The Sun Is God (11 page)

8

FRÄULEIN HERZEN

K
essler set up his camp bed, a clever Deutsches Heer wooden fold-out affair, with its feet embedded in paraffin wax laced with arsenic to keep out the ants and above it a mesh net on a wood frame for the mosquitoes.

“I like your cot,” Will said with a trace of jealousy.

“I will take the hammock if you wish.”

“No, no. You keep it, Klaus.”

There were dinging sounds on the roof and when Will pushed open the shutter and looked through the window he saw hail all over the courtyard. He hadn't seen hail in the tropics before; he didn't know that such a phenomenon was even possible.

Kessler laid down on the bed and took a pinch of snuff. He was comfortable but far from happy. Reports on the Cocovores had been sketchy from the beginning and he had never seriously thought that a few eccentrics on an island would ever give him anything to worry about. He already had enough on his plate. As the senior military officer in Herbertshöhe, Kessler not only had to answer to Governor Hahl but was also responsible for a monthly intelligence report to the Abteilung IIIb of the Imperial Intelligence Service in Berlin.

Kessler had gotten the bulk of his information about August Engelhardt through the impressive cable which had been laid all the way to Deutsch Ostafrika and from there to Europe. Berlin felt that Engelhardt and his cohorts were harmless crackpots and this had been backed up by Kessler's only local source of intelligence— Frau Forsayth. But she had completely failed to mention that there were three women among the Cocovores and at least two members of the German aristocracy (one of whom, apparently, was a Höhenzollern!). Berlin would certainly not enjoy hearing that and Kessler shuddered at the prospect of having to fill them in.

Kessler undid the top two buttons of his shirt and sat on the edge of his bed. “I want to ask you something, Will,” he said.

“Ask away,” Will said, eyes wide with expectation.

Kessler wondered for a moment if he could confide his concerns to the Englishman. He considered it and shook his head sadly. “Do you play chess?” he asked.

“I don't play as such, but I know how to play if that's what you're asking, “ Will replied suspiciously.

“Excellent. Then we shall eat and have a game until the others return.”

Kessler had brought schnapps, sausage, and pickles, and, forgetting about poor Miss Pullen-Burry, the men ate and drank and played chess until dusk.

Miss Pullen-Burry was quite happy to be forgotten about. Before even making herself at home in her new accommodation, she had busied herself with putting pen to paper in her journal. If she was not permitted to write about Kabakon she could at least polish the notes she had made on her experiences over the last few days.

Miss Pullen-Burry put down her pen and stared through the open door at a perfectly naked young woman who had appeared in the camp.

She was about twenty-two, or perhaps younger still, slender, with long black hair and very pale skin covered with mosquito bites. She was emaciated and before her sojourn here would have been considered pretty. She stood for a moment in the rain before calling out Harry's name.

Harry came from his hut as did Will, Kessler, and, sporting an umbrella, Miss Pullen-Burry herself.

Introductions were made. This was Fräulein Ilse Herzen from Kiel, Helena's maid, Harry explained.

“Secretary and traveling companion to the Countess,” Fräulein Herzen corrected him in a strong Hamburg accent.

“I beg your pardon,” Harry muttered.

Both men and Miss Pullen-Burry said it was a pleasure to make her acquaintance and she replied that the pleasure was mutual.

“I have been to Hamburg, a most engaging city,” Kessler said.

“You may keep it. An ugly place full of sailors whose primary interest is rape, an act they are usually too intoxicated to perform.”

Will laughed at that.

“You,
Englishman
, have you come to join our community?” she asked him.

“No,” Kessler answered for them. “We have come to investigate the death of Max Lutzow under orders from the Governor of New Guinea.”

“Poor Max. Dead from the malaria they said, although I think . . .” she said and her voice trailed away as she looked at Harry.

“What do you think?” Kessler probed.

“Well, if you must know, I think his death was unnatural,” she said.

“What do you mean?” Will asked, trying to avoid staring at her breasts. He hadn't seen a European pair of breasts since . . . well, since Cape Town. These were small, pert Plattdeustch breasts, with brown nipples, but European nevertheless, and Will found himself intrigued. Intrigued by the whole package in fact. Fräulein Herzen was thin and wan but apart from the mosquito bites really quite lovely.

“He did not believe in our project. Bethman says that he mocked the island gods and the Malagan. Bethman says that he could not do that and expect to live,” she said, her eyes widening.

“My dear what can you be implying? Do you believe that the gods killed him?” Miss Pullen-Burry asked.

Fräulein Herzen examined the English lady for a moment. “Perhaps. Who can say?” she answered brusquely.

Harry seemed embarrassed by this. “I think malaria is a more likely explanation, Ilse.”

“Where is everyone else?” Kessler asked.

“August sent me to tell you that he and the others are staying on Sol Island tonight so that they can greet the dawn tomorrow.” She gave a little laugh. “I do not think they were expecting such a turn in the weather!”

“I suppose not,” Harry said.

“They will be soaked and cold,” Fräulein Herzen added gleefully.

“And the sun will rise if they ask it to or not!” Will said.

Everyone stood there in the rain for a moment not saying anything in that way that Englishmen and Germans did so well.

“It was a pleasure to meet you my dear, but perhaps I shall turn in,” Miss Pullen-Burry announced.

“I shall too,” Fräulein Herzen said.

“May I escort you to your hut?” Will asked, offering the young lady his arm. “The ground is quite treacherous.”

“I am quite used to it, thank you sir.”

Will nodded. “It was very nice to meet you Fräulein Herzen.” He walked back to Lutzow's hut and wondered if Siwa had packed the bottle of Johnnie Walker. He had just found it in his sea bag when Kessler appeared with bananas and coconuts.

“From Harry,” Kessler explained.

“They eat bananas too then, do they?” Will asked.

“Apparently Engelhardt discovered that bananas also grow at the tops of trees.”

“You Germans, your brilliance knows no bounds.”

They made a small meal and shared the Johnnie Walker and schnapps. They played chess until Kessler's constant victories became tedious and the German began discreetly trying to show Will ways to win, ways that Will seldom understood. By eight o'clock both men were exhausted and the worse for drink. It was pitch black and still raining and the light from the spirit lamp was a depressing yellow.

“I think I'll turn in,” Will said.

He coated the hammock's ties with Kessler's paraffin arsenic and climbed into the awkward thing. He draped a mosquito net over himself as best as he could and was soon asleep. Kessler had planned to make notes in his journal but he was too tired and followed Will to bed.

Miss Pullen-Burry could not sleep despite being offered the Countess's modern spring-framed bed. The girl was sleeping in a similar bed in another part of the hut.

Miss Pullen-Burry clawed her way through the folds of mosquito netting.

“My goodness it is close,” she said to herself. She took a drink from the carafe of well water and carefully replaced the pewter lid.

She tiptoed to the hut entrance and peered outside. The rain had stopped, the moon was out, and it was warm. Her body was drenched with perspiration. In this dell on Kabakon, she reflected, it was so much more humid than Queen Emma's well-ventilated and airy guest room in Herbertshöhe. The jungle beyond was full of the usual noise that she had grown used to in New Britain. The moon was shining on the Malagan totem and nothing seemed to stir in the compound.

She had, however, the curious sensation of being watched.

No doubt she
was
being watched. Tree kangaroos, birds . . .

She took off her long nightgown, went back to bed, and lay naked under a cotton sheet.

She thought back to nights like this on her travels in India and Java and Ceylon. She was far from the temperate climes of England and, despite the heat, this suited her very well. Sometimes three thousand leagues didn't seem far enough from her cold, disappointed mother and her cold, stupid father, and from the girls at school who condemned her for not being beautiful or funny or good at games. It was interesting that Will had picked up on the falsity of her remarks about the Jamaicans never going home to England at all; perhaps he was more perspicacious than it first appeared. Perhaps . . .

After a while sleep did come but it was an anxious, apprehensive, unrestful sleep. She woke just after five when the wind brought in the sound of distant singing in German. She got out of bed and went to the hut door to listen.

It could only be August Engelhardt and the other disciples of the Sonnenorden on nearby Sol Island, imploring the local star to rise in the eastern sky in the manner which it had been doing for the better part of the last several million years.

She caught a few snatches of song before the wind changed and the singing died away. “I must write that down,” she said to herself.

She sat at the Countess's mahogany writing table but instead of committing the Cocovores' song to the damp paper of her journal she found herself instead sketching the sleeping German girl whose soft eyebrows were knitted and whose thoughts and dreams seemed to be as bothered as her own.

9

MORNING IN THE AUGUSTBURG

W
ill awoke to the smell of coffee. He opened his eyes to see Kessler bent over the spirit stove cooking the beans Turkish fashion.

“Is there enough for two?” he asked.

“Of course!” Kessler said. “How do you like it?”

“I like it with milk and sugar, but I suspect that that is going to be impossible.”

“What a fellow you are,” Kessler said and winked at him, his dueling scars squashing his face into a gnomish grin—not the most pleasant thing to see first thing in the morning.

Will threw the mosquito net off his face and linked his fingers behind his head.

“This thing's awful. How did
you
sleep?” Will asked.

“Badly.”

“Bad dreams?”

“Well . . .”

“Remember what Queen Emma said. That'll be those Night Witches. This is their way station from New Britain to New Ireland.”

Kessler looked at him severely. “I wonder that you joke of such things.”

“Who says I'm joking?”

“What do you want to eat with your coffee?” Kessler asked.

“What have you got?”

“Sausage, tongue, salted ham, and tinned kidneys.”

“Any toast?”

“You are lucky to get anything decent on this island.”

“I'll just have a bit of sausage then, and thanks, Klaus.”

“You are welcome.”

Will swung himself out of the hammock and scratched at his neck. Of course he
had
been bitten right through the net, either by ants or midges or mosquitoes who had found a way through the defenses. He borrowed Klaus's mirror and looked at the bites. “Well, that's me dead more than likely,” he said with mock doom.

Kessler looked at him. “Surely you got at least a touch of malaria in Africa?”

“No. I was . . . fortunate,” Will said, his face falling suddenly into such a look of black depression that it surprised the German. Kessler examined him out of the corner of his eye: this Englishman was even more mercurial than most of his kind.

“Come, have coffee,” Kessler said.

Will could see that Klaus was proud of the little breakfast he had prepared. “It looks good,” he said.

Kessler grinned. He hadn't cooked for himself in years and for a brief moment it brought back memories of his bachelor years or that one glorious summer when he had gone mountaineering with his father and uncle in the Tyrol.

Will opened the window shutters to let in the sunlight and gazed into the piazza. A large brown possum looked up at him. He shooed it with a “fuck off,” a phrase that every man, marsupial, or Johnnie Foreigner understood.

“Any sign of Engelhardt and the others?” Kessler asked. “I think I heard them singing before the dawn.”

“Singing? No, the place is still deserted,” Will said, and returned to the table. He sipped at the cup of coffee that Kessler had put in front of him. Miraculously it did have milk and sugar in it and it tasted good. Maybe not quite up there with the careful brew that Siwa prepared each morning, but not bad.

“How did you do that?” Will asked. “The milk I mean.”

Kessler smiled and said nothing.