Chapter 49 forty nine

I was staying at the Flower Hotel, and the hostess of the hotel, Mrs. Johnson, told me a sad story of how she had missed a great opportunity.After Strickland's death some of his belongings were auctioned in the Papeete market.She made the trip herself because one of the items at the auction was an American-style kerosene stove she needed.She bought the stove for twenty-seven francs. There are a dozen pictures, she told me, but none of them are framed, and no one wants them.A few were sold for ten francs, but most were only five or six francs apiece.Come to think of it, if I bought them, I'd be rich by now.

But Tiare.Johnson never got rich under any circumstances; she had no savings at all.She is the daughter of a white captain who settled in Tahiti and a native woman.She was fifty years old when I met her, but she looked older than her years.She was large, strong, and fat; and her appearance would have been very dignified were it not for a benevolent face that could only express an expression of kindness and kindness.Her arms were like two thick mutton legs, her breasts were like two big cabbages, and her fat face was full of fat, giving people a naked and ugly feeling.Beneath the face were chins (I can't say how many chins she had) that drooped all the way to her fat breasts.Usually she wears a loose pink blouse and a big straw hat, but when she let her hair down (which she always does because she is so proud of her hair), you will I saw that she had long, dark, curly hair; besides, her eyes were very young and sparkling.Her laugh was the most contagious I've ever heard; it started out as a low chuckle in the throat and grew louder until the whole of her fat body was trembling and quivering .Her favorites are three things jokes, booze and pretty men.It was an honor to have met her.

She is the best chef on the island and has a deep love for good food.You can see her sitting in a low chair in the kitchen at any time from morning till night, surrounded by a Chinese cook and two or three local maids; , and take time to taste the mouth-watering delicacy she designed and cooked.If there is a tribute to a friend, she cooks herself.Hospitality was in her nature; as long as there was food to eat at the Flower Hotel, no one on the island would need to go hungry.She never evicted tenants for not paying their bills.Once, a person living in her hotel was in a bad situation, and she even provided him with board and lodging for several months without receiving a cent.In the end, the Chinese who ran the laundry stopped doing laundry for the man because he couldn't afford the money, so she mixed the tenant's clothes with her own and sent them to the laundry.She said she could not see the poor man in his dirty shirt, and besides, since he was a man, and a man must smoke, she gave the man a franc a day just to buy cigarettes for him.She was as obliging and kind to this man as she was to those customers who paid their bills once a week.

Age and weight had made her incapable of romance herself; but she was greatly interested in the affairs of young people.She believed that the sensual side of things was human nature, both men and women, and she always gave precepts and examples from her own rich experience. When I was not yet fifteen, my father found out that I had a lover, she said, who was the third officer on the Tropical Bird.A handsome young man. She sighed.It is said that a woman never forgets her first lover; but perhaps she does not always remember her first lover. My father is a sensible man. What did he do to you?I asked.

He nearly beat me to death, and afterwards he married me to Captain Johnson.I don't care.Captain Johnson was much older, of course, but he was handsome, too. Tiare, a fragrant white flower, was the name her father gave her.People here say that as long as you smell this flower, no matter how far you travel, you will eventually be attracted back to Tahiti. Tiare remembers Strickland very well. He comes here sometimes, and I often see him walking up and down Papeete.I pity him, he's so skinny, and his pockets are always empty.As soon as I heard that he was in town, I sent a waiter to fetch him, and come and eat with me.I got him a job once or twice, but he didn't do anything long.After a while, he wanted to go back to the wild forest again, so one morning, he disappeared.

Strickland arrived in Tahiti about six months after leaving Marseilles.He was working on a sailboat sailing from Oakland to San Francisco and got a berth.When he arrived in Tahiti, all he took with him was a box of oil paints, an easel and a dozen canvases.He had a few pounds in his pocket, which he had earned working in Sydney.He rented a small house with an aborigine outside the city.I guess he felt like coming home when he arrived in Tahiti.Tiare told me that Strickland once said to her something like this: I was scrubbing the deck when suddenly someone said to me: Look, isn't that it?I looked up and saw the outline of the island.I knew right away this was the place I had been looking for my whole life.Later our ship got closer and closer, and I felt as if I remembered this place.Sometimes when I walk around here, the things I see seem familiar.I could swear I've been here in the past.

Sometimes this place attracts people in this way, Tiare said. I have heard that some people come ashore when their ships are loaded, and they are going to stay for a few hours, but never leave this place again. out of place.I also heard that some people came here and planned to work for a company for a year. They cursed this place, and when they left, they swore that they would hang themselves before returning.But half a year later you see them on this land again; and they'll tell you they couldn't live anywhere else.