Tales of the South Pacific - James A. Michener [83]
But occasionally he would become furious. "Goddam pig!" he would shout, cuffing the unfortunate Tonk about a bit. "Open your mouth!" And he would ram a curved index finger into the man's mouth behind the black teeth, twisting the tongue up. With a deft flick he would pop out one or two unswallowed atabrine tablets and catch them in his other hand. "Eat 'em up!" he would shout. And the Tonk would grin sheepishly, lick his beteled teeth, take another drink of water, and swallow the tablets. "Wait a minute!" Benny would bellow. Into the man's mouth once more would go the searching finger. "Good fellow!" Benny would beam, giving the recalcitrant Tonk a pat on the head and a couple of cigarettes. "You got to watch 'em," he whispered.
"Don't they like the taste?" I inquired, smiling back at a grinning Tonkinese woman who stood waiting.
"Taste ain't nothin' to a guy that chews betel," Benny said. "Everything tastes the same."
"Then why the act with the atabrine?"
"Clever bastards," Benny grinned. "Took 'em about two weeks to discover that them pills is a wonderful yellow dye. They keep 'em back of their tongues and then use 'em to dye grass skirts with."
"Grass skirts?" I inquired.
"Yeah," he replied. "They make 'em."
When the session was ended, Benny grabbed a handful of his precious yellow pills and threw them on the table. "For your skirts!" he shouted, wiggling his hips as if he were wearing one of the grass skirts the Tonks sold to American soldiers.
As Tonkinese women battled for the valuable dyestuff the French plantation owner, a man of forty-eight or more, stopped us. He was a short, sloppy fellow, round-faced, bleary-eyed, stoop-shouldered. His pants hung in a sagging line below his belly. He had a nervous manner and a slight cough as he spoke.
"It's Monsieur Jacques Benoit!" Atabrine Benny cried in a loud, pleasant voice. The plantation owner nodded slightly and extended a wet, pudgy hand.
"Mr. Benny," he said forcefully. "Again, once more I asking you. Not give the women pills!" His voice was harsh.
"It don't do any harm!" Benny argued.
"But the gouvernment! Our gouvernment! And yours, too. They say, 'Tonkinese! No more grass skirts!' What I can do?" He shrugged his shoulders apologetically.
"All right!" Benny grumbled. "All right!"
"Remember, Mr. Benny!" the Frenchman said, half pleading, half warning. "Atabrine pills! They drink, OK. They use for grass skirt, no!" Monsieur Benoit shrugged his shoulders and moved away.
"Them damned Frenchies!" Benny snorted as we climbed in our jeep at the foot of the hill.
"What's this about grass skirts, Benny?" I asked.
"The plantation owners is getting scared. That's all," he grumbled. "Why, you wouldn't want a finer bunch of people to work with than them Tonks. You can see that. It's just them damned plantation owners. And the guv'mint."
"You really mean the government has stopped the making of grass skirts?"
"They're tryin' to, sir. But as you can plainly see, I'm doin' me best to bitch the works, you might say. It's this way. These here Tonks is brought out to the plantations to work the coconuts and coffee. They come from Tonkin China, I been told. A French possession. They come for three or five years. French guv'mint provides passage. Then they're indentured to these plantation owners, just like in the old days settlers was indentured in America, especially Pennsylvania and Georgia. A professor from Harvard explained it all to me a couple of months ago. Said it was the same identical system. Plantation owner promises to feed 'em, clothe 'em, give 'em medical care."
"What does he pay them?"
"'Bout ninety dollars a year, man or woman, is standard price now. Course, they got good livin' out here. That ninety is almost all profit."
"Do they ever go back to Tonkin?" I asked.
"Sure. Most of 'em do. Go back with maybe four hundred dollars. Wife and husband both work, you see. Rich