by Helen Dewitt
I said, ‘I promise not to ask any questions.’
Sibylla kept walking up and down.
I said, ‘I think it solves everything.’
iv
If we fought with real swords I would kill you
1
Trying to feel sorry for Lord Leighton
The man was almost dead.
He should not have been moved after the accident, but they were short of supplies. They had been travelling now for ten days, stopping only to rest the dogs and to snatch a quick mouthful of pemmican.
Now they were down to their last dog. They had eaten Wolf two days before. Soon it would be Dixie’s turn. But without a dog …
The boy put the thought out of his mind. Cross that bridge when we come to it. At least the wind had died down. The only sounds were the squeak of the runners on the snow, the loud panting of Dixie as she struggled with the unaccustomed load, his own quick breath and the groans of the injured man.
The air was clear as crystal. Was that an igloo in the distance? It must be an Inuit encampment. Only the Inuit stayed so far north so late in the season.
Two hours later they staggered into the settlement.
‘Where are we?’ muttered the man.
‘It’s an Inuit camp,’ the boy replied.
‘Will they speak English?’
‘I speak Inuit,’ said the boy.
‘Good thing I brought you,’ said the man with a ghastly grin.
Two fur-clad figures approached. The boy struggled to remember a few phrases picked up from The Eskimo Book of Knowledge months before.
Taimaimat Kanimajut âniasiortauningine maligaksat sivorlerpângat imaipoK: ANIASIORTIB PERKOJANGIT NALETSIARLUGIT.
The two men turned without a word and returned to their igloos. The only sound was the fine snow drifting through the encampment.
The boy tried again:
Ilapse ilangat killerpat aggangminik âniasiortib mangipserpâ ajoKertorpâselo killeK mangipsertautsainartuksaungmat. Ilanganele killertub mangiptaK pêjarpâ, kingornganelo tataminiarpoK killeK âKivalialugane piungilivaliatuinarmat. Nerriukkisê âniasiortib mangiptaK najumitsainarniarmago uvlut magguk pingasullônêt nâvlugit killeK mamitsiarKârtinagô?
Silence was the only reply.
Desperately he summoned up a few words of greeting from that half-remembered book:
Sorlo inôKatigêksoaKarjmat unuktunik adsigêngitunik taimaktauK ataneKarpoK unuktunik adsigêngitunik, anginerpaujorle tamainit, idluartomik ataniortoK inungnik KaKortanik Kernângajuniglo Kernertaniglo, tagva atanek George, ataniojok Britishit atanioviksoanganut. Tâmna atanerivase.
Suddenly a shot rang out, and the boy fell lifeless to the snow.
As far as I can see, The Eskimo Book of Knowledge is completely useless. ‘The first rule in curing sickness or injury is TO OBEY THE INSTRUCTIONS OF THE WHITE MAN.’ When am I ever going to use that? They should have called it A Hundred and One Things Not to Say Where the Inuit Can Hear You.
When one of your people cuts his hand, the Trader covers the wound with a bandage and instructs the man to keep the wound covered. Often the man throws away the bandage and wonders why the wound grows worse instead of better. Do you expect the Trader to hold the bandage round the man’s hand for two or three days until the wound is healed?
That’s going to make us popular.
As there are many different races, so there are many different rulers, but the greatest ruler of all, who governs with justice White Men, Brown Men and Black Men in very many countries, is KING GEORGE the ruler of the British Empire. He is your King.
Another winner. Unfortunately it was the only thing on Inuit I could find. Of course, he may not be going where they speak Inuit. I could work out some of the words and grammar if I knew I was going to need it, but Sibylla still won’t say. It would help if she would just tell me something about him. I can’t believe I’m almost 11 and the only thing I know is that he’s not Thor Heyerdahl.
Not only is King George a man of great prudence and a hard worker; he is also a great hunter. Whether it be in the hunting of fierce animals like the bear, or in the crafty stalking of the deer or in the shooting of partridges while they fly, no man in the British Empire takes surer aim than our King.
AtaneK George silatudlartuinalungilaK angijomiglo suliaKarpaklune, ômajoKsiorteogivorletauK—
OK, that’s an exaggeration. That’s not the only thing I know. I also know he’s not Egon Larsen. He’s not Chatwin. She likes Thubron, so he’s out. I think I’ve narrowed it down to 8 or 9. For a while I thought it was Red Devlin: she always laughs at the gap-toothed urchins, and since he was captured five years ago his wife’s been campaigning for his release, so Sibylla might have thought it was safer not to tell me. But then last week James Hatton got back from the Arctic Circle and wrote an article for the Independent Magazine that used the phrase ‘veritable cathedral of ice’. VERITABLE CATHEDRAL OF ICE shouted Sibylla and she walked up and down saying veritable cathedral of ice and reading out other priceless phrases and suddenly I had a hunch that it was Hatton. So I got The Eskimo Book of Knowledge and started to work on Inuit.
Before returning to London to take pen in hand Hatton walked solo to the North Pole and back without telling anyone where he was going. At one point he was attacked by a walrus. It was so cold the action on his gun wouldn’t work, so he had to throw a knife at it. He got it in one eye (Hatton: ‘Bull’s-eye!’), and then was able to harpoon it. He had to eat some of the meat raw and then trek on another 15 miles, even though he’d been going for 20 hours, because he knew the smell of the blood would attract other predators. At one point the frostbite in one toe was so bad he had to cut it off.
If it is Hatton I’ve wasted years learning Xhosa, Swahili, Zulu, Hausa, Quechua, Faroese and Mongolian. If it isn’t I’m wasting my time on The Eskimo Book of Knowledge. I think I may be wasting my time anyway.
If you hunters used half the CARE of the White Men in setting your traps skilfully and in keeping your furs free from dirt, every Innuit family would gain greater possessions from the Company’s Trader.
If I get us both lynched my long lost father will probably tell his long lost son to get lost and stay lost.
Sibylla is supposed to be typing and is reading the paper. I’ve got the Kanji dictionary on one arm of my chair, and the little Kodansha Romaji on the other. If she asks what I’m reading I’ll tell her, but she probably won’t ask when she sees the Japanese dictionaries; she knows I’ve got a new book on judo. I don’t want to hear about how pay for schoolchildren, the right to death, homosexual marriage and all the other basic requirements of a culture not irredeemably sunk in barbarism will be commonplace by the year 2065.
No wonder your beautiful damsels prefer to marry a good hunter, a man who is an honour to his camp and can provide for his family comforts and new possessions! In all parts of the world such men are favoured by fair damsels—
OH MY GOD! shouted Sibylla. He’s OUT! He ESCAPED! This is WONDERFUL!
And striding up and down she said that Red Devlin had escaped three months ago and had just walked into the British Embassy in Tbilisi. She said: I’ve actually kind of MISSED those gap-toothed urchins toting Kalashnikovs. She was bounding around as though the gravitational force of the planet had suddenly dropped by a third.
I thought: It’s got to be Devlin.
I read one of his books a long time ago. It was called Get Out Before I Throw You Out. He wasn’t much of a writer; his talent was for making outrageous demands which people found impossible to refuse. For instance he once asked to go up with some paratroopers over a war zone and was told this was against all regulations.
Oh go on, said Red Devlin.
X: Oh all right then but no one must know this is strictly on the Q.T.
Red Devlin was equipped with a parachute purely as a safety precaution and then when the paratroopers jumped he jumped out too before anyone could stop him and got some story that no one could have got who had not gone i
n with the paratroopers. A newspaper hired him on the strength of this story and then fired him for refusing to file some other story, and then another newspaper hired him because he had penetrated a guerrilla hideout by going into a local bar and saying ‘I’d like to visit that guerrilla hideout.’
Barman: Nobody knows where it is. It’s a secret.
Red Devlin: Oh go on, you can tell me.
Barman: Oh all right then, you take the first right— Tell you what, we’ll go in my car.
Sceptics had pointed out that there was only Red Devlin’s word for this, but since most of the people he talked to refused to talk to anyone else you could either argue that he must have been telling the truth or that there was no way to prove that he wasn’t.
Red Devlin had once helped a couple to adopt an orphan from Romania. The couple had visited Romania and seen an orphanage and on their return to Britain they had decided to adopt a little girl. They had immersed themselves in Romanian and they had talked to people who had adopted Romanian children and they had tried to initiate adoption procedures and had been told it was out of the question. Both were women so that they were a man short and one woman too many. The couple argued passionately and described in graphic detail the conditions of the orphanage but rules were rules and there was nothing to be done.
The couple went outside and sat shivering in the sun. And now by a piece of luck Red Devlin came down the street. He had lost a job again so his time was his own.
What’s the matter? said Red Devlin.
They explained and he said he would help them.
The couple were so convinced that rules were rules that they thought he was offering to marry one of them. Red Devlin laughed. He said he was a married man. He said he would go to Romania and get the child. The couple explained patiently that you could not get the child out of Romania or into Britain without the adoption papers.
Is that a fact? said Red Devlin.
Red Devlin knew maybe three words of Romanian. They may have meant ‘Oh go on’ to start with; if they didn’t, they did by the time Red Devlin was through with them. He went to the orphanage and asked for the girl, and each time someone objected he brought out his three words of Romanian and the long and the short of it was that in three days he drove out of Bucharest with the girl beside him.
Some people smuggle children over borders in the boots of cars. Some people dress them as giant dolls, or stuff them in suitcases. Some people stick them under a blanket and hope for the best. Red Devlin would drive up to the border with the girl in the front seat.
Official: Where are her papers?
Red Devlin: She doesn’t have any papers.
Red Devlin would explain the situation.
I’m sorry, but she will have to go back.
Red Devlin would explain the situation again.
Believe me, I sympathise, but there’s nothing I can do.
Sure you can, said Red Devlin. Anyone can say it, but Red Devlin really believed it, and every time he said it people who had only been doing their job stopped doing their job. Back he came to Britain with the girl to discuss the matter with a member of the Social Services.
This was not a pushover. The woman said she was only doing her job and Red Devlin said Oh go on, and instead of saying Oh all right then the woman came back with Rules are rules. Red Devlin said Oh go on again and this time the woman said there was nothing she could do. Red Devlin said Sure you can and the woman said My hands are tied. They talked for a whole hour, and the whole time they talked Red Devlin never once argued passionately or said but SURELY or but can’t you SEE or How would you feel if it were YOUR child. They talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and even after an hour of Red Devlin the woman didn’t say Oh all right then, but she said she would see what she could do. The long and the short of it was that the girl got to stay. There were hundreds of episodes like this but then he had been taken captive and held hostage.
Sibylla said what had probably happened was that they had kept him gagged for five years and then one day someone accidentally took off the gag and Red Devlin said I’d like to go home and they said Oh all right then.
I waited for her to say something else but she just walked up and down and suddenly as she walked by she saw The Eskimo Book of Knowledge.
What’s this? she asked, and picking it up began to look at it and to read out as soon as it pleased White damsels to adorn their necks and shoulders with the soft white fur of the fox, then there were many young men eager to make glad the hearts (and the vanity) of their damsels with gifts of white fox skins; and when their wives were sad, husbands learned to make them happy with gifts of white fox-skins and to say This is amazing and When was it published?
1931 I said.
1931 said Sibylla and this is, let’s see
1998
1998 so that’s 67 years, so in 67 years it will be
2065
2065. Exactly. Just think Ludo in 2065 people will probably consider it absolutely BARBARIC that a child should be condemned to work 12 years without pay in absolute economic subjection to the adults into whose keeping fate has consigned it and BARBARIC that people should be brought into the world into circumstances they did not choose and then COMPELLED to remain REGARDLESS and they will not know which is more surprising, the absolute SILENCE on these subjects at the present time or the absolute RUBBISH routinely published on the subject of marriage between members of the same sex in papers which PURPORT to
Is Red Devlin my father? I asked.
She said:
I don’t want to talk about it.
She did not come to earth. My mother was now on a planet with a deadly atmosphere and gravitational force of 17. Leaning heavily on the chair and looking down at The Eskimo Book of Knowledge she said after a pause with a gallant effort:
But what a marvellous language let’s see kakortarsu is obviously the white fox so we’ve got kakortarsu kakortarsuk kakortarsungnik kakortarsuit and there’s puije and puijit for seal further up the page it looks like puije is the accusative puijit is the nominative which would make kakortarsuit nominative piojorniningillo is vanity on the previous page we seem to have puijevinit seal meat puijevinekarnersaularposelo you will also gain a greater supply of seal meat I’ve always wanted to learn a agglutinative language
I said: Three’s not enough?
She said: I feel like learning another it’s wonderful to think of a language like this in DAILY USE. She said: I wonder what the Inuit would be for veritable cathedral of ice!
I didn’t say anything.
She said:
Oh LOOK it’s got the Inuit for God Save the King!
The planet Saturn has a gravitational force of only 1.07 and she began to sing
Gûdib saimarliuk
Adanterijavut
NâlengnartoK.
Piloridlarlune
Nertornadlarlune
Ataniotile
Uvaptingnut.
I said:
Is it James Hatton?
JAMES HATTON! said Sibylla. Why the man’s a veritable colossus!
She said:
I’ve got to work.
I got the impression I was wasting my time on The Eskimo Book of Knowledge. I thought: Well, maybe this year I’ll pass the test, and I went to look at the postcard of Greek Girls Playing at Ball, by Lord Leighton, which Sibylla had shown me years before. Abstract expressionism this is not, but I still couldn’t see what I was supposed to see. Then I read the magazine article for the 500th time, but I couldn’t see what I was supposed to see. Then I listened to the tape of Liberace, which is obviously complete and utter crap.
Sibylla said: Would you mind not playing that? I’m trying to work.
I said: I can see the tape is crap. Isn’t that enough?
She looked at me.
I said: How do you know you’re not wrong about the other two?
She looked at me.
I said: Why don’t you tell me what you think is wrong so I can decid
e for myself?
She looked at me with burning eyes.
I said: Why won’t you tell me who he is? Do you want me to promise not to tell him? I have a right to know.
She said: Well I have a right to remain silent.
She said: If you don’t need me for anything I’m going to watch Seven Samurai for a while.
She turned off the computer. It was about 11:30. So far she had spent about 8 minutes typing which at £6.25 an hour meant she had earned about 83p.
She picked up the remote and pressed ON and PLAY.
40 bandits stop on a hill above a village in Japan. They decide to raid it after the barley harvest. A farmer overhears.
A village meeting is held. The farmers despair.
Rikichi leaps to his feet with burning eyes.
Let’s make bamboo spears! Let’s run ’em all through!
Not me, says Yohei.
Impossible, says Manzo.
I used to take her word for it. But what if she’s wrong? A new book by the author of the magazine article came out last month. According to the reviews he is one of the greatest writers of our time.
The farmers consult old Giseku.
I said: According to the reviews the author of the magazine article is one of the greatest writers of our time.
Sibylla said yes and Alma-Tadema fetched more than Michelangelo for a while.
He tells them to find hungry samurai.
I said: According to one reviewer this writer I am supposed to regard from a state of grace beyond pity is the greatest writer in English in the world today. Another described him as America’s answer to Flaubert. A third referred to him as the great chronicler of the American experience. Nine out of ten reviewers gave him a rating of ‘great’ or better. Five used the word ‘genius’.