Easter Island

by Jennifer Vanderbes

  People would talk, she knew. They would complain about her “special” position in the lab, but Greer no longer cared. If she’d never become a full professor, or even an assistant professor, why not be the hermetic wife of the famous Thomas Farraday? All that mattered was that she could do science.

  Greer had become intrigued by island biogeography, a new theory presented in a 1967 monograph by Robert MacArthur and Edward Wilson. Their book’s preface stated what to Greer seemed an incontrovertible truth:“By their very multiplicity, and variation in shape, size, degree of isolation, and ecology, islands provide the necessary replications in natural ‘experiments’ by which evolutionary hypotheses can be tested.”

  Off the coast of Iceland, in 1963, a deep-sea volcanic eruption had formed the island of Surtsey. After the lava flow ceased, a preliminary expedition ventured there in ’68, and, while Greer was packing up her life in Wisconsin, and unpacking in Massachusetts, she had looked eagerly for news from Surtsey. Eventually the team issued a report, documenting mosses, lichens, and four new plant species on the island. But the flora was still young, and there was talk in the scientific community of another expedition, to which Greer paid close attention. Exploring a newborn island would be ideal. Krakatoa, after all, had been invaluable to nineteenth-century botanists. But Surtsey was difficult to reach, and research depended on a formal, organized team. She would have to wait. And then one morning, Greer saw the ad in the travel section for Lan Chile’s service to Easter Island. The match seemed perfect.

  “Thomas, what do you know about Easter Island?”

  “Big statues,” he said, somewhat distracted. He was rereading a journal with a paper by Jonathan Cartwright. He took a bite of toast, turned a page. “Supposedly deposited on the island by aliens. They say it might even be the lost continent of Atlantis. A hotbed of scientific theory, as you can see.”

  “You can fly there now. From Santiago.”

  “It’s far.”

  “About twenty-five hundred miles from Santiago. But that’s what’s interesting, I think. The distance. It would make a perfect biota study.”

  “It would,” he said, though his mind was clearly elsewhere. Ever since the news about Jonathan Cartwright’s pollen, Thomas had canceled most trips and symposia, spending all his time in the lab. And after one of the new grad students quit, opting for another advisor, Thomas grew even more tense. “What, he doesn’t think we’ll find it?” he ranted to Greer on the phone one evening. “You don’t just walk away from an opportunity like this. After all, I practically founded the damned field!” Most of the week, Thomas now stayed in Cambridge, and on the few nights he spent in Marblehead, if they made love it was hurried and mechanical; afterward he was quickly in his robe, back at his desk, reviewing lab data. This was the first Sunday in over a month Thomas had been at the house.

  “Easter Island would be great for fieldwork,” said Greer.

  “I’m sure,” he said.

  “But expensive.”

  Thomas set the journal down. “You’re not really thinking of going?”

  “Sure I am. Island biogeography? Easter Island? It’s everything I’ve been working on with cross-water dispersal.”

  It appeared he was considering her question. “Well, when would you want to go?”

  “I hadn’t thought that far.”

  “I think it’s a good idea. An excellent site for research. And no one is more qualified than you; no one could do a better job.” He paused. “But is right now really the best time?”

  “Do you mean because of the weather this time of year? The nonexistent political unrest? Or because of your work?”

  “You’re angry with me.”

  “I hardly ever see you, so it’s not exactly anger. I’m frustrated, I guess. And I just want some clarification. You’re hoping I won’t go, not because you want my company, but because ofyour work, right? The magnolia. The lab. Thomas, if you need me there, or if you want me there, just say it. God, say anything so we can have a normal conversation without books open and slides in front of us.”

  “I always need you there, Lily. You’re my best researcher.”

  “Don’t tell Bruce.”

  “Ihave told Bruce, and you know what? He didn’t like hearing it one goddamned bit. He’s angry, but let him cope with it. Lil, thereare gray areas in life. Complexities. Is Bruce number one in the lab? Yes. Is he the best? No. Is it fair? No. Is it my fault? No. And you can’t keep holding me personally responsible for a societal system of sex discrimination.”

  “I hold you responsible only for your choices.”

  “Harvard’s choices. Lil, we don’t live in an ideal world, but it is getting better. Why not focus on the opportunities you have rather than those you don’t?”

  It was true. Her complaint, his exhaustion—they were reading an old script and they both knew its ending by heart. But this time she had a bargaining chip and was prepared to use it.

  “A simple proposal, Thomas. If I do the work, and if I do more of the work, which you know I will, I want my name beside Bruce’s as coauthor. That’s all. You’re the hotshot of the department; use your influence.”

  “Lily, I’ve never tried to hold you back. I’ve been your number-one champion.”

  “I don’t need you to be my champion. I just want credit, on paper. Something I can use to try to get my own grants, my own work. Do we have a deal?”

  “Deal,” said Thomas. “We just need to find a grain of pre-Cretaceous angiosperm pollen.”

  “God, Thomas, we’re really talking needles and haystacks.”

  “Not even haystacks. Pastures.”

  “I just want you to know I think your work is important, no matter who in the world finds the oldest grain of flowering plant pollen. This project is just too big, too meaningful, to come down to some hairsplitting interpretation of the argon-argon dates.”

  “Unfortunately, the rest of the scientific community doesn’t think that way.”

  “I know.” She put her hand on his. “Listen. Don’t worry. We’ll find it.”

  So her dream of Easter Island was set aside, and she returned to Cambridge for six months. Greer worked in the crowded lab ten hours a day, once again alongside Bruce Hodges, who was by that time aware she sought his position. Like a dormant giant, his football self awoke, resurrecting a rough competitiveness; he scowled, he teased, and every once in while, when he really wanted to bother her, he would say, “So how’s that old friend of yours doing? What’s her name, Jo? That’s right. You two were pretty close. . . . Did you know, Greer, that ninety percent of all angiosperms have bisexual flowers?”

  “Go to hell, Bruce.”

  Greer hadn’t, in fact, heard anything from Jo, not since the postcard announcing her new job at the University of Minnesota. After their last dinner, Jo had left Thomas’s lab to work briefly for Professor Jenks. Then she had gone to Minnesota, without a good-bye. From time to time, Greer thought of writing her about the house in Marblehead and the lab, but she didn’t think Jo wanted to hear from her, and she knew Jo would be disappointed in her life with Thomas. When the new paper came out—with Greer as coauthor—then she would write. The thought made Greer smile. Jo’s faith in her, which she had for so long taken for granted, might be reinstilled.

  Greer returned to counting and examining grains. Beside her microscope she kept a bottle of aspirin, a hot water bottle, and a tube of Ben-Gay, which she rubbed into her neck every two hours. Despite Bruce’s goading, despite the frenzy, a certain camaraderie eventually developed in the lab. They all spent so many hours together, performing such tedious tasks late into the night, that friendship eventually emerged from their pool of disenchantment.

  Bruce was gaining weight because of the inactivity of lab life, and fatness seemed to make him friendlier—he had room, it seemed, for only one enemy at a time, and fat was now it. He then began what could be viewed only as a “project” of flirting with Greer, weaving through the lab with a mischievous smile to look
at her samples. Greer found his new friendliness, though strained, at least preferable to antagonism. Then one night, when it was just the two of them left in the lab, he wandered over to her workstation.

  “Hey, Greer.”

  “Hodges, I’m not even going to look up. I’ve got three more samples to count before I can get out of here and I’m tired as hell.”

  “You’re like a Rosie the Riveter of palynology. Greer the Grain Counter.”

  “Two options: Help or shut up.”

  “You know, you’ve always worked hard. Even back in Wisconsin.”

  “Okay. Pass me the third test tube from the left. And put this slide in the case.”

  They exchanged items, and he pulled out the lab stool beside hers and sat down. “I read your dissertation, you know.”

  Greer looked up.

  “The first one,” he said, a look of earnestness on his face. “And I was wondering if you thought Thomas had been influenced—”

  “No, Bruce. Not at all.”

  “Because it was weird.”

  “It was an unusual situation. We should have been more careful, that’s all. You were there. You know how people stumble onto discoveries, how hard it is to determine the precise origin of an idea.”

  “Do I?”

  In March, three Ph.D. candidates returned with a dozen samples from Southeast Asia. It was like Christmas when they arrived, excitement throughout the lab, each rock unwrapped and admired. Thomas divided the samples among the assistants, and the next day everyone went to work. Greer had a pre-Cretaceous sample from the Malay Archipelago, which seemed a wonderful omen. Malaya—where Wallace, almost a century earlier, had struck upon natural selection. She dissolved, washed, centrifuged, and examined late into the night, and was usually the last to leave the lab. She found endless gymnosperm pollen—ginkgoes, cycads—she found fern spores, but nothing resembling magnolia pollen. Finally, one morning, hunched over the microscope, her neck began to spasm.

  “Thomas,” she called. The hum of slides shifting and counters ticking ceased. Everyone looked over. Thomas, however, hadn’t moved. “Jesus, Thomas”—she could hear the pain in her voice, and he immediately stood—“I can’t move my neck.”

  “Stay right there. Lars, get the cot from the lounge and some pillows. Okay,” he said. He was beside her now. “I’m going to rest my hand on the back of your neck . . .”

  “Oh, goddamned hell.” The pain was awful, a live wire thrashing the branches of her body.

  “Okay, I’m not going to touch you. Bruce, call an ambulance.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be gone in a second,” she said. “It just came on so fast. Everybody go back to what you were doing. Watching me moan isn’t going to help.”

  “Well, it’s helping me,” said Bruce.

  “Shut up, Hodges,” she said.

  “No, really, who thinks that Greer in pain is more interesting than pollen? Let’s see a show of hands.”

  Greer couldn’t help laughing—but even that hurt.

  “Now, I know you can’t actually see our hands, Greer, but let me tell you, it’s a landslide.”

  “You dick,” said Greer.

  “Pain in the neck.”

  “You know, sometimes,” sighed Thomas, “I feel like a grade-school teacher.”

  They tried to keep up the laughter until the ambulance came, and Greer was lifted onto a gurney. Thomas accompanied her to the hospital, where they had to wait an hour for a doctor. Thomas was irate. He was in his lab coat, hair disheveled, looking older in the glare of the exam room. “Is there an alternate meaning to the wordemergency ?”

  “Doctor Farraday!” The examining doctor stared at Thomas. “Wow. I didn’t realize. We’re understaffed here, as always. Cambridge sees a surprising amount of—”

  “Don’t talk. Help. My wife can’t move her neck. She has a shooting pain. Fix it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Greer was ordered to stay in bed in a neck brace for two weeks, was given two bottles of painkillers, and was instructed to avoid all microscopes for at least a month. “If you find yourself restless,” said the doctor, “we have some nifty devices that will hold a book at the proper height for reading without moving your neck. They’re very popular with our neck and back patients.”

  “Ingenious,” said Greer, less than thrilled.

  “You would think,” said Thomas once she was comfortably installed in the bedroom in Marblehead and he had called to check on things at the lab, “that with a husband twenty years your senior, if one of us were going to start going kaput, it would be me. And here you are, my young, beautiful wife, all laid up like an invalid.” He pulled the patchwork quilt to her chest, fastened it beneath her arms.

  “Thanks for the reminder.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be your Florence Nightingale.”

  “This Florence needs to shave, I think.”

  “But devoted to only one patient, a prisoner in my bed.”

  “Quick, get me that reading device.”

  “My dear, I’ll entertain you!”

  “Thomas, you seem awfully giddy. Drugged, in fact.” Greer lifted the bottle of painkillers and examined it in the light. “It frightens me to see how completely happy my incapacitation makes you. I can’t imagine the jubilance I’d see with a terminal diagnosis.”

  “Cruel words.” He kissed her on the forehead, the ears, then he landed one large, manic kiss on her neck brace.

  “Really, Thomas.” After months of sullenness, fatigue, and anxiety, his behavior was startling. “This isn’t like you.”

  “A man can’t adore his wife?”

  “Of course he can,” said Greer. “But I’ve a feeling that this man won’t be doing much adoring tonight. I expect he’ll be back in his lab by sundown.”

  “In spirit I will be adoring you.”

  “Of course.”

  “You’re not angry?”

  “No.”

  “Frustrated?”

  “Resigned. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”

  “Remember, I love you,” he said. “You’re the love of my life.”

  “In Thomas-speak, I think that means ‘I want to go to the lab right now.’ ”

  “Lil.”

  “I’ll be fine. Look, I’ve got a stack of books on islands and biogeography. I won’t miss you one bit. Now go find Mags.”

  Greer saw him only a few times over the next weeks. She didn’t mind his absence and didn’t mind the opportunity to catch up on reading; what she minded was her lost chance at coauthorship. She was out of commission at a crucial time—the bargain was clearly off. She followed the doctor’s instructions, stayed in bed, took her painkillers, but toward the end of the third week, when she was feeling better, decided to drive into Cambridge and get back to the lab. If she couldn’t do counting she could at least do washes and centrifuges. Maybe prepare samples for dating. With the neck brace, she had trouble seeing the rearview mirrors and drove slowly. The piles of gray snow that lined the streets for months were finally starting to melt, but a raw dampness still hung in the air.

  She parked beside Thomas’s car and slowly climbed up to the third floor. The lab door was locked, so she walked down the hall to the men’s room, where Thomas kept an emergency key. The lights were on, but the lab was abandoned—beakers stood half-filled, acid jars were off the shelves, a slow drip fell from the faucet. It looked as if all work had stopped abruptly. Greer shook off her parka and draped it on a stool. She went over to Bruce’s workstation, thought about looking in his microscope, but decided not to risk the neck pain. Instead, she flipped through the last few entries in his notebook. Dull stuff, like her own. Sketches of gymnosperm pollen types, numbers, percentages, and in the margins a few doodles of footballs. The analysis of the pre-Cretaceous sample he’d been testing—not a grain of angiosperm pollen in the whole thing. He’d wasted weeks on this sample, months on this whole race. Everyone seemed to be pouring energy into a search that was leading nowhere. Gree
r wondered if Jonathan Cartwright had been bluffing. A brilliant joke to play on your opponent, she had to admit. Maybe Cartwright was in Oxford right now, doing real research, while Thomas and the rest of them scurried like mice through an endless maze, never realizing the grain of pollen at the end was a mirror trick.

  Thomas’s desk was filled with the same clutter she’d seen for years. Notebooks, slides, note cards, books—but it was messier than she remembered, as though he had slipped into a new level of disarray. This race was too much for him; it would be too much for anybody. She flipped through his notebook, his argon-argon data for the interbedded tuffs—an assortment of pre-Cretaceous rocks from Australia—all free of angiosperm pollen. They all would be. That was the obvious answer.

  She sifted through the case that held his slide collection, through rows of pre-Cretaceous samples from Greenland and China, the samples from Australia; she decided to grab a few slides and carried them to her microscope. Just one peek, she told herself. She unfastened her neck brace and flipped on the switch. She took an unlabeled slide, placed it under the microscope, and adjusted the ocular. Carefully, she bent forward. No angiosperm pollen, of course. Only an assortment of trilete and monolete spores, gymnosperm pollen from conifers and cycads, and several fern spores with distinct exine ornamentation, heavily ridged at the equator. They looked like a family known to have appeared in the mid-Cretaceous period, but the sample had to be pre-Cretaceous. Thomas examined only pre-Cretaceous rocks. She zoomed in, poked the cover slip to roll the grains over, then pulled her face away. She grabbed one of her manuals and began flipping through the pages of fern spores, looking for an image that matched the one on the slide, when the door opened.

  It was Thomas, unkempt. “Lily?”

  “I couldn’t stay away any longer,” she said. “I took one peek, that’s it. I promise, my neck is much better.”

  “Oh, Lily,” he said, his voice apologetic. “It’s wonderful. It’s terrific.” He rubbed his eyes. “It’sall over.”