Creation (15 page)

He hears it again, to his far right. He glides silently to the place where his ears tell him the bird lurks. But he can see nothing. There are no trees; the largest vegetation is bushes perhaps eight feet tall. In one of these, the bird must perch. His ear strains for sound. There is a stream, a thin rush of water under the sound of the moschettoes and the occasional
burr-up
of a frog.

The song comes again. It is the most superb birdsong he has heard on this continent.
Jew-jew-jew-jew-je-eeeeeeee-do-je-e-e-e-to
.
The songster repeats his notes. Audubon’s eye follows his ear and there, just before the last note sounds, he sees, in a bush, the telltale flicker of a wing.

He whistles low. And then in pursuit raises his voice. “Come, John, Tom — over here!”

Tom Lincoln and his son are on top of the ridge. But they hear him, or perhaps only see his beckoning arm.

The bird dives off the branch to the ground under the thicket, where it vanishes.

The three spread like a net over the green-clad rock. The little bird is wild, so wild. They follow its every move for an hour. It flits from bush to bush, then to the ground, and each time it alights it sings so sweetly. Strange that, although it is pursued, it sings for its mate. The notes are either a warning or a mating call that the bird cannot restrain.

Tom goes far out to one side and up on the ridge. The little warbler alights on a bush within shot. He raises his gun and, with his usual accuracy, hits it.

The body is there, in the moss. In a moment Audubon is holding it in his hand, its wings spread open in his palm. He strokes its feathers. He can feel the life ebbing, the heartbeat diminish.

It is lovely. It was even lovelier when it sang, and now the air is lonely without it.

When the young gentlemen catch up with him, he is still gazing into the palm of his hand.

“A new species!” he says.

It was what he wanted, more than anything. It is what he must do here: find new species, to keep ahead of his rivals. To prove his worth, not just as a painter, but as a new kind of bird artist: an ornithologist who observes in the wild.

“I’ll name it for you, Tom. Tom Lincoln’s Finch.
Fringilla lincolnii
.”

In that instant the bird grows cooler and lighter in Audubon’s hand.

“There must be another. And a nest as well.”

The two young men are off to prowl the thickets, squatting, reaching with their guns. He tucks the little creature into his basket
and races back to the
Ripley
. He tries to remember the song but he cannot, exactly. Bachman is right when he tells him he needs birdsong lessons.

D
OWN THE LADDER
to the hatch he goes, out of the sunlight to the dark, damp hold. It is filling up with specimen jars and hanging skins, like the tomb of some primitive king.

The bird is tiny, but he succeeds in wiring it on the plank into the position he wants, perched on a twig, one leg extended backward, its head lightly tipped away from the viewer so that the fine stripes of blue could be seen along its top of its head, and also the pale yellow of its breast. Without its song, the bird seems insignificant. He begins to draw, and for hours he is lost.

Johnny and Tom return. They are without the mate of the finch.

“There was only one, Father.”

“It cannot be,” says his father. “There is never only one.”

“Perhaps the female heard the shot and flew off. We could not find the nest.”

Audubon’s temper flares in the dank close space. “We cannot lose this! Do you know what depends on this bird? All, all. How can you fail me? Do you not love me?” Johnny’s head dangles on its stalk, his chin on his chest. Tom Lincoln is flushed red and staring at the wall.

On Audubon rages, sometimes in French, sometimes in English. How can they say there was only one bird? Do they not know anything? They are stupid, they are lazy, they are not fit for this mission, they do not understand his fatigue, they do not understand the pressures, the necessities. Has it all been wasted on Johnny, all these years of work?

Johnny does not fight back. He knows better. He understands that his father’s anger is too great. He even guesses that it has little to do with the lost mate of
Fringilla lincolnii
, the undiscovered nest, his own or his friend’s supposed inefficiency and laziness. What it has to do with, he does not know. But a clear sense of the otherness of this mood and this voice saves him from the despair he would feel if he believed that his father’s accusations were true.

“Tomorrow we’ll go back,” he says.

It is night. The meal has been served, the grog opened and the storytelling begun. The painter, having darkened the atmosphere with his mood, has retreated in to his Whatman paper, his circle of light on the deal table. The other end of the hold resounds with laughter. The ship’s cargo of young gentlemen, and Emery, all dedicated to his mission, tell their stories.

“The thing led us a merry chase!” he hears Johnny exclaiming. “But Tom, Tom climbed the ridge and saw it land on the uppermost branch of a bush, not twenty yards away. He got it in his sights —”

“That cut short its career!”

Above, in the forecastle, the sailors sing their ballads. The words echo down the ladder to where he sits.

I had a dream the other night, I dreamt that I was home
.

I dreamt that me and my true love were in old Marylebone
,

That we were on old England’s shore with a jug of ale in hand
,

But when I woke my heart was broke, on the banks of Newfoundland
.

But Audubon’s ear is tuned to that other melody, the song of an untutored, untamed bird. To open one’s throat and to have that music pour forth, what is it like? He wonders where, exactly, the song lived in this throat. How does the throat of a bird produce such affecting notes? He longs to take apart the throat but he has no other specimen so he must keep this one intact.

It is why he is so angry at Johnny.

He remembers being back in Coueron with D’Orbigny in his little laboratory behind the house, how the good doctor taught him to take the birds apart. Audubon was then a young gentleman himself, younger than Johnny now. At first his fingers were clumsy with the sharp instruments, and he cut himself. He dropped the tiny hearts and livers, lost them in the tangle of intestines. He and the doctor were butchers together, but it seemed harmless, their victims were so tiny. “You must understand the science of the bird,” D’Orbigny told his young friend. “You must know how the thing works.”

Fifi told the doctor of his dream: He will be an American. And the good doctor, his apron messed with bird entrails, promised to help. So that, when the documents came, D’Orbigny signed them, as he had signed Audubon’s birth certificate before. And in that flourish of the pen, Jean Rabin was dissolved. He was created anew, and his past was an empty shell.

He left for America on a sailing boat. He was off to make his way.

The light is gone. Audubon puts down his pencil, lifts the drawing and places it on a pile. The finch is perched, throat open, silent as the dusk that rolls at last over its enormous country.

He leans back in his chair and covers his aching eyes. He tries to hear the song of the finch.

He hears instead the songs of his loved ones. Of his family, whom he calls the Holy Alliance. His wife and his sons. They all have their songs. He knows the notes and even the words that rise from the heart but are never spoken.

We are the unknown relations of a famous man, they sing. He owns us, by virtue of his obsession. Or believes he does, and we have come to accept this. We remain tied to him and to each other, for no one else understands us. We love and hate one another, in the same way that we love and hate Himself.

Johnny sings louder than the others. He is the wild one; his submission will be defiance one day. The second born, but first in love: John Woodhouse, best of his young men, the one who gets the bird.

My father need only say he wants one, and I have its little neck between my thumb and forefinger. I can feel the double pulse in my thumb, my own and that of the bird. I may fail him today, but not in future. I too shall be an artist. It is me who will capture him, in the end. Trap the colour of his vivid cheek, the heat of his beating heart, trap him in the full bloom of his existence. Capture him with his own tricks, by watching, taking careful note of the way he holds his gun, his wariness, the glimmer in his eyes, which is sometimes good and sometimes fearsome.

Victor’s song comes from far away, across the sea. It is an angry song, a puzzled song.

I am the elder son, why am I sent away? First to my uncle’s counting house, then here to manage his business. When I was younger, I hated him for the hardships he visited on my mother. For his selfishness: his birds, his book, his fame. Whatever else he may profess to love, those things are what he wants.

He wrongs my mother with his flirtations. I have seen her cry.

I am the one who refused to be part of this Work. He promised to send me to school. Yet here I am, in London, with the printer, nagging for payment of subscriptions.

When is a son no longer a son? I am not a boy, but a man, with the needs of a man. On what day does my own life begin?

My father left his own parents behind in France. On his father’s death he did not heed his mother’s call. When letters came begging him to visit, he never replied. I know, because my mother told me. He did not help his half-sisters or any of his family. His family began with John James Audubon.

Why must we be different? Who is this man, who thinks he owns us? Shall we all be broken on the wheel of his ambition?

Lucy’s song is happier. His dear old girl, his best friend. His heart swells to hear her.

I am married to John Audubon, and he is married to his birds. All over my girlhood he danced like a dream. He won me, but the birds won his heart. His bird passion cannot be reasoned with and cannot be bargained with. I am not jealous: his sweethearts believe they can trap him by painting little branches for his birds to sit upon. But they cannot.

Sometimes Lucy complains, but she is loyal always. He knows he must hear her out.

I wanted an ordinary life. Comfort, respite after a day’s work, society. To feed my children, to be above humiliation and reproach. But I got this! A husband once despised and now revered. A man who must have his dream. A man who depends on me utterly and on whom I cannot depend.

She comes around now; she always comes around in the end.

Still, I would not trade what I have. I am chief of the Holy
Alliance. My sons and I promote his cause, for it is ours. The world has misunderstood him, and treated him shabbily. Do you blame Fougère for preferring the wild creatures? To see him fail and see him triumph is to learn much of man. I will stand by him against his enemies, and I will endure hardships and count myself blessed to be his wife. I would like only a little security.

Audubon twists on his chair, his eyes shut, while the songs bedevil him. The Holy Alliance sings in harmony. He is as familiar with their singing as they are, and he sympathizes with each one. But nothing can be changed. They must be together; it is the only way he can succeed.

There is one more voice. Unbidden, Maria’s song comes to his ears. Discordant and beguiling.

I am the desired one. I am the beloved. He holds me as tenderly in his heart as he does his wife. He told me so. I give him kisses and I understand him. I ask for nothing. It is our secret: no one knows.

I am humble, as befits a single woman. I am grateful that I have come to the Bachman house, where I can work with a famous man. I am useful. I am clever too. Both the reverend and Mr. Audubon tell me sweet things and we all laugh together as we bend our heads over our work.

I am an artist too. I call myself that because the great Jean Jacques Audubon tells me so. I am good enough to paint flowers and butterflies for him. When Audubon leaves me I am sad but he writes to me and I to him. I do not go out in the world, I may not, for I have no means. Instead I remain in the parlour, dipping my paintbrush oh so lightly in the most intense colours I can find.

If I could, I would be with him. Wander free as he does. Wade in the marsh with a gun. Meet the learned and the royal. Feel the open air. He desires me and I —

Audubon stands, abruptly. Her voice disturbs him.

“No, Maria,” he says.

“He’s talking to himself, Johnny,” whispers Tom Lincoln.

“Father?”

Audubon ignores him.

“He’s very tired,” says Johnny. “He’s working so hard.”

Audubon stares at his paper. He admonishes Maria. “I told you this when last we saw one another. I explained it all to you. I am a man. I follow the wild creatures. There is no place for you here.”

Yours is the world; mine is the parlour? Yours is the frontier and mine the garden? Yours is the bird and mine the bud?

“That is right, Maria.”

Beware, Jean Jacques, beware. I know I am a woman. A single woman without means. But my flame in this confined space burns as brightly as yours does in the open.

DESIRE

A
t Godwin’s insistence, Audubon and his party are consigned to a sea world as they beat their way northeastward up the coast. The mainland broods an unbreachable gap away, sometimes visible as a dark-reddish rim of hills, sometimes veiled by layers of shifting fog. The islands they drift among are of iron-red rock with green moss hillsides and plateaus trimmed with stunted, ancient and twisted trees.

When Godwin can find an anchorage, he takes it; the young gentle men get out in the whaleboats to scramble over the low rocky ridges that stand only feet above the water and are smoothed by the constant action of the waves. Some islands are so zealously defended by incubating birds that the men are attacked from overhead with wings and bills and beaten off. At other spots the frightened birds rise in a flock and abandon their nests.

Audubon wakes before dawn, seats himself at the deal table, and draws for hours.