Tales of the South Pacific - James A. Michener [98]
"Take it from me, Eddie. That bimbo is trying to make you."
"Is that bad?" Eddie cried, throwing his hands up in the air and waving the letter.
"It ain't good, Eddie. Not when you're out here and she's in Minneapolis. Tell me. Did she ever talk like that when you were there? Right with her?"
"Well, as a matter of fact, she didn't. But I think she's beginning to miss me, now that I'm out here."
"Don't fall for that crap, Eddie," his counselor warned. "She's the type of girl can't write too hot a letter, but when you turn up on the spot, she thinks maybe she better not turn off the light! I know a dozen girls like that."
"For your information, this girl isn't like that. Personally, I think she loves me. Anyway, I'm not taking any chances. Look at the picture I'm sending her tonight!" From his shirt pocket Eddie produced a horrendous picture of a Melanesian woman with frizzled hair, sagging breasts, and buttocks like a Colorado mesa. She was wearing a frond of palm leaves.
"Now that's what I call a woman!" one Marine observed. Others whistled. Several wanted copies for their girls.
"Look, Cable!" one officer cried. "The real South Seas!" He passed the repulsive picture to Cable, who looked at it hurriedly and returned it.
"What I don't get," Eddie mused, as he returned the photograph to his pocket, "is how traders out here and planters can marry these women. Or even live with them? My God, I wouldn't even touch that dame with a ten-foot pole."
"But they do!" an older man insisted. "They do. I've heard of not less than eight well authenticated cases in which white men lived with or married native women."
"Yeah," another added, "but just remember that most of those women were Polynesians, and they're supposed to be beautiful. And some were Tonks, too, I'll bet."
"Melanesians, Polynesians, Tonks!" Eddie cried, thinking of the hot number in cold Minneapolis. "They're all alike."
"The hell they are!" an older officer cried. "They are like so much hell! There's all the difference in the world! I've seen some mighty lovely Polynesians in Samoa. And don't let anybody sell you short on that."
"You can say that again!" a friend added.
"Don't give me that guff!" Eddie cried contentiously. "Maybe they are pretty. But how many of you would... well, make love to them? Come on, now put up or shut up. Would you?"
"It all depends... If..."
"Tell me yes or no. No hedging."
"You know what the mess cook said. 'They're getting whiter every day.' If I was out here long enough, I can't tell what I'd do."
Eddie was not satisfied with this answer. "We'll poll the club," he announced. Taking the photograph from his pocket he thrust it beneath a fellow officer's nose. "Would you sleep with that?" he cried.
"Hell, no!" the man replied. The older officer ridiculed the test and grabbed a copy of Life that was lying on the wine table. He shuffled through the pages until he found the picture of an old, withered Italian woman sitting beside the ruins of her home. He thrust this picture before the earlier judge.
"How about that?" he snorted.
"Hell, no!" the judge replied impartially.
"You're damned right!" the older officer agreed. "You just sit back, Eddie, and let me ask the questions."
"All right," Eddie assented. "But make 'em fair."
Around the room went the questions, in various forms. Roughly, they all added up to the same idea: "Would you, if the opportunity presented itself, sleep with a woman from the islands?"
"No!" answered all the young officers.
"It depends," said the older men.
"Ask Cable," Eddie shouted. "He's a Princeton man. He's got good sense."
"How you reason!" a friend cried.
"What do you say, Cable?" the inquisitor asked. "Would you sleep with a native