PEOPLE AND THEIR TALK

Te Ao Hou, September 1960, Page 38

PEOPLE AND THEIR TALK And crowds become faces and faces become individuals, with whom you meet and talk and become familiar. You begin to know how some people think and how they feel or react to certain topics of conversation. With some companions conversation is stimulating, with some it is pleasant, and with others it is limited to the weather, gossip, and grumbling. On a boat you cannot avoid meeting the latter but at least you have a choice of attaching yourself to those who most interest you. There are days when you feel like a jelly fish—no bones, no living flesh, just a mass of floating, unthinking protoplasm. On such occasions you seek the company of the controversial thinker, who soon shakes you out of this limpid state of mind. Suddenly we discovered we had nothing to read. So far we had not missed the companionship of a book, but as we felt pleasantly relaxed we longed for the printed page. We browsed through the ship's library but found little to satisfy our curiosity. One morning I saw my husband speak to a well-built gentleman who was reading a volume of short stories by Somerset Maughan, just the kind of reading for a boat. We borrowed the book and this made a contact which led to a friendship. Our new friend is a professor of classics from a New Zealand university, on leave for a year. Beneath his rather awesome curiosity we discovered a great simplicity. He loved to dance and sing, so at least we had a common ground of conversation if intellectual topics grew rather weighty. He also loved drinking, and when he was merry, he'd sit on the deck and recite a few lines from Virgil, or tell us of the wonderful age of Greek supremacy, or he'd compose a poem and never quite succeed. There was another face which fascinated us. He was a Dutchman, full of life and successful in business. He was always ready for an argument about religion or the colour-bar or the exploitation of the black man by the white. I remember one night; we were almost ready to go to bed when he came up to wish us goodnight. Somehow an argument developed over communism. A young New Zealand girl had expressed her admiration for communism, and an Englishman who had recently entered the Roman Catholic church was shocked. There was a man from East Germany at the table too. He supported her by commenting that as far as he was concerned beliefs did not matter very much as long as people's material wants were satisfied. Somehow the argument went astray when the East German replied to someone else: “I like all people no matter what colour or creed.” This comment was rapidly taken up by our Dutch friend: “Ah! You tell me you like all people no matter what colour or creed. Now, would you agree to your son marrying a negro?” The answer came rather haltingly. “Well, I'd say to my son, ‘It's your life, please yourself’,” “That's not what I meant,” said the Dutchman, “Would you welcome the idea?” “I don't know,” was the honest reply of the German. Sometimes I liked our Dutch friend, sometimes I didn't. He was so insistent in his own logic that your own convictions about certain things—perhaps religion or corpulency—started to lost shape. (For him corpulency was the outward sign of laziness and helplessness, of passive acceptance of what life brings.) My husband always sought his company when life was a little dull. Our Dutch friend was an extreme egotist. I couldn't help but admire him; he knew his own mind. At the same time it irritated me that he

had an answer for everything. It may be that I am envious; though I called him a “know-all” I had a sneaky feeling that I wished to be like him in many respects. One of his most exasperating traits was the fact that by his cold unyielding logic he won every argument. There was, however, one field in which I could disagree with him with conviction—the art of dancing. For him there was only one type of dance—the sophisticated intricacy of ballroom dance steps. To me is was quite obvious that for some inexplicable reason he had not witnessed the girls in Tahiti—untutored, yet so graceful in their own interpretation of music and movement. There are some people whom you do wish to meet and somehow you never get intimate with. Sometimes they fascinate you even from a distance. I enjoyed the company of the New Zealand girls. They were friendly. Some were attractivelooking. They were all proud of being New Zealanders. I was the only New Zealander who didn't wear a greenstone kiwi on my chest and to make matters worse I didn't have a piupiu. As I was the only Maori on board the rest of my fellow countrymen felt that I should have flaunted my native dress at one of the fancy-dress parties. The New Zealand girls carried bathing towels whenever they went sun bathing and all of these were printed with the usual New Zealand emblems of the kiwi or the native fern. Somehow I had no desire to make it known that I too was a Kiwi. I also intrigued quite a few people—even a New Zealander thought I was a Tahitian. The Italians used to ask me if I were Spanish or South American. One suggested that I was a Sicilian. The Australian girls were amongst the most attractive on board. Most of them were tall, and very slender. They were also friendly and if you sat alone it was not long before they came to make conversation with you. I never got to know them intimately, but I admired their happy faces and their extremely elegant figures. There was one Australian woman with whom we were rather friendly. She was a beautiful blonde with a child of two years and all the men admired her. Some of the women envied her. She was so friendly that really you couldn't dislike her, even if she did have all those assets which you longed for—lovely face, pleasant speaking voice and a superb figure. She was dated by several admirers and the snippets of gossip from her fellow women were always amusing…. “That's not her husband!. I wonder if he's still in Australia….I wonder if she's divorced…She looks the type!” Then she had a mild flirtation with a romantic Italian. He gave her Italian lessons and she assured us she was getting on rather splendidly. Soon there was more gossip…. “I don't know what she sees in Joseph. He's so morose…. And oh! So sentimental.” Joseph was extremely generous. If ever we sat with beautiful Barbara he would buy us a glass of the most select wine. He was also very knowledgeable on ships, strange people and new countries. The beautiful blonde Barbara was a schoolteacher like ourselves. So we had something in common. And then she knew how to enjoy herself. She was never bored. I remember how I admired too, the Italian waiters and cabin stewards. They have a charm rather like the Tahitians and they are another handsome people. Their dark swarthy beauty and their extreme politeness won them many admirers amongst the women. Their speech too is like music. A friend of ours said that to hear them speak is like listening to an Italian opera. The Italian orchestra was extremely popular with everyone. But they had one rather annoying habit. They were never ready on time for the afternoon concerts. It was certain that the violinist was wooing a passenger round the corner; they are as romantic as you think them to be. If the five members of the band were occasionally on time they would never begin until the ladies were all seated. There would be an interminable performance of bowing and smiling and frequent kissing of hand to the ladies. Sometimes one of them would forget his music sheet in his fervid admiration of his latest love who would sit as close as possible to the front of the stage. The dining room stewards were also Italians and the younger ones annoyed some of the middle-aged ladies. They also loved feminine company and some of them would forget to bring a prim old lady's soup when they saw the glances of promising flirtations from younger women. We never got tired of the Italians, who looked so serious and were so courteous that it was difficult to imagine that their flirtations were as shortlived as the journey. Oh, there were other people—Mac the Englishman, married to a Samoan girl and converted to her religion, that of the Roman Catholic faith. He was a curious mixture of beliefs. He loved those shady places where the women entertained men for a small fee. He had one queer idea which always started an argument—namely—that all women were meant to suffer. Then he'd argue about the beneficient power of the Roman Catholic church. Our Dutch friend would point out the number of poverty stricken countries dominated by Catholicism—Spain, Italy, Mexico and Mac would fall silent, for a moment, After the heated argument in which, as usual, nobody really won and nobody really changed his views, we would all buy one another drinks to show that we were still friends. And time passes and friendships grow or fade. There are more faces. We meet a lot of Germans, a few Austrians, and more Dutch people. All are returning from Australia to their home countries. Some are discontented with life in Australia, some think it is a country with opportunities. Looking back at the discontented ones, I do feel in sympathy with some of them—with strangers in a strange country.