Landfalls

by Naomi J. Williams

  “We are so honored by your presence,” he began.

  He had practiced the speech with care, and the words came easily—too easily, perhaps, for his mind wandered. He asked his guests’ indulgence for what was bound to be a rougher and simpler meal than they were accustomed to and thanked them for their openness and generosity to him and all of his men. But he was distracted by the realization that Eleonora had been seated next to him. His remarks concluded with a glass raised to the House of Bourbon, toasting the health and long reigns of the most Christian kings of France and Spain. Hearty applause followed. He signaled for the first course to be served and sat down, and instantly felt his more diffuse awareness collapse into a single point, with the very physical and arresting sensation of Eleonora’s fan touching his right leg.

  Did she—could she—know what she was doing? Lapérouse all but inhaled his onion soup, hardly able to regard O’Higgins, who waxed enthusiastic about the soup’s velvet texture, its fine balance of sharp and mild flavors. Langle got up to say a few words himself, and the fan shifted downward, closer to the knee. It disappeared during the applause for Langle, and he had almost forgotten about it when it suddenly returned, brushing against his hip, distracting him from the fish course. The stuffed pheasant required both hands to enjoy, and then the fan lay on the table between them like a paper and ivory border. But after eating a decorous quantity of the dish and not one bite more, Eleonora flicked open the fan and waved it before herself a few times before shutting it and letting her hand dip once more below the table. Lapérouse braced himself for the touch, but it did not come, and now he was as distracted by the lack of sensation as he had been earlier by its errant presence.

  He had to stop this, he told himself. It was all imagination—it had always only been imagination. Here she was now, deep in conversation with Langle, who sat across from her. They were discussing the windmills and ovens he had devised for the frigates. “Do you mean you have had fresh bread on board all these months at sea?” she asked, her face alive with admiration. “Your crew, they are very fortunate men.” Langle looked down, embarrassed, pleased by her interest. See, Lapérouse told himself, she has this effect on everyone. He shifted himself a bit to the right, the better to attend to O’Higgins, who was saying something about their deserters.

  “They have hidden themselves well, your runaways. I sent some soldiers to the typical haunts of sailors, and they are not there.”

  “I hope you will not expend too much time and effort to find them,” Lapérouse said, then seeing that Langle was listening, added, “But we are most grateful for your help on this, as on so much else during our stay.”

  “Governor,” Langle said, “what would happen to two foreign sailors who are discovered only after their ship has sailed away?”

  “We take them into the army to fight the Araucanians,” he said.

  “Why, Monsieur de Langle,” Lapérouse said, leaning over to refill his friend’s wineglass, “I believe we may have found a way to allow our men their time ashore while guaranteeing their return.”

  Langle nodded in agreement, but there was no relief in his face. He turned toward O’Higgins again. “But you are now at peace with the Indians.”

  “For now,” O’Higgins said. He went on to explain all the ways in which their current truce might fail, but Lapérouse hardly attended, for he felt it again, on his thigh, only this time he could not be sure it was a fan. The pressure was warmer, firmer.

  He pushed back from the table. “Forgive me, Governor,” he said. “I’m anxious to know how preparations for the evening’s entertainment are coming along. Will you excuse me for a few minutes? Monsieur de Langle, I’m going to check on Monneron.”

  Langle looked up with mild surprise. “I can go if you wish.”

  Lapérouse shook his head. “I’ll only be a moment.” He turned back to his right. “Doña Eleonora, will you excuse me?”

  She nodded, smiling—the same winning smile she wore every time they spoke, and that she had offered Langle just moments before. He bowed hastily to their other guests and ducked out of the dining tent, face burning.

  He headed toward the water and ran along the shore, not from any real urgency so much as a simple desire to exert himself. Climbing the rise they had designated for the viewing area, he looked down toward a clearing where six men stood conferring over what looked like a pile of collapsed sails atop four barrels. A long rope lay coiled on the ground beside each barrel.

  “Monneron!” he called down. “How goes it?”

  Monneron looked up, putting a hand to his forehead against the glare. “Is that you, Commander?” he said. “We’re ready, sir. The wind is picking up; we shouldn’t wait much longer.”

  “Agreed. Do you have the men you need to manage the ropes?”

  Monneron nodded, indicating the four sturdy crewmen around him.

  “And the fireworks?”

  The engineer pointed to the collection of longboats and small boats making their way out into the bay. “As soon as it’s dark enough, sir.”

  “And the salvo from the frigates?”

  Monneron drew out his telescope and handed it up to Lapérouse. “Monsieur Broudou is on the quarterdeck, watching for our signal.”

  Lapérouse put the glass to his eye and scanned the deck of the Boussole. Indeed, there was Frédéric, looking back at him through his own glass. His brother-in-law had been so dogged and faithful in his efforts since his onboard incarceration that Lapérouse had left him second-in-charge for the evening, under Lieutenant Colinet, and had already decided to allow him off of the frigate the following evening for the all-hands dinner. They stared at each other across the distance, then Frédéric raised a hand in greeting. By instinct Lapérouse did the same, but felt suddenly ridiculous, as if they were two boys signaling each other in a game of pirates. He handed the glass back to Monneron.

  “I trust the signal wasn’t for him to wave and for me to wave back,” Lapérouse said.

  “No, sir,” Monneron assured him.

  Lapérouse looked about, feeling superfluous. “Have you eaten?” he asked. “The pheasant is quite delicious.”

  Monneron smiled up at Lapérouse with something like brotherly indulgence. “Sir, we’re fine. Everything is in readiness here. We just need you and your guests to finish dinner and make your way out here.”

  “Yes, of course.” So that was that. Everything fine, competent men exercising their competence. He should return to the tent, to his guests, to Langle, who for all his urbanity was diffident around people he did not know well. And to the young woman who might or might not have been teasing him under the table with her fan.

  Back in the tent, Lamanon was addressing the assembly in Spanish. His admirers from the Basque Society, most of them seated around him, listened with great and approving attention, but some of the others in the room were looking down intently at the crumbs left from their fig tarts, and O’Higgins and the other military officers sat stone-faced. Lapérouse shot a glance at Langle, who looked back with a raised eyebrow and a slight shrug. What was Lamanon saying?

  Lapérouse hurried back to his place and clinked his glass. “Monsieur de Lamanon will excuse my interruption,” he said, “as it is a matter of science to which I now wish to draw your attention.” Lamanon stood still, cocked his head to listen, then sat down in his place without turning to acknowledge Lapérouse. “If you will all follow me outside.”

  There was a sudden hubbub of voices, of benches being pushed back and the rustling of skirts, and Lapérouse was afraid he might have unleashed a stampede for the exits, but O’Higgins stood up with quiet dignity and the commotion instantly died down. O’Higgins then nodded to Lapérouse, and they led the way out together.

  “Governor, I am almost afraid to ask what Monsieur de Lamanon was saying when I returned,” Lapérouse said as they walked out toward the viewing area.

  O’Higgins waved a hand in generous dismissal. “He predicts independence for Chile within t
wenty-five years.”

  “Good God.” Lapérouse shook his head. “My apologies, sir. He is a brilliant man, but can become carried away by his own ideas.”

  “You should keep a careful watch on him, Count.”

  Lapérouse smiled. “I won’t deny he’s proved a thorn in my side,” he said, “but he’s harmless enough.”

  They had reached the viewing area, and Lapérouse offered O’Higgins one of the seats set up for dignitaries and ladies. O’Higgins nodded, then said before sitting down: “Do not underestimate men of ideas, Monsieur de Lapérouse. I fear you and your countrymen may be too open to men like Lamanon. My adopted country has sometimes taken its fear of new ideas too far, of course, but I will say that Spaniards understand that ideas can lead to actions, and actions to consequences one cannot always foresee.”

  Lapérouse did not know whether to feel grateful or put upon by O’Higgins’s paternal tone. “Thank you, Governor,” he said.

  Eleonora made her way into the viewing area, saw her husband settled comfortably onto a seat, and declined the seat offered to her. “I hope it will not be indecorous of me to stand,” she said. “I have been sitting all day.”

  “Not at all, Doña Eleonora.” He watched her hands as they fiddled with her fan and with the light wool mantilla she wore against the evening chill.

  As the other guests filed into the space, everyone pressed forward, craning their necks to see the area below them, where Monneron and his men continued to stand watch over the barrels, the ropes, and the piled-up fabric. After two weeks in Chile, he had picked up just enough Spanish to understand some of the chatter around him: “What could it be?” people were asking each other. “I can’t see anything,” one woman said, and a man replied, “There’s nothing to see.” Eleonora turned to Lapérouse with a grin, as if to say, See, I did not tell a soul. But her expression seemed more pointed than that; he read reproof in it: See, I would have been very discreet. The crowd surged again and Eleonora was edged over till she was directly before him, so close he could smell her—the warm felt smell of her hat, and, below that, a sweeter fragrance—jasmine, maybe—mixed with sweat. His wife had always smelled very clean; if she wore scent at all it was a dab at the throat, a mild fragrance of—was it orange blossoms? He could not quite remember.

  An inexpert but effective fanfare of horns and drums quieted the crowd, then Monneron lit a brazier of wet straw, and a plume of black smoke rose into the sky—the signal to Frédéric, apparently, for the frigates’ cannons fired. The assembly saw the flashes from the salvo before they felt it, but then it came, rolling up from the frigates like thunder, rumbling through their bodies as the bay filled with smoke. Eleonora gave a small shriek and started, losing her hat. Lapérouse caught the hat, then reached out to steady her, one hand landing on a hip and the other grabbing a shoulder. She pulled away, flustered, then straightened her back and stood upright through what remained of the salute, not covering her ears or cowering against the noise, as many of the other ladies did, but watching with head raised, allowing each onslaught of noise and vibration to wash over her unchecked.

  The sound and smoke dissipated, and Lapérouse took a slow, deep breath, feeling as if he had just come through a naval action. He had experienced only a few battles of much consequence, but afterward he had felt exactly like this—liberated, scoured clean, his sight clearer than before. He had thought it due to the shocking brutality of warfare followed by the surprise and relief of surviving when others had not. But now he wondered if it was partly an effect of gunpowder itself—its acrid smell, its deafening noise, its concussive power. He was grateful for the salvo; somehow the release of all that raw energy and tension dispelled the turbulence in his own mind.

  She was so young, after all—young enough to have bony shoulders and hips, to shriek when cannons went off, to flirt with a ship captain at dinner. The realization felt like a return to sanity, and in a moment he could divine the hours and days just ahead: the spectacle, hopefully successful, followed by a makeshift ball on the beach with such musicians as they had at their disposal. He would dance with her. Afterward, he would meaningfully press her hand and look into her eyes before delivering her to her husband. The evening would end with fireworks. Then the colonists would mount their horses and climb into their carriages and, like so many Cinderellas, return to their homes. Tears would be shed. Goodbyes and good nights would be shouted until they could no longer see or hear each other. And then his attention would return, finally and completely, to the expedition. To the dinner with his men tomorrow. To their promised day off. To seeing them all back on board, and then the departure. He felt enormous—what was that word Langle had used?—optimism, that was it. He could not wait to resume the voyage. The best parts of the expedition were yet to come. He returned the hat to Eleonora with a nod, then drew himself up as best he could in the press of people and addressed the crowd once more.

  “We promised a French spectacle to follow the French dinner,” he cried. “This evening, our chief engineer, Monsieur de Monneron, and his worthy assistants”—he motioned down the hill toward Monneron and his men—“will attempt to re-create for you a demonstration made in 1783 before the king and queen of France. Some of you may be aware of the experiments conducted by the Montgolfier brothers.” There was a gasp of recognition from some in the assembly. “From the courtyards of Versailles to the shores of Chile, we offer you—flight.”

  Lapérouse nodded to Monneron and felt the crowd lean into him as Monneron bent down and lit a grate set on the ground between the barrels. At first there was nothing to see except for the backsides of Monneron and another crewman as they tended to an invisible fire. Then white smoke appeared, curling out from under the pile. Lapérouse held his breath, forgetting even Eleonora’s beguiling nearness, so anxious was he for the spectacle not to fail. After what seemed an interminable time, but must only have been a minute or two, there was a slight movement in the pile, as if something were inside and trying to come free, and then more movement, the pile growing larger over the fire, lifting itself. Now the uninitiated were gasping also, as the object took shape before them: a hot-air balloon. Made of tissue paper affixed to a double, inner layer of cloth, it was painted to resemble the Montgolfiers’ famous balloon, sky blue and ringed with gold scrolling, fleurs-de-lis, eagles, and sun faces. Duché de Vancy and his team of painters had done a marvelous job.

  The balloon filled with the heated air, rising until it was as high as a house, then higher, as high as five grown men one on top of the other, and still it expanded, until it was nearly as wide as it was tall. Then it lifted clear of the barrels, and the four men assigned to control it took hold of the ropes, grunting and shouting—“More rope there!” “Steady!” “Watch the fire!”—and holding it in place so it could fill completely. Then at a signal from Monneron, they let go of their ropes in concert, and the paper and cloth dome soared into the sky. Great roars of approval came, not just from their amazed guests, but from the commoners on the beach, and then, like an echo, from the men waiting to discharge the fireworks in the longboats and those watching from the decks of the Boussole and the Astrolabe. The balloon traveled straight up at first, then caught a breeze from the ocean and began to drift inland, still climbing, climbing, till it was a bright blue dot against the darkening eastern sky.

  “What will happen to it?” Eleonora asked.

  Lapérouse turned to look at her. Her eyes were very bright. “What do you mean, Doña Eleonora?”

  “Will it keep climbing into the sky? Forever?”

  “No,” Lapérouse said, turning back to look at the disappearing spectacle. It took him a moment to find it—shocking, how much smaller it had grown in just a few seconds. “No,” he repeated. “The air inside will gradually cool, or escape, and it will float back to earth. Sometimes they come down in one piece; but as often as not they are torn apart by winds, or snagged in high trees, or crash into mountainsides and are wrecked.”

  She nodded grav
ely. “So it will not come back.”

  “No,” he said. “It will never come back.”

  Then, heeding the reedy call of strings and woodwinds played in the open, he offered her his arm and led the assembly down to the beach, where an area had been swept clear for their dancing pleasure.

  FOUR

  SNOW MEN

  Lituya Bay, Alaska, July 1786

  There is a big disagreement in my family about what happens if you drown and your body is never found. My aunts say that you are turned into a Land Otter. Land Otters come up out of the water, in the dark, and steal away the living. You cannot see them, but you can hear them—they whistle. We lie in our huts at night and listen for whistling, because we lost a canoe when we arrived for the salmon season, and afterward we found only four of the bodies.

  My father and his brothers say it is true about the Land Otters everywhere else, but not here. Here, they say, if you drown you are turned into a bear and become a lookout for Kah Lituya. Kah Lituya is the jealous spirit of this place. He sleeps at the mouth of the bay and tries to capsize canoes when they pass. He turns the people who drown into bears and makes the bears watch for more canoes coming into the bay. The aunts say they know about Kah Lituya, they respect his jealousy, they just do not agree about him turning people into bears. Why, in this one place, they ask, would the power of the Land Otters mean nothing? My aunts want the bears to be just bears. They want the men to hunt the bears—there are so many of them—but Grandfather says no hunting bears this season because you do not know who you might be killing.

  The argument was very noisy for a while, every night around the fire, the aunts and my father and his brothers, back and forth, back and forth, till one day Grandfather got so angry he made his slave smash up his best canoe to shame us. Then everyone was quiet, but they still disagreed. I never said anything, but I hope my father’s people are right. I am less afraid of bears than I am of Land Otters. One of the bodies we never found was my cousin. I was supposed to marry him after the salmon season. If he is a bear he will be busy watching for canoes. But if he is a Land Otter he might come for me.