The Women of Tahiti

The women of Tahiti hover as he convalesces on the veranda. Flowered dresses of sunset orange and peacock green ripple in the wind. Their skin is the color of strong tea sweetened with honey and lightened with cream. His eyes drink in the balm of their milky flesh.

Slender hands perform healing rituals above the staples covering his chest. The women’s smiles tame the angry cross-stitching on his right leg where severed veins have been rerouted to his heart. His doctor explained that blood vessels are normally stripped from the left leg, but his limb was shortened and weakened by polio during childhood. So the surgeon massacred his good leg, the sole source of stability in his life, to save his heart. By such logic, salvation lies in destruction.

Leviticus tells of ancient priests who slaughtered unblemished bulls to propitiate a jealous god and protect the people. Yet all their Temple sacrifices failed to spare the Jews from persecution and death. Why should the offering of his unblemished leg be any more successful?

Torches flare around the circumference of his tropical isle, charged with holding back the big-mouthed lion of post-operative pain. Other flames burst upon his vision. Candles stuck in the sand. He is seven years old, aboard the Rotterdam, sailing for America with his mother and aunt. The father he cannot remember awaits them in a gold-paved city called New York. He is with other immigrants in the ship’s dark hold. Though the days of their voyage are unmarked, a spiritual calendar tells them it...