The Signature of All Things

education. What a worthy life, to make so deep a study of the world. How fortunate you are in your vocation.”
    Alma gazed down at him. To see his face so close at long last—this indelible face, this face that had so troubled and fascinated her for so long, thisface that had brought her here from the other side of the globe, this face that had probed so stubbornly at her imagination, this face that had beleaguered her to the point of obsession—was simply staggering. His face had such a powerful effect upon her that it struck her as incredible that he, in turn, was not equally staggered by seeing her : How could she know him so intimately, and he know her not at all?
    But why in heaven would he?
    Placidly, he returned her gaze. His eyelashes were so long, it was an absurdity. They seemed not only excessive, but almost confrontational—this spectacle of eyelashes, this needlessly luxuriant fringe. She felt irritation rising within her—nobody required eyelashes such as these.
    “It is a pleasure to meet you,” she said.
    With statesmanlike grace, Tomorrow Morning insisted that, no, the pleasure was entirely his own. Then he released her hand, Alma excused herself, and Tomorrow Morning returned his attention to the Reverend Welles—to his happy, elfin, little white father.
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    H e stayed at Matavai Bay a fortnight.
    She rarely took her eyes off him, keen to learn—by observation and proximity—whatever she could. What she learned, and quite quickly, was that Tomorrow Morning was beloved. It was close to exasperating, in fact, how beloved he was. She wondered if it was ever exasperating for him. He was never given a moment to himself, although Alma kept watching for one, hoping for a private word with him. It seemed there would never be a chance for it; there were meals and meetings and gatherings and ceremonies all around him, at all hours. He slept in Sister Manu’s house, which buzzed with constant visitors. Queen ’Aimata Pōmare IV Vahine of Tahiti invited Tomorrow Morning for tea at her palace in Papeete. All wanted to hear—in English or Tahitian, or both—the story of Tomorrow Morning’s extraordinary success as a missionary on Raiatea.
    Nobody wanted to hear about it more than Alma, and over the duration of Tomorrow Morning’s sojourn, she managed to piece together the entire story from various onlookers and admirers of the Great Man. Raiatea, she learned, was the cradle of Polynesian mythology, and thus a most unlikely place ever to have embraced Christianity. The island—large and rugged—wasthe birthplace and residence of Oro, the god of war, whose temples were honored by human sacrifice and littered with human skulls. Raiatea was a serious place (Sister Etini used the word weighty ). Mount Temehani, in the center of the island, was considered to be the eternal residence of all the dead of Polynesia. A permanent shroud of fog hung over the tallest pinnacle of this mountain, it was said, for the dead did not like the sunlight. The Raiateans were not a laughing people; they were a firm people—a people of blood and grandeur. They were not the Tahitians. They had resisted the English. They had resisted the French. They had not resisted Tomorrow Morning. He had first arrived there six years earlier in a most spectacular manner: he came alone in a canoe, which he abandoned as he neared the island. He stripped naked and swam to shore, paddling easily over the thunderous breakers, holding his Bible over his head and chanting, “I sing the word of Jehovah, the one true God! I sing the word of Jehovah, the one true God!”
    The Raiateans took notice.
    Since then Tomorrow Morning had built an evangelizing empire. He had erected a church—just near Raiatea’s pagan mother temple—that might easily have been mistaken for a palace, had it not been a house of worship. It was now the largest structure in Polynesia. It was held up by forty-six columns, hewn from the trunks of breadfruit trees, and sanded smooth with sharkskin.
    Tomorrow Morning numbered his converts at some three and a half thousand souls. He had watched the people feed their idols to the fire. He had watched the old temples undergo a rapid transformation, from shrines of violent sacrifice to harmless piles of mossy rocks. He had put the Raiateans in modest European clothing: men in trousers, women in long dresses and bonnets. Young boys stood in line to have their hair cut short and respectable by him. He had supervised the