Maelstrom

WEST END BAR NEAR COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NOVEMBER 1959 Do you remember all the theories? Well I've got one for you . Freedom is me! Everything in moderation, till it's something you like, then to excess. I've had enough of this Ivy League incubator. I'm going to the South Seas and I'm going to Live if it kills me. You can have all the panty raids you want, I'm going to Tahiti. Tahiti, March 1960 And despite himself and in spite of what he had been telling himself he was moving toward her. Il ne será pas. she said. He will not know. And then the husband And I asked her about the sand on her pillow and where she had been . And she told me Arué . the black sand beach, the night . and you. And then ... He was being sucked into the treacherous maelstrom of Avatoru. The one-arm man called it the devil's pass; the pass of the ma'a ma'a ma'o; insatiable sharks. Like wolves in the wind, they lay in wait . There is a fury there the eye will see but once.