Laughter made us all turn. The shark butchers were looking our way. The shorter one had his hands on his hips, the knife in his belt. Rosy-pink hands. He wiped them on his cutoffs and winked. The taller man laughed again.
Spike's bat ears stiffened and the monkey hissed. Romero put it back on his shoulder, frowning. 'Better get going. You must be bushed.'
We climbed into the Jeep, and Romero made a wide arc and headed back to the beach road. A wooden sign said FRONT STREET. As we drove up the hill, I looked back. The ocean was all-encompassing and the island seemed very small.
2
'Let me give you a proper welcome,' said Romero. '
He started up the same central road. Winding and unmarked, it was barely one vehicle wide and bordered by low walls of piled rock. The grade was steeper than it had appeared from the harbor and he played with the Jeep's gears in order to maintain traction. Each time the vehicle lurched, KiKo nattered and tightened his spidery grip on Romero's shirt. Spike's head was out the window, tilted up at the cloudless sky.
As we climbed, I looked back and caught a frontal view of the business district. Most of the buildings were closed, including the gas station. Romero sped past the small, white houses. Up close, the buildings looked shabbier, the stucco cracked, sometimes peeled to the paper, the tin roofs dented and pocked and mossy. Laundry hung on sagging lines. Naked and half-naked children played in the dirt. A few of the properties were fenced with chicken wire, most were open. Some looked unoccupied. A couple of skinny dogs scrounged lazily in the dirt, ignoring Spike's bark.
This was U.S. territory but it could have been anywhere in the developing world. Some of the meanness was softened by vegetation- broad-leafed philodendrons, bromeliads, flowering coral trees, palms. Many of the structures were surrounded by greenery- whitewashed eggs in emerald nests.
'So how was your trip?' said Romero.
'Tiring but good,' said Robin. Her fingers were laced in mine and her brown eyes were wide. The air through the Jeep's open windows ruffled her curls, and her linen shirt billowed.
'Dr. Bill wanted to greet you personally, but he just got called out. Some kids diving out on North Beach, stung by jellyfish.'
'Hope it's not serious.'
'Nah. But it does smart.'
'Is he the only doctor on the island?' I said.
'We run a clinic at the church. I'm an RN. Emergencies used to get flown over to Guam or Saipan till… anyway, the clinic does the trick for most of our problems. I'm on call for whenever I'm needed.'
'Have you lived here long?'
'Whole life except for Coast Guard and nursing school in Hawaii. Met my wife there. She's a Chinese girl. We have four kids.'
As we continued to climb, the shabby houses gave way to empty fields of red clay, and the harbor became tiny. But the volcanic peaks remained as distant, as if avoiding us.
To the right was a small grove of ash-colored trees with deeply corrugated trunks and sinuous, knobby branches that seemed to claw at the sky. Aerial roots dripped like melting wax from several boughs, digging their way back into the earth.
'Banyans?' I said.
'Yup. Strangler trees. They send those shoots up around anything unlucky enough to grow near them and squeeze the life out of it. Little hooks under the shoots- like Velcro, they just dig in. We don't want them but they grow like crazy in the jungle. Those are about ten years old. Some bird must have dropped seeds.'
'Where's the jungle?'
He laughed. 'Well, it's not really that. I mean, there're no wild animals or anything else for that matter except the stranglers.'
He pointed toward the mountaintops. 'Just east of the island's center. Dr. Bill's place butts right up against it. On the other side is Stanton – the Navy base.' He shifted into low, got the Jeep over an especially steep rise, then coasted through big open wooden gates.
The road on the other side was freshly blacktopped. Four-story coco palms were set every ten feet. The piled rock was replaced by a hand-hewn, Japanese-style pine fence and rows of flame-orange clivia. Velvet lawns rolled away on all sides and I could make out the tops of the banyan forest, a remote gray fringe.
Then movement. A small herd of black-tailed deer grazing to the left. I pointed them out to Robin and she smiled and kissed my knuckles. A few seabirds hovered above us; otherwise the sky was inert.
A hundred more palms and we pulled into a huge, gravel courtyard shaded by red cedar, Aleppo pine, mango, and avocado. In the center, an algae-streaked limestone fountain spouted into a carved basin teeming with hyacinths. Behind it stood a massive two-story house, light brown stucco with pine trim and balconies and a pagoda roof of shiny green tiles. Some of the edge tiles wore gargoyle faces.
Romero turned off the engine and KiKo scrambled off his shoulder, ran up wide stone steps, and began knocking on the front door.
Spike jumped out of the Jeep and followed, scratching at the wood with his forepaws.
Robin got out to restrain him.
'Don't worry,' said Romero. 'That's iron pine, hundreds of years old. The whole place is rock solid. The Japanese army built it in 1919, after the League of Nations took the territories away from Germany and gave them to the emperor. This was their official headquarters.'
KiKo was swinging from the doorknob as Spike barked in encouragement. Romero said, 'Looks like they're already buddies. Don't worry about your stuff, I'll get it for you later.'
He pushed the door open with the monkey still holding on. It had been a long time since I'd left a door unlocked in L.A.
A round white stone entry led to a big front room with waxed pine floors under Chinese rugs, high plaster walls, a carved teak ceiling, and lots of old, comfortable-looking furniture. Pastel watercolors on the walls. Potted orchids in porcelain jardinieres supplied richer hues. Archways on each side led to long hallways. In front of the right-hand passage was an awkward-looking, red-carpeted staircase with an oiled banister, all right angles, no curves. It hooked its way up to the second-floor landing and continued out of view.
Straight ahead, a wall of picture windows framed a tourist-brochure vista of terraces and grasslands and the heartbreakingly blue ocean. The barrier reef was a tiny dark comma notched by the keyhole harbor, the western tip of the island a distinct knife point cutting into the lagoon. Most of Aruk Village was now concealed by treetops. The few houses I could see were sprinkled like sugar on the hillside.
'How many acres do you have here?'
'Seven hundred, give or take.'
Over a square mile. Big chunk of a seven-by-one-mile island.
'When Dr. Bill bought it from the government, it was abandoned,' Romero said. 'He brought it back to life- can I get you something to drink?'
He returned with a tray of Coke cans, lime wedges, glasses, and a water bowl for Spike. Trailing him were two small women in floral housedresses and rubber thongs, one in her sixties, the other half that age. Both had broad, open faces. The older woman's was pitted.
'Dr. Alexander Delaware and Ms. Robin Castagna,' said Romero, placing the tray on a bamboo end table and the water bowl on the floor.
Spike rushed over and began lapping. KiKo watched analytically, scratching his little head.
'This is Gladys Medina,' said Romero. 'Gourmet chef and executive housekeeper, and Cheryl, first daughter of Gladys and executive vice-housekeeper.'
