What Became of the White Savage (29 page)

They walked without stopping until nightfall. Wanderer was waiting for them at the bivouac, a fire already lit. The old woman made no move to go and fill the empty water gourds. The hunters had little to offer, and just as during the first few days – or perhaps because they had left the beach – Narcisse was no longer permitted to go up to the fire and serve himself. He had to wait until the old woman brought him his meagre pittance. When she came back for the second time, Wanderer barred her way, took the small morsel that she was intending for Narcisse, swallowed it in one mouthful and looked Narcisse up and down. It was a look he knew well, the chin jutting forward, looking for a fight. This savage didn’t scare him. He needed a good thrashing; that would soon show him who was stronger. He was playing a dangerous game, deliberately humiliating a sailor from the
Saint-Paul
. Narcisse would be only too happy to give this arrogant little fellow a severe punishment. He’d learnt plenty of moves in various ports. He knew how to throw a punch and it would give him great pleasure to use his skills to teach him a lesson. But it wouldn’t be wise to make a show of his strength. He had no way of knowing how the tribe might react. What if they didn’t approve of the punishment he meted out to Wanderer? If all the men were to come to Wanderer’s defence, Narcisse would not be able to overpower them all. The only time he’d tried that, he’d been defeated by their sheer numbers, and had lost half his ear as a result. He had no desire to go through that again. He gritted his teeth and let the moment pass. The old woman did not come back with any more food for him.

He would have to use his intelligence to save himself, not brute force. He pondered his situation. Wanderer had left the night before with the old woman. Whatever he had been doing all day, he’d arrived at the designated spot for the encampment. So they must all have a map of the area in their heads, and maybe some sort of compass too. They could arrange to meet in specific places and get there following different routes. He would have to gain the same knowledge of the terrain to be able to get away when the time came. The more he walked about the territory with them, the better equipped he’d be to walk through it alone.

He also needed to work out just why Wanderer was treating him as he was. All the others seemed completely indifferent to him. When he fell short on respecting their strange customs, they would demonstrate what he was supposed to do: they let him know that he had to wait until the old woman gave him food after all the men had eaten, instead of helping himself to meat. But once he had shown that he’d understood and done what they asked of him, they paid him no more attention. They bore him no malice for his lack of knowledge of their ways.

But Wanderer’s hostility was unrelenting; it was systematic and more marked now than during the first few days. If the tribe had decided as a group to make Narcisse welcome, to help him and feed him, to burden themselves with him, Wanderer’s attitude must surely have seemed most disrespectful to the elders. Narcisse tried to imagine a similar situation in his village: if a stranger were welcomed by the mayor, the curate or some other pillar of the community, they would all be expected to treat him with courtesy. If one of the boys showed a lack of respect towards the stranger, his impertinence would soon be punished with a slap.

They seemed to be about the same age, as far as Narcisse could tell, although it was difficult to judge how old any of them were. Was Wanderer afraid he might provide competition? Did he see him as a rival with girls? That was impossible. Narcisse had never shown the slightest interest in any of the girls, and he didn’t have to pretend either. Was it to do with the old woman then? Was Wanderer jealous of what she’d done for him? She’d looked after him, brought him food. He didn’t understand why she’d done all this, but that hardly mattered. She knew what she was supposed to do. Did he feel threatened for some unfathomable reason?

What was Wanderer’s relationship to the old woman? Was he her son perhaps, her grandson, a nephew, a godson? And who was his father? He had to work out the relationships between the members of the tribe and stop seeing them all as interchangeable. He tried thinking of the old woman as a Dowager Princess, Wanderer as a hot-headed Prince of royal blood. Was his position threatened by the arrival of a white man? Why? How could a white man’s presence be such a threat? He had no way of finding answers to these questions. Not yet. But he would. He’d find answers.

He’d had plenty of opportunity to get used to the blows and rebuffs dealt out by a brutal and distant older brother at home and in his father’s workshop. He didn’t like the way his brother Lucien treated him, and he fought back. Wanderer was like Lucien’s malevolent double, and he could no more avoid him than he could his brother before he left home.

If Wanderer wasn’t his friend, so what? He didn’t need friends, he didn’t want to make any friends among these savages.

The hunger was back; the scrap of meat that Wanderer had stolen from him would have done nothing to satisfy it. He lay down in the dirt and did his best not to think about the copious meals they’d eaten on the beach. Here on the plateau with its sparse trees and scrub, the men must know how to unearth creatures like lizards and desert rats. He would have to learn the same skills so that he’d be able to feed himself when he escaped.

He’d make a friend of any hunter ready to teach him his skills.

Vallombrun, 15th April 1862

Monsieur le Président,

I have received the most recent edition of the Geographical Society Review with its two-page article on the plenary session of 2nd September.

I have done as I believe you would have advised and have waited for one week after reading the article before I put pen to paper. You had left me in no doubt that you considered my initial response to events of that afternoon to be unduly fervent and that I had reacted too hastily. I waited a further three days before beginning this missive to you, spending my mornings in walks through the still snow-covered fields around the castle, reflecting upon matters.

(I have of course disregarded the brief articles that appeared in the press in the autumn, which gave only a very poor idea of the importance of my presentation. One cartoon did however cause me to smile for a moment: a barbed caricature depicting the Duc de Morny suggesting to the white savage that he enrol in the duke’s expedition to Mexico. Will this prove to be the abiding image instilled in the public imagination: the spectacle of a savage dressed in a grotesque fur cape and a feather headdress?)

I am still most irate. If you have been good enough to keep my letter of 3rd September, I ask you to read my account of the meeting once more, and urge you to bring to mind your own recollections of that afternoon. Is this the same session as the one described in the Review? Was the individual who penned those lines actually present that afternoon? Or does he mock me? In signing only his initials he adds cowardice to his treachery, although his identity is transparent to you and me alike.

My first thought was to cancel my subscription to the Review, but on reflection I perceived that in depriving myself of this incomparable source of valuable information, I would be punishing only myself.

I considered the possibility of seeking legal redress. But against whom, and for what crime? I went so far as to consult an advocate of my acquaintance and was persuaded that such a course would be most ill-advised.

Should I challenge the writer to a duel? But why should I put my own life at the mercy of his pistol? If anyone were to be injured or die in such a confrontation, it would surely be me.

It has not escaped me that according to the statutes of our Society, in particular article 24, the president of the committee responsible for the Review acts independently and is not subject to your authority. In addressing these remarks to you, I am not seeking your support, nor do I wish to place you in a compromising position: I wish only to keep you informed, out of courtesy for our long-standing association.

I am therefore addressing a note to the said president asking him to rectify all the errors in the unsigned account published in the Autumn-Winter edition of 1861. You will smile and point out to me that my nineteen-page response is considerably longer than the short piece it criticises. But I have no desire to choose which of the myriad nonsensical assertions printed in the Review to refute and which to disregard. The president of the committee will publish my letter in its entirety, in part, or not at all, as he pleases. For myself, I shall find out if I am dealing with an honourable man.

I am no less incensed when I consider that this constitutes all that will be known of the tragedy of Narcisse Pelletier: those who were not present at the session will think only of this caricature of a fairground side-show in which a skilfully disguised phenomenon is exposed to the prurient gaze of onlookers. This sneering and partisan account is an insult not just to my unfortunate friend and to me. It is an affront to you too: you are not the ringmaster of a circus. My remarks will redress all this and establish the truth of the affair.

I struggle to find words to express the extent to which this fallacious report wounds me. I have already given you my thoughts on the Society’s plenary session: I had cherished the hope that it would go some way towards restoring the truth of this affair after the debacle in London. This was not to be. The editor of the Review has endorsed the lies, become party to a calumny and what is worse, displayed self-satisfied ignorance.

I must tell you that for more than a year now, all my efforts, my energy, my travels and – I cannot deny it – a part of my fortune have been devoted to Pelletier’s travails. To see what is perhaps the greatest endeavour of my life reduced to… to this wretched account. This is not merely a personal injustice. It is a loss to science.

Will Her Majesty the Empress prove to be the only person to have understood the importance of this affair?

While certain small-minded individuals were occupied writing for the Review, Narcisse Pelletier, storekeeper third class at the Baleines Lighthouse, was demonstrating the kind of courage rarely seen among members of our Society. You will admonish me for this acerbic remark, but I must ask you to consider: who is more deserving of our admiration? Monsieur Decouz taking notes at a plenary session before an evening at the opera, or Narcisse Pelletier, at that remote outpost assailed by howling winds and pounding waves, with only the nearby saltworks or storms at sea to gaze upon? The Reverend Father Leroy, more oft plotting than praying, or Narcisse Pelletier, assiduously learning his new occupation, always smiling and ready to help his fellow workers? Monsieur Collet-Hespas, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, heir to a flourishing business created by his industrious father, or Narcisse Pelletier who possesses only the shirt on his back, and depends on the lighthouse keepers for his daily bread?

I am beside myself with rage. My ill humour renders me unable to think rationally. Surely it is I who am the injured party in this affair.

I could all too easily continue in this vein for many pages, at the risk of exhausting your good will. Rather than continuing therefore on this acrimonious note, I shall instead give you the news from the Île de Ré, whither I returned some two months ago.

The new storekeeper greeted me as if we had been parted for no more than a day, with the same smile and equanimity of mood that never leaves him – is this a sign of profound wisdom, or simply a mask? Harmony seems to reign with his fellows. They are appreciative of his pleasant disposition; indeed they burden him with perhaps too many lowly tasks, but Narcisse does not balk at hard work and all are satisfied.

He has revealed an unexpected talent for shore fishing using a small harpoon fashioned by his own hand. Whenever he has a free moment he is to be found barefoot on the shore when the tide is out, in all weathers, searching through the rock pools. He never returns empty-handed. The lighthouse master was most concerned when he beheld Narcisse on the beach at nightfall in foul weather. But Narcisse made nothing of his warnings and the men soon became accustomed to seeing him return at the dead of night, soaked to the skin, his bag filled with fish. He is equally skilled in collecting a great profusion of all kinds of shellfish, so much so that his fellows, who are mostly meat-eaters, tire of his offerings. When his harvest is refused, he goes into the village and distributes the contents of his basket to those who desire to avail themselves of his bounty.

Much to my surprise, I continue to learn new secrets of Australia.

Narcisse’s lighthouse colleagues have spoken to me of his “cat’s eyes”, a phenomenon I had never had occasion to observe since we had always had the benefit of candlelight or gaslight in the evenings. On the Île de Ré, however, such luxuries are a rarity. Narcisse moves around in unlit corridors and in the darkest of huts without any difficulty, just as if it were full daylight. It is only when he is plunged into the blackest of nights, when there is not the smallest glimmer of light, that he begins to move gingerly and stumble over the furniture. This remarkable capacity to find his way in the dark can only have been acquired in Australia, perhaps during night-time hunting expeditions, or nightly vigils and bivouacs under the stars.

Permit me to give you another example of Narcisse’s unusual skills. I accompanied him on one of his fishing expeditions at the beach. He equipped himself with his harpoon, a sort of spear which he wields with immense skill. Desiring to learn how he had made it, and knowing that an abstract question on this subject would go unanswered, I merely said: “Narcisse, I too would like to fish. Will you make one for me?”

Without a word, he went straight to work. He selected a woody, twisted shrub growing at the edge of the beach, broke off a branch and stripped off the twigs. The shape of the harpoon was vaguely discernible. Then he carefully chose a stone – which to my untutored eye looked no different from any other – and used it to shape the branch and sharpen the points of the fork at the end. Working, not as one can with a good knife, but with sharp downward movements of the entire right arm, he seemed almost to stroke the piece of wood as he shaved it down to the exact thickness required. Patiently and with perfect efficiency, he shaped the handle. Every blow struck home, none was wasted, the handle emerging as rounded as if it had been manufactured on a lathe and polished with sand paper. I gazed admiringly at his handiwork, but it was not yet finished.