Satan's Bushel (3 page)

“Put in something about the woman. I want to see her,” said Goran.

“I’ve tried,” I said.

“Yes, but something about her appearance,” he insisted. “What was her type?”

“I can’t describe her,” I said. “Not directly in terms of herself. I never saw her that way. She reminds me of something symbolic.”

“What?” Goran asked.

“There’s a picture of the virgins descending stone steps. Their feet are bare. They are clad all alike in draperies of classic simplicity, drawn in a little with a girdle just under the arms, giving them a sweet, long-limbed appearance. In their faces there is knowledge without experience—knowledge of existence, none of life. She is that first one with the bent knee thrusting against her drape.”

“Now I see her,” said Goran. “It’s what I thought. Go on.”

“A long time later, a year and a half perhaps, I was on my way up the Irawadi River. Business pertaining to oil still. A young Britisher with whom I keep a vow of friendship was then commissioner of one of the Northern Burmese provinces, newly appointed; and I went out of my path to see him. We had resolved the nature of matter and whether man was risen from a low estate or fallen from a high one, when of a sudden he thought to say:

“‘One of your mad Americans has broken loose in my province. That’s what you say, isn’t it? He’s told the British Empire what it cannot do. I’m trying to keep it from becoming a diplomatic incident.’ “

“Where?’ I asked.

“‘Up the river.’

“‘Who is he?’

“‘That’s another thing,’ he said. ‘Whether he’s going by an alias or has a false passport I can’t make out. He says his name is Jones—something Jones—A. Jones, I think. But I have reason to suppose his real name is—ah—Dread something—yes, Dreadwind. Why do you look so taken up? Do you know him?’

“I told him of a man named Dreadwind, a Chicago wheat speculator, who had become suddenly nonexistent; also of the pair I had seen wandering about the world in a hypnotized condition, and that the name under which they passed through Buenos Ayres was A. Jones.

“‘Quite,’ he said. ‘I’m sure of it. A romance, clearly. I hate to interfere, and yet——’

“‘What’s the row about?’ I asked.

“‘Perfectly silly!’ he said. ‘It’s about an old teak tree.’

“‘Why make a fuss about one teak tree more or less?’ I asked. ‘You’ve millions of them.’

“‘Now, you see,’ he said, ‘it isn’t so simple quite. The teak in these forests is controlled by the state and scientifically cultivated. It has to be cut with reference to age, condition and new growth. A certain bit of it is due to be cut. The order goes out. Then it appears that this particular bit includes one tree for which your fellow countryman has conceived some sort of wild infatuation. I don’t know what or why. He won’t say. But he says—
he
says—that tree shall not be cut. The British Empire says it shall be. There you are.’

“‘What will happen?’ I asked.

“‘It will be cut.’

“‘Teak wood is a commercial substance,’ I said. ‘Isn’t it a matter money will settle? He probably has plenty of that.’

“‘Yes, he seems to have a lot of money,’ the commissioner said, rather acidly. ‘He’s offered to buy the whole forest. That was silly, wasn’t it? Then he corrupted the native officials. Bribed them to spare the tree. That’s a very serious offense. The next thing was that he got some kind of magic or witchcraft to be practiced on the tree until now I understand the whole place is weird with superstition about it.’

“The English understand human idiosyncrasy, envy it secretly, and are yet quite capable of dealing in an unromantic manner with its troublesome manifestations. This was altogether true of my friend, the commissioner. He was greatly annoyed; it seemed to him his government had been made to appear ludicrous. It could not cut down a teak tree in its own forest because an American preferred to have it stand. Well, we put the subject aside, thinking of it still, and talked absently of other matters. As we parted he said: ‘You’re going that way. Perhaps you’ll have a look at this tree-fey person.’ And he gave me exact directions.

“My curiosity by this time was absurdly moved, and I pursued it in a straight line—as straight as the native means of transportation permitted. On the way, with nothing else to think about, I discovered in myself a sentiment of irrational sympathy for the man; for both of them in fact, but for the man especially. That is the sort of thing I have learned to call a human chemistry. We seem to have nothing to do with it. Do you know that impulse to serve or befriend in a romantic spirit someone who apparently does not need you at all, a stranger perhaps, one you have never seen before and may never see again? That is what I mean. Then again people who do need you, who have rightful claims upon your goods and interest, and whose claims you honor, do not move your sympathies at all. I’m trying to explain the fact that the mere thought of being able to assist Dreadwind, or Jones, to save his tree gave me a sense of charity, gratitude and pleasure mingled.

“I had been through this country before. The river and its affluents at the time of year it was are littered with small craft. I was only surprised that as we neared my destination the number of them seemed to increase. Presently there was no doubt of it. More than I had ever seen before at one time so far north were moored at the landing place. The village was a short distance inland. A procession was headed that way. Knowing it to be a small village of bamboo houses with no metropolitan attractions I began to inquire. A religious ceremony was taking place. One of a most unusual character. Then I remembered what the commissioner had said and was not unprepared to hear that the ceremony connected itself with a tree.

“A word about teakwood. It is in many respects the finest wood there is—dark, heavy, oily, does not crack, warp or shrink, much used in fine shipbuilding and for ornamental carving. The teak tree grows in isolated, defensive clusters among other trees of the forest, aloof and lordly, sometimes attaining to a height of a hundred and fifty feet, with a girth of twenty-five. But the particular teak tree that had become so suddenly an object of preposterous interest was not one of a cluster. It stood alone at the edge of the forest, sole survivor of its group, for it was of enormous age, much older than anything organic or human in the village near by.

“It was not then, however, that I got my impression of the tree. There was too much going on. In the act of comprehending the scene itself I grasped the fact that here was something new in Asia. The imagination, the cynical daring, the gold, of a Chicago wheat speculator acting through a corrupt, cunning and greedy priestcraft upon native Oriental superstition! Can you imagine it?

“In a ring around the tree stood ten elephants, ornately decorated, their heads pointing in. The most gorgeously geared one bore on its back a miniature temple with an idol indwelling. Next within the elephant circle was a ring of holy devotees in propitiating attitudes. Inside this kneeling circle were the officiating magicians, all in loin cloths. One crawled on all fours around the tree, pretending to be an animal. One was preoccupied with self-torturing gymnastics. One ate a nauseous substance from a dish and spewed it out. Others resting from their grotesque exertions lay prone as if in prayer. A rude clay image suggestively mutilated was an object of grimacing attention. Around the body of the tree was wound some red stuff of hateful texture. Above this, attached to the bark, was the effigy of a gigantic butterfly; and over that a great leering mask. Four men squatting in a square drew snaky, unmusical notes from reed pipes. There was no other sound. Incense was burning at the base of the tree. The pungent odor of it seemed to float through other smells—the smell of elephants, the smell of people, the smell of Eastern food—without touching or mingling. The spectators numbered several thousand, and they had been bought without knowing it. When their eyes should be sated with the spectacle of the tree rite there would be a feast in the village. It was then preparing; and the scent of it, savory to these thin nostrils, was causing the stomach to assert its claims against those of the fascinated soul.

“I turned away in disgust, ashamed of mankind in the sight of trees and noble beasts. It is sickening enough to witness the soul’s groveling under fears of the mind’s invention when its puerile acts are spontaneous and emotionally true; but here was pretence at the source. The priesthood was bought. Only the people were deceived. At the same time one was obliged to admire Dreadwind’s shrewdness. He was creating an enormous superstition—that is to say, a native public opinion, in defense of the tree. The published purpose of all this magic was to cajole, propitiate, persuade to beneficence, a spirit—a western spirit and therefore a hostile one—that had come to dwell in the tree. It followed without saying that the dwelling must not be destroyed, for if it were, then of course the angry spirit would burst forth in the form of a blue bull and take its revenge upon the whole community.

“No figure in the resemblance of Dreadwind was visible among the spectators. As the grand impresario he had a reserved seat and was himself unseen. His dwelling place was a double bamboo house not more than two hundred yards from the tree. From two facts about it—one that it was new and the other that the natives avoided it in a curious way—I guessed it was his.

“He must have observed my approach, for he was at the door when I reached it and admitted me silently, with no mark of surprise.

“‘Why do you do it?’ I asked, that sense of disgust controlling my tongue.

“Without answering or reacting in any way whatever to my question he stood looking out through the blind, holding two slats a little apart for that purpose, with his back to me, as if I had been a common interruption. He was in slippers, stockings, riding breeches, wore a loose cotton shirt with a purple silk robe over all, and had a turban thing wound around his head.

“He was very tall. His hair was light yellow, almost white; his eyes were blue, expressing a kind of impersonal wonder; the nose was large and indefinite; the lower part of the face was heavy, denoting sensuality tempered by extreme sensitiveness.

“The interior of the house was rather dim; all the blinds were closed. I made out a table on bamboo legs, fast to the floor; also some bent-wood chairs and an iron cot. The chairs and cot were not of native origin. I wondered how he had got them here. There was nothing else but some grass mats on the floor.

“He turned presently, passed me, sat down by the table and crossed his legs heavily.

“‘What did you say?’ he asked.

“‘I said, why do you do this? It’s abominable.’

“‘It can’t hurt the tree,’ he said absently. ‘Not even if it were so,’ he added. This was like an observation, or a comment, upon his own thoughts, which I was permitted to hear.

“‘If what were so?’ I asked.

“Then for the first time he looked at me with a touch of personal interest.

“‘I thought you were an Englishman from the provincial government office,’ he said, as if that were somehow explanatory.

“‘You are the most incurious person I ever met,’ I said. ‘I might be a product of that magic outside for any probability I naturally have in relation to you; and yet you do not ask who or what I am.’

“‘Why should I have to ask?’ he said.

“At that I suddenly realized what a meddling, turbid ass I looked. I began to apologize and to account for myself, and became extremely uncomfortable, because even to me what I said sounded as if I were making it up. And that it was true did not save me in the least. My interest and interference alike were gratuitous. He did not encourage me to go on; neither did he offer to stop me. He listened and showed no emotion. I told him under what conditions I had passed him three times in the world, how I had got his name—the name of Jones—from his hotel registration at Buenos Ayres, and how his whereabouts and identity had been revealed to rae in a fortuitous manner by my friend the provincial commissioner, who was exceedingly annoyed and obliged me to hear what a countryman of mine was doing in his provincial forest.

“‘As for my being Dreadwind,’ he said, when I had finished, ‘there’s no secret about it. I’ve used another name for personal convenience, to avoid curiosity in places where my own name might be known. I am not hiding. You may tell your friend, the Mister Commissioner, that I have also a passport in my legal name, if that’s what he’s worried about.’

“‘It isn’t,’ I said.

“He made no reply to that.

“‘It’s his precious teakwood,’ I said.

“And he made no reply to that, either.

“‘You’re at an impasse with him,’ I said. ‘He can’t understand why you should be permitted to cross the British Empire in the management of its own teak in its own forest, and his official mind is extremely vexed.’

“No answer.

“‘He says the tree will be cut,’ I said.

“The rite apparently had been concluded. The serpentine notes of the reed pipes had now a kind of rhythm, coming nearer, and there was a sense of heavy bodies stirring. The elephants were passing the house. Dreadwind got up to look out again.

“‘It won’t be cut,’ he said, returning.

“‘It’s my own blundering fault,’ I said, ‘that I can’t make you see or feel why I have thrust myself into this thing.’

“‘Why?’ he asked.

“There I hung for a minute.

“‘I don’t know why,’ I said. ‘I may have thought I did. Now that you ask me, I don’t. No matter why. Say it pleases me to give you the right to command my friendly offices. There is something to be done, if only we can think of it, and I am anxious to do it.’

“‘I know,’ he said very simply, putting forth his hand. ‘But there is nothing to be done.’

“‘I’ve told you the commissioner is an old friend of mine. I’ve told you also that he is obstinately minded to cut down your tree.’

“‘He won’t, though,’ said Dreadwind.

“‘But,’ I said, ‘you can’t just sit here with your finger in the lion’s eye. There would never be any peace. You don’t want to keep up this ghastly mummery outside.’

“‘It’s distasteful,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t think of anything else, and it works.’