GOD KNOWS it’s a good try. It’s 4:00 a.m. at FAAA airport in Papeete, Tahiti. As my brother Bill and I, bone weary from an eight-hour flight from Los Angeles, walk through passport control a gentleman in a Harry Truman shirt, khaki shorts, and a wilted headband of white flowers places a bloom behind the ear of each arriving passenger. A three-piece string band strikes up in melancholy fashion; welcome to Dorothy Lamourland. We are greeted by sprightly Marta from the tourist office, who flings leis around our necks and drives us to the Hotel Tahara’a, perched on a hillside overlooking Matavia Bay. We walk across an open-sided gallery to the elevator. The all-weather carpeting is wet. “It must have rained,” I comment.
Next morning I find Bill engaged in conversation with the manager, a genial young Australian, who explains that a depression has formed in the east, or wherever it is the prevailing winds come from, and has remained obdurately in place for ten days. Disappointing news. But Marta is already here to take us on a morning’s tour of Tahiti, the largest island of the three clusters that make up French Polynesia, so we hurry off.
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