Easter Island

by Jennifer Vanderbes

  “Well, this American is very accustomed to walking home alone.”

  “Fair enough. For now. But when in Rome, Doctor Farraday . . .”

  “Well, that’s an entirely different story.” She grinned. “Then we’re dealing withItalian men.”

  “You have abandoned me, insulted my country and my manhood, Doctor Farraday, all in the course of less than a minute. What on earth is left for the next few months?”

  “Work.”

  “I can see you will be an extremely good influence on me. Very well.” Vicente poured himself another drink, and he turned the page of his newspaper, squinting. “Ah, there was an election yesterday and we will not know who won until the plane arrives next week. You see how everything here can become a mystery?”

  “Good night, Vicente.”

  He raised his cup. “Salud, mi amiga.I am very curious what you will find under your microscope.”

  “Me too,” said Greer. “Me too.”

  And she followed the narrow beam of her flashlight up the road.

  7

  From the outset, it was a question of provisions.

  The two thousand officers and men who had turned to von Spee for instructions required food and fresh water. The ships’ guns needed ammunition. And above all, the five armored cruisers could not move an inch without coal.

  Coal: That simple fuel of ancient plant fossils would write von Spee’s fate. TheScharnhorst alone, von Spee’s flagship, burned almost twenty-five percent of its two-thousand-ton coal capacity in one day. After less than a week at sea the ship needed to anchor and refill its bunkers. But the German Empire had only one fortified coaling base in the entire Pacific: Tsingtao—the port the squadron was fleeing. Across the Pacific were a fewEtappen, neutral countries with German supply contacts, and also the islands Apia, Yap, Rabaul—German colonies. But it was only a matter of time before the Allies seized these, silenced the cable and radio stations, and cut off von Spee from any potential supplies.

  It was August 6, 1914, when the German East Asiatic Squadron, theKreuzergeschwader, put to sea, beginning their long and arduous journey across the Pacific, toward the base at Wilhelmshaven, toward Germany, toward home. Allied against them now were Russia, Great Britain, and France, whose ships were quickly closing the oceans of the world to German merchantmen and men-of-war. Only the Baltic Sea, thousands of miles away, remained safe.

  “From now on,” von Spee wrote in his journal, “I am on my own.”

  In leaving Tsingtao, von Spee also left behind any hope for communication with home. The range of the ship’s wireless was only several hundred miles, and cable stations were few and far between. Alone, unadvised, von Spee would have to follow the orders, now strangely prophetic, that the Kaiser had issued long ago to commanders in foreign waters in case of a war:

  From that moment on he must make his own decisions. . . . The constant strain will exhaust the energy of his crew; the heavy responsibility of the officer in command will be increased by the isolated position of his ship; rumors of all kinds and the advice of apparently well-meaning persons will sometimes make the situation appear hopeless. But he must never show one moment of weakness. He must constantly bear in mind that the efficiency of the crew and their capacity to endure privations and dangers depend chiefly on his personality, his energy, and on the manner in which he does his duty. . . .

  So von Spee did his duty. He decided to cross the Pacific, to round the coast of South America, and then break for Europe.

  The squadron’s first stop on this long journey was Pagan, a small German-owned island in the Marianas. Here they found live cattle and pigs, fresh vegetables, flour, whiskey, wine, and tobacco. The men went ashore, listened into the night to the songs of the islanders, watched the moon rise above them. It was almost, for those few days, as if the war had not yet started.

  But when the four supply ships they were awaiting failed to arrive, captured by the Allies, everyone, especially von Spee, understood that the search was now on.

  —Fleet of Misfortune: Graf von Spee and the Impossible Journey Home

  8

  Heaving the oars in uneven circles, Alice cuts a choppy course for the schooner. Kierney, standing on the stern, shakes his head in disbelief. “Eamonn, come up here and look at this. I think Miss Pendleton has had ’er fill of shore leave! I think this here might be some kind of mutiny!”

  When Alice finally rams the schooner, squealing with delight, Kierney and Eamonn hoist her soaked figure on deck and swaddle her with blankets. Kierney then takes the dinghy back ashore to get Elsa and Edward.

  “I happen to think Miss Pendleton would make a tremendous captain.” He laughs as he rows them toward the schooner. But Elsa and Edward are silent. “In the beginning, I was quite surprised to find she liked birds so much. Knew all the names and such. And then that she liked to draw. She ain’t half bad. She did a nice one of me with one of them cape pigeons at my shoulder. But I didn’t ever think Miss Pendleton would be fond of rowing. A lady of endless hobbies, I tell you.”

  The rain falls harder now, dimpling the water around them. “Kierney, stop talking,” says Elsa.

  “Here, I’m just giving your sister a compliment! There ain’t nothing to please you folks!”

  “Kierney.” Edward’s tone is firm. He lifts his finger in the air, a pointed sword.

  Elsa’s gaze fixes on Alice, seated on the schooner’s bow, her wet head wiggling above the cocoon of blankets. Alice has always been unpredictable, but this . . . Rowing off on her own—what could she have been thinking? A current could have swept her off. If the dinghy had capsized, she would have drowned. Why did she ignore Elsa’s instruction to wait? Did Elsa have to also say don’t take the dinghy? Don’t try rowing to the schooner? Did she have to imagine every possible disaster in order to prevent it?

  Elsa feels a slow rage rise within her. Here it is, she thinks. Everything she had hoped to rid herself of on this journey. The equation now seems simple: For every step Alice takes toward recklessness, she must take one toward caution. It is an equilibrium Elsa cannot fight.

  Of course, her anger is not with Alice but with herself. Alice is never to blame; that, too, is part of the equation, a constant. It is Elsa’s fault for thinking—for hoping—that Alice could change. Why did she believe that several months without a major incident meant that Alice had matured? Why did she still cling to the false belief that time could alter Alice as it altered others? Alice has always lived outside of time. Moments and events do not, for her, accumulate, do not add up to change.

  I must be even more attentive, Elsa tells herself. This journey presents Alice with a new set of circumstances, and anticipating her reactions will require Elsa’s alertness.

  As they climb on deck, Alice sheds her blankets and throws her wet arms around them both. “Beazley! I took the boat!”

  Elsa pries herself away, grabs Alice’s shoulders. “That’s the ocean, Allie. The water is freezing. It’s deeper than you can imagine. Don’t go rowing off alone like that. Ever!”

  “She’s fine,” says Edward. “Here.” He steps behind Alice and wraps a towel over her head. Alice is between them now, her eyes blinking sleepily. “Alice is fine,” Edward whispers. “Let’s not upset her further.”

  “She’s not leaving my sight again.”

  “She’ll stay beside us all day long, right, Alice?”

  “You are not leaving my sight,” says Elsa.

  Alice nods disinterestedly. Why is it that Elsa can lie in the cabin at night, cuddling with Alice, feeling the greatest sense of connection, and now feels such disengagement? Alice’s mental departures have always produced an eerie sense of abandonment in her. When Elsa was little, they made her feel like she’d been left alone in the dark, and she would pinch Alice to try to bring her out of these states—to no avail. Now she wants to shake Alice back to herself. Elsa needs Alice to understand that she cannot protect her alone.

  It haunts her to know that two such disparate feel
ings—utter connection and complete disassociation—can exist between the same two people.

  “She probably needed to stretch her limbs,” says Edward. “We’ll be more careful.”

  He’s trying to soothe her, but she resents him now for his ability to believe that since nothing happened, everything is fine.

  “This was an awful idea,” she says. “This trip. This boat. What are we doing?”

  “Elsa, please don’t overreact. We’re almost there.”

  “That won’t make things safe.”

  “It will reduce the variables.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Do you realize how close we are?”

  Valparaíso is just two hundred sixty miles north. And retracing their journey at this point, Elsa knows, is no safer than proceeding forward.

  Beneath Elsa’s hands Alice’s bones feel so small, so light.

  “I need you, please, Edward, to help me. To watch her.”

  “I will,” he says.

  Elsa, almost mechanically, kisses Alice’s head. “Stay with her now. I’m going belowdecks. I just need to lie down.”

  But in the narrow cabin, trying to rest, Elsa’s mind retraces the wet, leafy path to the cave, Alice perched beside Pudding, Elsa’s cape draped over her; it is as though her mind believes if it can examine the events closely enough, an answer will emerge. Elsa rolls over, pulls the rough wool blanket to her head, then tosses it aside. She doesn’t deserve to sleep. Since childhood, she has felt that guarding Alice was a task given her by some higher power. And in those moments when Alice tripped on the stairs, when she knocked her head against a doorjamb, or when a passing group of children mocked her, Elsa believed she had failed. So she would assign herself penance—four nights without dessert; a week of sleep without a pillow; once she left her favorite doll on the steps of the Blessed Mary Church with a note attached:For a worthier child . How else did one accept sacrifice, except to believe it part of some heavenly plan?

  Elsa steps out of bed and climbs to the deck, where Alice is seated, blanket-wrapped, against the gunwale.

  “I thought you were tired?” asks Edward.

  Elsa rubs the sleep from her face.

  “Never,” she says.

  Within four days they make the clamoring port of Valparaíso. From the dark blue water rises a forest of masts; a cacophony of Spanish, Italian, English, and French booms from the docks. Here is where they will prepare for the final leg of the journey, the last twenty-five hundred miles of open sea. New stores are needed. Everything in the hold must be examined and restowed. Kierney and Eamonn begin prowling the docks, chatting with skippers and captains and cooks, looking for new commissions. The men will sail the journey’s final leg to the island but return to Valparaíso on the Chilean Company boat that collects the island’s wool once a year. The boat is scheduled to make its annual trip in three weeks. But on their first night ashore Edward learns from the consul that the company boat departed the day before.

  “It wasn’t to sail for another few weeks,” Edward says. “We’ll have to hasten our departure if the men are to meet the boat and make their way back. We can’t have them stranded on the island with us for an entire year.” In two days they frantically arrange supplies, obtain their official papers of permission from the Chilean authorities for their archaeological work, and post their last letters—all professional letters, Elsa realizes, wishing in this final moment she had someone to whom she could write:The last leg, we’re almost there. She wishes she could write to Max.

  The night before they sail for the island, while the crew is ashore, Edward and Elsa sit on deck and examine the last of the gear.

  “I want to thank you, Elsa. I couldn’t have wished for a better assistant.”

  “Well, it’s been thrilling. It is thrilling. Leagues more exciting than sitting in Hertfordshire.”

  “Do you realize that before us waits the adventure of a lifetime?” He looks healthy and vibrant, younger than he did in England. The triumph of passing the straits and of leading them this far has clearly invigorated him. “We’ll be sharing in the greatest of experiences.”

  Leaning forward, he kisses Elsa on the mouth. After all this time, after all the nights of Edward squeezing her hand, or kissing her on the forehead, Elsa is startled by this sudden show of passion. A slight laugh escapes her. Edward pulls back.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . .”

  He busies his hands with a coil of rope. “I know this experience, this journey, will be good for us. You’ll have every freedom you could possibly imagine. You don’t need a degree, you don’t need a certificate. You need only curiosity.”

  “You’re not the least bit nervous about getting there?”

  “You forget I’ve traveled before. But I remember my first trip. Bali.” He looks up at the mast, the rigging, losing himself in the memory. “I was an assistant to a very experienced anthropologist who wouldn’t tolerate the slightest show of nerves. But they were wreaking havoc in me. And then, once we arrived, it was entirely different. The imagined place disappeared and was replaced by real soil, real people. Nerves are at their strongest in the realm of the imagination.” He turns to face her now. “But soon we’ll be there, on the actual island, and it will all be different.”

  “I suppose the anticipation is greater in me too. I can’t believe I’m actually doing this.”

  “Your father would be proud.”

  She takes a deep breath. There is a moment of silence between them as they watch the port chandlers pack up their goods for the evening, as these last signs of familiar civilization rumble their carts into the distance.

  “It is an amazing thing to travel to a new land, Elsa. You’ll see. Fear can never conquer curiosity.”

  The next morning, they set off. Since anchorage between Valparaíso and the island is impossible, they will have to make it in three weeks. Elsa, troubled by the crew’s impending departure, sleeps little. For ten strenuous months she has lived with these men, and a strange fear of loss now consumes her. The individuals, the people, have little to do with it. When she left a governess post, she always dreaded saying good-bye to the children, even when they’d been monsters. She could never help herself from making, and believing in, ridiculous promises:I shall try to visit in the spring. Do come visit me in Lancashire. Or, now:Eamonn, promise to find us if you ever anchor even remotely near England.

  “Mrs. Beazley, you just remember ol’ Eamonn when you find all that buried treasure.”

  It is not that shelikes the crew. But she has grown accustomed to their presence. And married life, as she has known it, has meant Edward berthed in another cabin. Her behavior with Edward almost depends upon the crew, their proximity justifying her reserve. Once they leave, what reason will there be for decorum?

  For a fortnight they sail without sight of land, and the idea of finally reaching their destination begins to overwhelm Elsa. For thousands of miles they have sought this small patch of earth, believing in the story of an island they have never seen. Soon they will be spilled onto its sands, like a wish fulfilled.

  On the eighteenth day, beneath a fierce noon sun, several seabirds swoop about the boat. Land must be close. But as Elsa sits on deck, looking at the full sails, the taut lines, the winches, she no longer has the feeling that they have brought themselves this distance. The boat seems to her a creature with its own resolve, and the ocean and wind, conspirators in some mysterious plan. This thought soothes her: If she can believe an unseen hand has guided them, she can believe in their well-being, in Alice’s safety.

  The next night, keeping watch beneath the low and lambent moon, Elsa sights the outline of an island.

  “Allie! Edward!”

  There are no lights on land. Only the vague traces of dying fires send wisps of smoke into the night.

  This is it, thinks Elsa.

  “We’ll head to the south of that jetty and anchor for the night,” says Edward. “It isn’t safe to go ashore now.”


  They slow for the approach. Edward takes the wheel and Kierney and Eamonn let loose the gaff and lateen lines; the slack sails begin to quiver. As the boat glides toward the shore, they hear the thunder of waves smacking rocks.

  “Drop!” Edward calls, and then the men crank the windlass in furious circles, the thick chain shuddering as the anchor hurls downward, plunging into the dark water beyond.

  With the anchor dropped, the sails stowed, the lines tied, a haze of exhaustion settles over the deck. They all collapse against the gunwale, quiet, as though speaking will rouse them from this glorious dream of landfall. They listen to soft sounds of water lapping the ship’s side, the rhythmiccreak —creak—creakas the boat rocks gently in the night, the worry of so much weather-beaten wood.

  After several minutes, Edward’s voice cuts into the silence, “Time to go below and catch some sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day.”

  Elsa hauls herself up, takes Alice’s hand, and leads her down to their cabin. Edward follows them below. Without speaking, they all prepare for bed. Like moths, good-nights flutter through the darkness.

  And this night, for the first time since they’ve left Southampton, Elsa dreams of Max. He is in St. Albans, wandering through her father’s emptied house, searching for her. He tears through the sitting room, the bedroom, the library, calling her name, over and over again, Elsa, Elsa, Elsa, until the word takes on the rhythms of a chant,El-sa, and as he searches room after room, his voice swells, layers, multiplies into the voices of hundreds, all chanting.El-sa-el-sa-el-sa.

  She awakens, her forehead damp with sweat. The boat rises and falls, issues a prolongedcreak. Then her stomach leaps. Above her, dangling through the open hatch, is a brown face. Its eyes, white in the moonlight, silently explore her, search her, and then Alice, and the narrow space between them. Elsa slides her arm around Alice’s sleeping figure. She thinks of calling to Edward, but fears startling or angering the visitor. Then she remembers.

  She whispers, tentatively, hopefully, “Iorana?”