Talolo brought down the black dress trousers Louis had made in Sydney, and a white linen shirt. He helped Lloyd and Belle dress him. Lafaele took his hands and laced his fingers together. Belle fetched the British flag that had flown over the Casco and laid it across his chest.
Throughout the night, their closest friends came, feeling their way up the road under a sliver of moon. Reverend Clarke knelt with Maggie to pray. The chiefs brought their precious heirloom tapas to place over and around him, so that Louis might lie in state like a Samoan high chief. Someone hung a garland of flowers over the headboard. In the flickering candlelight, they kissed his hands. An old chief whispered, “The stones and the earth weep, Tusitala.”
One man asked Fanny if the Catholics among them might say their prayers for the dead, and soon “requiescat in pace” echoed against the shiny redwood walls.
“He should be buried by tomorrow afternoon,” Funk said to Fanny. “This heat …”
She was stunned and tried to understand what he was saying. “He wants to be buried on Mount Vaea,” she replied.
“It’s near impossible to get up there,” Lloyd said.
Talolo stood nearby, as if guarding Louis. “It will be done,” he said.
At dawn, Fanny woke to the sound of axes cracking into tree trunks and bush knives swooshing through thick viney undergrowth in the distance. She saw she was dressed in her clothes from the day before. For a few seconds, she had no memory of it, and then a bolt of agony ripped through her. She put a pillow over her head and sobbed.
In time, Belle came into the room. She wiped Fanny’s face with a cool washcloth and helped her change clothes. “One of the chiefs has made a casket,” she said. “Lloyd says about forty natives are out there making a path to the top.”
“What shoes,” Fanny muttered.
“You can’t climb up there, Mama. Nor can Aunt Maggie. Please, don’t try. Louis would never want you to.”
“Reverend Clarke?”
“He says he is going.”
“He will say the church prayers.” Fanny went to her bookcase and took out a volume. She opened it and marked the page she wanted. “Are you climbing up?”
“Yes.”
“Take this with you. Read aloud these three lines.”
Belle read the verse Louis had begun on the emigrant train when he came to America, seeking to marry Fanny.
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
“All right, Mama, I’ll read it.”
By afternoon, sixty Samoans and nineteen whites appeared at the house. Several strong chiefs lifted the flag-draped casket and carried it along the Road of the Loving Heart. Fanny walked behind the casket until the road met the steep new trail. Standing near the bathing pool, Fanny watched the strong Samoan chiefs, young and old, heave the box up the track. Teams of men positioned themselves along the trail. One party of sweating and exhausted pallbearers got the coffin to a waiting party of men who took it on the next leg up the mountain. At the front of the procession, a high chief carrying a staff called out the terrible news: “Tusitala is dead!” Over and over, his outcries were followed by wails.
Fanny saw Belle go up the path slowly, aided by two Samoan men and followed by Austin, who climbed like a monkey through the bush, gripping thick roots to pull himself up through the mud. When the crowd of mourners disappeared, Fanny turned back and walked to the house. The heaviness in her heart was so great, she thought she might fall over. Her hand went to her chest, and in that gesture, she felt the lump inside her dress. She stopped and pulled the container of ergotin from the little pocket. For most of the eighteen years she had known Louis, she’d carried a vial. What a useless talisman in the end.
In the cavernous great room, she found Maggie sitting alone, heaving with grief. Fanny sat down beside her and took her hand. They did not speak. The room grew dim, and then dimmer, as the evening sounds began.