The Point of Vanishing - Maryka Biaggio (large ebook reader TXT) 📗

our proposal, and we’ve elected payment in the form of second-class passage to Tahiti.

Barbara has given me the excuse I needed to continue this journey. I hated to think of stealing her away from that which gives her some small joy. Travel has become a salve to her, and I confess she awakens in me a yearning to abandon myself, as she has done, to lax insensibility. But one of us must navigate the real world. We’ve had no money from Wilson since his last Knopf cheque last summer. I’m told Tahiti is likely to offer better prospects for work, so that’s another reason to continue journeying. And perhaps it will give Wilson more time to contemplate his foolishness.

He had the effrontery to write my mother, whom he “still considers family,” and apologize for MY conduct. The shameful irony of this escapes him. Of course, it upset her terribly when she was already overwrought by Wilson’s recklessness. The man has no moral compass.

I recently had a letter from Gordon, who tells me Wilson and Margaret have started novels. He was supposed to be looking for work. Instead, he’s devoting his time to an exercise that may not pay, or, if it does, not for a good long time. The most unsettling part of it is the reach of his betrayal. I was supposed to be his writing companion. We’d planned a book on home education, as well as more books in our Modern Novelists series. And now he’s living our dream with somebody else. It cuts me as deeply as any of the cruelties he’s heaped on us.

As if this and his neglect of our finances weren’t enough, he hasn’t written to Barbara, though he promised he would. She clings to the hope that he’ll return to our family, and I can’t bear to discourage her. He’s everything to her.

I’m truly at my wit’s end. Something in my universe has cracked. In a stroke, Wilson has thrown our lives into complete disarray. I have no choice but to trudge on and hope for better days, though I confess it’s difficult at times to summon the fortitude.

I’ve sent my first article on Barbara’s education—typed and scribbled over three times before being set to final draft—to Pictorial Review. Now I wait and sweat blood, hoping they’ll find it satisfactory and pay me promptly.

I can’t say that I’ll be sorry to leave these islands. They’re so low educationally as to offer no opportunities. The French islands are filthy, much worse than the British ones, with sewage running openly in the streets and a horrible stench in the air. And the mosquitos are oppressive. Barbara takes all this in stride, impossible romantic that she is. But I long for the bracing air of the open seas. I pray Tahiti will bring a break in our luck.

Although I’ve decided to journey on, one great sorrow burdens me—Sabra. I miss her terribly, and I’ve come up with a proposal for you to consider. Would you bring Sabra to Tahiti and stay on with us? It’d be lovely having a dear friend with me, and I’d so enjoy sharing the adventure with you. Barbara needs another adult around, and you’d be a steadying influence. Of course, it’s a long journey, but I’ve discovered ways of living quite economically, and perhaps Oxford and the boys can spare you for a season. Please don’t dismiss the idea without deliberation. It’d be a great comfort to have you with me.

Once we leave here, we’ll be at sea for four weeks, outside of a stop in Panama City. I understand the mail moves slowly between the States and Tahiti. So please write soon and send off to general delivery in Papeete so that I’ll find one of your bolstering letters waiting for me.

With much love,

Helen

CHAPTER TWENTY

BARBARA TURNING FIFTEEN

Tahiti, January–March 1929

As their ship approached Papeete, Barbara stood wide-eyed on deck, painting the scene in words. She’d write her father about how, from first glimpse to landing, Tahiti enchanted: its jagged emerald peaks reaching for the clouds; the town’s modest buildings nestling into pillowy hills; and flowers of yellow, red, and purple dotting the rolling landscape.

Barbara and her mother rented a bamboo cottage on concrete blocks, with a rusty iron bed, rickety table, and honest-to-goodness screened-off shower. Rustling palms surrounded their one-room home, and they were so close to the ocean’s edge she could hear the lapping of its waves. How could she resist, before she’d even finished unpacking, plunging into the sea?

Five days after arriving, her mother landed a job transcribing the legends and vocabulary of an etymologist researcher. The next morning Barbara woke to her mother clattering at the typewriter, bent over stacks of papers and index cards.

“You must help, Bar. It’ll take months to get this done, and we need to get paid.”

“Can’t we get paid as we go along?” Barbara asked. “There’s so much to explore here.”

For it was not words that beckoned Barbara. It was the aqua-blue sea, the thatched-roof huts, and the lush vegetation blanketing the island’s canyon folds. She marveled at the sundry peoples: nut-brown boys spearing fish from canoes and girls with flowing black hair romping on the beach. On Papeete’s streets, Chinese in pantaloons padded along, rambunctious French sailors sought diversion, and grinning shopkeepers tempted passersby to sample their wares. Even the brief hammering rains of the season beguiled, with sheets of water filling the sky and streaming, like a million miniature waterfalls, off glossy leaves.

One morning a family of islanders showed up on their doorstep, welcoming them with a basket of fruit, and Barbara asked the daughter, Corie, to show her the island. So Corie took her on a hike into the jungle, where they whiled away the afternoon, wading in an inland pool and learning about each other’s families and schooling.

Soon enough, Corie, who was a year younger than Barbara, was visiting nearly every day. When Barbara decided to dress in native garb, Corie took her to a