The Last Bookaneer (15 page)

“It was merely an informed speculation on Mr. Fergins's part. A welcome one, if you ask me, Louis.”

“Tusitala,” he said, not to correct his wife but to instruct us. He turned to Davenport. “Did my wife tell you that she dislikes Americans?”

“Not yet, but I'd like to hear why,” Davenport said.

“She thinks Americans and Australians are dangerous when they go to foreign lands because they care only about conquest and do not mind what the public will think of their actions. Frankly, I lost my only chance for the public to love me unconditionally by not dying. What do you have to say to that, Mr.”—Fergins, his wife reminded him—“Mr. Bookseller?”

I wilted under Stevenson's sidelong gaze. “Well, but, in truth . . . I daresay . . . regarding any speculation on my part . . .” I never properly began or ended.

Stevenson clapped his hands together as several bowls of different sizes were brought over. One of these bowls, filled with the roots of a native plant, was carried by a very pretty girl. Her ample bosom was draped with six or seven necklaces of beads, stones, and small animal teeth hanging down; around her neck was a rather beautiful collar made from whale teeth. The exposure of so much skin, like anything else on a primitive island, began to seem normal after a while. Her black hair was oiled tightly over her ears and in three buns around her head, with a few strands falling freely along with a display of flowers down her neck. Her cheeks were round, while her eyes were close together and sharp, suggesting simultaneously a childish angelic nature and a touch of craftiness. Behind her stood a middle-aged dwarf, perhaps three or three and a half feet tall, with long arms and a watchful glance at the whole party.

The scantily clad girl began to chew a piece of the plant root, then added another piece of the root, chewing vigorously, though keeping her lips closed. She added another piece and one more, until I was astounded she could fit anything more in her mouth. She was carefully shifting the already chewed-up roots into her cheeks until finally there was no more room. She spit the masticated roots into the bowl, poured water from another bowl, and then mixed the concoction together. The first serving was poured into a carved coconut shell and passed to Stevenson, who drank it in one draught.

“Here is the 'ava,” said our host in an apparent part of the ritual. “Now let it be shared!”

After the shell was filled again, Stevenson passed it to me. “'Ava is a great tradition here,” he assured me. “The honor of making it is to go to the most beautiful maiden in the village, or, in our case, here at Vailima. Do not worry, she rinses her mouth quite thoroughly first.”

I must have blanched visibly at the thought of drinking the spit-up brew because all at once I saw the following happen: Stevenson laughed, Belle nodded knowingly, the silent dwarf squinted, and Fanny raised impatient eyes.

“You grow accustomed to this life,” Belle said, more a warning than an assurance.

“In some places in Samoa, a visitor would be imprisoned for refusing 'ava,” Stevenson added, enjoying my discomfort, perhaps revenge for complimenting his literary status too highly.

“To tradition,” I said, raising the shell to my lips. The mixture had a strong odor of sand and oil and looked like soapy water. It had a pungent, unpleasant taste. I hoped I would not grow accustomed to it.

Davenport took the next portion that was poured. With his eyes on the girl's face, he drank the vile liquid down without pause. She cast her head down as each drinker took a turn, though I noticed her gaze kept drifting to Davenport's.

“Compliments, Tusitala,” he said.

“A pleasure,” Stevenson said. “You see that I have gone into far lands to die, and here will I stay until buried—unless, of course, we can manage one more visit to Italy; I always wanted to return there one day. But I imagine the reality is obvious to outsiders like you gentlemen. The word is out, and my doom is written.”

Fanny squirmed at this declaration, one repeated on a regular basis, to judge by its delivery. Stevenson did not appear to be suffering, but at the same time he was far from healthy. No loose style of clothing could hide how emaciated he was. He also stifled harsh coughs, which clawed their way out as extravagant wheezes.

As we prepared to ride to our cottage that afternoon, Fanny chased after us. We were nearing the stables. She threw a look over her shoulder back at the house. Then she let out a quick sigh that itself sounded like a plea. “Gentlemen, please say you will stay for supper tonight.”

To my surprise, Davenport protested.

“Our man Cipaou wished to cook a special tiffin at our own modest table. We shall have to return or risk wounding his pride.”

“Please, we will send a messenger to tell him. I have made mutton curry, a dish I learned from an East Indian cook in Fiji. You will like it. Louis will not talk so much of the island politics when guests are present. He does not eat when he is agitated, and the talk is not good for his health. There are rumblings of more interference by Herr Becker and the Germans against the natives who oppose the puppet king. The whole attitude of the Germans here is so excessively English.”

“Of course we shall stay, if it is a help,” Davenport said.

“Thank you,” said Fanny, her face softening with gratitude—and, more so than any other as I look back, that was the moment we secured our places at Vailima.

 • • • 

“
M
Y WHITE GENTLEMEN”
was
how Stevenson referred to us, while we were Fergins and Porter (Davenport's assumed name) to the rest of the family, and interchangeably White Chief to most of the Vailima natives. It was clear that Davenport's first hope—that Stevenson's isolation and his vanity as a writer would make him inclined to want to know another writer—had been misguided. Stevenson was vulnerable to our presence, but his vulnerability was of a different nature. It was precisely how seriously he took his life on the Samoan islands. He had not come to the island for an exotic escape into a kind of monastic writerly solitude; that much was now obvious. He was fully entrenched. He had brought his whole family, even his elderly mother. She was my favorite member of the household, and when she ventured down from her sewing machine to the ground floor, which was rare, the sunny old woman would never fail to speak in clever aphorisms. The novelist's whole life had been transplanted into Samoan soil. With help from his stepson, he even seemed to thrive on overseeing the very large staff of servants and dealing with the complexities of maintaining and improving the grounds of what he mischievously called his “plantation.” As far as I could tell, he weeded as much as he wrote.

Because he cared so much about Samoan life, it made perfect sense that Stevenson would want to ensure Davenport portrayed the island in a favorable way for his supposed book of travel stories, and that resulted in more meals and more time. Davenport declined as many of the invitations that came to our cottage as he accepted. He explained to me that, once establishing our foothold, we must not appear overly inquisitive about the Stevensons or riveted by Vailima. Still, the more time we were there, the more clues Davenport gathered. Stevenson was actually quite open in talking about his writing. Hines had once told us that all whites were instant friends with each other in these lands of islanders, and perhaps that phenomenon contributed to Stevenson's willingness to share.

The novelist would stop in mid-conversation—mid-sentence, to be more precise—while walking, for example, down the paths that ran along Fanny's elaborate flower gardens, to dig out a piece of paper when he had an idea. He would then write a paragraph or a page right in front of us.

“Yes,” he would mumble, “yes, just so!” Then, looking up at one of us with the wildness of creativity in his eyes, he would say, “One of you hold this, won't you?” He would pass over his ever-present cigarette, and Davenport or I would take it. We came to understand that the thing was meant to be preserved, however pitifully short, and there one of us would stand tending to the smoldering cigarette while Stevenson wrote in a mad dash.

On that occasion in the garden, it was Davenport tending to the cigarette. Stevenson, pausing from his scribbling, suddenly spoke of the virtues of their tobacco, which was called Three Castles.

“We are slaves to our brand, I'm afraid. They must be imported, like everything in Samoa. Do you know even the wood we used to build the house was brought from America? Trees all around us, but the natives know nothing of how to harvest wood and—this is crucial to understand, if you wish to grasp Samoa and its people for your travel book—do not want to know how to do it.”

All of this while he was writing. It was as though the concentration came only at the moment of generating an idea, while the actual writing was a formality. There was a deep generosity that came across. Even while doing his own writing, he was trying to help the writing he believed Davenport was doing.

“It is quite foreign to you, isn't it, Mr. Porter?”

“What is, Tusitala?” replied Davenport.

“The idea of a man leaving behind civilization for what our esteemed literati back in Europe or America would look askance at. You come here to record the exotic, to see butlers with bare feet, precisely because you cannot believe it possible for a white man to belong here.”

“I hadn't thought of it in that way.”

“It is a hard and difficult place. But I am quite interested to see if you gentlemen will find, as I think you will, that this life is far better fun than people dream who fall asleep among the chimney stacks and telegraph wires. This is paradise, so close to heaven that to be really ill is almost impossible. This is the way it should be,” he said, suddenly returning his pencil to his paper with brightened eyes. “Yes, this is what I wanted to say!”

Wherever we went with him around the grounds of the estate, Stevenson's shadow, John Chinaman, was usually behind us; I had heard one of the servants refer to him as a cook, though I had never seen him go toward the European-style kitchen with the natives who prepared the family meals. When Stevenson sat down in one of his writing fits, he would send John away on some chore. “He is a loyal fellow,” was how Stevenson described him once, “and when I write he watches with disapproval, as though I might break my fingers doing it. He is the opposite of my publishers. They want a sequel to
Jekyll
, a sequel to
Treasure Island
, sequels to sequels! What they don't realize is that sequels are bound to disappoint those who have waited for them. I believe what I write now, Mr. Fergins, is in some ways my best work. I am—” he paused to shrug“—pretty sure.”

But the most telling comment of all made by the Scottish novelist was on another occasion, looking at us with arched eyebrows and an air of confession. We were gathered in the library, while he was carelessly storing away some of those pages he had just composed in a fit. “What I am writing,” said Stevenson, “will be my masterpiece, elusive until now.” Mouthwatering as it was, it was not the talk of masterpieces that was so important to a bookaneer's ear. It was the other revelation. The novel was not finished yet—
will be
—and that meant Davenport had no choice but to wait before taking any action. It meant we would have to extend our presence in Samoa and at Vailima. Treading water could be the most dangerous part of a bookaneer's mission. It multiplied the chances for something to go wrong.

Of course, any comments Davenport or I heard from Stevenson about his novel were received casually, remembered verbatim, and entered at the first opportunity into my notebook. The trick was to give him opportunities to speak about it without ever being asked. Another afternoon, he asked us to help carry several bundles. The towering palms swayed above us and helped us along with a light breeze. The novelist carried a shovel under his arm as we entered the bush.

“I do not want you to get the wrong idea about the houseboys. They are awfully good on the whole, but Samoans rather enjoy discipline. They always look older than they are, which makes you forget they are not very mature. They are more like a set of well-behaved young ladies. That is why I hate to do this.”

“What exactly are we doing, Tusitala?” Davenport interrupted him, growing a little anxious at the enigmatic errand. Stevenson was now tiring himself out digging a hole that began to take on the shape of a small grave.

He waved away our offers to help. “Burying that. Go ahead, my white gentlemen. Have a look for yourself.”

Davenport and I both eyed the bundles we had carried into the woods. I opened one, half-imagining finding one of the severed heads we'd heard were valued by the natives. “Clothes,” I announced.

“These are old clothes of mine and Lloyd's we no longer use. If my native boys find them, they'll start wearing them.”

“Wouldn't that be better than burying them?” I asked.

“Oh, if a houseboy wants to wear a cast-off shirt over his lavalava, so be it. But European clothes do not suit their bodies. The scant covering and raw materials of their native style may look strange to our eyes, but their race developed that way for a good reason. Our clothes cling to them when wet, and do not protect them from the strong sun. They must be who they are, if they are to survive life and labor in the tropical climate. If they try to look European, which amuses them and some of the local whites, they die.”

“That is rather bleak,” I said.

He nodded and looked on with a cloudy gaze. “Sometimes I watch, as they are pushed from their lands, as whites introduce disease and opium and alcohol, and in a perspective of centuries I see their cases as ours, death coming in like a tide, and the day already numbered when there should be no more Samoans, and no more of any race whatever, and—here is a curious extension of my dream—no more literary works or readers.”