Enchanted Islands (37 page)

It made me think again about dying on the island, being buried there and having no one know it. This kind of morbid thinking cheered me up, ironically. If life meant so little, then nothing I could do would have that much of an effect. That's why I've been able to stay silent about the war for so long. If I hadn't destroyed the radio, then perhaps the war would have turned out another way, but the world would still have continued in its inexorable path around the sun.

I think Ainslie made a friend among these soldiers, for he was out all night and I only saw him the next morning at breakfast. We didn't need the charade now of him pretending to have been searching through the night for a dictator who was not there. I knew what he was doing. I accepted it.

The soldiers were eventually satisfied that their wild-goose chase was going to produce no geese, and they left us to ourselves again. The quiet of the island was blissful after the assault of the army. We spent several days picking up after them—cigarette butts and pieces of paper, small parts of things in plastic and metal and wood that had come off of something or another that civilization had deemed necessary. We found handkerchiefs, socks, lighters, two dolls' heads, a belt buckle, a mayonnaise jar, a coat hanger. It took the island a year to recover from the boots and machete damage. But recover it did, for man is but a momentary annoyance, a fly on nature's back.

We spent two glorious years on Floreana, perhaps the best years of my life. I felt strong, secure. I was busy with activities that were central to life—growing food, cooking. I had good friends in Ainslie and Elke and Gitta. I missed Rosalie and her children, yes, but we wrote each other often. And I worked on my books.

I will give the navy this: They sent someone in person to tell us it was time to retire. The lieutenant wore his uniform on the long hike to our house, informed us briefly of his news, and left immediately. All intelligence agencies were to be incorporated into the new Central Intelligence Agency, eliminating Ainslie's position. According to the navy, Ainslie had developed a cough, and it was best if he was removed from active duty. (His supposed cough was part of our cover story before the war as well. Not much imagination in the navy.) It was the first and only time I ever saw Ainslie cry. He waited until the officer left, and then he got into bed and wept. There was no consoling him, though I tried, rubbing his back. Finally I got in his bed with him and held him until he stopped shaking. We spent the night like that, and the next morning we began to pack.

When I think about the time that came after, the time that is most recent, I find that it is just outside the grasp of my memory, like in the morning before sleep fully leaves your eyes. Could we have stayed without the navy's support? I suppose so. We had everything we needed to survive. But we were getting older, and if there's one thing the islands do not tolerate, it is the weakness of old age. Animals routinely leave their wounded and aged to die. Perhaps it was time to give up our Swiss Family Robinson existence and try to make a bit of money before we became too old to work.

I'll spare you the goodbye story. Everyone hugged. Everyone knew this time we would never see each other again. There were tears and promises, and a fond farewell look as the island receded into the horizon.

When I'm asked when I was happiest, as these group therapy sessions are always harping on (we old folks are prone to depression—no wonder, we're about to die, it's depressing), I always answer, “On Floreana.” There is a strange serenity that comes with only having to worry about your basic needs. It makes me think that primitive man might have been better off than we are today. But that's a different discussion.

I became a teacher again and served a few more years. I was not the most inspirational educator, but I suppose there were worse. Ainslie found a job as a lecturer at the University of California, and we moved to the East Bay. It was nice being around students, all those young minds.

I saw Rosalie often. Ainslie and Clarence joined us occasionally and were generally on good behavior. I wouldn't say they ever got to be friends, but they were happy acquaintances. As we got older, Ainslie spent less time away from home. We avoided boats, beaches, and camping, as well as all islands. When we wanted to celebrate, we went into San Francisco. The joy of having someone else cook your meals never wears off. Never until the Chelonia Manor, that is.

Clarence had a heart attack in 1950. Ainslie walked Barbara down the aisle at her wedding the following year, and her daughter calls me Granny (Rosalie is Nana). Ainslie actually did develop a cough (is the navy psychic?) and got imperceptibly weaker and weaker each month until Rosalie finally asked if I needed help caring for him.

The question shocked me. Help caring for whom? But then I saw that he could no longer leave the house, that he had trouble bathing without my help, that he was winded just walking down the hall. I had been wearing glasses that had the landscape I wanted printed on the inside, and now someone had wiped them clear again.

Though we had our navy pensions and my teacher savings, full-time in-home nursing care was expensive. The day after I mentioned this to Rosalie a man appeared, a man who was like Ainslie in that way, saying he'd been hired to help out during the day. I called Rosalie to tell her she shouldn't have done that.

“It's not for you, Fanny, it's for me. I'm so sick of you telling me you can't go anywhere.”

I didn't believe her and told her so.

“What else am I supposed to do with the money?” She sighed. “It's not really mine anyway. I just married it.”

When Ainslie died, Rosalie moved me into her house, and I finally got a taste of the finer life. I would like to say that I enjoyed having a staff, but actually it just felt like someone was always hovering. By then I had my own mobility problems and my own nurse.

It had never occurred to me that I would outlive Ainslie, as he was so much younger. I suppose that for a bit of time I felt untethered to the earth, like I might be blown back into the ocean by a stiff breeze. But Rosalie buoyed me. She drove me crazy; we bickered constantly, but the way sisters do, harmlessly.

When she fell and broke her hip, her son, Dan, moved us both into the Hebrew Home for the Aged. “Is it ‘aged' or ‘age-
ed
'?” she asked the intake nurse.

The nurse smiled as though Rosalie were a babbling baby.

Maybe I do need an ear trumpet, I can't hear anything over the sounds of the ladies lunching, their shrill voices competing with each other, the clatter of silverware on plates. Rosalie is wheeled onstage to accept her award, and everyone stands up to applaud her.

“What did you do during the war, Frances?” Susie asks. It takes me a minute to understand what she's saying.

“Oh, I was a secretary.”

“It must have been a fascinating time.”

“That's one word for it,” I say.

Susie laughs. “You and Rosalie have obviously been friends for a long time. You share the same emanations.”

A long time. “Since we were eight years old.”

Susie looks at me with admiration. “I bet you've got some stories to tell.”

“You have no idea,” I say.

Rosalie gets the front seat on the way home but wastes the experience by falling asleep immediately—I can tell by her head loll. I feel bad for the things I called Susie in my head. She's been incredibly nice to two old ladies. We drive through the wooded roads, the windows open for a cool breeze. “You'll tell me if you're cold, Frances?” Susie calls back.

“It feels lovely.”

The air smells of pine and eucalyptus here, of mushrooms and sponge bark. I breathe in deeply.

We stop at the top of the circular driveway and Susie puts her hearse into park. “Nice ceremony,” Susie says. “I wish Rosalie's children could have been there.”

“Israel is a long way to come for a luncheon. And Dan is so busy with work.”

“Hmm,” Susie says companionably. She reminds me of Elke, tolerant of silence, even with a near stranger. She could be Elke's granddaughter, I think, if Gitta had moved to America and married. But even as I think it, I know it isn't possible.

They're all gone: Ainslie, Elke, Joseph, all the people I've loved who've loved me back in their own ways. Except for Rosalie, my sister, my albatross. And we will soon be gone too, bleached bones, grains of sand swept to sea as the tide goes out, carried by the Humboldt current to a cold country where everything is unfamiliar.

“Rosalie,” I call. “Rosalie, wake up! Rosie!”

Rosalie opens her eyes. “Are we there, Frances?”

Frances and Ainslie Conway were real people who lived on the Galápagos Islands: Santiago (1937–1938), Floreana (1938–1941), and again on Santiago (1946–1950). Frances wrote two memoirs about their time there,
The Enchanted Islands
and
Return to the Island
, published in 1948 and 1952, respectively.

Frances's memoirs reveal little beyond her daily tribulations living on the islands and say nothing about any espionage activities, though the idea that they were spies has been suggested by others before me. I based the characters on Frances's and Ainslie's birth and death dates, and Frances's memoirs, which are dedicated to Rosaline Fisher. Everything else is pure invention.

Throughout, I tried to stay generally true to historical events (though I may have moved a sea voyage or two) except when they conflicted with the narrative (I am a novelist first, and a mediocre historian). President Roosevelt really did visit the Galápagos, and there was indeed a military base there during World War II.

The Galápagos Islands are an enchanted place, and their human history is fascinating. As Darwin put it, “this archipelago…seems to be a little world within itself.”

The author wishes to thank the usual suspects:

The following Galapágueños (and honorary citizens) provided lodging and advice:

The following organizations provided support:

Other sources consulted include:

And thank you, Frances, for living and recording your remarkable experience.