The Last Bookaneer

by Matthew Pearl

  “My understanding was that there are no foreign powers here,” I said. “I thought that is what you made their constitution to prevent.”

  “The frigate belongs to no foreign nation.”

  “Then who?”

  “Me!” he exclaimed.

  I tried to assess whether this was one of his little jokes. “You are serious, Mr. Fergins.”

  “Indeed. This was the German ship wrecked at Apia years ago in a hurricane. Since the Germans did not want to spend money to repair it, I convinced the King of Tonga to negotiate for us to tow it in and work on it. We still have some final repairs to make, but we are getting closer.”

  “What will you do with a warship?”

  “Well,” he said, seeming to think hard, “nothing personally. But one never knows what you will need to protect your own property. Come, we’ll walk through the village.”

  We passed a massive stone formation, with twenty- or thirty-foot slabs covered in moss and creepers placed perpendicularly on top of pillars of similar sizes. What they meant, and how they were placed that way, explained my host, the modern generation of natives could not say. I followed as we climbed up a steep path, through a dusty hamlet of small huts and one larger, a wooden church painted white. I was still overflowing with questions from the day before.

  “Can you tell me what happened to Vao?” I asked.

  “Only what I’ve heard. That she eventually married a great warrior of a nearby village and dedicated herself to the local wars against the king and his German allies who had ordered her village burned.”

  “I had the impression that you had fallen in love with her when she helped you after your release from the jail.”

  He paused for a moment, shaking his soft, silky beard of the last few drops of water while he looked me over. “Me? Do not be ridiculous! I have told you my life before this was about books; my heart and head were stacked with them from floor to ceiling. There was no room for love. Vao was a dear girl but never the same after her misbegotten liaison with Davenport. After her quest for vengeance against Belial, I think the darker matters consumed her, and that beautiful young girl, the girl who had loved Tulagi so desperately, was gone forever.”

  It seemed to me he had misjudged the native girl entirely, that she had not been corrupted out of some state of purity, but had long been enveloped in grief for her father, waiting for her first opportunity to break free to fight the injustices, and might have felt an understanding from Davenport from his own grief over not saving Kitten. It made me wonder what else he might have understood incorrectly, and what I might have learned if I could have heard the same story from the lips of Vao herself, or from Davenport or even Belial.

  He continued, ready to move on. “Here is what I am very excited for you to see.”

  As we came out of the bush into the beating sun, I heard a strange murmur, as though a thousand butterflies and flowers around us whispered a secret into the air at the same moment. There beyond a field stood a massive house, four times the size of the building where I had spent the night, with giant windows and long verandahs running on the upper and lower levels. It was like another Vailima. Such an unexpected place to encounter on this tiny, forsaken island.

  Two natives escorted us inside. I was so distracted I only vaguely noticed that the helpful pair of men were extreme opposites: one tiny, the other nearly a giant. The first man was hardly the size of one of the other’s legs. The house—if that is what it was—was built on an elevation and commanded remarkable views of the ocean breaking against the borders of the islands nearby. The interior of the palace, painted yellow and white, was filled with long tables with a peculiar variety of men and women sitting and reading books—dwarves, hunchbacks, old men and women with elephantiasis in a limb or severe trembling in a hand, one-eyed men, a young lady with a cleft palate, persons with limbs too long or too short. They were all natives, but the tints of their skin suggested they were assembled from a range of island populations rather than a single race. Those who were not seated were making their way from one part of the place to another. Occasionally one of these occupants would pass by us, whispering to themselves. I recognized some lines being spoken from books I had read—The Odyssey, Gulliver’s Travels, a passage from an adventure tale by Dumas, even something from Stevenson himself. Each speaker bowed their heads at Mr. Fergins, keeping their eyes averted. The cacophony of whispers drifted through the house and, added to the heat and the jolt of recent revelations, left me dizzy.

  “What on earth is going on in this place, Mr. Fergins? Have you made yourself some kind of despot?”

  “Poor Tulagi. He was the hero in all this, Mr. Clover—a guardian angel of all that is worth protection. These dwarves—along with hunchbacks and the others you see who have come together here—are considered useless in society on these islands because they cannot partake in battle and other ordinary obligations, but I have recruited them all for a great endeavor. They work hard to prove they are capable since others no longer believe they are, or never believed it.”

  I wiped the perspiration from my head and eyes. “What endeavor are you talking about, and whose palace is this?”

  “Isn’t it marvelous? I ordered it erected!” His wolflike laugh flickered again. “As I say, the King of Tonga has been very grateful for all my assistance. I came back, Mr. Clover, because these South Sea islands may be the last place in the world where books have yet to exist. Do you see now? We can start anew with all of it. This time, we can do better. So much better.”

  I could hardly fathom what he was prattling on about. He did not seem to require a response though, and continued as we passed through an arch onto a grand staircase.

  “Think of what you are witnessing here, Mr. Clover. I am creating a true Republic of Letters, a living Library of Alexandria! When I heard Vao speak English so perfectly, I realized in that moment that the natives of these islands were sponges, ready to soak in alien languages and knowledge on a vast scale—and in a purer way than we ever can—just as they had done with our religions, believing in them with directness and simplicity. Books are only as strong and as weak as pieces of paper, ready to be engulfed by all the elements around us. They are bound to disappear into dust. But people—well, you will recall how I was so struck by Tulagi, that little man carrying around the history of his islands on his sturdy shoulders like Atlas taking the world upon his back. That is what gave me the first germ of my idea. Here, I use the money provided by the Tongan government to train natives from dozens of South Sea islands in all the world’s civilized languages, and then each one memorizes one of the great books. Fortunately, the churches here and at many other islands have already taught English to some of the natives, and made them familiar, generally, with higher sorts of morals.”

  We walked through another reading room, filled with carpets and silk hangings. My guide paused to lean in and listen to a younger man, missing one arm, reading aloud the moment in the tale of Sir Gawain when the green knight calls on Gawain to cut off his head. The bookseller, delighted, gestured for me to listen.

  Gawain gripped his axe and raised it on high, the left foot he set forward on the floor, and let the blow fall lightly on the bare neck.

  I pulled Mr. Fergins aside. “Where did these books come from? I thought there were hardly any to be found in this part of the world.”

  “I had my collection transported here,” he replied, then showed a moment’s hesitation. “Come with me, if you wish. I’ll show you.”

  He led me to another staircase, from which we returned down below. There seemed to be two types of people inhabiting this mansion, the memorizers and the servants. Though it was difficult to tell them apart, since they were all South Sea natives of one kind or another and they all bowed and, it seemed to me, very nearly wept to encounter Mr. Fergins in the flesh. I continued to feel light-headed and had to steady myself at several points as we climbed
through a hatch and down a ladder into a kind of basement story, which was supported by huge pillars of stone.

  “Don’t you see what you are doing here?” I asked as we descended. “I don’t think you do. These people you have gathered together are outcasts. That’s what they are. You have taken vagabonds and outcasts who are desperate for something more than what they are offered by their people, and you tempt them with the promise that these stories—stories that are not even their own—will make them ascend into a life of meaning, a life of happiness.”

  He thought about this and then gave a low whistle. “Why, Mr. Clover, that is a remarkable formulation. Yes. I must remember that. Promise that stories will make them ascend into a life of meaning. That is exactly what literature has done from the beginning of time!”

  Behind a heavy door was a kind of library that was more like a dungeon. The floor was slippery, the walls slimy. The air seemed to have a film of dust in it. There were books everywhere.

  “There,” said Mr. Fergins.

  “Why, you’ve practically buried them down here.”

  He nodded thoughtfully, pushing his spectacles up his nose until they seemed to stick to his face. But he seemed unwilling to look directly at his once-beloved volumes. “I’m afraid there is no choice but to store them away, for each memorizer must be restricted to a single book, in order to maintain their knowledge of it, and the temptation to find more books from my library would be too great.”

  “You’ve gone mad. This is mad. These books will shrivel away in this crypt. It is too humid. You might as well burn them!”

  He gasped. “I would never do that, Mr. Clover.” He ran a finger gently across the spines of the books.

  “I won’t allow it,” I cried out. I began to grab books from the shelves. Soon I was cradling a large pile of them, some of them practically disintegrating in my arms. “I will take them back myself—back where they belong.”

  He picked up a bell and rang it.

  “Call for your giants and criminals, and whomever you have tricked into being here, Mr. Fergins. I am taking these with me.” But my fanciful rescue stopped as my head felt lighter and my vision blurred.

  I could hear the former bookseller whistle for help and a moment later I was being carried away. I let my eyes creep closed. When I opened them again, I was inside a room propped up on some pillows on a sofa. Across from me, there was a young girl with cocoa-colored skin and big eyes, fanning me with a large feather. Her hair was twisted up above her head and my eyes were drawn to the brightly colored seashells that formed a rainbow from one ear to the other.

  “Methought a serpent eat my heart away, and you sat smiling at his cruel prey.”

  The words sent a chilling sensation through me and made me blush, then I shook off my dizzy spell, remembering reading those same words in one of Shakespeare’s sonnets. As I tried to regain my strength, I looked around. There were the usual woven mats on the floor, a stone washing stand, a glazed bookcase.

  Mr. Fergins came inside the room and I satisfied him that I was not going to faint again.

  He said, gravely, “Milton said that to kill a man is to kill a reasonable creature, but to destroy a book is to kill reason itself.”

  “Then why condemn books to that dungeon?” My voice was hoarse and trembling.

  “To clear the way. Think of it like this: we will usher in a new age, free of all the shadows that have fallen on literature in the past. Call me quixotic, but this will revolutionize the literary inheritance we leave behind. These islands will be the New World for literature—an Eden of stories. Pilgrims will travel from all corners of the globe to this spot right here, to bask in a living literature, to witness what we have created. One day, I foresee new authors coming here; they will fill these empty halls and occupy these islands and tell their stories to my growing army. Sixty years ago, Emerson tried to make a utopia of storytellers in Concord, but man’s natural selfishness ruined it. Not this time. We are not condemning the books; we are releasing them from their dead skin. No need for the likes of publishers or dealers or lawyers or censors or bookaneers as in the prehistoric era of books—just living, breathing, walking stories free to grow and prosper.”

  “The natives in this house will not live forever.”

  “Each memorizer will pass on his or her book to another memorizer, who will in turn do the same. Those who hear a story from the lips of one of my memorizers will never forget, just as I did not forget poor Tulagi’s words that, unconsciously, became part of me. Oh, the once-great Library of Alexandria burnt to the ground, but the human soul will live on.”

  I was frozen in astonishment as he gesticulated joyfully and broke into his howling laughs now and again.

  “Ah, here we are. Thank you.”

  Another native girl, as pretty as the first, came in with an open coconut shell, filled with a strong-smelling liquid inside it. “Fa’amoemoeopu,” she bashfully greeted Mr. Fergins, then turned and held her coconut bowl out to me. The brew was bright green.

  “Our own version of the ’ava they have in Samoa,” said Mr. Fergins cheerfully. “Have you had any before? This will make you feel all better, by and by, Mr. Clover.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Why don’t you stay?”

  “Another night here?”

  “That is not what I mean. Not just a night.”

  I looked over the room again—the washing stand, the pile of mats—this was a bedroom. It was to be my room. I turned again to the glazed case and this time noticed there was a single book inside, the glass too cloudy to make out any identifying marks on the book, showing only the reflection of my own sorrow-stricken face.

  “There’s plenty of room here, my friend. You would be very comfortable, would never want for anything. I have received letters from people around the world who have heard rumors about what is happening and beg to join us. But the composition must be just right. Yes, you must stay. It is decided.”

  The eyes of both beauties remained fixed on me. The two natives who had carried me, a blur of feathers, tattoos, hatchets, and rifles, stood in the far corners of the room, also seeming to await my answer. Mr. Fergins perched on his chair, his smile wide, watching as he waited—waited for me to drink, answer, join.

  I looked down at the mucusy brew, which was bubbling over the coconut shell and dripping in warm strands down my fingers. I shivered, thinking of how I slept the previous night, after my meal, as though I was never going to wake again.

  Mr. Fergins began to move his right hand and I thought he might take me by the shoulder to try to convince me. But instead he held his hand high. “Repeat after me, if you please. I am the keeper of the story—”

  “I am awfully sorry, Fa’amoemoeopu,” I stopped him. “But I cannot stay here now. I am signed on to help with this voyage once our ship finishes repairs. I cannot leave the other men shorthanded. I will come back when it is completed.”

  “You always were a good and honest soul,” Mr. Fergins said. “Very well. Promise you will return?”

  “I promise,” I said, carefully placing down the shell and rising to my feet.

  After he arranged for my departure, he bid me farewell at the shore with talks of our next reunion, his eyes becoming moist again. I don’t doubt I left that speck of earth not a moment too soon.

  I sailed far away, and when that ship ran its course, I joined another, and sailed again, all the while telling myself to forget my encounter with the last bookaneer.

  Before the canoe had pushed off from the shore of Mr. Fergins’s island to take me to Mangaia, I had been prepared to ask one last thing. I wanted to know why he never said good-bye to me before he left New York City. With this childish question forming on my tongue, I realized that, more than anything else, this was what I had wanted to know all along. If he had said good-bye, had written me a simple card once he’d arrived in London, I
might have put aside the story he had told instead of dwelling on its mysteries for all these years. But as I phrased that final question to myself, it sounded pathetic and wistful, and I could not speak. In New York, Mr. Fergins had seen me for my interest in reading instead of the color of my skin, and at that time in my life I would have followed him to the end of the world. Now he had brought me there.

  I never heard anything about Edgar Fergins again and, even though I endured a number of passages through the South Seas over my years at the mast and later as a captain, I would never return to that island colony to see what became of him. I have presumed he died years ago, orphaning that ragtag settlement. But, for all I know, he remains there, a little ancient man amassing hunchbacks from exotic islands and dreaming of a living state of literature. Sometimes, in my nightmares, I see myself trapped among them in that palace, babbling to myself for eternity, like a man hypnotized.

  Today, I am still the reader I was in my youth. Every book I pick up, I pause to wonder whether it was the one behind the glass, the one intended to transform me. I also wonder about other things. Whether his tropical experiment really was the result of a sort of madness that had seized him, or whether it was the rational end of a man with a passion for stories who refused to feel his soul disappear with the end of his calling. I think of Don Vincente, the Spanish bookseller who stalked and killed his customers. He could not bear a life apart from his books, and Mr. Fergins could not die before seeing his own books come to life.

  But I try not to think of how I saw him last. It makes me feel too great a loss. I like to think of him with both his hands clamped on one of mine in the giant train shed in New York, just after I’d help him down with his green cart filled with colorful books of all sizes, being careful not to rattle the cargo.

  THE END.

  THE STORY BEHIND THE LAST BOOKANEER