Atile’i had an outstanding ability to recognize plants. Usually he could remember something after Alice had picked it a single time. Soon he took over Alice’s job of foraging up in the hills. Sometimes when she got up in the morning, she would find the basket full of a day’s worth of vegetables. Alice couldn’t resist giving him field guides to read. Atile’i was really interested in the pictures, which looked just like the real thing. He was learning the names of different species at the same time as he was getting more and more familiar with a foreign language. At first he only learned the practical plants, the wild vegetables or herbs, but soon he knew almost all the birds, insects and reptiles, too. He could tell Alice at a glance that up ahead there were three emerald doves, eleven lesser scimitar babblers, seventy-nine Japanese white-eyes and a yellow-mouthed screech owl, with its eyes closed. Oh wait, there’s also a red-banded snake.
He quickly realized that the wild ferns, both cross-the-ditch and lady fern, that carpeted the mountains weren’t poisonous. They were edible, and could be eaten raw as you walked along. Soon the gash on Atile’i’s calf formed a scab, and the sore at the corner of his mouth was much improved. He picked breadfruits and wild raspberries and stored them in the cellar he’d dug to keep them cool and fresh. Alice was amazed. Atile’i knew a whole lot more about survival than she did. Sometimes she felt that the mountain knew Atile’i right from the start. He plucked buds and drank dew as he went along, as natural as a babbler in the woods nibbling on raspberries.
Once in a while, Alice walked down alone and drove into town to buy food. She would arrange to meet Dahu, Umav and Hafay along the way, and would always see the ruins of the Sea House, now almost completely inundated, and the endless seashore, still in a shambles even after several months of clearance. She got the latest news update about the Trash Vortex from Dahu and Hafay: journalists had recently started calling it the “Primeval Plastic Soup,” which sounded like a dish on a menu.
One time when she came down to town, Alice caught a talk show on TV while eating in a buffet. Some famous buckraker claimed he had seen a little dark fellow swim to shore out of the plastic soup and vanish into a grove. “If you don’t believe me launch a search in the mountains. You’ll find him,” the buckraker averred.
“Nonsense,” said the owner of the buffet. Alice knew it was not. Could someone have possibly seen Atile’i run into the hills? Thank God Atile’i had already changed into the clothes Alice had bought for him and could speak some Mandarin now. It would not be too hard to make up some story. Not to mention that the folks on this kind of show were all talk, no action. And to most viewers, it wasn’t supposed to be informative; it was pure entertainment, the kind of program that gave people everything but the truth. Nobody would actually go looking, would they?
At first Dahu and Hafay urged Alice to come back and live by the sea, but Alice told them that she wanted to stay in the hut for the time being, so they didn’t force the issue. Dahu had sorted out the stuff from the Sea House and packed it up. He was planning to take it up for her, only to meet with her adamant refusal. The situation was so awkward Dahu could only relent.
“I’m sure there’s something going on at the hut,” Dahu said privately to Hafay.
“You still don’t know Alice after all these years? If she wanted us to know she would have told us already,” Hafay said. “Anyway, maybe she’s just being a bit paranoid.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“But haven’t you noticed that Alice’s complexion looks so much better? Didn’t she say it’s been awhile since she stopped taking that whatchamacallit medication? I think it’s less likely now that she’d go and do something stupid, so whatever’s going on at least it seems to be doing her some good so far, right?”
“I hope you’re right,” said Dahu.
Indeed, every time Alice came down she was talking more about Ohiyo and less about Toto. But now Hafay, too, sensed that Ohiyo wasn’t Alice’s only companion at the hunting hut.
Alice found a quiet place by the highway and tossed a few things from the Sea House, leaving most of them in the car. She kept all of Toto’s books and stationery, even though she knew that keeping these things would only cause her sorrow. It was like leaving a deadly weapon lying around. She discovered a bundle of letters in a manila envelope, all from Thom.
From seeing each other to living together to getting married, Alice knew that Thom had pushed himself to the limit for her sake. But she was unwilling to admit defeat and let him go. One time she really thought Thom wasn’t coming back. Toto had come down with a cold, and as soon as he got better Thom told her he was preparing to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Alice did not say anything the entire day. When they were drying the dinner dishes Thom leaned over and asked: “Are you angry?”
“No. What’s there to be angry about?”
“I know you’re angry. The Umbwe Route isn’t that difficult. We’ll have a professional guide.”
“It has nothing to do with the difficulty or whether you’ve got a guide or not. Don’t you get it?” Alice’s tone suddenly hardened.
“I guess I just don’t fucking get it!”
“If you don’t get it you don’t get it. Whatever you want, Thom! Go do whatever you fucking want!”
Alice knew that she was being unreasonable, but she had a good reason, though for now she did not have the courage to confront it. For a while after Thom left, Alice thought: This is it, he’s gone for good. He’ll continue his adventures on seas, on slopes and in beds far away from her. Two weeks later Alice received a picture postcard from Thom of a glacier on Mount Kilimanjaro. The handwriting on the back was so finely penned it seemed to be printed in some old-style English font. In writing, Thom was always affectionate, never angry:
Without you my life would be nothing but a grim expanse of ice, frigid, flat and gray. On days without you near me I’m as haplessly muddled as a butterfly released into an alien realm, feebly flapping its wings among unfamiliar plants at the wrong height.
The last few lines were so Nabokov. Ah, but that was Thom. Toto and what remained of their love had been spun into a fragile thread, the only remaining tie between them. Thom did come back in the end. But if the conversation turned away from Toto, the two of them turned into silent snipers, each returning to his or her own trench. Sometimes Alice thought that she should have let it be, let him leave long before. How could such a man belong to her?
Toto and Thom had been out of contact for two days, but Alice still had not thought to call the police. It didn’t occur to her that there might have been an accident. She assumed maybe Thom was just trying to avoid her. To do so, he might not scruple to conceive a crude missing person plot, and might even take her Toto away with him.
This suspicion only disappeared when Dahu found Thom’s body. Thom’s death gave her mourning an outlet, but also caused her soul, which she had been propping up with hate for many days, to collapse. Thom had always been this person in her life who might disappear at any moment; Alice had been preparing herself for the worst all that time. But what about Toto? Why was there still no sign of him?
Dahu, the rescue team and the coroner all supposed Thom must have fallen off the cliff and died. He had comminuted fractures all over his body. But the route on which they discovered Thom’s body was totally different from the one he had registered at the backcountry office. The placement of the body did not really make sense, either. It was as if someone had dragged him into the secluded rock house at the base of the cliff. Or had the force of impact caused his body to ricochet right into the shelter? And was this the reason he’d eluded discovery?