21
There are eight ships approaching the island. Five appear to be warships, black smoke belching from their cylinders. Three smaller vessels trail behind. From the cliff’s edge, Edward and Elsa watch the procession in disbelief. No ship has approached the island since their own arrival. And now eight. Unease creeps through Elsa as the boats steam past Anakena, toward the island’s eastern coast.
“They can’t actually intend to anchor here,” says Edward.
Elsa shrugs.
“Of all things,” he says. “Well, we must greet them. They’re likely a European fleet. Perhaps British. They may have mail. Or at the very least newspapers.”
“German,” says Elsa.
“German. British. Japanese. So long as they have newspapers.”
German. That’s what disturbs her.
Edward heads inland. “I should get off a letter to the Royal Geographical Society. Summarize our work . . . And you should write one about the tablets. Whet their appetites back home. If we send them with the ships, we could catch replies with the Chilean Company boat. Elsa, are you all right?”
Elsa, whose gaze has not left the horizon, turns, finally, and traces Edward’s path through the grass.
Edward is by the ponies. “I can’t imagine they’ll want to stay long.” He loosens his pony’s rope from the post and mounts the animal. “Well?”
Elsa looks up at him. “Alice?” She has not seen Alice since the day before.
“Asleep.”
“But if she wakes . . . I should stay with her.” As if on a gust of wind, their argument returns.Imbecile —the word leaps into Elsa’s mind.
“You don’t mind?” he asks.
“Just find out who they are and return soon.”
Edward gallops off, and Elsa sits in the grass beside Alice’s tent. She closes her eyes, trying to calm her mind. But the warships. She cannot stop thinking of them. What if the fleet is German?
Elsa soon pulls herself up, brushes the sand from her skirt, and wades through the gauzy cloud of netting. Alice is asleep on her cot, her body curled fetal-style. Beside her, Pudding preens in his cage. Alice’s hair, having dried from the rain, falls in thick tangles around her face. Elsa lies down beside the cot, listening to the gurgling of Alice as she dreams, and the sound is so gentle, so childlike, Elsa reaches out her hand and strokes Alice’s arm. But when Alice stirs, Elsa quickly withdraws. She fears Alice waking up, her anger rekindled. Afraid of Alice—the thought sends a shudder through Elsa. Everything with Alice will now be different. Elsa will have to accept that. And as she thinks this, she feels as though the edges of her being are fraying, as though something has taken hold of her vital thread and is tugging steadily and she can only watch as stitch by stitch she comes undone.
The whinnying of a pony awakens her, and she rises in the gray light of the afternoon. Alice, on the cot beside her, is still sleeping.
“Elsa!” Edward is calling. “Elsa dear, we have visitors.”
She kneads her face into alertness. Easing her head outside the tent, she can see on the hill above the beach a dozen figures on horseback. A galaxy of brass buttons on navy blue. She offers a wave.
“You were right, dear! Germans.” Edward’s voice again. His lecture-hall voice. “They’ve come to provision, and do a little sight-seeing. I’ve been telling the admiral what we’re doing here and he’s most interested in your work on the tablets. I told him you’d be happy to show him one.”
“Now?” she shouts. Her tone is rude, but she cannot subdue her panic.
“The admiral was rather hoping to see one today. They’ve been at sea for quite some time. Starved for stimulus, I imagine.” Edward mumbles something to the half-circle of figures and brief, gruff laughter erupts on the hill.
“I insisted.” The voice, accent-laced and familiar, addresses her.
She looks up again at the row of figures, but she cannot discern faces beneath the gold-ribboned hats. She will have to make her way up there. Her heart now hammering in her chest, she steps inside her tent, grabs thekohau she took to Kasimiro, and stumbles up the hill. In the center of the half-circle, his hat suspending a thick band of gold, is the admiral.
“You’ve brought akohau, ” says Edward. “Splendid.”
Elsa unwraps the tablet and extends it like a rifle at the admiral. His lips maintain an unflinching line, an effort at gravity, betrayed only by his silvery mustache, whose edges, curling upward, suggest amusement. Elsa asks, “Was machst du hier?”
He turns to Edward. “The lady speaks German.”
“Elsa is fluent,” says Edward. Trying to ease the awkwardness, he dismounts and gently pries thekohau from Elsa’s hands. “You see, Admiral, eachkohau is carved with a variety of figures. Look. Just here? Some are in the shape of birds, and here—animals. Some are mere squiggles. But Elsa has already catalogued over two thousand characters.”
“Your wife is an industrious woman.”
“She’s made an extensive study of the Rapa Nui language and therongorongo. She’s quite close to making a translation.”
“And what do these tablets say, Frau Beazley?”
Elsa cannot find words with which to answer.
“We think”—Edward interjects—“they record the island’s history. This one, for instance, we have reason to believe explains the moving of themoai. ”
“It could not be, then, a communication of some sort? Like a letter announcing an occasion? A marriage?”
Elsa shakes her head. She won’t accept what she is hearing.
“Or a journey?”
“You see, Admiral, our research among the Rapa Nui—and Elsa has interviewed scores—strongly indicates that the tablets record the island’s history and mythology. They were composed by special scribes schooled in the script. They were not, therefore, used by the common people for communication. She intends on getting a key, as well.”
“Fine.Gut, ” says the admiral. “Now”—he searches his officers—“I would like to ask Frau Beazley if she would accompany us briefly to the town. To assist in some transactions. To translate. Provisions for the men.”
Edward turns to her. “It will be dark in a few hours.”
“We shall have her escorted directly back, I assure you.”
“Dear?”
Elsa looks from Edward to the admiral and back again. The sight of the two men beside each other seems impossible.
“Fine,” she says. “Provisions.”
“Only if you feel up to it,” cautions Edward. “We’ve had a very long day, you see,” he explains to the Germans.
“I’ll go,” she says. “Check on Alice.”
“Of course.” He passes Elsa the reins of his pony. “You’re sure?” Elsa nods. As she draws up beside him, he whispers, “See if you can’t get us a newspaper. He claims they have none, but maybe ifyou ask.” She mounts the animal.
“We shall have her back shortly,” says the admiral, his boot flickering a kick to his horse’s flank.
Elsa keeps her head down as her horse trots ahead of the men, stirring the red dust along the coastal path. Suddenly she wants to race far ahead, to flee.
“Reitet hier weg!”a voice commands behind her, and the sound of all the hooves comes to an abrupt stop. The silence is broken by the sound of one horse, walking slowly toward her. Only when he is beside her does the final eddy of her confusion erupt in one breathless question.
“Max?”
He reaches out and takes her hand.“Mein Liebling.”