A Traveler at the Gates of Wisdom

by John Boyne

  Her piercings were also a source of fascination. She wore hoops through her ears, another through her nose and, to my utter astonishment, another in that most private of places on her body. I had never seen or imagined such a thing before, but it excited me.

  Later, we walked along the beach together and I drew an image in the sand.

  “Have you seen this man?” I asked her, pointing to my drawing, and she seemed confused by what I was asking. “This man,” I repeated pointlessly. “I know him. We were friends once. I believe he has passed this way. Have you seen him?”

  She looked down then and cocked her head a little to the side. She was concentrating hard on the drawing itself and, after a few moments, she looked back at me and nodded.

  “Where is he?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer but, next to the picture that I had drawn, she drew another, this time of a woman. It was a rudimentary image but I guessed what it might signify.

  “My wife,” I said. “I believe he has taken her. Which way did they go?”

  She turned around and pointed into the distance, past the curve of the mountains.

  “That way?” I asked. “How long ago? When were they here?”

  She pulled me to her then and I could tell that my questions were too confusing and that I would get no further answers. And so what else could I do but head back toward the dunes, where I lost myself in her illuminated body once again.

  * * *

  • • •

  A few nights later, the Māori people invited us to feast with them, and the entire crew, along with Captain Tasman, sat entranced, and a little nervous, as a group of about twenty men and women performed a ritual dance in our honor. They chanted words that we could not understand and moved their bodies in curious and contortionate ways, sticking their tongues out and allowing their eyes to bulge from their heads as they stamped on the ground and beat their chests. When one of our number, inebriated by the native drinks, stood up to join in the revelry, he was roughly pushed back to his place by the leader of the dancers, who seemed to interpret this as a great insult to their ceremony.

  Afterward, we dined on an enormous roasted boar and did our best to communicate with our hosts through simple hand gestures. Throughout it all, I kept a close eye on the chieftain, Kalawai’a. There was something in his expression that told me it would be a mistake to cross him.

  To his left sat his daughter, a young and pretty girl, and I noticed how Van der Berg, one of the youngest members of our crew, kept his eyes focused on her throughout the night. Van der Berg was not popular on board, behaving as if he were a cut above the rest of us. His father was one of the wealthiest spice traders in Amsterdam so the boy had grown accustomed to a life of luxury until, after some minor indiscretion, his family decided that he needed to earn some knowledge of the world and sent him abroad on this expedition. He loathed being among common sailors, however, complaining of the heat in our confined quarters, the stink of our bodies and the lack of education that we shared, and sought any opportunity to express his superiority.

  When the festivities came to an end, I watched as he made his way over to the girl to attempt a conversation with her. She was beautiful, there was no question about that, with large brown eyes and an expression of innocence on her face, for she could not have been any more than fourteen years of age, and as he talked to her, she looked around anxiously for her father, who marched over and took her by the arm, pulling her away as he threw furious looks in the direction of the young man.

  Returning to where I stood, Van der Berg shook his head and laughed.

  “You’d think she’d be grateful for what I was offering.”

  “And what was that?” I asked.

  “A night with me,” he said. “A civilized man. I expect the poor girl is only accustomed to these illustrated barbarians.”

  I gave him a contemptuous look. “She’s just a child, Van der Berg,” I said.

  “She’s old enough,” he replied. “Anyway, I’ll have her yet. See if I don’t.”

  He marched away and I thought little more of it for now but, early the following morning, even before the sun had fully risen, I woke to a great commotion as the sound of angry voices filled the air. I had been sleeping on the beach and, as I stumbled to my feet, I watched as the rest of our crew ran toward me, the Māori warriors following with spears in their hands, led by their chieftain, who was dragging his daughter behind him by her hair. There seemed to be even more of them than had been present the night before.

  “What’s going on?” I asked O’Brien.

  “Bloody Van der Berg,” he said. “He took the girl without her permission. So the daddy there wants to skewer him on his pike.”

  I looked out toward the small tender that had brought us to shore and was not surprised to see Van der Berg climbing into it like the coward he was, a look of humiliation and terror upon his face, as Kalawai’a stood in front of Captain Tasman, arguing with him as he pointed toward the young sailor.

  “Very slowly,” said Tasman, looking around at our crew and maintaining a relaxed smile, “every one of you get into the boat. We’ll be leaving now.”

  We did as he ordered while he continued to try to calm the temper of the furious chieftain, but there was no soothing the man and Tasman reached into the tender, taking out some more jewels and handing them across as a token of our regret, but the chief brushed them out of his hands, tossing them into the waves. With a shrug, Tasman boarded the boat himself and gave instructions that we set sail.

  The moment our craft began to depart the shore, Kalawai’a turned to his own men, roaring an invocation at them, and soon, spears were flying through the air and we were forced to row faster and faster, the muscles of our arms burning, in order to reach our ship with our lives intact.

  The following morning, when I had eaten, the sailors were gathered together on deck. I hung my head in shame for I, too, had disgraced myself. Looking around to see whether he recognized his part in this calamity, my eyes searched for Van der Berg, but he was nowhere to be found.

  “Captain,” I said, raising my voice. “Where is Van der Berg? Is he belowdecks?”

  A search began, but there was no sign of him. It seemed a most cryptic affair until I chanced upon four of the sailors later in the evening, particular combatants of the young man who had often been on the receiving end of his cruel remarks, and the conversation turned to our missing colleague.

  “Do these mysteries often happen at sea?” I asked them, and the men simply shook their heads at my naïveté.

  “There’s no mystery,” replied Meijer. “If a man gives offense all day, every day, to his fellows, then behaves in such a manner that they come close to meeting their deaths on an unfriendly island, why, there’s every chance that late at night, when that young fellow is standing on his own at the prow, another fellow might come up behind him and tip him over the side.”

  “You drowned him?” I asked in surprise.

  “Us?” asked Harkin, looking around with an innocent expression on his face. “Oh no. I’d say it was just a strong wind took him, nothing more. But rest assured, we’ve seen the last of that young prick. He’ll be at the bottom of the ocean now or resting comfortably in the belly of a shark.”

  CANADA

  A.D. 1694

  I BADE FAREWELL to my companions shortly after our boat arrived at Lake Ontario, having made the long journey from the St. Lawrence River through the narrow Lac Saint-Pierre and past the many small islands that formed part of the terrain. Saying goodbye to Captain Talaman, I thanked him for allowing me to join the voyage but explained that my mind had now turned to the Iroquois settlement village of Bead Hill, where my cousin might be found. He was none too pleased to see me go but grudgingly paid me the money I was owed.

  I rested overnight at an inn called the Pyramid of the Sun and was seated, e
njoying a flagon of beer and a beef stew, when I noticed an unpleasant scent wafting through the air, as if a group of farmyard animals had been granted entry to the dining hall but been encouraged to roll around in their own filth first. Had I not been so hungry, it might have been enough to put me off my food but, starving from weeks on the river, I did my best to ignore the vile stench. Finally, when I felt someone pushing past me, it grew so overpowering that I was forced to turn around to locate its source.

  To my astonishment, this malodorous perfume was emanating from a woman and when I saw her face, my heart lifted in delight even as my stomach churned in nausea.

  “Ursula!” I cried.

  She stopped and turned to look at me, offering something approximating a smile.

  “Well, look what the cat dragged in,” she said, placing her hands on her hips. “We’ve often wondered what became of you.”

  “We?” I asked, turning around and searching the busy room with my eyes. “Is my brother here, too?”

  “He’s over there,” said Ursula, scratching herself in her most private place before examining her hand, palm and front, and wiping it on her deeply stained dress. “In the corner. Go over. He’ll be glad to see you.”

  I lifted my plate and mug and marched across the room in delight, catching my brother’s eye as I approached him, and he let out an enormous roar of pleasure. He appeared older than I remembered and it seemed that he had not trimmed his hair or beard since our paths had last crossed. He was more mountain animal than man.

  “Brother!” he cried, wrapping his arms around me and lifting me, momentarily, off the ground. “As I live and breathe!”

  “Jonah,” I said, releasing myself from his grip and sitting down opposite him at the table, summoning the waitress over to order two more beers. “Well, this is fine fortune! What brings you to Canada?”

  “Whalin’,” he told me. “I’ve spent the last couple of years toiling my bollix off on one of them whalin’ ships, and I’ve had luck on my side, for I’ve only gone and made a pretty fortune! I’m rich, Brother, richer than I ever imagined I’d be!”

  “Rich?” I said, for no one in our family, least of all me, had ever been blessed with wealth. “From whaling?”

  “You’d be surprised how much money there is in it,” he said. “I learned the craft, bought my own ship, hired a crew, and God must have been looking down on His faithful son with benevolence in His eyes, for since I saw you last, I’ve become one of the most successful whalers in North America. Where other men have pennies in their pockets, I have trinkets and jewels.”

  “Well, I’m very glad to hear it,” I said, both impressed and surprised by his good fortune. “And Ursula?”

  “She comes with me to cook for the crew. We’re married now, if you can believe it.”

  “Really?” I said, although I don’t know why I was so astonished. After all, this unlikely couple had been romancing each other for many years now and he seemed completely indifferent to her unpleasant aroma. If anything, he seemed to find it an erotic charge.

  “Oh yes. The sailors love her cooking so much that they encourage her to stay below deck all day long, making her stews and pies. If she even tries to come up and sit with them, they refuse to have her, sending her back down below! She’s very flattered, of course. It makes her feel valued.”

  Ursula rejoined us at that moment, declaring that she had just been to the toilet, to which intelligence I had no response.

  “My beloved,” said Jonah, pulling her onto his lap and planting a kiss on her lips that went on so long and with so much passion that I had no choice but to look away.

  “And what are your current plans?” I asked when their amorous display eventually came to an end. “Do you have another voyage due to set sail?”

  “No,” he said. “We’re taking a break. Might as well enjoy some of the good luck I’ve had. We’ll sail again in the spring, no doubt. And you, Brother?” he asked. “What brings you into this territory?”

  “You remember I told you before about my cousin, Henry?”

  “I remember,” he said. “He betrayed you, if I recall correctly. Cost you your wife and child.”

  “And, I think, my third wife, too.”

  “You married again?”

  “I did.”

  “Joyous news!” said Jonah. “Is she here with you?”

  “No, she disappeared some years ago.”

  “Disappeared?” he asked. “And how does a person do such a thing?”

  “I believe the two stories may be connected and that Henry had a hand in it. If God is on my side, though, I shall find out the truth soon enough and make him pay for his villainy.”

  “You don’t have much luck with your wives, do you?” asked Ursula, looking at me as if I were the author of all my own misfortunes.

  “Not much, no,” I admitted.

  “And where is the bastard?” asked Jonah. “Does he live nearby? If he does, let’s go and kill him tonight!”

  “I have it on good authority that Henry can be found in Bead Hill.”

  “Well, that’s not far,” said Jonah. “A few hours’ ride at most. Shall we go? I’m happy to mount a horse right now, if you are.”

  “No, I’ll wait until the morning and leave in search of him then.”

  “And you will kill him, of course?” he asked.

  “When I find him, then yes, I will kill him,” I said.

  “Excellent,” said Jonah, slapping his hands hard on the table now. “I haven’t been involved in a good killing in a long time. I’ll come with you! Let’s finish this man off once and for all so you can resume your life! But for now, let us drink more! When brothers are reunited, it goes against God and nature for either of them to retire to bed sober!”

  * * *

  • • •

  To my great relief, Ursula decided not to join us as we traveled toward Bead Hill the following morning. As we rode, Jonah entertained me with stories of his whaling adventures but, when I grew quiet, it must have become obvious that my mind was troubled.

  “Your thoughts are elsewhere, Brother,” he said.

  “I’m thinking about what lies ahead,” I replied.

  “You’ve killed before, though, haven’t you? It doesn’t frighten you?”

  “I have, yes,” I admitted. “But never with so much forward planning. The deaths that linger on my conscience have always sprung from moments of anger or when I’ve been under the influence of others, but I’ve been tracking Henry for many years now. This is the first time I’ll have done something so premeditated.”

  He grunted in approval and we remained fairly silent for the rest of our journey. The Iroquois had set up a settlement in Bead Hill a few years earlier and, as we rode into the town, I was struck by the number of shops and inns that were dotted around the streets. Canada was changing, it seemed, and barely resembled the country in which I had grown up. They called this the New World but I wondered whether that referred as much to attitudes and people as it did to places on a map.

  The most successful businesses in the town dealt in the fur trade and there were large storehouses displaying their goods while merchants wandered to and fro with carts laden down with the skinned hides of animals. Jonah purchased a coat for Ursula and it smelled so bad that I dreaded to imagine how it would feel to be in her company when she wore it.

  We made our way to an inn and I spoke to the owner, showing him a sketch of Henry, but to my disappointment, he shook his head and claimed that he’d never seen the man. I wandered through every building, every outhouse, every store that I could find, asking the same questions. I even entered the whorehouse and spoke to the working girls but they insisted he had not partaken of their pleasures. As Jonah and I ate dinner later, I thought about the son I had left behind and wondered whether I might not be better off devoting my life
to his care, rather than building my world around a single moment of revenge.

  I took the drawing out for the final time and placed it on the table between Jonah and me and stared at it for a few moments.

  “Should I give up?” I asked him.

  “Give up your search?”

  “Yes.”

  “After all these years? When you’ve tried so hard to track him down?”

  “It won’t change the past,” I said quietly. “And his will be just another death on my conscience.”

  “But your wife? Don’t you—”

  “If we could recapture her, then I could take her home and leave Henry on his own.”

  Jonah looked at me and shook his head.

  “You need blood, you know you do.”

  I thought about it and nodded. “Perhaps you’re right,” I said. “I never thought that would be the type of man I would become, though. In my heart lies a great yearning for justice. For retribution. But time passes.”

  A shadow fell over the table and I looked up to see a man standing behind me, staring down at the picture.

  “Can I help you, friend?” I asked. He had the look of someone who had endured more than his share of troubles, with pockmarked skin and a deep scar that ran from his left eyebrow down his cheek and toward his chin.

  “You’re searching for him?” he asked without preamble, tapping a filthy finger against the drawing.

  “I am,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “It’s a private matter.”

  “Then I can’t help you.”

  “You know him?” I asked, standing up. “You’ve seen him?”

  The man looked me in the eye and spent a long time considering my question. “Answer me this,” he said, poking me in the chest, “and answer me true because if you lie, I’ll know, and then I’ll walk away.”

  “All right,” I said.