Annie Proulx - Barkskins

“I can only say that China is very large and very old with many people. More than that I cannot say. Perhaps another time?”

Duquet understood that he was dismissed, rose, bowed and backed away.

• • •

After some months Duquet yearned to leave. It was irritating to wait for the monsoon to shift. Then one day Wuqua requested his presence in the trading room. It was a clear chill day in springtime and outside the wind cast plum blossom petals on the courtyard tiles. There was a different translator.

“You wished to know about our forests,” said Wuqua in a low, hurried voice, pausing impatiently for the translator. “I spoke with an elderly scholar on the subject. He said that our venerated sage Meng-tzu wrote of the people clearing land for crops, pulling grass and weeds, cutting trees ceaselessly, dividing the land and plowing. The people were very numerous even in Meng-tzu’s time, and very poor. People must eat or they die. They need fuel to cook rice. They must keep warm. So trees fall.” A rod of sunlight touched the toe of Wuqua’s black silk slipper. “We are a country of agriculture. You understand of course that land division is the base of all human government.”

“The forests then are diminished?”

“It is an arguable point, for men transplant many trees — bamboo, pine, oak and the valuable ones that produce lacquer or rich oils. Bear in mind that if forests and timberlands are diminished, cropland is very much augmented — more food, more money, more people, more contentment.”

Duquet nodded though he did not see contentment in this recipe. He knew very well that Wuqua hoped to gain his favor by telling him these secret things.

“But even beyond increasing our agricultural land we cut forests for other reasons. For example, do you know the scholar’s four treasures?”

“No. I regret to say I do not.”

“This is a country of scholars, poets and calligraphers,” said Wuqua, “and the four treasures are brush, paper, ink and inkstone, the necessities of calligraphy. But the source of the ink is the soot from the burning of pine trees. Very many pine trees must burn to supply China’s scholars.” The sunlight had moved up Wuqua’s robe and made a bright band across the embroidery. “And there was war. And metalworkers, potters, brickmakers — all craftsmen’s trades demand wood. In some tree-denuded places peasants are forced to gather grass, twist it into hard bundles and burn it as fuel. In other places animal dung.” He whispered. “There are wood shortages…”

“So the forests of France and China are not everlasting,” said Duquet unhappily. “And I have heard that Italy’s mountains are stripped.”

“Perhaps. But nothing is everlasting. Nothing. Not forests, not mountains.”

“But how came the gardens that honor forests and wild country?”

“We do not forget the forests when we have removed the trees. We make gardens to give us the pleasurable illusions of wilderness.”

“I myself,” said Duquet, “despise the gloomy and unruly forest, even while recognizing that it is a source of wealth and comforts. Yet I would never make a garden alluding to it.”

“Of course you would not. You do not understand the saying ‘tian ren he yi.’ It refers to a state of harmony between people and nature. You do not feel this. No European does. I cannot explain it to you. It is a kind of personal philosophy for each person, yet it is everything.”

Duquet thought it likely that the forests of China and France and Italy had been puny in their beginnings; he believed that the uniquely deep forests of the New World would endure. That was why men came to the unspoiled continent — for the mind-numbing abundance of virgin resources. Only he grasped the opportunity.

• • •

Duquet visited the ivory carver, who took a wax mold of his toothless jaws and set to work fashioning teeth. There was a wait of several months until they would be finished. The day came and the carver showed him how to insert the plates of large white teeth hinged with fine gold wires. Duquet looked in a glass for the first time in many years and although the teeth felt monstrous and uncomfortable, they undeniably improved his appearance. The carver told him he would get used to the intrusive feeling, but that the teeth were only for display, not for chewing. “Clean every day with brush, white cloth.” In pantomime he showed Duquet that he must expect they would become yellow over time, especially if he let sunshine fall on them. It could not be helped; it was the nature of ivory. Perhaps he should have a second pair made for spares? Yes, nodded Duquet. He wondered if ceramic teeth could be fashioned, then thought of a likely mouthful of broken shards.

• • •

Late every afternoon when the day’s continuing bargaining was finished Duquet and Captain Verdwijnen enjoyed a glass of jenever in the courtyard. The two men had become used to each other. Duquet several times, between panegyrics on the forests of New France, said he wished to arrange another passage as soon as possible, but Captain Verdwijnen always slipped to another subject.

“How do you like this pretty little table I’ve bought for Margit? That old rogue Wuqua bargained as though I was trying to buy his precious dragonfly garden. At one point he actually fell off the chair and rolled on the floor laughing like a madman. A complete loss of face. But in the end I got it for a good price.”

“Hah!” laughed Duquet. Wuqua, the old rogue, had learned a new trick from him.

• • •

Often one or two of the captain’s maritime friends, Piet Roos and Jan Goossen, captains of their own ships, dined with them. The face of Piet was like a pale plate set with two round eyes the color of raw sugar. His hair was almost the color of his skin and thus invisible. He dressed in the French mode, black silk culottes and coat set off by a froth of fine lace at the neck. Jan wore an immense sword and coarse workman’s fustian trousers. These contrasting men seemed familiar to Duquet and he finally asked about them.

“Of course they are familiar. You saw them in the Rock and Shoal in La Rochelle.” Captain Verdwijnen lowered his voice to a whisper. “I told you, they are my partners, my vrienden. Piet is my brother-in-law, Jan is my cousin. You didn’t think I could defy the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie and bear the expense of this voyage alone, did you?”

Duquet said, “ I would like to be a partner with you for the sake of the furs. And for my future lumber enterprise. We could make money together, don’t you think?”

After a long silence Captain Outger Verdwijnen spoke slowly. “You know that the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie for many years tightly controlled Dutch trade with India, China and Japan, the Spice Islands. No private merchant was allowed to do business nor travel through the Strait of Magellan.”

“But men do try. And succeed,” said Duquet.

“If you tried and were caught your goods were seized, your ship taken, and you were punished by the VOC’s stony hand. That is what happened to Willem Schouten, who discovered Kaap Hoorn. Now the Company is weaker, but still watchful. My vrienden and I made a secret partnership to enter the India-China trade ourselves — and someday even Japan — by banding resources together and sailing together. This is our fourth voyage and it is going well. Of course Piet and Jan own their boats and I am just the captain for Herr Grinz, but I hope to make enough on this trip to buy a good little fluyt. I am not altogether sure there is a place in our arrangement for a timber merchant. There may be — I don’t know. I fear a fluyt could not carry great loads of timber. Our West Indies want lumber, but I prefer to continue the China trade. If I were you I would look into the Indies trade.”