The Sun Is God Read Online Free PDF Page B

Herbertshöhe was undoubtedly a dreary place and it would have been duller still but for the local grandee “Queen” Emma Forsayth who still managed to dragoon interesting people from anywhere within a hundred leagues. It was a sign of the esteem with which Emma held Will that he had only been invited to her house once in his entire time here.
    Kessler stepped over a woolly haired Melanesian who was lying dead drunk at the side of the road while Will picked a purple berry off a tree.
    â€œThe undertaker’s business is brisk enough without such insanity,” Kessler said, shaking the berry out of Will’s hand.
    â€œWild grape,” Will protested.
    A line of fruit bats half a mile long flew along the waterfront and banked left for the jungle. The sky was full of trailing figbirds and imperial pigeons and above them goshawks and grey teal.
    Both men felt their hearts sinking. The sun was four fingers above nearby New Ireland now and night would be here in an hour or less. It had clouded over but the dwindling day had lost none of its fug: it was breezeless and heavy, a day for steamers and canoes but not proas. Everything was caught in that oh-so-familiar torpor of coastal New Guinea, a torpor that sucked European men into early graves and that seemed even to affect the lizards, rodents, and the flocks of cheerless parrots and lorikeets sitting patiently on the telegraph wires, waiting for some inebriated soldier to shoot them.
    Will felt oppressed but this was always his emotion at sundown when he was without the benefit of arak or Siwa. He swatted a blood-bloated horsefly from Brunhilde’s neck while Kessler considered how much to tell Will before they encountered Doctor Bremmer and Governor Hahl.
    â€œWill . . .”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œThe first thing I must emphasize is discretion. Scandal is a poison that could spread from Herbertshöhe to the whole colony.”
    â€œAnd of course back to Berlin,” Will said.
    Kessler nodded. “I will tell you the brute facts. No doubt Doctor Bremmer will explain everything in more biological detail.”
    â€œGo on then.”
    â€œTwo days ago an Australian man called Clark brought his skiff in from Kabakon with the body of a German national and instructions to give him a Christian burial. He had died of malaria.”
    â€œClark?”
    â€œAn Australian pilot, he carries messages and small cargoes between here and Ulu and throughout the islands. He is dependable and more reliable than the canoes.”
    â€œNever met an Australian yet who was on the level. Who was the dead man?”
    â€œHis name was Lutzow, Max Lutzow, a music critic and journalist, well known in some circles.”
    â€œNever heard of him.”
    â€œNeither had I before he came here, but apparently he wrote for the Suddeutsche Zeitung . He was also a concert pianist at one time."
    â€œI take it Doctor Bremmer was not convinced by the malaria explanation?”
    â€œLutzow did not die of malaria.”
    â€œSo who killed him? Clark?”
    â€œNot Clark. Nearly three months ago Lutzow joined a community, which has been established on Frau Forsayth’s island of Kabakon.”
    Will was intrigued. “What do you mean by community ?”
    â€œTheir leader is a man called August Engelhardt. A ‘charismatic.’ He also is a journalist and pamphleteer. They call themselves the Sonnenorden. Sun worshippers. They believe that nudity and the eating of coconuts will give them immortality.”
    â€œCoconuts?”
    â€œThe fruit that grows closest to the sun. Engelhardt believes that worshipping the sun and eating only coconuts purifies the body of ‘the foul pollutants and excesses of modern twentieth-century life.’ Free from these toxins apparently humans can live an unlimited lifespan in paradise.”
    â€œI assume Kabakon has a healthy supply of coconuts?”
    â€œI would imagine so, for they are