Getting Stoned With Savages - J. Maarten Troost [72]
I declined to make the purchase. In Vanuatu, we had put most of our belongings in a couple of boxes and mailed them to the post office in Suva. Nevertheless, I was still traveling with just about all that I could carry, and the last thing I wanted was more stuff to move. I strolled up the main road, my eyes searching for a sign that said BAR, PUB, BEER, or some derivation promising ale. Instead, nearly every sign read PATEL, SINGH, RAMESH, or some other Indian surname followed by the nature of their wares: KUMAR CLOTHING, SARESH’S HARDWARE. The street was essentially deserted, and I walked up toward the Hindu temple, encountering only a backpacker or two, who appeared as disappointed as I at the apparent lack of bars in downtown Nadi. The town, the guidebooks had said, was the tourist hub of the South Pacific. Someone ought to tell the people of Nadi, I thought.
I turned around, scanning the storefronts again with some peevishness in case I had missed a pub. Soon I found myself walking out of Nadi. I crossed a bridge over a burbling river. As I passed a sign pointing the way to the Sheraton resorts on Denarau Island I made a mental note to send a letter to the Fiji Visitors Bureau. If you want the tourists to come back to this coup-riddled country, I would write, a good place to start would be with a decent bar in the center of town.
“Pssst…,” said a voice.
Who was this? I wondered. Not another large cross-dresser, I hoped.
“Psst…”
The voice came from the shadows under a looming tree. An Indian girl emerged. She couldn’t have been much more than twenty. Three other Indian girls stood behind her.
“Do you want a massage?”
As a matter of fact, I did want a massage. A massage would have been great. I had spent much of the afternoon heaving luggage from one country to another, and I was certainly amenable to a good rubdown. And so it was with some regret that I declined the offer.
“You want to fuck?” she then inquired.
Well, this relationship was certainly moving at a fast clip. “No, thanks. I’ll just move along. Good night.”
She was very pretty. There are men—lots of them, apparently—who fly thousands of miles for the opportunity to pay a few dollars to sleep with a destitute girl in a third-world country. I couldn’t quite see the romance in it, but even if I could, engaging in a commercial transaction of such a nature just wasn’t going to happen. I had a vision of standing before my wife, the vessel carrying my child: “Now, honey, don’t be like that. The reason I’m taking medication for syphilis…”
I chortled at the thought and returned to my quest for beer. I was nearing the dark patch where I’d had my encounter with the cross-dressers. Giving up on Nadi, I hailed another taxi.
“You want…”
“No.”
I returned to the motel. There was a bar there, I recalled. I settled onto a stool. There was one other patron, an elderly Englishman, who was quietly muttering to himself.
“That’s right,” he said kindly, turning toward me. “I’ve been smoking for sixty years now. And I’m in blooming health.” He lit a cigarette.
I took a deep breath. I had resolved to quit smoking. There was something about lulling a baby to sleep with one hand while jabbing a lit cigarette with the other that suggested that now might be a good time to quit.
“Nothing wrong with me,” he said, dragging deeply. “I enjoy smoking. Always have.”
The bartender stood in front of me, waiting for me to order a drink. Behind him was a display of cigarettes. Could I do it? I wondered. Could I sit here and drink beer and not smoke while a deranged Englishman rambles on—and ramble he did—about the joys of smoking? I breathed deeply. I could not, I grimly concluded.
Instead, I soon found myself sitting on the balcony outside my motel room, chewing gum, trying to lose myself in my book. The balcony was on the second story, overlooking a dimly lit side street. A car soon pulled up below me. A Fijian man emerged from the passenger side.