Easter Island

by Jennifer Vanderbes

  “What is?”

  “I found it,” he said. “I foundMags .”

  Winter receded slowly, inching back the blankets of snow, cold winds slowing to warm breezes that carried the smell of wet earth and grass. Rooftop icicles dripped into shiny puddles. The first sprouts of spring pushed through the bald ground.

  Greer watched from the house in Marblehead as the earth revived. She took long morning walks on the beach before setting herself up for the day to read on the porch. It was a comfortable routine, but Greer missed research.

  Thomas was shuttling between the lab and their apartment, meeting with Bruce, sending samples out for verification, dictating his paper to the department secretary. Greer’s neck had gotten worse. The doctor scolded her for taking the brace off early, and she still had to wear it. Through all of the last-minute pollen counts and strata dating, she was unable to assist. And out of disappointment, and stubbornness, perhaps, she decided to resign from the project.

  Only for the symposium in May did Greer muster the energy to attend. It was a bland hotel conference. They wore name tags, ate sandwiches and pretzels, wandered beneath the bright lights of the carpeted room, shaking hands with colleagues from distant universities. It was like the few others she’d attended with Thomas, but Greer felt some sadness, and even jealousy, that after all her efforts she was still just a spectator.

  This was only the paper’s preliminary presentation—a penultimate draft before publication—but it would clock Thomas’s discovery in before Cartwright’s. Thomas was first on the program, and when everyone had been seated, and the lights dimmed, he approached the stage. Greer sat away from the lab team, in the back row, with a few half-interested stragglers. Most didn’t have name tags, and looked like guests of another convention, or a wedding, fed up with their own event, wondering what on earth a palynology symposium was all about.

  Seeing Thomas behind the podium reminded Greer of sitting through his lectures so many years earlier. His voice filled the room with its old intensity. He was in a blue suit, though this one, which she’d picked out, fit him well. In the past year he’d become conscious of his appearance, picking out his clothing with greater deliberation. But the gray streaks in his hair had become more pronounced, and half-moons of darkness cradled his eyes. He had just turned fifty-two.

  Thomas began with a slide presentation—the pollen, a photograph of the intact sedimentary unit, even a picture of Lars Van Delek and Preston Brooks, dust-covered and deeply tanned, extracting the samples in Australia. He spoke of the history of the magnolia, the genus that had been vying for the position of “original flower,” and the final discovery of what he had decided to nameMagnolius farradius. At the end of the talk, he thanked his coauthors, and asked them to come onstage: Bruce Hodges, Lars Van Delek, and Preston Brooks.

  She had been expecting this moment, but still, Greer held her hands in her lap as applause filled the room.

  “You’re not clapping” came a voice from a few seats down.

  She looked over at a slight man, in his thirties. His face was long and pale, his mouth pinched. He wore no name tag and sat slouched with boredom. He had obviously picked the wrong conference to crash.

  “I’m not clapping, either,” he said.

  “Self-awareness is important.”

  “It’s all so impressive,” he said. “All so unbelievable.”

  “Palynology can be that way.”

  “There aren’t any women here,” he said. “How’d you get in?”

  “I said I was a man.”

  “Me too,” he said. She noticed the smell of whiskey on his breath, that he was listing slightly. “Do you want to go for a walk? Or a drink? This conference is no place for a lady to spend her day.” Greer couldn’t tell if he was slurring his words or if he had an accent. “There’s a wedding on the mezzanine. They’ve got a swing band. We’ll sneak in. I’ll say you’re my wife.”

  People were standing now, moving toward the podium to shake Thomas’s hand. Greer stood. People were also gathering around Bruce Hodges and Preston Brooks. Lars Van Delek had moved off to the side and was talking to a reporter.

  “Come on.Swing band.”

  “Please buzz off.”

  “Quite right. Buzz off, Cartwright.”

  Greer turned fully to look at him—his eyes roaming the room, his shirt rumpled. He looked only vaguely like his photograph. Jonathan Cartwright.

  “You,” she said. “Tell me, did you really have your own pre-Cretaceous angiosperm sample?”

  “You don’t want to talk about that nonsense.”

  “You didn’t have one?”

  He seemed forlorn. “I don’t think there is such a thing.”

  So maybe it had all been false rumor.

  “You realize, of course, none of this means anything,” Greer said. “This isn’t science.”

  “Do you know how to dance to a swing band?”

  “This is a number, this is breaking a record, but it doesn’tmean anything.”

  Cartwright placed his hands on the seat in front of him and pushed himself up.

  “They’ve got a whole table of those piña coladas. And you know what? We’ll have fun because it doesn’t matter. He’s absolutely wrong. I’veseen those sediments. From the same site. Nothing. How isthat possible?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, and walked slowly, uneasily, to meet her husband.

  June arrived, hot and dry, and droughts swept the country. The news showed pictures of distraught farmers, restless children. The month passed sluggishly.

  Thomas was in Cambridge most of the time, commuting twice a week to Marblehead, basking in the recent attention. Greer’s neck was finally better, the brace came off, and she returned to her own work in the basement. She was happy to be researching cross-water dispersal patterns again; she had put aside her disappointment about not being coauthor on Thomas’s paper.

  Occasionally, though, when she was in her lab, her mind returned to the image of the fern spores she’d seen that night in Thomas’s lab—spores that shouldn’t have been in a pre-Cretaceous sample. It was possible she’d been wrong about the species. But still, it was odd she’d heard nothing further about it—no mention of an unusual appearance. It begged analysis.

  Then one afternoon, while she was working in the cellar, a telegram arrived. No sender was named. It said simply:

  Finally you’ll have to face the barracuda.

  Greer held the strip of paper for several hours, sitting on the porch, wondering at its contents. Jo, of course. But why now?

  And then another delivery followed, this one from a popular scientific weekly. She unwrapped the brown paper. The cover read:

  ACCUSATIONS OFFRAUD.DATAFALSIFIED BYTHOMASFARRADAY,PH.D.

  Thomas, it explained, had been accused of contaminating his samples, of allowing angiosperm pollen from a Cretaceous sample to make its way into a pre-Cretaceous sample. It said that in attempting to beat Jonathan Cartwright, he had generated fraudulent data in his lab.

  The accusation had been made by Bruce Hodges.

  19

  On her way back to camp it begins to rain. The red soil churns to mud beneath her pony’s hooves. Elsa flings her drenched skirt over the satchel andkohau on her lap, leaving her half-bare legs dangling beside the pony’s flanks. A pungent heat rises from the beast. Her leather boots darken, her stockings freckle with mud under the battering raindrops. I will have to dry off, she thinks. I will have to get warm. And clean. Yes. There are necessities. And if the wind is strong, she will have to fasten the crates, then check the tent stakes. And if there are leaks—when did she last check the canvas tops?—she will have to patch them. It might even be a mounting storm, she thinks. Hopes. The needles of water, the brine-clogged air, the spray of mud, are disruptions she needs.

  Good-bye to the two Mrs. Beazleys. . . .

  She wipes the water from her face with her sleeves. As the pony lumbers along the path, Anakena comes into view. She dismounts at the
bottom of the hill. With one hand she leads the animal, with the other holds the satchel andkohau wrapped in her skirt, so that she strides, half-hunched, through the rain over the rise. The camp below is empty.

  I have first-rate vision.

  Elsa tethers the pony and stumbles down the hill, taking refuge in the tent. The canvas shudders all around her. She towels off thekohau and her notebook. She lights the lantern, searches her mind for her tasks:Check leaks, secure stakes, move crates inside . Two cockroaches scurry toward her, and she stomps them with her boots.

  She raises the lantern to the drooping canvas ceiling and searches for small tears. Impossible to hear the drip of a leak with the rumbling of this rain, she thinks. She will have to scrutinize every inch. But as her finger traces the long seams, silence descends. The rumbling has stopped. She steps outside to see that the sun has freed itself from the tatters of gray cloud. She now sits on the sand, watching the brightening sky, waiting for the rain to resume.

  In the distance, through the mist, she can see where they first anchored the schooner.Good-bye to the two Mrs. Beazleys. That’s what Kierney shouted from the dinghy.I have first-rate vision.

  Elsa returns to the tent and sits on her cot. Opposite, draped across a piece of twine, is Edward’s nightshirt. An image of Alice slung across Edward’s sleeping form springs to her mind, and she tries to push it away. She still has work to do. From beneath her cot she pulls her stack of notebooks, locates the one with her notes on therongorongo, and opens it. In a cup beside her, she finds her fountain pen, the one her father gave her when he fell ill.Professor Beazley seems quite fond of our dear Alice. Elsa pushes the pen firmly against the page:

  I have determined a strong likelihood that the rongorongo is boustrophedon. Alternate lines read upside down. Need confirmation.

  She sets the pen down. But is it possible her father meant—? No. The idea is ridiculous, the story too absurd. A professor who falls in love with the half-wit daughter of his colleague! She isn’t well. Her forehead burns. She is shivering in her damp dress. Perhaps she has caught something from the lepers, something strange and feverish that tricks the mind, makes you see frightening things. She leans forward and her hands, fidgety, begin to untie the wet laces of her boots.

  After all, it is insane. Falling in love with a girl he’s not permitted to love. Marrying the girl’s sister, the girl’s caretaker, so that he can be near her. Elsa was the one to make the sacrifice, forAlice. If she hadn’t had Alice to look after, she could have found a real husband, she might even have found a way to be with Max. She could not have been—the word rises up before her in the dark tent—duped.Was it possible she’d given up the life she wanted, not for Alice, but forEdward ?

  “Elsa!” From outside comes Edward’s voice.

  A moment later, his rain-slicked head appears in the tent, water dripping from his beard. He seems cautious. He is waiting for me to scold him, thinks Elsa. He is waiting to see what I know.

  “Alice is drenched. Would you come help?”

  Help, thinks Elsa. Of course. I’m always ready to help. I’m the governess again. The governess in his employ to take care of Alice.

  “She’ll catch pneumonia.”

  “Well,” Elsa begins with unexpected sarcasm, “we must get her out of her wet clothes, then.” And you are frightened to do it yourself, she thinks. Frightened of how it might seem.

  Elsa grabs a blanket, wraps it around her shoulders, puts on a hat, and follows Edward to Alice’s tent. Alice is facing away from the entrance. Her blouse, wet and translucent, clings to her skin, and Elsa can see the strong pulse of her back.

  “Somebody’s been parading about in the rain,” says Elsa. “I wonder who could have been parading about in the rain? It couldn’t have been Allie because she’s been told over and overnot to go running about in deluges.”

  Elsa steps behind her, resting her hands on Alice’s shoulders. Beneath her palms the slim bones arch gently. She traces the cliff of Alice’s back. It is strange:This is the body she knows best. Better than Edward’s, better than her own. This is the body her hands always seek. This is the body she has watched grow, the body it has always been her duty to protect. She wishes now she could leave her hands here forever, nestle them against this warm skin, knead them into this flesh and forget the chasm of cold air between her and Alice. She would like to slip into this other being, blink her eyes and say:I am Alice. Instead, she begins the only thing she does know how to do—tending. She unfastens the top button of Alice’s blouse.

  “I’ll check the equipment,” says Edward, slipping out of the tent.

  His delicacy is too overstated.

  “Allie.” Elsa’s fingers inch toward Alice’s jaw. “Allie, look at me. What’s wrong?”

  But Alice only sways.

  “We must get you out of these wet clothes.” Elsa continues to unbutton the blouse, then unclasps the skirt. In the steamer trunk, she finds a fresh towel and rubs it over Alice’s head, works it around her neck and arms. When Alice is dry and blanket-wrapped, Elsa crouches before her, takes her hands. “Allie, has anything . . . happened?”

  Alice’s eyes return from their inward stare, taking in the room, taking in Elsa.

  “I mean, with Beazley . . .”

  Alice’s eyes flash to full alertness. “Beazley does notdoes not love you!”

  Elsa nearly falls back from the anger in Alice’s voice. But her fingertips, by instinct, reach for Alice’s cheek. “Allie.”

  Alice flinches, then swats at Elsa, her nails scratching Elsa’s neck. “He loves Alice! Do you hear me?” A bitter sadness rings through her voice. “He loves Alice!”

  Elsa sits at the table by the beach. Across from her is Edward, who has wiped all traces of rain from his face, but now sweats. Several red splotches have erupted beneath his skin, spilling over his cheeks. Alice is asleep now, in her tent.

  “I am not a sick man,” he says. “Please do not look at me like that. I am not a sick man.”

  Elsa is silent.

  “You asked me to care for your sister and I have cared for her. I have watched her and waited on her. You wanted me to love her and I loved her. I’ve never . . . neverdone anything . . .” He produces a handkerchief from his pocket and pats his forehead. “She plays around, you know her games. She grabs and kisses. Play, Elsa. Just play. You mustn’t think I would do anything inappropriate.”

  Elsa does, in fact, believe what he is saying; but something larger, something she can’t place, disturbs her.

  He crumples his handkerchief into a ball. “I have always tried to be a good man, Elsa. I am not an exciting man, not an entertaining man, not a passionate man, but I am a good man. After all this time, I’d think you would know that. Please allow me that one credit.”

  Elsa looks up at the sky—a dim blue dome above them. A good man. Yes, and what of it? Does he want her to soothehim now? To makehim feel better?

  Edward’s eyes follow the path of her own. He looks at the sky, the grass, then finally at her.

  “Elsa, I harbor no delusions. It is the benefit of being a perpetual scholar. I do not daydream, and I do not let desire deceive me. Let us at least admit to each other that you never wanted to marry me. That has always been clear. You never would have married me if you hadn’t had Alice to look after.”

  Elsa holds her hand in front of her face, spreads her fingers, and examines the web of lines and grooves in her skin.

  “I am old, but not a fool, Elsa. I know where you stand. I’ve known from the beginning.”

  Yes. She asked them to tolerate each other, to be kind to each other, but nothing more.

  “What would you like? Would you like me to apologize? Because I care for Alice, just as you asked? Well, I refuse to. You cannot control us. You cannot dictate the terms of lives for three people. Do you insist that she show me the same polite indifference as you? You cannot decide that for her.” He stops as if to gather the scraps of disparate thoughts. “Elsa, I have never been love
d. I know you care for me, but I am not the kind of man people fall in love with. But Alice loves me, is in love with me, and I refuse to disdain that simply because she’s different, or because you didn’t factor that into your arrangement. How could Alice’s affections come between us when you have seen to it, from the beginning, that there is nothing between us . . . ? Are you hearing any of this? Elsa?”

  Elsa recalls what her father said years before:Old Beazley has suffered his fair share of amorous afflictions. Enough to send him all the way to the African continent. Afflictions so great he could find comfort only in a girl incapable of hurting him?

  “Well,” says Elsa. Her lips feel rigid, her tongue swollen. Each word is a stone. “Alice—does—love—you.” She looks at Edward’s furrowed brow, his sunken cheeks. He is like a man awaiting absolution. Isshe supposed to absolve him? Is she once again supposed to attend to someone else? But howeasy it would be to give it all up, to walk away, from Edward, from Alice, from herself. What, in the end, binds her to goodness, to love, to anything, but her own will to be bound? Duties are not facts; they are feelings. She takes a deep breath. It seems so frightening, so simple. She can sense her lips curling into a nervous smile: “But Alice has the mind of achild. ”

  “Elsa—”

  “She cannot love you. Really. You mustn’t fool yourself, Edward.”

  “You yourself have always said she comprehends more—”

  “Amentia, madness, stupidity. Call it what you like. It doesn’t change—”

  “Please, Elsa—”

  “Don’t you understand? After all this time? With all your degrees and books and your anthropological studies you can’t see what she really is? Why don’t you studyher ? Interview her and see what theory you come up with. You wouldn’t even have to travel. Research in-bloody-situ, Edward. Write a five-hundred-page volume, have a glossary, but it will say just one thing—”

  “Stop.”

  “Imbecile!” This is the word people have always used. With each syllable, her palm smacks the table. “Im-be-cile!”