For six days, furious gale winds lashed the fragile atoll, and Rangiroa submitted. The coconut palms bent and flapped their tufts meekly. The sea hissed and roared, heaving itself against the barrier reef with a deafening tumult. The thatched huts along the beach moaned plaintively in the wind, which screamed through every crack and crevace.

We huddled in our fare in our accursed French-designed platform beds, with the flimsy bedspread pulled up to our chins. Every visitor to the Tahitian isles eventually learns that French hotel furniture designers have an aversion for anything remotely resembling physical comfort. The miniature platform bed in our thatched bungalow was a triumph of the French persecution of tourists. To maximize the sleeper's distress, the bed consisted of a three-inch slab of foam rubber laid on a plywood sheet mounted on four blocks. Actually, our double bed--which, inevitably, I came to call "the rack"--was two such half-beds shoved together.

We attempted to bolster our spirits by repeatedly rereading the brochure we had received from the Tahiti Tourism Board prior to our departure. The brochure assured the traveler that "tropical rainstorms, though sudden, rarely last more than a few minutes. A storm may appear at any time without notice, apparently from nowhere, but, minutes later, the sun will be shining from a pure blue sky." Right, I surmised--and, likewise, the French make comfortable furniture, sharks are color-blind, and the moon will soon grow hair.

Every night around 7:30, bent like trampled grass, we religiously sloughed down the beach through the driving rain to the open-air dining room to be watered and fed by our bemused Rangiroan hosts. Owing to the storm, the dining room had begun to take on the aspect of an emergency air-raid shelter, and the American Meal Plan had been replaced by something akin to Red Cross provisions. Instead of bread, we were fed impenetrable, cracker-like slabs of unimaginable age and origin, accompanied by fish or chicken broth served on saucers. The main course was something that had been grilled. Much more than that cannot be stated with authority. Whatever it was, it was white, had been marinated in something tart, and had a texture not dissimilar to upholstery material. (I had not yet observed any marine life resembling living room furniture, so I was reasonably certain it was not a grilled sofa foot-stool fish.)

Of course, while a gale is lashing a tiny tropical island, it is inconvenient for the (very, very) small aircraft used for inter-island flights to fly in fresh provisions. Furthermore, in such conditions the Rangiroans generally do not paddle out in their hand-carved canoes to check their nets strewn in the lagoon. In retrospect, all this may seem quite obvious, but it was easy to overlook these rather significant details at the time. Whatever type of aquatic organism it was that was being force-fed to us strandees was not exactly market-fresh. The sudden transformation of haute cuisine to emergency Doomsday provisions should have been an obvious indication of our plight. However, after numerous excursions in the tropics and hundreds of flight segments all over the world, I had begun to become cocooned in that false sense of well-being that, sooner or later, enshrouds every road-weary warrior.

Unfortunately, this ersatz immunity was not nearly as formidable as the cracker-like substance we were fed at dinner. After three days on the typhoon diet plan, I succumbed, inexorably, to a violent gut-wrenching affliction I can only describe as Ru's Revenge.

In Tahitian religion, the universe was created by the god Taaroa, who, having no mother or father, was apparently his own parent. Bored of floating around in a vacuum, he created the Tahitian islands, starting with Raiatea, also known as Hava'iti, after which Hawaii was named by wayfaring Marquesas Islanders-- but that's another story. After forming the land, Taaroa covered the land with plants and animals and filled the ocean with fish. Unfortunately, the carcass of a giant octopus was holding down the sky, causing a permanent state of nighttime. The demi-gods Maui and his brother Ru undertook to liberate the world from darkness. When Ru attempted to snatch-and-jerk the dead octopus, he was rewarded for his efforts with a giant-size hernia. His intestines popped out and floated over to Bora Bora, where they can be seen today in the form of clouds hugging the peak of the silent volcano, Mount Otemanu.

A person afflicted with Ru's Revenge sincerely wishes his intestines would pop out and float over to Bora Bora, taking his entire digestive appartus with him. Ru made his presence known with body-doubling abdominal pain, mercurial fever, and violent chills, bringing new sights and sounds to the dank, windswept bungalow. A typhoon cacaphony played--rain pelting the thatched grass roof; my racked body, simultaneously moaning and thrashing on the rigid platform bed; thunderous waves pounding against the reef; and indescribable intestinal orchestrations.

My fever-broiled brain was haunted by the travel brochure that I had kept for weeks with gleeful anticipation in my passport wallet. It said: "Paradise Has Never Been So Close." Funny thing about paradise: like love and hate, paradise and Hades are sometimes separated by a fragile tissue. In this case, the tissue was apparently imported from the same French company that manufactured the wispy toilet paper stored in the bathroom of our fare. The tissue reminded me of that chocolate candy that "melts in your mouth," except that French toilet paper "melts in your hand." Sparing the reader the morbid details, it was no match for the Gut-Wrenching Dysentery of the Gods.

All night long, the hut shook and whined incessantly in the gale. The next morning, there was a break in the storm. Our Lady helped me to stagger down the beach to the manager's hut to plead for an aspirin. Having known in advance that a typhoon was approaching the island, the management had already fled the atoll for Tahiti. There was no one left but the receptionist--a sprite, giggly, Chinese girl named Tomoko--and the cashier--a half-Tahitian, half-French girl whose face could have come straight off a Modigliani lithograph. Both were born-and-bred Rangiroans who were not the least bit bothered by the foul weather.

"My husband is feeling a little sick today," Our Lady said, gesturing toward the bench, which had been hand-carved from the trunk of a palm tree and where I now lay doubled up clutching my abdomen. "We were wondering if you might have any aspirin--"

"We air not 'lowed to geeve zee ass-pee-reen," Tomoko explained, shrugging. Like the French, the Polynesians are fond of punctuating their pigeon English with a snatch of charades. She drew a circle in the air, representing an aspirin tablet, even drawing the little crease that goes down the middle.

For our edification, Tomoko added: "Eez by ze constee-too-shong," She acted out the signing of the French-Polynesian constitution as she spoke. When she had finished miming, she went on to explain that someone somewhere in French Polynesia had once been given an aspirin and had had an allergic reaction, resulting in a big lawsuit against the hotel, Air Tahiti, and the French Polynesian government.

Somehow, I had difficulty believing that a prohibition against aspirin had been written by the founding fathers into the Tahitian constitution. Imagine all the island kings getting together with the French colonists to forge a common law. Dressed in loin cloths and wearing enormous flowered crowns looking like New Year's Parade floats, the kings sit around in a circle running down the list of prohibitions. "Nuclear testing--O.K.," says one. "Gutting the rain forest to build condominiums--O.K." says another. "But, absolutely, no giving out aspirin."

The other girl, the one with the Modigliani face, scrutinized me worriedly and asked: "You are malade in ze tête, yes?"

"Yes," I gasped. "And I have a fever."

Tomoko's eyes lit up in horror. "Fee-bear! And--?" She grabbed her shoulders and shivered violently.

"Yes. Chills also," I groaned.

"Vomee-teen?" She pantomimed an imaginary stream flowing from her mouth.

I nodded weakly.

"Ze dia-ree?"

I had never before--or have ever since--seen anyone pantomime diarreah. It is not often done in this country, especially at business luncheons. However, respectful as I am of differing cultures and customs, I merely nodded my head as she acted this out, too. "Do people often get this illness here?" I asked from the bench where I lay writhing.

"You are ze very first one," Modigliani Face replied. "I zeenk you have headache today," she concluded, "because of ze wezz-air."

Of course: not food poisoning, but the weather. Why hadn't I thought of that?

Somehow managing to stand, I staggered back to our fare and, throwing myself on the torture rack of a bed, mercifully fell into a coma. Over the next few days, when I focused my eyes during brief glimmers of consciousness, I spied Our Lady sitting up in bed with her visor pulled down low over her eyes. She was morosely devouring every last word of written English on the island. By the third day, she was reduced to reading the ads for briefcase-organizing systems in in-flight magazines.

How much longer, I thought, before we both snap? Before the thatched roof blows away? Before Modigliani Face calls the island doctor?

Next: A visit to the jungle doctor.

Copyright (c) 2001, Dennis L Foster, Inc.