Sandbags in the Archipelago
Travel Stories: On a remote South Pacific island, Heather Eliot meets a man and explores the fine line between fantasy and reality.
Derek and I returned to the bungalow. His stomach was upset, and thinking of the accumulating beer bottles, the fatty pork, I dispensed Tums and Tylenol. I made him drink lots of water, filling my Nalgene bottle from the spigot at the rainwater cistern. We spent the afternoon and evening drifting in and out of sleep and sex. Later, I took peanut butter, crackers, oranges, and my Swiss army knife from my rucksack, and spread out my sarong on the bed like a tablecloth. We picnicked under the mosquito net, to the sound of insects buzzing, chirping geckos, the occasional grunting pig outside. We compared tattoos. He liked the Celtic design on my leg; like the local tattoo work, it was flat, black, symmetrical. Derek had a turtle on his left breast, and his name was tattooed on his bicep in cursive. I placed my mouth over it, tracing it with my tongue, repeating his multisyllabic surname in my mind: its many vowels, its soft consonants.
“If I lived in the States, would you date me?”
The question startled me into imagining Derek in my world, in my California beach town, playing volleyball by the pier, shopping with me at the farmer’s market, at a cookout with my friends, eating guacamole. There was an unexpected fit with him that I didn’t normally experience with travel relationships. Usually I didn’t even attempt to imagine the possibility of a future beyond the immediate present. Perhaps because he was a traveler too, because he navigated with ease in and through multiple worlds. Perhaps because, with his smarts, his beauty, his sureness of himself and his sense of cool, he could have had anyone, and as I had made the choice to not stay away from boys, I felt that he had also chosen me. “Definitely,” I told him. In the dark, warm room, under the mosquito net, his fingers curled around mine, calloused and strong.
The next morning, I packed quickly for the trip to the motu. I bought bread, two pineapples, and some bananas from a woman at the market beside the wharf, and Derek purchased a basket of taro. We climbed into Simon’s motorboat, tied to the dock, and Derek took his position at the wheel. He was self-assured as he piloted the boat, even through a shallow bit, avoiding sandbars and hunks of coral reef. He told me the names of the coastal villages we passed, and pointed out a sea cave opening onto the water that was the home of a rare bird.
The motu looked like Gilligan’s Island: small, flat, with coconut trees, palmettos, and tangles of vines. The workmen waved at us from the beach as we anchored the boat and waded to shore. Derek and I put our rucksacks, the basket of taro, and bottles of rainwater under an open-sided shelter. I tied the plastic bags containing the loaves of bread and the fruit to the roof with string, to keep the ants out. Several dome tents had been pitched along the beach. Derek and I chose one and moved it away from the others, for us to sleep in. He began cutting up the taro to make a stew for the workmen.
Leaving him to his work, I took my camera and wandered along the beach. The waves crashed beyond the reef, about 50 feet out, but within the reef the pools of water were warm and shallow. Wading barefoot, holding up my sarong, I found sapphire-blue starfish, a dead purple jellyfish, avoided urchins. Triggerfish dove at my toes. I dipped my fingers into the water and sucked the saltiness from them.
Later, in the darkness of the new moon, Derek and I wandered nude from our tent into the cool shallow water just outside, lying on our bellies, supporting ourselves on our elbows. The constellations were different, disorienting me. Derek pointed out the Southern Cross, and I gained my bearings, also remembering the direction the sun had set. The lights from the main town on the island glowed to the north. The nighttime water was illuminated by phosphorescent creatures, like glitter, which sparkled when we splashed.
We returned to the tent. In a moment he was on top of me, teasing me with his mouth in the darkness, moving quickly from nipple to thigh. I giggled, enjoying the joke, the tiny unexpected nips from his lovely teeth. Was this a rugby strategy, darting across a field? Feeling the heavy dampness of the sand beneath my sarong and the tarp bottom, his hands confidently massaging my breasts, never doubting his abilities, or mine. Afterwards, I rinsed in the sea, washing the fluids from my thighs. We slept curled up together, in a world silent but for the sounds of the water lapping the shore just a few feet from the tent.
When I woke up the sun was streaming into the tent and Derek had already gone out to check on the fishing nets. I’d heard the workmen jeering at him when he’d crawled naked from the tent, teasing him as he’d scrambled into his board shorts. There was sand in my underwear, in my scalp, sticking to all my possessions. Derek returned with a report: the nets were empty. I emerged from the tent, wrapping myself in my sarong, which Derek had used as a sheet, and washed myself in the sea. I made peanut butter and banana sandwiches for myself, Derek, and the workmen, arranging them on a large fresh leaf. Derek peeled and sliced the pineapple with his bush knife. The workmen first protested that they couldn’t possibly take advantage of my generosity, as I would starve if they were to eat my food, but when I insisted that they eat, that I wouldn’t be needing the food, I was leaving that day, it would only be wasted otherwise, they marveled at the ingeniousness of the peanut butter and banana sandwiches, and seemed to enjoy them.
After breakfast, Derek rushed me into the boat, to get me back to town before the tides changed again. He anchored the boat to a dock opposite the bungalows and accompanied me up the steep pathway. I had imagined a Casablanca ending, an extraordinary conclusion to an extraordinary few days, but I didn’t get one. After a few awkward moments, Simon arrived in the SUV, and Derek “had to go.” He pulled me into the main house and kissed me, asked if I could send him some AA batteries, and then was gone. I waited in the bar with Emma for the driver to take me to the airport.
“Where’s Derek?” she asked, bringing me a beer.
I shrugged, “Gone.”
I caught the plane back to the main island, caught my plane to California. I returned to work, where people remarked on my tan. I broke things off with the current guy back home, deciding to stay away from boys after all, for the meantime at least. I sent Derek a care package with batteries, condoms, and a bottle of Aqualube, marked “religious materials” so hopefully it wouldn’t get opened in customs. I included the photos I took on the island: him kneeling in the tidepools, gathering shellfish, smiling at the camera and me. Sometimes I let myself travel into the fantasy of something more than a sandbag, something more than a quick fix, something more than dinner and a DVD. Sometimes I let myself imagine that Derek will call me from his sister’s place in Los Angeles, that I’ll drive south on the freeway to pick him up, or that he’ll appear at my apartment with his cute smile, his speargun, and his rucksack. He slipped in and out of my life like a triggerfish, gloriously beautiful and bold.
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