Getting Stoned With Savages - J. Maarten Troost [70]
“The political situation is…”
“LOOK OUT!” I yelled. Then the realization hit me. “Heh…Sorry. I see you drive on the left side of the road here.”
The driver gave me a cautious sidelong glance, no doubt wondering about the stability of his fare. Sensing that I probably wouldn’t bite, he continued. “The political situation is very bad,” he said animatedly. “Fiji is finished for the Indians. Everybody is trying to leave—Australia, New Zealand, Canada, America. Anywhere. There is no future here.”
“That bad?”
“Yes. Fiji is finished.”
I hoped it wasn’t quite finished yet. After all, we were moving here. Indeed, we would soon have a little Fijian of our own. This would hardly alter the immigration-emigration ratio, of course. I had learned that tens of thousands of Indo-Fijians, most of the educated professional middle class, had already departed for brighter shores. I left the cabdriver to his gloom and checked into the West Motor Inn, one of the innumerable motels lining the road between the airport and Nadi. I was, it appeared, the only customer. I was given a dank room with a balcony, but I could hardly complain, as it also offered air conditioning and cost less than $15 a night. I planned to make the trip to Suva the following day. The capital was on the other side of Viti Levu, Fiji’s main island, about five hours from Nadi by bus following the Queen’s Road. I could have flown, of course; the flight was a mere half-hour. But if I didn’t have to board a Twin Otter, then I wouldn’t, particularly after I’d scanned The Fiji Times, which had a follow-up article on a recent crash involving an Air Fiji Twin Otter that had flown into a mountain. True, dozens of people died each year on the Queen’s Road, but I had survived this long without being rational and saw no reason to change my ways.
So I had an evening to kill. With nothing to do beyond watching the geckoes scamper across the walls of my motel room, I headed out for a walk into town. The length of road between the airport and Nadi, I remembered, was quite likely the most hideous corner of Fiji, a fact I soon confirmed as I stumbled along in the darkness, inches from the whish of speeding jalopies. The sight would have been depressing had I not already known that Fiji only gets better from here. It was a long stretch of dilapidated stores, like an American strip mall that hadn’t been tended to for thirty years. Most of the businesses were shuttered behind steel bars and wire mesh, locked with chains and padlocks. From the signs, it was apparent that each was Indian owned. Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to even realize that he was presently on an island in the South Pacific and not, as the evidence seemed to indicate, in some provincial backwater in India. The cars raced by, swerving enthusiastically around everything that moved in front of them. They were driven with the casual carelessness that comes easily, I thought, to those sure in the knowledge that they will be reincarnated into perpetuity.
It was humid, and I was beginning to sweat freely. Nadi, it was dawning on me, was much farther from the motel than I had assumed—several miles at least—but I walked on because, well, I didn’t have anything better to do. As I neared the town there was a long stretch of bush, a tangle of trees illuminated only by the passing glare of headlights. I proceeded blithely on, but soon I had a sixth sense that something was afoot. I was not, generally, particularly cautious. I rarely thought of myself as a potential victim of criminality. I tended to like people, and this, I thought, was usually enough to disarm all but your most determined mugger. And if that didn’t work, I’d scrunch up my face so it suggested that, now and then, when I’ve had to do it, I’ve killed. But something was disturbing my inner harmony, and I thought it prudent to turn around and retreat to the light.
Four figures suddenly ran across the road. Men? They were tall, slender, very muscular. They wore pink hot pants. Women? They wore makeup. Cross-dressers? Amazonian queens? They