Waking up in Samoa

I had hardly been asleep a few minutes or so I thought when I felt a nudge on my back. My wife whispered “Wake Up! There’s someone at the door”.

My eyes opened reluctantly, I glanced at my watch. It was 9 o’clock in the morning and we were in a hotel room. The gentle tap came again and so I wrapped myself up and went to the door and opened it. There smiling happily at me was a young Samoan girl all ready to clean the room. I apologised and explained we had only arrived a few hours ago at 5am in the morning after a night flight from Sydney. “Could you come back a little later?”

She nodded reluctantly as the girls clearly worked to a routine. We were visiting Western Samoa in the Pacific and having done some research had chosen to stay at “Aggie Grey’s Hotel” on the waterfront.

In the heady days of colonisation of little nations by the world’s powers the Samoan Island’s were disputed by Britain, Germany and the USA keeping their gun ships handy to stake their claim. In this case it was decided that Germany was to be lucky superpower and the two main islands Savaii and Upolu became their colony in 1899, while the United States took over the smaller islands and much of the Pacific Ocean waters in the vicinity. Robert Louis Stevenson the author of several adventure books lived there with his extended family until his death in 1889. Western Samoa finally gained it’s independence in 1962 after having New Zealand as its colonial master following WW1.

So now we were in this warm paradise of “South Pacific” fame staying in the timber framed hotel owned by the aging Aggie Grey who had made her money trading with the occupying allied forces during WW2. She now employed the young men and women from her home village in the hotel and who were also the fia fia dancers at the evening’s entertainment. We loved the place. At the swimming pool my wife found herself swimming with the film star Robert Morley. The walkways had bunches of bananas hanging down for the staff to eat as they worked (and also tempting the guests) and there was all invading tropical perfume of exotic flowers and coconut oil. Needless to say I was entranced by the shy smile of the girls plaiting flowers to decorate the bedrooms as they sat in the walkways speaking to each other with a sound like the gentle murmuring of the ocean.

We explored the capital Apia with it German colonial timbered building and sat quietly in the numerous churches but kept clear of the children who with machetes busily cut the lawns with skilful swipes.

It was humid and the first few days the walks were short with frequent rests and long drinks and a cool off in the pool. We explored the island on day trips and discovered waterfalls and swimming holes and exotic beaches and so many churches that were told were built with building material meant to mend the roads, which clearly never were.

Mind you it could have been the pigs that dug up the road. They wandered about freely and wherever they wanted eating whatever they could find.

The bus transport was mainly converted trucks with seats and no windows. It was too humid for that. These plied their way to villages collected the locals to take them to the market and to return later in the afternoon with all their purchases in huge baskets or even building materials tied to the roof or in the aisles so access was an adventure.

On one trip we boarded the crowded tourist bus last and I had to sit next to the driver with the pretty young guide wedged in beside me. She chatted about everything under the sun and told me her surname was Schmidt which clearly came from the German colonial era. As the bus rattled along her bare leg and mine frequently touched and at one time she looked at me and said you are browner that I am, proudly placing her arm against mine to prove it.

Later we took a trip to the larger but lesser populated island of Savaii and walked over the lava fields from an old volcano eruption and shown the “Virgin’s Grave” where a young girl died in a lava flow. Later we nodded thanks at a refreshment stop when the owner proudly showed us her husband's grave in the garden outside the back door as we made to leave.

On the short flight back to Apia’s airport only we were weighed not the luggage before we boarded the light plane as there are some very big people in Samoa! The flight was delayed a little as a mother and her young child boarded late to be taken to the hospital on the main island. As she nursed her child I held the bottle of saline drip attached to his arm while my wife sat next to the pilot up front.

Another night at the hotel the staff also performed in the Fia Fia nights entertaining guests with their seductive dancing and singing and the girl that had served me in the hotel shop earlier now danced enticingly before me. The lights were turned down and the men juggled with their flaming brands.

When we returned I said I really wanted to go again but my better half shook her head and said “Wake up, the first time is magical but it would never be the same again.” Yet even she had been entranced with one of the male dancers!

It is nearly thirty years since we went there and I still remember the eyes the girl that danced before me and who looked only at me.

The Demand

Last week Ben discovered more of Venice than he anticipated, this week we discover more of his wife Rosie that we anticipated.


As soon as Ben closed the door, Rosie opened her eyes. She waited a full three minutes listening, just to see if he might come back. Perhaps he had forgotten something. But no, not this time.
She swung her legs around and sat on the side of the bed. Again she waited a few seconds, then picked up the phone.
"Signor Guidi's room, per favore."
Her mixture of English and Italian was apparently understood, and almost immediately she heard, "Pronto?"
"Antonio?"
"Si."
"It's Rosalie. "I demand that..." there was a pause, " that you inspect our room."
Rose's breathing betrayed her, as she struggled to say what they had agreed she should say.
Antonio the coach captain, murmured his assent and hung up. Rosie gently put her phone back on its cradle. She went to the dressing table and tidied her face and hair. As she looked into the mirror and saw her own eyes, she chided herself.
"Don't look at me like that. You persuaded me last time. Now you have to go long with me this time."

Having justified herself, she turned away from the mirror and waited for the knock on the door. To Rosie it took a very long time in coming. Antonio, had in fact had been waiting. He was an old hand at this game. He boasted to his fellow guides that he could recognise the possible liaisons on the very first night when they briefed each new coach party on the tour. He walked casually from his room, down the passage to the foyer. He called the lift, entered it alone and without having to consult his little notebook, where Rosie's name and room number were written, pressed the correct floor. He examined himself again in the mirror of the lift. He dressed casually, light weight cotton trousers, a blue polo top and matching canvas shoes. He was not tall, but the way he walked on springing steps made up for that. His dark brown hair was soft and long. It rode over his collar and curled around his ears, and almost as if planned, he allowed a lock fall forward onto his brow. His face was animated and held a half a smile on his lips at all times. His eyes were deep and sensuous with feeling and moved quickly, picking up everything that was happening around him. He noted subtle movements, what people did with their hands, how they stood, what messages their eyes sent that their conversation did not. He took everything in and stored it away for future use. The messages he had received from Rosie said she wanted to be touched. Now he was going to touch her.

He knocked on her door. "Antonio." He called. She opened it straight away, not even a suggestion that she had to walk from the other side of the room to answer it. Antonio put that away too. She was a little too eager. He would have to slow her down a little, just a bit. He regarded her standing there. At first her eyes looked up at him, then she lowered them, as he said, "You wish to see me?"
She looked past him anxiously lest anyone else from the coach party should see him there. She pulled him into the room by the sleeve of his shirt. She closed the door and slid the little brass chain in its slot, hoping it would not seem obvious. Nothing escaped Antonio.
Rosie wore a light summer dress; it had a high rounded neck and a deep opening at its back. Its large pink and blue and white flowers made her look cool and serene, despite her anxiety. Her arms and legs were bare and their honey brown colour contrasted sharply with his fiercely dark skin. She had put Paris perfume on, but regretted it as it seemed too heavy now. He took her by both her hands, lightly. Then drawing her closer to him, bent down and kissed first one hand then the other. He kissed the back of her hand, then the fingers and then with a delicacy that surprised her, kissed her palms, her thumbs, then each finger until the little fingers were reached. She was already feeling a little faint and wanted to sit down. She moved slightly to her left and sat down on the bed. As she did so she kicked off the sandals she was wearing. He still had hold of her hands and she leaned forward and lay her cheek against his fingers, and heaved a big sigh. With incredible tenderness, he touched her hair, her ears and traced the soft roundness of her face. He lightly touched her nose, ran his fingertips over her now closed eyes and finished with one finger just touching her lips.

Rosie didn't mean to, but she let out another sigh. It was not a sigh of regret or anxiety. It was a sigh of exhilaration and satisfaction. But the sigh was short lived Antonio bent over and kissed her on the lips he had just touched. If Rosie had expected a violent passionate kiss with a searching tongue to explode her senses she was very much mistaken. He kissed her with just that same amount of tenderness that he had touched her face and now continued to touch the rest of her body. Rosie who was at anticipating to be borne away in a masterful Latin lover's fiery embrace now found herself melting into his arms, into this delicious slow seduction. It was, on reflection, what was precisely missing from her normal lovemaking with Ben. She expected to be ravished, but this was not happening; he was taking each and every part of her and quietly, gently, lovingly, praising it and making it his own. There was little conversation; he murmured a number of 'cara's' and 'bella's' and even a few 'bellissima'a' but he didn't speak directly to her or demand that she say anything in return.

With his practiced art, Antonio touched and unzipped, kissed and slipped off, held tight and set free until they were both without even one stitch of clothing on. Antonio now was very much a part of her. Somehow almost without her noticing the very moment that it had happened, he had found his way into her and she felt very good about it. There was no rush of love making; there was just this exquisite togetherness. And yet, as they touched and moved and fondled each other, she felt the wave of indescribable fulfilment envelop her. The inevitability of their lovemaking now burst in her and over her like a shower of stars. She clung on to him and felt his warm body against her. As she slowly recovered, she felt the tears of her passion run down her cheeks and smear against his chest. She knew too that her body was moist with perspiration. She felt spent and satisfied.

The feeling lasted only a very short time. The hairs from his chest tickled her face and she wanted to dry her eyes. She felt now that his body was a stranger's body, and wanted to draw away from it. She was anxious to wash the evidence of their lovemaking from her. She glanced up at his face and even that no longer held the attraction it had. Was he the same man that flirted with her on the tour, and held her possessively as she had almost slipped on the steps of the coach? She eased herself from under him, and almost as if he had read her mind, he rolled over too and sat on the side of the bed. He pulled his clothes back on and turned his back slightly to her so that she could rearrange herself.

When he turned back, she had covered herself with the sheet. He got up then and as he slipped his watch back on his wrist he glanced at it deliberately. She noticed this but did not look at him again. He bent down to slip his shoes on. When he had done this, he approached her again, took her left hand only this time and kissed it on the back. He smiled at her and went to the door, slipped the chain and left with, "Perhaps we will see each other at dinner?" Then he was gone.
She gave no reply.

Rosie got up, went to the door, fastened it again and headed straight to the bathroom. As the water tumbled all over her she reflected that she had not said one word to him. She nodded and smiled to herself; as though by that fact alone, it made what she had done quite innocent. Perhaps it had not happened at all. As she stepped from the shower she saw herself in the hazy mirror. "Well, I won't tell if you don't," she said.