Tales of the South Pacific - James A. Michener [97]
"It must have rained last night," an officer observed. "It must have. Look at the island." There was further discussion of when and for how long it rained, but Cable took no part in this. All that he knew was that Vanicoro, which he had never before seen from his hut, was strangely visible. It was so clear upon the waters that one might even... No, that was impossible. Bali-ha'i, at this distance, was merely a part of Vanicoro.
The thought startled him! Was that, after all, true? Were Bali-ha'i and all its people merely a part of the grim and brooding old cannibal island? Were Liat and her unfathomable mother merely descendants from the elder savages? No! The idea was preposterous. Tonkinese were in reality Chinese, sort of the way Canadians were Americans, only a little different. And Chinese were the oldest civilized people on earth. He thought of Liat. She was clean, immaculately so. Her teeth were white. Her ankles were delicate, like those of a girl of family in Philadelphia.
As he said that word, a thousand fears assailed him. That afternoon he would write to his mother... and to the junior at Bryn Mawr. The letter to his mother was difficult, but not impossible. He told her of the islands, of the mission, of the school bell, and of the hospital. He dwelt upon Sister Marie Clement but made no mention of Bloody Mary... nor of her daughter.
But writing to his sweetheart was another thing! On the one hand he could not do as he did with his mother, write in the placid assumption that even if she knew she would forgive him. And on the other hand he dared not even hint at what had happened. He could make no admissions of any sort. In fact, when he postponed writing to Bryn Mawr at all that day, Lt. Cable acknowledged that he had reached a great impasse in his life. At that time he did not know that never again, as long as he lived, would he write to that girl in Philadelphia. He would try several times thereafter, but false words would not come, and true words he dared not write.
That evening in the officers' club a group of Marines fell to discussing the phenomenon of the morning, when Vanicoro had been so near that you could almost see ravines upon its face. "I'd like to see that island," one officer observed. "It's quite a place, I'm told. One of the tribes up there in the hills preserves heads and sometimes sells them. Cost about twenty bucks apiece. I know a guy sent two home to a museum. Box got sent to his home by mistake, and his old lady fainted."
"Very primitive place," another observed. "I flew over it the other day. Say, those two volcanoes are sure something to see. The west one... Well, that is the left one as you're coming in. Well, you can fly right down into it. There's a lake right in it, and it's one damned weird place, I can tell you."
"Do the natives live near the volcanoes?" a young officer inquired.
"One of the traders told me no," the flier replied. "Say, Cable. You know one of the traders. You know, that atabrine guy. Does he know Vanicoro at all?"
"He's never told me about it, if he does," Cable replied.
"Well, I understand the natives there are among the most primitive in all these islands. Filthy, backward, plenty tough guys. They were the last to eat one another, you know."
"What I don't see," the young Marine mused aloud, "is how Hollywood dares to cook up the tripe it does. Boy, oh boy! The reaming they give the American public."
"It's just good, clean malarkey," a newcomer observed. "What harm does it do? Any time Dorothy Lamour wants to wobble them blinkers at me, OK. I ain't kicking."
"What I mean," the young officer insisted, "is that it gives a very wrong impression. I have a girl back in Minneapolis..."
"Hell, you'd be lucky if you had a picture of a girl!"
"Well, anyway, this is a pretty fine girl, and she writes to me the other day.