The Luminaries

by Eleanor Catton

  ‘Opium?’ said Mannering. ‘Something to do with opium?’

  ‘Don’t rush him,’ Nilssen said again. ‘Let him answer as he will.’

  Walter Moody had entered the smoking room that evening with no intention of divulging what had happened on his journey from Dunedin. He had barely been able to acknowledge what he had witnessed to himself, let alone make sense of it for other men to hear and understand. In the context of the story that had just been related to him, however, he could see that his recent experience presented an explanation of a kind.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said at last. ‘I have been honoured to enter your confidence this evening, and I thank you for your story. I have a tale to offer in return. There are several points upon which I think my story will be of interest to you, though I am afraid I will be doing little more than exchanging your present questions for different ones.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Balfour. ‘Have the stage, Mr. Moody; have at it.’

  Obediently Moody got to his feet, and turned his back to the fire; immediately upon doing so, however, he felt very foolish, and wished that he had remained seated. He clasped his hands behind his back, and rocked forward several times on his heels before speaking.

  ‘I should like to tell you all at the outset,’ he said at last, ‘that I believe I have news about Emery Staines.’

  ‘Good or bad?’ said Mannering. ‘He’s alive? You’ve seen him?’

  Aubert Gascoigne was looking progressively sourer each time Mannering opened his mouth: he had not yet forgiven the magnate for his rudeness that afternoon, and nor was he likely to do so. Gascoigne bore humiliation extremely ill, and he could hold a grudge for a very long time. At this interruption he hissed audibly through his teeth, in disapproval.

  ‘I cannot say for certain,’ Moody replied. ‘I must warn you, Mr. Mannering, as I must warn you all, that my story contains several particulars that do not (how shall I put it?) lead me to an immediately rational conclusion. I hope you will forgive me for not disclosing the full narrative of my journey earlier this evening; I confess, I knew not what to make of it myself.’

  The room had become very still.

  ‘You will recall,’ Moody said, ‘that my passage from Dunedin to the Coast was a very rough one; you will also recall, I hope, that the ticket I had so hastily purchased did not buy me a berth in any real sense, but only a small space in steerage. This space was pitch-dark, foul-smelling, and completely unfit for human habitation. When the storm struck, gentlemen, I was on deck, as I had been for almost the entire journey.

  ‘At first the storm seemed little more than a touch of bad weather, merely a lash of wind and rain. As it gathered strength, however, I became progressively more and more alarmed. I had been warned that the seas off the West Coast were very rough, and that upon every journey to the diggings, Death would roll her dice against the lady Nightmare. I began to feel afraid.

  ‘I had my suitcase with me. I wished to return it to the hold, so that if I were to be washed overboard then my documents would survive me, and I might have a proper funeral service, with my proper name. To the sailors upon the docks I had given a false name, as you will remember: I had shown them identity papers that belonged to another man. The thought of having a false name spoken at my funeral—’

  ‘Horrible,’ said Clinch.

  Moody bowed. ‘You understand. Well, I struggled up the deck, clasping my case against me, and opened the forward hatch with considerable difficulty, for the wind was gusting and the boat was pitching all about. I managed finally to heave the thing open, and threw my case into the hole … but my aim was poor. The clasp struck on the edge of the deck below; the case opened, and the contents burst out. My belongings were now strewn about the cargo hold, and I was obliged to shimmy down the ladder after them.

  ‘It took me some time to descend the ladder. The hold was very dark; however, with each jibe and yaw, the ray of light through the open hatch would roll about the cargo hold, as a roving glance. There was a diabolical smell. The cases were groaning against their straps and chains with a noise that was positively infernal. There were several crates of geese in the hold, and many goats. These poor animals were braying and honking and sounding their distress in every possible way. I set about gathering my belongings as efficiently as I was able, as I did not wish to spend any longer in that place than was absolutely necessary. Through all the cacophony, however, I became aware of another sound.

  ‘A kind of knocking was ensuing from inside the shipping crate nearest me—a furious knocking, loud enough to be heard over all the other din.’

  Balfour was looking very alert.

  ‘It sounded,’ Moody went on, ‘as if a man were trapped in there, and thrashing with all his limbs. I shouted hello and staggered over—the ship was pitching awfully—and from within heard a single name shouted over and over: Magdalena, Magdalena, Magdalena. I knew then that it was a man inside, and not a rat or beast of any other kind. I moved to pry the tacks from the lid of the case, working as fast as I could, and in due course managed to lever the lid open. I believe this was around two o’clock in the afternoon,’ Moody added, with delicate emphasis. ‘It was some four or five hours before we landed at Hokitika, in any case.’

  ‘Magdalena,’ said Mannering. ‘That’s Anna.’

  Gascoigne looked furious.

  Moody looked at Mannering. ‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I don’t follow. Is Magdalena Miss Wetherell’s middle name?’

  ‘It’s a name to give a whore,’ Mannering explained.

  Moody shook his head, to indicate that he still did not understand.

  ‘As every dog is called Fido, and every cow is called Bess.’

  ‘Ah—yes, I see,’ said Moody, thinking privately that the man might have produced two more attractive examples, when he was in the whoring business himself.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Benjamin Löwenthal slowly, ‘perhaps we can say—with reasonable doubt, of course—that the man inside that shipping crate was Emery Staines.’

  ‘He took a particular shine to Anna, that’s for sure,’ Mannering agreed.

  ‘Staines vanishes the very day Carver weighs anchor!’ Balfour said, sitting forward. ‘And the very day my crate goes missing! Of course: there it is! Staines goes into the crate—Carver swipes the crate—Carver sails away!’

  ‘But for what purpose?’ Pritchard said.

  ‘You didn’t happen to get a look at the docking slip, by any chance? The bill of lading?’

  ‘No, I did not,’ said Moody shortly. He had not yet finished his story, and he did not like being interrupted in mid-performance. But the rapt audience in the room had dissolved, for the umpteenth time that evening, into a murmuring rabble, as each man voiced his suppositions, and expressed his surprise.

  ‘Emery Staines—on Carver’s ship!’ Mannering was saying. ‘Question is, of course, whether he stowed himself away—that’s one option; whether he was brought on board by accident—that’s another; or whether Carver captured him, and chose to lock him in a shipping crate, in full knowledge—that’s a third.’

  Nilssen shook his head. ‘What did he say, though—that the lid was tacked down! You can’t do that from the inside!’

  ‘You may as well call it a coffin. How’s the man to breathe?’

  ‘There are slats in the pine—gaps—’

  ‘Not enough to breathe, surely!’

  ‘Tom: your shipping crate. Was there room enough inside it for a grown man?’

  ‘How big is a shipping crate, anyway?’

  ‘Don’t forget that Carver and Staines are business partners.’

  ‘About the size of a dray-cart. You’ll have seen them, stacked along the quay. A man could lie inside quite comfortably.’

  ‘Business partners on a duffer claim!’

  ‘Strange, though, that he’s still in the crate on the way back from Dunedin. Isn’t that strange? Seems almost to point to the fact that Carver didn’t know he was there.’


  ‘We ought to let Mr. Moody finish.’

  ‘That’s a way to treat your business partner—lock him up to die!’

  The only men who had not joined this rabble of supposition were the two Chinese men, Quee Long and Sook Yongsheng, who were sitting very erect, with their eyes fixed very solemnly upon Moody—as they had been for the duration of the evening. Moody met Ah Sook’s gaze—and though the latter’s expression did not alter, it seemed to Moody that he conveyed a kind of sympathy, as though to say that he understood Moody’s feeling of impatience very well.

  The lack of a common language had prevented Ah Sook from articulating the full story of his dealings with Francis Carver to the assembly that evening, and as a result, the English-speaking company remained quite ignorant of the particulars of this former association, beyond the fact that Carver had committed a murder, and Ah Sook had resolved to avenge it. Moody regarded him now, holding Ah Sook’s dark gaze in his pale one. He wondered at the history the two men had shared. Ah Sook had confided only that he had known Carver as a boy; he had divulged nothing else. Moody guessed that Ah Sook was around forty-five in age, which would mean he had been born in the early twenties; perhaps, then, he and Carver had known one another during the Chinese wars.

  ‘Mr. Moody,’ said Cowell Devlin. ‘Let us put the question to you. Do you believe the man inside the shipping case could have been Emery Staines?’

  The room fell quiet at once.

  ‘I have never met Mr. Staines, and so would not recognise him,’ Moody said stiffly, ‘but yes, that is my guess.’

  Pritchard was doing some calculation in his head. ‘If Staines had been inside that shipping case since Carver left for Dunedin,’ he said, ‘that makes thirteen days without water or air.’

  ‘Unlucky number,’ somebody muttered, and Moody was struck by the thought that thirteen was also the number of men currently assembled in the smoking room—and that he himself was the thirteenth man.

  ‘Is that possible—thirteen days?’ said Gascoigne.

  ‘Without water? Barely.’ Pritchard stroked his chin. ‘But without air, of course … impossible.’

  ‘But he might not have been in there since leaving Hokitika,’ Balfour pointed out. ‘He might have been put into the case in Dunedin—though whether by his own volition, or by force—’

  ‘I have not yet finished my story,’ Moody said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mannering. ‘Quite right! He hasn’t finished. Hold your tongues.’

  The supposition ceased. Moody rocked on his heels again, and after a moment, resumed.

  ‘Once I had determined that the thing inside the crate was indeed a man,’ he said, ‘I helped him out—with difficulty, for he was very weak, and not breathing at all well. He seemed to have spent all of his strength upon the knocking. I loosed his collar—he was wearing a cravat—and just as I did so, his chest began to bleed.’

  ‘You cut him somehow?’ said Nilssen.

  But this time Moody did not answer; he closed his eyes and continued, as if in a trance. ‘The blood was welling up—bubbling, as from a pump; the man clutched at his chest, trying to staunch the flow, all the while sobbing that name, Magdalena, Magdalena … I watched him in horror, gentlemen. I could not speak. The volume—’

  ‘He scratched himself on the crate?’ Nilssen said again, persistently.

  ‘The blood was veritably pumping from his body,’ Moody said, opening his eyes. ‘It was most definitely not a scratch wound, sir. I could hardly have scratched him, except perhaps with a fingernail, and I keep my nails very close, as you can observe. And I repeat, the blood began to pump well after he was out of the crate, and seated upright. I thought perhaps there had been a stickpin in his cravat—but he was not wearing a stickpin. His cravat had been tied in a bow.’

  Pritchard was frowning. ‘He must have been already injured, then,’ he said. ‘Before you opened the crate. Perhaps he cut himself—before you arrived on the scene.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Moody, without conviction. ‘I’m afraid my understanding of the event is rather less …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well,’ Moody said, gathering himself, ‘let me put it this way. The injury did not seem—natural.’

  ‘Not natural?’ Mannering said.

  Moody looked embarrassed. He had faith in the analytic properties of reason: he believed in logic with the same calm conviction with which he believed in his ability to perceive it. Truth, for him, could be perfected, and a perfect truth was always utterly beautiful and entirely clear. We have mentioned already that Moody had no religion—and therefore did not perceive truth in mystery, in the inexplicable and the unexplained, in those mists that clouded one’s scientific perception as the material cloud now obscured the Hokitika sky.

  ‘I know this sounds very odd,’ he said, ‘but I am not altogether sure that the man inside the shipping case was even alive. By the light in the hold—and the shadows—’ He trailed off, and then said, in a harsher voice, ‘Let me say this. I am not sure if I would even call the thing a man.’

  ‘What else?’ said Balfour. ‘What else, if not a man?’

  ‘An apparition,’ Moody replied. ‘A vision of some kind. A ghost. It sounds very foolish; I know that. Perhaps Lydia Wells would be able to describe it better than I.’

  There was a brief moment of quiet.

  ‘What happened next, Mr. Moody?’ said Frost.

  Moody turned to address the banker. ‘My next action, I’m afraid, was a cowardly one. I turned, grabbed my valise, and swarmed back up the ladder. I left him there—still bleeding.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you saw the bill of lading—on the crate?’ said Balfour again, but Moody did not answer him.

  ‘Was that your last encounter with the man?’ said Löwenthal.

  ‘Yes,’ said Moody heavily. ‘I did not venture down into the hold again—and when we arrived at Hokitika, the passengers were conveyed by lighter to the shore. If the man in question was indeed real—if he was Emery Staines—then he is still aboard the Godspeed as we speak … as is Francis Carver, of course. They are both offshore, just beyond the river mouth, waiting for the tide. But perhaps I imagined it. The man, the blood, all of it. I have never suffered from hallucinations before, but … well; you see that I am very undecided. At the time, however, I was sure that I had seen a ghost.’

  ‘Perhaps you had,’ said Devlin.

  ‘Perhaps I had,’ Moody said, bowing his head. ‘I will accept that explanation as the truth, if there is compelling proof enough. But you will forgive me for admitting that the explanation is, to my mind, a fantastic one.’

  ‘Ghost or no ghost, it seems that we are facing some kind of a solution at last,’ said Löwenthal—who was looking very tired. ‘Tomorrow morning, when Mr. Moody goes to the wharf to collect his trunk—’

  But Löwenthal was interrupted. The door of the smoking room suddenly swung to and struck the wall with such violence that every man in the room started in surprise. As one they turned—and saw, in the doorway, Mannering’s boy, breathless, and clutching a stitch in his side.

  ‘The lights,’ he gasped.

  ‘What is it?’ said Mannering, levering himself up. ‘What lights? What’s wrong?’

  ‘The lights on the spit,’ the boy said, still clutching his side—for his breath was coming in gasps.

  ‘Out with it!’

  ‘I can’t—’ He began to cough.

  ‘Why on earth have you been running?’ Mannering shouted. ‘You were supposed to be standing right outside! Standing still, d—n you! I don’t pay your wage so you can take your bloody constitutional!’

  ‘It’s the Godspeed,’ the boy managed.

  All of a sudden the room was very still.

  ‘The Godspeed?’ Mannering barked, his eyes bulging. ‘What about it? Talk, you idiot!’

  ‘The nav lights on the spit,’ the boy said. ‘They went out—in the wind, and—the tide—’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘
Godspeed’s run aground,’ the boy said. ‘Foundered on the bar—she rolled, not ten minutes ago.’ He drew a ragged breath. ‘Her mainmast cracked—and then she rolled again—and then the surf came through the hatches and pulled her down. She’s a goner, sir. She’s a goner. She’s wrecked.’

  ECLIPTIC

  In which our allegiances have shifted, as our countenance makes clear.

  Three weeks have passed since Walter Moody first set foot upon the sand, since the council at the Crown convened in stealth, and since the barque Godspeed was added to the wrecks upon the bar. When the twelve men greet each other now, it is with a special understanding—as when a mason meets a member of his guild, in daylight, and shares a glance that is eloquent and grave. Dick Mannering has nodded to Cowell Devlin in the Kaniere thoroughfare; Harald Nilssen has twice raised his hat to Thomas Balfour; Charlie Frost has exchanged the morning’s greetings with Joseph Pritchard while in line for breakfast at the sixpenny saloon. A secret always has a strengthening effect upon a newborn friendship, as does the shared impression that an external figure is to blame: the men of the Crown have become united less by their shared beliefs, we observe, than by their shared misgivings—which are, in the main, externally directed. In their analyses, variously made, of Alistair Lauderback, George Shepard, Lydia Wells, Francis Carver, Anna Wetherell, and Emery Staines, the Crown men have become more and more suggestive, despite the fact that nothing has been proven, no body has been tried, and no new information has come to light. Their beliefs have become more fanciful, their hypotheses less practical, their counsel less germane. Unconfirmed suspicion tends, over time, to become wilful, fallacious, and prey to the vicissitudes of mood—it acquires all the qualities of common superstition—and the men of the Crown Hotel, whose nexus of allegiance is stitched, after all, in the bright thread of time and motion, have, like all men, no immunity to influence.

  For the planets have changed places against the wheeling canvas of the stars. The Sun has advanced one-twelfth along the tilted wheel of her ecliptic path, and with that motion comes a new world order, a new perspective on the whole. With the Sun in Capricorn we were reserved, exacting, and lofty in our distance. When we looked upon Man, we sought to fix him: we mourned his failures and measured his gifts. We could not imagine what he might have been, had he been tempted to betray his very nature—or had he betrayed himself without temptation, better still. But there is no truth except truth in relation, and heavenly relation is composed of wheels in motion, tilting axes, turning dials; it is a clockwork orchestration that alters every minute, never repeating, never still. We are no longer sheltered in a cloistered reminiscence of the past. We now look outward, through the phantasm of our own convictions: we see the world as we wish to perfect it, and we imagine dwelling there.