Annie Proulx - Barkskins

And so they returned to France, where the Steenarend would stay for three weeks, Duquet chafing to see the new finery which would present him as a person of value and importance.

They were late arriving in Paris and rather than go to the tailor’s shop in the deepening dusk Toppunt and Duquet spent the night at an inn.

The tailor seemed surprised to see them. Duquet, trying on his finery behind an embroidered screen with the help of Jules, the tailor’s assistant, listened while Toppunt and the tailor conversed.

“We have heard so many ships were lost in storms and to pirates that I thought yours was surely among them.”

“Not this time,” said Toppunt, “though we were severely lashed by typhoons and came close to being driven onto the rocks off the east coast of Africa, a vicious shore. There is more to the sea than water — there is the land that constricts it.”

“The sea is the master of all men.”

“Not our captain. He is a skilled navigator and of a pleasant nature unlike most ship captains. He is a good man. This was my fourth voyage with him and I will never ship out with another captain.”

“And if he dies?” asked the tailor. “Will you accompany him on that voyage as well?”

“Ha ha,” said Toppunt, “we’ll see. It depends on his port of call.”

Duquet, a vision in blue, stepped out from behind the screen and turned about to show the fit of his costume.

“So,” said Toppunt. “Even a prince would envy you.”

The tailor held both hands up and praised Duquet’s legs—“You are certainly a man not in need of calf pads. You, sir, have a well-turned leg.”

After this blandishment the tailor tried to wheedle more money from him. “It’s for storage. And I gave the costume very much care, dusting the shoulders, airing it outdoors, protecting it from my cat.” Duquet took out his smallest coin and spun it on the tailor’s table.

• • •

The wigmaker’s shop was closed, but with loud pounding they raised the proprietor, whose pointed nose gleamed wet. He coughed incessantly.

“The powder on the wigs, you know. It’s quite irritating. I have lately changed to a powder made from curious lichens that grow on rocks, and it does not trouble me so severely. I have heard they use it to poison wolves, so rest assured that your fine wig will never be plagued by those ferocious animals.”

He brought the wigs out. Toppunt’s was black and glossy and very smart. Duquet’s was enormous and heavy, of auburn color with countless long ringlets that cascaded down his back and over his shoulders.

“Do you wish it powdered?” asked the wigmaker. He produced a hacking sound.

“No, no,” said Duquet, staring at himself in the shop’s watery mirror. Between the blue shimmer of the garments, the flash of his ivory teeth and the expensive wig he was transformed into an apparent gentleman — what Toppunt, not altogether kindly, called a schijn-heer —an almost-gentleman.

They left the street of shops, heading for a certain eating place. Toppunt had heard the cook came from Bourgogne and was a genius of the kitchen. This inn was in a distant street and the longer they walked the hotter Duquet became until he felt his brains roasting, his shoulders laden with coals. His neck ached with the weight of the wig. The sun glowed as a smelting furnace. They pushed through crowded streets, down alleys that ran at angles. A man carrying a large covered tray on his shoulder came toward them. He brushed past Duquet, who suddenly felt the expensive wig ripped from his head. He spun around in time to see the man with the tray running, and on the tray a ragged child clutching Duquet’s new wig. The load was heavy and the man lurched as he ran.

“Au voleur! Au voleur!” shouted Duquet and Toppunt. A passerby stuck out his leg and the man fell, the child, tray and wig hurtling into the mud. The child scampered away at extraordinary speed but the passerby held down the man. A crowd gathered and pinioned the thief.

“It’ll be the galleys for him,” said Toppunt. “He will join the Huguenots.”

Duquet, in an icy rage, retrieved the huge wig that had cost him so much. It looked twice as large as before, quite the armful, as big as a mattress and with clots of mud dangling from its curls; as he shook it he saw it had become entangled with another wig, apparently stolen earlier than his and hidden beneath the cloth.

“It’s a good one,” said Toppunt, examining the modish second wig critically. “You can sell it.” But as he examined it more closely he grimaced.

“It’s full of lice and nits.” He held it up. “But you could have it fumigated and cleaned. It is a valuable wig.” While they were examining the hairy mass the passerby, still holding the thief and craning his neck to better see the wigs, relaxed his grip a little and the miscreant wrenched loose and ran into the faceless multitude. A chase was hopeless.

Duquet had had enough of wigs for the day, and, carrying his own under his arm, he strode away, Toppunt, carrying the lousy wig, running after him, calling, “Slow, slow.”

By the time they reached the inn they could laugh at the adventure. Duquet said they should return to the wigmaker and see what he would give for the stranger’s wig. It might pay for their dinner. They recklessly ordered dishes with the feeling that someone else would pay — some good French wine. At last, sated and half drunk, they ate a sweet tart, and after that neither could move.

“We need coffee,” said Toppunt. The innkeeper told them of a coffeehouse two streets away. They waddled in that direction, passed it twice before seeing it and went in.

When they were finally restored to mobility and mental clarity they returned to the wigmaker’s shop, Toppunt carrying the stolen wig. The man recognized it as one he had made himself for a great gentleman. He said he would return it to his client, but Duquet insisted on a reward, naming a sum that covered the cost of their lavish dinner. Moaning, the wigmaker paid it, protesting that his client would hardly pay twice, even for a stolen and returned wig.

In the street Toppunt said the wigmaker would likely cleanse the wig, hide it away and, when the client came to him telling of the theft, the wigmaker would promise him a new one, as like the old as a pea in the pod resembles its neighbor, and charge an even greater sum (for the verisimilitude) than the wig’s first sale.

“In truth,” he said, “I believe the thieves are in the employ of the wigmakers.”

• • •

A week later, dressed in his finery and wearing the ivory teeth and stifling wig, Duquet attended a formal return dinner at Captain Verdwijnen’s house in Amsterdam. The captain and his wife, Margit, Captains Piet Roos and Jan Goossen, their wives and Piet’s two nearly grown daughters, Josina and Cornelia, made up the company. In the entrance hall Duquet noticed the table Captain Verdwijnen had purchased for Margit in Guangzhou.

As Margit looked him over Duquet saw that her right eye was more kindly than the left, which shot out a ray of antipathy. He felt that eye erase his fine clothes, discard the wig, dissolve the ivory teeth and identify him as a scavenging opportunist. He dared not eat anything but soup and gravy as he did not wish to remove his teeth in company. They were inadequate for anything beyond blancmange.

To avoid Madame Verdwijnen’s cruel eye, all through the dinner Duquet shot his own glances at young Cornelia. There was a resemblance to Piet and she was passable, though certainly not a beauty. Her eyes were of a blue so pale they seemed white, her nose was broad. She wore a dark brown silk dress with a filmy ruff collar and an embroidered linen cap. Duquet made up his mind that she would be his wife. At the flashing thought of any opposition or denial the inner tiger stirred.