I sat there for a while thinking about both the cave and my conversation with Fuentes. If Ana Kai Tangata was haunted by evil spirits emanating from either the victims or the perpetrators of the cannibalism implied in the cave's name, I couldn't feel them. The danger seemed much more imminent than that. I felt trapped in some kind of web with whatever evil was out there, on an island where there are only a few flights a week, some of which went somewhere I didn't intend to go. What was it like, I wondered, to live on an island so far from everything else? Everything you need, or just want, from a lot of your food to the smallest part for your car engine to a grand piano, had to come from somewhere else, by and large, and travel great distances to get to you.
All I could see through the cave entrance was water, the gray of the sky and the gray of the water meeting at a horizon that seemed very far off. I knew once I stepped out of the cave, the horizon would seem limitless. Pablo Fuentes didn't believe me. I wasn't even sure Moira would. Te-Pito-Te-Henua, they called it—the navel of the world. As stunning as this island might be, when it came right down to it, at this moment at least, there was not a lot to be said for being alone at the center of the world.
With those morbid thoughts, I picked my way carefully across the rocks to the dead horse. I wondered if Fuentes would feel differently about the passports of foreign nationals when he saw the poor horse had been killed by a bullet through its brain.
5
AHU AKIVI—As it turned out, the flight to Tahiti was not an issue. The plane got in from Santiago all right, but technical difficulties delayed its onward journey by five hours, by which time Pablo Fuentes had had to rethink his attitude toward any number of things.
But that was to come later. After my visit to the cave and the excursion along the shoreline, I came up the path to find Moira standing on the cliff edge in a complete flap. "Where have you been?" she demanded. "I've been looking for you everywhere. Susie Scace said she'd seen you walking along the cliff and I was afraid something awful had happened."
"Moira!" I exclaimed. "I just went for a walk."
"You can't just go off like that without telling me," she said.
"You were asleep, Moira," I said.
"You're right," she said in a second or two. "This place must be getting to me. I'll be glad when all these people have left, and we can get on with our holiday. How's your head?"
"It's fine. Life list: I will never have a migraine again," I said. She managed to smile. "Let's go get breakfast. I'm starving, and I have to hear what happened after I left Jasper's talk."
"Not that much, really," she said, as I tucked into a rather large plate of eggs. "Two of those dancers came out pushing a glass case to center stage, followed by the rest of them, who did what I can only describe as a victory dance around that thing, whatever it was. Then Jasper invited Rory and Gordon to be the first to see the tablet, which I gather he has named the San Pedro tablet. I guess Rory's curiosity overcame his humiliation because he actually went up and looked at it. Gordon wouldn't go."
"And?"
"They behaved like perfect gentlemen, even if Gordon refused to go on stage. You have to give them credit. Rory even shook Jasper's hand and said if the tablet stood up to further study, he was to be congratulated for a significant find. Something like that, anyway. It must have pained him greatly to say it. After that, everyone was allowed to go up on the stage to have a look. I went up there, but I had no idea what I was looking at. Everyone else was pointing out some of the little figures and saying it looked just like the Santiago staff. What do I know? But we may have inadvertently stumbled into something really special at this congress. We may get to eat out on this for years. Jasper said National Geographic was interested in an article, as was Archaeology magazine. We'll be able to say we were there when Jasper made his big announcement. Not that anybody else but you will have a clue what rongorongo is."
"Has anyone seen Jasper?" Kent Clarke said in a loud voice at the dining room door. Everyone said no. "We're supposed to be filming," she said in an exasperated tone.
"Tell him I'm looking for him if he comes in here, please." She vanished just as quickly as she'd come.
"She's obviously used to being in charge," Moira said. "I hope I don't speak to my staff that way. Life list: Speak civilly to staff at all times."
"I suppose she's under some pressure," I said. "According to Mike and Daniel, this is one dog of a documentary she's making."
"I thought I was going to be seeing him. I thought we had a date," Yvonne said from the next table. "Story of my life. They all dump me for some reason. I suppose I wasn't smart enough for Jasper. I'm not dumb, you know. I just didn't get much of an education. I'm trying to learn stuff. That's why I signed up for that Internet group and came here." She rose from her chair and ran from the room sobbing.
"I'm thinking this is opportunity for me," Enrique said as he rushed past our table in her path.
"Was she talking to us or the tablecloth?" Moira said.
"I have no idea," I said. "But it seems the Jasper thing is off. So what's the drill for today? Are we going to Ahu Akivi with the rest of them? What are your plans?"
"I'm afraid to tell you," she said.
"You have a date with Jasper?" I said.
"No," she said. "It's worse."
She's going off to spend the afternoon with Rory doing the unthinkable, I thought. Will I or won't I tell Clive? I waited.
"Promise you won't scream, or anything?" she said.
I promised. It was a promise I hoped I'd be able to keep.
"I'm going to get a tattoo," she said.
"What?" I shrieked.
"You promised not to scream," she said.
"Sorry," I whispered. "A tattoo?" It wasn't the idea of the tattoo itself that surprised me; it was the idea that Moira, spa owner and seeker of skin perfection, would even consider one. This was the new Moira indeed. I looked at her carefully. I rarely saw Moira without makeup or with a single hair out of place. It had happened gradually, over the space of a few days here, but Moira had essentially transformed herself. She'd toned the makeup down to pale lipstick and some eyeliner, and her hairstyle was considerably more relaxed than usual. I decided this was a good thing.
"Haven't you noticed that almost everyone here, the people who live here, I mean, have tattoos?" she said. "Rory told me that when the Europeans first came, they found people with their entire bodies covered in tattoos. He said there are names for each of the different tattoos—you know, one name for the face, another for the tattoos on the buttocks. You get the idea."
"You're having your buttocks tattooed?" I said.
"No," she said. "Did you see that lovely little turtle Victoria Pakarati had tattooed around her navel?" I nodded. "I'm thinking of having something like that done."
"Okay," I said.
"Rory's going to take me to a parlor he knows about, a place with clean needles, et cetera. When I get there, I will, of course, cast my Meller Spa eye over the place to make sure it meets my standards of cleanliness. If it does, I'm going for it. Rory claims he has a tattoo himself, too, one I haven't seen, so I can only imagine where it is. Do you want to come with me? Get a little butterfly or something at the base of your spine?"
"Nooo," I said.
"You are such a poop, Lara," she said. "What are you going to do, then, while I'm breaking free of all the constraints that have held me captive for many years?"