Easter Island by Jennifer Vanderbes Page A

wad of playing cards held tightly in her hand, and by the way she holds the cards out in front of her, as though unsure of whether to offer them, magicianlike, or to embrace them. With a quick flash of his wrinkled hand, he summons the waiter and orders a gin.
    “Congo,” Edward says. “I myself spent extensive time in German East Africa. I am an anthropologist and we are now, all of us, in fact, beginning an expedition to Easter Island.”
    “Ah, yes. Anthropology,” the man ponders. “Hmmmph.” His eyes close, opening only when he hears the waiter approach with his drink. “
Merci
,” he tells the man, followed by a long swallow of gin.
    “Of course,” says Edward, “the South Pacific is vastly different from the African continent.”
    “Africa! Yes!” he exclaims. Then, eagerly, he begins the story of his experience with what he calls “savage discontent”—a phenomenon about which he hopes soon to write a scholarly paper. An anthropologist such as Edward would no doubt take interest in his observations. And on he goes with tales of stolen revolvers and bands of natives, of poisoned arrows raining from the sky, finishing each story with a swig of gin, as though still astonished at his ability to survive such danger. “
Bien sûr.
” He thumps his emptied glass on the table beside him. “Yet, here I am. You see?” He knocks his fist against his chest. “One must have strength. Courage.
Resolve.
And then such uprisings will merely be”—his hand flaps in the air—“a cure for boredom.”
    “Wouldn’t it be easier,” asks Elsa, drawing a new card from the table, “to stay in Belgium and go to the theater?”
    He turns to Edward. “Theater?”
    Elsa reorders her cards with great concentration. She is tired of playing audience to this tedious man.
    “Well. What you say of courage is indeed true,” says Edward. “The foreigner has many new and unsettling experiences. The change in diet alone can be a cause for alarm.”
    “Théâtre?”
the man repeats, giving the word its full French pronunciation.
    You sound like a brute, Elsa wants to tell him. Uprisings as a form of amusement! She’s heard enough. And why must Edward be so diplomatic? She knows he agrees with her—in his own book, Edward emphasized the need for imperial subjects to respect the peoples of their colonies. But a row? Edward won’t have it. She’d like to remind him of his own book’s final chapter, “Toward Greater Understanding,” her favorite: the one part of his writing that made her think Edward, in addition to collecting and compiling data, harbored a deep sympathy for his subjects. But now she wonders at the sincerity of his feelings.
    Suddenly, the man looks past Elsa. “Hélène!”
    Elsa turns. A finely dressed woman of seventy or so strides toward them. A thick gold necklace clings to her chest. Three broad bangles anchor each of her wrists. Edward rises, and Andreas conducts introductions. Finally, the woman sits carefully on the edge of her seat and turns to her husband.
    “Nous parlons de voyages,”
he says.
    Edward says, “We are headed for the South Pacific. On an expedition for the Royal Geographic Society.”
    “Ah,
le Pacifique du sud.
Well, you must beware of mosquitoes. You have lots of quinine, I hope. You can never have too much quinine.”
    Do these people, Elsa wonders, love nothing more than to alert others of danger?
    “Quinine?” asks Alice, who Elsa sees has accumulated almost an entire deck of cards in her fist.
    “Qui-nine,” answers Madame Lordet. “You use it for the treatment of the malarial fever. It is taken from the bark of a tree. A dose of three drops at bedtime is best.”
    “Fever?!” Alice’s hands slacken, and several cards flutter to the floor.
    The woman’s head tilts contemplatively to one side.
    “We have tents with nets,” Elsa says. “Mosquito nets. Don’t worry, Allie.”
    “Fever?”
    “
Ma chérie.
Do not be worried,” says Madame Lordet, her voice