Enchanted Islands (28 page)

“You're okay,” Ainslie said, giving me an order.

“Yes, I'm okay,” I said. “But I'm hurt. I didn't do dinner.”

Ainslie sighed heavily. He came over and took my arm in his hands. I winced. “A bit swollen. Is that a thorn?”

“It was,” I said. “But listen.” I told Ainslie about my discovery.

“Nicely done, Mrs. Conway,” he said in admiration. “Tomorrow you'll show me where it is.”

“I'll try,” I said. “I might have a time finding it. And I also have to find my knickers.”

We never found the knickers, but Ainslie was suitably impressed by my discovery. He promised that he'd inform our higher-ups that I was the one who found it. I told him not to bother.

Elke and I continued our afternoon soirees but something was different, strained. I'm sure she felt it too, and they just tapered off. Still, Ainslie was encouraging me to befriend her, so occasionally I'd show up with some little cakes (we had plenty of sugarcane now since ours had come in; they had almost none) and we'd sit and gossip for a while. Her dog had puppies with one of the wild dogs on the island and we took one, but after a month he went on his daily adventure and didn't come home. That's how it was in the Galápagos. Nature is brutal.

The elbow healed, but with a permanent scar that still aches. Another lesson.

War broke out. It was a surprise to no one. A military ship came by with a copy of
The New York Times
, now a week old. Its banner headline, above the name of the newspaper, read
CHAMBERLAIN ANNOUNCES BRITAIN IS AT WAR WITH GERMANY
. I saw Elke at the beach. I wasn't sure what to say, and I could tell she was also at a loss for words. “It's so far away,” I said. “It's like it's not even happening.”

She burst into tears and without thinking about it, I pulled her to my chest. “There there,” I said. Why we always say that in times of trouble I'll never know, as they seem the least sympathetic words in the English language.

“My children,” she said.

“Aren't they in Switzerland?”

“Also I carry worry for my sister.” She wiped her eyes. “In Dresden. And my cousin, he is twenty years old.”

“I'm sorry,” I said. War seemed completely absurd to me then. If the United States ended up getting involved (which Ainslie swore would not happen), then Elke and I would be actual enemies, not merely employed at cross-purposes. The gulf between us would widen. I silently cursed governments. Nothing was different. Everything was different.

That night, Ainslie and I ate a gloomy solitary dinner, canned carrots (thank you, USS
Charleston
), canned meat, and canned peaches for dessert. I tried to explain to him how I felt, how I understood Elke better than before. Ainslie put down his fork.

“You do know, Franny, that Elke is our enemy no matter whether America enters the war or not.”

“I know,” I said.

“I mean, we can be friendly with them. We have to be friendly with them, but that's all, that's as far as it goes. Don't develop real feelings, Franny-Lou.”

“I can't help it,” I said. We were talking about more than just Elke and Heinrich. “I feel things.”

“They won't ever feel that way about you,” he said. “And if push comes to shove they'll sacrifice you. They have their duty.”

“Duty,” I repeated, like a dirty word.

“It's bigger than just a person or two.”

“Duty,” I sputtered again. “Everything is for duty.”

Ainslie stood up and carried our dishes to the “sink,” then sat back down, chewing his pipe. “I was so worried, when you were sick. I can't imagine what I'd do without you.”

“If we enter the war, we go home,” I whispered. My voice cracked.

“Probably, that's right, but we're not going to war.”

“And when we go home, we don't have to pretend to be married anymore.”

Ainslie took his pipe out of his mouth. To my surprise, he looked hurt. “I'm really married to you, Frances. Maybe I wasn't at first, but I am now. You don't feel married to me?”

There was an opening. I wanted to say so much. “I do,” I said. “And I don't.”

I hadn't been letting myself wonder what would happen when we returned to the States. Every time the thought arose I repressed it. Mostly because I assumed we'd go our separate ways. But maybe I'd been assuming wrong. Did I want to stay with Ainslie? Was it enough?

Another rainy season, the
garúa
, and then the hot, hot bake of summer. And then another cycle, and another with the rhythm of the tides, imperceptibly cresting and waning. Before I knew it, we had been living on Floreana for more than three years. It was my home. Others came to the island to live for shorter periods; the Weisses' child died and they went back to the mainland, but Elke and Heinrich and the Jiménezes were permanent neighbors.

As the war in Europe occupied more of the international stage, U.S. warships came frequently to the islands. They would offload a hundred or so bored sailors, who started bonfires on the beach and shot at goats for sport. We could hear their whooping long into the night. The USS
Lapwing
stayed for a month while their experts photographed and charted our island. We began to dread the sound of a ship's whistle. They did little more than loiter—awkward youngsters at a dance. We began to wish there'd been an Ecuadorian base constructed after all; then at least we wouldn't have to deal with American ships.

Even if outwardly the United States proclaimed its isolationism, its military was in full exercise. Few were the days when we looked out into Black Bay or Post Office Bay and did not see a warship mustering for exercises. Of course it is in every military's best interest to anticipate all potential threats and have a plan of action; the navy saw the inevitability of American involvement in the Pacific front. The Japanese were in a tight space, having all their access to natural resources frozen. It was logical that they might target our shipping mechanisms, which is to say the Panama Canal. And the closest islands to the canal were our own Enchanteds.

So we had a vague threat on sea, and a near-constant stream of servicemen. As the only Americans, we were always invited down to the beach, or called upon to give tours of the island or host people for dinner with our meager supplies. Some of these guests ended up being good company, but most were tiresome, annoying, and distracting.

It was starting to get to me. After three straight days of making small talk with sailors, juicing lemons, and using most of our sugar, I snapped at Ainslie, and he looked at me queerly. “You're not cracking, are you, Franny?”

“Why are there so many? Is the entire armada here?”

“Really, Franny? You haven't figured it out?”

I sat down. “What? That we're going to war?”

“The whole reason we're here is so that we don't go to war.” My face must have given my ignorance and confusion away. “It amazes me how you can live here in complete denial of what's happening around us.”

He was right. I was a smart, educated woman. Why did it not occur to me to question, to wonder? In my defense, it may have been war in Europe, but here in the Galápagos we were fighting our own wars against the damp, the animals, the niguas, the mosquitoes, our own solitude, and it was easy to forget for weeks at a time that tensions were mounting internationally.

Ainslie began to whisper, sound-masking by drumming his hands on the table. “Since you found the radio, it's clear that our actions are being reported back to the Germans. If we mass here, the ships will be reported, and it looks like we have a strong naval presence.”

“But we do have a strong naval presence,” I said.

“Of course we do, but flexing our muscles when they don't think we're looking makes us seem even stronger. It's worth sending a few ships down here, especially since they'll be deployed and trained should their presence be necessary. The larger the fleet looks, the less likely it is that Japan will retaliate against the sanctions.”

I thought about this for a moment. “That can't possibly be the strategy.
We
can't possibly be the strategy.”

“No, not the
only
strategy.”

“Oh,” I said. “I thought us being here was…was—”

“This is not some game, Franny. This is not just playacting.” Ainslie raised his voice. He had stopped pounding on the table. I was scared; he was so rarely angry. “You just skip around blithely braiding Elke's hair.” (For the record, I had never done this.) “Do you understand what's at stake here? Thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of lives. This is real. This is serious. Hitler is killing people every day,
your
people, and you're more interested in whether the bread rises or if we'll stay together after it's all over. It hasn't even begun.”

My nerves were frayed; I was exhausted. That is the only explanation I can think of for why this rare display of anger from Ainslie triggered a giggle. A single burst emerged before I could quell it.

“Don't cry. I'm sorry I was short with you. Please don't.” I was very far from crying but there didn't seem to be any upside to admitting it. I just found it so absurd that we were influencing history. It seemed utterly preposterous, farcical.

You could always tell who hadn't been accustomed to undergrowth. They walked with heavy feet, in boots. Our shoes were long worn down: I only bothered with them when I knew I would have to walk on lava. These boots came in the form of a sailor who must have lied about his age to get into the navy. He was years from his first shave.

“Ma'am,” he said, wiping his brow with his dirty hand, leaving a gray patch, “I'm sent…to…”

“Catch your breath, sailor,” I said. “We're on island time here, nothing is that urgent.” I led him to our bench. He sat and drank the proffered glass of water quickly, drops falling off his chin.

“We're having a bonfire tonight,” he said. “The captain hopes you'll join us.”

“Which ship are you on?” I didn't want to trek down to the beach and pretend to have a good time with under-stimulated adolescents and whatever alcohol the captain could spare. Only if the captain was someone I knew and admired would I bother.

“The USS
Georgia
,” he said. “We're—”

“I know who you are,” I interrupted. The battleship was commanded by Thompson. He was an honorable fellow and a personal friend of Ainslie's. Most likely he had some communiqué for Ainslie. I accepted the invitation and sent the child on his way.

It was nearing dusk, so I collected my gardening tools and put them away. I washed my face and tried to pin my hair up, looking at myself in the scrap of mirror that Ainslie used for shaving. I was unfamiliar with the leathered old woman who stared out at me from it.

Pulling on my skirt, I waited for Ainslie, who came down from his daily pilgrimage soon enough. He readied himself more slowly, so that it was getting dark when we set out. We knew the path by then; there was little danger of losing our way.

Though the smoke drifted up above the trees and created a hazy mist of the night sky, we could hear the men at the bonfire before smelling or seeing it. When we came around the last bend, it looked like a real party. Where the wood came from is anybody's guess, but it was piled high and blazing. The ship's band was playing loudly: a guitar, saxophone, and drums improvised from various buckets and barrels. I hadn't heard the songs before, but then again, I had been on a desert island for more than three years. Elke and Heinrich were already there, their dog as always at their heels, sitting with the officers upwind from the smoke. I was not surprised to see them there, despite the hostilities between our two nations. If there were cigarettes to be had, you could expect Heinrich and Ainslie, even if the devil himself were handing them out.

On the beach the young men were dancing, some with each other, and there was a pig roasting on a spit on a smaller fire just to the right. As we trudged down the beach one of the young men grabbed my hand and spun me around a few times until I slipped, dizzy, and he laughed and let me go. I plopped down next to Ainslie and said hello to Thompson and the other assembled officers. There were several empty bottles of rum, and each enlisted man had had his ration, hence the dancing. And now another was opened. Ainslie poured himself a generous glass and gave another, smaller portion to me.

“To America!” the first officer toasted, and we all looked at Elke and Heinrich, uncomfortable. They did not raise their glasses, but neither did they say anything.

I brought mine to my lips. The unfamiliar liquid burned on its way down my throat, and I poured the rest into Ainslie's glass. Everyone else refilled theirs and toasted again, this time to Darwin, who was a cause everyone could get behind, and all quaffed heartily. There were a few more toasts, the officers getting sillier, and I sat back, amused, and watched as the evening began to get sloppy. At one point, Ainslie and Heinrich joined elbows and sang a French drinking song, and then everyone joined in on the chorus, which was the repetition of “ooh la la” several times. I watched my husband clown with our friend. We could have been any couple enjoying a night on the beach. I dug my toes into the sand. The fire grew too hot, then began to wane.

Some of the junior men decided to put on a variety show. One with a prominent brow tied a shirt around his waist and pretended to be a Guayaquil prostitute, sashaying seductively and yelling out in mangled English. I was so starved for amusement that I found even these drunken talentless antics entertaining. Then three seamen improvised drums on a mop bucket and beat a tune while two others high-stepped. They quickly grew tired in the soft sand. There were two Negroes, and they sang a song together in tight harmony.