Читать книгу Servants of the Map - Andrea Barrett - Страница 11

April 21, 1864

My dearest, my beloved Clara—

Forgive me for not writing in so long. I have been sick—nothing serious, nothing you need worry about, although it did linger. But I am fully recovered now, in time to join the rest of the party on our march back into the mountains. This season, I expect, will be much like the last. Different mountains, similar work; in October I will be done with the services I contracted for and the Survey will be completed. From my letters of last season you will have a good idea of what I’ll be doing. But Clara …

Max pauses, then crosses out the last two words. What he should say is what he knows she wants to hear: that when October comes he’ll be on his way back to her, as they agreed. But he doesn’t want to lie to her. Not yet.

His party is camped by a frozen stream. The porters are butchering a goat. Michaels, in a nearby tent, has just explained to the men their assignments for the coming week; soon it will be time to eat; Max has half an hour to finish this letter and no way to say what he really means: that after the season is finished, he wants to stay on.

Everything has changed for me, he wants to say. I am changed, I know now who I am and what I want and I can only hope you accept this, and continue to wait for me. I want to stay a year longer. When the Survey ends, in October, I want to wait out the winter in Srinagar, writing up all I have learned and seen so far; and then I want to spend next spring and summer traveling by myself. If I had this time to explore, to test myself, discover the secrets of these mountains—it would be enough, I could be happy with this, it would last me the rest of my life. When I come home, I mean to try to establish myself as a botanist. I have no hope of doing so without taking this time and working solely on my studies.

But he can’t write any of that. Behind him men are laughing, a fire is burning, he can smell the first fragrance of roasting meat. He is off again, to the cold bare brilliance of a place like the moon, and what he can’t explain, yet, to Clara is that he needs other time, during the growing season, to study the plants in the space between the timberline and the line of permanent snow. How do the species that have arisen here differ from those in other places? How do they make a life for themselves, in such difficult circumstances?

Could Clara understand this? He will break it to her gently, he thinks. A hint, at first; a few more suggestions in letters over the coming months; in September he’ll raise the subject. By then he’ll have found some position that will pay his salary while leaving him sufficient time for his own work. Perhaps he’ll have more encouragement from Dr. Hooker by then, which he can offer to Clara as evidence that his work is worthwhile. Perhaps he’ll understand by then how he might justify his plans to her. For now—what else can he say in this letter? He has kept too much from her, these last months. If his letters were meant to be a map of his mind, a way for her to follow his trail, then he has failed her. Somehow, as summer comes to these peaks and he does his job for the last time, he must find a way to let her share in his journey. But for now all he can do is triangulate the first few points.

… I have so much to tell you, Clara. And no more time today; what will you think, after all these months, when you receive such a brief letter? Know that I am thinking of you and the girls, no matter what I do. I promise we’ll do whatever you want when I return: I know how much you miss your brother, perhaps we will join him in New York. I would like that, I think. I would like to start over, all of us, someplace new. Somewhere I can be my new self, live my new life, in your company.

Next to my heart, in an oilskin pouch, I keep the lock of Elizabeth’s hair and your last unopened letter to me, with your solemn instruction on the envelope: To be Opened if You Know You Will Not Return to Me. If the time comes, I will open it. But the time won’t come; I will make it back, I will be with you again.

This comes to you with all my love, from your dearest

Max