Barkskins (14 page)

•  •  •

Late every afternoon when the day's continuing bargaining was finished Duquet and Captain Verdwijnen enjoyed a glass of
jenever
in the courtyard. The two men had become used to each other. Duquet several times, between panegyrics on the forests of New France, said he wished to arrange another passage as soon as possible, but Captain Verdwijnen always slipped to another subject.

“How do you like this pretty little table I've bought for Margit? That old rogue Wuqua bargained as though I was trying to buy his precious dragonfly garden. At one point he actually fell off the chair and rolled on the floor laughing like a madman. A complete loss of face. But in the end I got it for a good price.”

“Hah!” laughed Duquet. Wuqua, the old rogue, had learned a new trick from him.

•  •  •

Often one or two of the captain's maritime friends, Piet Roos and Jan Goossen, captains of their own ships, dined with them. The face of Piet was like a pale plate set with two round eyes the color of raw sugar. His hair was almost the color of his skin and thus invisible. He dressed in the French mode, black silk culottes and coat set off by a froth of fine lace at the neck. Jan wore an immense sword and coarse workman's fustian trousers. These contrasting men seemed familiar to Duquet and he finally asked about them.

“Of course they are familiar. You saw them in the Rock and Shoal in La Rochelle.” Captain Verdwijnen lowered his voice to a whisper. “I told you, they are my partners, my
vrienden.
Piet is my brother-in-law, Jan is my cousin. You didn't think I could defy the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie and bear the expense of this voyage alone, did you?”

Duquet said, “
I
would like to be a partner with you for the sake of the furs. And for my future lumber enterprise. We could make money together, don't you think?”

After a long silence Captain Outger Verdwijnen spoke slowly. “You know that the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie for many years tightly controlled Dutch trade with India, China and Japan, the Spice Islands. No private merchant was allowed to do business nor travel through the Strait of Magellan.”

“But men
do
try. And succeed,” said Duquet.

“If you tried and were caught your goods were seized, your ship taken, and you were punished by the VOC's stony hand. That is what happened to Willem Schouten, who discovered Kaap Hoorn. Now the Company is weaker, but still watchful. My
vrienden
and I made a secret partnership to enter the India-China trade ourselves—and someday even Japan—by banding resources together and sailing together. This is our fourth voyage and it is going well. Of course Piet and Jan own their boats and I am just the captain for Herr Grinz, but I hope to make enough on this trip to buy a good little
fluyt.
I am not altogether sure there is a place in our arrangement for a timber merchant. There may be—I don't know. I fear a
fluyt
could not carry great loads of timber. Our West Indies want lumber, but I prefer to continue the China trade. If I were you I would look into the Indies trade.”

But Duquet, with stubborn single-mindedness, began once again to describe the forests of New France. The Dutchman interrupted him.

“My young friend,” he said. “Allow someone with knowledge of the world to offer a comment. You speak always as though New France were your country.”

“It is. Our fortunes are intertwined. It is a new world, rich and beauteous with massive forests and powerful rivers. It is a place that has earned my respect.”

“May I remind you that your New France is not a sovereign country but the colony of a major European power? May I, from long observation of the political machinations of these great powers, introduce a note of caution? The kings of these strong countries do not know their colonies and overseas settlements. They have never been there, nor have their ministers. For them those colonies are colored blotches on maps, they are only counters in the savage games of war, only sources of income. They do not give a fig for anything else. And I might observe that you are not wary enough of France's European enemies, especially England. It might fall out that France trades or otherwise divests itself of New France, as the occasion dictates.”

“That could never happen.”

“Of course not. But I have heard that France, the mother country, is not particularly enamored of New France, that supply ships are often very late, that she keeps her population at home instead of urging settlement in this northern paradise, that favors and help are conspicuously absent, that she is unwilling to open her markets to what is in a way her own child.”

“That is only temporary,” said Duquet sullenly, not liking these truths.

“You will see how temporary and remember this conversation if France comes to war with one of the powers and, not doing well, is forced to give up something. How long do you think New France will stay inviolate?”

•  •  •

In the months since they had arrived Captain Verdwijnen arranged to have the ship hauled onto a nearby beach where it could be cleaned, everything removed from the interior. A hundred Chinese men removed the ordure-coated ballast stones from the bilges and laid them in the beating surf, scraped down the bilges, removed the stinking limber ropes and threaded new ones. They laid down a bed of clean sand before replacing the surf-scoured ballast, scraped the exterior bottom free from barnacles and seaweeds (for it was an uncoppered ship), recaulked and repainted the vessel inside and out. The
Steenarend
was refloated and for days long lines of men carrying chests and boxes packed the hold. The reprovisioned ship was fresh and clean, stuffed with the luxury goods of the China trade, and fifty flowering plants. They set off for the Bay of Bengal, with crates of lemons and mangoes to keep them safe from scurvy.

•  •  •

In India, Captain Verdwijnen exchanged some of the ceramics and silks for more cabbages and fruit, spices, especially cloves and pepper, and picked up a chest of Patna opium for medicinal trade in Amsterdam. Duquet's busy mind, once again dense with forest thoughts, took note.

“Such a three-corner trading route could work for a lumber merchant, could it not?”

“Yes, but in my case the profits would be better if I bought the opium going forward, for there is a growing market in China for it. But we were pressed for time. Many foreign traders are taking advantage of the demand. Why should I not as well? But perhaps you were not thinking of opium?”

“But, yes. I was.” He was thirty-two and on the way to his fortune.

O
n the home voyage some of the sailors refused to drink the scurvy-preventing lemon juice and threw the mangoes overboard (as they had the oranges and bok choy) when they thought they were unobserved. Those who were caught had the choice of sucking two lemons dry or enduring ten lashes. Most chose the lashes, for they believed that salt meat, hardtack and cheese so stale and granitic they had to be cut with an ax were manly foods suited to sailors. Lemons were not well regarded. Captain Verdwijnen smiled and said he hoped they would enjoy their scurvy. And soon enough those men began to move stiffly, leaving bloodstains on their hardtack, bending double with gut-ripping pains. There was great laughter one day and Toppunt, seeking the cause, found one of the lemon haters staring at his ration of hardtack. He had tried to gnaw it and it came away from his mouth bloodied and with three teeth embedded in it. Now the voyage seemed interminable but Captain Verdwijnen made one more stop.

The ship made port at Ghana, picked up thirty slaves and crowded them into the cargo hold with the crates of porcelain, the rare plants and the chest of Patna. There was not a cat's whisker of free space on the vessel. In the dark hold the slaves got at the contents of the opium chest, a fortuitous find which greatly eased their passage. They found and ate the rare plants, blossom, leaf, stem, root and soil. It was only when they sighted France that the loss was discovered.

Captain Verdwijnen, when he had recovered from his shock, drinking his evening
jenever
put a question to Duquet.

“So, my friend, what think you the value of those slaves now?”

Duquet thought before he answered. The affair had its comic side but he would keep his smiles to himself.

“To you, they must have a very high value, for when you add up the cost of the slaves themselves, then cipher in what you paid for the plants and the opium, they become precious, likely far above the market price for slaves.”

“Quite so,” said Verdwijnen. “But. It is more complicated than that. For neither the plants nor the opium have fixed prices that are the same everywhere. What amount might I have received for the opium, which is an expensive and desirable medicine? And what if some of the plants soared in value as tulips did in my grandfather's time? Should those estimated future prices be factored into the value of the slaves? And what about the slave buyer? He would see only a slave, not the opium and rare orchids the creatures ingested. To him, the value is the slave-market price.”

He thought a moment, then went on. “The slaves, opium and plants were mine. That's all.”

“But do you not hold marine insurance for this trip? With the men in the coffeehouse in La Rochelle?”

“That, too, is complicated. Of course Herr Grinz's ship was insured by the coffeehouse men against loss, piracy and wreck, and also his cargo of silk and tea, but the rest . . . no. Piet, Jan and I are self-insured through our
partenrederijen,
so the risks fall equally on all of us. Piet and Jan own their ships—I alone had to hire out to Herr Grinz. They will share my losses and I will share their profits.”

Duquet nodded. The motion of the ship was very slight as they were passing through slick water in which long windrows of seaweed made a pattern like a gigantic tweed cloak. He felt slight sympathy for Captain Outger Verdwijnen, who had made a negligible profit from the long, perilous journey, very little to show for all his bargaining and diplomatic skills. Unexpected dangers in business were part of the game. Captain Verdwijnen gave a hard laugh and said, “It's always a risk, such a voyage. We might easily have lost the ship and all its contents, we might have lost our lives, we might have been captured by pirates and sold as slaves ourselves. I look on the pleasant side. We have evaded cyclones and pirates. I still have Margit's little table—and I still have the slaves. I'll get something for them, so in the end it is only the opium and the rare plants that I have lost. In any case we Dutch do not mind taking a risk. If business and enterprise is a fruit, we understand risk is its inner kernel.” He stretched his legs and half-smiled. “Besides, I also placed some bets at the coffeehouse before we sailed that the ship would not wreck, that we would dodge pirates, and that I would return very much alive and twice as clever. There is my profit.”

And so they returned to France, where the
Steenarend
would stay for three weeks, Duquet chafing to see the new finery which would present him as a person of value and importance.

T
hey were late arriving in Paris and rather than go to the tailor's shop in the deepening dusk Toppunt and Duquet spent the night at an inn.

The tailor seemed surprised to see them. Duquet, trying on his finery behind an embroidered screen with the help of Jules, the tailor's assistant, listened while Toppunt and the tailor conversed.

“We have heard so many ships were lost in storms and to pirates that I thought yours was surely among them.”

“Not this time,” said Toppunt, “though we were severely lashed by typhoons and came close to being driven onto the rocks off the east coast of Africa, a vicious shore. There is more to the sea than water—there is the land that constricts it.”

“The sea is the master of all men.”

“Not our captain. He is a skilled navigator and of a pleasant nature unlike most ship captains. He is a good man. This was my fourth voyage with him and I will never ship out with another captain.”

“And if he dies?” asked the tailor. “Will you accompany him on that voyage as well?”

“Ha ha,” said Toppunt, “we'll see. It depends on his port of call.”

Duquet, a vision in blue, stepped out from behind the screen and turned about to show the fit of his costume.

“So,” said Toppunt. “Even a prince would envy you.”

The tailor held both hands up and praised Duquet's legs—“You are certainly a man not in need of calf pads. You, sir, have a well-turned leg.”

After this blandishment the tailor tried to wheedle more money from him. “It's for storage. And I gave the costume very much care, dusting the shoulders, airing it outdoors, protecting it from my cat.” Duquet took out his smallest coin and spun it on the tailor's table.

•  •  •

The wigmaker's shop was closed, but with loud pounding they raised the proprietor, whose pointed nose gleamed wet. He coughed incessantly.

“The powder on the wigs, you know. It's quite irritating. I have lately changed to a powder made from curious lichens that grow on rocks, and it does not trouble me so severely. I have heard they use it to poison wolves, so rest assured that your fine wig will never be plagued by those ferocious animals.”

He brought the wigs out. Toppunt's was black and glossy and very smart. Duquet's was enormous and heavy, of auburn color with countless long ringlets that cascaded down his back and over his shoulders.

“Do you wish it powdered?” asked the wigmaker. He produced a hacking sound.

“No, no,” said Duquet, staring at himself in the shop's watery mirror. Between the blue shimmer of the garments, the flash of his ivory teeth and the expensive wig he was transformed into an apparent gentleman—what Toppunt, not altogether kindly, called a
schijn-heer
—an almost-gentleman.