Galapagos Regained (25 page)

A boom was in the making, Mr. Dartworthy averred, popping an oyster into his mouth. The past decade had found hundreds of industrious Indian
seringueiros
—rubber tappers—systematically harvesting latex, curing it over wood fires, and selling the resulting spheres, the fat and unwieldy
peles,
to predatory middlemen, the
aviadors
. Last year alone, Mr. Dartworthy noted, Manáos had sent two thousand tons of rubber down the river for exportation to northern centers of commerce, and the
aviadors
would probably ship twice that much next year. Even as the English adventurers sat chattering about the
seringueiros
and their vaguely romantic, largely wretched lives, scores of would-be rubber barons were descending on Manáos, determined to turn that scrofulous city into a cosmopolitan metropolis commensurate with the great capitals of Europe.

Captain Runciter now distributed the pasteboard passports that Capitão Gonçalves had forged on his new crew's behalf, then flourished an additional document, a crumpled sheet of yellow paper. “If you doubt that the barons would have Manáos become the Paris of Amazonia, consider our bill of lading,” he said, devouring a cuttlefish tentacle. “We'll be hauling six crystal chandeliers, eleven gilt-framed mirrors, seventy-five satin cushions, nine brass spittoons, six rolls of velvet, fourteen Chinese screens, one upright piano—”

“Excuse me, sir,” said Solange, savoring a morsel of eel, “but whoever compiled that list is less interested in creating the Paris of Amazonia than a Nineveh on the Rio Negro. Each of those goods is destined for either a saloon or a bordello. I'll wager the bill also includes mercury powder, the medicine by which harlots treat the diseases that accrue to their profession.”

Runciter cast his eye down the page. He clucked his tongue, exhibited a grin, and informed Solange she was correct.

“Show me a jungle saloon, and I'll show you a slew of gaming tables littered with poker chips and playing cards,” said Algernon gleefully. “When we reach Manáos, I'll do my part to swell the coffers of the Transmutationist Club.”

“Obviously a man needn't go all the way to the Encantadas to make a fortune in the tropics.” Mr. Flaherty used his jackknife to prise meat from the tail of a bright blue lobster. “Perhaps I'll stay behind in Manáos and become a gambler like Algernon, or maybe I'll start a rubber empire of my own.”

“If you aspire to the status of
baron da borracha,
you've selected a promising career.” Mr. Dartworthy took up his crab mallet and cracked open his supper with, as Chloe judged the gesture, supreme savoir faire. “Hardly a week goes by without someone finding a new use for latex.” He forthwith reeled off so impressive a catalog of
hevé
products, from boots to garters, gaskets to fire hoses, railway bumpers to bicycle tires (to say nothing of Mr. Macintosh's rainproof coats), that an eavesdropper might have mistaken him for a stockjobber selling shares in a rubber plantation.

“You've forgotten the most useful device of all,” said Solange. “Check the bill again, and you'll see that a large quantity of Amazon rubber routinely returns to Brazil in the form of those remarkable sheaths invented by Colonel Quondam.”

“Miss Kirsop is right again,” said Runciter.

“When patronizing the brothels of Manáos, please do my sister courtesans a favor and wear a quondam on your pizzle,” said Solange. “This applies even to you, Mr. Chadwick.”

“Miss Kirsop, I would be within my rights to leave you behind in Belém,” Runciter noted.

“That won't be necessary, sir,” said Mr. Chadwick.

“Personally, I like having her along,” said Mr. Pritchard, feeding a slice of melon to his monkey. “She makes me laugh.”

Chee-chee-chee!
shrieked Bartholomew.

It occurred to Chloe that if you wanted to redeem a tedious dinner conversation, you could do worse than hire Solange Kirsop. True, this sea-witch might one day choke on her own prodigal tongue. Yes, she was probably riding for a fall. Ah, but what a fine figure she cut in the saddle, a crazed woman astride a wild horse, vaulting hill and hummock, leaving the rest of humanity behind in the stables to mend harness and muck the stalls.

*   *   *

Shortly after dawn on the morning of their scheduled embarkation, the women slipped into their buccaneer ensembles, then secreted their valuables in their newly purchased valises (Chloe's essay, Solange's glass pendant), concealed their hair (Chloe employing her Panama hat, Solange her Pirate Mary bandana), and descended to the hotel lobby, all the while practicing their tenor voices, the better to deceive Capitão Gonçalves. They straightaway engaged two Tupinambás, muscular boys who owned a dual-seated litter and proposed to transport them to the waterfront for a mere fifteen
réis
. Soon the women were flying along the Rua dos Mercadores with its neat rows of whitewashed shops, their red-tiled roofs glowing in the morning light, and then came a public square hemmed by orange groves, its flagstones thronging with portly Brazilian citizens, tanned American businessmen, befuddled European emigrants, lithe Indians, and morose West African slaves. Arrayed in natural liveries of violet and amber, tiny lizards skittered along the branches of the mango trees, oblivious to the ancestors they held in common with the formidable iguanas thriving on a Pacific archipelago.

A half-hour later Chloe and Solange stood on the quay and looked across the Rio Pará towards Ilha de Marajó, beyond which lay the mouth of the mighty Amazonas. Even at this early hour the harbor swarmed with Indian workers and migrant
cabanos,
half of them employed in removing
peles
from the ketches and barques moored to the docks, the other half bearing the harvest to the central pier and loading it onto ocean-going ships doubtless bound for London, Marseilles, Bremerhaven, and other European ports. Mounds of rubber rose everywhere in configurations suggesting Egyptian pyramids. Should Halley's Comet fall on Belém that morning, Chloe decided, it would bounce right back into the sky.

She had no difficulty locating the
Rainha da Selva,
partly because the adjacent dock was piled high with mirrors, spittoons, a piano, and other items specified in the bill of lading—but mostly because the man on the foredeck of the ramshackle side-wheeler seemed precisely the sort of rogue who'd do business with a scoundrel like Runciter.

“Ahoy there,” said Chloe, pitching her voice to a masculine register. “Have I the pleasure of addressing Capitão Gonçalves?”

The skipper dipped his glossy, balding head. He was a blockish man with bristled cheeks and skin as coarse as
cau-chu
bark. “Are you with Runciter's gang?”

“Able Seaman Claude Bathurst at your service,” rasped Chloe, nodding.

“Able Seaman Solomon Kirsop,” said Solange in her imitation tenor.

“If you're able seamen,” asked Capitão Gonçalves, “why do you come sauntering down the dock with the gait one normally attributes to the female sex?”

“An astute observation,” said Chloe, stalling for time and bartering for
deus ex machina
. “In point of fact we're refugees from the commedia dell'arte, adept at female impersonation.”

Capitão Gonçalves glowered.

“By which Claude means we're escaped
castrati
in flight from indenture to a Milano opera company,” said Solange.

The skipper sneered.

“Though an honest answer to your question would touch on the fact that we're women,” said Chloe, pulling off her Panama hat and releasing a cascade of chestnut hair.

Before she could learn whether the master of the
Rainha
was incensed or merely confused by their masquerade, a cabriolet clattered into view and disgorged the rest of their party. Captain Runciter, alighting, saluted Capitão Gonçalves, then listened patiently whilst the skipper accused him of “delivering twenty-five percent fewer men than you promised.”

“It's worse than you think,” Runciter replied with disarming candor. “Not only is Chloe Bathurst an actress and Solange Kirsop a harlot, a distinction in which you will find what difference you may, but Miss Bathurst's brother is a gambler who, before embarking on the
Equinox,
had never been to sea. Moreover, our companion Mr. Chadwick is a priest whose previous nautical experience was limited to immersing infants in baptismal fonts.”

Gonçalves snorted like a boar in high dudgeon and vanished into his cabin, returning promptly with a large paper scroll, tattered and torn but carefully secured in a leather pouch, as a pirate might preserve a treasure map. He unfurled the poster, which featured a young woman dressed in the glittering regalia of Queen Cleopatra, the caption declaring,
THE ADELPHI COMPANY HAS THE HONOR OF PRESENTING MISS CHLOE BATHURST IN
SIREN OF THE NILE.

“My sister married a London barrister,” Gonçalves explained. “Three years ago, visiting my relations, I not only savored Miss Bathurst's performance, I also stole the poster. I shall be honored to escort her up the Amazon, much as Antony accompanied her down the Nile—provided she and her trollop friend are willing to work their fingers to the bone.”

“Beyond the bone,” said Chloe, torn between gratitude for this sudden piece of luck and dismay over Gonçalves's fancying himself a latter-day Antony.

“I'm a
courtesan,
” said Solange.

Chloe and her companions spent the rest of the morning loading the packet-steamer with saloon appointments, brothel paraphernalia, and the two essentials of survival on the Rio Amazonas—mosquito paste and potable water—plus ample stores of provender: cassava bread, plantains, bananas,
caxirí
beer, Brazil nuts the size of cannonballs. As the sweaty British subjects labored in the suffocating heat, Capitão Gonçalves held forth concerning life aboard the
Rainha
. Captain Runciter, he explained, would be demoted to first officer, whilst Mr. Dartworthy assumed the position of chief engineer, assisted by Mr. Bathurst. Mr. Pritchard would serve as helmsman, Mr. Flaherty as stoker, and the vicar as primary
homem da proa,
forward lookout. As for Miss Bathurst and Miss Kirsop, they would become
bichos da seda,
silkworms, charged with maintaining the gossamer netting that surrounded the packet's weather deck, lest her crew be tormented by insects.

“I shall now tell you our most important rule,” said Gonçalves. “
Vocês tem que ficar no barco—
stay on the boat. We'll stop for boiler wood in Monte Alegre and Villa Nova, but otherwise we belong to the
Rainha
. The Oyampis are waiting out there to catch and eat us, likewise the Tapajós, Bonaris, and Hixkaryánas. If Indians don't get you, a jaguar might, to say nothing of our scorpions, electric eels, anacondas, coral snakes, vampire bats, stingrays, and candiru: worm-like fish that will enter your—I believe the English word is ‘orifices'—and must be cut out. As for our piranhas, though they're not quite the killing machines of Amazonian lore, you won't see me wading or swimming, especially if there's blood in the water. Did I mention our diseases? Malaria, dysentery, cholera, typhus, yellow fever? The
Rainha
is our citadel. We shall not want. Avoid the jungle. Stay out of the water. Understood?”

“Understood,” chorused the chastened crew.

“You will now satisfy my curiosity,” Gonçalves continued. “What brings you vagabonds to Brazil? You call yourselves naturalists, but I don't believe that any more than you do.”

“We seek a faraway archipelago,” Runciter explained.

“According to rumor, a person might employ the Galápagos reptiles and birds in disproving the existence of God,” said Chloe. “Oddly enough, certain sybarites in England will pay handsomely for such an argument.”

“So in truth you're a greedy gang of bounty hunters,” said Gonçalves.

“Well, yes,” Mr. Dartworthy admitted.

“Myself excluded,” Mr. Chadwick insisted.

“I had no idea philosophy could turn a profit,” said Gonçalves. “Tell me, what's the going price these days for God's scalp in a cigar box?”

“We would prefer not to disclose the sum in question,” said Chloe

“Larger than you might imagine,” said Runciter. “Several thousand pounds.”

“You may be sure that on my return trip our hold will be jammed with
peles,
” said Gonçalves. “By all means, senhors and senhoras, run our Creator to earth. I've never had much use for Him, nor He for me. If you want my opinion, though, there's more money to be made in rubber.”

*   *   *

The Reverand Granville Heathway stepped back from
Gregor Mendel Pollinates His Pea Plants
and contemplated the emergent painting. Although Bertram's second pigeon missive had provided but a minimal description (chubby, bespectacled, owlish), Granville believed he'd wrought an adequate representation, capturing not only the monk's outward appearance but also the intellectual fires blazing within. Mendel, he decided, was much like his experimental peas, whose exteriors offered misleading clues to their essential nature.

But what of the drama itself? Did this painting convey the fertilization act with sufficient sensual intensity? There he stood, Moravia's brightest monk, basting implement in hand, bent over a nubile specimen of
Pisum savitum,
dusting pollen onto the stigma. Granville decided that he'd given the moment its due. All that remained was for him to provide the sky above Brünn with a dazzling sun, and the scene would be complete.

He loaded his brush with orange pigment, but before he could touch bristles to canvas Ezekiel came swooping in from Constantinople. The courier had encountered inclement weather, as evinced by his soggy tail and dripping wings. What remarkable creatures were homing pigeons, brave, noble, and faithful. If only madhouse proprietors boasted such virtues.