Lovina's Reign

Vava Of The Tiare

Amusing Memories of Lovina's Reign

ONE of the characters who gave atmosphere to that picturesque caravansary at Papeete, the Tiare Hotel, was Vava.

Vava was a deaf-mute. No one knew his real name. The Tahitian custom of giving to an individual the name of his infirmity had fastened on him the term “Vava,*’ which signified a deaf and dumb person.

In the entourage about Lovina (the Tiare proprietress) he was master-of-the horse (the internal-combustion engine had not yet abolished that noble animal), and court jester.

Nature had compensated his deprivation of speech and hearing by an extraordinary gift of observation and appraisal. Like the coloured house servants of the Old South in the United States, he could tell at a glance who were “quality folk” and who “poor white trash.” His signs— comprehended only by Lovina and a few of the initiated —were descriptive or ribald, according to Vava’s estimate of the quality of persons involved in the drama of his narratives.

Lovina—who cared nothing for money (she had inherited a fortune safely in vested in Hawaii) and kept open ] rouse only because she enjoyed the excitement of new faces—held daily Durbars in her audience chamber on the back verandah of the Tiare Hotel, and it was on these occasions that Vava brought his glean ings of news and gossip from the high ways and byways of Papeete.

Vava’s language had nothing to do with alphabets, nor was it pantomime. His gestures had more the significance of Chinese ideographs or primitive picture writing, and were punctuated by staccato barks which served as adjectives and adverbs.

Vava was a terrible revealer of secrets.

In his wanderings about the byways and warrens of Papeete, he surprised happen ings which had escaped even the sleep less eyes and ears of the market school for scandal.

Once he was sent to the Freemason’s Hall to serve at the hour of refreshment after an initiation. The brethren, know ing him to be a deaf-mute, did not pay much attention to his goings and com ings. The next day, at the Durbar, Vava’s description of things, usually hidden from the uninitiated, was so accurate that the Freemasons kept him at a distance from their ceremonies forever after.

BEHIND the veil of the Tahitian lan guage, the character and habits of each stranger were discussed (even in his presence) at those assemblies on the back verandah, with a thoroughness which would have startled him were he able to comprehend. The chambermaid expatiated on the quality of his wardrobe and the tidiness (or otherwise) of his habits; the laundress on the state of his linen; the waitress on the refinement of his table manners. Vava, fresh from nocturnal prowling, had dramatic tidings of the stranger’s activities and wander ings—both open and surreptitious—that stoked the fires of gossip to incandescence.

Lovina’s appraisal was, however, the final pronouncement—built, as it were, on more material foundations. She had visited the States and had resided for a period at Honolulu, where she had ac quired a knowledge of modern social values.

Whenever a stranger appeared she ob served, first of all, his footwear. If he

were shod in well-fashioned, expensive leather, he was admitted to the beau monde. If, in addition, he enriched his daily repast with a bottle of vintage more exalted than the plebian vin ordinaire , Lovina bestowed on him her accolade of knighthood:—“He buys wine. He is a millionairei” , ’ ...

To be a millionaire, in those far-off days, was the summit of distinction; equal to the eminence of a scienitst or a Hollywood actor in a later age. There was no higher distinction attainable by man. . , J The stranger s social prestige was henceforth established, beyond all cavil, as one of the elect, with nearly all who frequented the Tiare. The only dissenters were a small minority of discriminate

persons who, in general, held their peace —and Vava.

The idiosyncrasies an inexorable Nature had imposed on the newcomer were ap parent to Vava’s uncanny perception, and he caricatured them without mercy— much to the delight of the assembly. This frequently brought upon him the pains and penalties of royal displeasure, result ing in his banishment for more or less lengthy periods.

But inasmuch as Vava was indispensable in his office of master-of-the-horse, as well as intelligence agent and court jester, his absences were never prolonged beyond what Lovina considered a disciplinary period. In due time, incorrigible, he was

again the “life of the party.”-

A. C.R.