Atolls of the Sun

by Frederick O'Brien

“It is not true,” he said, plucking his long, black beard nervously, as was his wont. “Gauguin was born in the church. Did he not tell me he was the descendant of a Borgia? He was at the Jesuits’ school. The devil got hold of him early. Ah, that France is punished for its breaking of the Concordat. Napoleon knew what was needed. Gauguin did make much trouble here. I do not care what he did to the Government. That Government is usually atheist. But he made an obscene image of the bishop. He never entered our mission, after he had secured his land from us, and labor to build his house. He derided the sacred things of religion, and when he came to die he sent for the Protestant. I had hoped always that he would recant his atheism and change his ways. He was immoral, but then so is nearly everybody here except the fathers, and the nuns. That very pastor—Non! I guard my secret. Mais, it is not a secret, for all the world knows. N’importe! I close my lips.”

He was determined to be charitable, but, as for me, I knew the charge well, and had disproved it by personal research. John Kekela, the Hawaiian, had sworn on the Bible given his father by Kalakaua, the last Hawaiian king, that it was a lie, and Kekela would know for sure, and would not kiss the book falsely for fear of death or, at least, the dreaded fefe, which makes one’s legs as big as those of an elephant.

“But despite the antagonism of Gauguin to the church and his immorality, you took charge of his body and gave him a Catholic funeral,” I said.

“Who am I to judge the soul of a man?” replied the vicar, deprecatingly, his right hand lifted in appeal. “He was alone in his last moments. Doubtless the Holy Virgin or perhaps even the patron of the Marquesas, the watchful Joan of Arc, aided him. Each one has his guardian angel who never deserts him. When the shadows of death darken the room, then does that angel fight with the demons for the soul of his charge. I learned that Gauguin was dead from the catechist. Daniel Vaimai. It was then evening of the day he had died, and I had been ministering to a sick woman in Hanamate, an hour’s ride away. I met Daniel Vaimai at the cross-roads and he informed me of Gauguin’s death. I felt deeply sorry that he had not had the holy oils in his extremity, and had not received absolution after confession, but the devil is like a roaring lion of Afrique, seeking what he may devour.”

“He is especially active here,” I ventured, interested as I am in all such vital matters. The vicar, who had been talking animatedly and gazing at an invisible congregation, fixed his eyes on me.

“Here in the Marquesas and wherever whites are,” he replied acridly. “But to return to Gauguin! I immediately arranged for the interment of the dead man the next morning. In this climate decay follows death fast. As a matter of fact, some of us, including two of the Frères de la doctrine chrètienne, had hastened to Gauguin’s house when his death was announced the day before. They had planned his funeral for two o’clock the next morning, but we made it a trifle earlier, and removed him to the church of Atuona shortly after one. There we had mass for the dead, and did the poor cadavre all honor, or, rather, we thought of the soul that had fled to its punishment or reward. We carried the body to Calvary and put it in the earth.”

“I find no stone nor any mark at all of his grave,” I said.

“Peut-être, that may well be,” said the vicar calmly. “I do not know if one was placed. He had no kin here nor intimates other than natives.”

“But Pastor Vernier says Gauguin had asked long ago to be buried with civil rites only, and that he had wanted to assist in them. He says that you deceived him as to the hour of removal to the church, and that when he arrived at two o’clock Gauguin was already in the mission which he could not enter.”

The vicar shrugged his shoulders.