Tales of the South Pacific - James A. Michener [116]
"Entrez, entrez, Monsieur Benoit!" The fat planter pulled his tight alpaca coat into position. Liat met him at the door. She turned her face away. He kissed her on the cheek and handed her the flowers. Cable, watching, leaned against a coconut tree for a long time. Finally Bloody Mary appeared on the porch. She took a cigarette from her sateen pants and some matches from her blouse. She struck a match. The light glowed briefly in the jungle dark and showed her weather-beaten face.
In the morning Lt. Joe Cable, fully determined to be the best Marine officer in the coming strike, was up early. He checked his men to see that they were ready for the ship that would take them north. He repacked his battle gear twice to make it ready for a landing. At 0900 he took charge of general muster. When he was finished, the colonel and his staff took over for final instructions. Cable saluted the colonel. "All present, sir!" he reported. He clenched his fist. "It's good to be back in the swing," he said to himself.
Cable and his men climbed into one of the trucks heading for the loading dock. There was a mighty thrill in that moment when the old camp died and its men set out for some distant island where a new camp would be won from the Japs and the jungle. The Marines smiled at one another. Cable sat erect among his men.
But when the trucks reached the Tonk village they became involved in a minor traffic jam. During the interval of waiting old Bloody Mary came down the road with a bundle of grass skirts. From the first truck one of the Marines started teasing her.
"Fo' Dolla', Fo' Dolla'!" he shouted. The black-toothed woman ignored him. The man was disappointed. Bloody Mary stared into one truck after another. She was looking for someone. "Fo' Dolla'!" the men cried. "You lose something?" Mary waddled to the next truck. Her eyes brightened. There sat her friend, Lt. Cable.
" 'Allo, lieutenant!" she cried. Cable did not look at her. She addressed the men in his truck. "Goddam fool lieutenant alla time come see my Liat. Bring her things. Lieutenant one bullshit goddam fool!" She raised her right arm and threw a small object forcefully to the ground. Liat's watch, bought for more than a hundred dollars, crashed into the dust. It flew apart. A wheel rolled crazily down the road, hit a truck tire, and stopped.
"That was a watch!" a Marine gasped. "A good watch!" The men looked at their lieutenant.
"Goddam fool Lieutenant Joe!" the old Tonk screamed. "Come alla time my girl Liat. Make..." Bloody Mary raised her hands high in the air to form the indecent gesture. A dried head which she was carrying by the hair banged against her elbow.
From another truck an enlisted man shouted, "How much for that head, Mary?" The Tonk turned slowly and walked along the dusty road to her questioner.
"You like?" she asked, waving the head before the man.
"Yeah. How much?"
"Fifty dolla'," the Tonk shouted.
"'At's too much, Mary!" the Marine cried. "Give you thirty." Bloody Mary spat and leered at the man. "So-and-so you, major!" she cried.
PASSION
DR. PAUL BENOWAY of LARU-8 finally recovered from the exposure he suffered during the days and nights he spent on the raft. When he returned to his quarters he tried to write a long letter to his wife. He wanted to tell her about the hours of waiting on the raft, the half-muttered prayers, the mingled thrill and despair of seeing the blood-red sun rise anew each morning.
"On the fourth day, when I saw the sun again," he wrote, "I felt like an Aztec's human sacrifice who waits at the end of the fiftieth year to see whether or not the sun will rise. Like him, I knew that when the sun rises again the world is saved and there is still hope. But like the Aztec I also knew that with the rising of the flaming beacon my individual torture would begin."
Benoway stopped and looked at the words. They sounded phoney. They were not his words. He had never spoken like that to his wife in all of his married life, not even during courtship days. He tore up the offending paragraph.
"Certain men," he mused,