Apples and Serpents in Paradise

A Conversation About Color

"Shouldn't we get a electric chair or something more modern." Sefina sat across from Teuila as they had lunch at the Victory Cafe. Eating fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and corn. All grown on the island.

The Victory Cafe might specialize in American cuisine, but it had to adapt to what was raised or grown on the island. There was never any beef. Only chicken, pork, goat, and fish. Fish items had gone from just fish and chips to blackened Cajun style with hush puppies. Teuila had elected to try the Cajun fish. She found it a little too spicy.

"It's traditional to cut off a person's head during an execution. Aren't you the one who says we should stick to tradition." Teuila drank some more Coca Cola. It did little to help the burning in her mouth from whatever peppers they were using on the Cajun fish.

"Yeah, we also used to run around practically naked and traditionally lived in grass huts. Thanks, but I'll pass on certain traditions." Sefina was priestess of the local island mythology cult.

"I have my first performance in the town square today, by the say." Sefina reminded Teuila. "I hear there are tourists in town, who have heard of the event. I hope we get a crowd."

Sefina had originally performed the island rituals in the privacy of a secret cave, only for other islanders. Now, the cave was contaminated from fallout and the group had been forced into the open. Instead of telling them to stop, Teuila had arranged for the group to perform their rituals for tourists. It was beginning to attract tourists visiting other islands.

Sefina performed a exotic dance that told the story of the island goddess making love to the ocean god and giving birth to the island of Waka, named after the goddess. Voluptuous Sefina had filled out in places that Teuila had not. When she danced men lusted and women were jealous. It would be great for tourism.

"It might help if we modify one of the old base buildings into a hotel. I'm thinking of the black soldier barrack at the East end of the island. Its one of the more rundown buildings, but I think it can be fixed up to look like a decent motel at minimum cost." Teuila had long since used the white soldier barrack to create a small apartment complex for some of the fishermen. "It's one of the few buildings that are left from the old base."

"You know how the American tourists feel about Colored people. Do you think that they'll appreciate staying where the Colored troops were kept during the war." Sefina had remembered seeing the first Colored troops come onto the island. The islanders were afraid of them, because they were so different. "We don't want to insult them."

"We don't have to tell them to begin with. Besides, it won't look the same after we remodel the place. Knowing how eccentric Americans are it wouldn't surprise me if they wouldn't consider it a bit of a novelty." Teuila never did understand Americans. They fought a Civil War to free colored people from slavery then suppressed them for years afterwards. "It's not like the American tourists would ask a lot of questions anyway, they live in the present. The here and now, not the past."

"When it comes to Colored people they seem to live in the past. They can't see past skin color." Sefina said. "Even with us they don't see past the color of our skins."

"Nash and Charlie do." Teuila wondered if the islanders would ever get past the color of Nash and Charlie's skin. "There are other white people like them."

"Why doesn't Nasher Spencer marry you then?" Sefina crossed her arms and waited for a response.

"He asked. He wanted to get engaged. I said no."

"Why did you do that? I know you love him. I didn't know he felt that way about you. The whole island thinks that he's just taking advantage of you, that you are letting him. Accept the ring at least, so people know how things stand." Sefina had never known about the proposal. Nor did the rest of the islanders from the rumors.

"He's an outsider. What would people think?" Teuila shook her head. "I can't marry an outsider, it has to be an islander, from this one or another island in the Pacific."

"Now who isn't seeing past the color of a person's skin." Sefina was shocked that her friend was so bias. "The islanders accept Nash, they would rather think that you are going to marry him, then think he's just using you for sex. Teuila, the islanders want to see you marry and give us an heir. You are thirty-three years old, Nash is possibly the best match on the island. If you ignore his skin color."

"It has nothing to do with what I think about his skin color. I don't even care. I'm worried that the islanders won't accept an heir who is white. They might think any child of ours is an outsider." Teuila didn't want her child rejected because he or she was white. "If I have a child out of the marriage then that child has to be accepted, no matter what, as the heir. Since there can be no proof that Nash is the Father."

"People will know anyway." Sefina laughed. It sound absurd to her. "What does it matter if the child is partly white at birth, as long he or she respects our people. No matter what the child is going to be part white anyway, all that matters is that the child respects the island and it's people."

"I suppose in the same way that a building doesn't matter if it housed Colored soldiers at one time. Some people don't care that it's no longer housing Colored people, only that it had at one time." Teuila said. "It matters to some people simply because they can't stand the thought that some Colored persons were in that building and if they slept in that building they were sleeping in the same building a Colored person slept in. It's crazy, but true."

"Some people won't be able to get past that I married a white man and our island was occupied by white troops for a hundred and fifty years. All they may see is that my child is white, another white person occupying our island and telling us what to do." Teuila knew it was true.

"They'll think that no matter if you marry Nash or not. So, why not marry him. They can accept the child as heir or not. It doesn't matter, if you have a baby it's the only heir we are going to get and it will be legitimate heir to the island. Whether the islanders like it or not." Sefina knew this was true too.