Читать книгу Barkskins - Энни Пру, Annie Proulx - Страница 19

Without exception every ship captain he approached was exceedingly suspicious, for trade routes and overseas contacts were under constant threat by spies, and Duquet was immediately and repeatedly identified as a French spy. Only after detailed descriptions of the forests of Kébec and the rigors of the fur trade—as well as a flash of the marten skin he had begun to carry as proof of his identity—could he prove his disinterested innocence in matters of trade route secrets.

In the Rock and Shoal, a sailors’ tavern on the waterfront, he noticed a group of convivial men who seemed all to be captain mariners. They spoke in a mixture of languages, mostly German, French, Portuguese, Flemish and Dutch, and seemed to be placing bets. One, whom he heard called Captain Verdwijnen, a fair-faced man with a large nose and scarred cheek, wheaten wisps of unshorn hair sticking out from the edges of his ill-seated wig, particularly caught his eye because of his ceaseless motions and apparent sanguine temperament. Duquet edged closer to the group until he was nearly among them, grasping at half-understood words in the Babel of discourse. After a long time Verdwijnen made his excuses to the company and said he had to get back to his ship. Duquet followed him out into the dark street. The captain suddenly spun around and flashed a dagger at Duquet.

“Footpad!” he shouted into the night. “Help! Robbery! Assault! Murther!”

“Captain Verdwijnen,” said Duquet. “I am no footpad. I am a friend, I am a fur merchant from New France, begging your favor.” And he bowed low, making a clumsy leg. He presented himself as an enterprising businessman. He became the sweet-voiced persuasive Duquet, talked on, explaining and mollifying, opening his pack of furs, which he carried on his back like a peddler. He said that he could pay for his passage—he had enjoyed a good sale of his furs in Montreal, keeping out the best to trade in the east. Moreover, he would supply the captain with cases of the best Schiedam jenever for the voyage, the special distillation of gin with a green label showing a large yellow eye, the eye of a furious lion, far superior to the slop the captain had swallowed in the Rock and Shoal. Look, he had a bottle in his coat pocket this very minute, and he swung the garment open to show the luteous eye. The Dutchman thawed a little and told Duquet to follow him aboard his ship, Steenarend, the Golden Eagle, where they could speak more comfortably. Duquet was surprised to see it was an armed, full-rigged, three-masted frigate, which could accommodate more than a hundred men, the gun room painted red to hide bloodstains.

“There are many pirates in the South China Sea,” explained Captain Verdwijnen. Duquet had seen him drink countless glasses of jenever in the sailors’ tavern, but the man spoke with clarity and decisiveness.

The captain said he was indeed suspicious of foreigners, especially the French and English, most of whom were spies, and it could cost him his livelihood to take Duquet aboard if the ship’s German owner heard of it, and of course he would hear of it. He glared at Duquet and clenched his fists.

“What you are asking me to do is a grave thing. I cannot do it. Why, sir, it is a thing that was never done before. And never should be done. Nooit—never.” He wrenched his face through an extraordinary series of grimaces and frowns. Duquet spoke humbly.

“I am only interested in securing a market for my furs. And I am most sensible, dear captain, of the honor you do me by even discussing such a matter.” His mouth curved, his eyes winked. He smiled, opened his coat and took out the bottle, uncorked it and handed it to the captain. “Perhaps we can discuss it further,” he said softly, “if you do not hold me to be completely odious?” He had marked the captain as one who would do much for a little cup of spirits, not unlike the Indians of the north.

The captain’s cabin was a great room, the rear windows giving a vertiginous view of the port. There was a single chair before a mahogany table covered with charts. The captain waved Duquet to a small side bench bolted to the floor; under it lay a huge mastiff that growled at Duquet. The captain sat in his chair, now holding a glass brimming with that best jenever. He nodded at the glass.

“Good. We Dutch must drink or die, you know.” He swallowed. “Or so they say.”

Duquet opened his pack and laid several of the furs atop the charts. The dog looked at the furs with interest.

“Of course I am always happy to buy furs myself to take to Amsterdam,” the captain said.

“I shall keep that in mind, but my information is that I can get a great deal of money for them in China. And I wish to establish a trading connection in that place.”

Captain Outger Verdwijnen squinted his eyes. Duquet might understand more about business than he showed. Or, indeed Duquet might be a spy, evil thought. But after an hour of serious drinking, when the captain knew Duquet a little better, he abandoned the spy characterization, and when he learned his guest would send ten cases of the green-and-gold-labeled bottles aboard, he told Duquet he might make the journey.

“We sail in two weeks. It is already April, late in the season to begin this voyage. We must catch the southwest monsoon winds that carry ships to India and China between June and September, so make ready and be here on the appointed day. I will show you your quarters, which you will share with Mijnheer Toppunt,” he said, and he led Duquet to a pitifully small and rank cubby, though there was a scuttle. His bunk was a wide plank. The other contained a roll of grey blankets and a great leathern bag. On the floor, as though tossed there, were sea boots and heavy gloves, and that constituted Mijnheer Toppunt’s presence.

Ashore the next day Duquet ordered three dozen cases of the green-label gin delivered to the ship. At the ship chandler’s shop he outfitted himself with a hammock, rough, sturdy clothes and an oiled cape sworn to keep rain out, a bound ledger, quills and ink, an expensive spyglass and a bag of brown sugar.

A week before they sailed, Captain Verdwijnen hailed him. “Monsieur Duquet,” he said. “I am going to the coffeehouse to arrange my insurance. As you propose to get into business, perhaps you would like to accompany me for the valuable contacts?” Certainly Duquet would. What a stroke of fortune.

They walked for twenty minutes before they reached the coffeehouse and entered a large room where men sat at tables with papers and account books in front of them. Some scribbled furiously, others talked, pushing their faces forward. At the back of the room five bewigged men laughed as a sixth read from a letter. Near the front a woman handed bowls of hot beverage to serving boys and Captain Verdwijnen called out for two coffees—“deux cafés”—and led Duquet to the back table of laughing men, the marine insurance brokers. As they approached, the laughing faded away and six serious and attentive faces turned toward them.

“Ah, Captain Verdwijnen. Here to arrange your insurance, no doubt? Would this gentleman with you be the shipowner?”

Captain Verdwijnen’s laugh was a bray. “No, no, he is not the owner of the ship, he is Monsieur Duquet, a gentleman from New France in the timber export business. At the moment he is carrying furs. I thought he might like to meet you gentlemen for future consultations.”

The serving boy brought the coffee. Duquet looked suspiciously at the sinister black liquid. It was scalding and bitter, a very dreadful potion, but he drank it. In a quarter of an hour he felt ideas rushing into his head—he memorized the faces before him with newly sharpened senses.

As he looked around he saw a man of about thirty-five with a face that seemed made of some flesh-like material that, once formed, remained set and immobile. A pair of little obsidian eyes looked out at the world as if measuring an antagonist. The unsmiling mouth was pinched and suggested meanness. The ringed fingers and flamboyant crimson sleeves did little to soften the impression of suspicious calculation.

The man’s gaze rose from the black sums he was making and fixed on Duquet. The space between them quivered with a discharge of mutual antipathy.

“Who is that man?” Duquet murmured to the captain, letting the words slip out quietly.

“He is a Lübeck trader in wax and metal ores I believe—here and in Bruges. How he does stare! It is as if he knows you.”

“He does not know me, nor will he ever know me,” said Duquet, but the man’s stiff look indicated that he was familiar with the likes of Duquet through and through; it was the stare of a predator encountering another of its kind nosing about in its territory.