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Undress? Why? Dawn was breaking in faint red streaks on the horizon, a perfect backdrop for her nude
body.
She gave me an odd smile. I always dreamed when I took a man it would be like this. We have this island
to ourselves and we will come as my ancestors arrived naked carrying only happiness and love in our
hearts. Hurry it is cold.
41
South Pacific Affair
Chapter VI
It started off better than any Hollywood movie the two of us naked on an islet, alone and without a care
between us; a happy dream come to life and ended leaving me confused, restless, more certain than ever I
couldn't make it with Ruita.
Ruita said, I will show you all of the old ways. Actually I know more of the ancient times than islanders
who never have left their villages, for in Papeete and in Sydney I made an effort to study these things in many
old books. First, we must make a shelter.
She tied a sharp hunk of coral in her hair, then climbed a coconut palm and, using the stone as a knife, cut
off many branches while I stood below like a dummy, gaped at the graceful way she climbed, her strong legs
hugging the palm trunk. When she came down, still using the sharp coral, she split the palm leaves down the
center, then quickly wove them together to make a mat. Ruita made a number of these, while I stood around
helpless; mats for us to sleep on, mats hung on sticks driven into the sandy ground to form a lean-to. Then we
found enough coconut fiber around the various crab holes the fiber the crabs had cut away in getting to the
coconut meat to put under our sleeping mats till they were fluffy as a mattress. Ruita stretched out on a mat
and held out her arms to me as she said, Come see how soft it is.
I know how wonderfully soft it is, I said, going to her.
After, we used another piece of sharp coral to drive holes in one of the three eyes of a coconut and drank.
Then, since we were both sweaty and the sun was out full blast, we took a quick swim. I was knocked out, still
hung-over from the feast. While I dozed on and off in the shade of the lean-to, Ruita made a crude cloth by
weaving the dry root fibers of the coconut husk together. Her nimble fingers moved with tireless speed and by
the time I finally got my lazy male can off the mat, she had a fairly big piece of cloth. I kissed her, asked if
she was making a skirt and she said, Maybe later. I will make a cloth for you too, for too much sun on our
middle parts is not good. For now I make this into a bag. See if you can find stones along the beach sharp
enough to be used as a knife, then sharpen some heavy sticks so we can husk the nuts.
I walked along the shore you could circle the islet in about three minutes of slow walking and didn't
find any sharp stones, except small ones which nicked my feet. Walking barefoot was never one of my
favorite sports, especially since they say you catch fey-fey and several other tropical diseases this way. When
I passed the canoe I sat down and took a cigarette out of my pants. Then I got my knife and cut and pointed a
few good strong sticks. Bringing these back to Ruita I held up the knife, said, I cheated.
She laughed. Like the first popaas here they cheated, too. Now I shall show you why one never need
worry about food as long as they are in the shadow of a coconut tree. Get me an armful of brown nuts not
the new green ones, but the dark brown ones.
There were many nuts around the base of the trees, most of them eaten away by rats and crabs, but I
managed to pick up five good ones. And if you stare at a coconut husk long enough it spooks you looks too
much like an old shaggy head.
Ruita had driven one of the sticks into the sand, sharp end up, and on this point she stripped the husk off
the nuts, then opened them. She shredded the white meat of the coconut with a jagged stone, the meat falling
into the fiber bag she had made. While she worked on the other nuts, she had me cleaning out the half-shell of
the first nut, and after it had dried in the hot sun for many minutes, I rubbed it down with coral stones,
polishing it to a deep smooth brown; we had our first bowl.
When the bag was full of coconut shreds, Ruita squeezed it over the bowl till a thick creamy milk oozed
out. Covering the bowl with a palm leaf, she said, This will be for supper. Now we must hurry and get some
crabs before the sun goes down.
Take it easy, I'll get them, I said, although I had never caught a crab before usually Eddie bagged them.
Coconut crabs look awkward but although I ran and lunged after several of them, they always disappeared
down their holes in the sand ahead of my hand. Ruita thought the crabs and I were putting on a comedy act;
she laughed till she cried. She said it was just as well I couldn't catch them, for if I had managed to grab one
42
South Pacific Affair
by its claw which the crab waved around like a boxer I would have lost a slice of skin.
She made a long piece of string by braiding strips of coconut fiber, then tied one end onto a stick. A few
green young palm leaves were attached to the other end of the string. Ruita quietly approached a crab hole
and, using the stick like a fishing pole, jiggled the palm leaves over the hole. Soon as the crab got his claw on
them, Ruita jerked him out of his hole and up in the air, expertly grabbed him behind his claw. She got four or
five crabs, tied them together, then hunted around for a coconut tree with a nut whose covering was not
fibrous, sliced the husk up with my knife, said, Eat a piece. This will be our salad.
Eat coconut husk?
Of course. There are many types of nuts. Try it.
To my surprise the husk tasted as crisp as cool lettuce, made a fine salad. With salad, drinking nuts, and juicy crab legs dipped in sea water and
coconut milk, we had a good supper as we watched the sun go down.
We were both tired and quickly fell asleep as soon as we hit our mats, embracing tightly for warmth and waking several times during the night to
change positions, warm the exposed parts of our bodies. Toward morning it rained lightly and we got as far under our lean-to as possible, but it wasn't
far enough, so we took turns covering each other and Ruita said, Today I will make more mats we need a roof.
I don't mind this, I said, and I didn't. It was a good feeling, the cold rain on my back and legs, Ruita's hot body against my chest and stomach.
We were up before daylight, both cold and damp, rubbed each other down with our hands to keep warm, then started work as soon as it was light.
Ruita made enough mats to roof over our lean-to, then more fiber cloth to cover our hips. I
polished up several coconut bowls, tried
my luck at crab casting. After awhile I got the knack and managed to bag four of them without being nipped.
We slept a long time in the heat of the afternoon, then at night when the tide was low Ruita tied my knife
to a stick and we went knife-fishing in the shallow water. She wanted to make a fire by rubbing sticks into
fibre but I cheated again no point in carrying this Scout stuff too far by using my lighter, first kicking a
tiny crab out of my pants pocket. Using bundles of coconut husks tied around a stick for a torch, we carefully
waded in knee-deep water till we came upon a sleeping fish. Ruita would spear him the first time, but I
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