Easter Island (15 page)

“It is,” said Greer. “Only I hope the tablets don’t turn out to be like some of the cuneiform. Ancient grocery lists, ledgers. It would be great if they really said something.” She tapped her cup to his, took a long sip, and felt the alcohol rise to her temples. She ran her fingers through her hair. “‘Romeo loves Juliet,’ at the very least. ‘Antony loves Cleopatra.’ Something juicy.”

“Not ‘Romeo gave Juliet fourteen chickens.’ ”

“Combine the two—‘Romeo gave Juliet fourteen chickens because he loves her’—and then you’ve got something. The beginning of an epic.”

Vicente laughed. Greer could feel him watching her, and leaned away. She didn’t mean to be flirting. She was just a little tipsy.

“The decipherment sounds like an excellent project,” she said, setting her cup down. “Challenging.”

“It would be very good to know what they say.” Vicente, too, seemed content to let the brief awkwardness pass. “But even when we decipher the script, there are very few left we can read. So much has disappeared from this island. Do you want to know why all these
moai
are still here? Because they are too heavy to move off the island.”

Greer laughed.

“All of the early visitors here left with valuables. The islanders traded their artifacts for hats and bandanas. It’s tragic. Who knows what is still out there? Right now I am at work obtaining records that may locate some more tablets. You’ve heard of the German fleet that anchored here during the First World War?”

“Admiral von Spee. Actually, he was a naturalist as well. Kept botanical records of the ports he visited.”

“I’ve not read those accounts. I’ve focused primarily on his naval correspondence, his ship’s log. The details of his cargo. A naturalist, yes. He was an interesting man. He sailed on the first German colonizing mission to West Africa. He was promoted to rear admiral in 1912, posted to Tsingtao, which is where he found himself when war broke out. A gallant man. Of course, he was sunk with his whole fleet at the Falkland Islands. He made a horrible mistake—tried to run for it. No one knows why.”

“Fear isn’t a good enough reason? If I recall correctly, there was a whole British fleet after him.”

“And French and Russian and Japanese. But he was a great admiral, Doctor Farraday. Truly great. Men like that do not become afraid so easily.”

“Sure they do.”

“In all accounts by his officers, even by his adversaries, von Spee was a fearless man.”

But fearlessness, thought Greer, was a feeling, not a temperament. No one, no matter how accomplished, could avoid fear. Who would have imagined Thomas Farraday would be scared of failing?

“Anyway, he was here,” Greer said—she was having fun and didn’t want to spoil it—“the gallant, fearless, botanically inclined admiral. At Easter Island. How does this relate to the
rongorongo
?”

“It is believed, and I am hoping these records will confirm, that the fleet made off with valuables from the island. Local legends tell of things disappearing from the island with the warships. It’s my hope that the valuables—tablets, I am convinced—were sent ahead to Germany.”

Greer looked up; the stars were beginning to shine in the night sky. A cool breeze rolled off the ocean. This was all she wanted—a nice conversation, in a new place with a new person. She pulled her legs up and arranged them Indian-style. “Will the Germans admit it if they have them?”

“No,” said Vicente. “They will not, I think, want to admit to hiding the artifacts. But if I have documents to prove they do have them, that is a different situation.”

“And you want to return them to the island?”

“Yes,” said Vicente. “But it is a difficult situation with Chile. Chile, you see, will want them. Chile will consider them their own.”

“The islanders might not like that.”

“I am Chilean. Many people on Rapa Nui are Chilean, or have one Chilean parent. There is no antagonism now between Rapa Nui and Chile. Not yet. But there is a growing feeling from the islanders that we should not be here. We are called
mauku,
or, in Spanish,
pasto
. You know that word? It means ‘weed.’ It means we ruin good things.”

“There are a lot of weeds here. The plant kind. And remember,” she said, “one person’s weed is another’s flower.”

“Well, even though there is little on the land, the islanders would still like the land for themselves. It is theirs, after all. During the fifties and sixties, the government forbade the islanders from traveling. So some of the Rapa Nui stole rowboats from the Chilean Navy, some even made sailboats and canoes, and they sailed for Tahiti, but they had no navigation equipment. It was an awful scene, you can imagine, when at dawn the village awoke to find so many of its men gone.” Vicente shook his head. “Some men had not even told their families for fear of being stopped. Most of these boats were lost at sea. It was another horrible chapter for the islanders. Good men, men who might have been leaders, lost.”

“You don’t sound very pro-Chilean.”

“I love Rapa Nui. I am at heart a Rapa Nui. This is the truth, what I feel inside of me.” He touched his chest. “And I would like to see the people in possession of their island. But even if I am able to unravel the
rongorongo
, there will be resentment. I am not an islander. I will still be a
pasto
.”

“Do you really think you can? Decipher it?”

“I suppose I must think so, or else I wouldn’t try. But I’m waiting for something new to work with. I am hoping for my own Rosetta stone.”

“The Rosetta stone was made of basalt, you know. This island is basalt. A good omen.”

“Let us hope,” said Vicente, sipping the last of his drink.

The sky above them was black now, the stars so bright they seemed to spill from the sky. A distant streetlamp cast a soft glow over them, but Vicente had faded to shadow. Greer pulled her flashlight from her backpack, clicked it on, and laid it on the rocks between them. “Better,” she said.

He laughed. “Ah, Doctor Farraday, you’ll soon get accustomed to the darkness here. I don’t even own one.” He held the flashlight up and examined it. “And you? You will be taking core samples? That seems like work which can produce good, definite results.”

“Once you get past the messy and tiring part of the core taking.”

“An intellectual pursuit with physical labor. I like that.”

“I do too, until I’m up to my knees in a swamp.”

“Well, no swamps here.”

“The crater lakes will be plenty of trouble, I’m sure.”

”Crater lakes?”

“The samples need to be taken from a damp area. Pollen can be preserved in water for thousands of years.”

“Ah, yes. In the craters there is fresh water. But everywhere else is dry. And do you know what it is you want to find?”

“I try not to think about that, so as not to bias my analysis. But I’m interested in why there are no native trees here, no shrubs. Something happened—an eruption, an earthquake—something wiped out all the vegetation.”

“It is as I have said: Everything here disappears. Plants as well.”

“It seems so. I’ll have to look at a core. Extract pollen at various depths, count the grains, analyze the assemblages. From that I can start to determine what the island used to look like.”

“It is an excellent project,” said Vicente. “I am a great fan of the botany sciences. When one’s work is at an impasse, the work of others always seems much more exciting, much more important, does it not?”

Greer laughed. “The Gramineae always have more chlorophyll . . .”

Vicente raised his eyebrows.

“Botany talk: The grass is always greener.”

“Ah, yes, I’ve heard this saying. On the other side of the fence . . . it is true. I cannot help but become fascinated by the German fleet. Why they came here. What they did. It happens to you as well? This distraction?”

Greer nodded. “I like to tell myself it’s not a distraction. That the mind needs to look to the side sometimes to make sense of what’s in front of it.”

“Yes, well, perhaps you’ll want to spend some time looking at the photos of the
rongorongo,
and I will want to spend some time taking a core sample. I have always been interested in that work. I was, as you know, a fan of Thomas Farraday.” Vicente looked at her. “He was your husband?”

“Yes.”

“I read much about his work.”

Not enough, she wanted to say, to know he had died.

“I am sorry I mistook you for him. Of course, they wrote only ‘Doctor Farraday.’ I made an assumption. I hope you will forgive me.”

“Of course,” Greer said. He couldn’t know it was the same assumption everyone made. But the mention of Thomas suddenly darkened her mood. She looked at her watch. “I hope you’ll excuse me. Dinner’s at nine. And I need to sort through my notes from today.”

“You must not be late for one of Mahina’s
umu
feasts.”

“You know Mahina?”

“Ah, Doctor Farraday. Everybody knows Mahina. An extraordinary woman. Like I said, this is a very small island.”

“Well, thanks for the drink.” Greer tapped her cup to his. “And the conversation.” As she stood and slipped her backpack over her shoulders, she felt a little dizzy. A strong drink on an empty stomach after a long day—a poor combination. “I’m sure I’ll see you at the lab. And elsewhere.”

“Now, Doctor Farraday, I would just like for you to know that I am still sitting here on the wall because I am guessing that you would prefer to walk alone.”

“A fair translation,” she said.

“Next to the
rongorongo
, everything else is easy.”

He was charming, she had to admit. And at another time, she might have wanted him to walk with her.

“I’m just in a solitary mood,” she said.

“That is allowed. But you must know this is hard for me. Chilean men are not accustomed to allowing women to walk home alone.”

“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 with
Italian
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

F
rom 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. The
Scharnhorst
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 few
Etappen,
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, the
Kreuzergeschwader,
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

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