The Last Bookaneer (22 page)

“What is your name?” he asked with juvenile frustration. “I demand to know.”

“I use one name in my temporary employment at the publishing firm. But in my profession, I have come to be known as Kitten.”

“Kitten?” he repeated incredulously. “If I help you, Miss Kitten, then you return or destroy that paper and I am free of any further obligation,” he said after taking a moment to think over the remarkable circumstance. “Then I will be free from playing your game any longer. Agreed?”

She agreed to terms, but perhaps both of them knew that his infatuation had begun: with her, with the new venture into which she was leading him. It would be several years before they would become romantically involved (exactly when is speculation, since Davenport would never talk about it directly), but the moment he took his first step away from the statue and toward her, their fates were interlocked.

O
ur next visit brought a strange sight never seen at Vailima: the outside boys were standing around doing nothing. Davenport and I exchanged questioning glances. Dismounting before reaching the stables, we approached the cluster of young men. We could see now that they were staring across the property at Charlie. He was naked. Shouting. Swinging an ax. House servants had begun to creep out the front door, keeping a safe distance.

Stevenson came out on the verandah on the upper floor and looked at the scene with grave concern, first at the lunatic and then, angrily, at the rest of us who were standing around, as if to say, “Where are the men in this world?”

“What is he yelling?” Davenport asked.

“Pure nonsense,” said Belial. He had come up from behind and was looking out between the two of us and listening to Charlie. “Something about . . . the devil being among us.”

“Then he is not altogether insane.”

“I never knew you to have a sense of humor, Davenport,” Belial replied cheerfully. “Watch what is about to happen, Mr. Fergins. This is why your master will never win.”

Belial ran toward Charlie. Slowing down at just the right spot, he stepped carefully around the naked native until he saw his opening and tackled him, sending the ax flying out of his hand. The rest of the servants converged on the fallen native and the heroic missionary. I looked up to the verandah and saw a satisfied expression on Stevenson's face, and, without turning to see, I could feel white rage coming from Davenport.

 • • • 

I
T MAY BE SURPRISING
to hear that the very first person in history I would classify as a bookaneer appeared long before the first copyright law, and managed to call down the ire of the most powerful man in the world. In 1514, Pope Leo X, an accomplished book collector, granted exclusive papal permission to a printer named Beroaldo to reproduce the works of Tacitus. The punishment for any who defied this order was excommunication. Hundreds of miles away in Milan, one Alesandro Manuziano began printing the same book of Tacitus before Beroaldo was finished—from what I can learn, probably having bribed one of Beroaldo's employees for the material. Manuziano only escaped excommunication through the intercession of friends. But the question isn't his punishment. The question is why Manuziano did it. There was profit to be made, yes, but one must also consider that the prohibition simply ate at his heart. I have not yet found a portrait of Manuziano, and I wonder if it would enlighten us as to what kind of man he was. Until I do, I cannot help but imagine this forerunner with the leathery but handsome face of Belial.

Belial's choice of roles at Vailima, as usual, resulted from an incisive calculation. By establishing himself as a missionary who traveled among the various Samoan and other South Sea islands, he had reason for leaving the island at regular intervals. At first, I could not understand why he would want this, before realizing it afforded him the opportunity to secure precious tobacco from busier harbors. But there was more to it. Stevenson, like many writers, grew tired of any one topic or person easily, as we had witnessed. But in the case of Belial, any periods of waning interest by Stevenson would be reduced by the would-be missionary's frequent trips off island.

Besides, whenever there was trouble at Vailima, Belial could step in because of his missionary collar. When Charlie ran amok, there was earnest Father Thomas to subdue him. When the poor servant was back in the stables, from that point on placed in restraints, it was Belial, as missionary, who prayed over him. The expression waiting just under the surface of Davenport's face increasingly became, to say it lightly, volcanic. Though I cautioned him to stay clear of Fanny until we could determine whether she had discovered something about us, he ignored me and again volunteered to help her tend to Charlie in order to keep one eye on Belial; in fact, Davenport was inside the stable almost as much as Fanny and the hoary natives they called doctors. I sat inside that dim, cramped wooden structure as much as I could bear. Stevenson was clearly troubled. His movements became jerkier and less even when something weighed on his mind. He announced he was going to a village some distance away from Vailima to procure more of the special herbs the doctors had ordered for the servant.

“Can these herbs be trusted to be effective?” Davenport asked.

“It's worth trying, and Jack is rather anxious to go for a ride, anyway,” Stevenson said, gathering some supplies to lash onto his horse's saddle. “He is a bit of a dandy and likes to be seen by polite society.”

“I will happily accompany you, Tusitala,” Belial said.

“No. Charlie needs you. He has always been a young man of great faith in the Lord you preach.”

“I do not like to think of you going on your own,” Belial tried again.

“I
could
stand some company, and John Chinaman is occupied finishing some work on the west end of the property,” Stevenson replied. He turned to us. “Perhaps my other white gentlemen. Mr. Fergins? Mr. Porter?”

This time Belial's usefulness worked to our benefit by keeping him tied to Vailima. We agreed to ride with Stevenson (to my surprise, Davenport seemed reluctant and almost teary-eyed leaving the suffering native's side in the stables). When Belial turned to wish us good luck a flicker of annoyance marred his composure. As we exited, Charlie moaned, his brow bubbling up with beads of hot sweat.

That day we rode along difficult paths. I wouldn't even consider half of them as having been cleared, and I know our horses would have agreed with me. The wilderness grew aggressively in Samoa as soon as there was a clearing made in it. I thought that either Stevenson or Stevenson's horse was sick and might collapse, the novelist's ride was so wobbly. But I realized this was simply the way wild Jack moved and, in fact, because the animal's body and legs shifted position so frequently it was perfectly suited to the uneven terrain.

We came alongside one village that appeared to have been destroyed by a fire in the recent past. In spots the putrid smell of burnt animals still lingered.

“What happened to this place, Tusitala?”

“The Germans ordered it set afire, Mr. Fergins,” said Stevenson.

“The entire village?”

“Yes. The villagers here and a few other places had torn down a proclamation ordering them to swear fealty to Tamasese and renounce Mataafa, the former king.”

Passing out of the ruins and through a small village farther down the same road, it was a relief to notice people occupying the huts, but a collective tension rose with our presence—natives with rifles were slowly coming out onto the verandahs.

“Soi fua,” Davenport greeted a native man who passed our horses with a cold stare.

“Your Samoan comes along,” said Stevenson.

“I am trying.”

“That is what is important, to give a damn, as you Americans say. I used to admire the adventure books of Herman Melville until I realized how poorly he had mangled the names of the Marquesians and Tahitians,” commented Stevenson. “He didn't even try for accuracy, as far I could tell. The romance of it mattered more than the real people.”

Anxious to be free of this village, I spurred my horse to pick up the pace.

“What's the use of having eyes if we can't see the world we pass through?”

“Yes, Tusitala.” I slowed my animal from a gallop to a trot, when what I really desired was a harum-scarum scamper.

Davenport knew what was on my mind. “They seem rather well armed here,” he said.

“Where there are traders, there will be ammunition. Aphorism—by Tusitala.”

“Perhaps they do not like foreigners in this village,” I said, as a way of suggesting we go back or change our route.

“No, they don't. Certain foreigners, anyway,” Stevenson answered me. “Then again, were I a Samoan, I like to think I would advocate the massacre of all white people for what they've done here.”

“Tusitala!” I cried.

“They have seen white person after white person come and lie and manipulate them and rob them of their resources and lives. These particular villages are loyal to Tamasese, the sacred puppet who is beholden to the German consulate and their slave plantations. That is why they are suspicious of us. It is a widespread rumor that at Vailima we favor the position of the opposing rebels and their exiled king, Mataafa, and plan one day for his return.”

“Isn't that the case?”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Fergins, most definitely. Rumors are usually best ignored but also are usually true, you know.” By now our host sensed our nerves growing as more hostile faces of men with axes and rifles multiplied on all sides. He was never one to try to assuage fears during our time in Samoa; in fact, it seemed to me he was enjoying ours when he commented, “I guess the three of us will have to be the whole revolution, should it start today. But perhaps we ought to change the topic.”

“Please,” I urged.

My mistake. Stevenson went on to a point that I had hoped to avoid: “A man named Lionel Hines came to the house recently. Grotesque man.”

“I'm sorry to hear you have any unpleasant callers,” Davenport said, expertly skating around the fact we knew Hines. It seemed there was more on Stevenson's mind, and I wondered if bringing us out here, putting us in this vulnerable atmosphere, was more deliberate than it seemed. If Hines had said something about one of us that I hadn't been able to hear. . . I looked over and could tell Davenport's thoughts followed the same track. “Did the man say something to . . . cause you distress, Tusitala?”

“He did,” he said, slowing down a little more. “Oh, that Hines is all wheels and no horse. But he carried a wire that he picked up for me from the British consul. It was a warning. There is a movement back in England to have me deported from Samoa.”

“Whatever for?”

“As an appeasement to the Germans, Mr. Fergins. As I'm certain you've come to understand by now, they are the Gulliver among the Lilliputians here. The Germans have never liked what they call my interference on the island and their ambassadors in London have pressured the British parliament to do something about it. Me, caught in the talons of politics! Success in the political field appears to be nothing more than the organization of failure enlivened with defamation of character. It is awfully funny—no, I change my mind; it is sad. Nobody but these cursed liars could have so driven me. I cannot bear liars.”

“What would happen if the measure passed the legislature?” I asked.

“Simply stated, I would have to leave Samoa immediately or be arrested. My family, also. Belle would surely be pleased, she is so anglified. She misses life in a city with its glamour and sameness. As for Fanny, well, when she feels well enough she adapts to island life quite a bit more than she will admit. She thinks she has followed me here, but sometimes I think she led us all. It is either gold or poison, to be here.”

“There are worse punishments than returning to Scotland,” Davenport said.

Stevenson threw back his head and made a slow murmuring sound. “If only I could secure a violent death.”

“Pardon?”

“What a fine success!” Stevenson continued, spurring Jack into a canter as he lost himself in his thoughts. “I wish to die in my boots, you see, Mr. Porter. To be drowned, to be shot, to be thrown from this horse into a ditch, Mr. Fergins—aye, to be hanged, rather than pass through the slow dissolution of illnesses!”

“High heaven forbid, Tusitala!” It was startling to hear a man—a great man—talk about dying in such a cavalier way. This speechifying about his own death continued as we went through a poorly cut path through the bushes, until we came upon a sight that made him quiet and would have made me scream if I had not lost my ability to make any sound. Three stakes had been speared into the ground, a human head on each of them.

Stevenson removed his old yachting cap from his head. He was guiding Jack around the sight in a circle and studying it with a scientist's eye. “‘Lord, what fools these mortals be,'” he said. Then he dismounted. “Fresh,” he reported evenly.

I turned the head of my horse away. Davenport, jaw slack, actually inched his animal closer to the horrible display, though his boots were twitching, ready to spur away from it. “How on earth do you know that?” asked the bookaneer, swallowing hard. “How do you know the heads are fresh, Tusitala?”

“I have seen enough of them on the island to know. When war comes to Samoa, Mr. Porter, heads are taken. Those must not be more than a week or two old.”

I forced myself to look again and tried to examine the horrible sight, but quickly concluded there was nothing to learn from their neutral, almost bored faces. The skin was very dark and the thick hair blown by the breeze. I had to choke down the breakfast rushing up my throat.

“But the Samoans are not in a war,” I protested when I found my voice.