Galapagos Regained (15 page)

Right before they'd bid each other good-bye, Granville had received Bertram's promise that the first pigeon he released would be Cassandra (the most intelligent of the birds and the one most likely to find her way back to the asylum). Day after day, Granville sat in his white-walled room, his gaze alternating between the window and the empty dovecote. Where was Cassandra? Had she fallen prey to a hawk? Gotten waylaid by a storm? Blasted from the sky by a scarecrow wielding a fowling piece?

And then one morning, shortly after Granville had consumed his breakfast of kippers and buttered oatmeal (not as nourishing as the Apocalypse but still savory), Cassandra came winging through the window bars, warbling triumphantly. O glorious dove! O blessed bird! O angel with a tawny beak! For a full minute she circled the cell, at last settling atop the cote. Deftly Granville unstrapped the capsule from her leg, then extracted and unfurled the scrip, only to be astonished by the minuscule hand in which Bertram had written his message.

Fortunately, amongst the personal effects permitted to Granville was a brass-framed quizzing-glass for reading Holy Writ (his keepers having allowed him a Bible after he'd sworn not to eat it). The device proved equal to the infinitesimal, recovering Bertram's words from the microscopic realm and displaying them before Granville's incredulous gaze.

Dearest Father,

Greetings from the Orient! I hope that this, the first of my dispatches, finds you in better spirits than when we sat in the asylum garden discussing my imminent adventure and your recent internment. How infuriating that your keepers have failed to understand that your present mental state is in fact an extravagant form of sanity.

The month of August found us navigating the Mediterranean Sea, dropping anchor off the fabled isle of Crete. After reprovisioning in Ierápetra, we negotiated the Dardanelles, then crossed the Marmara and set our course for the Bosporus, until at last we reached the capital of the Ottoman Empire.

Constantinople! Has ever a city been blessed with a more euphonic name? Speak the word slowly. Con-stan-ti-no-ple. Do you hear the enchantment in those syllables, Father? I'm sure you do, for this is the most mysterious, beautiful, and—if one believes the stories about a local hookah-den—magical metropolis on Earth.

Thirteen of Sultan Abdülmecid's courtiers awaited us on the docks, a delegation headed by the Grand Vizier, Mustafa Reshid Pasha, an urbane person with a remarkable beard, long and curved like a scimitar. I soon inferred that, prior to our departure, the Reverend Mr. Dalrymple had corresponded in French with Mustafa Reshid, who'd mastered that tongue during his diplomatic missions to Paris. And now these two worldly gentlemen were finally meeting face-to-face.

Mustafa Reshid and the courtiers directed our party into a coach drawn by four Arabian horses. Our first stop was the Hippodrome, built by the Romans as a chariot-racing arena and presently employed by the Turks for their own equestrian spectacles. Then came Hagia Sophia, formerly a Byzantine church, now a mosque ringed by soaring minarets. Next we saw the forum of Constantine, featuring an immense Roman column believed to contain, in the Grand Vizier's words, “evidence that we are indeed in the land of Noah, including the adz with which he built the ark and the skull of the first African lion to come on board.”

The most curious item on our itinerary was the Hookah-Den of Yusuf ibn Ziayüddin. Given the lateness of the hour, Mustafa Reshid declined to take us inside, but he assured us we weren't missing much. He called it “a rank and shoddy establishment” that stayed in business only in consequence of “a legend more fabulous than anything Scheherazade ever told the Persian King.”

“Let me guess,” said Captain Deardon. “The ghost of Sinbad the Sailor is in there right now, puffing on a water-pipe and recounting his escape from a cyclops.”

“You are close to the mark,” said the Grand Vizier. “Our more credulous citizens will tell you that the den is frozen in the Christian year A.D. 1000, at the height of the Byzantine Empire, drawing its customers not only from distant towns and faraway lands but also from epochs yet to come.”

“That makes no sense,” I observed.

“You are correct, Effendi. The claim strains credulity. My bodyguards patronize Yusuf ibn Ziayüddin, and they have yet to meet a pilgrim from the future. Still, there is a certain logic to the legend. Constantinople has always been an intellectual crossroads, a place where a mad philosopher, visionary poet, or wandering soothsayer might find a sympathetic audience—and so in His beneficence Allah exempted one tiny patch of Byzantium from the laws of time and chance.”

As dusk shrouded the city, the Grand Vizier escorted our party to the Topkapi Palace with its spectacular view of the harbor. After assigning each of us a private suite, Reshid Pasha's majordomo explained that we would next descend to the southwest courtyard, shed our clothing, and avail ourselves of “that most civilized of amenities, a
haman,
” by which he meant a Turkish steam bath. Striving mightily to avoid giving insult, Mr. Dalrymple explained that we English do not have nakedness in our culture, then hastened to add that he had no objection to public bathing
per se,
especially not the sort practiced in Constantinople.

The following morning, as we all sat in an elegant salon eating bread, cheese, honey, and fruit whilst drinking preternaturally strong coffee, I came to understand that the bond between Reshid Pasha and Mr. Dalrymple is more in the nature of a treaty than a friendship. It seems that several months ago they struck an accord whereby the Grand Vizier would assist the Diluvian League in excavating Noah's ark, reprovisioning the
Paragon,
and granting both vessels safe passage through the Bosporus. For his part, Dalrymple will intercede with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who will in turn urge Her Majesty to form an alliance with the Ottoman Empire prior to Turkey's coming clash with Russia (an inevitable conflict, Reshid Pasha believes, given the Tsar's desire to drive the Moslem infidel out of Europe).

For the remainder of our repast, we discussed what lay ahead for the Diluvian League—a 700-mile voyage to Trebizond, followed by a 180-mile overland passage. Reshid Pasha proposed not only to equip the expedition with victuals, sweet water, sailcloth, rope, and sledges but also to lend it the talents of Ahmed Silahdar, commander of his bodyguards, who has considerable experience negotiating the harsh terrain of Anatolia. Most auspiciously, Captain Silahdar will bring along his twenty best men.

Ere the conversation ended, I learned to my astonishment that Reshid Pasha endorses the Diluvian League's mission (which he sees as “a quest to glorify Almighty Allah and by extension the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him”). Nevertheless, he has misgivings, which he did not forbear to share with Mr. Dalrymple—to wit, he is reluctant to commit soldiers and supplies to an Ararat adventure when, according to the Holy Koran, the ark resides on Mount Al-Judi. By our third bowl of coffee a compromise was reached. Initially the party will search the location suggested by Genesis 8:4, but should that venture fail, everyone will proceed to the place specified in Sura 11:44. I hope Mr. Dalrymple performs a meticulous survey of Ararat. How scandalous it would be if the League left the true Judaic ark sitting where Noah abandoned it and instead brought back a false Moslem ark from Al-Judi.

When the
Paragon
sails again, I shan't be amongst her passengers. True, I could accompany the expedition as far as Trebizond—but then I would have to stay on board, tending the birds, for Captain Deardon has told me he cannot allow his crew or Silahdar's men to “waste their energy bearing the dovecote south to Ararat.” So it appears that the next three months will find me in residence at the palace. One day soon I may revisit Hagia Sophia, the better to appreciate its splendor. I may even slip into Yusuf ibn Ziayüddin's establishment, though I doubt that I'll encounter any travelers from the future.

Your loving son,

Bertram

Upon reading his son's message, Granville knitted his brow and furled the scrip, as momentous in its own way as the paper prayers that had nourished Rabbi Löew's golem. He deposited the pigeon missive in the drawer of his nightstand. Although the news from Constantinople was heartening—how marvelous that the Grand Vizier had decided to help facilitate the ark hunt—Granville was troubled by Bertram's dismissal of the Hookah-Den of Yusuf ibn Ziayüddin. Once again the dear boy was being unreasonably chary of the irrational. To paraphrase Saint Anselm's Ontological Proof, the only thing more perfect than an imaginary way station for time travelers would be an actual way station for time travelers, and because a person can conceive of such a place it must ipso facto exist.

Certainly Granville, if given the opportunity, would gladly enter Yusuf Effendi's establishment and sit down amongst the water-pipe users. The chances were excellent that the hookah-den would one day be honored with a visit from Jesus himself—not the Galilean carpenter of the Gospels, of course, but rather the Lord of the Parousia, eager for some peace and quiet amidst the hurly-burly of the Second Coming. Granville would happily buy Christ a bag of hashish and listen to his troubles. It was the least he owed the Word made flesh.

*   *   *

Although Chloe Bathurst's acting career officially began with
The Haunted Priory,
her stage debut had in fact occurred in a school pageant written and directed by her parish priest. Chloe had portrayed Little Aggie Teal, whose parents had neglected to baptize her, a lapse that assumed cosmic proportions when, after being run down by a horse, she arrived unshriven at the gates of Perdition. Before Satan could take the child under his membranous wing, the Redeemer himself materialized in the Bottomless Pit bearing a christening font (a development that, even at age ten, Chloe thought inane). Aggie begged to be sprinkled, Jesus complied, and she was whisked heavenward like smoke up a flue.

Fifteen years later, as Chloe and Algernon approached their father's place of imprisonment, her irony bone began to sing. Whereas the fake Hell that had nearly claimed Aggie Teal announced itself as Lucifer's domain, all leaping flames and prancing imps, the real Hell of Holborn Workhouse presented to the world a soothing and fastidious aspect. Its stone façade was whitewashed, the path neatly raked, the hedges meticulously trimmed.

The inner reaches told, or rather exuded, a different story—a narrative of fumigants locked in a losing battle with proliferating vermin and unemptied chamber pots. After wandering the facility for several minutes, Chloe and Algernon found their way to a courtyard where the cottage of the superintendent, Mr. Wadhams, stood in isolation from the stench. Upon learning that the intruders were Phineas Bathurst's offspring, Wadhams, a pompous autocrat who seemed to be concealing turnips beneath his waistcoat, insisted that, contrary to whatever rumors their father might have circulated during his furlough, he was neither underfed nor overworked. As for the proposed visit, Wadhams would allow it provided Mr. Bathurst continued picking oakum throughout and received from his children no gift of food or spirits.

The superintendent now summoned a cudgel-carrying overseer, one Squibble, who led Chloe and her brother down a spiral staircase to a subterranean chamber lit only by ensconced candles. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, a grid of refectory tables materialized, each piled high with rigging and towlines. Dressed in paupers' uniforms and supervised by two sentinels armed with truncheons, the inmates took no notice of the newly arrived party but instead pursued their bloody-fingered toil, tearing apart the ropes and shoving the wads of fiber into bushel baskets. Squibble cleared his throat, then thrice banged his cudgel on the stone floor, the harsh reports echoing off the moist walls. Seated at the nearest table, flanked by a pockmarked man and a snaggle-toothed woman, Phineas Bathurst looked up, squinted through the murk, and, recognizing his daughter, smiled like a child eating Christmas pudding.

“Chloe!” he cried, rising to receive her embrace.

“Papa!”

“Keep plucking, Bathurst!” snarled Squibble. “This is a workhouse, not a mineral spring!”

“I see you've brought my prodigal son,” said Phineas.

“Good morning, Father,” said Algernon.

“He might be prodigal, but at least he visits,” said the pockmarked man.

“Perhaps
my
children will show up someday,” said the snaggle-toothed woman, “though the odds are better that Wadhams will install an oakum-picking machine down 'ere and pay us two quid a day to drink gin and watch it run.”

“When last we talked, you were supporting yourself primarily through vicissitudes,” said Phineas, fixing his son with a reproving stare.

“That is still the case,” said Algernon. “Vicissitudes have always done right by me, and they continue to claim my allegiance.”

“If you're determined to waste your life at basset and faro, you should at least waste it in style,” said Phineas. “I pray you, become the Robin Hood of cardsharpers, cheating wealthy gamesters and giving half your profits to the poor.”

“Time is short,” said Chloe, “but our message is simple.” Bending low, she whispered in her father's ear. “Your children are soon to undertake a long—and profitable—sea voyage.”

“It's all true, sir,” rasped Algernon. “Our scheme enjoys the endorsement of twenty Oxford dandies, three renowned blasphemers, and the Vicar of Wroxton. Your deliverance is at hand.”

The news of his children's proximity to wealth had an immediate effect on Phineas. Whistling a sprightly air, he rooted through the jumble of rope and selected two equal segments, one of hemp, the other of jute. With his torn but nimble fingers he sculpted the cords into hangman's nooses, then brought both creations to life.