The Atua Man: A Novel

Having survived the storm and with the crew intact, it took another seven days of favorable wind and seas for the Mata‘i to reach the southern-most Marquesas island. The golden light of the afternoon sun bathed the fjord-like Bay of Virgins on the island of Fatu Hiva. The crew had never seen an island so lush. Coconut trees grew out of the cliffs lining the bay, and the dramatic rock formations guarding the valley looked like carvings of the native gods—fierce and protective of this paradise. It was the seventeenth day out of Papeete, and the Marquesas Islands were what Melanie, David and Jason had hoped to see.

Larry dropped anchor a short distance from the rocky beach, joining half a dozen sail boats in the bay. Soon after they’d set their hook, a native canoe with three boys and a girl paddled out to the yacht bringing fresh fruit—bananas, papayas, breadfruit, and more. The crew was still cleaning up the boat after the rough crossing, and Larry wasn’t in the mood for guests, but the teens tied their canoe to Mata‘i’s transom and boarded anyway.

They were all smiles, and after they had given Larry their gifts, they sat in the cockpit playing homemade guitars and banjos. The girl did a small dance on the aft cabin roof to welcome the aoe, the Marquesan word for “stranger.” They were so innocent and pure that Larry’s objections melted away. The crew were enthralled by the first Hiva people they met. They sat in the cockpit and ate bananas while Larry tried to talk to the teenagers in Tahitian. The Hiva kids didn’t understand that language, and when Larry switched to French, they refused to speak to him. David thought that strange. Later he would discover that the natives had shunned a yacht in the bay flying the French flag. Where Mata‘i was greeted with fruit and song, the people on that yacht had none.

The Polynesians are a diverse people that spread across the Central Pacific from Hawaii in the north to Aotearoa (New Zealand) in the south. Its western limits are the Fiji Islands—some of which are Polynesian, but most are Melanesian—and the eastern most island is Rapa Nui (Easter Island), home of the monumental stone sculptures. The major island groups have their own language and culture, and all experienced European and American colonialism in different ways. The Marquesan people differ significantly from the Tahitians. Though politically part of French Polynesian, their relationship with the French had been much more strained than that of the Tahitians. Outside of missionaries, few Europeans would venture that far away from Tahiti to set up trading outposts or settlements. The only outsiders who saw a profit in these isolated islands were the Chinese. They would go where the Europeans wouldn’t.

The island kids saw that Mata‘i was from Honolulu, and one boy smiled and made gestures of driving a car while making car sounds. Yet there were no cars in Hana Vave, nor anywhere on the island. The boy made it known that it was his dream to go to Hawaii. That same boy kept staring at David. Even though David had tanned up some from his first pale days in Honolulu, he still was not very brown. He had dark hair all over his chest. Finally, the boy staring at David sat next to him. Everything seemed funny to these island kids who couldn’t stop giggling. At last the boy next to David couldn’t resist his curiosity any longer and reached over and ran his hand over David’s hairy chest. The other three teens froze, waiting for David’s reaction. David laughed and then likewise rubbed the hair on the boy’s head, at which point the natives rolled on the deck in glee. They were all now friends for life.

The next morning Larry cooked banana pancakes for breakfast and the same native kids came back as captain and crew were finishing the meal. Larry invited them onboard and offered them some pancakes, which they tried but didn’t like. Through sign language and now a little French, Larry told his crew that the natives wanted to give them a tour of their valley. There was a wonderful waterfall at the end of it, and the views from the ridges surrounding the bay were spectacular.

Larry, Melanie and Jason wanted to take the hike up to the waterfall, but David didn’t. He had not been able to let go of his resentment of Larry’s behavior during the storm, and it had festered in him ever sense. Every time he looked at Larry, he saw a coward willing to sacrifice one of his crew for the sake of his boat. Jason understood that David could not tolerate Larry. He could sense the hatred crawling up on his friend like a giant spider, wrapping its black legs around his body, mind, and soul.

“Come with us, Dave. This is why we’re here,” Jason told his friend.

David declined again. Larry was going and David wanted to be alone. Jason and Melanie climbed into the native canoe, and when Larry saw how low it was in the water, he changed his mind and stayed on the yacht with David.

The hikers landed on a rocky shore—many of the bays in these exotic islands had no beach—and Melanie and Jason helped the natives pull their canoe above the high-water line. They walked through the typical Marquesan village. It had a Chinese store, a community center that served as a school and a church, and a government building that flew the French flag. The Chinese store usually had a generator, which, on many similar islands, might be the only power the island had. The stores stocked everything the village needed, from spark plugs to Spam to beer. The Chinese store in Hana Vave was about a mile from the landing, at the end of a muddy lane lined by row after row of coconut trees.

From the village it took another thirty minutes to hike through the jungle to the falls. Melanie and Jason were told by Larry to wear long pants and long-sleeved shirts if they didn’t want to get eaten up by the bugs, and they were glad they did. They stayed on the narrow dirt path winding through mahogany trees, a variety of palms and the ever-present creepers like philodendron that crawled up most of the trees. When they reached the falls, they stripped down to their bathing suits and dove into the cool, fresh water of the fall’s plunge pool. They shouted and splashed each other, and ducked beneath the surface, holding their breath as long as they could. The freshwater took away the constant salt itch they had endured at sea. It also washed away the feeling of being subject to Larry’s control.

Melanie couldn’t stop laughing and Jason could tell that she had seldom felt this free in her life. The natives loved it too. They took great pleasure in offering this joy to the foreigners visiting their paradise.

Larry turned on his charm and persuaded David into going ashore by offering to buy him a beer. Larry seemed to need his companionship, and David suspended his judgment for the moment and went along. They found a table under the thatched awning of the Chinese store and ordered two beers. The beers were the last two on the island, according to the merchant. The trading steamer was due any day, but nobody knew when because of the bad weather.

“Did he raise the price on us?” David asked.

“Probably. He’s Chinese. In the past, when we ended up following the steamer, the natives were all drunk and eating Spam. I like it better when the natives are out of beer and canned goods and live like true natives.”

That statement revealed another dichotomy in Larry’s character, David thought. Larry was a racist, yet he’d married a Polynesian woman and loved the people. The two men sipped their beers and watched a native woman in a Gauguin type pareu sweep the dirt in front of her thatched house.

“When I sailed these waters with my second wife back in the ’60s,” Larry said, “you couldn’t trust the natives up here. They’d rob you blind, and if you weren’t careful, they’d kidnap your women. Marquesans hate the French almost as much as they hate the Tahitians. They’re completely different from the Tahitians, and they stubbornly resisted the change brought by the colonialists. The Church was brutal in converting them and it needed the backing of the army to do the job. I’m here now, hoping to find some cultural awakening, like what’s been happening in Hawaii.”

“I’d like to find Gauguin’s pink beach,” David said.

“I can show you his grave.”

“We’re stopping there?”

“It’s the government center for the southern Marquesas. The leaders on these minor islands, like Fatu Hiva, just want to collect entries in their logbooks, but someone from the government will inspect us in Atuona, where Gauguin’s buried, I’m sure. These people like to think of themselves as a separate country. Did you see the past entries I made in the logbooks at Rangiroa and Manihi?”

“I did. You’re obviously really well-known in those waters.”

“Maybe notorious is a better word. But it’s been a long time.”

Larry took a pull on his beer while looking intensely at David. He had turned up the charm. David felt Larry was attempting to win him over, and he resented that. But David was willing to listen, given that they were virtually married to the boat and voyage.

“I want to explain to you what happened when Jason fell overboard,” Larry said. “I seriously thought that to maneuver the boat in that weather would break our mast.”

David didn’t say anything but thought that Larry had revealed something important; that he cared more for his boat than for Jason.

“I respect your seamanship, David,” Larry continued, “and know you’ve survived some very heavy weather. You have the right instincts.”

David nodded. “So does Jason.”

“I just froze,” Larry interrupted. “I couldn’t think straight. The last thing I’d want to do would be to lose Jason at sea, or any of us for that matter. But Jason makes me so furious that I want to make him suffer. He’s never had to work hard for anything important. Everything’s been handed to him. There’s been no trial by fire.”

“How would you know?”

“All the great spiritual masters have suffered,” Larry continued ignoring David’s question. “It’s what drove them to overcome the material. Why doesn’t God favor those who work hard and study all the time and pray without ceasing instead of giving His grace to someone who doesn’t even care about it?”

David didn’t say a thing. He had to force himself not to leave.

Larry’s face was tormented. There was a brief crack in his ego and David felt Larry’s desire to understand what Elizabeth St. John taught. For a moment David could see why Jason had admired Larry, so open to the Spirit, yet at the same time living through his senses and by his wits; a man struggling to conform to an idea of what makes someone spiritual, and yet filled with judgment toward those who don’t measure up. David realized that Larry had a strong concept of how a spiritual person should behave and Jason did not fit that image. Did Jason feel the same way now? David didn’t know.

“I was asked to leave these islands twenty-two years ago,” Larry finally continued. “Petty bureaucrats with delusions of power ruined my business, my marriage… and my life. But I bless them. They thought they were doing what was right, what was in the best interests of the islands. They were colonials who had no awareness of the people living under their thumb. French expats were not what these islands were about. But, like I said, I blessed them. Without that shaking up, that taking from me all that was good and beautiful, I would not have found the depth of soul that I have now.”

David finished his beer, shook the can to make sure it was empty, and wished there were more.

“It was painful” Larry said. “It took years, but now I’m back, in peace, in love, forgiving and compassionate. Jason needs to face his demons. He doesn’t even know how deeply attached he is to this world. I thought this trip would show him another side to life, show him how simple and fulfilling it can be without all the adulation and reverence for the heir apparent to his mother. But he’s asleep. He can’t see what I’m offering.”

“Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t. I don’t think you know him that well, Larry.” David said.

“Oh, believe me, I know him,” Larry said in the most egotistical way. “But who am I to change him? I’ve given him the opportunity, but he’ll have to rise to the occasion. I’ll keep giving him opportunities. This is my gift to you kids, and I’m going to enjoy it. Just say ‘thank you’ once in a while.”

David had a hard time not reminding Larry that they all had paid in one way or another for the trip. Jason worked on the Mata‘i for three months without pay, and David had used the last of his European money to cover his food and board.

“Basically, I just want to enjoy our voyage.” Larry finished his beer and pulled an air horn from his bag. “Give two blasts on that and I’ll bring the dinghy ashore,” he said.

He got up and headed back to his boat.

A few minutes later Jason and Melanie came down the trail from the waterfall holding hands. David saw them and looked away, stunned. He didn’t want to intrude on their moment by watching them. He thought of Lillian, and how often Jason seemed to abandon her.

Then Melanie and Jason saw David and walked over to him.

“Any beer left for us?” Jason said.

“Last one,” David said. He dismissed the hand holding as not meaning anything serious.

“Was Dad here?” Melanie said, noticing the air horn.

“Yeah. He’ll come and get us when we’re ready.”

The next day, Larry wanted to putter around the boat and relax. When he found out that his crew was planning to go the highlands, Larry became professorial.

While David and Jason loaded the dinghy, Larry said, “It was here on Fatu Hiva that Thor Heyerdahl came up with his theory that the Polynesians were originally from South America. He thought the Marquesan temple sculptures were similar to those of the Incas. His Kon-Tiki expedition was to prove that. But his idea that the Polynesians had drifted from South American in crude rafts was discredited by the voyages of the Hawaiian sailing canoe, Hokulea. Up until the late seventies Europeans wouldn’t believe that native people had the skill to settle the Polynesian islands. But they were wrong.”

Finally, the crew were able to shove off and took the dinghy ashore. They pulled the Mata‘i Iti above the high-water mark on the rocks. The village was quiet. The villagers went about their business in another world from the aoes from the yachts. Their needs were simple, and the abundance of food was all around. Their houses were neat, and the walkways always swept. Their priorities in life were singing and dancing; everything else was secondary.

Melanie, David and Jason grabbed their rucksacks and headed inland. The trek to the highlands took a couple of hours climbing a switch-back trail to reach one of the promontories overlooking Hana Vave Bay. As they left the valley the air became cooler and there were fewer bugs. In the highlands the trio found a grassy pasture. They explored the meadows. Melanie found a bleached goat head stuck on a tall stick. The views of the bay and coastline were spectacular.

“This is fabulous,” Melanie said. “I’m imagining myself in Eden. Everything is beautiful. Everything is warm. Everything is… well, it’s paradise! I hope we stay here a week. I can see why Dad wanted me to see this.”

They unpacked their picnic and spread out one of Larry’s tablecloths. Sitting around on top of this island, they were completely removed from the yacht, and the sea, and all the challenges below. Up where they were on top the world and everything about it was peaceful.

“I’m sorry you got stuck with Larry,” Jason said to David.

“Oh, we had a great time. The last beers on the island.” David’s sarcasm wasn’t lost on the others.

“You’ve got to forget what happened at sea,” Jason said.

“I know. I can see where he’s coming from. I’m okay.”

“Where is he coming from?” Melanie said. “I can’t figure him out.”

“I never imagined he could be so mean,” Jason said.

Melanie and David laughed. Melanie said, “Are you kidding? You never knew he was mean? He’s always been mean. It’s just that he’s so much meaner now.”

Jason laughed too. “Your father can’t stand not being in control, and under pressure he loses it.”

“That’s not all of it,” David argued. “He’s trying to atone for something that happened a long time ago. That’s why he’s so zealous in his spiritual work. He’s so compartmentalized that to face his sins is agony. I assume that’s why he’s making this trip. I just hope he can keep it all together.”

“Are you two finished psychoanalyzing him?”

“Just trying to be helpful,” David replied.

Melanie got up and walked to the edge of the cliffs. The yachts looked smaller than toys in the bay below. “Oh damn,” she said.

The boys got up and followed her gaze. A French naval vessel had pulled into the Bay of Virgins and had dropped anchor just seaward of the yachts.

“Dad won’t like that.”

Larry had the boat ready for sea when his crew returned from their excursion. He wasn’t willing to share his paradise with the French Navy. He wasn’t curious about where Jason, David, and Melanie had been, or what they’d seen. His dark mood was back.

They pulled the dinghy onboard and left as soon as Jason and David could get the anchor up. By midnight Mata‘i was miles to sea, Fatu Hiva now a memory. The Milky Way stretched across the sky from the southwest to the northeast and Scorpio sat in the west. To the Polynesians the Milky Way was a great shark and the scorpion was Maui’s fishhook.