Tales of the South Pacific - James A. Michener [159]
The old woman had early detected Latouche's willfulness. It was no surprise to her, therefore, when Achille had to knock her down and forbid her to visit Noumea. Nor could the family do anything to make her stop ridiculing old Pétain. The Barzans, mother, father, son, saw clearly that only the grim marshal's plan of work and discipline could save France.
"Why, look!" Achille said. "Every De Gaullist in the islands is what Pétain said in his speech. Undisciplined!" In Noumea, where people understood such things, most substantial men were Pétainists. Only the rabble were De Gaullists. Latouche herself was proof of that. A half-caste! A bastard half-caste, too! You might as well call her a De Gaullist. The words meant about the same.
The Barzans were pleasantly surprised, therefore, when Latouche suddenly became disciplined, accepted her husband's judgment, and became a respectable Pétainist. They were even more surprised when two boats put into the bay and a group of fiery men, led by Latouche's own father, stormed ashore and placed everyone under arrest. Everyone, that is, except Achille, who fled to the jungle.
"There they are!" Latouche reported icily. Standing before the two miserable Barzans she denounced them. "They want to give up," she laid with disdain.
"Take them away," Latouche's father ordered.
At this old Madame Barzan's peasant mind snapped. "Thief! Whore!" she screamed, beating at Latouche with her bare hands. An undersized De Gaullist from Efate tried to stop her outcries, but old man Barzan thought his wife was being attacked. Grabbing a stick of wood, he lunged at the little man and beat him over the head.
"Throw them in jail!" Latouche's father commanded.
Madame Barzan, gabbling of "thieves and murderers and whores," died in the boat. The old man remained in jail. The little fellow he had beaten was still affected after two years. His head jerked and he couldn't pronounce the letter s.
Latouche rarely spoke of the wretched family. She brought her three sisters to the plantation before the Americans came. She reasoned that the Yanks would occupy Luana Pori. She wanted her sisters ready. Even during the agonizing days of the Coral Sea battles she refused to move inland. "I think Americans, they win. If they lose, I finished anyway. Japs probably make that dirty bastard Achille Barzan commissioner of Luana Pori, I s'pose."
Shortly after she told me about her husband I left the Navy camp and moved up to the plantation. Latouche and I had one of the little white houses among the flower gardens. It was made of bamboo, immaculately clean. Six or eight of Latouche's dresses hung along one wall. On the other was a colored print showing a street in Paris. Six books were on the wicker table. Gone with the Wind and five Tauchnitz editions of German novels. There were two chairs, one covered with flowered chintz.
Latouche and I were very happy in that little house. Mostly she wore a halter made of some cheap print from Australia and a pair of expensive twill shorts a colonel had got her from Lord and Taylor's, in New York. She went barefooted. We slept through the hot afternoons, waiting for the crowd to come out for dinner. Noé would bring us cold limeades, slipping into the little house whether we were dressed or not.
I often try to recall what I wrote my wife during those days. "Darling: The deep sores on my wrists are better now. It is cooler on this island." But the sores that ate at my heart, I didn't tell her about them.
It was about this time that Lt. Col. Haricot led his raid on the plantation. He stormed into the salon one night about seven and stood at attention like a gauleiter. "Everything on this plantation stolen from the United States government will be hauled away tomorrow morning," he announced. He even clapped his hands, and a very young lieutenant made a note of the order. Then he nodded to a French woman much older than Latouche and started to go.
"But I own everything," Latouche said, interrupting his passage.
"Are you the madame's