Landfalls (8 page)

Lamanon decides to send her some of the white beans. “Have Jer
ô
me plant them against the south-facing wall in the potager,” he writes. “They are delicious. Think of me when you eat them.” He signs the letter “Robert,” opens the sack meant for the new mayor by way of the minister of marine, and counts out twenty beans. They make a dry, scattering sound as he drops them onto the paper.

His letters complete, he makes his way back up on deck (going up not nearly as painful as coming down) and delivers them—and the beans—to the officer in charge. Then he goes to the rail and gazes south through his spyglass. He is looking for the Tropic of Cancer. Some of the seamen, put off by his airs and amused by his gullibility, have told him the tropic is visible from here. “Like a green line straight across the sea, sir,” they tell him. “It's a sight a scientifical gentleman such as yourself ought not miss.” Lap
é
rouse witnesses this from the quarterdeck and is tempted to disabuse him of the notion. He does not like to see his chief naturalist made a fool of. But he is still resentful about Lamanon's insolence over the excursion to the peak, so he leaves him be.

We do not have that luxury, but we will allow a pause. A pause to regard a man at the point of greatest optimism about the future, before the forces of history overwhelm him. A man who feels himself to be the most fortunate of men. A man who is exactly where he wishes to be. How many of us can say that, even once in our lives? Lamanon looks out for the green line of the tropic and thinks about the countryside near his home in France. How verdant the rows of healthy bean vines! How marvelous the possibilities of science wed to humanity!

 

THREE

CONCEPCIÓN

Concepción, Chile, February–March 1786

How strange that the town was not there.

Their maps, freshly minted by the Office of Charts, had guided them safely around the cape, past the eastern side of Quiriquine Island, and into Concepci
ó
n Bay. They should have been in plain sight of the town of Concepci
ó
n, a settlement more than two hundred years old, home to ten thousand people. A place they were counting on for fresh food, help with badly needed repairs, the company of other Europeans. They had consulted Fr
é
zier's 1712 drawing of the view from the bay, in which one could make out the whole breadth of the town and the spires of eight churches. Where had it all gone?

Lap
é
rouse lowered his glass. He took in the expanse of shoreline before him, looking for the fort, the cathedral bell tower, some sign of habitation, a wisp of smoke, anything. Five of his officers were doing the same—scanning the coastline with puzzled faces, raising and lowering their own telescopes. Lap
é
rouse handed his glass to his brother-in-law, Fr
é
d
é
ric.

“See for yourself, Monsieur Broudou.”

After a moment: “There's nothing there, sir.”

“Indeed, there is not.”

A voyage of exploration always entailed surprises, of course—interesting ones, like the discovery of new places and specimens and peoples, and vexing ones, like finding that an expensive barrel of wine in the hold had spoiled, or learning, too late, that the chief naturalist on board was an insufferable pedant. But this—the disappearance of an old Spanish town on the coast of Chile, a place that had been visited and mapped and described by other Frenchmen earlier in the century—was so entirely unexpected that it made one question the most basic verities, like whether or not one knew how to read a map or ply a sextant.

Lap
é
rouse turned to look at their sister ship
,
the
Astrolabe
. Among the officers crowded at the port-side rail of her quarterdeck, he could make out his friend, Paul-Antoine-Marie Fleuriot de Langle, the captain of the ship. The peculiar way Langle had of moving, graceful and fussy at the same time, head held straight, hands never still, stood out from the other men even at this distance. Lap
é
rouse considered shouting over to him to see what he made of the missing town, but no, better not to. His bewilderment, once expressed, might sow real consternation among the men.

“What has become of our port of call?” he heard, and turned to find Lamanon, the exasperating naturalist himself, climbing heavily up toward the quarterdeck.

Lap
é
rouse made his way to the top of the stairs. “Monsieur de Lamanon.”

“Concepci
ó
n should be right
there
,” Lamanon said, pointing to the southeast corner of the bay.

How did he know? He had not been included in any discussions about navigation—he had been specifically
ex
cluded from them, in fact. But of course: Lamanon probably had his own set of Fr
é
zier's
Voyage to the South-Sea, and Along the Coasts of Chili and Peru
. The man had insisted on bringing so many books that the carpenters had had to rebuild his cabin to accommodate them.

“We're still fixing our location, Monsieur de Lamanon,” Lap
é
rouse said.

“Perhaps we have stumbled upon the Roanoke of the Spanish empire, Commander.”

“Doubtful.”

“Maybe the Araucanians have finally prevailed over their invaders,” Lamanon went on. “They are legendary for their long resistance to the Spaniards.”

Lap
é
rouse inclined his head in acknowledgment, glad he had skimmed enough of Fr
é
zier to recognize the name of the local Indians, and determined to avoid an argument. Lamanon was a committed Rousseauist. He had not yet met any natives, but that did not discourage him from holding forth on their superiority over civilized men. Lap
é
rouse was tired of arguing about it.

An officer called from the rail: “Two small boats approaching, sir.”

Lap
é
rouse took his glass back from Fr
é
d
é
ric. “Monsieur Broudou,” he said, “please escort Monsieur de Lamanon back to the main deck.”

Ten minutes later the boats were alongside. Lap
é
rouse's officers pointed to where the town was supposed to be. “Concepci
ó
n?” they asked.

The men in the boats—two in one and three in the other, all of them darker than the average Spaniard but not quite Indian in appearance—nodded.
“S
í
.”

“Where is Concepci
ó
n?” the Frenchmen shouted down.

“S
í
,”
the men repeated, then proceeded with a stream of Spanish none of them understood, accompanied by dramatic but no less incomprehensible gestures.

“Fran
ç
ais?”

“S
í
!”

“Oh, for God's sake,” Lap
é
rouse cried. “Monsieur Broudou, find someone on board who speaks Spanish.”

Fr
é
d
é
ric grimaced apologetically when he returned, as behind him Lamanon made his labored and triumphant way up the steps.

*   *   *

The men were pilots, and they had been on the lookout for the French ships for the past month, ever since receiving official notice of the expedition from a visiting Spanish ship. As for Concepci
ó
n—
old
Concepci
ó
n, they called it—it had been gone these thirty-five years, destroyed by an earthquake and the enormous wave that followed. The
new
Concepci
ó
n was inland, they explained, three leagues away, on the banks of the B
í
o-B
í
o River. Once they guided the French ships to safe anchorages in the southwest corner of the bay, they would send word to the governor. To the
acting
governor, actually, one Se
ñ
or Quexada. The
real
governor, Brigadier General Ambrosio O'Higgins, was away subduing the Indians. But Se
ñ
or Quexada would of course send word to Governor O'Higgins, who in all likelihood would return once he learned of the Frenchmen's arrival. For everyone in town was looking forward to their visit.

Lap
é
rouse hardly knew whether to credit this story, told by all five men speaking at once while Lamanon gamely tried to interpret, but he allowed the pilots to guide them to a cove deep in the bay and ordered both ships to drop anchor. Through his glass he watched as the pilots landed their boats at a small village on the shore—it was called Talcahuano, according to Lamanon—then followed a figure as he rode off on horseback and disappeared into the hills behind the village.

*   *   *

“Is it really possible that a town of ten thousand people disappeared, and that a generation later, the best cartographers in France knew nothing about it?” Lap
é
rouse asked.

Langle raised an eyebrow, considering. He had rowed over from the
Astrolabe
after dropping anchor. “The Spanish empire is well known for its secrecy.”

“But a missing port is not something one simply hides.”

“Perhaps no one outside the empire has visited since Fr
é
zier.”

Lap
é
rouse put his glass away. “That would explain their apparent excitement over our arrival.”

The pilots' account was largely confirmed by Se
ñ
or Quexada, acting governor of Concepci
ó
n, who called on the ships the next morning with passable French, official welcome, more baskets of fresh food than could easily be stored on the ships, and a detachment of dragoons who were to camp at Talcahuano and place themselves at Lap
é
rouse's disposal. A man with a mustache so stiff Lap
é
rouse was tempted to tap it just to see if it moved, Quexada fairly beamed with delight at his good fortune to be the one in charge when the Frenchmen turned up. He pressed upon the expedition's officers and naturalists an invitation to town for a reception in their honor. “I hope you will come and stay awhile,” he said. “Our best homes will be open to you.”

Lap
é
rouse thanked him. “I understand your governor, General O'Higgins, is at the frontier,” he added. “Do you think we may yet have the honor of meeting him?”

Quexada's smile sagged a little. “I have sent for him, of course,” he said. “He will return as soon as he is able. He is right now finishing a great peace treaty with
los Araucanos
, our Indians.”

“We have heard something to that effect,” Lap
é
rouse said. He looked across the way and caught Lamanon's eye. Was it the pilots who had characterized O'Higgins's mission as “subduing the Indians,” or was it Lamanon? The naturalist looked back at him with an ironic, answering gaze. Lap
é
rouse could predict Lamanon's scornful reaction: “No doubt
peace treaty
is a local euphemism for
violent subjugation
.” Lap
é
rouse looked away. This is what happened after seven months at sea. One began to divine—or imagine one could divine—the very thoughts of the other men on board.

Lap
é
rouse agreed to come in three days' time, once the most urgent shipboard tasks and repairs were under way, and he and Langle could decide who among the ships' officers and passengers could be spared for the visit. So it was that Monday afternoon, he, Langle, eight officers, Lap
é
rouse's brother-in-law Fr
é
d
é
ric, and all of the savants, engineers, artists, and clergymen, plus servants—twenty-eight men altogether—came ashore, climbed into carriages sent from the town to escort them, and made their way over hot and uncomfortable roads to the new town.

It did not
look
particularly new, Lap
é
rouse thought when they drove through its dusty outskirts and into its even dustier central plaza. It was a wary place, made up of single-story buildings spread out over a wide area north of the B
í
o-B
í
o River. The dwellings were drab, their mud brick exteriors already worn by the elements, thin timber beams supporting faded tile roofs. It all wore an air of resignation, as if the inhabitants, knowing that forces deep within the earth could turn them all out at any moment, had stifled any impulse toward civic beauty or attachment.

They were met in the town square by Quexada and a Major Sabatero, a heavyset Spaniard with a red face whose active military service must have been many years and many meals behind him. The major led them to his house, a structure remarkable only for being wider than most of the other homes they saw. Inside, however, it was surprisingly cheerful, with whitewashed walls and ceilings; natural light from an internal courtyard; wooden furniture, old but solid, edges softened with use; family portraits, somewhat primitive in execution, whose bright colors belied the dour expressions of their subjects; and best of all, delicious aromas from an unseen kitchen. The spare, comfortable elegance of the interior put Lap
é
rouse in mind of the Manoir du G
ô
, his childhood home outside of Albi, in the south of France. An austere stone house from without, it was, within, appointed with old family tables and settees and draperies that his mother professed to hate, but among which he had played wonderful games with his siblings in the years before he left for the naval school in Brest.

“It is humble, this house,” Sabatero said in heavily accented but comprehensible French. Lap
é
rouse and his men all hastened to exclaim their delight with the place. “Well, you have been at sea a long time,” Sabatero said, laughing. “Any house looks good, yes?”