The Last Bookaneer (17 page)

“I can try it in native, but I'm afraid I might start a war.” I thought for a moment that Vao smiled a little at my joke before she paused, wiped her neck with the back of her hand, and stood up straight as though to show us the full extent of her beauty. This time I had no choice but to look, before she moved to the next room. In the eyes of an old bachelor bookseller, accustomed to examining surfaces for any aberration, I could see right away that her feet pointed too far outward, to eleven o'clock and two o'clock, marring her grace slightly; that when her mouth opened the illusion of a docile maid was erased by sharp teeth not so different from the ones on her necklaces; and that her strong hands were slightly rigid. But the ordinary man would burn with lust for the sum of her all-consuming appearance and charm.

When I returned to my chair, the book I had been reading was missing. Looking for it in the next room, I found that a few of the younger houseboys had taken the book and were throwing it to each other, then trying to make it fly, the pages wings. It was such an entirely uncertain object to them. Could a writer really survive in a land where books, for all practical purposes, never existed and never really could? I could not decide whether I had been transported to a time before literature was born, or had been offered a bleak window into some outlandish future that was bookless, readerless. My instincts are to stop any abuse of a book, but I was too fascinated to ask for it back.

“Fool!” It was the dwarf, stepping into my view of the scene. His face molded itself dramatically, and it now rearranged into a complete picture of anger. “You fancy she takes a liking to you, I suppose.”

“You're still talking to me about Vao? You'll have to excuse me.” I'd had enough of the fiery little man.

“She was only watching you to make sure you don't take anything that doesn't belong to you. Take care, or you'll end up like the other one who came here trying to claim what was not his.”

I paused my step. “What other one do you mean?”

“Last month. The other white man. Arrested after sneaking around the grounds one night. He rots in jail now like he deserves.”

“Who was he?”

“Some thief.” He seemed unsure of the details and had to strain to remember. “Man named Banner, if that was really the scoundrel's name. Probably one of the beachcombers who wander around looking to find profit from our shores.”

My mind turned at once to Belial, but I tried to hide the train of my own thoughts from this perceptive pest. “Thieves prefer not to use their names. Do you know exactly what it was he did?”

“No, there were errands to attend to in the village the day it happened. Most of us who work at Vailima mind our business, but my business is to know what everyone is doing and why. There is nothing that calls down Tusitala's wrath like an invader in Vailima, who seeks what does not belong in his hands. Doubt not. The gods themselves would be no less forceful than Tusitala when he stomps out an offender.”

He left me standing alone in the stomach-churning heat, consumed with this ominous vision of Stevenson grinding us down against his heel, with the old Samoan gods watching behind him, all the while wondering if I had just inadvertently located Davenport's enemy.

Hail, King! Tomorrow thou shalt pass away. Farewell! There is an isle of rest for thee.

A
LFRED
L
ORD
T
ENNYSON

My luck has run against me again.

E
.
C
.
F
ERGINS

T
ake seats, take seats!”

Interrupted mid-thought, Mr. Fergins raised gently blinking eyes. From his throat came the sounds that older men make when silencing themselves, the way a venerable machine set to a heavy motion drags to a halt. He pinched his white spectacles at the end of his fingers as he polished them, and returned them over his ears with care. Looking across at me, he asked, “What's happened, Mr. Clover?”

“Take seats, all passengers, train going to start! Make haste!”

Disappointment gnawed at me while we listened to the conductor's cries as he stomped his way through the dining car, where the bookseller and I were seated. We overheard that the disabled train blocking our way was finally repaired, and suddenly each man and woman aboard our car was in an uproar to begin moving as quickly as possible. I guess I'd been imagining that every last soul on the train had been listening to the bookseller's tale just as I was, but how jarring to realize that nobody knew and nobody cared about the extraordinary lives of the bookaneers; there were so many ordinary and pressing things all around.

I straightened my apron and reached for my snow white waiter's coat, which I had folded neatly over the back of my chair. I wanted to beg Mr. Fergins for a promise to continue next time, but instead I said apologetically, “I kept you too long.”

“I am due at the courthouse, aren't I? But I am always pushing a cart on this locomotive and scrambling down before it lumbers away, and you are made to be on your feet at all times. If nothing else, we have been reminded of the sublime comforts of sitting,” the bookseller said before he left me a man famished.

I counted the days until Mr. Fergins returned to the train, but when I saw him again it was brief. I had to find another time and perhaps another place to satisfy my curiosity—to hear what happened when Pen Davenport encountered his rival Belial in the Samoan prison, how Belial managed to escape that prison (for I was certain he did), and if either bookaneer managed to take the prize of Robert Louis Stevenson's novel, and what stratagems they employed. I kept a sharp eye out whenever I happened to be in the sections of New York City where I had come across Mr. Fergins in the past. Still no luck. One occasion, I even found myself walking into the receiving room of his boardinghouse, but my entrance drew such an unwelcoming stare from the landlady that instead of asking for Mr. Fergins or leaving a card, I stood dumbfounded and turned on my heel as though I had the wrong address.

The bookseller's mention of his duties at the trial seemed to present the best opportunity to encounter him away from the railroad. I rode the omnibus to the courthouse. The court we had entered together three weeks earlier was once again thronged with people. After remaining among the eager spectators for almost an hour I couldn't see how any progress could have been made since the trial began. The judge would call the arguing lawyers to approach him in order to resolve some technicality of law, then direct them back to their tables, then summon them again for further discussions minutes later. I was surprised so many people were still in attendance for such endless repetition. Didn't they have anything more important to do? It was a hollow thought on my part, since I, too, thought there was nothing better to do with the little free time I had.

The accused, for his part, was sitting in the witness stand with his head bent forward. He seemed bored. His eyes followed the lawyers as they volleyed arguments. His head didn't move an inch; he just rolled his eyes in one direction and then the other, with the same enormous contempt for all involved, including his own representatives. His jaw was tight and clenched—and bruised.

The attorneys would emphasize words here and there apparently at random, spitting them out.

“Isn't it true, sir,” said the prosecuting attorney, “that you were once among the class of persons known as ‘bookaneers,' and in this capacity known by the name of Belial? If you look at this document, marked Exhibit A-6, estimating the amount of money authors were deprived of by this lot . . .”

“Your Honor,” replied the defense, “must we
sit
here and listen to these insinuations against my unfortunate client?”

“Surely, Your Honor, the counsel to the accused does not object to a question intended to establish a very
simple
fact.”

“Against a question that
imperils
the reputation of my client, I demand the protection of the court to silence the sharp and dangerous tongue of”—here the attorney for the defense pointed at the opposing lawyer—“this serpent.”

All without a word from the prisoner, who did not seem to expect that he would ever be required to talk. Again it happened: the men scurried up to the judge's table to argue in quieter tones, then lurched back. When the court took its noon recess, the bookaneer was still in the witness seat, and the bailiff had to push spectators away. Women handed him scented letters and fruit; one man leaned into his face and stared, then went away without uttering a word. My eyes followed this odd bird walking to the back of the room, where he had an easel with a portrait in progress of the bookaneer, who, for some reason, was pictured in the unfinished canvas standing between a peacock and a human skull.

It was the man on trial, not the trial itself, not the lawyers, not the judge, that kept the audience enthralled. Just to look upon him in the flesh satisfied that crowd.

“He is a rare man,” said my neighbor to the right. He was a small-boned and neatly dressed fellow who had big, watery eyes; thin, white hair; and a crisp mustache that hugged the tips of his lips and showed traces of auburn. “Belial has hardly aged a day since I first met him in . . . '56, I believe it was.”

“You know the bookaneer personally?” I asked.

“Yes, of course I do. I acquired many a book from that titan, many that turned great profits. I had been one of the old publishers of this city for nearly forty years, before I relinquished my offices to men with their first beards. Oh, New York City is a different place than it was. You cannot buy even an old house in a decent neighborhood today for less than ten thousand dollars. Believe it, young man.”

“I do,” I assured him.

He explained that so many publishers and authors had heard tales of Belial without ever having seen him, or the other notorious bookaneers, that literary men and women had come as far as Boston and Philadelphia, and one even traveled from California to gawk at him. The book world was captivated.

“You must be rather distraught by his predicament.”

He screwed up his face, his mustache now swallowing up his mouth. “What? How do you mean?”

“Only that a friend of yours—”

“No friend of mine!” he exclaimed. “If Belial met ten people, nine will be hypnotized by him into believing he is a righteous man. The tenth will be all alone on an island of truth. That man—I mean me—will know Belial is rotten to the core, as all bookaneers must be to do what they do. Yes, I dealt with him and with his brethren because we had no choice, but it was with deep loathing, believe it. I come here to watch him squirm.”

“Isn't it hypocritical?”

“Explain, boy, or I will have you taken out of the courtroom by your ears.” He seemed to notice for the first time that he was not just speaking to himself, and that I was not white.

I knew I had spoken too frankly, since I was hoping he could help me. “Very sorry, sir. I mean no offense.”

“Ignorant! Then what do you mean?”

“Well, you say you were a book pirate yourself, so why condemn the bookaneers for the same thing?”

“I was no pirate, boy,” he huffed. “I was a publisher. We have an obligation to the reader above all else to
let them read
.”

He said these three words as though reciting a motto. I nodded my agreement, eager to move on. “Do you know a Mr. Fergins?”

“Come again?”

“He is a bookseller who has been helping to review the evidence in this case.” I explained how the last time I was at the court he went into a room upstairs to study documents. “I remember the door was painted dark red, but I don't remember exactly where it was. You see, I thought I might find him here again today.”

“A bookseller, did you say? No. I haven't heard of him. Do you know what the chief problem is these days with bookselling?”

I plagiarized the words of Pen Davenport. “I suppose that the greater portion of the population that learns to read, the more they revolt against having to pay to do so.”

I don't think he intended for me to answer; he hadn't listened. “Booksellers think they are closer to the authors, and closer to God, than publishers, but no mistake about it, if the author is dragged down by any devil, it is by the bookseller who genuinely believes he is serving a just cause.”

The publisher's attention was drawn away from me. Turning my head to the left, I was facing Belial himself, who was having his chains untangled as he was being led through the aisle.

“Afternoon, old friend,” the pirating publisher said, saluting the prisoner. “Over here! It has been a long time. Fifty-six, wasn't it, that we met for the first time?” he asked. “A rare man,” he repeated to me, holding his breath as we watched Belial (who had ignored him) disappear into the crowd. Despite his pronouncements about wanting to see the prisoner squirm, my neighbor seemed as enthralled and worshipful as the pretty young poetesses who had heard stories of the bookaneers of old.

Though I did not find Mr. Fergins in the courthouse that day, I still had some hope I would see him there and be able to entreat him for more of his tale; I went again the very next chance I had, this time arriving earlier, trying to match the time of day when I had met the bookseller there the month previous. On this occasion, however, the courtroom was empty, and from the smoking ashtrays it seemed to have been abandoned recently and in a hurry. I exited, wondering about this mysterious circumstance. There were noises of a commotion, and following the sounds brought me upstairs to the same crimson door where Mr. Fergins had once parted from me.

A dense cloud of smoke clogged the air. Scores of firemen in dark leather helmets were running to the spot and pouring water into the room, and steam was hissing from inside the room. The stench of burning—or of something already burnt—filled the air. A woman screamed.

I shielded my eyes from the stinging particles in the air. “What happened?” I asked one of the less panicked spectators, a tall man with enthusiastic expressions.

“There was a fire broke out in one of the evidence rooms,” he said, shouting above the din. “Some unlucky bookseller saw the smoke coming out and rushed in to put it out—he's a hero. A fool, but he was a hero to the end, I say!”

“Do you mean to say he's died?”

“That's what I heard not a minute ago. Fergin was his name, I believe they said. Where are you going?”

I pushed past the man and right into the surging crowd of firemen and onlookers.

“Mr. Fergins! Mr. Fergins!” I cried.

I found a pair of spectacles on the floor, their white metal frame blackened and bent, with one lens cracked into shards.

There was a half circle of men closing over a prone form that I recognized at a glance. “Give him some air!” someone was shouting at me and others who were trying to get closer. “Some air!”

My heart dropped out of my throat when Mr. Fergins began gasping and coughing.

“Anyone know this man?”

“I know him!” I called out when arms and elbows tried to shove me away.
He is my one friend in this whole monstrous city
, I wanted to shout.

A lady who eyed me for a moment then commented that the fallen gentleman's watch chain and valuables should be secured. A man with a kindly voice called to me from behind to give Mr. Fergins air if I wanted him to survive.

The bookseller was rolled onto a stretcher and was trotted out of sight by three bearers. In the gallery of the courthouse more spectators loitered, having tumbled out of the courtrooms to see the commotion. There between a circle of blue police uniforms was Belial himself, his stiff mouth twitching, just for a moment, into a projection of malicious complacency.

 • • • 

I
BECAME A CONSTANT OBJECT
at the invalid's bedside. The first time I called to visit him after his injuries, Mrs. McGrath, the landlady who by now had seen me twice before, asked: “Who are you? Not a relative; if I have eyes I can see that well enough.” But there was not exactly a clamor from people to help her look after her boarder, and she quickly tired of trying to chase me away. A nurse came for a few hours a day at first, and a doctor periodically visited. The Englishman was still a stranger in our country, as much a stranger in New York City as I ever was.