by Annie Proulx
“James Bardawulf,” said Dieter. “You and Charley are not to start wrangling. Caroline, please tell us how the babies are doing.”
She turned, raised her eyebrows as if surprised by the question. “Why, as well as they might do.”
Charley studied Caroline Breitsprecher. She was attractive, even beautiful, a florid brunette, slightly plump, with grey eyes that were shrewd and penetrating. She looked at Charley, half-smiled and tipped him a wink.
He felt an electric current of desire. She had deliberately winked at him. Immediately he decided that she was a flirt and that he’d see how far she would go. His imagination jumped into bed with her. To fuck James Bardawulf’s wife would be a double pleasure. He almost returned the wink.
But he said nothing of forests nor travel, even when questions were put to him. The next day he had that meeting with Dieter to explain how he was supposed to contribute to company capital. He had no doubt that James Bardawulf and Sophia, who both sat on the Board, were the primary sources of Dieter’s summons that he return.
• • •
The spring wind off the lake was unseasonably cold. As Charley hurried along the street with his head down, he put one large Breitsprecher hand over each stinging ear. He lingered in the lower entrance foyer of the Duke Building to get warm, putting off the coming discussion with his father.
He climbed the stairs—so many polished oak stairs. He counted forty. Would they someday put in an elevator? He entered the familiar office, where Miss Heinrich, older than the redwoods, smiled bravely at him. “Go right in, Mr. Charley,” she whispered. “I’ll bring some coffee.”
There sat Dieter at his desk, more of a table than a proper desk. Dieter waved at the chair on the other side of the table. His bald head caught the morning light. Charley wondered what he did to make it shine so. Dieter plunged directly in.
“I’m happy to say that many of my earlier ideas on forest care and management have become today’s practice. I was pleased when Roosevelt created the Bureau of Forestry, after that vicious affair with the western senators who thought they’d scored well by forcing the abolishment of the forest reserves—that just got Roosevelt’s dander up and he sequestered a hell of a lot of forest. The reserve system was always wide open to tinkering—it hardly slowed Weyerhaeuser down. Now he, too, is a colossus like Frick and Morgan. For years I have been saying that if forestlands are to be protected there must be central government control. We are moving in that direction.” He named his new heroes: Bernhard Fernow, who headed up the forestry school at Cornell, and a Maine man, Austin Cary, who struggled to make obstinate lumbermen and landowners grasp some basic forestry principles. And George Perkins Marsh, his old American ideal. Dieter said, “And what did you think of the German forests you saw? Did you look out our family connection to Graf von Rotstein?”
“I did make a search for that relative—no success. I was told the family died out some time ago.”
Dieter snorted. He was proof that at least one distant family member survived, and, of course, the same blood ran in his children’s veins.
“Tell me what you thought of the forests.”
“I saw many, many plantations of pine in orderly rows. But I did not consider them to be forests.”
“Indeed. Then what in your consideration is a forest?”
Charley said slowly, “I am sure that wild natural woodlands are the only true forests. The entire atmosphere—the surrounding air, the intertwined roots, the humble ferns and lichens, insects and diseases, the soil and water, weather. All these parts seem to play together in a kind of grand wild orchestra. A forest living for itself rather than the benefit of humankind.” He stopped.
“I see, ‘living for itself.’ Yes, of course, but that is not managed land, where we plant and watch over trees to provide revenue to the owners, lifetime jobs to workers, shade and pleasure to nature lovers. Wild forests cannot be managed. That is why we cut them and benefit from their wood, then replace them with trees. Trees that can be managed. Your idea of a forest living for itself is not part of modern life. This is what Austin Cary is trying to teach—that timber can be grown as a crop that makes a good profit and can be renewed endlessly. On one side he has to persuade the men who want to cut as they always have and who see his talks as attacks to ruin their business. On the other side are people not unlike you who see the end of the forests, disaster for the rivers. Even changes in the weather. He has to convince them that forest crops are the way to keep a steady supply and control erosion.”
They heard the light ticks of sleet on the window glass. Dieter narrowed his eyes. Chicago had long hard winters, and was it possible this one was persisting so deeply into spring? It was possible. Charley seemed not to notice the sleet but talked on in his low voice.
“I see little merit in rows of pine trees. There is no diversity and the vaunted utility is an illusion. What of the rural people who once went to the wild forest for a hundred reasons? Why do we assume they have no rights to continue their traditional woodland familiarities?” He noticed the fine layer of dust on everything in Dieter’s office—globe, bookshelves, chair rungs, window ledges. There was dust on Dieter’s ideas.
“Charley, you are missing my point. Here in America the cast of mind is fixed on taking all. My plea for replanting is still a peculiar idea to them. You may be right to say the old wild forests are imperiled, but this is, unfortunately, a matter of politics. You are wrong, too, when you say German forests are only managed plantations—there are no people in Europe as passionate for wild forests as the Germans. In you I see that Germanic streak, partly romantic, partly rebellious. And I wish you could understand that there are hidden complexities in the managed forest of which you know nothing.”
“A pity you cannot grow barkless planks. It is no use, Father—I have seen what I have seen and cannot accept tree plantations as a greater good.” He could see Dieter was working himself up; his bald pate shone red and he pinched his lips in and out.
“Then you had better become a botanist”—Dieter spat out the word—“and continue your adventuring.” He got up and left the office.
Charley waited. Dieter’s anger was rare but he was angry now. His temper would not last, never did last. He would come back. And in a while Charley heard the outer door open, heard Dieter say something to Miss Heinrich, heard her answer. He came in, spicules of melting ice on his shoulders. He nodded at Charley, drew out a bottle, went to the cupboard and took out two glasses, poured for himself and Charley.
“Forgive me, Charley.” He swallowed some whiskey. Sighed. “I had ideas and feelings similar to yours when I was young but over the years I learned that the entrepreneurial spirit of this country could not be dampened. We can’t be wild animals. We are humans. We live in a world that is a certain way and forests must adapt to the overwhelming tide of men with axes, not the reverse. I came to believe that planting trees was a kind of forest continuation, not perfect but better than stumpland. We call such plots ‘forest’ and we believe that is what they are. Also, I have never thought that German management could be less than superior.”
“Father, it reeks of the eighteenth century. It no longer fits. It is also true that there is too much cutting. The old forests are going and once they are gone we will have to wait a thousand years or more to see their like. Though nothing will be allowed such a generous measure of time to grow. Most wild American woodlands have already been savaged.”
Dieter inhaled whiskey and erupted in spasmodic coughs. When he recovered, tears streaming, he changed the conversation and said, “Why don’t you tell me what you have seen in your travels?”
• • •
Silence. The hissing lamp. Bursts of sleet on the window. How lined and weary was Charley’s face, Dieter thought; he was old beyond his thirty-five years.
“You ask me about the company’s cut in New Zealand. Where once a grove of the noble kauri grew I came upon acres of devastation. The killing ground could only be differentiat
ed from the gum fields by the fresher stumps.”
Dieter shuddered. The gum fields that he and Lavinia had seen were the most desolate landscapes, churned mud where nothing grew, great holes gouged in the wet earth, swamps without vegetation where moiling creatures clawed for bits of ancient resin to improve paint.
Charley talked, and when he paused Dieter asked, “What of New England, where my cousin Armenius first cruised the woods for James Duke? I have not been there since I visited Mr. Marsh a year or two after you were born.”
“Why, northern New England is a world of denuded mountains scarred by railroad tracks and erosion. Slash, charred logs, millions of stumps and endless miles of washed-out roads. I don’t see how fish can live in New England waters unless they can breathe silt. Large fires every summer, and still the rivers carry log drives—pitifully small sticks for the pulp mills and pressed-wood fabricators.”
Dieter’s voice was low. “Was all destruction? Did you see nothing good and beautiful?”
“Yes. I did. Brazil has the most profoundly diverse forests on earth!” For the first time since his return there was enthusiasm in Charley’s voice. “The striking feature is the mix of species rather than large groves or aggregates of dominant trees. Foreigners are in constant wonderment. When they return to their countries they see how barren and meager are their homelands.”
“I have always championed diversity.”
“It is in the tropics, not only in Brazil but in Colombia, Costa Rica, Venezuela, in India and Malaysia—forests filled with mangoes, guava, passionfruit, starfruit, coconuts, bananas. The tropical forests are the most wondrous forests I ever saw. Spectacular forests, but now attracting men with pencils and measuring sticks, men seeking fruits to export. Cattle ranchers who cut and burn the forest for pasture. They are the places where the punitive aviamento system of the rubber business drives the economy. I take comfort in the thought that none of them can really harm that massive heart of the world. The rain forest is so large and rich it defeats all who try to conquer it.”
Dieter felt he was drawing closer to Charley. “I would very much like to see these forests. But let me say that I heard the same complacent remarks about the Maine and New Hampshire woods, about the Michigan pine forest—too large to be irrecoverably harmed. And I saw them fall. There is no such thing as being too large to fall. They all go down when men come.”
“I hope you are wrong. Dear father, can you understand that I must go back to Brazil? What little I learned of the flowering and fruiting habits of the trees filled me with curiosity. Some seem to follow the rules of invisible seasons, but others flower from the time they sprout until they die. I want to learn why things happen as they do in that place.” He looked at Dieter and said, “Tropical forest soil is rather poor—all the forest’s richness is encased in its living trees. Is that not interesting?”
Dieter shook his head, asked, “Is such a thing possible?”
“It is. And in the level above the soil are shrubs and ferns, young trees, all dependent on shafts of light reaching them. They are not plants in their own right but the slaves of the large trees. Even stranger are the epiphytes, an entire world of parasitic plants that grow on the trees. That forest calls to me.”
Dieter listened with consternation. Charley’s preference for wild forests was disturbing. It was a proof that his older son was a sinking man, fated to be a loser. How to jolt him loose? How to involve him in the company’s work?
“I’ll do what I personally can to help you,” said Dieter, “but you seem destined to observe, perhaps write a book—I do not see you holding a regular job or making a business success.”
“There is no job that I have ever heard of that would be as honorable and interesting as going about and observing the lives of the trees and noting their peculiarities.”
“Still, men must work—even you.” The words came out so mournfully they both laughed.
“I need a real cause, Father, if I am to work at anything. I am no businessman. And I may indeed write a book. Although I know pitifully little and one lifetime is not enough to study even a single tropical forest tree. I want—how can I describe it? I want to discover the dynamo, the central force of the wild forest—all my interest lies in searching out that vital force.”
But Dieter thought dynamo and force sounded too much like a romantic “meaning of life” quest. He had a painful thought—did he not scent the bitter fragrance of madness in Charley? “Why not think about all this over the winter? Stay here to get your bearings, do some reading and meet others interested in trees. We can talk again in a few months. And of course we want you here for the holidays.” He was determined to understand and help this first son, but it seemed a heavy task; Dieter felt himself too old, lost in the forest of his own experience.
So Charley stayed the winter and spring to play a game of seduction with Mrs. James Bardawulf—Caroline—alternately beckoning and evasive; he was determined to get her, to spite his half brother, whom his father favored.
• • •
He was still trying in August, when the great 1910 fires in Montana, Idaho and eastern Washington burned more than three million acres of prime timber and settlements in two days, a raging blowup crown fire jumping and leapfrogging over hundreds of miles, a fire such as no human had ever seen. The country was shocked by headlines describing how the remote heart of America had been destroyed in forty-eight hours, for people believed that the wild essence of the country existed in its great forests somewhere out west. And now they had burned.
Dieter pled with pea-brained politicians and barely literate congressmen for more money and authority for the Forest Service. He spoke out against that governor who said forest fires were a good thing because they opened new country for settlers, and he cursed the congressman from a fire-plagued state who bellowed, “Not one cent for scenery!” He began a regimen of letter writing, wire sending and telephone calls; he volunteered to start new pine and fir seedling nurseries to replant the hideous blackened mountains and stem the landslides of burned soils. He tried to interest his older son.
“Charley, here’s a cause for you—help rejuvenate the spoiled lands. I am meeting this evening at the house with James Bardawulf and Andrew to discuss possible salvage of some of the burned timber. I hope you will join us.” He did not think Charley could resist the battle to heal the wrecked forest.
“It will just happen again,” said Charley in a dismissive tone, “until the yahoos have burned the country clear. You are pleading with men who just don’t care. As for salvage, it seems a bit like rifling the pockets of a corpse.” He left the door ajar as he went out.
• • •
Charley had had enough of Dieter’s hopeless American forest projects and almost enough of the slippery Caroline. She enjoyed teasing him and that, he promised himself, would be the key to getting her. He would make one more effort and then leave. He telephoned.
“I’m leaving tomorrow morning,” he said.
“Oh, Charley, where are you going? To the terrible fires in Idaho and Montana?”
“No. The fires are ended. My interests pull me to the tropics. Let me see you one last time. Will you not walk in the garden with me for half an hour this evening?”
“I might if you are very, very good. None of your naughty ways.” She laughed, an often-rehearsed laugh that an earlier swain had told her was like the music of a babbling brook.
“But you are so beautiful that I cannot make a promise. You have a powerful effect on me. As a last favor please wear your exquisite green dress.”
“Oh, my Poiret. You have an eye for fashion. That is the most expensive dress I own.”
“The most beautiful,” he murmured gallantly. He knew well that it was a dress famously designed to be worn without a corset.
• • •
He came to the dark garden deliberately a little late, just as the moon was rising, and saw her standing beside the redbud tree, the faded heart-shaped leaves catching the l
unar glow as did her pale dress. She resembled the chrysalis of a luna moth. The watery moonlight seemed to solidify their bodies, to render shadows corporeal, as intense as stones.
“Here you are,” she said and produced her rippling laugh. He seized her at once and lightly bit her neck.
“Oh don’t! It will show!”
He bit again, harder.
“Stop, Charley. What has got into you?” She tried to push him away, but he was not having it and he was not playing her flirting game tonight. He pulled her to the garden bench. It took a few moments of sweet flattery and blandishment to ease her into position and gradually ruck high the green dress. He did this almost stealthily, not roughly, eased into her hot and responsive flesh and at the moment of discharge heard James Bardawulf’s voice say, “Why, Charley, how thoughtful of you to drop in,” and there was a tremendous concussive sound that his damaged brain told him was a moon bolt, very like being struck full force with a Zulu knobkerrie.
Caroline’s shrieks brought servants from the house who pulled the club away from James Bardawulf, who then tore a rosebush out of the ground and began flailing the insensible form on the ground. Young Raphael, in his pajamas, ran for Dieter, who arrived still clutching his meeting notes.
“James Bardawulf, anhalten, anhalten sofort! Stop halt this stupidity! Was ist los? Anhalten! You will kill him!”
“I want to kill him! Let me go!”
• • •
The servants carried Charley to his room and two doctors came within the hour. Dr. Plate examined the unconscious Charley and said it was a grave injury. He might remain unconscious for some time—forever, even—might die without waking up. But he cleaned the wound, bandaged it and left the first of three nurses to watch over the wounded man. Dr. Scotbull examined the sobbing Caroline, who had been roughly used and violated but was otherwise unhurt. The moon-green dress was torn and dirty. “A few days in bed to rest and become calm. You must put the experience out of your mind and divert yourself with books or needlework,” said the doctor, shooting sidelong glances at James Bardawulf, whose red eyes glared. The doctor steered him downstairs and poured him a glass of whiskey—watched him swallow it in a single glugging bolt. Within the half hour James Bardawulf went up to Caroline, hissing that if she liked rape so much that is what she would get, slapped her hard and mounted her.