In Air France magazine, N° 18, october 1998
This short story was inspired from the novel by P. Fleutiaux, L'expédition (Gallimard, 1999, and Folio n° 3405), which also takes place on Easter Island.
Translation by the author

Our guide at Easter Island

Pierre, the French guide, picked us up at Cook Bay. In spite of the heat (the season was austral spring), he was wearing a thick woollen scarf.
- Sore throat, he said. South wind. Happens every year. Nothing serious.
- I have some antibiotics, the woman from Montpellier offered eagerly. Would you like some?
- No, thanks. I took some aspirins.
Speaking seemed to cause him pain, but his smile reassured us. He started up the minibus. All at once, an awful rumble drowned him out. It's not easy to maintain vehicles in the island. Spare parts are brought from Valparaiso in a cargo which anchors off only two or three times a year. The guide tried to speak louder, but his voice was broken. Claude, the young soldier from Tahiti, offered to be his mouthpiece.
- I'm taking you to the Ao Au volcano, he said with great earnestness.
He was interrupted by a gurgling sound from the guide. Claude leaned toward him then resumed his speech.
- The Rano Raraku volcano, actually. It used to be the quarry for the great statues, the …the Moai.
We reached Laperouse Bay but cast only a brief glance at it. We all had the same unspoken idea: to spare our guide a lecture. So we continued on our way.
- Stop, cried out one of the gentlemen, a man from Switzerland.
He got off the bus and at a leisurely pace started picking pods from the shrubs at the side of the road. He picked huge quantities of them as we waited.
- Castor oil plants, he said, climbing back on board.
He at once set to shelling the pods, clac-clac, shuit-shuit.
- We'll have lunch at the foot of the volcano, shouted Claude at the top of his voice.
The guard's cabin and a few wood tables stood in the shade of some eucalyptus trees. The guide turned his back on us and cleared his throat several times.
- You should take my antibiotics, said the lady from Montpellier.
- If you insist, he whispered.
He strained so hard to articulate the words that his face took on a hollow look, revealing the bones of the skull underneath.
We finished our picnic and left the grove. From then on, there were no more trees. Only barren ground, yellowish grasses and behind us the Pacific Ocean, whose uninterrupted curve reminded us of the island's immense isolation.
The guide pointed at something, and the young soldier resumed his job as a mouthpiece.
- Can you see the greener patch of grass, up there? he shouted cheerfully. It's American grass. Kevin Costner's production had it imported from the US to repair the damage caused by the shooting of his movie, Rapa Nui. The Pascuans were hired as extras. They were disappointed by the movie, but our guide said they benefited from it. They bought themselves refrigerators.
- Our guide looks very pale, said the lady from Montpellier.
We were climbing hard and her breath was labored. She added:
- Don't you think we should…
But the heads of the first Moai were appearing, at least two stories tall, and scattered all over the slope.
- The busts were buried under piles of sludge, declaimed Claude. No, wait…(he leaned toward the guide), under piles of adzes, stone tools that is, and all the chips and waste from the cutting.
- Oh, that one is going to fall over, put in the man from Montpellier.
He was the antibiotics lady's husband, a jovial fellow dressed in an orange polo shirt and thongs. He slipped beneath the several tons leaning head, and holding it with both hands, he screwed up his features, as if straining against the weight of the statue.
- It's mankind's heritage, said the girl from Dunkirk, frowning. You're not allowed to touch it.
We became aware of a horseman posted motionless on a jutting rock above, who seemed to be staring at the ocean. He cried out something to us. Claude listened to the guide's whispered translation and addressed us at the top of his lungs.
- It's the guard, he says that it is forbidden to take away the statues.
The practical joker started protesting his innocence, then burst out laughing. The antibiotics lady took a picture. Clac-clac, shuit-shuit went on the man from Switzerland, shelling his pods.
- Monsieur, I said, won't you look at the statues?
- No, he said. I'm busy with the pods. The seeds will grow beautifully, I'll plant them in my garden.
- Do you really want to see nothing?
- Seeing is a very hard thing to do, madame. It requires method. This orange man over there can't do it, so he plays practical jokes and his wife takes pictures. For my part, I pretend to ignore the statues and I shell my pods.
- Are you joking?
- No, madame, I'm dissimulating. When the Moai think they are rid of us, I will come back alone. The sun will have set, there will be no noise, time will have unfolded itself and the centuries of the past will have regained their hold on the island. Then perhaps I'll be able to see… I am a physicist, a specialist of time-space continuum. Would you care for some seeds?
We continued climbing. The guide was growing more livid with each step.
- You are now standing in front of the tallest Moai of all, proclaimed his mouth-piece with the utmost solemnity.
- Where? said the girl from Dunkirk, all the while plastering herself with sun-cream.
The guide had withdrawn behind the rock and was coughing as horribly as the engine of his minibus had done. Without his informer, Claude was unable to answer. He sat down. No one could see the tallest Moai of all. The guard reappeared, still on horse-back, and signalled imperiously. Claude jumped to his feet.
- Oh, he said, I was sitting on it.
Here, as everywhere in the quarry, the ancient stone-workers appeared to have been brutally interrupted in their labor. The Moai was still attached to the cliff by his back, a stately prisoner of the volcano. He was more than seven foot tall.
We were dumbfounded. Above us, beside us, surrounding us in all directions were huge figures, some almost completed, others barely outlined. The whole cliff was peopled with Moai. If they rose to life, hoisting themselves out of their graves, the wall of the volcano would disintegrate entirely. An army of giant stone commanders would go marching down the slope, their empty orbits blind to the tiny humans beneath their feet…
We could no longer hear the coughing guide. He was nowhere in sight. Claude remained mute, like a tape-recorder deprived of its tape. The silence was broken only by the distant backwash of the waves against the shore. The only sign of life was a bird of prey hovering in the sky. Suddenly Claude rushed around to the far side of the Moai.
- Help! he shouted.
The guide was lying against the stone, his face as wan as the Kava Kava statuettes which represent men perhaps in the last throes of death. The antibiotics lady took his pulse.
- He is running a high temperature, she said. We'll have to carry him down.
The guide tried to sit up. Everybody begged him to allow himself to be carried. The pod-sheller and the practical joker picked him by the shoulders, the young soldier by the feet. The women fanned him ceaselessly. Our guide was our most precious possession, we regretted having brought him to this desolate graveyard, we did not know what to do to repair our fault. We were one with him in his plight, we were his family, his most faithful friends. We were fleeing with him and the ground trembled under the giants' heavy tread…
The guard, galloping down the slope, soon caught up with us. Pushing us aside, he hoisted the guide onto his horse and they were soon far away. We then had but one thought, to rejoin them as fast as possible.
- Let's cut across the slope, said the man from Montpellier.
After a half-hour's hurried and stumbling walk among dark boulders of lava, we finally reached the grove. Our guide was lying inside the cabin, his face a shade less white. He insisted on giving us our money back at once. Nobody wanted to hear such a thing, we wished only for him to get better. However it was clear that he was in no condition to drive. As I had my international licence with me, I was assigned the task. The guide was placed next to me, so that he could give me directions to the main road. With some misgivings I was about to start the minibus when the antibiotics lady suddenly exclaimed: "Someone is missing!"
We all grew anxious again. The young soldier decided to form a search party and everyone volunteered to be part of it. But, after a circular glance, I realized that the missing person was the pod-shelling physicist.
- I know where he is, I said. We'll just have to wait a while.
In fact, we soon caught sight of him. He was quietly walking down the slope, following the bends and twists of the path, still shelling his pods and looking somewhat sombre. A murmur of discontent went through our group, everyone was indignant that he should have kept our patient waiting. Then the man from Montpellier opened a bottle of Pisco, which he had purchased from the guard. Discontent vanished and the castor-oil pod-sheller was greeted with cheers. He climbed into his seat.
- I saw, he whispered in my ear.
I was about to ask him what he had seen when a pick-up truck thundered into the grove in a cloud of red dust and drew up right in front of our minibus. Two men jumped out. Their hair was tied in a top-knot, their feet were tattooed blue, and they had a rather fiery look about them. We all yelled at them to move their vehicle. They ignored us and began to parley with the guard. Finally they addressed our group. The purport of their speech as we made it out was that they wished to take away our guide. None of us was prepared to surrender him up.
We felt ready to fight if need be, we were so incensed that we paid no heed to our guide's feeble protests. Not having partaken of the Pisco, the castor-oil physicist behaved more sensibly. He got out of the minibus and went to talk with our assailants.
- They are friends, he said upon returning. The guard put in a call for help and they have come to fetch all of us.
When listened to at last, our guide confirmed that this was true. In consequence, he was settled on the platform of the pick-up truck, with the sheller's Swiss jacket rolled up under his head as a pillow, and the vehicle immediately departed. It was driven by one of the two Pascuans. The other Pascuan took my place behind the wheel of the minibus. The physicist sat next to him and they at once fell into a heated discussion. Both were gesticulating vigorously.
-What's wrong now? asked Claude, our young soldier, feeling he had to take charge.
- He wants the tour to go on, answered the physicist.
Resuming his job as a mouth-piece, Claude addressed the whole group and explained the new proposition. But the mood inside the minibus had changed. Our guide's departure had left us inert. We had entrusted ourselves to him and he could not be replaced. Since he had been repatriated to the village, we wanted to be repatriated too. We even considered camping out on the hospital ground to wait for news of his health. Finally we all agreed to go home. Our new driver was informed of the decision. He seemed much mollified by it and immediately started his engine.
Then our mood fell even further. While the minibus rumbled over the stones, all was silent inside. Our bodies were jolted about, everyone kept to themselves, there was no reason for anyone to talk. When we reached Hanga Roa, the one village and capital city of the island, no one so much as mentioned the hospital. The driver dropped us at the entrance of the path leading to our guest-house. We offered to pay him for the ride, but he refused outright. "Pedro es un amigo", he said. We kissed him good-bye, he kissed us good-bye and we were left to ourselves.
Then the enormity of what we had seen dawned upon us. Unable to take one more step, we sat down on the embankment. On this tiny island, this fragment of rock lost in the middle of the largest ocean on earth, human beings surviving in the greatest deprivation and isolated for centuries from the rest of mankind had risen up against nothingness. They had sculpted giants our of the stone with their bare hands, transported them for miles, then erected them all along the border of their world. We had seen their immense effort to shape out their thoughts, cry out their existence and give it meaning. Then catastrophe had befallen their civilisation. Their thinking had collapsed, chaos had won over, grass and silence had overgrown their broken giants.
On our diminutive planet lost in the universe, it was quite possible we were approaching a similar catastrophe. The young girl from Dunkirk, severely sunburnt despite her cream, was the most distraught of all.
- We're all going to die. We'll stifle, we'll smother each other to death!
Nobody protested, not even the practical joker. The physicist offered to share his seeds with us but realized he had left them in his jacket on the pick-up truck. They had probably been scattered all along the road, thus returning to the earth to which they belonged.
Suddenly Nito appeared on the path. He was our landlady's little boy, a genuine descendant of the island's ancient people, the little group of famished and frightened survivors that the writer Pierre Loti, then a young midshipman of twenty, had glimpsed on the shore, one cold tempestuous morning of January 1872, upon disembarking from the frigate Flore and setting foot on Rapa Nui.
Nito came galloping toward us, his feet in makeshift stirrups of rope, one hand gripping the mane of this horse, the other one waving a gleaming Thermos bottle. His red hair flew in the wind and he was laughing. "Café, café", he shouted.

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