There was no point in conversation on the journey to Tahiti-iti—the small, roundish, rugged, and remote peninsula on the opposite side of the island. Tomorrow Morning had to concentrate, and Alma did not wish to turn around every time she needed to speak. Thus, they proceeded in silence.
Traveling around the coastline was difficult going in certain areas, and Alma wished that Tomorrow Morning had brought a paddle for her, too, so she could feel as though she were helping along their progress—though, truthfully, he did not seem to need her. He carved the water with elegant efficiency, threading through the reefs and channels without hesitation, as though he had made this trip already hundreds of times—which, she suspected, he probably had. She was grateful for her wide-brimmed hat, as the sun was strong, and the glare off the water made spots dance across her eyes.
Within five hours, the cliffs of Tahiti-iti were on their right. Alarmingly, it appeared as if Tomorrow Morning was aiming straight for them. Were they to dash themselves against the rocks? Was that to be the morbid aim of this journey? But then Alma saw it—an arched opening in the cliff face, a dark aperture, an entrance to a sea-level cave. Tomorrow Morning synchronized the canoe to the rolling of a strong wave and then—thrillingly, fearlessly—shot them straight through that opening. Alma thought for certain they would be sucked back into the daylight by the receding water, but he paddled fiercely, almost standing up in the canoe, such that they were pitched up on the wet gravel of a rocky beach, deep inside the cave. It was nigh a feat of magic. Not even the Hiro contingent, she thought, would have risked such a maneuver.
“Jump out, please,” he commanded, and although he did not quite bark at her, she gathered that she had to move quickly, before the next wave came in. She leapt out and scurried to the highest level—which, to be honest, did not feel quite high enough. One big wave, she thought, and they would be washed away forever. Tomorrow Morning did not seem concerned. He pulled the canoe up behind him onto the beach.
“May I ask you to help me?” he said politely. He pointed to a ledge above their heads, and she saw that he meant to put the canoe up there, for safekeeping. She helped him lift the canoe, and together they pushed it up onto the ledge, far above the reach of the breaking waves.
She sat down, and he sat beside her, breathing heavily with exertion.
“Are you comfortable?” he asked her at last.
“Yes,” she said.
“Now we must wait. When the tide goes out fully, you will see that there is a kind of narrow route that we can walk on along the cliff, and then we can climb upward, to a plateau. From there, I can take you to the place I wish to show you. If you feel that you can manage it, that is?”
“I can manage it,” she said.
“Good. For now, we will rest for a spell.” He lay back against the cushion of his jacket, stretched out his legs, and relaxed. When the waves rolled in, they nearly reached his feet—but not quite. He must know exactly how the tides operated within this cave, she could see. It was quite extraordinary. Looking at Tomorrow Morning stretched out beside her, she had a sudden poignant memory of the way Ambrose used to sprawl so comfortably across any surface—across grass, across a couch, across the floor of the drawing room at White Acre.
She gave Tomorrow Morning about ten minutes to rest, but then could contain herself no longer.
“How did you meet him?” she asked.
The cave was not the quietest place to speak, what with the water rushing back and forth up over the stones, and all the variations of damp echoes. But there was something about the thrumming rush of sound, too, that made this place feel like the safest spot in the world for Alma to demand things, and to have secrets revealed. Who could hear them? Who would ever see them? Nobody but the spirits. Their words would be dragged from this cave by the tide and pulled out to sea, broken up in the churning waves, eaten by fish.
Tomorrow Morning replied without sitting up. “I returned to Tahiti to visit the Reverend Welles in August of 1850, and Ambrose was here—just as you are now here.”
“What did you think of him?”
“I thought he was an angel,” he said without hesitation, without even opening his eyes.
He was answering her questions almost too quickly, she thought. She did not want glib answers; she wanted the complete story. She did not want only the conclusions; she wanted the in-between. She wanted to see Tomorrow Morning and Ambrose as they met. She wanted to observe their exchanges. She wanted to know what they had been thinking, what they had been feeling. Most certainly, she wanted to know what they had done. She waited, but he was not more forthcoming. After they had been in silence for a long while, Alma touched Tomorrow Morning’s arm. He opened his eyes.
“Please,” she said. “Continue.”
He sat up, and turned to face her. “Did the Reverend Welles ever tell you how I came to the mission?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
“I was only seven years old,” he said. “Perhaps eight. My father died first, then my mother died, then my two brothers died. One of my father’s surviving wives took responsibility for me, but then she died. There was another mother, too—another of my father’s wives—but subsequently she died. All the children of my father’s other wives died, in short order. There were grandmothers, too, but they also died.” He paused, considering something, and then continued, correcting himself: “No, I am mistaking the order of the deaths, Alma, please excuse me. It was the grandmothers who died first, as the weakest members of the family. So, yes, first it was my grandmothers who died, and then my father, and then so forth, as I have said. I, too, was sick for a spell, but I did not die—as you can see. But these are common stories in Tahiti. Surely you have heard them before?”
Alma was not sure what to say, so she said nothing. While she knew of the ruinous death toll across Polynesia over the past fifty years, nobody had told her any stories of their personal losses.
“You’ve seen the scars on Sister Manu’s forehead?” he asked. “Has anyone explained to you their origin?”
She shook her head. She did not know what any of this had to do with Ambrose.
“Those are grief scars,” he said. “When the women here in Tahiti mourn, they cut their heads with sharks’ teeth. It is gruesome, I know, to a European mind, but it is a means for a woman to both convey and unloose her sorrow. Sister Manu has more scars than most because she lost the entirety of her family, including several children. This is perhaps why she and I have always been so fond of each other.”
Alma was struck by his use of the quiet word fond as a means of expressing the allegiance between a woman who had lost all her children and a boy who had lost all his mothers. It did not seem a forceful enough word.
Then Alma thought of Sister Manu’s other physical anomaly. “What about her fingers?” she asked, holding up her own hands. “The missing tips?”
“That is another legacy of loss. Sometimes people here will cut off their fingertips as an expression of grief. This became easier to do when the Europeans brought us iron and steel.” He smiled ruefully. Alma did not smile in return; it was too awful. He continued. “Now, as for my grandfather, whom I have not yet mentioned, he was a rauti. Do you know about the rauti? The Reverend Welles has tried over the years to enlist my help in translating this word, but it’s difficult. My good father uses the word ‘haranguer,’ but that does not convey the dignity of the position. ‘Historian’ comes close, but it is not quite accurate, either. The task of the rauti is to run alongside men as they charge into battle, and to keep up their courage by reminding them of who they are. The rauti sings out the bloodlines and the lineage of each man, reminding the warriors of the glory of their family history. He ensures that they do not forget the heroism of their forefathers. The rauti knows the lineage of every man on this island, all the way back to the gods, and he chants out their courage for them. One could say it is a kind of sermon, but a violent one.”