“It is my son,” Annie said. “Called Tom.” She seemed to understand Alexandra perfectly.
Alexandra went to her own room, where she gathered undergarments and her gray dress. When she returned Annie and Tom were at the window, pressing their palms to the glass as if trying to reach the outside air. Alexandra opened the sash and Annie pressed her palm against the air where the glass had been, and then smiled. She shook her head at the gray dress Alexandra held to her shoulders.
“You’ll be more comfortable,” Alexandra said. “In this heat.” Tom stuck his upper body through the window and Annie joined him. “Annie!” Alexandra said. She touched the woman’s jacket and Annie pulled away and frowned. Alexandra left the dress on the bed.
Downstairs, she tried not to stare at Zeke. There were sharp lines carved around his eyes and his hands were battered and scarred; part of his left ear was gone. His clothes were patched and torn and stained. Slowly she recognized the remnants of the elegant gray uniform once worn by all the Narwhal’s crew.
“I put them in the second guest room,” she said, hypnotized by the way Zeke’s hand moved over Lavinia’s back and shoulders. What was he doing here, how was he alive? Where had Erasmus gone? “I brought Annie one of my dresses, but she won’t put it on.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Zeke said. He rose. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
Alexandra took his place on the sofa, sitting still while Lavinia leaned against her shoulder and wept. Later, when Zeke went out to the Repository, Lavinia pulled Alexandra upstairs. They found Annie seated on the floor with Tom in her lap, her head resting on the windowsill and her body draped in Alexandra’s dress. Best not to think what Zeke had said or done to get her into it. The bodice was loose, the sleeves too long. The white collar set off her shining dark skin. When they entered she swiveled her head and looked at them without interest. “Tseke?” she said. “Where is Tseke?”
I DIDN’T KILL HIM, Erasmus thought. That moment in the garden, when he’d tumbled to the ground: what was the name for the feeling that had toppled him? Guilt, shock, horror all mingled with joy, with relief—I didn’t kill him.
He stood near the herbarium case, supported by his sticks and finding it difficult to breathe. Copernicus sat by the window and Zeke orbited the Repository, gazing at what was new among all that had once been familiar. “I thought you were dead,” Erasmus said.
“Well, I’m not,” Zeke said. “As you see.”
He looked much older, Erasmus saw. Stronger, more contained. And frighteningly calm. Why didn’t Zeke embrace him, or strike him, or demand an explanation or offer one of his own? Not a word; he turned to Copernicus and said, “When did you get back?”
“Two months ago,” Copernicus said. “I headed home as soon as I heard about Erasmus.”
“I waited as long as I could,” Erasmus said. How could he explain himself? “All the men were sure you were dead and they were frightened about spending another winter there. They made a plan without me—they said I had to lead them south, because you’d left me in charge. I had to take them, I thought you were dead.”
“I’m sure you did,” Zeke said. “I’m sure you did everything you could. I had news of you in Godhavn. I heard you got at least some of our men home safely.”
“All of them,” Erasmus said, more sharply now. “All that chose—the four that split off, I couldn’t stop them from going.”
“As you say,” Zeke said. “Anyway I forgive you. Whatever you did, I’m sure it was the best you could do. It turned out to be a blessing. To be alone, the way that I was alone—I know things about myself now. Things you’ll never understand.”
“Tell me,” Erasmus said.
“Why should I?”
Zeke’s face was clenched. After a long silence, Erasmus thinking every second, Hit me. Get it over with, Zeke said, “Why would I tell you anything, ever again?”
Copernicus cleared his throat. “But where were you? How did you survive?”
“That,” Zeke said, “is a long story.”
Apparently he wasn’t going to tell it now. He wandered around the Repository, peering at a drawing of a fossil Alexandra had left pinned to her easel, ignoring Copernicus’s draped painting, looking down at the books open on the long table. He touched Dr. Boerhaave’s journal, then the green silk volume Lavinia had once given him. “I wondered what had happened to these,” he said. “When I got back to the Narwhal, and found my box broken into and Dr. Boerhaave’s journal gone, I was very . . . curious.”
“I thought you were dead,” Erasmus said. “I wanted to preserve what I could.” He couldn’t bear the questions on his brother’s face. “Who are these people you’ve brought with you?”
“Who are you to criticize what I do?” Zeke asked. “You abandoned me.”
“I’m not criticizing,” Erasmus said. “Only asking.”
“Would you have had me spend the winter with no comfort? In a place where it’s an insult to refuse what’s offered? Annie’s family took me in.” Zeke turned to the pile of manuscript pages. “You’re writing something? A little memoir?”
“Not a memoir,” Erasmus said. What did that mean: Annie’s family took me in? “Something different.”
“You agreed not to write anything for a year after the voyage,” Zeke said. “And to turn the journals over to me.”
“It’s already been a year,” Erasmus said. Then was appalled at the tone of his voice; and still couldn’t stop himself. “You were gone. And anyway, anyway—this isn’t a book about our journey, there’s nothing in it about you or me or the Franklin relics, or what happened to any of us. It’s about the place—a natural history of the place through the seasons.”
“Write if it pleases you,” Zeke said. “It’s hard to believe anyone will want to read such a thing, though. Not when they see what I have to say, the story I have to tell.”
From his pocket he took the black notebook Erasmus had seen so often during their journey. “It’s all in here,” he said, tapping the worn cover. With each tap, Erasmus felt a part of himself dissolve and re-form as a version of William Godfrey. “My journey north and all I discovered, what happened to me after I got back to the ship and found you gone, my life among the Esquimaux—everything.”
Tap, tap, tap. “I’m going to marry Lavinia,” he added. “The minute I can arrange it. I’m tired of being alone. What happened to your feet?”
“I lost my toes,” Erasmus said. At least Lavinia would be happy; at least there was that. “Frostbite. What happened to your ear?”
“Polar bear.”
Erasmus couldn’t take his eyes off the black book. Zeke hadn’t taken it north; he’d left it behind; I have to travel light, he’d said. When Erasmus broke into Zeke’s locked box to retrieve Dr. Boerhaave’s journal, he’d seen Zeke’s black notebook waiting there.
THE EXTRACTS APPEARED in the Philadelphia paper two weeks later, appended to a reporter’s brief introduction and beneath a curious set of headlines:
EXPLORER RETRACES MUCH OF KANE’S ROUTE
ABANDONED BY HIS MEN
RESCUED BY WIZARD’S PROPHECY
DETAILED ACCOUNT OF LIFE AMONG KANE’S ESQUIMAUX
ESQUIMAUX SPECIMENS HERE IN PHILADELPHIA
Zechariah Voorhees, given up for lost since the arrival here in November of the battered survivors of his expedition, has returned to us safe and well in the company of two of Dr. Kane’s Esquimaux. I spoke with Commander Voorhees at his parents’ home, where he greeted me cheerfully. Asked the question on everyone’s lips, he responded, “My men did the right thing. When I set off on my journey north, I set a date by which I would return. Three weeks after that date elapsed, the officers to whom I had delegated responsibility determined that the safety of the group demanded they attempt a retreat. That’s exactly what I would have wanted them to do. They had no way of knowing I was alive.”
He was alive though, remarkably. And has much to report. To his companions’ revelations about th
e discoveries on Boothia, among the Esquimaux possessing relics of Franklin’s ships, he has nothing to add—the account provided earlier by Mr. Erasmus Wells is true and accurate, he says. As is the account of the expedition’s winter in the ice. But since his men’s escape to safety he has passed an astonishing year among the Smith Sound Esquimaux discovered by our own much-missed Dr. Kane.
These kind people delivered him to Upernavik in May, where he learned of Dr. Kane’s tragic demise and was given a copy of Arctic Explorations by a Danish trader. Having read this aboard the ship that brought him home, he notes that Dr. Kane’s descriptions of the western side of Kane’s Basin are accurate in outline, but that his own explorations have added more detail to these areas. A corrected version of Dr. Kane’s map follows on Page 3. Commander Voorhees is already at work on a narrative of his stay with the Esquimaux in the most northerly settlement of Greenland. In the meantime, as a kindness to our readers, he’s generously provided a few extracts from his daily journal.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
AUGUST 30, 1856. The men are gone; I can’t believe I missed them. The Narwhal lies frozen in a useless canal. Heartbreaking to see how hard they worked but I must be glad they failed; here is my winter home. Everything aboard is scrupulously clean, provisions were set aside against my possible return, Mr. Wells left a note explaining what happened. I’m grateful but—four days! I missed them by so little, yet those days mean another winter here in the ice. I begin work today. I’ll spend part of my time boxing off a small section of the cabin, insulating it with moss and peat so it can be efficiently heated, and stripping siding for fuel. The rest of the time I must hunt as I’ve never hunted, trying to cache enough food for the winter. It’s an excellent time for walrus, if I can manage to take them by myself. The seals are fat, so are the musk oxen, and hares abound. I made a mistake last year, spending this month in a frantic struggle to escape rather than stockpiling supplies: a mistake I can’t afford again.
I’m here for the winter, there’s no denying it. The thing to do is face it. Make the best of it. Enjoy it even, learn from it. This is my chance to live, as nearly as possible, the way the Esquimaux live. To prove that a man willing to learn the ways of the north may live in relative comfort here. I have books, food, shelter; maps to make, a journal to keep. I may be a regular Robinson Crusoe.
OCTOBER 10, 1856. I rebuilt the partition, farther aft this time. I lined the bunk with fresh skins, I built a new entrance, I built what deckhouse I could with the wood they left me. I tore off the sheathing down to the waterline on the port side and chopped and stacked it. I put meat down in barrels and filled casks with blubber and oil. I cleaned the guns and moved all the ammunition into one dry place and counted every round; I’m growing short. I made new boots and a new jacket. I fixed the stove. Everything is perfectly snug. My tiny apartment belowdecks is easily heated and all is arranged in the most convenient and efficient way. With only myself to look after, no disagreements or moody men or those who pretend to be sick to avoid hard work, everything’s been easy. The body of the sun is gone, but the sky shines red and yellow and blue and the ice glows green and violet. And the hunting has been so fine it’s as if the animals give themselves freely to me. I’m ready for the winter, ready for everything.
OCTOBER 21, 1856. One minute nothing, the next a sledge track; it was like seeing a footprint in the sand. They appeared as I was cooking my supper—three of them, camped on the deck as I write this: Nessark, Marumah, and Nessark’s wife. Nessark was among the hunters we met on our visit to Anoatok but the other two are new to me. All three spent time with Dr. Kane two years ago and the woman, who is lively and intelligent, learned some English from him and his men. She calls herself Annie, and between her English and what Joe taught me we talk fairly easily. They’ve come to take me to their winter settlement, she says. They don’t want me in danger. I don’t know how they knew I was here.
I told them I was safe, I was fine, I appreciated their offer but I could care for myself. They withdrew for a long discussion, then returned and let Annie speak for all. She says they—I—have no choice. They’ve been sent here by their angekok—the word they use for their tribal wizard. This angekok had a vision, she explained. Some children among them sickened recently and two died. The angekok determined that this was because of me.
She asks if I remember Ootuniah, who visited us last year and befriended Joe during our stay in Anoatok. I do remember him very sharply. I felt he didn’t have our best interests at heart despite his gifts and this was proved when he loaned Joe the sledge and dogs I needed for myself. Now it appears that Joe told Ootuniah about the meteorite I found, the one he told me not to touch. When the angekok heard it had been destroyed, he decided I’d disturbed the iron stone’s spirit. Their children sicken, he says, because that spirit is angry I’m still in this country.
What was I to say? It was a stone, I told Annie. A big stone, which slipped from my grasp. I meant no harm. She says no one blames me, it’s understood that this was an accident and I’m not to be punished. Still, reparations must be made. The message the angekok sends is this: that I may pacify the spirit of the stone by making to them a free gift of all the iron that may be easily removed from the ship and transported on their sledges across the Sound. And by returning to their village with them, and allowing them to care for me. If I die here, the angekok says, I’ll pollute the land somehow. Thus I must allow them to guard me.
Take the iron, I told them. Take anything you want, all the fittings, I can’t use them anymore. But apparently this isn’t enough. The two men seem prepared to carry me off bodily if I refuse. And so I am to go. Perhaps it’s not a bad thing. They mean me no harm, I think; and I’ll have warmth and company and food for the winter; and who else has lived among the Esquimaux like this? I may see things no one’s seen before, live in this part of the world as no white man has. Annie does her best to make her tribe’s offer attractive—we welcome you, she says.
Meanwhile Nessark and Marumah are loading their sledges with hoops and hardware they tear from the brig. On top of the iron the men pile meat from my caches; I want to go to their village as a strong hunter, not a beggar. Also I’m bringing two of the smaller sails as a gift. Everything else must stay here but my personal belongings. I pray the Franklin relics Erasmus took with him have reached home safely. That the men have reached home. We leave in a few hours.
DECEMBER 23, 1856. Anoatok is much changed since my first visit. During this season the Esquimaux usually move to Etah, where Dr. Kane visited them, but since my arrival the hunting has been unusually good and several extended families have stayed on after repairing and expanding the huts. Fresh sealskins cover the walls, a bear skin warms the floor, the blubber lamps burn steadily. The angekok, Annie says, has determined that my presence is drawing the animals. By their rescue of me, and their continued care—I sleep with Nessark, Annie, their little boy, Annie’s parents, and her two young brothers—the spirit of the iron stone has been pacified.
The traps yield foxes, and despite the darkness we’ve harpooned many seals. We take bears as well—although I’d assumed they all disappeared at this time of year, it isn’t so. On Monday the moon was full, we were hunting seal. Suddenly an iceberg near us began to tip and shift position—and a huge bear clambered out of the snow alongside it, disturbed in his rest. Our dogs pursued him and mine was the first shot. By tradition I’m credited with the kill and the skin is mine, but it was Nessark whose spear finished him—and lucky for me, the bear was upon me. I’m now missing most of the fleshy portion of my left ear. The wound is healing and the pain isn’t bad. Nessark stopped the bleeding with snow and showed me how to slice the bear’s skin from the body and fold it into a shape like a sled, then how to carve out legs, ribs, backbone, and shoulder blades and set each chunk to freeze on the ice. We pulled the meat home on the frozen skin.
JANUARY 28, 1857. A most remarkable event yesterday. The Esquimaux call it saugssat or so it sounds to m
y ear. A high tide two days ago, combined with a strong wind, opened a large lead in the cove. Into it poured hundreds of narwhals in search of breathing space and food. When the end of the lead froze over again the animals were trapped. It was horrible to see them thrashing around in the ever smaller hole, pushing each other underwater as they struggled for air, pulled tighter and tighter until their tusks projected above the surface like a forest of clashing spears. Yet wonderful, too, that it should happen so near to us.
Annie’s little boy spotted them first and ran home nearly speechless with excitement—he’s very clever, I’ve taught him much English and call him Tom. We all gathered our weapons and followed him, everyone rushing before a crack opened and freed the desperate creatures. But luck was with us not them. We stood around the edges of the pool, needing only to thrust the harpoons into the nearest animals and haul them up. Even in this we were aided, as the thrashing survivors heaved the carcasses upward.
Twenty-seven narwhals! Such a celebration we had. Tom is a hero and so, somehow, am I. Not for anything I do but because this season has been so generous. There hasn’t been a saugssat here for seven years, nor such successful winter hunting. My presence—or more accurately my survival among them—is thought to have caused this good fortune. So I am pampered, fussed over, Annie makes me pants from my polar bear skin and an undershirt from the skins of murres while her mother feeds me dovekies cached since the summer in a sealskin bag. The birds, permeated with blubber, are a great delicacy. Nessark has also been most generous and begrudges me no hospitality. They’re generous not only with material things but with their time and knowledge; men and women alike spend hours with me, answering my questions.
MARCH 14, 1857. I leave with both reluctance and excitement. The food caches are empty, it’s time to move to new hunting grounds, we have sun for nearly twelve hours daily and the dogs are strong. It’s the best time of year to make a long sledge journey and the whole encampment has decided to accompany me to Upernavik. They would move now anyway, Annie tells me. But not so far, never so far—they do this, as everything else, on the advice of the angekok. He never speaks to me directly but only through Annie. The winter has been so good, he says, and everyone so healthy, because all the elements of his vision dream were satisfied. Yet he believes the spirits will still turn against them unless they convey me safely to Upernavik—which they’ve only heard about, where no one of them has ever been—and hence out of their country. Annie tells me this as if ashamed. I suppose they all assume I’d want to stay here forever. And how can I tell them nothing could be luckier for me than this—that they should bend their energies, their time and skills and dogs and sledges, to bringing me just where I want to go, and likely couldn’t reach myself.
Voyage of the Narwhal Page 28
