And then one night there was a terrible storm, with clamorous thunder and lightning brighter than the sun. The island creatures hid, for there was something out there they had not seen before — a structure of wood, with tall broken trees standing at its centre and enormous white wings flapping in the tempest. The thing rose and fell in the madly churning water. And from it came helpless cries, strangled by the wind and waves.
They understood the cries. And they were afraid.
Morning came, and with it the friendly sun shone on a beach made unfamiliar by a veil of wreckage. Tangled nets of seaweed, dead fish, a pulpy mass of octopus; tubes and ropes and the lid of a chest; a hat, a broken telescope, oranges and lemons. A Bible swirled face-down in the shallows, its cover two gilded fins, flapping. And something else: a tightly woven basket resembling the bottom half of a giant clam. From it came soft mewing sounds and a flutter of movement that enticed the apes from shelter. Slowly and fearfully they crept along the sand, still wary of hidden dangers.
The matriarch led them. Having lost her newborn two days previously, she was reckless with her own life. The tribe held back as she approached the object, then watched in amazement as she reached into it and brought out a small creature. Oddly hairless, it was yet remarkably like them: two round eyes on either side of the nose, lips sucking at the thumb on a clever primate hand. The creature seemed to recognize them too, giving the matriarch a toothless grin of welcome. Her lips curled in an answering smile as she placed the creature in her lap and began to search its head for lice.
In a few minutes, it was nursing contentedly at the matriarch’s breast. The other apes gathered around, stroking the baby’s cheeks with their long fingers; the young ones examined its toes, pale thighs, and dimpled knees and compared them to their own. Different yet the same, the way egrets differed from herons; it was not hard to understand. Though they had never seen another animal similar to themselves before, they could accept that such a thing might exist in this world of grace and abundance. For who knew what lay beyond their island? Water and sky stretched away infinitely in all directions and yet there were stories, passed on for generations, that their ancestors had come from another place, a place far away, and that one day the whole tribe would return to their home across the sea.
The child from the sea was a girl, so she was instructed in female ritual. Days had a steady rhythm: wake, forage for food, play, groom each other; nap, forage for food, play, groom each other. Each day was both like and unlike the others, for anything at all might happen: suddenly fruit was ripe and it was time for a feast; the next day they would all fast, mourning a young male poisoned by snakebite. She tried birds’ eggs for the first time and liked them; she tried turtles’ eggs and pronounced them foul. Crabs pinched, bees stung, butterflies tore apart in your curious hands, worms squished unpleasantly underfoot.
Mostly she was happy on her island home; mostly she fit in. Only one thing caused friction with the tribe and worry to her adoptive mother: the girl was fascinated by the ocean. She would spend hours wandering by herself up and down the shore, dancing in and out of the surf, making pretty patterns of shells on the beach, scooping out fistfuls of sand and letting the water fill up her excavations. She loved wading in to her waist and letting the waves break over her head. She held her breath, plunged under, then jumped back up laughing, spitting salt from her mouth, shaking a spray of diamonds from her hair, while the apes yelped and covered their eyes with trembling hands.
The apes were afraid of the water and stayed away from it. They warned the girl about the danger she was in, pointing out the litter of dead creatures that washed up daily on their beach. They even punished her for her disobedience, withholding the choicest fruits and making her sleep by herself. But nothing worked; the sea continued to tempt her. And then one day a large wave carried the youngster beyond her depth, and she discovered, to her joy and amazement, that she could swim.
Unnatural! Declared the apes. Land creatures walked, sea creatures swam, and winged creatures flew!
“But what about the turtles?” asked the girl. “They lay their eggs on the sand and then return to the sea. What about the frogs and lizards who move back and forth from one element to another? There are other beings who inhabit both worlds. And you told me that I came to you from the sea, so maybe that is where I really belong.”
The matriarch wept and scolded, but the girl was defiant. She spent more and more time alone, swimming along the shore, close enough to the island to come back in but far away enough to silence the disapproving voices of her tribe. Gradually the apes decided that she was mad and left her to her own devices — but, paradoxically, the less they opposed her, the more abandoned she felt. At least before she knew that, no matter how different she appeared, she was part of a family that cared about her. Now that they all seemed to agree that she didn’t belong, she was lonelier than ever.
One day she ventured out farther than she intended, later than she ought to have been in the water. The sun sank quickly in that part of the world, and soon it became too dark to see the pale rippling line where the breakers met the shore. She had lost all sense of direction and though she swam for hours, the island got no nearer. Too tired to go on, she decided to float on her back until she regained her strength. Maybe she could rest all night and wait for the sun to come up and show her the way home. The stars had never seemed so far away or given so little light. All around her was impenetrable sea and silence. She was utterly alone.
How long she floated, salt tears mingling with salt water, she did not know. But eventually she heard something. She flipped onto her belly and saw faintly, in the distance, a dark shape moving towards her. It was as big as a whale! But it was clearly not natural — fire flickered at regular intervals along its looming sides, and silhouetted against the flames were shadows that moved and talked.
She cried out as loudly as she could, and immediately there was an answering shout. Figures grouped together under one of the dancing fires, threw something large into the water, climbed down into it, splashed towards her. She was pulled into a vessel by strong arms, wrapped in soft thick fibres, given something harsh and burning to drink that warmed her up at once but made her feel sick and dizzy. Then she slept and knew no more.
When she woke, the sun was already high in the sky and the island was nowhere to be seen. All around her were strange beings with hair around their mouths and on their chins but none on their cheeks, appearing to be halfway between herself and her ape family. They walked upright and covered their bodies with substances of many colours. Fascinated, she stroked the arm of one creature in something vividly blue, the leg of another in brown skins; someone else had pebbles down his front that glittered like the sun. She poked one, wondering what it was. The creatures laughed at her, not scornfully but kindly, as though she were a baby, then offered her some of their bright coverings and helped her put them on. The coverings scratched so much that she discarded them at once. However, the creatures showed by signs and sounds of disapproval that she must put them back on again. So she did. For they were generous, continually giving her things to eat and drink, washing her face with warm water, patting her head comfortingly, and she could see that they meant her no harm.
Soon she understood that she was on something called a “ship”: an artificial island made of wood that moved from place to place, propelled by the wind and the unceasing labours of the people who had rescued her. These people came from a place called “Espagna” and they called her “Estrella” — Spanish for “star” — because they had found her shining white in the dark night. She was their changeling, their fairy child, their mermaid, their good luck charm. Because of her their voyage would be blessed. They were sure that they would sail home safely with their cargo and become rich beyond imagining.
The sailors tried to explain their way of life to her but she was not used to human speech and, though she learned quickly, their ideas were so strange to her that she often misunderstood them. But she
learned that though she was a “girl,” she must pretend to be a “boy” if she wanted to stay with her new family, because girls were not allowed on ships. This she could not understand, but then, they could not understand how she could have been happy living with apes all these years. To them, her family was made up of stupid “animals”; they had no notion of the generosity and grace of the apes’ way of life. She tried to explain to the sailors how similar it was to life on board the ship, how they all worked together, taking turns; how they all slept and ate communally. But they would hear of no such thing — indeed, the comparison was deeply offensive to them.
At last she stopped defending her former existence. Though she longed for the comfort of the matriarch’s arms and the sympathy of her gentle black eyes, though she missed her brothers and sisters, she doubted she would ever see them again. She had no idea how far she was from her island, nor how to get back there. So she adapted herself to her new family, dressed herself as a “boy,” and helped to run the “ship.” After all, it had been a long time since she had been happy at home; maybe she would fit in better here.
***
“ALTHOUGH YOUR ELOQUENCE MAY take in more gullible folk, I refuse to play the Jacques — that is, the fool — in your farce,” said Beauharnois, with a wry laugh which Varin immediately echoed.
The Governor General bared his yellow teeth at the girl, but she did not smile back. While telling her story she had seemed entranced — eyes hooded, watching pictures only she could see, her voice a low and melodious murmur, luring as a cello, comforting as water running over stones. As soon as she reached its conclusion, however, her confidence dissipated and she started chewing on her nails and shifting her weight from one foot to the other. This behaviour really did make her look somewhat ape-like, especially in combination with her tanned skin and thatch of thick dark hair.
“A few weeks in solitary confinement should persuade her to tell the truth, eh Hocquart?” he continued.
Tears filled the girl’s eyes at once. She dashed them away with the back of one grubby hand, but soon gave up and let them fall freely. Her demeanour was defeated but nothing about her signalled guilt, only a profound grief she was too tired to hide.
Hocquart demurred; prison would not be necessary. She was only a girl, after all. Besides, the commissary was sure to find out everything they needed to know through his
He had no doubt this was true. Jean-Victor Varin de La Marre was good at deciding who would be permitted to settle in the colony and who would not. He enjoyed the exercise of this power more than he should, and for that reason among others — his obsequiousness, his vanity — Hocquart did not trust him. Like many of the young men who flocked to the colony, Varin was consumed by the tapeworm of ambition. Which was why he would probably become rich one day, as
such men do, and retire to a vast estate in France, surrounded by sycophants as opportunistic as he once was. It was a source of great bitterness to Hocquart that few of the officials surrounding him shared his commitment to New France. Even Beauharnois, vain as he was of his status as Governor General, was prouder of his hereditary title as a marquis — a title that had cost him no effort and signalled no accomplishment. Indeed, his most significant achievement in that role had been to waste his family’s fortune.
“It was you who unmasked this minx, Varin?” Beauharnois asked. “I’m not surprised; I’ve heard that you have quite an eye for the ladies.”
Varin nodded his head, trying to hide the smile on his face. He flattered himself that he was known as a bit of a roué, though no one was more notorious in that regard than the Governor General himself. Beauharnois’s wife had not followed him across the ocean; it was common knowledge that they were estranged. Unencumbered by matrimony, he was free to seek the affections of every young — or not-soyoung — woman willing to barter her body for advancement. It was surprising how many of those there were, even in a place as notoriously underpopulated with females as New France.
Beauharnois turned back to the girl and scrutinized her. Usually he undressed women mentally, a process made the more stimulating by its arduous length: unpinning the front of the stomacher from the robe and then pulling off the robe, unlacing the stomacher behind and letting it drop to the floor, pulling the outer petticoat off, removing the ridiculous panniers and the stays, stripping away the modesty skirt, and then at last, blessedly, the chemise …
But today was different; today he entertained the opposite fantasy, picturing the girl in front of him naked and shivering in a corner of the prison, lying on a pile of straw, her wrists tied together with coarse rope, and then dressing her elaborately, layer after layer, the better to undress her again at his pleasure. A futile exercise. Even clothed in the richest gown he could imagine, all gold brocade and pearls, this one would not be attractive enough to tempt him. So he resumed the interrogation impatiently.
“Tell me who you are and what brings you to New France. The colony may need more women, but we do not need more layabouts and liars.”
“My name is Esther, Mon Seigneur,” she replied. “And as for why I came here …” She stopped and glanced up at Beauharnois for a moment in mute appeal. But he looked so disdainful that she turned to Hocquart instead.
“The world has so become much bigger. Explorers keep discovering more and more countries that we did not even know existed. I wanted to visit some of them for myself.”
“You disguised yourself as a boy in order to travel more freely?” Hocquart asked, fascinated.
“Yes, Mon Seigneur.”
“Have you forgotten that under my authority you are a prisoner of the King of France?” Beauharnois broke in. He took a couple of steps towards the girl, who shrank back even further, her body flat against the wall.
“How could I ever forget?” she whispered, almost inaudibly.
Beauharnois turned his back on her contemptuously and started looking for his cloak. “More important engagements await me; I will leave your fate to the Intendant here. Hocquart, be scrupulous in your investigation of this person.”
How dare Beauharnois condescend to him in his own house, and in front of that grinning social climber, Varin? It might be true that the palace of the Intendant was in the lower town while Beauharnois’s chateau — like the manoir of the chronically absent Bishop — flaunted itself on the heights above. Even in New France society remained stratified, and the landscape echoed that arrangement neatly. Still, Hocquart’s real power equalled that of his rival; indeed, one might say it exceeded that of the Governor General, which consisted mostly of representing the King by parading around looking grand.
Or so Hocquart told himself when, as was increasingly the case these days, the man’s arrogance became insupportable.
“Marie-Thérèse,” Hocquart called abruptly. His housekeeper, a wiry middle-aged woman with reddish hair pulled back tightly under a starched white cap, had clearly been eavesdropping outside the door, for she almost fell into the room. Recovering her balance she curtsied deeply, hiding the embarrassment Hocquart was too preoccupied to notice.
“Take this young woman to the servants’ quarters. You can give her that empty storage closet as a bedchamber.”
“Yes, Monsieur L’Intendant,” she replied, staring curiously at the girl whose eloquence had thrilled her. What a small person she was to have undergone such an extraordinary adventure!
“Keep an eye on her,” Beauharnois interjected. “Living with monkeys may have taught her all kinds of thievery.” With that he pinched Esther’s cheek, leaving a red mark that was swiftly absorbed by the flush that spread over her face and down her neck. Swirling his beaver-collared cloak about him, he gave an extravagant bow and swept from the room, Varin following like a well-trained spaniel.
THREE
“Quien no tiene su casa es vecino de todo el mundo.”
(A person who has no home is everybody’s neighbour.)
AS SOON AS VARIN closed the door behind him, the Intendant began coughing into his ha
ndkerchief. His asthma acted up whenever he was distressed — and he was extremely distressed. This situation was unprecedented. He had no idea what he ought to do with the strange creature who had washed up on his shore.
A lifelong bachelor and a career bureaucrat from the age of twelve, Gilles Hocquart had rarely been alone with a woman who wasn’t a servant lighting his fire or serving his silent meal. His mother had died when he was eight years old, giving birth to a younger sister who joined her shortly thereafter — the third in a series of lost infants. In their grief, Gilles and his father continued on quietly together without benefit of feminine companionship. It may have been that very lack of distraction which had made possible his steady progress through His Majesty’s Department of the Marine to the powerful position he now held.
Luckily, the housekeeper continued to hover at the edge of his vision, awaiting further instruction, so he would simply leave the problem of how to handle the girl up to her. Marie-Thérèse was indispensable. Foreign dignitaries were expected for dinner? A word in her ear and an elegant dinner appeared. A case of wine was required to thank an army captain who had calmed panicky mobs during the cholera epidemic? It was delivered to the man’s home that afternoon. A favourite book appeared to be missing from his library? Marie-Thérèse already knew exactly where he had left it, absent-mindedly, in another room, but had hesitated to replace it on the shelf until instructed to do so. The Intendant could not imagine functioning without her — indeed, could scarcely remember a time when he had.
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