Landfalls

by Naomi J. Williams

  “The man who had her killed himself?” Lamanon said when the door closed behind her.

  Since that night, Lamartinière had caught only fleeting glimpses of the woman when she served them tea in the drawing room, but the awareness of her presence in the house tantalized him in private and buzzed like an unacknowledged background hum between the men whenever they were in the house. Fortunately that was seldom—Lamanon had seen to that—and the two priests’ assurances to Sophie seemed to settle any question regarding her. Yet now it turned out Lamanon had been alone in the house with her—had, in fact, arranged to be alone with her.

  “Lamartinière, my good man.” Lamanon stood over him now, grinning with more cheerfulness than was either customary for him or appropriate, given their circumstances. He was wigless under his hat, his face more florid than usual, and his cravat poorly tied, although perhaps it always looked that way. “Apparently our efforts to reason with the commander have been mistaken for insolence,” he added.

  “Apparently,” Lamartinière muttered.

  “Don’t be downcast,” Lamanon said. “We’ll talk with our respective captains and have ourselves rowed right back.” Then he pointed to his right leg with a rueful expression. It was not the leg he had been favoring as he made his way from the sedan chair just moments earlier. “Would you be so kind—?”

  “Oh, do what you like,” Lamartinière said, giving up his place on the stool.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Unusual rock formation?”

  Lamanon laughed. “Ah, that.” He smiled up at his colleague without a hint of embarrassment. “I could hardly tell you what I was really about, could I?” When Lamartinière scowled, he added: “She’s available to all of us, my friend.”

  “Don’t be disgusting.”

  Lamanon laughed again and motioned for Lamartinière to come nearer. When he reluctantly complied, Lamanon whispered, “She offered to show me how to smoke opium. I’ve read about it, of course, and was curious to document its effects.”

  Lamartinière peered into Lamanon’s broad face, his early training as a doctor reasserting itself. There was no hint of intoxication. The man was wide awake, for one thing. His pupils were not constricted, nor was his speech slurred. His halting gait earlier had looked deliberate, not like the result of drug-induced imbalance.

  Lamanon smiled. “She had just set everything up—it’s a very elaborate ritual, quite fascinating—when this lot showed up.” He inclined his head toward the officers and marines. “I couldn’t very well be taken back to the Boussole in an opium-induced stupor, could I?”

  Lamartinière nodded, pleased that they had been interrupted—he disapproved of narcotics of any sort and was abstemious even about wine. But more than that he was relieved to hear the “experiment” was about opium rather than intimacy of another sort. Somehow that was easier to bear.

  “But,” Lamanon continued, still whispering, “I was so provoked by the effrontery of this arrest that I made them wait downstairs while I enjoyed Sophie’s other favors.”

  “What?”

  Lamanon laughed aloud. “What a jealous prude you are, Lamartinière. Come now, I jest. She only helped me pack my things.”

  Lamartinière stepped away, face burning, and pretended to look down the promenade for the rest of their party. He was ashamed—of his own jealous feelings, of being caught in that jealousy, of his desire to believe Lamanon had not been with Sophie after all, of the fact that he was, at this precise moment, more distressed by the vision of Lamanon with Sophie than about being arrested. He was also angry—angry that he kept allowing himself to be intimidated by Lamanon, and angrier still that Lamanon, who should at least have felt some kinship with him in their shared predicament, if not outright responsibility for it, should still find it necessary to amuse himself at Lamartinière’s expense.

  Eventually the last of the officers and accompanying marines arrived, leading Fathers Receveur and Mongez to the landing place. He watched the two priests react to their arrest with neither the injured resentment he felt nor the defiant bombast of Lamanon. They apologized to Lieutenant de Clonard for the trouble they had caused, averred that it had never been their intention to be disrespectful to the commander, and humbly prepared to accept whatever punishment awaited them on their ships.

  Father Mongez, slight and balding, joined Lamanon and half of the officers and marines in one sampan headed for the Boussole, while Lamartinière followed Father Receveur and the other officers and marines into the second sampan. Once he was out on the water, free of Lamanon’s exasperating presence, Lamartinière found his misery over Sophie ease even as his thoughts returned more seriously to what might await him on board. Surely he and Father Receveur wouldn’t be … flogged? No, of course not. They weren’t English. And it was hard to imagine Captain de Langle, a man of great dignity, who ruled by quiet persuasion, actually punishing them. He was a man of science himself, after all. Then again, it would not be the first time Lamartinière had misjudged the complex, often unspoken, mores that governed life on board. He stared out into the harbor, trying again but still in vain to identify the French frigates, trying to quell his growing anxiety, trying too to ignore the nauseating swaying of the sampan. He had never suffered much on the frigate, but small boats often made him queasy.

  Father Receveur was not helping. The Astrolabe’s earnest young chaplain seemed to think it his duty to comfort everyone on board—Lamartinière for the mortification of being arrested in front of the consul, the marines for their distress over carrying out an unpleasant duty, the officers for the time lost when so many more pressing matters awaited. Indeed, Lamartinière thought, if the priest could have comforted the capable, sun-browned boatwomen who poled them away from shore for the bother of having to ply their trade, he would have. Lamartinière distracted himself by imagining the priest falling overboard—the undignified splash, the frantic efforts to get him back aboard, the apologies that would ensue once he was restored, dripping, to his place. The amusing fantasy kept seasickness at bay, and before long they arrived at the Astrolabe, which loomed so familiarly before them that Lamartinière wondered that he had not recognized it earlier.

  He climbed aboard after Boutin and Father Receveur. Thankfully, almost no one was on deck; he had dreaded the humiliation of being censured in front of the crew. He was particularly relieved that none of his cabinmates was present. Only Lieutenant de Monty, the senior officer under Captain de Langle, was present to take him and the priest into custody. Boutin greeted Monty, then announced formally that he had arrived “to deliver Father Receveur and Monsieur de Lamanon—”

  “It’s Lamartinière!”

  “Indeed,” Boutin said, not bothering to correct himself. Then, his work in apprehending the two Astrolabe passengers concluded, he nodded perfunctorily to his captives, bowed to Monty, and departed over the side.

  Lieutenant de Monty, one of the tallest members of the expedition, looked down at his charges like a headmaster displeased with two errant pupils. “Father,” he said, nodding to the priest, then, with exaggerated precision, “Monsieur de Lamartinière.”

  Lamartinière puffed out his cheeks in frustration. Was it really so unreasonable to insist that people use his proper name?

  “The commander believes you have allowed yourselves to be unduly influenced by Monsieur de Lamanon,” Monty said. “Which might be expected of a young naturalist—” He looked pointedly at Lamartinière. “But Father—” He tilted his head in Receveur’s direction, and the priest hung his head in rueful acknowledgment. “We’d like to be able to rely on our chaplains to provide some guidance. Perhaps you’ve allowed your otherwise admirable interest in scientific inquiry and fellowship to cloud your thinking. Surely two priests should have been able to urge more moderation, even on an impetuous and headstrong man like Lamanon.”

  Oh, the man had no idea what he was talking about, Lamartinière thought. Mongez and Receveur, both so mild-mannered and eager to please, were no
match for the likes of Lamanon. None of them were.

  “Quite right, Monsieur de Monty,” Father Receveur said. “I am deeply sensible of my failure in this regard. Please, what is to become of us?”

  Monty nodded formally. “First, the official charges,” he said, drawing a piece of paper from his coat and unfolding it with exaggerated deliberation. Lamartinière watched with growing irritation. Captain de Langle would not have performed this task with such relish. Monty cleared his throat: “You were absent from the Astrolabe without leave,” he began. “Further, you failed to make known your whereabouts in Macao. Finally, your communications with Commander de Lapérouse were insolent and inappropriate.” He peered down at the prisoners. “I’ve been instructed by the commander and our captain to consign you to your quarters for a period of twenty-four hours, commencing immediately.”

  “Oh. That’s not so bad,” Father Receveur said aloud.

  “No, Father, it’s not,” Monty replied, allowing the cleric a smile.

  “Where is Captain de Langle?” Lamartinière ventured.

  Monty stiffened. “Monsieur de Lamartinière, did you expect the captain to discipline you personally?”

  Lamartinière blinked in surprise, then stammered, “No—only—never mind.” He had expected it, of course. Surely the arrest and incarceration of the ship’s chaplain and the expedition’s botanist warranted the captain’s presence? The captain would have softened the blow. He would have indicated somehow, perhaps by a sardonic raising of his eyebrows—it was something he did—that he was carrying out his superior’s orders without agreeing with them.

  “The captain’s ashore with the commander,” Monty said by way of reply. “They’re guests of the Portuguese governor and his wife tonight. You might have been invited had you behaved better.”

  Lamartinière could hardly suppress a smile. In his experience, holders of political appointments were, almost without exception, self-important, pontificating bores. And their wives were even worse—flirtatious leeches with appalling French. They had already endured encounters with several specimens of this genus in Concepción and Monterey. Lamartinière did not mind missing this one. But he knew who would mind: Lamanon. That was how the trouble began, after all. Less than a week after moving into the house on Rua de São Lourenço, they learned that the commander and Captain de Langle had been fêted at a reception at the “Casa,” a plainly named but lavishly appointed villa that was home to a wealthy senior trader with the British East India Company. Worse than being snubbed was hearing who had been in attendance: The commander’s good-for-nothing brother-in-law, Broudou, who’d made such an ass of himself in Chile but had, improbably, been promoted to lieutenant after the Boussole lost three officers in Alaska. Barthélemy de Lesseps, ostensibly the expedition’s Russian translator, but to all appearances the Astrolabe’s chief merrymaker. All of the expedition’s artists, including that layabout Prévost. All the other men of science. Young Collignon, the gardener who should have been Lamartinière’s assistant and was being introduced as the Boussole’s “botanist.” And that petulant poseur Dufresne, who had been begging to leave the expedition for nearly a year and was finally getting his wish, having found a berth on a ship returning to France—even he had been there, a soon-to-be former member of the expedition!

  Lamanon, outraged by the slight, had dashed off a letter of complaint to the commander and insisted they all sign it. The next day they received a response in which the commander said he would have been delighted to invite them to the soirée, and indeed, it was a shame they had missed it, as all of Macao society was in attendance, including many highly placed people interested in science. But since they had declined to inform anyone of their departure from the ships or their address in Macao, he had not known how to find them and, sadly, had had to forego the pleasure of their company at the Casa.

  Lamanon had sputtered in fury for a full minute before sitting down at the writing table on the veranda and dashing off a new letter inveighing against the lack of respect shown to the expedition’s chief savants. “The most perfunctory effort at determining our whereabouts—the least inquiry at our own consulate!—would have been successful,” he wrote. It was true, but it crossed a line, which Lamartinière and the others suspected right away. “Perhaps a more conciliatory approach…” Father Receveur gently suggested. “I don’t think we should send it,” Lamartinière said. He had said that aloud, had he not? Not that it mattered. They all signed it in the end and sent it with a messenger to the Boussole.

  That was yesterday.

  Now he and the chaplain were being led to their cabins by marines who made a point of telling them they would remain posted outside their doors all day and all night.

  “What for?” Lamartinière retorted. “To make sure we don’t flee?”

  “The lads are only doing their jobs,” Father Receveur said.

  Lamartinière scowled at the priest before being shut into his cabin, then threw his document case across the room with a yell, belatedly relieved to find none of his cabinmates within. His weeklong absence had not made him any fonder of the “Savants’ Quarters.” He walked to the far end of the space and flung himself across his hard, narrow bed, banging his head against the wall. He lay back, swearing and massaging his pate while a parade of other, more extreme gestures flitted through his mind: he would destroy the cabin, tear up everyone’s bedding, smash and scatter his own specimens and the other men’s belongings, pour his ink bottles out over everything, torch the place and himself in it, sink the ship and its inmates. The violent fantasies did not soothe him. He had often indulged such thoughts during the long Pacific crossing. They had not helped then, either. By the time they had dropped anchor in Macao Harbor, he had been spending most of the day either asleep or feigning sleep, and had exchanged scarcely a word with his shipmates for weeks. Father Receveur’s unexpected invitation to join him, Lamanon, and Father Mongez in Macao, in a proper house where he would have his own room, away from the fake “savants” with whom he had been trapped for so long, had felt like salvation.

  He sat up now, chewing his lower lip, regretting the way he had just left Father Receveur. He leaned over and peeled off his muddied shoes and stockings, wrinkling his nose against the rankness of his still-wet feet. He tossed the shoes across the floor, then shuffled with a groan to his desk. Ignoring the neat, securely arranged boxes of specimens before him, he freed several sheets of paper from the stash he kept dry between layers of oilcloth and sat down to write some letters—one to his brother Pierre; another to his mentor, André Thouin, the head of the Jardin du Roi; and a third to the Marshal de Castries, minister of marine. What relief to give vent to his feelings! It was with great regret he reported the lack of priority and respect accorded to the pursuit of science—this, on an expedition ostensibly devoted to discovery! Scarcely any time allowed in months for botanizing! Now a trivial misunderstanding had resulted in his incarceration aboard his own ship!

  Before he could think better of anything he had written, he sealed the letters and slipped them under the cabin door. He could hear the marine lean over to pick them up, then call to a sailor to deliver them to the officer in charge. Only then did it occur to him that his current situation was largely the result of letters penned and dispatched in high dudgeon and that he might be compounding his difficulties.

  A knock at the cabin door interrupted his regret and brought a tray with a lantern and dinner. The meal was a tasty ragout of fowl and a carafe of robust red wine. Ordinarily he would have had only a small glass of wine, but tonight, with no shipmates eager to claim his share, he drank it all. He hated to admit it, but he felt better afterward. It could be vexing, the way the body could overrule the mind. One could be determinedly and quite justifiably aggrieved, only to find a full belly and the sedating effects of alcohol had rendered one’s well-tended grievances less grievous. Perhaps, he reflected, the human race needed this faculty for self-deception to survive. Did savages have this same need, or
only civilized men? Whatever the answer, it was with some pique that he noted the dulling of his anger and moroseness, and then even that pique became impossible to sustain.

  He lit a second candle and turned to the specimens on his desk.

  He was primarily a botanist, but tiny animals interested him too, and he was still amazed by what he had discovered on the head of a sunfish the men had caught in Alaska. A keen-eyed sailor had brought it to him. “I saved this from the stewpot, sir,” he said, “when I noticed all the worms on it.” Sure enough, the head was like a cabinet of curiosities, parasitized by several distinct organisms on and around its gills. The specimens he extracted were now suspended in five alcohol-filled vials secured in a wooden box made specially for the purpose. He opened the box and slid out one vial, then fumbled around himself for a moment in search of his pocket microscope before remembering that he had left it in the house in Macao. Sighing, he held the vial between himself and the candle flame and squinted to see the nearly transparent specimens preserved within.

  The sailor who saved the fish head had called the creatures “worms,” and indeed, most naturalists did too, but Lamartinière thought they had more in common with insects. To the naked eye, the tiny filaments that protruded from the fish’s head and now floated in the vial looked wormy enough, but with a microscope one could clearly see that they had leglike appendages. He had consulted both Fabricius and Linnaeus and felt pretty certain they were parasitic varieties of Pennatula. Some of the creatures were buried so deeply and firmly in their host’s body that he had trouble extracting them; at least one he had unwittingly beheaded. It was hard to imagine how the soft-bodied creatures had burrowed their way through the fish’s scales. Could they have found their hosts early, he wondered, while in some tinier, sharper, juvenile state, then remained headfirst in the fish’s body, lodged and fed forever therein as their heads enlarged and their bodies softened and elongated behind them? They also appeared to have eyes, a single compound structure in the middle of their heads, though they hardly had need of them. What a strange life, he thought, with one’s head entirely buried in the relative safety of ever-present nutrition while one’s back end lay exposed to whatever might befall in the great oceans, including, at the last, the naturalist’s indelicate tweezers dragging one out from dark sustenance into light and death.