The Signature of All Things

by Elizabeth Gilbert

  For Roger, Alma had learned, was the name of the little dog that had visited her that first night in her fare. Roger did not seem to belong to anyone, but apparently he had been somewhat fond of Ambrose, who had bestowed upon him his dignified, robust name. Sister Etini explained all this to Alma, along with this unsettling bit of advice: “Roger will never bite you, Sister Whittaker, unless you try to feed him.”

  For the first few weeks of Alma’s stay, Roger came to her small room night after night, to bark at her with all his heart. For a long time, she never saw him during the day. Gradually, and with visible reluctance, his indignation wore away, and his episodes of outrage became briefer. One morning, Alma awoke to find Roger sleeping on the floor right next to her bed, which meant that he had entered her house the previous night without barking at all. That seemed significant. At the sound of Alma stirring, Roger growled and ran away, but he was back the next night, and was silent from then on. Inevitably, she did indeed try to feed him, and he did indeed try to bite her. Other than that, they fared well enough together. It was not that Roger became friendly, exactly, but he no longer appeared desirous of removing her throat from her body, and that was an improvement.

  Roger was a dreadful-looking dog. He was not only orange and mottled, with an irregularly shaped jaw and a bad limp, but it appeared that something had worked rather relentlessly to chew off a large section of his tail. Also, he was tuapu’u—hunchbacked. Still, Alma came to appreciate the dog’s presence. Ambrose must have loved him for some reason, she thought, and that intrigued her. She would gaze at the dog for hours and wonder what he knew about her husband—what he had witnessed. His companionship became a comfort. While she could not claim that Roger was protective or loyal toward her, he did seem to feel some sort of connection to the house. This made her feel somewhat less afraid to fall asleep alone at night, knowing that he was coming.

  This was good, for Alma had abandoned hope for any other measure of security or privacy. There was no gain to be had in even attempting to define boundaries around her home or her few remaining belongings. Adults, children, fauna, weather—at any hour of the day or night, for any reason at all, everybody and everything in Matavai Bay felt quite free to enter Alma’s fare. They did not always come empty-handed, to be fair. Pieces of her belongings reappeared over time, in bits and fragments. She never knew who brought these items back to her. She never saw it happen. It was as if the island itself were slowly coughing up portions of her swallowed luggage.

  In the first week, she recovered some paper, a petticoat, a vial of medicine, a bolt of cloth, a ball of twine, and a hairbrush. She thought, If I wait long enough, it will all be returned. But that was not true, for items were just as likely to vanish as to appear. She did get back her one other travel dress—its hemful of coins amazingly intact—which was a true blessing, though she never recovered any of her spare bonnets. Some of her writing paper found its way back to her, but not much of it. She never again saw her medicine kit, but several glass vials for botanical collection showed up on her doorstep in a neat row. One morning she discovered that a shoe was gone—just one shoe!—though she could not imagine what somebody wanted with just one shoe, while, at the same time, a quite useful set of watercolors had been returned. Another day, she recovered the base of her prized microscope, only to see that somebody had now taken back the eyepiece in exchange. It was as if there were a tide ebbing and flowing in and out of her house, depositing and withdrawing the flotsam of her old life. She had no alternative but to accept it, and to marvel, day after day, at what she found and lost, and then found and lost once more.

  Ambrose’s valise, however, was never taken from her again. The very morning it was returned to her doorstep, she placed it on the little table inside her fare, and there it remained—absolutely untouched, as though guarded by an invisible Polynesian Minotaur. Furthermore, not a single one of the drawings of The Boy ever disappeared. She did not know why this valise and its contents were treated with such reverence, when nothing else was safe at Matavai Bay. She would not have dared to ask anyone, Why do you not touch this object, or steal these pictures? But how could she have explained what the drawings were, or what the valise meant to her? All she could do was keep silent, and understand nothing.

  * * *

  Alma’s thoughts were on Ambrose at all times. He had left no trace in Tahiti, other than everyone’s residual fondness for him, but she sought signs of him ceaselessly. Everything she did, everything she touched, caused her to wonder: Had he done this also? How had he spent his time here? What had he thought of his tiny house, the curious food, the difficult language, the constant sea, the Hiro contingent? Had he loved Tahiti? Or, like Alma, had he found it too alien and peculiar to love? Had he burned under the sun, as Alma now burned on this black sand beach? Had he missed the cool violets and quiet thrushes of home, as Alma did, even as she admired the lush hibiscus and the loud green parrots? Had he been melancholy and sorrowful, or was he full of joy to have discovered Eden? Had he thought of Alma at all when he was here? Or had he forgotten her rapidly, relieved to be free of her discomfiting desires? Had he forgotten her because he fell in love with The Boy? And as for The Boy, where was he now? He wasn’t really a boy—Alma had to admit this to herself, especially when she studied the drawings again. The figure in them was more of a boy on the brink of manhood. By this time, some two or three years later, he must be a fully grown man. In Alma’s mind, though, he was still The Boy, and she never stopped looking for him.

  But Alma could find no trace or mention of The Boy at Matavai Bay. She looked for him in the face of every man who came through the settlement, and in the faces of all the fishermen who used the beach. When the Reverend Welles told Alma that Ambrose had taught a native Tahitian the secret to tending vanilla orchids (little boys, little fingers, little sticks), Alma thought, That must be him. But when she went to the plantation to investigate, it wasn’t The Boy at all: it was a stout older fellow, with a cast over one eye. Alma took several outings to the vanilla plantation, pretending an interest in the proceedings there, but never saw anyone who remotely resembled The Boy. Every few days or so, she would announce that she was going botanizing, but she would actually return to the capital of Papeete, borrowing a pony from the plantation for the long ride in. Once there, she would walk the streets all day and well into the evening, looking at every passing face. The pony followed behind her—a skeletal, tropical version of Soames, her old childhood friend. She looked for The Boy at the docks, outside the brothels, in the hotels full of fine French colonists, in the new Catholic cathedral, in the market. Sometimes she would see a tall, well-built native man with short hair walking ahead of her, and she would run to him and tap him on the shoulder, ready to ask him any question, merely to make him turn around. At every encounter she was certain: This will be him.

  It was never him.

  She knew that soon she would need to expand her search, go look for him beyond the environs of Papeete and Matavai Bay, but she wasn’t certain how to begin. The island of Tahiti was thirty-five miles long and twelve miles wide, shaped something like a lopsided figure eight. Great stretches of it were difficult or impossible to traverse. Once one left the shaded, sandy road that wound partly around the coastline, the terrain became dauntingly challenging. Terraced plantations of yams crawled up the hills, along with coconut groves and waves of short scrub grass, but then, quite suddenly, there was nothing but tall cliffs and inaccessible jungle. Few people lived in the highlands, Alma was told, except the cliff dwellers—who were nearly mythical, and who had extraordinary capacity as climbers. These people were hunters, not fishermen. Some had never even touched the sea. The cliff-dwelling Tahitians and the coastal Tahitians had always regarded each other warily, and there were boundaries that neither was meant to cross. Perhaps The Boy had been from among the cliff-dwelling tribes? But Ambrose’s drawings depicted him at the seaside, carrying a fisherman’s nets. Alma could not puzzle it out.

  It
was also possible that The Boy was a sailor—a hand on a visiting whaling ship. If that was the case, she would never find him. He could be anywhere in the world by now. He could even be dead. But absence of proof—as Alma well knew—was not proof of absence.

  She would have to keep looking.

  She certainly gleaned no information from within the mission settlement. There was never any wicked gossip about Ambrose—not even at the bathing river, where all the women gossiped so freely. Nobody had made so much as a sidewise comment about the much-missed and much-lamented Mr. Pike. Alma had even gone so far as to ask the Reverend Welles, “Did Mr. Pike have any particular friend when he was here? Somebody he may have cared for more than the others?”

  He had merely fixed her with his frank gaze and said, “Mr. Pike was loved by all.”

  This was on the day they had gone to visit Ambrose’s grave. Alma had asked him to take her there, such that she could pay her respects to her father’s deceased employee. On a cool and overcast afternoon, they had hiked together all the way to Tahara Hill, where a small English cemetery had been established near the top of the ridge. The Reverend Welles was a most agreeable walking companion, Alma found, for he moved quickly and ably over any terrain, and called out all manner of fascinating information as they strode along.

  “When first I came here,” he said that day, as they climbed the steep hill, “I tried to determine which of the plants and vegetables here were indigenous to Tahiti, and which had been brought here by ancient settlers and explorers, but it is most vexingly difficult to determine such things, you see. The Tahitians themselves were not much help in this endeavor, for they say that all the plants—even the agricultural plants—were placed here by the gods.”

  “The Greeks said the same thing,” Alma said, between huffs of breath. “They said the grapevines and olive groves had been planted by the gods.”

  “Yes,” said the Reverend Welles. “It seems that people forget what they themselves created, doesn’t it? We know now that all the people of Polynesia carry taro root and coconut palm and breadfruit with them when they settle a new island, but they themselves will tell you that the gods planted these things here. Some of their stories are quite fabulous. They say that the breadfruit tree was crafted by the gods to resemble a human body, as a clue to humans, you see—to tell us that the tree is useful. They say that this is why the leaves of the breadfruit resemble hands—to show humans that they should reach toward this tree and find sustenance there. In fact, the Tahitians say that all the useful plants on this island resemble parts of the human body, as a message from the gods, you see. This is why coconut oil, which is helpful for headaches, comes from the coconut, which looks like a head. Mape chestnuts are said to be good for kidney ailments, for they resemble kidneys themselves, or so I am told. The bright red sap of the fei plant is meant to be useful for blood ailments.”

  “The signature of all things,” Alma murmured.

  “Yes, yes,” the Reverend Welles said. Alma was not sure if he had heard her. “Plantain branches, like these ones here, Sister Whittaker, are also said to be symbolic of the human body. Because of that shape, plantains are used as gestures of peace—as gestures of humanity, you might say. You throw one on the ground at the feet of your enemy, to show your surrender or your willingness to consider compromise. It was most useful for me to discover this fact when first I arrived in Tahiti, I tell you! I was tossing about plantain branches in every direction, you see, hoping not to be killed and eaten!”

  “Would you have been killed and eaten, truly?” Alma asked.

  “Most likely not, though missionaries are always afraid of such things. Do you know, there is a fine and witty example of missionary humor, which asks, ‘If a missionary is eaten by a cannibal, and the missionary is digested, and then the cannibal dies, will the missionary’s digested body be resurrected on the Day of Judgment? If not, how does Saint Peter know which bits to send to heaven and which bits to hell?’ Ha-ha-ha!”

  “Did Mr. Pike ever speak to you about that notion you just mentioned a moment ago?” Alma asked, only half listening to the missionary’s jest. “About the gods creating plants in various peculiar shapes, I mean, in order to display their uses for the assistance of man?”

  “Mr. Pike and I spoke of so many things, Sister Whittaker!”

  Alma did not know how to ask for specifics without revealing too much of herself. Why should she have cared so much about her father’s employee? She did not want to arouse suspicions. But he was such an odd arrangement of a man! She found him to be candid and inscrutable, all at the same time. Whenever Ambrose was discussed, Alma studiously examined the Reverend Welles’s face for clues, but the man was impossible to read. He always gazed upon the world with the same unperturbed countenance. His spirit was unchanging in any situation. He was as constant as a lighthouse. His sincerity was so complete and so perfect, it was almost a mask.

  They reached the cemetery at last, with its small bleached headstones, some carved into crosses. The Reverend Welles took Alma straight to Ambrose’s grave, which was tidy and marked by a small stone. It was a lovely spot, looking over the entirety of Matavai Bay, and out to the bright sea beyond. Alma had feared that, when she saw the actual grave, she might be unable to contain her emotions, but instead she felt unruffled—even remote. She could sense nothing of Ambrose here. She could not imagine him buried under this stone. She remembered the way he used to sprawl across the grass with his wonderful long legs, speaking to her of marvels and mysteries while she studied her mosses. She felt that he existed more in Philadelphia, more in her memory, than he did here. She could not imagine his bones moldering beneath her feet. Ambrose did not belong to the soil; he belonged to the air. He was barely of the earth when he was alive, she thought. How could he possibly be inside the earth now?

  “We did not have lumber to spare for a coffin,” the Reverend Welles said, “so we wrapped Mr. Pike in native cloth and buried him in the keel of an old canoe, as is sometimes done here. Planking is such difficult work here without the proper tools, you see, and when the natives do get proper lumber, they prefer not to waste it in a grave, so we make do with old canoes. But the natives showed such tender consideration to Mr. Pike’s Christian beliefs, you see. They oriented his grave east to west, you see—so he faces the rising sun, as do all Christian churches. They were fond of him, as I have said. I pray he died happy. He was the best of men.”

  “Did he seem happy when he was here, Brother Welles?”

  “He found much to please him about the island, as we all learn to. I am certain he wished for more orchids, you see! Tahiti can be disappointing, as I have said, for those who come to study natural history.”

  “Did Mr. Pike ever seem troubled to you?” Alma dared to push.

  “People come to this island for many reasons, Sister Whittaker. My wife used to say they wash up upon our shores, these jostled strangers, and most of the time they do not know where they have landed! Some of them seem like perfect gentlemen, yet later we discover they were convicts in their countries of origin. On the other hand, you see, some of them were perfect gentlemen in their European lives, but they come here to behave like convicts! One can never know the state of another man’s heart.”

  He had not answered her question.

  What of Ambrose? she wanted to ask. What was the state of his heart?

  She held her tongue.

  Then the Reverend Welles said, in his usual bright voice, “You will see the graves of my daughters here, on the other side of that low wall.”

  The statement knocked Alma into silence. She had not known that Reverend Welles had daughters, much less that they had died here.

  “They are just wee graves, you see,” he said, “for the girls did not live long. None of them saw their first year. They are Helen, Eleanor, and Laura on the left. Penelope and Theodosia rest beside them, on the right.”

  The five gravestones were tiny, smaller than bricks. Alma could find no words to offe
r as comfort. It was the saddest thing she had ever seen.

  The Reverend Welles, regarding her stricken face, smiled kindly. “But there is comfort. Their youngest sister, Christina, lives, you see. The Lord gave us one daughter whom we were able to usher into life, and she lives still. She resides in Cornwall, where she is the mother now of three little sons herself. Mrs. Welles stays with her. My wife resides with our living child, you see, while I reside here, to keep company with the departed.”

  He glanced over Alma’s shoulder. “Ah, look!” he said. “The frangipani is in bloom! We shall pick some, and take it back to Sister Manu. She can dress her hat freshly for tonight’s service. Won’t she enjoy that?”

  * * *

  The Reverend Welles would always bewilder Alma. Never had she met a man so cheerful, so uncomplaining, who had lost so much, and who lived upon—and with—so little. Over time, she discovered that he did not even have a home. There was no fare that belonged to him. The man slept in the mission church, on one of the pews. Often he did not even have an ahu taoto to sleep under. Like a cat, he was able to doze off anywhere. He had no belongings aside from his Bible—and even that sometimes vanished for weeks on end before somebody would eventually return it. He kept no livestock of his own, nor did he tend a garden. The small canoe that he liked to take out to the coral reef belonged to a fourteen-year-old boy who was generous enough to lend it. There was not a prisoner or a monk or a beggar in the world, Alma thought, who had less than this man.