to tell me that you have eaten a bat?'
'You act as if it's an endangered species,' he said.
'I should think Samoans are if that's part of their diet.'
'They're not bad. But they cook them whole, so they always have a strange expression on their faces when they're served.'
'Doesn't surprise me a bit. Turn up their noses, do they?'
'Sort of. You can see all their teeth. I mean, the bats'.'
'What a stitch!'
He smiled. 'You think that's interesting?'
'Floyd, it's matchless.'
Encouraged, he said, 'Get this - we use fish as fertilizer. Fish!'
'That's predictable enough,' I said, unimpressed. 'Not far from where you are now, simple folk put fresh fish on their vegetable gardens as fertilizer. Misguided? Maybe. Wasteful? Who knows?
YARD SALE
Such was the nature of subsistence farming on the Cape three hundred years ago. One thing, though - they knew how to preach a sermon. Your agriculturalist is so often a God-fearing man.'
This cued Floyd into an excursion on Samoan Christianity, which sounded to me thoroughly homespun and basic, full of a good-natured hypocrisy that took the place of tolerance.
I said, 'That would make them - what? Unitarians?'
Floyd belched again. I thanked him. He wiped his fingers on his shirtfront and said it was time for bed. He was not used to electric light: the glare was making him belch. 'Besides, we always go to bed at nine.'
The hammering some minutes later was Floyd rigging up the hammock in the spare room, where there was a perfectly serviceable double bed.
'We never do,' I called.
Floyd looked so dejected at breakfast, toying with his scrambled egg and sausage, that I asked him if it had gone cold. He shrugged. Everything was hunky-dory, he said in Samoan, and then translated it.
'What do you normally have for breakfast?'
'Taro.'
'Is it frightfully good for you?'
'It's a root,' he said.
'Imagine finding your roots in Samoa!' Seeing him darken, I added, 'Carry on, Floyd. I find it all fascinating. You're my window on the world.'
But Floyd shut his mouth and lapsed into silence. Later in the morning, seeing him sitting cross-legged in the parlor, I was put in mind of one of those big lugubrious animals that look so homesick behind the bars of American zoos. I knew I had to get him out of the house.
It was a mistake to take him to the supermarket, but this is hindsight; I had no way of anticipating his new fear of traffic, his horror of crowds, or the chilblains he claimed he got from air conditioning. The acres of packaged foods depressed him, and his reaction to the fresh-fruit department was extraordinary.
'One fifty-nine!' he jeered. 'In Samoa, you can get a dozen bananas for a penny. And look at that,' he said, handling a whiskery coconut. 'They want a buck for it!'
WORLD S END
'They're not exactly in season here on the Cape, Floyd.'
'I wouldn't pay a dollar for one of those.'
'I had no intention of doing so.'
'They're dangerous, coconuts,' he mused. 'They drop on your head. People have been known to be killed by them.'
'Not in Barnstable County,' I said, which was a pity, because I felt like aiming one at his head and calling it an act of God.
He hunched over a pyramid of oranges, examining them with distaste and saying that you could buy the whole lot for a quarter in a village market he knew somewhere in remote Savai'i. A tray of mangoes, each fruit the rich color of old meerschaum, had Floyd gasping with contempt: the label stuck to their skins said they were two dollars apiece, and he had never paid more than a nickel for one.
'These cost two cents,' he said, bruising a grapefruit with his thumb, 'and they literally give these away,' he went on, flinging a pineapple back onto its pile. But his disbelief was nothing compared to the disbelief of shoppers, who gawped at his lava-lava. Yet his indignation at the prices won these people over, and amid the crashing of carts I heard the odd shout of 'Right on!'
Eventually I hauled him away, and past the canned
'You act as if it's an endangered species,' he said.
'I should think Samoans are if that's part of their diet.'
'They're not bad. But they cook them whole, so they always have a strange expression on their faces when they're served.'
'Doesn't surprise me a bit. Turn up their noses, do they?'
'Sort of. You can see all their teeth. I mean, the bats'.'
'What a stitch!'
He smiled. 'You think that's interesting?'
'Floyd, it's matchless.'
Encouraged, he said, 'Get this - we use fish as fertilizer. Fish!'
'That's predictable enough,' I said, unimpressed. 'Not far from where you are now, simple folk put fresh fish on their vegetable gardens as fertilizer. Misguided? Maybe. Wasteful? Who knows?
YARD SALE
Such was the nature of subsistence farming on the Cape three hundred years ago. One thing, though - they knew how to preach a sermon. Your agriculturalist is so often a God-fearing man.'
This cued Floyd into an excursion on Samoan Christianity, which sounded to me thoroughly homespun and basic, full of a good-natured hypocrisy that took the place of tolerance.
I said, 'That would make them - what? Unitarians?'
Floyd belched again. I thanked him. He wiped his fingers on his shirtfront and said it was time for bed. He was not used to electric light: the glare was making him belch. 'Besides, we always go to bed at nine.'
The hammering some minutes later was Floyd rigging up the hammock in the spare room, where there was a perfectly serviceable double bed.
'We never do,' I called.
Floyd looked so dejected at breakfast, toying with his scrambled egg and sausage, that I asked him if it had gone cold. He shrugged. Everything was hunky-dory, he said in Samoan, and then translated it.
'What do you normally have for breakfast?'
'Taro.'
'Is it frightfully good for you?'
'It's a root,' he said.
'Imagine finding your roots in Samoa!' Seeing him darken, I added, 'Carry on, Floyd. I find it all fascinating. You're my window on the world.'
But Floyd shut his mouth and lapsed into silence. Later in the morning, seeing him sitting cross-legged in the parlor, I was put in mind of one of those big lugubrious animals that look so homesick behind the bars of American zoos. I knew I had to get him out of the house.
It was a mistake to take him to the supermarket, but this is hindsight; I had no way of anticipating his new fear of traffic, his horror of crowds, or the chilblains he claimed he got from air conditioning. The acres of packaged foods depressed him, and his reaction to the fresh-fruit department was extraordinary.
'One fifty-nine!' he jeered. 'In Samoa, you can get a dozen bananas for a penny. And look at that,' he said, handling a whiskery coconut. 'They want a buck for it!'
WORLD S END
'They're not exactly in season here on the Cape, Floyd.'
'I wouldn't pay a dollar for one of those.'
'I had no intention of doing so.'
'They're dangerous, coconuts,' he mused. 'They drop on your head. People have been known to be killed by them.'
'Not in Barnstable County,' I said, which was a pity, because I felt like aiming one at his head and calling it an act of God.
He hunched over a pyramid of oranges, examining them with distaste and saying that you could buy the whole lot for a quarter in a village market he knew somewhere in remote Savai'i. A tray of mangoes, each fruit the rich color of old meerschaum, had Floyd gasping with contempt: the label stuck to their skins said they were two dollars apiece, and he had never paid more than a nickel for one.
'These cost two cents,' he said, bruising a grapefruit with his thumb, 'and they literally give these away,' he went on, flinging a pineapple back onto its pile. But his disbelief was nothing compared to the disbelief of shoppers, who gawped at his lava-lava. Yet his indignation at the prices won these people over, and amid the crashing of carts I heard the odd shout of 'Right on!'
Eventually I hauled him away, and past the canned
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