Easter Island

by Jennifer Vanderbes

  A mischievous smile curls Alice’s mouth. “Three people.”

  “Three indeed, Allie.”

  Alice carefully counts three pages. She looks up at Elsa. “Portraits.”

  “Excellent. Three portraits.” As Alice’s pencil leaps into the book, a young couple, elegantly clad, strolls past.

  “Good evening!” says Edward, and the couple return his greeting, but Elsa can see, in the way their eyes search Edward and his clutter of papers, then Alice, herself, and Pudding’s sparkling cage, that they are unsure of what to make of this group before them. Pudding squawks, and the woman grabs the man’s arm.

  “A bird,” the man says. “Just a bird, my dear.”

  “Allie,” cautions Elsa.

  “Pudding,” scolds Alice.

  “I told you we would have to take him back to the room.”

  “What’s in your book, Elsa?”

  “Allie.”

  “What are you writing in there?”

  “Words for us to use when we meet people who don’t speak our language.”

  “Put some in my book.”

  “Very well.” Elsa takes the book from Alice’s lap and writes:

  Iorana: Hello

  Ahi: Fire

  Ana: Cave

  “Now study those words so that you can use them when we arrive. Everybody is going to want to talk to you.”

  Alice smiles, then slides Elsa’s notebook from her lap. “You need drawings.”

  Below them, another song begins. A slow song, with violins. Elsa imagines all the well-dressed couples clasping hands, swaying from side to side. She imagines the two young women she saw on deck wearing long white gowns, their eyes seeking out the man with the magazine. She sees the Belgian couple gliding across the dance floor, the woman’s gold necklace lit by the porthole’s moonlight. But when she looks at Alice, Elsa brushes the image away.

  “Drawings. Yes. I do need them, don’t I? Do you think you could make some for me?”

  “Can he stay?” she begs, looking at Pudding.

  “All right, Allie. He can stay.”

  After two weeks at sea, they arrive in Boston Harbor and Elsa says a silent good-bye to the vast liner, the elegant strangers, the ballroom and game room and canopied promenades. Standing in the hubbub of the dock, fortressed by their crates, they watch the waves of splendid greetings: valises dropped, arms flung open, names trilled,Charles! Clarissa! Father! Trunks are tumbled into the boots of motorcars. Skirts are gathered in small fists as one black-buckled shoe, then another, sidesteps into the backseat. Doors thud closed. The crowds thin, and cars rumble away. How strange, thinks Elsa, to see people move from one container to another. From ship to motorcar. And soon, no doubt, to flat, to house. She has always liked being out of doors, riding her Humber or strolling through Kew Gardens. Motion soothes her, makes her feel a sense of progress and freedom. The evening after her father died, after she learned the details of his finances, Elsa took Alice’s bicycle (her own still suffered the wounds of Alice’s hatpin) and rode through the darkening streets, cycling faster than ever before, her legs burning with exertion, as though she could pedal through her mounting sense of doom, could hurl herself forward, over it, into a new bright life.

  And now motionis taking her into a new life. They have crossed the Atlantic and will soon sail the coast of two continents. How Elsa would love to tell these people:We won’t be snatched away by a motorcar!We won’t be tucked into narrow beds in tidy homes! We are adventurers! And she stands amid the clang and creak of the docks, smiling, her hand resting on a crate, until up walks a ruddy-faced young man who introduces himself as Ryan Fitzpatrick.

  “Of Fitzpatrick and Sons?” asks Edward.

  “Son number four. Best for last. Here to get you to your schooner.”

  He engages five porters and leads them down a long pier. Soon they are before the fifty-two-foot schooner Edward arranged for from England. It is a four-year charter agreement, subsidized by the Royal Geographic Society, and will allow them two years on the island and a year for travel on either end.

  “Have a look,” Edward says while he reviews a thick set of contracts with Ryan Fitzpatrick.

  Elsa guides Alice down four steps, into the long main cabin. Paneled in a thickly lacquered blond wood, the space is bright and cheery. It is divided into a galley—with a stove and an icebox—and a dining quarter. The sitting area has two high-backed benches at the far end. This entire cabin is no larger than the attic rooms she was given by her employers. It is smaller than she imagined—but there is always the deck, where she will spend most of her time. Behind the stairs a thin wooden door opens into a spacious square cabin, the captain’s quarters, with one large bed. She and Alice will sleep here.

  “Do you like it?” Elsa asks. “Just like we had in Father’s house when we were little.”

  Alice looks the room over. “Where will Pudding sit? At home he sits on my dresser. There’s no dresser here.”

  “Perhaps we could put a hook in. Let his cage hang.”

  But Alice is already on the bed, crawling across the mattress, pushing at a hatch directly above. “An escape route!”

  “Careful, Allie.”

  She shoves the glass until, hinges creaking with resistance, it bursts open. “Look, Elsa! Look!” Alice’s head disappears above deck, and in a moment a squeal comes. She ducks back into the cabin.

  “Allie, you mustn’t go sticking your head out like that. You could hurt yourself. And who knows how sturdy those hinges are?”

  But Alice’s face is red. She leans toward Elsa, eyes wide, and whispers. “I saw Beazley.”

  Edward hires two Irishmen, Kierney and Eamonn, as crew to help him sail to the island and then to return on their own to Chile. The society will arrange crew for the return voyage to England. The men will sleep in the V-berth at the boat’s front end. They are young, leather-skinned, and brawny, but come recommended for their reliability and their experience. They brag of the ports they have seen—the Chinese vendors in San Francisco, the thieves in Acapulco—as they heave from dock to deck the endless stores of coal and water, the provisions of paper, ink, tea, biscuits, fresh meat, the buckets of fruits and vegetables, the bags of bandages and cameras. Kierney, constantly flashing Elsa a gap-toothed grin, pauses to examine each piece of equipment as he carries it belowdecks.

  “Look here, Eamonn. Have you ever seen this here thing?” He is holding a large vernier caliper, flipping it up, then down. “You think it might be for a doctor? For surgery? Holding the head in place while he cuts ’em open?”

  “Just put it aft and tie it down so it don’t jump up at you when we set off. You see that hold? You see all that empty space in there? We gotta fill it. You and me. And chattering ain’t gonna get the work done.”

  “Aye,” he says to Elsa with a huff, “he sounds just like me mum!”

  After days of provisioning, packing, and checking the boat, on April sixth the men set the sails, and Elsa and Alice watch the boat come to life. Edward, proud and handsome in his new white suit, assumes a regal perch behind the wheel. Above them, the sails fill with the breeze, and the schooner departs the waters of Boston Harbor.

  Carried by a steady wind, the first week is smooth sailing. Elsa sits on deck and studies the rigging and the equipment, learning the names: windlass, Aladdin cleat, Charley Noble. She adjusts to the peculiar rhythms of life at sea, the occasional swing of the boom, the swift hauling of heavy, wet lines. She accustoms herself to the tedious unfastening and refastening of the teakettle and biscuit tin each afternoon—everything has to be tied down so as not to fly across the cabin should the boat lurch, a lesson she learns quickly when, two days from Boston, a neglected melon thwacks her in the back.

  Off Cape Hatteras, a sudden gale catches the boat. Slashing rains and winds ransack the deck, and as they heave to for hours, Alice races through the main cabin, clinging intermittently to Edward and Elsa, then vomiting over a navigation chart.

  “Aye there,
little lass! A boat is no place for this here kind of mischief!” shouts Kierney, wiping the soiled charts, fanning the stench from his face. “I’ll gladly suffer the rain if it means a breath of good air.”

  Alice curls up beneath the steps. “Bad Alice,” she mumbles. “Bad Alice. No mischief.” And then her eyes retreat to their private domain.

  “Yes, do get yourself a breath of fresh air. And take your time,” says Edward, gesturing toward the deck.

  Kierney doesn’t budge.

  “No air, then? I suggest you collect yourself or you will have more than ample time to explore Recife. I think Brazil would suit you quite well.”

  Elsa can’t help but smile at this—Edward is standing firm. And for the sake of Alice. In the dim cabin Edward catches her smile, and lets it spread, ever so slightly, to himself.

  June finds them off the northeast coast of Brazil. Weeks from the port at Recife, they are stilled in doldrums, fighting the northward flow of the Guiana current. But for a few grainy flaws on its surface, the sea stretches in stillness. The air is hot and thick and the sun itself seems to vibrate. For days on end, sitting on deck, Elsa watches the canvas squares hang motionless, her mind lulled by the stagnancy, her thoughts turning to her letter to Max. She sees him unfolding the pages, examining each phrase like a code, reading it aloud, measuring its sound. She has seen him study dinner invitations as if they were riddles. But will it be his first thought of her in months? Have his duties diverted him so completely? After all, she has been able to put him mostly out of her mind. Only in this sluggishness does she find herself closing her eyes and thinking of him, even though she doesn’t want to. It only saddens her, a sadness that seems to agitate Alice. Sometimes, opening her eyes to the bright light of the deck, Elsa finds Alice sitting across the bow, staring accusingly, as if she knows Elsa’s mind has been wandering to places she is not invited.

  These looks of accusation always remind Elsa of what happened with Rodney Blackwell. Years before, when she was sixteen, Rodney, the son of the president of the Zoological Society, had briefly courted Elsa. He took her to cricket matches, to Kew Gardens, to the Royal Victoria Hall to seeMacbeth , and once, after much pleading, he took her for a ride in one of the new motor taxis. They enjoyed, in a sedate way, each other’s company. Rodney liked to discuss Descartes’Meditations or Irish Home Rule or the failings of parliamentary government; ideas and issues thrilled him. He felt noemotional attachment to her, Elsa knew. A pure intellectual curiosity led him through life. As a child, he had, for the sake of satisfying his interest, smeared honey on his hand and provoked a bee to sting him.

  One evening, standing before the door of her father’s house, he removed his hat and said, “Elsa, I should like to try a brief kiss before we part.” Elsa had never been kissed, and she, like Rodney, had, if not the passion, at least the curiosity for such an experience. “Very well,” she said. He stepped forward and pressed his tense mouth against hers. She could smell his hair, his cologne, could feel his cold nose against her own. When he stepped back, she said, “Fine. Something new. Good night, then.” Elsa eased the heavy door closed behind her, tiptoed up the stairs to the bedroom, and saw Alice, in her white nightgown, seated on the window ledge. Alice was silent for a moment, then raced toward her. “I’m Rodney! I’m Rodney!”

  “Allie! You’ll wake Father.” Elsa’s voice was sharp.

  Alice retreated.

  “I’m sorry, Allie. Come here. Quietly.”

  “Why can’t I kiss you?”

  Elsa looked at Alice’s hair, loose from its braids, a wreath of curls around her small face. Her brow was creased with worry. “Do you want to kiss me?” Elsa asked.

  Alice nodded.

  “All right,” said Elsa.

  Alice paused, as though she didn’t trust this concession. Then slowly, she stepped toward Elsa. “I’m going to be Rodney,” Alice said, eyes aglow, tucking a curl behind her ear. She straightened her nightgown, as though nervous, as though she really were Rodney, or another boy, asking to approach Elsa.

  “Ready?” asked Elsa.

  “Ready.” They were still several feet apart.

  “Do you want me to come toward you?” Elsa asked. “Or shall you come toward me?”

  Alice hesitated.

  “Rodney came toward me.”

  Alice sprung to the balls of her feet. “All right. All right. Elsa, close your eyes.”

  “I’m closing my eyes.”

  In the darkness, Elsa waited, listening to the hush of crumpled cotton, a slight sigh as Alice released the shadow of a mysterious thought into the night, and then the gentle creak of the floorboards beneath Alice’s feet. Alice’s warm breath bathed her face, and her lips, plump and moist, touched Elsa’s and withdrew. Then the lips returned, more confident, nestling against her own. A soft humming began and Elsa could feel the sound waves thrum through her cheeks. It was no different, she thought, from what she had done with Rodney. And it was a truer kiss. Gentle, loving. Her life had been full of such private, intimate concessions to Alice. As a child, Alice sometimes begged Elsa for a small taste of her chewed food; when Elsa began menstruating, Alice panicked when she found a drop of blood in the washroom and insisted Elsa show her where it had come from. Of these moments, Elsa told no one.

  When Alice finally pulled away, Elsa opened her eyes. A wide grin lit Alice’s face.

  “Did you like that?” she asked.

  “I’ll have hundreds of kisses,” said Alice.

  “Thousands, Allie.”

  Elsa unclasped her dress in the dark room, poured herself a glass of water for the bedside. When they were both finally beneath their covers, Elsa whispered good night.

  “Thousands,” mumbled Alice.

  Then Elsa blew out the candle and pressed her cheek against the cold pillow.

  After two weeks of floating aimlessly, a brief rain at last loosens from the sky. They all seize a bowl or cup and clamber on deck to catch the meager spray, their tongues lapping at the drops. Within minutes, however, the sky revokes its gift, offering instead another blast of heat, tinged now with oppressive humidity. Edward unbuttons his collar and steps below to check the stores. Moments later he returns with a look of concern. “We shall all halve our rations until we know we’ll make Recife in time.”

  “What about Pudding?” Alice demands, gripping the gunwale to pull herself up. “He is supposed to have fresh water two times a day! Isn’t that right, Elsa? I’ve always given him water two times a day.” She squints at the sun with indignation.

  Kierney, crouched on the foredeck, rolls his eyes and drinks the last of his rain-filled cup. “There’s a hierarchy at sea, Miss Pendleton. And birds, even birds who can saysuperior , ain’t at the top of it.”

  “Pudding can have his water twice a day,” Elsa says. “It will be fine, Allie. For goodness’ sake,” she announces to the boat. “We are not going to run out of water.”

  “I’ve seen it happen,” says Kierney. “You name the disaster, and I’ve seen it.”

  “We shall be fine,” states Edward. “This is merely a precaution.” He turns to Alice. “The bird may take from my ration.”

  For the first time, Elsa feels anxious. Could they really run out of water? She scolds herself for drinking too much, washing too liberally. She sets aside what’s left of her day’s ration for Alice. She can manage.

  But the next morning when Elsa steps on deck, the small hairs on one side of her neck seem to tingle. The mysterious language she has been learning for months, the silent script of breezes, is now being written on her skin. As the cool air letters itself along her neck, Elsa calls below, “Allie, come quick! I think we’ve a trade wind coming.” By noon, the boat bounds away, tightening at all sides with new life.

  In Brazil, they call in Recife, Bahia de Todos Os Santos, Cabral Bay, and Rio de Janeiro. With each anchoring there are visits from harbormasters, customs officers, and doctors. Ashore, Edward visits the consul and searches for the latest copies of the
Daily Graphic andSpectator. Elsa arranges for fresh mutton and vegetables from the port chandlers. The boat provisioned, she and Alice stroll through the harbor, nibbling on a fried fish wrapped in newspaper, Alice’s feet dragging beneath her long skirts in their usual forgetfulness. Elsa loves these late afternoons, exploring the maze of shops and stalls and shanties bathed in the golden glow of tropical sunset. And at all times, she carries her notebook, now thick with information for the expedition.

  She is pleased that Edward is allowing her to contribute. He seems to recognize to what lengths her father went teaching her science and history, and he often consults her:Elsa, do you recall in what year Brazil became a republic? She is hoping that, even though she lacks research experience, on the island he will permit her to help excavate, or interview, or detail the customs of the natives. But as they sail farther south, as she is constantly called on to cleat a line or find provisions or look up the Portuguese phrase for “clean bill of health,” as Alice is given the chore of mending sails, it becomes clear he will have no choice but to enlist her full capacities. Heneeds help.

  Elsa knows Edward did his research in Africa alone. For two years he trekked from the coast to the interior, established a camp, recorded data on Kikuyu marriages, births, deaths, initiation rites. He catalogued medicinal herbs, hunted lions and leopards, collected and analyzed primate fossils—all without a single colleague. That was fifteen years ago; he was forty. Once he was also an excellent sailor. He even crewed for Sir Thomas Johnstone Lipton—five-time contender for the America’s Cup—a fact he now slips into their deck conversations with embarrassing frequency. But each morning as he pulls himself up the steps to the deck, wiping his brow, he looks somehow diminished, as if his body has betrayed his ability. In his younger days, he often sailed single-handed, and at a glance he knows what should be done—clip the gaff, run the jib, turn downwind.Sometimes, it even seems he can see his younger arms stretched before him, winching and cleating, phantom limbs. But always he passes along the task.