Dahu kept calling but couldn’t reach Alice at the cell he’d given her. So the morning he woke up in the Forest Church, he decided to drive up the coast to the Sea House, to make sure Alice was all right. Reaching the shore, he saw that the volunteer cleanup team had started the day’s work. Maybe it was a false impression, but the Sea House seemed to be sinking even further into the sea. He saw a man and woman, like a mother and son, facing the Sea House and pointing at things. Dahu went over and asked and they turned out to be the writer Kee’s widow and son.
“My mother just wanted to come by and see the old lot, and to check whether Professor Shih is all right,” the son said.
“She’s moved already, for her own safety,” Dahu said.
The writer’s widow seemed filled with regret as she said, “We used to plant vegetables here, looking out to sea. Who would have thought it would end up underwater?”
Dahu resolved to take a trip to the hunting hut, even though it might make Alice angry. When he got there, he was even more convinced that there was someone else living at the hut besides Alice, because there was a tent outside the hut, and a fixed-frame awning had been added on to the hut itself. He also discovered a kind of food cellar, and there were books and drawings scattered around the room. He could tell right away that some of the drawings, wild, and incredibly imaginative, were not from Alice’s hand. So that was why he could never get through to her: Alice had not even taken her cell along. The cell was off and it was being used as a paperweight for those drawings instead. Dahu was going to take the phone with him, but on second thought decided to just set the phone with the solar cell up, turn on the transmitter, and leave Alice a note. This way, Dahu could still get in touch with Alice after she got back. And once she picked up the phone, he would also be able to track her no matter where she went.
But Dahu was still determined to form a rescue team to go into the mountains to find her. He did not know whether Alice really needed rescuing, but he tried to plan for the worst. That’s what his wilderness experience had taught him to do.
Right then, Atile’i was carrying Alice back down the mountain. Alice saw Dahu from far off and had Atile’i let her down so that they would not be seen. They hid until Dahu left; only then did Atile’i carry the debilitated Alice to the hut. The first thing Alice did was to turn on the phone and give Dahu a call.
“You’re back! I was at the hut just now but I didn’t see you. I was about to form a search party,” Dahu said, greatly relieved.
“I’m fine. Nothing’s wrong. No need to form any party.”
“Is there someone there with you? Where’ve you been these past few days?”
“Uh …” Alice wasn’t going to tell him, at least not yet. “I’ll explain it to you some other time.”
After hanging up, Alice looked everywhere for Ohiyo before finally finding her in the straw basket Atile’i had woven, her forepaws covering her eyes and her body curled up into a perfect ball, as if nothing had disturbed her rest.
For whatever reason, when she was looking at Ohiyo fast asleep, Alice suddenly got the urge to write, and she did not want to waste a minute. She sat back down in her Writing Pavilion underneath the awning, got out the notebook, and continued writing the novel she’d never been able to finish.
Atile’i could not help saying, “You’re sick. Why not … rest?”
“I want to do some writing.”
“What about?”
“Something that apparently happened, but maybe never actually did,” Alice said.
Sara took up residence in the tribal village of Sazasa starting the evening she stayed in the Bunun house in the Forest Church. She got up early every day and went to different sections of seashore to observe, take notes and write up her new research proposal. Detlef served as her chauffeur and occasionally went up into the hills to hunt or down into the fields to plant millet or sorghum with some of the villagers. The two of them were getting more and more acquainted with, but at the same time depressed about, the condition the coastline was in. Every day, Sara persisted in measuring the sea temperature at several specific sites. She’d discovered that the average temperature was 1.6 °C higher than the previous record.
“This means that a continuous increase in rainfall is likely,” Sara said to Detlef.
“And the water pollution?”
“Awful. I guess only a few invertebrates will survive, and just barely. Dissolved oxygen levels are also down, and the plastic items exposed to the sun will keep releasing toxins into the sea, like a witch poisoning the water night and day. Look, the sea’s all discolored.”
Detlef looked and the sea was indeed a blotchy patchwork of red and brown. “The shallows are covered in algae.”
Detlef and Sara had fallen in love with the island. But now the happy-go-lucky people living in this relatively poor part of the island had lost even the right to go out to sea.
After Dahu confirmed that Alice was safe and sound, he kept up his coastal cleanup work and his Forest Church work with Anu. Alice would answer when Dahu called. When he went by the Sea House he would sometimes see Alice out and about, and occasionally Detlef and Sara would be there too. Sara was quite intrigued by this woman who’d been living in a hunting hut in the hills ever since her house had gotten inundated. But though Alice was willing to exchange pleasantries, it seemed there was a window in her heart that was always shut. No matter how Dahu tested the waters, Alice remained unwilling to reveal the identity of the person who was living with her at the hut. “Give me some time,” Alice said.
Hafay was busy serving villagers and tourists salama coffee, and Umav was responsible for telling travelers various Pangcah and Bunun tales. She was enjoying herself, and was becoming more of a young lady every day. She’d grown bangs, and used a hair band to gather up her hair, revealing the moles on her ear lobes.
That’s how they passed the winter.
Spring had just arrived, and Detlef and Sara had to leave because Detlef had to give a guest lecture at a university back home. One evening, a few of them were sitting around shooting the breeze, and Hafay recommended Detlef and Sara take a trip south before they left. “It would be a shame if Sara never got the chance to observe the sea down the coast.” The plan quickly took shape: they decided to go in two vehicles, with Dahu and Anu driving. Alice was also invited, but as usual she made up an excuse and declined to go.
“The millet will ripen when it’s time,” Hafay said, to comfort Dahu.
When the car reached the entrance of the village, Dahu rolled down the window and said in Bunun to an old fellow crouching at the side of the road: “Mikua dihanin?” (What’s the weather like today?)
“Na hudanan,” the elder replied. (It’s going to rain).
Actually, it had been raining incessantly since last year, far more than predicted. Rain now seemed to be the only weather, from drizzle and occasional sunshiny rain to afternoon thundershowers and sudden downpours. “We’re drowning!” was the mood of the entire island. There was a deluge of reports of floods and landslides, along with a concomitant economic downturn. The malaise had lasted over a year and had contributed to the low voter turnout — less than fifty percent! — in the election at the end of the previous year. The islanders no longer believed any politician could get them out of this mess.
“How can one mudskipper lead a school of mudskippers out of the mire?” wrote Alice’s cynical friend Ming in a letter to the editor.
One day at dawn Alice was finally done revising. She’d completed two works of fiction, a novel and a short story. Atile’i already had a vague idea of what “fiction” was. It was like he’d always imagined there was a story behind everything he did not understand on Gesi Gesi. When Alice told Atile’i she was done, Atile’i asked: “What’s the name of it?”