Peter was entranced by Tahiti and often entertained Brandy and me with stories about the island:\u00a0 its friendly, beautiful people, its mountains, rivers, beaches, and glistening sea, and its evocation of Gauguin.\u00a0 There was no question that he had loved it there.\u00a0 He met and befriended the son of Gauguin and became something of a notorious beachcomber, at least according to an acquaintance of mine whom I met much later and who had been in Tahiti during Peter\u2019s sojourn.\u00a0 But Tahiti had a law stipulating that a non-indigenous person could not live there for more than a certain number of months in succession.\u00a0 And so, after a few months, Peter moved on to Samoa where he lived for about nine years.\u00a0 He made a living by selling fish, taking tourists sailing, managing an airline safety foundation, and working occasionally for the U.S. Navy, possibly as the captain of a pilot vessel\u00a0\u00a0 But in one period of two-and-a-half years, according to his notes, he averaged only about $200 a month (in the \u2018sixties).<\/p>\n
Peter was not alone for very long in Samoa any more than he had been alone during Mama\u2019s long absence.\u00a0 He met and fell in love with a Samoan named Luisa who eventually bore him two daughters.\u00a0 It was difficult enough supporting his new family on the pittance of his earnings, but worse was yet to come.\u00a0 Luisa\u2019s brother moved into Luisa\u2019s and Peter\u2019s small dwelling with his wife and child without even asking permission, presumably a practice encouraged\u2014or at least not dis<\/em>couraged\u2014by the island\u2019s extended family system.\u00a0 A note that Peter drafted to the brother epitomizes the situation and its poignancy.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n You broke an agreement with bringing your wife and Baby into the<\/p>\n house.\u00a0 Not asking Luisa first how she would feel about this \u2013 not<\/p>\n asking if she would be able to live with your wife in such small house<\/p>\n with so little conveniences is right out rude<\/em> of you.\u00a0 Luisa tells me that<\/p>\n she feels very unhappy as the children will have again to suffer under<\/p>\n such condition \u2013 and this affect me very badly.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n To escape the endless wrangling with the brother, Peter moved into a rented single room.\u00a0 But he noted despondently soon after that \u201cI am right now in a rather hardship condition to offer much to the living expenses of my baby and wife Luisa at this time.\u00a0 But I agree herewith to meet the payment of $10 per week . . .\u201d<\/p>\n Missing his Samoan family Peter sought a reconciliation with the brother.\u00a0 And Peter\u2019s good-hearted nature was clearly revealed in his note to the brother.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Luisa and I have agreed to let bygone be bygone that means to<\/p>\n forgive and forget, whatever has happen with the past, and we are both<\/em><\/p>\n willing to start over again with renewed love and tenderness, and in our<\/p>\n doings and decisions the concern for the best of our children shall be<\/p>\n our guide line.\u00a0 Can you do the same?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Peter\u2019s heartfelt efforts to close the breach between him and the brother was of no avail, however, and so he drew up a formal separation agreement with Luisa which stipulated his contributions to child support.<\/p>\n If the reader has any lingering suspicion that the liaison between Peter and Luisa was a mere sailor-meets-native-girl fling without emotional depth, one should read the following undated note written to Peter by Luisa at some point in their troubled relationship that turned up in his memorabilia after his death:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dear Peter,<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019m very<\/p>\n pleased to see you, my sweetheart.\u00a0 I want to be married<\/p>\n to you because I love you very much.<\/p>\n Goodbye, darling, I kiss<\/p>\n you every night.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Love always from Laura<\/p>\n <\/p>\n After living alone for a year or so, Peter decided that the only way to escape further entanglement in the Samoan extended-family system and to overcome his persistent poverty was to ship out once again.\u00a0 Moreover, he was now suffering from physical ailments that had been growing worse.\u00a0 He had developed cataracts, partly induced perhaps by exposure to the bright sun on the sea for so many years, and his gums were in terrible condition.\u00a0 He believed that he would receive better health benefits and treatment if he returned to St. Thomas.\u00a0 Leaving the two daughters with their mother, to whom he sent money on a regular basis till his death, Peter took passage with an American boat captain who was headed for the West Indies. \u00a0And so it was that one day I spotted an elderly man sitting despondently on the water taxi dock in Red Hook. He was now 64 years of age and the year was 1971.\u00a0 He wore thick glasses and was toothless, but occasionally wore his dentures.<\/p>\n Having since looked at a photo about two years before his departure for the South Seas and compared it with my memory of Peter\u2019s appearance when we met shortly after his return, the contrast is startling.\u00a0 Clearly, he had aged much more than ten years.\u00a0 Life in American Somoa had not been kind to Peter physically.<\/p>\n As Alexandra and I soon learned, Peter had found a new cause for disgruntlement in what he perceived as the rundown state of the business that he had proudly established and left in the care of Mama and Per.\u00a0 His daughter Anna had married and his elder son, Lars, had decided to remain in Florida after his schooling, so Mama and Per had been the sole managers for most of the time that Peter was away.\u00a0 And soon after his return Peter became embroiled in arguments with his wife and son about how to conduct their business affairs.\u00a0 Inasmuch as he had left them in the lurch twelve years earlier, however, it was not surprising that they spurned his advice even though he assured Brandy and me that he still loved Mama.\u00a0 That Mama had not been altogether happy with her lot over the years was signified by a small but telling display of bitterness one afternoon before Peter returned from Samoa as she and I were chatting on her porch.\u00a0 I asked in mock dismay over some recent set-back of mine, \u201cMama, what is the secret of happiness?\u201d\u00a0 And without a moment\u2019s hesitation, she brought her index finger and thumb together as if to signify a pinch of something very small, held it in front of my face, and replied, \u201cExpect very little.\u201d<\/p>\n After a year or so, recognizing that he was redundant and resented, Peter moved out and built a shanty for himself on a small cay, which he called Happy Island <\/em>and where a number of live-aboards had anchored just off shore.\u00a0 <\/em>\u00a0It was located in St. Thomas\u2019 beautiful mangrove lagoon that was only two miles down the road from Red Hook.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Peter was entranced by Tahiti and often entertained Brandy and me with stories about the island:\u00a0 its friendly, beautiful people, its mountains, rivers, beaches, and glistening sea, and its evocation of Gauguin.\u00a0 There was no question that he had loved it there.\u00a0 He met and befriended the son of Gauguin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-22","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dohm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/22","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dohm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dohm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dohm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dohm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dohm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/22\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23,"href":"https:\/\/dohm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/22\/revisions\/23"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dohm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}