The Man with the Compound Eyes (28 page)

“I hope you’re right,” said Dahu.

Indeed, every time Alice came down she was talking more about Ohiyo and less about Toto. But now Hafay, too, sensed that Ohiyo wasn’t Alice’s only companion at the hunting hut.

Alice found a quiet place by the highway and tossed a few things from the Sea House, leaving most of them in the car. She kept all of Toto’s books and stationery, even though she knew that keeping these things would only cause her sorrow. It was like leaving a deadly weapon lying around. She discovered a bundle of letters in a manila envelope, all from Thom.

From seeing each other to living together to getting married, Alice knew that Thom had pushed himself to the limit for her sake. But she was unwilling to admit defeat and let him go. One time she really thought Thom wasn’t coming back. Toto had come down with a cold, and as soon as he got better Thom told her he was preparing to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Alice did not say anything the entire day. When they were drying the dinner dishes Thom leaned over and asked: “Are you angry?”

“No. What’s there to be angry about?”

“I know you’re angry. The Umbwe Route isn’t that difficult. We’ll have a professional guide.”

“It has nothing to do with the difficulty or whether you’ve got a guide or not. Don’t you get it?” Alice’s tone suddenly hardened.

“I guess I just don’t fucking get it!”

“If you don’t get it you don’t get it. Whatever you want, Thom! Go do whatever you fucking want!”

Alice knew that she was being unreasonable, but she had a good reason, though for now she did not have the courage to confront it. For a while after Thom left, Alice thought: This is it, he’s gone for good. He’ll continue his adventures on seas, on slopes and in beds far away from her. Two weeks later Alice received a picture postcard from Thom of a glacier on Mount Kilimanjaro. The handwriting on the back was so finely penned it seemed to be printed in some old-style English font. In writing, Thom was always affectionate, never angry:

The last few lines were so Nabokov. Ah, but that was Thom. Toto and what remained of their love had been spun into a fragile thread, the only remaining tie between them. Thom did come back in the end. But if the conversation turned away from Toto, the two of them turned into silent snipers, each returning to his or her own trench. Sometimes Alice thought
that she should have let it be, let him leave long before. How could such a man belong to her?

Toto and Thom had been out of contact for two days, but Alice still had not thought to call the police. It didn’t occur to her that there might have been an accident. She assumed maybe Thom was just trying to avoid her. To do so, he might not scruple to conceive a crude missing person plot, and might even take her Toto away with him.

This suspicion only disappeared when Dahu found Thom’s body. Thom’s death gave her mourning an outlet, but also caused her soul, which she had been propping up with hate for many days, to collapse. Thom had always been this person in her life who might disappear at any moment; Alice had been preparing herself for the worst all that time. But what about Toto? Why was there still no sign of him?

Dahu, the rescue team and the coroner all supposed Thom must have fallen off the cliff and died. He had comminuted fractures all over his body. But the route on which they discovered Thom’s body was totally different from the one he had registered at the backcountry office. The placement of the body did not really make sense, either. It was as if someone had dragged him into the secluded rock house at the base of the cliff. Or had the force of impact caused his body to ricochet right into the shelter? And was this the reason he’d eluded discovery?

Alice listened as Dahu discussed what might have happened with some other climbing buddies. She couldn’t understand why they didn’t mention Toto. Toto still hadn’t been found, not even his backpack, but they didn’t seem at all concerned. Of the two people in the world who cared about Toto, one was gone, leaving her all alone. She lifted the shroud, took a look at the shrunken corpse hidden beneath, and signed the cremation authorization form without hesitation. She sprinkled Thom’s ashes in the water in front of the Sea House. Alice never thought to inform his family, because Thom had simply never given her their contact information; he hadn’t even told his parents when Toto was born. Which made her suspect that Thom had been alone in the world all along; maybe he remained alone right to the end. How she once loved his body,
and the spirit it contained. Now all that remained of him was ashes and dust.

One night, Alice asked Atile’i about funerals on Wayo Wayo.

Atile’i said that Wayo Wayoan funerals are usually held late at night, because the islanders believe that with the approach of day, the spirits follow the stars and fade away. The deceased is carried alone in a little boat toward the edge of the waters around Wayo Wayo. There is a boundary the living can never cross, not even when fishing, because of a powerful undercurrent. The relatives of the deceased ride in two boats, one to the left and one to the right, to steady the spirit craft. When they near the current that will carry the deceased off, the Sea Sage chants the psalm of farewell. If they see lights flickering in the distance it is time to let go. Then the craft departs, never to return, while the relatives of the departed sing heartily as they row back. If they do not get the timing right, the craft will sometimes turn round and they will, however reluctantly, have to throw stones at it to sink it. Otherwise the spirit of the dead will never rest in peace.

“You sing? You mean singing? Like this?” Alice hummed the first melody that came into her head.

“Yes, singing.”

“Did you ever ask why you do that?”

“Because it’s good for the deceased.”

“Why is it for the good of the deceased?”

“Because our ancestors want us to sing.”

“Is whatever the ancestors want you to do necessarily good?”

“Whatever the ancestors want us to do is necessarily good.”

“I see,” Alice said, perfunctorily. She suddenly realized that the melody she had just hummed was from a song Thom had sung for her in the campground in Copenhagen.

“You see.” Atile’i fell silent a few moments, as if lost in thought. Then he said, “May the Sea bless you.”

She had just decided to follow the route that they’d taken together, father and son. No doubt this youth standing in front of her would be an ideal helper and companion on her quest. She wanted to make the trip to
the place where Thom died and Toto went missing, to see for herself, once and for all, what it was like and how she would feel when she got there. “Can I hear that again?” Atile’i asked.

“What?”

“The song. You were just singing.”

Nobody has ever seen the forest he now beholds, like a forest in a novel that has grown into a real wood. This is not to say that the forest is not immense, peaceful, dark and deep. It is indeed immense, peaceful, dark and deep, just a bit unreal.

The man, blond-haired and big-boned, looks back and encourages the boy behind him, saying, “We’ll be fine. I know a path to the big cliff over there. I’ve climbed it many times. It’s fantastic there, really incredible. You’ll know what I mean after you climb it: everything looks different from up there. I’ve even seen long-armed scarabs up there.”

Long-armed scarabs. This time I have to see them for myself, the gray-haired little boy thinks to himself. The man is carrying all the equipment so the boy can keep up. The boy’s skin is fair, his eyes enchanting—brown at first sight but almost blue from a certain angle. He is a tight-lipped, determined little boy. The boy has not called for a stop for over four hours since breaking camp this morning. The man has been making a point of helping the boy regulate his breathing and pace himself as they march in single file along an almost unmarked trail. If the boy stops walking the man senses it immediately.

So far the boy has stopped three times along the way, because he is
constantly checking for scat along the trail, and for scarab beetles feasting on the scat. If he sees any movement he stops, picks out the beetles and puts them in a ventilated jar, without using chemical agents to put the insects under. He just tightens the twist top lid. “Wait in here a bit.” The boy taps the jar, not actually opening his mouth but adopting a benign expression apparently intended to reassure the beetles. “Don’t be afraid, I mean you no harm.” But obviously the scarab he has just caught doesn’t understand. Seemingly bewildered, it flails its three pairs of legs, trying to climb up the side of the jar only to slide back down again.

The man and the boy start sweating. The forest is dark and extremely still. It is a deep-toned stillness. The two of them share the sound of one another’s breathing. Just when the boy feels maybe they should rest a bit, the forest comes to an abrupt end and his eyes light up, as if someone has just flipped the sunlight switch.

As soon as the boy and the man see the cliff off to the one side, they immediately feel that the forest just now has been as real as real can be, and that the immense rock wall they now confront is fantasy. The man has seen so many of the world’s wonders, and has climbed this cliff face before, but he is still deeply moved by it. He enjoys this feeling most of all, the feeling of awe inspired by a certain anticipated scene. Meanwhile, the boy is thinking that the insects in his jar once lived at a place like this. He does not have too many adjectives in his vocabulary yet. He notices his heart is pounding, and that he feels giddy.

“Isn’t it great?” the man says to the boy. The boy does not respond. He is too thrilled to know how to respond, and at the same time starts to doubt himself.

“This cliff wasn’t here originally. It was only because of an earthquake that the mountain allowed the cliff to appear.” The man sees that the boy is wavering. “When I was ten years old, your grandfather took me free diving. You know, in the ocean, without a scuba tank, and he told me, only if you go to places nobody’s ever been can you see the colors nobody’s ever seen.” The boy nods, though he does not completely understand what this means.

The man has not left the island this whole year. When he’s found himself at a loose end he has taken the boy to the practice climbing wall. He’s seen what a quick study the boy is indoors, and everyone who’s seen him outdoors has been amazed. It’s like the kid was born with a rock climbing certification. Every time someone praises the boy the man is thrilled, as if he himself has been praised, and maybe this is why many people who know the man feel he is an oversized kid himself. The man surveys the cliff, looks for a new route. This is his custom,
never to climb the same wall in the same way twice
. Even when he brings his son who has just turned ten along with him.

The boy starts to get out his equipment, arranging his things one by one. He puts on his climbing shoes, safety rope and helmet. The man traces out the route in his mind, takes a deep breath and finds the first toehold.

“I lead and you belay, all right? Watch where I climb. I’ll keep my movements small, and choose rocks you’re able to reach. Got it?”

The boy nods and asks, “Will the long-armed scarab be able to climb up, too?”

Surprised by the question the boy had sprung upon him, the man thinks it over and says, “Of course.”

While the boy waits below, the man ascends slowly, finding the route in the pattern of the rock. He uses rock wedges to make anchors, clips a quickdraw onto each anchor, and hangs the lead rope into the quickdraw as a belay, all the while looking down to check up on the boy, who is craning his neck, trying to trace the route the man is taking. Then the boy starts climbing. Faintly feeling the boy’s weight on the rope, the man has a wonderful sense of well-being.

“No problem, you can do it,” the man says quietly, as if he’s afraid to startle the cliff itself. The boy sometimes looks up at the vertical path shining above him, and at other times he looks at the cliff face all around him. He finds himself in an alien realm. He is on the verge of tears, though not because he is afraid. No, this seems like a completely new kind of crying the boy has never experienced before.

They finally make it to the top as dusk approaches. The man and the
boy yawp euphorically into the valley. Though the boy doesn’t usually speak, his call is loud and clear. Looking down from here, they can see the forest canopy, a green sea gently swaying. The sound reaches the top of the trees and startles a few birds, which dart up and dive back down into the sea.

They excitedly get the stove ready to brew tea and cook a vacuum-pack meal. Their secret trip is now half done. Actually, the point of the trip is not to climb the mountain. For the man, it is purely so that his ten-year-old son can experience the cliff. It’s also a chance for a father and son, who’ve been drifting apart, to renew their relationship.

After the picnic, the man explains the signs in the stars, adding, “You can see a million times more stars up here than you can down on the plains. Maybe you’re thinking, But aren’t the stars there, no matter what? Sure they are, it’s just a question of visibility. Visibility means how far you can see. You remember when we went to a wetland one time to see migratory birds? The sky was foggy, because there were fine particles floating in the air. I remember your mother saying that gazing at the stars these days is like wearing a pair of fogged-up glasses.”

Only the man speaks. The boy never replies, as if he simply does not exist. The man has regretted his decision to come to the island, but now he’s past the point of no return. He once dreamed about being an explorer. In his younger days, he cycled around Africa, piloted a sailboat across the Atlantic, ran an ultramarathon across the Sahara, and even took part in an interesting sleep experiment, spending fully half a year thirty meters underground. He followed his wife—his girlfriend at the time—here to Taiwan. At first everything was great: she accepted his sudden disappearances, which lasted from two weeks to a month. But after she became pregnant everything changed. The man remembers a time when he was totally willing to stay for the sake of the child, to build a home to raise his son in. And he had built it. Things were perfect then: the child was on the way, they were living in a unique house, and his wife was tender and affectionate again. Then he discovered that he still felt a longing to leave home.