Tatjana Soli - The Last Good Paradise

Richard looked miserably at the flashing caller ID screen, then switched to vibrate, and every time it did, he winced. Finally, Ann grabbed the phone and flung it out the window of the cab. It bounced on the sidewalk and plopped into the viscous water.

“We can’t afford roaming charges,” she said.

That night they couldn’t get to the restaurant the hotel chef had recommended (a matter of honor in the profession that he sent them to a true foodie place) because the main streets in Papeete were shut down, protesters clogging the thoroughfares, choking traffic to a standstill. They waved signs and banners in French with drawings of what looked like nuclear mushroom clouds atop palm trees: MORUROA E TATOU, ARRETEZ NUCLEAIRES, VERS UN MONDE SANS NUCLEAIRES, PROTEGEZ NOS ENFANTS, NON PLUS SECRETS, COMPENSATION, RESTITUTION.

“Didn’t they stop testing decades ago?” Ann asked the driver, who was from the Philippines.

“These people spoiled. Keep showing cancer and three-headed fish, tourists stop coming. Then how happy will they be?”

Blocked, they turned back and ate an overpriced fifty-dollar hamburger at the hotel.

The next morning on the way back to the airport, they had the taxi stop at a downtown bank specified by Lorna. Ann went in and came out with her tote bag perceptibly heavier. The island-jumper to Rangiroa in the more remote Tuamotu Archipelago was only an hour flight, but they sat stranded on the tarmac for three hours while the details of a possible strike by the airport personnel were hammered out. Ann had read about sun damage and mosquitoes, and wore cargo pants, a shirt, and a baseball cap made of SPF-treated fabric, which she now had to roll up as she sweltered in the cockpit.

“Don’t you have any luggage?” the American pilot, Carl, asked when they handed him Richard’s backpack.

“We travel light.”

But Ann was staggering under the weight of her tote bag, which she kept glued to her side.

Since they were the only passengers, Carl propped open the passenger door for a breeze, pulled out some cold beers, and offered them a round. He was in his fifties and had a weathered, castaway look. He flew the plane barefoot.

“Don’t worry. Things will straighten out,” he said.

“Does this happen often?” Ann asked.

“Yup.”

Ann was used to timing not only her lunch breaks but also her bathroom stops. The casual disregard of a schedule unnerved her. She couldn’t remember the last time she had nothing to do. In LA, everyone worked themselves to death, to exhaustion, to hysteria, for the day when the phrase “I’ll have my people call your people” was not ironic. The new status symbol in the first decade of the twenty-first century was lack of time, and the more people you employed to do the everyday mundane, the more you rose among your peers, so Ann’s clients employed not only maids and gardeners, pool men and personal assistants, nannies and au pairs and private chefs, but also hairdressers and facialists who came to their houses, along with yoga and Pilates instructors, personal wardrobe buyers, astrologists and nutritionists, pet walkers and masseuses. There were even rumors of a man who went around the Westside and adjusted all the manual clocks in one’s house to compensate for daylight savings time. Ann had neither time nor people.

Carl was a former army pilot who’d flown scores of missions in the Middle East. “Done with that life,” he said. “This is paradise. You’ll get used to it.” Still undecided, the air tower finally allowed their small plane to leave while holding back the larger Airbuses. “See, I told you things would work out. And if they didn’t, at least we got beer.”

When they landed on the deserted coral airstrip, there was no one to greet them.

“What happens now?” Ann asked.

“Your boat ride to the main resort, then on to your final destination. That place is as remote as it gets. I never thought Loren would get any business.” Carl shrugged and began checking the engine, ignoring them.

An hour later, a small motorboat trailing a black fan of smoke roared up to the dock. A tall, gaunt man, shirtless, skin turned the shade and texture of ironwood, waved his arms at them as if in long-lost greeting.

“Loren, you SOB. Where’ve you been?” Carl shouted.

“Here and there, my friend.”

“Your guests are here and now. I have to pick up a fishing charter in two hours on Mooréa, and I’m late. How about that?”

Loren jumped over the side of his boat and tumbled face-first into the water.

The pilot cracked up laughing. “Yeah, man, you’ve been here and there in a good bottle of rum.”

“Where’s their luggage?”

“They travel light.”

Loren turned to look at Richard and Ann.

She shrugged. “It’s not a crime.”

Loren swept out various debris from the boat, and hauled out a few plastic garbage sacks. He and Carl exchanged desultory local gossip in French.

“Put the sacks in Cleo’s Dumpster while I keep her busy.” Loren went inside the customs building/grocery store/petrol station/restroom.

Ann pulled Carl aside. “Is he okay?”

“It’s hard to dump trash. Can’t bury it — the ground is too waterlogged. No place for a dump on an atoll.”

“I meant his drinking.”

Carl pondered the question as if it might be valid. Tourists were their lifeblood, and locals had to stick together. Still, Loren didn’t make it easy. “Oh, he’s drunk all the time. Perfectly safe. Frankly I’d be more worried if he was sober.” He looked Ann over and liked what he saw. So would Loren. Carl still had the rigidity and squareness of being military, and he found Loren’s open debauchery distasteful. “A word to the wise — he likes the ladies. If it’s female, he’ll try to jump it.” That should set Loren up for a fun, tense little vacation.

“I can take care of myself,” Ann said.

When Loren emerged from the building, he squinted at her. She looked like a hazmat worker getting ready to defuse a bomb. “No good. You must change for the ride. Much waves and water.” He motioned with his hands, water flowing down his face and over his chest, which he pushed out in an approximation of air breasts. “Wear the hat and shirt for sun over the bathing suit. Sandals so that the coral does not cut your feet.” He gave her a tired, worn smile, his eyes distant, the same transparent blue-green as the surrounding water.

“What’s that smell?” he asked, coming close to her.

“DEET.”

“Hand me your bag,” he said.

“That’s okay.”

“Ah, one of those angry American fem-lib types.”

She carried the bag into the customs building to change, turning just in time to see Loren retch over the side of the boat.

* * *

They were supposed to go straight across the lagoon and then on to the more remote motu where their lodgings were, but Loren mumbled about difficulties getting supplies. Ann had overheard Carl mention a burned-out engine and saw money exchange hands. They were comped a night at the fancy main resort, and would meet up in the morning to continue out.

Beyond jet lag and on their way to serious collapse, Richard and Ann agreed, grateful to be stationary with the prospect of a night’s uninterrupted sleep.

Ann stood looking down at their aquarium coffee table, surveying the rocks, coral, and fish suspended in the water below as if in blue amber.

“What are we doing here?” Richard asked, not expecting even the effort of an answer. He flipped on the flat screen and searched for the Cooking Channel. “We could at least be in Paris or Nice. Eating to die for.”

“I’m sick of food.”

“Oh, that’s nice.”

When she had first met him, Richard had been wire thin and passionate about being a great chef. They would eat at restaurants, and if he approved, he would bang his hand down on the table in approval. She found his excitement sexy. Now he had what was commonly known as “chef’s slump.” A combination of too much tasting and too little time out in the sun doing things like jogging. The extra pounds gave him a ponderous, rolling gait and fallen arches.