Annie Proulx - Barkskins

Back at their rooms Duquet and Captain Verdwijnen washed and changed. They had an hour to wait before Wuqua’s servants came for them. Duquet got out the gin.

“Did you work out a fair price for the goods you want?” he asked the captain.

“Not yet, not yet! We have only begun. We shall continue tomorrow and perhaps the next day and the next. Haste is not advisable. Slow, contemplative weighing of loss and gain, of prestige, of honor and much more are involved.” Duquet envied this captain who so skillfully played the cards.

Captain Verdwijnen lit his long clay pipe and puffed out smoke. “You are wondering when we will get to your furs, no?” His foot waggled.

“Yes,” said Duquet, “I do wonder.”

“Eventually. There is no hurry. In any case we cannot leave until we finish conducting our business — next year with the correct wind for our return. So enjoy your time here. What did you think of the garden?”

“Why, very — very — agreeable.”

“I also like beautiful gardens and constich objects.”

This Duquet knew, for he remembered Captain Verdwijnen waking him from a deep sleep one night—“Get up! There is a great sight! Awake!”—and commanding him to come on deck immediately to see a wonder. Swaying in his nightshirt, barefoot and bleary, he clung to the rail and looked down. The water curling back from the rushing ship’s prow was a froth of luminescence and behind them the fiery glow marked their recent passage.

“Look! See there! ” cried Captain Verdwijnen gesturing at the water-riding phosphor and waving his hands. Alongside the ship the bodies of dolphins trailed sparks that twisted and writhed as the fish moved. A sailor hauled up a bucket of quivering light. Captain Verdwijnen plunged his hands into it and held them up, his fingers and palms glowing as the water dripped away. The crests of the waves caught fire, darkened. The ship seemed to be sailing through a burning sea. Duquet yawned, said “remarkable,” and returned to his blanket.

• • •

Before they stepped into the palanquins, the translator said Wuqua had noticed the foreigners’ pleasure in the garden earlier in the day and the dinner invitation included a walk through his personal Garden of Vermilion Dragonflies. But when they arrived, and their host conducted them under the rustling trees, it was dark. There was no moon. The pathway was lighted by a tremble of distant lightning and by paper globes of imprisoned fireflies, which cast a greenish light. Of dragonflies, whether vermilion, amber or blue, there was no sight. But Wuqua took their hands and led them to the darkest shade. “We stand here under a duck-foot tree, the largest in the city. My garden was once part of an ancient temple and this yin-kuo tree was old then; they say it lived in the time before Buddha. It is not like any other tree. It is believed to be one of the first trees to live in the world.” In the darkness he pulled at the leaves and gave one to Duquet, another to Captain Verdwijnen.

“You must come another time in daylight to see the dragonflies,” said Wuqua and led them into a room faced with intricate carved screens. Two dozen lanterns threw a radiant light on the guests and the wine winking in silver bowls. Duquet looked at the yin-kuo leaf in his hand; it looked very like a leaf from a maidenhair fern which he had seen a thousand times in the forests of the north. At the back of the room musicians played in the Xinjiang style and a performer sang in a high, strangled voice. The translator said the great dish of the dinner, following many courses, was called Buddha Leaps over the Wall. Duquet enjoyed it while Captain Verdwijnen, longing for herring and headcheese, picked at it fearfully.

On the way back to the Factory quarter, Captain Verdwijnen said, “I offer a wager that wall-jumping concoction will make you ill — perhaps kill you.”

“It was worth it,” said Duquet.

• • •

Weeks passed before Wuqua deigned to consider Duquet’s offerings. He seemed to expect a request for ceramics, teas, lacquerware and silks. He seemed to think Duquet’s pack contained silver. So when Duquet took out the lustrous furs, one by one, shaking them until they snapped with static electricity, Wuqua’s face, trained never to show surprise, showed surprise. He took up a snowy arctic fox fur and caressed it, examined the mink and marten furs, the ice-white ermine and two thick sea otter pelts. At the sight of the velvet-black fur tipped with silver, the world’s most desirable luxury, Wuqua sucked in his breath.

“Very pretty. Very, very pretty. We do not too often see furs of such beauty and quality. However, the Russians do bring us furs, so they are not unknown here. And in Guangzhou it is really too warm for furs, but at court and in the north… What do you wish for these?”

Instead of the usual list of luxury goods Duquet named a very high price — in silver. Wuqua pretended to faint, his head slumped to one side but watchful eyes glinting from the slitted lids. He revived and named a small sum that would be bolstered by a few rolls of silk and a bale of tea.

Duquet hurled himself to the floor in a fit of shrieking, spasmodic, disbelieving laughter. Even as he fell he realized he had gone too far. He got up, sure he had lost face in the negotiations and that the morning — perhaps the entire trip — was wasted. He sat again in his chair and looked at Wuqua.

The expression on the businessman’s face was peculiar. Amazement? Disdain? But Wuqua nodded his head, the slightest nod, but it expressed a kind of calculated admiration, an acceptance of Duquet’s behavior as a tolerable and even admirable ploy. Decorum returned. The day progressed, the bargaining continued. They again went to the garden for tea and arranged to meet in two days’ time. At the end of the month of bargaining Duquet accepted a princely sum in silver for his furs. He had gained a staggering profit.

“If you come in a future year,” said Wuqua, “with furs of equal quality and variety they may excite a greater passion.” The servant poured more tea. Wuqua sipped, looked into the distance and then asked offhandedly, “And do you have this in your forests of New France?” From his sleeve he withdrew a gnarled root vaguely shaped like a hunchbacked, three-legged man. Duquet had seen this root before, in the hands of the Indian woman who had saved his life.

“Yes, we have this.”

“Ah. If you bring me a quantity of these roots I will pay as much as for the furs. Perhaps more, depending on the quality and quantity.”

“Very good. And I also have rare woods for fine cabinets,” said Duquet, trembling inwardly, knowing he was on the edge of extraordinarily advantageous arrangements.

“Rare woods are of interest. Especially sandalwood. Scented woods are prized.”

In a stroke Duquet had become a wealthy man and, he thought, after one or two more trips — if Captain Verdwijnen were willing to take him — his forest enterprise would begin. As they spoke of woods Duquet was emboldened to ask a question.

“Sir, honorable Wuqua, as foreigners may not leave the Factory compound I have wondered many times about the forests of China. I see that men in China make gardens that seem the essence of forest and mountain, but in miniature. But what of the real forests? It is my belief that forests are everlasting and can never disappear, for they replenish themselves, but I have seen in France that they are… diminished. And I have noticed that even in New France the forest is drawing back — a little, wherever there are settlements. How far back can a forest withdraw before it replenishes itself?”

Wuqua looked at him as though trying to judge whether or not Duquet had designs on China’s woodlands. He glanced at the translator. He hesitated.