The Sun Is God (14 page)

“I share your sentiments, sir. I grew up in the English provinces. You would not know Cumberland . . . it is celebrated among the poets but I found it a rather dreary locale, at least compared to the South Seas, or the Americas.”

“I wish to travel to the Americas one day.”

“May I ask your name, sir?”

“Of course. I am Karl Goldman,” the young man said impatiently.

“Karl,” Miss Pullen-Burry said, writing it in her book.

“Some of the other men call me ‘Kat,'” Karl said, and he
was
slender and had a certain feline grace.

“My mother was a Dane from Bornholm, another race of seafarers,” Karl offered.

Miss Pullen-Burry scribbled furiously. The young man paced back and forth. “Do you have any cigarettes?” he asked.

Miss Pullen-Burry shook her head. Karl looked at the sun and waning tide and shook his head. “I must go. I have other duties in Simpsonhafen. You will tell Hauptman Kessler to consult the tide charts and be here for the turn tomorrow. I will not have my time wasted like this and you can be sure that I will inform Oberleutnant Hoffman.”

“I am most dreadfully sorry. I imagine Captain Kessler forgot his appointment. If you can spare a few more minutes, we could go over to the settlement and talk to him.”

“No. He has missed his chance! I will be here tomorrow and I will wait for him on the beach: if he does not come by the turn of the tide, I will leave. I do not command a steam launch, madam.”

“Indeed not.”

The young man glared at her for a second or two as if the guilt was collective. He clicked his shoeless heals together and then went to gather up the anchor lying on the black sand.

“Once again, I am most dreadfully sorry for your inconvenience,” Miss Pullen-Burry said.

“Yes,” Karl said huffily. “If this were an operation of the Kaiserliche Marine, I can assure you that it would not have happened.”

Karl looked at the clouds and examined the water seeping between his toes. “You see the white water forming on the reef?”

“I do.”

“That is why I must go. This bay is navigable only at the flood. Of course an army officer—and Bavarian—would not understand such things.”

“I will attempt to explain it to him.”

Karl waited another minute and finally bowed to Miss Pullen-Burry. “Already the draft is perilous. Au revoir,” he said and pushed the
Delfin
back into the surf. When it was afloat, he nimbly climbed on board and hoisted the main sail. “Is there any message for Governor Hahl?” Karl asked as he tacked the little sloop.

Miss Pullen-Burry considered for a moment. “Arrived safely. Everything going smoothly,” she said. Karl nodded, waved to her, and sailed the
Delfin
out of the crescent-shaped bay.

“What an intense young man,” Miss Pullen-Burry said to herself and made a lightning pencil-sketch of his frowning features in her book. She put the pencil between the pages and closed the book with a sturdy rubber band. With a last look at the
Delfin
's diminishing sail she turned and walked back through the plantations to the Augustburg.

She found only Will, Klaus, and Engelhardt sitting at the communal breakfast table.

Will saw her first coming across the piazza. He nudged Kessler and both men stared at her for a moment.

Apart from a sun hat, Miss Pullen-Burry was quite naked.

“This is how it starts, Klaus,” Will murmured in English. “The veneer of civilization is paper thin. That's something you learn, in extremis.” And bringing his thumb and forefinger close together he hissed, “Civilization and anarchy, just this far apart.”

“We,
you and I
, must be on our guard,” Kessler agreed.

“I'll watch your back, chum, and you watch mine,” Will said.

“Of course.”

Miss Pullen-Burry marched over the smooth river stones, smiling. “Good morning, gentlemen!” she said. “Or is it afternoon, now? The day has quite flown.”

The men said good morning. She sat at the table and immediately fell into conversation with Engelhardt, showing him her drawings of yesterday's whale and Queen Emma's house and other interesting vistas from her travels. She ate some of the pounded coconut and declared it “quite delicious.”

After a little small talk about traveling, different foods, and customs of disparate regions, Engelhardt explained to the newcomers that everyone in the camp usually took a siesta or attended to reading or meditation from noon until four o'clock.

“After a couple of pints of this joy-juice, I'm surprised anyone can walk to their huts,” Will said in a low voice.

“I too must go. I wish you every success with your ‘investigation' and if there is anything at all I can do to be of assistance, please let me know,” Engelhardt said and excused himself.

“And I myself must take a short rest,” Kessler said, struggling to his feet. He was still in his dress uniform and Will noticed that the poor chap's face was redder than ever. “However, before I go, may I inquire, Miss Pullen-Burry, where you have been and what wonders you have seen?” he asked.

“I saw many birds. Parrots and those big white ones. And great grey sharks near the reef. And I talked to your pilot at the beach. A penetrating young man called Karl. He was most upset that you, apparently, had forgotten him.”

“He is still there, I take it,” Kessler said.

“No. He said he had to sail back to Simpsonhafen,” Miss Pullen-Burry said.

“My God!” Klaus cried, aghast. “Why did he leave?”

“His tide. Do not distress yourself Hauptman Kessler; he said that he would return at the same time tomorrow,” Miss Pullen-Burry said.

“Tomorrow! Yes, of course. Thank you, Miss Pullen-Burry.”

“My pleasure.”

“We must not forget him tomorrow! He is our only lifeline to the wider world . . . I have never missed an appointment,” Kessler said, still reeling from the horror of it.

“We won't tell anyone, Klaus,” Will said kindly.

“Gentlemen, I will leave you. I must see if I have inconvenienced the countess with my trunk,” Miss Pullen-Burry said. Will and Kessler stood there as she walked across the piazza to the Countess Höhenzollern's hut.

“A naked Englishwoman! A naked German noblewoman! To think that I have lived to see such things,” Kessler groaned. “And to miss an appointment . . . Perhaps this island is an ill-omened place.”

Will shook his head. “We made one certain mistake today, Klaus,” he said.

“About the boat, yes.”

“No, not the boat. I think it was a mistake asking about Lutzow over breakfast with everyone there. I should have conducted separate interviews and compared their accounts before they had time to agree or concoct a common story. I'm afraid that was a grievous error on my part, old man.”

Kessler smiled and patted Will on the back. “Never fret yourself, my dear fellow,” he said. “You can conduct separate interviews tomorrow and compare the stories then.”

“Tomorrow, yes, but today would have been better.” Will yawned. “Oh dear. That tincture was strong stuff. Maybe a short nap wouldn't be a bad idea after all.”

12

THE PENDULUM OF DESIRE

W
ill awoke in darkness, drenched with sweat and with creatures biting at him through the mosquito net. “For Christ's sake!” he said, swatting at his face. The lattice vibrated but Will's blow did little to disturb any of the local arthropods who were using it alternately as feeding station, battleground, and place of reproduction.

“Get out of here!” Will cried, trying to scoot away at least the flying cockroaches, but there was only a limited amount he could do from inside the net. Black thumb-sized hissing beetles had in any case broken through his defensive perimeter and were crawling up his leg. Despite many seasons in the tropics, he had not become accustomed to the evening fauna, and as he tumbled out of the hammock his pathetic cry was abbreviated by the close proximity of the hard German floor. He got to his feet and did a little dance to get the insects off him.

“You could help me,” Will said but when he looked over at the Deutsches Heer bed Kessler was not in it. Will grabbed his plimsolls and began killing the cockroaches who were frantically running for cover, but it was a mug's game and after three executions he stopped, found the chair, and sat.

He looked through the window. It was raining hard and pitch black. Where had the day gone? Surely he had only lain down for a minute.

He found his watch on the table, but he couldn't read it. The hands had been covered with a luminous paint that in theory allowed you to see them at night, but it was so dark here on Kabakon that they were utterly confounded.

Will reached into his sea bag and found a packet of matches. It took three strikes in the humid air for the match to ignite, but when it finally did he held it close to his wrist.

The time was a few minutes before seven, which meant that he had slept for nearly five hours! How he was supposed to fall asleep again that night was beyond him. He hadn't even brought a novel and he knew that to be with one's own thoughts was a recipe for disaster.

He looked in the sea bag just in case Siwa had shoved in a few creature comforts, but there was nothing apart from shirts, the Johnnie Walker, and a tin of cigarillos.

He thought for a minute, got up, and started rummaging through Kessler's sea chest, which the trusting idiot had left unlocked.

Clothes, a pistol, a container for an electrical device whose function Will could not guess at, and a few dense texts on what appeared to be military history and tactics. A backgammon set, a jug of the cheapest rotgut arak. Nothing of interest until he found a small lockbox: a metal and teak affair with a tiny brass keyhole. The sort of thing where a lady might keep her billets-doux.

“No key though,” Will muttered.

He looked across at Kessler's uniform strung from his foldable clothes stand.

“If I know Klaus Kessler,” Will said to himself.

Of course he shouldn't, but he found that he couldn't help himself . . .

He took a quick look outside to check on the wandering German but Klaus was either away for a walk or stuck in the privy with opium constipation. Will went through Kessler's uniform jacket and trousers until he discovered a key chain. The smallest key on the chain opened the box. Will lifted the lid. The first thing he found was Kessler's commission in the Abteilung IIIb of the Imperial Intelligence Service, which had been signed by General von Bulow.
Aha!
Will thought. Underneath the commission were his promotion certificates: fascinating stuff—Kessler had an intelligence rank of major, a full rank above his official grade in the Bavarian Army.

Under the commission and the promotion certificates there were several letters wrapped in black ribbon that were from someone called Hans. When Will opened one of them he was surprised to find that it
was
a billet doux. He read it first with a sense of amazement, then a dim recognition of what his unconscious already knew, then a sort of dissipated melancholy. When he had realized the full extent of his trespass he put the letters carefully back in the box and placed everything in the trunk. He returned the key chain, lit a cigarillo, sat down, and began blowing smoke at the mosquitoes.

Will had known a few poofters in the army. Not a terrible set on the whole, no worse than any of the other bastards you had to deal with in this life, although, he thought, you wouldn't want to rely on one in a pinch.

You wouldn't want to rely on a chap who goes through another chap's belongings as soon as his head was turned
, Will reflected sadly.

He resumed staring out the window into the blackness, but there was nothing there to distract the mind. Rain through the trees and a thunder so distant it could only be coming from Ulu or perhaps New Ireland.

Will closed his eyes and listened to the drumming on the roof. New Guinea was rain. His childhood in Yorkshire was all rain.

Will opened the cigarette box and counted his cigarillos. Just sixteen of them. Could that get him through the next day or so? He lit the oil lamp and sat there in its putrid light. His head ached from the laudanum. He rubbed his temples and carefully stubbed out the smoldering cigarillo and put it back in the tin.

“I cannot believe I did not even bring a pack of cards,” he said.

He tried to think about Lutzow and the case but his mind would not work in that direction. He had another hunt through his own sea bag for anything of interest and this time he found his scissors.

“Yes,” he said and trimmed the edges of his mustache in the dresser mirror. He was paler than he'd been in a long time and there was a greenish tinge to his cheeks. He snipped at the edges of the mustache, until it became a little more disciplined. He cleaned his nails with one of the scissor points and then made them make clickety noises for a while. He tried whistling along to the clickety noises, but finally he bored of this ensemble and lit another cigarillo. What would man do without tobacco? “It would be the rope and a chair for all of us and no mistake,” he said.

He had read Hazlitt once in his father's library and that old file had said that his favorite recreation was to be left alone with his own thoughts somewhere in the country. “He would have loved this hell hole,” he muttered.

Just then Will noticed one of the ladies sitting by herself on the far side of the piazza, under the little gazebo. Will couldn't tell which of the ladies it was, but even Miss Pullen-Burry would be tea and biscuits at the palace compared to this.

Will sprang out of his chair, pulled on his trousers, his plimsolls, and finally his good linen shirt that Siwa had packed for him.

It was still pissing down so he found his straw boater on a peg, removed the now-to-be-expected lizard, shoved it on his head, and ran outside.

The rain was falling in large, cold drops that drenched him immediately. He slipped in a puddle in front of the gazebo and almost went arse over tit but recovered himself and walked up the steps where he found Fräulein Schwab sitting in front of a chess board, starkers of course, but with a shawl about her shoulders.