Cinderella at Puka-Puka

I

IT was a fine night with plenty of moon to brighten the wide outer beach by Windward Village. Beni, one of the unemployed of Puka-Puka since the trading station was closed, sat with me on a mat under the pandanus trees. We smoked and stared abstractedly across the narrow stretch of water to where the old Pacific hemmed and hawed and scratched her chest on the coral barrier. A hundred or more of our neighbors were grouped about us, and on the beach they mottled the sand with shadowy patches. Above the rumble of the surf we could hear the shrill cries of children surf-boarding across the reef. It was one of those nights that compensate for the loneliness of remote atolls — atolls lonelier than ever now, for during the past years trading vessels, one by one, have abandoned them.

‘ Times have changed,’ Beni said presently. ‘ We used to trade eight coconuts for a stick of tobacco, and there was free home-brew in the trading station.’

‘Yes,’ I muttered, ‘but why speak about it? . . . There’s Jupiter rising above the sea; the Magellan Clouds low to the southwest. What was that story you told me about the Magellan Clouds?’

‘The last trader paid us only five dollars a ton for our copra, and now we can’t sell it at any price,’ Beni went on, ignoring my question. ‘The old men’s pipes are cold. Even William is giving up trying to smoke coconut husk. He’ll be cadging tobacco from you again to-morrow.’

‘And I’ll give him some. But come, Beni, we must rehearse. The people are waiting for us. There’s Cinderella, as pretty as a picture, flirting with the Prince. She should n’t do that until the fourth act.’

‘They can wait,’ Beni mumbled. ‘You remember when Captain Viggo used to come three times a year, and copra was sixty dollars a ton? Ah, Ropati, your station was full of lollies and talcum powder and squeaking shoes in those days. And when we had the May Day festivals the people would run whooping into the churchyard with presents of boxes of matches and pennies for the dancers. This year they’ll be giving coconuts.’ He spoke this last in a tone of disgust.

I tapped the ashes out of my pipe, turned to Beni, and spoke sharply. ‘If you are going to rehearse you’ll have to do it now,’ I said. ‘I did n’t come out here to listen to you growl about the copra market.’

My ex-storeboy rose with a grunt of resignation and stepped into the moonlight. ‘Then I shall pray,’ he said to me. ‘Afterward you can tell us the story.’

When the people of Windward Village had gathered round him, Beni led them in a lengthy prayer, while I lay back to recall imperfectly the story of Cinderella and decide what kind of version would be acceptable to my neighbors. In a few days we were to have the annual May Day festival; and this year each of the three villages had decided to give a secular play as well as the usual Biblical one. There were rumors that an Aitutaki man at Leeward Village had made a great red dragon that would snap its biscuit-tin jaws and roll its coconut eyes, and that a wonderful story had been built around this monster. We all knew that Central Village was rehearsing a mummery about Big Stomach, the ancient superman. I had promised to teach Windward Village ‘Cinderella.’

I told them the story when Beni had finished his prayer. They grasped the spirit as well as the details of it immediately, but some of the old and experienced men thought it might be improved. Then the Village Fathers held council and the cast was chosen:

Dancers, musicians, gravediggers, courtroom audience, soldiers in the Prince’s Army, policemen, a judge, sailors on the American Millionaire’s yacht, etc.

I could not see how some of these characters fitted into the story of Cinderella; but I said nothing, for I have lived here, off and on, for many years, and I am aware that the good people have their own way of interpreting things.

II

I refilled my pipe and, after lighting it, lay back on the mat. It was comfortable on the outer beach that night, for there were no mosquitoes, and the wind, freshened by its long passage over the sea, caressed me with cool and delectable fingers. I felt physically and mentally well, satisfied, unconcerned whether or not a vessel ever touched at Puka-Puka again. We had been told that copra was not worth buying, that a trader would lose money accepting it as a gift, and that no more vessels would come to Puka-Puka save an occasional man-o’-war to ascertain that one of the island possessions had not shifted its latitude and longitude. Then the trading station was closed and we were told politely to go to the devil — or revert to savagery, which we are doing with amazing ease and rapidity.

‘It took a long time to daub a thin coat of civilization on the South Sea islanders,’ I thought, staring at the curious shadows moving among the angular limbs of the pandanus trees. ‘It took hundreds of years to develop a semblance of what we call civilization; but in five years the people will return to as primitive a state as existed in the days before Captain Cook. And I shall watch them discard the last of their civilized manners as the last of the old calico gowns and denim trousers are replaced by grass skirts and loin cloths! It will be a salutary change, interesting to observe.’

‘For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,’ Beni intoned the burial service solemnly. Shifting my position, I could see him standing over Bosun-woman, who was lying prostrate upon the sand. Mourners crouched around the woman, wailing and giggling; a few gravediggers stood nonchalantly at one side.

‘What are you doing, Beni?’ I called. ‘There is no burial in “Cinderella.” ’

‘Hush, Ropati, I am about to pray,’ Beni informed me.

‘What, again? There is no prayer in “Cinderella.”’

Beni’s tone became petulant. ‘We are burying Cinderella’s mother,’ he said. ‘You did not tell us the beginning of the story, but we guessed it. We have had the birth scene, and we have decided that Cinderella’s mother would have to die before her father could marry the widow-woman with two daughters. Of course there might be a divorce, but that would make two court scenes.’

‘No, no, Beni!’ I broke in. ‘She died. Go ahead, I won’t interrupt again.’

Beni was praying fervently when I rolled over and again lit my pipe. Presently I heard someone cry: ‘Now the American Millionaire comes in his yacht with his valet and Cinderella! He sees a fine widow-woman with two daughters! Whoop! They’re going to get married! Where’s Beni? Marry them, Beni!’

‘Their heads have been full of American millionaires ever since the Zaca lay off the reef and the San Francisco banker came ashore,’ I reflected. ‘It was the first yacht they ever saw.’

I heard Beni marry the American Millionaire to the widow-woman with two daughters; but from then on, for a long time, I paid little attention to the rehearsal. My mind wandered into the treasure chests of memory. ‘How unreal the gems are!’ I thought as I recalled my wanderings far away from Puka-Puka. ‘There was the rough passage to San Francisco in the Togua, my first European meal in ten years, an aeroplane ride, a radio concert, the maddening white men who asked me where I would be “to-morrow afternoon at two o’clock.” As though I should know where I should be at any given time! They could not understand a person who chained himself to no itinerary. And I could not understand them. During that short trip to San Francisco I realized that I had lost touch with civilization forever; that I had nothing in common with the people of my own race. “But you must know where you will be to-morrow afternoon at two o’clock,” they would insist; and I would reply: “I am walking up the street now. I may turn to the right and I may turn to the left — it depends upon my mood when I come to the crossroads.”

‘“Are you not traveling toward some destination?”

“‘No; I have no destination in mind. I have lived in Puka-Puka so long that my acts are governed by feeling, not by reason.”

“‘What a futile life!”

“‘Perhaps; but I do not feel that it is futile and I do not court regret by reasoning about it; and there is at least the element of surprise which is lacking in orderly existence. Why make a task rather than a pleasure of life? If, in strolling through life, your ultimate goal and all the way stations thereto are anticipated, you will derive as little pleasure from the realization of your expectations as a cinema actor derives from watching the projection of a film in which he has played. We easy-going islanders live in a continual state of mild surprise. Not expecting anything to happen, we are pleasantly surprised to find that things happen in spite of our improvidence.”

“‘You can’t make money that way,” people told me; and I replied that I did not want to make money. From then on they avoided me. Lonelier than ever I had been on remote PukaPuka, I turned toward that island; but I waited six years before the chance came to ship in a tiny yawl, and finally to be landed among my people. And when Beni and William carried me over the reef in their canoe it came to me strongly that I had never left Puka-Puka; all those years of pointless wandering receded into the misty past; I had just been out to Captain Viggo’s schooner for an hour’s visit, and now I was returning to the trading station where Mama had my tea ready and old Bones was waiting to trade a score of coconuts for a mouth organ. But I had not been ashore long before I realized that economic troubles in an astronomically remote world had affected Puka-Puka life. The old men’s pipes were cold. There were other changes, too — all for the good, I thought, in my perverse way.’

III

‘Right, left! Right, left! Halt! Vuni, twoi! ’ George the Prince shouted, breaking into my reminiscences. The column of soldiers came to a halt before Cinderella’s house, the drums were silenced.

George shifted his weight from his right to his left foot, scratched his head and roared: ’Where is the American Millionaire?’

Cinderella’s father appeared, accompanied by his valet. Both of them shook hands with the Prince and exchanged a few commonplaces about the fishing and the taro crop.

‘How are things in the palace?’ the father asked.

‘Not too bad,’ the Prince replied. ‘How is everything with you?’

‘So-so,’ said the father.

‘So-so,’ echoed the valet.

Then the American Millionaire asked the Prince what business had brought him that way.

‘There will be a great dance in my palace to-night,’ George informed Mr. Scratch, ‘and I have come with my army and my musicians to invite you and your valet and your wife and your daughters. I am going to marry the girl who loses her silver slipper at midnight to-night.’

‘Wait a minute!’ I shouted; but no one paid any attention, for just then the drums boomed, and George bellowed: ‘Forward, march! Vuni, twoi! Right turn! Vuni, twoi! Left turn! Vuni, twoi!’

The army marched down the beach, turned to the right, turned to the left, and then got terribly mixed up trying to do a flank movement, whereupon everybody laughed and decided that it would be fun to rehearse the scene again — only this time they would have more marching, and perhaps a little mock battle in which all the warriors of the other villages are killed.

IV

Presently the moon looked straight down on us, shining tranquilly over the waste of golden sand, the foamstippled shallows. The moonlight glinted on the sleek pandanus leaves; it glowed on the naked backs of the actors, and revealed among the shadows of the shore brush groups of children squatting as silently as tropicbird fledglings. Behind me the polished coconut fronds were crystallized into motionless jade; then, with a breath of wind, they moved gently, the pandanus leaves clattered with a metallic sound, a low mutter came from the outer reef.

‘Damn the coconut husk!’ I heard from somewhere among the trees. ‘I’d trade my old woman for a smoke of niggerhead!’

I did not turn, for I do not believe in indulging godless old William with too much attention. He is conceited enough as it is. It was not long before he had hobbled on to the mat and slumped down beside me.

‘Son of a gun! The devil!’ he growled in English; then, changing to PukaPukan: ‘Well, I must have a smoke, that’s all there is to it.’ He started filling his greasy old pipe with coconut husk, grumbling as he did so: ‘Times are hard when old whaler-men have to smoke this stuff.’ He fumbled for a long time among his ragged clothes before he produced a box of matches; then he extracted one, held it an inch or two from the box as though about to strike it, and, turning his beady little eyes toward me, gave me a glance so pregnant with meaning that it was all but audible.

‘Yes, William,’ I said flippantly. ‘I intended to give you some tobacco, but I wanted you to enjoy it doubly by having first the pleasure of anticipation.’ With that I gave him my tin. He unloaded his pipe with a sputter of profanity, remarking to the effect that he wanted tobacco, not anticipation; then he filled it from my tin and smoked with noisy satisfaction.

‘I was just thinking, William,’ I stated, ‘that we Puka-Pukans are governed by feeling, not reason. Our futures are no more planned than was the battle scene in “Cinderella.” This is well and good, for though there is pleasure in anticipating an event, there is also a good deal of grief in disappointment. You enjoyed planning how you would cadge a smoke from me; but think of your grief and disgust had I let you smoke the coconut husk!’

‘I knew I’d get the tobacco,’ William growled; but I ignored him. Grief in disappointment brought me back to the present-day world’s grief and its influence upon native life. I said, with a gesture meant to take in the whole of Puka-Puka: —

‘There are changes, William. Grass skirts and loin cloths are taking the place of calico and denim. After striking their last matches, the old men have started rubbing their fire-logs. Old Bones is teaching the younger generation to fashion fishhooks from mother-of-pearl and tortoise shell; and as the old cotton fishlines break, new ones are rolled out from rongaa bark — better ones, too. Now the coconut-oil lamp flickers beside the empty kerosene one; and because the missionaries made clothes the’ — I laid stress on the article—‘principal tenet of their religion, our neighbors will discard Christianity as they discard their Christian clothes.’

‘That’ll be fine!‘ William the Heathen broke in.

‘Don’t interrupt me, William. . . . They will call themselves Christians for many years to come; but Jesus and Jehovah will soon be obscured in a fog of heresy; one by one the old gods will return; and if, a century from now, the copra market improves and it is decided to rechristianize the South Seas, the new army of missionaries will find the natives as heathen as in the days when their brethren first brought the Word to distant islands. And all this, William, is because the price of copra has fallen!’

‘ You’re pretty long-winded to-night, Ropati. What you mean is that so long as we have tobacco we’ll have Christianity. Well, I can stand the Church . . . but coconut husk—bah!’ The last few words came in a sputtering sound similar to what I had heard a moment before when he blew through his empty pipe.

‘How true that coconut oil civilized the South Seas! ’ I went on. ‘ Save for a very few missionaries and adventurers, foreigners would have left the islands alone had they not needed more oil for soap-making and margarin. And now that they need no more oil, they are leaving the natives to shift for themselves. All their pretended altruism is being shown for what it is worth. I believe that within a few years illiteracy, idolatry, and even cannibalism will appear again in the outlying islands; and, unless it becomes profitable to suppress these evils, the outside world will ignore them, or, at most, change their politics to a sanctimonious laissez faire.‘

‘They are having the court scene,’ William said, changing the subject.

‘The what?’

‘The court scene! Wha’s a matta? Chief of Police Ura is fining them for dancing after curfew at the Prince’s ball.’

‘Oh, I see! They’ve dovetailed a court scene into “Cinderella.” I wonder why they don’t leave Cinderella out of it altogether, and call the play “Life at Puka-Puka”?’

‘That’s a good idea!’ William exclaimed. ’That Cinderella story was about the foolishest one I ever heard. It’s lucky the Puka-Pukans had enough sense to add the death and the burial and the millionaire’s yacht and all the other little details.‘

‘There are no Cinderellas at PukaPuka,’ I said musingly, suddenly aware that the world’s greatest fairy tale could not be appreciated by these people.

‘Hell and Satan! Of course not! All the girls here get their share of the coconuts and the taro whether they have stepmothers or not; and if a girl does n’t like her relations she does n’t have to live with them; and if she’s a good-looker she gets a good man without losing a silver slipper or telling tales to a fat fairy godmother. I’ll just fill my pipe again and go over to the Village Fathers. I want to advise them to leave Cinderella out of the story.’

V

I must have dozed, or, Puka-Pukafashion, just been oblivious of the passage of time, for when I rose to return to my wattle-and-thatch house on the lagoon beach the moon lay low over the pandanus trees, and the outer beach was limned with shadow pictures that stretched nearly to the shallows. The reef thundered with the incoming tide. I started to sing — a habit I indulge in only when alone: —

‘Nonsense!’

The word was snapped testily from the dense foliage above me.

’Why, William, I thought you had gone home!’

’I sleep here nowadays, and I don’t like to be bothered by lubbers who sing out of tune,’ my old friend grumbled from the darkness. ‘I got a hammock. No mosquitoes here. The rest of the people will start sleeping on the outer beach when their mosquito nets rot away.’

‘Hm, yes — back to the old customs, eh?’

A great sea thundered along the reef. I turned to watch the foaming water sweep across the shallows; then I raised my eyes a little to stare across the sea. How empty and lonely it seemed!

Presently I asked William if the Village Fathers had decided to leave Cinderella out of the play.

‘No, he muttered; ‘they are going to make her the Prince’s sister, and she is going to marry the American Millionaire, who will start a trading station at Puka-Puka.’

Bidding William good-night, I turned down the trail to the lagoon beach and trod the glistening sand to my house. It was very silent and lonely in the little wattle-and-thatch home, so I lighted the lamp and, drawing a steamer chair to the table, sat down to read.

It seemed that only a moment later I glanced up to find the lagoon, like a nether sky, bright with the reflections of the clouds, and old William standing at the doorway, bidding me good-morning as he fingered his cold and empty pipe.