The Forbidden Kingdom

by Jan Jacob Slauerhoff

  The rigging of the mizzen mast ran over the railings just in front of his cabin. The twenty parallel taut cables and the thin ratlines between them formed an Aeolian harp. Camões liked listening to their swelling and subsiding song, growling or whistling but unceasing.

  The movement of the ship—the large São Bento too was tossed about on the waves—fighting the ever-stronger ocean swell, did not make him seasick, as his fellow-officers secretly hoped. He did dream a lot, though, being unaccustomed to the narrow berth beneath the low ceiling of his cabin.

  One morning the Cape Verde islands lay before them—the first landfall that was found on the tentative medieval voyages of discovery, without a compass or a sextant. Now they were the first mooring place on a voyage taking them a hundred times farther. Camões, however, viewed them as if he were already infinitely far removed from the fatherland and here had a last chance to return and escape an impending disaster. He had the same impulse as a few months ago when they had sailed from Lisbon down the Tagus: to let the ship leave without him and jump ashore. Now it was to let the fleet sail without him and disappear into the interior.

  They moored for a day at Fogo. He went ashore alone. The town was next to the jetty. He walked straight up a burning-hot slope of rubble, impelled by the desire to see what was behind it. In this way he climbed over a further two ridges and was then able to follow a fold in the terrain, a strip of shade, and finally arrived in a valley, in a rose garden more luxuriant than those in Algarve. He spent the afternoon in this scented solitude, in grottoes of intertwined buds and flowers, thinking the whole time: “It would be best if I killed myself right here.” And when in spite of this he left: “This is the last charming thing I shall see in my life.” He hastily climbed the ridge, and in the falling dusk descended the slope of rubble, hurting his feet.

  He half hoped that he would sprain his ankle, and leapt hazardously over the stones. Then he slowly climbed the last ridge, sat down and tried to fall asleep, so that the ship might sail without him. Then he heard voices and two men crept past, Juromena and Margado, both of whom had lived lavishly on board, with a change of costume every day, three lackeys… Camões fled back on board, afraid of his own cowardice.

  The ship was far from ready to depart. The heat of the day persisted in the cabin, and the whole night was filled with a rattling din.

  He had a dream:

  My dignity is diminished; I am a lowly figure among men and have to work and obey for a paltry wage. Yet I am more powerful than when I laboriously assemble words and ordered them on paper. Now I hurl my words into space; they travel infinite distances, driven by a vibration that I nonchalantly produce with my hand. They circle the globe, they fall where I wish—like seed from heaven. So why don’t I feel like a God, but like someone lost and humiliated among the people I must obey?

  He woke up. The din of the loading had stopped. He went back to sleep.

  The dream kept returning. Sometimes he had a tight-fitting hood on his head, sometimes he felt that the ship was no longer made of wood but of blistering iron and manned by beings he had never seen on earth, white, but speaking different languages, and wearing strange, close-fitting robes.

  He woke up. Loading was continuing more intensively. Morning was approaching, and they were not yet ready.

  Again that dream… Now a host of yellow-skinned people forced their way into the cramped cabin, which was already filling with strange objects, more and more of them, until it was ready to burst. That did not happen, but it was being more and more compressed. Suddenly it was alone on a great empty plateau, and it was as if it were about to explode.

  He woke up. The anchor chain was being raised; the men on the capstan sang. Now he fell into dreamless sleep and did not wake up until the ship was out at sea. The rose garden was over there, beyond the grey mountains, scarcely visible any longer above the sea.

  The following day the sealed orders were opened in the Admiral’s quarters. First came the regular orders: call in at Mozambique, take fruit on board, and slaves if possible, leave the sick behind. Then there were letters for the Governor of Calico and for the Viceroy in Goa. That was usually all. But now a couple of other documents emerged from the chest. Cabral and the Captain looked displeased, since neither of them liked reading, especially orders. The Admiral read the document, and then gave it to the Captain, but the latter preferred not to strain too much and asked what was in it.

  “Things haven’t yet been resolved in Goa, so we’ve got to sail on to Malacca; the stragglers will have to head straight for there from Mozambique.”

  “There’s more profit to be made in Malacca than in Goa, where we’ve been for fifty years: Malacca is rich and the population is weak.”

  “We’re not staying in Malacca either, we have to move straight on from there to Macao.”

  “That’s unheard of, a ship having to sail straight from Lisbon to Macao in one go. Anyway, it’s impossible: we’re fouling too much. In Malacca we’ll have to spend at least a month in dry dock to scrape the hull.”

  “Those are the orders. We mustn’t stop for more than a week in Malacca.”

  “There’s something behind this; let’s read the last letter, and perhaps that will explain things.” It was an order bearing the royal seal. Cabral appeared to be moved as he read it. He ran his hand over his head, gave it to the Captain and said, “Read it for yourself.”

  The Captain laughed and said, “I suspected as much.” But suddenly his laughter dried up. “Of course they want him as far away as possible; that’s why we have made for that godforsaken outpost instead of staying in the right neck of the woods. If we’re not caught in a typhoon, we’ll have to surrender all we’ve got; they’re short of everything there. Then on to Japan empty, back fully laden, and by that time we’ll have been at sea for a year, and none the better for it, except for a bit of freight commission. And all for that outcast. If I were you, I’d leave him behind in Mozambique.”

  “That’s not what the orders say.”

  “The idea is for him to disappear, the sooner the better.”

  Camões was summoned to the saloon. Cabral looked at him pityingly with the letter in his hand.

  “This concerns you, Dom Luís. The King wants you to make the voyage as a prisoner, and to serve as a soldier in furthest East Asia.”

  Camões stared uncomprehendingly.

  “Read it for yourself.” The Admiral handed him the letter. The vengefulness of the King (or the jealousy of the Infante) could be read in the well-formed characters and sober style of the private secretary.

  An argument developed about the meaning of “prisoner”. The Admiral wanted Camões to stay in his cabin and be allowed on deck in the evening under guard, while the Captain felt that he should be locked in the hold, and stay there in chains until their arrival. After all, his intended function as a soldier branded him as a common prisoner.

  The Admiral asserted his authority. Camões stayed in his cabin as far as Mozambique. He was still able to see this harbour through the porthole.

  Four days later the ship stopped, with all its flags at half mast. From the poop deck the body of the Admiral was lowered into the waters of the Indian Ocean, accompanied by the singing of a litany and the thundering of all the ship’s cannon—almost a hundred of them. The very same day Luís de Camões was put at the bottom of the hold in a damp stinking hole prepared for mutineers and thieves. That was how he spent the second half of the voyage. He saw nothing of Goa or Malacca; all he perceived of those harbours was the ship at anchor and the muffled din that penetrated to where he was.

  Such was his glorious entry into the East.

  While other prisoners made bird cages from fruit stones, and model ships from slivers of wood, he passed the time in fashioning stanzas for the poem he thought he had abandoned for good. Since he saw nothing of the foreign countries, like the other prisoners with improvised tools, he had to make do with mythology to give colour and coherence to his story, and he reluct
antly resorted to it. However, he gradually came to enjoy his work, the only thing that helped him through the interminable hours.

  The passage from Mozambique to Malacca took almost two months; the winds were not favourable. Two months! Camões gradually forgot that he had ever lived on dry land and been free. It was as if he had squatted in that swaying hold with a crumpled piece of paper on his painful knees, since time immemorial.

  III

  Ilha Verde

  THREE DAYS AFTER we left the roadstead of Malacca I was set free. I blinked at the light, and at first had difficulty in moving, but was not downcast or thoroughly embittered and was resolved to seize my chance, and not grant the King the pleasure of seeing me pine away ignominiously. One day, even if it were many years later, I hoped to return, raised into a new aristocracy by reason of my fortune. I hoped that he would still be on the throne, old, languid and joyless… ravaged by maladies and ruling over an impoverished land, when I appeared before him with my companions. Our scars would be so numerous that there would be no room left for decorations; the triumphs we had left behind us were so great that in comparison Portugal seemed a paltry little country! Soon, after this final visit, paid like prodigal sons, we would embark once more without compunction and with great wealth for the territory we had conquered for ourselves and where, surrounded by luxury and sustained by power, we would die.

  But what good was that to me, when I had to climb the mast with my stiff limbs to help with lowering the sails, squaring yards and doing other rough work I had never been trained for?

  Prior to my imprisonment the deck and quarters were full of seamen. Those not on duty got in the way of the others. Now there were scarcely enough hands to manoeuvre the ship. Even black slaves had to help. Had disease or desertion taken such a toll that every crewman was precious? One of the ship’s surgeons told me that scurvy in particular had claimed many victims. The new admiral was an energetic man. In order to gain time, we had not stopped off at Madagascar, where fresh meat and vegetables were taken on board for the crossing. Supplies were inadequate. Then came the great epidemic: hundreds of deaths in a few days. Many ships had lost more than half their crews. There was not enough sailcloth to sew the bodies into, no lead shot to weigh down the feet, no time to heave to each time. Every morning there was a clear-up; six sailors who performed the work for double pay, dragged the bodies between-decks and pushed them out through an open gun port. The procession of sharks following the ships grew and grew.

  How had he managed to survive down below, where the sun never shone and there was never any fruit with meals? Was there a tacit agreement between disasters who should be struck by them and who not?

  In order to keep those who were left healthy, a lemon and a cucumber were handed out every day. I enjoyed these more than I did the choicest foods I used to eat. I relished my freedom—the wind most of all—and refused to be embittered by my exhaustion, my gashed hands, inflamed eyes and gums. I hoped that a storm would set me free in time, for I knew that in Macao I would first be thrown back in prison.

  Once, when I was scrubbing the deck, the captain came by. He had grown thin, I noted with satisfaction. I stopped, but did not move aside and looked him in the eye. He made as if to fly at my throat, but thought better of it, spat on the deck and went on. We had both been in mortal danger: he from my eager hands, I from a hemp noose that was always at the ready. His cowardice saved him, and saved my life too.

  Since Malacca the weather had stayed calm. The swell was less than on the other side of the archipelago and was often dead calm. The wind was weak but constant. One day we sailed past the coast of Cambodia, and the next day the sea was empty and I knew that the next time a coast came into view my imprisonment would recommence. The weather became ever calmer, the wind gentle and the sea seemed to be stretching in slow, lazy waves and on board people were become more and more anxious that a storm would blow up from this treacherous calm, just before we reached the coast where Macao lay. The longer it remained calm the more frightened we became of encountering a storm before we arrived.

  It was Easter. A High Mass was celebrated; the holy banner blessed by the Pope was taken round in procession. Those who wished could kiss the hem of the flag. Most did so, to be on the safe side.

  I hung over the railings and saw a distant blue coastline: Hainan. Three more days, if all went well.

  The sky was as blue and calm as the coast, apart from some feathery clouds that seemed to be flocking to some meeting place deep below the horizon.

  That night the storm arrived. At twelve o’clock when I came off watch it was still calm but also pitch-black and brooding, as if the full moon and a sun that had set in flames had been smothered in the thick layer of clouds and the fire of the celestial bodies was smouldering close to the earth, without flaring up. Almost no one was left in the crew’s quarters, since most people were sleeping on deck or among the cannon, which always retained a little coolness. The terminally ill and dying lay in the bunks and squeaked at me for water when they heard me. I gave them whatever I found, and then collapsed myself, faint with apprehension, oppressed by the premonition that I would soon awake and would then not be able to sleep for a long time. It cannot have been long before I woke and was lying on the boarding that divided the crew’s quarters from the bow. Sick sailors had grabbed hold of me, then that board flooring became the ceiling. We rolled back and the quarters were already half full of water. I grabbed hold of the stairs and did not let go, shook everyone off me and reached the deck bruised, scratched and perhaps infected.

  Neither the figurehead nor the crosses helped. Who gave them any thought in a wind that now seemed to come from all directions at once, pressing one’s mouth closed and every object against the deck, now sucked everything up again, as if the atmosphere were escaping this part of the earth?

  At first the waves came quite slowly and regularly like rearing mountains, and the ship moved without juddering from peak to trough, sometimes rising steeply, sometimes almost flat on its side. Afterwards it was surrounded by mountains of water that all collapsed at the same time, so that it was constantly under water.

  At first I was grateful that this was happening, that I was experiencing this violence, that the ship that had imprisoned me for six months, where I had been robbed of all I possessed, down to my name and my shirt, was being destroyed, but that intoxication of freedom had passed in five minutes and all I did was yearn for peace and quiet: all thought was suspended.

  When the storm subsided the coast was still in sight. The wind had dropped again, but the waves were still rising above the hull. At night we saw a wide expanse of flickering light and above it a great steady glow: that was Macao with its lighthouse. I was worried that we would after all find a safe haven. I hid in a corner of the poop deck, and a few survivors were still lying against the railings. But the ship would not see the sight of day. At about four o’clock it was lifted up, smashed against a quay, and fell back; the cannon in the hold rolled from side to side and some discharged. The São Bento sank quickly, sucking down most of those on board with her. Only those who had been able to grab a plank or buoy in time kept their heads above water. I floated on a small barrel, which I had kept ready for some time. It contained a few ship’s biscuits, and also… my work.

  Day dawned again, this time over empty waters. The coast was a long way off, the island we had crashed into had disappeared. I was beginning to feel exhausted, since the barrel, in the water, kept revolving and so I was constantly being given a ducking. But the feeling that I wasn’t yet to die in this adventure made me hold on and after a few hours it became clear to me that the waves were impelling me in the direction of the bay. I could now make out the town in the distance, no different from a small Portuguese or Spanish harbour. There were a few ships at anchor, but there were lots of junks of the kind I had seen previously: low bow, high stern, ungainly sails. I regarded the town as a piece of the old country; I would have much preferred a Chinese harbour.
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  Opposite, partially closing off the bay, was a long island, low-lying at its shore, with a mountainous summit in the middle perhaps fifteen hundred metres high. It looked quite deserted, with small woods here and there—would there be any shelter to be found? Slowly I jerked my rolling barrel towards it, and after endless struggles I reached the beach, half-swimming, half-hanging. I waded towards dry land with my possessions on my shoulders. Ahead of me was undergrowth. I advanced perhaps a hundred metres into it, and could go no further, since sleep overwhelmed me.

  I came to in a pale twilight, which quickly grew darker, so that I remained motionless. In the middle of the night I crawled out of the bushes to the beach, but I could see no lights across the water. Was it foggy? Were my eyes misted over? Were they afraid of an attack? Still, it troubled me that the lights were no longer burning. I also felt so weak now that I could scarcely put one foot in front of the other, but I was a prisoner on this island and decided to explore it this very night. There was a little moonlight now. I ate a little of the ship’s biscuit, but however exhausted I was, I seemed to have lost my appetite. I realized that I was ill and was afraid that the sickness would very soon gain the upper hand. My bones hurt, my gums were swollen and bleeding, the taste of blood in my mouth made me feel nauseous. So I set out, staggering along. It was deathly quiet; from the distance came the rush of the sea, completely calm now. I could see no houses anywhere, and could not find a path. I climbed a gentle slope, and from a wood I heard dull lowing. Could there be a house there among the trees?

  A young cow was tethered by a rope. I released the animal, but changed my mind just in time, tied it up again and tried to milk it. I remembered with a start that raw milk is the antidote to scurvy: I had almost let my chance of survival escape! The small amount that I was able to swallow—I could scarcely open my mouth any longer—did me good. I made a mental note of where the animal was and continued on my way. I now reached the edge of a field that had been regularly planted. I was not familiar with the crop, but ate it raw and unwashed anyway in my desire to survive, possibly risking a more serious disease.