Easter Island

by Jennifer Vanderbes

  As Greer settled on the bed, her stomach grumbled—she hadn’t eaten anything since the previous day’s banana. Now she threw on a cardigan and a long skirt, then stepped into her sandals. Grabbing some of her pollen texts andOn the Origin of Species —always a good dinner companion—she made her way to the room with the emerald globes. Mahina was nowhere in sight. Greer called her name, then pulled back a beaded curtain behind the desk that revealed an empty office. It was six forty-five, almost time for dinner, so Greer settled into one of the high-backed wicker chairs flanking the card table and reread Darwin’s famous passage:

  No one ought to feel surprise at much remaining as yet unexplained in regard to the origin of species and varieties, if he makes due allowance for our profound ignorance in regard to the mutual relations of all the beings which live around us. Who can explain why one species ranges widely and is very numerous, and why another allied species has a narrow range and is rare? Yet these relations are of the highest importance, for they determine the present welfare, and, as I believe, the future success and modification of every inhabitant of this world. Still less do we know of the mutual relations of the innumerable inhabitants of the world during the many past geological epochs in its history. Although much remains obscure, and will long remain obscure, I can entertain no doubt, after the most deliberate study and dispassionate judgment of which I am capable, that the view which most naturalists entertain, and which I formerly entertained—namely, that each species has been independently created—is erroneous.

  Deliberate study and dispassionate judgment, thought Greer. Darwin, who after twenty years of meticulous study rushed like a madman to publish his theory of natural selection before the young George Wallace beat him to the punch! It was a story Greer loved, one her father used to tell. Darwin, fearfully holed up in his house in Down, England, writing to Charles Lyell and Joseph Hooker for advice: Should he patiently compose his opus on evolution or slap together a makeshift theory before Wallace went public? His judgment, in the end, was entirely passionate. He moved quickly, garnered his fame, but not without the haunting question of the letters he received from Wallace that somehow disappeared, and of Wallace’s own natural selection manuscript, which Darwin received but claimed to have set aside, unread, as though the subject bored him. But was dispassion ever possible, Greer wondered, in a science that required decades of observation to grasp one fundamental principle? Natural selection—an idea so basic, sonatural , it would appear self-evident to every generation that followed. Above all else, science demanded passion. But what she admired in Darwin was his ability to sound as though his ideas were of no personal consequence; he could present himself as the clinical observer. That had always been Greer’s problem—she had difficulty masking her private interest, had trouble making her judgments seem detached.

  The bells above the door chimed, and Mahina strode across the threshold with a look of concern. “Doctora! Hola, Doctora!You are well now? I come at noon to make up room, and you are sleep.”

  Greer closed her book. “The travel must have worn me out,” she said. “Cansada?I feel fine now. But I haven’t eaten anything. If it’s not any trouble, could I get dinner a little early?”

  “Yes. Dinner. We find you dinner.” Mahina closed the door behind her. She was wearing a white skirt and a bright pink blouse with seashell buttons. A hint of a lace brassiere showed through the fabric. “You come.” Without setting down her hat, she led Greer down a corridor and into a whitewashed room with four round tables draped with floral tablecloths, neatly laid with shining tracks of forks and knives. “Sit,Doctora, ” Mahina ordered, pulling a chair from the table by the window.

  “Please don’t go to any trouble. Anything is fine. Maybe just some fruit. I can get it myself, even.”

  “Pollo,” announced Mahina, glancing distractedly through the window. “Pescadotomorrow night. Tonight,pollo. Yes?”

  “Perfect.”

  “Ramon!” shouted Mahina, and soon Ramon was in the doorway, instructions were issued in Rapa Nui, and he disappeared into a backyard, where the sound of clucking and fluttering erupted.

  “Uno momento,” Mahina said, then disappeared through a set of swinging wooden doors and reappeared outside. She waded through the garden, her hand expertly extracting two avocados and then a guava from the trees, setting them in the bib of her blouse. She knelt, grabbed hold of a stalk, and eased a carrot from the ground. She tapped the root against her thigh, loosening the soil. Soon there came the clanging of pots and pans from the kitchen, a sizzle, the sweet smell of browning butter. Greer inhaled deeply, basking in the scent. A home-cooked meal. The past few months, she’d been snacking on fruit, crackers and cheese, cold lasagna. She’d dined a few times with people from Thomas’s lab who had her over for meat loaf and casseroles. And once or twice she’d gone out alone, for the company of strangers. That was, after all, what people told her to do.Get back into the world. But it wasn’t as easy as it sounded.

  Greer turned to Darwin’s section on the inhabitants of oceanic islands, in which he explained patterns of island flora and fauna:

  I have carefully searched the oldest voyages, but have not finished my search; as yet I have not found a single instance, free from doubt, of a terrestrial mammal (excluding domesticated animals kept by the natives) inhabiting an island situated above 300 miles from a continent or great continental island; and many islands situated at a much less distance are equally barren. The Falkland Islands, which are inhabited by a wolf-like fox, come nearest to an exception; but this group cannot be considered as oceanic, as it lies on a bank connected with the mainland; moreover, icebergs formerly brought boulders to its western shores, and they may have formerly transported foxes, as so frequently now happens in the arctic regions . . . Though terrestrial mammals do not occur on oceanic islands, aërial mammals do occur on almost every island . . . for no terrestrial mammal can be transported across a wide space of sea, but bats can fly across. Bats have been seen wandering by day far over the Atlantic Ocean; and two North American species either regularly or occasionally visit Bermuda, at the distance of 600 miles from the mainland.

  Greer set the book down. Yes, oceanic islands hosted only plants and animals with that perfect combination of wanderlust and endurance. Most terrestrial mammals didn’t have a chance at cross-water dispersal. A few years earlier, though, she’d read about an elephant on Sober Island that simply walked into the ocean and swam to Ceylon—a distance of only a third of a mile but still an impressive feat. Several tourists had photographed the tired creature as she climbed onto the new shore and made her way inland. Other sightings of lone swimming elephants were later reported. So some terrestrial mammals did have cross-water dispersal abilities. Rats and mice were often seen riding across the ocean on bits of flotsam. Rodents and bats were the only mammals, in fact, that inhabited most islands.

  But strange evolutionary fates awaited creatures that made it to distant shores. What Darwin referred to as “becoming slightly modified” was a gross understatement. Modifications could get outrageously out of hand. Islands nurtured eccentricity, producing a faunal carnival of dwarf mammoths, giant reptiles, and flightless birds. The worst of these were the insects—beetles and cockroaches whose bodies had swelled over generations to the size of small continental rodents. Fortunately, as their bodies grew, their wings, as Darwin noted, “shriveled,” and most of these arthropods were doomed to scurry across the floor of her room at night; no hope, thank goodness, of landing on her sleeping face. But for birds, flightlessness was tragic. The dodo, a bird whose ancient ancestor was strong enough to fly to Mauritius, a volcanic mass in the Indian Ocean four hundred miles east of Madagascar, found that after several generations its wings had withered. When humans imported pigs and monkeys, mammals that liked to eat dodo eggs, the birds had no escape. The last of these marooned birds had been observed in 1681.

  “Bueno,” announced Mahina as she carried the plate across the room.

  “Smells deli
cious.” Greer pushed her books to the side. “Thank you.”

  Mahina set down an assortment of cooked vegetables. “Pollosoon,Doctora. For drink?”

  “Agua, por favor.”

  A moment later she brought a water glass, her eyes sweeping Greer’s books. “The pal-ee-nol-a-gi?”

  “The study of pollen,” said Greer.

  “Ah, sí,”said Mahina. “You study the pollen of Rapa Nui?”

  “I’m going to take samples from the bottom of the lakes”—Greer mimed plunging a corer into the ground and twisting it out—“and then see what pollen is buried deep below. That way I can figure out what plants grew here years ago.”

  “Bueno.I read the doctors study the pollen for the cloth forJesucristo! It is the pollen, yes, that tells it was for Christ.”

  “You read about that? Most people have never heard of palynology. Most people spend their lifetimes never thinking about pollen, unless they’re allergic.”

  Mahina shook her head with pride. “Me, no allergic. I read in our magazine for the Virgin Mary. It comes two times a year, from Spain. This one came very late, almost one year, but I read it all.”

  “Were you convinced?”

  “Con-vinced?”

  “Do you believe what they said about the pollen?”

  “I believe the cloth was for Christ, yes. But not because of the pollen. I not know enough about the pollen. I know enough ofJesucristo. ”

  “Then you won’t be disappointed when I tell you the analysis done on the shroud was no good. The pollen on it matched plants from Palestine. But there are over seventy species of each of those flowers. A grain of your basic tumbleweed, supposedly from Jerusalem, looks identical to thousands of other daisy species. Also, people have always left flowers before holy relics; things get dusted with all sorts of pollen.” Greer forked a steaming carrot, blew on it, and took a bite.

  A look of sympathy softened Mahina’s face. “Thedoctora, I think, believe very much in the science. Maybe not inJesucristo .” She raised an eyebrow. “And maybe she not like the science used forJesucristo ?”

  Oh, no, thought Greer. Why had she opened the door to this? She wasn’t disputing the existence of God, she was disputing a study. She had no qualms with anyone believing anything: One God, ten gods, it made no difference. But piety had no place in science. And she couldn’t help feeling that Christianity, which had spent centuries contesting the greatest developments of human thought, had a lot of nerve using a microscope to prove an object sacred. But her Spanish wasn’t good enough to convey her points, and in English, her arguments would be lost on Mahina. She didn’t want Mahina to think she was dismissing her faith when, in truth, she respected it. Faith wasn’t easy to sustain.

  “Let’s compromise, Mahina. We’ll say the pollen doesn’t prove the Shroud of Turin ever touched the body of Jesus Christ. Nor does it prove it didn’t.” That would have to wait for analysis of the fabric, a test that would determine the cloth’s age. Pollen grains on their own said nothing about time. Pollen never aged.

  Mahina considered this. “Bueno, Doctora. Bueno.”

  She disappeared into the kitchen again, leaving Greer to slowly eat the last of her carrots and onions, reemerging a while later with a plate of steaming chicken. “Now thepollo. Moa in Rapa Nui.”

  She watched as Greer took her first bite. “Delicious,” said Greer.

  Mahina smiled. “In Rapa Nui:kai ne ne. Delicious food.”

  “Kai ne ne,” said Greer.

  “Bueno. Now you work,Doctora . I walk about here but you will please not see me.” Mahina took the Darwin book, opened it in front of Greer where the page had been marked. “You are here for work. Important work. I not disturb you.”

  “You haven’t disturbed me in the slightest.”

  “Adoctora need the silence to work. To think. I can see.”

  Mahina left and reappeared with four wineglasses of varying sizes dangling from her hands, the stems wedged between her fingers. With deft movements, she set each one to the right of a place setting and then disappeared for another set. After she had placed them on all the tables, she surveyed her work and rubbed her hands together.

  Although the book was still open, Greer had watched all of this. “Really, Mahina, you’re welcome to sit with me.”

  Mahina clapped. “Ah. Mahina is here only for work.” And with that she made her way back toward the common room. Greer finished her meal in silence, folding down pages of interest, then carried her plates into the spotless kitchen and left them in the sink.

  When Greer returned to her room, she saw that her bed had been made, her shoes lined neatly against the wall, and her black duffel bags piled in the corner. The books she had left on the mattress were neatly arranged on one of the wicker nightstands with the help of a bookend that had not been there before. Above the bed, the plaque of the Virgin Mary had been restored to its watchful position. Beside it now hung a small crucifix.

  Greer laughed. This was going to be an interesting few months.

  She threw Darwin’s book on the bed, leaving him to do battle with religion, and grabbed a jacket and her flashlight from her duffel.

  The SAAS building was again dark and deserted, and Greer was thankful the other researchers kept such normal hours. Years ago, in graduate school, as one of five women in her department, she’d been given access to the botany lab only late at night, when nobody else had wanted to work. She’d grown so accustomed to the quiet, to the darkness and the solitude, she found it a hard habit to break even when she had access to equipment during daylight hours.

  Her crates sat beside the door exactly where she’d left them, but this time she had a lever with her. On her knees, she gently pried the splintery top off the first one, then carried her collection of chemicals to the metal table nearest the sink, arranging the bottles in their usual order—potassium hydroxide, acetic anhydride, sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, silicon oil—making sure the labels faced out.

  She was meticulous about arranging her equipment, a trait she’d inherited from her father, a high-school biology teacher. In the basement of their house in Wisconsin he had set up a complete research station: carefully labeled jars of chemicals, color-coded drawers of slates and sandstones and seashells, shelves of alphabetized reference books, and a beautiful brass microscope he’d brought from Hungary that looked to Greer, the first time she saw it, like an ancient treasure.

  Almost every night after dinner, her father retreated downstairs with a new sample to examine: a butterfly or a pressed flower he’d collected, sometimes a dead housefly or ladybug that arrived in an envelope from California or Maine; he often wrote to teachers around the country, asking them to send local organic materials. Dandelion seeds, pouches of soil, and dried redwood needles all made their way to their house in Mercer; and once, from a teacher in Tennessee, he received a package with a note that said:This plant was grown not twenty miles from our school. Enjoy. The box held a pack of cigarettes.

  As a young child, Greer was mesmerized by his secret downstairs world, by the mysterious paraphernalia with which he was surrounded. And for years, because he didn’t want his organization disturbed, Greer wasn’t permitted to touch any of it. This only fueled her curiosity. She imagined he must be some sort of genius. A few times, when she persuaded her mother to let her follow her downstairs when she was dusting, Greer was able to examine the brass knobs and cylinders of his microscope, the beautiful glass bottles of his private alchemy.

  Her mother treated his laboratory with less seriousness. Test tubes and slides held little fascination for her. They could have been pieces of a model ship, the fragments of a suitable hobby any husband might have. She preferred fiction to fact; she spent her evenings sitting on the porch with a novel in her lap. For her, the natural world was a canvas for narrative, a place of myth and legend. At bedtime, she told Greer stories of souls who lived in trees—lost lovers turned into wood, mischievous children turned into saplings—and these were secrets betwee
n them. “Papa only sees through his microscope,” her mother said, the sweet scent of cold cream on her skin mingling with the smell of cigarettes. “You and I, we seeeverything .”

  Those were Greer’s strongest memories of her mother: her smell, her bedtime whispers, and the way she had of making everything—I’m going to the store for butter—sound like a secret. Greer was nine when her mother died of a ruptured aneurysm.

  This was when her father, in an effort to console Greer, finally let her use his lab.

  Two months after her mother’s death, Greer came back to the house one afternoon with a frog she’d caught in a creek. She cupped it in her palms and walked into the kitchen. “I caught a frog,” she announced, “and I’m going to name it Harvey.”

  Her father took off his reading glasses and folded his newspaper. “Let’s have a look.”

  Greer held it in front of his face, the wet, slick creature pulsing in her hands.

  “That is not a Harvey,” he said. He took the frog from her and told her to get a bowl. Greer then watched as he dangled her frog above a cereal bowl and squeezed its abdomen. Soon a cascade of small black pods dropped into the bowl. “Eggs,” he said. “Do you want to look at them?”

  She could hardly believe what he was suggesting. She followed him down the dark cellar steps, and with a tug of the rusted chain, the light clicked on. The disarray of the place startled her. Dirty beakers crowded the sink; the table was covered with dust. Her father pulled forward his microscope, grabbed a slide, then removed a tweezers and a dropper from a canister of utensils. “Take a few eggs, add three drops of water, then place the slide cover on top. Now gently slide the mount into the microscope. Right here. Slow, Lily Pad. You do not want to break it. Now wait one moment.”