“Mal?” she said softly.
“Darling.”
“Do you feel like I do? No yesterday. No tomorrow.”
“That’s what an island like this is supposed to do to you. But it doesn’t do it for long. Just for the first week or so. Then the heat and the monotony and the flies and the sun glare begin to get you down. A year and you’re island-happy, talking to yourself.”
“How about you, Mal? What is it about you? It pu2zles me. You’re all mixed up in this and yet you’re not part of it. You’re sort of a... watcher.”
“I’m having an emotional convalescence, maybe. I don’t know how to explain it to you. I saw so much death and so much suffering concentrated into a few months that all this... it seems artificial, somehow. Like Roger and Dolan and Branch are playing some sort of a game for backward children.”
“And me too?”
“No, Sara. Not you. You’re the only real part of, and you don’t even belong in the script. How is Roger acting?”
“He’s forgotten I’m alive. He’s put me off in a little compartment in his mind labeled 'For Future Action’. He’s frantic because Dolan is keeping him out of the salvage operations. You’ve seen how strained his eyes look. He’s borrowed binoculars from de Beauharnais and he watches them out there every moment they’re working. I think he’s going a little mad, Malcolm.”
“His boy, Branch, is out there.”
“He doesn’t trust Tom Branch. He didn’t trust Welling either. He got them, you know, by putting a blind ad in the papers. 'Young man. Profit and adventure.’ That sort of thing. He interviewed hundreds.”
“And let the good ones go, eh?”
“Yes. And losing Gina seemed to do something to him. She was strong, you know. He was beginning to depend on her. Now he’s alone. He knows that I’ve got nothing but contempt for this whole plan of his. I never really understood Roger before. That terrible ambition of his.”
“How did you happen to marry him?”
“I was a coed at Northeastern. A miserable little sophomore. Seven years ago. My people were killed in an airline crash and... Roger was there. Sweet, gentle understanding. Sometimes you have to have someone to lean on, you know. I think he agreed to bring Gina and me along on this trip as sort of insurance against anything Branch and Welling might try. I guess he thought chivalry wasn’t dead. It is, you know. Quite thoroughly dead.”
Mal thought of Gina, of how he had last seen her. “It seems to be,” he said softly.
“Let’s walk, Mal,” she said, getting to her feet. He marveled at her way of making every move with coordinated grace.
As they headed west along the beach she said, “There are thirteen of us, Mal. And so quiet. Like that usual part of a symphony where you wait and wait for the music to crash out.”
“Just before the coda.”
“What’s going to happen, Mal? Somebody else is going to die. They are, aren’t they. Don’t let it be you, Malcolm. Please don’t let it be you.”
“I'll consider the request.”
“Don’t joke about it. Take me seriously.”
“I do. Always.”
“I keep hoping and hoping that nothing more will happen. I want to go home and I want to leave Roger and divorce him and marry you.” She blushed and looked away. “I forgot. You haven’t even asked me.”
“I don’t want to ask you. Not here and now. Not in this comic opera atmosphere of treasure and dusky maidens. I want a scene with piano in the background, holding your hand across a table, with you wearing flowers I’ve bought for you. And before I ask you I want to learn how to come alive again. I want to know what I’m going to do with my life.”
“Our life.”
“All right, you forward wench. Our life.”
The small cranky gasoline generator quit that night and the table was set for five under the hard white glare of a Coleman lantern hung from an overhead beam. It made hard shadows on the floor. De Beauharnais, looking more rested than at any time since their arrival five days before, sat at the head of the table. Gopala and Malcolm sat at his left facing Sara and Roger across the wide table. The night was still and muggy and one of the house boys pulled on the string which moved the swinging fan back and forth under the lantern making a metronome shadow which swept from one end of the table to the other and back again, slowly.
The meal was a rich, highly-spiced curry, which Mr. Gopala, for one, ate with great enthusiasm. As he wrapped the bits of spiced rice in the green leaves and popped them into his mouth, he raved to de Beauharnais about the beauties of the island.
“Unspoiled, untouched,” he said. “A gem. A jewel of the Pacific.”
“If you had seen Dakeet forty years ago, my friend,” said the Frenchman, “you would not say that. A few ships had touched here in the days of sail. They left their usual gifts to the island. Diseases that rot these peoples. For generations they were sullen. Now we are bringing them back to life. It is a long process. You ask why, and how France can afford philanthropy. It is not exactly that. At one time there were good pearls here. The beds have been seeded again. Another five years, maybe ten, we shall begin to get those fine pearls once more. And these people grow strong again. They will dive for us and gladly.”
Sara, as always in Roger’s presence, ate quietly, rarely lifting her eyes from her plate. Roger Temble had lost weight. His hand shook as he ate.
Mr. Gopala leaned back from his empty plate with a small, satisfied belch. “Now tell me, M’sieur, is it possible to leave this island in an outrigger canoe? Can any port be reached?”
“There is an island without inhabitants, smaller than this one, almost forty miles to the north. That is the only place that can be readied. It is without water. Sometimes my people go there for the fishing when they know the weather will be calm for many days. In the proper season. Why do you ask?” De Beauharnais smiled. “Are you tiring of my hospitality?”
Gopala held up both hands in protest. “But no! It is just a small matter of curiosity. I do not wish to...” He frowned, then beamed at Mal. “Ah, I remember your American word. I do not wish to snitch. But I saw something which puzzled me. I have done much walking around your island, of course. Mr. Dolan and Mr. Branch, they have from somewhere acquired one of the outrigger canoes. At dawn I saw them repairing it. They have paddles. They seemed to be talking earnestly about some plan, but I did not wish to approach near enough to find out. It seemed to me that they could only be thinking of escape. I should not wish them to attempt something foolish and die because land is too far away.”
Mal glanced at Temble. The man had a fork raised halfway to his lips. The fork was motionless in the air for long seconds, and then he lowered it back to the plate. He looked pale under his tan.
De Beauharnais said, “I have talked to Mr. Dolan many times, Mr. Gopala. He is a capable ship’s officer. He has looked at my charts. I am positive that he would not attempt anything so silly. You must be mistaken. They must have the canoe for some other purpose. Maybe they wish to try their luck at fishing.”
Temble laughed. It was a hard spasm in his throat. “Yes,” he gasped, “I think they want to try their luck at fishing. At fishing for...” He looked warily at de Beauharnais and stopped talking abruptly.
Gopala said quickly, “Oh, I forgot that... other matter, Dr. Temble. I can see how they might hope to...”