Learning the benefits and demands of life with Hereata, Ravid knows that her charms and comforts are equally inviting and consequential; such is the way of love with a woman. He loves her charms, both the heartfelt and the sexually gratuitous. And he wants to give in, as a matter of choice and of practicality.
Coming home is a feeling acquired by giving and receiving till familiarity takes over. The homing instinct is developed. The placebo is physical, and becomes part of the data relating to the esoteric senses of security and caring. Comfort and stability displace life’s challenges; homing occurs when a solitary person becomes part of a duet. At home, the old world and its questions fall away, so a man can relax and rejuvenate.
But a controlled experiment must also factor practicality; she’ll be sixty in a few years, which shouldn’t count for much if he loves her. It does influence the data, however, because he can’t vouch for his staying power — can’t indicate forever, can’t deny that he’s driven by comfort and convenience. With departure premeditated, he fails to match her level of commitment. He can’t blame her for what she wants, or burden himself for not providing it. In the meantime they have what each can provide the other, which is back to the placebo, every predisposed scientist’s nemesis.
It’s not like she gets no return, however briefly he may stay. She does, and it counts for plenty, because Hereata would choose some sugar for a few nights over none at all. A year or two would be better still. So? Can a rational man make a short-term commitment to a real woman?
He’ll use her absence to mutual benefit, at any rate; use it toward finding a place of his own. They can still fuck, or make love, each to her own, in accordance with the needs of the other. They’ll likely engage as frequently as cohabitants would, but with more fervor. Besides that, he won’t be moving out when she gets too old, which isn’t a nice thing to think but is practical, because a man and woman of more similar ages would more likely age together naturally. How would she feel at sixty, living with a forty-five-year-old man who still needs a rousing round of you-know-what? Which isn’t to say that Hereata won’t be viable at sixty; she will be, I think.
Never mind. Anything will be an improvement over the bungalow across from Taverua, a godsend at the outset but providing nothing of home, not to mention economy, freedom and independence.
So he works the morning charter and feels a daily routine taking shape with Moeava and himself. They meld cohesively as working crew. On deck and on the dive site they communicate more efficiently; fewer words underscore greater understanding.
With Hereata gone, no divers are booked for the next day, which means no money but allows time for finding a place.
Here too, fortune smiles on a wayward waterman with a weakness for underdogs, in this case a small dog among many strays, without resources, without hope. Like those recently on the road, this little dog has the wits to eke out a living from tourists at Taverua. From week to week, bungalow to restaurant, this tail wagger soon determines who might be good for a handout, a pat on the head, some goo goo talk and leftovers. Or who might be good for nothing but a shout or a shoe.
Ravid shouted twice to keep the dog from following, after giving a chunk of Danish, which he shouldn’t have done, but give a dog a break. He’s so expressive, smart, unimposing and quick-witted, his thirty pounds of personality indicating a mix of black lab and something smaller. Who knows? A terrier with a stepladder? By this time, Ravid is friendly with the manager, who is also the owner, who works hard to ensure a living for himself but not the dog.
On the morning Ravid seeks housing, he must yell again at the little dog not to cross the road. Hearing this, the manager/owner yells at Ravid while running out to the parking lot. “Hey! Do you want that dog?”
“Well, no. I can’t have a dog. I have no place to live. I would take him if I did.”
The manager stops and shuffles. “Ah. Okay. I will call for the pick up then. He begs all my guests. We can’t have it.”
“But he’s so nice. Look at him. Just a little dog.”
The dog wags his tail, smiles and jumps up to nose Ravid on the chest.
“Yes. But a dog needs a home. He can’t stay here. We can’t take care of him.”
“What will happen when they come to pick him up?”
The manager/owner shrugs. “What will happen is what happens in these things. Believe me, my friend, we have no shortage of dogs.”
“Would it be possible for you to keep the dog as a mascot if he were medically sound, with all his inoculations, and he gets neutered? I will have that done. He is cute, and your guests love him. A dog is good for business. You know most of them miss their own dogs. If that little dog lives here, they’ll take pictures of him. He’ll be on the internet. He could get more hits than Lindsay Lohan on a DUI.”
“What is Lindsay Lohan?”
Ravid smiles, affirmed that he has chosen the right place to call home.
But the manager is too busy for sentiment — “No. We can’t have him here. I have too much to do. You may ask at the humane place if they need another dog, but look around. They don’t. Nobody does.”
By this time the dog is heeled, his face fondly pressed to Ravid’s knee with faith, as only a smart dog can convey. A tourist with a rental car says she is going past the animal clinic, and they sometimes find homes for dogs, and she can give them a lift.
Yes, they can make time for that, which the dog takes to mean that a home is found at last; never mind that it has no address, no walls, furniture, dishes, yard or anything but the bond. Never mind that the home is a car, an abode on wheels. Because home is where the heart is — and a dog’s heart is with the pack, at that moment defined. Equally obvious to the dog is that a life of adventure awaits, starting now. They ride together in back. “What’s his name?” asks the woman behind the wheel.
Ravid squints as if at the fine print. He can’t quite make it out, so he shrugs, “Little Dog. I call him Little Dog.”
“Little Dog? That’s it? Little Dog? Not much of a name.”
“It’s what I call him. I think it fits.”
Little Dog tongue-laps approval of the new name. Ravid wipes his face, scoffing at the behavior but then pulling the dog close to absolve guilt.
The two women at the humane place are in no way in need of another dog, not with a dozen dogs out back in only eight kennels, four dogs coming in and many more dogs in need of shelter. One woman is a volunteer who speaks only French. The other is the owner and speaks English, and her French is slow enough to follow. She may know a woman who will take this dog, Little Dog, because her uncle is looking for a dog for his farm on Huahine.
“They don’t have dogs on Huahine?”
“I don’t know.”
“How do you know uncle won’t...eat the dog?” This question is a test, to see if the woman responds in disbelief.
But the woman says, “We don’t think that will happen. People really don’t do that here.” We don’t feenks that weel happen...
“What do you mean, they really don’t? Does that mean they sometimes do?”
“He probably wants a dog to bark if someone comes onto the place. We can’t know more than that.”
“Will uncle get him inoculated?”
The woman assures him that the dog will be both inoculated and neutered in the near future.
Little Dog tries another lick. “Can I have a minute to think?”
“Of course you can.”
So he briefly thinks before turning back, “I’m looking for a place to live. Is there a paper that would list places for rent?”
“You may do better driving around. Most people with a place to rent will post a sign.”
“I don’t have a car, but maybe I can use my friend’s truck.”
“Look.” She points behind her the bulletin board festooned with notices in French. One says, À Louer, ici. The details list a single room with good light and ventilation along with a salle de bain et une cuisine for three hundred XFP per month, or three dollars and twenty-five cents US.
“Do you know where this is?”
The woman puffs her lower lip and says, “Regardez là. Ici. You are here.”
“Do you take dogs?”
More perturbed than amused, she says, “Mais oui!”
So it is that roommates find a place. Ravid suspects Little Dog’s esoteric powers account for success in forty minutes acquiring a new home with a landlady so pale, frail and supportive. The landlady interrupts this reflection with news that Little Dog will be scheduled soon for liberation from the consummate burden. With clinical curiosity Ravid looks up, sensing odd satisfaction in her. Her creamy white torso, revealed by a blouse worn mostly open, is a stark plateau where two snow bunnies, not yet adults, blend with the low rolling landscape. Her boyish chest is like a Dali still life. Nothing tilts or slumps yet the scene indicates movement through contrast. Ravid ends his examination with lack of interest. What a relief.
This slight woman is a different kettle of fish from Hereata’s force of nature. While Hereata demands this and that, immutable as a torrent, this little zephyr seems guilelessly intent on lost dogs and cats, which is admirable. No matter what curiosity or mordant pleasures she may take in her petty comments, she is saving lost souls, forgotten souls, souls who count for amazing love in the world. Beyond that, she has provided salvation and a home for a man and his dog with no hesitation. Still, Ravid wipes his mug to better press for reasonable compromise. “I know it’s different with dogs than humans, but he trusts me, and I have a hard time, you know... If it’s not required, since he’ll be with me now, if we might forget the...you know?”
“Monsieur, I do not know. I do not know the question so I can’t know the answer. Can you repeat it a different way, please?”
Ravid moves two fingers like scissors. “Fixed. Him. The dog. I have a hard time.” Ravid squirms from the mid-section to help her get the picture.
She gets the picture. “Monsieur, it is no different with dogs and humans. They should be, as you say, fixed — tous les hommes. Are you seeing how many dogs suffer? Be happy that your dog has a home. And he will not lose sleep over that same little piece of flesh that cost you many nights. We can schedule you for Tuesday. Okay?”
Little Dog leans in, happy to be discussed with concern.
“You mean schedule the dog.”
“I’m afraid that is all we can do for now.”
With quivering uncertainty toward this new place called home, he asks if she might...be so kind as to call a taxi. He speaks softly, more like a fop than like the real man that he is, conceding the point. But the sexist overtone and bitterness seem inappropriate. Is that what she wants? A world of constraint, highlighting what is wrong? I’ll take anarchy any day, beginning with Hereata, her molten presence so ageless next to this tiresome rectitude. Hereata will be back tomorrow. I’ll show her the new place and let her speak for the womanly wing of the feminine party — then the pressures of manhood can be ventilated, with gratitude I might add.
Ah! Oui! Oui! N’arrête pas!
Monique is both the proprietor of the clinic and the new landlady. She proceeds with the work at hand, advising her new tenant to walk down the road to gather his things, since a taxi could take an hour to arrive, and it’s only four miles, and he can stick his thumb up and he may get a ride, but he probably won’t. “Don’t worry, the dog can stay here.”
Ravid blushes — “I thought you were going to tell me to stick my thumb up my ass.”
She also blushes but doesn’t laugh. “Vous n’êtes pas drôle, Monsieur.”
“No,” he freely admits. “I’m completely misunderstood, I’m sure. Et, vous n’êtes pas drôle non plus.”
“We’re very busy now. Okay?”
Well, it’s more than okay, having found a home and roommate nearly two hours before lunch. What’s to gain by focusing on her humorless disposition?
Nothing.
So he says merci, bon, and walks to the curb, uplifted by personal success, such as it is, having weathered her scorn and repressed his one-up impulse. Little Dog, at his heels, is also pleased that the new pack will now head out on its next adventure. Ravid stoops to explain the plan, picking him up and carrying him back in. Monique takes the handoff to a kennel behind her. Little Dog howls on Ravid’s second exit.
So Ravid goes back in to make sure his tail isn’t caught in the door and says maybe it will be better for now if he walks with the dog. On the way he can explain the ground rules. Monique huffs, handing the dog back along with a leash. “I think he has explained to you already.”
It’s only four miles to gather things and check out. On the way is a quaint family business gearing up for lunch in the family fare lined with folding banquet tables on a gravel floor, all under a thatched roof supported by log pillars. Camp stoves and serving bins are coming to life with an aromatic array. In back are more folding tables and matching chairs. A dog on a leash is tolerated, and Ravid is surprised by the dog’s manners. He sits. He waits. He stares as if starving, but he doesn’t beg. He accepts bites of this and that with soft jaws, lipping each morsel into the choppers. “Where did you learn this?”
Packing is quick, checking out cheerful, and the four miles back is much faster, after waiting an hour for a flatbed truck to pull over and let them climb on with their stuff.
The new room is small, not exactly primitive like the fare at lunch, or fundamental like Vincent’s small room, but similar to both. Twelve by fourteen gives them room to spread out. The small counter on one side has a hot plate and a sink. Beside the sink is a small refrigerator. An electrical outlet converter facilitates the use of an American plug, which really only eliminates one pole, effectively changing 220 to 110 by using the ground as a neutral, as he recollects.
A moment of truth comes when turning on the laptop, and yes, we have liftoff, meaning that artistic endeavors can now begin with the benefit of software.
A small market a quarter mile up serves well for beer, bread, cheese, sardines, crackers, mustard and eggs, which might sound like an odd menu but in fact works very well with a few légumes added daily — steamed to taste, spritzed with olive oil and a bit of pepper, green or red, and perhaps some salt — et un peu de poivre, vert ou rouge, et peut-être du sel. And a bit of sliced onion — oignon, which is easy to remember but harder to use in a sentence. Still and all, it’s not so bad for a relative newcomer, along with a head of chou-fleur. The bigger market is back down the four miles plus another two, which trip occurs once a week in Monique’s car, with Ravid and Little Dog riding shotgun.
And so our story ends, insofar as any story ends. Even a passing from the flesh is often no more than another a milestone, with the narrative meandering from there on each retelling as the values, morals, drama and consequence ferment and develop.
Ravid Rockulz’s story of transition, transmutation and life in a new land ends happily ever after with a routine. It’s a smooth routine that will support a life of artistic pursuit. Therein the man is fulfilled in his fervent hopes.
No routine is entirely free of problems, however, starting with Little Dog’s separation anxiety when first parted from his one and only. The ear piercing symptoms are quickly resolved when Ravid returns like he did that first time, perhaps supporting the bad behavior, but this time is different; this time the bond is made stronger.
He sets Little Dog on his lap and explains that he, Ravid, will now go to work, to dive with the tourists and little fishes in order to make money to buy dog food and sardines, which isn’t what nature intended but, alas. He uses his hands and whatever is available to assist in the charade, holding up a ballpoint pen and pointing to himself, using a paper cup for a boat, from which the ball point pen will jump off and dive down and so on, sucking his cheeks in and opening his lips intermittently to represent a fish swimming past.
Little Dog may glean meaning at some level, though clarity remains conjectural. He attempts a tongue thrust as if to affirm that all’s well. Ravid nods and says yes, making them even on the comprehension score. Ravid promises to return in no time. Then they’ll have a grand reunion and engage in playful behaviors. In the meantime, Little Dog can wait quietly in the room, or he can hang out in the yard with a few other dogs.
Little Dog barks once and heads out to the yard.
Other problems come and go like sunrise, sunset. Like Hereata and her needs, which seem reasonable and manageable, if he can spare a few nights a week with adequate energy to appreciate her generosity — and a bit more energy for lively dialogue on world events, changes in the neighborhood and, later in the evening, cuddling with soft murmurs on her game offer for another go. These needs and solutions also find an equilibrium that is, as in any human interaction, more balanced on some days than on others.
Hereata spends more time before the mirror, seeing what all people see sooner or later, that gravity is gaining. She sees as well how to slow the process or mask the symptoms. Her concern is based partly in vanity but mostly in maintenance, in her belief that sexuality must be renewed constantly to keep her man true. She feels up to the task.
Which leaves Ravid to day in, day out, a familiar routine enviable to any man, with its tropical context of warmth, beauty and love abounding from many sources, be they human, dog, flower, reef, forest, mountain — anywhere the eyes might light, including Hereata, who is consistently good in the kitchen and keeps enough cold beer on hand to render a ravishingly beautiful woman in the waning hours.
Ravid knows the regimen and feels a sense of servitude, not begrudgingly but in reciprocation for kindness received. Is this love? Well, yes it is, though this love is different than romance.
Does that make it more like marriage, where romance fades?
Ravid thinks it does. He thinks it is. And it’s good — a compromise for a young man’s spirit, with its constraint on his anarchy and lust for all things and its calming effects too. Hereata lets freedom ring in her boudoir.
But isn’t that predictable and, pardon me, bourgeois?
Well, yes, it’s that too. But what if it is? What would they be, fuck buddies?
That’s such a crude, mean-spirited term, but yes, they are very dear friends who have dinner and sex together a few times each week. Which isn’t to say that things are great or terrible or even bad or good, but some of each all the time, like life. So who needs to say anything?
Meanwhile, immersion in the natural element is a love affair reawakened with an old mistress who loves Ravid Rockulz, whether she’s here, Hawaii or Eilat — or any blue-water tropics. He feels purpose and longing as he has for years, but things are different now, with pictures. These days are focused on something measurable, lasting and reflective. These days are gratifying and lucrative, with enough money to feel discretionary now and then regarding a restaurant or gadget. These days are free of pressure — traffic pressure, development pressure, social, cultural and economic pressure — all the pressures that blew the lid off the pressure cooker. These days are beyond. This time is tropical in the traditional sense. These are the legacy days.
Ever mindful of the difficult and abrupt transition from his former home to French Polynesia, he focuses on what he loves, what he feels, what may be his best chance for purpose. Never mind the rough passage from there to here — arrival feels complete and could have taken far longer with more reasonable deliberation and method. As it is, he’s home, grounded, feeling good, surrounded by family and making his pilgrimage.
Well, any man can bog down in imagery and lofty language. Better to keep things light — to visit the home reef with no expectation but the view God grants daily to a reef devotee.
Through repetition, style emerges, whether it’s repetition of a tennis backhand, a syntactical pattern, the opening slice of an appendectomy, a riff at four beats to the measure or a particular mode of seeing fish. Any marine photographer learns quickly that fish shots from above or behind are boring. Big deal; you dove on some fish and then scared a few.
Face shots dominate Ravid’s endeavor through the first period of his development, till he realizes that most fish — butterflies, damsels and angels — convey mood and attitude, but front and center shots look too similar — and too skinny...
What is she doing right now, this very minute?
Never mind. No — I don’t mean that. I do mind.
So a man settles into home, spreading roots, enduring the shock of transplant and trying to sense its dissipation in new life, new hope. All who wander are not lost, except maybe for brief moments of recollection and regret.
Among the novelties acquired on arrival is a postcard showing a naked woman with exquisite facial features, huge perfect melons, a flat stomach, a small waist and hip curvature with its own gravitational field. He stared like a tourist but then laughed like a man who knows better. “This woman doesn’t exist,” he told the clerk, a twenty-something expert on postcard women. The clerk assured that these women do exist in Brazil, not Tahiti. “Brazil? Why Brazil?” With a slow nod to better rub the bumps on his face, the young man scoffed that Tahiti women could never look like this.
Ravid wonders if Brazil has decent reefs and laughs again at the foibles of men. Actually, Minna and Cosima and Hereata all have breasts as nice as these. Ah, well; and so he writes on the message side:
Ia Orana Skinny,
How are you? I am doing fine. I found a nice place to live. You can write to me at Le Chien de Bonne Chance, BP 1121, Maharepa, Moorea, Polynésie française.
Please let me know how you are doing at Gene’s. Okay?
Yours,
Ravid
He’s hardly had time to ask around about an attorney or the requirements for divorce or annulment, but he will. In the meantime, she can forward his mail — or the legal documents she may already have in process. Wouldn’t that be a relief? Besides, he wants news of Skinny’s well being.
Okay, where was I? Too skinny, though not so much for a fish because a fish is wafer thin in order to achieve camouflage, minimizing the front view. Nature’s devices are often dynamic, but the wafer thin view misses the flourish. A more dynamic shot would entertain on several levels, recognizing the viewer as an admirer and not a predator.
Two eyes straddling a snout and pectoral fins fluttering daintily as petticoats make for a lovely shot. But something is lost — the obvious angle forfeits the astounding color and patterns. A side shot might accompany a unique facial shot for identification, but that would be more clinical or mechanical than artistic, more mug shots than portraits.
The breakthrough is simply conceived but remains difficult. Many fish approach a diver with a camera. Some peer into the lens. While the face shot seems obvious and available, a miniscule percentage of divers get these shots. Ravid gets them sporadically till he gets them regularly, till he wants more, seeing through thousands of shots what else is obvious. Most fish approach the lens and sense something — a scent, a hazard, a temptation or arousal — that causes a sudden turn. Most photographers seek the moment before the turn.
But in turning, the fish bends toward the lens or away with emotion — in fear or puzzlement. Is that not the moment in which a fish changes his mind? The pose is not head-on and not a right angle. Rather the optimal shot is oblique, a forty-five-degree angle showing one or both eyes and the snout, pecs, shape and coloration as well. The bonus, available sometimes, is the dorsal flair, erect spines spanned by translucent membrane. Just so, Ravid finds his signature shot, providing clarity, composition and drama in a pattern that would be hard to duplicate.
He has a theory about the lateral line that runs along each side of a fish from gill plates to caudal peduncle, or tail stalk. The lateral line more or less parallels the dorsal contour and is charged with sensors, often evident in faint, shimmering effusions of low voltage light. But doesn’t it make sense that this line, the ostensible offshoot of the fish’s “mind,” would charge the dorsal spines to stand erect at moments of heightened instinct?
He asks the question of his following, who agrees, presumably, with a whine or a bark.
The turning-point phase takes months to develop, but stays fresh on unique personalities in the reef community. Some are shy, others gregarious, defensive, amorous, curious, hungry or natural hambones sensing discovery at last. Ravid captures their essence, their panache, nuance and charm. They show emotion, appetite and mood, which each successful shot secures for art. Then comes amazing good luck, with two subspecies posing in the same frame, or a matched pair, or a symbiotic duo in a two-shot mug. Ravid follows a puffer and coronet team for so many days they accept the idea of a trio. He doubts his contribution till his teammates scoot to his far side at the approach of a big grouper.
A thousand camera dives in Hawaii and Tahiti lead to the next phase: vision. Composition and attitude have remained consistent since he framed a jack and a moray on a tourist’s shoulder with the tourist’s camera and thought it casual, not remarkable.
So he reclaims this casual approach. Great composition can’t be called up or stalked. It’s a gift from Neptune or Mano or whoever is down there in the sibilant depths. So he waits for magic to happen. He contemplates the fine line between skip breathing and maximum efficiency. He sings into his regulator the old tune about the mountain that was before it wasn’t, and then it was. The song won’t go away, but that’s okay; it underscores the effort of not trying to get it, of letting it come. But that can’t be right. So he strives anew to stop striving, which would be a laugh, but he’s not laughing.
The paradox finally eases upon the realization that repetitive failure may in fact achieve the desired result — now that’s a laugh out loud — just look at the smashing success he’s been. Wasting a few thousand shots isn’t the waste it used to be. Come on, digital. No film. No processing. What are time and effort worth? How can an artist know what to do without mastering what not to do? It’s like less being more, or the mountain’s non-presence, or something equally esoteric, which doesn’t even matter with the mind engaged and distracted as art oozes through the birth canal. Pardon my mix of fetal mountains and failures reborn, but we may have lift off!
So comes the second verse, in which the butterfly emerges...
Shots of Moorish idols head-on, as well as in the Ravid frontal-at-forty-five mode, show exhilarating clarity, beauty and drama, highlighting the spectacular details of the Bette Davis eyes, the exquisite lashes and the pouting lips.
These shots should not be taken for granted or viewed with complacency; been there, done that. Early efforts must be valued for their lessons. But he senses the rabbit hole, in which down is up, and a mental maze that might well confuse a weaker person. Maybe this is good, a breakthrough to where few have captured an image.
Yet he fails to tap the mother lode. The tedium of tending tourists takes over. He favors an idle idol or a cheeky wrasse, leaving the tourists to explore on their own.
Moeava forwards the complaints, and no tips.
Ravid shrugs. Frogs don’t tip, and people who are led by the hand will never figure anything out for themselves.
But tourists not led will get lost, either briefly or forever.
Ravid does want to be a good dive leader but lapses again on the occasion of a random shot from the hip, a shot that opens his eyes, mind, and heart to yet new levels of potential and realization. It’s a two-shot of Moorish idols, one an ohua, recently born, not even an inch long, with a short, blunt snout and a dorsal stub instead of a streamer, all rounded and baby-faced. It can’t perform the forty-five frontal — too small to bend, not even aware of the option. But it does gaze at its own rare innocence in the reflection in the port glass as it hovers in the concave body of an adult idol curving toward the lens with motherly suspicion, one eyebrow raised...
Oh, yes!
Do Moorish idols have live birth or egg spawn? Do idle idol fry get mothered or drift as micro-plankton? And what are the odds of an ohua idol posing in the curvature of a seemingly protective adult actually being a mother and baby relationship? Can we tell if the adult is female? But these questions lead nowhere really, except to the greatest question: Who cares? Just look!
Here is the grail, not at the end of the journey but the beginning! Here is the destiny and calling of Ravid Rockulz, marine photographer — here is the family portrait only dreamed of by the upper crust of some species; here is Mrs. Idol and her legacy, recorded for posterity, for matting and framing and spotlighting in any gallery.
Yes, Mother, this is what I do, what I was meant to do, what you can tell anyone who needs to know.
And in case anyone else needs to know what is really none of their business, the fact is: Ravid Rockulz may now be among the top reef artists in the world — the whole wide world, that is. So allocating hardly two thousand dollars for a wide format printer with massive ink cartridges — eight of them for extraordinary color reproduction in 17 x whatever suits your fancy is, like all good things, only natural. Anybody might characterize this expenditure as lavish or worse, foolish, as a major segment of his life savings spent on a...a what...a toy? Well, anybody is free to think or say anything. Just be sure you remember what you said when fame and fortune come raining down in torrents, along with the...
Stop. Forget that I said that. It’s a picture. Just a picture. Nothing more.
In fact the expenditure does present great doubts, insofar as it postpones a rebreather. But a rebreather runs four times that amount, and it will be best to begin now, printing the work. Besides that, while a rebreather will allow far greater depth — two fifty, two eighty safely — the current phase is focused on the shallows, say twenty or thirty feet, where sunbeams still dance in a chorus line.
The rebreather will also expel no bubbles and make no noise, rendering the diver non-threatening, so fish will approach socially, with no fear. The rebreather will come in time for its rightful phase on the wheel of marine life photography, the phase of the big ocean animals.
Meanwhile, the larger format printer doesn’t swell Ravid’s head but reminds him of the work ahead. The new printer sits on a folding banquet table in the little room shared with Little Dog, and is covered against dust, salt air and dog hair with a soft, thick blanket, which makes lint, so the printer is covered with a sheet of plastic, with the cotton blanket over all. But plastic can capture condensation — not to worry, once a damp-chaser is plugged into the wall beneath the printer, so its ripple of heat will chase the dampness before it collects, perfecting the dust and dampness defense system.
So the future ferments at last to find a dive instructor focused on a fish or two, getting it right and righter still. Make that egregiously focused to the point of distraction. Bored to tears, Little Dog hangs out in the yard to play with others less fortunate than himself.
The gallery — as the little room is called — fills. Following Moorish Mama and Baby Idol comes a study in reef shrimp; the banded coral variety are common as sand fleas and taken for granted by Moeava and a few divers who agree that the red and white banded critters are fun to watch but hardly represent a rare or unique sighting. Ravid’s wry smile reflects harsh wisdom on what is rare and what is gone — on the future and its destructive needs, as demonstrated in Hawaii.
Like the great American buffalo or the Carolina parakeet or the Hawaiian monk seal or the hawksbill turtle — or the giant Pacific leatherback, a turtle growing to nine feet and generating its own gravity field, cruising like a small submarine with an entourage of remora, sharks and other scaly socialites angling among the sunbeams at hardly forty feet. All gone or going away with longing and regret for the spreading plague of human needs...
Stop.
The banded coral reef shrimp and scarlet cleaner shrimp are as plentiful on Moorea’s reefs as they once were in Hawaii, before they got slurped by the aquarium catchers and died in transit, or amused their keepers briefly before dying in captivity. The banded shrimp dazzles with alternating red and white bands that cross-section a body that grows to an inch or two and extends another two inches to the tiny pincers. Also known as the candy cane shrimp, they feed mostly at night. The scarlet cleaners are golden hued with a scarlet stripe down the back, two white stripes to either side and an accessible nature: they feed in the day.
With the most accurate foresight, that based on hindsight, Ravid shoots these angular critters from every angle. The shrimps raise claws in greeting, tipping their hats or stroking their chin whiskers, their color, detail and dramatic lighting underscored in extreme macro. Yes, he splurged on the flat port after spending hundreds on the dome that would suit any wide angle lens forever — except for the hundred five millimeter macro, which takes a flat port, but it was only eight hundred — each, for the lens and flat port — and this is art, which calls for whatever it takes, not a budget.
Besides, with each tiny spike showing tinier barbs and hairs in monstrous detail, the shrimp visage goes from mechanical wonder to yet another otherworldly personality. This miniature universe emotes moods, fears, appetites and comforts in line with a social order, which is conducive to full-range portraiture for the shrimp clan, too.
The more adventurous of the crusty little beasts are pursued to their place of work. That is, these shrimp clean, which is not to say they do floors, but they do teeth — long, pointy teeth — many teeth slanted back for better ripping and tearing, in some cases growing across the roof of the mouth of the predator, who opens wide so the little dental technicians can get in deep, to pluck the most stubborn and succulent snags.
The standard cleaner shrimp shot is not original but rather common among dive leaders seeking tips. The dive leader takes the regulator from his gob, and opens wide. The shrimp is placed inside the mouth hole, where it begins cleaning, with likely less fervor than usual, since Spam and eggs are generally not on the marine menu. Then again, anything goes for these ultimate scavengers.
But a shrimp or any animal in unnatural contact with a human is not art, according to the rules to create by, as established by Ravid Rockulz, who can nonetheless allow a shrimp or two to take the bait he has pressed between thumb and forefinger. Then they take the ride to the nearest eel and walk on in.
Many eels open wide for many shrimps to clean their choppers. The show is compelling, with spectacular teeth of ghastly potential and color in death defying array. The dragon eels effuse drama, with their stripes, long nostrils and snaggle teeth, as the fragile shrimp work with immunity and deliberation. This violent potential and fearful ambience is more akin to Vicious Killers of the Deep than to art. Then comes the teleconverter for twice the magnification, for closing in on eel fangs as big as icy stalactites, with otherworldly shrimp working the crevasses, in detail so demanding that human eyes are not easily stopped from watching. This intrusive proximity is another mystery, one that makes a man wonder why the eels tolerate a lens within two inches of the gob, but only briefly, till focus is found and the shutter snaps.
Ravid favors a gaping whitemouth moray, with its needle teeth in a snow white mouth perfectly framing the banded shrimp, who reaches up for a nibble and down for a nosh in a rare stretch between upper and lower bridges that blends the eel’s white mouth with the shrimp’s white bands while contrasting both with the shrimp’s red bands. And we have a winner! The shot is further perfected through the software magic of lens vignetting and chromatic aberration.
Monique enhances the magic. She’s never been called upon to help an ailing fish but finds herself pondering gill-breathers these days. She informs Ravid that her little animal hospital qualifies as a nonprofit on several American websites offering software for the cause at a fraction of retail. So an aspiring artist gets the Photoshop ensemble for a hundred fifty instead of eighteen hundred and soars again to the summit of rendering.
Working and saving every franc to the given amount required for the next purchase — make that investment, in art and life — Ravid soon feels the pull away from macro and into seascape, which can be tricky, since water will compress suspended particulates, hazing what appears to be clear. Never mind; this too is an act of faith. The new lens is a wildlife special number that would be available as an off-brand duplicate at significant savings to those of limited resources and commitment, but is not viable to a purist seeking perfection. How long does it take a dive leader to save fifteen hundred dollars for a lens and then another few hundred for port extensions and gear rings to support it? One day is all, and then the next, till it’s done.
One solution to the problem of haze compression is to shoot only in blue water over rocky bottom — or no bottom, in the water column at, say, a hundred feet on a six hundred foot bottom. It’s a better chance for no particulates here, only the annual migrations, first of the hammerheads in extra large to huge, cruising in great schools with no known motivation — known by humans, that is. These sharks know something, or feel it, though they’re indifferent to the marine mammal among them, the odd one with the camera squirming for an angle in a three-knot current, then rolling like a seal to silhouette the massive forms a few feet overhead against the faint shimmer and mottled surface a hundred feet up.
Then come the rays, spotted eagle rays in the hundreds and thousands with a few stingrays in the mix, and a lovely integration of hammerheads with a few odd apex predators too, big jacks and a few barracuda. It’s a flotilla of sea power a human navy could envy, except that the fishy armada has no destructive potential as a means to victory, to stabilize the region and secure a nation’s future. Don’t get a rowdy man started.
All the island groups but the Marquesas are old enough for surrounding atolls — peripheral reefs with lagoons inside. Tidal flow through the passes can thicken with migratory species. All atolls have passes, but Rangiroa is famous for its nominal development of human habitat. The lagoon is mostly eighty feet deep across its fifty by seventy miles. The atoll rises barely above sea level on a nine-mile stretch of this perimeter, and seems saved from the curse of development by the prospect for imminent flooding. It seems a good fit for a diver/artist enamored of natural anarchy in the offing, but he still needs a secure place for his dive and camera gear.
Monique first suggests Tiputa Pass at Rangiroa as a new approach, a departure for a while, from the up close and personal profiles of community fish and to encounters with the game fish who run fast, run deep and traffic the pass in November.
November already? God, time flies. Well, that’s not for two and a half months yet, leaving time enough to save the money.
Monique has heard for years about the show in Rangiroa and fantasized seeing it but never will, because she can’t dive, or at least never has. It is impossible, with so much stuff to know and tend to. Ravid shows his own pout and lets it go, because she’s right. But he might be wrong. Why shouldn’t a fantasy come true for one so helpful to so many, including him?
Does she want to try it shallow? No, because it’s impossible, and she’s too young to drown. He promises to keep her from drowning. She juts her lower lip and puffs. Fine, forget it, though he’s seen worse prospects go to thirty-five feet. She trembles, indicating the possible.
She’s paler and thinner at the water’s edge — her blue vein network constricted under the goose bump horde clambering on her translucent skin. A small wetsuit is baggy, so he tells her she has room in there to entertain. She’s in no mood for jokes, especially his. He says he’ll get her a child’s wetsuit for the next dive, and that will keep her all the warmer. She says that won’t be necessary, meaning both a different wetsuit and a second dive.
Hereata watches from higher up, later remarking on the poor girl’s stick figure and frailty. Though not generous, Hereata’s critique is only physical, because Monique poses no threat, not even on glimpsing the giant moray lurking in her man’s skivvies. Monique shows up in her clothing and changes into her wetsuit on the spot. Hereata’s knowing smile is meant to remind her man of his bounty.
Ravid can plainly see yes, muskmelons are bigger than kumquats. Still, he’s taken by Monique’s determination. She doesn’t want to do this but is resigned to getting one more delusion off her list, so she can get on with things.
Like most beginners, she does all right. Her awkward uncertainty goes away in the water, as she breathes through her regulator, deflates her BC and feels the phenomenon of breathing under water. Though hardly a waterdog, she can hold her own with supervision and likely survive without. So he gives her the book and says they’ll dive a few more times to get through the skills, and then he’ll test her on the book.
But she declines; it is impossible. The passes are different.
That may well be, but she should continue till impossibility is proven.
So she warms up on a few more dives and a better wetsuit and soon eases into the prospect of diving the pass at Rangiroa. He emphasizes the tricky nature and constant hazard of currents, assuring her that any drift dive is a push for a beginner, unless she has her own private dive instructor, so she must stay very near, but out of his camera shots.
Though stoic by nature and inured to a world that abuses its dogs and cats on a daily basis, Monique jumps for joy. Here is an adventure at last, an outing with wild animals. Could it get any better?
She pledges to be useful as a translator and to arrange a dirt-cheap bungalow run by her friends at Rangiroa. And so they go, bonding in a way unanticipated, not sexually but as friends, beyond sex or sexual needs, which is not to say asexual or sexless, since he does consent to sexual intercourse on request. She is clinical but heartfelt. She hasn’t been with a man in many years and doesn’t think she’s missed it but wants to see — and maybe she’s curious to ride the giant moray of the Speedo depths, though this last is Ravid’s vanity or Hereata’s idea or something he wants free of but isn’t quite sure how to ditch.
She asks for this personal favor on the airplane, on the ninety-minute flight to Rangiroa, neither taking his hand nor seeking eye contact but rather presenting a need for closure on a tired subject — not another delusion but an angst. She doesn’t want to satisfy a curiosity and certainly has no itch to scratch. Coolly indifferent to intimacy on a physical level, she turns to him, awaiting his response. “It is okay if you want to say no.”
He asks why she would compromise her integrity and reveal her most personal self just to be with a man. She assures him that neither he nor his merguez has any bearing on her integrity, and she doesn’t want to be with him or any man — not the whole man at any rate. She only wants to feel the fat sausage move about between her legs, to be sure she isn’t missing something. She doesn’t think she is but would hate to find out later that all the fuss is actually warranted.
“But you’ve done it before. You know how it feels.”
“I told you, years ago. He was a mean little boy. Too rough, too fast, spiteful and vindictive. Besides, we change, maybe.”
Besides, she doesn’t see Ravid as any man.
He strikes the humble countenance and waits for praise. It comes faintly, when she describes his emotion-free life and focused application of love — on his dog and his fish, which she admires, making him the perfect candidate for her experiment.
“You mean that I’m loveless.”
“Au contraire!”
“What if you like it?”
She shrugs. “Then we’ll do it again — I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I meant that we could do it again if you like it too.”
“What if I like it and you don’t?”
She grants him the negative look a woman might give to a naughty idiot.
He jokes lamely that the sausage isn’t so fat. She agrees; she’s seen much bigger. He doesn’t ask where, so she says anytime, at the butcher — tout à l’heure, à la charcuterie...
He doubts it, unless she means the bratwurst, but the frogs don’t eat bratwurst. So he lets it go. He doubts she’ll follow through but doesn’t mind if she does; she’s so good to the little animals. She deserves it. Will the little Colonel stand at attention for Monique? He feels confident, and he does miss the old variety, and this is far from home.
He has a better idea of who she is and what she needs after going in-out for three minutes while she stares in medium discomfort verging on disbelief, till she says, “Wait!”
She rolls over to be on top, where she moves excruciatingly slowly in painful disbelief, unless that’s unbelievable pain. He pulls her gently down to kiss her cold, dry lips and tongue her kumquats. She trembles. Hardly an orgasmic prelude, her slight fibrillation is enough to give a grown man regrets. Squeezing her eyes shut through a few semaphores, whimpers and denials, she finally holds her head in both hands as if to endure. Their mutual embarrassment winds down when he says, “I hope you’ll excuse me,” and fires away.
“Oh, mais oui.” She smiles halfway and winces the other half, promising that this won’t happen again and apologizing for exploitation of his weakness, but she had to see and didn’t think he’d mind.
“You didn’t like it.”
She puffs her lip and raises both eyebrows as if to assess objectively. “It is different. No, I do not like it, but that is not you. I like you. It is not fair that men can achieve climax with anybody.”
He wants to tell her that he will always value the honor of dropping his load into her, but thinks discretion the better part of valor.
That’s late afternoon. The awkwardness lingers to early evening and dinner at another lean-to serving family fare, where she reaches across the table for his hand and asks that he please keep their little experiment a secret, especially with Hereata, a special friend who she wouldn’t hurt for the world. Then, either methodically or spontaneously, she checks out the waitress as he might have done. She doesn’t suggest a joint campaign, but her tastes are clear — legs, ass and tits. Her taste is like his or an apex predator’s. He asks if she can achieve climax with any woman.
“No, of course not. We’re different that way. It has to be right.”
Well, sexual appetite is hardly adequate table talk, so they let it sink under two excellent wines that ease them into the logistics and objectives of the dive tomorrow morning.
During that dive she follows well, holding on when she can, hovering nearby when he moves fast or rolls over to catch an angle. She checks her depth and time when he does — until they drift like flotsam. She watches him less fearfully, gaining comfort.
The shots capture the pass and passing minions in sweeping displays of a food chain in moving meditation. Here is the flow of life as it takes a reprieve from life and death to repose in grace and contentment. This is not the lion lying with the lamb but the shark cruising with the ray. Without hunger, fear or spawning drive, thousands of predators come to the shrine of their pilgrimage, which is a feeling and a place. The process is framed in the unique perspective of that unique marine photographer Ravid Rockulz. Have you heard of him?
In the little world of his making, realization of self and of artistic potential merge at last.
Ravid isn’t fond of scene splicing, but finding himself in a rare panorama that’s moving slowly enough for him to capture three frames if he hurries, he fires three in a row a few dozen times, to bag many beasts lolling and swaying from near to far.
A hammerhead fills the nearest frame, with windows on the soul so far apart they span the foreground. A close-up on one end of the head is not cyclopean but curiously benign, composed and unconcerned. The eagle rays circle, nose to tail, giving presence to the wheel of life.
Monique whimpers over the flourish and joy reflected in the raw files on his laptop and whimpers again over the finished prints at home. This is different. She congratulates his success; one day she will say she knew him back when he had nothing, but was already a great artist.
He senses a new motivation in her, not toward him or the curious lump in his skivvies but toward artistic potential, as a nun is drawn to a holy spirit, though an artistic spirit seems more palpable. He reminds her that the trip was her idea, and any success is hers to share. She demurs; she only tagged along. She hugs him for their shared success, enduring one thing and another. Little Dog barks.
In the next few days come profiles — back to macro — of harlequin shrimp looking superior, mugging for the lens, arching between head and thorax to show off their intricate mouth mechanisms.
A long-nose seahorse adult male spews seahorse babies from his stomach pouch. They look like larvae, rolling and tumbling in perfect miniature into life and chaos in currents, surges and hunger. A more orderly trio of brown-banded pipefish relax on a fuzzy rock two feet below the surface, blending into the dappled refraction, stretching their necks to the left and right.
Focus, clarity, color and surprise — look, there! — are rendered in daily communion with Neptune’s minions. Content and composition vary and seem a function of repetition and luck. What else can it be, when you shoot a dozen exposures of the same fish?
It’s attitude — what Desmond brought to Brubeck or Getz to samba. Take a blowfish common to the area, in the fourteen inch range. Similar to the porcupine boxfish in Hawaii and likely a first cousin, the Tahiti variety has shorter quills and darker coloration and is seemingly shy enough to blush. They pick a section of reef and tend to make a home there, shooing for cover on any approach, into one of a few hiding places nearby. This one saw Ravid ten yards out, with no tanks, and ducked out of sight. Surface drifting with mask, fins, snorkel and a camera with no strobes, on a mild current in available light, Ravid hovered on a gentle side kick, allowing the distance to close slowly, till the little puffer peeked out to see if the coast was clear, et voilà!
Behold the face of innocence, surprise and concern, eyes wide, mouth open — classic youth in startled amazement, like a Norman Rockwell child but with a fish as the child, as part of a community and social order, in candid expression of self.
A princely angel turns askew to foreshorten the color vortex on his flank, where black, turquoise and ivory swirl inward on a fire-orange field up to the gill plates. The head is hidden in deep shadow, except for the voltage arcing from the eyes in matching fire orange.
A triggerfish poses before the sun to illuminate his chartreuse fin webbing and turquoise piping, all spines erect, charged by the inner glow.
A trumpetfish fairly quivers, pre-pounce, while a speck waves goodbye. The fluorescence of the tableau can be explained as emotion-triggered chromatophor cells in the predator and bioluminescence in the prey, or it can be viewed as eternal light. Mercy takes mysterious forms. Flexible and godlike, with orbital eyes rolling fore and aft, up and down, above the long snout, the trumpet is as presumptuous as a seasoned winner. Lemon yellow is flecked with tiny diamonds for tubular flashes in shimmering waves on scales that articulate old Sol’s morning ablutions — except that we’re too deep here for sunlight or adequate shooting light without a strobe. But a strobe would light the entire scene and not spotlight the key players — sure, the aperture could squint to F22, but let’s think out of the net. Okay?
Who would have imagined turning the strobe off so the chromatophoric light would remain visible? But low light would blur the image, with the aperture open too long, attempting to gather adequate light to get the image. Well, this shot was manual, with the camera braced against a rock made handy by Neptune, apparently equally amused at a trumpetfish holding still to avoid detection by the big marine mammal gently pressing his shutter button.
The scene captures the interim between eternity, death and life in the arc from one electrode to another in a still shot containing movement. Friends watch the picture, sometimes turning to new angles. Then they move to the next shot.
Soon the little room is packed wall-to-wall and wainscot to ceiling. The photos represent victory over the odds and over artistic challenge, yet they challenge the artist for more. The first tough question is where to go from here. The second question is just as tough: What the hell am I supposed to do with all these fish pictures? I mean, who wants to see them but my lesbian landlady, my aging girlfriend and my dog?
The first question has many answers: extreme macro down to the nose hairs on a coral polyp, or seascape opportunities across the Society Islands, the Australes and even the Marquesas for big pelagics, but especially back to the Tuamotus and lagoons as yet untrammeled by the teeming tourist refuse yearning to be free. Makemo, Ranoga and Anaa, for starters, offer direct flights, cheap digs and as close as a diver can get to peace on Earth.
So the second question, glib and cynical, is set aside. The best path is obviously forward, never mind the growing inventory; when recognition and a rightful audience at last materialize, a treasure trove of Neptune’s wealth will be ready for a grateful world. That should slow the pace of life as they know it — that should let them see, feel and know as the fishes do. Maybe then they’ll care for the irreplaceable reefs.
Well, maybe they will. Maybe they won’t. No artist can vouch for the tastes and behaviors of the audience — especially these days, with the audience as callous, greedy and self-centered as any audience in history, unless it was always this bad but didn’t seem so bad without TV. Monique consoles him with art history; truly great artists are generally unknown prior to death. How can anyone be recognized until the end, when the world can see how the entire life has been lived? Which is really a great thing, leaving the artist free to roam and create without the nuisance of celebrity. Ravid is not consoled; he would appreciate an appreciative audience. What artist wouldn’t?
In any event, Opus Rockulz will be on hand to support the cause both before and after the artist’s demise.
And on that note the current bout of wondering, challenging, asking why and getting nowhere comes to an end. It’s time to get back to work. He’ll begin with Maupiti. He’ll go alone. Why not? Solitude is often the crucible for contact.
He relents when Monique pleads. Why not take her again? For one thing, he won’t be tempted sexually, not that sex is a bad thing, though this trip won’t be for that, which is not to say that a trip couldn’t be for both, because, after all, art is not an athletic event, where sex beforehand is said to steal the athlete’s thunder. It can actually have the opposite effect on an artist, calming, enhancing focus. I love sex, but this won’t be that.
On y va.
They wade to Motu Auira across a lagoon three feet deep, shuffling to disturb the rays rather than step on them — most are hidden under a thin layer of sand but lift off and scurry along at the slightest provocation. Halfway across he asks Monique to hold the bags while he rifles for his mask, snorkel and camera stuff. She wants to know why this can’t wait till they settle on the motu, and then he can come back. He tells her she sounds like a wife as he slips into his gear and into the water to seek a ray or two at eye level.
Naturally, the shots are expressive, with signature evocation, communication, documentation, color, focus, composition et al ad perfection. This is a symptom, a technically happy one but a practically challenging one. That is, with perfection as a baseline, how can the intrepid artist improve? Or the climber, swimmer, runner or rider? Given perfection, the challenge can atrophy, shriveling from possible breakthrough or failure to that which feels like another task.
Monique brought her little music box and speakers. With a modicum of marijuana and a small cooler, the two friends are set to service a few pleasure centers in a luxuriant setting. And so they do, in intellectual and French liberation, naked on all levels, secured by friendship, gratitude and tropical wilderness.
Sitting on her beach chair, Monique applies oil and splays herself to the sun. Ravid thinks she’s foolish, exposing herself to hazardous rays, and for what, no tan line? He, for one, prefers a tan line for its playful demarcation between what is reserved for special occasions and what is publicly revealed.
She soon lifts her knees to ease her lower back, and he sympathizes anew with the sexual shortfall of some people, rendering them sexless and yet so defensive. With the curvature of a boy, her womanly wile is a work in progress. Maybe the right woman will come along and find her ravishing. Well, she’s ravishing enough in the big-hearted column, and, frankly, he didn’t mind one bit going along with her little experiment, though it proved awkward at the time.
Staring at her oiled body as a gemologist might study a geode for facets, luster and complexity, he affirms his theory in this broadest of daylights, that a woman’s lips will be similar to each other in form and structure. Just so, Monique’s are thin, with no pucker. He feels certain her lower lips aren’t chapped, and he laughs aloud, wondering if the women in LA would cue up for nether lip injections.
Well, of course they would, probably do. What a wonderful phenomenon to be far, far away from. Fairly lost in reverie, Ravid further wonders if private parts reflect the inner self — but surely such thoughts reflect inner confusion, obsession and failure to develop. Monique is tidy, with none of the stretching or distortion commonly resulting from childbirth or other abuses.
In fact, she’s like an hors d’oeuvre, a small sampling to whet the appetite for the grand entrée. Well, he may be a man in a bind, but despite his shortcoming or because of it, he salutes, ten-hut! After all, Monique deserves more love than the clinical exercise at Rangiroa. Given the tropical balm, the sun, salt air and sultry rhythm, some decent buds and cold beer, and really, nothing could be nicer than a slow, comfortable screw.
She sees the open book before her and laughs that he looks like a husband sprawled on a chaise longue, stoned, sunburned, drinking beer and listening to music. She ignores the salute, or maybe she thinks it normal.
“This music is seductive. You know?”
Her knees come together. Her ankles cross. He wonders why they do that but stays judiciously on point. “It captures a feeling I get at depth.”
“Do you mean you’re thinking of video?”
“No. I don’t mean anything productive. I’m trying to relax from that for a while. But I suppose it’ll come to that, because most ideas get fleshed out sooner or later, so we can make more stuff — even if it’s only art. At least making art is the least destructive of human behaviors...”
“Only art? You talk like a Philistine. Art is second only to life. Art is why you are here. Art is why...why I... Your world is art. It takes care of you.”
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter, because I don’t hear music down there. This music captures the feeling of how it would be if you were down there all the time — not coming out after a little while but living there. I think of that sometimes when I’m alone, especially on the rebreather, and it’s deep, you know, two-fifty or something, and a little darker, and there’s some current. I like it. I think I like it too much. I understand something then. I feel like I’m the only person alive to it. But I know it’s just a feeling, and the other six and a half billion people would disagree with me. They usually do.”
She sits up with apparent concern. “That’s not good, I don’t think.”
“Does it make sense?”
“No. I hope it makes no sense to you too. I think you need a break, or something different for a while. I thinks this feeling you have indicates too much time on one pursuit. I think it is not good for you, and is not good for your art.”
“You like my art.”
She wags her head and shrugs. “I do. Maybe you are right. Maybe your depression is good for your art. Maybe you are a genius who will one day swim down and never come back, and the world will love you for your commitment.” She eases back down. “You can be famous at last.”
“You think that’s what I want? You think I’m depressed?”
“Of course you want it. And you are depressed. How could it be otherwise? What artist wants less? Why do you think fame is bad? I think not. You have none. Welcome to art.” What artist want less? Why you finks fame is bad? I finks not…
“You’re right. I say I don’t care, because fame seems foolish; so many fools are famous in America. But yes, I think for me it would be different. I mean, my art is substantial, not just a downbeat behind some tits and ass. You know?”
“Yes, and it is not just foolish in America. Anyplace with newspapers and TV will have famous fools. But a few great artist are famous too. Don’t forget. I think you will be. You might not even have to drown yourself to get it.”
Again offering wise counsel on the merits and downsides of mental imbalance in artistic pursuit, her French view strengthens their understanding. He says he appreciates her insights and her influence. He speaks to her crotch as the knees re-splay, and her eyes close. “Monique...”
“No, merci.”
“Not even as a favor, between friends?”
“No. Maybe some other time. Not today.”
“You know that a day better than this will not come along.”
“I would for you, as a favor. It means so much to you. I think it means too much to you.” She sits up. “I think...I think you convince yourself that you want to have me, but you don’t convince me. You merely want. You want every woman you see — maybe not every, but most. But you are not bad. You are not different. It’s what men do. I wish you could understand that you want for... ficky fick and not as a matter of romance.”
“You don’t think I love you?”
“I know you do. But not romance.”
“You don’t want romance. We had no romance.”
“No. Merci. Listen, I have an idea. I won’t tell it to you, but I think I would like to try a different man. If I don’t like him too, then I will let you do it.” I finks I will like to try a different man. If I don’t like him too, zen I will let you do it.
“What difference does it make? We’re here.”
“Yes. We are here. Now I will relax. Okay?”
“Monique?”
“Oui?”
“I finks I am lesbian.”
At last she laughs. Then she sleeps.
Still he stares at her inner goodness. Her essence is as generous as her crotch is small; she is a giant among women, though a tad scrawny. He wonders if he could wake her gently with his tongue, allowing her to dispense with romance. He wonders when he’ll be able to stop convincing himself that his ploys are clever and correct. With her little snow bunnies melted to slush and the rest of her an oil slick, he accrues growth. Down periscope seems inversely appropriate. The insight is that pussy is good and will always be so but will become more elusive as the years pass, and he will one day have none and may well have nothing besides. By and by, nobody will want to be wakened by his tongue. Love must take other forms starting now, in a moment of reflection.
Ravid loves Hereata but cannot fill her needs in the long term. Her company, her cooking, her womanly charms are vast, but her future is here. Her life is admirable and enviable; yet he still hopes he’ll one day be known, and so will his fish. And that’s the rub, that he doesn’t want fame but he does; that he loves Hereata but he doesn’t. One day it will end between them but it won’t. He wonders when, and if he’ll wait or end it soon on principle. He smokes more dope and drinks more beer and turns up the music and goes deep.
Later, in the cooler evening, they talk of life and happiness. They lie under the stars and sleep till first light.
They return home Sunday at noon.
The intrepid diver/photographer sits and thinks, too late for morning energy, too early for a nap. He ponders and identifies another pursuit. He’ll research the natural histories of the reefs and species in French Polynesia along with the unique behaviors occurring there, to learn what migrations and other phenomena these reefs and atoll passes might host.
An alluring euphoria at seventy feet or more is the typical symptom of narcosis of the deep. It removes a diver from common sense. The diver wants down, as if something waits there other than death.
It must have a different name at sea level. He’s not as stoned or depressed as an artist; he merely wonders what it would be like to ease on down a few hundred feet and out. Or maybe he knows, and, like an addict with a rising baseline, wants more of the feeling. Maybe the feeling is a happy alternative to the rigors of daily life. Or maybe he, Ravid Rockulz, is a world-class whiner, living in French Polynesia, working as a dive leader, pursuing his passion of marine photography with excellent equipment and access and calling it rigorous. He reminds himself of purity in art, and its removal from money.
Maybe his dissatisfaction is chronic, a new version of the restlessness of youth, and maybe it’s not a bad thing or a thing to resolve. Maybe it’s an honest longing, what any fish flopping on a dock would feel, glancing at the edge so near yet unattainable.
But wait a minute: I feel good.