Foe (3 page)

'In
the hut there was nothing but the bed, which was made of poles bound
together with thongs, crude in workmanship yet sturdy, and in a
corner a pile of cured apeskins, that made the hut smell like a
tanner's storehouse (in time I grew used to the smell, and missed it
after I had put the island behind me; even today when I smell new
leather I grow drowsy), and the stove, in which the embers of the
last fire were always left banked, for making new fire was tedious
work.

'What
I chiefly hoped to find was not there. Cruso kept no journal, perhaps
because he lacked paper and ink, but more likely, I now believe,
because he lacked the inclination to keep one, or, if he ever
possessed the inclination, had lost it. I searched the poles that
supported the roof, and the legs of the bed, but found no carvings,
not even notches to indicate that he counted the years of his
banishment or the cycles of the moon.

'Later,
when I had grown freer with him, I told him of my surprise.
"Suppose," said I, "that one day we are saved. Would
you not regret it that you could not bring back with you some record
of your years of shipwreck, so that what you have passed through
shall not die from memory? And if we are never saved, but perish one
by one, as may happen, would you not wish for a memorial to be left
behind, so that the next voyagers to make landfall here, whoever they
may be, may read and learn about us, and perhaps shed a tear? For
surely, with every day that passes, our memories grow less certain,
as even a statue in marble is worn away by rain, till at last we can
no longer tell what shape the sculptor's hand gave it. What memories
do you even now preserve of the fatal storm, the prayers of your
companions, your terror when the waves engulfed you, your gratitude
as you were cast up on the shore, your first stumbling explorations,
your fear of savage beasts, the discomforts of those first nights
(did you not tell me you slept in a tree?)? Is it not possible to
manufacture paper and ink and set down what traces remain of these
memories, so that they will outlive you; or, failing paper and ink,
to bum the story upon wood, or engrave it upon rock? We may lack many
things on this island, but certainly time is not one of them."

'I
spoke fervently, I believe, but Cruso was unmoved. "Nothing is
forgotten," said he; and then: "Nothing I have forgotten is
worth the remembering."

'"You
are mistaken!" I cried. "I do not wish to dispute, but you
have forgotten much, and with every day that passes you forget more!
There is no shame in forgetting: it is our nature to forget as
it is our nature to grow old and pass away. But seen from too remote
a vantage, life begins to lose its particularity. All shipwrecks
become the same shipwreck, all castaways the same castaway, sunburnt,
lonely, clad in the skins of the beasts he has slain. The truth that
makes your story yours alone,. that sets you apart from the old
mariner by the fireside spinning yarns of sea-monsters and mermaids,
resides in a thousand touches which today may seem of no importance,
such as: When you made your needle (the needle you store in your
belt), by what means did you pierce the eye? When you sewed your hat,
what did you use for thread? Touches like these will one day persuade
your countrymen that it is all true, every word, there was indeed
once an island in the middle of the ocean where the wind blew and the
gulls cried from the cliffs and a man named Cruso paced about in his
apeskin clothes, scanning the horizon for a sail."

'Cruso's
great head of tawny hair and his beard that was never cut glowed in
the dying light. He opened and closed his hands, sinewy,
rough-skinned hands, toil-hardened.

'"There
is the bile of seabirds," I urged. "There are cuttlefish
bones. There are gulls' quills."

'Cruso
raised his head and cast me a look full of defiance. "I will
leave behind my terraces and walls," he said. "They will be
enough. They will be more than enough." And he fell silent
again. As for myself, I wondered who would cross the ocean to see
terraces and walls, of which we surely had an abundance at home; but
I held my peace.

'We
continued to sleep in the hut together, he and I, he on his bed, I on
the bed of grass Friday laid for me and changed every third day, very
thick and comfortable. When the nights grew cold I would draw a cover
of skins over me, for all this time I had no more clothes than the
petticoat I had come ashore in ; but I preferred not to have the
skins upon me, for to my nostrils their smell was still very strong.

'Sometimes
Cruso kept me awake with the sounds he made in his sleep, chiefly the
grinding of his teeth. For so far had his teeth decayed that it had
grown a habit with him to grind them together constantly, those that
were left, to still the ache. Indeed, it was no pretty sight to see
him take his food in his unwashed hands and gnaw at it on the left
side, where it hurt him less. But Bahia, and the life I had lived
there, had taught me not to be dainty.

'I
dreamed of the murdered ship's-master. In my dream I saw him floating
southward in his puny boat with the oars crossed on his breast and
the ugly spike sticking out of his eye. The sea was tossed with huge
waves, the wind howled, the rain beat down; yet the boat did not
sink, but drifted slowly on toward the province of the iceberg, and
would drift there, it seemed to me, caked in ice, till the day of our
resurrection. He was a kindly man -let me say so now, lest I forget
-who deserved a better end.

'Cruso's
warning against the apes made me chary of leaving the encampment.
Nevertheless, on the third day of my marooning, after Cruso and
Friday had gone off to their labours, I ventured out and searched the
descent till I found the path up which Friday had where I trod, for I
still had no shoes. I roamed along the beach awhile, keeping an eye
out to sea, though it seemed early yet for rescue to come. I waded in
the water, amused by the gay-coloured little fish that stopped to
nibble my toes and taste what kind of creature I was. Cruso's island
is no bad place to be cast away, I thought, if one must be cast away.
Then about noon I climbed the slope and set about collecting
firewood, as I had undertaken to do, mightily pleased with my
excursion.

'When
Cruso returned he knew at once I had been exploring, and burst out in
a passion. "While you live under my roof you will do as I
instruct!" he cried, striking his spade into the earth, not even
waiting till Friday was out of earshot. But if he thought by angry
looks to inspire me to fear and slavish obedience, he soon found he
was mistaken. "I am on your island, Mr Cruso, not by choice but
by ill luck," I replied, standing up (and I was nearly as tall
as he). "I am a castaway, not a prisoner. If I had shoes, or if
you would give me the means to make shoes, I would not need to steal
about like a thief."

'Later
in the day, when my temper had cooled, I asked Cruso's pardon for
these tart words, and he seemed to forgive me, though grudgingly.
Then I asked again for a needle and gut, to make myself shoes. To
which he replied that shoes were not made in a twinkle, like
handkerchiefs, that he would himself make me shoes, in due time. Days
passed, however, and still I was without shoes.

'I
asked Cruso about the apes. When he first arrived, he said, they had
roamed all over the island, bold and mischievous. He had killed many,
after which the remainder had retreated to the cliffs of what he
called the North Bluff. On my walks I sometimes heard their cries and
saw them leaping from rock to rock. In size they were between a cat
and a fox, grey, with black faces and black paws. I saw no harm in
them; but Cruso held them a pest, and he and Friday killed them
whenever they could, with clubs, and skinned them, and cured their
pelts, and sewed them together to make clothes and blankets and
suchlike.

'One
evening, as I was preparing our supper, my hands being full, I turned
to Friday and said, "Bring more wood, Friday." Friday heard
me, I could have sworn, but he did not stir. So I said the word
"Wood" again, indicating the fire; upon which he stood up,
but did no more. Then Cruso spoke. "Firewood, Friday," he
said; and Friday went off and fetched wood from the woodpile.

'My
first thought was that Friday was like a dog that heeds but one
master; yet it was not so. "Firewood is the word I have taught
him," said Cruso. "Wood he does not know." I found it
strange that Friday should not understand that firewood was a kind of
wood, as pinewood is a kind of wood, or poplarwood; but I let it
pass. Not till after we had eaten, when we were sitting watching the
stars, as had grown to be our habit, did I speak again.

'"How
many words of English does Friday know?" I asked. '"As many
as he needs," replied Cruso. "This is not England, we have
no need of a great stock of words."

'"You
speak as if language were one of the banes of life, like money or the
pox," said I. "Yet would it not have lightened your
solitude had Friday been master of English? You and he might have
experienced, all these years, the pleasures of conversation; you
might have brought home to him some of the blessings of civilization
and made him a better man. What benefit is there in a life of
silence?"

'To
this Cruso gave no reply, but instead beckoned Friday nearer. "Sing,
Friday," he said. "Sing for Mistress Banon."

'Whereupon
Friday raised his face to the stars, closed his eyes, and, obedient
to his master, began to hum in a low voice. I listened but could make
out no tune. Cruso tapped my knee. "The voice of man," he
said. I failed to understand his meaning; but he raised a finger to
his lips to still me. In the dark we listened to Friday's humming.

'At
last Friday paused. "Is Friday an imbecile incapable of speech?"
I asked. "Is that what you mean to tell me?" (For I repeat,
I found Friday in all matters a dull fellow.)

'Cruso
motioned Friday nearer. "Open your mouth," he told him, and
opened his own. Friday opened his mouth. "Look," said
Cruso. I looked, but saw nothing in the dark save the glint of teeth
white as ivory. "La-la-la," said Cruso, and motioned to
Friday to repeat. "Ha-ha-ha," said Friday from the back of
his throat. He has no tongue," said Cruso. Gripping Friday by
the hair, he brought his face close to mine. "Do you see?"
he said. "It is too dark, .. said I. "La-la-la, ..
said Cruso. "Ha-ha-ha," said Friday. I drew away, and Cruso
released Friday's hair. "He has no tongue," he said. "That
is why he does not speak. They cut out his tongue."

'I
stared in amazement. "Who cut out his tongue?"

'"The
slavers."

'"The
slavers cut out his tongue and sold him into slavery? The
slave-hunters of Africa? But surely he was a mere child when they
took him. Why would they cut out a child's tongue?"

'Cruso
gazed steadily back at me. Though I cannot now swear to it, I believe
he was smiling. "Perhaps the slavers, who are Moors, hold the
tongue to be a delicacy," he said. "Or perhaps they grew
weary of listening to Friday's wails of grief, that went on day and
night. Perhaps they wanted to prevent him from ever telling his
story: who he was, where his home lay, how it came about that he was
taken. Perhaps they cut out the tongue of every cannibal they took,
as a punishment. How will we ever know the truth?"

"'It
is a terrible story," I said. A silence fell. Friday took up our
utensils and retired into the darkness. "Where is the justice in
it? First a slave and now a castaway too. Robbed of his childhood and
consigned to a life of silence. Was Providence sleeping?"

'"If
Providence were to watch over all of us," said Cruso, "who
would be left to pick the cotton and cut the sugar-cane? For the
business of the world to prosper, Providence must sometimes wake and
sometimes sleep, as lower creatures do." He saw I shook my head,
so went on. "You think I mock Providence. But perhaps it is the
doing of Providence that Friday finds himself on an island under a
lenient master, rather than in Brazil, under the planter's lash, or
in Africa, where the forests teem with cannibals. Perhaps it is for
the best, though we do not see it so, that he should be here, and
that I should be here, and now that you should be here."

'Hitherto
I had found Friday a shadowy creature and paid him little more
attention than I would have given any house-slave in Brazil. But now
I began to look on him -I could not help myself -with the horror we
reserve for the mutilated. It was no comfort that his mutilation was
secret, closed behind his lips (as some other mutilations are hidden
by clothing), that outwardly he was like any Negro. Indeed, it was
the very secretness of his loss that caused me to shrink from him. I
could not speak, while he was about, without being aware how lively
were the movements of the tongue in my own mouth. I saw pictures in
my mind of pincers gripping his tongue and a knife slicing into it,
as must have happened, and I shuddered. I covertly observed him as he
ate, and with distaste heard the tiny coughs he gave now and then to
clear his throat, saw how he did his chewing between his front teeth,
like a fish. I caught myself flinching when he came near, or holding
my breath so as not to have to smell him. Behind his back I wiped the
utensils his hands had touched. I was ashamed to behave thus, but for
a time was not mistress of my own actions. Sorely I regretted that
Cruso had ever told me the story.