Fiji 2011: The Bad (part 1)

It's been over two months since I discovered my rented Mazda 4WD truck in this condition. In my hand was a takeaway coffee from Tappoos a few shops down along the main drag in Sigatoka. I'd stopped while driving from my accommodation near Cuvu to the Sharma family's farm in Korokoro, where a two-day puja marking the end of Nana's 12-month mourning period was about to begin. It was 3:50 pm on a Saturday afternoon. I'd been away from the truck for 20 minutes -- I knew precisely because I'd dropped 20 cents in a parking meter at 3:30. I'm averse to tourist traps but the closing of my friend Roshni's 'Le Cafe' made Tappoos' hideously named 'Bulaccino' the only coffee shop in town. I normally plug my laptop into an outlet and write among temporarily tattooed tourists who throw contemptuous looks at people who dare engage in non-vacation behavior. On this afternoon, however, I was running late, and chose to leave the laptop-carrying backpack on the passenger side floor of the truck.

Guess you know what's coming.

Funny how the mind can mute blaring despair. Or maybe I'm dimmer than most. "Why would someone mindlessly vandalise a parked vehicle?" was my immediate reaction to seeing the shattered passenger-side window. I must have assumed the backpack was slung over my shoulder because it wasn't until assessing the extent of the damage inside the truck did reality crash through my mind's double-paned glass: The bag. My bag's gone. It's been stolen. What was in the bag? Laptop. Camera. Ipod. USB sticks. Two notebooks filled with anecdotes, dialogue and minutae from previous trips to Fiji. And, ladies and gentlemen, every word of a book I've been writing for two-and-a-half years.

Did I have backups? Of course. The USB sticks. Only they were in the bag, as I'd intentionally booked myself at an isolated, little-known resort that promised limited distractions (e.g., just four hours of electricity a day) beside a secluded lagoon. To write. Aradhna couldn't accompany me on this trip as she'd recently returned from a holiday in Vietnam so I was in Fiji to represent the two of us at Nana's puja and finish my untitled 'Fiji novel', a book that drew on time spent with Nana, my travels throughout Fiji and many months at the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne researching Fiji's fascinating, if tragic, late-19th- and 20th-century history. I'd amassed 600-700 pages, depending on the draft, but sought to replace bulk with precision.

Alas a thief, or gang or thieves, solved my 'bulk' problem.

After staring at glass nuggets scattered throughout the truck's interior I climbed out and took stock. Witnesses? None. Sigatoka clears out after 3 pm on Saturdays and doesn't re-awaken until Monday morning. Police? I walked to a small barracks. No cops inside. A single taxi sat in a normally busy rank. I asked its Indian driver for a lift to the police station across from Lawaqa Park on the other side of town. He became the first of many to hear my sorry tale and at the station refused to accept payment. Inside a seemingly deserted 2-story structure a burly Fijian officer sat behind an unlit reception desk. He watched me walk in, but said nothing.

"I just had my truck broken into out front of Tappoos," I said.

His eyes drooped into darkened, flabby crevices. Five seconds passed. A myna bird squawked beside a busted water pipe in front of the station. Ten seconds passed. Had I addressed him disrespectfully? Another ten seconds. He looked down, sighed, and raised his head like a matador addressing a bull.

"Come back Monday morning."

If you've played baseball you're familiar with the sudden silence, twitching brainpan and scrambled perspective of being drilled in the head. I can't remember when I last donned mitt, spikes and cap but inside the Sigatoka Police Station on a Saturday afternoon in September I had become a Little Leaguer splayed face down, knot erupting from my noggin, taste of infield dirt on my tongue. Fortunately, like ballplayers through the ages I scrambled back up, dusted myself off, and hid the concussive effects from my opponent.

"Maybe I could lodge a police report?" I asked, haltingly.

The matador buckled. With glacial velocity he wheeled to the opposite side of the reception desk, snatched a form and wheeled back. I listened to his pen scribble across a poorly Xerox'd copy of a police report. He requested specifics. I described the backpack's contents -- including the bag itself, a cherished companion bought at a pricy Aussie travel chain -- before the wallop of another hardball brought down the curtain again: My passport. My passport was in the bag. My passport's been stolen. I was in Fiji without my goddamned US passport.

A sinking man seeks sunlight so I walked outside and squeezed my head and looked at the sky and engaged in a brutal reckoning of every decision, action and plan that made this clusterfuck possible. I walked back into the station and stood before the cop.

"Your passport, you say?" he said with a smile. The daggers were in. The bull lay dying. The matador had won.

To be continued ...