The Silverado passed the Pontiac wagon and pulled up a short distance ahead where the driver could watch in his rearview mirror as Austin and Lee went up to the front door. Austin rang the bell and heard someone inside say hello. A moment later, a slightly built man who looked to be in his eighties answered the door.
Jeremiah Whittles first smiled at Lee. Then his eyes turned to Austin and widened in surprise.
“Is that Kurt Austin of NUMA? My God, I don’t believe it! How long has it been?”
“Too long, Whit. How are you?”
“Older, but not necessarily wiser. What brings you to my beautiful island, Kurt?”
“Some routine NUMA stuff for the Navy. I’m showing Dr. Lee here around. She’s interested in Nan Madol, and I couldn’t think of anyone more knowledgeable on the subject than Pohnpei’s best-known guide.”
“Make that best-known former guide,” Whittles said. “C’mon in.”
With his pink-skinned pate, thin aquiline nose, kindly yet inquisitive blue eyes behind wire-rimmed bifocals, and slightly stooped shoulders, Whittles resembled a friendly buzzard.
“I heard you had retired,” Austin said.
“My brain was still full of all the facts, like an old stew kettle, but the spine was stiffening up, and I couldn’t turn my head without some difficulty, which I need to do to point out features on the tours. Had to swivel at the waist like a wooden soldier. Then my eyesight started to go. Not much call for a half-blind guide, so I thought it best to call it quits.”
Whittles led the way through rooms filled with Micronesian folk art. There were masks, totems, and carved grotesque figures on every wall and in every corner. He settled his visitors on a screened-in porch and scuttled off to get them some cold bottled water.
In his travels around the world, Austin had seen clones of Whittles, peripatetic Englishmen who attach themselves as guides to famous cathedrals, ancient palaces, and forgotten temples, absorbing every fact, large and small, and becoming local celebrities in the process.
Austin had met Whittles during a tour of Nan Madol, and the depth and breadth of his historical and cultural knowledge had impressed him. Years before, Whittles had served as a navigator aboard a merchant ship that had stopped at Pohnpei and been entranced by its beauty and history. Retiring early from the merchant marine and relying on his savings, he moved to the island and led a monklike existence centered on the ruins. Nan Madol became not only his livelihood but his whole life.
Whittles came back with the water, settled in a chair, and asked Lee what she knew about Nan Madol.
“Not a lot, I must confess,” she said. “Only that it has been called the Venice of the Pacific.”
“Nan Madol is a far cry from the city on the Adriatic,” he said, “but it is impressive nonetheless. It consists of ninety-two artificial islets dating back to 1100 A.D. The builders rafted hexagonal basalt pillars to the tidal flats and reef off Tenwen, some of the pillars more than twenty feet long, and stacked them horizontally to make artificial, flat-topped islets. A grid of shallow canals connects the islets to one another. Because the city is so remote and mysterious, and located where nothing of this sort should exist, it has given rise to theories that Nan Madol was part of the lost continent of Mu or Lemuria.”
“What do you think, Mr. Whittles?” Lee asked.
“I think that the reality is more prosaic but still marvelous. The city was the site of temples, administrative centers, burial vaults, houses for priests and nobles, and a pool said to have been the home of a sacred eel . . . How may I help you, Dr. Lee?”
“Do you know of any ruins engraved with unusual carvings similar to those on another island?”
“Only one instance,” Whittles said. “The temple known as the Cult of the Healing Priests. I’ve heard reports of a similar temple elsewhere but have never been able to verify it.”
“What exactly was this cult?” Austin asked.
“It originated on one of the islands near Pohnpei. The priests traveled around the islands tending the sick and became known for their miraculous healing.”
Austin exchanged glances with Lee.
“As a doctor,” she said, “I’m very interested in the healing part.”
“Wish I could tell you more,” he said, “but the civilization degenerated from the effects of internecine warfare. And while there is a good chance that the beliefs and ceremonies of the cult survived in some more primitive form, most of what we know today was passed down by word of mouth. There is no written record.”
“Wouldn’t the carvings be considered a written record?” Austin asked.
“Sure,” Whittles said. “But from what I’ve seen, they’re more symbolic and allegorical than historical.”
“What do the carvings at Nan Madol represent?” Lee asked.
“I can show you better than I can tell you,” Whittles said.
He went into his study and dug through his file cabinets, returning with a brown envelope. He opened the envelope and pulled out a stack of five-by-seven photos. He fanned the photos like a deck of cards, picking out one and handing it to Lee.
“This is the facade of the temple as seen from a canal,” he explained. “There’s a hollow space under the temple’s floor that seems to have been some sort of pool. This picture shows the carvings on the interior.”
Lee stared at the photo for a moment, then passed it over to Austin, who studied the bell shapes in it and then looked up.
“Jellyfish?” he asked.
“It appears to be,” Whittles said. “Not sure why they decorated the wall of a temple with those creatures. But, as I said, there’s a pool dedicated to the sacred eel, so why not one to jellyfish?”
“Why not indeed?” Lee said, her dark eyes sparkling with excitement.
“I’d like to see this place in person,” Austin said. “Can you tell us where it is?”
“I can show you exactly, but I hope you brought your bathing suit. The platform the temple rested on got knocked around in an earthquake years ago and sank into the canal. Not too deep. Maybe twelve feet or so.”
Austin looked at Lee.
“What’s your pleasure, ma’am? Head off to our ship or check out Nan Madol?”
“I think the answer to that question is obvious,” she said.
He wasn’t surprised by her reply, given what he had seen of her determination.
Austin asked to borrow a local telephone book and within minutes had arranged to rent a boat and some scuba equipment. Whittles marked the temple’s location on a tourist map of the ruined city. They thanked him and said their good-byes, then went back out to the waiting Pontiac station wagon. As the taxi headed toward the harbor, the Chevy Silverado pulled away from the curb and followed a few lengths behind.
CHAPTER 35
DR. LYSANDER CODMAN GREETED THE TROUTS IN THE LOBBY of a building that overlooked the grassy square off Longwood Avenue where Harvard Medical School was part of a campus with some of the most prestigious such institutions in the country. The professor was a tall, loose-boned man in his sixties. He had the type of long, big-toothed face that seemed to raise the possibility that some of the old Yankee families had bred with horses.
Codman led the way along a hallway and swept the Trouts into his spacious office. He asked his visitors to make themselves comfortable and poured cups of Earl Grey from an electric kettle. He then plunked himself behind his desk and asked a few questions about their work with NUMA, then held up a bound report so the Trouts could read the title on its dark blue cover:
THE NEW BEDFORD ANOMALY:
A STUDY OF IMMUNE RESPONSE AMONG
CREW FROM THE WHALING SHIP PRINCESS
Codman took a noisy slurp from his cup.
“I’ve had a chance to browse through Dr. Lee’s paper,” he said. “It’s even more curious than I remember.”