A Night on the Town

Daydreams are better, not so violent, and they fade with the afternoon to dusk and twilight. He wanders in the eaves, in pleasant deprivation and thoughts. Basha Rivka Rockulz did not marry Zviki Rahnoose but got a son. “Meeting that bum was the best day of my life.” She sang a little ditty to make her whimsical disclosure: “First comes the son, then comes marriage… Who cares? You got your health!” A son was all he had given her before he left, before Ravi could walk. He walked back to Lebanon for a piece of hashish or a whore and a nice cup of mint tea. Good riddance. So what should she do, let her only son struggle with the name of a stranger? The father called himself Lebanese but wasn’t—nor was he Syrian, Iraqi, Iranian, or Saudi. Thank God and praise Allah too. He claimed Armenian but could have been Jordanian, Omanian, or a Buckeye. Who knew?

And the initial attraction? “What got the romance underway?”

“You talk like a crazy man.” Was Old Dad crazy too? And a leg man? But really, a fellow would rather not think of Mother that way.

At peak physical condition, give or take, lying down, he feels strong as ever, more or less, with some road wisdom in the mix. He’s a man of notable skill with a handsome face, in the prime of life. The optimal view grants the benefits of a few doubts. But what should a man think, that it’s all downhill from here?

No, he should look up. Life begins at forty, two years off—okay, a year and a half—and livelihood should be resolved by then. A man should have rent and groceries dicked at forty—are you kidding? He should hit forty in stride, with the dough rolling in, so he can focus on his work. He’s not an ivy leaguer and has no birthright or family ties or social connections or collegiate associations. He came up the old-fashioned way, on his wits—not too sharp in the recent past unless fate played a hand. Never mind. Wits fare better than a silver spoon any day. A year and a half should be plenty of time.

The future begins with definition of self and the mark he’ll make—no, scratch that. No marks. No footprints. Only nature’s sweet embrace will linger on a path chosen long ago. He hasn’t ignored his calling; he merely failed to see it. Now he sees the work ahead, though a look back looks good too. He misses Skinny one minute to the next, and he could go back and forget this little chaos. He could be home in time for Sunday’s charter, or Monday’s for sure, legal—what can they do, the local mishpocha? He’s one of them. By law!

But no. He cannot go back any more than a wish upon a star can deliver comfort. Life goes forward. The past is written, unavailable for reshaping, except to the right-wing media, remembering what never was. Otherwise, life is present tense, and he must grasp the moment just so, not too firmly, not too light.

Only a handful of people in New York were too stupid or jaded to see the beauty in his shots, not to mention technical excellence. Plenty more where they came from. No shortage there of suits filling space, killing time, fantasizing the vagabond life in Tahiti. The true artist pursues his work, no matter who says what in New York. The true artist is often unpaid, with amateur virtue intact to the end, like Vincent. Only the work survives. By forty, a man is no longer imagined but has become who he’ll be—who he is. He’s a man of means or spirit, a common man who takes pictures of fish on his way.

The eaves reveal merit and downside. He may work in obscurity, manually for money, but he’ll work artistically for life. It doesn’t matter. What could he be on a vibrant reef, famous?

Which brings him back to the place and fish tumbling like colored shards in a mirrored tube, but beautiful symmetry in the eaves is not guaranteed in the world. What would he do, given a choice? How about a tropical island as yet unblemished, with a job and reefs? I’ll take it! Already he hears people complain of too few tourists, too little spending. But whining is human nature. In America they whine when gas goes up twelve cents a gallon, like God killed their first-born. Three dollars a gallon or six; who cares? Let ’em skateboard.

Or scoot—he’ll get a scooter and ride the perimeter road to new reefs. He’ll go to bed early, eat and drink at home and head over to Papeete to be away. Then what? Bad question is what, leading to nowhere but the first step. A person reborn to prospects might stumble, but the path remains clear. He will not resist. He’s a dive instructor: reefdog for hire. He’s older than many instructors and more seasoned. On the inevitable question he’ll chuckle: I don’t know, seven hundred dives a year. Twelve years. Fifteen. What’s that, times seven? Maybe ten thousand dives. So? I’m learning.

He’ll also learn local currents, drops, surges, wildlife, and weather. Not speaking French is more perfect still since nobody speaks underwater. He has his gear and can borrow tanks. And his camera and lenses will show extra value, recording what is going away as it could be saved. That’s why he’s here, meaning here on earth. The shutter may open on something great, given the man behind the camera.

So he feels good, better than a man so challenged should feel. The feeling seems natural, but who would waste time wondering why he feels good? Tomorrow he’ll begin. The French know about life and mystical import on wine, cheese, and a baguette. Hold the pâté for now. And the place may be spared the onslaught for another lifetime or two. Inevitable loss seems as sad as mothers losing cubs, but he’ll be dead by then. What a relief.

How’s that for feeling good? So he comes down from the eaves to dress and walk into the world. At the road, he turns left—no, right—on his way to dinner, something French, as rich and extravagant as the future. Descending into the atmosphere of a more manageable dream, he feels his heat shield cooling, rattling less, his glide pattern smoothing toward touchdown, a water landing of course.

Early moonrise feels lucky, as the white bulb lights the grassy shoulder. Traffic is sparse, and two miles feel productive and illusory. But enough of doubting; he comes to a resort hotel that looks good in moonlight and beyond his needs. Perfect. What’s the alternative, saving ten bucks by walking back to eat across the road? Ten bucks is half a tip on any given day, and the days will come again.

The seafood and French buffet cannot be justified. So he pays the forty dollars, hearing Mother encourage it. What the hell, a man who gets married, swims from the aggregation buoy at night, moves to French Polynesia in a handful of days, and plans his future on an afternoon shouldn’t blink at forty clams. Or cocktails at seven bucks each, so he has three in the bar since the buffet won’t open for another twenty minutes because the French eat late and three drinks absolve all doubt. They flow, the first on a shudder, the second with a twist, the third with a bow wake on mirror-flat seas…

Then it’s time to eat, which all living creatures must do—but to survive as he has done and then to eat as the French do is another match made in… not heaven because he would not repeat the experience any sooner than he’d stare at the face of God, but he has seen something awful and divine, so the match could have been made in the heavenly realm, on Neptune’s choreography.

He makes a mental note to come back tomorrow for a word with management on swordfish and its mercury toxins, black tumors and the awful by-catch of turtles, birds, and marine mammals killed wantonly on swordfish long lines, as if anybody should suffer one more minute in blissful ignorance of the murderous carnage or the black, slimy poison excised in the kitchen before cooking the swordfish. Tonight he’ll simply pass on the swordfish, scrunching his nose and wagging his head at the woman behind him, so she might catch on and pass the word. He makes another mental note to learn the French word for tumors and the words for by-catch, leatherback turtles, marine mammals, seabirds, and crying fucking shame.

He laughs and so does the lady behind him.

He forks a steak—a tough, cheap cut, so he chews a piece slow as a minute in the pitch-dark depths…

Stop!

Everything else is perfect: fillets, scallops, shrimps, salads, spinach, and broccoli and these little pastry shells with delicious things inside and Caesar salad, fruit salad, pasta salad, and tabbouleh. Sliced cukes in yogurt with dill, sliced tomatoes with olive oil and garlic, cheeses, baguettes, and—sadly but also scrumptious—lobster tails and crab. Three trips seem in order, or five, with an evening to span, so he settles in to dine like a Buddhist with a most honored guest, his newly minted self.

But wait! Never sentimental, he bows his head to a private God who can be called for personal favors if the begging is sufficiently strident and the need sufficiently needy. Oh, the Holy, Holy, Holy One was frequently paged, questionable existence notwithstanding. Ravi gives thanks to the ether and feels the moments, this sequence no different than the other, even if he’d drifted the wrong way and could still be treading, and this is merely…

Stop!

He shudders and exhales to join the rising steam. He inhales the perfect scents of sweet and sour and gives thanks to the plants and animals who made this meal possible. He lapses to the fear of all living things just prior to passing. Or would that moment have already passed to awe and wonder?

He eats.

Never have taste buds stood so tall in tribute to sheer, shameless flavor. He can only nod at the waitperson’s suggestion of the hotel special wine for the evening, continuing his immersion into the extreme opposite of recent encounters…

But enough! Let it go.

And he lets go of letting go as well because bad things fade at the same pace as good things, the same pace as life itself, as the first sip of Bourgogne Burgundy Blanc displaces all things with goose bumps on taste buds. Anything more on the happy side of life would make a grown man cry. But he won’t cry. He laughs aloud as onto the pool deck serving as a stage walk six dazzling women and, not to burden a random encounter, a lead woman whose shape, face, and essence trigger a feeding frenzy of insatiable eyes that don’t exactly bug, but then they do. This fantasy seems foolish to say the least, not to mention irrational—or insane—scoping a woman at this juncture. What’s the chance of repetition in romance? Slim to none because nothing is the same. The mirror universe is merely an idea. Yes, he was out to dinner when he met what’s-her-name. So what? This isn’t out to dinner like that. This is way the hell out to dinner, like this.

He laughs aloud but stops when she drops her rhythm for a personal scan, for a nipple slip, loose ties, open zippers, and the safety checks triggered by your casual tourist pervert laughing for no reason. On a misstep she blushes in staggering beauty, and he laughs again at the maddening wonder of random events. He shakes his head to show that he’s not laughing at her but at life’s crazy turns. He’d thought Minna—that was her name—was beautiful, with the legs, hips, ass, tits, face, grace, and the rest. But he was wrong; she was harsh, with the liquor, dope, slutty sex, and greaseballs. Who knew?

And who minded the slutty sex at the receiving end? Nobody is who—nobody who matters anyway. The trashy stuff could not factor on first sight of Minna Somayan, though the baggage was hard to ignore on the way in from the aggregation buoy. At night.

But this beauty is different, below the line and pure Polynesian—maybe that’s the crux—not in the Polynesian but the purity. After all, Tahiti and Tonga, Samoa and the Philippines, Fiji and the Cooks are hardly a hand span on the globe. How different can beauty be? Minna looked pure, so who can tell if this beauty has cooties too?

But she’s likely free of the pop culture pollution smothering Hawaii because the watery realm called Oceania was buffered against missionaries. Missionary modus operandi was to convert the chief or king so the flock would follow. But it didn’t work so well down here, where island nations confederated, and a converted king came to Jesus alone. Over a century later, the southern hemisphere is free of big sugar, price supports or massive ownership by sugar/missionary families. The spirit remains free of resource allocation, and so are bitterness and regret in shorter supply. Maybe that’s the difference in one beauty and another.

From first pee-pee in his diapers to the final pissing his pants, a man will err and go on. He’ll bear no shame, and a lesson recently learned will not be soon forgotten. This feels different, with luxuriant color on a cleaner canvas. This dazzling dancer doesn’t seem like a mental case, but Basha Rivka would call her just that, with the coconut shells on her bazoombas and her pupik jiggling like Jell-O. Yes, and mothers are often right—and wrong. That’s why children leave the nest, to make their own mistakes and get smarter, having an adventure or two, like this one, with its jiggling pupik and garlic mashed potatoes with tarragon and lobster tits, I mean bits… and hip gyrations to make a young man smile, and, I think, olive oil? Yes—ah! So good, with a hint of… what is it? Dill? Yes, dill! Till a mouthful and eyeful are nearly too much—don’t speak, but ogling with a full mouth is okay, as every doubt sinks to inky depths.

At night.

So Ravi savors flavors, swaying like a cobra in synch with his charmer. And why not? Why wouldn’t a man in his prime ogle a nubile woman in her paean to fertility?

She is Vahineura, but family and friends call her Cosima. She dances for love—of music and movement, which is better than money. It’s a pittance at any rate and could hardly match the art of the thing. She touches the nerve by which Ravi feels his future in art, with no return but the purest love in the world.

Her day job is manual and pays another pittance. She answers tourist questions on things they may buy, like hand-carved vase holders, pareos with Gauguin prints, black pearls, calendars with naked women and men of splendid beauty, sundresses, T-shirts, guide books, and stuff. Ravi looks glum, and she asks why. He shrugs forlornly, and she says, “But I also dance.”

Her gossamer touch makes him tense because he’s sensitive. He wants to remember this scene rather than recall it. He says a chachka shop for tourists means that it’s begun, the noising up and dumbing down, the effusion and clutter. Signs, pamphlets, barkers, and con men will spread like fungus on the common sense of life till hideaways are no longer hidden, names of reefs and fishes, histories, and legends, people and myths get boiled down to babel and stocked on a thousand racks so tourists can disgorge the wonders you simply must see. The overstock will go to the dump to make room for next week’s load.

Where lush vegetation teems in virtually visible growth, front-enders and closers in boiler rooms will gouge thousands with great good cheer. Do you want vacations? Do you need vacations?

“You are so right!” the young dancer agrees, covering her mouth with her fingers, then touching his arm again. “But you are wrong. I would never let that happen here. You talk like a man who’s been to war. It’s not like that here. Business is very slow. The shop only exists for hotel guests. I don’t think it makes money. How could it? It’s so slow. And it’s only souvenirs. You know that word?”

“Yes. Everyone knows that word.”

“Oh. I didn’t know. It’s French.”

“It’s universal.”

“What is chachka?”

“Trinkets. Unnecessary stuff.”

“What’s wrong with a little thing to remember your holiday by?”

“What do you mean, you won’t let it happen?”

“I wouldn’t. Why would I?”

“What could you do to stop it?”

“I have powers.” She falters. “Maybe you’ll see.” Maybe he sees. Maybe regal notions are common in tropical climates, among the girls who wanna have fun. Let her cast a spell of love or something or other. Any bear would stick his nose in this honey pot. But circumstance will come later, past laughter and chiding, on the way to losing and finding himself again—after what he’s been through.

The last long swim altered his outlook, but what a prize. That is, Vahineura’s troubled relationship with reality includes her pledge to any man who swims Cook’s Bay after sunset and swims back before sunrise; he will earn the cherries. What else can a young woman of paltry means offer? She is a queen in need of a king. Or something.

She will share her fantasy in monotone, revealing her delusion that the rightful king will claim his crown. The offer is long-standing—since she reached the age of consent, if not reason. “You’ll have sex with any man who has the balls to make the swim? You know balls? Les oeufs profonds?”

“Tu es drôle, mon pauvre Ravi. Who ever heard of profound eggs?”

“I thought you liked me.”

“Oh, but I do.”

“But you want me to swim that bay at night?”

“No! Not you!”

Will he get the cherries without the swim? Or is he not in the running? He doesn’t ask because logic seems incidental. She’s luscious and warm, aloof yet accessible and oddly disconnected—look who’s talking. Never mind; she’s not like the other one, not even close, unless you count the quirks and bold moves where least expected—and the character malfunctions revealed on a long swim.

At night.

Which should make an impression, but Ravi the rockhead has a fatal appetite for tender leg. But can all women be mental? Probably not all, only the ones he meets. He takes cold comfort in consistency but feels bona fide stupid. A healthy appetite is not wrong and can provide happiness for others, and a young dancer’s fantasy may be a curse, and he could end it by claiming the prize—like the guy who cut through the sticker bushes to kiss Sleeping Beauty. The winner won’t be much older than Ravi. Two elderly fellows tried and failed already.

I’m not old. I can swim that bay on my back. Besides, she had to be relieved when those old guys drowned. Neither was wealthy. At least I got potential. Well, I got no flab.

But why would anyone drown in that pond? It’s a mile, maybe—unless drowning was easier to tell than disappearing with no trace. But pondering the pond will also come later. Sooner, on a day pleasantly resolved, Vahineura approaches. “You are laughing at us. Why are you laughing? What do you see that’s funny?”

Eating his third pass, Ravi puts a forefinger in the air, clears a swallow and shakes his head. “I am not laughing at you. I am laughing at… life. At my life and the… I don’t want to give the wrong impression, but I… I laugh at the turns my life has taken in the last few days. Please, forgive…”

“What impression is the right impression?”

“You’re a beautiful dancer. I’m sorry if you thought I…”

“You looked, and you laughed.”

“With delight.”

She smiles because he said the right thing; so few men do. “When the show is over, we invite our guests for pictures. Perhaps you would like a picture to send home.”

She pegged him as a tourist. That’s okay, and he says yes, a picture would show his mother he’s having fun.

“Did you bring your camera?”

“Yes, but it’s for diving, for underwater pictures. It can take regular pictures too, but I don’t have it here. It’s too big.”

“All right. You can use our camera. See that woman there?”

Fate paints a picture on simple strokes. Yes, he sees that woman, the dancing troupe’s matron, more middle in age than he is but well preserved, tawny with a slight cushion but firm and obviously formerly svelte, like Aunt Hadi, who was not Mother’s sister but a friend. Hadi let Ravi watch if he pretended to sleep and only peeked through eye slits when she played with herself. Here she is again, still affable and affectionate.

“She is Hereata. You will love her. It’s only Polaroid, a thousand francs, about twelve dollars. You’re here for pictures underwater?”

“Yes. I am here for that.”

“Good. I am Vahineura.”

“Ravi.”

“I don’t mind if you laugh at us. I only wanted to know why.”

“Laughter sprang from my heart, which is different than laughing at you. You see?”

“I see. I see you later. Comme ça?”

“Yes. I mean, oui.”

She drifts back to the stage. His appetite is gone, or at least changed. Besides, hardly a spare cubic centimeter remains in the old breadbasket. Pubic centimeter? That’s disgusting, but men in emotional turmoil can display incorrigible behavior, often as pussy hounds. Or is that unbearable? Either way. Speaking of sweets, some pineapple upside down would align nicely. She smiles at him, connecting dots, feeding potential.

So things round out on a lesson: Get out and mix it up or stare at the walls. It seems so clear until a meatball rolls from the buffet in loud jams drooping below the knees because the waistband is below the butt crack. This guy could have a load in his crotch with nobody the wiser. He offsets with gold nuggets—a watchband and matching rings and earrings and a beefy nugget necklace demonstrate success in the Russian mafia. Maybe he sells timeshare on the Caspian Sea to former Commies who like vacations, want vacations, need vacations.

Russian is the profile, but what else do you have with a bald head, pudgy hands, lumpy shoulders, thickness overall, and a borscht accent? He swills what is clearly not water and watches like Nikita Khrushchev on steroids at the General Assembly, ready to pound his shoe on a table. Fleshy folds bunch between the head and the neck. He takes a stance, arms folded, legs apart. On his left butt pocket is USA above an American flag. Below the flag: We’re #1! The other pocket is a dive flag—diagonal white stripe on a red field—making him one more macho idiot with a scuba certification card to prove it.

The diphthong/glottal mix sounds Slavic or Curd or maybe Slobbovian. He’s drunk, keeping his little world safe for bad taste. His date is heavily rouged and confused. She goes along, apparently hired. The scene is ugly but avoidable—till he blocks Ravi’s view.

Let it go, Ravi murmurs and does, through the photo op. Then he steps up to the meatball’s video camera with a smile. He no speaka too gooda de Française but says, “Vous êtes trop gros pour une fenêtre mais très parfaite pour une porte, n’est-ce pas?”

The thick man rises, as the matron steps between them like a referee. She instructs, “Arrêtez, Monsieur.” But the glove is thrown and calls for a response. So the two men glare till the thick one lunges past the matron, who hooks his ankle. Ravi sidesteps to make room for the sprawl, which would be all she wrote, ending the spat with manageable loss of face. But the drunk is up to his knees on another go, so the matron plants her toes in his ribs. “Ne pas ici, Monsieur! Not in my show. Not in front of my guests. Go home now.” She hovers, discouraging a third lunge, and three bouncers in triple XL lead him out. He looks back, his brow set on revenge.

What is it about me?

She turns, “What is it about you?”

“Thank you, but I didn’t start that. He stood in my way when…”

“Yes. I saw him. Here.” She hands him a card with a two-digit number. The Polaroid ran out of film, so she went to point ’n shoot for quick and easy prints, but he’ll have to wait until she can finish with the guests. Each gets an embrace and a Polaroid. He stands by, watching his special dancer blush and blink on her way out.

The crowd thins and cleanup begins. He decides to come back later for his photo because he needs a walk home on lifts and headers to sort the days and details on a freshening breeze. Seas are figurative, unlike those of the recent conundrum. This turmoil is part of a pattern, and it must change. Why does a man attract trouble at every turn? A blustery night may clarify the why and wherefore of things. Why couldn’t he close his eyes and let a meatball take his meatball video and roll away to his meatball room where he could slip into his meatball hooker and his meatball dream?

“I am Hereata,” the matron says.

“Yes. I know. I mean, the dancer…” He indicates the exit.

“You mean Vahineura.”

“Yes. She told me your name.”

“I saw that, too. I’m sure she told you more than my name, and I must advise you…” But she stops short of advice. Flexing her supple self in subtle provocation, she suggests the unavoidable, that grace is merely typical to a fulsome woman in a clingy dress, heels, lipstick, and womanly wherewithal. Body language is a harmless amusement, really, a cultural ornament to please the eye. “Come. We make a print for you. So you can send it home, and they will see you having fun.”

He follows through the lobby to an office, where she squats to rummage for the power button or look for a pencil she dropped last week. Who knows? Her dress rides up, and she swears that God invented computers for revenge on sinners, and if this merde hotel weren’t so cheap, it would get one of those printers where you just stick the thing in, et voilà! But no…

“I can come back tomorrow, please. It’s not a problem.”

“Your family should see you having fun, so they don’t worry. Or your friends. That way you avoid a bigger problem.”

“How do you know my family will worry? Or my friends? Why do you think I’ll have a problem?”

“Maybe I guessed and got lucky. Whose family doesn’t worry? What friends don’t want to hear from you?”

“Still, I can come back. Better in the daytime.”

She stands up. “Okay. I think you’re right. What’s your name?”

“Ravid.”

“Rabid?”

“No. Ravid, with a v. And it doesn’t rhyme with rabid. It’s rah-veed. Veed! But call me Ravi. Okay?”

“Okay. Ravi,” she shrugs. “Where you from?”

“I came here from Hawaii.”

“I don’t think you were born in Hawaii.”

“I was born in Morocco, but I’m from Haifa.”

“You’re an Arab?”

“I’m Israeli. It’s a long story from long ago.”

“But you came yesterday from Hawaii?”

“Yes. How do you know it was yesterday?”

“Maybe I guessed and got lucky. It’s Sunday. You look new. I don’t know. You look familiar. I think I know you.”

“We’ve never met. I would remember.”

“I don’t mean that we met.” She proceeds to more earthly tasks.

How else might she know him? He’ll sort that as well on the blustery walk home. “What else do you know?”

“Young. Confused. Handsome. Lonely.”

“Are you psychic? You are correct, but I was so hungry and had such a good meal, and I was having fun. I thought the… uncertainty didn’t show, at least for a little while.”

“I’m more logical than psychic. I see what there is to see. You looked hungry all right.”

“And you?”

Such a question prompts eye contact and feminine flex in an expressive woman. “What about me?”

“What about you? What are you? What do you feel?”

“What do you see?”

An equally open-ended question prompts caution in a man of seasoning who senses a door opening. He can’t quite see inside but she seems friendly, and she’s connected to tourism in a high-end hotel. What a person to know. So he looks and says, “Good looking. About my age. Generous, brave…”

“You think I’m brave because of that scene? You don’t know tourism. Besides, it’s not brave if you’re not afraid. I had backup. That man was drunk. What could he do?”

“Sorry. I thought you were brave. Not every woman could kick a guy in the ribs. And I do know tourism. I’m a dive instructor.”

An eyebrow rises. “Come. I’ll buy a drink. I want to hear. You can help me wind down. You know how it is on the late shift.”

Another drink seems unnecessary, and he begs off; he’s too tired and his belly is too full. She suggests a cognac as digestif. He nods because a drink with a mature woman in tourism may bode well. “Okay, you can buy a drink if I can buy one too.”

Soon they relax at the bar, free of life questions, staring at their drinks. The silence could be awkward for people who just met, but it’s not. “They say silence is golden, but it can be a wall between people who have nothing to share or have trouble in their hearts. But when it passes easily, it means we’re compatible. Do you feel it? I think I’ll know you for a long time.” She turns to him.

He smiles and says yes, a friend would be good. Her angular cheeks, Polynesian lips, dark skin, and compelling cleavage heave gently, and she blinks like a beacon on good anchorage… He laughs short; would that be sandy bottom or loose slag over hardpan?

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Not nothing. You laugh. Tell me what.”

He watches his drink and says, “It’s different here. Less of some things. More of others. I think I like it.”

“Hmm. It’s more French here. Not so Christian, like Hawaii.”

“Yes… Why did you warn me? Or start to warn me.”

“I didn’t warn you. You practically picked a fight with that man.”

“Not about that. About the dancer—what’s her name?”

“Oh, Cosima—Vahineura. She’s a nut, that’s why. She already got two guys dead and broke a bunch more hearts. And for what? A nut.”

“Why warn me?”

“Because you’re a man. I think you been through enough.”

“What do you think I’ve been through?” He swallows half his cognac. “Now you’re guessing.”

“Maybe. But I know what a tired man looks like. I told you: You look confused and tired. A man your age shouldn’t look so tired. Life tired. I don’t know what you been through, but I think it was tough. Physical tough, mental and emotional. Yes? No?”

“How old am I?”

She squints in scrutiny. “Thirty-eight, going on fifty-two.”

He slides a hand over his hip pocket to feel his wallet. Well, she guessed and got lucky. So he looks a bit tired. “How old are you?”

“Younger than you. Only forty-eight.”

He laughs, downs his drink and signals the bartender, knowing the trick the sauce can play and loving the sauce for its trick. “Are you psychic?”

“I think so. I see that I weigh less than you do, too.”

He scans, thinking their weights close enough for a wrestling match. He would suggest two out of three falls but holds back. “Do you see reason? Direction?”

“Sometimes. But I told you: What I see is more logic than psychic. Did you forget? You can see for yourself. My visions are ordinary, not extraordinary. What’s strange about seeing things as they are?” She shakes her head. “I’ll let you know when I see something.” They watch their drinks, comfort settling between them until she relents. “Okay. I see water. The ocean.”

“So? We’re surrounded.”

“At night.”

He moans.

“That’s all for now. It isn’t happy. I see this because you’re showing me, and you’re telling me as well. It’s not psychic. That’s why I warn you about Cosima. I don’t like to say things about a person who may be nice inside where it counts, especially one of my dancers, not my best dancer, but she’s learning, not so clumsy as she was. You’re a man, and I know what happens, and I saw what happened when she spoke to you.” So she tells of Vahineura—Cosima—and the curse/fantasy that a man will swim over and back between sunset and sunrise to claim her.

He won’t ask about depth, current, sea creatures, and shoals but holds his cognac to the candle. “Is water ever happy?”

“Of course it is. You of all people should know that.”

“I should. But I think it’s not sad or happy. It’s only… efficient.”

“Efficient does not mean it’s unhappy. Don’t be foolish. No man should get so tired, especially a man your age, who may recover.”

Or he may not, yet he warms to her common sense—her optimism feels informed. The bar closes. Her small house is in a field below a piton, a short walk up. She’s nice and smart and also on edge—a far edge—but her manner and presence make her flat-out doable at closing time. So he asks the tough question: Would he pick the same tomato in daylight, sober? Stop. Take your petty needs home in the dark and let a friendship be. “I’m staying in a bungalow by Taverua.”

“That’s two miles down!”

“Yes. On a beautiful night for a walk.”

“With squalls? No moon? I think a tired man is a dangerous man.”

Slouching into a downpour does not seem so invigorating as a while ago, but he’s seen worse. He follows her out, comme ci, comme ça, happily adrift on dry land. The rain starts at the top step and pours by the bottom. “Come! My house is near.” He faces foul weather or perhaps another failure.

“I don’t think so.”

“You can stay at my house. No funny business. Do you hear?”

“Yes, I hear.” Maybe it’s best. But how could it be—but she takes his hand to lead the way, downwind. “You’re so sad and drunk. Venez! Vite!” So they head up the road in the dark on a rocky shoulder in the rain and traffic. She chatters over life since before the road got paved, when it was dusty or a mud bog, but paved will kill you quicker. She’s walked it for years, often in worse conditions.

Yes, he’s familiar with the changing world. At least the side road is still dirt. She grasps his waist and points a flashlight, like he’s convalescent, headed to the infirmary. Dim light and dancing shadows favor a seasoned woman. On the porch she steps out of her slippers and regrets the dark, but who knew she’d drag the cat home? She laughs and turns on the light, and he sees boots, size twelve. “Effective, don’t you think? A woman learns these things.”

Inside is brighter. It’s a roof over four walls with a kitchen table and chairs and a couch that unfolds to a bed. She points out back at the salle de bain, telling him to pee-pee from the porch to the left on his way out, not to the right—sur la gauche, pas à la droite—where her garden is trying to grow. He would ask if she also makes pee-pee from the edge but knows that she does, “but only in bad weather,” she says, frittering over no rest for the weary, wet clothing, and catching her death, even in Paradise, where such things still happen.

She disrobes casually as an anecdote, peeling the clingy dress to reveal the truth of the situation, so the parties of the first and second part can dispense with speculation. It’s normal, after all. Wet clothing must come off. She says the place sleeps very well, and they’ll walk back up in the morning for his picture, so his family can see him having fun. She plucks a towel from the wall to dry herself. She’ll walk back up anyway for work, so it’s no trouble. Tossing him the towel she crawls under, keeping to her half. He watches like a statue but follows here too, turning to hide the awkward truth of his relationship with the world at large. Burdened by youth and feeling better than in recent days, he crawls alongside, keeping to his half, hoping to avoid obtrusive behavior. Silence is again natural and eases the strain. He reviews the meatball, the buffet, the long walk back to his bungalow, until she rubs his arm. “Go ahead. Tell me.”

Her touch is warm, her hands soft. He would rather close his eyes to feel it, but he’d fall asleep. So he sighs, opening the book of fate. It begins on the restlessness common to spirited people everywhere. He was out to sort things out when a beautiful woman walked up and… turned life into heaven… and hell. The ex-boyfriend came around shooting, and he got deported, after the boyfriend kidnapped and tied him and put him in a little boat and went way out and threw him overboard at night, and he swam in… four or five miles… at night.

He breathes like a distance swimmer, gushing forth to this angel of understanding that he’s only human, that every life is beset, but he’s had a run that is wrong. Buried in the rubble of what had been a lovely life of days, he felt death as a presence to test or kill him. He survived but lost his will and frankly felt so indifferent, now that…

Survival was a delusion—a void, without happiness, without hope, with overwhelming loss and regret on every rise—proving that he did play out, but he’s still alive, like a mouse in the paws of a cat. The eating is inevitable. Mice know that. He feels his soul going away, lost. “That guy tonight—that was good. That’s how I used to be, you know, which makes me think I might recover, as you said. But…”

But he’s not the man who got put over at the aggregation buoy. How could he be, with death beating in his heart for so long? He’s lived apart ever since, a spirit divided, watching from outside, failing. No more house and home, no job or friends. “And my cat, Skinny, who I love, and she loves me too. She knows me, and we have this routine we still carry on, and it’s painful. I miss her so badly.”

He sobs, bringing the tale to Tahiti, where he can’t tell down from up, which feels like vertigo, which is why she saw fatigue and confusion, as a woman of logical perception will do. He rolls her way. She sobs for his loss but cannot absolve it. They caress. “Come. You need a friend. You are not a mouse. You will eat the cat.”

He would rather not think of Skinny in that way, but friendship is so long gone and seems to restore him. Following her lead yet again, he sips the aperitif; call it liqueur de frangipani avec citron. Make that lime. Where did that come from? Wait. It’s frangipani and nitrous oxide. Or maybe it’s just the oldest remedy of all…

“What is nitrous oxide?” she whispers.

“Juth one hit an’ it doethn’t even mather…”

“Mmm…” She seems to comprehend. “How did you know?”

“How thith I dow wha?”

“Mmm… I wanted your lips… there.”

“Lucky gueth…” Yes, and a hard-worked waterman eases into snug harbor. It feels like love; so profound is the comfort. She is not like Minna Somayan in any way but gives like an angel on a day of displacement, in and out go the good and the bad. Easing him over and rolling on top she towers like a giant in the land of little people and lopes to the peak in long strides, laughing or crying, he can’t tell which, though she too seems restored. He catches up, and she cries, as some women do. “Thank you, Here… uh… Herea…”

“Hereata.”

“Hereata. Thank you. I won’t forget you.”

“Forget me?” She sniffles and wipes her nose. “You just met me. How can you forget me already, after what I have shown you? Me. You never met anybody like me.”

“No, I haven’t. You’re right. I only…”

“Sh… I know.” She snuggles, easing him in to home sweet home. She finds his lips for a goodnight kiss, their first.