Читать книгу Wanderlust: A Solitary Island in the South Pacific - Nina Hoffmann - Страница 5

The rain pelts wildly on the corrugated iron roof of our hut. When it really gets going, sleep is out of the question. I like that.

It's about midnight, a few days after New Year's Eve. We've only been on our desert island a few weeks. We lie on the clammy bed linen, which because of the humid climate hardly wants dries in the hottest time of the year - even if we hang it on the clothesline during the day.

"If it goes on like this, the rain tank will be full in five minutes," I say to Nina.

"I don't care, I want to go back to sleep," she mumbles and cuddles up to me. We listen to the rain keep drumming. Sunday jumps on the bed and lies down in the hollow of my knee. He hates rain, even if it's warm tropical rain.

I whisper to him, "Don't act like that," and pull him towards me at the head end to smell the sand and the sea in his soft ears. He growls sleepily.

It's funny: when it rains in Germany, I immediately get in a bad mood. I'm happy here on the island. You sit alone on a patch of sand surrounded by coconut palms and the wide sea, almost thirty hours’ flying time, twenty hours’ boating time and many waiting times away from Germany, and all the water of this planet plunges down on you. At least that's what it sounds like.

And finally I hear what I've been waiting for: the water splashing out of the overflow of the rain tank. I push the bedroom window up and look into the night. The tank is right behind the house, I can see the water jet.

"Nina, if we go outside now, we can have a real shower," I say. "As we know it." This means that we don't have to tilt water over our heads from a metal bowl, but can simply stand under the shower head - in this case the overflow of the tank. "A shower," I rave to Nina and squeeze at her. "Come on, it's all warm outside, just down to the beach and let’s have a shower." Without waiting for an answer, I grab her by the hand and pull her out of the bed, out of the hut, into the rain, down to the beach. Inside, Sunday is happy to have the bed to himself.

As we stand on the beach, we are already completely wet. We look back and see the candlelight shine in the hut. Tall drops slap our hair on our foreheads - tingling like a champagne shower; but who needs champagne when you live in paradise?

"We'll lie down in the sea", Nina calls now, but still taken with the tropical rain. The water is shallow at low tide and warmer than the rain, a single large bathtub. The moon shimmers lightly through the clouds, the waves are gentle. We let our toes protrude out of the water, hear the impact of the drops on the surface and the soft noise of the waves. Until I get a thought.

"I'm sure you can fish well in the rain at night," I say to Nina.

"You only think of one thing," she replies and jumps up. The idea that predatory fish could nibble at us also spoils my pleasure in bathing and I follow it.

We run to the hut holding hands and finally stand under the waterfall at the overflow that washes salt and sand off our bodies.

Then we throw ourselves into bed at Sunday, who immediately jumps down because we are too wet for him.

Next morning, Nina's the first to go outside. "Look at this," she calls to me in the bedroom. I go after her. We stand barefoot at the bright white beach under a coconut palm and look at the turquoise blue lagoon. Everything is calm and peaceful, the sea seems to be smooth and glittering in the sun. I give Nina a long kiss.

"Welcome to paradise," I whisper happily in her ear.