Return to Paradise

  Mr. Morgan

  The atolls are beautiful.… Not even the wild hurricanes … or the bitterness of a life slipped past can subtract one portion of the crystal beauty of these miraculous circles in the sea.

  When I was a boy we lived in this manner. At six each morning the church bell summoned us to prayer and wardens stood by the entrance checking our names. If a man were missing other wardens were sent running to find him, and if a man and girl were both missing we trembled until they were found, for we knew what the penalty would be if they had been together.

  After church we were allowed to go about our duties, except that wardens could summon us to jail at any time if we had broken rules. One day a week we had to work on church land making copra or we fished for pearl shell in the lagoon, turning over all we found to the pastor. We had also to keep careful records of any money we made from schooners, for of this the wardens collected one share in ten, as the Bible directs.

  At sunset the bell rang again, and we gathered for prayer. After that we could eat when we wished, but in the evening began the most troublesome of our rules. All young men and all unmarried girls had to carry lighted lanterns wherever they went. This was to help the wardens keep track of what was happening on the island, and if two lanterns were seen heading toward the bush in back of Matareva, the wardens ran there to see that no indecencies took place. Of course, some young men were smart enough to put out their lights and wait for girls, but if they were caught the wardens beat them. The girl was further humiliated next morning in church, after which both the offenders were sent to jail.

  At nine each night the church bell rang again and everyone had to be indoors. Sometimes it was very beautiful at that hour. The moon would shine down upon the lagoon and through the village of Matareva pale lights would move mysteriously from house to house. Those were the wardens, checking up to see that all families were behaving themselves properly. The wardens had a right to enter any house at any time for an accounting of what each person inside had been doing for the past day, but on week nights the wardens did not abuse this privilege, unless one of them became attracted to some girl, and then he would break into her house almost every night, whether she wished him to or not. It was useless to protest, for the pastor knew that his control of Matareva depended upon the absolute loyalty of his wardens, whom he excused of even the most brutal behavior.

  On Saturday nights the wardens became especially active, for no frivolity was allowed from then until Monday at daybreak. No husband must sleep with his wife. There must be no kissing, no singing, no reading of books. The rules were strictly observed in most homes because on these nights the wardens gave no warning. There was a rush at the door, a clatter of clubs and people moaning from cracked heads.

  On Sunday we prayed three times and had a procession led by the wardens. We marched from the lagoon to the church and stood at solemn attention while the pastor, in a black suit, walked slowly from his house to the church. Then we entered behind him. This took place only at the eleven-o’clock service, but even if it was pouring rain we marched as usual, the wardens with umbrellas, the pastor under a canopy held by four boys.

  One Sunday, at the end of an unprecedented spell when fish deserted our lagoon, a school of tunny dashed in through the channel, driven by sharks. They arrived just as the procession started and fishermen who had been without food for days looked passionately at the leaping fish, but wardens dashed up and down striking the men with clubs to keep them from breaking line. On Monday the tunny were gone.

  Our law, our parliament, our judge and our business dictator were all one man: the pastor. His name was Thomas Cobbett and he came from some unidentified rural village, perhaps in New Zealand or Northern England. In appearance he was ordinary, a small man with watery blue eyes. Actually he was an inspired prophet right from the latter pages of the Old Testament with a penetrating voice and a sure faith that God personally guided him in the government of our atoll. He appeared always in a black suit and, when surrounded by his burly wardens, was a terrifying symbol of God’s wrath in Matareva.

  Often we puzzled why the Government permitted him to usurp its powers, but many years later an official explained that there had been so much clamor about Christianizing the islands that it was decided to leave one forgotten atoll exclusively to missionaries so as to test what they could accomplish.

  Pastor Cobbett accomplished miracles. Even today many people will say there was never a finer island than Matareva in the old days. We were forced to bathe each afternoon. We had to kill the land crabs that burrowed in our gardens, buy screens for our kitchens and nail tin around our coconut trees to keep rats from eating the young nuts. We had to burn coral to make lime for painting our houses, and our walks had to be lined with white shells. Every woman worked one day a week at the church, so that the gardens there were the most beautiful in the Pacific.

  The pastor was equally relentless regarding our spiritual lives. The old music, which everyone knows to have been lascivious, was forbidden and replaced by church hymns. Dancing was completely taboo and wardens could arrest anyone who dared to start the lewd old hulas. Everyone had to get married, widows must not talk with men except in the presence of other women and the number of illegitimate babies—a phrase never used on our island before Pastor Cobbett’s time—was much reduced. There were some, of course, for in the old days girls had babies before they were married as proof that they would make good wives, but Pastor Cobbett raved against the practice and the penalties were brutally severe except when the father proved to be a warden. If the warden was unmarried, he had to marry the girl right away. If he already had a wife, he was reprimanded in private and the girl was publicly humiliated before the entire village on Sunday morning. She had to march from the rear of the big church up to the altar, fall upon the floor, put a black cloth over her head and walk back past all of us. It was always surprising to me that any girl would have the courage to risk such public shame, but many did and it was found that old women of the village supported them in their behavior, but as the old women died off, the girls found no consolation and some of them committed suicide, a thing never before heard of in our village.

  Did no one revolt against this tyranny? As I said, some old women tried, because not even the wardens were cowardly enough to beat an old woman. Nor was the pastor able to quell them, for when he preached against them they stared back with implacable hatred. He solved the impasse by having his wardens spy on the family of the offending woman until a son or husband was detected breaking some trivial rule. Then the old women learned that no one could get the better of Pastor Cobbett. Once a man tried, but he was thrashed so often and spent so much time in jail that he fled to Tongareva, but his canoe was fragile. It capsized and he was eaten by sharks. After that Pastor Cobbett ruled our lives inflexibly.

  But in 1919 a small schooner from Suva put into our lagoon and landed a man who was to revolutionize Matareva. He was a tall thin man with stooped shoulders and a dark complexion. He wore a dirty shirt, unbuttoned, and white cotton pants that seemed always about to slip off his hips. He had no shoes, a battered hat, a small suitcase. He stood on the wharf and stared at our village. Then he hitched up his pants with his wrists and said, “Just what I expected. I’ll stop here.”

  The pastor hurried up and said, “There are no houses.”

  “I’ll build one,” the stranger replied.

  “We have no materials. None.”

  “Those leaf huts look OK to me,” the man said.

  The pastor grew red in the face and said bluntly, “We don’t want white men on this island.”

  So the stranger dropped his suitcase, planted his hands on his hips and growled, “You sound like a sergeant.”

  The pastor shouted for his wardens, who ran up with clubs, but the barefooted stranger sidestepped them, searching for some weapon of his own. An old woman kicked him a board, and with it he fairly flew at the astonished wardens, who were accustomed to punishing men afraid to s
trike back.

  The stranger fought with such fury as we had not seen before, and soon the fat bullies retreated with bad bruises, leaving the amazed pastor alone by the wharf. The visitor walked up to him and said, “The name’s Morgan. I’ll build my house over here.”

  That night he stayed with my father, and at great risk to themselves, four men of the village crept into our house after midnight. “Morgan Tane,” they whispered, “that was a good fight you did!”

  “We were proud to see the wardens run,” another whispered.

  “Morgan Tane,” said the spokesman, “you were brave to challenge the pastor. No one has ever been so brave before.” There was a long silence and then the spokesman said in a hushed voice, “We have been waiting for a man like you. Will you help us to fight against the wardens?”

  The stranger answered promptly. “Me? I didn’t come down here to fight. I had enough of that.”

  “But Morgan Tane,” the spokesman whispered, “here you will find no peace. The wardens will never let you spend one night in peace.”

  The stranger lit a cigarette, puffed on it several times and said, “Then I’ll have to do something about it.”

  “Good!” the men cried. “We’ll have a great rebellion.”

  “You don’t understand,” Mr. Morgan corrected them. “I’m not interested in trouble. I’m not going to be your leader. I’m not going to fight the wardens. I came down here for rest and quiet.”

  “But if the wardens …”

  “It looks to me as if each man has got to handle them his own way. I’m going to bed.”

  He started building his house next day, and by Sunday he was completely involved in our struggle against the pastor, for as we prepared for the customary procession, it was noticed with hushed surprise that Mr. Morgan, bare to the waist, was hammering on his roof-tree. Two wardens were sent to haul him into church, but they retreated in dismay when he produced a shotgun and said, “This thing is loaded.”

  They rushed off to report the crisis to the pastor, who came out into the road and studied the infidel from a safe distance. Then he wiped his face and waited for the congregation to reach the church. When the procession passed the uncompleted house, Mr. Morgan stopped his hammering and sat cross-legged on a barrel, weaving pandanus during the service. After the closing hymn he went back to the roof-tree.

  Pastor Cobbett knew that if he let this insult go unpunished, his hold upon Matareva was doomed, so when church was over he gathered his wardens and strode to the place where the white man was working.

  “Mr. Morgan!” the pastor cried in his sepulchral voice. “Do you intend to desecrate the Sabbath?”

  “Go away!” Mr. Morgan growled.

  “You have spoken,” Pastor Cobbett cried in terrible tones. “Now God shall destroy this sacrilege.”

  The pastor stepped up to the nearest pole and began to shake it as Samson shook the pillars of the temple. “Don’t be a damned fool,” Mr. Morgan called down from the roof-tree.

  “Come! Wardens! Everybody! Pull down the house of evil.” The wardens, who knew of the shotgun, refused, but there were many natives who believed that Cobbett’s voice was the voice of God, and these sprang into action, pulling down one of the posts so that a corner of the new house collapsed, tossing Mr. Morgan into the dust.

  There was a moment of fateful silence as he slowly picked himself up, brushed off his pants and stood with his feet apart in the dust, studying the pastor. Finally he asked, “Reverend, are you crazy?”

  “God has spoken,” the missionary cried in his Old-Testament voice. “Men, destroy the blasphemy!”

  The hypnotized natives rushed to the remaining poles and ripped them from the ground. Mr. Morgan remained with his head cocked to one side, staring with amazement at the impassioned scene. Still he did nothing and Pastor Cobbett exulted in victory, crying, “The devil in our midst has been cast out.”

  That was enough. Mr. Morgan looked at the pastor with disgust and said, “They shouldn’t of let you out of the booby hatch.” He rummaged among the ruins of his house and then walked doggedly to a spot some thirty feet away. There he raised his shotgun and with six cold, deliberate blasts destroyed each of the stained-glass windows in the church. They had been the glory of Matareva, and as they crashed an anguished sob arose from the watchers.

  Pastor Cobbett stood like a man who has seen death striding across the motus. When he finally found strength to speak, a last fragment of window fell into the dust. He threw his hands over his face and gave an animal-like wail: “Sodom and Gomorrah have come! Surely God will strike this island with pestilence and evil.” So powerful was his cry that true believers started to quake as if the day of judgment were at hand.

  Mr. Morgan stalked back through the trembling crowd and hitched up his dirty pants. “Pastor,” he said firmly, “if you want to hold prayer meeting, do it on your own land. Get off mine.” He flourished the empty gun and the fearful natives drew back in horror as if he were truly cursed. Pastor Cobbett, still staring at the mutilated windows, made incoherent sounds and licked his parched lips.

  “All right,” Mr. Morgan said. “Who’s going to help put these poles back in place?” No one moved. “Well, come on! You knocked them down.”

  Pastor Cobbett shrieked, “If anyone dares aid the infidel, God will strike him dead!”

  “Please!” Mr. Morgan cried. “Shut up! Now you, Teofilo. Grab the pole.” There was a deep silence. Many men must have wanted to aid the stranger, but they knew that when he left Matareva, Pastor Cobbett and the wardens would remain behind. No one would help.

  “God be praised!” the pastor exulted.

  Then a most memorable thing happened. In Matareva there was a girl named Maeva. Even on our island of beautiful girls she was handsome. She had very long hair that was envied by our women, strong arms and good teeth, but although she was already past twenty no man had married her because Pastor Cobbett said she was cursed of the devil because she refused to carry a lighted lantern at night.

  Now she left the huddled crowd and crossed to where Mr. Morgan was waiting. “I will help you,” she said.

  “Wardens!” shouted the pastor. “Take that evil girl!”

  “Reverend,” the stranger said patiently. “For the last time, go home.”

  “Wardens! Wardens! Seize her!”

  Mr. Morgan waved the empty shotgun at the crowd and said, “If you don’t want to work, get out!”

  Slowly the wardens withdrew. Now Pastor Cobbett stood alone, facing Mr. Morgan and the girl. “Maeva!” he cried in an ashen voice, both commanding and pleading. “Your soul will rest in hell.”

  Mr. Morgan turned his back on the lonely, apocalyptic figure and said to the girl, “You? What’s your name?”

  “Maeva,” she said.

  “That’s an odd name. Bring me the hammer.”

  That night in my father’s kitchen a group of Matareva men assembled secretly. They said, “The wardens are afraid of this man. Even the pastor can do nothing. It’s time for us to drive our persecutors from the island.”

  My father said, “It would be fatal to start a rebellion that didn’t succeed.”

  “With Mr. Morgan it will have to succeed,” another whispered.

  A warden came to the door and the men hid under the porch. “Everybody here?” the warden asked.

  “Yes,” my father replied. Then he crept across the yard where my mother plants the crotons and hibiscus and in a few minutes he was back with Mr. Morgan.

  “Morgan Tane,” our oldest man said, “you are at war with the pastor. Good! May we join you?”

  “Look, old man!” Mr. Morgan replied. “I’m at war with nobody. Now don’t bother me any more.”

  He left us, but on Saturday he discovered that he had been wrong. He was at war. It began this way. Maeva, who had been working with Mr. Morgan, had slept each night at her brother’s, but on Friday the wardens waited for her and had beaten her severely.

  Next morning she limped
up to the new house and sat upon the porch, her nose dripping blood. Some old women who hated the pastor gathered in bitter groups along the road. No one spoke. A warden went past and took the names of all who were watching.

  Mr. Morgan rose late that day, for he had been working hard all week. The old women saw him stretch, sluice his head with a bucket of cold water and look at his tongue in the mirror. Then he came onto the front porch.

  He looked with cold fury at Maeva’s handsome face, all smeared with blood. Next he looked at the crowd of old women. It was a long time before he did anything. Then he fetched a basin of water and there on the front porch fixed Maeva’s nose. It had been broken. After that he took her inside.

  All that day there was whispered bitterness across Matareva. Word passed that any plans for rebellion must be stopped, for again the wardens had triumphed. It was said that what had happened to Maeva had finally convinced Mr. Morgan that resistance was useless.

  On Saturday night, therefore, the wardens raided my father’s home with new brutality and beat him for some minutes, adding, “We know you were talking with the white man. We know everything.”

  On Sunday we gathered as usual at the lagoon and lined up as the wardens directed. The bell rang strangely through the shattered windows and our procession started toward the imposing door.

  At this moment Mr. Morgan appeared barefooted on the porch of his new house. Behind him stood the girl Maeva, her face bandaged. With long, careless steps, his toes kicking dust, the stranger walked along the dusty road and right up to the line of wardens. “Which one of them was it, Maeva?”

  The handsome girl, her hair down to her waist, stepped from behind Mr. Morgan and pointed fearlessly at one of the worst wardens. “That one,” she said.