Authors: Irving Wallace
Once smoking, and at ease—how wonderful to have no telephone, no market lists, no social appointments, no car to drive anywhere—she listened to the rustle of a breeze waltzing with the thatch above. Harmonizing, from a distance, too faint and feminine to be from those outside the door, were tinkles of laughter. These gentle sounds, the outdoorish plant smell that pervaded the room, comforted Claire thoroughly, giving her a feeling of feline languor.
Presently, she was able to measure her inner emotions against what they had been upon first entering the compound three hours before. Except for Maud, revived by the challenge of the field, and the indefatigable Harriet Bleaska, the group mood had been a mixture of disappointment leavened by interest. Claire’s own mood had been attuned to the group. She understood it better now. No actuality of paradise can be the replica of the dream of paradise. Dreams of paradise are flawless. To leave a dream, you have to come down and down—in fact, down to earth—and the earth had fumbling and knobby fingers and marred what it built from the design of delicate dreams.
For Claire, it was better now because the most useful, oiled part of the mechanism that was she, was moving all that was around her, to adjust it to her own needs, to make all compatible to her. It was her strength—or perhaps her weakness—this, the talent to abandon so automatically details of a cherished dream and to rearrange cold reality to match what was left of a dream. In others, she would have named it flexibility or compromise or called it meeting life halfway. She was a veteran of many romantic dreams, of endless high hopes, expectations, anticipations, and she was a veteran of countless disappointments, and so, long, long ago, she had armed herself with the machinery of reconciliation. It worked, too—else how could she still smile in the mornings of her marriage?—but recently, ever so often, the machinery responded less noiselessly, creaked and protested. Today it worked, was operating nicely. Paradise somewhat resembled the recurring dream of all the spring.
Lighting a new cigarette off the old, snuffing out the old in a broken coconut husk she had brought in for an ashtray, she wondered if the others on the team had made an adjustment similar to her own. Recollecting fragments of their initial reactions to the village, as they had come through it behind Courtney, and their words upon entering their lodgings, she had her serious doubts.
Courtney had pointed out the six huts that were to be their own for the six weeks of their visit. The huts were in a line, under the hoary overhang, directly on the grass compound, rather closer to the entry of the village than to the center where stood Paoti’s impressive hut. The Karpowiczes had been assigned the first quarters, exactly the same exterior and interior as the hut that Claire and Marc had been loaned, except that off the rear room there was a third small room for Mary Karpowicz. Claire and Maud had accompanied Courtney and the Karpowiczes in their first examination of their temporary home. While Sam had been dismayed only by the lack of a darkroom—Courtney had immediately promised to see that he had the materials and help to build one—he and Estelle found the conditions, if not quite up to Saltillo the year before, at least acceptable for so short a stay. Mary, on the other hand, was dismayed by the lack of privacy and the gaping emptiness. “What am I supposed to do here all summer, twiddle my thumbs?” she had asked.
Lisa Hackfeld had been deposited in the next hut, which, out of deference to her husband’s financial support, she was being permitted to have to herself. She had taken one quick look through it, and then had overtaken Maud in the compound. “I can’t find the bathroom,” she had gasped, “there’s no bathroom.” Courtney had overheard this, and had tried to mollify her. “There is a public lavatory some distance behind every ten huts,” he had explained. The nearest one to you is about thirty yards away, behind the hut where Dr. DeJong will be. You can’t miss it. It is standing by itself. It looks like a circular grass hut more than a privy.” Lisa had been horrified at the idea of a public lavatory, but Courtney had told her that she was lucky to have even this. In the decades before Daniel Wright’s coming—the public water closets had been his innovation—the natives had none at all, but merely went out to the bush in the rear. Miserably, Lisa had retreated to her toiletless castle to brood until her luggage came.
Orville Pence, never having been in Polynesia before, had confessed, upon entering his hut, that somehow he had expected accommodations with real windows—in Denver, being addicted to bronchial congestion, he had always slept with his windows tightly shut—and some office furniture and shelves for his books. They had left him, in the middle of his room, forlorn and immobilized.
The next hut had been reserved for Rachel DeJong and Harriet Bleaska, who were to share it. Harriet had loved their dwelling, so much more picturesque than the lonely apartments she had known in Nashville, Seattle, and San Francisco. Rachel DeJong had been less impressed. While registering no vocal complaint, and indifferent to the actual living conditions, she had worried about the lack of privacy for her work. “One doesn’t need a couch,” she had said wryly, “but one does need seclusion with a patient—or, in this case, subject.” Eager to oblige, Courtney had promised to find a vacant hut, elsewhere, that she might use for a full-time consulting room.
After that, Claire and Marc had been shown their residence, and Maud had departed, with Courtney, to her office and living quarters next door. A half-hour later, the supplies had arrived, and since lunch had been overlooked by their hosts, Marc had cracked open the crate containing Spam, and had passed out cans of it with openers at each hut.
Recalling some of the complaint and irritation now, a stray phrase, a marvelous cliche, crossed Claire’s mind: the natives are restless. Foolishly, it delighted her. She was here, among them, and the natives weren’t restless at all, not at all. The eggheads are restless, she thought, the poor scrambled eggheads, out of their frying pans into this.
Maud, she thought, the mighty Maud, alone, would be unruffled, would be as resolute as a granite profile on Mount Rushmore. She had a sudden pointless desire to see Maud, to draw enthusiasm from her. Tiredness had vanished. Claire uncurled and hoisted herself erect. She could hear the men still toiling outside. She went through the hut and into the compound, expecting to find Marc, but while Orville Pence and Sam Karpowicz labored with the young natives, Marc was nowhere to be seen. Where had he gone? She meant to inquire, and then she did not, for she guessed that she knew. He had gone deeper into the village. He had gone to the naked breasts. Goddam them all, she thought; not the breasts but men; not men, either, but men like Marc.
She had reached her mother-in-law’s hut when the cane door swung open, almost hitting her. She backed off, as Courtney emerged. It surprised her that he had been with Maud all this while.
“Hello, Mrs. Hayden,” he said. “Did you get some rest?”
She was suddenly shy and tongue-tied. “Yes, I did.”
“If there’s anything I can do—?”
“No.”
“Well, then—”
They had just been standing there, awkwardly faced toward each other like unwound dolls, both helpless to move toward one another or away.
“I—I was going in—” she started to say.
“Yes, I—”
A voice was shouting from afar, and now more distinctly, “Oh, Claire—Claire Hayden!” The summons wound them, and they moved apart and spun toward the female clamor behind them. It was Lisa Hackfeld, hobbling toward them in hot disarray.
She came to them breathless and spilling over with some minor horror and incredulity. So intent was she upon Claire, that she hardly recognized Courtney.
“Claire,” she gasped, too caught in urgency to remember they were not yet on a first-name basis. “Claire, have you been to the bathroom?”
The inquiry was so unexpected that Claire did not know how to reply.
Lisa Hackfeld was too feverish with distress to wait. “It’s—it’s coeducational!” she blurted. “I mean—it’s cocommunity—one plank of wood with holes in it and when I walked in—there were three men and one woman sitting—talking—
together
.”
Bewildered, Claire turned to Courtney, who was fighting to conceal his amusement. Succeeding, he nodded at Claire and then at Lisa Hackfeld. “Yes, it’s true,” he said, “the lavatories are communal, shared by men and women at the same time.”
“But how can you—?” Lisa Hackfeld implored.
“It’s the custom,” said Courtney simply, “and, as a matter of fact, it’s a good one.”
Lisa Hackfeld seemed about to dissolve. “A good one?” she cried out.
“Yes,” said Courtney. “When Daniel Wright came here in 1796, he found the natives uninhibited and natural in such matters, and he saw no reason, once he’d got the privies up, to change their attitudes. There’s simply nothing wrong, in this society, in going to the bathroom and mingling with the opposite sex. For an outsider, it takes getting used to, but once you do, once you break down your modesty, it’ll be easy and commonplace. Nobody gives a darn about you, and you don’t have to give a thought to them.”
“Some things should be private,” insisted Lisa Hackfeld. “This would be a scandal at home.”
“It depends where your home is, Mrs. Hackfeld. This is a familiar practice in parts of Europe and Latin America. And not so long ago, in sophisticated France, in the time of Marie Antoinette, great ladies would order their carriages to stop at the roadside, and step down and perform this same act in full view of their fellow passengers and retinue.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“It’s true. Mrs. Hackfeld. I understand how you feel. This is all strange and there will be some shocks, small shocks. I remember when I first came here, I was startled—I admit it—the first occasion I visited the bathroom. But as time went on, I saw the value of the custom in brushing aside one more singled-out, hidden area of false modesty. Since then, I have discovered another value to communal privies. They are nature’s great leveler. When I came here, I was in awe of a very attractive and haughty young native girl. I wanted to speak to her, but her family was the best, she was important, and I was hesitant. A short time later I found myself beside her in the common privy. It broke down every one of my fears and restraints. If the institution were made universal—it would be the one democracy extant. Today, there is no equality. We have the elite, the wealthy, the talented, the strong, the intelligent, and we have everyone else inferior. But here we would have the only leveler, as I said, the one place where royalty and peasants, actresses and housewives, saints and sinners, would appear as absolute equals.”
“You’re not serious, Mr. Courtney.”
“I’m perfectly serious, Mrs. Hackfeld.” He paused, cast a sidelong glance at Claire, and then he smiled at her. “I hope I haven’t offended you, Mrs. Hayden.”
As disturbed about the sanitation as Lisa Hackfeld, Claire’s only anxiety was not to be considered Lisa’s ally in prudery. “No,” she lied to Courtney, “quite the contrary, you may have a good point there.”
Doubtfully, Courtney acknowledged her independence, and hitched his dungarees higher. He said to Lisa, “Unless you have incredible kidneys, I suggest you avail yourself of what we have to offer.” He started to leave, turned, and, in a mock conspiratorial whisper to Lisa, he added, “But, as one ex-timorous person to a timorous one, let me suggest that if you visit the communal lavatories after the sound of the breakfast, lunch, and dinner-hour gongs—seven, twelve, and seven—you’ll most likely find complete privacy, at least from the natives.”
“What about privacy from our own men?” Lisa demanded, tearfully.
Courtney cupped his chin with his hand. “Yes,” he said, “that would be a problem, wouldn’t it? Well, I’ll tell you what, Mrs. Hackfeld. Out of deference to backward ways, I’ll see that the concession is made. Before the end of the day tomorrow, somewhere behind your huts, you’ll find two brand new outhouses, one marked
His
and one marked
Hers
. How’s that?”
Lisa Hackfeld exhaled with relief. “Oh, thank you, Mr. Courtney.”
“Anything at all, Mrs. Hackfeld. Good afternoon, and—good afternoon to you, Mrs. Hayden.”
He left them, striding down the compound in his bobbing gait, heading toward the great hut of Chief Paoti.
“Isn’t he an odd one?” muttered Lisa. “Of course, he was teasing me with all that talk, wasn’t he?”
Claire nodded slowly, eyes still upon his retreating figure. “I suppose he was,” she said. “But I wouldn’t bet on it.”
“Well,” said Lisa, “anyway, he was helpful. We’ll have our privacy tomorrow … I’ve made up my mind to write Cyrus once a day, a sort of diary of the trip, to mail every week with Captain Rasmussen. This little experience will certainly give me something to start off with.”
Claire had brought her attention back to Lisa. “It certainly will,” she agreed.
Lisa shook her head, to herself, as if having made discovery of some profound observation. “I can just see his face,” she said. “It’s amazing, no matter how sophisticated we think we are, how much prudery there is in all of us.”
“Yes,” said Claire.
Lisa fanned her face with her hand. “I hope it’s not this hot every day. I think I’d better get out of the sun. See you later.”
Claire watched her as she went to her hut, and sympathized with her for what she might yet have to endure. Then, realizing what she had meant to do for herself, Claire opened the cane door and stepped inside to visit her mother-in-law.
When Claire had made the visual transition from the outer glare to the inner shade, she could see that there was no one in Maud’s front room. In Maud’s structure, the front room resembled her own, except that it was considerably larger and already bore the accouterments of an office. Beneath the covered window stood a crude wooden table, the top surface planed smooth, but the roughly hewed hazel-colored legs looked as if they had been recently cut and quickly added. Upon the table rested the silver metal portable tape recorder and the flat pancaked portable dictating machine. Behind these were a calendar and a battery-powered lamp, and at one end of the table two coconut trays, one filled with new pencils and small cheap sharpeners, and one empty and apparently for ashes. An unfinished chair, extremely sturdy and with a high plank backing, obviously constructed by unpracticed hands, held together by thongs rather than nails, completed the desk set. Of! to the right were two long, low benches, with crude plank tops that could not have been cut by a saw.