Amelia Earhart on Norwich Island
Part 31
October 13th, 1937
The island rose gently over the eastern
horizon. The Gilbertese delegates crowded the foc’sle, watching it
grow as the little schooner Nimanoa glided into its lee.
“That’ll be the Norwich City, then,” Eric
Bevington said, peering at the wreck with his binoculars.
“Must be,” Harry Maud confirmed, around
his pipe. “Bigger ship than I’d realized. Must’ve hit
full tilt – great embarrassment for her master, I imagine.”
“Poor devil. Several deaths, I
seem to recall.”
“So I’ve read. A couple of
white men and several Arab firemen.”
Harry swept the shore with his
glasses. “The island’s bigger than I’d thought,
too. Longer, at least, across the wind.”
“The delegates seem quite enthusiastic.”
“Now they know the freighter’s a wreck,
and not someone here to claim the island before us. We’ll see what
they think when we get ashore. Water’s the great thing, of course.”
“The men are confident about digging
wells.”
“I’ve a good feeling about this island,
Eric. I think we’ll find it quite sufficient to support a
plantation, and a substantial village.”
“Big trees.”
“Yes. Pisonia grandis –
buka to the Gilbertese. One of the great native trees in these parts
– not good for much, though, and on inhabited islands it’s all been cleared to
make way for coconuts.”
“I’ve seen only one or two – on Beru, I
think. Reminded me of oaks back home.”
“Visually, yes, but the wood’s quite
soft. There may be kanawa, though – Cordia, a
tropical hardwood. Beautiful grain to it, and very good for houses,
furniture, boxes, you name it.”
“Yes, I’ve a box made of it; very
handsome.”
The two colonial officers watched as the
ship’s master brought the schooner alongside the streaming
reef-edge. Eric pondered the dense-packed forest.
“Buka, is it?”
“It’s a spirit-tree to the Gilbertese,
you know? Their metaphor for existence is a great tree, they
conceive of history – all of existence, actually – as a tree. And
the buka is associated with an important ancestress, who taught her people the
ways of navigation and all sorts of other important arts, in the beginning
time.”
“You know these people so well, Harry.”
“Hardly. Hardly scratched the surface. They’re
deep people, Eric, with challenging traditions and a long, violent
history. Wonderfully accomplished navigators, and subtle
philosophers.”
Harry chewed his pipe, knocked it out on
the rail as the sails rattled down and the schooner hove too, just off
the Norwich City’s stern. He waved his pipe at the
island.
“The ancestress – what was her name? –
came from an island – a legendary island called Nikumaroro – that I suppose was
much like this one, covered in buka trees.”
He pondered the wooded shore,
straightened abruptly from the rail, snapping his fingers“
“Ah! I have it! Manganibuka was
the ancestress. Etymologically related to the tree, don’t you see?”
He pushed off from the rail, started
forward toward the two elders standing by the staysail boom.
“Hi,
Mautake, Koata, do you see a good way ashore?”
----------------------
Surf
booming on the reef. Birds stirring in the trees. She
couldn’t move, but didn’t want to. She lay in her hammock in the
darkness. Nothing left to get rid of. All emptied out.
No
water left. Well, some in the Benedictine bottle from the little rain
squall two days ago. She would drink it when she got up.
When she was
stronger. She would be stronger, surely, when the sun rose. Later.
Which
was different from earlier. Why was that? How was it?
Earlier,
she had been in other places, done other things. Had she also been there,
done such things, later? When was later? How was it different from
earlier? From now? She wrestled with it all, trying to figure it out.
The
cat is dead. The cat is not dead. Mister Eric will come.
Mister Eric will not come. Mister Eric has come, or he
hasn’t.
Ungenauigkeit. Indeterminacy.
Uncertainty. That’s what it meant. Physics classes, and people she’d met.
Scientists from Germany, and Princeton. Ungenauigkeit and verschränkung – entanglement. Somehow related. The kitten is entangled
-- verwirrt – in the ball of yarn; I am verwirrt in the
complexities of a family. Oh yes.
Oh
no, don’t think about family…
“Mommie,
Pidge…”
Blackness.
Then light again. Leaves, zooming birds. Surf booming.
Was
she entangled with the cat, the crab, Mister Eric? Boo-ka? Koata? The
Milky Way? Something beyond the Milky Way? What was indeterminate?
What did it matter whether the cat was dead or alive? A metaphor for
what?
“Mystery.”
The
wonder of it all. Mystery, out there, in here, all around, to be
explored. Great mystery. She was entangled in mystery,
indeterminacy.
“It’s
time.”
No,
it was never time. It was always time. But yes, it was time.
Light
filtered through the canopy – bright green leaves glowing with fresh sunlight,
laced with black branches. Behind, above it all, where the Milky Way had
blazed, a bright blue sky, puffy white clouds tinged with the pink of
sunrise. Shining white fairy terns fluttered and soared through the
green-blue vault, calling, rising, becoming dogwood blossoms that spun and
spiraled upward. The surf roared.
The
hammock split up the middle and deposited her on the ground. A change of
position, perspective, the tattered canvas and ropes crisscrossing her field of
view.
Clattering
on the coral rubble, from all sides. A presence. Mister Eric and
Koata? Boo-ka – The Lady? Maybe, maybe. But of course…
“We’re right here, sweet-chops.”
She
sighed, watching the Milky Way form before her eyes. God, what was out
there? Smiled.
Of
course.
“You know, you keep mispronouncing my name.”
Yes,
she knew.
“This time, Bill, we’ll make it all the way to Cherryville. And
damn the cannibal apes!”
“Hello,
Bogie.”
<<o>>
__________________
Notes
“…the
little schooner Nimanoa glided into its lee.” See Eric
Bevington, 1990, The Things We Do For England, If Only England Knew. http://www.amazon.com/Things-We-Do-England-Only/dp/0951576208, Harry
Maude, Of Islands and Men, pp 327-8, and https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Bevington_Diary.html
“… some
in the Benedictine bottle.” According to one report, the Benedictine
bottle found by Koata and the colonists contained some water (See http://tighar.org/wiki/Benedictine_Bottle_found_on_Nikumaroro ).
“… becoming
dogwood blossoms…” Dogwood blossoms, AE said, “smiled at me a radiant
farewell” before her “Friendship” flight – “a memory I have never
forgotten” Last Flight, p. 9.
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