Annie Proulx - Barkskins

“Welkom, broeder,” said Bernard. Outger pursed his lips.

“Please to remember, Bernard, that we are not brothers. My parents may have adopted you and the others, but we are, most emphatically, not blood brothers.”

“I am in no danger of forgetting that. Yet we were ever closer to your father than you yourself.”

He was surprised when Outger laughed. “Yes, yes. But that’s hardly an enviable distinction. The man was a brute.”

“He was also a very good businessman, to our mutual advantage — yours as well as mine. A great pity for Duke and Sons when he vanished.”

“Quite. But amidst all the fanciful imaginings put forward I wonder you have never suspected that he was sickening for the smallpox, which was very prevalent in those days, and went into the forest alone and died of it? It is logical, I think.”

“You may be right.”

“Yes. And now that we’ve got the spleenishness out of the way shall we try for civility as we must travel in each other’s pockets for the next six weeks?”

“That would please me inordinately. And I am glad to see you.” They were like two terriers sniffing and circling.

“And I to see you, though I know you doubt it. But tell me, who are those goggling monkeys staring at me?” He gestured toward the ship’s rail.

“That one with the watch chain on his vest is young Piet, one of Nicolaus’s sons. Piet oversees our pitch production plantation in Carolina. The other is George Pickering Duke, Jan’s son, recently returned from London, where he read law at the Inns of Court. Missing is Sedley, Piet’s brother. He has just become a father and is staying in Boston with his wife.” He took a breath and turned to his nephews.

“Gentlemen — this is Outger Duquet, of whom you have heard.”

They had also heard Outger’s disclaimer of kinship with Bernard and were rather at a loss how to address him. Outger saw their confusion and said, “You may call me Uncle as long as we all understand it to be an address of respect for an elder rather than a claim to a nonexistent kinship.” He spoke as though he were a prince of the blood.

“Thank you, Uncle,” said Piet; George mumbled the same.

“We will meet again at the captain’s table,” said Outger haughtily and went below to arrange his belongings.

• • •

The dinner was reasonably pleasant, even Captain Strik twisting a half smile out of his crusty features now and then. When pressed for his opinion about danger from French warships he said, “I heard this very morning that the British have captured more than two hundred French ships. The French are concerned for their West Indies trade, and for Nova Scotia. I doubt the few of their ships under way will waste time chasing a Dutch merchant.”

When the pudding had come and gone a good port arrived and the older men took out their smoking paraphernalia. Uncle Outger flourished a yellow tobacco pouch with horrid claws.

“It is made from the foot of an albatross. All the bones were drawn out and the leather well tanned. Many parts of the albatross have uses — the beak makes an admirable clip to keep papers from flying apart. And the flesh is as tasty as any pheasant.”

“And where did you happen to capture an albatross?” asked Jan.

Outger waved his hand eastward.

Jan peppered him with questions. “Will you spend considerable time in Amsterdam?”

“Not at all. I’ll have a few days with my mother and sister, Doortje. Then away to the University of Leiden to meet with scholars of natural history. I have been in correspondence with some of these learned men for decades, and although I feel I know them well, we have never met.” He swigged the port. “Nor would they know me if we were to be introduced this very moment. As a caution I have ever used a disguised name in my correspondence with them.” He went on to say that he had derived that mysterious name by writing the alphabet in a circle and choosing the letters opposite those of his last name. As an added precaution he then reversed the order of those letters and came up with his secret correspondence name — Etdidu.

“Very clever,” said Nicolaus, humoring him. He forbore to ask why Outger felt such a pressing need for anonymity. Bernard was both gratified and disconcerted that he had been correct about Outger. The man, penned up in Charles Duquet’s Penobscot Bay house for decades, had developed into a full-blown crank — a code name, worthless plants and who knew what else?

“What is your subject of interest if I may ask?” he asked.

“Various. The flora of the New World. Indian artifacts and descriptions of their strange rites. Weather manifestations peculiar to Penobscot Bay. Mathematical conundrums. And my invention, now situated on the ship’s deck with the kind compliance of Captain Strik.”

The captain bobbed his head.

“My invention, which I prefer not to discuss. And very much more.” Outger, smoking his pipe fiercely, helped himself to a final ladle of pease and another boiled potato.

“It sounds as though you may be there for some months, if not years.” Bernard watched Outger swish his potato through the greenish pond of pease.

“At least a year. I shall make my home in Amsterdam or Leiden, depending which I find more salubrious. I might live with Doortje; her letters show she has many of the same interests in natural history as I. Or I might stay with the men of science in Leiden — if my invention captures their approval. However, I am aware they may see me as a hopelessly ignorant colonial and bid me adieu. Though I do not think so. I know any number of things of which they do not dream. We shall see, eh?” And he puffed out a forceful cloud of smoke and a few flecks of pease.

Jan hoped Outger would remain in Holland for the rest of his life. Then Duke & Sons could finally get possession of the great pine table in the Penobscot house.

But Nicolaus, who spent much time with the company’s contract tree cutters, saw Outger had some similarity with the half-unbalanced men who came in from the isolation of the woods. The forest had made them strange—“woods-queer”—as some called it. They leapt with fright at any loud noise, they took their pay and then stormed back into the office an hour later demanding to be compensated — and were flustered when Henk Steen showed them their Xs or signatures on the receipts. But Nicolaus understood. The moment of payment had been too matter-of-fact; there had been no ceremony, no release from the tensions of solitude and dangerous work. He invited the overwrought barkskins to a nearby tavern for a drink. He urged them to tell him of the perils of the recent job — the catface growth that caused a tree to twist and fall badly, illnesses and other afflictions, unseen tree limbs that hurtled down, food shortages, troublesome men. An hour or so of putting the past into the past restored their hearts. It was the same, he thought, with Outger. He would take the man aside and urge him to talk of his invention and the difficulties he had suffered in creating it — whatever it was.

It was at dinner that Etdidu shone most brightly. He ate rapidly, like a dog, hunching and gulping so he then could command the conversation. He dominated the talk with a succession of bizarre tales, all recounted as though he had experienced them himself, an impossibility, thought Bernard, unless he possessed the power of ubiquity. It was difficult to grasp the tendrils of these stories, which emerged from intertwined sentences spangled with English, French, Dutch and fragments of some Algonkian tongue. The rest of the diners were forced into a zone of silence.

He spoke of hurricanes that sought out Papist churches, of mandrakes, rains of blood, burial vaults where unseen forces shifted coffins from their positions and disgorged their contents onto the floor. He knew of birds that built their nests of cinnamon sticks, and others that used only the entrails of sea lions for the purpose. He described cities of ice floating in the polar ocean, leaps of death from high places and persons who could leave their earthly bodies at night, transmute into mosquitoes and annoy their neighbors. As proof of this he advanced a description of a Paris baker who, in mosquito guise, feasted on the blood of a handsome mademoiselle, was slapped by the bitee for his impudence and died on the windowsill as he sought to escape, in his human shape, but horribly squashed.