wore when I first saw them were being slowly dissolved like wax masks. And suddenly I was richly, though unworthily, endowed in being given the privilege of seeing them stripped stark of all superficialities. Yet it was a cruel, brutal exposure. I felt as if I should close my eyes quickly before I, a stranger, would see there what they so staunchly hid from the world’s eyes. I felt callow, unfledged in my own meager and shallow contribution of living.

What an opportunity for the Artist from Vienna, I thought callously. To put these faces in this setting on canvas! And then I was immediately ashamed of my thinking, and the Frenchman continued after a long pause.

“The Germans came down on the small village where we lived. They pillaged and destroyed almost everything. How it was that my Lizette and our six sons survived I do not know. Possibly because I had told them when I left with my troup to hide in the concealed cave on my father’s farm if the town was raided. Then, two days after the raid, I was summoned before the officers of the company. I was accused of espionage against France. Jean, my brother, had given the proof of my guilt. It was so sudden and so utterly false that I lost the power of speech for a while. And when I regained my tongue to deny, to refute my being false to France – it was too late. I had been convicted. They said I proved my guilt when I did not answer. 

In those days of slaughter time was not wasted in deliberating a just trial to prove a man’s guilt or his innocence. I was to die at sunrise on the morrow. It was not my cleverness, but a miracle by the hand of God that I managed to escape. I knew I could find no refuge in Europe or America. So – I came to Tahiti by freighter. They needed another stoker. I think it was that, and later when I worked as a wharf man here in Papeete that gave me the idea to own and run these inter-island schooners. 

“The letters I had written to Lizette, my wife, had been unanswered. It was only when I learned from my father, who answered my letter, that Lizette and my sons were safe when I rested content. I began to save every centime I could earn – one can live cheaply here. But first, a certain sum went every month to France for my little family. Soon I got to work as a supercargo on one of the schooners. That meant faster saving. So, in five years I already had two boats of my own. I knew that the time had come to send for them. There was only one little cloud. I could not understand why to all the letters with the money I kept sending to her, telling her soon I could send for her and my sons – she made no answer. 

“So it was the I wrote the letter telling her that I was waiting for her to come. I enclosed money, not only for passage for all seven, but enough for new clothes. Mes amis, I was happy then.” He drew a long breath, as though he was reliving those moments. 

“The living, I told her, was good here. There were schools. There was even a church of our belief. And when I remembered, a hard thing to realize at first, that my two oldest sons would now be young men and could be with me in my business – I was almost beside myself with joy.” 

He paused and took a deep and labored breath. 

“Then came Lizette’s letter, the first she had written to me since I had left France. She said she was unwilling to leave France, she could not leave France, and she was very happy there. She had married Jean, my brother, soon after I disappeared. Jean had told her, as he had been informed, that I had been executed for treason. They had not known, until I wrote and it was too late, that I had escaped and was still alive. I surely did not expect her to be the wife of a traitor. She was happy. And with the money I had sent they were very content and were going to buy so many things they had wanted, things that made living easier.” 

He stopped and looked out over the harbor. Two and three masted schooners, six of them, were lying out there, tugging and straining at their anchors as the water slapped playfully at their hulls. Native tars sprawled on their decks singing to the accompaniment of their guitars and ukuleles. The Russian Pearl Buyer sighed audibly, and the Frenchman turned back to his audience. 

“But it has been a good life here,” he said contentedly

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