The Sun Is God (20 page)

“You must have read his file.”

“He is a good doctor. The best that was available. That is all I know.”

“References?”

“Sound.”

“Hmmm. Then I'd say we are no closer to an answer.”

“Things move too slowly. I am impatient to leave this place.”

Will sat up in the hammock and sighed. “I know what you mean. And if the doctor
was
mistaken this expedition moves from an inquiry to a farce. Our question becomes not ‘who did it' but ‘why are we here?'”

Kessler nodded and thumbed through his book. Will yawned and after a few minutes Kessler heard him snoring. He watched him with affection. He liked the English. Perhaps he liked them better than the Germans.

He carefully undressed, hung up his uniform, and climbed into the Deutsches Heer bed. Unlike Will, he had had a busy and interesting day. With everyone gone he had taken the opportunity to send the Kanak servants on an errand at the far side of the island. He had then searched the huts, but found nothing incriminating. The Countess Höhenzollern and Fräulein Schwab's locked jewelry boxes contained rings and banknotes, and Herr Bradtke's curious locked photograph album defied his pick, although it was clear to Kessler what it contained; all men, even in Paradise, had a weakness for the erotic image. Even apparent eunuchs, it seemed.

After this Kessler had assembled his secret wireless telegraphy machine, taken it to the beach, and communicated in Morse with Lieutenant Giessen, his deputy. Unfortunately, after instructing Giessen not to permit Fräulein Herzen to leave Neu Pommern and receiving some rather dull information about Admiral Spee's upcoming visit, the “battery” on the wireless telegraphy machine had died.

But still, the test had worked and the machine had proven its efficacy. This trip to Kabakon would not be completely in vain. The army taught you the virtue of equanimity and the patience of the Imperial Intelligence Service was geological . . .

He picked up his book, brushed away the most impertinent moths, and resumed his contemplation of Heine.

The poet was in a melancholy mood:

Ich weiss nicht was soll es bedeuten

Dass ich so traurig bin.

Kessler thought how impossible it was to translate this sentiment into another language. The pain was elusive, it was an anguish that came simply from existing in the modern world.
Maladie du siècle
, the French called it, but the century had turned and the new one had begun and the feeling was still there. Weary Klaus put down the book and blew out the lamp. He fixed the mosquito net about him and lay in the darkness, and after a few minutes of drizzle he heard the heavens open. Another day gone, another circumnavigation of the clock that would never return—these, Klaus reflected, were the doleful thoughts one had on the island of the immortals.

15

THE SAUSAGE AND THE PHOTOGRAPH

P
erhaps the naked “sun bathing” had changed something in him, for the next morning Will decided to go shirtless and shoeless—but not trouserless—as he joined Klaus, the Russian, Misha Denfer, Wilhelm Bradtke, and August Bethman at breakfast.

Bradtke was fiddling with the lens of his Eastman Kodak “Brownie.” The others were eating in silence. Will said good morning and sat; one of the blacks brought him a bowl of the vile
chanak
. The smell of the porridge and Bethman's scowling face removed some of Will's good feelings toward the Order of the Sun.

“I suppose there's no coffee?” he asked.

Kessler shook his head sadly as if he had already asked the question, wondered why not, explored the point exhaustively, been given some impolite rebuke, and let the matter drop. “Klaus, you must have some hidden away?”

“If I had known that we were going to stay here for more than twenty-four hours I would have packed quite differently.”

Bethman looked up from his bowl of
chanak
. Doctor he may have been, Will thought, but he was one without a bedside manner. He was a dour, pinched, broody fellow, good-looking if you liked that sort of thing, which the otherwise unimpeachable Fräulein Herzen must have done at one point. Bradtke was his opposite: haggard, skinny with narrow, reptilian eyes and a squat pug-nose. The ugliest man in camp, you might have said if you could have gotten a look at the big Russian under his beard. “
Chanak
will restore you, Herr Prior,” Bethman said.

Will nodded and stared at the putrid, white, evil-smelling substance in his wooden bowl, which even the flies would not touch. He looked up to find Bethman's gaze still upon him. Will returned the stare and would have held it until doomsday had not Bethman stirred his spoon and returned to his own porridge. Bethman was a boor but if he and Fräulein Herzen had really been “engaged” then perhaps the fellow had some virtues: women were mysterious creatures but they seldom completely misread a man.

“You are a keen photographer, sir?” Kessler asked Bradtke after a long silence.

Bradtke smiled and nodded. “I have taken hundreds of photographs since coming to Kabakon.”

“How heavy is that device?” Kessler wondered. Bradtke passed him the box camera. It was considerably lighter than Kessler had been expecting. “German?” he asked.

“American.”

“I see,” Kessler said, passing the camera on to Will, who had no interest in it whatsoever.

“With a German lens,” Bradtke said.

“May I ask what the subjects are of your photography?” Kessler wondered.

“For the most part the flora and fauna of Kabakon.”

“Miss Pullen-Burry is fascinated by the local birds,” Will said.

“My ears are burning!” Miss Pullen-Burry said, walking to them from the hut of Jürgen Schreckengost.

“There are two hundred and fifty species at least on this island, Miss Pullen-Burry,” Bradtke announced. “I have photographed many of them. Herr Doctor Parkinson is making a book of the fauna of New Guinea and I promised to send him some plates if I was able,” Bradtke added.

“Doctor Parkinson has been making his book for as long as anyone can remember,” Kessler said with a light smile.

“Doctor Parkinson is—” Will began, but was seized by a coughing fit that doubled him over. When he had finished he spat yellow bile onto the ground and gasped for air.

“Let me see your tongue,” Bethman said.

“No thank you,” Will said automatically.

“I am a doctor, come now,” Bethman insisted.

There wasn't a man born yet who could resist free doctoring, and Will duly stuck out his tongue.

“Hmmm,” Bethman said. He put the back of his left hand on Will's forehead and then took his pulse at neck.

“What is it?” Will asked.

“You are running a slight fever.”

“A fever?”

“It is of no consequence,” Bethman said.

Will had seen a dozen men die of fever in Herbertshöhe; no doubt their doctor had also told them that “it was of no consequence.”

“I feel a little weak too,” Will said. “And, I have had bad dreams.”

Bethman smiled. “That is normal. It is the shift from a meat diet to a vegetarian one. In a few days you will feel better than you have ever done in your life. I have seen it with everyone who has come here.”

“Not Lutzow,” Will said.

“If he had truly believed, Max would have healed himself. In a way his death was a . . .”

“A what?” Kessler asked, raising an eyebrow in Will's direction.

“A suicide. He willed it. He brought it on himself. That is what I think,” Bethman said.

Will raised his eyebrows back at Kessler.

“Perhaps he had too much of this heroin we seem to consume in such quantities?” Miss Pullen-Burry wondered.

Bethman snorted. “Bayer heroin is one of the finest products of German science.”

“I'm sure it is, but—”

“If the world beyond Kabakon is to survive this century it will be because of aspirin and heroin and the new sciences being pioneered within the German and Austrian Empires,” Bethman insisted.

Bradtke stopped fiddling with his camera for a moment, nodded vociferously, and pointed at his own temple. “And do not forget the new German sciences of the mind.”

Kessler could not disagree with the implied patriotism in these remarks; of course the Sonnenorden had some odd ways but they had not forgotten that they were subjects of the Kaiser. “Perhaps you are right, Herr Doctor Bethman,” Kessler said.

Bethman nodded. “I am right. But Germany has become decadent. The race has become weak. Herr Darwin and Herr Malthus show us the way and no one listens. If Germany is to survive, and I say
if
advisedly, we must get rid of the weak before they are even born!”

“I'm not sure this is a fit subject for—there is a lady present, sir,” Will said.

“Oh, please do continue, gentlemen, I am late for an appointment,” Miss Pullen-Burry said, excused herself, and walked off into the plantations.

“What did you dream about, exactly, Herr Prior?” Bradtke inquired.

“In one of them I was flying,” Will said.

Bethman waved his hand dismissively. “Oh, that it is quite common!”

“Be that as it may, I think it
is
something to do with the diet here. I am not myself. Man cannot live on coconuts alone. Not this man at any rate. Klaus is all right with his sausage stashed away, but he's pretty close with that and I have to make do with this muck which I—”

“You have brought sausage here?” Bethman said, aghast.

“Why yes, I—” Kessler began, but was interrupted by Bethman getting to his feet, the color entirely drained from his face.

“How
dare
you!” he said, barely able to contain his anger.

Bradtke rather less rapidly also got to his feet and began yelling for Engelhardt. The dour Russian, Misha Denfer, neither reacted nor said anything, eating his porridge untroubled by any of this. Engelhardt came running out of one of the huts, his fingers stained with printer's ink. “What is going on?” he asked, “I was quite in the middle of something.”

“They have contaminated the camp,” Bethman said, his entire body shaking with fury as he pointed at Kessler.

“Steady on, old chap, it's just a bit of sausage,” Will protested.

Engelhardt looked at Kessler and then turned round to look at the Malagan totem. The furious faces painted upon it looked a little more furious than usual. Engelhardt gestured toward the Malagan and said in an embarrassed, halting whisper: “Hauptman Kessler, it is in the constitution of the Sonnenorden that the slewn flesh of the lower animals shall not be placed within . . .”

But before he could quite get it out, Bethman interrupted and continued for him: “We will have no meat on the island! We have made an agreement. We will not consume nor kill any flesh. You have broken one of our sacred laws. You have jeopardized our entire existence here!”

“You hear that, Klaus? They're going to have to move to a different island because of your Bratwurst,” Will said.

“You will, sir, please dispose of all such items, immediately,” Engelhardt said.

“We really must insist,” Bradtke said in a milder voice.

Misha said nothing, but he gave Kessler his finest menacing stare, which in truth, Will thought, wasn't that different from his habitual expression.

Kessler shook his head apologetically. “I had no idea. I knew, of course, that you only consumed coconuts, but I did not think—”

“Well now you
do
know. Could you please dispose of them at once!” Bethman said.

“Take the outrigger canoe and row beyond the reef where you can get rid of all your poisonous foodstuffs. Please do so before the Countess Höhenzollern returns,” Engelhardt said.

The smile faded from Will's face. The mention of the countess was, to his mind, something of a threat.
You ticked her off once already, Kessler—do you really want to upset her again? Who knows whom she might write to in Germany?
Will wondered if Kessler would be cowed. And he was, the poor devil.

“
Naturlich
,” Kessler said, “I do not wish to give offense to anyone.”

There was something about Bethman and Bradtke's look of triumph that was too much for Will. “No, Klaus. Sit down. If they want our sausages, they're going to have to ask us for them, politely, and let me assure you, Herr Doctor Bethman, that neither Klaus nor I are bloody rowing anywhere. I don't think you quite understand what our role is here on Kabakon,” Will said.

“And what is your role, Mr. Prior?” Bethman asked.

“We are here, sir, conducting a murder investigation,” Will said.

This did not, unfortunately, have the effect he was hoping for. “A murder investigation? Who are you going to arrest? The mosquitoes?” Bethman scoffed.

Will found that he was clenching his fists, and the two men stared at one another uncomfortably until with a low rumble of thunder the first drops of rain began to tumble out of the black sky.

“I will have one of the Kanaks get rid of the meat you brought,” Engelhardt said to Kessler with a broad conciliatory grin.

“Thank you,” Kessler said.

“But we must do it now. The countess has been a vegetarian for ten years. She in particular would be quite shocked to have learned of what you have done. Come, let us repair to your hut.”

Will watched Klaus and Engelhardt walk across the piazza to their hut.

“No one better lay a finger on my belongings!” Will called after them. And this again was where Siwa would have proved invaluable. She would have come at them with a meat cleaver rather than have them so much as breathe on Will's kit.

Will had wanted to ask Bradtke what
he
remembered about the night of Lutzow's death but he was suddenly so disgusted with the lot of them that he got up from the table and walked out into the trees.

Will was feeling under the weather and had some difficulty until he found a fallen plane-tree branch which he was able to transform into a serviceable stick.