He was disappointed by the sight of the huts and the litter: it was not possible to be alone here, and he realized with his first glimpse of the children in the road and the men squatting among the trees, motionless, like vegetation themselves, that he had been buoyed at his camp in the palm grove because it was uninhabited. But idyllic was an unattainable state, even on this small atoll, and he told himself that it was the squalor and the idleness here and the skinny kids and the lame dogs that made it real.

Just ahead he saw the church he’d spotted from across the lagoon, and what had seemed like solid granite from a distance was gray-painted wood, simple clumsy carpentry on a large scale, the blunt and splintery steeple, the great flat front of the church mimicking a cathedral, and above the double doors a circular window painted green and yellow to resemble stained glass.

The priest he’d seen at the airport was standing with some children, peaceful in conversation, his hand on the shoulder of one of them.

Sharkey thought, as he had at his camp, what did it matter if there was surf or not? The rumor of a wave had enticed him, but what mattered was that he had found this peaceful island.

He greeted the priest and said, “I saw you at the airport a few days ago.”

“Yes, I remember.”

But Sharkey had been brisk with him, and he hoped the priest had not remembered his rudeness in wishing to get away.

“I was on the other side of the island,” Sharkey said. “No people.”

“Because of the bombs,” the priest said.

“Right,” Sharkey said. “I’m trying to find the best way to the wave.”

The priest nodded, saying, “Your friend was saying the same thing.”

Sharkey tried to hide his annoyance. Affecting to be casual, he said, “He’s probably ridden it by now.”

The priest’s face gave nothing away. He said. “You can ask him. I saw him going into town this morning.”

“There’s a town here?”

“We call it a town,” the priest said softly. “It’s just over there”—and he pointed to where the road curved into more palm groves. “The bar and the dive shop and the boatyard where they do some repairs. Your friend won’t be hard to find, though he seemed to be in a hurry.”

Sharkey leaned toward the priest with a question in his eyes.

“People move slowly here,” the priest explained, having read Sharkey’s expression. “Your friend was walking fast.”

Sharkey said, “Have you ever seen anyone ride that wave?”

The priest shook his head. “We have some divers and fishermen, all of them i-matang—outsiders. The people here seldom swim.”

“What do they do?”

“They do what people do on small islands. They fish in the lagoon. They gather coconuts. They play. They quarrel.”