Barkskins

by Annie Proulx

  “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!”

  The small ship, manned by tattooed Maori sailors, entered the great blue harbor at twilight. “Would it not be best to have a good night’s rest and meet with Mr. Oval tomorrow?” asked Dieter, and Lavinia nodded, gazing down at the flashing paddles of men and women in carved canoes all around them. But Mr. Oval was waiting on the dock, a tall rumpled fellow with auburn hair and clear blue eyes.

  “So pleased, so delighted,” he murmured, kissing Lavinia’s salt-chapped hand and shaking both of Dieter’s. “I thought I would see you settled into Fern House. I have arranged a very simple dinner at my table this evening so we might sketch out a plan. If you are not too exhausted by the journey? Planning is important as a month is not nearly enough time to show you the wonders of New Zealand.”

  They went directly to his house in a garden of trees.

  “What a majestic view,” said Lavinia, admiring the harbor painted umber and violet with sunset dregs. A Maori servant—one of the slaves?—showed them into a sparsely furnished room, the walls melting away in shadow. Candles were the only illumination, which Dieter found very pleasant. He disliked both oil and gas lamps. A small round table was set for three. The servant brought in green-lipped mussels, poured a chilled white hock.

  “Mr. Oval, delicious—it is reminiscent of German wines,” said Dieter, wondering how it was cooled. Did they have ice or snow in this place? He thought not.

  “It is a German wine—imported, as all our wine. I doubt this climate could support vineyards, but some think otherwise. I had twenty cases of Bordeaux shipped a decade ago and it has taken too long a time to recover from the journey—really still not drinkable. I’m told reds can take twenty years or more. But the whites have been good and I’ve developed rather a preference for them, or so I think. To our coming journey together,” he said and he raised his glass, smiled at Lavinia.

  The mussel plates disappeared, replaced by a savory pie of the famous Bluff oysters.

  “Tomorrow you can rest and get settled, and on Thursday I think it would be advantageous for us to sail to the Coromandel peninsula, where horses will carry us into the forests. Half a century ago horses were unknown here but they came in with the missionaries and the Maori took to them. Everyone rides. I understand, Mrs. Breitsprecher, that you especially wish to see the kauri. Did you bring riding clothes?” he asked Lavinia.

  “No,” said Lavinia. “I haven’t been on a horse since I was a girl. It didn’t occur to me to pack riding clothes.”

  “I think we can arrange a habit for you. My wife, of course, rides bareback. And in a pinch you can always wear men’s trousers—women here on the frontier of civilization are not fashionable. If you are sanguine in temperament I feel we shall do well.”

  Lavinia’s interest was piqued at the thought of an Englishwoman riding bareback and tried to imagine what such a woman would be like—an extravagant hoyden, no doubt. And was she herself expected to wear trousers? Was that what their host was suggesting?

  She kept her jaw clenched against falling agape when Mrs. Oval entered the room. Nashley Oval stood up. Dieter rose, smiling. The woman who came toward them was tall and shapely, beautiful in balance and bone. She wore a costume of orange cotton skirt fringed with feathers, and on top a long garment of supple flax that left one shoulder bare. A river of black hair streamed to her waist. Her chin was tattooed with a curious design and a delicate tattooed line enhanced her shapely lips. Lavinia realized with a shock that she was a Maori.

  “Welcome, welcome to our land,” she said in perfect upper-class English, her soft voice dropping at the end of her sentence.

  “May I present my wife, Ahorangi Oval. Dear heart, these are our guests, Lavinia and Dieter Breitsprecher, with whom we shall travel in your forests beginning on Thursday.”

  “I am so pleased,” said Mrs. Oval in a soft fluid voice that reminded Dieter of a pigeon cote. “There is much to show you and I hope you will come to love this place as we do. We have learned about you both from our common friend, Mr. Marsh, whom we met in Italy several years ago.”

  Great heavens, thought Lavinia, Mr. Marsh again! He plays an invisible role in our lives.

  • • •

  A broad path climbed gradually up toward the forests. Ahorangi Oval, again in her orange skirt and flax blouse, sat astride a nervous bay mare dancing and shifting about. Lavinia, feeling constricted and slightly tortured in an ill-fitting riding habit, was on a tractable piebald mare. Dieter on a rangy gelding, and Mr. Oval on his Thoroughbred Queenie, rode behind the two women, talking of Mr. Marsh. Two bareback Maori men—the brothers of Ahorangi—rode in front, turning and calling out comments in good English. The servant and a packhorse laden with full kete baskets followed the party.

  “You speak English very well,” said Lavinia to Ahorangi.

  “Yes, thank you. I went to school in London,” she said.

  At noon the brothers reined up near a stout tree with a self-important air. “A cabbage tree,” said Ahorangi. “All parts are good to eat, we can thatch roofs, make our rain capes. It gives good medicines. It shows itself as different from other trees, so we plant them sometimes to mark a notable place. Let us have lunch here with the ti kouka.”

  • • •

  The path rose and they entered a totara grove, the elegant trees rising high, showing needled spikes and red berries.

  “This,” said Ahorangi, gesturing with her expressive hands, “is the tree we esteem above all others.”

  “Even above the kauri?” asked Lavinia.

  “Yes. The kauri is important and we revere it, but it is whitemen who love it to the exclusion of other trees. For them it is the ideal timber tree. But it is the totara with whom our lives and religion are even more deeply entwined. Like kauri, it is one of the great chieftain trees—also rimu and kahikatea and rata. Those are our royal trees.”

  “They remind me somewhat of yews,” said Dieter, looking at the totara, “though they are much taller. Very tall indeed.”

  “Oh yes,” said Mr. Oval. “They are a much-favored tree, both by the Maori and whites. The Maori prefer totara for carvings and war canoes, houses and so much else—framing timbers, even. The fruit is tasty and plentiful, a bark decoction controls fever. White men like it for its rot-resistant timber.”

  Ahorangi led Lavinia to a flounced rimu with drooping fronds. “This is my favorite,” she said. “I love the rimu, but so do the timbermen.” She touched a dangle of green. “The botanists say it is a pine, but it is different. It has no cones like European pines, but a good kind of berry. Kakapo—hear them?—like the berries very much.”

  In fact all the previous night in the Fern House, Lavinia had heard a smothered thumping sound like someone dropping cannonballs from the trees. Now she heard it again. Ahorangi told her it was the mating call of the kakapo, a fat puffy parrot that could not fly but spent its time in the rimu gorging on fruit—“usually they make this sound only at night, but I think this one may be rather ardent.” Ahorangi touched Lavinia’s arm and with a sad half smile said, “I must ask you something. I am afraid for the rimu. My husband says you are an important lady who owns a timber company and that you come here to look at the trees with a thought to cut them. I hope you will love our trees and not cut them. They are our lives. To live happily in this place we need the trees. I am afraid for them. You will not cut them, please?”

  Lavinia said nothing, and in a few minutes Ahorangi und
erstood the silence and walked back to her husband and brothers. For the rest of the day she stayed with them and made no effort to speak again with Lavinia.

  Dieter rode up. “What is it?” he said, aware something was not right.

  “She does not want us to cut any trees,” said Lavinia. “She begged me not to cut them. I did not know what to say. There are so many trees here that there is no possibility they could be all removed as she seems to fear.”

  “Let us hope so,” said Dieter. “That is my wish.” And he, too, fell silent.

  They passed through the rimu and followed a twisting trail that wound around a slope and into a grove. Lavinia and Dieter knew at once these were the kauri; they could be nothing else. Massively broad grey trunks with branches bunched at the top like the victims of a robbery throwing up their hands; but the staggering size of these monsters stunned them both.

  “My God,” said Dieter, “this is the enchanted forest from some ancient tale.” He dismounted, tied his horse to a shrub and began to walk around a very, very large kauri. He was suddenly joyful. “They are too big to be cut,” he said to Lavinia. “They cannot be brought down.”

  They can, Lavinia thought, they will be. Yet she, too, had been a little moved by the great silent trees, so immense, so helpless.

  • • •

  After dinner Lavinia tried to make amends. “Dear Mrs. Oval,” she said.

  “Please, call me Ahorangi.”

  “And you must call me Lavinia. I want to say that if I am here to look at the kauri trees for cutting, my husband is here because he believes in replanting what one takes. We wonder if it is possible to plant infant kauri trees, perhaps one for each large one that is cut, to care for the young trees as they grow and age?”

  Ahorangi gave a small laugh. “The big kauri trees are very old—thousands of years. We will take you to see Kairaru of Tutamoe. It is the largest one. It would certainly be a hundred human generations before a seedling could replace one fallen mature kauri of such girth.”

  “One must have faith in the power of a seed,” said Dieter. “We plant them knowing we will never see them when they are grown. We plant them for the health of the world rather than for people not yet born.”

  Nashley Oval leaned forward in his chair, his face tense and excited. “This—this idea of planting kauris. I like this very much. I wish to make a nursery—I suppose it would be a nursery—for starting young trees. I am not quite sure how they propagate . . .” He looked at his wife.

  “They have cones and the cones carry the seeds. Many times you have seen the winged seeds spiraling down to the ground, riding on the wind, no?”

  “Yes. So all one would have to do is gather those seeds and put them in a bed of soil?”

  Dieter spoke up. “Likely one would get better results by gathering cones not quite ripe enough to disperse their seeds. And these should come from younger trees in vigorous good health. I know nothing of the germination rate of kauri seeds but there are bound to be variations. When do the winged seeds begin to disperse?”

  “I would say February—March,” said Ahorangi. “In the autumn, a few months hence.”

  “I should never get used to the seasons being opposite,” said Lavinia.

  “Oh, it’s not difficult,” said Nashley Oval. “It all falls into place quite naturally.” He was quiet while the guests murmured over the roasted hoki fish with shallot sauce. “I plan to empty my glasshouse of lettuces and green pease and collect kauri seeds this coming February. I shall try my hand at starting young kauri trees.”

  “You will be the first in the world, dear Nashley,” said Ahorangi, touching his hand.

  Dieter spoke earnestly. “Mr. Oval, if you do such a thing allow me to congratulate you on a valuable hobbyhorse. You will find yourself lavishing your infant seedlings with affection and tender regard for their welfare. But pray do not give up your vegetables—if you can, do construct a glasshouse especially for the kauri. I would be most happy to contribute to such a venture in the interest of improving the future.”

  Ahorangi spoke to Lavinia. “You have not yet seen the young kauris—they call them rickers, and they look rather different than the mature trees. Tall and thin, like young girls before they—develop. They are a bit amusing. We shall see all ages while you are here.”

  • • •

  Two weeks passed with excursions to kauri groves. Lavinia bought a large shoreline grove mixed with rimu and told Ahorangi and Nashley Oval that Duke & Breitsprecher would send men to begin cutting and milling these trees. It would take time to hire the right men, assemble the mill machinery and ship all to Auckland. No kauri in that grove would fall for a few more years. The woman sighed but nodded when Lavinia told her that Duke & Breitsprecher would pay Mr. Oval to set up a kauri nursery and maintain it, to plant young seedlings when the cut was finished.

  • • •

  Although Axel Cowes had known and worked with Lavinia for years, he chose to send his cable with news of the Chicago fire to Dieter, who came into the bedroom, where Lavinia sat writing in her notebook of expenses.

  “My dear, we have had a cable from Axel Cowes. He says a great fire has burned half the city, even in the business district. People are ruined and homeless. There is much suffering.”

  Lavinia read the cable for herself. “We have lost warehouses—but on the other hand Axel says orders for milled lumber are pouring in. The ashes are not yet cold but rebuilding has begun. That is the famous Chicago spirit,” she said. “But he does not detail our losses.”

  “I daresay it will take some weeks to understand the situation fully.”

  “He says Mr. Flense is away on business—he is not sure where—and so there is no comment from him. I very much wish there were. Mr. Flense could give some figures. One thing is clear, Dieter. We must go back as soon as we may,” said Lavinia. “We are needed in Chicago. Though I dread the return voyage.”

  They left before the kauri cones were ripe, but Nashley Oval promised to send a bushel to Dieter, who was determined to learn the peculiarities of the plant. “We will write,” said Dieter. Lavinia’s mind was already in Chicago, responding to the city’s desperate need of lumber.

  If the trip from San Francisco to Sydney had been rough, the return was worse. Ginger tea did not help Lavinia, who spent most of her time lying green and thin in her berth. Dieter urged her to come up on deck and get some fresh air, and she tottered up and almost immediately retched and then fainted. The worst seemed to be over by midvoyage although she took very little except bread and tea.

  “I will be better when we are on solid ground,” she moaned. “Oh, speed the day.”

  • • •

  Back at their renovated house the air still carried the stench of charred timbers from the city when the wind was right. Lavinia improved only slightly. Nauseated and dizzy she could not appreciate the new wing with its opulent suite and, in place of a cupola, a large balcony with a broad view of Lake Michigan. Dieter crowed over his glasshouse and potting shed and was pleased to wear crusty boots and a long canvas apron all day long, dressing only for dinner. Lavinia could no longer bear breakfast.

  “Really, this can’t continue. I am worried about you,” said Dieter. “I have asked Dr. Honey to call and examine you this afternoon, get his opinion of your health. All is so beautiful here now I wish to enjoy it with you. I want us to walk together in the forest again, to admire the moon on the water. I want you well again.”

  But Lavinia knew what Dr. Honey would say. She had not expected it, but she knew. She waited until the doctor made his diagnosis and then, at the dinner table, eating only shreds of poached chicken breast, she told Dieter.

  “I am going to have a child. This nausea will pass. I will be in health again. But I will be a mother and you a father.”

  Dieter laid down his fork and looked at her. He nodded but said nothing. After a long silence he looked at her, smiled and said “hurra!” loudly. The maid rushed in from the kitchen, saw them s
miling at each other. Back in the kitchen she said to the cook, “Mr. Dieter is glad to be home again.”

  “I shall have to discover a first-rate nursemaid,” said Lavinia.

  • • •

  Lavinia went to the office the next day feeling quite well and even pleased. She would know the mystery of motherhood. They would be parents. She felt she was, at last, a complete adult.

  “Good morning, Annag,” she said. “I’ll look through the post for an hour. Come in at nine to take letters.” The letters took all morning. One was rather annoying: a subcontractor logger wrote a rude note demanding the survey map of the Sticker River camps.

  “This fellow sets out his demand as though he owns the property,” said Lavinia.

  “Oh, I’ll deal with that, Miss Lavinia,” said Annag. “It never should have been put in with your post. Mr. Flense knows all about it.”

  • • •

  Lavinia expected the birth would be a frightful ordeal as she was not young and it was her first child, but she might have already produced half a dozen for all the difficulty. It was a quick and easy labor. The boy was healthy and perfect in form. Lavinia and Dieter had talked endlessly about names. Lavinia first suggested James Duke Breitsprecher, but Dieter made a face; next she suggested Charles Duke Breitsprecher, incorporating the name of the ancestor; Dieter asked why not use his father’s name, Bardawulf, but Lavinia repeated, “Bardawulf Duke Breitsprecher? What a mouthful for the poor mite,” and in the end Charles Duke prevailed. Dieter asked himself why humans reached into the ancestral pot for infant names, but found no answer.

  She quickly regained her full health and went back to the office when Charles was ten days old, but not before she met with the elderly lawyer she and Dieter used for personal legal affairs and named Charles Duke Breitsprecher heir of her estate and business holdings. Now all was well; the future of the baby and the company was secure.