Law Clerk on Gilligan's Island
Chapter 15- The Outrigger
One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one
has not dined well.
-Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own
It's the last dinner my parents are going to eat in Palau, so I want it to be something they like. A day ago, we went to the Outrigger Hotel's "Desomel" Restaurant for lunch. (For what it's worth, "desomel" in Palauan means "outrigger." So it's the Outrigger's "Outrigger" Restaurant. Boy is that lame. That's like a French café that calls itself "Le Café.") They liked that, so we're going back.
My parents, having now been in Palau to visit for the past 10 days, have not proven to be culinary adventurers. My father-- at my urging-- reluctantly tried a piece of sashimi his second day here. As my mother grimaced, he gamely chewed it about a dozen times, before finally swallowing it with a forced gulp. Then he made a face. I offered him another piece, thinking that now that he had lost his raw fish virginity, he'd have a few more and enjoy them, but he vigorously declined. His problem with it, he explained, was psychological-- that "knowing" it was raw fish made it otherwise impossible to enjoy it, even if it tasted good.
My mother was even worse-- as I overheard her say several times during this vacation, "I'm just happy with pizza and Michigan hot dogs." We beat the "pizza" part of that couplet to death-- Rock Island pizza sufficed for 3 lunches, 2 dinners, and a couple of snacks over the course of a little over a week-- and Michigan hot dogs (a Plattsburgh term for chili dogs or red hots) are, tragically, not a popular draw in Palau.
Fish is, but my mother doesn't like seafood. Except for the deep fried shrimp we had at one place, but I'm inclined to chalk that up more to the batter than the crustacean inside. She would have been just as happy with a plate of deep fried breading.
Fortunately, we had discovered the Outrigger's "American-style" restaurant at lunch a few days ago. Their menu shied away somewhat from the tradtional seafood choices, instead featuring such exotic items as club sandwiches, fried chicken, and pasta, entrees sufficiently recognizable that my folks wouldn't have to worry about ordering something called "kangkum" or "goyoza." So when it came time for their last meal, it seemed only natural to go back there.
The doors of the Desomel open up into a spacious, glass-enclosed, aggressively air-conditioned dining room. There's a hero, if you look inside your heart... Eech. The music system was playing some dopey song by Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston or some other over-emoting diva. (It was a damn sight better than what we had heard at lunch the last time we were here. A family was having a birthday party for their three year-old, and was playing music over the restaurant's speaker system that sounded like The 700 Club meets the Barney the Dinosaur show: a children's chorus singing If you're saved and you know it, clap your hands . . . .)
The restaurant was surprisingly busy. The Outrigger Hotel officially opened for business in August of 1998, and has been more or less vacant ever since. It started life with a few strikes against it in the first place. Located in the middle of downtown Koror, it has no beach access whatsoever-- the ocean is three blocks away, ringed by concrete seawalls; there's not a "beach," as one would commonly understand the term, for miles. Instead, patrons have to settle for a couple of concrete swimming pools and hot tubs, surrounded on three sides by the hotel. Of course, even that panoply of recreational options was somewhat diminished recently when one of the pools filled with raw sewage due to some mysterious plumbing failure.
The hotel itself is owned by the Taiwanese and was intended to draw a heavy Chinese and Japanese clientele, but opened in the middle of the Asian economic crisis which reduced the flow of visitors to Palau to a trickle. After a while, I turned it into a game-- at night, on the way by the building, I'd try to count every room that appeared to have a light on inside. I never saw more than 6 of the 40-some rooms facing the road appear to be filled.
The owners attempted to draw some locals to the place by offering live music five nights a week in the 7th floor bar, but few people ever showed. We expats generally didn't go, even though we were good friends with the musicians playing there, because by 8:00 p.m. when the music started, it was too dark to enjoy the highly touted view from that high up, and, more importantly, because the hotel was charging about $4 a beer.
Palauans didn't go there either, but, I'm told, for a somewhat more complicated reason: they allegedly don't like elevators. I don't know if that's true or not, but it's indisputable that, other than in the Outrigger, there is only one elevator in the entire nation. It's in the WCTC building, and shuttles between the grocery store downstairs and Ben Franklin above, and doesn't seem to get much use. So I wouldn't be all that surprised if the ultra-modern-looking glass elevators with the exposed shafts in the Outrigger look just a little too fragile for many Palauans.
So for the past 6 months, the Outrigger has been as empty as the lodge in The Shining, not to mention far less interesting. (One expat here has dubbed it the "Hotel Rigor Mortis.") But surprisingly, the place actually looked occupied when we showed up for dinner that night. Rumor has it that, with the Asian economic crisis waning, the hotel had booked up solid for the Chinese New Year. Several of the tables in the restaurant were full, taxing the abilities of the mostly-Filipina staff for probably the first time ever. We got a table by the window (once again, the majestic view was shrouded in darkness by 6:00 p.m. Unlike more northern latitudes, there's not a great variation in the length of the day near the equator, and regardless of the time of year, it's dark here by about 6:30 at night.) and perused the menu.
Another common complaint my mother had about dining in Palau was that none of the restaurants seemed to follow the American custom of setting you up with some free rolls or bread before the meal. My mother is a great fan of pre-meal bread, and has frequently eaten so many rolls before her dinner arrives that she was no longer hungry when it finally got there. (And has, if the bread was any good, smuggled the remainder of it, wrapped in napkins, into her purse. "They're just going to throw it away," she justifies.)
Having spent 10 days deprived of a good dough fix, her eyes quickly alighted on the pasta section of the menu-- "choose from linguini, spaghetti, angel hair, or fusilli, and add you choice of marinara, boullinaise, carbonara, or alfredo sauce." Her desire for a pasta dish that night didn't stem from her Italian upbringing so much as it did from the menu's explanation that "all pasta dishes come with a side salad and garlic bread." (She also goaded my father into ordering a bowl of clam chowder, because "soups come with roll and butter.") But my mother, having seen too many things to eat here that she wanted no part of, first had to make sure she knew what she was getting:
My mother: What's fusilli?
Me: It's a curly pasta. Remember the "fusilli Jerry" from Seinfeld?
My father: She likes angel hair.
My mother: I like angel hair. Which sauce is which?
Me: Marinara is just plain tomatoes. Carbonara has bacon or something in it, alfredo is a creamy white sauce, and boullinaise is . . . I don't know. Probably meat. I think I had a boulliniase sauce with carrots in it once.
My father: She doesn't like carrots.
My mother: I don't like carrots.
So she settled on angel hair pasta in a carrot-less marinara sauce. And then we began to wait. ...then a hero comes along, with the strength to carry on... Hmm . . .
Twenty minutes, and one bowl of clam chowder with roll later, our meals start arriving. Even at a distance, however, it's clear that something is amiss with my mother's pasta. The sauce appears to be studded here and there with small, pinkish-orange lumps, partially obscured by tomato paste. Once it's put down in front of my mother, it's clear that, as befitting an island nation, the "marinara" sauce is augmented with the bounty of the sea-- small shrimp, scallops, and so on mixed in with a basic tomato sauce.
I've actually had some pasta here with fresh hunks of tuna mixed in the tomato sauce, and, while a little unusual, it wasn't half bad. But my mother, after 10 days of scavenging menus for something that doesn't involve fish, has been pushed too far. At first she accuses me: "I thought you said this was just plain tomato sauce." she says.
"It should be," I reply. I can tell that she's starting to get upset. Ten days without bread before dinner has left her frayed and vulnerable. And now a fishy pasta sauce has tipped here over the edge. I'd like to be able to offer her some explanation why this world she's in seems so strange. But the best I can offer is my trademarked, all-purpose explanation for the odd things that happen here. "That's Palau™" I tell her.
The next time the waitress comes by, my mother launches into an apologetic monologue:
This has seafood in it. When I ordered "marinara" sauce, I thought it was just tomato sauce. See, we're from the United States, and there, "marinara" sauce means just plain tomatoes, but this has seafood in it and I can't eat it because I'm allergic to seafood. So I was wondering if I can just send this back and just get like a plain tomato sauce or a meat sauce or something without seafood in it because I'm allergic to seafood, and I thought that it was just going to be tomato sauce. But it has seafood in it.
By the way, the whole "I'm allergic" thing is a bald-faced lie. My mother heard on "Oprah" that if you want to send something back in a restaurant, explain that you're allergic to it, and they all but have to take it back. Presumably, if they make you eat it and you die, they'd get sued. Except that this is Palau, where nobody really worries about being sued. ...there's a hero, if you look inside your heart ...
The waitress is non-plussed by my mother's tale of woe. In fact, other than helpfully nodding in agreement each time my mother mentions that the sauce has seafood in it, the waitress has been more or less silent through my mother's speech. Whether its a silence of indifference, politeness, or incomprehension, however, is not clear.
After some more grappling, with the waitress consulting her order pad and my mother admitting that she did, in fact, order marinara sauce, the reason for the waitress' silence finally emerges: she's afraid to take the dish back into the kitchen because she thinks the chef will think that she made the mistake.
As a cultural aside, let me note something here. Palau is not entirely accustomed to a customer-satisfaction philosophy. For whatever reasons (probably the historical lack of vigorously competitive service and retail industries), the notion that "the customer is always right" has not entirely caught on here, a fact that can work some frustrating results. I bought a watch at Ben Franklin, and within two weeks, it had stopped several times. I brought it back with the receipt and explained the problem, not looking for a refund, but simply asking if I could just swap it for a non-defective model. The manager came out and, after observing that the watch was currently running, explained that they needed to keep the watch for a few days to see for themselves if it actually stopped working. If it stopped while in their exclusive custody, they'd replace it. The implied corollary, then, was that if it didn't stop while they had it, I must be lying about it being defective, and they'd refuse to exchange it. (For those of you who need closure on anecdotes, it didn't stop while they had it. I still wear it, waiting for it to poop out again, at which time I'll drag it in and show them it doesn't work.)
In this particular case, though, I'm pretty sure that the waitress had a profound, mortal fear of the chef, and that nothing short of an affidavit by my mother attesting to the fact that she had indeed ordered the marinara sauce was going to get the waitress to take that plate back to the kitchen. ...and you're finding out it's true, that the hero is in you...
Finally, my mother pulls out the big gun: "I can go back there and explain to him that it was my mistake if that would help." The waitress' attitude suddenly changes. I recognize the shift, though. It's the same backpedaling I had to do with my mother after lying about not having any homework, and her offering to call up my teachers and check, "just in case." Suddenly, to the waitress, incurring the wrath of the chef alone is vastly more preferable than the embarrassment of bringing some genially assertive American woman back to the kitchen to plead for a less fishy sauce. She turns towards the kitchen pensively, biting her lip as she thinks, then turns around and pats my mother on the shoulder. "Let me see what he says," she offers, and walks away with the plate.
...There's a hero, if you look inside your heart ...
Hold on a minute, here! What the hell is going on? Has anybody else noticed this?
"Isn't this the same song that was playing when we came in here?" I ask. Everyone at the table cocks their heads and listens for a few seconds. ...then a hero comes along, with the strength to carry on....
"I hadn't really noticed it," my father says. "Maybe they only have half an hour of music and it's repeating itself."
"No," I say, "I wasn't exactly paying attention before, but now, as I think about it, I haven't heard anything but this." It's true. The same song has been playing over and over and over again, endlessly since we arrived. It's not a Muzak system or an album on auto-repeat, but one song-- just one-- playing constantly over the speakers hidden around the restaurant.
I'm not a Mariah Carey (or whoever) fan, and although I've heard fragments of this song (usually as background music to a human-interest story on the local news about some old lady saving cats or something), I can't really distinguish the beginning from the end. Ignoring the conversation that has re-started around me, I listen for a few minutes, struggling to hear a clear beginning or ending of the song, listening for the telltale pop of a tape splice, or a click from a CD player skipping backwards.
At this point, I'm intrigued and looking for evidence to support a hypothesis. Is this on purpose? Does the hostess have an insatiable Mariah Carey (or whoever) jones? Is this a sick psychological experiment? Palau's version of Candid Camera? (I start to recall reading a Twilight Zone comic book as a child, in which a man wishes to relive the happiest day of his life. His wish comes true, and he lives it over and over and over again, exactly the same way, every day, for the rest of eternity. I get a chill up my spine, imagining spending eternity at the Outrigger Hotel restaurant with my parents.) Or maybe it's an accident. But is it really possible that nobody has noticed it? But there is no clue as to the reason for this -- no pauses while a CD player somewhere in the bowels of the Outrigger slides back to the beginning of the track for another go at it, not even a break in rhythm or tempo that would suggest where it starts or finishes, just an endless repetition of verse-chorus-verse, as if the song is one incredibly long and redundant opus. ...when you need someone along, look inside you and be strong... Then it dawns on me, and I yell out loud:
These people are holding Mariah Carey (or whoever) hostage, and forcing her to sing the same damn song over and over again; a Sisyphian punishment for years of overplayed, oversung pop fluff! That's it! The Outrigger Hotel is, in actuality, the 7th ring of Hell!
That would explain a lot about this place.
Meanwhile, back in reality, the waitress has returned, bearing news that the chef has apparently accepted her explanation, and that a dish of pasta with a boullinaise sauce is being prepared.
"Is that just a meat sauce?" my mother asks.
"Just meat," says the waitress.
"No seafood?"
"Just meat."
"Ask about carrots," I mutter. But no one is listening. After that "7th ring of Hell" stuff, they've just tuned me right out.
My mother thanks the waitress. Inexplicably, throughout this exchange, the waitress has conspiratorially taken hold of my mother's upraised hand. This strikes me as odd. My mother, too, apparently. She looks quizzically at me, as if to ask "is this some customary Palauan gesture regarding the exchange of food?" I shrug. ...There's a hero, if you look inside your heart...
A few minutes later, the new pasta dish arrives. The waitress gently pats my mother on the shoulder as she places the plate on the table. The neo-aquatic marinara sauce has been replaced with a lumpy, meat-ish looking red paste. "Is ok?" the waitress asks my mother. Now in the spirit of things, my mother pats the waitress on the hand as she says everything is fine now.
I offer to check it for the chef's saliva, but again, no one is listening.
After a full sixty seconds, the waitress is back, asking again if everything is ok. This time, she has a hand on my mother's shoulder. Everything is fine, we tell her. We repeat that assurance when she comes by again about five minutes later. Once again she is protectively touching my mother's shoulder while asking if everything is really all right.
I try to identify the dynamic with my mother that has silently developed in the waitress' mind. Then it occurs to me: the waitress is terrified of confrontation with the chef. But my mother has come along, and given her the strength to face her fears. My mother has helped the waitress find the hero inside herself.
Mariah Carey (or whoever) would be proud.
This chapter uploaded on March 10, 1999
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