J. Maarten Troost - The Sex Lives of Cannibals

Life in Fiji, however, became particularly interesting once Sylvia discovered that she was pregnant. Determined to be both the best husband and father that I could be, I read every book I could get my hands on. Every evening I prepared heaping platters of grilled fish, potatoes, spinach, pasta, followed by bowls of fruit and jugs of ice cream. I consulted my book. “Okay. It says here that in month four protein is important. We’re having steak tonight.”

“It’s ninety-five degrees,” Sylvia said. “I don’t want steak.”

“Immaterial.”

Soon, though, Sylvia was spending her evenings baking. Sylvia is not by nature a baker. She’s more a sauté kind of person, but some strange physiological impulse had kicked in and the house became redolent with the sweet aromas of carrot cake and banana muffins and chocolate chip cookies. I encouraged this. Packages from oversees arrived containing baby onesies and Sylvia spent a long time folding and unfolding and becoming more than a trifle weepy. “Aaaaw… it’s so cute,” she said, drying her eyes. Her belly ballooned in a very interesting fashion. One day, after I mistakenly added five garlic cloves to the pesto I’d prepared, rather than the one clove the recipe called for, Sylvia announced that the baby was kicking mightily, and what a strange and wondrous thing it is to put your hand on your wife’s belly and feel your child moving like an agitated Mexican jumping bean.

Shortly before the baby was due, we met with Morgan and Catherine, English friends of ours with two island-born children of their own.

“You will need help with the baby,” Catherine remarked.

“I think we can manage,” I said. “I’ve been reading a book.”

“Have you now?” Catherine said.

“Yes. Very diligently. It said that infants sleep eighteen hours a day. That leaves just six hours for parenting-type activity.”

“You poor man. May I ask when was the last time you held a baby?”

I thought for a moment. “1986.”

“I see.” For some reason, Catherine began to laugh very hard.

“I figure that for the first few days, we will just let the baby do his own thing, you know, get comfortable outside the womb, and then we’ll mold him so that he adapts to a more civilized routine.”

“Yes, quite. That sounds very sensible.”

I UNDERSTAND NOW why Catherine laughed so hard. Four months have passed since Lukas was born. The books were wrong. Lukas does not sleep eighteen hours a day. More like eighteen minutes a day, in eighteen-second intervals. I can count on one hand the hours I have slept in those four months. And it is the strangest thing: I don’t mind at all.

Lukas is a handsome, happy baby, who for some unknown reason, has decided that he has no need for sleep. The world is too full of wonder. He has spent his first Christmas in a Fijian village. He has grown very found of the mynah birds nesting on the roof and as a result I have called a truce with the pugnacious creatures. He knows that his hands are for waving in a most charming manner. He knows his legs are for thrusting determinedly back and forth, because if a baby is going to walk, he needs to exercise. He knows that he can now trust his parents to bathe and change and burp him, though it was rough going at first. He knows mummy is for lunch. He knows that daddy is where we go to spit up lunch. He knows how to smile. He can play an epic game of peek-a-boo.

He has also swum in the Pacific Ocean. One day, we took him to Pacific Harbor on the southern coast of Viti Levu, the main island in Fiji. Few tourists go to Pacific Harbor. The weather is too unreliable. And so we had the beach to ourselves. It was a dazzling South Pacific day. A few miles distant lay Beqa, a mountainous green island offering postcard contrast with the blue of the South Pacific. Lukas was in his swimming diapers. We put a T-shirt on him, as well as a hat, and with him on my shoulder we waded in. He took to it immediately, kicking and splashing as I twirled him through the balmy water. He was happily giggling, until suddenly he stopped. He tensed. His face puckered up. He pooped.

“I can’t believe he’s doing this,” I said, grimacing as I extended him outward.

Sylvia laughed. “He’s our little island boy.”

Crocombe, Ron. The South Pacific . Suva: University of the South Pacific, 2001.

Davidson, Osha Gray. The Enchanted Braid: Coming to Terms with Nature on the Coral Reef . New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1998.

Grimble, Arthur. A Pattern of Islands . London: John Murray, 1952.

Koch, Gerd: The Material Culture of Kiribati . Berlin: Museum fur Volkerkunde, 1965.

Macdonald, Barrie: Cinderellas of the Empire . Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1982.

Mason, Leonard, ed.: Kiribati: A Changing Atoll Culture . Suva: University of the South Pacific, 1985.

Maude, Henry Evans: Of Islands and Men: Studies in Pacific History . New York: Oxford University Press, 1968.

———: Tungaru Traditions: Writings on the Atoll Culture of the Gilbert Islands, by Arthur Francis Grimble . Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989.

Stevenson, Robert Louis: Tales of the South Pacific . Edinburgh: Canongate Books, 1996.

Talu, Sister Alaimu, et al: Kiribati: Aspects of History . Suva: University of the South Pacific, 1979.

THE SEX LIVES OF CANNIBALS. Copyright © 2004 by J. Maarten Troost.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Troost, J. Maarten.

The sex lives of cannibals: adrift in the Equatorial Pacific / J. Maarten Troost.—1st ed.

p. cm.

1. Ethnology—Kiribati—Tarawa Atoll.

2. Tarawa Atoll (Kiribati)—Social life and customs.

3. Tarawa Atoll (Kiribati)—Description and travel.

4. Tarawa Atoll (Kiribati)—Humor.

I. Title.

GN671.K57T76 2004

306'.099681—dc22

2004040768

eISBN: 978-0-7679-1895-4

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