To Paradise, by Ferry

The other day I tried to get into a nudist colony.

Things didn't work out so well.

They started off well, though, that I must admit. First there was the English girl. It was on the last day of the Cannes Film Festival that I spotted her. In the midst of a blur of browned bodies there she lay, lobster-pink, glistening with oil. She was draped languorously across a chaise longue in the middle of the Carlton beach, a copy of the London Times by her side. I wandered over.

"Parlez-vous anglais?" I asked, casually.

Two sea-blue eyes peered up at me from over the rim of a pair of sunglasses, obviously too dark to see through. The eyes squinted, focused and blinked.

"Oh Christ, not another American!"

I smiled.

She turned over on her stomach.

"I see you're reading the London Times. Mind if I have a look?"

"What's the matter, they all out of Herald Tribunes?"

I told her I liked the print of the London Times better. She crumpled it up into a small ball and hurled it at me. "Strike one," I said.

She didn't laugh.

"Mind if I sit down?"

She didn't answer. I sat down.

"Are you staying (continued on page 130) To Paradise (continued from page 127) here at the Carlton?"

She stared at me incredulously. "What are you, a bloody idiot? If I were staying at the Carlton do you think I'd be out here on the beach?"

I nodded.

She probably had a point, though I must confess I didn't precisely see it. Still, I allowed her her occasional obscurities for she looked wonderful there in the sun. Her hair was white-blonde, long, straight and wet and just managed to touch the freckled, pink tips of her shoulders. She looked somewhat like a cross between May Britt and Princess Margaret. I asked her how long she'd been there.

"Since one o'clock."

"No, I mean in Cannes."

"A week."

"Are you happy here?"

She propped herself up on her elbows. "What are you, a psychiatrist?"

She didn't wait for an answer but turned her back to me, unraveled the London Times and began to read.

"You don't like Americans very much, do you?"

She pointed a pink finger in the general direction of the sea. I looked out. A U.S. aircraft carrier, three destroyers, two cruisers and a submarine dotted the picturesque port.

"Four thousand on shore leave," she muttered.

There was nothing one could say.

I decided to examine her back. It was slightly less pink than her front. It looked rather like the skin of a well-patted baby. It looked soft. She had a beauty mark about three inches above the white line of her right hip. There was a mosquito bite on her left shoulder. I resisted the temptation to scratch it. Instead, I watched a small stream of sand slowly snake its way down from her haunched shoulder blades along the line of her spine to a small, white, dimpled hollow just above her powder-pink, slightly wet, bikini pants.

"You know, I'm very fond of the British," I said, softly.

"Then stop breathing on my back. You're blocking the sun."

I apologized. I lay back, folded my hands behind my head and began to think about the Revolutionary War. I was just coming to Cornwallis when she spoke.

"All right, what are you doing in Cannes?"

Feverishly I racked my brain. Why had she spoken? What was the real motive behind the disarming innocence of her question? Was it simply curiosity? Or was it politeness? Was it boredom? Or was it perhaps (and far more likely) some subtle seaside passion that drew her irresistibly toward me; some strange Mediterranean lust, peculiar to the British, unknown to Americans and fatal? I decided that the best thing to do was answer and play it cautiously from there.

"I'm a writer," I said, as cryptically as possible.

She asked me what I did for a living.

It was a question I had not expected. I swallowed, moistened my lips and craftily avoided a direct answer by repeating that I was a writer.

"And you make money at it?"

"Enough to live," I said, looking around to see who was listening.

"In Cannes?"

I told her that I'd won 10 dollars at the Casino the night before.

She took off her sunglasses and stared at me microscopically. I could hear the I.B.M. cards inside her head shuffling through to the next question.

She said, clearly and emphatically and in the queen's best English, "You still have not told me just what you are doing here in Cannes."

I decided to tell her.

She didn't believe me.

"I've never heard of the place," she said.

"Well, it is very small."

"Is it something like Capri?"

I said I didn't think so.

"Majorca?"

I said no.

She smiled slightly and asked if it was the sort of place American tourists would consider "charming"?

I said I doubted that very much.

"Well, just what sort of article are you proposing to write?"

I told her I wouldn't know until I got there.

"And you mean to say you're going all the way out to this place to write a story for some magazine and you don't know the first thing about it?"

I told her that wasn't really true, that actually I did know quite a bit about the place.

The signs of exasperation were beginning to show when she asked, "Like what?"

I said, "Well, for instance, the people don't wear any clothes there."

It worked.

At 7:30 the next morning we left Cannes together.

• • •

Now these are the ways to get to Levant: by train from Cannes to St.-Raphaël, which takes forty minutes: from St.-Raphael to St.-Tropez by bus, changing at St.-Tropez for the bus to Le Lavandou, which takes two hours and forty-five minutes. The ferries from Le Lavandou to the Ile du Levant leave at nine o'clock, eleven, two and six. The boat ride takes an hour. So if one leaves Cannes on the seven-o'clock train, one will arrive on Levant at twelve. One can also drive. I did. There are two routes available. I took the scenic route (synonymous the world over with "longer route") by mistake.

We arrived at Le Lavandou at five past eleven. The ferry had just pulled out.

We waved, sadly.

It came back, quickly.

Except for the captain and a Scandinavian-looking couple the boat was empty. It was a large boat.

The English girl grinned. "Looks like the tourist season hasn't started yet, hmm?"

I offered that the two-o'clock was probably a more popular ferry.

"I don't believe there's anyone on that island at all. I think you're simply spiriting me out there so you can seduce me."

I decided to allow for the possibility of insular desertion and left her statement unanswered except for what I hoped was an enigmatic smile. She yawned and pulled the latest copy of the Illustrated London News from her BOAC traveling bag.

"Pity you're not covering the island for the Illustrated News," she said. "They go in for this sort of thing in a big way."

A voice said, "Is this the first time for you?"

I turned from my reading companion and confronted one half of the only other couple on board.

I said it was.

"You'll love the island," he said. "Ingrid, my wife, and I are going there for years. It's like a Garden of Eden. The people are all so wonderful and friendly. You'll love them. You'll stay I think a long time?"

I said I was looking forward to an enjoyable stay indeed.

He said, "You are newlyweds?"

I was suddenly conscious of a pair of eyes observing me with much interest from over the copy of the Illustrated London News.

"Uh, no. Just good friends."

"Ah."

He lapsed into silence.

I decided that more was needed. "We used to live near each other in Sussex. We've known each other for years."

The eyes were still not reading.

"Maybe then you get married soon?"

"I'm afraid that's impossible," said the latest copy of the Illustrated London News. "You see, I'm already married."

And the eyes sank merrily from view.

I looked up at the sky with intense interest. "Lovely day for an island outing, don't you think?"

Silence.

At last: "You'll love the island. Ingrid, my wife, and I are going there for years. It's—"

(continued on page 208) To Paradise (continued from page 130)

"Well, I don't suspect we'll be able to stay for more than a year or two," announced the Illustrated News. "My husband, you see."

I looked away. He walked away, vaguely.

The Illustrated News descended into the bag and was immediately replaced by two eyes, a nose and a mouth. The eyes were laughing. The mouth was busy saying, "But if the people are all so wonderful and friendly, who knows ... ?"

• • •

The port of Levant consists of a dock and a dirt road. A hand-lettered sign tacked to the sawed-off trunk of a tree said, "Heliopolis, 5 km." A brochure I'd picked up in Lavandou explained that Heliopolis was the leading city on Levant. A careful examination of the enclosed map revealed that it also happened to be the only city on Levant.

The Scandinavian couple quickly disappeared into the woods. The boat slowly disappeared from shore. There was no one else in sight. We decided to walk to the city.

It did not take long to realize that the visual attractions of the island would never be topographical. It was a dismal place. The hills were overgrown bumps in the ground and were covered with a monochromatically green collection of weeds, bushes and stubby trees. For flowers one would have to hope for a florist's shop in town, though an occasional poppy did disturb the uniform serenity of the countryside.

The road itself consisted of rocks, boulders, dirt, broken glass, tin cans, newspapers and large red ants. We decided that the Garden of Eden lay ahead and continued on our way. A thread of weeds served as a highway divider. The few birds that we chanced to pass were not singing. They sat, stone-winged, on the branches of leafless trees.

An old yellowing billboard blossomed on one of the verdant hills. It suggested that, when in Heliopolis, one buy Sultana sun oil.

The English girl made me promise to buy her some.

A hand-lettered sign announced that we were entering the city limits.

We stopped short in fear that we might pass right through. The city, it seems, consists of a "Grand Hotel," a restaurant (which sold Sultana sun oil according to a sign on the door), and a church. It wasn't much, but it certainly was the beginning.

She said she wanted coffee so we went into the restaurant. A waitress promptly appeared. Naturally, she wore an apron. We ordered. She left. The view was interesting.

"Well, at least we know we're on the right island," I said, forcing a nonchalant laugh.

The English girl eyed me skeptically.

The waitress returned with our coffee, placed it on the table and left, once again.

Once again, I watched her as she left.

"Is this a particularly fine American magazine that you're writing for?" she asked.

I said it was.

She sipped her coffee in silence.

I paid the bill and we walked out of the restaurant, picking up a bottle of Sultana on the way.

"Well Mr. John Gunther," she asked, "what do we do now?"

I suggested we leave the booming metropolis of Heliopolis and strike out for a beach.

She thought it an exceptionally outstanding idea.

We found a beach.

Actually, it wasn't much of a beach. It was more of a rock gully with water on one side than it was anything else. But as the island of Levant has no sand beaches (neither does Nice for that matter, but the pebbles are smaller) we decided to make the best of the situation.

Now to get onto this beach one must first descend a 60-foot ladder that reaches from the floor of this charming seaside cove up to the surrounding hillside. We paused at the top of the ladder and reflected on the view below. The shore was dotted with uniformly tanned, well-tanned, Sultana-covered bodies stretched in supine worship of the sun-god above. They sparkled like plucked chickens. There was not a bathing suit in sight.

One group was lying around a head of lettuce, picking at its leaves and munching them. An occasional carrot gleamed its orange way toward a mouth. A group of girl children (first guess, ages 12 to 15, obviously healthy, a credit to any community) was passing around a bottle of goat's milk. A couple of leather-skinned men, easily in their 70s, were doing push-ups. A volleyball game was in progress (and a more painful spectacle to watch one could not hope to find). A medicine ball flew briskly about the beach. Children amused themselves by chasing after sea gulls. Parents amused themselves by chasing after children. Everyone was smiling. I saw no one staring wistfully out at the sea.

"Behold. Our Garden of Eden," she said; music on her lips.

A rainbow crowned the horizon like a halo. The sun shone warmly, white in the chalk-blue sky. We made ready to descend into Paradise.

A moment of doubt crossed my mind. An image flashed. A pride of lions is frisking about in its primeval play den. A white hunter armed only with camera is making ready to crawl near. On his back is a sign: Life visits A Lion Party. Immediately a second image flashes. A large, full-maned lion is standing on a rock in the middle of a group of cubs. The cubs are nuzzling each other playfully. The large, full-maned lion is smiling proudly, a roll of high-speed, Tri-X film dangling from his jovial mouth.

I dismissed the image and we descended. Halfway down the ladder all sound stopped. I had the strange sensation that we were being watched.

I looked down.

The medicine ball sat quietly on the beach. The volleyball waited in a woman's hands. A leaf of lettuce hesitated in front of a half-opened mouth. A carrot, on its way up, made its way back down to a plate where it rested among its own, its time not up yet. The bottle of milk paused on its journey. The sun-god watched. Our feet hit the ladder, loudly.

"Maybe we shouldn't go down there," she said.

It was a suggestion not to be met without some serious consideration. I looked back up.

A man and a woman were at the top of the ladder making ready to descend. It was a curious view.

"I guess there's not much choice in the matter," I said, softly.

We climbed the rest of the way down.

In the most distant corner of the beach under the shade of a steam shovel we set our blanket. No one moved.

"Do you have any beads?" I asked.

"What for?"

"Trading," I said. "In case sign language doesn't work."

"I think we'd better take our clothes off," she said. "We're too conspicuous this way."

My head nodded. I began to work on my socks.

"How're you doing?" I asked.

"What's the matter, can't you see for yourself?"

I told her I thought it advisable that at the moment I not even try.

She laughed and dangled her blouse and skirt in front of my face. "Hurry up," she said. "The natives are getting restless."

I took off my other sock.

She tossed her panties over my big toe.

I smiled to the people.

Two little children walked over and stared at me curiously. They walked away. I thought I could detect the sound of whispering.

"You're only attracting attention," she said. "Take off your pants."

My head nodded again. I stood up. I dropped my pants. I dropped back on my stomach. Quickly. Too quickly.

The English girl laughed. "Lots of rocks, huh?"

I muttered a few-hundred words of appropriate wisdom and began contemplating the undignified state of man in the modern world.

"Rather unlike the Carlton beach, isn't it?"

I chose not to answer.

"Still, it is a rather charming place," she said, staring appreciatively at the steam shovel and surrounding boulders, bricks and scooped-out dust-red clay. A few beer bottles caught her glance. "I do believe we're bathing out of an excavation pit. How terribly exotic. I wonder what they're proposing to build here?"

I said it was obviously not a beach.

She said she thought she was rather inclined to agree.

And then I looked at her for the very first time. It was a lightning-quick peek taken from out of the corner of my myopic left eye.

She was not like the others. For that matter, neither was I.

"I think they can tell we're tourists," I said.

"That's all right," she said. "They're not paying attention anymore."

Which was true. The medicine ball had resumed its flight, and above the gentle lapping of the sea the noise of well-munched carrots could be heard once again.

"Like to play some volleyball?" she asked.

I winced.

"All right then, Joseph Pulitzer, what do you propose we do?"

I proposed we do nothing for the moment but maintain our position.

She asked me to rub Sultana on her back.

I told her I thought it best that she do it herself.

She sighed, turned over on her back and began to apply the sun-tan oil to her more easily accessible side. I looked away. I saw the best women of my generation, naked. I decided that most of them would have looked better with clothes on. I also decided they would have looked more provocative.

I decided to think about something else.

She asked me if I wanted her to rub some sun-tan oil on my back. I thanked her profusely anyway.

She sighed, closed her eyes and promptly went to sleep.

I looked around again, and I looked longer. I observed (and not without some strong feelings of regret) that the place was a bore. I glanced at my watch. Two o'clock. The next ferry left at four. I yawned and took out my camera.

Now there was, in this action itself, nothing intrinsically wrong. It's simply that I happened to click the shutter along the way.

The English girl woke up.

"What was that?" she asked sharply.

"Just my shutter."

"Just your what?"

"My shutter. To my camera."

"To your camera!? What are you, a blooming idiot?"

"What do you mean, 'what am I, a blooming idiot'?"

"I mean what are you, a blooming idiot? You can't take pictures of them."

"And why-the-hell not?"

"Because you just bloody-well can't."

"I didn't see any sign."

"You didn't see any sign. You Americans all need signs. Well I'm telling you you can't."

"What are you, a professional nudist?"

"I happen to be British, and I happen to know the difference between right and wrong."

"And I happen to take pictures on the beach at Cannes all the time."

"Well this isn't Cannes. These people don't have any clothes on."

"Well I don't have any clothes on either!"

"Then why don't you take pictures of yourself!?"

I growled at her.

She sneered back.

I'd begun to focus again when I suddenly realized that all noise had stopped. So, in fact, had all motion. The beach had become full of browned bodies standing stiffly in a long line, facing the blanket.

I put on my wide-angle lens.

"Don't tell me you're actually going to take another?"

"Of course. Old American maxim: 'Never retreat in the face of danger.'"

She asked me if I'd ever been in the Army.

I said no.

She said she'd thought so.

I smiled at them and took a quick check of my light meter. I clicked the shutter. They began to move toward the blanket, slowly.

"And may I ask you just why in the bloody hell you've got to take pictures?"

"For the article," I said. "It will be more interesting if there are illustrations."

"It will be more interesting if you're around to write it."

I looked at them. They were moving steadily, slowly closer. It was interesting to note that they were no longer smiling.

"They don't look particularly friendly, do they?"

"You are perceptive, aren't you?"

She turned over on her stomach and buried her head beneath her skirt and blouse. She muttered, "You can handle this one yourself, Columbus. The beads are in the wallet. As of this moment I've never seen you before in my life."

They gathered about the blanket and stared down at me. I looked up and smiled (warm eyes, open hands, signs of friendship all). They continued to stare. The sun-god hid his eye behind a cloud.

"Bonjour," I said. "Comment ça va?"

A woman stepped forward. She was big-boned and red. Her legs were like tree trunks. She had small, fat-wide hands which she was waving in my face. She was screaming.

I told her I didn't speak German.

She went on, undeterred by the enormity of our language barrier.

I asked her if she spoke English.

I assumed she didn't.

Now my French, at its best, is incredibly poor but at least it's something. I asked her if she spoke French.

She continued screaming.

"Esperanto?" I asked, politely.

She screamed louder.

I detected the word "camera" as a recurring motif.

I decided to use my French, speaking it as quickly and indistinctly as possible, thereby confusing them all:

I said I was sorry and would not take any more pictures.

She pointed a pudgy finger at my camera. The native chorus picked up its cue and began to chant, "Camera! Camera!"

I told them I had only taken two pictures but that if they would give me a mailing address and if the pictures happened to come out I would gladly send them some copies.

The chant grew stronger.

I leaned over to the English girl. "I can't quite understand what they're saying," I whispered, "but I think they're upset."

She kicked me.

The German woman reached for my camera. "Camera," she said.

"You want see camera?" I asked.

The chant stopped.

I picked up the camera and held it forth. I stood up, unashamed of my nakedness, warmed by the sun-drenched air, clean, brown.

"Camera Leica," I said. "Camera German. Camera Deutsch. Bought in Deutschland. Camera good. Leica good. Me good. Mean no harm. Like Leica. Like Deutschland. Wunderbar!"

I smiled a banana smile. Obvious sign of friendship.

Her hand shot out, pudgy palm open, wanting.

I showed it to her. She grabbed it, turned to the sea and cocked her arm to throw. I grabbed it back. I clutched it to my chest.

"Nein!" I shouted. "Camera Deutsch! Deutschland good! Camera good! Good! Expensive!"

The chorus chanted, "Camera! Camera!"

I picked up a rock, a small rock, just a pebble, symbol of resistance.

A voice from the chorus said, "Camera go in sea."

I decided to give them the film and hope for the best.

"I give you film," I said, slowly, emphatically. "You give me money for film."

They moved in closer. I decided to give them the film free.

Unloading the camera in record time, I handed the film to the German woman. She threw it into the sea. The natives moved back, smiling slightly. It seemed to me their teeth looked strangely sharp.

The German woman stayed. She pointed an accusing finger at me; then at the English girl lying headless on the beach beside me. She muttered something.

An old, white-haired man stepped forward — the wise man of the clan. He said, in perfect English, "Frau Uebermensch says you are not true naturistes. She sights your white bands of skin as evidence. I think it advisable that you leave at once."

I stared at him in amazement. "Where the hell were you while all this was going on?"

He walked away.

The English girl peeked out from her hiding place. "Well Columbus, what's your next plan?"

I looked up at the sky. A small cloud was visible near the horizon. I said it looked like a storm was brewing and that there seemed little point in just hanging around.

We climbed the ladder, two rungs at a time, dressing as we went.

• • •

The ferry was waiting at the dock. Except for the captain it was empty. He seemed surprised to see us. We took a seat in a corner and, folding our hands in our laps, waited patiently for the boat to leave.

The English girl pointed toward the dirt road.

The German woman was standing there, statuelike, watching.

"If I put on my telephoto I think I can get a good picture of her from here. I've got another roll left."

The English girl hit me a hard right to the shoulder just as the ferry pulled away from the dock.

We walked up on deck and gazed back at the slowly receding shore. For a long time neither of us spoke but only stood there, lost, each in his own private thoughts. My mind traveled back along the painful path of memory to the Scandinavian couple we'd met on the boat trip over. When would I ever see them again? I remembered the truly excellent cup of coffee I'd had and savored its distant aroma in the taste buds of my imagination. I thought back fondly to the sun-tan oil we'd acquired; our only souvenir. And I stood there, silent, never wanting to speak again. And then, as our little green hump of Paradise faded slowly in the distance I heard, in my mind's ear, the wonderful sound of lettuce leaves and carrots calling to me from across the azure waters, singing to me from the distant, rock-bound, rock-strewn shore. And I saw, in my mind's delirious eye, the natives — standing in a line, their healthy bronzed feet touching the edge of the very water I now sailed away upon, and they were waving. And then, as the sun sank slowly in the west, I dried the last trace of my tears and turned to the English girl.

She was standing at the railing mumbling something about American magazines. I stood behind her, silently, and watched as the soft white folds of her blouse rippled in the sea-dampened wind and her skirt teased at her knees. And I observed (and not without a modicum of interest) that there, for some reason, on the bridge, in the wind, in the gathering shadows of dusk, she seemed suddenly and strangely provocative.

• • •

We took the shorter route back to Cannes, arriving in time for a good civilized dinner, a little dancing with clothes still on, a little swimming with less on. And a nightcap, as they say. Three days later, when she left for home, we were much closer friends.