The Charm Buyers

Lisa Patten

The Charm Buyers

In The Charm Buyers, Lillian Howan weaves multiple themes together to create a complex tapestry of memory, magic, and the meanings of love and truth, all set in a rich tropical environment of fevers and dreams.

Historical memory provides a central undercurrent of the book, influencing the plot and relationships.  Throughout much of the book, this shared memory is not directly named, but is instead shown through dialogue, relationships and plot detail.  The book is set in the final years of exclusive French rule in French Polynesia, at a time when the French, Polynesian and Chinese cultures shared a complicated coexistence, marked by economic and political disparities, and an acceleration of nuclear weapons testing by the French.  Significantly, the book concludes in 1996 -- the landmark year when France’s nuclear testing finally ended in compliance with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.  Subsequently, just seven years later exclusive French rule would be dissembled and French Polynesia became a French overseas collectivity. When the book ends in 1996, both the book and the country are left at the threshold of transformative change and an unknown future.

Yet without an in-depth knowledge of the socio-political history of French Polynesia, it becomes difficult to develop a meaningful analysis of the ways in which historical memory drive and inform the book.  Instead, we can look at the Marc Chen’s relationship to some of the central themes of the book and suggest ways in which his evolution may reflect the changes going on in the country as a whole.  

A central theme of the book emphasizes that the most important truths in life remain hidden, waiting to be discovered by those who truly desire them and are persistent enough to find them.  Like a charm hidden in a silken pouch, the truth must be guarded and protected, and entrusted only to those who are deserving of it.

The truths in Marc’s life – be they emotional, cultural or socio-political – remain hidden to him.   Throughout most of the book, he is unable to hear them nor does he want to.  He is too absorbed in his own life – in his social circle, his businesses, his vanity, and overall his inherited unearned sense of entitlement.  Marc would rather listen to the chatter of his own world than listen to the enduring timeless voices of the land and people around him.

The significant women in Marc’s life serve as truth-tellers throughout the book.  They consistently remind him of truths that he must learn and remember in order to thrive and live an authentic life.  He is drawn to these women for reasons that he doesn’t fully understand.  In effect they are his conscience, and are inextricably bound to him.  They will continue to be present and a powerful influence on his life whether he acknowledges them or not.

In the beginning and throughout much of the book, Marc is oblivious to the truth.  He cannot see outside of himself, or look deeply enough to see it in front of him. His vanity, his attitude of entitlement and just his general lack of awareness have blinded him to love, to the reality of his crimes, and to the socio-political state of affairs in Tahiti.

Born into wealth, Marc takes money and the sense of entitlement it brings for granted, despite his early years living a minimal existence with his great-grandmother.  Aurore however, has had a mixed experience living in different economic circumstances throughout her life.  This exposure to many ways of life has saved her from the more singular, myopic entitled vision of the world held by Marc, and given her an awareness that other truths exist. 

This appreciation is embodied in Aurore’s stories about the forest, and the figures she has seen hidden there.  Marc however is unimpressed by the stories, and sees them only in terms of himself:  Has she told these stories to others?  If not, does that make him special to her?  Even as she tells him these stories, which are clearly significant to her, he is distracted by her attentions as she runs her fingers through his hair – a symbol of vanity, and a particular source of pride for Marc.

 “Did you tell your cousins about the forest?” I asked. “No— why should I?” She seemed surprised by the idea, and I took it as a sign that perhaps she spoke only to me about the forest. Aurore had a fondness for running her fingers through my hair, and I took to cutting it less and less, to please her. She said she liked the way my hair fell in waves and then curled at the bottom of my neck. Like a girl, she teased me. I replied that my sister Odile always complained that Hakka girls rarely had wavy hair— it was something you saw on boys.

Aurore told me that once, when she was walking alone in the forest, she saw a young girl in the distance. She and her sister sometimes saw people in the forest and there were those who rode horses along the paths, even though it was forbidden to do so— but she had never encountered someone alone. She found herself approaching quietly, walking quickly enough to draw closer but keeping herself hidden. The girl paused from time to time and Aurore stood behind the trees. “Why did you hide?” I asked. “I had never seen her before— she didn’t come from around where we lived— and yet she was walking like she knew the forest. And she wasn’t old, like someone who had once lived nearby and was returning to something familiar. She was around sixteen. I thought she was very pretty. At first, I thought she was on her way to meet someone, but then I saw that she was walking deeper into the forest.”

Aurore talked about the girl in the forest only when we were alone together late at night. She told me this story many times and sometimes I felt that there was something she was not telling me, something important— but other times, I felt that she had told me everything and that she herself didn’t know why she repeated this story to me over and over again.

The ending was always the same. “I followed her,” said Aurore. “But she was going deeper inside.”

“Why didn’t you see where she was going?” I asked. “The forest had to end. You said it yourself: it was a real forest long ago, but only a small part of it was left.”

“But I could be lost, following her inside.”

“You follow her and the forest ends soon enough,” I said.

 “And you know so much about forests,” Aurore replied.

Howan, Lillian. The Charm Buyers (p. 119). University of Hawaii Press.

Intuitively, Aurore has an appreciation for the mystery and deep-rooted identity of Tahiti and her people.  This however is lost on Marc, and Aurore becomes aware of their vastly different levels of awareness of the world and of the cultural roots around them, and how that difference will ultimately keep them apart.

Aurore continually reminds him of the dangers of nuclear testing and how it could change their world forever.  She foresees an uncertain future when everyone must stand up and be counted, and in which each individual’s cultural and socio-political heritage means nothing when confronted with potential annihilation.  A break must be made from the nuclear testing, and from the French rule which threatens the fundamental birthright of Tahiti to remain a unique culture and autonomous nation.

Yet Marc grows weary of Aurore’s impassioned pleas, and can’t hear her warnings.  He even comes to resent her rants, and sees them as a distraction from her attention on him, and their time together.  Marc is still fixed in the present and in holding onto the status and identity he has.  He just can’t consider other possibilities, or question his own assumptions.

Marc and his people don’t belong anywhere.  Even though his father Tamerlan and other Chinese businessmen like him have established successful businesses and become wealthy, their days at the height of Tahitian society and economy are numbered.  His family’s wealth is largely gone, and political change is afoot.

Even A-tai was aware of this, at least in part.  In a conversation with Marc, she states emphatically that when she dies she doesn’t want her bones to be returned to China for burial, as is the cultural tradition.  She is too far removed from her Chinese heritage and no longer belongs there.  Instead, she asks to have her bones buried in Tahiti.  Yet as we’ve already seen in the story of Tamerlan’s struggle to bring his father’s bones from China to Tahiti for reburial, the bones of the Chinese people can’t last in Tahitian soil for long.  The Chinese don’t belong in Tahiti either.  Although the gravesite is honored and protected by a beautiful pavilion, the grave is eventually disrupted and bones taken.  The Chinese do not belong on Tahitian soil.

The fact that Marc’s people have never belonged in Tahiti is underscored when he goes to the spring late at night to get water for A-tai, and meets a group of mysterious native women.

“It was late at night, but a pickup truck was parked by the spring at the side of the road. Two women sat in the back. They whistled through their teeth and laughed as I got out of the car. “Good evening, ladies,” I said. “You thirsty?” asked one, a white tiare in her hair. “My great-grandmother is.” They burst into laughter and jumped out of the truck. They wore T-shirts and shorts and their feet were bare. “After you,” I said. “But we have many bottles and you have only one,” said the woman with the tiare. “You were here first.” “We were here, long before you. But we can wait,” said her companion, speaking with a strangely deep voice, her face hidden by her long hair.

Howan, Lillian. The Charm Buyers (pp. 83-84). University of Hawaii Press.

In this dreamlike scene, the woman with the tiare (a flower symbolic of Tahiti) in her hair represents Tahiti. Marc has come to get water for his great grandmother – in essence to gather a life-sustaining force from the land.  The Tahitians, who were there long before the Chinese, laugh at Marc’s apparent sense of entitlement to their resources, and let him go first, confident that soon it come their turn.  The political tides are changing in Tahiti, and it is only a matter of time before those with a true birthright to the land and its resources can regain control.

            Yet because this scene appears to Marc as a dreamlike scene, he is unable to see it clearly, and it’s meaning is lost on him.  Similarly, Mark has made assumptions about his level of entitlement here, and it is only a matter of time before Tahiti returns to its natural order.

Throughout the book, Marie-Laure holds a secret love for Marc.  Marc, however, often seems oblivious to her feelings – or is at least reluctant to see them.  Early on, he cannot understand why Marie-Laure decides not to go to a dance with him, and doesn’t see that it is because she loves him and is afraid of being compared to him and judged unattractive and unworthy of him.

Later, Marie-Laure and Marc do develop a relationship.  Yet soon their lives must go separate ways. Just before Marc leaves to join the French Army, he discovers a charm that Marie-Laure has hidden in her hat hanging on the wall, and recalls the words of his great-grandmother:

 A-tai had spoken of magical charms, things you kept hidden, things you never spoke about. It had passed quickly— ten days, two weeks— the days with Marie-Laure. She had slipped the charm inside the hat— to protect us, to grant us luck, good fortune, a long life

If something is precious, keep it well hidden. If you love someone, never speak of them. I couldn’t remember who had said this, A-tai or one of my aunts, but it was true. There was what you showed, how things appeared, and there was the way it really was. I could go to the most remote island of the Tuamotus, I could go to France, but the truth would still remain, hidden, secret, forgotten, always waiting, forever and ever passing like a day.”

Howan, Lillian. The Charm Buyers (p. 57-58). University of Hawaii Press.

Over the years, as their lives converge and draw apart, Marie-Laure’s love remains constant yet she cannot openly share it with him.  In effect, he is not ready to hear.  He served time in the army, and – resistant to joining his father’s business – he starts his own clandestine life as a drug trader, and as Aurore’s lover.  When Marie-Laure becomes ill, Marc is alarmed and spends all of his time at her side.  He is willing to do anything for her including bargaining his soul and his future in order to bring her a cure.  Strikingly though, he is unable to name this as love for her.  He continues his relationship with Aurore, and seems oblivious to the real and potential conflicts of leading a life dedicated to both women.  To himself, he only fully acknowledges his relationship with Aurore.  He doesn’t want to give either one of them up, yet tensions inevitably arise.  Marc and Aurore fight more often, and become alienated from one another.  In the meantime, Marie-Laure has been taken away to continue her recovery elsewhere.  In effect, Marc can’t see the truth of his relationship to either one of them, and so ends up with neither.

By the end of the book, Marc has been stripped of all of the things that made up his identity.   During his time in Huahine – in effect, his time in the wilderness -- he has been forced to shed all that he has become.  Reduced to extreme poverty, he is no longer successful, no longer beautiful and no longer entitled.  It is only at his humblest point that his fates change, and he is able to return to his previous life.  Now that he is no longer so full of himself, he can pay attention to the socio-political realities developing in Tahiti.  And he can hear what Marie-Laure has to tell him.

Once they are reunited, it has become clearer to Marc that he and Marie-Laure belong together.  But by the end of the book, however, it has also become clear that Marie-Laure does not belong in Tahiti.  Here she is ill and feels no purpose. Tahiti is toxic for her; whether or not it is the radiation from the French nuclear testing that has literally made her sick, or the cultural tension and isolation she feels as a result of her education and experience in the Western world, she cannot stay here.  She can only thrive in another setting, and decides to go to Australia where she will be recognized and affirmed as an educated, autonomous woman.  Out of her love for Marc, and her knowledge that he no longer belongs in or has a role in Tahiti, Marie-Laure invites him to join her.

Marc is not quite ready to join her though.  Although he is still somewhat oblivious as to why this is so, he does know that he needs time.  In truth, he has more growing to do, to be able to acknowledge his feelings for her, and to uncover his own truth and purpose.  And so, at the end of the book, he must move forward into an unknown future.  After seeing Marie-Laure’s flight take off for Australia, he walks off alone into the dark.

Lisa Patten