On the Proper Use of Stars

by Dominique Fortier

  Once the job is done, the shivering men go back inside until the next day, the snow slips through chinks in the canvas stretched above the deck and comes back to dance on the wood – light, graceful, elusive.

  WHITE, AS FAR AS the eye can see. The white of the sky which merges with the white of the earth buried under the snow, which melts into the white of the water covered with ice, which melts into the white that ends up inside tired eyelids when eyes are closed.

  A grey white under clouds heavy with snow, a shadow white that swallows up distances and deceives the pupils of our eyes. A white veil that covers everything.

  A black white on sunless winter days.

  Translucent and veiled, impenetrable, aqueous and solid, spotless, the opposite of all stains. A white like an eye, which at the same time masks and reveals what is found behind, beneath, beyond.

  A bluish white that glitters in the light of the enormous, swollen moon and in the light of the millions of stars sparkling on the snow where they seem to be reflected or to have fallen to Earth.

  The yellow white of the pack ice where seals crawl and the fields of snow where we relieve ourselves and empty the chamber pots.

  The ashen white of moonless nights which last sometimes for weeks.

  Everywhere, white. A little way off, the spittle of a sailor, like a red star on the snow.

  Perlerorneq. That is the word the Esquimaux use for the feeling that eats away at the hearts of men during the winter that stretches out endlessly, when the sun seldom appears. Perlerorneq. Hoarse as the lament of an animal that senses the approach of death.

  The Southern Cross

  ON THIS CHRISTMAS DAY, the men have been exempted from chores, aside from those who work in the kitchens and enjoy embellishing their everyday fare and that of their workmates. They have cooked thirty sweet breads with dried fruits which, soaked in rum, taste a little like plum pudding and recall for all of them the Christmases of their childhood, when snow was an eagerly anticipated gift and not a prison; other dishes to be served include mashed potatoes (prepared with the last of the shrivelled, greenish tubers that are moulding in the cellar, but are nonetheless fresh vegetables) to accompany the tinned stew from Mr. Goldner, its flavour enhanced with clove and nutmeg.

  At the Captain’s table are seated the usual men: Crozier, Fitzjames, DesVoeux, Peddie, Gore, Sargent. From below decks, where the men are being served double rations of grog and of food, joyous shouts can be heard. In the officers’ mess, however, all are silent, as if they were at table with strangers. Just as the champagne is about to be opened, Sir John rises to deliver the speech he has prepared:

  “I am happy to be spending a new Christmas in your company. Consider, my friends, that we are writing History. We have almost achieved our goal and soon the Night shall rise to make room for a new Day. And that day shall be the day of our Discovery and our Victory. England will know how to thank her Sons, my friends, who will have offered …”

  He interrupts himself, no longer certain about what he has composed, regrets having left the sheet on which he has written the lines in his cabin. He repeats to himself, in a low voice, “ … who will have offered her …” then, taking the plunge, concludes emphatically: “ … a New Continent.” Though somewhat surprised, the guests applaud politely.

  Curiously, throughout this meal, taken in the ice of Peel Sound, Crozier recalls not happy Christmas Days spent with his family – as he has spent the bulk of his adult life at sea, those Christmases were not so numerous – but December 25 the year before, when all were still enthusiastic, impatient, feverish at the thought of the discoveries to come. It seemed that this energy, having no object to grapple with, had turned against the very ones who had nourished it, to devour them from inside. Their faces are gaunt, bloodless, of a dull, thick whiteness that is reminiscent of dough. Their eyes shine with an unhealthy brilliance. Some of the men are speechless for days, then start to laugh with no one to silence them. Others weep silently, tears running onto their faces before disappearing inside their greyish collars. All, however, have close-shaven cheeks, hair cut short to prevent infestations of lice and fleas – a useless precaution, for the insects are everywhere, not just in their hair but in the blankets and sheets, on the rats that can be heard scratching in the dark, in the secrecy of armpits and groins, in woollen clothing, and even in the folds of the flags that have been brought to plant where they would take possession of the territory in the name of the Crown. Laundry is done once a month, in the enormous vats that are used for preparing food and are filled for the occasion with boiling, soapy water. This treatment has worn out the fabrics and the colours, all now verging on grey.

  One morning, a sailor who was using an axe to try opening a fifty-pound tin of food cut his leg badly. Rather than come to his aid, the dozen or so men around him stood there as if petrified at the sight of the blood spurting steadily from the wound. Crozier himself, taken aback, had to force himself to surmount the fascination that had overcome him, sling the injured man over his shoulder, and take him to Peddie. Reflecting on the incident, he realized it was the first time in weeks that he’d seen a straightforward colour that had not been faded by wear, water, salt, wind. That night when he was falling asleep he struggled to recall all the red things he could think of and imagine in the slightest detail their hues and their subtleties, like a man who has gone too long without talking, and fearing that he will become mute recites to himself the nursery rhymes of his childhood.

  The first strawberries of spring, coral speckled with the gold of their tiny seeds; tulips of vermilion satin; blood on the sheets in the morning when, still nearly a child, he had shared his bed with a young servant girl who slipped in beside him at nightfall; the first tomatoes of summer with their pinkish, acid flesh; poppies, orange around their black hearts; the shutters on his grandmother’s house, wine-coloured but faded now; cherries of a deep and velvety crimson; the red red of the cross of Saint George on the Union Jack that had floated from the mast of the Terror on the day of their departure; the guts of the rabbits he’d caught in a snare as a child, purplish pink shot through with veins.

  The mouth of Sophia Cracroft.

  THE YEARS SPENT in Tasmania had been difficult for Sophia. The penal colony offered few distractions. There were neither museums nor theatres, no pastry shop worthy of the name, and the countryside was crawling with snakes. (In an attempt to suppress the population, Lady Jane had offered a reward to anyone who brought her one of the horrible creatures dead, but the venture had to be abandoned shortly afterwards, for the reptilian remains were piling up in the courtyard of the governor’s house and her budget was melting away, while the number of snakes nearby seemed undiminished.) Unlike her aunt, Sophia had no passion for the rehabilitation of dangerous criminals or for the education of poor women, victims of circumstance, or for the instruction of children born either to the former or the latter; nor was she burning to put into practice various theories gleaned from works of philosophy and politics. If the colony was for Lady Jane a vast laboratory, Sophia saw it more as a vast open-air jail in which she herself was an innocent prisoner. She had never enjoyed the presence of girls her age very much, so the absence of companions other than her aunt did not weigh on her, although she would have liked to be able to go out in society now and then, to dance and flutter her fan for a few moments next to a young admirer before going back to whirl around again.

  When James Clark Ross and Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier, along with their crews, made a stop at Hobart on their way to Antarctica after sailing virtually around the world on the Terror and the Erebus, weeks had gone by since the governor and his circle had seen new faces. The explorers were received with great pomp, as the heroes they would be some months later, as soon as they were back in the mother country.

  Of the two captains, Ross was the more handsome, of that there was no doubt, the more amiable, too. Crozier, though, was not without a certain allure; on all occasions he demonstrated a calm self-confidence,
and in his presence other men always looked more or less like little boys. He had a square face, firm, nearly impassive features, deep-set dark eyes that in an instant might come alive and shine with a brilliance that could have been due to happiness or to the fire of a muffled anger. On top of all that, he was a redhead. Most often he spoke with effort, his voice low and words carefully chosen; unlike so many other young officers, he did not know how to coo sweet nothings into a lady’s ear.

  Among the few young girls in the colony, a very small number – four – were unmarried, and none had a waist so slender, eyes so velvety, a smile so winning as Sophia, who became the subject of many poems praising her beauty and her wit.

  As for Sophia, she let herself be lulled by these praises spoken by a hundred mouths as if by a sea with calm, warm water. It was as if a single large, adoring creature, Her Majesty’s Navy, was paying tribute to her. Choosing one suitor would have meant forsaking all others, extracting him from the group of comrades. Because each was in a sense the reflection of all those around him, because they multiplied and glorified one another, the group was in fact what truly interested her. What woman would settle for a captain when the entire Admiralty bowed to her?

  And so Sophia discovered that she was lighter than she had ever been in England, where – leaving aside a brief idyll with Mathieu de Longchamp, who, after two or three kisses, had undertaken to persuade Sophia to give him her hand, which had marked the end of their relationship, nor had she responded to any of the letters he had addressed to Hobart – she had always been careful to behave in all circumstances with full propriety. In the Antipodes she, of course, did not stop conforming scrupulously with the rules of decorum, but she allowed herself a few smiles, a few stolen looks, a few languid poses. For most of the men, deprived of the company of the fair sex for months, these represented the very essence of femininity, a portent of the fiancée or the wife with whom they would be reunited, or had yet to meet, on their return.

  For Crozier, however, they were more.

  When the two captains came back five months later, Crozier – whose hair now had more silver threads than gold (“A single night in Antarctica did that,” he said laconically to Lady Jane, then never referred to it again) – had decided to make Sophia his wife.

  To thank their hosts for the gracious welcome they had been given, and also to celebrate the fact that they were nearing the end of a perilous expedition that had lasted for more than four years, the two captains had organized a grand ball on the Erebus and the Terror for the leading members of Hobart society.

  The two ships had been arranged so that their hulls touched and were chained together so as to form a single vessel. Access was by a footbridge made of dozens of rowing boats fixed to one another, decorated with pennants and mimosa, the floral symbol of the island, which scented the air with its sweet perfume. The topsides of the Erebus had been fitted out as the ballroom, while on the deck of the Terror tables overflowing with superior foodstuffs and the finest wines in the governor’s cellar had been set up. A white cloth canopy reminiscent of a lost sail or the protective wing of some enormous bird had been hung above the two decks, which accommodated three hundred hand-picked guests, all delighted with these maritime festivities.

  In the midst of all their pomaded, perfumed, close-shaven men wearing clean and freshly starched uniforms, the two captains looked like the two sovereigns of a small nautical dominion.

  The evening was mild, the atmosphere nearly magical on board the two ships swaying gently on the waters of Hobart Bay. Sophia Cracroft had never enjoyed herself so much. Champagne flowed freely, and she did not miss a waltz, changing partners at every dance, whirling in the moonlight. On all the walls hung mirrors that reflected the brilliance of the candles; in them she could catch a glimpse, repeated a hundred times, of her own face with its pink cheeks and its shining eyes.

  Dancing with John Ross, she sank into his arms for a moment, almost expecting to feel herself lifted up, floating above the deck, so light and sylphlike did she feel. The Captain, worried, caught hold of her and suggested that she take some fresh air for a moment. Politely, she assented.

  In the bow of the ship, the sounds of the party were somewhat muffled, distorted by the reverberation stamped on them by the movement of the waves as they licked the hull. Stars dotted the black water with a thousand dancing points of light. A slight breeze was blowing from the sea and Sophia shivered. Ross took off his jacket and placed it around the shoulders of the young woman, who shuddered again. Looking at the sky sprinkled with so many lights that it seemed almost milky, she asked him in a fluty voice if he knew all the stars. He shrugged:

  “No, not all of them, far from it. I know the sailors’ stars. There is, umm, the Southern Cross, that helps you find the celestial South Pole by following the line formed by Crux and Gacrux.”

  He pointed to the sky, where millions of twinkling stars seemed to Sophia’s eyes absolutely identical.

  “Where is that?”

  “Right there, below Centaurus. It’s the smallest constellation in the sky.”

  “Could we begin with something easier, then? A constellation that is visible? I thought that they were all named for the gods and heroes of mythology who went into battle for the charms of irresistible nymphs and naiads afflicted with jealous husbands.”

  “Yes, of course, a great many of these constellations were discovered by the Ancients, who gave them the names of their gods. But I fear that I know the stories less than their usefulness for navigators when it is time to take one’s bearings …”

  Sophia sighed in the face of such dull pragmatism. They were alone beneath a sky that could have been studded with diamonds, being gently lulled by the waves in Hobart Bay and the distant harmonies of the orchestra that were coming on the wings of a gentle wind scented with magnolia – and here she was with this deuced Captain who could only talk about navigation. She kept an irritated silence.

  “You’ll excuse me, dear Sophia, but I must go back to my duties as host,” he announced after a moment. He kissed her hand, bowed to her slightly as if she were some dowager, then turned on his heels.

  Alone, leaning on the ship’s rail, Sophia was hesitating between wrath, despondency, and laughter when Crozier appeared at her side. She was amused to note that he was trembling.

  “Are you well?” he asked in an unsteady voice.

  “Wonderfully well, thank you. I was simply a little warm over there. And then all those people were making me dizzy …”

  “If you would rather be alone I can …”

  “No, no, stay, it’s fine. You can no doubt teach me a great many fascinating things about the proper use of stars in navigation.”

  He looked at her, taken aback.

  Her voice softened. “Excuse me. I’m sometimes rather blunt.”

  They stood there stock-still for a long moment. She could hear him breathing at her side.

  He began: “You must know that …” he stammered, “that Antarctica bears that name because it is at the polar opposite to the Arctic.”

  Sophia gave him a sidelong look.

  “I had no idea,” she declared. “But it seems to me quite appropriate.”

  Silence returned. Crozier felt a thin film of perspiration coat his palms.

  “As for the Arctic,” he went on, “it takes its name …”

  “Wait, don’t say another word, it owes its name to the fact that it is located at the polar opposite to Antarctica?”

  Crozier smiled faintly. This was not at all the way he had imagined their conversation. He was boring her with his geographical tales, that was obvious. But if he was silent now, all was lost. He resumed then, his voice nearly resigned: “That is a most interesting hypothesis but, alas, incorrect. The Arctic owes its name to the constellation of the Bear – Arktos – which looks down on it.”

  “Really?” said Sophia, whose interest had been aroused slightly. “A bear? And where is it?”

  “Well, as we are, you see, a
t the Antipodes to the Arctic, that constellation is invisible from here.”

  “So we see different stars depending upon where we are on Earth?”

  That notion, which had never brushed her mind, suddenly made her head spin. Really, you could trust nothing.

  “No, the stars change … In fact it is we who change, but they are not the same …”

  He broke off, unable to pursue an idea that had got inexplicably muddled. Whenever he was in Sophia’s presence his thoughts became tangled, his hands damp, his tongue thick, and he knew himself a perfect idiot.

  They were silent for a moment, she plunged in stunned contemplation of the starry sky, he transfixed by his own stupidity. Then, at the cost of a thousand efforts, he tried again:

  “When I was small,” he began without looking at her, “there were three books in our house: the Bible, a dog-eared almanac, and an old volume about astronomy picked up who knows where, with half its pages missing. And so, once I had learned how to recognize Orion, Cassiopeia, the Big and Little Dippers, I resolved to make up the rest. From my bedroom window under the eaves I could make out in the black sky the constellation of the Pig, the Hen, and the Ear of Corn. There were also Mr. Pincher, the village blacksmith with his crooked nose, the Owl, and the Commode.”

  Sophia could not stop herself from laughing.

  “And tonight it seems to me that I can see a new constellation in the sky which I’ve never seen before, yet it includes the brightest star. Look, Sophia,” he said, leaning gently against her and grasping her right hand to raise it to the level of their eyes, “do you see that very bright star in the midst of its paler neighbours? Follow my hand.”