The Last Bookaneer

by Matthew Pearl

  • • •

  I CANNOT REMEMBER what visions I beheld while unconscious. I am vain enough to wish for something a little profound, if not Descartes’ dreams of a new sort of science then at least ones with entertaining portent, such as young Mrs. Shelley’s vision of the awful being that she would animate into Frankenstein’s creature, or Robert Louis Stevenson’s own nightmare of a respectable man who transformed into a disreputable criminal—perhaps my visions even contained something prescient about what was about to come in the Stevenson affair. A glimpse, perhaps, of a tall, thin white man presiding over a band of natives, death hanging over the scene. There is only one thing I do recall clearly: her face. I saw her. Kitten, whom Davenport had spoken of just a short time before black spots were multiplying before my eyes and contamination flowing through my veins. His musings about her must have invited her into my unconscious brain. I remember that I did not see her as you would see a portrait or a sculpture, fixed and final, or even as a memory, indistinct. I saw her as you would someone sitting where you sit across from me—on a train like this, with no one else to look at, no obstructions, the rest of the world receding.

  Kitten, you ought to know, was a thing of beauty. I choose the word with the care a poet might, for the thing that made her irresistible was vague. The modern lady is encouraged by etiquette books and trivial magazines to seek what I call the ideal of inoffensive expressionlessness. Smile a small, refined smile as to not appear ungraceful; powder the cheeks and brow to appear flushed, but not artificial; choose dress shapes to make short seem taller, tall seem shorter, wide to seem slimmer and slim to appear rounder, and say or do nothing conspicuous when it can be helped. It all seems rather foolish to a fatal bachelor such as myself, whose romantic impulses were left behind in the uncut pages of my youth, but to a cub such as yourself, the ways of women will remain for some years too shrouded in mystery to judge.

  Kitten did not subscribe to society’s usual dictates to women, except, of course, when she assumed a role for the purposes of bookaneering. Her personal wardrobe lacked the frills and feathers prized by ladies, had long sleeves, and was not tailored to be especially well fitting. She clothed herself in manly shades of brown, black, and gray. Her eyes, one gazing in a slightly different place than the other, were foreboding, of a blue color so fine as to be almost transparent—more intimidating than charming—and her pale pink mouth and smooth brow seemed ready to contract into a frown, as though she were listening to the beginning of a joke she would not find funny. She had a tendency to fold her arms under her ample bosom or clamp them at her hips in gestures of pointed impatience. Her voice was coarse, grating even. She might have qualified as plain or even dull if judged by our common standards. Without possessing the trappings of conventional prettiness, wherever she went there were men obsessed with her and women jealous. With age, the dark strands of hair were woven with silver while her face creased with the sorts of lines other women labored to hide, and her power over men doubled—tripled. There was a vulnerability, though; despite her exterior there were times, from a distance, when I saw her break down into tears and need Davenport’s company. As I’ve said, it is difficult to define her allure and, I’d propose, impossible to ever replicate it. It is too often overlooked in this age of magazines how attractive it is for a woman not to care a dime what men think of her.

  I’ve mentioned my own interactions with Kitten were quite limited, but there were a few times, not long before her notorious final mission, when she spoke to me. These occasions were so rare that I remember each of them well, even when nothing important passed between us. Once, I was standing on the crowded Oramin bridge, in Berlin, when I heard my name called out in that unmistakable voice: hoarse, commanding, seductive, disorienting.

  Under other circumstances I would have been tickled merely to have Kitten address me. “Perhaps this is a time for more discretion,” I whispered to her, thinking other bookaneers and competing parties could be in earshot.

  “The vaults were empty, after all that fuss,” she said. “Do not look surprised, Mr. Fergins. I know why you’re in Germany and what you’ve come to help your master find. But the stereotype plates Pen wanted have been moved to a catacomb under an old circulating library up north.”

  I studied her as I tried to discern whether it was possible she was trying to trick me, or whether Davenport had been working with her in this mission, in defiance of his own rules of bookaneering, and why she was telling this to me. “How did you know to find me here? How did you know where I would be?”

  “I didn’t know. But I know Pen’s mind more than you could ever know, Mr. Fergins, and I supposed this is where he would set a rendezvous. I guessed it would be easier to find you than to find him.” I nodded, accepting her vaguely belittling but true statement, worthy of Davenport. She went on: “Give him this; it tells him where he can find me. Since I cannot stay in Berlin after tonight, I will trade him my information in exchange for a reasonable part of the takings of the mission. Do just as I say. You will find I do not like to give instructions twice.”

  She was nearing fifty then and, as I’ve said, had become more striking than ever. Her self-possession, her composure, her poise, her alluring boredom, her selfish resolve, her secrets, all of it came out in every movement and every word she spoke. She handed me a piece of paper, gesturing for me to look at it. It was blank. I knew it was written in invisible ink. It was not a very elaborate method of hiding something, but Davenport would know he was the first to read it.

  More than you could ever know—those were the words that teased me; in later years, as things began to go downhill in the Samoan mission, you could say they haunted me. It was Kitten, so there was more than one meaning possible. Did she mean that I would never be able to know how well she understood Davenport, or that I could never understand him the way she did? Either way, my heart was sinking with their weight. That night, after sprinkling a little lemon juice on the note in order to reveal the message, Davenport left me at the hotel and was not back until the next morning. I supposed he retrieved the information he needed from Kitten to complete the mission and then remained with her for the night. Davenport was insistent that his relationship with Kitten was kept separate from professional dealings, and that, with few necessary exceptions, the best bookaneers never worked together. I would not question him, of course, because to question him about anything was fruitless, but it mystified me how he could pretend their labors and emotions were not already mixed. I knew many bookaneers believed that would be the bookaneer’s downfall (his, not hers).

  There were a few more conversations I had with the famous female bookaneer when we happened upon each other over the course of day-to-day routines, and these were sometimes cordial but never very friendly. She would always say at least one thing that made me uncomfortable. One time there was a comment she made about liking to imagine what people thought about when they saw her with a younger man such as Davenport. “They must ask themselves,” she said, “what it is about me that he cannot resist.” When something more significant finally passed between us it would once again be on the Continent, this time in darkness.

  Now, in the vision that appeared to me onboard the Colossus, her face was stern but not without a hint of the grand humor for which she was loved and hated. Those eyes. You and I have talked much of reading. Well, these eyes are the eyes of a reader, eyes that do not just take words in, but confront and challenge their worthiness—the eyes of a queen or empress who has known nothing but control over other people. Her black hair was curly and loose, made to seem darker because her complexion was light. Her mouth was little and curved, giving a reminder of what it withheld (kind words, kisses, smiles) from all—all but one.

  Time was rushing and time was crawling—again like being on a speeding train. The next thing I can remember after the eeriness of a dead woman’s (living) face was the moment my eyes began to unlock themselves, the lids heavy and unkind.
Human eyes, even my poor examples, are remarkable instruments. In utter darkness they moved back and forth valiantly as though something could be gleaned; the blind man’s eyes do the same tired dance. I was in a small, dark, close place that smelled of wood. My thoughts at once turned to a coffin. There was the sound of crashing waves. I tried to scream, but I could call up no sound, and in my head I could only hear the clanging words of Poe writing of being buried alive: Fearful indeed the suspicion—but more fearful the doom!

  Though I still could see nothing, it felt as though the wooden compartment I was inside was settling into the water. I pounded my fists against a wood plank and shouted. Then the horrible guilt settled on me: swim lessons. I had hated the water as a child, and instead of using the lessons in the lake to develop my skills, as my brother did, I would stay where it was shallow enough to stand and pretend to swim. Now the sins of my youth, like the young chicken, came home to roost. I tried to put myself in the best position to imitate swimming.

  Light suddenly poured in from above.

  “Fergins!”

  I looked up to see Davenport. The bookaneer, standing over me, looked confused, as though I had just woken him up. He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger as he glanced around.

  “Davenport!” I exclaimed, my voice sounding raspy, with a note of horror stuck in it. I had been rolling around madly on the floor.

  “Do you know—” He interrupted himself with a soft chuckle. “Do you know what you look like? Fergins”—more low laughter directed at me—“what are you doing?”

  “Swimming. Well, preparing to,” I said with as much dignity as possible.

  “Now you look like you’ve seen a ghost—or, no, that you are a ghost yourself. You know, those books you’ve given me suggest the Samoan people believe in a wide variety of ghosts and demons living around them at all times. It’s a fascinating way to view the world. That with each death, the world grows more populous.”

  He opened the shutter on the window and a little more light crept into the berth. The same chamber, I realized with a jolt, where I had poured champagne.

  “Wait a minute,” he went on, taking my spectacles from their case, which was on the table.

  “That is very kind, thank you, but . . .” I shook my head, dizzy and lost for words. “What happened?”

  “I found you on the edge of the stairs—facedown, Fergins. Quite worrisome.”

  “Davenport, we must act quickly. You are in danger. I believe I was poisoned!”

  He did not seem moved one way or the other. “Sedated.”

  “Do you mean . . . ? Please know I mean no offense by this question, Davenport, but do I understand correctly that you did this to me? You brought me to your berth and mixed some kind of drugs into the champagne?” He hadn’t even a sip from his own glass, I remembered.

  He appeared, if not offended, irritated by my statement. “This is your berth. I had arranged for it in advance with Ormond, the very fine old English skipper of this Colossus. Mine is just across the corridor. Smaller and less well appointed, but adequate.”

  “Why would you do it, Davenport?”

  “Let us take some fresh air to talk about it.”

  We went above and took some chairs up on the deck. Sailors occasionally passed on some errand in their uniforms, which were far less starchy than I remembered upon boarding. We were out at sea and the winds were strong and the snow-white sails full and magnificent. Davenport crossed his legs and looked over at me, as though he were back in the Garrick Club in ’71 waiting for my part of our first conversation.

  “Davenport!” I repeated. “Aren’t you even going to explain?”

  “I needed you to come with me to Samoa,” he said with his usual absence of emphasis, his hands crossed over his lap. “Think of the position I was in. You increasingly dislike long ocean voyages as you’ve gotten older. You grow nauseated and turn green. Even ten years ago your sea legs were wobbling. Remember the time you had to retrieve me from southern Italy and the schooner nearly capsized?”

  “I recall something about it.”

  “And I am not blind, my dear Fergins. I could see that your concerns about my mission flowed deeper than the treacherous passage, as you admitted. Would you have come with me halfway across the world this time?”

  “You never asked me.”

  “Oh, you would have readily agreed to it. Then, at the last moment, you would have confessed that you could not keep your resolve and would have apologized profusely before quickly disembarking and trying to take me with you.”

  “Not so.” I tried to stay strong in my protest even though my voice must have confessed that he was right.

  “Cheer up. You’ve passed the first day and a half of the voyage in tranquility and you shall be better able to manage because some of your senses will remain numbed for another few days.” He gestured up to the darkness gathering in the distance. Even the ocean looked black where an awning of clouds was sweeping in ahead. “Old Ormond says we are sailing into a storm, but then this far out at sea they are forever trading one storm for another.”

  “Why?”

  “I cannot say. Particles of vapor attracting each other.”

  “I mean: Why do you need me? Indeed, I have often felt myself no more than a nuisance when I have traveled with you. How in the world can I be of help to you in Samoa, of all places?”

  He leaned forward, seemingly giving this question more studious thought than the subject of my sedation. “At the start of July, when the new laws of copyright go into effect, my time as a bookaneer reaches an end. Well, there may be an odd job here or there, but mostly it will be finished except for the lowest scum of our profession, the barnacles who can hardly even be called bookaneers. We have not discussed that fated hour much, you and I, and I should just as soon keep it that way. Except for this: I want you to write a record of my last mission.”

  “A book?”

  “Heavens no! I should as soon be shot for adding to the world’s bloated library. When did it occur to people to start writing books about what they like for supper? Not for posterity’s sake either, as Bill was babbling on about. I do not give a whit for any of that. I simply want to remember what it was like. For myself, I mean. When I am old and forgetful.”

  “You wish me to chronicle what happens in Samoa, then? That is why I am here on this ship?”

  “Not just what happens this time. My history as a bookaneer. Perhaps some ruminations on the trade.”

  The proposal did not entirely surprise me. Davenport disliked talking about himself but really liked other people talking about him.

  “I have always wished you would discuss more openly . . .” I began. He glanced at me with a bored frown, impatient, as usual, for my answer. “It will be my honor, Davenport.”

  As our discussions went on through supper, somehow my hesitation to come on the mission—a pure hypothetical, given the fact that he had never asked—became painted as a grave error on my part, and I must have apologized three or four times for the inconvenience of his taking extreme measures. “Why, if I were you, I would have lashed my arms and legs to the mast,” I offered. Questions occurred to me at regular intervals. “Where are my notebooks?” “Do I have enough to dress myself in?” “What about my bookstall?”

  One of the trunks I had helped to carry onboard, it turned out, was filled with my belongings. As for the bookstall, Davenport, who had devised his plan to bring me several weeks earlier, had arranged for a temporary overseer, a mutual acquaintance called Frank Johnson.

  “Oh,” I said, “he is a reliable sort.” Johnson was a former doctor who had given up his original profession to enter the book trade and for years was a competitor to my original mentor, Stemmes. He was a good bookseller, an honest businessman, and a big, friendly man, if slightly supercilious. He often boasted that he was related to Dr. Samuel Johnson and would
only admit he was not if the other person knew enough to laugh at the ridiculous assertion. When I saw him, he would address me as “brother bookseller.”

  “He retired two years ago from the trade but has been terribly bored, so he will relish being surrounded by your books on a temporary basis. I made it clear I expect him to live up to your standards.”

  I could not help but feel flattered that Davenport, who could not be bothered to pay his hotel bills or eat a proper meal on most days, had made elaborate arrangements on my behalf. Being an associate of Pen Davenport, you alternated between wanting to run away and not being able to resist the chance to see what might happen next.

  • • •

  IT IS NO PLEASURE CRUISE, sailing aboard a man-of-war, but the luxury steamship companies are not in the business of sailing for distant lands known for headhunters and cannibals. Frigates had better accommodations than dirty, crowded merchant vessels, at least. When the gunships had berths to spare, passengers brought extra income to defray unforeseen costs, besides breaking up the monotony for the officers. The Colossus had been called to the South Pacific to the island nations where the British government had interests to protect and oversee, including the several islands that comprised the small nation of Samoa.