What Became of the White Savage (19 page)

These four hours passed like a dream. Every one of these gentlemen – merchants, officers, missionaries, captains of ocean-going vessels – had earned their place in this circle by exploring a dangerous and unknown region of our planet, and all of them considered me their equal that evening. But my only contribution had been to make known the story of Narcisse: it was only because of him that I was able to say something about the north east coast of Australia and the nomadic tribes who wander there. I had no new discoveries to impart, and I asked more questions than I answered. Was I worthy of the compliments I received?

This morning, before we left to take the train to Dover, in which I am finishing this letter, Narcisse told me of yet another misadventure that had occurred during the course of the previous evening. I was immediately on the alert; this was the first time I had gone out and left Narcisse to his own devices. While he was dining in the restaurant he had exchanged glances with a young woman at the adjacent table, a German woman travelling with a brother and an uncle. They chatted for a few minutes with Narcisse in French. I know nothing of what Narcisse said to her, but she repaired to his room a little later. You can well imagine what followed. Undoubtedly the revelation one by one of Narcisse’s tattoos only added to the lady’s transports.

When events had run their course, Narcisse did as I had done the day before with the chamber maid. He searched in his pocket and gallantly presented the lady with the few coins I had taken the precaution of supplying him with. Scandalised, the German woman threw them back at him and rushed out of the room cursing him in her own language.

“Is it right to give money afterwards or not?”

I reassured Narcisse but made no attempt to explain the misunderstanding. I wondered what to make of his feminine conquests. He is certainly a well-built man, at thirty-six in the prime of his life, but one could not call him handsome. There is nothing remarkable about his general appearance or his rather mournful face, and his timidity could hardly work in his favour. Indeed, only a woman would be able to say wherein lies his charm. The only characteristic I can suggest is perhaps one that I find somewhat unsettling: his steady and unflinching gaze. He looks directly, and with a most unusual intensity, into the eyes of the person addressing him, and maintains his unswerving gaze, in utter silence. Perhaps it is this resolute attitude, at once promising and elusive, that fascinates women.

But there were other matters more important than these gallantries. For two days, I had been reluctant to inform Narcisse of the news I had received from the mayor of Saint-Gilles. But it was important to stop equivocating: Narcisse had to know who he was before our return to France. And so, while we were seated in the drawing room of the hotel, I began the conversation I had already put off too long.

“Narcisse, do you remember Saint-Gilles-sur-Vie?”

He nodded in affirmation. I knew that this gesture was more an indication of his complete attention than a sign to show he agreed with what was being said.

“I wrote to Saint-Gilles to find out if a sailor had disappeared ten or twenty years ago. I received a reply to my question. Your name is definitely Narcisse Pelletier.”

“Narcisse, or Pelletier?” he asked.

“Both,” I replied. “We have two names. The first is chosen by our parents and second is passed on through the father to his children.”

“Narcisse, son of Pelletier?”

“If you like, yes. You were born in Saint-Gilles on the 13th May 1825. You were a sailor on the schooner
Saint-Paul
.”

“The schooner
Saint-Paul
,” he repeated in a pensive voice.

I let him absorb these names, an echo of his, “Sees-Ti-Ay Oo-Pawl.” of five months earlier. But he made no comment.

“Your parents and your brother and sister are still living in Saint-Gilles. I have told them you are coming back. You are going to see your mother and father again.”

“My mother is dead.”

“No, Narcisse. She is expecting to see you.”

“My mother? She’s not dead?”

“Your mother and father are both still alive. Your father is a shoemaker in Saint-Gilles.”

In a gesture I had never seen him make before, Narcisse pressed his clenched fists to his temples, as if to calm an inner storm, and closed his eyes. He was overwhelmed with emotion at the prospect of returning to his family home. At least, this is what I supposed. But then, without moving, he murmured as if speaking to himself: “My mother… she’s dead. I saw her. She died. I was there.”

His mother? Who was he talking about? Was it possible that he was talking about some sort of adoptive mother, some native woman who had looked after him? He had never spoken of any ties made with the people he lived amongst; nor had he ever spoken of how they regarded him. Had he been a son to them, a servant, a simple-minded soul? Or had they seen him as a prophet, or an exiled Prince, or a monster? On all of this, his silence was absolute, either because he did not wish to speak of his Australian years, or because he could not find the words to describe the trials he had endured. It was of the utmost importance not to rush him.

“Narcisse, your mother in Saint-Gilles is still alive and is waiting for you.”

He remained in the same position, withdrew into himself and said slowly, as if speaking to himself: “My mother is dead. She was ill for several days. Much heat. Too much heat, inside. She died.”

Still a prisoner of his trials, Narcisse was unable to return to us. Surely my task was not merely to record his memories and the process of his transformation. It fell upon me to help him too. I tried to find the right words.

“You are a white man, like me. Your father is a white man. Your mother is white. They are both alive. I do not know who this woman is that you speak of, the woman who died. A black Australian woman cannot be your real mother. If she showed you some affection and helped you while you were over there, you may call her your adoptive mother, or if you like, you may say ‘my native mother’.”

At these words, he gave me a look full of fury, of hatred even. I was taken aback and thought for a moment that he was going to hit me. I had never seen him in this state of mute, barely contained rage, of which I seemed to be the object. I was at a loss to understand. He turned to look away, as if he could not stand to look at me, or as if this was his only alternative to physical violence. I remained speechless, not moving, unable to comprehend what was happening or what it was I had said to upset him so much.

Then, he buried his head in his hands and began to cry, long silent sobs. These tears that I had unwittingly provoked caused me much more pain than any blows he might have inflicted on me. What could I say without adding to his distress? I waited.

After a short period that seemed to me interminable, the concierge came up to let us know that the hansom cab to take us to the station was waiting. To see us there, Narcisse weeping, and my sombre expression, he must have thought that we had just learnt of the death of a loved one. And yet the truth was we were grieving for a native Australian woman, of whom I knew nothing, be she living or dead.

Why does Narcisse never speak to me of the years he spent in Australia?

I remain your faithful servant…

Where did she go to find water?

No stream flowed through Round Bay or North Bay, and yet the old woman always came back to the encampment with the water gourds filled. The only water he had seen in his wanderings with the tribe through this dry flat forest had been the stagnant waters of the pond. The water in the gourds was slightly muddy; it left a sharp, flinty aftertaste of dust in the mouth. Did she scratch at the soil with her bare hands or did she use a stone or a stick to coax water to well up from under the earth?

Water. Water was the key to everything. He would simply have to snatch it from the old woman.

He spent two days watching her continuously. She went off into the forest about twelve times a day. Sometimes she wasn’t gone for long, and came back with herbs, bulbs or a lizard. If she took two gourds with her, she was gone for more than an hour.

He was not so interested in knowing where to find water within half an hour’s walk of Round Bay. What he really wanted to find out was whether or not there was any fresh water within striking distance of the coast. In this eternally unchanging landscape, he had to know where to go to find water.

Seeing the old woman pick up her empty gourds, he began to follow her, staying a few paces behind her. She seemed unaware of his presence. They walked in what seemed to him like a straight line through the rows of identical trees for at least a quarter of an hour. And then she sat down on the ground. Keeping at a distance of about ten metres, he sat down to wait until she decided to set off again. In the silvery half-light of the undergrowth, he watched her, never taking his eyes off her.

Water. All his troubles had started with the water shortage, the ruined barrels on the
Saint-Paul
. Water was the reason they had sailed along this coast of Australia. In Java, which they must by now have left to come and find him, his shipmates would have regaled themselves drinking bad wine, Dutch beer, coconut water, juice from the fruits of every colour that he’d seen in the markets of the Cape or Ceylon the year before. But it was not the varied flavours of all these drinks that he longed for. It was only water he craved. Water, fresh and clean. At home, the family’s well gave them water all year round. The bucket, the rope, the pulley… he pictured the tranquil scene, saw himself as a boy, proudly bringing his mother the few litres she needed to prepare supper and clean up afterwards.

A few moments later, he became aware that the old woman had disappeared. He must have taken his eyes off her for just a few seconds, and she’d left. She couldn’t have gone very far. Jumping up, he ran about aimlessly in every direction. Try as he might, however much he swore, however frantically he beat around in the bushes, he could see no sign of her and not the least indication of the presence of any water. After wandering around in vain, and coming to the realisation that with all this milling about he would end up completely lost, he made his way back, somewhat sheepishly to Round Bay and the encampment.

The old woman was sitting there, her water pouches filled beside her. She seemed not to notice his arrival.

He followed her three more times, changing his tactics with each foray. Three times she vanished before his very eyes.

He tried to convince himself that these two days had not been wasted. He had found out how far away the water was. And he knew now that the old woman, for some reason he did not understand, did not want to show him where she found it.

That evening, collecting shellfish in Round Bay with Waiakh, who was always at his side now, he ate a few raw oysters before the fire was lit. Finding an irregular white pearl in one of the oysters, he washed it and gazed at it with conflicting emotions. It was not a priceless specimen, but it was big and white and well-formed enough to be worth something. With it, he’d be able to negotiate a good price in any port in the world. Two months earlier, he would have appreciated this unexpected bonus. He’d have slipped the pearl into his pocket and kept it there until the next port of call. But here… he had no pockets, he was naked, and there was no prospect of finding anyone to negotiate with. The rarest of pearls was worthless here. Even the most enormous of gold nuggets would have no value in this place. No savage would accept the pearl in exchange for a piece of meat, no woman here would think of wearing it as jewellery. It was nothing more than a growth in a shell, a plaything for Waiakh. Bitterly disappointed, he threw it down on the sand, as far away as he could.

Five minutes later, he was running to and fro like a madman, desperately searching for the discarded pearl. By a stroke of luck, he found it half buried in the sand. Throwing away the pearl would mean he’d given up hope. But help would come, he would have the pearl with him when he boarded ship. He’d have more pearls too. There would be others concealed within the oysters in the bay. He would have to search for them, keep them in a safe place. He pictured himself building up a cache of pearls in each of the bays so that wherever help arrived for him, he wouldn’t go away empty-handed. When the time came for him to escape, by sea or on land, he’d take the pearls with him; they’d weigh virtually nothing.

In the middle of the beach in Round Bay stood a huge boulder, its shape reminiscent of a small chapel. Examining it carefully on all sides, he found an indentation on the surface that faced the sea and the waves, big enough for him to sink his fist into. He gathered some small rocks and tufts of dried grass, placed them in the niche in the boulder and set the pearl on top. This would be his strong-box. Waiakh copied him and found a hole in the rock he could easily reach, into which he solemnly placed some pebbles.

A pearl… a pearl necklace perhaps? He imagined thirty or forty perfectly formed identical white pearls in his cache, pearls destined to grace the neck of a Princess. But no. It could never happen. How many oysters would he have to open? How many days and weeks spent camping at Round Bay? Every pearl would mark an eternity, the slow passage of time, grains of sand running through an hourglass…

No, there would only ever be one pearl: the
Saint-Paul
would reappear within a few days at the most. He would board the ship with his pearl. He wouldn’t sell it, he’d have it set in China or in Aden, mounted in silver on a leather cord, he would take it home for his sister. In his trunk aboard ship, under his clothes, he had stored a length of purple moiré fabric, threaded with gold. He’d bought it in the Cape from an Indian trader. How pretty his sister would look wearing this shawl and the pearl pendant. How proud he’d be of her. Suitors would vie for her attention, and when the time came, she‘d say yes to a respectable young man and live happily for the rest of her days. She would wear the mysterious pearl around her neck and no one would know where it came from.