Songbirds of Tokoriki

A myna bird waiting for breakfast and a song at Tokoriki. Photo by David Lansing.

I think Penioni has decided to adopt me. Perhaps because I seem to be the only one at the resort by myself. This morning I pulled myself out of the ocean (I love going for a swim just as the sun comes up), wrapped a towel around my waist, and plopped down in one of the wicker chairs around the pool for breakfast. Before I could ask Niumaia for a pot of coffee and some fresh fruit, Penioni had pulled up a chair across from me. As if we’d arranged to meet for breakfast this morning. Which I’m pretty sure we didn’t.

It was odd. He didn’t say anything. Just sat down and folded his hands in his lap, staring down a myna bird, an island interloper from India, sitting atop a chair and waiting for someone to ignore their piece of toast long enough for him to make off with it. The bird, not Penioni. Penioni made a small hissing sound and the myna cocked his head in interest but refused to budge.

A couple of the boys in the water sports shack down below us on the beach, hosing down snorkel gear and pulling kayaks on to the beach, started singing. Penioni, locked in a blinking contest with the myna, joined right in. He sang carefully and with emotion. As if the two of us were in some sort of Fijian version of South Pacific and Rodgers & Hammerstein were directing him from the wings.

It was fantastic and upsetting for some reason, having a stranger sitting at my table, warbling like Rossano Brazzi, while I drank my coffee.

When the song was over and the boys went back to hanging up the wet suits to dry, I didn’t know what to do or say. I felt sort of embarrassed but I didn’t know if it was for Penioni or myself. Because the sudden silence was making me uncomfortable, I said, “Penioni, do you sing often?” What a stupid question.

But Penioni didn’t seem insulted. He shrugged. “All Fijians sing,” he said. “It’s what we do.” And then he got up and without saying so much as See you later, went and sat at one of the other tables around the pool, this one occupied by a young couple showing all the signs of being honeymooners (holding hands, glowing, guffawing when a myna bird stole their brioche). I felt certain that if Penioni broke out in song midway through their breakfast, they’d find it enchanting. And something they’d tell their children fifty years from now on the occasion of their Golden Anniversary. “We were on a little island in the South Pacific called Tokoriki where this little man who managed the resort—What was his name, Dolly?—would sit down with you at breakfast and just start singing like a song bird. Damnest thing we’d ever seen.”

And it was.