The Atua Man: A Novel

Atuona, the major town on Hiva Oa, fronted a beautiful beach with strong waves, making it unsuitable as an anchorage. The yachts, and the trading vessels calling on Atuona anchored in the adjacent harbor of Tahauhu, where there was a wharf for the steamers and a small pier for the tenders from visiting yachts. A fleet of sailboats were tightly packed in the small bay when the Mata‘i arrived. She anchored near the pier.

Larry went ashore alone, taking the passports and the yacht’s papers expecting a quick clearance. Instead, he returned a couple of hours later with a French gendarme who thoroughly searched Mata‘i. Larry wasn’t happy. Most yachts were given a cursory look at their papers, not a thorough inspection of their personal goods. Larry showed the gendarme the guns and what little ammunition they had left in an effort to keep things aboveboard. Larry had convinced David, in their talk at Hana Vave, that his previous activities in French Polynesia had been forgotten. But David saw that he was wrong. He was no friend to the French, and they seemed to have a long memory.

When the gendarme left, Larry told his crew that the next day they were to have lunch with an old friend and then tour Ta‘aoa Valley to see an important archeological site and swim under another waterfall. At the moment, David wasn’t interest in tomorrow. He was anxious to get off the boat to spend time with Paul Gauguin, alone, before the sun got too low. He excused himself and took the dinghy ashore.

David walked along the revetment on the east side of the anchorage to a narrow road that went over a hill, separating the harbor from the town. When David crested the hill, Atuona spread out below him, a town of about a thousand people nestled under a thick canopy of coconut trees. The white sand beach was fringed with breakers, and inland toward the base of the hill was the cemetery. David imagined Gauguin walking here, and it dawned on him how remote this island was. Eighty-five years ago, it was at the end of the Earth. Gauguin was looking for a pureness in life, the guiltless race, that noble savage uncorrupted by modern man. He sought a people untouched by industry, people without masters and serfs, people free from Western belief. He sought paradise on Earth, but he didn’t find it. The priests had gotten there first.

It was not hard to find the artist’s grave. Someone, perhaps Gauguin himself, had carved his name, like his signature on his paintings, into a black lava rock and painted the letters pink. At the head of his tomb were two of his ceramic tikis, and behind his headstone a frangipani tree bloomed. The afternoon sun sent rays of light, like a spotlight, through the clouds that illumined the tree. David stood in awe before the tomb, filling his mind and heart with all that Paul Gauguin had wanted to tell the world. Yes, there were colors in nature like the colors he painted. There were pink beaches and green skies and lavender clouds. David saw the people he painted walking the streets and sitting in the meadows. But this was no paradise. There were devils everywhere, in the cobalt shadows lurking behind the mango trees. There was no joy. No amount of genius could pierce the landscape to the heart of the people, because their collective heart had been stolen. The soul of the islands was nowhere to be found. This was France with exotic foliage and a different colored skin.

Larry roused his crew at dawn. Melanie came on deck first and sat at the cockpit table where Larry had laid out the boat’s weapons. The boys came up from the salon, followed by Larry carrying an armload of cereal boxes, which he stacked on the table. His crew had no idea what he was up to.

“That’s rather cheesy keeping all that food hidden,” Melanie said.

“You wouldn’t want to eat this,” Larry replied. He opened the boxes and dumped the contents on to the table. To his crew’s amazement, there were hundreds of rounds of ammunition hidden in the corn flakes. “Here’s the deal. I want you guys to match the ammo with the weapon.”

Larry left and quickly returned with a canvas sail bag and an armful of towels. His crew was still puzzling over the guns and the bullets scattered among the corn flakes. “Don’t dilly-dally. This is important. When you’re done, wrap the weapons and ammo in the towels and put them in the bag. I’ll make breakfast.”

Larry disappeared below and his crew began to separate the ammunition from the cereal. David made little armies of rifle bullets standing upright. Jason had companies of shotgun shells, and Melanie had platoons of thirty-eight and forty-five pistol rounds.

At ten o’clock Larry took his crew and the weapons ashore in the dinghy. He tied Mata‘i Iti to the pier and they walked up to the beat-up Toyota pickup truck waiting for them. Jason threw the sail bag of guns in the back and he and David climbed in after them. Larry and Melanie jumped in the front with the driver.

“Larry’s not a very stable man,” David said, as they left the harbor and headed inland on a rough road. “He told me some bizarre things when you and Melanie hiked up to that waterfall on Fatu Hiva.”

“I don’t want to get into that, Davy. We don’t know what’s going on and it’s probably for the best.”

“You think Byron knew Larry had a clandestine agenda and that’s why he left?”

“I doubt it. I think he lost all respect for him when he wouldn’t motor into Papeete. And … I don’t think he could take two more months without sex.” They both laugh.

“For some reason Larry wanted to explain why he reacted the way he did when you fell overboard.”

“I’ve already cleared myself of that.”

“Don’t you think it’s odd that he would tell me, justify himself to me and not you?”

Jason just shook his head. “That’s Larry. He doesn’t confront things well.”

“He told me he just froze. He thought the weather would tear the boat apart if he heaved to. Melanie forced him to do it when I came after you.”

“Dave, I know all that. I could see what was going on.”

“No, it wasn’t the boat; it was you. He told me he wants to make you suffer. He thinks you’ve never had to work for anything in your life.”

“Sounds like he’s talking about himself.”

“Larry thinks spiritual masters have to go through a trial by fire, that they have to suffer to overcome the material world. He thinks he’s doing all this to make you deserving of your spiritual gifts. He’s crazy, J.J. And what do you think he’s going to do with these guns?”

“He told me the people up here rely on hunting as much as they do the trading steamers, and the French make it very hard for them to buy rifles. They have a hundred percent tax on guns. He’s just helping them out.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this when he first brought out the guns in Honolulu?”

“It didn’t cross my mind. You’re making a big conspiracy out of nothing.”

“Well, he scares me.”

Both of them fell silent as they drove through the center of town and into a valley. The truck pulled onto an expansive meadow of emerald grass in front of a wooden house with a large veranda where three men and a woman waited for them. The woman, about Larry’s age dressed in a pink muumuu and looking like the subject of a Gauguin painting, ran down the stairs to Larry, tears wetting her face. She was large, and her dark hair, adorned with flowers, was piled on top of her head like a crown. Larry jumped from the truck before it had fully stopped and ran to her, hugging her tightly, then waltzing her around while kissing her tears.

The boys got out of the back of the truck and the driver grabbed the bag of guns and took them to the men on the veranda. Larry opened his arms and beckoned for Melanie to join him. She looked at the boys, shrugged, and then went to her father. The woman, Ama, embraced her and sobbed, creating a three-way hug.

Jason and David watched, surprised by the passion between Larry and the woman. They both wondered who she was. The men on the veranda came down and introduced themselves; they were Ama’s sons. They spoke English and were from Bora Bora.

Inside the house, while everyone dined on fish and suckling pig, plates of vegetables and bowls of fruit, Larry forbade talk of the past—no reminiscing and no personal histories. This was a celebration of the moment, filled with food and exotic drink. They talked about what life was like on a small island. They talked about the sea. They questioned why some people lived happy lives and others didn’t. Larry would switch into Tahitian at times and Jason, David, and Melanie would speculate about what subject had prompted the switch. Was Larry talking about them? Was he talking about the Bora Bora connection? Was he hiding something?

After lunch Larry and his crew said their good-byes and headed on to Ta‘aoa and the famous disappearing waterfall located beyond the Road of Men. It was a long one-hour drive over a twisting rutted road. The boys bounced around in the bed of the pickup, unable to find a comfortable position. The road clung to the rugged terrain, sometimes leaving little room between the jungle rising on one side and the cliffs falling into the sea on the other. When they finally reached a remote bay, at the base of the Road of Men, they parked on a grassy meadow near a stone church. A few houses fronted the meadow. They couldn’t drive any further.

The guys were bruised and dizzy from the trip. While Larry and the driver were clarifying their route to the waterfall, David rolled out of the truck bed and stumbled across the grass to the beach. He let the waves wash around his legs. He had sailed on two oceans, survived storms and the Gulf Stream and had never gotten sick, but the ride to the Road of Men had him puking over the side of the truck. After David regained his equilibrium, he went back to get Jason, but Jason was still curled up in the truck bed.

David climbed into the truck and put a hand on his friend’s back. “What’s wrong?”

“I feel terrible,” Jason said weakly.

Melanie joined the boys and didn’t like the way Jason looked. “Oh, Jason, are you okay?”

Jason got up and struggled out of the truck. “I think it was just the ride.”

Larry walked over and looked at Jason. “Bollocks. Let’s go and have some fun.”

“He doesn’t look good.” Melanie said to her dad. “Why make him go if he doesn’t feel like it?”

“Because he’ll never be in this place again and he shouldn’t miss the experience.”

David put his arm around his buddy and said, “You sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah,” Jason picked up his knapsack, and everyone but the driver headed for the Road of Men.

The driver jogged across the green to a thatched house with some tables and chairs out in front and joined a handful of men drinking.

“I think I’d rather follow him,” David said.

“I thought he was our guide,” Melanie said.

“No, it’s just us,” Larry took the lead and set a fast pace. “I know the way and it would be nice if you kids were a little more appreciative.”

The rutted avenue embodied the clash of Western colonialism. It was lined with stately palms and cut through a village that had been abandoned for generations. Nothing was left but the grand building sites called paepae, which spread out on either side of the road. Each platform, about three feet high and thirty feet square was made from hand-hewn lava rock. Beautiful crafted stone steps led up to a terrace that would have held a number of well-built wood and grass structures—a large common house for family gatherings, a cooking house, an eating-house for the men that would have been tapu (forbidden) to the women, and numerous sleeping houses. Extended families had lived together—couples in their own sleeping quarters; children, siblings and cousins all, sharing the large common spaces, and sleeping with whomever would have them.

Shading the paepaes were tall breadfruit trees which had multiplied to form a dense forest where the only open space was the road and the paepae. The Hiva tradition dictated that when a child was born, the family planted a tree for the child, and that tree, with its life-giving fruit, belonged to that person forever. But forever wasn’t forever on the Road of Men. The jungle had taken over the paepaes, covering them with roots and breaking down the stone. Whatever had caused the people to leave their homes had left a miserable atmosphere. Whatever horror had happened there still lingered and David felt like he was an unwelcome guest at a funeral.

“You know why this village was abandoned?” Larry wiped the sweat from his brow. He was breathing heavily as the road narrowed and they climbed into the valley. It was a rhetorical question.

“The Catholic Church destroyed these people. It was a slow strangulation of one culture by another.” Larry was in his teaching mode again. “The Hiva gave up the will to live. Before the missionaries, the people had attained a perfect balance between the land and the population. There was a season of harvest and renewal called the matari‘i when all conflict was put aside and the clans from all the valleys mixed. Traveling performers went from valley to valley inviting people to join their troupes. They satirized their rulers, pilloried the rich, and enticed the brightest and most talented to join them. They danced, performed mock battles, and chanted the genealogy of their ancestors. They kept the culture alive and had sex without boundaries.”

“Isn’t it always about sex.” David said.

“Those villages that didn’t participate in the matari‘i became ingrown and weak, and the missionaries were able to take over.”

As they reached the end of the lane, they came upon a takai‘i me‘ae, an ancient temple platform filled with large stone tikis. Larry climbed onto the me‘ae and stood next to one of the tikis. “Melanie, take my picture.” Larry put his arm around a life-size stone sculpture. Melanie snapped away as her father went from one god to the next. Some had fallen and Melanie got shots of Larry resting his foot on the head of one of the gods.

Jason sat on the steps of the me‘ae and clutched his stomach. David squatted next to him and felt strange too. The atmosphere was very dark and heavy. It was as if something bad was going to happen, and it overwhelmed him.

“I don’t think I can make it to the falls.” Jason was obviously in physical pain.

David empathized with friend. “I’ve never felt anything like this, either. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know.” Jason groaned.

Larry and Melanie were ready to proceed up the valley. Larry nudged Jason with his foot. “Let’s go. We’ve got a good mile to the falls.”

“You guys go on. I can’t do it,” Jason said.

“Come on! You’re not going to let a little discomfort ruin our hike. Put some spiritual consciousness toward it.” Larry stared at Jason disapprovingly. Jason had grown pale and was sweating.

“I’ll stay here with J.J.,” David said. “He doesn’t look too good.”

“Bollocks. Stick with us, Dave. This might be your last chance to see the most famous of Marquesan waterfalls.”

“Go,” Jason said. “I’ll wait for you here, Davy.”

“Really?” David reluctantly got up.

Leaving Jason at the temple, Larry, Melanie and David forged their way through the jungle, following the stream. With their machetes, they hacked at the creepers and hanging roots blocking their way. After a half hour of hiking, the valley narrowed into a tall gorge and the stream disappeared. Still, the roar of the waterfall echoed off the walls of the towering cliffs. They stopped at the entrance of the gorge and saw the soaring falls but not the river carrying away the water. It had disappeared. There wasn’t even a dry riverbed—nothing but the jungle and the chasm before them.

Larry pointed to a little totem of rocks someone before them had constructed. “We can’t go through there yet,” Larry said.

“Don’t tell me you’re superstitious?” Melanie answered. “You rushed us to get up here, now we have to wait while you appease some native god?”

“Don’t be so critical. We should respect the native tradition.”

“Like putting your foot on a tiki?” Melanie continued.

“It’s not the same.”

“I thought the Hiva here were Catholics,” David said.

“Only on the surface.”Larry began foraging for his own rocks. The kids helped, and in a few minutes, Larry had built a totem of rocks bigger and taller than the one they had stumbled upon. “This has to be right. These cliffs are notorious for falling rocks. We don’t want them falling on our heads.

Once through the ravine the gang hiked up a sloping meadow that ended at a small pool at the base of a thirty-foot cliff. Small rivulets of water spilled over the cliff but the two-hundred-foot waterfall roaring above could not be seen.

Larry laughed at Melanie’s confusion. “One of the great deceptions of the island—the phantom waterfall!”

David examined the pond before them. It was still and he couldn’t find anything that showed where the water escaped. It was amazing. Thousands of gallons of water poured out of the mountains, and all they saw was a dark pool at the base of a damp cliff. The river had been swallowed by the terrain, an eerie collection of grassy mounds, steep jungle walls, and the narrow box canyon that hemmed them in. It was unsettling. The jungle was strangely silent, no birdsong, no rustle of life in the underbrush. Gauguin’s devils hid in the shadows of the vine-clad trees, warning the aoe—foreigners—not to delve too deeply into the mysteries of the Hiva lands.

“Anybody going to take a swim?” Larry stripped down to his underwear. David was spooked and didn’t want to go into the water. Melanie wasn’t in the mood. Instead, she took photographs from every angle.

“Jeez, I can’t take you two anywhere.” Larry dove into the pond. The dark water hid what was beneath the surface and Melanie half expected her father to come up with a bloody head, if at all.

After his swim, Larry wanted to climb to the upper falls, where they could feel the water and solve the mystery of where it went. Neither Melanie nor David wanted to do that, so with his mood turning sour Larry agreed to head back and see how Jason was doing.

They found Jason on the takai‘i me‘ae, lying in a fetal position next to one of the tikis. They had been gone almost two hours, and Jason looked worse and had difficulty breathing. David helped his friend to stand. Jason could barely walk back to the truck.

“I think J.J. should ride in front,” David said to Larry.

“That’s out of the question. He’s not sick, and he doesn’t deserve to be coddled.” Larry got into the truck and began blowing the horn. The driver ran back to the truck. He was drunk, and Larry insisted on driving. Melanie hopped in the truck bed with the guys.

Driveling back, they kept to the high road that dipped into each valley. They avoided Atuona and took a more direct way to the harbor. All this time Jason mumbled about tuhunas and curses and some kind of native ritual. He was delirious and kept calling out Dr. Green’s name.

As soon as they reached the boat, Larry had David haul in the dinghy and raise anchor. It was dusk, and Larry wanted to get to the other side of the island by morning. After Mata‘i cleared Tahauku Harbor and sailed into Atuona Bay, Larry gave David the course and went below. They were to sail around the west side of the island, along a coast of high cliffs, where the large swells came from behind and pushed the boat forward like the impatient hand of Neptune.

It was a disturbing night. Jason grew sicker. Melanie and David attended to him in the cockpit between turns at the helm. The following wind and sea made Mata‘i skittish. The Aires couldn’t handle the wind at this angle, and it took a lot of skill to keep the boat on course and not jibe the mainsail. It was on this leg that Melanie proved herself to be a first-class sailor and helmswoman.

Jason went on about shamans… about taking the people back to the old gods… those gods still had power… people must remember… they must restore the third gender, the artist, the tattoos, the dances that brought the land alive, and the chants that soothed the haka-iki. He rambled on about tuhunas—Tuhuna Up‘e, Tuhuna O’ono, Tuhuna Mata Tetau, and Tuhuna Patu Tiki, and Melanie wrote those names down. She was worried about Jason and put aside her fear to follow her journalistic curiosity. She was curious about those words and wanted them for reference when Jason regained his lucidity.

David was also in conflict. From what he had taken away from Elizabeth’s class only a few weeks ago, he should be able to dismiss Jason’s ranting as being without spiritual substance, therefore without power. But seeing his friend suffer so much, David couldn’t do that. He still had a deep feeling of dread from the hike. It was as if they were entering a valley of death.

Mata‘i sailed into Hanamenu on the leeward side of Hiva Oa about ten o’clock the next morning and dropped anchor a few yards off a gray sand beach. Larry went ashore alone, as usual, but this time he was nervous. He needed to meet someone at the behest of Ama from Atuona.

David put up the awning over the cockpit while Jason lay with his head on Melanie’s lap. She dabbed his forehead with a cool cloth and massaged his temples. They were wondering why no one else had gotten sick—they had all eaten the same food.

“Me thinks J.J. is over acting.” David said.

For a sick man, Jason was rather lucid. “I think I tuned into something primal. I can’t say it was spiritual, but it definitely was not of this world.” Jason took the cloth from Melanie and wiped his neck and under his arms. “I think that there are layers of reality and given the right circumstances you can experience a nonmaterial realm that isn’t spiritual or pure. I think there are souls who have not moved on, for one reason or another, probably a strong attachment to something earthly in their immediate past.”

“Do you believe there are ghosts and spirits?” Melanie said.

“I guess that’s as good a label as any.” Jason said. “It’s the world of the spiritualist and I don’t think it’s a fantasy, not after yesterday.”

David tied off the last cord of the awning and sat down next to Melanie.

“I felt very strange up at that waterfall.” David said. “And Larry suddenly got superstitious.”

“Dad would never make some sort of a pagan shrine. That was so weird. And the falls, Jason, they were mind blowing. Where did all that water go?”

“Do you think native superstitions have any power? I mean, do you think someone with a Western mindset can be harmed by evil spirits or angry ancestors if he doesn’t believe in them?” David asked.

“No.” Jason said decisively. “We’re too rational, scientific. On the other hand, look what happened to the men who opened Tutankhamen’s tomb; they all died horrible deaths.”

“Evil is evil,” Melanie said. “It’s not supernatural, it’s just a fact of life. Evil people exist just as do evil circumstances. I wouldn’t put a spiritual connotation to it. People have been praying to get rid of evil since the beginning of time and it hasn’t worked. It’s just something we live with.”

Melanie took the cloth back from Jason, dipped it into a bucket of water, and wrung it out.

“Do you think there’s a way to keep evil from affecting you? Do you think building that little shrine at the mouth of the gorge was foolish?” David said.

“I wouldn’t have done it. But Dad thought it was necessary and we went along with him.”

“What if rocks had fallen after you’d built the shrine?” Jason asked.

“You could say the shrine was useless, or you could say you didn’t do it right. Basically, this kind of debate is stupid. No one can prove that the so-called spirit world or psychic world has any effect on our world, or if it even exists,” Melanie replied.

“I guess what happened to me at the temple was a psychotic incident, nothing to do with spirits or island curses?”

“Or someone drugged you,” Melanie said. “Do know what Tuhuna O’ono means?”

“I took notes while you were delirious, and that’s something you said.”

“Yeah, you did.” David said. “So, what you’re saying, Jason, is that your illness was psychotic episode, or you were drugged, or was it an island curse?” Turning to Melanie; “Did you feel strange in the gorge and up at the falls?”

“I did. But all kinds of things spook me. It doesn’t mean that I believe in evil spirits or angry ancestors. I didn’t like walking through that gorge because rocks could have fallen on us. If they had, I wouldn’t have thought it was caused by the spirit world. It would’ve been gravity, and if I’d been hit on the head it would’ve been my bad luck.”

“So, life is just a matter of luck?” Jason said.

“You can be careful and take precautions,” Melanie told him.

“Like building a shrine?” David smiled.

“Let me ask you this,” Jason said. “Do you think there is just one set of laws for all that exists?”

“Not at all. There are all sorts of laws for all kinds of disciplines,” David replied.

“I mean, is there one supreme law? Something that’s not affected by any other law?”

“Are you trying to bring God into this?” David said.

“I’m just wondering if there is such a thing as grace, and if it can lift someone out of all these other states of existence. Is anything omnipotent?”

“You are dragging God into this,” Melanie said.

Jason took the washcloth and laid it over his face.

David said, “If Larry expected you to be a talisman and make this a pleasant trip, it hasn’t worked.”

“I guess it’s my fault I got sick,” Jason mumbled through the washcloth. “Melanie, can you massage my temples again?”

Melanie took the cloth back from Jason and slapped him playfully on the chest with it. “You like all the attention, don’t you? The cool water on your forehead, the head massage, that’s all you’ve been after the whole time!”

Jason sat up laughing. “Let me massage your neck.”

Melanie laid back and put her head in his lap. He wrung out the cloth, folded it, and draped it over her forehead.

David had not noticed the affection growing between the two. How had he missed the clues? The tamure dancing at Takaroa? Walking back from the waterfall at Hana Vave hand in hand? Maybe Jason was like this with all the girls. Maybe the nonchalant detached attitude with women was his secret.

David got up to go below but Melanie grabbed his hand. “Don’t go. We haven’t finished our conversation,” she said. David sat down next to Melanie’s feet. She raised her legs and motioned for him to move closer, and when he did, she put her legs on his lap.

“So why do you think your dad treats J.J. so poorly?” David said.

“Don’t know. My mom taught me to live by the golden rule; treat others the way you want to be treated. The jury’s still out on my dad.”

“Will that protect you from evil?”

“If I treat everyone with love and respect, more likely than not that is what I’ll get back.”

Jason piped in. “What if we exist within another parameter but are unaware of its existence or laws?” Melanie and David weren’t with Jason on this one.

“Don’t be so dismissive,” he continued. “I’m serious. What if our world of conflict is imposed upon us by our beliefs? What if there’s another dimension within this world that includes all life, but only a few people are aware of it? And in that dimension, what if there were no opposites? All who lived there lived in total harmony. Would you want to find that dimension?”

“You’re talking in hypotheticals. If there were such a place, that was completely harmonious, of course I’d like to live there,” Melanie said.

“It does exist, Melanie,” Jason said, “All the great spiritual lights have described it.”

Melanie sat up and looked at Jason and then David. “I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in Jehovah any more than I believe in Zeus or Athena. The world is random. Shit happens. We have to learn how to deal with it and not always try to change it. I’ve read some of Dr. Green’s books. Dad sent me a whole library of them. Perhaps there is a Christ consciousness. Perhaps all life is spiritual on some level. There are many unexplained things in this world, but for me, it’s all about how people treat each other. Can you forgive?”

Melanie kissed both of them—Jason on the lips, David on both cheeks—and disappeared into the aft cabin.

Larry returned to the boat late that afternoon with fish, taro root, heart of palm, and breadfruit poi. He didn’t disturb his crew, who were napping, and set about cooking one of his gourmet meals. Larry put a fresh cloth on the table in the cockpit and arranged a centerpiece from protea blossoms from shore and pieces of coral. When dinner was ready, he called his crew on deck. They were impressed with his meal and the beauty of his table. They also appreciated his good mood.

Larry had a whole new plan and was excited. There was a rarely performed ceremony happening in nine days on Ua Pou. “One of the most insane rites of passage in the world,” he told his crew. “And one that might lead to the renaissance of the Hiva culture. They want me to film it.”

“That sounds great,” Melanie encouraged.

“Does that mean we have to leave soon?” David asked. “It’d be nice to be in one place for a while.”

“Jacques, the man who lives here, is a hermit,” Larry answered.

“I have to see him again, so at least another day. He was part of the independence movement I got involved with in the mid-sixties, and I’m the first person he’s talked to in five years. It took me all morning just to get him to come out of his hiding place.”

“What did he do?” Melanie glanced over at Jason, who looked under the weather again. In truth, Jason had begun to feel like something was coming over him, the way it had at Atuona. But he avoided Melanie’s inquisitive gaze and said nothing.

“He wanted to help the Marquesans restore their culture,” Larry continued. “We thought we could do this through tourism. He thought of Melville’s novels and his descriptions of the cannibal people, and Tommo falling in love with Fayaway, where the sex was innocent and yet there was danger from the ferocious islanders. We thought that we could attract a certain type of tourist who’d delight in this kind of adventure. I know it sounds bizarre today, but we thought we could sell it. He researched all the Hiva music and dance and we made a business plan based on his discoveries. He thought the original culture could recover from their spiritual genocide. Obviously, the French didn’t. The colonialists still had the attitude that these people were savages who needed to be subdued. Otherwise their primitive ways would destroy the civilization that was given to them for their salvation.”

After a moment of bemused silence, Melanie and David howled with laughter. “That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Melanie said.

“Not great marketing,” David added. “Come to our islands and get eaten by cannibals.”

“No, no, no. That was his problem; he saw things differently from most people. He was brilliant. But now, who knows? He left his research with the elders of Hakamaii and I guess in the past few years they’ve restored one of the most incredible rites of passage in the world. Nobody has filmed it. Hell, very few outside the island have ever seen it! This will be the highlight of our trip. He wants me to document the whole thing.”

Larry spent another day at Hanamenu gathering every piece of information he could from his hermit friend Jacques, and Jacques gave him an introduction letter for the ruler at Hakamaii, where the ritual was to be performed.

“They have the ceremony every year when Venus is overhead as the sun sets. That’s in eight days. It’ll give us enough time for me to show you Ua Huka,” Larry told his crew as they gathered around the cockpit table for another gourmet dinner that night. “I think this is why we’re here.”