The Last Bookaneer

by Matthew Pearl

  “I do not know. A confidence man! A Jeremy Diddler!”

  She replied after a thoughtful pause. “Did you not receive my letter in time to stop publication of the hideous thing being called a book?”

  “No, I suppose . . . No. A letter? I never received it,” he stammered and sputtered, turning red as a beet.

  She took both his hands in her own and turned his palms upward, stroking each with her thumb. “An odd thing—it is an odd thing. I have a messenger who swears he delivered it into these hands.”

  It is said by some he actually got on his knees and begged her mercy, but it hardly matters if that detail is true or fanciful. Rather than endure a lawsuit, he paid her an exorbitant sum and agreed to publish an announcement that A Tomb was a forgery.

  This French publisher, who died a few years later, his demise perhaps hastened by the cruelty of this episode, was said to be a very big, strong-limbed gentleman. The lady bringing him to his knees was barely five feet tall. Even I have not been able to confirm whether Davenport and Kitten, who of course presented herself as Mrs. Barnard (who really was under the ground, in an out-of-the-way burial yard outside Bath), had coordinated their efforts, or Davenport had made his move forging the document and Kitten made hers on top of it. In any case, the tale of their mutual success became one of the most renowned in the annals of the bookaneers, and, by many accounts, was the true beginning of their love affair.

  • • •

  THERE WAS an interesting development with our uninteresting and despicable fellow passenger, Hines. Once Davenport had humiliated him during our confrontation in the ship’s library, he was as docile as a lamb toward the bookaneer. I had been as kind as could be to the man—kinder with every barb and insult thrown my way—yet he still only scorned me, while Davenport had wrung his neck, figuratively speaking, and in doing so rendered him tame. More important, he continued to be a useful source of information about Samoa, however unpleasant his delivery.

  “You bachelors might look to pick a girl in Samoa to bring home and marry,” he said crassly to us, “if you wouldn’t mind your darling wife showing her bosom to every man she meets.”

  “Pardon me?” replied Davenport.

  The merchant’s face shook with laughter. “A joke, good fellow. I like to have some fun with new visitors. Those brown women on the islands never cover themselves up above the waist, you know. But they’re still embarrassed if you happen to see one of them without the little clothes they wear!”

  “How do you know that?” Davenport could not resist asking, stopping Hines’s laughter cold.

  “All I’m saying”—he screwed his face into a serious one—“is that they’re happy to have a white man to marry, so they don’t end up carrying their husband’s bloody, brown head home from a battlefield. Many whites marry the prettiest natives or half-castes they see when they’re in the South Seas. It’s all well and good to bring them back with you—just don’t bring a white woman to the islands. It is all too primitive; being in a place like that kills a civilized woman.”

  Another time, while playing euchre with the first officer and another passenger in the smoking parlor, the merchant chimed in, “It is important always to remember one thing about savages: they are far more frightened of us than we ought to be of them. Savvy? It will feel as though you are dealing with people who are deaf and dumb, or just beasts, but they can be persuaded to understand our ways. You probably heard the story of the gunboat Adler.”

  Davenport and I said we had not.

  “German warship,” continued Hines, leaning back on the cool wooden bench and stretching his legs out, though there was hardly room for all of us in the small space around the table. He was pleased to assume the role of expert. “The Germans sent it to anchor at the Samoan harbor of Apia to enforce their government’s preferences in the last battle for the rule of the islands three years ago, which was between two of its chieftains—Mataafa, who the natives had chosen as king, and Tamasese, the savage who had made a deal with the Germans to rule how they wished him to. Its guns pointed at the coast, there the hulking vessel waited to be defied. It could eradicate a whole village with a single shot. Then a hurricane ripped it from its spot and brought the ship down at the top of the reef where it remains—a complete wreck.”

  “Nature keeps to its own plans.”

  “And probably prevented war between the Americans and Germans. Listen closely—here is what is most remarkable. The natives formed lines of men to rush into the beating surf and try to save the lives of the German sailors who, only hours before, were prepared to fire on their villages. You see, the savages are simple and good fellows, on the whole, who bow down to the needs of the white men when it comes to it.”

  “What happened after the storm?” I asked.

  “The Germans kept their position having the most sway on the Samoan island. The consul ordered three more warships to take the Adler’s place, while the Americans and British each carry one of theirs at a time, like the Colossus, and bring them in and out as they see fit.”

  In addition to learning more about the current German stranglehold over the Samoan people, we picked up from the merchant and some of the experienced sailors a few useful Samoan words, adding to those we had gathered from the dry pages of our books. Davenport was also using the time to observe Hines and the other passengers and make certain none were there for the same reasons as we were.

  —Very sorry to interrupt.

  Pray interrupt when you like, for this tale is for you to hear, Mr. Clover, not me to tell.

  —Well, as I understood it, Mr. Fergins, by the time of your ocean passage, the laws on copyright were already set to change, isn’t that so?

  That’s right. The international copyright treaties were signed at Berne and the underground market for books was about to fall under the jurisdiction of courts in just a few months from the time I speak about, in the beginning of that July.

  —You said there were hardly any bookaneers remaining, since everyone knew the profession was doomed. Why would Mr. Davenport worry there would be another one in his midst without him knowing?

  Even in this extinction period for bookaneers, Davenport simply could not quash his suspicious nature. After all, he was pretending to have a purpose other than his real one, and so could the Australian, or anyone else we met up until the time Davenport held Stevenson’s novel in his hands. You wonder if he wouldn’t know another bookaneer by sight. True enough, in most cases. However, any person can be a bookaneer without even realizing it.

  So Davenport contrived a reason to suggest an invitation into the merchant’s berth, and after a few moments, he had taken the inventory he needed. Especially of the books (of which there were just three, two on etiquette and manners, and one called The Thorough Business Man), but also ancillary objects, with an eye toward any of the following: spyglasses, especially smaller ones that could be hidden in a pocket; professional pens, erasers, and other writing instruments that could be used to alter or forge manuscript pages; pens (or cuff links or buttons or similarly inconspicuous items) just slightly too large—by a few millimeters around—that were actually hollow hiding places for purloined papers (a bookaneer could fold a standard piece of paper to the size of a five-cent coin without damaging it); cords that could replace telegraph wires and appear to be operational but actually hinder communication. A bookaneer’s arsenal. This man did not have any of these.

  “You—bookworm,” Hines hailed me one evening at the captain’s table.

  “Did you say something, Hines?” His comments were so often rude or simply random this had become my first reply to anything he said.

  “You know me, busy enough with important ledgers and the rest, don’t have any more space in my brain for your fine books, friend,” he said, believing, I suppose, that saying the word friend would make me forget his abuse. “You in particular may have some trouble on the isla
nd.” A silk handkerchief, engraved with his full name, would often be drawn, readied for a sneeze or to dry his brow, only to be crumpled from one hand to the other and back, unused.

  “What do you mean, Hines? What kind of trouble?” I asked.

  “Books, friend! Savvy? You will have trouble finding books. They do not exist in Samoa.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The natives just tell their stories to each other, like chattering birds. As I understand it, they appoint certain men to be memorizers—legend keepers—who are in charge of remembering their race’s simplistic tales and passing them on. You might be interested to know that there is one white scribbler living on Upolu, though, up on a mountainside in Apia. R. L. Stevenson—you must have heard of the fellow.”

  “I heard a rumor about him sailing the South Seas,” said Davenport, knowing that ignorance would risk more attention than partial knowledge. “What’s a man like Mr. Stevenson doing in a place that has no books?”

  Hines hunched forward slightly. “Meddling.”

  The mystery had been building in our minds since first hearing Whiskey Bill’s description. Why had Stevenson left behind the rest of the world to remain on an island desolate of any trace of culture? I was burning to ask Hines more questions about what he knew of Stevenson’s life on the island, but Davenport wisely returned to his meal and I followed his example.

  Our lack of interest had its intended effect. Once he had attention, the merchant wanted to keep it. “Remember the map of Upolu I showed you in my stateroom?” he continued. “Stevenson has a large plot of land he calls Vailima, four hundred acres in all, where he has built quite an impressive mansion.”

  “What does it mean, Hines?” I asked. “The name of his property, I mean.”

  “‘Five streams.’ Stevenson’s place is high up, right at the edge of a volcano, with some waterfalls, and you can only see the place from out in the ocean. Anywhere else on the island, that vast property of his is invisible to the human eye. He is an island on an island.”

  The only other time Stevenson came up in conversation during the voyage was another occasion at the captain’s table, a meal with Captain Ormond present. Ormond was a hardened sailor who, when asked the date, would answer only, “Eighteen hundred and war.” Of course, dates and times meant little to men at sea who lived by latitude and wind direction, the reds of sunrise and oranges of sunset.

  “Stevenson, yes, then there’s Mr. Stevenson,” the captain of the Colossus said with apparent admiration. He had been talking about some of the earnest missionaries, the lazy beachcombers, and other white inhabitants to be found on the islands.

  Hines, who had been seasick and in a fouler-than-usual mood despite passive weather, grumbled to himself, then asked what the captain thought of the man.

  “Splendid! I never met him, though,” Ormond said, taking a smoke from his weathered clay pipe. “He was holed up in that plantation of his during the other times I have been stationed at the Apia port. Nor have I read but one or two of his stories and can’t say I remember those awfully well other than the fact that they were terribly entertaining.”

  “I must say though I do not pretend I could write a novel I would also never read one, and for the same reasons. But if you are not some rabid reader, Captain Ormond, then what is it about him that makes you smile like a child sucking on candy?” Hines asked irritably.

  Ormond’s admirable face and brittle lips became very serious, even macabre. He put his pipe down. “Because, Mr. Hines, maybe that is what it takes in these parts of the world. A man with a novelist’s romantic imagination, to save those islands from the dark times that the rest of us bring them.”

  Hines finished chewing and frowned. “Well, I’ve seen that odd scarecrow Stevenson from time to time riding on his ugly horse in Apia, with his even odder wife. How a man with arms that thin could even write books is a fact beyond my understanding.”

  • • •

  LAND!

  Fiction writers have employed their inventive powers to imagine life on other planets, with the strange beings living there among sometimes dreary, sometimes fantastic landscapes. These wordsmiths go to too much trouble. Visit the far reaches of our own earth and you will experience what it is to enter another world. From a distance the islands of the South Seas greet the eye with the most magnificent majesty. Then, steering closer, the land that hours earlier looked lush and dark green becomes rocky and frowning, before turning bright and colorful and welcoming again as you glide along the coast. Conflicting impressions rushed through me as we closed in on the Samoan islands, still small dots of color in the blue horizon. I felt bursts of excitement, of peace; of sanctuary, of peril; of familiarity, of mystery; of being home, of being as far from it as I could ever be.

  I asked one of the officers how we would know which island was Upolu. He said I would know it when I saw it.

  The staggering sun beat down on the shiny white decks. To my right, Davenport leaned far out over the railing, sending a few seabirds fluttering away. He was once again clean-shaven and looked ten years younger because of it. He was looking over the horizon when the islands came into view about eight miles out and gradually grew in size. He set a cigar between his teeth and tried to light one soggy match after another before giving up. Then he turned away.

  “Don’t you want to see the islands for yourself?” I asked, astonished that after nearly a month at sea he would have such fleeting interest. He had come above deck only a few minutes ago.

  “I just did,” he said, on his way back belowdecks. “Wake me when we get to port, Fergins,” he called back after me.

  To Davenport this apathy was an exercise in self-discipline. In order to concentrate on his mission alone he refused to play a part in the inevitable excitement of reaching a new shore, when every detail of whatever you can make out assumes the shape of a revelation. But I relished the moment, and could understand what the officer meant about knowing Upolu on sight. At the center of the island, a giant volcano jutted up to the heavens, with other mountain ranges spread across the rest of the island. It was unusual, beautiful, and rough. First we heard, then saw a silver waterfall crashing down from hundreds of feet above. There were four warships along the coast, one with American and three with German colors. As we glided closer, there could be seen the wrecked hulk of the German warship Hines had told us about, circled by loud gulls and swept over by a frustrated white surf avenging itself in rust. About one mile away, a pilot boat awaited us, bobbing up and down on the great foamy breakers, which is when I went to rouse the still-indifferent Davenport. After we laid anchor at the harbor, we were met by a fleet of long, narrow canoes, each occupied by one white man at the stern and muscular brown-skinned rowers lining the sides. More Samoans waited at the shore, holding up jewelry made of shells, as well as chickens and mats, presumably for sale or trade.

  Books comparing the various races of savages in the South Seas are filled with praise for the Samoans. They tend to be as tall as Europeans, their skin a combination of red and brown that is less jarring to the eye of certain whites than the midnight black skin and wild, frizzy hair of the inhabitants of some nearby islands. Native Samoans often wear mustaches but consider smooth chins cultivated. The peculiar tattoos that cover much of the skin of both sexes suggest the appearance of being fully clothed even though they never are. The sight of the native women with uncovered breasts was shocking not only to me, but even to my much more cosmopolitan companion. Still, the fact that Samoans are not cannibals tends to curry great favor with foreigners. Even putting aside not eating us, they are among the friendliest people you could meet. Their smiles are sincere, their eyes open and honest, their attitudes light and well-meaning.

  One of the first things I noticed as we moved closer was that the natural colors on the island were almost impossibly varied, sparkling and bold, starting with the fish rushing away from our path beneat
h our canoe. The natives were wrapped in a multitude of colors, too, with wildflowers and cloths, and their smooth skin shimmering in the sun with tattoos, sweat, ocean water, and coconut oil. The air was clean and thin, with a mixed floral scent that was strong everywhere.

  After climbing a ladder down the side of the frigate, Davenport and I joined a few other passengers in one of the canoes. The white man in our craft introduced himself as representing the English consulate. As Hines had informed us, the capital of Apia, situated at the harbor, had been gobbled up and divided over the years among the three foreign powers—Great Britain, America, and Germany—arranged in proximity to their respective consulates and array of warships. There were also churches of several denominations, from which the missionaries operated. This busy area was called “the beach,” and that was where all white settlers and visitors congregated for their safety. Only a fool would think to lodge elsewhere. We were fools, but I did not know it yet.

  I have stood in a full suit in the sultry climate of Castile watching where a government censor was carrying a crate of books while awaiting Davenport’s instructions; have lined my hat with writing paper to deflect the sun of Siena in the middle of August, while wearing a long black cloak to conceal a smuggled fourteenth-century book. But tropical heat is oppressive in a unique way. It consumes you entirely. It seems to enter the skin and eyes, to crawl under the hair and nails; it becomes part of you and takes your breath. I’d learn there are only two Samoan seasons: hot and dry, and hot and rainy.

  The Englishman wore what we would discover was the typical uniform of white men in the South Seas, which was a thin suit of white linen and a large straw hat. He was a pleasant, gray-haired man whose skin had become a faint bronze from the tropical sun. Mine, as bad luck would have it, would turn splotchy and itchy during our time on the island. The consul passed the back of his hand across his brow, as though he were the one doing the rowing rather than the natives, who sang—or chanted—as they pulled us toward the shore. “Apologies for the heat; can’t do much for it but bathe and drink ’ava—that is like their wine. The brown folk like sun, anyway.”