The Tale-Teller (2 page)

***

WHEN THE
SAINT MICHEL
pulled into Quebec Harbour, a festive scene greeted its weary occupants. Ships of many builds and sizes filled the port, belying the French prejudice that the colonial enterprise was doomed to failure after a year plagued by cholera and crop failures. Some of these busy vessels were familiar — single-masted sloops, two-masted brigs, and even a four-masted barque — and some were not. The latter consisted of shallow wooden crafts being paddled along the shore, well away from the dangerous current, by Natives sitting so low within them that only their naked upper torsos showed. Gaping at the aboriginals, who manoeuvred with such nonchalant grace it seemed their canoes were fused to their bodies, the boy was reminded of the mythical Skiapodes of Pliny's
Natural History
, creatures with a single boat-like foot who were rumoured to inhabit India, Africa, and the “Terrae Incognitae”: blank spaces on the map which had once included this very region. As more and more of the earth had become known, legendary monsters like these had proved elusive, casting doubt on ancient testimonials like that of Pliny, one of Jacques's favourite authors. Nonetheless he felt a thrill of excitement to be entering the heart of an unknown continent, where there was so much to explore. Where someone like him could become lost and, in the losing, find himself.

The rugged town was crowned with ramparts, its steep facade raked by stairs bustling with humanity. Green hills rolled away in the distance and the sun sparkled on the water. The panorama before him would have been impressive anywhere, at any time, but after so many weeks at sea it was brilliant beyond anything the boy could have expected. He pushed forward, eager to go ashore, but was stopped by one of the sailors who told him that before disembarking, all the passengers needed to get permission from a handsome man deep in conversation with Captain Salaberry. Though Salaberry had donned a blue overcoat and a clean linen shirt to celebrate his safe arrival, he was no match for the colonial official, resplendent in fur-trimmed brocade and lace as though he were welcoming the voyagers to court rather than to a busy port full of labouring stevedores and loitering boys.

The nuns, each with a cloth bag of missals slung around her neck, were the first to pass inspection, and nervously descended a swaying rope ladder into the waiting longboat. After them went a crate of tea and honey and chocolate and preserved fruit: gifts for their Canadian sisters, who they assumed would be pining for such luxuries after surviving on a meagre diet of roots and berries. The government officials were next, clutching their satchels of diplomatic papers and royal decrees, their pumps catching awkwardly at the fraying rungs. One stout functionary wearing a long red coat trimmed with gold braid momentarily lost his balance and, with it, his
tricorne
hat. The splash this object made hitting the water below was drowned out by his cry of dismay. A member of the crew below quickly fished the dripping thing out with his oar and offered it to its owner, who held it over the side of the boat as they paddled off. This being the land of inexhaustible beaver pelts, he was assured by those on board not to worry; he would soon be able to replace it.

The merchants, who had watched the discomfiture of the official with great amusement, were meant to follow in a second longboat, but they refused to leave until they saw their own precious cargo of guns and gunpowder, liquor, tobacco, blankets, cloth, cooking vessels, and assorted tools safely stowed on another conveyance. Then they too climbed down the ladder and the second longboat pulled away. Another rowed up and yet another, and the scene was repeated many times with the colonists and their dogs, their clothes, guns, household items and musical instruments, their portraits of loved ones and maps of the new land, until the only passenger left on the
Saint Michel
was Jacques.

He lifted his small bag of belongings expectantly, as though to throw it down to the waiting shuttle. Salaberry looked at the colonial official, who shook his head and beckoned Jacques to come over to them instead. The boy traversed the deck reluctantly, the Promised Land now shimmering in the distance like a mirage. He stood before the older men with eyes downcast, shoulders slumped, until the official grabbed him by the chin and pushed his face up into the light. The man ran his index finger along the boy's jaw as if testing the sharpness of a blade, then clucked his tongue.

“I shall be sending you to the medical examiner, I'm afraid,” he said.

“Who are you?” asked the boy.

“I am Jean-Victor Varin de La Marre, Commissary of the Marine. But the more interesting question is: Who are you?”

“I am Jacques Lafargue.”

“We shall see about that.”

***

Today, the fifteenth of September, one thousand seven hundred thirty-eight, Esther Brandeau, aged about twenty years, appeared before us, the Commissary of the Marine, charged with policing the maritime population of Quebec; the aforementioned girl embarked at La Rochelle disguised as a boy passenger under the name of Jacques Lafargue, on the ship Saint Michel commanded by Le Sieur de Salaberry ...

— From Jean-Victor Varin de La Marre to the
Minister of the Marine in France.

***

THE GIRL — TREMBLING WITH fear, her face ashen under its tan — was ushered by her captor into a room hung with rich tapestries. It smelled of candlewax and some kind of aromatic wood, and was stuffed with ornate furniture at least twenty-five years out of fashion. Before her stood two men, announced by Varin in a stage whisper as the Marquis Charles Beauharnois de La Boische, the Governor General of New France, and Gilles Hocquart, the Intendant. Recognizing the names of the ruling authorities of the colony, she bent forward at both knees and waist, executing an awkward compromise between a curtsy and a bow. Hocquart, a stout, balding man in sombre attire, began to smile before covering his mouth with one hand in an attempt to maintain a serious demeanour. Beauharnois, tall and thin and resplendent in satin and lace, saw nothing humorous in the situation; nor was he moved by the vulnerability of the slender neck revealed as the girl in boy's clothes swept her cap from her head.

“Why are you travelling in disguise?” Beauharnois asked brusquely.

“The only way I can explain is by telling you a story.”

“Very well, then. We are listening,” Hocquart said, sitting down at once on a comfortable sofa and motioning to his colleagues to do the same. Varin crossed to a blue guéridon side-table in one corner of the room, upon which pen and ink stood ready; Beauharnois chose a heavily gilded chair decorated with carved lion heads and lowered himself onto it with a great show of reluctance, crossing one silk-clad knee over the other, then fidgeting with his embroidered waistcoat, until he was forced to acknowledge that the others were waiting for him.

“Begin,” he said. “Unlike the Intendant here, I don't have all day to waste.”

The girl took a step forward, clasping her hands together in front of her and closing her eyes as though retrieving a distant memory, and in a surprisingly musical voice, pausing only occasionally while searching for the right words to describe a scene more accurately, told her audience the following tale.

TWO

“No me llores por ser prove, sino por ser solo.”
(Weep not for my poverty, but for my loneliness.)

ONCE THERE WAS A green island in a blue sea: the greenest island, the bluest sea. At dawn the sun rose, a blaze of gold, over the horizon; at dusk white egrets stained themselves red as they flew through the sunset, dipping their beaks for the day's last catch. Quick fish darted through the water, playing hide and seek; crabs wrote mysterious names in the sand; apes frolicked in the trees. Each stone hunched around its secrets, each palm tree translated the wind, each flower held one creature or another. The entire island was alive with voices singing praise to the power that sustained them.

And then one night there was a terrible storm, with clamorous thunder and lightning brighter than the sun. The island creatures hid, for there was something out there they had not seen before — a structure of wood, with tall broken trees standing at its centre and enormous white wings flapping in the tempest. The thing rose and fell in the madly churning water. And from it came helpless cries, strangled by the wind and waves.

They understood the cries. And they were afraid.

Morning came, and with it the friendly sun shone on a beach made unfamiliar by a veil of wreckage. Tangled nets of seaweed, dead fish, a pulpy mass of octopus; tubes and ropes and the lid of a chest; a hat, a broken telescope, oranges and lemons. A Bible swirled face-down in the shallows, its cover two gilded fins, flapping. And something else: a tightly woven basket resembling the bottom half of a giant clam. From it came soft mewing sounds and a flutter of movement that enticed the apes from shelter. Slowly and fearfully they crept along the sand, still wary of hidden dangers.

The matriarch led them. Having lost her newborn two days previously, she was reckless with her own life. The tribe held back as she approached the object, then watched in amazement as she reached into it and brought out a small creature. Oddly hairless, it was yet remarkably like them: two round eyes on either side of the nose, lips sucking at the thumb on a clever primate hand. The creature seemed to recognize them too, giving the matriarch a toothless grin of welcome. Her lips curled in an answering smile as she placed the creature in her lap and began to search its head for lice.

In a few minutes, it was nursing contentedly at the matriarch's breast. The other apes gathered around, stroking the baby's cheeks with their long fingers; the young ones examined its toes, pale thighs, and dimpled knees and compared them to their own. Different yet the same, the way egrets differed from herons; it was not hard to understand. Though they had never seen another animal similar to themselves before, they could accept that such a thing might exist in this world of grace and abundance. For who knew what lay beyond their island? Water and sky stretched away infinitely in all directions and yet there were stories, passed on for generations, that their ancestors had come from another place, a place far away, and that one day the whole tribe would return to their home across the sea.

The child from the sea was a girl, so she was instructed in female ritual. Days had a steady rhythm: wake, forage for food, play, groom each other; nap, forage for food, play, groom each other. Each day was both like and unlike the others, for anything at all might happen: suddenly fruit was ripe and it was time for a feast; the next day they would all fast, mourning a young male poisoned by snakebite. She tried birds' eggs for the first time and liked them; she tried turtles' eggs and pronounced them foul. Crabs pinched, bees stung, butterflies tore apart in your curious hands, worms squished unpleasantly underfoot.

Mostly she was happy on her island home; mostly she fit in. Only one thing caused friction with the tribe and worry to her adoptive mother: the girl was fascinated by the ocean. She would spend hours wandering by herself up and down the shore, dancing in and out of the surf, making pretty patterns of shells on the beach, scooping out fistfuls of sand and letting the water fill up her excavations. She loved wading in to her waist and letting the waves break over her head. She held her breath, plunged under, then jumped back up laughing, spitting salt from her mouth, shaking a spray of diamonds from her hair, while the apes yelped and covered their eyes with trembling hands.

The apes were afraid of the water and stayed away from it. They warned the girl about the danger she was in, pointing out the litter of dead creatures that washed up daily on their beach. They even punished her for her disobedience, withholding the choicest fruits and making her sleep by herself. But nothing worked; the sea continued to tempt her. And then one day a large wave carried the youngster beyond her depth, and she discovered, to her joy and amazement, that she could swim.

Unnatural! Declared the apes. Land creatures walked, sea creatures swam, and winged creatures flew!

“But what about the turtles?” asked the girl. “They lay their eggs on the sand and then return to the sea. What about the frogs and lizards who move back and forth from one element to another? There are other beings who inhabit both worlds. And you told me that I came to you from the sea, so maybe that is where I really belong.”

The matriarch wept and scolded, but the girl was defiant. She spent more and more time alone, swimming along the shore, close enough to the island to come back in but far away enough to silence the disapproving voices of her tribe. Gradually the apes decided that she was mad and left her to her own devices — but, paradoxically, the less they opposed her, the more abandoned she felt. At least before she knew that, no matter how different she appeared, she was part of a family that cared about her. Now that they all seemed to agree that she didn't belong, she was lonelier than ever.

One day she ventured out farther than she intended, later than she ought to have been in the water. The sun sank quickly in that part of the world, and soon it became too dark to see the pale rippling line where the breakers met the shore. She had lost all sense of direction and though she swam for hours, the island got no nearer. Too tired to go on, she decided to float on her back until she regained her strength. Maybe she could rest all night and wait for the sun to come up and show her the way home. The stars had never seemed so far away or given so little light. All around her was impenetrable sea and silence. She was utterly alone.

How long she floated, salt tears mingling with salt water, she did not know. But eventually she heard something. She flipped onto her belly and saw faintly, in the distance, a dark shape moving towards her. It was as big as a whale! But it was clearly not natural — fire flickered at regular intervals along its looming sides, and silhouetted against the flames were shadows that moved and talked.

She cried out as loudly as she could, and immediately there was an answering shout. Figures grouped together under one of the dancing fires, threw something large into the water, climbed down into it, splashed towards her. She was pulled into a vessel by strong arms, wrapped in soft thick fibres, given something harsh and burning to drink that warmed her up at once but made her feel sick and dizzy. Then she slept and knew no more.

When she woke, the sun was already high in the sky and the island was nowhere to be seen. All around her were strange beings with hair around their mouths and on their chins but none on their cheeks, appearing to be halfway between herself and her ape family. They walked upright and covered their bodies with substances of many colours. Fascinated, she stroked the arm of one creature in something vividly blue, the leg of another in brown skins; someone else had pebbles down his front that glittered like the sun. She poked one, wondering what it was. The creatures laughed at her, not scornfully but kindly, as though she were a baby, then offered her some of their bright coverings and helped her put them on. The coverings scratched so much that she discarded them at once. However, the creatures showed by signs and sounds of disapproval that she must put them back on again. So she did. For they were generous, continually giving her things to eat and drink, washing her face with warm water, patting her head comfortingly, and she could see that they meant her no harm.

Soon she understood that she was on something called a “ship”: an artificial island made of wood that moved from place to place, propelled by the wind and the unceasing labours of the people who had rescued her. These people came from a place called “Espagna” and they called her “Estrella” — Spanish for “star” — because they had found her shining white in the dark night. She was their changeling, their fairy child, their mermaid, their good luck charm. Because of her their voyage would be blessed. They were sure that they would sail home safely with their cargo and become rich beyond imagining.

The sailors tried to explain their way of life to her but she was not used to human speech and, though she learned quickly, their ideas were so strange to her that she often misunderstood them. But she learned that though she was a “girl,” she must pretend to be a “boy” if she wanted to stay with her new family, because girls were not allowed on ships. This she could not understand, but then, they could not understand how she could have been happy living with apes all these years. To them, her family was made up of stupid “animals”; they had no notion of the generosity and grace of the apes' way of life. She tried to explain to the sailors how similar it was to life on board the ship, how they all worked together, taking turns; how they all slept and ate communally. But they would hear of no such thing — indeed, the comparison was deeply offensive to them.

At last she stopped defending her former existence. Though she longed for the comfort of the matriarch's arms and the sympathy of her gentle black eyes, though she missed her brothers and sisters, she doubted she would ever see them again. She had no idea how far she was from her island, nor how to get back there. So she adapted herself to her new family, dressed herself as a “boy,” and helped to run the “ship.” After all, it had been a long time since she had been happy at home; maybe she would fit in better here.