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passed the bowl.
    “Is it true?” I said. “About the Navy cutting off
contact with the village with a blockade?”
    She nodded.
    “Why?”
    “It’s the military,” said Ben. “They live in their own
little world.”
    “Dad’s working on it,” said Pam. “Wrote to Senator
Hoffman because the two of them go back a ways. And Hoffman
knows Aruk from personal experience; he was Stanton’s
commander during the Korean War.”
    “The gourmet?”
    She nodded. “He used to come up here with his wife, sit right on
this terrace and play bridge.”
    “Sounds like a good contact,” I said.
The senator from Oregon had been discussed as a
presidential candidate.
    Ben put his napkin down and stood. “ ’Scuse me, got to
pick up the kids. Anything you need for tomorrow, Pam?”
    “Just more disposable needles. And vaccine if it’s
running low.”
    “Already there,” said Ben. “I set up before dinner.”
    He shook our hands and left quickly.
    “He’s terrific,” said Pam. “Really knows what he’s doing.
He found KiKo on the docks, dying of infection, and
nursed him back to health.” She smiled. “KiKo’s short for
King Kong. He sleeps in a cradle in Ben’s house.”
    “Dr. Picker said monkeys can’t be housebroken.”
    “I’m no primatologist, but sometimes I think animals are
a lot more tractable than people.”
    The sound of a car engine drew my eyes down toward the
road. Darkness had set in, obscuring details, but a pair of
headlights shone through.
    “.   .   .   one of the most levelheaded people you’ll
ever meet. Dad wouldn’t mind if he went on to med school; the
island could use a younger doctor. But the time commitment—he’s
got a big family to support.”
    “In his letter to me,” I said, “your father mentioned
retirement.”
    She smiled. “I don’t imagine he’ll ever fully retire,
but with three thousand people on this island, he could use
some help. I’ve been pitching in, but   .   .   .” She put her
spoon down.
    “You asked before if I grew up on Aruk and I said not
really. I was born here but boarded out very young. Went
to Temple for med school and stayed in Philadelphia. I kept
thinking I should come back here, but I grew up a city girl,
found out I
like
the city.”
    “I know what you mean,” said Robin. “Small towns are
great in theory but they can be limiting.”
    “Exactly. Aruk is wonderful; you guys will have a great time.
But as a permanent place to live, it’s—how shall I put
this? At the risk of sounding elitist .   .   . it’s just
very
small.
And the water all around. You just can’t go very
far without being reminded of your insignificance.”
    “We lived on the beach this last year,” said Robin.
“There were times the ocean made me feel invisible.”
    “Precisely. Everywhere you turn,
it’s
there.
Sometimes I think of it as a big, blue slap in the face.”
    She nibbled more fruit. “And then there’s the pace.
Cross the international dateline and for some reason
everything moves
slow-
ly. I’m not the most patient
person in the world.”
    Gladys and Cheryl arrived with a rolling tray and
coffee, cleared the dishes and poured.
    Pam said, “Everything was delicious, Gladys.”
    “Tell your father to show up for dinner. He needs to
take better care of himself.”
    “I’ve been telling him that since I got here, Gladys.”
    “And I’ve been ignoring it, mule that I am,” said a
voice from the house.
    A very tall, very homely man stood in the double
doorway. Stooped, gaunt, clean-shaven, bald except for white
dandelion puffs over his ears, he had a narrow, lipless
mouth, a thick, fleshy nose and a long face bottoming
in a misshapen, crinkled chin that made me think of a camel.
His cheeks were hollow and limp, his eye sockets deep and
pouched. Sad blue eyes—the only physical trait he’d passed
on to his daughter.
    He wore a cheap-looking white shirt over baggy brown
pants, white socks, and sandals. His chest