The Last Bookaneer (8 page)

Those two words of Davenport's in his toast—to Kitten—ended any debate. I met the side of his glass with mine and prayed I would see my companion again.

 • • • 

A
TOLLING BELL
from the deck alerted visitors to return to land.

I put my glass back on the bureau of Davenport's stateroom. “I should leave you to it.”

“This mission is delicate, Fergins. Unusually so. If my subject were to somehow learn of the purpose of my presence, or be given any reason for extra caution, the mission could be compromised rapidly—and more precariously—than perhaps any other I've had. I will be on a primitive island, with infrequent chances to leave and little means of communication with the outside world.”

“You know, Davenport, that I am entirely discreet about our dealings.”

“The very reason I am reluctant to convey any doubt. I suppose I mean to urge you to reinforce even your usual discretion and make a fortress of your knowledge.”

“Without question,” I said solemnly, then thought I ought to add something more formal. “I vow to you before God I shall never say a word of it.”

“You always understood me, Fergins.” This was Davenport's way of saying many things ordinary men would have uttered in plainer words:
Thank you,
or
Stay in good health,
or
I will miss your company, my friend
.

After exiting the berth and taking the long passage to the stairs, a new worry struck and slowed me down. He had sounded hesitant and seemed to be swatting at his own doubts. He had spoken as if we might not meet again. This is what I realized only at that moment: Davenport, for once, shared my dread and sense of danger. As the bell tolled on, I knew I had but a few minutes. I had to convince him to come off the ship with me, to forget this whole affair. Then I noticed something strange. A large fly, following in front of me wherever I turned. Then another black spot swirled right before my eyes, rising and dropping, becoming bigger, splitting into two. Black spots filled my vision; dryness plugged my throat. My knees trembled and buckled and I dropped down, gasping. I knew my earlier instincts were right, the trepidation, the fear that there were enemies hiding among us on this frigate. I tried to stand again and call out to Davenport to save himself but my legs were jelly.

 • • • 

I
CANNOT REMEMBER
what visions I beheld while unconscious. I am vain enough to wish for something a little profound, if not Descartes' dreams of a new sort of science then at least ones with entertaining portent, such as young Mrs. Shelley's vision of the awful being that she would animate into Frankenstein's creature, or Robert Louis Stevenson's own nightmare of a respectable man who transformed into a disreputable criminal—perhaps my visions even contained something prescient about what was about to come in the Stevenson affair. A glimpse, perhaps, of a tall, thin white man presiding over a band of natives, death hanging over the scene. There is only one thing I do recall clearly: her face. I saw her. Kitten, whom Davenport had spoken of just a short time before black spots were multiplying before my eyes and contamination flowing through my veins. His musings about her must have invited her into my unconscious brain. I remember that I did not see her as you would see a portrait or a sculpture, fixed and final, or even as a memory, indistinct. I saw her as you would someone sitting where you sit across from me—on a train like this, with no one else to look at, no obstructions, the rest of the world receding.

Kitten, you ought to know, was a thing of beauty. I choose the word with the care a poet might, for the
thing
that made her irresistible was vague. The modern lady is encouraged by etiquette books and trivial magazines to seek what I call the ideal of inoffensive expressionlessness. Smile a small, refined smile as to not appear ungraceful; powder the cheeks and brow to appear flushed, but not artificial; choose dress shapes to make short seem taller, tall seem shorter, wide to seem slimmer and slim to appear rounder, and say or do nothing conspicuous when it can be helped. It all seems rather foolish to a fatal bachelor such as myself, whose romantic impulses were left behind in the uncut pages of my youth, but to a cub such as yourself, the ways of women will remain for some years too shrouded in mystery to judge.

Kitten did not subscribe to society's usual dictates to women, except, of course, when she assumed a role for the purposes of bookaneering. Her personal wardrobe lacked the frills and feathers prized by ladies, had long sleeves, and was not tailored to be especially well fitting. She clothed herself in manly shades of brown, black, and gray. Her eyes, one gazing in a slightly different place than the other, were foreboding, of a blue color so fine as to be almost transparent—more intimidating than charming—and her pale pink mouth and smooth brow seemed ready to contract into a frown, as though she were listening to the beginning of a joke she would not find funny. She had a tendency to fold her arms under her ample bosom or clamp them at her hips in gestures of pointed impatience. Her voice was coarse, grating even. She might have qualified as plain or even dull if judged by our common standards. Without possessing the trappings of conventional prettiness, wherever she went there were men obsessed with her and women jealous. With age, the dark strands of hair were woven with silver while her face creased with the sorts of lines other women labored to hide, and her power over men doubled—tripled. There was a vulnerability, though; despite her exterior there were times, from a distance, when I saw her break down into tears and need Davenport's company. As I've said, it is difficult to define her allure and, I'd propose, impossible to ever replicate it. It is too often overlooked in this age of magazines how attractive it is for a woman not to care a dime what men think of her.

I've mentioned my own interactions with Kitten were quite limited, but there were a few times, not long before her notorious final mission, when she spoke to me. These occasions were so rare that I remember each of them well, even when nothing important passed between us. Once, I was standing on the crowded Oramin bridge, in Berlin, when I heard my name called out in that unmistakable voice: hoarse, commanding, seductive, disorienting.

Under other circumstances I would have been tickled merely to have Kitten address me. “Perhaps this is a time for more discretion,” I whispered to her, thinking other bookaneers and competing parties could be in earshot.

“The vaults were empty, after all that fuss,” she said. “Do not look surprised, Mr. Fergins. I know why you're in Germany and what you've come to help your master find. But the stereotype plates Pen wanted have been moved to a catacomb under an old circulating library up north.”

I studied her as I tried to discern whether it was possible she was trying to trick me, or whether Davenport had been working with her in this mission, in defiance of his own rules of bookaneering, and why she was telling this to me. “How did you know to find me here? How did you know where I would be?”

“I didn't
know
.
But I know Pen's mind more than you could ever know, Mr. Fergins, and I supposed this is where he would set a rendezvous. I guessed it would be easier to find you than to find him.” I nodded, accepting her vaguely belittling but true statement, worthy of Davenport. She went on: “Give him this; it tells him where he can find me. Since I cannot stay in Berlin after tonight, I will trade him my information in exchange for a reasonable part of the takings of the mission. Do just as I say. You will find I do not like to give instructions twice.”

She was nearing fifty then and, as I've said, had become more striking than ever. Her self-possession, her composure, her poise, her alluring boredom, her selfish resolve, her secrets, all of it came out in every movement and every word she spoke. She handed me a piece of paper, gesturing for me to look at it. It was blank. I knew it was written in invisible ink. It was not a very elaborate method of hiding something, but Davenport would know he was the first to read it.

More than you could ever know
—those were the words that teased me; in later years, as things began to go downhill in the Samoan mission, you could say they haunted me. It was Kitten, so there was more than one meaning possible. Did she mean that I would never be able to know how well she understood Davenport, or that I could never understand him the way she did? Either way, my heart was sinking with their weight. That night, after sprinkling a little lemon juice on the note in order to reveal the message, Davenport left me at the hotel and was not back until the next morning. I supposed he retrieved the information he needed from Kitten to complete the mission and then remained with her for the night. Davenport was insistent that his relationship with Kitten was kept separate from professional dealings, and that, with few necessary exceptions, the best bookaneers never worked together. I would not question him, of course, because to question him about anything was fruitless, but it mystified me how he could pretend their labors and emotions were not already mixed. I knew many bookaneers believed that would be the bookaneer's downfall (his, not hers).

There were a few more conversations I had with the famous female bookaneer when we happened upon each other over the course of day-to-day routines, and these were sometimes cordial but never very friendly. She would always say at least one thing that made me uncomfortable. One time there was a comment she made about liking to imagine what people thought about when they saw her with a younger man such as Davenport. “They must ask themselves,” she said, “what it is about me that he cannot resist.” When something more significant finally passed between us it would once again be on the Continent, this time in darkness.

Now, in the vision that appeared to me onboard the
Colossus
, her face was stern but not without a hint of the grand humor for which she was loved and hated. Those eyes. You and I have talked much of reading. Well, these eyes are the eyes of a reader, eyes that do not just take words in, but confront and challenge their worthiness—the eyes of a queen or empress who has known nothing but control over other people. Her black hair was curly and loose, made to seem darker because her complexion was light. Her mouth was little and curved, giving a reminder of what it withheld (kind words, kisses, smiles) from all—all but one.

Time was rushing and time was crawling—again like being on a speeding train. The next thing I can remember after the eeriness of a dead woman's (living) face was the moment my eyes began to unlock themselves, the lids heavy and unkind. Human eyes, even my poor examples, are remarkable instruments. In utter darkness they moved back and forth valiantly as though something could be gleaned; the blind man's eyes do the same tired dance. I was in a small, dark, close place that smelled of wood. My thoughts at once turned to a coffin. There was the sound of crashing waves. I tried to scream, but I could call up no sound, and in my head I could only hear the clanging words of Poe writing of being buried alive:
Fearful indeed the suspicion—but more fearful the doom!

Though I still could see nothing, it felt as though the wooden compartment I was inside was settling into the water. I pounded my fists against a wood plank and shouted. Then the horrible guilt settled on me: swim lessons. I had hated the water as a child, and instead of using the lessons in the lake to develop my skills, as my brother did, I would stay where it was shallow enough to stand and pretend to swim. Now the sins of my youth, like the young chicken, came home to roost. I tried to put myself in the best position to imitate swimming.

Light suddenly poured in from above.

“Fergins!”

I looked up to see Davenport. The bookaneer, standing over me, looked confused, as though I had just woken him up. He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger as he glanced around.

“Davenport!” I exclaimed, my voice sounding raspy, with a note of horror stuck in it. I had been rolling around madly on the floor.

“Do you know—” He interrupted himself with a soft chuckle. “Do you know what you look like? Fergins”—more low laughter directed at me—“what are you doing?”

“Swimming. Well, preparing to,” I said with as much dignity as possible.

“Now you look like you've seen a ghost—or, no, that you are a ghost yourself. You know, those books you've given me suggest the Samoan people believe in a wide variety of ghosts and demons living around them at all times. It's a fascinating way to view the world. That with each death, the world grows more populous.”

He opened the shutter on the window and a little more light crept into the berth. The same chamber, I realized with a jolt, where I had poured champagne.

“Wait a minute,” he went on, taking my spectacles from their case, which was on the table.

“That is very kind, thank you, but . . .” I shook my head, dizzy and lost for words. “What happened?”

“I found you on the edge of the stairs—facedown, Fergins. Quite worrisome.”

“Davenport, we must act quickly. You are in danger. I believe I was poisoned!”

He did not seem moved one way or the other. “Sedated.”

“Do you mean . . . ? Please know I mean no offense by this question, Davenport, but do I understand correctly that you did this to me? You brought me to your berth and mixed some kind of drugs into the champagne?” He hadn't even a sip from his own glass, I remembered.

He appeared, if not offended, irritated by my statement. “This is
your
berth. I had arranged for it in advance with Ormond, the very fine old English skipper of this
Colossus
. Mine is just across the corridor. Smaller and less well appointed, but adequate.”

“Why would you do it, Davenport?”

“Let us take some fresh air to talk about it.”