The comment had no effect on Murnau. He took a sip of his lime drink. He gazed at Flaherty, and Flaherty gazed back. Finally, Murnau told Flaherty that he would make this as clear as he could. He was finished arguing with him: Flaherty was now a hired hand.

The shooting, when it did begin, went poorly. Mehao was a distraction to everyone as Murnau’s assistant.

On the second day, Flaherty remarked to the group that the Polynesians were subject to diseases of the will as well as the body. They had a word for it: erimatua. It wasn’t in Murnau’s dictionary. Those who contracted it literally died of discouragement. This was accepted as unavoidable by the victim’s family.

Sadness and guilt became the gently insistent theme of Murnau’s time with Mehao. They flared up like cold on a damaged tooth.

Mehao noticed. He had a sweet and gentle nature and an acumen for business that was startling. He was an inveterate flirt. He was married. When Murnau asked about his wife, on Fatuhiva, Mehao said, “Aita pea-pea”: it doesn’t matter.

In the small of his back he had two indentations, like the press of thumbs.

The morning after the decisive argument with Flaherty, they woke around three. The air was scented. Murnau was on his side, his cheek on Mehao’s hand. Off the veranda, a half-moon lit the surf along the shore. A black crane fished in the swirling water, stepping brokenly about.

By five Mehao was gone. Just after sunrise, Murnau flung himself into the smooth warm water of the lagoon. He anchored on his seat a few yards offshore in the soft sand, his face to the morning sun low across the water. Afterwards he took a shower bath and moved to his veranda chair for coffee and warm rolls with honey.

Flaherty emerged from his room looking hungover. He fetched his own coffee from the kitchen and returned, propping his ankles on the veranda rail alongside Murnau, as though they were two Bavarians on the Spree. He looked at Murnau with the poker-playing expression of someone who’d experienced a catastrophic setback and fancied it didn’t show on his face. He said, “Well, whatever the virtues of the Tahitian, chasteness is not one of them.”

A short letter from Murnau’s mother came in the morning mail packet. It made no mention of his letter. Apparently she’d just seen Tartüff at her local theater. She wrote, “The silver and china are always so exquisite in your films.” He pinned up the letter next to his looking glass.

The looking glass hung on a string and trembled when the trades were blowing. His red hair, his wrinkles, his age, his freckles: every morning there was the altogether draining surprise of his own coarseness.

By the 14th of August he’d received reports from four island groups, but not a single word about Spiess.