Trilemma Read Online Free PDF Page B

told, from the fish shop. On my way back up the street, I pause outside the window of an art gallery. Inside are canvasses in black and white, with Maori words scattered across them in red. I don’t know what any of the words mean, although I am starting to recognize the language.
    Reading the words, a sudden thought strikes me.
    I remember playing in the sand of Cannon Beach back in Oregon, years ago, just my father and me. We built a hill out of the damp sand, with a castle at the top where I buried gold-colored candy wrappers. My father marked the spot with a
Z
, and then he named our castle “Ngatirua,” creating the word out of small pieces of gray driftwood.
    â€œWho lives there, Dad?” I’d asked.
    â€œA prince used to live there, but he escaped.”
    â€œIs there a monster?”
    I remember him laughing. “Maybe there’s a monster. Or a wicked witch.”

    I turn back to the road and walk briskly up the hill. When I reach my apartment, I retrieve a large envelope from the battered leather suitcase under the bed. On top is a photograph of Ben and Emmy standing in front of Ben’s studio, but beneath is the handful of old photographs I’d found in Mom’s house.
    I take out the first clue I found in my father’s papers, a photograph of an infant lying asleep in a buggy. On the back of the photo is a scrawl, saying “Linnet,” the year of my birth, and the address of the house in which I now live.
    I pick out another photograph, this one of my father. Behind his head is a painting of a Maori warrior so the photograph must have been from when he lived in New Zealand. On the back of the photograph is a word; “Ng” then a squiggle then “rua,” it says.
    I had thought Ngatirua was a funny made-up name, but now I realize it might be a real place.
    Clue number two. I type “Ngatirua” into Google. No locations come up, just a jumble of similar words. I scroll through the results. The last is an image of a painting, called:
The Road to Ngatirua
. The painting is of a road zigzagging up a hill, tan and ochre with touches of green.
    Then I see the artist’s name. Rose Mere.
Mere!
    I type in “Rose Mere.” And at last I strike gold, of sorts. I find an article on a Hawke’s Bay artist who painted in the fifties and the sixties. She died the year I was born. Married, two daughters.
    I continue reading. Now when I bring up the maps, I search the hills of Hawke’s Bay for a road like the one in the painting. After half an hour of careful examination, I think I have found the road to Ngatirua.
    I make a pot of tea and take my cup outside onto the roof terrace, where the break in the railing stills gapes like a hasty exit. The breeze has stiffened and tugs at my hair. I gaze to the north, beyond the harbor, where steep green ridges march into the hazy distance.
    A precious feeling of happiness washes over me, the first time I’ve felt hopeful since the day I lost Ben.
    Somewhere beyond those hills must be a trace of my sisters.

Chapter 8
    It has rained overnight and the sky is hovering between gray and blue. When I look to the north, I can see the long white cloud hanging over the hills.
    Should I, shouldn’t I?
What’s to lose?
    The edgy charge of anticipation suspends rational thought. Half an hour later I drive alongside the river to the top of the Hutt Valley. The road narrows and becomes a single lane to climb the Rimutakas, turning and bending and turning again to reach the summit, high in the mountains and covered with dense native bush and trees. Going down the far side is easier and ten minutes later I emerge into a small country town. One blink and it is gone.
    The next place arrives with a prettiness of flower baskets and a charm of colonial architecture, and is bustling with people. I drive on, deeper into provincial New Zealand, where the flat lands are stocked with dairy cows, the hills in sheep and beef.