Creation (22 page)

“I am frightened,” says Audubon, suddenly. “Do you see? Not by Fame but by the strange coils of life. Do you know, I had been reading Byron’s
Corsair
on the
Delos
, as I approached Europe that year. I still remember his words, because they struck such chords in me: ‘Fear’d, shunned denied ’ere youth had lost its force.’ ‘Warp’d by the world in Disappointment’s school’: it was exactly how I felt, then. Now, short months later, it seemed the opposite was to be my lot. You treat Time as if it were a predictable force, as if it could be trapped. But to me, Time is a sea monster. Do you not see the beguiling loops and coils? It is a shapeless coastline along which we journey in the fog.

“And don’t you think it strange,” he remarks in Labrador’s nearly empty theatre, to his audience of one seated in tiers and tiers of rock, to Captain Henry Bayfield at Ouapitagone, “that you sail with the figurehead of Byron’s heroine?”

Bayfield remembers distinctly that, on first meeting, Audubon had said he did not read. It unsettles him: a needless lie. Why does the man tell it? In an effort to escape what he called “the shape of life?”

T
HAT NIGHT
in Edinburgh, Audubon found, cloaked in white, anonymously famous, that he enjoyed the danger; to be at risk of exposure was thrilling. He flirted with the credulous public. There is a beauty in lying. A freedom in lying. An art in lying.

He was safe in the fact that he was not who they thought he was. The phrenologist might take his skull between his palms and prod, but he did not know what was hidden within. J. J. Audubon, son of a French nobleman, possibly possessing royal blood, was nowhere to be
found. Within was Jean Rabin, Creole of Santo Domingo. An adoring public would never hold him in its hands, nor, if they turned on him, could they wound him.

“This man is a fraud,” announced the phrenologist.

Combe nervously came to stand at Audubon’s feet. “When you hear the name you shall be highly amused that you have made so categorical a claim.”

But the phrenologist’s hands did not give way, nor did his opinion. With the man’s fingers pressing into his head, Audubon felt his brain shrink away in self-protection.

“What sort of fraud?” said Audubon, his French accent sounding very strong to him.

“A fraud who delights in crossing borders, leaving mystery in his wake. A seller of patent medicine, perhaps? Or an artist.”

The phrenologist’s voice suddenly sank in a hush. “Oh, feel the knobs here behind the ears. Yes, the man’s métier is either art or medicine. Art, most likely, for there are more frauds in that world than in the other.”

He tapped the top of Audubon’s skull, twice, three times, as if knocking on a door. And he took himself away from the light.

Then Audubon was introduced as the greatest bird artist of his day, to much applause.

The next candidate was a musician, and, under the fingers a short time later, was pronounced to be exactly that. Hence, the theory of head shape was proven. Afterward there was a bit of Scottish music, airs and glees and madrigals.

“I
T MAKES A GOOD STORY
,” says Bayfield.

“Yes it does, but this one is true. Can you believe that still Mr. Combe was not finished with me?

“I had to sit for the plaster cast of my head. My face and hair were covered over with plaster of Paris, my nose as well; I had a greased quill in each nostril so that I could breathe, and worst of all, I had to keep my eyes closed for an entire hour. A miserable ordeal, and when it was finished I hardly knew my head.”

Bayfield sits with his face turned up toward the sky. He is waiting for day to end so that his friends and guides, the planets and suns so unimaginably distant, will show their light.

“You dissemble,” he says.

“I do,” laughs Audubon.

“You neglect to tell me of the great satisfactions fame has brought you. The rewards of a great name. You pretend, in fact — yes, pretend — that it is of no import, and yet everything about you speaks of a man who must impress himself upon the world, who must be larger, in his deeds, than others.”

“A-ha!” cries Audubon, leaping to his feet. He stands over the naval officer, legs apart, fists on his hips. “We return to the question of scale. How big must I be? Or you? Do you accuse your new friend of seeking attention? While you, a modest chartmaker, are content to labour in obscurity with only your excellent reputation and the truth of your renderings to warm your heart at night? You think that I lie even when I tell the truth.”

T
HEY WALK ON
through the light, which is silvered and blue with the slowly approaching night. The rock is cleft; from here a green bed of moss spreads. Their feet sink, but bounce up again. Audubon stops to examine a nest. Bayfield trudges, staring at the rock so intensely that he does not see where he is going. He kicks the rocks at his feet, making automatic notes. Granite as at Sept-Îles. Grey feldspar. Augite as well as hornblende, traversed by large dykes of basaltic greenstone. The direction of these dykes is northeast and west, he notes. Also traversed by dykes of an unknown red rock, like fine-grained granite. He wishes he knew its name.

Audubon finds a soft patch of moss and lies in it. His mass of curly hair confuses itself with the tendrils of moss. Bayfield steps a little closer and sees that the artist’s eyes are closed.

“Try it. It is soft. And dry, to a point.” His eyes do not open.

The captain looks over his shoulder. It would not do for his crew to see him in so undignified an action. But there is nothing and no one, not a path, not a dwelling, not a viewpoint. He pokes at the moss
with his toes. He bends over and presses it with a hand. Softer than the softest eiderdown mattress in Quebec. He bends a knee and his knee sinks deep and hits first cold water and then rock.

“Ugh,” he says and lifts his knee.

“All at once. Let yourself down all at once. Along the length of your leg with your weight on your arm. As if you were to lie down on thin ice.”

Bayfield does as he is told.

“Ah,” he says.

“Have you ever felt anything so wonderful?”

“Not in a long while,” admits Bayfield.

“Anything. Ever?”

“It does feel very comfortable. Compared to a hammock.”

“Of course there are things better. Lying with my wife feels better than this.”

Bayfield has no reply.

Audubon laughs softly. Then, loudly. “Here is what a woman must aspire to: to be a better mattress than moss.”

Bayfield is offended. “It is very rude to think of a lady that way.”

“You are not married.”

“I am not.”

“Therefore you must respect women. It is only right. However, I am married. With my actions I respect them. Pray God my words may find some humour in the situation. You must find a wife, captain.”

Bayfield is finding this intrusive. “I am at sea from April through October. A wife would be left alone.” (And Fanny Wright is far too young.)

Audubon rolls on his side, gets up on an elbow and looks at his friend. His elbow and hip sink in the moss. “And from October to April? A wife would give you comfort. If it’s comfort you want.”

“Has yours given you comfort?”

“Oh, yes indeed. Certainly a lot more comfort than I have given her.” A soft groan of repentant laughter rises from the bearlike man. “She is my most loyal friend and my partner in this huge endeavour. Do you know what love is, my friend? If I may call you that.” He does
not wait for an answer. “You have to place yourself entirely in the hands of the beloved. You have to trust your lover or you cannot feel the pleasures. If the trust is there, it is perfect. But it begins to die, of course, it dies as, little by little, we disappoint one another. Each breach is punished by a diminution of joy. Being imperfect beings, we break trust with one another.”

“I see,” says Bayfield.

“I doubt that you do.”

Bayfield closes his eyes, as an experiment. It feels wonderful. But as he drifts, Audubon summons him.

“What are you thinking?”

“That it is a relief not to see.”

“I feel the same.”

“But still I see.”

“Of course. One cannot help it.”

“What do you see?”

“The rocks. Blue where they are wet from the sea. The trees on the sides of the long peninsulas, black when the sun has gone off them.”

“Which is most of the time.”

“Aye.”

They lie in silence a little bit more.

“And I am thinking,” says Bayfield, “that it is a miracle the flies have not found us.”

The men laugh aloud.

“Now you’ve jinxed it. Here they come!”

A battalion of blackflies bombs their bodies. First one then the other jumps to his feet. In so doing, Bayfield staggers and flings out a hand, accidentally hitting Audubon in the leg. The artist retaliates with a pretend punch to the captain’s shoulder. Their feet sinking unevenly in the foot and a half of moss, they dance apart, then Audubon dodges in again and lands a blow to Bayfield’s stomach. The younger man has fighting reflexes and, before he realizes it, has blocked Audubon’s arm hard and landed a blow on his chin. Still they are laughing. They fight like that until, breathing hard, Audubon backs off, suddenly short of breath.

The
LAUGHING SONG

O
n the next day, July 6, Audubon walks with Johnny and the other young men. The geese, which honk and glide away from the water, tell him there are marshes inland. Amongst the naked rocks and open quagmires he sees the Red-necked Partridge, or willow grouse, as it is sometimes known. He had suspected it could be found here, for he knows it to have been shot in Maine. It counts, he supposes, as a new bird for Labrador.

These partridge are silent, familial birds that creep around at the roots of bushes, scuttling over the bare rocks if startled. When Johnny pokes about with his gun, he scares up a family. The adults fly into his face so that he is forced to beat them off, even killing one.

Their behaviour excites Audubon. It is different from that of the grouse he knows in the south. Among other grouse the males leave the incubating females; both sexes and the young fly from man.

He stirs up and follows a pair that has no young. These birds do not attempt to intimidate him, but fly ahead, from hillock to rise of rock. He sees them standing, watching, until he gets to within two hundred yards. Then they run from the bare rock to the silver green moss, where they are invisible, only to reappear ahead on a rise, looking back.
Dyow
, they bark,
cluck cluck cluck
. Then they laugh, smoothly, and the laugh grows and speeds up. Again he has the feeling of enchantment, which has come over him before in this country. It is as if these birds are mortals, under a
spell, as if they must draw him onward, as if they have a message for him.

He follows the two willow grouse and before long arrives at a great black quagmire. On it is floating some tangled green vine; pitcher plants with their leathery red cups stand on thin stalks. The grouse fly over top of the quagmire and land in its centre. They laugh:
heh heh heh heh
. He steps in. The black is a mix of all colour, all matter. The mud sucks at his feet and at the feet of Johnny, who has stepped in after him. It is not very deep and he decides to carry on.

He takes a few more steps into the quagmire. The surface ahead seems to move, as if the bog were a being, awakening to his presence.

Now he tries to lift one foot but as he transfers his weight the other foot sinks further. He staggers. The first leg buckles at the knee, sending him down to his calf. With an immense effort he lifts his standing leg. The mud makes a loud pop. The other leg sinks to the hip, and he falls forward, the queasy matter working itself into his wool trousers.

“Johnny,” he calls, over his shoulder, “take care how you tread on this surface.” Johnny is not two steps behind him and in the same difficulty. He strikes the surface with the butt of his gun, breaking the tension; his feet begin to sink. The bog has a gloss like fat on gravy. When it is cracked, the whole mass quivers.

“Do not try to run, whatever you do,” Audubon warns him. He is now, himself, fully immersed to his waist. The partridges are lightly perched on the green leaves that dot the surface.
Dyow, cluck cluck cluck. Heh heh heh heh heh
.

Johnny’s struggles make vibrations travel across the bog.

Audubon breathes heavily in and out. In such a place do pirates throw their victims to perish, he thinks. Do horses plunge to their deaths, drowning in mud, do murder victims sink to oblivion. In such a place do the bizarrely preserved corpses of animals that existed before history occasionally burp to the surface. Audubon imagines himself in aspic on a table at Baron Cuvier’s laboratory:
ORNITHOLOGIST
, 19th century. The long-legged behemoth of Santo Domingo and other parts.

Or, all flesh consumed, his skeleton pressed farther and farther down under the weight of rotting matter, himself as a mere sketch on rock, obsidian, a fossil. The man who chased the birds once too often.

“I’m going down, Father,” Johnny is saying, puzzled.

Carefully, Audubon turns his head. Johnny’s knees are disappearing, both at the same time. Behind him and off to the right is Tom Lincoln, balanced on the quivering surface. Wise fellow that he is, Lincoln has taken the measure of their enemy and stands on the green matter. He stoops, arms out, knees bent, motionless.

“How far down does it go, Father?”

“I don’t feel the bottom.” Audubon has now sunk to his hips but goes no farther. His legs are split apart; the saddle of his body supports him. The ripples from Johnny’s struggles are making slurping noises against his thighs.

“Do not come any closer!”

“I’m trying to reach you.”

“You mustn’t!”

Their voices rise in fear and anger.

The bog, as it makes to swallow Johnny, emits gaseous odours and strange gasps; bubbles break on the surface. Audubon stands in fragile equilibrium, mud hugging his hips. His waistcoat is soaked, its pockets of pencil and paper, snuff, knife, heavy. The collecting basket with the dead grouse that rode on a belt around his middle is now a mass of wet humus. It settles on him that he can go no farther and that he is in an element utterly indifferent to, in fact malignly affected by, his efforts.