Mason & Dixon (8 page)

They are in the southern Latitudes at last, hence the need for Awnings,— the shipboard routine settl'd into, the Boatswain, Mr. Higgs, turning ev'ryone to upon the Project of tidying up the work of the Riggers at Plymouth, who've left far too many Ends untuck'd for this Deck-Tyrant, born under the sign of Virgo, so obsessive about neatness in Knot-work, as to provide a source of Amusement for the Captain, who finds him an ideal Subject to practice being insane upon. "A Phiz of Doom! we can't have this! Worse than idle Whistling!" Mr. Higgs obliges

 
the section not on Watch to attend Instruction in Lashings, Seizings, the art of making a Turk's Head that might fool a Harem Girl. "You may think no one'll get close enough to see it, but a Thousand details, each nearly invisible, all working together, can mean the difference between a ship that goes warping and kedging in to a Foreign Port, and one that Makes an Entrance. And which will the Scoundrels think of meddling with first, eh? Now I want to see each of ye hauling me taut a Matthew Walker, that England shall be proud of,"— implying that somewhere there is a Royal Museum of Splices, Hitches, and Bends, where their Work may one day lie upon Display. Some in the Narcosis of the Cruise are more than eager to adopt Mr. Higgs's Obsessedness as to Loose Ends, becoming many of them quite picky indeed, scrutinizing the Rigging, often whilst fifty feet up in its Midst, for unsightly Dribblings of Stockholm Tar, Hooks too carelessly mous'd, fray'd Throat-Seizing among the Dead-eyes.

Other Sailors look for alternatives to Ennui even more extreme.

"Where's Bodine?"

"Last I saw of him was out the end of the fore t'gallant Yard, with his Penis in the Jewel Block,— quite enjoying the Friction, to Appearance."

"You men are that desperate for Entertainment?"

"Do we seem to you a care-free Lot, Sir? 'Tis quite otherwise. Bodine, among his shipmates, is indeed reckon'd fastidious,— the steps from Boredom to Discontent to Unwise Practices are never shorter than aboard a Sixth-Rate upon a long Voyage, Sir." One or two chess players hold out for perhaps an extra week,— then 'tis Sal Si Puedes, and they, too, are biting off their toenails, growing Whiskers, piercing Ears, putting upon View, for a fee, fictitious Sea-Creatures that others must bend down to see, becoming thereupon subject to Posterior Assault.

In such a recreational Vacuum, the Prospect of crossing the Equatorial Line soon grows unnaturally magnified, as objects in certain Mirages and Apparitions at Sea,— a Grand Event, prepared for weeks in advance. Fearless Acrobats of the upper Courses and hardened Gunners with prick'd-in black-powder Tattoos are all at once fussing about, nitter-nattering like a Village-ful of housewives over trivial details of the Ceremony of Initiation plann'd for those new to this Crossing, and dropping into Whispers whenever these "Pollywogs,"— namely, Mason,

.5.5 Dixon, and the Revd Cherrycoke,— happen near. Members of the Crew are to take the parts of King Neptune and his Mermaid Queen, and their Court, and the Royal Baby,— a role especially sought after, but assign'd by Tradition to him (Fender Bodine is an early favorite in the Wagering) whose Paunch, oozing with Equatorial Sweat, 'twill be most nauseating for a Pollywog to crawl to and kiss,— this being among the more amiable Items upon the Schedule of Humiliation.

"Why?" the Twins wish to know. "It sounds more like Punishment. Did somebody make it a crime to cross the Equator?"

"Sailors' Pranks, Lads,— ignoring 'em's best," huffs Uncle Ives. "And a foolish rowdy-dow over some Geometers' Abstraction that cannot even be seen."

"But that for one Instant," the Revd points out, "our Shadows lay perfectly beneath us. To change Hemispheres is no abstract turn,— our Attentions to the Royal Baby, and the rest of it, were Tolls exacted for passage thro' the Gate of the single shadowless Moment, and into the South, with a newly constellated Sky, and all-unforeseen ways of living and dying. So must there be a Ritual of Crossing Over, serving to focus each Pollywog's Mind upon the Step he was taking."

"We'd suppos'd it fun," frowns Pliny.

"Your getting thump'd about and all, Uncle," explains Pitt.

"Has either of you," inquires the Revd, "ever had a Basin-ful of Spotted Dick slung into your Face?" The Twins, deciding that this is not an actual Threat, voice approval of the Practice. "Yes, boys, it does sound sportive enough,— except for the part that no one ever tells you about,— "

"Tell us!" cries Pitt.

"Not sure I ought...the same indeed being true of Puddings and the more Cream-like Pies,— '

"Tell us, or you're Salt Pork," stipulates Pliny.

"Well, then, Lads,— it goes up your Nose. Yes. You know what Pond-water feels like up there, I'm sure, but imagine.. .thick, cold, day-before-yesterday's Spotted Dick,...curdling, spots of Mold, with all those horrible Raisin-bits, hard as Gravel,—

"And if it goes far enough up your Nose," adds Uncle Lomax with a monitory tremolo, "Well. Then it's in your Brain, isn't it?"

In the Lull whilst the Boys consider this, the Revd slips back into his tale.

On southward the Seahorse gallops, as if secure forever in a warm'd, melodious Barcarole of indolent days, when in fact 'twill be only a few degrees of Latitude more till we pick up the Trade Wind, and hear in its Desert Whistle the message Ghosts often bring,— that 'tis time, once again, to turn to. And, in denial of all we thought we knew, to smell the Land we are making for, the green fecund Continent, upon the Wind that comes from behind us.

The Astronomers have a game call'd "Sumatra" that the Revd often sees them at together,— as children, sometimes, are seen to console themselves when something is denied them,— their Board a sort of spoken Map of the Island they have been kept from and will never see. "Taking a run in to Bencoolen, anything we need?" "Thought I'd nip up the coast to Mokko-Mokko or Padang, see what's a-stir." "Nutmeg Harvest is upon us, I can smell it!" Ev'ry woman in "Sumatra" is comely and willing, though not without attendant Inconvenience, Dixon's almost instantly developing Wills and Preferences of their own despite his best efforts to keep them uncomplicated,— whereas the only women Mason can imagine at all are but different fair copies of the same serene Beauty,— Rebekah, forbidden as Sumatra to him, held in Detention, as is he upon Earth, until his Release, and their Reunion. So they pass, Mason's women and Dixon's, with more in common than either Surveyor will ever find out about, for even phantasms may enjoy private lives,— shadowy, whispering, veil'd to be unveil'd, ever safe from the Insults of Time.

7

Trying to remember how they ever came to this place, both speak of Passage as by a kind of flight, all since Tenerife, and the Mountain slowly recessional, having pass'd like a sailor's hasty dream between Watches, as if, out of a sea holding scant color, blue more in name than in fact, the unreadable Map-scape of Africa had unaccountably emerg'd, as viewed from a certain height above the pale Waves,— tilted into the Light, as a geometer's Globe might be pick'd up and tilted for a look at this new Hemisphere, this haunted and other half of ev'rything known, where spirit-powers run free among the green abysses and the sudden mountain crests,— Cape Town's fortifications, sent crystalline by the Swiftness, rushing by from a low yet dangerous altitude as the Astronomers go swooping above the shipping in the Bays, topmen pointing in amazement, every detail, including the Invisible, set precisely, present in all its violent chastity. A town with a precarious Hold upon the Continent, planted as upon another World by the sepia-shadow'd Herren XVII back in Holland (and rul'd by the Eighteenth Lord, whose existence must never be acknowledg'd in any way).

The moment Mason and Dixon arrive, up in the guest Suite sorting out the Stockings, which have come ashore all a-jumble, admiring the black Stinkwood Armoire with the silver fittings, they are greeted, or rather, accosted, by a certain Bonk, a Functionary of the V.O.C., whose task it is to convey to them an assortment of Visitors' Rules, or warnings. One might say jolly,— one would have to say blunt. "From Guests of our community, our Hope is for no disruptions of any kind. As upon a ship at sea, we do things here in our own way,— we, the officers, and you, the passengers. What seems a solid Continent, stretching away Northward for thousands of miles, is in fact an Element with as little mercy as the Sea to our Backs, in which, to be immers'd is just as surely, and swiftly, to be lost, without hope of Salvation. As there is nowhere to escape to, easier to do as the Captain and Officers request, eh?"

"Of course," Mason quickly.

"We've but come to observe the Sky...?" Dixon seeks to assure him.

"Yes? Yes? Observe the Sky,— instead of what, pray?" Smiling truculently, the Dutchman glowers and aims his abdomen in different directions. "'Of course,' this isn't a pretext? To 'observe' anything more Worldly,— Our Fortifications, Our Slaves,— nothing like that, eh?"

"Sir," Mason remonstrates, "we are Astronomers under the commission of our King, no less honorably than ten years ago, under that of his King, was Monsieur Lacaille, who has since provided the world a greatly esteem'd Catalogue of Southern Stars. Surely, at the end of the day, we serve no master but Him that regulates the movements of the Heav'ns, which taken together form a cryptick Message,"— Dixon now giving him Looks that fail, only in a Mechanickal way, to be Kicks,— "we are intended one day to solve, and read," Mason smoaking belatedly that he may be taking his Trope too far.

For the Dutchman is well a-scowl. "Ja, Ja, precisely the sort of English Whiggery, acceptable among yourselves, that here is much better left unexpress'd." Police Official Bonk peers at them more closely. It is nearly time for his midday break, and he wants to hurry this up and get to a Tavern. Yet if Mason is acting so unrestrain'd with a Deputy direct from the Castle itself, how much more dangerous may his rattling be in the hearing of others,— even of Slaves? He must therefore be enter'd in the Records as a Person of Interest, thereby taking up residence, in a pen-and-paper way, in the Castle of the Compagnie. Into the same Folder, of course, goes a file for the Assistant,— harmless, indeed, in some Articles, simple, though he appears,— pending the Day when one may have to be set against the other.

Although rooming at the Zeemanns', the Astronomers are soon eating at the house behind, owing to the sudden defection of half the Zeemann kitchen Slaves, gone quick as that to the Mountains and the Droster life. This being just one more Domestick Calamity,— along with Company Prices, collaps'd Roofs, sand in the Soup,— that the Cape Dutch have come to expect and live thro', Arrangements are easily made, the Vrooms' having been Neighbors for years. At mealtimes Mason and Dixon go out by the Zeemanns' kitchen, on past the outbuildings, then in by way of the back Pantry and Kitchen to the Residence of Cornelius Vroom and his wife, Johanna, and what seems like seven, and is probably closer to three, blond, nubile Daughters. Mealtimes are a strange combination of unredeemably wretched food and exuberantly charming Company. Under the Table-cloth, in a separate spatial domain such as Elves are said to inhabit, feet stray, organs receive sudden inrushes of Blood,— or in Mason's case, usually, Phlegm. Blood, clearly rushing throughout Dixon, is detectable as well in faces and at bosoms and throats in this Jethro's Tent they've had the luck to stumble into.

Cornelius Vroom, the Patriarch of this restless House-hold, is an Admirer of the legendary Botha brothers, a pair of gin-drinking, pipe-smoking Nimrods of the generation previous whose great Joy and accomplishment lay in the hunting and slaughter of animals much larger than they. Vroom is a bottomless archive of epic adventures out in the unmapped wilds of Hottentot Land, some of which may even hold a gleam of truth, in among the narrative rubbish-tip of this Arm-chair Commando, wherein the mad Rhino forever rolls his eye, the killer Trunk stands erect and a-bellow, and the cowardly Kaffirs turn and flee, whilst the Dutchman lights his Pipe, and stands his Ground.

One Morning, the Clock having misinform'd him of the Hour, as he hurries to Breakfast thro' the back reaches of the two Yards,— edging past a bright-feather'd Skirmish-line of glaring poultry, a bit more forward than the usual British Hen, who stalk and peck as if examining him for nutritional Purposes,— Mason only just avoids a collision with Johanna Vroom, that would have scrambl'd her apron-load of fresh- gather'd eggs, and produc'd, at best, Resentment, instead of what now, even through Mason's Melancholickally smok'd Lenses, appears to be Fascination.

How can this be? Assigning to ev'ry Looking-Glass a Coefficient of Mercy,— term it n,— none, among those into which he has ever gaz'd, seeking anything but what he knows will be there, has come within screaming distance of even, say, 0.5, given the Lensnian's Squint, the Stoop, and most of all, in its Fluctuation day by day, the Size of a certain Frontal Hemisphere, ever a source of Preoccupation, over whose Horizon he can sometimes not observe his Penis.

Between Greenwich and the Cape, however, he was pleas'd to note a temporary reduction of Circumference, owing to sea-sickness and the resulting aversion to even Mention of food, though he did achieve a tolerance at last for ship's Biscuit,— Dixon, for his part, having by then develop'd a particular Taste for Mr. Cookworthy's Portable Soup, any least whiff of which, of course, sent his partner queasily to the lee rail.

As if Dixon had come ashore with Slabs of the convenient yet nauseating Food-Stuff stowed about his Person, the women of the Colony unanimously avoid him. Not only was he swiftly deem'd eccentric,— he knows well enough the looks Emerson took whenever he came in to Darlington Market,— how fiercely did his Students then all leap to his defense!— but more curiously, from their first sight of him, the Dutch have sifted Dixon as unreliable in any white affairs here. They have noted his unconceal'd attraction to the Malays and the Black slaves,— their Food, their Appearance, their Music, and so, it must be obvious, their desires to be deliver'd out of oppression. "The English Quaker," opines Mrs. De Bosch, the Doyenne of Town Arbitresses, "is rude, disobedient, halfway to a Hindoo, either sitting in trances or leaping up to begin jabbering about whatever may be passing through on its uncomplicated journey from one ear to the other. S.N.S., my Children,"— Simply Not Suitable. But Mason is another story. Mason the widower with that Melancholick look, an impassion'd, young-enough Fool willing to sail oceans and fight sea-battles just to have a chance to watch Venus, Love Herself, pass across the Sun,— in these parts exotic even in his workaday earth tones, coming in starv'd from the Sea with all those