Barkskins (74 page)

•  •  •

Duke & Breitsprecher sent its first shipload of best pine to Sydney, Australia. Lawyer Flense went to San Francisco to meet with the buyer, an Englishman doing business in Australia, Harry Blustt, who wanted to arrange a contract for a decade of supply. Blustt wanted Michigan pine, but said he also had an interest in the kauri trade—whatever kauri might be, thought Flense.

“We have a little of this wood in Australia, but most of it grows in New Zealand. We are interested in finding a logging partner to establish efficient lumber camps in that country.” His ginger goatee rose and fell as he talked.

“I see,” said Lawyer Flense. It was the first time he had heard the word
efficient
used in quite this way; he grasped the meaning immediately. “Of course Duke and Breitsprecher is interested in any overseas source of wood. We are ever interested in new timber supplies. And ‘efficient' is our motto. But who are the New Zealand interests?”

Blustt laughed. “We arrange all that. We already have them—we have contacts with the right men. They look to Australia and London for advice and action in all things. But the native people are not satisfactory workers. We want American woodsmen who can use the ax and saw. Here is what the finished product looks like.” He produced four small pieces of golden kauri wood.

“Ah,” said Flense; the wood glowed as though sunlight were sequestered in every atom.

“Best house-building wood in the world,” said Blustt.

Flense brought the samples back to Chicago and the Board passed the polished, blemish-free pieces from hand to hand. Kauri was a pine, and when they heard of the tree's generous manner of growth, enormous and straight for a hundred feet, all the limbs clustered at the top, they voted to know more. “It is reputed to be the most perfect tree on earth for the timberman,” said Flense. “Or at least this fellow Blustt claims it is.”

No one on the Board knew much about New Zealand. Lavinia wanted to meet Blustt, she wanted to see the kauri forests before the company made a leap into the dark. It might be the Michigan forests all over again. And so the journey was arranged. She and Dieter Breitsprecher, recovered though somewhat scarred, would travel to Sydney on their honeymoon trip, meet with Blustt, then continue to Auckland and for themselves see the kauri of the Coromandel peninsula.

•  •  •

Before they left Lavinia spent separate hours with Lawyer Flense and Axel Cowes.

“Mr. Flense,” she said, “I think of you not only as my adviser and executor in all financial affairs, but as a friend. I have complete confidence in you. While Dieter and I are away I will give you a power of attorney to handle business matters. If you have doubts or questions on any matter please consult with Axel Cowes.”

“Do not worry, dear Lavinia. All will be as you yourself might act.” He smiled his curling smile, a gold tooth sparking. He took her right hand in his. “On my life,” he said.

•  •  •

Both Lavinia and Dieter were prostrate with seasickness for the first weeks of the voyage. The captain (whose ship Duke & Breitsprecher owned) was at his wit's end in suggesting cures until the mate gathered remedies from the scuttlebutt. The one that worked came from the Chinese cook—ginger tea and walking the deck every other hour.

“Never go belowdecks,” said the cook, bringing the invalids a great steaming pot reeking of ginger. Lavinia took three sweetened cups and walked for half an hour, her eyes on the horizon. Dieter found a single cup efficacious and by dinnertime the two vomiters were well enough to eat boiled beef and turnips. The shared illness somehow united them as the marriage ceremony had not and on board the bounding ship with a load of pine planks rubbing against each other in the hold Dieter and Lavinia began a sexual adventure. Dieter was delightedly astonished at how responsive and inventive Lavinia became in the narrow berth. The crew could hear laughter and occasional whoops from their quarters. The cook claimed it was another of the salubrious effects of ginger tea.

•  •  •

Harry Blustt met their ship. “Ah, a long voyage, what?” He explained that Sydney was still an infant city, both swampy and dusty, both crowded and empty, both brash and genteel.

“How interesting,” said Lavinia. “But all I hope for at the moment is accommodations on immovable ground.”

“Quite! Quite. Accommodations! You understand, guesthouses and inns are few—during the gold rush there were innumerable doss-houses, quite unsuitable. We have arranged for you to stay at a government official's house—he is in London until the turn of the year. I think you will be comfortable for the weeks before you sail to New Zealand. I have arranged several small dinners with men in the timber business.”

The arranged dinners were all alike, vinous English businessmen hoping to strike deals to sell their lumber, most of which, Lavinia gathered, came from New Zealand, where choppers were bringing down the trees.

“Yas,” said one bland fellow touching his lips with his napkin, “lumber ships crowd New Zealand harbors, ships take on kauri, totara and rimu. I say most are bound here for New South Wales, which is expanding like—like—like the very devil.”

“But we are here to see about the possibilities of logging ourselves,” said Lavinia. The men looked at Dieter as if to ask him to silence his wife—a woman had no place discussing logging nor lumber. They could not bring themselves to discuss anything with her, deferred instead to Dieter. Conversation languished; Lavinia and Dieter said good night as soon as they could without giving offense.

“I hope it is better in New Zeland,” said Lavinia. “These fellows are small-time operators. They are only concerned to sell a load or two of their planks. They are supplying building material for New South Wales. That is their market. They do not understand serious logging.” She waved her arm in a circle that included the fruit bats. “It makes me question the abilities of Mr. Blustt. I hope it is not the same in Auckland.”

“Let us first see the trees,” said Dieter.

Before they had left Chicago, Dieter arranged—with advice from Mr. Marsh—the rental of a private house in Auckland for their monthlong stay. Their contact would be a man named Nashley Oval, an English artist, who had a government contract to paint panoramic views of New Zealand. “They are good people with interests that match our own,” wrote Mr. Marsh, “but I will warn you that the wife's family keeps slaves, something the new government means to stamp out.” When Dieter read this to Lavinia she made a face and said, “Slaves! Oh dear!”

The small ship, manned by tattooed Maori sailors, entered the great blue harbor at twilight. “Would it not be best to have a good night's rest and meet with Mr. Oval tomorrow?” asked Dieter, and Lavinia nodded, gazing down at the flashing paddles of men and women in carved canoes all around them. But Mr. Oval was waiting on the dock, a tall rumpled fellow with auburn hair and clear blue eyes.

“So pleased, so delighted,” he murmured, kissing Lavinia's salt-chapped hand and shaking both of Dieter's. “I thought I would see you settled into Fern House. I have arranged a very simple dinner at my table this evening so we might sketch out a plan. If you are not too exhausted by the journey? Planning is important as a month is not nearly enough time to show you the wonders of New Zealand.”

They went directly to his house in a garden of trees.

“What a majestic view,” said Lavinia, admiring the harbor painted umber and violet with sunset dregs. A Maori servant—one of the slaves?—showed them into a sparsely furnished room, the walls melting away in shadow. Candles were the only illumination, which Dieter found very pleasant. He disliked both oil and gas lamps. A small round table was set for three. The servant brought in green-lipped mussels, poured a chilled white hock.

“Mr. Oval, delicious—it is reminiscent of German wines,” said Dieter, wondering how it was cooled. Did they have ice or snow in this place? He thought not.

“It
is
a German wine—imported, as all our wine. I doubt this climate could support vineyards, but some think otherwise. I had twenty cases of Bordeaux shipped a decade ago and it has taken too long a time to recover from the journey—really still not drinkable. I'm told reds can take twenty years or more. But the whites have been good and I've developed rather a preference for them, or so I think. To our coming journey together,” he said and he raised his glass, smiled at Lavinia.

The mussel plates disappeared, replaced by a savory pie of the famous Bluff oysters.

“Tomorrow you can rest and get settled, and on Thursday I think it would be advantageous for us to sail to the Coromandel peninsula, where horses will carry us into the forests. Half a century ago horses were unknown here but they came in with the missionaries and the Maori took to them. Everyone rides. I understand, Mrs. Breitsprecher, that you especially wish to see the kauri. Did you bring riding clothes?” he asked Lavinia.

“No,” said Lavinia. “I haven't been on a horse since I was a girl. It didn't occur to me to pack riding clothes.”

“I think we can arrange a habit for you. My wife, of course, rides bareback. And in a pinch you can always wear men's trousers—women here on the frontier of civilization are not fashionable. If you are sanguine in temperament I feel we shall do well.”

Lavinia's interest was piqued at the thought of an Englishwoman riding bareback and tried to imagine what such a woman would be like—an extravagant hoyden, no doubt. And was she herself expected to wear trousers? Was that what their host was suggesting?

She kept her jaw clenched against falling agape when Mrs. Oval entered the room. Nashley Oval stood up. Dieter rose, smiling. The woman who came toward them was tall and shapely, beautiful in balance and bone. She wore a costume of orange cotton skirt fringed with feathers, and on top a long garment of supple flax that left one shoulder bare. A river of black hair streamed to her waist. Her chin was tattooed with a curious design and a delicate tattooed line enhanced her shapely lips. Lavinia realized with a shock that she was a Maori.

“Welcome, welcome to our land,” she said in perfect upper-class English, her soft voice dropping at the end of her sentence.

“May I present my wife, Ahorangi Oval. Dear heart, these are our guests, Lavinia and Dieter Breitsprecher, with whom we shall travel in your forests beginning on Thursday.”

“I am so pleased,” said Mrs. Oval in a soft fluid voice that reminded Dieter of a pigeon cote. “There is much to show you and I hope you will come to love this place as we do. We have learned about you both from our common friend, Mr. Marsh, whom we met in Italy several years ago.”

Great heavens, thought Lavinia, Mr. Marsh again! He plays an invisible role in our lives.

•  •  •

A broad path climbed gradually up toward the forests. Ahorangi Oval, again in her orange skirt and flax blouse, sat astride a nervous bay mare dancing and shifting about. Lavinia, feeling constricted and slightly tortured in an ill-fitting riding habit, was on a tractable piebald mare. Dieter on a rangy gelding, and Mr. Oval on his Thoroughbred Queenie, rode behind the two women, talking of Mr. Marsh. Two bareback Maori men—the brothers of Ahorangi—rode in front, turning and calling out comments in good English. The servant and a packhorse laden with full
kete
baskets followed the party.

“You speak English very well,” said Lavinia to Ahorangi.

“Yes, thank you. I went to school in London,” she said.

At noon the brothers reined up near a stout tree with a self-important air. “A cabbage tree,” said Ahorangi. “All parts are good to eat, we can thatch roofs, make our rain capes. It gives good medicines. It shows itself as different from other trees, so we plant them sometimes to mark a notable place. Let us have lunch here with the
ti kouka.
”

•  •  •

The path rose and they entered a totara grove, the elegant trees rising high, showing needled spikes and red berries.

“This,” said Ahorangi, gesturing with her expressive hands, “is the tree we esteem above all others.”

“Even above the kauri?” asked Lavinia.

“Yes. The kauri is important and we revere it, but it is whitemen who love it to the exclusion of other trees. For them it is the ideal timber tree. But it is the totara with whom our lives and religion are even more deeply entwined. Like kauri, it is one of the great chieftain trees—also rimu and kahikatea and rata. Those are our royal trees.”

“They remind me somewhat of yews,” said Dieter, looking at the totara, “though they are much taller. Very tall indeed.”

“Oh yes,” said Mr. Oval. “They are a much-favored tree, both by the Maori and whites. The Maori prefer totara for carvings and war canoes, houses and so much else—framing timbers, even. The fruit is tasty and plentiful, a bark decoction controls fever. White men like it for its rot-resistant timber.”

Ahorangi led Lavinia to a flounced rimu with drooping fronds. “This is my favorite,” she said. “I love the rimu, but so do the timbermen.” She touched a dangle of green. “The botanists say it is a pine, but it is different. It has no cones like European pines, but a good kind of berry. Kakapo—hear them?—like the berries very much.”

In fact all the previous night in the Fern House, Lavinia had heard a smothered thumping sound like someone dropping cannonballs from the trees. Now she heard it again. Ahorangi told her it was the mating call of the kakapo, a fat puffy parrot that could not fly but spent its time in the rimu gorging on fruit—“usually they make this sound only at night, but I think this one may be rather ardent.” Ahorangi touched Lavinia's arm and with a sad half smile said, “I must ask you something. I am afraid for the rimu. My husband says you are an important lady who owns a timber company and that you come here to look at the trees with a thought to cut them. I hope you will love our trees and not cut them. They are our lives. To live happily in this place we need the trees. I am afraid for them. You will not cut them, please?”