Annie Proulx - Barkskins

• • •

The marriage had a business advantage for Lavinia. Dieter became the company figurehead while she continued to manage and control, to build the great Duke empire by all means possible. Dieter had asked that the company not sell its cutover pinelands to speculators, but sequester and manage them through a separate division called Maintenance Timberland, which he would oversee, replant and manage. This was in addition to the acreage he had held back from the merger with Duke. So the first evidence of forest conservation tinged Duke & Breitsprecher’s reputation.

“The day will come,” Dieter explained to the Board, “though it be difficult for you to believe, when timber is scarce and becomes more valuable than we can project. You saw the promise in wood pulp for the paper market as Lavinia and Mr. Stirrup explained to us this morning. Holding Duke’s Maine land for years was wise. If we ensure the continuation of our forestland, future wealth is guaranteed, whether for lumber or paper. We may have passed on by then but our work will be remunerative.” No one could argue with this, for some of the old Breitsprecher lands he had planted twenty years earlier were bristling with sturdy trees and would indisputably be valuable timberland in another three or four decades. It forced the Board to think in new ways, on a scale of decades rather than months or a few years. Very frightening stuff.

• • •

Duke & Breitsprecher sent its first shipload of best pine to Sydney, Australia. Lawyer Flense went to San Francisco to meet with the buyer, an Englishman doing business in Australia, Harry Blustt, who wanted to arrange a contract for a decade of supply. Blustt wanted Michigan pine, but said he also had an interest in the kauri trade — whatever kauri might be, thought Flense.

“We have a little of this wood in Australia, but most of it grows in New Zealand. We are interested in finding a logging partner to establish efficient lumber camps in that country.” His ginger goatee rose and fell as he talked.

“I see,” said Lawyer Flense. It was the first time he had heard the word efficient used in quite this way; he grasped the meaning immediately. “Of course Duke and Breitsprecher is interested in any overseas source of wood. We are ever interested in new timber supplies. And ‘efficient’ is our motto. But who are the New Zealand interests?”

Blustt laughed. “We arrange all that. We already have them — we have contacts with the right men. They look to Australia and London for advice and action in all things. But the native people are not satisfactory workers. We want American woodsmen who can use the ax and saw. Here is what the finished product looks like.” He produced four small pieces of golden kauri wood.

“Ah,” said Flense; the wood glowed as though sunlight were sequestered in every atom.

“Best house-building wood in the world,” said Blustt.

Flense brought the samples back to Chicago and the Board passed the polished, blemish-free pieces from hand to hand. Kauri was a pine, and when they heard of the tree’s generous manner of growth, enormous and straight for a hundred feet, all the limbs clustered at the top, they voted to know more. “It is reputed to be the most perfect tree on earth for the timberman,” said Flense. “Or at least this fellow Blustt claims it is.”

No one on the Board knew much about New Zealand. Lavinia wanted to meet Blustt, she wanted to see the kauri forests before the company made a leap into the dark. It might be the Michigan forests all over again. And so the journey was arranged. She and Dieter Breitsprecher, recovered though somewhat scarred, would travel to Sydney on their honeymoon trip, meet with Blustt, then continue to Auckland and for themselves see the kauri of the Coromandel peninsula.

• • •

Before they left Lavinia spent separate hours with Lawyer Flense and Axel Cowes.

“Mr. Flense,” she said, “I think of you not only as my adviser and executor in all financial affairs, but as a friend. I have complete confidence in you. While Dieter and I are away I will give you a power of attorney to handle business matters. If you have doubts or questions on any matter please consult with Axel Cowes.”

“Do not worry, dear Lavinia. All will be as you yourself might act.” He smiled his curling smile, a gold tooth sparking. He took her right hand in his. “On my life,” he said.

• • •

Both Lavinia and Dieter were prostrate with seasickness for the first weeks of the voyage. The captain (whose ship Duke & Breitsprecher owned) was at his wit’s end in suggesting cures until the mate gathered remedies from the scuttlebutt. The one that worked came from the Chinese cook — ginger tea and walking the deck every other hour.

“Never go belowdecks,” said the cook, bringing the invalids a great steaming pot reeking of ginger. Lavinia took three sweetened cups and walked for half an hour, her eyes on the horizon. Dieter found a single cup efficacious and by dinnertime the two vomiters were well enough to eat boiled beef and turnips. The shared illness somehow united them as the marriage ceremony had not and on board the bounding ship with a load of pine planks rubbing against each other in the hold Dieter and Lavinia began a sexual adventure. Dieter was delightedly astonished at how responsive and inventive Lavinia became in the narrow berth. The crew could hear laughter and occasional whoops from their quarters. The cook claimed it was another of the salubrious effects of ginger tea.

• • •

Harry Blustt met their ship. “Ah, a long voyage, what?” He explained that Sydney was still an infant city, both swampy and dusty, both crowded and empty, both brash and genteel.

“How interesting,” said Lavinia. “But all I hope for at the moment is accommodations on immovable ground.”

“Quite! Quite. Accommodations! You understand, guesthouses and inns are few — during the gold rush there were innumerable doss-houses, quite unsuitable. We have arranged for you to stay at a government official’s house — he is in London until the turn of the year. I think you will be comfortable for the weeks before you sail to New Zealand. I have arranged several small dinners with men in the timber business.”

The arranged dinners were all alike, vinous English businessmen hoping to strike deals to sell their lumber, most of which, Lavinia gathered, came from New Zealand, where choppers were bringing down the trees.

“Yas,” said one bland fellow touching his lips with his napkin, “lumber ships crowd New Zealand harbors, ships take on kauri, totara and rimu. I say most are bound here for New South Wales, which is expanding like — like — like the very devil.”

“But we are here to see about the possibilities of logging ourselves,” said Lavinia. The men looked at Dieter as if to ask him to silence his wife — a woman had no place discussing logging nor lumber. They could not bring themselves to discuss anything with her, deferred instead to Dieter. Conversation languished; Lavinia and Dieter said good night as soon as they could without giving offense.

“I hope it is better in New Zeland,” said Lavinia. “These fellows are small-time operators. They are only concerned to sell a load or two of their planks. They are supplying building material for New South Wales. That is their market. They do not understand serious logging.” She waved her arm in a circle that included the fruit bats. “It makes me question the abilities of Mr. Blustt. I hope it is not the same in Auckland.”

“Let us first see the trees,” said Dieter.

Before they had left Chicago, Dieter arranged — with advice from Mr. Marsh — the rental of a private house in Auckland for their monthlong stay. Their contact would be a man named Nashley Oval, an English artist, who had a government contract to paint panoramic views of New Zealand. “They are good people with interests that match our own,” wrote Mr. Marsh, “but I will warn you that the wife’s family keeps slaves, something the new government means to stamp out.” When Dieter read this to Lavinia she made a face and said, “Slaves! Oh dear!”